by Sara Bennett
“I wanted to love you on a warm beach, with the blue sky above and the sea whispering against the shore.”
Rhona laughed softly. “You are a poet, my Reynard. You can love me there, if you like, but I know a soft warm bed which would be just as wonderful.” She hesitated, doubt in her eyes now. “Perhaps I am too bold. I have never…this is the first time I have ever lain with a man I truly love. A man I want so much it makes me ache.”
He groaned softly and kissed her again. “You must show me to your bed, my lady,” he said, “but not yet. I would wed you first.”
Rhona blinked, taken by surprise, and then she smiled. “Aye,” she whispered. “I would like that…”
Henry had run to the stables to saddle Lamb, and he found Jenova there before him. She was ordering the stableboys about, her brown hair loose about her shoulders, her green eyes wide and shadowed with anxiety. She turned as he reached her, and she moved close to him, her hand upon his chest.
“Henry, be careful.”
“And you, my love. I will be back as soon as I can.”
She gazed into his eyes as if she would memorize them, and he felt a jolt straight to his heart.
“I love you, Henry,” she said, oblivious to his men, who were beginning to gather about them, and the stableboys rushing to saddle horses. “I cannot live without you. There, I have said it. I have opened my heart to you, just as you did to me. Mortred hurt me, so that I thought I was afraid to love again, but then you came and…I could not stop it, no matter how I tried.”
Someone cleared his throat, but Henry did not notice. He bent his head and kissed her, his lips soft and serious against hers. A pledge.
“Jenova, my sweetest love, will you let me stay at Gunlinghorn? Will you marry me and let me live with you here, until I am so old I am no longer of use to you or anyone else? This is my home, and you and Raf are my family, and I cannot go. If I go I will be nothing, my life will be nothing. I love you.” He suddenly looked lighter of spirit, and some of the shadows had left his eyes. “I love you,” he said again. “You are everything to me.”
Jenova felt herself smiling so broadly that it hurt. She put her hands up, one on either side of his face, and held him still. He was rumpled and untidy; so unlike Henry. She had broken through his handsome armor and found this man, who was weary and worn, a little afraid and very vulnerable, and who had suffered terribly. No doubt he would soon resume his charming, handsome façade, but now she knew that this was the real Henry. And she loved him.
“Oh Henry, of course I want you to stay with me always. I was worried you would be bored with us here, that you would long for your old life back again. I could not bear it if you grew weary of us,” she whispered, tears filling her green eyes.
“Weary?” he said, and laughed with sheer joy. “It is my old life that wearies me. You are everything to me, Jenova. I have been adrift for so many years I had forgotten what it was like to belong, perhaps I was afraid to belong. If I gave too much, then I thought I would be hurt. But now I know that the pain is worth it, if I can have you. I will never leave you.”
She kissed him resoundingly, and there was a muffled cheering and more throat clearing. Realizing they had an audience, Henry glanced up and noticed several of his men surreptitiously wiping tears from their eyes. It was a moment to be long remembered.
However, Jean-Paul was about to escape, and Henry knew he must try and stop him.
“I have to go.”
Lamb was ready, and Henry climbed into the saddle with graceful ease. Jenova looked up at him, still smiling, her green eyes shining.
“Come back to me,” she said.
“Always.”
And he was gone, leading his men from the stable and out into the bailey. The gate opened as they approached, and they were soon pounding away from Gunlinghorn Castle, heading for the harbor.
“Keep safe,” Jenova whispered. “My dearest love.”
The dawn had arrived in truth now, the gray sky washed with pale light. Henry put his head down and rode hard, feeling the wind on his face and knowing that same wind would soon be filling the sails of the boat that could take Jean-Paul far beyond his reach.
How had he escaped? But then Jean-Paul seemed to have a miraculous ability to escape justice.
It had been an eventful night.
He had told Jenova the worst about himself and she had not turned away from him. She had understood. It did not matter to her that in the end he had failed to save those poor souls; she had thought he was brave and strong. You were only a boy, she had said. She’d forgiven him, when he had had such difficulty forgiving himself, and her forgiveness had helped him begin his own healing.
She loved him.
After all these long years, Henry had found his place in the world. Not at court, where he had imagined that taking a new woman as his mistress every month was a good sort of life. Now he knew differently. He had not allowed himself to feel, probably not since he had left Jenova’s home in Normandy all those years ago. Now he knew what he had been missing, and he meant to hold on to it. Tightly.
“My lord! There it is!”
They were upon the clifftop, and Henry could see down to the harbor. There was the boat, one of the clumsy-looking traders, but it was still tied up to the wharf. Although the captain and crew were clearly preparing to leave, there was a problem, and Henry could see what it was.
The stallion.
Jean-Paul’s stallion resented being forced to board the vessel via the narrow boardwalk set from the wharf to the boat. One man was presently holding the reins as another was attempting to coax the animal from behind, while Jean-Paul moved back and forth, trying to urge his horse aboard through sheer force of will.
At that moment the stallion lashed out and the man behind fell, screaming, to the ground. The animal reared, clearly terrified, while Jean-Paul tried to calm it, his black robes flapping in the wind.
Henry took the track down, riding dangerously fast, feeling Lamb’s powerful body beneath him as they flew over stones and bracken and uneven ground. When he reached the sand dunes, he could see that the stallion was back on the wharf and Jean-Paul and the captain of the vessel were in close conversation. Henry pushed forward again.
The crew saw him. He could see the faces of the seamen lift in his direction as they paused in their work. Somebody shouted and pointed. The priest turned and went still, his black cloak drawn close about him, faceless behind his cloth mask. And then in an instant he had thrust his foot into the stirrup and mounted upon his stallion’s back.
“Halt!” Henry called.
Jean-Paul let the stallion dance nervously beneath him, but Henry wasn’t fooled into thinking he would not try to escape. “Henri, of course,” Jean-Paul sneered. “We meet here, at the end of the story, as is only right. Did you know that Baldessare set me free? He wanted to kill me. Why was that, do you think?”
“Souris? It is you, isn’t it? I know it is you.”
The priest tilted his head. “You know nothing.” His voice was harsh. “You understand nothing, Henri!”
“I took away your father, and you hate me for it. But I looked for you, Souris, even after you hurt the girl, I looked for you. I could not find you in your room.”
Henry was closer now. He saw Souris’ shoulders shake. Damn him! Why did he think it so funny? “I wasn’t in my room,” he said, his voice surprisingly clear, despite the wind and the mask. “I was with her. The girl. She was nearly dead, but I wanted to be sure. I wanted to see if I could make her scream one last time. I was with her when you murdered my father and burned down my home.”
Henry was chilled, sickened. He knew then that Jenova was right. He was not like Souris, he never had been. The horrors he had seen had, for a time, numbed him into thinking he did not care. Into thinking he was like Thearoux’s band, enjoying cruelty and pain for their own sake.
But he wasn’t.
As he stared at Souris, unable to answer, the priest removed his hood. The scars were obsc
enely stark in the bright morning air. Far worse than Henry had imagined, they distorted the face that should have been. It was Souris, and yet not. And then the priest turned his head, and the other side of his face became visible, and it was untouched.
Henry knew him. With a dizzy wave of recognition, he saw the boy he had hated and feared, and yet who had been his friend in all those awful months at the château.
“I was burned,” Souris said. “I thought I would die. I lay in the ruins and thought I was dying, and that you had left me to die. I knew you’d gone. Henri the avenging angel! Only you could have done such a thing as burn down le château de Nuit.”
“You should have died.” There was no pity in him for Souris, not now.
Souris held his stallion firm. The ship’s crew had finished their work, and the vessel was ready to leave. “Ho, Priest!” The captain stepped nearer, eyeing the horse warily. “We must go. If you still want to take passage with us, then you must board now. I will take you, but the beast must stay—he has injured one of my men.”
Souris gave him a bleak look. “I will not leave my horse. He is my friend.”
The captain shrugged indifferently and turned away, calling to his men to cast off.
Henry tried again. “Souris…”
Souris turned to him, and his ruined mouth was working. “I would have! I would have died! Do you know how I was saved? Oh, you will laugh, Henri, when I tell you. The villagers came, those poor creatures whose lives we had tormented for so long. They came creeping about the ruins of le château de Nuit, thinking to make certain everyone was dead. And then they found me.
“I was burned too badly for them to know my face—and I do not think they knew it anyway. But they saw that I was a young boy, and they thought I was you, Henri! Their friend, who tried to help them, who had saved quite a few of them from my father and his hunt. I let them believe it. I thought it was prudent. They took me back to their village and nursed me, and told me that God had saved me because I was a saint. They sent me to the monastery to be a priest, because they thought me a saint.” He was nearly choking on his laughter. “Now, do you see what is so funny, my friend?”
Henry shook his head, even more sickened. “You should have used your good luck to change your life for the better, Souris. As I did. Instead you have wasted it in bitterness and hate.”
“Not wasted. I have enjoyed our encounter again after all these years, Henri.”
“You must come back to Gunlinghorn with me, Souris. This time you must pay for your crimes.”
Souris smiled. The wind wrapped his black cloak around him. A sinister figure. A sad figure. They stared at each other in silence, and then Souris threw his hood up into the air. It was caught on the breeze and flew over Henry’s head, like a dark bird.
“If I must die, then let it be as myself,” he shouted. Then, before Henry could stop him, he turned his black stallion and, driving it with heels and hands and knees, made for the end of the wharf.
Shocked, Henry started after him, but he was already too late. Souris reached the end and the stallion leaped out, into nothingness. Briefly they seemed to hang in the air, the powerful animal and the cloaked man, and then they hit the gray water with a splash.
Shouting, Henry dismounted, running to lean over the edge. Both man and horse had surfaced, floundering in the icy sea. But even as he started to believe the situation might be saved, that the small boat the captain had launched might reach Souris in time, he saw the flash of a knife. And the blood in the water.
In a moment the weakened horse sank below the waves, and the man clinging to its back went too. And there was nothing but the roll of the gray sea.
Henry stood up and wiped the spray from his face. It was over. Le château de Nuit, and all it meant to him, was finally gone. It was time for Henry to take up his life anew.
At Gunlinghorn.
Epilogue
The chapel at Gunlinghorn was awash with wild roses and honeysuckle. The scent hung heavy in the small space, making Henry’s head swim. Or mayhap it was sheer happiness that did that. He was marrying his one true love, the only woman he had ever loved and would ever love.
Jenova.
Beside him, Reynard shuffled his feet. Henry glanced at him, and saw that he was exchanging looks with Rhona. They had been wed at Easter and were leaving Gunlinghorn after Henry and Jenova’s wedding. They didn’t seem very clear on where they were going, but they were so much in love they didn’t care.
Alfric had survived his father’s attack and was still at Hilldown Castle. When she had heard of his wounds, Agetha had turned into a harridan, demanding to be taken to his side. She had nursed him back to wellness, and now to everyone’s surprise—apart from Jenova’s—Alfric and Agetha were to wed. Henry was not sure what sort of neighbors they would make, but they could only be better than Baldessare.
Baldessare, who was dead, murdered by Souris. So Henry’s secret could still have been a secret if he had wished it so. But he had known he could not be completely healed until he had completely cleansed himself. King William had returned to England after Easter, angry with the news that the earls had been plotting against him. But by then Lanfranc had already put down the short-lived, rather small rebellion. Henry had told William the truth one night, late, while drinking some good French wine. William had seemed to understand, but he had already been predisposed to forgive Henry—Henry had just helped him defeat two hundred Danes who had arrived, rather late, in support of the rebellious earls. Thus, so far, everything was well.
A murmur rose at the back of the chapel, capturing his attention. Henry turned to look at what was causing the stir, just as a small boy, resplendent in a tunic and breeches of moss green with gold trimmings, led the way toward the front of the chapel. As he drew nearer, Raf gave Henry a wide smile, his face alight with happiness. Henry smiled back and gave him a wink. Then he looked beyond Raf, and all coherent thought left his head.
Jenova was dressed in white velvet.
The most expensive cloth in England, the most difficult to procure. And she looked breathtakingly beautiful. She looked like a queen.
The velvet clung like skin to her lush curves. The neckline was cut low, outlining full breasts, following her trim waist to her hips, and then flaring out in heavy, shimmering folds to brush the stone flags as she walked. Her entire body seemed to gleam, and then Henry realized that the cloth had been sewn with hundreds of tiny pearls.
Her hair was unbound, curling about her back and shoulders, and more pearls shone among the warm, brown tresses. Her lovely face was aglow with happiness, just like her son’s, and her green eyes were fixed on Henry’s. Loving him.
Henry had not known it was possible to feel like this. Now that he did, he would never look at his friends with puzzlement and envy again. Jenova was his life, and he knew he would never regret leaving behind the gaudy emptiness he had once thought so important. Here at Gunlinghorn, he had finally found home.
She had reached him. Dazed, he saw now that there were flowers, as well as pearls in her hair. A cascade of cream and gold honeysuckle. She smelled of spring, a new beginning. He wanted to take her out to the meadows, as he had long ago in Normandy. Only this time he would not end the day with a kiss. His gaze slid over her white velvet gown, lingering, wanting to undress her slowly, taking his time.
“Can I kiss my bride?” he asked her, the old wicked glint back in his blue eyes.
Jenova leaned forward and said breathily against his ear, “In a moment you can kiss your wife.”
He smiled. “Even better.”
Hiding his own smile, the chaplain began to say the words that would join them together.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
SARA BENNETT has always had an interest in history, and to survive a series of mind-numbing jobs, she turned to writing historical romance. She lives in an old house with her husband and two children in the state of Victoria, Australia, where she tries to keep the house and garden tidy, but rarely succ
eeds—she’d rather be writing or reading.
You can write to her at www.sara-bennett.com (don’t forget the hyphen!) or Publicity Department, Avon Books, 10 East 53rd Street, New York, NY 10022-5299.
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Copyright
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
KISSING THE BRIDE. Copyright © 2004 by Sara Bennett. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
