Commanded By The French Duke

‘Fine, but don’t leave the Priory at the moment. There have been reports of fighting between the royalists and the rebels nearby. I wouldn’t want you to become caught up in something like that.’

A surcoat of red and gold surged in her mind’s eye; she dashed the vivid memory away. ‘No, I won’t go home today. I wanted to see how Edith fares.’ And to make sure Bianca leaves safely, she thought. Besides, she had no wish to return home to face her stepmother. She was better off at the Priory.

* * *

During the morning, the cloud had thickened steadily; the day was sunless, overcast, with a fitful breeze. As Alinor walked through the arch in the ivy-clad wall to the vegetable gardens, leaves chased along the cobbled path before her, silver-backed, yellowing, as if tossed by an unseen hand. A gust of wind eddied around her skirts, blowing them sideways, but after being cooped in with Edith all morning, she relished the fresh air against her skin. From a line of billowing oaks to the north, a gaggle of black crows flew up, sharply, wings beating furiously against the powerful currents of air.

Eyes watering in the cool air, Alinor strode briskly, past the neat rows of root vegetables: the carrots, turnips and swedes ready to be lifted and stored for winter. Her herb plot lay to the rear of the gardens; here, she grew the flowers and plants that went to make up her tinctures and ointments. Leaning over, she plucked several leaves of feverfew, and some mint as well, for flavour, stuffing them in the linen pouch that hung from her girdle.

‘Alinor! Alinor!’ Her name, carried along on the brisk breeze. Someone was calling her! Turning abruptly, she glanced back at the Priory windows and then over to the infirmary. A drab white veil blew out from the window; one of the novices was waving at her, yelling her name. Oh, God, she thought, it must be Edith! Alinor sprinted back across the gardens, her slender legs carrying her through the inner courtyard of the Priory, past the cloisters and out through a small arched doorway on the southern side which would lead her back to the infirmary.

She stopped.

Her heart clenched, squeezed with fear.

Fingers searching wildly behind her, she scrabbled, clutched at the door, the doorframe, the surrounding stone arch; anything that would give her some support, some stability. No, no, no! It couldn’t be! Her inner voice screamed denial even as her eyes told her what was true. Breath surged in her lungs; she sagged back against the cold stone. Before her, clustered in front of the infirmary was a group of about thirty knights, dusty, dirty, bloodied. Some sat on the ground, propped up by others, obviously wounded; others lay flat out on makeshift stretchers, faces drawn and white, eyes closed. Several soldiers held the large-muscled warhorses in a group, the animals obviously nervous, pawing the ground, enormous eyes rolling.

At the centre of the mêlée stood Prince Edward, head bent in conversation with the Prioress.

And him.

The broad-shouldered knight who had carried her kicking and screaming from the bridge, with his eyes of midnight blue, his shock of tawny hair. He was there.

Chapter Four (#ulink_82e160ea-792a-5530-a817-dda826283397)

Fear spiked her veins; she rocked slightly, wondering if she could sink back into the shadows without anyone noticing her. But before she had the chance, Maeve turned her head, brown eyes homing in on the figure in the archway. Bony, arthritic fingers beckoned imperiously, signalling to Alinor. Straightening her spine, Alinor blundered out into the open, wobbling legs scarcely carrying her across the cropped wispy grass. These men wouldn’t recognise her, surely; even now, the other sisters were coming out to help, streaming out from the cloisters, from the chapel, all dressed in exactly the same way as Alinor. She would blend in, hidden amongst the rest of the nuns.

Edging her way through the soldiers, she reached Maeve. Prince Edward was already moving amongst his men, shouting orders, commanding the more able knights to carry the injured soldiers into the infirmary. Of the other knight, there was no immediate sign; Alinor kept her eyes pinned to Maeve, unwilling to twist her head and find him right behind her. Her muscles hummed with the strain of keeping herself held tightly in, wanting to remain unnoticed, slipping through this crowd of soldiers like a ghost.

‘Come, let us help these soldiers before they bleed to death on our doorstep,’ Maeve ordered the nuns who clustered about her. Her keen gaze whipped about, directing the sisters to the men who needed the most help, making sure her commands were carried out. As Alinor moved to follow out Maeve’s orders, her head lowered, the Prioress caught her arm. ‘Alinor, wait, go into the infirmary and ask one of the novices to help you carry Sister Edith up to the bed on the second floor; I can’t have her downstairs with all these men.’

Alinor nodded gratefully, almost running along the path towards the infirmary, desperate to be out of the immediate vicinity of the soldiers. She grasped at the sturdy handle of the infirmary door, about to push it open.

‘Alinor? Is that your name?

She gripped the iron ring, knuckles frozen.

‘Can I help at all?’

The male voice was low, well-modulated, familiar. Shock scurried through her. He must have overheard her name when Maeve talked to her. She bristled at his use of it, the impertinence; her name sounded like treachery on his lips, a betrayal.

‘Er...no, it’s—it’s quite all right,’ she stuttered out, steadfastly facing the door, breath caught in her throat like a stone.

‘You can turn around, you know,’ the voice said. ‘I know it’s you.’

Sweat pricked her palm. A shudder rippled through her slender frame. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ she replied haughtily. ‘Now, if you’ll excuse me...’

He leaned over her. ‘You’re the screaming banshee from yesterday, aren’t you?’ he murmured.

The hot push of breath tickled her linen veil, her ear. So close. Excitement whipped through her veins, a wild heat suffusing her flesh, turning her limbs to pulp. She glowered at the wooden planks of the door, the yellow-green lichen spotting across the weathered oak, resenting the physical response of her body towards him. Defiance ripped through her; she flipped around to face him, to the beautiful savagery of his face. ‘So what if I am? What are you going to do about it?’ Blood thrummed in her ears. She was frightened of him. That was it. Frightened of the trouble these men could cause.

Blue eyes sparkled over her, a generous grin lighting up his sculptured features. His bottom lip held a wide curve, a surprising softness in the hard angle of his jaw. ‘Nothing, as long as you don’t start screaming again. Or steal my sword.’ His eyes drifted over the mark on her cheek. ‘Still hurting?’

‘What do you think?’ she asked truculently, crossing her arms across her chest.

‘You’re remarkably badly behaved for a woman who has taken her vows.’ He ran one thumb along the underside of his sword belt, assessing her slowly. ‘And aggressive.’ He touched his ear, the one she had bitten, and she flushed, noticing the bluish bruise on his earlobe.

‘Then you’d better keep away from me,’ she warned, trying to inject an element of fierceness into her tone. ‘There’s no telling what I might do next.’ Turning smartly away from him, she pushed into the infirmary, the door thumping behind her. She paused in the gloom, senses skittered, her breath easing out slowly by degrees. She needed to calm herself. How dare he creep up behind her like that? His blatant masculinity, so close, had pushed her mind from her task. If she didn’t pay heed, the soldiers would be in here before she had managed to move Edith.

The infirmary was deserted. All the novices must have run out to help with the injured soldiers. Darting over to Edith’s bed, she quickly evaluated the frail woman beneath the bedclothes. The old nun had no spare flesh on her, just skin and bone, like a little bird. She would be able to carry her. ‘Let’s wrap you up, Edith,’ Alinor said gently. Bundling the bedsheets and blanket around the nun’s thin body, she eased her forearms beneath Edith’s hips, the other around her shoulders. The old nun moaned softly, her skin stretched like translucent parchment across her jutting cheekbones.

‘It’s all right, Edith...’ Alinor whispered. ‘I’m going to move you upstairs.’

‘Let me carry her.’

Twisting around, Alinor scowled, then straightened up, irritated that she hadn’t heard the knight following her. She should have bolted the door! He stood beside her, his large frame spare and rugged, eyes shining like dark coals in the gloom. He smelled of woodsmoke, the tangy scent of horses. Her belly seemed to turn in on itself; a curious pang of longing dragged at the very core of her.

‘I can do it!’ she spat out, angry, intimidated. ‘We can fend for ourselves here. Go out and help your men, and stop bothering me!’ How jittery he made her feel! He prised away her customary self-confidence, this man whom she barely knew, throwing her off balance, burrowing beneath her practical level-headedness to make her nerves dance with an uncharacteristic anxiety.

Guilhem tilted his head on one side, his mouth twitching up in a half-smile. Her behaviour was extreme, argumentative and stubborn. She reminded him of his sister: the same wayward truculence, the same self-reliance, wanting to do everything herself and fully believing that she could do so. The flash of defiance in that beautiful face, the hostile tilt of her pert little nose. He folded his arms slowly across his chest. ‘Go on then.’ Challenge sparkled in his eyes.

Ignoring him, she bent over Edith again, attempting to hoist the frail body from the bed, praying that her weak arm wouldn’t let her down now, not here, not in front of this man. The ligaments in her spine gripped and stretched; her stomach clenched tightly. Sweat prickled on her brow, but Edith didn’t budge.

‘Out of my way.’ The big man moved in beside her impatiently, shoving at her with a swift nudge of his hip, his expression grim. Alinor tottered backwards, knocking into a stool, scowling furiously as he lifted Edith carefully from the bed, wrapped tightly in a heap of linens and blankets. Only the nun’s poor, bald head peeked out from the top of the blanket.

‘Where do I take her?’

‘I would have done it!’ she protested limply. ‘You didn’t give me enough time!’

Guilhem glanced at the main door, his mouth fixing into a firm, impenetrable line. ‘The other soldiers are being carried in now, so I suggest you lead me in the right direction or this old lady is going to have more of a shock than she deserves.’

He made her sound like a spoiled brat, thinking only of herself! ‘This way,’ Alinor bit out, fuming, swishing her skirts around with a brisk movement. She led him to a curving alcove set in the infirmary wall, indicating the uneven stone steps winding upwards from a central pillar. Daylight flooded down from a narrow, arched window set halfway up the stairwell.

‘It leads up to the second floor; there’s a small bedchamber up there.’

He ducked his head beneath the low lintel, powerful legs ascending the stairs easily, Edith’s head lolling against his thick upper arm, white skin pallid against silvery chainmail. Alinor’s breath caught in her throat; is this how he had carried her, after the Prince had hit her, senseless, unknowing, his hands clasped intimately about her body? Briefly, she closed her eyes in shame.

Kneeling on the bare floorboards, the knight laid Edith down on the pallet bed, adjusting the bedclothes so that they covered her bare feet. As he rose, his hair almost touched the serried rafters of the ceiling. Alinor hovered in the entrance to the stairwell, lips set in a mutinous line, rebellion coursing through her body. What was it about this man that made her behave so badly?

She jerked out of the way as he approached the stairs, whisking her skirts away dramatically to avoid all contact with him. ‘I suppose I should say thank you,’ Alinor bit out, grudgingly. ‘But I could have carried her.’

‘My God, you never give up, do you?’ he said, the toe of his boot knocking against her slipper by mistake. ‘It’s fortunate that you decided to give yourself to Christ, because I can’t imagine any man being able to deal with you. Your father must have blessed the day he sent you to the nunnery!’

Sadness whipped through her, sudden, violent. Her eyelashes dipped fractionally. ‘My father cursed the day I was born,’ she blurted out suddenly, her voice bitter. ‘Not that it’s any of your business.’

Guilhem thrust one hand through his tousled hair, the colour of rain-soaked wheat. ‘And for that I am sorry,’ he said, watching the raft of sorrow track across her pearly skin. He cupped her chin with one big hand, wanting to smooth the sadness away. His thumb swept across her cheek and, for a fraction of a moment, she stood there, savouring the sweet caress. The temptation to turn her head, to press her lips into the warm skin of his hand shot through her; her lashes fluttered downwards, momentarily. Her flesh hummed, treacherous.

What was she doing? Had she truly taken leave of her senses?