by Lara Adrian
“Lord Gunnar asked me to give you this once I'd seen you home, milady.” Wesley withdrew a small square of folded fabric from under his mantle. A thin leather cord was tied around the package, securing it on all four sides. “He said to tell you to keep them safe for him.”
Raina accepted the tiny gift with bittersweet gratitude, eager to see what it contained yet determined to share it with no one. Whatever Gunnar gave her, she would cherish forever.
“Go on now,” Cedric said, interrupting Raina's quick embrace of Wesley. “Yer father is sure to be waitin' fer ye.”
Raina nodded sullenly and urged her mount into the clearing. She turned, lifting her hand to bid the two kind men farewell, watching as they melted back into the forest, desperately clinging to everything she was leaving. Only when she could see them no more, did she turn her head toward Norworth.
The wall-walk teemed with activity as guards flocked to the parapets to hail her approach. One voice rose above the rest and Raina looked up to spy her father, shoving his way to the fore of the crowd gathered on the tower.
“Raina!” he cried, bracing himself between two merlons and peering over the edge of the wall. “Oh, praise God, my Raina!”
Her broken heart gave a small leap to see her father's face, to hear his voice...despite everything she had learned about him. Despite all he had done, he was all she had. And she needed his comfort now more than ever.
“Papa!” She urged her mount to a gallop as he dashed away from the wall, toward the keep.
Within moments, she passed under the shade of the gate and crossed the drawbridge that led to the inner bailey. Her father, looking haggard and worn, appeared at the keep's arched entryway. His thinning hair was a wreath of wild tangles around his head, his clothes rumpled and soiled worse than her own. He skidded more than ran down the wide stone stairs then raced heavy-footed into the courtyard as she brought her mount to a halt. Raina nearly threw herself into his waiting arms.
Her father's tears flowed as freely as hers, soaking her shoulder as he buried his face in her neck and wept like a babe. Raina held him tight, shushing his wracking sobs with reassurances that she was truly there and unharmed.
As he clung to her, murmuring incoherently into her shoulder, Raina noted with an odd sense of detachment that he hadn't bathed in recent days, and perhaps more disturbing, that he smelled heavily of wine. If he were any other man, the notion might not have troubled her, but he was her father, a man who never imbibed. She suddenly felt terribly guilty to think what losing her had driven him to...when all the while she was contenting herself in the arms of the enemy.
Heaven help her, but she had to tell him. Had to tell him everything. Pulling her father away from her, she smoothed his brow, caressed his gray and grizzled cheek. “Papa, there is so much you must know.”
His head bobbed absently, his expression bland, unfocused. “Aye, of course, of course.”
The crowd who greeted her arrival from the tower had now gathered in the bailey, surrounding Raina and her father in a ring of excited demands to hear all the details of her time with her craven captor and how she managed to escape. Raina answered none of their questions, eyeing her father's disoriented countenance with grave alarm.
“Papa, please,” she whispered. “What I need to say must be said in private.”
At her fervent plea, her father snapped to attention. Placing his arm about her shoulders protectively, he ushered her through the excited throng, waving them off as they converged on the keep. “Away!” he bellowed. “Can you not see my daughter is tired? Away, away! I would have time with her alone!”
He led her into the keep and past the great hall to his solar. She followed him, pausing in the center of the room as he turned to close the door behind them. She could scarcely believe what his haven had become in the time she had been gone.
A tray of half-eaten food sat rotting in the corner beside a spilled flagon of wine. It seemed that nearly every cup in the keep had found its way into this room, some of them sitting in a carefully placed row on his window ledge, others scattered haphazardly wherever they had fallen. A chill passed through her as she turned to face her father, who stood now a mere shadow of the man she had left here just one week ago. She wrapped her arms about herself, knowing that she might never again find comfort in his embrace.
“You are cold,” he announced, and dropped to his knees before the hearth. He gasped suddenly, then reached in and retrieved a scarred and blackened object. He clutched it to his chest as if he meant to conceal it, then turned guiltily to face her. “I did not mean to burn it,” he whispered fiercely, shaking his head like a repentant child. “Truly, I did not!”
Raina moved closer, peering at what he held and she nearly wept. He had burned her mother's Bible.
His jaw quivering, he held it out to her like he might hold a tiny bird in need of mending. Soot covered the front of his tunic and smudged his chin where the book had rested against him. “I'm sorry, Margareth,” he murmured, blinking up at Raina. “I'm so sorry.”
The Bible tumbled out of his shaking hands and broke open as it fell to the floor. Its beautiful illuminated pages, which had given Raina so much joy as a child--and which meant so much more to her now--were no more than indiscernible spatters of color amid a sea of black, the edges eaten away by fire. This last piece of her mother, gone.
“I have destroyed everything,” her father mumbled from where he sat by the hearth, clutching his temples. He shook his head woefully. “Can you ever forgive me?”
Raina kneeled beside him, taking his dirty and wrinkled hand into her grasp. “Papa, what has happened here? What has happened to you?”
“Nothing, child,” he whispered finally. “Nothing of any consequence, now that you are home.”
He moved to embrace her but Raina pulled away, gripping his shoulders. “You must stop shielding me from the truth,” she said. “Look at me, please, and see me as I am. I'm no longer a child in need of your protection.”
He frowned, then rose to his feet. He righted a toppled wine flagon and looked at her meaningfully. “I never meant to return to my old ways, but the thought of losing you--” His voice choked off and he drew in a shaky breath. “I'm a weak man, my daughter. I could not bear it alone.”
Raina felt guilty tears prick her eyes. “I'm sorry you were worried about me. I'm so sorry for what you've been through this past week.”
He chuckled bitterly, shaking his head. “You shame me by apologizing for what I brought upon you, Raina. It breaks my heart to think what you must have suffered--” A sob wracked his hunched shoulders.
Raina thought about her time away from Norworth and what it now meant to her. “I did not suffer, Papa. Gunnar is a good man; he was very kind to me.”
The baron slowly raised his head. He turned to face her, his brows knit together in dawning comprehension. “He, Gunnar, treated you kindly...”
“Aye,” she replied gently, trusting him to see the truth.
He seemed to deliberate on the idea for a long time, then asked simply, “Did he...tell you about me? I imagine you have heard terrible things.”
“Yes, Papa, I have heard terrible things. I know what happened between you and the Rutledges, but I would have you tell me why.” When he would not face her, she prompted, “Papa, what's done is done. You can't change it and you can't hide from it any longer. I am your daughter and I love you. I deserve to know the truth.”
He smiled wistfully and brought his hand up to touch her cheek. “You were the only part of her that I could ever hold, the only part of her that ever loved me.”
Something unsettling began to coil in Raina's stomach at the reference to her mother. “How does my mother relate to what happened between you and the Rutledges? What has she to do with it?”
“She has everything to do with it...and nothing at all.” His voice faded to a whisper. “Would that she had loved me, even a little bit, I might have been content.”
Raina squeezed h
er eyes shut to hear the admission of this, another falsehood. Her father had always told her that his marriage was a love match worthy of the bards. Was anything she believed based in truth?
“I have lied to you about a great many things because I was ashamed, daughter. Only now am I learning the true meaning of the word.” He paced away from her as if he could not say what needed saying if he had to meet her eyes.
“Contrary to what I've told you, your mother wed me through no choice of her own. She was betrothed to another when first I saw her. Lovely Margareth...the most beautiful creature I had ever lain eyes on. I decided at that very moment she would be mine. She loved a knight in her father's court, but he had no lands, no promise of a future, no designs on fame or fortune. To my benefit, her sire was a shrewd man with an appreciation for ambition. What I lacked in wealth, I compensated for in drive and aspiration. He granted me her hand, and we were wed in the weeks that followed.
“Our marriage was the beginning of my decline. She was so noble, carrying out her every duty with grace. To anyone looking at our life together, we were the picture of marital harmony. No one but the two of us knew the farce we lived. We hardly spoke except on matters of the household. Word arrived some years later that the knight she loved was killed in battle. While she wept, I rejoiced, hoping that with his death I might at last have her for myself.”
Raina's heart broke for her mother's loss, but she reached out to comfort her father. She had never realized how weak a person he was. “Oh, Papa, how it must have pained you to live with those feelings.”
“Do not weep for me,” he said brusquely. “You've not heard the worst of it. After this man's death, I believe she no longer wished to live. She withdrew from everything she seemed to enjoy. Her smiles, which were infrequent at best, ceased altogether, as did her weeping. She was a shell of the woman who so captivated me. But her beauty remained, and other men sought her favor.”
He looked to Raina and heaved a woeful sigh. “When she became pregnant with you, I saw the promise of what could be. The idea of a babe brought joy to her life...and mine. But our happiness was not meant to last. Curse me, but I would not let it. I didn't trust it to be real. When you were born, I saw in you every swain who'd dared to look upon her in our years together, and jealous suspicion consumed me. I could not shake my doubt and so I...punished her for it.”
Raina squeezed her eyes shut as the weight of his confession sunk in. Here it was, the answer to the riddle of her mother's despair, the explanation of her self-imposed solitude. Now it all made sense: the endless days her mother spent locked in her chamber, the constant burning of herbs, the maids and their foul-smelling poultices. All the times her mother shut her out, drove her away. It wasn't that she didn't love Raina. She didn't want her daughter exposed to what she had suffered. “How could you beat her?” Raina asked numbly.
“I wanted to hurt her as the thought of her lying with another hurt me. I knew it was wrong but I couldn't control myself. She swore her innocence, but in every man who looked at her I saw a lover. No one could have convinced me differently at the time, though many tried.”
“And the Rutledges?”
“I insisted your mother accompany me to a tourney at Wixley. Soon after we arrived she spied her cousin and left the loges to speak with her. When next I saw her she was standing beside William Rutledge. Her slipper had become soiled and he had stopped to clean it off on the edge of his mantle. She bestowed on him a smile I would have gladly slain a dozen men to see--just once--directed at me.” His chuckle was brittle and filled with resentment. “No matter what I did for her, I met with indifference, and this simple deed performed by a relative stranger elicited her favor.”
He paused, a pained expression on his face. “I was insane with rage. Rutledge and I went on to compete in the tourney, he unaware of my murderous intentions. When the opportunity came to stay my hand or deliver a fatal blow, I chose the latter. Your mother was horrified at my actions and she knew my motivation. She paid me back in kind when she took her own life that eve.”
Now the argument Raina had overheard as a child came back to her in shocking, horrific clarity: her parents' early arrival from the tournament, the accusations, the shouting....
“'Twas as if I had something to prove to her, as if to tell her that while I could not make her love me, she was still in my control. She proved me wrong, but she left me with a motherless child and a void in my heart that ached to be filled. I turned to the other person who had lost because of me--Rutledge's widow. I wasn't surprised when she denied me, but anger took command of my reason and I seized Wynbrooke, intending to bend her to my will. She would not yield, so I broke her like I could never break your mother. She lost her life and her son was there to witness my crimes against her...”
“Gunnar,” Raina whispered, feeling a tear slide down her cheek.
“My knights reported him dead, felled by a blade.” He grew very quiet, reflective. “Looking at the carnage in my wake, I could not believe what I had done. I was appalled. When I returned to Norworth I vowed to change. I swore I'd be a better man--for you. All I wanted was to be worthy of your affection.”
“Denying your past and burying lies beneath more lies was no way to live, Papa. I can't tell you that I would have understood then--I don't, even now--but I would have loved you for telling me the truth. You never gave me the chance.”
“Oh, Raina! What can I do to make this right?”
“You can meet with Gunnar tomorrow,” she said frankly. “You can tell him what you have just told me and you can ask for his forgiveness.”
Her father frowned. “Is that why he sent you to me, to have you plead with me to meet him?”
She heard the suspicion and mistrust in his voice and felt a twinge of sympathy. Here was a man who had lived his life in constant fear of discovery, never certain where his enemies lurked nor when they would surface. Now he seemed uncertain even of her motives. “He sent me home to show you that he was willing to listen. He said if you had honor, you would be at Wynbrooke tomorrow whether or not he held me hostage. He trusts you to do what is right...and so do I.”
Raina left him standing there in the center of his solar and mounted the stairs leading to her chamber. She requested a bath be brought up and fresh clothing laid out, then waited until the maids left before she retrieved the small gift from Gunnar. Settling into the warm, rose-scented water, she held the packet in her palm, untying the leather cord and then carefully peeling away the linen wrapping.
Her breath caught--love and joy and sorrow twining together--as she beheld Gunnar's precious gift. The twin ruby rings glistened in a shaft of light pouring in from the window, potent reminders of all she had shared with him. All she had lost.
Keep them safe for him, Wesley had said. But what did it mean? Was it Gunnar's way of saying good-bye forever, or a pledge that he intended to return to her one day?
She could not bear to think she might never see him again. Nor could she bear to place the smaller ring on her finger, not until she knew Gunnar would wear its mate. She refused to surrender that hope, damming the tears that threatened to fall. She would not give in to despair and she would never give up on Gunnar.
Threading both rings as a pendant onto the leather cord, she then fastened it behind her neck. The cool gold bands settled between her breasts, close to her heart, where she vowed they would remain until she saw Gunnar again. Even if it meant a lifetime.
Chapter 22
News of Raina's unexpected arrival at Norworth could not have reached Nigel at a more inconvenient time. He had only just plucked a young village girl from her work in the fields and had her pinned beneath him in the brush when the herald's call of approaching riders had sounded. Discerning from the tone that the visitors were friend rather than foe, he smiled down at the sobbing maiden.
“Shh,” he hissed, pressing his finger to her lips. Then he jerked her tunic down from the neckline.
A jolt of lust shot through him
as he gazed upon her small, budding breasts. This one was perhaps the youngest of the girls he had recently sampled. Nigel drew in his breath. He could scarcely wait to taste her.
From behind him, someone cleared his throat.
“Mayhap you'd be interested to hear that Lady Raina has returned.” His tender prey forgotten for the moment, Nigel rose to his knees and looked over his shoulder to where Evard stood, scowling reproachfully. “She arrived a short while ago,” the knight advised.
“Alone?”
“Two of Rutledge's men escorted her to the edge of the woods--”
“I want to see them,” Nigel demanded, rising off the girl and coming to stand.
“They've gone,” Evard replied, then added rather sourly, “Lady Raina appears in good health, if the question plagues you.”
Nigel smirked, mumbling the requisite praise for her well-being. The peasant girl clutched her torn bodice together at her chest and, choking on her sobs, scrambled to her feet. “Stay,” Nigel ordered her. “I've not yet told you to go.”
Evard swore an oath. “Have you not had your fill of virgins for a time, man? Must you plant your bastards in all their bellies?”
Nigel chuckled, casting a sidelong glance at the girl. “Like father, like son, I reckon.” He looked back to the grim-faced knight. “Go back to the keep now, Evard; I was just about to give this fertile-looking field here a proper plowing. I'll be along shortly.” He turned his attention to the trembling young girl as the knight stalked off. “Come now, sweeting, do cooperate with your lord, hmm?”
Moments later, Nigel emerged from out of the thicket, wiping the sheen of sweat from his brow. He belted his sword back on, then vaulted onto the baron's own mount, which he had taken for himself after losing his to Rutledge the week before. Kicking the beast into a full gallop, Nigel thundered into Norworth's bailey. A shout to an approaching squire garnered him the knowledge that Raina had retired to her chamber.