by Tamara Leigh
He snorted. “Your threat falls short of its mark, my lady. Were you capable of such, Boursier would not have gone missing from his bed. He would have been found dead in it.”
Her lids narrowed.
“As already told, I thank you for sparing my daughter marriage to Boursier, for even your uncle is a better choice than what might have been.”
“Better for your daughter, not Baron Verdun.”
Griffin tensed. “If you believe Quintin Boursier a better match for your uncle, you cannot have met the termagant.”
“’Tis not necessary to meet her to know—”
“You believe my daughter is unworthy of your uncle?”
As if realizing what she roused in him, her belligerent posture eased. “I did not say that, nor would I.”
And no more would they speak on it, for Boursier neared, accompanied by three men—Sir Victor, a squire, and a priest.
A priest of note, Griffin mused, certain here was Father Crispin who had been a stable boy whilst he served Baron Denis Foucault. When something had roused Foucault’s suspicions, he had set Crispin to follow De Arell, Boursier, and Verdun. But the vassals had rooted him out, and the boy had chosen to join them, reporting instead on Foucault’s movements and betrayal of the baronage. Upon Archard Boursier’s award of Castle Adderstone, Crispin had received his priest’s training. Since, he had served as God’s legate upon Godsmere.
And now he served under Archard’s son, Bayard, who captured Griffin’s gaze and said, “Take me to my sister, De Arell.”
As Griffin guided his destrier back across the drawbridge, he heard Lady Elianor say, “You wish to know why I did it?”
If Boursier answered, it was not with words.
When they entered the outer bailey, Griffin was pleased by his garrison’s formidable presence on the wall walks above and the ground below. They were good men, as fiercely protective of their home as they were distrustful of the Boursiers.
Once more, he caught Lady Elianor’s words. “I am sorry, Bayard.”
“Not yet you are.”
Boursier’s anger was understandable. If he and his family lost all, it would be at her hands. Had she done the same to Griffin, in the dark of the moment he would make similar threats. Indeed, he had threatened Quintin with all manner of punishment her imagination could conjure, and he had lost but a few drops of blood—albeit amidst a spate of pride. But the only hand he had raised to her beyond retrieving the dagger was to comfort and caress.
As for Boursier, word was he had abused his first wife, but Griffin had not been as willing to believe it as Serle, who saw it as justification for making a cuckold of the man.
“You forget that I am acquainted with your revenge,” Lady Elianor finally spoke. “You will not harm me.”
She sounded confident, not challenging, but Boursier gainsaid her with, “All has changed.”
When next she spoke, it was in a voice sorrowfully soft. “All has changed.”
A flash of movement drew Griffin’s gaze to the gatehouse steps. “Thomasin!” he called.
Mantle absent—surely left atop the roof—she lifted her heavy woolen skirts high, revealing hose-clad ankles and lower calves as she hastened forward.
Her lack of propriety making him grind his teeth, Griffin turned his mount sideways and, as she neared, extended a hand to bring her astride.
She ignored it and continued past him.
“Thomasin!”
“I would see who is me!”
“She is Lady Elianor of Emberly.”
She halted alongside the lady. “Oh, Lady, that ye dared,” she slipped into her commoner’s speech as she sometimes did when excited or angry. “And against The Boursier! You must tell all!”
Griffin glanced at his enemy and once more felt the ire of the man who stared at Thomasin. Like many, she was in awe of The Boursier, but as a De Arell—more, the granddaughter of the man in whose company she spent too much time—she took exception to the wrongs inflicted on her family. Thus, he did not doubt she knew the effect of her words.
“Thomasin!” Griffin commanded.
Her shoulders slumped. “We shall speak later,” she told Lady Elianor and turned.
Griffin lifted his daughter into the saddle. They continued across the second drawbridge into the inner bailey, and he did not need to look to the highest windows in the keep to know the curtains shifted as his father disapprovingly stared out at the world denied him.
Griffin halted his mount, lowered Thomasin to the ground beside him, and caught her back when she started toward Lady Elianor. “Make quick to the kitchen and tell Cook there shall be five more for supper.”
She groaned but moved to do as bid. As she ascended the keep’s steps, she passed Sir Otto whom Griffin had earlier posted before the doors to the great hall.
Griffin looked around and called to his squire, “Aid Lady Elianor in her dismount.”
“Squire Lucas will tend her and keep watch over her in my absence,” Boursier countered and swung out of the saddle.
“As you wish.” While the man spoke low to his own squire, Griffin motioned Sir Otto forward and instructed him to escort Lady Elianor to Sir Mathieu’s chamber.
“Where is she?” Boursier demanded.
Griffin glanced at the man advancing on him but did not answer until Sir Otto was fully versed in what was required of him. When his knight turned away, Griffin said, “Your sister is in yon tower,” and moved past Lady Elianor as she was assisted out of the saddle by the Godsmere squire.
With long-reaching strides, senses trained on the man who followed, mind turning over King Edward’s options, Griffin led the way to Quintin—she who, it was no longer impossible, might now belong to a De Arell.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Not the Baron of Blackwood. But a man who rivaled him in size and presence.
“Bayard!” Quintin darted across the floor she had been pacing before boots on the stairs had caused her to don defiance to demand of Griffin what went within his walls, a view of which her flank-facing window denied her.
Her brother stepped past the door his thrust had caused to rebound off the wall. And when she landed against him, he wrapped his arms around her.
Feeling like a frightened little girl, she held tight and heaped silent thanks on God that Bayard lived. No matter what ill came of vows not spoken, he was not lost to her mother and her. No matter how much of the anger he exuded was her due, she would gladly do penance. All that mattered was that he lived.
She dropped her head back and looked into his face crossed by the eyepatch covering the ruin Griffin’s brother had made of his left eye. “He has freed you?” she asked, and seeing the concern in the singular blue-green gaze searching her face, smiled reassuringly.
Some of his tension eased. “Never did De Arell hold me, Quintin.”
She knew if she had to tell herself she was surprised, she was not. No matter how ill it made her look for all she had done and accused Griffin of, she was glad to be proved wrong.
And there he was past Bayard’s shoulder. When he halted outside the room where he had not so long ago made something more of her graceless kiss, she searched for words to ask for forgiveness. But then he smiled so crookedly, arrogantly, and—to her shame—heart-stoppingly, it was far easier to be offended than allow him to further trample her pride as he had done in implying she wanted him enough to yield her virtue.
She swung her gaze back to Bayard. “I do not understand. If ’twas not that vile mis—”
“’Twas not this vile miscreant,” Griffin drawled.
She leaned to the side the better to show her disdain and saw Sir Victor stood in back of him. “Aye, miscreant.”
Bayard released her and turned. “I would speak with my sister alone.”
Griffin settled a shoulder against the doorframe. “I await your apology, Lady Quintin.”
“How gratifying to know you shall wait forever.”
His smile tilted further. “That is
not so long—at least, not for one who has the freedom to spend his days and nights as he pleases. You, however…” He considered her top to bottom, making no attempt to disguise his appreciation, while beside her, anger flew off her brother.
Griffin sighed, reached to the door handle. “A half hour, Boursier. That is all.” He pulled the door closed.
Quintin turned so quickly the ache in her head that had eased enough to allow her to come out from beneath the pillow bloomed again. Wincing, she asked, “If not De Arell, who?”
“Elianor of Emberly.”
She gasped. “Magnus Verdun’s niece? She who makes of herself his leman?”
“The same you wished me to wed.”
“But—”
“What harm has De Arell done you, Quintin?”
She harrumphed. “He is arrogant, ill-tempered—”
“He struck you?”
“He would not dare!”
Her brother breathed deep. “I would know all that befell you.”
“The knave took my dagger!” Rather, the Wulfrith dagger. He would have to be told, but not now.
“After you cut him, I presume.”
“Would that I had cut him deeper.” She nearly groaned at her attempt to appear undaunted by what Sir Victor had surely told Bayard of that day. But better that than reveal how frightened she had been.
“What else did he do?”
She swept a hand around. “Know you how many days I have suffered this place?”
“Quintin!”
“What?”
“Has De Arell abused you in any way?”
Did the comfort of a night in his arms, reverent caresses, and a fervent kiss she had invited qualify? Feeling color run up her face, she snorted. “Did the baron beat me? Toss up my skirts and do unto me deeds most foul?”
“Quintin!”
She dropped to the bed’s edge. “Griffin de Arell is a churl, a knave, a miscreant. But nay, those things he did not do.”
She feigned interest in the lay of her skirts across her knees to keep her eyes from revealing what he had done—and with her consent.
“You should have sent for Rollo that he might accompany you.”
She shrugged. “As I am sure you were told, his mother was ill. And ’tis not as if I did not have an impressive escort. Now tell, Brother, how did Lady Elianor do what she did? More, why?”
“The answer to the first is Agatha of Mawbry.”
Quintin snapped up her chin. “Agatha.” The devious, conniving servant whom Constance Verdun had brought with her to Castle Adderstone upon the lady’s fateful marriage to Bayard. She who had done her utmost to divide husband and wife by drugging Bayard to keep him from Constance’s bed. She who had been tossed out of Adderstone when her duplicity was discovered. And, it seemed, she who had made herself as useful to Elianor of Emberly as she had been to the wife whose marriage to Bayard had been annulled.
“As to why the lady did it,” he continued, “’tis the same as our families have always done—to sabotage one another. In this instance, the hope that what appeared to be defiance of the king’s decree would result in forfeiture of our lands.”
Not the Boursiers’ doing but the Verduns’. Quintin patted the mattress. “I wish to hear all of it.”
Over the half hour Griffin granted, she learned that whilst she had grown increasingly frantic over Bayard’s disappearance, he had been directly beneath her feet as she paced the hall above the castle’s abandoned underground passages where he had been conveyed after his wine was drugged.
Finding himself chained to the wall of a pitch black cell and provided with enough provisions to last through the king’s deadline, he had known forfeiture of Godsmere was the reason for his imprisonment and been certain Griffin was behind it. Thus, he had used his anger to free the old, rusted chains from the wall so that when his jailers returned, revenge would be his.
Bayard had only been mildly surprised upon discovering that the one he had overwhelmed upon her entrance into the cell was Agatha of Mawbry. But he had been well surprised by the woman who came after the witch—the one he had believed was Thomasin de Arell and who had not dissuaded him, the one Agatha had chastised for not allowing her to kill The Boursier.
In that dread place where Bayard had been held all those days, he had chained Agatha, then dragged the lady he believed to be Griffin’s daughter into the hall. When he learned hours remained before the king’s deadline was past, he had persuaded his captive to wed him. But as he had discovered in his attempt to use her to bargain for Quintin’s release after days of snowfall delayed him from coming to Mathe, it was Elianor of Emberly he had wed. A marriage made void by vows spoken in the name of Lady Thomasin.
When Bayard finished with yet more assurance her mother fared well despite worry over her daughter, Quintin asked the question whose answer could lay ruin to all. “Is Godsmere lost to you, Bayard?”
His dark silence was answer enough—a mix of anger and despair. But she sensed something more, something that pulled so hard at him it threatened the very weave of the warrior. What was it? And why did it bring Constance to mind?
“I will not easily yield it,” he finally spoke, “but ’tis likely lost.”
Suppressing a cry of anguish, she choked, “But when the king learns what Agatha and Lady Elianor did, surely he will grant you grace, heaping his wrath not upon the Boursiers but the Verduns—declaring their lands forfeited.”
“’Tis possible, but as the king has said he will accept no excuse, it is just as possible our lands will also be lost.”
She thrust off the bed and crossed the room. “Of the three families, Edward is best disposed toward ours.” She returned to him. “You know he is!”
Bayard stood and laid a hand on her arm, but before he could gainsay her, she stepped quickly to the window. She opened a shutter, slammed it, and turned her back to it. “He granted you first choice of wife, and if not for that vile, wicked Elianor of Emberly—”
“Enough, Quintin!”
She blinked. Was his false bride the something more she had sensed beyond his anger and despair? Vows had been spoken, and it followed they would have been validated by consummation, but was it time enough for the woman to beguile him? She was said to be a beauty like her aunt, Constance, and as Bayard had proved with the latter, his fondness for a lovely face could be ruinous. He had pledged to never again fall victim to beauty—among his reasons for choosing to wed the plain Thomasin de Arell—but might he have betrayed himself?
She strode forward. “Tell me you do not concern yourself over the king’s punishment of Lady Elianor.”
His lid narrowed. “I do not.”
She hoped he spoke true, feared he did not. But just as she was well enough acquainted with her brother to know the holes in his tale of Lady Elianor were dug there by him, she knew he would not be moved to fill them. “Good,” she said. “I shall pray King Edward is just—that only the barony of Emberly is forfeited. So what will you do now?”
“Wait.”
“And of Lady Thomasin—who I rather like, though methinks her youth will test your patience?”
“Wait,” he repeated. “Since all may be lost to the Boursiers, De Arell is not so fool to allow me to wed his daughter ere the king makes his determination. Now you, Quintin. I would make sense of what has gone during your time at Castle Mathe.” He glanced around the room. “Aside from De Arell landing you on the table to gain the dagger, this is all you suffered?”
As she had struggled to believe his enemy had not sought to injure the Boursiers by striking at her, so did he. Hoping to lessen his animosity toward Griffin, she revealed she had been given a chamber befitting a noble, and that only after causing a din and attempting to reach Ulric de Arell’s apartment had she been imprisoned in the tower room.
Bayard showed his surprise that she had been treated well following her attack on the Baron of Blackwood, and again when she told him she had been allowed to join the baron at table and, und
er guard, linger in the hall. But just as he had left holes in his tale of the lady who had imprisoned him, she left them in hers. For naught would she undo the good she did in showing the sins of the father had not all been visited on Griffin. For naught would she see blood spilled over the impropriety of a night spent in the arms of their enemy, of caresses, and of a kiss that could have seen her undone if not for Griffin’s honor—
Honor? She turned the word over as she embraced her brother at the door…as he vowed he would see her freed…as he once more assured her Lady Maeve was well…as he stepped to the landing…as the Blackwood knight slid the bolt into place.
She pressed her forehead to the door. The dishonorable Griffin de Arell was not as dishonorable as believed. But honorable?
She breathed out bitterness. What did it matter? She did not want him—did not want any man.
She touched her abdomen, traced the scar through the material of her gown.
And no man should want her.
Griffin could barely admit it to himself, but he knew there was a reason beyond Thomasin that caused him to examine the matter from every angle and search for a solution. Above all, he did not want his daughter to wed Boursier, but there was something else he wanted that he had thought he would never want again. And so great was the want, he could almost convince himself it was a need.
Had ever a warrior been so unmanned? Certes, were Ulric in his grave, he would find a way out to bedevil his son.
Staring at Boursier, who had not entered the hall wielding a sword and whose first words spoken were a demand for his sister’s release, Griffin was confident the intimacies shared with Quintin had not been revealed.
Encouraged, even if she but sought to prevent bloodshed, he looked past Boursier at the two who had advanced only as far as the center of the hall. He dismissed Sir Victor, considered the priest whose services might soon be needed, and settled back in his chair. “Lady Quintin remains.”
Boursier stepped nearer, set his hands on the table between them, and leaned in. “Your purpose, De Arell?”
Though there was now more to it than he had first declared when he had met Boursier outside Mathe’s walls, he said, “That we have already discussed, Boursier. It has not changed, nor shall it, unless the king determines otherwise.”