by Tamara Leigh
Christian gripped his hand. “Do you also forgive my trespasses, all will be well between us.”
Aldous jerked his chin.
“Then be troubled no more.”
His father sank deeper into his pillows and regarded Christian through half-hooded eyes. “What of your Wulfrith bride? Tell me I have not ruined your marriage.”
It was a far better place to venture than turning over and over a past that could not be changed. “’Tis a good marriage. I love Gaenor, and she loves me.”
“Love,” Aldous murmured. “I believe I knew it once—perhaps twice.”
Christian almost questioned that second instance, but Aldous surely referred to Robert’s mother.
“Is this Wulfrith woman sturdy enough to bear you many sons?”
Christian guessed he was thinking of the petite Beatrix whose trial he had been ejected from. Though it was not certain Gaenor was with child, he did not think there could be harm in telling his father she was when it seemed the tidings would be welcome and might ease his passing.
“Aye, my lovely wife is sturdy. In less than a nine-month, she will deliver our first child.”
A whimper sounded from Aldous. “A son,” he breathed, the corners of his misshapen mouth lifting. “I…” His eyes widened. “If you would allow it, I would meet the mother of my grandsons.”
Christian hesitated. Gaenor had accompanied him not only to stand by his side but, given the opportunity, to make her own peace with Aldous. Still, he would have preferred to keep her from this chamber lest his father’s bent mind did more harm than good.
“I beseech you,” Aldous rasped, “bring your Gaenor to me. Upon my word, I will do naught that you will regret.”
Grudgingly, Christian nodded.
When he opened the door, it was to the sight of Gaenor and Helene standing solemnly side by side against the opposite wall. He held out his hand to his wife.
She took it and he drew her inside, leaving the door open behind them.
Though Gaenor was not ignorant of the ravages suffered by Aldous in that long ago fire, Christian expected her to be unsettled by the sight of him when she halted beside the bed. If she was, she hid it well. Without falter, she looked upon Aldous Lavonne who would live in the children she birthed long after Christian’s sire turned to dust.
“You are she?” Aldous asked.
“I am Lady Gaenor of the Wulfriths, now of the Lavonnes, my lord.”
He slid his gaze down her, and when he returned to her face, it might have been wonder that shone from him. “You are most…sturdy, Christian’s wife.”
She did not appear to take offense. “That I am, my lord.”
A long moment passed, then Aldous rattled out a sigh. “You know that I have hated you and yours.”
Christian stiffened.
“I do,” Gaenor said. “Forsooth, neither have I liked you or yours.”
Aldous’s mouth twitched as if toward a smile.
“But now I love.” She glanced at Christian.
“You will give my son a son?” Aldous asked on a wheezing breath.
Gaenor laid a hand upon her abdomen. “Mayhap, my lord.”
“Or a daughter,” Christian said, “though it seems the Lavonnes and Wulfriths are more apt to bear sons.”
Aldous’s brow puckered further amid the scarred flesh. Then, with what seemed desperation, he rasped, “Come near, Christian.”
He leaned down. “Aye?”
“Nearer.”
He turned his ear to his father’s mouth, and the words breathed into it made him jerk, pull back, and glance to where the healer stood outside the door.
Aldous nodded. “All is told that must needs be told except…” His next breath was hard won. “…I have felt great affection for you, even when I did not know it.”
His words jolted, for they were not only unexpected, they were parting words that begged a reply. Momentarily putting aside Aldous’s cryptic words, he pressed his lips to his sire’s cheek. “I have felt great affection for you, Father.”
A long sigh broke the ragged seam of Aldous’s lips and, when Christian straightened, his father’s eyes were fixed and unseeing.
Christian looked to Gaenor.
Sorrow in her gaze, she said, “His pain is past,” and stepped nearer and slid her arms around her husband.
He drew her against him and breathed in the woman with whom he had been blessed. “Aye,” he spoke into her hair. “’Twas a good parting.”
EPILOGUE
Broehne Castle, England
April 1158
“’Tis a good beginning,” Annyn said as she gently swept the damp strands off Gaenor’s brow.
“A good beginning?” Beatrix protested from the opposite side of the bed where she cradled the infant who had not made his entrance into the world easy on his mother. But then, he was of good size. Indeed, Gaenor thought her son might weigh nearly twice what Annyn and Garr’s first child had weighed at birth. It was good he had not been born a girl.
Annyn smiled. “I have seen our Gaenor and her husband when they think no one watches, and there will surely be many more little Lavonnes crawling and running about the donjon, just as I believe you and Michael will be so blessed.”
Gaenor swept her gaze from her sister-in-law to Beatrix, but her sister’s brow remained untroubled. She and Michael also wished children, but both seemed at peace that, thus far, none were forthcoming.
“In God’s time,” Beatrix said and looked to Gaenor. “You would hold your son again?”
Though she ached to once more put him to her breast, she yearned for the man who had too long paced the corridor outside the solar, waiting to meet his son.
“Soon,” she said and considered the healer who had come to stand alongside Annyn following her after-birth ministrations that had included directing the beaming Josephine and the bell-tinkling Aimee in the removal of the birthing chair and all other evidence of the hard labor. “I am ready for my husband, Helene.”
The woman inclined her head, traversed the solar, and pulled open the door. “Your wife and son await you, my lord.”
Christian was inside the chamber before half her words were spoken. As he strode across the rushes with fewer strides than most men required, his gaze shifted between Gaenor and the infant in Beatrix’s arms, but it was Gaenor’s side he gained first, accommodated by Annyn who jumped aside.
Bending near, he laid a hand to his wife’s cheek. “You are well?”
“More well than I can say.” She turned her mouth into his palm and kissed it. “Now meet our son.”
He lowered his head, briefly touched his lips to hers, then straightened and rounded the bed.
As he peered into the cloths that bundled their child, he said with urgency, “May I hold him, Beatrix?”
She laughed. “You need not ask permission to hold your own son, my lord.”
“Indeed.” He reached, only to hesitate and splay his hands as if uncertain as to how to handle an infant.
Beatrix stepped close, settled the babe in his arms, and guided his hands to where they would best support the little one.
Christian stared. “He is so small.”
This time it was Annyn who laughed. “That is no small babe, Baron Lavonne, and no small task was it for your wife to deliver him unto you.”
Once again, Christian sought Gaenor’s gaze. “Truly, you are well?”
She smiled at the man who seemed younger than ever she had seen him. “Quite.”
“Two days, my lord,” Helene spoke up, “and your lady wife will be out of bed. Two days after that, she will be about the castle again.”
Christian turned to where the woman stood at the foot of the bed. “Thank you, Helene. Again, my family is in your debt.”
She averted her gaze, and an uneasy silence fell as often happened when the two exchanged words.
Inwardly, Gaenor sighed. It had been no great feat to unravel the meaning of the words Aldous Lavonne had whispered in his son’s ear so
many months past.
“I have a daughter,” he had said and, for a moment, Christian had believed he meant Gaenor, but the old baron had added, “And you have a sister.” Not Gaenor, but she who had come to mean much to him, she who knew the reason that the life of Robert’s mother had been made more difficult, she who would tell it herself when she deemed the time was right, she of red hair of a much different shade from her departed brother’s. Helene.
But still the healer turned aside Christian’s questioning and made no attempt to claim kinship with the Lavonnes. Of course, considering what had happened between her and Abel when he had become her unwilling patient months and months past, the woman’s silence likely had more to do with Gaenor’s brother than Christian.
“I will leave you now,” Helene said, “though I shall pass the night in your hall should Lady Gaenor have need of me.”
Gaenor was glad to have her near and grateful she had brought John with her so she would not be pressed to soon return to her village. The boy had long ago recovered from the trauma of his mother’s abduction—indeed, even in the absence of Abel’s influence, he was more often pleasant than not. Of course, he did challenge any man he perceived as a threat to his mother with the wooden sword Abel had fashioned for him before the attack on Castle Soaring had so altered her brother— Gaenor did not want to think on Abel’s struggle to regain what he had lost, not now when there was so much joy after so much pain.
“Methinks ‘tis time for us to depart,” her sister-in-law said, motioning for Beatrix to follow. “Send for us if there is anything you need.”
“Thank you, Annyn…Beatrix,” Gaenor called after them.
As the door closed softly behind them, Gaenor shifted in the bed to watch Christian where he stood regarding their son, a smile of wonder upon his face. Their son, a little Lavonne who was surely destined to quickly outgrow his swaddling and, one day, stand as tall and broad as his father.
When Christian finally met her gaze, his had turned troubled. “Still I do not know by what name he shall be called.”
There were some, especially those who had long served upon the barony of Abingdale, who expected a firstborn son to be named after Christian’s father. However, despite having made peace with Aldous, neither Christian nor Gaenor believed it would serve any good purpose to pass the name on to their child when it could prove a burden considering the havoc—and death—birthed by Aldous’s bitterness.
“Then we must needs think more on it,” Gaenor said.
“Aye.” Christian considered the mattress, and she guessed he was measuring the space between her and the edge.
“Come.” She smoothed a hand over the coverlet. “There is room for us all.”
“You are certain? I would not wish to cause you discomfort.”
“Quite the opposite, Husband.”
Still, he hesitated, and when he glanced at the bundle in his arms, she knew he also worried as to how he would gain the bed without unsettling their son.
“Here.” Gaenor reached. “Hand him to me.”
Relief smoothing his brow, he leaned down and placed their son in her arms with such gentleness that Gaenor thought she might cry.
“He is so quiet,” Christian said as he stretched out alongside her and settled his head on a pillow. “When Helene told that I was a father, the wailing could be heard throughout the donjon, but now he looks about him as if he is quite content with this new world.”
“Of course he is.” She considered the bright eyes that regarded her. “But methinks that has more to do with a full belly than all he beholds.”
Christian grinned, slid an arm beneath her, and carefully drew her against his side.
As she shifted the babe to the seam where their bodies met, their son popped a fist free of his swaddling, jerked it side to side, and gurgled when his fingers introduced themselves to his mouth.
“Methinks those cloths will not long hold him,” Christian mused.
She looked up into her husband’s face. “As I am sure yours did not long hold you.”
“I am certain you are right. So, what shall we name him?”
She started to think on it some more, then shrugged. “It matters, but not so much that we must name him now.”
“You are right, and I do prefer the sound of ‘my son.’ It says more than any name could.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Our son says more than any name could.”
“Aye, ours.” He kissed her brow. “Just as I am yours and you are mine, Gaenor Lavonne. Unto death.”
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EXCERPT
THE KINDLING
Book Four in the Age of Faith series
Available Soon
CHAPTER ONE
Castle Soaring upon the Barony of Abingdale, England
September 1157
She came to him in the still of a night whose dark edges were beginning to fray.
As she opened the door wider the better to see him where he lay upon the bed with arms and legs thrown wide as if to test the reach of the mattress, the hinges gave a betraying creak.
She winced. She knew she should not be here, for if he awakened he would likely think she had come to offer comfort between the sheets, but despite the long journey that had delivered her to Castle Soaring after the setting of the sun, she was unable to sleep. And all because of this man.
Drawing a slow breath, more for courage than fear she might rouse him, she stepped forward and frowned over the dust and stale scent that rose from the rushes. The floor covering ought to have been replaced days ago. However, from the bits of ‘this and that’ picked up from the castle folk who had regarded her with suspicion upon her arrival, the state of the chamber was the fault of its angry occupant rather than neglect of his care.
But she was prepared—or would soon be—for what she would face in a few short hours when she stood before this possibly dangerous man.
She halted an arm’s reach from the bed and, by the glow of a brazier that would not much longer warm away the chill, considered the figure atop the rumpled bed coverings.
If not for a tunic splayed open at the neck and twisted around his upper thighs, he would be bared. Still, she was not alarmed by his state of undress. Not only did her profession as a healer require that she be well acquainted with the human body, but it was told that he had been given a sleeping draught. Of course, lest he was near the end of its influence, she would do well to proceed with caution.
She took a last, heedful step forward and looked closer upon the leg nearest her. Not even the brazier’s dim, forgiving light could disguise the severity of his injury—nor that he had begun to waste away during all the weeks spent abed. She reached forward, only to draw back. She was here to look, not touch. Touching would come later.
There were other healing cuts on the left leg, as well as the right, but those he had not likely noticed. This one he certainly had, for it was far more than a wound to his warrior’s pride.
Moving toward the head of the bed, she caught her breath when the rushes crackled, then stilled when something between a grunt and a growl sounded from him. However, when she peered into his thin, coarsely bearded face, she saw no reflection of light to indicate he had arisen from the depths of the sleeping draught.
Noting the tension in his jaw and neck, she guessed he dreamed dreams he did not wish to have unfold within the darkness of his mind, but though she was tempted to try to awaken him, it would be a mistake. Blessedly, it was not long before he relaxed.
Though she would have liked to familiarize herself with the injuries to his torso, she was fairly certain he was not wearing braies, and for naught would she risk having him awaken to find her raisi
ng his tunic. Since his right hand was too deep in shadow on the opposite side to verify its injury without moving it, she also let it be. Fortunately, there was enough light on his face that, when she bent close, the injury inflicted by a cruel blade was well enough told.
“Dear Lord,” she whispered and, too late, sealed her lips. However, her softly spoken words seemed not to penetrate the fog that provided him the rest required to heal.
Forcing her fingers into her palms to keep from tracing the stitched flesh that cut a path from his left eyebrow to the outer corner of his eye to the lower edge of his jaw, she lingered over his face though she had done what she had come to do.
She pitied him for the unsightly scar but reminded herself that, were it allowed to heal properly, its appearance would greatly improve. Too, once he began to eat regularly and resumed exercise, the hollow and angular planes of his face would fill in. But even then, would he ever again resemble the man she had known, if “known” could even be used to describe their two brief encounters? Of course, she also knew him by way of a boy who missed him more than was good for so young a soul…
She squeezed her eyes closed. This warrior who believed he would never again wield a sword ought to have stayed in her past. Had his brother, Baron Wulfrith, and her liege, Baron Christian Lavonne, not asked this of her, she would not have had reason to see him again. And she wished she had not, though not because it made her ache to gaze upon his disfigurement. Her longing to remain as firmly in his past as she wished him to remain in hers had more to do with who she was and who, even if not by his own hand, had done this to him.
He made another sound low in his throat, and distress once more hardened his face. This time it was accompanied by a marked increase in the rhythm and strength of his breathing. This time it did not soon resolve.
Go, she told herself. They are his demons to undo, not yours. At least, not directly…
His uninjured leg kicked out, head snapped toward her, and lips drew back to reveal clenched teeth. But still his lids remained lowered, eyes moving rapidly beneath them. As she continued to ignore the good sense that urged her to leave, perspiration broke upon his brow.
