The Protector (9 page)

“Girls often reach their height before boys. And you are not homely.”

It was a chivalrous denial of the obvious truth, but it was kind of him to try. “I remember only one thing distinctly about his face. His eyes. They were pale blue, vacant and cold. The feast went on well into the night. Finally, the castle slept.”

“What happened?” His voice came tight and low, as if he guessed the rest.

“I remember being asleep, and then they were there. Gurwant and his father. His father held me down, his hand over my mouth. He told Gurwant that he wanted the sheets well bloodied so the betrothal could never be annulled.”

Morvan placed a hand on her arm. His eyes burned and his mouth formed a hard line.

“I fought them. Finally, Gurwant told his father that he couldn't. I thought he had taken pity on me. I realize
now that he didn't mean that at all. And so his father decided to do it for him. I was in my own chamber in my father's castle, but no one could protect me but myself.”

“And did you protect yourself ?” It sounded like he hoped that she had.

“Aye. I managed to move my hand to a table beside my bed where my dining dagger lay. I stabbed his father with all of my strength. In the back, below the shoulder. He never used his sword arm again. I caught Gurwant too, and sliced his face. And then, my mouth free at last, I screamed and screamed.”

She could hear her quick breath and pounding heart. She could feel the terror anew, but she would never let it own her like it had that night. Not ever again.

“My brother heard. He burst through the door with his sword. I kept screaming until my father found us, my brother's sword at Gurwant's neck, the sheets well bloodied indeed, but not with my blood. When his father could travel, Gurwant's family left, but without me.”

“And the betrothal was annulled after all?”

“Not right away, and not because of that night. My father had it annulled by the bishop two years later. By then the succession war was raging, and he wanted no ties to the French-allied barons. I think that Gurwant's father wanted my maidenhead because he guessed that when the old duke died the lords would split in their alliances, with the result that my father would not go through with the marriage and the Beaumanoir family would lose my rich dowry.”

“Could they have bribed the bishop and had the annulment set aside?”

“My brother thought of that. It is why Drago went to Avignon. He brought back a papal annulment. It cost him his life.”

Morvan battled an explosive anger. His hand still lay on her arm and he felt her tremoring. Facing these memories, he knew, had cost her dearly.

He pulled her to him and wrapped his arms and cloak around her. When he eased her head to his shoulder, his thumb felt the wetness of silent tears. She didn't resist, but lay against him, her hands on his chest.

“You have the papal letter?”

“Aye. I sent copies to Gurwant and to the bishop. I was sure that would end it for good.”

With an honorable man, it would. But her brother's death had raised the stakes. She was the heir now.

“Once he defeats us, he means to kill me. For what I did to his father and him.”

He rubbed his cheek against her hair. “He does not plan to kill you, Anna. You are the key to his plan. He seeks to enforce his old claim, so the estate becomes his and his hold on it cannot be undone. If he takes the keep, he will declare the papal letter a forgery. While it is sorted out in Avignon, he will have you here. If he gets you with child, the annulment will not stand.”

He could imagine what would happen if Gurwant got his hands on her. There was more than a lust for property driving the man. She had shown him as weak and impotent in front of his father. She had marked his face with her blade. He might well want her dead, but would exact his revenge in other ways.

Her fear of this other fate must have been bigger than that of death, for it demolished her defenses. She huddled closer. He held her tightly, swaddled in his cloak. The mood from the shelter, so open and close, surrounded them as surely as the wind and wool.

He was aware of the slight curve of her hip under his
arm, and the warmth of her slender back, and her breath near his neck. His senses filled with her.

He reined in his impulse to caress her. He was not well practiced in self-denial, but he would not betray her trust this night. Still, he wanted to kiss the face nestled close to his, and stroke the strong body curving naively against him. He wanted to take possession of her, and with her the right to defend her.

Nay, he wanted more than that. Not all of his reactions to her were gentle like the one restraining him now. But tonight her weakness spoke only to his protective instincts, and not to the darker, more primitive ones evoked by her strength.

“You must leave tomorrow,” he said. “Ascanio can take you back to the abbey.”

“If I leave, the estate will be surrendered.”

“I will stay and defend it for you.”

She pulled away. “You are one man. The others will not fight for a lost cause. If the lord has run away, why should they risk their lives? I am not the lord, but I am the closest thing. You know that I cannot go. It would mean abandoning La Roche de Roald and its people to the Beaumanoirs and the French. Brittany might never regain it.”

She regained her composure, and her strength. She set off for the stairs. He walked her back to her chamber. At the door she turned to him. “I did not think that we could have a friendship like I share with Ascanio, but I was wrong.”

He looked down at her troubled face. And then, as he had done that first night, he placed his hands on her shoulders and lowered his lips to hers. He did it because he wanted to taste her. He did it to seal the friendship
she spoke of. But he also kissed her to remind her that he, unlike the good Ascanio, was not a priest.

In her distraction over the more immediate threat, she was oblivious to the message. “Maybe I worry for naught. Perhaps he does not come here.”

H
E CAME
.

Anna watched the army move toward La Roche de Roald, banners flying.

Her knights flanked her on the southern wall walk. Fouke and Haarold, the vassals of the adjoining fiefs, had both answered her summons, bringing a handful of men each. Haarold was a tall, bony man in his middle years with a permanent scowl carved on his face and a censorious set to his mouth. Fouke in comparison seemed placid and smiling, his squarish body going a little fat, his pale scalp gleaming through thinning pale hair.

Haarold had also brought his son Paul, who had just earned his spurs. The black-haired, heavy-browed young man had spent the better part of the morning staring at her. She had spent most of that time in council with the
knights, making it clear that their sparring for leadership was pointless because she would make the decisions.

The front lines of Gurwant's army drew closer. She could see flashes of armor and weapons, and the black and crimson of his coat of arms on the banners.

Over a hundred marched with him. She had but fifty, and that many only because Morvan's men, finally free of quarantine, had agreed to fight in exchange for silver. She had sent Carlos to Brest to beg aid from the English garrison there, but he had not yet returned.

Three hours later, encased in armor from head to toe, she positioned her stallion in front of the gate between Fouke and Haarold on her left and Ascanio and Morvan on her right.

The portcullis slowly rose. Two servants carrying her banners led the way across the drawbridge. On the field five mounted men approached. The middle one would be Gurwant.

She squinted at him in the afternoon sun.

The man bore little resemblance to the youth who had stretched up to give her a betrothal kiss. He was as tall as Morvan, a full head higher than his knights, and possessed a breadth of shoulder to match. Pale blond hair swept back from a sharp peak on his forehead and reached to his chin. He was handsome in a forbidding way, his face made harsher by the thin long scar slashing across his left cheek.

He stopped fifteen paces away. And then she knew that this tree of a man was truly her adversary, for the eyes that surveyed her knights looked pale, blue, and cold as ice.

Morvan and Haarold stepped their horses forward,
and Gurwant's flanking knights did the same. The parlay formed a rough circle.

“I am Gurwant de Beaumanoir. I have come to speak with the Lady Anna de Leon.”

Fouke leaned forward in his saddle. “You have brought an army for a conversation? What do you want with the lady?”

“She is my wife.”

“She is not. Your betrothal was annulled. Twice. Last by the Pope himself. A copy of the document was sent to you.”

“I know of no annulment. Is there a witness here to it? Nay? I would speak with the lady. Let me enter or call her out. Tell her that her husband has come for her.”

Anna lifted her arms and pulled the helmet from her head. Her blond curls tumbled out, the breeze drying their dampness.

For the briefest moment Gurwant's face showed surprise, then he examined her with narrowed eyes.

“I did not expect to find you armored. You should be glad that I have come if your brother's death has forced such unnatural behavior on you. When La Roche de Roald has a lord again, you will be free of this.”

“The steel on my body matches the steel of my resolve that you will never have La Roche de Roald, Gurwant.”

He moved his horse up beside her. “I will have the castle, Anna. And I will have you.” He reached out and caught one of her flying curls in his gauntlet.

She sensed her knights moving to protest. She raised her hand to stop them, and extricated her hair from Gurwant's hand.

Those icy eyes examined her face. “You have changed. Calmer. Beautiful.”

“As have you.” It annoyed her that he would try to woo her with lies in such a public way. “I see that you've grown.”

“Aye.” His gaze drifted down her long length. “Enough man even for you.”

She held her tongue, but the memory of his impotence must have shown in her eyes, for his own narrowed dangerously on her.

“Yield now. I know that your defenses are pitiful. You can save your people.”

“Regarding my defenses, things have changed. Look you to the wall, and the number of bows sighted on you now. This castle has never fallen, Gurwant, and it will not fall to you.”

He smiled. “You will yield. Before the week is out you will be in my bed.”

His gaze raked the length of her body. He raised his hand and brought it down hard on her armored thigh. The sound of metal impacting metal rang loudly over the cold, silent field. “Look at us, lady. We were born for each other. Think of the sons we will make.”

He backed up his horse, then turned and rode away with his knights.

After the evening meal, Anna escaped to her chamber for some solitude. The castle seemed very full to her, what with the additional men in the barracks and Fouke and Haarold crowding the high table. She had grown accustomed to privacy and silence at the abbey, and now found that she could not think clearly without it.

She sat on her bed and brushed a clump of hair smooth, then rolled it toward her head. Grabbing some
pins from a box by her lap, she tried to secure the hair to her scalp.

She heard a scratch on her chamber door and called back permission to enter. That would be the servant returning to say that she could not find Catherine. Catherine was getting harder and harder to locate these days.

She continued sticking the pins into her hair, trying to hold the fat rolls in place at the same time. Errant curls kept escaping her grasp. This really was a job for two people, which was why she wanted Catherine.

Her back was to the door, but she heard the servant's footfall. “Come here. Hold this in place for me.”

Hands took the roll of hair and held it firmly against her nape. She stabbed in several pins, then felt the halo of hair that she had created around her head. Very proper. Very sedate. She lifted a thin veil and pinned it on, letting the silk drift down her face.

“What do you think?” she asked, turning.

No servant stood there. It was Morvan.

She felt herself blush. “What are you doing here?”

“Ascanio sent me. He himself was called away by Josce. There is some news. The other knight in my troop, John, has gone over the wall.”

“No doubt he thought his chances better with Gurwant. But, if he is not loyal, it is better to have him gone.”

“Aye. The other news is more heartening. Your groom Carlos just returned. He sailed up from Brest. He brought ten longbowmen, and they are quartered in the town. They will look for movement from Gurwant's camp and come out if they see an attack. The town will not commit their own guard, but Carlos said that a merchant offered to pay any man who would fight for you. Maybe five or six will do so, no more. They are not soldiers.”

“Still, that is indeed heartening.”

He eyed the veils and ribbons strewn on the bed, then the serviceable light brown gown that she wore. It was fitted at the shoulders, from where it flowed down in full soft folds. Snug lacing closed its high neckline. “What are you doing?”