The Wife Test (8 page)

“I don’t want to be any softer.” The minute he said it he felt strangely exposed and wished he could unsay it. Clearly, she sensed how revealing a comment it was. After a moment she looked up, searching his face. He refused to meet her gaze.

“Very few of us get to be what we want, Sir Hugh.” Her hands gentled on his wrists. “Heaven makes its plans without us.”

Whatever Heaven’s plans, he told himself vehemently, they could not include the unholy anticipation surging in his veins or this overpowering urge to lose himself in the sky-blue eyes that were tugging at him. And while the Almighty undoubtedly created those rose-petal soft lips and that curvaceous little body, He could never have intended them to send salacious heat boiling up the walls of a man’s body the way it was his. Clearly, Heaven wasn’t the only agency making plans for the inhabitants of the here-below!

In spite of that inner theological debate, he found himself gravitating closer to her and turning his head to meet her gaze.

Fire-kissed locks were threatening to escape the thick braid lying on her shoulder. His throat tightened. Her throat was so slender and soft … skin delicate as lily petals. His jaw clenched. The sun had caused her cheeks to bloom with becoming color—

“Where do you want these?” Sir Graham’s voice broke over them and caused them to lurch apart. Chloe bumped into the table, whirled, and looked up to find him holding a small trunk and leading a contingent of men in habits carrying other baggage.

“Here, by the door.” She busied herself with settling the trunks and missed the amusement in Sir Graham’s face and the anger in Sir Hugh’s.

“I’ll be seeing to the horses,” Hugh declared. “The rest of you get back to the damned beach and get out of those damnable women’s weeds!”

With her cheeks aflame, Chloe watched him stride away.

“That is the most profane man I’ve ever seen,” she said irritably.

Sir Graham, who was bending toward a sizable crack in the rough cottage door, snapped upright and looked at her in surprise.

“Hugh? Not hardly.” He strolled over, bent to take a sniff at the stuff she was concocting, and then straightened and followed her frown to his friend’s back. “The man’s as close to a monk as can be found at Edward’s court.”

That jolted Chloe.

“A monk? His every other word is a condemnation of someone or something to everlasting torment. What order would permit such blasphemy?”

“He isn’t always like this.” Graham smiled ruefully. “Ordinarily he is the sanest, most rational man I know. He has the king’s full trust and richly deserves it. It’s just that … he doesn’t exactly …”

“Want to be here. Escorting us,” she said, seeing Sir Hugh’s contempt in a new light. “He hates women.”

“Oh, no. That is, I don’t believe he personally bears women any ill will.” Graham extended a hand for hers and led her to a bench by the cottage door. “He has associated with too few actual females to be able to judge. Mostly the ladies of Edward’s household—who, admittedly, are not always the highest and best representatives of their sex—and the serving women he must deal with in the ordinary course of days.”

“Has he no mother or sisters? No kinswomen?”

Graham raised his eyes overhead as if looking for guidance in answering.

“His mother died early. She bore only the three sons. Hugh was the third, and not required for assuring succession to the title, so he was sent to a monastery to be trained for a life in holy service.”

“He was raised in a monastery?” She looked with surprise toward the place where Sir Hugh had disappeared. “It’s a wonder he hasn’t shaved his head and donned a hair shirt.”

“Not for lack of trying.” He chuckled. “Growing up, he wanted nothing more than to take vows and spend his life in scholarly bliss among the books and illuminations in the abbey library. I was sent to the abbey for a time and was tutored along with him. He was a quick and able student. But the abbot had other plans. He insisted Hugh be trained additionally in languages and the arts of diplomacy and war … made him into a warrior-monk, like the Templars. Then he handed him over to the king … a gift, as it were. A very
useful
gift. One that would constantly remind the king of the abbot’s loyalty.”

“A tool,” she said quietly, her mood suddenly sober.

Graham nodded. “He still believes he will one day be dismissed from court to enter the monastery and take vows. But I doubt that will ever happen.”

“Why do you say that?”

“His eldest brother was killed five years ago in a border skirmish. His second brother was killed at Crecy. Like it or not, when his father dies, Hugh will succeed him as Earl of Sennett.”

The irony of it struck her to the very core. Both she and he had been raised in religious orders. But while she yearned to make a life outside the narrow confines of religious life and vocation, he would gladly reject precious family ties and worldly freedoms to return to them.

“Chloe?” Lisette’s voice intruded on her thoughts, and she looked up to find her sister-by-adoption peering at her and Graham from the edge of the partly opened door. “Oh, I did not know you were busy with
le bon monsieur.
I beg you, look inside my trunk for a length of toweling. I would not ask it of you, but”—she glanced with unabashed flirtatiousness at Sir Graham—“I have already taken off all my clothes.”

He sprang to his feet as if shot from a bow.

“I have duties.” He backed away, his gaze fixed adamantly on the toes of his boots. “If you need assistance, you have but to say the word.”

As he fled, Chloe planted her hands on her waist and scowled at the one responsible for his haste. “You must learn to be more modest of eye and speech, Lisette. If you continue to look at men the way you just did Sir Graham, they will most certainly misunderstand.”

“Oh”—Lisette glanced after the retreating Graham with a sultry smile—“I doubt that.”

Hugh made his way down the darkened path that hugged the side of the cliff, headed for the fires on the beach below the village. The food and ale that lined his belly had improved his mood. Now, as he paused to survey the camp, he didn’t see anything that indicated female presence, and his mood improved still more. He took a deep breath of sea air and strolled down onto the sand.

Two days were gone and, with any luck, only two remained before he discharged his duty and deposited the five maids in the king’s privy chamber. It was heartening to think of the surprise in store for Edward when he beheld Avalon’s surprisingly fair and nubile progeny. It was less so to think of what would happen to the maids when they reached Edward’s court.

He recalled their artless questions about Windsor. Their girlish hopes and dreams shone through their carefully edited curiosity. They wanted young and handsome husbands … men of knightly birth, priestly morals, and princely disposition. And they were bound to be disappointed. Edward would realize instantly what a plum had fallen into his lap and would undoubtedly give them to the most advantageously wealthy and militarily capable of his unmarried nobles. Men like the old Earl of Ketchum … with his fat purse, rickety legs, and fanatical passion for hunting hounds.

Just imagine Chloe of Guibray with—

No,
don’t
imagine.

He shook off thoughts of what their arrival at Edward’s castle would mean and trudged on through the sand.

The driftwood fires cast a golden sphere of security over the wagons and the men camped on the beach. The tide was beginning to come in and the gentle rush of breaking waves provided a rhythmic and restful background for the sounds of their voices. For them, the coming voyage signaled the end of an arduous and uncertain journey. They had boarded ships bound for France more than a year and a half ago and in the intervening months had battled their way across the Aquitaine, then contended with rogue lords and defiant houses on the border between French- and English-held territory. Now they were on their way home. He watched their faces and envied them their anticipation.

For him,
home
was not a possibility. A small, gray stone abbey near Oxford was as close to a home as he had ever known. But it would likely be a long time before he would see its gates and cloister again, much less take up a life there. He was bound to Edward for as long as the king desired his service. And even when the king did release him, there would still be the problem of his inheritance and his old father’s dynastic demands.

He settled himself just outside the circle of firelight, on an upturned barrel beside one of the wagons. His thoughts began to drift, and he found himself stroking the back of his hand … trying to decide if it felt softer in any way.

Alarmed, he sat upright. He was
not
softer. Not in any damned way. He was a seasoned warrior … a soldier in the armies of both his God and his king … impervious to the wiles and enticements of the world. Immediately the memory of Chloe of Guibray’s face—the details of her hair, her skin, and eyes—rose in his mind’s eye to challenge that claim.

An embattled soldier, honesty demanded he admit.

Banishing those images of her took such concentration that he failed to realize, at first, that another object had entered his vision. Pale and rectangular. Bobbing between sea and horizon. Moving steadily closer.

When he succeeded in wrestling Chloe of Guibray back behind the door of the forbidden in his mind, he finally saw it.

A sail.

Hugh jumped up and looked around for Graham. Spotting him across the fire, he called out and pointed toward the sail.

“The ship!”

Suddenly the entire camp was on its feet, looking seaward and cheering.

The ship
Fairwind
followed the tide in to a boisterous welcome. By the time the first longboats reached the beach, Hugh had already organized his men into work details, setting them to transferring cargo from the wagons into the longboats and ultimately into the ship’s hold. They worked eagerly, exchanging banter of home, and some even broke into song.

After consulting with the ship’s mate on the space available, Hugh positioned himself on the beach to sort the horses they would take and oversee the hazardous process of swimming them out to the ship. He assigned to Graham the task of driving the wagons and cart back up the cliff road, delivering them to the local stableman, and collecting the payment they had negotiated. Against his better judgment, he also charged Graham with collecting the maids and their belongings and hauling them down to the beach.

He was thigh-deep in surf, helping to drag one of the longboats ashore when Graham returned with the cart full of trunks. Behind him in a tightly knit group, came the maids on foot. Hugh waded out of the water toward them and stopped by the fire, momentarily speechless.

They’d been a serious distraction before, but now were nothing short of a temptation. Their gowns were simple and they wore small, plain caps over their unbound hair, but such modest dress only emphasized the extravagance of their natural beauty. One was tall, cool, and delicate, with flaxen hair and skin like alabaster … another was short and freckled, with a torrent of vibrant red tresses and pouty-child lips. The third was a sultry, dark-eyed vision with a swirl of black hair and curves that tried the seams of her gown. And the fourth was as elegant and regal as a Greek statue, with eyes like emeralds and skin like polished marble. It was as if they had been purposefully chosen to represent the full range of feminine attractions.

He glanced around and found that every man left on the beach had stopped dead and was staring slack-jawed at them.

Chagrined by his own silence, he motioned Graham to begin loading their trunks into the longboat, and then looked out at the ship they would have to share. By the time they reached London, it was going to seem awfully damned small. He wondered if it would be possible to stow the maids somewhere below deck and out of sight … say … with the horses. He could just imagine what
she
would say to that.

“Chloe of Guibray,” he demanded, turning back to them with a scowl. It was a testament to their powers of distraction that he only now realized she was missing. “Where is she?”

“She told us to come ahead,” the one called Alaina answered as she and the others stared in wonder at the longboats and the ship anchored offshore. “That is our ship? We’re leaving soon?”

“With the tide,” he said irritably. “You just left her there?”

“She said she would be a while yet,” the little redhead informed him.

“We don’t have a while … we’re leaving now.” He rubbed his face vigorously. “Graham! Get these females loaded on the next boat and stay with them.” He struck off for that isolated cottage, muttering, “If she makes us miss this tide—”

The others were gone and she was finally alone. Heaving a sigh of relief, Chloe added another log to the fire, filled two buckets from the rain barrel, and laid out her precious soap and toweling. As much as she loved her new “sisters,” she was in dire need of a bit of peace and solitude just now. She stripped her male garments, muttering “good riddance,” and stepped into the oat water. Closing her eyes to the state of the gray slurry, she knelt in the tub and began to splash it on her and rub handfuls of it over her skin. When she was well-scrubbed and covered with a thin, oaty paste, she reached for one of the buckets of rainwater and rinsed herself clean. Then she wetted her hair and used her soap on it. She had just finished her hair and stood for a final rinse when a loud voice outside the door caused her to nearly jump out of her skin.

“Open up!”

She gasped and clasped her throat with both hands. Then the door rattled and thumped against the crude latch.

“No! Stop!” She lurched from the tub onto one of the water-soaked wooden planks they’d laid on the dirt floor, just as the aged wood around the latch splintered with a resounding “crack.” The door flew open and she was caught halfway between tub and table. A large, dark form surged inside the cottage, and she screamed and dived for her toweling.

She banged into the table—“Owww!”—and then dropped behind it as she frantically wrapped the linen around her. With her heart beating in her throat, she stuck her head up over the edge and found herself facing none other than Sir Hugh. He stood with his head bent to avoid the low roof beams, staring at her.

“What are you doing?” Her voice was thin and shrill. “Get out of here!”

“Y-you were supposed to stay with the others.” He sounded a bit reedy himself.

“How dare you break in on me?” She glanced down to make certain she was decently covered, then rose. “Have you no shame?”

“I didn’t know you were still … the others said … I thought you were just …” He staggered back, but forgot to duck and smacked the low door frame with a resounding
thunk.
He grabbed his head between his hands and stumbled back outside. “Dammit, dammit,
dammit!”

“At least have the decency to close the door!”

But the rotten planking now hung askew, attached by only one hinge, and he was staggering around dazed and doubled over. Frantic to cover herself, she seized her shift and managed to pull it over her head. It caught on her damp toweling and wet hair, and she had to wrestle it down over her body.

“The ship is here and we’re leaving tonight … now,” he called out, bracing on his knees. “I came up here to haul you down to the boat.”

“And all but ripped the door from its hinges,” she said, tugging furiously on the toweling beneath her garment and finally succeeding in removing it.

“You were supposed to be finished.” He straightened abruptly and turned his back to the door opening. “And if you had been, I wouldn’t have had to—”

“It’s not my fault you charged through a latched door like a wounded bear.” She wanted desperately to throw something at that broad set of shoulders.

“But it was your fault that I—”

He halted, but her eyes flew wide as his statement finished itself in her mind …
saw her naked.
Then he confirmed it.

“What the devil were you doing standing there without a stitch on?”

She covered her heart with her hand, truly shocked. He made it sound so vile, so … intentional.

“I was
bathing.
That’s the way it’s done, without garments. Or don’t you English practice that particular refinement?” She reached for her gown and yanked it over her head. “Your men seem never to have heard of it.”

“Oh, we English bathe all right. At the
proper
time. In the
proper
manner.”

How dare he suggest that her mode of bathing was in any way
im
proper?

“I had a thousand fleabites to treat. What could possibly be improper about washing myself and dabbing on a bit of—” She paused, glaring at his back, realizing what he meant and dumbfounded by the implication that she had somehow contrived to have him glimpse her as God and Nature made her. She blushed from the core out. Every inch of her body was suddenly red with humiliation … which quickly gave way to anger.

Trembling now, she settled her gown over her shift and freed her hair from beneath it. Her fingers felt as thick as sausages when she tried to draw and tie the laces at her sides.

How dare he say such a thing to her? What had she ever done to make him think her wanton or immoral? As she paused, struggling to stay in control, an earlier insight returned. His snarls and insults weren’t about her, they were about him.
He
was embarrassed, so he accused
her.

She wiped off the soles of her feet and stepped into her slippers.

Looking again at his impenetrable back, she recalled what Sir Graham had just said about his monastic ambitions. It was his desire to forsake “the flesh” and all worldly pursuits and pleasures. No doubt the sight of her nakedness was an unwelcome reminder of the “flesh” he intended to forswear.

Then she thought of the austere and unflappable brothers she had seen when they stopped for lodging at the convent while on pilgrimage. A brief, unintended glimpse of nakedness would have proved no trouble for them … or for any monk truly committed to a life of purity and contemplation.

The memory of the way Sir Hugh had trapped and held her in the darkened woods came flooding back, causing her to catch her breath. Clearly, Hugh of Sennet was not as monkish as he would like to think. Then it wasn’t the sight of her nakedness that infuriated him so, it was his own wayward response to it!

She plopped her cap on her wet, tousled hair, gathered her belongings into her arms, and pushed him aside as she bolted from the cottage. He bristled at the contact and glowered as she halted before him and looked him in the eye.

“What bothers you more, Sir Hugh?” she demanded with stubborn insight. “That you saw me naked or that you
liked it?”

She could hear him sputtering and storming along the trail behind her as she strode down to the beach. She could see his incendiary glare on her as Mattias helped her into one of the longboats and the sailors rowed her out to the ship. She could feel his need to respond weighting the air around her as he followed her onto the ship’s deck and ushered her and the other maids into a hastily constructed corral of trunks and crates lashed to the rear of the main deck.

After ordering them to “sit!” on the trunks and to stay there until told otherwise, he paused near her and lowered his voice.

“I did not.”

After an hour of hugging the coast and waiting for a favorable wind, the sails filled and the ship turned westward. The Channel was unusually calm for springtime, and the maids’ fears of being washed overboard soon dispersed. When they were permitted to visit the aft railing to answer nature’s requirement, she took a circuitous route back to their makeshift berth on the cargo and passed close enough for him to hear her.

“Did, too.”

He flinched visibly, and as she climbed the two steps to their makeshift quarters on deck, she could feel his frustration simmering. As the waxing moon rose in the east, he secured a stack of blankets from the captain and carried them to the maids. He refused to look at her, but as he turned to go, he made certain to veer close enough to her to mutter audibly.

“Did not.”

She wrapped herself in one of the blankets and took her place amongst the others curled up on the trunks for a bit of sleep. But as the other maids dozed and the men of their escort nodded off, she found herself strangely awake and aware of Sir Hugh’s location. Propping herself up on her elbow, she located him and watched him pace the deck. He reacted with a start each time one of the ship’s crew moved across the deck in the moonlight.

He was tense and unsettled inside, and she guessed that their confrontation was at least partly responsible. Good, she thought. As the abbess sometimes said after a confrontation with Father Phillipe, men needed to have their delusions challenged. Especially ones regarding themselves. It kept them honest and humble. And if there was anything
Sir Hubris
needed, it was a bit of humility.

He must have felt her gaze on him, for he turned slowly toward the stack of cargo, searching it visually and finally spotting her. He stilled and stared at her across that moonlit space.

They had a great deal in common, she thought. Upbringing. Education. Sense of duty. In another life, at another time, they might have been allies, comrades, fellow pilgrims, or even teacher and pupil. But here and now they were set irrevocably at odds by the fact that they had been born into separate divisions of humanity: male and female. And the desire that the Almighty intended to bring men and women together was, for them, the very obstacle that prevented all possibility of mutuality or understanding.

It was a sobering insight and produced a sense of limitation that would shape her world for some time to come. She was a woman, and because of that, some doors, some minds, and some hearts would be forever closed to her.

But the sense of loss that discovery produced in her was something he would never suffer. For him, the longings of the human heart were worldly dross that would only interfere with his scholarly and spiritual ambitions.

Wretched monk.

In the moonlight she soundlessly lashed him with one last accusation before settling back beneath her blanket.

“Did, too.”

The next morning, as they reached the English shore and started up the tidal waters of the Thames River, there was an air of expectation aboard the small barque. The men of the escort party lined the railings, pointing out various landmarks, quays, and villages, and a flotilla of barges which was said to be something of a town for sailors who superstitiously shunned dry land altogether. Here and there the vistas broadened to include views of fields being planted and flocks newly sheared and set out to pasture once more. It was a glimpse of home for the men and of the future for the maids, who watched anxiously from perches on the crates and barrels of their collective dowry.