Knight Errant (27 page)

Slowly Juliana moved to sit by Robert, placing her hands over his.

One tear slid across his cheek, then another and another. He did not wipe at them or act as if he knew he wept.

“I turned my back on him and went to my sister. She sat weeping by our mother, who had died while I killed her husband. After a year of trying to keep the deaths a secret, my sister retired to a nunnery. I went to King Edward and confessed all to him. There was a trial. I was acquitted, but my father was convicted on more than one hundred charges of murder. Since he could not be punished, his lands were forfeit to the crown, and I became a baron in name only. I was shunned at court, so I asked Edward for a means of clearing my family’s name and perhaps regaining the Ravensmere lands. I became one of his hunters. I used my disgust for my father’s crimes to justify hunting men like him and other criminals. But my soul was sickened by so much cruelty. Edward asked one last task of me before he returned Ravensmere to me.”

“He sent you after me,” she whispered.

Robert nodded. “Edward should have sent someone else. I am no better than the murdering bastard who fathered me. I should have seen long before I did. I should have stopped my father. But I did not, not until far too late. I refused to see the truth, and when I did finally see, I resorted to murder, just like my father. ’Tis my own fault I had to kill him.”

“Robert, you have done enough penance to wash clean a thousand souls. God has surely forgiven you. Now you must forgive yourself.”

He snorted. “What I have done is unforgiveable. No penance can atone for patricide.”

“That is not true.”

He raised his gaze to her. The tears had ceased, but what she saw in his eyes was bleaker than the coldest snow. His jaw hardened. “Believe what you like. Now go to bed.”

“Not while you are suffering.”

He sneered. “I shall never stop suffering. I have done as you asked. I told you the source of my great sin. We will not speak of it again, as you promised.”

She opened her mouth then shut it. She had promised. She would not break that promise now. She would pray for Robert to change his mind.

He turned the chair to face the window, and she settled on the bed. ’Twas a very long time before she slept.

• • •

Winter arrived early in the Alps and each day was colder than the last. Robert’s silence matched the weather. Juliana knew his outward demeanor masked an inner pain that worried her deeply. But Robert remained steadfastly silent. Try as she might, she could not melt the icy control he maintained, nor thaw his chilly politesse. She resigned herself to patience. Surely something would happen to jolt him from his self-imposed misery.

He urged his horse up a frozen slope. Juliana followed, her horse on a leader tied to Robert’s cantle. Her foot was much better now, after days of rest while they rode. The bruises had faded to a pale greenish yellow, and the swelling was completely gone. She could even put weight on it for short periods. All the same, Robert insisted on using the leader, so that she would be spared the smallest strain on her injured limb. “You will heal faster,” he insisted. She had been forced to agree.

Perhaps ’twas for the best. Her injury still slowed her enough that she could never disappear as she had planned without his aid. Too bad she did not still have the papal letters to trade with Edward for her freedom. Her cousin would surely have valued such power over the pope above a mere political marriage with a Scot. Had she the letters, she could give Edward one then distribute the others as planned. But she must stop dreaming of the impossible. She was left with only one course: continue the journey to England and refuse the Scot in person. Draw Edward’s wrath to herself, leaving the king’s gratitude for Robert and a job well done.

Aye, ’twould be wrong of her to leave the man she cared for deeply to face her cousin’s ire. She resigned herself to guarding Robert from as much of Edward’s anger as she could and no longer pressed for the plan she had put so much thought into. Melancholy and hopelessness filled her, for she could not change her fate nor could she help her husband forgive himself.

• • •

For the next several weeks the world narrowed to the space of a saddle and the few spots of rest that Robert allowed. The weather warmed a bit as they left the mountains, but chilled again as they neared the coast. Opportunities to converse were scarce. Robert made every effort to avoid talking with Juliana during the few chances they had. Since the day he told her of his father, she had changed, for she rarely smiled. Robert believed he knew the source of the change. She finally realized he was beyond redemption. ’Twas as well she would be his wife for only a few more days.

The afternoon they rode into Le Havre, he drew a sigh as heavy as the incessant wind and rain. His time with Juliana would be over soon. A short voyage across the channel and up the Thames, then a week at most to end the journey wherever Edward was to be found, and Robert would be free of Juliana forever. Why did he not feel like rejoicing?

He escorted her to an inn, procured a room, and told her to stay put. He need not have bothered. She was asleep before he shut the door.

More tired than he ever imagined possible, he hurried to the harbor to find passage on a ship. He spoke with a dozen captains before he believed what the first one told him. With storm and tide rising, only a fool would lift anchor for anywhere, let alone England, which lay directly in the path of the gale.

Disheartened, he returned to the inn. Too weary even to eat, Robert climbed the stairs. He entered the chamber. It was warm and smelled faintly of heather and Juliana. He draped his sodden cloak near the brasier and studied the thin rug beneath his feet. ’Twas where he should sleep.

His gaze traveled to the narrow bed. Juliana’s form huddled atop the covers where she had fallen before he left for the harbor. Was she cold? Steam rose off of Robert’s clothing as he stripped down to his hose, and his body began to warm faster. Once dry, if he lay down on the bed, he could share his heat with her.

He knew the thought for the excuse it was. He wanted Juliana in his arms. He wanted one more taste of heaven before he gave paradise over to another, safer man. Dare he take what the church recognized as his? He looked once more at the floor. Water pooled on the boards and the thin rug was soaked through from the damp he had brought in with him.

Wise or not, in bed with Juliana was the only available dry place for him to sleep this night. Saint Swithan save him from touching her. Once he did, he knew he would not be able to stop.

He settled beside her and prayed for a dreamless sleep. ’Twas not to be, for Juliana haunted his rest. Juliana laughing, smiling, talking, making love. Juliana in every guise he’d known her. And God forgive him, he could not resist reaching for her. Then he slept.

Robert’s fingertips moved within hot silk. His manhood throbbed painfully. He heard a moan and tried to withdraw his fingers from the heat. His free arm reached for Juliana, and he opened his eyes. Cool, blue pools ablaze with passion smiled at him. Juliana was already pressed tight against him. She shifted her head toward him, and damascene lips moved languidly against his mouth. Her thighs trapped his palm neatly at the brink of her womanhood.

Her busy fingers stroked over his buttocks. Her hips thrust against his hand, demanding, insistent.

He broke the kiss and took a deep breath. “You know not what you do.”

She gave her head a slow shake and licked her lips.

His cock constricted. Passion squeezed his body with delicious agony. His resistance cracked.

“I know exactly what I do. You taught me.”

“You were supposed to be too drunk to remember.”

“Drunkenness is bitter dregs beside the pleasure we shared on our wedding night.” She caught his free hand and placed it on her breast.

Robert jerked his hand away as if scalded. “Cold lust is like too much wine and will leave you empty and aching afterward. The future holds no love for us.”

Her body stilled, and she stared at him for a long time. “Do you think that because you killed a murderer in defense of your sister that you are not worthy of love?”

“That murderer was my father, Juliana.”

“Aye. Your father; not you,” she stated calmly.

“Murderers do not deserve love. I murdered my father. So let there be no more talk of love or futures between us.”

“As you will, Robert, for tonight. Gift me but one favor, and I will ask for no promises.”

“Do you swear?”

“Upon the Cross, the Bible, and my aunt’s tears.”

“Then what is it you wish of me?”

“Make love to me this night.”

He yielded to her hand’s gentle pressure, kissing her with all the passion he had. Juliana met him, measure for measure. Kiss for kiss. Stroke for stroke. She spread herself beneath him like a feast before the prodigal and welcomed him into her.

Love for her welled in his chest, and in that moment, Robert determined to give her everything. To worship at her breasts and humble himself before her woman’s body, for he was truly lost. Against all wisdom and months of effort, he loved her. And Heaven help him, he could never tell her, but he could show her. With his body and his hands, he could give her the gift she claimed to crave, unworthy though he was to give it.

He rose up over her, stroking deep and steady. Her hips lifted to meet him. His body tensed, but he held back as her contractions crested over him. He watched the flush rise from her breasts to her face, treasured the wonder in her eyes as she called out his name in her passion. No woman would ever be more beautiful or desirable to him.

Still throbbing and hard within her, he let her rest. Each panting breath brought a small twinge from her sleek heat, and Robert found his control slipping. He bent to suck at her breast. Juliana arched at the pressure on the sensitive tip. Beyond restraint, Robert thrust. Pleasure cascaded over him in a never-ending cycle of ecstasy and yearning. “Juliana,” burst from his mind and heart as he poured himself into her.

“What do you mean you married her!” Edward’s shout was clearly audible even through the thickness of the audience chamber’s oaken door.

Outside, Juliana cringed inwardly and hesitated before the door to the audience chamber at Vyne Keep. Robert must have just given Edward the news of the marriage. She gathered her serenity and put iron into her smile as she clutched the casket of Robert’s
caffe
beans that had ended up among her possessions. Better to return them to him now—this could be her last chance before her volatile cousin had them both executed. She moved past her escort and opened the door.

“He did it to save my life, cousin,” she said from the open doorway. “You could hardly expect me to marry your Scot if I were dead.”

She stepped into the room and set the casket on a side chair. The room was warm, and Juliana let her shawl drop from her shoulders to her elbows.

Edward cast a withering glance at her then turned to Robert. “You are a highly trained and supposedly intelligent knight. Surely you could have used your sword to save my cousin.”

From his place by the window, Robert shrugged. “I did as I thought best to keep Lady Juliana safe from further harm without destroying England’s connections with the church.”

Refusing to be dismissed, she leapt to Robert’s defense. “In the middle of a papal trial for heresy, a drawn sword is not very useful. ’Tis a miracle he managed to persuade the presiding bishops to spare my life in exchange for marriage.”

Near the fireplace, Edward raised a brow.

Beside him a tall, thick-shouldered man—most likely the Scot—tipped back his head and laughed. Shaggy, carrot-hued hair fell away from the man’s forehead, revealing a face of surprising beauty. His laugh became a smile, and he looked at her with piercing, hazel eyes. “’Tis a story I’ll be after hearing in detail, once we’re wed, milady.”

“And you would be?”

“Sir Colin Marr, son of the Earl of Strathnaver and yer future husband, at yer service.” He grinned and gave a fulsome bow.

Juliana turned her most soothing smile on the Scot. “I regret, Sir Marr, I already have a husband. Thus marriage with you is not possible.”

“I disagree, lass. ’Tis verra possible, and happy I’ll be t’ prove it t’ ye.” He waggled his brows at her, his meaning clear.

“Not while she’s married to me,” Robert bristled, his fists clenching at his sides.

“This is nonsense,” Edward groused. “My cousin’s marriage to Robert will be annulled then we will proceed as originally planned.”

Robert’s face grew red. “Sire, I am afraid an annulment is not possible.”

Edward turned on Robert, cold ire frozen in the king’s posture. “If my cousin is with child by you, I’ll see your head separated from your shoulders for treason this day. That will solve any difficulty presented by this ridiculous marriage, because she will be widowed.”

Juliana stepped between Edward and Robert. “Cousin, you cannot do so. Robert was forced to consummate the marriage as a condition of my release.”

Edward looked past her to Robert. “Is this true? You did not desire to deflower Lady Juliana?”

“What Juliana says is true.”

Robert’s answer hurt immeasurably, and it took Juliana several moments to realize that he neither denied nor confirmed his desires regarding her. He was trying to make this easier on her.

“Hmmm. I see the problem,” the king said. “Nevertheless, with enough palms greased we may still be able to set the marriage aside as long as my cousin is not with child. You are not pregnant, are you, Juliana?”

“To my regret I am not.” She turned in time to observe sadness fly across her husband’s face.

“Ahem,” Marr cleared his throat. “I beg your pardon, but I would prefer a different, less troublesome solution. Bribing church officials could leave doubt about the legality of my marriage with Lady Juliana, and I’ve verra little time to waste to complete this marriage. I must be wed by All Hallow’s or risk losing my heritage to a puirly thought out bet.”

“What would you suggest?” Edward asked.