by Tamara Leigh
She was relieved but also pained by the terrible hurt her supposed death had caused her family. “And Baron Lavonne chose not to correct them,” she said.
“As the king’s men concluded the absence of your body was the result of scavenging animals, the baron determined to use it to his advantage lest the Wulfriths descended and tried to deny my brother justice.”
“But when I am brought to trial—”
“Then they will know—when it is too late for them to steal you away.”
Which she did not want, Beatrix realized. Her family would surely find some way to hide her given the opportunity. However, not only would they suffer for their defiance of the law, but for the remainder of her days she would be confined and named a murderer. She could not live like that. She would rather die.
Lifting her hands to her neck, she felt her breath quiver through her throat.
“You are afraid?”
He wished her to be, didn’t he? Wished her to tremble that her tongue might be further bound. She drew a sharp breath. “Am I as afraid of death as you are of not walking again as a man? Aye, but it shall pass, whether by noose or absolution.”
Were his anger capable of taking form, its blow would have left her bloodied. “Absolution?”
She had not considered it before, but even if absolution could save her life, she would never admit to having killed Sir Simon and claiming she had done it as the result of a bent mind. But what harm to allow D’Arci to believe it?
After a single rehearsal of the words, she said, “If I plead madness, ‘tis possible I shall be a-absolved of your brother’s death.”
He came across the dark so suddenly his warm breath swept the hair off her brow. “’Twill not save you!”
It took all of her will not to scramble backward. Fortunately, as she was as dark to D’Arci as he was to her, he could not see her fear. “The law makes…” What? If only he were not so near.
“What?” he snarled.
She slid her tongue over her dry lips. “It makes exceptions for those who are…ill of mind. They cannot be held responsible for their…”
“Sins?”
The heat of his anger met the flush of her embarrassment. “If that is what you would name it.”
His hand fell to her forearm. “You murdered, and for that you will not be absolved. I will not allow it.”
She jerked at her arm, but he held tight. Emotion soaring past her disjointed tongue, she said, “Until you are more than a vassal to Christian Lavonne, it matters not what you would or would not allow.”
“Does it not? I could kill you this moment, the same as you did my brother.”
“I did not kill him!”
“’Twas your dagger stuck in his breast, his blood on your breast.”
She remembered—her gown rushed with red, blood on the Wulfrith dagger. Some of the anger ran out of her. “’Tis so, but his death was not…murder.”
D’Arci’s hand convulsed on her arm. “What was it?”
She startled. Was he willing to hear the truth—at least, what truth she knew of what had happened? There were so many gaps. So many wide, open spaces at which she could only guess.
“I wait, Lady Beatrix, but not much longer.”
“His death was…unfortunate.”
“Unfortunate!”
“Unintentional,” she hastened.
“Your dagger. His blood. What is unintentional about that?”
“You were not there!”
“Then put me there.”
She lowered her gaze to the darkness between them. “Why?”
Aye, why? Michael dropped his hand from her. He required no explanation of what had happened between her and Simon, and yet he wanted to hear what she had to tell. He needed to hear it, though only that he might know what her plea would be when she stood before the sheriff seeking absolution. But that was not entirely true. Curse all!
He looked to her pale hair that was all that was visible of her. “’Tis said you were found over my brother holding the dagger that killed him, and Baron Lavonne told that when you awakened, you offered no defense for Simon’s death.”
“Of course I did not.”
“Why?”
“Because I could not. My tongue would not…uncurl. My lips would not…tell how your brother tried to rav—”
“Enough!” After Edithe, it had taken years to ease the belief that all women lied, but it came hard again with this woman’s talk of ravishment. “I did not ask for lies.”
Michael could not be certain, but he thought a sob escaped her. It pulled at him as women’s tears were wont to do, and he hated himself for the weakness sown of his fondness for those born of Eve. Despite all, including Edithe, he liked women.
“They are not lies,” Beatrix Wulfrith said and, with a slackening of rope, reached forward and touched his forearm. “I speak true. You did not know your…brother as you believe. Whoever dwells in your memory is not the same as the one who—”
He thrust her hands off him, disgusted that he should feel for her when her tears were deserved and as false as Edithe’s had been. “We are done speaking, Lady Beatrix.”
“You asked that I tell—”
“I asked for the truth!”
“I see. Your truth, not mine. And certainly not your brother’s.”
Her resignation pricked and, for a moment, made him wish to hear her tale. But she lied. Remembering their earlier conversation, he smiled grimly. “Did you not tell that all lie with good reason? Life or death—good reason, would you not say?”
“What I would tell is no lie.”
Michael growled. “Let pass another word from your lying lips and I will gag you.”
“I tell you—”
“Do not test me!” Holy rood! Another word he had said and then allowed her three. But if she spoke again… “Lie back, Lady Beatrix.”
Her shallow breath weighted the air, though not as heavily as her unspoken words. As he opened his mouth to issue the order again, she complied.
Michael stared at the pale light of her hair and realized she had turned her back to him. It was well she had. Gritting his teeth against the jar of his leg, he settled on the pallet and twisted the end rope around his fist. If she moved, he would know.
He looked to the breach and wished the sky were above him that he could number the hours before dawn. But, eventually, morning would come and see them from here. Regardless of what Beatrix Wulfrith believed, he had only to call to bring his destrier from the wood.
“Your brother must have changed greatly,” she murmured, once more defying him.
And once more, he let it pass without making good his threat. Though he had not known his half-brother frontwards and backwards, having been too often apart from him, the young man had shown no bent toward the ill of which she accused him. Impetuous, aye, but there was no crime in that. The only crime was that which could be put upon his murderer. And he should not doubt that person was Beatrix Wulfrith. However, there was doubt—slight, but present like the first weed lifting its ugly head above a garden’s bounty. If he did not pull out every last root, it would strangle all that was good. That he could not allow. No absolution.
Unless Christian Lavonne deigns otherwise.
The thought slipped in, prodded forth by Beatrix’s assertion that, as a mere vassal, Michael had no control over her fate. But even if Christian wavered, still there was his revenge-driven father, Aldous, who could be counted on to stand fast.
Though with each passing day Christian grew stronger in his role as baron, he continued to allow his father far more say over the barony than he should. Thus, whether with Christian’s knowledge or guile, Aldous could still effect change. But for how much longer? The matter of Beatrix Wulfrith carried far more weight than a petty raid. Indeed, if Christian did wed her sister, Beatrix’s fate would likely affect the remainder of the baron’s life. It was not to be taken lightly.
CHAPTER NINE
The memory hovered in th
e distance, and from out of his troubled dream he reached to it.
“’Tis said you ravished a lady.”
Simon’s words pierced the crisp morning air and nearly broke Michael’s stride. Affecting indifference though every muscle tensed, he said, “Is it?”
The boy who struggled toward manhood shrugged and shifted his bow. “Aye, though Mother says ‘tis untrue, as does Father.” He peered sidelong at his brother. “Is it?”
The brilliant autumn leaves beneath Michael’s feet turning suddenly drab, their crackle reduced to a rustle, he said, “What do you think?”
Another shrug. “You take what you want.”
Anger, of a shade nearly as dark as the day Edithe had worked her ruin on him, shot through Michael. But he contained it with the reminder that Simon could not know what ground he tread. “I take what I want, but only if it is due me.”
Simon quickened his step as Michael’s longer stride once more drew space between them. “Then you say you did not lie with her?”
Merciful Lord! Were it any other he would put a sharp end to this discussion. “I did not say that.”
Simon halted and, when Michael did not, ran forward and turned into his brother’s path. “Then?”
Aye, any other, Michael begrudged, but not this tousle-headed youth with a mischievous glint in his eyes. He stopped short, catching back turbulent emotions that might turn the glint in Simon’s eyes to tears. “I took what she long offered. That is all.”
Though there was no deer in sight, he reached behind, pulled an arrow from his quiver, and fit it to the string. “We are to deliver venison for the evening meal.” He stepped past Simon but came back around. “Beware of women, Brother, lest one be your downfall.”
Simon smiled a crooked smile. “I shall, Michael. No woman will ever do to me what she did to you.”
“I pray not.”
Beatrix thought it was a dream turned bad, but the light beyond her lids and the calloused palm clapped over her mouth told otherwise. Dragging air through her nose, she opened her eyes on dread morning. And Michael D’Arci whose fierce countenance was before her and whose chest once more pinned her.
Heart taking up the pound of a smithy to forge fear from the blood rushing through her veins, she wondered what she had done. Muttered in her sleep?
“Speak not a word,” he rasped.
She tried to shake her head, but he increased the pressure on her mouth.
“Naught here!” a graveled voice sounded overhead.
Was it a passing traveler? Baron Lavonne’s men? And why did D’Arci insist on silence when he ought to raise the hue? Did he fear brigands who would sooner slit his throat than offer aid?
She stared into his whiskered face that, in the light of first morn, appeared more bearded with the passing of another night. Strangely, he did not as closely resemble Sir Simon as she had first believed. Because of the whiskers?
She met his gaze. Despite the urgency there, he looked as if he had slept little.
“The baron will not be pleased,” another voice sounded.
Not brigands, then. Now D’Arci would call out. However, his lips stayed firm as he returned her gaze. Why? One shout and he could be away from here and shortly abed with his injury well-tended.
The jangle of reins met the clop of hooves over the stone walkway, followed by muffled thunder that told the men rode into the wood.
D’Arci removed his hand. “Absolution,” he muttered, then rolled off her.
“I do not understand.”
“Aye, you do.” Turning his attention to the splints, he tightened the bindings.
“They came for you, yet you did not call out. Why?”
He reached for his packs. “As I said—absolution.”
A door opened in her sleep-muddled mind. As she had forewarned, he feared she would seek and be granted absolution. And regardless what risk it posed to him, he would not be denied revenge.
She started to lift a hand to her throat again but stopped. As the fearful gesture would not be lost on him, she turned onto her side, sat up, and pulled the mantle around her to ward off the morning chill.
“Eat.” D’Arci thrust something at her.
More dried beef. Though she longed to refuse, she turned her joined hands and plucked it from him.
They ate in silence, and though she felt his gaze, she kept her eyes averted. What did he see when he looked at her? She cringed in remembrance of her reflection the last time she had gone to the stream: curves nearly lost to hunger, bones that jutted, skin freckled and darkened by too much sun. Surely, a more unbecoming woman did not exist. Even if D’Arci were not injured, she would likely have nothing to fear from him as she had feared of his brother.
He offered her the skin.
Continuing to withhold her gaze, she accepted it and sipped.
“Take another swallow,” he said when she reached it to him. “You are more in need than I.”
Though she knew she should not fuss, especially as the wine warmed as the mantle could not, she asked, “How do you know that?”
“Surely you do not forget that you were beneath me much of the night?” His voice mocked intimacy. “I certainly do not. Thus, I can say that there remained little of the woman I bared at Broehne.”
Heat tumbled across Beatrix’s cheeks. She did not forget the press of his body and certainly not the horror felt upon regaining consciousness at Broehne to discover herself unclothed.
D’Arci smiled tightly. “I know all of you—from your narrow thighs, to your bony hips, to your jutting ribs. You were hardly a comfortable bed.” He nodded for her to take another drink.
A flush of anger pulled Beatrix up from embarrassment. Beneath his weight, she had suffered more than he. And she would have said so if not that she knew it would serve nothing. She gripped the neck of the skin and let the wine coat her tongue and slide down her throat.
“Aye, you are too thin,” D’Arci said, sweeping his gaze over her.
She lowered the skin. “The easier to…hang.”
A muscle in his jaw jerked. “I had not considered that.”
From some dark corner of her memory, Beatrix pulled together her departed father’s words and struggled to order them so her tongue would not stumble. “One should never overlook the ad-ad—”
“Advantage?”
She kept her chin aloft. “The advantage of lesser things.”
“Indeed.” He stuck out his hand.
She considered the long, blunt fingers that knew more of her than any man had known, including his brother. At least, she was fairly certain Sir Simon had not known her beyond the hands he had laid to her. She passed the skin to Michael D’Arci.
“And you need a bath,” he said, then put his mouth around the spout, took a long draw, and lowered the skin. “Of what advantage is that?”
His question might have made her laugh were the situation not so dire. “Of what advantage that I remain unclean?” She shrugged. “None for you, Lord D’Arci.”
“But for you?”
“Ah.” She smiled, though it was a bitter thing. “The lack of temptation for a woman who possesses little…attraction. Had I been in such a state when I met your brother, he surely would not have—”
“Cease!” His pupils smote the color from his eyes.
Beatrix glared at him. “Methinks you ought not to ask questions to which you fear the answer.”
To her surprise, D’Arci looked away and dropped the flap on a pack. “We are leaving.” He settled both packs over a shoulder, gripped the end rope, and raised himself to a knee.
As he pushed upright, Beatrix considered his injured leg, the splints of which extended past the sole of his boot. Still, he gave it little weight. Did it pain him? More, would he walk again without falter?
“Come,” he said.
And if she did not?
“I shall drag you if needs be.”
Of course he would. But though this she could not fight, perhaps there would be so
mething else she could do. After all, how far on foot could they go with his injury?
She pressed her bound hands to the floor and pushed up.
Moving slowly, D’Arci led her to the breach. “You shall follow me up.”
“I cannot climb with bound hands.”
He pushed her mantle aside, wended the end rope around her waist, and pushed and pulled it through a series of knots.
Watching him, Beatrix was once more struck that, even with a face scrubbed by whiskers and hair tousled from sleep, he was handsome. And tall—at least, beside her. She felt almost a child with her head tipped to gaze full into his face. Had she really thought he looked like Simon?
“’Twould benefit you not to defy me, Lady Beatrix,” he warned.
“Do you not mean it would benefit you?”
“The justice I seek is assured.”
“But my fate is not?” This time she did laugh. “I shudder to think I might go to the noose b-bruised and beaten. Save your…threats for one of better destiny, blackguard.” Were the Beatrix of old capable of being clasped to her, Beatrix would have so welcomed her back. True, the words did not come without bump or botch, but they came.
D’Arci pulled her hands up, loosed the rope, and secured the end to his belt. Then he gripped the length of rope that hung through the breach and began his ascent. His arms were strong, easily carrying him up into the morning light, and it was not long before he peered down at her.
Despite numerous ascents, Beatrix lacked the ease with which he had climbed out. However, it wasn’t long before sunlight shone upon her face.
D’Arci curled a hand around her upper arm, assisted her the last few feet, and straightened. Beatrix settled on the edge of the breach and watched him untie the rope from his belt. The light of day showed that his whiskers were as dark as his hair, though interspersed with bits of gray, and at the corners of his eyes were fine lines as of one who often squints against the sun’s glare.
As he turned the rope around his fist, he trapped her with his pale gray gaze.
She felt a peculiar tug at her center and looked away. “Shall I make to the wood and…scavenge fallen branches to fashion crutches for the journey?” she asked.