Shana Abe (12 page)

Outside the walls of Wellburn the first of the long winter’s snow began to fall.

FRANCE, 1287

H
e was so different.

The memory of her childhood companion refused to agree with this hard man in front of her now. Oh, his features remained nearly the same, she could have drawn them from her memory and matched them now with ease. The same chiseled lips, the same strong jaw, the flowing blackness of his hair just as pure.

He surely was the object of admiration from the women across the room. Solange could understand why. There could be no doubt he was larger than the youth she knew, taller and much more muscular, with the solid confidence of a man who is certain of himself in any situation. The lines in his face had deepened, but this added only a mature handsomeness to his features.

Perhaps the main difference had more to do with his bearing, she thought. So stiff and formal, no trace of the familiar comfort of old. Those lips she loved were flattened into a grim line, and his eyes slid off hers too easily.

Solange swallowed a trace of panic. She could not afford to lose Damon now, not again. She needed him
much more than he could appreciate. She could not let him know how much. She could not let anyone know.

The women at the other end of the room were openly watching them, silent to record every word spoken between them, every little gesture. They were a school of sharks, ready to shred her later, when she could not escape.

“My lady,” Damon repeated softly.

She came back from these thoughts with a guilty start. Damon shifted his feet on the dais. She still touched his shoulder with her hand.

“Can you explain this to me, that you have no lord?”

“The earl took a grave illness,” she said. “It was a fever that lasted three days and three nights.”

Damon studied her now. “He is dead?”

“He died tonight.”

She was lying. He knew it as surely as he knew anything. Oh, she did it very well, much better than she had as a child, but his sensitivity to her had not abated during their separation. The signs were fairly shouting out at him: the deliberate set of her lips, the pale pinkness high on her cheeks. She didn’t shift her eyes from his. What sort of fool was she playing him for now?

And her question, that unbelievable thing she had asked him: Would he have her? He would never have trusted that the words left her lips had he not seen it for himself.

It was a part of her game, he saw suddenly, this unfathomable game she was choosing to subject him to. The idea that she would even consider giving herself over to him, in any form, for any reason, was ridiculous
enough to be laughable. Aye, and that must be what she was doing right now, laughing at him, turning him into some mockery for her own wicked amusement.

Time had made her harsh indeed. He did not travel all this way to be ridiculed.

The line of his mouth grew thinner. “My sympathies on your loss, Countess. You must be distraught with grief. I am sorry I carry only more bad news for you.”

Now she blinked and took her hand away.

“What news?”

“Your father, my lady.”

Her hands clamped together, but her face showed no signs of emotion. “Yes?”

“The marquess died a fortnight past, my lady. It was a hunting accident.”

She stared down at him, speechless.

“He lingered for a week. That was when he sent for me and bid me to come to you personally with the news.”

“He sent you?” she whispered.

“Aye. It was a deathbed wish. I could not refuse him.” Anger tinged his voice, alive again at the memory of the imperious old man, commanding him even now, long past the time he had thought to be free of Ironstag.

Damon had been knee-deep in the autumn harvest at Wolfhaven when the messenger arrived. He had not communicated with Henry for many seasons now and had no wish to begin again. But the messenger had
convinced him of the peril, so he had ridden back to Ironstag with him.

It had been a bad accident, breaking an arm, a leg, several ribs, and the physician couldn’t say what more. A chill had settled into his chest. Damon could tell from the first glance there was no hope for survival. The old man must have been pushing death away with all his will, waiting for Damon to arrive.

Or perhaps he had merely ordered death to wait, Damon thought sardonically. Henry surely had enough arrogance for it, even now.

The marquess lay flat in his sprawling bed, alone, as he had been for years now. Lady Margaret had long ago left to hunt for less reluctant prey, leaving behind her a succession of women to fill his bed. Eventually he had married again: the gentle damsel from Leeds, who bore several miscarriages until finally succumbing to the perils of childbirth, taking the stillborn child with her. After that Henry had sworn off remarriage, growing cantankerously old, keeping his cronies beside him as he counted his gold and mapped his lands.

Damon was inwardly shocked by his appearance now, although he was careful to let none of his emotions show. Henry had aged more than two decades in half as many years, a frail figure with waxy skin and fiery eyes.

The physician by the bed was a man Damon didn’t recognize. He left the room protesting that his patient must not speak more than a few words. Henry ordered him furiously out the door, then fell back into the pillows from the exertion of raising his voice.

Damon said nothing, simply stood by the bed. He brushed some dirt from his boots.

“Go to Solange,” Henry commanded in that gasping voice. “Tell her yourself what has happened.”

“It is not my place,” Damon responded evenly.

He never wanted to see her again. He couldn’t see her again. Just the mention of her name brought him to a cold, unpleasant sweat.

Henry took a ragged breath. “Lockewood, it is my final request of you. I have raised you. I have provided for you. Now you must do this one last thing for me. She is my daughter. I have heard nothing from her for almost eight years.” His eyes grew dim. “Nothing at all.”

Damon paused, considering this. He knew that Solange and her husband had removed to Du Clar, the earl’s French estate, about a year after the wedding, but then he, too, had heard of nothing more.

He had not bothered to investigate further. In fact, he had shunned all offers of assistance in finding news of her. He wanted no reminders of Solange.

But to cut off her father? That seemed unlikely. Damon had always assumed the two of them had remained in communication.

Henry coughed, a terrible wet sound from the bottom of his lungs. “I have sent her greetings every year, Lockewood. Every year I get no reply. She turns my men back from the gate of the estate; she won’t even allow them entrance! She turns them away with nothing, nothing to bring back to me.”

Damon shut his eyes. He did not want to be a part of this.

“Eight years,” hissed the marquess. “What has happened to her? Does she have children? Is she dead? Is her heart so hard that she could ignore the mortal farewell of her own father?”

Is she dead?
Against his will he felt his soul clench at the words. She could not be dead. He would have known that.

Would he?
mocked a familiar voice inside him. It was vanity to think he could maintain a connection of any sort with her over such a long time and distance.
Anything could have happened to her
, continued the voice,
anything at all. And you never bothered to find out. A brave knight indeed
.

“I’ve heard rumors,” said Henry softly.

Damon waited, then asked, “Of what?”

“Unmentionable things. Alchemy. Devil worship.”

Damon’s mouth grew dry. He didn’t want to hear this. He didn’t want to know. But the marquess rasped on.

“I cannot believe this. I won’t. Go to her. See for yourself if she is still alive.”

Damon walked away from the sickbed, paced the room impatiently. He did not want to do this. Not a single particle of him wanted any part of this. But God, Redmond, an alchemist! Performing those forbidden experiments, mixing chemicals and devilish sacrifices with the worship of the profane, a member of that hidden society of men who would sell their souls for the secret of making gold. And Solange, wed to this. It could not be true.

He did not want it to be true.

“You fooled me, boy,” croaked the old man suddenly. “You fooled all of us.”

“And how is that?”

“Didn’t think you had the nerve. Didn’t think you’d leave to solve the problem on your own. You circumvented all of us, by God, went straight to the king.” A weak chuckle interrupted him, and then Henry continued. “You knew where the heart of the power lay, didn’t you, boy? Took care of Wolfhaven all by yourself.”

A faint stirring of the old wrath welled up in Damon’s chest. He focused on that, pushing aside the worry that thinking of Solange had conjured. “I was hardly likely to ask anything further of you, my lord. You made it clear I was an unwelcome presence in your demesne.”

Henry’s voice got stronger. “Yes. But I was wrong about you, Lockewood.”

“Perhaps. Perhaps not.”

“Got yourself knighted. Got your lands back. Fought right beside Edward himself, I heard. Fought like all the demons of hell were inside of you, that’s what they said. The Wolf of Lockewood, they called you. No fear. No fear at all.”

“Fear accomplishes nothing.”

Fear was reserved for those who cared about living through the battle. One of the supreme ironies of his life, Damon had always thought, was that the lack of caring for it seemed to ensure its perpetuation. He had thought his life worth nothing without his love, and somehow that worthlessness had stretched on and on,
carrying him along with it. How long, he thought bitterly, how damn long it had taken him to crawl out of that despair. And now this man wanted to plunge him back in without a second thought.

Henry was silent, watching, inert in his bed. He missed nothing of the expressions on his visitor’s face. He bided his time, waiting for the anger to play out, waiting for it to thin enough to feed his plot further. He had lived a long enough life to know he was doing the best thing.

Finally.

“Go to her, Wolf of Lockewood,” he said for the last time. “You’re the only one who can reach her now.”

Damon rubbed a hand across his eyes. What choice did he have, really? None. In the course of a few minutes this old man had managed to destroy the years of defense he had created, slaying his guard with a few carefully chosen words. Years, he thought acidly, spent building a wall against her that had proven to be no more sturdy than cobwebs.

Solange, he thought, you she-devil, for bringing me back.

“She’ll not thank me for bringing her this news, nor will her husband.”

“No,” replied Henry with a sigh. “But I will thank thee, Damon Wolf.”

He had died that evening before Damon could think of a rebuttal strong enough to release him from Ironstag’s mad command.

He was needed at his own home. This crop would carry his people though the winter, and it was essential
that it be harvested in time to beat the first frost. He could not spare the time to travel across the ocean to deliver a message to the woman who had spurned him. The ocean, for God’s sake. It would take a month at least. It was an insane idea.

But of course he went. Ironstag had managed to trap him one last time.

The duration of the journey was actually slightly less than he had originally considered, since he had caught a fair wind across the channel and the earl’s estate was not far inland. Damon traveled lightly and swiftly, with no accompaniment to slow him. He had chosen to travel alone despite a plethora of offers from the men at Wolfhaven to accompany him. He had politely refused them all with the excuse that he would be returning soon and that right now each of them was needed at home for the harvest, which was true enough.

But the real reason was buried deep within him, buried so well he couldn’t even acknowledge it to himself: His secret fear was that he would crumble at the sight of her. He wanted no witnesses for that, and therefore he had to see her alone. She was a ghost that had lived in his heart every single day for the past nine years. Now it was time to exorcise her. He was not the callow youth she knew. He was a man, a knight, even, by the grace of the sword of the king himself.

A knight with no heart, for Solange had stolen it wrongfully a long time past. Now he would gain it back.

Every day he spent on this journey became a torture to him. He was eager to simply have it done. Thoughts
of her that he had managed to suppress for years came winging back, just as he had dreaded.

Her laughter, for example. How her laughter had infected him, had tickled him in some ridiculous way until he had to end up laughing with her. Her sense of joy and wonder at the details of nature …

Her smile. The warmth of it spread everywhere, blinded him. Her hair, her long, silken hair, her delight at running through meadows, her intensity in her work—painting, reading, helping him with his studies.

But what Damon remembered most while riding toward Solange through the French countryside was her scent.