by Tamara Leigh
He lifted his head and, finding she had slipped away, assured himself that whatever course the physician prescribed, it was better done with her unawares.
“You care for her,” Lady Maeve said with aggrieved wonder. “A Verdun. How can it be?” Her eyebrows gathered nearer. “After what Constance—”
“She is not Constance.” He straightened and stepped past her.
She caught his arm. “Of course she is! Once again you succumb to beauty and the pleasures of the bed, forgetting all that—”
“Cease!” Bayard pulled free, only to pause over the hurt that flashed across her face. Despite the circumstances under which his father had taken her to wife, she had done her best to be a good mother to him, and she had certainly been a good mother to Quintin—until Archard’s death when the confident, charming lady of Godsmere had begun to crumble and cling, and more so following the bloody confrontation between himself and Serle de Arell.
“Forgive me,” Bayard said, “but I have matters to attend to.” As evidenced by the entrance of the physician and Squire Lucas who were followed by Verdun. While the latter ordered the knights and men-at-arms with him to remain in the corridor, Bayard motioned the physician forward.
The man lowered his bag to the bed, carefully examined the gash above Elianor’s ear, then her arm.
“What say you?” Bayard asked.
“Her head is not as bad as it looks, and methinks her broken arm is to thank for that—that it took much of the fall. I believe it can be properly reset, but I make no promises.”
Bayard was tempted to demand his word that she would come out of this whole, but he was well enough acquainted with the man’s considerable skill to know it would be a lie forced out of him.
“I leave her in your hands,” he said and strode past his stepmother. In the corridor, standing alongside Verdun, he quickly assigned men-at-arms to hold watch over the solar, as well as the chambers of Lady Maeve and Constance.
Not surprisingly, Verdun protested that last.
“For her safety as well,” Bayard said, though it went beyond that, and from Verdun’s expression, he knew it.
“My men will keep watch over my sister,” he said.
“As you will.” Since Adderstone’s men would share guard over the corridor and be of greater number, it was no onerous concession.
“And now we hunt,” Bayard said.
Empty-handed. All the harder to accept when one’s blood thrummed with vengeance. And if Magnus Verdun’s bearing and facial tics were to be believed, neither was he pleased with the hours-long search that had yielded little evidence that Agatha of Mawbry had ever been within Castle Adderstone.
All they had found were fresh footsteps in the snow banked against the outer curtain wall where she had escaped by way of the postern gate. If not that much of the snow before the castle had melted earlier in the day, it might have been possible to track her, but the footsteps had disappeared fifty feet distant from the wall.
Still, Bayard had been tempted to continue the search, and Verdun had pressed for it. However, the night was bitter cold with wind that had begun to spit cutting flecks of ice, portending a new day wrapped in white. As its descent could prove dire for any caught out in it, they had turned back, all of Bayard roiling with certainty that if the witch had been long gone before Elianor was found, she stood a good chance of surviving the weather. And if she lived, she would try again to visit her plague upon the Boursiers.
Crossing the hall whose sleeping occupants would not rouse for another two hours, he silently cursed the one who had aided Agatha. Keys had been used to release her from the cell—keys her savior should not have possessed since there were only two sets that accessed the underground, the cell, and the manacles. Two known sets, including the one he had taken from Agatha the night he had traded places with her. Since the steward had produced both that had been entrusted to him prior to Bayard’s departure for Castle Mathe, there had to be a third set. That, or someone inside Adderstone betrayed the Boursiers. Someone with ready access to the steward’s coffers.
As Bayard neared the stairs that would return him to Elianor, he glanced at Verdun and wondered as he had done often this night if Constance could have gained the keys. Though he preferred to believe a known betrayer had simply betrayed again, it was hard to fit her into the circumstances. True, it would have been no stretch for her to guess the steward kept the keys, but it would have been nearly impossible for her to negotiate the keep without drawing attention, especially since her chamber was without access to the inner walls.
Aye, empty-handed, Bayard acknowledged again. Appallingly so.
The two men ascended the stairs and traversed the corridor over which Boursier and Verdun men stood watch. But rather than return to his chamber, Bayard’s unwelcome guest halted before the solar. Ignoring the men-at-arms on either side of the door whose hands were on their hilts, he looked to Bayard and said, “She shall ever be my niece longer than she shall be your wife.”
It was only the fear of awakening Elianor that kept Bayard from asserting that, with the speaking of vows, she had become his alone and would ever be no matter how many days of her life others might lay claim to.
Grudgingly, he inclined his head and opened the door.
The chamber was warm and bright, the fire well fed.
Rising from a chair that had been placed alongside the bed, the physician glanced at Verdun, fixed his gaze on Bayard. “My lord, your lady wife rests well.”
Bayard came alongside him and studied Elianor’s countenance. “Her injuries?”
“I first stitched and bandaged her head, then reset, splinted, and bandaged her arm. Blessedly, the break is a clean one, and ’tis fair certain she will regain full use of her arm.”
Bayard silently thanked the Lord, reached down, and touched her cheek. “Has she awakened?”
“Twice, and for that and the pain, I gave her a sleeping draught. She will not likely rise before the nooning hour.”
Bayard turned to Verdun who watched from the foot of the bed. “Are you satisfied?”
“As much as is possible.” The man turned and strode from the solar.
“If there is naught else you require, my lord,” the physician said, “I shall leave you to your wife.”
Bayard inclined his head. “I thank you.”
Moments later, the door closed behind the physician.
Bayard looked long upon Elianor, and each time the question arose as to why he was so gripped with concern, he excused himself with the reminder that not only was she his wife and, therefore, his responsibility, but he yet suffered from a weakness for beauty. That was all this was.
He caught up the coverlet, began to draw it over her arm, and stilled. The wedding band she was ever turning about her finger was gone. Had the physician removed it while tending her?
Bayard looked to the table, but no gold glinted upon it, and he was fairly certain the man would have set it there had he been the one to slip it from her finger. Had Elianor removed it? If so, for what reason? Even when she had been shown to be an impostor, invalidating the first vows they had spoken, the ring had not left her hand. Had her aunt’s presence at Adderstone caused her to eschew it?
He should not be so bothered, the same as he should not be overly concerned for Elianor’s wellbeing. After all, he had not wanted her for a wife, certainly had not coveted her as he had coveted Constance Verdun.
Assuring himself his ring would soon be back on Elianor’s hand, he lowered the coverlet over her.
Dismissing the chair as a poor excuse for a bed and reasoning he could do Elianor no harm by stretching out on her right-hand side, he removed his boots and weapon-heavy belt and slid beneath the covers.
As he waited for sleep to quiet his mind, regret slipped beneath the doors he had closed against it—regret that he had cared too much that Constance was near, that he had not joined Elianor at meal as she had entreated him to do, that he had not been here when voices sounded throug
h the walls. All would be different. Elianor would be uninjured and the threat of Agatha put down.
Not that he begrudged Father Crispin his good and worthy counsel or the Lord His prayer, but both had been as much a matter of seeking peace as an excuse to distance himself from emotions steeped in memories of what had happened here all those years ago.
If there was any hope for Elianor and him, he must forever put that night behind him. And he would. Somehow.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
It was a dull throb, but insistent, as of an anxious child tugging at her arm.
El resisted until the little one dug nails into her flesh. She caught her breath, opened her eyes, and turned her head to see who had hold of her. There was no one to her left, but though her eyes were slow to focus, she placed herself. She was in Bayard’s solar, in his bed, and on the night past…
She recalled the torchlit Agatha, heard the pronouncement that she was of no use, felt the fall. And the landing. And the pain.
She flexed her left hand. Though the movement sent an ache up her forearm, the pain that had consigned her to darkness was mostly absent. Meaning her injury was not dire?
“Merciful Lord,” she whispered, then lowered her lids and drew her thumb across her ring finger.
She opened her eyes, felt again for the band of gold. Where was it? And why this panic constricting her chest?
“Bayard?” She turned her head opposite and winced at the pain above her left ear. Though she was the bed’s sole occupant, she felt sweet relief when she saw the coverlet was folded back to reveal deep impressions in the pillow and bottom sheet. He had been in their bed.
“The Baron of Godsmere attends to more pressing matters,” a voice sounded from across the chamber, then Lady Maeve rose from a chair before the hearth—she who said it was the devil who gave breath to Agatha, who made no attempt to hide her dislike of the one her stepson had wed, who had good reason to feel as she did.
Wincing at how dry her throat felt, El said, “Where is my husband?”
The thick-waisted lady moved toward the bed. “As told, he attends to matters of the demesne.”
Matters more pressing than his injured wife, Bayard’s stepmother would have her believe. And yet some time during the early morning hours, he had lain with her. Had his hand been upon her again?
The lady halted at the foot of the bed.
“Did Bayard find Agatha?” El asked.
“He did not, for certain hopes she met her end in a snow bank.”
El frowned. “Has it snowed again?”
“So much it may be days ere we rid ourselves of your kin.”
Venom, but though El knew it was a challenge, she was not of a mind—or a body—to rise to it.
Lady Maeve pressed a hand to the left-hand post. “Whilst my husband lived, this was our bed.”
El suppressed laughter born of irony at having so recently acknowledged the bed as belonging to Bayard and her. It was not only Constance who had prior claim to it.
“And as you are aware,” Lady Maeve continued, “it was my father and mother’s before that.”
So it had been, until Denis Foucault had betrayed his earl, causing his demesne to be divided into three lesser baronies to award those who had, in turn, stood against him. And among the betrayers was Archard Boursier. Following Baron Foucault’s death, he had wed the man’s daughter in what was believed to be an act of atonement.
Lady Maeve nodded as if to herself. “Here I birthed a daughter for my husband. Here I should have birthed sons.” She dropped her hand from the post. “But there was only Quintin, and by your actions, the one person who is mine as much as I am hers, is stolen from me.”
El did not feel threatened. Still, she did not like being flat on her back during their exchange.
Beneath the coverlet, she raised her splinted arm. The ache made her sink her teeth into her lower lip, but once she settled her arm across her abdomen, the discomfort was tolerable.
Next, she pressed her right elbow into the mattress. As she levered to sitting, she returned her gaze to Lady Maeve who watched her struggle with interest. And satisfaction?
After arranging Bayard’s pillow and her own behind her, El eased back and took the opportunity to run her gaze over the bedside table. Her ring was not there. Did Bayard have it?
Feeling the weight of being watched and the expectation of a response, El said, “I am sorry about your daughter, Lady Maeve. Never did I intend her harm—”
“Did you not?” Flecks of saliva leapt from the lady’s mouth. “Had you succeeded, she would be as destitute as my stepson would have been.”
El could not argue that. “You are right. I was foolish. And selfish. And afeared.”
“Afeared?”
“That The Boursier would choose me over Thomasin de Arell.”
Once more, the lady stared, but this time there was a softening about her face. “You believed Bayard abused your aunt and would do the same to you.”
El inclined her head. “Though I know it does not absolve me of wrongdoing, already I had…” She paused. Why did she feel compelled to confide? Guilt over Lady Quintin’s imprisonment? Aye, that. The longing to be understood by one who could make her life difficult? That, too.
“Speak, Lady Elianor,” Lady Maeve said.
“Having suffered a bad marriage, I could not bear the thought of another.”
After a long moment, the woman murmured, “Murdoch Farrow.”
El startled. “You know of him?”
She averted her gaze. “Insofar as hearing you had wed him.”
There was falsity about her words, and El guessed Bayard had shared her past with his stepmother—a trespass she resented.
“Though my stepson chose Thomasin de Arell for his wife,” the woman said, “still you stole him from his bed. Why?”
“All had been set in motion. Thus, I determined not only would I save Lady Thomasin from an abusive marriage, but my uncle from a Boursier.”
“My daughter.”
It was not a question, and so El waited out the indignant silence.
Finally, the lady said, “Methinks you no longer believe Bayard capable of abuse. Am I right?”
Was she? Despite all that was told of him, despite every threat he had made, Bayard Boursier had proven himself honorable. How recently honorable, she could not know, but he was more honorable than she who had upset all that was to have been.
“I have tested him,” she said, “so much that even one who does not raise a hand to a woman might do so, but Bayard has done me no harm. Thus, he is either much changed or much maligned.”
Lady Maeve snorted. “Much maligned. I may not have birthed him, but I have known him since he was an infant. Never would he or did he abuse that harlot.” Her jaw shifted. “Though I almost wish he had, for it would have saved—”
She drew a whistling breath between her teeth, closed her hands into fists.
Secrets at Adderstone, just as Castle Kelling had secrets. El doubted she would ever know all that twisted in and out of the Boursiers’ lives, but if she gained a measure of acceptance, she might learn enough of what they hid that she would not feel as alone as she had in Murdoch’s home.
Lady Maeve cleared her expression, opened her hands, and crossed to the chair the physician had drawn near the bed on the night past.
“I do not like you,” she said as she lowered herself, “and I am not apt to give you cause to like me. But as we are to dwell within the same walls, I shall strive to tolerate your company providing you afford me the same consideration.”
The pact was so unexpected El could think of nothing to say.
Lady Maeve leaned near enough to reveal that her brown, otherwise unremarkable irises, were edged in gold. “Of course, should ill befall my daughter, all changes.”
It would be the same for Bayard. “I understand,” El said and turned back the coverlet. “I would like to go belowstairs.”
Lady Maeve raised an eyebrow. “The ph
ysician has said you are not to exert yourself.”
It was an injured arm, not a leg. It ached, but not enough to compel her to remain abed all day. Slowly, she opened and closed her fingers. And stilled. “Do you know what has become of my wedding ring? Did Bayard remove it?”
The lady swept her gaze to El’s hand, looked to the bedside table. “I suppose he must have.”
El touched her thumb to the base of the finger around which she had turned the loose ring. “Else ’twas lost when I fell.”
“I am sure it will soon be returned to your hand,” Lady Maeve said, then added, “after the swelling goes down.”
Though El’s fingers were swollen, she thought it likely the ring would fit better now.
“Your chemise is ruined,” the lady said.
It was. From wrist to elbow, its sleeve had been cut away, leaving a ragged edge above her bandaged and splinted arm.
“I will have to borrow one until my garments are delivered from Castle Kelling,” El said. Unfortunately, with such weather upon them, that could be a long while.
“Neither mine nor my daughter’s would be a good fit,” Lady Maeve said, “but we have cloth aplenty, and one can be fashioned for you.”
Obviously, not by El’s hand. And, again, it could be some time before her maid was sent to her. In the meantime, her outer gown would have to cover all ills.
“I am done resting.” She lowered her feet to the rushes.
Lady Maeve sat back, making no move to assist though El swayed where she rose beside her.
Once El found her balance, she measured her steps to the wooden chest against the far wall. She lifted her folded cotehardie from atop the lid, and only then realized it would be difficult to dress without aid. Too, the numerous buttons that closed the tight-fitting sleeves would have to be undone to fit her splinted arm into it.
“You will need help with that,” Lady Maeve said.
El turned and found the woman had moved to the center of the chamber. “I thank you.” She held out the cotehardie. “If you will unbutton the left sleeve and hold the gown open over my head—”