Secret Heart

by Speer, Flora

  “You may go, too, Lord Oliver,” the king said.

  “With your permission, sir, I would prefer to stay,” Lord Oliver declared. “There may be some way in which I can help my son, or Lord Garit, who is, after all, my brother-in-law.”

  “We don’t want or need your help,” Roarke told him, allowing some of his seething emotions to escape in a moment of rudeness.

  “Let it go, Roarke,” Garit begged, drawing both hands down over his face. He looked older by several years than he had seemed earlier that day and he was bleary-eyed from weeping, but he was calm, his first outburst of grief spent. “We have more important matters to settle here than your father’s misbehavior, or my sister’s. Speaking for myself, I’d like to set out this very day to find Walderon and bring him back here for questioning.”

  “I don’t see any point to that, lad,” Lord Giles objected. “We aren’t certain where Walderon is. If he’s at Thury as Lord Oliver suggested, well and good; we can find a way to get past the gates and confront him there. But let us locate him before we waste our time and energy riding all over the countryside looking for him.”

  “What do you suggest, then?” Garit asked, deferring to the man who had trained him to become a knight.

  “I brought a group of my current squires with me to Calean. They are intelligent boys and most of them have relatives here at court. I will send them off to visit with their families for the rest of the day. I’ll give them orders to gossip freely with relatives and servants, or with any of the younger ladies they happen to know. Familiar with those lads as I am, I expect they’ll soon be able to tell us where to find Walderon. Failing that, which is unlikely, I suggest we leave tomorrow for Thury Castle. I have learned that Lady Sanal is in residence there. If Walderon isn’t with her, she ought to know where to find him.”

  “An excellent idea,” King Henryk said, “and a sensible way to begin. Only, tell your squires to be discreet, so no one takes a notion to alert Walderon that you are curious about his activities. I want all of you report to me early tomorrow morning. If at that time you still think Walderon is your man, I’ll give you permission to search for him wherever he may be. The delay won’t matter, you know, Garit. We cannot help poor Lady Chantal now.”

  Roarke was compelled to agree with the king’s advice. He could see how worn out Garit was after listening to Jenia’s account of Chantal’s death. For Garit’s sake, he was glad the king’s decision would keep them at Calean for another day at least.

  The extra time would allow Roarke several opportunities to see Jenia before he left Calean. He needed to talk with her, perhaps hold her for just a few moments. Even if he had to deal with Marjorie in order to reach her.

  Jenia was so badly shaken after her emotional interview with the king that she could barely stand. Only Lady Marjorie’s arm around her waist kept her upright until they reached her companion’s chamber. Once there, she needed little coaxing to convince her to allow Lady Marjorie and her maidservant to remove her shoes and stockings, her veil and the gold circlet, and the heavy green silk gown. By the time Jenia stretched out on the bed clad only in her shift, her every limb ached and her head was pounding.

  “Did you eat this morning?” Lady Marjorie asked.

  “Only a bit of bread,” Jenia admitted. “My stomach was queasy.”

  “I’m not surprised. Here, drink a little wine.” Lady Marjorie handed her a silver cup. “Don’t argue with me, Jenia. Drink this and then lie back and try to sleep. I will have my maid bring some food for you to eat later.”

  Jenia obediently drank the cup of wine, and then rested her head on the pillows. When Lady Marjorie drew a length of soft wool over her and tucked it around her shoulders, Jenia tried to thank her, only to discover that she could not speak and her eyelids were drooping.

  “That’s right,” Lady Marjorie said in a surprisingly motherly voice. “Sleep now, for I am certain you slept little if at all last night. You are safe and well protected, Jenia. I’ll be here if you need anything.”

  Jenia could not resist the other woman’s soothing tones. She didn’t want to resist. Her eyelids seemed fastened shut with heavy weights, and her arms and legs felt like lead. It was so pleasant to let old horrors and present worries seep out of her mind. A few tears trickled down her cheeks, but she was too tired to brush them away. With a sigh she submitted to beckoning sleep....

  She wakened suddenly, knowing someone was watching her. When she turned her head she saw a little boy with sandy hair and blue eyes standing next to the bed. He regarded her with a solemn stare while sucking on the two fingers he had stuck into his mouth.

  “Hello.” Jenia spoke softly, not wanting to frighten him away. She didn’t know much about children, but she thought this one was unusually attractive. She especially liked the sprinkle of freckles decorating his cheeks and his little, snub nose. She ventured a smile.

  “This is my son, Lan,” Lady Marjorie said. Rising from her seat on a clothing chest, she moved across the room to the bed. “I hope he didn’t disturb you.”

  “He didn’t. How old is he?” Jenia asked.

  “Lan is five.”

  “Five an’ half,” Lan corrected, speaking around his fingers. “Lan a big boy.”

  “A fine, big boy,” Jenia agreed. So, this was the child Marjorie had been carrying when she and Lord Oliver arrived at Calean to announce their precipitous marriage. And, also, to break Roarke’s heart and estrange Garit from his beloved sister.

  While Jenia thought about that, Lady Marjorie handed her son over to a red-haired maid who spoke with a thick Kantian accent.

  “There’s warm water in the pitcher, if you’d like to wash,” Lady Marjorie said, turning back to Jenia. “I’ll bring bread and cheese and some cakes, if you are hungry. We can talk while you eat. I’m sure you have questions for me after spending the last few days with Roarke and my brother. I promise, I will answer whatever you ask, and then I have a few questions of my own. I especially want to know how Garit has been faring.”

  Jenia used the chamberpot, then washed her face and hands, after which she wrapped around her shoulders the woolen shawl that had served as her blanket. She climbed back onto the bed and leaned against the piled-up pillows. Lady Marjorie reappeared from the next room bearing a tray of food, which she placed on the bed so Jenia could reach it.

  “Try this,” Lady Marjorie suggested, indicating a triangular pastry that looked to be partly bread and partly cake.

  “Thank you,” Jenia murmured with careful politeness. She ventured a nibble. The cake slid into her stomach and sat there with comforting solidity. Jenia finished the pastry and reached for another. “This is kind of you, my lady. I am hungry.”

  “Please, call me Marjorie,” her hostess said. “Let us not be formal when we are alone. I didn’t grow up at a royal court, you know. I am still a wild Kantian girl at heart and I dislike all the rules I am expected to follow.” Kicking off her shoes, she settled herself on the foot of the bed with her legs curled up beneath her.

  The similarity of Marjorie’s posture to the way Chantal used to sit while she and Jenia held delicious, giggling talks late at night sent a lump to Jenia’s throat. For a moment she couldn’t speak. She replaced the second pastry on the tray, knowing she wouldn’t be able to swallow it.

  “Tell me about Garit,” Marjorie said into the uncomfortable silence.

  “You heard the story I recited in the audience chamber. Every word I spoke was true,” Jenia said, grateful for the invitation to begin the conversation on a topic other than Roarke. “Garit loved Chantal enough to risk his career as the Kantian emissary to King Henryk in order to save her from a loathsome marriage.”

  “That sounds like my brother. Did Chantal confide in you?” Marjorie asked. “Did she truly love Garit in return? I want to know he did not love in vain.”

  “Chantal loved Garit with all her heart,” Jenia said with firm conviction. “She was willing to give up everything for him. When she went to m
eet him on the night she was abducted, she wasn’t thinking of the huge dowry left to her by her father, or of her rank at court. She was thinking only of Garit. While we were in the dungeon, she spoke of him often, and always with love. Until the last moment of her life, she believed he would find a way to rescue her.”

  “Poor lady. And poor Garit.” Marjorie wiped her eyes. “When I saw how your account of Chantal’s death affected my brother, I wanted to hold him in my arms and offer what comfort I could. Garit and I were always close until – until I married Oliver. Now, he won’t even speak to me. I ache to tell him I still love him, and to say that now I understand what love really is. I would like him to meet Lan, who reminds me so much of Garit when he was little. Perhaps Lan, in his innocent, childish way, could provide some small comfort, too. Garit needs his family, but he has rejected all of us.”

  “What do you mean when you say now you know what love really is?” Jenia asked, going straight to the issue that interested her most.

  “Shall I tell you how I came to marry Oliver?” Marjorie smiled wistfully.

  “Only if you want to.” Jenia tried to sound cool and not terribly interested, but in truth she was intensely curious.

  Jenia had expected to dislike Lady Marjorie. Instead, she felt a surprising sympathy toward the woman who had broken Roarke’s heart and caused a scandal. Jenia did not doubt that Marjorie loved Garit, and for that reason she was disposed to like her. For that same reason Jenia was willing to listen to Marjorie’s version of the tale Roarke had recounted in the garden at Auremont.

  “I’ll be happy to tell you all of it,” Marjorie said. “It would be a great relief to speak about what happened to someone who is near to me in age and who cares about Garit. I think you care for Roarke, too. At least, I hope you do. Roarke needs a woman who will love him deeply and forever. As I could not.”

  “You betrayed him,” Jenia said, keeping her voice low so as not to sound as if she was making an accusation, though she was. Still, she wanted to encourage Marjorie to speak, not stop her account. “With his own father, too.”

  “I know it’s what Roarke thinks,” Marjorie said.

  “You promised to marry him.”

  “I did not promise. I only agreed.”

  “I must say, I find that a peculiarly neat distinction,” Jenia snapped. A moment later she added more gently, “Please, go on. I should very much like to hear your own version of that sorry tale.”

  “You do care for Roarke.” Marjorie leaned forward to touch Jenia’s hand. “I’m so glad. Will you try to understand what happened six years ago? Will you listen as honestly as I will speak? Jenia, everything you have done during the last half year proves how greatly you value friendship and family affection. If you do understand and sympathize with what I am going to say now, perhaps you can help me to restore my family. I want to be friends with Garit again, and I want Roarke and Oliver to put aside the bitterness that lies between them. The rift is largely my fault. I beg you to help me end it.”

  “Say whatever you wish. I promise to listen with my mind and heart open to every explanation.” Jenia was so fascinated by the other woman’s strong emotions and apparent sincerity that she decided to set aside for an hour her own feelings and her pressing desire to complete her unfinished quest. She thought Chantal would want her to listen for Garit’s sake. “Garit and Roarke have both been remarkably kind to me. If I can repay them, or you, for your kindness in offering a quiet place for me to rest this afternoon, then I will gladly do so.”

  “Shortly before Roarke and Garit were to be knighted,” Marjorie began, “they visited Kinath Castle at Midwinter Solstice. I hadn’t seen Garit for two years and I was so happy to have him at home again. Knowing he would soon have a busy life as a knight, I spent as much time with him as he would allow. I did have duties as my father’s chatelaine, and Garit had manly interests, hunting and hawking and long talks with our father. But Garit and I were often together, and Roarke was with us, too. Sometimes, I wished he’d go away and leave me alone with my brother. When I think now of those days, I remember laughter and teasing, and the three of us riding across the snowy moors together, our breath coming out white in the cold air.

  “The day after Solstice, my father told me that Roarke had asked for my hand. Roarke had kissed me a few times, but I’d thought little of it. After all, knights and squires often kiss ladies under the mistletoe at Solstice. It’s expected of them. Roarke is a fine looking man, as I am sure you’ve noticed. My father heartily approved of the match. Garit was delighted.

  “I think I had some naive idea that we’d all three go on riding and talking and laughing together for the rest of our lives. I confess, I wasn’t thinking very clearly about what marriage meant. I had been concerned lest my father should arrange a match for me with one of his elderly, widowed friends, and I’d feel obliged to accept. So, I agreed to marry Roarke.”

  “Didn’t you want to marry him?” Jenia asked, unable to understand such a point of view. But she immediately realized that what Marjorie was describing wasn’t so very terrible. It was the choice any young noblewoman would have made, if she were given a choice. A young and vigorous husband was infinitely preferable to an elderly spouse who would most likely need a nurse, rather than a wife and mother to his children.

  “I thought I did,” Marjorie answered Jenia’s question. “In addition to being handsome, Roarke was kind and funny and, as I said, my father and brother were both eager for us to marry. Shortly after the Solstice celebrations ended, Roarke and Garit returned here to Calean to prepare for their knighting ceremonies. A month or so later, Lord Oliver arrived at Kinath to settle the terms of the marriage contract.”

  “Roarke has told me much of this,” Jenia said. “What I do not understand is how you could betray his love.”

  “I never thought of it as betrayal until Roarke used that term to his father during their quarrel. Roarke had declared his love for me, but I never said I loved him. I simply agreed to marry him, and I laid down two provisions. His father must approve of the match and both of our fathers must be satisfied with the contract their clerks drew up. I didn’t know Roarke well enough to understand that he perceived my acquiescence as a solemn vow.”

  “What happened?” Jenia demanded. “Why did you change your mind?” She could not make sense of what she was hearing, could not comprehend how any woman in her right mind didn’t love Roarke. Jenia had loved him almost from the first moment of meeting him. Increasing familiarity with him, with his decency and sense of honor, had only made her love him more.

  “On the day Oliver arrived at Kinath, I took one look at him and I could think of no other man. I loved him then, and my love only grows with each day we are together,” Marjorie said quietly, not knowing how closely her words echoed Jenia’s thoughts about Roarke.

  “The most wonderful, most amazing hour of my life occurred a few days later, when Oliver declared his love for me and said my father had granted permission for us to marry. Oliver had been a widower for years and he was lonely. His marriage to Roarke’s mother had been arranged by their families, though they did become fond of each other, and he grieved for a long time after she died. I think he was ready to be happy, ready for love.

  “He does love me, Jenia, as fully and devotedly as I love him. Our only sadness is the hurt we inflicted on Roarke. I had hoped Garit would be more understanding, but he was shocked by how quickly I had married Oliver. He saw my action as that of a fickle woman switching her affections to an older, more powerful, far more wealthy man. Being Garit, he maintained his loyalty to Roarke, whom he considered the wronged party. Garit quarreled with our father for approving of my marriage to Oliver after Roarke had asked for me first, and he told me I was no longer his sister. His rejection nearly broke my heart.

  “I dared to hope that time would soften his anger, and Roarke’s, too. But six years have passed and I see no change in either man. The scandal Oliver and I created has long ago died, killed by his op
en devotion to me, and mine for him. We are accepted here at court. Only Roarke and Garit continue to shun us.”

  Marjorie fell silent, her gaze fixed on Jenia’s face, until Jenia was compelled to remark upon what she had heard.

  “How do you imagine that I can help to repair the damage you inflicted on two families?” she asked. “Don’t misunderstand me, Marjorie. If I can help, I will, for several reasons. First, because I suspect that Chantal cherished some similar idea. She did mention to me once that Garit sorely missed his father and his sister, though she didn’t explain why he was estranged from his family. Perhaps she didn’t know all the details. It’s entirely possible that when she and Garit were able to steal a bit of time alone together, they chose to speak of other subjects.”

  “Very likely,” Marjorie said with a knowing smile.

  “If Chantal had lived,” Jenia said, “if she and Garit had wed, I believe she’d have come to you to discuss this unhappy situation and try to resolve it.

  “Sometimes,” she mused, “I wonder if I survived so I could complete Chantal’s work here on earth.”

  “It’s a noble aspiration,” Marjorie said. “Justice achieved and restoration of a broken family seem to me two fine ways to honor your cousin’s memory. You said you have several reasons for helping me. What are the others?”

  “My second reason,” Jenia said, “is I owe Roarke and Garit so much that I can never adequately repay either of them. From the little they’ve said on the subject, I think they are as unhappy as you about the rift. What about Lord Oliver? Is he as disturbed as you, and as eager to mend what’s wrong?”

  “Yes, though he doesn’t speak of it often. I know he did feel guilty at first over loving me. What other reasons do you have, Jenia?” she persisted.

  “Just two more. I like you, Marjorie. In spite of what you did, I cannot believe you chose Oliver over Roarke with any malicious intent. I spent half a year in a dungeon, dealing with men whose entire purpose was malice. I sense no malice at all in you. You were young and foolish and you fell headlong into love. Few women would fault you for that.”