The Maiden Bride (22 page)

Chapter 19

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"
A
message for you, my lady," Dickon called.

Eleanor looked up from shoveling and slogged out of the millrace, drenched with mud and water weed. Dickon was running headlong down the village lane, waving a packet over his head, dodging a cart of lime and two men shouldering a rafter piece.

He'd put on weight and brawn, and now looked masterful and old for his years in his studded hauberk. Her highwayman turned marshal, who still blushed at every kind word sent his way.

"A message from where?" It was the very first she'd received at Faulkhurst, and it worried her for no nameable reason. She took the packet and turned it in her hands before popping the seal.

"From some place called Torryhill Manor. Dernbrook is 'is name."

The missive was sealed with a green-waxed impression of a sneering fox. "His? The messenger? Does he wait for an answer?"

"No. He's here himself—Dernbrook is. And a fellow with him called Arndell or something."

"What? The Earl of Arundel? Oh, damnation." This stank of Edward and his machinations. "Where did you put them?"

"Coolin' their heels at the gatehouse."

"You jailed the earl?"

"Didn't lock 'em up, if that's what you mean." Dickon waggled his finger at her, an exact replica of the way Nicholas waggled one at her so often. "But you can't go trustin' just anyone, milady. 'Specially when six of 'em come riding up on real horses."

Real horses, carrying real earls. Blazes.

"Then go escort them to the keep, Dickon, quickly. Tell Hannah to feed them. I'll be up in a moment."

Torryhill Manor.
She popped the little green fox off the missive, knowing that whatever the message, it meant gallons of trouble.

"'Sir David Dernbrook to the lady Eleanor of Faulkhurst, greetings. Let it be known in warning of writ of summons to the king's assize in Newcastle that you have covenanted unlawfully with seven villeins of my own manor at Torryhill—' I've done
what?"

"What have you there, madam?" Nicholas looked fierce as he strode up to her, tearing off his gloves, the whole of him dusty with rubble and streaks of dampened daub. Enchanting and utterly feral, his dark eyes fueled by a radiance that never failed to startle her heart and tie up her breathing.

"We have visitors, Nicholas."

He swiped most of the grime off his face with his sleeve. "More of your outlaws?"

He wasn't going to like this at all. "Edward's, I fear."

"Edward's? What has he sent you?"

She held up the message as he came to read from over her shoulder. "Have you ever heard of a Sir David Dernbrook?"

"Dernbrook—never heard the name before. Probably new to a recently vacated holding; there are too many these days. Upstarts, to a man, and not to be trusted. What has he got to do with the king?"

He sounded as lordly as any baron she'd ever known, tossing off biting opinions of politics with the ease of a king's minister. This supposedly penniless, wandering, fourth-born son of a minor lord.

"From all I can gather, Nicholas, this Dernbrook seems to think that I've stolen seven of his tenants from him."

Nicholas snorted and took the missive out of her hand.
"You
probably have, madam."

"Ballocks, Nicholas. He's obviously a madman. Read there." Feeling more outraged with every passing moment, she jabbed at the next line of ridiculousness. "He says, 'the unjust damage comes at the cost to me of one saddler, two smiths, a carpenter, and three reapers—'"

"By God, it has happened, madam." Nicholas scrubbed at his hair as he always did when he was riled. "You and your rumors have been found out."

"It's merely jealousy, Nicholas, because we have people at Faulkhurst who are willing to plant and reap, and he doesn't."

"I agree with you on one point, madam: This sort of jealousy makes for a deadly enemy."

"You know as well as I that we harbor none of Dernbrook's tenants here. Has Fergus ever been his carpenter? Or Cora his alewife? An elderly nightman and a woman who until recently had made her living on the back streets of York? No and no."

"It matters not what the truth is."

"It does to me. Blast the man! Three years ago, he'd never have wanted someone like Skelly or Mullock under his roof."

"A great many things were different three years ago."

"Not the strength of a man's honor."

"Nevertheless, my dear, you'll have to prove his claim false in court."

"This is nonsense. I will not pay ludicrous fees to the king and then damage to Dernbrook for his imaginary villeins. I'll have to straighten out this matter for good." She started up the castle hill, detesting the feeling that she'd lost control of her own home.

"Where are you going?" He had a marvelously thorough way of gaining her attention, of putting himself between her and the sky.

"To disabuse Dernbrook of his ridiculous suit against me before it grows out of hand."

"It already has. It's scheduled to be heard at the next assize."

"That's not nearly soon enough."

"It has to be so. I'll present the case myself. And in the meantime, you will bide your time and your temper and leave well enough alone. I'll send a message to Dernbrook's man of law—"

"Actually. Nicholas, he's here."

He always grew quiet as his face darkened. "Dernbrook is here? Now? At Faulkhurst?"

"Aye. Probably because he thinks that he can intimidate me because I'm a woman, and alone."

"You're not bloody alone."

"I know that—but the man has gall. Read what else he says there: that I'm to cease and desist immediately, and to give his seven supposed tenants back to him. They're
my
tenants, not his. I've promised to care for them at all costs, and I refuse to do what he demands."

"Sweet bloody hell." He read the document more closely, his jaw clenched and working, eyeing her when he was finished. "You may not have a choice, madam. The law is clear."

"Oh? And just who do I sacrifice to this clarity of law? Dickon? Skelly? Do I take Lisabet from her home, from her goats and that rangy long-horn cow?"

"Don't be absurd."

"Who then, if you're choosing? Because the man is waiting in the keep to steal them away."

"I'll take care of it."

"No. I will—I
need
to, as a point of honor. Otherwise, I'll look weak, like I have to rely on a man to fight my battles for me."

"That's what a steward is for."

"Blast it all. Dernbrook wouldn't dare bring this suit if my husband still held Faulkhurst instead of me."

Nicholas lifted her chin with his thumb, his eyes clear and his smile steady. "Your husband would never have put himself into this vulnerable position, madam."

Oh, and that was a kiss he set against her mouth, to stall and confuse her. "Then we'd still be waiting for a baker and a horse to come riding through the gates." She backed safely away from him. "No, Nicholas. The real reason that Dernbrook is bringing this suit against me, rumors or no, is because he's too miserly to pay a reasonable wage to his tenants. And now he thinks he can just steal mine. He'll be sorry he arrived at my door, Nicholas. My case is excellent."

"Have you ever answered a writ, madam?"

"Not a writ of my own, but I'm not wholly inexperienced. I did have a hand in the outcome of a suit, between the abbess at St. Catherine's and the pig butcher."

"For
…
?"

"Menacing the countryside. The pig butcher, of course; not the abbess. Too many flies in the summer, too near the abbey close with its horrible stench. The turning point for us came when I suggested to Mother Abbess that she take the judges and the jurymen on a tour of the offending yard, which happened to be on a particularly warm day…
Needless to say, we won."

"A quarrel between a pig butcher and an abbess is not in the same league as yours with Dernbrook. He is holding up the king's own ordinance against you—which you have clearly and deliberately violated."

"And that's where Dernbrook will lose on all counts. He hasn't a mote of evidence to back up his claim against me. He couldn't possibly—because he's mistaken. He needs to know that I am in the right and that I plan to fight for myself. And he needs to know this immediately."

"My lady, this is not the way between two lords."

"Then what is, Nicholas? Shall we hold the man hostage? Or gather troops to ride out and besiege him at his manor? Is that what my husband would have done in my place?"

Nicholas shoved his fingers through his hair again. "He would have— Bloody hell."

"Exactly. I'm going to do this my way."

"If you're so damned set on scuttling your whole defense, madam, I'll present your grievances to this Dernbrook myself. Today." He rolled up the writ in his brawny fist and started past her toward the castle.

"Hold there, Nicholas." She chased after him, caught him at the well house. "How do you mean that I'll be scuttling my defenses?"

He rounded on her, caught up her nape in the wide span of his hand. "If you present your case to Dernbrook here and he stands patiently by and listens without comment to your clever testimony, he'll doubtless be very glad that he did so."

"Aye, because of the trouble I shall save him in the long run."

"Nay, madam; because when you meet him again at the autumn assizes, he'll go before the judges knowing exactly what evidence you will use against him, and you will have given his lawyers three months to decide the best way to refute and discredit you. So he will win because you allowed it."

"I—"

"You what, madam?"

"I—I think we'll never have a better chance than this very moment, with our own evidence right to hand. And with the Earl of Arundel to stand as witness."

"Arundel? I'm not going to let you drag the matter all the way to Arundel."

"I don't have to go anywhere." She glanced at him and then up at the castle: "He's here, too."

"The Earl of Arundel?" He looked sharply to the castle with a blazing frown that should have blown the roof off the keep. "What the hell is he doing here?"

"My question exactly, Nicholas. I suspect that Edward has had a sneaky hand in this suit. Checking up on my progress, his barons circling me, poking at my flanks."

"More than your flanks, madam." He frowned, paced away, and looked again to the castle. "Damnation."

"I can't just leave them waiting, Nicholas. I have to go meet with them before Hannah puts them to scrubbing pots in the scullery. I'll do this myself, but I would welcome you standing in support of me."

Uncharacteristically, he hesitated. "I'll see to these weirs and then I'll be up." He caught the loops of ribbon that secured the scoop of her chemise and held her fast. "Behave, madam. You're on the scarring edge of the law here. I don't want you to slip."

Mother Mary, the man made her feel warm and malleable all over. And slightly guilty for bringing the trouble upon them.

But only slightly.

"You were just a little right, Nicholas."

"Yes, I know." She wanted him to kiss her again, to give her courage, to lighten her heart and make her pulse sing. But he was already stalking off toward the millpond and the clump of men working the damaged race.

* * *

Arundel.
Damn the man.

Nicholas's heart stood stock-still as he watched his wife hurrying up the road toward the castle, gone off in her headlong stride to where he couldn't reach her, couldn't help her out of this entanglement, or call her back—because he was still and always would be William Bayard.

Because he and Arundel had fought too many battles together, shared too many women, had too many tankards of ale together. Had even sat at counsel with Edward on occasion.

Not even a beard, his overlong hair, or a far different heart would be an adequate disguise.

He was trapped, unable to help the woman he loved when she needed him most.