“Nay, we’ll both have to share the wrongdoing,” he said, taking a step back from her, “each doing our own penance once we’ve confessed to it. God grant that penance is all we have to do.”
Concern darkened his gaze. “So great was the pleasure you made in me that I forgot myself. I can only hope I didn’t plant my seed in you yesterday.”
Elianne’s knees weakened. The thought that she might already harbor his babe filled her. It wouldn’t be long before she knew. Her hand dropped to her abdomen as she reminded herself that her courses were due to start in the next few days.
At her movement, he whirled, his shoulders tensed. “Damn, damn, damn,” he muttered, then strode away from her.
Elianne watched as he made his way to the garden’s far end, which wasn’t far, considering how small her little piece of the world was. He stopped at the perimeter, his back to her, his feet crushing sweet violets. With his arms braced against the wall, he leaned toward the cold yellowish stones. Grief radiated from him.
Knowing that she couldn’t control her lust for him, Elianne should have let him be. Good manners demanded that for privacy’s sake she leave him to his own emotions. She couldn’t. As had happened in the ice house, the need to soothe him grew until she couldn’t stop herself.
She followed him, coming to a halt behind him. At the priory she’d caught back her touch. There was no longer any point to that sort of caution, not after what had happened between them at the pool.
Daring much, she put her arms about his waist. With her front to his back, she rested her cheek upon his shoulder. “Tell me,” she whispered. “Tell me all of what makes you ache so. In the spilling of your tale, I pray you find a little peace.”
Chapter Thirteen
Josce drew a sharp breath as Elianne embraced him, only to relax in the next instant. There was naught of desire in her touch. Neither did her arms about him suggest that cloying sort of ownership some women adopted after they’d given themselves to a man. All she offered was comfort, and this he accepted with a gratitude beyond words.
“You cannot imagine my day,” he murmured. “I commanded that those I love be further mutilated. Their hearts were removed for later interment at their home.”
“Ah,” she replied. The sound carried no judgment.. Somehow, that she didn’t condemn what he’d done went far to ease what ached in Josce.
She stirred against him. “Their home, not yours?” It was a gentle question.
“Not mine. Never mine,” he retorted softly. “Bastards don’t have homes, not unless they buy one for themselves.” The corner of Josce’s mouth tightened. “Or, by some miracle, inherit one,” he muttered.
“Your sire forgot you in his will?” she asked.
“On the contrary.” It was guilt’s harshness he heard in his voice. “My lady stepmother has just informed me that I now own one of my sire’s finer hamlets, a place not unlike this one, which I’ll hold for my life’s time.”
“You didn’t expect this.”
She made the comment a flat statement, as if she believed he’d never owned a whit of ambition in all his life. What else should she think? Only a fool would pine after an inheritance when his birth denied him hope of one. Josce supposed that made him a fool, then.
“Nay, I expected it, even longed for it, when I had no right. My sire incurred great expense in my upbringing, sending me to court and King John as if I were his legitimate heir. He even purchased my horse and armor when I came of age. And still I betrayed his affections, to long for what couldn’t be mine.”
He drew a ragged breath. “In the most secret part of my heart I coveted Haydon’s title. I wanted to be my father’s heir. I wanted men to thrust their daughters at me for my consideration, rather than stand between their lasses and Haydon’s far less desirable bastard.”
Elianne’s head lifted from his shoulder. Josce breathed out, wanting her cheek’s pressure once more against his back.
“You wanted no more than what other men desire,” she said. “How can harboring such thoughts be a betrayal of your sire? Did you demand that he make you his heir?”
“Nay, of course not,” he retorted in impatience. “It would be pointless when bastards cannot inherit the way other men can.” He shouldn’t have to tell her this.
“Then, you demanded that he provide this piece of property to support you throughout your life.” It was another flat statement.
Josce stiffened in outrage. “I did not.”
“Just as I thought,” she replied, a touch of amusement in her voice. “Well then, it seems to me you’ve done no more than to wish for what wasn’t. There’s no sin in that. Lord knows, if there were I’d have been damned to hell long ago.” The amusement in her tone was now flavored with a little bitterness.
Once more leaning toward him, she this time set her chin upon his shoulder. In doing so, her plait curled forward, its bulk coming to rest against his neck. The warm smoothness of her braided hair against his skin sent a shudder through Josce and left him aching to comb his fingers through her tresses the way a lover did.
“Don’t you think,” she went on, “that the reason your sire remembered you in his will is because you satisfied all his earthly expectations? If you’d behaved badly toward him, or disappointed him, or betrayed him in some other way, surely he’d have excluded you.”
She made it sound so simple, when it was anything but that. “Do you think I told him what I expected and longed for?” Josce demanded. “Nay. Bad enough that I ever harbored such improper longings. I wasn’t about to repay his affection by confessing such a thing to him.”
Her laugh was deep and rich. A slight turn of Josce’s head was all it took to let him look into her face. As had happened yesterday, he found her unusual height and her bold mannerisms filled him with subtle pleasure. Here, something within him seemed to say, was a woman who could be his equal, his partner in all things.
She watched him, her green eyes alight, her smile wide enough to display the pretty line of her teeth. “Here you are, telling me you kept your longings to yourself, while accepting the life your father gave you with grace, and ever reflecting gratitude for the gifts he settled on you. I think me that’s all the more reason for him to reward you.”
The rightness of what she said washed over him. His father had never promised an inheritance, but then again, neither had Lord Baldwin suggested there’d be nothing for his only son in his will. In all truth, they’d never discussed it. Now Josce wondered if his own unease over the subject caused his father to avoid any mention of his final arrangements.
With that in mind, Josce revisited the details his stepmother provided of what was now his. Gratitude stirred beneath the pain of his sire’s loss. Not only did Baldwin of Haydon reveal how much he trusted his son by placing his legitimate heirs into Josce’s hands, but his father also bestowed upon his beloved bastard the seed from which Josce’s own fortune might sprout.
Elianne was right. What his father gave him was nothing more than a reflection of a sire’s pride in the son he’d raised and loved. As Josce accepted this, he felt closer to peace than he’d been since learning of his father’s death.
Josce once again eyed his reluctant hostess. “How came you to be so wise that you can decipher the message one man sends another in his will?”
It was a quick laugh that escaped her, even as the amusement swiftly dimmed from her face. Her arms around him started to open. Josce caught her hands to hold her against him. She couldn’t leave him yet. Her touch was more welcome and necessary than any woman’s caress he’d ever known.
“Stay,” he commanded her.
At his bidding, she again leaned against him, but there was a new tautness to her body that suggested she was no longer comfortable. “I suppose it’s because I know what it is to long for an inheritance without hope of ever having one.”
Josce sighed for her. “Then, you’re a younger daughter with a brother who takes all.”
“Nay,” she sa
id with a tiny shake of her head, “I’m the youngest daughter of three.” When the words were out, she turned her head upon his shoulder, hiding her face from him.
“If that’s so, then you and your sisters divide Coneytrop and the lord sheriff’s other properties between you when he’s gone,” he said. This was commonly done when there were only daughters to inherit, indeed common enough that he shouldn’t have to explain it to her.
“What other properties?” Elianne retorted, her voice harsh, her head yet turned. “Coneytrop and the hamlet beyond these walls are all my sire owns.”
Josce frowned. How could Coneytrop be the sheriff’s only possession? Someone who had so little could never afford that bed and the fine red gown. Needing to see her face so he might read the answers in her gaze, Josce stepped from her embrace and turned.
Her head bowed, Elianne let her hands drop to her side. He crooked a finger beneath her chin to lift her face, then studied her features. Fear for her future mingled with anger and frustration in her expression. A touch of moisture made her eyes gleam.
“There’s nothing for me,” she told him, gently shifting her head off his supporting finger, “nor anything more for my older sisters than what they took with them into their marriages. Indeed, they may even lose those few virgates after my sire passes. Upon his death, what my father borrowed from two different kings to twice purchase his position must be repaid, along with other debts.”
Josce sighed again, this time in new understanding. The country’s previous king, Richard, known as the Lionheart, had treated the offices of England’s sheriffs as trade goods. Twice in the ten years of his reign had he sold them to the highest bidders, each time demanding higher fees from the buyers than was traditional, thereby cutting into the position’s customary profits.
When John followed his brother onto the throne, the last of old Henry’s cantankerous brood was even more desperate for coins. Not only had John maintained the fees his elder brother applied, he added myriad other fines, until he’d stripped away a goodly portion of the profit from a position that had once been a guaranteed route to wealth. Aye, but however small, there was still profit to be had unless a man was spendthrift, which explained the bed and fine gown. Reiner spent what he earned, setting nothing aside for his daughters.
Josce’s heart tugged over Elianne’s predicament. Left without resources, she’d beg for her living if her married sisters didn’t open their homes to her. And if their father’s death replaced expected inheritances with new debts, her sister’s husbands weren’t likely to offer to feed yet another impoverished woman.
“Shame on me for burdening you with my problems when your life’s by far the more difficult,” he said. “There’s not much hope for you, is there?”
Elianne’s mouth twisted. Her cheeks took fire. She bowed her head to again consider her folded hands.
“And, thus did I say you aye yesterday,” she whispered. “I coveted a taste of what other women know. Fool that I am, in my longing to discover what my sire’s poverty denies me, I didn’t consider that you might set your seed in me.”
“Neither did I,” Josce said with a wry laugh as the longing to once more hold Elianne against him stirred in the pit of his being. “All I could think was how wonderful you felt in my arms.”
Her head lifted. The need to know she was special beyond his simple need to copulate filled her green eyes. “Did I?” she whispered.
Even thinking about the sensations she’d wakened in him was enough to send a shudder through Josce. “You have no idea,” he said, his voice suddenly hoarse.
Her smile was slow. This time the fire in her cheeks were filled with desire. Her mouth softened.
“How strange,” she said, a new huskiness in her voice. “Who would think that knowing you were well pleased with me might please me so deeply?”
What she said rattled Josce to his core. The promise of passion that filled her face only fed his own reaction to her. Once again he craved to lose himself in her arms, and in her body.
Lifting a hand, he cupped her cheek in his palm. Just as she’d done at the pool, she leaned her face into his hand. Her skin was like silk against his. Before he could thread his fingers into her hair and draw her closer to him, she caught his hand by the wrist and pressed her lips into his palm. Her mouth against his skin fair weakened Josce’s knees. Then she stepped back from him.
“No more,” she said quietly. “I think me, you and I are safer when there’s a bit of space between us.”
It wasn’t a laugh as much as a mingled sound of longing and frustration that left Josce’s lips. Still, she was right. Their attraction was strong indeed. Hadn’t they ended up embracing despite that he’d wanted to toss her over the garden wall when she first appeared in here?
“Pardon,” he said. “I promise to keep a decent distance. Not that such a separation is what I want, mind you,” he added with a smile.
She laughed, her eyes bright with his compliment. “What an accomplished swain you are,” she teased.
Her words were but an echo of his stepmother’s demand that he charm Elianne into their tool. The need to know more of her sire’s debts followed. Such money worries went far to support Josce's suspicion that Reiner du Hommet had done more than turn his back while one of the shire’s baron’s went a-robbing. He needed information, and surely, locked within Elianne was everything he wanted to know.
“I’m no swain, not at least as far as you’re concerned,” he replied, taking care with his words. “You’ve been kind to me today when I thought myself without a friend. Say you’ll stay with me a little longer.”
“I’ll stay,” she replied with a nod, then turned to start toward the bench.
Her movement wasn’t fast enough to hide the pleasure that his words had awoken in her. Guilt nibbled at Josce’s conscience. Her affections were already settling on him when she could have no place in his life.
That was, if he even had a life past the fulfillment of his vengeance. Josce frowned at the reminder that his threat against the sheriff, and his own death if he ended Reiner du Hommet's life, warred with the responsibilities his father’s will wanted to set upon him. An instant later he shook off the thought. Just as Josce was certain he’d die for what he planned, he was equally certain King John wouldn’t honor the dictates of Baldwin’s will, not when so much wealth was at stake.
“Come, sit with me here,” Elianne called to him from the bench. “If you’re on one end and I the other, we ought to be safe enough.”
Certain now of his course, Josce didn’t hesitate to join her. As he took his seat at the bench’s far end, Elianne smiled at him. “Would you care for a bit of something to eat?”
His stomach growled. “Aye, indeed I would. You brought food with you?”
“I brought everything with me,” she replied with a laugh, leaving the bench to stride across the body of the garden. She stopped before what remained of her arbor and lifted a pallet from the ruins. “Look upon how determined I was to keep my distance from you.”
Heat stirred in the pit of Josce’s being as he stared at the makeshift mattress. Oh, but he could conjure ways to use yon rustic bedding that would well please both of them. Aye, and guarantee that he got himself a child.
“You meant to stay the night in here?” he asked, trying to distract himself from his inappropriate thoughts.
She sent him a chiding look. “Not just this night, sir, but all the nights of your visit. Aye, and I came to the garden because this is the only place in all of Coneytrop that belongs solely to me. Here I should have been safe from you, only someone forgot to tell you that you weren’t allowed in without my permission,” she finished with a laugh.
“You’re safe with me,” Josce assured her. It was a lie. For revenge’s sake, he meant to use her to destroy her father, destroying her in the process.
Dropping the pallet, she grabbed up one of her baskets and returned to sit on the bench’s opposite end. With a toss of her plaits, she dum
ped out the onions, then took out a wrapped packet along with a stoppered skin. Opening the packet, she set her bounty out on the bench between them: bread, a pot of cheese, three raw apples.
“What will you have, Sir Josce?”
“Josce,” he insisted. “We know each other too well now for titles, Elianne.”
Bright color once more took life in her cheeks. “Aye, Josce then,” she murmured.
“I’d have a piece of that bread, then help myself to the cheese.”
“As you will,” she replied, breaking off a hunk of bread for him.
Pulling his eating knife from its sheath on his belt, Josce spread some of the potted cheese onto the piece. “I’ll thank you for this. I’ve not eaten since this morn.”
“Then, eat it all if you please. I only want an apple,” she replied, choosing one of the fruits.
Taking a bite, Elianne turned a little on the bench to look out over her garden. A moment passed, then another. She said nothing.
A little startled, Josce eyed her. Where was the chatter with which other women filled silences? Not that he begrudged them their tongues. Words were the only power a woman owned. Once a man showed his interest in her, the only way she could bind him to her was to talk ropes around him.
Not so Elianne. As she chewed, she lifted her face toward the sun, watching the birds darting above them. It was a moment before Josce understood, and when he did, he sat where he was, flummoxed.
Here was the only woman in the world who lacked even a trace of artifice. From the back of his brain came the memory of her bold run, of the way she’d wrapped her legs around him in the pool. Now today, she embraced him not for lust’s sake, but because he needed comforting. With her every honest movement and touch, she told him who she was.
With that, his decision to misuse her felt all the worse, like beating a child who’d done no wrong. Trapped between the needs of vengeance and what he knew was right, he tossed his last apple core into the beds, a feast for the birds and insects, then trod polite conventions into the ground by leaping for what he needed to discover.
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