“Hugh!” she cried in a deep, hearty voice. “How wonderful to see you again!”
Hugh turned when he heard his name. “How are you, Mistress Romage,” he said.
“I am the same as ever I was,” the woman replied with a laugh, coming up to them. “But you! By all that’s wonderful, I hear that you’re a lord.”
Hugh said to Cristen, “This is Mistress Romage, Lady Cristen. She and her family have lived next door to Ralf’s house for as long as I can remember.”
Cristen bestowed a friendly smile upon the woman, and the three of them stood chatting in the street, Mistress Romage informing Hugh in detail about what had happened during the last year to every single member of her large family. Finally the talkative neighbor went off to do her marketing, and Hugh and Cristen walked up to Ralf’s doorway and went inside.
They stood in the main hall, which had seemed so desolate to him only days before. He held her hand and looked around the achingly familiar room.
“It’s freezing in here, Hugh,” she said briskly. “You need to start a fire.”
“All right,” he said slowly. “There should be wood out back.”
She freed her hand. “Go and get some. In the meanwhile, I am going to open these shutters. It’s warmer outside than it is in this room.”
He nodded and obediently headed for the kitchen and the back door. When he came back into the solar, his arms laden with wood, it was bright with sunlight pouring in through the newly opened windows. Cristen was dusting a table with her scarf.
Hugh looked at her, at her bent head, her long brown braids, her competent hand whisking away the accumulated dust of a year, and all of a sudden the tight fist that had formed in his stomach when they walked inside relaxed.
It is going to be all right, he thought with relief. Cristen is here.
He went to the fireplace and started the fire. Then he took her upstairs and showed her his old bedroom, and Ralf’s and Adela’s, and the extra room that had been kept for guests. She had him open all the shutters so that the sunlight could come inside. They went back downstairs to the kitchen, which looked out upon the small backyard.
Hugh stared at the big kitchen fireplace where Adela had so often stood, stirring one of the pots hanging over the fire. If he closed his eyes, he thought he might smell the aroma of lamb stew. It had been his favorite meal, and she had frequently made it for him.
For the first time since her death, the memory of Adela did not stab him to the heart. Instead, a faint nostalgic smile touched his mouth. Cristen was peering up at the smoke hole in the roof, trying to see if it was still open. He walked over to her and put his arm around her shoulders.
She leaned against him.
“That night,” he said, knowing she would know which night he was referring to. “I spent it here. I felt so…alone. And I had a headache.”
“I felt it,” she said softly. “That is why I came.”
His arm tightened. “I’m glad you did.”
She chuckled. “I don’t know if Thomas will ever forgive me. He hardly spoke to me the whole time we were traveling.”
“He’ll get over it,” Hugh said. And he bent and lifted her into his arms.
She looked up into his face, her brown eyes smiling. “Where are we going?”
“Not upstairs,” he said. “It’s too cold. We’ll go into the solar in front of the fire.”
She rested her head against his shoulder. “That is an excellent idea.”
He took off his cloak and spread it on the rug that Adela had made. Then he took one of the chair cushions and put it down to use as a pillow for her head. The fire was roaring by now and waves of heat wafted into the room. He went to the windows and fastened the shutters halfway so that no one could look in. Then he came back to Cristen.
She had taken off her mantle and dropped it on a chest. At his touch, she lifted her arms and put them around his neck. She raised her face for his kiss.
Passion roared through Hugh. He didn’t think it would ever stop, this all-consuming need he had for her. The feel of her soft mouth under his, of her baby-fine skin under his fingers, the silkiness of her long hair, the way her eyelashes lay against her cheeks. Never would he be able to get enough of her.
They collapsed together onto his outspread mantle and stretched out, young body pressed against young body. She rained small kisses all along the length of his jaw. He shivered.
“Cristen,” he whispered. His hands fumbled feverishly with her clothes. “Oh God. I have missed you so much.”
“And I have missed you.”
Somehow they managed to get their clothes out of their way. And then he was inside her, where he belonged.
They clung together as passion beat through them in great waves, rising like the tide in a hurricane toward a final deluge that flooded them both and left them breathless and shuddering and complete.
And afterward, as she lay quietly against him, Hugh’s soul was filled with the enormous peace of being with her, of just holding her and kissing her gently, of feeling her there with him.
Heaven, he thought drowsily, could not be better than this.
“Hugh,” Cristen said gently. “It is getting late.”
“I don’t want to let you go.”
“I don’t want you to. But we can’t take the chance of someone walking in and finding us.”
His hold on her tightened. “We have to be married, Cristen.”
She kissed his shoulder. “We will be,” she said.
Reluctantly he loosened his grip. “Now that you are here in Lincoln, it should be easy for us to get away to Keal.”
“I thought of that,” she said.
He separated himself from her and sat up, pushing his fingers through his disordered hair. “Perhaps we ought to leave straightaway, before Guy learns that you are here and tries to send you home.”
She didn’t move from where she was lying as she asked, “Have you had a chance to speak to the priest at Keal to find out if he will marry us?”
He looked away from her, his mouth tightening. He shook his head.
“Perhaps you should do that, Hugh, before we go there together.” Her voice was very soft. “If Guy catches us before we are wed, he will separate us for sure.”
“The priest will marry us,” Hugh said grimly. “He will have to. If he tries to refuse, I will kill him.” He sounded deadly serious.
“Well, that will certainly solve our problem,” she said.
At last he looked at her. After a moment, his mouth relaxed into a crooked grin. “All right, I won’t kill him.”
“Thank you.”
His grin faded. “I would leave for Keal right now and make certain all is in order, but I’m afraid to leave you here. What if Guy sends you home while I’m gone? We need to take advantage of your being in Lincoln. It will be much harder to get you to Keal from Somerford.”
He picked up the belt he had discarded earlier and began to put it on.
Cristen still didn’t move from where she lay. “I’m quite certain there must be some poor sick soul here in Lincoln who will benefit from my skills,” she said serenely. “Even if Guy orders me home, I shall be forced to remain out of pure Christian charity.”
He looked up from buckling his belt. Her head was still resting on Adela’s pillow and her loose hair, which Hugh had unbraided, was streaming over her shoulders, a mantle of silken fawn.
“Didn’t I ever tell you that I have taken a holy oath never to turn my back upon someone who needs my healing arts?” she asked.
He shook his head slowly. “I don’t believe you ever have told me that.”
“Well, I shall certainly tell Guy,” she said.
A log in the fireplace fell with a hissing shower of sparks.
“Cristen,” Hugh said with reverence. “You are a dangerous woman.”
She smiled with satisfaction.
“I’ll leave for Keal right away,” he promised, and reached for his boots.