Winterbourne (3 page)

"A ridiculous mistake on my part. I most humbly beg my lady's pardon." Lord Jaufre bent to retrieve her staff. As he straightened and placed it in her hand, it was a strange playing out of an earlier scene. A sad half smile crossed Jaufre's face, and a trace of warmth crept into his brown eyes, tempered with an expression of deep hidden pain that had not been there before. What had Yseult and the world done to her Launcelot, Melyssan wondered unhappily, in those eight years since he had carried her veil to the tournament?

"Do not distress yourself," she said, lightly touching his hand. "I understand."

He drew back immediately, as if her fingertips had seared him. A cold mask settled over his features.

"How good of you to be so understanding, my lady," he replied sneeringly. "But you should take care. Such generous
understanding
might be misconstrued as an invitation for more 'errors.' "

He made a mocking bow and left her feeling hurt by his cynical dismissal and embarrassed by her own eager response to his embrace…

The memory of it still brought a heated blush to her cheeks even now as she pressed herself against the linen sheets, sheets where Jaufre had once lain. Whitney was right: she must get away from Winterbourne. Even worse than the nightmare, Jaufre had begun to haunt her waking moments as well. It was becoming more and more difficult to lose herself in the old daydreams, where the young Jaufre humbly knelt at her feet, pledging his devotion. More and more she saw him standing very close to her, his eyes hard, dangerous, his hands…

Melyssan crossed her arms over her breasts, shitting restlessly. The springs of interlaced ropes creaked as sleep eluded her. She tried to close her eyes, ready now to banish all thought and will herself back into the oblivion of a deep, dreamless slumber.

But she was disturbed by the sound of the heavy oak door to her chamber scraping against the rushes. A low voice whispered her name. "Lady Melyssan? My lady?"

Her eyes opened at once, and she could detect a soft glow of light through a slit in the bed curtains. Cautiously she parted them and peeked out without revealing herself.

An eerie figure robed in black stood just inside the doorway. The tallow candle gripped in his hand illuminated his long melancholy face.

"Father Andrew?" Melyssan called softly in astonishment.

Her brother's thin chaplain held a finger to his lips and motioned toward the sleeping Nelda. Then he beckoned Melyssan to join him and glided out of the room.

Mystified, and more than a little alarmed, Melyssan scrambled into her chemise and woolen gown. Slipping her feet into a pair of soft leather pattens, she groped for her cane, then inched cautiously past Nelda. She stepped out into the adjoining oriel, pulling the heavy door closed behind her.

The wall torch had long ago burned itself out, and the only light came from the priest's candlestick.

"Forgive me for disturbing your rest, my lady," he whispered. "But it is a matter of some importance and secrecy."

"W-what is it?" Melyssan asked. "Has something happened to Whitney?"

"No, my lady. Your brother knows naught of this. The stranger that just arrived asked only for you."

"Stranger," she repeated, a chill prickling up her spine. What sort of stranger would risk travel by night and then seek her out in such a clandestine manner?

"I don't think…" she began, shrinking back.

"I was told to give you this." The priest held out a small scrap of linen. With unsteady fingers, she accepted it. He moved the candle closer so that she could examine the cloth. Tiny threads of gold and green embroidered a square of pristine white, stitches that she had set there herself not so long ago, a gift to a bride on her wedding day.

"Where is the lady that gave you this?" she demanded.

"Below in the cellars."

"Take me to her at once."

On the ground-level floor of the donjon, the flambeau still burned, periodically sending out small showers of sparks. The dank cold air enfolded Melyssan, causing her to regret she had not taken the time to go back for her mantle. But the strangeness of her visitor's arrival and the urgency in the priest's voice drew her on.

They approached that part of the castle where the very edge of the river flowed past the massive iron portcullis of the west gateway. She could hear water lapping against the stone. Winterbourne had been built to control passage along the river and to take advantage of it as a source of transportation. Supplies could thus be floated directly inside the donjon itself.

One of the guards caught sight of Melyssan and came forward blustering. "Beg pardon, my lady. But I never would have let 'em in. It was that priest there insistin'. Who but the devil's servants, says I, dare take to the road at night? I says—"

"Thank you, Master Galvan," Melyssan interrupted him. "You may return to your post."

He continued his protestations, but she stepped around him. She could see two adults and a tiny child huddled near the great casks where the wine was stored. When the guard was out of hearing range, Melyssan took the small end of candle from Father Andrew.

"Thank you, Father. I will tend to matters from here."

The priest nodded. "When you need me, I will be in the chapel… praying."

So he already knew what was amiss, Melyssan thought as she watched his quiet retreat. Well, it was time someone told her.

As she approached the strangers whose hoods and caps hid their faces from her sight, one of them ran forward, clutching a bundle in her arms.

"Oh, my lady!" cried a female voice familiar to Melyssan. She flung back her hood, revealing a young face more kindly than beautiful, with a round, receding chin, broad, flat nose, and normally placid gray eyes now widened with fear.

"Gunnor," Melyssan exclaimed. "So it is you." She had not seen Dame Alice's former lady-in-waiting since Gunnor's wedding day.

The other figure now stepped forward, leading the child by the hand. Beneath the grime and his broad-brimmed straw hat, Melyssan recognized Gunnor's husband.

"Sir Hugh," she murmured. The bundle stirred in Gunnor's arms. "And these are your little ones?" Melyssan asked, considerably bemused by their ragged appearance.

Lady Gunnor clutched at her sleeve, her reply lost in a bout of weeping. Sir Hugh swallowed, his huge Adam's apple bobbing up and down his long, scrawny neck. "We—we regret this intrusion, my lady. We were obliged to flee from my estate at Penhursi and—and Winterbourne was the closest… We knew not where else to go."

"Aye, the king's men are ev-everywhere," Gunnor managed to choke out.

At the mention of the king, Melyssan froze. "King John?" she asked in a whisper.

Sir Hugh's scraggly beard stood on end as he attempted a feeble smile. "Gunnor exaggerates a little. It is not so bad as all that. If we could only get to Ireland. I have cousins there."

Melyssan's head spun with mingled dread and confusion. But she noticed the child, a small boy of about three, shivering, and bit back the host of questions crowding upon her tongue.

"Let me take you up to the solar, and I will have a fire lit," she said.

Gunnor's moist eyes rolled fearfully. "Can you trust your people here? If we should be betrayed—" Her voice broke again.

"Is the king trying to arrest you?" Melyssan asked, no longer able to restrain herself. "What does he say you have done?"

Gunnor broke out into a wild laugh. " Tis nothing that we have done. But my brother, Adelard… my holy brother has undone us all." She buried her face against her baby's blanket, leaving Sir Hugh to take up the explanation.

"Adelard has run mad," he said. "He joined the order of Cistercian monks at Swineshead. The king offered to secure his election as abbot, and what must the fellow do but denounce John before the whole court. He said that since John is excommunicate, he can appoint no one. Adelard even refused to speak directly to the king for fear of contamination."

Melyssan closed her eyes, picturing the scene in her mind. She could not help but admire the monk's courage. She well knew what it took to defend one's honor in the face of a king. The old sensation of panic crept over her, feelings of being pressed on all sides, by the king's hot, leering gaze, by the accusation in Dame Alice's eye as she berated her daughter for inciting the king's lust, by her father's indifference, and most of all by Whitney's white-faced fear as John had complimented him on his handsome eyes—all the while prodding the poker into the fire.

"… and after Adelard fled to safety in Scotland, the king accused me." Sir Hugh's whining voice snapped Melyssan back to the present. "The king accused all of us of treason, of conspiring to smuggle Stephen Langton into England against his wishes. He demanded our children as hostages to insure our good behavior. We refused." The knight concluded his story with a helpless wave of his hand. "And… well, here we are."

Gunnor raised her head and regarded Melyssan piteously. "Dare you help us – shelter us for a day until we can gather up our strength to continue our journey to Ireland?"

"Of course I will help," Melyssan said. "How could you even doubt it?"

Gunnor shifted the baby nervously to her other arm. " 'Tis well known your husband is the king's man. He might not like it if he returns to find you helping accused traitors escape."

"I am sure Jaufre…" Melyssan began, and then stopped. She was sure of nothing where Jaufre was concerned. "In any event, it matters naught," she continued. "Lord Jaufre… er, my husband is across the Channel traveling somewhere in Saxony."

Lady Gunnor and Sir Hugh exchanged an uneasy glance. Sir Hugh cleared his throat. "Then you have not heard?"

"Heard what?" Melyssan asked, her pulse beginning to beat unaccountably faster. Somehow she already knew what Sir Hugh was about to say.

"When we left London, the entire court was buzzing with the news. My lady, your husband landed at Dover last week. He will arrive here any day now."

Chapter 2

One month earlier, even as Melyssan imagined herself to be safe, Jaufre de Macy, earl of Winterbourne, stretched his aching limbs out on his bed at the Chateau Le Vis and wondered how soon his grandfather would be well enough to cross the Channel over to England.

Jaufre longed for Winterbourne almost as much as he longed to get some sleep, if it would please the lady Finette to allow him to do so. He rolled over onto his side, his broad dark-haired chest matted with sweat, every muscle in his body aching from the day's hard ride into Normandy. Finette only pressed her damp body closer to his back. Her long fingernails scored a path along his powerful thigh, inching toward the glistening shaft between his legs.

He caught her wrist and shoved the hand back at her. "Twice is enough. I am weary and would sleep."

"But, Jaufre…" she whined, nuzzling his ear.

"Have done, Finette," he growled, and brushed her away as if she were an annoying gadfly. He pulled the satin sheet tightly around him, isolating his body from hers.

Finette sighed. "Very well. Until tomorrow, then, my sweet." She bent over and pecked him on the cheek.

Jaufre winced, waiting impatiently for her to leave him so that he could at last close his stinging eyelids and drift off into peaceful oblivion. When she snuggled happily down on the pillow next to his own, he propped himself into a sitting position and glared at her. "What the devil do you think you are doing?"

The lady brushed a thick mass of chestnut hair out of her face before replying, "I am going to sleep. What else?"

"Not here you are not." Jaufre caught her by the elbow and hauled her up beside him.

Finette gave a throaty laugh and attempted to entwine her arms around his neck. "And why not? I thought that in the morning we could—"

"No! I will have to attend upon my grandfather. He did not look well when he retired from your table this evening."

"So? You are not a physician. And I have seen to the old man's comfort. I gave up my own chamber for his use. Of course I thought I would be sleeping elsewhere." Her wide red lips curved into a pretty pout. She tried to kiss him, but Jaufre pried himself free and pushed her away.

"Out!"

Finette gasped and drew herself to a kneeling position on the bed. Even in the dying firelight, Jaufre could see her large breasts swaying with her indignation. "You forget whom you are addressing. I am a noblewoman, not some peasant girl you have carted off for a romp in the fields."

"I do not share my bed with any woman, noble or otherwise." He fingered the long white scar running from the base of his neck down to the region of his heart. A legacy from his beautiful departed Yseult and a permanent warning of the dangers of sleeping too soundly with a woman nearby.

"Come, Finette," he said softly. "The mating is done and we are both satisfied. I bid you good night."

"Remember whose castle this is, sirrah. When you are under my roof, you do not give me commands. I sleep where I choose." Finette tossed her head and flung herself back down onto the feather mattress. Jaufre regarded her for a moment and then raised one foot against her exposed rump and shoved. She tumbled out of bed in a welter of sheets, furs, and pillow.

Legs and arms flailing, she straggled to her feet, plucking the straw rushes from her hair, her eyes spitting fury. "English pig! I will scream to bring the rafters down. You—you take advantage of a lonely widow, despoil my honor, rape me!"

"If we are going to speak of rape, it was you who came in here and straddled yourself over top of me when all I wanted was a good night's rest." Jaufre got out of bed and draped the discarded sheet around his midsection. While Finette continued to rail at him, he went to a large chest lodged near the health and opened it.

"I will demand satisfaction for this insult. Do not think that I will not."

"Here is your satisfaction." Jaufre pulled a silver brooch from the chest and flung it at her. It landed near her feet, the brilliant gemstones winking through the darkness.

Finette glanced down at it and paused a moment, licking her lips. "You—you dog. Do you take me for a whore to be paid thus?" She snatched up her chemise and gown and yanked the garments over her head. " Tis you who will pay for this night—with your blood."