Authors: Carolyne Cathey
"You merely attempt to placate me because of your
misguided love for Rochelle."
"I am to blame!" Giselle snatched Pierre and
Sire Spitz from Becket’s embrace, her cheeks tinged red from anger.
"I expect as much from you." Becket
shrugged. "You are her mother. There is naught you can say or do--"
"Fool! In proof she did not betray you..."
Giselle reached down the neckline of her bodice and pulled out--
"The brooch." Doubt escaped him on a
whisper. "One of her few treasures."
Giselle shook the carved pin in front of his face in a
silvery blur. "Rochelle demanded I sell this to use for food and shelter
while Pierre and I waited in Toulouse, but I insisted on being here. Not
having anyplace to leave Pierre, I brought him with us. Your stubborn pride
blinds you to the truth."
Guilt slammed like a boulder into Becket’s righteous
indignation. He had brutally wronged Rochelle. To add to his sins, he had
compared her to his mother, then had further degraded her by insisting she
serve him to slake his lust. Most cruel of all, he had played upon her worst
fears by assuring her that any child of hers would bear Gaston’s evil.
Desperate to make amends, Becket turned to beg her forgiveness.
Empty! The spot stood empty! A void larger than the
universe--save for the damning emptiness within his soul.
C
hapter
F
orty
"
C
urse me for loving him!" Tears
dimming her vision, Rochelle stumbled as she scrambled up the hillside to her
mare, reminded of when she had stumbled up the stairs at DuBois after refusing
to swear fealty to Becket. If she had knelt at that moment, might he now trust
her? Love her? If she had accepted his country loyalty, honored Prince Edward
as her liege lord, insisted Giselle take Pierre to Toulouse...
Gaston’s daughter...descendent of evil...a truth she
can never change for eternity.
A sob tore from her throat. The fiery war for the
throne seemed insignificant in comparison to the burning regret that scorched
her soul.
"Rochelle!" Becket’s distant shout echoed
from the torch-dappled gorge.
"Oh dear God, help me!" Her fingers shook as
she fumbled to loosen Falcon’s reins. She swiped the hot liquid from her eyes
so as to better see the tangled leather. A glow burnished the horizon and she
willed the sun to rise. No, she needed the darkness to aid her escape to the
nunnery, and damn the irony.
"Rochelle!"
Closer
.
Heart pounding, Rochelle shoved her toe into the
stirrup and mounted. Falcon sidestepped, anxious, as if absorbing her
wretchedness and rebelling.
"Rochelle! Where are you?"
He’s just below the rim!
Desperate to reach the other side of the path before
Becket saw her, she jerked on the reins. Falcon leapt into a gallop.
"Rochelle!" Topping the rise in front of
her, Becket scanned the madness as if in a wild search for her, his magnificent
body clothed only in breeches and blood, virility and power. A warrior.
Her heart lurched. Heaven help her, but she loved
him. Enough to leave him. She forced Falcon to swerve a wide path.
"Rochelle!" Becket leapt, grabbing the
reins. Falcon jerked to a skittish stop.
"Let me go!"
"Rochelle, forgive me!"
"For the truth?"
"The truth is that I love you. You love me."
He loved her!
Her pulse surged with
the confession she longed for more than her own life, as did cruel reality.
"The truth is that I am Gaston’s daughter. The
truth is that I will not be with you and not have you as husband, and I will
not bear your child." She yanked on the reins. Falcon reared! She
flailed for her mare’s mane. A strong vise encircled her waist. She slid from
Falcon’s back and against a wall of temptation.
"Release me!" She shoved away from the man
she loved more than her own happiness. "I lose all my reason when you
touch me."
"I lose mine when I cannot."
He spun her to face him, the heat from his hands
bolting throughout her frigid body like a battering ram against her defenses.
"Truth is but a layered sphere of truths. The
only one that matters is the one at the core. Our love."
"You must sire an heir! England will allow Pierre
to inherit should they win, but France will not. Find a woman, any woman but
me, for I am from Gaston. ‘Tis a brutal fact that will haunt me until the
afterlife."
"You are from God! You are from Giselle. You are
from DuBois. You are from my heart, for you are the only piece that fits into
the jagged wound to make me whole again."
A cry slipped from her soul in betrayal. To hear such
heart-wrenching declarations when the truth of her paternity made their union
impossible seemed the deepest wound of all. Vile remembrance jerked her to
Becket’s flayed skin. "Your wounds! I saw the horrid gashes on your
back.” She reached out to him. “Where else did Gaston hurt you?" The
reminder of who caused those injuries stayed her hand, hardened her
determination.
Faint sounds of raucous celebration filtered from the
castle, elation over the death of her father, surely one of the most evil men
who ever lived.
Her father. His evil within her veins. And she had killed
him.
She caught at a sob. "We must find Giselle to
tend to you. You surely are in horrendous pain." She took a step to go in
search, telling herself that once Becket was occupied, she would slip away.
He grasped her wrist, halting her flight. "My
injuries are negligible in contrast to the pain of surviving without you."
"Pay heed, Becket. Gaston can still reach from
the grave to kill you. If your wounds fester, you might die."
"If you leave me, I
will
die."
Hurting with an anguish she’d not believed possible,
Rochelle pressed trembling fingers over her mouth to imprison her cry of
surrender.
"If I fail to convince you,
ma femme
,
Gaston truly wins. Do you wish him as the victor of this travesty?" A
shudder flowed through his body as if from regretful memories. "You wail
that Gaston is your father, but at least you have Giselle for a mother. I am
the spawn of Isabelle and Reynaurd, raised in spite, nursed on hatred. I am
the one who refused to see beyond my own righteous indignation to the grandeur
of your sacrifice."
"
My
sacrifice? When at DuBois during the
chevauchée
,
even though I had spurned you, you fought to save me from being sentenced by
Prince Edward. And again, when Gaston brought you in chains to DuBois, you
risked immediate death by distracting Gaston long enough for Pierre and me to
escape into the tunnels. At Moreau, you sought to protect me from Gaston and
the Inquisition even though you believed I hated you. You loved in the purest
form. You loved your enemy."
Moonlight glimmered in his unshed tears. "I
discovered that my only true enemy is myself. For two decades I lacked the
faith to believe God hadn’t rejected me, and yet He never gave up on me. Even
though I had disclaimed Him, He still guided me to DuBois with--and I believe
this in the very center of my being-- with a glorious life planned for me with
you. But set upon revenge, I refused to hear, refused to see, blinded to the
beauteous offering by the ugliness within my soul, incapable of realizing a
wonderment beyond my own imaginings."
To break his spell she lowered her gaze to his
blood-streaked and far too tempting chest. A mistake. Clasping her fingers to
keep from touching him, she forced her attention past him to the ground. She
concentrated on a night-darkened clump of grass embracing a stone, as
impossible a relationship as between her and Becket.
The noise of the festivities grew nearer as if some of
the rejoicers climbed the path. Once they arrived on the rim, she would
attempt to lose herself within the distraction and be away.
Becket released a shaky breath.
"Rochelle, God taught me that love is more
important than buildings and land, revenge and power. ‘Tis not control but
sacrifice. Not scorn but forgiveness. Not judgment but understanding. ‘Tis
caring for the other’s welfare beyond your own."
He pressed his knuckles beneath her chin, urging her to
look up at him, his fear and passion pleading from within his heart-wrenching
gaze.
"
J’ai t’aime, my precious gyrfalcon.
I
love you. Perhaps not as you deserve, but with all that is within me. You are
the bright moon within the midnight of my life. Light my darkness."
"
Mon Dieu,
what should I do?"
Rochelle closed her eyes and lifted her face toward the heavens in search of an
answer. "When I think of what Giselle and Alberre have suffered, of what
you have suffered, merely because my father in his greed and obsession for
power, willed it. When I think of all those children who never had a chance to
live..."
"Those children who died because of
my
mother. Naught we can do will bring them to life. Nor can we stop the two
kings who betrayed us in their hunger for power." He glanced toward the
East. "Look at the horizon. See the reddish glow? Smell the
smoke?"
She followed his focus to what she had believed was the
sunrise, breathing the acrid odor she had been too enmeshed in her agony to
notice.
"Oc
."
"War still ravages the land and only The Almighty
knows which king will be the victor. More atrocities will occur, more famines,
more plagues."
He gazed down at her, and the stone wall she struggled
to hastily rebuild around her heart crumbled into non-existence as her warrior
fought her resistance with the weapon of persuasion.
"But I would go through the trials with you, my
love, side-by-side, each supporting and guiding the other, making the
unbearable, bearable. We cannot save the world, but together we can make a
difference. That is how we make restitution for all the unrightable wrongs
perpetrated by our forbears--to so live that we leave the world a better place
than if we had not been born."
Her knight. Her noble warrior. Her savior. As the
merriment flowed to the rise, taunting her of the chance of escape, she
couldn’t help but absorb Becket’s excitement, his purpose as he turned again
toward the glow, sweeping his hand to indicate the land.
"We will send messengers throughout this region
inviting any who will to come to DuBois. We will give them food, shelter,
hope. Most important, we will build churches where
true
men of God will
offer them food for their souls. Also, if you agree, I’ve decided to make
Moreau available as a monastery. ‘Tis the only way the bowels of that hell
hole will be cleansed."
"Becket, I didn’t think ‘twas possible, but I love
you even more."
His pain-filled look of hope met hers. "Enough to
bear our child?"
She turned her back to him, hating her birth that would
forever separate them.
"Rochelle, I know I do not deserve you, but I warn
you, both heaven and earth will disintegrate before I will ever let you
go."
She shook her head in determination as she squeezed her
eyes shut to dam her falling tears so at odds with the exuberance of the people
who now joined them on the rim searching the wagons as comments about food and
blankets wafted from their direction. Her heart cramped. The distraction that
she awaited. The escape that she hated. "I do not have the discipline to
be with you and not--"
"If you insist, I’ll wear protection."
"You need an heir!"
"I need
you
."
His despair tore her asunder. He took her hand and
pulled her to a quieter spot away from the singing and well-deserved mirth, the
opposite of the direction she should be going, and yet, how could she not
linger a moment more? Eternity was far too long a span to not be with him,
touch him.
"Rochelle, I need you as urgently as I need my
next breath. I have fought in many wars, but I swear--winning you is the most
significant battle of my life."
He forced her to face him but his magnificence blurred
within her tears. "Becket, I will not risk another Gaston."
"Then risk another you, although another such
greatness is impossible. To prove I love you..." Trembling with
soul-wrenching gravity he...
He knelt!
As she stared in shock, the rose-hued dawn burst free
from the distant flames, glowing upon his blood-streaked flesh, radiating like
a halo from the sin-black hair of his bowed head as he placed his warrior-scarred
hands between hers.
"Lady Rochelle, I become thy man of such a
tenement to be holden of thee to bear to thee faith of life and member and
earthly worship against all men who live and can die..."
He pledged fealty to her!
Sacre
Dieu
. He pledged... Ignoring
all rational arguments, she dropped to her knees to join her heart, the
bombazine of her gown billowing around the two of them as if to make them one.
"’Tis I, knight, who pledge my fealty to
you."
"I will worship you always, my precious gyrfalcon.
And I hide no more secrets from you. My soul is bared to you, now and
forevermore." He cupped his shaking hands around her grateful face,
sunrise-tinted tears glimmering like melted opals in his eyes. "My love
for you is like a burning fire within me that will never cool. I will treasure
you as long as I draw breath on this unforgiving earth, and beyond."
"Ah,
mon
mari
. May our babe have your
courage, your compassion, your strength of character."
His breath caught, then as if fearful she would change
her mind, he melded his mouth with hers, hot, desperate, possessive, until all
she could hear was the beat of their hearts, as one. His breath caressed her
wet lips, followed by his tongue, his glorious, glorious tongue. Although she
ached to hold him, she placed her hands behind his head so as not to cause
further pain to this back that surely needed tending. He released a shaky sigh
and pressed his forehead against hers.