A Kiss in the Night (41 page)

In desperation to stop him, Linness leaped onto the bed. Paxton's arm shot back with fatal force hitting her in the abdomen and chest. She never felt the pain. Blackness exploded in her head as she fell off the bed. Paxton paused, startled, and that saved Morgan's life. Morgan sucked in a breath as he jerked from underneath his brother and came to his feet. He stood for the briefest moment before he fell in a pool of blood.

Michaels and Clifford burst into the room and stopped. The bishop, Father Thomas, Eleanor, and Clair crowded in the doorway behind them. Startled gasps and screams sounded; more people rushed into the room. Yet no one could move as they stared at the shocking sight.

Morgan lay unconscious in a pool of blood on one side. Linness lay unconscious on the other. Blood rushed between her bare thighs. Paxton knelt over her, pulling the gold robe over her naked body, gathering her precious form in his arms and burying his face against her warm flesh.

Mary's light shone before God's benevolence, a beckoning, enveloping light of love. Linness felt it washing over her as she knelt, crying before Mary who held the child in her arms.

Linness reached out to touch the child. To hold her just once. The baby girl with dark hair and blue eyes. The child she would not have now but whom she would always love…

For she was with Mary now. Mary's light fell in a cascade of sadness and love over her as she cried. She could not let her go, this girl she loved, and she reached out again to take the child back to her arms. Yet the light behind Mary intensified and seemed to absorb her and the child.

The light was too bright to look at steadily as it reached to her as well, beckoning, touching the middle finger of her right hand. Time and self disappeared in the light, and it was merciful beyond words. For in the space of the light she felt all things in the universe at the same time: It was like perceiving every grain of sand on every planet and knowing why each grain was in its place. And she was with Mary and her child…

She could step into the light forever. She looked back across the distance, far, far away, like looking through a kaleidoscope to another time and place. She saw Paxton crying over her lifeless form. Paxton. Desire to touch him again pulled her away from the light.

And then the light was gone.

Morgan lay in his huge bed. Bandages wrapped tightly around his arm and shoulder, blood still trickled out every time he moved. Still he would mend, the surgeons said. He would probably not lose much use of his arm either. The dagger had mercifully missed bone and tore only muscle, which heals, they said. Eventually.

Linness had saved him. The fact weighed heavily in his mind…

He stared up at the ceiling, counting the rows of timber that held it up, waiting for sleep to claim him. A soft knock sounded on the door. He did not move. Somehow the hesitant sound of the knock told him it was Paxton. He had been expecting him. Yet now that his brother had come, he felt an anxious moment of fear.

For some part of him knew. Some part of him had always known, but the very idea had been too painful to bring into the light of scrutiny. So he had ignored it. "Come in..."

Paxton approached his brother lying in the bed, naked, wrapped in bandages, covered in a bright blanket. His dark blue eyes filled with emotion as he stared at what he had done. He turned suddenly away, moving to the window.

He had prepared a short speech—words without meaning. No apology. For though he regretted the violence deeply, he could not apologize. To apologize was to regret loving her, Linness, his brother's wife.

He could not do that.

Once Linness had told him that her sight brought her a montage of many different aspects of his life: the endless training as a boy, his love of the creatures and the horses. She saw him in the midst of battle, and yet she also glimpsed him laughing with children and mourning the death of his first wife. She saw everything, she said, including the dark shadow over his life.

His brother. From the day he was born, Morgan's presence shadowed his life. In a powerful way Morgan was the reason behind everything he did and had become; Morgan was the reason for the self beneath his skin. He would never have become the man he was if not for having to reach beyond his brother. And it was Linness who pointed out this curious paradox of living in his brother's shadow; this had been the driving force in his life, and it had been very good.

The understanding was a humbling one.

There was only one thing in the whole of his life he could honestly claim had nothing to do with his brother, and that was his love for Linness. The force of his love had been there that first day he had rescued her from death, and it had grown even in the long years separating him from the shining memory of that one time together, increasing every blessed day he had known her. The cruel fate that she was Morgan's wife did not alter, change, or touch the deepest sense of his love for her.

Except that it had come at last to separate them.

"Morgan, I—" Paxton stopped and said in a sudden admission of frustration, "In truth I do not know what to say."

Morgan lay perfectly still. A burning began in his ears from all the words that would never be said, that could never be said. Emotions gathered in his chest, and it was strange and certainly unexpected that he should understand how much he loved his brother at this moment. As if the final violence between them had washed away all lingering traces of the hatred that always hid their brotherly love.

The one thing he could not blame Paxton for was falling in love with Linness. Michaels, Peters, John, Father Gayly, it sometimes seemed as if everyone fell in love with Linness. While his mind was not one to contemplate or understand people's motives he had lain here in bed thinking on this, on how he could not blame any man, not even his brother for falling in love with Linness. Then he had thought of the bishop.

It had struck him that perhaps the very same force of emotion was behind the man's hatred of Linness. Perhaps he, too, had found something in Linness that was better, softer, more beautiful and good, than anything in his own heart. Linness was a reality that shook everything he believed in, threatening the very foundation of his beliefs. So he had to destroy her.

So no, he did not blame his brother for falling in love with her. "But she is my wife." He finished the thought out loud; without really meaning to, he stated the unalterable fact.

The words were not without impact. Paxton straightened suddenly and nodded. "Aye," he agreed in a voice of inexpressible sadness, "she is your wife."

It seemed suddenly the summary, the whole, the reason of their life, was all a mistake. Morgan suffered a moment's confusion as he wondered at the sense of shame and guilt filling him. As if a great rock were being lowered to his chest. He shifted with discomfort.

"I am leaving," Paxton said.

Morgan, of course, knew this.

Paxton scoffed suddenly, "Much to my surprise, the bishop was not unaffected. He has agreed to see his knights returned and gone from Gaillard if I leave. Morgan, I just need you to promise—"

"I will," Morgan said firmly. "I will never let him hurt her. Never," he swore.

Paxton nodded. "If ever he even comes close—"

"I will send for you at once."

"And do so in secret. The man has a habit of killing off messengers."

"Aye." Morgan nodded.

Paxton fell silent with the last request. The most important one. He did not know how much Morgan knew now; the question mattered little, he supposed, except as it affected him and Jean Luc.

He turned back and approached the bed. In a whisper that conveyed his fear, he began, "Morgan, about Jean Luc..."

Paxton's fear filled his pause; Morgan desperately wanted to remove this fear. "Paxton, despite all that has happened, I do not know anyone else who I would trust to see Jean Luc to manhood. I have already told him he will be leaving with you."

Paxton shut his eyes as gratitude washed over him in force. "Thank you, brother."

Morgan reached his good arm across his chest, and in a startled moment, Paxton saw his own hand reaching out to meet his brother's. Long-dormant emotions rushed to the surface as they clasped each other firmly, a moment stretched in meaning; brothers by fate, and now, at last, brothers in heart.

With unsuppressed feeling, Paxton said the last "Keep Linness safe, Morgan."

"Aye," he said.

Paxton nodded and turned. The door shut.

* * * *

Linness had been prepared.

Lady Beaumaris retreated to the alcove, where she sat on the cushioned seat. Voices came from the hall outside the door: Jean Luc's high, youthful voice filled with excitement and questions, Paxton's deep voice answering each one in a pretense of the same excitement. If she closed her eyes and listened very carefully, she could perceive the veiled hint of Paxton's fear. The emotion hung over the room, the air grew heavy with it, and each breath seemed to demand conscious effort…

Shaking her head sadly, she picked up her stitchery from the sewing box at her side, only to realize how her hands trembled. She gave up the pretense of industry, set it on her lap, and rested her dark eyes on Linness.

And she knew in that moment she had never loved Belinda as much.

Weakened still, Linness managed to sit up on the bed. She wore a rich blue robe with tiny sparrows embroidered in silver thread along the border and sleeves—'twas Paxton's gift, one he had ordered made for her last month. She looked so terribly pale, her skin almost translucent as if her life were ebbing away even now. Unshed tears shimmered in her eyes, those beautiful silvery eyes, haunted by what was happening. Clair was anxiously brushing out her hair, smoothing it neatly down her back, taking her time doing it. To prolong the moment and stretch the silence, granting Linness the time she needed to gather her strength.

After Clair finished, Linness took her hand and lovingly brought it against her hot cheek, closing her eyes a moment. The gesture, so loving, expressing without words the comfort of Clair's affection brought tears, shining like bright pools, to Clair Linness opened her eyes, looked to the door, and nodded.

"Are ye sure?" Clair asked in a whisper.

"Aye."

Clair looked at Lady Beaumaris, who nodded as well. Clair wiped her eyes with her apron and then moved to the door and opened it.

"Mother!" Bursting with excitement, Jean Luc flew into the room.

Paxton shut the door behind him, watching as Jean Luc rushed into her arms. For one brief moment Linness held her boy against her heart, closing her eyes to savor the moment, briefly, this last embrace.

And it was so mercilessly brief.

He pulled away, kneeling before her to stare into his mother's beautiful eyes and the tenderness in her smile as words tumbled out of his mouth about the long journey, the travel plans, no inns but "tents, like real warriors," his pony's new livery, his father's parting gifts, his uncle's promises, a torrent of childhood animation and enthusiasm that covered, like dirt over a shallow grave, the pain.

The boyish enthusiasm vanished as he saw his mother's tears. The words stopped. A hand reached to her face as he said, "You're crying..."

The miracle was the lightness in her tone as she said, "I will miss you, is why! 'Tis a hard thing to see my son so grown, ready for his first adventure! Jean Luc, it is...so very hard for me to say good bye to you."

His blue eyes searched her face, questioningly. He would miss his mother most of all. He still did not quite understand the thing that happened to her or why she could not come with them. If only she could. "Why can you not come with me?"

She caught her lip, she shook her head, smiled sadly. "I can…not. I—"

He threw his arms around her neck, clinging to her. Linness closed her eyes again as she heard him say, "I will miss you most of all."

"Aye," she said, holding the small, warm body tight. "I will miss you, Jean Luc. Everything about you," she told him, and then quietly, like a sonnet or a ballad, she named these things: "I will miss scolding you for trying to sneak off with Vivian's honey cakes or your father's dagger, I will miss swimming with you in the river, getting beaten at chess every day, I will miss trying to coax you to sleep at night. 1 will miss all our beautiful sunsets...I think most of all I will miss being pounced on every morning when you come into my bed to wake me up..."

The room was quiet. She held him tightly, feeling his small body shake against her. "Jean Luc," she began quietly, "you will be back to visit and you will show me all the wonderful things Paxton has taught you." She pulled his arms from her neck and kissed him tenderly, wiping a tear that slipped down his cheek. "Good-bye, my love."

Jean Luc felt his throat constricting. He could not speak. He nodded as he tried to straighten. To his credit, he made it halfway to the door before he turned and ran back to her arms. Linness clung to him, as he managed, "I love you, Mother, I love you."

Linness held him as if she would never let him go. Paxton finally stepped to the bed; his hands came over the boy's shoulders, feeling their slight shake as he cried. He gently pulled him from Linness, lifting him up to his arms. He brought him to the door. Clair stepped forward to take his hand.