This Ravished Rose Read online

  A warm hand touched her shoulder and a teasing voice spoke in her ear. “You are a fair wench for this country. How about a kiss or two as a penance for dashing over me several minutes ago?”

  She whirled around to stare into bright blue eyes and a face as young as her own. He smelled of some exotic scent and appeared to be clad in a partial rainbow which was further illuminated by the light of the flaring torches near the door. His fingers grew firmer as they lifted to cup her jaw.

  “Aye, sweeting, perhaps you will keep the chill from my bed. These northern nights are too .cold,to sleep alone. What say you to a bit of sport?”

  He bent to kiss her and slipped a practiced hand into her bodice. Katherine brought up her hand in a quick, hard blow that caught him off balance. Wine-lit good humor turned to drunken fury.

  “No tavern doxy dares touch me so.”

  He snatched at her arm, the world spun and she half fell at his feet. In the surprise of the moment, he half supported her, thinking that she intended to yield. He pulled her up close against him and Katherine felt the hammer of his heart along with the upward surge of his maleness. She felt the dizziness returning and struggled to loosen his grip, but, for all his fancy looks, his hands were firm on her bare shoulders.

  “You do seek to play, do you not? Fine. I had forgotten how fierce you northern women can be and how unlike the soft, doting ones of the court.”

  Desperate now, Katherine sank her teeth in his arm. He howled with pain and made as if to strike her. Suddenly the door behind them banged open, the young man was spun away from her in one quick movement by the man who emerged, and she was pushed to the side.

  The newcomer remarked in a cool, amused voice, “I vow, Roger, can you not leave the wenches alone at least until we reach your father’s lands? This one is not even clean. Leave her be.”

  Katherine tried to speak but her lips were stiff, her mouth dry. The one called Roger glared at her, his vanity affronted. He adjusted his sleeve and felt cautiously for his pouch.

  “She lured me, then tried to get away. From me!” His tone was petulant.

  The other laughed, a harsh mocking sound that made Katherine’s head ache. “Dear cousin, the girl is likely simple. That stare! Just look at it. Don’t spread your by-blows that easily. If you cannot wait until tomorrow to satisfy yourself, why not try that little wench who served us supper and gave you those melting looks?”

  Roger looked more closely at Katherine, seeing for the first time her eyes were glassy and her forehead beaded with sweat. He shivered. “Jamie, you have spoiled my pleasure but I see I have cause to thank you. As always, you are right.”

  “Of course I am.” The one called Jamie grinned mockingly. After a moment Roger began to laugh.

  For a brief moment her sight cleared, and Katherine saw that Jamie looked to be in his early thirties, very tall and well muscled with thick wheat-colored hair, his skin so bronzed that it appeared almost swarthy. He had gray eyes. He was still soothing Roger with comments about the serving wench. Katherine felt a fury sweep over her. She advanced on them both.

  “Sir, I must thank you that you have rescued me from the attentions of your cousin, though I find your remarks about my person not those of a gentleman.” She turned to Roger who was frankly gaping. “What sort are you that a lady cannot travel without fear of being mauled?”

  Taken aback, the men moved back slightly. Then Jamie said in a level voice, “Lady, is it? By the faith, you hold yourself high.” He lifted an arm to guide Roger back into the inn but in Katherine’s foreshortened vision it seemed that he meant to strike her. She pushed at him and he stumbled back.

  Her wrist was seized and twisted up behind her back instantly. Over her cry of pain, she heard the ruthlessness in his voice as his eyes stared down into hers for he held her close to his body.

  “I warn you, wench, it is death to threaten one of noble rank. If a man had raised his hand to me in such a manner, he would now be carrion.”

  “Jumped up peasants!” Roger sniffed behind them. “I am going inside. My throat is parched.”

  Jamie did not release Katherine as he spoke over her head in an almost abstracted manner. “I will join you in a moment. Have them fetch out better wine, no more of that swill we were drinking earlier!”

  “Release me, sir. I am no wench, only a traveler in mourning.” Katherine heard her voice shake. Her pulses raced at the feel of his muscular warmth. The hard grip seemed almost caressing and the gray eyes were no longer hard as they looked into and beyond her. The chiseled lips curved upward and he half smiled.

  “I see that you have fire, mistress.” He lowered his head and put his mouth on hers.

  His kiss shot through Katherine with a sweet drowning sensation. His tongue probed at hers and joined deeply with it. Her nipples rose high and hard while her body swayed hungrily into his. He released her arm and pulled her the more tightly to him and his hands roamed unimpeded into her softness. Katherine drifted in a warm wet sea. She could not get close enough to him just as his mouth could not drink deeply enough of hers. She heard herself moaning and did not care.

  He was pushing her back out of the light and down. Her bosom and back were bare to the chilly wind but nothing mattered except this loveliness, this hunger. Then his hands were hard and hurting, his mouth left hers and she saw that the gray eyes had gone icy. She stared at him, conscious of the rise of the fever in her flesh.

  “A doxy, as I said. Cover yourself.” He rose and began to adjust his clothing.

  Katherine scrambled up, ashamed and close to weeping.

  Jamie swayed a little but he seemed completely sober. His profile was outlined purely in the wash of moonlight. A pulse hammered in his temple and he pressed his long swordsman’s fingers to it.

  “I regret that I do not have time to oblige your desires.” He looked at her and the passion leaped between them so that he took a step toward her. “Nay, I . . .” He stopped and shook his head. “Go on your way. Neither of us will disturb you again. It was the wine. It is bad here.”

  Katherine wanted to cry out at him to stay, to take her as he willed, say what he wished, only continue to touch and caress her as he had done. He saw her feelings and smiled without mirth. Katherine saw that he knew and the bitterness rose in her. She checked it with difficulty.

  “I thank you for the assurance that I may pass the night peacefully. Now with your leave I go inside.” It would do no good to tell him what she thought of him and she did not trust her voice. Tears were too near the surface.

  He bowed mockingly and stood aside. “Take care, wench. I trust you rest well.” He began to laugh and that laughter followed Katherine as she moved slowly away with what she hoped was dignity.

  The common room was quiet. Several late drinkers sat talking over tankards and in one dark corner a serving maid was giggling as a weedy young man fondled her. Katherine guessed that Roger had taken one of the girls up to the private quarters reserved for the gentry. She moved carefully into the little room where the old woman already snored and lowered her aching body onto the hard pallet.

  Misery caught her and she shook with it as she fought the sobs back. Katherine was no stranger to taunts for she had fought her way from early childhood to her eleventh year in the castle where Antony had left her when he went on his various journeys and she knew that a sharp tongue was a good protector. Life in the convent and afterward with Antony had blunted that sharpness but now she felt it rise, soothing and cooling the humiliation that she now felt.

  She had never known such feelings as she had experienced this night. Pride had vanished before the flames that had been lit in her. She knew that she would have yielded utterly to a stranger. But he had felt it in full measure. His heart had hammered against hers for all his arrogance. The romances did not tell it so; they spoke of adoration and courtly love, the service the lover rendered to his highborn, unattainable love. A lord with a wench was a common thing.

  Katherine twisted around and
pulled the bunched skirts out from her legs. There was only stale air in here. It was hard to breathe. Her throat was sore and the flesh on her arms prickled. Was it the plague? She longed to get up and go back outside but she did not have the strength to walk, much less face those cold gray eyes again. She thought she would never sleep even though her eyes felt like stones under the lids. She tried to summon up her earlier anger, but it would not come. She only felt a great weariness. What did it all matter?

  “Mistress? Mistress? Are you sleeping?” The low pitched voice came from the tattered curtain that formed the door to the room. Katherine doubted that a thunderstorm would have waked the old woman and the other girls were probably out sporting with the customers of the inn.

  “What is it?” She heard her own voice coming from far away.

  “I was told to bring you this.” The dim shape came closer and she saw that it was the girl who had been laughing and flirting earlier in the evening. Doubtless she was the one to whom Jamie and Roger had referred. She carried a small flagon in one hand. “The gentleman, the really handsome one, you know, said to send you the best wine we have. He wishes you a good rest and a safe journey on the morrow.”

  Katherine sat up quickly, a movement which set her head to whirling again. Warmth suffused her. Was it an apology from the arrogant lord or was it another cruel gesture to suggest that her heightened senses might need calming?

  “Mistress?” The girl was growing restless.

  Katherine had to be sure. “Was it the lord with the gray eyes? How did he look when he gave you this errand?”

  The serving maid drew back before the intensity of the queries. She was fresh from love or she would have been more wary. Everyone knew that devils came in many guises, even the blessed saints had not been impervious. As it was, she said, “A man beset, mistress, not laughing and hearty like the young lord. And, if I may so speak, well on his way to being very drunk.”

  The corners of Katherine’s mouth lifted. So he, too, felt demons. It made what had happened all the easier to bear. She said, “Return the wine to him. Give him my thanks but that I have no need of it.” Foolish to be proud over so small a thing, but to accept would be another yielding that she was not prepared to make.

  The girl continued to stand there as if she were witless. The snores of the old woman rattled in the room and the heat lay stifling in the unmoving air. A drunken cry came from outside and was shortly followed by a loud burst of giggles.

  Katherine knew that she must lie down or she would faint. Sitting up took all the strength that she possessed and it was fast fading. “Get you gone, girl. Give my message directly to the gentleman. Go, I said!”

  The girl fled. Her footsteps clattered on some stairs and Katherine managed a smile in spite of her rising sickness. Unless she missed her guess, the lord called Jamie had a high temper and would not be pleased to think that a wench whom he had deigned to honor with his caresses could be so haughty as to refuse the most casual of gifts.

  Katherine lay back and gave herself up to exhaustion. She could do and bear no more. All the events of the past weeks passed by in her memory as the fever rose and she called out in a hoarse voice that could not shape the syllables of a name. She tossed and burned on the pallet, now mumbling, now whispering. In her moments of lucidity, which were becoming fewer and fewer, it seemed to her that she floated in a hot sea where devils pricked her skin with spears. She could not escape and no longer had any will to try. With a sigh Katherine let go and the seas took her. A pair of cold gray eyes appeared to be watching as they encompassed her shrinking world.

  Chapter 3

  Hour of Pride

  Flowers bent to the enclosing stone walls of the convent’s little garden where the two nuns sat with their mending. Trees formed a protective screen around them and reflected in the tiny pond at their feet.

  Young Sister Theresa spoke hesitantly. “The lady dozes. She is still weak from her illness. What can her story be, do you think?”

  Sister Abigail was very old and found such eagerness not only unseemly but wearying. Silently she rebuked herself for longing to remain in the soft gray dreams that so frequently obtruded on this world now. Her sharp words were in part for her own lapses. “I daresay the Prioress will tell us all that we need to know, if anything, in due time.”

  Katherine was sitting on a bench which circled a tree a few yards away from them. Her back was pressed against its comforting bole and she had drifted into sleep. Now the undaunted voice of the younger nun roused her.

  “But it is the most interesting thing that has happened for a twelvemonth. All that banging at the gates a week ago, she looking already dead as she lay in that crude litter, talking out of her head. She sounded just the way Sister Helen says the court does. It certainly was not Christian charity that they received from the innkeeper. The man with her said it was proven she did not have the plague but they had to leave anyway. He left with the two louts he hired to bring them here. Her father had been kind to him long ago, he said.”

  Sister Abigail had known little of this and found it too interesting. “You are too much of the world, Sister.” She cast a practiced eye on Sister Theresa who lowered submissive lids and bent to her sewing.

  Katherine smiled to herself. She remembered little of the journey described, although Antony’s death and burial and the meeting with the gray-eyed man were very clear. She had been cold and hot by turns, jolted agonizingly, then she had slowly roused to soft words, a comfortable bed, soothing possets and adjurations to rest. Her usual strength would return, she did not doubt that, but she was still apt to drop suddenly into sleep and her steps were slow paced.

  The nuns were murmuring the Office now, as Katherine looked out over the garden and felt its peace. The flowers were arranged in orderly rows, a contented hum rose from a distant beehive and a drift of plain-song spiraled on the warm air. A delicately illumined Book of Hours, a thing as lovely as the afternoon spread before her, lay in her lap.

  “If I could only remain here and become a member of this community, live out my life in study and prayer. A ring of peaceful days, how pleasant it sounds.” Katherine spoke the words aloud but so softly that a bird near her knee did not cease pecking in the grass.

  With all her inborn honesty Katherine knew that the cloister would not content her and that what began as a refuge might end as a prison. Marriage was the only other alternative offered to a woman but with no dowry that would be difficult. She saw herself poised between worlds, the choice not likely to be hers, and, for a short time, allowed her mind to return to that time on the moors with Antony before his illness. The sun touched her face and she breathed deeply, thankful for the restoration of life.

  “Lady, can you come to the Abbess now? She would speak with you if you are well enough.” The little nun who brought the message was conveying a command. The Abbess had a redoubtable presence which was stamped upon the community she ruled.

  Had it come so swiftly, the decision for the future? Katherine had been in the convent long enough to know that nothing was wasted here, be it material- or human. She rose, “I am ready.”

  The Abbess was thin, cool and remote, with eyes that missed nothing. She had been long in holy orders but knowledge of the world had never left her. Her study was whitewashed and austere, yet a faded gold and rose rug lay on the floor, several gorgeously illuminated books were on the table next to her intricately carved chair, and her shoes, though plain, were of the finest leather.

  Katherine knelt before her, nervously fingers moving on the coarse gown. She had looked at herself in the pond in the garden when none were around to observe and had thought that she would look this way in old age, her cheeks sunken under the high bones, her nose longer in the newly thin face. The flesh had melted from her in these last days; all her bones were prominent.

  The brisk voice was saying, “Rise, daughter. You have been here some days now and are most welcome but the future must be considered. Have you plans?” “In
truth, Mother, I am still very confused.” Katherine put a hand to her head.

  Dame Ursula smiled. “Tell me something of yourself. Go at your own pace.” She had visited Katherine in her illness and learned much of her story when the girl talked in her fever but now she wanted to test her assessment of the situation.

  Katherine sat on the stool indicated and spoke slowly of her mother’s death in childbirth, Antony’s departure for the continent and battle, her own small self left as one of many in the castle of a fellow knight to be reared in womanly duties, her later placement in a convent to further her education after Antony’s vow to go on his own crusade. On his return, he had left his daughter where she was and had entered the brilliant life of the court. He became one of King Edward’s closest friends, a power in the inner circle. As swiftly as he had risen, so did he fall.

  “I have never known what happened nor why he never even allowed me to visit court, some small involvement could surely have been expected. He never spoke directly of it except that once when he came to me at the convent to say that he was leaving for the North where he intended to live from then on. I was welcome to accompany him or, if I chose, I might remain and become a novice with a pitifully small dowry. I barely knew him but I think I have always known that the religious life is no calling of mine even though I have welcomed its peace.”

  Dame Ursula said, “Even if there were no money or lands, it is passing strange that no betrothal was arranged for you, by virtue of the old name only.” Katherine remarked bitterly, “Even if there had been once, there was no willingness on anyone’s part to become allied with the daughter of a man called traitor. My father’s life was ruined for no reason that I have ever known.”

  Out of the years of her accumulated wisdom, Dame Ursula said, “It is not wise to question the ways of the monarch. Your father is dead and you must live.” She was wise in the ways of the world she had renounced though she had never regretted the decision rendered so long ago in the ruins of a once gracious manor.