by Tamara Leigh
“I told him I wish an audience with my aunt that I might learn what happened the day you…found her with Serle de Arell.”
His jaw tightened as if the tender man who had brushed out her hair and held her while she cried had returned to a place from which he had escaped. “For what purpose?”
“I believe there is more to it than what I have been told—more than Magnus knows.”
“And if there is?”
“Perhaps what is wrong between you and my aunt can be made right.”
He lowered his face near hers. “You make it sound as if ’twas a mere disagreement, as if that—” Like her uncle, he seemed to struggle for a less offensive name with which to besmirch the one under discussion. In the end, he did not name her. “The marriage bed was defiled, blood was shed, and let us not forget the maiming.”
Something with which he lived every day, as did Serle de Arell.
“Forgive me for not better choosing my words. I understand it can never be completely right between the two of you, but surely I can seek peace enough so that what haunts you will not forever haunt our marriage?”
He drew a strident breath. “I would not begrudge you your peace. But should you not ask me of that day? Or do you not trust what I would tell?”
She caught back a protest, once more shied away from a heart that sought to twist her—
Twist, El? whispered the memory of Bayard’s assurance that she was not broken. Mayhap your heart is but trying to bend you into a better shape.
Too soon, she silently defended her right to exercise caution.
“Do you not?” Bayard pressed.
“I did not think you would wish to speak of it.” Only partly true, the defense so weak she winced.
“’Tis not something I choose to discuss,” he said, “but if you must hear of it, it would be better learned from your husband.”
El could almost feel the opposing walls of the corner into which she was being backed. “Magnus,” she said, “he will more likely believe what his sister—”
“I did not ask after him, Elianor.”
She swallowed. “I wish to trust you, but…” She did not know what more to say that would not further offend him. And in the growing silence, she keenly felt his pale, singular gaze.
At last, he said, “You are right not to trust me, Elianor. We hardly know each other.”
There was no solace in his resentful assent. Indeed, it threatened all hope. Stepping nearer, she said, “I would know you better, Bayard. Will you tell me of that day—share with me as I have shared with you?”
“That you might compare my tale to your aunt’s?”
“I—”
“Good eve, Elianor.” He turned and strode to the stairs.
Was the chapel his destination? Would he pray again? Would he come late to their bed and once more be gone when she arose?
Regretting her part in shaking the bridge that had begun to span the distance between them, she motioned the servants to set the hall to rights and crossed to the hearth where she lowered into a chair near Lady Maeve to await what she was not sure she wished to be a summons to her aunt’s chamber.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
As yet, no summons. And throughout the wait, few words were exchanged with Bayard’s stepmother who mostly stared into the fire and made mischief with the purse on her girdle—stroking it, causing its coins to clink, occasionally gripping it so hard the contents clattered.
As El considered the castle folk who had begun to position their pallets about the hall in anticipation of an end to their long day, Lady Maeve said, “How fares your arm, Lady Elianor?”
El glanced at the sling. “Owing to your physician’s ministrations and draughts, I am mostly unaware of my injury except in light of its limitations.”
The lady nodded. “I did not expect you to so readily take to your new role as mistress of Adderstone—injured or nay.”
Might that be a compliment? “As the running of my uncle’s household was entrusted to me, I am accustomed to all it entails.”
“Would that it disposed me toward approving of you as my stepson’s wife,” Lady Maeve bemoaned, “but under these circumstances…”
Which need not be enumerated. Nor did El believe it wise to apologize again for being the reason Lady Quintin was held captive by the man who would be her husband. “I understand, my lady.”
“Not as much as you believe.” Bayard’s stepmother returned her gaze to the fire, and once again the contents of her purse grew restive.
Thinking their conversation at an end, El eyed the stairs in the hope Magnus would appear.
The jangling ceased, and Lady Maeve said, “Though Bayard is not of my body, I have had a care for him since he was born. Did you know his mother died birthing him?”
Surprised by the conversation’s turn, El said, “I did not.”
“Aye, while these lands were yet whole and my father was baron of all of Kilbourne.”
Denis Foucault, the betrayer and the betrayed.
“When I was Lady Maeve Foucault.”
El hesitated over words she knew few dared speak, but as Bayard’s stepmother had opened the door to them, she ventured, “Methinks it must be difficult being a Foucault and a Boursier.”
A bitter smile scratched itself into the lady’s face. “Certes, it has been no easy thing, especially since Archard was lost to me.”
“You miss him?”
Sorrow softened Lady Maeve’s mouth. “Nothing so small as that. I ache for him.”
Realizing she was in the presence of great love, albeit mourned, El’s heart convulsed. “Then you forgave him for…” Betraying was too harsh a word to wield against one for whom the lady’s heart still beat. “You forgave him for revealing your father’s true allegiance?”
Wariness crept across the woman’s brow, and El knew she regretted having allowed their talk to trespass upon such private matters, but she said, “More easily than I forgave my father for refusing to allow us to wed.”
Then Archard Boursier had wished to marry his liege’s daughter? Another thing El had not known.
“Indeed,” Lady Maeve said, “I never completely forgave my sire. Had he not denied us, had he been true to but one of his promises to award Archard the keeping of a castle, I do not believe his most esteemed knight would have moved against him. And without Archard, neither would the De Arells and Verduns have rebelled.”
She made it sound as if her world would not have been knocked off its foundation. “Still, your father and his liegemen might have lost all once the earl learned his vassal did not support the baronage’s cause.”
“If ever he had learned of it.” Lady Maeve sighed. “But that is in the past. Now I must needs look to what the future holds for my Quintin.”
“Marriage to De Arell.”
Lady Maeve gave a huff of disgust. “That whelp?”
El nearly smiled to hear the imposing, well-seasoned Griffin de Arell called such. Though his father was the only living one of the three who had turned against Foucault, the son was many years distant from being of an age or disposition to warrant such disparagement. Of course, the last time Lady Maeve had seen Griffin was likely when his father yet served hers—when he had, indeed, been a whelp.
“Nay,” Lady Maeve said, “I do not think so.”
El frowned. Did she truly believe she could prevent her daughter from wedding De Arell? If she succeeded, such defiance could cause the barony of Godsmere to be torn from Bayard as surely as if he, himself, had refused the decree. “I do not see how you can thwart Lady Quintin’s marriage without risking all of Godsmere.”
The woman blinked, shrugged. “A dream only—wanting it to be for love Quintin weds, just as I did.”
El did not doubt the sincerity of the lady’s love for Bayard’s father. Still, it bothered her how certain she sounded that Griffin de Arell would not wed her daughter. Just as El had been given no choice when her scheme against Bayard had failed, neither could Quintin
say with whom she would spend the rest of her life. “My lady—”
“Do you think you are favored by God, Lady Elianor?”
The change of topic was so abrupt El could not think of a response.
“Not even a full day since taking a fall that could have been the death of you”—Lady Maeve flicked a hand toward El’s splinted arm—“and you claim your place at Adderstone.”
El inclined her head. “It is a blessing, and perhaps your daughter will also be blessed when she weds De Arell.”
The lady’s mouth tightened.
“During our stay at Castle Mathe,” El continued, “Baron de Arell was mannerly and respectful whilst in your daughter’s company.”
Lady Maeve snorted. “Like Bayard, you seek to assure me of that which cannot be assured. And just the same, you have failed. De Arell is no fool to mistreat my daughter in her brother’s presence. No matter the odds, Bayard would not have tolerated it. But now that De Arell has no one to answer to…”
Before El could point out her daughter had appeared to suffer naught in the days before her brother’s arrival, Lady Maeve added, “And even if that whelp lays no hand upon her, his vile father might.”
“’Tis said Ulric de Arell is incapacitated,” El argued, “so much he no longer ventures belowstairs—does not even leave his chamber.”
“So I have heard, but with a Boursier beneath his roof, mayhap he will find the strength to do so.”
Though frustrated, El knew she could not begrudge the lady her worry over her only child. After all, El had feared Bayard to the extent she had tried to see him ousted from Godsmere so that neither she nor Thomasin de Arell would suffer him. And though it would seem Griffin de Arell was no more a beast than Bayard, all knew that while Ulric de Arell had ruled the Barony of Blackwood, most often he was the one to instigate trouble between the three families—whether moving against the Boursiers and Verduns, each in their turn, or rousing Verdun against the Boursiers. Doubtless, he had never risen above the disappointment of his failed bid to replace Denis Foucault as Baron of Kilbourne, and it had surely cut deeper to lose Castle Adderstone to Archard Boursier.
“Elianor?”
El looked up and found Magnus stood alongside her chair.
“Not this eve,” he said with a glance at Lady Maeve.
“I thank you, Uncle.”
He inclined his head and pivoted.
“Your aunt?” Lady Maeve said as El followed his progress to where his men had gathered near the dais.
“She keeps to herself, of which I am sure you approve.”
“There are few things I desire more than to never again share air with that woman.” A muscle in her jaw spasmed. “And here she is once more at Adderstone, flaying wide open the scars she inflicted.”
In that moment, the night past and the day gone rushed at El, and there was nothing she wanted more than to be distant from such bitterness, her mind calmed by sleep.
She stood. “I wish you good eve, my lady.”
Once more, Lady Maeve began to shift her purse.
Upon reaching the solar, El was not entirely disappointed to find Bayard absent. She would not have what had passed between them in the hall spill over into their chamber, especially considering what had last transpired here when the arms of the one she had once believed to be the basest of men had become a haven. Bayard Boursier, on whom she had gazed that day in the market in preparation of his imprisonment, had provided yet more evidence he was not merciless, not kin to the night, and that he possessed a soul far from black.
And yet still you do not trust him, a small voice reminded her.
“I want to,” she whispered, and determinedly cast off thoughts that would deny her the rest she needed.
It was difficult to negotiate her splinted arm, but she soon disrobed, slid beneath the covers, and fell down into sleep.
This eve, it was not voices that trespassed upon her sleep and opened her eyes upon the dark. What was it?
El listened, and when she did not hear the breath of one who should be abed, when she slid a leg across the mattress to confirm she was as alone as when she had laid down, she thought that must be what had awakened her—wanting the one who was not with her. Wanting Bayard.
“Cease,” she whispered, but that did not keep her from remembering the night he had pulled her atop him so she might become accustomed to him, nor his hand upon her shoulder and hers upon his.
As she turned onto her side, away from his absence, the dull ache that moved elbow to wrist sharpened.
Gingerly, she stretched her splinted arm atop her side down to her thigh, then closed her eyes and told herself to sleep—to not dwell on the empty place beside her.
She did not sleep. She did dwell on that emptiness. And regretted that Bayard and she had come so far only to have Constance’s continued silence swing like a sword between them.
But does it do so because I am the one who allows her silence its keen edges? she wondered. Because I am afraid to trust though trust may be due?
Considering all she had endured with Murdoch, it made sense to hold back that part of her, no matter how true Bayard might seem. But was there not wrong in allowing fear, more than faith, to dictate her actions—and to such an extent she turned her face from the something hopeful it seemed Bayard was placing within her grasp?
She closed her eyes. And there fear awaited her. Ever quick to offer a solution, it assured her a cautious life was better than a happy life, the latter being but a dream ripe for dashing upon the rocks. Indeed, the tales she had embraced in her younger years—the love of Tristan for Iseult and that of Abelard for Heloise—had not ended happily.
In that moment, it would have been easy to embrace caution if not that Bayard’s presence in her life was so deeply felt. Feeling him now, she was once more drawn toward that something hopeful. And so she stepped through fear and fingered her faith.
Lord, she silently prayed, I am at sea. Despite what I wrought against Bayard, and for which he had good reason to be angered, time and again he shows forbearance, even kindness. Indeed, had Agatha not convinced me he was abusive and Magnus not himself believed it, never would I have thought Bayard capable of such. Surely they are wrong about him. And if Constance would only speak of that day, it could be proved. If she would but tell me—
Abruptly, El sat up, causing the bedclothes to slip to her waist and let in a chill that rippled across her limbs. She stared at the hearth across the chamber, lowered her feet to the floor, and by the stingy glow of the fire’s remains, donned her husband’s robe. Cinching the belt tight to take up the excess length and width, she crossed to the door and opened it.
Rollo straightened from where he had lowered to his haunches against the wall. Though he had been at rest, the light of torches in the corridor showed there was no sleep about his eyes.
“Milady? Ye be needin’ something?”
“My husband. Do you know—”
“The chapel.” He jutted his chin toward the far end. “There he be. You wish me to fetch him?”
“Nay, I shall go to him.”
“Then I go with ye.”
Holding back a protest that would likely have no effect other than to offend, she followed.
As they neared Constance’s chamber, Rollo grunted in acknowledgement of the sleepy-eyed man-at-arms positioned in front of the door.
The man grunted back.
“I should wait here?” Rollo asked, halting alongside the chapel door.
Pleased that in this, she had a say, she said, “I think that is best, Rollo.”
“Ye remember my name!”
His delight made her smile. “How could I not? You have been most gallant.”
Ruddy cheeks darkening further, he said, “And ye are a God lady.”
A God lady. El hoped it was not an affront to the Lord to like the sound of that.
Rollo eased open the door, and she stepped into a chapel faintly lit by a dozen candles at the far end. As the door qui
etly closed behind her, she picked out the dim figure of the one prostrated before the altar.
Did Bayard realize he was no longer alone? Or was he too taken with prayer to hear or sense her presence? Would he begrudge her interruption?
Pulled between continuing forward and retreating, she strained to catch the murmurings of voiced prayers. Nothing. It was as if he were as absent here as he was from their bed. She wavered, then advanced in her stockinged feet.
When she drew alongside him where he lay with arms above his head and forehead to the floor, he did not rouse, nor when she knelt near.
“Bayard?” She touched his shoulder.
“Once again, you wander about in the dark of night,” he reproached, his voice gritty and dull as if fatigue pressed him to the floor.
“I am not without escort. Rollo is outside the door.”
He drew a deep breath. “For what are you here, Elianor?”
“I do not know what hour it is—if it is before the middling of night or after—but ’tis late and surely you ought to be abed.”
He turned his face toward her, and she caught the glitter of his gaze amid the hair fallen over his brow. “With you?”
Grateful for the shadows that would provide less evidence of the color in her cheeks, she said, “Aye, your wife who lay down alone and awakened to find the other side of the bed still empty.”
“A state in which she does not wish it to be?”
Tempted to push the hair off his brow, she sat back on her heels. “She does not.”
“You have spoken with your aunt?”
The question should not have surprised her, for that was where they had left their relationship—her unwilling to trust what he had to say of accusations he had borne all these years—but she was not yet ready to speak there. “I have not,” she said and changed the subject. “Are you done with your prayers?”
He gave a short, humorless laugh. “I am far from done.”
She frowned. “You have only recently come to the chapel?”
“Nay, Father Crispin was long in taking me to task, and then I was to pray. And I did—until I began to feel every hour of every day since first I gazed upon you.”