by Tamara Leigh
He laid a hand over hers on the necklace, leaned near. “You gave your word,” he said low. “It remains.”
She squeezed her eyes closed. She had made a promise she should not have because she had also wanted what he asked of her. Her wants. Her needs. Her happiness of greater import than her mother’s life. Happiness she did not deserve with this man who…
She opened her eyes, and as she stared into brilliant blue, tried to quell the self-scourging anger lest it turned outward. And perhaps she would have succeeded had he not spoken what next he did.
“You are not to blame for this. Each of us here played a role, as did others who are not present, even—”
It seemed the warrior who thought too much did not think well enough in this moment, certain as Quintin was of the name he pulled back from his lips.
“Even my mother?” she said sharply.
He inclined his head. “Your mother as well.”
Releasing the chain, she snatched her hand from beneath his. “Leave me! It hurts too much to be near you—to look upon you.”
A hard light entered his eyes but quickly dimmed. “I shall leave you, but only for now. We are far from done, you and I.”
When he moved to rise, she lunged to her feet. “You are my brother’s guest, so stay, eat, drink, seek your entertainment and rest—whatever you wish. I am the one who should leave. I am the one with grieving to do.”
The muscles in his jaw jerked, but he did not try to detain her as she stepped between their chairs.
She passed behind him and crossed the hall amid the silence of the dead—her mother’s silence that was also present in the candlelit chapel. But it lasted only until Hulda heard footsteps. Slumped on a bench beside the table Lady Maeve lay upon, Father Crispin standing behind her, she lifted her head.
“Ah, lamb,” she choked and slowly rose.
Not yet ready to look near upon her mother, Quintin crossed to Hulda and saw tears brimmed in the old maid’s eyes.
“Pray, forgive me, my lady,” Hulda croaked. “I should not have spoken to you as I did.”
“As I deserve.”
“Nay, you do not deserve such.” The maid put her arms around her lady’s daughter. “Oh, how I hurt, lamb!”
As Quintin returned her embrace, she looked to Father Crispin. He smiled sorrowfully and turned away.
The two women held each other, tears falling, sobs sounding, and when Hulda sagged, Quintin helped her onto the bench. For minutes, she hovered over the maid, holding her back to the fateful reunion. Then she turned.
Lady Maeve in eternal repose was heart wrenching. And nearly breathtaking, owing to Hulda having lovingly prepared her mistress for all who wished a last glimpse.
As revealed by candles, Adderstone’s lady was dressed in a gown she had not worn since before her husband’s death—
Rather, his murder, Quintin corrected.
The gown had been Lady Maeve’s favorite, fashioned of wine-colored samite and edged with ermine. On her small feet were black velvet slippers, across the toes of which marched pearls. But of greater note when Quintin stepped to the head of the table was that every hair was perfectly arranged on her brow and around her cheeks and jaws, softening the lines age had pressed into a face that had become sorrowful since widowhood. Indeed, Lady Maeve had not appeared so lovely and at peace for years.
“She look pretty, don’ she?” a slow voice moved out of a shadowed alcove.
Quintin nearly jumped at the sound and sight of the big man stepping into candlelight—her personal guard, who had been unable to accompany her to Castle Mathe.
Resentment flared that he had not earlier shown himself, but it was momentary. Not only was she fond of Rollo, but he had a right to be here. Quintin’s father had been convinced that though Baron Denis Foucault had not acknowledged his illegitimate son, Rollo was a Foucault. Thus, upon Archard Boursier’s award of Castle Adderstone, the new Baron of Godsmere had made certain the boy was given every opportunity to grow into a man whose skills provided him a good living. Rather than a life spent beneath a plow’s yoke, Rollo’s days and nights were marked by an extraordinary facility with weapons that had elevated him to the rank of a man-at-arms.
Later, following Quintin’s injury, Bayard had assigned him to be her guard. She had chafed at being unable to leave the castle without his escort, but her mother had liked it even less, though for a different reason. But regardless that neither had Lady Maeve acknowledged Rollo as a Foucault, the man was her brother. And Quintin’s uncle.
“Aye, she looks pretty, Rollo.”
He halted on the opposite side of the table and nudged his sister’s shoulder as if to test for wakefulness. “She be at peace,” he said, and Quintin’s tears flowed again at hearing her own comforting thoughts come off his lips. But then he added, “At last.”
Another sob fled her.
Rollo came around the table and patted her back. “There now, my lady, I not say it a God thing.”
Sorrowful laughter opened her mouth. In this instance, he did not speak of the divine but substituted the name God for the word good as he often did.
“Nay,” he said, “but it be a blessing her pain is done and sleep long. She was tired and lonely without her Archard.”
Quintin turned into him and held to him as she had held to Hulda. It was a comfort. And yet the arms she longed for were those of the man she had spurned.
Griffin was right. They were not done with each other. Should be, but were not, especially if…
She pressed a palm to her abdomen. Might she carry his child? And if that was possible, would they be done with each other if their babe did not make it out of her afflicted womb? Certes, if mother’s and child’s lives were both forfeited. But, perhaps, they would not be. Nine months from now, her heart’s cry might be answered beautifully when her husband bent over her to peer at his new son or daughter.
Rollo drew back and frowned. “Your belly aches, Lady Quintin?”
She looked into his moist eyes. “I but fear ’tis empty, my friend.”
She expected him to think narrowly, in terms of a belly hurting for lack of food, but his brow became weighted and the words he spoke proved he was not as simple as others believed.
“’Tis for the Lord to decide, my lady.” He released her and lowered to the bench beside Hulda where the two kept the night-long vigil with her.
Griffin had remained well into the new day to attend the burial and find an opportunity to be alone with his wife. But Quintin remained at her brother’s side, and each time her eyes moved in Griffin’s direction, she averted them as if she truly could not bear to look upon him.
Though tempted to swing her into his arms, carry her to the chamber he had been given on the night past, and lock them in until she responded to him, he controlled himself. Thus, he and his men departed Castle Adderstone before the nooning meal.
While he waited on the king’s determination about Boursier’s marriage, he had lands to administer, measures to take to protect his people if the Foucault threat had not died with Agatha, and a Foucault supporter to root out if one did reside within his walls.
I shall find you and make misery of your life as you have made of ours, he silently vowed as he urged his horse over Adderstone’s drawbridge. Your revenge shall become my own.
Revenge. Such thoughts he was usually wise enough to reject once he had the satisfaction of entertaining them, but he did not know he could do so in this instance. Certes, not now with murder so fresh and of such pain to the woman he…
What? he asked himself.
The woman I desire, he answered, then spurred forward and did not look back lest he suffer disappointment Quintin was on no wall nor in any window watching him go from her.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Barony of Godsmere
Early Spring, 1334
I am with child. Pray, come soon that I may wear your ring for all to know I am yours ~ Quintin
Twice more she read the words she
had put to parchment a day past. Words that were to have been received by Griffin when next Bayard sent a missive to the Baron of Blackwood. Words that now would never know the caress of those very blue eyes.
The child was lost to them, the cramping and bleeding having awakened her before dawn. All evidence of her failed pregnancy, save her pallor, shivering limbs, and heartache, had been removed by Hulda, the sole person with whom Quintin had shared her secret—and only because the woman had guessed her lady’s state two months past just as Quintin herself accepted her menses were not merely late.
A joyous day that had been, tentatively so over the knowledge a child grew in her, unquestionably so owing to Bayard’s receipt of the king’s acceptance that the Baron of Godsmere had fulfilled the decree. Though that same missive had granted Quintin a stay of marriage for grieving, she had longed to send word of her pregnancy to Griffin, and Hulda had encouraged it once she was entrusted with the secret her lady was wed. However, Griffin would have come for her immediately, and she had not been ready to receive him. More, even at the risk of appearing to have conceived out of wedlock, she had wished her pregnancy further along the better to be certain it held.
It had not. Though she knew she ought to be grateful the longing to be with Griffin that had caused her to write the missive a month sooner than intended had been curbed by her body, it was impossible.
“You ought to sleep, lamb,” Hulda said. “I shall tell Lady Elianor your menses keep you abed.”
Elianor, whom Quintin did not wish to have a care for but did, especially for how much the lady seemed to love Bayard and he loved her. As ever, Quintin was struck by how strange it was they felt such for each other. But more unbelievable it would be if Griffin and she…
She shifted her gaze from the parchment to the woman who sat in a chair near the bed. “My menses,” she murmured. “The truest lie possible.”
Hulda wrung out the cloth she had dipped in water, but when she reached to once more cool her lady’s brow, Quintin shook her head. “You have helped all you can. Now I will rest.”
“Then I shall sit here and—”
“I thank you, but I would be alone.”
After a long consideration, Hulda stood.
Quintin handed her the missive. “Pray, burn this.”
“I shall, my lady.”
Quintin turned away, drew her knees toward her chest, and tugged the coverlet over her head to give herself to the dark. And why not? The light growing in her had gone out.
As another lump moved up her throat, she told herself what she knew to be true no matter how it made her ache—better her loss now than later when it would hurt more…when she would miss the flutters and turns and kicks of the child Griffin and she had made…when she could no longer draw her husband’s hand to her beautiful burgeoning.
“Cease,” she hissed. But when the door closed, her mind returned to her losses.
My father. My mother. The babe Griffin and I made. And likely my marriage.
She bit her lip. She was wed and would remain wed—indeed, would properly wed Griffin in accordance with Edward’s decree—but she could not give him all he wished of a wife.
Serle’s fault. Constance’s fault. Agatha’s fault. And mine.
She shuddered over that last that had been her first thought the morn she had regained consciousness following the clash between Serle de Arell and Bayard and the physician had revealed the extent of her injury. Foolishly, the girl she had been had thought she could stop two warriors from coming to blows that could see her brother lost to her. Impulsively, she had set herself between arcing blades without a care for whose blood they sprayed. Tragically, it was Bayard’s sword that opened her, and for it he had claimed responsibility which she had rejected, hating herself alongside Serle, Constance, and Agatha those first years.
And tempted to once more hate herself for the little life lost.
“Serle, Constance, Agatha,” she spoke the names aloud. But though Griffin was sensible enough to recognize her injury was more the doing of others, he would also know that had he been made aware of it, King Edward might have agreed to alter his decree so a baron with but a single heir did not risk the possibility of none should ill befall the one.
Remembering how her mother had bemoaned her inability to bear her husband another son, Quintin ached that it was her own fate—that desire alone did not an acceptable marriage make.
“Ah, Griffin,” she whispered, “I should have told you.”
It was little better than a lie not to have done so. But what she feared as much as his reaction to the revelation was how she would respond—that she would aggressively defend her right to hold close her injury by casting blame on him for being Serle’s brother. Afterward, she would regret doing so as she had long regretted rejecting Griffin the night he had returned her to Adderstone.
And she had good cause to worry, this new loss threatening to muddy the waters of grief which, when she had composed her missive to Griffin, had settled enough they had begun to clear. Would the king grant her a second stay of marriage—a few more months so she would not be so raw when reunited with Griffin?
Her palm convulsed on her abdomen where it had strayed as had become habit since she had first pressed it there in wonder. Now it was only remembrance that made it seek that place. And how she longed to make a fist of it!
She slid her hand across the mattress and over the side. And, strangely, wished Arturo were beside the bed, his mangy fur beneath her fingers.
Chest tightening, she drew her hand to it. Through the material of her chemise, she gripped Griffin’s ring until sleep offered the only comfort to be had. As she was drawn down through its warm, soft layers, she prayed the king would give her more time so she might salvage something of her relationship with the man whose arms she longed for.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Barony of Emberly
Mid-Spring, 1334
Another stay of marriage. Unlike the first, the second had surprised—and angered. He had accepted Quintin needed time to grieve, but it was over four months since Lady Maeve’s passing.
Unfortunately, the king had once more been lenient, ordering that the De Arell and Verdun alliance be made before the De Arell and Boursier alliance. Thus, this day Griffin gave his daughter into the keeping of the Baron of Emberly. More unfortunately, he did so in the absence of the Boursiers, who were unable to attend the wedding due to a sickness of early pregnancy. Lady Elianor was with child.
Griffin had been disappointed the Boursiers had not come, having wished to inquire into Quintin’s well-being. The only thing of which he was certain about her beyond her extended grieving was that, unlike the Lady of Godsmere, she was not with child. After he had discovered the extent of her injury, he had thought it unlikely she would conceive. Still, it had been a question, and its answer was given by her silence.
Had their one night miraculously produced a child, Quintin would have alerted him the sooner to see them properly wed to lessen talk their babe was illegitimate. In which case, he would not have had to give Thomasin in marriage this day, the timing of which could not be worse, as evidenced by the bride who stood between her father and new husband outside the chapel.
While they waited for the king’s wedding gift to be delivered to the bailey, as ordered by Edward’s man who had attended the ceremony, Griffin considered his daughter.
She was lovely in her wedding finery, but the bruises and scratches on her face, that no amount of powder could hide, continuously drew his regard. And made him long to see those responsible suffer.
Nearly a sennight past, during a visit to one of the villages, she had slipped away from the knight set to watch over her and been attacked by brigands who sought to ravish and, likely, kill her to prevent her marriage—possibly the same Foucault brigands who had recently attacked Blackwood villagers in their fields, killing four and injuring three.
Most strange, it was Magnus Verdun who had happened on the three men as they
sought to undo Thomasin. He had injured two, but all had escaped, and he had left an unconscious Thomasin with a villager to tend her injuries. Thus, not until the night past had the Baron of Emberly learned the identity of the woman he had believed was merely a commoner. And how Verdun had learned…
Griffin sighed. One thing was certain. Thomasin would make the rigid man an interesting wife.
She peered over her shoulder at those who had exited the chapel behind them, on one side Emberly’s men, on the other Blackwood’s. And among the latter was Sir Otto who, unbeknownst to Verdun, would remain at Castle Kelling to ensure Thomasin’s safety until her husband proved capable of doing so himself. Certes, that news would not be well received, but such was the baron’s lot.
Thomasin looked forward again, and Griffin followed her gaze to the men who led two horses beneath the raised portcullis, one a palfrey of deepest black, the other a destrier of silver-gray. And face-down over each were bloodied corpses.
“What is this, Cartier?” Verdun demanded.
Muscles seizing, Griffin shot his gaze to the king’s man who stood on the other side of the Baron of Emberly. Sir Francis Cartier was a mercenary whose reputation preceded him, though not only because his sword and the men who followed him were useful to King Edward. Of equal note was his fire-ravaged countenance that fit well the man who had earlier taken perverse pleasure in naming Griffin’s daughter an all too common nobleman’s indiscretion.
Had Thomasin not been quick to point out that just as Cartier could not control the effects of the fire that had sought to consume him, neither could she control the circumstances of her birth, Griffin might not have been able to keep his hand from his hilt—and it became more difficult when the mercenary had said she could not be pleased with the marriage required of her and mockingly sympathized over the price of dirt.
Now, hand once more tempted to the hilt, Griffin growled, “I would also know, king’s man.”