The Maiden and Her Knight (7 page)

C
onnor moaned. His mouth was as dry as the dust of the desert and his head ached like a punishment for his sins. As he opened his eyes, a pain like the devil's pitchfork pierced his left shoulder.

Drawing in a quivering breath, he surveyed his surroundings. Although it was dark, he could make out his bossed wooden chest that normally contained his armor and few personal possessions. His three-legged camp stool was near the small basket of apples he kept for Demetrius. His hauberk,
gambeson
and surcoat were neatly folded and placed upon the stool, with his helmet, sword and belt on top of the pile.

He had no memory of being brought to his tent and put on his cot. Somebody must have carried him here. Those two soldiers who had questioned him about Richard, perhaps.

He looked around, trying to gauge the time of day. The east side of his tent was brighter, which told him it was dawn, or shortly after. He had slept through the afternoon and the night, so he had not eaten since yesterday morning.

Closing his eyes, he heard again the bone-jarring crunch as his lance shattered and relived the instant anguish of the collision. His eyes still shut as if fearing what he might see, he raised his right hand to gingerly feel the bandages and sling around his left shoulder.

He remembered the flare of recognition in Lady Allis's brilliant brown eyes when he had entered the tent, and his relief that she seemed more concerned for him than angry. He recalled the way she had undressed him. He could scarce draw breath as she started to undo his sword belt, and it was not just because of his physical pain.

Later, the agony overwhelmed every other sensation, until the draft she gave him took effect. After that, his memories became disjointed…vague…like the Welsh mountains in the mist.

Her gentle, graceful hands. The little wrinkle of concentration between her shapely brows. Her soft lips pressed together, then parting, as if opening for him in anticipation of his kiss. Then the dreams. Incredible, exciting, tantalizingly vivid dreams.

He had told Lady Allis how much he admired her hair, and how he had wanted to make her smile. Her response had been a slow, seductive smile of pleasure and wonder, as if she had been waiting years for a man to say such a thing.

Half afraid of her rebuke, yet inspired by that smile, he had dared to lean close to her and brush his lips over hers. Softly, gently he kissed her, tasting the mer
est hint of wine and honey on her mouth. Miraculously, she did not protest, but slid her arms about his neck and drew him closer.

Warmth had turned quickly to heat as their kiss deepened. He could not say at whose insistence it began to change, nor did he care. All he knew was that now they were kissing with unbridled, fervent passion. Mouth upon mouth, tongues entwining, he had never known such intoxicating kisses.

He held her so close, her breasts, her hips, all of her seemed pressed against him as if they were as good as naked.

Then, suddenly, they were. His whole body trembled as her desire-hardened nipples touched his bare chest, and his arousal met the tousled hair between her thighs. With a sigh, she arched back, and he wound his hand in the glorious mane of her blond hair before trailing a row of heated kisses down the curve of her chin, her neck, her collarbone. Cupping one luscious breast, then the other, he swirled his tongue about the peaks, the soft sounds of her excitement adding to his own.

They said no words, and needed none as the tension of their need and desire grew. She pushed him back and he fell onto a bed—a wondrous strange bed, round and soft, covered in silken sheets of rich ruby-red shot through with golden threads. Pillows of royal blue and cream cushioned his fall. Above, a canopy of white silk so thin it was almost transparent moved in the breeze scented with roses and spices. Around the bed were fine lamps of burnished gold, their flickering flames lighting marble pillars and tall vases covered in intricate patterns of bold, bright colors. A carpet covered the mottled marble floor and a door nearby
opened to the starry night. It was as if they were in the palace of Saladin himself, as he had so often imagined it when the nights of his journey were long and lonely.

More beautiful than the room and the stars, though, was Allis. Her long blond hair waved about her perfect body as she stood in the lamplight, watching him.

He held out his hand and she took it, her long, graceful fingers curving around his broad, callused ones. Lithe and supple as a cat, she crawled upon the amazing bed and stretched out beside him.

Carefully, slowly, as if she were made of the most rare and precious glass and one false move could shatter her or send her fleeing from him, he touched her. She smiled, but her body trembled, too, as if she were both willing and afraid.

“I will not harm you, my lady,” he murmured as he leaned upon his elbow and looked down at her, his shoulder no longer painful. “I will never harm you.”

“I know.” She brushed a lock of his hair back from his shoulder. “My Samson.”

Her arm curved about his neck and she drew him down, closer and closer, until they kissed again, mouths parted and tongues lightly teasing, tasting, touching.

He moved down to once more pleasure her breasts. “I want to love you. I want to excite you. I want to pleasure you.”

“Yes,” she sighed, her breath coming in short and swift gasps. She writhed as he flicked his tongue over her pebbled nipples. His hands roved over her hips and between her thighs, readying her. Arousing her. He would be easy and gentle, tender and yet as passionate as ever he had been in his life.

Instinctively she parted her legs, and in the next instant, he was somehow between them, raised on his
hands and looking into her face. Her eyes closed, her lips parted, she might have been asleep, except that her body undulated like a reed upon a wave.

“May I love you, Allis?” he whispered, his whole being crying out to do just that, but part of him fearful that she would not want him. That she would open her eyes and in them he would see a look of revulsion that would remind him that he was disgraced and cast out.

She did open her eyes—and there he saw not just passion and desire, but need and understanding, as if she knew all that he was and had done, and accepted him nonetheless.

“Allis, I will love you as no man has ever loved you,” he vowed as he began to gently push inside her warm moistness. “With my heart and my body, with all that I am or ever will be.”

She surrounded him and welcomed him. She accepted him and loved him. Their bodies united, he was made whole again.

Then he felt the ropes of his cot through the thin straw mattress beneath him.

His eyes fluttered open. There was no oriental canopy of silk above him, but only the fabric of his tent. He lay not on silken sheets and cushions, but on a straw mattress and worn pillow.

He sat up. He must have nodded off, to dream again of loving Allis of Montclair.

As joy had washed over him in his dream, so despair came upon him now. It was as if God had given him a vision of heaven, only to allow him to awake in hell, and one of his own making.

Because once, he could have aspired to gain the love and hand of such a woman, before his pride and
vanity, and that of his king, had brought about his downfall.

He ran his hand over his perspiring brow and tried to dismiss the notion that those dreams were deliberately sent to torment him and remind him of what he had lost. More likely they were caused by the potion she had given him.

He frowned. At least he thought all those disjointed memories were only the products of a drug-induced sleep. Telling her about her hair and wanting to make her smile…that seemed different. More real, much less a dream.

No, they were all dreams. They had to be.

He rolled over on his right side and got to his feet. Dizzy, he swayed a moment, then sat heavily. Dreams or not, coming to Montclair was a mistake. Yes, there were rich men here, and great potential for ransom. Yes, he needed money because he had vowed that he would earn a sum equal to all that his father had spent to send him on the Crusade and then some, enough to get his family's estate out of debt and provide a good dowry for Cordelia—but now look where he was. His left arm all but useless, his lance shattered, and a fascinating woman perhaps thinking him some kind of beast.

He should pack up his things and depart at once, to let his arm heal…somewhere else. Not home. Never home, until he came laden with silver and gold to show Caradoc that his time in the Holy Land had had some benefit, after all.

Thinking of his heated words to his brother before he had left Wales two years ago reminded him of the thin state of his own purse at present. He would have
to be careful with what money he had, and he had to buy another lance.

Ignoring the persistent images of Lady Allis, naked and willing, lingering in his mind, he thought about the way his lance had splintered. His weapon might have had some damage he had missed and it was old, but he had examined it the day before and seen nothing amiss. He should have checked it again the morning of the tournament, though—a mistake he would never make again.

These things would explain a broken lance, not one shattering into pieces. There was one way that could happen, and it would mean his weapon had been tampered with.

Every instinct told him the man who had sat beside the Lady Allis at the feast was the culprit. Given the attention the baron paid to Lady Allis, it was clear he was more than a mere friend, or hoped he was. It could well be he knew or suspected that the lady did not share his affections.

Jealousy could make a man do evil things. The baron had ridden straight for him, although he had probably not fought in years. A man determined to prove something, or to rid himself of a rival might do that, especially if he knew his opponent posed no real threat.

Yet if somebody had seen him and Lady Allis in the garden, what exactly would they have observed? Some banter, a kiss on her wrist. Nothing so very impertinent or intimate. The impertinence and the intimacy were all in his mind, and the passion, too, perhaps. Even if she seemed to share it, there had been no words to that effect, and no actions on her part.

There was Sir Auberan, too. They had exchanged angry words, and that might be enough to make him want revenge. Yet even if Auberan had the knowledge, he doubted that young man possessed the resolve and the skill.

Whoever did the deed, when could it have been done? While he slept? While he joined the others in the hall to break the fast before the melee? His weapons had been unattended then.

The first thing he must do was discover if there had indeed been foul play, and to do that he should study the pieces of his lance and look for signs of tampering.

Before he did anything else, though, he should find Demetrius. Demetrius was like a friend, a comrade-in-arms who had been his companion through some of the worst moments of his life.

Moving slowly and more cautiously, Connor again got to his feet. He was less dizzy this time, thank the Lord, and his aching head was getting better, too.

Now, to dress himself. That proved no easy task, but he managed it and with only a minimum of cursing. Once attired in a clean shirt and tunic, his belt around his waist, his scabbard against his thigh and his arm again in the sling, he went outside. The cool air of early morning greeted him, and the grass was damp with dew. Beyond, the massed tents of the other knights, their squires, pages and servants stretched toward the castle wall. Pennants flapped in the breeze, and in the sky above, thin white clouds moved swiftly past. Several servants were already up and about, scurrying about the tents like so many busy bees.

With a grin he spotted Demetrius tethered a few yards away, quietly munching on the grass. The de
strier lifted his head, stamped his foreleg and whinnied a greeting.

“Good day to you, too.” He ran his right hand over his horse's back and examined his body and legs for any wounds. “A better day than mine, at any rate. Not a scratch on you, my friend.”

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw something move. Alert for danger, he whirled around, biting back a Welsh obscenity at the jolt of pain as he reached across his body with his right hand to draw his sword.

A blond-haired, well-dressed lad of about twelve years old stared back at him. Judging by his hair and features, he was a relative of Lady Allis, a brother or cousin.

His left shoulder throbbing, Connor sheathed his sword. “Who might you be?”

“I am…” The boy took a deep breath and drew himself up. “I am Edmond, the son of the earl of Montclair.”

And a proud young Norman lord in the making, as evidenced by the bravado in his green eyes. Connor smiled, for he had been full of bravado, too, when he was that age.

“That is a very fine horse,” the boy said, hurling the words as if he half expected Connor to disagree.

“Demetrius is indeed a fine horse. What makes
you
say so?”

“He's…he's big.”

“Yes.”

“He's strong. You can tell by his haunches.”

Connor nodded. “Very strong.”

The boy chewed his lip and looked worried.

“Come closer and look at his eyes.”

Edmond did and Demetrius raised his head to study him.

“See how bright and shrewd they are? Plenty of big, strong horses there are, my lordling, but rare indeed is one as clever as mine, or as patient.”

“What can he do?”

“Tricks, you mean?”

Edmond nodded.

“Not a one.”

The boy's face fell with disappointment.

“Tricks are not going to do you much good in a battle.”

“How do you know he's clever, then?” the lad demanded.

“He learns fast. But cleverness is not as important as patience.”

Edmond looked skeptical.

“He will not move until he's told.”
Unless his master is having lustful thoughts about a woman and shifts unexpectedly.
“And when he does move, he's steady.”