Authors: Carolyne Cathey
"A child." He rocked his hips again, once,
twice. Then ceased. Perspiration beaded his brow. "A tainted mingling.
A permanent reminder." He closed his eyes. "And yet, I must do this
for DuBois."
He pulled aside the hem of the chemise to give him
access to her, and cool air swirled over her damp flesh. She felt exposed,
shamed, vulnerable, available to his cruelty. Knowing in a heart-rending
moment she had lost, she tensed in fear of the pain of when he would tear past
her maidenhead. He drew back his hips, then...
"
Non!"
Becket rolled from atop her to
his feet, rage emanating from him like a tangible force. "Never fear,
wife. I have not the stomach for this after all." He turned his back and
adjusted his maleness to beneath his braies.
Disbelief stunned her to inaction, then her face burned
with a mixture of relief and humiliation, for she had won, and yet he had
rolled away from her in revulsion. A dubious victory. She scrambled from the
bed as her mind scrambled for insight.
Fumbling to button her bodice, Rochelle watched while
Becket studied the tapestry on the wall above the hearth, the one she had
created with her own hands, the one with the maiden surrounded by gentle
creatures of the forest---and no men. A fortunate woman.
And then she remembered Becket's threat that he would
claim DuBois by the consummation of the marriage, or by war. Insult jolted her
already fractured self-esteem. Becket preferred battle to bedding her,
although she berated herself for the stupidity of that thought. He must
consider her as loathsome as had Marcel, or even more so. Then panic sliced
through her chest that she had perhaps ruined her only chance to spare Pierre
and DuBois the certain slaughter. She must reach her knights in order to warn
them to barricade the gates. If she could escape the chamber before Becket ...
"Milady?"
Jacques' voice sounded in desperation from the hallway,
then Rochelle heard a pounding at the door.
"Milady, your father cries out for you. His time
is near."
Rochelle's heart constricted.
Becket spun to her. "The sheets---"
"If you think to take me now . . .” An errant
ray of sun glinted on the dagger at Becket's side.
"Milady! Make haste! The lord is dying."
With no time for second thought, Rochelle snatched the
weapon and rolled onto the center of the bed. Modesty be damned, not after
what she had experienced. She pulled up her skirt and exposed her thigh.
"Cease!" Becket lunged and grabbed her
wrist.
"'Twill only be a small cut."
He seemed confused.
"Blood . . . for the sheets. 'Twill solve both
our problems. You will have your proof and I will remain unmolested. Now,
unhand me!"
Becket wrenched the weapon from her fingers. "Get
off the bed."
"But---"
The pounding sounded at the door again.
Sacre Dieu.
She would be too late.
"I come, Jacques." She reached for the dagger.
Becket placed his armored foot on the mattress and
lifted his chain-mail shirt. Before she could stop him, he pierced his thigh
above his hose. Blood dripped dark and red upon the snowy linen.
"There. Any more and they'll be certain I'm the savage you claim."
He placed his foot on the floor.
Becket's mouth twitched a determined line. He yanked
the sheet from the bed, a strange type of satisfaction aglow in his eyes, an
anticipation, a hunger, as if he already tasted the sweet possession of DuBois.
But she still had her maidenhead. She had won. At
least part of the battle.
"Milady! Make haste!"
Jacques' urgent tone increased her alarm. Despite her
father's treatment, she loved him; she ached to be with him when he drew his
last breath, but the safety of DuBois came first. She must reach the DuBois
knights. Rochelle took a step, but Becket caught her arm.
"Pretend the marriage is consummated and I will
not force you. But if you whisper a word of this before I give you leave, I
will take your virginity where all will see and not doubt. Do you understand,
Lady Rochelle?"
She couldn't claim total victory. Not yet. But soon. She
nodded.
"A promise. Give me your word."
A new complication. She would merely find a way around
the oath. "I . . . I promise."
"And if you go past your father's door instead of
entering his chamber, I will know you go to your knights and I will signal for
attack before you reach the stairs to the great hall."
Rochelle closed her eyes in defeat. Fighting tears,
she unbolted the door and ran down the dimly lit hall and down the stairs,
passing Henri who tensed and grasped the hilt of his sword. She burst through
the doorway and into her father's chamber. "
Mon père!"
She
rushed to his bedside.
He paled a yellowish-white, his eyes glazed and
distant.
"
Père! Je t'aime!
Do
you hear me? I love you!" A sob escaped her throat. Tears welled hot
behind her lids and blurred his image. Rochelle grasped his hand, cold, like a
grave, like death.
Becket stepped beside her and she glanced up, then
stilled with surprise. He had donned a blood-red jupon with a golden falcon on
the front, wings uplifted in motionless flight. He must have received the coat
of arms from his fellow knight, Henri.
Her father's gasp reclaimed her attention. His face
showed fear. "You!
Mon Dieu
, what have I done? Run,
Rochelle." Her father's words sounded low and harsh, barely heard.
"Should not have wed . . . . danger . ."
"Danger?" And yet she had known all along.
Panic squeezed her lungs and paralyzed her limbs.
A roar echoed from the hallway.
Gaston barged into the chamber, sword raised.
"Where's the bastard who steals my land? I'll kill him!"
C
HAPTER
F
OUR
R
ochelle stumbled and grasped the emerald
velvet bedhanging as Becket pushed her behind him in a protective gesture.
In blurring swiftness he unsheathed his sword and spun
to face Gaston. "At long last, Butcher. I've hungered a lifetime for
this battle."
Gaston threw a glance over his shoulder as Henri
blocked the doorway, then he shot his attention back to Becket. He stilled on
the other side of the center table, his bushy brows drawn together in a frown,
his attention a studied focus on Becket's jupon. "Who are you?"
"Is the crest familiar, Gaston? Dig through the
rotten sewage of your memories. Think fire, treachery, greed. Shall I show
you the burns on the left side of my body?"
The mysteries streaked through Rochelle's mind like
lethal lightning.
A past altercation between Gaston and Becket. Becket's
hatred. Knowledge of her chamber. Lifetime of planning.
A connection
with the secret bargain?
Cold doom squeezed her lungs and froze her
breath.
Gaston's pewter eyes widened in recognition before they
narrowed. "The boy. I thought you---"
"Dead? I survived hell for this moment, Gaston.
'Twas what kept me alive. Hatred burned more intense than pain. Revenge lured
stronger than death."
"Then die by my sword, Becket. You'll not have
DuBois!"
"As empty a threat as your soul." Becket grabbed
the center table with one hand and flung it into splinters against the wall.
Gaston lunged and thrust, but Becket spun aside in a blur of red, silver and
gold, then jabbed and feinted with the speed of a wolf after a kill. Gaston
shouted in rage and slammed his sword against Becket's chest.
Rochelle screamed in fear for Becket's safety, then
wondered why. Most likely because Gaston posed a crueler threat. Even so, her
heart wedged in her throat as she waited for Becket to fall.
Becket merely shoved Gaston backward and slashed with
the force of a pagan god. Gaston swung again, but Becket deflected the blade;
the clang echoing within the walls.
Her knights! She should be worried about DuBois, not
Becket. Unable to escape past Henri who barred the doorway, Rochelle darted
toward the window to yell a warning about Becket's army.
Gaston leapt at her; he meant to grab her for a
shield! She twisted, but not fast enough. Gaston grabbed her arm!
Becket snatched her from Gaston's grip and tossed her
on the foot of the bed as if but a passing thought.
"Stay back, Lady Rochelle. Gaston doesn't care if
you're caught between enemies. And stay away from the window. At your first
cry, hell will swarm through the gates like an unwelcome plague."
As she scrambled to her feet at the side of the bed,
Gaston charged at Becket, his sword aimed at Becket's heart. Before she could
scream, Becket ducked and slashed, then stepped on the chalice she had swept
from the table in her anger! He sprawled in the shattered crystal. Gaston
charged for the fatal stab, but Becket rolled to his feet with a speed she
couldn't believe possible and thrust through Gaston's armor into his side.
Gaston groaned but remained on his feet, hunched forward, blood covering the
hand he pressed to his side, his sword clutched in his other hand as if
refusing surrender.
Becket kicked the chalice aside and resumed a fighter's
stance, the tip of his sword dark with Gaston's blood.
Rochelle dug her nails into her palms to bolster her courage,
knowing she must ask, frightened of the answer. "'Tis time for truth,
knight. Who are you?"
Becket dipped his head in a slight bow, then
straightened his shoulders as if with pride.
"I am Sire Becket de DuBois, the rightful heir,
the son whom the Unholy Trinity thought long dead."
"Explain yourself, Sire. I realize you've pledged
marriage vows and, thus, you think you gain the land, but what do you mean, the
rightful heir? And what, or who, is the Unholy Trinity?"
Black fury sparked in his eyes. "Two decades
past, Reynaurd, Gaston, and a demon I have yet to identify, falsely accused my
father, the
true
Sire de DuBois, of heresy."
"Not false accusations, Lady Rochelle."
Gaston staggered, then braced his bloodied hand against the wall, streaking a
crimson stain. "Alberre confessed."
"My father broke under the tortures of the
Inquisition. To cease the atrocities he swore a lie as truth."
Gaston's lips curled in a sneer. "Devil
worship."
The gasp leapt from Rochelle's throat before she could
stop the damning reaction. Becket threw her a glare that told her he had added
her to his list of enemies. She shuddered, feeling as if the Grim Reaper
stroked her flesh in anticipation of her death.
"When the Inquisition insisted my father name
others---the only accepted proof of his salvation---he recanted his forced
confession."
Gaston laughed, then jerked in a cough. "No one
believed his screams of innocence as the flames melted his flesh. If he had
been pure of soul he wouldn't have died in the fire. The angels would have
cooled the heat like with Meshach, Shadrach and Abednego in the fiery
furnace."
Becket swung the tip of his sword in a slow arc in
front of Gaston's eyes. "If purity of soul is a requirement, Gaston,
you'll burn the brightest of any of Satan's human torches." Crystal
crunched beneath Becket's feet as he prowled toward his enemy. “Now tell me.
Who is the third devil in this satanic bargain?"
Gaston lunged and slashed. Becket feinted, then
thrust. Gaston cried out and stumbled backward, falling over the chalice.
Becket stomped on Gaston's sword hand and jabbed his weapon at Gaston's throat;
blood oozing red around the tip.
"Roast in hell, Gaston. Moreau and DuBois are
mine.”
Rochelle pushed away from the bed. "You steal
Gaston's land, as well? Does your greed have no bounds?"
Becket released a sigh of impatience. "Reynaurd
and Gaston divided the estate. Reynaurd stole DuBois. Gaston claimed
Moreau."
Clamminess slithered over Rochelle's flesh. If
Becket's claims were true, then she had no inheritance, nothing. And because
of the vows, the falsely-stained sheet, and Becket's claim as heir, he
possessed DuBois whether she lived or died. He had no more use for her. The
realization fired ice through her veins.
What would happen to Pierre?
Rochelle whirled to her father.
“Mon père
,
does he speak true? Did you steal DuBois from his father?"
Tears seeped from beneath his lashes like liquid
regret. She didn't want to believe he had committed such evil. And yet, she knew
him capable. Her hopes and fears tangled in a sour lump within her stomach.
She reached out for his hand, then hesitated, anger and resentment warring with
her craving for his acceptance, his love.
"
Mon père,
deny
the accusation.
Tell me he lies."
He answered with spasms of coughs and more tears.
"
Non!
I will not allow you to escape an
answer." Rochelle snatched a tankard from atop the chest beside the bed
and pressed the rim to her father's blue lips. He swallowed and his coughs
lessened, but she couldn't even force herself to wipe the dribbles from his
mouth.
"Tell me, is Lord Becket's claim true?"
He gasped and clutched his throat, his eyes wide with
fear and pain. "Poisoned! Poison!"
Shaken from her anger, she grabbed for his arm, but he
thrashed on the bed and moaned in horrid agony.
"The pain!" He pointed his finger as if in
accusation, his arm wavering too much to settle on one person. "I trusted
you . . . ." He strangled and reached out for her. "Rochelle."
"
Mon père!"
The finality of his last
breath ripped an unexpected void within her heart and she grasped his hand,
tempted to beg his forgiveness for all her unwitting sins, to beg for his love.
Tears burned her face.
Père
Bertrand moved to her side. "What
goes on here? Did Reynaurd shout something about poison?" The priest
cast an incredulous glare at something she held.
She lowered her gaze. Wine rippled in the tankard she
still gripped in her shaking hands. Had she unknowingly poisoned her father?
Appalled, she smashed the clay against the wall. Dark rivulets streamed down
the wall as if the wainscot bled.
A curse from behind drew her attention.
Becket's mouth thinned with his anger. "How dare
the bastard die before he felt the thrust of my sword." Then he slid his
hatred to Gaston. Becket's raven-colored eyes gleamed too brightly as he held
his sword-tip at Gaston's throat; he lusted for the kill. But if Gaston died,
she might never glean the truth to use for her war to win DuBois. She needed
him alive.
Rochelle stepped toward Becket. "Don't slay him,
Sire."
"Affection for the butcher, Lady Rochelle? If you
knew the details of how Lady Alicia and other misfortunates have suffered by
his hand, you'd not be so eager to see him spared."
"Then you might never know the third
conspirator."
Murderous fire in his eyes flared his hatred, then
shifted to suspicion. "And mayhap you are not as pure as you claim. Mayhap
you seek to save a lover."
Rochelle lifted her chin. "Think what you will.
Perhaps I, too, wish to know who deals an evil hand."
Becket stared at her with icy hatred. "Perhaps.
But perhaps I have more enemies than I first realized. Methinks I dare not ask
you to pull Gaston's sword from out of his reach."
Gaston groaned and Rochelle cut her gaze to the man
pinned on the floor. The blood on Gaston's throat swelled a more glisteny bead
around the sword tip, then the bead burst and drizzled a crooked trail down the
side of his neck into the rushes.
She stayed Becket's hand. "I have seen enough
death this day, knight."
Becket studied her for an uncomfortable moment, then
shifted his hatred to his defeated opponent. "Moreau is mine whether you
live or die, Gaston. But before Satan welcomes you, I will have the third name
of the unholy trinity. Or mayhap I'll seduce the truth from your comely
champion." Becket kicked the weapon from Gaston's hand. "Henri,
take his sword and then add another rat to the dungeon. He may come to wish
his lover hadn't spared his life with such sweet entreaties."
Stung by his accusations and knowing he would never
accept her denials, Rochelle turned to stare at the quiet form that had once
been her father, the man she had tried so hard to love, but who had proved to
her that love is a weakness, a tool for manipulation.
She scanned the chamber, ready for a chance to escape
to her knights and call them to action.
Père
Bertrand ministered the
last rites. Becket held a now-standing Gaston at sword point, the prize
prisoner's hands bound behind him as Henri shackled Gaston's ankles. Good.
All occupied.
With held breath, Rochelle slipped toward the door.
"Not so fast,
ma femme
."
Becket placed his arm across the doorway and leaned in
indolent repose as if her father hadn't just died. As if Becket hadn't taken
her as an unwilling bride and then turned from her in revulsion. As if he
hadn't just raped her of her land, her future. As if he cared.
"Did you think to abandon your new husband?"
He took her hand and held too tightly, but she refused to flinch. "I have
use for you, yet, bride." He pushed away from the doorjamb. "Henri,
hand me the marriage linens, then take Gaston to the dungeon. As soon as he is
secured, join me in the great hall."
Gaston curled his lip in a snarl. "Never fear,
Lady Rochelle. This devil thinks me bested, but I'll save DuBois."
Becket laughed. "The dungeon will silence your
tongue, Butcher, after you confess the third conspirator, of course."
Becket draped the stained sheet over his shoulder like
a conquered banner, then urged her into the empty hallway and toward the
stairs. Rochelle attempted to pull her hand free, but Becket held fast.
"I warn you knight, I will use any source, any
power to defeat you."
"You will never be given that chance."
He intended to lock her away, then abuse her as often
and in any way he wished, or kill her.
Shock numbed her body as
if she had died but still roamed the earth, for he had won after all. And yet
she must sacrifice herself to save those she loved.
Love.
A weakness.
A tool for manipulation.
Except she couldn't help but give her heart to Pierre,
Jacques and DuBois, an affection that left her vulnerable and at Becket's
mercy.
"I surrender to your might, Sire. You need not
hold me prisoner. I will go wherever you decree."