by Tamara Leigh
“I know it doesn’t.” She held his gaze. “You have no idea what it took for me to get back to you.”
“Why did you come back?”
“For you. You see, a funny thing happened while I was gone. . .or I suppose it happened while I was here. I came to have feelings for you. Where I’m from, people call it love.”
Fulke stared. She loved him? If it was true, how was he to respond? That he loved her in return? After all these empty years, was it possible? He didn’t know, but there was no denying what he felt for her went beyond lust—though he wasn’t certain how far beyond.
“Crazy, hmm?” She fingered the fleur-de-lis embroidered around the neck of his tunic. “Not that I understand how it happened. I just accept it. Why can’t you do the same? Accept me as I am?”
“Lark, you disappeared under escort of four knights. And now, once more, you reappear as if you never left. In the sight of many, it condemns you for a witch.”
“You know I’m not.”
“’Tis my belief, but one for which I seem to stand alone. As you know, in England witches are burned.”
“So unless I come up with a convincing explanation, your men are going to host a wienie roast with me as the guest of honor?” Confusion returned to Fulke’s face, but before he could ask her to translate, Kennedy said, “They’re going to light a fire under me?”
He shook his head. “You are under my protection. None will challenge me now that Cardell is renounced. Too, whatever your relation to the king, it shields you. But only for so long. Do you persist in disappearing and reappearing, superstitions will continue to mount. In such instances, ‘tis not unheard of for men to abandon their vows of fealty in the name of God.” He lifted her chin and regarded her with an intensity that caused her heart to ripple. “I may not be able to save you.”
If she persisted. She might disappear one more time, but that would probably be the end of her. “You have nothing to worry about. The last thing I want is to leave you.” The truth, misleading though it was.
“You will stay with me?”
She stared at the man who filled so many empty places inside her. “For as long as I live.” Ignoring the ache of their imminent parting and the longing for him to declare his love for her, she said, “I am willing, Fulke.”
He levered up, pressed her onto his back, and brushed his mouth across hers. “And I am tempted.”
“Only tempted?”
“More, but I made a vow that if ever I saw you again, I would make things different between us. I have waited this long for you. I can wait until we are wed.”
Kennedy stared up at him against the darkening sky and wondered if they had that long. She did not think so. Still, she said, “We will wait.” Not wanting their solitude to end, she ran her hands up his back and, through the material of his tunic, felt the ridges she had seen the night she had relieved Lady Jaspar of assisting him with his bath.
“Tell me about these.” She traced a scar.
Fulke tensed. For what did she ask? He had told her they were gained in war. No further explanation was needed. “Rain is upon the air.” He pulled away. “We ought to return to camp.”
Lark glanced at the gathering clouds and sat up. “Why were you whipped?”
All he could think to say was, “It was deserved.” Turning back a vision of angry, vengeful faces, he stood and reached a hand to her. “Let us make haste.”
“What did you do?”
He stared down at her until she placed her hand in his.
“I’m sorry to pry,” she said as she rose alongside him. “I have no right.”
He was about to agree when he realized the wrong he did her. As they were to wed, she did have the right to know the truth of the man with whom she would spend the remainder of her years. But how would she react if he told her of Limoges, the heinous crimes committed in the name of England and vainglory, the reason for the flogging that had left him for dead? Would she run from him? Would her love turn to revulsion? Or would she forgive him his sins and love the man he had struggled to become since the bloodletting?
He pulled the medallion from his tunic. “As I told you, this was given to me for the retaking of lands in France. King Edward himself put it around my neck.” He lowered it. “But I do not wear it out of pride, Lark. I wear it in remembrance of all who died that it might be cast.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Do you wish to? Do you truly want to know this man you will wed?”
“I do.”
He yielded to the images from which he was forever turning. Like faithless old friends come to steal from him, they hastened to his side. “Do you know of Limoges, the great siege of 1370?”
Kennedy remembered the book had advanced that the blood shed in that city was as much on Fulke’s hands as those of the Black Prince, King Edward’s son and heir. “I know what happened there.”
“What do you know?”
“Hundreds of people died.”
“Among them, women and children. Do you know I was responsible?”
She didn’t want to hear this, would rather cling to the man she had come back for. If only she hadn’t asked about the scars. “I heard you were involved.”
He laughed, a sound so void it ached. “The French were advancing into Aquitaine, threatening Edward’s holdings. Something had to be done to turn them back—a show of strength, as I suggested to the Black Prince.” He stepped back and stared into the trees. “Limoges was to be that show.”
His words were barbed with regret. No matter what he had done, there had to be redemption for such remorse.
“The people were revolting against taxation and calling for an end to English rule. Thus, ‘twas decided the city must fall. Though the prince was ill, he determined to see it for himself and was carried to Limoges in a litter.” Fulke crossed to where his sword glinted amid the leaves and retrieved it. “The siege lasted a month, during which the prince became increasingly hostile. He vowed that when the city was gained, all would die for their faithlessness. I knew he did not threaten without weight, but I pressed on, directed the attack on the walls and the undermining.” He looked past his blade to Kennedy. “Pride is a terrible god, Lark. Once you worship it, there is no other. It makes of men what God did not mean them to be.” He slid his sword into its sheath. “No matter the cost, I was determined the prince would have his victory, and that I would be the one to give it to him.”
“Why?”
“I was military advisor to the crown. Having years earlier lost the earldom to my brother when he assumed the title he had eschewed, it was all I had left.”
Kennedy closed the distance between them. Once more able to make out his shadowed features, she asked, “What happened?”
He lingeringly touched her face as if it were the last time he would do so. “A massacre. He stared at her, then through her.
More than anything, Kennedy dreaded his admission to having put men, women, and children to death, but she had asked for it. Still, it did not seem possible that the man she had come to love was capable of such atrocity.
“Finally, the miners broke through. The people of Limoges tried to turn them back, but it was in vain. The prince’s army had waited a month for the day, and there was no end to their bloodlust.” For a moment, Fulke came back to her and saw her again. “Moriel was there.”
The assassin.
“He was among the first to kill, and he did not stop ‘til there was no more blood to spill.”
“Under your orders?”
He was slow to answer. “’Twas the prince who commanded that all be put to the sword.”
Then he hadn’t ordered it himself. A seed of hope rooted within her.
“But he did it through me, and so ‘twas done.”
“You were following orders.”
“Orders I should not have followed.”
She laid a hand on his arm. “Would it have changed anything if you had refused to give the order?”
&nb
sp; “That I have asked myself a thousand times a thousand. The prince trusted me and oft took my advice, but that day he was in so violent a passion I knew it was useless to try to dissuade him. But mayhap I could have.”
If only he had tried that the people might have lived, that he would not forever agonize over what might have been. “You were only doing what you were told. Though that doesn’t absolve—”
“Only?” he said sharply. “I also killed, Lark. Five? Ten? More? I know not.”
She swallowed. “In cold blood?”
Questioning slipped in beside Fulke’s pain and drew his eyebrows near.
She had done it again, confused him with her twenty-first century jargon. “Did you kill merely to kill—like Moriel?”
“Nay. Ungodly I may be, but that I have never done. I raised my sword to defend myself and the prince’s men.”
“And what of the women and children?”
“Though none fell to my sword, they fell by my service to the crown.”
And in doing so, had broken his heart that he might discover he had one. “I think you’re wrong, Fulke. Men like your Black Prince do as they please no matter how loud the outcry.”
He searched her face. “Would that I could believe you.”
“You can. Regret what happened at Limoges, yes; learn from it, certainly; but don’t let it darken the rest of your life. You have to put it behind you.” That last made Kennedy wince. Shrink talk. In spite of her training, it was not her specialty.
Fulke stepped back. “You asked about the scars.” Once more, he retreated to that tortured place inside himself. “I had seen enough bloodletting. ‘Twas time I returned to England.” He drove a hand through his hair. “Though it was foolish to ride across France without an escort, I left the prince’s army to its pillaging and burning.”
Kennedy glanced at his hands and saw they had become fists.
“A league from Limoges I was set upon by a score of men and women who had fled the city. They brought my horse down and beat me. ‘Twas a woman who put the blade to my face.” He touched his scarred eyebrow. “They stretched me to a tree and took turns drawing blood from my back until they determined I was dead.” He blew out a ragged breath. “I remember their faces, the anger for all they had lost, the need to avenge themselves and their dead even if only on one man. My life was their due—and more.”
“But you didn’t die, Fulke.”
His gaze stabbed, bitterness deepened. “You think that a comfort?”
True. “I imagine it must have been difficult to learn Lady Jaspar had married another when it was believed you were dead.”
“How know you of that?”
“Jaspar’s maid told me.”
“The woman’s tongue wags as much as that of her mistress.” He shook his head. “’Twas not difficult. It was a blessing—one I did not deserve. With both hands I seized it and vowed to never wed a woman for whom I felt naught.”
Kennedy’s heart tumbled. “Are you saying you feel something for me?”
His reluctance was palpable, but he stepped before her. “I do feel something for you.”
She waited for the rest of it. Nothing.
“After all I have told you, still you profess to love me, Lark?”
As he did not profess to love her. A drop of rain fell to Kennedy’s cheek, like a tear rolled to her jaw. Ignoring the ache in her heart, she cupped his bearded face between her hands. “The man you were—the part of you that cared more for glory than lives—is gone. The man with whom I am in love would not do what he did.”
“How can you be certain?”
She leaned in and brushed her mouth across his. “Because I have fit nearly all the pieces of the puzzle of you, Fulke Wynland.”
“Of what do you speak?”
“There was that little boy—the one who called to you the day you brought me to Brynwood.”
“Jeremy, my brother’s misbegotten son, John and Harold’s half-brother.”
Kennedy almost laughed. No wonder the child had seemed familiar, not because he was part of her world but because he was part of Fulke who, doubtless, had the look of his deceased brother. “Yes, Jeremy. You talked to him and gave him a coin. It was so out of character for the man I thought you were. Then there was Sir Malcolm. I imagined all manner of horrible things you would do to him after I fell from his horse, yet he was allowed to redeem himself.”
Even though it was dark enough to be called night now, his gaze was intense.
“You could have raped me. I thought you would, but you didn’t. Then you started to smile.” She let her own lips curve. “But it was that night in the tent when you spoke of your nephews that I knew you could not harm them. And then you saved my life at the pool. I was wrong about you.” Her lashes lowered. “I’m sorry.”
Fulke longed to believe what she believed of him, to put Limoges from him and go forward with her at his side, but something stood between them. He lowered his face near hers. “And Crosley? How will you feel when he lies dead by my sword?”
She blinked and surprised him with one of her green-eyed smiles. “You won’t kill him.”
She was wrong. Crosley had challenged him at every opportunity, accused him of seeking to harm the boys, then stolen John and Harold. Such affront could not be disregarded. Unlike the people of Limoges, the knight’s death was warranted. He could argue it with Lark, but for what? There was peace between them, and he would take it for however long it lasted. Once Crosley was dead, he would deal with her anger. If she could forgive him the deaths of hundreds, surely the death of one could also be forgiven.
He kissed her until she murmured and bent to him. “Now that I have told you of my past, you will tell me of yours?”
She stiffened.
Then she would not reveal where she had been these past six days. Frustration welled in Fulke, but he forced it down. Eventually, she would trust him enough to tell him all. “Later, then,” he said and released her and retrieved his bow and quiver. “’Tis late. We ought to return to camp.” He held out his hand.
It felt right, her hand in his, made him feel as if he were the youth who had sat the garden wall with his sister and, for a short while, allowed her dreams to become his.
The hunt having taken him distant from camp, it was a long walk. And wet, the clouds finally emptying their chill rain to satisfy the earth’s thirst. In spite of the discomfort, the time with Lark was something he would never forget—their joined hands, the smile in her voice as they talked of little things, her sweet laughter when any other lady would have been whining over her soaked gown, muddied slippers, and dripping hair. She seemed not to notice, though her teeth were chattering by the time the canopied campfire came into view.
Fulke halted and pulled her in front of him. “Promise me something.”
Rain running down her face, she nodded.
“Keep your tongue before my men. They will be unsettled by your return and some will name you a witch. Pray, give them naught else with which to stoke their superstitions.”
She smiled. “I’ll be careful.”
Love her? Aye, in that moment he knew it was so. But the words would not be spoken. “Come,” he said, “let us be done with this.” He pulled her with him over the sodden ground. As expected, a knight cut their path before they reached the clearing.
“Halt! Who goes?”
Fulke pulled Lark against his side. “Your liege.”
The man stepped nearer and lowered his sword. “My lord, when you did not return, we feared—”
“I am well, as is Lady Lark.”
The man’s silence spoke loudly, the night cloaking an expression no doubt born of dismay. “Two parties have gone searching for you, my lord.”
“When?”
“An hour past.”
Fulke gripped Lark’s hand more firmly and resumed his stride. “I must needs see the lady out of the rain.”
“Sir Daniel arrived early eve, my lord.”
“Sir Dani
el?” Fulke’s gut tightened. It could mean only one thing.
Beside him, Lark groaned. “I imagine he’ll be testy when he sees me.”
True, for she had brought dishonor on him. But her discomfort would be nothing compared to that which she would soon face. Despite her belief Fulke would not slay Sir Arthur, she would have to accept the truth of it. Blood would be let.
“Return to your post,” Fulke said to the knight.
Something was wrong. Kennedy sensed it straight through. Stride fraught with purpose, Fulke’s hand tensed around hers as he hurried her forward. When they entered the clearing, a dozen men came out from beneath the canopies and halted at the sight of her.
“Where is Sir Daniel?” Fulke demanded.
“He awaits you in your tent, my lord,” Sir Leonel said, his gaze on Kennedy.
Was he among those who would see her staked and burned? She offered a smile.
His lips turned slightly. “Lady Lark.”
Fulke urged Kennedy past the knights, flung back the tent flap, and motioned her ahead of him. She ducked into the relative warmth of the tent.
Sir Daniel was the first to rise, eyes widening at the sight of her. The three other men—unrecognizable and outfitted in elaborate wear—also stood.
“Sir Daniel,” Fulke said, then turned his regard on the others. “You may deliver word to King Edward that Lady Lark is returned and has suffered no ill.”
From the men’s expressions, they didn’t have a clue as to what he referred.
But Kennedy did. Realization caused her stomach to inch up her throat. The dream had become a nightmare.
CHAPTER TWENTY
“Where is Lady Lark?” asked the eldest knight, a man whose face was fleshy and lined.
Kennedy swallowed. These were the king’s men who, according to her mother, had caught up with Fulke following the disappearance of Lady Lark’s pretender. What a web her mind had woven! If there had been any doubt before, here was proof she was off her rocker.
Feeling Fulke’s disquiet, she looked at him. Questioning was in his eyes, doubt and distrust. And they cut through her. He returned his attention to the others. “Is this not Lady Lark, Sir Conan?”
