by Tamara Leigh
“They enquired if three—mayhap four—brethren in the company of a knight and his companions paused at Clairmarais,” the abbot continued. “When I said we had no such visitors, they requested several nights lodging whilst they search the vicinity. Lest you arrived this night, I had them placed in rooms at the rear of the guest house to lessen the possibility they noted your entrance. As further precaution, Herbert delivered you to my apartment by way of the rear stairs.”
“Then I cannot remain even one night.”
Truth, Elias silently agreed. If those from Sandwich laid hands on the ones responsible for the fallen on the beach, capture by King Henry could prove of less detriment. And here was another truth—whilst the soldiers lodged here, Honore could not.
But an excuse, his conscience elbowed him. The abbot can keep her hidden until his guests depart. Think better on it, Elias De Morville.
He would. Later.
“I believe it safe providing you depart ere first light, Your Grace,” the abbot said. “You and the brethren may take my sleeping chamber, and there are two rooms at the back of the chapel where pallets can be laid for the others.”
Thomas shook his head. “I fear it best we leave this eve.”
“I can arrange for a rowboat to take us across the marshes to Oldminster,” Herbert said.
Elias frowned. “Oldminster?”
“A hermitage not far from here,” the abbot supplied. “Oui, it seems the best course. There you shall have days aplenty in which to recover, giving Sandwich’s soldiers and the king’s men time to distance themselves.”
Though Elias balked at the troupe gaining a greater lead and further exposing his family to Henry’s wrath, he said to Herbert, “Is the crossing to Oldminster safe?”
“It is. Your services are no longer required, Sir Knight.”
Elias looked to Thomas who inclined head. “Here we part ways, De Morville. But know this, regardless of what becomes of Thomas the archbishop, formerly Thomas the chancellor, never shall our tales cross. Does history remember my name, it shall not do so alongside yours. Never will it tell of the great service rendered me.”
Elias felt Honore’s relief nearly as much as his own. Even if the troupe he followed to Saint-Omer was not the one they sought, he would be days nearer to finding Hart. “Then we shall avail ourselves of the rooms, Abbot.”
“And horses,” Thomas said. “I am sure Clairmarais can provide worthy mounts to speed your journey.”
With reluctance, the abbot agreed, then directed the monks to lay three pallets in one room, one pallet in the other.
Honore rose with the others and made it to Thomas’s side ahead of Elias. “Your Grace?”
He motioned his brethren to continue. “Honore?”
She removed the ring. “No longer do I need this.”
He glanced at Elias where he halted beside her. “You are certain?”
“I am.”
He took it, mused, “A gift from Henry during our younger, better years.” He touched one of the small sapphires, then sighed so long his chest sunk. “As it no longer holds meaning for either of us, I give it to you, Honore.” He extended it, and when she stared, caught up her hand and returned the ring to her finger.
“Your Grace—”
“If not in remembrance of me and gratitude owed you, accept it that you may sell it to aid your foundlings.”
“But—”
“It will bring a pretty sum,” he spoke over her again, then made the sign of the cross. “May God bless and speed your journey, my friends.”
They gave back his words, but the parting with the Archbishop of Canterbury was delayed a moment longer when he drew Honore aside. For her ears alone, he said, “I pray Sir Elias and you find your son, Honore.”
Then he was gone as if their tales had never crossed.
Chapter 25
PRAY DO NOT HIDE
Heart heavy over the parting with Thomas, once more Honore tried to distract herself from his choice of words.
Your son, he had said with more than singular meaning, as if she would parent Hart alongside Elias. He erred. And in another thing—that she would further participate in the search for Hart. When she arose in the morn, Cynuit and she would be under the abbot’s protection, Elias and Theo gone.
Having satisfied thirst and hunger, she rose from the wool-stuffed pallet in the room given her separate from the others.
Were they abed? She guessed they must be, having heard no sound from the other side of the wall for a quarter hour.
Though she had raked snarls from her hair and washed her face and hands in a basin of water, still she was unclean, the mud in which she had slipped having soaked through her garments.
Having earlier secured her door, she unclothed and washed the dried dirt from her body, then opened her pack and removed the change of clothes wrapped in linen and bound with twine.
The bundle was so thick she was certain Lady Susanna had provided two changes of clothing, but it was one, the thickness due to quality Honore had only seen worn by ladies of the convent.
She held her breath as she unfolded a lustrous dark red overgown Lady Susanna had said belonged to her mother who had been taller and of a more sizable bosom than herself. Next, an undergown of the same color but of a lighter fabric, then a thin chemise and hose.
These were hardly the garments of a servant. Upon her person she would appear the lady she had played at Gravelines and look far more the impossible—Elias’s wife.
She considered returning them to the pack, but it was either look and feel what she was not or look and feel less than she was. She lifted the chemise above her head. It was so soft and light drifting down over her that it seemed little more than a cool breeze come through a window.
She slid her hands down the fabric. Though Lady Susanna had said she need not return the garments, she would send them to Cheverel when her journey with Elias was done. Once she was back at Bairnwood, there would be no occasion to clothe herself in finery. All this would be memory and, providing Hart was recovered, one secretly cherished. Though not as cherished as…
“Child,” she named herself what one thirty and two years ought to be ashamed to affix to her person. Elias had been within reach only as long as he played the part that made it acceptable for a woman not of ill repute to travel with men.
Fingering the embroidered neckline, she recalled what she had learned of him at Cheverel when Lady Susanna and she attended to his tale, then what the abbot had added in revealing that before the young man became a knight he had been of poems, songs, and dance. And for that had deserted his family and country.
She doubted she would ever know the tale of when the name Cant replaced De Morville, but she longed for it. And him.
Ashamed her heart and mind had drifted so far from where they belonged—with the boy Finwyn had stolen who had likely suffered much humiliation, perhaps even abuse, she considered the comfort of the chapel beyond the door.
More than sleep, she needed prayer.
Refusing to allow herself to linger over the fit and feel of her garments, she donned hose, undergown, and overgown. And paused over damp slippers she had wiped as clean as possible, the insides having been nearly as muddied as the outsides. Since the altar could not be more than twenty paces from her room, she could do without footwear.
Though tempted to leave the gorget ever she removed whilst at prayer, until certain she was alone in the chapel she would wear it. But not the veil.
Quietly, she unbolted her door so she would not rouse those sleeping in the next room, and opened it only wide enough to slip through. Leaving the door ajar, she traversed the short corridor amid the whisper of skirts rather than the rustle to which she was accustomed.
She did not realize her hands had caught up material as soft as a babe’s skin until shivers coursed her sensitive palms.
She splayed her fingers, clasped her hands at her waist, and surveyed the chapel lit by a dozen candles on the altar. She had it
to herself.
Continuing forward, she tugged down the gorget, then prostrated herself behind a wide kneeler where she would finish her prayers after the chill floor ensured it was her beseechings rather than the breath of sleep in God’s ears.
As she settled in, she felt a presence and nearly looked around lest she was watched by one of flesh.
It is our Lord in this Holy place, she assured herself. He who sees me. He who hears me. He who will save Hart.
The dark red of a rose. And nearly the shape, as if that flower in full bloom, cupped in the hand of God, had loosed the first of many petals and that single one drifted from on high to the floor before the altar.
Kind Susanna. Before Elias could ask her to provide Honore a change of clothes, she had informed him she had done so, but he had not thought to ensure she chose ones that would not draw attention. The color of the gown was extravagant, the quality and style befitting a most noble lady.
For an hour of the first watch Elias had taken, he had stood at corridor’s end observing the woman who sought to slip from her room without awakening others. But he had heard her restlessness on the other side of the wall, then the slow slide of the bolt and opening door.
He had let her go, guessing she wished to pray. And so she did, though as fatigued as she was, he had expected she would not long prostrate herself. If not for occasional whispers that revealed she had lowered the gorget, he might have thought she slept.
Having exited the room shared with Theo and Cynuit only after he could do so without alerting her to the watch he kept over her, he had come too late to glimpse the face now exposed to the floor, but when she rose he should be able to see all of it—providing she completed her prayers before the candles snuffed their charred wicks in pools of hot wax.
He shifted his shoulders where he leaned against a wall, rolled his head side to side, stilled when Honore sat back on her heels.
Chin lowered, hair curtaining her face, she remained unmoving as if she yet prayed, then stood.
Elias straightened in anticipation of returning her to her room, but she kept her head down. Yet denying him the whole of her face, she stepped to the altar, settled on the kneeler, and clasped her hands atop the shelf. Doubtless, more prayer for Hart.
That thought led to another that had not found its end. Did he or did he not allow Honore and Cynuit to accompany him to Saint-Omer? Garbed in such vibrant clothes Honore would draw attention, but not the unwelcome sort for any searching for the party that included a woman simply clothed—providing she could be persuaded to eschew the gorget whose unusual placement made her appear to be from middle eastern lands.
That would decide it. If she agreed, she would depart with him ere dawn.
So he would not startle her, he strode forward absent stealth. But she remained at prayer, even when he halted alongside her.
He considered the kneeler and was moved to join her, it being weeks since he had humbled himself in prayer.
“Elias,” she whispered.
Surprised by her acknowledgment, he lowered beside her. And there was the reaction expected, which made him feel the fool for not realizing it was in prayer she spoke his name—head snapping around, candle-lit eyes springing wide, lips…
Her imperfectly bowed mouth opened to take in breath she expelled on a cry that she tried to shove back inside by clapping a hand over what the gorget had hidden.
“Honore!” Elias turned a hand around her arm, rose with her, and lost hold of her when she wrenched away. He could have caught her back, but lest she think he aggressed, he engaged his longer stride, passed her, and turned into her path.
With a flurry of red skirts and tumble of golden hair, she halted. Above the hand gripping her lower face, she looked from him to the corridor beyond.
“Forgive me.” He raised a hand. “I did not—”
She sprang to the side.
He followed. “Honore, hear me.”
“Non!” Her muffled protest became a whimper when her flight ended in a corner to the right of the altar. Back to him, she said, “Leave me!”
Not wishing to incur accusation of trespass as dealt at the stream, he left ten feet between them. “Do not fear me.”
“Pray, go!”
“Honore—”
“Go!”
He sighed. “I am coming to you.”
She swept around. Hand over her mouth, she looked right and left, then as if accepting she could not slip past him, thrust her back into the corner.
He halted, leaving a reach between them.
Honore turned her face to the side, as best she could distancing him from what he now knew was scarred though in Sandwich he had thought the distortion a shadow.
“Do not look at me!” With her free hand, she snatched at the material gathered beneath her chin.
“Why?”
Her eyes flicked to his, flicked away. “You have seen why.”
“So I have, and for that I ask what you do not answer.”
“It needs no further answer! Cease playing with me.”
He stepped nearer. When he caught the fingers seeking to position the gorget, her chin came up. As she strained to free herself, he saw her other hand clasped her lower face so tightly its nails would leave marks.
“Honore, I do not play—”
She snatched her fingers free, but also the gorget. Its ties having come undone, her arm’s forward motion pulled it from her shoulders and loosed it from her hold. As she grabbed for it, she came up against Elias.
Cupping her shoulder, he eased her back. “I do not mean to distress you.”
Her lashes swept up.
“My word I give, I play no game.” He smiled encouragingly, then lifted his other hand and set his fingers on the backs of hers that marked her face. “Let me look closer upon you.” Lightly, he drew his thumb across the side of hers pressed beneath her nose.
She shook her head, between her fingers said, “I am no monster, nor devil-touched. I am the way God made me.”
Then what he had seen was no injury. This the reason for her passion for foundlings? Once she had been one? “This I know. Do you think it makes me feel differently toward you?”
“Of course it does.”
She was right, the attraction he battled for feeling what he should not so soon after Lettice’s murder had grown. The bowed mouth he had imagined as perfectly shaped was not, one of two gentle ridges between nose and lips far from gentle. But not unsightly, though from her reaction someone had named it that. It marred her loveliness but was naught against the whole of her—like a small bruise on a sweetly crisp apple fallen from its branch whilst its sisters clung to their places among the leaves in the hope someone thought them perfect enough to climb up after them. Many there, especially amongst the topmost branches, would go to rot whilst the fortunate passerby delighted over what he nearly trod upon.
“You do feel differently,” she said.
He pulled himself out of his imaginings. “You are right, but what I feel is opposite what you fear.”
She gasped. “You think to dangle me from a string!”
“I do not.” He dipped his thumb against the base of hers, gently pried at her hand. “Show me, and do you watch me, you will see what I see.”
Her gaze wavered. “Elias,” she protested but ceased resisting.
He eased her hand down, and as he shifted to allow candlelight to more clearly illuminate her face, felt the intensity of her moist gaze. He did not fear it, since he need not engage the actor to hide revulsion over a scar that began just shy of her nostril and coursed a fairly straight line down the right bow to the indented under curve of her lip that hitched slightly above even teeth. What he feared was the longing to know her mouth better by way of his own.
“Words forsake you,” she whispered. “I do not know it is better than speaking as you find.”
Raising his gaze in which she would have to imagine revulsion to find any, he said, “I think you more lovely.”
&n
bsp; Anger leaping from her, she raised her chin higher. “You are more adept at playing a part than thought. Though this is no longer monstrous as it must have been upon a babe ere it was sewn closed, there is naught lovely about it.”
“Honore—”
“Unless your sight is exceedingly poor, you can see how wrong my lip is.”
“I see the scar, and it is a small thing.”
She laughed derisively. “You speak the same as Lady Susanna.”
“She looked upon you?”
“I did not mean her to, but she did—and said the same as you, though I know not how either of you can expect me to believe it.”
“We speak in truth. It is a small thing.”
“It is not! It drags up one side, making me appear to sneer. Not even a young, beautiful woman appeals when disgust contorts her mouth.”
“You are wrong. For this ever you hide half your face?”
“I do not. I refuse to be ashamed. I…” She seamed her lips.
“Continue.” He bent his head so near he felt the warmth between their brows. “I want to understand.”
Honore peered up at the man who set himself over her, his breath mingling with hers that stole past lips he would have her believe did not disfigure her face. Only once before had she found herself like this, a slight lean and tilt of the head away from her first kiss.
“Tell me,” Elias said.
Here in God’s house was not the place to do so with their bodies touching, but she said, “His name was Uther, a young monk who accompanied his bishop to Bairnwood. He was handsome and kind. When I was ten and six, he happened on me in the courtyard. We walked and talked, and he asked the reason I wore the gorget as I do.” She swallowed. “I told him a lady of the convent insisted I cover my lower face when I moved amongst her and others. He said he did not know why that was necessary, as pretty as I was, and surely she was jealous. We were very near, and when he said it was impossible to kiss a girl with her mouth hidden, I could not think what to say or do. Then he lowered the gorget and…” She swallowed. “He did not like what he found and crossed himself all the way out of the courtyard and never again did he accompany the bishop.”