Sybill (21 page)

Gratefully, he accepted the packet of food she had taken from the kitchen. Crosslegged, he sat on the dirt floor as he ate. When he offered her some, she refused. She had not delayed to get anything for herself, but he was far hungrier than she was.

One quick look at the form on the pallet told her Trevor was correct. Joaquin was unconscious and his breathing shallow. She had seen death only a few months ago in her own home, and she recognized the impending signs of it. There was nothing they could do to ease Joaquin's suffering, except to hurry his death.

She looked at the sword Trevor had returned to its scabbard. It leaned against the wall. Even to relieve the dying man's pain, she could not ask Trevor to end Joaquin's life. Whatever Providence had brought him into their care would deem the time of his death.

“What's that?” asked Trevor as he heard her whisper.

She smiled as she sat on a rickety stool by the cold hearth. “He told me his name is Joaquin Peña, but the way he said it, I am sure it's something else.”

“You could ask Father Stanford.”

“If I see him again.”

“He will be here for the man's burial.” He swept the crumbs of bread from his trousers.

Sybill put her hand on his arm. “You're going to bring Father Stanford here again? Trevor, that's dangerous. Owen has increased the nightly patrols.”

“Why?”

“It is my fault.” She flushed. “My lies to explain why I had been talking to you and urging you to come with me to the cliffs convinced him to augment them.”

With his hand over hers, he asked, “What did you tell him?”

“That I thought I saw a ship, but you told me it was a school of fish.” When she saw his thoughtful frown, she added quickly, “I didn't know what else to tell him to explain what so many saw.”

“You could have told him we were meeting in a sheltered sea cave for a tryst.”

“Trevor!” she gasped. She was not as shocked by his words as by the way her heart leapt when she heard him speak of its innermost desires.

His lighthearted reply was halted by a groan. Sybill rushed to check Joaquin, but he did not awaken. Her cry had reached through his delirium to rouse him. When she returned to the small stool, she continued the conversation as if it had not been interrupted. “If the men on patrol find Joaquin's grave, they will know someone buried him there secretly.”

“But they will not know who,” he argued. “We can convince them it was the man's own shipmates, who came ashore in the deep shadows of the night. Then they sailed away.”

“That's a flimsy tale, worse than the one I told him last night. I don't think Owen will believe it, and, if he doesn't, no one will.”

“He'll believe you. You can convince him of anything.”

Her pain was a shout although she spoke quietly, “That's unfair. I thought you understood I haven't done anything to cause what is happening at the Cloister. I thought you understood!”

“I do understand. I am sorry.” Reaching up, he took her hands. She hesitated only a short second before she let him draw her onto his lap.

She gazed up into his face, highlighted by the sunshine. Before she realized what she was doing, her fingers rose to touch the surprisingly soft texture of his beard. It felt as warm and welcoming as Goldenrod's fur. When he spoke, she watched the lips she yearned to feel against her.

“It isn't easy to see Lord Foxbridge paying court to you, sweet Sybill, when I feel as I do for you.”

Softly she said, “Before last night I thought he wanted to marry me only so he could disown Christopher.”

“Last night? What happened last night?”

She told him how Owen had kissed her. The rage on his face frightened her nearly as much as Owen's lascivious expression had. “I don't want the Cloister to become a battleground.”

“What do you want?”

For a moment, she was going to lie demurely. When she saw the question in his eyes to complement the one he spoke, she decided it was time to answer truthfully. For too long, she had tried to hide what was in her heart. She would do that no longer. “I want you to kiss me. I want you to teach me of the things you have hinted of when you hold me close.” She paused, then knew she could not stop when she had gone this far. “I want you to love me as much as I love you, Trevor.”

Shock disfigured his face. He had not expected such a candid reply. She waited for him to answer, but the silence continued to grow. It expanded to suffocate her until she wanted to shriek out her demand for him to speak.

Finally he managed, “Sybill, I don't know what to say. I never—”

Another mumble of pain from the pallet interrupted him. She silently cursed Joaquin's continual interference, but rose. Trevor did not release her hand until she turned to regard him silently. She could not speak. To say anything as he gazed at her as if seeing her for the first time would release a floodgate of emotions.

He said nothing as her fingers slipped from his. She turned to check Joaquin. As before, there was nothing she could do to lessen his agony. She was as powerless to stop her pain. She loved Trevor, but his desire matched Owen's lust. She wondered what love was. Not the sorrow Father had suffered as he pined for her mother. Not the lasciviousness she had viewed too often.

Rising from her knees, she wiped her hands on the skirt of her riding habit. Her back straightened as she sought the strength to act as if everything was as it had been before she had spilled her heart's secret. She did not look at Trevor as she said, “I must return to the Cloister before I am missed. When Owen is resting this afternoon, I will return. I will bring you some more food, if you would like, Trevor.”

“That would be very nice. Sybill?”

“What is it?” Her voice quivered with the tears burning in her throat.

His dark eyes roved along her face, and she knew her sorrow blared across her saddened features. His mouth worked as he struggled to find the words he wanted to say. All he said was, “Be careful.”

Nodding, she picked up her hat. Her fingers trembled with suppressed emotions. She went out into the morning darker because of her spirits, which she dragged behind her as she mounted her horse. The ride back to Foxbridge Cloister was mercifully short. What she said to whomever took her mount, she had no idea. Even when she entered the house, she merely nodded when Marshall mentioned her early morning ride. She entered her room to find Kate obviously in a dither.

“Miss Sybill! Where have you been? Lord Foxbridge has been here looking for you!”

Angrily, she snapped, “Don't begin with me again! I know I owe Owen so much for my home and the clothes on my back, but I do have my own life, Kate. We discussed all this last night. I don't have to answer to anyone, especially you, about what I do and where I go. If I want to take a sunrise ride, then that is my right.”

The maid stared at the bedroom door, which closed abruptly in her face. It could be nothing ordinary that had upset Miss Sybill. She had been so happy lately with both Lord Foxbridge and Mr. Breton courting her.

Kate stifled her laughter. Perhaps Mr. Breton had heard the rumors of the impending betrothal. The man must learn his place. He was a servant, no more and no less than Kate. When he discovered pretty Sybill had her future arranged for her, he might have decided it was wise to end the friendship between them.

In Owen's office, Sybill tried to smile and failed. “Good morning, Owen. Kate told me you wanted me.”

“What is the problem, my dear?” He took her hand and drew her next to the desk. His brow creased deeper with concern. “Something is bothering you. I can hear it in your voice. You aren't worried about the Spanish still, are you?”

“Of course not! I told you that Trevor convinced me it was all my imagination.”
Just like my idea that he might love me
, she added silently. When she heard how sharp her words were, she said, “Forgive me, Owen.”

“You are forgiven anything,” he replied graciously. “Speaking of Trevor, have you seen him today?”

She hated having to lie, so she equivocated, “I went for my ride before anyone else in the Cloister was awake.”

Nodding, he murmured, “Of course. I have some questions about the harvest. Do you think you will see him later?”

“I'm going riding after midday. Maybe I will see him then.”

“Good. Then I will write down the queries and send the dispatch with you.” The timbre of his voice changed as he turned her face toward him from where she had been staring at the floor. “Sybill, you know you have become very special to me, don't you? I have told you that before.”

She looked away. She could not listen to him speak of his love when she would have no choice but to treat such a profession in the same way Trevor had hers. Knowing how much she ached, she did not want to bring that pain to anyone else. “Owen, please, I don't want to talk of any such things today.”

“Are you sure there is no problem? You look too pale, my dear. I do not wish to think the demands I have put on you to manage the household have made you ill.”

“No, no problem. I am not sick. Simply tired. I did not sleep well last night.” That, at least, was the truth.

“Worried about the Spanish invading in their ships made of fish scales?”

She relented slightly as she heard his amusement. Although she laughed at his teasing, it was impossible to feel happy. With her heart broken, she could only playact the role of the devoted ward. “I fear I shall not hear the end of my silliness.”

“Nay, my dear. If it bothers you, you will hear of it no more from me.”

“Good,” she murmured. “Owen, what did you want to talk to me about?”

He motioned toward the desk. “I wanted to discuss the details of the unveiling of your portrait.”

“What do you have planned?” She was pleased to speak of anything that did not deal with the two men in the hut. While she sat next to him again, she half-listened to his ideas for a fabulous party. The rest of her mind tortured her with the strained expression on Trevor's face when she had told him so blithely that she loved him. She wondered what she would say when she returned there. Nothing would be as it had been before she had been so idiotic and opened her heart to him.

Those fears were not allayed as she rode toward the sea. The sun overhead burned her, but thunderheads were mounting along the ocean horizon. That she might be riding back to the Cloister in a horrendous storm did not concern her when her life lay in ruins around her.

Sybill carefully knocked on the door and announced her identity. No answer came. When she opened the wooden slab, she learned why. Trevor leapt to his feet from where he had been kneeling by Joaquin. He grabbed her shoulders and propelled her into the hut.

“Thank the Lord, you're here! I must get Father Stanford.”

“He—”

“Not yet,” he replied hastily. “I told Father Stanford I would come when it was clear the end was very near.”

“You are going to leave me alone with a dying man?”

He grabbed the packet of food in her hand. “You are an adult, Sybill. Act like one. I will take your horse and that damn sidesaddle.” For a moment, he paused. “When I get back, you aren't leaving until we will have that talk we should have had before you stormed out this morning.”

The door closed in her face before she could respond to his series of strange statements. She was left alone with a man who would not survive until sundown. She dropped her hat onto the stool, then pushed it to the floor as she sat on the wobbly seat. Telling herself it was all for the best, she wondered why she felt so sad. Many had died when the English attacked the seemingly invincible Armada. One more death should not affect her so strongly, but it did.

Joaquin Peña could be no older than she was. Two decades of life had not been completed before he became a victim of the ideologies which had brought on this war. She questioned whether her father had been so wrong in his lifestyle. He had been happy and had made others forget their problems for a while. That must be infinitely better than this hate which seemed to be overtaking their world.

Certainly there was far too little love in her life. Any that existed was misplaced. She did not want to think about what Trevor had to tell her. It would be additional insult. She had not thought he would be so surprised to hear she was agreeable to what he had suggested so many times.

A raspy gasping ripped her away from her own dreary thoughts. She did not pause, for it was not the time to be squeamish. Joaquin was dying. Although he hated her, she would not let him end his life alone.

Sitting crosslegged on the floor, she picked up his hand from the pallet. In a soft voice, she spoke of the beauty of the sea. She told him of the late roses blooming along the hedgerows and the fresh vegetables coming from the fields. As the hours passed with painful slowness, she spoke only of the extremely abundant life of summer. She did not mention the coming of fall. Her voice faded when she saw there was no need to continue. Far less dramatically than he had come into her life, Joaquin had left it. In the quiet warmth of an early September afternoon, he breathed his last, tortured breath.

Tenderly she placed the hand over his other one on his chest. “Good-bye,” she whispered. “I'm so sorry we had to part as enemies, Joaquin or whatever your name was. I hope you have found peace at last.”

As she stiffly stood, the tears in her eyes erupted to cascade along her face. Putting her head on her crossed arms on the stool, she sobbed for all that had died in this primitive hovel. She grieved for a man who could not trust her and because of one she longed to love her.

The sleepless night and long hours of terror overpowered her and sent her spiraling into a slumber disrupted by nightmares no more horrible than her life. Even as she slept on the dirt floor, she sobbed for what she had wanted more than anything and had been denied.