The Briton (27 page)

“Look, she sleeps again,” he said. “Her sense must surely return soon. All is not lost. She is alive.”

Bronwen drew a deep breath. “Yes, she is alive. And I have more reason than ever to regain Rossall. I must take Enit home.”

The Norman stood still for a moment, then turned and strode away toward the fire.

Winter had set in for good when Jacques announced that at last they were drawing near Amounderness. The following evening the party would prepare to ride for Warbreck.

In the passing days, Enit had grown haler. She ate of the pigeon, hare and quail Jacques’s men roasted each night. By
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day, she sat up in the cart and looked about. Sometimes she knew Bronwen and remembered their stay in London. She recalled that Gildan had gone to France and that she and Bronwen were returning home. Other times she thought Bronwen was Esyllt on her way to wed Edgard.

Feeling sad and lonely one night, Bronwen covered her slumbering nursemaid with blankets and climbed out of the cart. She needed time to think, to be alone. Four guards stood on alert, but Jacques and his men slept by the fire.

Walking along the edge of the track, Bronwen gazed at the mighty trees swaying overhead. She lifted her widow’s skirts and stepped onto a thick carpet of musky-smelling fallen leaves on the forest floor. A full moon lightened the night, and she could see the bare branches and thorny brakes that crossed her path. Cold, fresh air filled her lungs as the sound of limbs clicked in the breeze.

Bronwen threw back the hood of her mantle and tilted her face to the sky.
Dear God, it is good to be alive,
she lifted up in prayer.
Please aid me. Teach me what I need to know. Make
me Your servant and—
At the sound of footsteps behind her, Bronwen reached for her dagger.

“You wander unguarded, Bronwen,” came a deep voice.

A sigh of relief escaped her lips. “You frightened me. I’m not alone. Your men can see me well enough.”

“Yet you must be careful.” Jacques pulled back his own hood. Bronwen gazed at the angle of his jaw and the curl of his raven hair. His tunic was a royal-blue, embroidered with a fine silver border. It fell from a straight neckline across his wide chest to the thick leather belt at his waist. From there it hung to his knees. His leggings and boots were a deep black.

Jacques was at least a head taller than her father had been, Bronwen realized. He was even taller and more broad-Catherine Palmer

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shouldered than Aeschby, whom she and Gildan had once thought magnificent. Jacques’s legs, powerful and long, had hardened with the riding and training that were part of his daily life. His large hands were taut and lean as he hooked his thumbs on his belt.

“You look upon me as though you’ve never seen me before.” The quiet voice interrupted Bronwen’s musings.

“Forgive me,” she stammered. “I didn’t realize I was staring.”

The Norman smiled. “Our meetings often have taken place in dim light, and we battle far more than we speak in peace.

At Warbreck, we’ll have time to know one another better.

There will be walks in the orchard and evenings of quiet talk beside the fire. I’m eager for you to meet Plantagenet. He’ll take great delight in your intellect.”

Bronwen listened to his words, her heart in her throat.

“Sir, you must know I intend to be about my business of regaining Rossall. I’ll not stay at Warbreck more than a day or two.”

Her purpose would be to find and secure the small box containing her father’s written will. But of course she must say nothing of that to Jacques.

“You speak always of regaining your father’s land,” the Norman said in a tone of frustration. “Bronwen, are you so blind that you do not see what is already yours for the taking?

Why will you not see
me?
”

With one arm, he captured her at the waist. “I offer you my home, my protection. I trail you here and there, trying my best to keep you safe from yourself and your enemies. Yet you treat me like a stranger. You behave as if you’ve never seen me—as if I don’t even exist.”

Bronwen looked up into the flashing eyes. “But, sir—”

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“I do exist. I’m here, Bronwen. Look at me. Feel my arms about you. Hear the words I speak. I am a man, Bronwen.”

He bent his head and covered her mouth with a kiss that swept the air from her lungs. She could do nothing to resist, and why should she? Each day, she had followed him with her eyes, her focus riveted to his broad back and her eyes drawn to every gust of breeze that lifted the hair from his forehead. Each night, she had watched him settle near the fire and ached to be lying beside him. Every word he spoke to her and each time their eyes met became treasures that she stored like precious jewels in her mind. Resting near Enit at night, she took them out and examined them, recalling each precious word, savoring every glance.

He turned her into the shadows of the forest, and she slid her arms about him. “Oh, Jacques,” she said drinking in the scent of his neck and the brush of his hair against her cheek. “You make me weak when I should be strong. I cannot let you do this.”

“Hold you in my arms? Kiss your lips when I know they long for mine? Bring you a life you cannot have known?”

“You know precious little of my past life. Why must you torment me? Can you not leave me in peace?”

Without replying, he turned his back on her and stared at the moon. His jet hair fell in waves on his shoulders.

“Jacques Le Brun,” Bronwen said. The Norman glanced back at her, his eyes a fierce black. “You and I are different.

You have education, lands, wealth.You are a Norman—a conqueror. I am a Briton. I have nothing but a dream. And every time we come together in this way, I fear the loss of that dream.”

She hugged herself, fighting for words that might make him understand. “When we first met, I knew nothing of you—

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yet you kissed me then and spoke words of such affection that when we parted I was able to think of little else. What is it you want of me? Why do you pursue me? You must know our differences are too great.”

“That is it, then,” he said. “You reject me because you cannot bear the differences between us—my mixed blood, my uncertain pedigree must never be mingled with your purity.

Why not say it outright? You would never deign to think of me as husband.”

“Husband?” she breathed.

“That night at Rossall when I first saw your dark hair, your skin—so like my own—I thought you would not care about my lineage. But I was mistaken.” He paused a moment.

“Have no fear, madam. I’ll not come to you again in hopes of tenderness and a meeting of the soul.”

With that, the man turned from her and strode back to the fire. For some minutes Bronwen could do nothing but stand rooted to the ground, her body stiff with shock. What had he said? What had he meant?

Husband!

But how? She had no father to arrange a marriage. She had no dowry, no land or gold to offer. How could he see them as a match?

Bronwen shook her head in confusion. His kisses were so passionate, so filled with desire. Was that what he had meant—that he wanted her as a husband craves his wife, but without the bond of matrimony? Did he think she might join him in a dalliance of
amour?

A lonely widow. In need of aid and protection. She would be perfect for such an arrangement.

Torment raging through her, Bronwen lifted her head and returned to her prayers.

Chapter Thirteen

As the sun lit the tops of the golden trees, the party rounded the final bend in the road. Bronwen gasped at the sight that met her eyes. Warbreck Castle was a full level higher than it had been when she’d lived there. A third story rose above the first two, and at the corner facing the river an even taller tower loomed against the purple sky. Along the parapet surrounding the stronghold, newly built notched battlements allowed the knights to shoot arrows through slotted windows. Around the tower’s top a machicolation extended out from the expanse of wall to protect the men who dropped missiles or hot oil through it.

A new stone wall now extended across the river and back again—enclosing the village and ensuring a water supply for the moat that had been dug around the castle. Though the wall was not yet complete, Bronwen could see it was far stronger than the wooden palisade at Rossall.

The tall gate that the party now approached had been built of wood, but it was studded with iron spikes to deter a battering ram. When they neared, a formation of guards opened the gate, allowing the group to enter.

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Again Bronwen caught her breath at the changes. The village had grown. Huts had been built against the base of the inner wall. The lanes running between the houses were paved with cobblestone. A market area had been cleared, and a white stone cross designated its center.

As she rode toward the castle, Bronwen saw that not everything was altered. There stood the kitchen, just as she remembered it. And there were the stables looking much as they had before. She recalled the care she had taken to improve the place for her husband.

Olaf Lothbrok…now joined by his son. Did they walk the halls of Valhalla, as they had believed? Bronwen’s new understanding of the one God and the teachings in His holy book led her to fear that Olaf had been sadly mistaken.

“May I take your horse, madam?” a stable hand asked.

She did not recognize the man, but Enit knew him at once.

Before Bronwen could dismount and smooth out her rumpled skirts, he had invited the old woman to join his family for dinner that very evening. Unable to resist her nursemaid’s glee, Bronwen dismissed her into his care.

Jacques had already vanished, surrounded by men eager to acquaint their lord with everything that had happened in his absence. Bronwen was relieved. Their final encounter had left her in great turmoil. She felt she should speak to him alone again—try to explain how she felt about him, attempt to make him see that it was not his heritage that separated them. It was her own.

Approaching the castle door, Bronwen gathered up her courage and stepped inside. Just as she remembered, the long stone staircase rose at her left toward the guardroom and her former bedchamber. But through the archway before her, she saw not the familiar hall with its rush-strewn floor and bare
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walls, but a changed room. Thick carpets of bright color and pattern were echoed on walls hung with tapestries that had been adorned with scenes of battles, flowers, trees, unicorns and dragons.

Each table was covered with cloths dyed in brilliant peacock-blue. The fireplace, no longer in the center of the room, now stood against the far wall. The dais was in its accustomed place, but over it hung a baldachuin made of blue silk and ornamented with gold balls. On a newly erected minstrel’s gallery above the canopied dais, a large group of musicians played a lively tune.

Already servitors prepared for the evening meal, rushing about with silver trays, golden goblets, and yes—even ewers that diners might wash their hands. Feeling almost as though she was in a different place altogether, Bronwen at last recalled her mission at Warbreck. She must find the small box she and Enit had hidden. She was hurrying toward the staircase and her old chamber when Jacques stepped through the front door.

“Madam?” he called out. “Do you climb to the guard tower for some malevolent purpose…or are you gone astray in your own home?”

As his men chuckled, Bronwen faced the man whose eyes even now beckoned her. “My bedchamber is upstairs,” she told him. “I’m weary, and I mean to retire for the night.”

“You may have stayed there once, but that stair now leads to weapons storage and sleeping quarters for my men.”

“The entire floor?”

“Indeed. My workmen have constructed more comfortable chambers just down the corridor. Will you accompany me?”

He held out an arm, and she could do nothing but slip her
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hand around it. As he escorted her toward a second newly built staircase with carved wood newel posts and a fine banister, Bronwen spoke in a low voice.

“Sir, may I be so bold as to ask for a moment of your time?

I wish to shed light on our previous conversation.”

“You spoke clearly enough for me to see your heart,” he said. “Any further exchange between us is unnecessary.”

“But that is not true. You misunderstood me.”

“Did I? I think not. If I may boast, I’m known as a man of high intellect, and I rarely mistake anything.”

Followed by his men, Jacques accompanied her up the steps to a door that opened into a chamber far grander than the one at Sir Gregory’s house—and she had believed that one to be more magnificent than anything possible. The windows were covered with blue silk curtains, while matching hang-ings surrounded a large sumptuous bed.

“Nevertheless,” she murmured as he led her into the room,

“you have mistaken my words. Please may we speak?”

“I assume this will be suitable, madam,” he said loudly enough for his men to hear. “I shall see that the chests of clothing you left here previously will be brought up, and a meal provided. You have my invitation to stay as long as you wish—though I would encourage you to remain at least one more day. Henry Plantagenet’s ships have been sighted not far from Warbreck Wash, and I expect him to arrive on the morrow. I’m sure he would take great interest in your view of current politics.”

Before Bronwen could respond, Jacques and his men left the room, shutting the door on her. A curl of pain crept through her chest at the echo of their footfalls down the corridor. She had, indeed, rejected Jacques Le Brun for the last time. His dismissal of her was obvious, his disdain palpable.

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Crossing the room, she drew aside a curtain. The small window looked out on the forests, once verdant and thriving.