Lord of Lyonsbridge

by Ana Seymour

  The chanting of the monks had ceased, leaving a silence so total that it gave her an eerie feeling of otherworldly beings. As soon as the thought entered her head, a cold grip of fear seized her throat. There was something moving in the darkness. Black on black, moving the air around her like some kind of night phantom. She lay paralyzed against the bed, not wanting to move until the spirit had passed from the room on its unholy quest.

  Suddenly it was descending on her. She sat up and pushed into the darkness with all her strength, but her arms were caught and pinned to her sides, not by a spirit, but by a mortal man.

  “Sweetheart,” Connor said. “I’d not meant to startle you. I thought you asleep.”

  A great rush of relief flowed through her, followed by something more, a sudden elation at the sound of his voice. “Connor,” she breathed, collapsing against him.

  His arms folded around her and of one accord they fell back against the bed. “Are you all right?” he asked in a husky whisper. “You’ve had good treatment?”

  She hardly heard his question, so intent was she on the feel of his body against her once again. “I’m well, my love,” she said. The endearment slipped out without conscious thought, and he answered it with a kiss that in the blackness landed unerringly on her lips.

  Ellen felt the instant response of her body, but her head hammered for information. “Where have you been this day?” she asked eagerly. “Is there news of the castle? My father?”

  He kissed her mouth to silence, then answered gently. “Your father was about to send word to the king informing him of your disappearance, which could have brought legions of soldiers to the shire. We decided it would be best for Brother Augustine to tell him that you are here, on a ten-day retreat, inviolable. No one will come here.”

  “Sebastian?”

  She still couldn’t see Connor’s face, but there was satisfaction in his voice as he answered, “Mayhap your father’s faith in your cousin is finally being tested. Sebastian had convinced your father that you had fled to my arms. When Brother Augustine arrived to tell him of your presence here, he caught Sebastian in the lie.”

  “Mayhap ‘twas not a lie,” Ellen admitted. “I wasn’t sure what I was going to do when I fled from him, but I think somehow my heart knew that it was to you I was running.”

  “That’s an admission that might be best kept to yourself, sweetheart.”

  “Aye.” Ellen’s eyes stung with disappointment. The other night in his chambers, Connor had said he loved her, but he seemed firmly against admitting any possibility of legitimacy to their union.

  “I can’t see you,” he said with a little chuckle, and proceeded to let his hands do the work his eyes could not, moving them over her face and down to her breasts.

  “I look none different than I did this morn,” she answered, her voice catching.

  “As you looked this morn with the wind teasing the curls around your fair cheeks and the midmorning sun striking gold fire in your beautiful eyes? Then that is the vision I’ll keep in my head as I make slow, sweet love to you,” he whispered.

  They might have no future, but again it seemed that they’d been granted one magical moment out of time. She struggled to clear the troubled thoughts from her head, and before long all consideration had given way to the wonder of his fingers and his mouth on her body.

  “At least you could be a little more discreet about your dalliance,” Father Martin grumbled.

  Connor slammed his ax into another log, splintering it into firewood for the abbey kitchen. “’Tis not a dalliance.”

  “What will you call it, then? I trow you’ll not hold that you are sneaking into the maid’s chambers each night to teach her the catechism.”

  Connor stood another thick log on end and cleaved it cleanly in two. “Ellen’s no milkmaid, and my time with her is not a dalliance.”

  “By my faith, ‘tis not a holy union sanctified by the bonds of matrimony,” Father Martin chided. “Nor will it be. Dalliance is a kind word compared to what some others would use.”

  Connor straightened up to mop a sheen of sweat from his brow. He sent his brother a sideways glance. “Others such as the good brothers who, having themselves forsworn such earthly pleasures, are quick to begrudge any man who does not hesitate to unsheathe his sword when the occasion warrants.”

  “You’d do well not to mock them, Con, since they keep your presence here a secret at risk of their own freedom.”

  “Aye, Martin, forgive me, and I appreciate your concern on this matter. If I be overly churlish, mayhap ‘tis my own guilt that makes me so.”

  “’Twas a mistake from the beginning, Con,” Father Martin said with a shake of his head.

  “Mayhap.”

  “Mayhap? What possible good can come of this? You have no lands. At the moment, you’re a declared outlaw. You have neither status nor wealth for a union with the likes of Ellen Wakelin.”

  Connor turned back to the log he had just split and in several more violent blows whacked it into kindling. “I don’t need you to tell me that, brother,” he said, huffing as he finished and kicked the pieces of wood over onto the pile.

  The exasperation went out of Father Martin’s expression and his eyes softened in sympathy. “You need to find a young woman of the village, Con, who will comfort you and foster your leadership among the Saxon people.”

  “I need no young woman, Martin. When Ellen returns to her father, he’ll send her back to Normandy, and that will be the end of it. Things will return to normal.”

  Father Martin looked doubtful. “I never thought to see my wayward big brother with a broken heart.”

  Connor rested his ax on a log and leaned on it pensively. After a long moment he looked up at Martin, smiled sadly and said, “Nor did I.”

  Now that her presence at the monastery was no longer a secret, Brother Augustine had given Ellen permission to attend chapel and move around the quarters and the courtyard. Except during the prescribed hours of silence, she was allowed to talk to the brothers as they worked about the kitchen or in their gardens just behind the main abbey building.

  At first they had shied away from her, averting their eyes and scurrying in the other direction at her approach, as if she were a rain cloud about to give them a dampening. But after two days, some of the bolder ones met her gaze and even offered a mumbled acknowledgment to her greeting.

  By the third day, there were at least half a dozen whom she could recognize and call by name. One was the kitchen supervisor, who personally brought her meals to her cell. Brother Alphonse was short in stature, coming only to her shoulders, but his girth was almost the equal of his height, evidence that he took his culinary duties seriously. Indeed, after a couple of meals in which she showed appreciation of his skill, he’d begun staying with her while she ate asking her questions about food preparation in the fancier Norman court circles.

  She shared gardening knowledge with the gardening monks and engaged Father Martin in a lively discussion of theology, carefully steering away from any talk of his brother or what the two of them might be doing when, as had become open knowledge, Connor sought her out in her tiny cell each night after the rest of the abbey was at rest.

  In general, she realized, she was happier than she’d been at any time in her life. She found her days spent in the company of the simple country brethren charming compared to the jaded court back home, with its backstabbing and political intrigue. But, she admitted to herself, the pleasant days were nothing in comparison to the nights. Forgetting the rest of the world in each other’s arms, she and Connor managed to make each coming together more magical than the last.

  She refused to think about what would happen when the days of her supposed retreat were over. Nor had Connor mentioned the subject. In the long hours of their nights together, sometimes they had serious discussions about their respective childhoods and the influence of their parents. Other times they dealt with lighter themes, the foods they liked or their mutual passion for hors
es—the easy banter of lovers. But there was no talk of the future beyond the darkened cell they shared.

  The morning of her sixth day at the abbey, Ellen awakened alone. Connor had, as usual, left before dawn, but this day he’d not roused her with his accustomed kiss of farewell. She frowned a little as she ran her hand over the indentation in the straw pallet where he’d lain. They’d had few nights together, but already she felt hollow inside at the thought of nights stretching out before her without his warm body by her side.

  Suddenly morose at the thought, she decided not to wait for Brother Alphonse to arrive with her breakfast, and wandered out of her cell, intent on seeking him out in the kitchens and saving him the trip.

  It looked to be a fair day, mild with all the promise of spring. From across the courtyard drifted the chant of the monks in the church at morning-song. Ellen stopped and lifted her head. Above the monotonous strains she thought she heard an unaccustomed. sound—the laughter of children.

  It seemed to come from the direction of the kitchen outbuildings, just to the west. Curious, she made her way quickly in that direction.

  “’Lady!” a childish voice shouted as she rounded the corner, and suddenly she was engulfed by two whirling bodies, Abel and Karyn.

  She knelt down and let them throw their tiny arms around her neck, deeply touched at their open display of affection. “Ah, sweetlings,” she said. “I’ve missed you.”

  “I missed you, too, ‘lady,” Abel said, close to her ear. “And Karyn, too.”

  The little girl nodded in vigorous agreement. Ellen noticed that her wheat-colored hair, which had become matted and dirty in the caves, was once again clean and silky. “You’ve been well?” she asked, raising her eyes to address the question to Agnes, who was coming up behind the twins with a smile of apology for her children’s exuberance.

  “Aye, milady,” she answered. “We’ve been well attended by the folks of Rolf over to Baintry.”

  Ellen knelt more securely on the ground so that she would not drop the twins, who continued to hold tightly to her neck. “But what are you doing here? Are you not in danger? And where is John?”

  Agnes’s smile wavered. “Master Brand said ‘twas best. We’ll trust in his judgment and in the Lord.”

  Sarah was standing by the kitchen door, holding a bowl in her hands. Ellen looked up at her, questioningly, and she explained, “John has turned himself over to your father, milady, to await the king’s justice.”

  “They’ve arrested him again?”

  Agnes took over the tale. “Master Brand and Father Martin have evidence to present in his favor. They asked us to come here so that Sarah will be available to tell her story on the day of the trial.”

  Connor had told her nothing of this, and Ellen felt hurt by the exclusion. He might profess his love to her in the dark of night, but during the day he went about his duties as de facto lord to these people and confided nothing.

  She prized Abel’s arm gently from where it was pressing into her neck, cutting off her air. “There’s to be a trial?” she asked, trying to keep her voice from betraying any resentment over her lack of information.

  Sarah put the bowl she’d been carrying on a nearby trestle and walked over to pull Abel away from Ellen. “Aye, milady, there’s to be a trial, at the market fair three days hence. Master Connor says he thinks there’s a good chance they’ll find the deed ‘twas selfdefense. Then John would go free.”

  Her eyes were troubled, and when Ellen looked from her to her mother, the widow’s expression mirrored her daughter’s unease.

  Karyn watched as her brother scampered over to the bowl Sarah had deposited and reached in a finger, which came out coated with pudding. The little girl gave Ellen an unexpected, wet kiss on her cheek, then let go her hold and ran to follow her twin’s example.

  Both children giggled as they slurped the sticky sweet from their hands, but Ellen exchanged worried glances with the other two women. None voiced the unspoken question: If they find self-defense, John will go free, but what if they find him guilty?

  * * *

  “What if they find him guilty?” Ellen asked Connor that night. In the light of the single candle in her small cell, his eyes looked shadowed with fatigue.

  “Then we’ll be close to having another bloody war on our hands, because the villagers will not easily let them hang one of their own, a young lad at that.” His voice was weary, and he seemed more distant than on previous evenings.

  Ellen had not asked him why he had not told her of his plans regarding the Coopers, but she’d hoped he would offer something in the way of explanation. Instead, he seemed reluctant to talk at all.

  “I just want to know what I can do to help,” she told him, trying to break through his sudden reserve.

  “You could tell your father to pack up his men and head back to his own land,” he said. “But I suspect that course would not be to your liking.” His tone was light, but with a touch of his earlier bitterness, which she’d hoped was over between them.

  She ignored the gibe and continued, “I’d like to aid the Coopers, if I can. If you think it would help for me to go to my father, I’ll go this very night to plead John’s case.”

  He reached for her. “I have better use for your lips at the moment,” he said, and kissed her to dispel any doubt about what use he had in mind.

  Ellen pulled away, insisting on staying with her subject. “I couldn’t bear it if anything happened to John, Connor. Just the look in Agnes’s and Sarah’s eyes today…”

  Connor gave up his efforts to kiss her and sat up. “There’s naught you can do except cause more complications, Ellen.” His voice was sharp.

  Hurt anew, she hugged her arms around her. “As I’ve caused complications in your life, Lord Saxon?” she asked.

  He studied her, the tenderness of their past nights together nowhere in evidence. “We’ve complicated each other’s lives, I fear, sweetheart, as well you know. Remember, we said from the beginning that our coming together was but a form of madness.”

  “’Twas madness and that’s the end of it?” A trembling had begun somewhere in her middle, but her pride didn’t want to let him see how terribly the widening breach was affecting her.

  He took in a deep breath. “We knew the end would come and soon. If you’d as lief it be now, I’ll honor your wishes.”

  How had they come to this? Ellen wondered, her stomach twisting with sudden anguish. She should have kept quiet and let him kiss her, let him make love to her. But if he was unwilling to share any part of his life with her beyond this bed, of what use was their coming together? Perhaps he was right. If her heart was to be split apart, it might as well be like a knife thrust, quick and sure.

  He awaited her answer without speaking, sitting beside her stiffly on the hard cot.

  “So be it,” she said in a low voice.

  He turned his head toward her. “You’d have me leave?” There was not the least softening of his features.

  “Aye,” she said.

  Without a moment’s hesitation, he gave a curt nod, then stood and walked out of the room. She waited a full minute, until the echo of his steps in the corridor had completely faded, before she let fall the first tear.

  Connor had a number of informants within the ranks of the castle guards, mostly Saxons who had been recruited before Lyonsbridge was given to Lord Wakelin. Some even had families still in the village. When they had come to Connor during the worst days of Sir William’s rule, saying that they had decided to resign their posts, Connor had convinced the men to stay. He knew that it helped the Saxon cause to have friends on the other side, even if the men were sometimes forced to actions they didn’t want to take.

  Connor himself had always been able to move in and out of the castle with relative ease, and continued to do so in spite of his outlaw status. He was familiar with every crack and cranny of the castle complex and knew which gates were manned at which hours.

  In the tension-filled days wh
ile he and Martin put together a defense for John Cooper, he passed restlessly from the castle to the abbey, then on a secret visit to the village and off to the coast to check with the outlaws who were still hiding out in the caves there.

  It was only during the long nights with Ellen, while he and the Norman beauty lost themselves in shared passion, that he’d been able to forget this new crisis facing his people.

  Now that was ended. He’d known that their time was measured, a few precious hours in which their divergent lives intersected. There could be nothing beyond. He had his responsibilities in Lyonsbridge, and Ellen’s destiny was elsewhere, back in Europe with a rich nobleman, perhaps a prince.

  Nevertheless, he hadn’t been prepared for the swiftness of the end, nor for the ache it left in his midsection. It had stayed with him all day, nagging misery from the pit of his stomach all the way up to his jawbone.

  Hidden in a rarely used outbuilding that had once served as an armory, Connor was waiting to meet a soldier named Werrold, who was cousin to Sarah’s page boy suitor, Rolf. Rusted pieces of armor lay in disorderly heaps around him. They should be melted down and put to better use, he thought, suddenly ashamed at how the castle had been neglected in the years since his parents’ deaths. Ellen had been right about that, and her campaign to clean up and renovate the place had been laudable.

  Perhaps when the issue of Booth’s death was resolved, she would agree to stay and finish the task, though Connor knew it would be painful to have her as close as a stone’s throw, yet not his, ever again.

  He picked up a pike from the pile of metal and twisted it, studying the wicked-looking hooked point at its end. What barbarians men were to use such things against one another, he mused, then blinked in surprise at his own thoughts. He’d always held that his commitment to peace in the land stemmed from his promise to his mother, but all at once he realized that it somehow had become an even deeper part of his spirit.