By Possession (26 page)

“Jane and I can manage.”

“Hire one.”
Hire ten, damn it.

“And the king?”

He shook his head. “He offered me a manor in Wales instead.”

“As big and rich as Barrowburgh?”

“You can be sure it is not. Still, if he had not accused my father of a treason that he did not commit, if I did not
feel the ghosts of my father and grandfather reminding me of my duty …”

He felt a soulful need to hold her in his arms all night and tell her about it. Choosing one's course did not mean the journey would be easy.

She came over and lifted the purse. “How much is it?”

She stood so close that he could smell her scent. And another's. “Fifty marks.”

“A lot. But not enough?”

She did not miss much watching from the shadows. “Not enough.”

She opened the purse and plucked out three coins. “There will be a way. A marriage alliance perhaps.”

He gritted his teeth. Proud, practical Moira. “If it comes to that, do not blame me for it,” he muttered.

“It would make more sense to blame the wind for moving the leaves, my lord. It is always thus for those of your rank. In some ways you are less free than the villeins who till your fields.”

She spoke as if she articulated an argument that her mind had been weighing. Had she been debating the realities of their respective births when he entered? He wished that he knew what had transpired in this kitchen between her and the mason this evening. Just how practical had she decided to be?

“Are you going to do it? Help those men who came here with Rhys?”

“Aye.”

She inhaled a deep, composing breath. “I fear for you, Addis.”

Addis.
At last, his name again. “I have nothing to lose now. All the coin in the realm would not secure Barrowburgh while the Despensers rule in the king's place.”

She kept looking down at the purse, poking absently at it with her finger. “Still …” She faced him abruptly
with glittering eyes full of warmth and concern. Suddenly they were just Moira and Addis again, separated from the world, riding a cart alone through the country. “You will tell me? When you must do something dangerous, if you might not come back …”

He brushed the hair near her face with his palm, relishing the moment that she would not let last but that he yearned to stretch into eternity. “I will tell you.”

She looked up at him with a trembling lip and puckered brow. He took such joy in her worry that he thought his heart would burst. “You will not do anything stupid, will you? Rash and noble and brave like at Barrowburgh? You will not …”

“Nay.” And it was true. He would not. He would carry the expression in her eyes with him to ward off the insidious temptation he had felt at Barrowburgh. No matter how weary his spirit might be, he could not know such reckless despair again while she was in his world.

He sensed her pulling back from the sweet unity threading them together. As if she feared it. He battled the urge to embrace her and demand its continued life.
It is so. I know it and the mason knows it. Why don't you?

She held out the purse. “I have what I will need for now.” When he made no move to take it from her, she let it drop back on the table and walked away.

CHAPTER 13

M
OIRA SAT SURROUNDED
by the riot of late summer color filling the garden. She pulled a reed from a vat of water and nimbly wove it into the basket taking form on her lap. The patch of ground where she rested still shot high with overgrown grasses, but the rest of the garden had been cleaned, its hedges pruned and its paths redug.

Addis had worked this transformation. No longer required to spend his days in the king's anteroom, he had joined the efforts to improve the house. The morning after the joust she had risen early to help Henry in the stables, only to find the work already done. Day by day the garden had emerged from the weeds. It was not fitting work for a knight and Sir Richard was appalled but Addis did not seem to care. She suspected that he merely sought activity to occupy his body and mind, but it had relieved her of the most strenuous chores and so she was grateful.

She had time now to make some baskets and would come out here after the midday meal to rest. She found
herself drawn to this back section which Addis had inexplicably left wild. It seemed removed from the house and the city, a little spot of open country within the civilized garden.

She turned the basket and worked the pattern, singing to herself, losing awareness of the city sounds outside the wall as the strands of her craft and voice spun a private world. And so she did not notice him right away.

He stood in the shadow cast by a tree near the wall. He was dressed for riding. She looked to the courtyard and saw Henry and Richard and two horses. The day suddenly lost some of its warmth. Her voice died away.

He seemed preoccupied by distant thoughts and a slight frown hooded his eyes. He could not have been there long, but she knew that he had been watching and listening for a while.

“You do not sing much anymore,” he said, stepping closer and settling on the ground beside her. His tone carried speculative undertones, as if he had just realized this change from years past.

“That is not true. I often sing. I used to sing Brian to sleep every night. I sing to myself while I work.”

“But not for others.”

“I sang at Darwendon.”

“A religious song. Not the romances like you often did at Hawkesford. And only because I commanded it.”

“I sang at Hawkesford because Bernard wanted it, but I never liked doing so.” That was a blatant lie. Those moments in the hall had been the only recognition she had received in that household and she had savored them. But she did not want him asking her to entertain during their dinners here. She did not want to sing love songs while Addis de Valence sat at the table.

“So it is a private thing now, something that you own that cannot be taken from you.”

“Aye. A private thing.” With private memories attached to those melodies and words. Hidden yearnings and childish dreams, mostly, but also some heart-wrenching emotions that the sounds could both evoke and soothe.

She could see Richard peering toward them. “You are leaving?”

“Aye. I said that I would tell you.”

“How long?”

“Three days. Four. No more than a week.”

“I am glad that Sir Richard goes too.”

“He insisted.”

She lifted a reed and began plying it so that he might not see her worry. “If someone found out … if this journey became known to the king …”

“No one should know. Few have been told, and their own safety would be at risk if they were indiscreet. There is some danger, but not much.”

She wished that she could believe that. “You are not going to tell me where Brian is, are you?”

“Nay. He is safer than you could ever make him and I'll not have you living your life protecting a child who is not your own.”

“The choice should be mine.”

“Perhaps, but I have made it for you anyway.”

She forced a smile. “I may live my life resenting the choices you keep making for me.”

He laughed. “Few enough, Moira. For a bondwoman you are not so easy to control.” He leaned forward and kissed her, holding her head so his lips could linger. It was a sweet kiss of farewell and nuanced longing that could break a woman's heart. “If something goes wrong, you will not be harmed. Bondmen are not punished for their lord's actions,” he said while his mouth brushed her cheek. It sounded more like a reassurance to himself than to her.

He rose.

“Fare you well, Addis. Take care and be safe.”

He looked down a moment, then left to join Sir Richard.

She watched him until he passed through the gate, and then picked up her basket and resumed her work. Full of emotions and fears that she dared not acknowledge, she began absently singing a love song from her youth. It was an old one that she had not sung in many years. She thought that she had forgotten the words, but they just emerged without thought, undamming the poignant memories attached to them.

She sat in the shadows, half-alert even while she dozed. Restless movements on the bed had become normal sounds, and so she jerked awake when they stopped.

She peered toward the body dimly limned in gold from the single candle, its left knee bent and propped over a pillow. Her gaze moved up to eyes gleaming in her direction, and elation surged. Finally, after four days, he had woken.

“Who is there? Come here where I can see you.”

She approached the bed and he gestured for her to move the candle closer. Doing so quelled her happiness. The watery shimmer of his eyes said he was conscious but not really awake. The flushed dryness of his skin indicated the high fever still raged. This sudden recovery was an illusion, merely the brief tranquillity at the center of a storm. If he survived he might not even remember it.

“Ah, it is Claire's Shadow. Did my wife fear her prayers would disturb my rest?”

“She just left. I took her place while she went for some sleep.”

“Do not lie to me, little one.”

“Truly, she has—”

“She has never been here. Did you think I would not know it? Even when they butchered me, a servant woman held my head and hand. I remember not who it was, but I know it was not Claire.”

She could find no response to that, so she poured some ale and moved to lift his head to the cup.

“Help me to sit.”

“You cannot. The wound—”

“I am stiff from lying here, damn you! I will sit.”

“Perhaps I can raise your head at least.” She found a blanket and together they bunched it under his shoulders so he only half-inclined. He looked down his sheet-shrouded body and yanked the covering aside.

She had seen him naked many times while she helped Edith care for him, but not with him aware of it. Her presence became insignificant, however. He examined the bandage tied at torso and thigh, covering most of his left hip. He flipped the sheet back with a sound of disgust.

“Sit. Nay, not over there. Get the stool and sit here.”

She obeyed and settled beside the bed. His gaze seemed both to see and not see, to scrutinize and to wander. Eyes half-conscious and half-mad peered over the brim of the feverish sea that had submerged him. They both existed as part of a wakeful dream. How long before the waves pulled him back down?

“How fares the lovely Claire?”

His bitter tone made her wary. “She is not so well, Sir Addis. Weakened from worrying and praying for you.”

“You lie well, little Shadow, but not well enough. If she prays, it is for my death.”

“That is not fair.”

“Such loyalty. She is fortunate to have such a friend, but I hope that you do not expect similar loyalty returned. Has she spoken with her father yet?”

Claire had indeed spoken with Bernard and had pulled Moira along for support. Images of that horrible meeting flickered through her mind, scenes of Claire imperious, then pleading, finally hysterical as Bernard for the first time in her life refused his daughter her request.

Addis read the conclusion in her eyes. “He would not agree to annul the betrothal?” The bandage had been removed from his face and the raw sewn cut twisted with his vague grimace. “Nay, Bernard will not seek to undo that which has been consummated.”

She blinked in confusion, which amused him. “I have bedded her. Before I left. We were neither of us too discreet. Bernard knows. The whole household knows. The one time in her life Claire was generous, and it has led her directly to hell.” He glanced toward the destruction hidden by the sheet, then lifted his fingertips and traced the thick line on his face. “Poor Claire.” Bitterness again, but a note of sympathy too.

He looked away with eyes glittering so brightly she feared he would succumb to madness. Enough time passed that his voice startled her when he spoke again. “This I can live with.” He gestured to his face. “But the hip … it pulls so I cannot straighten my leg. Will it always be thus? Am I condemned to walk bent forever?”

“No one knows. No bone was broken, but the fiber …”

“Remove the pillow.”

“It is not yet healed.”

He stretched to reach down and his face tightened in pain. She quickly pulled the pillow from beneath his knee.

He ripped the sheet away again, and tore off the bandage, exposing the ghastly scarlet wound that carved his stomach and belly along the line of his hip from waist to the middle of his thigh. The sight of it made him pause. “Can't say that I blame her,” he muttered. Gritting his teeth he slowly pressed his leg to straighten it. She could see the threads along the wound stretching, pulling, resisting his efforts. His eyes darkened but he persisted until she could not bear it any longer.