Promised to the Crusader by Anne Herries

and hanging down her back. Around her brow she wore a thin band of silver, to which a fine veil was attached. They were not alike—they had been born of different mothers, both of whom had died soon after giving birth.
    ‘Come this way, sir,’ she invited. ‘I shall care of her this night.’
    ‘She is but exhausted,’ Zander said. ‘I pushed her too hard, but I feared Newark still hunted for her.’
    ‘He is not a good man,’ Anne Stornway said, a thin smile on her lips. ‘He asked for my hand when I was but thirteen, but my uncle and brother sent him away. I am five and twenty now and past the age of marriage, but if the earl asked me a thousand times I would not take him.’
    Zander nodded grimly, carrying Elaine into the comfortable chamber that Anne led them to. The tester bed was hung with silk damask and the covers were fine Frankish velvet, woven in Rheims. Her pillows were of linen cases stuffed with goose feathers; it was the finest linen to be found in all Christendom, as were the sheets she pulled back so that he could place his precious burden down. For a moment he stood looking at Elaine as her eyelids fluttered and she cried out his name.
    ‘You are betrothed?’ Anne asked and Elaine heard their voices as from a distance.
    ‘We were once betrothed,’ Zander said and threw back his hood. ‘How can I ask a gentle lady to look at this every day of her life?’
    ‘If she loved you, she would seek only to ease your pain. I have unguents that would ease you. I shall give you some. Your servant may treat you, for the wound is healing, but needs something to ease it. I should be glad to offer you my cure, Sir Knight.’
    ‘You are kind, lady,’ Zander said. ‘I have lived with the pain for months. I can bear it—at least until I have time to rest.’
    Anne bowed her head and turned away. Unlike Elaine, she knew better than to argue with a man of his ilk; she had learned as a younggirl that it was better to appease than quarrel, though he hadn’t noticed there was a tiny flame of anger in her eyes.
    Elaine moved her head on the pillows and her eyelids flickered. Zander looked at her and moved away from the bed.
    ‘I shall leave you to tend her,’ he said to Anne, walked away and left, closing the door behind him.
    Anne gazed after him a moment and then shook her head. Men were such fools. There was no understanding them. And this one roused such feelings in her that she had difficulty maintaining her air of calm, but she must—she must for otherwise she would betray herself.
    She moved back to the bed just as Elaine started up in fear. Again she called Zander’s name and looked about her, tears on her cheeks.
    ‘I dreamed he came to me…’ she said. ‘I dreamed he came back—but he was not the same.’
    Anne sat on the edge of the bed. She reached out to touch the younger girl’s face. Anne could feel only pity for this young woman.
    ‘Hush, lady. Lord Zander is not far away. He is anxious for your safety—but he is a man.They do not understand us or our needs. No man is worth a woman’s tears, believe me.’
    Elaine blinked the tears away. She pushed herself up against the pillows, looking at her curiously, for there had been bitterness in her voice. ‘Who are you, lady? I have not seen you before.’
    ‘I am sister to Philip, Lord of Stornway. In King Richard’s absence he is Marshal here and tries to keep the peace between the warring barons, but ’tis a thankless task. Most are too stubborn and too proud. My brother is sorely troubled by their lawless behaviour. I wish that the King would return and bring some order to this land.’
    ‘You speak truly,’ Elaine said and this time the tears would not be stopped. ‘The Earl of Newark gained my uncle’s trust and then tricked him. He took all that was my uncle’s—and would have had me, too, had I not run away.’
    Anne listened to her tale to the end and then nodded. ‘So Lord Zander came to your rescue, but it hurts you