The Lily and the Sword (Medieval 1)

Lily felt sick with the bitter shame and regret she read in his eyes, but there was also a stab of jealousy. She did not want to think of that fine young heart and body squandered on such a woman.

“And then your father discovered you?” she asked swiftly, to block out the pictures in her mind.

“He discovered both of us.”

Radulf took a ragged breath and turned his face away, so that Lily could see only the masculine curve of his cheek with its line of uneven stubble, and the white scar near his eye, a reminder of the thing he had done.

His vulnerability was like an ache inside her, and she had to bite her lip to prevent herself from crying out at the injustice of what she knew he was about to tell her.

“He found us together, indulging in our usual carnality. We rarely spoke—there were no words to say. If there had been a joining of minds as well as bodies…But we were as animals.” He shuddered, and Lily wondered if his fever was increasing. Gently, she brushed her fingers across his brow, but he did not seem any hotter.

“Anna saw him first, over my shoulder, and when I turned my head he was standing above us. I got up off her. I was naked, and somehow that shamed me more than anything else, when he was fully clothed. My legs felt as weak as watered milk and I was stuttering my apologies, as if that could make it better.”

He gave a soft laugh, a man looking back at the self-deceits of youth.

“He struck me. The heavy ring on his finger sliced open my face. I was fortunate he did not take out his dagger and cut me into ribbons, although I did not think myself fortunate at the time. I stood before him, blinded with my own blood, while she wept that it was my fault, that I had formed a calf-love for her and pestered her and, when she still wouldn’t give in to me, that I had taken her by force.”

“And he believed that?” Lily gasped. Despite Radulf’s heated body close to hers, she felt cold. As if he sensed the change, Radulf pulled her closer.

“No. I don’t think he did. I think he saw through her lies that time. He had been blind with love until then, so saturated with it that he showered her with an endless array of riches. Everything she asked for, he would find and give to her. He had doted on her, an old man’s autumn madness for a much younger and beautiful woman. Maybe he thought if he gave her what she wanted she would dote on him in return. Now the scales had fallen from his eyes and he was confronted by a stark and terrible truth. And I think it was as much that truth as his son’s faithlessness that destroyed him.”

Outside the chamber, voices had risen in a friendly squabble. Jervois shouted for them to hush and remember their lord. When silence fell again, Radulf resumed his monologue.

“He told her to leave. He sent her back to her family—even then he could not bear to abandon her entirely. As for me…he turned from me without a word. He left and took sanctuary in a monastery in the north, and that was where he died six months later. We never spoke again, and I have no doubt he died cursing me.”

Lily found her voice. “And what of Anna?”

“Oh, Anna would never have curled up and died of her shame. She remarried, first to some old French baron, and then last year to Lord Kenton. I followed William of Normandy and became his Sword, and have been rewarded for my loyalty. In truth, I have shown William more loyalty than I did my own father.”

“So when you saw Lady Anna at the castle, you were not shaken by remembered love for her,” Lily whispered, amazed. She had tormented herself with a fantasy of her own making.

“‘Remembered love’?” Radulf retorted angrily. “I hated her. I had heard from Lord Henry that she was asking after me, as if what we had done to my father was gone and forgotten! As if she believed I could touch her again without feeling sick to my stomach.” He took a sharp breath and held it, steadying himself. Lily reached out to touch the back of his hand, and he turned it so that his fingers could tangle with hers. His grip hurt.

“I could see, after she sent her dress for you to wear, that she would not leave me alone. I had to make her see once and for all how I felt about her. That was why I agreed to her meeting at the chapel. And she came. She said that she had never forgotten me, that no one was like me. I told her that I wished to God I could forget her! She thought I didn’t mean it. ‘I couldn’t live if I believed that,’ she said. So I told her I hated her and that she had made my life unbearable, and that I lived constantly with the memories of what we had done to my father and that his dying words were probably a curse upon us both. This scar reminds me every day, even if I could forget.”

Radulf’s eyes were black hell in a face white and pinched with a pain and anger so deep, they went far beyond a priest’s healing.

“She was his wife!” he burst out, and seemed to hover a moment on the brink of some dark abyss. Slowly, visibly, he pulled himself back. “I was his son,” he went on, a little more calmly. “We betrayed him. There is no forgiveness, but she could not see that. So I told her that if she spoke to me or wrote to me or came close to me again, I would kill her and be glad of it.”

“And that is why she tried to kill you?”

“Aye.” He shuddered and was silent.

After a time, Lily said, “There is evil in the world, but that does not mean we should stop living.”

Radulf gave a bitter, shaky laugh. “Aye, my sweet simpleton, but neither does it mean we should purposely seek that evil out.”

“You have been scarred in more than your flesh, Radulf, but not every woman is an Anna.”

He knew that—in his heart he knew that, but there were other factors to consider. His father’s willing blindness, his doting, foolish love that made others laugh at him behind his back. There had been times since when Radulf wondered whether his father had known of their affair from the first, and had chosen not to see. Until the proof was pushed under his nose and he could no longer pretend.

How could a man cling to such a woman’s love and be willing to give up his pride, his honor? It horrified Radulf. He was forever on the watch for similar traits in himself. And now he feared that in Lily, he had found his nemesis. Because he wanted her so much that he was willing to forgive and forget just about anything to keep her.

“You were young and hot-blooded,” Lily was saying with cool good sense, rising up on her elbow so that she could gaze down into his face. “She was experienced in such matters, and did not care what harm she caused. She has shown that again tonight. You are grown now, Radulf, and wiser. Maybe your father did hate you then. Maybe he hated and loathed himself for loving such a wicked woman. But Radulf, I know he would be proud of the man you have become. You are a man to make any father proud.”

Touched by her generosity, Radulf reached up and stroked her cheek. There were dark shadows under his eyes; his tale had drained him. Lily kissed his dry lips, a chaste kiss, and was surprised when his manhood twitched against her thigh. He reached out to grasp her head in his big hand, holding for longer, deeper kisses that were not so chaste.

“Radulf, your shoulder,” she gasped, but he ignored her, reaching down to clasp her bottom and bring her sprawling over his hips. She wanted to protest more, but he had found the place between her thighs and knew she was ready for him. He smiled up at her with simple male pride.