The Kindling (23 page)

She dropped her basket to the floor, bent, and opened her arms. “John!” she cried as he wrapped his arms around her neck.

He laughed and, as she swung him around, she felt the weight he had gained in her absence. Doubtless, the lord and lady of Broehne Castle fed him well—surely better than she had ever been able to do.

“You are surprised!” John exclaimed when she came to a dizzying halt.

She pressed a kiss to his stew-stained cheek. “I am wonderfully surprised.” It was not a lie, though neither was it the truth. It was a blessing to hold him again and inhale his little boy scent, but it was also heartache, for she hurt too much and was too aware of the many gathered in the hall to remain in this moment with her son. Especially when she heard the doors open to admit another whom she did not doubt was Abel.

“Helene,” Lady Gaenor said.

Unable to suppress a startle at finding the woman before her, Helene lifted her face from alongside John’s and summoned a smile. “My lady, I was told you would not be accompanying your husband.”

“’Twas so.” She touched her belly that barely evidenced the babe she carried. “But I began to feel better.”

Then, hopefully, the medicine Helene had prepared before departing for Soaring was doing its good work of settling her stomach.

“And then, when the messenger sent to Soaring returned last eve with my brother’s message,” Lady Gaenor continued, “I had all the more reason to make the journey.” She inclined her head to indicate the little boy in his mother’s arms.

Helene blinked. “I don’t—”

“Sir Abel sent for me.” John turned in Helene’s arms and grinned at Baron Lavonne’s wife. “Did he not, my lady? Sir Abel himself!”

Lady Gaenor’s smile broadened, nudging her over the line to lovely. “So he did, John. He told that your mother missed you. Thus, we have come.”

As the day fit together—Abel’s walk in the wood with her, the feelings he had revealed, his seeking to confirm her feelings, that he had sent for John though they had agreed he should stay away until Abel was certain he could make a life with them—everything blurred around the edges and the pain that Helene struggled to keep down welled up.

This was to have been the day, a day come much sooner than she had expected, a day in which she had not dared place too much hope. Instead, her revelation had made it a day devoid of hope.

Lady Gaenor touched Helene’s arm. “Are you well?”

“Aye. It was just a bit warm for my walk in the wood, and now the surprise of John’s arrival…” She pressed another kiss to his cheek. “I am grateful you have brought him.”

Again, not a lie, but not the truth. Had it been any other day…

“I am pleased to have done so,” Lady Gaenor said.

Truly? After all, Durand was here and, from what Helene now knew of what had happened between her friend and this lady, she thought it must be less comfortable for Baron Lavonne’s wife to be around the knight than it was for Lady Beatrix.

“Where is Sir Abel?” John asked.

Praying he had slipped abovestairs, Helene made a show of looking around, but there was no moment to pretend she did not see him where he stood just inside the doors watching them, for John exclaimed, “Mama, Sir Abel has a beard!” An instant later, he was all knobby elbows and knees as he wriggled to climb down her, then he was running to the man she, herself, had longed to run to.

“Look!” he called. “I brought the sword you made me, Sir Abel!”

Ahead of John’s arrival, Abel met Helene’s gaze.

Please do not turn him away
, she silently beseeched.
He does not know what I have wrought with my cowardice as much as you have wrought with your anger. He cannot be held responsible for the blood in his veins that you deem tainted. Please, Abel.

She did not realize she was holding her breath until he smiled at John. A moment later, her son threw his arms around Abel’s legs.

Feeling a sob rise, Helene swallowed it. Just as Abel Wulfrith was not hers to have, neither was he John’s. Still, considering the circumstances, he played well the part asked of him—mussing John’s hair and giving him his full attention as her son jumped back and pulled his wooden sword.

“I have practiced every day!” John waved the sword. “I—” He gasped. “Your face is cut, Sir Abel. Was it a bad man who did it?”

Once again, Helene caught her hands making a mess of her skirts and opened her fingers to free them.

“It was,” Abel said.

“Did you kill him?”

A hesitation, and then, “He has been severely punished and will never again raise a blade against another.”

John nodded in approval, then said, “Can mama fix your face—make it grow all the way back together?”

Abel glanced at Helene. “She has done all she can, but she assures me that time will much improve my appearance.”

John was quiet a long moment, then said, “I would like such a scar.”

Abel’s eyebrows rose. “Would you?”

“Aye, then I would be as fierce a knight as you.”

“Practice is what will make you fierce. And the more you practice, the fewer scars you will have—a good thing.”

“I have been practicing! Just as you said I should if I want to be a knight.”

How Helene wished Abel had not encouraged her son to believe such a life was available to him. If there was any possibility, it would happen only with the aid of Baron Lavonne, and only then if he knew the answer she withheld.

Helene glanced past Lady Gaenor who had turned her regard upon Abel and John. The brother she had yet to claim watched her, his brow no less drawn with question than before she had left for Soaring.

Next, she looked to the others seated at the high table and, at the end of it, saw Durand regarded her with nearly the same intensity as Baron Lavonne.

“Abel looks well,” Lady Gaenor murmured. “’Twould appear he is truly among the living.”

“Aye,” Helene said. “He has come far.”

“For that, I thank you.”

“Though I believe I have been of good benefit to him, my lady, much of his journey was completed ere my arrival. Your brother, Baron Wulfrith, saw to that.”

“I am certain he will be pleased with Abel’s progress.”

Helene glanced at her son. “Has John behaved well in my absence?”

“He has been little trouble. Indeed, he makes the days quite interesting.”

Before Helene could explore the lady’s comment, John’s voice rose. “I want to show you!”

Helene caught her son’s stiff-legged stomp that portended a great show of disappointment, one usually preceded by a day drawn too long and marked by too little sleep.

“Perhaps later.” Abel said.

Helene caught up her basket and hurried forward to relieve him of her son’s presence before either of them slipped over an edge that would cause hurt feelings and arouse undue attention.

She halted and bent near her son. “Sir Abel has exerted himself this day, and I am sure he would like to eat his nooning meal as you have done.”

“But I want to show him how I will protect you if a bad man tries to take you again.”

Hating that the memory of her abduction was still so near him, she said, “Later, hmm? After riding so hard to reach Soaring, ‘tis rest you need.” She took his hand and, avoiding Abel’s gaze, turned her son toward the stairs.

To her relief, John allowed himself to be drawn forward, though he was hardly mindful of his feet, determined as he was to keep Abel in sight for as long as possible.

When they reached the stairs, he asked, “Where are we going?”

“To the tower.” Helene set a foot upon the first step. “We have our own room there.”

“Truly?” he squeaked.

She smiled down at him, and some of her ache eased at the excitement that shone from his face. “Aye, with a bed that sits up off the floor and a mattress that is softer than two—nay, three—pallets atop one another and pillows that do not scratch.”

“I want to see it!”

They ascended the stairs and traversed the passageway. As they neared Abel’s chamber, Helene noted his door was ajar and was tempted to ask John to wait while she slipped inside and left the Wulfrith dagger there. However, Abel had insisted she keep it and, though she would never look upon it without thinking of him, she liked the protection it afforded. Too, the practical side of her told that if ever she was in dire need of coin, whether to feed her starving child or give him a better future than one behind a plow, she could do no better. Thus, she continued past the chamber.

“Our own room!” John exclaimed when they entered it.

He was a long time exploring what should have taken minutes, touching and patting and caressing the few pieces of furniture, peering around and behind them, sliding his hands over stone walls and opening and closing the shutter. And even when he sank into the mattress and wiggled under the coverlet that he said was softer even than her hair, he fought sleep. Only when Helene laid down beside him and stroked his head and murmured how much she had missed him did he settle enough for his lids to lower and his words to come fewer and farther between.

At last, he slept, and she turned from him and put her face in the pillow for fear her misery would awaken him. Her muffled sob was followed by another.

Ah, wee Helene…

And yet another sob that caused John to flop onto his back and mumble something.

Forcing herself to be still and silent, Helene held and, when he did not rouse again, eased herself off the bed. If she was going to cry and cry well, she would have to do it elsewhere.

She kissed John’s cheek, pulled the coverlet up to his chin, and left the tower room. As she approached Abel’s chamber, she saw the door was closed and, though she told herself to hurry past, she paused to press a palm to it. He was in there. But he didn’t wish to see her any more than she should wish to see him.

She lowered her arm and continued to the stairs.

“Helene?”

The voice squeezed into the narrow space between sobs, causing her to startle where she sat hunched on the garden bench, her face in her skirts as she tried to quiet the sounds of her heartache.

Was it Durand who tore away her solitude? His voice in her stuffed ears?

His hand touched her shoulder and, a moment later, he lowered beside her. “What is it, Helene?”

She raised her head slightly and wiped the wet from her eyes and face. “I wish you had not come,” she whispered out of a throat that felt as if nails had been dragged over it.

“I did not intend to. Indeed, I nearly talked myself out of it when I saw you go to the kitchen, but when you returned from the wood, you appeared shaken. And I do not think it was only due to your son’s arrival, especially since Sir Abel appeared equally distressed when he entered after you.”

At her silence, he said, “I know I should not be alone with you—”

She sat upright and turned her face to him that she had not meant for him to see, tear-swollen as it surely was. “My wager with Sir Abel is void,” she said, anger vying with the break in her voice.

Durand’s brow creased more deeply. “Why? What has he done?”

She let out a shuddering breath that took with it enough of her anger that she was able to speak further. “’Tis more what I did. Rather, what I did not do.” If only she had listened to Sister Clare—better yet, had listened to herself. If only…if only…

To her surprise, Durand laid a hand over her right hand, gently eased the skirts from it, and gripped her fingers in his. “Tell me.”

She wanted to, but this was the man who had determinedly sought her brother’s death and dealt the killing blow. He might react to the truth as poorly as Abel had done. Perhaps worse. Of course, what had she to lose?

She swallowed hard, but a sob slipped free.

“Helene, whatever you did not do cannot be so bad as you—or Sir Abel—believe it to be.” He squeezed her hand. “Trust me.”

She dragged the back of her free hand across her eyes and met his gaze. “My wager with Sir Abel was made under false pretenses. He believed he was protecting a woman with whom he might make a life, not…” She looked closer upon the man before her. “…a woman who had both a father and mother in common with Robert Lavonne.”

His face went momentarily lax, then his eyes widened and he stiffened. “It cannot be.”

“’Tis.”

He shifted his gaze to her hair as Abel had done, then released her hand and rose from the bench. The distance he put between them was yet another cut to her heart and she clasped her hands to keep from pressing them to her chest. When he returned to stand over her, he said, “Tell me how it is so.”

Though the thought of speaking it all again made her grateful her stomach was too empty to toss up anything other than bile, he had a right to know.

“Will you sit again?” She nodded at the bench, hoping he did not find her so repellent he would refuse.

Once more, he lowered to it, and she recounted it all, answering many of the same questions Abel had put to her. By the end of the telling, her tears had dried and all that remained was a stuffed nose, a dull headache, and deeply wrinkled skirts.

“All I have told you,” she said, “is as I told Sir Abel when he went to the wood with me and we paused at the cave where he fell in battle.”

“Obviously, he did not receive the tidings well.”

“He did not, but ‘tis true I should have told him sooner.”

“You did not lest he sent you away.”

She nodded. “I longed to help him—to fix what had been done to him.”

Durand sighed. “’Tis a mess, Helene.”

“And made all the worse with the arrival of my son.”

“I am sorry.”

She peered into his face. “You do not hate me?”

He gave a short laugh. “Had I been as severely injured as Abel, ‘twould be more difficult to see you as separate from Aldous and Robert Lavonne, but hate you?” He shrugged. “I suppose I might have had I been told sooner, though only because I would have denied myself the chance to know you.”

Emotions surged through Helene’s numb, hollowed out places and, if not that she was so terribly dry, she thought she might cry again. “I thank you,” she whispered.

“Neither does Abel hate you,” Durand said and, when she looked away, asked, “What will you do now?”