by Tamara Leigh
Drawing from deep within herself, she found the strength to carry her forward. Though she could not be said to run, neither did she walk.
Awakened by the jarring movements, Gillian began to whimper.
“’Twill be over soon,” Graeye soothed as she pushed back her hood to reveal her hair and waved a hand to draw attention to herself. She was about to lend her voice as well when the riders turned toward her.
Though tempted to drop to her knees in thanks, she hurried forward.
Gilbert was but a dozen lengths from her when another pain tore through Graeye, but it was not like those other pains. This one burned, so much that it, not God, dropped her to her knees.
A howl of fury rose above the pounding of hooves.
Gilbert? Wondering at the depth of rage that produced such a horrendous sound, Graeye peered over her shoulder and saw that a shaft protruded from her upper back. The pain intensified, and she was flushed with remorse at the hazy realization it had to have been William who had put her through.
“Ah, nay,” she breathed as she looked back at Gilbert who was nearing in a measure of time that seemed not of the real world. He moved much too slowly.
As pain took her all the way to the ground and she fell heavily onto her side, Gillian began wailing.
Graeye squeezed her eyes closed, and when she opened them, Gilbert was bent over her, his face distorted with anger, concern, and fear.
“Our baby,” she croaked as he lifted Gillian from her and handed the infant into waiting arms. “He comes, Gilbert.”
Disbelief furrowed his face. “Dear Lord, not now!”
She lifted a hand and touched his unshaven jaw. “Soon,” she breathed, then her hand fell to the ground and she lost sight of him as her lids lowered.
Gilbert stared at her, all the promises he had ever made to not allow her into his heart dissolving as if they had never been. He could no longer deny it—he loved her as he had never loved another.
“Do not leave me, Graeye.” He hardly recognized his strangled voice. “You cannot. I will not let you.”
“Gilbert!” Lizanne shouted. “We must hurry else she will lose too much blood.”
Carefully, he lifted Graeye into his arms. As he strode to where Ranulf sat astride his mount, he pressed his lips to her forehead. “I love you, Graeye,” he said.
Her lashes fluttered. “And I you,” she murmured.
Gilbert savored those words, then handed her up to Ranulf. To leave her now seemed almost a sin, but he must. “I am going after William,” he said. “This day, there will be an end to this.”
“Likely he has already been taken,” Ranulf said.
It was possible, the knights having set off after him when Graeye was struck. “Perhaps,” he said and turned to his destrier, “but it is not over ’til I have been satisfied.”
“I should go with you.”
One foot in the stirrup, Gilbert looked over his shoulder at his brother-in-law. “I yielded Philip to you,” he reminded Ranulf of that day a year past when he had been given a choice of two men to fight. Though it was Philip he had wanted, to ensure justice was done, he had chosen the other man—Ranulf’s twin brother. “Now,” he said, “it is my turn to set things right.”
Grudgingly, Ranulf nodded.
Gilbert ordered those of his men still with him to return to the castle, then rode alone toward the wood.
One by one, Gilbert turned back the men who had gone after William. Now, as darkness hovered on the horizon, he alone sought the miscreant who had taken refuge in his woods, and who surely awaited the opportunity to slay him.
Refusing to allow anger and impatience to interfere with his judgment, he rode weapon-ready through the trees. Always, though, he found his thoughts turning to Graeye and their child.
Was she well? Would she survive both the wound and the birthing? Had their babe arrived?
Each time he forced the worries aside with a reminder of the capable hands into which he had entrusted her—Lizanne’s and Lucy’s.
It was instinct that told Gilbert he was no longer alone. Readying himself for the attack, he searched for a glimpse of William’s clothing but found none. Thus, he was surprised when the assault came from above. Reacting quickly to the shout of anger as the man descended from the tree, Gilbert twisted around in time to throw up his sword and deflect the blade that aimed to sever the great vein in his neck.
The sudden force of William’s weight propelled them both from the horse and they crashed to the ground.
Gilbert quickly gained his feet. Though his impaired leg protested at the weight placed upon it, he swung his sword in a wide arc that had William stumbling back.
“Now it ends,” Gilbert said, standing his ground as the other man raised his sword. “Say your prayers, for death is nigh.”
William laughed and stirred the air with the side-to-side movement of his sword. “I need no prayer to spill your blood, Balmaine. Soon you will join that harlot and your misbegotten whelp in death.”
That Graeye might even now be forever gone from him—and their child—fueled Gilbert’s fury. Snarling, he leapt forward and took aim to end the man’s life. But William was endowed with quick responses, the suddenness of his retreat leaving his assailant with only air upon which to exact his revenge.
Gilbert countered the attack that came at him a moment later with a thrust that sent William back several steps. Secure in the knowledge that what he lacked in speed he made up for in strength, Gilbert followed.
Steel met steel, and William retreated again to maintain his balance. Then, suddenly, he was to the left, his swing catching Gilbert across the ribs. The blade pierced the protective chain mail, but only just.
William waved his blade before his opponent to show the blood that trickled its length. “That is one, Balmaine,” he taunted. “Two will take a piece of your flesh, and three will end your life.”
Further angered at having lost the first contact to the miscreant, Gilbert spat between his teeth, “That is the last of me you will have, Rotwyld.”
“You think so?” William moved opposite, but he gained no advantage as Gilbert anticipated the move. “Were you not so lame, Balmaine, I might believe you, but it takes more than strength to down one’s opponent.”
Aye, it takes observation, Gilbert reminded himself, refusing to rise to the same taunt with which others had attempted to best him in the past. He nearly smiled, for he had discovered the key to predicting William’s movements. As was most often the case, it was in the eyes that fell to his next place of attack a moment before his legs followed. As simple as it was, it gave Gilbert the advantage when William next attacked, and earned his blade a taste of the man’s upper thigh.
William shouted, having nothing to protect his flesh from the blade’s bite. A moment later, he countered with a blow that missed Gilbert’s neck by the width of a sword.
“Now we are more fairly matched,” Gilbert jeered as he pushed William’s blade off his. “Both lame.”
“A slow death you shall suffer!” William raged and lunged again to catch Gilbert’s sword arm. As the man’s blade skittered over the links of armor, Gilbert took the opportunity to flay open the vulnerable shoulder presented to him, causing his opponent to lurch backward.
“Are you prepared to die, Rotwyld?” Gilbert demanded.
William’s pale visage brightened, and he clasped his free hand over the other, taking a two-handed grip on his sword.
Gilbert lunged.
Time and again, William parried and sidestepped. Time and again, his attempts to land a blow went mostly unrewarded, hindered as he was by the loss of blood and the pain that showed in his twisted mouth and the deepening lines of his face.
Gilbert did not relent. Though several times he stood a good chance of landing the final blow, he did not push it that far. Not yet. First, he wanted fear. He wanted this man to experience the terrible emotion that had choked Gilbert when Graeye had fallen before him with William’s arrow
protruding from her back. And he would have it.
Beneath a slowly darkening sky, they traded blows until, weapons crossed above their heads, Gilbert found what he sought in his opponent’s desperate eyes. Using his greater strength, he thrust his weight into his sword, sent the man careening backward, and arced his blade downward.
William screamed with the opening of his belly, lost hold of his sword, and landed hard upon his back. Wrapping an arm around his bloody innards, drawing strident breaths through clenched teeth, he stared up at Gilbert. Then he laughed. “So, ’tis me. It should be you, but…it is me.”
Gilbert leveled his sword at the man’s heart. “Soon you will join your earthly lord, Charwyck, and never again will you do Lady Graeye harm.”
“She was to have been mine!”
“A pity you did not deserve her, Rotwyld.”
He bared his teeth. “You think you do?”
Gilbert knew he did not deserve Graeye, but he was determined to spend the remainder of his life aspiring to be worthy of her. “She is to be my wife, and whatever wrongs I have done her, I will make right.”
“Wife? A harlot?”
Though Gilbert ached to give the final thrust, he managed to stay his arm, the effort required to do so making it shake.
William eyed the steel. “Ah, poor Baron Balmaine. You have a…” He moaned, coughed up a froth of blood. “You have a care for that devil-kissed wench. I could not be happier.”
Still, Gilbert held back.
“It does me good to know you shall not have her for long, for if my…” More bloody froth. “…bolt did not strike her heart, it came near enough that she is lost to you. And your misbegotten pup as well.”
Gilbert refused to believe it. The arrow had pierced her shoulder. It could prove deadly, but it was not as certain as William believed.
The man made a sound not unlike a mewl, then dragged open the neck of his tunic to expose his throat. “Finish me.”
Gilbert longed to. How he ached for the satisfaction of—
Revenge soaked in crimson.
He shifted his gaze to the man’s torn abdomen. Undoubtedly, death would be the end of him, and though the final blow could be excused as an act of mercy, he knew himself—knew mercy would have nothing to do with it, that it would only satisfy him in a way of which his gentle Graeye would not approve.
He drew a deep breath. “You are finished, William. As you do not need me to speed your journey, I leave you to God.”
A stunned silence followed him all the way to his horse, then the man set to cursing and spewing vile names against the woman Gilbert loved.
“It is done,” Gilbert called and spurred his destrier toward Graeye.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Pray to God? Ask for a miracle for which he would shortly find himself mocked? Gilbert shook his head, but his feet carried him toward the chapel.
He had waved away those who thought to provide him with details of Graeye’s condition beyond word that she yet lived, for he was not ready to face the possibility of losing her. Good or bad, he had first to do what he had long denied himself—and Graeye.
Entering the chapel he had spurned years ago, he went to the altar, knelt, bowed his head, and prayed.
It was where Lizanne found him an hour later. She laid a hand on his shoulder. “You prayed well, Brother.”
So fervent had been his prayers that he had not known of her presence until that moment. He surged to his feet and gripped her shoulders. “Graeye? She is well?”
She looked down at her hands. “Your son is healthy.”
Struggling against the temptation to shake her, he demanded, “What of Graeye?”
She lifted her chin. “The labor was hard, Gilbert, but your lady did a fine job. She is a strong woman. Providing there are no complications, she stands a good chance of fully recovering.”
“Providing…chance…” he rasped. “Then the arrow—”
“It struck nothing vital, but she lost a lot of blood.”
Gilbert tightened his hands at his sides. “I will not lose her.”
She inclined her head, smiled lightly. “I believe you, Brother.”
“I wish to see her.”
“She is resting.”
“Now, Lizanne.” He turned and she hurried after him.
To his surprise and vast approval, it was the solar to which Graeye had been carried to birth their child. By the light of a single candle beside the bed, Gilbert crossed the chamber and sank down on the mattress. He leaned over Graeye and was heartened by the bit of color in her cheeks. Still, she was quite pale.
He feathered a finger across her cool brow, flinching when a soft moan parted her lips.
“I have prayed, Graeye,” he murmured.
Her lids slowly rose. “Have you?” she breathed.
“I have, and I shall continue to.” He bent nearer, brushed his mouth across hers. “What else can I do to prove my love? What more to earn God’s favor?”
“’Tis enough,” she whispered, and when he drew back, her lips curved gently.
“Can you ever forgive me for not trusting you?” he asked. “For the things of which I wrongly accused you?”
“Naught to forgive. You could not have known.”
“But I should have—”
“All is healed, Gilbert.”
Sending up another prayer that she would be healed as well, he pressed his forehead to hers. “Soon we will wed and naught will ever come between us.”
She touched his face. “What of William?”
Gilbert raised his head. “We fought, he fell to a mortal wound, and I left him to God. Certes, he lies dead.”
“Then it is over.”
“Not for us, Graeye.”
More light moved into her eyes and color into her cheeks. “Have you seen our son?”
“Not yet. First, I had to come to you.”
“Then go now so you may sooner return with our child.”
Gilbert fleetingly kissed her. “I will not be long.”
Their son was, indeed, healthy. As he peered up at his father out of eyes like Graeye’s, the babe gurgled and waved a tiny fist.
“So small,” Gilbert murmured.
“Not at all,” Lizanne said. “He is a good size, the same as Gillian was.”
He shook his head. “Still small. May I hold him?”
“Of course.” She passed him into his arms.
The babe fidgeted a bit, then yawned wide and closed his eyes.
“Methinks he is bored with me already,” Gilbert mused, very much liking the feel of the small, warm body.
Lizanne stroked his son’s cheek. “Nay, he is simply content.”
“You think so?”
She looked up. “You will make a wonderful father—and husband—Gilbert.”
As he beheld the certainty shining from her eyes, he was nearly overwhelmed by the realization that the tormented past with which they had both been afflicted was truly in the past. In its place was a future neither had dare hoped for, one Philip Charwyck could not have foreseen. More, one that would not have been possible without him.
“What is it?” Lizanne asked.
He shook his head in wonder. “’Tis strange the way God works—that He leaves some evil be and takes other evil in hand and turns it into good.”
“And in His own good time,” she said knowingly. “I do not understand it either, Gilbert. I know only that you and I have been blessed and we ought to hold our blessings close.”
He looked to his son, murmured, “I intend to,” then leaned down and kissed his sister’s cheek.
“Thus, a new beginning for both of us,” she said as he drew back.
He smiled. “A new beginning.” Then he returned to Graeye whose arms awaited her son and the man with whom she would go through life.
EPILOGUE
Henri Balmaine, firstborn and heir of Gilbert Balmaine, was not one to let events of great import pass him by—at least, not without a valiant strug
gle to keep his gray-blue eyes out from behind his lids.
During the final act of the wedding ceremony that would also legitimize his birth, the babe shifted where he lay huddled between his parents who were prostrated in prayer beneath the pall stretched over them.
As he continued to test his swaddling cloths, Graeye lifted her face from the floor to peer at the child with whom she and Gilbert had been blessed a fortnight past.
Henri blinked at her and made a sweet sound somewhere between a squeak and a coo.
His father raised his head, grinned at his son, smiled at his wife, and slid a hand up over the arm Graeye turned around their babe. “I love you,” he whispered and stroked the backs of his fingers across her cheek.
She momentarily closed her eyes to savor this moment when all was made right, not only in God’s eyes but the eyes of men. “As I love you,” she breathed and brushed her lips across his fingers.
“My Graeye.”
She smiled. “My Gilbert.”
The babe squeaked again, wriggled his upper body, and thrust his little legs beneath the bindings.
“Our Henri,” Gilbert murmured, “he who is as restless as a man whose wedding night seems too far off.”
Graeye barely contained a laugh. “Ah, but in his case, ’tis his belly that hungers.”
Above the pall, the four corners of which were held by Lady Lizanne, Baron Wardieu, Lady Zara, and Sir Walter, the priest paused in intoning the mass and loudly cleared his throat. Beneath the pall, husband and wife exchanged looks of chagrin and returned to their prayers.
By the time Gilbert and Graeye Balmaine were raised to their feet, Henri’s sweet little sounds were less so and of a more urgent nature.
Quickly, the flustered priest bestowed the kiss of peace upon Gilbert, then stood aside and nodded at Graeye. It was time to kiss the bride.
As Gilbert turned to her, his sister said, “It must be done proper,” passed Gillian to her husband, and reached for the little one who bore the name of her and her brother’s father.
