Secret Heart

by Speer, Flora

  She decided that after Garit departed from Auremont, she’d spend most of her visit in her room. The fewer people who saw her face, the safer she would be. In fact, now she thought about it, she concluded that she need not remain at Auremont for more than one night.

  “Garit,” she said as soon as she was seated between him and Roarke, “since you have provided the lovely gown I’m wearing, and several other gowns besides, I don’t see any reason for me to stay behind while you travel to Calean City. You needn’t send back new clothes for me. I can wear a gown from the clothing chest in my room. Why don’t we all just continue on, together?”

  “If you truly imagine the gown you are wearing will be acceptable at court,” Roarke said, cutting off her eager suggestion, “then you are a naive country girl. And that I do not believe, not for an instant.”

  “I like this gown,” she protested.

  “The color becomes you,” Roarke said. He lowered his voice and watched her reaction with keen interest. “It’s a gown that Lady Chantal would wear while she’s in the countryside. But, at court, her gown would be heavily embroidered. Her hair would be elaborately coiffed beneath a sheer veil and a jeweled circlet worthy of a great heiress. Chantal would wear rings, bracelets, a necklace, earrings. You’d be laughed at if you appeared before King Henryk and Queen Hannorah as you are clothed at this moment, claiming to be Chantal. No one would believe you, so our scheme to learn who is responsible for her disappearance would fail.”

  Jenia sat with her head bowed, twisting her fingers together in her lap and all but biting her tongue to keep from screaming at him that she had more important concerns than a noblewoman’s dress and jewels.

  “I thought you’d know as much,” Roarke said. “I thought you’d understand that to be convincing, you must appear in full court regalia.”

  She did know. Oh, she did. She could not answer his argument because he was right. The only way to make the courtiers heed her accusations was by seeming to be one of them.

  “Well?” Roarke prodded mercilessly. “Will you answer me?”

  “Perhaps, if I could remember,” she finally said in a whisper, “then I’d know you are correct and I’d agree with you. Since I cannot remember, I will trust in your good judgment and do as you wish.” She couldn’t bring herself to look at him because she feared he’d see in her eyes how angry she was. And how frightened.

  “You won’t have long to wait,” Roarke said. “Three or four days at most. Be patient, Jenia.”

  “I will try,” she said.

  “You will be well occupied, so the time will pass quickly,” he told her. “You will need to learn how to conduct yourself at court.”

  “I will?” She experienced a sudden desire to break into wild laughter. Or else, to weep with wild abandon.

  “While we wait, I intend to teach you how to act as if you really are Lady Chantal,” Roarke said.

  “You?” She offered a last, feeble protest, aware as she spoke that she was trapped. “But it’s Garit who knows her well.”

  “Garit is overdue in Calean City. I will teach you what you need to know.”

  “My dearest lady,” Garit said when Jenia excused herself for the night, “I will take my leave of you now, for I plan to start for Calean City as soon as it’s light enough to see the road.”

  “Thank you for everything you’ve done for me,” Jenia said, choosing formality as a polite way of keeping at least a slight emotional distance from him. She could tell by his tone and the look in his eyes that Garit was thinking of her as his beloved Chantal. For his sake, she could not allow that. He’d only be more hurt later, after he knew the truth. After she was dead. “I am especially grateful for the hospitality you have offered here at Auremont, my lord.”

  “Oh, my sweet.” Garit caught both of her hands and kissed them. “Surely you know I’d do anything for you. I dare to hope that when your memory returns, you will recall how much you mean to me and how tenderly I held the dear thought of you in my heart during the long months when we were separated.”

  “Don’t.” She pulled her hands out of his gentle grasp. “Please, don’t. We cannot be sure of anything. We don’t know what will happen in Calean City.” Ah, but she did know, and the knowledge of what she must do and of the pain her actions would cause him was greater than she had expected. In the end, Garit would understand. She prayed he would forgive her.

  She wasn’t at all sure Roarke would understand, or forgive. When Garit bent forward to kiss her cheek, she noted the grim set of Roarke’s mouth and the irritation on his hard features. Unable to face either man for another instant, she bid them good night and fled from the great hall.

  Any hope she’d held of avoiding the castle folk or Roarke by remaining in her room was vanquished at midmorning. She broke her fast in her room and had just finished braiding her hair when an authoritative knock sounded at her door.

  She wasn’t surprised. She knew who it was before she opened the door. Roarke brushed right past her and strode into the room as if it belonged to him.

  “You have a choice,” he announced.

  “Have I?” she responded as coolly as she could. “About what?”

  “We agreed that you will spend the next few days learning how to conduct yourself at court.”

  “I did not agree.” She expected him to ignore her firm statement, and he did.

  “You have the choice of lessons here, in your room, or else in the garden. In so small a castle, they are the only two places in which we can be assured of privacy.”

  “Auremont has a garden?” She could not imagine what kind of garden it would be. Plants that grew freely, in natural, colorful profusion, did not suit a castle so severe and plain. “Roarke, do you by any chance mean the kitchen garden? That won’t be private, not with the cook choosing herbs, or the kitchen servants digging lettuce or carrots for the next meal.”

  “Since today is sunny,” Roarke said, extending his hand in an imperious manner, “I suggest we take advantage of the fine weather.”

  “I suppose you won’t leave me in peace,” she said. “If I say no to the garden, you will simply remain here and torment me in my own chamber.”

  “So I will,” he told her.

  The chamber intended for Chantal, though of a good size, was too small to contain Roarke. He took up all the space, he blocked the light and the soft breeze coming in the window, and his presence made Jenia think with quickened breath of the bed that loomed behind him.

  “Very well, then. Take me to the garden.” She heaved an exaggerated sigh and walked out of the room ahead of him.

  Roarke had not meant the kitchen garden. Auremont boasted a small lady’s garden. Enclosed by high walls, it was a shady, mossy place. Against the north wall, in the spot which received the most sun, stood a small pear tree, its branches laden with ripening fruit. Lilies grew on the same, sunny side of the garden, though their flowers were long gone and only the tall stems remained, with leaves and stems both turning brown as autumn approached.

  On the shadier east and west sides of the garden a few pale blooms of other plants still lingered. On the south wall, where the entrance was, a leafy vine grew up the stones, softening the hard, straight lines. A gravel path led across the garden to a stone bench set beneath the pear tree.

  Though the day was overly warm for the season the garden offered a cool refuge. Jenia stood on the path, looking around and noticing that the plantings were fairly new, with plenty of space between plants that hadn’t yet had a chance to spread out or to grow very tall. So was the bench new, for it was shining white and no moss had attacked it. This retreat was most likely one of the remodeled parts of the castle that Garit had prepared for Chantal.

  “First,” Roarke said, allowing Jenia no time to think about her surroundings or to grow emotional about what she saw, “I want you to walk across the garden.”

  “What?” Jenia asked, honestly puzzled by the command.

  “Don’t ask questions. Just do i
t.”

  “If you intend to be a difficult taskmaster, I warn you, I will be a rebellious pupil,” she said.

  “You have only a few days to learn what you need to know. Now, walk.”

  Jenia walked. Keeping her back straight and her chin up, she paced across the garden three times at Roarke’s bidding.

  “Sit on the bench,” he ordered.

  Jenia sat, placing her feet just so and folding her hands in her lap. When Roarke joined her on the bench, she turned toward him as gracefully as she could – as gracefully as she had been taught to move long ago, when she had been an innocent girl unaware of the depths of foul degradation to which ambitious men were capable of sinking.

  Some men, she corrected herself. Not all men. Roarke was stern and commanding at times and he often spoke with biting sarcasm, but she did not think he was dishonest or violent by nature. Neither were Garit or Lord Giles.

  “Now,” Roarke instructed her, “I want you to make polite conversation with me.”

  She almost told him it wasn’t going to be necessary for her to chatter with any nobles or their ladies. The task she had set for herself meant that the moment she saw King Henryk, she must confront him and reveal what she knew, before anyone could prevent her revelations.

  “Well?” Roarke demanded with his too-frequent frown. “Have you nothing to say?”

  Indeed she had, but she couldn’t reveal her innermost thoughts, let alone her feelings. She looked down at her clasped hands and noticed Roarke’s thigh too close to her own. Whoever had carved the garden bench had allowed room enough for two people to sit side by side, with very little space between them. Whenever Roarke moved his thigh brushed against Jenia’s skirt and the contact affected her in a most alarming way.

  She doubted if he was at all aware of the warmth his nearness generated. Surely, he had no idea how she yearned to caress his smoothly shaven face and to trace the outline of his firm and well-shaped, though somewhat narrow lips. When Roarke was annoyed his mouth assumed a thin, tight line. When he smiled, his lips took on a delicious curve. Jenia wondered how that very masculine mouth would feel if it were pressed against hers. How would Roarke taste? She shivered at the thought.

  “Jenia?” Roarke frowned at her again. “Is something wrong?”

  She shook her head, trying to find both her voice and a neutral subject.

  “Then speak to me as if we were at a court gathering where noblemen and ladies flatter andJ flirt with each other, but never talk in any serious manner.”

  Jenia swallowed, moistened her lips, and cleared her throat.

  “Say something,” Roarke commanded impatiently.

  “I have noticed during our time together, Sir Roarke,” she obeyed him, speaking in a falsely sweet tone, “that you and Lord Garit are remarkably close.”

  “Friendships formed in youth often last a lifetime,” Roarke at once responded in a polite tone similar to the one she had just used.

  “I believe that is not always the case,” Jenia said. She smiled in a bland, ladylike way. “The realities of rank and custom can intrude upon friendship. How fortunate you and Garit are.”

  “I have often thought so.” Roarke’s smile matched hers for empty good manners, his lips assuming a seductive curve that drew Jenia’s fascinated gaze. When he continued, it was with a gentle interest so insinuating that his words slipped through her guard to strike directly at her heart. “Have you such a friend, Lady Jenia?”

  To her dismay, Jenia felt her eyes filling with tears. She looked down at her hands and saw they were tightly clenched together. She warned herself that although she and Roarke were playing a game of courtier and noble lady, danger still lurked in his words, and in her own. An even greater danger lay in the emotions that Roarke stirred in her. But the cherished memories she was trying to quell betrayed her into a rash admission.

  “Once,” she said in a voice just above a whisper. She choked on the single word and could say no more.

  “You’ve been friends for years?” Roarke asked quietly.

  “We were.” Jenia forced out an explanation that she hoped would stop his probing into a wound too easily reopened. “She’s dead now.”

  “I am sorry for your loss. I know a piece of my heart would be torn away if anything happened to Garit.” Roarke wasn’t pretending any longer. He was speaking with a sincerity so absolute that Jenia was prompted to admit a little more.

  “We were cousins,” she said. “Our mothers were sisters. When we were little, we were often together. We were like twins, always wanting the same things, always competing with each other, and so mischievous that our mothers despaired of our ever becoming well behaved ladies.”

  “Mischievous or not, you were well taught,” Roarke said. “That’s why you know how to walk and sit and speak like a noblewoman. It’s because you are of noble birth and were trained by your lady mother.”

  Jenia went perfectly still, paralyzed by fear. What a fool she was to think she could ease the ache in her heart by revealing just a little information to Roarke. She was like a seething cauldron, bubling under a tightly fastened lid. The strong attraction she felt toward Roarke, that she must never let him suspect, her disgust with herself over what her pretense was doing to Garit, the realization that Garit had intended to bring his love to Auremont and keep her safe there, all added to the noxious brew within the cauldron of her emotions. She feared she’d boil over if she had to keep that brew fermenting and stewing inside her for much longer.

  She wanted to scream the truth at Roarke, to tell him everything and then throw herself into his arms and weep until all the tears were gone.

  “So, you do recall your girlhood?” Roarke said, sounding as if he’d suspected as much all along. “What else do you remember?”

  “I don’t know.” She wondered if he was as tired of hearing that phrase as she was of repeating it. He could not possibly know how weary she was of concocting lies. Weary or not, she then proceeded to tell another lie, using a soft, hesitant tone of voice that she hoped would convince him she was speaking the truth. “Sometimes, it’s as if a veil is drawn aside and I see something of the past. Then the veil drops again and the memory ends.”

  “You remember far more than you will admit,” Roarke said very quietly. He took her hand, tightening his hold when she would have pulled it out of his grasp. “Jenia, if you will tell me what troubles you so, the chances are good that I can protect you from whatever it is you fear. Let me help you.”

  Jenia smothered a bitter laugh. Much as she longed to do as he asked, she couldn’t reveal the true source of her pain. While Roarke wanted to protect her, the very reticence he decried was protecting him, and Garit, too. When the confrontation occurred in Calean City, their only chance of surviving that hour lay in their obvious and honest astonishment at the terrible words she would speak. If it was clear to everyone present that neither Roarke nor Garit had known in advance what she intended to do, perhaps King Henryk would believe in their innocence and let them live.

  Chapter 6

  Thury Castle, Eastern Sapaudia.

  “Lady Chantal is most assuredly dead, my lord Walderon,” the ship’s captain reported.

  His glance shifted for just an instant to the woman who stood in the shadows behind Walderon. He quickly returned his attention to the man who presently ruled Thury Castle, thus dismissing the female presence as unimportant.

  And that, Lady Sanal decided, was an accurate assessment of her person and her life. She made a habit of being inconspicuous. In her plain, dark gown she was almost invisible there in the small room with its single, narrow window. She took care to remain motionless lest her husband become angry with her and order her to leave. Walderon’s temper was fragile at the best of times, but Sanal was determined to stay so she could hear what else the captain had to say about Chantal.

  “Poor thing, she flung herself over the rail.” The captain finished his tale with bowed head and solemn voice.

  Horrified though
she was at the news, still Sanal retained sense enough to understand that the captain was not honestly grieving over Chantal’s fate. Judging by his raffish appearance the man was little more than a pirate, a creature who would do almost anything for money. That fact would make him useful to Walderon. It also made him expendable, for no one who mattered would raise worrisome questions should the captain disappear, which he was likely to do in the very near future. Sanal knew her husband all too well.

  “Swear to me that what you say is true,” Walderon demanded.

  “Aye, my lord,” the captain responded, nodding his unkempt head vigorously. “With my own eyes I saw Lady Chantal vanish beneath the waves and I never saw her rise to the surface again. Who can wonder at that, seein’ how violent the storm was?”

  Sanal could no longer contain her outrage, though she’d doubtless pay later for her interference.

  “Your story cannot be true,” she declared. Moving out of the shadows, Sanal stepped around her husband, who yielded not a single inch to accommodate her presence as she came forward to face the captain directly. “I knew Lady Chantal and cannot imagine her ever killing herself.”

  “Well, my lady,” the captain said, not meeting Sanal’s gaze, looking at Walderon instead, as if he hoped the nobleman would come to his aid, “the thing is, she may have felt she had no choice in the matter.”

  “Exactly what do you mean by that?” Sanal demanded.

  “I was busy at the helm, so I had nothin’ to do with it,” the captain protested, holding up his hands.

  “With what?” Sanal asked, her anguished gaze fixed on the captain’s dirty, bearded face.