Suzanne Robinson (38 page)

Liza pulled him down on top of her. As their bodies met, she gasped and whispered to him. “Maybe not such a
little
while.”

S
UZANNE
R
OBINSON
has a doctoral degree in anthropology with a specialty in ancient Middle Eastern archaeology. After spending years doing fieldwork in both the U.S. and the Middle East, Suzanne has now turned her attention to the creation of the fascinating fictional characters in her unforgettable historical romances.

Suzanne lives in San Antonio with her husband and her two English springer spaniels. She divides her time between writing and teaching.

SUZANNE ROBINSON
loves to hear from readers. You can write to
her at the following address:

P.O. Box 700321
San Antonio, TX 78270-0321

J
uliana paused upon hearing the name of this new visitor. Gray de Valence. An infamous name. She remembered her mother’s whispered stories. Nine years ago, when she’d been but eleven, de Valence had been a new-made knight of eighteen years in the same household as her cousin Richard. Both had been sent to be fostered with a relative of Hugo Wellesbrooke. A penniless younger son, de Valence had achieved knighthood early by his skill and the favor of his liege, only to betray him. He’d seduced his lord’s wife.

The liege lord raged and nearly killed his wife, but for de Valence he reserved a special penalty. Biding his time, he denounced the youth before a tournament crowd and took him prisoner. This measure ruined de Valence before the entire kingdom. Then, realizing that condemning the youth to live in shame was his greatest revenge, the lord ordered de Valence taken from England by his fellow knights. Richard had been their leader.

They returned a few months later with harrowing news of an attack at sea by pirates. De Valence had been taken prisoner, and vanished. Years passed during which rumors drifted from the Holy Land and beyond of a tall green-eyed slave of a heathen general in Egypt, a slave
with the same hair of silken silver as the vanished Gray de Valence. Then, without warning, de Valence reappeared out of nowhere with a French title, a riding household of over two hundred, and a desire to wreak vengeance on the knights who had turned against him.

That was only a few years ago. In that short time de Valence had befriended the powerful William Marshal, Earl of Pembroke. After the battle of Lincoln in which the invading French dauphin was driven from England, rumors again flew like black bats across England. The Sieur de Valence had fought with a skill that rivaled both Richard Coeur de Lion and Saladin. The great barons of the kingdom stirred uneasily and muttered among themselves, sensing a rival who threatened to surpass them in skill and ruthlessness. No wonder Father was disturbed.

Juliana had reached the end of the arcade. “Gray de Valence,” she whispered to Alice as she waited for her father to look in another direction so that she could leave unseen. “A phoenix risen from ashes. This miserable tournament may afford some amusement after all.”

“Aye, mistress. He be heir to Stratfield now. Imagine that evil one inheriting the Stratfield castles and riches.”

“Quiet,” Juliana whispered, staring at her father. “Now, he’s looked away. Hurry.”

Clutching her basket, Juliana hurried for the doors that could be seen through an archway.

“Juliana!”

She jumped at the bellow that echoed from the roof beams. Jars clinked inside the basket, and Alice squeaked and scurried behind her as she turned to face the striding figure of Hugo Welles. Lord Welles was a man whose body could have been made of stacked tree trunks—thick, gnarled and dense of muscle. His ruddy
face had grown even more red at the sight of his daughter. Havisia, his wife, trailed after him like a midge fluttering after a dragonfly.

Hugo halted his charge in front of Juliana, who set her jaw and squared her shoulders. Hugo’s thick black brows lowered until they nearly hid his grey eyes. He almost shouted.

“Where are you going, daughter?”

“To Vyne Hill, Father.”

Hugo threw up his arms and turned to Havisia. “We’re to give a tournament tomorrow, and she’s off to that ruined manor of hers.”

“You said I could go, Father.”

“When?”

“Last night.” She’d asked him then because he’d had two flagons of ale.

“Last night? Last night? I don’t remember.”

“You did, my lord,” said Havisia.

Hugo waved his hand impatiently. “No matter. I mistook myself. There’s too much to do. What of the food, the linens, the—now don’t you try to dazzle me with your glares and glowers, Juliana Welles.”

“Mother has Laudine and Bertrade to help her.” She began to stomp back and forth. With each step her heels snapped against the floorboards, calling attention to the men’s boots she wore beneath her rough woolen robe.

Her voice rose as she spoke. “Thunder of God! I’ve Vyne Hill to look after and no time for another tournament. The castle fills up with strutting rooster knights and simpering women. I’ve much work to do if I’m ever to get the manor in condition for me to occupy it.”

By now her voice rivalled Hugo’s roar. Her father
winced and glanced back at the group around the fireplace while her mother rolled her eyes and sighed. Waving his hands at Juliana, Hugo lowered his own voice.

“Peace, peace, daughter.”

Juliana’s boots pounded a drumlike rhythm. Her basket clattered in time with her steps and she waved her free arm as she uttered a stream of oaths.

“Holy saints, scourge and pestilence!”

Juliana whirled on her father, her face a darkening pink. Her grey eyes might as well have flashed small bolts of lightning. If her hair hadn’t been caught in a net at the base of her neck, it would have flown about her like a black storm cloud.

She thought of another oath. “By our blessed Lady of Mercies—”

Hugo threw up his hands again in the face of his daughter’s colorful and intemperate display. The whole of Wellesbrooke castle knew he could face battle with the French king’s army with better fortitude than he could withstand Juliana’s temper. Now he blustered and grumbled as he turned away from his oldest daughter.

“The lot of the damned, that’s what I have, the lot of the damned to be cursed with so evil-tempered a daughter. I don’t wonder she’s without suitors. Her humor is as black as her color.”

Havisia placed her hand on Hugo’s arm and murmured words of comfort. A beauty in the accepted manner of white skin and golden hair, Havisia had always pitied her eldest daughter for her coloring. Juliana watched her parents turn away, Hugo complaining, Havisia consoling. Her booted foot tapped against the floor. Slanting black brows drew together and her fingers drummed against the basket. She turned
abruptly on her heel without another word and stomped out of the hall with Alice in her wake.

Holding her skirt high, Juliana charged down the keep stairs and out into the icy morning air. Winter had stayed late this year and hurled cold winds across Wellesbrooke in an attempt to forestall spring. The sun was floating up over the battlements now, and the castle was awake.

Cooks scurried back and forth between the kitchen building and the keep. Children chased dogs, a stray piglet and each other around the yard in front of the boar pit. Juliana ignored the din issuing from the smithy, the armory and the carpenter’s workshop. Sparing no glance at the dozens of castle folk in the bailey, she turned her back on the newly constructed hall with its glass windows. Wellesbrooke wasn’t the largest castle in the kingdom, but Hugo was determined to make it one of the most modem.

She marched past the brewhouse and laundry, and by the time she came to the stables her steps had lightened. She and her father often engaged in such clashes, but she’d grown accustomed to them. Their temperaments were alike, too alike to avoid noisy battles. In any case, her mood was foul because of the coming tournament. Hugo was holding it ostensibly to celebrate Yolande’s sixteenth birthday. An heiress of great wealth, Yolande de Say had been entrusted to Lady Welles’s training. Hugo, ever the wily maneuverer, was hoping to match the girl with his nephew Richard.

“Thunder of God, I hate tournaments,” Juliana said under her breath as she waited for the grooms to bring her mare.

“But this be the last one before we move to Vyne Hill. You said so, mistress.”

“Thanks be to God.”

Juliana scowled across the bailey without seeing the shepherds, brewers, cooks and armorers in her view. For her, tournaments had always been an occasion of humiliation. So had May celebrations, festivals and feasts. So many occasions at which she sat while her sisters flirted, teased and danced with suitors.

At Wellesbrooke this May Day there had been a feast and dancing. It was a custom for the youths and young men to gather flowers and make garlands for their favorite lady’s hair, and this year as in most, Juliana went bareheaded. Oh, she had received a garland from her father, and one from his oldest retainer, Sir Barnaby. Tokens of pity. She’d thanked Hugo and Barnaby, separated the garlands and worn the flowers on her gown.

Barnaby appeared now, leading her mare. “Good morrow, Mistress Juliana.”

Barnaby’s years could be counted by the number of gray hairs that were rapidly obscuring his brown hair. Even his thick mustache was mostly gray. His skin was weathered like old wood and cracked like drought-dried earth. He had a small fief from Hugo, and had known Juliana her whole life.

“Barnaby,” Juliana snapped as she saw the mare’s saddle. “You know well I ride astride on long journeys.”

Blinking at her, Barnaby pretended surprise. “I forgot.”

“When donkeys sing carols you’ll forget,” Juliana said. “Oh, never mind. I’ve lost too much time already. Are you coming?”

Juliana mounted her mare before either Barnaby or a groom could assist her. Barnaby shoved Alice on an ancient mare.

“Aye, mistress. I’ll follow directly.”

Alice sneezed again. “Oh, mistress, you know how I am with horses.”

“Alice, I’m not going to listen. The rushes on the floor make you sneeze, geese and chickens make you sneeze, new-dyed cloth makes you sneeze, horses make you sneeze. Pull your head-rail up over your nose.”

Juliana arranged the voluminous folds of her over-robe and cloak and checked the set of her leg over the sidesaddle. Her eye caught the built-up heel of her right boot. All her footwear had to be specially made, for her right leg was a thumb’s width shorter than her left. The sign of the devil, her chaplain said, a sign that Juliana was cursed and must guard against evil more than most. Her lips thinned and pressed against each other, forming a tight seam like that between the stones in the castle walls.

Hugo complained of her stormy temper, but who wouldn’t feel disgruntled? Everyone either pitied her for her deformity or feared her as the minion of the devil. Alice said she brought much of it on herself by glowering all day long and by her contrariness. Juliana had no time for pleasantries. They did her no good.

“Well, come on then,” she said to Alice and Barnaby. She patted the sack fastened to her saddle. “We’ve over three hours’ ride ahead and I want to get these herb seeds to Vyne Hill so they can be planted.”

“We should take more men,” Barnaby said.

He urged his horse alongside Juliana’s as she rode across the bailey, through the gatehouse and into the lower ward.

“No time, and I don’t need them. Damnation, we’re only going to Vyne Hill.”

Vyne Hill was a manor left to her by the old Countess
of Chessmore after she’d saved the old lady’s life with her herbal skills. Juliana had caused a scandal by insisting upon occupying the run-down old estate. Hugo had ranted and bellowed, with his usual success. Mother had demurred, but Mother had given up finding a husband for her after that disastrous aborted marriage ceremony with Edmund Strange. Had it been a whole year? The shame still seared her as if he had rejected her last night.

Her parents had negotiated a marriage with Edmund, who was Baron Stratfield’s nephew and cousin to Gray de Valence. Juliana had been uncertain, but obedient. The ceremony was performed. There was feasting and merriment, and then the bedding ceremony. Juliana’s thoughts veered away from that memory. It was the reason she’d balked at having anything to do with another suitor. She secretly suspected that her parents dreaded trying to find her a husband of the proper rank almost as much as she.

Now, after a year’s persistent refusal on her part, no one objected to her spinsterhood. She had convinced Hugo that she was like a Beguine, one of those religious women who took minor orders and devoted themselves to service in the world. Juliana suspected that, like herself, her family was looking forward to August, when she would move permanently to Vyne Hill. Then she would have peace, and so would they. In the meantime, it was a fine day for a ride.

She led the way beneath the giant iron teeth of the portcullis and out of the castle. Wellesbrooke castle had been erected on a spit of land that jutted out into the river Clare and divided the stream into two branches. The castle loomed over the divergence, connected to shore by two bridges, one over the east and one over the west branch.

Juliana threaded her way through the foot traffic on the west bridge—farmers bringing produce, huntsmen, reeves, bailiffs, women bringing dough to be baked in castle ovens. As so often happened, Juliana’s temper improved with the distance between her and Wellesbrooke. Once off the bridge, she turned north along the track beside the Clare.

She rode in this direction through fields and then woods for over an hour. By the time she reached the stream that marked her turn eastward, she’d had her fill of Alice’s sneezes and complaints about her delicate health. The maid was a big woman, plump, with burnished, fly-away hair and a nose that was always pink. Juliana was guiding her mare along a portion of collapsed stream bank when Alice moaned.