by Tamara Leigh
A hand touched his arm, and he snapped his head up, gentling his expression when he saw it was the young woman whose body Elias accused him of ruining. And so he had, though she made no such charge.
He touched her cheek. “Wife.”
Her smile was slight. “Come to bed. I will hold you.”
He ought to be offended by words that reduced him to the helplessness of a child, but her eyes were kind, and he longed to be held as he had not been since the passing of the mother of his sons.
He nodded and followed her to the solar.
She held him, and as sleep drew him to its bosom, she said, “They love, Otto. Does Elias live, let him choose the one with whom he spends his life.”
Silly woman.
“The same as once you were blessed,” she reminded him that though his own father had opposed his son’s marriage to a widow aged twenty and five, narrow of hips, and frail, he had relented.
But in this Otto could not. Though Honore appeared to be of good childbearing build, she was even less a young woman, likely half common, and misbegotten. It was asking too much.
As he moved toward sleep, he returned to begging the Lord for what He might deem asking too much.
Bairnwood Abbey
England
It was good to be home, and yet all of her was not here. A large piece had been left outside these walls. One she could never retrieve. One that would die with Elias.
Cease, she told herself. You are not here to bemoan what can never be but to pray for what can be.
Thrusting aside selfish Honore, she returned to prayer for Elias’s healing. Though certainly not alone in beseeching the Lord to raise him from depths that sought to push dirt over him, perhaps her voice alongside those of his sire and others would add enough volume for God to spare a moment to ensure Elias’s recovery.
Forehead pressed to the chill floor so long the stone tiles were warm by the time the bells called the sisters to service, Honore pushed back onto her heels. She lingered as she ought not with those outside soon to be inside, then raised her gaze to the altar with its carved figure of Jesus on the cross.
“Heal him,” she whispered and reached to the gorget. Fingers encountering bare throat, she nearly smiled. Each time she departed the dormitory, one nun or another asked after the covering’s absence, but none had shone disapproval on her when she told she would no longer wear it. And the one who had reminded her to conceal her lower face the day Finwyn summoned Honore to the wood had said she was glad.
Still, Honore had no desire to displease Lady Yolande who would threaten to pull her donations if she saw Honore did not keep her imperfection concealed. Thus, as continued to be habit, Honore exited the chapel by way of its side entrance.
Her timing was poor. As she stepped onto the path that led to the dormitory, the lady of three score appeared. This day she had decided to attend a service she often eschewed. There would have been time for Honore to turn her back to the one walking amidst nuns, but it so reeked of shame she continued forward and did not avert her gaze when the lady’s pounced on her.
Honore smiled as Elias had advised, but though the expression made the scar less noticeable, it seemed to offend more.
Lady Yolande altered her course and stepped in front of Honore. “For what do you go about uncovered?” She peered down her long, thin nose as some sisters continued past while others halted.
“The same as you, my lady.” She glanced at the lightly clouded sky. “Though it is hardly warm this early in the day, the breeze is not much more than a plaything.”
“As well you know, it has naught to do with warmth.”
Honore clasped her hands at her waist. “I do know it. Thus, no longer do I wear the gorget.”
“If you think to move amongst those who generously provide for your undesirables, you shall wear it.”
There the threat, but Honore determined that if God did think her beautiful as the abbess had long assured her, surely He would provide.
“I will not, my lady. Good day to you.” As she stepped around the woman, she looked to the nuns who had paused and recognized them as those who had been novices on the day Cynuit had last come to the abbey. Among their youthful ranks was the older one from whose girdle hung prayer beads similar to Honore’s.
“Hedge-born devil’s spawn,” Lady Yolande snarled and Honore felt a constriction around her throat almost as tight as when Finwyn nearly drowned her. Then she was yanked back by the neck of her short mantle and released. Her feet fell out from under her, rear end landed hard, back met the ground.
As she blinked at the sky, the lady stepped alongside. “No one disrespects me, especially your kind who know only how to take what you have not earned and, rather than show gratitude, demand more. Always more.”
Honore had no time to form a response opposite that toward which outrage sprang her to sitting. And she was grateful. Far better a noblewoman set herself at another than she who would have enough to answer for when she stood before the abbess.
It was the oldest of those new to the order who shoved Lady Yolande so hard the woman barely kept her feet beneath her. “Ungodly!” cried the nun, hands at her sides folding into fists. “You are the nails that staked our Lord to the cross—the piercing points, cruel shafts, hard heads, ugly rust beneath blessed blood. You ought to be as ashamed as I am horrified one so unholy makes her home among the holy.”
Open-mouthed, Lady Yolande stared.
“Sister Sebille!”
Realizing her own jaw had lowered, Honore raised it as she turned her head toward the one whose aged voice brimmed with authority.
Skirts snapping, veil flapping, the abbess strode forward with the speed of a much younger woman. As she passed the group of nuns from which Sister Sebille had separated herself, her eyes shifted to the one who had foregone the gorget—she who jumped up and deferentially nodded.
Honore would bear the blame for this, but better her than the new sister who could not know the strength of the enemy she made of Lady Yolande.
“Abbess Abigail,” Honore appealed, “this is my doing.”
“This I know.” The woman halted. “You could not bend a little, Honore?”
Biting back the response that a little was not what the lady demanded, Honore said, “Forgive me, I could not. I am done wearing the gorget as it is not meant to be worn.” Honore looked to the one who had become her champion, was surprised the lady appeared far from contrite. Indeed, she looked as if she assembled more insults behind her lips—until her gaze moved to Honore. Then her face softened.
As Honore gave a smile of gratitude, she was struck by the woman’s name the abbess had called out and realized here was the one Wilma and Jeannette told had aided with the foundlings in Honore’s absence, she who had not shown herself since Honore’s return with Hart and three more foundlings.
“Sister Sebille but defended me,” Honore addressed the abbess.
“She laid hands on me,” Lady Yolande shrilled. “And the vile things she said—that I am ungodly…unholy.” She snatched the waist of her gown, jerked it as if it had been put askew. “You are remiss in training up women of God, Abbess. Be assured the bishop will hear of this.”
Honore stepped toward the lady. “She is not to blame.”
“Honore!” Abbess Abigail rebuked. “Take yourself to my apartment. And you as well, Sister Sebille. There is much wrong to set aright.”
“Indeed there is,” Lady Yolande spat.
“Go, Honore and Sebille!” Those words resounded with such portent, Honore was further alarmed. Penance was not new to her, though it was years since her transgressions warranted more than greater time spent in prayer. But of utmost concern was what might befall Sister Sebille from whom more restraint was expected.
Stiff in her step, the nun crossed to Honore. “Let us walk together.”
Neither spoke until they entered the abbess’s apartment, then the nun said, “She is a mean soul, has she a soul at all. Ungodly. Unholy. Tru
th!”
Honore turned at the center of the room. “I cannot disagree, and I am grateful for your kindness in defending me, but it would have been better had you not. Now you will do penance and Lady Yolande will make misery of you.”
The woman halted before Honore. “My only regret is displeasing the abbess, but even if I must spend a sennight on my knees it will be worth it.”
“You are courageous, Sister Sebille.”
Something shifted in the woman’s eyes. “I learned courage at the knee of one whose love became a blight when she discovered I was not who her husband gave me to be. But that courage I mostly concealed, as I have determined I will not do at Bairnwood.”
Deciding the tale behind the woman’s riddled words mattered not, Honore said, “I have wished to seek you out since I returned two days past.”
“For?”
“Your work with the foundlings. Wilma and Jeannette tell you were of great aid and the little ones are fond of you.”
The woman looked down, but not before Honore saw tears in her eyes. “Years ago, I hoped to have children of my own. As with so many things, that hope died by another’s hand.” She looked up. “And by mine because I hid my courage. In that we are the same, both of us of thirty and two ere we came out from behind our coverings.”
Honore took a step back, surprised not only this woman knew her age, but their years numbered the same. Sister Sebille’s life must have been hard. “How do you know my age, Sister?”
The woman lifted the prayer beads attached to her girdle, stepped forward and touched those around Honore’s neck. “I do not need the abbess to confirm that once these two strands were one—that in truth I am Honore of no surname, you are Sebille Soames. I am misbegotten, you are legitimate.”
Certain the woman was mad, Honore made her next step of retreat more deliberate.
Sister Sebille held up a hand. “I have thought through this meeting a hundred times, but it could have been done better. Forgive me.”
Calm, Honore counseled. Her mind may not be right, but she is of no danger. Only a woman who has attached herself to you. Because of the one whose love became a blight? It mattered not. Sister Sebille had been good to the children and surely meant no harm. Still, Abbess Abigail would have to be informed.
Honore forced a smile. “You surprise, is all.”
“And frighten. I do not mean to, and I assure you I am sane. When the abbess comes, we shall confront her together, and then you need not fear me at all. She will confirm what you are to me and I am to you.”
“Confirm?”
“I am your half sister.”
Chapter 42
BRAVE MAIDEN HE AWAKES
Château des Trois Doigts
France
Honore.”
Once more, Elias’s voice inserted itself in Otto’s prayers, but it did not sound hoarse or fevered. It was so calm and softly spoken, it was as if she were here and he but acknowledged how pleased he was to see her.
Otto lifted his brow from atop his son’s hand. Elias’s eyes were closed, face unlined and lacking the flush of fever that had set upon him shortly after the physician gave the Lord of Château des Trois Doigts less hope of seeing his son hale again. Was he passing out of this world?
“Non,” Otto groaned and thrust upright. He gripped Elias’s coarsely-bearded face between his hands, and as he had done time and again since his wife bid him, said, “Come back to us, and with my blessing you will wed the one you love.”
Elias’s lids rose slightly. “Methinks I have…” He swallowed hard. “…gone to heaven. But what do you here?”
“You are very much alive, Elias.” Otto retrieved the cup and put it to his son’s lips. Unlike the last time Elias had consciously taken drink, he gulped down the contents.
Otto set a hand on his son’s brow. It was not cool, but neither did it burn.
“I would see Honore.”
Otto hated he lied again, but he would have nothing trouble his son. “As she is so concerned for you she does not eat or sleep well, I sent her and the children with my lady wife to Château Faire for a few days of rest.”
Elias’s lids narrowed. Did he see the falsity on his sire’s face, hear it in his voice? Or did he know the woman too well to believe she would leave him as he lay dying?
“Where is she, Father?”
As Otto searched for an answer that would satisfy without alarming, his son began to struggle onto his elbows.
“Your stitches, Elias—”
“Where is she?”
“Soon she will be here.”
He dropped onto the pillow, said, “She is gone.”
Otto nearly denied it, but there was too much certainty in his son’s voice.
“Did she go of her own will? Or did you send her away?”
Otto eased back onto the chair. “It being mutually agreed she depart as planned, I provided her and the children an escort all the way to Bairnwood. If a channel crossing was possible, she is home.”
Elias released a long breath, closed his eyes.
Otto did not wish him to return to sleep, but as the physician told rest was the best curative, he let his son be.
A quarter hour later, Elias awoke again.
Otto squeezed his arm. “Once you are recovered, I will send for Honore.”
“Why?”
“I gave my word.”
“Your word?”
Did he not recall his sire’s vow that if he pulled himself up out of death he would have the woman he loved? Certes, he had heard nearly every time it was spoken, having eased and several times smiled. If he did not recall—
Non. The word given he would keep. “Time and again I assured you that if you returned to us you could have Honore for your own.”
Surprise lit Elias’s eyes, then anger. “I will not take her to mistress, nor would she so ruin herself.”
“I speak of marriage, Son. If she will have you as I believe she wishes, you will have her as I believe you wish.”
Still his expression remained far from pleased.
“No lie, Elias. When you are recovered, I will bring her back across the narrow sea. You will wed and, I pray, give me grandchildren as quickly as possible. She is, after all, no girl.”
“As I would not have her be.”
“Most evident.” Otto turned to another matter. “I have decided to pass the demesne to you ere my death so I might witness how much more worthy is my heir.”
It seemed Elias might smile. “I require no more incentive beyond Honore to rise from this bed.”
“Still, you will be lord, Elias.”
“It sounds as though…you have a great care for me.”
“More than ever I can say.”
One of Elias’s eyebrows rose, though nowhere near the height to which it surely aspired. “Even now you cannot say it?”
Did it need to be said when it was well enough shown? Otto silently scorned, then acquiesced. “Ever I have loved you, Son. Ever I shall.”
The tears moistening the eyes of a warrior with the heart of a troubadour made Otto uncomfortable, and more so when the sting and blurring of his own eyes told they shone as bright.
“I love you, Father.” It was not the first time Elias had gifted his sire those words, but the mutual profession gave them greater depth.
“Now tell,” Elias said, “why must you bring Honore to me when it is more fitting I go to her?”
The righting of another lie. “You recall I told Neville was dead, our family safe?”
Elias tensed.
“It may not be a lie, but I fear he lives.” Otto blew a breath up his face. “My men were unable to overtake him. Though I pray he does not go to Duke Henry empty-handed, I think it likely. Thus, to sooner relate your version of events that caused you to aid Becket, I sent ahead a missive detailing what transpired.”
Anger again. “You forced it from Honore?”
“I did not. She told me all, and ere departing gave me the missive a
nd instructed me to do with it as I thought best. That I did.”
After a long silence, Elias said, “You say it was mutually agreed she leave, and yet I struggle to believe she would do so until certain of my recovery.”
“She blamed herself for what befell you and feared you would not forgive her. And I blamed her and did not wish you to forgive her. For that, I gained her word she would stay out of your life.” As his son tried to rise again, he closed a hand over his shoulder. “I will send word to her abbess and—”
“I shall go myself. She needs to hear from me I do not hold her responsible, that all the ill was worth the lives of those children, that I would have her to wife, that you will embrace her as Lady of Château des Trois Doigts.” Elias collapsed onto the pillow, shuddered breath out on the words, “I will bring her home.”
“But if Henry—”
“He can as easily punish me here in Normandy as in England. That I will also deal with when I am out of this accursed bed.”
“Will the Wulfriths stand your side?”
“I will not endanger their relationship with Henry. Once I am assured Honore is safe from her king’s wrath, I will go to her.” He closed his eyes. “Now I must sleep.”
Shortly, he breathed deep, and for the next hour Otto counted every rise and fall of his chest. When the physician confirmed the worst was past, Otto dropped to his knees and continued the longest conversation he had ever had with God.
Much gratitude.
Much praise.
Much beseeching that even if Elias and Honore gave him no grandchildren, he would be the father so worthy a son deserved.
Chapter 43
THY LOVE DOTH SLAY
Bairnwood Abbey
England
I feared you knew, Sebille. How long?”
The nun lifted her prayer beads, met the abbess’s gaze. “I did not know for certain, but I suspected when I was nine and you gave me these.”
Honore looked between the two women, tried to understand how those words could be the first to exit their mouths when the abbess entered.