Time to Love Again (16 page)

“Sister Gertrude is resting after her
travels, and keeps Danise by her side.” Hugo’s smile disappeared.
“I had hoped to see her again before she’s carried off to Chelles,
but I begin to fear that won’t be possible. If you see her, and if
you can do so without Sister Gertrude overhearing, will you tell
Danise she is in my thoughts?”

With Eudon napping, Theu and Hugo went off on
some masculine business having to do with the trip to Agen. India
decided she would try to see Danise. After asking directions of a
servant, she located the guest chamber allotted to the nun and her
charge, which was on the second level of the lodge. Danise herself
opened the door at India’s knock.

“Yes?” She looked at India politely but
blankly, not recognizing her at first. Her expression quickly
changed to a broad smile. “Oh, my. It is you, isn’t it? I was
right. I thought you weren’t a boy.”

“It seems that everyone I met knew,” India
said dryly.

“Not Sister Gertrude. She said the most awful
things about you and Count Theuderic.” Danise began to blush.
Laying one finger across her lips to caution silence, she leaned
backward into the room, speaking in a whisper. “Clothilde, sit with
Sister Gertrude while she naps. I won’t be long, I promise. If she
wakens, tell her I’ve gone to the kitchen to try to coax a treat
for her from the cook.”

“Perhaps that is what we ought to do,” India
said after the door was closed. “Then you won’t be guilty of an
untruth.”

“An excellent idea,” Danise agreed. “I know
the way.”

She was a clever girl. It did not take her
long to convince the cook to fill a flat basket with apples, nuts,
and several kinds of dried fruit intended for Sister Gertrude. The
cook added two still-warm sweet buns, sticky with honey, for the
young women, then shooed them out of the kitchen, saying she had
much work to do before the midday meal was ready.

Leaving the kitchen, India and Danise found a
towering oak tree and sat leaning against its trunk while they ate
their buns.

“Do you like the school at Chelles?” India
asked, wondering exactly what would interest a Frankish girl who
looked to be no more than fifteen or so.

“It’s confining,” Danise said. “There are so
many rules to follow. I try to be good, but secretly I wish I could
be free. How I envy you, dressing in boy’s clothes and traveling
through Saxony.”

“Only a day or two ago, I was envying you,”
India told her.

“Why?” asked Danise, licking honey off her
fingers.

“Because of Hugo.”

Danise grew very still, clasping her hands in
her lap.

“You don’t want Hugo,” she said. “You love
Count Theuderic. Even Sister Gertrude saw it. That’s why she said
what she did, thinking you were a boy and that you and he -. I
should not be saying such terrible things. I shouldn’t even know
about them. My father would be horrified to know how the girls at
school talk sometimes.”

“Your father tried to arrange a marriage
between you and me,” India said, believing it was best to warn the
girl, in case Savarec should raise the matter again. Danise burst
into laughter.

“Poor Papa. He is a wonderful military
commander, you know, but where I am concerned, he can sometimes be
amazingly foolish.”

“Perhaps I shouldn’t interfere,” India said,
“but I think Hugo would be interested in the arrangement for you
that I was forced to refuse. “ She then relayed Hugo’s message.

“I hoped it was so.” Danise’s pretty face
shone with pleasure. “Thank you for telling me. He is often in my
thoughts, too. When next I see my father, I will mention Lord Hugo
to him in the most discreet way. Perhaps by then Hugo will have
made a famous name for himself in the coming campaign.”

They talked on, India asking most of the
questions, for she was genuinely interested in Danise’s life, and
she also did not want to reveal too much about herself. Even with
that self-imposed constraint, it was good to talk to another woman
after being so long in the company of men.

“I ought to return to my room,” Danise said
after a while. “If Sister Gertrude wakens from her nap and finds me
gone, she will punish poor Clothilde as well as me. I hope we can
talk again, Lady India.” Taking up the basket intended for the nun,
she headed toward the lodge.

Left to her own devices, India wandered about
Aachen, trying to resolve the ethical problem brought back to her
mind by Danise’s words about Hugo earning fame in the summer
campaign. She wanted to explain to Theu that the Spanish campaign
would be a disaster that might prove fatal to him and to his men.
But ought she to remain silent about what she knew, and let history
take its appointed course? The question unsettled her, for if she
did what her heart demanded, if she warned Theu about the dangers
he would face in Spain, would his actions then change history,
possibly disrupting the lives of uncounted people right down to her
own day? Or was Hank right in his theory that over many centuries
any changes would be corrected? Thinking about these questions made
her head ache, and she walked about unseeing for a long time.

Only gradually did the peaceful somnolence of
a royal residence when king and court were elsewhere begin to
impress itself on her consciousness. She felt remarkably safe. The
few men or women she met nodded to her politely or exchanged a word
or two of greeting if she spoke first, but no one accosted her.
With a quickening of interest, she explored the lodge itself,
looked into the stables, and inspected the area around the royal
baths, which were suitably larger than the small spring and pool by
Theu’s house. Later she re-entered the kitchen, where she was
informed by the friendly cook that the main meal of the day would
be served almost at once, and it would be a simple dinner of stewed
fish and vegetables because it was a fast day. Following the cook’s
directions, she made her way to the great hall. Theu and several of
his men were there before her.

“I have found a horse for you,” Theu told her
when they were seated at the long trestle table and enjoying the
stew, brown bread, and wine the servants passed around. “She’s a
gentle mount, since you aren’t used to riding.”

“Will you ride sidesaddle now that you are a
lady again?” teased Marcion from the opposite side of the
table.

“I’ve heard that it’s difficult to do,” she
returned, laughing back at him. “I would much prefer to wear my old
clothing and ride astride.”

“You could always mount yourself with Theu
again,” said Marcion, still teasing. “I doubt he’d mind if you
did.”

“We will travel faster if you do ride
astride,” said Theu thoughtfully, rising from the table and pulling
India up with him. “You can practice this afternoon. Meet me at the
stable after you have changed into your boy’s clothing.”

Her tunic and trousers were still a bit damp,
but she put them on after first donning her lace bra and teddy.
From the searching look Theu gave her when she found him holding
both his grey stallion and a smaller chestnut mare, she thought he
might be wondering what she wore beneath the wrinkled green outer
layer of clothing. But he said nothing, confining himself to a
serious explanation of what she would need to know to enable her to
travel at the pace he wanted to set. At last he allowed her to
mount, and together they rode across open meadows and into the
forest, finally stopping beside the lake.

“We leave the day after tomorrow,” Theu
said.

“Will Eudon be ready to travel again so
soon?”

“Eudon will. Will you?”

“Certainly. I’m no weakling.”

“You sound offended. Perhaps you don’t
understand how hard the journey will be.”

“I won’t delay you,” she returned with some
annoyance. “Did I slow you on the way here from Saxony?”

When he did not answer, but sat frowning at
the lake, she repressed the sharp comment she had been about to
make, choosing instead to show him how much she had learned about
riding. Pulling her horse around, she dug her heels into its sides
and took off in the direction of the stable. She bent low over the
animal’s back, feeling the rhythm of its muscles and the wind in
her hair, hearing Theu’s shout and then the sound of his horse’s
hooves in pursuit of her. She was laughing when she came to a stop
in the stableyard, proud that she had stayed on the horse’s back
and delighted to know she had won the impromptu race by a second or
two.

“Get off!” Theu blazed at her, grabbing the
reins out of her hands. “Dismount before I throw you off!”

Too surprised to object, she slid to the
ground while he gave the lathered horses over to the groom, who had
hurried out of the stable to see what the commotion was.

“Tend them well, especially the mare. She’s
been ridden too hard,” Theu said to the groom. Turning to India in
a fury, he added, “You fool! How dare you use a valuable animal in
that way? You aren’t skilled enough yet to ride safely at such a
speed, nor do you know the paths around Aachen. The horse could
have been injured so badly it might have had to be killed. You
might have been thrown. You could have broken your neck. Did you
stop to think of that?” Catching her arm, he dragged her away from
the astonished groom, pulling her in the direction of his
house.

“Theu, let go of me!” Too late, she
remembered the other name his men had applied to him on the day of
her arrival in Francia.
Firebrand
, for his temper and his
fury on the battlefield. “I will not be treated like this!”

But he did not release her, nor did he speak
again until they had reached his door. He wrenched it open, forced
her into the house with rough hands, and slammed the door shut
behind them.

“I ought to beat you,” he said, breathing
hard. “Have you no sense at all? You could have been killed.”

“But I wasn’t,” she responded boldly.
“Besides, I thought it was the horse you were so worried about.”
Her display of courage quickly evaporated before his anger.

“Theu, no. No, please.” Not certain what he
might do, she backed away from him. He followed, stalking her
across the room until she stood with the back of her legs pressed
against the table. She put both hands on the tabletop behind her,
to keep herself from falling onto it.

“Are you determined to drive me mad?” he
demanded. “You burst into my life, destroying my hard-earned peace,
making me want you until I am half blind with passion, and then you
do foolish, thoughtless things that make me fear for your life. Any
other man would beat you, would starve you into humble submission,
would lock you away and forget about you.” He caught her hair in
both hands, stopping her backward motion across the table. “But I
will never be able to forget you, though you leave me now and I
never see you after this moment.

“Your hair, your glorious gold-brown eyes,
your skin smooth as silk.
India
.” His mouth bruised hers,
his hands kept her head where he wanted it so he could plunge his
tongue into her, ravishing her mouth with such terrifying
insistence that when he let her go, her knees buckled and she did
fall onto the table. He straddled her legs, bending over her, his
hands on her shoulders to hold her there.

“I ought to take you here and now,” he said,
“without tenderness, without warming your heart or your body first,
to show you how angry I am and how much I want you. Would that
convince you that I care what happens to you?”

“It would convince me that you are a brute,”
she replied. “And considering how vigorous you were last night, the
table would probably collapse before you had any satisfaction at
all.”

He glared at her for a long, breathless
moment, during which she was uncertain whether he would hit her or
take her by force as he had threatened. Because she was quivering
with tension after his display of dominant maleness, she saw only
his hard grey eyes, missing the sudden upward tilt at the corner of
his mouth. She did not know what to expect when he hauled her
upright with one hand.

“Take off your clothes,” he ordered.

‘Theu, please.” She was shaking, but it
wasn’t with fear; it was because of a growing excitement. Every
line of his body exuded a barely controlled passion that was
directed entirely at her. And she welcomed it – she rejoiced in
it.

“If you do not want to repair the seams
before we set out for Agen,” he told her, “then remove those
garments or I will tear them from you.”

She kicked off her boots and unfastened her
trousers, letting them fall to the earth floor. With his eyes still
on her, she lifted the tunic over her head, laying it and her
necklace on the table.

With one strong arm he raised her off her
feet, so he could press his face into the silky fabric of her teddy
and kiss her breasts. When he began to circle one nipple with his
tongue, the fiery heat of his mouth through the lace made her
pulses pound. She leaned backward, away from him, trying to catch
her breath. He took immediate advantage of the slight distance she
had put between them. Still holding her with one arm, with his free
hand he explored the curve of her abdomen, then moved downward to
the sloping valley that led to the aching spot between her thighs.
There he pushed aside lace and fabric with so purposeful a motion
that she thought he would tear the teddy off her. His fingers
stroked into her, the intimate touch threatening to drive her mad
with longing.

“Please,” she whispered, steadying herself
with both hands on his shoulders. “Please.” She had no doubt about
what it was she was begging for, nor any doubt at all that he would
soon provide it. Taking his hand away, disregarding her distraught
protest at the painful deprivation, he set her on her feet once
more.

“If
Ahnk
comes for you now,” he
muttered, reaching to catch the straps of her flimsy garment and
pull them off her shoulders, “I will slay him without a moment’s
thought.”