Free Lindsay Townsend by Mistress Angel Page A

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Joanna close and shelter all of them within Thomas’s house, but instinct warned
him that Isabella needed peace and time with her son. A roadside inn was too
risky, with too many people who might remember them if Sir William’s men came
searching—as they surely would.
    “A religious house will take us for
tonight,” Isabella said serenely, when Stephen, striding beside his horse with
Isabella and Matthew riding, tried to speak quietly to Amice on the matter. She
was right, of course.
    “Alms for the monks will buy us silence,
too,” remarked Amice. She was right as well.
    “Agreed.” Stephen knew of a small monastery
that they could reach easily before nightfall. He squeezed Isabella’s foot and
she smiled at him, haloed by the evening sunset. Already she looks less
thin. I know that to be impossible, but still, there it is. The brightness has
returned in her, because she has her son . He hoped, too, a little
brightness was for him.
    “Tell them you are married,” Amice said,
with a knowing glance at her friend. “They will put you together in a guest
room.”
    Isabella blushed. She kissed her son’s
downy hair as Matthew dozed before her in the saddle, but said nothing.
    Besieged by images of himself and Isabella in
a bed, Stephen cleared his throat. “We should all stay together. It will be
safer.”
    But mark this, Isabella did not object.
    He did not object, either.
    ****
    Still he was patient.  He wanted her—how he
wanted her!— but instinct told him to rein in, be still. She has been months
without her son. Nothing else must come between them. His desires must
wait.
    The monks welcomed them, fed them a supper
of leek porry and fish and put them in a guest chamber with a great four-poster
bed that could sleep all four of them. At once, Amice claimed the bed space closest
to the doorway. “I like to be able to move at night, in bed and out of it,” she
said.
    Stephen noted how she did not quite look at
Isabella as she spoke and felt his heart expand with gratitude. He nodded thanks
to her as Amice took her place beside the door, preparing to sleep in her
clothes.
    “Then I do not have to dress again when we
rise for the midnight services,” she said, and shrugged. “You may choose to do
differently.”
    “I will stay as I am,” said Isabella
quickly.
    “Goodnight,” Amice called and instantly
rolled over.
    “Goodnight, my friend, and thank you.” Isabella
bedded down beside Amice, her son cradled in her arms. She looked up and Stephen’s
heart raced afresh as he saw her eyes. “Are you for bed, St...Stephen?” she
stammered, shyly patting the mattress in invitation.
    “I am.” He settled next to her, with the
monastery stone wall at his back. Isabella in her creased gown and her blond
tresses unruly on the pillow had never looked more delicious, more kissable. He
did not want to roll away from her, but still…. Keeping his eyes fixed on her,
Stephen reversed in the bed and forced his reluctant body right up to the cold
stones, willing their chill into his loins.
    Matthew, after demanding and receiving a
night-time story from Isabella, slept quickly. Stephen watched her watching him
and was surprisingly content.
    She has her child. Now I must ensure she keeps
him. Whatever happens between us, I must do this. As a mother, as herself,
Isabella deserves no less. Pray God I can do this.
    If he failed, she might forgive, but he
would never forgive himself.

Chapter 7
     
    Isabella was sleeping after the early
service. Beside her, Matthew played with her hair and the silver and gold
flower that Stephen had retrieved from the dust and handed again to his mother.
Now, dropping a kiss onto the boy’s head, trailing a hand over Isabella’s
shoulder, Stephen eased himself off the great bed and slipped out of the
chamber into the dawn.
    He stood in the yard, looking at the great
monastery church, and  listened to the birds and the silences between their
calls. He drew in a large breath,