Page 3 of Bold Angel
“Fetch another blanket,” Ral said to Odo as he pulled his own from the back of his saddle and the last of Malvern’s men disappeared. Kneeling beside the black-haired maid, he gently wrapped it around her then liftedher into Odo’s outstretched arms. When he knelt to cover the auburn-haired girl, she struggled and began to fight him, swinging her fists with more force than he had expected.
“Leave her!” she cried, a balled hand connecting with his jaw. “You must not hurt her!”
He captured her wrists and gently subdued her.
“Rest easy,ma petite.You and your sister are safe.” She fought a moment more, her small body straining, then went limp in his arms. Ral lifted her and carried her toward the horses.
“’Tis good we arrived when we did,” Odo said. “The maids would both have been dead.”
Ral nodded.
“’Tis a shame.” Odo shifted his light burden. “The black-haired wench is uncommonly pretty, and the young one is a tiger.”
“She fought bravely, I think.”
“What shall we do with them?”
Ral hesitated only a moment. “We know not where they live. Should their kinsmen be among the Saxon rebels, they would not be safe even within the walls of their home.” He handed his bundle to Geoffrey, the youngest of his knights, a blond boy of seventeen years who had served as squire to Odo.
“Take them to the Convent of the Holy Cross. The sisters can discover where they belong and send word to their family to claim them.”
“Aye, ’tis a wise choice, considering what may yet lie ahead.”
Ral merely nodded. He couldn’t rid himself of the image of the beautiful black-haired maid torn asunder by Stephen’s ruthless men. Or the battered face of the younger girl who had fought so hard to protect her.
Ral clamped his jaw. He should have seen them to safety. They were so young, so innocent. So trusting. He knew the dangers they might face. He hadjust been so used to command he hadn’t believed they would dare disobey him.
Damn, but he felt guilty.
It was a burden that weighed heavy on his heart as they rode past in the arms of his men.
Chapter Two
England, 1072
Bells tolled the hour of matins, the sound an eerie echo in the deserted halls of the convent. In a chapel in the far east wing, rows of black-garbed nuns rested on their knees on the hard stone floor, readying themselves for prayer.
“Where has the girl gone this time?” the abbess asked, surveying the nuns and a small group of novices kneeling off to her left.
Sister Agnes stood beside her, equally incensed, a righteous curl to her lips. “I have not seen her.” A woman in her thirties, she was thin as a stick and just as unbending. “She did not break her fast with the rest of us this morning, and two days in a row she has fallen asleep during afternoon prayers.”
“Find her,” said the stern-faced abbess, “I wish to speak with her at once.”
Two hours later, Caryn of Ivesham, wearing a coarse brown tunic and stiff white camise, her hair pulled into a single long auburn braid, stood before Mother Terese, the tall formidable Abbess of the Convent of the Holy Cross. Caryn laced her fingers tightly together and tried to look demure.
The abbess sighed, breaking into the silence between them. “You must learn obedience,” she said, continuing the tirade she had begun some time ago. “’Tis certainly not somethingthat comes easily to you. Still, you must endeavor to achieve the lesson.”
“Yes, Mother Terese.”
“You must learn humility and piety,” she droned on. “Your family is dead, Caryn. Ivesham Hall lies in ruin. Your blood sister, Gweneth, and your sisters here in the convent are your only family now. Gweneth is happy here. You must learn to accept your life here, too.”
Caryn caught only the last remark, her attention having drifted to the flock of birds chirping outside the window.Accept this dreary life?she thought.Never!But she didn’t dare to say it.
“You must resign yourself to becoming one of us,” the abbess continued. “If it takes strict discipline to accomplish that end, then that is what shall be done.”
Caryn dragged her eyes up from the floor where she had been studying the intricate movements of a long-legged spider.
“Did you hear me, Caryn?”
