As for her, much of her anger against Gavin
had softened as she became aware of his concern for his children. A
man who could be so thoughtful could not be a villain or a habitual
liar. She now believed there had been good reasons for every
falsehood he had uttered to her.
“Was there anything else?” Gavin asked.
“About your daughter.” She stared at him in
amazement as the warmth drained from his face and his eyes grew
hard.
“Gavin, what is wrong?”
“We cannot talk here.”
“Then, come to the herb garden. It’s much
quieter there.” Wondering at the sudden change in him, Mirielle led
the way through the gatehouse and into the inner bailey.
In the sheltered garden the herbs Mirielle
tended were leafing out in shades ranging from the yellow-green of
angelica and celeriac, both of which were just pushing their thick
stems up through the soil, to the brighter green of mint and the
grayish tints of several varieties of thyme. A few of the plants
were already in bloom and bees buzzed from flower to flower,
winging their way to and from the small skep at one side of the
garden. The wooden palisade around the garden kept out roaming
animals or people and gave the illusion of privacy, though Mirielle
was aware that conversations held in the garden could be overheard
outside the wall, and that the windows on the upper levels of the
tower keep provided a clear view of anyone in the garden. Still, in
a crowded castle bailey, it was as close to privacy as one could
get.
“Gavin, I note your disapproval. I do not
want you to think I am trying to arrange the lives of your children
with no consideration of what your desires for them may be,”
Mirielle said. “I only wanted to discuss with you Emma’s request to
become my pupil. She and Warrick do seem to have similar
interests,” she finished with a laugh, hoping to make him smile
again.
Gavin did not smile. He stood looking down at
a patch of gray-green thyme, poking at the plant with one toe, and
the expression on his face reminded her of Warrick.
“I think Emma has been sadly neglected during
her stay at Cliffvale,” Mirielle went on, “until now she does not
know quite where she belongs or what is expected of her. And, to
speak bluntly, my lord, her mother has made it obvious that she
does not care what happens to Emma. But Emma has courage and she is
a dear, loving girl. I felt an immediate bond to her.” Mirielle
stopped, fearing she had said too much, particularly about Alda.
Gavin regarded her in a bleak, sad way, and Mirielle realized that
he was not annoyed by her impassioned words. Something else was
bothering him.
“It does not surprise me that you should feel
a closeness to Emma,” he said in a low voice, “since she is your
kin.”
“No,” she said, not understanding. “How could
that be?”
“Use your wits, Mirielle. Brice is her
father.”
“Brice? Oh, no! Gavin, how can you be
sure?”
“Alda herself took great pleasure in
revealing that Emma is not my child.” As if an inner dam had
broken, the words poured out of him. Gavin told her of his bitter
interview with Alda and his later recognition of Emma’s parentage
based on her resemblance to Brice. “I have not even told Hugh, and
I did not mean to tell you, Mirielle, but the girl needs someone to
care about her and you would seem to be the most likely person. If
you are to be her teacher, you should know the truth.”
“But, if what you believe is true, it would
mean that Brice and Alda were lovers while you and Alda still—oh,
Gavin.” Almost at once, Mirielle had another, related, thought. “Do
you believe that is why Alda asked for Brice to come here as
seneschal? So they could renew their affair?”
“For that, and for other reasons.”
“Yesterday, after you had deduced all of
this, still you publicly acknowledged Emma as your daughter,”
Mirielle said. “Why?”
“Alda all but dared me to refuse the child.
Never have I met a crueler mother,” Gavin said. “When I saw the
trusting look on Emma’s sweet face, I could not break her heart by
rejecting her.”
“How good and kind you are.” She had been
right to believe in him.
“Not entirely good,” he objected. “There was
another reason in my mind. Emma’s beautiful black hair, those wide
eyes of hers, though the color is different, even something in her
voice, all endeared her to me because those attributes remind me of
you. And that reminding made me even more certain that she is your
cousin’s daughter.”
“Oh, Gavin.” She could think of nothing else
to say.
“Given the angry way we parted eleven years
ago, I expected nothing from Alda on my return,” Gavin went on.
“Still, seeing the malice in her that took such delight in telling
me Emma is not my child, observing the way she treated both
children yesterday—I tell you, Mirielle, I begin to understand why
some men lock up their wives for years on end!”
“It hurts me to see you in such pain,” she
cried. Not caring if anyone looking down from the tower keep should
see them, thinking only of him, she put her arms around his
waist.
“The pain will pass, and soon,” he said,
holding her, his cheek on her smooth hair. “My pride is injured,
not my heart. Any tenderness I felt toward Alda ended long
ago.”
Mirielle did not want to leave the sheltering
warmth of Gavin’s arms. Neither, apparently, did he want to end
their embrace. They stood with Mirielle’s head on his shoulder,
while Gavin’s arms slowly tightened around her and Mirielle
gradually molded herself to his strong frame. She felt his lips on
her brow and when she moved her head, he took her mouth in a kiss
that startled her with its passion.
She could not deny him. She pressed against
him, opening her mouth, offering the tenderness she sensed he
needed of her.
For Gavin, Mirielle’s generous affection was
a rope thrown to a man drowning in a raging river of treachery and
dark secrets. He was intensely aware of the delicious roundness of
her breasts crushed against his chest and of the slender length of
her that fit so perfectly into his arms. His body responded
immediately to the warmth of her mouth beneath his. Her arms wound
around him with surprising firmness. He had known since their first
meeting that Mirielle was no weak, fragile female. His Mirielle
possessed an inner strength of purpose that matched his own. She
would never be deterred from doing what she believed was right.
She was not his Mirielle, he reminded himself
with a feeling of despair. She could not be his so long as he was
wed to Alda. The same strength of character that led her to insist
that mistreated children should be dealt with fairly and that had
made her angry at the lies he had told her would also prevent
Mirielle from giving herself to a man who was bound to another
woman.
He loved her for the very strength that would
deny him what he wanted most from her. And he thought he might well
die of the longing that surged through him each time he saw her,
the longing that grew stronger every time he put his arms around
her or kissed her.
He allowed himself one last kiss, while he
savored the sensation of Mirielle embracing him, of her sweet mouth
and her arms and her lithe young body. Slowly, he lifted his head.
Still with his hands on her shoulders, he stepped back a pace.
“We cannot continue in this way,” he said.
“We cannot meet like this again.”
“I know. It is very wrong of me to permit
it.” Tears stood in her silver-gray eyes. “I only wanted to offer
you the comfort I thought you needed. But comforting turned into
something else. I am sorry if I have made your life more
difficult.”
“I do not regret kissing you, though the
memory of you in my arms may drive me mad with wanting you.” Gavin
paused, looking deep into her eyes while he willed himself to
return to the realities of daily life.
“I give Emma into your care,” he said. “Alda
wants nothing to do with her daughter, and the child is legally
mine, to keep with me or send away, as I please. You will treat her
kindly, I know. Teach her as you think best. Protect her from her
uncaring mother. For Emma’s sake, keep the secret of her birth.
Love her.” His voice cracked. “For my part, I will treat her as my
own and try to give her the fatherly affection she wants and
deserves.”
“I will do all that you ask,” Mirielle said.
“I promise.” She did not tell him that she believed he loved Emma
already.
Alda was not in the best of humors the
following day when she met Gavin in the entry hall just before the
midday meal. With a coldly polite bow Gavin offered his arm.
Usually, Alda placed her fingertips on his wrist, stuck her nose
into the air, and without saying a word to him suffered Gavin to
escort her into the hall for the main meal of the day. It was
expected of the lord and lady of the castle that they would make a
formal entrance. Before Gavin’s return Alda had made a point of
dressing in an elaborate style and entering the great hall on
Brice’s arm.
On this morning Brice was absent attending to
some matter at the main gatehouse. Only a few squires were present
in the entry, and all of them were hurrying into the hall to take
their places for the meal.
“What are you doing among the squires, you
wretched boy?” Alda had caught sight of Robin, who was with
Warrick. “Sit with your mother, or else get out of the keep and go
to the stables, where you belong.”
“Robin belongs exactly where he is,” Gavin
said. “I have made him one of my squires.” He braced himself for
the confrontation he was sure would come.
“I will not have it,” Alda declared. “Robin
is a low-born, impudent churl. I will not allow him to associate
with my son.”
“You have nothing to say about it. The
choosing of squires does not fall within your domain.” Gavin kept
his voice quiet. If Alda was going to provoke a loud and angry
scene over the decisions he had made, he was not going to
contribute to it. He waved the squires into the hall so that he and
Alda were alone in the entry.
“Well, my lord,” Alda said, “the disposition
of female children does fall within my domain, and I must inform
you that I am greatly displeased by the way you have given Emma
into Mirielle’s care.”
“I was under the impression that you do not
care what happens to the girl, that, in fact, you dislike her.”
“Emma was one of my few mistakes.” Alda sent
a glance toward the great hall, where her daughter waited beside
the high table with Mirielle and Hugh.
“I am encouraged to learn that you are
capable of admitting to a fault.” Gavin extended his arm again, and
this time Alda put her fingertips on the cloth of his tunic just
above his wrist. Her grimace suggested that she was avoiding
contact with his skin.
“What I meant,” Alda said in a low, vicious
tone, “was that your late father, the great Lord Udo, was so eager
for another grandson that as soon as he learned I was with child
for a second time, he set his servants to watch me closely and
constantly until it was too late for me to rid myself of the
creature without endangering my own life.”
“Would you have done that?” Gavin watched
her, as fascinated by her revelations as he would have been by the
motions of a snake that was preparing to strike. There was still
more venom in Alda, and he was sure it was about to surface.
“However,” Alda went on, “I have not made
that mistake again. Not since Emma’s birth have I allowed a man’s
seed to root itself in my body.”
“What you are telling me,” Gavin said between
gritted teeth, “is that you have had more than one lover.”
“What if I have?” Alda tossed her head.
“If you will not think of my honor,” Gavin
said, “have you no regard for your own?”
Alda did not answer him. They were by now at
the dais. Gavin dropped his arm and let Alda find her own seat. He
could not bear to look at her, much less escort her to a chair.
Gavin glanced from Warrick and Robin, who were talking together at
the squires’ table, to Donada, sitting pale and listless in her
usual seat, to Emma beside him at the high table with her dark eyes
on his face. Her quick response to his forced smile touched his
aching heart. On Emma’s other side, Mirielle looked at him with
open affection.
“Good people,” Gavin said, raising his voice.
At once, the talk in the hall stopped. Servants paused with
platters and bowls in their hands to listen to what he would say.
All heads swiveled toward the high table. “Father John tells me
that the chapel is prepared. He will hear confessions from those
who wish to make them, and he will say Mass tomorrow morning and
every other morning for the rest of his stay with us.
A murmur of approval went through the hall,
though Gavin did notice a few scowls from some of the rougher
men-at-arms, who presumably would have much to confess and heavy
penances to fulfill before they were welcomed at the chapel altar.
Satisfied with the reaction, Gavin sat down in the lord’s chair and
motioned to the servants to resume passing the food.
“I will not attend.” Alda’s face was chalk
white.
“Do you fear confession?” Gavin asked. “Or is
it penance you would like to avoid?”
“The priest will leave in a few days and then
all will be as it was before his coming.” Alda sounded as if she
was trying to convince herself. “You will not get another priest to
come here soon, for Wroxley is too small to be a parish.”
“We shall see about that.” Steeling himself,
Gavin leaned a little closer to his wife and gave her his command.
“You will be in the chapel tomorrow morning, my lady, or by heaven,
I will go to your bedchamber and drag you out of bed and take you
to Mass in your shift. Or wearing nothing at all, if you
prefer.”
In fact, Alda did appear at the chapel door
the next day, just as an angry Gavin was about to go in search of
her. She wore a brilliant red silk gown, a golden gauze veil topped
by her wide gold circlet, and entirely too much jewelry.