Linda Barlow (2 page)

"You did your best," he said to Tom Comstock, his surgeon and one of his oldest friends.

"In such cases the physician's arts are useless. One day, perhaps, 'twill not be so."

"Aye." She looked so young, much younger than her age. An innocent virgin who had been entrusted to his care.

But Celestine de Montreau had proved neither innocent nor a virgin.

"Her family? You know 'em, I believe?"

"Her parents are dead. There's a grandmother in Marseilles, and her brother Geoffrey is attached to the French embassy in Stamboul. He's an old acquaintance of mine." Roger stopped, then slowly added, "An enemy now, I fear. 'Twas he who asked me to see his sister safely home." Roger's voice dropped to a whisper. "He wanted me to protect her, not seduce her. Not get my bastard upon her."

"If it was your bastard," Comstock said with more cynicism than was typical of him.

Roger had accepted Celestine’s insistence that the child had been his, although it was possible, he supposed, that she had lied. It was no matter now. Certainly his amorous activities with the girl had been more than sufficient to engender the tiny life that had ended up killing her.

"I did this," he said. "It’s my sin, my flaw, my fault."

Tom did not reply, and Roger took his silence for condemnation. There was a perverse pleasure in knowing himself condemned, particularly by as tolerant a man as Tom. It was no less than he deserved. "If I had honored her brother’s trust and refrained from indulging myself, she would be alive today."

"You take too much upon yourself. You always have. Come, let's get out of here. You need some fresh air and a few swigs of aqua vitae."

"I ought to grieve for her."

Comstock pursed his lips.

"Why can't I grieve for her?"

"Perhaps if I leave you alone?"

Roger shook his head. He stared again at the thick blonde lashes that lay against Celestine's bloodless white skin. Bloodless. She had bled internally, Tom had said. Her lifeblood had drained from her veins to her abdominal cavity, and there was no way he could stop it, nothing he could do.

"It’s not right." He jolted as one of the ship’s cats wandered into the cabin and butted its head against his leg. Absently, he picked up the cat in his arms and petted it. It felt comforting, somehow. The cat began to purr. "She ought to have a long life ahead of her, a husband, children. She would have had those things, if not for me."

"Enough." Tom Comstock urged him away from the deathbed. "You're in a fine state. 'Tis understandable, given the circumstances, but I mistrust you, all the same. On second thought, I'm not leaving you alone."

Roger hardly heard him. He was thinking of Celestine, laughing huskily, tossing her golden head as she ran her fingers over his naked chest. "I, a maid?" she'd murmured. "Did my silly Geoffrey tell you that? Ah, but of course he did." She seemed to think it was the greatest jest in the world. "My brother doesn't know me. You know me, do you not, Roger?" Her hands moved lower on his body, arousing him with her clever, expert caresses until he pressed her down beneath him and thrust deeply into her perfect, wanton body. "Oh yes," she'd laughed when he brought them both to pleasure. "I think we understand each other very well."

He fancied that Celestine's cold lips were curved now, smiling still. As if she knew something he did not. He was pricked with a needle of superstitious dread. He cuddled the cat a little closer. "Evil will come of this," he said as Tom coaxed him out, up on deck, into the sun.

Comstock silently made the sign of the cross.

Part I

England, August 1556

Reason is the greatest enemy that faith has: it never comes to the aid of spiritual things, but—more frequently than not—struggles against the divine Word, treating with contempt all that emanates from God.

—Martin Luther

Chapter 1

Alexandra Douglas knelt in the sanctuary of the small Norman church where Will Trevor, oldest son and heir to the Baron of Whitcombe, had been buried two months ago. She prayed aloud for his soul, using the familiar Latin prayers, not caring if anyone heard her, defiantly wishing that someone would. Her fingers were so tightly clasped together, her bones showed.

After a few minutes of unconsoling prayers, Alexandra reminded herself that Will's grave was no place to indulge in angry passions. Anger couldn't do Will any good now. She should have been angrier, and more determined, when he was still alive.

On his deathbed, Will had asked for a priest, and Alexandra considered it monstrous that his request had been denied. She, his betrothed, had been leaning over his bed, sponging his forehead and talking nonstop in an effort to get him to respond. He had been unconscious ever since his accident three days before, but when he'd unexpectedly opened his eyes and muttered the word "priest," she had rushed out to inform his father. Outside the chamber where the baron had secluded himself in grief, Alexandra met Francis Lacklin, the Calvinist heretic who had recently converted the baron and most of his household to the reformed beliefs.

"You must have misheard," he said upon learning of Will's request.

"I heard perfectly. Will used to tell me often enough that he wasn't confirmed in his heresy. If he's decided to recant on his deathbed, he must be allowed to do so."

"Aye, to be sure, if such is really his desire," Lacklin agreed. He spoke in his usual measured tones. "But poor Will has been as blank as death itself for three days. How could he possibly have taken such an important decision?"

Alexandra pushed an unruly lock of red hair out of her eyes and glared at him. He was a big man, tall and broad-shouldered with cold silver-gray eyes. In many ways, he was an intimidating man. But Alexandra was not easily put off.

"Do you call me a liar, Mr. Lacklin? Are you so determined to convert the entire Trevor household that you would disregard the last request of a dying man?"

"You are distracted, mistress." Lacklin put one arm around her shoulders and drew her toward a bench. "Come sit down for few moments. This is a difficult time for all of us, but particularly for you. Will you pray with me?"

His voice was sympathetic, but she didn't trust him. Ever since their first meeting a few weeks before, she had believed him insincere. She suspected that it was not spiritual grace that inspired him as much as ordinary earthly ambition. Pulling away, she said, "I don't require comforting yet, thank you. You will pardon me. I'm going in to his father."

She did so while Mr. Lacklin hurried to Will's bedside. But the baron had broken irrevocably with the Papist Church, and he refused to summon the parish priest. Later that night Will Trevor died while Francis Lacklin solemnly read from his heretical English translation of the Holy Scriptures beside the silent bed.

Staring around at the denuded altar and the bare walls of the ancient chapel, Alexandra wished she had simply run without permission to fetch the priest. Surely they wouldn't have refused the holy father admittance. Although he had spoken only that one word, Will had clearly desired to die with the rites of the Church. It had been her duty to help him. If God was as strict and narrow in his judgments as people were, poor Will might be burning in hell for her failure.

She had failed him in so many ways. She had known him since childhood and loved him as a brother, but she had not wanted to be his wife. Of the three Trevor brothers, he was her least favorite. But, being the eldest, he was the one who had been chosen to be her husband. She would have much preferred to marry Roger, the second son, or even Alan, the youngest.

Guiltily, Alexandra stared at the slab of stone that covered the entrance to the Trevor family crypt. The absence of dust in the cracks around the stone proved that it had recently been lifted, but there was nothing else to indicate Will's passing. His name had not yet been added to the list of Trevor dead on the tablet over the altar, and no comfortable verse had been selected to commemorate his short life. The most recent inscription had been carved ten years ago in 1546 for Catherine Trevor, first wife of the baron and mother of Will, Roger, and Alan.

A vivid memory of Lady Catherine's funeral came back to her. Everybody from miles around had mourned her. The church had been packed with all the family, friends and retainers from Whitcombe Castle, the nearby village, and the Douglas manor. No one had stayed away for fear of attending a heretical ceremony; along with most of the great families in the north of England, the Trevors had been loyal to the Church of Rome in those days.

The chapel that had been divested of all the trappings of popery for Will's burial had been a different place ten years ago. The altar had breathed incense; the gold crucifix, shining Communion plate, and flowing garments of the priests had suggested a rich life of the spirit that struck a dramatic contrast to the dark and fleeting life of the body. Indeed, the occasion had seemed more a celebration of eternity than a time of mourning. At least until Roger's outburst.

Alexandra remembered standing on tiptoe next to her parents to see over the back of the pew when her friend and adored playmate Roger Trevor had leapt up to the altar and accused his father of killing his mother. He had, according to Roger, thrown Lady Catherine over the cliff at Thorncroft Overhang, where she had died. The congregation had gasped at this outrageous and ill-founded charge, but Alexandra had longed to join Roger up there, screaming in fury at the bitter power of death, blaming the adults around them for letting such a terrible thing happen.

Will had not indulged in rages over their mother's death. Unlike Roger, Will had never seemed particularly emotional.

Poor Will. She imagined him lying frozen for all time amid the bones of his ancestors, his pleasant face forever blanked, his strong and sturdy body eroding into dust. She imagined herself reclining on a stony bier beside him, as she would have done someday if she had become his wife. The chill of death rose up from below, and she shivered, wishing she had worn a warmer cloak. She wondered if Will's shade could see her kneeling here and if he now knew that she had loved him as a brother only. She had not wished to lie beside him ever, alive or dead.

Bowing her head, she began again to pray. She prayed so hard that she did not notice the stream of light that briefly poured down the center aisle of the church as the main doors opened quietly and closed. Not until the whisper of boot leather on stone came near did she hear and lift her head to stare into the gloomy nave.

A man was walking toward the altar, but in the shadows, she could not make him out. He was tall, as Will had been, and he moved slowly. She swallowed hard. Will had died with his sins unexpiated. What if he was not at rest? What if he had returned to reproach her for her lack of love, desire, and determination? She trod on the hem of her skirts as she jerked to her feet. Ghosts, she told herself firmly, do not make a practice of marching around in churches in the middle of the day.

At her movement, the figure in the nave stopped, and their eyes met in the dimness. He had a stare that reached out and grabbed her, so full of life and energy were his dark eyes. This was a living, breathing man, she realized, as his voice rang out across the distance that remained between them.

"Forgive me if I've disturbed your meditations, madam," he said, approaching once again. "I didn't expect to find anybody here."