Lavender Vows (9 page)

His footsteps rang with hollow thuds as he dashed down the corridor and around the corner to the hallway leading to the chamber where Joanna lay. He stamped to a halt when he reached the room and saw that the door was slightly ajar.

A heavy fear settled over him as he prodded the door open with his toe, uncertain of what he would find. The door swayed open, silently, baring the chamber to his gaze. Bernard stepped onto the threshold and saw that the room was in shambles: stools overturned, the bed empty, clothing strewn about, the only light from a sputtering fire.

He started into the dim room, fear clutching him. Joanna was nowhere to be found, nor was Maris….

He did not know what alerted him, but aught caused Bernard to swivel just as something dark and fleeting
whooshed
toward him. Instinct propelled him out of harm’s way, and Bernard groped, one-handed, for the dagger that he wore at his waist.

“Whoreson!” Ralf’s grating voice reached his ears just as the man made his appearance from behind the door. “You thought to steal my wife from beneath my nose!” He brandished a long sword that gleamed in the flickering firelight. “Bastard—you will learn better from me now!”

Rage and satisfaction surged through Bernard….at last he would have his opportunity. They were well-matched—Ralf with two working arms and a sword, and Bernard with one arm, a dagger, and the might of chivalry on his side. He would relish the opportunity to fight the bastard to his death.

The slice of the sword cut through the air, stirring Bernard’s hair, even as he drove a quick thrust of his short dagger at Ralf’s shoulder. A squeal of rage told him he’d hit his target even as he whirled from the sword’s upswing, narrowly missing being caught by it.

Spittle flecked the corner of Ralf’s mouth as he charged toward Bernard. Fury drove his movements, making him careless, and ’twas simple for Bernard to feint aside at the last moment and allow Ralf to lurch past. The man turned and Bernard was waiting with his dagger poised, just ready to bury it in the man’s throat, when there was a choking cry behind him.

Bernard saw his beloved…and it distracted him only for an instant…but it was enough for Ralf to bring the flat of his sword down, knocking the dagger from Bernard’s hand, sending it clattering to the floor.

Joanna shrieked again, but Bernard had seen that she stood sagging in the doorway and knew that he could not be distracted again. The sword came down, slicing through the tunic on his good shoulder, and with a roar of pent-up rage, Bernard launched himself at Ralf whilst the sword was on that downswing.

His timing was perfect, and the two men fell to the rough stone floor, the sword pinned between them. Bernard was at a disadvantage, now, with one arm bound to his side, and Ralf, fueled by crazy rage, drove his knee into Bernard’s middle, then with a great shove, pushed him off. Bernard rolled to one side with a grunt, gasping for air, and his head slammed against the stone wall.

He struggled to roll back, but Ralf had already leapt to his feet and retrieved the grip on his sword, trapping Bernard against the wall.

“Prepare to die, whoreson.” He raised the sword with both hands, and drove it down.

At the last moment, Bernard pushed away from the wall, knocking into Ralf and unbalancing him just as the sword’s point slammed into the floor, shattering. A scream of rage erupted from Ralf and he slashed the broken tip of the sword down again just as Bernard caught sight of his dagger lying on the floor. Joanna saw it, and staggered forward to kick it toward him.

The sword missed Bernard’s throat by a hairsbreadth and, pulse thrumming wildly, he rolled again, closing his fingers over the coolness of his knife.

He became dimly aware of newcomers to the scene, crowding in the doorway, but Bernard was too ensconced in the fight for his life to note who they were. He tightened his grip on the dagger and prepared to strike.

Ralf towered above him, brandishing the sword—all the more deadly now with its jagged edge—and Bernard tensed, ready.

It happened at once. The sword came down, Bernard thrust up, his dagger found its mark, and the sword clattered helplessly to the floor. Ralf screamed and collapsed in a heap next to it.

Bernard leapt to his feet and, bracing himself, looked down at the fallen man. He lay unmoving, blood oozing from the wound in his neck, his eyes closed in death.

“Joanna,” Bernard said, never taking his eyes off Ralf, but opening his arm for her. She moved swiftly, nearly falling into his embrace, and she clutched him as they stood staring down at her husband.

A loud clearing of the throat brought Bernard’s attention to the audience that had clustered in the doorway.

“Aye, Merle, it appears that our plotting has all been for naught.” Bernard’s father, Lord Harold, coughed into his hand. “My son has a mind of his own.”

“Aye, and my daughter, too,” responded Merle of Langumont, tucking said daughter’s arm through the crook of his elbow. “Now, let us help Bernard in ridding himself of the remains of this vermin.”

VII.

After all of the events during Ava’s wedding celebration, Lord Wyckford represented himself as the outraged father, angry at his son-by-law’s treatment of his daughter—much to Bernard’s disgust.

However, the man made no argument when Bernard informed him that he would wed Joanna, for Derkland’s lands would be a valuable asset to the lands Wyckford already controlled through his own demesne and those of Swerthmore.

Lady Maris stood witness to the wedding a se’ennight later, and Bernard’s brother Thomas performed the ceremony. Bernard’s other brother, Dirick, was absent from the ceremony as he still traveled with the king…but Bernard hid some hope that mayhap he would some day meet Lady Maris of Langumont.

He suspected she would be more than a challenge for his wild, devil-may-care brother.

When he wed Joanna, Bernard refused to allow a bedding ceremony, for he would not subject his wife to the indignity of being stripped. But in the privacy of their chamber, when he gently lifted the fine linen undertunic and bared her body for the first time, he nearly wept at the sight of her green and blue bruising, along with the barely-healed cuts from Ralf’s leather whip.

“
If he weren’t already dead,” Bernard breathed, his trembling fingers sliding lightly over her hip, “I would make him wish he’d never laid so much as a breath on you.” His face was stricken, for this was the first he’d ever seen the full extent of her injuries. “Joanna, how can you suffer any touch? Does it still pain you?”

“
Your touch is a most welcome balm,” she told him, her gaze steady and calm, easing his fears. “Though if you tell Maris I have compared you to her medicines and found them lacking, I must deny it.”

A little chuckle at her jest surprised him. “Lady Maris is rather serious about her medicinals, is she not?” Bernard said, still trying not to think of what had been done to the delicate woman next to him. Surely his very touch would be nothing but pain!

Smiling, Joanna pulled him close, pressing a sweet kiss to the corner of his trembling mouth. His eyes closed and he relaxed into her.

“
Ralf is gone,” she murmured against his moustache, “and in the best of ways, he brought us together. Can we not celebrate this new life and forget the evil of my old one?”

“
Aye, beloved,” he said, gathering her into his arms. “There is nothing else I would rather do. Now and forever.”

~*~*~

~*~

Read on for a sneak peek of
Colleen Gleason’s
A Whisper of Rosemary
,

featuring Bernard’s brother
Dirick
and
Lady Maris of Langumont…

Lord Merle nodded at his guest, then turned to his daughter.
“Maris, will you not show Sir Dirick where the men-at-arms lay their pallets? And any other comforts he may need.”

Maris stood reluctantly, dismay by her father’s innocent command. The last thing she wanted was to be alone with Sir Dirick. She’d felt his attention returning to her again and again during the evening, and had been unable to ignore the interest in his stare. Try as she might, she’d been unable to keep her mouth closed and her mind on her food—as her mother had admonished her many a time. Nay, if the man was to wed her, he’d know from the beginning that she had her own thoughts and opinions, and an interest in the world beyond Langumont’s walls.

“
Of course, Papa,” she said in a voice that disguised her discomfort.

Obviously, Sir Dirick did not miss her mislike of the situation, for as soon as Merle and Allegra were out of earshot, he said, “Lady Maris, I am perfectly able to find my own pallet.”

“
Nay, ’tis my father’s wish. I should not put a guest out,” she smiled at him, swallowing the resentment she felt for being pressed into a marriage she did not want. In all honesty, it was not this man’s fault—and he seemed pleasant enough now that he was not ahorse. “Have you bathed?”

“
Nay,” he shook his head, surprise flashing in his gray-blue eyes.

“
May I offer you a warm bath before I direct you to your pallet?” she asked. “Gustave will bring the water. I won’t take long, and you will soon be for bed.”

“
You?” Those eyes turned on her with a sudden intensity, and he looked at her for a moment, a very faint smile hovering at the corners of his mouth.

Maris’s throat went dry and she nearly stepped away from him and the unexpected stirrings in her middle. The sudden image of this man, devoid of his chausses
and tunic, settled into a tub that would hardly fit his large body, filled her mind. His dark hair, which now curled wildly about his face and jaw, would be sleek and dripping, his broad shoulders bare and steam rising from dark skin—

Maris bit her lip as her cheeks flushed with warmth. What was wrong with her? She’d never had lewd thoughts over such a mundane chore. “Aye, of course,” she managed to say in response to the question she’d nearly forgotten.

“
Nay,” Sir Dirick rumbled after what seemed like forever. His smooth, low voice carried easily to her ears, even over the noise of the servants as they cleared off the tables and stacked the benches. “I do not believe I should put myself through such torture.”

Her heart in her throat and her mind whirling—unsure as to what he meant by such a comment—Maris spun away to hide her discomfiture. “Then if you would follow me,” she murmured and blindly began to make her way between the nearly empty tables, anxious to be rid of her charge.

As they approached a group of rowdy knights, Maris paused, resting her hand on the shoulder of a burly, red headed one. They quieted almost as if she’d commanded it. “Sir Raymond, how fares your shoulder? Is the pain lessening?”

The man’s face nearly matched the color of his hair when he turned it up to look at her. “Aye, my lady. The pain is nearly gone.” He moved his arm as if to demonstrate.

“
You will come to the herbary on the morrow and I will check it again,” she ordered. It wouldn’t do for her father’s best man to have an injured arm. “The last I dressed a wound for you, ’twas only once that you came to me—and look what has happened to it because of your carelessness!”

He grinned up at her, “Aye, my lady. On the morrow, I will allow you to torture me yet again. ’Tis only because your touch is so sweet that I can sit through the pain,” he teased in the manner of a big brother.

Maris, who’d grown up with Raymond pulling at her pigtails and chasing her through the keep with spiders, planted hands on her hips as the other men laughed. “Aye, and you should keep such sweetness on your tongue, or I will put you through more tortures if you spread tales. Did I not warn you that some day you would pay for the frog in my bed?”

There wasn’t a hint of guile in her actions, Dirick thought as he watched. She had no concept of what she did to a man, with those teasing golden green eyes and vibrant smile—particularly the red-headed knight, whose besotted expression was not quite brotherly. Whatever reason she’d been in the village at night, it hadn’t been for a tryst—he was now certain of it.

Dirick’s skin still prickled at the memory of her innocent offer to bathe him, and he wondered if her father knew she’d made such a gesture. A sudden streak of heat shot through him at the thought of her scratched and stained hands soaping his body…but he thrust the thought away immediately. He
’d do well to
find a woman tonight. Mayhap one of the maidservants would oblige him.