Of a sudden he was eager for this evening’s sport and glad he’d not spent himself on castle wenches this night just past.
“Had your father no other swains to tempt you with?” he prodded, wanting to test her mettle further.
She looked away. “He negotiated with others,” she answered in a cool, detached voice. “Until your Henry thought to attack us. Of late my father has had other concerns,” she pointed out, a trace of sarcasm rising in her voice.
“Yes, no doubt he has,” Axton commented dryly. He lolled back in the lord’s chair, conscious of the fact that she had probably never seen anyone sit in it save her father. But he was lord now, and she’d come to understand very soon everything that implied. “You’ve been told that we wed this evening?”
Her chin quivered—or at least he thought it did. But she nodded once, and he was not entirely sure. He decided to find out. “No doubt you see me as a pig of a man—or worse.” Then he leaned nearer her and his voice lowered to a husky, intimate whisper. “I trust, my fair bride, that e’er morning next arrives, you will feel more kindly disposed toward me.”
She swallowed this time. Hard. There was no hiding her reaction or the fear it revealed to him. That served, however, only to urge him on. He needed to see her completely vulnerable to him. “Since there is none to commend me save myself, I say to you, fair Beatrix, that I take to heart the knightly code. I keep myself clean, maintain an even temperament, and enjoy a great good humor—unless angered by one unwise enough to provoke me.”
When she did not respond, but only held herself stiff and kept her eyes averted, he reached out a hand to finger the braided edge of her nearest trailing sleeve. “And I am robust in the manly arts. You need not fear that I will not satisfy my husbandly duties to you, Beatrix.”
She flinched, as he knew she would. But this time when her eyes darted fearfully to him, he caught her chin in his hand and held her face steady.
Such a pretty face, with flawless skin and high color. Loose tendrils of reddish gold hair curled astray beyond the confines of her veil, and he had a momentary vision of that selfsame hair loose and cascading around her. Around him.
“Deuce take me,” he muttered, then sat back, releasing her as an unseemly urge gripped him. Time enough for that this coming night. He was no randy lad, unable to control the beast residing in his braies. A comely wife was a welcome thing, but he would not forget that she was de Valcourt’s spawn. He would not forget that she had lived at Maidenstone these eighteen years past and that every one of her luxuries had been bought at the cost of his father’s and his brothers’ lives.
And he would not be led around by his unruly cods.
A boisterous call drew his attention momentarily away from her, and he welcomed the interruption.
Linnea too welcomed the interruption and she could not escape fast enough from his presence. He’d taken much pleasure in tormenting her, and she, fool that she was, had granted him the right, speaking of the suitors her sister had declined.
But she’d been so afraid, especially when he’d spoken of his husbandly duties to her.
She pushed back her chair now, as quietly as she could manage, all the while keeping a careful watch on him. St. Jude had heard her prayer and interceded on her behalf when he’d sent a pair of knights into the hall. One of them, a muscular fellow with dark red whiskers, had glanced uneasily at her before speaking, then turned his steady gaze back upon his liege lord. De la Manse had understood his hesitation at once. So had Linnea. The other men did not wish their conversation to be held within the full hearing of their enemy, even if that very enemy was to be settled in the lord’s bed within a matter of hours.
De la Manse had made some pretty excuse as he left her side, as if he thought she dreaded his departure. Vainglorious fool! Now his attention was wholly absorbed by the other men’s words and she had her opportunity. But although she silently mocked him, Linnea was nonetheless mindful of the terrible chance she took deceiving a man like him. When he eventually learned who she really was … A cold shiver ran down her spine. She did not want to think about that right now.
She slipped behind the chair, then glanced over to her left. The pantler’s chamber was shielded from the hall by a heavy curtain, and it was there she headed. But as she pushed blindly past the curtain, her foot met a hard, yielding form and she lost her balance. A yelp alerted her to some sleeping hound’s presence. But when she could not right herself and fell awkwardly onto the animal, its startled cry changed to a fierce growl.
“Be still e’er he snaps your head clean off your shoulders,” a youthful voice ordered. Linnea instantly obeyed. But it was bitterly done, for she realized without seeing him, that the voice belonged to that boy. No other lad of the castle would dare to speak in such lordly tones to her. Only Peter de la Manse, brother to her dreaded bridegroom, would do so. Who else came and went with such a huge hound ever at his side? Who else seemed to live to taunt her, the ill-mannered whelp?
“To calm, Moor. To calm,” he ordered in his half-boy, half-man’s croak of a voice. “’Tis only a minor aggravation, not worthy of our attention.”
The animal had shrugged Linnea off as if she were, indeed, only some minor weight thrown heedlessly upon him and shed just as heedlessly. But though she lay crumpled ignominiously against the rough wall of the pantry, the dog stood over her as if to attack, his huge head lowered, his hackles raised. His great yellow teeth bared.
“To calm,” the boy spoke once more, though there was less of command and more of hilarity in his tone. But at least he gripped the beast’s studded collar now, affording Linnea the faintest reprieve from her fear of being eaten alive.
“Is it your wont to barrel unannounced through shielded passages? Methinks a bell to chime at your neck would serve us all a good warning.”
Linnea pushed herself upright, but slowly. Her veil had come loose during her fall and hung askew, so she pulled it off and knotted it in her angry fists. Her tumbled hair she thrust carelessly behind her shoulder as she faced the snarling hound and its grinning master.
“If you would let me pass,” she muttered, curbing her tongue though the effort came close to choking her.
“Go back the way you came,” he said with a smug moue. “Unless you do flee from something—or somebody. My brother’s body?” he added with the coarse innuendo too common to youthful males. Before this day Linnea had understood little of the vulgar implications, save that they were somehow vulgar. But after her grandmother’s unsettling explanation of what men and women did together, followed by Axton de la Manse’s disturbing hints and now this boy’s crude words, she understood far more than she wanted to.
“Your brother is occupied with one of his men,” she bit out.
“One of his men? Ah, but you could not be more wrong. He is not of so perverse a nature—nor am I,” he ended on a boastful note.
Linnea glared at him. Was she to make sense of that? She chose not to even try, for she’d had enough of male coarseness for this day. “Let me pass. Boy,” she added, as fury got the better of common sense. She gathered her unfamiliarly heavy skirts in one hand and started forward as if to push past him in the narrow passage. But the dog lunged forward and she leaped back, and all the while the boy hooted in derision.
“Boy, you say? Man enough to control this mighty beast, and man enough to control you as well.”
Sweet Mary, but that was the very last straw. First his huge oaf of a brother threatening her with his husbandly rights. Now him, with his nasty smirk and vicious pet. “Know you how easy it is to fell one such as he?” she hissed, too angry to guard her words any longer. “To paint a joint of mutton with oil of belladonna and feed it to this thing you call a dog would be no difficult task for me.” She drew herself up in the face of his startled expression. “Best you and he stay well out of my way.”
Then, afraid to push past him, but more afraid to go back into the hall and chance meeting his brother, she stepped firmly toward t
he boy, though passing on the side away from the animal he held so tightly to him.
Thankfully he let her go and she did not dally in the short passageway that connected the hall to the castle offices. Through the chamber she hurried. But she noted the disorder in the office, the ledgers spread open on the table, the money box also open—and empty.
A curse upon them all, she swore. They were thieves who robbed her family of right and respect and belongings.
Once beyond the offices, however, she hesitated yet again. Where to fly, now that there was no solace to be found anywhere within these heavy stone walls? Sister gone. Father useless. Grandmother more torment than comfort.
The chapel bell tolled sext, and it was as if it called an answer to her desperation—or once again St. Jude did. Linnea knew that Father Martin was to aid in Beatrix’s escape. Maybe she was hidden in the chapel. Even if she weren’t, the priest might have some word of her for Linnea. Or he might agree to carry a message to her.
Father Martin was in the small apse opposite the altar where the lord’s family worshipped, but so was her grandmother. They prayed—or conferred—heads close and whispers low. No solace to be found here, Linnea told herself, backing away before they noted her presence. A wary search of the priest’s private solar and nearby storerooms did not reveal Beatrix’s whereabouts either. And so it was with heavy heart and slow tread that Linnea made her way back to the barracks. She could at least sit with Maynard a while and pray for him—for all of them. St. Jude, don’t abandon us, she sent her silent plea aloft. Do not abandon us.
To her surprise, someone was already praying over Maynard, a slight, bowed figure that started in alarm at Linnea’s entrance.
“What do you here?” Linnea demanded, fearing for her brother’s safety. Where was that squire, anyway?
“’Tis all right, sister,” came the response. “’Tis only … ‘Tis only Linnea,” she said, glancing warningly at the prone figure on the floor.
Thank God! Linnea flew to Beatrix’s side, enveloping her in a grateful embrace. “Oh, but I have feared for you—”
“Beatrix.” The rusty voice was that of Maynard, though a weak, cracking version of it. Both sisters looked down at him, Beatrix beaming with joy, Linnea filled only with relief.
“Beatrix,” he repeated. “I am hurt … My head … Why am I in this … this mean place?”
“The new lord does order it so,” Beatrix began.
“I spoke to Beatrix!” Maynard cut her off. Even in his suffering he did not forget which sister was firstborn—and which one was not.
The twins shared a look and an understanding. Beatrix stepped back and Linnea, wearing her sister’s rumpled finery, knelt beside their brother. He was weak and dazed, but yet possessed of the same unpleasant disposition as ever. “You are grievously injured but, God grant it, you shall survive. Only you must rest and allow yourself to heal.”
He stared up at her and in his eyes she saw both pain and bewilderment. She’d seen mockery in his gaze many times, and devilment. Also fury and cruelty. But never the vulnerability that was there now. He was but human, she realized, much like their father. But also a bully, she reminded herself. Like the boy Peter.
Maynard was in her power now, as Peter de la Manse had been in the fleeting moments following her threat to poison his dog. How gratifying was this feeling of power, she thought as she pressed a palm to Maynard’s head, testing him for the fever. No wonder men clawed and fought for power, and struggled ever to retain it. When compared to helplessness, there was no contest.
“I will tend your needs, brother,” she reassured him.
“And I will pray for you,” Beatrix murmured from her place just beyond them.
“Get thee gone!” Maynard gasped, his eyes darting accusingly at the disguised Beatrix. “’Tis your curse that has brought us to this pass—and laid me low. Agh, but my arm. My arm!”
Harsh sobs wracked him as he mourned his ruined arm. But Linnea’s sympathy lay more with her sister—and by association herself. Even in this worst crisis their family had ever faced, they would, all of them, blame an innocent person for their troubles. They would accuse Linnea—or whomever they mistook to be Linnea—for their fall.
She turned to find her sister’s face as white as a cold winter sky. Never had Beatrix appeared so stricken. She was not used to the scorn Linnea had grown inured to. On impulse Linnea reached for her and hugged her close. “Go now,” she whispered to her beloved sister. “Be safe and know my love stays ever with you.”
“I cannot leave you,” Beatrix sobbed, breaking down in her arms. “’Tis wrong of me, and wrong of the others to demand it.”
“’Tis right,” Linnea countered, restored by this unexpected moment with her twin. “’Tis right and … and everything shall come out for the best.”
Beatrix looked doubtful, but finally she nodded, drying her tears on her sleeve.
“Go now,” Linnea instructed her, though to keep her sister close by was what she desired more than anything.
“I shall endeavor to be there, at the chapel this evening,” Beatrix whispered. “And I will pray the whole night through for you.” Then with a last kiss, she was gone, pushed away before Linnea could change her mind and beg her to stay.
Tears spilled down Linnea’s cheeks as she turned, heavyhearted, to her brother. If he so much as said a word of derision to the sister he mistook for herself, Linnea would never be able to control her righteous anger.
But St. Jude interceded once more on her behalf, as he had in small ways repeatedly this long and endless day. For Maynard had subsided into a fitful repose. While she checked his injuries, he tossed restlessly and muttered unintelligible snatches, but nothing of his sisters, God be praised.
When Frayne reappeared, a silent, guilty wraith in the shadows, Linnea was too drained to take him to task for his absence. Maynard was better. It seemed he might mend. Perhaps she should leave his care to her grandmother now, for she had troubles enough of her own.
“Dribble this medicine between his lips and make sure it goes down,” she warned Frayne, giving him the small stoppered vial of sundew. “Also this, for pain. Then try to give him at least a dipper full of water every hour or so. And call me should he grow feverish or restless.”
The boy nodded, staring at her with round eyes in a dirty face. “What if you are …” He faltered and looked away. “Beg pardon, my Lady Beatrix, but I have heard the tale that you and the new lord …”
When his curious gaze turned cautiously back to her, it was Linnea’s turn to look away. Everyone knew. Everyone’s hopes for a peaceful future of one sort or another resided on her—and on how well she performed her wifely duties this evening.
“Perhaps it would be more prudent for you to rouse my grandmother than to send for me,” she admitted in an embarrassed mutter.
“Lady Harriet?” His brows rose in consternation. “I was thinking, well, that your sister would be a better choice.”
“No! Not … not Linnea. She is gone from here now and never to be spoken of again. Do you mind my words, Frayne? You must never mention her again, not if you value your position!”
Abruptly she halted her speech, dismayed by her shrill tone and rising hysteria. She pressed her fingertips to her eyes and willed her trembling to cease. Only when she felt a modicum of control return did she speak again.
“Nothing of Maidenstone is as we have been accustomed to. Our lives have been turned upside down and now we must attempt as best we can to cope. My sister is lost to us. It would be better to pretend she had never existed.”
Chapter 6
Darkness rushed over the rolling lands of Wessex, heralded by a violent storm that lashed the castle, the village, and the fields beyond. The ancient ash forest that stood sentinel along the ridge bowed and swayed in fearful homage to the tempest. Sheep huddled beneath trees or in the lean-to sheds spotted around the valley. Wheat stalks lay down in the face of wind and rain, and nary a villager ventured outsid
e the stucco walls and thatched roofs of their cottages.
Only in the castle did activity continue unabated, for the wedding would go forth, storm or no.
Linnea stood in the middle of the third floor solar, surrounded by three maids, as well as Norma and Ida. Her grandmother watched as they dressed her, scowling from her place in a tall chair cushioned with rugs and positioned beside the wall hearth. Though the blaze threw a commendable heat into the chamber, cold yet hung over the place. It was not caused by the storm.
“You have not forgotten my instructions,” Lady Harriet said. It was more statement than question.
“No, Grandmother. I have not forgotten. I have thought of little else this day,” Linnea said.
One of the maids began to weep, not great sobs, but soft, heartfelt ones that touched Linnea to the core. Yet even amidst her fear and sorrow, she was cognizant that the girl wept for Beatrix, not Linnea. Would she weep if she knew the truth? Or would she rejoice in the deception, as Lady Harriet did, never caring that an innocent girl would be sacrificed this night all the same?
Linnea sought Norma’s gaze. Dear Norma who was tired and old, and who, though favoring Beatrix, had never been intentionally cruel to Linnea. Norma’s eyes were red-rimmed but she did not cry. Nor did she smile. Of all the servants, only she and Ida knew the truth. The other maids had not been present when Linnea bathed. Only when her shift was on and her hose pulled up and gartered over her birthmark, had they been brought in to dress her hair and arrange her clothing.
Now Linnea stood arrayed in her sister’s finest gown and costliest jewels. Her hair was washed and dried, scented with lavender oil and brushed until it gleamed like a rich, golden mantle. Her head was bare, save for the silken cord that circled her brow. Otherwise her heavy hair rippled loose, past her shoulders and arms to hang in living curls about her hips.
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