The Champion by Elizabeth Chadwick Read Free Book Online

father’s will. The lord of Stafford’s blonde virgin daughter and a common household knight.
    Another sixteen years had passed since that time, and through all the trials and hardships, the pain, heartache and drudgery, their love had endured. It had to. There was nothing else to armour them against the cold. The story of their elopement had passed into troubadour legend, was sung at every camp fire by young men no older than himself when he had burned his bridges.
    Thinking of young men brought to mind Alexander de Montroi and he ran a gentle forefinger down his wife’s bare arm.
    ‘What did you make of Hervi’s brother?’ he asked.
    ‘I thought him quiet,’ she said, ‘but not because there is nothing happening within. When he finds his feet, then we shall see.’
    ‘I like the lad.’
    ‘He seems pleasant enough,’ she agreed, ‘but he did not reveal enough of himself for me to make a judgement. Has Hervi discovered why he ran away from the monastery?’
    ‘All he said was that the boy had good reason. He would not give me the details.’ His hand drifted from her arm to the swell of her breast and gently stroked. ‘Of course, he has only heard one side of the tale, and there are always two, and often more.’ He was silent for a while, pondering, enjoying the silken feel of his wife’s skin. She did not add to the conversation, which was unusual for her. Talking in the closeness of their bed at night, wrapped in each other’s arms with the world at bay, was one of her favourite moments. She always had things to tell him, subjects to broach, matters to discuss. When she did not speak, he mooted another concern of his own.
    ‘It might be for the best if Monday were to wear a wimple when she goes about the camp from now on,’ he suggested. ‘She has not ceased to be a child in my eyes, but in the eyes of other men, it is obviously different.’ The memory of le Boucher’s predatory gaze tightened his lips.
    Clemence captured his stroking hand in hers and held it still. ‘She has been a woman for almost a year now. You are right, it is time that she concealed her hair.’ A tremor entered her voice. ‘I was not much older than her when I first saw you across my father’s bailey.’
    Her words sent a pang through Arnaud’s vitals. ‘Your hair was loose then too,’ he murmured. ‘I had never seen anything so beautiful.’ There was pain mingled with the remembered spark of the moment. Had they resisted temptation, he would still be doing guard duty at Stafford’s hearth, and she would be some rich baron’s wife. ‘Do you have regrets?’ he asked.
    ‘Of course I do,’ she said immediately, her breath soft against his bicep. He tightened it, preparing himself to hear what he would rather shut out. Her teeth nipped his skin. ‘Fool,’ she said with amused contempt, ‘I would follow you to the ends of the earth and over the edge of the world, you know that – or you should by now.’
    He was slightly mollified, but remained wary. ‘Then what do you regret?’
    Clemence sighed and curled in close to his body. ‘Sometimes I yearn for the protection of the bars of my former gilded cage and the days when even my thinking was done for me. Flying high and free has its price. I fear for our daughter. She is so young and fresh. And there is no man on the tourney circuit I would entrust with her honour or her happiness.’
    Not for the first time Arnaud was visited by guilt and a sense of inadequacy. He was an ordinary knight, competent, a better teacher of the skills than he was a fighter. His one act of folly in an otherwise responsible life had been to steal the exotic bird from its cage, and he had been paying for the sin ever since. There had never been a time when they had gone hungry, he had always managed to provide, and Clemence’s skill with a needle enabled them to dwell in relative comfort for his trade, but he could not give her the security of the massive stone walls from whose shadow