Winterbourne (4 page)

"Ah, yes, I forgot. I have heard it said you prefer to be paid in coin when your honor is offended," Jaufre drawled. "I am afraid I have better use for my money. You will have to be content with the brooch."

"Auggh!" Finette heaved her pillow at him, but he caught it easily and dropped it onto the bed. "Now I see why your wife tried to kill you. When she scarred that chest of yours, she scarred your heart as well."

"You are mistaken, my lady," he said icily. "I have no heart."

She sucked in a deep breath, and her fingers curled as if she were about to spring at him. Jaufre tensed for the attack, but she apparently thought better of it. Still muttering curses, she tossed her head and whirled to leave. The dignity of her exit was marred when she dipped down at the last moment to retrieve the brooch before she quit the chamber. As he had known she would.

Jaufre's lips curved into a cynical smile. Was there any woman—or man, for that matter—who would not sell his honor a dozen times over for less than he had offered Finette? Reaching into the chest, he caught up a handful of silver coins and allowed the cold metal pieces to trickle between his fingers.

He'd seen greed win out time and again. Even with Richard Coeur de Lion, with whom Jaufre had traveled as a boy on the Crusades. Had the mighty Lion's Heart died stinking down the enemies of Christ? Nay, Jaufre's idol had been pierced through with an arrow while shrieking for his share of a treasure trove that had not even existed.

And then there had been Yseult, his beautiful Yseult, and young Godric, her lover… Jaufre could think of the lad in no other way since that night he had caught Godric ensnared deep in Yseult's plots against his life.

Slamming the lid down on the chest, Jaufre closed his mind to memories that only consumed him with their bitterness. He threw himself back on the bed and shut his eyes. But now that he was alone, sleep eluded him. Damn Finette with her overheated thighs and equally overheated temper. After all her nonsense, he was wide awake.

Sitting up again, he wondered if he would find such a thing as a candle in Finette's miserly household. Groping along the wall, he found a half-melted piece of tallow stuck in one of the wall sconces. He lit the wick in the dying fire, crinkling his nose at the stinking smell of burning animal fat. Carefully propping the candle, he slipped on his woolen drawers and turned to the chest where his real treasure lay, some dozen beautifully illuminated manuscripts he had collected over the years:
The Romance of Rollo
, Bede's
History of the English Nation, The Life of Alfred, King Alexander the Great, The Roman da la Rose
… Lovingly he fingered the pages as he lifted each volume in turn. He'd read them so often, he could recite many passages by heart.

Crashed beneath Tacitus'
Germanicus
, he found an aged document he had half forgotten. Snorting with amusement, he unrolled the wrinkled parchment.
This is the Charter of Henry I by means of which the barons sought their liberties
. Pledges from Jaufre's great-grandfather's day, long ago forgotten. Jaufre recalled how impressed he'd been as a young man when he'd first discovered the charter hidden amongst the family records. Rights… liberties. Such stirring words. Such stirring nonsense!

Scornfully, he tossed the parchment back in the chest. The only other object remaining in the trunk was a small wooden jewel box containing a lock of his mother's hair, the crest from his father's helmet, and a child's silken veil.

Jaufre removed the veil from its hiding place after looking over his shoulder at the dark outline of the door, half dreading that someone might enter and catch him at such foolishness. He crumpled the small garment in his fist.

"I should fling it into the fire," he muttered, and wondered why he had not done so long ago. He had never saved any other lady's favor from a tournament, not even Yseult's. What ridiculous sort of sentimentality caused him to cling to this relic of his past?

But instead of consigning the fabric to the flames, he smoothed it, a half smile touching his lips. Ah, but the little girl had radiated such innocence as she had offered him the veil. As simple and naive as had been the knight who had accepted it. "God grant you victory, Sir Launcelot," she had said even after he had told her his name, her young face shining with dreams and ideals of chivalry that at that time he had shared with her.

The only difference was, the lady Melyssan had kept her dreams. Jaufre knew that the minute he had seen her again. Even while arranging his marriage to her pert brattling of a sister, he was conscious of Melyssan's quiet presence lingering in the shadows. Although she had grown taller, her frame was slender, delicate as he remembered it, her glossy brown hair retaining those baby-fine strands of gold, her sea-green eyes that look of childlike trust…

She was never obtrusive during the days he spent at Sir William's manor, yet he saw her everywhere, fetching the towels for his morning wash from the locked linen cupboard, sending a page with extra logs for the fire in his chamber, commanding the cook to prepare an extra brace of partridge because "Lord Jaufre has been hunting and will be famished."

He was not long at Wydevale before he realized it was she who ran the manor house. While Beatrice flirted with the other knights and Dame Alice embroidered or prayed, Melyssan saw to the comfort of her father's guests. Unhampered by her halting step, she held gentle sway over the small household, performing such humble tasks as strewing fresh rushes upon the floor herself when necessary. He even came across her one afternoon mending her father's drawers while humming a little tune. Half envying her air of cheerful serenity, her mind obviously at peace, he backed out of the room hoping to escape undetected. But she glanced up and smiled.

"Good day, Lord Jaufre. I trust you slept well last night."

"Yes. Yes, thank you," he said, trying not to stare. For once her hair was not bound up in tight coils over her ears or hidden within the folds of a veil. The silken waves flowed over her shoulders in charming disarray. Tendrils damp from perspiration clung to the soft curve of cheeks flushed a rosy hue from the warmth of the afternoon.

Suddenly she tugged at the neckline of her cambric gown as if it irritated the expanse of creamy flesh beneath. Moistening the outline of full, tempting lips with the tip of her tongue, she concentrated on rethreading her needle, and Jaufre shuddered, startled by a familiar stirring in his loins.

She caught the movement and looked back at him with large candid eyes. "Is there aught I can do for you, my lord? Anything that you desire?"

Jaufre felt the redness surging up his neck. "I—I—no, nothing at all."

He stumbled from the room, out of the house to the yard, where he splashed large handfuls of cold water over his face. What was he thinking of? She was still as untouched as a child and destined for the nunnery besides. What sort of savage had he allowed himself to become?

He avoided her after that, pressing Sir William to move forward the date of his marriage to Beatrice, despite the sullen looks he received from his bride-to-be. The girl was young, malleable, not too clever—everything he wanted in his second wife. A strong wench to bear his sons, a woman who would be pleased enough with a steady supply of new gowns and trinkets, a simple creature incapable of entangling him in a silken web of lies and deceit.

At least she seemed so when her parents were present—demure, her mouth drawn down into a sulky little pucker. He'd almost felt sorry for forcing her into a marriage she did not want. But that was before he overheard her at mealtime boasting to some whey-faced youth, "Even though I detest Lord Jaufre, do pity the man. He adores me. Why, I have even had him kneel at my feet just to kiss the hem of my gown."

Suppressing his anger, Jaufre shoved in another mouthful of the tasteless stew from his trencher and resolved then and there to show Beatrice that he would be the master if he decided to go through with this wedding. As soon as he found her alone, he would teach her that he meant to kiss more than her skirts.

His opportunity came at dusk when he saw her standing in the garden. Gliding up behind her, he encircled her breasts and pressed kisses along her neck. Her reaction was not the frightened gasp he had expected. Instead she sighed, leaning against him, her warm, slender fingers caressing his own. He was beginning to forget he had begun this only to teach her a lesson when she turned her head to face him. And he found himself gazing down into eyes not an insipid blue, but a vivid green. Melyssan.

In that startling second, he was honest enough to wonder if he had indeed made an error. Had he not sensed somehow before he ever touched her that she was not Beatrice? And yet he had allowed some demon to drive him on. He could not check his desire this time with the illusion that Melyssan was still a child. The evidence of his hands molding her soft curves told him otherwise. Inexorably he drew her nearer, wanting just one taste of those soft, trembling pink lips. If only she had closed her eyes, those haunting, sea-shaded eyes.

But she didn't. She came to him unresisting, her eyes wide with wonder, as if she expected something beautiful, instead of the kiss he was about to bestow, a caress to ease his own selfish passion. He shoved her away, ashamed of himself for tampering with such innocence. Leaving her alone in the garden, looking hurt and bewildered, he consoled himself with the thought she was no more confused than he was himself.

If he wanted Melyssan, it would be an easy matter to go to Sir William and ask for her hand instead. Melyssan had taken no vows thus far, and he knew that even promises to the church could be broken if the earl of Winterbourne demanded it. Yet the girl already had an aura of holiness about her, while he…he was on more intimate terms with the patrons of hell than those of heaven.

So he remained silent, even after Beatrice had released him from any sense of obligation by running away to seek sanctuary at St. Clare. He rode off without speaking to Sir William about Melyssan, without even saying good-bye to her…

Jaufre's remembrance dimmed as a draft caused the candle to flicker, reminding him he still knelt on the floor half-naked, clutching the child's veil. Shivering, he folded the cloth and returned it to the chest. Well, mayhap he would keep the thing after all, as a token of more innocent days, a memento of the one wise decision he had ever made in his life.

For wisdom it was not to have wed Melyssan. Those eyes of hers, how they would have tormented him with their sweet gravity, twin mirrors reflecting the dark corners of his soul he had kept so well hidden all these years. And he, with his blackhearted cynicism, before long he would have eroded all her shining ideals, destroyed her faith in God and man until she became no different from all the other shallow women he knew.

He had just slammed down the lid on the chest when he heard the hammering on the bedchamber door. Had it been going on for some time, getting progressively louder, and he'd just become aware of it? Why did no one call his name—why this insistent thump, thump, thump?

A wariness that had more than once saved his life stole over him and sent him scrambling for his sword. The summons came thundering again. It would not be long before the pounding fist discovered the door was unbarred.

Jaufre's hand closed over the hilt of his sword, and he blew out the candle, every muscle tensed, waiting. Finette's temper may have driven her to more extreme measures than he thought. If she went whining about being insulted to her cleric, a drunkard clothing himself in priest's robes, she might have persuaded him to come down here. The fat Father Hubert fancied himself something of a swordsman.

The knock came one final time, weaker than before. And then, at last, a muffled call: "Jaufre, it's Tristan. Open, for God's sake."

Jaufre relaxed, his tension turning into irritation as he recognized the voice of Sir Tristan Mallory, a knight bachelor of his grandfather's household. Wrenching open the door, Jaufre shaded his eyes against the light from the flaming torch Tristan carried.

"What the hell! Why did you not identify yourself at once, man, instead of raising enough racket to make me think the entire castle guard was out there?"

"Sorry," Tristan whispered. He stepped into the room without saying anything more.

"What the devil's amiss?" Jaufre's eyes flicked over the younger man, and he noted that his boyhood friend's square jaw was tightly clenched. It suddenly occurred to him that Tristan had not immediately called out because he was incapable of doing so. The knight swallowed hard, and moisture welled in his eyes.

"What is it?" Jaufre asked more quietly.

"I—I'm sorry," Tristan choked out. "Jaufre, it's the comte. You—you have to go to him. I summoned a physician from the town, but he says… he says 'tis too late." He reached out to place his hand on Jaufre's shoulder, but the earl drew back instinctively, rejecting the gesture as he rejected the compassion he saw etched on Tristan's face.

"My grandfather? You've brought in some blasted leech to disturb his rest? I swear by all the saints—"

"Jaufre… Jaufre, he's dying."

"No, you lie!" With great effort, Jaufre lowered his voice. "That is, you are mistaken. Damn that fool physician."

Tristan tried to speak again, but Jaufre gestured him to silence as he tore around the room, shoving aside the bedclothes, the chests, until he found his woolen shirt and yanked it on. As he pulled the fur-lined surcoat over his tunic, he kept his back to Tristan, not wanting to see the sorrowful conviction in his friend's eyes. He remembered his grandfather's face as he had risen from the table at supper, pale, worn with exhaustion, the lines of age standing out in sharp relief.

No, Jaufre had seen him look that way a dozen times or more within the past year. It meant nothing. Tristan had been misled.

Pushing past the knight, he strode from the room, not waiting for Tristan to keep pace with him. He did not know what ailed Raoul de Macy, but when he reached his grandfather's side, together they would fight as they had always done, cheating death one more time.