Haunted Knights (Montbryce~The Next Generation Historical Romance) (6 page)

Adam did not truly understand why he had insisted they remain at Kingston Gorse. He was outraged by Lady Lallement’s behaviour towards his brother. But he felt badly for Lucien and Vincent, who were obviously equally mortified.

They had been given a comfortable chamber on the ground floor. Adam was relieved they would not be on the same floor as Maudine Lallement. Vincent assured them his mother had been persuaded to take her evening meal in her chamber.

The four young men sat down to dine with Marc Lallement. Adam and Denis exchanged a glance. The lady of the household obviously exacted high standards. White linen covered the table, set with engraved goblets of fine quality. The food was plentiful and tasty, the wine full bodied and smooth, but the atmosphere was strained, despite the tantalizing aroma of roasted goose. Denis sulked, obviously not his usual talkative self. Adam hesitated to embark on anything more than the simplest conversation.

Marc Lallement pushed carrots and leeks around his trencher with his eating dagger, his eyes downcast, occasionally scowling at his sons who talked without surcease, their mouths full of the food they ate with surprising relish.

Only the servants, to a man impeccably dressed in green tabards and yellow tunics, seemed at ease.

Denis suddenly spoke to Lucien. Whatever it was Denis asked him, the colour drained from his face. Adam thought he heard the word
sisters
.

Marc Lallement dropped his eating dagger.

Lucien looked at his father nervously, then at Denis. “
Non
. Why do you ask?”

Adam had believed from his first acquaintance with the Lallement brothers that they were honest men. A chill crept up his spine when he looked at Vincent’s face. This family was hiding something, and Lucien was a poor liar.

Denis had sensed it too. He turned to face Adam, pointing up. “I saw a young woman earlier, peering over the railing high up in the house.”

Lucien’s mouth fell open.

Marc Lallement leapt to his feet. “A young woman?” he parroted.

His jaw clenched, Vincent put a restraining hand on his father’s arm. The fear in his eyes betrayed him. “It’s all right, father, probably one of the servants.”

Whoever the woman was, the Lallements wanted her kept secret. Adam was nonplussed. He remembered his parents years ago mentioning that the family at Kingston Gorse had lost two girls, one in infancy, the other in childbirth. “I am intrigued. I recall my mother telling me you had a sister who died. Three was she?”

Lucien cleared his throat, his face reddening further. “
Oui
, Paulina.” He held up four fingers. “I was four years old.” He added his thumb to the gesture. “Vincent five.”

His brother nodded, too vigorously, his face ashen. “We barely remember her.”

Adam glanced at Denis whose furrowed brow and steepled hands showed his disbelief. “What caused her death?”

Marc Lallement spoke for the first time. “Black measles.”

Lucien chewed his nails.

Vincent rubbed his forehead.

It was evident the three were lying. Adam thought he must have misheard.
Black measles?
He smelled their fear and had to continue. “I believe another daughter died in childbirth a year or two later?”

“
Oui
, Rosamunda,” Lucien murmured. “
Maman
changed after Paulina.”

~~~

Marc squared his shoulders. “The deaths of our daughters devastated my wife. She has not been well since. I apologise again for her rude behaviour earlier,
milord
Denis.”

Denis bowed slightly in acknowledgement. “The loss of a child is a strenuous burden to bear.”

Marc swallowed hard. “Indeed,” he rasped.

Vincent could not hide his distress. For a child he barely remembered? There was more going on in this household than met the eye. Denis resolved to discuss it with his brother when they retired.

He decided to try a new ploy. Coming to his feet, he adopted his usual story-telling stance. “Let me tell you my tale! The midwife who brought me into the world believed it her duty to murder me.”

Adam must have sensed from his posture what he was doing. His grimace betrayed his feeling that this was an inappropriate time to tell the story, but Denis persisted.

As the details emerged, the Lallement brothers slid further and further down in their seats, as if willing the floorboards to swallow them up. Marc Lallement suddenly stood and left without a word.

Denis winked at Adam who was now watching their hosts intently.

Satisfied their guests had been safely lighted to their chamber and were out of earshot, Vincent strode over to the hearth. He was not worried Adam might overhear, but he suspected Denis de Sancerre did not miss much.

He put both hands on the mantel, gazing at the dying embers of the fire. “They sense we are lying.”

His brother pulled up a chair and sat with his forearms on his thighs, hands clasped. “You’re right.”

Vincent grimaced. “Black measles?”

Lucien shrugged. “Papa feels as guilty as we do, probably more so since he is culpable for the crime in the first place.”

Vincent turned to face his brother. “I will speak to father on the morrow. I intend to tell him we can no longer continue this farce. Rosamunda and Paulina deserve better.”

Lucien remained silent for a long while. Vincent suspected they both had the same thing on their mind. When the silence became unbearable, he asked, “What’s your opinion of the dwarf?”

“You read my thoughts, brother. He is a gentleman, a true knight, despite his stature.”

“He would make someone a fine husband.”

Lucien glanced up at him sharply. “No doubt, but we must tread carefully here. Paulina is not yet free, and Denis de Sancerre may have no interest in taking a wife. She on the other hand may judge him repulsive. He is not a handsome man. His deformity is not the same as hers.”

Vincent stirred the embers with the poker. “You’re right. We may make a bad situation worse if we meddle. Rosamunda longs for a mate, but Paulina?”

Lucien came to stand by his brother and put a hand on his shoulder. “She does not recognise her own beauty. Fear hides it from her.”

Vincent took a long breath. “We should go up and see them.”

Lucien sighed. “But what to say? Let’s wait until we have spoken to father.”

“Till the morrow then.”

~~~

Denis lay awake, listening to the unfamiliar creaks and groans of the house. Judging by the tossing and turning going on at the other side of the huge bed they shared, Adam was not asleep either.

They had talked for a long while before retiring, in agreement that the Lallements probably had a hidden daughter. They decided upon madness as the reason a parent would lock away a child.

Still something niggled at Denis. The woman he had glimpsed for a mere second had not looked demented, though her hair was dishevelled. Her beauty had struck him immediately.

In addition, the ages did not add up. The face he had seen was that of a girl of less than twenty years. According to Lucien and Vincent, Paulina would be a few years older.

He tapped his brother on the shoulder and Adam turned to face him. “Mayhap we are wrong and the girl was a servant,” he said loudly.

Adam yawned. “
Non
. I might concur had they not stumbled over each other to conceal the truth. Somewhere in this house, there is a woman who has been locked away for many a year.”

Denis propped his head on his hand. “But how did they perceive that a child of three was mad? She must have been a raving lunatic. Unless there was some other reason.”

Adam kicked off the linens. “We’ve been over this already. What other reason could there be?”

Denis snorted. “You’re asking me? The man who came close to being murdered at birth?”

Adam chewed his lip. “Perhaps she’s a dwarf.”

Denis lay back against the bolster. Now there was an interesting notion. “She did not look like a dwarf. Besides, why wait until she was three? It is obvious at birth when one is born with my qualities.”

They lay looking up at the ceiling, each lost in his own thoughts.

Suddenly Adam gripped his arm. “Do you smell that?”

Denis sat up and sniffed the air.

He jumped out of bed, reaching for his boots. “Something’s burning.”

~~~

Maudine Lallement gripped the railing at the bottom of the stairway that led to the third floor. Vertigo swept over her and she dropped the torch she had used to set afire the banners that hung from the rafters.

“Send him to hell,” she shrieked, kicking away the fallen torch as flames licked at the hem of her nightshift. “I’ll not have a troll under my roof.”

She watched as the hangings were quickly consumed with a woosh, and the fire crept towards the upper chambers. “The Devil take them,” she screamed, panic taking hold as the fire scorched her legs. “
Non
! Help!
Au secours
!”

~~~

“Maudine!” Marc Lallement’s heart leapt into his throat at the sight of his wife frantically swatting the burning nightshift. Scorched bits of fabric from the banners drifted in the air. He looked up at the fire taking hold in the upper reaches of the roof timbers. Finally, he acknowledged the depth of the madness that held her in its thrall.

“My children,” he rasped.

Tendrils of smoke crept down the stairway, teasing the floor on which they stood. Thank God his sons’ chambers were on the lower floor.

Anger surged through him. He rushed to the screeching human torch before him. Her demented eyes burned into his soul. He lunged for her, consumed with a desire to end her agony and his own. “You have murdered our beautiful children,” he shouted.

Screaming maniacally, she collapsed against him. He locked his arms around her, his heart at peace with what he suddenly recognised as his duty. The flames seared his flesh, but they would never burn away his sin. He embraced the agony, shoved her up against the railing and pushed with all his might, sending them both careening into nothingness.

“Devil’s spawn!” Maudine screamed with her last breath.

“May God forgive me,” Marc Lallement prayed as his body broke on the chequered flooring he loathed.

Adam, Denis and the Lallement brothers rushed into the smoke-filled entryway.

“
Mon Dieu
!” Vincent fell to his knees and made the sign of the crucifix across his body as he stared at the smouldering, broken bodies of his parents, locked together in a fatal embrace.

“
Que diable
?” Denis shouted.

Lucien retched.

Adam shuddered, coughing as smoke constricted his throat. The scene unfolding around him seemed more horrific because he heard nothing.

Servants ran hither and thither, some obviously frantic, others apparently in command. A human chain formed and buckets of water were quickly passed from hand to hand. Adam took his place in the line, relieved to be doing something useful.

He glanced up. The rafters were alight, the thatch beginning to smoulder. Water would be a waste of time. Kingston Gorse was doomed.

Lucien seemed rooted to the spot as he stared at his dead parents. Suddenly he too looked up into the burning rafters. “My sisters,” he wailed.

~~~

Denis’ gut clenched. He hurried to Adam, holding up two fingers as he pointed to the upper floors. “We were right, and wrong. There may be two women up there. Come on. I’ll be damned if I’ll allow them to burn to death.”

He tore off the shirt he had donned hastily moments before, ripped off a length of it, soaked it in one of the buckets, and tied it around his face.

Adam followed his example.

Vincent put a hand on Adam’s arm. “It’s too dangerous. It’s our responsibility, mine and Lucien’s.”

Denis shoved him, his blood boiling. Two women might die, perhaps because they were afflicted with some sort of deformity. It was too close to his heart. “You should have thought of that before you allowed them to be kept up there.”

Denis and Adam hastened to the lower flight of stairs, Adam taking them two at a time. Burning thatch fell here and there, but the planked floor of the second storey was still mostly intact.

Denis heard a choked scream and the sound of a door banging. “They are still alive,” he yelled.

~~~

It was not the smell of smoke that awoke Paulina, but the demented screams of her mother. She pulled the linens up to her chin, biting her quivering lip.

For the second time in a day voices were raised in anger and confusion. Her father was shouting foul murder.

The glow of embers in the grate illuminated Rosamunda as she stirred, then sat up. She frowned, pinching her nostrils.

Paulina sniffed. Smoke! And not from the grate. “Fire!” she exclaimed, leaping from the bed, gooseflesh crawling over her skin. She hurried to the door, thrusting it open. The landing was filled with smoke. The banners she had glimpsed briefly when she had yanked Rosamunda back into the chamber were now floating bits of scorched fabric. Flames licked at the rafters. Fear wound its tendrils into her belly. She screamed, slamming the door shut.

Hastily she dragged a
bliaut
over her nightshift and threw one to Rosamunda. “The house is on fire. Put on your slippers, quickly. We must leave or we could be trapped.”

Rosamunda’s eyes widened in fear. She stumbled from her bed and ran to the door, clumsily pulling the
bliaut
over her nightshift. Paulina blocked her way. “Too much smoke.”

They both looked to the window. Paulina might squeeze through it, but they were three floors up.

Smoke billowed under the door; breathing became more difficult.

Paulina covered her mouth and nose with the wide sleeve of the
bliaut
. She grasped Rosamunda’s hand. “The
garderobe
,” she rasped.

Rosamunda frowned, but allowed Paulina to drag her to the privy. Their grandfather, Sir Stephen Marquand, had apparently boasted proudly of the modern addition he had made to Kingston Gorse. Imprisoned as they were, both girls had been grateful that the house had a privy shaft. It made life more civilized.

Paulina had no idea where the end of the shaft came out, but braving that unpleasant unknown was preferable to burning to death.

She shoved aside the heavy curtain separating the
garderobe
from the main chamber. “Help me,” she insisted, straining to push off the wooden planking that covered the hole.

They peered down into blackness. Rosamunda grimaced and held her nose. Paulina’s throat was raw, her eyes watering. She hoped she did not look as deathly pale as her sister.

“Afraid,” Rosamunda mouthed, stark fear in her eyes.

Paulina shook her head, gagging on the smoke. “A rope—with the linens.”

She staggered to regain the chamber, but the smoke was too thick and she was forced to retreat into the
garderobe
. Rosamunda lay slumped against the privy, gasping for breath through the sleeve mask, her eyes glazed.

Hopelessness flooded Paulina. She swallowed the lump in her throat, resigned to the inevitable. Sobbing, she lay down beside her beloved sister, stroking Rosamunda’s hair, praying for deliverance to heaven.

“At least we will die together.”