Masters of Medieval Romance: Series Starters Volume II

by Kathryn Le Veque

  “Miguel?” she supplied, too confidently. “I escaped him, Uncle Richard. No man can hold me captive, or haven’t you realized that by now? You tried once, and I escaped you, too.”

  She sounded terribly cool. Richard’s discomfort grew. “No more nonsense, Ryan. What do you want?”

  “I want you to cease this horrible behavior. This has gone far enough.”

  It was a simple, to the point statement with a myriad of responses. Uncomfortable and on guard, Richard rose from his chair. “I do not know what you mean.”

  Ryan cocked a delicate eyebrow. “You do not?” she said. “Then allow me to review what I do, in fact, know. I know that you never had any intention of upholding the peace treaty between St. Austell and Launceston, so much so that you had Miguel attack St. Austell, then abduct me when things did not go according to your plan. I know you ordered Douglas to kill my father because he was trying to protect Dennis and I, which resulted in not only my father’s death but Douglas’ as well. I also know you ordered Miguel to kill my husband. I know that everything you have done has been directed at the total destruction of the House of d’Vant and the annexation of St. Austell. Shall I go on?”

  Richard looked at her, almost amused. “Can you?”

  “Indeed,” she said confidently. “I know that your hatred of St. Austell stems from the fact that Rodrick d’Vant is really your half-brother and you were insanely jealous of him. He controlled part of Cornwall and you wanted it all to yourself. So you tried to destroy him, but he was a strong man. When he died, however, your hatred carried over to Dennis. With my marriage to him, it was the perfect opportunity for you to destroy your nephew. I was an excuse, a convenient infiltrator, or whatever you wish to call me. I put you close into the House of d’Vant and you used that trust to your advantage.”

  The earl’s confidence was slipping. “What else do you know?”

  Ryan’s expression hardened into one of sadness and anger. “I know that you and your brother loved the same woman.”

  Richard looked at her sharply, a mixture of fear and denial in his eyes. He knew, from Lyla, that Ryan had known of his plans for Dennis, and he wasn’t particularly surprised with her assessment. But this latest unexpected statement had his instant, undivided attention.

  “What do you mean?”

  Ryan closed her eyes a brief moment, hardly surprised that he would deny such a thing. “My mother,” she murmured. “You both loved my mother.”

  Richard’s jaw ticked furiously and he lost all of his composure. “You do not know what you are saying,” he spat. “It’s madness and rumor, all of it!”

  Ryan nodded sadly. “My mother told me everything before she passed away. You and Henry were both in love with her. You had been since my father first married her, when he took her from King Henry’s court and brought her to live in Cornwall. And you both knew, after time, that my father was unable to provide her with children.”

  Richard emitted something of a groan and Ryan continued. “You both took her while she was married to my father. You forced yourselves on her. The poor woman was forced into the bed of the king and his brother, repeatedly. It wasn’t so much that you were both in love with her, as much as she was a contest between the two of you; to see who could wrest her affections first. My father was left to stand aside and was threatened if he so much as moved to defend his wife. But she refused to love either one of you. In the end, it was Thomas de Bretagne she loved. When you realized that, you gave up the game. But not before she became with child.”

  Richard simply stood there, hanging his head. After an eternal silence, he turned to look at the beautiful face he was so terribly familiar with. He began to realize how much he’d hardened himself to her, distancing himself emotionally from the woman who might have been his daughter. But he could not harden himself any longer. His hardness has only brought them all misery. Ryan was, in every way, Eliza Merriam’s daughter and he felt himself relent, his harsh nature standing aside for the feelings he once held.

  “I cannot speak for my brother, of course,” he said after a moment. “But I truly loved her, Ryan.”

  “Which is why you demanded my father bring me here to live after she died,” she said quietly. “You wanted me close. You were convinced that I was your daughter.”

  Richard was quivering. Perhaps Eliza had confided in Ryan what he had never been able to draw out of her. “Are you?”

  Ryan smiled faintly. “I am a Plantagenet.”

  “But from which Plantagenet?”

  She was quiet, pondering her options. Information did not come without a price. “I will tell you if you promise me one thing.”

  He knew exactly what she was going to ask and he had no alternative but to listen to her. “Ryan, please….”

  “You must promise me, Uncle Richard. You must.”

  “You are being unfair. I have waited seventeen years to know.”

  “And you do not consider that you have been unfair violating a peace treaty and trying to destroy my husband?” she shook her head. “What’s worse, Uncle Richard; trying to destroy your son-in-law, or trying to destroy your niece’s husband?”

  He put his hands to his head as if the question was paining him. “I… I can’t…!”

  Ryan closed in on him, her golden brown eyes blazing. “What if Dennis is the son you never had, the son you said you always wanted? If I am your daughter, then he is your son!”

  “He is Rodrick’s son!”

  She grabbed him, forcing him to look at her. “He is your nephew, your family. Would you destroy me with the same eager abandon that you destroy him?”

  “Of course not!”

  “But you are, you are!”

  “But he is not my son!”

  She stopped in the midst of their shouting, gazing at him with such intensity that it literally caused him to shy away from her. “How do you know that?” she asked hoarsely. “Unless you promise me you will cease all violence against him, you will never know the truth. And you shall never know what my mother said about you on her deathbed.”

  It was his turn to grab her. “What did she say?” he demanded savagely.

  Ryan yanked away from him. “I shall not tell you anything unless you promise. I shall walk from this solar right now and you shall never know the truth, do you hear? Promise me!”

  Richard was beside himself. He did not want to promise her anything, but years of anguish and wonder eventually won out. He would have promised her the world if she had asked at this moment. “Very well, I promise you,” he hissed. “Now tell me!”

  It was the answer she had been driving for, but she unfortunately did not trust him in the least. “You will cease all harassment against St. Austell.”

  “I will, I will!”

  “You will allow my husband and I to live in peace.”

  “I promise!”

  “You have gone back on your word before.”

  He was desperate. “I won’t this time, I swear it. Only tell me what I want to know.”

  She eyed him. Finally, she moved away, struggling to steady her emotions. “Uncle Richard,” she said after a moment’s pause. “I will tell you what my mother said on her deathbed, but I will not divulge whose daughter I am as assurance that you will keep your promise.”

  “But…!” Richard shrieked. “You just said…!”

  Ryan held up a hand. “I said I would tell you. I did not say when. I think it would be fair to tell you when you, too, are on your deathbed, and only when you can wreak no further damage.”

  Richard shook his head, pale and sweating. “But I must know now, Ryan. You must tell me.”

  “I may change my mind over the years if you prove yourself trustworthy,” she said softly. “Is that fair?”

  Richard shrugged helplessly and turned away. Weaving drunkenly, he made it to the chair behind his great oak desk and sat heavily. Ryan wandered up behind him, slowly, carefully, putting her hands on his shoulders. She did not feel the affection she ha
d felt for him once, but she was not without a minute quantity of compassion.

  “You have so much bitterness in you, Uncle Richard,” she said. “First with your bastard brother sharing lands with you in Cornwall, and then sharing the woman you loved with your brother. You never had anything that was purely your own, and now you are doing everything in your power to punish those who have had no direct bearing on your unhappiness.”

  Richard was without fight. “I simply wanted what was mine.”

  “You have always had what was yours. But you wanted more.”

  “Is that so wrong?”

  “It is in the manner you went about it,” she said softly. A few moments passed before she spoke again. “Dennis will be here shortly to negotiate a final peace with you. He has two divisions of Henry’s army supporting him. Miguel is with him, too.”

  “Miguel?” the earl repeated with some surprise.

  “You of all people should know how fickle a mercenary can be.”

  The earl shook his head ironically. “So the pirate has turned against me, has he? No wonder you escaped him so easily.”

  “My escape wasn’t easy in the least.”

  “Then I am curious what d’Vant has offered him to make all I had guaranteed him so very unappealing.”

  Ryan shrugged. “Does it matter? I can only promise you that there won’t be a beam left standing if Dennis and his allies decide to march on Launceston. But it won’t come to that, will it, Uncle Richard? You will agree to everything my husband demands. You will never bother us again, and you will cease this terrible, murderous behavior. Is that clear?”

  The earl sat there, dumbly. He put a hand over his face, contemplating what his greed and resentment had brought him. “So they have all turned against me,” he muttered. “Everyone. Including you.”

  “Not if you keep your word.”

  The room was silent but for the soft snapping of the fire as Richard acknowledged her with a brief nod of the head. Although he felt terrible at the moment, he also knew that tomorrow would bring a new day and a new set of strategies. Yet, strangely, he felt very strongly about keeping his promise to Ryan. He very much wanted to know, when she saw fit, if she was his daughter or not. Jealousy of Rodrick and love for Ryan’s mother aside, it was his only motivation for keeping his word.

  The quiet moment was shattered as a soldier marched in and saluted smartly. “M’lord,” he said with a hint of panic in his tone. “Lord d’Vant is here with an entourage of men demanding entrance. There’s an entire army outside the walls, soldiers as far as the eye can see. We are sending men to the battlements…”

  The earl held up a sharp hand, his face pale and resigned. “Send no men to meet them with force,” he said. “Open the gates and let them in.”

  The soldier looked puzzled, glancing at Ryan curiously before leaving. Knowing they would have very little time alone together, Ryan patted the earl gently on the shoulder. It was as close to an affectionate gesture as she could come.

  “My mother said that if she had ever been asked to choose between you and Henry, she would have chosen you,” she said softly.

  The earl closed his eyes, squeezing them shut, remembering a woman with skin like silk and the face of an angel. He had been such a fool all those years ago. Tears sprang to his eyes but he fought them off. He reached up and grabbed her hand.

  “Ryan,” he gasped. “About Thomas… I am so sorry. Can you ever forgive me?”

  She thought seriously. “I do not know,” she said. “Time will tell, Uncle Richard. Only time will tell.”

  “I cannot stomach the thought of you hating me.”

  She could not resist being cynical. “It did not seem to bother you before.”

  “I know. But it bothers me now, tremendously. If you would consider forgiveness, I would be grateful.”

  She removed her hand from his. “Prove it, then.”

  He never heard her leave the room, slipping from the secret passageway as she had come. What battles and intrigue and betrayal had failed to achieve, Ryan had accomplished in one fell swoop. When Dennis, Miguel, and several others bearing the colors of Henry, King of England, entered the solar several minutes later, they found a pale, distraught man.

  He gave them everything they asked for.

  EPILOGUE

  1229 A.D.

  “Well? Do we have a child yet?”

  The Earl of Cornwall burst into the great hall of St. Austell like a runaway horse. He was panting and heaving, his face red with excitement and exertion. It wasn’t a strange sight to see him within the walls of his former enemy’s stronghold; in fact, for the past eight months, he had been a regular fixture. Charlotte, seated in a special chair that Clive had built for her, rubbed her growing belly wearily.

  “We do not, m’lord earl,” she said frankly. “But I must say, I am not looking forward to having my own child. From what Dennis went through the last few weeks of Ryan’s pregnancy, I doubt my own husband would survive. Speaking of my husband; Clive!”

  She bellowed in the direction of the kitchen. Clive instantly emerged, carrying with him a large tray of bread and cheese and other goodies.

  “No need to shout, my dearest,” he said patiently. “I was merely making sure all was perfect for your consumption, lest you strike me down in your rage. There; does all look good?”

  He was half serious and half joking; but mostly he was serious. His wife’s temper had been fiercer than usual as of late. Charlotte eyed the tray he sat before her and began ravenously devouring the bread. The earl stomped about the room, noting Riston standing leisurely in the corner. It seemed that none of them had anything better to do than stand around and wait for babies to be born.

  “Where is your wife?” he demanded. “She will know about the babe. And what about Dennis? Where is he at this critical hour?”

  Riston grinned. “My wife is attending Lady d’Vant, and so is Dennis. Ryan did not want him to leave her, so he is stuck.”

  “Christ, they are having a party up there with all of those people,” the earl grunted. “But it is my opinion that it is better to be in the bloodiest of battles than to witness your own child being born. Dennis is a fool.”

  Riston heartily agreed. “Maybe so. But he could not deny her.”

  “He never could. In fact, none of us could. Maybe he’s not so foolish after all.”

  The earl paced and paced. Not a sound came from the third floor of St. Austell to indicate what was happening. Those in the great hall ate, paced, and ate some more. The earl resorted to drinking, downing a pitcher of heavy ale all in a few minutes. He did not know why he was so nervous. It wasn’t as if his own child was being born. But it might be his grandchild. He found himself wondering for the thousandth time if he would ever know the truth.

  The sun went from its apex in the sky to hanging low on the horizon before the door to the master chamber finally opened. It was a critical sound to those down in the great hall. Lyla emerged, pale but smiling, and those waiting patiently leapt to their feet in anticipation. She took her sweet time descending the stairs, savoring the excitement of the room.

  Her eyes found her husband and she spoke only to him. “Lord and Lady d’Vant have been blessed with a fat healthy son,” she said happily. “Lady d’Vant and her child are doing very well indeed.”

  A collective sigh went up. Riston smiled and embraced his wife as the earl shook hands with everyone he could find. “Wonderful, wonderful!” he exclaimed. He turned to Lyla. “Can I see them?”

  Lyla nodded. “Ryan knew you would want to. She says you may go in if you dare.”

  The earl swept up the stairs in his fine silk slippers and elaborate tunic. The small room at the end of the hall was dark and smelled strongly of medicaments as the earl felt his way in, almost knocking Patrizia over in the darkness. The pretty Spanish woman smiled at him as she limped from the door with her good arm full of soiled linens. With months of work, she had regained partial use of her right side but she st
ill walked with a shuffle. Although St. Austell was at peace with Miguel and his ships marauded elsewhere, Patrizia had never spoken of him again. It was Dennis’ decision, out of respect for his wife and Patrizia, that no one at St. Austell did.

  “She is waiting for you, m’lord,” Patrizia told him.

  The earl nodded his thanks and headed for the great bed that nearly took up the entire floor space of the chamber. Upon the mattress lay a very tired and very joyful looking woman. Beside her slept her massive husband. The earl pointed at Dennis with concern and Ryan shushed him.

  “Do not wake him,” she scolded softly. “He is exhausted.”

  “He is exhausted?” the earl repeated. “My God, who gave birth to this child; you or him?”

  Ryan smiled. “He worked every bit as hard as I did. It was too much for him, poor thing.”

  Beside her, Dennis stirred. “Poor thing indeed,” he said sleepily. “My hands are black and blue from being gripped so tightly.” He opened his eyes and sat up, hovering over his wife and the bundle in her arms. “Give me my son.”

  Ryan had no choice but to hand the baby over. Dennis tucked back the swaddling, gazing upon a fat little face set in a conical-shaped head. He cooed to him softly, enchanted as all new fathers were. He had held his son the very moment he was born and was kissing his little fingers until Lyla demanded he hand the child over to be washed. Even then, all he did was hover over him, as if afraid he was going to disappear.

  “Isn’t he marvelous?” he said to no one in particular. “He is the most marvelous child in the world.”

  The earl strained to catch a glimpse. “He is indeed. And his name?”

  “We do live in Cornwall, after all,” Dennis said, stroking the tiny face. “’Tis said the d’Vants descend from the kings of Cornwall, and the greatest king of all was Marcus.”

  The earl nodded with satisfaction. “Marcus d’Vant,” he said. “Very appropriate.”

  Ryan lay against her husband’s arm, admiring the result of their love, feeling more contentment than she had ever known possible. Dennis kissed her forehead, thanking her yet again for giving him a fair-haired son. The earl, seeing for himself that all was well, made his way to the door. It was a private family moment and he did not want to intrude any longer.