Marek (The Knights of Stonebridge Book 1) (8 page)

She shielded her eyes against the glare as she stepped out into the bailey. Clouds overcast the sky, but it was far brighter out here than inside the castle. Already the courtyard teemed with activity. Several shabbily dressed people were stacking stuffed burlap sacks against the wall. A man repaired the wheel of a broken-down cart. The clang of the blacksmith’s hammer rang in the air. Bryn, ever-present among the reconstruction, barked orders to the workers like a man twice his age.

Several men were training on the lists, but Marek was not one of them. The only people to pay her the slightest attention were the ones who turned to go the other way when they saw her coming. She decided to check on the boy lying at death’s door in the shed.

She knew the moment she reached the threshold that death had already come and gone. The stench of it lingered. She screwed up her nose, pressing her face into the crook of her elbow, and slipped silently through the doorway.

He lay just as she’d left him before Marek’s return. The gray pallor of his skin belied the expression of peaceful sleep on his face. He had been a handsome boy. The slut of the keep had had taste. Of that Kitty could be sure. Here though, in this time, all the men seemed to be handsome. She could hardly turn her head without seeing one gorgeous man or another. How could a woman
not
be tempted?

Still, with a man like Marek Stone in her bed, how could she spare a moment to fantasize about another? Kitty had never known a man like him.

Much less been married to one.

She almost laughed. But any threat of laughter rose like bile in her throat. Katherine Stone, her alter ego, had apparently caused the death of this young man. How had she seduced him? Had he been eager? Did he fear the wrath of his lord? Most likely the greater fear was that of the Lady of Stonebridge Castle. Kitty had learned that few liked Marek’s wife. All feared her. Just this morning Kitty had lifted her hand to brush hair from her face. A passing serving girl had nearly dropped the pitcher she carried as she instinctively raised her arm to fend off an anticipated blow.

Kitty had never struck another person in her life, except in her self-defense class. Yet everyone cowered at her slightest move as if she regularly beat the help. She seemed to have no friends, no one who liked her. Indeed, each person she met regarded her with contempt. So far, only Bria recognized that Kitty was not the woman everyone else thought she was.

She had to trust Marek. He was the only one who could help her.

But what would a medieval knight know about traveling through time? Besides, Kitty wasn’t convinced that Marek wasn’t the one who’d tried to kill her, Katherine, in the first place. He despised his wife and with good reason. But enough to kill her? Kitty had seen murderous hatred in his expression often enough since she arrived. She knew it was possible. It would have been easy enough for him. None would accuse him. Most likely, Stonebridge’s inhabitants would be more than happy to see her gone, by the lord’s hand or not.

She was not safe here.

Vanesa was not safe without her.

Today was Saturday. Kitty had been here almost a week. What had become of Vanesa during that time? When Kitty had awakened surrounded by walls of flame, Vanesa had been sleeping in her own bed down the hall. Kitty remembered trying to call to her, but she had been unable to make any sound. That same raging fear threatened to overwhelm her again. The little girl would have gotten up the next morning and found – what? Had the house burned down? Had the fire department actually come as Kitty had first thought when Marek rescued her? Had Vanesa even survived?

No. Kitty could not – would not – so much as imagine that her daughter was not alive. She
had
to believe that Vanesa was safe. She might already be in that hospital or even with a foster family, but she could fix all that when she got back.

She hoped.

The hearing was still three weeks away. In less than a month, Kitty had to stand before a judge and convince him that she was capable of taking care of her daughter. Her daughter who had not spoken a single word since...

...since the night she’d stabbed her own father to death.

Kitty tried to force those memories from her mind each time they threatened to rise to the surface. There had been no struggle, no sound that she could remember causing her to wake up. But there must have been. Kitty did remember opening her eyes, Vanesa’s haunting image illuminated by the moonlight streaming in through the window. Vanesa stood next to the bed, the kitchen knife clasped in both hands. Very calmly, as if she’d merely been digging in the sandbox in the backyard, she jabbed the blade into Jake’s chest over and over and over.

Kitty choked back a sob at the memory. Vanesa had sensed her mother’s gaze. Only then did she cease the relentless stabbing. Kitty knew in that instant that Jake had done something terrible to their daughter and that she, Kitty, had failed to protect her.

If she did not get home, she would fail again.

It was all too much. Those horrible memories, the boy’s death, her own frustration at being trapped in a different
time
. Kitty burst into tears. She’d not cried for a long time. When, through a thorough medical exam, she had learned about Jake’s abuse of her child, she had cried until she thought  her eyes would pop out of her head. She hadn’t cried since. Her poor little girl. What Vanesa must have endured during that time. The anguish that had driven a nine-year-old girl to butcher her father. If the memories were too much for Kitty to bear, what could they possibly mean to a little girl?
Her
little girl that she’d failed to protect, not just then, but now. Maybe she
wasn’t
fit to be Vanesa’s mother. Maybe that was why she’d been snatched away, so that Vanesa would be free to get the help she really needed.

Kitty knelt there on the floor of the shed, next to the lifeless body of an innocent boy, and sobbed into her hands.

CHAPTER SIX

Marek Stone crossed the bailey with a light step. For the first time in an age, his burdens seemed to have lessened. A sense of calm came over him. Last night he had almost made love to his wife, something he had not done since his wedding night.

He had had no desire to bed her since. Not once. Katherine had been unresponsive, lying stiffly beneath him. Surprising, considering her reputation. He had been reluctant to marry such a loose woman, but his father had insisted, claiming her dowry would help feed the coffers for years to come.

His bride was no maid, and for months doubt about the child’s paternity had plagued him. But one look at his tiny daughter, and Marek had recognized her as his own. He would have claimed her even had he not felt that inexplicable bond. Such was the unconditional love that consumed him when the midwife placed the squirming bundle in his arms for the first time.

Katherine maintained residence at the keep, but her child had grown up without a mother. She had never expressed the slightest interest in Bria. A wet nurse had been brought in.

His daughter was the joy of his life. His wife, the bane of his very existence.

Until last night.

Last night, Marek sensed in her a passion unrevealed before now. Oh, he knew she possessed great passion. Indeed, everyone knew. His wife’s insatiable appetite for men, nay – boys, was known throughout the village. No doubt in the surrounding towns, as well.

Not that he cared. A more evil woman Marek had never met. Had he given the matter enough thought, he might have even felt a touch of pity for the poor sops. They were surely powerless to deny her. Besides the fact that she was beautiful, she was also vengeful. And once scorned, she would not rest until the guilty man had been ruined.

But she had emerged from the funeral pyre a different woman. Gone was the hateful shrew of his early years of marriage, replaced by a woman whose beauty seemed to radiate from within. This new Katherine had all the appearances of a doting mother, a loving wife, an eager lover.

He shook his head. Something was amiss. She
was
a different woman.

For the first time, Marek felt a twinge of guilt. Had she not been so obviously lifeless, there would have been no need for a funeral. Katherine would never have experienced that unfortunate set of circumstances.

She would never been
transformed
.

Nay, it had been worth it. She had escaped unharmed, had she not? Emerged a better person? ‘Twas possible she would even be a
happier
person. Although Katherine seemed to revel in parading her lovers before him, what woman, or man even, could truly be happy with so many? Indeed, she had appeared more than frustrated by Marek’s lack of concern.

‘Twas no act. No stab of jealousy plagued him. He seldom gave her infidelity a thought.
Let her wreak havoc on another man’s life
.

His greatest concern had ever been for Bria. A child deserved to grow up in a happy family, siblings to torment and look out for, parents who loved not only their children but each other.

His own father had seldom been home. If not on crusade, then patrolling the countryside keeping peace among the king’s subjects. Walter Stone had ever had a taste for adventure. Bitter at not being named his father’s heir, Walter had rejected the manor at Stowbridge, declaring it cursed and refusing to see the income potential of the run down harbor. He had not been content to waste his days in this forsaken village, with this ungrateful lot constantly looking to him to provide for them, to be lord of a run-down keep erected by the Conqueror’s men when first the Normans had set foot on English soil.

Marek paused, squinted against the haze to regard the towers of the new stone keep. From the parapets at the top, he could see the surroundings for leagues. The river to the east would carry no marauders to Stonebridge, as Marek had renamed the manor after building the new bridge, without at least half a day’s warning.

Would his father have been pleased?

As he stood there admiring the legacy he would leave to his own child, and thus grandchildren, he thought he heard a woman crying. Looking around, he realized the sound came from one of the sheds yet to be torn down. These outbuildings were filthy, overrun with vermin. What purpose would a woman have for even being in there?

***

Kitty started violently at an angry disturbance behind her. She turned so abruptly, she landed on her backside in the muck that made up the floor of the shed. There stood her husband, his face a canvas of rage so intense she felt sure he was about to kill her. The idea left little doubt that he could have been the source of his wife’s death.

“So, you have taken to housing your lovers within my walls?” His voice was frighteningly calm, even and measured but laced with malice.

“My-?”  She stopped, her voice catching in her chest, her sobs not quite subsided. Kitty glanced down at the body lying next to her. Her lover. She looked back at Marek through swollen eyes.

“I did not bring him here.”

“Who did?” He clenched his jaw so tight, speaking seemed to cause him actual pain.

“A woman, I guess she was his mother.” Kitty pressed her hands to her stomach trying to calm the nervous flutter that made her feel queasy.

“You serve as nurse to those villagers now? Many of them would sooner see you dead than would I.”

She still didn’t understand why those words should hurt, but they did. “You would see me dead?” Her voice came out in a whisper.

“Oh, aye, woman. ‘Twas I who lit the fires of your pyre myself. ‘Twould mean my first moments of peace since I received the missive we were to marry.”

He
did
wish her dead. Kitty’s heart broke a little.

“Yet have I been robbed of that small amity, doomed to endure your despicable-” He actually roared as he kicked a wayward piece of broken crockery in her direction, sending the missile straight for her head.

She ducked just in time. The hardened clay exploded harmlessly against the wall behind her. She was almost too stunned to speak. Although she didn’t know why his sudden outburst should surprise her. He had most likely tried to kill his wife with his bare hands.

Kitty was frightfully aware that she was alone with him, even if she screamed for help, she knew none would be forthcoming. Anyone within hearing distance would certainly ignore her plea. She was not well-liked, and no doubt, the lord of the castle ruled unchallenged. If he chose to murder his wife, whom everyone hated anyway, so be it.

Kitty climbed to her feet. She would not be bullied. She had taken self-defense for a reason. Her knees wobbled, but she hid her weakness.
Show no fear.
“Is that why you’re so angry? Because I’m not dead?” She started moving slowly around him. He stood between her and the entry, but maybe she could slip by him. “It has nothing to do with this boy, does it? You’re just mad because you didn’t succeed in killing me the first time?”

By his expression, he thought the idea preposterous.  “The first time?”

Doubt flickered in Kitty’s mind, but only for an instant. The look on his face was instantly replaced with the rage he’d been expressing since he’d found her sobbing over the boy’s dead body.

For the first time, Marek glanced down at the boy. The hatred in his eyes when he looked back at Kitty was for her and her alone.

“’Tis true, I care not about the men you lie with. You wish to whore yourself out to the
world
, it makes no difference to me. But you will
not
hurt our child. These past days Bria has come to believe you care for her, that finally you have come to be the mother she longs for. I, too, believed that there was a change in you, that mayhap there could be some show of happiness in this
family
.” He fairly spat the word. “Yet, I am a warrior. Disappointment rolls off me like water. Bria is but a child. Disappoint her, and I
will
kill you.”

He stormed away from her without a backward glance. Kitty stood in the doorway, watched him go. Was he really – disappointed? Could he want nothing more than a happy family as he claimed?

She wanted to chase after him, to tell him she was not a whore, not the woman he thought she was.

Still she held fast. This was best. She
would
return to Vanesa. She would find a way. She had to. Already her feelings for Marek were such her heart broke that he should think her unfaithful, uncaring. She could not let her feelings for this man, for
his
daughter, make her feel anything but ecstatic to return to her own time. For surely, if she allowed her heart to admit otherwise, she would never be able to live without him.