Winterbourne

  "What! No mirror? I thought it was the first thing every mother pressed into her daughter's hand, teaching her at a tender age the art of admiring herself."

  "My mother never thought I had much to admire," she said as she turned around. The bruise on her cheek had already dulled to a yellow shade, and although deep shadows ringed her eyes, they were once more as the sea becalmed. An uncomfortable silence stretched out between them, and she pulled her mantle more snugly around her shoulders, putting him in mind of last night, when it had been the only thing she wore.

  Quickly he averted his eyes before his imagination waxed too hot. "Did you sleep well?" he asked. The instant the words were spoken he could have driven his fist into his mouth.

  "Y-yes." she whispered.

  When he glanced back, he saw two bright spots of color glowing in her cheeks. He dreaded that she would turn his own fool question around on him, but fortunately she did not. His face would have flushed as red as hers if he had been obliged to describe his agonized slumber in polite terms.

  He crossed his arms in front of his chest, feeling as awkward as a page slipping up to the ladies' bower to leave flowers for the lord's daughter. Whatever intimacy had existed between him and Melyssan in his bedchamber was now whipped away by the morning wind.

  "I need to talk to you in private," he said. "Is it too cold for you out here?"

  She shook her head. "There is a bench in the garden behind the kitchen."

  It was on the tip of his tongue to tell her he remembered it well, he'd lived at Winterbourne much longer than she, but he swallowed the comment, aware that his irritation was more with himself for feeling so stiff and clumsy. He indicated his agreement with her suggestion and refrained from taking her elbow to steady her. Such gestures were one of the few things he'd ever seen raise the light of anger in those otherwise gentle eyes.

  Most of the flowers in the small garden had already died on the vine—heliotropes, roses, irises, all withered brown, not to bloom again until the spring. There was a strong scent of apple in the air as Melyssan seated herself on the wooden bench beneath the tree, the ground around her feet littered with rotten fruit.

  Jaufre chose to stand, not wishing to add to his sense of confusion by the feel of her body brushing up against his side.

  "I fear I may distress you, my lady," he said. "But I must broach the matter of Hubert Le Vis's death."

  The color began to drain from her cheeks, but she replied in a steady voice, "I can understand that, considering I have heard some strange accounts of it this morning."

  "Mostly put about by myself. As far as the world is concerned, I caught Father Hubert breaking into my silver cupboard. We fought and I killed him. I saw no reason to risk your reputation by having people believe you had actually been. . .been . . .”

  "Despoiled?" Her lips curved into a bitter smile. "Thank you for such consideration, my lord."

  "I am sorry if my words give you pain. Melyssan. But you must know it is the way of the world to hold the woman responsible for such attacks upon her person."

  She flinched. "And is that what you believe, my lord? That I invited Father Hubert to try and rape me?"

  He began to pace, kicking aside the soft brown apples. "Don't be absurd. If l thought that, I would not be trying to shield you. I place the blame solely where it belongs—with that dead bastard they carted out of here."

  But his voice lacked conviction because of something Tristan had said earlier that morning, stirring in Jaufre feelings of guilt.

  "What possessed Le Gros to think he could ravish a lady under the protection of your roof?" Tristan had scowled.

  "Too drunk. Too stupid. Take your pick." Jaufre had shrugged.

  But Tristan had been satisfied with neither explanation. "Nay, part of the blame is yours, Jaufre. The wild way you talked to me on the way back from Normandy about what you would do to that harlot back at Winterbourne. Le Gros must have overheard you, probably thought you would not care. And you never even knew anything about the woman you called a whore. I'll wager you still don't.”

  Although he had silenced Tristan and tried to dismiss his words, the knight's criticism stung all the more because Jaufre feared there was some truth in the accusation. The supposition was not a pleasant one, and he turned the wrath he felt at himself back against Melyssan. He had never invited the wench to come to Winterbourne. If she'd stayed at Wydevale where she belonged, Le Gros never could have touched her.

  He stopped his pacing and planted himself in front of her. "I think the time has finally come, my lady, when you had best tender your excuses to me of why you did pretend to be my wife."

  Melyssan gasped. "Why, yesterday, I tried and tried to tell you."

  "Now I am of a humor to listen, so proceed. And, mind you, I am a fair judge of when someone is lying to me, so take care you speak nothing but the truth."

  She set her mouth into a mutinous line, angry and dismayed by Jaufre's manner of questioning her. Hands resting on his hips, his face darkened with a scowl, Jaufre looked no more of a humor to hear her explanation than he had upon his arrival at Winterbourne. He made her feel like a criminal brought before the king's justice and Jaufre was her executioner.

  She could almost laugh at herself when she remembered how she had descended to the courtyard, her heart fluttering with the thought of seeing him this morning. Alternating between shyness and anticipation, she had slowed and then scurried, her mind colored with remembrance of Jaufre cradling her in his arms, the tenderness of his caress as he laid her down upon the bed, his chest her pillow, the heat of his body restoring her to warmth she thought she'd never feel again. He'd been so kind, so gentle, almost as if he genuinely cared that she'd been hurt.

  That she'd cherished such notions was now a source of embarrassment to her as she faced her inquisitor. This Lord Jaufre with his stony brown eyes was enough to make her believe the man who had rescued her from Hubert Le Vis did not exist. She'd been daydreaming again, imagining an ebony-haired champion who was not real. The tall lord who towered over her now looked more like Father Andrew's description of the earl, a dark, vengeful man.

  "Well?" Jaufre said, the sharpness of his voice making her jump. "I do not have the rest of the day to await your reply, Melyssan."

  She sighed and with great patience began to recount her tale. She told it simply, leaving out much of the terror she had experienced at the thought of surrendering herself to the king, how much it had gone against her notions of honor to use his stolen ring, to tell such lies.

  "And somehow the king believed my story about a secret marriage, and he arranged an escort to bring me to Winterbourne. He must have a great deal of respect for you, my lord."

  Jaufre's lip curled. "Well, for my grandfather he had, since the old comte was one of the few to support John's pathetic attempts to retake Normandy. As for myself, that remains to be seen."

  "But he made you the earl of Winterbourne."

  "Aye, he did." Jaufre laughed derisively. "It is amazing what you can purchase for the sum of a thousand pounds."

  Melyssan's mouth dropped as Jaufre smashed another of her cherished illusions. "You bought your title?"

  "What did you think—that I'd won it by some heroic deed of arms?"

  She ducked her head and said in a small voice, "But even at Wydevale, we heard the tales of your valor in the Norman wars, how you risked your life to bring food to the soldiers starving at the siege of Gaillard."

  "Valor does not fill a man's coffers or bring him advancement. Now enough about me. Get on with your tale."

  "There's not much more to tell. After the trouble with Pevensy, I just stayed on and tried to help look after Winterbourne. I felt I owed you that much for the use of your name."

  "Such a sense of duty. I trust it's strong enough to make you accede gracefully to my next request, for I must insist that you keep on being my wife."

  Melyssan's heart skipped a beat. She was sure she had not heard him correctly. He could not p
ossibly be asking her to marry him. The foolish hope fluttered to life, only to be crushed by his next words.

  "Of course, it would only be until I can find a bride to replace your bratling of a sister."

  "Of course," she echoed bitterly, her hands resting on the staff, a reminder of her folly. How should she have dared think that Lord Jaufre would wed a crippled girl, risk having children that might be as accursed as their mother! Nonetheless she rose to her feet with quiet dignity.

  "Lord Jaufre, I know that I have wronged you, but I think it a harsh punishment that you should force me to become your mistress." Then, as he raised one mocking eyebrow, she soon realized she'd made another humiliating mistake.

  "We both know by now that I have no taste for forcing women, so there's no need for you to try to summon up any more tears. My only intention was that you should continue in your role as chatelaine of the castle, everywhere except in my bed."

  "Can you not just let me go?"

  "No, I can't!" When she regarded him with surprise, he added more calmly, "I am in enough difficulties. I shall probably be called to account for the death of Hubert Le Vis, and the king's suspicions have already been aroused against me since my trip to Paris. I don't need to further incur his displeasure by having him think I conspired to deprive him of a plaything he desired."

  “Then why not just hand me over to him?''

  "Nay, I might as well have let Le Gros have you last night as give you up to John now." Jaufre gave her an annoying pat on the shoulder. "I will continue to protect you from the king if you do as I say. In time we'll find some pretext for an annulment, and no one need ever be the wiser about your deception. Who knows? Perhaps we shall discover we are distantly related."

  "I hope the connection is very distant," she muttered.

  He laughed and turned to walk away, seeming to take her lack of further protest as her consent to stay on at Winterbourne. But he halted at the corner of the low wooden kitchen building and looked back at her.

  "There was one other thing that has been bothering me, Melyssan. How came you to be out of your bed at such a late hour last night?"

  The question came so soft and sudden, she was not prepared. Before she could will it down, the flush of guilt spread over her cheeks. "I heard Father Hubert down in the solar scratching at the mural and I went to see what was wrong."

  "You have remarkably keen hearing, my lady, to detect such a slight noise when you were on the floor above. Now I was passing right next the door, and the thickness nearly muffled the sounds of your struggle with Le Gros. It was only by chance that I entered the room in time to help you."

  "Sometimes I just sense things," she said, staring down at his boots. "And I often walk at night. My leg gets stiff."

  "I see." But the bland tone of his voice did not tell her exactly how much.

  "Another strange event took place last night," he continued. "Those pilgrims that were at our feast just vanished. Do you not find that odd?"

  She gave a tiny shrug of her shoulders, her mouth having gone so dry she could not speak. Jaufre gently pressed her, "What think you of that? Did you share any speech with these travelers whilst they were at Winterbourne, obtain any inkling of why they would risk the perils of the night to be on their way so suddenly?"

  "Nay," she cried with too quick a denial. "Not at all. I have never been on a pilgrimage, so I know nothing of such things."

  To her great relief, he let the subject drop. But before he strode out of sight, he gave her an odd penetrating look, and she knew with frightening certainty he had not believed a word she'd said.

  CHAPTER SIX

  The clang of metal striking upon metal disrupted the quiet of the still morning air. Lord Jaufre drummed his fingers upon the hilt of his broadsword as he watched the progress of his squires paired off with sword and shield to practice the skills that would one day earn them their spurs.

  But the young men whacking away at each other with such enthusiasm blurred as his vision scanned farther afield, across the bailey to the lone figure of a woman. She hugged the folds of her cloak tightly against her delicate frame, appearing to shudder as much from the blows she saw delivered as the biting cold.

  "It's been a fortnight now," Tristan remarked as he brushed against Jaufre's elbow. "How much longer are you going to make that girl stay here?”

  "As long as it pleases me."

  " It is not fair. She did not pose as your wife out of any motives of treachery or malice Do you not believe what she said about the king?"

  "I believe most of what she told me. That still does not mean I can permit her to walk away completely unchastised when her actions made me look such a fool."

  Tristan wiped the back of one hand against his sweat-begrimed forehead, set beneath a steel cap. "The punishment is excessive. Teasing her, forcing her to keep up this pretense!"

  "What harm has it done? Have I laid so much as a hand upon her?"

  "I know not. Have you?" Tristan shot him a penetrating glance.

  "No, I have not," Jaufre said, careful to keep the note of regret out of his voice.

  "At least not yet. But I've seen the way you look at her, tense as a catapult that's wound too tight."

  "Who appointed you her guardian?" Jaufre snapped, striding away from Tristan. Melyssan had limped too close to the spot where her brother was taking quite a drubbing from the beefy young squire he was matched against. Instinctively Jaufre moved in that direction, but Sir Dreyfan was already guiding her back to a safe distance.

  Tristan followed hard on Jaufre's heels. "I only think you should send her away before you do something you might be sorry for. She is the sweetest, most gentle—"

  "Peace!" Jaufre said. "I can see she has quite won your heart. Perhaps if you're not too lovesick, you will return to your task of training my squires. At the moment, your charges look more as if they are having a game of hot cockles than any serious sword exercise." With the tip of his sword, he indicated where one dark-haired lad, having lost his footing on the frost-slick ground, now proceeded to tackle his opponent.

  "Oh, aye, my lord. By your command, my lord."

  Tristan swept Jaufre a mocking bow. Snatching up his shield, he strode onto the field and thwacked the young wrestler on the buttocks with the flat of his sword. "Arric!" he bellowed to his page. "Bring up the horses. We'll start the runs against the quintain."

  Jaufre sheathed his sword, glaring at his friend's retreating back. Plague take Tristan, haranguing him about the girl at such a time. As if he didn't have enough on his mind. Every time he glanced up, there was another messenger clamoring for admittance at the gates.

  Messengers from Philip of France reaffirming his offer to return Clairemont if Jaufre would help make war on John of England. Messengers from John of England demanding that Jaufre renew oath of allegiance to him. He had freely pardoned the earl for the death of Hubert Le Vis. As he reminded Jaufre in his letters, both the Church and France were England's enemies, so Jaufre had done his king a service by killing the Norman priest. Despite this expression of gratitude, John assessed exorbitant death duties against the earl for his inheritance of the comte's English manors and his castle in the north, Ashlar. Grudgingly, Jaufre paid, monies that would have been better spent improving the fortifications at Winterbourne.

  John's latest complaint was the continued absence from court of Jaufre and his lovely new bride. He had strongly begun to hint that if the earl and his countess did not present themselves soon, the king would be obliged to heed those many voices whispering against the Dark Knight, whispering that Ashlar and Winterbourne would be better placed in the hands of some more loyal baron.

  On top of these worries, Jaufre didn't need Tristan pricking his conscience over Melyssan. After all, he was protecting the girl from John, at the risk of drawing the king's wrath down upon his own head. It was Jaufre who suffered most from his mad decision to keep her, putting constant temptation in his path when he had resolved to maintain an honorable distan
ce from her.

  No easy task. Even now as he gazed at her, the sunlight burnished gold in the silken nutmeg hair flowing loose about her shoulders. The breeze occasionally tugged the cloak from her closed fingers and flapped it back to allow glimpses of her supple figure, reminding him all too well of the nubile body beneath, creamy skin as translucent as pearls.

  He felt the blood rush to his loins and ran one finger inside the neckline of his chain mail hauberk, which suddenly rubbed him as being rather warm, despite the chill in the air nipping him with the promise of an early winter.

  He'd desired women before and survived. He would never become besotted again as he'd done with Yseult. No, not even over this lass with the wistful sea-shaded eyes who so disturbed his senses.

  He did have to accord Melyssan a certain grudging respect. How many ladies would have accepted his dictums without dissolving into tears, to be wife and yet no wife, her fate uncertain for as long as he commanded? She bore it all so patiently, devoting herself to the many tasks required of the lady of Winterbourne, seeing to everyone's needs before her own.

  It was typical of her that she would stand out here in the cold to keep an anxious eye on that nithling brother of hers while Whitney joined in the practice according to Jaufre's orders. If the youth persisted in remaining at Winterbourne, clinging to his sister's skirts, then, by God, he'd be treated no differently from the other squires and learn to play a man's part.

  The earl kicked his toe against what remained of the brown grass made brittle by the coating of white frost. Melyssan had not spared him so much as a glance this morning. Her concern was all for her milksop brother as he mounted a roan destrier, preparing to take his turn riding at the wooden dummy the pages attached to the crosspiece at the other end of the courtyard.

  Jaufre could not remember any woman ever showing such anxiety on his behalf. Oh, Yseult had cried her pretty blue eyes out the day he told her he was riding to relieve the siege at Gaillard, but by then she and Godric must already have been arranging their tryst in Jaufre's own bed.