The Protector Read online

  Her response only darkened his expression. “Do you leave such decisions to the man? If so, the end will always be the same. You have been receiving the wrong education from Catherine. It is just as well that you go to the abbey, or you will end up little better than Lady Martha.”

  “A man's logic, surely. Seduce a woman and then call her the whore. I thank you for the lesson. Catherine neglected to tell me about the shame men want women to feel.” She spit the words at him, then turned her head away.

  Silence fell between them. Just the sounds of the wind and their horses' hooves intruded.

  “Anna, I did not—”

  “Do not speak to me.” She kicked her horse and galloped away from the humiliation he had forced on her.

  The light was waning when they found the small manor house outside Reading. Morvan knew the knight who lived there and went in to speak with him. Word came for them to enter the barn and make themselves comfortable.

  The evening brought colder weather. Morvan sought her out in the barn when he returned from his conversation with the knight and insisted they leave for Reading at once. By the time they found the small inn her anger had grown and she was impatient to get rid of him. She waited on her horse while he inquired about a room.

  “The weather has filled them, but since you are a lady the owner will open an extra chamber that they have on the top floor,” he said. “Come in and warm yourself. They have to move a bed, and it will take some time.”

  He brought her into the public room and they sat at a table near the hearth. She studied the people sitting at the other benches while she drank spiced wine and ate some food. She ignored Morvan, whom she felt looking at her the whole time.

  Finally the innkeeper's wife led the way up two flights of stairs to a narrow passage under the roof of the building. There was only one chamber there, and from the objects stacked outside it appeared that they normally used it for storage. It was quite small, with one shuttered window on the wall across from the door, but it had a hearth. A big bed took up almost all of the space. She guessed that it was the innkeeper's own and that he and his wife would sleep on straw tonight.

  The woman left them, and Morvan made to follow her out.

  “Do not leave this chamber, Anna,” he said from the threshold. “This inn is sometimes visited at night by young men from Windsor. They gamble and drink in the public room. I will come for you in the morning. Open the door to no one.”

  When he left, she took a deep breath and exhaled her fury. He kept treating her like a stupid child, and that would have to stop tomorrow. A lot of good his protection afforded her, considering that the only danger she had faced thus far on this journey had come from him.

  A bucket of water warmed near the hearth and she stripped off her clothes, laying them on a stool by the fire to dry. She poured some of the water into a crockery bowl atop a small table at the foot of the bed and washed the road off herself. She usually slept naked, but would have been uncomfortable doing so here. She rummaged through a bag Morvan had carried up, pulling out one of her father's shirts and an old pair of her brother's hose.

  She rolled the tattered legs of the hose up over her knees. The shirt came down to her thighs and billowed loosely. The garments made her look ridiculous, but they would be warm.

  She blew out the one candle and climbed into the bed. The sheets were old but clean, and she snuggled down into their cool scent. It was too early to sleep, but at least she was dry and alone with her thoughts, and not in the rain beside a brooding man with his insults and threatening presence.

  Morvan returned to the public room to dry some more before heading into the cold. A group of men from Windsor arrived. He knew two of them and was drawn into a conversation about his travels. It was midnight before he forced himself to leave Reading and the woman in the chamber upstairs.

  His black mood had turned into one of regret when he saw how she had taken his thoughtless words to heart. It had been churlish of him to throw his frustration at her in that way, to blame her when she was blameless. Their friendship and his protection gave her every reason to trust him. But probably no one, he mused bitterly, had ever told her that no man could really be trusted in these matters.

  A fine icy rain had begun to fall. He turned the horse toward the town gate, trying not to think of Anna, trying not to picture her in that upper chamber now. They would be in London soon, and at his sister's house. He would still see her while she awaited her audience with the King, but not very often, since he would find lodging elsewhere. He doubted that he would be alone with her again. A poignant sense of loss spread through him.

  The fault this morning had been all his, but he could not really regret it. There was a purity and freedom in her passion that kept disarming his resolve. Most women used their responses as part of a larger game, but she simply gave without thought and took on the same basis. Her spirit had been with him as well as her body, one wrapping his shoulders and the other his soul. In her inexperience she'd known not where to put her hands, but her heart had been in the right place, as frank and open as that level gaze with which she looked at him. Had he played this game so long that he no longer recognized a girl who didn't even know the rules?

  The freezing rain fell harder as the town gate disappeared behind him. Out on the open road the ice clung to his cloak and hair and the mane of his horse. Even in the dark he could see the black reflections telling him that the ice had sheeted the ruts and stones of the road. Finally, his horse lost its footing and scrambled to stay upright.

  He stopped, debating with himself. The town was much closer than the manor house. The ice storm looked to be getting worse. It was foolish to risk the horse's breaking a leg.

  He turned back to the gate.

  As he handed the horse to the groom, as he walked across the yard to the inn, even as he entered the building, he told himself that he would spend the night in the public room with the other travelers stranded by the storm. But as the door closed behind him, his legs took him slowly up the stairs leading to Anna.

  * * *

  She heard footsteps on the landing stop near her door, and then his voice saying her name.

  Even though he did not speak loudly, she could hear him over the sleet pounding the building, could hear him as if he was already standing in the chamber.

  She listened to the sharp icy rhythms on the roof and wall. Perhaps something had happened to him, or the horses or one of the men. She climbed off the bed and opened the door.

  He stood leaning against the doorjamb. Flicks of ice hung from his hair and cloak. He looked at her, then silently entered, forcing her to back up into the room.

  As he pushed past her to the fire, she pressed herself against the wall by the door so that they wouldn't touch. He removed his cloak and gloves and shook out their moisture, then crouched by the hearth's warmth, drying his face with his sleeve. She moved a few steps and found a towel for him. When he took it from her, his fingers briefly closed on hers. The warmth from that brief, firm contact streaked right to her heart.

  He stood and turned his back to the blaze. She retreated to the wall beside the door. There was no place else to go. He filled the small space between the bed and the hearth and there was only this strip of floor left to her. Or the bed itself, filling the room, suddenly an insistent obstacle.

  His eyes fell on the clothes she had laid on the stool to dry. He fingered the long silk scarf she used to bind her breasts. “The old myths say that there was once a tribe of warrior women called Amazons. They too preferred the bow, and removed one breast so their aim would not be affected. Your solution seems more sensible.”

  He dominated the chamber, just as he did all of the spaces in which he moved. She became uncomfortably aware of the power streaking out of him as it had last night before they slept, and of the exciting fear he instilled in her whenever he chose. Only tonight, unlike last night, there was nothing reassuring in his manner. A fluttering knot tightened in her stomach.


  The heat was drying his hair and clothes. He turned back to the fire and stretched his hands toward it.

  “Why did you open the door to me, Anna?”

  More blame. “I thought that something might be wrong. It was womanish of me. I see that I was foolish, so if you have warmed yourself you can leave.”

  “Nay.”

  She waited for him to say something else, but he simply turned and looked at her.

  “I want you to leave.” She summoned the anger she had felt all afternoon and pulled it around herself like armor.

  “The roads are impassable with ice. I will stay here.”

  “Then sleep in the public room downstairs.”

  “Nay.” He spoke quietly and firmly, his eyes flaming and commanding her gaze, his face set in its handsome severity. “I am going to sleep here. And I am going to make love to you.” He paused a moment. “Come here to me.”

  He spoke as though the decision had been made, as though the conclusion was inevitable. She gasped at his boldness, and from the flush that passed through her.

  His words from the afternoon suddenly burned in her brain, and she desperately threw them back at him. “So that you can use shame against me to your own ends? Nay, Morvan. You said I must make decisions in these things and not leave it to the man. Well, I have decided you will not do this. You are not touching and confusing me now, and I tell you that I am not willing. If you try to force me, I remind you that I have defended myself before.”

  The fire still flamed in his eyes when he finally turned away. She wondered if he had been measuring her resolve. She hoped not, because her tone and manner were not matched by any internal strength. Secure from her good judgment, separate from it, lived the memory of this morning. If he came to her she did not know what she would do.

  “Get into bed and go to sleep, Anna. I have never forced a woman and would never do so with you. I will not touch you if you are unwilling.”

  He made no movement to leave. She stayed by her wall, watching him warily. It occurred to her that they might stand like this all night.

  He bent to her bag, felt through it, and pulled out her dagger. He threw it on the bed. “Sleep with that if you do not trust me.”

  “I would sleep better if you left.”

  He shook his head. “Tomorrow I deliver you to my sister and your duke and Edward. I would stay with you this night.”

  She didn't understand that, but she also knew that he wouldn't go. She climbed on the bed, grabbed the dagger, and huddled under the covers into the dark corner against the wall. She lay there motionlessly, trying to will herself to sleep.

  After a while she felt him ease down on the foot of the bed, sitting with his back against the wall, his legs stretched out along the bed's bottom edge. He did not look at her but at the fire. As the minutes passed, she felt her stiff limbs relax.

  She did not know if she fell asleep, but when he moved off the bed she snapped alert, watching from her black corner. Even with her eyes open only a slit she could look down the room and see his movements.

  He threw a log on the fire and bent to set the water pail near it. He unstrapped his belt and laid it on the chair, then unlaced his surcotte and pulled it over his shoulders. The tunic and shirt followed, each item of clothing thrown atop hers on the stool.

  She didn't move, but she didn't close her half-lidded eyes either. He waited for the water to heat, his naked back visible above the end of the bed. She could see, backlit by the fire, the strong lean muscles of his shoulders and the firm lines of his hips.

  He bent for the pail and turned his profile to her, then poured water into a bowl set on the table that was wedged between the hearth wall and the bottom of the bed. The light found the angles and edges of his torso and arms as he took a cloth and began washing.

  She remembered doing this for him when he was ill, and almost felt those ridges beneath her own fingers again as her gaze followed the cloth across his chest and down his stomach. A lazy sensuality coursed through her as she watched. Had this started then, when she touched him in his delirium? Or before, when he asked her to stay the night and ease his deathwatch?

  He took a long time to wash, his movements slow and studied, his face looking more at the wall than at his body, the lines of his muscles and expression sculpted of stone. She could not take her eyes off him. Even the fingers of his hand as they clutched the cloth fascinated her. He was so beautiful in his male way, and the fire's lights and shadows only made him more so.

  He put the cloth down. He turned his head toward her dark corner. Her breath silently caught as his awareness of her became something almost physical. Every part of her froze. She dared not move, even to close her eyes.

  He turned away and placed two more logs on the fire. It flared into a huge blaze, increasing the light until even her far corner was penetrated by dancing shadows. The warmth spread throughout the room, almost stifling her under the covers.

  She closed her eyes, for if he returned to his place below her he could see her now. And so she was startled when she felt his weight on the bed beside her, stretching out. He had waited for her to be asleep before taking his rest, and she worked hard at looking dead to the world.

  “Anna.” It wasn't a question. He said it simply and evenly, as if he were giving her a name.

  Her heart pounded wildly. Her fingers closed around the dagger under her pillow.

  “Anna.” His voice was low, with a commanding edge to it. “I know that you do not sleep. I know that you were watching me.”

  A hand came down on her shoulder.

  In a flash she jumped up and away from him, kneeling in a crouch against the wall, facing him like a cornered animal. She clutched the dagger in her hand.

  Her sudden movement drew him up too. He knelt upright and tall above her, the body she had been admiring a mere arm's length away.

  “Come and lie with me, Anna. After tomorrow I'll not be alone with you again, and it weighs on me. Lie in my arms as you did last night.”

  “So that you can call me wanton?”

  “I was angry, and hungry for you. I did not mean that. Your passion is innocent and beautiful. Come to me. I promise that I'll not take you. You'll leave here a maid, as you entered.”

  She didn't believe the last part. Twice he had warned her that men say anything at these times. Yet he was making the decision hers, giving her a choice.

  As she looked in his eyes she knew that she had long ago made that choice, and made it many times. She had not sent him away from the estate as she should have, but kept him near her. She had not stopped him those times in her room, nor this morning in the forest. She had opened her door to him this night. He had known her choice for what it was. She was the one who pretended otherwise. There was no future to this, but he offered something that she wanted and needed, and she was tired of denying it.

  She dropped her dagger and leaned an inch, no more, toward him.

  He took the movement for the assent he sought. He reached out for her, pulling her against him, folding his arms around her in a tight embrace that raised her up.

  The response of her body was immediate. Pleasure and madness slammed into her as his mouth closed on hers with devouring, insistent kisses. She grabbed at him, found his head and held it to her, taking his tongue greedily and then following his lead with her own. His hands moved and she reveled in their hard pressing touch as he explored her, feeling every inch, moving down to her hips and the back of her thighs.

  He pulled at the tie to the neck of her shirt and moved his mouth there, biting her with kisses that covered the skin exposed to him. Her body moved against him in a swaying, primitive rhythm as she gave herself over to the hands and mouth that obliterated her awareness of everything but the feel and scent of his demanding body and the pounding, pulsing insistence of her own.

  “Come here.” He rocked back on his heels and spread his knees and guided her down so that she sat on him, riding his thigh. She cried out at the welco
me pressure between her legs and the damp feel of her hose. She must have surprised him, because he took her head between his hands and looked into her face as he said her name.

  Calmer now, he drew up her shirt and whisked it off and held her breasts as he looked at them. His gaze excited her even more and she pressed against his thigh to find some relief for the aching heat. He kissed her while his fingers stroked her nipples. She cried out again, the sound lost between them, as she leaned into his touch and held on to his shoulders and rocked against his thigh for the hardness that relieved her and drove her to further madness at the same time.

  His arms closed around her back and hips tightly and he lifted her up so she knelt slightly above him. He took her breast in his mouth. Her head flew back at the unbelievable sensations as waves of pleasure coursed through her, down her limbs and hips. The need between her legs became excruciating and she rocked in response to the throbbing. He understood, because even as he licked and sucked her breasts he moved one of his arms between her thighs and pressed upward against her damp warmth. It was torture and ecstasy all at once, and she never wanted it to stop.

  He pushed away the pillows and the bedcoverings and laid her down, hovering above her with his weight on one arm. He gazed at her as he traced her lines and curves. Her eyes followed his hand's journey, anticipating the excitement of his touch. She felt no shame in the breathless desire she knew he must see in her face. His hand found the tie to her hose and pulled it loose.

  He came down over her and took her breasts in his mouth, first one, then the other, drawing gently on them with his lips and arousing her with his tongue, sending her moaning to her heights once more, deliberately pushing her into a frenzy of need. He rose up again as he slowly stroked her thighs.

  “Look at me,” he said. “I want to see your eyes when I touch you.”

  She gazed into the dark fires above her. His hand pressed under her hose and down her belly and moved lower until his fingers found the source of the deep pulse that had been torturing her. Everything up until then paled. She closed her eyes as his intimate touch created an exquisite oblivion.