by Tamara Leigh
Helene sat back on her heels. “Ah, you have not yet looked upon your face.”
He stared at her.
“One more thing I must needs remedy,” she said.
“Why?” His question was rife with challenge.
“Ignorance does not wear well upon you, Sir Abel. At least, it does not wear well upon the man who twice risked his life to free me from my captors.”
She waited, half expecting a morose, self-pitying reminder that he was much changed from that man. Instead, he stretched his legs farther out and slowly moved his gaze down the left one.
Had he not previously looked upon it as well?
“What matters,” he said, “is that my leg not impede or betray the rest of my body—that it function well. But that is not likely, is it?”
It would impede him but, given the reputation the Wulfriths had for turning mischievous, runny-nosed boys into fearsome knights, she had to believe his brothers would aid him in finding a way to compensate for his loss of speed and agility.
“The better it heals,” she said, “the better it will serve you.” Gently, she began to cleanse the knit-together flesh.
To his credit, he did not further press her, and she was allowed to do her work that included the application of two different salves, one of which Lord D’Arci had approvingly noted was similar to what he had used to treat Sir Abel’s wounds.
“And now your side.” She stood and wet a clean cloth. Determining her knees need suffer no further abuse, she bent over him and raised his tunic higher. As seen earlier when he had angrily exposed the wound, it crossed the lower portion of a much older scar.
“For you to survive such an injury not once but twice…” She shook her head in wonder. “God must wish you to remain among us, Abel Wulfrith.”
“God!” The force of his breath stirred the hair at her crown. “Why does He leave those whom it would be best to take and take those whom it would be best to leave?”
She looked up and blinked at how near their faces were—and tried not to grimace over the odor wafting from his body. “I do not know, though in tending the ill, I have many times asked it myself. And God has had cause not to answer me.”
She returned to the work of her hands, but the silence that fell between them was not long lived.
“My mother believes I have been given a second—” He gave a sharp laugh. “Nay, a third chance at life.”
Helene once more considered the old scar that ran from his hip to his ribs. How had he come by it?
“She thinks I have not yet accomplished my purpose, whatever that may be.”
“Mayhap she is right,” Helene submitted, “in which case, all you can do is aspire to be worthy of the extra time with which you have been gifted.” She dropped the cloth on the tray and retrieved the smallest pot of salve. As she rubbed the ointment into his skin, she felt him watching her.
“There.” She lowered his tunic. “Now your face.” She wet a third cloth and reached to his lower jaw.
“She also believes,” he said, “as does my sister, that I ought to be kind to you.”
Helene smiled. “Then I like your mother and sister even more.”
Sir Abel looked to her mouth and became so still it was as if he no longer breathed. Then his hand rose toward her face as if to touch her as she had touched him while he dreamed. However, in the next instant he wrenched it down. It had been his right hand, she realized, the one that could not hold as it had once held.
Dropping his head back, he closed his eyes and said in a weary voice, “Do it and be done.”
Helene wondered if his heart beat as hers did—with something beyond desire.
Nay, desire only, she told herself. He has been too long without a woman. And even if it was not that…
She set her teeth and, shortly, straightened. “Lastly, if you lean forward, I believe I can reach your—”
“Nay.”
She met the eyes he once more opened to her. “I was told you took a mace to the back, Sir Abel.”
“Aye, ‘tis how the cowards took me down, but it is well enough healed that it requires no attention.”
Doubtless, he had endured enough of her presence, but though she knew she ought to be pleased with how near he had allowed her to tend him, she said, “Be it so, I should examine it.”
“Nay.” The glint in his eyes warned that this was no argument. He might be unable to send her from Castle Soaring, perhaps not even from his chamber, but his person was another matter.
“Then I am done here.” She arranged the tray’s contents to ensure they remained upright during the passage to the kitchen and paused over the goblet that held honeyed milk that she would have specified had Lord D’Arci not already ordered it. No drop had yet found its way onto Sir Abel’s tongue.
She extended the goblet. “You must needs drink this.”
He ignored it. “Pity.”
“What?”
“That you agree with my brother-in-law that the drink of babes is of greater benefit to a grown man than wine and ale.”
“In your condition, aye. Of course, once you are able to move about at length, above and belowstairs, I am sure you will remedy the situation yourself.” It was a challenge that she hoped he would accept. “Now, should I hold the goblet to your lips, or can you do it?”
She heard his intake of breath and saw his right hand rise. However, if it had been his intent to knock the goblet aside, in the moment it took him to defer to his left hand, he overcame the impulse and, instead, clamped his fingers around the goblet’s bowl.
“Go, Helene of Tippet.”
She carried the tray across the chamber. At the door she had left open, she hesitated, then determined it was better that she leave it ajar than risk upending the tray for the sake of Sir Abel’s privacy. Too, if he thought it important enough, he could close it himself.
Abel stared at the open doorway that offended nearly as much as the woman who had intended it to offend. Unless a servant soon passed by, he would be forced to leave the chair in which he had thought to spend a good part of the day.
He lowered his gaze to the milk he had been tempted to cast across the rushes, then the hand upon his thigh that still thought to dominate whether by the simple act of holding a goblet or the more complex act of touching a woman as he had wanted to touch Helene.
“More the fool I am,” he muttered. He did not want the healer. Though, for a short time…
He turned his palm up and looked to the wound that denied him the ability to close his hand, then the calloused pads at the base of his fingers that bore the faintest trace of where Helene had used her teeth upon him when he had seized her in the wood. It had been a bad first meeting, but in the days afterward, he had often considered the broken flesh that had reminded him of his failure to return John’s mother to him. However, he had righted that wrong when he and Baron Lavonne had located the last camp abandoned by Sir Robert and the healer’s cries had led them to a nearby cave.
Abel closed his eyes and saw her again where she had stood at the foot of a pile of furs and blankets that allowed but a glimpse of the old man who lay beneath them. Despite Helene’s slight figure, she had looked fierce with her dark red hair loose about her face, large deeply blue eyes, chest rising and falling from spent breath, hands curled into fists at her sides.
He had reached her ahead of Baron Lavonne, but not before she sank to the ground and began to weep. As he had lowered beside her, the chain that ran from beneath her skirts to the pallet had come to his notice, and he had seen she was secured to Aldous Lavonne such that her own death would have been more painful and prolonged had they not found her.
He had not meant to take her in his arms, but he had done it, holding her as he had not held a woman in a long time while Baron Lavonne discovered that his father yet lived.
Afterwards, when Abel had carried Helene before him on his saddle and before Durand had intercepted them and turned them toward Castle Soaring where Sir Robert worke
d his revenge, Abel had thought, perhaps…
He shook his head. He had not been thinking right—had allowed the guilt of Helene’s plight and his protective instincts for her son to make him forget that his was not a life to be shared. Once had been nearly too much for him to bend to a woman’s will, and he would not do so again. And that he was no longer the man who had righted his wrong against Helene was further proof that he had made the right decision. Thus, though he longed to know how John fared, he would not ask after the boy, for he was not such a knave that he would give Helene false hope that he felt anything near what he was fairly certain she felt for him. She would have to look elsewhere for a father for her son.
He drank down the milk that the passage of time had made even less appealing, slammed the goblet on the table, and pressed his hands to the chair arms to raise himself. As he swayed where he placed his greater weight on the right leg, he heard again the words Helene had spoken regarding his failed seduction attempt that had been intended to send her running back to Tippet.
…until you are once more a man in full, Sir Abel, you would do well to keep your hands and arms to yourself.
He had feigned nonchalance, but it had affected him deeply and sent his thoughts to the Wulfrith dagger he had thrust to the bottom of the chest when he had earlier rummaged through it in search of clean tunic and braies.
It hardly seemed possible that he would ever again be a man in full, but until then—if then came—he would not don the dagger that represented something he no longer did.
Drawing a deep breath, he shifted some of his weight to the left leg. Then came the task of traversing the chamber that had no right to be so daunting.
Chapter Six
No Sir Durand, though she knew it only because the knight with whom she shared a trencher had yet to point him out as she had asked him to do.
Helene sighed, hating that Sir Abel’s attitude toward the other man should so rouse her curiosity. Of course, it also had to do with him being the one who had killed Sir Robert. Too, though Lord D’Arci told that Sir Durand was sufficiently healed and required little tending, the knight had been given into her care.
She glanced around the great hall and was again unsettled to find herself seated at the high table a half dozen places removed from Lord D’Arci and his wife. It was hardly in keeping with her rank to be so honored, but Lady Beatrix had herself led Helene to this bench and waved away the healer’s protests before joining her husband.
Hoping the lingering over meal to which she was unaccustomed would soon find its end, Helene sat back, yielding the contents of the trencher to the one with whom she shared it.
The knight looked questioningly at her.
“I am quite finished,” she assured him, then asked, “Is it usual for Sir Durand to forgo the evening meal?”
The man paused in scooping up another mouthful of a stew so thick with chunks of veal that Helene had felt even more privileged. “Now that I think on it,” he said, “I have seen less and less of him at table.”
Just as Lord D’Arci had told that Sir Durand increasingly absented himself from the castle during the day. What made the knight separate himself from others such that he did not even sit down to meal? And what cause did he have to be restless as told by Sir Abel who wished to see the man’s back perhaps more than he wished to see hers?
Telling herself it did not matter, Helene resisted the impulse to put an elbow to the table and cup her chin in a hand as she was wont to do when held captive by others’ whims. Instead, as befitting a guest at high table, she clasped her hands in her lap and tried not to dwell on time better spent elsewhere. Tried, but failed.
If not for propriety’s sake, she would leave the hall and return abovestairs to check on Sir Abel who had not even looked up from a parchment he had been reading when she had delivered his supper tray. She could reapply her salves to his injuries and mix a sleeping draught to aid his rest. Indeed, she could even seek out Sir Durand that she might make herself known to him and confirm he healed well.
Blessedly, it was not much longer before the meal ended and the thump of goblets, scrape of benches, and pound of feet rivaled the voices of those whose bellies had been filled.
Helene stood.
“Helene,” Lady Beatrix called as she approached, “pray, join my mother and me at hearth.”
Could she refuse? “I had thought to see to Sir Abel.”
The lady halted before her. “I know my brother’s mood well enough that I can say with certainty he will not mind another half hour of solitude.” She hooked arms with Helene. “Come.”
A deeply held breath served Helene well as she was led off the dais and across the hall that was fast emptying to accommodate those who were moving the tables and benches against the walls to make room for pallets upon which the castle folk would sleep later this eve.
Ahead of Lady Beatrix and Helene’s arrival at the cavernous fireplace, two servants hastened to arrange five chairs in a half circle before the hearth.
Helene groaned inwardly. It was asking much for her to yield a half hour to Lady Beatrix and her mother, but others were to join them as well?
Accompanied by her son, Baron Wulfrith, Lady Isobel reached the hearth first. As she lowered onto a cushioned seat, she gestured for Helene to sit beside her.
Helene hesitated, for the chair she indicated was centered between the others. Such regard was unknown to her, and she could not help but wonder how she would feel had her life been far different and she had become accustomed to such privileges.
Forsooth, I would not be me. I would not be John’s mother.
She glanced past the lady, but already the woman’s son had claimed the chair on that side of her. And Lady Beatrix and her husband were taking the chairs to the right. Grudgingly, she seated herself between mother and daughter and focused on the fierce flames that were just distant enough to make the heat tolerable.
“Something is amiss?” Lady Beatrix asked, leaning toward her.
Realizing she had allowed her thoughts to run across her face, Helene said, “I am missing my son.”
“I am sure my daughter, Lady Gaenor, is looking after him well,” Lady Isobel said.
Helene was surprised that she knew of the arrangement made for John’s care. Baron Wulfrith had surely told her, but it was curious that she had deigned to listen. Perhaps, for all of Lady Isobel’s noble bearing, she was not as untouchable as many of the noblewomen who had lived among the sisters of the convent.
Helene inclined her head. “Doubtless, you are right, my lady.”
But for the work of servants, silence crept in and, despite its discomfort, it gave Helene hope that she might all the sooner excuse herself.
“I am told,” Lady Isobel said, “’twas you who cared for that most foul being, Aldous Lavonne.”
She had hoped too soon. Reminding herself that Isobel Wulfrith had cause to dislike the old baron and was too human to soon put aside his sins against her family, Helene said, “Aye, Baron Lavonne gave his father into my care once Lord D’Arci withdrew his physician’s services—”
“With good reason,” the lady said. “The old baron sought my daughter’s death.”
Helene glanced at the physician. “I understand Lord D’Arci’s objections to tending him.”
“And you had no such objections yourself?” Lady Isobel asked.
Though Helene had been apprehensive—almost fearful—when the old baron’s care had fallen to her, she had also been quietly pleased, but that she could not tell. “Aldous Lavonne was in much pain and required regular care. Thus, it was my duty to Baron Lavonne to travel from my village to the castle near every day to tend his father.”
The lady’s compressed lips parted. “A most difficult and unwelcome task with a man as vile as he.”
Helene felt a spurt of resentment. “Nay, he—” She reined in her vehemence with another reminder of all the Wulfriths had suffered at the hands of her father and brother. “’Twas much work,”
she amended, “but I was glad to ease his suffering.”
“I am certain Helene did not abide his abuse,” Lord D’Arci said.
Helene looked to him. “Though ‘tis true he was coarse, we came to an understanding, and it was well enough between us.” They did not need to know how cutting and cruel her father had been in the beginning, well before he had realized she was the child he had made with a commoner and sent away upon her mother’s death.
Silence again. And again it was broken by Lady Isobel. “For a man in as precarious a state of health as he is said to have been, ’tis hard to believe he allowed his illegitimate son to carry him away from the comfort of home.”
“He was eaten with a desire for revenge, Mother,” Baron Wulfrith spoke for the first time, “and never more so than when Christian Lavonne refused to reject the king’s decree that our families’ warring be remedied through marriage.”
Lady Isobel eyed Helene. “Do you think he went willingly with Sir Robert?”
There was plenty of air to breathe, and yet it felt scarce. As much as Helene preferred not to answer, it seemed wrong to refuse to fill in the places of a story these people had been forced to live and for which they suffered even now with regards to Sir Abel.
“During that first sennight,” she said, “ere camp was broken time and again that the brigands might stay ahead of their pursuers, the old baron seemed pleased to be away from Broehne Castle.” And had crowed over his imaginings of how his youngest son must suffer at being bested by his illegitimate brother and infirm father.
“And after that first s-sennight?” Lady Beatrix asked.
“His condition worsened. That was when he began to regret allowing Sir Robert to take him from his home.”
“Because of his own discomfort,” Lady Isobel said.
She was mostly right, but still there had been moments when his regret had seemed more for Helene’s suffering than his own, especially after the beating Sir Robert had given her when—
“I am told you tried more than once to escape,” Lady Beatrix said.