Castles in the Air (13 page)

She glanced sideways at the old women’s smirking faces.

No reason, but everyone insisted on treating it as an event. Surreptitiously, she touched the fine cloth. This
was
beautiful, and she was being unusually stern about the quality, but a sleeveless cream-colored surcoat would accent Raymond’s dark beauty. She imagined it worn over a long-sleeved and high-necked green tunic.

It would be fine.

That she had woven a cloth of just that green color last winter and put it away for some special garment was a fortunate coincidence. Even now, Fayette cut the green, smiling slyly all the while. The hand bar thumped, the treadle thudded, and she shut hand bar thumped, the treadle thudded, and she shut her ears to the sounds of the great hall. Bringing the shuttle back and forth again, she slammed the hand bar hard.

It resulted in a tight weave, she told herself with a righteous sniff.

A hand touched her neck. She looked up with an annoyed exclamation—and leaped backward from the florid face that peered at her.

“Juliana?” Felix bobbed up and down, filling her vision, touching her.

Her skin crawled as his fingers crept along her collarbone like some repulsive new insect, and she brushed him away. “Don’t!”

He was too odorous, too greasy, too close. He was her worst nightmare, recurring to bring her down. But another hand, a supporting hand, touched her, and Valeska snapped, “What do you want with my mistress, little lord?”

The disrespect of it broke Juliana’s obsessed stare, and as Felix reared back to slap the old woman, she snagged his wrist. “You’re too free with those blows, Felix,” she told him.

As Felix sputtered in shock, she tightened her grasp. Then the enormity of her challenge struck her, her fingers trembled, and she dropped them to her lap. Folding one hand over the other, she pressed her palms together. The strength of her own grip comforted her, gave her courage.

“She’s disrespectful,” he said.

“She’s my personal maid.” It wasn’t an answer, nor the truth.

His eyebrows waggled, his nose twitched. “She’s a witch.”

“Who told you that?” Juliana asked sharply.

Felix shrugged, and his gaze shifted away from her. “Why did someone have to tell me? Why do you always treat me like a Looby Lumpkin? I have my own thoughts. Everyone always treats me like a Looby Lumpkin. I can see she’s a witch.” Waving his hands, he said, “She’s…she’s ugly.”

“So are you,” Valeska retorted.

Felix reached out again, but something stopped him. Valeska knew she had won, for she showed her three teeth in a grin.

Juliana didn’t trust the old dame to keep her mouth shut, and besides, Dagna had taken her place at Juliana’s other shoulder. Juliana gave Valeska a push. “Go now and assist Fayette with her sewing.”

“Isn’t she competent to cut your precious cloth?” Valeska teased.

“So she is,” Juliana answered. “But you know Raymond’s measurements.”

Valeska touched the cream cloth on the loom. “Who will cut this?”

“I will.” Juliana pushed her again. “Go.”

Valeska walked away, cackling in her best witch imitation, and Felix made the sign to ward off the evil eye. “She really is a witch,” he said in awe. He demanded of Juliana, “Is she a witch?”

Dagna’s hostility rang in her melodious voice as her hand tightened on Juliana’s back. “There are some in the castle who believe so.”

“Aye.” Felix edged around until he could watch Valeska. “Aye.”

He fumbled with his cloak, smoothed his well-combed hair, while Juliana watched and meditated on the futility of it. Felix draped himself in the best materials, cut only in the most fashionable styles. He groomed himself meticulously, and constantly checked himself in the polished metal mirror that hung from a thong about his waist. Yet he was nothing but a bully rooster, a man to watch lest he do accidental harm.

Only the shabbiest clothing graced Raymond’s figure, and he cared not whether he kept his hair trimmed. He shaved infrequently, and yet…and yet, that dark shadow on his chin made her wonder how it would feel on her skin. The too long locks swept rakishly across his shoulders, glistening like exotic silk. His clothing—well. Juliana glanced across the room at Valeska and Fayette. His clothing would soon do honor to a prince.

“I’ve had some thoughts on your marriage.”

She jerked her attention to Felix. “What?”

“I’ve had some thoughts on your marriage,” he repeated.

“
You’ve
had some thoughts?” she questioned. “Amazing.”

“Aye.” He bobbed in agreement. “I knew you’d want to hear them.”

“I’d like to hear any thought of
yours
.” Again Juliana emphasized her amazement; again Felix remained oblivious.

“This Lord Raymond is a bit odd.” He leaned close to her to whisper, and the odor of him struck her. “There are rumors circulating about him.”

“Rumors?” She leaned as far back as she could without tumbling off the bench. “Rumors don’t interest me.”

Oblivious to her discouragement, he blithely told her, “He was captured by the Saracens.”

“Aye, while on Crusade, fighting to free Jerusalem from the Infidels. Have you never been moved to take up the cross?”

“Nay.” He licked his palm and smoothed his eyebrows. “Nay.”

“You wouldn’t want to get rumpled.”

“Exactly.” He nodded.

Juliana blew a stream of air up her face to cool it. How could she mock a man who had no modesty, no sense of fallibility?

Still obtuse, Felix prattled, “They say Lord Raymond was enslaved for years.”

Clenching the hand bar, Juliana stilled her irritation. She didn’t approve of such gossip. Didn’t really want to hear it. But she hungered to hear about Raymond, hungered for any scrap of his past, and so she said, “Years?”

“At least a year. And they say he mucked out the stables.” Ever the busybody, Felix relished the gossip. He laughed in little snorts, and when he could contain himself, he delivered the wildest part of the tale. “They say he fought so fiercely, the Saracens soldered an iron collar around his neck.”

Juliana forgot her troubles, her apprehensions, all the parts of herself. Instead she concentrated on Felix and his loathsome gossip, for something stirred in her. It wasn’t true, of course. It couldn’t be true, that a knight as proud and powerful as Raymond would be chained.

She looked at Dagna, but Dagna watched Felix without expression. Dagna wouldn’t interfere with his recitation, but neither would she affirm it.

Low and gleeful, Felix said, “He went mad. Your
Lord Raymond went mad. They say he still goes mad if he’s gainsaid. You know you made me hit you. I only hit you because you made me. What will your Lord Raymond do when you refuse him? He’ll go mad. He’ll foam at the mouth like a dog in midsummer, and you’ll have no place to run.” Felix grasped her upper arm with fingers that squeezed too tightly. “He’s a berserker, I tell you.”

Hand on pounding heart, she stared at him in frozen fascination. “Why are you telling me this?”

He sighed. “Because I want to be friends again. I’m warning you because I’m your friend. Let bygones be bygones.”

“Is that all you think it takes? Just the words to heal the scar?”

“Nay,” he assured her, ever eager to show his magnanimity. “I want to do more than just give you warning. I want to offer you sanctuary.”

He leaned back, his hands tucked across his belly, the picture of a satisfied burgher, and she wondered if it were he who’d gone mad.

“Aye, Juliana, I offer you sanctuary. I’ll rescue you and wed you myself.” He swept her with his smug glance. “Surely you’d prefer me over a madman.”

Quietly, but definitely, she replied, “Nay.”

Undeterred, he swept on. “Surely you’d prefer a man who wants a mere duo of heirs from you.” He held wide his arms. “Look at me! I’ll spend most of my time in bed with my own pastry. That’s Anne. Remember Anne?”

She nodded numbly.

“All you’ll have to do is supervise the cooking and the cleaning, take care of the laundry and the, er”—he gestured at the loom—“the weaving.”

“What an inducement,” she whispered.

“I thought you’d appreciate it.”

He sat his loathsome body down beside her. His hip touched hers, his arm wrapped around her waist—and she realized he no longer intimidated her. She’d never again cringe from his pompous threats, nor duck when he swung at her. He meant nothing. This ridiculous little man meant nothing. He offered marriage, and rather than run from him screaming, a grim mirth bubbled within her.

He said, “We could go to my castle.”

Mouth skewed with distaste, she asked, “Do you believe this berserker, as you call him, would allow us to travel through the countryside with nary an attack?”

Unease touched his face. “We’d have to kill him.”

“Kill the king’s cousin?” His stupidity ground away at her, releasing irritation and some other emotion. She couldn’t put a name to it, but her fists clenched. “Someone would hang for that. Who do you suppose it would be?”

“Well, not me,” he said huffily.

He was so stupid. She couldn’t help it. She laughed.

Unamused, Felix said, “You try to be so rational. You try to be a man.”

“Nay, Felix,” she corrected. “I don’t lack for ambition.”

Dagna chuckled, but Felix’s face remained blank.

“You want someone like me,” he said. “Not someone like Raymond who watches you and lusts after you day and night. He’s an animal, they say, with ravenous appetites. They say—”

Unease touched Juliana. This donkey who called himself a man had less intelligence than her loom; so how could he be presenting such cogent reasons to end her betrothal? Unerringly he touched on her
fears and her wishes, and Juliana cried out, “Who told you these things?”

He glanced around as if assassins lurked behind every oak column. “Just…a trustworthy person. He’s always been my friend. And yours, too.” His brown eyes squinted into hers. “He has your best interests at heart.”

Hugh, she thought. Hugh had said these things. Her disappointment brought a bite to her tone. “Do you believe everything you hear?”

Again she unhinged him, and he reacted with irritation. “This cynicism of yours is not attractive. No knight will want you.”

“Every time I express sentiments that deviate from those of a harlot or a mat”—she kicked at the rushes on the floor—“you say I’m unfeminine. Why would I want a man who’s so dogmatic?”

His mouth hung open; he breathed through it noisily. “You…you act almost like a man.”

“So do you, Felix. So do you.”

She watched as the barb worked its way into his mind. When it struck the vital spot, and he understood at last, his eyes popped. Quick as a snake, he slapped at her, but she caught his hand, and he shrieked, “Bushbitch! Worthless daughter of Diabolus!”

Heads swerved, all chatter stopped.

Fear, anger, a sense of her own rightness gripped her, and as her emotions grappled with her good sense, he snatched her up. “I offered you marriage!” he yelled, and she heard the echo of that time long ago. “I would save you from your shame! And you refuse me. Refuse
me
. I’ll show you what kind of man you trifle with. I’ll show you.”

He tried to wrap his arms around her, to push her head against his shoulder. He wanted to punish her
with those tight-lipped asphyxiations he called kisses. Dagna leaped toward them, but rebellion exploded in Juliana. “Nay!” she screamed. Struggling to free her arm, she knocked Dagna away and cried, “He’s mine.”

“A quaint little castle.” Isabel, Countess of Locheais, removed her riding gloves while sweeping her fine emerald gaze over the keep. “Quite quaint.”

Geoffroi, Count of Locheais, placed his hands on his hips and squared his shoulders. “It certainly isn’t what we’re used to, is it, Raymond?”

Jerking his head, Raymond ordered the stable boys to tend to the horses. Careful to reveal no emotion, nothing which his parents could use against him, he answered. “Nothing about this place is what I’m used to, Father.”

“I would say not. Looks paltry with the clouds all around and the snow drifting down. Doubt the wolves would bother to attack it.” Geoffroi’s face was sculpted with all the care of the creator and maintained with all the care of man. It drooped now in noble disdain. “Thought you and Henry were still close. Can’t imagine him shipping you off to protect some shoddy little dab of a castle like this.”

Raymond corrected him. “He sent me to succeed to this castle.”

“Aye, when he told us where you were, we came straight away.” Laying one long, straight finger on his cheek, Raymond’s mother asked in elegant distress, “Tell me,
mon petit
, are you quarrelling with the king? Because I don’t need to remind you that’s not good for the family.”

“Nay, Mother, you needn’t remind me.” Ray
mond smiled without mirth. “Henry and I are not quarrelling—or at least not much. He has granted me my dearest wish—properties and an income of my own.”

His parents exchanged weighted glances, and as always they seemed to have planned their attack for every eventuality.

His mother was the chosen emissary this time. “But at what a price? You know we would have given you the income of Avraché when you were ready to assume the responsibility.”

“When would that have been, Mother?”

Clasping her soft, pale hands together, she moaned. “But this…this marriage! To a nobody, a woman never even introduced to the king.”

This time she refused to answer his question, Raymond noted. Next time, she would lie. He corrected, “Not to a nobody, Mother. To Juliana.” Somehow her name lightened his heart, acted as a talisman against the poison of his parents.

“Juliana?” Geoffroi cocked an insolent brow. “Attractive bit of skirt?”

Raymond took a steady breath of frigid air. It never did any good to get angry with his parents. They were cold and manipulative, and when he lost his temper, he lost the tournament. But to hear his Juliana disparaged in such a way…“I doubt you’re familiar with a woman like Juliana.” He smiled back just as insolently, and his gaze slid to his mother. “She’s a noble lady.”

Again his parents consulted each other with their gazes. Geoffroi clapped him on the back. Isabel folded him in her scented embrace. “
Mon petit
,” she murmured. “Is she every mother’s dream?”