Elianne cringed. The two women struck sparks off each other. Had she not been so heart sore over her own problems, Elianne might have stirred herself to do more than merely watch as they rubbed each other raw. Unfortunately, these days her tongue seemed weighted with lead, while her progress through the hours felt like walking through a thick gray fog.
“I didn’t shriek,” the pretty lass retorted, her jaw taking a stubborn jut. “I called to my mistress.”
“A servant doesn’t argue with her betters,” Beatrice scolded. “Nor does she shout out her message without first waiting to be recognized and asked to speak. You’re a child no longer. It’s past time you learned to control yourself.”
Pressing one hand to her aching head, Elianne closed her other into a fist. She stared down at the half-constructed garment in her lap and silently willed Lady Beatrice to hear how grief lent her voice an almost vicious edge.
Mabil sniffed. It was as haughty a dismissal as any Elianne had ever offered. “My message wasn’t for you, my lady, but for my own mistress.”
Beatrice shot to her feet. Her fingers whitened, so tightly did she grip the chair’s arms. “How dare you! I’ll see you driven from these walls for your cheek.”
Mabil blanched, then answering anger flared in her pretty face. “You don’t have the right to send me away from Coneytrop,” she shouted. “This is my home! You don’t live here.” Her message forgotten, Mabil whirled and disappeared from doorway.
“Why, that impertinent, disrespectful little brat,” Beatrice cried, her eyes wide in shock. “If this were my house she’d have been turned out years ago, with her back well striped to remind her of her manners. By God, it shouldn’t surprise me that your foul, murdering sire keeps so discourteous a servant.”
Her hand yet cupped over her brow, Elianne recognized all too well what the new tremor in Beatrice’s voice meant. So it began, the pattern made familiar after days of repetition. First, the lady would indulge herself in a round of recriminations against her host; then, once Beatrice worked herself up past outrage, she’d lose herself in another spate of grief-stricken sobbing.
“Well, it won’t be long before that insolent creature is repaid for her disrespect,” Haydon’s lady ranted on, spilling what tortured her into the only ear she deemed acceptable. “Once her master is destroyed, that bit of baggage will find herself without home or hope of livelihood.”
The words hammered Elianne. Her shoulders sagged. Beatrice never remembered that Reiner du Hommet wasn’t the only one who named this house his home, that it was also the place of Elianne’s birth and the source of her comfort.
How could her life have been so completely destroyed in so short a time? Tears welled as Elianne once again faced the loss of all she held dear. She scrubbed at her eyes. It seemed that all she did with any competence these days was weep.
If only she’d found a single hint to tie her father to the death of Haydon’s lord. Instead, not a shred of proof existed here at Coneytrop. She and Aggie had combed the bins, cellars and barns, then Elianne had scoured the accounting books, seeking unexpected wealth. The estate was just as poor as it had ever been, not a single penny where it shouldn’t be. If her father were enriching himself through thievery, he wasn’t hiding his new wealth in his home.
Again tears stung at her eyes. What if, blinded by lust for his enemy, she’d wrongly accused her own sire of evil? So it went, day after day, her thoughts ever circling ‘round to Josce.
Four days, he’d said, mayhap five. Instead, it had been eight horrible, hateful days without so much as a word from him. She was abandoned, and rightly so. What man would value a woman who made herself a whore to him?
“It won’t be long now before Reiner du Hommet is dead. On the morrow when my stepson returns,” Beatrice ranted on, her hand waving as if she intended to conjure Josce out of the heavens, “he’ll see that the sheriff meets his Maker and receives heavenly justice for what he’s done.”
As the lady’s words collided with Elianne’s own painful thoughts, all the heartsickness, dissension and hopelessness of the past days congealed into an emotion too great to contain. She threw back her head.
“I cannot bear this another moment!” Her sharp, shrill cry exploded in the room.
Beatrice dropped back into the chair to stare at her hostess in stark and silent surprise. What boiled in Elianne brought her to her feet. A ruthless kick sent her stool tumbling across the room. Dickon’s shirt flew, the precious needle and ball of thread going with it. Her hands fisted while her heart pounded as if it meant to burst.
“What’s wrong with you?” Beatrice asked, her voice stunned and small. “What are you doing?”
Elianne turned on her. What she could no longer contain vented from her. “How can you sit at my side and openly plot a vengeance that will destroy me as well as my sire?”
Beatrice blinked as if she only now realized that’s what she’d done, then her brow creased in irritation. “How can you say that you’ll be destroyed? Haven’t I vowed to protect you in trade for the aid you offer me? Do you question my word?”
What Elianne had worked so hard to ignore surged up from its hiding place to drive words from her lips. “You cannot protect me. I am already destroyed.”
As surprised dimmed, new irritation darkened the lady’s face. “You babble, girl. Be clear.”
Beatrice’s peremptory manner sent another wave of anger crashing over Elianne. Caution died beneath its onslaught. “You want clarity? Listen closely then. Two weeks ago I was the sheriff’s impoverished and useless daughter, but at least I owned my pride and my repute. Now I am the daughter who betrays her sire to his enemies. Who can respect me after that, no matter what my sire has done or not done? On the morrow I will be the child who turns her back as her father battles a younger, stronger knight, knowing as I do it that he faces certain death in that meeting. Who can ever trust me after that, especially when my betrayal is based on nothing more than the speculation that he participated in the deaths of your kin?”
Elianne meant to stop here. What she’d said was all the lady had a right to know. Instead, the words kept falling, shoved past her lips by the part of herself that needed to hear the truth spoken aloud to believe it.
“I am also the woman of loose morals who turned her back on God’s law to twice bed a man I barely knew. I am the strumpet who bears your stepson’s child.”
When the last word was out Elianne pressed a hand to her lips. Her knees shook. God help her, but it couldn’t be true, it just couldn’t be.
Yet, not once since her courses began in her eleventh year had they been late by even a day, not until this month. Seven full days had passed since the day her bleeding should have begun without so much as a hint to suggest a belated arrival. Too long had Elianne lived with Aggie to doubt what this meant.
Beatrice’s face whitened to the pasty shade it had been on the day of her arrival at Coneytrop. Her dark eyes widened as if in shock. “He bedded you? You carry his child?” Her voice was hushed and breathless.
It was Lady Haydon’s reaction that drove home to Elianne just how completely she’d ruined herself. There was no place in the world left for her, not now that she bore a bastard for a bastard. As the enormity of it all overwhelmed her, she snatched up her skirts and whirled. Out of the bedchamber she raced, then out of the hall and down the stairs.
In Coneytrop’s yard Haydon’s men shouted, some donning their armor, others racing in the direction of the main gateway. Her father’s daily appearance was at hand. Good. That meant no one would be watching the postern gate.
Craving the freedom she’d been denied these past days, Elianne veered to the back of the compound and that narrow opening. As she raced through the smaller gateway, the need to run until she couldn’t take another step filled her. Aye, she’d race from Coneytrop until everything that had happened here, all the wrongs she’d done over these last two weeks, was but a distant memory.
Seated atop his plodding h
orse, Josce stared blindly at the gentle roll of the hills before him. All he could see was his own death looming before him. Days of searching had turned up nothing to directly and conclusively connect Reiner du Hommet to the thieves. Thus did Josce return to Coneytrop and his avowed duel with the sheriff, the same duel that would later cost him his life.
The same duel he no longer craved.
Although the pain of his sire’s passing was still a raw gash in Josce’s soul, the need to spill blood to ease that ache was gone. It was too late for regrets, just as it was too late to save himself. He’d given Beatrice his vow to avenge her daughters and he wouldn’t be forsworn. A man who broke his word might as well be dead.
As he’d done time and again on this journey, Josce reviewed all he now knew, seeking the missing piece that would connect du Hommet to the thieves. On the day before Baldwin of Haydon’s death, the sheriff had, indeed, met with the spice merchant. Witnesses said that the du Hommet’s arrival caught the merchant preparing to depart with the others of his ilk from the abbey and fair, and ultimately, delayed him by a single day. That was the scenario Josce expected, but what happened after didn’t aid his cause at all. For all of the day of the battle, witnesses marked the sheriff’s progress away from the merchant and the place of Lord Baldwin’s death.
While nothing put the sheriff at the site of that battle, Sir Adelm had been within ten miles of the scene earlier that same day. Only hours before the battle must have been joined, the sheriff’s captain had stopped to collect tolls from a nearby bridge. The bridgekeeper not only confirmed the knight’s appearance, but that Sir Adelm arrived sooner in the month than expected. However, this man also said that such a thing wasn’t unusual for the knight. It seemed Sir Adelm made a collection whenever his duties brought him through the area.
Josce grimaced. There was little enough to suggest that du Hommet was in league with the thieves. That left even less to connect Sir Adelm to those brigands.
Nor had Simon and Hugh had any better luck in their search. None of the merchant widows they’d interviewed said their husbands carted a rich bed. Even though Josce’s friends now took their quest to widows of the farther flung merchants, Josce had given up any hope they’d find something to justify what he had to do. Not unless Alan, who should have returned to Knabwell by now, had incontrovertible proof of the sheriff’s thievery, something Josce highly doubted, would his life path be altered.
The need to live on past what he planned for the morrow once again set to howling within Josce. It brought with it Elianne’s image. He no longer questioned how he could feel so bound to a woman he barely knew. Instead, as he had for every day of their separation, Josce cherished his memories of her. There was the way she held her head, and the sweet way her lips lifted when she smiled. Following that came the recall of how she’d tossed her hair over her shoulders to brazenly reveal all of herself to him.
Then, there were her fingers curled around his shaft. Even remembered that sensation was strong enough to startle a visceral reaction from Josce and wake him from his dark musings. He lifted his head, his lungs filling with the scents of warm leather and horse sweat.
The hills before him wore a cloak of verdant velvet despite the season, grazing sheep distant white dots. Beyond sheep, nothing moved across the landscape, not surprising given that the harvest was hard upon them. It was the season itself that Josce counted on to protect him and his men as they returned to Coneytrop.
He shot a glance over his shoulder. With a steady squeak of saddle leather and jingle of harness rings, Perrin and three of Haydon’s soldiers rode in silence along the track behind him. Like him, they were without armor. At Josce’s command, they’d rolled their weaponry into their cloaks and tied the bundles behind their saddles, leaving their shields at the home of their previous night’s host, a well-to-do peasant.
The possibility that du Hommet might ambush Haydon a second time had spawned Josce’s ruse, such as it was. If the sheriff’s men watched the roads, it was an armed, mailed knight accompanied by four soldiers they sought. Thus did Josce and his men become careful, casual travelers along the shire’s quieter byways, or, in this case, stock trails. Although they hadn’t met a soul in hours, the closer they came to Coneytrop, the greater the risk grew. Only when they’d crossed the next two miles and finally shut that farmstead’s gate behind them would Josce know if his plan was bold brilliance or sheer idiocy.
“Sir,” Perrin called from his place at the end of this small troop, “someone moves upon the hill behind us.”
Josce’s heart shot from his chest. Every muscle tense as if he already battled attackers, he roweled the big horse into a turn. As he rode back up the hill toward Perrin, Haydon’s soldiers scrabbled their weapons out of hiding.
Stopping just below the hill’s crest, Josce looked in the direction Perrin pointed. A figure moved swiftly up the face of the hill behind them ,in the direction of Knabwell and its sheriff. There was something odd about the runner. Josce squinted. The blue of the figure’s clothing stretched from shoulder height to the ground. Skirts. Relief almost made him dizzy.
“It’s a woman,” he called back to his men, then gave vent to a short, sharp laugh. “What do you think? Is du Hommet so low that he’d set a woman to spying upon us?”
Only as the words left him did Josce realize who he watched. Elianne! “Jesus God, but what does she think she’s doing?!” he shouted.
Alone and unprotected, Elianne was vulnerable to all sorts of threat, but mostly to her father. The very thought of his ‘Lianne cold and dead cut Josce in twain. He drummed his heels into his mount's sides. The horse grunted in surprise and picked up his heels.
“Where are you going?” Perrin shouted after him.
Josce jerked the startled animal back around and into an abrupt halt. What in God’s name was he doing?! Abandoning his father’s men to save the sheriff’s daughter, that’s what.
He might as well abandon his vow of vengeance. Which was exactly what he wanted to do. Nay, it was exactly what he had to do.
Only then did Josce finally recognize the insanity of what he contemplated. If Baldwin of Haydon had wanted such a sacrifice from his beloved son, then he wouldn’t have willed that it be Josce and no other who cared for his family after his final departure. It was Josce’s mule-headed determination to give up his own life for vengeance that betrayed his sire, not any affection he might have for Elianne.
Frustration tore through him. It didn’t matter what he wanted or needed to do. He couldn’t be forsworn.
From deep inside him came a tiny voice. The oath he’d given Beatrice hadn’t included anything regarding the sheriff’s death; that had been his own plan. All he’d ever promised his stepmother was to aid her in wreaking vengeance on those responsible for her daughters’ deaths.
A smile tugged at Josce’s lips. Aye, and now that his thoughts were at last clear, he knew just how to wreak a fate worse than death on Reiner du Hommet. All he need do was let the sheriff live on past their battle.
Vicious satisfaction stirred, warm and deep. On the morrow Josce would stand before all of Knabwell and shout out his challenge to du Hommet. In it, he’d include his suspicion that the sheriff colluded with the thieves, then publicly beg God to guide his sword to prove the sheriff’s guilt. After that, Josce need only defeat the man, something he had no doubt he’d do. Every witness to the battle would see this victory as holy proof of the sheriff’s culpability. The taint would permanently befoul du Hommet in the eyes of the shire. John would have to replace his sheriff, leaving the man to die broken, impoverished and debased.
That was vengeance enough to satisfy Josce, but it wouldn’t satisfy Beatrice, not now that she was certain the sheriff had caused her daughters’ deaths. She’d never forgive her stepson if du Hommet lived past the morrow. In retribution she might well fight his appointment as her warden in order to sever his connection to Haydon.
Josce shrugged away the thought. She could try, but she would f
ail. Shifting in his saddle, he once more found Elianne’s distant figure.
She turned away from the hill’s crest, then raced back down the hillside. All his life the men Josce respected had lectured him to do what his heart told him was right. Although Josce knew full well this wasn’t one of the instances they meant, his heart insisted that taking Elianne as his own was right.
“Sir Josce?” one of the soldiers called to him.
Josce looked back at his men. They watched him, concern for him on their faces. He grinned. They were right to worry about him. Without vengeance to cloud his mind and bind his heart, the freedom that welled up in him was heady stuff.
“Ride on to Coneytrop without me. I’ll find my own way back,” he commanded them.
“But what of the sheriff and ambush?” one of the men called to him.
“Should du Hommet attack you between here and Coneytrop, call out that I’m not with you. He is only interested in me, and so should leave you be. As for me, I’ll take my chances.”
With that Josce put his heels to his horse and set off to catch ‘Lianne.
Heart pounding, her breath gasping from her lungs, Elianne slowed as she reached the crest of the hill. From this vantage point she could see the top of Knabwell’s tallest church towers. Rather than offer her the sanctuary she so craved it was a terrible reminder of all she’d done wrong and all she’d soon lose.
With what ached in her to drive her feet, Elianne turned her back on the city and ran blindly until she could barely lift her legs. When she finally staggered to a breathless halt she almost cried out in surprise. In her pain she’d come to the very place she needed. Here she could hide from all the world, at least for a time.
Not but a few feet from her, the stream that fed Coneytrop’s summer bathtub tumbled over the earth’s ragged lip to splash into the pool some twenty feet below her. Elianne peered over the rocky ledge, sensing more than seeing the place where the long fissure split the wall’s face. In the cave behind that crack, where she and her sisters had woven better, gentler worlds for themselves, would she find the sanctuary she needed. All she need do was climb down the wall to reach it.
The Warrior's Maiden (The Warriors Series Book 2) Page 21