Colette Gale - Bound by Honor

At the door to the passageway, a full room between them, he turned and looked at her. “I warn you again, Marian. . . . Do not allow John to find you reading his papers, or even I won’t be able to protect you.”

Then he was gone, leaving her alone. Suddenly bereft and empty.

And wondering if he would return to the Court of Pleasure . . . and the sinuous white body of Lady Pauletta.

CHAPTER 12

W henever Will had cause to spend any length of time with his knees grinding into a chapel’s stone floor, he was reminded of the night vigil before his knighting, more than a decade earlier. Long and silent, spent fully prone on his face, the hours had gone by in a drone of noiseless prayer and anticipation for the great accolade.

His life had changed that day, and until he’d become one of King Richard’s most trusted men, he’d had little trouble keeping the oaths he’d made before the archbishop of Canterbury. The oaths of loyalty to his liege, to honor God and protect women, to despise and renounce traitors.

Now the cold stone beneath his knees served as reminder of his faults, his weaknesses and failures. And, for the first time, Will could no longer see the way to fulfill those God-sworn oaths. There was no way to obey his liege while retaining his honor and protecting the weaker gender . . . for to do one, he must renounce the other.

’Twas an appalling dilemma. One that had drawn him to the chapel, to his confessor, these last nights . . . he’d come from the debauchery of John’s chambers to spend hours on his knees doing penance for the desire to forswear his vows. Seeking solace. Searching for an answer.

But at last, the balancing act had taken its toll, and he’d succumbed this night, stepping over the line and beyond reason. He gritted his teeth, squeezed his eyes closed at the realization of what he’d done.

How far he’d gone.

The vow he’d shattered.

Even now, as he knelt, holding himself fully upright, his legs trembling from exhaustion, from lack of sleep and from intense physical activity, he could not dismiss the sordid details of his transgression.

He told himself he’d had no choice. That it had finally come to the point from which there was no turning away.

His greed, his perfidy, ate at him, gnawing deep in his belly . . . yet, to his great shame, his body remembered. And could not deny the moment of bliss, of relief, of fulfillment . . . of triumph.

It was that last-the sense of victory, of attainment-that made the nausea roil sharply in his belly and brought the foul, metallic taste to the back of his throat.

The faint scuff of a slipper, the nearly soundless rustle of a hem over the floor, pulled Will’s attention from his personal misery. He looked up, noting the dark gray cast of predawn sun filtering over the altar, and saw the slender figure standing there.

“Lady Alys,” he managed to say. His voice was rough from disuse and gruff with annoyance.

“You are like to fall over,” she said, moving toward him.

In the spare candlelight, he saw kindness in her pretty, heart-shaped face, genuine concern in her expression, and as before, it disgraced him. That this little slip of a girl could see something that simply wasn’t there, or, at the least, wasn’t there any longer . . .

Will pulled to his feet, aware that his knees ached and trembled in protest. When was the last time he’d slept more than two hours? He spent his nights in John’s chambers, or taking Marian to hers; he was here . . . or tossing and turning on his own palliasse. Taunted by dreams of the unattainable.

Or he was burning houses in the village. Or condemning a woman to her death.

Did Alys simply not know of his wickedness?

Marian certainly did.

And now, God help her, she comprehended it firsthand.

The wave of anguish stunned him, and he felt his empty stomach rebel. His fingers shook, and he clasped them tightly together.

“My lord,” she said, moving closer to him. Alys barely reached the center of his chest; she must know that he could crush her skull with two hands, or use the back of one to send her flying across the chamber.

After all, he was the Sheriff of Nottinghamshire. Brutal, cruel, without conscience.

Yet, she lifted her hand to touch his arm and he tensed, unwilling for her to feel his weakness.

“What do you here?” he demanded, pulling from her fingers. “And alone, at this hour?”

“Something woke me early and I came to pray,” she replied. “But I see you, and methinks I’ve been drawn here for a different reason. You are ill. Or troubled. Will you not let me see to your needs?”

There was Pauletta, whose obvious interest might have been satisfied once upon a time . . . and might yet still be, if only to keep himself from going mad. There was Marian, on whom he could barely allow himself to think. And then there was this girl, Alys.

Why could it not be she?

Forcing strained kindness into his tone, Will nevertheless knew that his expression remained forbidding. “You have the right of it. I am troubled, but that is why I sought my confessor. All is well.”

“Pardon me for saying so, but . . . it does not appear as if you have met with success. Please, my lord,” Alys said, opening her hands in supplication. “Will you not at the least allow me to fix you a draught? It may help you to sleep a bit. I see the weariness in your eyes.”

In his eyes? It fairly weighted his whole damned body . . . not to mention his conscience. Still. “Nay, my lady. I have much to attend to this morrow.”

“But the sun has not even risen, and Mass is hours away. ’Tis clear you’ve seen no rest this night. A simple draught to help you sleep. And then you can be back to your tasks with a clearer mind.”

“Aye, to the burning of villages and the heavy weight of the law’s sentence in the form of a knotted rope,” he said bitterly, then regretted the weakness of such an admission.

But Alys looked up at him not with condemnation but with understanding. “ ’ Tis no easy task you bear, I trow, my lord. Whilst the rogue Robin Hood dances about, flaunting the law, you are left to do the work no one wishes. Yet without you, there would be no order.”

She was looking at him as if he was . . . he did not want to acknowledge-or even to recognize-what was in her eyes.

“Please.” She reached, boldly, closing her fingers around his wrist and tugging at him. “There is a pallet in the herbary where you might take your ease for a bit.”

“Nay,” he began to say, but then he stumbled and realized how clogged his mind was, how slow his reactions were . . . and it startled him.

Will was no stranger to physical duress-he’d fought in enough sieges and wars that he’d gone for days with little sleep, little food, and great demands on his body. But in those times, the goal had been clear . . . the intent unambiguous, and he had not been torn in two.

’Twas the mental anguish that was destroying him.

Returning to the chamber where his pallet lay, one among the rows of many men, would do little to ease him toward rest. The snores, the snorts, the snuffles . . . all served to assist his already active mind from succumbing to sleep.

In the end, he followed Alys.

Out in the bailey, with the sun still below the horizon, even the texture of the keep’s stones was barely visible and the yard was as quiet as it ever got-which was to say that there were only a few serfs scurrying about. The night watchmen posted above paid no heed to them and Will was glad for it. Alys did not need to be seen in his company.

She made her preparations swiftly while he looked beyond the narrow window slit, uneasy and yet acquiescing. If he could push the thoughts, the shame, the memories, from his mind for a bit, mayhap rest would clear his mind. And help prepare him for what would come.

The draught Alys pressed upon him carried the taste of chamomile and something else he could not identify. He sat on the simple bed in the small, quiet structure and found that, in doing so, it brought his face just a bit lower than Alys’s. When she turned toward him, he stilled and lowered the cup.

The look in her eyes was unmistakable and before he could rebuff her, she rested a light hand on his shoulder. And leaned forward.

The first brush of her lips was featherlight, little more than a tickle. And then she pressed harder, fitting her top-heavy mouth against his more closely. She slipped the tip of her tongue out, over the seam of his mouth. Will did not move, did not close his eyes. Did not shift closer for more.

Nor did he pull back. He would not offend her thus. Alys stepped aside, her hand falling from his shoulder. “Would that I could ease you in other ways. But it appears that I cannot. Rest you well, my lord. I pray you’ll find the ease you crave.”

She turned to go, and he stopped her. “Alys.” He groped for the words; he was unused to speaking gently, to taking care with his language. “I am most grateful.”

“Rest you well,” she said quietly again. And she left him.

He moved to lie supine, guilt-ridden, unsettled, weary.

And yet . . . by the grace of God . . . he slept.

Alys grimaced as she stepped out into the bailey, quietly closing the door of the herbary behind her. Her fingers trembled; her heart beat madly . . . but she did not regret it. With a quick swipe of fingers, she dashed away the trickle of tears.

Why?

Anger rather than shame coursed through her. Frustration, in the stead of humiliation.

Although if she thought much deeper on it, the humiliation might yet come.

Something moved in the shadows, and suddenly the outlaw was there. Again, as if conjured by her fury. Her heart thumping harder, mortification rose within her. Had he seen her crying?

Apparently still wary from their last meeting, Robin remained at a prudent distance, leaning against the wattle-and-daub bakehouse.

Cloaked in shadow that would soon ease, for the sun was ready to begin its climb, he watched as she walked toward him, heading for the keep.

“You had little success with the sheriff, I see,” he said, scuffing the toe of his boot into the dirt, as she drew closer.

Alys continued on, and soon she would pass him. Her mouth was dry and she saw no reason to respond to his taunt. Yet, he was here. Spying on her? What a fool. Surely he would get caught if he continued such boldness.

Why, she could bring Nottingham down on him in a trice.

“Alys,” he said, and the desperate tone of his voice caught her, putting a hitch in her step.

But she kept walking. “Did you not learn from our last meeting?” she said as she passed by.

“Aye . . . I learned . . . something,” he replied in a low whisper. His voice filtered to her ears over the soft shift and clink of the watchman’s chain mail as he strode by on the wall above.

She kept on, feeling his gaze on the back of her neck, ignoring the prickles on her palms, the flipping and shifting of her stomach. The side door to the keep was only a few paces away.

“Did you have no success with Nottingham?” His question followed her. Insistent.

“You already supposed that I did not. Why should I be the one to say you nay?” She flung the reply over her shoulder and slowed her pace . . . but did not stop. Then, behind her she felt him moving, shifting closer. The hair on her arms lifted; her stomach fluttered. “Robin, do you test me yet again?”

“I wish only to speak with you,” he said. “Please, Alys. Only for a moment, may we have a truce?”

She hesitated, and that was her undoing. Before she could respond, he tugged her into the shadows. She could have raised a hue and cry, calling the watchman down on them. But she told herself that if she did, then Nottingham’s rest would be disturbed.