When she was twelve, she began to stand up for herself. She’d successfully held off Edmund with a lighted torch. After that Edmund’s game grew more serious, and Elizabeth grew more wary, more skillful at fending off her attackers. She’d learned how to hurt men who were trying to use her. She’d persuaded Roger to show her how to use an ax, a sword, a dagger. She knew how to defend herself with a razor-sharp tongue.
After weeks with Edmund and the men he surrounded himself with, Elizabeth would escape back to her convent, usually with Roger’s help, and she’d be able to rest for a few weeks—until Edmund came for her again.
“I have the fire going, Lady Elizabeth,” Kit said from behind her.
She turned a warm smile on him. Children had always been her love. Children were what they seemed, never trying to take from her, always giving freely. “You’ve done all the work and I’ve just been standing here.” She went to him. “Perhaps you’d like me to tell you a story while we wait for your father.”
She sat down, leaning against the wall, her feet toward the fire, her arm around Kit. Tossing Miles’s cloak over them, she began to tell Kit about Moses and his people of Israel. Before she was to the Red Sea opening, Kit was asleep, curled up against her.
The rain beat down on the bit of roof over their heads, leaking in three places. While she watched the fire, Miles came in out of the mist, gave her a smile and fed the fire. He was silent as he skinned and dressed a young pig, cut the meat into chunks and set them to roast on sticks.
As she watched, she couldn’t help but think what an odd man he was. Or were most men like him? Roger’d always said that Elizabeth only saw the dregs of mankind, and from the way some of the young women at the convent rhapsodized over their lovers, Elizabeth’d often thought that perhaps some men weren’t like the ones she fought off.
Miles knelt by the fire, his hands quickly working with the meat. Within reach was his bow, his arrows over his back, his sword never leaving his side. Even as they’d been tumbling down the hill, Miles’s sword had been attached to his hip. What sort of man could laugh with a woman and at the same time be prepared for danger?
“What are you thinking?” Miles asked quietly, his eyes intense.
She recovered herself. “That you’re so wet you’re about to drown the fire.”
He stood, stretched. “This is a cold country, isn’t it?” With that he slowly began to remove his wet clothes, spreading each piece by the fire.
Elizabeth watched him with detached interest. Nude men weren’t unfamiliar to her, and often her brother’s men had trained wearing the small loincloths. But she doubted if she’d ever really looked at any of the men.
Miles was lean but muscular and when he turned toward her, wearing only the loincloth, she saw he had a great amount of dark hair on his chest, a thick, V-shaped, curling abundance of it. His thighs were large, heavy from training in armor, and his calves were well developed.
“Elizabeth,” Miles whispered. “You will have me blushing.”
It was Elizabeth who blushed and could not meet his eyes when she heard him chuckle.
“Papa,” Kit said, rousing. “I’m hungry.”
Reluct
antly, Elizabeth released the child. As much as she loved children, there had been few of them in her life. There was nothing quite like a child in her arms, needing her, trusting her, touching her.
“There’s pork and a few apples,” Miles told his son.
“Are you cold, Papa?” Kit asked.
Miles didn’t look at Elizabeth. “I have the warm glances of a lady to keep me warm. Come eat with us, Lady Elizabeth.”
Still pink-cheeked, Elizabeth joined them and it wasn’t long before she got over her embarrassment. At Kit’s insistence, Miles told stories of when he and his brothers were growing up. In every story, he was the hero, saving his brothers, teaching them. Kit’s eyes shone like stars.
“And when you took your vows,” Elizabeth said innocently, “didn’t you foreswear lying?”
Miles’s eyes twinkled. “I don’t think they extended to impressing one’s son or one’s…” He seemed to search for a word.
“Captive?” she supplied.
“Ah, Elizabeth,” he said languidly. “What would a lady think of a man whose older brothers constantly tried to make his life miserable?”
“Did they?”
She was so earnest in her question that he knew she took him literally. “No, not really,” he reassured her. “We were left alone at an early age and I guess some of our pranks were a bit hazardous, but we all lived.”
“Happily ever after,” she said heavily.
“And what was it like living with Edmund Chatworth?” he asked casually.