Susan Spencer Paul (7 page)

“And have I not had to face my family again for your sake,” Hugh returned, sliding his hands until they rested lightly upon her hips, “and had to endure my brother’s wrath today and the rest of my family’s wrath tomorrow, simply because of you?”

“Ha!” Rosaleen said. “For that you should thank me, not count it against me. Your poor family! After the way you treated them I’d not be surprised if they took one look at you on the morrow and slammed their doors. And as for poor Hugo, why, abandoning him like that is the worst thing I have ever—”

“Rosaleen,” Hugh murmured, “be quiet and kiss me.”

His words surprised her, so that she stopped talking and gaped at him.

“K-kiss you?”

“Mmm-hmm. Kiss me, sweeting. You wanted to comfort me earlier, and I feel much in need of it now, when you have been so unkind. Come and kiss me, Rosaleen. Make me feel better after the terrible day I’ve had.”

Without waiting for her answer, he closed his eyes and lifted his face to her, and his hands moved in gentle circles on her hips, encouraging her forward.

“But I…”

“I’m waiting,” Hugh said patiently.

Rosaleen stared down at his ready face and closed eyes and couldn’t think of anything else to say or do. “Very well, then.”

She put her hands on his cheeks, held his face still and lowered her head to place a short peck on his lips. It was over almost before it began, and then she slipped out of his arms.

She was already at the door by the time his eyes flew .open.

“That
was a kiss?” he demanded. The sound of disappointment was heavy in his voice.

“Well, I certainly don’t call it a slap,” she replied, opening the door.

Hugh took a second look at her, then grinned. “Why, Rosaleen, you’ve turned red. What a foolish little creature you are. Come back here and let me give you a proper kiss.”

She shook her head firmly. “Good night, Hugh Caldwell.”

“Good night, Rosaleen no-name,” he said after she had shut the door.

God’s mercy, he thought, she was an entertaining female. He’d never met her like before, and he certainly had a wealth of women to compare her to. But none were like Rosaleen, his beautiful little no-name. She was budding passion and rampant ignorance mixed with the strongest will, aside from his own, that he’d ever come across.

The smile on his face faded as he thought of what the morrow would bring. Alex and Lillis and his other brothers and sister. It was the day he had dreaded, next to today, more than anything in the past ten years. What was Alex going to say to him? And Lillis? Perhaps Rosaleen was right. Perhaps they would take one look at him and slam the door in his face. He had envisioned such as that plenty of times before, and if they did do so he would never be able to blame them for it.

But at least, he thought, he had Rosaleen. Rosaleen would stand with him if his family refused him. She wouldn’t desert him.

The realization came as a surprise, and he wondered at it. It had been an unconscious thought, yet it was true all the same. He had known Rosaleen for all of three days, yet he knew without a doubt that she would stand by him. He knew it as surely as he knew his own name, and it was something that, being the gambler he was, he would bet his entire fortune on.

R
osaleen found the brothers together in the gardens early the next morning, talking and laughing as though angry words had never passed between them. Hugh was demonstrating Amazon’s abilities, showing her off, and Hugo was appropriately impressed. Rosaleen watched with interest as Hugo tied Hugh’s leather strap on his own wrist and proceeded to handle the bird with the same skill his brother did, and it occurred to her that the monk had missed his calling in life; he should have set aside holy orders and become a falconer. He would have made a fortune.

“Good morning, Father Hugo, Hugh,” she greeted politely as she approached.

Both brothers turned and each graced her with an identical, somewhat overappreciative grin. Rosaleen was used to such open expressions from Hugh Caldwell, but it was rather unsettling to have a monk eyeing her with admiration.

“You’re a beautiful sight this morn, Rosaleen,” Hugh greeted. “You look as pretty as your namesake.”

“Why, Hugh Caldwell, I do believe your manners are improving,” Rosaleen remarked, lifting her skirt gracefully from the damp ground in what she knew was a pretty,
feminine gesture. “Your brother’s excellent behavior is having a good effect on you.”

“Either that or his behavior is having a bad effect on me,” Hugo jested, possessing Rosaleen’s hand and kissing it. “You are lovely enough to tempt an abbot, Lady Rosaleen. I’m sorry that you must leave us today.”

“Uh-uh-uh, Hugo,” Hugh chided, pulling Rosaleen’s hand from his brother’s grasp and placing it on his own arm, where he kept it imprisoned. “None of that now, or I’ll go calling for Father Bartholomew. You’re married to the Church, if you’ll remember.”

“I remember perfectly well,” Hugo replied easily. “And I may be a monk, but I’m not dead.” He winked at Rosaleen and repossessed her hand with some difficulty. “Go and ready your horses, Hugh, while I entertain Lady Rosaleen. Come and stroll through the gardens with me, my lady. I’m sure you will enjoy them greatly.”

“But I don’t want to go get the horses ready,” Hugh said, frowning as his brother led Rosaleen away. “Rosaleen? Would you not prefer that I show you the gardens? I know them as well as he does. I used to break in and steal fruit from the trees when I was a boy.”

Except for Hugo waving one hand at him, as though telling him to stop bothering them, they ignored him.

“Well, if you need me, I’ll just be getting the horses ready,” he called after their retreating figures. He looked at Amazon, who sat patiently on his wrist. “Hugo’s just being nice to her,” he told the creature. “Isn’t he, my darling?” He kissed the bird’s beak. “And besides, she’s naught but a troublesome female. You’re the only lady I care about,” he cooed to the listening bird. “She may be beautiful, but she’s a damned nuisance. A damned, stiffnecked nuisance. And I’ll be glad to get rid of her, won’t I?” Making loving, clucking sounds at the bird, he made
his way to the garden gate. “Then you and I will be able to get on with our lives,” he said, placing his hand on the gate latch, “and we’ll be as happy as we ever were. Just you and I, my beloved sweet.”

He cast one last glance at his brother and Rosaleen, happily strolling among the rosebushes now. Hugo said something to make Rosaleen laugh, and she tilted her lovely face up to grace him with a smile so beautiful it made Hugh’s heart lurch. Angrily, he threw the gate open, strode out into the courtyard and slammed the gate shut. He hoped sincerely that Hugo and Rosaleen heard it.

“God’s mercy! The brothers will be needing a new gate if Hugh keeps that up,” Rosaleen said, turning to gaze at the place where the gate was still quivering from Hugh’s force. She looked back at Hugo. “He’s uneasy to face the rest of his family today,” she told him. “It is understandable, certainly.”

Hugo chuckled and patted her hand. “You’ve no need to excuse Hugh to me, my dear. I have known him these many years, after all.”

“Well, certainly you have,” she said, fully embarrassed. “And I wasn’t making excuses for him. Why, I should have to be crazed to make excuses for such a-a—” she faltered, glancing at Hugo, who was watching her with interest “—person,” she finished, blushing.

Hugo grinned at her. “Rosaleen, you are a sweet delight. You mustn’t hide your feelings for Hugh on my behalf. I understand him very well, and I can only admire your patience in dealing with him. There is only one other person I’ve known who has been able to bear him so well, and that person is myself, though you may think that untrue after what happened yesterday. But that is behind us now. I made my peace with God last eve, after I left you, and have asked my brother’s forgiveness this morn.” The smile on
his face was so brilliant that Rosaleen thought he looked angelic. “Now, after all these years, I am finally at peace.” He patted her hand again. “And I must thank you especially, Lady Rosaleen, for you have brought my brother home again and have been the instrument of God’s peace. It would be difficult for me to tell you just how grateful I am.”

“Oh,” Rosaleen returned guiltily. “I wish you would not feel grateful to me, Father, for my relationship with your brother is not as you must think.”

Hugo laughed. “You could probably never guess what it is that I imagine about your relationship with Hugh, my dear, but that is of no matter. We’ve little time, for my brother will soon be finished with your horses. I wish to speak to you, if I may, of what drove Hugh from our home ten years ago.” He looked at her. “Should you like to hear it?”

“Indeed I should, Father, but I cannot think Hugh would want you to tell me. He seemed quite angry about the idea last eve.”

“Yes, he did, didn’t he?” Hugo agreed happily. “I’ll not tell you the whole of it, then, only that which you’ll need to know in order to understand him better.”

“I hardly think it’s necessary for me to be able to do
that,
Father. I’ll not even be seeing the scoundrel again after today.”

Hugo shrugged. “One never knows what might befall, and it’s always best to be prepared, is it not?”

“Well, if
you
think it might be best, then of course I would be willing to listen. We must speak of
something,
and it might as well be your brother as anything else.”

She was trying so hard to hide her obvious interest that it made Hugo laugh again. “Your long-suffering is admi
rable, Rosaleen, and I promise to make the tale as short as possible.

“In truth, there’s not all that much to tell. You already know that Alexander of Gyer is our eldest brother. We always assumed, of course, that we were true Baldwins, like the rest of our siblings, and it was something of which we were very, very proud. Perhaps we could even have been said to be vain about it, and about being the sons of Sir Charles Baldwin.

“He was more than simply mortal to us, our father. Hugh and I worshiped him, and he, in turn, spoiled us terribly.” He shook his head.

“I do not know why he did such a thing,” Hugh said with a bitter smile. “I have thought and thought on the matter these past ten years and have never been able to reason it out. He treated us with such clear favor that, looking back, it seems like a madness. With Alex he was only ever in conflict, and Willem, our next eldest brother, he treated as a despised weakling. Our youngest brother, Justin, he simply tolerated, and Candis, our little sister, he ignored, blaming her for our mother’s death, though the good Lord knows she hadn’t a thing to do with it. But Hugh and me—Hugh and me he treated like little princes.” He closed his eyes, squeezed them shut, as if he couldn’t bear to see anything around him. “When I think of how we loved him and thought that he was everything that we ourselves ever wanted to be, it seems so foolish. So very, very foolish.”

The pain in his voice made Rosaleen’s heart ache, and she placed a gentle hand on his arm.

“Young boys are often foolish over their fathers,” she murmured.

Hugo opened his eyes and looked at her with an expression that matched his voice.

“He died when we were but ten years of age, and what we felt at the loss of him…the agony…it was as nothing I could ever have imagined. We thought, in our childish ignorance, that he would live forever. His death only served to increase our godlike image of him, until we began to think of him as one of the saints of the Church.” His expression grew chagrined. “We even used to pray to him, Hugh and I. Is that not foolish?”

Rosaleen shook her head. “No. You were ten years of age, Hugo Baldwin. You were a little boy who loved his father and who missed him when he was gone. It is understandable. It is to be expected.”

“I suppose it is, though at times the memory fills me with shame.” He drew in a breath and exhaled it slowly. “When we were ten and six years of age we discovered that Charles Baldwin had not been our father at all. We found out, to our great horror, that Jaward of Wellewyn, the man who had been Gyer’s greatest enemy, was our natural father.”

“What!” Rosaleen said at once, her voice filled with disbelief. “But how could that be? Your mother…?”

“It was no simple case of adultery between our mother and Jaward of Wellewyn,” he answered. “Charles Baldwin, the man we had worshiped so greatly, was the cause of it. He cruelly raped Jaward’s wife, then made her shame widely known, causing the poor woman to take her own life. My mother and Jaward of Wellewyn, understandably distraught, searched for comfort in one another’s arms. Hugh and I are the outcome of that search.”

“Oh, Hugo! You must have been desolated!”

“Yes,” he agreed softly. “It hurt badly. And it was much to accept all in one blow. It was my sister Lillis and my brother Alex who told us. You remember that we spoke
of Lillis last eve? Of how we kidnapped her and brought her to Gyer?”

“Yes, of course. You did call her your sister last night, though I thought you meant sister-in-law. Why, how strange! Your brother and sister are married to one another. It almost seems like incest, does it not?”

“It does, but I assure you it’s not. There is no blood relation between them. Alex is our half brother through our mother, while Lillis is our half sister through Jaward of Wellewyn. They were already married to one another when the truth was discovered, so I daresay it was just as great a blow for them as it was for us.”

“I can certainly imagine it was,” Rosaleen agreed, “but for you and Hugh it must have been much more so.”

“Hugh and I were badly shaken for several days after Lillis and Alex told us the truth,” he said. “We couldn’t speak of it, not even to one another. It was too painful…too difficult for us to accept. The hardest part, for Hugh, especially, was that we suddenly found ourselves bastards, with no real name to call ourselves. What a bitter end to our pride that was! We who had lauded ourselves for being Baldwins, the nobly born sons of a nobleman, no longer legitimate. We were the bastard sons of Jaward Ryon, Lord of Wellewyn, a man we had been taught to hate from our cradle, a man whom Charles Baldwin had raised us to despise above any other being.”

“That’s why Hugh goes by the name of Caldwell,” Rosaleen murmured with sudden understanding, “and why he hates the nobility so.”

“Yes, that’s why. Caldwell was our mother’s maiden name, the only name he felt he had any claim to. Alex assured us that we were still his brothers and still Baldwins. He begged us to forget the circumstances of our birth and to accept our places in the family as we always had. In his
mind nothing had changed, and I could see that and believe it and even came to accept it in time. I had never even met Jaward of Wellewyn, while Charles Baldwin, for all his faults, had loved me as truly as any father could. But Hugh couldn’t accept that. He was obsessed with the fact that he had no blood claim to the Baldwin name, that in truth he was a Ryon and the descendant of a family he despised. I will tell you truly, my lady—” Hugo gazed into Rosaleen’s rapt face “—this thing tormented him, in the truest sense of what that word means.”

“And so he ran away,” Rosaleen said, “rather than live with the pain. He ran away from his family and from you. And he has been running ever since.”

“Yes.” He took hold of both her hands. “You can understand why I wanted you to know these things. Hugh is going home at last, and he must face the things that have haunted him. It is bound to be painful for him. If I could be with him I would, yet I cannot leave the monastery without permission. But you will be with him, Rosaleen, and you must stand by him and help him. If it had not been for you, he would never have come home at all. Surely you accept that?”

“Yes, certainly,” Rosaleen said, adding sorrowfully, “I only wished to go to London, you know. I never planned that he should suffer so much because of me.”

“I wasn’t trying to make you feel guilty, my dear,” Hugo said kindly. “You’ve done a good and wonderful thing in bringing Hugh back to those who love and have worried over him. But if you will not stand beside him, he will have no one else. Please, will you help him?”

“I will,” she vowed solemnly. “I promise you.”

A light sigh passed Hugo’s lips. “Thank you, my lady. I am most grateful. Being a twin is a difficult burden, but today I shall feel easier knowing you’ll be with Hugh.
Now, before he returns to lay claim to you, let us speak of your spiritual needs. Have you made your confessions recently, Rosaleen?”

“Uh, confessions?” Rosaleen repeated dumbly.

“Yes, my dear. Confessions. Have you sought absolution of late?”

She coughed uncomfortably, as though clearing her throat. “Not…not lately, Father,” she admitted, thinking that Hugh’s brother was the last person to whom she wanted to make a confession of any kind.

“Ah, wonderful!” Hugo declared with unfeigned glee, grasping her hand and dragging her in the direction of the sanctuary. “You cannot imagine how I’m longing to hear them, my dear!”