Lionheart A Novel - By Sharon Kay Penman Page 0,241

entertain me,” Richard said, giving his wife a sidelong smile. As he expected, her creamy skin took on a deep-rose tint and her lashes fluttered downward. But the corners of her mouth were curving as she murmured demurely that it would be her pleasure. “I hope it will not entirely be yours, little dove,” he said and pulled her to her feet.

Joanna stayed in the window-seat. Across the hall, Morgan and Mariam were playing chess, but there was an intimacy in their laughter that told Joanna their ongoing flirtation was becoming something more. Her gaze shifted to her brother and his bride, who were exiting the hall with unseemly haste, and she leaned back against the cushions again with a soft sigh. She was happy whenever Richard paid Berengaria the attention she deserved, and she was pleased, too, that Mariam seemed to have found a man she could care for, but she could not suppress a twinge or two of envy. She would soon be twenty-six, too young to be sleeping alone.

“IS THIS THE CROSSBOW WOUND?” Getting a drowsy confirmation from Richard, Berengaria asked then about a scar on his hip and traced its path with her fingers when he said it was an injury from his early years as Count of Poitou. “What of this scar on your wrist?”

“I do not even remember how I got that one,” he yawned. “What are you doing, taking inventory of all my wounds?”

“Not all of them,” she said softly, for she’d kept her eyes averted from the ugly yellowing bruises on his shoulder and chest, still very visible eight days after the Michaelmas ambush. Seeking a safer topic of conversation, she said, “You seem so different with such short hair, Richard!” She thought his scalp looked like a hedgehog’s bristle, assuming there were red-gold hedgehogs, but she wasn’t sure he’d take that as a compliment and kept it to herself.

“It just seemed easier to cut it off and let it all grow back at the same time.” He yawned again, but she refused to take the hint, determined to make the most of this unexpected reunion, for she had no way of knowing how long it would be until she’d see him again.

“I was so glad to hear that Guilhem is safe. I owe him a debt that can never be repaid.”

“So do I,” he said, so low that she barely heard him. “I’d give half of all I own if only I could relive that day. . . .”

She was deeply touched that he trusted her enough to make such an admission. “I do not know war as you do, Richard, but I am sure Henri and André and your friends would tell you what I am about to say now, that those deaths were not your fault. If you had not followed the Saracens, they would likely have still attacked since you were so outnumbered.”

“But I ought not to have gone out with such a small escort. I knew better, Berenguela. It is just that scouting is so important. . . .”

She did not dispute that, but she suspected that he went out scouting himself because he enjoyed it, too. “I shall hold you to your promise,” she said, and offered up a silent, fervent prayer that these Michaelmas memories would curb some of his recklessness in the future. “How long can you stay, Richard? Joanna would be greatly pleased if you could remain for her birthday.”

“I cannot spare that much time, little dove. I will have to go back to Jaffa as soon as I drag those sluggards out of Acre’s bordels and hellholes. Guy’s leadership leaves much to be desired if he cannot even get a bunch of lazy drunkards to obey him. At least he is not secretly conspiring with the Saracens like that Judas in Tyre. It is pitiful, though, that the best to be said of Guy is that he is not a traitor.”

She was only half listening to his complaints, so great was her disappointment that he’d be returning to Jaffa so soon, for she didn’t doubt that he’d round up all of his fugitive soldiers in a matter of days. “I will miss you,” she said, and he propped himself up on his elbow to look down into her face.

“Well . . . I was thinking of taking you and Joanna back to Jaffa with me. I will understand, though, if you’d rather remain in Acre, for Jaffa would not be as comfortable