Marek (The Knights of Stonebridge Book 1) (3 page)

She stopped once to give her weary legs a rest, but finally came to another landing. Again, the door was immense and seemed to be made of solid oak. Expecting it to weigh a ton, Kitty gathered her strength and heaved against it with all her might.

The door practically flew open, crashed into the wall, and made a hellish racket. Kitty pitched forward with a scream. The slate floor was covered with straw, but still made for a painful landing.

Marek was out of his seat and across the room so fast, Kitty barely saw him. But he was not quick enough. She hit the floor on all fours, sending pain shooting through her knees and wrists.

“Thou art hurt?” Marek stood over her, concern in his voice, but made no move to help her up.

Kitty had had enough. That fall should have awakened her if nothing else. She sat up, working her wrists to be sure nothing was broken. “I want to see my daughter,” she ground out through clenched teeth.

Straightening, Marek stepped away from her. “Come, child,” he called gently. “Attend your mother.”

Kitty followed his gaze to a large wardrobe. The door opened slowly on silent hinges. From her place on the floor, all she could see was one tiny foot step out, then the other. She waited.

“Come on,” Marek urged the child. “’Tis all right.”

The girl’s tiny blonde head edged around the door. She looked at Kitty with curiosity, but made no move to come closer.

“Bria.” Marek’s voice was more firm this time. “Your mother wishes you to attend her. Now come.”

The little girl could not have been more than five or six years old. She was so frail and petite, Kitty thought she might even be younger. As she came closer, her expression of fear slowly changed to one of curiosity. Bria stopped when she stood an arm’s length from Kitty.

She was precious, adorable, and Kitty sensed she craved something, something only a mother could give her. But she wasn’t Vanesa.

They both looked up at Marek and spoke at the same time.

“She is not Mama.”

“She’s not my daughter.”

Tenderly, Kitty climbed to her feet. Even though she stood up slowly, she felt dizzy and nauseated, like she’d taken her vitamins on an empty stomach. To her left stood a bed big enough for an entire family. Besides the chair in which Marek had been sitting when she burst in, and benches beneath two of the smaller windows on the far wall, there was nowhere else to sit. Breathing deeply to control her lightheadedness, Kitty limped over and sat down on the edge of the bed.

“I don’t feel so good.”

Marek moved to a cabinet next to the headboard. About the size of a hotel refrigerator, it stood on one end and had a door made of flimsy strips of metal stuck together like the lattice on top of an apple pie. Kitty peered around him as he opened the door and saw that it contained a wheel of some white cheese, a couple of small shriveled apples and a clay pitcher. He retrieved the pitcher and poured what appeared to be wine into a silver goblet.

Replacing the pitcher, he handed her the goblet. “If you need to lie down, I am sure you would be more comfortable in your own quarters.”

After sniffing the contents, Kitty took a deep pull on the wine. It didn’t make her feel better, but it sure tasted good. “My quarters?”

Marek nodded to an alcove partially hidden behind the door Kitty had burst through.

“I have my own room here?” Kitty asked. She smiled down at Bria who stood next to the bed staring up at her.

Exasperated, Marek refilled her goblet,  then lifted Bria with one arm and carried her through another doorway in the corner next to the windows.

Kitty looked around. The room was bigger than the entire first floor of her house. The wall across from the door through which she’d entered was divided by three windows. The one in the middle went from the floor almost all the way up to the ceiling, two smaller ones on each side. All three were recessed into the thick wall with a stone bench beneath the two small ones.

Besides the bed and the benches, there was a table with the one chair, a chest with the food cabinet on top, and the wardrobe Bria had been hiding in. Next to the wardrobe was another chest, this one matched the wardrobe. Both pieces were made of the same light-colored wood and had intricate carvings all over the front. From this distance she couldn’t tell what the carvings were and with the persistent nausea, she didn’t feel like walking over there to find out.

By the time Marek returned, Kitty had finished her second cup of wine. He took the goblet from her but, to Kitty’s disappointment, did not refill it. He put the goblet into the cabinet next to the wine jug, closed the door and, producing a key from somewhere in his clothes, locked it.

“Well?” He said turning back to her. “Have you indeed conferred with the devil?”

“What?”

“I hesitate to call you witch, but you ever vex me. I thought to be rid of you at last, yet here you sit…in my bed.” He seemed almost disgusted by this last part.

“To be rid of me? So you
were
trying to burn me alive.”

“I thought you dead.”

“Thought? Sounds more like ‘hoped’.”

“I shall not deny
that
.” He practically spit the words at her.

Inexplicably, his words hurt. “You hoped I was dead?”

“Many is the night I have dreamt of squeezing the life from you with my own hands.” He curled his fingers near her face to emphasize his hatred of her.

“Is that what happened? You tried to kill me and now you’re disappointed that you failed?” This was a ridiculous conversation. “Look.” Kitty squeezed the bridge of her nose. Her head had begun to hurt. Sucking down two glasses of heavy red wine had probably not helped. “I don’t know what’s going on here. I don’t know you or any of these other people, but you all seem to know me. The only person who seems to recognize that I’m not who you think I am is your little girl.”

“Mine? You would deny your own daughter?” He railed at her, his face red with fury. He leaned over until his nose was right before hers. “You, woman, are lower than a dog.” He moved away from her, hands clenched into fists.

Kitty felt like he had slapped her. His words hurt that much. Why did she care what this man thought of her? She jumped when he kicked the chair, sending it crashing against the floor. She swallowed, beginning to fear this stranger.
Had
he tried to kill her? Or whoever he thought she was? Was he now so angry because she was
not
dead? Why did he insist that he knew her?

She drew her gaze back to her surroundings. Candelabras, at least five feet tall, stood at intervals around the room. Thick tapestries covered any bare places on the walls. The sparse furniture, the straw on the floor, the thick drapes hanging over the bed on which she sat.

Kitty shot off the bed. Her head throbbed so hard she thought she would pass out. Her queasy stomach threatened to overwhelm her. “What…what year is this?” Her voice was barely a whisper.

Marek turned on her with a vengeance. “What did you say?”

She stood close enough to heave against his massive chest. “I said what year is this?” she shouted.

Marek grabbed her wrists, utterly unaffected by her anger. “Do you now claim that your mind is gone?”

Kitty tried to pull her arms from his grasp. Her head spun. “Please,” she whispered.

He let go of her, shaking his head. ‘Tis the spring of 1196.”

Spring? But that couldn’t be. It was October. A chill clenched her heart in an icy grip. What year had he said? Could it be possible? The room seemed to spin around her. She felt dizzy and tried to choke down the bile that rose to her throat. The roar in her ears returned. She lost her balance as blackness seeped into her line of vision. Vaguely she realized she leaned against the man before her. Who was he? A fireman?

She had no time to ponder the question as she sank to the floor.

***

Marek picked her up and carried her to her chamber, then tossed her none too gently onto her own bed. She still wore his damp cloak, having clutched the front together with tight fists. Now it fell open to reveal a body he had not seen in an age. He removed the cloak, rolling her first to one side then to the other.

He dropped it onto the floor and stared down at her. While far from fat, her thick thighs and wide hips spread out on her bed. The cover was the color of thick cream, her alabaster skin a sharp contrast. She looked exactly as he remembered, yet somehow different. Instead of thick, her thighs appeared corded, muscular, her hips not so wide.

He clenched his jaw until his head throbbed. Marek had always found his wife’s excessive curves unappealing. As his gaze swept her near naked body, those same curves struck him as voluptuous, shapely.  His traitorous cock stirred despite the contempt coursing through him. The garment she wore, at least what was left of it, was most strange. Her dark nipples were easily visible beneath sheer fabric. The fabric itself seemed to have melted from the heat of the funeral flames. What manner of cloth
melted
? And where had it come from? Had the priest removed her gown and replaced it with this strange shroud? He had certainly gotten Katherine in and out of her clothes often enough.

Irritated, Marek turned away and strode from the room. He had not been stirred by that hateful woman since his wedding night. Thank God Bria had been conceived that first time. Now it seemed his cock had been unendingly hard since dragging her from the pyre. As she had lain beneath him, her warm body melded to his, he had been
aroused
. And now, just looking at her half-naked body…
for the love of Christ
. What was wrong with him?

To occupy himself, he spent the rest of the day attending the destruction of the old wooden keep. The new stone one was nearly finished, enough that the family had been able to live inside for the past month. The servants, possessing few belongings and needing little more than a pallet on the floor for sleeping, had been splitting residency between the two buildings since the winter solstice. They had celebrated Christ’s Mass in the new keep and had refused to go back to the old one. He would have to meet soon with the architect.

As he so often did, he tried to put all notions of his wife from his mind. No simple task. Katherine had ever been a conniving abomination of a woman. But to cheat death? How had she done it? Was she indeed a witch? Did she fornicate with Satan himself?

That might explain why his goddamn cock stirred at her mere presence. She had not enticed him for years. Why
now
did he yearn to crush her body to his? To devour her lips, lips that normally spewed vile insults at him? He had been so relieved to be rid of her.

He obsessed over the incident throughout the day, his thoughts going back to it again and again. He had inspected her cold body himself. How could he have been mistaken? Without question there had been no life there.

And what of Bria’s claim that the woman was not her mother? Had Katherine’s body been possessed by some other equally evil spawn of the devil? A concubine, perhaps?

Could the rumors be true?

She had given herself freely to any man she thought could aid her in the destruction of Marek’s name, his family. Why not Satan himself?

In the evening, he took supper in the solar with Bria as he was often wont to do. With Katherine’s miraculous return, he felt an even greater need to watch over his daughter. He had let his guard down in these days since his wife’s untimely death, foolishly thinking them all safe from her wiles. Her evil knew no bounds, and he would be damned if any harm should come to Bria because he failed to rid the world of that woman.

They sat on the floor to eat. Marek had tossed a fur throw over the sweet-smelling rushes and now stretched out to watch her consume her meal. His heart seemed to overfill his chest. She was such a treasure. So tiny and delicate. It ever amazed him that such a remarkable creature was the product of his loins.

“Drink your milk,” he urged as she finished off the last piece of bread. When she made no move to do as he said, he tried bribing her. “Finish your milk, and I shall tell you of the baby who floated down the river in a reed basket.” The spectacular stories of Moses were her favorite. The plagues, the parting of the sea.

Reluctantly, Bria drained the goblet, then handed it to him. Marek smiled at the white line covering her upper lip.

“First I must bid goodnight…,” She trailed off, her gaze roving to the entrance of Katherine’s chambers.

Marek sat up, nearly dropping the silver goblet. “What?”

“She looked so scared.”

With both hands on the floor, Bria pushed to her feet. She walked slowly across the room and disappeared through the arched doorway. Marek rose, as well and followed her, resisting the urge to run in after her and snatch her up in his arms.

No sooner had she entered, Bria reemerged. “She sleeps.” She smiled up at him. “She looks like an angel.”

Marek frowned. An angel? Had she now bewitched his child? Bria had always been so afraid of her mother she avoided her whenever possible. Easy enough since Katherine was just as anxious to be avoided. And never, not once, had Bria made to tell her goodnight.