A Kingdom of Dreams (35 page)

Jenny saw Royce start forward, saw the look of quiet reassurance in his gray eyes, but her father wasn't finished.

"Hold!" he roared, advancing on Jennifer with a mixture of fury and disbelief on his face. "What do you mean, you knew nothing of this? The night I told you you were to wed this beast, you begged me to let you go back to Belkirk abbey." Jenny paled as her forgotten plea, spoken in terror and dismissed as impossible by her father, screamed through her mind…
I'll go back to the abbey, or to my Aunt Elinor, or anywhere you say
…

"I—I did say that," she stammered, her gaze flying to Royce's face, watching it harden into a mask of icy wrath.

"There! That proves it," her father shouted.

Jenny felt Lord Hastings take her arm, but she jerked it away. "No, please, listen to me," she cried, her gaze riveted on the drumming pulse in Royce's cheek and the glittering violence in his eyes. "Listen to me," she begged him. "I did say that to my father. I'd forgotten I said it because—" her head jerked to her father, "because
you
wouldn't hear of it. But I never,
never
agreed to any plan to wed him first, and
then
flee to a convent. Tell him," she cried. "Tell him I never agreed."

"Jennifer," her father said, looking at her with bitterness and contempt, "You agreed when you begged me to let you go to Belkirk. I merely chose a safer, more distant abbey for you. There was never any doubt in my mind that you would have to first abide by our king's command that you wed the swine. You knew that, too. That is why I originally refused your request."

Jenny looked from her father's accusing face to Royce's granite one, and she knew a feeling of panicked defeat that surpassed anything she'd ever felt. Turning, she picked up her skirts and began walking slowly toward the dais as if in a nightmare.

Behind her, Lord Hastings cleared his throat and said to her father and Royce, " 'Twould seem this has been a case of grave misunderstandings between all the parties. If you will be so kind as to provide us with lodgings for the night in the gatehouse, Claymore, we'll depart in the morn."

Booted feet hit the stone floor as everyone filed out. Jenny was nearly at the top of the steps when shouts and a bellow from her father made her blood freeze: "BASTARD! You've
killed him!
I'll kill—" The sound of Jenny's thundering heart drowned out everything as she turned and started running down the stairs. As she raced past the table, she saw men bending over something near the door, and Royce, her father, and Malcolm being held at sword point.

And then the men huddled near the door slowly stood up and stepped back…

William was lying on the floor with a dagger hilt protruding from his chest, a pool of blood spreading out around him. Jenny's scream split the air as she raced to the prone figure. "
William
!"

Throwing herself down beside him, moaning his name, she felt wildly for a pulse, but there was none, and her hands rushed over his arms and his face. "William, oh,
please
—" she cried brokenly, imploring him not to be dead. "William, please
don't
! William—" Jenny's eyes riveted on the dagger, on the figure of a wolf etched in its hilt.

"Arrest the bastard!" her father shouted behind her, trying to lunge at Royce while being restrained by the king's man.

Lord Hastings said sharply, "Your son's dagger is on the floor. He must have drawn it. There's no arrest to be made. Unhand Claymore," he snapped at his men.

Royce came to stand beside her, "Jenny—" he began tautly, but she whirled on her heels like a dervish, and when she came up in a crouch, she held William's dagger in her hand.

"You
killed
him!" she hissed, her eyes alive with pain and tears and fury as she slowly straightened.

This time Royce did not underestimate her ability or her intent. With his eyes riveted to hers, he watched for the moment when she would strike. "Drop the dagger," he said quietly.

She raised it higher, aimed at his heart, and cried, "You
killed
my
brother
." The dagger flashed through the air, and Royce caught her wrist in a vice grip, twisting the dagger free and sending it spinning to the floor, but even then, he had all he could do to restrain her.

Wild with grief and pain, she launched herself at him, striking at his chest with her fists when he jerked her tightly against him. "You devil!" she screamed hysterically as they carried her brother out. "Devil,
devil,
devil
!"

"Listen to me!" Royce ordered tautly, grabbing her wrists. The eyes she raised to his were sparkling with hatred and glazed with tears she could not shed. "I told him to stay behind if he wanted to talk to you." Royce let go of her wrists as he finished harshly, "When I started to turn back to take him upstairs, he was reaching for his dagger."

Jennifer's hand crashed into the side of his face as she slapped him with all her strength. "Liar!" she hissed, her chest heaving. "You wanted vengeance because you believed I conspired with my father! I saw it on your face. You wanted vengeance and you killed the first person who got in your way!"

"I tell you, he drew his dagger!" Royce bit out, but instead of calming her, that enraged her—and with good reason: "
I
drew a dagger on you, too," she cried furiously, "but you took it away as easily as a child's toy! William was half your size, but you didn't take his away, you
murdered
him!"

"Jennifer—"

"You're an
animal
!" she whispered, looking at him as if he was obscene.

White-faced with guilt and remorse, Royce tried once more to convince her. "I swear to you on my word, I—"

"Your
word
!" she hissed contemptuously. "The last time you gave me your
word
'twas that you'd not harm my family!"

Her second slap crashed against his cheek with enough force to snap his head sideways.

He let her go, and when the door to her chamber slammed, Royce walked over to the fire. Propping his booted foot on a log, he hooked his thumbs into the back of his belt and stared down into the flames, while doubts about her brother's intent began to hammer at him.

It had happened so quickly; William had been close behind him as Royce stood near the door watching his uninvited guests depart. From the corner of his eye, Royce had glimpsed a dagger sliding out of its sheath, and his reaction had been instinctive. Had there been time to think—or had William not been so damned close to his back—he would have reacted with less instinct and more caution.

Now, however, in retrospect, he remembered perfectly well that he'd sized the young man up before inviting him to remain to see Jenny, and that he'd thought him nonaggressive.

Lifting his hand, Royce pressed his thumb and forefinger against the bridge of his nose and closed his eyes, but he could not shut out the truth: either his original instincts about William not posing a threat had been wrong, or else he'd just slain a young man who'd been drawing his dagger merely as a precaution in case Royce was tricking him.

Royce's doubt erupted into almost unbearable guilt. He'd been judging men and the danger they represented to him for thirteen years, and he'd never been wrong. Tonight he'd judged William harmless.

I
n the sennight that followed, Royce found himself confronted with the first wall he could not find a way to breech—the wall of ice Jennifer had built to insulate herself from him.

The night before last, he'd gone to her, thinking that if he made love to her, passion might thaw her. It hadn't worked. She hadn't fought him, she had simply turned her face away from him and closed her eyes. When he left her bed, he'd felt like the animal she'd called him. Last night, in fury and frustration, he'd tried to confront her about the matter of William, looking for a quarrel—thinking that the heat of anger might succeed where bedding her had not. But Jennifer was past the point of quarreling; in aloof silence she walked into her bedchamber and bolted the door.

Now, seated beside her at supper, he glanced at her, but could think of nothing to say to her or to anyone else. Not that he needed to speak, for his knights were so conscious of the silence between Royce and Jennifer that they were trying to cover it with forced joviality. In fact, the only people at the table who seemed to be unaware of the atmosphere were Lady Elinor and Arik.

"I see you all enjoyed my venison stew," Lady Elinor said, beaming at the empty trenchers and platters, seemingly oblivious to the fact that Jennifer and Royce had eaten very little. Her smile drooped, however, as she looked at Arik, who had just devoured another goose. "Except you, dear boy," she said with a sigh. "You are the very
last
person who should be eating goose! 'Twill only complicate your problem, you know, which is exactly what I told you. I made that nice venison stew for
you
, and you didn't touch it."

"Pay no heed to that, my lady," Sir Godfrey said, shoving his trencher aside and patting his flat stomach. "
We
ate it, and 'twas delicious!"

"Delicious," proclaimed Sir Eustace enthusiastically.

"Wonderful," boomed Sir Lionel.

"Superb," Stefan Westmoreland agreed heartily with a worried glance at his brother.

Only Arik kept silent, because Arik always kept silent.

The moment Lady Elinor left the table, however, Godfrey rounded on Arik in anger. "The least you could have done was taste it. She made it particularly for you."

Very slowly, Arik laid down the goose leg and turned his huge head to Godfrey, his blue eyes so cold that Jenny unknowingly drew in a long breath and held it, waiting for some sort of physical explosion.

"Pay him no heed, Lady Jennifer," Godfrey said, noticing her distress.

After supper, Royce left the hall and needlessly spent an hour talking with the sergeant-of-the-guard. When he returned, Jennifer was seated near the fire amidst his knights, her profile turned to him. The topic of discussion was evidently Gawin's obsession with his Lady Anne, and Royce breathed a sigh of relief when he noticed the slight smile touching Jennifer's lips. It was the first time she'd smiled in seven days. Rather than join the group and risk spoiling her mood, Royce leaned his shoulder against a stone arch, well out of her sight, and signaled to a serf to bring him a tankard of ale.

"Were I a knight," Gawin was explaining to her, leaning slightly forward, his youthful face taut with longing for his Lady Anne, "I would challenge Roderick to meet me in the village jousting matches!"

"Excellent," Sir Godfrey joked, "then Lady Anne could weep over your dead body, after Roderick finished with you."

"Roderick is no stronger than I!" Gawin said fiercely.

"What jousting matches do you mean?" Jennifer asked, trying to distract him a little from the helpless antagonism he felt for Sir Roderick.

" 'Tis an annual affair held here in the valley each year after the crops are in. Knights come from far and wide—well, from as far as four or five days' journey, to participate in it.

"Oh, I see," she said, though she'd already heard much excited talk about the lists from the serfs. "And will all of you participate in them?"

"We will," Stefan Westmoreland answered, and then anticipating her unspoken question, he added quietly, "Royce will not. He thinks them pointless."

Jenny's pulse jumped at the mention of his name. Even now, after what he'd done, the sight of Royce's rough-hewn face made her heart cry out for him. Last night she'd laid awake till dawn, fighting the stupid urge to go to him and ask him to somehow ease the ache in her heart. How foolish to yearn to ask the very person who'd caused the pain to heal it, yet even at supper tonight, when his sleeve had touched her arm, she had wanted to turn into his arms and weep.

"Perhaps Lady Jennifer or Lady Elinor," Eustace said, pulling Jennifer out of her dismal reverie, "could suggest something less hazardous to your life as a way to win Lady Anne's heart—other than a joust with Roderick?" Raising his brows, he turned to Jennifer.

"Well, let me think for a minute first," Jenny replied, relieved to have something to concentrate on besides her brother's death and her husband's vicious betrayal. "Aunt Elinor, do you have any ideas?"

Aunt Elinor laid aside her embroidery, tipped her head to the side, and provided helpfully, "I know! In my day there was a custom of long standing that impressed
me
very much when I was a maiden."

"Really, ma'am?" Gawin said. "What would I do?"

"Well," she said, smiling with the memory. "You would ride up to the gate of Lady Anne's castle and shout to all within that she is the fairest maiden in all the land."

"What good would that do?" Gawin asked, perplexed.

"Then," Aunt Elinor explained, "you would challenge any knight in the castle who disagreed to come out and meet you. Naturally, several of them would have to meet your challenge—in order to save face with
their
ladies. And," she finished delightedly, "those knights whom you vanquished would then have to go to Lady Anne and kneel and say, 'I submit to your grace and beauty!"

"Oh, Aunt Elinor," Jenny chuckled, "did they really do that in your day?"

"Most assuredly! Why, 'twas the custom until very recently."

"And I've no doubt," Stefan Westmoreland said gallantly, "that a great many knights were vanquished by your stalwart suitors, my lady, and sent to kneel before you."

"What a pretty speech!" said Lady Elinor approvingly, "I thank you. And it proves," she added to Gawin, "that chivalry isn't falling by the wayside one bit!"

"It won't help me, however," Gawin sighed. "Until I myself am knighted, I cannot challenge any knight. Roderick would laugh in my face if I dared, and who could blame him?"

"Perhaps something gentler than fighting would win your lady's heart," Jenny put in sympathetically.

Royce listened more attentively, hoping for some clue as to how to soften
her
heart.

"Like what, my lady?" asked Gawin.

"Well, there's music and songs…"

Royce's eyes narrowed in discouragement at the thought of having to sing to Jenny. His deep baritone voice would surely bring every hound for miles to yap and nip at his heels.

"You did learn to play a lute, or some instrument, when you were a page, did you not?" Jenny was asking Gawin.

"No, my lady," Gawin confessed.

"Really?" said Jenny, surprised. "I thought 'twas part of a page's training to learn to play an instrument."

"I was sent to Royce as a page," Gawin advised her proudly, "not the castle of a married lord and lady. And Royce says that a lute is as useless in battle as a hilt with no sword—unless I mean to swing it around over my head and launch it at my opponent."

Eustace sent him an ominous look for further damning Royce in Jennifer's eyes, but Gawin was too intent on the problem of Lady Anne to notice. "What else might I do to win her?" Gawin asked.

"I have it," Jennifer said. "Poetry! You could call upon her and—and recite a poem to her—one you particularly like."

Royce frowned, trying to remember poems, but the only one he could recall went:

 

There was a young lass named May

Ever good for a toss in the hay…

 

Gawin's face fell and he shook his head. "I don't believe I know any poems—Yes! Royce told me one once. It went, "There was a young lass named—"

"
Gawin
!" Royce snapped before he could catch himself, and Jennifer's face froze at the sound of his voice. More quietly, Royce said, "That's not the—er—sort of rhyme Lady Jennifer had in mind."

"Well then, what should I do?" Gawin said. With hope that his idol would think of some more manly way of impressing the lady, he asked Royce, "What did
you
do the first time you wished to impress a lady—or were you already a knight and could show her your mettle on the field of honor?"

With no hope of being able to further observe Jennifer in secret, Royce walked over to the group and propped his shoulder against the chimney piece, standing beside her. "I was not yet a knight," he replied ironically, accepting the tankard of ale the serf handed him.

Jennifer caught the look of amusement that passed from Stefan to Royce and was spared having to wonder about the details by Gawin who insisted, "How old were you?"

"Eight, as I recall."

"What did you do to impress her?"

"I… er… staged a contest with Stefan and Godfrey so that I could dazzle the maiden with a skill of which I was particularly proud at the time."

"What sort of contest?" Lady Elinor asked, thoroughly engrossed.

"A
spitting
contest," Royce replied succinctly, watching Jenny's profile, wondering if she were smiling at his youthful foibles.

"Did you win?" Eustace laughed.

"Certainly," Royce declared dryly. "I could spit further than any lad in England at the time. Besides," he added, "I had already taken the precaution of bribing Stefan and Godfrey."

"I think I'll retire now," Jenny said politely as she stood.

Royce abruptly decided to tell all of them the news, rather than keep it from Jennifer now that the subject had already arisen. "Jennifer," he said, matching her reserved courtesy, "the annual jousting matches that take place here have been turned into a full-fledged tournament this year. In the spirit of the new truce between our two countries, Henry and James have decided the Scots will be invited to participate." Unlike a joust, which was a contest of skill between two knights, a tournament was a mock battle, with both sides charging each other from opposite ends of the field, wielding weapons—although of limited types and sizes. Even without virulent hatred between the combatants, tournaments were so dangerous that four hundred years before, the popes had managed to have them banned for nearly two centuries.

"A messenger came today from Henry confirming the changes," Royce added. When she continued to regard him with polite lack of interest, Royce added pointedly, "The decision was made by our kings at the same time the truce was signed." Not until he added, "And I
will
be riding in them," did she seem to comprehend the import of what he was saying. When she did, she looked at him with contempt, then she turned her back on him and left the hall. Royce watched her walk away and, in sheer frustration, he got up and went after her, catching her just as she opened the door to her bedchamber.

He held the door open for her and followed her inside, closing it behind him. In front of his knights, she'd kept her silence, but now, in private, she turned on him with a bitterness that nearly surpassed the night of William's death: "I gather the knights from the south of Scotland will be attending this little soiree?"

"Yes," he said tightly.

"And it's no longer to be a joust? It's a
tournament
now?" she added. "And of course, that's why
you're
going to ride in it?"

"I'm going to do it because I've been commanded to do it!"

The anger drained from her face, leaving it as white as parchment and just as hopeless. She shrugged. "I have another brother—I don't love him as well as I loved William, but he should at least give you a little more sport before you kill him. He's closer to your size." Her chin was trembling and her eyes were shining with tears. "And then there's my father—he's older than you, but quite skilled as a knight. His death will amuse you. I hope," she said brokenly, "you'll find it in your heart—find it
possible
," she amended, making it clear she didn't think he had a heart, "not to murder my sister. "
She's
all I have left."

Knowing she didn't want him to touch her, Royce still could not stop himself from pulling her into his arms. When she stiffened but didn't struggle, he cupped her head, holding it pressed to his chest, her hair like crushed satin in his hand. Hoarsely, he said, "Jenny, please,
please
don't do this! Don't suffer so. Cry, for God's sake. Scream at me again, but don't look at me like a murderer."

And then he knew.

He knew exactly why he loved her, and when it had happened: his mind snapped back to the glade, when an angel dressed like a page had looked up at him with shining blue eyes and softly told him,
The things they say about you, the things they say you've done
—
they aren't true. I don't believe it
.

Now she believed
everything
about him, and with good reason. And knowing it hurt a thousand times more than any wound Royce had ever received.

"If you cry," he whispered, stroking her shining hair, "you'll feel better." But he knew instinctively what he suggested was impossible. She'd been through so much, and held her tears back for so long, that Royce doubted that anything could force her to shed them. She had not cried when she spoke of her dead friend, Becky, nor had she wept over William's death. A fourteen-year-old girl with enough courage and spirit to confront her armed brother on the field of honor would not cry for her husband whom she hated. Not when she didn't cry for her friend or even her brother. "I know you won't believe this," he whispered achingly, "but I
will
keep my word. I will not hurt your family, nor any member of your clan at the tournament. I swear it."

"Please let go of me," she said in a suffocated voice.