Harlequin Historical May 2020--Box Set 2 of 2

by Harper St. George

  ‘Lie.’ This was from the younger Norseman.

  ‘Sandulf?’ she asked.

  He gave a curt nod. ‘You remember me. You remember that I was there when you and your assassin butchered Ingrid.’

  Nausea roiled in her stomach. She had tried so hard to forget that day, that poor woman’s scream of pain when Lugh had descended upon her. ‘I did no such thing.’

  She looked back at Rurik to find him watching her with interest, so she directed her explanation to him. Whether Sandulf believed her or not, she did not care. She only needed Rurik to believe that she would not have slaughtered an innocent.

  ‘It is true we were at the wedding. I thought the plan was to wait until after, to find Sigurd in seclusion and confront him. The battle started outside and then someone closed the doors to the hall and the whole place erupted in fury. We were not the only ones there that day who wanted Sigurd’s death. But the assassin I was with, Lugh, had another target in mind. I lost sight of him in the chaos, but when I saw him again, he went straight for the woman. I swear to you that I did not know who she was before that day. I had no vengeance in my heart for her. Lugh was paid only for Sigurd. It was as if a demon had come to life within him and spurred him towards her. As soon as I saw, I went after him and tried to stop him.’

  ‘But you didn’t stop him,’ Sandulf said, stepping closer.

  Facing him, she said, ‘I tried. You have to believe that I did not want her death.’ Stepping towards Rurik, she continued, ‘Or the death of her child. Rurik, you must know how the pain of my own loss haunted me. I would never have agreed to do harm to a mother and her unborn.’

  Rurik merely stared at her, the coldness in his eyes chilling her to her bones.

  ‘You attacked me.’ Sandulf’s voice rose, refusing to give up his accusations.

  ‘Only to defend myself when you came for me. I tried to stop Lugh and you attacked me, then you attacked Lugh.’ In her memory, the next several moments of the battle were a blur. She knew that Lugh had pushed her away roughly, knocking her into a wall so hard that she had become disorientated. Sandulf had attacked Lugh, but the assassin had been bigger and stronger. She had run towards them both and somehow had ended up on the floor with Sandulf above her, carving her wound, before she had twisted away and Lugh had pulled her along as they fled the longhouse.

  Sandulf’s brow twisted in confusion as he considered her words.

  ‘Is it as she says?’ Rurik asked and she held her breath for Sandulf’s answer.

  ‘Perhaps. I did not see her attack Ingrid, but she was there beside the assassin,’ he answered, latent anger in his voice.

  ‘To pull him off her!’ Annis argued. ‘She was never part of the plan.’

  Rurik looked away again, not listening, and she could hardly blame him. What did her intention matter when the result was that innocents had been killed? She closed her eyes briefly against the pain that lanced through her. Her chest squeezed so tight that she could hardly draw breath. This was how it felt to lose him. It was like losing Grim all over again, only worse. Fresher, and this time like a double-edged blade, because she had caused this all on her own.

  ‘Where is this Lugh?’ Rurik asked, drawing her gaze to him. ‘Where can we find him?’

  She paused, hesitating because she had hoped to put this behind her. She did not want to be the cause of more death and pain.

  ‘Tell me.’ Rurik stepped closer to her. Fury vibrated off him, the force of it very nearly tangible.

  ‘I do not want to cause more death. Please let this be the end of it, Rurik.’ She touched his forearm and he jerked it away as if her touch had burned him or was too abhorrent to bear. A fresh wave of agony rolled over her, nearly taking her to the ground.

  ‘Tell me, Annis.’ He spoke through clenched teeth. ‘Tell me or I will have you committed to the cell below instead of your chamber.’

  Whether he would follow through with that or not, she could not say. She knew that she deserved his fury, but that did not help her accept it any easier. The shard of pain his words brought drew a gasp from her as she took a step back. ‘He has chosen to take his vows and repent his sins.’

  ‘Where has he gone to repent these sins?’ Sandulf spoke with a thread of mockery lacing his voice.

  Rurik did not speak, but his cold eyes were frozen on her, letting her know that he would not accept anything less than the man’s location.

  Swallowing past the ache in her throat, she said, ‘A monastery in Nrurim. It’s in the Strathallen Valley.’

  Rurik and Sandulf exchanged a dubious look.

  ‘What more can you tell us of what happened in Maerr? If you did not plan to kill Ingrid, then why would Lugh go after her?’ asked Sandulf. He still looked as if he would prefer to mete out physical punishment rather than talk to her.

  Rurik seemed finished talking to her. He had crossed his arms over his chest and his face was impassive. Tears burned the backs of her eyes, but she refused to let them fall.

  ‘I have asked myself that many times. The way he went for her…it seemed intentional. It was almost as if he knew her. The only thing I remember is that he disappeared from our camp the night before the wedding. I slept poorly that night and woke up to see that he was gone. He had returned by morning.’

  ‘So he could have met with someone,’ Sandulf concluded.

  ‘It is possible.’

  Sandulf nodded, but his thoughts had turned inwards, probably working through what might have happened. She looked to Rurik. It frightened her that the pain she had seen on his face earlier had gone to be replaced by this impassive stranger she did not recognise.

  Hoping that this time he might accept her touch, she raised her hand to his cheek. ‘Please give me a chance to—’

  ‘Leave us.’ He jerked his face away from her fingers.

  The pain in her heart turned to a sort of panic. She feared that if she walked out the door, she would never see the man she loved again. That he would be replaced by this stranger. ‘Rurik, I love you. We can—’

  ‘Go.’ He did not raise his voice, but the word brooked no argument. ‘Do not attempt to leave Mulcasterhas. I haven’t decided what to do with you yet.’

  Despite her best attempt, a hot tear escaped to run down her cheek. He despised her. She loved him beyond reason and he hated her. If there was a worse punishment, she could not imagine it.

  * * *

  The next several days passed in a haze for Rurik. He tried to turn his attention to planning with Sandulf. They would go north to find Lugh as soon as the weather allowed. He could not bring himself to think of Annis or even contemplate how to deal with her. He had not confined her to her chamber, but he should have. The few times he passed her in the corridor had nearly crushed him, leaving his chest hot and tight. The pain of her betrayal was still fresh and nearly too much to bear; to deal with it he threw himself into training his warriors and plotting.

  So he had thought that he loved her and she had betrayed him. What of it? Hadn’t he learned that betrayal was the way of the world? He should have learned it well before Annis.

  ‘Here. I found them.’ Cedric’s voice rang through the hall as he walked through the open doorway, several rolled parchments in his hands. ‘I had to search many chests, but I believe these are what you need.’

  Rurik rose from his place at the end of the table, deftly avoiding looking towards Annis’s empty bench. She took her meals in Wilfrid’s chamber and he told himself that he preferred it that way. It was easier not to see her than to see her and still want her despite her lies.

  ‘Why would maps of the north be so difficult to find?’ he asked as Cedric laid them on the table which had recently been cleared from the evening meal. A meal that he had barely touched. Everything sat heavy in his stomach lately, so he had taken to sipping on mead and water.

  Cedric shrugged. ‘
Our troubles have been from the south and to the east. Alba and the Picts have been too absorbed with their own troubles to bother us.’

  Sandulf stood on his other side, rolling out the first one. ‘You’re certain these are accurate?’

  Cedric shrugged again. ‘They are decades old. No one from Glannoventa has been there in ages. I am certain there are villages not contained here.’

  Rurik searched the map whose ink had faded with time. His fingers ran over the smooth vellum as he searched the writings trying to make out the names. ‘Where is Nrurim? I do not see it marked.’

  Cedric leaned over it, frowning before unrolling the other two only to find similar results. ‘This is the Strathallan Valley.’ He pointed to an area inland, dragging the pad of his finger in a slow sweep. ‘I believe it to be here.’

  They spoke for a long while about its potential location and the best direction from which to approach given the landscape. He hoped the weather would clear enough in a matter of weeks. Rurik told no one this, but he did not know if he would return after finding Lugh. The pain of being near Annis and not having her was more than he was willing to bear. But he could not have her knowing that she had lied to him. He had allowed himself to believe that she might be coming to love him and it had nearly made him crumble to hear her say it the last time they had spoken. However, he could not imagine her keeping such a secret from him if her love was true. His own parents’ affair had been built on the lie of love and look where it had got them. Saorla had died bitter and heartsick.

  He realised that he had allowed himself to become absorbed in his own thoughts when Sandulf stood to seek his bed. Bidding him goodnight, he moved to follow, but Cedric stayed him with a hand on his shoulder.

  ‘A moment?’ asked Cedric.

  ‘What do you need?’

  ‘Annis,’ he said, offering no further explanation.

  Rurik tensed, unwilling to have a conversation about her. ‘Sandulf knew of her guilt. She had no way of keeping it secret any longer.’

  The man looked down at his hand where it had fallen to rest on the table. ‘I want to confess to you that I knew of her involvement. She told me the night she took you prisoner from the village. I advised her not to tell you.’

  Rurik gritted his teeth. ‘I assumed that you had.’ It was no surprise that Cedric knew.

  ‘Then why are you not angry with me?’

  ‘Because Annis is my wife. She spoke vows to me and then continued to lie to me. That was her choice. I know her well enough to know that she would have done what she wanted had she disagreed with you. It was her choice not to tell me.’

  Cedric surprised him by smiling. ‘That much is true. She makes up her own mind, which is how she ended up in Maerr to begin with. Had I known that she planned to go there, I would have stopped her.’

  Rurik was surprised at the intensity of the surge of anger that pulsed through him. Yes, he was angry at her betrayal, but he thought he had come to a sort of unwilling acceptance of it. Yet speaking of it only raked across the raw wound, like pulling clothing on over sunburned skin. ‘What have you come to say? If you have come to ask me to forgive her then you waste your breath.’ Rurik ground his molars together.

  Cedric’s expression sobered. ‘I have not come to seek your forgiveness, only your understanding. Annis has cared for Glannoventa since she was a young girl. Having always known that she would be lady here one day, she came to see the people as her responsibility from the beginning.’

  ‘Yes?’ Rurik was inclined to leave, not wanting to subject himself to the torture of talking about her, but something made him stay. Likely it was the same thing that made him pause to take an extra breath when he passed through an area where she had recently walked. A part of him that he was coming to despise had a deep hunger for her, no matter how she had betrayed him.

  ‘In the summer we have a fair in the village. There are warrior contests and games for children. Merchants come from far places to sell their trinkets.’

  ‘What is your meaning, Cedric? The hour is late.’ Rurik was not inclined to sit and listen to the man ruminate any longer than necessary.

  The lines around Cedric’s mouth deepened, but he continued. ‘The first time Annis went, she was eight winters, perhaps nine, and Wilfrid promised that he would buy her one trinket of her choosing. She walked from stall to stall, taking her time. I know because I was tasked with following her. Finally, she decided on something… I cannot remember what it was. I handed over a coin and she promptly ran to deliver it into the arms of a village child who stood there bedraggled and obviously unkempt.’

  Rurik stood. ‘I do not have time for this.’

  Cedric came to his feet and followed when Rurik walked towards the door. ‘There are many more examples of her sense of responsibility to them. Several years ago, before Grim’s death, the village was struck by a sickness. At risk to her own health, she kept the fires working day and night to provide broth and pottage to the sickly, taking it herself in cases where the matron of the family had been struck down. I could also tell you of the times she stood in Wilfrid’s stead, successfully mitigating disputes between families that go back decades—’

  Finally having had enough, Rurik interrupted him. ‘Yes, I am aware of her loyalty to the people of Glannoventa. What does that have to do with her betrayal?’

  ‘It is because of her loyalty that she withheld the truth. We were all afraid of what might happen if the Danes installed their man here. Jarl Eirik can be fair—in his own way—but Dane interests are not our interests. He would be an outsider.’

  ‘I am an outsider,’ Rurik was fast to point out.

  ‘But you are not under Jarl Eirik’s thumb. You are your own man. From what I have learned, you are beholden to no one but yourself.’

  ‘And my family.’ He did not know whether to be insulted by Cedric’s words or gratified by them.

  ‘Your family is scattered. You have no home but Glannoventa now. Whether you accept it or not, Glannoventa’s interest is your interest.’

  ‘Is that why you were so quick to choose me for Annis, because you thought I would so easily put myself under your thumb?’ And hadn’t he put himself under Annis’s thumb? A new surge of anger at how easily he had been deceived by her threatened to make him drive his fist into the next man who dared to cross his path.

  Cedric backed down, shaking his head. ‘Not under my thumb. Because you were your own man and I knew that you would be fair to our people. Also, because Annis chose you. I had not seen her come to life in years. But she was alive with you.’

  ‘It did not stop her from betraying me.’

  Cedric glared at him. ‘She argued with me many times about that. You can blame me if you want.’

  ‘I’ll blame the person responsible. Annis,’ he put in before Cedric continued as if he hadn’t spoken.

  ‘But she did not tell you because of her loyalty to them.’ He gestured towards the village below the walls of Mulcasterhas. ‘We even argued about it the morning your brother arrived.’

  So that had been the argument Rurik had witnessed between them. It was good to know, but it hardly changed anything.

  ‘I say this so that you understand her motive. Give it time before you harden yourself to her. She does not deserve your hatred.’

  ‘I will decide that,’ said Rurik, walking around Cedric and out of the hall. He was surprised to find Sandulf there waiting for him and stopped short. From his brother’s expression, it was obvious he had heard the exchange.

  ‘If you want her, you can still have her, Brother. Know that I will not see it as a betrayal,’ said Sandulf, his voice low and solemn.

  ‘How could you not? She brought those killers to our door.’ It was the one thing Rurik kept coming back to when he felt himself wanting to soften towards her.

  ‘Wilfrid paid them. They were coming regardless of her
presence.’

  ‘You spoke with Cedric?’

  Sandulf nodded. ‘Yesterday. I wanted the details, to try to understand. I am not saying that I forgive her, or that I can ever forgive her, but I understand her side of it. Things can quickly go beyond our control. I have seen it happen more than once and I believe her when she says she did not intend Ingrid harm.’

  Rurik ran a hand through his hair, the familiar tug on his scalp grounding him when anger and heartache wanted to take over. ‘I already believe that she didn’t intend harm to Ingrid, but that hardly changes the result.’ Or that she had lied to him.

  ‘I’ve been thinking more about that day. When I confronted the assassin… Lugh, Annis came between us briefly. He pushed her down, but the distraction was enough to give me time.’

  ‘Are you saying that she might have saved you?’

  ‘She helped.’ Sandulf shrugged one shoulder. ‘I will leave her fate to you. Forgive her or punish her—whatever you decide, it is obvious to me that you care for her.’

  Rurik felt as if a great, depthless pit opened in his stomach, threatening to swallow him whole. He truly did not know if he could forgive her. The need for vengeance had existed inside him for so long that he could not see his way forward without it. There had been a time with her when he had thought it might be possible.

  But not now. Not knowing that she had been involved and had chosen not to tell him. He didn’t know if he was capable of forgiving her.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Wilfrid died in the small hours of the morning a few weeks later. Annis and Cedric were at his side. Annis had felt helpless in her bedside vigil, watching the man who had become a father to her struggle to draw air or even know where he was. He had been labouring to breathe for a while, so his passing came as no surprise and even as a relief. In the days that followed, the household and all of Glannoventa went into mourning.

  Whatever Rurik felt at Wilfrid’s passing, she did not know. He had come to Wilfrid’s chamber the morning of his death to express his sorrow to Cedric and Annis for their loss, but no other words had been spoken. He had not spoken to her since. She longed for him to take her in his arms and help ease the pain of Wilfrid’s loss, but she knew now that it was impossible. She had been given a chance at happiness and had lost it. The affection her husband had felt for her was well and truly gone. It was this certainty that gave her the strength after Wilfrid’s death to make the decision she knew would be best for them all.