Royce rubbed his knuckles against her cheek and tenderly asked, "Am I to infer from that remark that you actually think I'm so good that I could beat him with my shield strapped to my shoulder over a broken arm?"
She tipped her head to the side. "Can you?"
A lazy smile tugged at the corner of his mouth, and his sensual lips formed one word: "Absolutely."
Standing outside the tent beside Arik, Jenny watched as Royce reached down to take his lance from Gawin. He glanced at her, hesitated a split second—a pause that seemed somehow meaningful—then he turned Zeus and started to ride toward the ring. It hit Jenny then what he had hoped for but had not asked for, and she called out for him to wait.
She hurried into Royce's tent and snatched up the shears they'd used to cut cloth strips to bind his wounds. Running up to the black destrier who was restless now, pawing the ground with his front hoof, she stopped and looked up at her smiling husband. Then she bent and cut an oblong piece from the hem of her blue silk gown, reached up and tied it around the end of Royce's lance.
Arik walked up beside her and together they watched him ride onto the tourney field, while the crowd thundered with approval. Jenny's gaze riveted on the bright blue banner floating from the tip of his lance, and despite all her love for him, an aching lump of tears swelled in her throat. The shears in her hand hung like a heavy symbol of what she had just done: from the moment she'd tied her banner on Royce's lance, she had severed all her ties with her country.
She swallowed audibly, then jumped in shock as Arik's flattened hand suddenly came to rest atop her head. As heavy as a war hammer, it stayed there for a moment, then it slid down to her cheek, pulling her face against his side. It was a hug.
"You needn't worry we'll awaken him, my dear," Aunt Elinor said with absolute conviction to Jenny. "He'll sleep for hours yet."
A pair of gray eyes snapped open, searched the room, then riveted with lazy admiration on the courageous, golden-haired beauty who was standing in the doorway of her chamber, listening to her aunt.
"Even without the tisane I gave him," Aunt Elinor continued as she went over to the vials and powders laid out on a trunk, "any man who returns, wounded, to participate in five more jousts would sleep the night through. Although," she added with a bright smile, "he did not take much time routing the lot of them. What endurance he has," she said with an admiring smile, "and what skill. I've never seen the equal to it."
Jenny was more concerned with Royce's comfort at the moment than with his feats when he reentered the lists. "He's going to hurt terribly when he does awaken. I wish you could give him more of the potion you gave him earlier, before he went back onto the field."
"Well, yes, it would be nice, but it's unwise. Besides, from the looks of those scars on his body, he's accustomed to dealing with pain. And as I told you, 'tis not safe to use more than one dose of my potion. It has some undesirable effects, I'm sad to say."
"What sort of effects?" Jenny asked, still hoping to do something to help him.
"For one thing," Aunt Elinor said in a dire voice, " 'twould render him unable to perform in bed for as long as a sennight."
"Aunt Elinor," Jenny said firmly, more than willing to sacrifice the pleasure of his lovemaking for the sake of his comfort, "if that's all there is to worry about, then please fix more of it."
Aunt Elinor hesitated, then reluctantly nodded, picking up a vial of white powder from the top of the trunk.
" 'Tis a pity," Jenny observed wryly, "that you couldn't add something to it—something to keep him calm for when I tell him Brenna is here and that Stefan and she wish to be wed. He did so want a life of peace," she added with a tired chuckle, "and I doubt he's ever been through more turmoil than he has since he set eyes on me."
"I'm sure you're right," Aunt Elinor unhelpfully replied. "But then, Sir Godfrey confided to me that his grace has never laughed as much as he has since he's known you, so one can only hope he enjoys laughing enough to compensate for a life of upheaval."
"At least," Jenny said, her eyes darkening with pain as she glanced at the parchment on the table that had been delivered to her from her father, "he will not have to live in daily expectation of my father attacking him in order to set Brenna and me free. He has disowned us both."
Aunt Elinor glanced sympathetically at her niece, then she said philosophically, "He has always been a man who was more capable of hate than love, my dear, only you never saw it. If you ask me, the one he loves best is himself. Were that not so, he'd have never tried to marry you off, first to old Balder and then the MacPherson. He has never been interested in you except to further his own selfish goals. Brenna sees him for what he is because he is not her true father, and so she is not blinded by love."
"He disowned my children, too—any I ever have—" Jenny whispered shakily. "Imagine how much he must hate me to disown his own grandchildren."
"As to that, 'twas not what you did today which hardened him to your children. He never wanted any if they were sired by the duke."
"I—I don't believe that," Jenny said, unable to stop torturing herself with guilt. "They would have been my children as well."
"Not to him," Aunt Elinor said. Holding a small glass up to the light, she squinted at the amount of powder it contained, then she added a pinch more. "This powder, if administered in small amounts for a few weeks, has been known to render a man completely impotent. Which is why," she continued as she poured some wine into the glass, "your father wished me to accompany you to Claymore. He wanted to be certain your husband would not be able to get you with child. Which, as I pointed out to him, meant that you, too, would be childless, but he cared naught about that."
Jenny's breath froze, first in horror at her father's actions and then at the thought that Aunt Elinor might have been following his instructions. "You—you haven't been putting any of it in my husband's food or drink, have you?"
Unaware of the tense, thunderous gaze leveled on her from the bed, Aunt Elinor took her time stirring the mix with a spoon. "Heavens no, nor would I have. But I cannot help thinking," she added, carrying it carefully toward the bed, "that when your father decided not to send me to Claymore after all, he must have arrived at some better plan. Now go to bed and try to sleep," she ordered sternly, unaware that she had just added to Jenny's pain by convincing her that her father had, indeed, intended to lock her away in a cloister for the rest of her life.
Aunt Elinor waited until Jenny had gone into her chamber. Satisfied that her niece would get some badly needed rest, she turned to the duke, then gasped, her hand flying to her throat in momentary alarm at the ominous way he was glaring at the glass she held. "I prefer the pain, madame," he said shortly. "Take that powder out of my chamber. Out of my demesne," he amended implacably.
Recovering from her brief alarm, Lady Elinor slowly smiled her approval. "Which is exactly what I thought you would say, dear boy," she whispered fondly. She turned to leave, then turned back again, and this time her white brows were drawn together into a stern line. "I hope," she admonished, "you will have a care for those stitches of mine tonight—while you are making certain my potion has not already done its worst to you."
Hampered by his bound left arm and fingers, it took Royce several minutes to struggle into a gray cashmere robe and tie its black belt around his waist. He opened the door to Jenny's bedchamber quietly, expecting her to be either in bed asleep—or, more likely, sitting in the dark, trying to come to grips with everything that had happened to her today.
She was doing neither, he realized, arrested in the doorway. The tallow candles were lit in their wall sconces and she was standing serenely at the window, her face tipped up slightly, seemingly looking out across the torchlit valley, her hands clasped behind her back. With her delicately carved profile and red-gold hair spilling over her shoulders, she looked, Royce thought, like a magnificent statue he'd seen in Italy of a Roman goddess looking up at the heavens. As he looked at her, he felt humbled by her courage and spi
rit. In one day, she had defied family and country and knelt to him in front of seven thousand people; she had been disinherited and disillusioned—and yet she could still stand at the windows and look out at the world with a smile touching her lips.
Royce hesitated, suddenly uncertain about how best to approach her. By the time he finally came off the jousting field today, he'd been near collapse, and there'd been no chance to speak to her until now. Considering everything she had sacrificed for him, "thank you" was scarcely adequate. "I love you," sprang to his mind, but just bursting out with the words didn't seem entirely appropriate. And if, by some chance, she wasn't thinking about the fact that she'd lost family and country today, he didn't want to say anything to remind her of it.
He decided to let her mood make the choice for him, and he stepped forward, throwing a shadow across the wall beside the window.
Her gaze flew to him as he walked toward her and stopped beside the window. "I don't suppose," she said, trying to hide her worry, "that 'twould do the least bit of good for me to insist that you go back to bed?"
Royce propped his good shoulder against the wall and restrained the urge to agree to go back to bed—providing she came with him. "None whatsoever," he said lightly. "What were you thinking about just now while you were looking out the window?"
To his surprise, the question flustered her. "I—wasn't thinking."
"Then what were you doing?" he asked, his curiosity aroused.
A rueful smile touched her inviting lips, and she shot him a sideways look before turning back to the window. "I was… talking to God," she admitted. " 'Tis a habit I have."
Startled and slightly amused, Royce said, "Really? What did God have to say?"
"I think," she softly replied, "He said, 'You're welcome.' "
"For what?" Royce teased.
Lifting her eyes to his, Jenny solemnly replied, "For you."
The amusement fled from Royce's face and with a groan he pulled her roughly against his chest, crushing her to him. "Jenny," he whispered hoarsely, burying his face in her fragrant hair. "Jenny, I love you."
She melted against him, molding her body to the rigid contours of his, offering her lips up for his fierce, devouring kiss, then she took his face between both her hands. Leaning back slightly against his arm, her melting blue eyes gazing deeply into his, his wife replied in a shaky voice, "I think, my lord, I love you more."
Sated and utterly contented, Royce lay in the darkness with Jenny cradled against his side, her head on his shoulder. His hand drifted lazily over the curve of her waist as he gazed across the room at the fire, remembering the way she looked today as she ran to him across the tourney field, her hair tumbling in the wind. He saw her kneeling before him, and then he saw her standing again, her head proudly high, looking up at him with love and tears shining unashamedly in her eyes.
How strange, Royce thought, that, after emerging victorious from more than a hundred real battles, the greatest moment of triumph he had ever known had come to him on a mock battlefield where he'd stood alone, unhorsed, and defeated.
This morning, his life had seemed as bleak as death. Tonight, he held joy in his arms. Someone or something—fate or fortune or Jenny's God—had looked down upon him this morning and seen his anguish. And, for some reason, Jenny had been given back to him.
Closing his eyes, Royce brushed a kiss against her smooth forehead. Thank you, he thought.
And in his heart, he could have sworn he heard a voice answer, You're welcome.
Epilogue
January 1, 1499
'Tis an odd feeling to have the hall this empty," Stefan joked, glancing about at the twenty-five people, including the fifteen men who comprised Royce's private guard, who'd just finished eating a sumptuous supper.
"Where are the dancing bears, tonight, love?" Royce teased, putting his arm around the back of Jenny's chair and smiling at her. Despite his joking about the bears, Royce had never enjoyed a Christmas season the way he had this one.
"I look," she laughed, her hand pressed against her abdomen, "as if I swallowed one."
Despite her advanced pregnancy, Jenny had insisted that Claymore and all its inhabitants should celebrate the fourteen days from Christmas Eve to Epiphany in the traditional manner, which meant keeping "open house." As a result, for the past eight days, feasting had continued without abatement, and any travelers who arrived at Claymore's gates were automatically welcome to join the family. Last night, the castle had been the scene of an enormous celebration put on especially for the delight of Royce's serfs and villeins, as well as all the villagers. There had been music and carols provided by hired minstrels, performing bears, jugglers, acrobats, and even a nativity play.
Jenny had filled his life with laughter and love, and, at any hour, she was due to gift him with their first child. Royce's contentment was boundless—so much so that not even Gawin's antics were annoying him tonight. In keeping with Jenny's decision to celebrate the season to its traditional fullest, Gawin had been given the role of the Lord of Misrule—which meant that for three days, he presided at the high table, where his role permitted him to mimic his lord, issue outrageous commands, and generally manage to do and say things for which Royce would have otherwise banished him from Claymore.
At the moment, Gawin was lounging back in Royce's chair at the center of the table, his arm draped over the back of Aunt Elinor's chair in a comic imitation of the way Royce was sitting with Jennifer. "Your grace," he said, imitating the clipped tone Royce used when he expected instant obedience, "there are those of us at this table who are wishful of an answer to a puzzle."
Royce quirked a brow at him and resignedly waited for the question.
"Is it fact or falsity," Gawin demanded, "that you're called the Wolf because you killed such a beast at the age of eight and ate his eyes for your supper?"
Jenny bubbled with irrepressible laughter, and Royce sent her a mock-offended look. "Madam," he said, "do you laugh because you doubt I was strong enough to slay such an animal at such a tender age?"
"No, my lord," Jenny chuckled, sharing a knowing look with Godfrey, Eustace, and Lionel, "but for a man who prefers to skip a meal rather than eat one that is poorly cooked, I cannot ken you eating the eyes of anything!"
"You're right," he grinned.
"Sir!" demanded Gawin, "an answer if you please. What part of the beast you ate matters not. What does matter is your age at the time you slew it. Legend puts you at everything from four to fourteen."
"Is that right?" Royce mocked drily.
"I thought the story was true," Jenny said, eyeing him quizzically. "I mean the part about you slaying a wolf as a child."
Royce's lips twitched. "Henry dubbed me the Wolf at Bosworth Field."
"Because you killed one there!" Gawin decreed.
"Because," Royce corrected, "there was too much fighting and too little food to keep flesh on my bones. At the end of the battle, Henry looked at my lean frame and my dark hair and said I reminded him of a hungry wolf."
"I don't think—" Gawin decreed, but Royce cut him off with a quelling look that clearly said he'd had enough of Gawin's antics for the evening.
Jenny, who'd been carefully concealing the recurring pains assailing her, glanced at Aunt Elinor and nodded imperceptibly. Leaning close to Royce, she said softly, "I think I'll rest for a little while. Don't get up." He squeezed her hand and nodded agreeably.
As Jenny arose, so did Aunt Elinor, but she paused beside Arik, her hand on the back of his chair. "You have not opened your present, dear boy," she told him. Everyone else had exchanged gifts today, but Arik had been absent until supper time.
Arik hesitated, his big hand atop the small, silk-wrapped item beside his trencher. Looking sublimely uncomfortable to be the focus of so much attention, he awkwardly unwrapped it, glanced at the heavy silver chain with a small, round object dangling from it, then covered it with his hand. A curt, uneasy nod expressed his "profound gratitude," but Aunt Elinor was not pu
t off. As he started to arise from the table she smiled at him and said, "There's dried grapevine blossom within it."
His heavy brows drew together, and even though he spoke in his lowest tone, his voice boomed. "Why?"
Leaning close to his ear, she whispered authoritatively, "Because serpents loathe grapevine blossom. 'Tis a fact."
She had turned to accompany Jenny, and so she did not see the odd thing that happened to Arik's face, but nearly everyone else at the table noticed, and they gaped in fascination. For a moment, Arik's face seemed to stretch tight, and then it began to crack. Crevices formed beside his eyes and pouches developed beneath them. The straight line of his stern lips wavered, first at one corner, then the other, then white teeth appeared…
"God's teeth!" Godfrey burst out, nudging Lionel and even Brenna in his enthusiasm. "He's going to smile! Stefan look at that! Our Arik is—''
Godfrey broke off as Royce, who'd been watching Jennifer, thinking she'd intended to sit by the fire, suddenly lurched out of his chair, still holding his tankard of ale, and strode swiftly to the foot of the stairs leading up to the gallery.
"Jennifer," he said, his voice sharp with dawning alarm, "where are you going?"
A moment later, Aunt Elinor looked down from the gallery above and cheerfully replied, "She is going to have your baby, your grace."
The serfs in the hall turned to exchange smiling glances, and one of them dashed off to spread the news to the scullions in the kitchen.
"Do not," Aunt Elinor warned in direst tones when Royce started up the stairs, "come up here. I am not inexperienced in these matters, and you will only be in the way. And do not worry," she added breezily, noting Royce's draining color. "The fact that Jenny's mother died in childbirth is nothing to be concerned about." Royce's tankard crashed to the stone floor.
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