“I have no doubt, however, that some man …” Henry paused once more, as if musing. “Some man will find a place for her in his … household.”
Linnea’s cheeks turned scarlet with the implication. Before she could speak, however, Axton pushed upright. “You insult me to allude that I have despoiled this woman.”
Henry looked up at Axton. If he was unsettled to find a man of Axton’s fierce reputation towering over him, fists knotted and muscles tensed, he did not indicate it by so much as a raised eyebrow. “There is no insult intended to you, my ever loyal friend. I only observe the results to her of her own deception.”
The hall fairly shivered with the frosty exchange. It was into this perilous conversation that Linnea thrust herself. “The insult, I believe, is for me.” She stared at the powerful young man and saw with relief the amusement return to his eyes. Axton did not need him as an enemy. She, however, had nothing at all to lose.
“As you will it,” Henry answered. Linnea knew, though, that her will had nothing whatsoever to do with it. It never had. Then he leaned forward, his eyes as sharp as a frigid winter sky. “You were pure when you wed him?”
Linnea nodded, hating him more with every word he uttered. He arched one russet brow. “I assume that in the fortnight of your false marriage he did claim his husbandly rights.”
She did not respond, at least not in words. But her cheeks again burned with the intensity of her shame. Not shame that she’d given herself to Axton. She could never be sorry or ashamed for that. But ashamed that they should be made into such a public spectacle. What would Henry want next, a recounting of every detail?
Henry laughed at her obstinate silence. “I know well enough Axton’s appetite. Safe to say she can well instruct her sister on her wedding night—no matter who shall ultimately be her husband.”
He laughed again, but when no one else did, he looked about with a tolerant expression. “Come, come. Let us not be somber. If either of you would not fight, you have only to say the word. The last thing I want is to lose either of my most loyal men.”
Axton had remained on his feet during the exchange between Linnea and Henry. Now he spoke up. “When will this matter be resolved? I see no reason to delay—”
“Tomorrow will have to be soon enough.” Henry turned a benign smile on him. “Sit down, Axton. Sit down and play the gracious host, for tomorrow—well, who knows what tomorrow shall bring?”
He waited until Axton had reclaimed his chair. Then Henry picked up an ornately bejeweled goblet which he must have brought with him. Linnea knew it was not from Maidenstone’s plate. A servant filled the goblet with a deep red wine. Then Henry smiled at the tense company. “A toast to … to Maidenstone. May its lord and lady reside here in peace, and long pledge their loyalty to England—and to me!”
Everyone drank, despite the ambiguous meaning of the toast. Everyone, that is, except Linnea, for she had no cup. But even that circumstance Henry used for his own perverse amusement. He gestured to her with one finely manicured hand.
“Come. Sip from my cup, fair Linnea. ’Tis only right that one so willing to sacrifice herself for the honor of her family should share my cup. I have spent my entire life sacrificing for the honor of my own family. And look now where it has taken me. I am poised on the brink of my triumph. You too are poised on the brink of triumph—if Sir Eustace can defeat Sir Axton. If not …” He shrugged. “Come, drink from my cup,” he commanded.
Linnea edged toward the table, toward the man who would soon rule all of England. He already ruled everyone in this grim and silent chamber. She halted before the raised table and stared into his smooth, grinning face. He extended the heavy goblet to her. When she grasped it, however, he did not release it. She was forced to lean forward to take her sip, and when his fingers circled hers, to suffer his touch without recoiling, no matter how repulsed she was.
Once she’d had her damning taste of his wine, she tried to release the goblet. It wobbled and nearly fell. But Henry’s clutch tightened around it and caught it. Then he very deliberately turned the handsome vessel, placed his lips where hers had been, and quaffed the remainder of the wine.
A chair scraped back and Axton was once more on his feet. “I would fight de Montfort now. This very minute!”
“Tomorrow,” Henry answered. He glared at Axton, then he turned his gaze again on Linnea. “I would sate my appetite first. My appetites,” he amended, emphasizing the pluralized word.
Linnea did not wait another moment. Without asking his pardon to leave, she gave a trembling curtsy, then backed away. She refused to look at Henry and see the leer she was certain was there. She could not bear to look at Axton and see the contempt in his eyes. She looked, instead, to Beatrix.
But Beatrix’s stricken expression provided Linnea with no comfort, save for the knowledge that someone, at least, sympathized with her plight. It was equally plain, however, that the innocent Beatrix did not understand what the young duke implied. How could she? She knew nothing of men and their carnal desires. Everyone else did, though. Her father and grandmother. Even Lady Mildred and Peter. But none of them cared. Not one of them.
Linnea hastened from the hall, nearly colliding with the seneschal and his wife, who waited just beyond the door.
“Does he wish to be served now?” Sir John nervously asked.
“Yes,” Linnea responded, knowing there was only one “he” when Henry was in residence. “He is ready to be served.”
And he would be served, she feared. He would be served anything he asked for, including a despoiled and terrified young woman whose loyalty he publicly proclaimed, but whose honor he meant privately to steal.
Axton watched Linnea depart with a growing sense of outrage. Henry meant to have her in his bed. In Axton’s own bed, in fact. He threw back the last of his wine and thumped the pewter vessel down. Immediately it was filled by a page and immediately he downed the contents again.
The serving boy hesitated, then at Axton’s impatient glare, hastily filled the goblet a third time. Before Axton could lift it to drink, however, he was stayed by his mother’s hand on his arm.
“You will win nothing this way,” she murmured lowly, so that Henry could not hear. “Not this battle, nor tomorrow’s.”
But Axton did not want to hear that or any other advice. “Give me credit for knowing how to deal with any knave who would stand between me and my rightful heritage.”
“’Tis not the knave I worry for so much as the maiden.”
He turned an incredulous gaze on her. “You worry for that … for that bitch?”
She met his stare with one so sad that it made him feel guilty. “I do not worry for her, but for you. For what she has done to you. I wish we were still at Caen,” she added lower still.
Axton did not respond to her. What was there he could say that would give her any comfort? The meat platters came and he accepted whatever the server offered. He ate, he drank. He responded as little to Henry as was still not insulting to the young man he’d known all his life. He had never deluded himself about Henry in the past, and he did not do so now. Henry was his friend up to a point. Beyond that he was strictly Matilda’s son and King Henry’s grandson. Destined to be king of England. Nothing else interfered with that, not childhood friendships nor lifelong loyalties.
Henry quickly tired of Axton’s sullen mood and turned his attention on Eustace. Eustace preened and swelled under Henry’s interest and sent Axton many a smug glance as the meal progressed past the roasted piglets, poached oysters, and stewed starlings to cheese and herrings, then pears and pastries. But Henry did but set the man up for a fall, Axton suspected.
“I would have a word with Lady Beatrix. A private word,” Axton pronounced when the three musicians he’d brought in had exhausted their repertoire. He made certain his voice carried to one and all.
Henry shifted in the lord’s chair so that his back was now turned to Eustace. The assessing smirk on his face confirmed Axton’s suspicions. H
enry loved nothing better than to bait and tease those most loyal to him. Earlier he’d baited Axton. Now it was Eustace’s turn.
Sure enough, Henry tapped a finger thoughtfully on his chin as if considering Axton’s request. In truth, though, Axton knew he’d already decided. The young duke shifted and leaned forward on his elbows to look past Eustace to the pale-faced Lady Beatrix.
“Methinks that a reasonable enough request,” he said.
Eustace’s face darkened in a scowl. He opened his mouth as if to object, but just as quickly closed it. Axton did not have to see Henry’s expression to know the warning it held.
When Eustace’s angry gaze switched to him, he could not resist a smug grin. He would take a complete pleasure in laying low this man who thought to wrest Maidenstone from him. A satisfying, unmerciful pleasure.
“I am weary,” Henry announced into the waiting silence. When he stood, so did everyone else. “Have your word with Lady Beatrix,” he told Axton with a negligent wave of his hand. “Her grandmother will ensure no impropriety,” he added, which implication deepened Eustace’s scowl even further.
They filed from the hall. Eustace, the Lady Mildred, and Peter followed Henry up the stairs to the better chambers, while Edgar de Valcourt wandered away as if confused about where he was to go. Only Beatrix and the old woman lingered at the table. Even the few servants Axton gestured off. He would have no distractions, he decided as he considered the young woman he meant to have, even at the risk of his own life.
The fire in the huge hearth burned low, sending lonely shadows jumping across the empty hall. Neither of the women spoke as he scraped back his chair then moved toward them. The young one stared at him with eyes round with dread. The old one glared her loathing and disdain. A perverse thought occurred to him. Could he merge those two into one, he would have Linnea.
That ludicrous idea stopped him in his tracks, but he knew nevertheless that it was truth. The breathtaking beauty of one coupled with the unquenchable spirit of the other. Without that spirit, this Beatrix was nothing like the woman he’d wed.
And yet, this pale, frightened creature was the one he must have.
Ruthlessly he quashed any memory of Linnea. “Will you be a faithful wife, standing with me, though it be against the rest of your family?”
“’Tis a question with no point,” the old woman snapped. “She will not have to stand with you against—”
“I asked her,” Axton bit out. “Can you not speak for yourself?” he taunted the trembling girl. He held her terrified gaze with the force of his stare and took a stark satisfaction when her eyes misted with tears. “Have you no voice of your own?” he persisted.
“Who … whomsoever I am wed to,” she said in a thin, faltering voice. “I shall endeavor to be a worthy wife to.”
At least she did not weep, Axton thought. Still, if he’d pressed Linnea for the same answer, there would have been both challenge and warning in her answer, though the words themselves be exactly the same as her sister’s.
“You are not like your sister.”
Now why had he said that? She blinked at what must have seemed a very odd observation on his part, for the likeness they shared was uncanny. And yet there was something …
For a moment he thought to press the issue, to push it further and discover precisely what the differences between them were. But he stopped himself before he could begin. It was not the differences between them that mattered—save that this wench not be so devious as her sister. No, it was their similarities.
With an abrupt motion he drew her to her feet. In the background the old woman objected, demanding that he unhand her, threatening him with every manner of punishment. But her shrill complaints were no more than an annoyance grating like the threatening roll of thunder that could do no real harm.
Axton held Beatrix before him, her arms small in his hands, her body as easy to overpower as ever her sister’s had been.
But she was not her sister. Something he could not name—she was softer, not as strong; she smelled different; she gave off a different level of heat. Whatever it was, the difference was there.
“By God’s bones!” he swore. Then he let out a low growl of frustration, hauled her up to him, and kissed her.
He was not easy with her. He devoured her mouth and forced his tongue in. He tasted her with the ferocity of a man who could take whatever he wanted, whenever he wanted it.
Only when he tasted the salt of her tears did he finally thrust her away.
“Baseborn brute! Spineless cur! Villain!” the old woman shrieked. She struck out at him with her stick, but the blow was as ineffectual as her curses. Axton stared at the girl, at her sobbing form, clutched now in her grandmother’s skinny embrace.
That he was almost as despairing as she, he quashed with brutal determination. He could take her, yes. And tomorrow, once he’d felled that fool de Montfort, he would take her. Henry would have to concede then that both woman and castle were rightfully his.
Fists clenched, he turned and strode from the hall. But he was acutely conscious of the weeping girl and the shrill old woman behind him. Once in the darkened yard he was beyond hearing them. But he could not so easily escape his thoughts.
The feel of her was all wrong. But he would grow accustomed to it, he told himself. He would learn to rouse to the touch of her. She was not so different from her sister as all that. Besides, one woman was much the same as the next. He’d thought so all his life. No reason to believe otherwise now.
But even as he told himself that, he knew still that he must find Linnea. He must find her now and decide what to do with her before the morrow came.
And before Henry found her first.
Chapter 23
Linnea slipped from shadow to shadow. Thank God and all the saints that it was a moonless night. As it was, her heart thundered so violently she feared anyone might hear it and thereby detect her presence.
A voice drifted down from the ramparts; a step sounded just beyond the stable. Duke Henry’s men were everywhere, as were Axton’s. Eustace de Montfort’s entourage had been forced to camp beyond the moat. But that only increased the feeling of an armed camp ready to erupt. As much as she already despised Henry Plantagenet, she nonetheless prayed he could maintain peace on the morrow.
Meanwhile, however, she must cope with tonight, and manage somehow to avoid Henry and yet find Beatrix. She had no doubts about the young duke’s intentions toward her, but even the threat of landing in his bed could not overcome her need to be with her sister.
How long would Beatrix be detained in the hall?
The wait seemed interminable, though in truth it was not so very long. The watchman nearest her whistled a broken tune only three times through. He spoke briefly to another man and they shared a crude laugh at the expense of some woman they referred to as Creamy. Then he began again to whistle.
On the fourth verse Axton stormed down the steps and into the yard.
He paused as if to get his bearings, and with an impatient gesture thrust both hands through his hair. She could see very little of him, only his silhouette dimly rimmed by the wall torch next to the oak doors. But she could sense his frustration—and his seething anger.
I’m sorry. So very sorry. More than anything, she wanted to run to him, to beg his forgiveness and to offer him some comfort. But that would be madness. He would never forgive her for making a fool of him, nor could he possibly feel any comfort in her presence. She was the thorn that had pricked him, then festered, and on the morrow she might very well prove to be the instrument of his downfall.
She almost cried out on that thought. He could not die. He must not! But what could she do about it?
With a mighty effort she tried to make herself as small as possible, to shrink into the rough wall of the alehouse and disappear forever into the stones that made up Maidenstone.
When he finally moved on, headed she knew not where, instead of relief, she felt a devastating sense of loss. I love you
, she sent the message silently to him. Though you see only my betrayal, what I feel most for you is love.
After another bleak span of time one of the tall doors creaked open and a head ventured out. Then two women crept past the door and down the steps—one with a walking stick nearly as tall as she—and Linnea’s aching heart leaped with joy. Beatrix! At last her beloved sister was come to her!
She joined them at the base of the steps, only to find Beatrix violently weeping. “I cannot!” she sobbed. “I cannot wed him. I will kill myself first!”
“Do not be stupid!” Lady Harriet hissed. Then spying Linnea, she thrust Beatrix at her. “Talk some sense into her!” she snapped. “The man does not walk this earth who is worth dying over!”
Beatrix fell into Linnea’s arms with a grateful sob. “You are here! You have survived! Oh, but I should not have been such a coward as to see you sacrificed to that … that—” Again she burst into sobs.
Half-supporting her distraught sister, Linnea managed somehow to guide her into the shadows where the outer wall met with the eaves of the alehouse. There she hugged her sister hard, offering her the only comfort she had, just as Beatrix had so many times hugged and comforted her.
“Shh. Do not weep, sister. You do but make yourself sick.” She held the shuddering girl as if she’d never let her go. “Shh. Just listen to me. Listen to me!”
“Oh, Linnea, I have prayed and prayed for you,” Beatrix whispered against Linnea’s neck. “But it has been for naught.”
“No,” Linnea retorted. “Not for naught. If you prayed for me, then you see now that I am well. No harm has come to me. Nor will it come to you. Axton is not a cruel man. He—”
“He will die on the morrow, so it matters not,” their grandmother broke in. Despite her harsh pronouncement, however, she looked small and beaten. She leaned heavily on her stick as a sudden fit of coughing shook her frail form.
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