The Devil's Temptress

by Laura Navarre

  “Benedict.” A spear of pain stabbed through her temple, the first warning stab of a megrim. Jesus wept, I cannot afford this now!

  “Brother, you are not speaking sense.”

  “My poor sister.” He gripped her hands. “Truly, I believe you knew nothing. Alienore, I must tell you the truth.”

  “What truth?” she said, hollow. Blessed Saint Swithun, do not visit this pain upon me now.

  “Theobold of Lyonstone is not your father.”

  “What?” Agony flared behind her eyes as the vise of pain clamped down.

  But she knew—she knew what he would say. Hadn’t she glimpsed the monstrous truth the night she fled?

  “Sister, you are common born.” He squeezed until the wishing-stone ring dug into her flesh. “A bastard, to speak plainly, like the man you married. You are no daughter to the Earl of Lyonstone, though our mother convinced him for a time that you were.”

  “I will not hear this—this shameful slander. It does you no credit, Benedict, to foul your tongue with that ancient gossip.”

  “’Tis no lie, and I will say it!” Her brother’s eyes glittered with fever. “Did he never tell you himself, all the time you spent in his shadow? You are our mother’s daughter by a carpet knight, her pauper of a cousin—that old cripple Raoul.”

  Alienore felt as though she were falling, the world sliding sideways around her. The blinding light of a megrim exploded behind her eyes. She wanted to deny what she heard, but the cold flame of certainty consumed her.

  Hadn’t she feared this all along? Wasn’t that why she and Raoul had quarreled when she demanded the truth and he refused to speak? Wasn’t it that awful possibility—not fear of Ponce at all—that sent her fleeing all the way from England to Aquitaine, as if she could outrun the truth?

  “’Tis a foul, wretched lie! I do not believe you.” A chasm of grief split her heart. “Did our father tell you?”

  “Not even on his deathbed.” Old grief darkened his eyes to lead. “Despite all her sins, he loved our mother too much. He loved you, despite everything—loved you enough to pretend to the whole world, even to himself, that you were his.”

  Desperately she ground fists against her temples, struggled to hold her head together, though it felt like a shattered egg. “God’s mercy, if he said nothing and our mother said nothing, then how . . . ?”

  “I had it from Sir Bors, and the old man did not deny it. Ask Raoul yourself, if you don’t believe me.”

  Aye, she would ask—she would demand the truth from him now, whatever came. She could no longer endure the wrenching doubt. She was an earl’s daughter—she was, and would believe until she knew otherwise. She possessed strength enough to hear the truth.

  “Jervaise,” she whispered, her throat aching. Now at her moment of crisis, her heart cried out for him. She ached for the comfort of his embrace, his hands soothing her pounding head, his raspy voice murmuring tender words. Without him, she was truly alone.

  If I break into a thousand pieces and shatter on the floor, I cannot help him.

  “Clearly some evil has befallen him.” As waves of pain crashed through her skull, she dragged herself upright. “Now of all times, scant miles from where the Scots are massing. Brother, I implore you, on your honor as a knight, on the love you once bore me. Help me find him—and for God’s sake, raise the levy!”

  He met her desperate gaze. “There is no need for a levy, for the Scots are not coming. I have it on the highest authority.”

  “More of Sir Bors’s wisdom? Anyway, where is the silver-tongued adder? Should he not be here, pouring more of his poison into your ears?”

  “He is occupied about his business,” her brother said vaguely—when the boy she remembered would have flown back at her. “You may ask my castellan to search, if there are men to spare. Your husband has them all massing in the village. ’Tis a foolish precaution, as I told him, but he would not heed me . . .”

  She ran from the hall, left his meanderings behind. Her heart ached for his disintegration, ached with grief and bewilderment. But she had no time to spare for Benedict now. Every instinct screamed that Jervaise stood in peril, and time was short.

  And she was an imposter, born out of wedlock, not an earl’s daughter after all—if she believed her brother. Everything she was, everything she claimed as hers, every truth she had defended her whole life long had been a wretched lie.

  Alienore stumbled through the donjon. Vision blurred, she reeled like a drunkard. Yet she could not outrun the shock of realization bearing down from behind like a tidal wave.

  She could not flee Lyonstone as she’d done before, not while her lands crouched, quivering beneath the threat of invasion. Not with Jervaise in mortal danger.

  Through the fog of tears, a glimmer of candlelight beckoned from the chapel. Instinct pulled her toward it, seeking the solace of faith. Inside, candles flanked the altar and limned the painted saints and martyrs in halos of gold. Tears spilled down her cheeks as a shuddering sob ripped through her.

  Stumbling to the altar, she fell to her knees.

  Yet the peace of God eluded her, now of all times, when she needed it most. The serene saints—even her patron Saint Swithun—stood cold and indifferent to her crisis.

  Scots William and his howling hordes could bring the walls tumbling down around their ears, and neither the saints nor their uncaring God would lift a finger to prevent it.

  Long-buried rage heaved like an earthquake beneath her surface. All her life she’d prayed, fasted, kept the holy days, contained her willful passions and subsumed her desires to a higher cause. She’d striven for virtue and piety—and for what? What manner of god could place her people in jeopardy? What god would see her stripped of the man she loved, with his hidden core of honor—and do nothing to aid her?

  “I have no god.” Trembling beneath this final injustice, she whispered the blasphemous words. The lightning spear of anger drove her to her feet. Roughly she thrust away from the place where she’d wasted so many hours in futile prayer.

  “No god!” She glared at the crucifix with its suffering Christ. “You are a dream, a lie, an illusion.”

  When even this sacrilege brought no reply, her simmering wrath exploded. A rack of candles stood nearby—wasted tribute to a god who would not help her. She gripped the iron rack in both hands and wrenched it free. Gobbets of hot wax showered down like meteors, spattering her arms and shoulders as she swung the mighty bludgeon.

  Her weapon crashed against the gilded rail before the altar. Wood splintered and cracked.

  Growling, she struck again, using all the power of her battle-honed body. With a snap, the rail split. Sobs ripped through her as she attacked the rail, the floor, finally the altar itself—all the symbols of her deluded childhood, all a monstrous lie. The mother who’d deceived her, the father who’d kept his silence, the years of futile striving for virtue that could never be hers.

  Somewhere, dimly, a horn was blowing, but that meant nothing to her. Through the red fog of rage, she glimpsed the wolf cowering under a pew, but that too meant nothing. When her strength failed, she cried out her grief to the heavens. The wolf flung back his head and howled.

  Grasping her lion-hilted knife—the blade she had no right to bear—she fell to her knees, hardly knowing what she meant to do. Turn the blade against herself, perhaps.

  Behind her, a shocked voice spoke her name. But she could not face it, nor the clatter and drag of crutches. Only when a gnarled hand gripped her shoulder did she draw a long, shuddering breath.

  Sagging against the altar, she curled around her pain like a wounded animal. Raoul embraced her from behind.

  “My dear child. By Saint George’s dragon—what has befallen?”

  “You knew,” she rasped, hoarse as Jervaise after her screaming rage. “You must have always known. Why else look after me all these years?”

  For a long time he said nothing, simply held her. At last he heaved a sigh of resignation. “Oh, that these evi
l tidings should reach you now.”

  “’Tis true, is it not?” She pressed her throbbing brow to the cool stone—unmarked by all her efforts. “’Tis you, not Theobold, who are my father.”

  “I cannot say otherwise.” His arms tightened around her. “These twenty years and more, Marguerite de Rievaulx has been my one true love.”

  Seeing the last shred of hope ripped away, she closed her eyes. “Then my entire life has been a lie. Everything I am . . . all that I strove for. Why, I cannot even claim the manor.”

  She swallowed against the raw scrape of her throat. “Jervaise will wish to annul our marriage.”

  “Child, do not say so.” The old knight sounded near tears himself. “No man can say you are not Lyonstone’s daughter—not even the earl himself, and that is God’s truth. For we both loved Marguerite, twenty summers ago in Paris—both of us, child. But he could offer her the world, the wealth and title she was born to, while I could offer her nothing but my heart.”

  Gently she dislodged his grip, and turned to search his careworn face. “And my—Theobold. Did he know?”

  A troubled expression shadowed his steel gray eyes, so like her own. “I cannot say what he knew or suspected, child, for we never spoke of it. Yet he offered me a place among his men and loved you as his own. Whatever he may have thought so long ago, he chose to believe the best of us all. Surely he would never have left you the manor if he believed you were not his.”

  She would have pressed him, but the rattle of mail stopped her. At the door stood a mud-spattered squire in Lyonstone blue, staring in shock at the disarray.

  Heat surged into her cheeks. Whatever her parentage, these folk believed her their true lady. She would be selfish indeed to bruise their faith now, when they needed her most.

  Sharply conscious of her tearstained face, she rose on shaking legs. Raoul braced his crutches and levered himself up.

  She drew a long breath. “What tidings?”

  “I come from sentry duty on the border, as the duke ordered yesterday.”

  “And so?”

  “We’ve spied movement on the road. Milady—the Scots are coming.”

  Her hand flew to her knife, but the sheath was empty. She spied it on the floor and reclaimed it—badly scratched, but the steel held true. Her instincts screamed for action, but she kept her voice steady.

  “How many and how far?”

  “A thousand or more.” The squire paused as her breath hissed. She swallowed and nodded for him to continue.

  “They march with little order, but swiftly. If they don’t halt or turn from the road, they will be here by dawn.”

  She shared an alarmed look with Raoul. “Does my brother know of this?”

  “Aye, milady.” The squire shifted. “I went to him first, as the duke cannot be found. But the young earl says I’m mistaken.”

  Even as frustration bubbled through her blood, she knew Benedict would not be moved. His will had been stolen, subverted somehow by Sir Bors. Any attempt to sway her brother would waste precious time—time they did not have.

  “What of Sir Bors of Bedingfield? Where is he this day?”

  Discomfort flickered in the squire’s gaze.

  “Well? Do not seek to spare me. Where is the accursed man?”

  “We spied him last night, milady, riding for the border . . . with two others.” The squire looked unhappy. Clearly he knew the tidings would not please her. “One man was an outlander, a servant of some sort, an old fellow with a turban. The other rode a black charger—and carried a Saracen sword.”

  “Jervaise.” All the blood drained from her body, leaving her cold and shaken. “God’s mercy! Bedingfield has tricked him, compelled him—”

  “Nay, milady.” Again the lad shifted. “I wish it so. But the duke appeared to go freely, of his own accord. He was neither bound nor injured, and he kept his weapons.”

  Disbelief warred with a surge of relief. At least Jervaise was alive and unharmed as recent as last night. Surely the truth of his situation would be clarified. Never for an instant would she believe he’d betrayed her. Still, the acrimonious words of their last argument echoed through her mind.

  He had warned her not to love him, said he would leave her—but surely this was never what he’d meant. Even if he felt no loyalty to her, Lyonstone or England, he would never betray his king.

  Seeing Raoul’s concerned gaze, knowing priceless minutes were slipping away, Alienore gathered her scattered wits. It would never do to show doubt before her retainers—even the one who was, in all likelihood, her father.

  “If Bedingfield is away, that makes our task simpler,” she said. “Clearly my brother is not himself, which leaves me no choice but to assume command myself.

  “Raoul d’Albini, I appoint you castellan of Lyonstone and charge you with the defense of this keep.” Her thoughts raced ahead. “I shall assemble a guard for my own protection and ride at once to Wishing Stone. The manor is not defensible, so all the folk there, our livestock and other valuables must be moved within these walls by nightfall.”

  “And what of the duke’s levy?” Raoul asked. “Some three hundred men with arms, I am told.”

  “Jervaise meant to lead those men himself. Perhaps he shall still return.” Anxiety coiled in her belly. Why had Jervaise not told her his plans? Why could he never trust her?

  An impossible notion blossomed in her mind, the only chance her tired brain could conceive. She must think it through. Nor could she voice her thoughts before Raoul, who would surely seek to dissuade her.

  “By my faith, our course is clear,” she said. “If Ormonde does not return, Lyonstone must lead his men to battle.”

  Raoul stared, his brow creasing. The squire looked as though she’d gone daft.

  “But my lord Benedict refuses—”

  “You had best take refreshment and then return to your post,” she told the squire. “Rest assured, you may leave the earl to me.”

  The setting sun slanted red over Wishing Stone Manor as the last cart rumbled off toward Lyonstone. From her chamber, Alienore heard the wolf’s howls fade. Though neither Remus nor Nesta had wanted to leave her, they could not aid her on the path she’d chosen.

  Grimly, she sharpened her blade against the whetstone. She could not rely upon the lion-hilted long-knife for this. Nay, her broadsword had been made for this duty. At last she sheathed the sword, careful not to mar the edge. Rising, savoring the freedom of her leather chausses, she drew her long-knife. Its rampant lion glared at her.

  Imposter, it whispered. Only a Lyonstone deserves this blade.

  Before the polished plate, she eyed her reflection. Familiar features stared back at her: nose dusted with golden freckles, jaw tight with resolve. Steel gray eyes, cold and assessing, met her gaze.

  Her eyes were Theobold’s, she’d always thought, like her wheat gold hair. Yet they could also be Raoul’s. What point cursing their similar coloring now? Should she open her veins with this blade and empty them forever of the bastard taint?

  So she did not deserve to bear the Lyonstone name. So the banner of nobility she’d flown in her pride was naught but a shameful lie. With her lands and people relying on her, she could not afford to let her pedigree define her.

  In height, build and coloring she resembled her brother, and that was indeed convenient—but for one small detail. Gripping a hank of her golden hair, she stretched it straight.

  Deliberately, Alienore of Lyonstone laid the knife against her tresses and began to cut.

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Raoul d’Albini felt too old to command a siege. Though he remained mobile on horseback, he could barely crutch along on foot. Yet Alienore had chosen him. No one else could order their defense or make these men obey, and both of them knew it. Before Vespers, even young Benedict had ceased his protests and retired with complaints of a griping belly.

  Despite the indignities of age and infirmity, Raoul did what he could. In the end, every man in Lyonstone stood ar
med and armored, while livestock and terrified peasants crowded—sweating with terror—in the bailey. The gates had been bolted and the portcullis winched down. A double watch patrolled the curtain wall.

  Lyonstone’s defenses were formidable enough: its moat broad and deep, its murder-holes and arrow loops designed to rain death from all angles. The drawbridge was fashioned for collapse during a siege—but he’d found the mechanism disabled. The village folk had brought what provisions they could, but the castle’s stores were sadly depleted. Even worse, he found the well had gone putrid. Now they had to venture to the river for drinking water or else go thirsty.

  Someone had made certain the keep could not withstand a siege.

  When the last cart from Wishing Stone trundled past without Alienore, his unease deepened. Tearfully, her tiring girl reported that the lady promised to follow later.

  Too late, he recalled the cold resolve that had darkened Alienore’s gaze to tempered steel. His gut churned with suspicions he dared not voice.

  Saint George guard her from anything rash or reckless. With a groan, he lowered his aching body to a pallet. Knowing he would be useless if he exhausted himself, he managed to drop into a troubled doze.

  The long taroo of a war horn brought him upright. Cursing, he swung his legs down and gripped his crutches.

  Outside, another horn blasted—the deep-throated bat-bat-bat-hooouuu that signaled alarm. The lightning charge of danger sizzled through the air to raise gooseflesh down his spine. Shouts and the stamp of running feet echoed along the battlements.

  Bracing himself on his crutches, Raoul strapped on his broadsword and swung out to the curtain wall, where torches bloomed against a pallid dawn. Despite the certain knowledge bubbling in his blood, he pitched his voice to calmness.

  “Anon now, lads, what’s to see?”

  “Movement on the road, milord, and our sentry raised the alarm.”

  Raoul peered out between the crenellations and squinted against the bloody dawn that spilled across the heavens. Easter morn, God save us—the day Christ rose from the dead.