She suddenly understood everything: from his unexplained knowledge of events to his belief in the Beaumont Curse. He thought himself some kind of monster, and by his silence, he invited the crowd’s condemnation. In fact, he seemed to want it.
Margery felt suddenly as if a great weight had been lifted from her soul. Gareth didn’t think he deserved her hand in marriage! She closed her eyes to hide her tears of relief. She hadn’t been wrong about him—the way they enjoyed each other’s nearness, his gentleness and passion in lovemaking. He had been hiding a secret he thought too terrible for her to hear.
Instead, it only made her love him more. How horrible to feel so different from everyone, to be condemned and hated for something he had no control over. Yet he had gone on with his life, and kept his burden private.
She couldn’t look at him, for worry that her admiration and love would shine from her eyes. Now was the moment she had trained her whole life for; to keep her people calm and secure in the knowledge that she was the ultimate authority at Hawksbury Castle.
The hall buzzed with whispered voices and a dangerous undercurrent. Everywhere Margery looked, servants and soldiers moved away, as if they’d never seen Gareth before. She had to stop this now, before the cry of “witch” ruined his life forever.
She did the first thing she could think of: she laughed. It was so easy to let peals of her laughter ring through the hall. She laughed at her mistakes, at her foolish pride, at the ignorance that allowed her to believe Gareth’s words instead of his heart.
“Oh, Sir Bradley, please forgive me. Do not think I mock you, but I have known Sir Gareth since we were children. Never could I believe such things of him. He has cared for me and protected me. If he was a wizard, do you not think I would have seen the signs?”
“Mistress, men such as he are too cunning for a mere woman,” Sir Bradley said.
Margery’s smile lessened at his stupidity. “Just a few weeks ago, Sir Gareth was gored by a charging boar. Do you not think if he was a wizard, he would have stopped the animal?” she scoffed.
The voices were dying down, and one or two of her knights were starting to smile. “At the Cabots’ tournament, I watched Sir Gareth get knocked to the ground in the final jousting match. He could have won a fortune. Do you not think a wizard would have stayed in the saddle?”
Sir Bradley’s face was growing red. He looked about, trying to marshal any supporters. “But, mistress—”
“I must admit, it saddens me to think you would believe such nonsense. His family has had a tragic history, but that is all.” She turned away from Sir Bradley, as if she had already dismissed him from her suitors.
She glanced casually at her servants and friends, who had been near Gareth for months now. Surely they wouldn’t think ill of him.
Her knights laughed together and turned away, resuming their game of dice. Anne and Cicely bent over their embroidery. A serving maid shyly approached Gareth with an offer of ale, and soon his usual parade of admiring maidservants fell into line.
Margery gave a shaky sigh—it had worked. She signaled for her minstrels to begin a dance, then walked over to Gareth. He slowly looked up at her, his face unreadable.
“Sir Gareth, I believe I still owe you a dance.”
She knew she had left him no choice. He rose to his feet, his golden eyes gazing deeply into hers. What did he see in her, what did he know? The possibilities were endless, and she suddenly wanted to explore everything with him. She put her hands in his, and his warmth flowed through her. Though he didn’t smile, he studied her with an intensity that left her flustered and yearning. As they whirled past Sir Bradley, she made sure to show a happy, joyous face. It wasn’t difficult; she was in Gareth’s arms.
Gareth held Margery’s hand through the dance, grief and gratitude waging war in his mind. She knew everything about the curse. He’d been able to tell from her face that she believed Bradley Palmer.
Yet instead of sending him from her in fear, she was saving him from certain banishment, perhaps even death. Her unselfishness humbled him, but it only made him resolve to leave her the moment he could. She did not deserve the scandal of having him in her home.
That night, Gareth sat alone in his bedchamber before his bare hearth. He felt relieved that the truth was out, and that Margery had accepted it gracefully. Now she would understand why he had to leave.
In his mind he saw the grounds of Hawksbury Castle. Not since his fostering had he stayed in one place long enough to know people. He would miss the soldiers and knights; he would even miss Wallace’s friendship. He’d never thought he’d learn to trust a man, but Wallace had changed his skepticism. Wallace could have courted Margery himself, but he would never betray their friendship.
Yet he would be a much better husband than Gareth.
The door suddenly opened and Margery slipped in. She leaned back against the wall and gave him a speculative look. “I had to come. I think you need protection from Sir Bradley.”
She smiled, but he couldn’t smile back. He just looked at her across the room, and felt that they were farther apart than ever.
“You know what I am now,” he said simply.
She walked toward him, her gown swaying with the motion of her hips. The heat of unfulfilled desire was almost painful. As he remembered all he’d done to her, he knew he deserved every pain and more.
“I’ve always known what kind of man you are.” Her voice was low, sultry.
She was so naive.
“You only think you do,” he countered angrily. “You don’t know why I came here; you don’t know the things I’d planned.”
She stood above him, her hands on her hips. He leaned back in the chair and gripped the arm rests.
“Gareth, you came here to protect me. Is that a lie?”
He looked away. “That was only part of it.”
“How did you know I needed protection?” she asked softly.
He clenched his jaw. How could he answer? How could he prove once and for all the sick things that went on in his mind? “I just knew.”
“How did you know?”
He stood up to tower above her. He needed her fear, needed to drive her away. “Do you want to hear it all, how I see things before they happen? How I saw your face in my dreams and visions after all these years?”
“You swore an oath to my father,” she said calmly. “When you…saw me, was it me you came for, or my father?”
He wanted to say “your father,” but the lie wouldn’t leave his mouth. “I came for you both.” He gripped her arms when a pleased smile curved her mouth. “I did not lie to you about that. I lied about everything else.”
“Everything?” she asked in a weak voice.
If this was the only way to drive her from the chaos of his world, back to the privilege and safety of hers, then he would tell her every ugly truth and be damned in her eyes. “Since I was twelve years old, I have spent every moment of my life hating your family. I rescued you, and you banished me.”
“But I didn’t know!” she cried.
She tried to wrap her arms about his shoulders, to press against him. It took everything in Gareth to keep from holding her, to remain as cold and remote as a statue.
He pushed her away. “I understand that now. But back then, since you didn’t try to stop it, I thought you were just as guilty. And when I arrived here and saw how good your life was, I was furious.”
“You had a right to be.”
By the saints, nothing was getting through to her! Must he spell out his every sin and watch the pain in her eyes? “Did I have a right to get close to you, to try to persuade you that I was more than your friend?”
Her eyes glistened. “What do you mean?”
“While pretending to be your suitor, I was seducing you in truth. I was lying to you, and I set out to use you.”
“But why?”
“Because it would have been my final revenge on your family. I wanted to make you fall in love with me, to cho
ose me as your husband.”
“And I did.” Her voice was barely a whisper.
He whirled away from her and covered his face against her anguish. “You would have chosen me—a man cursed through life, Warfield’s Wizard, a poverty-stricken knight. I wanted all that for you.” He turned back toward her. “Now do you see what kind of man I am?”
Margery hugged herself as tears ran down her face. No matter how he’d come to Hawksbury, no matter his motives, he wasn’t the same man now. The pain in his eyes and in his voice told her that.
And she loved him. But she didn’t think he was ready to hear that.
“You have never trusted anyone,” she said slowly. “Life—and my family—has taught you that. You were right not to trust me. I was using you, too. Every moment I pursued you, every time I tried to bring you to my bed, do you think I had marriage on my mind?”
He looked at the floor, not at her. She wanted to put her arms around him, to take all his pain away and bury it inside her.
“’Tis not the same thing,” he said in a low voice.
“Is it not? I wanted you as my last good memory before an awful marriage. Did I care that I might hurt you? At least you wanted to marry me. I just wanted to selfishly use your body for my own pleasure.”
“Do you not see?” Gareth said, obviously scoffing at her sins. “It worked right into my plans!”
She stalked into his line of sight, then held his arms when he would have turned away. “Listen to me! Even my marriage proposal to you was selfish. You were the solution to my plans. I was not thinking about love, or even your feelings. I just selfishly assumed that I was the answer to all your prayers. But of the two of us, who was the one to do the noble thing?”
“Margery, don’t do this.”
He looked deep into her eyes, and she saw all the pain and anguish he had spent a lifetime learning to hide.
“It was you!” she cried. “You refused to marry me; you saw what I was doing.”
“How could I marry you after everything I’d done, everything I was?”
“Tell me about the visions,” she whispered suddenly.
He tried to pull away, but she threw herself against him and put her hands on either side of his face. “Tell me about the visions.”
“There is nothing to tell,” he said, and his misery hurt her. “They aren’t even useful most of the time. I usually see minor things, like someone getting sick, or something lost. I get so nauseous that I want to understand none of it, and I pray to God to take them away from me. But He never took them away from my father or my grandfathers, and they went mad.”
She held her breath for a moment, fighting tears. This was the true Beaumont Curse. “Oh, Gareth. Don’t tell me that you’ve worried your entire life that you would be next to go mad.”
“Me? My arrogance protects me from madness. I’m so foolish that even when the visions warned me you’d be riding away with a man, I thought it was I!” His laugh was full of self-hatred. “I let you get kidnapped. Do you not see, Margery? You don’t deserve this.”
She tried to kiss him, but he wouldn’t lower his head. She leaned against his chest and pressed her lips to his throat. “But you found me. ’Tis all that matters.”
“Fitzwilliam wants you back,” he said coldly. “You should marry him.”
She looked up into his remote face. “You want me with a man like him? Last spring, he told me he wouldn’t marry me because I hadn’t conceived his child. He told me that I was barren, worthless.” The words tumbled from her lips like the tears from her eyes.
Gareth stared at her, wide-eyed. “You had only lain with him twice. Surely you know his words meant nothing.”
“I had no one to ask,” she whispered. “I know you think I’m a fool. But I had not only dishonored myself with him; I hadn’t conceived.”
“Margery,” he whispered, wiping away her tears with his thumbs. “Some women take a long time to have children.”
“But you would not care, would you?” she asked hopefully.
“Of course not. If I were your husband, I would love you no matter—” He stumbled over his words as he saw the trap. “But I will never be your husband.”
“Gareth, please—”
He disentangled himself and stepped back. “If you cannot choose Fitzwilliam, choose Wallace Desmond. He’s a good man. Now go back to your bed before someone discovers you here.”
For a moment she wanted to melt into his arms and press kisses to his face. He loved her, he had almost admitted it. And she loved him.
“This isn’t finished between us, Gareth,” she said fervently.
He turned away.
Somehow, Margery would convince him that they were meant to be together. She was too close to happiness to accept less.
For the trip to Greenwich Gareth packed all his belongings, since he wouldn’t be coming back to Hawksbury. At dawn he loaded his saddlebags, and as he stuffed the garments down as far as he could, his fingers encountered a small bulge. He pulled out a balled piece of leather.
Slowly, he unwrapped it, and found his half of Margery’s crystal stone, which reflected the lantern light in a scattered pattern across the wall. He almost threw it away—then closed his fist around it tightly. It was all he would have left of her.
Someone entered the stables behind him, and he quickly shoved the stone into the pouch hanging from his belt. He tightened the saddle, then turned and found Wallace watching him.
“Is something wrong?” Wallace asked softly.
Gareth shrugged.
“You haven’t seemed yourself these past few weeks. In fact, you have stopped your pursuit of our fair mistress.”
“I’ll be leaving as soon as she chooses a husband.”
Wallace put a hand on his shoulder and Gareth stared at it in surprise.
“What made you change your mind about Margery?” Wallace asked.
“You were right. I couldn’t lie to her anymore.”
“I think there’s more to it than that.” Wallace lowered his voice. “That knight who came here accusing you of wizardry—tell me about him.”
Gareth knew he should keep lying; Margery had preserved his secrets with her laughter. But as he looked into Wallace’s face, he could not break the trust they had begun to build between them.
“Some of it is true. I…see things other people don’t see, though I wish I didn’t. In my mind, I saw Lord Warfield’s son taking ill. Then I simply forgot it hadn’t happened yet, and asked after his health.”
Wallace watched him solemnly. “That is how you knew Margery was in danger.”
“I’ve always known, even when we were children. I don’t know why.”
“I do,” Wallace said, beginning to smile. “Fate. Love.”
Gareth turned back to his horse, resting a hand on its warm flank. “But that isn’t enough.”
“Why not? I heard her defend you. I have seen the way she looks at you. She loves you; you love her.”
“Love isn’t enough,” Gareth said in a soft, sad voice. “I lied to her, I used her against her family. Even my past is too difficult to overcome. I told her to find another man.”
“I think you’re wrong.”
“Perhaps. But at least I’ll be able to live with myself, because I’ve finally done the right thing.”
Chapter 26
At the end of September, the palace at Greenwich came alive to celebrate the return of the king from the battle of Stoke. Hundreds of candles blazed throughout the presence chamber, where the golden thrones of King Henry VII and Queen Elizabeth were elevated. Tapestries and multihued banners of cloth were strung from the walls.
Margery stood beside her brothers, dressed in a pale blue brocade gown that shimmered with cut glass and pearls, wearing a decorated cap with the sheerest veil covering her long hair.
She knew she should be nervous, but a calm determination had come over her. Both James and Reynold eyed her with suspicion, but she merely continued to smile wit
h confidence—and answered none of their questions.
Instead she looked over her shoulder, searching for Gareth. She had made Wallace promise to keep him in the presence chamber. She spied Gareth in the second row of the large crowd, looking grim. Their gazes caught and held until he looked away. He shone with that savage, bright beauty that almost hurt her eyes. In his royal blue doublet, he glimmered as a jewel among common stones. She offered a silent prayer that she could make everything work out.
The king and queen had not yet entered. The musicians played, and the smells of a feast wafted through the air. Margery left her brothers and moved through the crowd, searching for Peter Fitzwilliam.
She spotted him leaning close to a blushing young woman, though he straightened when he saw Margery coming.
“Mistress Margery!” he called, with the joviality of true confidence.
“Lord Fitzwilliam,” she said, smiling coolly, “I would like to speak to you.”
“By all means.”
He walked away from the poor girl without even a farewell. His conceit sickened her, but she wouldn’t have to bear it for much longer.
She led him to a window alcove hung with gold draperies and flowers. They were in sight of the hall, yet their voices would not carry far. Margery saw her brothers watching with concern. Perfect.
“You do not need to prepare me,” Peter said conspiratorially. “I’ll look quite pleased and surprised when you call my name.”
She gave him a polite smile. “I won’t be calling your name.”
His smile faded. “Pardon me?”
“I won’t be calling your name, Peter. You will not be my choice for husband.”
He looked almost petulant, like a little boy who wouldn’t be getting a new pony. “But Margery, I don’t wish to tell your brothers what you and I did together. It would be such a shame to anger them.”
“I won’t stop you,” she said, gazing calmly into his face. “Go ahead and tell them what you did to me.”
He hesitated, and she held her breath. “They’ll name you a harlot.”
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