Lady Betrayed

by Tamara Leigh

  His nostrils flared. “You said he does not beat you, yet he does this.”

  “He did not—”

  “Enough of your lies! I saw what happened when you tried to keep him from drink.”

  Why was he so angry, especially over the ills done a deceitful woman? She swallowed. “I but meant to say he did not intend it to happen.”

  As if she were dear to him, his face darkened further. “What else does he not intend to happen? For this and revenge, did you come to me in the night—so I would not see how bruised your body?”

  Dear Lord, she silently appealed, I would rather him a blackheart than his championing of me cause Bernart and him to meet over swords.

  “My body is not bruised, Gabriel. Aye, sometimes he gets rough when he is very upset, but he does not beat me. And he is ever sorry after—”

  He released her and started for the door.

  “Gabriel!” She caught his arm and held on when her feet went out from under her.

  He turned and swept her up beside him. “You tell I do not know what your husband is capable of,” he ground out. “All the more reason I discover it myself.”

  “Look!” She pulled free, pushed up one sleeve of her undergown then the other to reveal her forearms, next snatched up her hem to show her legs from ankles to knees. “I bear no other bruises.”

  Shoulders moving with deep breaths, his eyes traveled her.

  “I am a liar and a deceiver, but not in this. Pray, do not spill blood over a harlot.”

  Gabriel closed his eyes. A harlot. Even if she lied in telling she had no lovers before him, he was not blameless for turning her into a Clemencia de Vere. Perhaps his behavior that first night could be ascribed to how much he had imbibed, but he had known what he did the second night and not sent her away—and had wanted her to return despite the realization she was not as experienced as those to whom he only ever succumbed.

  “I am sorry for what I did,” Juliana said softly.

  He lifted his lids. “Are you?”

  Her eyes brightened further. “Could I change it, I would, not only for the wrong of it, but…” Her hand moved as if toward her heart, but she lowered it and gripped it with the other at her waist.

  He stepped nearer. “On the day past, you professed to have feelings for me. What are they?”

  She lowered her chin. “I know not what to call them, only that I should not feel what I do for a man not my husband.”

  Gabriel stared at her bent head, held his hands at his sides so he would not touch again a woman who did not belong to him. A woman who would ever be out of his reach—as she should be.

  “I pray one day you will forgive me, Gabriel, that you will forget—”

  “Forget?” The force of his scorn brought her head up. “You think that easy after what you made me a party to, reducing me to the ranks of those who make harlots of women who proffer the forbidden?”

  The surprise on her face tightened into confusion, then opened with understanding. “For this, you scorned my notions of love.”

  “And rightfully so, as you have proven. Tempt a man toward that to which he is disposed and he will break with his faith to take what is offered.”

  Her gaze wavered, and he thought she would leave, but as women were wont to do she pressed, “Who else proved that to you?”

  He nearly denied her an answer as he did all who dared question his resistance to women, but perhaps anger would drive out the desire he felt just looking at her. “That honor goes to my mother, among a man’s best tutors.”

  “She cuckolded your father?”

  Bitterness seeping from his every pore, he said, “She did, in doing so stole everything from me.”

  He could see her mind working, searching for meaning. And finding it. “Your loss of title and lands.”

  “Very good, my lady. Aye, a man wants to know beyond a doubt that all he has spent his life upon is passed to one of his blood, not the blood of a man who made him a cuckold.”

  More tears, and from the lean of her body she struggled against closing the distance between them. “I am sorry, Gabriel.”

  Her pity turned his stomach. “Go,” he said, hating that his voice was so tight and grating it made him sound pained.

  Without further word, she crossed the chamber and listened for evidence of another in the corridor. Then she left him for the last time.

  Never again, Juliana told herself as she pulled the door closed. Even if a child did not take, no more would she know Gabriel. Bernart would have to find another.

  Reviled by that possibility, she moved toward the solar on leaden feet. As she neared, she caught the sound of movement on the stairs. And recalled the reason she had gone to Gabriel. Though she sought to send him away in advance of what the morrow would bring, perhaps her fear would be realized this night.

  Quietly she entered the candlelit solar, seated the door, and waited. But the footsteps traversing the corridor were light, and the stride lacked a limp and drunken weave.

  Not Bernart. Nesta?

  Juliana pressed her ear to the door’s seam, held her breath.

  A soft knock from the far end of the corridor. A hissed voice that called to the one within. Juliana was not certain, but it sounded like Nesta.

  “Do not let her in, Gabriel,” she whispered. “Not after—”

  She nearly laughed. After what you shared? she silently berated. And what exactly was that, Daughter of Eve who came bearing apples?

  She heard the door open, the rumble of Gabriel’s voice, then the door close.

  Silence, broken only by the catch of her breath that was almost full enough to be a sob. He had let Nesta in.

  Juliana pressed a hand to her heart, gripped the material of her bodice. And heard footsteps. When they moved past the solar and onto the stairs, she dropped her chin to her chest.

  She had no right to thank the Lord for this kindness, but she did.

  Straightening from the door, she turned to the bed and forced her thoughts away from Gabriel. They landed on Bernart and the question of how to prevent his raging. Come the morn, the commotion in the hall would awaken him, but were he in the solar…

  Aye, she would enlist men-at-arms to carry him abovestairs and, God willing, he would sleep past the tourneyers' departure.

  A half hour later, her husband was sprawled on the bed, one arm hanging over the mattress, one leg stretched across her side of the bed.

  Juliana extinguished the candles and settled on the pallet alongside her sister. Though certain Alaiz had been sleeping before Bernart’s return to the solar, exhausted as she was from dancing, Juliana was not surprised when her sister whispered, “Is it over?”

  Juliana turned onto her side and wrapped an arm around her. “It is,” she said and silently added, For now.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  He did not believe her. There was something very wrong about her relationship with Bernart, and he did not think it only neglect and infidelity. Juliana’s lower arms and legs might be free of bruising except for that on her wrist, which her husband had certainly dealt, but he could not know what was beneath the rest of her gown. Too, though much of their first night together was mostly lost to Gabriel, he had sensed having hurt her and was inclined to believe too much drink had made him less than gentle. Thus, he may have further bruised tender flesh.

  And this morn he had awakened to remembrance of what Alaiz had said in the garden—I want only to know he did not hurt you badly. And Juliana’s answer—I did not suffer then and do not suffer now.

  Deny it though she did, Bernart abused her.

  Gabriel dropped his head between outstretched arms and cursed his resolve to do what he should not—set himself between husband and wife more than already he had done.

  What of the consequences of stealing her away? reason demanded.

  His tourneying had already seen to his excommunication, but alongside honor he could lose what he had labored for—above all, Mergot.

  He grunted,
thrust a hand in the basin below him, and splashed frigid water over his face.

  Do not do it, Gabriel. That voice again, which almost always served him well when heeded. She is not your concern.

  “Is she not?” he growled. Did she not suffer over Bernart’s belief his friend had betrayed him?

  Gabriel pushed off the side table. Clenching his teeth as pain coursed his ribs, he dragged a towel down his face and raked a hand through his hair.

  Juliana was his concern and did suffer, even though Bernart was wrong about what had happened at Acre. Thus, Gabriel would offer to deliver her and her sister to a convent. If she declined, he would depart Tremoral having assured her that if her husband became intolerable, she need only send word and he would return and see her safely away.

  In the morning light, he clothed himself and placed in his pack the few items brought into the donjon. Then resisting a backward glance at the bed in which he had known Juliana, he departed the chamber.

  Raised voices, the scrape of benches, feet pounding the floorboards, and a woman’s squeal of laughter wended up the stairs. The guests readied to depart, but though this day was newly born, it would be well past noon before Tremoral’s lord saw the backside of his last guest.

  When Gabriel stepped into the hall, he was greeted by the sight of disorder always present at the conclusion of a tournament. Some sat at tables, others gathered to relive recent victories. Among them moved beleaguered servants and the occasional tourneyer eager to begin the long journey home.

  Though the high table was without lord and lady, Gabriel knew Juliana was somewhere amid the throng. Unfortunately, she lacked the height needed to locate her easily. He would have to search her out.

  “Lord De Vere!” Nesta’s hand closed over his arm.

  He peered into her upturned face.

  She smiled. “I trust you slept well.”

  “I did not.”

  She affected a pout, then stretched it into a seductive smile. “Come with me. I’ve a place we can lie down and…rest.”

  “Regrets, but I cannot linger. But tell, where is your lady?”

  She scowled. “What do you want with that shrew?”

  “Shrew?” It was not a word he would use to describe Tremoral’s lady.

  She sidled nearer. “Milady may be fine to look upon, but she is as cold as the night wind. And such a harsh mistress. It cannot be soon enough she is gone from here.”

  Gabriel frowned. “Lady Juliana is leaving Tremoral?”

  “Lord Kinthorpe vows that come autumn he will seek an annulment and take another to wife if milady has not ripened with child.”

  Though tempted to relief he would not suffer the consequences of stealing her away, something rose from the back of Gabriel’s mind.

  “Aye, she will soon leave, for she is frigid and certainly barren.” Nesta nodded. “No son will she give Lord Kinthorpe.”

  Frigid? Hardly. Barren? Perhaps. Else the blame lay with Bernart.

  Of a sudden, all came together. Neither revenge nor desire had delivered Juliana to his bed. It was the need for a child she could claim as Bernart’s to secure her place at Tremoral.

  Once more, anger doused him. She had used him worse than thought. Though she professed to have feelings for him, all she wanted was a child.

  But why Gabriel? Why not another? Perhaps there was an element of revenge to it—secretly presenting her faithless husband with the child of his enemy.

  Gabriel closed his hands into fists. For a deceitful harlot he would have risked everything as he would have done for no other woman. How she would have laughed when he was gone from Tremoral!

  He pushed Nesta aside and forced a path through the crowd. Juliana stood before the great doors, her back to him as she conversed with a neighboring baron.

  “My husband sends his regrets, Lord Payne. He took ill during the night and is unable to leave his bed.”

  The baron who looked as if he ought to remain abed himself, thanked Juliana for the festivities, took his wife’s arm, and guided the graceless woman from the hall.

  Juliana turned as Gabriel reached her. She looked surprised, then wary. She had cause to be.

  “We must needs speak,” he growled.

  “I have guests, Lord De Vere.”

  “Would you like them to hear what I have to say?”

  She glanced left and right to see if they had fallen beneath the regard of others. “I will meet you in the garden.”

  “Do not keep me waiting.” He turned on his heel.

  Heart pained as she watched Gabriel’s long stride carry him away, Juliana wondered what had happened between last eve and this morn. What wrath must she now suffer and for what reason?

  Dreading the answer, she made her way across the hall toward the garden. Lest she was watched, she paused to direct servants and chat with one of the ladies, then slipped down the corridor. The door at the end was ajar. Bracing herself, she stepped through it.

  Gabriel’s blue gaze went through her.

  “Of what do you wish to speak, Lord De Vere?” she asked as she closed the door.

  “Come nearer.”

  Barely ten feet separated them and he wished her to draw nearer? To look more closely upon his seething? “I must return to the—”

  “Nearer!”

  He knew.

  Dear Lord, she silently appealed, what revealed me? Or is the question who? Did Bernart awaken and confront Gabriel? Might Alaiz have spoken where she should not have?

  Though instincts urged her to flee, reason told her there would be no escape. Somehow she must convince Gabriel he erred.

  Insides trembling like leaves in autumn, she stepped onto the path and halted before him. “Of what would you speak?”

  He lowered his gaze to her waist. “I know the truth.”

  Affecting puzzlement, she put her head to the side. “What truth?”

  His gaze returned to hers. “That you are a liar, Juliana Kinthorpe. A harlot. A thief.”

  All the things Bernart had made her. She clasped her hands before her. “I have apologized for my sin. And I vow, I did not come to your chamber last eve so I might further it.”

  His hands fell to her shoulders, gripped her firmly enough to prevent her escape, but not so that her skin would purple. “Of course you did. Now the only question is whether you gained what you sought those first two nights.”

  She shook her head. “I do not understand.”

  “You came to my bed to take a child from me!”

  Did he feel her trembling as deeply as she? She fixed a frown on her face. “For what would I wish you to father my child?”

  “I know Bernart intends to rid himself of you do you not soon provide an heir.”

  Where had he come by that? In the two months prior to the tournament, Bernart had talked openly of his quest to father a son so none would be surprised when she swelled. But that he intended to send her away if she did not conceive was something she had not heard. Also of his doing? Not that he would make good on it. He would simply find another to prove his lost manhood.

  “Who spoke such foul nonsense in your ear?” she asked past a constricted throat.

  Gabriel lowered his face near hers. “As it is the truth, it matters not. You do not feel for me as you claimed. You feel only for yourself.”

  It hurt he thought so ill of her, but though she wished to tell him everything, she must consider Alaiz. “You err. I did not seek a child from you, nor did I gain one. Recall our second night, Lord De Vere.”

  “That I shall never forget, Lady of Tremoral, unlike the first night whose memories are so steeped in drink they are more black than gray.”

  That night was her sole hope—a hope only in that what was required of her would not have to be done again. So what was she to do? No matter how much she denied his accusation, he would not believe her, but neither could she confess.

  As she searched for an answer, a voice resounded above the commotion in the inner bailey beyond the garde
n.

  “Juliana!” Bernart bellowed.

  She gasped, shot her gaze high. Though the lord’s solar was not visible from the garden, she knew it was from there he called. If she did not answer, he would come looking for her. And such ale-passion would he suffer that any in his path would regret it.

  Dreading the spectacle he would make of himself and fearing the confrontation that would ensue if he found her with Gabriel, she looked back at the man whose anger was his due. “I beg you, Gabriel, leave Tremoral. Now.”

  Anger no less palpable, he searched her face. “Leave without thanking my old friend for his hospitality? For the gainful sport, food and drink, warm bed? For sharing his wife?”

  He did not understand how near the truth he was. “Have you any heart, you will go.”

  “Heart.” His smile was frightening. “I do not.” He released her shoulders. “I shall leave, but know this—if you have stolen from me, I will return.”

  She did not need to be told. Gabriel de Vere was not a man to be made a fool and walk away.

  Fortunately, he had little influence. Though awarded a demesne in France, he was not the great baron Wyverly would have made him. He lacked the power Bernart wielded in England. Thus, to accuse a noblewoman of Juliana’s rank of having lain with him would see him the worse for it. Still, if she soon swelled with child, he would return. It was a day for which she must prepare.

  Chilled, she hugged her arms about her and watched Gabriel retrieve his pack from the ground and sling it over his shoulder.

  “And when I return,” he added, “I will tear from your arms what belongs to me.”

  Heaven be merciful, she silently prayed.

  He strode to the gate that accessed the inner bailey, paused and looked across his shoulder as if to impress this moment on his mind. “Pray it is you who are barren, not Bernart,” he said and threw open the gate and stepped into the bailey.

  Juliana’s knees began to buckle, but though she longed to sink onto them and empty herself of emotion, she could not indulge. In the days, months, years to come, there would be time aplenty to agonize over the ill done Gabriel and its consequences.