“Lady Mary!” Not Agnes, but Father Braund. “Praise be to God that you are safe!” He came around the chair quickly to meet her in the middle of the floor. The young priest took her hands with a gentle smile and then glanced at the pair behind her.
“I see your guardians did their job well,” he said.
Mary glanced behind her to see Lady Elmsbeth open her mouth, but before she could say anything, Lord Roscoe cut in.
“Yes, she’s safe and sound,” Roscoe said quickly. “An astounding adventure we’ve all had, isn’t that right, Lady Elmsbeth?”
The dowager pressed her lips together for a moment but then nodded. “Astounding, certainly.”
Father Braund looked back at Mary, and she noticed the deep creases in his face that had not been there when she’d left, the sunken appearance of his eyes. He had even less hair now, and his robes seemed to hang on him.
“You’ve arrived just—”
“Where is everyone?” Mary interrupted. “The servants? The soldiers? Where is Agnes? I would see her immediately.”
“I think we should leave Lady Mary to the care of Father Braund,” Lord Roscoe announced. “Don’t you, Beth?”
Lady Elmsbeth nodded, and Mary couldn’t help but notice the way the dowager’s eyes flitted about the room nervously. “I do. Our things have already been delivered to the inn in the village. We shall call on you on the morrow, Lady Mary, to see that you are well.”
Mary blinked at them both and then looked back to Father Braund. “All right,” she said. “Good night. And—” She broke off suddenly, turning once more to the elderly couple before rushing toward them and throwing her arms about the pair. “Thank you,” she whispered. “Thank you both so much. I’m sorry to have caused you such trouble.”
“Yes, dear—think nothing of it,” Lord Roscoe said, patting Mary’s back awkwardly.
“It was our pleasure,” Lady Elmsbeth assured her when Mary at last pulled away. “Good night,” she called over her shoulder as Roscoe escorted her back into the stairwell.
Then Father Braund was at her side, taking Mary’s arm and leading her toward Agnes’s chair before the hearth. “Sit down, Lady Mary. I’m afraid I only have a bit of wine at the moment. I’ve sent the servants home for the evening.” He pressed the cup into her hand.
“Why?” Mary asked, raising the rim to her lips and gulping. She lowered the cup and gasped a little shallow breath. The wine was strong. “Is Agnes already abed? Surely she would want me to wake her.”
Father Braund looked at her for a moment, seeming to gather his thoughts. “Not three days after you left Beckham Hall, a ship came into port bearing returning Crusaders. And those Crusaders brought with them a terrible sickness. The keep was quarantined, and so the illness was largely contained to the soldiers garrisoned here. Of course, many of the servants were also touched.”
“But not Agnes,” Mary said. “Agnes never had anything to do with the soldiers. She despised them.”
“If you had not left when you did, you might have contracted the illness. It was a miracle. God’s own plan,” Father Braund insisted. “I barely lived myself.”
Mary stood abruptly from the chair, the empty cup tumbling to the wooden floor with a clang. In some corner of her mind, she acknowledged that the thick rug that should have been there was no longer.
“Is she still ill?” Mary demanded in a shrill voice. “Who is tending her?”
“Please, sit down,” Father Braund said quietly.
“No! Where is she?”
The priest reached out and tried to take her hand, but Mary jerked away and ran toward the shadows.
“Agnes!” she called, her bare feet flying over the smooth wood. She pulled up her skirts and raced up the dark, narrow staircase to the uppermost floor, once as familiar to her as her own appendages, but now feeling strange and cold and foreign. “Agnes!”
She ran across the central corridor, past the columns supporting the roof, and flung herself against Agnes’s closed door. She threw it into the wall with a crash.
“Agnes?”
The moonlight shone through the single narrow window, casting its white light in a beam across the floor and in a zigzag up onto the wooden skeleton of the bed.
No crisp coverlet over a mattress. No embroidered pillow. No rug beneath the bed frame. Every inch of the room was stripped clean, empty.
Father Braund gasped to a halt behind her. Mary could hear the wheeze in his breaths, but at the moment, she was oblivious to everything save the enormous, bewildering pain in her heart.
“She’s . . . dead?” Mary asked in a tiny voice. It should not have echoed in such a small chamber, but it did, reinforcing the newly realized knowledge that Mary was now completely, utterly alone in this world. “But she was always so strong. I can’t recall her ever being ill.”
“A fortnight after you left,” Father Braund said, his breathing at last calming. “I couldn’t risk sending word to . . . to where you were going. I’m sorry.”
Mary couldn’t seem to take her eyes from the stark frame of the bed. She realized then that everything that had touched the ill had likely been burned. “It was because I left, wasn’t it? The worry of it killed her. I killed her.”
“No! No,” Father Braund insisted. He forced her to turn away from the empty room and look at him. “Mary, I told her. The sickness, it was so strong, it overcame so quickly—I told her the mission you had undertaken. She knew, and she was glad for you. She was thankful.” He tried to give her a smile. “She said that you were so brave, and that perhaps once you had a taste of the world, you would not return. She did not begrudge you your secrecy. She knew better than any that you felt stifled here, waiting all those years for your life to begin.”
“She did what she felt she must to protect me,” Mary said, her words breathy with disbelief of the altered state of her home. “I realize that. But now, here I am once more.” A rogue tear escaped down her cheek, hot and bitter. She swiped it away and focused her attention on the priest fully. “Where is my lord? His ship should have landed yesterday. Surely this place is not cursed now, so that no fighting men dare to sleep within its walls.”
Father Braund shook his head. “He did arrive yesterday, but he did not pause at the keep. He ordered all his men to muster at a nearby estate, where one of the betrayers was rumored to be en route. He hoped to intercept him there.”
“What?” Mary said, her heart stopping for an instant.
“I take it you didn’t find your man,” Father Braund said, his voice heavy with regret. “I’d hoped when I heard the lord was in pursuit . . . But he’s gone north to Benningsgate Castle, the seat of the Earl of Chase.”
“I don’t understand,” Mary said.
“Benningsgate is the home of Constantine Gerard. He’s one of—”
“I know who he is.” Now Mary’s heard pounded with the intensity of a war drum. “When is Lord Felsteppe to return?”
Father Braund shook his head. “The castle is only a half-day’s ride from Beckham Hall. Perhaps as early as the morning.”
Mary tried to figure in her head the distance to Oxley, in the opposite direction from Benningsgate Castle. Beckham Hall lay almost precisely in the middle of the two.
Who would reach Mary first—Valentine or Glayer Felsteppe?
Only a moment ago, it seemed, Mary had wanted nothing more than to seek her own bed and cry for days. But now Valentine’s safe escape from England depended on her vigilance. She must be ready for his arrival, whether before or after Glayer Felsteppe’s own. If she could not secret him away without her betrothed’s knowledge, Valentine could very easily wind up dead.
“I need a maid for a bath,” Mary said to the priest. “Please wake one of your choosing, for her swiftness and aptitude. Tell her she may return to her bed when I have been served. I know you have been ill, but I need you to stay close to me this night, Father Braund. In the chapel below, if you would, and with my papers beneath your very hand.”
“Of course, Lady Mary. But—”
“I did find my man,” Mary clarified. “And if we are not very careful, everything I have done will have been for naught, and I might as well never have left Beckham Hall, for I will be as good as dead, as will be an innocent man.”
The blond woman looked at Glayer Felsteppe with a haughtiness that made him itch to wipe the beautiful smirk off her face.
With a blade.
“I don’t know who this Valentine Alesander is,” she said, as if the name were a foul taste on her tongue. “I’ve never met him. The earl never mentioned him. I would not allow an unknown man into my home while my husband was away.”
“I regret to report that I have heard otherwise,” Glayer informed her with a slow smile. Constantine Gerard’s wife was an incomparable beauty—and she clearly enjoyed the riches of her station, if her home and the perfection of her gown and jewels were any indication. She seemed no worse for the wear of not having seen her husband in two years. “Might I be so redundant as to point out that I am standing here?”
“I felt I had no choice, once I heard who you were,” she allowed with a delicate arched brow. It was clear that she thought herself Glayer’s better, a countess addressing the lowly soldier who accused her husband.
“True, true,” Glayer conceded. “And what would you care, really? Your life has not changed since your husband all but killed his own men in Jerusalem. Betrayed the king. Here you are, outfitted as royalty.”
“I care because my son has no father, and my house is now tainted by the accusations against my husband,” the woman spat. “Constantine’s absence has little bearing on my station. Benningsgate is my family home, whether he holds title or no. I told him not to go. But he had an overwhelming desire for one final turn on the battlefield.” Her eyes sparkled, but Glayer was unsure whether it was with sorrowful tears or anger.
“So you feel he is innocent.”
“Constantine may be many things,” Patrice Gerard allowed wryly, “but disloyal is not one of them.” She looked away for a moment, and Glayer found that the tears were sorrowful. He was disappointed. “Now, if that is all, Lord Felsteppe, it is late, and I would retire.”
Glayer felt old, familiar anger bubbling up inside him at the off-hand manner with which she wanted to dismiss him. As if he were nothing but another of her servants.
“Your son,” he began, helping himself to a carafe of wine as if she hadn’t spoken, “how old is he now?”
“That is none of your affair,” Patrice said.
“If I remember correctly, he is called Christian. Rather ironic now, wouldn’t you say?”
She only stared at him, loathing in her eyes. Perhaps he should have taken time to change into a richer costume. Perhaps then she would have spoken to him more kindly, as her equal.
Now she would see before the night’s end that he was not her equal. He was her better.
“Get out,” she said levelly.
Glayer took a large drink directly from the container and then smacked his lips with a sigh. Resting the carafe on his hip, he took a slow turn about the large drawing room, admiring the rich tapestries and furnishings.
“Any man would be a fool to leave a home such as Benningsgate,” he said aloud while paying particular attention to a tall metal urn, bearing the Chase coat of arms. He tossed Patrice a smile over his shoulder. “And such a beautiful wife.”
Her face showed no appreciation for his compliments, and Glayer felt his rage building, although he made very sure to keep it hidden.
“I think,” he said slowly, pensively, as he completed his circuit of the room to stand before Patrice Gerard, “that perhaps Constantine has been here. That perhaps you are even now harboring his friend, Alesander, somewhere within Benningsgate Castle.”
Patrice huffed a laugh. “That’s ridiculous.”
Glayer raised his eyebrows. “Is it? Who’s to say? Certainly your servants would not betray you.” He turned on his heel suddenly and addressed his soldiers, standing guard at the room’s entrance. “Find the boy. Bring him here.”
“No!” Patrice shouted. “You do not have my permission to enter my home nor to touch my son.”
Glayer nodded to his soldiers. “Wait outside the doors with him until I tell you to bring him in. If any of the servants interfere, kill them.”
The heretofore reserved lady flew at him then, her claws out. Glayer caught her by her wrists with a sharp jerk, and he felt and heard her left one snap in his grip. She cried out and her knees buckled. He tossed her away to let her crumple to the floor and then he squatted down on his haunches next to her.
Patrice Gerard looked up at him, and now her eyes were wide with pain and fear. But still her haughtiness prevailed. “The king shall hear of this,” she vowed.
“He shall indeed. And so you had better tell me true, Lady Patrice,” Glayer said almost kindly. “Have you had any word from your husband or his cohorts? Any messages? Visits?”
“No!” she screamed up at him, the cords of her delicate neck standing out. “No, no, no! I already told you—”
He gave her the back of his hand for her impertinence. It took him several long breaths to regain his control. “Well, that is too bad. Yes. Too bad indeed. For I have on good authority that Valentine Alesander has managed to make his way here in order to help an English lady. And as Adrian Hailsworth is not married, and Roman Berg is of Norse heritage, that lady can only be—” he reached out to stroke a finger down the side of her swelling face—“you.” She pulled away with a wince. “He is hidden somewhere in the castle, is he not?”
“No!” she insisted, but now her indignation had deteriorated into fear. At last, she would respect him. “I swear to you, I’ve not heard from Constantine or any of them since the message he sent from Chastellet at the beginning of the siege. And that I already showed you.”
Glayer clicked his tongue and looked askance at her.
“Please,” Patrice Gerard continued. “Only think for a moment—I have no reason to shelter any of them. Constantine’s return now would only be to my and Christian’s detriment. I don’t want him here.”
Glayer believed her. It was well documented by his sources that the countess had plenty of lovers to entertain her in her husband’s absence. She was wealthy enough in her own right.
But regardless of Lady Patrice’s wishes, if Constantine was to return, all of Benningsgate’s resources were technically his to command.
And that would simply not do. It would not do at all.
“Very well, Lady Patrice,” he said on a sigh, and he rose to tower over her. “I would only ask one more thing of you before I leave your home.”
Patrice Gerard looked up at him with great, watery cow’s eyes, and bloody snot ran down her upper lip. “Anything,” she sniveled.
Glayer’s hands went to his belt. “Take off your gown.”
The soldiers clustered around the door to the drawing room moved away at the sound of the woman’s screams for help. They took the little boy, managed by some old manservant, with them. But even standing some distance down the corridor did little to quiet the hellish cries.
Some of the men blanched, but none made a move toward the drawing room doors. The little blond-headed boy seemed confused as to the happenings in his home.
Sometime later, after the screams had ceased, Glayer Felsteppe emerged through the doors, his hands stained a dull red as he tried to wipe them on what looked to be a torn piece of brocade.
“She’s lying,” he said to his soldiers as he came to a halt before them. His hair was damp and there was a smudge of red on his cheek. “We must teach the traitors a lesson; no place is safe for them. No one who aids them will be spared.”
Felsteppe crouched down and looked at the little boy. “Your father is a very bad man, young Christian.”
The boy’s eyes narrowed. “You’re a liar. My father is a hero.”
“Hmm.” Felsteppe smiled indulgently and ruffled the boy’s hair
as he stood. “Run along then, and see your mother.”
Christian Gerard and his servant disappeared into the drawing room, and Felsteppe spoke over the boy’s echoing screams. “Bar the doors and set fire to the lot of it. No one escapes. I must away to greet my bride.” And he quit Benningsgate without another glance.
The soldiers did as they were commanded.
Chapter 23
Valentine rode into Beckhamshire on the back of a hay cart, his peasant garb and cap making him invisible in the morning bustle of the village. He saw the keep rising up from the edge of the town, and he looked closely at the windows.
Somewhere inside, Maria waited for him.
No, he corrected himself—Lady Mary Beckham waited. He’d left Maria on the Dane yesterday.
He kept a keen watch on the crowd he rolled past, noting that there seemed to be an influx of fighting men, returning from the north. And all seemed focused on Beckham Hall as their destination. Any one of them could be the man Mary was to wed, he supposed.
Tricky, Valentine thought.
He hopped off the hay cart still some distance from the keep and strolled past a market stall, his pace not slowing as he swept up an empty basket to perch on his shoulder.
Further into the village, he meandered in the crowd. His head was down, but his eyes were busy taking in the people, his ears listening for gossip. He swiped an apple from the fruiter’s pile and circled around to the well. Dropping to one knee, he anchored the small fruit between his teeth while he played at reweaving a frayed spot on the side of the basket.
“—Benningsgate—”
“—just returned to Beckham.”
Valentine took the apple from his mouth after a crunching bite and strode past the cluster of gossiping women toward the inn. Benningsgate, Benningsgate . . . where had he heard that name before?
A pair of wealthy-looking young men stood a short distance away from what Valentine assumed were their mounts, which appeared saddled and ready for departure. Valentine passed by the horses on the far side of the men, deftly swiping one of the bags from the saddle of the horse closest to him and tipping it into the basket. He cut directly between the two men, nodding as he went.
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