“Not good enough,” Beatrice said, laying her hand over his on the bed’s edge as if to hold him in place. Josce stared at her fingers as they rested across the back of his hand. In all the years he’d known her, she’d never once touched him.
“If you’re right, and the sheriff knows,” Beatrice was saying, her eyes narrowed and her mouth a thin line, “do you think he’ll simply admit to what he’s done? Nay, he’ll shift and sidle, trying all the while to throw you off the scent. That tall lass, she’s his daughter. It might surprise you to learn that women know far more about their menfolk than you men suspect. Ask her about her father and her shire.”
Not at all liking the direction this conversation was taking, Josce gave a shake of his head. “My lady, she’s none too happy at having us in her home. She won’t tolerate being in the same room with me. I doubt she’d answer any questions I put to her. Nay, if anyone is to approach her it must be you.”
Outrage filled Beatrice’s gaze. “You would ask me to approach her when her father is somehow involved in the deaths of my babies?!” Her anger died into a quiet moan. Tears welled in her eyes. “How can you even ask that of me?”
Josce sighed. She was right. He couldn’t ask it of her, even if it meant they lost whatever information Elianne held within her.
Beatrice scrubbed a hand over her face to wipe away her pain, then caught a ragged breath. “You must do what I cannot. You’re a handsome man. Surely, you’ve more than once chased reluctant maids and brought them swooning to your knees. Pursue her. Charm her. Bed her, if that’s what it takes to win her confidence, then use her to pry open the lock on her sire’s secret.”
Josce blinked in surprise at Beatrice. He'd never considered that any woman might think so much like a man. Not that he was going to confess to Beatrice that he had already bedded Elianne, if lovemaking whilst still afoot in the pool could be called bedding, to no avail or advantage on his part.
“Madam, I can but try, but don’t invest too much hope in my success. It’s best that I plan to confront the sheriff on the morrow,” he told her, dodging her suggestion.
“Fair enough,” Beatrice said, the corners of her mouth almost lifting as she removed her hand from his. “You’ve done well to know so much in only one day’s time. Glad I am that I chose you to accompany me here instead of Martin.” Martin of Peterborough was Haydon’s steward. “Not only do you understand what I need, you have the cunning and strength to win it for me.”
When she smiled this time the curve of her lips was almost natural. Another first, Beatrice smiling at him.
“You cannot known how Martin protested,” she told him, her tone fair conversational. “He wanted you at court, saying that your connections to the toadies who owe their livings to our king would better serve the settling of your sire’s will than even the heaviest of purses I could give him to spend.”
Josce frowned at her. “Martin’s already in London to present my lord sire’s will?” If he’d noticed that his father’s steward wasn’t at Haydon before he and Lady Beatrice left for Knabwell he didn’t remember it. “What sort of hurry can there be in the matter?” he asked his stepmother.
In all truth, any haste was useless. No matter what his father wrote in his will, and Josce had no idea what that might be, having never wanted to know, both his stepmother and unmarried sister would find themselves wards to King John.
England’s king knew well the value of a coin, especially now that the same penny bought less than it had ten years ago. John never lost an opportunity to take a coin, even if that meant snatching it from someone else’s cold dead fingers. Until little Alice was ripe for marriage, another eight or ten years, John would control her half of Haydon’s income, less what he spent for the child’s upkeep. In fact, Alice might find herself a nun without a convent, her entire lifetime spent as an unmarried maid in the king’s court. She wouldn’t be the first of John’s royal wards to linger in fruitless celibacy; the longer the king kept his heiress-wards unwed, the longer he controlled their dowries. And when he wasn’t milking their wealth, he was making them gifts to those foreign mercenaries he favored over his own English peers.
Nor would Lady Beatrice’s fate be much different. She, too, might languish in the royal court, never to remarry. Once again, it was to John’s profit. As long as Beatrice remained an unwed widow, the king could make use of the income from her dower, the portion of Haydon’s lands she kept to support her for her lifetime.
“Oh, there’s more than enough reason for haste,” Beatrice said. “With Michaelmas Court nearly upon us, a good number of England’s barons find their way to Westminster. Martin will carry the news of your sire’s death to all those peers who were Baldwin’s friends. With my purse and their loyalty to support him, Martin will then demand our John honor the warden my lord chose for us.”
Here, his stepmother paused, her lips taking an ironic twist. “You.”
“What?!” Josce stared at her in astonishment.
“Aye,” she said, the twist of her mouth tightening until she looked as if she’d swallowed something sour. “Baldwin didn’t want the king bankrupting his estate, so he committed us into the care of the one man he trusted above all others. And, however much it pains me to say it, I agree with my lord husband’s choice. You are the only man to whom I’d entrust my daughter’s fortune.” Her last words were nothing but a gentle sigh.
Overwhelmed, Josce shook his head. What she and his sire wanted was impossible. “The king will never accept me as your warden. Not only am I landless, but at only seven-and-twenty, he’ll name me too callow to do a proper job as administrator.” Never mind that there were younger men managing the properties of the king’s wards; it was the fact that Josce might be more loyal to his family than he was to his king that would deter John.
“You’re no longer landless.” Beatrice’s voice was quiet now, and not in the least harsh. “With your sire’s death, you gained control of Blauwstyn for your life’s time.”
Josce swallowed. Blauwstyn was a prosperous farmstead, not unlike Coneytrop, with two mills and a great flock of sheep. True, he’d only ever be the property’s manager, incapable of passing the lands on to his heirs, but ownership of his sire’s property was beyond any bastard’s reach. Once Josce died, the land would revert to Haydon’s legitimate line.
Aye, but he only had this property because his father was dead.
Josce's eyes closed, and upon their lids he again saw the image of his sire’s torn and broken body, and watched anew as the nun added insult to injury to remove the heart that had cherished him beyond his wildest expectations.
Grief welled, trying to consume him. Shooting to his feet, Josce turned his back on his stepmother. Blindly, he made his way to the door. Once outside the chamber, he walked, not caring where he went.
A big basket hung from each of Elianne’s arms, jostling and joggling with her every step. One was filled with days’ worth of sewing, the chore she’d chosen to do whilst she hid from Sir Josce.
Nay, that wasn’t fair. It wasn’t the knight she sought to hide from, but herself.
All it had taken to set her body into a new lustful flight was the feel of Sir Josce’s arm around her. No wonder nuns had holy vows to bind them into celibacy. Although Elianne had only just made lust’s acquaintance, it already owned her body, and most likely her soul, as well. That was dangerous, indeed.
In her other basket were onions for braiding, the preparing of these fragrant roots for winter storage one of her most portable food-related chores. It was also something she could do after it grew too dark to sew. Tucked in with the vegetables was a loaf of bread, a pot of cheese, and fruit, a poor shadow of the lunch Elianne had to forsake to hide from Sir Josce.
Bundled before her was a blanket and the pallet she’d used last night in the kitchen after having been displaced from her usual sleeping arrangements because of Haydon’s visit. The scent of straw escaped the pallet’s casing, stirred to it by the way she bent the ma
ttress, the smell strong enough to tickle her nose.
There’d be no tossing and turning in the kitchen for her tonight. Nay, she meant to sleep in her garden. To sleep under the stars was no burden, not for her.
As long as it didn’t rain. Elianne cast a calculating eye heavenward. It was cooler today than yesterday and clouds filled the sky, but they weren’t the sort that promised moisture. Now the morrow might be a different tale, but she’d deal with that when the time came.
Chuffing against her awkward burdens, Elianne made her way around Coneytrop’s kitchen garden, the great expanse of soil behind paddock and barns that kept vegetables on her table. As she went she eyed the newly emptied rows, evidence of what had been harvested this day. Another chore weighed in on her overburdened and hopelessly disrupted schedule. It wouldn’t be long before the garden was empty. When that happened, the soil would need turning, the remains of this year’s bounty worked into the dirt to feed the earth. Aye, and the doing of this was one chore that wouldn’t wait. The soil needed to sleep a little before Saint Martin’s Day and the planting of next year’s garlic.
Reaching the back of Coneytrop’s garden, Elianne passed through the sheepfold to the farthest corner of her home. Here, a wall shorter than that enclosing Coneytrop extended out about twenty feet to claim a bit of ground that had no other use save that of pleasure. What had once been her mother’s private space now belonged, every bush and bloom, to Elianne. Unlike the pool, which everyone in the household used, no one, not even her sire, entered Elianne’s garden without her permission. Here, in the arms of the beauty she’d created, would she be safe from Sir Josce for as long as he remained at Coneytrop.
As Elianne made her way down her garden’s wall toward its gate, she smiled. Her lungs filled with the melded scents of lilies, stock and marigold. But mostly there were roses. At her bidding did the twining, tangling bushes now tumble over the garden’s enclosing wall in showy display.
She stopped before the gate and eyed the door. It stood ajar, when Elianne was almost positive she’d closed it after hiding in here all of yestereve before finally finding her rest in the kitchen. She shrugged away her carelessness, turned her back to the doorway and started into the garden, pulling what she carried as far forward as possible.
It wasn’t the doorway that caused this maneuver, but her precious arbor which lay just inside her garden’s gateway. She’d woven willow branches into a supporting skeleton on which she’d trained her rose canes, turning a simple doorway into a long tunnel of fragrance, but one that was just a little narrower than the doorway.
As she backed into the arbor, Elianne eyed its crest. The canes that crossed its roof were in desperate need of pruning, their weight enough to bend the fragile framework. Aye, but the canes yet flowered and she didn’t have the heart to remove them. A few more weeks, she promised herself, and it would be time for their autumn pruning.
Juggling and shifting her burdens, Elianne was almost clear of the arbor when her onion basket caught. Stopping, she gave the basket a careful tug. The whole framework wobbled.
She studied the basket. It was a wayward cane that trapped her, having slipped beneath the onion basket's handle. Freeing herself meant walking toward the gate a little. Elianne took a forward step, only to have the basket on her opposite arm catch. She twisted, trying to see what held her this time, but all that met her gaze was roses.
This is what came of trying to do too much at once. With a breath of frustration, she once again juggled what she held. Pallet straw crunched. The arbor jiggled. The sewing basket stayed fixed outside the willow work.
“Mary save me,” she cried in rising irritation.
“Go away,” Sir Josce growled from the garden behind her.
Elianne shrieked in quiet surprise. Her arms opened. Her pallet fell. Her onion basket tipped, spilling the precious vegetables onto the path. Willow supports snapped. Elianne leapt back as with a creak, the overladen roof of her bower crashed down at her feet. It lay before her, a tangled mass of broken, thorny roses and shattered willow.
“Nay!” she cried in heartbreak, then whirled.
There, on her very own mother’s bench, a rustic construction of piled stones with wooden planks for a seat, sat Sir Josce. He wasn’t even looking at her. Instead, his head was bowed, his elbows braced upon his spread knees.
“This is my garden, mine alone,” Elianne scolded, striding to stand before him, her hands on her hips. “You’ve no right to command me gone from what belongs to me. Nor do you have my permission to be here. Be gone with you!”
He looked up at her, his gaze as tangled and clouded as she felt. “I don’t need your permission to be anywhere within this house, when I already have your sire’s. He gave me the use of his home and this is the space I choose to use. You leave.”
“Would that I could,” she snapped back. “If you haven’t noticed the gate is now blocked. Because of you, my arbor is now ruined.” Her voice broke a little against the destruction of something so cherished.
With a seething breath, Haydon’s son came to his feet. Elianne took an instinctive and protective backward step. Oh Lord, but he was bigger and stronger than her sire. Any blow he landed was likely to do more than sting.
Rather than attack her, Sir Josce stepped past her as if he meant to depart. Startled that he might do as she bid, Elianne turned to watch. He stopped at what remained of her bower, grabbed a piece of the broken framework and yanked. Torn leaflets flew. Fragrant petals fell like rain as he dragged the canes through the framework, stripping the branches of what grew on them.
Elianne’s heart jerked. “Stop,” she cried, rushing to his side. “You’re killing what I worked so hard to grow!”
“Stop?” he snarled, turning on her. His blue eyes were fair afire with what raged in him. “Make up your mind. You want one of us to leave this place because you cannot tolerate my presence. In that case I need to carve a path through this mess.”
Eyes narrowed and jaw tight, he took up another piece of the broken skeleton and pulled. Elianne yelped as canes cracked. She grabbed at his hands to save her precious plants.
“Stop,” she cried more gently, her fingers closing over his as she met his gaze.
Beneath her hands, his fingers tightened into fists. His strength flowed into her. If he chose to ignore her there’d be nothing she could about it. Against that, she added a quiet, “Please?”
He sucked in a surprised breath. Dropping what he held, he tore his hands from hers and grabbed her by the upper arms. “What were you thinking yesterday?” he nigh on shouted at her. “Why did you let me do that to you? You were maiden still.”
His questions startled Elianne, even as shame burnt like hell’s fire in her heart. The urge to once more run from him, not to escape him but to hide from what she’d done, returned. A useless effort. It was too late for hiding her sin, at least from him. She forced herself to look up into his face.
Anger yet touched the lift of his cheekbones, but what filled his eyes was a goodly dose of guilt. That surprised her. He shouldn’t feel guilty, not when he’d only taken what she’d offered him.
“Why?” he begged of her, more gently this time.
She drew a shaken breath. His nearness reawakened that warm throbbing she’d known at the pool. “Because, you made me feel”—her whisper died off into silence. She had no words to describe how he had made her feel, only that it was just the same as he was making her feel right now. She offered a helpless shrug.
His face softened. His grip on her arms loosened. A breath of laugh left him.
“Aye, that’s how you made me feel, as well,” he said, his voice low. A touch of hurt returned to his gaze. “If you don’t blame me, then why do you run from me?”
“Blame you?” she cried. Before she knew what she intended she lifted her hands to rest them upon his chest. Beneath her palms she felt his heartbeat, steady and strong. “I can’t blame you, not when you made what we did between us my choice.”
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br /> With her words shame once more rose to heat her face. “And, that is my reason for running. How you must despise me. Not that I don’t deserve it,” she sternly reminded herself. “It must seem to you that I carelessly gave to a complete stranger what I should have cherished.”
He shook his head. “Nay, I won’t condemn you. I shouldn’t have lingered at the pool once I knew you were there.”
“You saw me hiding?” she asked, a little piqued that she’d nearly frozen solid, when he knew all the while just where she was.
Amusement lightened his eyes a little. “Not at first. I only knew you were about, having found your clothing in the tree. It took me a while longer to discern just where you hid.” He smiled, but it sat askew on his lips. “There are reasons fathers keep their daughters fully clothed and well guarded in the presence of other men. The passion that overwhelmed us yesterday is one of them. It’s I who am at fault for this. You bid me release you and I refused.”
Elianne blinked, wholly stunned. Her father was wrong. Not all men loathed and shunned the women they deflowered. Here was Sir Josce apologizing, even taking blame, where he owned no fault at all.
With that, her own guilt set to writhing. Shame on her for using such a good man in a childish and futile attempt to strike back at her sire. Not that she wanted to admit to Sir Josce what she’d done, any more than she’d tell him how she yet longed for more of his kisses and touches.
Her shame burned a little brighter at that thought. Perhaps she wouldn’t starve to death in the future. It seemed she was a whore by nature.
“You are too kind,” she murmured. “No matter what you say, the fault and the sin must remain mine.”
Releasing his hold on her arms, he lifted a hand as if he meant to stroke her cheek. Before he touched her, his hand fell back to his side as if he thought the better of a caress. He was right to do so. Elianne let her hands fall from his chest, then folded her fingers before her as if in prayer. A sham. All she prayed for was a chance to once more be held by him.
The Warrior's Maiden (The Warriors Series Book 2) Page 10
