The soldiers whispered among themselves.
“Let me see that letter!” Luke said.
Alberic glowered at him. “You are in no position to make demands of this court, Luke de Périgueux.”
Luke stepped forward. The guards seized him and yanked him back. “I insist on seeing that letter!”
“Remove him from the hall,” Alberic told the guards. “We’ll reconvene after dinner.”
Luke had no idea what the sheriff and his guests dined on. His midday meal, which he didn’t eat, consisted of porridge heavily laced with salt and wine that had long since turned to vinegar.
He contemplated the letter from Faithe. Could she have written such things—denounced him so unconditionally? Forcing himself to view the situation from her perspective, he had to concede that it was possible. He’d admitted to killing Caedmon, and never had a chance to explain the circumstances to her. He’d always admired her strength of will. In all likelihood she was calling on that strength now to put him out of her life for good. It made his soul ache to know that she’d so thoroughly abandoned him.
When the trial resumed in the early afternoon, Luke was asked for his version of the killing, and gave it, after which Alberic described it as “the fabrication of a desperate man.” Orrik was called upon to give his predictable account of the Black Dragon’s many character flaws—his “infinite capacity for violence.” He scoffed at the notion that Caedmon had been mad, or even ill, and insisted that he was incapable of attacking a woman. Other Hauekleah servants were called up, all of whom commended their former master for his agreeable nature and peaceful ways. Through translations by his clerk, Alberic encouraged this praise for Caedmon, which Luke found ironic, considering the sheriff’s unreasoning hatred of Saxons. He must be very determined to see Luke hang if he was willing to set that hatred aside, even for a moment.
When all the testimony had been delivered, Alberic asked Luke if he felt any remorse at all for having murdered Caedmon.
“I committed no murder,” Luke said.
“That’s not a proper answer to my question,” Alberic said.
“‘Tis the only answer I can give.”
Alberic sighed disgustedly. “Take him back to the cellar so I may consult with the jury in private.”
Ham took this opportunity to taunt his prisoner with yet more descriptions of the agonies in store for him. Luke tried to be unmoved, reminding himself that escape was impossible now, that all he had left was his dignity. He’d endured pain before, and he’d long ago gotten used to the idea of death. In truth, it was the knowledge that his fragile bond of love with Faithe had been destroyed that truly tormented him. He would go to his death less than whole for having lost that.
The guards came downstairs. “His lordship says they’re ready.” They escorted Luke back to the hall, where he was made to stand where he’d stood all day, facing the high table. Alberic half hid his smile behind steepled fingers. Orrik, standing off to the side, wore a look of immense self-satisfaction.
Alberic rose. “It is found by the jurors of the shire court of Foxhyrst,” he intoned as the clerk took notes, “that the accused Luke de Périgueux did, wrongfully and with malicious intent, slay one Caedmon of Hauekleah in the village of Cottwyk. It is also determined that he did assail the woman known as Helig, who thereupon fled her home and perished most cruelly by lightning. Therefore the said Luke de Périgueux is condemned to death by hanging at dawn tomorrow, after first suffering such varied punishments as the hangman may see fit, in retribution for his impenitence.”
“What cause has he for penitence?” came a woman’s breathless cry from behind. Faithe? Luke wheeled around to find her standing in the doorway. “He’s done nothing wrong!”
“Guards, eject that woman!” Alberic ordered.
A man grabbed for her arm. “Let go of her!” Luke roared; the guard recoiled and held his hands up placatingly.
“You invited me here, Lord Alberic.” Faithe withdrew a letter from beneath her mantle. Her face was flushed, her hair wild, her clothes in disarray; she had never looked more beautiful to him. “You told me I could attend my husband’s trial.”
“Or send a representative,” Alberic said. “You sent your bailiff, bearing your letter to the court.”
“My bailiff! I sent another man with that letter.” She frowned at Orrik. “What did you do to him?”
“He was needed elsewhere,” Orrik said.
“It matters not,” Alberic said. “Your letter was delivered. If you now have cause to regret it, ‘tis too late. The trial is concluded, and your husband has been convicted of murder.”
“My husband,” Faithe said, “is innocent of murder.” She met Luke’s gaze with a brief look of reassurance, then motioned to someone outside, who followed her into the hall—a woman, humbly dressed and wearing a hooded cloak that cast her face in shadow. “This woman can prove it. She’s the woman from Ixbridge whom I referred to in my letter.”
“Your letter made no mention of a woman,” Alberic sputtered.
“Of course it did. I wrote of the woman Matfrid, from Ixbridge.” Faithe nodded toward her companion, who reached up slowly and lowered her hood. She was young and black-haired, and might have been pretty were it not for a knife scar along one cheek and another across her forehead. They looked like the kind of scars that might all but disappear in time; but for now, they were still angry and disfiguring slashes.
Luke saw Orrik’s eyes light with recognition when he got a good look at her face. He grimaced, clearly displeased to see her here.
“Matfrid,” Faithe said, guiding the young woman by her arm into the hall, “is the woman who… who Caedmon attacked in Ixbridge while he was awaiting battle. I described the incident in my letter.”
Alberic addressed his clerk. “Brother Damian, was there anything in that letter about a woman from—”
“Nay, milord!” The little man produced the letter in question. “I swear it!”
“Aye, ‘tis all there,” Faithe insisted.
“What Saxon trickery is this?” Alberic muttered.
“Watch your tongue when you speak to my wife,” Luke growled. He swore Alberic shrank back, despite the fact that Luke was in manacles and surrounded by guards.
“Matfrid,” Faithe said in English, urging the girl forward, “tell his lordship what happened. Go ahead, it’s all right.”
Matfrid stared into the rushes and spoke—so softly that a great quiet descended over the hall. Every man there strained to hear her halting words, although most of them could understand only the clerk’s French translation. “‘Twas last autumn. September, it was. They came to the inn where I worked—the one they called Caedmon, and that one” —she nodded hesitantly toward Orrik— “and three or four others. Lord Caedmon, he” —she twisted her skirt in her hands— “he paid me tuppence to… well… he had a room upstairs, and…”
“Yes, go on,” Alberic said shortly.
“Well, we… he done what he paid me for.” Some of the soldiers snickered, but fell silent when Alberic glared at them.
Faithe lifted her chin gamely. “Tell him about… the knife,” she prompted gently.
“He pulled out this knife,” Matfrid said. “I didn’t expect it. I mean, he’d been actin’… well… a bit off. Wrong. But I didn’t think much of it. Then out comes this knife. I tried to get him to put it away. Then he starts hollerin’ at me. And I see his arm goin’ back and forth, and these flashes, like…” Her hand drifted up to touch her scars. “I didn’t even feel it at first. I saw the blood on him, and thought he was cutting himself. Then I realized he was cutting me, and I started screaming.”
The hall was filled with the low buzz of conversation.
“They pulled him off me,” Matfrid said, “and gave me two shillings, and left. I never seen any of them again.” She glanced toward Orrik. “Till now.”
“My husband is telling the truth about what happened in Cottwyk,” Faithe said. “He was trying to protect tha
t woman from Lord Caedmon—nothing more. Caedmon wasn’t evil. He’d been very ill, and his illness affected his mind. I explained all of that in my letter.”
Alberic whipped the sheet of parchment from his clerk’s hand and held it out to Faithe. “This is the only letter from you that we received today—the one in which you denounce Sir Luke as—”
“Denounce him!” Crossing the hall swiftly, Faithe snatched the letter from Alberic and stared at it in outrage. “I didn’t write this. I never would have written this.”
She looked toward Orrik; so did Alberic and the soldiers who comprised the jury.
Orrik pressed himself against the stone wall and licked his lips nervously. “I did it for you, Faithe.”
“You wrote this and pretended it came from me?”
“I did it for you! For you!”
Faithe shook her head. “Oh, Orrik.”
“Am I to understand,” Alberic ground out, “that this man” —he pointed to Orrik— “forged that letter and presented it to the court as genuine?”
Orrik needed no translator to comprehend the sheriff’s rage. “‘Twas the only way!” he insisted, moving sideways along the wall toward the door. “The only way! I had to protect her! ‘Twas up to me!”
“Guards.” Alberic pointed to Orrik. His men leapt on the bailiff, pinioning his hands behind him. “I knew you Saxons were a devious lot, but this is outrageous. You’ve made a fool out of me and a mockery of this court, and I intend to see that you pay with your life.”
“Please,” Faithe implored the sheriff, “he thought he was helping me. I beg you to be merciful.”
“Mercy in this case,” Alberic said, “would be a swift execution, with no preliminaries. That is the most generous punishment I feel disposed to mete out.”
Faithe looked stricken. “Could you not perhaps… imprison him, or—”
“I’d rather hang than putrefy in some Norman prison!” Orrik declared.
Shaking her head slowly, Faithe took a step toward the man who’d been, for most of her life, like a father to her. “Why, Orrik?” she said, her voice quavering with emotion. “Why did you force me to choose between you and my husband? I begged you not to. I loved you. I didn’t want this to happen, but you doomed yourself.”
“‘Twas these greedy, murdering Norman bastards who doomed me,” he spat out. “These whoresons have doomed all of us. They seized our country and ravished it, and that was bad enough, but when they took you, my little girl, my wee Faithe, and gave you to that bloodthirsty son of a—”
“That’s enough, Saxon!” Alberic interjected. “If you want a quick death, you’ll hold your tongue.” His attention turned to Luke. For a long moment the two men regarded each other in eloquent silence.
Luke had been vindicated, thanks to Faithe. There was nothing to be done now but release him. The sheriff’s dark gaze and clenched fists attested to his displeasure at that prospect, but in the end he simply turned to his guards and muttered, “Remove Sir Luke’s restraints. He’s free to go.”
One of the guards produced a key and unlocked Luke’s manacles. “Don’t let him go!” Orrik exclaimed as the guards dragged him toward the cellar. “Are you mad?”
Flinging the shackles aside, Luke crossed to Faithe and gathered her in his arms, murmuring her name and kissing her hair.
“I did it for you!” Orrik screamed to Faithe as he was wrestled into the stairwell. “Did you want to be bound in marriage to the Black Dragon?”
“The Black Dragon doesn’t exist,” she replied. “My husband is Luke of Hauekleah, and I’m taking him home now.”
Epilogue
*
May 1068: Hauekleah
“THIS WAY,” LUKE whispered, guiding Faithe by her hand through the darkened woods.
“Why are you whispering?” Faithe asked. “Everyone’s gone home by now.
It was almost dawn; the last of the May Day celebrants had long since retired for the night. Luke had insisted on waiting until the woods were empty before bringing Faithe out here. Nevertheless, he’d been surprisingly eager to do so; in fact, it had been his idea.
“This is it.” He led her into a small clearing, silvery with moonlight and the faint, luminous promise of daybreak. New grass and spring wildflowers scented the air. Birds chattered raucously all around them.
Luke unpinned his mantle and spread it on the grass, then urged her to lie down with him. Gathering her in his arms, he kissed her deeply; she returned the kiss with joyous passion. He caressed her with unhurried hands, moving her wrapper aside to cup a breast through her shift. She glided her hands beneath his shirt, reveling in his warmth and strength, so familiar to her now, yet still so intoxicating. Had it only been a year since he’d come to Hauekleah—the victorious invader claiming his war prize?
The Black Dragon was gone, along with Caedmon. The past, with all its pain and sorrow, lay dead and buried. The future was curled up in Faithe’s belly, waiting to be born.
She gasped and pressed his palm to her stomach, just beginning to swell with their child. Another faint kick thudded against his hand. He gasped, and then laughed delightedly, along with her.
Closing a hand around his neck to draw him nearer, she kissed him, then reached down to untie his chausses.
“Are you sure?” he asked. “What of the baby? Now that I’ve felt him move, I can’t help but think we’d be disturbing him if we—”
“The baby,” she replied as she pulled him down on top of her, “had better get used to this. Because I have no intention of giving it up. I’ll never stop loving you… with my body or with my heart.”
“Nay,” he murmured as they joined together, moving as one to a rhythm as ancient as time itself, “don’t ever stop. And neither will I.”
-The End—
For news about upcoming books and exclusive sneak previews, subscribe to Patricia Ryan’s free newsletter.
If you enjoyed Secret Thunder, be sure to check out Patricia Ryan’s other Lords of Conquest medieval romances.
FOLLOW THE SUN
*
By Judith Arnold
Chapter One
*
SHE FELT HIS PRESENCE the moment he entered.
The temperature surged. The air pressure dipped. An undefinable current shot through the sound stage, touching everyone, alerting them, making them fall silent and stand a little straighter. Sandra sensed the change the way animals sensed an imminent earthquake—along her nerve endings, in her gut, far beyond the reach of her intellect. She knew intuitively that the ground beneath her was about to shift, and that when the dust settled nothing would ever be the same again.
He was somewhere behind her, approaching. She watched Diego Salazar’s gaze narrow, his pearly smile grow impossibly wider, his shoulders square themselves beneath the soft silk of his shirt. The people on the set grew still; the ventilation system clicked off as if on cue.
All she had to do was turn around and see for herself the person whose entrance could electrify a room. Yet for a long, strange moment she was unable to move. Like the animal awaiting an earthquake, she stood frozen in place, knowing her doom was fast approaching yet helpless to stop it.
She knew without looking that the man who’d entered was Rafael Perez. No one had spoken his name, yet she knew. Anyone who could create a studio out of thin air and keep fifteen churches afloat surely had the charisma to transform a room with his entrance. Maybe he could walk on water, too.
If he could, she’d write it. She’d write whatever the hell she had to about this hotshot hombre. And then she’d go back to the office and give Frank Flannagan a piece of her mind.
Her day had not started with a premonition of earthquakes, charismatic men or doom. In fact, it had started with an encounter with one of the least charismatic men Sandra knew—her editor. Clad in wrinkled khakis and a loud green shirt, his bald spot glaring a reflection of the fluorescent ceiling lights, Flannagan had swung by her desk and tossed an issue of Variety onto her compu
ter keyboard, inadvertently hitting a few keys and deleting several lines from her screen. She swallowed the curse that rose to her lips, hastily hit the “Undo” function and saved her notes. Then she arranged her face into an impassive smile for her boss.
“There’s your next assignment.” He gestured toward the Variety.
Still faking a smile, she lifted the tabloid and skimmed the show-biz headlines. Flannagan pointed to the one he had in mind: Rafael Perez Signs Melanie Greer To New Pic. Smaller boldface print below the headline read, “TV star’s contract signals new era for Aztec Sun Productions.”
Sandra glanced at the date on the Variety. “This is two weeks old,” she said.
Flannagan shrugged. “My ex-wife subscribes. I get the kids every other weekend, and when Bridget’s feeling real generous she tosses in two weeks’ worth of bird-cage liners. There’s a story there, Garcia,” he insisted, jabbing the article with his finger. “Your kind of story.”
“What kind of story? This is movie news. I don’t write movie news.”
“You could if you wanted.”
“I don’t want. What I want is a crack at the metropolitan police reorganization.”
“Russo’s covering it.”
“He might need help.”
“He doesn’t.” Flannagan braced himself on her chair, tilting the back on its hinge until the lower edge dug into her spine. “Look at this,” he said, ignoring her scowl as he reached around her and traced the lines of print with his index finger. “Rafael Perez. Chicano movie schlockmeister. What’s Spanish for schlock, Sandy? Schlockito?”
If there was anything Sandra hated more than always being assigned to stories with a Chicano slant, it was being called Sandy. Especially by Flannagan. “This isn’t my beat, Frank,” she said, struggling to lower the heat under her temper before it broke into a frothing boil. “Besides, there’s no story here. A production company that specializes in schlock signed a TV actress to star in a movie. Big deal.”
“Read the article,” Flannagan ordered her, then kept talking so she couldn’t read. “This Perez guy created Aztec Sun out of thin air, and now it’s the only established production company in L.A. that specializes in Chicano movies. Perez runs his shop out of East L.A. He hires street kids, pours tons of money back into the community, single-handedly keeps fifteen churches solvent—”
Bad Boy Heroes Boxed Set Page 35
