by Tamara Leigh
“Aye.” He slid his hands down her arms, then inward to the laces of her bliaut.
She jumped backward. “You forget yourself, my lord,” she said as she fumbled to draw the laces tight again.
“Come.” He extended a hand but did not move closer. “I only meant to help you prepare for bed.”
“I do not think so.”
He drew his hand back. “I will be sleeping here tonight,” he said and reached to unfasten his sword.
Graeye gaped, shook her head. “What of your vow? Surely you would not dismiss it with nary a prick of conscience!”
He sat on the edge of the bed and began tugging off his boots. “I would not.” He dropped one boot, then the other, to the floor. “I shall abide by my vow not to force unwanted attentions upon you.”
“Then what do you think you are doing?”
“Making ready for bed.” He crossed to the wash basin.
“Your solar is down the corridor.”
“Which I have yielded to Sir Royce.”
She caught her breath. Sir Royce, the king’s man who had secured Medland for Gilbert so many months past. “I did not know he had arrived,” she said as he washed his hands and face. “You have business with him?”
“I do not.” He dried himself with the linen he had given her and turned to face her. “He but passes through. We met up with his party this afternoon.”
She clenched her hands in her skirts. “He will be staying long?”
“Just this night.”
Then she could avoid him. Though she had adjusted to Gilbert’s people, she was unsettled by the prospect of meeting the king’s man again.
“You could sleep in the hall,” she suggested.
He raised an eyebrow. “Aye, but you are here, and the bed is large.”
As she searched for a rejoinder, he returned to the bed, laid back, and drew the covers over his lower body. Then, propping a hand behind his head, he stared at her.
She stared back.
After some minutes, he sighed and closed his eyes. “Come to bed, Graeye. You need not fear I will go back on my word.”
She knew he would not force his attentions on her, but what if he touched her again as he had done in the garden? What if her desire turned toward his own?
She remained unmoving, and only when his breathing turned deep did she let the tension drain from her. Quietly, she stepped to where the candle burned on the bedside table and looked down at Gilbert. For the first time, she noticed how long his lashes were where they rested on his cheeks. As she lingered over his features, it struck her that she had never observed him during sleep. And yet they had been intimate enough to create a child.
If only things had been different, she silently lamented. If only she had grown up with the love of both parents and been allowed to choose the path her life would take. And how differently would Gilbert have perceived her had his consuming vengeance never been born? Would there have been a chance for them to make a real life together? Could he have grown to love her as she loved him?
Feeling tears, she licked thumb and forefinger, pinched the candle’s wick, and turned to make her way toward the chair before the brazier.
Her foot came down on the rough sole of Gilbert’s boot, and she gasped. Biting her lip, she made her next step more cautious than her last, but she did not get far before Gilbert turned an arm around her thick waist.
“You are supposed to be asleep,” she exclaimed.
“I was,” he replied and pulled her toward him.
“Gilbert, do not. I cannot—”
A moment later, what she could not do, he did, tossing the covers aside and easing her down beside him.
“Do you prefer to lie on your side or your back?” he asked.
“I should not be here,” she whispered.
Though I long to be.
“I wish to return to sleep, Graeye. Your side or your back?”
I should fight him…
She gulped. “My side.”
He turned her toward him where he lay on his back, urged her head down upon his shoulder, and drew the covers over her. “Now sleep,” he said. “Just sleep.”
As if that were an easy thing to do with him so near.
Minutes passed as she waited for his breathing to deepen so she might extricate herself.
“’Tis like holding a fence post,” he muttered. “Pray, relax. I do not bite.”
“I am not worried about your teeth,” she snapped.
He grunted, beneath the covers caught the hand she clenched atop her belly, and gently pried it open. Then he pressed her palm to his chest and she felt the work of his heart beneath his tunic.
“Sleep,” he said again.
With each beat she counted, she relaxed a bit more, and when she finally began to drift with him, she felt his hand move up hers, over her arm, and settle upon the child between them.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
“How fares Sir Michael?” Sir Royce asked Gilbert between bites, his voice raised to make himself heard above the din of hungry, talkative men. “I notice he is absent from the hall. Is he still in your service?” As he lifted another morsel to his mouth, an expectant silence descended upon the hall.
Meat dagger suspended midair, Gilbert looked from Sir Royce to his men. The abrupt termination of their conversations was something he alone would have to deal with. Grimly, he watched his men flick their gazes from him to the lady at his side who had reluctantly entered the hall with their lord a half hour earlier.
When Gilbert turned his own gaze upon her, it struck him that she appeared to have disassociated herself from any and all. One hand gripping the stem of her chalice, the other turned around the handle of her meat dagger, she stared at the trencher between her and Gilbert.
Not for the first time wishing he had not insisted that she accompany him to the hall, he reflected on the morn that had begun with such promise. He had expected Graeye to awaken in a poor mood upon finding him still in her bed, but her disposition had been pleasantly peaceable. However, when he told her to dress quickly so she might join him in welcoming Sir Royce and others of the king’s men, her mood had altered. When pressed, she had said she preferred to break her fast in her chamber. When further pressed, she revealed she was uncomfortable dining with the king’s men.
Her aversion had made no sense to Gilbert, for she regularly took her meals in the hall amid the many. Thus, he had insisted she accompany him and, too late, seen his error.
Upon their entrance to the hall, the curious, less than furtive glances bestowed upon her by the king’s men had begun to awaken him to her discomfort, and those stares were no less felt throughout the meal. It was one thing for Graeye to adjust to the curiosity of Penforke’s castle folk—a necessity, since this was now her home—quite another to be scrutinized by those ranked high among the king’s men who were merely passing through.
Not only was she an unwed noblewoman grown heavy with misbegotten child, she was seated beside the man who had fathered the babe—one who had no intention of righting the situation by wedding her.
Gilbert loathed himself for being so insensitive and would have seen her returned abovestairs if he had not feared it would draw more attention. Now, however, with Sir Royce’s query about Sir Michael, he wished he had done so.
He looked back at the king’s man. “We will speak of it later,” he said in a tone he hoped expressed what he did not say.
The meal resumed its previous course, the noise of dozens of conversations once more rising.
“My lord.” Graeye lifted her gaze to survey the occupants of the other tables. “Why is Sir Michael not among your men?” She turned her lovely pale eyes upon him. “Has he displeased you?”
So she had not been ignorant of all that transpired around her. Resenting the tight corner she backed him into, he looked to the trencher between them. Now was not the time or place to be drawn into talk of the traitorous young knight. Later, in private, he would tell her of Sir Micha
el’s death.
He speared a piece of meat and offered it to her.
She shook her head. “I am not hungry.”
“You would have eaten had I allowed Mellie to carry a tray up to you.”
The dull emotion in her eyes turned bright, and she hissed. “As I would have preferred.”
Gilbert knew anger was her due, just as he knew now was not the time to unleash it. Leaning nearer, he said, “’Tis too late for that. Now eat so our child may grow strong and healthy ere he ventures into this cruel world.”
Graeye stared at him, tried to push down that which had writhed in her depths since she had first felt Sir Royce’s gaze, but it was all through her now, its tendrils wrapped tightly around her. “Know you what they are thinking?” She jerked her head in the direction of the king’s men seated on his other side.
“Graeye—”
“I will tell you. They are thinking they would also like a highborn harlot—a Lady of Eve—to grace their own tables and warm their beds.”
Eyes that had been mostly blue deepened to near black as she had not seen them do in a very long time. But though his anger was as tangible as the regard of those who watched them, and inwardly she recoiled, outwardly, she did not flinch.
As if he did not trust himself to speak, he pressed his lips tight and thrust his dagger forward for her to take the meat.
Though tempted to do so with her teeth, she knew she would only be spiting herself by giving the king’s men more to muse upon.
Drawing a deep breath, she pinched the morsel and popped it in her mouth.
Expressionless, Gilbert turned back to the trencher to fish out another piece.
Graeye took her time chewing, and when she swallowed, the dagger was there again. “I can feed myself,” she said.
“Aye, but our child cannot.” He pushed the meat nearer.
She took it, fully expecting him to return with more. However, he pressed her meat dagger in her hand and returned to his own nourishment.
“And do not feed that beast of yours,” he muttered with a glance at Groan whose head was on her knee.
Surprised to discover how hungry she was, Graeye applied herself to the trencher. When it was nearly empty, she reintroduced the question Gilbert had yet to answer. “My lord, you did not account for Sir Michael’s absence.”
Again, his mouth tightened. “I have not forgotten. It will wait.”
Certes, he was hiding something, for what harm was there in revealing the man’s whereabouts? Resigned to biding her time, she sat back and waited for the meal to end.
“He is dead,” Gilbert said.
As if struck with a fist rather than words, Sir Royce recoiled. “How?”
Gilbert met his wide-eyed stare. “By his own sword he took his life. But had he not done so, I would gladly have seen to it myself.”
After a long moment, the knight said, “’Tis the same as Sir William, is it not? He betrayed you—to Charwyck.”
Tilting back in his chair, Gilbert stared out at the hall that had emptied of all but the two of them. “Aye. His betrayal not only cost the lives of two villagers and three of my men, but the ruination of an entire village.”
“But I understood you had set men to watch the villages to ensure against further raiding.”
“I had, but when I received confirmation of Charwyck’s place of encampment, I left only a token watch at each village and took the greater number of men to ride with me.” He drew a hand down his face. “Charwyck was warned of our coming well in advance of our arrival.”
“And it was Sir Michael who carried word to him of your intent to raid his camp.”
“’Tis assuredly what happened.”
“It is because of Lady Graeye he betrayed you?”
Gilbert resettled his chair upon on its four legs. “Aye, he wanted her.”
Pressed against the wall near the bottom of the stairway, Graeye squeezed her eyes closed but could not block out the offense laid at her feet. Men had died because of her, villagers left homeless—all in the name of her father’s vengeance and Sir Michael’s betrayal.
She knew it was wrong to eavesdrop, but she had come upon the conversation unsuspectingly, and Gilbert’s pronouncement that Sir Michael was dead had precluded all thoughts of withdrawing or revealing herself. Now she understood his reluctance to speak of the young knight. It was not idle talk, after all.
“Then Edward Charwyck knows of the child she carries,” Sir Royce said. “And if not from William Rotwyld, then Sir Michael.”
“Aye, and knowing it is my child, he will likely try again to harm her.”
Catching the sound of footsteps, Graeye cautiously peered around the wall and saw that Gilbert had risen and begun pacing.
“Sir Michael took great satisfaction in describing exactly what her father intends to do,” he said when he had passed Sir Royce a second time.
“Unless Charwyck has gone completely mad,” the other man mused, “it is not Lady Graeye’s life I would fear for, but the safekeeping of your child—and, of course, your own life.”
Gilbert ceased pacing. “What speak you of?”
Sir Royce dropped his elbows to the table, clasped his hands, and leaned forward. “Your heir. The old man wanted an heir for his properties. For that, he brought Lady Graeye from Arlecy. Now he has a grandchild soon to enter this world who will prove more valuable than any made from the union of his daughter with Sir William. If he could lay hands to this child and see to your demise, he would have your properties and those he lost to you.”
After some time, Gilbert said, “You are right. That is what he would aspire to—providing he yet has any wits about him.”
“What will you do?”
“He will suffer the same fate as Philip. And then I will be free of the accursed Charwycks.”
“Do you so soon forget Lady Graeye is a Charwyck?”
Beside Graeye, Mellie tugged her arm. “Milady,” she whispered, “we should return to your chamber.”
Graeye glanced over her shoulder. Until that moment, she had forgotten the other woman’s presence. It was nearly a shock to look into that puckish face.
Mellie shifted her burden of soiled linens to the opposite arm and motioned for Graeye to follow her up the stairs.
Having no desire to hear Gilbert’s answer, Graeye hitched up her skirts and accepted the hand Mellie fit beneath her elbow. Together, they stepped lightly up the stairs, neither speaking until they reached the chamber.
“Ye needn’t worry I’ll be runnin’ to the baron with news we overheard his talk, milady,” Mellie said as she pushed open the door and stepped aside to allow her mistress to precede her.
Graeye entered and crossed to the window. “I am grateful for that consideration, Mellie.” And she truly was, for Gilbert would consider it further deceit should he learn she had eavesdropped.
“Like for like,” Mellie answered.
Graeye frowned.
The maid shrugged. “Ye did me a good turn yestereve. I but repay in kind. Of course, now I’m no longer beholden to ye.”
Graeye offered a weak smile. “Of course.”
To her surprise, Mellie returned the smile. Then, shifting her burden again, she flounced out of the room.
Though the maid still tried hard not to like Graeye, she had lost much of her hostility. Indeed, she was almost friendly at times.
That thought dispelled Graeye’s anguish over what she had learned with her eavesdropping, but only for a moment. Holding tight to emotions that threatened to overflow, she turned back to the window.
There was more she needed to know, Graeye decided later that day, and only one person who could tell her. But how was she to convince Gilbert she was ready for the truth about Philip?
As the last of the king’s men disappeared from sight over a distant rise, she shifted her gaze to the bailey below and caught sight of Gilbert as he strode toward the donjon. Should she go to him?
Her quandary was resolved minutes la
ter when he entered her chamber.
“I had thought you would be resting,” he said as he closed the door.
Her moment at hand, and yet uncertain as to how to broach the subject, Graeye did not turn from the window. “I am not tired,” she said, hugging her arms to her and leaning farther out to let the cool breeze snatch at the tendrils of hair about her face.
Gilbert laid his hands to her shoulders, gently pulled her back, and turned her to face him.
She averted her gaze for fear he might read the guilt there, assuming he did not yet know of it. Dare she hope Mellie had kept her word?
Stepping out from beneath his hands, she lifted her loosened hair over her shoulder and began to braid it.
“I prefer it unbound,” he said.
She continued plaiting.
“Graeye.” He closed a hand over hers to halt the jerky movements that betrayed her anxiety.
She peered up at him from beneath her lashes. “Aye, my lord?”
“You are still angry with me?”
She recalled her resentment at being made to dine at his side as if she were the wife he refused to make her. It all seemed so trivial now that she carried the burden of those men’s deaths.
She shook her head. “No more. I behaved poorly, and I repent of any embarrassment I caused you.”
Gilbert raised his eyebrows. He had expected her to continue with where they had left off during the meal. Why was she leaving the subject be? “What are you about, Graeye?” he asked as he searched her face and the reddened eyes she tried to conceal beneath spiky lashes. “And why have you been crying?”
“Forgive me,” she said. “The pregnancy makes my moods flighty.”
He had heard expectant women were ofttimes unpredictable. It was how his father had explained his mother’s moodiness when she had carried his sister, Lizanne. Still, instincts told him there was more to Graeye’s peculiar behavior than impending motherhood. Her anger was almost preferable to this.
He nodded his grudging acceptance of her explanation and drew her to the bed. “I must needs apologize for insisting that you attend the meal with me.” He urged her down beside him. “I did not realize it would cause you such discomfort.”
