Fragments of Grace (Prequel to the Dragonblade Trilogy) (12 page)

Kurtis scratched his chin with
some agitation. “You are hiding the man’s betrothed from him? What if he comes
to Northumberland to seek support to regain her? I will….”

Keir waved him off. “She is not,
nor was she ever, betrothed to him,” he clarified. “Ingilby simply cannot
accept her refusal and resorted to laying siege to Exelby in the hopes of
capturing a bride.”

Kurtis wasn’t comfortable with
the situation; that was clear. He spied the women in the distance, rifling
through the goods of a merchant stall, and finally shook his head.

“She is not your burden,” he told
his brother. “You should have nothing to do with this.”

Keir nodded. “I agree, but
Coverdale gave me an order and I must comply. Exelby is an ally.”

“Does Ingilby know you have her?”

“He does not, at least at the
moment.”

Kurtis grunted. “When he finds
out, he will come for her. I hope you are prepared for a siege.”

“I am always prepared.”

“I know you are, but this would
be a waste of men and material. She does not belong at Pendragon.”

“Then you go and tell Coverdale. 
Let us see if he will listen to you.”

It was a sarcastic remark, one
that Kurtis lifted an eyebrow at. He could see there was no simple answer to
the situation so he shook his head again, eyeing the women in the distance. 
After several moments of deliberation, he sighed heavily.

“This cannot be good for you,” he
finally said, his tone considerably softer. “Having a woman at Pendragon… it
simply cannot be good for you.”

Keir knew what he meant and he
averted his gaze, not wanting to delve into that touchy subject. “I am fine,”
he insisted quietly. “Lady Chloë and her sister have been a delight.”

Kurtis looked at him.
“Truthfully?” he wasn’t sure he believed him.  “For the man I have known over
the past three years does not react well to the presence of women.”

Keir’s manner was growing
increasingly defensive. “I appreciate your concern, but I assure you that all
is well.”

Kurtis wouldn’t back down.  He
fixed on his brother. “I did not imagine your arm around her when I rode up,”
he snapped softly.  “What are you thinking, Keir? That perhaps you want another
wife? I will protest that decision until the day I die because I know, for a fact,
that you could not stand to lose another. I watched you go through hell after
Maddie’s death and it nearly destroyed me as well.   It was me who chained you
to the walls of the vault so you would not kill yourself and me who sat with
you day after day, making sure you had food and water, taking care of you
because you were incapable of taking care of yourself. Get those women out of
Pendragon, brother; get them out before they are the death of you.”

Keir laughed bitterly. “So you
think to box me up and keep me in solitude for the rest of my life? Why am I
not allowed to reclaim the happiness I once knew?”

Kurtis looked at him as if he was
mad. “Are you actually considering it?”

Keir threw up his hands. “I do
not know,” he insisted, his hands coming to rest on his brother’s wide
shoulders. “I appreciate your concern and loyalty, Kurt, I truly do and I love
you for it. But you worry overly. I am fine.”

The last few words were
punctuated with a slap to Kurtis’ cheek. Keir smiled at his brother and removed
his hands from his shoulders, his gaze finding Chloë and Cassandra as they
moved to another stall with tall, broad Michael following.  Kurtis, at a
genuine loss for words, turned to see what has his brother so captivated.  As
he noted at the onset, the redhead was a lovely little thing, as was her blond
sister.  Kurtis had always preferred blonds and his eye naturally went to
Cassandra.  He finally grunted and looked away.

“Are they both unattached?” he
asked.

Keir nodded. “Cassandra is the
older sibling,” he told him. “Their father will not marry off Chloë until
Cassandra is married.”

“Chloë is the redhead?”

“Aye.”

Kurtis stared at the woman,
nodding his head after a moment. “She is magnificent, no doubt,” he admitted.
“I have seen many women in my lifetime but never one of such radiant beauty. No
wonder Ingilby wants her.”

Keir gave him a crooked grin.
“True enough, but I need her sister out of the way before I can court her. Will
you do this for me, brother?”

Kurtis’ stone-like expression
fractured into a sneer. “Never,” he snapped, turning back to his horse. “Find
someone else to do your dirty work.”

Keir bit off his laughter.
“Cassandra is a beautiful woman. Very intelligent also. She would make a fine
prize.”

Kurtis reached his horse and
prepared to mount. “Go away and leave me alone.”

Keir was starting to laugh. “You
need a wife so you will not be so bitter and surly all of the time,” he told
him. “You have the charm of driftwood, Kurt. A woman will do wonders for you.”

Kurtis mounted, fixing his
brother in the eye as he settled himself in the saddle. “Like a woman did for
you? No, thank you. I do not want any part of that.”

Keir’s laughter faded but his
smile remained. “Do not let yourself be fooled,” he insisted softly. “The years
I was married to Madeleine were the best years of my life.”

Kurtis leaned forward on the
saddle, his icy blue eyes intense. “Would you say that losing your wife and
children in the end was well worth those wonderful years?”

“So you would rather live your
life a miserable man, safe from the threat of love?”

“I would rather not lose
something I so desperately loved that it took the life right out of me like it
did you.”

Keir’s smile faded completely and
the pale blue eyes dulled. After a moment, he simply turned and walked away.
With a heavy heart, Kurtis watched him go.  Perhaps he had said too much but,
in his opinion, Keir needed to be reminded of what a woman could do to a man’s
soul. Infatuation could do much to cloud memories. He simply didn’t want to see
his brother hurt again.

He knew, for a fact, the man
would not survive.

CHAPTER EIGHT

The bright silver moonlight
streamed in through the lancet window, softly illuminating the chamber where
Keir’s children had once slept.  A fire burned low in the hearth, crackling, as
Chloë slept warm, clean and cozy in a new sleeping shift and freshened bed
linens. 

Chloë and Cassandra had spent
most of their money in town, coming away in early evening with twelve new
surcoats between them, shifts, pantalets, and all manner of combs, scarves,
hose, oils, creams and soaps.  They nearly bought everything the merchants
carried, including a giant trunk made from cedar wood that one of the fabric
merchants used to store his goods.  Keir had purchased the trunk since the
ladies didn’t have anything to carry their new things with.   Since they hadn’t
brought a wagon, the men at arms took turns lugging it.

Better still, they were able to
secure two women servants in town, older spinsters who were willing to work at
Pendragon with the promise of good wages.  They were old and ugly, as Chloë had
insisted, but they cooked and cleaned like angels. 

 The evening meal was delayed due
to their late return from the town but the two older women managed to pull
together a plain but plentiful feast of mutton, beans, peas and big hunks of
brown bread and butter.  While the knights and ladies ate, they had moved into
the two chambers that Chloë and Cassandra were assigned and scrubbed the
daylights out of anything with a surface. Places that hadn’t seen clean since
Madeleine’s death were now shiny and new again, properly cleaned for proper
ladies.

But it was a process that took
time and it was close to midnight by the time Chloë and her sister went to
bed.  The rooms were swept and scrubbed, the linens marginally cleaned with the
promise of washing on the morrow, so the women bid the men in the hall good eve
and proceeded to bed.  They were both exhausted.  Dressing in a rough-finished
sleeping shift with a heavier robe of rabbit-lined linen, Chloë had fallen in
to a deep, sweet sleep almost immediately.

Now, in the dead of night, the
moonlight was very bright and somewhere, an owl hooted into the darkness. 
Chloë was dreaming of bread custard her mother used to make, with raisins and
nuts, dreaming that she was eating it as it snowed inside the hall at Exelby. 
It was very cold and she shivered, pulling the covers more closely around her. 

But warm dreams of bread custard
faded as she awoke, groggy and half-asleep, to realize that it was freezing
inside the chamber.  She looked to the fire, seeing that it was still glowing,
but her breath was hanging in the air.  There was mist upon the wind and the
hair on the back of her neck began to stand up.  Suddenly, Chloë wasn’t so
groggy any more. She was scared.

Terror filled her and her heart
began to pound against her ribs.  Eyes open, she dared not move as her eyes
darted about, searching for the source of her terror.  She could feel it
somewhere, knowing it was lingering close by but too frightened to move.  She wanted
to scream but couldn’t. As her eyes searched the darkness, a small, ghostly
shape suddenly emerged from the wall near the hearth.  It passed right through
the stone and moved, shapeless and shiftless, near the bed.

Terrified, Chloë sat bolt upright
in bed as the specter of a little girl took shape.  Gradually, she could see
every detail of the child, from her long pale hair to her piercing black eyes. 
The child was shades of gray so she couldn’t discern any color, but she did
think that the shape of the child’s jaw was familiar. She had a very square jaw
just like….

“Frances?” Chloë asked timidly
“Is it you?”

The little girl stared at her
with her dark-circled black eyes.  Then she pointed in the general direction of
the big wardrobe, the wall.  “Me-Me,” she hissed.

Chloë was frightened but somehow,
she felt as if the child was coming to her for answers or assistance. She
wasn’t sure which. But this was the second night in a row that the phantom had
appeared to her and she instinctively wanted to help.  If this was true and she
wasn’t dreaming, then Keir’s little daughter’s soul was not at rest and the
thought was heartbreaking.  The child needed, or wanted, something desperately
enough to remain behind when she should have gone straight to heaven.  The clue
was in the asking.  

“Me-Me,” she repeated,
whispering. “Are you looking for Merritt? I do not know where he is.”

The wraith was still pointing at
the wall. “Me-Me,” she murmured again.

Chloë nodded, feeling a little
braver. “Aye, Frances, I know about Me-Me,” she whispered. “But I do not know
where he is.  Are you looking for him?”

The specter continued to stare at
her, growing oddly paler by the moment. “Me-Me.”

Chloë looked to the wall where
the child was pointing.  She couldn’t see anything there in the shadows other
than the door, the wall and the wardrobe.  Feeling increasingly sad and
frustrated in her desire to help, she shook her head at the specter.

“Me-Me is not here, sweetheart,”
she said gently. “We do not know where he is, I am sorry. Do… do
you
know where he is, perhaps?”

The phantom was beginning to
undulate how, shape-shifting. “With thee…,” she murmured, “now I sleep.”

With that, a huge icy wind suddenly
arose, enveloping her, swirling over her and Chloë screamed in fear as the specter
suddenly howled an unearthly roar and ballooned to titanic proportions,
dissolving into mist and shadow.  Chloë covered her eyes, terrified, as the
phantom blew threw her, lifting her hair like a wild wind.  But in that contact
between the spirit world and the world of the living, Chloë felt the
overwhelming emotions of sadness, fear and pain. She could feel distress and
terror on a level she had never before experienced. It filled every inch of her
and she gasped as the sensation swirled through her body.

She tried to stagger to her feet
but ended up falling to the floor. As swiftly as the wind rose, it was abruptly
gone, leaving horrific grief and sorrow in its wake. When it was vanished and
all was suddenly still, Chloë found herself on her knees in shock. 

Mouth hanging open and hair
askew, she found herself staring at her shaking hands as if hardly believing
what had happened.  Her heart was pounding so hard she was sure it would pound
right out of her chest and in the midst of it all she could smell a distinctive
scent. It was something between dirt and roses, a warm, pervasive scent. 
Smelling her hands, it was strong.  Sniffing her arms, and then her robe, she
realized it was all over her.

The smell was everywhere, the
scent of a little girl lost. She burst into tears, sobbing into her hands as if
her heart was broken.  She fell forward, onto the newly swept floor, weeping
pitifully.  Outside her chamber door, she began to hear sounds as someone
called her name and tried to lift the latch.  But the door was bolted and she
heard someone shout her name again.

It was Keir. There was no
mistaking his strong, booming voice. Chloë struggled off the floor, picking
herself up and staggering to the door.  She threw the bolt and yanked open the
oak panel, sobbing deeply.  Before Keir could ask her what the trouble was, she
shoved her hands in his face.