Brother Anselme joined them. “I do not think she is capable of answering.”
Simon sighed. “Crispin?”
“Is with God.” Anselme crossed himself. “And we must look to the living. Sir Nicholas, if you will carry Lady Odeline to the infirmary, I will give her a sleeping potion. Mayhap when she wakens she will be able to tell us more.” He looked around the field. “‘Tis odd Jevan is not here with her.”
“Perhaps Jevan knew what she had done and feared he would be brought down with her,” Simon murmured.
“But he is her son,” Linnet said angrily. “No matter her crime, he should stand by her out of love.”
“Jevan is not molded from such fine cloth, I fear,” said Anselme. “Simon, come to the infirmary, and I will tend your hurts.” He motioned for Nicholas to follow him.
“In a moment.” Simon sat still, suddenly drained both in body and mind. He ached in a dozen places but none of the cuts and bruises were serious. Mostly what he felt was relief. “It is over,” he whispered watching the nuns and priests compose Crispin’s body on a litter. “It is over, and you are safe.”
“Thanks to you. But I was so afraid. If anything had happened to you, I would not have wanted to live “ She shivered and burrowed deeper into his embrace.
“I know what you mean.” He savored the feel of her warm, slender body. An overwhelming sense of rightness rose inside him, so powerful, so moving that he knew the rest of his life would be empty and meaningless if she was not beside him. “Marry me, Linnet,” he murmured, kissing the top of her head.
Marry me. The words she had so longed to hear now cut her like a blade. Sweet Mary, she wanted to wed him, but she could feel the journal wedged between them. A tangible symbol of an insurmountable barrier. “I cannot,” she said, low and anguished.
“Why?” Simon cupped her chin and raised it, troubled green eyes searching tormented brown. “Do you not love me?”
“With all my heart, I do.” A single tear trailed down her cheek. “But I cannot wed you.”
“I can support you. I have money from ransom—”
“Oh, Simon.” Unable to bear the bewildered hurt in his dear face, she tried to wrench free. He would not let her go. Her own pain twisted deeper. “Simon…” She looked up, expecting to see the wariness that had edged his voice, instead she saw a love that humbled her. Tell him. He loves you, he will understand. “Simon, I…” Where to start? “I bore a child.”
His hands tightened on her shoulders, his eyes took on their old coldness. “Whose?”
“‘Twas born nine months after you left.”
“Mine? Mine!” A fierce joy gleamed briefly, then went out. “The child is not with you. Did it…did it die, then?”
The tears she had held back filled her eyes, blurring his image. She was glad she could not see his face. “I—I gave her up for adoption.”
“Gave her up?” Simon let go of her and leaped from the bench. “You gave our child away?” He stared at her as though she had turned into a depraved monster.
“I did not want her to suffer the stain of bastardy. Thurstan arranged for her to be adopted by a loving—”
“Thurstan!” If anything, Simon’s expression grew more fierce. His face was red, his eyes blazed with hatred.
Linnet’s heart fell. He was not going to forgive her. Dying inside, she stood and thrust the journal at him. “It is all in here…including the name of your mother. He wrote everything down…except the name of the family to whom he gave our daughter.” Unable to bear his scathing glance another minute, she stumbled away.
Linnet had given away his child.
Simon stood still, head bowed beneath the enormous weight of her betrayal. The blow had been so swift, so unexpected. He had loved her, trusted her in ways he had never trusted another, and all the while, she had harbored this dark, heinous secret.
“It was the hardest thing she has ever done,” Abbess Catherine said softly.
“Go away.”
“After I have said my piece. Linnet loved you, even then, and wanted to raise the babe herself, no matter that she would not have been able to hold her head up in Durleigh. Nor would the Spiciers’ Guild have allowed a fallen woman to run a shop. Her parents would have supported her, but once they were gone, she and the babe would likely have ended up in the almshouse.”
“So, she abandoned my child for her own selfish—”
“If you must blame someone, blame Thurstan and me. He knew from observing you over the years that the taint of bastardy had embittered you. We encouraged Linnet to give the child up that it might be raised by a loving family with a proper name.”
Simon looked up. “Yet he never acknowledged me.”
“It was the price he paid for your life.”
“What do you mean?” he asked warily.
“Our father, Baron Robert de Lyndhurst, was a powerful, autocratic man. ‘Twas he who decided Thurstan would be bishop after our older brother died. The fact that Thurstan was more suited to court life and was in love with a woman mattered not to the Baron. When Father discovered you had been conceived, he ordered the pregnancy terminated. Thurstan declared he would only enter the church if you were allowed to live. So it was agreed, but Thurstan was forced to swear, on your mother’s immortal soul, that he would never acknowledge you.”
The anger that had filled Simon’s heart for the past three years eased a bit. “And my mother?”
“Later she wed another. Only a few of us knew her identity, and we were sworn never to reveal it.” Catherine looked at the journal he held. “Linnet says the name is in there. If you do not read Latin, she will translate for you, I am sure.”
“You could do it,” Simon said, the part of his heart he had given to Linnet still aching and bruised.
“Can you not forgive her?”
“I do not know. I—”
“Simon of Blackstone!” Jevan edged around the bleachers, Linnet held securely in front of him, a knife at her throat.
“What are you doing?” Simon demanded, his gaze focused on Linnet’s terrified face. She looked so small and vulnerable.
“Reclaiming what should have been mine, the charter to Blackstone Heath.”
“I do not know where it is.”
“You have it in your hand. Uncle hid it in the journal.”
Simon held the journal out. “Release Linnet and take it.”
“I fear the charter is no good to me if you are alive.” Jevan smiled faintly. “Uncle worded it that way.”
“I will deed the property to you.”
Jevan’s expression hardened. “So you say now, while I hold your lover at knifepoint, but later you will change your mind.”
“Nay, I will not. The manor is nothing to me.” Simon looked into Linnet’s pale, frightened face and felt something shift inside him. She was the warmest, most loving of women. Giving up their child must have been, as Abbess Catherine said, the hardest thing Linnet had ever done. Yet she had made the sacrifice so the babe might have a better life. He could not fault her for that. The sense of betrayal fell away, leaving in its place a deep sadness, for Linnet, for himself and for the child they would never have a chance to raise. “I will gladly give you—”
“You will do as I say,” Jevan cried. With his free hand, he reached into the scrip at his waist and withdrew a small vial. “You will drink this.”
Gooseflesh prickled on Simon’s body. “The belladonna.”
Jevan grinned. “There is plenty left for you.”
“You took it from your mother’s room and killed Bishop Thurstan,” Simon said.
“I had to after Rob FitzHugh told me you were alive. Uncle would have changed the charter in your favor, you see,” Jevan said in that calmly insane voice of his. “And I fear you must die, too, so I can have the manor.”
“Nay,” Catherine and Linnet cried in unison.
“Shut up,” Jevan shouted. “Do not move, Aunt Catherine, or I will kill your precious Linnet.”
&n
bsp; “Jevan…surely there is another way,” Catherine pleaded.
“Alas, there is not. Rob, Hamel and even my mother failed me. It is up to Simon, now. If he fails, Linnet dies. You do not want that, do you, Simon?” he asked silkily.
“I do not.” Simon looked deep into Linnet’s frantic eyes and let all he felt for her…the—love, the respect, and aye, even the forgiveness—show in a tender smile. “She has en-
dured too much for me to fail her now.” He held out his hand.
“Simon, nay!” Linnet cried. She tried to wriggle free, but the sting of Jevan’s blade at her throat stopped her.
“Don’t move, wench.” Jevan leaned out and placed the vial on the bench. “If you drop it, Simon, I will kill her.”
“I understand.” Simon scooped up the vial, flicked at the cork stopper and upended the vial into his mouth.
Linnet watched in horror as Simon drank the poison. Her heart seemed to stop in the second he stood there. Then he stiffened, cried out and fell to the ground. His body twitched and jerked convulsively.
“Simon! Simon!” Linnet rammed her elbow into Jevan’s soft middle, loosening his grip enough to squirm free. She dashed to Simon, but as she fell onto her knees beside his heaving body, Abbess Catherine grabbed hold of her.
“Nay, love. Do not look.” The abbess pulled her back firmly but gently. “There is nothing we can do for him.”
Linnet sobbed and clung helplessly to the abbess.
“Just like Uncle Thurstan,” Jevan muttered, walking over to survey his handiwork. “Fitting.”
Linnet was filled with such loathing it nearly drove out her anguish. “You did not have to kill him,” she sobbed.
“But I wanted to.” Jevan sheathed his knife and bent over the writhing Simon to pick up the journal. Smiling, he ripped off the cover sheet and extracted the parchment inside. “Mine, now, all—”
His triumphant words ended on a garbled scream as Simon surged up from the ground and planted a fist in Jevan’s belly, folding him neatly. The second blow caught Jevan in the chin, lifted him, then sent him sprawling on the ground in a heap.
“Simon?” Linnet flew out of Catherine’s arms. “You are alive.” She touched his face, grimy but warm with life. “How…?”
“I did not take the cork out.” He opened his left hand, displaying the stoppered vial. “Neat bit of playacting, eh?”
“Sweet Mary, I thought you’d drunk it. I have never been so frightened in all my days. ‘Tis a miracle. A miracle.” Abbess Catherine laughed unsteadily, then sobered and looked down at Jevan. “What of him?”
“We should bind him before he awakens,” said Simon. “And turn him over to the authorities for trial.”
“Along with his mother.” Catherine tisked. “She was always a wild, greedy girl, but to think she would come to this….”
“With Hamel gone, who is the law in Durleigh?” asked Simon.
“The sheriff will likely come from York till a new one can be appointed here.” Catherine lifted her skirts. “Stay with Jevan, I will summon the brothers to take charge of him.”
Linnet clung to Simon, unable to believe he was really alive. “I was afraid you had drunk it.”
“I would have,” Simon said. “For you.”
“Oh, Simon…” Linnet looked up and found his gaze full on her, stripped bare of bitterness and regret.
“I love you, Linnet,” he murmured. “Wed me. Together we will put the past behind us and look to the future.”
She wanted to. Sweet Mary, she wanted that with all her heart. But would their love be enough to keep the ghosts of the past at bay?
Epilogue
Oxford, June 10, 1222
Lady Rosalynd’s house drowsed in the noonday sun, a warm breeze tugging playfully at the flowers that bloomed beside the door. Built of mellow gray stone, the three-story structure lorded over the simpler timber buildings that flanked it on either side. Even the windows, their shutters thrown open to the summer air, seemed to gaze haughtily down on passersby.
Seated atop his horse, Simon studied the home where his mother reportedly lived and felt a chill creep down his spine.
“I can go to the door if you like,” Linnet murmured.
Simon smiled ruefully at his wife of two weeks. “If Nicholas could see me trembling like this he’d call me the veriest of cowards.” Just ten days ago Nicholas had gathered his own courage and set out to confront his formidable sire.
“You are no coward, and facing a mother you’ve never met is far different from Nicholas proving himself to his father.”
“Still, I have never quailed from a fight before.”
“Tis not a battle,” Linnet said softly.
“Tell that to my belly,” he grumbled. “There’s a war going on inside.” And there had been since he’d decided to come here.
Linnet smiled gently. “We can go home if you’d rather.”
It was tempting, though it had taken them four days to ride here from Durleigh. But he yearned for just a glimpse of his mother. “What would the men say?” he asked, thinking of the guardsmen who’d accompanied them and waited in a nearby inn.
“It does seem like conduct unbecoming the new sheriff of Durleigh,” she said, grinning. “If the king gets word of it, you may not be confirmed in your post…no matter that the mayor and half the merchants begged you to take on the responsibility.”
Simon nodded, touched anew by the townsfolks’ faith in him. He welcomed the challenge of keeping order in Durleigh. “Lady Rosalynd may not want to see the child she gave up.”
“I would,” Linnet whispered. For an instant, her eyes lost that special glow, and he was reminded of the times he’d awakened in the night to the sound of her muffled weeping. No matter how many times he assured her he understood and forgave her, Linnet was not at peace, for she could not forgive herself. Her unhappiness was the one blot on the life they were building for themselves, the one stain on their perfect love.
He had to do this for Linnet as much as for himself, Simon thought. And he could hardly return to Durleigh and tell Bishop Walter that he’d not seen the lady Rosalynd.
Walter de Folke had not only recovered from the monkshood but had been named Bishop of Durleigh. He had used his connections to learn that Rosalynd le Beckele had wed Baron William de la Hewaite, and was widowed and living in this fine house in Oxford. According to Walter, Lady Rosalynd had spent many years at court. Simon pictured her wearing silk, costly gems and a haughty expression, yet could not shake the urge to see her.
“Let us go in, then,” Simon murmured. “We will return to her the letters we found in Thurstan’s trunk.” Ones she had written long ago when Thurstan was a student. “And let her know of his passing, in case she had not heard. But I will not say that we are related till I am assured it would not cause trouble.”
“Would you rather I waited here?”
“Nay!” he exclaimed. “You are my strength. I am going nowhere without you, ever again.” He dismounted, lifted Linnet from the saddle and escorted her toward the house. “Perhaps no one is at home,” he said hopefully.
Linnet chuckled. “The shutters are open, my love, so—”
A shriek came from around the side of the house.
Simon glanced at Linnet. “Stay here.” Drawing his sword, he charged down the path beside the house just as another scream rent the air. Vaulting the low stone wall that blocked his way, he hustled around the side of the building and into a garden. It was an exact duplicate of the one at Durleigh, even to the yew hedges bordering row after row of fragrant roses.
Plumb in the middle of the garden stood a wooden tub containing a large, wet dog. Holding the beast there was a slender woman, her gown drenched in soapy water.
“Mistress, do you require aid?” Simon called out.
She looked up, a woman of middle years, but beautiful still, tendrils of fair, wet hair clinging to her flushed cheeks. “Aye, Bernard hates to be bathed, but he and Rosie got into the mud, and—
”
Bernard chose that moment to make a desperate bid for freedom. Woofing, he gathered himself and leaped.
“Get him,” the woman shouted.
Simon dropped his sword, lunged and caught the dog just as its front paws cleared the rim of the tub. Both arms wrapped around the beast’s slippery neck, he sought to push the dog back, but his feet slid. Simon went under, but came up holding the dog with both arms. “Do not fear, I have him.”
The woman laughed. “‘Twould seem Bernard has you.”
“Simon?” Linnet bustled into the garden. “Are you all right?” She stopped, gaped and burst out laughing.
Simon glared at the two chortling women. A fine impression he was going to make on his mother, soaking wet and smelling of dog. But he would see this through. “If you two can stop laughing long enough you might as well hand me the soap, I will wash Bernard while I’m in here.”
“Of course.” The woman bustled about, applying strong lye soap to the dog while Simon grimly held on to the indignant beast. Between them, Linnet and the woman poured buckets of water over the dog until the soap was rinsed out.
“Stand back. I’m going to let him loose,” said Simon.
The moment he was free, Bernard catapulted from the tub, spraying water in all directions and barking joyously. Despite her ruined gown and disheveled hair, the woman began to laugh again like a young lass.
At least the staff at Lady Rosalynd’s was not stiff and proper, Simon thought as he waded into the chaos to grab hold of Bernard’s collar. “Have you rope to tie him while he dries?”
“Aye, just there on yon tree.”
By the time Simon had secured the animal, Linnet and the woman were back with linen towels. Sitting down on one of the stone benches, he tugged off his wet tunic and dried his hair.
“I am sorry I have no dry clothes to offer you, sir…?”
“Simon of Blackstone.”
The woman gasped softly and sank onto the bench.
“The name has meaning to you?” Simon asked, surprised his lady mother would have confided in her maidservants.
The Champion (Knights of the Black Rose Series : Harlequin Historicals, No 491) Page 27