What direction was she going? Was she close enough for someone to hear if she cried out? How would they know it was her? Please—she beseeched angels and archangels and the entire host of heaven—let there be just one of them this time!
Abruptly what had been a slow and stealthy pursuit changed into an all-out chase. A thud and the thrashing of underbrush set her to open flight. She bolted for the dim glow coming through the trees, ignoring the pain in her foot and the slap and sting of the wiry branches. The faint light seemed closer with each desperate heartbeat, but so did that pursuing shape … until suddenly it loomed out of the darkness … human … male … bent on intercepting her.
With a cry of fright, she reversed course.
She felt him closing the distance, heard a growl of determination and the crashing of vegetation as he charged after her. Suddenly she was struck from behind and propelled forward … into a nearby tree.
The impact winded her. For a moment all she could do was clutch the bark and gasp convulsively. She was consumed by the struggle to breathe, until a huge shudder racked her and her stunned lungs finally expanded. With the battle for breath won, she channeled her energy against the weight pinning her to the tree. Twisting and shoving, she managed to turn and face her attacker, whose hand clamped hard over her mouth. As he drew back to look at her, she found herself staring up into a pair of hot black eyes framed by an angular face and a mane of unruly dark hair.
“You!” he snarled quietly, trying to contain her. “I should have known.”
There was no mistaking the owner of that irritable voice, but it was a moment more before she would trust her senses and cease struggling.
“What—”
“Hush!” he whispered, raising his head to examine the darkness around them, evaluating every rustle, sway, and chirp in the now-quiet forest. He was pressed so tightly against her that she could feel the tension coiled in his big frame and the control he exerted over every breath.
“Have you no sense at all?” She felt a contraction tighten his loins and ripple its way up through him. “You were attacked in these woods mere hours ago, and here you are wandering around alone in the dark!”
“And what are
you
doing out here?” She matched his furious whisper, wishing her crazed heart would slow and hoping he couldn’t feel the way it was pounding. “Skulking around the woods at night—”
“I was posting a night watch, and Mattias reported that one of the ‘Sisters’ came out into the trees and hadn’t returned.”
“So you came charging out here like a lunatic, chased me, and knocked the very living breath out of me?”
“You could have been one of the brigands, back for another try.”
“Do I look like an outlaw?” She grabbed the edge of her veil and held it up. “How many brigands do you know who wear a religious habit while stealing and pillaging?”
“I couldn’t see your cursed hab—”
“I nearly broke an ankle back there.” Her bodily complaints and outrage both grew. “I’m scratched all over … my habit is picked and torn and probably filthy … and my face …” She reached up to feel for additional damage and realized her hand was stinging. “Owww.”
“What’s wrong?”
“I must have found a patch of briers along the way.”
He seized her hand, and when she complained, his touch gentled.
“I don’t feel any blood.” He slid his fingers over her palm, sending a shiver up her arm. “You’ll survive.”
“You sound disappointed,” she snapped, trying to pull her hand away.
“On the contrary,” he said with a sneer that was not quite up to his usual standard. “I can’t afford to … to have one of you … ‘matrimonial pearls-of-great-price’ … damaged while in my care.”
Standing there in the dappled moonlight with him pressed emphatically against her body and rubbing slow, deliberate circles on her palm with his thumb, she grew confused. Then she looked up and his shadow-softened features began to brand themselves into her impressionable senses. Lisette’s and Alaina’s words came back to her. Tall … strong … courageous … dutiful … he was the paragon of knightly perfection. Her awareness broadened to include the sensation of his battle-seasoned body molded against hers. The overwhelming warmth and hardness of him were so new and compelling that for a time they distorted her thinking. Handsome … intense … physically gifted and stirring to watch … he was also a prime slice of masculinity. And here he was in the dark with her … pressed tightly against her … filling her vision … breathing his strange, spicy heat into her head and lungs …
Why?
Out of nowhere came the voice of a little “abbess” inside her.
Why was he still pressed against her? Especially when he’d made it so clear that he found her objectionable?
Did it matter? She silenced that inner abbess. He was here with her and this bodily contact with him was so pleasurable. Her gaze fastened on his lips, which were parting … seemed to be lowering …
Shouting and sounds of crashing vegetation erupted all around them. Galvanized, he drew his sword and whirled into a crouch, ready to defend her.
A dozen men brandishing weapons burst from the trees, led by Mattias and young Withers. Their battle cries died in their throats and their blades lowered as they recognized their commander and spotted Chloe, frozen and wide-eyed, behind him.
“What the devil are you doing out here?” Sir Hugh demanded, straightening and lowering his sword.
Mattias peered pointedly around him to Chloe and seemed a bit uneasy.
“Well, ye didn’t come back, so we tho’t ye might need some help. Wouldn’ want nothin’ to happen to the little Sister there.”
“As you can see,” Hugh snarled, grateful for the darkness that hid his reddening face, “she is perfectly safe.”
He, on the other hand, was in great danger. Of forgetting every lesson on lust and licentiousness he’d ever learned. Of succumbing to a temptation he’d never faced before. Of doing something unforgivably stupid.
“Now get back to camp.” Frantic to escape their scrutiny, he seized her wrist and pulled her along through the trees, setting a wickedly purposeful pace over logs and around snags. He could almost feel his men’s eyes boring into his back, questioning what he was doing with the little Sister out here in the dark. And with damned good reason. If they hadn’t interrupted him …
He had to do something. If nuns’ garb wasn’t enough to protect the maids from his men’s baser urges, then he’d have to find something that did. They needed a better disguise … something truly convincing … something that could make even Chloe of Guibray look nothing like a woman.
When they reached the camp he dragged her across the circle, straight to the fire built in the midst of the wagons.
“Sit!”
At first she just stood glaring at him. Then, apparently remembering his strength and his willingness to use it, she tucked her arms with a jerk and sat down on one of logs that had been dragged near the fire.
Chloe watched as he conferred with Sir Graham, who seemed stunned by whatever he was saying and stared uneasily at her across the flames. Then Sir Graham strode off to speak to some of the men and Sir High-and-Mighty came to deliver what she sensed could only be bad news.
“We need your garments.” When she just blinked at him, he expanded on it. “Your habits. You’ll have to remove them and hand them over.”
“What?” She shot to her feet, listing slightly as she tried not to put weight on her injured ankle. He seemed utterly serious. “We’ll do no such thing.”
“They were meant to provide you protection and security, were they not?” He leaned down to speak slowly and succinctly, as if he were explaining to a child. She was a twitch away from slapping him silly. “Well, after today, they will only provide you protection if
someone else
is wearing them.”
That took a moment to register. It annoyed her that she couldn’t think of a clever and devastating rebuttal.
“And, pray, who do you think
should
wear them?”
He seemed to sense victory at hand and pointed to a clutch of soldiers being herded their way by a grim Sir Graham.
“Them?
They
will wear our clothes? And what, pray, will
we
wear?”
He turned to young Withers and ordered him to remove his mail and tunic, holding out a hand to receive them. She watched with dawning comprehension as he hooked fingers in the garments’ shoulders and held them up to her.
“Ohhh, no.”
“Oh, yes.” His smile was laced with vengeful glee. “And you’ve no one to blame but yourself … you gave me the idea. ‘How many brigands do you know who wear a religious habit?’ Sound familiar?”
* * *
Late that same night, miles away, one of the pot boys from the village ambled down the convent’s cellar steps to fetch some eggs and soon raced back up the steps with word that someone was trapped in the cellar.
By the time the kitchen Sisters arrived and drew back the rusty bolt, the abbess, who had been making her nightly rounds, was herself flying down the passage. Together they flung open the door and discovered Sister Archibald sitting in a chair the abbess had scoured the convent for that morning … wrapped from head to toe in blankets and sipping from a cup of Bordeaux’s best libation.
“Archie! Are you all right?” As the chill-shrouded Archibald proclaimed her well-being, the abbess paled. “What in heaven are you doing here?”
“I did call out, ye know,” Archibald insisted later as she sat in the abbess’s private solar sipping the hot barley water they insisted she drink and regarding that humble brew with a wistful expression. “Again an’ again. I called. And ye can only call out so much before yer throat gives out.”
The abbess gave her a skeptical look. Her old friend’s voice didn’t sound the least bit “given out,” and the wine-warmed glow of her face didn’t make her look especially distressed by her ordeal. The Reverend Mother strode to her writing desk and sat down in her newly returned chair with her jaw hardening. “How could she think she would get away with it? I’ll send to the bishop straightaway and ask for an envoy to ride after them. We’ll haul her rebellious little carcass back to the convent and—”
“I think ye’d best read this first.” Archibald pulled out the letter Chloe had left with her and carried it to the desk. “It may change yer mind.”
“I sincerely doubt that.”
But as the abbess read Chloe’s earnest words, the lines of her face softened. She looked up to find Archibald wearing a wistful, enigmatic little smile that she knew to be both an expression of hope and a canny appeal to the highest and best in a human heart.
“I can’t help thinking you had some part in this,” she charged.
“Not me,” Archibald said emphatically. “Surprised me in the cellar, she did. Locked me right in.”
“But you’re not the least bit sorry she did, are you?”
“Truth be told? No. I always thought our little Chloe should go.” She did her best to catch both her friend’s eye and her sympathy. “All the girl wants is some sweet babes of ’er own. Ye know what it’s like, Reverend Mother … wantin’ to hold flesh of yer flesh next to yer heart … needin’ a place to belong.”
The abbess seized a quill and shifted her chair to face the parchment laid out on the desk. In a trice, she had flicked open the ink pot and was stretching back to the length of her arm, tucking her chin and squinting … determined to fill that parchment with frothing hot words. After every letter she had to hold the parchment up and farther away to be certain where to put the next one.
“Sulphur and brimstone!” After a frustrating quarter of an hour, she slammed the inked quill down on the parchment, where it made an ugly blotch. “The chit’s robbed me of my eyes and hands. I can’t even write a letter ordering her brought back!” She pushed back in her chair, stewing in her own incapacity.
“And you!” She turned her frustration on Sister Archibald. “Where is all of that concern for ‘our dear lambs’ that you plagued me with? Who’s going to speak for our maids now and see them properly mated?”
“Chloe.” Archibald folded her hands at her ample waist and adopted a beatific expression, sensing things were going her way. “The girl’s got pluck and she doesn’t miss much—ye said so yerself. Between her an’ the Almighty, they’ll see our lambs settled right.” She moved around the desk to put her hand on the abbess’s shoulder. “Let her go, Reverend Mother. Her destiny’s not with us. Never has been.”
The abbess thought on that. Though her pride and conscience still stung, she heaved a sigh of decision and gave the hand on her shoulder a pat.
“Very well, I shall leave it in the Almighty’s lap. Let’s hope
He
has more success with her than I did.” But she couldn’t help one last flare of annoyance. “And I suppose, in Christian charity, we ought to light a few candles for whoever gets saddled with her for a wife.”
“Don’t like this, sarr.” Withers jammed a finger beneath the edge of the wimple constricting the edges of his face and gave it a tug. “It ain’t nat’rul.”
“I believe that is the point, Withers,” Hugh said, studying the five newly appointed “Sisters” as they stood beside the campfire enduring muffled chuckles and taunts from their still-armored comrades. Upon volunteering for a “dangerous and important” mission, the five had been stripped of their arms and garments and every last vestige of masculinity—even whiskers—then were handed the maidens’ habits to don. Their sullen faces were now reddened from both the shaving they endured and their embarrassment at being turned into females … even temporarily.
“Why d’we ’ave to wear these things at night?” Mattias snatched the black woolen out from his chest, stretching it as far from his skin as possible.
“We don’t know when they’ll attack,” Hugh said with strained patience. “But they didn’t get what they came for the first time, and we must assume they will be back. You five will have to be prepared at all times … until we’re safely aboard the king’s ship and under sail.”
“It’s chokin’ me,” burly Hiram complained, yanking on his wimple. Stitches popped. “Won’t sleep a wink wi’ this cursed thing ’round me neck.”
“I don’t look like no ‘Sister,’ ” the gangly swordsman who went by the name of Fenster growled. He raised the hem of his habit, which was already perilously short, and looked down at his hairy knees and enormous feet. “You ever seen a female wi’ feet like this?”
“I can honestly say,” Hugh responded, “I have been spared that horror.” He turned to Graham, who was working to keep a sober face. “We may as well get them settled in the tent.”
“Oughta at least get t’ wear me own bags b’neath,” Willum the axeman muttered as he fell in behind Sir Graham. “Got a right big draft up me arse.”
Some of the goods had been removed from one wagon and placed in the cart to make a protected space for the maids to sleep. There was a singularly awkward moment as the maids were filing out of their tent and the men were lumbering in to take their places. Each contingent glared at the other, then at the garments they had been forced to forfeit. Both sides swallowed their objections and moved grudgingly along.
While Sir Graham went over the plan with the Sister-impostors one more time, Sir Hugh led the maids-in-men’s-tights around the wagons, keeping to the shadows so they would be shielded as much as possible from his men’s sight. He averted his own eyes as he helped them climb into the wagon and told them to stay put. As they found places to sleep on top of the crates and barrels, they scratched vigorously and complained.
“This is indecent,” Alaina declared, tilting her nose up and as far as she could from the tunic she was wearing.
“Ungodly. Un-Christian,” Helen gritted out, rubbing the coarse fabric against her itching arms.
“A man is forbidden to wear a woman’s garments. It’s against the laws of the holy church,” Margarete said, staring in horror at the stained and baggy tights she had been assigned. “And to force us to wear men’s clothes is
twice
the abdom … abiminiom … abdominatium …”
“Abomination
is undoubtedly the word you’re looking for,” Chloe said, folding her arms irritably. “But I don’t think it applies here. The brigands are still at large, they know we’re not real nuns, and they have orders to carry us off. I hate to have to agree with Sir Hugh’s reasoning, but our good and honorable habits can only protect us now if his men wear them in our stead.”
“Perhaps the exchange will offer hidden benefits,” Lisette intoned, lifting one tights-clad leg to study in the moonlight. “We’ll all be caring for husbands and their garments soon. What better way to learn about men than to spend a bit of time in their tights?”
Chloe stared at her, and then at the others, who apparently hadn’t caught her double meaning. She was going to have to keep a closer eye on Lisette.
“I can think of better ways,” Helen declared, contorting an arm around her back to scratch. “Watching them in a tournament, for one.”
“Dining with them at celebrations and on feast days, for another.” Alaina pushed up her sleeves and scratched all the way to her shoulders.
“Walking with them,” Margarete added, scratching her lower half.
“Oooh … in the dark,” Lisette said eagerly, rolling up onto her knees. “Where they can steal kisses that take your breath away.”
When Chloe turned to look, Lisette was smiling in a way that seemed somehow prim and mischievous at the same time. Walking in the dark with a man was one of the things specifically forbidden in the Sisters’ teachings on virtuous conduct. It was considered an invitation to—
Her breath stopped. She’d just sampled a variety of “walking in the dark.” If they hadn’t been interrupted … the thought staggered her … would Sir Hugh have kissed her? If he’d been about to kiss her, he couldn’t find her that repugnant or objectionable. And if he didn’t find her so objectionable …
Her reasoning stood every test of sense and logic she could put to it. Her heart began to beat again. It was suddenly as clear as rainwater: his hostility toward her had more to do with
him
than with
her.
“Try to get some rest,” she told the others. “We have a long day ahead. But with Heaven’s help, tomorrow night we’ll be aboard ship, out of danger, and back in our own garments.”
As she settled amongst the others, on hard wooden crates and barrels beneath itchy woolen blankets, she heard Alaina’s determined muttering.
“Not without a bath, I won’t.”
A predawn mist settled over the camp, curling white and thick in low areas, covering blankets, shields, and helmets with dew. By the time the sky had begun to gray with first light, the moisture had softened the long grasses around the camp enough to keep them from rustling a warning to the men dozing in groups on the ground around the circle of wagons. Even the two sentries posted in nearby trees had been lulled by the chill and the stillness into a state of reduced awareness. The faint swish of sodden grass and the moisture-muffled snap of small twigs underfoot were all but lost in the heavy morning air. The brigands were halfway through their camp before they were even spotted.
It was the soft, metallic “chink” of mail meeting plate armor that made one of the men sleeping near the wagons raise his head. He saw a man in ragged clothes signaling with an arm movement that repeated that all-too-familiar sound. Then came a muffled but unmistakable cry from the direction of the Sisters’ tent, at the same instant someone on the far side of the camp raised an alarm. He was on his feet in the next instant, reaching for his weapon and shouting to his fellows of the attack.
The invaders abandoned all attempts at stealth to slash and rip back the felt covering of the women’s tent. They poured inside, grabbed the habit-clad figures, and hoisted them—albeit, with some difficulty—over their armor-clad shoulders. As the men bearing the “maidens” staggered toward the trees, the others formed a tightening phalanx at their rear, fighting off Sir Hugh’s contingent while retreating strategically toward the forest. A few of their number fell, but most closed ranks and battled on as their comrades fled with their substantial prizes.
Hidden in one of the baggage wagons, Chloe and the others clutched each other and listened with anxious relief as the sounds of fighting began to die. Desperate to see what was happening, Chloe pried Margarete’s fingers from her arms and pushed up to peer over the side of the wagon.
She could make out flashes of metal and feverish motion at the edge of the woods. There was some shouting and the remaining brigands broke off the fight and fled. Instead of giving chase, Sir Graham ordered the rest of his men back to the camp and their horses. Sir Hugh was right behind them, but as he neared camp veered toward the wagons instead of a saddle.
“Stay down, dammit!” he shouted as he spotted her above the wagon’s rim. She gave their ruined tent a quick glance, then ducked back down into the wagon and reassured her terrified companions.
“It’s Sir Hugh. The brigands wrecked our tent—I think they may have made off with our replacements!”
Moments later they heard the clank of harness chains and the thud of hooves approaching and realized the soldiers were hitching the wagons. A wooden wheel groaned as someone used it to climb up to the plank that formed a driver’s seat. Chloe stretched up to see over the cargo and was relieved to find Sir Hugh himself seizing the reins and slapping the horses into motion.
“Where are we going?” she called out, crawling over and around dower goods to the front of the wagon.
“To safety,” he called out. “Get your head down.”
“But we can’t just abandon Mattias and the others!”
She braced herself against the wagon’s pitching side and pushed herself up higher to look behind them. The other wagon, the cart, and a string of empty horses were rumbling along in their wake. The sight of Sir Graham and the rest of the men headed into the woods after the brigands reassured her. She walked her hands around to the front and seized the edge of the driver’s seat.
“You’re not going to help them get Mattias and Withers back?”
“Will you get out of sight?” he ground out. When she didn’t move, he was forced to answer. “They were supposed to be taken.”
“They were? Why?”
“So they can learn who is behind these attacks.”
“But then, why is Sir Graham riding after them?”
“It won’t look right if they’re not pursued.” He sounded as if he spoke through gritted teeth as he smacked the horses’ rumps with the reins, trying to get them to move faster. “Now will you bloody well
get down
and
stay down?”
“Ohhh.” It made complete sense. “A Trojan horse, of sorts.” He looked over his shoulder with surprise, just as her eyes flew wide. “What will they do when they do learn they don’t have marriageable young maidens?”
The Frenchmen carried their captives through the forest toward the same deserted cottage their scout had made use of the night before. By the time they reached the waiting horses and flung their burdens facedown across the saddles, their backs were straining and muscles were screaming.
“Dieu
—they are heavier than I remembered,” one of the men snarled, giving his captive’s rump a smack. The whine and thrashing that produced delighted him. “Eh? You like that,
ma petite?”
He smacked her again.
“This one—she has had her nose too long in the trough,” another of the brigands growled as he stuck his foot in a stirrup and swung up behind the maid he’d carried. His outraged captive managed to deal him a hearty
thwack
on the shin and he yelped. Retaliating, he brought a fist crashing down on the back of her head, and she went limp.
“N’importe,
Ricard. You will work that roundness from her!” another of the outlaws called with a wicked laugh.
The raiding party kept to the valleys and the fast-disappearing shadows as they raced across the countryside. They flashed grins at each other and fondled their captives’ upturned bottoms. The maids’ frantic protests only stirred them to bawdier humor and greater anticipation.
Their destination, a rocky outcropping overlooking a bend in the river, was deserted just as they hoped.
“Le seigneur
is not here yet!” one called as they reached the shelter of a cluster of stone crags.
“We work quickly, eh?” Another bashed a proud fist against his chest.
“We must work quickly again,” still another suggested as they halted and slid from their mounts, “if we would enjoy the spoils of victory before
le siegneur
arrives!”
The maids were dragged from the horses cringing and trying desperately to hide behind their veils. Out came bottles of wine, and several of the brigands shed their scabbards and began unlacing their tights in preparation for taking their share of the spoils.
“This one is mine!” One seized a maid and hauled her to her feet. She rose … and kept rising … until she stood almost a head higher than he.
“Bon Dieu,
she is a big one!” His laughter had an edge of bewilderment that was soon replaced by bravado. “There will be plenty of room for Ricard under those skirts, eh?”
With his comrades watching, he hauled the gangly wench against him and was astounded by the strength of her resistance. “Let us see what treasures you are hiding under there,
ma petite!”
Despite her frantic resistance, he managed to yank off her veil. The long, bony face and big nose sticking out of the wimple caused him to recoil briefly.
“Try the other end, Ricard!” one of his fellows yelled.
The harried Ricard grabbed for his prize’s habit and wrenched it up to reveal an expanse of scarred and stringy legs. He winced in spite of himself, drawing hoots of derision and mimicked dog howls from his comrades.
“We should have let the English
keep
that one!” came a jeer as the rest of the bandits rushed to lay claim to the other maids and the stony crag filled with sounds of scuffling and thrashing.
Humiliated by his choice and determined to punish his victim for it, Ricard tried to wedge his hand between the wench’s long, hairy thighs.
“Open up,
chien.
I will show you what your ugly uncles would not!”