Broken Vows, Mended Hearts: A Bouquet of ThistlesPaying the PiperBattle-Torn Bride

by Gail Ranstrom

  Never in his life had he apologized for anything. Not once that he could recall. The words would fall foreign from his lips if he could even form them. He did regret how he had behaved, but so should she.

  Whether he would go so far as to marry her was still in question. She probably would not have him now.

  Chapter Five

  “Alys, open the door.”

  Silence.

  Again he knocked. “Alys, I order you answer me! We have much to discuss and you are behaving like a sulky child. Admit me now.”

  “The door is not locked, John.”

  He pivoted around and there she stood behind him. “I…I thought you were…”

  “I know. Come to your solar. My chamber is quite cold since there is no fire there,” she said reasonably, turning to lead the way back down the stairs.

  John felt a fool to have been pounding at her door, demanding entry when she was not even inside the room. “Where were you?” he asked.

  She lifted a hide-bound ledger. “I went to fetch the account book. You will want to see it.”

  “Aye. And I have questions for you that should have been answered the day I arrived.” He reached for her arm to escort her down the steps, but she hastened ahead of him, pointedly avoiding his touch.

  “You had but to ask,” she said, apparently holding on to her fit of pique.

  “No fault of yours. I did not mean that. I was not well and never thought to inquire,” John assured her.

  “I also have questions,” Alys informed him.

  When they reached the solar, he pushed open the door and stood aside for her to enter. It was now his bedchamber, but there was seating before the fire and also by the window. She opted for the former and laid down the book on a footstool.

  “Shall I begin?” she asked, her stubborn little chin raised in question.

  He stood near her, his arms crossed over his chest. It seemed the only way he could keep his hands to himself instead of reaching for her. “First I must tell you that I regret how I have behaved.” He did not elaborate. “I hope you will forgive me.”

  “Of course I forgive you.” Her words were curt. “’Tis of no great matter and already forgotten.” She frowned. “My threat to bring suit against you is an empty one as you shall soon see.”

  “Good.” John unfolded his arms, leaned over and promptly stole a kiss, marveling at the softening of her lips when they had been drawn so firm at the first. She tasted of rich spices and the sweetness of honey. When he broke the kiss and moved away, she remained still as a statue, her eyes wide and her hands clenched by her side.

  “My thanks,” he said with a nod. “For everything you have done for me and mine. Now ask me what you will.”

  The kiss had confused her. She took but a moment to recover, drew a deep breath and faced him squarely. “How ill are you? Has it affected your mind?”

  John had to smile. “I can see how you might think so, but nay, not that I am aware.”

  She nodded, but was obviously unconvinced. “How is it a year at the Spanish court with all its rumored luxury laid you so low? Did you contract fever?”

  “Not until my condition weakened,” he said, not eager to recount what had happened, not wanting her to have to hear it.

  “What condition?” she persisted.

  “Injuries inflicted during my capture and soon thereafter.”

  “Thereafter? Were you not treated as a noble awaiting ransom? Did you not have run of the court?”

  He looked away, staring into the gentle flames over the mound of glowing coals. “Trastamere considered me a danger within his walls so I was confined. He also wanted information.”

  “That is why he refused ransom for you until this past month? What changed his mind?”

  “He did not change his mind, Alys. He must not have honored your appeal. You see, I was not ransomed, but escaped. With Simon’s help, I managed to return to England.”

  “Then you thought…” Understanding dawned quickly. “Oh, John, I did try to have you freed. You must believe that.”

  He nodded and caressed her hand. “I believe you.”

  Alys sighed, her shoulders slumped. “But at first you did not. I do see why. We may never know what happened to the knights. Or the gold they transported.” She turned away from him and wrung her hands. “It was nearly all we possessed, John, as you will soon see when you examine the accounts. Everything I could beg, borrow or steal.”

  “Steal?” he asked, amused. “A figure of speech, surely. I cannot imagine you breaking that commandment, Alys.”

  She turned and looked up at him. “But I did, if you count the wealth of coin your father had put aside for Walter’s future. I shall repay that before he needs it, of course.”

  Alys had put her soul in peril to save him? John felt humbled. He wanted to take her in his arms and hold her. But she was not ready for that, he could see.

  “Was Simon there to serve you in your captivity?” she asked.

  He shook his head. “Not those first months. During the attack on the duke, Simon, at my order, helped the others spirit Lancaster to safety while I held off Trastamere’s men.”

  “How many did you kill?”

  John shrugged. “Not nearly enough. They hauled me back to Castile, perhaps to prove to Trastamere they had made a good try at Lancaster. I thought it was in hopes of ransom to salvage something for their trouble.”

  “After they took you, were…were you mistreated, John?” she asked, her concern evident. There were even tears brimming in her eyes.

  He released her and walked closer to the fire, bracing his hand upon the stones above it. “That is over and done.”

  She sighed. “Oh John—”

  “Leave it, Alys. Your pity is the last thing I need.”

  “Pity?” she asked with a scoff. “I was thinking more in the way of sending aid to Pedro of Castile so he could overthrow the cur and do away with him!”

  John laughed. “I should have guessed. The Prince will mount another campaign to restore King Pedro. I will ride with him.”

  “Not if I must imprison you here to prevent it!” she exclaimed.

  Alys could be a delight at times, he had to admit. Why had he not foreseen what she was to become as a woman? If he had only taken more note of her, perhaps he would have. He had noticed so little that was of true importance when he was young.

  “I must go back,” he said. Conviction or rote?

  His life since leaving his parents had become nothing more than an endless march of training, battles, drinking, gambling and wenching. It had not been to his liking at first, but he had grown into it, proved equal to it, even enjoyed it most of the time.

  In all those years, he had seldom even paused for a prayer unless he did so en masse with the other knights to seek a victory. Small wonder God had punished him with a year’s imprisonment and a sound scourging by his captors. Perhaps he ought to be thankful for it since that was precisely what had finally brought him to ponder his existence now.

  And what came next? Could he become what Alys needed? Would she have cause to curse the day she pledged herself to him?

  He could not take her. It would be too unfair. Years from now she would thank him with every breath for letting her go.

  He supposed the first order of business was business. At least he would shorten her list of responsibilities and assume the duty of managing their properties while he was here. With that foremost in mind, John picked up the account book and took his chair. “Now to more weighty matters.”

  “I am not finished,” Alys said as she leaned over and placed her hand on the book, preventing his opening it. “First, you must tell me why you have changed. I believed I knew you well, John, but you are very unlike the man who wrote to me five years ago with such hopes for our future.”

  “Wrote to you?” Unfortunately, he had not so much as thought about her.

  She smiled shyly. “The letter, my greatest treasure. Your words to me then sealed m
y heart against all others and made it yours. Yet now that we meet again…” her voice trailed away as she shook her head.

  John was tempted to take credit, but the truth would out. “I never wrote to you, Alys.”

  She gave the book a firm pat and sat back, clasping her hands in her lap. “Seasoned warrior that you are, John, you should not deny your poetic side. I nearly swooned each time I read what you wrote. I still do,” she admitted with a dimpled grin. “And I have never been a maid given to faints.”

  He cleared his throat and shifted uncomfortably. “Alys, I must say again, the words were not mine. Perhaps my mother…”

  John words trailed off when Alys’s face fell. Her features betrayed disbelief, then embarrassment, and finally something akin to grief. He watched helplessly as she pushed up from the chair and swiftly left the room.

  Was she going to fetch the letter in question or was she merely running from the knowledge that she had been deceived?

  Guilt suffused him. He hated being the one who destroyed her pretty dreams, but fact was fact. In all those years, he had scarcely remembered he had a betrothed, much less put quill in motion to declare undying love for her. If, indeed, that’s what he was supposed to have done.

  His mother had written the letter, he was certain of it. Who else would have bothered? Five years ago, Alys would have been a sixteen-year-old, ripe for marriage and worried with good reason that her intended had forgotten she existed.

  An apology would not suffice this time. There would be no “of course I forgive you.” Perhaps it was just as well to leave her with no illusions that he had ever cared about her. However, if he never had, why did he feel her pain so keenly now?

  Alys retreated to her chamber feeling mortified, betrayed and such a lackwit. Not only had Lady Greycourt deceived her with that letter, she had surely made up every one of those tales of John’s boyhood. Everyone knew full well he had left Hetherston when he was but seven.

  Knowing Lancaster, John probably had been given no choice but to remain with his overlord and rarely return home until that occasion of his knighting and betrothal to her. Alys wondered why she had never questioned that, never even suspected for a moment those stories of the young John’s valor and gallantry were false. But she had wanted so to believe….

  Oh, the mother’s reasons were pure enough. She had meant for Alys to love John and remain faithful while he was away. But the fact remained, the lady was not who Alys had always trusted and believed her to be. Just like John. Both strangers Alys could not recognize.

  One day she might forgive Fiona, for her lies had certainly served their purpose. However, now Alys realized that the love she had built up in her mind for her betrothed had no true foundation.

  He could be a blackguard of the worst sort. At least he had been honest with her about the letter when he so easily could have let the lie stand. Somehow, she wished he had.

  She pulled the covers over her head and wished to heaven she could simply disappear. How could she face him now? How could she ever marry him now even if he agreed?

  Forgiving herself for being played the fool would take some doing. Never before had she doubted her ability to do a thing she set out to accomplish, but she did wonder how she would ever do that. Could she ever trust anyone’s word again?

  Perhaps that doubt signified her belated arrival inside the door of adulthood, she thought with a bitter grimace. One thing for certain, she was no longer the child John had called her.

  Chapter Six

  In the days that followed, Alys decided to act as if the letter had never existed. She was as distantly polite to John as she might have been to any stranger newly arrived, for he was a stranger to her.

  John took to gifting her with small treasures for which she had no use. First, he sent Simon to her with a finely etched case filled with needles of steel and bone. John knew very well she did not like to sew. Next day he had given her an emerald and gold brooch, an ornament that brought memories of his mother that Alys did not wish to relive.

  Last evening at supper, he had laid a small, leather-bound book of prayers in front of her place at table. She suspected it had been presented to him when he had arrived in London for it did look new. She had her own prayer book and, besides, did not wish a gift secondhand. “Read the inside leaf,” he had suggested.

  Love is for the asking. She read the words with a jaundiced eye for his signature beneath them was in a different hand and the ink did not match. How thickheaded could the man be, or think she was? Did he not know she would guess that some bold lady at court had given him that anonymously?

  She also wondered, in spite of herself, what he would choose next to give her. ’Twas obvious he scrounged amongst the things he already had and those left to him by his mother. Then she remembered that he had withdrawn no funds from the estates’ sorely depleted coffers since coming home and had been too ill to shop before leaving the city. Her heart had softened a bit, but not enough to wax poetic over his offerings.

  Why was he doing this?

  “Ah, your beloved approaches,” Thomasine warned her. “And he wears a sly smile.”

  Alys turned, raised an eyebrow in question and suffered his greeting.

  “Alys! How goes your day?” he asked pleasantly.

  “Well enough,” she replied, trying not to note how the subtle gain in weight this past week had improved his appearance. Gone were the sallow cast to his skin and the shadows beneath his eyes. His health was returning apace. How handsome would he be when fully recovered?

  “I have hope you will come riding this morn for a view of the village,” he said, his voice hopeful and nearly merry with anticipation.

  She shrugged at the temptation. It was no use pretending that she might have what she once believed was hers by right. There was no hope of that sweet union his mother had falsely promised her. Still, she must make some attempt to close the breach between them for the sake of future peace.

  In the event they did marry, she did not want them estranged. If they did not, she must see they remained friends. Otherwise, she would lose Walter, too.

  Thomasine stepped forward. “You disrupt her day, my lord.”

  “He does not,” Alys snapped, interrupting, shocking herself as well as her cousin. “I shall be glad to ride.”

  John chuckled, reached for Alys’s hand and tugged her along as they crossed the hall. “Well done of you,” he said.

  “’Tis your right to ride the estate, John, and my place to show you the improvements. I will do my duty.”

  He laughed again. “So you will, my dear. So you will.”

  “What do you mean by that?” she demanded.

  They stopped at the steps leading down to the bailey. “I mean that you are a creature of duty, Alys. I have heard how you love to ride and I would give you a few hours’ pleasure.”

  She looked into his eyes and the memory of their kiss in the solar returned, as it did so often and unexpectedly. He looked as if he might kiss her again. She waited.

  “So,” he said, drawing out the word, dragging his gaze from hers. “We should get on with it.”

  “Your daily gift, I presume,” she said with a weary sigh.

  “I admit it,” he confessed wryly as they progressed down the steps, his fingers now linked with hers in a way that sent tingles up her arm. “I mean to thank you for your care of Hetherston, my parents and Walter, but my worldly goods are a limited store at the moment.” He smiled sadly. “I regret that you hate me.”

  “I do no such thing!” she exclaimed, yanking her hand from his and stepping away from him as they reached the stables.

  “Aye, you do, and well you should. If I had written to you as I ought, we would not be having this conversation. Mother would not have felt she had to meddle.”

  “I understand that much more clearly than before,” she assured him.

  “Do you? Well, fortunately, so do I.”

  The stable boy cleared his throat to gain their attention
. “Your mounts are ready, my lord.”

  “My thanks, Michael,” Alys said, then noted the chestnut mare he had prepared for her. “What is this? Where is my gelding?”

  “In pasture, my lady. Lord John told me to saddle Minx.”

  “She’s yours now,” John said with an eager smile. “Your gelding is aging and I thought you might like a new mount.”

  Alys examined the mare, then turned to John. “She is beautiful. Where did you get her?”

  “A recent gift from the king on my arrival in London. I only had old Trampler left. Simon rode him away during Lancaster’s escape so we have him still. I was mounted on my own destrier which the Spanish soon claimed along with my sword and armor.”

  She smoothed the mare’s mane as she imagined John’s relinquishing of his horse and accoutrements during his surrender. How hard that must have been for him.

  He reached for her waist and lifted her to the saddle. “There. She has a back like a feather bed or I should never have made it here from London.”

  Alys nodded, unable to speak. There was no denying John had hit upon a perfect gift this time. Nonetheless, she knew the gesture meant far less to him than it did to her. Knights viewed their mounts as either tools or weapons, not special beings worthy of emotions. The men could not afford to love them when the animals were so often lost in battle.

  She noticed then that John would be riding the same stout gelding Simon Ferrell had ridden into the bailey that first day. “Do you have no other?” Alys asked.

  “Only Trampler,” he replied with a laugh as he put foot to stirrup. “God save me, I would rather walk than ride that one.”

  So John had given up his only palfrey to her? Why all the gifts? Why this desperate attempt to gain her regard?

  She clicked her tongue and cantered toward the gates. When he drew even with her, she said, “You need not give me presents, John. I swear I do not and never shall hate you.”

  “Even if we do not marry?” he asked gently.

  “Even then.” Alys rode ahead. Did he find her so repugnant? Was there someone else he loved?