Tori Phillips (26 page)

Guy walked around to the far side of Black Devil, where he leaned his forehead against the saddle as Celeste continued to enumerate and describe a feast found only in heaven. Guy’s empty stomach rumbled in protest.

“Finis,” she announced, finally coming to the end of her menu. “There, did you not enjoy that sumptuous repast?
Ma foi,
I confess I am so full I could not eat another bite. You will have to finish the baked custard tarts by yourself, Brother Guy.”

Guy looked over Black Devil’s back and wondered if yesterday’s events had unhinged her mind.

Celeste burst into a waterfall of laughter when she saw his expression. “Oh, la, la! Have you never played pretend, Brother Guy? I am so sorry for you! It does wonders to make you feel better. At home in L’Étoile, I used to do it all the time, whenever I was locked in my room without supper and...”

Guy barely heard the rest. Sweet Saint Anne! What sort of an upbringing had this poor girl had? Locked up and starved on a regular basis? He gripped the stirrup to keep himself from gathering her into his embrace. At the very first opportunity, he would find her something to eat. He would heap the bounty of earth, sea and sky on her trencher, if he could.

Celeste clapped her coif on her head, then straightened the filmy gray veil over her hair. “So? Do we stand here on this very wet ground and look at each other, or do we ride, Brother Guy?”

To the ends of the earth
.

Chapter Twenty-One

“Y
our pardon, my lord, but the French lady has come,” announced Talbott.

Sir Roger Ormond looked up from his accounts ledger and squinted in the dimness of the gray afternoon. In an effort to save his precious store of candles for the dark winter months ahead, Sir Roger worked as much as possible by the natural light that cast its feeble rays through the narrow lancet window of his estate office.

“The French lady?” he repeated, racking his brains for whoever it was his steward meant.

“Lady Celeste de Montcalm.” Talbott enunciated slowly. “The lady who is betrothed to Master Walter.”

Sir Roger laid down his quill pen, and rubbed his hands together. By Jupiter and his court! So the lass had finally arrived. He had received so many messages in the past three months detailing her accidents, illnesses and loss of baggage that Roger had all but given her up.

“They wait upon you in the hall, my lord,” his steward continued.

“Tell me, Talbott. Is she fair?”

Talbott shifted from one foot to the other. “She is young, my lord.”

A plague on the man! “But is she comely? Out with it!”

Talbott licked his lips like a dog eyeing a bone. “She is of less than middling stature, my lord. Of her looks, they are dark, and silky, and she has well-marked eyebrows.”

“Dark?” Sir Roger stroked his chin and realized he had not shaved for the past two days. A dark wench might prove a shrew—’twas a well-known fact. “But her face? Her figure? Do not waste my time in tittle-tattle, jolt-head. Is the lady a beauty?”

“Of her bosom...” Talbott shrugged. “’Tis not much raised, nor do I think she is trussed up, as is the fashion in the south. She has an elegant long neck, like ivory. Her hair? From what I could see of it, ’tis as black as midnight. And her eyes...” A stupid, sheeplike expression stole over Talbott’s face.

Sir Roger resisted the impulse to hurl the pot of ink at the stretch-mouthed rascal. “Is she squint-eyed? Is there a cast to them? What about her eyes?”

“’Pon my very soul, they are purple in color, my lord. I have ne’er seen the like, and she uses them with great effect.”

Sir Roger slammed the palm of his hand down on the table, which caused the quills to shiver in their holder. “Lackwit! Answer my first question! Do you find the lady pleasing?”

Talbott pushed his straggling red hair out of his face before replying. “This lady is a most beautiful maid — in my humble opinion, my lord.”

Sir Roger sat back in his plain wooden chair. This was a fair piece of news. Talbott’s eye for women was legendary below stairs. Sir Roger permitted a slow smile to crease his face. A young, comely wife to warm his old bones—not a bad way to greet the coming Christmas season, even if she was a foreigner.

“And her attendants? How many accompany her?” How many did he have to feed, and how soon could he send them packing back to France?

“That is the nut and core of it, my lord. There is but one, her confessor.”

Sir Roger’s bushy gray eyebrows shot up toward his hairline. “No baggage? No outriders? I was given to understand she came with half of France.” Had she lost everything in her numerous ill-fated adventures. Pray, God, not her dowry!

Talbott shrugged again. “I know not, save her confessor is very odd. He does not speak.”

“Ha! A former felon, gone for the church! No doubt his tongue was cut out for some early transgression. No matter. There are enough prattling priests in this world as it is.”

“And the lady does not speak English very well,” Talbott added.

“Of course not, you tedious fool. She’s French! Aye, but we shall instruct her soon enough.”

I shall instruct her in the English manner of lovemaking within this very week
, Sir Roger thought to himself, with a growing heat in his loins. Cupid have mercy! He felt like a green youth a-wooing his first maid. It had been far too long since he last had a woman—and a pretty one at that! Poor Eleanor had been a whey-faced creature who did nothing but sigh and cry—a perpetual red nose and a long, skinny body, God rest her soul.

“In the hall, you say? Come, let us view this dainty morsel.” Sir Roger breathed a quick prayer of thanks that Walter had gone boar-hunting.

Celeste paced back and forth in front of the massive fireplace in the soot-blackened hall. The few logs on the grate barely emitted enough heat to warm her toes, and she hesitated to draw too near it, for fear of awakening the large, scruffy-looking wolfhound who lay on the hearthstones.

When they rode over the last rise and Guy pointed out Snape Castle, Celeste had wanted nothing more than to bolt back across the uninviting moors. Rising starkly out of the barren countryside, Snape’s thick stone walls and thin windows bespoke centuries of defense against marauders from the north, but it had none of the softer influences of the south. Her new home was a solid, unforgiving fortress, without a flower garden, an orchard or even window glass to enhance it.

She wished she was back home in L’Étoile! It was a blessing that dear Aunt Marguerite had not come all this way to behold this rock heap—or its putrefying heir! If her aunt had, perhaps she would have ordered Celeste to return immediately to France.

Celeste tossed her head.
Non!
Her father had given her to the Ormonds, and she must honor that contract. Please,
dear Lord, let Sir Roger take pity upon me and tear up the agreement. I do so want to go home!

She cast a quick glance at her silent companion. Earlier this morning, as they paused at a fork in the track, Guy had looked longingly down the left road. Ever since then, he had withdrawn from her, lost in his own thoughts. Celeste wondered if it had something to do with his family. She recalled that Father Jocelyn had said Guy came from these parts. Squaring his shoulders, Guy kicked Black Devil into a trot, and he rode toward the castle’s yawning portcullis without looking back at her.

The inside of the stronghold appeared worse than its outside. If ever a woman had put a feminine touch here, cobwebs, dirt and neglect had rubbed it out. A dank, cold air exhaled from its stony walls, and the spare furnishings appeared in various shades of gray. Neither candle nor torch burned away the gloom. Only the fitful fire in the hall gave any warmth and color.

The servants they encountered shuffled about with their eyes downcast, or they stared at her with an open boldness. All of them needed baths, haircuts and fresh clothing. Celeste glanced down at her own gown. After sleeping on the moor last night, she looked as beggarly as the inhabitants of Snape.

“Welcome to my home!” a deep voice growled in French from out of the depths of the far stair. The dog on the hearth leapt to his feet and wagged his tail.

Celeste managed to drop a curtsy as a huge man, his pewter-gray hair standing straight out from his head at all angles, strode across the rush-strewn flagstones toward them. Under her skirts, her knees quaked. Guy extended his hand to help her rise. Before letting go, he gave her fingers a warm little squeeze. Then he drew his hood lower over his face, folded his arms inside his loose sleeves and stepped back into the shadows. Celeste took a deep breath, then lifted her eyes to face the man who held her fate.

“I am honored to be here, Sir Roger,” Celeste murmured. For once, her witty tongue eluded her.

“Wine!” the master of the castle bellowed, sending his redheaded servant scurrying away. Celeste hoped the wine would be a decent vintage, and not the vinegar the English liked to drink.

“You have traveled a far piece,” Sir Roger observed, in a slightly gentler tone. His accent was atrocious, but at least he spoke French.

Celeste twitched under his one-eyed scrutiny. His other eye was hidden by a dark patch of cloth, from under which a jagged white scar streaked down his face. Celeste tried not to stare at it.

“Oui
, I think God sent every trial in his book to test my fortitude. But, as you can see, I have arrived,” she ended lamely. She wished he wouldn’t scrutinize her in such a direct manner. He acted as if he were planning a purchase at the butcher’s.

“And how do you find England, my lady?” Sir Roger circled her slowly, in a manner that irritated Celeste.

“In truth, I find your country a rainy little island on the far edge of the civilized world,” she retorted without thinking.

Sir Roger gaped. “Zounds, mistress! You do not blunt your arrows. Well aimed. I like a woman with spirit—though not too much, mind you.”

“Does your son also like spirited women?” she asked, watching his face intently.
Let us see if he changes color.

Sir Roger frowned
.
“My son is away at the moment, hunting the wild boar. We need not speak of him.”

“Mais oui,
I fear we must, my lord.” She could not let this falsehood slip by. Walter would make his way back to Snape soon enough. “Walter is not hunting boar, but brides—
moi.”

“The devil take it!” Sir Roger shouted so loudly the swords which hung on the chimneypiece rattled in their scabbards.

“I agree, my lord. The devil can take him anywhere he pleases. I met Walter Ormond yesterday afternoon, on the road betwixt here and York. He proposed to marry me under a bush, he said.”

“How now? What jest is this?” Sir Roger was growing very ruddy in the face.

“No jest, my lord,” Celeste responded evenly. “Unless being dragged off my horse and threatened with lewd hints and rough handling be your idea of a jest.”

“Is this true?” Sir Roger glanced at the tall hooded figure. “Did you see this, Brother monk?”

Keeping his face half-covered, Guy nodded. Then he stepped beside Celeste and gently drew back the sleeve of her gown. Even in the dim light of the hall, the dark bruises left by Walter’s cruel fingers showed plainly on the pale skin of her wrist. Guy took her chin between his thumb and forefinger and lifted her face so that the appalled father could see the mark of his son’s hand on her cheek. Guy’s thumb lightly brushed over the tender swollen area under one eye. Then he released her and stepped back once again into the shadows.

“God’s death! My son did this to you?”

“Oui.
He said I had made him wait too long for wedding and bedding, and that he would not wait an hour longer.” Celeste covered her wrist from the outraged father’s stare. “If it were not for Brother Guy’s swiftness, even now I would be married to... too...” Celeste bit her lower lip. She dared not tell Sir Roger what she really thought of his loutish son.

“Oh, foulmouthed and calumnious knave!” Sir Roger hurled his anguished bellow to the gloomy vaulting of the hall. A number of curious servants peeked around corners. “This shame derives itself from unknown loins—not mine, I warrant you. My temper grows hot! Where is the molting jackdaw now?”

Celeste shrugged. “At this very moment, I know not. As of yesterday, we last saw him and his wretched minions tied to a tree, with their shoes and stockings off.”

Sir Roger’s anger turned to a sudden burst of harsh laughter. “Aye? How did such a slip as you and one long-shanked priest accomplish this feat?”

“My men, under the command of Sergeant Gaston Domaine, did that. They are traveling on the main road, and will be here anon. Brother Guy and I rode overland. We thought it best to come as quickly as possible.” Celeste passed her hand across her forehead. With little sleep and no food since dinner yesterday, she felt faint.

Guy came up behind her and helped Celeste to a bench. At this moment, the redheaded servant reappeared with a tarnished silver tray that held several brimming goblets. Guy snatched one before the drinks were even offered to Sir Roger and held it up to Celeste’s lips.

“The devil!” their host growled in surprise.

“Pray, forgive Brother Guy’s manners, Sir Roger.” Celeste sipped the ruby liquid. A little raw of taste, but very restoring. “We have not eaten for nearly a day. We rode through the night, as well.” She took a deeper drink.

“Sprites and fires! My son may keep his own grace, but he is run out of mine, I can assure you, my lady.” The raging father lifted his great head and shouted down the hall. “Grapper! Where is your poxed carcass?”

Celeste gripped the goblet. What manner of madhouse had she entered? Did Sir Roger never speak but to shout, bluster and yell? At least he seemed to believe her. The strong, unwatered wine began to work its potency upon her. If Sir Roger didn’t show her to a room very soon, Celeste feared she would fall asleep on the bench.

Guy stood closer behind her. As Sir Roger stalked about the flagstones, working himself up into a frenzy, Guy placed his hand on Celeste’s shoulder and squeezed it gently. She leaned back against his comforting form. She wondered if he could feel her trembling. Mustn’t close my eyes, she told herself. Meanwhile, Sir Roger fell into a loud discussion with another servant—one who looked almost as evil as Walter’s knaves.
Mon Dieu!
Did the Ormonds employ highwaymen and murderers?