Lie Down in Roses

by Heather Graham

  She might never come this close again. Ever.

  “You’ve-blisters?” Tristan asked her.

  She nodded.

  “I’ll walk awhile. You can ride.”

  She stood meekly still, lashes sweeping low over her eyes, while his hands spanned her waist and he lifted her high. She took the reins and walked the horse dutifully behind him as he started out.

  Then she leaned low, and whispered softly to the creature; then she pulled the reins to the right and dug in her heels.

  The horse, beautifully trained, spun cleanly about. He was incredibly agile for his size, and he took off with a jolt that nearly sent Genevieve flying from the saddle. Within moments he was at a canter, as smooth as silk.

  Genevieve bent low, gripping a handful of his mane along with the reins. The cool air flew at her, sending her hair flying, stinging her eyes. But day had never seemed more beautiful; it was almost like flying to freedom.

  Pie’s hooves tore away the turf. They mounted the cliff together and they sailed down it. She could see the convent. The low fence before the gardens, the high walls rising behind it. She could see the Holy Sisters tending to their garden patches, like awkward birds in their full black garments and wing-like hats. She could see them, she could almost touch them. They could see her, surely—

  She didn’t hear the whistle—not at first.

  But Pie did. He stopped dead on a hair. And then he whirled around, and this time he did unseat his rider. Genevieve came hurtling into space; Pie was so big that it was a long, long fall. She saw stars when she hit the ground.

  Her head cleared just as she felt the ground beneath her thundering. For a moment she thought that she needed to roll, that the horse might trample her. Then she realized that it wasn’t hooves at all, the horse was standing perfectly still.

  Feet were causing the ground to seem to quiver against her ears. Gasping, she pushed herself up. Tristan was coming, running like some ancient Greek athlete. Genevieve quickly stumbled to her feet and tried to weigh the distance. The nuns could see her! They were shading their eyes and looking at her.

  She started to run. The distance between her and the wall and her and Tristan seemed to be the same. Perhaps she couldn’t leap the wall, but if she did reach it, surely Tristan could not drag her back. Not with this flock of sainted ladies looking on.

  She could barely breathe. Her blisters burned into her feet more deeply with every step and it felt as if long needles tore into her calves. It didn’t matter. She could see the disbelieving look on one young sister’s face. She could almost sail over the wall . . .

  Suddenly she was sailing but not over the wall. She felt a sharp impact and flew up into the air, then came down hard. She twisted and tried to rise, but a hard weight bore down on her

  She gasped for air, and stared up into Tristan’s eyes. His dark, sweat-gleaming features were grim; his lips were parted.

  “God in his infinite heaven!” Came a voice, and Genevieve felt a thrill of joy again, for one of the sisters was coming to the little wall, staring over at them. She almost smiled; she was glad that she didn’t because Tristan’s eyes were narrowing and she realized, too late, that he had a few plans of his own.

  “Genevieve, my love, my life! I warned that you must take care with Pie! Dearest!” he cried.

  And he leaned over and kissed her.

  She fought that kiss, twisting and flailing. But his hands were flat on her hair, right next to her face, pulling it to keep her head still, and his weight was such that she could not even squirm. In seconds she wasn’t thinking so much about escape as she was life—she could barely breathe.

  “My goodness!” murmured one of the sisters, shocked.

  Tristan moved from Genevieve then, just as she thought that she would pass out. She was desperate for air, she couldn’t begin to speak. Tristan stood quickly, swept Genevieve up in his arms, and bowed to the sisters.

  “Good day, ladies! Forgive me, please! God’s blessings upon us all.” He smiled sheepishly. “Newlyweds, you know.”

  Titters of delighted laughter followed his words and Genevieve quickly found her voice.

  “Newlyweds, my—”

  The rest was muffled; another suffocating kiss fell her way. She watched him raise a gallant hand to the sisters and wave.

  To Genevieve’s dismay, they waved in return; a few of the younger ones looked rapturously enchanted, but one or two of the older ladies shook their heads in disapproval.

  They returned to their work.

  And Tristan quickly carried her back to the piebald and set her down with a thud. She gasped, still thinking that she might cry out for help. He was ahead of her once again, clamping a less than gentle hand over her mouth.

  “One word, one word, and so help me God, Genevieve, you will have blisters on your rear to match those on your feet, Holy Sisters or no, I swear it!”

  Exhausted, more than certain that he would carry out his threat and less than certain that her scream could be heard, Genevieve heeded his warning. She leaned her head against Pie’s great neck and continued to gasp for breath.

  His sudden grip about her waist was hard and harsh and she almost landed on the other side of the horse when he lifted her. He didn’t hand her the reins. He set a foot in the left side stirrup and mounted the horse behind her. Pie flicked his tail and started up at a canter.

  Tristan rode hard. Genevieve stayed as straight as she could. The wind seemed to blind her, and in time she wondered that Tristan could be so hard on the horse that he was so obviously fond of.

  And then they slowed. He was silent, but he was there. And upon the animal’s back, they were forced far closer than Genevieve wanted to be.

  She was so tired.

  Tristan didn’t speak. And at long last, growing cramped in the saddle, Genevieve asked, “How long—’til we reach Edenby?”

  “By nightfall.”

  Tears rose bitterly to her eyes. It had taken her so long to walk! It had been such a hard, desperate journey.

  I should have figured out a way to steal a horse! she railed silently against herself.

  But she had not. And Pie could eat twice the distance she had made in less than half the time.

  They stopped only once, and Tristan still had nothing to say to her. He handed her food without a word, and she ate without a word. They both drank ale from the same cup without a word, and then started out again.

  This time Genevieve could not remain rigid. She was exhausted from lack of sleep and exertion. In time her eyes closed of their own accord, and her head fell back against Tristan’s chest; his mouth compressed in a tight line.

  Genevieve woke with a start, certain that she was falling. She was falling, but only into Tristan’s arms as he lifted her from Pie.

  “Where are we?” she whispered sleepily.

  “Home,” he told her curtly, and she instantly began to fight his hold.

  “No, milady, not now!” he told her, and his arms tightened.

  He shouted out an order, and someone came for the horse. Then with his long, sure strides he carried her up the steps and into the great hall. The doors opened, and all the warmth of the hall seemed to come flooding out to them.

  Jon was silhouetted there, with Edwyna behind him. They stepped back for Tristan to enter with Genevieve.

  “You found her!” Edwyna cried. But she didn’t look at Genevieve, and Genevieve knew that she was glad of her recovery—but angry.

  And why not, Genevieve, thought. You used her and you used Jon and you betrayed their kindness and your trust.

  “Aye, I have found her,” Tristan replied shortly. He strode on past them, Genevieve struggling against him.

  “Tristan, please, just let me tell them . . . Edwyna and Jon that—that I’m sorry. That—”

  He didn’t stop walking. He looked down at her skeptically.

  “Sorry that you escaped?” he whispered the taunt.

  “Nay! I must escape you, and you must realize tha
t! I am sorry that I—”

  “Betrayed them?”

  “Damn you, please, just let me—”

  “They really don’t want to speak with you, Genevieve.”

  She didn’t have an answer for him because she was staring at the door to her room—as they went on past. Tristan walked to the next staircase, the one leading to the tower.

  “We passed my room.”

  “My room, milady.”

  “What—”

  “I have discovered that I’m fond of that chamber.”

  “But . . .”

  Her voice trailed away in disbelief. They had reached the top of the winding stairway, and with the shove of a boot he had pushed open the one door there. He stepped in, and Genevieve gasped again with startled horror.

  The tower room had been opened and cleaned and especially prepared. For her.

  There was a hearth here, the focal point of the room. The bed was large and soft and ample, and there were chairs and a table. Her trunks lined the walls.

  There was but one window, though. One lone window that sat high, high above the ground with nothing beneath it. It wasn’t that it was a terrible room or a particularly drafty room or a cold room. But it was just so isolated.

  Tristan set her down upon her feet. Her legs, cramped from so much riding, would not hold her. He caught her when she started to fall and carried her to the bed.

  He stepped back and Genevieve sat up quickly.

  “Here? You’re—” she could hardly speak the words. “You’re locking me up—up here?”

  “Aye,” he said, looking coolly regal.

  “You chased me all that distance, ran me down like a fox, to drag me back and lock me up in the tower?”

  “Aye, milady, that I did.”

  Genevieve felt faint—but somehow, suddenly strong at the same time. She shrieked out, insane with anger, and wishing in those dark seconds that she could have killed him. She pitched herself off the bed like a snarling tigress, and she was so swift that her first blow reached him, her nails raking a pattern across his cheek, her force nearly sweeping him from his feet. He rallied quickly, though, catching her disastrous tangle of hair and jerking her head back so sharply that she cried out, giving up the fight. He released her and she sank to the floor, and yet she had never been less beaten. She stared up at him, hating him, venom turning the tears in her eyes to a crystal mercury that condemned as no words could.

  “You are a monster,” she told him softly. “I have never met or seen or known of a creature on this earth less merciful.”

  He didn’t answer her right away. Then he hunched down slowly until he was on a level with her, looking deeply into her eyes.

  “I have tried to be merciful, milady.”

  “You are cruelty itself!”

  “Nay, milady. Shall I tell you what cruelty is?” He had gone very tense, and he stared at her with pitch black eyes, but suddenly Genevieve knew that he was not seeing her at all—that he didn’t look at her, but beyond her.

  He didn’t touch her; his fingers knotted together before her, so tightly that the knuckles were white.

  “Cruelty . . .”

  His voice was almost a whisper, and carried some pain that she could barely touch yet seemed to invade her.

  “Cruelty is a man waking to an alarm in the night, slain in his own bedroom. Cruelty is a peasant woman slain in the midst of her baking; or her husband, old and gray, butchered with his own scythe. Cruelty is rape, brutal rape. And it is death on top of that rape, even though she screamed, even though she surrendered, even though she begged and pleaded that they not hurt or cut or maim her but let her live just for the child that she carried . . .”

  His voice trailed away.

  It was as if his eyes focused on her again, and could not bear what they saw.

  He stood abruptly, then stiffened. Genevieve raised her head, unaware that tears she could not understand were falling silently down her cheeks.

  There was someone standing in the doorway.

  Tess. Red-cheeked, bright-eyed, bobbing, and eager to please.

  Tristan didn’t seem to notice her. He stepped to the left to go past her.

  “Milord . . . ?” Tess queried.

  Tristan looked back into the room, as if rudely reminded of something.

  He shrugged.

  “Clean her up,” he told Tess crudely.

  And then he walked away, the sound of his footsteps quickly receding as he hurried down the winding stone stairs.

  Fifteen

  “I’m going to be married!”

  Edwyna said the words with such loving reverence that Genevieve smiled despite all of her misgivings, and returned her aunt’s tumultuous hug.

  It was a wonderful thing—surety. Edwyna loved her Jon. Even if he had been part of disaster and desolation, part of Edgar’s death, part of it all. She loved him and he loved her, and if Edwyna could forget, then everything was—well and good.

  “I’m so glad for you,” Genevieve murmured, and she kept any bitterness to herself. She had been stunned and then heartily glad when Edwyna had come to her this morning, since she had wondered if Tristan had intended to keep her locked away from all society except that of his bouncing little doll, Tess. And she had wondered, too, if Edwyna would forgive her, since Genevieve’s actions had caused Edwyna a fair amount of heartache.

  Edwyna, her eyes as bright as the stars, pulled away from Genevieve. “Tomorrow, Genevieve! Father Thomas is going to marry us tomorrow in the chapel. Oh, Genevieve, I am so very, very happy!”

  Genevieve had to swallow sharply and look down at her hands. She loved Edwyna; she was happy for her. But she felt more lost and desolate herself than ever. God! What had happened here? Life was going on. Father Thomas prayed in his chapel, the peasants worked in the field, and old Griswald labored in the kitchen. It was almost as if ...

  As if nothing had ever really happened. As if apocalypse had never come. Even with Edwyna, life was going on. Beautifully. She had fallen in love with the invader.

  Only Genevieve was left to pay. Pay the price of treachery. She fought her imprisonment, frightening and angering them all, but damn it they’d all been a part of it; yet she was the one now being condemned.

  But then, she thought with a shudder, she was the one who had raised a hand against Tristan, and by God, she now believed that his chivalry and his heart were indeed buried forever.

  She hadn’t forgotten his words, nor his look, all through the night. She hadn’t understood completely, but she had felt something and she had known pity—which he would not want, of course, especially from her—and an even deeper fear and desolation for her own future. There was no mercy left in the man.

  She turned suddenly from her aunt, not wanting Edwyna to see the tears that burned her eyes suddenly and inexplicably. “I’ll be thinking of you every moment. I’m sure it will be very beautiful.”

  That was it, of course. Edwyna was going to be married, bound before God, and it would be beautiful and there would be a feast and maybe even dancing and ...

  Genevieve would not be there. She would be the prisoner in the tower, tainted, forgotten.

  “But you must be there!” Edwyna said. “Oh, Genevieve, you need but ask Tristan, and he will relent!”

  Genevieve turned back to her, straightening so that she would not betray her disappointment. Edwyna had not seen Tristan last night when he had spoken to her. Had not seen the fury, the distance, the pain—or the barrenness that remained.

  “I doubt,” she murmured softly, “that he will speak with me today, much less listen to any request. And—” She hesitated, unable to explain to Edwyna that it was one thing to lower oneself to beg when there was a prayer of being heard, and another when there was not.

  “I cannot ask him, Edwyna.”

  “But Genevieve—”

  “I cannot. Truly, if I sent for him, he would not come. I know it. And I really—I really cannot even send for him.”

  “Per
haps I can ask him,” Edwyna murmured. “Or Jon.”

  Genevieve shrugged and tried to smile gaily. “Edwyna! Please, this is going to be a wonderful day for you and Jon. Your day. Don’t mar it, don’t cast a dark cloud upon it! Enjoy it and, please, don’t worry. I will be with you in spirit, I swear it!”

  Edwyna was still unhappy. She walked over to the mantel, frowning, then turned back to her niece.

  “Genevieve, you simply do not handle him right.”

  Genevieve threw her arms up in the air in exasperation. “I do not handle him right! Edwyna—he has taken my inheritance! He killed my fiance and my father—”

  “Battle killed them.”

  “He invaded my house, he invaded me, and you speak to me of handling him!”

  Edwyna didn’t look at her. She stared at the fire.

  “I like him, Genevieve. I admire him. I find him just and often chivalrous, and though hard perhaps, he is fair. He has dealt well with every man and woman here.”

  “You will excuse me if I do disagree!”

  “Ah, Genevieve! If you had just accepted—”

  “Accepted! He dragged me back, he locked me up, he—”

  “He took what was originally offered, don’t you see? Oh, Genevieve! That is the way of things: They won—we lost! If you would not take it all so to heart—”

  “I have to take it to heart! An extremely personal affront, my God, Edwyna, please! You have fallen in love with Jon—I am glad. Glad of your future. But don’t expect acceptance from me! I hate him, I find him ruthless, I . . .” Her voice trailed away suddenly as she wondered how much of her own defense was a lie. She was silent for a minute, then said, “Edwyna—what happened to him?”

  Edwyna hesitated. “He—he doesn’t like his past discussed,” she murmured. “He’s still furious with Jon for having told me about it.”

  “Before God, who is here with us, Edwyna! You condemn me for fighting him, yet you won’t help me understand him! I know—something. That his people were attacked, that . . .”

  “There was no battle, Genevieve,” Edwyna interrupted. She sighed. “They were Yorkists, then, you see. His family. Tristan was close to Richaid—”

  “What?” Genevieve gasped, astounded.