The Redeeming (28 page)

His laugh was forced. “Now they suffer worse—the discord within
one
family.”

As told by the raids on villages and the burning of crops. “You will bring the brigands to ground.” She held his gaze. “I am sure of it.”

After a long moment, he said, “God willing, I shall.”

A
bel brooded, as he had done often this past sennight since Christian’s suspension of the search for the brigands. He knew the need to protect the crops until the harvest was done, for much of the survival of Abingdale’s people was dependent on the grain sustaining them through winter. Still, it was obvious where his thoughts lay, and never more so than when John was underfoot.

Gaenor knew of the encounter between her brother and the boy’s mother, but she sensed something deeper there that Abel was not telling—allowing glimpses of it in the acts of ruffling the boy’s hair or slinging him onto his back when John’s legs tired of keeping pace with the reach of Abel’s. And now, perhaps, this. Not that Abel didn’t bow his head during the blessing of meals or attend mass on occasion, but she did not know him to be one to seek the Lord on his own as it appeared he did where he knelt before the altar.

Clasping her hands before her, she settled in to wait for however long it took him and God to conclude their business.

It took quite some time, and when Abel finally stood, he did so with a heavy sigh. He turned and met her gaze where she stood on the chapel’s threshold. “I thought it was you.”

“And I thought you too deep in prayer to know you were not alone.”

His mouth forming a semblance of a smile, he strode forward. “Though methinks it does not please God that I divide my attention between Him and my present surroundings, I long ago learned not to leave myself open for attack—whether in a chapel or my own chamber.”

He referred to his short-lived marriage to the woman who had turned a dagger on him in their bed. “’Tis wise.”

“It serves.” He halted before her, leaned in, and kissed her cheek. “Especially in my case, eh?”

When he drew back and his eyes told that he had moved past her, even if only in thought, she laid a hand on his arm. “Abel?”

“Aye?”

“You are fond of John.”

He frowned. “As I would be of any dog that so faithfully followed me hither and yon.”

She shook her head. “I think not. Just as I think you are too preoccupied with the brigands’ whereabouts.”

The grooves in his handsome face deepened. “You know I will not resume my duties at Wulfen until I am certain Robert and Aldous can do you no harm.”

“Aye. Still, it seems more to me.”

The emotions that skimmed his face evidenced he was not inclined to indulge her, but he said, “Speak.”

She set her shoulders and, recalling what Aimee had told of the healer’s comeliness, said, “I cannot help but think you were affected by your meeting with John’s mother.”

He raised his eyebrows. “Affected in the same way you are affected by Christian Lavonne?”

Remembering the night past when she lay in her husband’s arms, she felt her cheeks warm. “You were most distressed that you could not free her.”

“If I feel anything for Helene of Tippet, it is remorse at being thwarted in my attempt to reunite her with her son who suffered much when she was taken from him.”

Gaenor frowned. “John has spoken of that day?”

“Just enough that I better understand his behavior when he was brought to Broehne.”

“Then he was present when the brigands took Helene.”

Abel inclined his head. “They came in the middling of night, forced their way into her home, and struck her down when she fought them. John is angered that he was too frightened to aid her.”

“But he is only five.”

“Of which he does not care to be reminded.” Abel drew a deep breath. “So you see, my sole concern for the healer is that she be restored to her son.”

She put her head to the side, considered him, then dared as she had never dared with Abel. “Or so you tell yourself.”

Color suffused his face. “That is enough!” he snapped, but rather than loose angry words that were surely fast upon his tongue, he momentarily closed his eyes. “I am pleased that you and your husband seem reconciled to one another,” he finally spoke, “but you err in thinking I suffer the same hazards of the heart. I train boys into men worthy of fighting for family, country, and king. That is my life.”

“It could be more.” She groaned inwardly at the words that sounded more like a plea than a suggestion.

He glowered. “Lest you forget, I had more once, and it was far enough to last me ‘til my end days.”

The long months when he had been husband to a wife whose mind was not her own. Gaenor sighed. “I am sorry. I just—”

“Sir Knight?” a small voice called.

Abel peered past her and smiled wryly. “’Tis for him I seek to free Helene of Tippet.”

As Gaenor turned, John’s deceptively long shadow slipped across the threshold and ran up her skirts.

He skidded to a halt and looked between her and Abel. “My lady,” he allowed, his behavior sharply contrasting with the boy who had attacked her when he had first come to Broehne. Not surprisingly, Abel’s influence had been of good benefit to him, further evidence that her brother excelled at training up knights.

Gaenor smiled. “Good day, John.”

“I…” He shifted from one foot to the other. “Sir Abel said he would make me a wooden sword if I rose early and washed my face and hands.” He put his chin up and presented his palms. “I did. See?”

“I see,” she said. “And very clean you are. I am certain my brother will make you a fine sword.”

The boy drew a breath that, on its exhale, shuddered with excitement. “I am ready, Sir Knight.”

Abel stepped forward. “As am I.”

As the boy whooped and swung away, Abel grumbled in passing, “’Tis not as if there is much else to do while we await the harvest.”

Gaenor watched him cross the threshold, then turned her back to him and John. There were prayers that needed praying, and though she knew as her mother oft told that a house of God was not required to speak with the Lord, it was easier here in the chapel where the distractions were fewer.

Shortly, she knelt where her brother had knelt, but as she clasped her hands, a mild cramp gripped her. She opened her eyes and stared at the altar until it lost focus and another cramp turned inside. Was it her belly whence it came? Or her womb? Most likely the latter.

She dropped her chin and let out a breath so long and shuddering she might have been holding it a fortnight. But then, in a way she had—ever since the consummation of her marriage. As cramping usually preceded her menses, within a day her husband would likely be assured that she bore no other man’s babe.

Gaenor felt such relief that no child of hers would suffer doubt about its parentage that she thought she might cry.

“Thank you, Lord,” she said with trembling lips that turned toward a smile. However, in the next instant, the expression dropped from her mouth. The blessing she had been granted was not all blessing, for it also meant she did not carry Christian’s child.

“Not yet,” she tried to reason away the sense of loss that hovered as if in search of a place to settle. “Truly, I am pleased.”

For now. What if next month brings the same, and the month after? What if you never bear children, if your womb remains forever empty for the sin of having lain with Durand? ‘Twill not be much of a blessing, will it?

“I will bear children,” she breathed. “But this is for the best.”

Is it?

Feeling as if caught up in a melee between reasoning and emotion, she sank back on her heels and pressed her palms to her face. “For the best,” she said more forcefully, though still her voice barely ascended beyond a whisper. The next time she said it, it came out on a sob.

“Gaenor?”

She snapped her chin around and startled at the sight of the figure that filled the height and much of the breadth of the doorway. “Christian.”

He stepped forward. “What is amiss?”

“Naught, I…” She pushed to her feet and, as she turned, blinked back tears destined for her cheeks.

His long legs carried him forward. “Tell me.”

Moved by his concern, she had to look away to keep control of her emotions.

“Come.” A hand to her elbow, he guided her to the right where concrete benches lined the side wall.

As she sank onto the nearest bench, she remembered the chapel at Wulfen Castle when the man known to her as Sir Matthew had sat with her on a bench fashioned of wood. It was not so long ago, and yet it seemed many months.

She looked up at where he had lowered beside her. “’Tis good to see you here.”

He slid his gaze around the chapel. “Though I should not say it, I came seeking you, not God.”

“Still, I am glad.”

He inclined his head. “Tell me what has upset you.”

“That is just it—I should be upset and I am, I should not be, and I am not.” She sighed. “In one breath, my emotions are here, in the next, they are there.”

His brow furrowed. “What say you?”

She touched her belly. “My monthly flux comes. I know it by the cramping.” She held his gaze. “It would seem I am not with child, Christian.”

His gaze wavered and she glimpsed kindred emotions there. “This both pleases and saddens you?” he asked.

“It pleases me because our child shall not suffer suspicion over its legitimacy—”

“I said I would be the first to believe,” he reminded her.

After a hesitation, she said, “You told that you were determined to believe. That does not mean you would believe were I delivered of a child eight months hence.”

“Gaenor—”

She shook her head. “Mayhap ‘tis more me than you, but this guilt I carry—that I have tried to set from me though still it clings—would surely make me question the truth of your belief when our child was laid in your arms. For that, I am pleased by the coming of my menses. As for it saddening me, it is because I do wish to carry our child, and now I am fair certain I do not. And mayhap I never will if my womb remains closed as it did when…” She closed her eyes. What a fool she was to speak of her sin! Of
him.

“When what?” Christian’s voice was deeper, its edges ragged as if she had spoken what she had not. But then, he was not the fool that she was.

This, too, was probably for the best, for she longed for all of Christian, and that was not possible without honesty that hurt. From both of them.

She lifted her lids and braved his hard gaze. “When I was known that first time that I fled you, I prayed to God that a child would be sown so that Sir Durand would be impelled to take me to wife and I would not be made to wed a Lavonne.”

Christian’s nostrils flared, his jealousy so thick she felt she could curl her fingers around it. Instead, she reached up and curved a hand around his jaw and held it there as the muscles beneath jerked.

“God did not answer my prayer,” she said softly, “and I am grateful now that His will was done and not my own, but still I fear He will punish me for my sin and never will a child be born of our marriage. It is for that I would weep.”

Christian struggled to hear Gaenor past the anger roused by the reminder of who had first known her. Sir Durand was in the past, and that was where the man belonged—where he might never again darken the life that Christian wished to make with his wife.

“I am sorry,” she said. “These are difficult things to speak of, but if we do not, methinks they will smolder between us until one day they turn to flame.” She drew her hand from his face and clasped it with the other in her lap. “Though I long to go forward with you, it seems that first we must go back.”

“We?” he said gruffly.

“You said you were not meant to be baron and that you should not have been. Will you tell me more?”

He was not prepared, if ever he would be. He had come to take her riding, not to bend an ear toward confession—especially his own.

“Please. “ She laid a hand over his, and only then did he realize he had turned it into a fist. “Tell me.”

The temptation to shake her off was overwhelming, for what she asked of him could make her grateful ten times over that she was not carrying their child.

“You sought God in the chapel at Wulfen,” she prompted. “Why not here with your wife who would seek Him with you?”

He turned his hand up and gripped her hand, then bent his face near hers. “That is just it, Gaenor. I did not go to the chapel at Wulfen to seek God. I went because Abel goaded me into it. And I did not meet God there. I met you. You are why I returned.”

She shook her head. “But you were raised a man of God. You were a monk. How could you not wish to seek God above all else?”

Though Christian feared he had said too much, the words were rising up out of his depths and there was too much relief in releasing the pressure of them to push them back down. “Because, God forgive me, never did I wish to seek Him above all else. As it is with so many pledged to the Church as children, it was not my choice. No matter how often I prayed and labored for God, a life devoted to Him was not what I wanted.”