Fearsome Brides

by Kathryn Le Veque

  Since three massive chambers were linked in a row, she emerged from their chamber into the next one where Philip and Lucy slept. They were awake, however, quietly making love in their large bed in the far corner. Embarrassed at her intrusion, Devereux scooted into the next connecting room where Nik and Frances slept. They were both sound asleep on their respective sides of the bed.

  Devereux hadn’t yet been shown around the complex so she truly had no idea where she was going to find Hugh. Descending the spiral staircase into the windowless bottom floor, it was very nearly pitch black but for a few lit sconces in the direction that led to the hall. She crept along the wall, finally emerging into the great hall that was lightless but for the chimney opening and a softly flickering fire. Several servants were sleeping near the fire and she tentatively approached one, nudging the man in the foot. On the fourth nudge, he awoke, saw who it was, and bolted to his feet.

  She had the man take her to Hugh. She would have never found him otherwise. He was up in the odd-shaped tower, in a smaller chamber on the third floor. He wasn’t asleep, however; he answered the chamber door irritably, his eyes narrowing when he saw Devereux. As the servant scampered away, Hugh faced off against his brother’s wife, standing in the doorway as she stood on the landing.

  He wasn’t pleased to see her; that was obvious. “What do you want?” he growled.

  Devereux didn’t know Hugh at all; he’d made a point of staying away from her since their rough introduction and she didn’t blame him. She was suddenly uncertain as to why she had come at all, trying to apologize to this hostile stranger for something she didn’t fully understand. But she squared her shoulders and summoned her courage.

  “I… I came to apologize,” she said softly. “Sir Hugh, I know we had a turbulent beginning and I suppose I am to blame. But your brother and I are married, like it or not, and we are coming to terms with it. In fact, we realize that this may be an amicable union. I am sorry if that offends or upsets you, but I am here tonight because you and Davyss and I will be family for the rest of our lives and I do not want bad blood between us. I would like to make amends.”

  He just looked at her. “There are no amends to make,” he replied. “You and my brother may be married, but you and I are not. We have no relationship whatsoever. You are simply my brother’s wife.”

  She was somewhat discouraged by his attitude but did not let it deter her. “You are correct,” she shrugged. “I do not know what I expected in coming here, but I simply wanted to speak with you to let you know that I am sorry for our rough beginning and I do not wish for our association to be hostile.”

  Hugh’s gaze moved from her head to her toes and back again, in a manner that suggested he was bordering on disgust. “I have nothing to say to you,” he wiped at his nose. “Whatever you have done to my brother to convince him that you are worthy of being his wife is his business, but you’ll not use your same witchcraft on me. I have no regard for you.”

  His words inflamed her and she fought to keep down her ready-temper; could the man truly be so cold? “As I have no regard for you,” she lowered her voice, the friendliness out of it. “I simply do not want you and your brother fighting because of me.”

  “Why in the hell do you care?’

  She lifted a well-shaped brow. “About you, I do not. But I do care for my husband because he is, in fact, my husband. I do not know how your relationship was before he married me, but I suspect you two did not fight as you did down in the hall tonight. I am simply attempting to apologize if I inadvertently caused that. If I did not, then I will apologize for disturbing you.”

  Hugh’s handsome face was impassive as he watched her turn to walk way. But he couldn’t resist jabbing at her, so righteously confused and so righteously envious at the same time. When she wasn’t fighting tooth and nail, she was well spoken and lovely. Very lovely. Perhaps he could see what Davyss saw in her but he would not admit it. He couldn’t seem to think straight.

  “You may think you have Davyss’ attention at the moment,” he said. “But trust me; he will lose interest in you quickly enough. He will no longer be pliable to your will and the wenches you sent away tonight will return in droves and there will be nothing you can do about it.”

  She paused, eyeing the man and realizing he was attempting to get a rise out of her. She wondered if she should respond at all but, like Hugh, she couldn’t resist the confrontation. The man was arrogant and hurtful, and she would hurt him back.

  “Are you so certain?”

  He was smiling now, although it was not a smile of humor or warmth. “I know my brother well.”

  “Do not be disappointed if you are wrong.”

  His smile faded somewhat. “I will not be wrong.”

  She cocked an eyebrow. “It is quite possible your brother is discovering that devotion to one woman is better than pursuing many,” she used Lady Katharine’s words, inspecting Hugh from head to toe, as he had inspected her just moments before. But there really was disgust in her expression. “Men like you would take the leavings of others by taking cheap whores to your bed. Are you so anxious to taste another man’s scent on a woman you would rub your own flesh against? Or would it be better to taste your scent over and over on a woman you have marked as your own? Bedding many women does not make you a man, Hugh de Winter. It makes you as cheap as they are.”

  He was out in the landing now, his expression nothing short of furious. “What would you know about men?” he snarled. “Get out of my sight before I kill you.”

  She smiled, a dangerous gesture. She knew she shouldn’t have pushed him; God knows, in hindsight, she knew it. But he was such an arrogant ass that she couldn’t help herself. She could already see how to goad him, to drive him to the brink. So she pushed the button without regard for what would come next, only the satisfaction of putting him in his place.

  “Your brother might have something to say about that,” she murmured. “So ply me not with empty threats. I doubt you are man enough.”

  He was on her in a flash. Her last coherent recollection was of stars bursting in front of her eyes.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Lady Katharine was having a difficult time keeping her composure. She gazed at her youngest son, standing wearily across from her in the lavishly decorated solar of Hollyhock, a four-storied manor on the edge of the River Thames. Hugh had appeared early that morning, just as the sun rose, looking gray and exhausted. She had demanded to know the purpose for his visit, alone and without his brother or their armies. It was just Hugh; he hadn’t even been dressed in armor. And then he told her.

  It was a shocking revelation. Now, she was struggling as she gazed up at the man who resembled her dead husband to a fault. She was beginning to feel sick and terrified because she knew what was to come.

  “Tell me again what you have done, Hugh, so there is no mistake,” she tried to sound calm. “I would understand completely.”

  Hugh was spent. He faced his mother on his feet because she would not let him sit. “I killed Davyss’ wife,” he said hoarsely. “Mother, you must help me get away. Davyss will come for me and he will kill me.”

  Lady Katharine sighed faintly. “Why did you kill her?”

  Hugh was beginning to shrink in on himself, realizing what he had done the moment he had done it and fleeing Wintercroft immediately so that his brother would not kill him. And he knew the man would. He began to grow agitated.

  “Because… because she was a hateful bitch,” he insisted, running his fingers through his dark hair. “Everything would have been all right had Davyss not returned for her. But he did return and somehow, she bewitched him. He changed. She did something to his mind, Mother. He was not the same brother I knew.”

  She watched him through steady eyes. “How did he change?”

  Hugh began to pace like a wounded dog. “I… I do not know, really.”

  “You must know; otherwise, your statement is ignorant and foolish.”

  He looked at her, his
dark eyes flashing. “He had little time for his men or for me. Ever since he returned to Thetford for her, he acted as if nothing else in the world existed but her,” he jabbed a finger at his mother. “He killed two of Gloucester’s men because of her and ordered all of the serving wenches out of Wintercroft because she wished it. She cast a spell on him, I am telling you; he would not have done such things otherwise. She was a witch!”

  Lady Katharine digested his words carefully. In that short burst, she was coming to see something that Hugh was not. It was not something she had expected but pleased to hear it.

  “He is focused on her?”

  “Aye.”

  “And he ordered the serving wenches away from Wintercroft? The whores that plague the place?”

  “Aye!” Hugh stopped pacing and went to her. “I must go to France, Mother. I need money and safe passage.”

  Lady Katharine regarded him, mulling the situation over in her mind, pondering, digesting. She was, of course, gravely concerned. She was concerned, as Hugh was, of what Davyss would do. She did not want to see either one of her sons dead but she knew Davyss’ temper. More than that, there would be a matter of honor that would render the man a killing machine to the one who wronged him. Her calm demeanor wavered.

  “What did you do to Lady Devereux, Hugh?” she demanded quietly. “How did you kill her?”

  A pained expression crossed Hugh’s face. “We were arguing,” he said hesitantly. “I… I struck her and she fell down the stairs. She must have broken her neck.”

  Lady Katharine struggled not to lash out at him. “You struck her?”

  He couldn’t look her in the eye. “Aye.”

  “I raised you better than that, Hugh. You do not strike women.”

  He was growing agitated again. “I do not know why I did it,” he fell to his knees before her. “All I know is that we were arguing and it… it just happened. I do not even remember doing it. One moment, she was standing at the top of the stairs and in the next, she was lying lifeless at the bottom.”

  “Do you know for a fact she is dead? Did you check her to make sure?”

  He shook his head. “Nay… I saw her fall and I ran. I did not stop to see if she was dead or alive.”

  “Then you assume she is dead.”

  “She fell down the Tower stairs. If she survived the fall it ’twould be a miracle.”

  “I happen to believe in miracles,” Lady Katharine’s regarded her son carefully. “What did she say to you that made you strike her?”

  He closed his eyes, collapsing in a miserable heap on his knees. “I do not know.”

  “You are lying. You just killed a woman, your brother’s wife, and you cannot tell me what she said to make you snap?”

  His head came up. “She provoked me!”

  “Then you do remember. One more lie and I shall not help you at all.”

  His expression grew painful again. “Oh, God,” he breathed, drawing a breath for strength. “We… Davyss and I fought earlier in the evening because I called his wife a bitch. I said it because I was angry; angry she had sent the serving women away from Wintercroft. Angry because Davyss had listened to her. Devereux came to me to try to explain how she had bewitched Davyss into doing it and I would not listen. She… she told me that devotion to one woman is better than bedding many, or something like it. She said I wasn’t man enough.”

  Lady Katharine watched his lowered head, feeling anxiety such as she had never known. But she also felt great sorrow; if what Hugh said was true, then Lady Devereux had been attempting to teach her sons something that she had never been able to. If the lady was indeed dead, then she felt the loss deeply. Slowly, she rose from her chair and moved away from her youngest.

  “You will stay here,” she told him, her old voice hoarse with emotion. “You will stay here and seek atonement for what you have done. Davyss will come, of that I have no doubt. I will not help you to flee. You have shamed yourself enough. Now you must be a man and face your punishment.”

  Hugh was on his feet, his eyes wide. “But Davyss will kill me!”

  She turned to look at him, her dark eyes piercing. “It is less than you deserve,” she snarled. “You are a disgrace to the de Winter name, Hugh. Stay here and face your brother when he comes or leave and never return. I will not see you again if you leave. You have my vow.”

  Hugh looked like a child who was about to face his greatest fear. “Please, Mother,” he begged.

  She wouldn’t look at him. “Go to your chamber. Bolt the door and stay there. Do not leave until I call for you.”

  Hugh was torn between extreme fear of his brother and his mother’s threat of disownment. He couldn’t actually believe his mother would allow Davyss to kill him, so perhaps the best place for him to be was indeed here under his mother’s protection. She was the only person alive who could talk Davyss out of killing him.

  When Hugh fled her solar, Lady Katharine sat for quite some time, pondering the situation. She wasn’t sure she could dissuade Davyss from killing his brother if, in fact, Lady Devereux was dead. She knew that the relationship between the brothers would never be the same from this point forward and rather than see her youngest murdered by his own brother, she began to suspect there was only one answer. She had to keep Hugh alive yet unreachable by Davyss. Perhaps Hugh had been right; he needed safe passage to save his life. As a mother, her loyalty was to both her children. She must keep Hugh alive. And then she must see Davyss.

  Hugh went north within the hour, heading to the bosom of an old family friend.

  “You will not kill him.”

  Davyss stood with his hands on his hips, gazing down at his wife with great displeasure. Lucy and Frances were tending her as she lay in their great bed after having taken a nasty fall down a flight of stairs which, Davyss learned, was Hugh’s doing. To say he was furious was not strong enough. The only thing keeping him from raging out of control was the anxious expression on his wife’s face. That alone was keeping him from ripping Wintercroft apart.

  “You will not tell me how to handle my brother,” he told her sternly. “He did this to you.”

  Devereux was actually quite well after having fallen down a flight of stone steps. Fortunately, she hadn’t broken any bones although the spill had knocked her unconscious for a short time. She had a bruised cheek, a lump on her forehead, and was generally battered, but she was alive and well for all intent and purposes. And she was having a horrendous time keeping Davyss calm; she could see the rage in his eyes.

  “As I told you,” she said patiently while Lucy held a cold compress over the lump on her forehead. “Since you would not speak with your brother, I felt strongly that I must speak with him in your place. Your argument was about me, was it not?”

  The anger in his eyes flickered. “That is not your business.”

  “It is if the quarrel was about me. Be truthful and tell me.”

  He pursed his lips angrily. “Do not lecture me on being truthful. You would not even tell me what you were doing in the Tower. I heard it from a servant who happened to hear you and Hugh arguing.”

  “If you did as I asked and resolved your quarrel before you retired, then I would not have felt the need to speak with him.”

  He just rolled his eyes and huffed, posturing angrily, but he did not retort. Truth was, he had never felt more fear in his life as he had when Andrew had brought his wife’s unconscious body back into their bedchamber. He had been sound asleep, both ashamed that he hadn’t known she was missing from his bed and gravely concerned that she was injured.

  When Devereux had regained consciousness, she wouldn’t tell him what had happened but Andrew had pressed a couple of male servants in the Tower who had told him what they had heard and seen; Sir Hugh and Lady de Winter arguing, Lady de Winter’s fall and Hugh fleeing in the dead of night. It didn’t take a genius to figure out what had happened.

  “You will not blame me for your actions,” he said, more quietly. “No one forced you to go
to the Tower. It was your choice.”

  Devereux thought on that a moment. “Aye, it was,” she winced as Lucy pressed too hard on the compress. “But I had to try and calm the situation between you and Hugh.”

  Davyss didn’t say anything; he just stood there, watching the women fuss over his wife, his initial anger and terror fading into something odd and mixed. He was so angry with Hugh that he couldn’t think straight; all he wanted to do was murder the man. But the stronger emotion was worry for his wife and respect for what she had tried to accomplish.

  She was a peacemaker, a peace lover, and he knew that. He, on the other hand, was not. War was his vocation, his life, his behavior. This woman was so intriguing and honest on so many levels that he found it difficult to fathom. His mind didn’t work the way hers did. The fact that she would try and help him by solving his problem with his brother went beyond comprehension. Did she truly think enough of him, after everything he’d put her through, to do that?

  “I appreciate that,” he said, his manner softening somewhat. “But I will ask you a question and I want you to be perfectly truthful. Will you do this?”

  She hesitated slightly. “Aye.”

  “Did he strike you?”

  She sighed faintly and lowered her gaze. “Aye.”

  “The bruise on your face?”

  “Aye.”

  Davyss turned on his heel and began to walk from the room. Devereux, realizing that he was more than likely going after his brother, leapt off the bed as much as her aching body would allow. Lucy and Frances tried to grab her but she was swift, racing after her husband. She grabbed him before he could leave the chamber.

  “Wait,” she dug her heels in and he came to a halt. “Where are you going?”

  He almost told her that it was none of her business again but knew better. He was a fast learner. If she thought it was her business, then nothing he could say would deter her. He was quickly coming to learn that she was as stubborn as he was.