Virginia Henley (43 page)

After accepting George’s offer, Edward moved his new combined army of eight thousand men outside Coventry, ready for the fight. Suddenly George suggested that Edward send a conciliatory message to Warwick to settle everything peacefully. Ravenspur wanted to run his sword between his eyes, but he could not, for Edward needed him. Roger felt a great relief when Edward refused to parley. “If Warwick comes out of Coventry and surrenders, I will give him his life.”

When it became clear that Warwick would not surrender yet would not come out of Coventry to fight, Edward headed to London to seize mad King Henry. The mayor threw open the gates, and suddenly everyone in London was Edward’s friend. He marched straight to the bishop’s palace and put Warwick’s brother, the Archbishop of York, in the Tower. Mad King Henry followed him there. Edward’s next stop was Westminster Sanctuary, where he brought out his Queen and the princesses and prince she had borne him. Now that he had secured London, he was ready to march upon Warwick and settle things once and for all. Warwick had now marched his army to St. Albans, only twenty miles away. This time one of them would be finished forever!

Edward selected three thousand men as a vanguard to lead the attack. He placed Richard in charge of them; Ravenspur was his second-in-command. It was a colossal responsibility but a coveted honor. It went without saying that Edward would ride in the front row of the vanguard.

Roger bade his men make camp; in the darkness they
could hear the noises of the enemy encamped nearby. His mood swung from desolation to elation as he sat beside his campfire. He realized the irony of the situation: Edward, Richard, and himself had all been trained by Warwick, and he remembered his lessons to the letter.

He got up and moved among the men, urging them not to get drunk the night before the battle. He cursed the noisy, restless stallions and thought,
By God, Roseanna is right Geldings would be better-behaved mounts for the knights.
Suddenly his senses were filled with Roseanna. He longed for her so much that he vowed no power on earth would keep him from her.

The night turned damp and cold, and though he was freezing, he sweated inside his armor. He moved among the men and warned them against having doubts. They must be convinced that they would win the day; to think otherwise was to invite death. He advised them to conserve their strength and energy when the battle was joined. It would be a long day, in which endurance and persistence would count for more than wild acts of bravado. “Stand solid, and parry everything that comes at you,” he repeated over and over. He thanked God for the experienced faces he picked out of the crowd, for a lot of these young men would go into battle for the first time. The horror they would experience would be beyond belief.

He avoided telling them about the red mud of battlefields—mud made from the blood of men fallen and crushed underfoot. He did not tell them of the numbing exhaustion that came after a battle yet banished sleep for days because of its horrors.

When dawn arrived, a thick fog blanketed the whole area so he could not see his hand before his face. It
changed nothing! They would still attack first, going by sound and feel rather than sight.

Roger came up against his first enemy with such force, their breastplates crashed, and it knocked the wind from him. His sword dripped blood; he kept his sword arm high, and soon his leather gauntlets were soggy with sweat and blood. His arm ached, his lungs were afire, and his eyes stung from his own salty sweat. His brain dimly told him that if his feet encountered something hard, it was armor; if something soft, it was flesh.

His strength was ebbing. Then miraculously a trumpet rally told him the enemy had faltered. He was filled with a second wind and renewed vigor. Gradually, inch by inch, yard by yard, he gained ground until the enemy was on the run, and then he saw the enemy’s retreat with his own eyes as the fog lifted. He saw Edward’s yellow hair when he removed his helmet and ran over to him. He stood above Warwick’s body, and he was weeping. Roger stripped off his own helmet. His face was wet from blood and sweat and tears. It was over! Praise God, it was over once and for all!

The King looked at him and said, “You are wounded, Roger. Get you to a surgeon.” Until that moment he had been unaware that his left arm hung useless and bloody, but now he began to feel the burning agony of a deep sword thrust through his shoulder. Common sense told him to obey Edward, for he knew from experience that a wound tended immediately healed quicker; yet a stronger force within him compelled him to go to Roseanna.

He mounted his horse and headed away from the army. He was driven by a madness to reach home. Ravenspur lay eighty miles to the north. The pain came and went, washing over him in waves. Sometimes he was
barely conscious, yet relentlessly he pressed on. He was within sight of home before he allowed himself to fall unconscious from his horse.

Roseanna was at Ravenspur. She had been scanning the horizon hourly for signs of her husband. She saw the black stallion and saw Roger pitch from the saddle, and she was out of the hall, running immediately, crying for the stablemen to aid her.

Roger was filthy and stank to high heaven. He was covered with dried sweat and caked blood. His black hair was encrusted with filth and was plastered to his head. They carried him in unconscious, and with the help of Kate Kendall and James Burke she stripped and bathed him. He gained consciousness fast enough when she began to tend his wounded shoulder but he lay without flinching as she trimmed the gangrene with her sharp knife. She signed to Kate to pass her the goblet of wine; she held it to his lips and dared him to protest against the sleeping draught.

He took only one mouthful, then his hand came up to push it away. His fingers brushed her hand and suddenly she couldn’t bear to share him with anyone else. She lifted her eyes to the others in the room and said, “Thank you for your help; I would like to be alone with my husband now.”

Reluctantly they left their newly returned lord and Roseanna began to sponge his good shoulder and wide chest.

“You called me your husband.”

“Yes, of course, that’s who you are,” she said, as if she were stating the most obvious truth to a simpleton.

“But what about Lincoln?” he asked, gritting the words through his teeth.

“Oh, my God!” She stopped sponging his chest. “I didn’t even think of him! Is he all right?”

“I can’t be certain, but I thought I saw him retreating from the battle with Warwick’s men.” He watched her face closely. When he saw relief there and nothing more, his heart began to lighten.

“I do hope he’s safe. He’s such a good man. Roger,” she said slowly as she met his gaze, “you must understand I needed protection desperately. That’s why I married him. I don’t want to hurt him, because he’s shown me only kindness, but I am not his wife. I’m
yours.
You are my heart’s deepest desire.” She bent down and kissed him with all the emotion she was feeling.

Roger groaned with happiness and put his good arm around Roseanna’s waist.
Roseanna still loved him. She had chosen him.

Ravenspur’s dark eyes burned into hers.

“By God woman, your kiss makes me want to jump from this water and ravish you,” Roger said.

She laughed softly. “One thing is sure, my husband, I am safe from you this night.”

“Safe from me?” he demanded. “By God, you’ll never be safe from me. Get me from this damned water and bind the wound so I can take you to bed and drive Lincoln out of your system!”

“Roger!” she scolded as she blushed. She didn’t think for one moment that he would carry out his threat, but she was suddenly as shy as a bride before him. She helped him from the water and dried him thoroughly. As her hands touched him intimately his shaft rose up rigid to show her that he was indeed capable. With tender hands she padded and bandaged the wound, binding his arm
securely to his chest so that it would remain immobile until it healed.

Her heart was lighter than it had been in a year. Spring was here and summer would follow, when every garden and stone wall in England would be riotous with roses. It promised to be the happiest season she had ever known. Suddenly she was overwhelmed with how much this man meant to her. He was the only man who had awakened her sensuality and taught her how to love. She could never love another as she loved this man; all others, even Line, an earl of the realm, who had been so good to her, paled in comparison. Her heart sang with her great good fortune in having Ravenspur returned to her. Dear God, never take him away again, she prayed.

Suddenly she felt his dark eyes on her. “How do you feel?”

He leered at her. “I’ll show you if you take me to bed.”

“You’re incorrigible,” she scolded, but she undressed and joined him in the vast bed. He was so strong-willed, so challenging and damned exasperating, but she didn’t want him any other way.

He gripped her strongly with his good arm, his hand cupping her breast possessively, and she felt him hard and swollen against her thigh. Suddenly she realized with clarity that he was about to reclaim her and brand her as his woman. She was alarmed at his roughness, not for herself, but for fear he would reopen his wound.

“My love,” she whispered, “do you remember how you loved me that first time? How you conquered me with kisses until I was helpless with love?”

He smiled into the darkness. Roseanna needed a little time to get used to him in bed again. He kissed her slowly, gently, softly; short quick kisses and long, slow,
melting kisses which showed her he remembered every detail of their first delicious mating. At first she moaned with pleasure but soon sighed in frustration. She wanted him more than anything in the world, wanted to feel again the fullness of him inside her, but she knew that with his wound he should not make love to her. His mouth scorched her temples, her closed eyelids, and the corners of her trembling mouth, then he plunged his tongue inside to taste her to the full.

“Roger, you are wicked to arouse me so; you know we mustn’t do this.”

With his lips against her throat, he chuckled. “My wound isn’t a mortal one, so prepare to defend yourself!”

“By God, I’ve had to defend myself against your wicked lust from the first day I woke up in your bed and you tried to ravish me!”

His hot mouth found her breast and he licked it hungrily and sucked on the nipple. His hand slipped between her legs, and she began to writhe and moan with desire.

“My
lust?” he whispered, covering her mouth with his so that she could not deny his accusations. “What about yours?”

“Mmm,” she managed to reply as she arched high against his hand.

“Admit it to me, Roseanna. Admit it to me and shame the devil!” he demanded playfully.

She groaned. She knew he would not be denied, and thanked God for it. She touched his ear with the tip of her tongue and whispered very, very low, “I’m as hot as you are, my darling Ravenspur.”

Her words inflamed him with passion. He swept her beneath him with such towering strength she was breathless and not a little afraid. He mounted her and drove
himself into her. For one small moment he hurt her and she cried out in pain. Then she opened herself to him totally and felt exquisite pleasure at the way he filled her so deeply.

Rapture pulsed through their bodies as they clung to each other in an embrace they hoped would never end. Each touch was fire, each word was bliss, each movement brought them closer to the consuming cataclysm that left her weak in his arms, and him totally exhausted. He buried his face in her hair to savor its fragrance and then they were lost to the world, bound by their bodies, their hearts, and their souls. Bound by an everlasting love.