Nothing Else Matters (30 page)

“Beatrice loved your father,” Eleanor told her husband.

“Of course she loved him. But not like—”

“Of course like that! They’re of an age, he was handsome and powerful. She raised his son and managed his house. Do you think she did it just for duty’s sake? She was a fine-looking woman with a sizable dower portion, she could have easily married again.”

“She wouldn’t,” Stian said. “She refused every suitor.”

“Of course. Because she loved Roger.”

Stian took his hand away from her shoulder, to run it through his hair. “Aye,” he conceded. “Perhaps. But—”

“Dame Beatrice left Harelby in anger. She’s a Scotswoman, is she not?”

“Aye.”

“Perhaps she remembered her people’s quarrel with Lord Roger. She used them to seek revenge for his spurning her.”

“My aunt loves Harelby. Loves it as much as I do.”

“Loved it,” Eleanor insisted, “when she thought it and Roger belonged to her. Edythe changed everything.”

Stian let silence draw out between them while he thought about al Eleanor had said. Anger twisted in him and fresh pain. Beatrice had been his only

comfort in the years after his mother died. While his father spent time at court and at his other estates, Beatrice had always been there. When his father came back to Harelby, it was Beatrice who took Stian’s part when Roger and he argued. She was there when there was accord between his father and

him as wel , laughing and joking with them, taking care of them. He had always thought she’d be a part of his life. Instead, it would seem that Beatrice was responsible for destroying so much that he cared for.

He took a deep breath as he fought off the fury from the growing sense of betrayal. “It seems,” he said, “that I must pay a visit to Honcourt Abbey.”

Eleanor searched Stian’s too-calm face. “What wil you do?”

His right hand came to rest on the dagger at his belt. “If it’s al true? Kil the bitch.”

* * * * *

“Of course I’m going to ride. It’s not far. Even a one-armed man could ride five miles. Besides, my arm is nearly healed.”

“I’m going with you.”

Stian looked up. He was standing on the bottom of the hal steps while he waited for his horse to be brought up. Eleanor was on the top step, standing at the hal door. She looked determined.

“Very wel ,” he said. “You can come with me.” She looked as surprised as he thought she would at his easy agreement. He added, “You can face my aunt

with your accusation, if you want.” In fact, he wanted her company more than he wanted her support in confronting Beatrice. Even though this mission was a grim one, it at least gave them a chance to be together.

Eleanor frowned at the man. She wasn’t interested in facing Dame Beatrice.
Then why did she want to go?
she asked herself as she hurried down the steps before Stian changed his mind. To keep him from kil ing the woman perhaps. Though she didn’t know how she could stop him or if she even should.

“Thank you,” she told him as Ranald brought up the horses.

First the squire helped Stian up then lifted Eleanor behind him. She settled with one hand on her husband’s waist and the other on the high back of the saddle. She was glad that Ranald had not brought Stian’s warhorse, but his big but gentle gelding. She was comfortable on the animal’s broad back and

knew its easy gait wouldn’t strain Stian’s healing arm too much.

When the squire swung up onto the second horse, Stian gave him an annoyed look. “Where do you think you’re going?”

Ranald looked significantly at the arm Stian wore in a sling. “With you,” he said in a tone that brooked no argument.

Stian let it go. The lad was right. Though it wasn’t far and he wanted some time alone with his wife, it was safer to travel beyond the bounds of Harelby with a companion. So he nodded and rode away with Ranald closely bringing up the rear.

Though there was a faint line of dark clouds in the distance, the sky above was clear blue. It was warm day and Eleanor, born in a much brighter land, reveled in the heat and light. She turned her face up to the sky, closed her eyes and enjoyed the freedom of being outside Harelby’s wal s instead of

thinking about the grim meeting that awaited them.

She tried not to think at al actual y, but her mind kept coming back to one thing. He’d said he was sorry. At the time she’d been too intent on proving her case against Dame Beatrice to heed his words. Now as time and countryside passed by she couldn’t help but hear them over and over again in her mind.

“I’m sorry”, Stian had said. “I never meant to hurt you” and “I’m a fool”.

Why had he cal ed himself a fool? Because he’d hurt her? Because he was sorry for the things he’d said and done that horrible night? Aye, that was what he meant. It would be foolish and petty of her to think he’d meant anything else. He had actual y apologized. She found that it meant a lot to her, that his gentle, contrite words had done a great deal to ease some of the pain around her heart. If it hadn’t been for his cruel threats to poor Kate, she might have felt herself completely at peace with him.

As it was, she found that at some point both her hands had crept around the man’s narrow waist and her head rested on his broad back. He didn’t seem

to mind. Far from being repulsed, far from chastising the weakness of her flesh, Eleanor simply stayed where she was and let the miles pass silently by.

She must have dozed for a bit for she didn’t quite notice when they left the woods and started on a path that crossed wel -tended fields.

Stian said, “We’l be there soon.” He didn’t sound as if he relished the thought of their arrival.

“Does your arm pain you?” she asked as the outbuildings of the abbey came into view.

“No. I’m fine.”

He didn’t sound fine. He sounded tired. Worse, he sounded like a man who’d grappled with disil usionment and come out of it weary in his very soul.

Eleanor began to wish she’d never faced him with the possibility of his aunt’s treachery.

But then, he might never have said he was sorry.

Was an apology worth Beatrice’s life?

No, of course not. But if the woman was guilty, there were lives that needed to be paid for. Not just Lord Roger’s life had been stolen, but the steward, the guards who had died in the fighting, the vil agers were dead because of one person’s need for revenge. Even Conner Muragh would be alive now if his

family hadn’t had the information they needed to rescue him.

The horses came to a halt in the abbey courtyard and Ranald hurried to help her down. The squire received a fierce look when he tried to assist Stian, who managed to get down from the gelding easily enough. Eleanor looked around at the peaceful surroundings. The courtyard was surrounded by

cloistered living quarters on three sides. A refectory and church stood next to each other on the fourth side of the square. The warm summer air was

scented by unseen rose and herb gardens.

“This is a place of peace,” she said as a nun approached them from the refectory. Eleanor wasn’t sure if she’d just made a simple statement or if the

words had been a plea to Stian not to shatter the peace with his aunt’s blood.

Stian heard the uncertainty in his wife’s voice but had no time to tel her how much he shared her confusion before the black-clad woman came up to

them.

The nun was very old, her voice a reedy whisper when she said, “The Harelby boy, is it not? You’ve grown a bit since I used to chase you when you stole apples from the abbey orchard.”

Stian didn’t remember the woman at al . Nor had he ever stolen from the abbey orchard. “I’m told I look like my grandfather,” he told the nun. “Perhaps that is who you recal . Tel me, good dame,” he went on before the old woman could reply. “Do you know where I might find my Aunt Beatrice. She’s recently

come from Harelby to lodge at the abbey.”

The nun bobbed her head. “Oh aye, the new lodger. The one who spends her days weeping before the altar.” She pointed toward the church. “That’s

where she’l be, lad. It’s gotten so a body can’t get any sleep during prayers for al that woman’s carrying on,” he heard the old nun grumble as Eleanor and him walked to the church door.

Inside was cool and dark, scented with beeswax, ful of the warm glow of many candles. Sunlight came through a round window of stained glass above the altar. A hunched, weeping figure knelt at the bottom of the altar steps.

Al the anger he felt, al the betrayal, al the hurt, disappeared the moment he recognized the woman below the altar. “Aunt Beatrice?”

The woman turned with a shriek. In a quick, scuttling movement she backed up the stairs until the carved wood of the altar stopped her flight. She stayed where she was, staring at him in white-eyed terror.

“Stian!”

As Stian walked slowly forward, Eleanor waited, her back pressed against one of the pil ars that held up the church roof. She couldn’t take her eyes off the scene yet she was reluctant to join it. She’d brought this meeting about but she didn’t feel a part of it. This was between Stian and the woman who had raised him. The woman who appeared to share his deep grief at losing Roger. Eleanor was an outsider here, a watcher, Stian and Beatrice’s shared

family and history excluded anyone else from their confrontation. She waited and crossed herself and prayed.

Stian slowly eased his left arm out of the sling as he drew closer to where his aunt cowered. He flexed his fingers, stretched his arm out, decided the pain wasn’t so bad after al . Then he took his aunt in his arms and held her close while she cried and sobbed and begged him for forgiveness. She was smal , fragile. He’d never thought of the formidable Dame Beatrice, the woman who boxed his ears though he was a belted knight, as fragile before. She was

bone thin under her robes, light as a feather in his embrace though she leaned her whole weight against him. And she seemed so…old. So empty of

everything but pain.

“Hush,” he said after a long time of silently listening to her incoherent cries. He stepped back from her a little, though he stil held her in the circle of his arms. “Hush. It doesn’t matter. It’s over. Peace, Aunt, al is wel .”

She shook her head. “No. I knew when I came here nothing would ever be wel for me again. David kept tel ing me to leave, to come with him, to start

over.”

“Sometimes even Ayrfel can be right,” Stian told her.

“I couldn’t leave here.” Tears continued to trickle down her face as she spoke. “The abbey’s so close to Harelby. I thought it would be easier to return from here. I thought Roger would see that he needed me, that he would come for me.”

There was a long silence, punctuated by a few hiccupping sobs as Beatrice tried to stay in control of her emotions. Stian waited for her. Never mind the accusations he’d come prepared to throw at her, al he wanted now was to hear what she had to say.

“He never sent for me.”

“I’m sorry.”

“He didn’t need me.” Stian had no answer for that. There was another long wait before she said, “He was kil ed before he realized he needed me.”

Beatrice sighed, and looked away. “It’s al my fault.”

Stian swal owed hard then made himself say the damning words. “You betrayed Harelby.”

At first Beatrice gave a violent shake of her head. Then she nodded. “I didn’t realize it at first. When the news came of the attack…of his death…I was surprised that anyone could possibly have gotten into the keep. When I was told how the attackers breached the defenses, my first thought was that Roger should have known better than to try to build such a fool thing. He did it for his pretty wife, to impress a foolish girl. I half believed he deserved what happened to him.” She squeezed her eyes shut but that didn’t stop the tears from rol ing down her cheeks. “But then, Holy Mother, but then.”

Stian very nearly shook her to get the rest of the story from her. Instead he said gently, “What?”

She made herself look at him. “Then I realized that I had told David about the garderobe.”

“Ayrfel ?”

She nodded.

“You told David of Ayrfel how to sneak into my castle?” His angry shout fil ed every corner of the church with his outraged voice.

The voice that answered from behind him was not as loud but it was equal y outraged. “She did,” said David of Ayrfel . “It’s through me that Conner

Muragh was freed.”

Stian spun to face his hated cousin. Ayrfel already had a sword in his hand. Stian didn’t hesitate in drawing his. “Conner Muragh isn’t free,” Stian said as he stalked down the altar steps. “Conner Muragh is dead.”

“Dead?” Ayrfel looked stunned.

“Aye,” Stian said bitterly. “And my father with him.”

“Muragh dead? Lord Roger is dead?” Ayrfel shook his head as though he didn’t believe what he’d just heard. “How could Lord Roger be dead? He was

supposed to be at York.” He looked past Stian to where Beatrice was slumped by the altar. “Is this true, Aunt?”

“Aye,” she answered. “Dead.”

The word came out on such a keening note of sorrow Stian felt as if there were a ghost behind him instead of a woman. He couldn’t bring himself to look back at his sorrowing aunt. Couldn’t even if he wanted to, not with the danger of David of Ayrfel before him. He wished he had a shield. He wished his left arm was in better condition, but wishing did no good when a fight was in the offing.

The news of Roger and Conner’s deaths had wiped the habitual sneer off Ayrfel ’s face for the moment. “I thought you might die at Harelby,” he told Stian.

“I never intended for Roger to die instead.”

“Was that an apology?” Stian asked, closing the distance between them by a pace.

Ayrfel gave a cold laugh. “Roger made his own fate when he sided against the Scots. I only wanted to see Conner Muragh freed.”

“We were going to ransom him back soon enough. Couldn’t you have waited?”

Ayrfel gave another laugh. “It wouldn’t be very good for me if Muragh’s treasure was in Harelby’s coffers.”

“What the devil do you care about Muragh’s treasure?”

“I’m betrothed to Long Kate, you ass. You think I’d take her without a large dowry? Do you think the Muraghs could have managed the dowry after paying the ransom? It was better for me to help Conner escape.”