The Maiden Bride (24 page)

A quick exchange of glances. "You mean the sort who cleans cesspits?"

"Just that. But not anymore. He wanted so much to be a carpenter, so I let him."

"You let him? Are you mad, woman? What does a nightman know of carpentry?"

"As it turns out, Sir David, very little. And as for the rest of my workers, I'm afraid their stories are all quite similar. I doubt that any of these men or women were ever anyone's tenants. At least not for very long. Save perhaps for the king's."

But Arundel had been listening carefully. "The king's tenants?" he asked, shouldering Dernbrook aside to stand over Eleanor. "How is that, milady? Be these men of yours lords in exile?"

"They are not lords, sir. Far from it." And here was where she was taking a chance with everyone's dreams, though she had a keen sense that the earl was genuinely just. "You see, before McDowell arrived at our gate asking to be a blacksmith, he was
…
well, an Edinburgh cutpurse."

Dernbrook sputtered, but Percy asked, "Is this the truth, Lady Eleanor?"

"Oh, yes, my lord. And McDowell's not the only case. You'll find that nearly all of my tenants are—or rather were—outside the law, one way or another before the pestilence."

"My lord earl, are you going to believe this woman's malarkey?"

"It isn't malarkey at all, Sir David. Mullock?"

"Aye, my lady?" Mullock stopped mid-stride with his ever-present wheelbarrow in the midst of the great hall, looking authentically guilty.

"What was your trade before you came to Faulkhurst?"

"Me, my lady?"

Eleanor gently brought the nervous man to stand in the circle of her inquisitors, ready to tell him to run for his life if things got hot and sticky for him. "Just tell us true, Mullock. It's all right."

Mullock shifted his feet and his single eye between the men who were staring at him, then swallowed loudly. "Well, milady, as you know, I used to relieve folks of their excess possessions. This is before I come here."

Dernbrook stuck his face in Mullock's. "What the hell kind of craft was that?"

"He was a housebreaker." And he was blushing like a beet all the way to the tips of his fingers.

"My specialty was digging under walls."

Dernbrook bellowed like a just-castrated bull. "And you let him stay here?"

"Aye, sir. Proudly." Eleanor kept hold of Mullock's arm, though he tugged to be far away, into the hills. "Mullock is the keeper of my stores."

"Are you mad? The lot of them ought to be rounded up and sent back to the king's dungeons. Do your duty, Arundel: Arrest them all."

"I'll do nothing of the sort, Dernbrook. Whatever Lady Eleanor has done to redeem the king's outlaws for honest, law-minding tenants, I applaud. As to your missing laborers, I suggest you ask the kind lady if she can lease you a few for a time."

Eleanor relaxed and let Mullock speed away to his barrow. "If you're in sore need of a blacksmith, sir, I suppose I could spare you one for a week. As long as they agree to it."

"Spare me one of your thieves? I think not."

"I'd love to help you with your troubles, Sir David, but we are fresh out of regular vassals."

Arundel started laughing. "Regular vassals! Give yourself up, Dernbrook. You haven't a case here. Be damned glad I didn't hear it at the assize, else you'd be fined for filing a nuisance writ."

Dernbrook stomped his foot soundly, grabbed up his saddlebag and his books, and clapped his sagging hat onto his head. "If you'll excuse me, my lady, I won't be staying the night. My lord earl. Percy. Good day to you."

Dernbrook stormed out of the hall, dodging the laundresses and their baskets as though they were hauling the plague. Then he was mercifully gone.

"You see, Uncle? The side trip from Carlisle was well worth the extra day—in all ways, I'd say." Percy was looking directly at Eleanor with a glittering intensity, as though he were trying to see through her, or perhaps past the mud that must still be streaking her from head to toe.

"My lord, I'm sorry to have upset the man."

"Nonsense, Lady Eleanor. He'll not trouble you again. I'm glad I came. You have a fine place here."

"Very fine, indeed!" Percy slipped between her and his uncle. "I'd love to see what you've done, Lady Eleanor—if you'll honor me with a tour."

Percy was flirting with her! And his uncle was looking on with pride and fatherly encouragement.

She was being courted by the nephew of a very powerful earl. This wasn't right at all.

Damn you, Edward.

And William Bayard, too, since the man had begun it all.

"Well, my lord Percy, I must clean up first. I'm a mess."

"A lovely mess." The young man turned instantly crimson. "I mean that you couldn't possibly be a mess. Ever, Lady Eleanor."

You ought to see my heart just now, Sir Percy.

Now,
there
is a mess.

Chapter 21

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E
leanor ran to her chamber for a clean change of clothes and then hurried off toward the grotto for a quick bath, praying she'd run into Nicholas along the way.

After all that blustering about attending to her suit himself, he'd certainly gone out of his way to turn her loose on her own.

Or he'd found more trouble with the weirs, though the sky was cloudless. Still, she had a mind to send Fergus out to find him.

She was nearly undressed by the time she reached the grotto, had hung her kirtle on the peg and was lifting the hem of her chemise, when she felt a shadow in the steam coming off the pool—and felt altogether looked at. The way she did whenever Nicholas was—

"Nicholas?" Oh, yes. Most definitely, Nicholas. All of him. Standing to his knees in the water, without a stitch of clothing, as bare and almighty as a pagan god.

"Good afternoon, madam." Though he was yards away from her she felt his words like a caress, from the top of her shoulders to the very bottoms of her feet and everywhere in between, as though she were the naked one and not he.

There was a quick, heavy rising out of that dark nest of hair at his thighs. She couldn't help her staring, or her disappointment when he slipped a towel around his waist, blocking all that glorious stirring.

"Ah, Nicholas. Sometimes I forget."

"Forget what?" He came toward her through the steam like an enchanter through solid rock, stern and handsome.

"That I'm not your wife."

Nicholas still wasn't used to these double-edged arrows, the sharpness of their tips, the intoxicating heat when they entered his heart. "God help me, Eleanor, but I forget that, too."

"Well, then, you must marry me, Nicholas."

His pulse surged and then ebbed.
"What?"

She stepped closer, till he could smell the sunlight on her hair. "Marry me, Nicholas."

No—she couldn't have said that. And yet his heart swayed and stammered to life, soared.

"One more time, my lady. I didn't understand."

"I—can't believe that I'm you asking this, Nicholas. But I want you—need you—to be my husband."

"I can't—"

"No, wait. Please." She put her fingers against his mouth, her eyes glistening with hope she shouldn't feel. "Before you say no, please hear me out. Know that I love you—"

"Eleanor—"

She caught his chin and his gaze.
"You
are the most"—a sob shuddered out of her, tore at him—"you are the most outstanding man I've ever known."

"I'm not at all. What brought this on? What happened up there with Arundel?"

"Shhh…
Please. That's part of it." She put her fingers against his mouth, kissed his cheek, and then the corner of the mouth. He didn't move a muscle. "I must keep and care for my home at any cost. And you are the answer."

"I can't be."

"But you are. Don't you see, Nicholas?" He couldn't see anything more than her mouth and the dear, impossible words she was saying. "Your father was a baron. It would take only a word to Edward about how he owes me far more than he gave me. I have no shame at all; I will blackmail a king if I must. With the stroke of a quill he can grant you a title. He can agree to our marriage, and Faulkhurst will no longer be threatened by the likes of Arundel and his nephew. You are the answer to every one of my prayers, Nicholas, and my heart. You always have been."

"Eleanor, you don't know what you're asking of me."
What a miracle it would be…

"I think you love me a little, Nicholas. Or you would come to. As I love you."

"Eleanor, in all my days, I've never been so beguiled, or so very sorry."

"Sorry?" She looked woeful and teary and his heart was breaking. "Would it be so awful to be married to me?"

"No—so marvelous. Though I would swim the endless seas for you, for a love like yours, I cannot accept."

"Why? Are you married already? You weren't married to Ham's mother, so I thought that you—"

"I'm
…
pledged, my lady."

Eleanor's heart dropped onto the ground. And way in the distance in some other land, she saw a beautiful young bride waiting for him, waiting for her groom. "Are you betrothed, Nicholas? Because if you are, then—"

"No, Eleanor. There are no other women in my life but you. I am done with that."

"Done how?"

He looked to his hands and then from beneath his brow at her. "I am soon to enter the monastery of St. Jerome, for good."

"What?" Her breath stolen, Eleanor sat hard on the edge of the pool, dumbfounded, trying to make sense of him and having no luck at all. "You're a monk?"

"Not yet."

"You haven't taken holy vows then?"

"No."

"Then you're a novitiate?"

"Not that either. Eleanor, please."

She stood and grabbed those huge shoulders, stopping him. "Then you're no kind of monk at all."

"I've given my word to live my life in poverty, penance, and chastity. I cannot break it."

Eleanor's ears got steamy around their rims. "When?"

"When did I give my word?"

"No, dammit. When did you plan to tell me of these bloody sacred vows of yours?" She felt like a fishwife, but the man had to be daft to think that he could find peace in a monastery.

"I didn't think it necessary to burden you."

"I'm not burdened one little bit, Nicholas—I'm angry! When do you plan to leave for this St. Jerome's?"

"When I'm finished here."

"Finished with what? With me? Finished being my friend? My confidant?"

"Yes. And with—"

But she knew—despite her selfish anger: his son's gravemarker, the chapel. "Liam."

"Yes. Eleanor, I didn't mean to—"

She put out her hand, ashamed to her soul. "You didn't, Nicholas. I did. I've made a fool of myself in front of you. Twice now."

"You're not anything like a fool, Eleanor. If I were free, you would be my wife."

And that hurt worst of all, the hope, the perfect fit of him. Blast! It was better to be done with him now, so her heart would stop breaking. "But that isn't the case now, is it? No matter that I have fallen madly for you. I have a dear castle to protect, though. So if you'll excuse me, Nicholas, I need the bath. I'm a fright, and it seems I'm being courted."

"Courted—by whom?"

"Arundel's nephew."

"Percy?"

"Do you know him, too?"

"Only by reputation. He's a scoundrel, Eleanor. Keep your distance."

"Will you come and sit by my side while they're here? I'll ask nothing more of you than that. My cause will look that much stronger for the presence of my able steward."

And my cause would end the moment I set foot into the great hall, my love.

"You did remarkably well with Arundel earlier. You don't need me."

He saw her swallow back her sob, heard it tear at her voice as he turned away from her undressing. "You couldn't be more wrong, Nicholas."

* * *

Nicholas stalked the underpassages while she bathed, not trusting himself to stay. Because there had been one terrifying instant, when she was offering herself to him, when she sounded just like an angel.

Marry me, Nicholas.

The breath of forgiveness and redemption had shoved at his shoulder, nudging him in her direction.

Make love to me.

Aye, that had sounded of divine intercession. And wishful thinking.

And for an even longer moment, the clarity of her logic—ordinarily opaque to him—had rivaled the dawn for the crispness of its hues.

Their marriage unconsummated.

Unsanctioned.

And the proof was in her virginity.

Such a profoundly simple fact to alter.

* * *

Blast it all! Thousands of men wandering the countryside, and she had to go and fall in love with a monk.

Aye, and a father who loved his son so deeply that he couldn't see past his sorrow. Nor had she the right to try to sway him from his pledge.

"'Tis a miracle that you've planted all these acres in so short a time." Percy and his uncle stood with Eleanor just outside the gatehouse, their horses saddled and ready to ride away.

"Aye, Percy," Arundel said, staring out over the village and into the fields, "we'll have to regale the king with Lady Eleanor's pluck."

Great heavens. Not that. "Thank you, Sir Richard. I'm so glad that you came along with Dernbrook."

"As I am, my lady, if only to meet you and tell you that William would be pleased if he knew what marvelous hands his castle was in."

"William Bayard?" Her heart skipped and started, as though a shadow had crossed her grave. How could such a wise man be so very wrong? "I didn't know my husband well, my lord—we weren't married long before he died. But I doubt that he would have cared at all about what happened here at Faulkhurst."

"He would care very deeply."

"Not the man I knew, Sir Richard. William wasn't a very—well, everyone knew of his ruthlessness."

"He was an unmatchable warrior, my lady. The only man I wanted at my back in a battle." Arundel shielded his kind eyes from the sharp, westering sun. "And he was a man of high passions in his youth, reckless and selfish. Fortunately, some men find their way at the end of their lives. I was glad to see that William had, at the last."

That shadow came again, to cross the sun and loosen her knees. "What do you mean that he found his way?"

"Only that a man can find grace as he grows older. As he learns to temper his life with his better nature." Arundel looked almost wistful. Obviously he hadn't known William as well as he thought he did.

She shouldn't be speaking ill of the dead or contradicting the great earl, but he was dreadfully wrong about her husband. And might use his jaundiced view against her someday, to maneuver Percy into her home, or to stand against her with Edward.

"Sir, William Bayard abandoned Faulkhurst at its worst hour of need. There's nothing of grace in leaving his tenants to fend for themselves."

"Leaving them when?" Arundel straightened and looked her in the eye with surprise. "Gad, woman, he stayed on when other men in his position ran."

The hair rose on her nape; her husband's ghost returned to harass her—though it was Nicholas's face that she saw in the shadows. "Stayed on where, Sir Richard?"

"Why, here at Faulkhurst. Where else would I mean?"

"You're mistaken, Sir Richard. William Bayard hadn't set foot in Faulkhurst in a very long time."

"I'm afraid the mistake is yours, my dear." The earl's frown deepened, defending an undeserving friend with his precise diction. "William left Normandy to come here, just before the pestilence."

The ground tilted madly beneath her feet. "But he couldn't have. That would mean that he—"

"I beg your indulgence, my lady, but I saw William myself in that time."

"Then he must not have stayed long." He couldn't have. He'd have sent for her.

"I had messages from him regularly—word of his losses, the state of his own heath, his condolences, and prayers. Until the messages stopped altogether."

She didn't know what to think next. It was like putting a razor-sharp puzzle together, trying not to slice her fingers. "When was that?"

"A little more than a year ago."

"But—he died in Calais."

"So I understand. I suspected that he might have gone back there after he lost his son."

"His—"
son.
My God. Bright pieces of light spun round in her head, fitting together, but not making any sense.

"He grieved hard for the little lad, I know. Loved him more than a man could bear, I think. I heard nothing more of him after that."

"William Bayard had a son? My husband did?"