Gwendolyn shrugged off his touch. “So that’s what this is about. Well, she isn’t your Isobel. Your Isobel’s dead. Dead and buried for forty year, Gilbert.” She rolled her sleeves up with angry movements. “We have this house, this shop. A profitable trade. A comfortable life.” She marched to the door. “I’m going to milk the cow. You can be a hero if you want.” As she stepped out the doorway, she paused. “But remember: you’re forty years too late.” She stamped off down the stairs.
Gilbert unhooked an iron ladle from the row hung above the fire. Gwen’s words had cut to the quick, as ever. He wasn’t trying to be a hero. That was never going to happen, not when his sixtieth Christmas had just passed.
He gave the pot of water a stir. But maybe he could be of some help. And maybe someone else’s daughter could be saved.
♦ ♦ ♦
Here he was again, disrobing Sister Theodosia. Steeling himself for an almighty clamor, Palmer pulled off her sodden long woolen skirt. But this wasn’t like the night at the back of the stables, where she’d wept and wailed as if he were half-killing her. Then she’d been in her senses. Now, she only murmured nonsense words to herself, her gray eyes vacant and staring.
Underneath the skirt, she wore another layer, this one of thin white linen, also soaked and clung to her skin.
As he peeled it from her, his hands met the smoothness of her skin, followed the curve of her hips. His loins surged at the neat triangle of dark blonde hair between her legs. He quickly pulled a sheepskin over her naked lower body. He shouldn’t gawp at her like that, not when she didn’t even know it.
Next, her long-sleeved top, torn from her time in the water. But it had saved her. He’d scarce believed his eyes when she’d resurfaced the first time. Palmer eased off the cold, wet wool, careful not to tear it more. De Morville, curse his soul, had had the luck of the devil. A long branch had fallen in with him, and he’d clung to it till he’d reached the weir.
Palmer allowed himself a satisfied nod at his dispatching of de Morville. Sometimes even the devil can’t protect you.
Theodosia looked at him with sudden intensity. “Tell me when to pray.” She frowned hard.
“I will.” Another linen layer clung to her. He removed it and exposed her high, taut breasts, nipples hardened from the cold.
His body called harder, and he pulled another fleece over her to cover her completely. She wasn’t his. Wasn’t any man’s. She belonged to the church, with all the sacred vows she’d have made.
Palmer rubbed at her damp hair with his hands, ruffling it hard to get the worst wet from it.
The glint of gold around her neck caught his eye. He bent down to look closer. A fine gold chain lay at the front of her throat. He gave it a gentle pull, and a crucifix slid round from under her hair. It must have been forced up there by the wild water. He squinted at it in the dim light of the single candle and caught his breath. This was no ordinary rood.
Fashioned of deep yellow gold, it was inset with rubies in a pattern that he supposed represented Christ’s wounds. A vow of poverty, eh? You could buy a shire with this.
He couldn’t help the knot of regret in his guts as he stared at it. All he had to do was slip it from her neck and put it in his own pocket. Then there would be no more begging, no more shame. No more rattling about this earth, trying to make his living. He’d be able to build high, safe walls to keep poverty, disease, hunger at bay. He sighed. To rob an unconscious woman who was near death — that would make him worse than a pander, fair and square.
A knock came at the door. “I have the water, sir knight,” said Gilbert. “Are you ready?”
“Yes, please come in.” With a last longing look, Palmer tucked the cross out of sight under the concealing sheepskin.
♦ ♦ ♦
Sir Reginald Fitzurse made his way up the steep roadway to the high gates of Knaresborough Castle, perspiration and river water an unpleasant steady trickle down his back. His legs and shoulders protested under the weight of his unsavory sodden burden: the dead body of Sir Hugh de Morville, lord of Knaresborough. De Morville hadn’t been a big man, but the weight of a corpse always came as a surprise.
In the weak winter dawn, he could see the silhouette of a sentry patrolling the high walls.
“You there.”
The sentry stopped at Fitzurse’s shout.
“Get those gates open,” continued Fitzurse, “and find me le Bret and de Tracy. At once!”
The sentry gaped but disappeared to do Fitzurse’s bidding.
The door was hauled open as Fitzurse approached. He entered the courtyard as half a dozen castle guards arrived, summoned by the sentry’s calls.