Love Thine Enemy

  Gasps broke the silence.

  Becket rejected her? Pain knotted in her chest. Despite his rebuff, she refused to lower her arms, couldn’t lower her arms, couldn’t accede. All must surely think her the most pitiable of fools.

  She felt a tug on her skirt. “Doesn’t he want us, Rochelle?”

  Pierre. Oh dear heaven, Pierre. How could she draw breath if she never again saw his large, dark eyes, or heard his laughter, or felt his arms about her neck. What would happen to him when he had a convulsion? For certain Lady Isabelle would not tend to him, which meant, he might die. Fear for Pierre strengthened her resolve.

  Becket’s mother beamed as if with a pride long denied. “Here, son, ‘tis the lord’s chalice. Take. Drink. Bask in this moment of which I’ve dreamed ever since we fled from DuBois.” She pushed the goblet toward him. “When we made our escape, I carried your burned body through the woods and tended you in remote caves, fearing you would die, terrified that Gaston had stripped me of my son as well as my status. But you survived, Becket Le Vengeur. You are now Lord of DuBois. Drink your fill of victory.”

  Rochelle held her breath in wait for him to swallow the wine that he dare not, would not refuse. The sun glinted and winked from the polished silver, taunting, tempting. Becket merely stared at the offering as if stricken.

  Lady Isabelle’s smile hardened into tolerant determination. Rochelle recognized the expression, had used that same smile myriad moments during her survival, a smile that hid emotional pain, a pain now surely caused by Becket’s unexpected hesitation.

  “Becket?” His mother’s voice quavered ever so slightly, softer, pleading, confused.

  As if unable to keep his gaze away, he turned toward Rochelle. She saw the conflict within his soul, the hunger, the want imprisoned beneath his discipline.

  “Don’t shame me, son. Take the chalice.”

  Drawn like a moth to a fiery death, Rochelle moved down the steps toward the bright glory of Becket. He caressed the hilt of his sword as if remembering moon-bathed flesh and wanton discoveries.

  “Son, she is the enemy.”

  “She is fire.”

  “Fire killed your father.”

  He took a step toward Rochelle and hope wriggled within her fear of doom.

  “She betrayed you.” Lady Isabelle grasped his arm, the sound of her accusation rebounding from the walls. “I saw her. She coupled with Gaston.”

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Rochelle recoiled as she watched Becket’s eyes widen with horror, hurt, then narrow with hatred.

  Somewhere on the parapet, a sword clattered against stone much like her hope of convincing him of the truth.

  “Men, stay at your post!” Becket shook off his mother’s hand and gripped his sword. “Not one of you takes a step until I give you leave.” A corner of his mouth lifted in a sneer of revulsion. “As I predicted, my traitorous falcon, you are true to Reynaurd’s seed after all.”

  “Gaston attacked me, Sire. And you need not carry out your sentence of the knights’ mutilation. I am still untouched.”

  Becket neared until she felt his breath against her face as hot as his anger. “So you say.”

  “Search me for the truth.”

  She saw the flash of desire he buried in haste beneath his disgust. “You pretend you are guileless, but how did he know where to wait for you?”

  “I received a message that Père Bertrand wished to see me.”

  “From whom?”

  Rochelle swallowed, uncertain how to answer.

  He grasped her chin and forced her gaze to his. “From whom?”

  “Lady Angelique.” Rochelle hated that she betrayed an almost-friend, loved that Becket touched her face. Then he released her and she felt as distanced from him as if he stood across the Channel.

  “You malign me!” Angelique’s accusation rang through the bailey. “Tell Sire Becket, Père Bertrand. Tell him you bade me give her the message.” Angelique held up her hands to Becket in supplication. “Griselda stood nearby. Ask her.”

  Père Bertrand appeared flustered. He scanned the assemblage as if looking for someone.

  A knot gripped Rochelle’s stomach. Surely it wasn’t Père Bertrand who had held down her hands! Was it someone else in disguise, like with Gaston? And yet Père Bertrand was the one who gave Angelique the message. But if wasn’t the priest, then who?

  Becket nodded to a cluster of knights. “Men, detain Lady Angelique and the priest. Find Griselda. Davide, Phillipe, Banulf, come here.”

  Angelique’s screams of protest sounded in odd syncopation with Père Bertrand’s shouts of heresy.

  The scuffing of feet stopped behind Rochelle.

  Becket nodded past her shoulder. “You three knights knew the consequences of failure and yet you let her out of your presence.”

  “She wanted privacy.” “To pray.” “To be left alone,” they spoke at once.

  “And of course, you complied. Her aura of innocence convinces the most guarded.”

  Rochelle shook so hard that wine splashed onto Becket’s jupon, the stain like darker blood upon blood. “Sire Becket, I betrayed you not. Despite my mental anguish of your brutal rejection of me, my heart would not allow such treachery against you.”

  “Your mind and heart, mayhap, but how about your body?” He waved her silent, then nodded to the knights. “What saw you when you broke through the door?” When all spoke at once, Becket held up his hand. “Davide?”

  “Gaston lay atop her, dressed in priest’s robes. Another in priest’s robes held her hands to the floor. The hood hid the second person’s face.”

  “Priest’s robes?” His gaze darted to an obviously infuriated Père Bertrand, then back to Davide. “Did you catch Gaston and his accomplice?”

  “The knights still search, Sire. ‘Twas as if the two became spirits, for ‘twas only one exit and yet no one saw them leave.”

  “Another secret passageway perhaps?” He slid his suspicious gaze to Rochelle. “Is that why you selected that particular location for your tryst? You knew of another exit into the cave?”

  “My interest in tunnels and deathtraps vanished when I became lost as a child.”

  Banulf dropped to one knee beside her, head bowed. “Lady Rochelle is not at fault, Sire. Blame me for not protecting her as I should.”

  “This dear man suffers no more reproach in my stead.” Rochelle tightened her grip on the tankard for courage. “The blame falls upon you, Sire Becket. If you had taken me as a true wife, Gaston would have had no cause. He dares because you don’t. You must either bed me or kill me, for I know in my soul that even the convent will not keep him from me as long as he believes I am the means to DuBois.”

  Becket stared at her as if struck by the truth.

  “Then kill her.” Lady Isabelle shoved to Becket’s side. “Be strong, Becket. Let not her gender sway you from your duty. Lady Anne will ease your temporary pain. Now drink and be done with this.” She thrust the goblet toward him.

  He pushed the chalice aside and stepped toward the keep. “We will discuss this in private.”

  “You must decide now, son.”

  Rochelle lifted her chin. “I, too, wish a public decision. I want all to know my fate, whether good or ill.”

  Becket stopped, turning to her. “Why, Lady Rochelle?” He shadowed his eyes against the sun and swept his focus over the parapet walls to the mountains beyond. “Do spies wait to transfer the information to Gaston so that he can plan an ambush for your rescue? Or, does he wait to see if I will take your poison?”

  She jerked from the accusation, the wine spilling onto the ground in wet thuds. “The only poison, Sire, is within your heart.”

  He withdrew the tankard from her tight grasp, then sniffed at the rim. “Not even a love potion?”

  “’Twould be folly, Sire. You are beyond such emotional corruption.”

  “Son, why this delay? You insult Lady Anne by your hesitation.”

  “Ah, Lady Anne.” He swirled
the tankard, then sniffed again. Shifting his attention toward the cobalt-gowned image of composure, he gave a slight bow. “After completing my affairs, I wended my way to your estate, but you had already departed for DuBois. Although we have visited in the past, I know little about you. Tell me, my lady. What is your passion?”

  Lady Anne’s eyes widened. “Passion, Sire?”

  “Does your blood rush when a lark sings, or when the morning light tints the snowcapped Pyrenees with the first blush of dawn? Do you swallow tears of joy over the swelling grapes upon the dew-kissed vine?”

  Becket quoted Rochelle’s own words! The ones she had shouted in argument when he had informed her of bringing Lady Anne here as his bride. His mockery increased the painful inner pressure against her breastbone.

  Lady Anne’s mouth opened without sound as if his inquiry surprised her. “I practice temperance of moods, Sire. Serenity in all things.”

  “No wrenching of the spirit from leaving your home? No titillation over the beauty of DuBois?”

  “One place is much like another, Sire.”

  “And one man much like another?”

  She merely blinked.

  “So, whether you live here with me, or yonder with another, matters not?”

  “I but obey, Sire. ‘Tis my duty as a woman.”

  “Meekness. Obedience. Supreme qualities for any man.” He paused, staring at the wine. “Except for me.” He glanced at Rochelle and instead of the expected gloating, she saw his heartache. “I prefer passion.”

  Her pulse leapt in response.

  He lifted the tankard toward his mouth!

  Lady Isabelle stayed his hand. “And what of your heirs? You taint the eternal bloodline for a moment’s passion? You betray your father.”

  “But to do otherwise, I betray myself.”

  “Heed me well, son. Decipher my meaning. In time, when all secrets are revealed, she will bend under the influence of her father and betray you.”

  Rochelle threw a startled glare at Lady Isabelle. “Becket knows my secrets. And my father is dead.”

  “Becket understands my meaning. And your father lives.”

  “Your cruelty goes too far, Lady Isabelle. My father is---“

  “Gaston.”

  “Gaston is my father-in-law.”

  “Father-in-law. And father.”

  Shock ripped through Rochelle’s mind. She felt the blood drain from her face. Her knees buckled, but Becket caught her against his side.

  “Ma mère, your lies of desperation disappointment me.”

  “’Tis the truth as told to me by Lady Beatrice, wife of Reynaurd and mother of Rochelle.”

  “Why would she confide such scandal to you?”

  “Why is of no import. What you must understand is that Gaston’s blood flows through Lady Rochelle’s veins. Poisoned blood.”

  Rochelle shoved from Becket’s hold to stand on her own two shaky legs. “Even Gaston wouldn’t ravish his own daughter. He would have no need.”

  “He doesn’t know.”

  Rochelle felt a black dizziness. “Then Marcel was my . . .” She clamped her hand over her mouth to still a rising nausea.

  “Half-brother. Incest.”

  Rochelle closed her eyes. “We never consummated the marriage.”

  She felt Becket slide his arm around her waist as if he sensed her need for support, but she knew with heart-rending certainty Becket would never take her as wife---the most agonizing of all her failures. Painful memories of her childhood raced through her mind.

  “Then ‘tis why my . . . why Lord Reynaurd never loved me.”

  “He never even guessed the submissive Beatrice had cuckolded him. Reynaurd merely didn’t like children, especially females.”

  She blinked at hot tears. “A woman as gentle as my mother would never have turned to Gaston.”

  “She sought revenge against her husband.”

  “But she knew of his incessant dabbling with peasant women and servants.”

  “’Twas his liaison with her dearest friend that set her to rebellion. Yet when she realized she carried Gaston’s child, she lost her courage and tricked both Gaston and Reynaurd into believing you were fathered by her husband.”

  Rochelle stood as still and as cold as the Pyrenees. She must somehow harden her emotions against the inevitable, for Becket would never wed Gaston’s daughter.

  “Ma mère, tell me how you know this.” Becket’s too-quiet tone sounded a warning.

  Rochelle glanced at Lady Isabelle, who had paled except for two reddish spots on her cheeks.

  “Son, I told you---“

  “Lies?”

  “How dare you speak to me, thus. I carried your burned body---”

  “Who was Lady Beatrice’s dearest friend?”

  “I tended you and nursed you despite your ugly scars. I suffered the shame of poverty and the loss of status---“

  “Who was my father?”

  “’Tis a dangerous subject. We will discuss this later, in private.” Lady Isabelle drew to an indignified height and stormed past them toward the castle.

  “Now!” Becket caught her arm and spun her to face him. “You will tell me now.”

  “You saw Alberre burned!”

  “Oui, Alberre, your husband, and the man I believed my father. Who is my real father?”

  Lady Isabelle visibly wilted, glancing around as if to assure they were outside of hearing distance. “Lord Reynaurd.”

  Another shock tore through Rochelle’s sanity.

  And yet Lady Isabelle had confessed so softly she wondered if Becket had even heard.

  Becket stilled, then she felt a tremor within his body, a tremor so deep the source must have seeped from within the marrow of his bones.

  In horror, Rochelle scanned the quiet bailey in wonder if others heard their depraved revelations, but they only stared, some in apparent fear, as well they should, and some in curiosity at the too-quiet argument shaping their future. All intuitively kept their distance making the three of them a circle of isolation amidst the crowd. At the edge of the circle Lady Anne appeared temperate of mood and serene – boring, dull, insipid.

  Rochelle’s attention returned to Becket who gripped Isabelle’s wrist so hard she winced. He leaned closer as if to assure the conversation remained secret. “Let me see if I understand how vile your perfidy. Beyond any reasoning, you spread your legs for Reynaurd, and the seed he planted in you begat me; Beatrice sought revenge by lying with Gaston, resulting in Rochelle. Do I repeat the treachery accurately?”

  “I did it for you!” hissed out between her clenched teeth. “I sacrificed for you more than you will ever know. You owe me. Cease this delay and take the chalice.”

  “But the timing is suspect, ma mère. I am a good eight years older than Rochelle, and I never saw her when we were children. And Reynaurd was a frequent visitor, if my childhood memories serve me well.”

  “Beatrice didn’t find out until during one of Reynaurd’s and my later trysts. I wanted another, you see, in case aught happened to you. But she discovered us, heard Reynaurd and I whispering about you, that despite your coloring the same as Reynaurd’s, Beatrice and Alberre were too stupid to realize the truth.”

  “Or trusting.” He tilted his head as if in confused thought, then pinned his mother with a suspicion-filled gaze. “Why did Beatrice seek revenge with Gaston instead of with Alberre?”

  Isabelle’s sharp breath sliced through the silence. “Her misguided reasoning matters not. Now drink.”

  Becket stared at her for several heartbeats, then his attention dropped to the clay tankard still imprisoned in his grasp. What torturous thoughts roiled within his soul? How could he possibly decide between what might seem to him like two hellish options?

  He swirled the wine as he returned his attention to his mother. “Another twisted thought, ma mère. For two decades you have urged me to kill Reynaurd and his seed so as to reclaim DuBois. But in truth, I am his seed, n'est-ce pas? You badgered m
e to kill my own father!”

  “Hush ere another hears you and you ruin all. Do not dare to judge me. I made this day possible for you.”

  “You made this day irresolvable! Two decades of hell for naught! I am a bastard, and bastards cannot inherit.”

  Rochelle gasped. Becket slammed her with a glare, and her stomach knotted tighter.

  Isabelle grasped his arm. “Not if you do what must be done to keep DuBois secure in your hands; one essential is to rid our path of this impediment who knows too much.” She nodded at Rochelle. “If you want DuBois, take the damned chalice and then we’ll strategize.”

  Rochelle’s heart shuddered to a stop and her breath froze. She knew too much to remain alive. He would never choose her over his mother. Not with DuBois at stake.

  Becket scowled at his mother as if running impossibilities through his mind. Then he dropped his gaze again to the tankard still gripped in his hand. Letting out a tortured groan, Becket lifted the tankard, and downed the wine!

  Rochelle stared, stunned. He had taken drink that had come from her hand! But why? For spite? For vengeance? Had he hoped the liquid poisoned? Was it to ease her caution so that she didn’t seek protection?

  Lady Isabelle threw her chalice to the ground. “How dare you refuse me!”

  With deliberate movement, Becket re-tipped the tankard and caught the last drop on his tongue, then let the clay shatter at his feet. “Do you know the identity of the third conspirator? Do you know the whereabouts of the secret documents that prove the innocence of the man I will always consider my father, the man who burned at the stake?”

  “I will tell you naught until you rid DuBois of that harlot.”

  “There is only one harlot in this obscene scenario. How did the man to whom you offered your body end up as lord of DuBois and then Gaston became liege of Moreau? Did we needlessly lose all and suffer for two decades as a result of your evil machinations?”

  Lady Isabelle’s eyes glittered hatred. “I know the answers to all the enigmas that plague your soul, enigmas you would do aught to discover. But I will not reveal a shred more until that woman is gone, preferably dead. She has the power to destroy us and to forever rip from us DuBois. Now no more else another guesses the secret of our conversation.” She forced a smile as if to prove to the world the disagreement petty, and solved. “I give you until morn to do what you should have done days ago. You will find me in my chamber. Do not disappointment me.” Lady Isabelle marched into the keep like an imperious Queen, a nauseatingly serene Lady Anne in her wake. Mayhap serenity had its positives; Lady Anne would never be the target for murder.