Border Brides

by Kathryn Le Veque

  Warenne nodded, keeping an eye on Solomon as Atticus headed out of the chapel. Out in the yard where a very cold wind was whipping through the grounds, Atticus came across Kenton, who was disbanding the escort party and having Isobeau’s capcases removed from the wagon. Just as Atticus passed by, Kenton called out to him.

  “Atticus,” he said. “Shall I have Lady de Wolfe’s capcases sent up to her or would you have me wait?”

  Atticus paused, eyeing the collection of very nice cases that Titus had purchased for his new wife.

  “Have them sent up now,” he said. “I will take one or two with me, for I am going to see her now.”

  As he bent over to test the weight of the cases, finally selecting two that weren’t too heavy, Kenton reached down and collected the heaviest one.

  “I will go with you,” he said. “It will give us a chance to discuss plans for the next few days.”

  Atticus eyed Kenton, now holding the biggest and heaviest case. “Come on, then,” he said. “Since you must show off your Herculean strength, let us make sure your display does not to go waste.”

  Kenton’s lips twitched with a smile. “Then you admit I am stronger than you.”

  “I admit that you think you are.”

  Kenton fought off a bigger grin. “I am the one with the bigger case.”

  “That is because I am smarter than you are. I took the lighter cases so I would not break my back,” Atticus pointed out. “Good Christ, how many cases does one woman need?”

  Kenton, now following Atticus up the narrow stone steps, glanced over his shoulder to count the cases that had remained behind. “At least seven.”

  Atticus pursed his lips irritably at the glib reply, stomping up the steps. “When we leave this place, I will make sure she travels much lighter,” he said. “I will not be lugging around seven capcases all over England.”

  They had reached the second level and mounted the steps for the third. “Then we are not going after de la Londe and de Troiu?” Kenton asked.

  Atticus nodded. “We are indeed,” he said. “But Lady de Wolfe is coming with us. It… it is her vengeance as much as it is mine, I suppose. Titus was her husband as well as my brother. Thetford seems to think it is important that I take her and allow her a measure of vengeance also.”

  They had reached the third floor and it took Atticus a moment to realize that Kenton had not responded. He turned to look at the man only to notice that Kenton seemed lost in thought. When Kenton saw that Atticus was looking at him, he merely shrugged.

  “If it is your wish that she accompany us, then she shall,” he said.

  Atticus came to a halt, peering at the man strangely. “You do not think she should go with us, do you?”

  Kenton averted his gaze. “It does not matter what I think,” he said. “You have deemed that she should go and she shall.”

  Atticus still wasn’t moving forward, shifting the weight of the cases on his broad shoulders. “That is not an answer to my question,” he said. “Why do you think she should not go?”

  Kenton grunted. He didn’t want to give his opinion because Atticus had enough opinions with Thetford criticizing his every move. At least, that’s what Kenton thought. He’d seen Warenne and how he’d given Atticus his opinion on the situation at every turn. Kenton respected Thetford a great deal but he’d seen how the man had tried to order Atticus about even on personal decisions and Kenton didn’t like that in the least. He scratched his head.

  “I am not entirely sure it is relevant,” he said. “Can we get moving? This case is getting heavy.”

  Atticus blocked the corridor and wouldn’t move. “That is your misfortune for picking the heaviest case,” he said. “You will tell me what you think of all of this, Kenton. You and I have known each other a long time and you were particularly close with Titus. I cannot imagine any of this is easy on you, either.”

  “It does not matter.”

  “It matters a great deal to me. Speak.”

  Up until that point, Kenton had kept his gaze averted but when Atticus commanded him to spill forth his opinion, he looked the man squarely in the face.

  “Do you really want to know what I think about all of this?” he asked, his eyes alight with emotion. “I was with Titus right before de Troiu and de la Londe approached him. Titus and I had been discussing positioning the right flank and I remember seeing de Troiu and de la Londe in the distance, heading in our direction. But I moved on to carry out Titus’ orders. Had I stayed, then those two bastards would not have done what they did to him. I blame myself that I was not there to help Titus fend them off. Therefore, I have personal stake in all of this, too. You are entitled to vengeance for your brother’s sake because he was, in fact, your brother; mayhap Lady de Wolfe is entitled to vengeance, too, because he was her husband. But I am entitled also because I was the last one to see him whole and healthy. This guilt that I feel has been eating away at me since the day Titus died.”

  Atticus sighed heavily. “Kenton, it was not your fault,” he said. “There was no way you could have known their intentions.”

  Kenton was struggling to remain stoic and stone-faced. “I realize that,” he said. “But the fact remains that had I stayed, I could have prevented this. Therefore, when you face de Troiu and de la Londe, it will be with me by your side. Do not ask me to remain with Lady de Wolfe and protect her; I want revenge, too, Atticus. That is why I am here, why I did not remain behind at Alnwick to command the troops. I came for the same reason you came – to seek vengeance.”

  Atticus gazed into the eyes of the man he felt a closeness to. If there was a third de Wolfe brother, then it was Kenton. Beastly big, handsome, intelligent, and loyal to a fault. Atticus understood the man’s position very well. He understood the guilt because he had that particular guilt, too. I should have been there to help Titus. Aye, he understood all too well.

  Patting the man on the side of the head, Atticus shifted the weight of his cases once again and continued down the corridor with Kenton in tow. Now that things were finally spoken, there was an understanding between them. This vendetta Atticus harbored was not one of single-minded necessity; it would seem there was yet one more person determined to obtain justice for Titus. More people wanted a hand in punishing de la Londe and de Troiu and Atticus realized that he was pleased at Kenton’s attitude. One more person to share the bond of revenge with, in righting a terrible wrong done against Titus. Aye, Atticus wasn’t displeased in the least. He was coming to understand that Titus hadn’t only touched his life; the man had touched many lives. Many felt pain at his passing.

  They neared the north side of the fortress where there were four chambers, including Solomon’s master chamber. The corridor was low-ceilinged and dark, and Atticus threw open the first door he came to only to be met with a dark and cold chamber. Continuing on, he came to the next door in succession and opened that one, too, but no Lady de Wolfe. Moving further down the corridor, they came to the chamber that was next to his father’s chamber, a chamber that had once belonged to Atticus’ mother. Knocking softly on the door, he waited for a response.

  There was no voice that bade him to enter but he did hear something fall over, perhaps furniture of some kind. It sounded like wood falling. He rapped again.

  “Lady de Wolfe?” he called. “Isobeau? May we enter? We have your cases.”

  Still, no distinctive reply. But then he heard a gasp, and perhaps even a groan. Puzzled, Atticus lifted the latch and pushed the door open.

  Isobeau was standing beside a small table in the room next to a toppled chair. Her fur cloak was across the table and she was clad in the pale blue traveling dress she had worn since leaving Alnwick. But Atticus immediately noticed that she had blood-stained hands and he dropped her two cases just inside the door, rushing to her side.

  “What happened?” he demanded with concern. “Did you hurt yourself?”

  Isobeau looked up at him, extremely pale and distressed. “I… I am not sure,” she said
. “There is blood.”

  He could see her hands but he didn’t see any blood on her body other than the hands. “Where?” he asked, growing increasingly apprehensive. “Where did the blood come from?”

  It was then that she turned around and he saw it on the back of her dress. There was a big, dark, red stain right on her bottom and smears against the fabric where she had tried to pull her dress around to look at the mess. Atticus’ heart sank.

  “Good Christ,” he hissed, putting his hands on her because she seemed to be weaving about unsteadily. He turned to Kenton, who was standing back by the door. “Find a physic immediately. Lady de Wolfe has injured herself badly.”

  Kenton fled. He hadn’t really seen what Atticus had seen but it didn’t matter. What concerned him was that Atticus’ voice seemed to be tinged with fear Kenton had never heard from the man. It was alarming. As the big knight dashed off, Atticus began bellowing for servants. There was still no bed, and no food, or anything else of comfort, and Atticus snarled at the elderly servant who appeared, demanding a mattress for Lady de Wolfe. The old man explained that they were stuffing a fresh one for Lady de Wolfe, per Thetford’s orders, but Atticus bellowed at them to produce one immediately. When the fearful servant made it clear he could not comply, Atticus swung Isobeau into his arms and charged out of the chamber, straight into his father’s room next door.

  Solomon’s chamber was a smelly, dirty mess, but at least it had a bed she could lay upon. Atticus ordered the elderly servant to strip his father’s bed and find something clean to lay atop it so Lady de Wolfe could have a relatively unsoiled surface upon which to lie. The only thing that was even remotely clean in Solomon’s pigsty of a chamber was an oiled cloak used to guard against the rain. It was a very big cloak, relatively clean, and the old servant laid it over the lumpy old mattress used by Solomon as Atticus deposited Isobeau gently atop it.

  Isobeau’s eyes were closed, her face ghostly pale, as Atticus stood over her. He needed to at least make an attempt to stop the bleeding but he knew, in his heart of hearts, that there was nothing to be done. He suspected the bleeding was coming from her womb because of the location of the stain and he further suspected he was witnessing the death of his brother’s child. Horrendous, horrific guilt swept him.

  “My lady?” he leaned over her, whispering. “Are you in pain?”

  Isobeau’s eyes fluttered open and she looked up at him with her great eyes, dark as a hot summer sky. They seemed oddly bright within her ashen face.

  “I am not any longer,” she said softly. “I was, but it went away.”

  Atticus was feeling increasingly terrible about the circumstances, realizing the woman had been in great discomfort but had not mentioned it to him. Perhaps she didn’t think she should. For whatever reason, she had kept her agony to herself and hadn’t complained. He hadn’t noticed anything odd about her because he had been too preoccupied with his own troubles. He sighed heavily, distress on his features.

  “How long were you in pain, Isobeau?” he asked her, unable to keep the sorrow from his voice. “Why did you not tell me?”

  Isobeau’s gaze lingered on him a moment longer before closing her eyes, turning her head away. “It was not terrible pain,” she murmured. “My back ached all during our journey from Alnwick but I assumed it was the fact that I was on a horse from sunrise to sunset. It was nothing odd. But then… right after the earl brought me to rest, I had terrible pains in my stomach and then there was blood. I do not feel much pain anymore.”

  Atticus didn’t know what else to say. He was utterly devastated, now because he had failed to protect Titus’ child. He had forced Isobeau into a difficult trip, knowing her delicate condition, and now he was seeing the results of his bad decision. He should have left her at Alnwick but he knew, in the same breath, that leaving her behind had never been an option.

  The loss of the child was one more shattering incident in a string of days that had seen many such things. For a man who had known only success and fortune in his life, the series of setbacks had left him reeling. He felt as if he were no longer on solid ground, a very bad sensation when he planned to face off against the two skilled knights who had murdered his brother. He felt unsteady and unsure. But perhaps there was more to life than this vengeance he harbored; he was starting to see that there was. There was his father, his friends, and even Isobeau… but he would not go back on his vow. He had a promise to fulfill and he would see it through or die trying. There was no alternative.

  Thoughts of vengeance faded, however, as he gazed down at Isobeau’s face. She was his priority at the moment and he was rather chagrinned that it had taken a health scare of this magnitude for him to realize that. For days, the woman had essentially been an afterthought. His priorities, his focus, had been elsewhere. But that situation was something he intended to change.

  There was nothing more he could do until the physic arrived, so he pulled up a chair next to the bed where Isobeau lay dozing. He felt so utterly helpless and sad. Isobeau’s hand, limp and lifeless, was lingering by the end of the bed. Atticus stared at it for some time before reaching out to gently collect it. Perhaps it was to comfort her, or perhaps it was even to comfort himself. For whatever the reason, Atticus sat there, holding her hand, for the rest of the morning until a tall, skinny man with a satchel in his hand arrived under Kenton’s escort.

  Atticus jumped up when the man entered the chamber, describing what the lady’s issue was. After checking the man to make sure he had no weapons on his body, and even rummaging through the satchel he was carrying to see what was inside, Atticus allowed the man access to Isobeau. When the physic went to work, Atticus moved away from the bed, standing over near the chamber door. He wanted to afford Isobeau some privacy. When the physic helped her to sit up so he could remove her clothing, he left the room completely.

  Standing in the corridor outside his father’s room, the very room he had been born in those years ago, he thought it was a rather fitting place for Titus’ son to know his end. So much life and death had happened in that chamber. Feeling depressed and hollow, he stood against the wall, just next to the door, straining to catch wind of what was going on inside. He couldn’t hear any sounds at all. Kenton was standing across from him, next to a small lancet window that allowed ventilation and light into the corridor, and he turned his attention to the man.

  “Where did you find the physic?” Atticus asked.

  Kenton drew in a long, deep breath, the sign of an exhausted man. “In Hawick,” he said. “He is the same physic that tends your father. The man’s wife and mother are following behind in a wagon; they should be here shortly. I thought you might feel more comfortable with womenfolk to tend Lady de Wolfe because, God knows, there are only men at this place.”

  Atticus appreciated the foresight. “Indeed,” he replied. “Thank you for your consideration of Lady de Wolfe’s needs.”

  Kenton eyed him. “What is the matter with her?”

  Atticus looked up at him, an expression of sorrow on his face. He wasn’t sure how to delicately phrase the issue so he simply came out with the truth.

  “I suspect the lady is no longer with child,” he said quietly, lowering his gaze.

  Kenton simply nodded, averting his eyes and looking at his boots much as Atticus was. “If that is true, then I am very sorry for you,” he said quietly. “But I am sorrier for Lady de Wolfe. First Titus, now her child.”

  Atticus sighed heavily, reflecting on what Isobeau was being forced to endure. “I promised my brother I would take care of her,” he said. “I do not seem to be doing a very good job of it.”

  Kenton glanced at him. “You did not cause this,” he said. “Whatever has happened is the Will of God. You must have faith that everything happens as it should, and in the end, everything is as it should be.”

  Atticus grunted. “I am not particularly fond of God’s Will at the moment,” he said. “So much has happened that I feel as if I am sliding into a pit and have yet
to see the bottom. I pray our misfortunes end at some point and we hit bottom. I should like to come up again.”

  Kenton understood. “You shall,” he said. “Sometimes it takes a bottomless pit for us to appreciate the view from the top. In any case, Lady de Wolfe will be in good hands. There is nothing more you can do for her. In fact, I would suggest you return to the chapel and relieve Thetford of the duty of watching over your father. They have been there all morning.”

  Atticus knew that. He didn’t particularly want to leave Isobeau, as he was anxious for news of her condition, but he knew at some point he was going to have to see to his father.

  “Has the priest arrived for the burial mass?” he asked.

  Kenton nodded. “I saw him when I returned with the physic.”

  Atticus processed the information. “Then with the priest here, we would do well to bury Titus right away,” he said. “I will speak with my father about it. In fact, I will insist. Meanwhile, you will remain here in case the physic needs anything. Send word to me as soon as the physic finishes his examination. I would like to know of Lady de Wolfe’s condition.”

  Kenton waved him off and Atticus headed down the low-ceilinged corridor en route to Wolfe’s Lair’s small chapel and his father. Kenton watched the man go; he swore he could see a cloud of doom and sorrow hanging over Atticus, a very unusual thing, indeed. As Atticus had said, much misfortune had befallen them since that terrible day on the battlefield of Towton.

  The Lion of the North, a mighty and fearsome man, was suffering through some damnable luck at the moment. But Kenton knew, as did everyone else who knew Atticus de Wolfe, that a spell of bad fortune could not cripple The Lion.

  If anything, he would emerge stronger than before. It was just a hunch Kenton had.