by Kris Tualla
“I—I told him to leave,” she stammered.
Here her accounting differed from Liam’s. “That was next?”
She nodded. “I told him I wouldn’t have him, even if he sobered up and realized he had been an ass.”
Drew leaned back in his chair. He pursed his lips and gazed pensively at her. If Liam’s words were true—and they were not the sort of words a nine-year-old would fabricate—then Eryn was not being completely truthful.
He sighed. “Eryn, ye need to tell me everything.”
She straightened on the bench. “I am! He left then, and I slammed my door and latched it. That was the last time I saw him—and he was most certainly alive!”
“So why did ye run?”
She fell back against the bench. “I wasn’t running away.”
Drew made a disgusted face. “Eryn…”
She pointed a finger at him. “I was not getting married any longer, and my reputation was in question because of you, so I decided to go in search of my family. Now that you so graciously dug them up—and yet neglected to tell me they were dead!” She crossed her arms over her bosom in punctuation.
He looked at her skeptically. “And ye felt it necessary to begin this journey in the middle of the night.”
She shrugged. “Why wait?”
Drew crossed his arms in imitation of hers. “How did ye leave the manor?”
“I went down the servants’ staircase.”
“Why?”
“It opens by the kitchen and the back door.”
“The back door? Why the back door?”
She made an impudent face at him. “Because I moved Rory’s accommodations out of the dining room and into the stable.”
“I suppose that was wise,” he countered, deeply irritated by her sarcasm. “No more horsehair in the soup.”
She stuck her tongue out at him.
Drew scuttled his fingers through his hair and fought to contain his growing rage. She was hiding the most important information; information that directly affected him, and explained her desperate actions. Information that was critical to both of their futures.
And he still wondered why she didn’t try to find him.
“Was there no sign of Geoffrey?” he finally asked.
“No.” Her lower lip began to quiver. “I didn’t hear anything or see anything. Do you know what happened?”
Drew hesitated, not wanting to betray Liam as his source of information. He settled for, “If ye did no’ push him, then it seems he fell down the stairs.”
“I didn’t push him!” she cried.
“Then he fell to his death on his own.”
Eryn burst into tears.
Her hands covered her face and her shoulders shook with her sobs. Loud and sorrowful wails filled the room. Kennan curiously poked his head out his chamber door, but Drew waved him back, silently gesturing that all was fine. His anger had waned some when confronted with Eryn’s heartfelt grief. The constable was her adolescent friend, he recalled.
Perhaps her only friend.
If Eryn was not ready to tell him of the child, then he would wait for her. If the pace he set on their journey back to Castleton was easy, he might have two weeks to press her into telling the truth before they reached their destination.
Drew slid from his chair to the bench. He gathered Eryn in his arms and pulled her onto his lap. He held her close to his chest and tucked her head under his chin. She fit against him perfectly. The clean smell of soap from yester eve’s bath was still on her skin. He wondered if she felt his arousal beneath her, and decided he didn’t care if she did.
When her sobs abated and she sagged silently in his arms, he clamped an iron around her ankle.
Chapter Thirty-Two
February 23, 1355
Eryn sat astride Rory, glad that her beloved gelding wasn’t lost to her. The early morning was crisp and cold with an unusually clear sky for this time of year. She had broken her fast with a hearty meal and noted that her jaw was no longer sore. Her warm fur-lined cloak was tucked snuggly around her legs. Everything was perfect.
Except, of course, for the heavy iron manacles resting on the saddle in front of her.
When Drew shackled her legs last night, she felt so deeply betrayed that she wanted to kill him. Why not? She was already charged with murder and they couldn’t behead her twice!
She was horrified, imagining Geoffrey falling to his death on the cold, stone staircase. And then comforted when Drew pulled her into him. The way he tucked her head under his chin and wrapped his arms around her. She wanted to stay there forever.
She wondered if she should have told him about their baby then. She had the opportunity to do so, and all she had to do was tell him what Geoff said. Then she could have read his expression and discerned whether he would find the possibility a happy thing.
But what if he didn’t? What if fatherhood was the last thing he wanted? Eryn couldn’t remember Drew ever saying anything about that. Yes, he had asked her to marry him once; but having sons wasn’t mentioned. And besides that, his proposal wasn’t serious. He didn’t even argue with her when she turned him down.
Was that why? she thought with a start. Why he went in search of my past? To prove me a liar?
“It’s my own fault, then,” she muttered, her breath making a brief cloud. “Damn my tongue.”
Drew launched himself into his destrier’s huge wood and leather saddle. His saddle was built to keep a man seated for days. She envied him the comfort and support that her smaller saddle lacked.
The knight grabbed one of her reins and tugged it from her grasp. “So we don’t lose each other,” he said.
Eryn snorted her irritation, but he ignored her. He nudged his mount through the crowded and narrow streets of London. The last thing Eryn saw of the city when they crested a rise about five miles outside of the town were the four spires of the White Tower poking into the clear sky. Only then did she remember Kennan.
“He’s riding ahead of us,” Drew explained when she asked. “Seeing to our accommodations. And other arrangements.”
“What other arrangements?” she asked, partly out of curiosity and partly out of boredom. She rode beside him now along a broad north-bound road, and he had given her reins back. Travelers dotted the path, heading in both directions.
Drew glanced sideways at her. “Our wedding.”
It required several seconds before the meaning of his words became real.
“Our what?” Eryn yelped. She pulled Rory to a stop. “Did you say ‘our wedding’?”
Drew circled his horse around to face her. “Aye.” No further explanation was offered.
Her mind had so many thoughts crashing into each other that she couldn’t conjure a cohesive question. “When?”
“That depends on when we reach Elstow Abbey. Tomorrow eve or the following morn.” He spoke as if to comment that the weather should remain temperate for the rest of the day. “I thought ye might like to be wed there.”
“Why do you want to marry me?” she demanded, ignoring the generously kind gesture.
So much rested on his answer; she wondered if he was aware of it. A declaration of love would sway her. Or at the least, warm friendship. No—respect. She wanted his respect. His love could grow out of respect. Sadly, she already loved him desperately. Was that enough for the both of them?
The three of us, she reminded herself.
“I asked ye once afore, and ye’ll recall,” he drawled. “But ye turned me down because ye lied about who ye were.”
Eryn’s face heated. She lifted her chin. “And?”
“And now I’ve discovered your secret, so that’s no longer a valid objection.” He leaned forward, resting one elbow on the high pommel of his saddle. “Have ye another secret to tell me?”
Eryn froze.
Tell him. Just open your mouth and say it:
I’m pregnant.
I’m carrying your child.
You are to be a father.
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She drew a breath. Her lips parted. She sat still, poised to reveal the truth and have it all out. But it wouldn’t come. And with every heartbeat that passed, the words grew larger and stuck in her throat. Until she couldn’t force them out at all.
Instead, she asked the worst possible question: “Why should I care to marry you?”
Once the words were out, she could not call them back. The damage was done and it was considerable. She could only clamp her mouth shut and watch the play of emotions over Drew’s face.
Disbelief. Hurt. Anger. Determination, tinged with revenge.
He leaned back and gazed at her. “Well to begin with, ye’d gain a true title. Ye would be Dame Eryndal Smythe of Drummond. And as the wife of one of the most powerful knights in Scotland—one with the king’s ear, I should add—ye would no’ be in danger of being put to death from the murder charge.”
Eryn felt the blood drain from her face. “Oh.”
Even though pregnant women were not—as a rule—put to death, she would have to confess both her condition and her wanton behavior to the world in order to save herself. Marriage to Drew might be less painful, but for the fury flashing behind his eyes.
“And secondly,” he paused and rubbed his upper lip. “I’d remove the chains.”
Eryn looked down at the rust-edged links of iron draped across her saddle. At the heavy circlets rubbing her wrists raw. At the two dark spots on her cloak. One tear from each eye.
“And what would you gain, marrying me?” she asked softly.
He was quiet for so long, she raised her eyes to his. He stared at her, somber and pensive. “At this moment, I can no’ say.”
That was it. She was finished. Ground down to nothing. He couldn’t even muster up one good thing he would profit by speaking vows with her. She felt ill, clammy.
Perhaps he simply wanted her in his bed.
If that was the case, and he took her tomorrow night, she might be able to claim that was when she conceived. How far gone was she? He rescued her during the first week in January, and this was the beginning of the fourth week in February. Seven weeks.
The babe would have to be nearly two months early to be believed—and most that young died. But by then, when the child was big and healthy, she could say she didn’t know she was already pregnant when the marriage took place. What a happy surprise.
But her deciding realization was, even if he never in his days came to love her, this child would not be born a bastard.
She had no other choice.
“I’ll marry you, Lord Drummond,” she conceded. “And I do thank you for your kindness in doing so. It’s more than I deserve from you.”
His gaze fell away. He nodded. He turned his warhorse around and began to ride north once more.
He never looked back to see if she followed.
Drew was so angry that he almost wished Eryn would escape. He couldn’t face her right now or she would feel the extent of his wrath; and nothing good could come of that. It never had.
I purposely asked her the perfect question.
He laid it out in front of her, like his sword of loyalty before the king. All she had to do was pick it up. Tell him she conceived a child with him. Then he would confess to her about the Night of the Leaking Sheath. They would ask each other’s forgiveness, declare their love, and spend their wedding night swiving until they went blind.
Now, he refused to touch her.
One way or another, he would break her stubborn will and make her admit the truth. He would tell her he wanted to wait to bed her until… until her course passed. He could say he wished to be certain she hadn’t lain with the Cob Constable before his death.
Even as he thought it, the pain his professed suspicion would undoubtedly cause her stabbed at his heart. Eryn had her faults, to be certain. But fickle loyalty was not one of them.
And he believed she truly loved him. He saw it when her pale eyes grew greener in his presence. In the way her expression smoothed and lifted when she looked at him. The way her lips parted and she held her breath as he leaned over her the night before last.
Of course he loved her as well. Of that there was no doubt.
Why doesn’t she trust me?
Perhaps because he did go behind her and root out her past. His intent wasn’t to prove her a liar, though that was how it ended up. He hoped that giving her the name of her father would temper her indignation. It hadn’t turned out that way.
And until today, he forgot she didn’t know her mother was dead. That was awkward. No wonder she didn’t trust him.
Did she trust anyone?
Drew set his mind to naming the people she knew. Most of them were dead, making it hard to further rely on them. Her mother had abandoned her. Her father never kent she was born. Liam blamed her for not dying in place of his own parents. The only person in her life she could count on had been McDougal.
And he called her a bastard and a whore on the eve of their wedding.
It’s no wonder she’s wary.
But that didn’t change the fact that she was hiding his child from him. And it didn’t change the fact that she needed to be the one to say it. She needed to take that step with him, or their marriage would be nothing but a façade.
Drew kicked his horse to a canter, needing this day to be finished. He glanced over his shoulder.
Eryn rode close behind him looking more distressed than he had ever seen her.
February 25, 1355
Elstow Abbey
Today is truly my wedding day.
Eryn stretched on the narrow cot in her unadorned abbey chamber, glad to be rid of the chains. Drew removed them yester eve before they arrived at the abbey—long after dark and soaked to the skin with a cold winter’s rain. He turned her over to the nuns and then, with their directions, went in search of Kennan and his own accommodations. Eryn rubbed her wrists. The redness was already subsiding. And a quick glance in a mirror proved the bruise on her jaw to be nearly gone.
Her belly rumbled. The babe was making her hungry, though at times the smell of a certain food made her unexpectedly queasy. She had only puked four or five times in all—but had attributed that to her previous illness. Until Geoffrey threw the possibility of a child in her face, of course. And then she knew it to be true.
A soft knock on the door preceded a young nun with a tray. One of her eyes turned all the way inward toward her nose, and the other looked over the top of Eryn’s head. Eryn guessed that was why her family gave her to the service of the church. Marriageable girls were, well, married.
“Thank you, sister,” Eryn said, smiling. It was easy to be kind to the pitiable thing. “You can set the tray on the table.”
“Have you moved it?” the nun asked.
“Moved what?” Eryn asked.
“The table,” she replied.
Eryn frowned. “Don’t you see it there by the door?”
“No, my lady. I’m blind,’ she said calmly.
“Oh!” Eryn’s entire body heated with embarrassment. “No. I haven’t moved it.”
The nun nodded and turned, unerringly setting the tray on the table. “I’ll be back to collect the plates in thirty minutes’ time,” she said. Then she walked straight out the door and closed it behind her.
And my worst problem is that I’m marrying the man I love and carrying his child? A pang of guilt prodded her, nearly removing her appetite; but only nearly.
Today is my wedding day.
Drew stretched in the large bed in the Bedford Inn’s best room. Yester eve after finding the place, a hot bath and bottle of mulled wine warmed him inside and out. He slept like he was dead.
Eryn had been subdued for the two days since he informed her of his wedding plans. He kept a close eye on her, looking for signs of rebellion. There were none. She seemed to accept his decision.
That did not make sense to him. She was always so contrary and strong of will. But being
a bastard herself, he supposed she would go to any length to ensure her child had a father and a name. Especially if the father was really the father. Which he had no uncertainty whatsoever that he was.
But once they were alone tonight, after taking vows before the priest, he would have to make Eryn think he had doubts. She must tell him the truth, even if she had to be dragged into doing so against her will. Her stubborn English—and Norwegian—will.
“Good Lord in Heaven. I’m sunk!” he chuckled. At least a baby wasn’t something she could hide forever. Eventually, it would come out.
Drew hoped she might come around quickly. Taking Eryn to wife without taking her to bed was not going to be an easy task.
The wedding mass was set for one o’clock. The meal following would be served in the abbey. Drew instructed Kennan to buy the food and make a donation to the abbey in exchange for their help in its preparation. He also arranged for a special gown to be delivered to her, and a soft pair of cuffed boots.
Drew looked out his window at the sky, judging the time. He had Kennan shave him cleanly and wash his hair, then dressed in his best clothes—white linen shirt with lace cuffs, the black velvet tunic, dark gray hose, tall black boots and embroidered cloak. He brushed his hair by the fire until it shone, and then tied the wavy locks with a black ribbon. As Drew stood before the tall mirror in his room, he evaluated his appearance.
“I look as good as I ever have,” he murmured. At least his bride would have no physical reason to object to their union.
Kennan handed him his polished sword. “Are ye ready, my lord?”
Drew inhaled deeply. “As ready as a man could be,” he answered.
Eryn stepped into the abbey’s chapel. She felt like a princess in the new gown and supple boots. The soft emerald color of the silk dress was perfect for her eyes, and the long bell-shaped sleeves dripped with lace. She wore her silver belt—a precious item the thieving London innkeeper had missed—and the restored emerald tiara. The cream-colored leather of the boots hugged her feet like they had been fitted for her. One of the novitiates had woven her hair into an intricate pattern that hugged the back of her head and left the blonde length streaming down her back like a soft sheaf of wheat.