The Temptation (The Medieval Knights Series) (40 page)

"You speak very plain," he said. "I am unused to such. The women of Outremer speak a different tongue."

"I speak plain, that is true. It is the language of prayer, if nothing else. I ask your pardon if I offend."

"You do not," he said, taking her arm briefly and then letting go of her. And then taking her arm again. He liked to touch her, and she was his wife. He would touch her at his will and not feel guilt over it. Nay, not over that.

"Then do me the same service and speak plain to me, Hugh," she said, her head bent hard upon the ground, her eyes lost to him. "What did you seek in this marriage?"

The rain beat harder than before, cold and sharp against his skin, the trees moaning and thrashing in the wet wind of autumn. With every blast of water, more leaves were thrown upon the ground, their purchase in the treetops lost. It was a bare and bleak sky with naked limbs thrust upward in silent supplication. Their prayers unheard, their nakedness unrelieved, as all soft and colorful covering was stripped from them by an unseen and relentless hand.

What had he sought in this marriage?

Not a wife of soft eyes and reluctant laughter. Not a woman who stole into his thoughts with every prayer she uttered. Not a lady of dignity and resolve.

Not this warrior of prayers and chants and holy sacraments.

"I came to find a wife," he said. That much she knew. That much was always true of men in need of land and power. "I came to find my future."

"And what future awaited you here?" she asked, her voice as soft as rain.

"Ask me instead of Jerusalem," he said, answering her well, though she knew it not. "Ask me what is the future of the very center of the world."

She was silent for a moment, even the wind slackening to consider his request.

"And should I also ask of Baldwin, my lord?"

"Baldwin and Jerusalem are one," he said, lifting his eyes to the horizon, unmindful of the rain. It was only rain. Rain would not beat him down. Rain would not defeat him, even if it be English rain.

"Then tell me of Jerusalem," she commanded, the softness which had cloaked her moments ago gone, like the leaves. Like the promise of love he had tempted her with. Elsbeth was too wary to fall into that temptation. Other women, score upon score, were brought down by soft words and smiling promises, but not this gentle warrior of ardent prayer.

Hugh laughed softly and shook his head at his own folly. He had been blind, losing his way in the dark depths of Elsbeth. This was the path to win his way with her; this was the answer to his quest. Elsbeth was a holy child of God with holy aspirations, so she ever said, proving it upon each hour of sequestered prayer; she would grant him what he wanted. She would want the same as he. No path to love was needed with her. Why he had walked it, he did not know. It had been a waste of precious time.

Why had he felt the need to woo and win her? Why had he lingered in her company, pressing kisses upon her, learning the shape of her, the soft scent of her, the very rhythm of her heart? Why had he found such pleasure in the workings of her mind? Why had he wasted time at Elsbeth's side?

He had been a fool, and Baldwin had no need of fools. She wanted plain talk? He could give her that. If that was all she wanted of him, he could meet the desires of her heart. Was he not Hugh of Jerusalem? Was there ever a woman he could not satisfy?

"Jerusalem needs men, Elsbeth," he said. "She cannot stand and fight without men, and she is very light of men."

"You came to find men," she said, considering, not understanding.

"We are losing ground," he said, turning from her, scanning the indistinct horizon.

"My lord?" she asked, not understanding.

"We have lost Edessa complete, and Damascus, a needless loss. We are losing Antioch. What our fathers gained in their lifetimes, we are forced to watch slip away from us, their blood spilt for ground we cannot hold." He turned to face her. "We need men, men of blood, to hold the land."

"What of Ascalon? You are known for that battle, that victory," she said, not allowing his words to take root in her.

"Ascalon is ours, and from there we shall hold Egypt, but this is not a battle of prayers, Elsbeth. This is a blood battle, and men of blood are needed to fight it."

"And so you married a woman with one knight sworn to her?" she said sharply. "What merit could there be in such a plan? I have no knights to give you, my lord. I hold a simple manor. I am not rich in power or men. I am only rich in prayer. Take my prayers; I give them to you freely."

"Elsbeth," he said, taking her by the arms and holding her fast "There are things you do not know of Sunnandune. You have been long from there, by your own words."

"Aye, it has been long, but Sunnandune is mine. I know her. I know what I have in her."

"Nay," he said slowly, seeking forgiveness when he needed none. He had done no wrong. No look in her eyes would convince him otherwise. "You do not know. Your father has—"

"My father has what?" she snarled, pulling free of him, facing him in the rain and the mud, her hair rivers of black twisting over her breasts like beloved vipers.

"You were not here!" he shouted, as if she were to blame for her fostering and for her father's acts. As if he could make her answer for what had happened while she grew to womanhood. "The wars crippled the land. Maud and Stephen strove in war while the country bled. There was no one to stop him. No one to stay his hand."

"What has he done?" she shouted up at him. "Tell me! One truth from you, Hugh; can you manage even one truth?"

"Truth? You want the truth? The truth is he has increased Sunnandune, by any means he could. She now holds forty hides of land and ten knights," he said harshly. He was no liar. Never had he lied to her.

"Forty hides? That is three times more than Sunnandune," she said, staring into the middle distance.

"And ten knights," Hugh said, saying it all.

Elsbeth looked up at him, her eyes solemn and hard. "He promised you the ten."

"And twenty more of his own. Your uncle has promised fifteen and your—"

"Just tell me the total," she said harshly, looking across the rain-soaked land to the swaying trees.

"Between all your father's kin and the kin of your mother, I will return to Jerusalem with sixty-four knights to help us in our fight to save the holy land."

Elsbeth laughed softly and held her face up to the rain, letting the water wash her clean of all false hopes. "You will return to Jerusalem a mighty force with sixty-four knights at your back, my lord. Your king will honor you. Will the knights swear fealty to you, or is that honor to be saved for King Baldwin? Either way, you are increased in power and favor, are you not?"

"Elsbeth," he said, reaching for her.

She let him hold her body, but her heart and mind were far from him. She stood limp beneath his touch and let the rain take her.

"I was to fall into your hands, my heart in your keeping, and when you asked for the ten knights of my Sunnandune, I was to give them to you, was I not? I was to love you with so great a passion that all you asked of me I would give," she said. "Yet it will not be. I have been well tutored in the ways of men, and I will not give up Sunnandune to you or any man. Sunnandune is mine. You bargained with my father," she said stonily. "What else is required of you? I know there is more. I know him well."

Hugh looked at her for a moment and then said, "I am to have Sunnandune's knights and the knights of your kin. Your father wants only Sunnandune. I must deliver Sunnandune to him."

"You were to get Sunnandune for him." Elsbeth let out a sigh of pent-up breath and dropped her gaze to the mud at her feet. "Aye, he would want it; it was the sweetness of that place that made my mother so desirable to him. Now that he has multiplied its worth and might..." Elsbeth looked up at Hugh. "And what of me? What plans were made for me?" Hugh took her hands in his. She pulled away from his touch and looked up at him, her face fierce and hard. "What of me?" she said again, more urgently.

"You were to be in your father's keeping until he found an abbey to your liking." Hugh said. "Did you not say you wanted an abbey life? I thought this would be little to ask of you. You love God as fiercely as I. You only wanted a life of prayer. How could you be harmed by this, Elsbeth?"

"How am I harmed?" she said softly. "I am wed to a man who wants only to rob me of my home and my wealth. I am bargained for between husband and father, my life of little worth beyond what I can surrender to the two men who are charged to care for me."

"No harm would befall you," Hugh said. "You would be safe in the abbey."

"Speak to me no more of abbeys," she said sharply. "I will not relinquish Sunnandune to you, and never to my father. He made that plain to you, did he not? That is why you were required. He bought you, my lord, a pretty toy to distract me while he eased Sunnandune from my grasp. Yet Sunnandune is mine and will remain so. I cannot be tempted to relinquish her."

"And I cannot be tempted to forget what I came to England to find," Hugh said, his voice sharp. "I cannot fail in this. These knights are mine. I have bargained for them, and they will come with me. Jerusalem's need is great, Elsbeth," he said. "The very heart of Christendom is in peril. You can grant me the ten knights of Sunnandune to defend the Levant and all the holy places of that land."

"Can I?" she said, staring up at him, her eyes as black as forest shadows and as dangerous. "Will I? I think not, my lord."

"Why will you not?" he said, shaking her lightly. "It is a small thing and would do much to aid the cause of holy Jerusalem."

"Not to mention the cause of ambitious Hugh of holy Jerusalem," she said, wrenching herself free of him, throwing his hands from her with more force and will than he had ever seen in her. "Am I asked to bare Sunnandune, which I love with as fierce a love as you hold for your shining Jerusalem, of all her knights? Who then will protect her? How can I keep what I cannot hold?"

"Keep the one, then, but give me nine," he said, pressing against her will and her sodden skirts. She was obstinate of a sudden. When had Elsbeth ever planted herself so firm against his will?

"Keep the one? When I now hold forty virgates? And do you even now think that Henry will let Sunnandune stand at forty virgates without looking into the cause of her sudden increase? Pray that my father increased her size lawfully, or all could be lost in the fire of the king's anger."

She pushed away from him, her hands on his chest, but he was done with being pushed away from her. She would give him what he wanted. He did not want much, only the way to a higher place than the one he was born to.

"I can give you nothing, my lord. Your marriage to me was ill-advised," she said sharply, turning from him to walk away. "You bargained badly. Did you not learn better in wondrous Jerusalem?"

She would not walk from him, he vowed. Never in all the planning and plotting had it been possible that Elsbeth would walk away from him.

"You are for the convent," he said harshly, grabbing her arm and turning her to him. She crashed against his chest, and he held her fast against him. "You have wanted the convent from the start. Of what use is Sunnandune to you? Would you have kept it in the abbey?"

"I wanted only to be free of marriage, Hugh; that was my only prayer. I want Sunnandune. She is my home. I have waited for her all my life."

Had all been for naught? Hugh wondered. She would never relinquish Sunnandune, and it was the one thing she must do. He would have served Jerusalem better having stayed there. But he had not. He had come north and he had found Elsbeth. And now he had a wife who could give him nothing. Nothing.

"The road to Jerusalem is open to you. Take it and go home," she said, holding herself stiffly in his hard embrace. "Go home," she whispered as a single tear escaped to join the rain weeping down her face.

Go home? Go home without her? Leave her in England, this maid who was his wife? She had not been the wife he had expected. She had done nothing to win him to her side. She had not sighed or smiled or blushed in tempting modesty. Nay, she had fainted when he kissed her, prayed in competition with him, chided him for his vanity, and submitted unwillingly to every touch and kiss and stroke upon her skin. 'Twas not the way to win a man.

And he was not won. He could not have been won for so little cause and by such a solemn and stalwart maid. He had known women of greater beauty and sweetness, greater wealth and docility; it was not in him to fall for this chilly, formidable, vulnerable English damsel. And he had not fallen. He would not fall.

Yet he must touch her. Even now, when all looked lost, he had to touch her.

He had needed a wife because he had needed the right to claim knights of England for a holy cause, that was all. There was no more to him. He was Poulain, a knight of Outremer, and that was all. He had nothing to give a wife, and he needed nothing from a wife. Not even this wife. Not even Elsbeth.

"And when I go home, where will you go?" he said, lifting her high against him, feeling the soft weight of her breasts against his chest, hearing the hammered beating of her heart. Tormenting her. Taunting her. Tempting her. "How will you hold Sunnandune in the legal trials ahead? How will you hold her against the claim your father will surely press?"

"I will," she said softly, closing her eyes to the sight of him. But she could not keep him from her. She could not ignore the feel of him against her, the pure male power of the man she had freely wed in divine ceremony.

He kissed her throat, and she swallowed hard against his touch. Her hair hung down, wet and slick, and he pulled it with a single hand. Her throat arched back, exposed, and he kissed her hard, biting, letting the rain wash away the sting of him.

"And what of the abbey? What of a life devoted to prayer?" he murmured against her skin, shouting down the shame he felt at what he was urging her to do. He was Poulain. Nothing more. He needed the knights pledged to her. Nothing more. "If you give Sunnandune to me, I will see you settled in the abbey of Fontrevault. Think, Elsbeth; you could pray away your days, across the channel from Gautier. Is that not a life worth considering?"