Authors: Carolyne Cathey
He gasped for a breath and rolled atop her, his arms as
stiff as his manhood that...that pressed into her femininity!
She jerked her gaze to his.
"’Tis
unwise
,
chérie."
Oh, heart. Come back where ‘tis safe.
Too late.
"Rochelle, I..."
She tensed for his rejection.
He thrust!
He caught her cry within his kiss.
He had consummated the marriage! Shocked, she held her
breath as the pain eased.
He slid his tongue against hers, moved his hips, slow,
steady, strong, stirring ribbons of new sensations--addictive
sensations--streaming and undulating throughout her body on rising currents of
heated passion.
"Fly, my precious falcon. Soar."
She left her body in chase of her heart, which rose
faster, higher than she dared follow.
"Fear not, my gyrfalcon. I will soar with you like
a winged Pegasus. We will sail as one to heights neither of us has ever
reached before."
Trapped between earth and eternity, she reached for her
heart that beat beyond a barrier she could not pass through, something like
warm glass, felt but not seen. And In the blackness past the barrier a distant
light glowed, beckoning her like a moth to a fiery destruction.
"I release your tether, my falcon. Fly with me.
Soar with me. The gyrfalcon and the stallion. As one. I’ll take you to the
moon from which you were created." He sounded as frantic as she felt.
And yet, ‘twas not the coolness of the moon she
craved. She longed for the burning sun of Becket. In purest faith, she clung
to his shoulders and moved with him, against him, rising higher with each
rhythmic thrust, pulling tighter against the invisible bond, pressing harder against
the glass, desperate to reach her heart racing toward the light.
"Let go of the tether, Rochelle. Soar.
Soar."
But the glass...
Trust him.
She released the bond. The glass shattered. She flew
beyond the stars and collided with her heart, then fell into the sun. A
keening cry tore from her throat.
He shuddered from the explosive flight, pulsing his
molten sunlight deep within her.
Enclosed in his heated embrace that had become her
world, she glided with him in languorous descent to the earth and into the soft
cloud of her featherbed.
The experience dazed her beyond comprehension, then as
intense sensations abated, she sighed from contentment. "I forgot to
offer you my foot."
He laughed, his tone thick with desire. "Then we
shall have to try again,
ma femme
."
#
His wife. He had called her his wife.
Returning from the garderobe, a still incredulous
Rochelle brushed the rushes from her bare soles. She let the silk robe as
black as Becket’s hair slide to the floor, then slipped in beside...beside her
husband. How wondrous a word. No, more than a word. A miracle. She, who had
once believed she wanted no man, now craved one very special man. Becket. She
snuggled against him for warmth.
Even though asleep, he turned and encircled her with
his body. How glorious the weight of his arm and leg across her, like a
heavenly prison she longed never to escape. With each of his breaths,
moonlight and firelight shifted and flickered over the sheen of his shoulder
and cradling arm. She absorbed the peaceful moment, wishing the sun would
never rise.
How might he feel about her now? Disappointed? His
curiosity sated? To her inexperienced heart he had seemed feral, barely
clinging to a forced control as if fearing he might hurt her, frighten her.
Had she imagined his sense of awe? Maybe he responded the same with all
women. Her stomach twisted with jealousy. She shook her head in silent rebuke.
The entire night seemed but a blur, yet she remembered every incredible
detail. But above all, one question haunted. Why had he bedded her?
"Why, Rochelle?"
She started, then gazed at his incredible face that
surely must have graced some brave Roman soldier in centuries past, a face
covered with worry. "Why, what?"
"Why did you allow the seduction?"
How should she respond? Serious, confessing her love?
No, too soon. Lighthearted and teasing, assuring him he had made the right
decision? Oh, dear heart, what to do?
Dear heart.
Of course! Answer
as had Angelique when testing men’s moods of how much to reveal.
Rochelle attempted a flirtatious smile and tweaked his
nose. "How could you not know,
mon
mari
?
Surely you guessed long ago."
He recoiled as if struck, his eyes blazing with hurt
anger as he gripped her wrist, forcing her hand from his face. "What I
guessed long ago is that you will suffer aught to remain at DuBois, even to my
bedding you. What a fool I am. I hoped..." He rolled away from her to
rise.
"You misinterpret!" Cursing herself for her
horrific blunder, she grappled for his arm of warm steel. "
Oui
,
you are a fool if you cannot see how I feel about you. How can you not know
that I--"
"Murder!" A scream ripped the night and along
Rochelle’s spine.
Someone hammered on the door. "She’s dead."
Sire Becket leapt to open the door, the linen sheet
wrapped around his waist.
A silhouetted Lady Isabelle stood in the opening.
"Lady Anne is dead. Poisoned." She pointed to Rochelle.
"By your wife."
C
HAPTER
T
WENTY-ONE
"
L
ady Anne is dead?"
Rochelle hastily donned her robe and scrambled to her feet, the rushes
prickling her soles like the dread that prickled her nape.
"You play not well the innocent, Lady
Rochelle." Isabelle shoved past Sire Becket and into the chamber, her
gray-streaked hair in a wild tumble about her shoulders.
Becket caught his mother’s arm. "Lady Rochelle
lay here with me."
"Which shows you, the fool."
Rochelle closed her eyes, sickened by his mother’s
choice of words that echoed Sire Becket’s. Surprised he hadn’t immediately
denounced her, Rochelle glanced at him in apprehension of his certain reaction.
With a slow purpose that she recognized as controlled
anger, Sire Becket shut the door, then leaned his back against the wood, ankles
crossed, arms folded over his dawn-tinged chest that Rochelle ached to explore
again, a wantonness she feared he might now forbid. No, she would make him
understand she loved him.
But first...
Rochelle strode toward her accuser. "I fathom
what you attempt, Lady Isabelle. Despite what Sire Becket wrongly believes
about me, he knows killing is not of my nature."
"He’s blinded by lust. And you are well capable
of murder. You are polluted by Gaston’s blood."
Sire Becket’s scoff trembled as if with repressed rage,
but whether at her or his mother, Rochelle didn’t know.
"And thanks be to you,
ma mère,
I am
polluted by Reynaurd’s."
"I chose Reynaurd with care: Cunning; strength;
shrewdness, qualities necessary for you, the next master of DuBois."
"A bastard."
"Only one other knows. Your wife. The
murderess. Do away with her and your secret is safe."
"She could not have murdered Lady Anne. Rochelle
lay with me." Sire Becket straightened to a stand.
Rochelle stared, stunned that he had not grasped at any
excuse to indict her in front of his mother. And yet, maybe he but opted for
privacy before he…what? What would he do?
He opened the door and motioned to Lady Isabelle.
"Await me in the great hall. You will tell me all you know about the evil
bargain which culminated in Alberre’s death, the man whom I’ve always believed
as my father. No threats. The truth."
His mother shook off Sire Becket’s hold. "If you
seek the truth, ask your wife about her presence in Lady Anne’s and my chamber
less than one mark past on the candle."
"’Tis falsehood! I never entered your
chamber." Rochelle glanced at Becket then stilled, frozen by the hardness
in his expression. "Sire, surely you don’t believe her."
He shifted his attention to his mother. "Forgive
me if I am slow to accept your accusations,
ma mère
. Your credibility
has been dashed by your recent revelations."
"Heed me, son. A sound awakened me. In my
drowsiness I saw movement. Hair as white as snow reflected dying embers. A
robe as black as the shadows covered her body. The robe she now wears."
Sire Becket slammed his gaze into Rochelle’s, scanning
her from head to toe. "Did you leave the chamber while I slept?"
"Well I...merely to go to the garderobe."
His mother laughed, hard and vicious. "As flimsy
a lie as your marriage. The sunrise glints off the chamber pot that sits
beneath your bed. Yet you tell me you trod dark, draft-chilled halls to sit
upon cold stone when you could have relieved yourself in comfort?"
"I am unused to a husband within my
chambers."
"You’ve been wed before." Isabelle turned
her back on Rochelle as if dismissing her. "Ask yourself this, son. Who
else would wish Lady Anne dead? Who else has that robe? That hair?"
"Wait below." Becket urged his mother into
the opening. Fury vibrated in his tone, and this time Rochelle had no doubt
his anger was directed at her, not Lady Isabelle. How to persuade him
otherwise?
The thud of the shut door sounded with the thud of
Rochelle’s heart.
"Sire Becket--"
"
Cease
."
He
tossed aside the linen and jerked on his hose, covering his powerful legs which
had moved him so rhythmically, so exhaustively inside her that she still
throbbed from the intimacy.
She stepped toward him. "Husband--"
"Your threat, rather innocent at the time, repeats
in mockery inside my head."
"My threat?"
"That you would not allow Lady Anne to have
me." He pulled on his jupon without even donning the underlayer.
"You misinterpret again. I merely meant to seduce
her from your mind. But even so, we had already consummated the vows, thus I
had no reason to kill her."
"You also expressed concern that I might still
send you to a convent and
then
wed Lady Anne." He buckled on his
sword as he strode to the door.
"Sire Becket, side not against me."
"Death has no side. Except permanency." He
paused, hand on handle, his attention locked on her like a vigilant predator.
"You have denied the killing. I must decide whether truth or lie."
"As God is my witness, I did not kill her."
"God is witness to innumerable atrocities, many
committed in His name. And yet He does naught. I thought at first He merely
cared not. Then when a lad of nine, I learned the bitter truth. God does not
exist."
"He exists for me."
"Then we are both fools."
The slam of the door reverberated within her soul. She
stared at the closed wooden panel, a representation of the barrier between her
and Becket, thick and impenetrable. His mother obviously lied in order to
shove him over the edge of suspicion so that he would rid the world of
Rochelle. His mother obviously didn’t know of Rochelle’s determination.
Refusing surrender, she faced the sunrise, a sign of
hope, of life reborn.
"Somehow, some way, husband, I will convince you I
did not murder Lady Anne. I will convince you that I love you."
Why
had she not told him before now? The miserable timing of her confession would
prod him to believe she merely lied for convenience.
And yet, he would
claim there were many reasons for her to lie about loving him.
Wondering how to accomplish the impossible, Rochelle
donned her gown now rumpled from a night on the rushes. Still, ‘twas
preferable to her old faded ones. Smoothing the wrinkles with her hands, Rochelle
dashed down the spiral steps past the floor where Lady Anne reclined in eternal
repose. Laments of the wailers followed Rochelle down the steps to the great
hall like cries of accusations. As chatelaine Rochelle should join them, but
she had a life to save. Hers.
Sire Becket stood before the fire in the great hall,
head down, as if all the sins of the world weighed on his shoulders. His
mother paced beside him, mouth moving in scoldings beyond Rochelle’s hearing,
her finger pointed for emphasis.
Rochelle moved to his wine steward who stood at the
sideboard pouring the DuBois elixir into a tankard. Praying for Divine
guidance, she selected a container and carried the drink toward Sire Becket.
Rochelle heard Lady Isabelle prate about,
"evil," "poison," and "Anne," and knew what
accusations filled in-between. As she neared, the lecture became more
distinct.
"When Lady Anne’s father..." His mother
turned and Rochelle lost the words. Lady Isabelle paced the other way, then
turned again. "...king hears of this, all may be lost. But if you serve
punishment, you may avert disaster." She stopped to face him. "If
you lack courage and allow her to live, Lady Rochelle will soon discover your
secrets. After her certain betrayal you will realize your
faux pas,
but
too late. I tell you--"
Rochelle’s foot scraped on a hearthstone.
Sire Becket whirled to face her.
Lady Isabelle stepped between them. "What do you
here?" She threw Becket a glare. "You did not lock her in her
chamber? Like with all men, your sense is rooted between your legs."
Sire Becket moved his mother aside. "Leave
us."
"She merely uses you."
"I said, leave us."
Rochelle faltered. Had he made his decision about her
fate? So soon? The wine rippled from her tremors.
Lady Isabelle stormed past Rochelle’s view, but
Rochelle wagered his mother stayed within spying distance.
Shaking like a newborn lamb about to be slaughtered,
she lifted the tankard. "For you, Sire. To ease your troubles."
Sire Becket stared at the tankard, then at her,
brooding, suspicious.
He believed her guilty! He feared she might have
poisoned the wine. Pain sliced through her chest. Feeling as if her life
vanished along with the sand in the hourglass, Rochelle fell to her knees.
"Despite my vow never to kneel at your feet, Sire,
I do so now. I beg you, husband. Believe me."
"Aid me, Rochelle. Convince me of your innocence."
"If I were the murderous kind, I would have slain
Marcel when he beat me, but I did not."
"Yet, he is dead."
"By brigands!"
"Hired by you? And who poisoned Lord Reynaurd?
Who released Gaston? You would suffer aught to remain at DuBois, even to
bedding me, so why not murder? Besides, if not you, then who? Who else has
motive? Who else has hair as pale as yours? Convince me, damn you!"
Did he know that each implication ravaged a part of
her? And yet, she had known he would destroy her.
"Sire, there is naught I can say as proof. Except
that I..." She clutched the tankard, the sweet fragrance of the wine at
odds with the catastrophe. She gazed up at him, his splendid face blurred by
her welling tears.
"
Je t’aime, mon mari.
The
timing of my confession is suspect, I know. And ‘tis not irrefutable evidence
of my innocence, but nevertheless I lay open my soul to you, for ‘tis not wine
I offer you but my heart. You have the power to embrace or to slay, for if you
allow me life but love me not, I will die inside. I repeat, my husband. I
love you."
A pained look slashed across his expression. He lifted
his hands toward the tankard as if tempted, then fisted them at his sides.
"I prove you in error." Fighting tears, she
lifted the rim to her lips.
"Cease!" Sire Becket ripped the container
from her grasp and flung the offering into the fire. Before the clay had a
chance to shatter he pulled her to her feet. "I could not abide your
death. ‘Twould destroy me." He winced as if he had confessed more than
he intended.
"But ‘twas poured by your steward."
Hardness replaced his fear. "Never again take the
risk. Trust no one."
Startled by his opposites of concern and rancor, she
looked into his dark eyes but he hid his emotions.
"Sire Becket, you must believe me. When I said
you must have guessed long ago, I meant that, surely, you knew I loved you. In
truth, I wonder if you did not steal my heart from the moment you first stepped
through the doorway, sheathed in fire-reflected armor and dark mysteries."
"My suspicions whisper you would lie, even about
this, in order to remain at DuBois. And yet my soul... "
He groaned. Then before she could draw breath, he
crushed her against his body, covering her mouth with his, hungry, tasting,
claiming. Desire poured from his kiss and throughout her body. She sank
against him, allowing, no, encouraging his mastery.
"Fool!" His mother’s voice rang in derision.
Rochelle returned the kiss, harder, wilder, desperate
to shut out the world that sought to tear them apart.
"Release her!" Pierre’s command filtered through
her haze.
"Sacre bleu
. The little
hellion." Sire Becket spun, then stilled as if turned to stone.
Pierre flailed and kicked, his arms and legs blurs of
angry blows. Sire Spitz clung onto Pierre’s shoulder, spitting and swiping at
Becket with bared claws.
"Pierre, cease!" Rochelle reached out, but
Sire Becket barred her with his arm, the rest of him as immovable as the stone
walls.
"The upstart." Lady Isabelle rushed toward
them. "Have him flogged."
"Leave him!" Sire Becket waved her away.
As if confused by Becket’s behavior, Pierre stepped
back, fists on hips, black eyes flashing, the image of defiance.
The image of Becket.
Not
her
half-brother, but Becket’s. Reynaurd
had sired them both – with Lady Isabelle that produced Becket, and with the
peasant woman that resulted in Pierre.
The loss pulled a hole in her spirit. And yet, how
could she not have seen? How could she not have known from first glance? How
could all not see?