by Tamara Leigh
Verdun hitched an eyebrow. “On the joyous occasion of bringing home your new bride, methinks it best not to venture there, Boursier.”
Hatred struggling to rise up and express itself through bloodletting, Bayard held his gaze firm to the other man’s. As evidenced by all the days since his imprisonment, what had been mostly dormant for years owing to Father Crispin's patient counsel had reawakened, first with Agatha, then with Elianor who pretended herself to be Thomasin, next with De Arell, now with Verdun. Fortunately for those who roused his wrath, he knew better than to loose it, for to do so could prove satisfying enough to tear his soul.
Thus, he must accept that, as things had stood between Verdun and him while he was wed to the man’s sister, it would stand between them now that he was wed to the niece—neither liking or trusting the other.
“Then we shall leave your sister at Ellesmere Abbey where she belongs, Verdun.” Bayard turned his destrier and Elianor’s mount. “We ride!”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Castle Adderstone. Impressive. Imposing. But not entirely impregnable.
As the drawbridge completed its descent, its timbers creaking and groaning, chains clattering, El considered the breath-stealing edifice she had last looked upon in a much different context.
And so I return not as one who wishes to breach these walls, she mused, but as one who should not wish them breached—as Bayard’s wife in truth. No more Elianor of Emberly. Now, and mayhap evermore, Elianor Boursier.
“To have and to hold,” she whispered, warming in remembrance of when Bayard had held her, though he had yet to have her in the truest sense of marriage.
“For better, for worse,” she breathed, aching over the possibility the latter would govern their lives.
“Till death do us part,” she mouthed, shivering at the thought he would leave her a widow and fearful of looking near upon why that disturbed her. There had been no such worry with Murdoch.
Riding several horse lengths ahead as he had done through the town outside Adderstone’s walls, Bayard reined in his destrier short of the drawbridge that, having firmly settled to the ground, invited them to pass over it into the outer bailey. He urged his horse sideways, met El’s gaze as she came alongside, and looked to the others.
Beyond the bulk of his approaching men was her uncle’s entourage who had slowed their advance considerably, creating a sizable gap between the two parties. However, such was not the case with those who came behind Magnus’s men.
Upon crossing the border into Godsmere, Bayard had ordered a dozen of his knights to take up the rear, thereby hemming in those who had been forced to ally with the Boursiers. Though it could not have come as a surprise to Magnus, and the precaution was justified considering the history between the families, El knew her uncle had taken offense. But she also knew he was honest enough to acknowledge he would do the same were this the barony of Emberly.
She pulled the ties that had prevented the air stirred by their ride from casting off her hood and eased the woolen fabric down around her shoulders. “You will let them all in?” she asked, certain Bayard questioned the wisdom of allowing a score of men who were too recently his enemy to enter his walls.
Without moving his gaze from them, he said, “Ought I, Wife?”
Was he consulting her? Or baiting her? “Though ’tis with grudging my uncle accepts our marriage,” she pitched her voice low, “he knows there is naught to do but abide by what the king decreed. Thus, I do not believe you have anything to fear from him.”
“Never have I had anything to fear from a Verdun. Simply, I do not care to be inconvenienced.” He turned his face to her. “Rather, never has a Verdun of the male line put fear through me. I have certainly known fear at your hands, Elianor—that I would lose my lands. And may yet lose them.”
If the king did not accept their belated marriage.
As El stared up at him, she remembered again awakening to the warmth of his fingers beneath hers and upon her shoulder. “I pray you do not, Bayard.”
The eyebrow above the patch rose. “Do you?”
She inclined her head. “I know there is little hope for a marriage neither of us wanted, but I would not war with you all the days of our lives.”
“For that only you would not have my lands declared forfeit? You do not also see the wrong of what you wrought?”
She looked at those who had drawn rein to await her husband’s determination, picked out Magnus where he and his retainers sat their horses in the midst of Bayard’s men. “Ever I have known the wrong of it,” she said, moving her gaze past her uncle to a hooded rider over his left shoulder, then beyond to Godsmere’s knights who were to become more familiar to her than those of Emberly.
Returning to Bayard, she said, “But knowing it and wishing a different outcome other than that which King Edward seeks…” She raised and dropped a shoulder. “I did not heed my conscience, and I regret I am not the only one who must pay the price for what I did.”
He probed her face so deeply that her cheeks that had grown numb during the last hour of the ride began to warm. “Mayhap the price will not be as high as thought,” he said and lifted an arm and swept it toward the outer bailey, signaling all to enter.
As she passed beneath the raised portcullis behind him, she looked to the ring upon her hand and pondered what he had said. Though she found hope in it, she warned herself to be slow to embrace it lest she find it torn from her. And yet…
Lord, do You hear me? Is it possible Bayard and I can make a better show of marriage than he and Aunt Constance made of their union?
Providing her husband had truly gained control over the abusive expression of his wrath, which was possible considering he had dealt her no blows, their marriage might not be without substance. But surely a better chance it would stand if he did not refuse to acknowledge the harm done her aunt.
Bayard halted his destrier before the stables, spoke briefly with the man who hastened forward to receive his orders, then motioned for El to continue on with him to the inner bailey.
As she urged her horse ahead of his squire’s and Father Crispin's, she glanced around and saw her uncle’s men and Bayard’s were dismounting at the stables—a precaution, since gladly received visitors usually remained astride all the way to the keep, at which place squires and grooms led their mounts back to the stables. Another slight over which Magnus would take offense. Hopefully, he and his men would not also be required to relinquish their weapons.
At the keep’s steps, Squire Lucas was the first to dismount. Thus, when Bayard and the priest swung out of their saddles, the young man was there to gather the reins passed to him.
Bayard came alongside El. It seemed natural for his big hands to grip her waist, for her to descend the length of his body and settle her feet between his. And as she stared at the damp earth beneath her slippers, she mused that only once had Murdoch assisted in her dismount—the day his bride had been delivered to him. Afterward, there had been no call for aid in dismounting, for he had rarely allowed her outside the keep, and never outside the castle’s walls. She had thought she would suffocate, more even than when Bayard had held her to the wall with a hand to her throat.
“And so you are home, my lady,” he said.
She lifted her face. “So I am. Will I ever…?”
His eyebrows rose. “Ever?”
Having nearly asked if she would be allowed outside Adderstone’s walls, she was grateful she had breathed the words back in, for they would give him more cause to pry into her relationship with Murdoch.
She summoned a smile. “You will take me riding, will you not?”
His eyelid narrowed, and she felt suspicion roll off him.
“Bayard!”
He looked around at his stepmother who descended the steps with such haste it appeared she might trip and tumble to the bottom. Immediately, he released El and bounded past the priest and up the steps.
“Quintin?” Lady Maeve demanded when he took hold of h
er arm. “Where is my daughter?”
“She remains at Castle Mathe, my lady.”
Despite the din that rose from the outer bailey, the sound of the woman’s indrawn breath descended the half dozen steps to where El clasped her hands at her waist.
Then Lady Maeve’s eyes fell upon her stepson’s wife and something flashed in them. Anger? Disbelief? “Why did Quintin not return with you?” she demanded.
“I will tell all,” Bayard said, “but now is not the time.”
“Not the time—?”
“I assure you, Quintin is safe under the watch of Sir Victor.”
“But—”
“Suffice it to say," Bayard spoke above the outer bailey’s din that further encroached upon the inner bailey, “Griffin de Arell will not relinquish her lest she makes it difficult for him to take her to wife. Which he must now do.”
The grooves in her brow deepening, Lady Maeve said, “I can make no sense of you. As you have wed De Arell’s daughter, ’tis for him to wed the Verdun widow.”
“So it was, my lady,” Father Crispin interceded where he peered up at them from the base of the steps, “but it is not possible now that Baron Boursier is wed to Elianor of Emberly.”
“Elianor?” The lady swept her regard from the priest to the woman who stood to his right, lowered her gaze down the younger woman. “This is not Thomasin de Arell?”
“It is not.” There was impatience in Bayard’s voice, but it was gone when he said, “Forgive me, Lady Maeve, but an accounting of what has transpired must wait, for this eve we have guests.”
She opened her mouth as if to press him further, but closed it when the voices and tramp of those who had stabled their horses swept into the inner bailey.
“Methinks it best that you await me in your chamber,” Bayard said.
She gasped. “You leave your sister at the mercy of a De Arell and think to put me away like a pair of old boots? I will not tolerate it!”
He set his jaw. “As you will, but I vow you will like this even less whilst you remain ignorant of the situation.”
She put her chin up. “I shall stay.”
He took her arm and led her down the steps.
Grateful it was Bayard who came alongside her, rather than his stepmother, El turned toward the inner walls as her husband’s squire led the great destrier and the priest’s horse beneath the portcullis. Moments later, Magnus and his men, flanked by those of Castle Adderstone, passed beneath that same portcullis. Mantles riding their shoulders, the thick woolen garments all of a length that fell below the knee, the hoods of most having been lowered, they advanced on those before the keep. And visible with each parting of their mantles amidst far-reaching strides were the weapons of which they had not been divested.
“They are of Emberly,” Lady Maeve hissed from the other side of Bayard.
“Aye,” he said. “Lady Elianor’s uncle, Baron Verdun, and his men.”
“What are they—?”
“We shall discuss it later.”
The procession halted before them and Magnus curtly bowed. “We thank you for your hospitality, Baron Boursier.”
It was grudgingly spoken, and there was no more warmth in Bayard’s clipped response, “You are welcome at Castle Adderstone.”
“Baron Boursier,” Magnus said before Bayard could give him his back, “ere we proceed, there is something you must needs know.”
“Speak, Baron Verdun.”
Magnus turned sideways and reached behind.
A hooded figure stepped forward, parted its ground-sweeping mantle with a fine-boned hand to reveal it was not men’s chausses worn beneath, and gripped the hand Magnus offered.
El stopped breathing. Pray, nay, she sent to the heavens, though she knew this moment was so fully upon them it could not be returned to its narrow-necked bottle.
As something painful fell through her, she heard the priest exclaim, “It cannot be.”
But it was, as further evidenced by the release of the hood down around the shoulders of the beautiful woman who had returned to a place that had been her home well before it had become El’s—a place where she was not and would never again be welcome.
Her. At Adderstone. Again.
Amid the gasps, none of which carried as far as that of Lady Maeve who stumbled and snatched hold of her stepson’s arm, Bayard stared at the woman who had been his first wife—she who had reluctantly spoken vows with him, distantly accepted and returned his embraces, made of him a cuckold, and sought his death.
Though outwardly he did not move, not even when she raised her gaze to his eyepatch, his every muscle bunched in preparation to draw sword and spring upon Magnus Verdun for stealing that woman inside Adderstone’s walls.
“Bayard?”
Above the pound of blood that made it feel as if his heart might break free of his chest, he heard his name. For a moment, he thought it was she whose lips it had crossed, but the full mouth that had enticed him years ago remained seamed.
Elianor’s voice, then. Elianor’s hand upon his arm. Elianor at his side. Elianor, his wife.
But then and now and evermore, niece to this brother and sister, he reminded himself. She who believes the ill of you told by these two and Agatha.
Still, though the part of him given to rage wanted Elianor gone so he might yield to his baser side, she was a balm to the deepest of wounds. He did not understand how it could be, but he was grudgingly grateful for her presence, without which he might suffer one more regret. And the king’s wrath.
He shifted his regard to Constance’s brother who looked neither amused nor satisfied. Indeed, his stance was wary, the angle of his right arm beneath his mantle evidencing his other hand was on his sword hilt. It was the same for Verdun’s men and those of Adderstone.
“My lord,” the priest entreated, “let us speak—”
“Not now, Father!” Bayard needed none to warn him of how little it would take for the king’s decree to run red. Despite how far he had come in the years since Serle de Arell and he had flung the other’s blood upon the floor, tapestry, and walls of the solar, Bayard was still the man who had borne witness to his wife’s cuckolding—whose mind eagerly dredged up images best held down by the weight of less lethal memories.
He did not look to Elianor, but returned his focus to the feel of her hand upon him. He drew a slow breath, and in a voice so tight he did not recognize it, said, “What is this, Verdun?”
“Most awkward, I allow, but had I revealed my sister accompanied me home to Kelling, I believe you would have denied us entrance to Adderstone.”
“You believe right. Hence, what does she do outside the abbey?” Bayard knew that in directing the question at Magnus Verdun he slighted the woman to whom he had been wed, but considering their parting, he was certain few would fault him. Too, if the vow of silence she had taken upon entering the convent held—a vow he resented since she hid behind it to keep alive the belief he had abused her—no answer would have been forthcoming.
“Blessedly,” Magnus Verdun said, “the abbess was convinced that, with our niece gone missing, her charge should be allowed to return to Castle Kelling. Fret not, though. ’Twas agreed that, regardless of what ill had befallen Elianor, my lady sister would return after Christmas. Hence, your vengeance remains intact.”
Bayard would not argue that vengeance was a concern, though he might have if not that he now stood before the one who had defiled their marriage bed. He had thought himself much recovered, that these past years of prayer and Father Crispin's good counsel had moved him beyond the place he had found himself the day blood coursed his face as his wife’s lover clasped a sword-bitten arm to his chest. But he was back, and though not overwhelmed by a thirst for revenge, he longed to strike—to send the Verduns out into night that was coming fast and frigid as told by the graying of day and the breeze stirring toward a wind.
Control thyself, he heard words spoken by the priest time and again over the years. Think as God would have you
think. Act as God would have you act. Be as God would have you be. Forgive as God would have you forgive.
That last, he rejected. At this moment, it asked too much of one made of flesh and blood-red memories. And for that, he was almost grateful when Lady Maeve leaned more heavily upon his arm, muttered, “I feel terribly ill,” and collapsed.
He caught her up in his arms and, amid the murmuring, berated himself for not considering how deeply Constance’s reappearance might affect her, especially after learning Quintin was held captive.
“My lady?” he asked.
Her eyes opened so narrowly that only the brown of them could be seen. “Forgive me,” she whispered, “but I cannot bear to remain in that one’s company.”
Bayard turned toward the steps, remembered his duty, and came back around to fix his gaze on Elianor. “My lady wife,” he emphasized the title Constance had spurned, “as you are now mistress of Godsmere and I am otherwise occupied, I would have you see to our guests.”
She inclined her head. “I shall.”
Noting she did not respond in kind by according him the title of husband, telling himself he must never forget she was first a Verdun, he shifted his regard to the Godsmere knight who was second only to Sir Victor. The man awaited his nod, and Bayard gave it. Elianor, her kin, and those in service to the Verduns would be afforded every courtesy due them. It would be no great imposition, though, for the only courtesy they warranted was that of being kept under close watch.
He glanced at his stepmother whose brow was pleated as if she were pained, then turned his back on all of them.
El watched her husband, followed by Father Crispin, ascend the steps to the great hall. She did not understand what twisted and knotted in her chest, was afraid to make sense of the indignation she had felt upon realizing Magnus had brought Constance here in such a way Bayard was unprepared. Perhaps more, she feared the emotion that had risen through her when her husband had looked upon Constance. It stank of jealousy that she had no cause to feel.