Fairest Of Them All (28 page)

A brief, wistful smile softened Holly’s lips. “Perhaps if he had thrashed my naughty little rump instead, I wouldn’t now find myself in such a predicament”

The door swung open and Winifred poked her round face inside. “ Tis time to go, Elspeth.”

The nurse hesitated, reluctant to leave her mistress in such bleak solitude. Holly’s pallor and glittering eyes made her look both fragile and dangerous, as if she were possessed by some exotic fever that might burn both her and anyone she touched to ashes.

“Sleep well,” Holly said gently.

Elspeth cast Winifred a helpless look, but the Welshwoman shook her head, her fretful expression mirroring Elspeth’s own. They had spoken bluntly about Holly’s plight, but were at a loss as to how to break this cycle of destruction. Twas as if their master and mistress were locked in some dark dance of the soul, both determined to carry it to its grim conclusion.

Having nothing else to offer Holly, Elspeth gave her a fervent hug. “God keep ye until the morrow, my child,” she whispered, wishing she could shake off her chill of foreboding.

When Elspeth had gone, Holly glided about the chamber, the jagged edge smoothed off of her restlessness by a growing sense of purpose. Instead of pinching the flame from each taper as she usually did, she retrieved the candles she’d been hoarding for days and lit every feathery wick until the tower was bathed in a luminous glow.

If Austyn would come to her, then let him come to her in light. She would no longer offer him a shield of darkness to hide his heart behind. She would face him boldly in the candlelight, even if doing so made her blush to remember what had passed between them in the shadows.

She would have the truth from him. And if he vowed to her upon his honor as a knight that he could never love her, she would humble herself before him for the last time and entreat him to return her to Tewksbury. A spasm of anguish gripped her heart, but she squelched it without mercy.

As in the nights before, there was little she could do but wait. She drifted to the window, breathing deeply of the bittersweet incense of the flowers decaying on the cobblestones below, never feeling the sly caress of the eyes that watched from the gathering darkness.

Tonight would be the night he would keep himself from her.

Austyn strode up the moonlit hill, knowing himself a liar even as he made the vow. She burned like a molten fever in his blood. He was as helpless to resist her as the tides were to resist the siren tug of the moon.

The stones of the unfinished curtain wall gaped like ivory teeth in the jaws of night He vaulted over a low section, welcoming the shadows and the sweet anonymity they would bring. Twas only in darkness that he dared reveal himself to her.

He slipped past the deserted chapel and into the inner bailey, skirting the rushlights like the predator he could feel himself becoming. He had nearly reached the refuge of an outer staircase when a fair-haired figure disengaged from the shadows and sauntered into his path.

Austyn halted and rested his hands on his hips. “You might not have as much leisure to act as my conscience were you to seek a wife of your own.”

The cocky flash of Carey’s smile should have warned him. “Now why would I go to the trouble when I was hoping you’d grant me a tumble on yours?”

At the furtive creak of the door opening and closing behind her, Holly squared her shoulders, girding herself to do final battle for the man she loved. She drew in a bracing breath as she turned. It escaped in an exclamation of surprise at the sight of the man huddled against the door.

“Father Rhys?”

Her father-in-law was the first man aside from her husband allowed entry to the tower since her captivity had began. Alarm tinged her bewilderment as she remembered his thundering denouncement from the parapets on the day Austyn had discovered her ruse.

He touched a finger to his lips to beg her silence, looking bashful and almost childlike. “Father forbade me to come. But I slipped away while he was with his doxy.”

Holly’s confusion mounted. “Your father forbade you? I don’t understand.”

“He said you were wicked, but I don’t believe him.” Tears puddled in his pale blue eyes—eyes so like Austyn’s that it hurt Holly just to gaze into them. They only served to remind her of all the darkness had robbed her of. “I miss you, Mama. I miss you terribly.”

Comprehension dawned. In all of her empathy for the woman who had inhabited this tower prison before her, Holly had never once cast a thought for the woman’s child. A small boy forbidden his mother’s love by a cruel and vengeful father. For the first time since learning how Rhys of Gavenmore had murdered his own wife in a jealous rage, Holly felt a twinge of pity for the man.

Sympathy gentled her voice. “I’m sure your mama missed you, too, sir. Very much. But I am not her.”

He cocked his head to the side, as if listening to an echo of a long forgotten melody. “I hear the two of you, you know. When Father thinks I’m sleeping, I sneak into the courtyard and listen.” Cunning crept in to banish the shyness from his expression. “I hear you moaning and panting. Sometimes you scream as if he’s hurting you, but then you beg him to hurt you more. You fancy the lewd things he does to you, don’t you? Perhaps you are wicked after all.”

Holly clapped a hand over her mouth to smother a gasp of horror. Twas distressing enough to imagine a small boy hearing such noises between his parents, but even more appalling to realize he must have been eavesdropping on her and Austyn from the beginning.

He made her feel violated in a way that his son never had.

He advanced on her, his voice swelling from the plaintive tones of a child to the dangerous vigor of manhood. “Perhaps you’re nothing but a deceitful harlot” He raked her with a lascivious gaze. “How many men have you welcomed between those milky thighs of yours, Gwyneth? A dozen? A legion?”

“I am not Gwyneth! Nor am I your mother.” Only too aware of the yawning chasm behind her, Holly sidled away from the window, realizing too late that she was backing toward the bed. “I am Holly, Father Rhys. Don’t you remember me? You helped me carry tubs of poppies up to the battlements. We planted flowers on Gwyneth’s grave together.” When her frantic words failed to halt his pursuit, she cried out, Tm your son’s wife, for God’s sake! Austyn’s wife!”

Even to her own ears, her avowal lacked conviction. In truth, Austyn had not claimed her as his wife since that dark day by the river. How was she to convince this madman she was more than just a contemptible harlot if she could not even convince herself? Hadn’t Austyn proved her as weak and wicked a creature as Rhys described, panting with eagerness to abandon her body and soul to torrid nights of carnal revelry?

Blinking back tears, she groped behind her for a weapon. A discordant twang provoked her hopes even as the backs of her knees struck the bed pedestal.

“lift your skirts, love,” he snarled, the endearment a profanity on his lips, “and we shall see if you find me as robust a satisfaction as you found the king when you enticed him to your bed.”

He took his eyes off of her to fumble with his hose, his palsied hands betraying his delusion of youth. Holly swung the lute in a wide circle, aiming for his head.

The instrument shattered against his temple. He staggered backward, shooting her such a wounded look that it might have been comical under less dire circumstances. But before Holly could celebrate her triumph, he shook off the blow and rushed her. He tore at the rich damask of her cotte with a strength born of madness, leaving her only one weapon with which to do battle.

Austyn could not think of a single reason why his man-at-arms would seek to provoke him to murder. Especially with himself as the most likely victim.

He stared at Carey through narrowed eyes. “Have you lost your wits?”

Carey hiked one shoulder in a lazy shrug and began to circle him, affecting a swagger that was a creditable imitation of Austyn’s own. “I haven’t lost my wits, man. I’ve come to them. And I must say ‘tis really not like you to be so selfish.”

“Selfish?”

“Aye! Or greedy either. You’ve never begrudged me a taste of choice pheasant or a sip of your finest wine. So why should you be so grasping as to hoard a treasure like Holly all for yourself?” He elbowed Austyn in the ribs, shooting him a leering wink. “ Twouldn’t be the first time we’d shared a woman.”

A scarlet curtain of rage unfurled over Austyn’s eyes. He snatched Carey up by the tunic and slammed him against the nearest wall. “How dare you? You’re not talking about some ha’penny whore. You’re talking about my wife!”

Carey looked far more nonchalant than he should have with Austyn’s brawny forearm pressed against his windpipe. ‘Then you’ll have to forgive my insolence for ‘twas my impression that a man doesn’t lock his wife in a tower. Nor does he creep into her bed by night to steal her favors like a thief.”

“She brought that on herself. She should never have betrayed me!”

Carey’s gray eyes glittered with challenge. “Aye, and if you snap my fool neck this very minute, you’ll find a way to blame that on her, too, won’t you? After all, isn’t that what wicked women such as your mother and Holly delight in? Setting husband against king? Brother against brother? Friend against friend?”

Austyn sucked in a breath through clenched teeth, glowering down into the flushed face of a man who had been more brother to him than friend. A man willing to risk his life to make him see reason. The harsh rasp of their mingled breathing slowly dwindled.

The taut fabric of their silence was torn by a sound Austyn had heard only once before. A sound so terrible he wanted to drop to his knees like the terrified nine-year-old he had been and clamp his hands over his ears.

A full-throated scream stifled in mid-note with brutal efficiency.

As Rhys’s gnarled hands closed around her throat to mangle the life from her, Holly thought ruefully that at least there would be less of a mess for Austyn to mop up than if his father had hurled her out the window. By this time tomorrow night, she’d be just another Gavenmore ghost

Twas a pity she did not believe in ghosts. If she did, at least her spirit might have lingered to watch over Austyn and wreak mischievous havoc if he dared bring home some plain, docile bride to replace her. She would sing off-key in their bedchamber and shove tubs of poppies off the battlements on the woman’s dowdy head. Holly might have giggled at the vision had she been able to suck any air into her tortured lungs.

The tower was dimming around her. Twould be full dark soon. Holly welcomed the gathering shadows. Austyn always came in the dark. Twas the one place where his touch promised love even if his lips would not A single tear slipped from her eye. A tear of longing. A tear of regret But she refused to surrender her hope. For Austyn would never abandon her to face the dark alone.

Jesus, God in heaven, it was happening all over again.

Austyn’s knees had buckled at that ghastly cry and for a heartbeat of hesitation, ‘twas only Carey’s grip that kept him standing. They exchanged a frantic glance before Austyn tore himself from his friend’s grasp and went racing for the castle.

He could hear Carey at his heels as he thundered past the stark white faces in the great hall and shoved his way through the men who had already started up the first set of stairs.

Please, God, he prayed, don’t let me be too late. Not this time.

He reached the landing beneath the north tower in less than a dozen steps, yet felt as if he were wading through a silence as thick and viscous as death. He flew up the narrow, winding stairs, numbed to the sparks of pain that exploded through his brain when his shoulder slammed against the door.

He stumbled into the tower only to be engulfed by a swell of desolation so intense it threatened to submerge him.

Images came to him in fragments: the splinters of the lute scattered across the floor; his father straddling a woman; her slender fingers hanging limp over the side of the bed, just as his mother’s neck had hung limp when he had carried her down the stairs to bury her.

Twas the stubborn twitch of those fingertips that jerked Austyn from past to present Crossing the chamber in two strides, he caught the back of his father’s tunic and hurled him off the bed. He snatched Holly up in his arms, terrified he would find her beautiful face blackened by death.

Her wheezing gasp was the sweetest melody he’d ever heard from her lips. “Breathe deep, love,” he begged, his own voice the hoarse rasp of a stranger. “Oh, please breathe. Breathe for me.”

He rocked her in his arms, supporting her head with his palm until her nostrils lost their pinched look and her face faded from purple to white. His father’s fingerprints marred the pale palette of her throat

Rhys had collapsed in a flaccid heap, his lower lip quivering, his rheumy eyes puddling with tears. Blood trickled from a gash on his temple. “I’m sorry, Mama,” he whispered plaintively. The anguished timbre of his voice deepened as he buried his face in his hands. “Oh, dear God, Gwyneth, I’m so sorry.”

Not a drop of pity would have lingered in Austyn’s heart had he not possessed the grim knowledge that he might yet be gazing into his own future. He would have risen to deal with his father then and there, but his arms refused to relinquish Holly’s precious weight.

A blessed hiccup drew his hungry gaze back to her face. A hint of rose had bloomed in her cheeks.

Her eyes fluttered open and she blinked up at him earnestly. “Am I a ghost, sir?”

Austyn tightened his embrace, shivering as he contemplated how close she’d come to achieving such a spectral state. He buried his mouth in the softness of her curls. “No, love, although I suspect you might be an angel.”

She snuggled deeper into his arms. “ Tis just as well I s’pose,” she whispered in an endearing croak. “I should have been a very naughty ghost I was going to sew the legs of your hose together and rip all the seams out of your surcoats.”

Her eyes flew open. She glanced down, as if just remembering that Rhys’s attack had torn her cotte. The damask had parted to offer a teasing glimpse of one creamy breast Her gaze shot to the door to find Carey standing in the doorway, an anxious crowd hovering behind him.