by Tamara Leigh
“I do not like this.”
Elias grunted. “Nor I.”
As Durand looked sidelong at him, he thought how strange that the one whose eye he had blackened and whom he had not much liked previous to that should present as a possible ally. Also unexpected was the troubadour knight’s facility with weapons. Though he lacked the years of discipline and training required to be knighted at Wulfen Castle and awarded the coveted dagger, he did not sully the Wulfriths’ reputation.
Granted, many a knight alongside whom Durand had trained was more fierce and deadlier, but Sir Elias was so unpredictable—one moment crisp in the execution of a swing or thrust, the next lazy—that his opponent could either find no pattern or acted too late upon it. Too, he lacked the indelible, well-earned pride of a Wulfen-trained warrior, expressing his joy with laughter and shouts of triumph, his disappointment with groans and mutterings. Much too often it broke his opponent’s concentration. And he knew it.
Near the end of their practice on Heath Castle’s training field, the knight had been close to yielding when, past their crossed blades, he chided Durand for being so forceful when it was but an exercise in which they engaged. When that gained no concessions, with great exaggeration he had assured his opponent his only interest in Beata was in the capacity of a friend.
Durand had ignored the implication his aggression had anything to do with feelings for the lady—outwardly. Inwardly, he had recalled how emotion gripped him at Stern when Beata and Sir Elias stood close, easily conversed, comfortably flirted, and the troubadour knight winked and she brightened.
But his undoing was remembrance of himself being nearer her and bypassing flirtation. When it should have been his blade alone at his opponent’s throat, it was also Sir Elias’s at the throat of one worthier of the Wulfrith dagger—providing Durand had not allowed a woman to come between his blade and him. A truce then, proving women ought to be more trouble than they were worth.
“Ought to be,” he muttered.
“What ought to be what?” Sir Elias returned him to the present.
Durand ground his teeth, looked from the other man’s quizzical brow to the two they observed from atop the wall-walk between the inner and outer baileys. “We ought to be vigilant,” he said, and it was true. Baron Soames had not paused at Heath Castle only to take meal and gain a night’s lodging.
As evidenced by surreptitious murmurings between host and guest and how closely Baron Rodelle attended to the other man, including an obvious attempt to listen in on his daughter’s conversation with Soames, he had no good purpose.
“I agree,” Sir Elias said. “’Twas not fatigue that caused Lady Beata to leave the table. Those two plot.”
In opposition to what the queen required of the Rodelles, Durand mused. Even had he not overheard an exchange between stable boys into whose care the mounts of Soames’s party had been given upon their arrival at Heath, he would have been on the alert. But the grumbling of one lad over the baron’s inability to decide whether to stay or go had well-seeded the field of suspicion that, God willing, could soon be harvested. Or burned.
“What know you of Baron Soames?” Sir Elias asked.
The answer was at hand, Durand having dug it up the moment Baron Rodelle introduced his guest. “He came into his title young following the disappearance of his father by what is believed to be ill means, and with possible involvement by the Rodelles—”
“Ah, sounds quite the tale!”
“He received knighthood training at home rather than through fostering,” Durand continued. “His first betrothal was broken when he learned the lady was with child—a lady I met years ago while I…”
He paused. His infiltration of Castle Soaring to free Beatrix Wulfrith from the man who was now her husband need not be told, especially not the name of the one Soames had rejected—the sorrowful Lady Laura who, with her misbegotten daughter, had been Michael D’Arci’s guest.
“While, Sir Durand?”
“It matters not. After some years, Soames wed, and that lady soon made him a widower.”
“Intriguing.”
The lack of exertion this past half hour having allowed the winter air to make itself too comfortable across his skin, Durand shrugged his mantle closer around him, leaned deeper into the embrasure, and considered the barons who stood at the training yard’s fence where the din of men at practice permitted conversation to which no others were privy.
“Aye, they plot,” he said, “with your friend and my charge at the center of their machinations.”
“Your charge,” Sir Elias murmured. “Often you must remind yourself of that, hmm?”
Durand refused to rise to the bait though the troubadour knight and he no longer swung deadly blades at each other.
Sir Elias grunted. “Ah well, it must needs suffice we both want what is best for Lady Beata. And since we are fair certain that is not Baron Soames, the only question you alone must answer is if what the queen thinks best for her shall gift Lady Beata with a life across which she dances to its good end, or a life through which she trudges to its ill end.”
How does one speak to that? Durand wondered.
One did not. They did their duty to their liege and did not look back, even if in doing so it sentenced one to trudge through life. Alone.
Sir Elias slapped Durand’s back. “Think on it, Friend.”
Durand looked around. “Friend?”
The knight shrugged his mouth. “I speak loosely. Much depends on how you answer that question.”
Already it was answered. Never again would he dishonor his training nor his name. Returning his regard to the barons, he said, “Vigilance, Sir Elias. Vigilance.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Trembling. Teeth chattering. Face burning. Belly threatening to expel what it had not. Hand gripping that of Lady Winifred’s wet nurse.
Then it was done.
“Intact,” Baron Soames’s physician pronounced.
Feeling as if her head broke the surface of the ocean, Beata sucked air, whipped her skirts down, and scrambled backward to the head of the bed.
“Lady,” Petronilla soothed, “’tis over, and all is well.”
“All is not well! I have…never have I been…he…” Moisture burning her eyes, she shook her head.
The physician heaved a sigh. “Calm thyself, my lady. ’Tis for you to rejoice.”
“Rejoice?” she screeched.
He waved Petronilla aside, and the woman withdrew to where her babe watched the other occupants of the chamber from a chair before the hearth.
“Lady Beata”—the physician set a hand on her shoulder—“be assured—”
She shoved his fingers off. “Do not touch me!”
“You make too much of this, Lady.”
“Do I? You would not object to such humiliation—nay, degradation!—were it done you?”
“As I am not in the business of bearing children—”
“Business? Business!”
Dear Lord, she silently beseeched, I do not want to cry. But I shall, and soon do You not smite this creature!
He crossed his arms atop his abdomen. “For the sin women brought into this world, such is their burden. But as you have shown yourself to be more redeemable than many, I will be pleased to inform Baron Soames his bride shall come to him pure. Providing he guides her with a firm hand, he need never question if the children of her body are also of his.”
Was it Conrad’s joyous wife who sprang to her knees? She who named the physician a vile son of a sow? She whose palm was set afire? She who did rejoice, albeit over the snap of his head and the livid mark upon his cheek?
It was, and she was not as appalled as she should be.
Not appalled at all! It was not she who so unashamedly trespassed on another. And yet, she was going to cry, perhaps as loudly as the babe whose contentment was lost in the midst of a lady’s raging.
Beata lurched off the bed alongside the physician who remained too stunned to offer
further counsel and started across the chamber.
“My lady!” Petronilla called. Beata threw out a staying hand, flung open the door, and ran down the corridor.
She wanted out—did not care that a wise woman would first gain a mantle. She was not wise. Had she been, she would not have believed her father’s assurance she would have a choice in whom she wed. She would not have answered his summons. She would have stayed in France and retired to her dower lands.
“If only, if only,” she chanted down the stairs, quieting herself only when she saw servants about the hall and two of her father’s knights conversing before the great doors.
Fearing the sobs in her chest would burst from her, she veered opposite. With lowered face, she traversed the open path to the kitchen that was populated by those who would bring to table the final meal of the day.
Beata hesitated on the threshold, knowing to go forward would see her in a garden that had ever spooked her, but to go back…
Distantly hearing the cook’s polite query, making no attempt to order his words into something meaningful, she skirted him. Moments later, she slammed the door, collapsed back against it, and slid down it.
The first sob was more hiccough than misery, but the next…
She dragged her knees up, pressed her mouth against them, and as she yielded to all that had scraped and clawed at her during the physician’s examination, sent her gaze around the garden. Then she squeezed her eyes shut lest tears soak the skirt of her gown.
“Since she is your charge, I suppose I should allow you to go to her. Again.”
Allow? That was no consideration. The slam of the door having turned Durand and Elias toward the donjon’s garden that hugged the edifice’s southern wall, they had watched Beata drop back against the door and sink to sitting. Though they could not hear the noise of her weeping, both knew the sound was muffled by her knees.
“We have been fooled,” Durand growled and set off along the wall-walk as the curses confined to the space between his ears searched for a way out.
If he had to place a bet, it would be that Baron Rodelle and Baron Soames had served as a distraction to prevent Beata’s escort from interfering with whatever had been done to her within the donjon.
Though tempted to seek the garden’s exterior entrance, the likelihood it was secured sent him up the steps to the hall.
The knights just inside the door he thrust open parted to allow him past, and he felt the regard of servants as he strode toward the kitchen.
“Sir Durand!”
He had no intention of answering whoever called to him, but when the woman drew alongside at a run, he realized the voice belonged to the steadfast Petronilla and the soft snuffling was that of the babe whom Rodelle would have him believe was his son.
He halted, demanded, “Lady Beata?”
“Aye, she…” The woman’s eyes flicked past him, and he took her arm and pulled her into the corridor that led to the kitchen.
“Tell me.”
“Forgive me, Sir Durand, but ’tis not for me to do.”
“Then for what do you keep me from the lady?”
“I vow she is not hurt, only much distressed.” She patted her babe’s head onto her shoulder. “Still, I must tell you that as Helene once needed you, so does Baron Rodelle’s daughter.”
“She is in danger?”
“Of a different sort.”
Spilling a curse for which he would later repent, he started past the woman.
“No matter her father’s plans, do not allow her to wed Baron Soames,” Petronilla entreated.
He looked across his shoulder. “I have no intention of permitting that union. But I thank you, and if I do not have a chance to speak with you again, I would have you know Helene is happily wed and has another son.”
“Aye.” She smiled. “When she writes, our preacher reads her words to me.”
Of course Helene had not forgotten her friend. He continued down the corridor, tossed open the kitchen door, and might have knocked aside those preparing food had they not jumped away.
Knowing Beata likely remained on the other side of the garden door, he slowly opened it.
She was there, so steeped in misery she seemed not to notice she slid further down the door. But when he spoke her name, she snapped forward and stumbled to her feet.
He stepped outside, closed the door as she scrubbed a forearm across her eyes, and nodded at Sir Elias upon the wall-walk. When the knight answered in kind, Durand closed the distance between Beata and him.
He had seen her more sorrowful when they were shipwrecked, but someone, not something had done this to her.
“I shall beat them bloody,” he growled.
Her moist, reddened eyes widened. “W-what say you?”
He was also surprised by his choice of words, but he meant them. “What was done you and by whom, Beata?”
Relief swept her beautiful green eyes, then she looked away. And lied. “Naught. No one.”
He lifted her chin. “Tell me.”
She searched his face. “Had anything been done I did not like, still your first duty would be to your queen, aye?”
“I cannot change that I serve Eleanor, but I can stop whatever happened from happening again.”
“By beating the perpetrator bloody?” Her laughter was bitter. “I assure you what happened will not happen again.”
He breathed in patience. “What will not happen again?”
She stepped back, turned and walked the stone-laid path to a bench at the center of what hardly resembled a garden this time of year, and eased onto it.
Durand glanced at Sir Elias who had positioned himself so he could easily look between garden and outer bailey, then he followed. As he lowered beside Beata, she wrapped her arms around herself and sank into her shoulders. Ashamed he had not considered her comfort, he straightened, removed his mantle, and draped it over her.
“I thank you.” She tucked her chin into the wool. “I did not realize I was cold.”
He took a seat on the bench, keeping a respectable distance between them.
“Oh, it smells of you,” she breathed.
Her observation disturbing him, he leaned forward and clasped his hands between his knees to keep from pulling her against his side as he had done in the cave.
She burrowed her nose into his mantle, and a section of hair escaped its braid and swept across her face like a raven’s wing. “Not so long ago, still it smelled of the one from whom you gained it. That poor, lost soul.”
He angled toward her and gripped his hands tighter to ensure they were where they belonged, rather than plowing silken strands. “Beata, I can better aid you if you tell me how.”
She sighed, raised her chin. “Conrad spoiled me, and now I struggle to keep my head above real life. It almost makes me wish he had not been so good to me, that this were just another day, as would be the morrow and every morrow thereafter.”
“To lessen the drudgery and pain, you would know no joy?”
A sorrowful laugh. “You sound like Conrad. And I sound self pitying—not at all The Vestal Wife of whom I have been so fond though more disapprove of her than approve, including Eleanor’s gallant monk.”
He had disapproved of her, but now…
He wanted that Beatrix back, even if she opened her mouth without benefit of a smile, expressed joy with laughter not befitting a lady, caused others to keep their distance and speak behind their hands, and if what was perceived as flirtation caused him to rescue her from knaves needing lessons from a well-placed fist.
But it would not do to admit it. It would only encourage her in a direction neither could go.
A soft sound slipping from her, a flash of green between dark strands telling she watched him, expectant silence evidencing she awaited a response, she shifted on the bench. Then she cleared her throat, sat taller, and turned her face forward. “I do not like this garden, though now I sit here, I do not think ’twas ever so.”
Wondering i
f the weight on her chest was as heavy as the one on his, he said, “I am sure it is lovely in its time.”
“To the eye, but…” Once more she shrank into the mantle. “Do you not think it has too many dark corners?”
He ran his gaze around the large, walled area. “As many as any enclosed space.”
“Nay, it has more, especially come autumn when leaves gather deep.”
It was no flung comment. It called to mind the cave and her dream murmurings of a secret she could not share and leaves she must not allow to rot away. And when he had awakened her with assurances she but dreamed, she had told she did not think it only that. Then their first kiss…
“Too many,” she whispered.
Deciding this was worth pursuing until he could move her to reveal what Petronilla would not tell, he said, “What made you so fearful of a place of beauty and peace?”
Her chin whipped around, lifting the hair off her face and revealing skin washed of color. “I did not say anything bad happened here. I think I just… I may have seen something here when I was a small girl.”
“May have?”
“More likely, ’twas a dream.”
“Of?”
“My mother. She was here. And there was a man. He was angry.”
“Your father?”
Her hand shot up from between the mantle’s edges, slid into her hair past her temple.
“What is it, Beata?”
She lowered her arm. “Not my father. Certes, a dream.”
“Then tell me of it.”
She shook her head. “Conrad said it best I not speak of it. ’Tis of the past and ought to stay there.”
“Not if you dream it still.”
She leaned toward him with the urgency of one who must convince another of the impossible. “For years I did not dream it—only remembered pieces when cornered as I was by Sir Oliver at court. And sometimes during thunderstorms. But of late…”
“When did the dream return?”
She moistened her lips. “The night after I received my father’s summons, the one night at court, and after the shipwreck.”
“In the cave. I remember. You spoke of a secret that must be kept unto death and worried over the leaves—feared they would rot away. For that, I awakened you.”
