Anne Stuart - Hidden Honor

Or perhaps it was simply that Brother Peter was and always had been a mystery.

Either way, he’d never betray his vows. For all the ways his eyes lingered on Lady Elizabeth when she wasn’t looking, nothing would come of it. She would be delivered up to her convent, a bride of Christ. Prince William would be shriven, throw off his monk’s robes and return to his life of sin. And Peter, Adrian and the others would return to Saint Andrews, away from the temptations of the great wide world.

They were but a few miles from the household of Thomas of Wakebryght, one day closer to the holy shrine of Saint Anne. God willing, they’d reach journey’s end without disaster.

He could see nothing of Lady Elizabeth but the occasional flutter of her drab clothes or the occasional strand of devil-red hair. All would be well, he told himself.

But he was beginning to have a very bad feeling about this.

Elizabeth slept. She wouldn’t have thought it humanly possible—the gait of the horse beneath her was smooth enough, but bouncing around the countryside was hardly conducive to slumber. And the solid body behind her, the warmth of his breath stirring her hair, the feel of his legs beneath hers, the rise and fall of his chest, his arms around her, holding her captive…

She couldn’t bear to think of it. No man had touched her in three years, and that man had disillusioned her forever. The man holding her on this huge horse was far more dangerous. Lethal, in fact.

And still, she slept. When she woke it was growing dark, and every bone in her body was stiff and aching. She jerked awake as she realized where she was, and the horse beneath her startled, increasing her uneasiness.

The horse was brought under instant control with a brief murmur, and she remembered who held her. The dark prince, the Devil incarnate, with the mouth of a fallen angel.

“Be still,” he said, and she stopped squirming, more afraid of the fall from such a huge horse than the man behind her. Perhaps.

“Where are we?” She sounded breathless. Absurd, when she’d been sound asleep.

“ Where are we, my lord William?’” the man behind her corrected her in a lazy voice.

“My lord William,” she amended, silently adding, my scum-sucking, hell-spawn lord William.

“At our destination for the night. From now on we’ll be sleeping in the forest, but tonight you’ll be assured of a warm bed to ease your weariness.”

“Who says I’m weary? My lord,” she added hastily when she heard the sharpness in her own voice. The prince was not known for his tolerance, and he’d killed women before.

“You could barely stand. I’m expecting someone will end up carrying you to your bed.” There was a faint undercurrent of amusement in his voice, one that increased her annoyance.

“Not you!” she said before she thought better of it.

She almost thought he laughed, but she couldn’t twist in the saddle to see his face, and in the growing darkness it would most certainly reveal nothing.

“No, not me. I have servants who take care of menial details, such as carting argumentative women around.”

She stiffened. “Then why am I riding in front of you? Wouldn’t I be better off riding with a servant?”

“You’re no tiny flower, Lady Elizabeth. My horse is the only one capable of holding you and another man. Besides, I am inclined to be generous toward all. Part of my penance.”

She controlled her instinctive snort of derision, more afraid of startling the horse than annoying the rider. The man behind her was an enigma—she had no doubt he was a dangerous man, capable of violence. She had no doubt he was possessed of strong carnal appetites, strong enough that they even appeared to spill over onto a plain creature such as herself.

But he didn’t strike her as a cold-blooded killer, one to lash out in rage and brutality. But the plain, ugly truth belied her own instincts, and if she wanted to make it to the Shrine of Saint Anne in good order she needed to curb her random tongue.

Leaving the prison of her father’s house had lured her into thinking she had more freedom than in fact she truly had. She would be much better off reassuming the mantle of a faintly witless woman.

“Yes, my lord,” she said in the slightly breathless voice she used with her father. “And you’ll be truly shriven, by our Lady, and go on to live a life of peace and justice.”

He was the one who snorted with laughter. “You think so?”

“But how else could it be, my lord? My father has told me so, and a good daughter knows the wisdom of her parents.”

She wasn’t expecting him to put his hands on her. He transferred the reins to one hand and took her chin in the other, turning her face up to his. It was too dark to see him, too dark for him to see the banked anger in her dulcet gaze. “And you’re such a good daughter, Lady Elizabeth, are you not?” he said lightly. “A fine housekeeper, a dutiful child, with a gift for herbs and healing. You’ll fit well into a convent, serving our Lady and keeping a still tongue in your head.”

“A still tongue in my head?” she echoed nervously, still looking up at him.

“You’re aware that Saint Anne’s is a silent order? Devoted to meditation? Most days you won’t be allowed to speak a word that isn’t in Latin. You’d best get all your arguments out ahead of time.”

She turned her head away from him, and he dropped his hand. In truth, the feel of his long fingers on her stubborn jaw had been almost as unnerving as the information he’d imparted. An order of silence? Where her only conversation would be the words of holy orders? She’d go mad.

And trust Baron Osbert not to have apprised her of that fact. If he had even a particle of wit she’d suspect he’d done it on purpose, but her father hadn’t the brains for such treachery. Besides, she kept her conversation to a minimum in his presence—he wouldn’t think silence would be a particular burden. He tended to think all tongues should be stilled except his own.

It would have served him right if she’d poisoned him before she left. A miscalculation in his calming draft could do wonders.

She wouldn’t have done it, of course. No matter how great the temptation, her gift with herbs and remedies was only to be used for good, not evil. Tampering with her father’s carnal desires had saved the servant women, though unlikely as it was, some didn’t appear to want to be saved. Tampering with his life would be unforgivable, and no journey of penance would wipe the stain from her soul.

She would deal with life as it happened. She had every intention of becoming abbess of the small order in record time—with her wit, learning and fierce determination she had little doubt she could do almost anything she wanted. She would find a way to relax the strict rules of the order. Or start talking to herself in her cell.

“I have no arguments, my lord William,” she murmured in her best, placate-her-father voice.

He muttered something under his breath, and she almost thought he said “like hell,” but she must have misheard. The wind had picked up, the warm spring day was growing cooler, and the ramparts of the small castle loomed ahead, looking ominously familiar.

It couldn’t be. Thomas of Wakebryght’s home was in the opposite direction of Saint Anne’s Shrine. They would have had to spend the day traveling away from their destination in order to reach it, a detour that would make no sense.

No, many castles looked the same, built as they were to keep marauders at bay. And the shadows were growing long, making things hard to see. She’d only been at Wakebryght once in her life, on her betrothal day. The day her humiliation had been complete, and she’d sworn she’d never return.