Once Upon a Pillow by Christina Dodd, Connie Brockway

From the Publisher

As Laurel Whitney leads a tour of an old English manor, she tells romanticized tales of how the exquisite Masterson bed affected the lives of couples who slept in it. The actual stories -- which sweep through medieval times, the Elizabethan era, and the Regency period -- are sexier and bawdier than she can say! Shocked to see her former lover on the tour, Laurel is even more surprised to find their love rekindled when a twist of fate tempts them to give the famed Masterson bed a whirl.

Publishers Weekly

An 800-year-old bed bears silent witness to centuries' worth of naughty shenanigans in Once Upon a Pillow, a collaboration between veteran romance writers Christina Dodd (In My Wildest Dreams) and Connie Brockway (The Bridal Season). The epic opens in 13th-century England with a crusading knight and his fast-talking, murderous maiden bride and culminates with a present-day social history grad student who gives tours through the medieval manor house where the bed is the star attraction; she longs to acquire it or at least give it a whirl herself. Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.

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"Get those pigs off the tilting field!" Simon Gundry, sheriff of Trecombe, hollered at the children.

The two boys, eager not to postpone the promised entertainment, complied without complaint, hieing after their father's escaped sows, sliding and whooping across the icy uneven ground.

Simon watched until they'd cordoned the pigs off by the tanner's stall and turned back to the task at hand.

"It is agreed then," he bellowed with as much authority as he could muster, "whoever is unhorsed by his opponent first, will withdraw his claim for the lands abutting the river."

Simon watched as the knights mounted their destriers at opposite ends of the long jousting field which was separated lengthwise by a low rail. He blew into his hands and shivered in the raw March wind. It was early in the day yet and the field was still frozen. Later, the sun would turn the ground into an ice-clotted mire. Not that the cold had kept spectators from turning out.

The young gentlemen from Teague Manor milled about the far end of the list, while their ladies, wrapped snug in rabbit-lined pelisses, their hoods drawn tight about rosy faces, roosted on rough benches hauled out by their servants. Along the rest of the field's length stood the free folk of Trecombe. Even the holy brothers from tiny St. Albion's abbey stood in the crowd.

And why not? Simon thought. Trecombe was too small and remote to attract tournaments the way the cathedral cities and market towns did. Trecombe's only annual tournament was the one held on Saint Neot's name day. Therefore, for the common people of Trecombe, this was a rare holiday, while for manor-born sons and daughters, itwas an escape from a long winter of boredom.

Simon, however, being neither manor-born nor bored, but instead in charge of all the civil justice in the shire, was unhappy. He did not like this. Not at all.

A dispute between knights regarding property should properly await the king's assize. Unhappily, as knights, the two combatants had every right to demand judgment by combat rather than await the king's justice, and consequentially endure the loss of a valuable planting season.

Aye, Simon understood the reasoning behind the challenge. But he liked it no more for the understanding. He stomped his feet and offered a quick prayer that his role here did not come back to haunt him. Then he cupped his hands and hollered, "Are you ready, Sir Moore?"

Pretty as a maid with his golden hair and ruddy cheeks, Sir Guy Moore looked born to the brilliant raiment he wore, presents his proud parent had bestowed upon him at his knighting nine months past. Since then, he'd already won three tournaments. Now, he dug his golden spurs into his destrier's milk-white sides. The brute arched its neck, rolling its eyes and drumming its hooves anxiously upon the hoar-touched ground.

A cheer rose from the crowd in response. Simon, who'd seen his share of knightly posturing and had known Guy Moore when he was a spoiled bit of snot hanging from his father's nose, wasn't so easily impressed.

"I am ready!" Guy shouted, his voice ripe with confidence.

Simon turned toward where the other knight, a stranger here, fought his borrowed warhorse to a standstill. It was woefully apparent that he was not ready. The crowd eyed him without warmth. A few snickered.

The stranger looked like Hotfoot compared to Guy Moore's Gabriel. Where Moore was fair, smooth, and light, this one was dark, bearded, and huge. Where Moore looked like greenwood, supple and tensile, this man looked to be carved from a bole, hard and obdurate.

He was a crusader, knighted, rumor had it, upon a bloody battlefield by Richard himself before following that same Richard to the Holy Lands. It was a good story, Simon admitted, but Trecombe had seen crusaders before and knew all too well that knightly armor as oft shielded vice as virtue. After all, Sir Gerent Corbet had been a knight, and only think on the years of terror his tenure had wrought in Trecombe.

No, what stimulated curiosity about this man wasn't what he was, but who he was: Sir Nicholas, whose origins were so humble and obscure they did not even boast a proper surname, the newly found heir to Corbet Manor. Once it had been Sir Gerent's demesne and now it was the richest in the land.

Making this Sir Nicholas No-name, as the town's brats had dubbed him, even more fascinating was the fact that he'd never actually seen the lands to which he held title -- not until he'd ridden into Trecombe two days ago. Because before he'd come into his inheritance, he'd been lost on the crusade and presumed dead. Indeed, even now perpetually lit candles graced the altar at St. Albion's, assuring his soul's ascension to heaven.

He'd come on the Sabbath, entering church as bold as brass, and announced himself. Amid a cacophony of amazement, Father Timothy and Father Eidart had vouchsafed that this Sir Nicholas was who he said he was, having known him from Glastonbury and having been instrumental in the events that had led to Sir Nicholas's inheriting Corbet lands.

But before Sir Nicholas could even retire to spend a night at his newly claimed manor, Guy Moore had arrived and challenged the stranger to ownership of the orchard by the river. When Sir Nicholas had disclosed that he owned no steed, the holy brothers had come to his aid yet again, finding within their snug stables the destrier of a knight they'd lost to God's grace this past winter. Unridden since then, the horse had grown unruly and Sir Nicholas now had all he could do to keep the creature under control.

No wonder the people of Trecombe, great and small, were willing to forsake their work to see this particular joust. 'Twas not often a man returned from the grave -- particularly a Syrian grave. If only he'd looked the part of God's returned champion. He did not.

For while Guy Moore looked every inch his position, not even the most accomplished troubadour could have found much in Sir Nicholas's person worth romanticizing. Nicholas's dull mail -- again the deceased knight's -- was as ill-fitting as his horse was ill-tempered. Even his lance was borrowed; its history, like his own, a mystery; its strength and straightness as suspect as the man who wielded it.

Simon shook his head despairingly. It would be, he feared, a short tournament.

"Sir? Are you agreed?" Simon shouted to the newfound lord of Corbet Manor.

In answer, Sir Nicholas raised his arm. Impossible to read his expression. His already dark visage was further obscured by a thick, untrimmed beard and the black locks that fell unkempt upon his shoulders.

But his green eyes were clear and his gaze seemed steady enough. If he felt at a disadvantage on his vexatious mount with his borrowed lance, he did not reveal it. He wore composure like a mantle.

"By the thighs of the poxy bitch that whelped you, Simon, get on with it!" Moore shouted.

"Ride!"

Both men's lances rose in brief salute and then Moore's steed reared, silhouetted against the blinding blue of the newly flushed day. Then he was flying down the field, his mail shimmering, the red silk ribbons braided in his horse's mane rippling, his young body canted forward.

As for Sir Nicholas....Well, no one would be writing odes to Sir Nicholas's prowess this day, that was a certainty. His mount plunged forward, unbalancing his rider and sending the point of Nicholas's lance pitching earthward. For an instant, Simon thought it would impale the ground, unseating Nicholas before Moore drew near enough to take credit for it.

Pity, Simon thought morosely. Then, slowly, amazingly, the battered knight pulled the tip of the thirteen foot lance from its perilous drop. Alas, not in time to guide its path.

Still, The Virgin must have favored her resurrected knight, for in heaving back to keep his lance from falling, Nicholas's shield shifted, slanting sideways so that when Moore's lance struck it, it skittered along the shield's surface, its force deflected.

Moore cursed roundly and the riders thundered past one another to their respective ends of the list. Moore wheeled his mount sharply and adroitly while Sir Nicholas fought his mount into a looping turn.

"Ready!" Moore shouted and, without awaiting his opponent's consent, spurred his destrier forth, once more charging down the tilting rail. And once more, Sir Nicholas's mount gathered its haunches and bolted.

This time, however, Sir Nicholas was ready. He crouched low over the beast's withers, his lance steady.

The crowd held its collective breath. Only the thunder of hoofbeats and the squeal of the incarcerated pigs broke the quiet. The air frosted over with the spectators' mingled breath. Flecks of mud sprayed from beneath flying hooves. Somewhere a baby squalled.

Twenty feet from his adversary, Nicholas abruptly stood up in his stirrups. It was a bold ploy. Raised thus, if Guy struck true, Nicholas would easily be toppled. But, the stance also allowed Nicholas a few precious inches of height which he used to his advantage, leaning out and over the tilt rail, risking all on the gamble that by doing so his lance would reach Guy a split second before Guy's reached him.

Close...closer...

The lances seemed to strike the knights' shields at the same instant. Nicholas fell back into his seat, pitching sideways, his lance swinging up as he tried to right himself. Guy, quick to seize advantage, yanked savagely at his reins, trying to wheel his mount on his rear legs in order to finish off his flailing opponent from behind.

He had almost turned his horse, dropping his shield to do so, when suddenly Nicholas spun around, his leg swinging over the pommel so that he circled round in the saddle without bothering to turn his mount to match his direction. His seemingly uncontrolled lance suddenly sliced through the air in a deadly up-swinging arc, colliding into Guy's unprotected side.

And with that, it was over.

Like a bothersome fly, Guy Moore was brushed from his destrier's back and landed in a clatter of metal on the muddy ground.

Either the hammers pounding against his temples or the taste of rotted wool in his mouth woke Nicholas. Neither was pleasant and the knowledge that he'd willfully pursued both did not make them any more appealing. He'd never been a man to lose his caution in drink, and less the sort to deliberately spend his joy after having dulled his senses. Pleasures -- in his limited experience with them -- were too rare to enjoy with less than a full complement of faculties.

But his triumph at having won the joust, and the release that came of having yet again cheated death, had for once overwhelmed him. He'd started drinking as soon as he'd found a tavern. Now he was paying the price, learning anew that self-indulgence was a luxury he could scant afford.

He squinted into the shadowed interior of the only proper bed he'd found in Cabot Manor, noting the plain dark curtains hanging about it and the rough texture of the pinewood surface, hand-planed and unadorned. 'Twas far cruder furnishings than one would expect in so well-made and well-tended a manor house -- at least, he recalled thinking it well-tended after he'd finally found his way here early this morning. Still, he thought with a sweet sense of ownership, it was his bed.

He had never owned anything in his life besides his honor, the skills to do bodily injury to another man, and his fearlessness in doing so. Or rather, there'd been a time he'd been fearless. No more.

Once more he felt fear gnaw in his gut, fear that he no longer remembered the art of jousting, that it, along with so much else, had been lost in the Saracen dungeons or baked to dust under the Holy Land's sun-blistered sky; fear that he'd escaped that blasted land to slave and beg and labor three thousand miles only to have it end on a rural tilting field, killed by a pretty boy in silver mail.

But he hadn't lost.

Nicholas let his head roll back and smiled into the shrouded darkness. Finally, he was someone. No matter how short a time he held Cabot Manor, history must forever bear witness that he had existed, he had been. For he was lord of this manor, master of three thousand acres upon which lived thirty serfs, a mill, a granary, a buttery, a stable...and a bed.

The tightness in his gut relaxed and the thundering in his head abated. He sighed and, stretching his arm out, brushed against something soft and yielding. A female breast. He looked over, startled.

Ah, yes. He remembered now. As a newly christened debauchee, he had apparently decided to make up for the years he'd lain fallow in a Syrian dungeon. He studied the ripe figure sprawled beneath the blankets at his side. She was snoring and the scent of ale and peat smoke rose from her pink and grimy skin along with a mélange of other odors which, he suspected, had taken up residence on her person long ago.

Sowenna? Aye, Sowenna. Warm, full-bosomed, avaricious, blonde Sowenna. After six years gone from England, he had been stirred by the sight of blond hair. He had promised her a trinket for her company and while he knew that in the eyes of the church offering "a trinket for company" was no different than offering a coin for prostitution, well, he'd had what he wanted and she'd gotten what she needed.

Need and want. He'd always considered them separate, but of late he'd come to wonder how far apart they really stood.

Still, the reminder that he was paying for her favors dimmed his initial pleasure. He scratched his chest, hoping she hadn't given him fleas, and remembered an exotic room filled with steaming pools and ladles of clear water. Not every memory he'd brought back from the crusades was cursed with bleakness or fraught with peril.

He closed his eyes and Sowenna rolled atop him.

"You're awake!" she crowed and fumbled between their bodies. "Good. Now let's see what I 'ave here. Nuthin' I like better than to start the day with a nice -- "

Whatever Sowenna liked to start the day with was to be forever lost, for at that second the bed hangings snapped open and sunlight poured in, blinding him with brilliance. A slender figure stood by the side of the bed, her features eclipsed by the sunlight behind her, a nimbus of fiery darkness about her head, her hands on narrow hips. Her chin jerked up, as though she'd been slapped, bringing her features into view. She was lovely, lovely and careworn and proud. Like some displaced faerie lass, slight but strong, with a wisdom that belied her youthful visage.

Sowenna blinked crossly, her playful demeanor wilting like harebells before a frost. "What do you think you're doing?" she squawked, scooting upright without bothering to cover herself. "Who do you think you are, anyway, you scrawny get of a scrawny whore!"

Nicholas closed his eyes, Sowenna's shrill battle cry renewing the drumbeat in his head.

"Who am I?" The slender beauty asked, pointing her finger at him. "I'm his wife."

Copyright © 2002 by Connie Brockway and Christina Dodd

Read a Sample Chapter

Chapter 1

"Get those pigs off the tilting field!" Simon Gundry, sheriff of Trecombe, hollered at the children.

The two boys, eager not to postpone the promised entertainment, complied without complaint, hieing after their father's escaped sows, sliding and whooping across the icy uneven ground.

Simon watched until they'd cordoned the pigs off by the tanner's stall and turned back to the task at hand.

"It is agreed then," he bellowed with as much authority as he could muster, "whoever is unhorsed by his opponent first, will withdraw his claim for the lands abutting the river."

Simon watched as the knights mounted their destriers at opposite ends of the long jousting field which was separated lengthwise by a low rail. He blew into his hands and shivered in the raw March wind. It was early in the day yet and the field was still frozen. Later, the sun would turn the ground into an ice-clotted mire. Not that the cold had kept spectators from turning out.

The young gentlemen from Teague Manor milled about the far end of the list, while their ladies, wrapped snug in rabbit-lined pelisses, their hoods drawn tight about rosy faces, roosted on rough benches hauled out by their servants. Along the rest of the field's length stood the free folk of Trecombe. Even the holy brothers from tiny St. Albion's abbey stood in the crowd.

And why not? Simon thought. Trecombe was too small and remote to attract tournaments the way the cathedral cities and market towns did. Trecombe's only annual tournament was the one held on Saint Neot's name day. Therefore, for the common people of Trecombe, this was a rare holiday, while for manor-born sons and daughters, it was an escape from a long winter of boredom.

Simon, however, being neither manor-born nor bored, but instead in charge of all the civil justice in the shire, was unhappy. He did not like this. Not at all.

A dispute between knights regarding property should properly await the king's assize. Unhappily, as knights, the two combatants had every right to demand judgment by combat rather than await the king's justice, and consequentially endure the loss of a valuable planting season.

Aye, Simon understood the reasoning behind the challenge. But he liked it no more for the understanding. He stomped his feet and offered a quick prayer that his role here did not come back to haunt him. Then he cupped his hands and hollered, "Are you ready, Sir Moore?"

Pretty as a maid with his golden hair and ruddy cheeks, Sir Guy Moore looked born to the brilliant raiment he wore, presents his proud parent had bestowed upon him at his knighting nine months past. Since then, he'd already won three tournaments. Now, he dug his golden spurs into his destrier's milk-white sides. The brute arched its neck, rolling its eyes and drumming its hooves anxiously upon the hoar-touched ground.

A cheer rose from the crowd in response. Simon, who'd seen his share of knightly posturing and had known Guy Moore when he was a spoiled bit of snot hanging from his father's nose, wasn't so easily impressed.

"I am ready!" Guy shouted, his voice ripe with confidence.

Simon turned toward where the other knight, a stranger here, fought his borrowed war-horse to a standstill. It was woefully apparent that he was not ready. The crowd eyed him without warmth. A few snickered.

The stranger looked like Hotfoot compared to Guy Moore's Gabriel. Where Moore was fair, smooth, and light, this one was dark, bearded, and huge. Where Moore looked like greenwood, supple and tensile, this man looked to be carved from a bole, hard and obdurate.

He was a crusader, knighted, rumor had it, upon a bloody battlefield by Richard himself before following that same Richard to the Holy Lands. It was a good story, Simon admitted, but Trecombe had seen crusaders before and knew all too well that knightly armor as oft shielded vice as virtue. After all, Sir Gerent Corbet had been a knight, and only think on the years of terror his tenure had wrought in Trecombe.

No, what stimulated curiosity about this man wasn't what he was, but who he was: Sir Nicholas, whose origins were so humble and obscure they did not even boast a proper surname, the newly found heir to Corbet Manor. Once it had been Sir Gerent's demesne and now it was the richest in the land.

Making this Sir Nicholas No-name, as the town's brats had dubbed him, even more fascinating was the fact that he'd never actually seen the lands to which he held title -- not until he'd ridden into Trecombe two days ago. Because before he'd come into his inheritance, he'd been lost on the crusade and presumed dead. Indeed, even now perpetually lit candles graced the altar at St. Albion's, assuring his soul's ascension to heaven.

He'd come on the Sabbath, entering church as bold as brass, and announced himself. Amid a cacophony of amazement, Father Timothy and Father Eidart had vouchsafed that this Sir Nicholas was who he said he was, having known him from Glastonbury and having been instrumental in the events that had led to Sir Nicholas's inheriting Corbet lands.

But before Sir Nicholas could even retire to spend a night at his newly claimed manor, Guy Moore had arrived and challenged the stranger to ownership of the orchard by the river. When Sir Nicholas had disclosed that he owned no steed, the holy brothers had come to his aid yet again, finding within their snug stables the destrier of a knight they'd lost to God's grace this past winter. Unridden since then, the horse had grown unruly and Sir Nicholas now had all he could do to keep the creature under control.

No wonder the people of Trecombe, great and small, were willing to forsake their work to see this particular joust. 'Twas not often a man returned from the grave -- particularly a Syrian grave. If only he'd looked the part of God's returned champion. He did not.

For while Guy Moore looked every inch his position, not even the most accomplished troubadour could have found much in Sir Nicholas's person worth romanticizing. Nicholas's dull mail -- again the deceased knight's -- was as ill-fitting as his horse was ill-tempered. Even his lance was borrowed; its history, like his own, a mystery; its strength and straightness as suspect as the man who wielded it.

Simon shook his head despairingly. It would be, he feared, a short tournament.

"Sir? Are you agreed?" Simon shouted to the newfound lord of Corbet Manor.

In answer, Sir Nicholas raised his arm. Impossible to read his expression. His already dark visage was further obscured by a thick, untrimmed beard and the black locks that fell unkempt upon his shoulders.

But his green eyes were clear and his gaze seemed steady enough. If he felt at a disadvantage on his vexatious mount with his borrowed lance, he did not reveal it. He wore composure like a mantle.

"By the thighs of the poxy bitch that whelped you, Simon, get on with it!" Moore shouted.

"Ride!"

Both men's lances rose in brief salute and then Moore's steed reared, silhouetted against the blinding blue of the newly flushed day. Then he was flying down the field, his mail shimmering, the red silk ribbons braided in his horse's mane rippling, his young body canted forward.

As for Sir Nicholas....Well, no one would be writing odes to Sir Nicholas's prowess this day, that was a certainty. His mount plunged forward, unbalancing his rider and sending the point of Nicholas's lance pitching earthward. For an instant, Simon thought it would impale the ground, unseating Nicholas before Moore drew near enough to take credit for it.

Pity, Simon thought morosely. Then, slowly, amazingly, the battered knight pulled the tip of the thirteen foot lance from its perilous drop. Alas, not in time to guide its path.

Still, The Virgin must have favored her resurrected knight, for in heaving back to keep his lance from falling, Nicholas's shield shifted, slanting sideways so that when Moore's lance struck it, it skittered along the shield's surface, its force deflected.

Moore cursed roundly and the riders thundered past one another to their respective ends of the list. Moore wheeled his mount sharply and adroitly while Sir Nicholas fought his mount into a looping turn.

"Ready!" Moore shouted and, without awaiting his opponent's consent, spurred his destrier forth, once more charging down the tilting rail. And once more, Sir Nicholas's mount gathered its haunches and bolted.

This time, however, Sir Nicholas was ready. He crouched low over the beast's withers, his lance steady.

The crowd held its collective breath. Only the thunder of hoofbeats and the squeal of the incarcerated pigs broke the quiet. The air frosted over with the spectators' mingled breath. Flecks of mud sprayed from beneath flying hooves. Somewhere a baby squalled.

Twenty feet from his adversary, Nicholas abruptly stood up in his stirrups. It was a bold ploy. Raised thus, if Guy struck true, Nicholas would easily be toppled. But, the stance also allowed Nicholas a few precious inches of height which he used to his advantage, leaning out and over the tilt rail, risking all on the gamble that by doing so his lance would reach Guy a split second before Guy's reached him.

Close...closer...

The lances seemed to strike the knights' shields at the same instant. Nicholas fell back into his seat, pitching sideways, his lance swinging up as he tried to right himself. Guy, quick to seize advantage, yanked savagely at his reins, trying to wheel his mount on his rear legs in order to finish off his flailing opponent from behind.

He had almost turned his horse, dropping his shield to do so, when suddenly Nicholas spun around, his leg swinging over the pommel so that he circled round in the saddle without bothering to turn his mount to match his direction. His seemingly uncontrolled lance suddenly sliced through the air in a deadly up-swinging arc, colliding into Guy's unprotected side.

And with that, it was over.

Like a bothersome fly, Guy Moore was brushed from his destier's back and landed in a clatter of metal on the muddy ground.

Either the hammers pounding against his temples or the taste of rotted wool in his mouth woke Nicholas. Neither was pleasant and the knowledge that he'd willfully pursued both did not make them any more appealing. He'd never been a man to lose his caution in drink, and less the sort to deliberately spend his joy after having dulled his senses. Pleasures -- in his limited experience with them -- were too rare to enjoy with less than a full complement of faculties.

But his triumph at having won the joust, and the release that came of having yet again cheated death, had for once overwhelmed him. He'd started drinking as soon as he'd found a tavern. Now he was paying the price, learning anew that self-indulgence was a luxury he could scant afford.

He squinted into the shadowed interior of the only proper bed he'd found in Cabot Manor, noting the plain dark curtains hanging about it and the rough texture of the pinewood surface, hand-planed and unadorned. 'Twas far cruder furnishings than one would expect in so well-made and well-tended a manor house -- at least, he recalled thinking it well-tended after he'd finally found his way here early this morning. Still, he thought with a sweet sense of ownership, it was his bed.

He had never owned anything in his life besides his honor, the skills to do bodily injury to another man, and his fearlessness in doing so. Or rather, there'd been a time he'd been fearless. No more.

Once more he felt fear gnaw in his gut, fear that he no longer remembered the art of jousting, that it, along with so much else, had been lost in the Saracen dungeons or baked to dust under the Holy Land's sun-blistered sky; fear that he'd escaped that blasted land to slave and beg and labor three thousand miles only to have it end on a rural tilting field, killed by a pretty boy in silver mail.

But he hadn't lost.

Nicholas let his head roll back and smiled into the shrouded darkness. Finally, he was someone. No matter how short a time he held Cabot Manor, history must forever bear witness that he had existed, he had been. For he was lord of this manor, master of three thousand acres upon which lived thirty serfs, a mill, a granary, a buttery, a stable...and a bed.

The tightness in his gut relaxed and the thundering in his head abated. He sighed and, stretching his arm out, brushed against something soft and yielding. A female breast. He looked over, startled.

Ah, yes. He remembered now. As a newly christened debauchee, he had apparently decided to make up for the years he'd lain fallow in a Syrian dungeon. He studied the ripe figure sprawled beneath the blankets at his side. She was snoring and the scent of ale and peat smoke rose from her pink and grimy skin along with a mélange of other odors which, he suspected, had taken up residence on her person long ago.

Sowenna? Aye, Sowenna. Warm, full-bosomed, avaricious, blonde Sowenna. After six years gone from England, he had been stirred by the sight of blonde hair. He had promised her a trinket for her company and while he knew that in the eyes of the church offering "a trinket for company" was no different than offering a coin for prostitution, well, he'd had what he wanted and she'd gotten what she needed.

Need and want. He'd always considered them separate, but of late he'd come to wonder how far apart they really stood.

Still, the reminder that he was paying for her favors dimmed his initial pleasure. He scratched his chest, hoping she hadn't given him fleas, and remembered an exotic room filled with steaming pools and ladles of clear water. Not every memory he'd brought back from the crusades was cursed with bleakness or fraught with peril.

He closed his eyes and Sowenna rolled atop him.

"You're awake!" she crowed and fumbled between their bodies. "Good. Now let's see what I 'ave here. Nuthin' I like better than to start the day with a nice -- "

Whatever Sowenna liked to start the day with was to be forever lost, for at that second the bed hangings snapped open and sunlight poured in, blinding him with brilliance. A slender figure stood by the side of the bed, her features eclipsed by the sunlight behind her, a nimbus of fiery darkness about her head, her hands on narrow hips. Her chin jerked up, as though she'd been slapped, bringing her features into view. She was lovely, lovely and careworn and proud. Like some displaced faerie lass, slight but strong, with a wisdom that belied her youthful visage.

Sowenna blinked crossly, her playful demeanor wilting like harebells before a frost. "What do you think you're doing?" she squawked, scooting upright without bothering to cover herself. "Who do you think you are, anyway, you scrawny get of a scrawny whore!"

Nicholas closed his eyes, Sowenna's shrill battle cry renewing the drumbeat in his head.

"Who am I?" The slender beauty asked, pointing her finger at him. "I'm his wife."

Copyright © 2002 by Connie Brockway and Christina Dodd