Candle in the Window: Castles #1

by Christina Dodd

  Damning the open door he caught her in his arms. “Don’t fret, dearling. The wedding will be an ordeal, I know, but the vows before our villeins are necessary. We’ll have Brother Cedric to bless us, and your father will be here, if he must be dragged by his…neck.”

  She giggled, for quite clearly he wished to drag him by some other appendage. “You cherish the thought,” she accused.

  “Nay,” he protested with sarcastic innocence. “Perish the thought. The wedding day will be a good chance to renew the vows of my castellans to me, for all will be here to witness and the priest will ratify their word. ’Twill be a chance for us to see which of your vassals have defected, too, and need to be brought to heel.”

  The pleasure fled her face. “A chance for you to see who you must fight.”

  “Aye,” he said with relish. “It has been a long time since I’ve lifted my sword in battle.”

  She twined her arms about his shoulders as if she would shield him. “You’ll take your father, will you not?”

  “For a few minor skirmishes? Perhaps a siege or two?” He reared back in amazement. “Whatever for?”

  “You’re unused to warfare.”

  “Too true.” He nodded. “And practice with lance and broadsword cannot replace the conditions of actual battle. Perhaps a mêlée at our wedding would sharpen my skills. ’Tis a good thought. I’ll discuss it with Nicholas. Thank you, my love.” He hugged her, kissed her with brief inattention, and dove toward the great hall.

  Saura followed more slowly, and seated herself on the bench William held out. Nicholas sat at her left. Bula lay behind her, waiting for scraps to fall. William shared her bench and her trencher and served her most tenderly.

  A quiet permeated the hall as the minions served and ate their meal with concentrated subservience. The supper proceeded smoothly. Saura urged the conversation into innocuous channels: hunting, riding, the problems of managing an estate. She never gave William the chance to discuss the mêlée, but she did take the opportunity to interrogate their guest, for a vague misgiving gnawed at her.

  “My Lord Nicholas, you’ve never told us what prompted this welcome visit.”

  “Didn’t I?” William noticed how Nicholas softened his voice when he spoke to her. “How remiss of me. I had heard rumors, curious rumors of changes in the household at Burke, and my curiosity could no longer be contained.”

  “What sort of rumors?” Saura persisted.

  “The truth, apparently. That William’s sight had returned, that he would marry the mysterious heiress from Pertrade.”

  William wondered, “How does the news travel so quickly? The messengers have not even been sent out yet.”

  “So that’s the reason you weren’t bewildered when William arrived,” Saura mused. “I anticipated a scene when you realized his vision had returned.”

  “What disappointment in her tone!” William said. “Women thrive on scenes that touch the heart, eh?”

  “We mustn’t disappoint the lady.” Nicholas’s voice filled with laughter, and he rose from the bench. “William!” he cried with mock animation.

  “Nicholas!” William rose and met him behind her back, and Bula whined to come between them.

  They embraced, murmuring soothing nonsense words until she chuckled and told them, “Sit, you fools.”

  “Look at your stupid dog,” Nicholas said.

  William laughed, and Saura asked, “What’s he doing?”

  “Sitting, of course. Didn’t you tell the fools to sit?” Bula whined, and William murmured, “Does that feel good, boy?”

  Saura knew that sound. The dog wasn’t complaining; he was in ecstacy. “Does he like it when you pet him?”

  “He likes it when Nicholas pets him, too.” William thrust his long legs close beside hers and sat. “I thought you didn’t like dogs, Nicholas.”

  “This is Lady Saura’s dog,” Nicholas answered.

  “Ah, I see.” William found it a strain to smile, but advised, “You’ll have a friend for life if you continue to scratch his ears like that.”

  “He’s so big, you’d think he was vicious,” Nicholas said.

  “’Tis all for show.” William showed a cordial contempt for the animal. “We can’t even hunt with him, he’s such a coward.”

  “Hush,” Saura chided. “You’ll hurt his feelings.”

  “The only thing that would hurt that dog’s feelings is if you didn’t feed him,” William answered with irritation. “I don’t know why we keep him around.”

  “Because you’re soft,” Nicholas said.

  “Because you love him.” Saura put her hand on William’s knee, and William patted it.

  “No doubt you are both right,” he replied.

  “Actually,” said Nicholas as he resumed his seat, “I wasn’t terribly surprised about William’s vision returning. It was obvious as his health came back, so would his sight. The rumors of his marriage drew me.”

  “Where did you hear all these rumors?” Saura asked.

  “Oh, did I not tell you? ’Twas Charles who told me. I assumed by the way he spoke he’d been here when it happened.”

  “When what happened?” William said sharply.

  “When your vision returned. Nay?” William shook his head and Nicholas shrugged. “He was drinking, you know how he gets. Drinking and riding around, just staggering with, I don’t know, some burden weighing on his soul. And confused. The whole story was mixed up with you and Arthur and some foolishness about how Arthur tried to ambush you.” He paused, but William said nothing. Nicholas shook his head. “I do wonder about Arthur. He’s just an easily influenced boy. Never seemed like a man.”

  “Aye,” William agreed heavily. “He was just a boy.”

  “Was?” Nicholas jumped at William’s slip. “By God, William, what do you know?”

  Sorry he’d revealed the information, William could see no way to deny it. “Charles is right. Arthur’s dead.”

  “Not…not that ridiculous story Charles was spouting?”

  “It was fairly ridiculous,” William acknowledged. He took a swallow of ale and then pushed it away. He couldn’t afford another slip like that one. He’d forgotten how astute Nicholas was. Nicholas’s broad-cheeked face, nubby with a new beard, hid a powerful intelligence. His smooth, cool personality expressed itself in an occasional burst of sham heartiness, but his demeanor was that of an older man.

  Nicholas’s body excluded him from any feats of arms. His shoulders seemed no wider than his hips and his belly attested to his fondness for food. Bald except for a sandy fringe around the back of his head and his ears, his head was smooth, a fact he checked with a constant nervous stroking. His fair complexion burned and peeled with regularity, leaving his nose a rough crimson that owed nothing to intoxication. Indeed, he kept his indulgence to a minimum, retaining his secrets and his passions with iron control. Only his eyes, burning with some inner fire, hinted at his intense personality. They were hazel, a bland color, and surrounded by short blond lashes, and red-rimmed from the smoke of the fire, but when William remembered them he never thought of their unremarkable color. He only remembered the conflagration that lit them.

  Doubt filled William. Doubt about Nicholas’s motives, doubt about the information that fell too easily into his hands. He felt a reluctance to tell Nicholas all Arthur’s confessions, and Saura seemed to agree. “Arthur was crazed with jealousy,” she told Nicholas. “He bragged about how clever he was to have ambushed William and me.”

  Nicholas said nothing, waiting with nerve-racking skill for her to continue, but the silence stretched out. Impervious to such tactics, Saura sat with her hands resting in her lap. Nicholas grimaced at William, and William relaxed at the sight of his astute friend baffled by his dearling.

  Nicholas said, “He kidnapped you, too?”

  “No one said he kidnapped anyone,” she observed. “The word was ambushed.”

  “I’m sorry. I understood from what your serving folk said today you’d b
een gone and I assumed….”

  Now he trailed off, dangling his words like a bait, but he’d made a mistake and he knew it. “Are you safe now?” he asked bluntly, paving his way to withdraw from the conversation. “A great lady such as yourself is always a target to scoundrels. You’re lovely to look on and a great marriage prize.”

  “My Lord William will take care of that in August.”

  William laughed, trying to relax the unusual tension that sprang to life between his woman and his friend.

  “You make it sound, Saura, as if I’ll cure your beauty on our wedding day.”

  “Nay,” she said with great seriousness. “But I’ll no longer be a marriage prize when I’m wed to you, and you’ll be responsible for my welfare. That will cure you of recklessness.”

  “Pity me, my friend,” William mocked. “She nags me already.”

  “A womanly trait. She nags you because she loves you.” Nicholas glanced away from Saura’s marvelous face to see William stir uncomfortably. “But forgive her, for you’ll never cure a beauty as great as hers.”

  William stared down at his hands, clenched in fists on the table. She was beauty, pure beauty. She transformed ordinary men into towering heroes, and she never realized how the look of her called forth chivalry in the roughest peasants. He wondered if he would ever cease to marvel when he saw that Madonna face lit by her unwavering courage. He looked up at her, and he was caught again. Had he really had her? Had he really brought her to an amorous lassitude? She looked so innocent, so untouched, like a child, like a woman.

  She trusted him implicitly, believed everything he said to her. Yet he had portrayed a false confidence to her. Whoever had tried to kill them would be at the wedding. He could take care of himself, but she was a woman, fragile, delicate, and he knew a sense of possessiveness he’d never dreamed of. His own well-being was never in doubt, but this villain would know she constituted his weak spot. The thought of Saura, kidnapped, alone, blind, afraid, made him sweat and fear as no other threat could. He would keep her safe, he resolved. Somehow he would keep her safe.

  twelve

  Rubbing her arms against the chill, Saura pulled off her cotte. Clad in her shift to protect against the chill, she slipped between the sheets of the bed in the solar. They were comfortable; someone had brought in the warming pan and prepared the bed for her use.

  The serving folk had had their doubts answered. In the weeks since William’s return with her signed marriage contract, she’d been treated with respect, as befits the mistress of the castle.

  Saura touched her lips with her fingertips. They retained the brief savor of familiarity, a deliberately passionless kiss left by William as he escorted her to her chamber door and then deserted her there. It tasted sweet, a pleasure of longing and respect. He wouldn’t sleep with her, nor work his magic on her body, not as long as they had company in the keep.

  Nicholas had remained with them through the end of July and the first weeks of August.

  She spat out a brief, violent expletive, and buried her head in her pillow. Damn him for being there, and damn William for being so honorable.

  In some odd way, she wished William was not her betrothed. No other man could command her respect and her affections as he did. No other man could make her feel guilty for being the woman she was.

  Unworthy. Inferior.

  If she were to marry William—and she would, for it was the right thing to do, never mind that it fulfilled her heart’s desire—she must conquer these feelings and become the woman William believed she was.

  Determinedly, she fluffed the pillow and lay on her back with the covers arranged over her chest. She sighed and closed her eyes. A draft touched her cheek, and she pulled the blankets up higher, up around her neck. She’d forgotten to shut the bed curtains. Scrambling up, she pulled the curtains from their loops and tucked them close together. The chill sent her back under the covers, and she settled herself again.

  Sleep would not come. For a month, sleep had eluded her, and like a churning mill wheel, her thoughts whirled in a disruptive cycle.

  The servants. Her ability to efficiently run her household was the one support she had to offer William. William’s authority had kept them in order temporarily; she controlled them in the long run.

  The wedding. This had been her first chance to prove herself as chatelaine. Ordering the meals, supervising the preparation of food, and arranging the sleeping quarters had kept her up from dawn to dusk, but she had done it.

  The mêlée. That much heralded mock battle wherein all the knights present chose sides like boys playing at ball, and then proceeded to smite each other with swords. Men were killed in mêlées. Fighting terrified her; still, William was right. He should practice with his friends before confronting his enemies. She’d never undermine his confidence by suggesting she feared for his life; she knew the value of confidence better than most.

  So all her worries were settled. She could sleep. Sleep.

  How could something so ardently pursued evade her? She was tired. Surely she could sleep. She turned on her side, hunched her shoulders and drew the covers up to cover her ears. The summer rain brought a dampness into the keep no fire could dispel. A dampness, a chill. William was lying to her. Lying with his voice, not telling her all the truth, trying to protect her. She wanted to let him lie to her, protect her, but she couldn’t ignore her surging instincts. He worried about this fiend who menaced them. He told her all was well, but he didn’t believe his own words. Whoever this enemy was, he presented a real threat. He could slip among the guests at their wedding, promoting havoc. He could murder or kidnap, and how could they pinpoint the culprit?

  William would protect her with the ways of a warrior, but she must defend him with the ways of a woman. She’d poke and pry, she’d listen to every voice. She’d seek those lies that fell so easily from men’s mouths and she’d find their friends and determine who were their enemies. And she’d warn William of every potential risk.

  Admitting her real worry eased her. Planning a defense helped her relax. With one final big sigh, she pulled the extra pillow from the empty side of the bed. She tucked it under her chin, embraced it close to her bosom, slipped one leg beneath and threw one leg over the top. Now she could sleep.

  “I count four,” Channing observed.

  William squinted through the bright August sunlight to the riders on the road. “Five altogether. See, one of them, a female, I think, is held by a leading rein, and one rider holds a child.”

  “No danger, then.” The older man leaned against a battlement with a sigh.

  “We’ll have many riders coming up that road to the castle in the next few weeks.” William clapped a hand to Channing’s shoulder. “But I didn’t expect them so soon. ’Twas only eighteen days ago we took the contract to Theobald, and only ten days ago we sent out the messengers.”

  “An’ only seven days till the ceremony.” His man-at-arms beamed at him.

  “God speed the day. Who could have arranged to come so soon? Are they guests, or do they bear news?”

  “Guests carryin’ news?” Channing guessed.

  “Aye. Watch for Lord Peter and the boys, but keep the drawbridge up, and let all who desire entrance call out their names and business until we have a steady stream of visitors.”

  “Will that not cause offense?” Channing frowned, at home with the workings of war but not the workings of society.

  “In these times of turbulence, none will question our wariness. Keep a suspicious eye on all visitors entering the gatehouse when we open it to traffic, and call me at once if you smell trouble.”

  “Aye, my lord.”

  “I’m putting responsibility on your shoulders, I know, but I must stay in the keep with my lady and greet our guests.”

  Channing opened his mouth as if he wanted to say something, and then exhaled as if he didn’t dare. Long familiar with his man’s traits, William encouraged, “Say it.”

  “Ye needn’t worry
about the lady an’ the servin’ folk again, m’lord.” Channing scraped his toe in the rubble on the wall walk. “There’s talk, an’ even I’ve heard it.”

  “Talk?”

  “The whole castle an’ the village is buzzin’ with it.”

  “What?” William encouraged.

  “I’m tellin’ ye! No one’ll question the lady’s authority again. They’re sayin’ they made a mistake, they were stupid.”

  “Aye, that they were.” William’s chin firmed to a clean granite line as he thought of the churls’ insolence.

  “Well, no one needs to hang on her all the time. The serfs’ll do as they’re told now.” His voice held the contempt of an armed man for the house minions, but it held something more, too.

  William stepped back and examined the scarred warrior. Channing refused to meet his eye, looking over the battlements instead and saying, “They’re gettin’ close.”

  “I haven’t been hanging on her,” William observed mildly.

  “Oh nay, m’lord. You’ve let her alone to do her womanly work.”

  William pondered, then queried, “Who’s hanging on her?”

  “’Tis just that…perhaps Lord Nicholas could help you with the preparations for the mêlée. Or maybe with the stable preparations.”

  His bland suggestion told William more than he wanted to know. “Is there gossip?”

  Channing was saved by a hail from below. “’Tis your guests, m’lord.” He started away at a run. “I must approve their entrance.”

  William ran right beside him. “And I.”

  The calls from below floated up to the men at the gatehouse, and William leaned out to hear. No sooner had he made sense of the shouts than he roared, “Let them in. Let them in at once.” Turning to Channing, he said, “’Tis my lady’s brothers. Send someone out to search for Clare. I’ll fetch Saura.”