The Mistress Of Normandy by Susan Wiggs

the smoke of a burning orchard, seen a baby spitted on a sword, heard the cries of a terrified woman, has been hurt by these men who call themselves knights.”
    He swallowed hard. She was French; she’d seen these horrors, lived with them all her life. Still, she challenged everything he believed about knighthood. “Do you include me in your censure?”
    She looked up. “Do you do those things?”
    “No,” he said. “Never. Do you believe me?”
    “I think you truly wish to protect the weak and uphold the faith. But I also think you are wrong to believe you can achieve this through chivalry.” She softened the blow by touching his cheek, adding, “You are that rare man, Rand, a man who cannot be touched by corruption.”
    Her statement sent him into a spiral of self-reproach. Every lying word he told her would soon come back to haunt him. Unable to extricate himself from the dilemma, he started walking again, then surprised himself by asking, “What think you of archers?” Jesu, was he truly having such a conversation with a girl?
    “Rabble,” she said. “Undisciplined rabble.”
    “Can you dispute the success of the bowmen at Crécy and Poitiers?”
    She glared. “A fine way for a Frenchman to speak, lauding English victories.”
    Fool, he said to himself, she’ll find you out even sooner if you don’t guard your tongue. “I laud not the victories, only the way in which they were won. How many arrows could a master archer let fly in the time it takes to load and discharge a cannon?”
    “A hundred arrows cannot bring down a stone wall. A single gun can.”
    “What good is a firearm that hides the enemy in smoke?”
    “What good is an arrow in a strong wind, a bowstring saturated by rain?”
    Her vehemence delighted and disturbed him. Deliberately he sidestepped the challenge. “What good is arguing with a maid too precocious for her own welfare?”
    She scowled, but he held her with a look of amused affection until the corners of her mouth tipped up in a smile. “You will never defeat my logic in this, sir knight,” she stated. “I am far too quick for you—in more ways than one.” She turned and ran down a grassy slope.
    Laughing, he followed her lead past great elms, old yews, giant beeches, over half-buried stones and purplish mud, until he glimpsed the sea through rows of wind-torn hedges.
    His caution swept away by her capriciousness and the lithe grace of her movements, he lunged forward and caught her around the waist. Her soft gasp tickled his ear as he swung her in the air. They tumbled together into the soft grass until, with gentle force, Rand pinned her beneath him. One hand bound her delicate wrists and held them above her head, while the other tiptoed in light caresses down her rib cage until she fairly shrieked for mercy.
    “Who is the quicker now, pucelle? ”
    She clamped her mouth shut, refusing to yield. His fingers found and tickled each rib in turn, sending little shocks of awareness through him as her form and the warmth of her flesh came alive beneath her homespun smock.
    Boldly he teased the flesh of her neck, his fingers rippling beneath the dense silk of her hair. Her skin was as smooth as ivory, as lustrous as a pearl. Wildly he wondered if she could feel the simmering heat of his desire, if she knew how close he was to letting his passion devour them both.
    Sudden guilt flayed him. He was betrothed to another. Yet with Lianna his vows of chastity, of chivalry, flew on the wind, beyond the reach of reason.
    As of its own accord, his touch changed to searching caresses, his fingers tracing her cheeks, her shoulders, the dainty line of her collarbone. He explored her form and texture, wanting to stamp her image on his soul. She stirred, and a small whimpering sound escaped her. “Who is the quicker now?” he asked again, forcing lightness into his tone. “Who?”
    “You...oh, you,” she gasped.
    Immediately Rand released her wrists, but he touched her still with