Rexanne Becnel (21 page)
Authors: The Knight of Rosecliffe
Her heart thudded in her chest as she met his ferocious glare. She’d not meant to goad him quite so far, but once begun, her own frustration had not let her stop. This was not fair, none of it. She loved the wrong man; he wanted her for all the wrong reasons; and Rhys demanded her aid in an attack that was all wrong.
And now Jasper looked at her with such contempt she wanted to die. “Perhaps you are right. Perhaps you are wiser than I. Marrying you to gain freer access to the delights of your body is an extreme gesture, especially when we both know you can be had without benefit of a clergyman’s blessing.”
“No!” She darted to the side, but his arm stopped her. His other arm blocked the other side. Again they were face-to-face, too close. But this time her emotions were far too near the surface. With just a little push they might burst free, boil over, and burn the two of them with their heat.
And it was clear he meant to push.
In desperation her hand slid along the door, and when she found the latch she lifted it. Under their weight the door at once swung inward. A muffled cry, a thud, and it stopped midway.
“Ouch! Oh, you’re squashing me!” a youthful voice cried.
Isolde!
“What in hell?” Jasper exclaimed.
Thankful for the reprieve, Rhonwen took advantage of the confusion and ducked below Jasper’s arm. Behind the door Isolde lay in a crumpled heap.
“What happened?” Rhonwen asked, helping her up and avoiding Jasper at all costs.
“She was eavesdropping, that’s what happened,” Jasper bit out. “Do I have the right of it, Isolde?”
The little girl crowded against Rhonwen and would not meet his gaze. “I was in here first. Then you stopped outside the door.”
“And so you put your ear to the lock to hear better still.”
“Leave her alone, Jasper. This is not her fault.”
His expression was thunderous. He looked as like to strangle Isolde as to strangle Rhonwen, for his hands flexed then clenched, flexed and clenched.
“Go away, Jasper,” Rhonwen said, more quietly. “These are the women’s quarters. You have no business here.”
One last time their gazes met and held. She could still change her answer to him. She sensed that. But there were too many reasons not to, reasons he did not need to know.
“No,” he said at last. “I have no business here any longer.”
When he was gone, when even the echo of his steps had faded away, Isolde looked up at Rhonwen. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I should not have kept my presence unknown.”
“You have nothing to apologize for.” Rhonwen squeezed the girl’s shoulders, then released her. “It was for the best. Truly, it was.” She stared blindly around the solar, shaking inside, searching inanely for the spindle she’d again dropped.
“But … but I don’t understand,” Isolde said. “You and he … I’m not a child anymore. I know what he wanted to do.”
“He didn’t mean anything by it,” Rhonwen assured the girl. “He and I, well, we seem to bring out the worst in one another.”
“But why won’t you marry him? I heard him ask you, Rhonwen. Why did you say no?”
Rhonwen stared down at the girl, battling the urge to weep. How could she explain to Isolde what she could not explain to Jasper, nor even to herself?
“Is Jasper wrong about that awful man, that outlaw?” the younger girl continued. “Is it Rhys ap Owain you love? I
know he’s the reason you helped to kidnap me. Mother says you would never have let anyone harm me. But him—that Rhys—he looked at me so mean! But then Jasper caught him and you let yourself be taken prisoner so that Rhys could get away.” She stared up at Rhonwen, her face a study in childish confusion, and dejection. “You do love him, don’t you?”
know he’s the reason you helped to kidnap me. Mother says you would never have let anyone harm me. But him—that Rhys—he looked at me so mean! But then Jasper caught him and you let yourself be taken prisoner so that Rhys could get away.” She stared up at Rhonwen, her face a study in childish confusion, and dejection. “You do love him, don’t you?”
“Yes. I love him, Isolde.” Rhonwen knelt down and took the child’s hands in hers. “But it is the love of a sister for a brother. I love him the way you love Gavin. Rhys is not truly my brother, but … but I feel like he is. And I feel responsible for him.”
“But he’s not a nice person.”
“Oh, but he can be. He can. It’s just that …” Rhonwen bit her lip. “He has reasons for hating Jasper and everyone who is English.”
“But if you don’t love him like someone you could marry, why don’t you love Jasper? Why don’t you marry him?”
Rhonwen smiled sadly. “I thought you wanted to marry him.”
The girl sighed. “I told you, I can’t marry him. He’s my uncle. But if I could, I would.” Then, not diverted, she added, “I don’t understand why you won’t.”
“It’s very complicated,” Rhonwen answered, standing up. “Too complicated to explain. But one day, when he is married to someone else, you will see that I was right.”
I was right, she repeated to herself again and again as they resumed their daily tasks. She was right to turn him down, and right to escape Rosecliffe Castle.
But no matter how many times she repeated it, the thought of leaving Jasper forever, the thought of him someday wed to another, felt horribly wrong.
Painfully wrong.
Unbearably wrong.
The routine of the castle was no different that night than any other. From the chapel, vespers rang across the valley calling the shepherds and their woolly charges down from the fields. The day workers—the weavers and laundresses, the masons and carpenters—made their way in pairs and small groups across the moat bridge and down the hard-packed road into Rosecliffe village.
In the bailey Gavin and a group of small boys chased the fowl into their pens. Then the boys moved into the hall to pull the tables out and line up the benches for the supper. The kitchen workers hastened to prepare the final meal of the day so they could seek their rest.
Then the kitchen bell rang as dusk crept across the budding spring green, and as one, the people of the castle came together for their evening meal. It was the end of the day, a time to eat and drink and relax. A time for entertainments and song, and easing into the night.
But for Rhonwen it was anything but easy. As the day had dragged by, her nerves had wound tighter, The afternoon had seemed to stretch out endlessly. Surely the bell ringer had forgotten his chores. Surely the sun had stalled in the sky. She had worried one nail, biting it to the quick, then moved on to another.
This was the night she must make her escape. She could not delay. She must make certain the postern gate remained unlocked, save for the inner crossbar. That she could remove herself. If the key were put to the lock, however, she would be trapped.
So she kept a careful watch on the comings and goings at the kitchen and the gate it sheltered behind it. But at the same time she also cast a wary eye about for Jasper.
Had he left the castle after their confrontation?
Following their disastrous meeting in the stair hall, she’d been too distraught to realize that his whereabouts could determine the success—or failure—of her plan. At the time she’d been beset alternately by regret then resolve, by sorrow and then resignation. By the time she’d reined in her runaway emotions and realized the importance of his whereabouts, it had been too late. She might have asked around and discovered his location, but she hesitated to do that. She’d been only marginally accepted among the castlefolk. Though Josselyn and Isolde did not hold the kidnapping against her, there were others who still viewed her with suspicion. And everyone knew of Jasper’s interest in her.
No, she did not need to draw attention to herself by asking for Jasper.
So she sat at a window in Josselyn’s solar, craning her neck to see the comings and goings in the bailey, and praying for darkness so she could make good her escape.
When Gwendolyn skipped into the chamber, her heart lurched. Guilt feelings, she realized, smoothing the linen embroidery panel in her hands.
“Aren’t you coming down to sup with us?” the little girl asked. She opened a cupboard and rummaged through her belongings, then turned with a comb in her hands. “Mama said proper young ladies do not appear before company with tangled hair. Will you help me?” She held the comb out to Rhonwen. “Then we can go down together.”
Rhonwen did not want to go belowstairs at all, for she was not certain she could maintain the pretense of everything being normal. Everything was
not
normal. But to remain absent was
to rouse attention, and that she must not do. Besides, it was impossible to ignore the entreaty in Gwendolyn’s plump baby face.
not
normal. But to remain absent was
to rouse attention, and that she must not do. Besides, it was impossible to ignore the entreaty in Gwendolyn’s plump baby face.
“All right, sweetheart. Climb up into my lap and we’ll comb out your lovely curls.”
With a flash of dimples Gwen did just that. They sat together in the window well, Gwen’s warm weight a comfort to Rhonwen. As she worked the fine bone comb through the child’s hair, slowly untangling the knots from the ends up to the roots, she inhaled deeply. Soap, dogs, and a trace of mint. How wonderful were children.
Suddenly she missed Davit and Cordula, though her brother and sister were very nearly grown. In a matter of hours she would be missing Josselyn’s three children also. Gwen and her trusting innocence. Gavin and his derring-do. And Isolde, willing to hand her beloved uncle over to Rhonwen’s safekeeping.
On impulse she kissed the top of Gwendolyn’s head. At once the girl turned and gave her a hug. “I’ m glad you came to live with us. Gavin says that one day you’ll leave and go back to the wildwood. But I think you should stay here.”
“You do?”
“Yes. ‘Cause …’cause you never told me the rest of the story. You know, the one about the Welsh princess and the unhappy dragon.”
The story she’d told Gwen when she and Jasper had tucked the child in bed. It seemed months had passed, though in reality it had only been two weeks or so. “Was the dragon unhappy?” she asked, combing Gwen’s hair once more.
“Oh, yes. He was very unhappy. I could tell. An’ only the princess could make him happy again. Right?”
“Right.” In fairy tales a princess could make a dragon happy, and allow him to become a man once more. But real life was far more ordinary, and far more complex. Rhonwen set the comb aside and began to braid the top portion of the child’s hair. “We must hurry, else our supper will be cold.”
So Rhonwen descended to the hall hand-in-hand with the little girl, who was innocent of the conflicts that worried her
elders. In the hall’s massive hearth the fire leaped and danced. A half-dozen torcheres and small lanterns scattered about seemed to impart a special warmth to the chamber this evening.
elders. In the hall’s massive hearth the fire leaped and danced. A half-dozen torcheres and small lanterns scattered about seemed to impart a special warmth to the chamber this evening.
Rhonwen gazed around her with a new awareness of the tall pale walls. As with the rest of Rosecliffe Castle, the hall was not completed. A half-finished fresco adorned one wall, with fresh plaster and paint expanding its boundaries daily. She would not see the fresco complete, she realized. She would not see St. Aiden and St. Francis meet on a field of flowers, as was planned, for this would be her last visit to this place. She would never return to Rosecliffe and its great hall, she decided, even should Rhys someday succeed in his quest to bring the castle under Welsh control. It would be too hard for her to return. She already had too many memories of Rosecliffe. Good. Awful. Confused.
“Come on, Rhonwen. You can sit next to me,” Gwen said, dragging her out of her somber thoughts and toward the high table. Isolde and Gavin already sat there, while Josselyn conferred with two of the maids near the hearth. Jasper was nowhere to be seen.
That was good.
That was devastating.
Rhonwen frowned and rubbed a spot on her temple that had begun to throb. It occurred to her suddenly that Isolde might have revealed to her mother what she’d overheard today between Jasper and Rhonwen.
As she took her seat, Rhonwen peered sidelong at Josselyn, hoping the girl had somehow kept silent. When Josselyn turned from her task, unfortunately, it took but that one look for Rhonwen to know the truth. Isolde had confided in Josselyn. And now Josselyn was certain to pester Rhonwen about it endlessly.
Why couldn’t Josselyn see that though her unlikely alliance with an Englishman had succeeded, such an alliance between Jasper and Rhonwen was not meant to be? It simply was not meant to be.
As Josselyn approached the table, Rhonwen steeled herself.
To her surprise, Josselyn only nodded and asked, “Would you have gravy? The parsnips are good. They are Oto’s specialty. Come, have more.”
To her surprise, Josselyn only nodded and asked, “Would you have gravy? The parsnips are good. They are Oto’s specialty. Come, have more.”
They were good, but even so, Rhonwen’s appetite remained unaffected. Her stomach was a twisted knot and she did little more than play with her food. They were an hour at the meal, and they spoke primarily of recipes and spices and matters dear to women’s hearts. The cloth merchant from Chester was expected the next market day. The butcher’s wife was so big with child that Josselyn feared twins.
With every passing minute, however, Rhonwen’s anxiety increased. Then Gavin said, “Shouldn’t Jasper be back from the beach by now?”
At the mention of his name, Rhonwen jerked, dropping her spoon, then toppling her wine goblet over. There was not much wine in it, and Josselyn righted the pewter vessel at once. But as she dabbed at the wine stain she said, “Good Lord, but the pair of you will have all the table linens stained red before you patch up your differences.”
Rhonwen lurched to her feet, her temper flaring completely out of proportion to Josselyn’s remark. “Just let it be, Josselyn. Can you not just let it be?”
The older woman looked up at her. “What, the stain? ’Tis better to rinse out wine before it can dry and set the color.”
“Not the stain!” Rhonwen clenched her hands so tightly she trembled. “’Tis not the stain I speak of, and well you know it.”
Josselyn’s expression was kind; the children’s faces showed concern. Gwendolyn touched her arm tentatively. “It’s all right,” she whispered in her sweet, lisping little-girl voice. “Mama never stays angry if you say you are sorry.” The child leaned closer and her warm weight was both a balm and a torture. “Just say you’re sorry. Then everything will be all right.”
“I’m sorry,” Rhonwen whispered after a moment, although her apology was not for the spilled wine. But then, Josselyn clearly knew that, for her eyes were filled with more kindness
than Rhonwen deserved. “I’m sorry,” she repeated. “I think I’d better go. Will you excuse me?”
than Rhonwen deserved. “I’m sorry,” she repeated. “I think I’d better go. Will you excuse me?”
“Of course,” Josselyn answered. “But Rhonwen—”
Rhonwen could not bear to hear any more. She could not bear to be among a people who would forgive her many crimes against them even as she hid new secrets from them. How could she help anyone hurt the people of Rosecliffe Castle?
She disentangled Gwen’s hands from hers and, with a brief nod, left. But with every step she grieved. She could not even bid them farewell. She would not be able to explain her abrupt departure, or thank them for their many kindnesses to her.
In the bailey she halted, staring wildly about, too distraught to decide where to go or what to do. It was dark; she should leave now. But she couldn’t. Not yet.
Perhaps she could leave a message for Josselyn to find. A letter.
She filched a sheet of parchment from the seneschal’s office as well as ink and a quill pen. Her letters were not so neat as his, and she had no sand to blot them. But it was legible and, though brief, she hoped it conveyed the depths of her feelings.
I am gone to seek my fortune. You have my thanks for your many kindnesses, Josselyn, when I have done nothing to deserve them. I cannot betray you and your family, but neither can I betray Rhys and my people. So I must remove myself from Rosecliffe and Carreg Du and the many conflicts here. I pray you will convey my regards to Isolde, Gavin, and Gwendolyn …
Rhonwen stared at the scrawled message. Then, unable to resist, she dipped the quill once more into the ink pot.
… and to Jasper
, she added. Then she signed it, laid the pen down, and left the parchment there on the desk, where, come the morn, someone was sure to find it.
, she added. Then she signed it, laid the pen down, and left the parchment there on the desk, where, come the morn, someone was sure to find it.
Back in the bailey she refused to dwell on Josselyn’s reaction to the news of her escape—or Jasper’s. She must protect herself. That was all she could do, and to do that, she
must flee Rosecliffe before Rhys mounted his attack.
must flee Rosecliffe before Rhys mounted his attack.
Around her, shadows loomed in the gathering dark. A brick cart sat idle beside one of the stairs that led to the wall walk. A mason’s scaffold dangled over her head, empty and swaying from its ropes as the wind rattled along the walls. Everyday objects, yet this night they were ominous. Sinister, even. They were the tools used to make the stones of Wales grow into the thick walls and mighty towers of Rosecliffe, just as the old song foretold. Would the noon turn black and the winter turn warm, as was also foretold?
She paused and stared around her, suddenly cold. The one was as like to happen as the other when the whole world was coming to an end. And indeed, Rhonwen was so filled with sorrow she felt as if her whole world were coming undone. To run from such catastrophe was very likely foolishness. But she could not stay.
Across the bailey a guard shifted, his silhouette on the wall walk clear against the western sky. She ought to wait a while longer. But she simply could not. Her nerves were overwrought and she feared she would go mad. So, keeping to the shadows, she headed toward the kitchen and the dark alcove behind it that led to freedom.
“ … if he asks me.”
“Ah, Gert. Surely he will,” a woman answered the first speaker.
Rhonwen halted just outside the kitchen, pressing a shaking hand to her chest. It was only two maids finishing their evening chores, cleaning the kitchen in preparation for the morning’s tasks.
“You know how these men are,” the woman named Gert continued. “One bit of quim is much like another—or so they believe. But I’m a patient girl …”
Rhonwen did not want to hear any more of their depressing words. Yes. To most men, one woman was the same as another. Certainly Jasper was a prime example of that, with all the women he was said to have conquered. He’d made her seem special, though. She’d been his captive and no one would have stayed him from anything he wished to do to her. Yet
he’d nonetheless made her feel as if she were the only woman that mattered to him.
he’d nonetheless made her feel as if she were the only woman that mattered to him.
She shook her head. It was just a talent he had and no doubt that was the reason for his enormous appeal with women. He made every woman feel exciting and adored, and unique above all others.
Other books
To Kingdom Come by Will Thomas
Black Mischief by Carl Hancock
Collared for a Night (Crimson Romance) by Arden, Susan
13th Apostle by Richard F. Heller, Rachael F. Heller
Every Day is Like Doomsday by Selena Jones
The Virgin Huntress by Victoria Vane
Exposed by Susan Vaught
Crazy Love by Desiree Day
Zero K by Don DeLillo
Undone, Volume 2 by Callie Harper
