Blackheart

by Tamara Leigh

  She was not accustomed to being spoken to so rudely by a servant. Even Nesta, with all her impertinence, had never challenged her so. Was it because the child she carried was ill-gotten? That the only conclusion to be drawn from it was that she was a whore? It had to be. Would Gabriel allow such ill treatment of her? If so, her time at Mergot was going to be more wretched than she had anticipated. Denying the man an answer, she popped a piece of cheese into her mouth.

  He turned on his heel and crossed to the hearth. It wasn't long before the glowing embers sprang to life and licked at the kettle suspended over it. Shortly, several kitchen maids entered the kitchens and set about their duties. Though curiosity carried their gaze to Juliana time and again, and they tittered and spoke behind their hands, none addressed her as the cook had done.

  Juliana had barely satisfied her hunger when the kitchen door burst open.

  A man-at-arms stood there. When his gaze lit upon her, relief lightened his expression. "She is here, my lord," he shouted over his shoulder.

  Then Gabriel had discovered her missing and set the garrison searching for her.

  Juliana pushed the remains of her meal aside and clasped her hands on the tabletop.

  Heavy footsteps resounded in the corridor. A moment later Gabriel appeared. Head and shoulders filling the height and breadth of the doorway, he settled his eyes on her. He was vexed, as evidenced by the set of his jaw, the lowering of his brow. "Leave us," he ordered the servants.

  They were quick to comply.

  He stepped within and closed the door. "What do you here?"

  Was he as dense as the cook? "Is it not obvious?" She nodded to the bread and cheese that remained. "You thought that perhaps I had escaped you again?"

  If her words pricked, he did not show it. He strode forward. "I will not have you wandering the donjon."

  His words pricked. She slipped off the stool. "You said Isolde Waltham had the freedom of the donjon. 'Twas the bargain we struck."

  He halted before the table. "So it was, and it holds. However, at all times I will know where you are."

  "That is your freedom? That I be ever under watch? Why do you not simply lock me away?"

  He pressed his palms to the table. "If that is what you prefer, 'tis easily done."

  Though she did not doubt his threat, she disregarded it. "You fear I might slip past your men? Is that it? You have no confidence in their ability to guard your walls?" Another thought struck. "Or is it their loyalty you question?"

  His lids lowered, his eyes glittering through the narrow slits. "You will find no allies at Mergot, Juliana. The castle folk are loyal to me."

  Were they? After all, most of them were likely of French descent and had served the previous baron, who'd fallen to King Richard's siege. Had they no loyalty to their fellow countrymen? No resentment toward the Englishman who had supplanted King Philip's baron? "If you are so confident of their fealty," Juliana said, "why do you deny me a measure of privacy?"

  A bitter smile etched his mouth. "One cannot be too careful where women are concerned."

  She remembered the last night she'd spent with him, when he had revealed far more than he had wished to. "I suppose I have your thieving mother to thank for the fetters put on me."

  His eyes darkened. "You have only yourself to blame for that. Your deception."

  How she hated the revenge he was set on regardless of who might be destroyed. Aching for her sister, she stepped around the table. "Should my jailer seek me, I shall be in my chamber."

  Gabriel caught her arm, sweeping his frowning gaze from her straining bodice to skirts that came nowhere near the floor. "What manner of clothes are these?"

  She pushed her shoulders back, lifting her chin. "My own garments were gone from my chamber when I awoke. Thus I borrowed these from the chest. You object?"

  "Object that the mother of my child looks more a trollop than a lady?"

  She cocked her head. "I thought you would find it fitting."

  His fingers tightened around her arm. "I know what you are, Juliana, but I will not have my child raised with gossip that wanton displays such as this rouse."

  "You do not think servants already talk? Come, Gabriel, I am Lady Isolde Waltham, not Isolde De Vere. Do you succeed in taking my babe, all will know it for what it is. A misbegotten child. A bastard."

  His black heart shone from his eyes. " 'Tis a burden the child will have to bear, but all the more reason you do not weight its shoulders more heavily."

  As if in clothing herself in the only garments available she'd sought to bring shame upon her child. She turned her nails into her palms. "What would you have had me do? Venture belowstairs wrapped in naught but a coverlet?"

  "You could have sent Lissant for food."

  "She was sleeping."

  "You could not awaken her?"

  "There was no need to rouse her when I could as easily come myself."

  "As easily..." His eyes swept her with distaste. "I have given you a lady's maid for a reason. In future you will make use of her. Do you understand?"

  She drew a deep breath. What good was it to argue with him. especially over so trifling a matter? "Of course. Now if you will unhand me I shall vex you no more."

  "That I doubt." He released her. "Wear this." He removed his mantle and dropped it over her shoulders.

  His warmth, trapped in the folds of the garment, rippled over her, reminded her of the man who had warmed her as no other had done. His fingers, brushing the rise of her breasts as he fastened the mantle, swept her with memories of the dark, a touch, a caress. Her undoing. She looked up, stared at his bent head, and struggled to draw a full breath.

  Gabriel finished with the mantle and met her gaze.

  Too late, she shuttered her emotions.

  A faint smile touched his mouth. "Do not tempt me, Juliana. Though I do not want you, I have been long enough without a woman that I might take what you offer. And 'twill change naught."

  Burned by the humiliation her traitorous body visited upon her, she took a step back, and another. Now she could breathe again. Though she had not touched him, her fingertips had prickled with the feel of him, her tongue with the salty taste of him, her nostrils with the masculine scent of him, and her ears had echoed the words he had long ago spoken against her skin. "You are wrong, Gabriel De Vere," she managed. "I would as soon lie with the devil as with you."

  Though his eyes gainsaid her prideful declaration, he spared her from comment. "Return to your chamber. I shall have more appropriate attire brought to you."

  Juliana skirted him. This time when she passed through the hall, the great room was awake with servants who positioned benches and tables for the morning meal.

  Lissant was also there. She hastened to Juliana's side. "My lady, I was so worried."

  Was it she who'd raised the hue? Juliana wondered with a twinge of resentment. She tamped it down. The woman was only doing her duty to her lord. "I am sorry to have frightened you," she said, and continued toward the stairs.

  The maid followed.

  Gabriel stared at the inner wall that, stone by painstaking stone, was being refortified. Slowly. He turned, looking to the smithy from which came the sound of the forging of arms. He had paid much for the steel needed to build up Mergot's stock of weaponry, but it was a necessity. No matter how solid the walls, they alone would not keep out an attacker. Not that Gabriel believed Bernart would come to Mergot. Simply, life had taught him to be prepared for the unexpected.

  Once again his thoughts turned to the woman who was responsible for much of the activity at Mergot. He ground his teeth. He was a liar. In spite of everything, he did want Juliana. Not because he had been without a woman for so long. Were that so, he could ease his need with one of the wenches in his hall. But he had not in more than four months.

  Did Juliana ever relive their nights as he did? Was that what he'd seen in her eyes when he'd looked up from fastening the mantle? Or did she merely seek to gain his bed that she might tu
rn him from his course? Aye, the woman he had so long wanted had never wanted him. She had come to him only to steal a child. That she had done exceedingly well.

  Damn her! Damn her deceit! Damn her for not allowing him to forget those nights, especially the last, when she'd lain back for him in the light of the torch, when she had allowed him to drink from her sweet mouth, when he had revealed things about himself of which he had never before spoken.

  In spite of his anger over her treachery, the memories of that night caused his loins to ache. If he took her one last time, used her as she had used him, would it change naught? Could he then so easily take the babe from her?

  Cursing himself, he thrust a hand through his hair. Had he waited for the child to be born, then ventured to Tremoral and taken it from its cradle, the same result could have been achieved without submitting to the temptation of Juliana. Unfortunately, he'd been too impatient, his vengeance too strong. But what was done was done. In five months, all would be as it should.

  Shortly after noon, two homespun bliauts and a chemise were delivered to Juliana's chamber. Doubtless they belonged to a heavy woman, for they were wide enough that she could easily wear them to the end of her pregnancy. She hoped she would not have to.

  As Lissant secured an unadorned girdle around Juliana's waist, containing the garment's voluminous folds, Juliana scratched her upper thigh, her shoulder, her ribs. Not only was the chemise of poor quality, but it was worn too thin to keep the bliaut's wool fibers from chafing. Was it Gabriel's desire that she suffer discomfort until the babe was born? She set her jaw. She would endure it without complaint and, eventually, become accustomed to it, as did all women who were not of the privileged class.

  Lissant sat back on her heels and sighed. "It will have to suffice until we can sew some new gowns for you, my lady, but I shall begin this evening."

  Juliana blinked. "You have the cloth to do so?"

  "Oui, Lord De Vere gave it to me. As it was to have been fashioned into tunics for him, I fear it is not so fine as that of Lady Clarisse's gowns, but it is of good quality."

  Juliana felt a twinge of remorse. She had thought the worst of Gabriel. Of course, his consideration was surely due to how it might reflect on him were he to clothe the mother of his child as a servant.

  Lissant stood and gathered the garments Juliana had worn belowstairs.

  "What of my own clothes?" Juliana asked. Though they would not fit much longer, she might gain a few more weeks from them.

  "They are being laundered, my lady. If they are dry by the morn, I will bring them to you." Lissant crossed to the chest, neatly folded the garments, and replaced them.

  "The lady whose chamber this was must have been quite small," Juliana commented.

  Lissant shook her head. "Merely young."

  That would explain it. "How old?"

  The maid lowered the chest lid. "Lady Clarisse was twelve years old when Baron Leon Faison wed her, fifteen when she died."

  Juliana could not help but feel grief for one lost so soon. "How did she die?"

  "During King Richard's siege, she was taken with a sudden illness. As there was no physician to tend her, she could not be saved."

  "I am sorry."

  Lissant nodded. "So grieved was the baron that, even when defeat was certain, he refused to yield to the English king." She breathed a heartfelt sigh. "Unable to bear the thought of living without his beloved, he longed to join her in death."

  Though Juliana no longer believed in love, she was touched by this story that echoed those of the troubadours. She swept her gaze over the room. Though romance shone from every corner, it was that very thing that raised a question. "Why did Lady Clarisse not occupy the solar with her husband?"

  "Ah, that. Lord Faison wished his wife to grow into a woman before he took her to his bed. Thus he surrounded her with beauty while he waited for her to come of age."

  Juliana felt a pang in her chest. Unless a bride was quite young, few men willingly postponed their husbandly rights.

  Lissant nodded to the tapestry behind the bed. "As you surely know, the unicorn is the symbol of chastity and purity. My lady was that."

  And last eve she, Juliana Kinthorpe, pregnant with a child not her husband's, had lain beneath it. How sadly ironic. Nay, sacrilegious. Feeling the whore she had become in Gabriel's arms, she turned away. "You were her maid?"

  "I was."

  Yet Juliana sensed no hostility toward herself. "What of the baron? Did he die?"

  "I! is thought so, that he was among the dead brought out after the siege, but as some bodies could not be identified, it is not known for certain."

  Could he still be alive, languishing over the loss of his lady? Ah, sweet suffering. To have loved and been loved so deeply—

  Juliana halted her childish fantasizing. Far more likely, Baron Faison had not touched his child bride because he'd been impotent, aged rather than young and handsome as she envisioned. Only women knew how to love, and, as they were alone in that knowledge, none but the foolish believed their love returned. Though Juliana had once been among their ranks, Bernart and Gabriel had taught her well the truth of a man's heart.

  "A romantic tale, non?" Lissant asked.

  Juliana looked around. Aye, a tale. Doubtless one that grew more fanciful with each telling. "It is." No reason to hurt Lissant's feelings.

  "Just like your name," Lissant said. "Isolde. So romantic."

  Juliana had once thought so herself. "Do you miss your mistress?"

  The maid's smile wavered. She hesitated before speaking. "She was beautiful and most elegant for one of so few years, but so spoiled and full of vainglory it was difficult to tend her. She could be charming, but I do not think she saw much beyond her nose. Even Lord Faison, who worshiped her, fell outside her sight. But for all that, I do miss her some."

  Then this was not a tale the troubadours would embrace, after all. It would take much embellishment for it to find an audience, and greater exaggeration of the baron's immortal love than existed in this maid's heart.

  As if remembering it was a lady to whom she spoke and not a servant, as Juliana looked in her new garments, Lissant's cheeks flushed with color. "Th-the nooning meal is soon to be served," she said.

  Her stammer fleetingly reminded Juliana of Alaiz. How she missed her sister, her gentleness, the companionship they'd shared.

  "My lady?"

  Juliana met Lissant's questioning gaze and shook her head. It was not that she was embarrassed by her clothing. Rather, she declined so that she might avoid facing Gabriel so soon after her humiliating confrontation with him in the kitchens. "I would prefer to eat in my chamber."

  Lissant looked momentarily disconcerted, but her brow smoothed. "Then I shall bring you a tray."

  "Thank you."

  The maid's hand was upon the door when Juliana called her back. "What of Baron Faison's brother whose lands lie west of here? Is it true he bears ill will for Lord De Vere?"

  Wariness transformed Lissant's face. "Why do you ask, my lady?"

  As the others had been warned Juliana was not to be trusted, so had she. "Curiosity. During the ride to Mergot, your lord spoke briefly of it."

  "Did he?" Lissant considered her, shrugged. "It is true. But then, Dominic Faison is a dark one."

  "A dark one?"

  Lissant nodded. "Not only does he serve a king not of his choosing, he lost an arm during the crusade. He hates the world for it."

  Juliana was swept with compassion for a man she did not know. Though many had given their lives in taking up the church's call to rout the infidels from the Holy Land, there were those whose suffering went deeper, who bore scars to forever remind them of the horror to which they'd been subjected. Bernart was not alone. "I see," Juliana said.

  Lissant opened the door. "I will return shortly with your meal." She bustled from the chamber.

  Juliana lowered her gaze to the rushes. If she escaped Gabriel, would Faison help her return to England? Or was he too embitt
ered to help anyone? More, would she be given the chance to find that out?

  For her remaining minutes alone, Juliana turned her attention to her chamber, this time with the eyes of one who knew something of what had gone before. Was it true the frivolous Lady Clarisse had felt naught for her husband? Or had she yearned for the touch he denied her as Juliana had been denied Bernart's?

  She looked to the garden tapestry that adorned the far wall. A lady and her lover sat among flowers, faces rapt with infatuation.

  Juliana stepped forward and lightly ran her hand over the tight weave, touched the faces of love. If only life were different, if feelings such as these existed in reality as they so readily existed in the imagination.

  She started to turn away, but paused. As wall passages were most often concealed behind such hangings, perhaps...

  She was not disappointed—at least, until she discovered that the narrow, iron-banded door was locked. No doubt by Gabriel's hand.

  In the shadow of the tapestry, she fingered the keyhole. Could another instrument be used to open the door? If so, what lay beyond? Escape from Mergot? She sank her teeth into her lower lip. She had given Gabriel her word she would make no more attempts to escape, but what of Alaiz? If an opportunity to return to her sister arose, could she turn from it? She could not.

  Though Juliana's decision to seek a way past the locked door meant breaking her word, she reasoned that Gabriel was, himself, without honor. After all. he had stolen her from her home. Forget his reason for having done so, that he had more of a right to the child she carried than Bernart. Were he in her place, he would feel no twinge of conscience for what she intended.

  A sound, slight, but telling, caught her ear. Lissant had returned.

  Hurriedly she stepped from behind the tapestry. The door swung inward, but it was not the maid bearing a tray.

  Gabriel's gaze swept her, shifted to the garden scene, returned to her.

  Did he know? Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the tapestry sway slightly. Heart pounding, she stepped from it. "There is something you require?"

  "Your presence at table."