by Tamara Leigh
“I would escort you to the donjon,” Sir Durand said, “but it does not appear that you require an escort.”
She followed his gaze to the landing before the donjon doors where Sir Canute stood. Though his hands were behind his back and his attention appeared to be elsewhere, she knew Sir Durand was correct.
“I wager he has watch over you—to ensure I keep my vow, of course.” He sighed. “It seems Lord D’Arci is most determined to keep his own vow.”
He was? Beatrix had only begun to ponder it when realization returned her to Sir Canute. Had he been near when she broke her fast? Might he have overheard what Lady Laura told?
Sir Durand jutted his chin toward the donjon. “Go.”
She did, but in a different direction. Shortly, she traded daylight for the dim of the stables that housed Soaring’s mounts.
A lad, lugging a bucket in one hand, toting a shovel in the other, halted in the aisle between the stalls. “My lady?”
She nearly retreated, but when a snort sounded from a stall at the far end, she knew it was Sartan. And Michael was with him.
She shook her head at the lad, inched up her skirts, and stepped forward.
The boy edged aside to allow her past and continued toward the stable door with his pungent burden.
Of the dozen stalls Beatrix passed, all but four were occupied, and nearly every one by a horse of remarkable color and stature. Sartan was in the end stall.
His great eyes rolled over her as she halted before the door, then he snorted and tossed his head as if in welcome.
Michael did not accord the same, though he had to know he was no longer alone. He kept his back to her where he stood at the destrier’s shoulder, his dark head bent to whatever task he tended.
“You should not be here,” he bit.
Jealousy? Nay, Sir Durand erred.
“With the injury done you last eve, you should be at rest.”
“Sartan is well?”
Michael reached to a pot at his feet. Before he straightened, she caught sight of the gash in the destrier’s neck. It was packed in salve, to which Michael added more.
“What happened?”
“The mare was not of a mind to be mounted by Sartan and gave back some of what she got.”
Heat rose to Beatrix’s cheeks, and she averted her gaze to the earthen floor.
She did not hear Michael move until the stall door opened. “Forgive me, I should not have said what I did.”
Seeing the urgency in his eyes, she realized he mistook her discomfort for something else. Fear?
Michael stared into Beatrix’s upturned face. What had he been thinking to speak of Sartan’s mating with the mare? He had not been thinking, so tightly wound by the sight of her with Sir Durand that his tongue had strayed. As soon as the words were out, he had known his mistake and needed no confirmation of it, but confirmation was given when he had looked around.
“Do not fear me, Beatrix. Simon’s sins are not mine.”
“This I know,” she surprised him. “I have…known it for some time.”
He stepped nearer and was relieved when she did not retreat. “I ache for you, Beatrix—to hold you and feel your mouth against mine.”
Her breath caught. “You desire me? How can that be?”
Denying himself the temptation of her lips, he asked, “How can you doubt it?”
She touched the side of her head. “I am not as other women, not as I once was. Though I have…regained much, what I am is not what a man wants or needs.”
He urged her chin up. “If you will allow me, I will show you how wrong you are.”
A sad smile scored her mouth. “Desire is not enough.”
Whence came the words he next spoke, he did not know, but they slid from him as if there was no question they could not answer. “I did not say it was.” He lowered his head.
When his beard brushed her smooth skin, she did not pull away, when the first taste of her met his lips, she did not deny him a second. Such sweetness she was, twisting his desire, recasting it, making something of it he had not known it could be. Always before, desire had resided in his loins only. This was different. Just to touch her, to lay his mouth to hers, to breathe her…
Lids fluttering closed, Beatrix pressed against him and parted her lips.
Michael deepened the kiss, but when he felt his body bind tighter, he drew back. “You lack for naught, Beatrix,” he murmured.
Cheeks flushed beneath the sweep of her lashes, she opened her eyes.
As he stared into her vulnerability, urgency gripped him—and fear that the Lavonnes would content themselves with nothing short of her death. “Let me take you from here. Now. This very moment.”
She frowned, and he felt her pull away even before she stepped back. “For this you kissed me? To make of me a p-puppet?”
He should have known she would think as much. “Beatrix—“
“Once is enough to be very wrong about a person.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “I will not let you do that to me again.”
When had she thought different of him? In the rain when she had surrendered to his kiss? When she had nearly staggered to learn word of her capture had been sent to Lavonne? It had to be.
“I give you my word, Beatrix, I will remedy what I have wrought.”
“You are saying you would…carry me away without cover of night?” She retreated another step and slid a hand up over her injured arm. “…without tale that I escaped?”
Michael lowered his arms to his sides. “It is as I would do.”
Her chin dimpled with emotion. “I am to believe you would give all for me, Michael D’Arci?”
Strange how “all” no longer sounded much. “’Tis true I would not return to Soaring.”
She searched his face. “Then you love me?”
The word, small though it was, startled him. Sir Durand had suggested the same and Michael had felt as if struck, but to hear Beatrix speak it pierced him straight through. Why? Because, perhaps, the asking of it meant she loved him?
Smile as tight as a bowstring near release, she raised an eyebrow. “I did not think so. Desire only, then, Lord D’Arci, and what a fool you would be to…yield all for the mere ease of it.”
She was wrong, of course, but love?
She turned away. “That I would not ask of you.”
Michael stared after her as she traversed the aisle between the stalls, and he too soon found himself alone with a mire of emotions. But that was remedied when the horses turned restless in their stalls and Sartan snorted loud in answer to the appearance of young Giffard.
Michael castigated himself, not only for what the squire might have come upon had Beatrix not retreated, but that Beatrix had made him forget what had summoned him to the stables. Sartan’s wound had required further packing, but that had merely occupied Michael while he waited for Sir Robert’s squire to deliver news from Broehne.
Michael nodded the young man forward.
With a stride that spoke of self-possession, Squire Giffard followed Michael into the vacant stable opposite Sartan’s. Here it was safe to speak, for even if a cat wandered into the stables, the horses would alert Michael.
“What tidings, Squire?”
“Most worthy, my lord.” Looking the knight he would be when his training was complete two months hence, Giffard drew himself up to his full height. “The baron’s father has directed Sir Robert to accompany the sheriff when he delivers Lady Beatrix to Broehne.”
That did not surprise.
“And in doing so, to be of good heed.”
A threat to Beatrix? Feeling a vice about his chest, Michael said, “Continue.”
“Brigands, my lord—hired to ensure the lady does not reach Broehne.”
Had Aldous Lavonne so little confidence in securing Beatrix’s death sentence? Why?
“It seems the justice who has come from London is not amenable to the baron’s desire,” the squire answered Michael’s unspoken question. “He s
eeks absolution for the lady.”
Absolution. The word that had angered Michael when Beatrix had spoken it in the darkness of the crypt, momentarily beget the opposite emotion, but no absolution could there be if she was killed en route to Broehne.
“When? And where?”
The squire grimaced. “I fear ’twas not told, my lord.”
That would make it difficult to defend against, especially as the men Michael would need to assemble would have to follow at a distance unbeknownst to the sheriff or Aldous Lavonne’s men.
Had the missive told more than what Sir Robert had revealed in Giffard’s presence? Unfortunately, the old baron was sound enough of mind to seal the missives carried by the squire, ensuring the contents were viewed only by the one for whom they were intended.
Still, Michael was grateful for what he did know. It was fortunate Sir Robert did not suspect his squire’s loyalty—a loyalty gifted to Michael for the personal interest he took in the boy’s training.
“You have done well, Squire,” Michael said. “I thank you.”
Squire Giffard pivoted and opened the stable door.
As the horses roused with Giffard’s passing, Michael looked to his hands. Regardless that these past years of lording had rarely put a weapon to them other than for practice, his palms and fingers were hardened and calloused from years of knight errantry. What had once maimed and killed, now more often healed, but he would be ready for Lavonne’s brigands.
To their grave misfortune, they would not be ready for him.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Quill, ink, parchment. All that she had asked for and been denied. And there was more. She stepped to the chair and small table that had also appeared in her chamber.
Biting her lower lip that too well remembered the kiss pressed upon it a quarter hour past, Beatrix picked the speckled quill from the ink pot.
Had she been wrong to reject Michael? Might all he had done been for love, though he reacted as if repelled by the word? Did a man do this for desire only when there were women aplenty to bed? What did Michael feel for her? And what did she feel for him? True, he had offended when she had asked if he loved her, but her own insides had twisted to hear the words come off her lips. Did she love him? Was that what this ache was? She prayed not, for nothing could come of a woman like her loving a man like him.
Ink ran down the quill’s shaft and formed a bead that hung from the tip long enough for Beatrix to sweep the quill back to the ink pot.
“He wished you to have it,” Sir Canute said at her back.
She turned to where he stood in the doorway and noted he looked less imposing than usual. “You are following me.”
“A charge I have been given.”
“One you do not like.” She was pleased with her crisp delivery. Wondering what he wanted with her, wishing he would let it be known that she might ask about Lady Laura, she said, “Honesty is a virtue, Sir Knight.” But how honest would he be if she inquired into his whereabouts when Lady Laura had revealed her secret pain? And if he had been lurking, would he honor the lady’s bid to keep the tale from other tongues? “Were you near this morn when I came b-belowstairs to break fast?”
His mouth soured at the corners. “I was—and near enough to learn a truth I would not have guessed.”
She nearly groaned. “You should have shown yourself.”
“I was to remain as unobtrusive as possible that you would not feel like a prisoner.”
A prisoner when she refused to escape. “Considerate,” Beatrix clipped. “What do you intend, Sir Canute?”
“It is not my tale, and yet Lord D’Arci ought to know.”
Know that the little girl who adored him was his niece? Though Beatrix agreed that Michael should be told, it was not for Sir Canute to do.
She crossed the room to where he stood at the threshold. “As Lady Laura’s confession was not meant for you, I pray you will…affect to have not heard it.”
He looked down from his lofty height. “Then you will not use the tale for your defense?”
Though she felt small in his shadow, she did not step back. “As I told Lady Laura, I will not.”
“But without it, you have little with which to defend yourself.”
“The truth and God shall serve as my defense.” The words poured from her without slop or drip, and she was heartened that she continued to progress even without benefit of anger.
She glanced over her shoulder. “And now, also, I have a means of writing it down lest my tongue turns wrong.”
The knight considered her, then nodded. “I think you will prevail, my lady. Indeed, it shall be my prayer.”
Dare she believe his sincerity? “I thank you.”
Though she expected him to withdraw, he said, “An apology is due you, my lady—one, methinks, that will explain much I am certain my lord did not tell.”
“What is it?”
“I betrayed my lord, and for it was relieved of my guard over you the day following your arrival at Soaring.” His jaw convulsed. “Michael rejected my urging to send word of your capture to the baron. Thus, I kept a vow he had demanded of me years ago and sent word myself.”
She blinked. “You?”
Color smudged his cheeks. “Though my lord would not admit it, I could see he doubted your guilt—that whatever had happened between the two of you had begun to turn him to a man who thinks first with his loins. And I feared that if he went that way, he would lose all.”
Beginning to tremble, Beatrix reached for the wall alongside the door and braced a hand to it as the mortar with which she had built walls around herself began to dissolve. Michael had not sent word.
Canute touched her shoulder. “You should sit down.”
She looked up. “I did not believe he would tell of my capture, and when he said he had…”
“I am sorry. In trying to protect a man no longer in need of my protection, I erred grievously.”
Michael had wanted her to believe he was so unaffected by her that he had not hesitated to send word to Lavonne, had wanted her to think she did not know him, had accused her of being no different from—
“Pray, Sir Canute, who is Edithe?”
As if Beatrix had turned leprous, he dropped his hand from her and stepped back.
She followed. “I beseech you, tell me.”
His teeth clenched, but finally he said, “Edithe is the reason I did what I did, and that is all I can tell, my lady.”
“But he accused me of being the same as she.”
“He may have said it, but he knows you are not.”
And had said so on the night past. What had Edithe done that Sir Canute would not tell? What great ill weighted Michael?
The knight turned away. “If you require me, I shall be on the landing below.”
“Sir Canute!”
He looked around. “My lady?”
“Thank you.”
His lids briefly lowered. “You are more generous than I would be.”
“I understand why you did it.”
“Nay, you do not, but methinks one day Lord D’Arci will tell you all.” He strode onto the landing and halted. This time when he came around, it was not at her urging. “’Twas that woman who gave my lord reason to believe that of which you are accused,” he said.
Then Edithe had killed someone dear to Michael? Beatrix opened her mouth to ask, but the knight began his descent of the stairs. When he went from sight, she crossed her chamber and sank onto the chair.
Michael had not sent word. She lifted fingers to her lips in remembrance of his kiss. It had felt so real. For a moment it had made her think—
What? That she and Michael…
“Impossible.” But were it possible, Michael would lose all as Sir Canute feared, for the baron would not suffer his vassal to have any relation with her. And regardless of what Michael wanted, she could not ask him to give up Soaring. She did not know how she knew, but it was very real to him—something he would miss to his end
days.
He had not sent word.
She lowered her head to the table and gave in to the longing to know, even for a short time, what she had thought to never know—what she had never truly wanted before Michael.
He had not sent word.
She looked to the writing instruments.
He did care for her.
She pushed to her feet only to pause. It was a mistake to seek him out after what had happened in the stables and tempt what should not be tempted. But naught would happen, she told herself. She simply needed to speak with him.
Treading her conscience, she hurried from her chamber and descended the stairs to where Sir Canute turned a furrowed brow upon her.
“My lady?”
“I seek your lord’s solar.”
“He is not yet returned to the donjon. Indeed he may not return for some time.”
She had not expected he would, as it seemed he spent much of his days out of doors between the workings of the inner and outer baileys. “I shall await him in the solar.”
Sir Canute sidestepped, barring her advance. “My lady, I am certain Lord D’Arci would prefer that you remain in your chamber.”
Ignoring the voice that told her to heed the knight, she said, “Will you escort me, or do I go alone?”
Grudgingly, he led her down the corridor.
The solar was empty as expected. What was not expected was the starkness of the chamber that had escaped her notice when Michael had summoned her here to tell her she was leaving Soaring. It was he who had filled her gaze, turning all else to shadow that now had form, minimal though it was.
Though fairly large, the room was furnished with the bare necessities, as if it belonged to one of lesser nobility rather than the lord of the castle. The only luxury was the scent of woodruff wafting from the rushes. No covering upon the long table against the wall, and set around it, two worn chairs. No curtains around the bed that boasted only a simple coverlet. No gilded, carved chest, but a plain iron-banded box. And the walls…
Though flecks and patches of paint were visible, it was many years since the scene that spanned the chamber had known form.
“Soaring has been thirty years without a lady,” Sir Canute said.
