She ran a finger over its dust-furred surface. A pot of dry, crumbled rouge lay beside a silver comb and an empty scent bottle, reminding Holly with stark clarity that another woman had once occupied this opulent prison. A woman accused of infidelity by her husband, then cut off from his company with ruthless finality, leaving her only these mocking mementos of his former affections.
She lifted the lid of a squat silver box, half expecting to find a severed finger or some other such horror. Her breath caught as the grudging moonlight sparkled over a king’s ransom of gold and gems. She buried her fingers in the tangled treasure, sifting through an emerald-studded fillet, a diamond brooch, a ruby-encrusted pendant on a gold chain thicker than her smallest finger. Why in God’s name hadn’t Austyn sold them to sate Edward’s greedy tax collectors? she wondered. Surely it wasn’t out of respect for his poor dead grandmother.
Dropping the jewels as if they were a nest of snakes, she went to the window and tore open the shutters. No stingy arrow loop here, but a generous rectangular window framed by stone window seats. ’Twould have to be a large window, she thought bitterly, large enough for a woman to hurl herself out of.
Wind battered Holly, scorching the barren dryness of her eyes. The dizzying height offered her a panoramic view of the surrounding countryside bathed in a silvery quilt of moonlight, but little more than a slice of the solitary courtyard below. She gazed down at the cobblestones, wondering if any trace of blood remained to stain their pitted surface.
A sigh grazed her nape, faint yet audible enough to make the fine fleece there stand erect. She closed her eyes, fearful the ghostly echo would awaken her from her benumbed state. The sigh escalated into a bereft moan that mirrored her suppressed grief so exactly she feared the sound had come from her own throat.
The shutters began to flap wildly on their hinges. Holly backed away from the window, stricken by terror. The moan rose to a piercing wail, a keening protestation of wronged innocence. Her heel caught the edge of the hooded hearth and she fell hard on her backside. She clapped her hands over her ears, but the lamentation swelled until it vibrated the very marrow of her bones to aching life.
Tearing her hands away from her ears, she screamed, “Stop it, damn you! Stop it, I say!”
The shutters slammed shut. The howling ceased as abruptly as it had began, leaving her in silence. Quaking like a dormouse, she searched the shadows, fearing an even more dire visitation.
The shutters swung open with a creak. A dank gust of breath stirred her hair. She swiveled to stare into the fireplace, finding nothing but cold ashes and the tiny skeleton of some unfortunate rodent.
A shrill whistle assailed her ears, escalating to a tormented shriek as a musty draft poured from the gaping jaws of the fireplace.
“The wind,” Holly whispered in dull astonishment. “ ’Tis only the wind whistling down the chimney flue.”
An abashed giggle escaped her, then another. She cupped a hand over her mouth, but the torrent of mirth refused to subside. Soon she was laughing aloud, laughing until her sides ached and tears streamed down her cheeks.
She was utterly alone now. Without Austyn. Without even the ghost of his grandmother to share her exile. Holly doubled over, gasping for breath, never even realizing when her laughter deepened into broken sobs.
Carey found Austyn standing atop the battlements on a completed section of curtain wall, gazing over the molten pewter of the river by moonlight. The balmy wind whipped the dark veil of his hair from his face, revealing features as soulless and foreign as an infidel’s. He bore little resemblance to the man Carey had called friend through sunny days and stormy battles and none at all to the bright-eyed boy with the ready smile and rollicking laugh he remembered from childhood.
“The priest is secured,” Carey said softly, folding himself into a sitting position between two merlons. “but I cannot coax her nurse to stop weeping. I fear the woman’s tears will flood the hall before she’s done.”
“Let them,” Austyn replied, his face betraying not even a flicker of pity. “My father?”
“Sleeping at last. He was quite excited. It took several spoonfuls of mead to calm him.”
They were both silent for several moments before Carey dared to ask, “Did she tell you why?”
Austyn gave a harsh bark of laughter. “Shouldn’t the question be ‘Did I bother to ask?’ ”
Carey already knew the answer to that. “What will you do with her?”
“Why? Do you want her?” At first, Carey feared his friend did not speak in jest, then a humorless smile quirked Austyn’s lips. “What are my choices? Had he not gone to such pains to be rid of her, I could send her back to her father. Given her talent for mummery, I could sell her to a band of passing troubadours. Or I could just keep her locked in the north tower until her hair grays and her pearly little teeth fall out one by one.”
“And if she chooses to escape captivity as your grandmother did?”
Austyn shrugged. “Then I shall once again be without a wife. ’Twould be almost a pity though.” His voice softened to a musing purr, his eyes taking on a speculative gleam Carey did not recognize. “Do you know that she promised me anything if I would not lock her away? Pleaded quite prettily for her freedom, she did. Fires the imagination, does it not? The temptation of having a beauty like that on her knees before you, eager to do your bidding …”
“Stop it!” Carey jumped to his feet, no longer able to bear Austyn’s taunting. “She’s still your wife, man, not some Londontown whore. Have you no shame?”
Austyn’s icy indifference shattered with a roar. “Aye, I have shame! I burn with it. Shame for being such a fool! Shame for being so blinded by her charms that I couldn’t see through her ridiculous disguise! Shame that I was ready to offer the deceitful little creature my love.” Austyn turned away, gripping a stone merlon until his knuckles whitened.
Carey reached for his friend’s shoulder, then let his hand fall back to his side, sensing his comfort would be neither welcomed nor accepted. “You were no more fool than the rest of us,” he said.
When Carey’s soft footfalls had faded, Austyn threw back his head, savoring the roar of the wind in his ears. He had hoped its savage clamor might drown out the haunting echoes of Holly’s pleas, her pathetic screams as she begged him not to leave her, to stay by her side even if he would extract a terrible price for doing so. He could still feel the weight of her fragile arms clinging to his neck, the plush softness of her breasts pressed to his chest.
He gritted his teeth against the primal urge to howl with loss. He wanted to go to her. To batter down the door that stood between them with his bare fists. To draw her beneath him and rut her like a ravening beast, as if to prove to them both that that was all he ever would be. All any Gavenmore man could be.
He had not shared his darkest shame with Carey—that he had locked away his wife not to punish her, but to protect her from himself.
He searched the indigo sky, finding in its star-tossed sweep no warmth, but only a frigid beauty that chilled him to the marrow.
“You heartless bitch,” he whispered hoarsely, unable to say if he was cursing Rhiannon or his wife.
At a muffled thump outside the door, Holly awoke from a stupor nearer to death than slumber. She did not remember crawling to the bed or curling up on the tattered ermine coverlet. She unfurled her stiff limbs, sneezing as her movements stirred up a cloud of dust.
The sound came again, the unmistakable thud of someone fumbling with the bolt. Holly sat straight up. Some cynical demon had already convinced her that Austyn would pack up his household and ride away without a backward glance, leaving her to starve. But as the door swung open, her heart lurched with a hope she despised, but could not help.
Her pulse ceased its expectant thundering when a crown of flaxen braids appeared, but her disappointment was quickly squelched by joy at the sight of Winifred’s familiar face. She jumped down from the bed and ran over to her.
“Oh, Winni
e, you cannot know how glad I am to see you. I knew you wouldn’t desert me.”
Winnie’s plump cheeks had been robbed of their ruddy glow. Puffs of flesh hid her eyes as she rested the tray she carried on a table and turned back toward the door.
Holly could not believe she was going to go. Without a glance. Without a word.
She trailed behind the mute woman, her desperation swelling. “Please, Winnie. Has Austyn forbade you to speak to me? Are you afraid he’ll punish you if you do? If you could just convince him to come here. To grant me a few meager moments of his time so that I might explain …” Winnie reached for the door handle. Holly clutched her arm, starved for the warmth of a human touch. “If Austyn refuses to come, then send Carey. Austyn will listen to Carey. I know he will!”
“Have you lost your wits, girl?” Winifred hissed, jerking her arm from Holly’s grip. Holly recoiled from the wounded virulence in her eyes. “Do you seek to have my son cast into the dungeon with that rash young priest of yours?”
Holly felt a flare of shame that she hadn’t even paused to consider Nathanael’s plight. For all she knew, Austyn might have returned to the courtyard and whacked off his inflated head.
“Of course not,” she replied. “I would never wish Carey harm. He has been naught but a friend to me.”
“Aye, and I see how you repay him. How you’ve repaid us all.”
Kind-hearted Winifred’s derision was even harder to bear than Austyn’s. Holly’s lower lip began to quiver; her eyes welled with tears.
As Winifred stared at Holly’s rumpled chemise, her matted curls, her grubby, tear-streaked cheeks, the woman’s broad face slowly crumpled in horror. “Oh, God,” she whispered, “you’re so beautiful.” Staggering over to a stool, she sank down and buried her face in her hands.
Holly crept near to her, longing to pat her shuddering shoulder, but fearful of being rejected. She dropped to one knee at the woman’s feet. “Please don’t cry, Winnie. I never meant to make you cry.”
“Don’t you know what a terrible thing it is you’ve done?” Winifred lifted her head; her Welsh accent was thickened by grief. “We thought you were different. That you might be the one to finally break the curse.” At last Holly understood their open-armed welcome of Austyn’s new bride, their unabashed delight in her ugliness. “And now ’tis happening all over again. The lies. The jealousy. The accusations. Half of them calling you a shape-shifting witch and begging the master to burn you at the stake. The other half blaming him for locking you away.”
“What do you think? Do you think I’m a witch? A monster?” Holly could not have said why Winnie’s reply was so vital to her.
Winifred studied her from beneath her damp lashes, then shook her head. “I think you’re a foolish girl who’s played a nasty trick on a man as much son to me as my own. Don’t ask me to help you. For I won’t.”
Holly straightened as Winifred brushed past her. “I still love him,” she said defiantly before the door could close.
“Then may God have pity on your soul,” Winifred murmured before shutting the door and dropping the bolt into place.
Winifred came twice a day after that, bearing hearty meals of stew and fresh baked bread, ewers of steaming water for bathing, and crisp linen sheets, but never again did Holly shed a tear or utter a single plea for help. She sent most of the trays back untouched and left the clean sheets piled on the chest, preferring to curl up each night on top of the moth-eaten coverlet.
When Winifred stiffly told her, “The master wants to know if you require anything else for your comfort—extra blankets or perhaps a fire to warm you at night,” Holly burst into peals of merry laughter, their shrill edge sending the woman fleeing from the tower.
For Holly knew that no measure of blankets could warm her. No fire could banish the chill from her soul. She might have been deprived of the company of Austyn’s grandmother, but she still felt a keen kinship with the woman. She finally understood that ’twas not being falsely accused that had driven her to that window or the tedium of her own company. ’Twas the anguish of being torn from the arms of the man she loved. Knowing she would never again see his crooked smile or watch the way his eyes warmed when they beheld her.
But there the similarities ended. For Austyn’s grandmother had been innocent of wrongdoing and Holly knew herself to be guilty, guilty of a cruel deception. If Austyn left her there for a month or a century, she would be no less deserving of her punishment.
She roamed the tower in her frayed chemise as the minutes melted into hours, the hours into days. The wind wailed its melancholy refrain and she found herself standing more often than not at the tower window, gazing down at the courtyard below with an emotion akin to yearning.
Nearly a fortnight had passed when she began to envision her body there, pale and broken on the cobblestones, and to wonder what Austyn’s reaction would be when he discovered it. Would he cradle her across his lap and repent his harshness as his father had done, or would he be relieved to be rid of her so tidily, sparing him the embarrassment of seeking an annulment from the king?
Holly stepped up on the window seat, then onto the narrow sill, bracing her palms against the cut stones that framed the opening. The warm wind pummeled her, molding the thin garment to her shivering body, bearing on its wings the ripe scents of summer and life and freedom. She lifted her eyes from the cobblestones and gazed across the Welsh countryside, drinking in its rugged beauty. A beauty so wild and sweet it hurt her eyes to look upon it, yet so compelling she could not bear to look away and forsake all of its unspoken promises for the morrow.
Holly’s knees collapsed. She crawled back on the window seat, clamping a hand over her mouth, ill with the thought of what she might have done had the bullying wind not snapped her out of her haze of despair. Feeling as if she’d just awakened from an enchanted sleep, she gazed around the tower, seeing it with crystalline clarity for the first time. Her father might have pronounced her selfish and wayward, but he would not have wished such a heartless penance upon her. Despite what her husband might have chosen to believe, she was guilty of idiocy, not adultery.
The wind whined down the chimney flue, no longer a comfort but an irritant Holly sprang off the window seat, snatched the wad of pristine sheets from the chest and stuffed them up the flue. Her stomach growled its approval. Marching over to the table, she grabbed an untouched loaf of bread, then sank down cross-legged on the floor. As she tore off fat hunks of bread and tossed them in her mouth, she felt a blazing surge of something in her belly. Something even more dangerous and wonderful than hunger.
Anger.
When Winifred came to deliver supper and fresh water for bathing to the tower that night, Holly informed her that she required only two things: pen and paper. Although fearing the girl would scribble some maudlin, tear-smeared missive Sir Austyn would refuse to read, Winnie dutifully delivered both items the following morning.
When she returned at twilight, Holly presented her with a ten-page list of articles she required from the master for her comfort. The words master and comfort were underlined with a scathing flourish.
Winnie and two wide-eyed maidservants trundled in the next morning, staggering beneath their assorted burdens of tub, towels, sheets, embroidery frame, thread, fragrant oils, fresh apples, harp, beeswax tapers, broom, bedclothes, books, and various other treasures that would make Holly’s captivity tolerable, if not pleasant.
The girls continued to gape at her, even as Winifred shooed them out and shut the door in their faces. Winnie awkwardly cleared her throat. “The master wishes to know if you require any lemons to rub on your elbows, or perhaps a Nubian slave to comb your hair five hundred strokes before bedtime.”
Holly snapped a crisp bite from a fat red apple. “Tell him that given the current length of my hair, two hundred and fifty strokes should be sufficient.”
When Winifred had gone, Holly surveyed her plunder with a calculating eye. She had chosen few items that could not be used as
a weapon against her husband. She’d already pillaged the chest at the foot of the bed for her armor—brocaded cottes woven of samite and cloth of gold, twin cloaks lined with the softest sable, sendal chemises so sheer they appeared more suited to a harem than a noblewoman’s bedchamber. Most were in need of only minor repairs and a healthy airing.
Holly carried cloaks, thread, and needle to the window seat and curled up in the sunshine. A devilish smile played around her lips. If Austyn thought he was going to just lock her away and forget her existence, he had sorely underestimated his opponent. ’Twas here while she prepared for battle that she would wield her most lethal weapon of all.
Tipping back her head, Holly began to sing.
CHAPTER 21
Holly sang.
She sang while she swiped the dust from the furniture and swept the timber floor. She sang while she replaced the moth-eaten coverlet with the wedded cloaks, creating an inviting nest of plush sable. She sang while Winifred and the maidservants carried in buckets of steaming water for her bath. She sang while she soaked her weary muscles in the tub and afterward, while she rubbed oil of myrrh into her neglected skin, restoring its pearly glow. She sang while she combed her flourishing curls and each night when she lay down upon her pillow, she sang herself softly to sleep.
She sang cheery May songs and wistful ballads. She sang stirring Crusade anthems and complex rounds, alternating the parts of the different singers. She sang children’s rhymes and bawdy ditties. She sang liturgical chants, spinning songs, lays, and laments. And one evening at sunset, she stood at the window of the tower and warbled a hymn so full-throated and magnificent that even Nathanael in his dungeon cell lifted his eyes heavenward, seeking a choir of celestial angels.
Austyn suffered no such delusions. ’Twas no heavenly visitation, this scourge of melody, but a demonic infestation. Each note pricked his tortured flesh like a tine of Lucifer’s pitchfork. There was nowhere he could flee to escape the compelling sorcery of Holly’s voice. He could ride to the ends of the earth and still it would pursue him.