Velvet Bond

by Catherine Archer

  Without even pausing to consider, Raynor pulled hard on the reins. No matter what his wife had done, he could not endanger her, even to get to Harrington. His stallion reared at the sudden halt, pawing the air wildly. For a moment, Raynor had some difficulty keeping his seat, but he managed to do so.

  When he’d calmed his horse, his gaze went to Elizabeth, who stood before Nigel, her sapphire eyes round with horror and guilt.

  His heart sank even further.

  If he’d had any doubt as to her culpability, seeing her shamefaced reaction settled it once and for all.

  “Come then, Warwicke,” Nigel gibed again, his light blue eyes alight with cruelty. He tightened his hold on Elizabeth. “Do you not wish my death above all things? What makes you hesitate?” Then he laughed, as if this last question were indeed very funny.

  Raynor clenched his teeth on the rage that made his blood thrum. He did wish for Nigel’s death above all things. But he could not risk harming Elizabeth.

  Nigel seemed to sense Raynor’s defeat, for he laughed spitefully. “Lay away your sword, Warwicke.”

  Raynor hesitated.

  “Did you hear me, Raynor?” the other man growled. He reached into his belt and withdrew a small but viciously sharp-looking knife. Without preamble, he pressed it to the pale column of Elizabeth’s throat. “I will kill her, and gladly. If only for the sake of seeing you suffer as you have made me.”

  Raynor knew Harrington was telling the truth.

  Elizabeth’s eyes pleaded with her husband as the knife pricked her throat and a drop of blood stained her creamy flesh.

  Raynor’s heart throbbed anew at the sight of her blood, spilled by his enemy’s weapon. Seeing her sustain even the slightest injury was like a hot knife in his gut.

  God help him, but he loved her for good or ill. And no matter what she had done, he could not change that.

  He was trapped by his own heart, just as he’d always feared. Raynor was completely incapable of acting in his own interests because of his feelings for a woman. The knowledge should have been staggering, but he only felt a strange sense of inevitability.

  He’d been born to love Elizabeth. It was as inescapable as time, and just as unstoppable.

  With a bellow of frustration and rage, Raynor cast his sword aside.

  Nigel threw back his head and laughed with triumph.

  Fixing the other man with a gaze that fairly bled hatred, Raynor growled harshly, “Harm her further and I shall kill you slowly. And only after torture so exquisitely painful you will beg for that end.”

  He turned his tormented gaze to his wife, his eyes dark as umber. Despite his anger, Elizabeth could see fear for her clearly etched on his harshly chiseled face.

  In that moment, Elizabeth knew he loved her.

  But what good would come of that love, she did not know. For it was equally clear that he thought she had betrayed him. Love, fear and hatred warred on his face as he met her gaze.

  And was it not true? Had she not betrayed him by even speaking with Harrington? She should have ridden for the keep and fetched Raynor immediately.

  Tears sprang to her eyes even though she fought against shedding them. It was too much. To at last discover he loved her, only to have him hate her, too. She could not bear it.

  Somehow she must make Raynor see that she had not meant to do ill.

  Elizabeth held out her hand. In spite of the knife pricking her throat she cried, “Raynor! It is not as you believe! I did not ask him to come here! My only sin is one of omission. I knew you would kill him if I told you he was come!”

  “Quiet, slut,” Nigel growled, and pulled her head farther back. The knife stung, and she felt a new trickle of wet on her throat.

  “Harrington, I will kill you,” Raynor threatened, starting forward. But he stopped short when Nigel held her even tighter. If Raynor had heard her words, he gave no sign, for his eyes remained hard on hers.

  Nigel taunted, “You, my lord fool, are in no position to make such rash statements. Were I you, I would not waste breath on them.” To Elizabeth’s horror and surprise, he chuckled, seeming to enjoy this game immensely. “I could kill her this instant, and you could do nothing.”

  Elizabeth knew she had been wrong, wrong to protect this man’s life. Obviously he was mad, whether over losing the members of his family or for some other reason. It mattered not why. What did matter was that he clearly was incapable of ever being an uncle to Willow.

  Raynor had had the right of it all along. She longed to tell him she was sorry.

  But what he said next made a chill of despair run down her spine.

  Raynor fairly spat the words. “You and she are of like mind, Harrington. She is as faithless as you in her loyalties. But be that as it may, the woman is my wife, and what I have I keep to me.”

  Nigel laughed again, almost gleefully. “Oh, Raynor, my most clever opponent. You could not be more wrong in your assessment of your wife.” He gave Elizabeth’s black hair a vicious tug. “It is I who have been betrayed by her. She sent a message telling me she would not help me to see Willow. I came here to try to make her change her mind, to see reason, but she refused.”

  The expression on Raynor’s face did not change. Would nothing sway him? Even as Elizabeth wondered why Nigel would defend her by explaining what had really happened, her answer came.

  Nigel snickered. “I wish you to know, Raynor, that she has been loyal to you, that she loves you as you do her. It will give me great pleasure to think of your agony while I take her myself. For take her I will.”

  Raynor leapt to the ground and started toward them, but Nigel pushed the knife deeper to Elizabeth’s throat, and she cried out in pain as the blood trickled afresh. “Stay back, or she will die here before your very eyes.”

  Elizabeth watched the frustration and helplessness play over her husband’s face. She longed to help him. Raynor was a man who hated not being able to control his surroundings. This would be agonizing for him.

  Nigel spoke again, his tone unexpectedly reasonable. “There is a way, Warwicke.”

  Warily Raynor watched him, saying nothing.

  The other man went on when he saw that no reply was forthcoming. “Willow. You bring the child to me, and your wife is yours.”

  Raynor tipped back his head and howled his rage and frustration like a wolf caught in a trap.

  Despite his previous bravado, she felt Nigel tremble behind her.

  And even Elizabeth, who loved him, was not immune to the stark fury in her husband.

  “Never! Not while there is a breath in my body!” Raynor screamed. “You will not lay a filthy hand upon her!”

  Nigel answered Raynor with nearly equal fury, the obsession with having what he wanted obviously driving him beyond his fear. “You bastard!” he cried. “Who are you to deny me my right? She is my own flesh—my daughter. Not yours, as you so boldly lie. For lie you do. I know you do not believe the child is yours. You could not. I know Louisa told you I raped her. You can’t deny me my right to my child. I will stand for it no longer.”

  Elizabeth felt the words like a cold shock of ice through her veins. What was he saying? Nigel was Willow’s father? He was Louisa’s brother, although only by marriage. And he’d just admitted he’d raped her.

  “No!” Raynor shouted, trying to deny the facts even now.

  But one look at her husband’s face told Elizabeth the truth of it. It was there for her to see, in the taut line of his jaw, the hatred burning in his eyes as he focused all his attention on the man behind her.

  Were Elizabeth not so filled with anger, revulsion and fear herself, she would have found it in her heart to almost feel sympathy for the man who held her. For when Raynor did get his chance for revenge—and there was no doubt he would, judging by the look in his dark eyes—she would not wish to be in Nigel’s place.

  Then, as the truth of what Nigel had just said sank into her, so many things became suddenly clear. Jean had said Louisa had birthed the babe on
ly six months after arriving at Warwicke. Elizabeth had thought he might be jealous that the babe was not his, but Raynor’s anger at that time had been caused by the knowledge that his friend had been raped by her own stepbrother. It explained why Raynor had appeared so angry to the serving woman, even while he was so unstintingly kind to Louisa. And this also explained why Louisa had hated her brother, had been the one to beg Raynor to keep her child from seeing him. Raynor’s determination to convince everyone that Willow was his child now made sense.

  Raynor was past the point of speech. He stood there, his attention a fixed point of hatred. He’d neither blinked nor showed any sign of acknowledging anything Nigel said since that one-word denial after Harrington divulged the fact that he was Willow’s father.

  As if realizing he would get no further with Raynor at this moment, Nigel began to back toward his horse. Even as he climbed atop the gray, he never let up the pressure of the knife on Elizabeth’s throat.

  She was forced to follow him.

  Raynor never moved, but watched them intently for some opportunity to act.

  The blade was so tightly pressed to her throat that Elizabeth was incapable of even speaking. Fear made her follow Nigel Harrington’s every movement. An even greater fear of what he would do to her once he got her to his own castle made Elizabeth watchful of any opportunity to break free from her captor. Soon she found herself seated before him on the gray, her hope dwindling like mist in sunshine.

  Still holding tightly to her, Nigel rode up to Minerva and gave her a sadistic kick in the side. The horse reared and galloped away. Then he did the same to Raynor’s mount. Now there would be no way for her husband to ride after them.

  As they swung around to ride away, she tried to turn her head, to meet Raynor’s gaze one last time, to plead with him to forgive her. Nigel prevented her with another tug on her hair. Tears came to her eyes, but they were not from physical pain.

  It was only when they were nearly to the edge of the clearing that her chance came.

  A rabbit bolted across their path, and Nigel’s horse shied. He reached down to grab at the reins with the hand holding the knife.

  Realizing that it was this moment or none, Elizabeth pulled free of his flailing arms and threw herself to the ground.

  The stallion reared above her, and she covered her head with her arms as she screamed.

  The slashing hooves came down but scant inches from her face, and she screamed again. It was then that Elizabeth felt herself being dragged free of the impending danger. Strong arms lifted her away and up into a protective circle.

  For a moment she was disoriented by the speed with which the rescue had occurred.

  “Are you hurt?” Raynor asked through her confusion.

  Though she was shaking, Elizabeth raised her head from his chest to look at him. “Nay.” Her breath came in uneven gasps.

  “I will kill him!” Raynor shouted in a voice that left no doubt that he was making not a threat, but a promise.

  It had all happened so quickly that Nigel was still working to get his mount under control. When he saw that Raynor’s attention was on him now, instead of Elizabeth, he gave the animal a vicious kick, sending it surging forward, away from his enemy. Yet his cowardice did not stop him from calling out a warning over his shoulder. “You will pay for this, Warwicke, and dearly.”

  With a cry of rage, Raynor raced across the clearing after him, clearly ready to kill his enemy with his bare hands. “Come back, you bastard. Fight me. Fight me!”

  Desperately Elizabeth called after her husband, “Raynor, this will serve no purpose! You have no weapon, and can never catch him without your horse. Let him go. He is too much a coward to come back and face you.”

  Raynor dropped to his knees on the grass, panting as if he had run for leagues.

  Elizabeth knew he was fighting hard to control the rage that drove him, the hatred that made him lust for Nigel Harrington’s blood. She knew she had to leave him to fight his demons alone. There was naught she could do until he had driven them from himself.

  Besides, Elizabeth knew Raynor would not thank her for anything she might say on the subject. The look on his face when he found her with Nigel had told everything.

  She wanted to lie down and cry, herself.

  But she did not. It would gain them nothing.

  More for something to do than from any notion that he would want her to, Elizabeth began to look for Raynor’s sword in the thick grass. All the while, she tried not to look at Raynor, who had not moved from where he knelt.

  Just as she finally located the weapon and bent to raise it from the ground, she felt a hand on her arm.

  Elizabeth started, turning awkwardly to face him. She looked into Raynor’s eyes. They were cold as stone. Her chest ached with the loss of what happiness they’d found in these past few days. She was filled with an aching emptiness.

  All her life she’d known how to manage things and people, to smooth over difficult situations without effort. It was a gift she possessed.

  But with Raynor it was not the same. Her own future happiness hinged on whether or not he accepted her.

  This was one time she could not fix things.

  Either forgiveness and understanding came from inside her husband, or it did not. She could only pray that it would in time.

  Turning away from her, as if it hurt him to continue to look upon her, Raynor said, “We had best return to the keep.”

  It was in that moment that something inside Elizabeth broke, like a wineskin filled too full. During the months of their marriage, she had done her utmost to remain calm, to be fair to Raynor, to give him time to adjust to their marriage. To her.

  But Elizabeth had reached her end. She, too, had married a stranger and started a new life without having time to become accustomed to the notion. And not once in their relationship had Raynor ever made concession for that.

  From inside her, the tears gushed forth.

  She raised her hands to her face to stop them. But they came all the harder. As a chocking gasp escaped her, Raynor swung around.

  When he spoke, the amazement in his voice was all too apparent. “You...you are crying.”

  Elizabeth lowered her hands to look at him, though she continued to weep as if her heart were indeed broken. “Are you surprised, husband, that I might cry?”

  He shook his head. “It’s just that I have not seen—”

  Elizabeth stamped her foot in utter frustration. “You have not seen. My lord Raynor. You see very little but what you wish to. I know that I am not without fault, my lord. I know that I made a dreadful mistake in not riding directly to the keep and telling you Nigel was here. But I knew you would kill him, and I could not live with being the cause of his death. It did occur to me that I could just ride back to the keep, and thus avoid speaking with him at all, but I did not wish to live under the threat of his possible return. I thought I could simply tell him to go, and he would.” Then Elizabeth straightened her shoulders and tossed her head proudly as she waved a hand at him. “'Tis true you are my husband, and I owe my loyalties to you first. But you think only of yourself and your honor. What of mine? At the time, it seemed a small thing to save a fool’s life by warning him away. I did not know of the things he had done...what he was. You had told me nothing.”

  She went on. “But you expect all of me and nothing of yourself. You want loyalty from me and give none in return. You immediately assumed I had come here with the intention of betraying you. And it will always be thus with us, Raynor.” Elizabeth clasped her hand to her chest. “Because you do not see me. You see through the eyes of the past, and the wrongs others have done you. Did you truly care for me and believe in me, you would trust that I would not do you ill, and look for some other explanation.”

  A strange ache settled in Raynor’s chest as he looked down at his wife. Her eyes were dark as a rain-drenched midnight. Gone was the sparkling sapphire he’d come to love. And by his own fault.

  Eliz
abeth was right. He should have given her a chance to explain. Raynor stood looking at her with growing sadness. And she was right about other things. Not once had he been able to see her without the pain of his childhood clouding his vision. She’d just been held at knifepoint, and all he could think of was his own pride. It was wrong of him, and the time for seeing past his hurts had come.

  Raynor could not speak, because of the lump of pain in his throat. Desperately he held out his arms in appeal and whispered, “Forgive me, love.”

  For long moments, she simply watched him as if she could not believe her eyes. Then, with a cry of joy, she came to him.

  Raynor held her hard against him, barely crediting that she would be willing to forgive him yet again. Elizabeth was indeed completely unlike his mother. She knew how to love and to give of herself unstintingly. There was but one thing between them now. The lie he had told her and the world about being Willow’s father. But though Nigel had told Elizabeth the truth of the situation, Raynor still could not speak of it. Even now he could not betray Louisa’s trust in him by admitting the facts to Elizabeth, regardless of how much he wanted to prove his commitment to her. At long last, he drew back to speak, trying to explain without explaining. “Elizabeth...about Willow...I cannot...”