Danger’s Promise

by Marliss Moon

  She had tried to convince herself that love was not an essential part of a good marriage. Until Christian said the word, she might have been content with the passion between them and the security of Helmesly’s high walls. But once it was spoken and hovered in the air between them, she knew that to be loved was the one thing she craved above all else. The one thing that assured her that her husband had overcome the demons of his past and let the light of goodness flood his heart.

  “Oh, Christian,” she whispered. “How could you think that you had anything to prove?”

  He gave her an incredulous look. “In case you hadn’t noticed, lady, I am feared by the people. I was born on the wrong side of the blanket. I have a scar running down one side of my face, and a wicked temper to match it.”

  “I know how you came by that scar,” she told him, notching her hands at her hips. “And as for your temper, you are careful to guard me from it.”

  “The people, my lady?” he prodded, entranced by her ability to reduce his fearsome qualities into nothing.

  “The people have been fed lies by the Abbot of Rievaulx and by others. Gilbert wanted them to fear you. Elsewise he would not have poisoned their ears by predicting you would kill Genrose.”

  Christian felt himself pale. “You know about that?” he asked.

  She kneeled on the mattress beside him. “Husband,” she said, cupping his jaw in her delicate hand and forcing him to look at her. “There is something you should know about yourself; something someone should have told you long ago.”

  “What is it?” he asked, feeling poised on the brink of self-discovery.

  Her amber gaze warmed him like the sun. “You, my lord, are a good man. You are honorable and noble, chivalrous and incredibly brave.” This time he could not mistake the sheet of tears that slipped across her eyes and made them glitter. “And I am honored to be your wife. I am honored that you nearly laid your life down in the belief that it would make you worthy. But if you ever do anything so rash again, you will answer for it,” she added, using his own words against him.

  He’d never been called those things before. Christian felt a silly smile overtake him. The urge to laugh out loud tickled his lungs, but he feared he would croak if he tried.

  “I love you,” she added, throwing her arms around his shoulders. She buried her face in his tunic as if she would cry.

  “I’m up here,” he reminded her, desperate for a kiss.

  She beamed up at him. “I love you,” she repeated, pressing her mouth to his. “I have loved you since the night you prayed by Simon’s cradle. I knew then that you were not what people said, but a man with a pure heart and pure needs.”

  Aye, and his manly needs were about to explode if they did not find immediate relief. Her words rushed over him like springwater over mountain stone. Their mouths fused in a heady blend of hunger and joy. As his hands sought the weight of her breasts, they fell back together in a frenzy of need, too long restrained.

  An hour later Christian lay on his back, thoroughly replete and damp with sweat. “Will you always forgive me so thoroughly, wench?” he panted. He felt utterly relaxed.

  Clarise rolled on her side to face him. “Think you that I’m done?” she asked, in mock seriousness.

  He groaned in surrender. “Hundreds of warriors have raised their swords against me, yet you bring me to my knees with your wanton appetite.”

  Clarise laughed out loud, delighted by his wit. How was it that she’d overlooked this lighthearted vein in him? Now that she considered it, she remembered several instances when he’d injected humor into their exchanges. She’d been too blinded by fear to see it.

  “My lord,” she purred, rubbing her sweat-slicked body against his side. “Did you ever think that everything would end so well?”

  He gave her a look, then fastened his gaze on the cobalt bed canopy. “Too cynical for that, I fear.”

  “What is there to fear?” she asked. “The abbot is gone; Ferguson is dead.”

  A moment passed when all that came from Christian was the sound of his breathing. “Someone at Helmesly was loyal to the abbot. They sent him missives informing him of certain matters. He was advised of Ethelred’s visit, for example. I saw the warning myself written on a small scrap of paper in Gilbert’s herbal.”

  A chill settled on Clarise’s moist skin. “Will it matter now that Gilbert is dead?” she asked.

  He hesitated again. “I cannot say. But as long as there is reason for caution, Simon is in danger. We should advise Doris never to let him out of her sight.”

  She suddenly recalled the mysterious offerings of goat’s milk. “Do you recall the day that Simon fell ill?” she asked.

  “How could I forget it?”

  Gooseflesh prickled her tender skin. “The milk I had given him that day was not milk that I fetched myself,” she admitted. “I found a full bucket awaiting me that morning. I thought it might have been left behind by one of the milkmaids. Simon was due to waken at any moment, so I took it, loath to make him wait any longer. I think, perhaps, that it was poisoned.”

  He stared at her in silence, lines of his face growing suddenly harsh.

  “Please don’t be angry with me.” She put a hand to his cheek to calm his wrath. “Believe me, there is nothing you could say to me that would chastise me any more than I have chastised myself. But here is the strange part, my lord. The bucket was there again the next day and the next. I poured it out,” she hastened to assure him. “I may be impulsive, but I’m not stupid.”

  “Of course not,” He rolled onto his side to face her. “Thank you for telling me. And thank you for using your wits, even though you ought to have told me the truth by then.”

  “I need to go get Simon,” she said, overcome by sudden panic.

  “Stay but a while,” her husband begged. He dipped his head and flicked his tongue across the sensitive peak of her breast. “I trust Doris to guard him.”

  “Nay, I have to check on him. I will bring him here, and we can play with him until supper.”

  “No rest for the weary,” he groaned, burying his face between the swells.

  She nipped him on the shoulder, then wriggled quickly off the bed.

  “Vixen!” he shouted, reaching out to pinch her buttocks as she fled.

  The banter continued as she quickly washed and dressed. Brushing the tangles from her hair, Clarise glanced out the window. The ground was scorched and thirsty for rain. The wildflowers had wilted in the heat. Yet, deep in her heart, a river of contentment flowed.

  But then she remembered Christian’s suspicions, and alarm shivered through her. Putting down her hairbrush, she hastened from the room, blowing a kiss to her husband as she went.

  Chapter Twenty

  Rushing up the tower stairs to relieve Doris, Clarise barreled into Harold, who was hastening down the stairs. “Oh, Harold, I’m sorry. I didn’t see you.”

  He mumbled an apology under his breath and kept right on going, his chin tucked against his chest.

  Clarise watched him beat a hasty retreat. What was Harold doing on the third level? He didn’t usually venture beyond the great hall or the kitchens, especially in late afternoon with preparations for supper under way.

  Determined to assuage her curiosity, she ascended the remaining steps as quietly as possible. Christian’s suspicions came sharply to mind as she tiptoed along the corridor. She peeked into the room she had formerly occupied and spied Doris, straightening the rumples from the bed.

  Clarise drew back with a gasp. The evidence was overwhelming. Suddenly she knew who’d fathered Doris’s unborn child. It was Harold. Because of his mental infirmities and odd manner of speaking, she had placed him above suspicion. Now she recalled his agitation when Doris had gone into labor. He had feared that Doris would die as his niece had done.

  Did Dame Maeve know about her husband’s liaisons? Could that be the reason for her bitterness and spite?

  Clarise waited a minute longer, then stepped forward t
o knock on the door.

  “Come, milady,” Doris sang out, clearly expecting her. As Clarise entered the room, the woman turned with the baby clasped to her ample bosom. “He is just waking from a nap,” she announced. Seeing the look on her mistress’s face, she faltered. Her doughty cheeks fell as her smile died.

  “Doris,” Clarise said, sternly enough to make the nurse pale. “You have not been honest with me or, for that matter, with yourself.”

  “Milady?” Doris croaked.

  Clarise shut the door so they wouldn’t be overheard. “I just saw Harold leave,” she announced. “He was the father of your baby, wasn’t he?”

  Doris cast a miserable look to the floor. “Aye, milady.”

  “How long has this been going on?”

  “Twenty years an’ more.”

  The answer staggered her. Twenty years! Her outrage frittered away like so much hot air.

  “It were me he was going to wed,” Doris admitted, as great tears welled up in her hazel eyes. “But his father, bein’ a powerful man, arranged a marriage for him with a wealthy merchant’s daughter. He were forced ta wed Maeve, as he ne did have a choice. But ’tis me he loves, and I him.”

  All this was uttered with such wrenching emotion that Clarise felt a rising empathy for the woman. She approached the former cook and gave her a searching look. “Does Maeve know?” she asked.

  “Aye, milady. She watches us close, though not for love of her husband, but to own him. When she learned I would have his babe, she called the midwife. Together, they forced me to drink a potion boiled with brakefern bark. It expelled the little babe from my womb, as ye know.”

  Clarise’s gaze fell to Simon, who blinked sleepily against the woman’s shoulder. “Jesu, Doris! Why didn’t you say something? ’Tis a horrible crime. Maeve should have to answer for it.”

  The old woman blushed like a maiden in her prime. “Don’t ye see, milady? Harold and I would be publicly exposed. We were the ones what sinned in the first place.” She lifted the baby from her shoulder and passed him to her mistress with a wistful look. Clarise could tell that she was thinking of her stillborn son.

  “ ’Tis not a sin to love for more than twenty years!” Clarise insisted, settling Simon in her arms. “You are wed to Harold in your heart, are you not?”

  “Aye, milady. He is a good man, a gentle man,” Doris proclaimed on his behalf.

  “Then I will tell Lord Christian of Maeve and the midwife’s attempt at murder. Mayhap she’ll be made to leave the castle and her marriage to Harold annulled.”

  Doris staggered to the bed and sank heavily upon the mattress. “Do ye think so?” she breathed. Her eyes were filled with such longing that Clarise experienced a pang of doubt. She wondered if she’d raised the woman’s hopes too high.

  “I will do my best for you,” she promised, turning away. “Oh, Doris, there is one more thing,” she added by the door. “We must watch Simon as close as ever. Lord Christian believes there is still good cause to fear for his safety.”

  Doris nodded dumbly. As Clarise turned away, the nurse heaved a great sigh. “Oh, Harold,” she overheard her whisper.

  Clarise lay in bed that night, too hot to sleep. Though the window was open, the air lay thick and close, making it difficult to breathe. The stars pulsed feebly in the midnight sky, shedding little light on the bed she shared with her husband. She should be sleeping in the happy knowledge that her husband loved her. Instead, she was plagued by dark suspicions.

  Thoughts spanned her mind like intricate spiderwebs. Christian had agreed that Maeve should be tried for contributing to the death of Doris’s baby, but, he pointed out, she would have equal right to demand that Harold and Doris face judgment for their illicit affair.

  Was there no way to ostracize Maeve from the castle and leave the lovers in peace?

  Clarise replayed her various conversations with Harold, seeking the signs she’d missed that would have pointed her to the truth. Doris is well, she remembered comforting him. ’Twas her baby that died.

  He’d seemed to confuse the death of his baby with the plight of his niece. She was a babe once, my Rose. I rocked her on my knee. Here’s your horsey.

  Doris was right. He was a good man, despite his differences, and clearly well bred without an Anglo accent of any kind to blunt his Norman tongue. Likely he had been a dutiful son to his father, who Doris had said was a powerful man. Powerful implied noble. Yet as no noblewoman would want to wed a halfwit, perhaps Harold had been made to marry a merchant’s daughter, causing him to sink into anonymity.

  Hadn’t he told her something of his family? She tried to reconstruct their conversation.

  You must have been a wonderful uncle, she remembered telling him.

  Harold, he’d said. Brother of John.

  John. John who?

  John of Eppingham, Baron of Helmesly?

  Clarise sat up slowly, careful not to awaken her husband. Her heart thudded loudly in her chest. Perspiration coated her skin. Could it be? She racked her brain for any evidence that her wild guess was right.

  If Harold was the brother of the Baron of Helmesly, then he was also uncle to Genrose, the baron’s only daughter.

  Rose, that’s a pretty name.

  Yet why didn’t anyone acknowledge Harold as a nobleman, as Lord Harold, the baron’s brother? She could only assume his family had been ashamed of his infirmities. Had they given him the title of a steward, found him a wife, and left it at that?

  Yet no amount of concealment changed the fact that he was second in line to inherit the baronetcy.

  Our pretty Rose has wilted.

  He’d said those words in the lyrical voice he used when repeating people. The words, sounding so poetic at first, took on a sinister edge. Our pretty Rose has wilted. Who would have said those words for Harold to repeat them? Neither of Genrose’s parents, for Lord John and his wife were dead before their daughter.

  A vision of the gnarled midwife sprang to the forefront of Clarise’s mind. With the midwife’s help, Maeve had managed to kill Doris’s baby. Could the pair of them have forced Genrose to drink an infusion of the same toxic bark?

  Clarise smothered a gasp. Without a baby to inherit or a niece to deliver another son, the baronetcy would fall to Harold. And who was the driving force behind her husband but Maeve?

  Galvanized by her guesswork, Clarise slid off the bed and stalked to the open window. She hoped for a breeze to bring relief to her fevered skin. But it was useless—there was absolutely no wind in the air tonight. To cool her neck, she gathered up the heavy fall of her hair and looked at her sleeping husband.

  Should she wake him now and tell him her suspicions? She wanted to, but the darkness strained his eyes, and sleep was precious to him. Hadn’t he marveled just this morning that he had slept through two nights straight? She was loath to affect his recovery, even temporarily. Her news could wait until morning.

  She turned and looked out the window again. Tension gripped her shoulders in a vice. Christian’s belief that Simon’s life was still in danger had overworked her imagination. Either that, or there was every reason to take action right away.

  A tendril of fear tickled her nape. Clarise let her hair fall. She crossed to the desk and snatched up a tallow lamp and flint. In deference to her husband’s eyes, she closed the door before lighting the candle on the gallery.

  The great hall below was deserted. Holding the candle aloft, Clarise lifted the hem of her chemise and approached the tower stairs to Doris’s chamber. She would check on Simon and at the same time ask Doris if her suspicions were right. The plump nurse clearly knew of Harold’s past.

  The light barely illumined the steps beneath Clarise’s feet. They seemed to rise more steeply in the darkness.

  At the top of the stairs she paused. She could hear Doris snoring from where she stood. The servant’s door was open. Gooseflesh ridged Clarise’s back. With her eyes wide open, she sought to see beyond the candle’s flame as she inched down the co
rridor.

  Nothing is wrong, she told herself. Christian’s concerns were playing with her mind—that was all. She reached the door and peered inside.

  The shutters were pulled shut. She could see no farther than the periphery of candlelight. Doris’s snoring sawed over her senses, increasing her agitation.

  Clarise forced herself to march straight for Simon’s cradle. She did so, fully expecting to find the baby sleeping within. She would carry him downstairs, thus ensuring herself some rest. She stepped right up to the box with the flame held high. Gold light plumbed the depths of the empty cradle. Simon was gone.

  With a gasp and a leaping heart, she spun around. The candle sputtered. She hastened to the side of Doris’s bed and yanked open the drapes. “Doris!” she cried. Her tone was so sharp that the woman lurched into wakefulness. “Is Simon in the bed with you?”

  A disoriented pause came from the large woman. She patted down the bed around her. “Nay,” she answered in bewildered tones. “Is he ne in the box? I left him there but a nonce ago.”

  Clarise had a feeling they were wasting precious time. “Hurry downstairs, Doris,” she commanded, already halfway to the door. “Awaken Christian and tell him Simon has been taken!”

  Doris leaped from the bed. As the woman thundered down the turret steps, Clarise edged into the hall, not knowing where to start her search. The flame of her lamp dimmed as if deprived of air.

  She thought hard, calling on every one of her senses to aid her. When she’d stepped onto the gallery, not a soul had stirred on the steps or in the hall. Every instinct shouted that the kidnapper either lingered on the third level or had taken an alternate route down. For Simon to be so quiet, he would either have to be sleeping or . . . nay, she couldn’t bring herself to think of an alternative.

  She crept down the length of the hallway in the direction of the eastern turret. Hadn’t she encountered Dame Maeve on the stairs of that turret once before? A sound reached her ears and she drew up short, listening. There it was again, a metallic jingle that came from the garderobe, immediately to her right.