The Redeeming (27 page)

“You will not read it now?”

She peered over her shoulder. “You are in need of a bath.”

“I am, but I would not keep you from your sister. Read, if you wish. I shall see to my ablutions until you are finished.”

Though she rejoiced in his generosity, suspicion threw a long shadow. Was he now questioning the wisdom of having her attend his bath? Not quite ready to first believe as told? No matter. It truly was best that temptation be allayed until her menses were upon her. “Thank you.”

He turned from her and began unfastening his belt.

Knowing he would soon be shed of his clothes, Gaenor lowered to the mattress, bent her head to the missive, and broke the seal.

Beloved Sister,

I hope my words find you in fine health and of good courage. I am well, as is my husband and those of our household. Like Broehne, Castle Soaring has long been without a lady, but with the passing of each day, I settle more comfortably into my new home. I pray you shall soon be as content as I.

As the water was noisily displaced to receive Christian, Gaenor whispered, “She knows I am not.” It saddened her that Beatrix worried, and yet she was grateful her sister did not pretend to be unaware that Gaenor’s circumstances were far different from her own.

Though Christian’s long sigh tempted Gaenor’s gaze, she dragged her attention back to the missive.

In advance, I ask for your forgiveness, for where your sister next goes you may not wish her. This day I was most bold with your husband in asking if he makes you happy. I near wish he had lied, but he did not spare me, though he told the truth in as few words as possible.

It
was
bold of Beatrix to ask. The surprise, however, was that Christian had deigned to answer, for though Beatrix was his sister through marriage, she and her husband were first his vassals and such a personal question was unseemly.

Then this eve I was privy to a conversation in which it was told that the baron had recently trained with Abel and Everard. It is a grand rarity for any but pages and squires to train at Wulfen, so grand I have heard of it only once before. During my wedding celebration, you told that you had met a knight in training during your stay at Wulfen. More, you spoke of him with longing. Now I shall be bolder yet and venture that the knight you met at Wulfen and Baron Lavonne are the same. I can make no sense of it but to conclude there was deception afoot and you did not know the knight for whom you felt was also your betrothed. Had you, I am certain you would not have fled with Sir Durand.

Gaenor momentarily closed her eyes and thanked the Lord that, despite her sister’s head injury, she was as clever as ever.

And so a wall of discord is between you and your husband, but I tell you, the stones of it can be pulled down and crushed to dust as Michael and I have proved.

It was what Gaenor wanted and, it seemed, what Christian wanted, but whereas Beatrix had been shown to be innocent of the murder of Michael’s brother, there was no innocence in the virtue Gaenor had given to Sir Durand. She was guilty and could not prove when her sin had been sown.

I long to see you, dear sister. Until that blessed day, take heart in knowing your name is fast on my lips when I kneel before God. Be strong, be patient, be forgiving. Above all, trust in the Lord. ~Beatrix D’Arci

Gaenor swept a thumb across her sister’s name. She tried to be all those things that Beatrix advised, and yet there was no day she did not ache though surely she ought to be trusting in—and praising—the Lord. After all, her loved ones were well, no king’s displeasure had they suffered for her foolishness, Christian had not cast her aside as had been his right, her belly did not ache unto death for lack of sustenance, the castle folk were beginning to accept her, no lives had been lost in the fires set by the brigands, her husband and brother had once more returned without injury, and the man who had good cause not to trust her had told he would be the first to believe.

“You are troubled by your sister’s tidings?” Christian’s voice carried across the solar.

Gaenor looked around, and her pulse quickened at the sight of his glistening shoulders and wet, disheveled hair that revealed far more time had passed than was felt.

With difficulty, she retrieved his question and wondered how to answer him. Truthfully, she decided. All was told, and though she knew he might doubt her, she had nothing to hide. Straightening her bowed shoulders, she said, “Beatrix has guessed we met at Wulfen.”

Christian narrowed his lids. “Merely because I trained there?”

“There is that, but methinks she would not have come upon it had I not spoken of you—of Sir Matthew.”

“When?”

She stood, turned to the table, and began to fold the missive on the smooth surface. “At her wedding celebration, she asked if there was someone I would rather wed than the man to whom King Henry had given me.”

Silence.

She folded the missive one last time. “I told her I hardly knew the knight I had met at Wulfen, certainly not enough to wish marriage, but…” She shrugged, retrieved her psalter, and fit Beatrix’s missive atop her mother’s.

“And yet that eve you fled with Sir Durand.”

Psalter in hand, she turned to Christian. “I have already explained that.”

His gaze dropped to the psalter. “Tell me again.”

How many times must she—?

Bend, Gaenor. Bend or you will both break.

“As I believed Sir Matthew was lost to me, I chose a man who did not love me over a man who was told to have ill-used my sister. And that is all there is to tell. I know you do not like it since you are determined to believe ‘twas then I yielded up my virtue, but you have only to think upon my reason for fleeing to understand why I did it.”

His gaze returned to hers. “I understand.”

Her heart tensed as if to leap, but she knew better than to yield to joy that could so easily be mocked. “That is not enough, though, is it?”

“I said I would be the first to believe, Gaenor, but I struggle over Sir Durand who stands between us as surely as he lies between the pages of your psalter.”

She glanced at the book, and it was on her tongue to question him when realization struck. Sir Durand
had
been there. But she had burned his missive the day it had come into Broehne. “I do not understand.”

“Do not lie to me.” He raised his bulk from the tub. “I have seen it, Gaenor.”

And I see you, though I should look away, but I will not cower or act the coy maiden after all I have undertaken to claim my right as your wife and lady of the castle.

She stood taller and was grateful for the height that had been a burden much of her life. “I know you speak of Sir Durand’s missive,” she said as Christian advanced on her, “and I do not deny having been in receipt of it. What I do not understand is how you know of it.”

He yanked his robe from the hook on the bed’s corner post and, as he took the last strides to where she stood, shoved his arms into the sleeves.

“I saw it at Wulfen.” He halted before her and, eyes fast upon her face, tightened the robe’s belt.

Gaenor shook her head. “How? When?”

“After I met you on the roof, when I returned your slippers to your chamber.”

She remembered. It had taken her breath away to find her slippers on the chest and know he had been within, but it had not occurred to her he might have trespassed further. “You had no right.”

“I did not, nor was it my intent, but when I saw your psalter, I was compelled to read what you had read. Truly, I did not expect to find any but God’s words within, but Sir Durand’s were also there.”

“And still you think his words are here.” She lifted the psalter between them.

His jaw tensed. “I have seen the parchment that protrudes from between the covers.”

Imagining how it must have chafed—indeed, angered—him to see the book beside their bed, she felt sympathy stir across her resentment. “You have seen wrong, Husband.”

His nostrils flared. “Gaenor, pray do not—”

“Look.” She pressed the psalter to his chest. When he took it, she stepped back and lowered to the mattress edge.

It did not take long for him to discover that Sir Durand’s missive had been supplanted. He closed the psalter. “’Twas your mother’s missive I saw.”

“Aye. And now will you ask where I have hidden my lover’s?” Instantly, she regretted the bitter words that would bring her no nearer her sister’s prayers for her.

Why can I not be more like you, Beatrix? Forgiving and eager to trust in the Lord?

Christian set the psalter on the table, slid a hand beneath Gaenor’s chin, and lifted her gaze to his. “I have been laboring under false belief, and I am sorry that you were also made to bear its weight.”

His sincerity and regret, met with his gentle touch, caused a shiver to course her spine. “The day my chest was delivered,” she said, “I burned his missive, for it no longer held meaning for me and I did not wish it to come between us. Will you believe me?”

“I do.” His words surprised her, and she was more surprised when he knelt and cupped her face in his hands. “Forgive me?”

Joy again, knocking on her breast in the hope she would swing the door wide. Tears stinging her eyes and nose, she said, “Aye. And you? I did not come to you a maiden, Christian.”

Though she sensed his struggle, he did not tarry in throwing it off. “There is naught to forgive.” He slid a hand around her neck and drew her head down.

Their lips met, and the kiss was as sweet as the one they had shared at Wulfen before the riders had come to take him from her. Remembering, Gaenor opened her eyes and pulled back. “The stream at Wulfen—the missive is why you were so cool toward me when I came upon you.”

His lids lifted to reveal gold-flecked brown eyes that she did not think she would ever tire of feeling move upon her. “I thought you meant to use me to get to the man you loved.”

She laid a palm to his chest. “If I used you at all, ‘twas to store up a moment of happiness to last me all the days I would be bound to my family’s enemy.”

“I am not your enemy.” He urged her head down and said against her lips, “Never your enemy.”

His kiss was deep, thrilling, and ripe with promises she had thought never to be kept. However, when he eased her back on the bed, she returned to the last time they had been so near. “Christian?”

“My lady?” his voice rumbled from the hollow of her neck.

“If you will regret this—wish you had waited until after my menses—pray, stop.”

He raised his head. As he searched her face, she knew that though Sir Durand was no longer between the pages of her psalter, still he remained between Christian and her, even if it was only a shadow he threw. “When I kiss you…touch you…is it me you see, Gaenor?”

Though his question made her ache, she could not fault him for wondering, for the man to whom she had given her virtue had not seen her. “I see only you, Christian, just as mine is the only name upon your lips.”

His frown was fleeting, but by it she knew he understood what need not be spoken. “Never will I regret this,” he said, his breath warming her face, “for you are mine. And any child you bear will be ours.”

It frightened her to embrace his declaration, but she did. And opened her arms to him.

“W
hat is this?”

Wishing obligation away that she and Christian might linger abed, Gaenor turned onto her back and smiled at her husband where he stood before his chest, a garment in hand. “’Tis a tunic befitting a baron, do you not think?”

His gaze lingered on her face, then he looked back at the moss green fabric. “Made by your hand?” He fingered the neckline embroidered around with oak leaves.

“Aye, mine.”

“Why?”

She raised herself onto her elbows. “I wished to believe you as you believe me, though I must tell that Sir Hector aided in confirming you are not the same as your father or brothers. Too, he assured me that whatever you told of the bargain struck with Garr for Beatrix, I ought to believe. I do, Christian. And I am sorry for thinking ill of you.”

His smile was almost pained. “I gave you good cause.”

“’Tis behind us.”

He nodded.

“You like the tunic?”

“It is wonderfully worked, but I favor it more because it was made by you.”

Her heart twinged, and she imagined the beautiful crack that had opened in it to let in love. “Pray,” she beseeched, “put it on that I might know it fits proper.”

He retrieved an undertunic, donned it, and pulled her gift over it. “Never have I worn such fine cloth,” he said as he came around the side of the bed.

“You ought to. Are you not the baron of Abingdale?”

A frown passed over his face and, almost to himself, he said, “I was not meant to be. And should not have been.”

Sensing something restless within him, Gaenor gripped his hand. “But you are, and because you are worthy, no longer are your people made to suffer the discord between our families.”