Virgin Bride

by Tamara Leigh

"You mourn for him?" a derisive voice fell upon the cold air.

  Startled, she swung around to face the intruder. Cloaked in a dark-green mantle that hung past his knees, leaving only a glimpse of black chausses above the tops of his boots, Gilbert stood watching her.

  Indignant, she drew herself to her full height. "You intrude, sir," she said, wondering how the mere presence of this man managed to chase the chill from her limbs.

  "My apologies." He offered a curt bow before walking nearer. "I would not have encroached, but your escort awaits you."

  Lowering her eyes, Graeye turned her back on him and looked again to where Philip had been laid to his final rest. "There is something that has too long disturbed me," she said, "and I would have you tell me yea or nay."

  Gilbert stopped beside her. "What would that be?" he asked with mounting suspicion.

  She lifted her gaze to his. "Did my brother accept the cross upon his death?"

  Gilbert was clearly taken aback by her question. A myriad of emotions swept over his usually composed features before his expression became stony again. He shook his head. "Nay, 'twas not a consideration. Philip died a coward."

  Her anger quickening, she swung away from him, walking swiftly.

  He caught up to her easily and pulled her around to face him. "Trust me in this," he said, his mouth tightening as he stared down at her. "Even had a cross been thrust upon his shoulders, he would not have accepted it."

  "As you would not?" she threw back at him. "I hardly knew Philip, so I cannot pass judgment en him, but well I have come to know your black heart, Gilbert Balmaine." She swiped at the hand holding her. "Be careful lest you suffer the same fate as the man you slaughtered."

  His grip tightened, his face suffusing a dark red. "I would clarify but one point, Lady Graeye," he said between clenched teeth. " 'Twas not I who laid your brother down, though I would have welcomed the opportunity to have done so."

  "Think you I do not know 'twas that wicked sister of yours who dealt the final blow? That she did it to save you from Philip's blade? Nay, no matter his crimes, 'twas not my brother who was the coward, but you and your sister!"

  His face came nearer. "You are wrong."

  "I saw the killing wound myself!" she shouted, her belly rolling as her senses experienced again the night she had spent with her brother's corpse. "Shot through the back like an animal by a coward."

  A spasm of surprise ran up Gilbert's spine. "You saw?" How could that be? Philip would have been dead near a fortnight when she was brought from the abbey. He should have been buried long before her arrival.

  The sudden, bitter laughter that issued from her lips bothered hum in a way he did not understand—nor cared to. "Do you think Edward would shield me from such an atrocity? He forced me to—"

  Realizing she had said more than she'd intended, Graeye halted her next words. "Beware, Balmaine," she said softly. "For all the evil you may accuse Edward of, you still do not know him. Do not feel bad, though, for I did not truly know him until recently. And he is my—" She stopped, once more determined never to refer to him as "father" again.

  Ignoring her warning, Gilbert pulled her chin up. "What did he force you to do?"

  She shifted her gaze past his head.

  "Tell me, damn you!"

  She shook her head.

  "I will know now."

  She met his gaze. "Or what?" she prompted in a chill, wintry voice.

  Taken aback by her challenge, Gilbert stared into her hard, silvery eyes a long time. "I want to understand," he finally said.

  "Do you?"

  God's teeth! She made him feel the lowliest cur. Pushing a hand through his unruly hair, he nodded.

  She closed her eyes briefly, then met his gaze again. "Then understand this. I spent an entire night with my dead brother praying him into heaven and asking God to see justice done to those who had murdered him. So tell me again of my deceit, Baron Balmaine, but first repent of your own."

  First anger, then, compassion, overcame Gilbert. Deep, flaring anger for Edward Charwyck's cruelty. Then that same compassion he'd been fighting almost from the moment he'd seen her. And there was something deeper....

  He shook his head to clear it of the weakness it would have him succumb to. He didn't want to care for this woman. Didn't want to feel the pain she had suffered at the hands of her father. He wanted her gone from Medland before she could weave another of her witching spells upon him. Wanted her forgotten.

  "You know nothing of what transpired," he said, releasing his hold on her and stepping away. "But mayhap 'tis best you think the worst of me than know the kind of man your brother truly was." He turned from her and started back toward the castle, his limp more evident than usual.

  "Go back to your abbey, child," he tossed over his shoulder, his gaze sweeping her one final time before relinquishing her to the fate he had set her to.

  With a heavy heart Graeye stared after him, and only when he had gone from her sight did she follow.

  Chapter 10

  How long did you think to keep it from us?" the abbess asked as she lifted her hand from the younger woman's softly rounded belly.

  Graeye lowered her eyes as she searched for a response, but none was fast in coming.

  The abbess, Mother Celia, clasped her hands together at her waist and waited, all the while reflecting on the young woman's return to the abbey nearly five months past. Though Graeye had always been a solemn soul, there was something changed about her—a kind of sadness that came only with disillusionment of the heart.

  From the day she had returned, she had been thus. When she had been urged to complete her vows of sisterhood, she had declined to do so in no uncertain terms, offering only a tersely written note from the new baron of Medland to support her stand. Subsequently, she had entered the order of the convent and kept herself conspicuously absent from all but those activities she was required to attend.

  However, there was also a strength and resolve to her character that showed itself most clearly with each passing day. No longer did she seem ashamed of the mark upon her face, refusing to don a wimple even when Mistress Hermana insisted upon it. Chin high, she carried herself well among the others, paying no particular attention to the stares that followed her. Nay, she was no longer the reserved child who had left the abbey with dreams in her eyes.

  The abbess let go a long, weary sigh. Though her instincts had proved correct regarding the loss of her charge's virtue, she had hardly expected this to be the result. Mildly irritated, she tapped a foot among the rushes, her gaze dropping again to Graeye's waist, which, beneath the voluminous bliaut, hinted at nothing out of the ordinary.

  If not for Sister Sophia's experienced eye, it might have been weeks longer before any had known of her condition. But why had Graeye kept it to herself for so long? After all, it was not unusual for daughters of the nobility to be sent to the abbey to give birth to bastard children, thereby avoiding dishonoring their families. Even now there were four others at the convent in various stages of pregnancy.

  "I was ashamed." Graeye finally found the humble words to express the hard knot of anxiety that had settled over her since she had first guessed her state three months earlier.

  "Ashamed?" Mother Celia repeated. Her eyes shone with a kindness and understanding that made Graeye want to seek the comfort of her arms. "Methinks 'tis likely you have little to be ashamed of, Lady Graeye. Was this not a man's doing?"

  Since she had been a novice ready to take her vows, Graeye was not surprised the abbess believed her pregnancy was the result of forced intimacy. Though it would have been easier to let her continue to believe that, Graeye could not lie to her, not even by omission.

  Shaking her head, she looked away. "I fear 'twas entirely my own doing," she admitted. "I blame no one but myself."

  Her declaration was met with silence. When she finally ventured a look at the other woman, she was truly surprised at the compassion Mother Celia wore upon her face.

  "I wou
ld leave here if it so pleases you," Graeye offered, having already given the matter some thought.

  "And where would you go, child?" the abbess asked, taking her arm.

  As Graeye contemplated this question—and not for lie first time since she'd discovered the new life growing inside her—the abbess led her to a bench and urged her down upon it In turmoil she stared sightlessly at the woman's retreating back as Mother Celia walked to a sideboard across the small room. A moment later a goblet of watered wine was pressed into Graeye's hand.

  "Drink it all, child," Mother Celia said, lowering herself beside Graeye. "Then we will talk of your future."

  Relieved that, at last, here was someone with whom she could speak of her mounting fears, Graeye quickly drained the goblet and turned to face the older woman.

  A placid smile upon her lips, Mother Celia removed the goblet from Graeye's tense fingers and set it aside. "Now," she said, "tell me of the father. Is he wed?"

  Graeye was painfully aware that she did not know the answer to that question. While at Medland she had never even thought to ask about Gilbert's marital status—had assumed he was without a wife. "I do not think so," she muttered, her shame growing twofold with the confession.

  "Hmm." The abbess's lips twitched. "Think you he would be willing to wed with you if he does not yet have a wife?"

  This was the most remote possibility of all—absurd. Gilbert Balmaine wanted nothing to do with her, bastard child or not.

  "He would not," she said, her throat tightening painfully. "Methinks he would first give himself to the ..." Her voice trailed off as she prudently withdrew the word that had nearly fallen from her lips.

  Knowingly, Mother Celia nodded. "And he knows naught of the babe?"

  Graeye shook her head.

  "Do you fancy yourself in love with him, child?"

  Graeye's mouth opened and closed several times before any sound issued forth. "Nay!" she finally gasped. "He is the veriest of curs."

  Mother Celia was quiet a long moment, reflecting back upon the note given her the day of Graeye's return. Though brief, the baron had been explicit regarding Graeye's entry into the convent Because she had not wanted to read too much into it, Mother Celia had not understood then what she thought she did now. There was simply no reason for the man to have concerned himself with Graeye's future at the abbey, unless he'd had knowledge of her undoing—a knowledge that, she suspected, was of a personal nature.

  "Do not worry," she said, patting Graeye's hands where they were tightly clenched in her lap. "You will be provided for." She stood and walked to her writing desk.

  Having been excused, Graeye withdrew from the chamber and slowly made her way back to the modest room she shared with two others.

  ***

  The cold, wintry months that followed Graeye's return to the abbey did little to improve Gilbert's disposition. Not only were his days filled with the management of his newly expanded estates, but also with numerous forays against the brigands that attacked his villages.

  Worse, the long nights dragged by on leaden feet. When sleep finally came to him, too often his dreams were haunted by sad, pale eyes, soft lips that rarely knew a smile, and the feel of silken strands that ran through his fingers in an endless stream of burnished gold.

  Most nights that he lay awake, his body burned with a great, aching need, but he found little ease with any of the willing wenches he took into his bed. Soon he refused their invitations altogether and fell into a deeper kind of torment that made it nearly unbearable for him to live with himself. Constantly, he fought the unwanted visions of Graeye, even attempting to banish them with the fading memory of Lady Atrice, but he had no more success with that than he'd found with any of the women. It made for a restless sleep and a foul temper when the morn finally deigned to arrive.

  Five months after Graeye's return to Arlecy, a messenger made his way through a frigid, pelting rain to Medland in search of Gilbert. Gilbert, however, was at Penforke. Sir Lancelyn, who had been made the castellan of Medland, bade the man pass the night at the castle and, before the sun rose the next morning, sent him on his way with a small escort to speed and ensure his safe journey. Thus the disgruntled messenger was very nearly in as foul a mood as Gilbert when he was ushered into the great hall of the donjon at Penforke.

  After a brief introduction, which Gilbert cut short with an impatient wave of his hand, the man was led to await his audience on a bench against the far side of the room. Had he had not been so frightened by the size of Gilbert Balmaine, he would surely have been tempted to return the man's rude manners.

  The time lengthened, and when the messenger was finally beckoned forward to deliver his message, it was found he had fallen asleep, an angry scowl upon his face.

  Having spent a good deal of the morning confined with his droning steward, who had painstakingly cited each of the losses suffered from the raiding brigands, Gilbert had little tolerance for the messenger's fatigue. He divested the man of his duty by retrieving the message himself. The man slept on with nary a groan of protest.

  Without regard for the elaborate wax seal that held the parchment closed, Gilbert broke it and strode back to where his steward was bent over his books. He grabbed the man's arm and held the parchment out to him.

  Though he could well do it himself, Gilbert found reading and writing tedious work. Given a choice, he left it to his steward, or any other man capable of that rare talent with words. He far preferred the spoken form over the written.

  Leaning back against the edge of the table, he impatiently drummed his fingers on its surface as he waited for the steward to begin reading.

  " 'Tis from the abbess at Arlecy," the man informed him, squinting at the broken seal.

  Gilbert stilled.

  "It says, 'Baron Balmaine, there is a discreet matter of great importance that I must discuss with you regarding ...'" He cleared his throat. "... Lady Graeye Charwyck. She is—' "

  Before he could read any further, Gilbert snatched the parchment away. Ignoring the steward's stammered entreaty, he turned the message toward the light of a torch and held it at arm's length to read it for himself.

  "She is many months with child," he read silently, then dropped his lids closed over eyes that burned with fatigue.

  His heart beat a lurching rhythm in his chest as he attempted to get the surge of emotions—a mixture of outrage, disbelief, anger, suspicion, and even a spark of something he refused to put a name to—under control.

  His hands trembling, he reread the message from the beginning, then paused momentarily before proceeding with the remainder. "As she was last under your guardianship, I would ask that you make haste to call at Arlecy that we might discuss this matter more fully."

  Allowing the parchment to curl back on itself, Gilbert drew a hand over his face, raking his fingers through the thick growth of winter beard. Was it possible Graeye carried his child—after but one night of joining? And if she did, why had she waited so long to inform him of her condition? Was this yet another of her carefully worked deceptions?

  In spite of his body's constant, treacherous yearnings for the woman, Gilbert knew he mustn't forget she was a Charwyck. Aye, it could just as easily be any other man's child she carried ... if she carried a child at all.

  In the back of his mind he acknowledged that, even without the arrival of this message, the unwanted bond between himself and Graeye would have had to be addressed sooner or later. Unfinished business stood between them, and it needed to be seen through to its completion ere he could free himself of this stranglehold she had on him. Not for the first time in the past months, he entertained the thought that if he could but have her once again, it would be enough to rid himself of her forever.

  Still, if it was his child she carried ...

  His thoughts turned to the trap he had been planning to lay for the brigands two days hence. It was an opportunity he was loath to let pass, for if carried out without mishap, it would likely see Edward Charwyck, the
brigands' leader, delivered into his hands.

  Until that moment Gilbert had thought there was nothing he wanted more than to apprehend the man.

  He was wrong.

  Groaning, he crumpled the crisp parchment in his fist and called for his squire.

  Chapter 11

  With growing impatience Gilbert paced the room he'd been asked to wait in a very long half hour past. From time to time he stopped before the window and scanned the courtyard below, and the winter-ravaged garden that stretched far to the left. Then he resumed his pacing.

  What was keeping the abbess? he wondered with deepening irritation. Though he'd given no warning of his arrival, he had been assured she would be along shortly. Considering the wintry weather, his men would have grown restless by now where they awaited him outside the walls of the abbey. Had he known the wait that lay ahead, he would have insisted upon their being brought inside as well.

  Cursing beneath his breath, he dropped down upon the hard bench facing the door and began to massage the aching muscles of his leg. Since he and his men had left Penforke two days past, nearly every waking hour had been spent in the saddle. Though that by itself did not usually trouble his old injury, coupled with the cold, damp weather, it proved quite painful.

  Mayhap the abbess was in the midst of none, that time of prayer taken shortly after dinner, he thought, trying to reason himself out of the foul mood he was sinking more deeply into with each passing minute.

  A moment later there was a light rap on the door, then silence.

  "Come," he called, and stood as the door was pushed inward.

  Tall and regal as any queen, the abbess stepped inside, then closed the door behind her. "Baron Balmaine," she said, coming to stand before him. "I am Mother Celia, Abbess of Arlecy."

  He had expected Graeye to accompany her, and he felt oddly disquieted by her absence. Was she in the corridor awaiting a summons? Or did she wait in one of those buildings where none but the clergy were allowed to venture?