by Tamara Leigh
Did he think she meant to mount his horse and leave him to the storm? Or might he be concerned for her? It was bold to approach an overwrought horse—the nearest she had come to her old self. Of course, her old self had sometimes been imprudent.
She touched Sartan’s muzzle.
“God’s eyes!” D’Arci cursed. “Do not!”
The horse breathed her, then his backward ear came forward.
“See now, I mean you no harm.” A fluttering in her chest, she patted its neck and gathered the reins.
The horse snickered and stepped back as if to flee.
“There,” Beatrix soothed. “Come.” She tugged the reins and turned to where D’Arci had drawn near. Though the dark on his face sought to coax fear from her, she did not falter. Sartan followed, offering only slight resistance when lightning struck in the distance.
Beatrix halted before D’Arci and held out the reins. “I did not murder your brother.”
Michael stared at her. Why had she not run? That she might defend herself? Was she so fool? Though he told himself he did not believe her, his anger dwindled.
“Your mount.” She held the reins nearer.
Michael looked to Sartan and marveled at how easily the great destrier could trod Beatrix. And she, fearful of horses, had approached him as one would a recalcitrant child.
Anger once more pooled in Michael’s blood, and without pondering what it meant, he growled, “You could have been killed.”
“Would that not have served your idea of…justice?”
All be cursed, it should! Instead, he had feared for her.
Lightning came again, so bright it made him squint. “We must go to the wood.” He eased himself to the animal’s right side, and though the destrier was tense, he shifted only slightly when Michael put his foot in the stirrup and hoisted himself atop. Teeth ground against the pain, Michael reached to Beatrix.
She stared at him.
Did she intend to run? If so, he could easily take her to ground.
Michael frowned. She’d had her chance to flee and surrendered it so that she might deny her crime. The only explanation was that which he more and more used to resolve the contradiction between his brother’s murderer and the woman said to have done the deed—she had to be witless. But even that was becoming less believable. Perhaps because he wished it so.
He eased his tense jaw. “We must find shelter.”
With a slight nod, she slid her wet fingers over his.
For a moment, Michael thought lightning had struck near again, but it was only Beatrix. He pulled her up and settled her between his thighs where she went rigid as she had done this morn when they had first left the abbey ruins.
Hooking an arm around her, he turned Sartan toward the wood. As they entered the trees, lightning split the sky and cast a silver glow over the canopy of leaves that deflected the rain. Knowing if lightning landed to the wood, it would likely strike that which stood tallest, Michael searched out a tree that grew short of the others.
Shortly, he halted Sartan. “We shall pass the remainder of the storm here.”
Beatrix gripped the pommel, turned, and slid to the ground.
Grateful for the near absence of pain when he lowered beside her, Michael swatted the destrier’s hindquarter and watched him trot away. When he turned back, Beatrix sat at the base of the tree, the hood pulled down over her brow and head bent to her drawn knees. He knew he ought to seek separate shelter, but he drew his own hood on, hobbled forward, and lowered beside her. God willing, the storm would soon pass. They must make Soaring this eve.
Over the next half hour, rain came harder and formed a torrent three feet in front of them, lightning lit the wood and was answered by thunder, and not once did Beatrix come out from beneath her hood.
Did she sleep? Michael leaned near.
She prayed—in Latin.
Something innocent about her, something true…
Could such a woman murder? As he drew back, a crack deep in the wood evidenced a tree had been hit, and he felt the quake when it met the ground.
Beatrix jerked her head up.
Though she allowed Michael only a glimpse of her fear, it stirred him. He moved nearer, not realizing he did so until an ache shot up his leg. “’Twill be over soon,” he said.
Suppressing the impulse to scoot away, Beatrix clasped her gaze to his. “I am not frightened.”
D’Arci angled his head. “As you are no longer frightened of horses?”
Another lie, but she needed to hear it as much as she needed him to. “As I no longer am. Indeed, I have…decided I am done with fear.”
His lids narrowed, causing the moisture on his lashes to glisten. “For this you approached Sartan?”
He did not need to know she had also been concerned for his injury. “Aye, to defeat that which hangs over me like these clouds.” She tipped her face up. “And to accept that I may never again be as I was, that my…destiny is lost to me.” Tears pricking her eyes, she castigated herself for allowing him to peer into her soul.
“What destiny?”
Was he truly interested? Why? And if she told him, what gain? Might he better understand her? Believe what she told of his brother? A vein of hope opened, and try though she did to close it, it opened wider. “You truly wish to know?”
“I assure you, ‘tis only curiosity that makes me ask.”
A twinge to the heart caused her to rethink whether to tell him of her hopes and dreams. But what harm? “Four years ago, I was…promised to the church, and began my t-training to serve the Lord.”
“You were to be a nun?” There was no mistaking his disbelief.
“As my m-mother wished.” Reviled by her stuttering tongue, she clenched her hands.
“But not as you wished?”
“Nay, it was as I…wished,” she hastily corrected. It was what she had wanted, was it not? She had a heart for God, did she not?
“You are certain?”
“I am. Though now…” She saw the great emptiness of falling, heard her cry and Sir Simon’s shout, felt the pain. Pulling a hand from beneath the mantle, she slid it inside the hood and touched her head where the flesh puckered beneath her hair.
“Now?” D’Arci leaned near.
Did her eyes play her false? Or was that concern on his face?
She averted her gaze. “Who would want me now when there is a bridge between my mind and tongue that is often im-impassable? Nay, unless God works a miracle and…restores me, there will be no place for me within the Church. Nor with any man.” Her next thought drew bitter laughter from her. “Of course, even if God works a miracle, ‘tis not as if I will be…allowed to enjoy it.”
D’Arci frowned. Then, unexpectedly, he slipped a hand inside her hood, pushed her fingers aside, and probed the scar.
Why did he touch her? She swallowed hard, and a tear slipped to her cheek.
He brushed it away. “I am sorry,” he said, his hooded face bare inches from hers.
Beatrix caught her breath. Something had happened. Something that should not have. And yet she was glad of it. “Why?”
“I do not know.” He came nearer until his hood met hers and cloaked them in darkness.
Beatrix quivered. Surely he would not kiss her. But if he did?
In that moment, she wished he would—this man who had pursued her and sought justice for what she had not done. Deeper than anything she had ever believed she wanted, she longed to feel his mouth upon hers.
“I do not know,” he said again, his breath caressing her lips.
She could not draw air, but she did not miss it. For what did one need one’s breath when they had another’s?
D’Arci pressed closer, and yet their mouths did not touch. But nearly. She knew it from the brush of his nose alongside hers.
As she lowered her lids, he breached the last space between them, the slight movement causing her hood to fall back and let in the rain. She hardly noticed, her senses straining toward the barely pe
rceptible brush of his lips—until breath came between them again.
“You have possessed me,” he growled.
She opened her eyes. He was so near she had only to lean in to press her mouth to his. And she would have had his own hood not fallen back to reveal eyes lit with accusation. Too late, he realized what he did. And hated her for it.
Shame and indignation rising, she told herself she detested his breath upon her. “I have possessed you?” she demanded. “No more than you have possessed me, brother of Simon D’Arci.”
The contempt heaped on his kin’s name made his lids narrow.
“Are you finished, Lord D’Arci?” Thankfully, the words did not stumble from her. “I am getting wet.”
His nostrils flared, and she sensed his struggle to be the one to hold, but he pulled the hood over his head and settled back against the tree. “Quite finished, Lady Beatrix.”
A lump in her throat, she resettled the hood on her head and stared through the rain. She tried not to think about Michael D’Arci, not to remember the whisper of his mouth across hers, not to feel what had nearly been her first real kiss, not to convince herself he was different from Simon. Tried, but did not succeed.
She skimmed a finger across her lips and ached at the loss of something that had never been hers and could never be. She truly was a fool.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
I do not know. Twice he had said it when she asked the reason he was sorry for the injury done her. But he had known, and for the hundredth time, rebuked himself for speaking such; for the thousandth time, cursed himself for what followed. He had come as near to kissing her as a man could without committing the intimacy. If not that the fall of her hood had let in the chill rain, he would have quenched his thirst, perhaps even had her there on the sodden floor of the wood. Was it only need?
He looked from the flickering night sky to the woman who had sat the saddle between his thighs since the passing of the clouds. Her head rested against his shoulder, pale hair bright against the dark of his mantle. Still she slept? He lowered his head and saw her eyes were closed and lips parted.
Feeling another stir of attraction, he peered up through the blue-black darkness. Any wench will ease this ache, he told himself. In fact, regardless of his injury, he would see to it this eve. What was the name of the woman he’d had to bed when Christian Lavonne had summoned him from Soaring? He frowned, wondering how he could hardly recall her face though every day she served at the high table and had more than once filled his bed.
As Sartan approached the crest of the hill, the donjon towers came into sight, the moon behind casting a path through the dark as if to guide him home.
Home. Michael turned the word around. After the lies that had reduced him to knight errant, never had he expected to have a home. Forsooth, never had he expected to want one, especially a demesne where it was the duty of a lord to produce an heir. As the getting of one meant the getting of a wife, that Michael would not do. Not yet. Perhaps never. Because of Edithe.
Letting the old pain feed him that it might shatter his uncertainty about Beatrix, he glanced at her. Aye, the same as Edithe. And yet—
Nay, regardless of his lusting loins, regardless of all she had done to prove otherwise, she had killed his brother. And the blood on her gown was all the proof needed. When Michael had stared at the crimson, knowing it bled out as his brother gasped his last, anger had shaken him as it had done when Edithe’s accusations sought to cut his own life short. And it shook him now. Regardless of what it cost to ensure justice, Simon would be satisfied.
Michael halted Sartan atop the hill. Castle Soaring soared. Perched on a crag that rose against the night sky, its towers reached well beyond a man’s reach. And as with the first time Michael had ridden upon it, he felt as if it had been raised to point the way to heaven—a sentimental thought that always surprised him. Perhaps he was nearer God than believed. Perhaps there was yet hope for him.
With a shake of his head, he returned his attention to the stronghold. It was formidable, though little more than half the size of his liege’s castle; majestic, though in daylight it evidenced neglect and disrepair. As with all things of such scale, it would take years to return it to its former state, but its defenses were worthy. Though visiting lords might scoff at unpainted walls, shabby outbuildings, dank rushes, battered furnishings, threadbare tapestries, and simple drink and viands that arrived at table barely warm, few would dare bring an army against Soaring. Much Michael had learned from Duke Henry’s quest for the throne, especially how to keep the enemy out. Indeed, any moment now—
The croak of a frog cleaved the night and was answered by another.
This moment. The first torch appeared on Soaring’s walls, followed by a dozen more that lit the dark before the castle. Though the glow did not reach as far as Michael, it need not. The thunder of hooves behind and before him sufficed. Despite his absence, his men adhered to his instruction to turn back wayfarers well before they reached the walls.
As the first of the riders took shape, Beatrix’s chin came around and the sparkle of her gaze met his.
Hating his need to reassure her, Michael muttered, “My men.” Of course, what assurance was that when it meant she would soon address the walls of her prison?
She looked around. “Castle Soaring.”
Though she claimed to be done with fear, he wondered if she trembled inside. Telling himself he did not feel for her, Michael peered at the riders—three at the fore and two at the rear, he guessed from the sound of their advance. Aye, his men, but one should never be too certain of anything. It was a pity he had not remembered that with Beatrix.
“Cover your head,” he said, drawing his sword.
As she sat forward and draped the hood over her hair, Sir Robert called across the darkness, “Who goes?”
“Your lord!”
Moonlight running the riders’ drawn swords, the three ahead reined in their horses.
“Lord D’Arci?” Sir Robert’s gruff voice sounded with disbelief.
“I am returned.”
As the knight guided his mount forward, the moonlight turned his pock-marked face familiar. The eyes of the red-bearded knight widened. “’Tis so!” he shouted, though he did so with only a pretense of welcome.
With great murmuring, the others guided their mounts nearer.
Sir Robert halted before Michael. “My lord, ‘twas feared—”
“Wrongly so,” Michael said as a throb wended his leg.
The man inclined his head. When he lifted his gaze, he paused on Michael’s splints, next the hooded figure.
Though Michael felt Sir Robert’s questioning, the shrewd, ever-scheming knight would not speak it aloud, which was as Michael wished it. Until he decided how best to assure Simon his justice, he would keep Beatrix’s identity to himself—and Sir Canute. Considering his infirmity, Michael would need help with her, and the older knight would be discreet.
His injury reminding him that the sooner he dismounted the sooner he could tend it, he returned his sword to its scabbard. “All is well at Soaring?”
“’Tis,” Sir Robert said.
Michael tapped a heel to Sartan and sped past the others. Across the great open, he felt no tremor of fear from Beatrix, and still none when the lowering drawbridge loosed its dreadful creak and groan. As the planks settled to the ground, Michael nodded to the five men who halted their mounts alongside his.
With murmurings of, “My lord,” they reined around to return to their posts.
Michael guided Sartan over the drawbridge, beneath the portcullis, and into the outer bailey. With a lifted hand, he acknowledged the men-at-arms who followed his progress.
As Sartan passed from the outer bailey to the inner where the donjon cut the night sky, Michael thought Beatrix shuddered and had to clamp his teeth against further reassurance.
On the donjon steps, a torchlit figure descended, but even lacking light, Michael would know it was Canute. No others were as tall, exce
pting Baron Lavonne.
“My lord,” the knight called as he stepped into the bailey and came alongside. “’Tis good you are returned.”
No questions as to Michael’s whereabouts, patience and discretion but two of many qualities to recommend him.
Michael laid a hand on the older man’s shoulder. “It is good, Canute.”
Torchlight flickered across the knight’s weathered face as he looked to Beatrix. “I should assist the boy in dismounting, my lord?”
Michael would have laughed if his leg did not trouble him so. Canute was too astute to not realize who Michael had brought to Soaring. “Aye, he is to be put in the hind tower.”
“Of course, my lord.”
As Michael removed his arm from around Beatrix, he felt a sense of loss. All be cursed! She had possessed him.
Canute lifted his arms to receive her.
As she moved into them, she looked to Michael. “When you wish to know the…truth about his death, you have but to ask.”
He warred inside himself and won. “No absolution.”
The mouth he had nearly kissed bent softly upwards. “No absolution.”
Then if he gave her over to trial she would not claim madness? What other defense, then? That she had not done the deed? That she had merely defended herself against further ravishment?
Michael’s gut tightened. She lied. It was absolution she sought, and having foolishly revealed it, she endeavored to undo her mistake.
As Sir Canute set her to her feet, Michael brooded that he had two days, mayhap three, to decide how best to ensure Simon his justice, for once tidings of his return reached his liege, Lavonne would likely descend. And with him would come questions about the hunt for Beatrix and suspicion over who had accompanied Michael to Soaring. That last was unavoidable.
Though the loyalty of most of Michael’s men was unquestioned, several had been placed at Soaring to assure Lavonne’s hold on the demesne—placed by Aldous whose mind aspired to catch up with the deterioration of his body. The old man believed none were above suspicion, including his own son. Thus, despite his confinement, he was kept apprised of all that happened, not only at Broehne’s sister castles, but at Broehne. Though Christian Lavonne was not oblivious to his father’s methods, he tolerated it as being the old man’s due.
