The Longing (16 page)

She loosed the pendant, reached.

With a heavy sigh, he lifted his head. “Susanna—” His eyes that had been destined for hers, narrowed upon her extended fingers.

Only then realizing what she did, she snatched her hand back and looked hard upon it where she caught hold of it with the other in her lap.

Oh, you are pitiful to think you can go there, Susanna. You are no Judith.

As he straightened, she lifted her gaze just enough to watch the unfolding of his legs.

“I shall trouble you no longer, Lady Susanna,” he said gruffly.

Lady
Susanna…

“When you are ready to reveal what you deign not to tell, send Sir Rowan with word.” He turned toward the door, paused. “Your food grows cold—”

“Do not!” She thrust her chin up, glared into the narrowed eyes he swung to her. “Do not, or I shall scream.”

He considered her, then took up the stool. Moments later, he closed the door behind him.

Susanna lay back upon the bed and felt a burn in her belly as she saw again her hand reach toward him so she might touch hair that had only been for another to touch…

“Only ever Judith,” she breathed.

It was not a dream, but the memory was just as feverish and, like those night travels, was viewed behind her closed lids where she lay upon the bed wishing for sleep so the day would be done sooner.

The memory sharpened, pulling her in. And back.

“Susanna?” Everard Wulfrith’s voice, part amusement, part disbelief, made Susanna falter where she wove among the garden’s plants.

“Aye, ’tis clear she is besotted with you”—the voice of the one she sought—“though not as much as I.”

Susanna halted alongside a thick hedge of rosebushes that had more thorns about their stems than petals and tried to make sense of the conversation into which her name had been inserted. It was true she was besotted with Everard Wulfrith, but surely Judith was not. She must be in one of her teasing moods.

“’Tis softer than my finest bliaut,” Susanna’s friend said, “so soft methinks I would like to wear it.”

Wear what? Susanna frowned amid the silence that was so complete she dared not swallow lest she was heard.

“Tell me I may, beloved Judith.”

Beloved…

Judith’s whispered something was followed by more silence, then she said, “Promise me.”

“Whatever you would have.”

“Promise your hair will only ever know my hands—no other’s.”

“And if I do?”

“I will go away with you.”

Susanna stumbled back, grabbed hold of thorned stems to steady herself, hardly felt the sharp points penetrate her palm. She could not have heard right. Judith was betrothed to Alan.

She shook her head, certain she misunderstood what was happening on the other side. A jest! That was what this was. They had heard her approach and but played with her.

“Only ever you, Judith,” Everard said.

Beginning to smile over how gullible she was, Susanna hurried forward and turned off the pathway onto the next. And halted so abruptly she nearly toppled forward.

On the bench ahead sat Judith and Everard, their mouths upon one another’s.

No jest.

Everard drew back. Smiling, he pulled Judith’s hands from his hair and kissed each one. Then his head came around and eyes stopped on Susanna.

Judith jumped up from the bench. “Susanna!”

Susanna threw a hand up as if the pitiful gesture might ward off the truth of what she saw, then turned and fled. But not to her brother. Never to Alan.

Unwilling to relive any more of that memory now that she understood what she should have understood sooner, Susanna opened her eyes. “Oh, Judith,” she whispered, “still he mourns you. Still no other hands have known his hair. A good husband he would have made you.”

She rolled onto her stomach, pressed her face into the pillow, and cried.

When a knock sounded some time later, she sat up and wiped her face with handfuls of the coverlet. Certain another tray of food was about to be delivered, wondering how she might fight the temptation to send it flying, she rose and crossed the room.

“Aye?” she asked, easing the door open just enough to look upon Sir Rowan without revealing much of her face.

“Apologies, my lady, I would but know how you fare.”

Cringing at the possibility he had heard the muffled sound of her misery, she fumbled for an explanation and found the one nearest the truth. “You will think it silly, Sir Rowan, but I am afflicted with too much time in which to do naught but think. Of course, you are no less afflicted, are you?”

“I am mostly at peace, my lady. Thus, I more often find comfort in my thoughts than affliction.”

If only she could be at peace…

“If you but tell me what would offer the best distraction, I shall ask Lord Wulfrith if I might deliver those things to you.”

He would do that? More, would Everard Wulfrith? In the next instant, she almost laughed. Of course he would—providing her requests were not perceived as a threat to his young men. Thus, she asked for a psalter, quill, ink, and parchment. And though she feared she would be thought greedy, she also asked for a chess set in the event Sir Rowan might once again be prevailed upon to provide company.

“I will do what I can,” he said. “If you think of anything else, I shall be here.”

“I thank you, Sir Rowan.” She closed the door, leaned back against it, and listened as she must do if she was to learn of the man’s comings and goings.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

“Ah, Sir Morris…” Sir Elias mused. “I thought ’twas him with Sir Talbot.” He looked closer upon the man beside whom he was seated at the high table. “I will tell you what I can, but so I might know what needs to be told, may I ask the reason you single him out from among those who rode upon Wulfen?”

Everard inclined his head. “I am disturbed by Lady Susanna’s reaction to mention of his name.” And since she would not elaborate, he had decided to enlist the aid of this man whom he had invited to join him at meal.

“I wager she did not react well,” Sir Elias said.

“She did not.”

The knight glanced at Judas whose page duties this eve included refilling pitchers of wine after the attending squires divided their contents between the goblets throughout the hall.

Guessing the knight wished to confirm the boy was out of earshot, Everard waited. And did not like that when the man looked back at him, he was slow to answer as if deciding what to tell and not tell.

“She has good cause,” he finally said. “One night, shortly after I arrived at Cheverel three years past, Baron de Balliol let the wine flow freely and most of his men shed what few manners they had.” He raised his eyebrows. “I believe it fair to say such behavior would not be tolerated at Wulfen from boys, let alone full-grown men.”

“Sir Morris was in his cups as well?”

The knight shook his head. “Not so much, nor was I, for I knew to be cautious in a household with which I was not yet familiar.”

“Then?”

“Something about Sir Morris bothered me. He was too watchful, as if he awaited an opportunity that might present itself as his lord grew increasingly inebriated. Thus, to keep my mind off the wine I denied myself, I made a game of observing him.”

“And?”

“Lady Susanna came belowstairs so discreetly that had I not seen his attention settle upon her, I do not know I would have noticed her—she can be that quiet. He followed her to the kitchen. And I followed after.”

Everard tensed. Another bargain made? An arranged tryst out of sight of her brother?

“He had her backed into a corner, and she had only a cup with which to defend herself.”

Everard frowned. “Defend herself?”

Sir Elias smiled wryly. “That knight is not one with whom she would ever have bargained, Lord Wulfrith. Ravishment was Sir Morris’s intent.”

Everard felt his ire rise against the man who had this day cursed the Wulfrith lack of hospitality, next a stab of remorse at having been so ready to interpret the situation as he had done. “You interceded,” he said.

“Nay, that was her brother—after I brought the matter to his attention.”

Everard leaned nearer the man. “You left her there?” he said between his teeth. “You had best explain yourself, Sir Elias.”

The knight shifted in his chair, glanced around. “I assure you, there was time, Lord Wulfrith. Too, the lady is quick, and though I have never given her cause to strike me, I have seen and heard tale of what she can do.”

Further evidence she was no longer the compliant, guileless girl whom Judith had believed would not reveal what had happened in the garden. The acknowledgement caused Everard’s thoughts to slide backward to Judith’s insistence that her friendship with Susanna was of greater depth than the girl’s kinship with her overbearing brother. Had he known how wrong she was, he would have taken her from her father’s home immediately following the incident and before her family could remind her of her duty to them. A mistake that could never be remedied.

“Though Baron de Balliol could not walk a straight line,” Sir Elias wrenched Everard back to the present, “his appearance in the kitchen was all that was required to end Sir Morris’s assault.”

“All? Did not your lord beat the man for attacking a lady—his own sister?”

Sir Elias shook his head. “I imagine that is as a Wulfen-trained knight would do, but de Balliol? Though the lady’s bodice was torn, he accused her of tempting his men—named her a Daughter of Eve—then returned to the hall and finished drinking himself senseless.”

Everard swallowed hard to contain his disgust. What had turned de Balliol against his own sister that he could be so cruel and unmoved? Her affection for and defense of the son he rejected?

“That Sir Morris remained in his service,” Sir Elias continued, “ought to inform you of the state of the household in which Lady Susanna raised Judas.”

Worse and worse, and little of it from her own lips. Because of pride? Shame? Resignation? Or, as this man had told two nights past, did she merely save up her defenses for when they might be needed for Judas?

Sir Elias drained his goblet, set it aside, and waved away the squire who hastened forward to refill it. “I know you cannot think much of me for not personally defending her honor that day, but I will not be as Lady Susanna and let a smudge upon my character become a stain. I was cautious, aye, but from that day forth, I have stayed as near her nephew and the lady as possible, granting whatever favors I can so she has little need of turning to others for favors.”

Everard frowned. “You make your—shall I call it protection?—sound almost chivalrous, Sir Elias.”

The knight turned a hand up. “Almost is better than not at all, hmm? And I did deliver her to your walls with Cheverel’s men fast upon our heels.”

So he had. Such a curious man. “Still you deny that you love her?”

“I care for her, that is all.”

“Why? Especially if she is as broken as you believe her to be?”

The knight leaned back in his chair. “There is something very beautiful about brokenness.” It was said with near reverence. “The longing to put something back together again, to see it restored no matter how many cracks might forever mar its surface.” He blinked, sighed. “Forgive me, Lord Wulfrith. ’Tis a weakness of mine.”

Recalling when the knight had spoken of a woman’s desperation and unplucked petals too bruised to remain upon the stem, Everard thought again that Sir Elias sounded more a poet than one bred to swing a sword.

“You are a curious knight,” he said. “Indeed, sometimes I wonder if you are a knight at all.”

If he had expected the man to look chagrined at having his manly profession questioned, Everard would have been disappointed. But he was more disposed toward the smile that ran up the corners of Sir Elias’s mouth. And not at all surprised when the man changed the subject by asking, “You have sent your missive to Queen Eleanor?”

Everard settled back and looked around the hall that evidenced they were near meal’s end. The squires and pages who had served other squires and pages and knights with decorum befitting a nobleman’s hall were beginning to remove empty platters and goblets, those who had emptied them talking amongst themselves.

Satisfied that, even with a woman within Wulfen’s walls, all was as it should be, Everard said, “I sent the missive this morn.”

“So now we wait.”

He looked sidelong at Sir Elias. “That is one of the things we do.”

“There are other things?”

“We prepare Judas to stand before a queen and convincingly assert his claim to his father’s lands. And, perhaps, we ought to send someone to Cheverel to take measure of the effect of the boy’s absence.”

After a long moment, Sir Elias said, “I am glad Lady Susanna would not be dissuaded from seeking your aid, Lord Wulfrith. If Judas has any hope, it seems to lie with you—a man not his father.”

Not of a mind to mull whether or not that last was spoken with sincerity, Everard said, “I shall do my best by him,” then stood and called an end to the meal. Amid the clamor, he strode the back of the dais and stepped past another of his squires who held aside the curtain between hall and solar.

Absently rubbing a hand over his heavily stubbled head, he crossed the floor and noted the cleared surface of a table positioned before the hearth between two chairs. As with the other items he had agreed Sir Rowan could deliver abovestairs, the chess set was gone. He would not likely miss it, though, for despite his love of the game, he rarely had time to indulge. Indeed, it was hard enough to find time to shave, especially these past few days, as surely noted by Susanna—

He halted in the center of the room, drew his hand from his head, and closed his fingers into his palm as what he had not wished to examine determined to examine him.

If the lady had not previously guessed at the reason for his bare scalp, he was certain she did now. But almost more disturbing than her possession of knowledge none other possessed was that she had reached out to him. Had he not looked up, would she have ventured nearer? Would she have touched him? And why? She could no longer be besotted with him as Judith had said she was all those years ago.