The Protector (12 page)

Dead silence greeted the end of her explanation. She looked up to find five pairs of male eyes looking at her with shock.

Paul found his voice. “You cannot mean to ride with us, my lady.”

“Of course I do. I have before and I will tomorrow.”

“We are not so outnumbered as that,” Haarold said. “Another will take your place.”

“And who will that be? Who else can use a bow as well as I can from a galloping horse? Have you such a man with you, Haarold? Fouke?” She looked at one especially hot pair of eyes. “Morvan? Do any of you disagree with the importance of having archers there?”

“You might be taken,” Haarold said.

“Most of the time I will be within range of the wall. And I will be on a fast horse, without armor to weigh it down.”

The news that she would be unarmored did nothing for her case. Amidst the objections thrown at her, Ascanio finally spoke. “They too will have archers.”

“We will attack before their archers have time to group and deploy. I will wear a hood and not be identified,
so my presence will not affect the unfolding of things. But unless you can replace me with an equally skilled man, I will be there.”

She left them to plan the details. She spent an hour with Ruth and Marguerite, then went down to the yard for some fresh air. As she crossed to the gatehouse Ascanio fell in step beside her.

“If you've been sent by the others to talk me out of joining you tomorrow, do not waste your breath,” she warned.

“Nay, although it was discussed after you left. Haarold is of the opinion that a good beating would make you see sense. Morvan is inclined to agree and feels a certain prerogative in administering the lesson. I wouldn't let him catch you alone tonight. He has more in mind for your rump than last night's caress.”

She pictured that and burst out laughing. “I will be on the alert. You came to warn me?”

“Nay, we must speak of something else. Let us go up on the wall where we can be alone.”

He led the way to the battlements and found a spot away from the guards. He turned to her with a serious expression. She recognized his priest face. “I will hold mass this evening, so we all can pray before our ordeal. Afterwards, there will be another sacrament. Josce and Catherine will be getting married.”

“Married? By whose authority and permission?”

“By their own. They will either do it publicly or privately, but I am the priest and I will witness their vows.”

“They cannot marry without the duke's permission. There will be a fee that we can hardly afford—”

“Anna, Catherine is with child. I had suspected, but they finally told me last night.”

She stared over the battlements. Besides shock she felt more than a little annoyance. Weren't there enough problems without this? Would it have been so hard for Catherine to have waited just a little while longer? But then she remembered herself in Morvan's arms, and her anger disappeared.

“Poor Ascanio, you leave them with this news and then find me. You must think the women in our family are harlots.”

“I think the women in your family are full of life and passion. Actually, there is some gold in this development. If something should happen to you tomorrow, there is nothing to stop Gurwant from turning to Catherine. His plans for you would work just as well with her. But with her married and with child she is safe from him. Even if Josce is gone, she and the estate are secure.”

There was great sense in what he said. She had worried about Catherine's future if she died in an attack that failed.

“You should go and see them. They are waiting for you now in the solar.”

She headed down from the wall walk, steeling herself for a very awkward conference. It didn't help to know that she had lost her right to moral indignation.

The wedding was a poor affair, with the pall of battle hanging over everyone. Josce and Catherine did not seem to notice. Morvan watched their joy in each other, and a hollow spot thumped in his heart. Even the most hardened man could not but be touched by the way they looked in each other's eyes as they joined in love.

A small attempt was made to mimic a feast at the
evening meal. At the end Anna escorted her sister upstairs.

Morvan waited for her to return. When the night grew old and still she did not, he went looking for her.

If she thought that he was going to accept her decision to join the battle, she was mistaken. All day he had been plagued by images of her dead on the field. Fouke and Haarold might not care if she died, and Ascanio might assume that angels protected her, but a tight knot in his stomach had convinced Morvan that he would not let her ride tomorrow.

Without looking, he knew that she was not in her chamber. He found her in the solar, sitting in the large, carved chair, gazing into the hearth fire. Her curls were wild about her head, as if she had just risen from a bed in which she could not sleep. A green robe, overlarge like most of her men's garments, wrapped her loosely. She held her sword, its tip resting on the floor, its hilt lax in her hand.

She looked at the flames as if she didn't really see them. He felt her mood as he'd always been able to since that first night. Sadness and resignation emanated from her. Something else too. Confusion?

She did not even look at him when he stepped into the chamber, as if she had known he was coming.

Aye, she
had
known. They were tied to each other in that way. She might not speak of it, might want to deny it, but it was there. Every time he entered her presence, the sense of raw connection sharpened again.

“Contemplating the morning?” he asked.

“I was thinking of Catherine and Josce.”

That did not surprise him. If he had felt a twinge of envy, what must she have experienced?

“She appeared so mature, suddenly,” she said. “Poised and grown up. And Josce—when did he get so tall and broad? They were children when I returned from the abbey, I'm sure. I find myself wondering how long I have been blind. I am thinking that I live an illusion in believing that I am needed here.”

“They are still young, married or not. You are needed.”

“Nay. I have been letting the freedom seduce me, but I can feel the truth at the door. It will be over soon.”

“Not so soon. Not tomorrow.”

It came out too sharply. That pulled her out of her reverie.

She rose, sword still dragging from her hand, and turned a direct gaze at him, as if suddenly aware that his presence here signaled something significant. The loosely tied robe gaped at the neck and over her legs, revealing too much, but she did not notice.

She looked wild and magnificent.

“I have been told that Haarold thinks I should be beaten into changing my mind about the battle. If you have come for that, you had better have brought your blade.”

“Nay, I found the notion too arousing, and I have given Ascanio certain promises about you.”

She frowned, not understanding. He almost laughed, bitterly. She was so astonishingly ignorant. Unaware of how she affected some men.

Men like him.

She stood there, her very strength a challenge to his most ancient instincts, a denial of all he had been bred to believe and uphold. His reaction was heady and erotic and primitive. The image of that beating
had
aroused him. The thought of her stretched naked over his lap had done wicked things to his blood. It was not the notion of
hurting her that stirred him, but of conquering her. Here was a castle worthy of a siege, and a potential submission that would exalt the victor.

His blood had always known it, but seeing Gurwant react the same way had made him recognize its dark power. That a rich estate went with the woman had become secondary, for both her enemy and her protector. And she had no idea of what both men considered the true prize. None.

He was barely able to resist the pounding urge to disarm her and tear the seductive robe from her body. “I think that an intelligent woman will decide on her own against going.”

“An intelligent woman will have assessed the odds, and know that every man will be needed tomorrow.”

“Aye. Every
man
.”

She sighed, disappointed in him. He didn't care. He could not let her do this.

“I thought that you at least would see the rightness of it,” she said. “If this was your home, and you were me, would you sit in your bower if you could help? I am not some little hoyden who plays with weapons, Morvan. I am the best archer in this keep.”

His mind tried to accept it, but his heart and his very essence rejected her logic. “This is not going to be a hunt, or a minor skirmish against some thieves. Men will die on that field, hacked to pieces in a kind of death that makes the plague look merciful.
You
might die thus.”

Her gaze softened, but did not waver. “I know. I am ready.”

“Are you? Or do you believe that you truly are a saint, and that angels protect you?”

“I have never believed that. I am all too aware that when God makes women saints, he rarely forms them
like me. Now, the morning will come too soon, and we both should rest. I thank you for your concern, but I will fight for my home with the skill and strength given me. Perhaps I was born to be what I am because of this day.”

She turned away to face the hearth.

Dismissing him.

A warrior's pride and fury flooded him. His legs took him across the chamber. He grabbed her hand and forced the weapon to clatter to the floor. He swung her around, gripping her shoulders. “You do not understand. You will not ride tomorrow.
You will not do this.
”

Her eyes narrowed and sparked. That only made his blood hotter.

She tried to twist out of his hold. “
You
do not understand.
You do not command me
.”

She glared at him, all challenge and strength, goading his primitive soul.

Words would not make her submit. Nor would hurting her. But there was another way.

Pulling her closer, he imprisoned her in his arms. Shock flashed in her eyes. She turned her head away.

The press of her body sent fire scorching through him. Her vain struggle fed the flames. He grasped her curls and held her gaze to his.

Slowly, her resistance dulled and her curves molded against his embrace. Her lower lip trembled. “I thought that you had given Ascanio promises.”

“It is not dishonorable to break them for a good cause.” He took that pulsing lip between his teeth. The tremble spread, announcing her vulnerability. It only fueled his heat. He kissed her, pressing her close so that he could feel all of her along his body, her breasts and hips and legs. He demanded more and she did not stop him, but parted her lips.

A chaos of impulses streaked through his fogging sense. Urges to protect and possess and command and conquer spurred his desire. He would bind her to him with passion and pleasure and she would never defy him and wield her weapons on the field.

His hunger turned forceful and hard. He bit down to the hot pulse of her neck, and plunged his hand beneath the parting robe. Softness. Warmth. Her gasping breaths proclaimed his victory. He slid the sagging shoulder of the robe down and tasted her skin. As he caressed her breast, a throaty cry escaped her. The aching pleasure surged in response, saturated with triumph.

She grabbed his hair and pressed her mouth to his ear. “I know what you are about. I know why you do this.”

He looked in her eyes while he whisked his fingers over her nipple. Her gaze reflected the pleasure, and his control of it.

“You expect to make me obedient to your will. Docile.” Her words came out on broken breaths. Ragged. No longer so strong.

“I think only to give you pleasure, so that we both know some life before we face death.” He held her breast and dipped to kiss its hard tip. His tongue swirled. Her whole body moved in response. He used his skill to push her into abandon, and to silence her intruding voice of reason.

“You make my senses half crazed, but I am sane enough still to know the truth,” she whispered. Her fight for control of herself could be heard in her voice. “This is not about giving, Morvan. It is not even about desire for me. It is about taking. Not me, but La Roche de Roald itself.”

He pulled back and looked in her eyes. They glistened
with passion, but also a fierce belief. He did not remove his hand from her body. He would not give that up until he had to.

“This is not about your estate, Anna.”

“You seek only to make me pliant for my safety's sake? I think not, but even so you waste your passion. That might work with your court ladies, but not me. I am made of different stuff. My ignorance makes me weak to you in this, but in nothing else.”

Her warmth still enlivened his hand. He imagined knowing all the heat and pulses, the glory of making this complete. But then his mind's eye saw her leaving him, rising from the bed and donning her tunic and lifting her bow to ride out to face the enemy.

The urge to conquer and tame rushed in again, throbbing an order to finish it. The pounding of his hunger joined in. But a deeper understanding admitted the truth. No matter what happened this night, she would fight on the morrow.

He gazed in her eyes and sought some crack in her determination. Only resolve glimmered back. For an instant, no more, he perceived more than he had seen before. A new knowledge of her spirit streamed into him. The revelation did not shock him. It only confirmed that a mere knight in her service could never keep her safe, even if he claimed her this way.

He lowered his head and kissed her breast again, and seared his memory with its softness and her flexing response.

“If I thought that your resolve could be changed, I would take you and not care why you thought I did it. Perhaps I would even beat you as Haarold suggested. You say that you will join us because your skill is needed, but it occurs to me that this is not about that.” He released
her, and stepped away from the tantalizing closeness. His essence roared with anger at the retreat.

“I am surprised that I did not realize it sooner, Anna, for I know you well. You do not go just because you are needed. I think that you also go because you enjoy it.”