Releasing Henry

by Sarah Hegger

  “And Beatrice, Garrett, and the children will live there?”

  “That is the plan.” Henry stopped chewing and pulled a face. “At least, that was the plan, but since I am not performing my chamberlain duties adequately enough for him to leave that plan looks to be changing.”

  Alya sensed much more behind that statement. “You do not perform them adequately?” She struggled to see Henry as anything less than competent at whatever he did. Even as a slave, he’d had the calm air of self-assurance about him.

  “Nay.” Henry sliced beef and handed it to her. “Roger finds my performance lacking.”

  “Perhaps Roger should give you a chance.”

  “Nay.” Henry stroked her cheek. “As much as I appreciate your defense of me, he is right. I find myself dodging those responsibilities.”

  “Why?” Henry did not dodge things.

  He ate a slice of beef before replying. “It does not sit well with me anymore. I do not enjoy the games and the intrigues. The thrust and parry of politics bore me.”

  “Ah.” His work at the manor made sense now. “You prefer to work with your hands.”

  “Something like that.” He tore of a hunk of bread and ate it. “Cairo changed me in ways I am only now beginning to discover.”

  “Not all of it for the worst?” Until she uttered the words, Alya had not understood how much his answer mattered to her.

  Henry’s expression softened. He cupped her cheek. “Not all of it for the worse. Some of it so much better than I could have hoped for.”

  The heat in his eyes awakened an answering heat in her. It had been too long since he had lain with her. A day out of the castle had done more than awaken her appetite for food. Alya had other appetites that whispered of being neglected. “You did not ask me what I spoke of to your mother and sisters.”

  “Nay, I did not.” He traced her bottom lip with his thumb, his gaze slumberous and fixed on her mouth.

  Alya slid over and straddled his lap. “I spoke to them of Bahir.”

  At the apex of her thighs, his rod thickened and swelled.

  “Bahir?” He slid his hands about her waist, rocking her on his hardness.

  “Mmm.” She let the sweet press of him against where she ached most seep into her muscles. “Bahir grew up in a harem you know?”

  Henry pressed his hot mouth against the column of her neck. “I did know that.”

  “Did he also tell you that what he learned there?” Hungry for the feel of him, Alya pressed her breasts against his chest.

  He thrust his rod against her core. “He did not tell me that.”

  “He told me.” Alya’s need rose to a sharp hunger to feel him inside her. “He told me all the ways in which a woman may please her man.”

  Henry groaned.

  The sound thrilled her.

  “Tell me.” His breathing rasped in her ear.

  “Nay, Henry.” Alya bit the lobe of his ear. “There are some things that must be shown as they are spoken.”

  Chapter 30

  Henry stood on the ramparts beside Roger as indistinct figures jogged along in a large group, banners snapping in the breeze.

  “Can you see who it is?” Roger shielded his eyes from the glare.

  “Nay.” Traces of Henry’s excellent mood still sat in his bones on a low rumble of contentment. He had left Alya still asleep in their bed. Asleep, and wearing the flushed bloom of satisfaction he had put there. This morning he stood ten foot tall. “Armed?”

  “Not for war.” Roger frowned. “I see knights, and then palfreys between them.”

  “Aye.” An army moved differently. Faster, with more intent and casting a glitter from armor and weapons. This party moved at a pace more suited to escort with women and children.

  Dressed with his normal disregard for his status Garrett joined them on the ramparts.

  Henry liked that about Garrett. Regardless of who he had married, Garrett stayed true to himself.

  “Who have we here?” Garrett peered at the approaching party.

  Roger glanced at him. “That is what we are trying to ascertain.”

  With a jerk of his head, Garrett stilled.

  “What is it?” Roger glanced at Henry and then Garrett.

  “Roger.” Leaning over the parapet, Garrett took a deep breath. “You did send the missive to Sir James, did you not?”

  Roger sucked in a breath. “Henry sent it.”

  The pit of Henry’s stomach dropped into his boots. “Nay. Garrett sent it.”

  Balling his fists, Roger scowled at them. “Tell me someone sent the missive.”

  Silence.

  “God’s balls.” Roger pounded the stone parapet. “I have two chamberlains, and this is the result.”

  “Garrett is your current chamberlain.” Henry refused to take the blame for this. He had been telling Roger he did not want the job.

  With a glare, Garrett jabbed a finger at him. “I am only chamberlain because you were missing. You’re back and now you are chamberlain.”

  “Nay, I am not.” Henry refused to back down. “You are the incumbent and far better suited to the job than I. I left the armory and you and Roger said you would deal with this.”

  “Jesus on the blasted cross.” Roger advanced on the two of them. “I could bang your stupid heads together. Are we saying the missive never got sent?”

  Henry took a step out of punching range. “I think that is exactly what we are saying.”

  Garrett threw back his head and laughed.

  However misplaced his humor, Henry also saw the amusing side of this.

  If his thunderous scowl provided any hint to his mood, Roger, not at all. “So, you are telling me that I have the King’s cousin riding to my keep with his daughter in tow. The same daughter whom he proposes as a bride for Henry.”

  The situation lost any trace of humor. “Except I am already married.”

  Garrett laughed harder.

  With a punch hard enough to shut him up, Roger got to him before Henry.

  “Right.” Clasping his hands behind his back, Roger paced the wall. “We need to make a plan, and before they reach our gates.”

  “And one that doesn’t make Sir James angry enough to complain to his cousin,” Garrett said.

  “We need time to break the news gently,” Roger said. “But with the entire keep knowing of Henry’s marriage, we don’t have that time.”

  “You could banish Henry.” Garrett rubbed his nape. “Make it appear as if you in no way support his marriage.”

  “Within the next hour?” Roger glared at Garrett. “And ignoring my open support for Henry’s marriage thus far.”

  Henry knew only one person with the skills for this. “We need Mother.”

  Relief spread over Roger’s and Garrett’s faces. “Aye.”

  * * * *

  Mother stared at them. “You had best tell me that again.” They had joined her in the armory to find a solution.

  Roger stumbled through the explanation a second time. It sounded even worse the second time around.

  “What do you expect me to do?” Mother threw up her hands. “Clearly, we have to tell Sir James as soon as we can, and grovel.” She fixed Roger with a stare. Her hands flew to her mouth and she gasped. “Dear God.”

  “What?” Henry knew he was not going to like what came next.

  “Sir James lost his son on holy pilgrimage.” Mother took a shaky breath. “He may not take kindly to the fact that you threw his daughter over for a Saracen.”

  “I did not throw her over.” Even as he argued, Henry knew it made little difference. Neither did the fact that Alya was not Saracen. That is what Sir James would see. “We need to get Bahir out of sight.”

  Mother rubbed her temples. “Get them here. Bahir and Alya need to be part of this conversation.”

  The last thing Henry wanted to do was upset Alya further. Not when they had taken a small step toward each o
ther again. “Why?”

  “Because.” Mother poked his shoulder. “If you are about to decide what is to become of them for however long Sir James stays here, then they should be part of that conversation.”

  Roger unearthed a page and sent him off.

  It took a few minutes to find them. All of which, Roger spent at the casement, calling a rolling report back on the progress the approaching party made.

  It made Henry want to tip him out the casement.

  “What is it?” Alya arrived, her pretty cheeks pink and a secretive smile just for him.

  If only he could scoop her up and return them to the bedroom where their problems melted away.

  “We have a problem.” Mother took Alya’s hands and led her to the chairs beside the hearth. “It seems we have an unexpected visitor at our gates.”

  None of this would be happening if he either took his duties as chamberlain seriously or officially handed over the job to Garrett. When Mother finished, all he had to offer his wife was a shrug and, “I’m sorry.”

  In a graceful ripple of motion, Alya stood. “So, this man thinks to marry his daughter to Henry. My husband.”

  “Aye.” Mother dipped her head.

  “And he hates my people because his son died in one of the wars you brought to our lands?”

  The atmosphere in the hall stiffened to rival Sir James’s banner in the breeze.

  “Lady Mary.” On a low bow, Bahir approached Mother. “I think it best if I make myself scarce whilst you attempt to clear up this misunderstanding.”

  Momentary relief washed through Henry. It would be much easier were Bahir not about to upset Sir James further.

  “Thank you, Bahir.” Mother took his hand. “We are sorry to ask you to do this. You are a guest in our home, too.”

  “We are both realists, my lady.” Bahir bowed over her hand. “The way the world works is not always as we would like it.”

  “We will send you to Garrett’s demesne.” Roger clapped Bahir on the shoulder. “The place is habitable for the most part, and it will only be for a short time. Until we get this goat’s ballocks sorted out.”

  Fists curled into her sides, Alya stepped forward. “If he goes, I go.”

  * * * *

  Alya may as well have tossed a viper into their midst.

  “Nay.” Henry fastened hard hands on her shoulders. “You are not going anywhere.”

  Had she been any less furious, her heart might have sung at the starkly possessive look he bent on her. Her Henry looking at her like that should have been a dream come true. Instead, she wrenched free of his hold. Her anger came from that aching place within her that had formed on the day her uncle had hurled her into the street. A wound barely healed, when the villagers of Anglesea had torn it open again. A seeping hole that gushed fresh blood every time Henry refused to stand by her side and every time Henry reminded her of her otherness here.

  With sad eyes, Lady Mary looked at her. “We meant no offense, sweeting. It is sometimes best not to rub salt in a wound, and Sir James is a proud, arrogant man who has the king’s ear.”

  “If it were not him it would be another.” Too long her anger had festered within her and now demanded it be heard. “There will always be one reason or another why I am not right to be Henry’s bride. I do not fit here. Like Bahir. We are as brother and sister, Bahir and I, and if you hide him in shame from those who visit. Then you must hide me in shame as well.”

  Henry frowned. “I think you are overreacting. This is a special—”

  “And that is precisely the problem.” Alya needed out before she hit someone. “You think I am overreacting every time something like this happens.”

  Spreading his arms wide, Henry frowned. “Something like what?”

  She could not credit he even asked her that. “The way people refuse to accept me.”

  “They need time.” Reaching for her, Henry’s tone gentled. “All they know of you is that our nations have been at war. They will come to accept you in time.”

  “They will come to accept me?” Her! The daughter of one of Cairo’s wealthiest merchants. A girl who could have looked high for an advantageous marriage. If she had not been chased out of her home, and chased out because people were angry about a war that men like Henry had brought to her land. Indeed, Henry himself had climbed aboard his huge horse, taken up his steel and wielded it against her countrymen. Here they called her barbarian. They wallowed in their own filth and the filth of dogs and called her savage. Dogs other than Jamila. “Nay, Henry.” That she did not shriek her outrage surprised her. “I care not if they accept me. In fact, they can all go straight to hell.”

  Face darkening, Henry stepped closer to her. “That is enough.”

  “Nay, it is not.” Not even close. “You brought me back to your country as your bride, and now you seek to hide me away.”

  “Alya.” Flushed, Henry glanced about at his family. “We will not speak of this now.”

  Roger and Lady Mary stood close together, with lowered heads as if they tried not to hear what she said. Impossible as she intended to yell even louder before she was done. “Nay we will not because I will not be here later.” Alya stood beside Bahir. “I will be leaving with Bahir.”

  “Why are you being so stubborn?” Henry grabbed his hair as if he would yank it out by the roots. “You know how my family has suffered in the eyes of the king. I have told you all of this. It is only for a day or two.”

  “It may as well be for the rest of my life.” Hooking her arm through Bahir’s, she tugged him with her. “I will be with Bahir at the manor until you are ready to acknowledge me as your wife in the true sense.”

  “I already acknowledge you as my wife.” Written clearly in the taut, grim lines of his face and the rigid set of his shoulders was Henry’s smarting pride. He would hate that she berated him before his family. “I brought you here, did I not?”

  She could not stand here a moment longer and stare at his arrogant face. She felt a momentary twinge that they would now see her as a shrew, but if they could not accept her either, there was no point in keeping their good opinion. Dragging Bahir in her wake, she stormed from the hall.

  * * * *

  “Can you credit that?” Henry stared at Roger and then his mother.

  Roger shook his head. “Women!”

  “Women?” With an imperiously raised brow that every Anglesea child knew spelled trouble, Lady Mary turned on her oldest son. “What could you mean by that, Roger?”

  “Um…not…only that she deliberately chooses not to understand the fix we are in. Bahir understood. You did not hear him flapping his gums.”

  “Bahir understood perfectly.” Garrett smoothed the lie of his tunic. “But it does not mean he accepts what you have decided. He is merely older and a pragmatist and has lived in this world too long to fight that which he cannot.”

  Henry had not the patience for Garrett and his riddles. “What, in God’s name, are you talking about?”

  “The mighty Angleseas.” Circling his arms Garrett encompassed the hall and everyone in it. “The power and might of a family who have always stood foremost in the kingdom. Even in the king’s anger, you were not banned from court. You have never known what it is like to be looked at and judged before someone has even learned your name.”

  Frowning, Roger stuck his hands in his belt. “What are you saying?”

  In Henry’s memories of Garrett and Roger, this conversation would not be happening and would probably involve fists and boots by now.

  “I am saying.” Garrett clapped Roger’s shoulder. “You have no understanding of what it is to be other. Not only have you always been a part of the herd, you have often been the prime stock in that herd. For people like Alya, Bahir and myself, the herd is a hostile place.”

  “You are comparing your situation to theirs?” Henry marveled at Garrett’s audacity.

  “In part.” Garrett shrugged. “And in a
s much as when you look at me you see first bastard, then blacksmith and finally the man beneath all of that.”

  * * * *

  Face expressionless Bahir watched her pack. “You are sure you would do this, my lady?”

  “Of course.” Feigning more confidence than she felt, Alya shoved her new dresses into a large chest. If they insisted on sending her from them like some sort of leper, she would take all her pretty things with her. And her dowry. “Are you going to help me?”

  “Nay.” Bahir rose from the casement. “If I am unable to prevent your foolishness, then I shall not aid you in it.”

  “Fine.” She hopped over Jamila who insisted on lying in the middle of her path. “Could you move?”

  Jamila dropped her head on her paws in silent protest.

  “If you keep at this, I shall not take you with me.” Her threat lacked teeth, because if she went, Jamila went with her. Jamila thought nothing of the threat either and did not even flick an ear. Alya stubbed her toe on a smaller chest. “You really will not help me?”

  “My lady.” Bahir took her by the shoulders. “You are acting out of hurt, and that is never a wise place from which to make decisions.”

  “Well, maybe I do not feel wise,” Alya said. Bahir always had this way of bringing reason to her moods, and she did not want it right now. She wanted to enjoy her anger, let it cocoon her from the hurt throbbing beneath it. “Maybe I want to act from my feelings.”

  “Aye.” Bahir gave her a sad smile. “Except those decisions do not end well.”

  She was so very tired of going around in the same circles with Henry. First, she believed he valued and cared for her, and the very next minute, she felt shoved aside. Since they had made land in England, they pushed and pulled at each other like two scrapping children. “What should I do then?”

  “I cannot tell you that.” Bahir shrugged.

  Honestly, what good was he when she finally listened and then he would not talk? “But that does not stop you for pointing out my mistakes.”

  “Alya.” Bahir sat her beside him on the bed. “All marriages take time to settle. Two people join their lives and must discover all the ways in which they are compatible and all the ways in which they are not.”