True Love (36 page)

“What I've done?” It took every bit of
Royce's powerful self-control to keep from drawing his sword. “You
cannot possibly comprehend all of my intentions in this case. Nor
am I bound to explain my motives to anyone but the king. What have
you
done, Braedon? I ask you again, where is Achard?”

“I suppose by now Father Aymon has buried
him,” Braedon said.

“Buried? Achard is dead?” Royce felt as if
the ground was shifting beneath his feet. “How?”

“He tried to escape from the keep. The more I
think on the circumstances of his attempt, the more certain I am
that he knew he would be killed, and that death was what he wanted.
Perhaps Achard held some information that he preferred not to have
dragged out of him. His death was quicker and easier than he could
have hoped for if all of his perfidy was told.”

“You cannot know that.”

“Do I not?” Braedon asked with a deliberate
insolence that brought Royce's anger to a white heat.

“Who killed him?” Royce asked in a deadly
quiet voice.

“I did. Would you have preferred that I let
him kill me?”

“Aye,” Royce growled. “Achard might have
saved me the trouble. You killed the man who could have exposed the
final details of the traitors' plans and thus confirmed the
deductions I have made after months of hard effort.

“First, you ruined my daughter. Now you have
destroyed my best attempt to serve the king, the same king whom you
are also sworn to serve.” So strong was Royce's anger against the
younger man that he wasn't aware of drawing his sword. He only knew
it was in his hand.

Braedon stepped back a pace, watching Royce,
who was squinting against the sun. Never had he seen Royce in such
a rage. Catherine becoming Braedon's lover, Achard's unexpected
death – and something else, something equally as painful, were all
driving Royce, making him careless enough to disregard his own
position and stand facing the lowering sun. Whatever the unspoken
problem was, it was enough to prevent Royce from thinking
clearly.

Slowly, reluctantly, Braedon drew his own
sword and stood balancing it in his hands. Then he tossed it onto
the ground so that it skittered away on the gravel surface. He
stood before Royce with his arms held slightly away from his sides,
waiting for the other man's next move.

“Pick it up!” Royce ordered, gesturing toward
the sword. “You know I will not strike an unarmed man.”

“I refuse to break Catherine's heart by
lifting my hand against her father.” Braedon dared not say he cared
about Catherine, for she was his very soul, because he knew the
words he longed to utter would only inflame Royce further. He could
only pray that Royce would see for himself that he would also break
Catherine's heart, if he killed Braedon.

“Is this some trick?” Royce snarled. “I know
you well, and know how clever and resourceful you are.”

“So you do,” Braedon said quietly. “We have
worked together often enough.”

“Indeed,” said Royce, “and therefore you know
I am aware that you have other weapons secreted on your person.
Remove them.”

“Certainly.” Reaching down, Braedon flipped
the knife out of his left boot and threw it so it came to rest next
to his sword, both weapons out of easy reach. “Satisfied, my
lord?”

“Not yet. Remove the one in your right boot,
too.”

“Of course.” Braedon pulled the dagger from
his right boot and flung it point down into the gravel.

“Now the blade that's up your sleeve,” Royce
said.

“As you wish.” Braedon slid the long, slender
dagger from his left sleeve and aimed it to stand quivering beside
the knife from his boot.

“The one in your right sleeve next, if you
please,” Royce demanded.

“I don't have that blade just now,” Braedon
said. “I find it a bit difficult to use a sword when I have a sharp
knife shoved up the sleeve of my sword arm. Since I can never be
quite sure what Phelan or Eustace will decide to do next, this
morning I left the dagger that fits in my right sleeve in my basket
of clothes.” Again lifting his arms slightly out from his sides,
making himself a target for Royce, Braedon said, “Kill me if that
is what you want.”

Braedon looked right into Royce's eyes,
attempting to measure whether Royce was enraged enough to kill an
unarmed man. He did not think so, but whatever was goading Royce to
behavior so unnatural for him just might incite him to murder. For
Catherine's sake it was a risk Braedon was willing to take. He was
not going to harm her father, no matter what Royce did.

The silent moments drew out, long and tense,
with Braedon scarcely breathing.

“Damn you!” Royce slammed his sword back into
its sheath. “Damn you to the blackest pit!”

Braedon heard soft, running steps on the
gravel behind him, and a gasp, and he knew Catherine was there.

“This is not finished,” Royce snarled at
him.

“So far as I am concerned, it is,” Braedon
responded. “I refuse to fight you, or to defend myself against you,
now or in the future.”

“Coward!”

It was a deliberate provocation, one of the
worst insults one knight could offer another. Braedon merely smiled
and turned away, calmly presenting his back to Royce, knowing the
older man would not strike him.

“Father,” Catherine cried, “you must not
fight Braedon.”

“You are too late. I already have,” Royce
said, walking past her with his face set and grim.

“Braedon, what happened between you?”
Catherine was staring at the collection of knives on the
ground.

“Nothing,” Braedon said, more brusquely than
he intended.

“Please tell me.” She put out her hands to
stop his progress across the courtyard.

“I have told you. Nothing happened.” He could
not stay where he was, could not look into her beautiful eyes and
not take her into his arms. That was the one thing he must not do,
not after what had just passed between him and Royce.

Catherine's lower lip trembled and Braedon
ached to kiss it. She balled her hands into fists and stuck them on
her hips while she tapped one toe in irritation, and Braedon
yearned to sling her over his shoulder and carry her off to some
quiet place where they would not be interrupted while he made
passionate love to her until she screamed out her delight.

He had sworn not to make love to her again,
had given Royce his word as an honorable knight, and he would not
break his oath, not if he died from the desire that surged through
him at the mere sight of her dainty toe tapping below the
travel-stained hem of her green riding dress, not though her voice
sent shivers of longing down his spine.

“I will have an answer from you, Braedon,”
she said.

Braedon dared not speak a single word or he
would tell her everything that was in his heart. He left the
courtyard without a backward glance at Catherine, stalking off to
the stable with his back stiff and his eyes looking straight
ahead.

Catherine stared after him in incomprehension
until Robert and Gwendolyn came down the manor house steps and into
the courtyard. Robert began picking up Braedon's sword and his
knives.

“Men are such fools,” Gwendolyn said to
Catherine. “They live for pride and honor. Except for that one.”
She cast a critical eye on Robert. “He lives for love of Aldis.
Would you want him, my lady?”

“You know it's not Robert I want,” Catherine
answered, suddenly choking from tears and laughter mixed, “which is
a good thing, since Aldis wants him badly.”

“Aye, there's my point,” said Gwendolyn.
“There's only one kind of man you could love. Braedon is much like
your father. Both of them are too proud, and too honorable, to give
in to reason. Mark my words, you are going to have to seize what
you want.”

“I think so, too. What would I do without you
to advise me?” Catherine asked with a chuckle.

“Truly, my lady, I do not know,” Gwendolyn
answered, flashing a saucy smile that lit up her homely face, “but
you are not likely to find out, since I have no plans to leave
you.”

With two men in chains, half a dozen other
prisoners roped together and walking, and a large number of
men-at-arms, the party led by Braedon was an unlikely group to be
demanding entrance to a holy abbey where the king and queen were in
residence. The porter at the gate declared loudly that they would
all have to wait outside in the street until he could obtain
permission for them to enter.

Fortunately, Royce had ridden ahead, as much
because he did not want to be in Braedon's company as to expedite
matters, and he was waiting just inside the gatehouse with one of
King Henry's clerks in tow.

“These nobles have an audience with the king
in less than an hour,” Royce told the porter in his most imperious
tone.

At Royce's nod the clerk quickly produced a
parchment that granted entry to all whom Lord Royce designated, and
the porter rather unwillingly threw open the gates. Braedon was the
first to enter. He quickly made arrangements for Phelan's men who
were walking to be kept in a corner of the courtyard under close
guard by the men-at-arms.

“You should have come earlier,” the clerk
said when Braedon rejoined the group. He cast a most disapproving
look at the dusty clothing worn by Braedon and the other travelers
before, with an expressive shrug, he began to usher them across the
forecourt in the direction of the guesthouse, where the king was
staying. “There will be no time for you to bathe or make yourselves
presentable.”

“The king won't mind,” Braedon said. “We come
on so important an errand that he won't want to waste time on
appearances.”

“Nor will the dirt on your face or the
condition of your clothing matter once the interview is finished,”
Royce said with a cold glare for Braedon. “Before this day is over,
you and I will be quit of each other for good, and you will never
see my daughter again.”

“My lady,” the clerk said to Catherine as
they entered the guesthouse, “if you and your attendants will be
good enough to wait in this chamber, I will call you should the
king decide he wishes to speak with you.” He pulled open a door and
gestured for Catherine, Aldis, and Gwendolyn to pass through
it.

“Not that door!” Royce exclaimed.

He was too late to prevent the occupants of
the room from seeing who was with the clerk. Two women turned
toward the door in unconcealed surprise. One was a tall, slender
lady of dignified bearing who looked vaguely familiar to Catherine.
The other woman was Lady Edith.

“Catherine,” Lady Edith cried, starting
forward. “Whatever are you doing here? I thought you were home, at
Wortham.”

“I asked Catherine to come to Gloucester for
a special reason,” Royce said, the pressure of his hand on
Catherine's elbow warning her to be quiet. “You will learn
presently what her business here is.”

With a smile and a polite inclination of his
head to each lady, Royce shut the door, but not before Catherine
noted the smug expression on Lady Edith's lovely face.

“Take us to the king at once,” Royce ordered
the clerk. “My daughter and her attendants are to be present during
the audience.”

Royce was so commanding a presence that the
clerk made no further objections, but led them all along a corridor
toward a set of double doors.

“By the look on her face, Lady Edith knows
far more than I do about what will happen here today,” Catherine
whispered to Aldis. “I fear my father intends to ask the king's
permission to marry her, and the lady has decided to agree.”

The double doors ahead of them opened wide
and Royce marched through without pausing, drawing Catherine with
him.

She had time for only the quickest perusal of
her surroundings during the few moments it took for the king to
dismiss the men who were with him. It was a good sized chamber,
with finely paneled walls. Catherine guessed it was intended as a
dining hall for abbey guests and, alternately, for the use to which
it was presently being put, as an office when guests required
one.

At the far end of the room, facing the doors,
King Henry I sat at the center of a long trestle table, with piles
of documents around him. At either end of the table and at smaller
tables set up near the narrow, arched windows, secretaries and
clerks had been busily writing or tallying up accounts until the
king sent them away.

He was called Henry the Lawgiver, and Royce
had told Catherine how he worked from morning till late at night on
the business of running his kingdom. Wherever he was, in castle or
abbey or encamped near a battlefield, Henry was continually
surrounded by his scribes. He was not much better dressed than
they. His plain blue woolen robe bore ink stains on the sleeves and
there was no sign of royal insignia about the king's person, no
sword, or circlet on his head, nor any jewelry, though a seal ring,
which he had apparently removed so he could use it more easily, sat
before him on the table, next to a larger, heavier seal, a supply
of wax sticks and a burning candle for melting the wax.

The clerk who was their escort announced
Royce's party to the king, and Catherine sank into a deep curtsey
as her father bowed beside her. When Catherine lifted her head she
saw in King Henry a once-handsome man whose face was lined from the
sorrows that beset him, whose dark hair was heavily streaked with
gray. He looked so old and ill that the intrigues over who was to
succeed him as king suddenly took on a new and urgent meaning. But
his voice was firm and when he stood and came around the table, his
movements retained a certain youthful agility.

“Royce, I am glad to see you.” King Henry's
gaze moved to include Catherine and he smiled. “My lady, you are
welcome here, but should you not be with the queen?”