Lady Betrayed

by Tamara Leigh

  Juliana gaped. Surely he did not intend to answer Bernart’s summons!

  “Archers at my back,” he ordered his men who hastened to position themselves.

  As the drawbridge screeched and groaned, Gabriel came off the steps and called for the portcullis to be raised.

  Juliana commanded her feet to the wall, put hands to an embrasure, peered at the ominous spectacle.

  Men everywhere. Fighting men. Killing men. And mounted on his destrier twenty feet back from the descending drawbridge was the one who led them.

  Appearing to have gained more weight, as evidenced by the roll of flesh between chin and chain mail that was as ruddy as his sagging cheeks, Bernart shifted his bulk. In response, his horse sidestepped.

  Remembering what he had once meant to her, Juliana pressed her hands hard against the stonework.

  “Ah, Gabriel,” Bernart said as the one he had made his enemy ducked beneath the portcullis, “I did not think you would come out.”

  Sword in hand, Gabriel halted at the center of the drawbridge.

  Juliana looked from him to Bernart and back.

  “I am here, Kinthorpe! For what do you come against me?”

  Bernart chuckled, a gurgling sound that, to his obvious embarrassment, became a hacking cough.

  Juliana slapped back the strands of hair the breeze coaxed from her braid. What did Bernart plan? As she considered his men, her gaze was captured by one who wore a dark scowl as easily as one might a girdle—slung low upon what appeared to be a handsome face. He was also missing an arm, meaning here was Baron Faison of whom Lissant had spoken.

  When his eyes rose to hers, she startled and swept her gaze to Bernart.

  Mouth gone flat, her husband wiped it across his tunic sleeve. “You know for what I come,” he said. “I want what you stole from me, De Vere. My wife and son.”

  Though he would know the child was born, was it only a guess she had birthed a son? Juliana wondered. More likely, word of Gabriel’s fatherhood had reached Faison who then shared it with his ally.

  She looked to Gabriel, saw him brace his legs farther apart.

  “You can have neither, Kinthorpe. They are mine and ever shall be.”

  As Juliana’s heart surged against her ribs, Bernart reddened like a cloud-laced sunset. “Then you choose death.” He pulled his sword from his scabbard and raised it, but not to stand alone against Gabriel. To call his men to attack.

  “Kinthorpe!” Gabriel bellowed. “Look to my walls!”

  Bernart’s eyes skittered to the archers whose arrows were sighted on him and his army. His sword wavered.

  “’Twill be honorable, this,” Gabriel said, “else a swift death shall be yours.”

  A moment later, Bernart’s gaze slid to Juliana. His eyes widened, lips formed her name, and pain came out from behind his vengeance—that great ache that had long held her to his side. All she had ever wanted was to ease it from him, but he had made it impossible. With or without her and the child he hoped would prove his masculinity, no peace would he find.

  “Juliana!” Her name burst from him. “I come for you.”

  Gabriel’s head came around, gaze slammed into hers. Though anger lit his face, she thought she could look upon it forever.

  “All you have heard?” Bernart croaked.

  She opened her hands on the embrasure, leaned farther forward. “All.”

  “What say you, Wife?”

  She breathed deep to add volume to her voice. “I say you shall return to England without me.”

  Had her words been arrows, she could not have bled him more. He bared his teeth. “Whore!”

  As he could not have bled her more.

  “Leave, Juliana!” Gabriel called over his shoulder where he once more faced Bernart, his back stiffer for the foul name splashed against her.

  “I warn you, Juliana,” Bernart seethed, “do you not come out with my son, many shall die.”

  She searched his face for evidence of the man for whom she had felt much, shook her head.

  As he spewed curses, she turned away.

  Now war. And Bernart was right. Many would die.

  Feeling far older than her twenty and one years, she descended to the bailey. As she stepped to the ground, the drawbridge’s chains began to rattle. A few moments later, Gabriel was at her side.

  “Make quick to the donjon,” he said with frightening calm.

  Realizing he was no longer the Gabriel who had taken her heart to his, that here was a warrior ready to battle for his home and people, Juliana accepted that were he to stay alive, this was how he must do it.

  “I shall come to you at the first opportunity,” he said.

  Which could be the morrow or the day after. Or not at all.

  Breasts aching, a reminder their son would soon require feeding, she said, “I shall await you,” and stepped past him.

  “Juliana.”

  She looked around.

  “I love you,” he said, for a moment coming out of his armor. Then he turned and began shouting orders.

  She pressed a hand to her chest. Not even as a young woman who had glorified love as being the end of all had she dreamed it would feel this way—beyond body, heart, and mind. No courtly love, this. But what if she were to lose it with Gabriel’s death?

  “I will not,” she whispered fiercely. “Lord, let me not lose it.”

  The walls were coming down again, the outer work crumbling beneath the barrage of boulders flung against the repaired stonework. There were fires as well, enough to warm the chill air and put sweat on the brows of Gabriel’s men. But of all the ill wrought this first day, the worst was the shouts of pain that echoed through Gabriel even after the injured were carried to the donjon for tending.

  As for the dead, there were two—until the wounded fell to infection. And that would happen if the siege was prolonged.

  Gabriel peered through the arrow loop at the land before the castle. It was scarred and scattered with men and siege engines. Though Bernart’s wounded were of greater number, partly owing to the vulnerability of battling on open land, and his army suffered more deaths, still he sent men to the walls as if they were of no more consequence than the lifeless boulders culled from the wood.

  Most promising was what appeared to be strife between Bernart and Faison. An hour earlier, Gabriel had witnessed the rebel baron’s angry exchange with the man to whom he gave aid. As there could only be one leader in any conflict and Bernart was not it, Faison was displeased. And he ought to be. His losses included men, horses, and a trebuchet burned to the ground by a flaming arrow. For it, he had bits of wall. It was not the revenge he sought.

  Gabriel looked to the horizon. Sunset was an hour away, but the approaching dark would not necessarily offer respite. Bernart might try to take advantage of night by sending men over the wall to attack from within. But should he, those men would have to elude the light of scores of torches set about the walls.

  Turning into the gatehouse room, Gabriel rubbed his forehead to ease the tension. He was tired, dirty, and smelled of the smoke of Bernart’s fires, the last of which had taken a good portion of the stable’s roof before it was doused. As a result, a man-at-arms had been seriously burned and two horses lost. Despite all Mergot had endured, it was only the beginning.

  Gabriel crossed to the steps. As he descended, thunder sounded, rippling through the wood beneath his feet, but the clouded sky was not responsible. Another boulder had met its mark.

  He lunged off the last steps into the bailey.

  The left face of the inner wall surrounding the donjon had sustained a blow. Though the wall stood, four feet was torn from its uppermost bounds.

  Praying there were no injuries, Gabriel ran past his men. Upon reaching the inner drawbridge, a shout from atop the outer walls reached him.

  “An army approaches, my lord!”

  He faltered. Yet more men Bernart would set against him? “Dear Lord, nay,” he rasped and continued into the bailey.

>   The moment the mass of people caught sight of him, they surged forward.

  “Any injuries?” Gabriel shouted above the babble of men and women and the fearful cries of their children.

  “Here, my lord!” A man’s voice rose above the rest. “My boy’s been struck on the arm and is bleeding.”

  Unable to see beyond the others crowding around him, he shouted, “Take him to the hall. Any others?”

  Two more answered. Their injuries were minor, but Gabriel also directed them to the donjon, then instructed the villagers to stay back from the walls. They were hardly soothed, but there was naught else to be done. War awaited him. But as he turned, he was struck by the still—the absence of missiles striking stone and mortar.

  Who rode on Mergot?

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  The riders came from out of the west, first putting fear into Bernart that Gabriel had hired them to attack from outside the walls, then foreboding when they drew near enough the markings on their banners could be seen.

  It was no army of mercenaries.

  Bernart quaked as he nudged his destrier around to face the one he dreaded. Was it coincidence England’s king took himself from the construction of his beloved castle, or had Gabriel begged his aid?

  Likely the latter. Though in their younger years, never had Bernart’s friend called on others to fight his battles, as proven at Acre, Gabriel turned coward when the threat to life and limb was great. If he had summoned the king, did it mean Juliana had revealed the truth of what had happened nearly a year past?

  The dread possibility, coupled with her defiance this morn, caused him to sweat more profusely into his chain mail. A moment later, pain shot through his lower regions, and he squeezed his fists to keep from clutching at himself.

  Would Juliana risk her sister? With Gabriel’s brother dead, she could not know Alaiz was no longer in her brother-in-law’s power.

  Bernart closed his eyes, but not to pray. Eschewing God, he fiercely hoped his secret was safe, and it was chance that placed King Richard at Mergot. But even if Gabriel had turned coward, what hope had he the king would allow him to hold another man’s wife?

  “What have you not told me, Kinthorpe?” Faison demanded as he drew alongside.

  Bernart looked to the irksome baron he would not mind putting a sword through. “I am as surprised as you.”

  Faison flexed his armless shoulder as if his own thoughts ran with Bernart’s. And perhaps they did, his left hand coming across his body and turning around his sword hilt.

  Bernart tensed, then reminded himself there was little to fear from one whose sword arm had long ago rotted on infidel soil. Faison could draw the sword from his scabbard, but to swing it on an unbalanced body would be laughable. And the baron must know it, for he did not further his threat.

  Returning his attention to the approaching army, Bernart felt a muscle spasm at his eye.

  Whatever Richard’s reason for riding on Mergot, he would not be pleased his vassal made war on another vassal. Bernart should have sought permission, but though he could be forgiven for laying siege to one who had stolen his wife, he had feared that inviting the king into the fray would raise the question of who had fathered Juliana’s babe.

  The king halted his great destrier ten feet distant.

  Bernart bowed his head. “Your Majesty.”

  The ensuing silence sent more rivulets of perspiration down Bernart’s torso. Would his mail rust before the king responded?

  “Kinthorpe,” Richard clipped.

  Bernart lifted his head and met fiery eyes a moment before they swung to his ally.

  “We ought not be surprised, Faison,” the king’s French was thickly accented, evidencing it was upon the continent he had spent most of his life. Though he was England’s ruler, it was said he spoke no word of English.

  “It follows, hmm?” Richard pressed.

  Faison inclined his head. No other acknowledgment or show of respect.

  “We shall speak later.” The king looked to the castle. “Now to settle this matter between Kinthorpe and De Vere.”

  Then he knew of it. Fear threatening to sway Bernart, he gripped his saddle’s pommel.

  “Join us.” Richard urged his destrier toward the walls.

  Bernart and Faison followed, the former struggling to control his breathing, the latter darkly silent.

  The devil! Bernart silently cursed his ally, a man seemingly unacquainted with fear. Did he not care if he lived or died? Was his pain so raw? And what did he know of suffering? An arm he had lost, but still he could bed a woman.

  The lowering of the drawbridge quieted the clatterings of Bernart’s mind and forced him to consider who awaited him—the betrayers. But surely the king would make good a husband’s claim.

  Aye, come the morrow, Juliana and the babe would leave with him. All he must concern himself with was convincing the king that what Gabriel had done was so grievous as to warrant severe punishment.

  Death? Dare he hope?

  The loss of Mergot? Perhaps even better, once more reducing the coward to little more than a commoner. Unfortunately, from all he heard, Gabriel was well-regarded by Richard.

  Bernart pressed his sweat-soaked shoulders back and thrust his chin high in anticipation of once more facing his old friend.

  Juliana sprang up from her knees, turned to Lissant who stood in the chapel’s doorway. “The king? Truly?”

  “He is here, my lady.”

  Juliana listened to the silence. The commotion beyond the donjon had ceased.

  “Lord De Vere says you are to come to the hall to receive our sovereign.”

  “A moment, please.” Juliana turned back to the altar before which she had knelt until she could scarcely feel her knees. Clasping her hands before her, she said, “Thank you, Father. Pray, guide my words and actions.” She lowered her arms and strode down the aisle. “Gabrien sleeps?”

  “He does, my lady.”

  “Then come.” She hurried past Lissant, traversed the corridor, and descended the stairs. Upon entering the hall, she halted. Save for servants who dragged tables and benches from the walls and picked debris from the rushes, the room was empty.

  “Where are the villagers?”

  “Outside, my lady. The king seeks an audience of few.”

  “But what of the injured?”

  “They have been moved to the storeroom.”

  At least they were not also put outside. Juliana set her gaze on a nearby servant. “Prepare the sideboard, Ann,” she instructed and hoped the woman would not argue as a few servants continued to do. “Lay it with whatever cook can manage.”

  Ann bustled toward the kitchen.

  “The cloths upon the table,” Juliana directed another. “And the salt cellar.” She turned to Lissant. “Tend the fire.”

  Hating there was little else that could be done to welcome the king, Juliana returned abovestairs to change her clothes. Her hope the babe would sleep through the king’s visit was doused when the creak of her chamber door brought forth a cry.

  She lifted Gabrien from his cradle, and he calmed and waved a fist as if to admonish her for waking him.

  She kissed his brow. “King Richard is here, Gabriel’s son.”

  He nuzzled her breast.

  It seemed the king would have to wait.

  Who had sent for Richard?

  Bernart? Juliana? Blase? Nay, not his brother. And though Juliana had wished to, she had no means of sending word. Bernart, then. What he could not take himself he brought another to take for him.

  Though upon realizing who came, Gabriel had considered refusing his sovereign entrance, he could not—just as he had been unable to flee France with Juliana and their son, which would have meant they would ever be running and leave his people vulnerable to Bernart’s wrath. Thus, whether by way of arms or a revelation he did not wish to make, he would keep hold of Juliana and Gabrien.

  As King Richard guided his horse beneath the raised portcullis, his gaze
landed hard on the one to whom he had awarded Mergot.

  Gabriel looked past him to Bernart—but only a glance lest he give in to the temptation to gut his brother’s would-be murderer. The stink and filth of war upon him, he bowed to his liege.

  The king reined in. “It has been long, De Vere.”

  Gabriel straightened. “We are pleased to receive you at Mergot, Your Majesty.”

  Richard picked his gaze over the debris-strewn bailey and torn walls, then pointedly looked from the Wulfrith dagger on Gabriel’s belt to that on Bernart’s. “We trust there is a good reason two Wulfen-trained warriors are at each other's throats.”

  “A very good reason, Your Majesty,” Bernart said. “De Vere has stolen my—”

  “We have not asked for an explanation,” Richard barked.

  This time, Gabriel allowed himself more than a glance and was gratified by the color rising in Bernart’s face that razed his smug expression.

  “In time we shall have one,” Richard said, “as I am sure Baron Wulfrith also wishes.”

  He spoke of the eldest brother of Erec’s father, a legendary warrior from whom Gabriel had received training in how to engage the enemy whilst astride, the techniques of which had earned him scores of ransoms.

  “We shall continue this in the hall.” The king urged his destrier ahead.

  As Bernart followed, he leaned down and said low, “They belong to me.”

  Gabriel closed a hand around his sword hilt. Gripping it so hard it would not take much to snap the bones of his fingers, he stared at Bernart until he was past, then considered Faison. No words were needed to express that one’s feelings for the man awarded his brother’s lands.

  The villagers crowding the inner bailey were silent when Gabriel strode past—watchful as if aware of the import of what would be spoken in the donjon and surely hopeful they would soon return to their homes.

  When Gabriel entered the great hall, it was empty save for King Richard who had taken the lord’s high seat, Bernart and Faison who stood to the left of the dais, and four of the king’s guards. Juliana was not present. Was it as the king wished?