What need had he of wine to ease her shyness when he possessed the skill to intoxicate her with pleasure, to coax her to shed her inhibitions with nothing more than a nimble stroke of his fingertips?
And were not tapers but a pale reflection of the splendor of God’s sun? Did he dare affront the Lord himself by implying ’twould be preferable to bed his bride in the wan glow of beeswax than partake of her innocence beneath the benevolent rays of the sun?
Austyn made an abrupt about-face, marching back toward the river.
He was nearly to the top of the hill when the first haunting notes of the melody came wafting to his ears on a jasmine-scented breeze. His steps faltered as the warm summer day went as cold and black as the deepest winter night.
CHAPTER 19
Holly had just tossed the last flower in her basket when a dark figure came sliding over the hill. She shaded her eyes against the sun, fearing Nathanael had hunted her down to plague her further with his proclamations of impending doom. A tremulous smile softened her lips as she recognized her husband’s imposing shoulders and mane of dark hair. It seemed he was as eager to begin their future as she was.
Her smile died as she caught a glimpse of his burning eyes, the only hint of life in a face as still as death. She took an involuntary step backward. Austyn kept coming, the lumbering grace that had once seemed so endearing now a terrible and relentless thing. She backed away from him, driven by some primitive instinct for survival. She stumbled, sliding the last few feet down the muddy bank into the shallows fringing the river.
The current sucked greedily at her skirts, yet she continued to retreat until the chill water swirled around her ankles, her calves, her trembling knees. Her cowardice did not deter him. He plunged in after her, closing the distance between them in two splashing strides. Tangling his fist in her scant hair, he jerked her head back, baring her face to his merciless scrutiny much as he had that long ago night in the garden.
Fear seized her as he searched her features. His eyes seared her tender skin, scorching away the layers of her deceit with the flame of truth. Open fury would have been preferable to his icy composure. His silence terrified her more than any bellow of rage.
“Please,” she whispered, tears welling in her eyes.
Unmoved by her entreaty, he captured her jaw and forced apart her lips. Lips he had kissed only moments before with aching gentleness. His thumb penetrated her mouth, scrubbing at her chattering teeth with rough efficiency.
When he had examined the results, he freed her hair to study his other hand, finally wiping the dull film of ash coating his palm on his surcoat as if it were the vilest filth.
Holly hugged herself, trying to still the shudders that wracked her body. “Please, Austyn, I never meant to deceive you. I was going to tell you. I swear I was. If you’ll just let me explain—”
Her fractured litany was cut short as he seized her in his powerful hands and shoved her head beneath the river’s surface. Dank water rushed into her mouth and nose, strangling her hopes. Believing he intended to drown her, Holly’s soul died a tiny death, but her body refused to give up the fight. She was still clawing and pummeling when he jerked her from the water.
Even as her desperate lungs struggled for air, she saw reflected in the smoldering chasm of his eyes a cap of sodden curls as black and glossy as the wing of a raven.
By the time he drew the misericorde from the chain at his waist, Holly had grown wise enough to know he had no intention of killing her. Killing her would have been quick and merciful and not a drop of mercy lingered in this man’s soul. She choked back her pleas, knowing they would be to no avail, but not even her tattered pride could staunch the tears flowing in a river of regret down her cheeks.
He shredded the padded fabric of her skirts, cutting them adrift and leaving her shivering in her thin chemise. The dagger made even quicker work of her bodice, cutting its laces to expose the crude linen of her bindings. Holly stood as rigidly as a statue while the cold blade skated over the fluttering pulse in the hollow of her throat in a mocking caress. Then with a single downward slash, Austyn—her kind, loving, patient husband—severed her bindings, baring her naked breasts to the uncompromising sunlight and the dawning hell in his gaze.
Holly’s pride crumbled. With a sob of anguish, she sought to cover herself, but Austyn caught her wrists and forced her arms apart, his eyes drinking their fill of her as if it were their sacred right. Trembling with humiliation, she searched the unearthly beauty of his face for a crumb of compassion that might have escaped the ravening beast feasting on his humanity.
When her search yielded nothing, she bit back her sobs to try again. “Austyn, you must grant me the boon of an audience. ’Twas never my intention to anger you. Or hurt you. I sought only to—”
“Cease your babbling, woman!” he roared.
Austyn felt the tremor that wracked Holly’s body at his rebuke, but the part of him that might have felt shame for his bullying had been seared to a crisp by her betrayal. She was no better than his mother, he thought bitterly, his grandmother, all the beautiful women through the ages who had brought ruin to his family and his name.
He gazed down at the pale, exquisite globes of her breasts, struggling to fathom that she was the same creature he had once pitied for her ugliness. Her generous breasts were crowned with circles of the softest peach and tipped with ripe nipples that pebbled beneath the brutal caress of his eyes. Not in desire, he knew instinctively, but in fear.
Her chemise clung to every swell and hollow of her slender body, rendered almost sheer by the treacherous kiss of the water. He lowered his gaze, allowing it to linger with deliberate insolence on the teasing hint of shadow at the juncture of her thighs. She moaned, a soft, broken sound that enticed rather than convicted him.
Austyn tightened his grip on her wrists as he battled a mingled lust and fury so desperate it made a mockery of every constraint he’d exerted over his temper since boyhood. He wanted to drag her to the riverbank, force her to her knees in the weeds, and do things to her that a man would do to no decent woman. Things he wouldn’t even do to a whore.
But how long would it be before fury overcame his lust? How long before he fastened his hands around her fragile throat and began to crush the life from …?
Austyn started as a single tear splashed the back of his hand. He lifted his gaze to Holly’s pleading eyes. Violet eyes that would soon be fringed by lush sable lashes. His wife’s eyes.
When Austyn grabbed her arm and began to drag her toward the castle, Holly had no choice but to stumble along behind him, desperately clutching the tatters of her bodice over her naked breasts. Mortification scorched her cheeks as they passed a pair of shepherd lads who could only gape at the curious sight of their master hauling a scantily garbed stranger over a break in the curtain wall.
As they approached his mother’s grave, Austyn’s steps never faltered. He dragged her right across its rocky surface, crushing the tender anemones beneath his boots.
His relentless strides carried them past other inhabitants of Caer Gavenmore, their puzzled faces nothing more than a blur to Holly until the first astounded cry went up.
“Good Lord, ’tis Lady Holly!”
Then with the grim clarity of a nightmare, it all came into focus. Their appalled cries as they realized the exquisitely beautiful wraith stumbling along behind Austyn was indeed their mistress, their apprehensive glances at his resolute face, the chill burn of their stares on her face, her exposed body.
A withered old man shouted, “What is this dark enchantment? Mayhap she is a witch!”
They began to recoil from her after that, some in fear of her, others in fear of Austyn’s wrath. Worse than their unspoken condemnation was the bewildered hurt Holly glimpsed on Winifred’s round face. She ducked her head for the first time, shamed by her own deceit.
The hounds capered after them, barking at their heels. Emrys and Carey came running from the list to seek the source of the commotion, sw
ords in hand. Carey slid to a halt, his jaw dropping in naked shock. His father followed suit, his own ruddy face darkening with dread.
As their grim procession neared the chapel, a man slipped from its doors to plant himself firmly in their path. Holly began to mumble a spasmodic litany of curses and prayer. At first she feared Austyn would just run right over Nathanael, forcing her to trample him, too, but her husband stopped several paces away, drawing her in front of him like a shield. He slipped one arm around her waist, the mock tenderness of his embrace an affront she could hardly bear.
“Stand aside, priest,” Austyn commanded, “unless you care to hear your own last rites.”
Nathanael’s eyes were dark and hollow, but his voice rang with a conviction Holly had never heard in any of his Candlemas masses or Ascension prayers. “I’ll not stand aside and allow you to mistreat this lady.”
“She’s no lady. She’s my wife. Or have you forgotten that you were the one who united us in unholy wedlock?”
“ ’Tis not I but you, sir, who seem to have forgotten your vows.” Nathanael stood his ground, staunch as always in his pious arrogance.
“You test my patience, Brother.” Austyn snarled, his arm tightening around Holly’s waist until it nearly cut off her air. “Are you truly concerned with my wife’s well-being or are you just protecting your lover?”
Holly’s was not the only gasp to go up at such blasphemy. Could Austyn truly believe such a terrible thing of her? And why not? she wondered wildly. She’d given him little enough proof of her fidelity.
Nathanael’s gaze dropped from Austyn’s face to her own. Holly’s mumbles escalated to a frantic murmur of, “Oh, God, Nathanael, don’t do it. Not now. Oh, please, not now,” as she saw humility in his eyes for the first time, coupled with the dangerous knowledge of what she had always known, but denied, even to herself. The crowd held its breath in anticipation of his reply.
“She is not my lover,” he said softly.
Holly breathed a sigh of relief.
“But I do love her!”
Groaning with despair, Holly collapsed over Austyn’s arm.
“ ’Tis God’s truth!” Nathanael shouted. “I love her! She’s bright and beautiful and talented and charming and you, Sir Austyn of Gavenmore, are not fit to lick the soles of her slippers!”
Holly slowly straightened, bracing herself for Austyn’s reaction. When it finally came, it was far worse than anything her feeble imagination could have conjured. He threw back his head and laughed. ’Twas a black sound that rolled through the courtyard in mirthless waves even as he set Holly firmly behind him and pried Carey’s sword from his hand.
Nathanael’s courage faltered as Austyn stalked toward him, broadsword in hand. The bell of his voice tolled with a smidgen less zeal. “I’m not afraid of you, so you needn’t think I am.” He took two steps backward to match each of Austyn’s, but Austyn just kept coming. He fumbled for an appropriate scripture. “ ‘F-f-fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul, but rather fear him which is able to destroy soul and body in hell.’ ”
Holly winced as he stumbled over his own robes and sat down abruptly on the cobblestones. Austyn’s shadow fell over him like a messenger of death. Holly knew what she had to do. Knew even as she flung herself forward that it was both the worst thing she could do and the only thing she could do. She had no choice but to reward Nathanael’s foolish gallantry by striving to save both men’s souls.
Austyn was already drawing back the sword when she fell across Nathanael’s body, still clutching her bodice, but spreading her free arm in a protective gesture as old as Eve. Nathanael poked at her, but she refused to budge.
She glared up at her husband, allowing him to witness the birth of the first spark of defiance in her eyes. “Need I remind you that I saved your life once, sir? I ask in return the life of this humble priest.”
For a chilling moment as the gleaming blade hung poised above them, she thought he would drive it home through her breast, bidding them both a gleeful fare thee well.
Then his lips quirked in a crooked grin more sneer than smile. “Humble indeed. How touching! Would that I could ever hope to inspire such devotion in a woman’s heart!”
He reached down, grabbed her wrist, and hurled her aside with one hand. She stumbled to her knees as his fist struck Nathanael’s jaw with a resounding crack. The priest melted into a limp puddle on the cobblestones.
Through a haze of shock and relief, Holly became aware that Carey knelt beside her, his deft hands gently assessing her for injury. She might have told him that only her heart was bruised had Austyn’s voice not cracked like a whip in their ears.
“Move away from her.”
Her husband stood over them, every trace of grim humor stripped from his face. The crowd was deathly silent, the tension so hot and thick even a broadsword could not slice it.
“She fell,” Carey said. “I was simply seeking to—”
“Take your hands away from her.”
Carey gazed up at him disbelievingly.
“Now,” Austyn said, touching the tip of Carey’s own sword to his friend’s throat. Holly’s agony multiplied a thousand fold to be the cause of such.
His mouth taut with resentment, Carey rose to his feet, surrendering her to her husband’s mercy.
When Austyn withdrew his gaze from her in that moment, Holly somehow sensed that he had done so for the last time. ’Twas far worse than when he had recoiled from her in the garden at Tewksbury or avoided glancing at her homely visage during the tournament. Worse even than enduring his icy loathing at her betrayal. This was a dissolution of every bond, both holy and earthly, a separation more absolute than death. Grief pierced her heart, loosing a fresh flow of tears.
“Whore! Jezebel!” The triumphant cry rose from the sky, borne on the wings of insanity. “May God punish the harlot who dares to tempt the righteous man!” Rhys of Gavenmore stood on the parapet with arms outstretched, calling the wrath of God down upon her poor, damp, rumpled head.
Holly had had enough. This time when Austyn reached for her, she resisted. His grip was no longer tinged with violence, but was as implacable as an iron manacle clamped around her wrist. Ignoring her spirited struggles, he marched her into the castle, past a sobbing Elspeth, and up the first set of winding stairs to a landing drenched in sunshine.
When Holly saw where he meant to take her, she began to fight in earnest, hammering at his broad back with her fists, clawing at the sun-bronzed skin of his arms. He remained as impervious to her blows as a stone golem. Her curses rose to frantic screams as panic seized her, so dark and consuming it verged on madness. By the time they’d reached the ancient oak door, she was begging, despising herself, but begging all the same, promising anything if he would not lock her away in that terrible place.
He shoved open the door and dragged her inside. Shadows masked his expression. Where before she had struggled to escape him, now she clung to him, pleading with him not to go, not to leave her alone. Tearing her arms from his neck, he thrust her away from him.
Holly stumbled and fell, but was already lurching back to the door when it slammed in her face. A bolt fell into place with the finality of a death knell. Bracing herself with splayed hands, Holly slid down the door, no longer able to summon the will to hammer and scream and plead. All she could do was hug her knees to her chest and pray that if she curled herself into a small enough ball, she would disappear altogether.
PART II
And, like another Helen,
fir’d another Troy …
Could swell the soul to rage,
or kindle soft desire.
JOHN DRYDEN
None but the brave deserves the fair.
JOHN DRYDEN
CHAPTER 20
’Twas a dark eternity before Holly emerged from that shadowy netherworld between madness and stupor. She knew a vague surprise to find herself still alive. ’Twas inconceivable to her that her battered heart could go
on beating as if nothing had happened. As if Austyn still loved her.
She uncurled her stiff limbs. Dried tearstains had hardened the tender skin of her face. She did not mind, preferring its expressionless mask to any vain twitch of sorrow or hope. She found the numbness a blissful relief, especially when she realized it had crept all the way to her bones.
She rose to face the chamber. She would not have been surprised had Austyn abandoned her to total darkness, but freshets of moonlight streamed through the cracks in the wooden shutters hanging askew from their hinges.
The circular tower defied her expectations. She found no horde of rats nibbling on a fresh carcass. No bleached bones rising to dance a clattering jig. Not even a chorus of Gavenmore brides wailing their mockery at her for failing to heed their warnings. She had anticipated the spartan horrors of a dungeon, but instead found herself in the most luxuriously appointed chamber in the entire castle.
Decades of neglect had left their stain of decay, yet the room still possessed the faded elegance of an elderly woman who clung to her velvets and silks to maintain her fragile illusion of beauty. The thick fall of cobwebs only added to its unearthly air, billowing from the rafters of the vaulted ceiling like veils of ermine.
Holly drifted farther into the chamber, her footsteps muffled by the heavy tapestries surrounding the walls. A massive four-poster bed crowned a gilded pedestal in the center of the room. Not even the moth-eaten condition of its hangings could disguise their brocaded splendor. Tattered velvet ribbons hung from each of the thick, carved bedposts. Holly reached to caress one absently, wondering at its purpose. A magnificent chest resting on four carved claws perched at the foot of the bed.