Free The Temptation (The Medieval Knights Series) by Claudia Dain Page A

said.
    "Aye, I do," he said, crossing his arms over his chest, studying her in the flickering light.
    "That is not my tale to tell."
    "You are wise to say so, Elsbeth. Never would I urge it from you. Yet many in Christendom know what he did and marvel at his courage and his purity of heart. I wish I had been there."
    "Nay, you do not," she said. "It broke the heart to see it, yet lifted the spirit to heaven itself."
    "So it is said of all journeys to sanctity. The Lord of Hosts calls us to a narrow way, rocky and treacherous, yet there is no other path."
    "Nay, there is not," she said. "It is the path I long with all my soul to tread. That path and no other."
    She did not want to be a wife. She did not want a husband. She did not want anything he could give her.
    He was a golden force in that darkened chamber, glowing with health and strength and holy purpose. It was this vision of him she feared the most, even more than his beauty. Her mother had not prepared her for this, and she felt ill-equipped to fight against holy ardor. It seemed immoral even to try.
    Yet he was not pure. He was mortal, and mortal man could claim much, but never purity. Never perfection. No matter what the eyes declared or the ears heard, he was a man, and she would have naught to do with men.
    "You would have it no other way, I think," he said, coming toward her, the size of him great with the fire at his back and the darkness all around him. She held her ground. She would not give way.
    "There is no other way," she said. "I do not wish for what is not. I only pray for what can and should be."
    "You are wise to spend your time so," he said, closing the distance between them. "God has instructed us to pray without ceasing; there can be no better way to spend a life."
    Yet how could she be a goodly wife if she spent her time so? Did he not see that? She could not pray without ceasing and be a wife. Unless matters were different in Jerusalem. She had not considered that.
    He knelt at her feet and picked up the bloody garments, and she gasped in shock. This she did not want of him. It was too foul and too... intimate. He was not her servant. He was a stranger, though a husband. No man should tend to such. What manner of men did Jerusalem birth?
    "It is how I would spend my life," she said, "if I were freed from the bonds of marriage."
    "This I understand, Elsbeth," he said, looking down at her. He held the soiled garments in one hand. "But I can do nothing as to that. We are bound, the contracts signed, our oaths given. Let be, little wife. Let God direct you. Only trust, and all will be well."
    "I do trust," she said. And she did. But not him, not a husband, not a man. Her trust was all for God.
    "Then rest in that trust, and tell me where to put these," he said, lifting the bloody garments. "I would help you, if and when I can."
    In all he said, he seemed to say more, as if there were a deeper meaning just below the golden light of his beauty. But she never looked for hidden meanings unless they were in holy writ; she did not want anything approaching meanings from the man before her eyes. Only fools looked for the meaning behind raw temptation.
    "If you would help me, then bring me a pail of water, not too full. I must set the fabric in it and let it soak. Also, I need more cloth for binding. Is this the work of a knight of Outremer, my lord, to fetch and tend the needs of a woman?"
    She was angry, vulnerable because he made her so and would not let her tend to herself. In all things, she was a woman who did not need a man.
    He only smiled, as was his way. Was there aught that could topple him from his calm complacency?
    To tend to your needs is all I need know of duty, Elsbeth," he said. "Now I will leave and see to your requests, but you must vow that you will stay behind this door. I will not share you with any tonight. You are mine, wholly. It is our night, no matter what blood comes between us. Only blood shall separate us, and only for a