THE VEXING: A Medieval Romance (AGE OF FAITH Book 6)

by Tamara Leigh

  “Greetings, Lyulf. I am guessing you are four? Five?”

  He snorted, rolled his eyes. “Fooled another, momma!”

  She chuckled. “How many is it this month?”

  Lyulf held up a hand and tucked his thumb beneath his fingers. “One…two…three…four!”

  “You are right.”

  Looking pleased, he lifted his chin. “I am three, Lady. And big. Like papa.”

  Beata glanced at Lady Gaenor, who said, “Not even near four,” then pecked a kiss atop his head and motioned forward a woman who stood to the right of the dais. “Go with Josephine, Lyulf.”

  His lower lip jutted. “Wanna eat with you.”

  “Not this day.”

  He sighed, took the hand Josephine extended, and tugged the woman toward the kitchen.

  “Three years old,” Beata said. “By the time he is five…”

  “Aye. And when he leaves me to begin his page’s training at Wulfen…” She touched her belly. “At least I shall have one great distraction. God willing, several.”

  Would all her children be of such build? Beata wondered, then mused, “I have never considered the benefit of a man wedding a woman of great height. It seems ever their sex seek to be matched with one easily tucked beneath an arm.”

  “My husband teases that—” Lady Gaenor gasped and deferred to the priest who had risen farther down the table to bless the meal.

  Not until all were served drinks and viands did the lady resume their talk. “I ought not boast, but Lyulf is a fine lad—in temperament, looks, and size. My husband teases that all men in pursuit of heirs ought to first seek a wife of good height and solid build and assures me that if our daughters benefit the same as our sons, all the better.” She wrinkled her nose. “I agree about sons, but as I have experienced the vanity of men afeared of appearing slight alongside a wife, I cannot wish the same on daughters.”

  “Your husband must love you very much.”

  “He does. In spite of all.”

  All being Durand for whom this lady had first felt, Beata guessed.

  “I pray my lord husband is as loved by me,” Lady Gaenor said and frowned. “A pity love is not more often the true measure by which one chooses a spouse.”

  “But you…”

  She inclined her head. “The only choice I had was that of refusal and, in the end, it carried little weight since I could not bear for my family to suffer for my unwillingness. But see”—she held up her ringed hand—“the Lord made all right. There is no other man’s ring I would have on this hand. Not that I believed it when Baron Lavonne placed it there. I quite feared him.” She moved her gaze to Beata’s hand. “Do I trespass in asking if you fear your husband?”

  Though Beata’s chest felt as if it were being pushed up her throat, she nearly denied it. Instead, wishing she did not so heavily feel the weight of her own ring, she nodded.

  Sympathy lined Lady Gaenor’s face. “I am sorry, but given time, mayhap you will be as blessed as I.”

  “Mayhap,” she agreed, though it would be a miracle if Soames came near to replacing Durand in her affections. She drew a deep breath. “Let us not indulge in games, my lady. I know you must know, as I am aware once it was for you, Sir Durand possesses my heart.”

  Her smile was sorrowful. “I do. And as you feel never will you love again, I believed the same. Though for you it may prove true, I encourage you to set your mind to making the best of your marriage if it cannot be undone.”

  Durand had told her much. “I am determined, especially for the sake of any children we have.”

  “I shall keep you in my prayers, Lady Beata.”

  They fell more seriously to eating—rather, Lady Gaenor. A necessity, Beata thought, the woman’s greatest bulge that of her growing babe.

  Though Beata carried little excess weight, she was certain she would not fair as well had she the lady’s appetite. Her lacings would not require loosening merely to accommodate naturally generous hips and bosom. But it was not that which discouraged her from eating well now. It was Soames and her father somewhere outside these walls, Durand’s whereabouts, and the older knight who came to her notice partway through the meal.

  At a lower table where one of his rank would not normally pause, he sat with only a tankard of ale. He watched her, though one would not know it to look upon him, his gaze ever elsewhere. But she felt it when her own was distant.

  “Lady Gaenor”—she leaned toward the woman—“who is that knight at the farthest table?”

  The woman looked. And flushed.

  “Ah,” Beata murmured. “You cannot say, but that tells all. In Sir Durand’s absence, yon knight is to suppress my will.”

  The lady moistened her lips. “Sir Durand would fulfill his duty to the queen, would not break honor…” That last was mostly breath.

  “Again,” Beata finished.

  “Aye. I know not all your tale, my lady, but enough to assure you he also seeks to do what is best for you.”

  Beata pushed her goblet away. “So sweetly you defend him when I would have believed you…”

  This time it was Lady Gaenor who finished the thought. “Uncomfortable. I am, though not so much I will not speak on behalf of one who cannot—or will not—speak for himself. Believe me or nay, even at the cost of his own heart, Sir Durand is determined not to repeat past mistakes and sins.”

  His own heart. That made Beata hurt and grasp at distraction found in that other disturbing word. “What sins?”

  Lady Gaenor was a long while in answering. “I will not tell much of it, but I would have you know that sin was as much mine as his. Perhaps more mine. I knew he felt no great emotion for me, and it was my sister he loved. But it was I who first sought to salve our mutual grief by turning an embrace but meant to comfort into comfort of the wrong sort.”

  Beata pulled a breath so deep its release slumped her shoulders. “I appreciate your honesty.” Then seeking to move the talk elsewhere, she said, “Sir Durand has gone to the queen?”

  “Across the sea?” the lady exclaimed and visibly relaxed at leaving her sins behind. “Nay, he is here.”

  Now Beata’s frame yielded to relief. “With Baron Lavonne? At sword practice?”

  “He avails himself of our steward’s chamber, though methinks he will not be there much longer.”

  Privacy in which to compose a missive to Eleanor, Beata guessed. “Then this knight”—she glanced at Baron Lavonne’s man—“shall soon be relieved of his watch over me.”

  “He is Sir Hector, most trusted and capable of my husband’s men despite his advanced years.”

  “Is that a warning against vexing him?”

  Lady Gaenor smiled. “More a plea. He can and will do what is necessary to fulfill his duty, but he is slow to recover from great exertion, and I am as fond of him as is my husband.”

  Though Beata sensed Lady Gaenor sought reassurance her guest would not trouble her man, and she wished to give it, she could not. Were some small gap provided, she would slip through it if it meant saving her family.

  She turned her attention to the platter between the lady and her, chose a slice of bread, and bit into its flour-dusted crust.

  By meal’s end, Durand had not emerged from the corridor down which the steward’s quarters likely lay.

  “You will join me in the solar for needlework?” Lady Gaenor asked as they rose from the table.

  “Mayhap later. Now I would speak to Sir Durand.”

  “But he is still—”

  “Do you have no objections, I shall seek him there.”

  Lady Gaenor glanced at Sir Hector. “As you will.”

  They descended the dais. As the mistress of Abingdale moved toward the stairs, Beata crossed opposite and felt the knight’s eyes follow her.

  Three doors were upon the corridor into which she stepped, but it was the one with a ribbon of light at its lower seam she opened.

  Durand sat in profile on a tall stool at a writing desk, an arm stretched acros
s its surface, a quill in hand alongside a parchment curled at its corners.

  Beata lingered in the space between door and frame. As told by his posture—shoulders bent, head down, other hand gripping the top of his head—he could not have heard the sigh of well-oiled hinges.

  Anger and frustration receding, she stared at the man she loved no matter his deception—and all the more for seeing him like this that made her believe it was no easy thing to put the queen ahead of the woman he felt for, even if not of such depth as he had felt for Beatrix Wulfrith.

  The floorboards groaned softly as she stepped inside, and this he heard, lowering his hand from his head and straightening his shoulders.

  “Forgive me, Cotter.” He kept his profile toward the one he must believe was Lavonne’s steward. “I shall not be much longer.”

  She closed the door, but it was the rustle of her skirts that turned him toward her. “What do you here, Beata?”

  “I wish to speak with you.”

  He sighed. “To gain from me what I cannot give. Thus, I must be—I am—resolved to ill between us, meaning you waste your breath seeking to turn me from my course.”

  She halted alongside the desk, glanced at the parchment across which his bold writing marched. “To Eleanor?”

  “To Eleanor.”

  “May I?” She reached, but he dropped the quill and caught her wrist.

  Anger spurted through her, but it was a small thing compared to the awareness shivering across every hair upon every limb.

  Staring at his broad fingers that made her wrist appear delicate and skin beautifully pale, she felt tears at the backs of her eyes. And they gathered when the ring on her finger caught light.

  She swallowed hard. “Does not your missive concern me?”

  “You know it does.”

  She looked to it, but before she could read past the greeting to his most sovereign queen, his other hand swept it to the opposite side of the desk. “You have revealed the secret I entrusted to you.”

  “Not yet. ’Tis that over which I struggle. Since it was your cousin who committed that heinous act and he is dead, it ought to have no bearing on the duty given me. But it does.”

  “Because it coerced me into wedding Soames.”

  “Which you would not have done once you knew the truth of his father’s death, aye?”

  It was true. At least, she had sought to persuade her father to yield to her wedding whomever Eleanor chose. “Had he not overheard and wielded our family’s sin against us. But now…”

  “That is my dilemma, Beata. I would not betray your trust, and yet I see no benefit in keeping it. Eleanor will undertake to see your marriage annulled, even if her only recourse is lack of consummation. Thus, I believe Soames will reveal the murder, hoping to persuade the queen to accept your marriage as compensation for the father and husband stolen by your cousin.”

  Dear Lord, she entreated. He is right. Soames will not let my fortune slip away without a fight.

  “So it is as good as told. However, do I keep faith by first informing the queen, she is more likely to stand firm in wedding you to one of her choosing.”

  Beata would have pulled free were his thumb not so heavy on her pulse. “You think that a better thing?”

  “I do, though mostly because of Soames’s knowledge of your secret. Lest revenge cause him to ill use you, it is more imperative I keep you from him.”

  “You would have relented did he not know of my cousin’s sin?”

  He hesitated. “Even then I would not have returned you to him. As for Eleanor’s choice of a husband, she may first set her sights on furthering her own interests, but she employs wisdom in doing so. I believe no matter whom she would have you wed, he will prove a better husband than one bent on revenge.”

  He made so much sense she felt almost weak, but her argument was not done. “You are probably right, Durand, but what you do not consider that I would have you think well upon is that if I cannot wed the one I want, it matters little whether I wed Soames or Eleanor’s man. What matters is that my heart be less heavy knowing my father and brother do not suffer our secret being spilled across England.”

  “I am sorry. Ask me for a thousand and one things, and a thousand I will give you—just not that one.”

  She lowered her chin so he would not see tears sprung more from his words than his refusal to yield.

  “Now do you hate me, Beata?”

  A sob of laughter jumped from her. “I love you more.”

  He sighed. “And so I am further tested.”

  She looked up, and the tears that had begun to dot the floor at her feet slipped to her cheeks. “Tested?”

  As he frowned over eyes that would soon look no better than before Aimee had applied cold cloths, she thought he might pull her to him, but the only intimacy he allowed was that of his thumb caressing the flesh of her inner wrist.

  “Aye, tested. In every way since first we met—my patience, resolve, carnal nature, honor, faith, heart.”

  “Tell me of your struggle,” she whispered, and when he did not speak, said, “I know more than you think, not only from observing you, but from others. And just as I am aware of your great sin, I know it has naught to do with who you are now.”

  He raised his eyebrows. “If you are that certain, you cannot know how near I came to committing that same sin with you.”

  “Can I not? I was there, and many a time I would have fallen had you let me. But despite your carnal nature, ever you caught me back up.”

  His thumb stilled. “You think you know all of it—all of me—but you do not.”

  “Then tell me the bad of you, even if only to make it easier to lose you.”

  He momentarily closed his eyes. “Do I, will you not fight me these weeks—perhaps months—while we await the queen’s determination?”

  She opened her mouth. And that was all.

  “You hesitate, Beata.”

  “I am thinking I could reassure you as you did me when you sought a very good reason to return me to Soames.”

  A muscle in his jaw moved. “No better can I explain or excuse that. All I can do is believe you as you did me and hope you will not fail me as I failed you.”

  Would she fail him? She imagined an opportunity to escape, next the disgrace that would be his for not better guarding one who must be closely watched.

  Nay, she would not fail him. She would also place her trust in the queen and seek comfort in knowing Ralf’s sin was his alone and her parents might be forgiven for aiding in its concealment—even if only by the Lord.

  Only, she silently scorned. Should He not be all? Aye, even if others could not accept the Lord’s mercy toward another, she would strive to be content in pleasing only Him.

  “Beata?”

  “My word I give I will not fight you, Durand. But I would not know the bad of you in exchange for agreeing to wait on the queen. I would but know you better because you wish it.”

  He looked down, turned her hand in his, and frowned over the ink that had transferred from his thumb and fingers to her wrist. “I have marked you.”

  He knew not how deeply—more than she would ever be marked by Soames’s ring.

  When he reached for a cup of water, she said, “In its time it will wash away,” and slipped free and crossed to a stool before a brazier whose glowing coals heated the room.

  He followed and stood unmoving as if searching for where to begin, then he said, “Being a third son, after I earned my spurs and a Wulfrith dagger, my lot was to make my living by selling my sword arm. As I was Wulfen-trained, I had good prospects, but none as esteemed as that which Baron Wulfrith offered—a position at Stern Castle protecting his mother and sisters. But it proved tedious, the ladies requiring little protection since only fools set themselves against the Wulfriths. Still I remained, and when Lady Beatrix grew from a girl into a woman, I came to love her though such feelings were forbidden a landless knight who longed for a woman destined for the Church.”

&
nbsp; Beata tried to imagine that beautiful creature growing old beneath a habit, no husband at her side or children at her skirts. Though many a lady committed her life to the Church, it seemed no fit for the Beatrix D’Arci she had met at Stern.

  “Then four years past, King Henry determined he would end the enmity between the Wulfriths and Lavonnes by uniting their families through marriage. During Baron Wulfrith’s absence from Stern, Henry sent his men for one of the sisters, who was to be delivered to Baron Lavonne. Under order of Lady Isobel, I and another knight stole her daughters from Stern and made our way toward Wulfen where the ladies were to stay until her son returned to make a way past Henry. Well into our flight, the king’s men overtook us. While I went one direction with Lady Gaenor, my fellow knight and Lady Beatrix went the other. Lady Gaenor and I evaded capture, and when we returned to search out her sister, we saw Lady Beatrix broken and bloodied in a ravine. Certain she was dead and knowing the king’s men would circle back, we continued on to Wulfen to ensure Lady Gaenor did not fall into Henry’s hands. And when later we paused… We grieved our loss, and here begins the bad of me.”

  He stepped past her, and when he opened his hands before the brazier, she glimpsed the stains on his fingers. “I would have been blind had I not known Lady Gaenor was too fond of me. Oft she gazed at me the way I looked upon her sister.” He drew breath, slowly expelled it. “I knew that in her grieving she was more vulnerable, but… It was only an embrace, then only a kiss, then only this and only that, until it was too late.” He lowered his hands. “I stole her innocence, quite possibly her future, and handed her off to Everard and Abel. And prayed—how I prayed!—I had not gotten her with child.”

  He turned before Beata could mask the distress she would not have him see.

  “That prayer was answered, as was one not asked. When word came Beatrix lived and was held by Lord D’Arci, selfish Durand Marshal rose above guilt over his trespass against her sister and exalted that the woman he loved was not lost to him. But she was. She had given her heart to D’Arci. And here is more the bad of me. I begrudged them a love seemingly more impossible than mine for her. At their wedding, I transferred my anger to Christian Lavonne, to whom Baron Wulfrith had agreed to give Gaenor as his bride. Though I did not love Gaenor, I believed Lavonne would make her life misery once he discovered her loss of chastity.”