The Shattered Rose (29 page)

"Raoul bought them from a packman," said Aline when she'd finished a little trill. "There's quite a fair out there, he says, sprung up to amuse the crowds. Why don't we explore?"

Galeran and Jehanne shared a glance, agreeing that it would be preferable to sitting in one of the crowded guest rooms worrying.

Evening shadows were lengthening, and the local people hurried home for their suppers, but the acrobats and jongleurs still hung around the square outside the abbey hoping to attract pennies, and some merchants and packmen had not yet put away their wares.

Galeran bought pasties from a pieman, and they ate as they wandered among the impromptu stalls delighting in pots and platters, beads and carvings, shoes and hoods.

One merchant had fine bolts of silk for sale, but the traveling party were in no mood to burden themselves with such as that, so he tempted them instead with ribbons. Galeran bought Jehanne an ell of blue, and Raoul chose white for Aline.

Aline knew she should be wary of the flamboyant southerner who could never be for her, but she wanted a gift from him to cherish through the long lonely years.

"For purity," he said with a teasing grin as he skillfully tied the long strip into an elaborate knot.

"Somewhat tangled purity," she remarked as she took it.

"Pretty, puzzling, challenging. Like you."

Aline glanced at him warily. "Is today the day for flattery exercises, Sieur Raoul?"

"You guessed! I delight in a quick-witted opponent."

Heart speeding, Aline fired back. "Then I must confess that you, too, are handsome and challenging. But not particularly puzzling. Your intent is clear."

"Is it? It's not even clear to me, sweet Aline."

"Then I have reason to worry indeed."

"Yes, you do."

She twirled the pretty white ribbons. "I seem to receive so many of these unhelpful warnings. So," she said, looking up at him, "here I am, safe within the walls of my purity and resolution, and unlikely to open the gates just because of pretty words. What would an evil attacker—a hypothetical evil attacker—do to harm me? In what skills do I need to be trained next?"

"I am beginning to think I should build myself a sturdy keep and huddle! However," he said, steering her onto another stall, "one option for your enemy is to lay siege. But that could take a long time."

As they strolled past a tinsmith, she asked, "Is my castle not worth time, sir?"

"Undoubtedly, but time is not always available. What if your suzerain were to approach with supporting troops?" He cast a meaningful glance at Galeran and Jehanne, who had paused to watch a fire-eater.

"In that case, I suppose my enemy would need to decamp. Unless he could find a speedier means of assault."

"You have an excellent understanding of warfare, Lady Aline! But to charge straight at such a well-defended fortress would be suicidal, don't you think?"

She looked up at him. "Then I'm safe? I didn't think war was so easy." Or so disappointing. Aline was aware that she did not want her besieger to fold his tents and ride off to find an easier target. Not at all.

He leaned against the tinsmith's cart. "No castle is safe from a truly determined assailant. With time your attacker could mine the walls, burrowing underneath, supporting the passages with timber, then setting fires to bring them down."

Aline was powerfully tempted to lay her hand on his very broad chest. Did a besieged castle ever just throw open the gates and invite conquest? "But our hypothetical attacker does not have time . . ."

He took her hand, rubbing his thumb gently against her skin. "In which case he could attempt assault from a distance. He'd use projectiles, attempting to batter down the walls."

"That sounds rather dangerous to me. Wouldn't I be on the walls hurling things back?"

"And we all know how formidable you are on walls...."

"Oh," she said, lips twitching, "were you
hurling
yourself at me?"

When he'd stopped laughing, he raised her hand and kissed it. "The other approach, of course, is betrayal."

He switched his grip on her hand, seized her around the waist, and swung her behind the cart so that in a couple of whirling seconds she was out of sight of the others, trapped by his body in a shadowy corner, his hand shutting off her cry.

Aline stared up at him, both terrified and thrilled. Jehanne had warned her. Were the warnings to come true?

He eased his hand away from her mouth, but immediately sealed it with his own, a hot, overpowering kiss that had nothing to do with courteous wooing and everything to do with conquest.

His whole hard body pressed against her, drowning her in power and danger and a spicy smell of horse and leather. With a sudden shift he pulled her skirts up and thrust his thigh between hers. Despite her stifled shriek, he raised his foot onto the wagon wheel so her feet left the ground.

She had to clutch at his shoulders for balance, as she was stretched wide, pressed open against him.

Then a jolt of something shot right through her.

Panicked by her own feelings, she pushed desperately at his chest, but all her strength didn't move him one inch. He just rocked his leg beneath her, and stretched her mouth, overwhelming her with tongue and thigh and arms until her resistance weakened and she could scarcely think, never mind fight.

Then she kissed him back and found that surrender was much more rewarding than resistance. . . .

At last, at long last, he released her lips with very flattering reluctance, and kissed the tip of her nose. "Are you conquered yet, little castle?" It was hardly a question, but a smug announcement.

Aline pricked him in the back with the knife she'd slid out of his sheath. "Are
you?"

Shock wiped away the smile, but then it slowly returned,

though his eyes were a great deal more alert. "Feint, then attack. Excellent tactics. There are dangers to taking prisoners you can't handle, though."

Aline prayed for a steady voice despite her absurd position, still straddling his thigh. "I can handle you, Raoul de Jouray. I'll let you go for ransom, just as long"—she pushed the knife in a fraction farther, so he hissed—"you admit that you were as overwhelmed by that assault as I."

"More, my fair opponent. Or you'd not have my knife."

She hadn't expected such full capitulation.

Warily, she moved the knife, watching for retaliation. But he simply eased her to the ground, then stepped back and held out his hand. She placed the knife in it and straightened her clothes, distressingly aware of a heated ache where his thigh had been, an ache that made her want to seize his belt and haul him back to her. She looked down, concentrating on the precise arrangement of her gown.

"You are a remarkable woman, Aline of Burstock."

She looked up. "Because I am not driven totally witless by your kisses?"

"Because you can keep your wits under pleasure." He slid the knife slowly, very slowly, into his jeweled sheath. "Do you deny the pleasure, Aline?"

She wanted to, but her dry mouth and aching crotch said otherwise. They had stripped another polite layer from themselves, and lying was no longer possible. "No, I don't deny it. But I am angry that you expected to be unaffected."

"I never expected that. I merely underestimated your armory. So," he said with his usual warming smile. "I am your prisoner. What ransom do you want?"

"What do you suggest?"

"Tush, Aline. That is foolish."

"Not at all," she said with a grin, "I merely meant to take your figure and treble it."

He trapped her against the cart again, but gently. "A hundred kisses."

She stared up at him, already sliding under his aura. "Our lips would wear out."

"We could spread the three hundred over many years."

She looked down at his chest, at a fine piece of gold embroidery around a gleaming yellow stone. His fancy, high-colored dress reminded her that he was a foreigner. "But before winter you will be back in the land of grapes and almond blossoms."

"You could come with me."

They were the words she had wanted to hear, but now the reality frightened her. "No, I couldn't."

"Why not?"

"I couldn't leave my home, my friends, my family."

"I see." He sounded annoyingly calm. "Ah, well, it is probably as well that we put aside our games for now and concentrate on our friends' affairs. Jehanne and Galeran need us clear-headed and willing to act. . . ."

See how little he cared! She pushed out of his arms. "Exactly. So, no more of your assaults, sirrah. You can see I'm a well-defended fortress."

"Adequately. Unless a strong force moves against you."

She began to walk around the cart, back to the light, fighting tears. He could at least have tried to talk her out of her decision.

"Aline . . ."

His touch on her arm froze her still in shadows. She did not speak, however, waiting, heart beating high and fast. Perhaps now he would beg.

"Don't become a nun."

Teeth gritted, Aline continued into the light, where flambeaux and the fire shooting from the mountebank's mouth seemed more like the illumination of hell than saving light. She shivered under the danger and the weighted memory of Raoul's sensual attack. She'd spent her life paddling in ponds and was now being towed out into the wild sea, which both thrilled and terrified her. Even worse, he did not seem to want to stay with her there.

If he didn't want her, what right had he to decide she should not take vows, and to try to destroy her will to do so?

Right or not, he was succeeding.

* * * * *

Galeran saw Raoul spirit Aline behind the cart and noted when they emerged, noted, too, the aggrieved set to Aline's firm chin. He'd rather expected her to be kissed into a daze. What particularly interested him, however, was the expression on Raoul's face. He looked dazed enough for two.

Jehanne had noticed as well. "He really shouldn't. . ."

"Nor should she."

"He's a great deal more experienced!"

"True, but Aline has her eyes wide open."

"Just so long as that's all she has open."

Galeran raised his brows at her. "I really can't see Aline giving up her virginity in a brief encounter behind a cart, Jehanne."

She laughed and shook her head. "I know, I know. And with all our worries, I don't know why I'm fretting about her."

He rested his hand on her nape and rubbed there. "Perhaps because it's easier than fretting about more serious things. We should be in London tomorrow."

He felt her shiver. "I think I'd be happy to just wander. I'm afraid, Galeran."

"With reason." He didn't stop massaging her tense neck. "Do you want to take ship? Doubtless Raoul would give us refuge in Guyenne."

She turned to look up at him, her beauty turned wild by the fire-eater's flames. "You would do that? Leave England for me?"

Her move had brought his hand to the side of her face,

and he ran his thumb down her beautiful jaw. "I would do anything for you."

"Oh, Galeran! It's tempting. I'm terrified of having to watch you die."

"Do you fear for me? I'm terrified that some punishment will be imposed on you. It is, as you say, very tempting to run away."

Her expression firmed. "But a sin. We can't."

"No, I don't think we can. I hope we don't live to regret it, though." He kissed her lightly on the lips. "But I do regret our vow."

"So do I." With a mischievous glance, she pressed a little closer and touched his chest. "Shall I play Eve, then? There's apparently a dark corner behind that cart."

His mouth went dry. Dignity argued against it, but he pulled her swiftly over to the cart and behind it, to find (hat dark and private corner.

"Not Eve," he whispered, loosening his clothes. "Just Jehanne." Then he was in her hot wetness, her legs tight around him, her hands clutching his shoulders as her body clutched his.

"Oh, God," he groaned, knowing his thrusts were probably rocking the cart at her back. "We're mad."

"Don't stop. Just don't stop!"

How she thought he might, he had no idea. The world could crash to an end around him and he wouldn't stop before the blinding relief of shooting his seed into her.

As his heart rate settled and he lowered her slowly back to the ground, he realized she'd not found her release. She made no complaint, but when he slid his hand between her thighs, she spread them and leaned against him. In moments her breathing fractured and her fingers dug deep into his flesh. Then her teeth sank in him, too, as she muffled her cries.

He felt himself begin to harden again. In a peaceful bed he'd be in her again before she recovered, and it was a spicy notion, but enough was enough. He drank the last of her passion from her lips, then led her out a long way around, hoping no one would know just who had been making that cart shake.

By the time they blended in with the crowds, Jehanne still looked dazed. Galeran thought almost kindly of the problems that had brought them to a tinsmith's cart in Waltham, for they'd never before made love like that, in fierce, surreptitious urgency.

But there were too many hazards for him to be grateful. It was those hazards, even including death, that had driven them into that brief madness. He'd settle for security and love in a bed any day.

When they joined Raoul and Aline, his friend gave him a knowing grin, and Galeran could feel himself blush.

At least Aline hadn't noticed. She seemed enthralled by a sword swallower. "Ugh! Why would anyone want to do a thing like that?"

"Perhaps he has little choice," Galeran said, tossing the man a coin. "Perhaps it is just his destiny."

"Oh. Like a vocation," said Aline, not looking at Raoul at all.

And when Galeran looked a question at Raoul, his friend just seemed very thoughtful, and even unhappy.

The situation could be interesting if Galeran had interest to spare.

Chapter 15

The next morning Galeran visited his father, who was trying very hard to look frail.

"This is better, anyway," said Lord William. "Keep him unsure of us."

"Not hard when you don't know what you plan to do."