Captive Rose (44 page)

"So you did," Leila replied with an indulgent
smile, handing him the strips she had just cut from a large bolt of white
fabric. "And what a fine job, too. I don't know how I'd get all my work
done without you, Nicholas de
Warenne
."

As the little boy giggled and plunged happily into his
new task, Leila found herself watching him for a moment.

Truly, what would she have done these past four weeks
without Nicholas? He had become her constant companion during the long days she
had spent in her hospital, his lively
chatter
and
enthusiasm the tonic she needed to keep her mind off her troubles.

She glanced ruefully around the room lit with late
morning sunshine, at the clean-swept floors, whitewashed walls, and tidily made
beds.

Her empty hospital.

Few patients had come through her door, and so far none
had required an overnight stay. There had been some children with scraped knees
and cuts, knights who had drunk too much the night before, a first-time mother
still two months from childbirth who had come in with the usual fears and
worries, a serving woman with cramps, but not much else. And all of these
people had been closely associated with
Warenne
Castle. She had seen no tenants from the surrounding villages and farms. Not
one.

Sighing softly, Leila gazed at Nicholas again. It was
funny how he had opted to spend much of his time with her rather than shooting
a bow and arrow with his friends, chatting with the castle guard, or playing
with his hunting dogs or pet hawk, all things he had said he liked to do. She
had to admit she was becoming quite fond of him, which concerned her.

These last weeks had not changed her mind about
anything. She still clung fiercely to her plan of escape. She had managed to
add some coins to her hidden cache, a portion of the money Guy had given her to
spend when traveling merchants and their caravans visited the castle, and now
she had his late mother's ring as well. Yet altogether it still wasn't nearly
enough to pay her way back to Damascus.

She glanced at the wide, filigreed gold band on the
third finger of her left hand. Three
bloodred
rubies
glinted like crimson fire in the sunlight filtering through the glazed window.

Guy had given it to her on the same day he had told her
about the hospital. Now every time she looked at the ring, she felt a terrible
guilt, but there was nothing to be done about it. She was determined to leave
him, which meant she was determined to leave Nicholas, too. This empty room was
only one small proof that love could not overcome the fact that she didn't
belong here, that she would never be accepted.

Leila threw the child a small smile when he looked up
to find her studying him. He grinned and fell back to his work, his small
fingers fumbling with a strip as he tried to roll it carefully.

Guy must have looked a lot like Nicholas when he was
young, she thought absently, with a light dusting of freckles across his nose
and a shock of fair hair that continually fell over his brow. As Nicholas
swiped it away, his face scrunched in avid concentration, she almost hated
herself for the scheme she nurtured. Yet she could not send Nicholas away,
though she knew it was selfish of her to spend so much time with him. The child
would probably be hurt when one day she mysteriously disappeared.

Leila was besieged by a now-familiar heartache. She did
not even want to think about how Guy would feel.

He had been twice as solicitous of her since that awful
scene with Philip, and there had been many times during their nights together
when she had questioned the plan that drove her. It was so easy to fear she was
making a terrible mistake when she was sated and flushed from passion, his
whispers of love lulling her to sleep.

She was glad she hardly saw him in the daytime. That
would have made things twice as difficult.

Thankfully Guy had been kept busy dealing with the
Welsh insurgents—most of whom had already been caught and punished, their
rebellion crushed—and training his knights so they might be ever ready for
warfare. Yet though their paths rarely crossed except in the evening, memories
of his fervent night whispers haunted her every waking moment, branded as they
were upon her heart.

Leila could not suppress a sigh as she touched the
glittering ring. Being in love with a man she was desperate to leave was the
cruelest torture.

"All done!" Nicholas chirped, shattering her
melancholy reverie. He looked at the bare table in front of her. "Aren't
you going to cut
any more
?"

Leila gave a small laugh which sounded hollow to her ears.
"I guess I don't work as fast as you." Setting her cutting knife and
the bolt of linen on the table, she rose from her stool and fetched his
fur-lined jacket from a peg near the door. "I have a better idea,
Nicholas. Why don't you run to the kitchen and tell the cook to send some hot
cider and honey rolls to the hospital? We've both worked so hard this
morning,
I'd say we deserve a treat to tide us over until
the midday meal. What do you think?"

Nicholas bobbed his head, hardly able to stand still as
Leila helped him into his jacket. He ran to the door, calling out to her over
his shoulder, "If you cut more bandages, Lady Leila, don't roll them. I
want to do it when I get back!" Then he flew outside, the room becoming eerily
silent as if much of its life had been sapped by the child's departure.

Shivering, Leila closed the door firmly against the
brisk wind outside. She had never experienced such low temperatures in
Damascus, even at the height of winter. Here, though it was only late fall, she
always felt chilled, and on the numerous days when it rained she was miserable
indeed.

Guy had told her that colder, wetter weather was yet to
come, but she couldn't imagine it growing any worse. He had also said snow
might fall, at least in the hills. The only snow she had ever seen was the
year-round frost atop mighty Mount
Kassioun
, and that
only from a distance.

Another first among many, Leila thought with a sense of
resignation, donning her fur-lined mantle against the chill. She suspected she
might very well see a winter at
Warenne
Castle unless
her cache of coins grew at a faster rate.

Wondering how she might accomplish that, Leila picked
up the large coal bucket near the door and went to each of the five braziers
set about the room, replenishing them as needed. Straightening up from having
filled the last one, she was suddenly assailed by dizziness and dropped the
bucket. Coals rolled across the planked floor.

"Oh, no she groaned, sinking down on a bed flecked
with coal dust. Resting her flushed face in her hands, she had the very real
sensation that she was going to retch. She tried to swallow it down, but—

She upturned the bucket just in time.

When she was finished a few moments later, she knew
that her worst suspicion was confirmed. There was another challenge she must
face. She was pregnant.

She had hoped against hope that she was wrong when she
missed her monthly flux two weeks ago, but the noticeable changes in her body
all pointed to the same conclusion. She could have read them from one of her
father's medical texts on childbearing—the swollen tenderness in her breasts,
her unusual sluggishness, her pale complexion. . .

She glanced miserably at the bucket. Now this.

She rose shakily and walked over to the tall cupboard
where she kept all her medicines, well out of Nicholas's reach, and searched
through the vials and small crocks until she found the cardamom. Using a pestle
and mortar, she crushed the seeds into an aromatic powder,
then
stirred in some cool water. She didn't bother to pour the mixture into a
goblet. Lifting the pestle, she drank it down, hoping the
antinauseant
would act quickly.

It did. In minutes she felt better. She dampened a
cloth and wiped her face and mouth, grateful that her lightheadedness had all
but disappeared. After pulling clean linen from a low drawer and grabbing a
broom, she went back to the bed, anxious to clean up the mess before Nicholas
returned. She was so intent on changing the coal dust-blackened sheets that she
wasn't aware that the door had opened until she felt a cool breeze on her back.

"Close the door, Nicholas," she said, "and
sit down at the table. I'll be right there."

"What happened, Leila? There are coals all the way
to the door."

She gasped, shoving the offensive bucket under the bed
as she whirled around.

"Guy!" It still felt strange to call him by
his first name, but he had insisted she do so when he gave her the ring. She
glanced from the telltale coals at his feet to his concerned face. "I—I
tripped, 'tis all," she stammered, trying to regain her composure. "While
filling the braziers. But I'm fine. Really."

"The servants should be doing that for you,"
he said almost sternly, shutting the door and walking toward her. "Or did
you dismiss them again?"

Leila managed a nonchalant shrug, though his unnerving
presence made her feel
anything but calm. He seemed to dwarf
the room.

"It looked to be another slow day, so there was no
sense in keeping them here. I thought they might have other things to do."
That was true enough. During the first two weeks she had spent at the hospital,
she and the three serving women Guy had chosen to help her had done a lot of
staring at each other. Now she just sent them away in the morning, saying she'd
call upon them if needed. Attempting to change the subject, she added, "Have
you and your men finished training so soon?"

Guy
nodded,
his face grim as
he surveyed the empty room. "Nicholas stopped to watch us on his way to
the kitchen. When I asked him how your morning was going, do you know what he
said? 'No sick people today, Papa.' I'm convinced my tenants have been warned
away from your hospital, but I can't confront the man I believe to be the
culprit until I've had a chance to find out if there's any truth in my
suspicion."

"Philip?" she asked softly, though she
already sensed it was he. He had avoided her as if she were a leper since they
had all stood together in this room.

"Yes. I'm taking some of my men with me into the
villages to ask questions. I should know by sunset if Philip has broken our
agreement." Guy reached out and stroked the side of her face. "Are
you sure you're all fight? You're so pale."

It was all Leila could do to meet his eyes. "Yes."
She was relieved when Guy drew her into his arms and couldn't read the truth in
her eyes.

He must never know about the child, she vowed
fervently, her cheek pressed to his heart. He must never know. Somehow she
would have to leave before he ever found out . . .

"Ah, Leila, you've done such a wonderful job
preparing this hospital," Guy said, hugging her tightly. His voice grew
impassioned, his body tense. "No one shall take this from you. That I
promise. No one."

She closed her eyes as he lifted her chin, his mouth
moving over hers with such poignant intimacy and passion that she could not
help but respond. He knew how to ply her, how to set her blood on fire, and he
did so now, kissing her until she was breathless.

Her arms snaked around his neck and she leaned against
him, her fingers threading through his sweat-damp hair
.
 
The chain mail beneath his
surcoat
pressed into her tender breasts, but she didn't
care, the sensation arousing a desire that ever burned for this man.

She felt his strong hands cup her bottom and she
gasped, thinking wantonly of the night he had been so hot for her that he had
not waited to remove all of his armor. His engorged shaft, when freed, had been
as hard and relentless as the metal sheathing his body, their merging so
intense that the memory of it filled her even now with the wildest yearning.

Would he take her now as he had that night? Oh, please.
Please . . .

Her disappointment was painfully acute when he drew
back from her, and she dazedly opened her eyes to find him smiling.

"You tempt me beyond all endurance, wife. My body
longs for your sweet softness . . ." His short laugh was more a groan, and
he captured her in his fierce embrace. "But I fear our passion must wait
until my return. I think we would soon be interrupted by a young boy bringing
spiced cider for his mother."

Leila froze in his arms. "Nicholas called me his
mother?"

"Yes. You've won his heart. Hasn't he told you?"
She shook her head, stunned.

Guy chuckled as he played with an ebony tendril that
had come loose from her braid. "Give him time. He is cautious with his
emotions, as was his father until he met his own lady fair." He pushed her
slightly away so he could look in her eyes, his expression serious. "But
once the love is given, it is forever."

Dear God, why, why was he saying this to her? Leila
thought wildly. It was one more band of iron around her heart. One more bond
she must break to leave him.

She saw a flicker of pain cross his striking
features—because she did not answer?—but it was quickly gone and he kissed her
again. This time it was a kiss of farewell.

"I must go," Guy said, releasing her slowly
and with obvious reluctance. "Langton,
Burnell
,
and a few others are waiting for me by the gatehouse. Until tonight, my love."

He strode to the door, calling out to his son, who
suddenly appeared on the threshold, "Ho! There you are, Nicholas. And
where is the hot cider you promised the beautiful lady?"

"Cook is bringing it," Nicholas replied,
flourishing what looked to be the last of a honey roll. "And more
pastries, too!" Giggling, he popped the bit into his mouth and noisily
licked his fingers.