Temptress (22 page)

There was much he could do.

But first, he needed rest. Fatigue was setting in, his muscles protesting. He stripped near the door to his room and tucked his newfound clothes into a dark, musty passageway that appeared, with its lack of footprints and profusion of cobwebs, to be seldom used. Keeping the small knife that he would hide beneath his body, he headed toward his own chamber again.

He would have to escape, he thought as he unlatched his door and stepped naked into the chamber where he’d lain for two weeks.

And he would have to leave soon.

Before Morwenna made good her threat to send him to Wybren.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

“
H
elp me!” The words echoed through her mind, just as they had since last evening when she’d visited Carrick. She couldn’t shake the memory, nor ignore the desperation she’d heard when he’d finally spoken. His plea chased her even now as she hurried along the wet flagstones that cut through the garden and led to the chapel.

Carrick had grabbed her arms, looked directly into her eyes, and begged her to help him only to fall back against his pillows. Had he known her or had it been part of his delirium? His words had been with her all night and into the day, and though she’d checked on him twice since, he hadn’t roused again. She’d mentioned that he’d appeared to awaken to the physician, but Nygyll had examined Carrick and only shaken his head.

No one had seen him stir.

Except you,
her mind nagged.

“Bother and broomsticks,” she muttered, her breath coming out in a cloud as she reached the chapel door.

Carrick’s cry for help had been too long coming. Too many people knew that he was within her keep to have his whereabouts hidden or to help him in any manner other than to bring him to justice.

Quietly she stepped inside the chapel and slipped off her hood. She was tired from lack of sleep and drained by the thought of what she must do.

You don’t
have
to do anything. You are the ruler of this keep, Morwenna. Do not forget. Do not feel duty bound.

Her gaze swept the interior of the chapel, its coved ceilings, whitewashed walls, and long tapers burning in iron sconces surrounding the carved altar.

The chapel was empty. Morwenna stepped through the intimate room and felt, instead of being closer to God, as if she were somehow trespassing through a forbidden chamber, treading in an area where she should not set foot.

Which was silly.

This was God’s house, in the keep where Morwenna was the lady, the ruler, the law. What was wrong with her? Her skin crawled and she mentally chided herself. It seemed that all Isa’s talk of omens, curses, and demons was getting to her.

Listening hard, she walked toward the communion table and thought of calling out to Father Daniel. But she held her tongue, something in the vacant room forcing her silence. She genuflected near the altar, stared up at the figure of Christ upon the cross, and thought fleetingly of all her sins. In her life she’d collected many, and so many surrounded Carrick of Wybren, an old lover who now seemed her bane. Oh, how she’d lain with him, so trustingly giving her virtue, so joyously lying in his arms, so happily realizing she was with child—his child.

And all the while he was bedding his brother Theron’s wife. The old pain twisted inside her like a knife to her womb, and she couldn’t help wondering if there would ever be another babe.

Yes, she’d sinned more often than not and, she was certain, she wasn’t through. There would be more. Her fingers touched the hem of her pocket and she frowned. Her decision, though already made, weighed heavily upon her.

Yesterday she’d met with the scribe, had told him what she’d wanted to say as he’d scratched out her words. Then she’d sealed the letter that was Carrick’s fate. It now rested in her large pocket and she, ridiculously, felt like a traitor as she set her plan in motion. Finally she would officially admit to Lord Graydynn that she was harboring his cousin, the traitor to Wybren.

She was planning to seal Carrick’s fate forever.

’Tis your duty,
her mind told her, and yet she felt tricked, trapped into a corner, forced into making a decision that still felt wrong, kept her thoughts in constant turmoil. Ever since the stranger had been carried through the gates of Calon nearly a fortnight earlier, she’d had little sleep and no peace whatsoever.

Nonetheless sending Carrick to Wybren would only make things worse. Well, ’twould be done. She fell to her knees, made the sign of the cross, and prayed for guidance. Through the windows she heard muted sounds of men talking, axes striking, the mill wheel grinding, but above those noises of the castle at work there was another sound, soft and low, a droning . . . nay, more like a chant. Ever steady, it whispered through the chapel, bounding off the walls.

Instinctively she climbed to her feet and stepped to one side of the apse, where she peeked through the slits of a curtained doorway to the private chamber of the priest. She nearly gasped as she peered through the small opening and spied Father Daniel lying facedown in front of a small communion table, a cruder version of the chapel’s intricately carved altar.

Her stomach twisted in revulsion.

The priest lay naked, his white skin nearly translucent, red welts visible upon his back as he prostrated himself. In one hand he clasped a small prayer book, in the other he gripped a leather whip so tightly his knuckles bulged from his fingers. Obviously he’d been flailing himself, using the weapon to . . . what? Expunge demons from his soul?

“Forgive me, Father,” he said, and his voice was a wet rasp. He sobbed and sniffed. “For I have sinned. Oh, I have sinned. I am not worthy of Your love.”

Blood began to rise to the surface of the red streaks upon his back, and Morwenna noticed other wounds, scars from earlier floggings. She nearly retched. What would drive a man to whip himself until his flesh was raw?

Rather than risk being discovered spying upon him, she slowly backed away from the curtain. Intending to sneak out the way she’d come, she inched toward the door.

Crack!

The heel of her shoe hit the doorframe, and the noise seemed to reverberate through the chapel.

The chanting stopped abruptly.

Damn
.

She heard the rustling of clothing and feet as Father Daniel quickly dressed and knew she would be found out. There was no way to hide that she was in the chapel. Rather than try to run away, she flung the main door open as wide as it would go. It slammed back against the wall.

“Father Daniel!” she said in a loud whisper, as if she’d just entered but didn’t dare yell inside the chapel. “Father Daniel, are you here?” she called again. Treading loudly, she walked to the altar and slipped to her knees.

She was just making the sign of the cross over her chest when the priest, fully robed, swept into the room. He was still carrying his prayer book in his one hand, but the other was empty, no whip in sight.

“Oh!” she said, as if surprised to see him. “I—I was looking for you.”

“I was in my quarters. Praying,” he said a bit breathlessly, and his face was flushed as he cleared his throat. He stood over her, looking down. She was still on her knees and close enough to smell the blood upon his skin. He managed a thin, patient smile that curved his lips but didn’t add any warmth to his eyes. Those eyes regarded her with an intensity that made her want to squirm. She saw his feet shift beneath his cassock, and in this position, her knees pressed to the cold floor, she felt submissive and vulnerable. Her skin crawled as he asked in a quiet, silky voice, “Is there something I can help you with, my child?”

She cringed inside, and when he touched her on the shoulder, she wanted to flinch. “Aye, Father,” she said, nodding. “Please.” She finished a quick prayer and then climbed hastily to her feet. “I—I need your counsel.” This was better. A tall woman, she nearly looked him in the eye.

“Of course.” He seemed to relax a bit as they walked out of the chapel and into the garden, where water from last night’s storm dripped from the eaves and puddled in footprints in the earth. As nothing was in bloom, the garden looked as desolate as Morwenna felt.

“What’s troubling you?” the priest asked.

“There are several things, including Sir Vernon’s death.”

“A tragedy.”

She agreed. “I also must deal with the stranger who was brought to us, the wounded man.”

“Ah.” Father Daniel nodded as they walked through the garden gate, and dark clouds moved across the sky. Two boys ran by, laughing, their noses running, as they chased after a squealing piglet. A dog bounded behind them and nearly knocked over a boy toting two pails from the well. Water sloshed over the sides of the buckets and the boy cursed roundly before spying the priest. He quickly hurried toward the kitchens.

Father Daniel stared after the lad as Morwenna said, “It’s been suggested that I tell Lord Graydynn, your brother, that we have possibly apprehended Carrick.”

“He may already know.” Father Daniel returned his attention to Morwenna. “Wybren is not far away.”

“All the more reason to give him official notice.” She met his eyes and withdrew the sealed letter from her pocket. “I was hoping that you would take this to Wybren. Since Baron Graydynn’s your brother, I thought ’twould be best if the news came from you.”

She handed him the letter.

“And what would you have me tell him? Aside from what you’ve written?” he asked as they made their way past the candlemaker’s hut toward the great hall.

“Just that we’re not certain that the man is Carrick, of course, because he was so badly beaten as to be unrecognizable. And even though he’s healing, it’s difficult to see his features, to be sure that he is Carrick.”

“You doubt that he is?”

Morwenna swallowed hard. Did she? Rather than answer, she said, “When you meet with Graydynn, please mention that the man who was attacked came to us wearing a ring emblazoned with the crest of Wybren, but that the ring has since been stolen.”

“And would you have me tell him that another man was murdered, possibly at Carrick’s hand?”

“Nay!” she said quickly, surprised at the question. She had to make herself clear. “As I said, we’re not certain of the stranger’s identity, and it’s unlikely that he slew Sir Vernon, for our guest was under guard at the time of the attack.”

Father Daniel studied her face intently. “So you still defend him?”

“We know not what happened to Sir Vernon.”

Father Daniel shook his head as if she were a naive child, and then he touched her shoulder again, and even through her tunic she felt the coldness of his fingers upon her skin. “Oh, we know he was savagely murdered; we only do not know who did the heinous deed.” He winced a bit, as if his cassock had shifted to rub against the new wounds upon his back. He dropped his hand. “Whoever took Sir Vernon’s life will have to answer to the Father.”

“And to me.”

“Oh, Lady, please, place your trust in God. Have faith. Only He can right this wrong.” The words were said with conviction, but there was something else in the priest’s expression, something more troubling. “Remember the passage from Romans, Morwenna: ‘Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord.’ ”

Morwenna pulled her arm away but held the priest’s intense gaze with her own. “But in my keep, Father Daniel,” she pointed out as a breeze tugged at her hair, “please remember that justice is mine.”

She left him standing near the candlemaker’s hut and marched up the stairs into the great hall, where two guards stood. Geoffrey held the door open for her and she felt the warmth of the room seep into her bones.

She was letting the events of the past two weeks get to her, starting to believe all of Isa’s silly notions of curses and omens and bad luck. She’d become rattled enough that now she was doubting the priest, a man who had dedicated his life to God.

And a man who flogged himself performing some kind of painful, self-inflicted penance
.

What was it that tore so at Father Daniel’s soul?

What sin had he committed that he felt the need to flail at his own flesh?

Yanking off her gloves as she climbed the stairs to her chamber, she passed by Fyrnne and Gladdys. She felt their eyes upon her and told herself she was imagining things. Ridiculously she was beginning to believe that no one in this keep was who they first appeared to be.

“You’re as bad as Isa,” she said once inside her room, where the fire was burning bright, a tub and a bucket of warm water waiting for her. Mort was snuggled upon the bed. He gave up a bark as she entered. “Miss me?” she teased as the dog wiggled, tail slicing the air frantically until she walked over to him and scratched his ears. He rolled over, offering up his belly to be rubbed. “I guess so.”

She kicked off her shoes, petted the dog, and told herself that for just a few minutes, she would quit worrying. There was a bucket of hot water resting on the coals, and she considered having a handmaiden help her with the bath and then thought better of it. She wanted a few minutes alone.

She wound her hair onto her head, stripped out of her clothes, poured the water into the towel-lined tub, and then sank into the warm depths.

“Aaah,” she whispered to herself and using lavender scented soap washed her body before unwinding her hair and lowering herself even farther into the warm water. She scrubbed her hair and skin and felt the tension ease from her muscles. It was heaven. All of her aches, all of her worries, all of Isa’s dire warnings of curses and omens and death seeped away.

But as she lazed in the tub, her mind wandered and she did think of Carrick. He was healing, and as she’d stared at him in these last days she’d become convinced that, yes, it was he lying across the hall, he who had awoken suddenly and begged her to help him, he whom she had loved so impetuously, so madly, so rashly.