A Kiss in the Night (12 page)

Staring still, much too long, Paxton approached her slowly, cautiously still, as if at any minute he would discover the mistake here.

Linness.
Thy brother's wife.

His large, warm hand reached for and took her cold one. He brought it to his lips. She felt the press of her hand to his lips and she closed her eyes briefly, to savor the touch and stop from throwing herself into his arms. He bowed slightly with the word "Milady..."

Clair came to stand by Linness in a silent offering of support. The two women clasped hands tightly. Yet it was Jean Luc who saved her. Or so she thought at first. He rushed to his mother and threw his arms around her waist as he looked up at her, giddy with excitement. "Mother, Uncle Paxton let me ride his warhorse!"

She managed, "Did he?'

"Aye!" The boy laughed as he turned back to Paxton. "Did you not, Uncle? He said he will give me lessons, too, that I am strong enough now!"

Morgan laughed and began telling Jean Luc that his uncle was the greatest horseman in the world, that Paxton knew as much about horses as God himself, maybe more. War, horses, and grapes, he was saying, ridiculously listing Paxton's known accomplishments. Neither Paxton or Linness heard any of Morgan's high praise, which now sounded as if he never remembered the vicious fight or had uttered those fateful words. They stared still, lost in the clash of their warring emotions.

She knew the exact moment he understood everything. Paxton's dark eyes suddenly shifted to Jean Luc. They widened perceptibly before they shot back to her with the question. She panicked and, trying to hide it, her gaze lowered.

"Paxton," Morgan was asking, "is not my boy hale and hearty son? Everything a man could want in a boy?" Jean Luc smiled up at his father's praise, and Morgan ruffled his curly hair with affection. "Why, the boy's as smart as you ever were!"

The dark eyes darkened more as he stared at her. "Is he now?"

"Aye, he can already read French and is starting Latin. He knows all his sums!' Morgan beamed, full to bursting with paternal pride. Linness had always been amazed and somewhat startled by how deeply Morgan loved Jean Luc. "Nor is there a boy in all of Gaillard that can shoot as straight as Jean Luc. Where is your bow, Jean Luc? 'Tis a foot taller than himself and yet he has no trouble drawing it, do you now?" Jean Luc shook his head. "Ah, that's my boy...”

Paxton's gaze shot to Morgan's laughing face. For one wild moment he thought this whole thing was his brother's idea of a sick jest, an unspeakably cruel ploy to enact the most punishing revenge.

Yet Morgan's expression was as innocent and ignorant as a pig led to slaughter.

The dark eyes came back to Linness.

"Jean Luc," Paxton said, forcing a smile. "How old are you? Seven? Eight?"

Jean Luc could hardly believe his uncle thought he was so old and he laughed, "I am but five."

"Five. I'll wager you'll be six soon?"

"This month," he announced, amazed by how well his uncle guessed things. "The fifteenth of May. My father says I shall get my first pony!"

Paxton's head raced with these numbers. He knew the exact day he had been banished from his home, one day after he had lain with his virgin witch. The boy had been born nine months to the day. To the day…

Paxton parted Jean Luc's lightly colored curls and said something encouraging before he returned his gaze to Linness. She understood his shock and disbelief, emotions that quickly gave way to fury. She clutched the skirts of her dress tightly.

"Ah, Paxton," Morgan was saying, ignorant of the turbulent current of emotion running between his brother and his wife, "nothing's been the same since you left. Certainly not the harvests! God's teeth, but I can never pick the right day—I'm always too late, despite paying the best astrologer in France. Aye! And look, Paxton,” he began, pointing out the brown spots in the fields across the river and continuing to lament the changes that had occurred since they had separated.

Paxton didn't even pretend to listen. He couldn't.

That life was cruel, Paxton knew well. That life could turn into a previously unimaginable nightmare, individually shaped to bring a man's private demons dancing in the light of day, was what wise men had always believed was hell.

Linness was his brother's wife. Linness, the woman who haunted his dreams and who had changed his life. The only woman in the world whom he had ever wanted as a mate. Linness, his brother's wife.

"Come now, milady," Clair said, placing her arm protectively around Linness and drawing her away. "Ye are trembling with the cold. Ye need to draw close to the kitchen fire."

"Ah, your wet hair again," Morgan laughed affectionately and with husbandly solicitousness. "Paxton, let me take her back on this fine horse—"

"You cannot," Paxton said flatly. "The horse will accept no man's weight but mine."

Morgan's dark brow rose with wonder. "How the devil did you train him to do that?"

"A hard whip each time another weight was accepted."

"And how many times?"

His stare rested on Linness. "Until I owned the creature's loyalty."

Morgan petted the fine head. "Ah, but this is the finest horse my eyes have ever seen. You'll let him stud my mares, won't you, Paxton?"

"Indeed," Paxton replied.

Morgan admired Tasmania. He had always envied Paxton's ability with beasts. "My stallion has been worthless," he confessed. "We've not had a colt in years; no one knows why—even the seasoned mares cause no excitement." He looked back at Linness. "Well, Paxton, you take Linness back, then. I'll meet you in the hall. You must be starving. You can tell me your adventures as you eat. Wait till our uncle lays eyes upon you!" He laughed heartily at the thought. He had dispatched their uncle to the neighboring town of Clission, where many barons of Northern France had met in secret to unite against the church's new higher tithes. "He will be back tomorrow for the feast in your honor Come, milady." Morgan reached for Linness's hand. "I'll lift you up."

Paxton turned to Linness expectantly.

"Nay." She shook her head, alarmed by this "I should rather walk. A walk in the sun will warm me more than ten fires—"

"Huh!" Morgan said. "'Tis bad enough, this insistence on plunging into these frigid waters, but I will not lose my son's mother to a chill."

She backed quickly away, retreating before Morgan could force her. "Please, I insist on walking. Clair." She motioned to the other woman to follow her. "A good day, milords."

The men watched as Clair hastily gathered their things and the two women started down the trail that followed the river back to the chateau. Linness heard Morgan say, "Ah, well," before he whispered conspiratorially, "Saintly, aye! But she is the most stubborn woman I have ever known." And he slapped Paxton's back affectionately.

Paxton stared at her retreating back as they followed behind. The faintest trace of her scent lingered in the air. Her long, wet hair swung like a pendulum; her dress brushed her legs. He noticed the imprint of her bare feet in the dirt.

Then he stared straight ahead, seeing none of the forest as the dark future wove itself tightly around him; each breath seemed to threaten to choke him until he drew her scent deeply into his lungs. His head swam with the faint trace of her sweet perfume that haunted his dreams.

He realized Morgan was talking, that he waited for his reply. "Paxton." Morgan stopped, an alarmed expression on his face. "You seem troubled. Is it—"

Paxton cut him off abruptly. "I am fatigued,” he lied. "It has been a long journey after all." It was all he could do not to turn to Morgan and announce that the woman he called wife was the condemned witch he had rescued before laying her to the forest floor and owning her virginity, that the boy he loved as a son was the product of his joining—

He stopped all at once. He felt he was going mad, that this couldn't be happening. Morgan was assuring him he would have plenty of time to rest for tomorrow's feast before he stopped to capture his attention.

"What say you about my wife?'

"She is beautiful."

"Aye." He nodded. "As beautiful as my own saintly mother." When he realized to whom he was speaking, he added with a slap on the back, "As our mother."

The words drew Paxton back with incomprehension. He did not recall their mother as beautiful. Quite the contrary, he remembered a large, ungainly woman of little humor and no warmth, a woman who wielded her shrewd and often cruel intelligence as a butcher uses a sharp knife to carve hides. He still felt the scars of dozens of pricks.

Linness evoked heat, lust, temptation—desires that were thousands of leagues from anything he associated with the word and meaning of mother. The only similarity between his mother and Linness rested in the frightening fact that, by sorcery or black magic, Morgan owned the affection of both of them. And while he had at last come to understand that not having ever known his mother's affections had made him stronger and, ultimately wiser, it was not so with Linness.

He had only known her one night. One blessed night. Now Morgan's whole life was blessed with the joining of hers. He felt a near murderous rage at its injustice, an inequity that would weave unanswered desire into his every day.

His hand gripped his dagger to stop its tremble…

* * * *

The following afternoon the trumpet sounded, waking Linness from the reverie of her prayers. She rose at once and stepped over to the alcove, peering out the opened window to the courtyard below. She watched as Morgan, Michaels, and old Father Gayly, her favorite, rushed to meet the coach being led by two fine mares.

The door opened, Michaels rushed to put the steps in place, and John Chamberlain emerged from the handsome coach, Morgan embraced his uncle, bursting with the news of Paxton's arrival as his arm swept up to the stairs. She did not have to see the stairs to know Paxton stood there, for she watched the look on John's face change as he beheld his long-lost nephew.

Paxton came down the stairs, the rich sound of his laughter filling the air as he embraced the old man until John stepped back to view the face that he loved. She could see his tears. As if sensing her eyes upon him, Paxton suddenly looked up to her window and she stepped quickly out of sight.

For several long seconds she leaned against the solid stone wall, her eyes closed, willing her heart to slow. One look from him had the awesome power to quicken the beat of her pulse and take the air in her lungs. How could she face him once yet alone the year he meant to stay at Gaillard as his own chateau was being built and his vineyards planted in Alsace? A year! 'Twas not possible!

She had managed to escape seeing him all of yesterday and today. Tonight's feast had already been planned to celebrate John's birthday, and while there were a hundred things to attend to, she had pleaded a headache and withdrawn to her private chambers. But tonight Morgan would certainly insist she at least appear at the feast in his uncle's honor.

"Mary, help me now...."

* * * *

Paxton finally entered his chambers in the afternoon to dress for the night's festivities. Yesterday when Michaels had showed him to the guest chambers in the solar, he had demanded his old room. "Milord, 'tis not possible," Michaels had said.

"Why not?"

" 'Tis Milady's private chamber now. "

He had kept all emotion from his face "Linness?"

"Aye, milord."

"She does not reside with Morgan in the large chamber?"

"Nay." He had shaken his head, coloring with embarrassment at the intimate subject. "Shortly after the marriage ceremony, she had her things brought to your old room."

He kept turning this fact over in his mind. What did it mean? Did it mean anything? Perhaps it only meant the sounds of Morgan's slumber disturbed her sleep. Or perhaps something more…

Thinking on it again, he stepped over to his window and peered out. The entire anatomy of the inner court spread before him. His gaze found the small chapel. Stained-glass windows had been put in since he left, and these appeared to tell the story of a woman. The Virgin Mary, no doubt. Little else had changed. He saw the enormous kitchen, smoke pouring from its two tall chimneys. Forming a semicircle against the outer wall were the stables, the cow braes and mews, the armory, the lofts and well, the smithy and kennels, and finally the knights' and servants' quarters.

An enclosed garden had been added just outside the wall. Climbing vines of roses, heliotrope, and ivy covered the walls in green. From his window he could also see a far corner of this flowering space. Beneath two leafy trees sat a stone bench and ivy-covered cistern. Water lilies and lilacs floated in the water where a half dozen birds flew up and around the stone fountain. 'Twas an enchanting place, and without a doubt, he knew it was a labor of her love.

He looked away. Despite his family animosities, Gaillard had been a paradise for him as a boy. He knew every inch of the complicated labyrinth made of these stones; he knew everything, everywhere, all the smells, good climbs, soft lairs, secret hiding places, jumps, slides, and nooks. A hundred times, no less, he had climbed out his window and onto the narrow stone ledge that connected three of the four solar apartments.