by Tamara Leigh
“Gaenor?”
She snapped her chin around and startled at the sight of the figure that filled the height and much of the breadth of the doorway. “Christian.”
He stepped forward. “What is amiss?”
“Naught, I…” She pushed to her feet and, as she turned, blinked back tears destined for her cheeks.
His long legs carried him forward. “Tell me.”
Moved by his concern, she had to look away to keep control of her emotions.
“Come.” A hand to her elbow, he guided her to the right where concrete benches lined the side wall.
As she sank onto the nearest bench, she remembered the chapel at Wulfen Castle when the man known to her as Sir Matthew had sat with her on a bench fashioned of wood. It was not so long ago, and yet it seemed many months.
She looked up at where he had lowered beside her. “’Tis good to see you here.”
He slid his gaze around the chapel. “Though I should not say it, I came seeking you, not God.”
“Still, I am glad.”
He inclined his head. “Tell me what has upset you.”
“That is just it—I should be upset and I am, I should not be, and I am not.” She sighed. “In one breath, my emotions are here, in the next, they are there.”
His brow furrowed. “What say you?”
She touched her belly. “My monthly flux comes. I know it by the cramping.” She held his gaze. “It would seem I am not with child, Christian.”
His gaze wavered and she glimpsed kindred emotions there. “This both pleases and saddens you?” he asked.
“It pleases me because our child shall not suffer suspicion over its legitimacy—”
“I said I would be the first to believe,” he reminded her.
After a hesitation, she said, “You told that you were determined to believe. That does not mean you would believe were I delivered of a child eight months hence.”
“Gaenor—”
She shook her head. “Mayhap ‘tis more me than you, but this guilt I carry—that I have tried to set from me though still it clings—would surely make me question the truth of your belief when our child was laid in your arms. For that, I am pleased by the coming of my menses. As for it saddening me, it is because I do wish to carry our child, and now I am fair certain I do not. And mayhap I never will if my womb remains closed as it did when…” She closed her eyes. What a fool she was to speak of her sin! Of him.
“When what?” Christian’s voice was deeper, its edges ragged as if she had spoken what she had not. But then, he was not the fool that she was.
This, too, was probably for the best, for she longed for all of Christian, and that was not possible without honesty that hurt. From both of them.
She lifted her lids and braved his hard gaze. “When I was known that first time that I fled you, I prayed to God that a child would be sown so that Sir Durand would be impelled to take me to wife and I would not be made to wed a Lavonne.”
Christian’s nostrils flared, his jealousy so thick she felt she could curl her fingers around it. Instead, she reached up and curved a hand around his jaw and held it there as the muscles beneath jerked.
“God did not answer my prayer,” she said softly, “and I am grateful now that His will was done and not my own, but still I fear He will punish me for my sin and never will a child be born of our marriage. It is for that I would weep.”
Christian struggled to hear Gaenor past the anger roused by the reminder of who had first known her. Sir Durand was in the past, and that was where the man belonged—where he might never again darken the life that Christian wished to make with his wife.
“I am sorry,” she said. “These are difficult things to speak of, but if we do not, methinks they will smolder between us until one day they turn to flame.” She drew her hand from his face and clasped it with the other in her lap. “Though I long to go forward with you, it seems that first we must go back.”
“We?” he said gruffly.
“You said you were not meant to be baron and that you should not have been. Will you tell me more?”
He was not prepared, if ever he would be. He had come to take her riding, not to bend an ear toward confession—especially his own.
“Please. “ She laid a hand over his, and only then did he realize he had turned it into a fist. “Tell me.”
The temptation to shake her off was overwhelming, for what she asked of him could make her grateful ten times over that she was not carrying their child.
“You sought God in the chapel at Wulfen,” she prompted. “Why not here with your wife who would seek Him with you?”
He turned his hand up and gripped her hand, then bent his face near hers. “That is just it, Gaenor. I did not go to the chapel at Wulfen to seek God. I went because Abel goaded me into it. And I did not meet God there. I met you. You are why I returned.”
She shook her head. “But you were raised a man of God. You were a monk. How could you not wish to seek God above all else?”
Though Christian feared he had said too much, the words were rising up out of his depths and there was too much relief in releasing the pressure of them to push them back down. “Because, God forgive me, never did I wish to seek Him above all else. As it is with so many pledged to the Church as children, it was not my choice. No matter how often I prayed and labored for God, a life devoted to Him was not what I wanted.”
“What did you want?”
“The life my father gifted to Geoffrey. It was not the monk’s robes, monastery, or Bible I longed for but mail, destrier, and sword. Though time and again I proved I was born to the life of a knight, often I suffered our father’s displeasure, and he refused to relent because of the promise made to our dying mother after she birthed a third son who would have been destined for the church had he not been stillborn.”
“I am sorry.”
Christian wanted to resent the pity in Gaenor’s eyes, and he would have if not that it meant she hurt for him. And could one hurt deeply for another if they did not also feel something akin to love?
He drew a deep breath. “You said that God did not answer your prayer that would have seen you wed to Sir Durand and now you are grateful, but I witness that God does answer prayers—sometimes by cruel means that He might punish us all the better.”
She searched his face. “What say you?”
“Not that I prayed for Geoffrey’s death. I did not. But I prayed to gain the inheritance of which I believed him unworthy.”
“Then you knew the kind of man he was.”
Christian laughed harshly. “If not that I quickly grew to a good size and was capable despite my youth and lack of formal training, I would surely have fallen victim to him—and Robert—more often than I did.”
“You are saying you believe God allowed for Geoffrey’s death that He might punish you for such prayers?”
“Certes, I sore tested Him. Even after taking my vows, I continued to lament that I was not first born and beseech Him to make a path for me out of the Church. Failing that…” Christian paused to watch for her reaction. “With a rebellious heart, I fornicated with a harlot.”
Her lids fluttered, but she did not seek to distance herself or snatch her hand from his. “You thought the Church would let you go?”
She was not repulsed? Would not condemn him as he had condemned her for being intimate with Sir Durand? Tentative relief crawled through him.
“Aye, I thought my sin would see me set out of the monastery, that I might even be excommunicated. But my only punishment was flagellation and a sennight’s solitary confinement. You see, God’s representatives here on earth allow sin to be bought away—and my father paid well to keep me cloistered that God might reward him for the sacrifice of a son. And he paid well again when…” There it was, the current of guilt that turned to a flood each time he ventured to this place within himself.
“You speak of Geoffrey’s death?” Gaenor said softly.
“I do. One year
my father sent silver to keep me from being stripped of my monk’s robes, a year later he did so again to buy me out of those same robes.” He drew a deep breath. “I was shaken by news of my brother’s death, and even before I read my father’s missive, I knew shame.”
“For what?”
“For what I had wrought.” As Gaenor’s brow furrowed, he continued, “My father’s missive told that God had punished our family for my covetous and rebellious nature by allowing Geoffrey to fall into the hands of the Wulfriths.”
Gaenor drew a sharp breath.
“Thus, because of Aldous’s ill health due to his burn injuries, I was to take my brother’s place.”
“And you did.”
“Not immediately. I sent word to my father that he should look to his misbegotten son, Robert, instead. If not that Aldous suffered a stroke after the receipt of my missive and, when he was sufficiently recovered, demanded again that I assume the title, I would have forsaken my obligation.”
Gaenor leaned nearer. “Why did you wish to stay at the monastery?”
“Must I speak it, Gaenor?”
She pressed her lips inward.
“Then I will tell you. As my father believed, God punished my family for my covetous prayers and rebellious behavior by granting me the opportunity to assume my brother’s life. Knowing that, I determined I would pay away as much of my sin as possible by spending the remainder of my life in duty to the Church.”
Gaenor slowly shook her head. “Though, methinks, my faith is more often a weed than a flower—that sometimes it might be better were it pulled and the seed sown on more fertile ground—what I do know of God is that He would not take your brother’s life to punish you. That is not my mother’s or my brothers’ or my God. It is you and your father punishing you for what you did not do. Aye, you longed for the knight’s life denied you by a promise made by another, but it was Geoffrey’s ill choices, not your prayers, that ended his life and made you baron.”
He had silently argued that many times, but it would not stick. “My father would not agree, Gaenor.” And, perhaps, that was why it would not stick.
She brushed the hair off his brow. “I am sorry at all he has lost and that he is so bitter, but he is wrong. And blind, for he has you and there is none worthier to lord the barony. You must believe that, Christian.”
“I have tried.”
She drew her hand down his face to his jaw. “Try again, this time with me at your side.”
He loved her touch, ached for it even.
“And God,” she added.
His jaw tightened, and he saw in her eyes that she felt it.
She smiled softly. “Because of Geoffrey’s death you do not seek God?”
“Aye, in part because I have been angry with Him for His answer to my prayers. In part because I fear His answers to the prayers I might yet pray.”
“My mother would say we need not fear God’s answers to our prayers providing we ask that His—not our—will be done.”
More and more he liked her mother. “She is wise.”
“What say you?” Gaenor asked. “Can we start again, from this day forward knowing one another and knowing God, putting our sins behind us and accepting the Almighty’s forgiveness?”
She made it sound simple, as if it was but a decision and then done. “I would go there with you, Gaenor, but I struggle to ask for His forgiveness.”
“Why?”
“Lest my confession be used against me.”
“I do not understand.”
He swept his gaze around the chapel before returning to her. “I speak of the priest.”
“What of him?”
“When I returned home, I sought his counsel and told him these things I have told you—things that were to have remained between God and me. They did not.”
Her eyes widened. “Was it your father he told?”
“Aye, and the wall between Aldous and me grew thicker and taller. There is no getting through or over it now.”
She nodded. “I understand why you would not wish to enlist the priest as your confessor, but that does not mean you cannot be forgiven by God.”
“Aye, I could find another priest, but still I am not certain I could trust—”
“Nay.” She gripped his hands. “I know you have been taught that by way of a priest you find absolution, but ‘tis not the only way. Indeed, it may not even be the best way.”
He narrowed his gaze on her. “You are saying I should myself confess to God?”
“Aye.”
He knew of such talk, just as he knew it was ill-tolerated by the Church—viewed by many as heretical. “Methinks this is your mother again, Gaenor.”
His mild rebuke made her smile, turning her as lovely as she had been at Wulfen. “It is,” she said. “But, truly, I do not see how it could not be so. If God is everywhere, can do all things, and knows our deepest thoughts, why would we not ourselves speak to Him?”
He smiled wryly. “I asked the same when I was a boy and was severely punished.”
Her face took a serious turn. “Wrongly so.”
“You truly believe that?”
“Talk to God, Christian. He is listening.”
It seemed too easy. And yet… “Will you pray with me, Gaenor?”
She nodded. “If you wish.”
“I do.”
CHAPTER TWENTY ONE
“Do you pray for me again?”
The gruff voice slipped into Helene’s prayers and pried open a place between her and God that she tried to close with more silent beseeching.
Lord, keep my John safe. Let him not be frightened or lonely—
“Do you?” The rebuke in Aldous’s voice was softened by the chatter of his teeth.
Helene sighed, sat back on her heels where she knelt on her pallet, and looked over her shoulder at where the old man huddled among blankets and furs that, despite their great mass, could not keep the chill from him.
“Though just now I prayed for my son,” she said, “I pray daily for you, my lord.” She shifted her jaw that, blessedly, moved more easily today. “And do you tell me again I should not, still I shall.”
“’Tis a waste of breath.”
“I do not believe that.”
“Because you are young and foolish and do not yet realize…” His teeth clicked again. “…God has turned His back on you. Aye, He most certainly has.”
“Nor do I believe that.”
“You—” His body jerked beneath his coverings and head quaked.
As quickly as she could manage, Helene unfolded her protesting joints and, with a clatter of chains, exchanged the lovely coolness near the cave entrance for the fire that flickered ten feet from Aldous.
“If your son died on the morrow as my Geoffrey died,” he said as she added branches to the flames, “then you would believe it.”
She did not want to think on that possibility, but it rounded on her and stared her in the face, paining her more cruelly than her swellings and bruises. With a shake of her head, she dropped the last branch and stared as its summer leaves curled in on themselves like the hands of this bitter old man who, too, had fueled a fire.
“I pray I would not believe it,” she said, raising her gaze to peer through the smoke at Aldous. “I hope I would know it was not God’s doing and would turn to Him to ease my loss and suffering.”
His eyes shied away from hers as they had done for more than a sennight. She almost smiled, for there was comfort in knowing it disturbed him to look near upon what Robert had done to her. Aldous Lavonne was not a good man, though once he was esteemed as such, but neither did she believe he was evil.
“I turned to Him when I was ravaged by fire,” he said, “clung to Him though He did little to ease my agony as I fought to stay in this world.” He shook, chattered, and groaned. “For all the faith I placed in Him, still He allowed the Wulfriths to murder my Geoffrey.”
Though Helene was inclined to return to her pallet rather than play the
audience to another of his rants, she stepped around the fire and lowered to her haunches before him. As she molded the coverings to his shuddering frame, he tucked his chin and squeezed his eyes closed so he would not be made to look upon her.
She sighed. “Forsooth, God did not prevent what happened to your son, but—”
He cried out. “Pray, Woman, is there not some medicinal to make this cold go away?”
Woman… Always he eschewed her name, though she did not doubt he knew it well.
“Is there?” he demanded.
Wishing there were something she could slip between his lips that would warm him, she said, “I have naught, my lord.”
He convulsed. “’Tis as if death is in my bones.”
Though, in recent days, she had sensed the specter at his door, it had now crossed the threshold. Aldous Lavonne would not be much longer in this world.
“So cold,” he muttered.
There was something that might ease his discomfort, but she hesitated. Though she was a healer and would only be exercising her skill as such, she did not know how her offer would be received. It was one thing to be rebuked by Aldous, quite another to suffer Robert’s displeasure. She lifted a hand and skimmed the flesh around her eye, then drew a deep breath. “Do you allow it, my lord, I will give you the warmth of my body.”
His lids lifted, and though he winced over her face, he did not look elsewhere. “I will…” His head shook on his scarred neck. “…allow it.”
Helene rose, skirted him with the short steps permitted by her chains, and quickly slid beneath the covers at his back to prevent the escape of what little heat he generated.
The thin, aged body she curved around was chill, and it was some time before it took enough notice of hers to ease its shaking. Though it was much too warm for her, she did not pull back. And when Aldous’s hand crept over his side, clawed its way along hers, and weakly gripped her fingers, she remained unmoving.
“I thank you,” his words came out on a rattled breath.
This she had not expected. “I am glad to be of comfort, my lord.”
