Wild Wood (54 page)

Rory strides back into the kitchen. “Before you ask, they’re in Jesse’s room. Janet’s close to collapse.”

“Yet you thought that was a good idea—to leave them alone?” Alicia’s expression is grim.

Rory is stung. “Jesse asked me to help her. You heard her. She’s an adult. It’s her decision to talk to her mother. Not mine. Not yours.”

A small, frigid silence. Then Alicia says, “You said you’d find a link between us all. But this?”

He shakes his head. “Jesse didn’t know, Alicia. She didn’t know any of it. You saw her face. She was stunned.” He’s trying to keep the discussion civil.

“Rubbish.”

“Oh, so Janet was boasting, was she? So proud to tell her daughter, in front of us all, that she’d been a housemaid at Hundredfield with my mum? The woman’s distraught at being back, we all saw that.”

“Did we?” Alicia narrows her eyes. “I said this was a scam. Some kind of really, really elaborate plot to . . .” She runs out of words.

Rory’s pacing. “Janet was shocked when she saw me. And you. Come on, Alicia, be reasonable.”

Mack clears his throat. So far, he’s been ignored. “I’m with Rory. I’d swear Jesse didn’t know her mother worked here. She’s genuine. Truly.”

“Oh, certainly.” Alicia’s switched back to cool patrician.

Rory barks, “Stop it! Be grateful for what Jesse did today. She’s changed your life with what she found.”

Alicia pales. Then flushes.

“Hey, you two.” Mack’s more than uncomfortable. He’s never heard his brother this emotional before.

A bell jangles on the wall.

Alicia, head held high, leaves the kitchen.

“Where’s she going?”

“The front door, where do you think?” Rory flashes Mack an unfriendly glance.

“I’m an innocent bystander. None of this is
my
fault.”

“I didn’t say it was.”

Mack grumbles, “Just trying to do the woman a favor. She said she wanted to see Jesse, so I dropped everything and—”

“You couldn’t wait, could you? Just barged in, invited or not.” Rory’s tone is dangerous.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Mack stands fully upright. He’s bigger and taller than his brother.

“Like a dog with your tongue hanging out.” Rory uses his words like a whip.

Mack says slowly, “I get it. Envy. Because Jesse chose me, not you.”

“Oh, grow up.”

This uppercut is for real, and it drops Rory where he stands. Mack looms over his brother. “I did. You didn’t notice.” Shaking out his hand, he leaves Rory sprawled on the floor.

“Is Janet Marley here?” Helen’s outside Hundredfield’s great front door.

Standing in the open doorway, Alicia doesn’t immediately answer. She’s staring at Helen, an odd look on her face.

“If you don’t mind, I’d like to know.”

“Actually, I do. Mind, that is. You’re not especially welcome here.” That aristocratic drawl.

Helen opens her mouth. And closes it again.

As if she cares hardly at all, Alicia says, “I’ve a question for you, Helen. You’ve always been rude to me, or cold, even when I was little. Why is that?”

The other woman pales. “You Donnes. You think you can say what you like to anyone.”

Alicia starts to close the door.

“Wait.” Helen’s face is different suddenly. Vulnerable.

Alicia waits.

Helen swallows. “You won’t believe me.”

“I shan’t know that, shall I, until you tell me.” Polite. Reasonable. Utterly implacable.

They stare at each other until Helen looks away. “I’d be grateful if you’d let me talk to Janet. Talk to them both. It’s important, or I wouldn’t ask.” Helen doesn’t know how to plead; this is as close as she comes.

Alicia says nothing, but she opens the door wider and stands to one side.

In the hall, the suit of armor waits. That eyeless helm watches as the women cross the hall together, Alicia leading the way toward the stairs.

Helen follows as if she were walking to her own execution.

“We couldn’t take the risk.” Janet’s lying on Jesse’s bed under a satin quilt. Rifle sights, her eyes are trained on her daughter’s face.

“What risk? What do you mean?”

“I
couldn’t
tell you. I just could not.” Janet starts to cry without sound, tears slipping down her cheeks. “Dr. Nicholls told me I’d never have children.”

“Dr. Nicholls.” Jesse leans forward. “Mum?”

But Janet’s deep in the past. “When you were born, and no one wanted you, it seemed . . . it seemed so like the answer to my prayers, all the longing I’d felt. Even your father agreed.”

Jesse pales.
No one wanted you.
“I don’t have a father. That’s what it says on the birth certificate.”

“You do. And he loves you. We both do. Maybe we never made that clear enough.” Janet takes a trembling breath.

Jesse hands her tissues. “Go on.”

“Alicia’s mother. She arranged everything with the nuns, you see. The adoption was . . . it was unofficial.”

“You mean it was illegal?”

Janet pleads, “These things happen all the time in families. It’s for the sake of the child. In those days, there was such shame for the mother and for the little one, growing up illegitimate. It was always for the best.”

“For the best.” Jesse’s incredulous.

“Adopting you solved so many problems. And the countess—Lady Elizabeth, that is—she helped us immigrate to Australia. As a family. They knew people, the Donnes. And in those days, no one thought to question someone like her.” Janet shakes her head.

“Lady Elizabeth was Alicia’s mother?” Jesse leans forward. “But why did she want to help? You were just a housemaid. And all the secrecy. What was that about?”

“She was such a tiny little thing, Eva.” Janet’s evasive. “Just like a child herself, really. A child with no one to turn to.” Janet catches Jesse’s glance. “It’s true. She couldn’t speak, you see, so no one knew what she was thinking. But then, that poor girl, when she died having you—” Janet gasps, blots her eyes, though more tears come. “Well, I couldn’t let you just be taken away, could I? Not put in some orphanage and forgotten. Dr. Nicholls was on my side.” She gulps, shaking. “I couldn’t bear the thought of you crying and no one coming.”

“Eva couldn’t speak?”

“Well, maybe she could, but not English. Didn’t worry the earl, mind. Not him. He made her understand what he wanted, right enough.” Janet’s expression hardens.

“The earl?”

Both hands over her face, Janet speaks through her fingers. “Lies compound, Jesse. Don’t ever let anyone tell you they don’t.”

Behind her, the door to the bedroom opens.

54

T
WO DAYS
had passed, and the keep still smoldered, though we had cleared the inner ward of bodies; soon they would be buried, with Father Simeon to pray for them. And our fighters, those who remained, patrolled Hundredfield’s damaged walls. We might have beaten Alois’s men, but I was wary; their leader lay in his winding sheet, but another could arise. A reiver band is a monster: cut off one head, and another grows in its place. And so, when the drum of hooves was heard coming from the forest, I roared for horses.

Tamas, who commanded the battlements now, ran to me on the castle side of the great gate.

“Well?”

“We need you here. Let me take the men outside the gate.” This was too polite.

I held up the stump of my right hand. It pained me very much, and blood seeped through the bindings. “I cannot fight and ride—is that what you mean?”

The boy—no, the seasoned fighter that he was—laughed.

I liked him for that.

“Yes. Outside these walls, you will be a burden in a fight.”

This was too much truth. I said politely, “I control the horse with my knees. And I have an ax.” I did. And had used it well with my left hand when Alois died. That surprised me still.

Margaretta was watching. For these two days, camping together in the roofless tower with her father and the children, she had nursed my body and I had nursed her spirit. But each morning she buckled me into Godefroi’s armor. And that was what held me up.

Behind, Helios brayed a challenge as he was led into the yard. And he was answered. Horsemen were close.

Dikon held my stirrup as Tamas tried again. “We have too few men left. We cannot afford a sally that—”

“The walls are breached. We must go out to them. They will not expect that.” Raising my only hand to the gate wards, I would have dropped it. But I did not.

We all heard the horn winding through the trees. Tamas ran, and I ran after him, to the battlements.

“Look!”

Look indeed. On the road across the river, a troop of horsemen came from the forest at half gallop.

I bellowed, “Archers!”

But Tamas had better eyes than I. “No!” He was pointing. “Hold!”

Anger flared in my heart at the challenge, but Tamas was right to do it, for on their shields was the blue lion of the Percys, rampant on a yellow ground.

I ran for the inner ward and up into the saddle as men massed behind me.

“Drop the gate!” This time, Tamas shouted the order, and he was obeyed.

As the gate came down over the gap, I spurred Helios and let him run, shouting, “
À Dieudonné, à moi, à moi!”

I was lucky not to die.

The horsemen in our path were skilled. Some fired bows as they rode and cloth yards whined close, but I lay against the stallion’s neck still bellowing, “
À Dieudonné!”

“Arrêtez!”
A shout. And no more arrows flew.

Halting the stallion, I called out, “Bèrnard!”

There, at the head of the troop in his Percy colors, was Maugris’s friend from long ago. Bèrnard de Loutrelle had been a squire at Alnwick with my brother; and I, haunting their steps, had been cuffed for getting in their way.

“Bayard?” The man spurred his horse and we met in the middle of the river track. He saw the stump of my right arm and therefore clasped my left, as if I had truly been his brother. “I did not recognize you. Not with the blood, and the beard.” He grinned amiably. “But Hundredfield still stands. All will be well when we shore up the walls. We have enough men.” Between three and four hundred rode at his back.

“It is good that you came. We welcome you.”

“Godefroi?”

“My brother is dead.”

“And Maugris?”

I shook my head.

“Sergeant!” Bèrnard called over one of his men. “We shall escort the Lord Bayard.” Fifteen were counted out from the troop. They would ride before us, an honor guard.

Bèrnard de Loutrelle and I entered Hundredfield together, the burned and shattered patrimony of the Dieudonné. As we clattered across the drawbridge and beneath the great gate, I called out, as he had, “All is well!”

Margaretta stood with the children in the inner ward. She was brave. She did not hide her battered face, her swollen, blackened eyes.

Bèrnard saluted. “Lady, you will be well guarded now.”

She looked up into my face. “I thank you, sir. But there is no need.”

My vision misted as I turned the stallion in a tight circle. “I shall return. And then . . .”

“Yes. There will be a then.” Tears stood in her eyes.

Beside her knees, I saw Aviss, clinging to her skirt. “Give him to me.”