by Tamara Leigh
With a glance at those who watched, Joslyn felt regret for what was about to happen. It would win none over to his side—would reinforce what they already thought of Maynard’s successor. “I am sorry, Oliver, but you must needs wait until you are older to have your own chamber.”
His chin quivered and eyes teared, but as he opened his mouth to cry out his anger, Liam plucked him up.
“Your mother is right.” He seated Oliver on his arm. “But that does not mean you cannot explore the chamber that will be yours when you are older.”
The downward curve of his mouth reversed. “Can I?”
“Aye, but first a favor.”
Joslyn did not know what to think of this turn of events but was grateful for Liam’s aid.
Murmuring amongst themselves, the castle folk stared at the unlikely twosome. Here was the man who had lost his last bid for Ashlingford, in his arms the child who had taken it from him.
“What favor?” Oliver asked.
Liam whispered in his ear, drew back and said, “Can you do that?”
Oliver sighed. “A’right. Then I wanna see my chamber.”
Liam inclined his head. “Ready?”
“Uh-huh.”
Liam strode toward the gathering and began introducing his nephew.
From the sideboard where drink had been set out for the returning knights, Ivo stood with tankard in hand and looked from William to Lady Joslyn. And seethed. As the woman stared at the ill-gotten thing who held her son, her face reflected an emotion Ivo would have loved to slap from it.
Curse her! he silently blasphemed as she strode forward to be included in the introductions. She had no right to look at any man that way, especially William. Under the pretense he cared for Oliver, the greedy knave lured his brother’s naive widow nearer an unholy union.
Oliver’s happy, chattering voice pulled Ivo out of his dark thoughts. Down from Liam’s arm, the child stood before Emma, who had lowered to her haunches to welcome Maynard’s son. With her face aglow as it had not been for years, the woman nodded at Oliver’s mispronounced words, smiled, and touched him often.
She was likely the only one other than himself to welcome the boy’s arrival. The others would just as soon see all evidence of Maynard disappear. Thus, it fell to him to serve as the child’s protector. But who better to watch over Oliver than one who regarded him as much his own son as one sprung from his loins?
Ivo chortled softly. It was time to make Ashlingford his permanent residence.
Except for Emma, who had been Maynard’s nurse, none seemed genuinely pleased to meet the future baron. Had Liam not appeared so accepting of Oliver, the little boy would likely have been greeted with cold stares and tight-lipped mouths. But Liam’s unspoken message was heeded, servants and retainers making an effort to welcome Oliver—even that great, bald-headed man who was Ashlingford’s steward. Sir Hugh, was it not?
“It meets with your approval?” Liam startled Joslyn out of her thoughts.
She glanced at Oliver who once more sat on his uncle’s arm. “My approval?”
“Ashlingford.”
This the first time they had done more than exchange a few cursory words since that bitter night when he had shown her just how empty he was, Joslyn floundered for a response. “I would not have guessed it to be of such grandeur.”
“Maynard did not tell you?”
“He did not speak often of his home.” What she did not say was that his rare visits to Rosemoor had chiefly been spent at the table gambling with her father, and throughout he had spoken of little but the misbegotten brother who had stolen the barony from him.
Liam looked to Oliver whose brow was puckered with curiosity. “Are you ready to see the solar that will be yours when you are a man?”
Her son’s forehead smoothed. “Aye!”
Liam stepped past Joslyn and strode to stairs that were twice the width of those at Rosemoor manor.
What a pair he and Oliver made, she mused as the two went from sight. Almost as if…
She closed her eyes. Dare she think what had been inconceivable that first day she had believed Liam of such evil bent he would murder her son?
Aye, she dared. A pair uncle and nephew made, almost as if they were father and son. And that acknowledgment was almost as painful as it was lovely, for it could never be, just as Liam and she could never—
She opened her eyes, whispered, “Oh, Joslyn, you ought not think there.” It was hard enough quelling her attraction to Liam without adding to it movements of the heart.
“Fool woman!”
She swung around to face Father Ivo. “Have I done something to displease you, Father?”
“You think naught of allowing Maynard’s son to be alone with that one!”
Aware they were watched by lingering servants, she raised her chin. “Lord Fawke will do him no harm.”
“Then it falls to me to protect Maynard’s son.” He started for the stairs.
“I have not requested your aid, nor will I,” she called.
He halted. “Maynard asked it of me. Hence, I shall keep my vow to safeguard his heir.”
“Is that all Oliver is to you? An heir?”
“He is far more than that,” he snarled and mounted the stairs.
Joslyn let her shoulders drop. Was there to be no peace at Ashlingford? Was she to raise her son with the disapproval of this priest hovering over one shoulder, the temptation of Liam Fawke over the other?
“Father Ivo troubles you, my lady?”
She snapped her chin up and found Emma before her, an attractive woman she guessed to be two score and some aged. Certain this one who exuded genuine warmth for Oliver had witnessed the exchange with the priest, Joslyn said, “His hatred for his nephew is so consuming it frightens me.”
“’Tis. Most unfortunate, he holds it as near him as his own arms and legs.”
“Merely because Lord Fawke is of less than noble birth?”
Emma laid a hand on Joslyn’s arm. “We will speak of it later. Now I will see you to your chamber.”
Weary from days in the saddle, Joslyn allowed herself to be guided up the stairs. However, upon reaching the landing, the sound of Oliver’s voice drew her in his direction.
“Do not worry after him.” Emma urged her opposite. “Liam will not allow the loathing between his uncle and him to touch the boy.”
Joslyn felt this was true of Liam but did not believe it of the priest. “Oliver should nap. It has been a long journey and—”
“My lady, he is weary of being still. Allow him to enjoy himself and he will sleep well this eve.”
Joslyn wavered.
“I will go to him as soon as you are settled.”
At Joslyn’s nod, Emma led her to a modestly appointed but elegant chamber. “’Twas Lady Anya’s,” she said.
Maynard’s mother. As with nearly everything that had to do with her departed husband, Joslyn knew little of the woman. Only two things had ever been made clear about Anya Fawke—she had been revered by Maynard for her strong will, and her death so soon after his father’s had been a blow. Of course, now Joslyn knew what Lady Anya had done to ensure Ashlingford passed to her own son.
Wanting to know more so she might better understand these people, Joslyn said, “You and Lady Anya were friends?”
Emma’s eyebrows jumped. “Friends?” she said on surprised laughter. “Certainly not, but we knew each other’s secrets.”
When she did not continue, Joslyn said, “Maynard said her death was all the more tragic coming so soon after his father’s.”
With the bearing of one who did not allow her common birth to define her, Emma crossed to the bed and turned back the coverlet. “It was tragic.”
“Her heart, was it not?”
She plumped the pillows. “’Tis believed.”
Though obvious she did not wish to speak of Lady Anya, Joslyn stepped to her side. “There is much I need to know, not only about Father Ivo but Oliver’s father and his family.
Will you tell me of them?”
When the woman continued to fuss with the pillows, Joslyn touched her arm. “If you will not, I have only Father Ivo to turn to, and I do not know that I can believe him.”
Emma turned to her. “Then I shall tell you, but now you must rest.”
“I thank you.”
The woman helped her shed her mantle and gown, and the last things Joslyn remembered was the whisper of covers being drawn up over her and—perhaps it was only imagined—a gentle hand smoothing the hair off her brow.
“I will sleep here when I am big.” Oliver patted the mattress.
Liam glanced at Ivo, who watched from the solar’s doorway. “Aye, when you become a man and lord of Ashlingford, ’twill be your bed.”
As soon as he spoke it, Liam heard his father from twenty-five years past say those same words to him. A promise he had not known would never be kept.
“A long way away,” Oliver said.
“Not as long as you think.” Liam recalled how brief his own childhood had been. Always there had been something forcing him to grow up faster than other children—the jealousy of Anya, the enmity of Ivo, even his father’s expectations. Too soon he had been sent to Wulfen Castle to begin twelve years of training toward manhood, first as a page, then a squire. At the end of it, outfitted in spurs before his proud father, he was deemed a man and among the worthiest of knights.
“Wish I could sleep here now.” Oliver fingered the coverlet.
“Would you like me to lift you up so you may know how it will feel when you come to it a man?”
Oliver bobbed his head, and Liam set him on the mattress just as his own father had done.
“’Tis big.” The boy looked around. “You sleep here?”
Though the question should have roused Liam to anger, for he had never slept here, he felt more regret. “Nay, it was your father’s bed.”
“My papa sleep here till ’tis my turn?”
Liam thought he misunderstood, but then he realized Oliver was unaware of Maynard’s death. Why had Joslyn not told him? It should be gently said regardless of the boy’s relationship with his father, but he was old enough to understand he would not be seeing Maynard again. However, it was not for Liam to reveal.
“Did your mother not tell you your father died, Oliver?”
Nor was it for Ivo to do. But he had, ever dealing with children as if they had the minds of adults—the same as he had done with Liam and Maynard.
Anger sought Liam’s surface, so fiery he was surprised he contained it with but a reminder of Oliver’s presence. He threw Ivo a warning look, then returned his gaze to the boy and saw uncertainty had rolled across his eyes like clouds across a clear sky. “I am sorry, Oliver. I fear your father—”
“I will tell the boy, William.” Ivo’s boots scraped the floor. “He should hear it from one who loved his father.”
Liam turned on him.
Ivo halted, said low, “Keep your temper, Irish.”
“You will leave now.”
“Else?”
Liam struggled against the temptation to set his uncle’s jaw askew. Not in front of Oliver…
“Father Ivo!” a voice called from the doorway—dear Emma come to put out the spark ere it flamed.
Ivo jerked around. “What do you want?”
As ever, she was unmoved by his displeasure. “My soul is in need of prayer. Lord Fawke can talk to the child whilst you and I address the Lord.”
Ivo’s shoulders quivered with anger, but he turned and departed the solar.
Liam stared at the empty doorway and pondered what his father had often pondered—the bending of Ivo to Emma’s will. Though Montgomery Fawke had suggested Ivo was taken with the comely Emma, it had been his real belief, as it was Liam’s, the woman was privy to a secret whose revelation Ivo feared. If so, Emma would likely take it to the grave.
Liam lowered to the mattress beside Oliver. “You wish to know about your father?”
“Papa’s gone?”
“He is.”
“Why?”
Accursed priest! Had he left it to the boy’s mother to tell, Liam could be out upon the barony ensuring all was in order. “It was an accident. Your father fell from his horse.”
“An’ died?”
“He did.”
Oliver’s hand creeped onto Liam’s thigh. “Was it God, Unca Liam?”
“God?”
“My kit-cat died. Mama said God needed him to guard His gates. Does God need my papa to guard His gates?”
Liam took hold of what the child offered. “Aye, He needed a mighty warrior in heaven, so he called your father to Him.”
Oliver slowly nodded. “Then ’tis a’right he died. Papa happy there.”
Providing it was heaven, not hell where Maynard had landed, but Liam was inclined to believe God would not be merciful with one such as his brother. However, as if to prove him wrong, Oliver began rolling the top between his hands—so like Maynard as a boy. Sweet. Innocent. Loving.
“You sad, Unca Liam?”
Liam blinked. “I am.”
“Why?”
That one word was nearly enough to dampen the ache. Throughout the journey to Ashlingford, Liam had listened to Oliver repeatedly put it to Joslyn. Her answers, and her son’s persistence, had made him smile. “I but remember your father—my brother.”
“You loved my papa?”
A lie rose to Liam’s lips, but it was not a lie. He had loved his little brother, and Maynard had loved him. There was no lie in that—only in the years that followed. “I did.”
Oliver smiled. “Who gonna be my papa now? You?”
Liam nearly choked. The deceived a father to the deceiver’s son? A husband to the deceiver’s wife? Not only forbidden but unacceptable. “Nay, Oliver, but I will be your friend.” For as long as the boy was not corrupted by Ivo, though perhaps that would not happen with Joslyn present.
“Why?”
Liam chuckled.
Oliver giggled.
A scream burned in Ivo’s chest.
Staring after the woman who crossed the hall, he wished her dead. She was a curse unto him, darkening his days from the first, as she would continue to do until he rid himself of her. But once again she made it impossible to seek her end. Dissatisfied with what she had used to control him for years, she had gone further.
Ivo opened his palm, glared at the coins Emma had dropped into it, curled his fingers over them. “Burn in hell, she-devil!” he rasped.
But he was the one who felt the heat. Dropping his head back against the wall, he raised his eyes to the ceiling.
Had he known Emma had listened in on Maynard’s deathbed confession, he would not have accompanied William to Rosemoor. He would have first claimed what was his.
Feeling the coins grow warm in his palm, he was tempted to fling them against the wall, but though they were few compared to the whole, they were enough to keep him for a month. And quite well.
Fists trembling with fury that needed to be spent, he dropped the money into his purse and went in search of a woman to make him forget, even if only for an hour.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
They hardly knew him, but the children were drawn to where he stood before the fire pit.
“Sir Liam,” the older boy greeted him.
“How fare you, Michael?”
“Good, sire.”
Liam moved his gaze to the boy who had seen his fourth summer. “And you, Emrys?”
He tugged up chausses torn at the knee. “My leg hurts, sire. Fell down.”
“How did you do that?”
Emrys grinned. “Chasin’ Gertie.”
“Why were you chasing one much smaller than you? She is but two years old.”
“She wouldna give back my ball.”
“You did not hurt her, did you?”
He shook his head.
Liam considered the little girl who trailed the boys. She appeared to have suffered no ill. “How do you fare, Gert
rude?”
She gave a quick smile, lowered her gaze to the dirt floor.
Liam looked across the single-room dwelling to where the man and woman watched. The woman was pregnant again, and from the rise of her skirts about her middle, she would likely deliver within a month.
Inwardly, he groaned. These three not included, she already had four children of her own. How would she manage eight?
He looked at those before him and saw what he did when he looked upon Oliver—his brother’s face. Here but a portion of the children Maynard had carelessly scattered. The misbegotten.
Over the past five years, Liam had brought these three to this family. Michael had been the first, delivered here after his mother died birthing her second child. Then Emrys, who lost his mother when she fell beneath a plow. Last, Gertrude. Her mother had run off with a minstrel a year ago.
Liam removed three coins from his pouch and pressed one into each of the children’s palms.
Amid gleeful shouts, he strode across the room and set the pouch in the man’s hand. “Send word if you require more.”
Joslyn turned her head on the pillow and stared at the window through which sunlight streamed. She had slept the remainder of the day and then the night through.
“Mama.”
She looked to where her son stood on the opposite side of the bed, arms crossed atop the mattress, chin resting on them. “Good morn, Oliver. Would you like to come up?”
He shook his head, ran his fingers over the coverlet’s rumpled surface. “’Tis not as big as Papa’s.”
“Is it not?”
“Nay, Papa’s is…” He straightened and threw his arms wide. “…big as this room.”
She smiled. “Really?”
“Uh-huh.”
She sat up and swung her feet to the floor. “You will have to show it to me.” She opened her arms to him. “But first a morning hug, then we shall dress and go belowstairs to break our fast.”
Oliver lowered his head so she could not see the smile about his mouth, crossed his arms over his chest, and peeked at her from beneath his lashes.
“Not even a little hug?” she pleaded.