by Sara Bennett
Her voice shook with fright and anger. “Arno, do you know what you have done?”
He looked away, his mouth hard. “I have saved you from destroying yourself for the sake of an English murderer, Rose, that is what I have done.”
She shook her head at this self-justification.
“I wanted to marry you,” he went on, and his sideways glance was sly. “I’ve wanted that ever since Edric died.”
Here then was the truth at last. Rose tried not to look shocked. She had known something like this was afoot, and yet to hear him say it aloud…“And it was me you wanted, Arno, not Somerford Manor?” she asked him dryly.
Arno shifted uneasily. The sweat from his exertions with the boys trickled down his face. “Aye, well, there was that, too. I will not lie to you, Rose. Edric promised me Somerford years ago, before I came here as his knight—he could not pay me, and in lieu of money, when he died the manor was meant to be mine. But then, when he was dying, suddenly he changed his mind and forced me to swear allegiance to you. If you had wed me, Rose, then all would have been well! I tried to woo you, but you would not listen to me. You could not see my true feelings for you, or maybe you just did not want to.”
He looked sullen, his lip protruding like that of a small child who has been denied what it wants the most. Should she feel guilty because she could not love Arno? Because, not being of a grasping and treacherous disposition herself, she had failed to recognize it in him?
“And so you have betrayed me by turning to Lord Fitzmorton. Betrayed Lord Radulf, too.”
“Radulf!” scoffed Arno. “He does not deserve to have so much!” Then, cautious again, he went on, “Lord Fitzmorton wants justice for his dead soldier, that is all. Justice is his right, and Miles de Vessey will see that he gets it.”
Rose shook her head, ignoring Arno’s further efforts to justify his actions. “I have sent word to Lord Radulf, Arno. Ask Brother Mark. He wrote my message. Radulf will be here very soon, and God help you then.”
Arno smiled, and then tried to hide it.
Shocked, Rose stared back at him, not understanding and yet beginning to be terribly afraid.
“Oh Rose,” he murmured softly, his brown eyes glittering with a combination of mockery and satisfaction, “do you not realize yet that our good Brother Mark is no ordained priest? He is a friend I thought might be useful to me, so when the old priest died I sent for him. He lived in a monastery once, long ago, so he knows enough to pass as a priest if you do not look too closely. And, fortunately for us, lady, he can read and write.”
The truth stunned her. Rose tried to find words to voice her question, but she already knew the answer.
“Then the message I sent with Steven to Lord Radulf?”
“Spoke only of your joy at the birth of his heir.”
“I see.”
“Nay, you do not see at all!” He smiled at his own cleverness. “Brother Mark saw you speaking to the boy when you gave him the message. We could not risk him reaching Radulf too soon, even with Brother Mark’s harmless message.”
Rose stared. “What have you done to him?”
Arno shrugged. “He is unharmed. I will release him when Miles comes.”
Would he? Rose didn’t like the way he was avoiding her eyes.
“You mean to give me up to Fitzmorton then,” she whispered. “Oh Arno, you don’t understand what that means!”
She stepped around him and set out across the bailey, toward the stable. He followed after her.
“One baron is much the same as another, what does it matter if it be Fitzmorton or Radulf? Rose? Where are you going?”
“I am going to find Captain Olafson,” she said, her voice rallying. “He will not let you hold Radulf’s boy hostage, and he will not let a man like Miles de Vessey set one foot onto my manor!”
Arno snorted in disbelief. “Do you think the mercenary will care? He will go with whoever pays the most. Fitzmorton is his master, too, Rose. He has been all along.”
“I do not believe it!” Rose cried, hurrying into a run.
“Ask him then, lady! Ask him!”
Rose picked up her skirts, careless of her people turning to gape at her in amazement. Arno had struck her to the heart with his confession, and now, to say that Gunnar, too, would betray her…After the moments they had shared in her chamber? No, she would not believe it! Suddenly she could not bear to.
After the sunny bailey the stable was dusty and dark, and Rose stopped abruptly, blinking, searching the shadows. Her breath was heaving in her chest, as if she couldn’t quite take in enough of the musty air, and she felt light-headed.
“Lady?”
His voice. She heard his step as he came from one of the stalls, and then she could see him. He looked weary and worried, and a tremendous tenderness filled her. She wanted to touch his face, smooth the lines from about his mouth, the dark shadows from beneath his eyes. Rose clenched her hands into tight fists at her sides, stilling the urge.
“I have had bad news,” she said in a rush.
He narrowed his blue eyes. Did she imagine the watchful look that crept into them? “Wait,” he said harshly and, jerking his head at a boy who had been shoveling straw, waited until he had gone. “Now, lady, what is this bad news?”
“Miles de Vessey is coming to oversee the trial of Harold the miller. To see that justice is done,” she added bitterly. “Arno told me that he has told Miles that if Lord Fitzmorton is not represented I will set Harold free.”
Gunnar moved closer, reaching out. Rose stepped back, away from him, knowing if he touched her she would not be able to say what needed to be said.
“And I was going to set him free, of course I was! I do not think he is guilty. I even sent word to Lord Radulf, with Steven. I asked Brother Mark to write a message for me, and now Arno tells me that Brother Mark did not write it—instead Arno sent his own message to Miles. And they have hidden Steven away somewhere, taken him prisoner! They mean to take Somerford for Fitzmorton between them!”
Gunnar stiffened, as if her words startled him in some way, but his steady gaze did not leave her face. She sensed movement behind all that cold calm, a shiver in the surface, as though something powerful were happening beneath.
Doubt grew inside her, but she held it back, denying it.
“Now Arno tells me that this is all my fault, because I would not let him subdue me. My fault!” Tears stung her eyes, but she wouldn’t let them fall. “Captain Olafson…Gunnar, I ask you now, remembering the promise that you gave to obey me. I ask you to prevent this terrible thing from occurring. Save Somerford from Fitzmorton, for he is behind all this, I know it! Save my people from Miles de Vessey and Arno. Save me.”
This time he clasped her shoulders, his big hands warm and firm. The dust motes danced about his copper hair. “Trust me, Rose,” he said, his soft urgency slicing through her agitation. “I will do what I must.”
It was not what she had hoped he would say.
Rose tried to read the answer she wanted in his eyes, but they were hot with the same need that had been in them last night, confusing her. He bent his head, slanting his mouth to cover hers, and her resistance melted.
With a soft groan she pressed into him, all that hard flesh and muscle. Her warrior, her man. Even in such a moment as this she could give herself completely over to wanting him. Rose knew to her dismay that if he had lifted her now and carried her into one of the stalls she would have gone willingly.
A hard, bitter laugh sounded from the doorway. Arno had followed her after all. Rose felt Gunnar still, and then he pulled back from her, giving her space. His eyes were fixed on hers.
“I knew it. You are the same as all the rest of them, Rose. Panting over a handsome face,” Arno sneered, and there was hurt and jealousy in his voice, mingling with the fury. “I hoped you were better than Eartha and the other kitchen sluts, but you are worse. They must rely upon their smiles and their pretty faces, they have no real power. But you can order him to
your bed, and so you have.”
Rose blanched.
“And all along he fooled you,” Arno went on with a sort of perverse satisfaction. “He is Fitzmorton’s man. He is worse than I, because it is whoever pays the most who secures his loyalty. You have given yourself to a soulless monster, Rose.” He turned and cocked his head at Gunnar. “Do I lie, Captain?”
Gunnar’s face had gone grim. He looked at her a moment more, as if he were trying to tell her something with his eyes. Whatever it was she could not read it, felt incapable of reading it. Her mind and body were numb, as if she had suffered a tremendous shock. At any moment she knew it would wear off and the pain would come. Even now it was hurtling toward her like a black wall…
Gunnar offered Arno a shrug. “Aye, you’re right, ’tis payment that seals my loyalty. I am a mercenary, Sir Arno, I do not ply my trade for the love of it.”
Gunnar heard her gasp, as if he had slid his sword beneath her ribs, but he did not look at her. He dared not. He had already seen the expression on her pale face and it would haunt him forever. But he had a part to play if they were to come out of this alive. Aye, he was playing his part, and at the same time he was watching Arno, testing him, judging him…hating him.
Arno nodded as if the answer was what he had expected. “Sir Miles does not trust you, Captain. He has said so to me and his master. Lord Fitzmorton has reserved his judgment—he will trust you until he sees no more use in you. But I believe Miles is wrong. You see, I can read you, Gunnar Olafson. You are a simple man, and you are no longer young. Time has worked on you. There is a point when a man wants to stop fighting and settle. Is that not so?”
Gunnar wondered if his genuine shock was clear on his face.
“’Tis the land you want,” Arno went on, enjoying himself. His eyes slid to Rose, soaking up her pain as if it gave him great satisfaction. “He, too, wants Somerford, lady,” he explained in a gleeful voice. “Isn’t that so, Captain?”
His throat felt dry but he knew what he had to do. If she was to survive, then so must he, and with Miles only a short ride from the gates, Arno must believe him to be as evil as the rest of them. He made himself cold, killed all feeling. Gunnar turned and let his eyes run over her, much as Miles had done when he came upon them at the Mere’s edge. Her beautiful face colorless with betrayal, her dark eyes wide and teary, her stubborn chin held tight to stop the trembling of her mouth. The madder-red gown, the same one she had worn when he first saw her, clung to body, and even now he wanted her.
Would she remember his words? Trust me, Rose. I will do what I must.
Gunnar looked at Rose and deliberately destroyed any lingering belief in him she might have had. And felt as if he destroyed himself at the same time.
“Aye, I want the land,” he agreed. “I am tired of this roving life. ’Tis time I settled, took a woman, and stayed in one place long enough to see her swell with my seed. Somerford is as good a place as any, and I have already plowed the lady.”
“Oh very good, Gunnar, very good. I will enjoy watching you die when Lord Fitzmorton no longer needs you.”
The hatred in Arno’s voice was a palpable thing, but Gunnar did not hear it. Rose had tears on her cheeks, and they burned him. She had forgotten trust, if she had ever felt it for him. She truly believed he meant what he said—Gunnar cursed his ability to lie so well.
But he could not let his emotion show through the cold, hard shell he had drawn about himself. Arno was looking between them, his jealousy feeding on Rose’s misery and Gunnar’s brutishness. Well, let him! There would be time for Arno later, and Gunnar would relish his vengeance.
“No one will leave Somerford until Miles de Vessey is come,” Arno said now, his voice gaining an authority that had been missing for a time but was now back tenfold. “Follow my orders, Captain, if you want to stay alive.”
Arno was suspicious.
Gunnar widened his eyes in surprise. “Why shouldn’t I follow them?”
“You saved Eartha’s son—there are times when you seem altogether too tender for what you claim.”
“Tender?” he repeated coldly, and his laugh was pure disdain. “If I am tender then Miles is a saint, d’Alan, and we both know that is not the case.” He leaned closer. “Beware your friend de Vessey, he will kill you if he can.”
Arno gave him an unblinking stare.
Gunnar allowed himself a small smile before he walked away, out of the stable and into the bailey. “No one leaves the keep today, Edward!” his shout drifted back to them. “Bar the gate and do not open it until I say you so!”
In the cool shadows of the stable, Arno turned to Rose. She was clinging to the rough wood of one of the stalls, and wondering if she was about to faint. She stared back at him, numb and shaken, and thought he should have felt satisfaction to have hurt her so. But there must have been some trace of his love for her left, for his eyes were not gloating, only pitying. As Rose watched, trembling against the stall, passion rose up in him, the hopeless desire she had scorned all this time, and he seemed helpless to stop it.
“Fear not, Rose,” he said in a gruff voice. “I will not let the mercenary touch you again, him or Miles. You are mine, and soon you will know it!”
She thought then he would come and take her in his arms. The idea of him touching her threatened her stomach. Taking a deep breath, Rose pushed away from the stall. Ignoring him as if he weren’t there, she stumbled outside like one who had drunk too much wine. Reeling a little. Uncertain of her step. Arno watched her go, not stopping her, maybe seeing that she was beyond words.
She had been betrayed. She who had sworn never to be betrayed!
Arno who said he loved her and yet would give her to Fitzmorton. The thought of Fitzmorton was like a dark, deep pit, and she didn’t want to go there.
Gunnar.
Rose clenched her hands and kept walking. She had thought herself so careful, so wary, and all the time he had been using her, laughing at her. She had run to him for help, and he had given her betrayal.
Never again.
“I cannot believe it!”
Constance stood, white-faced, before her lady. Frantic, Rose had dragged her by sheer physical force up to the solar, and there they were now.
“You had best believe it because ’tis truth. They are in league with Lord Fitzmorton, and his…his creature, Miles de Vessey. Miles is on his way here now. He is supposedly coming to hear my judgment on Harold, but really they mean to take Somerford Manor for Fitzmorton. Then it will be between the three of them who will hold my land and me!”
Stubbornly, Constance shook her head at the wild look on her lady’s face, her eyes black pools. “But Gunnar Olafson is a hero, Rose! Remember?”
“He said he belonged to the highest bidder, Constance,” whispered Rose, and tears seeped through her lashes and began to run down her cheeks. “And he said it as if there were nothing wrong in it!”
Constance went even whiter, swaying as if she might faint. Reaching out blindly she clung to Rose, pressing her shaking lady hard against her own body. “Then I curse him,” she said in a high, furious voice. “I curse him, Rose!”
After a time, Rose’s sobs quieted and she straightened, wiping her face, gathering her strength about her once more. Her mind seemed to be stirring again, rising to the occasion, and she began to plot and plan. It did no good to think any more of the man who had held her in his arms and loved her…
Love?
Nay, Gunnar Olafson would not know the meaning of that! It was lust he had felt. Jesu, how could she have been so wrong about him? She had thought him to be one man and all the time he had been another. Rose felt seared and wounded, like her mother. Betrayed beyond healing. Never again, never ever again, would she give a man any sort of power over her. She had been warned since childhood and yet she had forgotten all that. Aye, but now she had learned her lesson well and truly.
“Constance,” she said, calmly enough for a woman whose heart had just been torn into rough
pieces. “Go down to the kitchen and send Eartha to Harold the miller. He must be gotten out of the keep. Tell her to take the keys and set him free—Edward will have them.”
Constance nodded jerkily and turned to the door, but glanced back before she reached it. “You will be all right, lady?”
Rose nodded. “I am all right.” Her delicate features grew hard. “Do not think I am beaten yet, Constance. There are things I can do before Miles comes and I am stopped.”
Constance nodded grimly, and left Rose to her silence. She was soon back, wide-eyed and shaking. “Lady, he is gone! Harold is gone! And so are Millisent and Will! I do not understand it…” She was wringing her hands, all but hopping up and down in her agitation.
Rose caught Constance’s hands, drawing her to a stool and pressing her down. “Constance, they are not—” she began, thinking the worst.
Constance shook her head violently. “No, no, lady, they are not killed! Eartha said that Alfred, the mercenary with the ruined face, came to fetch Millisent and Will a short time ago. And now they are gone. I went to Edward, but he was not on the gate. One of the other mercenaries was there—the Dane. He would tell me nothing, not even when I cursed him. He…he laughed! He said they were safe, but I have looked everywhere I can think of, and I cannot find them.” She was wringing her hands again, and Rose covered them to still her.
Her mind had become very clear.
Gunnar Olafson had done this.
He had guessed what measures Rose meant to take, and he had acted first—that he should know her mind so well worried her, but she could not think of that now. Harold and his children had gone with Alfred. Rose shivered to think what fate awaited them.
“Where is he?” she whispered. “I must speak with him.”
“Alfred?” Constance was staring up at her, shrunken by this new turn in events. She looked like a small, wizened child.
Rose knelt down before her, making her voice firm. Never had it been so important for her to play the part of the lady of this manor. Somerford needed her now more than it had ever done.