Leigh, Tamara

Prologue

England, 1187

Son of a whore.
Over and over the words resounded through Gabriel. Consumed his being. Inflamed his soul. Beginning to tremble, he turned from his father and pressed his fists to the sill of the window embrasure.

In the bailey below, the garrison stood silent at their posts, castle folk went about their tasks with heads bowed, and a large cat stalked its next meal. As befitting the burial that had taken place two days past, the mood was solemn, and as different from that which seethed through Gabriel as the sun was from the moon.

Son of a whore. Whoreson.
How he ached to bloody his knuckles on something! Were he alone, he would turn on the first thing that came to hand.

"I am sorry, Gabriel," his father said. "All these years you have been like a son to me."

Gabriel swung around. "I
am
your son!"

The mighty Arnault De Vere's gaze wavered. "I wish it were so."

"It is!"

"Perhaps, but 'tis Giles who will succeed me."

The third son, whose strong De Vere looks could not be questioned. It was the same for the fourth son, nine-year-old Conard. In contrast, Gabriel and Blase favored their mother's family—tall, big-boned, dark-haired, and possessing faces so plain as to defy description. But Gabriel had one thing Blase did not: their father's gray eyes. Not that it had any bearing on his claim to legitimacy, for the baron seemed willing to overlook it.

"Did Mother..." How bitter that his veins strained with her blood. "Did she say I was of another's seed?"

The sunlight slanting through the window spun silver through his father's thick hair and beard. "She did not. On her deathbed she confessed only to"—a muscle jerked in his jaw—"to having cuckolded me before your conception. And, of course, afterward."

Of course.
It was no secret that the lady of Wyverly had engaged in adulterous behavior throughout the latter years of her marriage. Gabriel himself had once come upon her in the arms of a man not his father. That had been the summer of his tenth year.

He glanced at the canopied bed in the center of the lord's solar and vividly recalled bodies meshing one with the other, glistening flesh, moans and grunts of pleasure, the trenchant odor of slaked lust. How he had hated Constance De Vere! And now that it was revealed her indiscretions went further back, giving rise to the question of whether or not he and Blase were De Veres, Gabriel was gripped with something so deep and tearing it bore little resemblance to the enmity he had nurtured all these years.

"Then she did not know if 'twas you or another who sired me?"

"I did not ask."

Gabriel's angry stride scattered the herbed rushes underfoot, stirred the air with the scent of mint. He halted before his father. "Why would you not ask?"

The baron held his gaze. "Her confession was made to the priest. She did not know I heard."

Gabriel's fists quaked with the effort to keep them at his sides. "And for this you set me aside?"

The baron's mouth tightened. "When I die, I shall be secure in the knowledge Wyverly is in the hands of a De Vere, as it has been for one hundred twenty years."

Gabriel wanted to rage, but the self-control his father had demanded of him all these years contained the tempest. Silently, he cursed the woman who had borne him. Because of her, he was set aside like a dog that had outworn its welcome at table. Everything that should have been his was gone—his title, lands, betrothal, the son who would one day succeed him. Gone!

He had to leave. Gabriel stepped past his father.

"You will be provided for," the baron said.

Gabriel halted. "On the chance you are wrong?"

Arnault De Vere was not a man who revealed his emotions, but they slipped in, grooved his mouth and brow with regret. "You are a son any man would be proud of, and though you may not be of my body, it does not change my feelings for you."

Gabriel was unmoved. "You are wrong. It changes all."

"Not if you allow me to provide for you."

Although Gabriel had no intention of taking whatever his father offered—and by all that was unholy, Arnault De Vere
was
his father—he asked, "What do you propose?"

Hope entered the baron's eyes. "When your training for knighthood is complete a year hence, I will place Shard Castle in your care."

The greater of Wyverly's lesser castles. Only one whose future had once held all of the barony might not be tempted. Pride was a powerful thing. "What would you have me say to those who ask why I am reduced to a vassal? That my father suspects me of being a whoreson?"

Arnault De Vere's eyes flickered. "None need know the truth. Simply tell them you do not wish the responsibilities of ruling so vast a barony."

"That all who know me will then know me for a liar?"

The baron's jaw quivered with suppressed emotions. "I wish it could be otherwise. You know that."

As deeply as Gabriel wanted to renounce his father's sincerity, he could not. The baron had always demanded more from his eldest son than the others, but never was there any question he loved Gabriel as best he could with a heart scarred by his wife's infidelities.

"Why did you not send her away?" Gabriel asked. "Why did you allow her to dishonor you time and again?"

The baron averted his gaze.

Though Gabriel was racked with pain, he was not alone. Beyond all foolishness, Arnault De Vere had loved his wife. A worse mistake a man could not make.

"Take what I offer," the baron said. "Still you will be lord."

And vassal to his younger brother. Gabriel's gut twisted. "Do you not fear I might seek Giles's death?"

His father appeared momentarily taken aback, then shook his head. "You forget, Gabriel, I know you. You are angry now, but in time..."

Gabriel almost laughed. "You do not know me,
Father.
Did you, you would not squander your breath. Keep Shard

Castle. I want naught from you." He swung toward the door.

His father caught his arm. "Think! You are near twenty years old. What else is there for you?"

Gabriel looked down. Though the baron was not a small man, Gabriel was taller and broader. Perhaps another
was
responsible for sowing the seed that had begotten him. Instantly he rejected the thought. He was a De Vere, and his father was turning his back on him. Denying him.

Gabriel pulled his arm from the older man's grasp. "I shall return to the service of Baron Sumner"—with whom he had spent the past twelve years training for knighthood—"and when I am knighted, I shall live the life you have dealt me." He strode to the door and paused. "What of Blase? Will you also tell him he is a bastard?"

The baron looked suddenly old where he stood in the middle of the solar. "There is no need. He is destined for the church, and so shall it be."

Except, of course, that Blase was no more fond of the teachings of the church than Gabriel was of treacherous women. Regardless of how hard Friar Jerome tried to fashion his pupil into his own image, it was the sword Blase clasped to his heart, not the Bible.

It was on Gabriel's tongue to inquire into his sister's fate, but he caught himself. Five-year-old Avice no more resembled the baron than Gabriel and Blase, but unlike them, she was blessed with a pleasing combination of Constance De Vere's looks and those of the man who had sired her—whoever that might be. No reason to put more speculation upon her than there already was.

Gabriel threw open the door, strode down the corridor, and descended the spiral stairs. As he stepped into the great hall, he was struck by its warmth, but it had little to do with the blazing fire. What caused him to pause were the splendid tapestries hung ceiling to floor, the plastered walls with their bold, colorful patterns, the dais with its carefully worked table and chairs, the fresh rushes strewn with sweet herbs. He had always accepted that one day all this would be his, had never looked at it through the eyes of one who could never hope to attain such wealth. Now, for the sins of his mother, all was lost.

He started across the hall.

"What is it, Gabriel?" Blase called to him.

He turned and saw that his three brothers were gathered before the hearth. Upon the death of Constance De Vere a sennight past, Giles and Conard had also been summoned from the households of the nobles whom they served. Blase was the only son who resided at Wyverly. If not for Arnault De Vere's determination that he commit his life to the church, he would now be a squire.

Giles stood. "What did Father say?"

Gabriel looked from his younger brother's golden hair to his distinctive forehead, from his high cheekbones to his generous mouth. There was no doubt from whose seed he sprang. But as much as Gabriel wanted to hate Giles for displacing him, he could not. The boy was barely twelve—an innocent. Constance De Vere was to blame. He silently cursed her, and all women. They were a dangerous lot.

"Tell us," young Conard said, worry reflected in eyes the color of Gabriel's.

What was he to say? That their mother was more of a whore than previously thought? Make them despise her as much as he did? Nay, let Arnault De Vere do the telling.

Though it was two years since all four brothers had been together, and thus far Gabriel had been unable to spend much time with them, he could not bear to pass another moment at Wyverly. "I must leave," he said.

Blase gained his feet. "This day?"

"Now."

"Now? But you do not have to return to Falkhead for another sennight."

"That has changed."

Blase, followed by Giles and Conard, crossed to Gabriel's side. "Why?" Blase asked.

Gabriel stared at them. No matter how many times Constance De Vere had strayed outside her marriage, these were his brothers. No matter how deep his anger, he had to shield them from it. "I shall leave it to Father to explain," he said, and turned on his heel.

He strode from the donjon, retrieved his horse from the stables, and shortly sped over the land beyond the castle walls. He did not look back. Not once. Only when a league separated him from all he had lost did he dismount and unburden his emotions. Loathsome tears burned the backs of his eyes, fiery blood pounded in his ears, curses tore from his throat, and every muscle in his body strained as he shook his fists at the heavens.

The sun had sunk low and the land was swept with cool shadows when Gabriel finally regained control. Weary, he knelt beside a stream and splashed frigid water over his face, then sat back on his heels.

Never would he be made a fool as his father had been. Never would he fawn over a woman as his friend, Bernart Kinthorpe, fawned over his betrothed, Juliana. Never!

Unbidden, a vision of the fair Juliana rose to mind, she of fanciful notions of love and chivalry that her mother had learned at Queen Eleanor's Court of Love. Based on the pure and noble love of a man for a woman who was unattainable, be she wed, of higher rank, or physically distanced, the concept of unconsummated love was something silly women sighed over. But some went beyond the bounds of bittersweet suffering. Women like Constance De Vere.