Secret Heart (13 page)

Roarke
had not meant the kitchen garden. Auremont boasted a small lady’s
garden. Enclosed by high walls, it was a shady, mossy place.
Against the north wall, in the spot which received the most sun,
stood a small pear tree, its branches laden with ripening fruit.
Lilies grew on the same, sunny side of the garden, though their
flowers were long gone and only the tall stems remained, with
leaves and stems both turning brown as autumn
approached.

On the shadier east and west sides of the
garden a few pale blooms of other plants still lingered. On the
south wall, where the entrance was, a leafy vine grew up the
stones, softening the hard, straight lines. A gravel path led
across the garden to a stone bench set beneath the pear tree.

Though
the day was overly warm for the season the garden offered a cool
refuge. Jenia stood on the path, looking around and noticing that
the plantings were fairly new, with plenty of space between plants
that hadn’t yet had a chance to spread out or to grow very tall. So
was the bench new, for it was shining white and no moss had
attacked it. This retreat was most likely one of the remodeled
parts of the castle that Garit had prepared for Chantal.

“
First,”
Roarke said, allowing Jenia no time to think about her surroundings
or to grow emotional about what she saw, “I want you to walk across
the garden.”

“
What?”
Jenia asked, honestly puzzled by the command.

“
Don’t
ask questions. Just do it.”

“
If you
intend to be a difficult taskmaster, I warn you, I will be a
rebellious pupil,” she said.

“
You have
only a few days to learn what you need to know. Now,
walk.”

Jenia
walked. Keeping her back straight and her chin up, she paced across
the garden three times at Roarke’s bidding.

“
Sit on
the bench,” he ordered.

Jenia
sat, placing her feet just so and folding her hands in her lap.
When Roarke joined her on the bench, she turned toward him as
gracefully as she could – as gracefully as she had been taught to
move long ago, when she had been an innocent girl unaware of the
depths of foul degradation to which ambitious men were capable of
sinking.

Some men,
she corrected herself.
Not all men.
Roarke was stern and commanding
at times and he often spoke with biting sarcasm, but she did not
think he was dishonest or violent by nature. Neither were Garit or
Lord Giles.

“
Now,”
Roarke instructed her, “I want you to make polite conversation with
me.”

She
almost told him it wasn’t going to be necessary for her to chatter
with any nobles or their ladies. The task she had set for herself
meant that the moment she saw King Henryk, she must confront him
and reveal what she knew, before anyone could prevent her
revelations.

“
Well?”
Roarke demanded with his too-frequent frown. “Have you nothing to
say?”

Indeed
she had, but she couldn’t reveal her innermost thoughts, let alone
her feelings. She looked down at her clasped hands and noticed
Roarke’s thigh too close to her own. Whoever had carved the garden
bench had allowed room enough for two people to sit side by side,
with very little space between them. Whenever Roarke moved his
thigh brushed against Jenia’s skirt and the contact affected her in
a most alarming way.

She doubted if he was at all aware of the
warmth his nearness generated. Surely, he had no idea how she
yearned to caress his smoothly shaven face and to trace the outline
of his firm and well-shaped, though somewhat narrow lips. When
Roarke was annoyed his mouth assumed a thin, tight line. When he
smiled, his lips took on a delicious curve. Jenia wondered how that
very masculine mouth would feel if it were pressed against hers.
How would Roarke taste? She shivered at the thought.

“
Jenia?”
Roarke frowned at her again. “Is something wrong?”

She shook her head, trying to find both her
voice and a neutral subject.

“
Then
speak to me as if we were at a court gathering where noblemen and
ladies flatter andJ flirt with each other, but never talk in any
serious manner.”

Jenia swallowed, moistened her lips, and
cleared her throat.

“
Say
something,” Roarke commanded impatiently.

“
I have
noticed during our time together, Sir Roarke,” she obeyed him,
speaking in a falsely sweet tone, “that you and Lord Garit are
remarkably close.”

“
Friendships formed in youth often last a lifetime,” Roarke
at once responded in a polite tone similar to the one she had just
used.

“
I
believe that is not always the case,” Jenia said. She smiled in a
bland, ladylike way. “The realities of rank and custom can intrude
upon friendship. How fortunate you and Garit are.”

“
I have
often thought so.” Roarke’s smile matched hers for empty good
manners, his lips assuming a seductive curve that drew Jenia’s
fascinated gaze. When he continued, it was with a gentle interest
so insinuating that his words slipped through her guard to strike
directly at her heart. “Have you such a friend, Lady
Jenia?”

To her dismay, Jenia felt her eyes filling
with tears. She looked down at her hands and saw they were tightly
clenched together. She warned herself that although she and Roarke
were playing a game of courtier and noble lady, danger still lurked
in his words, and in her own. An even greater danger lay in the
emotions that Roarke stirred in her. But the cherished memories she
was trying to quell betrayed her into a rash admission.

“
Once,”
she said in a voice just above a whisper. She choked on the single
word and could say no more.

“
You’ve
been friends for years?” Roarke asked quietly.

“
We
were.” Jenia forced out an explanation that she hoped would stop
his probing into a wound too easily reopened. “She’s dead
now.”

“
I am
sorry for your loss. I know a piece of my heart would be torn away
if anything happened to Garit.” Roarke wasn’t pretending any
longer. He was speaking with a sincerity so absolute that Jenia was
prompted to admit a little more.

“
We were
cousins,” she said. “Our mothers were sisters. When we were little,
we were often together. We were like twins, always wanting the same
things, always competing with each other, and so mischievous that
our mothers despaired of our ever becoming well behaved
ladies.”

“
Mischievous or not, you were well taught,” Roarke said.
“That’s why you know how to walk and sit and speak like a
noblewoman. It’s because you are of noble birth and were trained by
your lady mother.”

Jenia
went perfectly still, paralyzed by fear. What a fool she was to
think she could ease the ache in her heart by revealing just a
little information to Roarke. She was like a seething cauldron,
bubling under a tightly fastened lid. The strong attraction she
felt toward Roarke, that she must never let him suspect, her
disgust with herself over what her pretense was doing to Garit, the
realization that Garit had intended to bring his love to Auremont
and keep her safe there, all added to the noxious brew within the
cauldron of her emotions. She feared she’d boil over if she had to
keep that brew fermenting and stewing inside her for much
longer.

She wanted to scream the truth at Roarke, to
tell him everything and then throw herself into his arms and weep
until all the tears were gone.

“
So, you
do recall your girlhood?” Roarke said, sounding as if he’d
suspected as much all along. “What else do you
remember?”

“
I don’t
know.” She wondered if he was as tired of hearing that phrase as
she was of repeating it. He could not possibly know how weary she
was of concocting lies. Weary or not, she then proceeded to tell
another lie, using a soft, hesitant tone of voice that she hoped
would convince him she was speaking the truth. “Sometimes, it’s as
if a veil is drawn aside and I see something of the past. Then the
veil drops again and the memory ends.”

“
You
remember far more than you will admit,” Roarke said very quietly.
He took her hand, tightening his hold when she would have pulled it
out of his grasp. “Jenia, if you will tell me what troubles you so,
the chances are good that I can protect you from whatever it is you
fear. Let me help you.”

Jenia
smothered a bitter laugh. Much as she longed to do as he asked, she
couldn’t reveal the true source of her pain. While Roarke wanted to
protect her, the very reticence he decried was protecting
him,
and Garit, too.
When the confrontation occurred in Calean City, their only chance
of surviving that hour lay in their obvious and honest astonishment
at the terrible words she would speak. If it was clear to everyone
present that neither Roarke nor Garit had known in advance what she
intended to do, perhaps King Henryk would believe in their
innocence and let them live.

Thury Castle, Eastern Sapaudia.

“
Lady
Chantal is most assuredly dead, my lord Walderon,” the ship’s
captain reported.

His glance shifted for just an instant to the
woman who stood in the shadows behind Walderon. He quickly returned
his attention to the man who presently ruled Thury Castle, thus
dismissing the female presence as unimportant.

And that,
Lady Sanal decided, was an accurate assessment of her person and
her life. She made a habit of being inconspicuous. In her plain,
dark gown she was almost invisible there in the small room with its
single, narrow window. She took care to remain motionless lest her
husband become angry with her and order her to leave. Walderon’s
temper was fragile at the best of times, but Sanal was determined
to stay so she could hear what else the captain had to say about
Chantal.

“
Poor
thing, she flung herself over the rail.” The captain finished his
tale with bowed head and solemn voice.

Horrified
though she was at the news, still Sanal retained sense enough to
understand that the captain was not honestly grieving over
Chantal’s fate. Judging by his raffish appearance the man was
little more than a pirate, a creature who would do almost anything
for money. That fact would make him useful to Walderon. It also
made him expendable, for no one who mattered would raise worrisome
questions should the captain disappear, which he was likely to do
in the very near future. Sanal knew her husband all too
well.

“
Swear to
me that what you say is true,” Walderon demanded.

“
Aye, my
lord,” the captain responded, nodding his unkempt head vigorously.
“With my own eyes I saw Lady Chantal vanish beneath the waves and I
never saw her rise to the surface again. Who can wonder at that,
seein’ how violent the storm was?”

Sanal
could no longer contain her outrage, though she’d doubtless pay
later for her interference.

“
Your
story cannot be true,” she declared. Moving out of the shadows,
Sanal stepped around her husband, who yielded not a single inch to
accommodate her presence as she came forward to face the captain
directly. “I knew Lady Chantal and cannot imagine her ever killing
herself.”

“
Well, my
lady,” the captain said, not meeting Sanal’s gaze, looking at
Walderon instead, as if he hoped the nobleman would come to his
aid, “the thing is, she may have felt she had no choice in the
matter.”

“
Exactly
what do you mean by that?” Sanal demanded.

“
I was
busy at the helm, so I had nothin’ to do with it,” the captain
protested, holding up his hands.

“
With
what?” Sanal asked, her anguished gaze fixed on the captain’s
dirty, bearded face.

“
Well, my
lady, some of the crew had a bit too much ale and became – well,
boisterous, ye might say. They thought to enjoy a bit of sport with
her.”

“
Sport?”
Sanal repeated, staring in shock at the seaman, who looked
increasingly uncomfortable. “Are you saying that common sailors
laid lustful hands on a noblewoman?”

“
It
wasn’t me what laid a finger on her, my lady. I never touched her.
And the men who did the deed have been whipped for it.”

“
But in
any case, captain,” Walderon inserted himself into the debate,
cutting off any response his wife could have made, “you do swear to
me that Lady Chantal is now dead?”

“
Aye, my
lord, without question or doubt, the lady is gone. I done what ye
hired me to do. An’ now I expect to be paid as we agreed. In full,
and without delay.”

At these
revelations Sanal gasped, then clamped her jaw shut to prevent any
further outburst. She knew she was going to pay at Walderon’s hands
for everything she had already said and for what she had heard. She
didn’t want to make her own situation worse by continuing her
objections.

“
So you
shall be paid, exactly as you deserve,” Walderon told the captain.
“The man-at-arms who brought you to me will see to it. You will
find him waiting in the great hall. I want you to return to your
ship at Calean City and wait there for my next orders, which will
very likely reach you within a day or two.”