by Meg Cabot
Peter, still trying to draw breath from having been evidently kicked in the chest by Finnula, gasped, “No.”
Isabella threw him a startled glance, her dark eyes wide with astonishment. “What?”
“I said no.” Peter, to Hugo’s surprise, was glaring at Laroche. “Let her go, monsieur. This has gone far enough.”
Laroche swung around to stare at the boy. “What?” he blurted out, in an unconscious imitation of his daughter. “Have you lost your mind, boy?”
“No.” Peter shook his head, his blond hair falling over one eye. He swept the lock back impatiently. “I’ve only just regained it. This isn’t right. None of this is right. I believed you, monsieur, when you told me Lord Hugo was naught but an uneducated second son, who through sheer luck rose to the title of earl. I believed you when you said you’d make a far better Lord of Stephensgate than he ever would, with his coddling of peasants and the highly unsuitable woman he took as wife. But I know that Lord Hugo would not kill a woman in cold blood. And I know that Lord Hugo would not murder a child. In your cousin, monsieur, I have a found a man of true refinement and chivalry, and ’tis to my shame I did not recognize it before.” To Hugo, Peter said, his eyes glittering brightly with unshed tears, “My lord, I have erred greatly. I am more sorry than I can ever say—”
“You should be.” Hugo grunted. He kicked his feet free from the stirrups and dismounted, wincing as the action jarred his injured shoulder. “For I intend to thrash you, young one, within an inch of your life, for what you did to my wife.”
“To your wife?” Peter’s mouth fell open. “But I tried to convince them to spare her life, my lord! What did I ever do to your wife?”
“Nearly broke her rib, for one thing, the day we met her,” was Hugo’s calm explanation. “But I’d have forgiven you that if you hadn’t then proceeded to see her blamed for crimes which you yourself committed.”
Peter bent his head in shame. “Very well, then, my lord. I will await your punishment.”
“Indeed you will.” Hugo drew off his riding gloves slowly, as if doing so caused him pain. “I took you into my house and home, and in return, you gave me naught but your contempt. ’Twould grieve your father, who was my friend, to hear of this.”
“Thankfully my father is dead,” Peter murmured.
Hugo nodded. “Thankfully, yes. As you will wish you were, when I get through with you. Now, cousin, you will choose your weapon.”
Reginald Laroche’s surprise at Peter’s defection was so great that his grip had loosened perceptibly upon Finnula, who readily seized the opportunity to send one of her elbows deep into his gullet, and thus remove herself from the man’s grasp entirely as he buckled in pain. Throwing herself on top of Jamie, she grabbed the boy, then jumped with him down from the outcropping.
He did not appear to appreciate her rescue attempts overly much, however, when she landed on top of him.
“Oh, Jamie,” Finnula cried, when their bodies collided against each other, in the soft peat. “Are you all right?”
“I don’t know.” The boy grunted, blinking up at her. “Could you untie me?”
“Are you mad?” Hugo inquired of his wife, rushing over to stand guard over the two of them. “Truly?”
“No, but I think you are,” she snapped, as she struggled in the semidarkness with the ropes that bound the boy. “You’re wounded, and your cousin’s desperate, and you intend to fight him? Do not—”
“Thank you, my love,” Hugo interrupted, patiently, never taking his eyes from Laroche, who still stood indecisively atop the rock outcropping, trying to regather himself after Finnula’s blow. “But I shall have my revenge.”
“Revenge!” Finnula’s throaty voice was filled with scorn. “He is not worth it, Hugo! Leave him to the sheriff.”
“He killed my father,” Hugo said. “And he would have killed you, had I not arrived in time.”
“What say you, cousin?” Reginald Laroche, his breath finally caught, leaped down from the rock wall and went to stare up at Hugo, his black mustache twitching. “You challenge me for the seat of Stephensgate?”
“Aye,” Hugo said, flexing his sword arm experimentally. It seemed hale enough. “You beat me, Laroche, and the title is yours.”
“Hugo!” Finnula was horrified.
But Hugo knew that this was the sole incentive with which he could tempt his cousin into an honorable duel. His desire to see the older man’s blood flow was so strong that it almost staggered him.
But the man had caused him naught but trouble since he’d set foot in Shropshire, and Hugo would have peace at last.
After a moment’s hesitation, Laroche grinned toothily. “You are my witnesses,” he declared, turning to face his daughter and Peter. “You heard what he said. He loses, and the title is mine.”
“Kill him, Father,” Isabella said venomously. “And when you are through, kill the bitch he married as well.” Darting a glance at Peter, she added, “And it wouldn’t hurt to kill this traitor as well.”
Reginald Laroche grinned, seemingly pleased by his daughter’s bloodthirsty nature, and drew his sword. “Come then, cousin,” he taunted. “Let us see who the next Earl of Stephensgate shall be in truth.”
Hugo, who had been hearing such crashing in the woods behind him as to indicate that de Brissac and his men were on the way, was relieved to have the opportunity to kill Laroche before their arrival. With a reassuring smile at Finnula, whose face looked pale in the steadily growing light of dawn, he stepped forward, ready to intercept his cousin’s attack.
Grinning, Reginald Laroche held aloft his blade, and sank into a fencer’s stance. Hugo stared at him as if at one demented. Hugo was not a fencer. He was a fighter. His blade was heavy, and he swung it purposefully. There was no feinting in Hugo’s technique, no parrying. Thrusting was all he knew, and he did so, aggressively.
But his opponent was not a soldier. Reginald Laroche had trained at swordplay at some faraway French court. The older man was lighter on his feet than Hugo, and faster, too. That much became evident when Hugo, irritated by Laroche’s bouncing back and forth upon the balls of his feet, wielded his blade in an arc meant to lop off his opponent’s head. Laroche easily ducked the swing, and laughed triumphantly as he danced away from Hugo, unscathed.
“Getting tired, cousin?” Reginald teased.
“Tired of watching you bob about like a puppet on a string,” Hugo growled in response. “Why don’t you stand still, Laroche?”
“So you can run me through? I think not.”
Finnula, having unloosed Jamie, stood off to one side of the clearing, watched in a frenzy of anxiety. “Take care, Hugo,” she called occasionally, when Laroche’s blade swung too close to her husband’s head. She could see that Hugo was tiring already, that it was harder and harder for him to lift his heavy sword. The fool! What could he have been thinking, challenging someone in his condition? ’Twould serve him right to be cut down.
And yet Reginald Laroche’s skills with a weapon were nothing compared to Hugo’s, war-weary as he was. Had the Earl of Stephensgate not been suffering from that injury to his sword arm, he would have felled the older man in a single blow…or at least, that’s what he told himself. As it was, the duel lasted long enough for Sheriff de Brissac and his men to break through the underbrush and arrive in the clearing with considerable confusion.
“What goes here?” John de Brissac demanded, as the sound of clanging metal and panting men filled the morning air as thickly as the dew.
“Well, Sheriff,” Finnula said. “Hugo is out of his head, and says he shall give up the title if his cousin wins—”
Sheriff de Brissac dismounted wearily, gathering Winnie’s reins and holding them loosely in a gloved hand. “I ought to have known that if anyone could find him, it would be you, Finnula. You should have been loosed at once to follow Laroche’s foul trail…”
“Please, Sheriff! They’ll kill one another!”
“I’m quite certain that is
the point, my dear. Though, in the name of the law”—he sighed—“they ought to be stopped.”
“Oh!” Finnula gasped as Laroche, with a powerful swing, sent his blade ringing against the one Hugo lifted at the last minute to avoid injury. “Sheriff! Will you do something? They must be stopped!”
“And yet,” Sheriff de Brissac said, watching as the two men lunged at each other, “I would not rob your husband of this opportunity to avenge your honor.”
“What?” Finnula reached up to cling to the sheriff’s arm. “Oh, John, no! Hugo doesn’t care about my honor. No, you must stop them—”
But the sheriff was unmovable, and Finnula could only watch, miserably, as her husband engaged in a cat-and-mouse battle of blades. She was certain that, having risen so recently from the sick-bed, Hugo was the weaker man, but it appeared that in strength, the two were thus equally matched…until, of a sudden, Laroche began to fade. Finnula watched, hardly daring to hope, as Hugo, with a burst that indicated that he’d only been conserving energy throughout the fight, pressed his adversary back against the lip of the outcropping, where Isabella stood.
“Tell me, cousin,” sneered Hugo, neatly slicing open Laroche’s tunic but not leaving a mark upon his smooth and hairless chest. “Was it you who poisoned my father?”
Laroche was panting too hard to reply, but Hugo did not seem to notice. His blade danced across either of Laroche’s gaunt cheeks, leaving lightly oozing scratches that emphasized the older man’s pallor.
“Was it you? Or your bitch of a daughter? Poison is a woman’s weapon, after all. Was it you who killed him?” Hugo continued to swipe at Laroche until he had the man cornered, backed up against the rock wall and only feebly heaving his sword. It was the work of but a moment for Hugo to fully disarm him. But then, instead of throwing his own sword away in victory, Hugo stepped forward and gathered the edges of Laroche’s tunic together in one hand, bringing the smaller man forward until his face was just inches from his own.
“Admit that you killed my father,” Hugo growled, menacingly. “Admit it, man.”
Laroche knew he was beaten, and had naught left to lose. He laughed, a frightening sound that caused Jamie to bury his face in Finnula’s skirt, even as she, in turn, looked up beseechingly at the sheriff.
“Aye, I killed the old man,” scoffed Reginald Laroche.
“And laid the blame upon the woman I love?” Hugo’s voice was deadly quiet.
“Aye.” Laroche laughed. “As she’d have been blamed for your death, if that stupid squire of yours had been better able with a bow.”
A roaring sounded in Hugo’s ears, and his vision swam before his eyes. His face had gone ruddy with rage. Finnula saw it, saw his broad shoulders trembling with the effort he was making not to rip his cousin limb from limb. Untangling herself from Jamie’s clinging grasp, she rushed forward, laying gentle fingers upon her husband’s quaking limbs.
“Nay, Hugo,” she said softly. “Nay, do not kill him. Your killing days are over. Let others be his judge.”
Hugo turned a glowing eye upon her, and she saw that his hazel eyes were gold now, not green, as they’d been seconds ago. His lips parted, and he croaked, “Why?”
“Why?” she echoed. “Why what?”
He spoke with an obvious effort. “Why should I not kill him?”
Finnula, for the life of her, could not think of any reason that Hugo should not kill the man, except that for all her skills with a bow, she abhorred violence and bloodshed, and could not stand to see even this man she despised die before her, and at her husband’s hands. Not after what she’d heard him say, which, though she still was not certain she believed her own ears, was that he loved her. Tears gathering beneath her eyelashes, Finnula whispered, “I know not. Only do not do it. Come home with me. Come home with me and love me as I love you.”
She felt the quivering in his muscles lessening by degrees, and then, all at once, he released Laroche, and wrapped those powerful fingers around her own shoulders instead, as if he was relying now upon her strength to support him. She was only half aware that Sheriff de Brissac had stepped forward to take charge of his prisoner—his new prisoner—for all her attention was focused upon her husband. It had been too long since she’d last been in his arms. She was comforted by the hardness of his chest beneath her cheek as he pulled her against him, and the sinewy strength of his arms tightening around her.
When he tilted her chin up to gaze down into her face, Finnula saw that Hugo’s eyes were every bit as golden as the sun, just rising over the horizon. But instead of the worldly confidence she was used to seeing within them, she saw uncertainty. When he did not kiss her, she wondered if perhaps she had not heard him correctly. Was it not she he loved? Had she spoken hastily, assumed too much?
Embarrassed, she began to attempt to extricate herself from his embrace, but to her surprise, Hugo eagerly snatched her back, though the worried look did not leave his eyes.
“D-do you…” he stammered, like one choosing his words with special care. “Do you…forgive me, then?”
Finnula gazed up at him in confusion. There was nearly a week’s old growth of beard upon his jaw, and he looked a bit like the way he had the day she’d met him, when he’d been nothing more to her than a hostage for Mellana.
“Forgive you?” she echoed. “For what?”
“For burning your braies.”
Finnula could not help laughing. “I forgive you,” she said. “Do you forgive me?”
“For what?” Hugo asked bewilderedly.
“For holding you for ransom,” she exclaimed.
“Oh, that,” Hugo said, his arms tightening around her. “There’s naught to forgive there. ’Twas the pleasantest time I ever passed, those days I was your hostage. ’Tis my fondest hope we’ll return to the Spring of St. Elias for another swim—”
She silenced him with a kiss, though it was hard to do properly while she was laughing so much.
Chapter Thirty
As it happened, though she fitted herself promptly with new ones, Finnula was not able to wear leather braies for long, in any case.
A scant six months later, she had grown too round with pregnancy to fit into even her old kirtles. Her sisters were quick to supply her with their own, particularly a still guilt-ridden Mellana, who gave birth to a baby boy and quickly regained her old figure…though Jack Mallory never returned to Stephensgate to appreciate it.
To the surprise of none but Mellana, however, Sheriff de Brissac’s admiration of her waist, when trim or otherwise, was great, and when not sharing a cup with Hugo in the manor house’s Great Hall, John de Brissac could invariably be found at the millhouse, helping Mellana with her son and her chickens. It was thought that as soon as Madame de Brissac passed away—which, thanks to a troublesome case of gout, was to be sooner rather than later—the sheriff would make an offer for Mellana’s hand, something he’d never dared to do while his mother yet lived.
And it was thought by many—including Finnula—that Mellana might just accept, and happily.
Finnula was determined not to let motherhood stand in the way of her new duties as Lady of Stephensgate, and despite the ungainly size of her stomach, she personally delivered to every one of Hugo’s vassals a haunch of venison for Michaelmas. Speculation ran rampant as to whether the Fair Finn had actually shot the meat herself, but as everyone had grown used to the sight of the earl and his lady roaming the countryside in search of game, they all assumed she had, seeing as how she was by far the better shot.
Hugo, thanks in no small part to his wife, proved a popular and well-liked lord. He found that, once the trouble of his cousin’s trial and subsequent hanging was past, he was quite capable of leading the peaceful existence he’d always wanted. He was particularly heartened by the fact that, through some foul-up, his squire Peter and the Lady Isabella managed to escape the sheriff’s men, and had presumably fled to Scotland, where they were undoubtedly living in great discomfort…but, as Hugo pointed out to Finn
ula upon occasion, they were at least living.
Finnula pretended that she did not know that Hugo had bribed the sheriff’s men to allow the pair to escape, since she was quite proud of her husband for not doing as he liked and killing the lot of them.
Had they known of it, their leader’s happy domesticity would have appalled those men whom Hugo commanded during the last Crusade. What little they did see of it when, shortly before Christmas, a group of them appeared at Stephensgate Manor, came as a blow. Finnula was in the Great Hall with Mistress Laver, oiling one of her bows, when a new groom scampered in to announce the arrival of five strangers.
“And like as if they come straight from the ’Oly Land, m’lady,” he cried. “Wif faces tan as leather and right shiny chain mail!”
“Well,” Finnula said, with a shrug. “Let them in, then.”
The men who entered might have been knights, but judging solely by their manners, one would hardly have called them chivalrous. They tramped noisily into the hall, tracking snow and laughing heartily, already clearly drunk from a spell at the tavern. Spying Finnula by the fire, they staggered to a halt, remembering themselves, and Mistress Laver, casting a disapproving eye over them, called out tartly for the master to be fetched.
“Eh, there, pretty lady,” slurred one of the knights, whose brown beard was every bit as bushy as Hugo’s had been when she’d first laid eyes upon him, as he leered at Finnula. “Would this be Stephensgate Manor, then?”
Finnula replied, calmly, “It would, and it is.”
Grinning appreciatively at this impertinent reply, the knight hooted. “Saucy one! And would there be a Hugo Fitzstephen a-livin’ here, then, Miss Cheek?”
“There would,” Finnula replied. “He shall be here anon. Will you be seated, and wait for him? I can have some ale brought to you while you wait, or wine if you prefer.”
The men only stared at her, and then finally one of them burst out laughing, and said, with a chuckle, “I’ll suck down a cup, if you’ll sit beside me, lass, and let me look into those silver eyes of yourn.”