Wounded Heroes Boxed Set

by Judith Arnold

  Graeham sighed. "Perhaps nothing’s really wrong. More likely, a great deal is."

  "What happened?"

  "I overheard a couple in the alley just now. Rolf le Fever...and Olive."

  "Olive? Perhaps...perhaps she was bringing him some tonic for his wife."

  "Mistress, there’s only one reason for a man and a woman to meet in an alley in the middle of the night."

  She shook her head. "Nay. Olive and le Fever? You’re imagining things."

  "He tupped her against the wall," Graeham said shortly.

  The flush spread from Joanna’s cheeks to encompass her face. "Perhaps it wasn’t really Olive. Perhaps—"

  "I heard her voice. She was crying, so I didn’t recognize it right off, but after he called her Olive, I realized it was her. I had the impression they’d...been intimate for some time."

  "Oh, my God." Joanna crossed to the table and sat on the bench, looking dazed and sad. "What about Damian? He loves her, and...I thought she loved him."

  "Perhaps she does," Graeham said. "Matters of the heart are rarely simple. Usually they’re quite complicated...often unfathomable."

  She looked up and met his gaze then. Graeham thought about the awareness that enveloped them, the ponderous weight of things felt but unspoken, like a cloud swollen with rain waiting for a spark of lightning to make it burst forth.

  Joanna was the first to avert her gaze. "You said you needed me."

  "I do," he said softly. Too much, for far too many reasons.

  She glanced at him. "What is it you need?"

  Refocusing on the matter at hand, he said, "I’d like you to go across the street to the apothecary’s."

  "Right now? At this hour?"

  "Aye. She’s over there mixing up some—"

  "No."

  "No? But—"

  "You seem to have forgotten," she said, rising to her feet, "that I don’t exist to spy on my neighbors for you."

  Graeham groaned. "Mistress, I’m sorry about what happened before, but this is important. At least I’m being honest with you and not sending you over there on some other pretense."

  "That’s something, I suppose. But I promised myself that I’d never let you use me again, for...for anything. And it’s a promise I intend to keep." She turned toward the ladder. "Good night, serjant."

  He hobbled after her on his crutch and closed a hand around her waist as she stepped on the first rung. "I know you care what becomes of Ada le Fever —otherwise you wouldn’t visit her every morning as you do."

  "What of it?" She lowered her foot, her back to him, her hands still gripping the ladder. He felt the tension in her, and curled his arm around her waist, telling himself it was because he didn’t want her dashing upstairs, where he couldn’t follow her. Her belly was warm and flat through the slippery silk; her scent made him light-headed. He wanted to pull her warmth against him, bury his face in her hair, press against her, into her.

  Graeham swallowed hard, striving for some command over himself. "You bring her food every day. I know it’s because you’re worried that she’s being poisoned."

  "Let go of me, serjant," she said a little breathlessly.

  He tightened his arm around her, moved closer, felt the heavy satin of her hair against his face, the silken glide of her wrapper brushing his bare legs. "You’ll just climb that ladder if I do."

  "I won’t. I promise."

  Graeham released her reluctantly, letting his hand slide slowly around her waist and linger momentarily on the firm curve of a hip before he backed away. It had been almost like holding a lover; he’d never have an excuse to hold her that way again.

  She turned without looking at him and rubbed her arms. "I did think about poison in the beginning. I thought if she only ate what I brought her, she might recover. But she didn’t."

  "You suspected her tonic, too, didn’t you?"

  "At first, but it’s just an infusion of yarrow."

  "If Olive was telling you the truth."

  Joanna looked at him sharply. "Olive is no murderer, serjant."

  "Olive is an impressionable young girl, mistress. And Rolf le Fever is not above using her to his own ends."

  "Those ends being murder?"

  "I heard her speak that very word tonight."

  Joanna studied him for a long moment, then crossed to the bench at the table and sat. "Tell me."

  "There was something he wanted her to ‘take care of, and soon.’ He told her it was taking too long, that she knew what needed to be done and should just do it. She said it was murder."

  "Oh, Olive, Olive..." Joanna murmured, absently crossing herself.

  "She agreed to it because he said it was the only way they could marry."

  Joanna closed her eyes and rubbed her forehead.

  "With Mistress Ada out of the way," Graeham said, "Olive and le Fever—"

  "He would never marry her. He’d choose someone who could advance his station—a girl from the minor nobility, or perhaps the daughter of a rich and respected merchant. Not a humble apothecary’s apprentice."

  "Olive doesn’t know that. She’s entirely in his thrall."

  "Poor Olive."

  "‘Poor Olive’ may be over there right now concocting a fatal dose of whatever it is they’ve been slipping to Ada le Fever all along. Le Fever had probably wanted it to look like a slow, natural death, but now the time has come to finish her off."

  Joanna shook her head resolutely. "I can’t believe it. I don’t believe it."

  "Nevertheless," Graeham said, coming to stand over her, "le Fever sent her back to the shop to ‘prepare the mixture,’ as he put it—before she lost her nerve. He said by this time tomorrow, it would all be over. I assume he means for Olive to put the final dose in the tonic she brings tomorrow afternoon."

  Joanna was still shaking her head. "‘Tisn’t possible. It can’t be. Olive...she couldn’t do such a thing."

  "I’m all too afraid she could."

  "What do you want me to do?" she asked woodenly.

  "Go to the apothecary shop and see what she’s up to," Graeham said.

  "Just show up there in the middle of the night?"

  "Tell her you need something...a sleeping powder. Look around, take stock of what she’s doing and how she’s acting. Question her, if you can do it without raising her suspicions."

  Joanna’s brow furrowed. "I’d feel so treacherous, misleading her that way."

  "I can’t go myself," Graeham said. "There’s my leg, and—"

  "I know, I know."

  "Would you rather I sent for the sheriff?" Graeham asked, although he’d prefer to avoid that until it became absolutely necessary, lest it compromise the secrecy of his mission.

  Joanna shook her head and stood. "Nay—not yet. If this isn’t what it looks like—if Olive is innocent —I don’t want the sheriff getting involved."

  He’d hoped she would feel that way. Joanna plucked her mantle off its peg and pinned it over her wrapper. Graeham followed her into the shop, where she slipped on the wooden pattens she kept by the front door.

  After she left, he held the door open a crack and watched her sprint across the street and knock on the door of the apothecary shop, which glowed from within. The door opened. Olive looked surprised to see her; even from this distance, Graeham could see that the girl’s eyes were puffy, her nose red. She had something in her hand—a wooden pestle. Joanna said something to her. She held the door open for Joanna to enter, then closed it behind her.

  Graeham stood watching the shop until his leg began to ache. It was hot for this time of night, even in July. Sweat trickled beneath his shirt, which clung damply to his chest. Manfrid, who’d been outside, came and rubbed against his legs before squeezing between them and into the shop.

  It was taking too long. Why was it taking so long? Something was wrong. He should never have sent her over there. She was in danger. There was murder being planned, and he’d thrust her right in the midst of it without sparing a thought for her sa
fety. He’d been complacent because it was just Olive, and he couldn’t see her hurting Joanna, but if the girl was capable of poisoning Ada le Fever, she was capable of anything.

  He opened the door and stepped into the street just as Joanna came out of the apothecary shop. Hurriedly he ducked back inside. When she reentered the shop, let out a sigh of relief. "I was worried about you."

  "Not too worried to send me over there." She pulled off her pattens and swept past him into the salle.

  Graeham followed her, his leg throbbing. He sat at the table and leaned his crutch against it. "Did she tell you anything?"

  "Nay. She was too distracted. She prepared the sleeping powder as if she were in a trance. I’d be afraid to take it in case she made a mistake with the ingredients." Joanna tossed a little parchment-wrapped packet on the table.

  "What was she doing when you arrived?"

  "Grinding up herbs."

  "Did you recognize them?"

  "Nay."

  Graeham cursed inwardly.

  "Do you?" Withdrawing an arm from beneath her mantle, she held up two bundles of dried herbs tied with string.

  "You...you took them?"

  "Aye." She laid the bundles on the table; one had large leaves, one small. "If these really are the ingredients of a poison, I thought ‘twould be best to get them away from Olive before she...does something foolish."

  Graeham lifted first one bundle and then the other, bringing them to his nose; he didn’t recognize them either by appearance or smell. "She may have more than just these two bunches."

  "I know." Joanna unpinned her mantle and hung it on its peg, wiping a hand over her damp forehead. "I thought of that after I took them. Still, it might give her pause. She might rethink what she was about to do."

  "Or she might go to le Fever tomorrow and report the theft, whereupon he might decide you’re a threat to his little scheme." Graeham shook his head. "I can’t fault you for taking these herbs—I might have done so myself. But I hope you haven’t put yourself in any danger because of it."

  Returning to stand over the table, Joanna lifted one of the sinister bundles and twirled it slowly. "It’s Ada le Fever I’m worried about. We should send for the sheriff first thing tomorrow morning."

  Graeham sighed, then nodded grudgingly. He no longer had any choice but to enlist the sheriff’s aid if he wanted to ensure Ada’s safety. If he weren’t a damned cripple, he would go over there right now and take her out of that house, but as it was... "You’re right," he said. "I hate to do it, but..."

  "Why?" she asked. "‘Tis the sheriff’s responsibility to investigate matters of this sort. Why would you hesitate to summon him?" She looked down at him in obvious confusion, the firelight making sparks of gold flicker in her brown eyes.

  "When I was sent here to bring Ada le Fever back to Paris, I was cautioned to proceed with discretion."

  "Ah, yes." She plucked off a leaf and crushed it under her nose. "The things you’re ‘not at liberty to reveal.’"

  Graeham’s ears grew hot. He was ashamed, he realized, of having withheld so much from her while enlisting her aid to the extent he had. She’d resisted being his pawn, yes, but in all respects, save one, she’d proven herself completely worthy of his trust and confidence. The one exception was her prevarication about her husband’s death, but it was an innocent lie. She was a beautiful widow living alone. He couldn’t blame her —or her brother—for perpetrating a falsehood meant to keep the young soldier under her roof at a distance.

  But he could blame himself for keeping things from her that she had every right to know, given the extent to which he’d involved her in this complicated little intrigue.

  "I haven’t been fair to you," he said. "You’ve earned the right to know more than I’ve told you. You’ve earned the right to know who sent me here."

  Joanna grew very still and quiet for a long moment. She laid the herbs back down and sat—not opposite him, as usual, but right next to him on his bench. "Who sent you here, serjant?"

  "‘Twas my overlord, Baron Gui de Beauvais."

  Her brows drew together. "Why did you not want me to know that?"

  "Because—" Graeham took a deep breath "—Ada le Fever is Lord Gui’s daughter."

  She still looked puzzled.

  "His illegitimate daughter," Graeham said. "No one knows—aside from the girls themselves, and their uncle, who raised them in Paris."

  "The canon," Joanna said softly. "Ada told me her uncle is a canon of Notre Dame."

  "That’s right. And, of course, Rolf le Fever knows. He found out shortly after the wedding. ‘Tis why he hates his wife so much, why he started heaping threats and abuse on her. The marriage was meant to reflect well on him, and all it brought him was—as he puts it —a shameful little secret to keep."

  Joanna nodded. "Yes...that makes sense, knowing him. So Lord Gui began to worry that he’d go beyond mere threats and abuse—as, indeed, it seems he has—and enlisted you to rescue his daughter before real harm could come to her." She shook her head. "Rotten timing, those robbers smashing your leg before you had a chance to get her out of that house."

  "I don’t think they were mere robbers."

  "Nay?"

  "I’d been to see le Fever that afternoon. He was reluctant to let his wife leave with me, but I talked him into it with a bit of blackmail and the promise of fifty marks—or so I thought. He told me to return at compline and he’d have her ready. Olive was there, delivering Ada le Fever’s tonic. I asked her to prepare enough for the journey and have it there by compline."

  "Olive was there? She saw you, then, and she knew you’d come to take Ada away. That’s why you didn’t want her to see you here, because she knew you weren’t just some fellow who ran into a bit of bad luck on his way to Oxfordshire."

  "That’s right. I went back at compline, of course, only to be lured into the alley by some knave representing himself as Byram, who knew why I was there. He and his two cohorts had been lurking about waiting to smash my head in and take the fifty marks. They got the silver and my mount, and if it weren’t for your brother, they might have sent me to my maker that day."

  "You think le Fever hired them to ambush you?"

  "Aye. I think he wanted the money without the indignity of losing his wife."

  "One would think he’d have been eager to see her go, regardless of the indignity."

  "Don’t forget, he’d been having her poisoned since Christmastide, just waiting for the right time to finish her off. He wanted her dead, so he could remarry someone more suitable—not packed off to Paris, with everyone wondering why her father had felt the need to fetch her back."

  "Pardon me for saying so, serjant, but it strikes me as awfully poor judgment on the part of your Lord Gui to have married his daughter off under false pretenses."

  "It was. He admits as much himself. And I must confess to some measure of disappointment with him when he told me what he’d done. The very fact that he’d kept two daughters tucked away in Paris all those years was rather sobering. I wondered if all important men had secret bastards hidden away."

  "Two daughters? Oh, that’s right—Ada has a sister. She mentioned her once. Phillipa—isn’t that her name?"

  A thrumming panic gripped Graeham at the sound of his future wife’s name on Joanna Chapman’s lips. "Aye," he managed. "Phillipa. They’re...they’re twins."

  "Does Phillipa’s husband know the truth about her birth, or was he kept in the dark, as well?"

  This was his chance to tell her everything, to reveal the terms of his reward, to be as candid as she deserved. Graeham’s heart thumped in his chest as he pondered how best to say it... Phillipa isn’t married, not yet. I’m to be her husband. We’ll be wed as soon as I bring Ada back to France.

  "Serjant?" Joanna’s shoulder brushed Graeham’s as she turned toward him; silk against linen; soft woman-flesh against muscle; warmth against warmth. God, she smelled so good; he wanted to drown himself in her hair, bury himself in her body. "
Is something wrong?"

  Graeham plucked a leaf off one of the bundles of herbs and ground it into dust between his fingers. "Phillipa isn’t married yet," he said, his voice strangely distant and hollow, as if he were listening to someone else speak. "I’m..." He looked up and met Joanna’s glimmery, molten gold gaze, and it was all he could do to force air into his lungs, much less speak.

  "Well, I hope Lord Gui is more forthcoming with his next son-in-law than he was with the last one," she said with an arid smile.

  "I’m..." Graeham shook his head, disgusted with himself, with the situation. He tore off another leaf. "I’m sure he will be."

  She regarded him in that insightful way that he found both disarming and unnerving. "Lord Gui must trust you very much, to have told you this."

  Graeham crumbled that leaf, and another, without looking at her. "He was...almost like a father to me during my adoles¬cence."

  "Almost?"

  Graeham thought about it. "I respected him. I still do, despite...his lapses in judgment and the infidelity. I harbor a great deal of affection for him, and I like to think the sentiment is mutual. He’s been good to me, given me opportunities, but..."

  "But?"

  He did look up, then. "I still sleep in the barracks. I still exist to do his bidding, same as his other soldiers. I’m not his son, just...a favored retainer. I try not to forget that."

  She nodded thoughtfully.

  "Your storeroom really is the first private place I’ve ever had to call my own," he said. I’ve never had a home in the true sense, nor any kind of family."

  "I’m sure you’ve felt the lack of those things very keenly," she said. "But growing up the way you did—having only yourself to rely one—did have some benefits. You became independent, self-reliant. Those are admirable qualities."

  "I know. I’ve greatly admired them in you."

  She lowered her gaze, letting that statement hang heavy in the air between them.

  "We’re much alike, you and I," he said quietly, acutely aware now of her shoulder pressed to his, the soft caress of her silken robe along the side of his leg. "You must have noticed."

  She nodded, her gaze fixed on her hands, resting on the table in front of her.