Candle in the Window (26 page)

She cried, “Aye, oh aye! Thank you!”
Her hand tightened on his; she was ridiculously grateful to him,
forgetting the negative reactions of the women, forgetting
everything but the opportunity to “see” her beloved in
action.

He watched in silence for a moment, and then
clicked his tongue in distress. “He fights so carelessly, and
his skill has grown rusty with disuse. He’ll be killed for
sure. Overconfidence, dear lady, overconfidence.”

He patted her hand with his damp palm, and she drew
a deep breath. “If that’s all you’re going to
tell me, you can—”

Painfully, his fingers tightened on hers, and he
leapt to his feet. “Beware, William! Watch the swordsman
behind you!”

On the field, William surveyed the six opposing
knights galloping toward him, and he bellowed with laughter.
Gripping his sword, he wondered how he could have ever doubted his
fighting ability. Some of his friends had engaged him cautiously,
granting him time to warm to his sword work, but they soon learned
their lesson. They lay on the ground, spitting out dust and
swearing.

Wheeling his destrier to meet the oncoming charge,
he disarmed one knight while his horse lashed out behind and
threw another down. He ducked beneath the wild swing
of the youngest and pushed him off his saddle with a slam of his
shield. Then he turned to thrust and dance away. His long reach
held them at bay, while the grace of his large body enabled him to
escape their swings by a hair’s breadth. The knights
challenging him faded beneath his strokes like blades of grass in a
whirlwind. Time after time he disarmed his challengers until even
the few remaining on the field avoided him in hopes of retaining
their reputations.

All in vain. Drunk with the joy of fighting, he
sought them out and vanquished them. At last he alone remained, and
he raised his sword and howled in triumph. His erstwhile enemies
flocked on the field, congratulating him, pounding his back and
shouting insults that sounded like admiration. He dragged off his
helmet, his sweaty hair sticking to his forehead, and tore off his
gloves. Young Guilliame appeared to take the accoutrements in
charge, grinning with reflected glory.

William loved it. He revelled in the praise and
adulation he had scorned and then missed without realizing it. He
lingered until he glanced toward the gallery and saw Saura,
standing alone on the dais with the still expression that bespoke
intense listening. Breaking away from the men, he strode toward his
lady, glancing neither left nor right, and as he neared, Lady Jane
took his bride by the hand and led her to him. Saura dragged at
first, but when Lady Jane spoke to her she brightened and hurried.
She ran the last few feet, rocking him back with the impact of her
small body against his. Pleased by her frantic embrace, he picked
her up with one arm beneath her knees and one behind her shoulders
and swung her around. “I’ve beaten them all!
All!” he exulted, and she shrieked with equal parts of
exasperation and pleasure.

At last he slowed his wild cavorting, and she
grabbed his ears. “By the Virgin, William, never frighten me
so again. My heart stopped with every battle you fought. I
don’t know whether to slap you or love you,” she told
him.

“Oh, love me,” he said with naughty
intent, and she swept her hands over his face.

“Your dimples are showing, and there’s
not one sign of regret for the worry you’ve caused me,”
she pronounced. “Why should I love a scoundrel such as
you?”

Beneath her hand, he rearranged his features into a
parody of distress and she took hold of his neck and shook as hard
as she could. It was like trying to rattle a rock column, its only
effect to bring his face closer and closer until his breath was
hers. More than she could stand, less than she wanted, she kissed
him greedily.

That kiss didn’t taste as if she wanted him
only so she could have her land. It didn’t taste like lust or
mild affection. It tasted like a deep and desperate fear for his
life, and for the first time he hoped for everything. She slanted
her mouth, as if she wanted to absorb his essence; her hands
tangled in his beard and tugged him closer. Carried away by her
passion, he let her legs slide down his body and held her like a
child; one arm clasped around her back, one arm held her thighs.
Her feet dangled, her little body trembled, and power swept through
him, unequalled by the pleasure of fighting. Raising his head with
the intention of finding the nearest bed, he discovered with a jolt
that he stood on the field of battle. The sun shone with a westerly
slant, the dust from the mêlée had settled, and he still
wore his hauberk and boots. The quiet bound the air, and all around
them people stared with unabashed curiosity or appetite. As his
gaze swept them, the men whistled lasciviously, nudging each other
and chuckling, amused to find such a mighty warrior
vanquished by such a gentle weapon. With a cool
assessment, the ladies of the gallery stared at them.

“Son!” Lord Peter called, and William
suspected he’d been saying it for a long time. “Son, if
you’ll put Lady Saura down, we’ll award the destrier
and everyone can prepare for the evening meal.”

William blinked at his father.

“We have more guests to greet.” Lord
Peter enunciated every word as if he knew how slowly
William’s mind was working. “Saura’s vassals
arrived during the fight and were greatly impressed with your
prowess in the saddle.”

He gestured, and William found three men standing
not too far away, dressed in traveling clothes and watching him
with a staid disapproval. Saura’s head lifted from its spot
on his shoulder, and he looked down at her dazed face with its
swollen lips and rosy skin. She distracted him, pulling him back
with the sensual promise she projected, but Lord Peter whacked him
on the back and said, “Let us present the award
now
.”

Signs of cognizance appeared in Saura’s face,
and reluctantly William let her slide all the way down to her feet.
He steadied her with one hand under her arm until she no longer
swayed, and thanked God for the hauberk that protected his form
from exploring eyes. “Who wins the prize of the
destrier?” he asked.

Lord Peter suggested, “Sir Osbert of
Carraville must surely claim the prize, don’t you agree, Lady
Saura?”

She nodded. “All the praise I heard was for
Sir Osbert of Carraville, so there can be no doubt. Sir Osbert of
Carraville it is.”

Osbert whooped, and William grinned at the
man’s unrestrained glee. The prize enriched his penniless
state and created new markets for his knightly services. No matter
that he
was clearly second in the
mêlée; to be second to William was no shame at all.

As the other knights and ladies flocked onto the
field to congratulate the champion, William beckoned to
Saura’s vassals. They presented themselves at once, bowing to
the lord and then one by one taking Saura’s hand.

“Do you remember me, my lady? Sir Francis of
Wace.”

“Sir Francis. Of course, I remember.
I’ll never forget playing with your daughter Elly. She was
just my age. I trust she fares well?”

“Married, with three little ones
herself,” Sir Francis bragged.

“Do you remember me, my lady? Sir Denton of
Belworth.”

“Sir Denton!” She took his hand and
squeezed and twisted it.

“My lady!” he objected. “I
can’t wrestle with you now!”

“Why not?”

“You’re my lady! ’Tis not
respectful!”

She sighed and relaxed her grip. “Indeed I do
remember you, but you weren’t
Sir
Denton when last we met.”

Before William’s eyes, the young man’s
dignity slipped, and he grinned adoringly at Saura.
“I’ve been knighted.”

“I’m proud of you. ’Twas your
greatest dream.” She turned to William. “This knight
used to let me tag along after him when I was but a child.
He’d tease me and laugh at me, and he taught me to arm
wrestle.”

Denton’s ruddy complexion blushed a deeper
red, and with an alarmed glance at William he protested, “Now
let’s not carry tales, my lady!”

“Of course not.” She smiled.
“Perhaps we can meet and talk later. May I enquire about your
father?”

“We lost him, my lady, in the bloody disorder
two winters ago.”

“I’m sorry to hear it. He was a good
man and a true servant.” Saura patted his hand and then
released it.

The last man took her hand hesitantly.
“I’m Sir Gilbert of Hartleburgh.”

“Of Hartleburgh?” She looked startled.
“Where is Sir Vachel?”

“He died and Lord Theobald replaced him with
my humble self.”

No one said a word. It was an affront to Saura that
she’d not heard of the change, but an overture of friendship
that Sir Gilbert had come to her wedding. She had the power to
replace him, if she chose, or the power to retain him, and his
appearance before her was a gesture of faith on his part. Just
because her stepfather had appointed him didn’t mean he was
incompetent or cruel. Saura knew that; knew, too, that the lands
around Hartleburgh would be better off under the steady maintenance
of one man. “I welcome you, Sir Gilbert. I look forward to
receiving your pledge of faith and hearing an accounting of the
harvest.”

“Aye, my lady, and I look forward to giving
it.”

She turned back to the castellan of Wace.
“Where is Sir Frazer? Does he come behind you?”

Clearly, this question he didn’t relish.
“Not exactly, my lady. Sir Frazer….”

She raised an eyebrow at his hesitation.

“Sir Frazer refused the
invitation.”

“Refused?” William negligently lifted a
curl from Saura’s shoulder and tucked it beneath her veil,
seeming to pay only a bit of attention to the conversation.
“He was too sick to travel, then?”

“Nay, Lord William.”

“His wife was in childbed, his children
languished with a fever, and he’ll arrive as soon as
they’re cured?”

“Nay, my lord.”

“He refuses to pay fealty to his lady?”
William lifted his eyes, but they were not casual. His gaze bore
into the uncomfortable vassals, and they shifted from one foot to
the other with uneasy attention. “Sir Frazer refuses my Lady
Saura, my wife, what is due her?”

“Aye, my lord.”

The blue of William’s eyes chilled with
frost. “Then let him prepare for siege.”

“I have a poem, dedicated to my
lady of love.”

The servants cleared the last of the cold meal from
the table and refilled the tankards of ale and filled pitchers of
wine. The afternoon’s combatants compared bruises and
lacerations. They listened to tales of combat and laughed at the
defeated, and ignored Nicholas as he stood on his bench at the head
table and babbled about a poem. He persisted until Lady Jane tapped
for silence, and under her commanding presence the head table
quieted in exasperated courtesy. Then he cleared his throat and
began a series of verses aimed at the bride’s heart.

Everyone listened politely. Could they do less with
Lady Jane’s eye severely affixed to their faces? William
listened politely. Could he do less for his guest? Love for a lady
was a fashionable commodity, newly arrived from the courts of love
in Aquitaine. A knight chose a lady and dedicated his songs to her,
languished after her, wore her token into bat
tle. They said that Henry’s wife, Eleanor,
encouraged the troubadours with her love of poetry.

These paltry verses didn’t mean anything,
’twas just a young man’s affection. Nicholas had never
made a fool of himself over a woman; William should feel amused and
proud of the way he worshipped Saura.

These poor verses didn’t mean anything. Just
because William wanted to keep Saura for himself, he had no reason
to grow violent. If he stood up and cracked Nicholas’s skull
as he longed to, his guests would laugh their guts out and then
tease him forever.

These clichéed verses didn’t mean
anything; so why was he afraid to turn and look at Saura and see
the glow of pleasure on her sweet face?

“Describe Lady Jane, please.”

The matter-of-fact interest in his dearling’s
voice struck to the heart of his agony. She didn’t sound
overcome with admiration, she sounded preoccupied. Turning his
head, he stared at his lady. Lord Peter’s squire leaned over
her shoulder, and she was whispering instructions to him. The boy
bowed and backed away, and Saura took William’s sleeve and
tugged it. “Describe Lady Jane, please.” Saura had an
advantage over her guests, he realized. She couldn’t see
Jane’s strict gaze. She listened to Nicholas until her
boredom conquered her good manners, and then she returned to
directing the servants unobtrusively and seeking information in her
soft voice.

“Lady Jane?” His eyes sought the woman
down the table, and his voice sharpened as he flipped crumbs from
the tablecloth. “Why? Was she rude to you?”

“Not at all. She’s the sort of woman
who wants to do the correct thing for me, but doesn’t know
how.”

“She’d never ask, either,”
William said with exasperation.
He spoke
through clenched teeth, annoyed beyond reason by this ridiculous
passion Nicholas displayed for his bride, but he controlled himself
and continued, “All the niceties of etiquette are at her
fingertips and she’d never admit to being unsure in any
situation.”

“You don’t like her,” she
observed.

By not looking directly at the proclaiming
Nicholas, he could study the lady in question. “Nay,
’tis not that. She’s a little older than I, just old
enough to remember the time before good King Henry had died, and
she never lets me forget it. All she longs for is the peace so she
can command her position at court.” His fists clenched tight
around his goblet as Nicholas developed his fantasy.

“It doesn’t sound as if you like
her,” she said dubiously, misinterpreting his anger.

“Nay, nay. I like her. She’s rigid with
manners and she never wavers from them.” He drank a gulp of
wine, and his attention skipped away from Nicholas, directed by the
sharp poke of painful memory. “She’s got a good heart.
When a young man does something cruel or stupid, she’ll roast
him over an open pit until he screams with contrition. Then she
binds his wounds and hides the evidence and no other word is
spoken.”

With intuitive understanding, she guessed,
“She saved you from a bad mistake.”

“When I was a squire and far from home. Too
young to be on my own, with the cocky arrogance of a new-minted
man.” Moving his lips close to her ear, he whispered,
“There’s nothing worse than a woman who’s always
right. Especially when she really
is
always right.”

Saura laughed out loud, pleased that the tension in
his voice had diminished under her prodding. That voice of his was
a seduction: warm, golden, with a manly rumble that
vibrated her deep within. She didn’t like to
hear the higher notes of stress sneak in; with a shock, she
discovered she preferred the job of pleasing William over any
other. When had that happened?

She put her hand up to his chin to keep him close,
knowing she should be directing the servants but unable to resist
the draw of his skin. The proximity of his big body warmed her with
more than an outer heat, and as they approached the wedding day,
the day of their last mating moved farther back in time. It was
hard to wait patiently for tomorrow night when her body was
chanting, “Now, now.” Pressing herself down on the hard
bench, hoping for its distraction, she asked, “Did you love
her?”

“Jane?” He jumped and then chuckled
with astonishment. He rubbed his eyes between his thumb and
forefinger to clear his gaze and then studied the lady. “Nay.
She’s tall and spare, with a waterfall of sagging chins
beneath the primary one that recedes into her face. Her face is
bony and her veil would never let one wisp of hair escape for fear
of retribution. Her household walks in fear of a frown and her
husband’s so henpecked he doesn’t even know
it.”

“You adore her.”

“Aye.” He slid one arm around her waist
and pulled Saura closer, until the fur trim at his shoulder tickled
her cheek. As her body contacted his, he seemed to relax that
strange tautness that held him in thrall. “I was fostered in
her household until I made plans to run away with her
daughter.”

“William!” She reared back,
awestruck.

“Her stepdaughter, really,” he hastened
to assure her. “Lady Jane was the young bride when I came to
the household. Lord Nevil taught me war, and she taught me
deportment.”

“Running away with the daughter of your lord
is deportment?”

“God’s teeth!” He covered her
mouth with his palm. “No one knows except Lady Jane and me,
and that’s not a story I’d want noised
abroad.”

“Then tell me,” she threatened from
behind his hand. “Or I’ll stand on the bench and shout
it out.”

“That ’tis time to take me to your
chamber?”

She kissed his palm, her tongue bathing the
callouses, and he jerked his hand away. “I’d shout it
out if you’d do it.”

“Scandalmonger.”

She leaned into his mouth and brushed it softly
with hers. “If you’d not insisted on marriage,
I’d be in your bed at this moment.”

“Your brothers warned me about you.”
His lips moved with his words, his breath tickled her.
“Dudley said….”

Her kiss travelled to his neck, and he froze with
anticipation.

“Dudley?” she encouraged.

“Dudley said you were Eve.”

Tired of the oft-repeated slur, she pulled her face
away from him. “Not that again.” Then in a different
tone, “Not this again.” Whistles of encouragement from
their guests brought her back from her personal heaven; although
why she considered a conversation with a thick-headed male to be
heaven, she didn’t know. It must be a female quirk that her
mother had never warned her about.

Beside her, William withdrew from their embrace
with slow emphasis. “Don’t leap away,” he warned
her with a growl. “Make it clear we stop because we want to,
not because of their foolery.”

“Slow down, son,” his father mocked.
“You’ll have her soon. Only one more day.”

“Only one more night,” William retorted
with a mock heaviness, turning to pick up his abandoned wine.

“Stop enticing him, Saura,” Lady Jane
said. “He becomes desperate if not fed.”

“He’s not the only one facing
desperation,” Saura answered, seeking her own cup. William
brought his to her lips, whispering, “Here, love,” and
held it while she drank. As she finished, he leaned forward and
licked the pungent red wine from her lips and the corners of her
mouth while their audience laughed their appreciation.

“Your poetry inspires the lovebirds,
Nicholas,” Charles mocked.

The jerk of William’s arm beneath her hand
surprised her, and with a finely honed instinct she kneaded those
stiff muscles, seeking to ease him. He ignored her ministrations,
but at the same time relaxed enough to joke, “I need no
inspiration. Saura’s presence is enough to bring me to
culmination.”

“Make your own
vers
, William,” Nicholas said. He strove for
a teasing tone, but the seriousness of his demand seeped through.
“Let Saura hear how you feel about her.”

“William’s
vers
is magnificent,” Saura boasted.
“He has no need to prove himself to me.”

William swiveled around and stared at his bride.
“Where did you hear that?” he sputtered.

“You told me.” She rubbed her hand up
to his shoulder. “Remember, that day at Fyngre Brook? You
told me you made the best
vers
.”

“I lied,” he confessed with blunt
honesty.

In a mighty swell, the merriment of the guests
overwhelmed them. With carefully honed timing, Saura waited until
the noise died, and then she said, “Thank God. I was afraid
I’d have to be polite about your poetry.”

Freshly warmed from their laughter, the guests
slipped back into their hilarity and laughed until the tears ran
and all memory of Nicholas’s dreadful poem and his
inappropriate dedication faded.

He leaned her over a table so her face pressed
against the rough wood and tossed her skirt over her head. With no
preparation, he spread her cheeks and drove into her. It was not
such a great thing as to cause discomfort, for the bastard children
she’d borne had stretched her and his member was not large.
Not large like Lord William’s; God knew she’d looked at
that thistle and wished it would tickle her.

Still, this seigneur’s careless disregard
made her angry, and each time his legs slapped her thighs she
whispered a new invective about that woman. In only a moment, he
finished, pulled out and wiped himself on her smock.

“Get up now.” He smacked her buttock
with the flat of his hand. “Get out there and help your
mistress.”

Hawisa stood and swung around. “She’s
not me mistress anymore.”

“You do as she orders.”

“That bitch—”

His hand swung out and slapped her cheek, knocking
her against the table. “Don’t you ever talk that
way.” He lowered his head until his eyes were on her level.
They steamed with their intensity. “She’s a lady and
you’re not worthy to speak her name.”

Recovering herself, she bunched her fists at her
side. “She’s not so wonderful. Ye come t’ me for
that
.” She jerked her head toward
the table, and he smiled unpleasantly.

“But I place you so I can’t see your
face. You’re nothing
more than a dog I
can fornicate with. All the time I imagine ’tis
her
, but she’d be better.”

With compressed lips, Hawisa whirled and fled the
room, his semen dribbling down her legs and her face stinging with
his blow.

“Did you see the way he looks at her?”
The words hissed through the early morning air as the huddled group
of ladies went to prepare Saura for her wedding.

“Did you see the way she held his hand during
the mêlée?” A knowing brow cocked, laden with
insinuation.

“I think ’tis awful. Her future
husband—and her bedmate, if the gossip is true—fights
out on the field, and she clings to another man and listens only to
him.”

“Did you see how she behaved? Mark my words,
William doesn’t realize the perfidy of that woman.”

“His father should have never refused our
daughter for William. He’ll be sorry now.”

Squeezed in the midst of the women, Lady Jane
listened and observed. Sarcastic, outspoken, full of common sense,
she cultivated her crusty image and kept her kindnesses well
hidden. Now she was torn; Saura
had
encouraged a man by her dependency on him. A faint sense of guilt
had haunted Lady Jane as she listened to Nicholas’s lurid
portrayal of the fighting. According to Nicholas and his nimble
tongue, William had almost been crushed time and time again, barely
rising from the ashes to fight again. Now Lady Jane wondered what
intrigue he plotted with his well-worded misinformation.

“Have you seen how Nicholas stares at her,
like an adoring
puppy? Has she ensorcelled him?
He’s not even interested in women.”

“Do you think she’s a witch? ’Tis
her fault that Nicholas loves her.”

“Nay, she’s like Eve. Leading men down
the paths of sin with her body and her face.”

That was too much for Lady Jane. “What
nonsense!” she exploded. “Sir Nicholas is naught but a
wart on the complexion of honor. If she’s been unaware of the
scandal they created, surely Nicholas wasn’t.”

Lady Bertha placed her fists on her ample hips and
stopped, and the women straggled to a halt, strung out in the great
hall. “How can you say that? Why should she pant after his
conversation?”

“Because she couldn’t see what happened
on the field, and he told her. She hung on his every word, and no
wonder—the tale he wove put William into horrible danger. Did
you offer to describe the action to her?”

“I didn’t.” Lady Bertha snapped
her mouth shut and looked thoughtful.

Sweeping her gaze over the assembled women, Lady
Jane said, “Lady Saura has been our gracious hostess, and you
pay her back in the stink of spoiled fish. She’s a bride, and
no one should cast a shadow on her joy.”