Desire (38 page)

There had been much merriment and jubilation among Gareth's men at supper. Cook had produced an elaborate array of dishes to celebrate the events. The servants had talked and jested with the

men-at-arms.

Dalian had contributed to the air of celebration by singing a thrilling ballad narrating the rescue of Desire. He had composed it in less than two hours and everyone was extremely admiring of his talents.

Clare had managed to maintain a reasonably serene facade as the courtyard was cleaned and all was set to rights. But it was only a facade. She had not been able to eat a thing at the evening meal.

"Are you all right, Clare?" Gareth asked quietly. He stood in front of the hearth fire and stripped off his tunic and boots.

"Aye. Just a little cold." She clenched her hands around the edge of the quilt and watched Gareth as he undressed.

Gareth coiled his leather belt around his fist. "You've been acting oddly this evening."

"Well, it has been a rather odd day, my lord."

He cocked a brow as he set the coiled the belt down on top of a carved chest. "I understand."

"Do you, Gareth?"

"Aye. You are not accustomed to violence here on Desire."

"That is very true."

"Well, calm yourself, madam." Gareth yawned. "Tis very unlikely that we'll be confronted with a similar situation anytime soon. The hall is safe. Desire is safe. Our people are safe."

"Thanks to you, my lord."

His broad shoulder moved in a massive shrug as he crossed the room to the bed. "The magician was nothing more than a well-dressed thief. I am good at dealing with thieves, madam. I've had a fair amount of practice, if you will recall."

His careless attitude to the devastating events of the day was too much. Clare sat straight up in bed. She clutched the quilt to her throat with shaking fingers. "By Saint Hermione's eyes, how can you be so casual about this, my lord?"

He stopped, clearly surprised by her burst of anger. Then concern furrowed his brow. "Clare? Are you well? Do you need a warm drink to help you sleep? You've been through a great deal today."

"I most certainly have been through a great deal." Clare scrambled to her feet and stood squarely in the middle of the bed. She braced her fists on her hips and glowered at him. "You very nearly got yourself killed today, Hellhound!"

He regarded her with a quizzical expression. "There was very little likelihood of that."

"There was every likelihood of it. I witnessed that last battle with the magician. It could just as easily have been you who went over the cliff."

Gareth yawned again. "But I didn't."

"Don't you dare treat this matter so lightly, my lord. What would I have done if it had been your body we brought up from the cove?"

"Clare—"

Tears of anguish and rage filled her eyes. "I could not have borne it, damn you."

"Clare, all is well, I swear it. Calm yourself, madam."

"Do not treat me as though I were an anxious mare. I almost lost you today."

Gareth gave her a slight smile. "I have no doubt but that you could have replaced me easily enough, madam. There are no lack of homeless knights in England. Mayhap you would have found one who came closer to meeting your specifications than I do."

"Do not jest with me, sir. I am in no mood for it. I told you that I love you. Can you not comprehend what that means?"

"I believe so," Gareth said slowly.

"Bah, you have no notion whatsoever of love, do you? If you had been killed today, my heart would have been broken forever. Does that mean nothing to you?"

"It means everything to me," Gareth said simply.

"Oh, Gareth." Clare hurled herself straight into his arms. "You are the only man I have ever known who makes me feel something more than merely useful."

Gareth wrapped his arms around her. "You have the same effect on me, madam. I begin to believe that I belong here on Desire."

"You do. This is your home, Gareth. You must never forget that for a single moment. You must not take any more foolish risks."

"Ease your mind, wife. We are both safe and I intend to keep us so."

"I was so terrified that I would lose you," she mumbled against his shoulder.

He tangled his hands in her hair. "How do you think I felt when I returned to the hall and found you standing on the steps conversing with Lucretius de Valemont?"

Clare choked back a sob. "I was not conversing with him. We were bargaining. I am very good at bargaining."

"Aye, so you are." Gareth gently stroked the nape of her neck with his thumb and forefinger. "That was a very clever trick you played on the magician."

"I knew the mugwort would cause him to sneeze most violently. I had hoped that his reaction would give Dalian a chance to escape."

"Instead it provided you with your chance." Gareth paused meaningfully. "A chance which you would not have needed if you had stayed safely inside the hall as I commanded."

"I had to do something. He threatened Dalian's life."

"So you went to the rescue." Gareth groaned in resignation. "I suppose there is no point berating you for

your foolishness."

"I had no choice."

Gareth captured her face between his palms. "We will not argue the point. 'Tis over and done. You are safe now and that is all that matters."

She smiled and blinked back the last of her tears. "Oh, Gareth." She wound her arms around his neck and pressed close.

He gave a deep, husky exclamation, picked her up, and settled her onto the herb-scented sheets. There was enough light from the banked fire for Clare to see the brilliant intensity of his eyes. The heat in those crystal depths warmed her as nothing else had been able to do all day.

"Ah, my sweet Clare." Gareth sprawled heavily on top of her, crushing her into the bedding. "You are not the only one who got a sound scare today. Do not ever do that to me again."

"Nay, my lord." Clare pulled his mouth down to hers and kissed him with a frantic need that she did not bother to disguise.

His response overwhelmed her, as it always did.

* * *

A long while later Clare shifted languidly alongside Gareth. Neither of them had bothered to draw the curtains around the bed yet. The embers of the fire cast a warm light onto the rumpled sheets.

Clare snuggled deeper into her husband's warmth and breathed in the scent of his relaxed, satiated body. Just as she closed her eyes, a drowsy thought flitted through her brain.

"Gareth?"

"Hmm?" Gareth's voice was little more than a rumbling purr in the shadows.

"I almost forgot. Eadgar wants to know how long we shall be obliged to feed the prisoners. He says he will need to acquire provisions if they are to be housed in the storage rooms for any length of time."

"He need only bother with them for another day or so at the most. They'll all be gone soon."

"Good. He'll be grateful to learn that." Clare patted away a tiny yawn and nestled closer. "Tis a problem for him, you know. We are not accustomed to dealing with prisoners here on Desire."

"Uh-huh." Gareth sounded as though he were already half asleep.

Clare gazed thoughtfully into the glowing coals on the hearth. "Where do you suppose such men will go now that their master is dead?"

"Huh?"

"I was wondering what will become of those four knights who served Sir Lucretius. And those three bowmen you took captive. Poor men. It must be very hard not to have a home or good lord to serve."

"Finding a new home is not going to be a problem for them, Clare."

She turned her head on the pillow. "Why not?"

"Because I'm going to have them all hung, that's why not."

"What?" Clare shot bolt upright. "You cannot do that, Gareth."

He opened one eye and looked at her as though she had gone mad. " Tis the usual procedure for dealing with men of that sort."

"Impossible. Absolutely impossible. You are not going to hang seven men here on Desire, my lord. By Saint Hermione's ring, it is out of the question." Clare's imagination conjured up a vision of seven bodies dangling from gibbets. "I absolutely .forbid it."

Gareth opened his other eye and studied her with a blank look. "You forbid it?"

"Aye, I most certainly do. There has never been a hanging here on Desire. My father never found it necessary to hang anyone. I do not intend to change that custom."

"Clare," Gareth said with an ominous patience, "those men downstairs in the cellar are masterless men. Thieves. Renegade knights. They are likely murderers and worse."

"They killed no one here."

"By purest chance."

"They were led by an evil man who is now dead."

"Aye, and if I turn them loose, they'll soon find themselves another such master to serve. That is their nature."

Clare stared at him, shaken by the implacable expression on his face. "My lord, I cannot abide the thought of so many terrible deaths taking place on this isle. You cannot do it."

Gareth hesitated. "I suppose I could have them sent to Seabern. Sir Nicholas will likely not mind seeing to the matter."

Clare pounded the bedding with clenched fists. "That is not the point. The point is, I do not want them all to hang."

Gareth made an obvious bid for his patience. "We agreed that we each had our responsibilities as lord and lady of this manor."

"Aye, but—"

"You must allow me to carry out my duties, madam."

"Surely you do not need to hang them. There are alternatives."

"What alternatives?"

"You can banish them," she suggested swiftly. "Make them swear to abjure the territory. They would not dare to return."

"Clare—"

"They fear you, sir. They believe you to be more powerful than Lucretius de Valemont."

"Mayhap they would not be of much concern to us in the future," Gareth conceded, "but declaring them outlaws and sending them away only serves to make them someone else's problem."

"Gareth, I will not have seven bodies twisting in the breeze of Desire, and that is final."

"Nay, madam. In this matter, my decision is final."

"We shall see about that." Clare swept up the quilt and wrapped it around herself. She slid off the edge of the bed.

"Where the devil do you think you are going, wife?"

"I am going to sleep in the wardrobe until you grant me the boon I have asked of you, my lord."

Wearing the quilt like an overlong cloak, Clare spun on her heel and stalked across the bedchamber into the wardrobe.

19

"The devil, they are all so young," Gareth muttered. "Not a one of them is above nineteen years." He surveyed the faces of Lucretius's four surviving knights as they were led into the hall for questioning. "Why did that damned magician have to choose boys to carry out his plans?"

"They are not boys, they are men." Ulrich shrugged. "And you know the answer to your question as well as I do."

"Aye." Gareth braced his elbow on the arm of the heavy oak chair and rested his chin on the heel of his hand. He never relished this aspect of the business. "Young men of that age are easier to control and more easily impressed than are their elders. They do not question commands. Or a magician's tricks."

"De Valemont no doubt used a combination of terror and promises of knighthood and a fortune to lure them into his service. Tis an old and much-proven technique for recruiting young men."

"My lady wife wishes me to show mercy." Gareth gazed moodily at the prisoners. "She has bid me set them free."

"So I have heard. Indeed, my lord, the entire hall is aware of Lady Clare's, ah, request."

"I knew she would not be able to keep the matter private."

"I believe the rumors started when a serving maid found Lady Clare asleep in the wardrobe this morning."

Gareth tapped his forefinger against his set jaw and said nothing.

Ulrich politely cleared his throat. "Mayhap your gentle lady feels sorry for these men because they are not much older than Dalian. I'm surprised she feels equally charitable toward the would-be thieves we caught at the harbor, however. There is no denying they are a seasoned lot."

"She would have me banish them all and bid them good fortune in their next endeavors."

"Women are inclined to be softhearted, especially those who have not had much experience with violence."

"She says she does not want Abbess Helen to arrive on our fair isle to find seven corpses twisting in the scented breezes."

"Something tells me our lady abbess has seen worse in her time," Ulrich murmured.

"True. In any event, if we get on with the matter, we can be rid of the corpses before the abbess arrives." Gareth watched the four knights come to a halt in front of his chair.

They were not only young, they were scared and trying hard to conceal the fear behind masks of stoic defiance. Gareth nodded once to the guards, who stepped back a pace. Then he looked straight at the eldest of the young men.

"You. What is your name?"

"Sir Robert."

"Where is your hall?"

Robert hesitated and then shrugged. "I do not have a hall now that Lord Lucretius is dead."

"You have no family?"

"Nay, my lord."

"Your parents?"

Robert looked puzzled by the line of questioning. "I never knew my father. My mother died at my birth."

Gareth glanced at the next young knight. "And you? What is your name? Where is your family's hall?"

"My name is John." There was a slight tremor in John's voice. He took a deep breath and managed to control it. "I was the magician's sworn man. Now that he is dead, I do not have a hall."

"I believe I see a pattern here," Ulrich said softly.

"Aye." Gareth looked at the remaining two knights. "Do either of you have families? A hall?"

Both shook their heads.

"If it pleases you, my lord." Robert took a single step forward.

Gareth glanced at him. "What is it?"

"None of us has any relatives or friends who will ransom us. All that we possess was given to us by the magician. Our armor and our swords are the only things of value that we own." Robert's mouth was a tight, grim line. His eyes held fierce pride as well as fear. "And you have already stripped them from us. You may as well get on with the hanging."