A Knight to Remember (28 page)

Hugh roared at Edlyn, then raced his destrier toward the archer. He wouldn’t make it in time. He knew he wouldn’t make it in time, but he had to. He had to.

But before he could loose the arrow, the enemy archer fell in a drift of smoke.

Burdett leaped out of hiding and dragged Edlyn down.

Deprived of his prey, Pembridge galloped toward the fire and seized a bow, aiming it right at Hugh. From so close a distance, the arrow would pierce the chain-mail armor that protected him. Hugh braced for the impact, but before Pembridge could strike, a swirl of wind encircled Pembridge with smoke.

He shrieked as if the devil had him by the throat. Dropping the bow, he directed his mount toward the gatehouse.

What mischief was this? Hugh wondered. Then a random gust spread the noxious fumes over the men who fought and over to him.

Without any instruction from Hugh, his untried destrier pranced backward. “By our lady!” Hugh sawed
at the reins as the smoke crept into his helmet. His chest burned. His skin stung. His eyes itched. He wanted to rub the pain away, but his chain-mail gloves made it impossible. He tried to get away, but it was too late. The poison clung to his skin and filled his lungs. If any able warrior were to attack now, Hugh would be lost.

But there were no able warriors. Those wretched arrows had fed agony into all three fires, and the smoke spread it throughout the bailey. Men were running, yelling, crying like newborn babes. Hugh guided his horse through the low, narrow gatehouse entry and out into the scorched outer bailey. Gratefully, he took a breath, then another and another. “Air.” He coughed and squinted, trying to see through eyes raw and running with tears. “Fresh air.”

Then the tears cleared his vision, and he saw him—Pembridge, alone, with only his weapons and his wit to defend him.

That wouldn’t be nearly enough.

Pembridge saw Hugh, too, through eyes just as swollen, and he grinned with mad delight.

“A resourceful trick, my lord of nothing,” he called. “My Edlyn has ever been resourceful.” He gestured with his arm like a wizard conjuring his demons. “But not as resourceful as me.” On his summoning, fresh knights rode through the outer gatehouse and filled the bailey.

Hugh stared.

Richard and his gang of thieves returned his stare, and at the very back of the pack was that skinny old ferryman, Almund, glaring at them all.

“You see,” Pembridge said, “when you want allies to do evil, you must appeal to the lowest of creatures, offer them plunder, and they will do your will.”

Something inside Hugh, some fragment of faith and honor, broke with a snap. He didn’t want Richard to be the Judas. He wanted to believe the man when he insinuated he would forsake his thieving for a chance to start anew. He thought—dear God, he really thought—Richard had given Edlyn her freedom because he saw the beauty and innocence in her and wanted to nurture it.

And now here he was, prepared to strip Hugh’s castle and rape Edlyn until she died.

Roaring like a wounded bull, he lifted his sword. “Nay!”

Richard lifted his sword, too, and in a clear voice he called, “Nay, indeed. We’ve come to protect Lady Edlyn and all she claims as hers—and you, Lord Hugh, are hers.”

Hugh halted his charge before it began. Hope struggled into being. With Richard’s men on their side, there was a chance they could defeat Pembridge.

From the look on Pembridge’s face, he knew it.

“Will you fight?” Hugh called. “Or will you run?”

Pembridge swung savagely on Hugh. “I’ll fight, and if I die, I’ll see you in hell beside me.”

“
He almost did it
, master.”

Hugh looked up from his mat by the fire in the solar. Wharton stood above him, still ashen and shaking. “Who almost did what?”

“Pembridge almost took you to hell with him.”

“He was a good fighter.” Hugh shrugged, testing the binding on his broken collarbone. “But he wasn’t fighting for what he loved.”

“And you were?” Edlyn’s soft voice sounded on the other side of the mat, and Hugh turned his head to gaze on his wife.

She had the soft, gentle bearing of an angel who brought surcease to the suffering and health to the ill—a bearing at odds with the woman he knew her to be. “That ill-begotten knave was right about one thing,” he muttered. “You
are
a resourceful woman.”

No one had to tell him that it had been Edlyn who had thought to shoot stems and leaves of blister vine into the fires to drive the archers away. Her strategem had totally disrupted the battle, and with the addition of Richard’s men on Hugh’s side, Pembridge’s forces had been defeated.

It had taken an hour before the fires had burned away the blister vine’s dreaded miasma and the winds had cleared the air enough for Hugh to reenter his own castle. He had used the time to thank Almund and Dewey and Wharton, and all of his men and even Richard’s thieves. But the delay had seriously dampened his victory celebration, especially when, on hearing of the success of Edlyn’s herbal warfare, Richard had laughed so hard he collapsed unconscious on the ground.

Further investigation had proved the man was suffering from broken ribs administered by a well-swung mace, but his chortle still rang in Hugh’s ears.

Hugh’s grimace didn’t go unnoticed. “Why won’t you let me move you into our bed?” Edlyn asked, not for the first time. “It’s huge. There’s more than enough room for you and Richard, and it would be so much more convenient for me to care for you both.”

“I am not sleeping with that man,” Hugh declared.

“Amen.” Richard’s voice, while determined, was weak. He lay propped up on the pillows, almost as white as the linen under his head, but not even pain could undermine his insolence. “I can sleep on a mat instead. There’s no need for me to deprive the master of the castle of his bed.”

That sarcasm made Hugh want to smack his former enemy and new ally.

But he didn’t have to. Edlyn flattened Richard’s pretensions of health. “Nay, you can’t,” she said. “I don’t like the look of that chest wound, and you’re not moving until I say so.”

Only Richard wouldn’t stay flattened. He merely sounded amused. “She is a tyrant, isn’t she, Hugh? When
I
marry, I’ll wed an obedient woman.”

Hugh remembered similar fantasies of his own. “In my experience, you get what God gives you.”

If a voice could be described as strutting, Richard’s could be now. “My bliss will be the envy of all my
new neighbors
.”

Hugh grunted. “You assume a lot on the basis of one battle.”

But Richard assumed correctly, damn his eyes. Hugh
would
ask Prince Edward to give Richard his castle. Then Richard would have to gain the acceptance he sought among the nobility, and it would be no easy thing to get from barons and earls who had been held at sword point and stripped of their possessions by that grinning shallow-pate in the bed.

More uncomfortable than knowing he would do his best for Richard was having Edlyn know it, too. She thought Richard was a good man given to kind deeds, and Hugh couldn’t bring himself to disillusion her—even when he thought she was manipulating him. Now she smiled at him in a manner that reminded him most restively of the empty days since their last mating and mocked the empty nights until they were alone once more. Sinking down on her knees beside him, she arranged the pillows under his head.

He was baffled by her charm and couldn’t help smiling back. “So, wife, how did you like your first taste of battle?”

“It was as ugly and as dreadful as I imagined.” Still she smiled, her expression belying her words. “And if I’d had a weapon, I’d have fought those mercenaries with my own hands.”

Hugh’s own smile faded at the terror that thought brought him. “Why?”

“When I saw what Pembridge did to the outer bailey and knew what he planned for the inner bailey, the keep, my sons, and my people—by our lady, I still want
to kill him.” She clenched trembling hands in her lap. “And he’s dead.”

How odd to feel a sense of kinship with his wife because she wanted to kill someone.

Oh, he knew she’d been swept away with the fury of battle. She didn’t really want to do violence, but now she understood, a little, the satisfaction that drove him when he fought well and won against the forces that would rend the nation.

“Th’ master took care o’ killing Pembridge,” Wharton said matter-of-factly.

“I did do that duty and would gladly do it again. ’Twill take months of hard work to undo the damage he caused to Roxford Castle.”

“He was ever like that.” Edlyn reminisced with an ease that reassured Hugh that she had indeed never wanted Pembridge. “He carried a blight with him, and in every place he walked happiness died.”

Her words reminded Hugh of an old friendship, equally touched by blight, and he stirred uncomfortably. “Has anyone seen Sir Lyndon since the battle?”

Wharton shook his head sadly. “Sir Lyndon was killed, master. We found his body among th’ stacks o’ other traitorous stiffs when th’ priest was giving his blessing.”

“Don’t talk so disrespectfully,” Hugh chided sharply. “He was a good man.”

“A good man? Then it wasn’t him I saw fighting fer Pembridge? An’ it wasn’t him I saw try t’ kill ye?”

“But he repented his behavior.”

“Ye’re too soft.” Now Wharton chided him. “Wasn’t it him yer sons say opened th’ postern gate t’ th’ enemy?”

“Allyn and Parkin told me they couldn’t be sure.”

“Perhaps not before th’ battle, but now th’ evi
dence sure looks gruesome. I wouldn’t have trusted him t’ turn me back—or me wife’s—t’ him again.”

“I’m flattered.” Edlyn looked down to veil the amusement in her gaze.

“No need fer that, mistress.” Wharton’s sour face would have sucked the juices from a peach. “I don’t know why th’ master wants a woman as stubborn as ye, but I do his bidding always.”

“Except that you do not trust me when I say Sir Lyndon was willing to try again!” Hugh said, exasperated.

Wharton shrugged. “I knew ye’d take his part, but it doesn’t matter. He’s dead, an’ there’s no use in arguing.”

And after all, Hugh knew better than to think Wharton would admit to slipping a knife through Sir Lyndon’s ribs. “Well,” he muttered to himself. “’Tis done now, and I cannot undo it.”

Indeed, he didn’t know if he wanted to. Wharton was right. Hugh would never have trusted Sir Lyndon again, and if Sir Lyndon had lived, there would have been nothing but grief between them.

“Other than a tendency t’ trust where trust is not warranted, th’ master is good at what he does. Why, he cleared out half o’ th’ rebel army even before th’ battle was joined.” Slyly now, Wharton asked, “How was it ye did that, master?”

Hugh wasn’t offended by Wharton’s teasing, and he gladly gave credit where credit was due. “’Twas a trick my wife showed me.”

Edlyn’s eyes grew round and pleased. “Really?”

“I’m not a stupid man,” Hugh said. “Twice I saw you win out over great odds by using the means available to you. I decided I could do that as well.”

To his horror, big tears welled into her eyes.

Crying! She was crying! He didn’t know anything about crying women. Hell, if he could have, he would
have run. Instead he said, “Hey! I was giving you a compliment!”

“I know. It’s just that”—she pulled a strip of bandage out of her bag and wiped her nose—“this is the first time I’ve been sure you approved of me.”

“Approved of you?” Hugh tried to raise himself and found her arms wrapped around his shoulders. “What do you mean, approved of you? I’m in your bed every chance I get.”

“I don’t want to hear this.” Richard started humming loudly.

“In my bed? So what?”

“So what?” He couldn’t believe she’d said that.

“What happens in bed is not what’s important.”

Apparently Richard hadn’t been humming loud enough, for he stopped so abruptly it proved he had heard her. Wharton stood frozen. Hugh stared at his wife’s tearstained face, and in the silence the men fumbled to comprehend this evidence of female simple-mindedness.

Faced with three incredulous men, she said, “Well, it isn’t. It’s the affection and trust between a man and a woman that’s important.
You
weren’t happy when you left the bed the last time we shared it.”

“I’m covering my ears,” Richard called, and he wrapped one pillow over his head in a slow motion that coddled his broken ribs.

All Hugh remembered about sharing her bed was the driving need to master her, the satisfaction when he did so, and the smug knowledge that she’d mastered him as well.

She must have read his face, for she said, “You weren’t. You were angry because of that shift you wanted me to return to Richard.”

Richard lifted the pillow a little. “That’s a lie! I never gave her a shift.”

Having Richard listen to a private discussion between him and his wife was like the scratch of a wolf’s claws on granite, and Hugh snapped, “You should cover your ears better.”

With elaborate circumspection, Richard rolled so they could see nothing of him but a mound of rugs.

“One of your men did.” Edlyn spoke to the mound, and the mound groaned. “And Hugh wanted me to send it back.” Now her gaze dropped to the floor, and she looked as shy as a maid. “I tried to catch you the morning you left to give it to you.”

Right then, Hugh truly knew he didn’t understand women. “To give it to me?”

“Aye. As a token from me to carry into battle.”

He remembered the sight of her, silhouetted against the morning sky, waving at him. “Was that the white flag you used?”

“White flag?”

“To signal your surrender.”

“I didn’t surrender!”

“I saw the white flag.”

She thrust her chin forward in exasperation and pushed a stray lock of hair out of her eyes. “I will never understand men. I just told you—”

“
What
were you going to tell me?”

“What?”

“What were you going to tell me when you came running with that shift?”

Her expression of embarrassment entertained him.

“Heh, heh.” Wharton gave a most dreadful cackle. “She’s starting t’ comprehend she can’t fool ye, huh, master?”

Hugh never took his eyes off Edlyn as he spoke. “Wharton, shut your maw and get out.”

“Aye, master.” Wharton inched toward the door sideways, like a crab easing its way toward the sea.

Richard had crept around in the bed so that he could stick his head out of the covers and listen.

Hugh wanted to throw them both out, but Edlyn was as nervous as a half-tamed falcon and just as flighty. He dared not take his concentration off her.

She moved her lips in a parody of speaking and finally squeaked, “I was just going to say that you should stay alive.”

“Every one of your husbands has brought you nothing but grief.” Maybe a man could understand a woman if he worked hard enough—and lived long enough. “Why would you want me to stay alive when your life would be so much easier if I died?”

Pulling the jumble of rag bandages out of her bag, she started to rewind them. “I wish no man ill.”

He rubbed his broken collarbone with a grieved expression.

Glancing at him, she said, “You’re not gulling me. I know what you’re trying to do.”

“What?” With gentle fingers he explored the scabs and bruises that covered his face.

She wound faster. “You’re trying to make me think you’re in agony so I’ll tell you what I was going to say.”

“You could have told me that morning when I was leaving. Why can’t you tell me now?”

“Because then I was afraid you might die, and now—”

He winced when his fingers pressed on a particularly painful bruise.

“Now you’re only in danger of me killing you.” He put on a pathetic face, and she sighed in exaggerated disgust. “I wanted to tell you that you’d won me.”

He snatched at her hand and got a fistful of linen
strips. In disgust, he threw them away. They caught on the rough skin of his palms, and he cursed until Edlyn took the bandages away from him and put them carefully in her bag. She took his hands in hers, and he thought, for just a moment, that this was her sign of surrender. Instead she looked at his blisters with an exclamation of concern. “Did you get these from your sword work?”

“Edlyn…”

She reached into her bag. “Just let me put some ointment on them and wrap them up.”

“Edlyn, I love you.”

She froze.

He was appalled. He’d just blurted it out, in front of Wharton and Richard, without planning or poetry or song. He could have said, “You are the wife of my soul.” Or “Beloved, you are more beautiful than the sun in all its glory.” Lovers said things like that. He’d always thought it stupid, but the women seemed to like it, and he wanted Edlyn to be happy.

If he’d had the time to think, he could have come up with some nonsense, but suddenly it had just seemed unfair that she had to declare her love before he did. After all, she’d loved before and seen that love treated like goose droppings. That was the reason, he knew, for her backward-stepping caution and for her fierce defense of her own heart.

So now he’d insulted her with blunt speaking, and he had to try to mend his mistake.

He mumbled. “Robin said it better, didn’t he?”

She pressed her fingers to his mouth. “Robin was most eloquent, but then Robin said it to so many ladies.” Smoothing his lips with the ball of her thumb, she said, “I like your version better.” She leaned forward until she could replace her thumb with her lips,
and her breath caressed him. “I think that when we have rebuilt Roxford Barn, we should go out and enact a girlhood fantasy of mine.”

“What fantasy is that?” Talking like this was a kiss made audible, and he cherished the movements, the warmth, the anticipation of more silent—and more passionate—kisses.