Commanded By The French Duke. Meriel Fuller
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.