by Anne Stuart
Nicholas hadn’t taken her yet, of that Isabeau could be certain. If he had, Julianna wouldn’t be able to hide it, either from herself or from her mother. She’d have a dazed, foolish, lovesick expression on her face, and there would be little she could do to hide it.
With any luck at all, that danger was past. Julianna had heard from Nicholas’s own mouth that he was a liar and a thief, a man who would use her for his purposes and then abandon her without a second thought. If she had any sense, she’d never let him near her again.
Ah, but when did a woman in love have any sense? Isabeau thought bleakly. Her daughter was strong-minded and full of righteous rage, but what kind of defense was that against a man like Nicholas Strangefellow?
Isabeau could have Hugh send him away. It wouldn’t take much—he found the fool’s rhymes and riddles to be particularly annoying, and he’d use any excuse to send him back to his royal master.
But tonight he wouldn’t be in the mood to please her. She’d failed him, failed him most miserably, and the longer she put off confessing, the more difficult it would be.
And to make matters even worse, she had absolutely no idea who could have stolen the chalice. She had hidden it so carefully, and the women who served her were not the sort to go searching through her chest. Nor was the abbot the kind to demean himself by rifling through a woman’s bedroom.
However, he might very easily send a minion. He wouldn’t consider it thievery—he believed the sacred chalice belonged to the Order of Saint Hugelina the Dragon, and that Hugh had no earthly right to possess it, nor heavenly right either. Any crime the abbot committed in securing the thing would be no crime in the eyes of heaven.
Would he have sent Brother Barth? It seemed unlikely—the good monk did his master’s bidding but not without a certain calm distaste.
Perhaps it was Gilbert, the boy with the secrets. For no other reason than her usually infallible instincts, Isabeau considered him capable of almost any form of treachery, and stealing a priceless relic would be a simple enough matter. She doubted he would hesitate over any trifles such as honor and loyalty.
But she expected Hugh wouldn’t want to hear that. He seemed fond of the boy, and if she tried to blame him, he’d probably accuse her of lying.
No, she couldn’t come up with a scapegoat. She could only go and prostrate herself before her husband and beg his forgiveness. And hope she hadn’t misread his nature and his feelings for her.
The battlements were deserted—even the sentries had taken shelter from the gale that swept along the walls. Isabeau pulled her thin cloak around her, took a deep breath, and took off, racing through the pelting rain, feeling it bite through the cloth as she ran. By the time she reached shelter she was soaked to the skin, and a wave of cold swept over her. She’d been foolish, of course. There were ways to her husband’s solar that didn’t include dashing out into the pouring rain, but she was too ashamed to ask for directions. A woman should know where her husband slept, even if the priest had decreed otherwise.
The torchlight was dim at the top of the tower, and she felt her way down the winding steps to his rooms, shivering in the damp chill. With luck Hugh wouldn’t even be there yet. She could throw off her soaked cloak, dry herself as best she could, and then crawl into the huge, warm bed. If she pretended to be asleep when he arrived, perhaps he’d be too tenderhearted to wake her and demand the chalice.
No, that was unlikely. Hugh of Fortham was a good man, but not particularly soft-hearted. He wouldn’t distress himself over waking his new bride.
Might he be afraid of temptation? He’d waited until he was certain she was asleep before joining her in the bed, and Isabeau had had no doubts why. Climbing into bed with a woman usually signaled one thing, whether it be wife or whore. And he wanted her, there was absolutely no doubt in her mind about that.
So caution might work to her advantage. Men tended to be more reasonable by the light of day, less prone to strike out. If she could wait until morning to tell him that the chalice was gone, then things might work out for the best. Julianna was right—he may have sent someone to fetch it after all, and all her worry would have been for naught.
The door to the master’s solar was closed, a good sign. Someone would have stoked the fire and closed the door to keep the good heat in. She only hesitated for a moment before pushing it open. The leather hinges made a loud, creaking noise, and she winced. Too late to turn back now, even though her husband stood in the room, clad only in his breeches, staring at her out of dark, brooding eyes.
Despite the relative desperateness of the situation, Isabeau found herself momentarily breathless. The Earl of Fortham was a gloriously handsome man, tall and strong and well built, with broad shoulders and deep chest. Oddly enough, he suddenly looked embarrassed by her frank astonishment and quickly reached for his discarded tunic.
“I wasn’t expecting you so soon, my lady,” he mumbled. “I was planning—”
“Don’t,” she said, as he began to pull the tunic over his shaggy head. The fire was blazing, the room was warm, and he had no need of it. And she wanted to look at him for a moment longer, to savor what she could not have. Would not have, once he learned she’d let the chalice be stolen away from her.
He paused, startled, and let the tunic drop. “Isabeau?” he questioned.
She didn’t dare hesitate. He wanted to touch her, she knew it in every inch of her body, just as she longed to touch him, but if she let him, knowing that she’d betrayed him by losing the chalice, then he would never forgive her, and their future would be lost.
Their future was probably lost anyway. Father Paulus had decreed they must live chastely, and it would be simple enough for Hugh to have the unconsummated marriage annulled. Freeing him to take another, younger, prettier wife.
And she wanted to weep. She didn’t want him to have anyone else—she’d spent so many years at the beck and call of a man she disliked. Didn’t she deserve just a morsel of happiness? A brief respite of joy and pleasure?
Not at the price of her honor. “The chalice is gone,” she said abruptly, before she could change her mind. She didn’t flinch, didn’t cringe, even though she half expected him to fly at her in a rage, fists upraised.
Of course he did no such thing. He simply looked at her blankly. “Gone?” he repeated. “How?”
“It was hidden in my chest of clothes. When I went to look for it, it was gone.”
“You were going to bring it to me?”
He hadn’t hit her yet, and she was too far gone to lie. “No. I was going to give it to my daughter so she could bribe the abbot into letting her avoid this marriage the king has planned and join the holy sisters.” She met his gaze fearlessly.
Hugh sat in the chair by the fire, looking away from her, and she wondered if he couldn’t bear to look upon her treacherous face. “The abbot is not to be trusted,” he said evenly. “He wouldn’t keep his promises.”
“So I told her. But it was her only chance, and I’d let her be bartered off once before . . .”
“So you were going to give her the Fortham family relic, betraying your husband and your people?”
He still sounded calm. He was going to kill her, she thought bleakly. She would have preferred him to thunder and shout and beat her, rather than this dreadful calm.
“Yes,” she said, bowing her head in shame. “For my daughter, I would.”
She heard him rise, crossing the room toward her, and she forced herself to remain still. She was his property; it was his right to do with her what he wished. After such a betrayal she deserved no better.
He touched her, and she flinched. He put his hand under her chin and raised her face to his. He was huge, towering over her, almost blocking out the light, but his strong hand was gentile. “I hope you guard our children’s future with as much courage as you have your daughter’s.�
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She could feel hot tears fill her eyes at his words, and she tried to blink them back, failing miserably. “I have scant luck at bearing children, my lord. And I am . . . old.” She had never said such words aloud, and the cost was enormous. “If you married me to breed an heir, you should have chosen truer stock.”
He smiled at her, for the first time, and Isabeau was lost. “I didn’t marry you to breed an heir, as you so delicately put it. Though we will have children. Strong sons and beautiful daughters. I know it in my heart. But that is not why I sought you in marriage.”
“I bring no lands, little dowry . . .”
“You know full well why I married you, my lady,” he said. “Because of a summer’s afternoon fifteen years ago and a maid in tears.”
“I was no maid. I was seven months gone with child, and I looked like a cow.”
His mouth turned up in a smile. “You were the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. Cow or not, you were the lady of my heart, and you always will be.”
The room was warm, but Isabeau was damp and chilled, and she could see steam rising from the folds of her cloak. He caught the ribands at her neck and untied them, pushing the cloak from her shoulders into a pool on the floor around her.
It had provided little protection from such a driving rain, and her gown was damp and clinging to her. “You’re cold,” he murmured, pushing the wet tendrils of hair away from her face. “Come to bed.”
“Father Paulus—” she protested weakly.
“Father Paulus is a bitter, twisted old man. God decreed marriage for the procreation of a family—if he interferes in that divine instruction, then he is the heretic.”
She’d thought so from the very beginning, and was about to point that out, when a shiver swept over her body. Odd, that she should be chilled when he stood in front of her, scarcely dressed, radiating heat.
It was a different kind of heat, perhaps. He leaned forward and kissed her, brushing his lips against hers with the merest feathering of a touch, and her heart leapt inside her, twisted in longing. She wanted nothing more than to flow into his arms, to close her eyes and open her heart to him.
“The chalice . . . ,” she said, truthful to the last.
“We’ll find it, lass,” Hugh said softly. “Right now we have more important things to do.”
His touch was fire on her frozen skin. His mouth was breath to her starving lungs. He was warm and strong, and he lifted her small, shivering body in his arms, holding her against his chest, and she wanted nothing more than to curl up against him and weep with relief.
But weeping wasn’t what he had in mind, and in truth, she had better things to do as well. She stood patient and still when he set her down beside the bed, slowly stripping off her sodden clothes.
Oh, he loved her well! She was suddenly shy, embarrassed—she had been with no man but her husband, and he’d always been straightforward about the business, speedy and efficient. She’d learned to enjoy it, she’d supposed, because it was in her nature, but nothing had prepared her for the slow, savoring pleasure Hugh of Fortham took in her body.
He used his mouth, his fingers, his teeth, to delight her; he kissed and stroked and nibbled and caressed. He coaxed and lured and teased with an art she would never have suspected in such a gruff soldier, and when he entered her she cried out, both in joy and surprise and sudden, clenching release.
But he wasn’t a hasty man, a quick man, and he had more planned for her. He waited patiently, clasped tightly in her arms, in her body, until the spasms passed, and then he brought her there again, and yet again, until she wanted to weep at him to stop, she could bear no more, but she knew that she could. When he rolled onto his back, taking her with him so that she rode astride, she went joyously, taking her pleasure of him, and when he moved her back beneath him, spilling his seed into her, he kissed her mouth when he came.
She lay in his arms, hot, sweaty, sated, and dreamed strange dreams, of a fierce dragon threatening her daughter, of mad priests and sane fools, and the baby she knew would grow inside her from this night. The baby that would be born strong and healthy, a child of love, a child of delight.
And in her dreams, the child danced with the dragon.
Chapter Twenty
BROTHER BARTH moved with surprising quiet for a man of his bulk. Fortham Castle was settling down for the night—the men at arms were gaming in the great hall; a few were wenching and hoping he would turn a blind eye to it. Which he did, as long as the maid was as willing as the man. He hadn’t always been a monk, and he had once known both the pleasures and the sorrows of the flesh. He had no taste for it anymore, but he passed no judgment on the sinners around him. Hadn’t the Lord himself said, “He who is without sin among you cast the first stone?” Which brought him to the Abbot of Saint Hugelina, a man far too well acquainted with all manner of sin, both in the judging and the committing of it. Barth had known princes and paupers, bishops and beggars, and he viewed them all with the same dispassionate acceptance, but Father Paulus tried his temper sorely, and Brother Barth had prayed mightily over it and his own doubts about the man.
It wasn’t his place to criticize his superior, to disapprove of the man’s harsh judgments and blatant greed. For all that the abbot’s lust for the chalice seemed self-serving, who was to say that Saint Hugelina wasn’t well served by just such men? He had no doubts that the chalice belonged at the Abbey of Saint Hugelina, to be carefully tended by the good monks. He just wasn’t convinced Father Paulus had that final destination in mind.
The Abbey of Saint Hugelina was small and poor, as befit an order devoted to a small, poor female saint. And the abbot was an ambitious man—his tenure at Saint Hugelina’s was expected to be only a stepping stone toward a bishopric. And what better way to buy himself such a lofty post than with a priceless relic?
Barth knew enough about life to accept the fact that bishops and abbots were bought, not ordained by God. Quite often the holiest member of any religious community was the least in consequence. He’d found more pure faith in unlettered lay brothers who worked in the vegetable gardens than in some of the most learned monks in Christendom.
No, he didn’t trust Father Paulus to deliver the holy relic to the struggling abbey. But that didn’t mean Barth had any right to keep it hidden in the small room allotted to him just off the abbot’s sleeping quarters.
He told himself it was merely discretion that had kept him from interrupting the abbot’s holy ordeal at the hands of young Gilbert. And discretion it was—Brother Barth knew the difference between groans of religious fervor and those of unholy pleasure. The abbot enjoyed the whip a bit too much in Brother Barth’s estimation, but far be it for him to interfere.
It had been so astonishingly simple to find the chalice in the first place that Barth was convinced the saint had ordained it to be so. When he saw Julianna lurking in the shadow of the stairwell last night, he knew who’d taken the relic from the chapel. He had only to deliver her to the fool’s room and make his way to her chambers to find the flagon. He could certainly count on Master Nicholas to keep her distracted, even without the use of his tongue.
He’d ducked out of the way just in time to see Lady Isabeau rush from her daughter’s room, a distracted expression on her face—and to know that the chalice wasn’t nearly as safe as Julianna supposed.
It took him but an instant to find it, another benefit from Saint Hugelina, he was certain. Lady Isabeau was not well versed in subterfuge, and doubtless her plans for the relic were noble and good. She most certainly had gone to tell her husband she had it—her shy delight in him was obvious to all but the man himself. He rather hated to do anything that might get in the way of their marriage—Father Paulus had already done his wicked best to cause trouble where none was needed.
But Hugelina’s work was more important than the affairs of two ordinary peop
le, and Brother Barth had hardened his heart and tucked the chalice beneath his robes.
His room was cool and dark when he arrived, a state he accepted with equanimity. Father Paulus had decreed that he needed to set a good example of monkly self-denial. The holy orders had gotten a bad reputation of late, with monks committing sins of gluttony, lust, and greed to an alarming extent. The austere abbot had poked Brother Barth’s sizable paunch and suggested that he should make an especial effort to curb his earthly appetites, a notion that didn’t sit well with the monk. Since taking orders, he’d neither looked at nor touched a woman with carnal thoughts, nor had he longed for any possessions, but he was rather fond of his food and wine, and he viewed their forced limitation with strong regret.
He couldn’t even blame Father Paulus for gluttony behind his back—he doubted if the abbot was interested in much more than having pretty young boys whip him and gaining power within the church. He certainly had no interest in food or women. Brother Barth might have had a bit more compassion for him if his weaknesses were as simple and natural.
He needed to have compassion anyway, he reminded himself for the ninety-ninth time. Humility and forgiveness, he told himself. And to prove that he truly repented of his wickedness, he would wake Father Paulus out of a sound sleep and present him with the sought-after chalice.
In truth, it would be doing the poor people of this castle a blessing. With the abbot gone, Lady Isabeau and the Earl could begin their marriage the way God ordained it, not as His interfering servant decreed. And he had a certain fascination for the fool and Lady Julianna. They were hopelessly ill matched, at each other’s throats, and on the very edge of falling in love as few people knew how to love. He only hoped for their sake that they could escape such a curse.
Love like that could cause more pain and sorrow than joy. It could devour a man’s soul, drive a woman to despair, ruin lives and families. There was no future for them—Lady Julianna was well born, and Master Nicholas was . . . well, a fool. The king’s fool, but still and all, no match for a lady.