Conquering William (21 page)

“William said that?”

“Indeed.” Ivy shook a clean chemise out. “Now, come and dress. Clouds are already building to the north. I fear we will not have much sunlight left.”

Alice checked on Sister before she and Ivy left. Martha sat beside Sister and tended to some darning. “I will keep a sharp eye on her, my lady.”

“Call me if there is any change.”

“Right away.” Martha waved Alice out. The elderly serving woman had lived at Tarnwych as long as Alice, before her arrival even.

Weak winter sun had never felt so glorious as it did on her face as Alice stepped into the bailey. Ivy’s threatened clouds boiled about Tarn Crag, driven forward by the stiff breeze. For now, Alice reveled in the freshness of the wind, the warmth on her back.

Ivy led the way through the inner bailey and into the outer. Around them, people stepped lighter as they too enjoyed the respite from the driving rain and cold. Ice rode the wind in a sharp bite holding the threat of snow.

Sir Gregory would need to leave soon or risk the weather trapping him at Tarnwych. “Snow is coming. We must warn Sir Gregory.”

“He left at dawn.” Ivy raised her skirts and picked her way around the puddles. “He hates to be separated too long from Lady Faye.”

What a grand thing, to have a man who loved you as much as Gregory loved his Faye. She might settle for a man who prepared her pottage for her, or carried her to bed and undressed her like a babe. He may not love her, and Alice’s heart gave a small twinge, but she preferred it to the cold, lonely silence.

Their boots rapped on the wood of the drawbridge as she and Ivy strode across. Outside the shelter of the keep walls, the wind picked up and tugged at their skirts.

“Where are we going?” Alice raised her voice over the wind.

“There.” Ivy pointed.

From where she stood, the land sloped to a meadow sheltered by low scrub on one side and tucked against the side of a long rock outcropping. In the meadow Lady Beatrice’s golden head gleamed in the sunlight. Three children clustered about her. Alice missed a step. The fear returned.

Ivy stopped and watched her, head cocked.

She could do this. Alice clenched her fists. She would do this. Mathew. Just a young boy. Her heart thundered and she drew a long breath. She could meet him without giving in to her fear. Sweat beaded her palms and she wiped them on her dress. “It is a fine day for playing outside.”

“That it is.” Ivy nodded, and threading her arm through Alice’s, tugged her down to the meadow.

Alice’s legs shook as she stumbled beside Ivy.

Her fear of a small, harmless boy shamed her.

Beatrice raised her head at their approach.

Alice swore the woman’s eyes burned a hole in her bliaut.

“What a lovely day,” Ivy called and waved at the boys.

Richard came running toward her. “Ivy. We found a rabbit hole.”

“How wonderful,” Ivy said. “Are there any rabbits in it, for the pot tonight?”

“Ivy.” Richard scrunched his face. “These are not the eating sort of rabbits.”

Alice used their chatter to edge closer to Beatrice. “Good morrow.”

“Good morrow.” Beatrice could give a person frost-bite with her gaze, the same as William could.

Alice tugged her cloak tighter about herself. “It is lovely to see the sun.”

“Aye.” Beatrice folded her arms. “Is there anything I can do for you?”

Mathew sidled closer to Beatrice and wrapped an arm about her legs.

Beatrice put a reassuring hand on his head.

Run! Alice forced the growing clamor down and took a breath. “I thought I might come outside and play.”

“Did you now?” Beatrice raised her brow.

“Aye.”

“What are we playing?” Ivy cut into the growing silence.

“We are not playing anything,” Richard said. “We are just looking. It is not like home.”

“Aye,” said Ivy. “Then we should ask Alice to show us all the wonders to be found. She grew up here.”

All stares turned to Alice. Her mind went dead.

“Heather,” she said. “We get a lot of heather. It is not in bloom now, but it is very pretty. When it does bloom.”

Richard crossed his arms and sighed.

“I would like to see that.” Ivy ruffled Richard’s hair. “It must be like a tapestry of flowers.”

She blessed Ivy for attempting to create common ground. “Aye. A tapestry of flowers.”

“Flowers?” Richard kicked a rock away.

“Ponies!” Alice nigh shrieked the word. The children perked up a bit. “We have wild ponies.”

“Ponies,” whispered Mathew, shifting away from his grip on Beatrice.

“I do not see any ponies.” Richard looked about him with a sniff. The lad threw up a tough wall to breach.

“Oh, they are here.” Alice ventured a step closer. Her heart still pounded but her breathing came more even now. “But they hide from us because some people catch them.”

Richard deigned to show a little more interest. “Why?”

“Because they are the strongest little ponies in the kingdom.” She had loved the wild ponies as a child. She still did, when she could catch sight of them. “They have short legs and great big chests and heads.”

Adam bounced in Beatrice’s arms and chattered, his face alight with joy.

“We should look for them,” Ivy said.

Richard narrowed his eyes at Alice. “Are you sure they are really here?”

“I am sure.” Alice nodded and held out her hand. “Come, we will see if we can find the signs that mean the herd is close by.”

“That sounds like fun,” Beatrice said, and gave Alice the tiniest of smiles. “How fares Sister Julianna?”

“She is recovering.” Alice kept her gaze trained on the ground. The damp peat beneath her would show the ponies’ hoof prints. “Have you news from Anglesea?”

Beatrice nodded. “A runner arrived earlier. My brother Roger is much better. But my mother…”

“Mama?” Mathew peered at Beatrice.

“She is not doing well. They fear for her.”

“Mama.” Mathew grew louder. He grabbed onto Beatrice’s skirt and yelled, “Mama.”

Alice leapt away from him. The fear roared through her, and she took flight. Her foot caught on a tuft and she landed hard on her hands and knees.

Behind her, Mathew’s pitch got louder and more demanding.

Alice’s fear grew with each shout.

Beatrice murmured to him, words Alice could not decipher but meant to calm.

Alice had to get away. Danger. She scrabbled to her feet.

“Alice,” Ivy called.

A hand fastened on her arm.

“I have to go,” Alice said to the blurred face in front of hers. “Run, I…”

“Stop it.” A sharp blow to her cheek stopped Alice. Beatrice stood before her, her face tight and angry. “Stop it. You are frightening Mathew, and he is already upset over our mother.”

Alice shook her head. Beatrice had to understand. She must let her go so she could run.

“Nay.” Beatrice shook her shoulders. “Do not dare to do this again. I will not have you treating my brother in this manner. Mathew deserves better.” Beatrice gave her a hard shake.

Alice’s head wobbled, and the moors swirled before her.

“William deserves better than this from you. I have kept my peace because he and Ivy asked it of me, but you are behaving worse than a child. William is a wonderful, decent man. He does not need a cold-hearted, cruel sow as a wife.”

“Beatrice.” Ivy’s voice came from a long, black tunnel. “She is not hearing you.”

Beatrice’s face drew closer as the other woman peered at her.

Alice couldn’t meet her eyes. She wanted to explain, but the words lodged behind the fear and wouldn’t come.

The children huddled beside Ivy. Richard looked puzzled, whilst Mathew sucked on his thumb and stared at her. Little Adam squatted at Ivy’s feet, more interested in the tough, stringy grasses.

“Then I shall speak louder.” Beatrice’s grip on her shoulders tightened. “I will slap you if you make me.”

Alice shook her head. She did not want another slap. Her cheek still smarted from the last one.

“Ugh.” Beatrice released her with a look of disgust. “I cannot even speak to you.”

Alice’s knees sagged, and she thumped onto the ground. She sucked great gasps of air into her lungs.

Beatrice’s hemline wove into view. “What is wrong with her?”

“I do not know,” Ivy said. “But surely you can see this is no ordinary reaction.”

“To Mathew?” Beatrice’s derision weighted the words. “How could anyone fear our gentle Mathew?”

“And yet she does,” Ivy again. “See, she can barely move. She is like a trapped rabbit.”

Beatrice crouched and came face to face with her. “What is it with you, Alice?”

Alice shook her head. Hysterical laughter bubbled free. God’s mercy, what she would give to able to answer that question. She had believed her fear gone, and then Mathew had become agitated, and it had returned in full force. With a cool hand, Beatrice touched her brow. “She is clammy.”

“And see how pale she is,” Ivy said.

“I am not carrying her back to the keep,” Beatrice said. “Until she masters whatever this is, she can stay out here.”

How humiliating. Alice dug her fingers into the ground. From somewhere she summoned the strength and stood. “I do not require your help.”

William studied the down, cross-body strike Aonghas made. “Watch your weight,” he yelled. “You stick your ass out like that and somebody’s going to ring your bell for you.”

Aonghas swiped at his sweaty brow with his forearm, but William caught the resentful jut of his jaw. He pushed the lad hard, but Aonghas’s fighting skills grew in leaps. The lad had a knack for the blade, and an almost unholy sense for where the next strike would come from. William would make a superb knight of him yet.

“Try it again.” He motioned for Rufus to lead with the thrust. Pampering did not make for good knights. Skill took time, effort, and constant repetition until it melded with a fighter’s very sinews, beat with each pound of his heart. Fighters who hesitated in battle died before they’d finished thinking about their next move.

“William!” Frowning, Beatrice stalked across the bailey toward them. She smoothed her expression into a smile for the Scot.

Aonghas went bright pink and slunk back with a mumbled greeting.

“I was just out on the moors with the children and your wife.” Beatrice made “wife” sound like a dread disease.

“Did you kill them all and bury them out there?”

Beatrice snorted and tried not to laugh. “It happened again, William.”

His sisters’ propensity for believing he knew what they spoke of all the time could drive a man to rip hanks of hair out. “What happened again?”

“With her and Mathew.”

Fool he, that he had believed their rapprochement meant Alice would mind her behavior. The need to hit something rose in him. “I will deal with it.”

“Nay.” Beatrice caught his arm as he tried to leave her. “Ivy and I have been speaking. We do not think it is as simple as we first believed.”

Her words mirrored his own thoughts, and he stopped. Anger simmered down to irritation.

“It is as if she is taken over by her fear,” Beatrice said. “We have seen many people react ill around Mathew, but this is not the same.”

“Do you or Ivy know what it could be?”

“Nay.” Beatrice stuck her fists on her hips. “But it must stop.”

“Dubhghall.” Aonghas ducked his head, tried to sheathe his blade, missed, and got it on the second try.

Could Aonghas, the elder, not have taught his sons to put a string of words together?

“When he were lad.” Aonghas toed the ground in front of him. “Saw a dog. Tears and snot.”

“By this I deduce that young Dubhghall demonstrated a fear of dogs as a boy,” William said. Good lads, the Scots, keen and powerful fighters in the making, but they had a mouth full of teeth and brains slower than a plow beast.

“Aye.” Aonghas nodded. “Da thought would do him good to lock him in the stables with the dogs.”

Beatrice made a soft noise of disgust.

“Worse.” Aonghas gripped his sword pommel. “After went barmy.”

Beatrice cocked her head and approached Aonghas. “Are you saying your brother was worse after being made to spend the night with the dogs?”

Poor lout went the color of beetroot and retreated. “Barmy. No sense.”

“Beatrice?” William did not have the time to stand here and play follow-the-word-clue with the hulking brute. He had a conversation to have with his wife, and he dreaded it.

“Nay.” Beatrice shushed him with a wave. “Is he still afraid of dogs?”

“Do not like ‘em,” Aonghas said. “But better.”

“How comforting.” William could not see what Bea found so fascinating in all this.

She made her quieting motion again. Why did women always do that and expect obedience? Still, he clamped his lips shut and got armed for a wait.

“How did he get better?” Beatrice said.

“Bit him.” Aonghas glowed so red he might explode.

“Wonderful.” William glared at Bea. “We will find a dog and get it to bite Alice.”

“Nay.” Aonghas’s eyes bugged. “Before. Dog bit him before.”

Bea clapped her hands and gave William a look of wonder. “Do you not see?”

“Nay.” Because he did not see aught other than Bea’s skirts lying in a mud puddle.

She rolled her eyes and growled her irritation at him. “Dubhghall was afraid of dogs because one bit him.”

“Aye.” Aonghas beamed.

“And that is why he went…er…barmy when he was little.” Beatrice patted Aonghas’s arm. “You are so clever to have thought of it.”

Now Bea needed her head looking at. “This is all very fascinating, but how does it pertain to Alice?”

“William, you are so dense sometimes.”

He was dense and Aonghas was clever? Oh, what sublime joy!

“Aonghas is telling us Dubhghall was frightened of dogs because of something he experienced as a child.”

“He is not telling us anything.” William needed to get that clear.

“Perhaps there is something in Alice’s past that makes her so afraid. Something nobody knows about.”

It made sense. Blast his hide, but Aonghas and Beatrice had something here. Years ago when he had been on siege with father, they had rescued a wretch from the dungeons to find he could not abide rats. Apparently, rats had chewed on him in the dungeon. God’s ballocks, he hated saying these words, but honor demanded it. “You could be right, Bea.”