Then, as if that wayward notion suddenly opened a gate of awareness, he became conscious that her round bottom was nestled between the juncture of his legs…and that her breasts rose and fell with the rhythm of her breathing just above where his arms enclosed her slim body…and that if he were to move his leg, it would brush against her thighs.
“Mama died from a fever two autumns after we arrived at the abbey.” He felt the slightest shift in her, a tensing, almost imperceptible.
“Where do we travel?” Madelyne’s question, her first words to him that were unprompted, was so unexpected that he answered without thinking about why she changed the subject.
“We are a day’s journey from my holdings at Mal Verne. Anight we shall sleep at a monastery near York.” Though he had used the king’s name to impress upon Madelyne the importance of her compliance, Gavin did not plan to make haste to Henry’s side. In fact, the king had planned to leave Westminster in the week since Gavin himself took his leave. Knowing that the royal party traveled quickly and often unexpectedly, Gavin knew ’twas more efficient to send word to Henry and await his instructions, rather than attempt to track him down. As well, he’d not been to Mal Verne for nearly five moons, and ’twas nigh time he stayed there for a fortnight or more to see how his steward fared.
“Will we arrive anon? I fear my maid is becoming weary.” Madelyne pointed with a black-stained hand to the pair on the destrier that rode just in front of them.
Gavin looked and saw that the young woman called Patricka had slumped to one side in Clem’s arms, and that he looked as uncomfortable as she did. Urging Rule forward with his knees, he approached them and called to his man. “Do you wish to put her with someone else for a spell?” He looked closer at the young woman, whose face was upturned and her neck propped on Clem’s meaty arm.
Patricka’s round, cheery face was slackened in sleep, and her apple cheeks jounced slightly with each pace of the stallion. Her mouth, pursed into a berry-like swell of pink, parted just enough for a low snore to come forth, and her tip-tilted nose flared with each audible breath.
“Nay, my lord. There is no need to awaken the maid.” Clem responded with a note of indignance, as if his vanity had been bruised by Gavin’s suggestion that he could not manage the young woman.
“As you wish.” Gavin raised an eyebrow, but forbore to comment further. “The monastery is no more than a half league ahead, and we will soon find our beds.”
Madelyne forced her stiff legs to move. She could not recall ever being in such pain as she was, having spent much of the day in a saddle. Her back hurt from the effort of remaining sword-straight so that she would not brush up against Lord Mal Verne, and her arms ached from clutching the pommel.
She was grateful, however, that he’d chosen a monastery for their place to rest, as she was in deep need of a chapel, and some moments of peace.
’Twas after their meal—an unexciting affair, much plainer than that which had been served at Lock Rose Abbey—and after seeing that Tricky had slumped off to sleep in the women’s quarters, that Madelyne had slipped from the room to find the chapel. One of the elder monks had pointed it out to her earlier, and now she crept like a wraith to its sanctuary.
Candles burned, filling the air with the smell of tallow and smoke, casting a warm yellow glow over the small room. Sinking to her knees on the hard stone floor—preferable than the wooden kneelers for keeping herself awake at this late time—Madelyne sought to find the words of prayer.
But, for the first time in her life, she could not find them.
Instead, she knelt, there in the presence of God, cloaked in her certainty that He heard and knew her random thoughts…and became lost in a whirlwind of images and reflections.
Had it only been this morn that she’d risen, as if it were any other day? Here, now, she found herself in the company of a strange man—one who stirred her with his strength and awed her with his control and authority—and who escorted her to the presence of the king.
She wondered how Anne fared, and if she worried her daughter would betray her presence. A tear stung her eye as she remembered the farewells they’d shared. Anne had wanted to go with her, but Madelyne, knowing how fragile her parent was, and that she was still haunted by the nightmares of her husband’s abuse, had insisted that she remain at the abbey. Yet Madelyne would not have prevailed if Mother Bertilde hadn’t intervened and insisted that Anne remain. Madelyne was relieved, for she knew her mother’s constitution was not the heartiest…and she did not wish to worry about her mother’s condition whilst she managed whatever it was that awaited her at the king’s court.
What did it mean that she was called to the side of the king? Verily, he could not mean to send her back to her father. A sudden fear squeezed her middle. Why would he not? What other reason would there be that he ordered her to attend him? Nausea roiled in her stomach.
Her thoughts shifted then again. And this man…this man who took her, who had somehow identified her… Heavenly Father, protect me from him.
Even as she prayed these platitudes, Madelyne knew she had to put aside the strange, bubbling feelings that Gavin of Mal Verne evoked in her. He could mean naught to her.
In sooth, she had no desire to feel for him, to live in his world. The Abbey allowed her the freedom to learn and to exist almost as a man, though cloistered. And now, this man threatened the path that she had followed for a decade, merely by appearing in her life with his power and command. She’d begun already to forget the admonishments her mother had impressed upon her, the warnings of the controlling, all-powerful hold a man had on a woman. Fascination and a deep, stirring need to know him had intervened quietly and subtly, and now Madelyne feared she would be lost.
Her hand shook as she remembered the fluttering in her belly as she sat encased in his arms, the horse jolting her against him with perfect rhythm until she had forced herself to sit uncomfortably upright. The smell of leather and the unfamiliar scent of maleness, of sweat and horse and clean chain mail, still lingered in her memory, as did the image of his strong, tanned hands holding the reins in front of her.
Madelyne took a deep, shuddering breath. She could not allow herself to feel this way. Any emotion toward this man was naught but her own naiveté, and was bound to be naught but a weak battering ram slamming against the stone wall of an arrogant, unfeeling man.
“What sin could you have committed this day that should bring you here such a late hour?”
Madelyne whipped her head around as her heart leapt into her throat. ’Twas as if her thoughts had conjured up the man, and now he stood just in the doorway of the chapel. Her limbs jittering from the startle, and her stomach roiling with guilt at being caught thinking of him, she pulled herself to her feet with slow, deliberate movements.
“Sin?” she asked calmly, tucking her hands into the sleeves of her gown to hide their trembling. “Nay, ’twas not a sin about which I spoke to God,” she lied, mentally noting that she had yet another reason to seek a confessional anon. “’Twas for the soul of men like yourself, who have the hearts and lives of a warrior, and live only by bloodshed and power, and who destroy the lives of others without thought.” She spoke flippantly, carelessly, of her own situation, so as to seem undisturbed. But when she saw his face blanch, she realized she had struck him as if with the self-same sword he carried in his belt.
His face hardened, and in the flickering light of the chapel, it settled like stone in an ominous mask, and for a moment, she was afraid. Then, she saw the pain under the steeliness in his eyes, and she closed her eyes briefly as her fear settled.
“Oh, my lady—Sister—’twas not without thought that I came to draw you from the abbey. ’Twas only after
“I did not mean to offend, my lord,” she spoke quickly, unable to hold back the honest response to his obvious hurt. The first time she’d seen a change in that stony expression. “I truly do pray for your soul, and that of others
