Impostress

by Lisa Jackson

  “What happened to him?”

  “I know not,” she said quickly and plopped a jellied egg into her mouth in the hopes of ending the conversation.

  Little lines of concentration formed between Morwenna’s arched eyebrows. She fingered her knife. “Did I not hear that he was betrothed to Wynnifrydd, the Lord of Fenn’s daughter?”

  “Was he?” Kiera asked, lifting a shoulder and trying not to notice that any trace of merriment had left Kelan’s face.

  From the other side of her Tadd spoke up. “Aye. I’m sure of it.” He motioned to a page to refill his mazer. “The wedding was planned for ... what? This week, I think.”

  “This week?” Kiera repeated, her worries intensifying.

  “Tomorrow, I believe.” Tadd waited as the page filled his uplifted cup. “Thank you, John.”

  The floppy-haired page nodded, then, not once looking her in the eye, began refilling Kiera’s mazer.

  Tomorrow? Brock is slated to marry Wynnifrydd tomorrow?

  Then what of Elyn? Had the wedding been called off? Or was Brock going through with the marriage? Kiera took a calming drink of wine. Think, Kiera, think. Where was her sister? Kiera had begun to worry that Elyn might not have returned to Lawenydd because she’d run off with the man she loved, that both she and Brock had spurned their intended spouses and ridden away to some unknown fate. At that private thought, Kiera became angry, then stupidly hopeful. Now, she had the quicksilver intuition of why her emotions had been at odds, for she could no longer deny the unthinkable idea that she was beginning to fall in love with Kelan.

  Dear God in heaven. That ridiculous notion hit her hard and she nearly choked on her wine. In love? With this stranger? A man I barely know? My sister’s husband? ’Twas folly. Worse than folly!

  Now, with the fear that Brock was truly marrying Wynnifrydd, Kiera’s worries redoubled. Had harm befallen Elyn? Or ... even worse, had she somehow lost her life? An accident? A cutthroat in the forest? Her stomach squeezed painfully and it occurred to her that she might never know. Just as she’d never found out what had happened to Obsidian.

  She was no longer hungry, her appetite having been chased away by worry. Yet support came from an unexpected corner.

  “Morwenna, you and Elyn were at Fenn years ago; what were you, Elyn—around thirteen at the time?” Kelan’s mouth was pinched, his jaw tight, yet he said, “What happened then, ’tis of no matter now.”

  “And we all know how things can change over the years, do we not?” Tadd asked, leaning back in his chair. With a careless smile, he looked at Kiera and winked slowly. “Your husband was not always the upstanding, honest man he is today, you know. There was a time when the baron was anything but law-abiding. ’Twas a good thing my father bribed the sheriff, or Kelan might well have .ended up hanging from a noose rather than ruling a barony.”

  “He exaggerates,” Kelan said, his eyes sparking as he scraped back his chair. “And as I said, what happened before matters not.” His gaze moved from one upturned face to the next. “Lady Elyn and I are married.” Kiera felt the color drain from her face. Oh, this was as bad as Hildy had predicted. Worse! Kelan lifted his mazer and the hall fell silent. “A toast,” he proclaimed and glanced down at Kiera, then nodded in her direction. “To my wife, Lady Elyn of Penbrooke.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  It was late in the day when Joseph slipped through the shadows of Oak Crest after hours of trying to locate Lady Elyn within the keep. Hildy had explained to him about Elyn’s foolhardy and selfish plan. Before she’d asked, he’d volunteered to search for the stubborn lady. So far, he had failed. Three days had passed since the night Kiera, pretending to be her older sister, had left for Penbrooke. Joseph’s gut tightened when he thought of what Lady Kiera must have had to endure with the Baron of Penbrooke, all for the sake of Lady Elyn. So what had happened to her? Where the devil was she? The answer, it seemed to Joseph, lay with Brock of Oak Crest. And so, hoping to find Elyn and drag her back to Lawenydd, he’d ridden as if Satan himself were chasing him. Unfortunately, Joseph had been unable to escape his duties for a full day, then it had taken another day to travel to Oak Crest, and today he had futilely spent his time spying, trying to hear word of Lady Elyn. As time passed he knew that he would be missed at Lawenydd.

  Well, so be it.

  Sometimes there was duty and other times duty had to be damned for a greater cause. And the search for Lady Elyn was the greatest cause of all.

  He slid silently into the stables, exhausted, smelling the acrid odor of urine mixed with dust and the scent of horses—this, finally, was familiar territory. He’d grown up living with horses, and so he felt at home for the first time since leaving Lawenydd.

  After riding hell-bent for a day and leaving his own mount in the forest tied in a copse of oak, he’d slipped through the castle gates with a group of peasants, then blended in with the farmers and merchants and peddlers setting up to sell their wares. He’d managed to search some of the buildings and the baileys, listening to craftsmen talk or the gossip of the women gathering eggs and hanging laundry. The castle was abuzz with the upcoming nuptials of the baron’s son, Sir Brock, and Lady Wynnifrydd of Fenn.

  “She’s a bossy one, she is,” one old crone had confided to another this morning as Joseph had found an ax and begun splitting firewood. Since it had been raining off and on for the past few days, he’d drawn his cowl over his head, and with his back to the women, no one had paid him any attention. “Sir Brock will have his hands full with that one.”

  “A pity,” the other woman had sighed, “to be married to a shrew.” She’d laughed heartily while her friend had snorted. Joseph had hazarded a glance over his shoulder. The shorter, scrawny woman had filled her basket with eggs while the laundress had been hastily retrieving sheets before the rain began in earnest.

  “‘Tis what he deserves, don’t ye think? And then his father will be well rid of him. Sir Brock can become Lord of Fenn someday and it’s good riddance, I say. He won’t be botherin’ us for a while, not until the Baron Nevyll, God preserve him, passes on.” Sketching a sign of the cross over her chest, she’d stepped around a puddle and hastily tossed the half-dried clothes into a large basket. “ ’Tis my guess that Lady Wynnifrydd will want him to stay on at Fenn as long as Lord Nevyll is alive. Have ye seen the way she looks down that long nose of hers, her nostrils flarin’ an’ all? It’s as if Oak Crest isn’t good enough for the likes of her.” The laundress had snorted at this notion. “Nay, she’ll not be wantin’ to stay here a second after she’s gotten that wedding band from Sir Brock.”

  Listening intently, Joseph had stepped beneath an overhang near the mason’s hut and placed a chunk of oak upon the old stump that was marred by hundreds of scars from ax blades slicing into it.

  “Then he can raise the skirts of the wenches at Fenn and leave our girls alone. A randy one Brock is, and rough, I hear.” The egg collector had raised her sparse eyebrows. “That’s what Glyn told Beanie.”

  “Ach. The girls waggle their tongues too much. Especially Glyn.”

  “Nay, they waggle their hips too much and get themselves into trouble with the likes of Sir Brock.”

  “Well, he’s Lady Wynnifrydd’s pain now.”

  “And all the while I thought he’d marry Elyn of Lawenydd; she was sweet on him, I hear. My niece, she’s a seamstress over at Lawenydd, and she swears Lady Elyn had her heart set on Sir Brock.”

  So that was it. Joseph gripped the ax, raised it over his head, and swung down hard.

  Crack!

  The dry oak had split. Two pieces had spun sharply off the stump, but the gossiping women had paid him little mind.

  “If ye ask me, Lady Wynnifrydd and Sir Brock are made for each other. They’ll make each other miserable, and that’s just fine with me.”

  “ ’Tis lucky for Lady Elyn that she didn’t end up with him and married Kelan of Penbrooke instead. I know he was a black sheep and gave his father more than his share of gray hair, bu
t compared to Brock, Kelan of Penbrooke’s a prince.”

  The laundress had chuckled as she hoisted her basket onto one of her ample hips. “I’ll have to be hangin’ these in the shed,” she’d muttered disgustedly under her breath. “I told Dellwynn that it would rain today, but would she listen? Oh, no. Not that one.” Balancing the laundry, she’d marched off toward the great hall while chickens had squawked and scurried out of her path.

  Joseph had heard other gossip as well, talk of the impending wedding, nasty remarks about the lordship’s son, but never once had Elyn been mentioned again.

  What to do? he’d wondered as he stacked the wood he’d chopped and cast a glance at the great hall. Joseph had considered confronting Brock, but decided the man would only lie or have him thrown into the dungeons or worse. Already he’d surreptiously scanned Oak Crest’s herd of horses that he’d found in the outer bailey. There was no sign of Lady Elyn’s mount, the missing mare. But he wasn’t convinced that the feisty little horse wasn’t hidden somewhere apart from the main herd.

  While the stable master had been checking the hooves of a dappled stallion, Joseph had slipped into the open door of the stables. Now he moved quietly in the shadows. A few of the animals snorted, one nickered, and all the while there was the sound of hooves shuffling in the straw and the gentle snoring of a stableboy, his back propped against a post, his cap pulled down over his eyes.

  With little trouble Joseph discovered the ladder leading to the upper loft and swung stealthily into the haymow, to settle into a spot in the corner. Noiselessly, he burrowed under the loose straw. Using his mantle as a blanket, he closed his eyes to rest and wait until dark, when he could move around more easily. If he found the mare, he’d take it as proof that Sir Brock had met Lady Elyn. If not, he’d continue looking for her.

  And what if you find her? What are you going to do if she won’t return to Lawenydd with you? Tie her with ropes? Shackle her? Force her back to her father?

  “If needs be,” he muttered under his breath. But first he intended to talk to the spoiled son of Oak Crest, regardless of the differences in their stations.

  Standing at the fire in his chamber, Kelan fingered the vials he’d brought with him from Lawenydd. One of blood, the other empty. He was certain now that Elyn had used whatever was in the empty vial to make him drowsy, rather than poison him, to keep him in her bedchamber, though he didn’t know why. The other ... he knew not.

  Did it matter?

  Did she not pledge before God to be his wife?

  Did she not come with him to Penbrooke and stand at his side?

  Had she not met his mother this day, and was not Lenore pleased that she was his wife? Only Morwenna seemed not to trust her, and yes, there was something not right. The small vials in his hand were proof enough of that.

  He glanced over his shoulder to his napping wife and his heart melted. Firelight played upon her white skin, turning it golden. Her dark hair was tangled on the pillows, framing a face he’d begun to love.

  Love? That thought struck him hard. He wasn’t a romantic, didn’t believe in love. And yet this woman with her clever tongue, laughing eyes, and spirited lovemaking had found a way into his heart. He was lucky. Most marriages were for convenience only; the husband and wife only tolerated each other.

  But ... she’d deceived him. The vials were proof enough of her deception. His jaw grew so hard it ached. Why? Why had she lied to him? He could ask her again. Demand answers.

  And what will that accomplish? A rift between the two of you? You are married. You agreed to this arrangement and you must make the best of it. Elyn is your wife and will be the mother of your children. Doubting her now is of no use.

  ’Twas time to start anew. To embrace this marriage. To trust the woman who had vowed to be his wife. He tossed the vials into the fire. The full one broke, liquid oozing out and sizzling, smelling foul.

  Kelan hoped it wasn’t an omen of things yet to come.

  “What do you mean you can’t marry me?” Wynnifrydd demanded as she rolled off Brock’s bed. He had arrived this morning, on their wedding day, and now this? She threw on her tunic and glowered down at him. “The wedding is in less than twelve hours. The guests have already begun arriving. My father has signed an agreement with yours, and we have a baby coming into this world! ‘Tis far too late to change your mind.” She was beautiful in her rage, standing above him, shivering with fury, pointing an uncompromising finger at his naked form. “If this is a joke, Brock of Oak Crest, ’tis a bad one. A very bad one.”

  He levered himself on an elbow and shook his head. “ ’Tis no joke, but I can’t marry you and keep the secret any longer.”

  “The secret? You mean that Elyn of Lawenydd was a ninny and ended up drowning?” she asked. “Is that the secret you’re worried about? Because, Brock, I know you have many. Some more dark than even that one.” Hitching her chin indignantly toward the ceiling, she folded her arms around her middle and her fingers drummed an agitated beat against her ribs. Oh, she was angry ... but he could not appreciate the flare of her nostrils or the stormy clouds in her eyes. Not now.

  “She died, Wynnifrydd,” he said again. “Because of me.”

  “You didn’t kill her. ’Twas an accident. So how does that affect the wedding?”

  “She died running away from me when I told her I couldn’t marry her.”

  “Then she was foolish!” Wynnifrydd said, exasperated. She walked to the fire and warmed her hands. “And what makes you so certain she died? I’ve heard through a traveling merchant that she married Penbrooke just as planned.”

  “Impossible. I was with her after the wedding,” Brock admitted. Never in his life had he experienced the onus he felt now. Guilt was a new emotion, an unwanted burden.

  “Then why does Penbrooke have a wife?”

  “I think he married the wrong sister. ’Twas Elyn’s plan that Kiera take the vows in her stead.”

  “Then Kiera is married to Penbrooke, but the baron thinks she is Elyn?”

  “Yes, at least that’s what Elyn’s plan was,” he said, rolling onto his back and staring at the crossbeams overhead. “Though legally Elyn would have been his wife. Oh, ‘tis a mess and now ... now she’s dead.” A heavy stone had settled in his heart for the first time in his life. ’Twas a weight that grew heavier with each passing day.

  Wynnifrydd was unmoved, and he was beginning to think she had no soul. “Hear me out, Brock. Accidents are commonplace. They can happen to anyone. Anytime. And remember, we are in this together. Remember what I know of you. Things that your father would hardly dare believe and, should he find out, certainly banish you for. Do not ever try to cross me,” Wynnifrydd warned. “If you do, I’ll make sure you regret it for the rest of your life. We’ve planned this for a long time and now I’m carrying your child. I don’t know why you’re so concerned about Elyn. I should be angry with you for abandoning me to run off with that woman for a few days,” she added bitterly.

  “I had to explain to her that I was truly marrying you.”

  “Did you tell her that you loved me?”

  “I told her the truth.”

  “Ah, ah, ah.” Her voice rose an octave with each syllable. Wagging a finger back and forth, she walked closer to the bed. “Do you love me, Brock? Really love me?” she asked, leaning over him, her breasts visible above the neckline of her tunic and so near his face. Inviting him despite her wrath.

  This was a trap; he knew it. Felt it in every one of his bones. And there was only one way out of it. Though he wasn’t in the mood, he grabbed one of her wrists, pulled her atop him, and kissed her hard. “What do you think?” he asked.

  “I—I think you would bed any woman to change the subject.” Her voice was suddenly breathless, as he’d expected.

  “Would I?” He smiled and cupped her rump. It did the trick. Feeling her tight ass, his manhood rose, stiffening in eager arousal.

  “Y-yes. Oh, yes.”

  “But it is you I’m with,”
he said, and pulled her atop him, bunching her skirts and guiding her onto his ready shaft. She gasped and then, thankfully, didn’t say another word. He shouldn’t have told her that he wasn’t going to marry her; nay, he should have just left her standing alone at the altar. It would have served her right.

  As for the child, what proof did he have that it was his? Wynnifrydd hadn’t come to him as a virgin and she could bloody well leave carrying her bastard. He cared not.

  But he could not live having Elyn’s death on his conscience, could not just forget her. Brock had committed more than his share of infidelities, told more lies than he could remember, and even stolen when he needed to. But never had he let a woman die. Never had he felt this overwhelming burden, this horrendous sense of guilt.

  As Wynnifrydd cried out in lust and Brock spewed his seed deep within her, he held her tight, breathed hard, but could not dislodge thoughts of Elyn dying in that cold torrent of a river. Her death would forever be on his soul.

  No matter what happened, he needed to tell the truth, to confess his part in Elyn’s plan, to somehow balm his soul.

  Chapter Eighteen

  “Let me understand this,” Kiera said to the tailor as they stood in the solar in the lord’s tower. Two seamstresses were standing nearby, each with thimbles, scissors, and measuring sticks. Several pages were busy hauling rolls of fabric into the room. “My husband hired you to have a dozen dresses made for me?”

  “That’s right, m’lady. He asked me to bring you samples of my finest cloth. Oh! Not there, Gwayne!” the tailor called to a gangly page with bright red hair and a hooked nose. “Place the bolts here, on the table in the best light.” Frowning, he jabbed a finger on the hard planks. He was a small, compact man with a finely cropped beard and a mouthful of ill-fitting teeth. In constant motion, he ordered the pages and seamstresses about while nervously rearranging the lace and pelts and ribbons by color on the table.