by Tamara Leigh
She lifted her hands, the fingers of which were slightly curled from the ache of joints pressing hard on spoon and mortar, the skin of which was scraped and dusted with mortar. She wiped them on her skirts, crossed to the door, and listened.
Catching no sound outside her chamber, she exited. Before closing herself in the chapel, she noted the lay of the debris which would cloak itself in shadow when she denied it the corridor’s light. So it did. But though dim, enough light stole around the edges of the canvas stretched over the hole to aid in placing her feet.
The floor was relatively clear just in front of where the altar had stood. There she lowered to her knees, felt her way onto her hands, and prostrated herself.
The swell of her belly against bits of debris made the position uncomfortable, but she was so weary she determined to endure it and the chill of the chapel to ensure she did not fall asleep as Alaiz had done the night Gabriel came to make good his threat.
Forehead and nose to the floor, she closed her eyes. “Lord, You know my tale, and surely only You can judge me since better than any You know why I so offended. You know how great my fear for Alaiz. You know what Bernart has become. You know what Gabriel is becoming.”
Feeling the debris in one hip, she shifted to the other and was gouged there as well. “Pray, keep Alaiz safe. And if it is in Your will and no harm shall befall my babe, aid in my escape. Show me how. Show me when. Show me where.”
She quieted, waited to be moved in the direction she wished to go, even the one she did not wish to go if that was what the Lord decided. But all was still, inside her and out.
A half hour, she told herself. Then she would return to her chamber ahead of Lissant.
Thus, she prayed until her discomfort became so great she could not keep her mind on the only one capable of guiding her toward what was best and blessed for all. Rolling onto her side, she drew her knees up. And tried to resume her prayers.
Gone. Again.
Leaving the flustered Lissant in the hall where she had rushed upon him, Gabriel strode across the room and ascended the stairs two at a time.
Though he intended his search for Juliana to begin in her chamber, a current of cool air amid relatively warm made him pause in the corridor to discover the source.
The chapel door was not fully closed—just enough space in that finger’s width to allow the colder air within to escape.
He reached his legs longer and thrust open the door.
Juliana was curled on her side before the canvas stretched over the wall, one arm cradling her belly, the other crossing her chest, hand bunched beneath her chin.
He dropped to a knee and gripped her shoulder. “Juliana?”
A moan parted her lips. At its end, she murmured, “I am.” But she did not open her eyes.
Was she ill? Hurt? Was something wrong with the babe?
“Look at me!”
Another moan.
As he scooped her into his arms and started for the door, she jerked awake. “What do you, Gabriel?”
He glanced into her wide eyes, tightened his arms around her when she tried to turn out of them, and stepped into the corridor.
“Put me down!”
He halted and looked near upon her. “What is wrong with you?”
“Naught. What is wrong with you?”
Certes, she was her usual defensive self. Had she only been sleeping? If so, why amid ruins?
“What is wrong with me is that you disappeared again. Search though Lissant did, she could not find you.”
She moistened her lips. “I was at prayer.”
“You were not. But if you insist on making me draw my own conclusion for you venturing where I told you not to go, I would say that in seeking to use the torn wall to escape, you took a fall and fell asleep whilst recovering.”
She scowled. “Set me down.”
He continued to her chamber, shouldered open the door, and lowered her to the bed.
Immediately, she swung her legs over the side and sprang to standing as if for fear he meant to join her on the mattress. But now she was so near, there was only enough space between them to hold a shallow breath—a breath he longed to draw into his lungs as he looked upon her.
Her hair was all but loosed from the waist-skimming braid she had worn at the nooning meal, dust surely gained from the chapel’s floor was upon her brow, nose, and chin, and spots of color were in cheeks so bright they appeared painted on.
“You truly believe I would attempt the sheer drop of a third story floor?” she asked. “Even were I not with child, I would have to be most desperate.”
“But that you are, Juliana. I do not have to be near enough you to make love to you in order to feel the desperation that falls off you like the leaves of autumn.”
Her eyes widened, lowered to the shallow breath between them that was hardly that anymore. She stepped back and had nowhere to go but the bed upon which she sat down hard.
Gabriel bent and placed a hand on the mattress on either side of her. “After the risk you took in seeking the bed of your husband’s enemy in your home, after your attempt to flee en route to Mergot—a woman with child alone in a country not her own—I do think it possible you would try to lower yourself down that wall. That once more you would risk our child.”
The protest that hurtled onto Juliana’s tongue slid down. Our child. Not my child. “Ours?” she whispered, only realizing she spoke aloud when the anger on his face shifted. Then his eyes lowered to her lips, and she felt them like the softest kiss.
Shivering, she silently beseeched, God help me. I want to know again that intimacy, this time with light upon our faces.
There was no longer breath between them, but there was space across which neither exhaled. Then Gabriel angled his head, moved in, and stilled when his nose brushed hers.
Realizing he was not going to kiss her, she was tempted to ensure he did by breaching what remained of the space between them. But once more she would be the seducer, offering further proof she was no different from his mother.
She heard him draw breath, then he eased back and met her gaze. “Our child, Juliana—until you deliver him. Then he is mine. Even could I put your treachery behind us, still you would be a married woman. Thus, since there can be no future for you as our child’s mother, you will not see him again. But be assured, I shall protect him far better than you are capable of doing.”
That she could not argue. Regardless their child would bear the taint of illegitimacy, a better father Gabriel would make than Bernart. If not for the need to return to Alaiz, she would reconcile herself to spending the rest of her pregnancy preparing to surrender the babe to Gabriel and herself to whatever life would hold when he set her out of Mergot with empty arms.
Near to tears, she looked to her hands on her thighs—her scratched and dust-fouled hands. She slid them off and curled them over the mattress edge, looked up.
The movement had drawn Gabriel’s regard, and a frown rose on his brow.
Desperate to avert his attention, she said, “Pray, stand away, Lord De Vere. Your scent threatens the contents of my stomach.” It was a lie. He smelled of labor, but it did not offend enough for her to notice it ahead of her body’s awareness of his.
Lids narrowing, he said low, “Does it?”
She gripped the mattress tighter. “Be assured, you smell most foul.”
“Would you suggest I bathe?”
As she had done on the battlefield at Tremoral the day ere the night she had first gone to his bed. Though she could do naught about the heat sweeping her face, she pushed her eyebrows high. “Providing you keep your distance, I care not.”
He straightened and strode to the door. “Henceforth, the chapel will be secured, Juliana.”
She inclined her head. “Of course. But believe me or nay, I entered only to be nearer the Lord in offering up prayer.”
He stared at her, after some moments said, “Is it truly so important that you would kneel among ruins?”
“I do not, but as repairs must be made eventually, I shall pull a few workers off the wall and see they are begun here.”
He would not forever suffer excommunication. As he had told Sir Morris, for the sake of wife and children he would pay his way out of it. If only he were godly enough to do it for his own sake…
Though she would not be surprised if repairs were not completed until she was gone from Mergot, whether she set herself outside the walls or he did it, she said, “I thank you.”
Without further word, he left her.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Barony of Tremoral
England, September 1195
The hall’s great doors swung open.
At the end of the tunnel through which Alaiz sought to make sense of her contracting world, she glimpsed his broad figure. And that was enough. So swollen was the anger he brought with him she did not need to see clearly to know here was the man who wanted only one thing more than her absence—Juliana and Gabriel’s child.
As she rose from the chair before the hearth, he demanded, “Where is your sister?”
Though she had known he would ask it of her, fear breathed down her neck. “I know not m-my lord.” From the tread of his boots, he was nearly upon her. “When I awoke, she was gone from her bed.”
He halted before her. “With nary a trace?”
Tilting her head slightly, she fixed him at the center of her vision, but he was so near she could not see the whole of his face. “Nary a trace, my lord.”
His ruddy face took on more color. “I am to believe you saw naught? Heard naught?”
His spit sprayed her face. Though she longed to wipe it away, she kept her hands at her sides. “I was so tired I fell asleep while praying in the chapel.”
“’Tis as I told, my lord,” the captain of the guard spoke from beyond Bernart. “’Twas as if we were drugged. Every one of us.”
A blur of movement, and she saw the back of her brother-in-law’s head. “What of the priest who stopped for the night—this Father Hermanus?”
“We searched, but he was also gone.”
“Keep searching! Sir Hector, Sir Nigel, accompany him.”
Footsteps told the knights followed the captain of the guard from the hall.
Bernart turned back. “I know this is difficult for one with your…infirmity, but I need you to think hard, Alaiz—for your sister’s sake. And yours.”
What was hard was not reacting to his unkindness. He had known her long before her vision began to fail, and though she had never been easy in his company due to the eyes he rested too long on women servants and disdain over her preference for intellectual writing over tales of love, he had been passably civil when he visited his betrothed. Now because she moved cautiously through the world, he believed her wit also failed her.
Bernart stepped closer, the sweat of his ride rank. “Who would dare take your sister?”
So tightly did she grip the material of her skirts, her short nails bent to the pressure. “I cannot know, my lord.”
It was the first real lie she had told in years, though not truly a lie. She was not certain Gabriel de Vere had abducted her sister. What she did know was Juliana would not have willingly left her behind, and the babe was Gabriel’s.
“Think harder!” Bernart shouted, causing her to startle and grimace over the breath he spilled across her face.
Alaiz knew better—truly, she did—but she snapped, “I said I do not know!”
Surprised silence, then he gripped her arms, shook her, and thrust her from him.
Had the chair behind not caught her, she would have dropped to the hearth.
“Upon my word,” Bernart snarled, “do you give me grief, I shall put you out like a dog.”
Shaking, she struggled to place her brother-in-law in her field of vision, saw him turn his back on her, heard his heavy footfalls. Moments later, a door groaned open and slammed close.
“None to watch over you, Lady Alaiz?” spoke one who came to stand beside her.
She suppressed a gasp. Guessing she was alone with the knight whose gaze she often felt and whom her sister did not trust, she counseled herself not to reveal her fear and pushed up out of the chair. “Pardon me, Sir Randal, but I must rest ere the nooning meal.”
“Would you like me to assist you to your chamber, my lady?”
So much suggestion in his tone! “I thank you, but methinks your lord would not approve.”
“You might be wrong. But best we not test him. Yet.”
Alaiz turned aside and made her way across the hall as quickly as she could. Once inside her chamber, she barred the door. She was safe. For now. The question was how to remain safe while she dwelt in the home of a man who disliked her. Bernart would not protect her as Juliana had done. Indeed, he warned he would turn her out if she caused trouble.
Which was more dangerous? To remain at Tremoral among men like Sir Randal, or to be a near-blind woman wandering the countryside amid outcasts and thieves? The latter.
Though with Juliana’s guidance following the tournament, she had become increasingly familiar with the land beyond the walls as far as the nearest village, she stood a greater chance of survival inside the castle. Thus, she must preserve her place here. Must protect herself.
She wiped her moist palms down her skirts and crossed to her chest. At the bottom she found what her father had given her before his death—a dagger, simply wrought but sharp.
Who dared steal his wife from his bed?
It was the same question he had asked himself since word of Juliana’s disappearance reached him in London. And still no answer.
He wiped a forearm across his brow, wetting his sleeve with the excessive perspiration he owed more to his considerable weight gain than the hard ride from London.
Longing for rest, he eyed the bed from which his wife had been taken and imagined a dark figure entering the solar, standing over her, lifting her. Had she struggled? Cried out? Had ill befallen the child she carried—the son he had sacrificed all to gain?
He slammed a fist against a bedpost, shouted as pain exploded through his hand. Where was she? Whose bed was she in?
Nursing his hand to his chest, he dropped to the mattress and stared ahead. Ever he prided himself on possessing a woman so desirable other men wanted her, but never had he believed any would take her. Who would be so bold?
Doubtless, the visiting priest was part of the plan, but he had not been alone. Who had engaged him?
Bernart plodded through his wretched memory to the days of the tournament. Many a man could not keep his eyes from Juliana—except his enemy.
Once more, he entertained the possibility Gabriel was responsible for her abduction. Had he discovered it was she who shared his bed? Did he believe her child was also his? His brother was a priest.
Nay. Gabriel did not know it was Juliana who had come to him. She had assured him of it, told him Gabriel had taken what she gave and not even asked her name. To find her, he must look elsewhere.
Could it be Sir Henry? The handsome Sir Morris? The lecherous Sir Arnold?
One by one, he considered the noblemen who traveled from near and far to gain the purse Gabriel had won. Any of them could have done it, could this moment have her in his bed.
Bernart’s gut burned, cramped, threatened to expel the ale he had quaffed a half hour earlier.
He swallowed hard, and the nausea subsided enough to allow him to gain his feet.
Now to begin his search. Regardless of how long it took—a fortnight, a month, a year—he would have Juliana back. And the son owed him.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Castle Mergot
France, Mid-September 1195
The beat of rain that began to fall minutes earlier drew Juliana’s gaze to the damaged wall across the hall. The canvas covering the hole was soaked and dripping. Though repairs had started on the chapel abovestairs, it was
a pity Gabriel did not also set workers on this wall. Not only would rain further mildew the rushes, but the chill of autumn would soon give way to the frigid of winter. Then it would be barely tolerable in the great room unless one stayed near the fire.
Restless, she lowered her sewing to her lap. She had always had something with which to occupy herself, be it training in the art of love as a fanciful girl or the keeping of Bernart’s household as a disenchanted wife. Now she had only needle and thread.
Not even a fortnight at Mergot and it felt like a month. And since the spoon handle and several other items proved mostly worthless in her quest to open the door to the passageway, she was not much nearer escape.
She looked about the hall. The only occupants other than herself and Lissant were Blase seated at the lord’s table with journals spread before him, the porter dozing alongside the door, and two women servants more concerned with idle chat than their duties.
She frowned. Though Mergot was much in need of a lady to bring order to the household, Gabriel was nearly blind to all but fortification. Were she Lady of Mergot, she would set the women to replacing the rushes with fresh ones scented with herbs and gather more servants to scrub the walls, hearth, tables, and benches.
But never would she be their lady. One day another would sit at Gabriel’s side, share his bed, and birth his heir. Imaginings of that wrenched her heart—and more deeply, the thought of another woman raising her child. Would Gabriel choose his bride wisely?
She berated herself for such thinking. She would find a way to escape and, somehow, raise the child growing in her.
Back aching from sitting too long, she set aside the unfinished gown and stood.
Lissant looked up from the sleeve that could soon be set in the bodice. “My lady?”
“I am stiff and need to walk.”
Lissant rose to accompany her, as she did from the moment Juliana departed her chamber in the morn to when she returned to it at night. The only time she left her unattended were those afternoon hours whilst her lady napped—rather, whilst Juliana made it appear her solitude was spent abed.
