A Kiss in the Night (8 page)

"I fear I have lost all my good knights! They were slain like...like beasts of toil! These… these evildoers swept upon us like a cold gale wind from the very bowels of hell. I had just enough time to run to the woods to hide. I heard their screams…"

No man alive could have resisted the wholly feminine fear put in those eyes, and when her lovely face grew paler still, when she seemed to sway too far back, Morgan stepped to her and caught her up in his arms. "She has fainted!"

John Chamberlain, Morgan's uncle and steward, snapped an order to a startled servant. "Prepare the lady's rooms at once! And for God's sake, someone send for the lady's serving woman…the one who came yesterday. What was her name again? Mistress Clair, I believe."

Linness's eyes opened wide "My serving woman?!"

"Aye," Lord Morgan said, "she will be besotted with joy, no doubt. She thought, she seemed quite certain, you had died in the attack."

Morgan quickly carried Linness from the hall, his men following behind. The servant rushed out to find the matron Clair, calling out as he did so for help.

Linness began praying.

Outside and across the courtyard, Clair sat on the edge of a raised pallet in a small room she shared with four other serving women, blankets drawn around her sagging shoulders. The kind waiting woman of Gaillard had finally left her alone to her relentless tears. She could not stop crying as she relived the terror of yesterday, over and over, as if the next time she viewed it in the recess of her mind, it could change.

'Twas not that she would ever mourn the Lady Belinda's passing, but no one, not the lowest beast in France, deserved to die as that young, foolish girl had. The Lady Belinda would not go, no matter how she had begged and pleaded. She had begged Lady Belinda to run into the bushes with her; she had ordered it first in the girl's father's name, then her dear mother's, and at last she had used God's sacred name as a directive. To no avail.

"What do I have knights tor, I ask?" she had snapped back. "I shall not abandon the comfort of my carriage for a band of ruffians! I will not! If my knights are worth half the coin my father pays them, then these thieves shall be slain in blood, 1 want to watch."

Clair had been horrified by this crowning demonstration of the girl's obstinacy and disagreeable nature. The servants of Montegrel, the Lady Belinda's former home, had always frowned at the child's difficult nature, her constant complaints and extreme vanity, the cruelty of some of her more notorious deeds. "A real queen of Sheba, she thinks she is..." They'd shake their heads more and more often as Lady Belinda grew into womanhood and her faults seemed to increase with every inch of height. Even her dear mother had finally abandoned hope of the girl ever becoming a real lady of worth and charity. Everyone secretly looked forward to her marriage departure, especially the girl's good parents.

The thought of returning to Montegrel to tell them of the tragedy made her wail louder. She could not do it; she just couldn't. Besides, she didn't want to return. She had buried two husbands there, and in these last years of her life she had become increasingly tired of the same scenes and same faces each day, much as she cared for them. She had spent two years preparing to leave, at least two months saying good-bye to people she would not likely ever see again in this life, and it seemed so unfair to have wasted all those tears and fare-thee-wells. Oh Lord, why did this happen?

She remembered the good man Jean riding up to the carriage. "They are upon us! Run for cover, milady! Flee!"

"I will not, I tell you! I will not..."

T’were the last obstinate words their lady had uttered.

She had decided her duty did not require her to die with the girl for no good reason. So she had run to the river and plunged in, coming out on the other side, where she hid in bulrushes, watching the slaughter. Oh, 'twas too horrifying! All the screams and blood—

She was startled out of this memory by the sudden opening of the door. A young page appeared, his face flushed, his eyes filled with excitement, "Madame," he said, "your lady has just arrived ever so alive!"

Clair wiped her small, bright blue eyes as if it might clear her ears. "What?"

"Your lady, Madame! The Lady Belinda! She has just arrived at the hall.”

"Alive? Ye say Lady Be-Belinda is alive?"

"Aye. She is waiting for ye now. "

Clair had never believed in ghosts. Yet, it would seem that this was the only explanation. For she had witnessed the outlaws surround the carriage. With her own eyes, she watched her mistress flee at last and run toward the river. She saw the man ride beside her, raise his terrible sword, and strike her flesh. The girl had fallen at the water's edge, soaking the mossy bank with blood.

"Lord have mercy!"

The young page's face filled with happiness and excitement. The news of the lady offset Paxton's banishment. For Morgan would surely forgive his brother now. Paxton would return and they would have a grand wedding feast. "Please come at once. Do hurry, Madame. Milady anxiously awaits ye!"

"Can it be true?" Clair asked while rising, her mind numb with confusion. There must be some mistake. There must. She saw her mistress felled like a young sapling. She saw it with her own eyes!

"Please!"

Clair stepped forward as if in a dream. Shaking her head in disbelief, she followed the young man out to the courtyard and then up the steps of the keep. This couldn't be happening, it just couldn't. He must be taking her to see the corpse!

The idea made her stop, and Michaels turned to her questioningly. Her chubby hands clasped her heart; she was shaking her head again. The older woman had round, manlike jowls that shook as she did so. "Are ye taking me to see her dead body?'

"Nay, good woman," he laughed kindly. "The lady is quite hale. Nary a scratch on her!"

She had never been known for particularly quick wits, she knew, but this was not because she did not have them. She did, but these wits failed her now. For here sat a bigger puzzle, as boggling as the question of how many angels fit on a sewing pin. She could not reason through it.

They continued on up the stairs to the solar chambers, down the hall, and stopped at a wide hand-carved wooden door. Michaels knocked and waited. The door opened and he stepped inside to announce her arrival.

Clair stepped into the room.

Lamps had been lit and a fire blazed in the hearth. Firelight suffused the chambers, with the exception of the window alcove, which remained in dark shadows. Lord Morgan and John Chamberlain stood on either side of an enormous featherbed. Thick blue velvet curtains around the bed were pulled back, offering her an archer's view.

Yet there was no Lady Belinda in that bed.

A young woman lay against the carved headboard, staring at her, with large silver eyes that begged for her silence. For the briefest moment their eyes locked; a message was exchanged. In this same moment, Clair's mind wandered through a labyrinth and then reached a decision.

For firelight lit those eyes a silvery gray, like the color of an owl's wings. They were without exception the most beautiful eyes she had ever seen. She knew instantly, whatever else the lady might or might not be, she did not deserve the death sentence her next words might very well produce.

Which made her say, "Milady, 'tis a miracle!"

And they fell into each other's arms

"I thought ye dead, milady, I thought ye dead!" These were the words the men heard. Though to the young woman Clair whispered, "Ye better be more clever and quick than the king's tax collectors, because now 'twill be my head as well as yours. "

"Don't worry, I am," Linness cried, then realizing what she was saying. "I mean I am not—"

From the start Clair seemed better at the deceit than Linness. She drew back and with red, swollen eyes, she said tearfully, "I saw ye running and a man chasing ye on his steed and I thought he killed ye. I thought my poor, poor lady was doomed—"

"I outran him!"

John Chamberlain tried to picture this "You outran a man on horseback?"

"I...I ran into the water and swam away. Yes! The river carried me far downstream. I climbed out and waited almost until nightfall before returning, only to find—Lord have mercy—my knights were slain." Sadness changed her eyes; a gentle hand came to Clair's face. "Poor Jean. I found him alive still and, a-a-and I stayed with him until he died!"

The story impressed the men, Morgan most of all.

Clair cried harder into her kerchief. "Jean was always ye favorite..."

"Oh yes!...he was my favorite," she said, tired already of spinning tales. "Jean was always my favorite."

Morgan did not seem interested in her professed affection for the man.

"Like a father, he was," Clair said between muffled sobs.

"I have already notified my new sergeant at arms," Morgan said. "The bodies shall be recovered soon. Father Gayly will oversee the burial rites," he added, and with an acknowledged nod to Linness, "That is, as soon as you are sufficiently recovered, milady."

"The bodies..." Clair repeated in whispered alarm, shifting her gaze to the young woman. "The bodies will be recovered—"

Linness shook her head slightly, just enough to let the woman know this would not be giving them away. It had been a gruesome task, but she had had to do it. She had first removed the lady's clothing and burned it before she had dragged her body to the water. This had been difficult because, as the swift-moving current had carried the corpse into the pitch-black night, she had realized, with much guilt, that the Lady would not be having a proper burial. And her guilt had hardly been assuaged by the bits and pieces of the girl's life that had come to her; fragmented images as she touched her clothes, tossed them into the fire. The girl had been rather stupid and vain in the way of the most selfish. Still, everyone, no matter what her life, deserved a proper burial.

Thinking of this, Linness said, "My good knights deserve the grandest burial, for sure," and she went on, elegantly spouting a touching speech about their bravery.

As she spoke, Morgan felt the pleasurable tightening of his loins just looking at her. She seemed ignorant of her effect on men, not just him but his uncle, and even young Michaels. And 'twas a most potent effect.

The thought made him almost laugh. He vowed then and there to see any daughter she gave him cloistered and raised in a convent.

"Michaels, fetch a cask of wine," he ordered, startling Linness midsentence with this rude interruption of her high-minded speech

Morgan took no notice. He was not in the habit of listening to lengthy speeches made by women—this was probably his first. He continued to stare at her, though.

As Michaels started to leave to do his bidding Morgan added, "And bring me the miniature of Lady Belinda. I believe it rests in the right-hand drawer of my trunk."

A miniature. All thoughts fled Linness's mind. She sat perfectly still, abruptly understanding what it meant to be frozen with fear for the first time in her life. Morgan de Gaillard was going to compare her to a miniature of the Lady Belinda and realize that she was an impostor.

How could she possibly explain the disparity? She waited for a lie that would save her. Waited and waited until she looked to Clair in desperation.

"Oh, aye, the lady's miniature…" Clair began haltingly. " 'Twas a bad time when 'twas painted. Remember, milady?"

"Well, I—"

"Why, ye had the influenza. Pretty little Sara sat for the painter most of the time, ye were feeling so poorly."

The woman was a genius!

Linness nodded enthusiastically, and began another long speech about her bout with influenza. Clair added "ayes" and " 'twas terribles" at the proper junctures. Perhaps they were too enthusiastic in this description, for the older man, John, began to look at them both with suspicion—which, curiously, made Linness's voice go higher as she added more details to remove his doubt.

Linness was still discussing the harrowing trial of her illness, noticing how the Lord Morgan never seemed to listen to her words, but instead just stared at her. Stared at her as if she were a criminal and he an executioner. That she was in fact a criminal magnified the effect of his silent gaze. Her voice trailed off just as the door opened to admit a serving woman with a tray of cups and pitcher of wine.

All Morgan gleaned from the lady's lengthy verbosity was that this was her shining fault. She spoke too much. Like all men, he preferred his women, indeed all women, quiet and docile—he would not at all mind if they were struck mute. Why God gave the creatures tongues in the first place would always be a mystery to him; a woman's words were like the air, constantly surrounding a man but never requiring thought, much less notice. Well, no matter. She would learn his preferences soon enough.

Morgan held out his cup as the woman served him first, never once taking his eyes from his betrothed on the bed. He looked as if he might devour her. Her discomfort grew more pronounced as the door opened again and Michaels appeared.

He presented a gold case to Morgan, who opened it and stepped to the fire to look at it better. "Come see this," he said to John, handing him the miniature. "The painter was poor indeed! He managed to capture none of the lady's beauty."