The Redeeming (23 page)

He ought to tear it apart…burn it. And he would if not that it was of use to him—as a test of sorts. It would mean nothing if he took the missive from her, everything if she disposed of it herself.

Sensing the bore of Abel’s gaze, he glanced beyond her to where her brother kept pace. Doubtless, he questioned the exchange between his sister and her husband.

Gaenor put her chin up and shook her braids back. “I thank you for the ride,” she said, then put her heels to her palfrey.

Christian spurred after her but allowed her to keep the lead. As long as she did not get any farther ahead, she would be safe.

Gaenor leaned over her palfrey’s neck, closed her eyes, savored the cool air against her lids, and tried to think only on this. She could not, for Christian was nearly as corporeal in her thoughts as when he stood before her.

Lifting her lids, she noted the work day had begun, as evidenced by the appearance of villagers and their carts on the road before the castle.

She sighed. She had not meant to reject Christian’s attempt at peace, and she had not, but neither had she taken hold of it. To do so would require trust, and trust was not like a river, flowing only in one direction. It had to flow both ways, did it not?

Mayhap not in the beginning. It could start with you.

She shook her head. To trust first would mean lowering her defenses. If she did that, she would fall in love with Christian as she had come far too close to doing already, and the thought of loving another man who did not love her was unbearable.

The castle steadily gained in size, and still Christian let her stay out ahead, for which she was grateful when a tear slid down her face. She let it go, knowing that, by ride’s end, no trace would remain.

Nearing the castle, she straightened in the saddle, but before she slowed her palfrey, a cry sounded from the far end of the dirt road where it wound out of the wood. A wagon careened forward. It was too distant to be certain, but the one driving the horse appeared to be a woman, and a larger figure was slumped across her lap.

Despite the fear that shot through Gaenor, she turned her palfrey away from the castle and urged it to greater speed.

“Gaenor, nay!” It was Christian. Or was it Abel? Both? Regardless, they were not far behind, though far enough that they were unable to overtake her before she reached the wagon.

The woman dragged on the reins, stopping the wagon so abruptly the man rolled off her lap and landed at her feet. “Lord have mercy!” She dropped to her knees beside him. “Look what they done to him!”

He pressed a bloodied hand to his ear, groaned, and rocked side to side.

“Cut it off, they did!”

Registering a frighteningly rank smell, Gaenor gripped the pommel to dismount.

A hand closed on her arm. “Stay astride,” Christian growled.

She jerked her head around. Where there had been gold flecks in his eyes before, there were none now. Though she had seen him angry, this was not that.

“Aye,” she breathed.

He released her and swung out of the saddle.

Abel had already dismounted and threw her a look nearly equal to Christian’s as he strode to the wagon around which the rest of the escort had gathered.

“It was the brigands, Margery?” Christian asked as he came alongside the woman.

Plump chest rising and falling rapidly, she said, “Aye, my lord. And Sir Robert.” Chin dimpling with the effort to control her emotions, she bobbed her head. “’Twas he who told them to cut off Will’s ear—and it weren’t as if he refused ‘em or nothin’ like.”

“Refused them what?”

She jerked her chin over her shoulder. “That ain’t grain to be milled, my lord. ‘Tis a message from your brother. ‘Deliver ‘em to the little monk and his dirty Wulfrith bride,’ he did say.”

Gaenor looked to the rear of the wagon, her fear trebling when her gaze settled on the lumps beneath a stained blanket. The stains…the stench…the blood… Whose?

“Ranulf!” Christian called. “Return my wife to the donjon.”

As the man-at-arms came for her, Gaenor nudged her palfrey forward and leaned down. Once more, her husband and brother objected, but she whipped off the blanket. And gagged.

The bodies were savaged in ways she could never have imagined. All that remained intact were faces that did not belong to Garr or Everard. But they were men she knew.

When Ranulf took the reins from her and turned her palfrey, Gaenor was too cold to protest—as if caught out in a snow in naught but her chemise.

Behind, her brother cursed and Christian asked, “You know them?”

Teeth beginning to chatter, Gaenor peered over her shoulder.

Abel stood at the rear of the wagon, handsome face contorted into something fearfully ugly. “They are from Stern, the same who delivered my sister’s chest on the day past ere continuing on to Wulfen.”

Christian stepped alongside him, and Gaenor ached that he and her brother appeared so well-matched in anger, something that might see them both dead. “You think they hold Sir Mark?”

The knight who had delivered her mother’s missive…

“I wager they do, and that he is alive.” Abel turned to Christian. “Accept it now if you have not, Baron Lavonne—whether it is by my sword or another’s, your brother is dead.”

“T
he cold will not leave me be.”

Christian had expected to find her abed, not sitting before the brazier that had little to recommend it for warmth at this hour of the night.

He turned from the bed he had longed for after a day spent tracking the brigands and strode to the chair. When he came around it, the faint glow of the dying fire revealed Gaenor huddled there, legs drawn to her chest, blankets up to her ears. For all her exceptional height, she looked painfully slight.

“You should be abed.”

Her gaze drifted from the brazier at his back, up his chest, to his eyes. “They are still out there.”

He knew his failure to bring Robert to ground showed in his face, but he said, “They are,” though twice he and his men had come maddeningly close thanks to Abel’s tracking skills. Considering the number of men Christian had taken with him, one thing was certain—Robert and those who had attacked Margery and her husband had not had Aldous with them, for speed had been their ally. Unfortunately, wherever their camp was located, it was moved often.

“I knew the men they tore apart,” Gaenor said so low he nearly missed her words.

Forgetting how weary he was, Christian sank to his haunches before her. “Gaenor—”

“I wanted to wed one of them when I was a girl.” She stared past him. “He was handsome and kind and strong. What they did to him…” Her breath caught and eyes glittered. “A wild animal might do that, not a human.” Her gaze shot to Christian’s and, past chattering teeth, she said, “I do not understand.”

Her brothers had shielded her well from the reasons so many vied to have their sons train at Wulfen.

Christian reached forward and slid the backs of his fingers down her moist cheek. “I have yet to understand it myself. ‘Tis ungodly, but it is what some men do.”

“Where is God when they do it?”

Christian knew what his abbot would have said, but he could not believe God was so wrathful to punish people for their unconfessed sins that he sent such evil into their midst, and he would not have her believe it either. “I think He must be there with the sufferers, longing to help, but with a greater purpose than we can know.”

She shuddered. “Such pretty words for such an ugly thing.”

“I am sorry, but they are all I have.” He straightened. “And now, I want you to come to bed.”

“I would stay here.”

“You will not.” He leaned down, slid his hands beneath her blanketed form, and lifted her into his arms.

When he laid her on the bed, he was not surprised to find the mattress bare of bedclothes. He reached to peel the layers from her, but she clutched at them and whispered, “I am so cold.”

“Then I shall warm you.” Though he did not trust himself and knew temptation was a touch away, he lay down beside her and gathered her to him.

So rigid was she that Christian thought holding her was probably not much different from embracing a fence post, but slowly she began to ease, her teeth ceased their chattering and her body its shuddering, and the fence post became womanly curves.

Feeling the warmth of her sigh against his neck as she tucked her head beneath his chin, he said into her hair, “Better?”

She was slow to respond, and when she did, it was simply, “Some.”

Enough. Fatigue dragged at Christian, and he was grateful for its distraction that meant he would be engaging in no more battles this night. He closed his eyes, pushed past images of his brother’s victims, and leaned into the rest he so badly needed.

“What have you gained in wedding me?”

He lifted his lids. “You need sleep, Gaenor, as do I.”

“What have you gained?”

He was too tired for this. And too aware of her.

She tilted her head back. Though he could barely make out her features, he longed for the smile he knew was not there. “You have but traded enemies, Christian, the Wulfriths for your brother and his brigands. Your people are no safer. Thus, you have gained naught.”

This was not the time, and especially not the place, to discuss it, and yet Christian felt drawn into this moment that was rife with her grieving. “I have gained you,” he said gruffly.

A huff of disbelief swept his jaw. “By the king’s decree.”

He slid a hand up her shoulder and cupped her cheek that his body had warmed. “That day at the stream…if not for the attack on Broehne, I would have met you again. Indeed, methinks I would have stolen you away that I might reveal and explain my deception.”

Her breath on his face ceased, and it was some moments before she spoke. “I fear I would have gone with you.”

Surely it would have been better for them had she, but Robert’s attack had stolen the opportunity and she had fled with Durand. The thought of the knight tempted Christian to distance himself from her, but she tempted him in another way by turning her mouth into his hand and pressing her lips to his palm.

“I am glad you see me,” she whispered.

He squeezed his eyes closed, but the temptation was too great. “Even in the dark, Gaenor,” he rasped. Sending the voices in his head into the abyss of the morrow, he swept her onto her back, lowered his head, and kissed her. And kissed her again.

S
he could not recall ever being so wonderfully warm, though when she realized the cause of it, worry crept in.

But he was still here. Where she lay on her side, she could feel the heat of his body, and since he had not waited on her menses, surely that meant she had gained his trust. Or had she? She bit her lip. The day would tell.

Regardless, her hope had increased ten-fold, for last eve it was
her
name on Christian’s lips. Hers and no other’s. And even across the dim of night she had felt his eyes upon
her.
It had been lovely, not at all like—

Hearing her husband draw a deep breath, she opened her eyes to the bare light of dawn and found he did not lie beside her but sat on the mattress edge with his back to her, his face turned up as if he consulted heaven.

She touched his back and felt his muscles tense. “Christian?”

“What happened should not have, Gaenor.”

She dropped her hand from him. “You think I seduced you?”

A long moment passed before he looked over his shoulder. “I do not. But that does not make it less of a mistake. Now…”

Aye,
now.
Dragging the sheet up over her shoulders, she turned onto her back and set her gaze to the ceiling. “Now if my menses do not come, only I will know for certain that my child is also yours.”

He did not deny it, but said, “I vow, ‘tis not you I am angry with.” He turned and leaned over her. “I should have stopped.”

The only way to avoid looking upon him in his state of undress was to close her eyes, but she did not.

“The answer was an easy one,” he growled. “We had but to wait.”

Her resentment raised its ugly head. “Aye, ‘twould have been far easier to wait than to believe me!”

His lids narrowed and jaw jutted. “How can I when you—?” He snapped his chin around and stilled.

What was he looking at? Something on the bedside table? There was only a cup and her psalter there. Her chest against the wall?

She raised herself onto her elbows. “When I what?”

He looked back at her and, despite the dim, she caught his startle at finding her face so near his. He lowered his gaze to her mouth, then her neck, lingered over her collarbone from which the sheet had slipped, and abruptly sat back. “We can but pray your menses come. And soon.”

Something turned in Gaenor, something she recognized as passed to her by her mother who had held her head high through all manner of adversity, especially that which had been found in marriage. True, it would have been better had last eve not happened, for she would not have their child suffer the lie of illegitimacy, but neither could she pray for her monthly flux.