Lady Isobel's Champion. Carol Townend

leaving before our wedding?’

      ‘If you are in agreement, I see no reason why you should not leave today. But Ravenshold is … unprepared for your arrival. I have asked Count Henry if you may stay at his palace here in town. I am waiting to hear if there is space for you.’

      Isobel felt a flutter of excitement and found herself smiling. She had not wanted to show pleasure that Lucien had at last come to greet her. She had meant to be cool, but he had caught her unawares with his offer to remove her from the Abbey that day.

       Today! All my life I have been shifted from convent to convent and now …

       Freedom!

      I must be calm. I must not let him see how I have longed for this day. Yet I must not alienate him either. I shall have to do my best to please him.

      Abruptly, her mood darkened. She could not forget that her mother had died in childbirth. Unless I want Mother’s fate to be mine, how can I welcome him into my bed?

      Crowding into her mind came another memory, that of her friend Lady Anna. Scarcely a month after a smiling and happy Anna had left St Foye’s Convent for her wedding, she had come racing back. Anna had been pale. She had lost weight. She had taken Isobel aside and started muttering darkly about the horrors—yes, horrors had been the word she had used—of the wedding bed. Anna had only just started when there had been a fearful clamour at the convent gates. Anna’s irate bridegroom had come to claim her.

      A blink of an eye later, Anna had left St Foye’s a second time. Isobel never heard from her again. A year later, she learned that Anna had died in childbed. Exactly as her mother had done.

       I may never be able to give him an heir. Mother tried again and again to give Father a boy. She died trying. Am I to die in like manner?

      ‘I shall send word to Count Henry’s steward, and see how swiftly arrangements may be made for you.’ Lucien sent Elise a charming smile. ‘If your friend agrees to accompany you, the proprieties may still be observed. Even the Abbess could not cavil at the arrangements. Well, my lady, what do you say?’

      Isobel had opened her mouth to reply, when a novice hurtled into the lodge.

      ‘Where’s the Abbess?’ the novice gasped. Her face was the image of distress.

      ‘Talking to one of the sisters,’ Lucien said. ‘Why?’

      ‘The relic!’ The novice was shaking from head to toe. ‘My lady, the relic’s been stolen!’

      Isobel froze. ‘I beg your pardon?’ When she had come from the convent in Conques, she had brought a relic with her—a scrap of cloth reputed to have come from St Foye’s gown. The relic was highly treasured by the nuns in the south, and it was a great honour to have been entrusted with transporting it.

      ‘The altar’s been smashed in the Lady Chapel and …’ the novice bobbed a curtsy ‘… excuse me, my lady, I must find the Abbess.’ She vanished as quickly as she had appeared.

      Lucien looked questioningly at Isobel. ‘Relic?’

      ‘A fragment of cloth that belonged to St Foye.’

      ‘You brought it with you?’

      Isobel nodded. ‘The relic is lent to this Abbey until the end of the Winter Fair. Since Father gave me an escort and I wanted to return the nuns’ hospitality, I offered to bring it. It brings pilgrims—’

      ‘And revenues,’ Lucien put in, drily.

      ‘I suppose it does bring money, but …’ Isobel looked earnestly at him. ‘Excuse me, my lord, I feel some responsibility for that relic.’ Without another word, she picked up her skirts and hurried out of the lodge.

      Lucien followed, somewhat bemused at the interest his betrothed was showing in the theft of a fragment of material that might or might not have belonged to some long-dead saint. She had largely been brought up by nuns, that must explain it. He followed her into a paved yard and past a series of columns—the cloisters that adjoined the Abbey Church. She moved with grace, giving him a chance to see that her figure was most pleasing. As the sunlight lifted the edge of her veil, he glimpsed a thick plait, burnished to gold by the afternoon sun.

      The little novice had run off into the cloisters, in search of the Abbess. Lucien followed Isobel into the cool shade of the church where a wooden screen separated a series of side-chapels from the main nave. Eyes round with shock, she had paused at the entrance to one of the chapels, and was absently resting her hand on a carved angel. Her hand was delicate, fine-boned and ladylike. Lucien had never before thought of a hand as being pretty, but Isobel’s was.

      Several people must have been at their devotions in the Abbey Church when the thief had struck. A number of townsfolk and a handful of sisters were standing with their noses pressed against the carved screen, watching what was going on in the chapel.

      Reaching Isobel as she stood in the chapel entrance, Lucien was startled by an impulse to cover that pretty hand with his. He was in God’s house, and the nuns would definitely disapprove. Experimentally, he placed his fingers on the back of her hand.

      Instantly, Isobel was tense, taut as a bow. Her green eyes flickered, and slowly—it was the subtlest of movements—she shifted her hand so that it lay alongside his on the wooden screen. Almost touching, but not quite. As a rebuttal it was subtle, but it gave him a jolt. It made him realise that Isobel of Turenne might not find it easy to forgive him for their much-delayed marriage. Wooing this woman might not be easy. She is hiding much anger.

      Dark-robed nuns stood like statues around the edge of the side chapel, stunned by the sacrilege. Peering past them, Lucien saw a brightly painted slice of sandstone with several trefoils cut into it. The altar frontal. Someone had hacked away the border between two trefoils, leaving a ragged black hole. On the tiled floor lay a rope, a crowbar, and a number of sandstone shards.

      Skirts sweeping though the shards, Isobel crossed to the altar and the nuns parted to let her through. She bent and took a closer look. The relic must have been housed in the darkness behind the altar.

      Isobel straightened, turning to look at him. ‘The reliquary is gone,’ she said. Her gaze went past him, focusing on one of the bystanders. She stiffened. ‘My lord, look!’

      A hooded man in a shabby brown tunic was struggling to lace up a pouch. Incredibly, Lucien caught the rich gleam of gold and the sharp shine of blue enamel. A Limoges reliquary box. A box that in itself would almost be as priceless as the relic within it. The man sidled to the church door and nipped through it.

      ‘Did you see?’ Isobel breathed, brushing past him.

      Lucien nodded. ‘Limoges reliquary.’

      ‘The nerve of the man, pretending to be a pilgrim.’ Isobel was already halfway across the nave. ‘I have to catch him.’

      Striding after her, Lucien frowned. He caught her hand. ‘You? It is not your place to catch thieves.’ When her green eyes flashed, he tightened his grip. ‘Isobel—’

      Wrenching her hand free, Isobel dived into the sunlight.

       Chapter Three

      Lucien stared after her. She disobeyed me! It was rare that Lucien’s orders were disobeyed, but it did happen. He sometimes had trouble with young squires when they first joined him, but they soon learned that if they were to succeed they had best obey him. He marched into the sunlit courtyard. It would be the same with Isobel, she would soon learn.

      He felt a momentary pang for the bride he had envisioned—pretty, demure, obedient. Lucien had hoped his second wife would put his wishes first; he had hoped she would quietly take charge of the domestic side of his life, leaving him free to focus on military matters.

      Lucien was honouring the betrothal contract with Isobel of Turenne because it had been his father’s wish. He had long regretted