Staring at the sword, Cecily swallowed and thrust aside the image of it in SirAdam’s hand, being wielded against the people of Wessex.
The chestnut destrier stamped a hoof, straining at its reins as it turned its head to look at her. Cecily had never seen its like before. It was much larger boned than a Saxon horse. Giving the chestnut’s huge iron-shod hoofs a wide berth, for they were deadly weapons in themselves, she edged past to the end stall, where Emma and her groom had briefly stabled their ponies.
Straw rustled. The chestnut snickered, an incongruously gentle sound from such a huge beast, which put her in mind of Cloud, the pony her parents had given her as a child. Tears pricked at the back of her eyes. Maman!
Blinking hard, Cecily lifted the lantern so it cast its light in the end stall and fell on more scuffled straw and some fresh dung. These were of little import, since the Breton knight knew already that Emma had fled to St Anne’s.
Warily retracing her steps past the knights’ destriers, Cecily went back into a night that was pitch-black, with no moon. The wind whistled into the compound, and bit at her fingers and nose. Shrinking deeper into her thin habit, intending to destroy any betraying hoofprints at the north gate, Cecily was halfway towards it when behind her the south gate creaked open. She turned and froze.
In the flickering torchlight by the portress’s lodge Sir Adam Wymark was overseeing the opening of the gate, his cloak plastered against his long body by the wind. Outside the compound, a mounted troop of horse-soldiers shifted in the darkness—a shadowy, bristling monster that had no place entering a convent. Metal helms pointed skywards; pointed shields angled down.
Sir Adam’s voice rang clear over the wind. ‘This way, men. There’s only stabling for a couple more, but at least the others will be safer in the palisade.’
A murmur of agreement. One of the horse-soldiers tossed a joke at his fellow, and the troop plodded into the yard in disciplined single file, despite the cold.
Out of the corner of her eye Cecily glimpsed movement in the chapel and in the cookhouse doorway—the flutter of a veil, heads swiftly ducking out of sight. She was not the only one in the convent to be watching England’s conquerors.
A nervous giggle, quickly stifled, escaped from the cookhouse. It was followed by the unmistakable sound of a sharp slap. The cookhouse door slammed shut. The joker in the troop made another comment, which Cecily could not make out, but, since it elicited guffaws of ribald laughter, doubtless it was made at the nuns’ expense.
A brisk word from Sir Adam and the laughing stopped abruptly.
Inside the yard, the men began to dismount and disarm, and as they did so the sense that Sir Adam’s troop was a bristling monster lost its force. They were soldiers, yes—strange, beardless soldiers, with shorn hair—but with their helms off most were revealed to be little more than boys, not much older than she. They were tired, nervous, hungry, and many miles from home. Cecily frowned. Boys they might be, but she could not forget they were boys who nonetheless had been trained to kill.
Sir Adam’s dark head turned in her direction, and she saw him mouth her name—‘Lady Cecily.’ Her heart missed a beat.
‘Look to Flame’s saddle, will you, Maurice? And bed him down,’ Sir Adam said, addressing one of the men. ‘And persuade the portress to light us a fire in the guest house. We’re not about to sleep in an ice-box.’
‘Aye, sir.’
And then he was striding across the yard towards her, throwing commands over his shoulder. ‘We’ll maintain a watch tonight, as ever, Maurice.’
‘Even in this place, sir?’
‘Even here. Four-hour watches. We all need sleep.’
‘Aye, sir.’
Reaching Cecily, he gave her a little bow. Uncertain whether he was mocking her or not, Cecily stood her ground, lantern at her side. Really, this knight from Brittany had the most unsettling effect on her senses—again she felt oddly breathless, as she had done in the guest-house, again her heart was fluttering. It must be fear. It must be hate. Or could it be that she was unused to the company of men?
He looked past her to the north gate, a crease between his brows.
Quickly Cecily shifted her lantern, so the light was not directed towards the hoofprints that must be visible. ‘Sir?’
‘You will not say where your sister has gone?’
‘I…no!’
His face went hard. ‘You do her a disservice.’
‘How so?’
‘If by refusing me and fleeing she thinks to ally herself with the Saxon resistance, it will go badly for her when she is captured. And captured she will be, in the end. For what Duke William holds, he holds hard.’
As do you, Cecily thought, recalling that firm grip on her wrist. She raised her chin. ‘Sir, it is true that my sister came to St Anne’s, and it is true that she has fled, but she did not tell me where she was going.’
‘Would that I could believe you.’ Folding his arms across his chest, he glanced speculatively at the north gate. ‘If I were determined to flee, I’d head north, since our forces already have London and the south reasonably secure. What think you, Lady Cecily? Is my guess a reasonable one?’
Cecily shrugged, affecting a nonchalance she did not feel. Here was a man who would not take kindly to being deceived, and that was exactly what she was trying to do—to deceive him. How would her father have reacted in Adam Wymark’s shoes? The answer was quick in coming—her hot-tempered, proud, impatient father, rest his soul, would have beaten the truth out of her.
Would Adam Wymark beat her? She stared up at him, a tall, broad-shouldered silhouette with the torchlight behind him, but his expression was lost in the half-light and she could not read him. Had he seen the hoofprints? He was certainly looking in that direction…
To distract him she burst into speech. ‘In truth, sir, I know little of such matters. And you may beat me, if you like, but I’ll know no more afterwards than I do now.’
‘Beat you?’ His tone was startled. ‘I don’t beat women.’
Cecily snorted. Most men beat women. Her father certainly had. He had loved her, and yet he hadn’t hesitated to take a switch to her on a number of occasions—most notably when she had at first refused to enter the convent. Beatings had been part of her life for as long as she could remember, and even at the convent they continued. To Mother Aethelflaeda, physical chastisement—‘mortification of sinful flesh’—was a means of enforcing discipline and instilling the necessary penitence and humility in the nuns in her care.
‘I don’t beat women,’ he repeated softly.
Cecily bit her lip. He sounded as if he meant it. ‘Not even when they cross you?’
‘Not even then.’
His gaze went briefly to her mouth, lingering long enough for Cecily, despite her lack of experience, to realise that he was thinking about kissing her. As his particular form of chastisement? she wondered. Or mere curiosity on his part? Or—more unsettling, this—would he think it a pleasure to kiss her? And would it pleasure her to kiss him? She had never kissed a man, and had often wondered what it would feel like.
Shocked at the carnal direction of her thoughts, Cecily took a couple of hasty steps back. ‘Be careful, my lord—’
‘Sir,’ he reminded her. ‘I told you, I am but a mere knight…’
‘Sir Adam, if you seek to rule