Captive Rose (20 page)

Tears burned her eyes, and Leila could scarcely see as
Guy led her toward the stern and what appeared to be a
castlelike
structure built in two tiers atop the main deck. He helped her climb the steep
stairs to the top level, where he pushed
open
a door
and led her inside a low-ceilinged cabin.

"Luxurious, isn't it?" Guy asked, clearly
pleased with himself. When she did not readily reply, he added with a slight
shrug, "Well, it is for a ship. This cabin belongs to the captain, but he
was willing to part with it during the voyage for two ruby earrings and a
diamond brooch."

Her mother's priceless jewelry, Leila thought
unhappily, wiping away her tears with the crumpled linen as she looked around
her. The cabin was larger than she might have imagined. Guy had to crouch
because he was so tall, but other than that the interior was roomy and
comfortable.

There was a bed against a side wall—only the second
such piece of furniture she had ever seen—a carved table, and two high-backed
wooden objects. She assumed from the small, brocade cushions that these were
meant to be sat on, but they looked extremely uncomfortable.

"Chairs," Guy said softly, studying her with
a slight smile. "In England a lady of gentle breeding does not sit or
sleep on the floor."

Leila ignored him, thinking the English were surely mad
to prefer such hard furnishings to soft pillows and mattresses spread upon
thick carpets. She noted the round Persian rug on the planked floor and the
gold velvet bedspread, both of which looked threadbare, but what really drew
her attention was the oriel window projecting from the cabin wall above the
bed. Nearly the same length across as the headboard and equally as high, the
window was fitted with thick, bumpy panes that allowed a blurred, panoramic
view of Acre's harbor.

Staring in wonderment, Leila temporarily forgot her
nausea. She had seen glass windows before in Sultan
Baybar's
palace, and of course in the small church where she and her mother worshipped
in Damascus, but never would she have dreamed a window could be fitted into a
ship like this one.

"It opens. Look," Guy said, taking care to
keep his head down as he crossed the cabin. He lifted a latch attached to one
of the lower panes, splayed his fingers upon the glass, and pushed. Sure
enough, the window opened outward like a tiny door, moving on hinges fit into a
wooden frame.

Leila inhaled the fresh air wafting into the cabin, the
breeze smelling of fish and the sea. She smiled unconsciously, liking the
pungent smell and feeling better than she had since boarding the ship.

"Sweet
Jesu
, I didn't
think you could do it," Guy said almost under his breath, gazing at her
with a strange expression on his face.

"What?" Leila asked suspiciously, sobering.

"Smile. You should do so more often, my lady. Rare
beauty like yours grows even
more fair
with a smile
upon your lips."

"Surely you jest," Leila said bitterly,
looking down at her hands. "I have nothing to smile about."

"Perhaps in time you will change your mind,"
came
his soft rejoinder, stirring the anger that was brewing
within her like a sudden summer storm. "We could have a pleasant journey
together, Leila, if you would set aside your vain hopes of escaping and accept
my aid."

"Your aid?" she hissed, her eyes flashing
with cold accusation as she met his solemn gaze. "You forget you have
kidnapped me against my will, Lord de
Warenne
.
'
Tis
not help, but a crime you
have committed. Everything and everyone I love is in Damascus. My life's work
is there—"

"Life's work?" Guy scoffed unkindly, his
temper rising as an unfamiliar pang of jealousy speared his heart. That she
could possibly love an unbeliever was beyond his comprehension, and that he
could be envious of such a man was equally so! "What life's work could you
possibly have had but as wife to an infidel, bearing him children who would be
outcasts in either world!" From the bright spots of color on her cheeks,
he could see that his words had angered her all the more, but his frustration
at her stubbornness was so great that he could not stop. "Oh, yes, I
almost forgot. You were a physician's helper. Changing bandages and a baby's
dirtied linen use much the same skills, I'd wager."

She rushed at him so suddenly that he barely caught her
hand before she slapped him. He hit his head on the low rafters trying to dodge
the blow. Yet the dull pain seemed like nothing compared to the sheer misery
reflected in her gaze. Tears swam in her eyes, and her expression was so anguished
that he was assailed by guilt. He had pushed her too far.

"Not a . . . helper," she choked, sobbing and
struggling against his iron grip, her face wet with tears. "My father made
me tell you that . . .
to
—to protect me. I was—"
She drew a shuddering breath, which made his throat tighten all the more. "Damn
you, de
Warenne
, damn you to hell! I was his
apprentice! After my marriage, I would have been a physician. I would have
joined my father's practice along with his son, Jamal Al-Aziz . . . my new
husband. It was my dream! To be a physician was all I ever wanted . . . and now
you've ruined everything!"

Guy was stunned. He had never heard of a woman
physician. Women healers and midwives abounded in England, but schooled
physicians were always men. His gut instinct told him she was speaking the
truth—no mere helper could possess the superior medical skills she had
displayed in his prison cell—yet it was so hard to believe. To him, a woman's
life work consisted of caring for her husband and children and supervising a
great household.

"How can this be?" he queried sharply. "I
know of no female physicians—"

"In my culture they are a common thing!" she
broke in hoarsely. "Do you think male physicians are allowed into a harem's
guarded sanctity? No! Only a woman may enter, a woman skilled in all aspects of
medicine who may treat whatever malady she encounters. It is the same in our
hospitals, where female patients too ill to remain in the harem are cared for
in secluded wards. Yet I was also allowed to treat men. How else could I have
assisted my father in your care? And do you think I learned how to cauterize
wounds by chance, a skill which saved your life? No! I have been studying for
my profession since I was ten years old, and I have been an apprentice for the
last four. Nine long years" —her arm wildly swept the cabin— "only to
have this happen to me!"

Guy's amazement was great. Leila was so different, so
far outside
his own
experience. She was like an exotic
flower opening to the sun, the unfurling petals revealing layer upon layer,
each more rare than the last. Trained in sensual arts. A female physician. He
was utterly fascinated by her. Yet her life would be far different in England,
and it was best that she realize that now. She must begin to prepare herself
for the reality of her true homeland.

"You may have held such a position in Damascus,
but that will not be possible in England," he said, knowing from her
stricken expression how cruel he must sound. "When you become the mistress
of your husband's castle, you must confine your medicine to the care of your
family and perhaps your servants. It is the way of things."

"No! I will never accept it!" Leila cried
vehemently, striking his chest with her fists. "You bastard! What a fool I
was! How could I ever have pitied you? I wish I had never seen your face! I
wish they had chopped off your head!"

Guy grimaced as she lent a blow to his shoulder wound,
but somehow the pain seemed well deserved.

How deeply he had just hurt her, yet he never meant her
any harm. He had unwittingly altered her life and her dreams because he had
been convinced she would welcome his rescue.

Now there was nothing he could do but fold her in his
embrace, for already he heard the captain shouting orders to his crew to man
their oars. Already the ship was shuddering and creaking as it was pushed away
from the dock. They were under way, their journey begun.

Guy inhaled Leila's clean rose scent, the heady
fragrance heightened by her futile struggles.

His captive rose . . . and so she would remain until
they reached England. For despite everything she had told him, nothing had
changed. He would never let her go.

"
Shhh
, Leila," he
whispered in her ear, holding her close though she fought him with all the
strength her delicate frame possessed. She was virtually trapped in his arms,
yet still she writhed furiously, desperate to be free. She must have felt the
ship's movement, too, for she began to weep harder.

"I hate you! I hate you!" she shouted, her
voice hoarse from sobbing.

With her cheek pressed against his chest, Guy could feel
her hot tears soaking through his tunic to his skin, her curled fists still
attempting to bruise him though he held one to his lips and the other behind
her back. "Listen to me, Leila," he crooned over her heartrending
cries. "You must believe that what your mother did was for the best. You
must look ahead, not behind.
Shhh
, Leila, love.
Shhh
. . ."

Suddenly it all proved too much for her. As Leila
crumpled in his arms, Guy picked her up and gently laid her down with him on
the bed. He held her
tightly,
whispering to her,
murmuring her name . . . cradling her long after the ship had left the rocky
shores of the Holy Land far behind them.

Chapter 11

It was almost two weeks into the voyage before Leila felt
well enough to sit up in bed. She did so with great difficulty, gritting her
teeth against the ever-present queasiness in her stomach and the woozy feeling
in her head. She would have sunk back down upon the mattress if not for Guy
lifting her beneath the arms until she was half-reclined upon a brace of plump
pillows.

"Is that better?" he asked, taking a seat in
one of the high-backed chairs that had become a permanent fixture beside the
bed.

Leila turned to face him, nodding weakly. There were
lines of strain and weariness around his deep blue eyes, and his handsome
features were so clouded with concern that she was touched, though she would
never have admitted it. Just as she would never understand how this same
hardened giant of a crusader who had threatened and bullied her aboard this
ship could have such gentle hands.

Strange, the workings of kismet.

Since they had sailed from Acre she had become the near
helpless patient and Guy the attentive provider of care. He had scarcely left
her side, nursing her through wretched bouts of seasickness that she believed
had come close to ending her life, though he still contended that she was not
dying, only suffering from a malaise common to many seafaring travelers.

The past days were much of a blur but for that
recurring, almost comical argument, and she would have laughed if she had the
strength. Instead she sighed, chagrined by her own lack of mettle. Now that she
was feeling somewhat better, it was clear she had overreacted.

"Do you want another pillow?" Guy offered,
misreading her reproachful sigh for one of discomfort. He started to rise, but
she shook her head.

"No, these two are enough," she insisted,
giving him the slightest of smiles as he sat down heavily and ran his callused
fingers through his long hair.

In the bright afternoon sunlight streaming from the
window above her head, she could see how the blond streaks had faded, turning
his hair predominantly brown. She imagined it would easily lighten again once
he spent more time out-of-doors, doing whatever English knights did to occupy
themselves
when they were not off crusading across the seas.

Wondering what that might be
,
Leila met his eyes. Her cheeks warmed as she realized he was studying her just
as intently. Despite his evident fatigue, his expression was open and relaxed
and his gaze curious, as if he sought to discern what she had just been
thinking.

"I will have to teach you some courtly etiquette
before we arrive at Westminster," he said conversationally, breaking the
awkward silence. "You blush too easily, my lady. You will have every unmarried
knight at court hovering around you like keen-eyed hawks sensing a gullible and
most delectable prey." He gave a dry laugh. "Most likely the married
ones as well."

Leila lowered her eyes, amazed that no cutting remark
came to mind when his comments were so ripe for one. It seemed her sickness had
lowered her guard or muddled her brain, for truly, she still felt too miserable
to spar with him.

Yet she wasn't worried. Once they reached Marseilles
she knew her appetite for defiance and escape would return as soon as her feet
touched solid ground. Right now she was simply content to be sitting upright
and feeling some semblance of her normal self.

"I would suppose, then, that my elder brother
would protect me," she said guilelessly, concentrating on drawing the
velvet bedspread more snugly around her waist and smoothing the prim, rounded
collar of her linen
nightrail
.

When Guy did not reply, she looked up at him and was
astonished to see that his expression had completely changed. Gone was the
almost boyish ease, in its place a cold grimness. His jaw was set, and raw
tension emanated from his stiffened posture. He was staring at her blindly, as
if he had forgotten she was there.

"Lord de
Warenne
?"

Guy barely heard Leila's soft query. Her innocent
statement had hit him like a stinging slap in the face.

Roger
Gervais
. He had been so
caught up in helping Leila through her illness—a constant round of care which
had left him disconcertingly intimate with his beautiful charge—he had given
little thought to the treasonous bastard. He had purposely avoided thinking of
him at all ever since his encounter with Lady Eve in Damascus. Now it seemed he
could no longer evade the unsettling issue.