wet."

"Perhaps." He watched as she pulled the yards of skirting free of the knee high surf and wrung it out with capable hands. As she did that, Bella saw that he was correct. Wet, the cotton undergarment was as sheer as silk.

She shook loose her hair, then holding the skirt free of the water, put up her foot to the stirrup he offered

her and took hold of his hand.

One swift jerk and she was up flush against him, wet chemise, wet b.r.e.a.s.t.s against the dark and scratchy cloth of his tunic. His arm tightened at her waist, crushing her against him. Bella tightly gripped his shoulders, her legs for the moment simply dangling.

"Madame." His breath fanned her wet cheek. "Have I told you today how beautiful you are?"

"Not today." Bella's eyelids lowered. "Last night you made a reference or two."

"Well, my lady, tonight we are going to count every freckle on your lovely body, one kiss at a time."

"You may as well decide to count the stars in the sky. You'd have as much success. So, tell me, has

word gone out to conscript all the young and able bodied men of merry old England? By the way, I like your hat. Do not be surprised if Prince Edmund or Henri ask if you got it from a merrow."

Ignoring everything else she's said, Sir John asked, "What is a merrow?"

"A mermaid."

"Ah." His head moved dangerously closer to hers. Close enough that his lips could brush her lips. "I believe I have found exactly that. Shall I check to see if your fins are withering?"

"If you like." Bella slipped her hands behind his neck. He drew her hips into the cradle of his thighs and

kissed her with a hunger that surprised her now as much as it had the first time he'd kissed her.

Though the kiss thrilled her and stimulated her very well, she couldn't fathom him at all. How was it that a man who'd had the same wife for sixteen long and for him obviously trying years, still found so much pa.s.sion in him that he made every kiss feel like it was the first?

He ended the kiss with two small pecks, delivered to each corner of her mouth. Then he straightened his head and just looked at her, sweeping his eyes across the frayed edges of her undergown where she had deliberately torn off the sleeves. He stared at length at the wet impression of her b.r.e.a.s.t.s straining against the cloth then went on to the exposed wealth of much too visible legs.

Bella thrilled at the heated expression in his eyes. They contained the hunger of a man who'd given himself up to a celibate's life and now faced the greatest temptation of his existence.

She leaned against him, letting his head shade her face, and suggested, "For your jaunty cap, I'd trade an hour here alone after the king and the rest have gone. Provided you do me the courtesy of not making me ride astride this too big beast on the way back."

He arched a brow. "For my cap, eh? You like a c.o.c.kade, madame?"

"No, but I have a good appreciation for a c.o.c.kstand when I feel it."

That bold taunt seemed to shock him, but as intimate as they had been at his insistence in the bedroom made Bella refused to deny her own enthusiasm for s.e.x. She liked it and had a healthy appreciation for shared intimacies.

"Madame, since when have you cared for the duties of the marriage bed? You have shunned it in the past."

"Have I? Are you so certain of that, my lord? Maybe I've had a change of heart, or maybe I'm just coming to appreciate your expertise now."

"Isabel, pull down your skirts and pretend you have some modesty. We are not alone."

"d.a.m.n." Bella clung to Sir John's shoulders as she turned around and saw darling Robin galloping toward them. She quickly faced Sir John and tugged down as much of her sodden skirt as possible. "Did I tell you what I caught him doing last night? No, I didn't, did I."

"Monseigneur," Robin hailed as he drew his charger up in the shallows. "Have you need of this?"

Turning her head, Bella saw the youth waved her bliault in his free hand. The corners of his mouth were twitching mightily. Bella could see that he was going to gloat for some time over this episode, drat his hide.

"Yes, we do." Sir John put out a hand to take the garment. "Go on with the others. We will catch up anon."

"I'm sure you will." Robin wheeled his horse about in a splashing circle. "Oh, before I forget, I chanced upon Grandpere Saint Pierre and Oncle James at market in Winchelsea, Father. They send their best regards."

"Did they?" Sir John said flatly. That was news to Bella. She certainly wouldn't have made that inference from the conversation she'd had with Pere St. Pierre. Maybe that twisting of the tongue was what had earned Robin his reputation for being glib. She concentrated on being certain she did not turn any further toward the youth in her present state of dishabille.

"When did you go to Winchelsea?" Sir John asked. Quick as summer lightening, Bella felt the man's mood shift from endearing to stormy.

"This morn. The queen sent us all, my lord. She wanted to swim, I believe." "I see." Sir John dismissed him. Robin galloped back to his peers. Sir John opened Bella's cast-off gown and jerked it over her head. His horse stood perfectly still, its four legs braced in the shallow water like solid piers, while Bella squirmed and twisted getting into the garment.

Sir John waited till she settled neatly between his pommel and his hips. "Lady, I can see that you and I are going to have another talk." Bella pulled her wet hair over her shoulder then leaned back against his chest, both her legs dangling across his right knee as he signalled the horse into motion.

"Whatever for?" she asked innocently. "You don't think I went to Winchelsea, do you?" "Nay, but you sent your son. What difference, there?" Bella decided the best answer was an uncommitted shrug of her shoulders. It wasn't exactly a lie. She knew when to keep her mouth shut.

"Madame, my sons are not p.a.w.ns to be used in your games of manipulation. I will not stand for that and well you know it."

Bella sighed. What use would it do to argue? She didn't give a flip for the politics of Lady Isabel's

relatives. They could all go to blazes. Well, no, that wasn't true either, she corrected herself. Sir John was just over-reacting. No reason for them both to get wound up.

"Do us both a favor, Sir John," Bella suggested. "Do try not to spoil what has been a perfect day."

"Have I become your enemy, because I tell the truth?"

GALATIANS 5:16.

-18.

The blisters erupted before they were halfway home. Bella felt the sunburn first under the damp twist of hair draped across her shoulder. Then it seemed she was scorched from fingertip to fingertip. Her skin began to draw under the stiff fabric of her bliault.

Sir John became as numbingly silent a companion on the return trip as Henri had been going out to the beach. Bella tried to keep her misery to herself and kept wishing the mule train would move faster, but it seemed an interminable length of time pa.s.sed before the walls of the fortress appeared in the distant sunny landscape.

She guessed the time at maybe four in the afternoon.

She felt sicker by the minute, tired and woozy, done in by the sun. Sunstroke, she knew from experience, was not a pretty illness.

"I am going to be sick," Bella warned Sir John just before tumbling over his left arm, vomiting. He caught hold of her waist, steadying her, halted the horse and dismounted. He held her very tenderly while she made a complete fool of herself, offering her a clean square of linen to wipe her face and hands.

"Oh," Bella groaned, dabbing at her wine-stained fingers, certain she could not ever be more miserable than she was that moment. Sir John helped her back onto her feet, lifted her onto his saddle and waved away the concerned squires who stopped to offer aid.

As he remounted behind her he said, "I commend you, Bella. You no longer look like a speckled whale, you look like a boiled lobster."

"Thanks," Bella groaned. "Please get me out of this awful sun before I die."

"Your wish is my command." He put his heels to the charger's sides and galloped ahead of the royal party, cutting crossways over the glacis to the open gates of the fortress.

Clarise wrung both her hands in dismay when she saw Bella's blistered skin. Sir John very carefully lifted

off Bella's bliault. Peeling off the still damp cotte, Sir John just shook his head.

"We'll not be counting freckles this night, wife. Fetch a posset of fennel and vinegar, Clarise, and have a herbal bath drawn, tepid water this time, and do ask Jean-Pierre if he has any remedy for burns on hand."

The tub was fetched and water carted in to fill it. Bella sat wrapped in a length of toweling, hating the drawing pull of her skin. Then young Henri came in bawling because he was also stung badly by the sun.

His nose and cheeks were firebrands, his shoulders scalded.

Sir John propped him on his knee, gingerly stripping away the little boy's clothes, soothing him with gruff

words about bearing up in spite of pain.

"I could," Henri told him. "If I had a pony of my very own. But since I am too little for my own horse, then I must still be a baby like Geoffrey and Prince John say I am. So if it's all the same to you, Papa, I will whine."

"What is this about a pony?" Sir John demanded. "We have horses coming out our ears. We have more horses than puppies."

"But I don't have one of my very own." The little boy put his thumb against his bright red chest.

"I didn't know you were ready for one," his father answered.

"Oh, I am." Henri nodded emphatically. "Didn't Maman tell you last night how much I wanted to ride my own pony today?"

Sir John cast a look at Bella. She didn't say a word. "No, your Maman did not tell me." "Well, what is it you do at night in bed?" Henri demanded bluntly. Bella bit her tongue as a bright patch of color stained the crest of Sir John's cheeks. "We sleep, little man."

"Sleep? Geoffrey and I talk and talk. Meggie swears to take a switch to us 'cause we talk so much. We always tell her we are saying our prayers." "Henri," Sir John said very sternly. "Do not tell lies to Meggie. When you are older you will have to confess lies to Father Kerwin and you form a bad habit that could last you all your days. If you want to grow up to be a strong and valiant knight, you must always adhere to the truth, even if it means you would face great punishment."

"Do you always tell the truth, Papa?"

"Oh, aye, I have always tried to hold the truth before me. 'Tis my duty and my honor."

The last bucket had been poured into the large tub. Sir John lifted Henri carefully and carried him to the

tub. "Test the water with your toes, Henri, and tell me if you can stand it."

Henri dipped both feet and splashed a little. "It's fine, Papa." "Then in you go." He settled the boy in the water which had the strong lemony fragrance of fennel. "Now you, Bella, come." She wasn't going to argue or make any silly protests. Standing up, she crossed to the tub and accepted Sir John's a.s.sistance climbing over the rim, discarding the towel just before she sank under water. She could do it herself, of course, but he made it easier.

Sinking to shoulder level, Bella dipped her face in the lukewarm water.

Sir John stripped off his tunic and the loose white sark he wore underneath that. Then he knelt beside the tub and lathered Henri's thick head of curls. His big hands very gently scrubbed away the boy's coating of salt water and sand.

Henri bobbled like a fish, dunking his head and popping up spouting water, ready to play, protesting only

mildly while his father insisted on soaping his skin with a soft piece of flannel. This, Bella realized was a first. Ari had never bathed Iain or shampooed his hair. Sir John went about the business of cleaning up one little boy with a skilled and experienced hand that told her he had done this task often over the years. She thought much could be said for a father who could unbend enough to care lovingly for a small child. Seeing that side of Sir John made Bella even more vulnerable to him.

"Now, you may play, Henri," said Sir John. Henri stood up in the water and put his small hands on his father's hairy chest. "When I'm big, Papa, will I have hair like that, too?"

"Oh, aye." Sir John said as solemn as an archbishop reading canon law. "And a beard and a big man's belly, too." "Ha!" Henri slapped his stomach, delighted by that. He jumped in the water, splashing. "Henri, you'll splash water on the floor," Bella scolded. "Yes, Maman." He settled down. "Your turn, Bella. Come here and I'll scrub the sea out of your hair." Bella had no qualms about scooting around to Chandos.

As he gently gathered up her hair, Bella let her shoulders rise above the water level for the first time. "Is it as bad a burn as it feels?" she asked, trying to see the tops of her shoulders as best she could.