Winter's Bride

by Catherine Archer

  The little one jumped up enthusiastically. “I will. I will surprise him.” She trotted off, and Lily watched her as she ran back toward her father, laughing as she went.

  Lily then mounted her own mare and urged her in the direction of the keep. She didn’t care what Tristan might make of her behavior. She could not face him now, not with her own motives and fealty so suspect in her own mind.

  Tristan saw Sabina racing toward him and smiled, grateful that Lily had kept her hidden from the bastard until he was gone. It was only as he saw Lily and the mare streak from the shelter of the forest and gallop toward the keep that he realized anything was amiss.

  Taking up his daughter, who was prattling on about playing a game, he jumped upon his own horse and followed close behind. Something told him Lily was not playing a game. Only his care of the tiny precious burden on his lap kept him from setting a pace that would overtake the unpredictable damsel.

  He would reach her soon enough, he promised himself.

  When they gained the courtyard he called to one of the serving woman working there. “Come, take Sabina into the keep.” He had just seen Lily disappear around the edge of the stables.

  The woman did not quite manage to hide her curiosity as she looked up at her master, but she made no comment. Tristan swung his mount in the direction he had seen Lily go.

  When he reached the back of the stables, he saw her there, calling for a groom. When she spotted him, her eyes widened. Gathering her gray skirt in her hands, she swung her legs over the pommel, clearly meaning to bolt. Before she could get down from the horse, Tristan was upon her, nearly dragging her from the mare.

  She began to struggle, but when her gaze came to rest on the man who had come to the door of the stables to gape at them, she blushed scarlet and grew still. It was without contest that she allowed Tristan to take her into the small wooden structure at the side of the stable.

  Once inside, he saw that it was occupied by one of the stable boys, who was vigorously cleaning a saddle. Tristan ordered, “Go!” and the young man jumped to obey.

  The second they were alone, Lily rounded on him. “How dare you? Have you lost your wits?”

  He ignored her words. “Why did you run away?”

  “Why did I run away, you great madman?” Her voice was husky with frustration and anger. “I ran away because I am confused.”

  He frowned. “Confused?”

  She went on, her gray eyes as stormy as a winter sea. “I just hid from my own fiancé, the man my parents chose for me. He is the one I owe allegiance to, because of their choice. How do you think that affects me, Tristan Ainsworth? Or have you thought of me in this at all?”

  His frown deepened, and he felt his own anger rise. “I did not force you to hide your presence. I said nothing.”

  “Nay, you did not. Perchance that is the trouble. Mayhap I would be less confused if you had forced it upon me. What has happened has obscured the lines of right and wrong, loyalty and trust.”

  He was more than slightly shocked at the depth of her honesty, but could not fathom the cause of so much anguish. Her revelations gave him great encouragement that she might be coming to her senses. “It is only your own stubbornness that makes it confusing. You know what is true.”

  “That is clear only to you, Tristan. For me it is not so. You do not know what it is like for me to feel that I have betrayed my family. You do not know what my life has been like these past three years, how my parents have cared for me, loved me. It is impossible to resolve the thought that they could ever do me aught but good.” Her eyes glistened with unshed tears, and she turned her back to hide them.

  For a long moment, Tristan could think of nothing to say. If only she would see that it was within her own power to resolve this within herself. Reason warred with sympathy inside him, causing him to feel some of the confusion Lily had claimed.

  Sympathy won. He had never meant to hurt her. Doing so would do neither him nor her any good. Without thinking he reached forward and put a gentle hand on her shoulder. An instantaneous heat flared out from that point of contact and gave Tristan a start.

  Lily must have felt it, too, for she spun around, drawing away from that touch.

  Tristan dropped his hand at his side with a bitter laugh. “Pardon, my lady. I had not realized my very touch was so abhorrent to you.”

  He was even more surprised than before when she replied with misery, “Your touch is not abhorrent to me.” As quickly, she added, “You simply surprised me.”

  Tristan felt far more disappointment at the last words than he would ever have admitted. A new wave of frustration made him speak with unintended bitterness. “I want you to tell me, Lily, explain to me why you feel such deep loyalty that you believe in your parents no matter what evidence there is to the contrary.”

  Her expression grew incredulous. “What you see as clear evidence is not so very clear to me. I have explained that to you. You have no understanding of what it was like, waking to find that nothing around you was familiar.” She held his gaze, willing him to try to see. “I first opened my eyes on my mother’s face, though I knew not who she was at the time. You should have seen her, the joy she felt at seeing me awaken. I watched as she fell into my father’s arms, weeping. Her reaction could not have been feigned.”

  He interrupted her in a tone of calm reason. “I do not doubt but that it was quite a touching moment. Yet you did not know them any more than you do anyone here at Brackenmoore. What did they do to gain your abject and unquestioning allegiance?”

  She faced him squarely. “They cared for me, cared with a tenderness and love that could not be mistaken.”

  Tristan realized that this devotion could very well have been brought on by guilt at what they had done, but he refrained from saying so as Lily continued. “I was so weak and helpless. My mother bathed me, helped me to feed myself. My father read to me, carried me to the gardens and sat with me for hours, telling me of the years I had lost. From his stories, I began to piece together the events of my life. And when I was strong enough, he took me before him on his horse, showed me our lands, introduced me to the folk who lived on them. They knew me, Tristan, each and every one of them. I was surrounded by people who said I was Lillian Gray, that Lord Robert Gray was my father, Lady Elaine my mother. It was impossible to doubt the certainty of so many. No one, not one soul, said a word to me of a babe or you. It is the memory of these past three years in such tender care that leaves me reluctant to set aside all I do know to believe the words of a man who…”

  Lily glanced down, having barely stopped herself. She had nearly admitted that he had awakened her body and mind more than all the efforts her parents had gone to over the past years. Already she had given away too much in the heat of her distress.

  Tristan said nothing, his lips a grim line.

  She willed him to understand. “Can you not see that when I hid myself from Maxim today I betrayed them and their love for me?”

  He shook his head. “You didn’t betray them, Lily. Even if what you say is true. Even if they did care for you so selflessly, does it negate all the wrong they did before that?”

  She sighed heavily, the admission she was about to make coming at great expense, for there was no telling how Tristan might use it against her. “There is something I have come to realize in all of this, Tristan, and that is that you genuinely wish to help me.” His obvious gratification soon turned to chagrin as she went on. “Yet even if much of what you have told me is true, even if I am indeed Sabina’s mother, I have only your word for how things were between you and me. Perhaps my parents have hidden the truth from me to protect me and not themselves. Perhaps, in their minds, it is not precisely as you have described.”

  He grimaced at this but remained silent for long moments, studying her, then shook his head. “I could accept what you say, believe that you actually believed your father and mother were worthy of such blind faith, if it were not for the fact that they have given you to Maxim Har
court, of all men.”

  She frowned and he added, “You have heard what Genevieve said? Think you she would lie? She knows nothing of your circumstances, has no reason to try to fool you.”

  Lily bit her lip. “That I do not understand. It is one of the things that confuses me most. There can be no mistaking the gentle nature of your betrothed. It may be possible that Genevieve has somehow misunderstood Maxim’s intent, misjudged him. She was quite young.”

  “Misjudged—!” he spat.

  Quickly she interrupted. “You heard what Maxim said of that event today.”

  His blue eyes darkened until the pupils were barely visible at the center. “And what of the way he behaved this day? The threats he made, his belligerent attitude?”

  She glared back at him. “How would you have him treat you, Tristan Ainsworth? How would you behave had he stolen the woman you intended to wed?”

  The coldness of his tone made her shiver. “No man of character such as his would lay a finger to what I held dear and live to tell the tale. I would kill him, slowly and with great relish.”

  Lily fought the urge to take a step backward, feeling it best not to argue Maxim’s position in the face of such obvious hatred as Tristan held toward him. Clearly, it was getting her nowhere.

  She decided on another tack. “Even if what you say of Maxim is true, why should that make me mistrust my father? I am sure he does not know him fully, if what you have related is true.”

  Tristan’s eyes narrowed. “Your father knows him well enough, Lily. I do not see how he could be ignorant of the man’s character. The only reason Harcourt is not swinging from a rope now is that he kept both feet in Richard’s camp, while spying for Henry. Your father must know this. How else do you think he could become close enough allies with a supporter of the house of York to give him his only daughter? That the Ainsworths backed Richard was his objection to our own marriage. He would rather a mad king than a York. Maxim will gain your inheritance and your father secures his position, even possibly his head, by making an allegiance with one who was his ally in loyalty to Henry, while now retaining favor at the court of Richard’s son.”

  She wanted to decry what Tristan said, but the explanation rang true. Her father had been a strong supporter of Henry, bemoaned his banishment even now. She shook her head desperately. “I will not believe this. You ask too much. In my memory you were a stranger to me until mere days ago.”

  Before she knew what he was about, Tristan had dragged her into his arms, his mouth assaulting hers.

  Lily struggled for a moment, tried to keep herself from responding, but she could not. Her lips seemed to have a life of their own as they softened, then awakened under his. Her arms crept up to twine about his neck.

  Tristan growled deep in his throat, his arms tightening around her as he molded her to the hard length of his body. When he brought one hand around to cover her breast, she felt it swell, becoming tender and aching with longing.

  She shifted her body to give him better access to the rigid tip, and Tristan obliged her by plying it with his thumb. His mouth left hers to scatter fervent kisses over her face and the long line of her throat. His breath was hot against her ear as he whispered, “You know me, Lily. There is no use denying it.”

  The words penetrated her passion-fogged mind with a painful intensity. She opened her eyes with a gasp of outrage. He had kissed her, touched her in order to prove that he was right.

  Desperately Lily pushed away from him, her heart hammering against her chest in wave after wave of agony. It was only with the greatest effort that she was able to sputter, “Take your hands from me, you knave.”

  Tristan fell back, his black-lashed eyes dark, his lean jaw hard. To her horror she realized that even now, after what he had just done, she still found him the most beautiful man she had ever seen. She still wanted him. She wanted to cry aloud in misery, but clamped her lips shut instead.

  He wiped at his own passion-swollen lips with the back of his hand, his voice harsh. “Well, can you still deny that there was love between us, Lily? How can you when every time we touch you come alive?”

  Lily raised her hands to cover her ears, knowing she could hear no more. Her throat swelled with misery. Why had she even attempted to explain things to Tristan? He had only managed to turn the situation around and make her more uncertain, then had used his knowledge of her physical reactions to him against her.

  Surely he must be wrong about her father. In spite of her reactions, it was Tristan who was wrong. Lily was the one who betrayed her family through some wanton fault in herself that made her susceptible to Tristan’s touch. Her father would not hide the past from her lest he thought it for her own good, would not give her to a man of poor character simply to satisfy his own political ends.

  “Lily,” Tristan said urgently. “You must begin to see the truth.”

  She had had enough of this assault on her senses and her allegiance to her family. Not caring now what commotion Tristan Ainsworth might choose to display, Lily ran from the shed.

  Thankfully, she reached Sabina’s chambers without speaking to anyone. Yet the slamming of the door behind her did not block out the endless repetition in her mind of all he had said.

  Lily knew she should leave Brackenmoore, but could not do so even now, for the same reason that she had hidden from Maxim. Her parents had protected her too closely, kept her from having to face anything painful, and Lily could no longer allow that.

  Something inside bade her to discover exactly what had occurred before that accident three years ago. That same inner knowing told her that it could only be found here at Brackenmoore, no matter what it might cost her to remain so near Tristan.

  Chapter Seven

  Tristan left the keep before the morning meal and went out to where the final construction was underway on the new signal tower. Immediately he threw himself into the physical work with more than his usual enthusiasm.

  He worked until his clothes were soaked with perspiration in spite of the chill winter air.

  But damn him, he still could not erase the last encounter with Lily from his mind. She had admitted that she knew he meant her no ill, but she was not ready to see that all he told her was indeed fact.

  It was no use telling himself that he did not care, for Tristan was not such a fool as to be able to lie to himself in the face of his own maddening emotions. That his agitation was surely caused by the fact that Lily did not seem to care about her parents’ disloyalty was of no comfort whatsoever.

  After what she had revealed to him about her illness and recovery, he did have a better understanding of her feelings. He could see that realizing the truth would be incredibly painful, but he did not see how she could continue to deny reality.

  Yet he saw that he had pushed her too far. It was clear that the discovery of the truth was going to bring Lily great pain, not the sense of freedom he had envisioned. Tristan now realized that the thought of causing her more hurt than she had already endured was untenable.

  He would push no more. He must allow her the peace of her forgetfulness, no matter how many sleepless nights that decision brought him.

  At table the next morning Lily could hardly bear to face Genevieve. After what had happened between herself and Tristan in the stables, it was just too difficult to meet those green eyes. Lily was also not ignorant of the fact that they seemed to focus upon herself for far too long when Marcel commented on how it was unlike Tristan to forgo eating with the family as he had done of late.

  Lily was relieved at Tristan’s lack of attendance, but not surprised that his family felt differently.

  Sabina pouted her pretty lips, and even her guileless eyes seemed to question only Lily. “Where is Da?”

  Benedict was the one who informed her that Tristan was quite busy working.

  Again Lily felt Genevieve’s gaze, and forced herself to stay still under her scrutiny. Genevieve had no reason to think that she had anything to do with his absence. In truth
she did not. Tristan’s actions were not governed by herself in any way.

  As soon as they finished breaking their fast, she begged leave to take Sabina for a walk. Genevieve gave permission with a look that told Lily very little of her thoughts.

  Lily hurriedly readied them to go out, glad to have escaped seeing Tristan this morn. Perhaps, she thought hopefully, he has gone away again. Benedict had said only that he was working.

  The thought was so encouraging that it was with a light step that she led Sabina through the castle gates and out into the wide cleared fields that ringed the castle. She did not even allow the too familiar smile of the guard posted there to bother her. He did, after all, believe she was a servant girl.

  If things were as they seemed, she might indeed have been flattered by the attention of the brawny young soldier. Yet things were not as they seemed.

  Not caring to allow herself to delve into such thoughts, Lily set off at a brisk pace. The air was really quite chill, but she was covered from neck to ankles in the warm cloak Tristan had given her.

  Sabina was equally warmly dressed, in wool clothing, a fur-lined cloak and tiny leather boots. The child began to skip through the short grass in her own awkward way, chattering up at her. Lily smiled, her heart warming as ever at her antics as they made their way across the bare hillside.

  Being conscious of Maxim’s appearance in the forest, Lily turned toward the shoreline. Surely no one would have the courage to approach that area, as it was in full view of the castle lookout at all times.

  She told herself that her concern was for Sabina’s sake. She felt no fear of Maxim on her own behalf.

  The winter-dry grass underfoot soon turned to sand. They came to a place where the path forked, one branch dipping sharply down to the shore, the other climbing upward from the ledge they stood upon.

  Sabina spoke with childish wonder as she looked down toward the shoreline, where the sea crashed against an outcropping of rock. “The bubbles are so pretty.”