Gayle Callen (17 page)

“Did you hear me?” she demanded.

“Aye, I heard. I need to speak with you.”

“I wish never to speak with you again! Leave me in peace and go back where you came from!”

“To the monastery?” he said shortly. “I shall go back because I must, but not before you hear my words.”

She tried to laugh. “What could you possibly say to me? You can make no excuses for your deception. The moment you realized where we were going, you should have told me your identity!”

“How?” he asked, taking a step towards her.

Katherine shrank back against the bed.

“When I realized who your betrothed was, I was stunned, heartsick. You were blithely following those young travelers. Was I supposed to drag you off into the woods and tell you my horrible secret?”

“It would have been preferable!” Katherine clutched the blanket higher beneath her chin. “By not telling me, you allowed me to—to—” She dosed her eyes in misery as she relived their dark coupling in the dungeon. “How could you do it?” she whispered past the ache in her chest. “How could you betray your own brother in his household?”

R
eynold took another step closer, and grasped the bedpost beside Katherine’s head. He regretted the fear in her eyes, but could not stop the words that tumbled from his lips.

“I know I have sinned!” he said in a hoarse voice. “But do not dare put all the blame on me. I knew he was my brother, and you damn well knew he was your betrothed!”

Katherine slapped him hard across the face, then gasped and held her hand to her chest. The blanket slipped to the floor, revealing her linen nightdress.

“You are no saint, my lady. I will not be made to take all the blame myself!” Reynold stared into the stark whiteness of her face and felt a momentary twinge of regret.

“Get out of my room.”

He heard the icy chill in her voice. He had had his whole apology rehearsed. How had it dissolved into angry accusations?

“Katherine, please—”

“Just leave!” she cried softly, a tear tracing a path down her cheek.

Reynold reached out to wipe it away and she cringed from him. His self-disgust threatening to choke him, he walked towards the door. He put a hand on the latch and looked back at the ghostly whiteness of her gown and the flowing gold curb he would never touch again.

“I am truly sorry, Katherine.” He slipped into the hall and closed the door behind him.

Keeping her head held high, Katherine left her chambers at dawn and descended the stairs into the great hall. She heaved a thankful sigh on spotting neither brother, then hurried to the chapel for mass. She didn’t walk up the center of the aisle to where James knelt near the altar. Instead she dropped to her knees on the rough stone floor beside the castle servants, who eyed her nervously as they moved aside.

Katherine was embarrassed that her garments so outshone theirs. James had gifted her with another gown, this one of deep blue brocade embroidered in gold. The jeweled belt she wore twinkled in the chapel’s smoky rushlight. She had not wanted his expensive gifts, which had obviously kept the village seamstresses up all night. Guilty and ashamed, she bowed her head and prayed, asking God to help her out of this disaster she had brought on herself.

For no matter how angry Katherine was with Reynold’s deception, she was just as guilty in their
sin. She, too, had known whose home they’d violated. She could not understand why God did not strike her dead for kneeling in His house of worship.

Raising her eyes to the altar, she saw Reynold’s back. He knelt near the aisle, away from his brother. His head was bowed and his broad shoulders hunched forward. For a moment Katherine experienced a twinge of sympathy, but she immediately banished it. She had been an innocent before “Brother” Reynold had rescued her.

After mass, Katherine broke the fast with James and Reynold. She ignored the younger brother and focused all her attention on the man she would marry.

“Katherine, my dear,” James was saying, “today I will take my best knights on the hunt. If we bring back that cursed stag which yet eludes me, we’ll celebrate our impending nuptials with a grand meal.”

Katherine nodded and smiled, sipped her wine, and tried to appear interested. His last sentence made her choke. “Impending?”

“I have waited too long to make you my wife. It is time you took your proper place.”

It seemed so long ago, but when Katherine was innocent, she would not have read a second meaning into James’s words. Now she reddened with anger and only spared Reynold a brief heated glance. The monk tore off a handful of bread and ate it without looking up.

“I have dispatched a messenger to your father,
telling him you are here, safe, and that we desire to wed as soon as possible. No doubt he and your mother will arrive shortly.”

Katherine’s mouth slowly dropped open, and a wedge of bread seemed to stick in her throat. Someone kicked her hard on the shin with a booted foot. She jumped and tried to ignore Reynold’s blazing eyes.

Katherine swallowed the lump of bread. “So soon? But I must prepare—”

“I’m sure during the many years we’ve been betrothed, you and your mother have prepared your bridal wardrobe.”

“Of course, but—”

“And your mother will no doubt bring it. We will not have to wait a moment longer to be wed.” James leaned forward and took her shaking hand. “Does this not make you happy?”

Katherine looked down at his hand engulfing hers. In her mind she saw another hand upon her flesh, an image forever burned on her brain. “Yes, of course I am happy,” she said between her teeth. A sudden concern for her father wiped all else from her mind. “James, what did you say to my parents?”

Both brothers looked at her, and she couldn’t help but remember Reynold’s unkind references to her father.

James shrugged. “I told of your abduction, naturally, and that you were now safe with me and ready to be wed.”

She lowered her voice and glanced about to see
if anyone was listening. “Did you mention the traitors?”

James reached over to pat her hand. “I understand, my dear. Your father’s safety is the reason you did not have Reynold bring you home. I respected your confidences and did not tell him of his friends’ plotting. The decision to tell him is up to you.”

Katherine sat back in her chair as a wave of relief left her weak. “Please keep this a secret, both of you.”

They glanced at one another.

“It is much to ask, I know, but I wish my father to remain untouched by the traitors’ disloyalty.” She frowned at the doubt both brothers tried to mask. She knew they were not yet convinced of her father’s innocence. Doubts crept into her own heart, but she put them aside.

Reynold said, “My lady, you cannot forever protect him as you would a child. War is coming, and soon he will know all.”

“I understand.” She clasped her hands before her and gave them each a direct look. “Allow him to find out when the traitors are unmasked by the king, when no disloyalty can be attributed to him. I have risked my life to protect him, and I don’t wish it to be for naught.”

The brothers nodded. Katherine could tell Reynold disagreed with her, but thankfully, he held his tongue. James eyed her but said nothing as he lifted a tankard of ale to his mouth. A ring glittered
on his finger. Like the one she would soon wear. She sighed.

The day had not gone at all as she’d expected. She’d wanted to punish Reynold for his deception, to hurt him for all the sins she’d imagined he’d committed against her, by flirting with James and ignoring Reynold. But James had disrupted all her plans.

Marriage? So soon? She tried to imagine her wedding night with James, and could only shudder. Would she be able to carry off her deception of virginity? Or should she tell the truth and accept her punishment?

Katherine looked at the two brothers, so dissimilar in face and build, but for the dark hair. If she told the truth, James might demand revenge on his brother. She could not bear to be the force that split an entire family, although she’d like to split their heads from their bodies.

“Katherine,” James said, bringing her out of her dark thoughts, “allow Reynold to keep you company while my men and I hunt. My poor brother has dosed himself off from such blood sports. And heaven forbid, we might see a pretty village maiden!”

Katherine gritted her teeth. Reynold’s face remained impassive as if he were used to such treatment.

“Forgive my wit, my dear. As I’ve told Reynold many a time, he is a better man than I to give up life for God.”

Katherine sensed a dark undercurrent between
them, but could make no sense of it. James left the table in search of his knights. Katherine glared after him, thinking that she hated all men.

“Lady Katherine?”

She composed herself, then slowly looked up into Reynold’s eyes, as bright and hard as jewels.

“Shall we take a walk in the lady’s garden?”

“My needlework—”

“There will be plenty of daylight for your ladylike pursuits.” Reynold, as reserved as a stranger, stood up in his black habit to tower above her. “Come, my lady, I must speak with you.”

Katherine pushed back her chair and smiled weakly at the serving girl who cleared away her goblet and plate. Reynold made no attempt to take her arm, even when she stumbled on her hem. They walked side by side into the warm sunshine. Dust rose high into the air as the inner ward came to life. A pack of dogs chased a stray chicken, and she heard the insistent dank of hammer on anvil as the blacksmith plied his trade.

She followed Reynold towards the back of the castle, where the sounds of the soldiers’ barracks faded into the distance, and once again she heard the twittering of birds. The lady’s garden, its white gate hanging ajar, was a precious retreat for the lady of the castle. And that would soon be her. Katherine sighed at the garden’s weedy disarray.

In silence she walked beside Reynold down the dirt path, winding past an apple tree and flowering rose bushes. A breeze whipped a stray curl
into Katherine’s eyes and she tucked it behind her ear. She glanced from beneath her lashes at Reynold, so dark and forbidding and out of place in the lady’s garden. She had a sudden image of the priest who used to follow at her mother’s heels as she walked through her garden. Whispering some evil, Katherine had no doubt. But not Reynold. No matter her anger, she knew he was unlike the monks she’d known.

“You have nothing to say, no hidden purpose for our walk, Brother Reynold?” she asked, then regretted her use of his title.

“No purpose, my lady. I would have been gone but for my brother’s interference.” He hesitated. “I had hoped you would never need know my identity.”

Katherine stared at him in outrage. “How do you think I would have felt upon learning it years from now?”

“I had not considered that,” he said softly.

“My anger would have been magnified a thousand fold!”

“I only thought to spare you from the hurt.”

“You thought too late to spare me, Brother Reynold.”

He stiffened and turned to face her. “Then perhaps I should tell you all. King Richard—”

He broke off and stared over her head with a frown. Katherine turned and spied a division of archers running excitedly for the main gate.

“What is it?” Katherine asked.

“Someone must be approaching,” he said, his face hard and closed against her.

Katherine turned and left the garden, walking quickly towards the gatehouse. The archers and other soldiers made way for her until she stopped short in their midst. Up ahead a confusion of horses and carts and litters were distributed all across the inner ward. Armed guards dismounted and she recognized their colors immediately. Katherine caught a glimpse of the one person who could make her day worse. Her father.

Shocked and disoriented, clutching her arm, she took a step backwards, tripped over her hem and landed heavily against Reynold. He held her up and she allowed it for a moment, trying to regain her strength for the days to come. It appeared her marriage was closer than she had thought.

Reynold told himself he could not leave Katherine. She seemed almost immobile as she watched the soldiers dismount.

“You know these men?” he asked near her ear. Before she could answer, the lord’s pennant unfurled and he understood. “Your father travels quickly.”

“Too quickly,” she murmured, or had Reynold imagined her words? Did perhaps she, too, wonder who masterminded her kidnapping?

She remained still and Reynold kept his place at her back as they watched the curtains part on an austere litter. No sooner had a woman’s gown rippled forward, than a priest hurried to her side to help her alight. Reynold felt the tension that sur
rounded Katharine like a wall against him. Was this one of the monks who’d turned her against all holy men?

A tall thin woman emerged and squinted in the glare of the sun. She was dressed in a plain black gown and her hair was invisible beneath an unadorned headdress and veil. She glanced around the ward impassively, then lent an ear to her priest.

Before him, Kamerine shuddered. Reynold laid a hand on her shoulder and squeezed once. She allowed the contact for a moment, then started forward through the crowd. He followed at a discreet distance, watching in satisfaction as her father enveloped her in a bone-squeezing hug. He hoped for Katherine’s sake that her father was not involved in the treason.

Lord Durham cupped his daughter’s face in his hands. “Katherine, dearest heart, we were so worried!” He hugged her close again, then held her at arm’s length. “You look well, child. I’m so thankful mat James rescued you.”

“No, Father, his brother gave me aid until we reached James.”

“James?” said a woman’s cool voice.

Without looking, Reynold knew Katherine’s mother had spoken. She moved forward fluidly, with her lapdog priest at her elbow. Katherine lowered her head briefly.

“Good day, Mother,” she said. “My betrothed requested that I use his given name.”

The woman nodded. “You are soon to be his
wife. It is only fitting. You are…well, Katherine?”

Reynold heard a wealth of meaning in those words, none of which he liked. Katherine tensed before him, and he saw her holding her weak arm, a habit she’d seemed to have forgotten with him. He began to wonder if perhaps Katherine’s mother could be a traitor.

“I am well, Mother. Brother Reynold protected me.”

Her parents suddenly looked over Katherine’s head and saw him. He nodded respectfully, trying to appear serene, when what he felt like was a clumsy mountain. He was as tense as Katherine seemed to be, worried that they would see what was in his heart when he looked at their daughter. But the Earl of Durham only let out his breath in relief.

“Bolton mentioned you’d been imprisoned in a ruined monastery. I guess I assumed the monks had long since fled. I’m glad you had such good protection, child.”

Reynold gritted his teeth.
You should be punching me, old man
, he thought angrily.
I ravished your daughter!
But a monk seemed above reproach in their household.

“Brother,” Katherine said in the silence, “allow me to present my parents, Theobald Berkeley, Earl of Durham, and his wife, Lady Durham.”