Authors: Blackheart
Why did he no longer call her Isolde in Lissant's presence? Had he called her Juliana on the day past? Aye, when he'd told the midwife to spare her over their child, revealing his feelings for her ere he'd spoken them.
"I am sore and tired," she answered, venturing a smile that was not returned, "but the midwife says I shall recover fully."
He halted alongside the bed. " 'Tis as she told me. The child continues to do well?"
The child,
not
my son.
Her misgivings lurched. Though the midwife had told her Gabriel had walked the babe last eve, had held him long into the night, he thought the child's early birth meant he was of Bernart. True, it was as Juliana had tried to convince him these past months, but no more could she lie to him. Once they were alone, he would know the truth.
"Your son"
—she emphasized the words—"is hale and satisfied, my lord. You would hold him again?"
From the darkening of his face, he either did not like the child to be named his, or had not wanted her to know he'd held him. Likely both. He leaned down and lifted the bundle from her. As he settled the babe close to his chest, he glanced at the little one. Though he looked quickly away, emotion struggled across his face, causing him to look again. Jaw softening, he drew a finger across the backs of their son's hands.
Relief eased Juliana against the pillows.
"Lissant," Gabriel summoned.
The maid dropped her needlework and hastened forward. "My lord?"
"Deliver the babe to the donjon."
Dread wended through Juliana. Regardless of his profession of love—mayhap she had only imagined it?—he would take their child from her as he'd vowed. Even though he might not believe he was the father.
Gabriel passed the infant to the maid. "A cradle has been placed in Lady Juliana's chamber."
"Nay!" Juliana labored up from the pillows and grasped Gabriel's sleeve. "Pray, do not—"
"Go," he ordered Lissant.
The maid passed a look of apprehension to Juliana, but turned to the door.
A hole opened up within Juliana. "Do not take him from me, Gabriel!"
He came back around and laid a hand over hers where she gripped his arm. "I do not." His voice was not unkind. "You shall be together again shortly."
Did he speak true? She searched his face, and found there only what looked to be sorrow.
"If you are ready," he said, "I shall carry you to your chamber."
He did love her. Though he might not speak it again, she was in his heart. She nodded. "I am ready."
He reached forward and tugged the bodice of her chemise over her exposed breast.
Strange, but she felt no embarrassment at having bared herself—as if she belonged to him. And in her heart, she did.
He pulled the coverlet up to her chin, then gently lifted her from the bed.
She winced at the discomfort between her thighs. "I have hurt you?"
She shook her head and took a breath of his scent that she would recognize among a hundred men—nay, a thousand. "I am tender, 'tis all."
His gaze held hers, then drifted to her mouth, and for a moment she thought he might kiss her. Instead he turned to the door.
Not until they ascended the steps of the donjon amid the soft flutter of snowflakes did Juliana break the oppressive silence. "Before Lissant you called me Juliana."
His gaze did not waver from their ascent. "I did."
"Why not Isolde?"
"Because you are no longer she." His jaw tensed. "You are Lady Juliana Kinthorpe... of Tremoral."
A chill swept her. Did he mean to return her to Bernart? And what of their son? Desperation gripped her. "I must speak to you about Bernart."
He stepped past the porter who held the door, then glanced at her. "What is there to speak of?"
"More than you can know."
"Not here."
"Then my chamber."
As he carried her through the hall, Juliana was struck by the changes there. True, the great hall was not grand, but in her absence the blackened walls had been painted and the hole in the far wall repaired.
She smiled—until Gabriel started up the stairs that resounded with their son's cries.
No sooner did they step within the chamber than Lissant rushed forward. "He will not be quieted, my lord." She gestured to the cradle from which the cries issued. "Methinks he wishes his mother."
"Or his father," Juliana said.
Mouth pinched, Gabriel stepped past the cradle and lowered her to the bed.
"Bring me our son, Gabriel," she said as he straightened; then to Lissant, she added, "I must speak with Lord De Vere in private."
The maid nodded, backed out the door, and closed it.
Gabriel stared at her absence, then bent and lifted the babe from the cradle. Without pause, he passed the fitful bundle to Juliana.
"There," she crooned, but the babe would not be calmed.
Gabriel turned toward the door.
"Do not leave," Juliana called above the cries. "Stay and hear what I have to tell."
He held his back to her, but finally came around.
It took several minutes for the babe to calm, but at last he hiccuped, nestled against her breast, and lowered his lids.
Juliana looked up and found Gabriel's gaze upon their son. "You will sit beside me?"
He widened his stance. "I shall not stay long. What have you to tell, Lady Juliana?"
His purposeful use of
lady,
though they were now alone, further distanced him—as if they had not come together in the dark of night, cried aloud their passion, made a child of it. As if she did and ever would belong to Bernart. She struggled for words. In the end, it was the babe who gave her a means of revealing the truth. "What shall we name him, Gabriel?"
His nostrils flared. " 'Tis not for me to do."
Then he did believe the child was born of Bernart. "Very well, I shall name him." She looked to their son and kissed his smooth brow. "You shall be called Gabrien in honor of your father."
Gabriel drew a sharp breath. "Do you not mean Bernart?"
She met his fiery gaze. "Never could he be called such, for Bernart did not father him. 'Twas you, Gabriel."
He grunted, strode to the shuttered window, and stood darkly silent. Then he returned and put his menacing bulk over her. "These past months you have denied my fathering of this child. Why now that you are proven right do you claim otherwise? What games play you?"
She swallowed. "Upon my life, I play no games. Had you come to me these past weeks as I five times asked, I would have told you the truth."
"What truth?"
"The night you brought me to the tower, you asked that I trust you."
His brow lightened slightly. "I did—and you did not."
"I do now. I should have then." She closed her eyes, drew strength from the warm bundle pressed to her side, and opened her eyes to Gabriel's harsh gaze. " 'Twas Bernart who sent me to you at Tremoral. Bernart who so longed for a son he set his virgin wife to steal his enemy's seed."
Disbelief stormed Gabriel's face, but before he could vent it, she hastened to ask, "Did you not see maiden's blood upon the sheets the morning after the first night I came to you?"
Gabriel felt as if slammed into a wall. Bernart had sent her to his bed? Inconceivable. To steal a child from him? Outrageous. Juliana a virgin? Try though he had to forget his second and third nights with her, the first had been dimmed by too much drink. Still, the following morning there had been blood on himself and the sheets. " 'Twas surely your monthly flux."
She shook her head. " 'Tis as I prayed you would believe, but it was not."
A fire burned Gabriel's belly. "Such fantastic lies you weave, Juliana Kinthorpe. Why?"
Tears glistened in her eyes, and her lips trembled. "Did I leave blood the following nights?"
Her demand gave him pause. " 'Twas surely the end of your flux."
"God's mercy, think I could not have—"
Her raised voice caused the babe to whine.
Flushed with remorse, she patted him and put soothing words to his ears. When finally he quieted, she looked up. "Know you naught of a woman's cycle, Gabriel?"
He frowned.
"Had the blood been of my flux, I could not have been pregnant with this child by Bernart, as you believe. Had it been of my flux, 'twould have been at least another sennight until my time of breeding."
He was staggered, and had to step back to hold his balance. Though not ignorant of a woman's cycle, he'd not considered it.
"This child is yours." She touched the babe's head. "Ours."
He pinned his gaze to the one Juliana had named Gabrien, and could not breathe for the realization he was a father. This was his son. Theirs. And only moments before he had ached in the knowledge he must return mother and child to Bernart. If not for the rest of what Juliana had told, he would have reveled.
He met her waiting gaze. " 'Tis not to be believed that for three years you were wed to Bernart and he left you untouched. Why would a man who had you slake his thirst on another? On Nesta? More, why would he send one he prized above all to an enemy he hated to the devil?"
When finally Juliana spoke, it was so softly he had to strain to hear. "As Bernart had no knowledge of me these past three years, neither had he knowledge of any other, as he would have you believe. He could not have."
Something darkened Gabriel's soul, something he did not wish to acknowledge.
"It goes back to Acre when he went over the wall," she continued. Another silence. "He was set upon by Muslim soldiers, by their hand done an unspeakable injury." A tear slipped to her cheek. " 'Tis seen in his limp. What is not seen—what he lets none see—is the loss of his manhood."
Gabriel's soul went black. Bernart emasculated? He swung away. "It cannot be." But it was. It was! He knew it as surely as he breathed.
"He was the most beautiful of men," Juliana said, a sob in her voice. "Think you he would willingly allow himself to deteriorate so?"
"Enough!" Gabriel raised his fists, squeezing them so tight his arms trembled. Now he knew that which he had not fully understood—Bernart's bottomless hate. But was it deserved?
Behind him, he heard the babe fret, and Juliana's hushed words. He closed his eyes, seeing again that day at Acre, then the night. As he had asked himself a thousand times since, would it have been different had he not—
"Gabriel." A hand touched his shoulder.
He spun around. Juliana was before him, the babe laid in the cradle beyond. She swayed, the effort to rise draining her color.
"What do you out of bed?" he said with a growl, and swept her against his chest.
She wrapped her arms around his neck, holding tight as he carried her to the bed. "You are not to blame," she said, seeking the gaze he denied her. " 'Twould have been the same had you not convinced the others of their foolishness in joining him, the same had you gone after him."
He
had
gone after him, but to no end. He laid her down, but she gripped his shoulders.
It would take little to break her hold on him, but he would not risk harming her. "Loose me," he commanded.
"Only do you sit beside me that we might speak."
Though he knew there was more to tell, he longed to take leave of this chamber that he might battle the demons clambering for a foothold on his soul.
"I beseech you," she pleaded.
He met her velvet gaze so near his, yearned to go into her eyes and dwell there. But it would be short reprieve. Still there would be Bernart. "If 'tis what you wish," he said begrudgingly.
"I wish it." She loosed her hands, pulling them down his chest.
Aching where she touched him, he drew back. "I shall stand."
Mouth grimming, she nodded and settled back among the pillows. "Ask your questions." She folded her hands atop the soft mound that remained of her pregnancy. "I shall answer all."
He peered out of the darkness within. "Knowing Bernart could never be a husband to you, why did you wed him?"
Her lips compressed. "Not until after our vows were spoken did he tell of the injury done him. On our wedding night."
Anger surged over Gabriel's guilt, swept it under.
Curse Bernart's selfishness!
He had known Juliana would not shame him by annulling the marriage on the grounds that he could not consummate. How it must have pained her. How it must have shattered her illusions of love. How it must have hurt to know that never would she bear him children. On that last, he ground his jaw. " 'Tis true he sent you to steal a child from me?"
A breath shuddered from her. "Aye, to silence talk that his lack of an heir proved he was as his brother."
Remembering Bernart's fervent hatred of his sibling, Gabriel could guess the desperation his old friend must have felt. But to steal a child from another? To claim as his own one born of the enemy? "Why me, Juliana? Why not another?"
Her smile was bitter. "Revenge twists men, makes of them what they were not intended to be. So it was with Bernart. He determined to take from you that which he believed you had stolen from him."
Gabriel could not conceive of such madness. Aye, madness! Regardless the loss of Bernart's manhood, what else could so ail his mind?
"Too," she whispered, "he chose you for the hate I bore you."
He frowned.
As if she grew cold, she dragged the coverlet up her chest. "Bernart believed 'twould hold me from you, that I would feel naught but revulsion. He could not bear that more than a child might come of our joining."
Had more come of it? In spite of the guilt and self-loathing that attempted to overcome his anger toward Bernart, he wondered if she felt for him what he felt for her. "Was it hate that caused you to do as he bade?"
"Nay."
"Love?"
A pained laugh parted her lips. "Love..." She rubbed a hand down the side of her face. "Even had my feelings for him not died long before, never could I love one who demanded such of me." She shook her head. "Nor did I come to your bed to secure my place at Tremoral. 'Twas for Alaiz I did it. Had I refused Bernart, he would have turned her out to wander the countryside. That I could not allow—no matter my sacrifice."