Cecily shook her head, smiling. ‘My thanks. I may well need them.’
Adam Wymark threw his mount’s reins at a man and strode towards them. His black hair was no longer visible under the mail coif, but his green eyes remained the same—not harsh or mean, but enquiring—and with a lurch in her belly Cecily realised she did not hate him. Of all the men the Norman Duke could have sent to Fulford, he was probably the least offensive. Why, the good Lord knew how harsh and unreasoning her own father had been at times. It seemed possible that Sir Adam was more temperate—she would watch and reserve her judgement.
With a wave of his hand, Sir Adam indicated his troop. ‘My men are at your disposal, my lady. With whom do you ride?’
‘W-with whom?’ Cecily bit her lip as all eyes turned on her. What was more unsettling? The thought of riding pressed against Sir Adam, or the thought of riding with one of his men? ‘S-sir, I…I…’
Maude, who spoke French, had watched this exchange. She stepped forward, a stubborn set to her jaw that Cecily recognised from one of the many times she had seen Maude wilfully disobey one of their order’s rules. ‘Lady Cecily should not be riding with a common soldier, sir.’
Afraid for her friend, Cecily caught Maude’s sleeve. ‘Maude, no!’
Sir Adam looked thoughtfully down at Maude, and said with pleasant deliberation. ‘You are in the right—though my men would no doubt not thank you for naming them “common”…’He sighed heavily. ‘And here I was thinking that, in God’s eyes at least, all men are equal.’
‘They are, sir,’ Maude said, hastily backing down. ‘Indeed they are.’
‘Ah, well, that is good. Because I am a common man, and Lady Cecily is to ride with me.’
Catching sight of a suspicious gleam in his eyes, a twitch of his lips, Cecily frowned. To be sure there was an edge to his voice, but he was laughing—the wretch was making fun of them…
‘Say your farewells,’ he said, and stood aside to allow Maude and Cecily to embrace.
Then, taking her by the wrist as he had done the previous evening, he led her to where a man—no, he was a boy—was holding his destrier, the magnificent chestnut. Cecily bit her lip. She’d never ridden anything half that size.
‘Don’t fear him.’
‘I…I don’t.’
‘Here…’ He drew her level with the horse’s head. ‘His name is Flame. Let him see you, smell you. He won’t hurt you if he knows you’re with me. You can touch him. I’ve never known him bite a woman.’
She shot Adam Wymark a startled look, but it was impossible to tell whether he was teasing or not. ‘He bites men, then, sir?’ In battle, she supposed, this destrier would do anything its master asked of it. It was a sobering thought.
‘Go on—stroke him.’
Tentatively, Cecily reached out and patted the great arched neck, murmuring softly, as though the warhorse were one of her father’s ponies. Thus she had petted her own Cloud before coming to St Anne’s. Cloud had gone back with her father to Fulford as novices were not allowed ponies. What had happened to her? This horse’s chestnut muzzle, she discovered, was just as soft as Cloud’s had been.
‘Warm velvet,’ she murmured.
‘That’s it—let him know you’re not afraid,’ said the man at her side. He still had a firm grip on her wrist.
‘I’m not afraid,’ Cecily said, pulling away from the fingers on her wrist.
A brief smile lit those disturbing eyes and he released her, turning away to reach something down from behind the saddle—a saddle which was not the chevalier’s saddle she had noticed the day before. Somehow he had contrived to find one suitable for carrying a lady pillion.
She frowned. ‘You planned to have me behind you all along…’
Ignoring her remark, he handed a blue bundle to her. ‘Here—you’d best borrow this.’
His cloak, and the finest Cecily had held in an age. Of rich blue worsted, lined with fur. Carefully, so as not to startle the chestnut, Cecily unfolded it. So heavy, so warm, so sinfully sensual. You could bury your face in it and….
Momentarily speechless at such thoughtfulness, she blinked up at him, confused by the contradictions he presented. A foreign knight who had come to take her father’s lands and yet who considered her comfort.
He shrugged and turned away to pull something else from his pack, the faintest colour staining his cheekbones. ‘My mother would have had that thing you’re wearing for dish-clouts years ago,’ he said gruffly. ‘You’d best borrow these too. They’ll be overlarge for you, but better than the nothing that the convent has seen fit to provide you with.’
Gloves. A warrior’s pair, to be sure, but again of the best quality, carefully cut, the stitching perfect, lined with sheepskin.
‘B-but, sir—what of you?’
‘My gambeson is padded, Lady Cecily. Your need is greater.’
Cecily draped the cloak about her, almost moaning in delight as its warmth settled about her shoulders. The fabric held within its folds an elusive fragrance: sandalwood, mixed with a scent particular to the man to whom it belonged. Tentatively, Cecily inhaled. Her cheeks grew warm, and under cover of tugging on his gloves she ducked her head to escape his gaze.
He clapped on his helm and with a clinking of harness and chainmail, and a creaking of leather, mounted. ‘Help Lady Cecily, will you, Maurice?’ With the reins in one hand, he held out the other towards her.
Maurice—the lad was clearly his squire—bent and cupped his hands. Cecily stepped up, took Sir Adam’s hand, and a moment later was seated behind him. Astride.
Too high. It was far too high. And her legs were showing almost to her knees, revealing her pathetically over-darned grey stockings. Wondering if one could die of mortification, Cecily clutched at Sir Adam’s pack, at her own meagre bundle which was strapped next to his, at the side of the saddle—anywhere but at the mailed knight who shared the saddle with her. With one hand she snatched at the skirts of her habit, trying to pull it down over her legs.
He nudged the horse with his heels and they turned towards the gate. Almost unseated, she squeaked a protest.
The helmed head twisted round. ‘My lady, it will not kill you to hold onto me, but it may well kill you if you don’t. You must get proper purchase.’
He was right. But Cecily had never in her life sat so close to a man who was not related to her. Thanking God for the chainmail that would surely keep him from feeling the press of her body against him, and thankful that his men seemed to be ignoring the shocking sight of her legs, she surrendered to the inevitable and gripped his sword belt firmly—a shocking intimacy that would have had Mother Aethelflaeda in a swoon.
‘That’s it, my lady.’ He waved his troop on and they trotted through the gate and onto the high road, just as the chapel bell began summoning the nuns to Prime.
Jostled and juddering on the back of Adam Wymark’s destrier, Cecily looked down at the ground passing beneath them and hung on desperately. Craning her neck to look through the troop of horse-soldiers following them, she could make out Maude, waving by the gate. Cecily had no hand spare to wave back, but she found a smile and hoped that Maude would see it.
‘Fare thee well, Maude.’
The convent bell rang out. Maude glanced over her shoulder, spoke briefly to someone behind her in the convent yard, leaned her weight into the great doors and pushed them shut, nipping inside herself at the last moment.
Cecily did not know why, but she kept her eyes fixed on those closed gates for as long as she could, finally losing sight of them when they clattered over the bridge and took the road that