Candle in the Window (30 page)

“We’ll ask her in the morning if
she’s satisfied,” Lady Jane decided, leading the push
into the great hall.

Saura’s light laugh floated on the air, and
the heavy door slammed shut. William dropped her on the bed with a
thump and turned away. “William!” She pushed herself up
on her elbows, pushed her hair out of her face. “Let me see
you.”

“Wait,” he growled. “I’ll
secure us permanent privacy.”

The wooden bench scraped the floor as he moved it.
The sewing table from the window seat followed it.

“Do you foresee a visitation?” she
asked with interest.

“Foresee is too strong a word.” He
grunted as he shoved the heavy furniture close against the door.
“Suspect. There have been times when I led the interruption
of an intimate moment, and I
suspect
my
friends may have nefarious plans.”

“You’d better push the chest over
there, too,” she advised.

Chuckling, he pushed her trunk over until its
weight held the barrier in place. He began to walk back to her and
changed his mind. He knelt and opened her chest, and she strained
to hear what he was doing, but he closed it almost immediately and
she remembered his presents. “I haven’t thanked you for
the bride gifts. Bless you for making me important in
everyone’s eyes.”

“You make yourself important in
everyone’s eyes,” he replied. “I simply signify
my regard for you.” The bed depressed beneath his weight.

She laced her fingers together, suddenly aware of
the quiet in the room, of their privacy for the first time in too
many weeks. “I have great regard for you, also.”
Clumsy
, she thought, embarrassed by her
lack of eloquence. Sitting there, bare, she felt a creeping
consciousness. She raised the covers and crawled under, pulling the
sheets over her knees, her waist, her chest, her shoulders. She
kept wondering if he would stop her, but he didn’t.

She began to speak several times, but could think
of no scintillating conversation. He said nothing, and she wondered
if he was offended. Had her trick with the lack of hose so
thoroughly distressed him he wanted nothing to do with her? Then he
cleared his throat, and she knew that wasn’t true.

For the first time in a whole moon they were really
alone.
and they felt foolish. All their other
joinings had been spur of the moment, lusty fallings from the
vertical to the horizontal. This night required no hurried
disrobings, no secretive plotting or special seductions. They were
man and wife. They had every right to lie on the bed together.

“Did I tell you how lovely you looked
today?” he asked in a soft bass rumble.

“Thank you.” She smiled rather stiffly
and cast around for something else to say. “Even without my
undergarments?” Immediately she wondered why she reminded him
of that.

“Oh.” He shifted on the bed.
“Well, aye. The lack of aught under your gown kept reminding
me of…I liked it. Aye.”

The silence fell again, until she remembered to
ask, “Did you win your ball game?”

“Aye. Aye, my team won by a bit. We started
out behind, but after you went in I played well and we won.”
He shifted again, a little bit closer, and a small bubble of relief
was born in her.

“I enjoyed meeting your friends,” she
offered.

He laughed softly. “All of them?”

“Most of them,” she compromised, her
eyes solemn.

“They enjoyed meeting you.” Lifting the
covers he slid beneath them, close against her.

She sat, he sat, their thighs pressed together,
their arms touching.

Should she move aside? Would he think she avoided
him, or would he think she made room for him?

He wiggled his hips and without her having to
decide, she was moved aside. “Did you like the furs?”
His hands dragged something under the blankets with them.

“They felt intriguing.” Trying to be
cordial, she overcompensated and purred her reply.

“I hoped you’d think that.” Those
big hands moved closer to her, and a plush touch stroked over her
knee. “Those furs can all be made into a cape for you. All
except one, and guess what we’re going to do with
that?”

She sat very still, unable to analyze the rich
tingle that titillated her leg. It wasn’t his hand. The plush
caress slid up her thigh and she reached out to identify it.

Pushing her hand away, he breathed, “Nay.
This is my part of the bride gift.”

That rich smoothness swept over her torso, and a
violent sensation of pleasure forced her stomach muscles to
collapse. Her nipples peaked, goose bumps covered her.
“William,” she choked. “Is that one of the
sables?”

“Aye.” He rubbed the fur across her
neck.

“What are you doing with it?”

He pushed against her shoulder. “Lie
down,” he urged. “And I’ll show you.”

A scratch at the door pulled her from her sleep.
She didn’t want to get up. God, after last night she
didn’t ever want to get up, and especially not in the chilly
predawn. But the scratch came again, a long, mournful scrape, and
duty, and the knowledge Bula would never give up, dragged her from
her warm nest against William’s chest.

“Aye, Bula,” she whispered, pulling on
her brown work dress. “I’m coming, you stupid dog. Why
did I ever let you start this?” With soft grunts and moans,
she shoved the chest, the sewing table, the bench to the side. She
stopped and listened to William’s breathing; if she’d
wakened him, he was faking sleep with the dedication of a
well-served man.

She opened the door to his enthusiastic welcome,
and she
scratched his ears. “Shh.”
She listened to the sounds in the great hall. No one moved in
awareness. A few bodies shifted on the floor, rolling over in the
rushes or groaning in a nightmare. “Take me out, dog.”
Clinging to the fur on his ruff, she followed him as he led her
through the maze of sleeping bodies and to the stairway on the far
side of the room. She pulled the bar back from the door and opened
it to the creak of hinges. She found her guiding wall and began to
descend. The air got fresher and cooler, and Bula trotted ahead,
sniffing enthusiastically. He got farther and farther ahead of her,
claws tapping, until he reached the bottom. Then he stopped, and
Saura expected to hear him scratch against the outer door. He
didn’t; a deep, loud sniffing reached her, and then a short,
distressed bark.

Saura hurried down, wondering at Bula’s
change of routine. An obstacle on the last two steps caught her
toes, a heavy obstacle that yielded slightly but never moved.
Crying out, Saura tripped over the top of it, falling and landing
head first with a jarring impact on the paving stones. One cheek
cracked down hard. One hand slipped and she landed with all her
weight on one elbow. Her knees met the rock last, scraping the skin
away.

The pain broke her; her mind shut down, yet when
she woke she heard her scream still echoing up the stairwell. Her
elbow hummed with the impact, and her face, as she raised herself,
expanded against her skin. “God,” she moaned.
“What was it?” Bula snuffled at her, whining in
distress.

Groping back to the stairs, she reached out to
touch that obstacle. Coarse homespun met her questing hands, and
then a warm body wrapped in a serving maid’s clothing. Her
fingers skimmed in increasingly frantic circles, trying to find a
spark of life in the woman. There was nothing, no movement at all,
and when she found the agonized face she dis
covered why. The woman’s neck was broken,
knocked at an odd angle.

Above her, footsteps and then more footsteps
clattered down the stairs and she looked up in horror. Voices she
couldn’t identify, voices she should recognize assaulted her
buzzing ears. She cried, “Who is it? Tell me who it
is!”

The voices fell silent, and then Charles said with
cold deliberation, “’Tis Hawisa. Hawisa, the slut who
called you a witch. Hawisa, the serving maid you threatened to kill
yesterday.”

“’Tis Charles.”

“’Tis not, I tell you.”

“Then who is it?” William asked.
“You insist it’s not Charles, but who is it?”

Wretched, Saura paced back and forth, her hand on
the table for guidance. “I don’t know,” she
admitted. “But the voice isn’t right.”

“Isn’t right!” William pounded
the board with his cup. “God’s teeth, he as much as
accused you of murdering Hawisa when he reminded our guests of your
threat to her!”

Saura opened her mouth and shut it.

In the waning days of summer, the guests had left.
They scuttled away, babbling of the extraordinary events of the
wedding celebration and storing up the tales for the winter
ahead.

Saura and William had wished them Godspeed, waved
until they were out of sight, and then turned to each other and
laughed in blatant relief. William had been
content to pay court to his bride, assisting her with her chores,
walking with her in the woods, loving her every chance he got. But
now the time of honey vanished as William stirred and spoke of
seige and battle.

In this past fortnight of enchantment, she’d
never told William of the threat in her garden, of the muffled
speaker who had touched her and declared his love. She feared to
infuriate William; she could imagine him stomping out, declaring he
would find the bastard who dared approach his wife.

More than that, she feared he wouldn’t
believe her. The ladies certainly hadn’t, not even Lady Jane.
They had dismissed it as a dream, and with good cause. They had
checked on her, they said, and seen her asleep and alone.
They’d seen the gate to the garden as they approached, and no
one had left that way. Even Saura agreed her phantom hadn’t
left that way, but she didn’t know how he
had
left. After the guests had gone, Saura had
visited the garden and, feeling foolish, had groped all around the
walls. All she got for her curiosity was a handful of rose
thorns.

Still, she should tell William. She
would
tell William. Turning, she faced him and
bravely said, “What do you want for supper?” She
blinked. That was not what she’d wanted to say at all, and
William knew it.

“What is it, love?” He stood and paced
around the table to take her shoulders and draw her to him.
“Tell me.”

“Oh, William.” She dropped her head
onto his chest. “I’m such a coward.”

“You?” She felt the rumble of his
laughter beneath her cheek. “You’re the bravest woman I
know. Banging heads with a rock, confronting Arthur, forcing those
noble ladies to respect you, marrying me. I wish I had the courage
you
contain in one small finger.” He held
up one of her hands and kissed that one small finger.

“You’re the bravest knight in all
Christendom.” She drew their entwined hands back down to her
face and kissed the back of his. “You’re kind and
generous and a great fighter. You’re clever as a
fox.”

“And I must go deal with Charles. We
can’t live with this threat hanging over our
heads.”

“Nay! Nay.” Reaching up, she caught his
beard and tugged it until his face was level with hers.
“Nay.”

“Then I’ll go take your fief back from
Sir Frazier,” he offered.

Her chin dropped.

“It must be done,” he said.

“I know,” she agreed reluctantly.
“But you can’t go yet. You promised to teach me to
defend myself.”

“To defend yourself?” He was startled.
“Why should you need to?” They both knew it was a
foolish question. “Aye, I did promise, didn’t I? But
the teaching won’t take as long as you hope, dearling.”
Grasping her by the hand, he led her to the chairs by the fire and
seated her. He pulled his seat close, so their knees touched, and
said, “Listen to me. My father teaches this first rule of
combat to his fosterings, and it applies to all fighting
situations.”

She sat straighter. “The first rule of
combat? I’ve heard you say that before.”

“Only a fool forgets it. Listen closely.
There’s no such thing as a fair battle.
Battles are fought to win
. I’ve engaged in
wars with the punishment for failure the confiscation of my
estates, the death of my son. I’ve been in clashes where a
score of men surrounded me, seeking my death with the edge of their
blades. ’Tis not strength that succeeds in such combat, but a
combination of skill and cunning. If your oppo
nent expects you to charge, retreat. If your opponent
believes you’re weak, crush him with your boldness. You,
Saura, have a great advantage.”

She raised her eyebrows in disbelief.

“Oh, yes, dearling. You’re a woman.
Women are all idiots. You’re beautiful. Beautiful women have
even less wit than average women. You’re tiny. A man can
overpower you with the muscle contained in his little finger. And
you’re blind.”

Raising her hand to his face, she traced his mouth
with her fingertips. He was grinning, and she grinned back.

“Any man who engages you in a skirmish
expects to crush you with impunity. Use your weaknesses to confound
him.”

She nodded slowly. “I understand. To be a
good knight, you must have strength and skill. To be a great
knight, you must be intelligent and contrary.”

He laughed. “You’re good for my
pride.”

“You’re a great knight, but if you must
go to besiege my fief, I require a pledge you’ll not be
hurt.”

“The greatest knight in Christendom?
Hurt?” He laughed and kissed her cheek. “This
‘kind, generous, great’ fighter? Hurt?”

“William,” she faltered as his tongue
flicked the sensitive skin over her chin. “William, you
haven’t given me your pledge.”

He nudged her chin aside with his nose and kissed
her neck. “This clever fox?
Hurt?
”

“William?” she murmured as he nuzzled
her collarbone. “Your pledge.” The sharp edge of his
teeth nipped her shoulder through the material that swathed it.
“William.” She gulped, and lost the thread of her
thought. “William, the churls.”

“Curse them.”

“Supper. Your father and the boys will howl
if ’tis late
again.” She sighed as
he lifted her off her chair and into his lap, and lightly bit her
ear.

“Curse the supper.”

“We can retire right after supper.”

“And do what?” he whispered.

“I’ll show you,” she whispered
back, pressing her nose to his.

He grunted and eased her onto her feet. “We
have the supplies ready for a siege.” He supported her as she
regained her balance. “I’ll take the men out tomorrow
morning. You don’t need to get up and see me off.”

Catching his sleeve, she asked, “Have I been
manipulated? Has my clever knight retired from the field with all
he sought?”

“Not everything,” he assured her.
“You still don’t trust me enough to tell me what
worries you.” He waited, but she said nothing.
“I’ll always be here, sweeting, when you’re ready
to speak.”

She sat in the herb garden, rich with mature plants
that awaited their harvest. She waited in the cool of the early
evening for William to come to her and tell her he would go and
fight once more.

He’d recovered from the wound received at the
siege of her fief. She hadn’t recovered from the guilt. All
those weeks of illness, just to take back a castle she didn’t
care about. It hadn’t been much of a wound, everyone had
assured her, but with typical male irresponsibility he hadn’t
cleaned it, hadn’t cared for it. He’d arrived back at
Burke, delirious, dragged on a litter of branches.

Frightened, Saura had helped Maud care for him,
applying
a steady application of smelly
poultices and bathing him when his fever rose. She hadn’t
thought of the future then, only of bringing him back to life. She
thought about it now, bitterly, unceasingly. Was this her reward?
Cure him to send him out to fight again?

She shouldn’t have let him go, although how
she could have stopped him, she didn’t know.

Leaning against the wall on her favorite stone
seat, she bubbled with a fury and a discontent. He’d come
through that gate beside her and stand before her and explain, in
that deep and golden voice of his, that he had to go throw himself
in harm’s way once more. And she’d listen and make the
proper discontented noises and then, like a good wife, she’d
let him go again.

Gritting her teeth, she listened to the tromp of
his boots at the back of the garden. Here he came, striding around
the walls to open the gate.

But he didn’t. One moment he was outside the
far wall, the next he stood cursing inside, complaining of the
thorns.

Saura stood up and cried, “How did you do
that?” She heard him turn as if bewildered, and then turn
back.

“Do what?”

“How did you come through the
wall?”

“What? Oh, that?” He laughed, a golden
sunshine that never failed to warm her. “There’s a
miniature gate in the back wall. ’Tis hidden under the roses
and well protected by the thorns, I assure you. I used it as a
child, but ’tis a squeeze now.”

“Who knows about it?” she demanded.

“Every wee one in the castle, I suppose.
’Tisn’t a secret.” He strode towards her, through
the rows of plants. “Why?”

“There was someone in here on our wedding
day, but the ladies insisted I’d been dreaming, for they
never saw him
leave.” Excited, Saura
caught his arm and shook it. “I thought I must be mad, but he
was here. He was really here!”

“Aye, I’m sure he was. What did he
do?”

“Touched me, I think. And spoke to me.”
Remembering those words of love, hissed through a wrap of cloth,
she shuddered.

“Why didn’t you tell me
sooner?”

“That feeling of menace, of eyes, following
my every move, vanished with the guests. I don’t hear that
hungry whisper.” Remembering, her voice dropped. “I no
longer hear the tread of soft-clad feet.”

“Why didn’t you tell me sooner?”
he demanded again.

She squirmed. William sounded dangerously neutral,
and she wondered at his thoughts. “I felt like a fool. No one
else believed me. So many people think that because I’m
blind, I’m stupid.”

“And you group me in with those?” The
arm beneath her hand stiffened perceptibly.

“Nay. Nay, of course not.” She bit her
lip. “I just….”

He sighed. She knew he was disappointed, but he
lifted her face and dropped a light kiss. “A chance, Saura.
That’s all I ask. A chance. I believe you when you say
someone was here with you.” William’s hand covered
hers, and he reached around her in a hug. “That’s why I
must go and confront him.”

Her excitement faded, returning her cold fear.
“Who?”

“Charles. It has to be Charles,” he
said with sad certainty, as he urged her down onto the bench.

“Why does it have to be Charles? Why not
Nicholas? Or Raymond? Or even someone we don’t
suspect?”

Propping his foot beside her, he leaned on his knee
and said, “Logically, it must be Charles.”

“Oh, logically!” she said with a fine
scorn.

He ignored her contempt and in an even tone agreed,
“Aye, logically. Charles is the only one who needs the profit
my death could bring him. Nicholas already owns half of Hampshire.
Raymond doesn’t need the land. His family owns lands
scattered on the Continent and all over England.”

“Does Raymond?”

“What?”

“Does Raymond own any of this
land?”

“Nay.” He snorted with disdain.
“His parents wouldn’t give up an acre of ground before
their deaths. They keep Raymond dependent on their good nature,
keep him hungry so they can control him.”

“So it could be Raymond.”

“Nay,” he stated firmly. “Nay.
Raymond is my friend.”

In some strange way, that made Saura feel better.
William was wrong about Charles, of that she felt sure. She’d
heard the jealousy in Charles’s voice, heard his unhappiness
about his station, but she could never discern in it anything
beyond pettiness and a longing to hide from his troubles.

Raymond. Raymond was not so easy for her. Layers of
complexity colored his speech. He, too, was jealous of William, not
of his wealth but of his contentment. Raymond was a man driven by
his ambition and his family, cynical and wary.

So that left only Nicholas. Nicholas, her odd
friend.

“Nicholas,” she breathed.

William hesitated. “I did consider him.
Except for one thing. Nicholas would never have killed
Hawisa.”

“Why not?”

Easing her to one side, he sat beside her and
leaned an arm around her shoulders. “He offered to take her
off our hands, and I had given her to him. She was his property,
and he
would never, never destroy anything of
value he owned. He still owns the first penny he was given on
Christmas morn.”

“Hawisa enraged me.”

“Nay, dearling, I’m sorry, but I know
Nicholas. He maintains his peasants with food and wine so
they’ll not sicken and fail to work for him. He keeps his
accounts meticulously. He never trusts a steward or bailiff.”
He hugged her. “He’d have to be mad to have killed
Hawisa.”

“’Twas no accident, you’re
sure.”

She sought the opposite reassurance, but he
couldn’t give it to her. “She fought the man who pushed
her. She had bruises on her neck in the shape of
fingertips.”

“No one truly believed I did it?”

“Don’t be ridiculous. Not even Theobald
thought you did it. As Lady Jane pointed out, you couldn’t
have knocked her down the stairs. She stood head and shoulders
above you and outweighed you by three stone.”

She leaned against him, and he shifted her sideways
so she lay across his lap. “Does your wound bother
you?” she asked.

“Nay. Even your dragon of a Maud pronounces
me cured.” He tightened his hold. “But I do still have
a sickness, a sickness only you could cure.” He lifted his
knee and levered her head close to his, and her eyelids drooped as
his mouth settled on hers. He explored her with the delicacy of a
musician, but that wasn’t what she wanted.