Questioning must wait. For now, he sorely needed to retire to his chamber and sleep. Until his mind cleared, his blood thickened and his muscles regained their former strength, he would have to measure out his efforts to be sociable. His head ached, his stomach cramped and he felt like unholy hell.
“Oh, I do hope you recover quickly,” Thomasine said with a pursing of her rose-salved lips. “I—and Alys, too, I am certain—will be distraught if you miss dining with us at noon.”
John’s chance of escape died aborning when Alys reappeared, her determined stride headed directly for him. “Begone, Thomasine,” she commanded, her words the sharpest he had yet heard her utter. Her smile was gone. So her true nature was emerging, was it?
Only when her cousin had quit the hall did Alys speak again, her voice softer now. “Father Stephen comes this way, my lord. I have given him leave to repeat to you all my confessions these last ten years.”
John saw no spark of anger now in her steady gaze. There was only a faint tinge of sorrow. “I have no wish, nor a right, to hear such things of him, Alys. If you assure me you have done no wrong, then I shall believe you.”
Doubt narrowed her eyes. “Then perhaps you will ask him to recount the particular occasion of your brother’s birth.”
John’s breath caught in his throat. Brother?
“Aye,” she answered as if he had spoken the question. She gestured with an open palm. “Sit while you await him, John. You are too pale.”
Small wonder there, John thought as he lowered himself into the chair. “I was not aware…” His voice trailed off when he looked up and realized she was already halfway across the hall.
The priest joined him and soon John had the entire tale of how his mother had borne Walter, enduring great travail and almost dying in the process.
He learned how Alys had rarely left her side the following years. Then his mother had succumbed, wresting a promise from Alys to rear the child in her stead until the boy was seven and old enough to foster elsewhere. His father had been overcome with grief when he lost his wife and never was the same again.
John realized that Alys had borne the burden of managing Hetherston’s household as well as caring for his brother and his parents. He still could hardly digest the news that he was no longer an only child.
What a revelation! How liberating to know he already had an heir. The boy Walter would take up the title one day and there was no need for John to feel any guilt over the barony going to some stranger the king would appoint after John’s death.
As soon as the priest left, Alys returned with a cup of wine. “Here. Drink this and then you should go and lie down.”
Her continued concern surprised him. He took the goblet. “How will you ever forgive the things I said to you?”
Her smile looked a bit forced at first, then softened. “You must have good cause to live with such suspicion of everyone around you. You have no trust left, have you?”
“And how would you know anything of lost trust?” John asked, genuinely curious.
“I lost mine at an early age and still find it difficult to nurture until I have known someone for a long while,” she answered openly.
“You do not know me and yet you seem ready to trust me with your person, your estates and your future.” He sipped the wine and felt it flow through his veins like warmed honey. Like the relief that filled him on finding Alys constant, even if he did not intend to marry her.
“Aye, I do know you, John,” she insisted. “Not a day has passed since you left that your name has not been spoken, that you were not remembered to me in one way or another. I know your hopes and dreams, your very heart, and even your childhood pranks and punishments. A man does not change much from what he is on the day he embraces manhood. I was there for that, if you remember.”
Oh, sweet Alys, how wrong can you be? “A man can be altered by events, both good and ill, at any time during his life. You knew a boy then, one who had suffered nothing worse than a trouncing in the lists. I was green as new grass.”
She patted his shoulder and took the empty cup from his hand. “You only need rest, John. You will not convince me you are withered from cynicism. This megrim will pass.”
“You plan to see to that, eh? Shall I call you Saint Alys?”
Her smile stretched into a grin and caused a little catch in his chest. “At least I am not the great sinner you feared.” She backed away, her hands clasped around the emptied cup. “Now you must excuse me. The saint has her duties.”
John closed his eyes and prayed for patience. She confounded the life out of him. How could she turn everything about the way she did? Should he feel absolved now of his wrong-doing? Instead, he felt even worse. He was going to have to crush her hopes and do it soon or he would not have the heart for it.
She had to be furious with him. If only she would lash out and give him her true feelings. Above all, he valued honesty.
Perhaps he was only spoiling for a fight. Aye, that would absolve him, would it not? All he would have to do then was to storm away in anger and feel justified in forgetting her again, he thought bitterly. What a coward he was.
He needed to be perfectly honest himself and tell her now that they would never marry. John asked her direction from one of the servants and followed her to the solar for that purpose.
He remembered the room well, having spent a large part of his first seven years in it. His mother had doted on him, or so he had thought at the time. It was here, when he turned seven, that she had told him he was to go and serve Lancaster.
She had put on a false smile and said what an honor it was for her son to be so chosen. Knowing full well this was the way of things, John had neither wept nor pleaded aloud not to be sent away, though in his heart he had cried rivers. Fine, he had thought when his inner tears ran dry, he would be a knight, the best one ever. He would make it his life’s work and never bother with this place again.
He stood in the doorway and watched Alys laboring impatiently over a tangled skein of thread. Her hands were so small, her fingers nimble as she worked. His skin tingled as he imagined the pleasure those sweet soft hands might offer. Impatiently, he shook off the lascivious thought.
She sat before a tapestry loom, the very one his mother had used. He had to admit that Alys looked as much at home there.
“May I enter?” he asked, fully aware that the solar was a female domain, not to be broached without invitation, even by the lord of the keep.
“Of course,” she replied, intent on the threads, a slight frown marring her perfect brow. “Though you should be resting.”
John crossed the room and peered down at the loom. “A monumental task you have there,” he remarked, thinking he must work up to the real reason for coming in here.
She sighed, giving up on the tangles and clutching the mass in her lap as she looked at the tapestry. “Your mother began this piece. I mean to finish it for her.”
Her frustration, this new aspect of Alys, delighted him. “Are you not apt with a needle?”
“Obviously not,” she admitted readily with a short laugh, “though not for lack of effort.”
“Where do your talents lie then?” he asked, truly interested. For all her inexperience and youth, Alys did fascinate him and he wished they could part friends. Perhaps if he brought her to that pass, she would understand.
She shrugged. The gesture made her seem even smaller, younger. “I am good at keeping others at their tasks, I suppose. I ride well. And I am a fair hand with numbers and letters.”
“You know how to write?” he asked, not really surprised, though most women were not trained in it. His father probably taught her as he had John’s mother.
“Aye, and I like to make pictures with ink.” She tossed the silk tangle aside and it landed in a colorful heap on the floor. “So why can I not fill in my designs with threads?”
John looked again at the tapestry that depicted a garden scene with several figures. It was beautiful, the col
ors nearly half-completed. “You drew this for her?”
She nodded.
“Why not hire someone to finish it?” he suggested.
Her gaze locked on his. “She charged me. It is my duty. And it will be my pleasure,” she stated with conviction, then grimaced. “If it kills me.”
John threw back his head and laughed. How long had it been since he had felt like laughing?
“You make sport of me, but I am resolved!” she told him, laughing, too.
He believed her, but could not see why the wall hanging was so important. “Why do it if you would rather do else?”
She pondered that for a moment, then sighed as she answered, “Women seldom have any tales of valor sung about them in the halls. Many times our quiet triumphs are all we have to mark us in the minds of those who follow.”
He traced the edge of the loom with his fingers, feeling the smooth weave at the edge. “So this, then, is your legacy?”
“I mean it as a tribute to your lady mother. The better part of the work is hers.”
“You loved her,” he guessed, feeling a familiar stab of loss. “And she, you.” John stepped closer, unable to stay away.
“Aye, she did,” Alys said softly. “Though not half as much as she loved you and Walter.”
How sweet of her to offer those words of consolation, however misguided. John knew the truth. “Somehow I doubt she cared as much as you think. If my parents were living, young Walter would have scarcely two years left to enjoy whatever love they had for him. Then he, too, would be sent out to foster as I was. Perhaps they would have brought in a bride for him to keep them company in their later years. Another little Alys.”
“That is unkind of you, John,” she admonished. “You know full well that fostering is the custom and nothing to do with how they loved you. If anything, it shows how much they did, to want to prepare you well and see you knighted.”
“Well, custom be damned. No child should be torn from his home to learn the art of war in his seventh year. Walter should remain here as he grows to manhood.”
She smiled, picking up the threads again. “The second son usually goes to the Church or the king’s service.”
“Not this time,” he declared. Walter would be lord here one day if John had aught to say on it, and here he should stay, amongst familiar things and people.
“And you think I do not know you,” she said softly. “I had not even troubled myself to prepare a plea that would keep him here, for I knew what you would say.”
“You agree?” he asked, surprised, even shocked by her words.
“With my whole heart. We are in perfect accord.” She fairly beamed up at him.
For a moment, while drowning in those adoring, tear-filled eyes of hers and basking in her smile, John could scarcely think straight. His body reacted quite suddenly to what seemed an invitation to kiss. He wanted to, desperately, but knew that desire for her would grow apace and affect his decision about releasing her from the betrothal. So, he looked away and prayed this summer lightning storm of lust would pass.
John did suspect that Alys had again said only what she knew he wanted to hear. He was glad of his decision not to wed her. Who would want a wife who bowed to his every wish and never had an opinion of her own, or if she did so, one she would never voice? Most men might treasure that above gold, but not this man.
Somehow, he could not bring himself to tell her that, however, not in her present mood. God, why must she be so…agreeable?
Was she like this with everyone? Was that why the folk here at Hetherston held her in such high regard? They adored her. He could see it already, stranger that he was to this place.
He decided to test her mettle. What could he say that a woman like Alys would be hard put to agree with? She seemed amenable to everything. Then he had an idea that might work. This room was now hers, the solar meant for the lady of the keep and no other. Surely she would not consent to give it up.
As if assessing the place for the first time, John looked around, taking in the glass-paned windows and padded seats beneath them. “I love this place. It would make a fine master chamber.”
Alys followed his gaze around the walls before answering. Now she would protest, John thought.
But she turned back to him with hands clasped together over the messy threads. “You know, your bed would be perfect there, facing the light.”
“Alys…”
She stood quickly. “Why did I not think of it before? I shall order your things moved this very afternoon!”
John shook his head, pinching the bridge of his nose to hide his frustration.
God’s very teeth, what must he do with her? He knew what he wanted to do with her, but figured she would pretend to welcome that, as well. And it would surely seal his fate as a husband.
She was already out the door, gone happily to set him up in a room he did not even want.
Other than the occasional word of greeting, John purposely avoided Alys for the next two days. The truth was, he was unsure how to deal with her. Would he break her gentle heart if he baldly declared he did not want her? The problem was, he did want her, only not to wife. Unfortunately, that was the one honorable way to have her and he could not bring himself to agree to that.
It would take him a while to get back his strength. He had not even been measured for armor yet or sought out a breeder to furnish him with a proper destrier. Until he accomplished that, he decided he should keep peace with her.
In order to do that, he spent most of the time in his new chamber, the former solar, exercising his limbs or soaking in the bath and reading his father’s few books.
He missed the tapestry loom, gone now from its usual place. Where did Alys work? He wondered. Was the light strong enough? Had she abandoned her needlework because it was not?
Admittedly, this room proved more convenient to his needs and to those serving them, something he would never have considered had he not used the notion of taking it over himself to discommode Alys.
Instead of a grudging relinquishment of her private domain, she had happily added rich, plush carpets to warm the floor and new, heavier bed hangings to block the sun when he wished to sleep in the day.
He had been taking his meals alone since he had discovered the very sight of mounds of food destroyed his appetite. However, now his stomach’s capacity was finally increasing after his long bout of near starvation.
His mind seemed to grow sharper while his grief and lassitude lessened by the hour. He thought almost constantly of Alys, still uncertain what to do about her determined devotion.
As it had in the solar that day, his body would harden uncomfortably every time he recalled the swell of her bosom above the neckline of her simple gowns or the enticing sway of her hips as she walked about the garden or across the hall. He privately thanked her for that blessed reassurance. At first he had feared the Spanish had beaten and starved away his ability to function as a man.
On the occasions when he did visit the hall, he watched her continuously, still wondering at that unfailing cheerfulness. Rarely did she raise her voice or resort to commands to have what she needed doing done. Everyone seemed to love her. Except Thomasine.
That one had cornered him only once after that initial conversation. He managed to insult her enough so that she left him alone thereafter. She seemed bound to turn him against Alys for some reason.
Odd, how the protective urge to warn Alys against her cousin deviled him so. That woman had something planned that boded no good. He could not figure what it might be, but imagined that he saw betrayal in her eyes. Given his behavior toward Alys, perhaps he entertained too much suspicion and saw evil where none existed.
John mentioned it to Simon on the third evening as they readied for supper in the hall.
“Oh, she is a witch, that Thomasine, and a talebearer,” Simon stated as he laid out John’s new tunic, one of several Alys had sent in. The construction and the embroidery were excellent and the velvet rare
and costly. He wondered if she had made them herself in spite of her dislike of needlework.
If she had, they were doubly precious. If not, he still appreciated her thoughtfulness in having them done. Alys would make a good wife. But not for him. He needed no wife.
However, for all she had done at Hetherston, he should be giving her gifts. “Simon, can you arrange for someone to travel back to London? Have him seek out a good armorer and entice him here. Also, I must purchase a few tokens for Lady Alys.”
“Make a list. And remember a morning gift for the wedding,” Simon reminded him, slipping the tunic over John’s head.
“There will be no wedding, Simon. I told you that,” John said firmly, shifting the garment to set better on his shoulders. “It is because Lady Alys has minded my brother and kept the house in order as well as any woman could. I would thank her.” And assuage his guilt over refusing her hand.
Simon huffed. “Fine time to consider gifts when you’ve naught in your purse. Lancaster is a full year in arears.”
“A pinchpenny.” John gave an inelegant snort.
Simon shook his head and made a dismissive gesture.
“I will see the factor and withdraw funds from the estate for the purchases and your wages,” John said decisively.
“Have you not met with him for an accounting?” Simon asked.
John sighed. “I have not even thought of that. God only knows how jumbled matters have become since my father’s death. I should see to it.”
“Just so. Your poor betrothed will have been shouldering that burden in your stead all these months.”
John shook his head. “Not likely. I expect the factor has simply carried on with his former orders after Father’s death.”
He smoothed down the front of the new tunic and reached for the belt Simon was holding for him. As he fastened it on, he came to a decision. “I should take charge while I’m here. My recuperation is near complete.”
“Thanks be to God,” Simon muttered. “Here is your chain of office. Turn about.”
Broken Vows, Mended Hearts: A Bouquet of ThistlesPaying the PiperBattle-Torn Bride Page 4
