by Maren Smith
"Half brother,” Varden interrupted coldly, “As you used to say so often when we were children."
"You are just like your father: a drunk, heavy-handed brute as stubborn as he is witless.” Abigail abruptly closed her mouth when Varden stiffened. She visibly composed herself before continuing in a slightly calmer tone, “Let him in, Varden. The two of you can bicker and bellow all night if that is what you want. Just let Godfrey do his share from the kitchen hearth where it is dry and warm!"
"He has already done his share,” Varden said, turning his icy stare back to his younger brother. “It lies squalling in my nursery. Feel free to take it with you when you go."
Godfrey threw back his head and roared with laughter. “She is your wife, brother! Your wife, your bastard, and your problem."
Varden's hand found the hilt of his sword. In a flash, the amusement was gone from his brother's face as the younger man hastily followed suit. An unmistakable excitement lit Godfrey's eyes as his palm came to rest on the hilt of his own blade. That alone was enough to make Varden want to draw.
"Oh!” Abigail pushed between them. “May the Heavens grant me patience. The two of you are enough to age a saint! Varden, for once, show some sense! Your Jezebel wife has slept with every man in the country. There is no proof that Godfrey is that bastard's father. He could not possibly be, I tell you. He would never do such an terrible thing. Let your brother inside! Now!"
"How much have you had to drink tonight?” Godfrey mocked softly, ignoring his mother's warning glare. “Four, five bottles? Does your thirst crave the Scottish whiskey or are we in a mood tonight for wine? Go back to your bottle, brother. Drink to the health of your new heir. I am certain that, by midnight, you'll not even remember I'm here."
Varden's face disappeared into the shadows as he took one ominous step forward Godfrey, stopping only as he came up against Abigail's up thrust hands.
"Stop it,” Abigail said through gritted teeth. “Varden, let your brother inside."
"I would sooner give the devil access to my house.” But Varden stopped advancing. Self-restraint pulled his hand reluctantly from his sword hilt. He glanced at the soldiers Godfrey had brought. “They can bunk with my guard.” To his brother, he said, “I trust your stay with us will not be long. To throw you from the ramparts would be my fondest desire, though I doubt Abigail would approve."
Godfrey smirked. “Mother always did love me best."
Varden turned sharply and marched back inside Cadhla. He would have slammed the door, but Godfrey and Abigail both jumped to catch it.
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Chapter Three
Three guides hovered at the edge of the Crossroads, a rebellious Claire held between them. Even surrounded by the night and outlined against the star-studded sky, the clouds looked angry and black.
Mallory could not remember how she came to be outside the castle or Claire's bedroom. She hovered in the air perhaps thirty feet over the cobblestone bailey just outside the window. The rampart of the high stone wall that surrounded the castle lay to her left, and a balcony and door that lead back inside to her right. There were three men on duty along the length of the wall and two more down below in the bailey by the portcullis. Each wore a uniform of dark blue homespun underneath arm and leg guards and a breastplate marked with the crest of a gold and black hawk, talons extended. Each wore a helmet as well, and crossbows and swords were positioned in cache piles along the walk. From the way they acted, Mallory knew they couldn't see her, Monica or Claire, or the black tornado funnel descending to the wall where Mallory hovered in dread.
She glanced back over her shoulder through the narrow poured-glass window. Grete was asleep in her chair by the fire, the unfinished mending still on her lap. Not far away, Claire's body lay limp and unclaimed on the bed. Mallory turned her back on Monica and the funnel, and reached for the bed. “I don't want to die!"
"I don't understand why you're doing this,” Monica said. “Don't you know you can't stay here?"
Claire smirked. “You will not want to."
"You left!” Mallory accused. “You chose to die. Well, I want to live! Where's the harm?"
"This is not your place,” Monica said.
"I can make it mine.” Mallory wanted to sound confident, but her words came out desperate and pleading.
"You don't realize what you are asking. This goes against all the rules."
"I don't care!” Mallory struggled to pull herself back to Claire's body, but the window refused to be tangible. Or maybe it was her hands as they passed without substance through the stone windowsill and wall. Behind her, she could feel the funnel drawing closer, pulling her back towards it.
Above them, the clouds rumbled with angry thunder. Monica looked up briefly and then back to Mallory. “This is your last chance. There can be no others. Please think about what you are doing. Come back to us before it's too late."
Monica reached for her while the others pushed the struggling Claire into the funnel's gaping maw.
"No!” Mallory shoved violently away from them. She fought to reach the bed just as fiercely as Claire fought to keep away from it. The funnel closed in behind her. “No! I don't want to die!"
* * * *
The candles had burned down to nubs. Half had gone out entirely, leaving only a few embers in the fireplace and a smattering of candles near the liqueur cabinet to light Varden's chambers. Varden did not mind. He had grown accustomed to the darkness and gloom. It was the perfect atmosphere for drinking oneself insensible.
In one of two fireside chairs, Varden stretched out his long legs to absorb what little heat the coals still provided. In one hand, he held a glass of dark red wine and in the other, the near-empty jug was propped against his thigh. It was hard to ignore the cries coming from Claire's adjoining bedchambers, but he was trying.
He held out his glass to the portrait above the mantle, a painting of him commissioned when he was younger. Much younger. He still knew how to smile back then.
"A toast to the new father,” he said. “Congratulations on the safe arrival of your heir."
He swallowed all that was left in the glass. The wine went down smoothly. Not too sweet. Licking his lips, he looked into the mouth of the jug. How unfortunate that he would have to switch to something a little stronger if he wanted to be passed out drunk before dawn. Whiskey, Godfrey had suggested. Scottish whiskey, no less.
Varden suddenly erupted from his chair, shouting curses at the top of his lungs as he flung the glass into the fireplace. It shattered, spraying tiny crystal shards back across the room around him. He took several deep breaths before settling back down in his chair. Glass crunched under his heels as he again stretched his legs to the fire. Resting his elbow on the chair arm, he rubbed his closed eyes. The destruction did not make him feel any better.
From across the room, his dark hair and clothes blending him into his surroundings, Kenton paused in the midst of straightening Varden's freshly laundered wardrobe. The somber valet eyed the duke with a carefully neutral expression. When the cries came again from the adjoined room, Kenton's black gaze slid from Varden to the door that separated the bedchambers and then back again. Seeming to dismiss his lord's foul temper, Kenton shook the creases from a shirt on the bed and checked it carefully. “I will order more glassware, Your Grace. When you have finished destroying this set, it shall be nice to have a spare to fall back on."
"Get out,” Varden growled. “I want to be alone."
Ignoring him, Kenton placed the shirt into the clothes press. “I think either you should go to her or cast her out."
Varden did not turn around. “I'd sooner turn you off."
"No, you wouldn't.” The dark-skinned manservant picked up the lint brush and vigorously whisked the stiff white bristles over the shoulders of tomorrow's red and black doublet. “My father worked for your father, and his father for your father's father before him. It is a long standing tradition that began the first day a de Lyssoue set himself above all oth
ers and declared that he should be waited upon. Sometime during the Crusades, unless my grandfather was lying."
"The other nobles brought back rugs or chests,” Varden said. “Or rare and beautiful vases from the Holy Land. Tangible things they could hold aloft and say with pride and conviction, ‘Yes, I answered the call of Alexius and partook of the noblest of ventures.’ But instead of treasure, my great, great, however-many-greats-it-was grandfather brought home your surly, disrespectful forefather."
"Which is what happens when your horsemanship does not equal your horse, and you break a leg before ever setting eyes on Jerusalem."
"Ha! He barely made it to Anatolia. He was gone for four years and all he had to show for the venture was one cracked vase—"
"Which he stole from a drunken companion in a crooked game of dice.” Kenton said dryly.
"And an insolent servant—"
"Which he kidnapped from a fishing boat that he helped to plunder and sink,” the valet pointed out.
"—who promptly married and produced equally insolent children to service the rest of us like a bloody Egyptian curse for the rest of our lives.” In the act of raising the wine jug to his mouth, Varden abruptly set it back on his thigh. “Ah! I've a marvelous idea. Pack your bags, my man. I'll send you home."
Setting the lint brush aside, Kenton carefully examined the coat. “Having never seen Egypt, alas I cannot call it home."
Varden laughed, though there was little amusement in it. “You've more English blood in you than I have."
"Perhaps you could remind the dowager of that. She still counts the silverware every time I leave the room, as she did with my father from the moment she first arrived here. She'll no doubt do the same to one of my future sons when this happy little legacy carries forth one generation further and he too knows the joy of playing manservant to a Lyssoue. You can no more break such a time-honored tradition than I can throw up my hands and say ‘I quit.'” Satisfied with the coat, Kenton went to work on Varden's pants. He held up the first; a pair of tan breeches with a hole the size of his fist in the upper thigh. One dark brow arched above the other. “You may have your heir, but you are still required to provide a spare. I suggest you find a better sparring partner, else there may be no future sons on your part."
"I have not had an adequate sparring partner since you left the Field."
"The last time I met you on the Training Field, Your Grace, you were so drunk that you nearly loped your head off with your own sword.” Kenton tossed the torn breeches aside and reached for another pair. “I have better things to do with my time than to watch you commit suicide."
"I don't need a lecture from you, sirrah.” Varden drank directly from the wine bottle. “Leave me in peace."
For a length of time no longer then a few short breaths, they glared at one another. Outside, the wind shrieked through the courtyard.
"Fine.” Kenton picked up the rest of Varden's clothes and dumped them into the bottom of the press. “Listen to your stepmother, like a good little boy. Drink yourself into a stupor and fulfill all of our expectations. Just don't expect me to hold your chamber pot tomorrow while you heave your insides out. Personally, I do not think you need that drink so much as you could use a stout cane across your backside."
"Try,” Varden said, dangerously soft.
"Violence is not in my nature. I shall leave that to my betters—the English nobility—who seem to enjoy it.” Kenton opened the hall door and stepped outside. “Shall I reduce tomorrow's breakfast to mere coffee and have it sent up at noon? Hopefully by then you will be recovered enough to keep it in your stomach."
Kenton closed the door, and Varden was left alone. He went to the liquor cabinet for a new glass and to exchange the wine for a near-empty jug of whiskey. He poured a respectable two fingers depth into the glass as Claire cried out again in the other room. Varden paused only a moment, then filled the glass to the brim. While his wife wept out loud, he tossed back his head and drank it all at once. The whiskey burned all the way to his stomach, warming him from the inside out. There was just enough left in the bottle to fill his glass a second time.
He still loved her. Varden grimaced. Where the hell had that come from?
Love? Bah! He wanted to strangle her more. Or better yet, to turn her across his knee and paddle her backside until she literally could not sit down again afterward.
He set the empty bottle aside to cradle his whiskey in the palms of both hands. It was amazing what details he still remembered from that night almost a year ago. That Claire had chosen his bed for her affair only proved that she meant for Varden to catch her. She had known what it would do to him, the sight of her body twined with Godfrey's, bathed in sweat and an almost orange-ish glow from the fire. There were even times he thought he could still smell the sex; the room had reeked of it. While frozen in the doorway, tired to his bones from a day spent on the Field and reeking himself of horses and sweat, Varden had listened to their endearments and their moans and sighs of increasing passion.
Then they saw him and the sounds of pleasure had turned to thick silence. Though Godfrey had jumped up to cover himself with a castoff pillow, Claire had been far less shy. She had laughed her beautiful laugh, trailed her hands down her trim belly and arched in feline pleasure as she stroked between her glistening thighs. “Join us, my beloved."
The endearment was a mockery coming from her lips. To cut his heart from his chest would have been kinder. The cruelty had served its purpose, however. Varden found that he could move again. Backing from the room, he simply closed the door. Her laughter had followed him all the way to the library where he locked himself inside. And when he'd finally consumed enough alcohol to convince himself that he no longer cared, Varden had systematically destroyed every article of furniture in the room and cried until he passed out.
Now there was a bastard sleeping in the nursery down the hall. The temptation to denounce his ‘heir’ was powerful. But even as he considered it, Varden discarded the option as impossible. He had seen how society treated its castoff children. He would not punish an innocent—not even one of Godfrey's—for Claire's wrongdoings. More importantly, he refused to shame himself or his family name by making her adulteries a public playground for London's frolicking gossips.
As another desperate sob came from the adjoined bedchamber, Varden raised the glass again. In a moment of cutting pleasure, like a double-edged sword, he saluted her. “May your demons be the Devil's own acolytes, my dear. May they prick you all the way to Perdition."
In this, at least, they would be together.
Varden consumed his bitter toast, the whiskey burning his throat and igniting his stomach with alcohol-induced fire, bringing neither happiness nor the blessed blackness of oblivion. He still remembered, and that was the worst cruelty of all.
As Claire moaned and sobbed, the sounds tugged at his heart, fool that he was.
Stalking back to the liqueur cabinet, Varden had every intention of hunting the shelves for more whiskey but found he was lighting a candle instead. Before he quite realized what he was doing, he was at her bedroom door with his hand on the latch. He was a fool all right. And of the worst sort because he could not make himself stop. The latch seemed to lift of its own accord, and Varden was inside Claire's room in a matter of two quick steps.
It never ceased to amaze him how so cold and bitter a woman could create so soft, so warm a room. Tapestries and throw rugs created a comfortable blend of colors and enlivened the cavern-like chamber of stone. Pretty baubles lined the tables. He remembered giving her some of them, back when he had cared enough to try to please her and before he realized that was impossible. He had no idea from whom she had received the rest.
By the fire, oblivious to her mistress's distress, Grete slept on undisturbed. One of Abigail's gowns in a heap upon her lap. He scowled at the woman's callousness, though a part of him understood it. Claire was difficult to work for under the best of circumstances and impossible at all other time
s. It was somewhat surprising that Grete hadn't sought employment elsewhere by now.
He left her sleeping by the fire and turned back to his wife. His boots made only the slightest scuffing sound as he picked through the rushes and made his way to the foot of her bed. Darkness completely dominated the burgundy canopy and shadow spilled down curtain grooves, dripping like black molasses onto the tousled bedclothes and pooling around the solid box base.
A cloying, sickeningly coppery smell wafted from the sheets. Varden wrinkled his nose and would have stepped back if she hadn't groaned just then. Drawn to her misery like a moth to torchlight, Varden went to her.
"No, please.” She tossed her head restlessly against the mattress, her flailing arms knocking a pillow from the bed. Her legs thrashed weakly, confined by sheets that twisted like tentacles around her. Fever flushed her cheeks but left the rest of her skin pale and clammy to the touch. Long auburn locks clung in sweat-dampened ringlets to her face and neck. Here and there between the hem of her nightgown and the twining sheets, her shadowy flesh played a mocking game of peek-a-boo with the flickering candlelight.
Without thinking, Varden reached down to brush her hair back from her beautiful face. He caught himself just before he actually touched her cheek. Abigail was right. He was an idiot.
A good and considerate idiot, who had checked on his wife the way dutiful husbands were expected to. He could now spend the rest of the night drinking with a clear conscience.
As he turned to go, Varden was momentarily distracted. The shadows flowed in odd patterns on the sheets around her legs. He raised the candle higher.
Blood. A lot of blood.
Leaving the candle on the bedside table, Varden was across the room in an instant. He grabbed the back of Grete's chair and tumbled the waiting woman onto the floor. “Get up!"
Grete sat up, a look of stupefaction on her face. “Y-Your Grace? W-wh-what—"
She shrieked and covered her head with her arms as Varden grabbed the scruff of her dour gray gown and, while she scrambled to gain her feet, dragged her back to the bed.