Claire Delacroix (18 page)

“Surely this troubled your father?”

“By that time, he was oblivious to little beyond than the trade which had long eclipsed his traffic in cloth. My father was increasingly gleeful with each “placement”. It was a madness in his blood, a need to be the first, to acquire the best, to offer the most holy. He was becoming more bold, his discoveries beginning to defy belief.”

“Surely some soul questioned him?”

“I did.” Merlyn swallowed. “I finally challenged him one day, skeptical that none had yet found the jawbone of John the Baptist when that apostle’s skull was claimed to be held in two different places.”

“What did he tell you? Did he lie?”

“Worse.” Merlyn’s hand gathered into a fist. “He took me into his confidence.”

He fell silent again.

I watched him and wondered how a boy bore the burden of knowing his father a criminal, also knowing it would be disloyal to betray his father’s confidence. That Avery had made Merlyn part of his scheme said little in that man’s favor, in my opinion.

I wondered what kind of man would urge his son to join him in such a trade.

I wondered how any son would perceive that he had a choice.

“What did you say?”

Merlyn impaled me with a glance. “What do you think?”

His voice was hoarse, his eyes a bright unearthly blue. He was aloof, elusive, unknowable. He held my gaze, his own defiant.

The entire keep of Ravensmuir seemed to hold its breath, only the sound of the crashing filling the air. Merlyn was still, his every fiber waiting for my reply. I understood that my assessment of him would determine whatsoever else he told me.

If anything.

But I could not lie to him, not even to hear the entire tale.

“I would like to think that you did not,” I said, holding his gaze unswervingly. “I would like to believe that you continued to be troubled by this trade, and even that you rejected it. I would like to think that Gawain lied to me. But, as you noted, the years have made me skeptical.” I gestured to the room around me and shook my head. “It is clear that your father found favor with you, for he made you his heir. Still you have coin and to spare, still you have crates stacked in the labyrinth. You must prosper at this unholy traffic.”

He did not so much as move. “Would you like to think I did not do so because you find the trade offensive? Or because you believe my heart could not be so black as my father’s?”

“I do not know.” I took a ragged breath, then plunged on, for this was no time for half measures. “You can be so cruel and yet so kind, Merlyn. I cannot fathom which is the true measure of you.”

“But what does your heart tell you?” he insisted, as if he had spied the doubt within me and would ferret it out, forcing it to the light.

“That every wickedness I know of you is by repute and mine own interpretation.” My voice caught in recognition of the truth I had unwittingly uttered, then I continued hoarsely. “And that every goodness I know of you is from my own experience of your deeds.”

And my husband smiled, his expression like a ray of sunshine in the blackest night. He spoke with quiet urgency. “Perhaps there is something of me that you do not know, something that would make the two halves seem one.”

“Then tell me of it, Merlyn.”

He took a deep breath. His arms were folded across his chest, his gaze fixed on some distant late star visible through the high open window. “I did not readily embrace my father’s trade,
chère
. We argued, and I left both my father and my family home. I walked away from the taint upon his coin.”

My heart took flight with hope, hope that Merlyn was the man I had once believed him to be. “What did you do?”

“I had learned enough of the trade in cloth to know what was good and what price was fair. I began in trading cloth in Venice, then painstakingly built up enough coin to invest in a trading venture to the East. I fared well enough, though times were hard more than once. My coin was honestly earned, though, and that made the struggle worthwhile.”

I was jubilant that the tale he had recounted to me years ago as to his own trade was not entirely untrue. “That is not without merit.”

“And it was not easy to be alone in the world, without kith or kin,” he said sourly. “It is lonely,
chère
.”

I touched his hand and his fingers closed over mine.

“I was certain that I would never see my family again after our parting. But to my astonishment, my father strode one day into my shop. He said that he wished to repair the rift between us. He invited me to journey to Ravensmuir with him, that we might become close once more.”

“Did you believe him?”

Merlyn frowned, at a momentary loss for words. “He had aged greatly and I was shocked by the sight of him, no less by the news that my mother had passed away. I was torn, tempted to deny him. But there is a duty of a son to a father and I believed that too much had been left unsaid between us. I thought that I might reform him. I thought that at least we might come to an understanding.”

“You have been a most optimistic man in your time,” I teased but Merlyn did not smile.

“I have granted chances when I should not have done and I have paid the price.” Merlyn cleared his throat again and hesitated, this part of the tale falling less readily from his lips.

I rose from the bed, wrapped a length of linen about myself and sat at his side, wanting only to encourage him. Though he did not look at me, he seized my hand and held it against his chest. I could feel his heartbeat, the most reassuring thunder that ever there was.

“I was surprised to learn once we arrived here that my father intended to grant Ravensmuir to my own hand, as a gesture of goodwill between the two of us. I was incredulous when he drew up the deed, but I saw it signed and witnessed and I saw it become my own. I always loved this keep and I was glad to hold it myself.”

His gaze flicked to mine, a glimmer deep within his eyes. “And so, with sufficient wealth to end my solitude, I sought a bride with whom to share my good fortune, a woman who would be undaunted by an odd family, a woman who loved life as well as I.”

My mouth went dry. “Me.”

“I knew the moment that my eye lit upon you,
chère
.” Merlyn smiled at my evident surprise and his grip tightened on my hand. “It was only days later that I learned that my father wanted my aid in a new scheme of his. He insisted that a genuine relic had come into his possession, a relic of such value and history that it would fetch an uncommon price.”

I frowned. “But I never met your father. He was not here.”

“Yes, he was,
chère
. He remained in the caverns, for he wished none to witness his presence.”

I might have questioned this, but instead I watched Merlyn closely...and I remembered. I remembered the time he stayed away from our chambers for most of the night, I remembered the tale he recounted of having had a bad dream regarding his steed and how he had felt the urge to check on the beast.

I remembered how he had evaded my gaze, how I had known that he lied. I remembered the shadow that crept into his eyes as its partner slid across my heart.

I remembered my certainty that I was somehow to blame for the worsening of my wealthy spouse’s mood, how I dared not question him, how I dared not risk the comfort my family had found.

“He came the night you claimed you had the foul dream.”

Merlyn nodded. “The night that I told you I was in the stables, I was truly in the labyrinth, arguing with my sire.”

My mouth went dry. I remembered how Merlyn had disappeared for an entire day not long afterward, how Gawain had found me alone and disconsolate, how that gilded brother had whispered infection in my ears.

Now I wondered how much of it had been true.

“And that last day? Where were you, Merlyn? What happened?”

Merlyn shook his head and continued with his tale. “My father’s difficulty was that he had offered this prize to no less than three noblemen, all of whom wanted it, all of whom he had promised it to at different times. Evidently, they had learned of each other and were each pressing him for delivery. He was excited as I had never seen him, agitated and uneasy. He insisted that one had tried to kill him to wrest the relic from his grip.”

“Why did he not just deliver it to one of them?”

“He was determined to gain the best price and deliver upon his own terms. My father had a rare ability to sense when a client will pay more and he insisted that at least one of these men would double his price given a few more days. No doubt that is why they knew of each other, at least by repute - he probably ensured as much.” Merlyn’s disgust was clear.

“But who were they?”

“He never surrendered their names. I have assumed them to be of the ilk of his customary clients - kings, powerful abbots and barons of the realm.”

I sensed a link between past and present, and was anxious to learn more. “Tell me more of the relic.”

He frowned anew. “I never laid eyes upon it, nor knew what it was. I thought this yet another of my father’s tall tales. I was impatient with what I saw as his manipulation of me and resented being torn from my legitimate trade for this game.”

“You did not think the relic was genuine?”

“I was not even convinced that it existed. He never showed it to me and he never named it. And I did not believe that another man was trying to kill my father. I thought this a thin tale to win my sympathy and my aid. Oh, we argued mightily, my father and I.”

“You never told me.”

Merlyn shook his head. “I could scarcely tell you part of the tale,
chère
. And what would you have thought of the Lammergeier if I had told you all of my father’s deeds? I had already told you that I did not participate in my father’s trade, and now he drew me down into the mire.” He looked at me. “What would you have thought if I had told you that I meant to join him in his trade?”

“But why would you do such a thing?”

“He offered to surrender the relic at the root of it all to me if I aided him.”

“And if you did not?”

Merlyn met my gaze. “Then he would rescind the grant of Ravensmuir to me. It had not yet been witnessed by the king, a matter that I did not realize could be so readily used against me.”

My heart stilled. “Without a holding, you would have no right to wed.”

Merlyn reached up and tucked a tendril of hair behind my ear. “But you,
chère
, had already met me abed. And I had pledged to be wedded to you in truth, not realizing my father’s reason for so quickly encouraging me to seek a bride. I feared to prove your every suspicion of noblemen true and feared it more than I feared my father’s intent.”

“You were offered a bargain with the devil himself.”

“I said as much to him. But, in the end, in weakness for my own blood, I agreed to his scheme.” Merlyn grimaced. “Like father, like son.”

“Not truly,” I insisted hopefully, having had some glimpse that Merlyn was not wrought the same as his father.

My husband lifted my fingers to his lips and brushed his own against my knuckles, though still did not look down. I could not understand why he was suddenly so grim, so cool.

“You were gone two days at the end,” I whispered, long-ago heartbreak still echoing in my words. “I did not know what had happened to you.”

Merlyn’s lips thinned. “Until Gawain enlightened you.”

“What happened, Merlyn?”

Merlyn cast aside my hand and paced across the room, putting distance between us and turning his back to me. “What happened that day was that my father died and I became heir to his trade. What happened that day is that I gained possession of Ravensmuir, the right to wed and a fat purse.”

He turned, his gaze burning as his voice dropped. “What happened that day was that my bride chose my brother’s poisonous tale over any truth that I might have told her. What happened that day was that my new bride fled, rather than speak to me directly about her suspicions.”

His anger irked me as little else could have done. This was not my fault! “Suspicions which proved true!” I cried.

“But are not without explanation.”

“Then share those explanations with me.”

“Pledge to aid me first.” We glared at each other, each persuaded of our own position.

“You have not told me enough, Merlyn.”

“I have told you more than I have ever told another,” he said impatiently. “And it has gained me nothing. This is a waste of time and trouble. Do I have your pledge of assistance or not?”

I folded my arms across my chest, for I was suddenly cold. “No. I dare not enter an agreement without knowing the fullness of the tale. Who tried to kill you? What do you know of that? Where is the relic? There are too many questions remaining, Merlyn, for me to agree to this on trust.”

He eyed me with disappointment and disapproval. “You fear to risk your own hide.”

“I fear to risk my siblings’ hides.”

Merlyn closed the distance between us, his expression intent. “But do you not understand, Ysabella? You already risk them. Someone has tried to kill me, to win the relic my father promised but did not deliver, the relic he believes that I now hold.” I stared at him, only now understanding the import of his tale. “And that someone may well now target you, assuming that you have inherited the prize along with Ravensmuir.”

My heart skipped but I did not look away. “Then I have but two choices: complete ignorance of your schemes, or complete knowledge of what has gone before. There can be no half measures, Merlyn, not when lives are at stake.”

“I dare tell you no more without your pledge. Grant it to me.”

“No, Merlyn.”

“What if I challenge you to take this chance?”

I shook my head with resolve. “It would be a fool’s wager, one that I might not live long enough to regret.”

His lips tightened then, and he crossed the room, moving so quickly that I did not discern how he opened the panel in the wall. He paused on the threshold and looked back. “This is your final choice?”

I nodded, not nearly as convinced as I would have him believe.

“Then may you sleep well upon its repercussions.”