The Wife Test (32 page)

“Clarice.” Chloe’s heart began to pound. “But that was many years ago, and as she said, her eyesight is poor and her mind sometimes plays tricks on her. She may have forgotten what her young cousin looked like.”

“They were raised together, like sisters,” Lisette countered. “If you had a beloved sister taken away, could you forget her?”

“No,” Chloe whispered. “I could never forget someone I loved.” She thought of her four adopted sisters, of Sister Archie, and of Hugh. She would carry their faces in her heart until the day she died.

But what of Hugh? Could he just renounce and forget her? Her thoughts took another turn. He had known and loved the monastery where he spent his earliest and most impressionable years. And he had obviously never forgotten or abandoned the love of his teachers and brothers.

An emptiness opened inside her, deepening with each remembered bit of evidence that his heart had been claimed long before she entered his life. The look on his face when she admitted she knew nothing of her parentage made that emptiness feel suddenly cavernous. He had fled her to return to his first love, the monastery … only to be called out of it to face the disgrace of being married to a foundling.

She felt herself sinking deeper and deeper into despair.

Then, in an impulsive burst of sympathy Lisette hugged her, and within that spontaneous burst of affection Chloe felt the bloom of unexpected grace. The downward spiral of her spirits was halted by a simple touch that said she wasn’t alone in the world, that someone truly cared for her. In a moment where all connections and attachments seemed broken, that gesture was nothing short of lifesaving. Inside that yawning emptiness appeared a spark of hope.

“I have to know if it’s true.” She drew back, her face set with determination. “I have to find out for myself if the duke is telling the truth. Will you help me?”

“Me? Help? Of course, though I cannot imagine what I might do.”

Chloe pushed to her feet and began to pace, rubbing her palms together.

“I have to see him, talk to him face to face.”

“How? The king has ordered you held here. There are guards outside.”

“How many?” Chloe demanded, grabbing Lisette’s hands.

“Two. But it may as well be a full garrison. They almost didn’t let me in to see you.”

“But they did let you in.” Chloe’s eyes narrowed. “And if they let you in, they have to let you out, right?

“I suppose, but—”

“And while they’re letting you out, you can talk to them”—she felt her spirits rising back and dragging with them a plan—“distract them.”

“Me?” Lisette drew back as if afraid of catching whatever had suddenly infected Chloe. “Not me.”

“Yes,
you.”
Chloe pulled Lisette to her feet and set about tidying her hair. “There isn’t a woman alive who can distract men better than you.”

“Me? I-I cannot— I—”

“A smile, a toss of your head and they won’t be able to see anything else.” She paused, searching Lisette and seeing how deeply Sir Graham’s rejection had wounded her. “Think about it, Lisette. How can Sir Graham be the only man in the world immune to your charms?” Lisette looked as if she might protest. “Remember the way you got old Mattias to talk to us? And Hugh would talk to you when he wouldn’t even look at the rest of us … especially me. You have a knack with men, Lisette. So there is only one reasonable answer to the question of how Sir Graham can resist you. He can’t. He just wishes he could.” She glanced away, seeing in Graham’s behavior a clearer explanation of Hugh’s. “Saints—are all men such cowards?”

Lisette bit her lip and shook her head with a wistful expression. Chloe seized her shoulders.

“Don’t you see? Sir Graham doesn’t despise you, he is simply afraid. He wants you, and he can’t control that wanting. Control is something men believe they’re supposed to have … they seem to think it’s the very measure of their manhood. If he can’t control himself, he’ll have to control you instead … insist you be silent and undemanding and ignorable.”

Lisette was perfectly still, absorbing every word into her battered heart, but then slid again toward despair.

“No, I think it is more than that. I think he wanted someone else.” She paused to gather strength to speak the truth. “He wanted to wed Margarete.”

“Margarete? Don’t be ridiculous.”

“Truly.” Lisette nodded. “I learned that he has been wedded before … to a pure sweet girl who was very young and died before he had a chance to take her to his bed. Margarete seems just like her. I’ve tried being obedient and sweet and demure and helpful and quiet and modest … like Margarete and his precious little Lady Jane.”

“Ah, but have you tried being
Lisette?
Lush, lovely, compelling Lisette? Lisette, who collects men’s stares and makes their blood heat with only a smile? Lisette, who knows just what to say to get men to trip over themselves to grant her slightest wish? Lisette, who understands that Sir Graham needs someone to release his passions and teach him what a full-grown woman is?” She gave Lisette a challenging scowl. “Are you going to give him up to the memory of a girl who never had the chance to love or disappoint or even
pleasure
him?”

Color flooded into Lisette’s face, and she began to straighten. In what should have been a fleeting moment of uncertainty on their wedding night, she realized she had absorbed his anxiety and allowed it to undermine her determination and confidence. From that moment on, she had questioned her every word and action, damped her enthusiasm, muffled her wit, and abandoned her will in favor of what she thought he wanted. Hurt and bewilderment accumulated with each failure to secure his approval, and in the course of days, she had retreated further and further from her true self. The woman he had rejected in so many ways wasn’t even her!

Look at her … lamenting losing the battle for her husband’s love and affection when she had yet to raise a single one of her weapons!

“You can do this,” Chloe said, watching Lisette’s eyes begin to glow with a familiar and reassuring light. “You have to do this, Lisette. To prove it to yourself as much as to help me. Now, go out there and work your womanly magic on those guards!”

Avalon was in a bad way; raging with fury one moment and sunk into a pit of despair the next. He had not one ally in the place, no one to listen to him or believe him. And now he had dragged the girl into it. He should have saved his revelations for a far less public forum. But she had stood there, looking so miserable and devastated, looking so much like his Clarice, that his heart had damned near broken. If he hadn’t tried to defend her, his very blood would have boiled in his veins!

A rustling sound in the passage outside his cell caused him to still and then lurch up from his straw-littered pallet. He braced in the middle of the cell, staring at the door. The face that appeared in the narrow opening was none of the ones he might have expected. It was Chloe and the sight of her—so like the woman he had loved—sent a pang of longing through him.

“Your Grace?” Her face was pale and her voice was small as she peered through the thick iron bars stretched across the opening in the wooden planks.

“Child.” The duke stalked on wooden legs over to the door and stood staring at her in the dim light.

“I must know. Do you truly believe I am your daughter?” She paused and swallowed with difficulty, hesitant to speak the rest. “Or was that just a ploy to secure your freedom or further some political scheme?”

“There is no ‘scheme,’ I swear,” he declared thickly. “I do not know what roused Edward’s ire against me, but I have authored no designs or intrigues.” He reached toward the slender fingers that were wrapped around the iron bars. When she didn’t pull away, he settled his hands gently over hers. “You are my daughter. As God Almighty is my witness, I believe that to be true. The uncanny resemblance, the fact that you are called Chloe, the way the name ‘Gilbert’ accompanied you into the convent … I do not know how I may prove it, to you or to anyone else. But somehow, when I look into your face, I know.”

Chloe searched his anguished eyes and the tenderness with which he touched her. He genuinely believed he was her father. Could it possibly be true? The hope was too sharp, too painful for her heart to hold. Her limbs weakened, and she sagged against the door, unable to summon a single word.

“I thought perhaps the old woman …” The duke’s voice was hoarse with emotion as he caressed her hands. “I believe she knows, but her memory and her sight grow dim. The only true evidence of the marriage is in the church records in Calais. The marriage is surely recorded there, but I cannot say about the birth. I doubt you were baptized … being supposedly stillborn.”

“But if I am your daughter, how were we separated?” she finally managed to utter. “How could I have come to the convent with two names, neither of which was yours?”

The duke’s face aged years in that brief moment.

“I have thought of little else since the day I first saw you. My half brother was with me in Calais when Clarice was brought to childbed. He had just brought word that the duke threatened to disinherit me. When he said that you both had died, I was so distraught that I couldn’t bring myself even to look at you.” His voice thickened with tears as he saw those tumultuous events through a very different set of eyes. “He said he would take care of the arrangements. All of these years I have felt such gratitude to him for what he did.” His hands tightened on hers as his face reddened.

“It had to have been him. My
helpful
brother. Alfonse, now the Compte de Sabban.” Disbelief and pain mingled in his expression. “He took me from Calais to Paris and left me there while he went home to intercede with my father. Later, when I arrived at my home, my father behaved as if nothing had happened and started immediately to search for a bride for me.” He paused and clamped his jaw for a moment against a tide of emotion. “I bent to my father’s will and was wedded a year later. We never spoke of what had happened.

“Bon Dieu.”
He roused as if coming out of a fog. “I cannot be certain he even knew of my marriage to Clarice.” He suddenly saw his whole life in a very different light. “Alfonse told me that he was furious and refused to suffer my English bride under his roof. How much of my life was shaped and altered by my brother’s—” He looked at her with fresh horror.
“He
was in charge of collecting my ransom.
He
swore that there was nothing left to send, that my lands and house were picked clean. And I sent him word that my ‘new daughters’ were being taken from the convent to England.”

“Could it have been his men who attacked us on the road?” she said, feeling her wits reassembling, making connections between events. “Could he have tried to prevent us from marrying and fulfilling your ransom?”

“Who else?” the duke said furiously, seeing now the full extent of his brother’s treachery. “Damn his lying eyes. If I ever see him again, I will—”

“There she is,” a graveled voice declared, startling them both.

Chloe released the bars and whirled to see several castle guardsmen approaching stealthily from the nearby shadows. The one who had spoken remained some feet away, at the edge of the lantern light, while the others continued to advance with an air of coiled readiness.

“I-I wasn’t trying to escape. I only came to speak with His Grace, and I’ve learned some things that must be put before the king.” She backed down the passage that led toward the great hall. “You must escort me to him right away.”

“Of course, my
ladee,”
the leader of the guards declared with a strange lilt. Just as she realized it sounded French, he nodded to his men and they lunged after her.

Confused and jolted by their aggression, she whirled and tried to run for the passage to the great hall—but too late.

“What are you doing?” the duke demanded, jamming against the bars and watching helplessly as they seized Chloe. “Release her this instant!”

“Non, non, mon duc.”
With her in hand, the leader strolled forward and planted himself directly in the duke’s line of sight, blocking his view of them subduing her and stifling her screams. “I fear that will not be possible.”

The duke recoiled from the opening, shocked to recognize his face.

“Valoir.”

“Oui.
Valoir. Whom you discarded like so much refuse.” He ordered the cell door unlocked, and when it was opened, he stepped inside. He stood for a moment, studying the duke with satisfaction. “It seems all of your sins are coming back to haunt you,
non?”

Beyond Valoir, the duke could see Chloe struggling futilely against her captors. They had bound her hands and stuffed a cloth in her mouth, which they tied in place with a length of rope.

“Let her go!” The duke lunged for the door opening, but the
capitaine
lurched between him and the opening, savagely bringing down the hilt of a sword on the side of his head. Avalon’s head snapped back and he slammed to the floor on his hands and knees, dazed and fighting to stay conscious.

“Two birds with one stone,” Valoir sneered as he motioned his men into the cell to seize the reeling duke. “Even easier than I expected.”

It was some time later that Hugh arrived at the king’s privy chamber with Lord Bromley and Lady Marcella in tow. It was clear that if it hadn’t been for Bromley’s standing with the king, Edward would have refused to see them or to reconsider his decisions regarding the duke and Chloe. Through the partly open door, Hugh could hear Bromley reasoning with Edward, persuading him, drawing on their longstanding association to get him to see Hugh and listen to Lady Marcella again.

When at last they were ushered into the privy chamber, the king waved the old lady to a seat beside him on a bench beneath an open window. Before accepting, the old lady drew herself up before him and, with her nephew’s assistance, executed a deep curtsy. When she was seated, the king bade her speak and tell what she knew of the duke’s story.

Lady Marcella’s voice trembled as she began her story of young love and tragedy. The king listened with forced patience to the story of a young nobleman who arrived on her father’s estate with a trade delegation when she was a young woman. The young nobleman was bold and quick-witted and enthralling to all of the maids in the household. But his eye fell and lingered on her cousin, Clarice of Gilbert, and the girl soon succumbed to his charm and promises.

“A sad tale to be sure,” the king declared, frowning. “But there is no proof that the duke is the Frenchman of your story.”

“But his name was Manfred and so is the duke’s,” Bromley countered. “I heard my aunt call him that with my own two ears.”

“Do you remember anything else?” the king asked the old lady. “Anything about his family or companions?”

She shook her head regretfully. “He was introduced simply as a wealthy Frenchman. There were whispers that he was heir to a title, but it was never confirmed lest local resentment fall on him. After he stole Clarice away, my father blamed himself for having dealings with the treacherous French, and we were forbidden to speak of it. Now it has been so many years …”

“But, Chloe,” Hugh prompted. “She resembles your cousin Clarice a great deal.” He dropped to one knee before her and took her hands in his. “You must think, my lady. Her future, her life may depend upon it!”

“She does. Quite so.” The old lady began to weep. “I didn’t know if it was real or just in my mind. My eyes grow dimmer …” She dabbed at her tears with a handkerchief Bromley offered. “And my mind sometimes wanders. I never know … so … I said nothing about it.”

The king himself reached over to pat the hands wringing in her lap.

“Please, Highness, you must see that something else is at work here,” Hugh pleaded, frustrated to have no clear and unequivocal evidence. “Someone wanted the duke’s ransom to fail. Someone who attacked us on the road and then sent assassins to finish the task after we arrived safely. Why take such a roundabout route to stir up resentment and outrage at English rule—especially while the duke is still in English hands? Surely they would know he could be blamed.” He paused absorbing the impact of that conclusion himself. “It seems to me that these events must be directed more at the duke than at England, Highness. And I would bet my life that if properly questioned, the duke may be able to shed some light on who is responsible.”

The king searched Hugh, then turned to Bromley and Bedford, who gave him grave nods. “I believe Sir Hugh has the right of it, Sire,” Bedford murmured.

“Very well. Escort your aunt back to her chambers,” he told Bromley. Then he looked up at Hugh. “I have already dispatched Norwich to Calais to recover any records that may exist of a ‘first marriage.’ ” He gave a weary sigh. “I believe I am ready to hear what your bride and troublesome father-in-law have to say.”

As Hugh strode back through the hall, headed for the chamber where Chloe was being held, a commotion occurred at the side door of the hall. Hugh broke stride and stared as Jax, William, Simon, and Graham staggered into the hall carrying between them a crumpled figure draped over a makeshift stretcher.

“What’s happened?” Hugh rushed to help, and they laid the injured man out on one of the long tables. He was older and obviously of the knightly class, though his armor was of an outdated style and sadly ill-tended. Along the man’s side, coming from under his mail, was an alarming broad smear of crimson.

“Where is the king?” Graham demanded, looking around wildly.

“He has withdrawn.” Hugh declared, realizing that Graham had missed what had happened with Chloe and the duke while he was out of the hall. He looked at the aged knight lying white and silent on the tabletop and sensed who he was even as Graham spoke.

“Sir Jean de Mornay, Lisette’s uncle. He’s been attacked—run clean through. Where is she? Lisette?”

“I’m not sure. With the other brides, perhaps.” Hugh declared, struggling to make sense of the attack on Lisette’s uncle. If he truly was Lisette’s uncle, why would anyone bring him here to bear witness to the brides’ parentage and then stab him afterward? Except … he realized with growing dread … to keep him from bearing witness to anything else …

“We have to inform Bromley and the king. Jax, fetch a physician—quickly! William, find Bromley … he’s probably still with Lady Marcella. Graham—”

But Graham was already in motion, headed for the doorway leading out to the queen’s courtyard. He bounded up the uneven steps two at a time, his heart pounding, his fists clenched to keep them from shaking. But in the courtyard he found only three of the new wives. They told him that Lisette had been worried about Chloe and had insisted on trying to see her. He retraced his steps to the great hall and headed for the stairs that led to the brides’ former chamber.

As he approached the landing, he was halted by two burly guardsmen who refused to allow him to pass. He reasoned and bullied and finally got one of them to admit they had allowed Lisette to enter the chamber. It was a short step from there to convincing them to knock on the door and tell Lady Lisette her uncle had been found and needed her. After an agonizingly tense pause, one of the guards backed up the two steps to the landing and set his fist to the door.

Lisette appeared, her voice pouring through the otherwise silent passage like warm honey. “Lady Chloe is resting—”

“Nay, milady, a fellow asks to speak to
you,”
one of the pike-bearing guards declared with an eager smile and entirely too much warmth in his tone.

Graham jolted back and came down unexpectedly hard on the step below.

“Not ‘a fellow,’ you dolt … the lady’s husband,” he barked, reversing course and stalking up the remaining steps. “Lisette!” The door opened wider and Lisette stepped into the doorway. “Your uncle is in the hall, gravely injured. You must come.”

Closing the door behind her, she brushed past the guards and flew down the steps just ahead of Graham. He caught up with her, seized her elbow, and ushered her down the steps into the hall, where a knot of men was gathered around one of the long tables.

“Let her through,” he said, making way for her.

She stopped abruptly and gasped.

“Uncle Jean!” She rushed to his side, her gaze flying from the old man’s pale face to the crimson slash running down his side to the priest arriving to administer prayers and perhaps rites. He raised his hand and she seized it and pressed on it a desperate kiss.

“Lis-ette …” The old man had barely enough breath to form words.
“Ma petite …”
He had difficulty swallowing, and she leaned closer to hear him. “They said you were … taken …” His breathing filled with ominous bubbling sounds and he coughed. Blood appeared at the corners of his mouth.

“They lied,
mon cher oncle.
I was not forced to do anything. I am safe and lawfully wedded,” she said, the words catching in her throat.

“You are wedded,
petite?
You are hap-py?” The old man’s chest rattled worse with each inhalation. He managed to turn his head enough to look at her. When she nodded through her tears, the anxiety the old man felt for her began to ebb along with his life.
“C’est bon … ma … petite … heureux …”
His grip on her hand loosened.
“Le … bonheur …”
His eyes closed.

“Please, Sir Jean, tell us …” Hugh tried one last time to elicit information from the dying man. “Who did this to you? What did they look like?”

“Val—Valoir.” The answer was even more faint. They bent closer and the priest halted to allow them to hear. “He found me … said Lisette
… le compte … non … non …”

Then his pale lips stilled.

“Oncle
Jean!” Lisette touched his face, calling to him again and again, but his chest no longer stirred. He was gone. Her tears fell onto his pale, still cheek, and she wrapped him in her arms and began to sob. The drone of Latin began again.

After a respectful moment Graham said her name and gently pulled her away from the old knight’s lifeless form. She swayed and he caught her to him to steady her. She looked up with all the misery of her heart visible in her luminous eyes. He sank visibly into those fathomless pools now filled with grief. He pulled her tightly against him and cradled her head against him.

All looking on crossed themselves.

“I am sorry for your loss, my lady,” Hugh said after a moment’s silence. Then he turned to his father, Jax, and William. “Valoir. And something about a count. I must speak with Chloe, then we have to see what the duke has to say.”

They had started for the doorway leading to Chloe’s prison, when Lisette’s tearful voice halted him. “She isn’t there.” When Hugh halted and turned, she clarified it. “She went to see the duke, to speak with him and learn if he truly believes she is his daughter.”

“But she was being held under guard. How could she have—”

“I distracted the guards and she slipped out,” Lisette said, her tear-splotched cheeks crimsoning. “She believes she must discover her parentage and prove herself if— You must look for her in the dungeons.”

Alarm shot through Hugh. “Just like her to try some—” He caught himself before he uttered
damned fool nonsense.
Chloe of Sennet didn’t have a foolish or nonsensical bone in her body. If he had learned anything these past few weeks, it was that everything about her was good and earnest and imminently sensible. Except, perhaps, her love for him. Which didn’t make a bit of sense. And when he caught up with her, he was going to make certain she knew just how grateful he was for that merciful lapse in judgment.

Hugh motioned to his father, Jax, and William and headed for the door leading to the dungeons.

As they approached the chamber where the Duke was being held, they could see that the door was already open and the guards usually stationed at the end of the passage were missing. Hugh rushed into the chamber and stood looking at the empty cot with disbelief. The duke couldn’t have gotten out without help.

“Did Chloe let him out?” He wheeled on the others. “How would she have gotten the key? Surely she knows better than to—”

He looked up at the others, then at his father, and a new fear gripped him. He ran out into the passage and down a nearby set of steps that led to the warder’s chamber. The guards usually posted there were missing as well. In searching the area, the earl spotted a heap of bodies stripped of clothes and armor lying in one of the empty cells.

They had both been taken. Chloe and her father.

“He’s got them—the bastard’s got them,” Hugh muttered in disbelief. “He reached into the king’s own dungeons and snatched them out.”

“Who?” his father demanded.

“Our mystery lord. The one who tried again and again to prevent the duke’s ransom.” The certainty of it settled over him; this was all about the duke. “The one who hates the Duke of Avalon enough to destroy many innocent lives in order to see him disgraced.”

Something inside Hugh erupted with a white-hot fury he had only felt once before—on a battlefield. This time it was preparing him to fight, too—only this time he would fight to save and protect his wife, his love. He rushed back through the dungeons and up to the great hall, headed for the king’s chambers.

Graham was still in the hall with Lisette, whose sisters had just arrived to comfort her. At the sight of Hugh’s fierce manner, he demanded to know what was happening. When told that Chloe and the duke had been taken out of the dungeon, he looked grimly down at Lisette, clearly torn between staying with her and helping Hugh. It was all Lisette needed.

“Go,” she said, giving him a gentle push. “Help him find our Chloe.”

He fell back a step, then halted and grabbed Lisette, kissing her ardently on the mouth. A moment later he was rushing after Hugh and the earl as they headed toward the king’s chambers.

A short while later they emerged from the privy chamber bearing with them the potent force of the king’s full authority.

“They’ll be headed back to France … down the Thames … to London … from there back to France,” Hugh said, his mind racing but not missing a step. “Boats or horses?”

“Horses to London,” the earl declared. “The river is too slow this time of year and too obvious.” The others murmured agreement.

“Horses it is. They’ll move fast … keep away from the main roads … at least until they’ve …” He swallowed the new fear rising up the back of his throat. “Assuming they’ve taken Chloe and the duke with them.” He rejected the desperate thought that they might have disposed of them straightaway. “Simon, Graham, go to the barracks. Recruit every man not on duty. Have them mounted and out on the green in a quarter of an hour.”