Varden's Lady

by Maren Smith

  "You dare care for your mistress this way?” He shoved her face down into the worst of it and held her there. “Abigail is not master of this house, despite what she may think! Clean this up!"

  The moment Varden released her, Grete struggled to her feet. Ducking into the barest of curtsies, she scrubbed at her face even as she fled the room.

  With the lady's companion gone, Varden bent to touch the sheets. Most of the blood truly was as dry as it appeared. Only a small portion was still damp enough to be considered fresh and most of that had soaked into Claire's nightgown.

  Small wonder nightmares plagued her so.

  She moaned and managed to roll onto her back. When she turned her face to him, the soft candlelight bathed her features. She was crying, twin tear tracks streaking her face. Varden gently touched the backs of his fingers to one flushed cheek. She was feverish, but it wasn't very high.

  He should leave, just walk away and let her suffer whatever demons tortured her dreams. She more than deserved it. But then she sobbed and arched her back, her arms flailing as if struggling to push something away.

  "I don't want to die!” she sobbed as the tears rolled down her cheeks, mingling with the sweat that glistened on her feverish skin. “Please, help me! Help me!"

  Every instinct demanded that he fold her into the safety of his arms and kiss her tears away.

  Varden caught her shoulder and shook her roughly instead. There was no response. In fact, there was hardly a twitch from her at all. He shook her again, harder. “Claire!"

  Her entire body convulsed. Her bright green eyes snapped open and she gasped, flinging out her arms and grabbing hold of the mattress as though to stop herself from falling. She stared first up at the canopy curtains above her, then turned her head to look at the deer tapestry on the wall.

  "You were dreaming,” Varden grimly offered, and this time she turned her head to look at him. She stared as if she didn't know him. He narrowed his eyes. Shaking her shoulder again, he asked, “Are you awake?"

  She smiled, and in a small, fragile voice said, “You're the surfer. What's your name?"

  Now it was his turn to stare. There was no spark of recognition for him in her gaze. There was no hatred or thinly veiled malice. No disgust. Not even that mocking glint that usually lurked in the lovely green depths of her eyes just before she cut his soul to shreds with words as sharp as the barbs he notched in his crossbow.

  Varden shook his head once at his own boundless stupidity and turned to go. He didn't need this, not when he had a full cabinet of liqueur waiting for him in the next room. “I am not in the mood for games."

  "Please don't go.” She caught his hand, but her grip was weak and her fingers felt hot enough to burn his skin. “I don't want to be alone."

  Varden rounded on her like a wounded bear. “Madame, I don't give a damn what you want!"

  He jerked his arm free and her hands fell limp to the mattress. But his fury was short-lived. He had never seen Claire look so helpless. Her face was ashen, the only spots of color being the fever against her pasty cheeks, and she shook with pain. Her normally bright and crafty gaze was dull. She seemed disoriented and far too fragile, sunk into the goose-down bedding that dominated rather than cradled her.

  "Do you have any aspirin?” she asked.

  "What?"

  "I've never felt pain like this before,” she whispered. A choked sob caught in her throat and her voice broke. “I hurt so much."

  Though her words were not meant to wound, they pierced him just the same and Varden found himself staring at her, once again at a loss. The Claire that he knew would have cut out her own tongue before ever begging anything from him. Varden hesitated. He hardly knew what to say. Almost against his will, his hand reached down to brush a damp, curling lock of auburn back from her face. “I know."

  He hurt, too.

  Amazingly, she turned her cheek into his palm. “Stay with me."

  Stay? Were he not so astounded, he might have laughed. He could not remember the last time Claire had wanted anything of him. He was a brute, as she was so fond of reminding him. Bullish and vulgar. English, in other words, despite their mutual French ancestry. Yet here she was, cradling her cheek in his open palm when she ought to be jerking away and shuddering delicately the way she had taken to doing whenever he neared her.

  "Stay?” Varden took back his hand.

  "If you want to.” Her words slurred together and her eyes were barely open, focused somewhere beyond his shoulder. “Maybe they won't take me if you're here."

  Now he did laugh, an abrupt and bitter sound. “Take you? Madame, your fever has made you delirious. Who on God's good earth would want you?"

  Though Varden had meant the words to wound, she only smiled. A small smile, admittedly. One that was laced with exhaustion and pain and only the tiniest hint of good humor.

  "Fever,” she mumbled. “Well, no worse than blaming the pepperoni, I suppose."

  "Pepperoni?” He began to wonder if perhaps he shouldn't call the doctor.

  Varden almost touched her again, but stopped himself. With a pang of dismay, he realized he was actually beginning to feel sympathy for her. Fool! Fool! Fool! He was doing it all over again! Falling for her lies and games with blind enthusiasm. He turned back to his own room, ready now to drink himself into a stupor he would not recover from for years. And maybe, somewhere between the whiskey and the wine, this time he would be able to forget that he had ever loved her at all.

  She groaned as he stalked away. “Please stay with me. Just for a little while. I didn't mean to make you angry."

  Again Varden stopped, drawn as taut as a bowstring, notched and ready to snap. He glared at her bedroom door, feeling as if she burned holes in his back with those dazed and pain-filled, beautiful green eyes of hers.

  What was she trying to do? How dare she smile at him now, after all these years of coldness and malcontent. He wanted to slap her, to make her feel as he did—wounded and betrayed. Instead, he returned to her bedside. Varden took a deep breath and held it, slowly lowering himself to perch at the edge of her bed. He refused to look at her. The last thing he wanted was to let her manipulate him into feeling more than just this fleeting sense of sympathy.

  Folding his hands between his knees, his mouth a hard line, he braced himself to hate every second that he was beside her. And it worked, too. Right up until she lay her hand over his and Varden's gut reacted as strongly as the first day he had seen her.

  "Did you see the baby?” she asked.

  Varden scowled at the tiny white fingers holding his much larger ones. He was losing his fury even as he fought to hang onto it. And it did not help that she touched him. Of her own volition, she touched him! When was the last time she had done that? He couldn't remember. His jaw clenched and clenched again as he tried to swallow past the sudden knot in his throat.

  "I saw him,” Varden finally admitted.

  "Isn't he wonderful?"

  But for the fact that he belonged to another man...

  Varden could not tell which of them was shaking harder: he, from the fury of his hurricane emotions, or she, trapped in the weakness of childbirth and fever.

  It bothered him too much to stay. He needed to get distance between them. He tried to pull his hand from hers, but she would not let him go and, rather than make an issue of it, Varden relented. He glared at the door instead. Grete had five seconds to come scuttling back in here or, by God, he would hunt her down and thrash her to within an inch of her life!

  Wincing as she shifted, Claire lightly touched his back with her other hand. Varden stiffened, Grete abruptly forgotten.

  "Blonde,” she murmured as she touched his hair.

  Varden half-turned around, scowling down at her with his hard and narrowed eyes. “What do you want, Madame?"

  "To start over.” Claire took a deep breath and seemed to collect herself. “He's so beautiful. The baby, I mean. This is almost like a dream come true."

  For him, it wa
s a nightmare that had lasted for far too many years.

  "It's one of the things I wanted to do before I died. I think I'll make a good mother."

  Spoken so softly, so innocently, Varden was unprepared for the image her words conjured. Wounds he'd thought long since scarred over were torn open anew. What about that night seven months ago, he wanted to shout, when he had stormed the midwife's cottage barely in time to stop her from aborting a baby that might have been his. He had been forced to lock her in this very room to keep her from finding other ways to kill the baby or herself.

  Unbidden, another image arose, even stronger than the last. A tiny face so much like his own when Varden was a child: Caleb, his first-born son. The four-year-old had been a laughing, fearless bundle of energy and the only thing that helped to make life with Claire bearable.

  Turning away so she would not see his hurt, Varden ran his free hand through his tangled hair. Not a day went by that he did not grieve. At times, it felt as though a part of him were entombed alongside Caleb in the Lyssoue family vault. Claire, on the other hand, had never expressed any mourning over the loss of their son.

  Now she wanted to be a good mother?

  Varden lost control. He caught Claire's chin in his hand, forcing her to meet his eyes. He knew he hurt her, his fingers digging into her jaw, but he could not stop himself. The urge to rail and shake her was almost unbearable. It was all he could do to keep from striking her, to wake her from the lethargy that addled her mind, and make her feel the same pain that had consumed him.

  "I didn't think it possibly to hate you more than I already did,” Varden seethed. “I don't know what you hope to gain by this. But you are mad if you think I will play along."

  She cupped his face in a far gentler imitation of his hold on her. “Do you believe in miracles?"

  "What are you talking about?"

  "Do you believe in miracles?” she repeated. “Or God? Or life after death?"

  He let go of her chin to knock her hand away. “No."

  "Do you believe in souls?"

  "Why?” he asked dryly. “Do you regret the loss of yours?"

  She reached for his arm. “Please give me your hand."

  Reluctantly, Varden complied. Claire turned his hand sideways and then shook it, as though she were a complete stranger greeting him for the very first time.

  "Hello. My name is Mallory Connally. I was killed in a car accident in the year two thousand and one. I didn't want to die. Your Claire and I sort of swapped places. It doesn't take a genius to realize that there's problems here, but I'm hoping that we can work through them, for the baby's sake.” She managed a small smile. “Pleased to meet you."

  Incredibility warred with bitter laughter inside him. Varden studied her face for signs of cruel amusement. He found none. Disbelief won as he realized that she was actually being serious.

  "You still haven't told me who you are,” Claire prompted.

  Varden spotted the bottle of laudanum on the bedside table. He picked it up. “How much of this did they give you?"

  Without waiting for an answer, he shook it near his ear to gauge how much of the bitter medicine remained inside.

  "Is that the aspirin?” Her body rocked as Claire coughed. She clutched her stomach and groaned, seeming to crumple inward. Tears collected at her lashes to spill unhindered down her pale cheeks. She focused her eyes on the bottle. “None, but I wish they had."

  Laudanum in hand, Varden stormed from the room. He sent the door crashing against the wall as he bellowed down the hall for Doctor Robert Wilcox. He did not care that it was past midnight or that he woke the entire house with his shouting. Dimly he heard a servant acknowledge him, but Varden had already turned back in the doorway to stare at Claire once again. The huge canopy bed all but swallowed her in its shadowy folds. He wished he had not drunk so much. His mind felt too tangled to think.

  Servants wandered into the hall, most dressed for bed. Abigail was next to arrive, still pulling her robe over her nightgown as she hurried to his side. Her gray hair hung over one shoulder in a single, long braid that bounced back and forth between her small bony breasts. “What is it, Varden—Oh, your breath! You are already drunk!"

  Ignoring her, Varden held up the bottle of laudanum. “How much of this did Wilcox give her?"

  "Claire?” Taken aback, Abigail pulled her wrap more firmly round her shoulders. “Why? Is she dead? Has my dream been fulfilled already?"

  Varden grabbed her arm. “How much?"

  "How dare you? Let go of my arm!” Abigail drew herself upright, her mouth drawing tight with disapproval. “You forget yourself!"

  "How much!” Varden bellowed and shook her once, but it was enough to shock her into silence.

  "None of it,” she finally answered. “He gave her not a drop, and let her suffer, I say. It would serve the harlot right—"

  Varden turned his back on his stepmother to find Claire watching him from the bed.

  "Varden,” she whispered. “Good, sturdy name. It suits you. Now we just need to find one for the baby."

  For an instant, the world fell away. Varden barely heard the servants whispering in the background, or Abigail, more put out than worried, asking again what was wrong. He didn't even notice as Doctor Wilcox came huffing down the hall, his clothes disheveled, his lined face reflecting a lack of sleep and too much wine.

  His wife beckoned and patted the mattress next to her. “Shut the door, Varden. We really should talk."

  "Well?” Abigail folded her arms across her small chest. “Explain yourself. She obviously has not died, more's the pity."

  The bottle of laudanum slipped from Varden's fingers and fell to the floor. It rolled a few inches in a tottering half-circle before coming to rest at the heel of his black boot.

  "Claire has lost her senses,” Varden said woodenly, hardly believing the words even as they fell from his mouth. “She has gone mad."

  [Back to Table of Contents]

  Chapter Four

  Varden was just shrugging into his practice armor—a well-padded patchwork of heavy leather and canvas—when Godfrey rode onto the Field. His brother glanced around the camp once before his gaze settled on Varden. He smiled and dismounted. Varden swore under his breath.

  From behind him, also strapping on his armor, Kenton said, “There is a foul wind coming from the south this morning, Your Grace."

  Varden smiled only slightly. “I see him."

  "We could set the new recruits on him. We'll say it was target practice and the lads simply mistook the target."

  "Don't tempt me,” Varden said, but his smile widened marginally as he considered the small group of boys waiting with a mixture of excitement and trepidation not far away. Not a one of them was more than fourteen. In fact, Gilette de Moya, whose grandfather had been a good friend of Varden's father, was only eleven. He stood anxiously in front of the others, wiping his red, running nose on the sleeve of his tunic. Definitely younger than Varden preferred, but he had been reluctant to refuse the request of such an old family friend.

  "Accidents happen,” Kenton said softly. “I'm sure thirteen boys can take down a bumbling idiot like your brother."

  Varden felt no such confidence. Even out-numbering Godfrey, not a boy among them could walk across the Field without tripping over his own feet at least once. Few could wield their practice swords without the risk of lopping off something vital, which was why Doctor Robert Wilcox virtually lived on the Field when new recruits first arrived.

  As if reading his mind, Kenton snorted. “You know as well as I that your brother would not stand to fight them."

  "No,” Varden agreed. “He would run home to Mother, crying of my injustice, and then who would face the sharp edge of Abigail's tongue? Me. Not bloody likely."

  "Well, then,” Kenton said, strapping his own sword around his narrow hips. “Ignore him. Mayhap he'll go away."

  But Godfrey had no intention of going away. As Varden prepared to instruct the boys on the short b
lades that Kenton was now passing out among them, he became acutely aware of his brother approaching from behind. Varden kept his gaze straight ahead and fixed on Kenton, who watched Godfrey's approach with an unwavering black stare.

  "Good morning, lads,” Varden began. “Welcome to the Field. Before we begin, I want to thank those of you who were here on time. Those who were not—James, Meredith—I don't suggest you repeat your tardiness tomorrow."

  Though he did not turn around or even pause in his opening speech to the attentive students, the hair along his nape prickled. A cold bead of sweat trickled down his spine. He itched to draw his sword and even imagined he could feel Godfrey's eyes burrowing into his back. He heard his brother's footsteps coming closer, crunching through the crisp autumn leaves that littered the ground around them, and it took every effort for Varden not to turn with fists swinging and knock Godfrey flat on his back. It would be a mistake, but among the most pleasurable of ones that he had made to date.

  "Gillette,” Varden admonished sharply when the boy turned his attention from Varden to Godfrey. “Your father has paid a lot of money to send you here. I expect you to pay attention."

  Gillette came stiffly to attention, his face flushing with the embarrassment of having been singled out. “Yes, Your Grace."

  "Kenton gave each of you a sword; pick it up.” Varden held his own sword, aloft. “This is not your weapon; it is your new best friend. You will keep it sharp. You will keep it polished. You will never, ever be without it. From this day on, your sword will be an extension of your arm. You will know every inch of this blade, and it shall become more familiar to you than any woman ever will be."

  "Careful, lads,” Godfrey drawled as he came around Varden's left side. “He may even ask you to sleep with it."

  Hands clasped behind his back, Varden shrugged with his eyebrows. “As a matter of fact—"

  "Know a cold steel blade better than a warm and willing wench? Whatever are you trying to teach them?"

  "Skills that will hopefully keep them alive."

  Noticing Kenton standing among the boys, Godfrey stopped where he was. “Brother, are you aware your servant has taken up arms?"