Never Seduce A Scoundrel

by Heather Grothaus

  “He must,” Joan said emphatically. “He must. I have worked too hard for this ... for him, I mean.” She flushed.

  “It is no mean feat to lead a man to the altar,” Sybilla supplied helpfully, and was pleased when Joan visibly relaxed. But now the blond woman regarded her keenly.

  “Indeed, it is not,” Joan agreed.

  “Perhaps a bit of solitude will help Oliver to realize that he must do the right thing,” Sybilla said, coming to stand before Joan and steeling herself to take both the young woman’s hands in her own.

  Joan’s blond eyebrows crinkled and she set her lips for a moment before asking, “Lady Sybilla, think you your sister is in love with my Oliver?”

  Sybilla did not hesitate. “No. That’s ridiculous.”

  Joan’s expression was doubtful. “I understand that perhaps Lady Cecily’s honor is more steadfast than the average woman’s, but it is Oliver. And they were alone together quite a lot.”

  “Do you wish to know what I think?” Sybilla queried, and at Joan’s eager nod, she continued. “I think it likely that your betrothed acted boldly with my sister and she rebuffed him. It is why she left him for Hallowshire with John Grey. And why she has now returned, betrothed to none other. And also why John Grey felt it necessary to strike Oliver for his assumed liberties. You know far better than any the nature of the man.”

  Joan nodded slowly. “Yes. Yes, that does sound like aught Oliver would do. So perhaps he is only piqued that there is a woman who has refused him.”

  “Precisely,” Sybilla insisted, giving Joan’s hands a little squeeze, and wishing her fingers were around the blond woman’s neck.

  “He’s infatuated with the unattainable,” Joan suggested. “And the vicar and Lady Cecily are most certainly more well suited to each other.”

  “I couldn’t have selected a better match with my own hand.”

  Joan nodded again, more surely this time. “So all is not lost. Oliver will come to his senses. He must.”

  “He must,” Sybilla agreed.

  “My lady,” Joan said hesitantly, “I cannot thank you enough for your assistance these past days. Your generosity and kindness are nearly overwhelming and—I hope I don’t offend you by saying so, but—completely at odds with your reputation.”

  Sybilla gave her a little smile, and Joan took it as encouragement.

  “I am glad that we have become friends, because. . . because I think that we shall see each other quite frequently after Oliver and I are wed.”

  “Verily?” Sybilla feigned pleased surprise. “And why is that, Joan?”

  Joan opened her mouth and then closed it again on a smile, but Sybilla could see the glint in her eyes. Did she not know better, she would take Joan Barleg for naught more than a happy innocent.

  “I hope to find myself at Fallstowe quite often,” was all Joan would say.

  Sybilla returned her smile. “It would please me greatly were you never to leave.”

  Chapter 18

  Cecily made her way down the stairs gingerly, touching her temple with the fingers of her hand that was not grasping the stone railing. Her head was pounding, her stomach roiling.

  She had stayed in her rooms much later in the morn than was her habit, hoping that the nausea would leave her. After retching unproductively a number of times, she thought that she might at last be safe to emerge. And she thanked God yet again that Alys was the cause of her strange maladies of late.

  Cecily was not a witch. True, all three of the Foxe sisters possessed some unique and perhaps unexplainable talents. Alys could see a person’s colors; Sybilla ... well, Cecily suspected that Sybilla did quite a number of things that she really had no desire to know the details of. And Cecily had the annoying habit of feeling the sensations of those she loved who were hurt or in danger, much as she had sensed when Alys had been trapped in the forest months ago, cold and in pain. Cecily could at last accept the infrequent feelings, although she would never liken them to something with such sinister connotations as witchcraft. She was simply very close with her sisters. That was all.

  Cecily should have known straightaway that Alys was carrying a child. She and Piers had been married for nearly four months now, and from all appearances they seemed quite happy and in love still. A child was the natural progression between them, and Alys was likely still in the early stages of pregnancy, when the sickness and exhaustion lingered for some women. Any day now, the nausea should depart from the youngest—and therefore the middle—Foxe sister.

  It could not happen a moment too soon for Cecily. She felt wretched.

  John Grey was waiting for her at the bottom of the stairs, his faintly bemused smile doing little to improve Cecily’s mood. But she gave him the best impression of happiness that she could as she took his proffered arm and let him lead her into the hall.

  To Cecily’s unbridled relief there was no sign of Oliver Bellecote or Joan Barleg. Sybilla was also absent, but it was common enough as the eldest Foxe sister rarely had the patience to commune intimately with her household before early afternoon. Only Alys and Piers sat at Sybilla’s long table, and Cecily dared to hope for a moment that this morning would mark the transition to her life as the wife of John Grey. A life completely without Oliver Bellecote.

  She forced a wider smile to her lips as she and John approached the dais, and Cecily could clearly see Alys enjoying a platter of whatever food she had been served to break her fast. A hearty appetite in early pregnancy was a good sign. Perhaps the nausea would leave now.

  John Grey solicitously handed her up the step. As Cecily made her way to the empty chair next to Alys, her heart leapt and she brought a hand to her chest. There, before her flush-faced and smiling younger sister, was a large platter filled edge to edge with—

  “Alys! Is that—?”

  “Apple tart?” Alys turned her face and mumbled daintily around a mouthful of the heavenly smelling confection. She swallowed and then beamed up at Cecily. “Why, yes, it most certainly is. I have been craving Cook’s apple tart for weeks now! I’ve dreamed about it—I even wrote a sonnet in honor of this fine, fine creation.”

  Cecily could not take her eyes from Alys’s platter as she sightlessly sat down in the chair John Grey pulled away from the table for her. The crags and scallops of fruit and crust ran with thin, white cream.

  “Is there”—she swallowed, all traces of nausea and headache gone—“is there any left?”

  Alys shoveled another mouthful in and then brought her fingers to her lips while she simultaneously chewed and giggled. She bobbed her head excitedly. After a loud gulp, she said, “It was my express command that there be no fewer than six available at all times while I am visiting.”

  Alys turned to wave a hand at a serving boy. Once she had his attention, she pantomimed to her platter and then to Cecily.

  Cecily shook out her linen napkin as if in a dream, her eyes on the doorway leading to the kitchens. It took all of her self-control not to push Alys away from the table and attack the tart with her own bare hands.

  A pair of servants emerged in what seemed to Cecily like an hour later, each one bearing a tray. The first maid slid a platter of sliced meat and warmed meal before John Grey, and Cecily found herself craning her neck to attempt to see what her own tray held, even as the maid was lowering it onto the table.

  A tiny sliver of tart, with a dollop of butter smeared near the rim of the platter.

  Alys looked down her nose at the stingy portion and sniffed. “That’s a pity.”

  Cecily’s lips thinned and she looked up at the maid with a raised eyebrow. “Bring the rest of it, please,” she said in a low voice. “A pitcher of cream, as well.”

  “A pitcher, milady?”

  “Yes, a pitcher,” Cecily said in a voice full of forced patience. “It is a receptacle used to contain large quantities of various liquids. I want a pitcher. Of cream. To go with the rest of my tart that you seemed to have forgotten in the kitchen, if it isn’t too much trouble!”
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  Her dining companions to either side of her were silent, and the maid stared at her for a moment in wide-eyed shock before bobbing a quick curtsy and dashing away once more.

  “A single bite of tart,” Cecily muttered crossly to her plate as she picked up the pastry with her left hand and used the knife in her right to smear the entire glob of butter across the glistening apples. “With butter, no less.” She stuffed half the slice into her mouth. She mumbled around the food as she chewed. “Cream with tart. Always cream.”

  An abrupt snort of laughter to her left drew Cecily’s attention, and she looked sideways at her younger sister. Alys held her napkin over her mouth and her shoulders shook.

  “Why, Cecily,” she said merrily, “you sounded exactly like Sybilla just then!” She leaned toward her and poked a finger at a rather sizeable piece of crust left on the platter. “You missed a bit—may I?”

  Cecily stopped chewing. “I should hate to stab you, Alys.”

  The youngest Foxe sister collapsed back in her chair, grasping at her stomach she was laughing so hard. A moment later, Cecily joined her.

  “I do hope they bring two!” Alys gasped, tears of mirth on her cheeks.

  When the maid returned, bearing three whole tarts and two pitchers of cream, the sisters were lost, both collapsing onto the tabletop and shrieking.

  Cecily heard Piers Mallory comment to John over their heads, “Sorry, old man. They’ve gone quite mad.”

  “Remind me not to have any of the tart,” John quipped. “It obviously induces hysteria.”

  “Stop!” Alys begged. “You’re not helping!”

  After several moments of hiccupping sighs, the two sisters had managed to regain their composure. Cecily tucked into her proper breakfast, her mouth aching from all the laughter.

  Alys wiped at her eyes and scooted her chair closer to the table, attending to refilling her own plate. “I am sorry, Cee, for inflicting this insanity upon you. I had no idea you would be sensitive to my maternal demands.”

  Cecily chewed, swallowed—oh, it was heavenly! “Don’t apologize. I do vow, I much prefer this symptom to the others. Infinitely more delicious.”

  Alys cut her tart carefully. “True. The sickness was horrid. Thank heavens for the both of us that it was at least brief—come and gone even before Piers and I arrived for the Candlemas feast.” She took a bite.

  Cecily’s utensil stopped halfway to her mouth. She turned her head to look at Alys.

  “You’re not sick any longer?”

  Alys shook her head quickly and shot Cecily a relieved smile. “No. And it lasted scarcely a week, else I’m afraid I would have spent the whole of the feast in the garderobe.”

  Cecily looked down at the bite of tart still poised between her platter and her mouth. She lay her utensil down carefully, as her stomach began its now familiar, faint roiling. She stood abruptly.

  “Excuse me,” she choked. “I ... I seem to have forgotten something in my chamber.”

  John Grey rushed to his feet, his expression one of mild concern. “Shall I accompany you, my lady?”

  “No, no,” Cecily rushed, sidestepping awkwardly behind his chair, very aware that three pairs of eyes were trained to her. “I’ll return straightaway. But a moment!” She tried to smile at them as she made her way from the dais and then as quickly as possible down the center aisle of the hall without actually breaking into a run.

  Her feet flew up the stairs as her face and neck sprang with perspiration. Her stomach seemed to clench, her throat expanded behind her cavernous-feeling mouth. She gained the top of the entry stairs and stopped.

  To the left lay the long flight to the upper corridor; ahead of her, Fallstowe’s massive front doors with their ever-present entry guards watchful for any signal from her. Cecily knew she would never make it to the garderobe or her own chamber.

  She rushed toward the double doors, an arm stretched out before her, the fingers of her other hand fluttering over her mouth.

  “Open,” she choked.

  The guards threw the doors wide and Cecily burst into the cold March air, stumbling into a man standing with his back to the doors. He wore a white shirt and a long broadsword at his hip, and both arms hung at his sides.

  “Excuse me, I’m sorry,” Cecily choked, and staggered away without further thought of him.

  Dashing along the stones, she squinted against the bright daylight, which seemed to mock her dread. She could go no farther. She fell to her knees, one palm braced against the keep wall. In moments, her stomach was painfully empty once more.

  She realized she was crying as she wiped at her face and mouth with the hem of her gown. She’d have to change now, before she returned to the hall to face her sister and brother-in-law. And John Grey.

  Alys’s sickness had come and gone more than a month ago.

  Cecily had been wretchedly ill for only the past week. Her last cycle was—she counted silently on her fingers—

  January?

  Oh, no. No, no, no.

  “Cecily,” a voice called to her. “Cecily, are you all right?”

  She lifted her face, knowing who it was—who it could only be—before her eyes could confirm the identity of the concerned party.

  The man in the white shirt. The man with the sword, whom she had run into upon her hasty exit from the keep. The man who was the reason she was so dreadfully ill. It was ...

  Oliver had dared not venture to the great hall at such an early hour for dread of encountering any of Fallstowe’s inhabitants. So he’d chosen to fritter the time away, making certain yet again that his belongings were properly collected in preparation for his leave of Fallstowe—whenever that might be. He’d taken August’s sword from the wardrobe and laid it on the bed next to his leather bag.

  As far back as Oliver could recall, he had never seen August without the weapon strapped to his side. He stared at his brother’s sword—Oliver’s sword now. The wide belt, thick hilt and guard, the blade length proving its intention as a means of death and destruction on a battlefield, but also as a keeper of peace, a mark of a leader, of a lord, of a man.

  Besides the usual drunken bravado displayed among mates well into their cups, Oliver had not drawn a sword on anyone in his life. He’d had several drawn on him, of course, and once he’d been chased from a maiden’s bedchamber by an ax-wielding father. But he’d fought no great battles. There had been no cause for him to champion. No one challenged him, for he’d never had any significant spoils to award a worthy victor.

  He’d never looked farther into the future than his next conquest, the next feast. His needs were met by Bellemont and his very generous older brother. August, who ruled in their father’s place with pride and dignity, whose honorable hand was known as widely and as well as Oliver’s own scandalous tendencies. August, who’d dared to go after the woman he wanted—the head of the notorious Foxe family, no less—and cared naught for the stir it created amongst his peers, the royal eyebrow it must have raised.

  Oliver could imagine the talk about him now, the pity prompted by his recent, careless accident, his unreasonable behavior in regards to Cecily Foxe—the compassionate saint of Fallstowe Castle. Even his confirmation of his inheritance of Bellemont by a merciful and sympathetic king. No one thought him capable of anything, likely. Perhaps even himself.

  Oliver suddenly found himself very tired of mercy. Tired of being at the mercy of Fallstowe, at the mercy of his healing body. Tired of being at the mercy of his brother’s memory.

  He looked down at his right arm and after a moment, he slipped the sling over his head, peeled it away from beneath his elbow. He crumpled the linen into a wadded ball and threw it to the floor. Then he slowly, gingerly stretched his right arm to its full length.

  “Gah!” he cried out, wincing as his muscles, tendons, elbow, creaked and wailed. His fingertips sizzled with invisible lightning. His arm throbbed, but Oliver did not care. It felt good to be free of the sling, to inflict this manner of physical pain up
on himself.

  He made a slow fist, and a cold ache sank into the bones of his right arm. He held the fist before him and matched it with his left hand.

  “My hands,” he said to the quiet chamber, clenching and unclenching his fingers, turning his hands before his face. “My hands.” Then he turned back to the bed, to August’s sword.

  “My sword,” he corrected aloud.

  He gritted his teeth, and cried out once while working to strap the weighty weapon to his side. His neck was damp with sweat when, for the first time in Oliver’s life, he was clothed as Lord Bellecote. He walked to his chamber door and quit the room.

  He felt perhaps his fortune had changed for the better when he encountered not a single Foxe en route to the great hall. But that theory was brutally defeated when, stopping in the sheltering shadows of the stairwell, he saw none other than Cecily Foxe, laughing uproariously with her younger sister. John Grey and Piers Mallory flanked the two women and the quartet appeared quite cozy.

  Oliver retreated. He would not make a greater fool of himself for Cecily Foxe than he already had. Unlike August, the younger Lord Bellecote knew when he was defeated.

  The guards opened the doors for him and Oliver stepped into the cold, irritatingly cheery sunlight, the wind biting through his thin shirtsleeves and tousling his hair. He had been cradling his right arm out of habit, but now he lowered it slowly to his side, wincing at the sharp bursts of pain the motion caused.

  He took a deep breath.

  She didn’t want him. She didn’t need him. And she most certainly did not love him.

  The doors behind him burst open and someone stumbled into him, rocking him on his feet. Oliver turned at the strangled apology and saw a whirl of gray skirts, a knot of silky, dark hair.

  It was Cecily.

  He watched her stagger along the side of the keep wall and fall to her knees in the yellowed weeds, and Oliver’s jaw clenched. Her head dropped and he heard the terrible retching. His feet were moving before he could think better of it.