Vow of Deception. Angela JohnsonЧитать онлайн книгу.
moaned softly and her eyes flickered.
Rand took two steps to the door and called out, “Sister Margareta!” He ducked his head out the short, narrow door frame and hollered again, “Sister Margareta!”
“Hush, my son.” The rosy-cheeked sister hustled inside the chamber. “’Tis loud enough to frighten the dead.”
He turned back and gestured to Rose, his voice a whisper. “Lady Ayleston. She’s waking.”
Rose clutched her head, patting the linen bandage. She tried to sit up and then fell back on the bed with a groan.
Sister Margareta sidled around him. “Easy, milady.” The nun’s pale, slender hand gently touched Rose’s shoulder. “Don’t try to move. You took quite a blow to your head. We have been very worried about you.”
Rose murmured, “We?”
“Aye, your young knight. Sir Rand Montague.”
“He is not my—”
Rand rubbed his chest. “Rose, you are awake. God be praised.”
Rose stared up at him in bewilderment with her crystal blue eyes. “Oh, God, my body aches. What happened to me? Where am I?”
He frowned. “Do you not remember?”
“Nay.” Her dark red eyebrows dipped down in puzzlement. “The last thing I recall was eating a repast of bread and cheese when we stopped for dinner.”
“That was earlier today. We arrived at the gates of the monastery to stop for the night, when your horse bolted. I caught up to you but your horse threw you into a roadside gully. You must have hit your head on a rock or branch or something.” Rand moved to her side and touched her bandaged head. “How do you feel? Are you in much pain?”
Rose turned away from his touch. “My head is pounding, my eyes are blurry, and my body aches everywhere.”
Rand tried not to let her rebuff offend him. She had not always despised his touch.
“Any dizziness?” Sister Margareta chimed in.
“Aye. When I sat up.”
“It is as I told your young knight. The blow you received to your head shall cause you some discomfort and pain. I’d like you to rest for about a sennight before you resume your journey.”
A ripple of concern lodged in his chest. “I don’t understand, Sister. I thought you said she was going to be all right. Need I be worried? How serious is her injury if you wish to keep her here for a sennight?”
“I don’t believe there is cause for alarm, my lord. But just to be sure the blow to her head caused no serious, lasting harm, I would like her to remain here for a few days. Also, her fall caused severe bruising on her hip and shoulder. As soon as her headache and dizziness subside, and she feels well enough, you may continue on your journey.”
Rose whispered, “You need not worry I shall delay the journey any longer, Rand. I shall not give Edward a reason to reprimand you for failing to do your duty in a timely manner.”
When she made to rise, Rand gently eased her back down. He could not believe she thought his concern was because of the journey’s delay and not worry for her good health. “Don’t move, Rose. You are going nowhere till the good sister grants you permission to leave this bed. I’ll send Edward word of your injury. He’ll understand that our late arrival is unavoidable.” Rand understood her distrust of men, but Rose had known him for a long time and knew him better than that. How could she ever believe him capable of doing aught to endanger her welfare?
“I shall leave you to your rest now, Rose. As soon as you recover, we leave for Westminster.”
Rose looked so lost and vulnerable. Guilt reared its twisted, ugly head, mixing with Rand’s feelings of disappointment and regret. He wanted Rose, but it could never be. His duty was clear. Golan was soon to be her husband and responsible for her welfare.
Rose’s eyes blurred again, so the brief shadow she caught in Rand’s gaze must have been an illusion, for that roguish grin appeared, dimples deepening. Rather, two ridiculous grins, her vision doubling his image. She eased her eyes closed, her pounding head a misery she would not wish on anyone. Sister Margareta, bless her, gave Rose a hot chamomile infusion sweetened with honey for her aching head. Then the nun slipped out of the cell, leaving the candle alit on the table by the bed.
As Rose drifted off to sleep, a memory surfaced of Rand leaning over her, his voice agonized, calling out for a woman named Juliana.
Chapter Four
Five days later, Rose sat on a bench in the monastery’s ornamental garden. Flowers of every color filled the garden with their heavenly aroma. The musky scent intertwined with sweet-smelling honeysuckle, which hung on a lattice on the garden wall at her back. Rand sat opposite her, propped against a bench made of a grass-covered earthen mound. An illuminated book lay open in his lap.
At Sister Margareta’s instigation, Rand was practically forced to keep Rose company by reading to her. The nun chose a French romance from the scriptorium about a brave knight who rescues his ladylove—a woman he has loved from afar for many years—from the tyranny of an evil baron.
Other than the occasional birdcall, Rose heard naught but the husky timber of Rand’s voice. The deep, vibrating tenor resonated within Rose like a forgotten caress. Enthralled, she searched his face. His firm lips moved in a breathless whisper, his high cheekbones prominent with the intensity of some strong emotion.
An ache surged up inside Rose’s chest, yearning for what could have been. The heroic story and Rand’s reaction triggered in her a memory of the girl who once adored him. Before he left for the Crusade and she met and married Bertram Harcourt. Before her husband revealed his true depraved nature and shattered her innocence.
Now only bitterness resided within her heart. There were no gallant knights in this harsh world, such as the fictional Sir Lance in the story Rand was reading. Women were mere chattel to be used by greedy, ambitious, lecherous men. Except men treated their chattel better than their easily expendable wives.
Rand was an example of the lechery of men. He used one woman after another in the pursuit of his lusty appetites. A secret part of her realized she was being too harsh, but then she’d have to acknowledge her own complicity in succumbing to a night of temptation in Rand’s arms.
Rand’s voice in the background, Rose drifted back into the past. It was several months after her marriage, and Rand had returned from the Crusade to inform her Alex was dead—though later it turned out Alex was instead imprisoned in a Mamluk fortress.
She was devastated at the news, and still numb from learning her husband’s true evil nature. Feeling lost and vulnerable, she desperately wanted to discover what it was like to be cherished as a woman. And Rand was there for her, their shared grief a bond that only drew them closer. They made love, one night of passion and surrender. But there was no love involved, only grief and animal lust.
As she returned from her reverie, her eyes alighted on Rand. They never spoke of that night. But she did not doubt that, to him, she was just one more of his countless conquests, like the pretty servant at Ayleston Castle. Rose’s face heated as she remembered his torrid embrace of Lisbeth the night before their departure.
But what of the other woman whose name he called out when he pulled Rose from the ditch? The agony in his voice had been palpable.
“Who is Juliana?” The question slipped out before she could contain it.
Oh, God. I pray you did not hear me, she thought desperately.
Rand stopped reading and slowly closed the leather-bound manuscript. He cocked his head. “What do you know about Juliana?”
Since she had awoken from her fall, Rose had been unable to stop thinking about the woman. Surely it was not jealousy that tightened in her breast? Nay. The feeling was simply curiosity.
Rose