Winterbourne

  Lady Gunnor and Sir Hugh exchanged an uneasy glance. Sir Hugh cleared his throat. "Then you have not heard?"

  "Heard what?" Melyssan asked, her pulses beginning to beat unaccountably faster. Somehow she already knew what Sir Hugh was about to say.

  "When we left London, the entire court was buzzing with the news. My lady, your husband landed at Dover last week. He will arrive here any day now."

  CHAPTER TWO

  One month earlier, even as Melyssan imagined herself to be safe, Jaufre de Macy, earl of Winterbourne, stretched his aching limbs out on his bed at the Chateau Le Vaille and wondered how soon his grandfather would be well enough to cross the Channel over to England.

  Jaufre longed for Winterbourne almost as much as he longed to get some sleep, if it would please the lady Finette to allow him to do so. He rolled over onto his side, his broad dark-haired chest matted with sweat, every muscle in his body aching from the day's hard ride into Normandy. Finette only pressed her damp body closer to his back. Her long fingernails scored a path along his powerful thigh, inching toward the glistening shaft between his legs.

  He caught her wrist and shoved the hand back at her. "Twice is enough. I am weary and would sleep."

  "But, Jaufre, " she whined, nuzzling his ear.

  "Have done, Finette," he growled, and brushed her away as if she were an annoying gadfly. He pulled the satin sheet tightly around him, isolating his body from hers.

  Finette sighed, "Very well. Until tomorrow, then, my sweet." She bent over and pecked him on the cheek.

  Jaufre winced, waiting impatiently for her to leave him so that he could at last close his stinging eyelids and drift off into peaceful oblivion. When she snuggled happily down on the pillow next to his own, he propped himself into a sitting position and glared at her. "What the devil do you think you are doing?"

  The lady brushed a thick mass of chestnut hair out of her face before replying, "I am going to sleep. What else?"

  "Not here you are not." Jaufre caught her by the elbow and hauled her up beside him.

  Finette gave a throaty laugh and attempted to entwine her arms around his neck. "And why not? I thought that in the morning we could—"

  "No! I will have to attend upon my grandfather. He did not look well when he retired from your table this evening."

  "So? You are not a physician. And I have seen to the old man's comfort. I gave up my own chamber for his use. Of course I thought I would be sleeping elsewhere." Her wide red lips curved into a pretty pout. She tried to kiss him, but Jaufre pried himself free and pushed her away.

  "Out!"

  Finette gasped and drew herself to a kneeling position on the bed. Even in the dying firelight, Jaufre could see her large breasts swaying with her indignation. "You forget whom you are addressing. I am a noblewoman, not some peasant girl you have carted off for a romp in the fields."

  "I do not share my bed with any woman, noble or otherwise." He fingered the long white scar running from the base of his neck down to the region of his heart. A legacy from his beautiful departed Yseult and a permanent warning of the dangers of sleeping too soundly with a woman nearby.

  "Come, Finette," he said softly. "The mating is done and we are both satisfied. I bid you good night."

  "Remember whose castle this is, sirrah. When you are under my roof, you do not give me commands. I sleep where I choose." Finette tossed her head and flung herself back down onto the feather mattress. Jaufre regarded her for a moment and then raised one foot against her exposed rump and shoved. She tumbled out of bed in a welter of sheets, furs, and pillow.

  Legs and arms flailing, she struggled to her feet, plucking the straw rushes from her hair, her eyes spitting fury. "English pig! I will scream to bring the rafters down. You take advantage of a lonely widow, despoil my honor and rape me!"

  "If we are going to speak of rape, it was you who came in here and straddled yourself over top of me when all I wanted was a good night's rest." Jaufre got out of bed and draped the discarded sheet around his midsection. While Finette continued to rail at him, he went to a large chest lodged near the hearth and opened it.

  "I will demand satisfaction for this insult. Do not think that I will not."

  "Here is your satisfaction." Jaufre pulled a silver brooch from the chest and flung it at her. It landed near her feet, the brilliant gemstones winking through the darkness.

  Finette glanced down at it and paused a moment, licking her lips. "You dog. Do you take me for a whore to be paid thus?" She snatched up her chemise and gown and yanked the garments over her head. "It is you who will pay for this night—with your blood."

  "Ah, yes, I forgot. I have heard it said you prefer to be paid in coin when your honor is offended," Jaufre drawled. "I am afraid I have better use for my money. You will have to be content with the brooch."

  "Auggh!" Finette heaved her pillow at him, but he caught it easily and dropped it onto the bed. "Now I see why your wife tried to kill you. When she scarred that chest of yours, she scarred your heart as well."

  "You are mistaken, my lady," he said icily. "I have no heart."

  She sucked in a deep breath, and her fingers curled as if she were about to spring at him. Jaufre tensed for the attack, but she apparently thought better of it. Still muttering curses, she tossed her head and whirled to leave. The dignity of her exit was marred when she dipped down at the last moment to retrieve the brooch before she quit the chamber. As he had known she would.

  Jaufre's lips curved into a cynical smile. Was there any woman—or man, for that matter—who would not sell his honor a dozen times over for less than he had offered Finette? Reaching into the chest, he caught up a handful of silver coins and allowed the cold metal pieces to trickle between his fingers.

  He'd seen greed win out time and again. Even with Richard Coeur de Lion, with whom Jaufre had traveled as a boy on the Crusades. Had the mighty Lion's Heart died striking down the enemies of Christ? Nay, Jaufre's idol had been pierced through with an arrow while shrieking for his share of a treasure trove that had not even existed.

  And then there had been Yseult, his beautiful Yseult, and young Godric, her lover. Jaufre could think of the lad in no other way since that night he had caught Godric ensnared deep in Yseult's plots against his life.

  Slamming the lid down on the chest, Jaufre closed his mind to memories that only consumed him with their bitterness. He threw himself back on the bed and shut his eyes. But now that he was alone, sleep eluded him. Damn Finette with her overheated thighs and equally overheated temper. After all her nonsense, he was wide awake.

  Sitting up again, he wondered if he would find such a thing as a candle in Finette's miserly household. Groping along the wall, he found a half-melted piece of tallow stuck in one of the wall sconces. He lit the wick in the dying fire, crinkling his nose at the stinking smell of burning animal fat. Carefully propping the candle, he slipped on his woolen drawers and turned to the chest where his real treasure lay, some dozen beautifully illuminated manuscripts he had collected over the years: The Romance of Rollo, Bede's History of the English Nation, The Life of Alfred, The Roman da la Rose . .. Lovingly he fingered the pages as he lifted each volume in turn. He'd read them so often, he could recite many passages by heart.

  Crushed beneath Tacitus' Germanicus, he found an aged document he had half forgotten. Snorting with amusement, he unrolled the wrinkled parchment. This is the Charter of Henry I by means of which the barons sought their liberties. Pledges from Jaufre's great-grandfather's day, long ago forgotten. Jaufre recalled how impressed he'd been as a young man when he'd first discovered the charter hidden amongst the family records. Rights and liberties, such stirring words. Such stirring nonsense!

  Scornfully, he tossed the parchment back in the chest. The only other object remaining in the trunk was a small wooden jewel box containing a lock of his mother's hair, the crest from his father's helmet, and a child's silken veil.

  Jaufre removed the veil from its hiding place after looking
over his shoulder at the dark outline of the door, half dreading that someone might enter and catch him at such foolishness. He crumpled the small garment in his fist.

  "I should fling it into the fire," he muttered, and wondered why he had not done so long ago. He had never saved any other lady's favor from a tournament, not even Yseult's. What ridiculous sort of sentimentality caused him to cling to this relic of his past?

  But instead of consigning the fabric to the flames, he smoothed it, a half smile touching his lips. Ah, but the little girl had radiated such innocence as she had offered him the veil. As simple and naive as had been the knight who had accepted it. "God grant you victory, Sir Lancelot," she had said even after he had told her his name, her young face shining with dreams and ideals of chivalry that at that time he had shared with her.

  The only difference was, the lady Melyssan had kept her dreams. Jaufre knew that the minute he had seen her again. Even while arranging his marriage to her pert bratling of a sister, he was conscious of Melyssan's quiet presence lingering in the shadows. Although she had grown taller, her frame was slender, delicate as he remembered it, her glossy brown hair retaining those baby-fine strands of gold, her sea-green eyes that look of childlike trust.

  She was never obtrusive during the days he spent at Sir William's manor, yet he saw her everywhere, fetching the towels for his morning wash from the locked linen cupboard, sending a page with extra logs for the fire in his chamber, commanding the cook to prepare an extra brace of partridge because "Lord Jaufre has been hunting and will be famished."

  He was not long at Wydevale before he realized it was she who ran the manor house. While Beatrice flirted with the other knights and Dame Alice embroidered or prayed, Melyssan saw to the comfort of her father's guests. Unhampered by her halting step, she held gentle sway over the small household, performing such humble tasks as strewing fresh rushes upon the floor herself when necessary. He even came across her one afternoon mending her father's drawers while humming a little tune. Envying her air of cheerful serenity, her mind obviously at peace, he backed out of the room hoping to escape undetected. But she glanced up and smiled.

  "Good day, Lord Jaufre. I trust you slept well last night."

  "Yes. Yes, thank you,” he said, trying not to stare. For once her hair was not bound up in tight coils over her ears or hidden in the folds of a veil. The silken waves flowed over her shoulders in charming disarray. Tendrils damp from perspiration clung to the soft curve of cheeks flushed a rosy hue from the warmth of the afternoon.

  Suddenly she tugged at the neckline of her cambric gown as if it irritated the expanse of creamy flesh beneath. Moistening the outline of full, tempting lips with the tip of her tongue, she concentrated on rethreading her needle, and Jaufre was startled by a familiar stirring in his loins.

  When he continued to stare, she looked back at him with large candid eyes. "Is there anything I can do for you, my lord? Anything that you desire?"

  Jaufre felt the redness surging up his neck. "No, nothing at all."

  He stumbled from the room, out of the house to the yard, where he splashed large handfuls of cold water over his face. What was he thinking of? She was still as untouched as a child and destined for the nunnery besides. What sort of savage had he allowed himself to become?

  He avoided her after that, pressing Sir William to move forward the date of his marriage to Beatrice, despite the sullen looks he received from his bride-to-be. The girl was young, pretty and not too clever—everything he wanted in his second wife. A strong wench to bear his sons, a woman who would be pleased enough with a steady supply of new gowns and trinkets, a simple creature incapable of entangling him in a silken web of lies and deceit.

  At least she seemed so when her parents were present—demure, her mouth drawn down into a sulky little pout. He'd almost felt sorry for forcing her into a marriage she did not want. But that was before he overheard her at mealtime boasting to some whey-faced youth, "Even though I detest Lord Jaufre, I do pity the man. He adores me. Why, I have even had him kneel at my feet just to kiss the hem of my gown."

  Suppressing his anger, Jaufre shoved in another mouthful of the tasteless stew from his trencher and resolved then and there to show Beatrice that he would be the master if he decided to go through with this wedding. As soon as he found her alone, he would teach her that he meant to kiss more than her skirts.

  His opportunity came at dusk when he saw her standing in the garden. Gliding up behind her, he encircled her breasts and pressed kisses along her neck. Her reaction was not the frightened gasp he had expected. Instead she sighed, leaning against him, her warm, slender fingers caressing his own. He was beginning to forget he had begun this only to teach her a lesson when she turned her head to face him. And he found himself gazing down into eyes not an insipid blue, but a vivid green. Melyssan.

  In that startling second, he was honest enough to wonder if he had indeed made an error. Had he not sensed somehow before he ever touched her that she was not Beatrice? And yet he had allowed some demon to drive him on. He could not check his desire this time with the illusion that Melyssan was still a child. The evidence of his hands molding her soft curves told him otherwise. Inexorably he drew her nearer, wanting just one taste of those soft, trembling pink lips. If only she had closed her eyes, those haunting, sea-shaded eyes.

  But she didn't. She came to him unresisting, her eyes wide with wonder, as if she expected something beautiful, instead of the kiss he was about to bestow, a caress to ease his own selfish passion. He shoved her away, ashamed of himself for tampering with such innocence. Leaving her alone in the garden, looking hurt and bewildered, he consoled himself with the thought she was no more confused than he was himself.

  If he wanted Melyssan, it would be an easy matter to go to Sir William and ask for her hand instead. Melyssan had taken no vows thus far, and he knew that even promises to the church could be broken if the earl of Winterbourne demanded it. Yet the girl already had an aura of holiness about her, while he was on more intimate terms with the patrons of hell than those of heaven.

  So he remained silent, even after Beatrice had released him from any sense of obligation by running away to seek sanctuary at St. Clare. He rode off without speaking to Sir William about Melyssan, without even saying good-bye to her.

  Jaufre's remembrance dimmed as a draft caused the candle to flicker, reminding him he still knelt on the floor half-naked, clutching the child's veil. He folded the cloth and returned it to the chest. He would keep the thing after all, as a token of more innocent days, a memento of the one wise decision he had ever made in his life.

  For wisdom it was not to have wed Melyssan. Those eyes of hers would have tormented him with their sweet gravity, twin mirrors reflecting the dark corners of his soul he had kept so well hidden all these years. And he, with his black-hearted cynicism, before long he would have eroded all her shining ideals, destroyed her faith in God and man until she became no different from all the other shallow women he knew.

  He had just slammed down the lid on the chest when he heard the hammering on the bedchamber door. Had it been going on for some time, getting progressively louder, and he just become aware of it? Why did no one call his name—why this insistent thump, thump, thump? A wariness that had more than once saved his life stole over him and sent him scrambling for his sword. The summons came thundering again. It would not be long before the pounding fist discovered the door was unbarred.

  Jaufre's hand closed over the hilt of his sword, and he blew out the candle, every muscle tensed as he waited. Finette's temper may have driven her to more extreme measures than he thought. If she went whining about being insulted to her cleric, a drunkard clothing himself in priest's robes, she might have persuaded him to come down here. The fat Father Hubert fancied himself something of a swordsman.

  The knock came one final time, weaker than before. And then, at last, a muffled call, “Jaufre, it's Tristan. Open, for God's sake."

  Jaufre relaxed, his ten
sion turning into irritation as he recognized the voice of Sir Tristan Mallory, a knight bachelor of his grandfather's household. Wrenching open the door, Jaufre shaded his eyes against the light from the flaming torch Tristan carried.

  "What the devil! Why did you not identify yourself at once, man, instead of raising enough noise to make me think the entire castle guard was out there?"

  "Sorry," Tristan whispered. He stepped into the room without saying anything more.

  "What’s amiss?" Jaufre's eyes flicked over the younger man, and he noted that his boyhood friend's jaw was tightly clenched. It suddenly occurred to him that Tristan had not immediately called out because he was incapable of doing so. The knight swallowed hard, and moisture welled in his eyes.

  "What is it?" Jaufre asked more quietly.

  "I'm sorry," Tristan choked out. "Jaufre, it's the comte. You have to go to him. I summoned a physician from the town, but he says it is too late." He reached out to place his hand on Jaufre’s shoulder, but the earl drew back instinctively, rejecting the gesture as he rejected the compassion he saw etched on Tristan's face.

  "My grandfather? You've brought in some blasted leech to disturb his rest? I swear by all the saints---"

  "Jaufre , he's dying."

  "No, you Iie!” With great effort, Jaufre lowered his voice. "That is, you are mistaken. Damn that fool physician."

  Tristan tried to speak again, but Jaufre gestured him to silence as he tore around the room, shoving aside the bedclothes, until he found his woolen shirt and yanked it on. As he pulled the fur-lined surcoat over his tunic, he kept his back to Tristan, not wanting to see the sorrowful conviction in his friend's eyes. He remembered his grandfather's face as he had risen from the table at supper, worn with exhaustion, the lines of age standing out in sharp relief.

  But Jaufre had seen him look that way a dozen times or more within the past year. It meant nothing. Tristan had been misled. Pushing past the knight, he strode from the room, not waiting for Tristan to keep pace with him. He did not know what ailed Raoul de Macy, but when he reached his grandfather's side, together they would fight as they had always done, cheating death one more time.