Elianne’s jaw tightened until her teeth gritted. Her father didn’t deserve to know anything about what Lord Haydon’s party did or said. “What if all I can tell you is that Sir Josce says nothing to me because I am your daughter and he hates you?”
“Don’t think you can fool me,” her sire threw back, his brows dropping over his eyes as his jaw tensed. “I know what goes forward at Coneytrop.”
Guilt and dread exploded in her. God save her, he knew about the pool and last night! Elianne nearly lifted her arms to ward off blows. Rather than dash around the table to punish her, Reiner remained where he was, his face twisted in pleading.
“Come, Elianne, I know you spent time alone with him in your garden yesterday afternoon. He must have said something to you,” he cried, and a piteous sound it was.
Relief was swift and heady. Her secret, Josce’s secret, was yet safe. And so it must forever stay. Elianne forced her body to relax and prayed her expression was flat.
“Aye, we spent time in the garden. He entered without my permission and I didn’t realize he was there. When I found him I was so startled that I collided with my arbor and caused it to collapse.” She congratulated herself, for not a word was false.
“You can imagine the sort of conversation we had after that.” If her father chose to interpret this to mean something other than what had actually happened, or didn’t ask for an explanation, it wouldn’t be her fault.
Just as she expected, her sire assumed the worst. His face fell, his shoulders slumping apace. Panic returned to whirl in his gaze. Pulling off his cap, he dragged a hand through his hair as he stared at the top of his table.
“More fool me. Of course, she’d shout and drive him away from her until he couldn’t bear to use her, not even as an ear,” he muttered to himself, his tone distant, as if he’d forgotten his daughter was in this chamber with him. “Why couldn’t she have been a real woman, one that a man might desire to use?”
Shock tore through Elianne. Her father had hoped, nay he’d planned that for vengeance’s sake his enemy might abuse his innocent daughter. What little loyalty she yet retained for him shattered with this. As it died, it took with it even the respect that God commanded a child give to the one who made her.
“Perhaps if I’d had a true father, one who loved and cared for his children rather than making tools of them for his own profit, my character might have been better molded,” she retorted, her tone mimicking his distraction.
Her father’s attention returned to her with a snap. Two red spots took life upon his cheeks, the only color in his face. Dropping his cap upon the table, he lifted his hand and started toward her, ready to strike.
Outside the door, the thundering rumble of so many people talking all at once changed, the sound ebbing into one of quiet curiosity. Reiner’s gaze flew to the door. His hand faltered.
“Stand aside, man.” Josce’s voice was loud enough to penetrate thick wood as if it were no barrier at all. “I have business with the sheriff.”
Stunned, Elianne whirled to look at the door. God help her, she couldn’t meet Josce in here, not right now. What if she looked upon her lover and her father read more in her face than he had a right to know?
Elianne knew exactly what her sire would think, that her secret could be of some use to him. Reiner would be relentless, even brutal, as he sought to discover what it was she hid. The need to protect Josce and their relationship spurred her into motion. Although there was no place in this office to truly conceal her, she sidled into the chamber’s farthest corner as swiftly as she could, taking refuge in the meager shadows there.
“Business?” Even through wood Sir Gilbert’s scorn was clear. “The lord high sheriff didn’t mention a meeting with you this morn. That means you’ll stand and wait like all the rest if you wish to see him, sir.” The knight spat out the honorific—apparently Gilbert’s feelings about bastards extended even to those who were the sons of peers.
This time Gilbert’s prejudice piqued no reaction in Elianne. Instead she prayed the knight’s rudeness would drive Josce away, at least long enough for her to escape. Or that her father’s panic would spike until he refused to see Josce.
Her gaze shot to her sire. Across the room, Reiner danced in indecision, stepping for the door, then retreating, then once more moving toward the door.
“You’ll stand aside or draw your sword.” There was deadly menace in Josce’s voice now.
Rather than deter her sire, who claimed to fear Josce, upon hearing the threat, Reiner sprang for the portal. Elianne’s heart dropped. Only now did she realize she’d chosen the wrong corner. It was the opposite corner that would be shielded by the door as it opened.
The tenons and mortises screeched, so violently did her sire yank open the door. As if already driven to it by a sword’s point, Sir Gilbert backed into the new opening, stopping when Elianne could see the back half of him. Although the knight’s stance was protective, Elianne doubted he meant to shield his employer. It was far more likely that Gilbert didn’t wish to cede ground to Josce. Doing so would mean admitting he wasn’t as powerful as the bastard he despised.
“For God’s sake, Gilbert,” Reiner snarled, catching his deputy by the shoulder and shoving him back through the portal and into the hall, “stand aside and let Lord Haydon’s son enter.”
With Gilbert out of the way, Josce stepped into the room, stopping at about the same place the deputy had occupied. Elianne pressed herself as far as she could into her corner. Hiding from Josce did nothing to stop her reaction to his presence. Oh, but she loved how he looked.
Caught in day’s new light, his golden hair gleamed. He wore the same knee-length yellow tunic that he’d worn last night, only today he sported a sleeveless leather hauberk atop it. Green chausses covered his legs, the crossgarters that held them to his calves the same color as his tunic.
As Elianne savored the way his clothing clung to his form, revealing the breadth of his shoulders, the strong landscape of his arms, and curve of his calves, desire reawakened. Her need to touch him was no less now than last night. She almost took a step toward him before she caught herself and realized what she’d nearly revealed.
Frantic to protect herself and Josce, she looked to her sire and sighed in relief. For the first time in her life she was grateful for her sire’s disregard of his daughters. As near as Elianne could tell, her father’s attention hadn’t strayed from his visitor. Nor had Josce’s gaze left the sheriff.
“Do come in, Sir Josce,” Reiner invited, far more pleasantly than his guest’s hostile words to Gilbert warranted. As he spoke, Reiner stepped to the side so his visitor might pass. “Pray, take your ease as you tell me what I can do to assist you this morn.”
The only movement Josce made was to plant his fists upon his hips. “You may assist me by saying you now have the thieves who murdered my lord sire in your custody.”
His deep voice echoed out of the doorway into the now quiet hall. A muted rumbling rose from those who listened. There was something in that sound that said a number of the listeners were only now recognizing just who this knight was.
“Would that I could give you such welcome news,” Reiner replied, a touch of a whine infecting his words. “Unfortunately, there is nothing to tell you. As I said, this is a canny troop, as accustomed to hiding as they are to thievery.”
The upward jerk of Josce’s chin suggested that her sire’s answer didn’t surprise him. “In that case, I’d best remind you how urgent it is that you find yourself a bit of luck and succeed in this task.”
As Josce spoke, his hand fell to his sword’s hilt in blatant threat. There wasn’t so much as a sigh from those listening in the hall. A shudder raced up Elianne’s spine at the unnatural quiet. In that breathless moment, the only sound was the distant ring of hammers as Knabwell’s smiths worked at their forges, and the cries of horses and grooms from the nearby stables.
“Of course I know how important this is to you and your family”—her
father began, his whine more prevalent now.
“Enough excuses,” Josce interrupted harshly, taking an aggressive step toward her father. Reiner reared back, eyes wide and face white. The corner of Josce’s mouth lifted at this, his smile harsh.
“So, at last you remember how your own continued health and well-being rests upon satisfying my need. Hear me again, du Hommet, for it seems you’ve forgotten from our first meeting. This morn makes it a fortnight less three. Eleven days. That’s how long you now have in which to produce those marauders. Fail me, and it’ll be you I send to our Maker in their stead on that eleventh day, calling it just payment for your incompetence.”
Noise exploded from the hall. Some listeners laughed, others groaned, while still other men cheered in approval of Josce’s challenge. Elianne stared at her lover’s profile in shock. When had she forgotten that Josce craved her sire’s blood to soothe his own grief?
“You dare to threaten the lord high sheriff?!” Gilbert howled, his voice cracking as it rose into an outraged falsetto. He thrust into the room to stand between Josce and Reiner.
“I dare,” Josce retorted, his voice lifted but calm as he spoke over the rising and renewed din in the hall. “For the love I bear my murdered lord sire and my lady sisters, I dare.” With that, he turned on his heel and strode back out into the hall.
“My lord, give me leave to arrest him,” Gilbert shouted, pivoting to face his master.
“Nay!” Reiner screeched. “You’ll touch him not. Now, leave me be!”
He shoved his deputy from the chamber, then slammed the door behind Gilbert. With his shoulder braced against the thick panel as if to hold it closed against attack, Reiner faced his daughter. So great was his fear that he panted.
Elianne studied the man who made her. Four-and-twenty years as his daughter meant she knew his every mood and expression. What she saw now made her heart quail. It was printed upon both his face and body for her to read: the greed, the knowledge of wrongdoing and the cowardice. All of it whirled together in his gaze until it looked like panic and guilt, the same guilt he should have felt but didn’t for misusing her.
Holy Mother, but her father not only knew who these thieves were, he protected them for reasons of his own.
Elianne’s eyes narrowed in rising outrage. Nay, it wasn’t for just any reason that he might shield the thieves. Only for profit’s sake would her father risk his own life. These thieves paid their sheriff for his protection.
Outrage grew. Here was why her father worried over what Josce did. Here was why he’d destroyed his daughter’s future and sent her to live with his enemy, hoping she’d inadvertently learn something about Josce’s plans. Noble folk had been murdered. As the consequence of his greed loomed before Reiner, he grew ever more desperate to find some way to escape his well-earned fate.
Only then did the whole of what this meant register with Elianne. It wasn’t just any nobleman her father’s greed had slaughtered, but Josce’s father. Her stomach bucked. She clapped a hand to her mouth to hold back her meager breakfast.
God help her, but when Josce discovered what her father had done, any feeling he had for her would be destroyed. He could never care for the daughter of the man responsible for his father’s death. Not only had Reiner du Hommet stolen his daughter’s future, he’d destroyed her only love.
With that, Elianne’s heart took fire in righteous wrath. She straightened to boldly face her sire. By God, but this time he would pay the full price for what he did. She would see to it that he did.
“Tell me,” she demanded of her sire. “It’s time to bare your breast and confess to all of what you’ve done.”
He whitened with her words and huddled closer to the door. “I didn’t do anything,” he muttered. “It wasn’t me.”
If she wanted proof of his involvement here it was. Her father only denied when he wallowed in wrongdoing. Elianne’s anger grew, this time aimed at herself. She, of all people, should have recognized that he was once more scheming. The very gown he wore should have told her as much. He only spent coins they didn’t have, as he had for his new tunic, when he believed one of his plots was about to return a profit.
“Oh, you did something, of that I’m certain. In fact, I think I know exactly what you’ve done. You’ve been protecting these thieves for your own profit.” With every word, Elianne’s indignation grew. So did the volume of her voice. “May God take you, you let them do as they pleased, knowing those debased bandits would kill folk.” She slammed her fists upon his table. “It’s the blood of innocent children that stains your hands!”
Eyes ablaze, Reiner snapped out of his cower. “I’m not responsible for anyone’s death, not man or child,” he roared, more in panic than in rage.
“Oh, but you are,” she retorted, so hot she could barely see. “You can’t escape your sin because you looked the other way, and you know it, else why would you be shaking in your boots now? By God, Father! You’re terrified that you won’t escape blame this time.”
She paused to draw breath, then crossed her arms and glared at him. “And die you will, although not by the hangman’s noose as you deserve. Instead, it will be Sir Josce’s sword that takes you. He should kill you for what you’ve done!” she charged, feeling for that moment like heaven’s most vengeful angel.
With her tirade, the anger died from her father’s face, leaving only worry in its place. “How dare you speak so to me, accusing when I did nothing. I am your father, the man to whom you owe life and loyalty.” It was a thready protest, weak as water.
“Owe you loyalty?” Elianne threw back, too far gone in her own contempt and anger to pay heed to what she said. “I owe you nothing, not after all you’ve stolen from me. Without thought or concern for my fate, you took my future and hoped that your enemy might misuse me for your benefit. Nay, after what I’ve learned this day you’ll be fortunate if I so much as shed a tear over your coffin when you’re gone.”
Her sire’s head snapped back as if she’d struck him. The pathetic man dissolved, leaving behind the bully Elianne knew so well. His lips drew back from his teeth as rage took light in his face. With his hand held high in the promise of violence, he surged out of his corner toward her.
Elianne held her ground, angry beyond all fear. Let him beat her. Better that he killed her than that she should endure Josce’s hatred. Better that she die than be revealed to the world as the daughter of the man who betrayed his position to steal and slay the innocent.
As if he read her thoughts upon her face, Reiner came to an abrupt halt less than arm’s reach from her, his hand still high. The rage drained from his face. His eyes closed as he released a slow stream of air. His hand sagged back to his side. When his eyes again opened, both anger and panic were gone.
“You’re right, daughter,” he said, his tone remorseful, his voice soft. “You owe me nothing, not even sorrow at my passing. I have badly used you. For that I must beg God’s forgiveness.”
The hair on the back of Elianne’s neck rose. “What is this?” she demanded, preferring his violence to the ploy he now tried on her.
“An apology,” her father snapped, fiery lights flickering in his hazel eyes only to die away in the next instant. “You’re right to chastise me for all my past wrongs. I’ve been a poor father, giving thought to no one’s concerns but mine own. I was wrong to try to use you as an ear against the noble bastard. Know that if I thought the prioress would listen I’d go to her this very hour and beg on bended knee that she forgive me and give you sanctuary.”
Elianne eyed him in disgust. What sort of fool did he think her? She wasn’t her mother or her sisters, who had all been easily coaxed, cajoled or befuddled by his words. Nor was what he’d done this time a simple indiscretion, as most of his past schemes had been. It was murder that now stained his soul.
“Try to understand, Elianne,” her father continued, beseeching. “I’m an old man, old and frightened. I vow to you that despite what you think of me, there’s no bl
ood upon my hands, no fault for which I need seek penance. Yet, in eleven days’ time Sir Josce, who is young and strong, will challenge me, sword to sword. I can’t defend myself against one as powerful as he.”
“Do tell, Father,” Elianne said in harsh reply, her arms crossed before her. “I want to know how you can defend yourself at all after what you’ve allowed to happen.”
“I haven’t done anything,” he almost shouted, then caught himself. He extended a hand toward her, imploring, as moisture gleamed in his eyes. “You must believe me. Against that, how can you let me die this way? Help me.”
Help him?! Not if she loved him with all her heart would she have aided him, not after this. It wasn’t just Lord Haydon and his daughters who were gone, but seven merchants and their men. Of those her father had allowed to die, how many had younger daughters like herself, without provision or dowry, who starved or went homeless because of him?
“Would you make me God? Only He may allow or disallow your death,” she replied. “Nay, Father, your fate doesn’t rest upon my shoulders, but your own. If you are truly innocent,” Elianne’s voice thickened with scorn at how impossible she thought this, “then it’s truly God you must seek out as your refuge. Kneel before Him and make your vows of innocence, knowing He will see into your heart and judge accordingly. After that, you can go boldly onto the field to meet Sir Josce, knowing our heavenly Father will guide your blade and destroy your opponent so you might live. Thus will all mankind know that no sin taints your soul.”
“Such faith.” Her father sighed, the sound not one of despair but impatience. “Would that I had as rich a store as you. Don’t turn your back on me because my belief is weak, Elianne,” he begged again, his plea edged with the hint of anger now. “For the sake of the shared blood that flows in our veins help me prove to Sir Josce that I’m not responsible for what he believes I’ve done.”
He caught her by the arms, drawing her closer to him. “Elianne, you’re my child, my own daughter,” he said, an affection he’d never known for his daughter now filling his softened voice. “It’s only a little thing you need do to prove my innocence, both to him and you. It’s a chore barely worthy of your notice, one that will take only a little time. Why, you hardly need to leave Coneytrop to do it. I’ll understand if you cannot do it for me because of how I’ve misused you in the past. In that case do it to save our name. Do it to keep Sir Josce’s false charge from blackening your own repute.”
The Warrior's Maiden (The Warriors Series Book 2) Page 17