Suzanne Robinson (19 page)

“You imagine I may come to harm while in the midst of a vision.” The smile vanished, and his lips contorted into a grimace as he looked away. “The harm comes from thinking you know what the visions mean, from cursed pride in one’s gift, from thinking you can shape people’s lives, when all along that power belongs to God.”

“What do you mean?”

His voice grew rough. “I mean that once I sought to act upon a vision. I left my family unprotected to save another, and my enemy destroyed them.”

“Dear God,” Honor whispered.

She heard his anguish in the strained, thin quality of his voice. Although he’d spoken but briefly of his loss, she sensed that even this had cost him much. It was the pain in his voice that finally made her understand what torture Galen lived with every day. She remembered the attack on Argent, how Galen’s wife and children had died. He still blamed himself, when the fault lay with that murderous criminal who had done the killing.

For the first time she began to understand Galen’s craving for solitude. To glimpse portents, future events and past sins, and yet know that to act upon one’s knowledge might bring greater evil than that one sought to prevent—it would be like living in one’s own inner hell. In his position, she would have gone mad long ago.

“Honor, we haven’t much time.”

In the darkness she took his hand and placed the pendant in it. His hand closed; she placed hers over it and braced herself. This time Galen didn’t move. Moments passed without him uttering a word. Then he sighed and opened his hand. The pendant and chain slid into Honor’s grasp.

“Nothing,” he said. “Whatever vision inhabited the jewel has fled.”

“Good. I didn’t like what happened to you when you touched it.” Honor put the pendant back in the velvet pouch, relieved that he’d been spared another burdensome experience.

“Our task remains, however.”

“I don’t know of anyone else who might have wanted Aymer dead,” she said.

“We must look at the problem differently, then,” Galen said. “He was killed sometime between noontide and the hour before dusk, when Baldwin found traces of his fall into the river. Can you remember anyone who was absent from the castle during that time?”

“This is a castle, Galen. Hours can pass without my seeing someone, and yet he or she is here.”

“True. Then let us try this: Who was here all the time?”

“Me, Jacoba, most of the other servants. I don’t know about Sir Renard or Perkin or the men from the stables. I remember the cook because he asked me what I would like prepared for the following day.” Honor thought for a few moments. “It’s no use. I can’t remember anyone else. Isidore was the one who gained the most from Aymer’s death. He could have stalked him secretly, killed him, and ridden away without coming near Castle Stafford.”

“You may be correct,” Galen said. “But try to remember more details about that day. Was there something to mark it as different from any other day?”

Honor grabbed Galen’s arm. “I don’t recall, but I know how we might discover it. We’ll look in Master Baldwin’s household accounts.” This was much better than vision. Accounts were tangible, real, and they posed no risk to Galen.

“Won’t he be curious about why you wish to see them?”

“If he asks, I’ll tell him I want to model my own after his. Besides, the old ones are kept in the storeroom next to the treasury. We can look at them when he’s busy elsewhere. He won’t even know we’ve read them.”

“Excellent. It’s a beginning.”

“You’re certain about the colors,” Honor said. “Red and black.”

“Aye, my little sunset. I’m certain.”

She heard him sigh.

“Honor, I must speak of—”

Her fingers found his lips and pressed them closed. “No more. If you suspect my father, you’re wrong.”

“No, I’m not talking about that.”

“Then it can wait, can it not?” Honor shivered. “The night grows chilly though the day was warm.”

Galen stood, threw his cloak around her, and pulled her into his arms. Honor snuggled against his body and turned her face so that she could nuzzle his neck.

“Honor, don’t. You don’t understand.”

She nibbled the soft skin near his throat, and Galen nearly cried out. His body stiffened, and in seconds Honor was on her back on the bench.

“God’s mercy, Honor, I wish you hadn’t done that.”

“Why?” She heard him swear.

“Lady Honor Jennings,” he said as he held her
beneath him, “I suppose you’ve noticed that I desire you.”

Honor was distracted by the feel of his legs against hers. “Um, yes.”

“Yes,” he echoed, “but what escapes you is that you’ve possessed me more thoroughly than the most powerful of my visions. Awake or asleep, hungry or starving, idle or occupied, rested or exhausted, it doesn’t matter. You’re there, in my thoughts.”

“I know what men—”

He silenced her by placing his lips near her ear and saying, “It’s not mere lust. It’s much more. I can’t escape it, and I’ve tried. I’ve tried to make sense of it, and I finally discovered the answer.”

Honor didn’t want him to stop talking, because his breath in her ear sent exquisite jolts of pleasure through her body. “What is the answer?”

“I’m possessed because you’re always tripping or stumbling and falling down, you see. You end up in the most enticing positions. I never met a woman who spends so much time spread out on the ground. And of course I fear for you each time you go crashing down, which increases the excitement.”

Honor almost lost track of what he was saying because he nuzzled her cheek.

“So you see, my little sunset, you’re the one who has worked the sorcery, not me.” He arched his back and gasped. “Not me.”

She had only a moment to wonder at the pain
in his voice. Galen’s mouth discovered hers even as she discovered the delights she’d coveted beneath his hose. As her hands massaged their way down his legs and up again, she heard her gown tear and felt his hand on her breast. Long moments passed during which they explored each other’s mouth. Then his lips touched her breast.

Fire exploded inside her. This was unlike any touch she’d ever experienced—gentle yet insistent, urging, burning. Nearly mad with the deluge of sensations from his hands and mouth, Honor began to move, pressing up against him while pulling him against her at the same time. She heard him try to say something, but her hand found him, and he cried out. He responded with touches so intimate, yet light and unceasing, that she dug her nails into his back and rose up from the bench.

“God forgive me,” he groaned.

She felt him press against her, felt him inside her. All reason fled as pleasure invaded, climbed, and burst over her. Galen stifled her cries with his mouth, then did the same with his own. They subsided, him resting on her heavily for a moment before moving to relieve her of his weight. Still gasping, Honor smiled into the darkness at the joy of her discovery. Galen rested his head on her breast. She ran her fingers through his soft hair, but he lifted his head suddenly.

“Oh, damnation and sin.”

“A sin readily put right when we marry.” Honor took his hand and kissed it. “And one for which
I’d gladly ask absolution in exchange for the miracle you’ve just performed for me.”

“I performed no miracle.”

“Indeed you did,” Honor replied. “Never have I felt such pleasure. Never.”

There was a long silence. Then Galen reached for her.

“You should have let me say what I wished before we made love. Now it’s too late.”

“For what?”

She felt Galen’s lips on her shoulder. “Too late for talking, my little sunset. Much too late.”

S
IXTEEN
 

T
he day after he made love to Honor, Galen woke with an overwhelming urge to flee Castle Stafford. In a few short weeks he’d managed to ruin his life. He’d conducted himself with so little governance and honor that he was now doomed to marry Honor Jennings when he’d never had such an intention.

To make his sin worse, he’d taken her love without being honest about the circumstances of their betrothal. And worst of all, he still didn’t understand his feelings. The only things of which he was certain were that he wanted Honor desperately, that he didn’t want to hurt her, and that he most certainly would.

Determined to at least reduce that certainty, he sought her out in her solar with the intention of
confessing all. She hardly listened to his greeting, however, quickly dragging him to look at Master Baldwin’s old accounts.

“I was just coming to find you,” she said. “Everyone’s busy right now. Your brothers went with Father to call on the sheriff. They’re old drinking companions, you know. And everyone else is occupied with the hay harvest.”

“First I—”

She grabbed his hand and pulled him along. “We must go now. Jacoba is going to keep watch.”

He glanced back to find his nemesis stalking along in his wake, her bushy brows meeting in the middle of her forehead, her thick fists bunched.

“Honor, you promised not to tell anyone.”

“I didn’t tell her much. Just that I’m investigating an important injustice, and you’re helping me.” She tugged his hand. “Now come quickly.”

He allowed her to lead him out of the hall, across the ward to the thickest, highest tower of the castle. It had once been a keep, but had been remodeled and put to use as a treasury, storehouse, and records office. Honor nodded to the sentry beside the door in the base of the tower.

“This, my lord, is the treasury,” she said for the benefit of the guard. “Not as large as yours at Argent, I vow, but a goodly fortress all the same.”

Galen kept his face impassive. “Indeed, a most, er, fortified fortress.”

Behind him Jacoba sniggered. Honor opened the door with one of the keys suspended from her
girdle. Beckoning him inside, she put her hand on his arm and continued her description of the treasury.

“Of course, the room with the bars and the giant lock is the main treasury. There you see the chamber where the most valuable spices are kept, and that one houses the costly fabrics and such.”

When Jacoba shut the door on the guard, Honor grinned at Galen. “The record chamber is upstairs.”

Clasping his hand like an excited child, Honor pulled him upstairs and into a room filled with accounts that had been bound into books and stacked one on top of the other. A table sat in the middle of the room, and it too was covered. Stacks of loose papers, bills of lading, receipts, and registers of laborers from the past year lay waiting for someone to put them in order. An old, blunt quill lay on top of a stack of used parchment. Nearby a bottle of ink had dried almost to powder. Honor opened the single window that looked out on the inner ward and lit several candles.

“Jacoba, go back downstairs and watch. Run up here if anyone comes in.”

“Yes, me lady.”

Jacoba gave him a warning scowl and left. Galen opened his mouth, determined to get the truth out, but Honor spoke.

“Don’t just stand there.” She plopped a dusty bound volume into his hands. “We haven’t much time. Master Baldwin may return from his survey
of the haying anytime now. If he has to make a payment to a bailiff or reeve, he could be here within moments.”

She shoved papers aside on the table and indicated that he should put the heavy volume down. He complied and opened it.

Honor turned the pages swiftly, then pointed. “You see. Here it is. February.”

His good intentions would have to wait, it seemed. He read lists of payments for spices, salt, wax, candles. Honor pointed out disbursements of alms by Theodoric.

“Quite a large sum,” he said.

“Theodoric is most conscientious and can’t refuse someone in need.”

Galen perused page after page of expenses for meals, who was present and for how long. Baldwin was meticulous, even noting what was left after a meal and that two friars from Norwich stopped at the castle and what they consumed before continuing on their journey to London. It went on, day after day, month after month. He turned back to the pages dealing with February.

“I see your father’s favorite falcon received a special diet.”

Honor nodded. “He was sick.”

“More lists of what was consumed: loaves of bread, joints, porridge, wine, herring, oysters, mutton. Hay for the horses. What’s this?” He picked up a scrap of parchment that had been inserted into the book.

Honor looked over his shoulder. A long lock of copper hair swung against his cheek, and Galen rubbed it against his skin, almost forgetting the task at hand.

“Oh, I remember. That was when Father had Baldwin add the new brewhouse beside the kitchen. There’s an especially thick wall between the two so that if the kitchen does catch fire, the brewhouse is better protected. Of course, with a stone kitchen, the chance of fire is much less.”

Galen moved the scrap of parchment aside and was about to turn the page, then stopped. “Honor, look.”

There among the list of people fed at the castle table on the day after Aymer was killed was Isidore Jennings.

“Yes,” Honor said. “Once Aymer vanished, he came. It’s only natural.”

“But look. He’s listed among those at breakfast as well as dinner and supper.”