The Bride Gift (4 page)

“Do not, my lady.” Ewayne’s glance strayed to the archer.

“What does he think to gain by being here?”

“He thinks to catch you unprotected.” Ewayne’s face grew taut with disapproval.

Helena deduced he still smarted from their skirmish about her decision to bar the keep. He’d protested loud and long about her instruction to the archer. Three times he’d reminded her that it could be construed an act of war.

She didn’t care. Ewayne fretted as an old woman and Ranulf of Dartmoore wouldn’t put foot in her keep. Not whilst she had breath in her body.

“Mayhap,” he ventured, “we should ask Sir—”

“If you suggest that one more time, Ewayne, I shall scream.”
God’s wounds.
“That man has barely been here one full day and already you doubt my abilities to run this keep.”

“Lady Nell—”

“Who would you ask if he were not here?”

Ewayne gave her a hard look. “I would be asking you.”

Ranulf was surveying the gate calmly.

The archer raised his bow.

“Lady?” Anger vibrated through Ewayne’s voice.

“Hail, the castle!” Ranulf yelled toward the gatehouse. The sunlight burnished his hair golden. He was beautiful, the lines of his face strong and pure as if carved with loving care by his Maker.

It made Helena feel ill to look at him.

“Answer him,” she told the porter, standing awkwardly and looking from her to Ewayne and back to the figure on the ground.

The rippling creak of the bowman drawing his bow sent the porter scurrying to the edge of the ramparts.

Before he could part his lips to speak, another gruff voice broke in. “Who goes there?”

Helena uttered an oath under her breath. What in the name of all holy was Sir Guy doing here?

As the porter froze, the bowman’s eyes flitted from his target to her.

Sir Guy’s boots rapped against the stone of the ramparts.

Helena glared at Ewayne accusingly at such betrayal and took bitter note of his refusal to meet her eyes.

Their enemy called, “Ranulf of Dartmoore. Newly come from court and passing by on our way homeward.” Ranulf’s glance swung upward. He gave her a lavish bow. “My Lady Helena.”

The hair on the back of her neck rose. She wanted to scrub his gaze from her skin. She motioned for the bowman to shoot.

Sir Guy’s arm lashed out. He snatched the bow from the man’s hand. The archer backed away.

“Stand,” Helena hissed at him.

“Open the gate.” Sir Guy tossed the bow to the stones at his feet.

Helena lunged for it. She would shoot the bastard herself before she allowed him to step foot in her keep.

Guy placed his boot over the bow. He shifted and the yew split beneath his weight.

“Nay.” Ranulf would never enter her keep.

The porter was already moving toward the winch. “Do not.” She turned her glare to the porter. “Do not open the gate.”

“Open the gate,” Guy repeated. The threat of challenging his authority hung implicit in his tone.

“That whoreson does not set foot in this keep. Roger would not have allowed it.”

“Roger is no longer lord here.” The line of his jaw was implacable.

“
I
will not allow it.” Her teeth ground together with the effort to control her anger.

“Will you force me to exact the punishment for this man’s disobedience?” he asked, indicating the anxious porter.

The question was softly voiced. Only she could hear him. The air rushed from her body.

His eyes were the frigid, merciless eyes of a killer. The crack of wood was loud as he ground the bow beneath his boot.

Beside her, she sensed Ewayne and the porter watching them.

The porter sidled nervously closer to the winch.

From the ground, Sir Ranulf observed all.

Helena spun on her heel. Bitter tears of defeat stung, but she refused to cry in front of any of them. She couldn’t condemn the porter to the lash or worse.

Her heels struck angry marks into the bare earth of the bailey. A serf leapt out of her path as she strode toward the hall. How dare he countermand her before the men? And how dare he let that murderous whoreson into her keep?

“Helena?”

She charged up the stairs. Colin’s footsteps came behind her. “What is it, Nell?”

“He welcomed Ranulf.” She could feel her anger gathering like a summer storm. Not since the day they had discovered her sister, Bess was dead, had Ranulf of Dartmoore been allowed to step foot here.

“Sir Ranulf is here?” Colin asked as she darted through the screens and reached the staircase to the upper level.

“Aye. He is here.” Helena’s voice rose and a young serving girl slid past her nervously. “He is waiting outside the gates, just as nice as you please. As if he had never killed our darling Bess. As if he had never done any of those things.”

“Now, Nell—”

“And there is more.” She swiped a hot tear from her cheek. “Sir Guy has taken down Roger’s colours and flies his own.”

“Roger is banished. We cannot fly his colours.”

“Roger was our uncle!” she shouted, not caring who heard her. “He was the man who raised us and loved us as his own children. Not even one day gone and we must wipe from the earth all trace that he was ever here?”

“Calm down, Nell,” Colin snapped. “It is but a blasted pennant.”

His words hit like a slap and Helena reared back from him. Colin didn’t understand. His betrayal added fresh fuel to the flame.

“How can you say that?” she raged at him. “How can you not care that Roger is gone? How can you just accept another man in his place? You, of all people.”

“You are screeching like a shrew.” Colin curled his lip in distaste. “I have no tolerance for your childish posturing. I am the one who should be wroth about Sir Guy being here. I have lost everything.”

Helena longed to slap his self-righteous face. Bereft of words, she whirled and charged up the stairs.

Her anger carried her to the safety of her solar. Helena grabbed the latch in both of her fists and heaved the door. It slammed into its jamb with a resounding thud. She spun around and stopped short.

He had invaded here too, her private sanctuary. “That craven, churlish, rutting dog!”

Guy’s armour lay on the clothing chest by her bed. She sprang on it with an avenging shriek. “Whore-mongering! Reeking! Swiving! Pig!” She punctuated each insult by flinging first his gauntlets and then his coif and, finally, his shield across the solar.

Steel clattered against the floor. The hauberk was too heavy, and after tugging on it furiously, she gave up with a growl of frustration and sat abruptly on the floor. The stones bruised her tender flesh.

“Ow.” She hiccoughed and then broke into noisy sobs. It was all too much and she cried harder.

She considered herself pious and devout. Most days she said her prayers morn and evening. She obeyed her guardian, at least when he was right. She was serene and gentle, or she tried very hard to be. She didn’t deserve any of such unfairness.

“My lady?”

Helena stopped mid-sob. She opened her fingers a crack.

The lad was partially concealed by the bed curtains, staring at her anxiously. It was too late for her dignity. She didn’t even attempt a recovery.

She dropped her hands from her face. “Who are you?”

“I am Geoffrey, my lady.” The boy sidled around the bed. “Mayhap I should call your attending woman?”

“What are you doing in here?”

“I . . . ah . . . I am Sir Guy’s squire.” The boy edged around the corner of the bed, keeping a safe distance. Watching her as if she were a feral beast, he didn’t notice the gauntlet she’d hurled across the solar. His knees hit the ground with a thud that made her wince.

The boy coloured beetroot red. “Your pardon, my lady.” He clambered to his feet and tugged on the edges of his tunic.

“Oh, I think we are beyond that.” Helena’s shoulders drooped. “Help me up before I make an even bigger fool of myself.”

“Oh, nay, my lady,” Geoffrey lied with admirable conviction.

Given her recent performance, Helena accorded him grudging respect for that much.

“You were merely overset.” He took two steps backward.

“Watch out for—”

Geoffrey landed in a tangle on the floor.

“That coif.” Helena levered herself up. “Well, Geoffrey.” She held out her hand to help him rise. “We are a fine pair, are we not?”

The boy blushed anew and took her hand. “I am clumsy.”

“And I just indulged in some behaviour that would make Bridget box my ears.”

Geoffrey opened his mouth gallantly.

Helena waved him to silence. “It has been a day of nasty surprises. I think we should both make a pact to forget the last ten minutes ever occurred.”

“Oh, aye, my lady.” Geoffrey tugged on his tunic again. He skirted the evidence of her tantrum with exaggerated care on his way to the door. “I have heard worse, you know.” He spoke in a sudden rush, as if he couldn’t quite believe his own daring.

“From a lady?”

“Oh, aye,” Geoffrey assured her. “You would scarce believe what ladies say when they believe nobody else is listening.”

“I doubt that, Geoffrey.”

“I am from Court.” Ranulf strode toward Guy. His manner was easy, but the man took in everything about him. Guy had seen Ranulf of Dartmoore at Court, but they didn’t share the same circles. Ranulf spent his time with a particularly nasty nest of vipers surrounding the king.

“I came to assure myself of Lady Helena’s safety,” Ranulf continued smoothly. “I see I am behind you, Guy of Helston.” He motioned to the pennant. “Those are your colours that fly there, are they not?”

“They are,” Guy inclined his head. “Lady Helena and I are wed.”

“Verily, I had not heard.” Not by a flicker did Sir Ranulf betray any emotion. “Allow me to felicitate you? Lady Helena is a prize indeed. You are to be congratulated on your good fortune.”

Indeed.
Lady Helena was a prize Ranulf had wanted enough to attempt persuading the king to overrule Roger’s guardianship. Roger had discovered the plot in time to put it a stop to it.
And here I stand, Roger’s move to halt Ranulf.

Guy nodded in acknowledgement. “Might we offer you the refreshment of the keep?”

“Gladly.” Ranulf wore a congenial smile, but his gaze drifted around the bailey.

Guy would bet his sword the man was tallying the strength of the keep. God be with the conniving bastard then, because Lystanwold was now his, and Guy had the might to defend it.

They settled in the hall. Ranulf sipped his mead, resting comfortably in the chair opposite, his expression calm, even affable. But his pretty face hid an anger that had Guy’s sword hand twitching for the reassuring weight of steel. Too many years of war had honed his instincts and they were shrieking at him now. Ranulf of Dartmoore wanted him dead.

“Your marriage was rather sudden, was it not?”

Guy met the man’s stare in silence. Roger had risked everything to spare his niece from this threat, and Guy understood the why of it. Ranulf was a killer, the sort of knight he’d encountered often in his travels.

Money and title didn’t hide the malevolent core that would stop at naught to gain what he sought.

Chapter 5

Bridget whistled as she looked at the armour scattered around the chamber.

“Do not.” Helena couldn’t abide one of her old nurse’s lectures at this point. Geoffrey hadn’t long left and it was as if she were a cracked flagon, ready to shatter at the next harsh word.

Surprisingly, Bridget merely bent to pick up a gauntlet and placed it on the chest. “He is still in the hall,” she reported for Helena’s benefit. “Sir Ranulf leaves in the morn.”

Helena nodded and worked on the laces of her bliaut. Her fingers developed a will of their own and tangled stubbornly in the ties. A fine tremor vibrated all the way to the tips of her nails.

Conjugal rights.
Oh, Lord help me
. Even the name made her want to be ill.

“Did he say aught of my absence?” Helena had half been expecting a demand she present herself for the evening meal. She’d been fully prepared with a scathing refusal. Geoffrey had appeared, instead, with her dinner. It lay spoiling beside the bed.

Bridget clucked her tongue and knocked her hands out of the way. “Let me,” she grumbled. “You will tear something at this rate.”

“Did you poison Ranulf’s meat?”

“Nay,” Bridget huffed as she deftly untied the lacing. “But I was sorely tempted. I thought I would be dead and buried afore I saw that man at Lystanwold.”

“
He
allowed it,” Helena said. “I shall never forgive this insult.”

Bridget was silent for a long while.

Helena waited until she could bear it no longer. “What?”

“It will not go well for you if you set yourself in opposition to Sir Guy,” Bridget finally muttered. “He is your husband.”

“I do not accept—”

“Oh, hush up, Nell. It matters not whether you accept or do not accept this. ‘Tis done and you had best find a way to endure it.”

“Never.”

“Foolish girl.” Bridget tugged the bliaut over Helena’s head and laid it across the clothes tree. “You have had a shock today and there is no doubt about that.” She pulled off Helena’s chainse and placed it with the bliaut. “Betimes, I believe your uncle had rocks in his head.” She held up her hand to stop Helena from speaking. “But ‘tis done now. You are married and there is a knight down in the hall who will shortly be here.” She paused with a knowing look. “And you know what that means, Nell.”

Helena jarred her toes painfully on the chest at the foot of the bed as she gave it a rebellious kick. She was not likely to forget such a thing. She glared at Bridget’s back as she rubbed her sore toe. It wasn’t as if she didn’t know what was expected of her. She did. But she’d planned who would join her in that chamber. Before Roger had climbed through her window with
him.

“That Roger,” Bridget tsked. “‘Tis just like a man to spring something like this on an innocent girl.”

“I am not so innocent.” Helena limped around her bed. She was, after all, much older than most brides and had been allowed far more freedom than other girls of her ilk.