Kitabı oku: «Templar Knight, Forbidden Bride»

Dedication

For my superb agent, Pattie Steele-Perkins.

With grateful thanks to Suzanne Barrett, Tricia Adams, Kathleen Dougherty, Shirley Marcus, Brenda Preston, Joan Powell, Norma Pulle, Dave Woolston and Alicia Rasley.

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

AUTHOR NOTE

Title Page

About the Author

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Afterword

Copyright

Chapter One

Emirate of Granada, 1167

Reynaud brought his warhorse to a halt and leaned his weary body forwards, scanning the rocky hillside overlooking the River Darro. Below him spread the muddle of flat-roofed houses and open courtyards that made up the Moorish quarter of the city. After twenty years, everything looked smaller than he remembered. He gazed down at the orange groves and almond orchards surrounding the towering stone walls, the whitewashed adobe buildings gleaming in the harsh afternoon sunlight, and felt his gut tighten.

He was home.

He clenched his teeth and deliberately brought his ragged breathing under control. Would he have returned did he not carry a secret message for the Emir Yusef? Perhaps. Granada was the only home he had ever known. But he had long been absent, and God knew he was much changed. Would he be welcomed by the Arab family that had raised him? Would they even recognise him after all these years?

Far below, the muezzin’s thin voice rose in the call to evening prayer. The sun swelled into a bloody orange ball and dipped towards the hills in the west, spreading golden light over the rooftops, and Reynaud’s chest grew tight. How he had loved this city as a boy, loved the exotic, spicy smells wafting from kitchens, the Jews’ crowded bookstalls, the throb and hum of a busy Moorish kingdom. He had even grown to love the muezzin’s chant.

He turned the grey stallion on to the sloping path, leaning back in his saddle as the descent steepened. By the time he reached the lightly guarded north gate, darkness shrouded him.

The lone guard waved him through the city walls. The moment he rode through the gate he reined the horse to a stop and sat motionless, listening to the sounds of the place where he had grown up. Lute music drifted from a nearby courtyard, punctuated by the sound of someone singing—a woman’s voice, low and rich, the words half-Catalan, half-Arabic. He cocked his head, listening, and slowly inhaled the thick sweet scent of orange blossoms.

A pain keen as a lance pierced his heart. Despite his Templar vows, he still ached for the sound of a woman’s voice, the comfort of a woman’s soft body. He thought he had forgotten loneliness, but beneath his white surcoat he was still a man, was he not?

He shifted uneasily in the high-backed saddle. He had lost something during the long years of fighting, something he could not name. After a time it had mattered not who was responsible for the pile of mangled corpses behind every city gate. Death smelled the same for Christian and Saracen.

A shadow danced against the whitewashed wall. He laid one hand on his sword hilt, studying the silent street of the shoemakers. Someone was following him.

No one could predict how the Arabs of Granada would greet a Christian Templar knight in their midst. A thief would want the gold weighting his saddlebags. Reynaud would kill the man, and that would be that. But if it was not the gold he was after…could someone know about the secret message he was carrying?

He stepped the nervous horse into the nearest alley, and when it split in two directions, he took the wider path, then doubled back, threading his way through narrow, twisting streets he only half-remembered.

Behind him, a gate latch clicked. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the scrolled-iron barrier swing open on noiseless hinges, then glimpsed a splash of crimson before an unseen hand slowly pushed the gate closed. The hair on the back of his neck prickled.

He studied the cobbled street. Even the scraping of the cicadas had ceased, and the feeling that someone watched him sent a snake crawling down his spine. He spurred the horse forwards, every nerve alert.

A shrouded figure glided from an alley and Reynaud automatically manoeuvred the stallion to block the man’s path. Resting his hand on his sword, he bent forwards.

It was not a man, but a young woman!

He stared down at her. From under the hood of her black cloak she looked back at him with defiance in her eyes.

‘What business brings you out this night?’ he bit out.

‘My own business,’ she said calmly from behind her dark face veil. ‘And none of yours.’ She turned to move away, and he caught a whiff of perfume, a mix of sweet-scented roses and something darker. Musk, perhaps. He drew his sword and blocked her way.

‘You should not be out alone. You should be safe in your house.’ This was what he had fought for these long years, not only to free Jerusalem from the infidel, but to protect the civilised world. Protect women from the suffering he had seen, the horror of battle and the cruelty of depraved men.

‘I do what I wish,’ she said with a toss of her head. ‘And it is not what you are thinking. You have no right to hold me here.’

He noted the cut and quality of her garments. Not a street woman, then. ‘I would see you safely home.’

‘You will not,’ she replied. ‘Who are you to order me about?’

‘I am a knight of the Temple of Solomon.’

She peered up at him, focused on the red cross stitched on his white Templar surcoat, then lifted her gaze to his.

‘Have you travelled far?’

‘From Antioch, in the Holy Land.’

She studied him with widening eyes. ‘You must have seen wondrous places on your journey.’

Reynaud blinked at her words. ‘Aye,’ he said slowly, watching her eyes. ‘Great cities and blood-soaked battlefields, where I learned to trust no one.’

‘And now you come to Granada to waylay women?’

‘Do not insult me!’ he snapped.

‘Then do not detain me! You have no right.’ She pressed her balled-up fist against the flat of his sword and nudged it aside, then moved to step past him.

‘Wait!’

She spun and pinned him with large grey eyes. ‘Do you not mean wait, “if you please”?’

Reynaud swallowed hard. She was insolent. But he was being unchivalrous. ‘I beg forgiveness. I have been too long on the battlefield.’

‘Ah,’ she breathed. ‘Still, you are free to travel wherever you wish. I envy you.’

‘Then you are but a foolish woman.’

Her frame stiffened. ‘That,’ she said, ‘I am not.’

‘Where is your father? Your husband?’

‘I have no husband,’ she replied quietly. ‘And at this hour, my father is sleeping.’

‘Does he know what his daughter is about?’

She sucked in a quick breath. ‘Ah, no, he does not.’

A sour taste flooded his mouth and he spat to one side. ‘He will whip you when he finds out.’

‘That he will not. This is Granada. Women here have choices they do not enjoy elsewhere.’

His spine jolted upright. ‘Choices? What choices? Women were created to beget children.’

Her eyes flashed. ‘You are wrong. Women must—’ Her hair escaped her head covering and tumbled past her shoulders in a satiny, midnight-dark mass. Still holding his gaze, she slowly drew aside her face veil.

Full, soft-looking lips curved slightly downwards at the corners. Her teeth shone white as pearls against her sun-bronzed skin. An iron crossbolt slammed into his heart. He could not draw breath.

He clenched his jaw. ‘Get you gone.’

She raised her chin. ‘No man orders me thus. Not even a Templar knight.’

She was small and delicate and her eyes were beautiful. He felt the gnawing of his body’s hunger in every muscle and sinew.

As a Christian knight, pledged to celibacy, he avoided women. But as a man…God help him, as a man he looked upon her with desire licking at his body.

‘Go,’ he ordered.

She shot him a long venomous look, whirled and melted into the dark.

Gritting his teeth, Reynaud turned his mount towards the heart of the Moorish sector and the familiar house overlooking the city where he had grown up.

In the rambling palace Reynaud paused behind the latticed entrance to his foster uncle’s quarters and tried to steady his heartbeat. Before he could speak, Hassam strode forwards, extending both his hands, and Reynaud was pulled into the older man’s embrace.

‘Welcome, Nephew! I feared never to see you again.’ The older man released him and stepped back. ‘You have changed much.’

Reynaud grasped the vizier’s arm and held it tight. For a moment he could not speak. ‘Uncle,’ he managed. ‘I have seen much that would age a man.’

Hassam smiled. ‘Of that I have no doubt. A man is always anxious to leave his youth behind. Then, when he has outgrown his milk teeth and been blooded in battle, he longs for a return to innocence.’ He smiled again, his teeth a flash of white in the lean, sharp-boned face. ‘It is the same with all men.’

Reynaud studied his uncle. The spare frame outlined under the emerald silk tunic was still erect and proud, the movements agile, even graceful. Only the touch of silver in the dark hair betrayed Hassam’s age. He must be nearly sixty winters. And even though it had been Hassam’s preoccupied younger brother who had raised Reynaud as his foster son, Reynaud loved his uncle more than any man he had ever known.

‘Come.’ Hassam gestured to a low sofa covered with embroidered cushions. ‘Sit with me. We have heard nothing of you for these twenty years. And besides,’ he confided, ‘I have my own reasons for speaking with you alone.’

Reynaud unbuckled his belt and carefully laid the sheathed sword on a carved wooden chest, then settled himself on the couch beside his uncle and waited while he signalled a young slave to bring coffee. ‘What reasons?’

Hassam chuckled. ‘You were ever direct, Nephew.’

‘Your pardon, Uncle. I have not the time to be otherwise.’

‘Nor have I.’

Reynaud accepted the tiny cup of fragrant dark liquid the servant proffered and waited until Hassam spoke quietly to the boy and gestured him away.

‘I carry a message for Emir Yusef,’ he said quietly.

The vizier nodded, cradling his coffee between thumb and forefinger, but he said nothing.

‘For your ears only. As a Christian knight, I cannot deliver it in person.’

‘Of course.’

Reynaud hesitated a split second. ‘From the Templar master, Bertrand de Blanquefort, in Acre.’

Hassam’s black eyebrows went up, but his face remained expressionless. The dark eyes that met Reynaud’s were calculating.

‘It is thought, Uncle, that you have Emir Yusef’s ear. That you could deliver this message to him.’

‘Perhaps. What would such a message concern? I would not play the traitor to Yusef.’

Reynaud held his uncle’s gaze. ‘The Templars wish peace between Arab and Christian forces, Uncle. De Blanquefort would join forces with Granada to maintain a balance of power, and to establish a Templar presence in Spain.’

His uncle swallowed the last of his coffee and positioned the cup on the polished brass tray. ‘Yes, I could convey your Grand Master’s message to Emir Yusef.’ He cast a speculative look at Reynaud and a broad smile lit his face.

‘For a price.’

Reynaud ground his teeth. ‘What price?’

Hassam cleared his throat. ‘My daughter, Leonor, travels to Navarre to visit her great-aunt Alais of Moyanne. I will send an armed escort with her, but when she reaches the town, I fear for her. She will need protection.’

‘Why?’ Reynaud asked, his tone sharp.

‘Think, man. She is an heiress, with lands in both Aragon and Navarre. She could be kidnapped. Forced to marry.’

Reynaud nodded. ‘Raped, you mean. And married after. It is a common enough means for a landless knight to gain riches.’

‘She is my only daughter,’ Hassam said simply. ‘I do not wish that for her.’

Again Reynaud nodded. ‘You want me to protect her.’

‘Aye.’ Hassam grinned. ‘That is the price.’

Reynaud groaned under his breath. The last thing he wanted was to be saddled with Hassam’s daughter. He had not laid eyes on her for a score of years, but even as a child she had been a handful for her nursemaids and tutors, even for her father. She was irrepressible. And more clever than any young girl should be.

Besides, he had other, more important business in Moyanne. Business that would be hampered by keeping an eye on Hassam’s daughter. He opened his mouth to protest, but his uncle suddenly rose.

‘Ah, she is here. Leonor, we have a visitor.’

A slim young woman in an ankle-length scarlet tunic glided through the latticed entry, and Reynaud’s heart stopped. Dumbstruck, he gazed at her as if in a dream.

It was the street woman!

Chapter Two

Reynaud rose from the sofa as courtesy demanded, his body on fire. They had met not an hour before, on the dark streets of Granada. Why could he not draw breath?

Did his uncle know that Leonor…?

No, it was not possible. Hassam would not allow it.

His uncle cleared his throat politely. ‘Daughter, do you not remember your cousin Reynaud?’

As her father’s words registered, her face changed. The feathery black lashes brushed her cheek, then lifted, and beneath the dark, arched brows her grey eyes widened. She stared at him, her mouth opening to speak, her lips trembling.

‘Reynaud?’ she whispered. ‘Is it truly you? After all these years?’ She reached to touch him, then faltered.

‘It is,’ he said, his voice clipped. His head spun. It mattered not who she was; his physical response to her made him light-headed.

She stepped closer and peered up at him. Tears glittered in her eyes. ‘What has happened to you?’

‘After I left Granada I was made a squire in Vezelay, and taken on crusade to the Holy Land. Etienne de Tournay knighted me in the field.’

With a cry she took his face in her hands and stretched up to kiss his cheek. ‘You sent no word, not one. Not a messenger, not even a letter in all these years. I thought you were dead!’

His throat closed. He wished he were dead. As custom dictated, he bent stiffly and brushed her forehead with his lips. Her skin tasted of roses.

What could he say?

With a wave of his hand Hassam motioned them both to be seated. Reynaud uneasily resumed his place on the sofa; after a covert glance at her father, Leonor perched on a square silk cushion at his feet.

A heavy, awkward silence descended. Leonor refused to meet his eyes, and in the oppressive quiet the uneven beating of his own heart pounded in his ear like a Saracen war drum.

After an interminable minute, she raised her head. ‘Now that you have returned—’

‘I have not returned,’ he said shortly. ‘I travel the world on missions for the Templar Grand Master. This is but one chapter in an ever-changing book. I belong nowhere.’

‘You are welcome always in Granada,’ Hassam interjected.

A rush of warmth swept through him. Under his surcoat his heart swelled with a bittersweet pain. He must leave this place, and soon. He would not dishonour Hassam’s daughter by revealing what he knew of her, yet he could not lie to his uncle.

Leonor wrapped her arms around her folded legs, resting her chin on her knees. ‘Perhaps you would tell me now of your adventures?’ Still, she would not look at him.

He frowned at the edge in her voice. ‘I will not. The things I have seen are not fit for a woman’s ears.’

‘My ears are not so delicate,’ she murmured. She lifted her head and pinned him with her gaze. ‘Not all women are weak.’

‘And in truth,’ he muttered, ‘you are not like all women.’

Her grey eyes sparked with anger. ‘So, you are now a Templar knight. It was always your dream to become a knight, was it not? That is why you left Granada. Was it not?’

He ignored the bite in her question.

‘Have you other dreams beyond fighting battles? It must take great courage to impose your will on others,’ she said. The venom in her tone made him flinch. Hassam stared at his daughter with puzzled eyes.

‘Courage I still have,’ he said quietly. ‘But as for dreams, I…I no longer believe in dreams. I believe in nothing save my horse and the bite of my sword.’

She sat motionless, her grey eyes clouding. ‘Then you are adrift, like a boat with no sail, tossed on the sea.’

Reynaud groaned inwardly. He was more than adrift. He had lost more than hope in his journeys. He had lost the sense of belonging. Of knowing who, or what, he was.

And now, of knowing who she was. Was Leonor his uncle Hassam’s treasured daughter? Or a woman of the streets?

Her lips curved in an odd little half-smile. ‘I long to see the world and its wonders. To do this, I must leave my father’s house.’

Reynaud held her eyes. Did she comprehend none of what he had said earlier? Did she not care about her proper place as a woman? True, his own restless life made him feel as if he were drifting, a twig carried on a river that flowed he knew not where. She, at least, had a home.

‘The world is not a pretty place.’

She smiled again, and his heartbeat stuttered. How he wondered at her physical effect on him!

‘I understand that all too well,’ she said, her tone cool. ‘I am often at Emir Yusef’s court.’ She held his gaze, daring him to betray her to Hassam. ‘I speak three languages, and I am invited to the palace to play chess and join the musicians. Life is to be enjoyed. Do you not think so?’

‘You live in a household of wealth and learning,’ he said tightly. ‘You have no idea of life outside of Granada.’

Her eyes flashed fire. ‘Do not lecture me as if I were a child.’ She glanced at her father, then looked down, crushing the silk of her tunic in her fist. ‘I do want to see the outside world. To learn. Is that wrong?’

‘No. Not wrong. But foolish.’ He studied her flowing red tunic, the sheer face veil she had again drawn to one side. ‘Outside of Granada, you would stand out, like a blossoming orange tree in the desert.’

‘That I know. It is because I am…different.’

She was certainly that. Like an exquisite jewel among rubble, enticing and unattainable.

‘You are only half-Arab,’ he reminded. ‘And you have grown up in the privileged household of Hassam. Benjamin the Scholar tutored you in history and philosophy, and I recall that your Christian mother taught you writing and languages before you could walk properly.’

‘And music,’ she added, her eyes glowing.

He tore his gaze away from her. ‘You are old enough to be married,’ he said bluntly. ‘How is it you are not?’

Her soft smile sent a wave of prickly sensation straight to his groin.

‘Were it not for the Emir’s protection…’ she shot a look at her father ‘…I would have been married off long ago, a plum in some prince’s garden of wives. As it is, I am fortunate to have attained seven and twenty winters yet untouched by a man.’

‘Hassam must have an understanding heart,’ he said drily.

She gave her nodding father a wry smile. ‘I think my father’s heart is not the reason. Benjamin says it is because my mind is one hundred years old and sharp as a wolf’s teeth. Suitors leave my father’s receiving room tongue-tied and shaking their heads.’

‘You know little of men,’ he said. ‘They are not so easily deterred.’

She raised her chin in a gesture he remembered from long ago. ‘Doubt me not, Reynaud. I know a great deal about men. I have studied my father and the men who visit him. And guests and dignitaries, both Christian and Arab, who flock to the vizier’s palace. I watch and I listen, and I evaluate.’

‘Why?’ The question grated past stiff lips.

Hassam rose and moved to the latticed entrance and signalled for more coffee. Leonor shot a glance at his back.

‘Because,’ she said in an undertone, ‘if I cannot have a man to whom I can give my whole heart and soul, then I want no man at all.’

Reynaud rolled his eyes towards the ceiling and shifted uncomfortably on the pillow-strewn couch. Was she in truth untouched? That was hard to believe, considering where he had encountered her earlier this evening.

His attraction to her disturbed him more than he could admit. He gritted his teeth against the insistent swelling of his manhood.

‘And Hassam agrees to this…this dream of yours? Freedom to choose one’s own husband is rarer than swords of Byzantine silver.’

She studied the retreating figure of her father and lowered her voice. ‘He does not yet know of it. But I also make other choices,’ she said, pronouncing the last word with special care. ‘Not one word of this to my father,’ she whispered hurriedly. ‘The man has worries enough with the fate of Granada balanced on his plate.’

Reynaud jerked his head up and caught her pleading gaze. ‘Not one word about what? Tell me the truth, Leonor.’

‘I…’ She leaned closer. ‘I visit the gypsies at night. That is why I was on the street earlier.’

Unconsciously he clenched his fists against his thighs. ‘What? Why?’

‘I wish to learn their songs. Gypsy songs.’

‘Why?’ he snapped again.

‘Because I love their strange, sad music. And I plan—’ She broke off.

Suspicion lowered his voice to a growl. ‘What do you plan?’

She studied the satin slippers peeking from under her tunic.

‘Tomorrow I begin a journey, as I’m sure Father told you. He will fuss and pace about his quarters until he receives word that I am safe in Moyanne with Great-Aunt Alais, but he agrees to let me go. Not for all the jewels in Persia would I add to his worries.’

‘And what,’ Reynaud said carefully, ‘might those worries be?’

Leonor ignored the question and tipped her head to one side, resting her cheek against her bent knees. ‘Father need not know of the adventure I dream of,’ she murmured. ‘That is for myself alone.’

Adventure? Reynaud’s spine tingled. She had not changed a jot since she was a child. She was far too clever for her own good. She was headstrong. And more stubborn than the worst of Hassam’s pack mules.

‘Tomorrow,’ she continued, her voice distant, ‘when the sun spreads apricot light—oh! Isn’t that a lovely word, “apricot”? When the sun spreads apricot light across the sky, I will spread my wings outside the walls of Granada.’

No wonder Hassam wanted protection for her. Her head was full of dreams. She must never seek the outside world. It was ugly, dirty, full of depravity. Leonor was yet untouched by the degradation he had seen, by the sins and selfish manoeuvring of men. He would save her from that world.

If he could.

The problem was she did not want to be saved.

He sighed in defeat. She was an exquisitely beautiful woman, her skin smooth as fine ivory, her every movement graceful. Sensual.

He did not like her talk of adventure. What was she planning to do, apart from visiting her great-aunt? He would have to watch her every moment. Clenching his teeth, he turned away just as Hassam returned to the room. Like it or not, he had pledged his word to his uncle.

Therefore, so be it.