Winterbourne (19 page)

A sob constricted in her chest and she stepped back, gazing up at him through a haze of angry tears. "How cruel you can be. And all because of a fit of pique over that damned hawk getting away from you. You cannot wring its neck, but the boy will serve just as well."

She heard several indrawn breaths from the other knights, and most of them averted their gaze, looking very much as if they wished themselves elsewhere. Jaufre compressed his lips and yanked on his reins as he prepared to ride away. A half-hysterical laugh escaped her.

"Go ahead and hang him, then!" she screamed. "God forbid you should fail to live up to your name. The Dark Knight Without Mercy. And God forbid you should trouble yourself to listen to this boy's explanation any more than I'm sure you ever listened to Yseult before you hanged her."

The instant the words were out, she wished them unsaid. The wild accusation was borne of her despair for the young boy's life, and for Jaufre that he should so lessen his nobility with such heedless cruelty.

Jaufre's neck went rigid, and when he turned back to her his face was drained, his eyes glazed over until they glittered like dark stones beneath the rushing surface of a turbulent stream. An ominous silence settled over the group except for the occasional snort and restless pawing of the horses.

Before she realized what he meant to do. Jaufre trotted his mount forward and bent over. One sinewy arm seized her roughly about the waist and hauled her off her feet to a sitting position in front of him. Too stunned to protest, she clutched her arms around his neck to prevent herself from falling off. Jaufre reached his hands around her to steady the gelding, who had been as startled by the sudden action as she was.

"Hold that prisoner until I return," he said. "If you will excuse me a moment, gentlemen. I want a word in private with my wife."

With that, he turned the horse and galloped off in the direction of the forest. Melyssan lurched against his powerful chest and clung to him, fearful of being thrown from her precarious perch. For the first time, she became aware of the distant rumble of thunder overhead. They had ridden well out of hearing of the others before Jaufre pulled the reins in on the gelding under a copse of trees.

Fear gripped her as cold and icy as the stray drop of rain that splashed against her face and trickled down her neck. She tried to draw back, but there was no place to go. Every way she moved, she was crushed close against the hardness of his thighs, his chest, his arms. The autumn wind caught up a handful of brittle red-gold leaves and swirled them past her head, swirled them like the maelstrom of fury and pain she saw seething in Jaufre's eyes.

"Jaufre, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to speak of Yseult," she whispered.

"Didn't you? Oh, I'll wager you've been dying to hear about my first wife for some time now. A woman like you, who so cherishes her explanations."

He began pulling free one of the anus she still entwined around his neck for balance. "Give me your hand."

"W-what are you going to do?"

"You needn't worry. I'm not going to cut it off. If I was seeking retribution, I'd be more likely to rip out your tongue. Nay, I simply want you to feel what listening to explanations has done for me."

Pulling loose the ruby brooch that drew in the neckline of his tunic, he forced her hand inside his woolen shirt and pressed her fingers against the warm bare flesh. She trembled as she touched hair-roughened skin and then gasped as her hand came into contact with the thick, raised tissue of a scar that seemed to continue endlessly down the length of Jaufre's chest.

"Feel that?" he snarled. "That was Yseult’s final word to me after I spent hours listening to her, listening to her explain after I caught her in bed with Godric."

Melyssan felt the angry thudding of his heart beneath her fingertips as he gave a self-mocking laugh. "There are not many men who would pause to ask questions if they found their wife sprawled under the body of another man. Oh, but I let her sob her heart out to me. Tell me all about how Godric had raped her. how he was plotting to poison me for my money, and how she was almost too terrified to speak. And I believed every last damned lying word."

Melyssan tried to beg him to stop, but her throat was too constricted to speak. The intensity of his painful memories was carved in every strained line of his face, in the muscle that twitched along his jawline. But having once started, it was as if he could not stop.

"And then after Godric was dead, after I killed him, I drew her into my arms for comfort, and somehow I was able to sleep—sleep, when I never thought I'd be able to do so again. I thought I'd spend the rest of my life seeing Godric lying there in that pool of blood. Little did I realize my loving bride was determined to spare me such torment.

"God knows what instinct caused me to wake. But wake I did, in time to save my throat. As it was, she nearly ripped my heart out with her dagger. And that was the last I ever saw of my beautiful Yseult, her face so distorted with her blood lust she looked like a succubus spawned from hell."

Jaufre concluded his tale in dull, wooden tones. "While I lay unconscious, my grandfather had her hanged. Probably as well, for who knows? I might have listened to her explanations again, damn bloody fool that I was. Damn besotted young fool."

"No more," Melyssan said, her warm tears now mingling with the slow drops of rain that fell upon Jaufre's chest. She stroked the scar as if somehow the gesture could draw out the pain from his heart. "Do not berate yourself so bitterly. You did nothing wrong. You loved, trusted. 'Twas she who betrayed you."

"Love." He jerked her hand away, his voice hardening once more. "Don't make me sick. I never loved her. 'Twas a madness, an infatuation. Blindly following the dictates of my heart instead of my head.

" 'Tis a mistake I've never made since." He caught Melyssan by the arm and gave her a rough shake. "So you remember that the next time you are tempted to appeal to my mercy."

Jaufre hauled in on the reins, pulling up the head of his horse, who had used the interval to crop at some dried grass. He turned the animal around and galloped back toward his waiting knights.

Melyssan's head collided with his shoulder as she entwined her arms around his neck, making no attempt to shield her face from the pelting rain. At St. Clare, the good sisters had taught her much of medicine, but she knew of no herbs that could heal the bitterness in Jaufre's heart. She sickened with despair at her own helplessness, helpless to save the boy about to lose his life, helpless to restore that part of the man that was already lost.

When they rode back into the circle of restive horses. Jaufre lowered her to the ground, where Tristan hastened to help her remount her pony.

"Are you going to stand here all day getting soaked?" Jaufre shouted to his people. "Head back for Winterbourne at once."

They all moved to obey except Tristan, who waited for Melyssan. She lingered, ignoring the folds of her wimple clinging wet to her cheeks and her gown weighted down by the rain. Haunted by the thin captive trembling with cold at the end of the rope, she could not tear herself away.

The guard started to ride off, preparing to carry out his grim commission, when the earl said, "Wait." Edging his horse closer, he peered down at the boy. "Tip his face up."

Although his mouth opened in bewilderment, the guard obeyed, yanking on the rope in such a way that the lad was obliged to face Jaufre. The black hair was plastered to the boy's forehead, sending trickles of water down his narrow cheeks, but he met the earl's regard with sullen defiance.

Jaufre tugged at his beard in frowning concentration. The boy's strange silver-hued eyes momentarily lost some of their fierceness, and his lips parted in a look that was almost eager, expectant.

Dear God, help him, Melyssan offered up in silent prayer. Help both of them.

It seemed to her they spent hours in that meadow, heedless of the sheets of rain pouring down. At last, Jaufre shook his head and said, "Whip him for trespass and send him on his way. Warn him never to set foot on my lands again."

"Aye, my lord," the guard agreed, scratching his thick skull in bewilderment.

Without another word, the earl turned and rode away.

Melyssan choked back a sob of relief, but as she looked down at the boy she wondered if he understood that he had been spared, despite his boast of how well he spoke French. He continued to stare in the direction where the earl's horse had disappeared. Melyssan shivered as her wet clothes layered to her back like a second skin, but she was more chilled by the boy's face before her… a young face suddenly aged with hate.

Chapter 8

Thunder reverberated off the thick walls of the gray stone solar, rumbling as if the sky made war on Winterbourne. Jaufre sprawled in his chair, his fingers crooked around a pewter goblet. He left the wine untasted as he stared through the croslet at the black night pierced by jagged spears of lightning, pierced like the darkness of his life with flashes of illumination, revealing to him some hidden truth if he could but catch the light long enough to see…

He raked his nails back through his hair, attempting to shake off the strange thoughts that had taken possession of him since he had returned from the hawking. What madness had beguiled him into releasing that boy? He knew full well the dangers of his position as a marcher lord. Any sign of weakness, and the wild, rebellious Welshmen would swoop out of the hills to overrun Winterbourne. The king trusted him to keep order on these lands, not encourage his enemies to think they could defy the law with impunity.

Yet there had been something disturbing about the boy that Jaufre could not define. Those peculiar silver eyes of his, his manner of speaking French. Obviously no Welsh peasant, so whence had he come? Bah! Jaufre scowled, and his fingers clenched the goblet's stem. Why did he deceive himself? It was nothing about the lad that had softened his heart: it was Melyssan. She clouded his judgment with her honeyed beauty, her gold-fringed green eyes misting with tears, begging, accusing, until he had become unsure of his own verdict.

He prided himself on the justice he dispensed on his fiefs.

Hard he was, yes, the Dark Knight Without Mercy, but just, always just. Or so he had thought. He was no longer certain of anything. Perhaps over the years he had come to mistake ruthlessness for stern impartiality.

Nay, he must not allow her softness to steal over him, wreak havoc with his senses, weaken him. Jaufre propped his elbows on the table and lowered his head, splaying his fingers against throbbing temples.

It was surely a weakness for a man not to stand by his first conviction. He hoped he never had cause to regret having spared the boy. Already he repented of his outburst about his first marriage. What charms had Melyssan used to so loosen his tongue until he'd told her almost everything about Yseult and Godric, revealing to her the secret pain he had kept locked inside himself for so many years? The confession left him feeling exposed, raw, like a wound with the healing scab ripped away.

No matter how he fought it, Melyssan was bewitching him in a way not even Yseult had done. He thought he had kept her at Winterbourne only to punish her, to make her serve him for the use of his name, but he'd forced her to stay because he desired her beyond all reason. Today even in the midst of his fury, when she had sat perched in front of him upon his horse, he had been painfully aware of the full curve of her hips pressed against his thighs, the soft swell of her small firm breasts moving against his chest, the feel of her slender warm fingers tracing the scar on his flesh…

He wanted nothing so much as to bury himself inside her gentle sweetness, losing all his anger, anguish, and pent-up longing in one great, shuddering release. Jaufre mopped at the perspiration beading on his brow. Sweet Jesu, what was he thinking? She had repaid her debt to him many times over. If he took her, he might end by owing her a price he could never pay.

The earl pushed back from the table and heaved himself to his feet. Then let her go from Winterbourne. Go to the nunnery where she belonged. He would tell her tonight she was free and thus free himself before it was too late. Then he could find a woman to wed who would give him his heir, someone like Finette, who would be satisfied with his wealth and his titles and never expect more. Never haunt him with sea-green eyes probing too deeply into old wounds, seeking out that vulnerable part of him he thought had died long ago.

By this time tomorrow, Melyssan could be far away from Winterbourne. A cold emptiness washed over him, but he shook off the feeling. He strode from the solar, his footsteps never faltering until he came to the heavy oak door leading to his bedchamber. To his annoyance, his stomach knotted as if he were some guilty lad gone to confront his confessor.

Irritated by his nervousness, he flung the door open with unnecessary force. Melyssan sat on a low stool before the hearth while Nelda leaned over, combing the damp tendrils of her mistress's newly washed hair. At the sound of the wood crashing against the stone wall, the lady-in-waiting gasped and dropped the comb. Melyssan twisted around with a start, her robe of blue wool slipping off one shoulder.

Jaufre towered in the doorway, the flickering light from the hearth illuminating only the thick boots and powerful outline of his thighs. His face was obscured by the shadows from the darkened outer room, but Melyssan could feel the tension emanating from every muscle in his body. She trembled as a surge of fear mingled inside her with a strange quivering anticipation.

Jaufre entered the chamber and closed the door behind him. He stepped forward until the firelight revealed his face to her. It was blank, masked by his heavy black beard and bushy eyebrows. Only the mahogany eyes were alive, darting restlessly around the room before settling on her naked shoulder until his stare became almost a physical thing, warming her flesh far more than the burning logs.

Hastily she pulled up the rough wool and held it pinned against her neck. The defensive gesture snapped Jaufre out of his trance.