LADY UNDAUNTED: A Medieval Romance (2 page)

His brother’s lids started to lower, but he dragged them back up. “How is your head?”

Liam needed no reminder of the blow dealt him across the back of the skull when Maynard had come to steal from the barony’s coffers last eve. Upon regaining consciousness, explosive pain had temporarily blinded him. And still the swelling throbbed. “I will live.”

A smile twitched at Maynard’s mouth, and he beckoned. “Come closer. I have something to tell you.”

Though Ivo turned his face away, Liam saw the priest was also inclined toward a smile, and that he rubbed his crucifix as he often did to curb impatience. Here was the secret whose revelation he awaited.

Liam leaned near.

“Closer,” Maynard hissed, breath fouled by the scent of alcohol and blood.

Liam turned his ear to his brother’s mouth.

“I have won, you whoreson. ’Tis not you who will gain Ashlingford, but my son.”

As the words knelled through Liam, he slowly straightened. “The barony is more rightfully mine than any of the misbegotten sons you have sown. Do you name one heir, I vow to petition the king. And this time he will not deny me.”

Maynard gave a phlegm-laden laugh. “You think I speak of those common, dirty whelps?”

Liam felt something drop out of him. His soul? “Of whom do you speak?”

His brother sighed long, closed his eyes. “I do enjoy this. One of the few pleasures left to me.”

“Tell me, Maynard!”

“Liam!” Emma cried. “Your brother is dying, and you—”

“Sooner he will die if he does not give answer!”

Maynard raised his lids. “I have a legitimate son.”

Liam knew it was the truth the moment it was spoken, but the question sprang from him. “Legitimate?”

Maynard laughed again, but only for a moment. When his coughing subsided, his pallid face was flecked with blood. “Six years of your life for naught, Brother. And I thank you for every one of them.”

Fury poured into Liam’s fists, gripped his heart, burned his belly. Every hour of every day of every month for six long years—all for naught. And he wanted blood for every one of them. But as his mind readied his body for attack, the first lesson he had aspired to learn during his knighthood training resounded through him.

Allow not wrath to command your actions, nor your words
. Sir Owen of the Wulfriths had gripped Liam’s rage-flushed face to hold the youth’s gaze to his.
Hear me, boy. Be worthy of your name.

Liam Fawke, son and heir of Montgomery Fawke.

He dug his fingers into his palms, told himself that though Maynard and Ivo once more conspired to deny him what had ever been his, the letting of blood was not the answer—at least, not in the absence of a blade raised against him.

He breathed deep. How could this have happened? There had been no reading of the banns to announce Maynard’s marriage.

He grabbed hold of that hope. Church law decreed that a marriage between a man and woman from different parishes be publicly announced in both. Thus, Maynard’s marriage might be declared void and his son illegitimate—unless he had purchased a special license to allow him to wed without announcing it beforehand.

Liam momentarily closed his eyes. That was what Maynard had done, and the substantial amount required to buy the dispensation had been doled out by the one he had outwitted.

Liam turned to Ivo. “You knew of this?”

The color creeping into the priest’s cheeks said otherwise. Though Ivo prided himself on being indispensable to Maynard, his nephew had not enlisted him to work the deception—worse, had not confided in him.

“It surprises you I did it on my own.” Maynard chuckled. “I am not the fool you believe me to be. Nor am I without kindness. I give you my blessing to remain at Ashlingford and serve my son as you have served me.”

Dark emotions surging anew, tempting a hand to the dagger at his side, Liam said, “Where is the gold you stole from me last eve?”

“Stole? From you? As the Baron of Ashlingford, I took naught that was not already mine.”

“Where is it?”

Maynard exaggerated a frown, patted a hand across his waist. “Fancy that…gone.”

And Ivo knew where it was.

Certain that if he did not leave, Maynard would be in danger of losing his life all the sooner, Liam strode toward the door.

“My heir’s name is Oliver. He will be three years old at summer’s end.”

Liam looked over his shoulder. “Your wife?”

“Lady Joslyn of—” Once more, Maynard succumbed to coughing, at the end of which he croaked, “Lady Joslyn of Rosemoor.”

Far to the south, explaining how word of his nuptials had not reached Ashlingford. As Maynard had not wished it to.

Liam stepped into the corridor.

“Do you not wish to watch me die?” his brother called.

“Already you are dead to me,” Liam cast over his shoulder and continued toward the stairs.

“Filthy, misbegotten Irish—” A groan stole Maynard’s words and became a high-pitched wail.

Liam tried not to care that his brother was in the throes of death, but he faltered.

Standing before the stairs, he bowed his head. He would not think on the one for whom he had once felt great affection. He would not dwell on the boy who had revered him. Only the Maynard of this day would he remember—Maynard the deceiver.

With the sound of that one’s whimpers and cries resounding off the stone walls, Liam descended the steps to the great hall. Upon reaching the doors to the inner bailey, he felt a silent beckoning and halted, breathed deep, and looked to the elaborately carved high seat reserved for the lord of Ashlingford. Long it had awaited him. And longer it must wait.

Betrayed and betrayed again, he strode out of the keep into a sunless spring afternoon whose chill wind bit. As he gazed beyond the castle walls to land that should be his, he became aware of the gathering at the base of the steps.

“The baron is dead,” he said, certain that if Maynard’s life was not yet severed, it would be momentarily.

The voices rose to a din, but not because the castle folk suffered great loss over the death of their lord. They were surprised. From an early age, Liam had often had to prove himself to his father’s people because of his Irish blood, but it was to him they had grown loyal, him they regarded as their lord, not the philandering Baron of Ashlingford.

Assuring himself his bid for the barony was not done, determined he would not easily hand it over to the child Maynard had made to steal it from him, he called for his men and descended the steps. As he strode the path that opened before him, he was besieged by questioning eyes, but he ignored them. Soon enough they would learn of Maynard’s deathbed disclosure.

In the outer bailey, a half dozen men on his heels, Liam shouted for horses and provisions and headed for the smithy.

“Sir Liam! What commotion is this?”

He turned to the knight who guided his destrier into the bailey.

Sir John grinned, swung out of the saddle with the lightness of one who carried less weight on his bones than many a warrior, and tossed the reins to his squire.

Liam had forgotten that the vassal and keeper of the lesser castle of Duns was expected this day to discuss his accounts. Accounts that no longer mattered.

Liam sent his men to the smithy with orders to sharpen their weapons, then strode to where John picked off his gloves.

“Surely you are not leaving, Sir Liam. We have business to discuss and—” A frown grooved the face he turned up to Liam. “Something is amiss?”

“Maynard is dead.”

He jerked back. “God’s eyes, Liam! How?”

“He rode his horse into a ravine last eve.”

“But he was a capable rider.”

Liam raised an eyebrow.

“Drunk again.” The knight snorted and shook his head, as disgusted with the Baron of Ashlingford in death as he had been with him in life. “’Twas you who found him in the ravine?”

“Nay, he climbed out and walked the distance himself.”

“Did he linger long?”

Liam turned aside the memory of his brother broken on his bed. “Long enough.”

John drew a breath that raised broadly muscled shoulders one would not expect on a man so short and narrow of hip. “Ah, he gave you a time of it.” He returned his attention to the removal of his gloves. “But ’tis done with. Thus, henceforth I must needs address you as
my lord.
”

There was only one whom Liam trusted as much as this knight—his steward, Sir Hugh—but he once more refused himself the expression of his anger. “Ashlingford is not mine. Not yet.”

The knight stilled. “How can that be?”

“Maynard has left behind a legitimate son.”

“Impossible. He cannot have wed without your knowledge. The banns—”

“May have been read at Rosemoor, where he wed, or not at all.”

John cursed beneath his breath. “A special license, then. Even so, we all know of his arrangement with you. He—”

“I ride south within the hour. Do you ride with me?”

“Of course, but what do you intend?”

“To take back what is mine.”

“William!”

Liam dragged on the reins, and the dozen men chosen to accompany him turned with him to face the interloper.

Just as the horse Ivo rode was too fine for a priest, the sword at his hip was misplaced. But it was all that Ivo was. Aged forty and nine, the once-handsome man lived life with God on his lips, warring on his mind, and greed in his heart—of the Church in name only.

“Have you not someone to bury?” Liam asked.

Ivo guided his destrier to the end of the drawbridge. The whites of his eyes and tip of his nose red with weeping, he said, “I do, but as your journey will not wait, neither will mine.”

“Go, then.”

Ivo’s smile was a twisted thing. “Ah, but I go with you.”

Then he would not first seek the coins Maynard had hidden? Since it was a considerable sum, it could only mean it was hidden well enough it could wait. “I do not require your priest’s services.”

The jewels of his crucifix catching light, Ivo said, “I do not offer them.”

Almighty,
Liam silently beseeched,
I am near to letting flood all I hold inside. Pray, calm this storm.

However, it was as much the unease of his men, who feared the letting of holy blood, that pulled him back. Reminding himself he was still lord to these men, even if only because of their loyalty to him, Liam said, “You are not needed.”

“’Tis to Rosemoor you go?”

“It is.”

“Then I shall ensure Maynard’s heir reaches Ashlingford alive.”

As if Liam would resort to murder! “You think he will not?” he growled.

“Many are the unfortunate accidents that befall children during travel.” Ivo lifted his palms heavenward. “I would but ensure none befall Oliver.”

“As I will not be traveling with him, your worries are unfounded. I go to Rosemoor to verify the child’s existence and the validity of Maynard’s marriage.”

“And then?”

“You are too learned to ask such a question, Uncle.”

“You will go to London to petition the king for the barony?”

Leaving Ivo’s question unanswered, Liam said, “Stay and bury your beloved nephew. No harm will come to the child.”

“Let us be certain, hmm?” Ivo urged his horse off the drawbridge.

Though tempted to overpower him and lock him in one of the gatehouse cells, Liam knew he would have to answer to the Church. Thus, the devil would join them.

“We ride!” Liam shouted and spurred his destrier ahead of the others.

CHAPTER TWO

“Do not touch.”

“Why?”

“It has thorns.” She fingered the base of the spine. “See?”

“Uh-huh.”

“If you catch your finger on it, ’twill hurt.”

“Why?”

“Because…” Joslyn sighed. “Ah, Oliver, I have told you before.”

“Tell me ’gain.”

She tapped his dirt-smudged nose with a gloved finger. “I will not, little man. Now along with you.”

He groaned and headed back across the garden.

“Take your bucket!”

He scooped it up and toted it back to the corner of the walled garden he had earlier abandoned, a patch of earth ravaged by numerous holes and heaps of dirt. Heaving a sigh clearly intended for his mother’s ears, he plopped down and set about dirtying those rare, clean inches of himself.

Joslyn smiled. From the top of his golden head to the small toes he curled into the soil, he was hers, every dear and dirty bit of him.

She turned back to the rosebush she had been transplanting when he had come to her with his endless questions. As she began to pack the roots, she became aware of something whose sound not only traveled on the air but was felt through the earth beneath her knees.

Horses. But why at such speed when it was not permitted within the village walls? Though none would speak against their lord making such a ride, never had her father done so—even when he was full up in his cups. Had something happened to warrant the urgency, something that returned him from London though he was not expected home until the morrow?

Joslyn pushed to her feet.

“Mama?” Oliver had also risen.

“’Tis naught. Remain here.”

“I come, too.”

“Nay, I will return in a moment.”

“But I want—”

“Stay, Oliver.”

His lower lip jutted, but he remained alongside his bucket.

Hoping he would not disobey, which he did fairly often since he had turned two years of age, Joslyn passed through the gate and walked to the front of the manor house.

Shading her eyes, she scanned the village, but all she saw were her neighbors leaving their homes to witness the cause of the din—as did the manor servants coming behind Joslyn.

Concluding the riders must be her father and his men bearing bad tidings, since others of such great number would have been turned away at the village gates, Joslyn lifted her skirts and stepped onto the green that well evidenced yesterday’s rainfall. She was a quarter of the way across when the riders appeared. Out of the village they came, turning onto the road leading to the manor.

She faltered. They were distant, but she could see it was not her father at the fore. Instead, the sun shone on one who sat taller in the saddle than was possible for Humphrey Reynard, one whose head was crowned with hair of red.