Blackheart

by Tamara Leigh

He widened his stance. "I shall not stay long. What have you to tell, Lady Juliana?"

  His purposeful use of lady, though they were now alone, further distanced him—as if they had not come together in the dark of night, cried aloud their passion, made a child of it. As if she did and ever would belong to Bernart. She struggled for words. In the end, it was the babe who gave her a means of revealing the truth. "What shall we name him, Gabriel?"

  His nostrils flared. " 'Tis not for me to do."

  Then he did believe the child was born of Bernart. "Very well, I shall name him." She looked to their son and kissed his smooth brow. "You shall be called Gabrien in honor of your father."

  Gabriel drew a sharp breath. "Do you not mean Bernart?"

  She met his fiery gaze. "Never could he be called such, for Bernart did not father him. 'Twas you, Gabriel."

  He grunted, strode to the shuttered window, and stood darkly silent. Then he returned and put his menacing bulk over her. "These past months you have denied my fathering of this child. Why now that you are proven right do you claim otherwise? What games play you?"

  She swallowed. "Upon my life, I play no games. Had you come to me these past weeks as I five times asked, I would have told you the truth."

  "What truth?"

  "The night you brought me to the tower, you asked that I trust you."

  His brow lightened slightly. "I did—and you did not."

  "I do now. I should have then." She closed her eyes, drew strength from the warm bundle pressed to her side, and opened her eyes to Gabriel's harsh gaze. " 'Twas Bernart who sent me to you at Tremoral. Bernart who so longed for a son he set his virgin wife to steal his enemy's seed."

  Disbelief stormed Gabriel's face, but before he could vent it, she hastened to ask, "Did you not see maiden's blood upon the sheets the morning after the first night I came to you?"

  Gabriel felt as if slammed into a wall. Bernart had sent her to his bed? Inconceivable. To steal a child from him? Outrageous. Juliana a virgin? Try though he had to forget his second and third nights with her, the first had been dimmed by too much drink. Still, the following morning there had been blood on himself and the sheets. " 'Twas surely your monthly flux."

  She shook her head. " 'Tis as I prayed you would believe, but it was not."

  A fire burned Gabriel's belly. "Such fantastic lies you weave, Juliana Kinthorpe. Why?"

  Tears glistened in her eyes, and her lips trembled. "Did I leave blood the following nights?"

  Her demand gave him pause. " 'Twas surely the end of your flux."

  "God's mercy, think I could not have—"

  Her raised voice caused the babe to whine.

  Flushed with remorse, she patted him and put soothing words to his ears. When finally he quieted, she looked up. "Know you naught of a woman's cycle, Gabriel?"

  He frowned.

  "Had the blood been of my flux, I could not have been pregnant with this child by Bernart, as you believe. Had it been of my flux, 'twould have been at least another sennight until my time of breeding."

  He was staggered, and had to step back to hold his balance. Though not ignorant of a woman's cycle, he'd not considered it.

  "This child is yours." She touched the babe's head. "Ours."

  He pinned his gaze to the one Juliana had named Gabrien, and could not breathe for the realization he was a father. This was his son. Theirs. And only moments before he had ached in the knowledge he must return mother and child to Bernart. If not for the rest of what Juliana had told, he would have reveled.

  He met her waiting gaze. " 'Tis not to be believed that for three years you were wed to Bernart and he left you untouched. Why would a man who had you slake his thirst on another? On Nesta? More, why would he send one he prized above all to an enemy he hated to the devil?"

  When finally Juliana spoke, it was so softly he had to strain to hear. "As Bernart had no knowledge of me these past three years, neither had he knowledge of any other, as he would have you believe. He could not have."

  Something darkened Gabriel's soul, something he did not wish to acknowledge.

  "It goes back to Acre when he went over the wall," she continued. Another silence. "He was set upon by Muslim soldiers, by their hand done an unspeakable injury." A tear slipped to her cheek. " 'Tis seen in his limp. What is not seen—what he lets none see—is the loss of his manhood."

  Gabriel's soul went black. Bernart emasculated? He swung away. "It cannot be." But it was. It was! He knew it as surely as he breathed.

  "He was the most beautiful of men," Juliana said, a sob in her voice. "Think you he would willingly allow himself to deteriorate so?"

  "Enough!" Gabriel raised his fists, squeezing them so tight his arms trembled. Now he knew that which he had not fully understood—Bernart's bottomless hate. But was it deserved?

  Behind him, he heard the babe fret, and Juliana's hushed words. He closed his eyes, seeing again that day at Acre, then the night. As he had asked himself a thousand times since, would it have been different had he not—

  "Gabriel." A hand touched his shoulder.

  He spun around. Juliana was before him, the babe laid in the cradle beyond. She swayed, the effort to rise draining her color.

  "What do you out of bed?" he said with a growl, and swept her against his chest.

  She wrapped her arms around his neck, holding tight as he carried her to the bed. "You are not to blame," she said, seeking the gaze he denied her. " 'Twould have been the same had you not convinced the others of their foolishness in joining him, the same had you gone after him."

  He had gone after him, but to no end. He laid her down, but she gripped his shoulders.

  It would take little to break her hold on him, but he would not risk harming her. "Loose me," he commanded.

  "Only do you sit beside me that we might speak."

  Though he knew there was more to tell, he longed to take leave of this chamber that he might battle the demons clambering for a foothold on his soul.

  "I beseech you," she pleaded.

  He met her velvet gaze so near his, yearned to go into her eyes and dwell there. But it would be short reprieve. Still there would be Bernart. "If 'tis what you wish," he said begrudgingly.

  "I wish it." She loosed her hands, pulling them down his chest.

  Aching where she touched him, he drew back. "I shall stand."

  Mouth grimming, she nodded and settled back among the pillows. "Ask your questions." She folded her hands atop the soft mound that remained of her pregnancy. "I shall answer all."

  He peered out of the darkness within. "Knowing Bernart could never be a husband to you, why did you wed him?"

  Her lips compressed. "Not until after our vows were spoken did he tell of the injury done him. On our wedding night."

  Anger surged over Gabriel's guilt, swept it under. Curse Bernart's selfishness! He had known Juliana would not shame him by annulling the marriage on the grounds that he could not consummate. How it must have pained her. How it must have shattered her illusions of love. How it must have hurt to know that never would she bear him children. On that last, he ground his jaw. " 'Tis true he sent you to steal a child from me?"

  A breath shuddered from her. "Aye, to silence talk that his lack of an heir proved he was as his brother."

  Remembering Bernart's fervent hatred of his sibling, Gabriel could guess the desperation his old friend must have felt. But to steal a child from another? To claim as his own one born of the enemy? "Why me, Juliana? Why not another?"

  Her smile was bitter. "Revenge twists men, makes of them what they were not intended to be. So it was with Bernart. He determined to take from you that which he believed you had stolen from him."

  Gabriel could not conceive of such madness. Aye, madness! Regardless the loss of Bernart's manhood, what else could so ail his mind?

  "Too," she whispered, "he chose you for the hate I bore you."

  He frowned.

  As if she grew cold, she dragged the coverlet up her chest
. "Bernart believed 'twould hold me from you, that I would feel naught but revulsion. He could not bear that more than a child might come of our joining."

  Had more come of it? In spite of the guilt and self-loathing that attempted to overcome his anger toward Bernart, he wondered if she felt for him what he felt for her. "Was it hate that caused you to do as he bade?"

  "Nay."

  "Love?"

  A pained laugh parted her lips. "Love..." She rubbed a hand down the side of her face. "Even had my feelings for him not died long before, never could I love one who demanded such of me." She shook her head. "Nor did I come to your bed to secure my place at Tremoral. 'Twas for Alaiz I did it. Had I refused Bernart, he would have turned her out to wander the countryside. That I could not allow—no matter my sacrifice."

  Gabriel swept back to Tremoral... the garden... the words Juliana had spoken: she would do anything for her sister. So much unexplained now explained, so much without sense given sense. Still, he felt as if someone had tied his entrails into a hundred writhing knots. He detested what Juliana had been made to do, the shame he had put upon her when he'd accused her of laying with him to assure her place. As for Bernart, regardless whether or not Gabriel was to blame for his infirmity, Juliana's husband was reprehensible. Depraved. Vile.

  "Until now," she said, looking to the cradle, "Alaiz is all I have had, all who has needed me." She reached a hand from beneath the coverlet and touched Gabriel's sleeve. "Had I not feared for what Bernart would do to her, I would have revealed the truth long ago. I would have trusted you."

  Gabriel's self-loathing stretched. If Alaiz were not yet caught, soon she would be. Unless Erec succeeded in finding her and bringing her out of England, in that direction lay her death. Then there was Blase. Despite the assurances he would recover, he had surely come near death himself.

  Juliana caught his hand hanging at his side and squeezed it. "Bernart is no longer the one with whom you trained for knighthood, Gabriel. He is no longer the man I loved when I was a child making believe I was a woman. But know that you are not responsible. Never could Bernart take his wrongs upon himself. For every failing another was to blame."

  As Gabriel knew, but did it absolve him of that day at Acre when he'd turned from one who'd called him friend? He thrust the question from him, lifting his gaze to the shuttered window. He ought not have a conscience where Bernart was concerned, needed no absolution from one such as him. Though what had been done to Bernart at Acre had surely made him what he'd become, it did not excuse the suffering to which he'd subjected Juliana and Blase. Still, Gabriel could not cleanse himself of the burden that had vexed him for nearly five years. Now, even more, it was a stain upon him.

  Juliana squeezed his hand tighter. "Look at me, Gabriel."

  He closed his eyes, then a moment later opened them on her sad, beautiful face.

  She tried to smile. "At Tremoral you spoke of coming upon me when, as a girl, I wept over Bernart's faithlessness. Do you remember?"

  In the garden. He could not forget. "Aye."

  "It was the first time I truly looked at you. The first time I saw beyond the young man who scorned my notions of love, whose disdain of women put me on edge. That day, I nearly came into your arms."

  Well he remembered.

  She swallowed. "Though Bernart insisted 'twas you who sent the wench to him—tempted him—after those moments in the garden I could no longer believe you capable of such ill."

  So that was what Bernart had told her. It would have made Gabriel laugh did it not sting so. Bernart had never needed any to tempt him to a woman's thighs. Had he not given Juliana his vow of continence for fear her doting father would not honor the betrothal, that night he would have had another wench.

  "In truth," she continued, "though I hated you for your betrayal at Acre as Bernart wished me to, I do not think I ever really believed it. Whatever happened—and I do not ask that you speak of it—the man I know you to be could not have betrayed."

  How he longed for his heart to be in agreement. Emotions warring, he pulled his hand from her. "I have much work to do."

  She drew a deep breath, then clasped her cast-off hand with the other. "In preparation for the siege?"

  Had Lissant spoken what she should not? "What know you of it?"

  "Only that seen of the activity in the bailey." She nipped her bottom lip. " 'Tis Bernart who comes?"

  She was no dolt. "He does." Would the new fall of snow delay his crossing of the channel had he not already crossed? Likely, and of certain benefit, for it would give Gabriel more time to examine himself and Juliana's terrible revelation—to better determine his course.

  "No matter the guilt you wrongly put upon yourself," she said, "do you think to give me unto him, I shall not go."

  Never would he do such, though what he ought to do he did not know. She was Bernart's wife. She could seek sanctuary within the walls of a convent, but there she would remain—far from Gabriel. They could leave Mergot, run with the babe, but it would be a lifetime of running. And of certain danger.

  "Gabriel."

  He pulled Juliana back to focus. "My place is with you."

  Was it love that brought such words from her, or the son between them? "Is it?" His tone was harsher than he had intended. Truly, it would be best for her if she ran as far from him and Bernart as her legs would carry her.

  She tossed her chin up. " 'Tis what I wish."

  "And what you cannot have. Do you forget, you are wed."

  "Aye, to a man unable to consummate. In the eyes of the Church, 'tis not a marriage—one dissolved without apology."

  Of what did she speak? "Then you would reveal Bernart's infirmity? What you were made to do?"

  He felt her struggle as if it were his own. "I do not wish it, but does he force me to it, I shall."

  It was not something Gabriel had allowed himself to consider, though it seemed the only way they might truly be together. But such shame would fall upon her were it revealed what she had been made to do, and the unveiling of Bernart's terrible secret....

  "First, though," Juliana said. "I must be certain Alaiz is clear of his wrath. You will help me?"

  What she did not know... "You ought to hate me, Juliana."

  She shook her head. "One cannot hate what one loves deeply. And I love you, Gabriel."

  Though part of him seized her avowal, set it to the beat of his heart, the other flung it from him. "After what I have done to you?" A bitter laugh pushed from his throat. "You are a fool to love what ought not to be loved."

  She was undeterred. "Then we shall be fools together, for you also love me—and our son."

  He looked to where the babe slept in the cradle, ached for the round cheek, the sweet breath, the tiny hand.

  "Do you let yourself," Juliana said, "you will make a fine father. Do you forget how he was gotten, he will make you a fine son. Pray, Gabriel, do not reject him as your father did you."

  Once more he was struck by something she should not know. His father's rejection of him as heir had been held close. Not even Bernart had known of it, only that no more would Gabriel be baron. "What did Blase tell you?"

  Weariness bearing upon her, she returned to the pillows. "He did not. Though many speculate, none know why the third son will be Baron of Wyverly, as you ought to be. And if not you, then what of Blase? He may be of the clergy, but religion is not in his heart." She moistened her lips. "At Tremoral you said 'twas your mother who was responsible for your lost title and lands. How, Gabriel? For what were you and Blase set aside?"

  That she did not need to be told. Or did she? Years of ache filled the spaces between the guilt he could not shed. "Very well," he conceded. "Throughout her marriage, our mother made of herself a whore. Upon her deathbed, she confessed all to a priest, and our father overheard. Though I am his son, as is Blase, our lack of De Vere looks made him question whose blood coursed through our veins. Thus we were set aside."

  Juliana flinched. "I am sorry, Gabriel."
r />   He did not want her pity. "I must leave."

  "Gabriel." Her plea gave him pause. "If you could bring Alaiz out of Tremoral—"

  "I cannot!" It was out before he could think better of it.

  "Why?" There was a tremor in her voice.

  Should he tell her the truth, that she might know what the man she professed to love had wrought? Was she recovered sufficiently to bear it? Aye. Not only was it best she knew, but the words he'd spoken could not be put back. "I fear your sister is no longer under Bernart's protection."

  She came off the pillows. "Where is she?"

  He filled his lungs. "Three days past a missive was delivered from Blase that told of her having fled Tremoral. None know where she has gone."

  Juliana's breath rushed from her. It was a long moment ere she recovered it. "But why would she leave? What could have happened?"

  He longed to go to her, to comfort her for what had yet to be told, but soon enough the hate she ought to feel for him would give her cold comfort. "A household knight—Sir Randal Rievaulx—was murdered before Christmas. Alaiz is accused of having put the killing blade to him."

  Juliana's heart fell out of her. "She would not... could not... Nay!" Tears floated in her eyes. "Surely you do not believe—"

  "I do not."

  She stared at Gabriel, then clasped her hands against her lips. "Sir Randal..." "You know the knight?"

  She saw again the man's cold, cruel eyes, saw him prowling the hall, his shadow too often creeping toward Alaiz's. "Aye, his half brother, Thierry Rievaulx, keeps Castle Soaring for Bernart."

  "What can you tell me of him?"

  "Only that I feared him, as did Alaiz."

  "Why?"

  "For the way he watched my sister, that he always came too near her, the things he said." She met Gabriel's gaze. "If she did this thing, it was surely in defense of her person."

  "As I have concluded."

  "Then you have bidden Blase to find her?"

  Gabriel's hesitation boded ill. "I would have had he not been set upon at Tremoral."

  "Set upon? But who—" She gasped. "Bernart."

  He flexed his fists. "Methinks Blase was recognized as the priest come to the castle the night we took you. Bernart left him for dead."