Yet she did not want Bevan to witness those answers. Not until Genevieve could learn more. If Sheela’s story were false, then there was no need to bring up painful memories.
‘May I speak with you in private?’ Genevieve asked Siorcha. To Bevan, she said, ‘There are some women’s questions I would ask her.’
As she’d hoped, Bevan did not object. ‘I will be outside the door should you need me.’
After the door had closed behind him, Genevieve regarded the healer. She did not know precisely how to begin, but before she could say anything Siorcha spoke. ‘It takes time before a woman knows if she’s breeding.’
Genevieve flushed. ‘I realise that. But I do not think I am.’
The older woman eased down beside Genevieve, her gnarled hands clasped in her lap. ‘What do you wish to know?’
‘I want to know if Fiona ever saw a man called Raymond Graham, the Baron of Somerton.’
Instantly she saw the look of alarm on the older woman’s face before Siorcha shielded it. The healer shook her head.
‘Do not lie to me. I know Fiona did not die in battle, as they say.’ Genevieve clenched her hands to prevent them from shaking. She hoped that Siorcha would deny it.
Instead, the healer’s face was haggard and wan. ‘I shall tell you the answers you seek. For Bevan’s sake and yours. I have seen him find peace at last, and what I did is my sin to face,’ Siorcha said. ‘The time has come for me to atone for it.’
‘Then it is true. Fiona is still alive.’ Her mouth felt dry, her lungs barely able to breathe. Closing her eyes, Genevieve knew she did not have the courage to tell Bevan herself. ‘Bring my husband inside. Tell him the truth. You owe it to him if you hold any loyalty for him at all.’
Siorcha started to shake her head. ‘I will be punished. I cannot.’
‘Your punishment will be far worse do you hide the truth from him any longer.’ Genevieve’s fury was so great she no longer felt the effects of her illness. She started to rise, but Siorcha had already opened the door.
The older woman wrung her hands, tears forming in her eyes. ‘I meant no harm. I loved her as a daughter.’
‘What is going on?’ Bevan demanded.
Genevieve gathered her resolve and took a deep breath. ‘Siorcha has a confession to make. It concerns your wife Fiona.’
‘The past no longer matters, Genevieve,’ Bevan warned.
‘It matters to me,’ she said, her heart aching. ‘And what she has to say affects both of us.’ Tears spilled down her cheeks and she swiped them away. Bevan came to her side, to offer comfort. His presence made it more difficult.
‘Tell me, then,’ he said. ‘If it is so important.’
Siorcha sank down onto a bench and bowed her head. ‘I shall tell you the truth of what happened on the day Fiona died.’
A sense of foreboding sent a chill through him, but Bevan nodded. ‘Continue.’
‘When Fiona was fostered as a babe, I was her nurse. I raised her with my own daughter, and she was like my own child in all ways save her blood. I would have done anything for her. Years ago, I saw that my Fiona was unhappy. She loved her babe, Brianna, but restless she was. She would wander for hours when you were away.’
Her words made him uneasy. Bevan had suspected this, though he hadn’t wanted to believe it.
‘One day she met a man. And Fiona confessed to me that she was in love with him.’
The confession made Bevan feel as though he’d taken a blow to his stomach. He had given Fiona everything he had to give. And she had been unfaithful in spite of it. A dark anger formed inside of him at Siorcha’s words.
‘The man was a Norman. His name was Raymond Graham, Baron of Somerton.’
The red haze of anger tightened in his chest, blurring all rational thought. Dimly, he was aware that Genevieve had taken his hand. Her quiet support kept his rage in check.
Siorcha continued. ‘Fiona met him when she was out alone riding one day. His soldiers were camped nearby, and the Baron found her by the stream. She loved him from the moment she saw him, and he loved her—though it was forbidden. Each time you went off to battle she sent word to him, and he came to her. I helped them meet, though it was wrong.’
Genevieve squeezed Bevan’s hand, and his fingers held hers in a tight grip. Such raw grief ravaged his face. She could sense his hurt, his broken pride. He had adored Fiona, and to learn that she had betrayed him…Genevieve could only imagine his pain.
She leaned in, trying to exude the silent message that she would stand by him, no matter what else was revealed.
‘When Strongbow’s army planned the attack on Laochre, Raymond asked Fiona to run away with him. He intended to capture her, and for you to die in battle. But Fiona would not allow him to kill you.’
Siorcha’s face softened. ‘She did love you, you know. But not in the way she loved Raymond.’ She took a breath. ‘And so Raymond ordered you to be struck down but left alive.’
Bevan remembered his wife’s screams as they had taken her away. Those screams had not been real. She had wanted to go, wanted to leave him.
‘No one saw her go,’ he said softly. ‘I buried her body.’
‘You buried her maid, Nuala. They looked alike, and Nuala traded clothes and jewels with Fiona. They meant for Nuala to be taken by the soldiers, so that all would think Fiona was captured. But Nuala’s body burned inside the cottage you found that day.’
‘Why did you never speak of this before now?’ Bevan’s voice was deadly quiet. He remembered the feeling of horror when he had found the burned body wearing the silver torque he had given his wife. There had been no question in his mind that he’d found Fiona.
‘Forgive me.’ Tears rolled down Siorcha’s face, and she covered her eyes with her hands. ‘I wanted only to help Fiona find happiness with her lover. No one was supposed to die. God has punished me for it.’
‘If she did not want to be my wife any longer, why did she not ask for a divorce?’ Bevan asked. ‘There was no need for such a deception.’
Siorcha stared at him. ‘And would you have granted it?’ She shook her head sadly. ‘Fiona knew you would never let her go. You treated her as your prized possession.’
Something shifted inside him at her words. He wanted to deny it—to claim that he would have granted her a divorce if she’d asked him. But inside him he saw the brutal truth. He had loved her with every part of him. And he wouldn’t have surrendered her. Especially not to a Norman.
If it had taken the rest of his life, fighting within the Brehon courts, never would he have let her go. His own father had refused to grant his wife a divorce. Bevan was no different. He had believed that eventually Fiona would love him as much as he loved her.
The grim reality was that he had been no different than Sir Hugh Marstowe.
‘You are right,’ he said softly. ‘I would not have granted her the divorce.’ His wife had fled him. Just as Genevieve had left Hugh. And it hurt him to know that Fiona would rather remain in hiding with another man than face him with the truth.
A terrible realisation dawned within him. His entire body grew frigid, and his breath seemed to catch in his lungs.
‘Nuala is buried in that grave,’ Siorcha said. ‘Fiona escaped. And as far as I know she is still alive.’
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Genevieve’s eyes were heavy with unshed tears—for what was, and what was never been meant to be. Her future with Bevan was over, destroyed by a woman they had both believed to be dead.
When Genevieve had asked Bevan what he intended to do, he’d merely shaken his head. ‘I wish to be alone.’
She had seen in his eyes that he didn’t want her near him. The old emptiness had returned to his face, that mask of indifference. He was hurting as much as she was, and already he had begun separating himself.
If Fiona were alive, Bevan would go after her. He would mend whatever breach lay between them, and as for Genevieve—she would be discarded.
Her fear dissi
pated, to be replaced by anger. She felt a mind-searing fury at the woman who had taken away their second chance at happiness.
Genevieve pulled on her cloak and brat, needing to get away. The guards tried to block her path, but she pushed them aside. She let the rage consume her, let it fly free.
Ewan tried to stop her, but she shrugged him away.
‘I overheard,’ he said softly. ‘Are you all right?’
‘No.’ She choked back the tears. ‘Please, Ewan, I need to get away. Let me ride—let me have some time to mourn.’
He signalled for a horse to be brought. ‘He won’t want you to leave.’
‘He doesn’t care about me any more,’ Genevieve said wearily. ‘All that matters is that Fiona is alive. All he’ll think about is her.’
‘That isn’t true. He cares for you,’ Ewan said.
‘He doesn’t care enough,’ Genevieve whispered. In her heart she believed that, given a choice, Bevan would always choose Fiona. His sense of honour would keep it so, regardless of his feelings.
Ewan helped her mount the horse, and Genevieve urged the animal forward. Ewan managed to convince the gate guards to let her go, and within moments she was galloping through the snow, her hair streaming behind her.
Icy wind chilled her to the marrow, but she did not feel the cold. She rode hard, watching the landscape blur beneath the mare’s hooves. The grey sky was swollen with snowflakes, mirroring the unshed tears in her heart. The sun hid in hazy shadow, and before long it would slip below the horizon in the embrace of night.
Genevieve reached the grove of trees Bevan had shown her the previous morn. She slowed the mare and dismounted, walking towards the stone circle. With each step, her heart broke into another piece. She leaned her cheek against the largest monolith, its roughness strangely soothing.
She sank to her knees, the wet snow seeping into her gown. She wept for him, and for the years they would not spend together.
But most of all she wept because he had never even considered keeping her as his wife.
* * *
Later that night she returned, and found Bevan in their chamber. The chest belonging to Fiona lay open, and he held the scrap of linen in his hands—the one that had belonged to both his wife and daughter.
Genevieve took a step towards him. ‘Bevan,’ she said softly. ‘What if…what if Siorcha is wrong? What if none of it is true?’
‘It’s true,’ he said flatly. ‘And I think you know it as well as I.’
‘I don’t understand why she left you,’ she whispered. For he was the man she loved. It devastated her to see the raw pain in his eyes. She wound her arms around his neck, but he did not embrace her. His hands remained at his side.
‘For the same reasons you left Hugh. You knew he would come after you, no matter what happened.’ His voice sounded coarse, and his eyes were lowered. ‘She fled rather than face me.’
‘You are not Hugh,’ she said. ‘Do not even think of comparing yourself to him.’
‘Am I so different?’he asked. ‘I wanted to kill the men who took her from me. If I had known she loved Somerton I cannot say what I would have done to him.’
‘What will become of us?’ she asked quietly. She tried to take his hand, but he moved away. The rebuke made her heart crumble more.
‘There is no marriage between us any more,’he said flatly. ‘You should return home to your parents.’
He was giving up on her. Genevieve surrendered her pride and spoke her mind. ‘If you formally divorce Fiona, we could remarry.’
Bevan shook his head slowly. ‘I must find her,’ he said. ‘And when I do I will bring her back to Éireann.’
‘And if she will not come?’
His shoulders lowered. ‘I know not what she will say. It has been two years. Much has changed.’
‘Do you still love her?’
He hesitated, pity filling his eyes. ‘I do not know what I feel for her.’
Genevieve turned away so he would not see her tears. Why had she let herself care for him? Why did it have to hurt this much?
She took a deep breath and steadied herself. ‘What of Rionallís?’
‘We will live at Laochre until the issue is resolved in the courts.’ He looked away for a moment. ‘Perhaps your father will allow me to buy the land from him.’
Genevieve wanted to argue—but what good would it do? She closed her eyes, wishing that somehow she could undo the day’s events.
‘I still care for you,’ she whispered. ‘In spite of it all.’
Her words were a knife in his heart, for he wanted her too. But he could not have her. He was married to Fiona, and the stolen moments he’d had with Genevieve had been nothing but a sin.
He couldn’t say anything. To answer her would only cause them more pain. ‘It has been a long day for both of us,’ he said. ‘You should sleep.’
‘Where?’ Genevieve asked brokenly. Her gaze travelled to the bed, where only that morning they had lain in each other’s arms, skin upon skin.
‘It does not matter. I will sleep below stairs with the men.’
‘But—’ She reached out to touch him.
He stepped away. ‘Don’t you see, Genevieve? You are no longer my wife. It is over between us.’
Without another glance, he closed the door behind him, leaving her. He waited a few moments, and then heard the sound of her tears. His own eyes burned, but there was nothing to be done for it.
Bevan leaned with his back against the door, his head bowed. Though he shed no tears, his grief was no less than hers. The only way to atone for his sin was to bring his wife home again and try to make her happy.
And he would not see Genevieve again.
* * *
Bevan rose at dawn, packing only the barest of necessities to take with him. He broke his fast in the quiet of the morning, and stopped only to wake Ewan by nudging the sleeping boy on his pallet.
Ewan stretched, uncurling his long limbs. ‘What is it?’he mumbled, yawning.
‘I am leaving for England. I want you to send for Connor, and the two of you will look after Rionallís and Genevieve while I go.’
‘You’re going to find her, aren’t you?’ The look of distaste on Ewan’s face revealed his feelings on the matter. ‘I don’t see why you won’t keep Genevieve. I like her. She prepares better food.’ Ewan scowled, rubbing his eyes.
Bevan shook his head in exasperation. Always thinking of his stomach, was Ewan. ‘If Fiona is alive, I have to find her. She belongs here.’
‘She didn’t want to stay here,’ Ewan pointed out.
Bevan knew it, but he would have to convince her otherwise. Guilt plagued him for dishonouring his first wife. He had allowed himself to share the intimacies of marriage with another woman. Fate had granted him his wish—to have his wife alive again. He had no choice but to bring her back.
Ewan was right, however. Bevan did not know how he would convince Fiona to return if she had left willingly.
‘If I do not return within a fortnight, send Patrick to the Welsh border. He’ll know what to do if I am taken captive.’
‘You’re going alone?’ Ewan stared at him as though he’d grown a second head. ‘You can’t go alone!’
‘I can hardly take an army with me,’ Bevan said. ‘The Baron will not exactly give up Fiona without a fight. And I see no reason to start a war if I can convince her to come back of her own free will. I intend to disguise myself as one of the peasants. I’ll have more freedom to observe the castle.’
‘It’s dangerous. What if she betrays you?’ Ewan asked.
Bevan donned his mantle and cloak. ‘I can only hope she will not.’
But Ewan’s remark left him shaken. Had Fiona betrayed them to the Normans during that first battle? They had managed to drive the enemy back, but at great cost.
Bevan knew it was a risk, but it was one he had to take. More than anything else, he had to know if she was still alive. For the past two years, he had dreamed of holding her in his
arms again, of loving her.
He didn’t know if he still loved her any more. Both of them had been unfaithful, though his infidelity had been unintentional. What would he say to her when he saw her again? A heaviness settled over his heart. He was supposed to be overjoyed. Instead, he felt sadness that his marriage with Genevieve had ended.
It had never been a real marriage, he knew. But it had felt like one. He had loved watching her wake up in the mornings, stretching and trying to steal the coverlet from him. He would never have that again.
Bevan cast a look up the staircase, to where Genevieve slept above. Better to leave without saying farewell. He would face the uncertain future without the memory of looking upon her one last time.
The wintry air was crisp, laced with the pungent aroma of peat smoke. His destrier was saddled and loaded with the supplies he’d requested.
‘Where will you stay before the crossing?’ Ewan asked.
‘With the Ó Flayertys,’he replied. His brother Trahern had fostered with the family, and his mother’s cousins lived in Leinster.
Somerton’s lands were just beyond the Welsh border, and it would be safer to make the northern journey on their own shores before crossing the waters to England.
‘What do you want me to tell Genevieve?’ Ewan glanced above. ‘She’ll be angry with you.’
‘Tell her what you like. But keep her here, whatever you do. Send for her parents to take her home again.’
‘This is her home,’ Ewan argued.
Bevan did not reply, but mounted his horse. Not a single flake of snow came down from the clear blue skies. The frozen ground crunched beneath his horse’s hooves, iced over after a freezing rain the night before.
‘God go with you,’ Ewan called out.
‘And with you.’ Bevan urged his destrier through the gates, heading north towards Dun Laoghaire, where he would make the crossing to Holyhead. As Rionallís grew more distant behind him he tried not to think of Genevieve.
The MacEgan Brothers Series Volume 1 Page 75
