by Tamara Leigh
Amidst a cold wind that threatened an early winter, he considered the portion of outer bailey visible through the inner wall’s open portal.
Five rode there, among them Joslyn, head bent against the wind, hand clasping her mantle at the throat. As Liam descended the steps, he saw a sixth rider, a robed figure draped over the back of Ivo’s destrier.
The false priest had returned to Ashlingford, and from the flaccid lie of his body, he was dead. Had he set upon Joslyn, earning death at the hands of the knights? Was she hurt?
The last question resounding through him, he quickened his stride, and not until she guided her horse into the inner bailey did she lift her head. Though relieved she appeared well, he did not like the distant look in her eyes.
“Lord Fawke,” Sir Gregory called.
Liam faltered. He longed to go to Joslyn, but under the circumstances, it would set more tongues wagging. Better for both their sakes he first acknowledge the dead that was of his blood. He changed course and halted before the horse that had been Ivo’s prized and abused possession.
The animal rolled its eyes and sidestepped as if in preparation for a violent retreat.
Liam took hold of its bridle. “’Tis over, boy.” He set a hand on the animal’s jaw. After a lifetime of ill-treatment, Ivo would never again plague either of them.
When the horse settled sufficiently, Liam moved to the body hung over the saddle. Noting blood matted the dark hair covering his uncle’s face, Liam loosened the rope binding the body to the saddle and lifted Ivo onto his shoulder.
“Sir Gregory,” he said as he strode past the knight, “see the horse is penned and well tended, then come to the keep.”
“Aye, my lord.”
“And the rest of you as well.” Liam lowered his uncle before the keep’s steps.
Ivo’s face was gray, its color having flowed out through the slit in his neck to turn the front of his robes crimson. What circumstances had led to him leaving himself open to another’s blade?
Liam looked up the steps and saw Father Warren, Sir Hugh, and Emma had come outside.
“Father Warren!” Liam called.
Lifting the skirts of his robes, the man hurriedly descended. “I am sorry, my son.”
Were he truly sorry for Ivo’s passing, he would be among the few. “I would see my uncle given a proper burial, Father.”
“Where would you have him buried, my lord?”
“As a Fawke. Lay him beside Maynard.”
The priest leaned close. “Maynard’s mother is already on one side of him. What of…” He glanced at where Joslyn remained mounted.
Liam could not imagine her claiming the other side of Maynard. She did not belong anywhere near him. “Lay Ivo alongside his nephew.”
The priest inclined his head.
When Liam turned, he saw Joslyn had dismounted. Continuing to grip her mantle at her throat, she walked toward the keep’s steps with bowed head.
He intercepted her, touched her shoulder, and felt her quake. “What has happened, Joslyn?”
Her lashes fluttered. “I killed him.”
Unprepared for her words, he said gruffly, “Come, we will warm you before the fire.”
By the time they reached the landing, Liam supported much of her weight, but she pulled away when he turned her to lift her into his arms.
“I could not stand that,” she said and, with a weave in her step, entered the hall ahead of him.
He started to follow, but Emma caught his arm. “It ends,” she breathed. “At last, justice is done.”
So it was. Still curious as to what secret her writings held, he told himself it did not matter now that Ivo would not have to answer to them.
Striding into the hall, he saw Joslyn had taken a chair before the hearth, and before her stood Oliver.
“You may,” his mother said, “but only one.”
“One tart,” he said and hurried toward the kitchen without noticing Liam.
Liam bent down beside Joslyn. “Tell me.”
She shifted her gaze from the flame to him, and he was relieved some of the here and now had returned to her eyes. Oliver had done that. “Ivo caught me out in the open. As I could not outrun him, I thought to surprise him by going to him.”
Liam frowned. “Where was your escort?”
“’Tis my fault. Wishing time alone, I rode ahead of them.”
“They allowed it?”
“There seemed no harm in it.”
The Irish in him rose. “But there was. Ivo could have killed you!”
“Instead, I killed him.” She looked back at the fire.
He drew a deep breath. “How?”
“My brooch’s pin. He did not expect it.”
The reason she held her mantle closed. “You turned it on him?”
“His destrier.”
Liam could imagine the animal’s reaction.
“It threw him and trampled him,” she whispered.
Then he had died the same as Maynard. Or nearly so. “His throat was cut,” Liam said.
She nodded vigorously, more from chill, he suspected, than the need to strongly confirm it. “One of the knights… He said it was merciful to quickly deliver a man…”
“…from his tortured end,” Liam finished, certain the one who had put his uncle out of his misery had been present when Ivo spoke those words after slaying the brigand who would have revealed him.
“Liam”—Joslyn gripped his arm—“I did not mean for Ivo to die. I only wished to escape. I vow it!”
If not for the arrival of three of the four knights, he would have gathered her into his arms. “You are not to blame, Joslyn. Ivo did this to himself.”
“But…” She shook her head.
“You need rest.” He motioned Emma forward.
Joslyn stood, accepted the woman’s arm, and crossed to the stairs where she peered over her shoulder. “You are not staying long, are you?”
He could not. “I will be here when you awaken.”
She looked away.
When she was gone, he strode to the knights where they stood erect in anticipation of an anger due them.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Before Joslyn opened her eyes, she knew it was not Emma or Oliver in the chamber with her. It was Liam, here where she longed for him to be.
Peering around the dimly lit room, she saw he sat in a chair beside the bed. “Why are you here, Liam?”
He leaned forward. “Emma did not wish for you to awaken alone.”
“Where is she? And Oliver?”
“Asleep in my chamber. She thought it best your rest not be disturbed.”
As her son would certainly have disturbed it. How long had Liam sat with her? Hours? Knowing he had watched her sleep, her heart stirred. What had he felt? What did he feel?
He stood. “I will leave you now.”
She searched for something to delay him, but there was only the truth. “I do not wish you to go.” She pushed aside the covers and lowered her feet to the floor.
“I should not have stayed as long as I have.”
She stepped before him. “Do you still want me, Liam?”
He did not answer.
“I know I was your brother’s first, but there is naught I can do—”
He pulled her against him. “Never were you Maynard’s. I was cruel to speak to you as I did.”
“Then you feel for me what I feel for you?”
He momentarily closed his eyes, then set her back from him.
She gripped his arm. “I do not understand why you hold yourself from me, especially now that Ivo cannot harm us.”
“He is gone, but the plague is not. There is much to do and not enough time.”
She stepped nearer. “It takes little time to speak words that would give me hope.”
“Which could prove a cruel hope. Nay, better words not spoken whilst all is uncertain.”
“But—”
“Joslyn, I know what it is like to have something p
romised you—something you want more than anything else—stolen away.”
Ashlingford. Stolen by Maynard by way of Oliver.
He laid a hand on her cheek. “Trust me in this. What you want is far easier lost when it does not belong to you.”
Would it truly hurt more to have his love and ever be forbidden it? Worse, to possess it and lose it to the plague?
Ignoring the wrong of what she did, she stepped close and slid her arms around his neck. “This day…this night,” she whispered. “Pray, pass what remains of it with me.” She rose and pressed her mouth to his.
He tensed, and she feared he would pull back, but he groaned and deepened the kiss. Then he moved to her ear. “At Rosemoor, your bed smelled of roses—of you. When I lie awake at night, I remember.”
A needful sound spilling from her, she turned her face to his and tempted him back to her lips.
His hands moved up her hips and waist, over her back, and into her hair.
“Love me, Liam,” she whispered.
His mouth broke from hers, hands fell away, and he stepped back.
“Why?” she cried.
Shoulders rising and falling with breath, he said, “Though once I thought to make of you what my father first made of my mother, I will not.” His eyes returned to hers. “You mean more to me than that.”
Those last words so suddenly awakened her, it was as if he had slapped her. But not a painful slap—one that tempted her hand to her heart. Even if it was not love he professed, here was further proof it was something much truer than desire.
“If still you wish it,” he said, “I will pass the night with you, but not as we both want and would regret.”
“How?”
“I would talk—of you and Maynard. Of your marriage.”
This slap was painful, and she began to shrink into herself. He had to know she had not been loved. But what would he think if she revealed how much she had not loved in return? It would make him question the reason she had wed Maynard. And the answer…
“He did not abuse you, did he?” Liam asked sharply.
“Nay! ’Tis just that I…” She stared into his face that was still handsome though his scarred jaw would forever mark the day Ivo had sought his death. “I fear what you will think of me.”
“What I think of you, Joslyn, is that you shall ever be mine, regardless that you were first Maynard’s wife. And I do not believe there is anything you can tell that will change that.”
She prayed not. Prayed her heart would accept it was enough to love him from across a barony…across a hall…across a table…
“Then I will tell you.”
Once they were settled in chairs before the hearth, a blanket wrapped around her, she began. “You were right in believing I was naught more to your brother than a vessel for the child who would take Ashlingford from you. I knew it ere we wed, so it did not hurt—at least, not as it would have had I loved him.”
“Why did your father agree to such a marriage? Surely he could have found someone who could offer you more?”
“Unfortunately, he is nearly as obsessed with games of chance as was Maynard. After the two met in London over a game of dice, Maynard journeyed to Rosemoor to join my father and others in gambling days and nights away. I played the lady for my father, and it seemed I could go nowhere without your brother’s eyes following me. ’Tis a wonder he kept enough of his mind on the game to win. The following day, my father revealed that upon learning I was without betrothal, Maynard offered for me.”
“Your father agreed?”
She hugged the coverlet closer. “He wished to, but he had made my mother a promise ere she died that I be allowed to marry for love as she had.”
“Yet you did not refuse Maynard.”
“I did refuse him. Never could I feel secure with a man who gambled and drank to excess. And love… I felt no stirrings. He was handsome and well mannered when he was not full up in his cups, but I preferred his absence to his presence. My father was disappointed, but he honored my mother’s wish and declined Maynard’s offer.”
“How did he change your mind?”
She filled her lungs full, and on the exhale said, “Each time he returned to Rosemoor, my father lost to him, and one day there was not enough coin to pay the debt.”
There was Liam’s anger again—in the narrowing of lids, flaring of nostrils, setting of teeth. “I see.”
Shame warming her, she said, “Maynard and I struck a bargain. He would absolve my father of the debt if I married him—half once we were wed, the other half when I…produced a male child.” Tears sprang to her eyes. “I sold myself to him—made of myself a prostitute.”
Liam cursed.
She forced down a sob. “What was I to do? I could not allow my father to be ruined when it was in my power to aid him.”
Liam thrust up out of the chair, dropped to his haunches before her, and closed a hand over hers that made a mess of her skirts. “My anger is not with you. ’Tis with Maynard and your father for using you so poorly.”
She swallowed. “Are you not revolted?”
“When we were in the wood and I agreed I would hate myself did I lie with you, it was not because you had been Maynard’s. I would have hated myself for using you and making it that much harder to be near what was forbidden me. Thus, I am revolted only insofar as knowing you suffered my brother’s attentions.”
She turned her hand up into his. “I only lay with him the first days of our marriage.”
He frowned. “That is all?”
“I was so repulsed by his maneuvering that reduced me to mere chattel that I imposed conditions on our marriage—that during my pregnancy I would not suffer his attentions, and once he had his son, he would not come to my bed again. He was displeased, but above all, he wanted a noble heir, obviously one he could keep hidden from you, and so he agreed. And Oliver was conceived within days of our marriage.”
“Fortunate.”
She smiled slightly. “Nay, planned. A midwife helped me determine the best day to wed—when I was most fertile—and prayed over me that the babe would be a boy.”
“And Maynard kept his word.”
“A sennight after we wed, he left Rosemoor and did not come again until I was four months into my pregnancy. As I was only beginning to swell, he did not believe I was with child and sought my bed. I summoned the midwife, and though she confirmed my state, still he tried to break his word, but my father intervened.” She shook her head. “Such guilt he suffers, and I am to blame for much of it. I was angry for so long.”
“I am sorry for your sacrifice, Joslyn.”
“I would not change it, Liam. Not now that I have Oliver.” And you, she added to herself.
“Am I right in believing Oliver hardly knew Maynard—for that you delayed telling him of his father’s death?”
“Maynard visited his son twice—shortly after his birth and when he gifted him with the sword upon attaining his first year. Thus, Oliver knew him not at all, only of him.”
Silence slid between them. It felt right, as if things yet to be spoken could wait, as if there was time and occasion aplenty to better learn each other.
Lids lowering, her view of Liam’s face narrowing, Joslyn opened her eyes wide.
He smiled, stroked her hand. “Sleep now. We will talk more later.”
She promised herself she would only rest her eyes. But fatigue made a liar of her.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Joslyn was not surprised to awaken alone in her chamber. As told by the light slanting through her window, it was late morn. Nor was she startled to find she had exchanged the chair for her bed. But she was disappointed, not only by Liam’s absence, but that she could not recall his arms around her as he had carried her to her bed.
Knowing he must have been in the fields for hours, she rose and quickly rinsed herself with cold water from the basin, dressed, and plaited her hair.
Belowstairs, the hall appeared to be empty, but as she cr
ossed toward the kitchen to break her fast, the rustle of parchment drew her regard to the hearth.
Emma hunkered before the fire she fed, humming a song Joslyn recognized as one her own mother had sung—about a child’s toys lost, found, and lost again.
Joslyn changed course. “Emma?”
The woman sprang upright. “My lady! I did not know you had awakened.”
Joslyn glanced from the blackened remains of parchment upon the fire to the single sheet Emma held at her side. “What are you burning?”
The woman shifted her weight. “Are you not hungry, my lady? Certes, Cook can find you something to eat to keep you till the nooning meal.”
“Are they your writings? Those Ivo wanted?”
Emma clenched her hand on the one she had yet to burn. “Do not concern yourself, my lady.”
Joslyn did not wish to pry, but she was certain that whatever Emma had used to check Ivo’s behavior involved more than the two who had been privy to it. “Surely there is no harm in telling me now that Ivo is dead.”
As if fearing Joslyn would snatch the parchment from her, Emma stepped back. “They are no longer of use to me or anyone.” Her breathing was shallow. “As Ivo wanted them so badly, I thought I would send them to join him in hell.”
Knowing she was responsible for Emma’s overwrought state, Joslyn said, “Very well. ’Tis yours to do with as you think best.”
Emma tossed the crumpled parchment atop the fire. The flames licked up around it, blackening it until its secrets were reduced to ashes.
“Your secret is safe, Emma.”
“As it should be,” the woman whispered.
The silence grew weighty, as if of mourning, but Joslyn knew it was not the loss of Ivo that Emma lamented.
“Where is Oliver?” Joslyn asked.
“With his uncle in the fields. As ’tis a beautiful day, Liam said he could accompany him.”
The fields were not safe for children, especially with plows on them, but Joslyn knew Liam would allow no harm to befall her son. “Join me?” she asked, turning toward the kitchen.
“I thank you, but I will rest now.”
“Are you ill?”