Templar Knight, Forbidden Bride

The clatter of eating knives and drinking cups ceased. Quiet descended over the crowded hall and Reynaud clamped his teeth together. Without discourtesy to his host, he could not escape.

Leonor adjusted the tuning on one peg, idly strummed her slim fingers once, twice across the strings in a seemingly spontaneous melodic pattern. A tune gradually emerged, and then a countermelody bloomed underneath it.

Her long fingers floated over the harp strings, her slender hands like winged birds in motion. Her hair, dark as midnight, fell forwards to obscure her features, and when she brushed it back in the quick, unconscious gesture he remembered, something tore at his gut.

She was seven and twenty now, and she took his breath away!

The last notes of the song resonated off the thick stone walls, and Leonor lifted her head and met his gaze. Beneath the dark, arched brows her smoke-grey eyes sent him a challenging look.

His throat closed.

‘So, my friend.’ Count Henri chuckled. ‘I wager you did not recognise her at first. She is a feast for the eyes, is she not?’

Reynaud sat without moving, unable to speak.

‘My lord?’ Leonor’s low, clear voice at his side jerked him to attention.

‘Since you have lately returned from the land across the sea, is there some music you would hear? The count asks it in your honour.’

Reynaud flicked a glance at Count Henri, who was grinning at him over his wine cup. Damn the man. The count bobbed his head as if to say, Well? Does she not make an exquisite troubadour?

Reynaud swallowed over a lump the size of the juggler’s apple. ‘I do have a request.’ He watched Henri settle his bent form back in his chair, his lips twitching in anticipation.

Leonor’s grey eyes lifted to his. ‘And that is?’

He leaned towards her and lowered his voice. ‘I wish to talk with you. In private.’

Count Henri choked out, ‘Talk?’ He eyed Reynaud in exasperation.

Reynaud nodded. ‘Talk,’ he repeated. He shot the count a swift look. ‘I mean no discourtesy, my lord,’ he murmured. ‘For the moment, might I have your indulgence?’

A frown creased Count Henri’s ruddy forehead. ‘Indulgence?’ In the next instant his eyes brightened. ‘Oh! Yes, I see now. You young cousins would be private, of course! Forgive my slowness.’ He tapped his skull with one beringed finger. ‘My age, you know. Go now, and talk.’

Leonor’s eyes widened. ‘But, Uncle—’

‘Whsst, child. Do as I say. You will be glad for it, I promise you.’ Henri waved her away. ‘Go! Go ! Shoo !’

Leonor reached across the table and patted the old man’s hand. ‘Never before have I been allowed to be private with a man, Uncle. Thank you!’

At Henri’s startled look, Leonor sent him a dazzling smile. ‘I am sure the experience will greatly further my education.’

Reynaud suppressed the laugh that rose in his throat. A man stood little chance against that one.

Leonor beckoned. ‘Will you follow me, my lord?’

In the narrow passageway just off the great hall, Leonor turned to face him. ‘We are private now, my lord. What did you wish?’

His face betrayed no emotion save for an odd tightness about his mouth, but his eyes spoke volumes. They were green as the winter sea, and wary. He reminded her of a falcon her father had once trained—disciplined and powerful. He looked like one who could kill a man in a heartbeat, then fall to his knees and pray for forgiveness.

He stood looking at her while she studied his strained, unsmiling face in silence. Never in her entire life had she wondered so about a man. His features were young, but his eyes looked old. Something about Reynaud drew her like a silver coin to a lodestone.

‘Why do you look so sour?’ she murmured.

‘I have my reasons,’ he said shortly.

‘I would wager you have dark places inside you that few, if any, have plumbed. Rey, I do not wish to be your enemy.’

He took a step forwards. For all the strength of his broad shoulders and length of limb, he was oddly graceful. Would he dance as beautifully as he moved?

A slow, delicious heat crept into her belly. She wanted to touch him. What was she thinking?

She forced herself to look into his face. ‘You wished to speak to me?’

Reynaud fought the impulse to reach out and drag her against his chest. His hands ached to twine his fingers through that silky hair. ‘Leonor, you need not address me as “my lord”.’

‘“My lord” implies no allegiance, only the respect due to a knight of a holy order.’

‘Knight I am. Lord, I am not. I am landless, as you well know. Adrift, as you said before.’

‘Landless, perhaps,’ she said, her voice soft as leaves, ‘but not bereft of prospects, I would think. There is some reason for your presence in Moyanne, is there not? Other than my father’s concern for me, that is.’

Her candour startled him. She looked steadily into his eyes with no hint of artifice. Reynaud had forgotten how direct Leonor could be, even as a child. Then, too, she could hide her thoughts as well as he could.

‘You know I am bastard-born. Brought to Hassam’s house at birth in a basket of woven reeds. Prospects for such as myself are rare as roses in hell.’

She continued to regard him with eyes soft as grey velvet.

‘Still…’ She paused and unconsciously rimmed her lips with the tip of her tongue. ‘If it does not displease you, I will yet call you “my lord”.’

Reynaud’s heart stuttered. Displease him! If she only knew. Desire heated his loins. A whiff of her fragrance, jasmine-sweet and faintly musky, reached his nostrils and he shut his eyes to savour the scent. He felt himself grow hard with wanting her.

He twisted away and stared at the stone floor beneath his feet, commanding his body to obey him. He must break the spell she cast, must move away from her. He took a step backward.

‘Stay, Reynaud. I have offended you?’

‘I—no. You offend no one.’ It is I who offends. For a moment he forgot he was a Templar. A warrior-monk, pledged to celibacy.

No, there was more to it than that. Leonor was young and happy. A joyous being, eager for life. He was shackled not only by his vows, but by bitterness and distrust. Being near her cast a shadow on her gaiety, her joy in thinking all was well with the world. He would always drag her down.

Leonor closed the short distance between them and laid her hand on his arm. ‘You wished to talk?’ she reminded a third time.

Ah, yes, talk. ‘Leonor, what are you about, posing as a minstrel in your uncle’s house?’ He spoke roughly.

‘Posing! I am not “posing”, I am performing as a troubadour. There is naught wrong in it. It has been my dream all my life, to travel and play music and see some of the world.’

‘It is dangerous.’

‘Why? Because I am a woman?’

‘Aye.’

‘Why should a woman exist only to be locked away in a prison of some man’s making? A woman is not created only to pleasure a man. A woman is created to be herself.’

Reynaud clenched his fists at his sides. ‘That is laughable.’

‘That is not laughable! I love music, as you well remember. I wish to share it.’

‘You can share it in Granada. In the privacy of your father’s house.’

She propped her small hands on her hips. ‘I wish to travel beyond Granada. I am curious about the world.’

He scowled down at her. ‘You were always curious. I expected you would grow out of it.’

‘Well, I did not,’ she snapped. ‘I am interested in things besides pleasing a man.’

By the saints and angels, did she not understand? ‘You are reaching for disaster. Being a troubadour is not for a woman. Especially not one such as you.’

‘You are wrong, Rey. Your view is jaded because of your own inner wounds. I will not let your distrust of the world spoil my dream. Besides there is naught you can do.’

‘Your father—’

‘Will not know.’

‘I fear for you. You do…the unexpected. You know nothing of the world.’

‘I am learning,’ she snapped. ‘You should be pleased for me.’

He gritted his teeth. ‘I am not pleased.’

‘Is that what you wished to say to me?’

‘Aye,’ he said in a hard voice.

She straightened her spine. ‘Well, then, my lord, is there a song you would hear?’

Reynaud groaned. ‘We had no minstrels in the Holy Land. God knows, we had little cause for singing.’

She nodded in understanding and sent him a half-smile. ‘Since you had no minstrels, your heart must be hungry.’

He flinched as if struck. His jaw muscles tightened. No one had ever come nearer the truth.

‘I will sing for you three tunes in the Catalan style, and you may judge which you like best.’ She tugged him to face her and gazed up at him, her usually downturned mouth curving so deliciously he wanted to put his hand over her lips to hide them from his sight.

‘Do not be angry with me, Rey. I seek only to be happy in this life, as do you.’ She moved towards the doorway.

Reynaud moved to block her way. ‘How would one such as you know what I seek in this life? Do you think making oneself happy is all there is?’

Leonor brushed away both questions with a wave of her hand. ‘Come,’ she urged again. ‘Your songs await within.’

At her entrance, a cheer went up. Leonor inclined her head in acknowledgement, then took up her harp. Reynaud stood off to one side in the shadows, his mind in turmoil.

He tried to concentrate on the sound of the harp, the words of the verse half-sung, half-spoken in the blend of Sephardic and Arabic tongues known as Ladino. Something about a knight and four maidens. He glanced around him at the avid dinner guests in the over-warm hall. The men were entranced.

She began another song, a lai in triple time, the rhythm an intricate variation of the Arab zajal. Reynaud struggled to close his ears to the entrancing sound.

He leaned against the hard stone wall at his back, shut his eyes and steeled his spirit to listen to the seductive rise and fall of Leonor’s voice. Her final song cut deep. The heartrending melody full of longing and passion wound its way into his gut. His throat closed suddenly into an aching knot.

And then a line of verse leaped into his consciousness. ‘Know you the silver swan?’

Instantly, his entire body stiffened, his heart plunging into an irregular thumping. He stared across the room at Leonor. By all that was holy, she had sung the coded words de Blanquefort had entrusted to him.

Thunderstruck, he could not make a sound.

Chapter Six

Benjamin looked up from his writing table as the sound of Leonor’s harp, and then cheers, drifted to him from the hall below. He cocked his head, listening with undisguised pleasure.

Good. She had been accepted. Nay, revered, by the sound of shouts and the din of banging cups. Excellent! If she wished, his precious lamb could make her way from castle to court with her art. Now the whole world lay at Leonor’s fingertips.

A shadow fell across the open doorway. Benjamin started, and a blot of ink fell on the page before him. ‘Who comes?’ His voice grated in the silence.

The Templar stepped across the threshold. The knight’s wintry green eyes flicked to meet Benjamin’s gaze. ‘Shalom.’

Benjamin blinked. ‘And to you, peace also.’

Reynaud studied his old tutor, his lips widening into a broad smile. ‘Greetings, Benjamin. Alea jacta est.’

Benjamin’s black eyes snapped. ‘What’s that you say?’

‘That was the first Latin sentence you ever taught me. Do you not remember?’

Benjamin half-rose from his seat. His gaze travelled from Reynaud’s face to the scarlet cross stitched on the front of his surcoat, then dropped to his sword belt.

‘So I see,’ Benjamin murmured. ‘Truly, the die is cast.’

He stood and clasped Reynaud in an embrace so tight the old man wheezed for breath.

‘Gently, my son, gently. Your mail shirt cuts the skin. It is like grasping a tree to one’s breast!’

Reynaud laughed. ‘A tree, am I?’

Benjamin beamed up at him. ‘Very like. Thou art a man, in esse. Now I wish to hear what you are doing here in Moyanne? I know about Hassam asking protection for Leonor…now I would know the rest of it. The truth.’

‘I was sent. By the Templar master, Bertrand de Blanquefort, in Acre.’

‘Acre,’ Benjamin breathed. He raked crabbed fingers through his thick grey beard. ‘And how goes it in Acre?’

‘Well enough,’ Reynaud answered. ‘Christian fights Christian for power in Jerusalem. How goes it in Granada?’

The old man smiled. ‘Well enough. Brother fights brother, as you well remember. Arab fights Christian and Arab as well. Al-Andalus cannot long survive with such division.’

‘Nor can Jerusalem.’ Reynaud eyed the older man. ‘The pomegranate will be devoured, seed by seed. Think you that men are greedy for power, or just fools?’

‘Fools. Greedy for power, yes, but fools. And that is dangerous.’

‘I fear you are right,’ Reynaud said on a sigh. ‘Hassam taught me to think first and draw my blade second. But in Outremer, one does not long hold to that philosophy and live. Now I strike first and ask afterwards.’

Benjamin said nothing. Gesturing for Reynaud to sit, he blotted up the spilled ink and quickly poured two cups of wine from the wooden pitcher at his elbow. He handed one across the writing table to Reynaud. ‘To your health.’

Reynaud lifted his cup. ‘And yours.’

The two men studied each other. At last Benjamin cleared his throat.

Reynaud rose, set his wine cup on the table and bent close to the older man. ‘Know you the silver swan?’ he enunciated carefully.

‘Eh? What? What are you talking about, a swan? What has a swan to do with anything?’

Satisfied, Reynaud patted the man’s bony shoulder. Benjamin knew nothing about de Blanquefort’s coded phrase. For the first time in his life he felt he was the teacher and Benjamin the student.

Deliberately he changed the subject. ‘Tell me of Leonor.’

Just speaking her name brought an unexpected rush of warmth to his chest.

‘Leonor? Ah, yes, Leonor. Well, no doubt you have heard her sing tonight?’

Reynaud nodded. Would that he had not. Her image, and the sound of her low, melodious voice, remained indelibly stamped on his heart.

‘So,’ Benjamin continued. ‘It is obvious, is it not? She is beautiful. Like her mother. Her music, her poems, her…’ His voice trailed off, then he gazed at him with watery black eyes. ‘How impressed she must be at what you have become! You were always a fine-looking boy, but as a man— ay de mi! The ladies must all fall in—’

Reynaud laughed. ‘She was not impressed,’ he said shortly.

Benjamin smiled. ‘As Hassam will tell you, she is a handful. That one has a mind of her own, I fear. Also like her mother.’

‘You must bear part of the blame for that, old friend,’ Reynaud said with a chuckle. ‘Her education was your doing.’

‘And her mother’s,’ Benjamin amended. ‘But, yes, I admit it. Since the day of her birth I have loved Leonor as if she were my own daughter. Old men grow more foolish with the years.’

Reynaud sobered. A Templar, too, could be foolish. And to be foolish was dangerous. There was no room in the life of a spy for the distraction of a woman. He would need all his wits about him in the days to come.

With a gesture, he refused the older man’s offer of more wine. ‘She may be in danger. Hassam fears she may be kidnapped.’

Benjamin’s thin shoulders twitched. ‘Kidnapped!’

‘Calm yourself. I do not think that is what my uncle fears most. I think Hassam knows of some other threat in Navarre, a danger which he did not share with me.’

Benjamin quailed. ‘Danger? What kind of danger?’

‘I know not, at the moment. I mean not to offend you, old friend, but I am suspicious of Leonor.’

At Benjamin’s thoughtful nod, Reynaud pressed the issue a step further. ‘“Know you the silver swan” is a coded message. She sang those very words in the hall just now.’

The old man’s head snapped up. ‘Coded message?’

‘Ben, is it possible that Leonor could be a spy?’

‘What? Leonor? ’ The old man’s black eyes blazed. ‘Have you left your wits in Acre? Think, man. She is a woman! At the moment, bent on being a minstrel. Is that not worrisome enough?’

Reynaud laid his forefinger against his old tutor’s lips. ‘We shall keep silence, then, you and I. I will protect her.’

Benjamin hugged him hard. ‘Guard her well, my son.’

Reynaud knew the links of chainmail under his surcoat pressed into the old man’s flesh, but the strength of Ben’s embrace did not falter. Again he had to smile. In addition to Leonor, Benjamin loved him as well.

Reynaud re-entered the great hall just as the servants were clearing the tables and pushing them back against the walls to make space for dancing. Pages bustled between kitchen and scullery, folding the stained linen cloths and tossing scraps of meat to the hounds as they passed. The wine server made his rounds, collecting the cups and pitchers. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the portly man glance about, then surreptitiously gulp the dregs from a pewter cup left on the table.

His own mouth felt dry. Just as the red-faced wine server reached for Reynaud’s cup, he rescued it and downed the contents in two swallows. Then he turned to search for Leonor.

He surveyed the hall, watched as a troupe of musicians tumbled in through a doorway, one carrying a gut-strung rebec and a vielle, three others with wooden flutes, a gittern and a battered tabor drum. They took up positions at one end of the hall, and the chattering crowd cleared the floor. The string players adjusted their tuning and knights and ladies linked hands for a circle dance.

He scanned the faces of the onlookers, then searched for Leonor among the dancers, but the slim, black-haired woman in emerald silk was not among them. Surely she would not retire this early, not after such a triumphant reception? Unless…

A thread of alarm travelled up his spine. Was she in danger? He grabbed a sloshing pitcher out of the wine server’s grasp and refilled his cup with a hand that trembled.

Before he could lift the wine to his lips, a low voice spoke at his elbow. ‘Reynaud, do you dance this evening? Or…’ Leonor looked pointedly at the wine cup in his hand ‘…do you prefer to drink?’

He started so violently a bit of wine spilled over the edge of his cup and wet his fingers. She moved like a cat! Her green silk tunic was girdled with gold links, accentuating the curve of her waist and hips. He worked to keep his gaze elsewhere.

‘I did not see you approach.’

The grey eyes rested briefly on his, an expression of amusement in their depths. ‘I did not intend you to.’

Reynaud drew in a careful breath. He was supposed to watch her, not the other way around. His belly tightened. She could appear and disappear like a wraith. Hassam was right—he would need all his wits to keep track of her. At this moment, the idea did not displease him as much as it should.

‘Do you dance, Reynaud?’ Leonor repeated.

The thought of touching her, even linking hands, brought the blood to his brain. His senses came alive, then careened out of control. He could not risk it.

‘I can dance, yes. I choose not to.’

‘As you wish.’ She smiled up at him and his heart lurched.

He did not wish. He wanted to hold her close, drink in her scent and let his mouth explore hers.

This was madness! Was he not a holy knight? Never had he wanted a woman so. But now his mind reeled as if he were fevered.

‘You have not yet told me,’ she murmured, ‘which of my three songs you found most enjoyable.’

Reynaud could not answer. Here in this noisy hall was neither the place nor the time to question her about the coded words.

Count Henri approached, and she stepped to one side to accept her uncle’s invitation to join the dancing. Without a backwards glance she glided away on the count’s arm, pivoted and made a deep reverence.

Reynaud watched her move gracefully in the circle of dancers until his eyes burned. No wonder Benjamin was enamored. Leonor was like no other woman he had ever encountered. By the time this evening ended, every man in the hall would be in love with her. Watching over her, wanting her, was pure torture.

And suddenly he knew he could not do it.

Chapter Seven

Leonor smiled at her uncle, hoping he would not notice she had again missed a step. Guided by the rhythm of the beaten tabor, she quickly shifted from her left to her right foot and caught up. Keep count! she reminded herself. If she could not think clearly, at least she could keep track of the beats.

But she found herself ignoring both the pattern of the steps and her uncle’s rambling conversation as her gaze roamed about the hall. Servants scurried in and out of the kitchen; ladies on the sidelines, gowned in gay silks and sarsenet, nodded their heads together as they gossiped. Her uncle’s knights and the nobles of his court, dressed in richly embroidered tunics, argued about horses and tournaments.

And then there was Reynaud. Tall and dark-haired, he stood near the wall, his raised foot resting on a bench, talking with Aunt Alais and another lady garbed in grey silk. A wine cup rested in his hand. As she watched, he raised it to his lips.

Over the coiffed heads of the two women his eyes scanned the hall as if casually viewing his surroundings. In the next moment his glance locked with hers, and her heart stopped. He had been searching for her!

‘My dear niece, you are counting under your breath,’ her uncle whispered.

‘Your pardon, Uncle.’ She closed her eyes to shut out Reynaud’s penetrating gaze from across the hall, struggled to concentrate on the count’s continuing tale of a ship bound for Cyprus. When she opened her lids again, Reynaud had disappeared.

Just as suddenly he appeared at her side, his sea-green eyes burning. Without a word, he disengaged her hand from her uncle’s and took his place beside her.

‘That’s the way, my boy.’ Count Henri clapped Reynaud on the back. ‘Claim her, and welcome.’ Chuckling, he headed back to the head table and his wife.

Reynaud’s throat felt thick and hot. ‘My lady?’

‘My lord, I thought you would not dance?’

‘So I thought also.’

Her eyes shone with amusement. ‘And now?’

Now? In truth he could not bear to watch another man—even her uncle—lay his hand on her. Now, for a few stolen moments, he would dance with her. Touch her. Ask her about the message.

He looked down into her eyes and she fell silent until the droning of the rebec ceased and the dance ended. Reynaud lowered their clasped fingers until they stood facing each other, jostled by retreating dancers. Slowly he drew her into the protective shadows of the far wall.

He closed her hand in his and held it down, near his thigh. In silence he twined his fingers in hers and gently tucked her arm behind her back. Unable to help himself, he drew her towards him.

What was he doing?

He had but two choices. He could hold her in his arms, as he ached to do, or he could walk away.

‘Reynaud,’ she said quietly, ‘you are hurting my hand.’ Instantly he disengaged his fingers from hers and slid his hand up to encircle her wrist. ‘Your pardon. Being close to you is…difficult.’

‘Then,’ she questioned gently, ‘why do you not release me?’

He could tell she was smiling, though he could not bring himself to look into her face. He could not answer over the hot ache in his throat. He swallowed hard and tightened his hand about her slim wrist. ‘I fear you are in danger, though you may not be aware of it.’

Her eyes flared. ‘I am aware. I sought it.’

‘Then have a care, Leonor. Trust no one.’

She hesitated half a heartbeat, and a soft light kindled deep within her grey eyes. ‘Not even you, Reynaud?’