Claire Delacroix (15 page)

The lady returned and pressed the cloth against Gaston’s wound. He flinched at the coldness of it, but she grasped his chin and granted him no quarter.

“It will help to shrink it even further,” she insisted, and Gaston acquiesced.

Indeed, after the first shock of contact, the chill of the cloth felt good. The pounding even seemed to diminish slightly.

“There is no food, I am afraid,” the lady continued grimly. Gaston’s stomach growled at the reminder of its emptiness. “No doubt Philip intends to win agreement through weakening me.”

“But how long have we been here?”

“It was only last evening that we arrived here at Perricault.”

Only one night. Gaston was reassured that he had not left the lady unprotected for too long. He sat up and surveyed the solar of Perricault.

His first impression was that the place was far from welcoming. No embroideries hung from the stone walls; no braziers burned near the lady’s feet. There were no tokens of battle or friendship adorning the space, as was characteristic in the solars of his own home estate and that of the count’s. The great pillared bed was devoid of mattress or bedding, and the strewing herbs were so dry they looked unfit for mouse nests.

Suddenly, Gaston realized that he and the lady were alone.

“But where is your son?” he asked with a frown. “I recall seeing him with you last night, I am certain of it.”

The lady’s lips tightened and she turned away, but not quickly enough to hide her dismay. “Philip took him,” she said in a wavering voice, far from her usual firm tones.

“He took him from Perncault?”

“No.” The lady shook her head. “Philip simply took him from my side, to win my approval to his scheme.”

“The fiend!” Gaston jumped to his feet more hastily than might have been wise. He paid the price with a renewed throbbing between his ears, but was so outraged that he ignored it. “What dastardly scheme has he in mind?”

The lady folded her arms across her chest and studied her feet. Her voice was low when she spoke. “He would have me wed him and make his suzerainty of Perricault legitimate.”

How despicable! “But a lady like you cannot be forced to wed such a man!” Gaston argued heatedly. “Your overlord will protest!”

The lady shook her head. “Tulley may have no chance, if the nuptials are performed and the match consummated before he hears of it.”

“That is not fair!”

The lady’s expression turned wry and she eyed Gaston once more. “Fair has little to do with the actions of men seeking their own advantage,” she said gently.

While Gaston tried to make sense of that declaration, the lady retreated and sat on the stone ledge beneath the window. Her expression was more bitter than Gaston had yet seen. Clearly, she was discouraged by their circumstance, but Gaston knew he could reassure her.

He crossed the room to stand before her. “My lord, Chevalier Yves de Sant-Roux will not stand by and see such a wrong committed,” he declared proudly. “He will come to your aid before Philip can do his foul deed.”

“No, Gaston.” The lady shook her head and her voice was oddly flat. “He will not come.”

“Of course, he will!”

“No, Gaston. Your knight has seen his pledge fulfilled and will turn to other tasks.”

“What pledge?”

“He vowed only to aid me in retrieving my son.”

“But that is not done!”

“No,” the lady acknowledged. “But your knight made a valiant effort and barely escaped the attack upon Perricault with his life. It would be foolhardy to return to almost certain death, even to see a wrong set right.”

“You say as much only because you do not know the manner of man he is,” Gaston insisted hotly.

The lady surveyed him for a long moment, and Gaston was surprised to see the resignation in her steady gaze. Finally, she lay a hand upon his arm and spoke with quiet conviction.

“Gaston, you are yet young and have much to learn of men. What you did for me last evening was beyond brave, though you could have seen yourself killed for your efforts. Perhaps, even now, with the lump upon your head, you would not make the same choice again.”

“But I would!”

“Then, you have much still to learn. Gaston, men of war do not take such chances with their own hides. They see to their own gain alone.”

That she could even give consideration to such a thought was appalling to Gaston. “Not
knights!
Not men pledged to protect those weaker than themselves and uphold the cause of righteousness!”

“Yes,
knights,
” the lady insisted grimly. “And they worse than any others. Knights have more to lose and more to gain than most in this world.”

“My lord is not like that. He will return to see his mission complete. Yves de Sant-Roux will not rest until you and your son are safe.”

Indecision crossed the lady’s features, and Gaston sensed that she wanted to believe him.

Then she abruptly shook her head. “No. He will not.”

Before he could argue further, the lady turned and looked out the window, a small frown tightening her ebony brows. “Perhaps I erred in this,” she murmured, almost as though she spoke to herself. Her fingers drummed on the sill. “Perhaps I should have wed him first.”

Gaston could not curb his impertinence. “What do you mean?”

The lady’s gaze flew to his once more. “Had I wed your lord sooner, there would be more at stake than his pledge to aid me. Perricault would hang in the balance, as would the possibility that I might bring him an heir.”

She grimaced and turned to the view once more. “But I did not do that,” she said quietly. “And now it is too late.”

“It is not too late! Do not despair as yet!” Gaston protested, but the lady did not even acknowledge his words.

It was clear enough that she would not be persuaded to abandon her view, though Gaston knew she was wrong about his lord.

“You will see,” the squire said finally. “He will come and then you will see.”

Gaston retreated to the far side of the solar and hunkered down. He propped his aching head upon one hand and watched the lady, wishing there was some way he could raise her hopes.

But Gaston knew, deep in his heart, that only his lord could fulfill that task.

Yves’ mission proved to be even worse than he had anticipated.

Upon the party’s arrival at Château Annossy the following morning, Yves learned that Quinn and his lady were not resident, but taking their leisure at Château Sayerne.

Sayerne, where Yves’ father had barely tolerated his presence;
Sayerne, where his dame had died, unacknowledged by the man whose child she bore; Sayerne, the ravaged estate that Yves and Annelise had abandoned to the wolves and the wind when word of Quinn’s return came to their ears.

Yves would have to return to the very place he wanted to avoid at all costs.

The knights looked to him expectantly, and Yves thought of Gabrielle, caught in Philip’s web for a full night and a morning. Who knew what could have already transpired within those high walls of Perricault?

No, this was not a task he could lay aside.

“To Sayerne,” Yves commanded, his own fears as naught. Somehow he would face his ghosts squarely. Somehow he would convince his malicious brother to aid his course.

Somehow Yves would find aid for Lady Gabrielle and her son.

All the same, it was with some trepidation a day later that Yves crested the rise that he knew marked the division between the lands of Annossy and those of Sayerne. He braced himself for the sight of those abused fields and impoverished villeins that had been the most obvious evidence of his own sire’s cruel hand.

But the fields of Sayerne that unfurled before Yves’ eyes proved so different from his recollections that he wondered briefly whether he was on the right estate.

Much of the village that clustered outside the château walls had been rebuilt, a fact that furthered his amazement, and the mill was new. Villeins bustled purposefully. The first green growth could be spied in kitchen gardens alongside each house. Children shouted and ran in the streets, and a plump woman burst from the alehouse, calling back a laughing recrimination to her spouse, who was evidently still within.

This prosperous and happy village was a far cry from the shadowed ruin that Yves remembered here. It certainly did not correspond with the rumor of his brother’s character.

As they passed through Sayerne’s great gates, a shadow crept over Yves’ heart. The bailey was nearly as barren as it had been long before, the chill rising from the stone in the evening light enough to bring back a barrage of memories.

His sire had beat him in that corner. Yves mouth went dry and he looked away, though memory was not so readily dismissed as that.

Childhood feelings of failure and inadequacy assaulted Yves The entrance to the stables beckoned, as always it had, and he wondered if the old ostler yet lived. Those afternoons playing with the ostler’s hounds had been the only glimmer of childhood he had ever had, but knowing those moments were secret and stolen had cast a pall over them.

But this was not the time for such whimsical recollections. Yves had to go to the hall and convince his brother to ride to Gabrielle’s aid.

He dismounted, hoping against hope that he appeared nonchalant even while his heart pounded in his ears. He followed a squire’s polite gesture to Sayerne’s portal, took a deep breath and stepped over the threshold he had never intended to darken again.

Yves was shown to the solar, where the lord and lady were taking their leisure. The hall he strode through was quiet, a few men drinking before the embers glowing on the hearth, the shadows just as Yves recalled.

The chatelain mounted the stairs briskly before Yves, obviously unaware of the churning in Yves’ gut. Yves half expected to find his father lurking in the darkness at the apex of the stairs.

The door to the solar was slightly ajar, with warm, golden candlelight spilling through it onto the wooden floor of the corridor.

“I shall beat you soundly, woman, and then you will regret that move,” a man growled.

Yves stiffened, for the words were what he would have expected to hear fall from his brother’s mouth.

The chatelain, though, rapped on the door, clearly untroubled by the prospect of domestic violence. Sayerne had not changed! Yves thought. Abuse was so common here that all took it in stride.

And Yves had been fool enough to come back.

A
woman within the solar laughed. “You will have no such chance,” she retorted with a cheeky bravado that seemed decidedly uncalled for under the circumstance.

The chatelain smiled thinly and rapped again.

“Come!” bellowed the man.

“A visitor, my lord,” chirped the chatelain. “One Chevalier Yves de Sant-Roux.” He then moved back and gestured to Yves to enter.

Yves stepped into the golden light of the room just as Quinn pivoted in surprise. Though Yves and Quinn had never met, Yves having been born after his brother’s early departure, this man could be no other than his own blood.

Golden eyes so like his own returned his appraisal boldly. Russet hair like Annelise’s was threaded with a few lines of silver. This man was larger and broader than Jerome de Sayerne had been.

“Yves de Sant-Roux?” Quinn demanded.

A shiver crept through Yves, for he was certain nothing good would come of his brother’s guessing his true identity.

“The count sends his own champion to me?” Quinn asked, and Yves silently exhaled in relief. “Something must be sorely amiss, but the count should know that he can rely upon my aid.”

The chatelain slipped from the room on silent feet, and Yves struggled to appear poised. “It is a matter closer to home that brings me here this right.”

“Then come!” Quinn said, and offered his hand. “I am Quinn de Sayerne. Your men and steeds have been attended?”

“I believe your chatelain has matters well in hand.”

Quinn gestured to the table where he had been sitting. “Come and share of the wine, then. Tell me your tale.”

“Aha!” the woman seated at the table declared. Yves looked at her for the first time, surprised to find such a mischievous smile upon her face. Had his brother not just threatened to beat her? Her eyes danced as she plucked something from the table and skipped it over two similar dark shapes.

“I shall beat you yet, Quinn de Sayerne!” she declared, then popped one of the shapes into her mouth.

Belatedly, Yves understood that they played draughts.

“Melissande! You will eat all of the dates!” Quinn protested, though a merry twinkle lurked in his own eyes. The woman chortled and ate the second date she had skipped.

“Only if you insist on playing so poorly that you lose,” she retorted, then wiped her fingers as she smiled at Yves.

“Welcome, sir. I am Melissande d’Annossy. I must apologize for the casual state of matters this evening.” She flicked a glance full of import at her spouse. “But
someone
will eat all of the dates alone if unchecked, and I must confess to a fancy for them myself.”

“A fancy?” Quinn snorted in disdain, and Yves understood that this was an old game between these two. “That someone who eats all the dates is hardly me.”

The lady laughed in a most delightful fashion. “At least I eat them at the board,” she jested, her eyes glowing.

Yves could readily guess where else the dried fruits were consumed, for the pair exchanged a glance so smoldering that he felt momentarily awkward in their presence.

This was the brother he had avoided meeting all these
years? This was the man whose cruelty had sent him and his sister fleeing Sayerne in the dead of winter?

Yves decided to reserve judgment upon his brother’s character until his tale was told—and Quinn’s response was clear.

Melissande smiled and gestured Yves to a seat. “Please, join us.” She turned to the door, but before she could call, the chatelain ducked into the room with another goblet. He also brought a flagon of wine to join the one already on the table, and a platter of bread, cheese and olives.

“I took the liberty, sir, of providing a repast for our guest’s company in the hall and bade them make themselves comfortable there.”

“Most admirable, Rustengo,” Quinn declared amiably and took his own seat once more. “What would we do without you?”

Rustengo flushed slightly but looked pleased by the praise all the same. “If that will be all, sir?”

Lord and lady looked inquiringly to Yves, who could find no fault with their hospitality. Indeed, the smell of the bread made his stomach growl. He nodded to the chatelain and discarded his gloves. “I thank you.”

Melissande pinched a date from the draughts board and popped it into her mouth. The conspiratorial wink she granted Yves and the impish curve of her lips when she glanced toward Quinn told Yves that she had not won that particular fruit yet.

It was not behavior for a woman wed to an abusive man.

No sooner had Rustengo disappeared than Quinn leaned forward and braced his elbows on the table. “Now tell me, if you will, what matter brings you to Sayerne’s gate?” His amber gaze was so steady that Yves wondered again how much Quinn knew.

“Quinn, let the man eat,” Melissande chided.

But Yves leaned forward as well, his mission of greater import than filling his belly. “What do you know of Philip de Trevaine?”

Quinn grimaced. “Little good. Michel de Perricault fell at his hand, from what I hear.”

“And both Michel’s widow and his son are Philip’s captives,” Yves added grimly.

“No!” Melissande protested. “I thought Gabrielle escaped.”

Yves shook his head, once again feeling the full weight of his failure. “She did,” he admitted. “And she won my support for her cause to see her son free from Philip.”

Quinn’s gaze sharpened, and both he and his lady leaned closer, keen to hear the news.

“Last night we attacked Perricault, after I witnessed Philip’s withdrawal from the keep without Thomas.” Yves swallowed and laid the bread aside. “We were routed severely and the men who ride with me are the sum of those who managed to escape.”

“Deceitful dog,” Quinn muttered under his breath. “He must have returned to the keep.”

“That he did.”

“Does he have a confidant within your ranks?” Quinn hissed.

Yves met his brother’s gaze squarely. “No longer.”

Quinn nodded, his glance unswerving. “Good.”

The word hung between them for a long moment, then the lady leaned forward to pour Yves some wine. He sipped at it slowly, choosing his next words with care.

“But that man confided in me Philip’s plan.” Yves looked to lord and lady. “He means to make Tulley his own.”

Melissande hissed through her teeth, then took a draft of her own wine. “Annossy will be next,” she said, then looked toward Quinn with worry in her eyes.

Quinn covered her hand with his own and gave her fingers a squeeze. “We have kept foes from Annossy’s gates before, Melissande,” he said in a low voice. “Do not fear that we will see your family holding secure once more.”

Then he looked to Yves, his expression decisive. “What is
mine is yours,” he said. “Together we will see Lady Gabrielle and her son safely out of Philip’s grasp.”

“And Philip dead,” Melissande added savagely. “Such a villain cannot be permitted to live.”

A child cried out from the curtained corner of the solar and the lady was immediately on her feet. No wonder she felt such sympathy for Gabrielle and Thomas!

“Hush!” she murmured. “You will wake your brother.” As she turned, her surcoat pulled and revealed the ripe curve of her belly.

Two children at least, Yves realized, and another en route. His brother had not only an estate to his name, but a family, and a wife who clearly adored him. As Melissande excused herself to console the child, Yves looked at Quinn.

He found his brother watching him with appraising eyes that he suspected saw much more than he would have liked. Yves stared back, finding himself unable to look away. There were no shadows in his elder brother’s eyes, and the lines traced in the tan of his visage were those drawn by laughter, not anger.

Could Yves have been wrong about Quinn?

It was remarkable to question the truth of tales that had been fed to him from the cradle, but this man did not match expectation in the least. He had pledged his aid to Yves’ cause with the alacrity of a decent man. Indeed, now that Yves considered the matter, who had spread the tales of Quinn’s cruelty?

None other than Jerome de Sayerne.

Could Quinn’s departure from Sayerne have been enough to turn their sire against his firstborn? Certainly, Yves had no doubt of Jerome’s malice, having felt its bite repeatedly upon his own flesh.

Quinn cleared his throat, drawing Yves back to the present. “Once I heard a tale, Yves de Sant-Roux, that I was quick to discount in those days,” Quinn admitted slowly. He flicked a sharp glance to Yves, then stared into the depths of his wine.

The fire in the brazier crackled and wax slid down the side of the fat beeswax candle reposing on the table. Yves did not dare to move or even to ask what that tale might have been. Faintly, he could hear Melissande crooning a lullaby.

“You see,” Quinn continued, “the tale was so fantastic that I could not imagine it to be true. At least, not until now, when I see you before me and detect a hint of my sister’s visage in your face.”

Yves’ throat clenched as Quinn impaled him with a bright glance. “Could it be, Yves de Sant-Roux, that once upon a time, you were the bastard of Jerome de Sayerne, a son also named Yves?”

Yves’ grip tightened upon the chalice of wine, but he could not have lied to save his very life. Not to the man who had pledged his household to aid Gabrielle so quickly.

“I still am that man,” he admitted quietly.

Quinn studied him silently. Yves suspected that the turmoil loosed within him by that confession was readily discernible by that perceptive gaze.

“Perhaps,” Quinn said finally, “I did not dare believe because Yves de Sant-Roux was precisely the kind of man I would be proud to call my own brother.”

Yves blinked in astonishment at that. But Quinn slowly smiled. It was a welcoming and warm smile, a smile that just hours past Yves would never have expected to receive from this man.

“Do not look so surprised! You have come far, brother of mine,” Quinn acknowledged. “And done so honorably, despite the harsh legacy we both share. I know well enough the lies our sire told about me. Thanks be to Dame Fortune that you were undeterred by both those lies and whatever memories you must have of this place.”

Quinn scanned the room before looking back to Yves anew, his expression somber. “It took me some time to banish my ghosts before I could again consider Sayerne my home. I would have that for you, as well.”

As Yves struggled to absorb his brother’s amazing words, Quinn set his wine aside and offered his hand. “Welcome home, Yves. Welcome home to Sayerne.”

Yves stared at his brother’s hand—so like his own—for only a moment before he responded. And as he grasped it and felt the sincere strength of that man’s grip, he knew that at least one haunting ghost from his past faded to no more than a wisp of harmless smoke.

“Look,” Melissande said, her return making both men look up. “What about this?” She crossed the room, a slumbering child cradled against her shoulder, offering a small drawstring bag made of crimson velvet to her spouse with her free hand.

“I had forgotten about it,” Quinn admitted, and rose to his feet. He lifted the sleeping cherub from his wife’s arms, then took the bag and offered it to Yves. “This belongs rightly to you.”

Yves accepted the bag and felt the weight of something small within it. He looked inquiringly to lord and lady, who gestured simultaneously for him to open it.

“We found it in the treasury,” Melissande confided. “Oh, this place was in terrible shape, and I, for one, was certain there was nothing of merit left within its walls. There was nothing, except that.”

She lowered herself carefully onto her seat again and reached for the dates. “Quinn thought that one day you might return here, so we saved it for you.”

Yves sank onto his stool, surprised yet again. He had been certain there would be nothing here for him at Sayerne and was being proven wrong for the second time in short order. He loosened the string and a tiny circle of silver spilled out onto his palm.

It was a ring, and one for a lady, judging by its size. It was patterned in some way, the surface catching the light Yves studied the ring more closely and realized there were words carved into it.

À mon seul désir
it read, the words making a complete circle around the outside of the ring.

To my one desire.

Yves looked to his host and hostess, not knowing quite what to make of this token.

“It was marked as having been the only jewelry that Eglantine wore,” Quinn confided, and Yves’ heart tightened at the familiarity of that name. “I will give you the scroll that was with it, for it told of how Eglantine died bearing Jerome a son.”

Eglantine. Her ring burned a circle in Yves’ hand.

“It is not an easy document to read.” Quinn frowned. “The chronicler was quite opinionated about children born out of wedlock, not to mention their dames.”

Quinn cleared his throat as Yves stared at him, willing his brother to say what he already suspected. “I am quite certain that this ring belonged to your dame,” Quinn concluded.

This ring had adorned the hand of the mother he had never known. A lump rose in Yves’ throat as he marveled at the ring’s minute perfection. He had never had any token of his dame, nor even any hint of what kind of a woman she was. He did not even know what she looked like, but this ring, this very ring that he held now, had once graced her finger.

To my one desire.

He wondered what his mother’s one desire had been. Could it have been to have a healthy son?

Yves thought suddenly of Gabrielle and the strength of her determination to see Thomas free.

Gabrielle was a woman unlike any other Yves had ever met. There was a woman who knew what she desired of life, a woman determined to win the return of her son, regardless of the price. He wondered whether Gabrielle and his own dame would have seen eye to eye.

The thought made him smile. Yves ran a finger around the perimeter of the silver ring and knew with sudden clarity what he would do with this token.

He would put this ring upon Gabrielle’s finger once Philip de Trevaine drew breath no more. This would be the ring to seal the troth between them.