Malcolm was calm and quiet during all of this, giving commands, answering questions lucidly, dismounting and helping Judith down. He even pressed a generous handful of coins into the mother abbess’s soft, wrinkled hand when she came to greet him, having learned he was a friend of Gavin and Madelyne.
But he never released Judith’s arm, and he kept her close to him as she trotted along, trying to match his long strides. And at last, when all had been attended to and they were walking into the abbey to sup, he hung back then pulled her into a shadowy alcove.
“Malcolm,” she began, clutching at the edge of his hauberk. “I—”
“What were you thinking?” he demanded. “What on God’s vast green earth were you thinking?” His voice shook with fury, and it was all he could do to keep from taking her by her slender shoulders and shaking her—trying to knock some sense into her stubborn, red-headed brain.
Judith gaped up at him, her eyes wide. “I do not know—”
“I told you to ride,” he seethed. “They were after you, you bloody fool of a woman! I told you to ride away!”
To his surprise, instead of cowering in the face of his anger or even going demurely silent, she wrenched her arm from his grip and poked him in the chest. “Of course they were after me. And they meant to kill you. Why do you think I climbed onto your horse?”
“You didn’t climb onto my horse,” he bellowed. “I dragged you over because you were about to fall and be trampled. You fool! They meant to take you, Judith—”
“And they meant to kill you, Malcolm. Did you not hear them? ‘No harm to the lady!’ they said. ’Twould be near impossible to kill you and not harm me if I was on your horse next to you, would it not?” she said sharply. “Who is the fool now? They could not take me from your arms, and they dared not slash out at you for fear of striking me!”
Malcolm gaped down at Judith as her words and meaning sunk in. “Do you mean you meant to protect me?” he roared. “You? Protect me?”
“Hush,” she told him, but her voice wasn’t quite as strong as before. In fact, she sounded a little nervous. “You’ll have the sisters wondering what harm you are inflicting on me.”
“Harm? On you? By God, woman, you are fortunate we are in a holy place, or I’d as lief—” He bit off the words, knowing they were a worthless threat, and turned away. His teeth ground audibly, his jaw creaked from the pressure, his eyes felt as if they were going to bug out from the pressure of his fury.
“Malcolm,” she said, touching his arm. Though he still wore his cloth hauberk and the mail sherte beneath it, he swore he could feel the heat of her touch, filtering even through the protective chain links.
Aye, he thought grimly to himself. I have no protection from her. She can slip betwixt my links and into my soft spots and I cannot fight her off. I am well and truly slain.
“We were in battle,” he said from between tight jaws, still turned away. “I gave you a command. I expected such an attack, and I’d prepared Lelan to be the one to follow you.” He stopped, realizing he’d said too much.
“You’d expected an attack?” Judith repeated. Her fingers grew heavier and tighter around his arm. “As did I.”
“You?” Now he turned to look at her.
Judith looked up at him as if he were addled. The light was dim and her lovely features were limned with the mellow golden light from a trio of candles on a sconce above her head, but he could still read her expression. “Of course. But I do not know whether ’twas the king or the queen who ordered it.”
Malcolm felt as if his breath had been snatched away. Clearly, she was just as jaded—and realistic—about their liege lord and lady as he was. And clearly, she was not about to succumb to vapors or hysterics because of what happened. Nay. She only cried when he touched her.
He gritted his teeth, shoving away that dark thought. Burying the niggling guilt. “You disobeyed me, Judith. You cannot talk your way out of that.”
“’Tis true, but I had my reasons. Which I’ve already explained to you. The more troubling concern ought to be—I should think,” she added in that tone which suddenly made him want to tear his hair out, “is whether it will happen again. And who was behind it. And how we may defy such a plot.”
“Methinks the king,” he replied, then stopped before he said anything further. This was not the sort of conversation he should be having with his wife. With a woman. She needn’t worry about such things, nor should he voice them….
But he wanted to share this with her, he realized. He needed to talk with her, to listen to her, to understand what was in her mind—and that she might know some of what was in his. Now he understood, all at once, the relationship Dirick had with his own wife. It was more than coupling and begetting an heir, and seeing each other in passing.
“And I am nearly as certain ’twas the queen.” Judith held up a hand to keep him from speaking, and he was bedamned if he didn’t close his mouth. “My lord, please. My reasoning is sound. First, I cannot believe the king would order you, one of his most powerful barons killed—”
“I doubt he meant for me to be killed outright,” Mal argued as handily as he would have done with a peer. “Though he surely wouldn’t have shed a tear if I had. He is playing David to your Bathsheba.”
“But you are no Uriah, sent off to war to die,” she told him. “And after the events in my bedchamber on our wedding night, I do not believe Henry would wish the suspicion—and ire—of the barons to fall upon him. You are too well known and admired. I believe ’twas the queen who set those men on us. Do you listen to me, Malcolm,” she interrupted when he would have argued. “I have given this much thought. On what road did the ambush lie in wait? On the road to Warwick? Nay, ’twas the way to Lilyfare. Did you not tell me we turned from Warwick early this morrow? And took the direction to Lilyfare? ’Twas the queen who knew how badly I wish to return to my home—not the king. Had he ordered such an attack, would the men not have expected us to go to Warwick? Would they not have laid in wait on that roadway?”
Malcolm had opened his mouth to speak. Now he closed it. “’Tis possible,” he mused, thoughtful and pleased by her clear-headed argument in spite of himself. And with her logic came a semblance of relief. ’Twas much more palatable—and would be easier to combat—if it were Eleanor who was behind the ambush rather than his liege lord. They may not ever learn the truth, but at the least Judith’s argument was sound.
“I told no one of our travel plans,” he said. “Henry would have thought us to go to Warwick. I will send word to Ludingdon and Mal Verne. Mayhap one of them can learn something. And put a word in the ear of the king. For, as you said, he would not wish suspicion to fall upon him—and surely he can rein in his wife. Though, the fact that we were more than a day’s journey from Clarendon would help prove the king innocent should anyone look his way.”
“Aye. He is blinded by obsession and lust,” Judith said, “but even so, I do not believe he would be so rash as to order such an attack.”
Mal shook his head. “I cannot agree completely. All know of his hot temper and thoughtless rages.”
“And ’twould be more likely that one of his rages was heard and the directive was taken seriously, even if he did not mean for it to happen. But even knowing that, I suspect if some of his men had decided to take matters into their hands, they would have met us on the road to Warwick.”
“You may be correct. And I do not think we will ever know for certain,” Malcolm said. Now as he looked down at her, he realized his rage had ebbed, his fear had eased…and he was alone in a shadowy corner with the most beautiful woman he’d ever known. And she was his. Still his.
And not only was she beautiful, but she was foolish and brave and spoke her thoughts and had good arguments. And she disobeyed him and thought she could protect him…and she wept in his bed.
Had she cried thus after coupling with the king?
“What is it?” Judith said suddenly.
Malcolm blinked, pulling himself back from thoughts and images he did not wish to entertain. “What?”
“Suddenly your face turned dark and angry again,” she said. Her slender hand was on his chest, covering the center of his hauberk where he wore the crest of Warwick.
“Aye. I am angry. You disobeyed me—”
“I was not going to ride off and leave you to be slaughtered,” she retorted. “And…’tis the truth: I didn’t trust anyone else to protect me as you can,” she added, causing his anger to wane. She was looking up at him with intense blue eyes, her lush body very close to his all of a sudden.
He drew his ire up around him again. She must understand her error—and, more importantly, he could not give in to the temptation she presented. Not here, in the midst of an abbey. In a public corridor. “In a moment like that, you must listen to me. You know naught about such things as war and battle, and ’tis unseemly for you to even think of shielding me!” He was becoming furious once more. “How would that look to my men—and to yours?”
Judith looked up at him, her hand still resting on his chest, her gaze unblinking. Then she looked away, her lips folding in on each other in irritation. “Aye, my lord,” she sighed in capitulation. “You speak the truth. I know little of battle, and I should have listened to you in those harrowing moments. I likely endangered you as well as myself.”
With that unexpected acquiescence, the last bit of Mal’s anger evaporated, leaving him with naught to shield himself from her seductive proximity. “And well you did,” he said, reaching to touch one of her loosened braids. “But ’tis done for now.” He slid his fingers along its thick length, then over the curve of her collarbone. “We are both safe.”
His hands didn’t seem to want to stop, for the next thing he knew, both of them had curved around her shoulders. Malcolm drew her close, and to his mild surprise, she came willingly into his arms. His body shot to hopeful attention, heat and desire trammeling through him as he covered her mouth with his, pulling her up against the length of his body. Her lips were sweet and pliable, and he devoured them with a deep, sleek kiss. She made a soft sound, raising her arms to wrap them around his neck, pulling herself up against him. Her breasts lifted and pressed into him, and his hands settled at her hips then slid down over the curve of her arse.