Scoundrel Of Dunborough
Scoundrel Of Dunborough
Margaret Moore
She's sworn to resist temptation!Journeying to Dunborough to learn the truth about her sister’s murder, novice Celeste D’Orleau dons a nun’s habit for safety. But seeing her childhood hero, Gerrard of Dunborough, makes her dream of pleasures that will be forbidden once she takes her final vows.Gerrard wrestles with his desire for the innocent beauty. After striving to redeem his wicked reputation he won’t seduce a nun. Yet as Celeste’s mission draws them closer together, it soon becomes clear their passion is stronger than any vow!
“I like you, Celeste, even when you’re angry with me.”
Warmth flooded through her. The heat of desire. Lust. Sin.
“I don’t care whether you like me or not. I am not leaving.”
“Oh, yes, you are,” he replied, in that same low, seductive tone. “You can come quietly and obediently, like a good little nun, or I’ll have to carry you.”
She must be strong. Her faith, her duty and her self-respect must make her so. “I will not allow you to drag me through the village like some chattel.”
“I didn’t say I’d drag you. I shall pick you up and carry you—like a groom carries his bride across the threshold.”
She swallowed hard and fought to maintain her composure … such as it was. “I am a bride of Christ and shall never be a man’s.”
Author Note (#ulink_192f90c9-3b3f-5896-b870-705dbbc75192)
I enjoy creating the main characters of my novels, but I also really enjoy coming up with secondary characters—the ‘best friends’, ‘second bananas’ and ‘bit players’. Sometimes I know from the planning stage who my secondary characters are going to be— especially if the character is a villain. Other times I realise in the writing that I need somebody for my hero or heroine to interact with. So sometimes very minor characters become more important.
Arnhelm and Verdan, who first appeared in Bride for a Knight, began as basic background characters. Then I realised I had more than one place where I had such characters. Why not combine them? Why not give them names?
Once they had names, I began to give them more to do. They were soldiers in the household of the heroine’s uncle, so they would know her better than the hero—at least at first. Why not make them a sort of protective Greek chorus, wondering and worrying about her?
Then I made them brothers, and the minute I did that I realised their friendly relationship could contrast with that of Roland and his twin brother, Gerrard.
Being a romance writer, I couldn’t resist giving Arnhelm and Verdan their own love interests—two female secondary characters who live in Dunborough. And I gave them a mother who is making a bit of trouble for them.
That’s how secondary characters become just as real and vital to me as the heroes and heroines of my stories—and I hope for my readers, too.
Scoundrel of Dunborough
Margaret Moore
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
Award-winning author MARGARET MOORE has written over fifty romance novels and novellas for Harlequin Mills & Boon, Avon Books and HarperCollins Children’s Books. Her stories have been set in the Dark Ages and medieval Britain, Restoration, Regency and Victorian England, and pre-Civil War Massachusetts. Margaret lives in Ontario, Canada, with her husband and two cats.
She can be found online at margaretmoore.com (http://margaretmoore.com), margaretmoore.blogspot.com (http://margaretmoore.blogspot.com) and @MargMooreAuthor (https://twitter.com/margmooreauthor) on Twitter.
With thanks to my family and friends for their love and support, especially during times of crisis. It’s appreciated more than words can say.
Contents
Cover (#u2ce1663f-4b61-5097-ad3e-892c50c592cb)
Introduction (#u152a3435-667a-5409-9859-bb4e1de217a5)
Author Note (#u940fe78a-0fe1-5fc1-863f-d1dc23b14638)
Title Page (#u9b91e697-2c91-539d-8053-7e494c2d2c89)
About the Author (#u7cdc35d5-4b96-5cfe-b29f-aef08069320c)
Dedication (#u97c79282-0677-59fa-9cc8-cf1d1e9d8809)
Chapter One (#u6c0dd780-91d6-5dea-bdc5-5b170a87d623)
Chapter Two (#u5e709482-ad7f-553b-a5ba-28ecec4f33ca)
Chapter Three (#u89fd0f06-797a-58fc-9dbe-763cd0ce3858)
Chapter Four (#u75ec9b88-3e23-55ce-b6a4-9de98d60cad6)
Chapter Five (#ud69b0499-2f5a-5e16-a42f-a3abb3189928)
Chapter Six (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Thirteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fourteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fifteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Sixteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seventeen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eighteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nineteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-One (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-Two (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-Three (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-Four (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-Five (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-Six (#litres_trial_promo)
Extract (#litres_trial_promo)
Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter One (#ulink_19c50c32-542a-599b-ab2d-d6b8c2ee7f2e)
England, 1214
The November night had fallen, but inside Sir Melvin’s hall, warmth and light dispelled the cold and gloom and provided a welcome shelter for the young woman dressed in the habit of a nun. She had been traveling many days, and it had been a long time since Celeste had enjoyed such comfort.
A fire blazed in the long central hearth and several torches lined the gray stone walls. Two beeswax candles in silver holders graced the trestle table covered in linen on the dais. Behind the high table where Celeste and the plump and prosperous Sir Melvin sat, a tapestry of knights and finely dressed ladies swayed. His wife, the calm and competent Lady Viola, was seated to his left. Servants male and female moved among the other tables, where the steward, a priest, retainers, senior servants and household guards prepared to eat the evening meal.
The elderly priest, who put Celeste in mind of Methuselah, finished the grace. Serving maids brought trenchers of stale bread to hold a thick beef stew. More bread sat in baskets on the table, and wine was poured into bronze goblets that gleamed with the reflected glow of the firelight.
“It’s kind of you to offer me shelter and such a fine meal,” Celeste said to her host, her voice soft and sincere.
“We’re delighted to have you stay the night, Sister,” Sir Melvin said with hearty good cheer and a broad smile. “Delighted!”
“We’ll be happy to provide you with an escort for the rest of your journey,” Lady Viola offered.
“I thank you,” Celeste replied, “but I have not far to go. I should reach Dunborough tomorrow.”
“Dunborough?” Sir Melvin couldn’t have sounded more astonished if she’d announced she was going to the devil and happily so. “Why are you—”
He caught his wife’s eye, cleared his throat and began again. “Dunborough, eh? I know the lord there. Sir Roland. He and his bride stopped here on their way from her home to Yorkshire. Lady Mavis of DeLac, she is.”
Celeste stopped reaching for a small brown loaf from the basket of bread on the table. “Sir Roland is lord of Dunborough and he’s married?” she asked, doing her best to hide her astonishment.
“His father and older brother died a short time ago and he is recently wed,” Lady Viola supplied.
Celeste had to believe her, and yet she still found it hard to imagine.
“A fine fellow, a fine fellow!” Sir Melvin cried, picking up his eating knife to carve a piece of beef from the roasted loin a neatly dressed servant set before them.
“Quiet and a bit stern for my liking,” he continued, “but I’m not the bride. Our byre caught on fire when they were here and she lost all her dower goods. He never asked for a penny in compensation.”
“And he led the efforts to put it out,” his wife noted.
“He’s not in Dunborough now,” Sir Melvin continued, unaware of the relief he was giving his guest with that information. “He’s at DeLac. He was—”
Lady Viola touched her husband’s arm and shook her head.
“Well, that’s not a fit subject when we have a guest.”
Celeste wondered where Roland was and why, although it didn’t really matter. Her business was not with the lord of Dunborough.
“Have you been to Dunborough before?” Sir Melvin asked.
“I lived there until I went to the convent,” she admitted.
“Ah!” Sir Melvin cried. “So you’ll have seen Sir Roland. Grim fellow, isn’t he?”
“Rather,” she replied. Indeed, she remembered him very well, and his brothers, too. “He had a twin brother, too, I believe.”
“Oh, yes, Gerrard.” Sir Melvin’s pleasant face darkened with a frown. “Quite a different sort, he is, even though they’re twins.”
Gerrard had always been very different from Roland.
“It’s too bad he’s a wastrel and a lecher, like his father, or so they say,” Sir Melvin remarked. “From the stories I’ve heard, old Sir Blane was as bad as they come.”
Worse, Celeste silently supplied. She could have told him stories about Sir Blane that would have made her host’s beard fall out from shock.
She also could have told him how Sir Blane had raised his sons to hate each other and compete for any crumb of praise. He’d even kept the knowledge of which of the twins was the elder from everyone, including them, using it to goad or torment them, always dangling the hope that one of them could be the heir someday, should anything happen to their older brother, Broderick, before he married and had sons, as it had. Blane had made the twins bitter foes and rivals in a constant competition.
She could have described how the younger brothers had fought and quarreled and come to blows more than once when they were boys, and that only their stubbornness and their features were alike. Roland was hard, cold, stoic, a stickler for rules and duty. Gerrard was bold, merry and exciting.
As for what had happened to Gerrard in the years since she’d been gone, Celeste had only gossip and tales told by girls who’d arrived at Saint Agatha’s for information. One story had been particularly upsetting. Esmerelda had claimed that Gerrard had lured her into the woods with a promise to meet her there. He’d failed to arrive and outlaws had found her instead. Esmerelda had barely survived. Her maidenhead had not.
“Have you family in Dunborough?” Lady Viola asked, bringing Celeste back to the present and this comfortable hall and the reason for her journey.
“Not anymore,” she answered, turning away to hide her face before the sudden rush of sorrow became visible.
“I’m sorry, Sister,” the older woman said sympathetically.
Clearly, Celeste realized, she had been too slow to keep her reaction from her features.
“It’s all right,” she replied, giving her hostess as much of a smile as she could muster. “My mother died shortly after I went to the convent and my father some years later. My only sister passed away recently. I have no brothers, so I’m on my way to Dunborough to see to her things and sell my parents’ house.”
“Oh, dear me! How sad!” Sir Melvin exclaimed. “Your sister must have been very young. Sickness is a terrible thing, a terrible thing!”
“She was murdered.”
The moment the harsh and horrid truth escaped her lips, Celeste regretted saying it. She need not have used the same words with which the mother superior had informed her of Audrey’s death and the manner of it. “Forgive me for being so blunt. I have only my weariness for an excuse.”
“It’s quite all right,” Lady Viola hastened to assure her. “We’re so very sorry about your sister.”
“We’ll speak no more of it,” Sir Melvin said, his usually booming voice hushed with respect as he shut the door on any more talk of murder.
Or anything else to do with Dunborough and its inhabitants.
* * *
Shortly after noon the next day, Gerrard of Dunborough pulled his snow-white horse to a halt outside the stone fence surrounding the yard of the house that had belonged to the D’Orleaus. The soldiers of the patrol returning with him likewise reined in, exchanging puzzled glances at this sudden and unexpected halt.
“Seen something amiss, sir?” young Hedley asked the tall, broad-shouldered commander of the garrison.
“It may be nothing,” Gerrard replied as he slipped from the saddle, “but the door to the house is open.”
A few of the men gasped and more than one made the sign against ghosts and evil spirits. They all knew what had happened in that house and that it should be empty.
Gerrard did not believe in ghosts or evil spirits. He did, however, believe in outlaws and thieves drawn by rumors that money and jewelry were hidden inside the D’Orleau house.
“Take some of the men and search the stables and outbuildings,” he said to Hedley as he drew his sword. “Quick and quiet, though, so no warning given.”
The young man nodded and Gerrard walked swiftly toward the house that had been built by Audrey D’Orleau’s father, a prosperous wool merchant. The air was chill with the approach of winter, the sky gray as slate. Rain would come soon and wind from over the dales, bringing more cold and perhaps turning the rain to snow.
Gerrard’s steps slowed as he neared the front entrance. No ordinary thief or outlaw should have been able to pick that lock, yet only a foolish one would have left the door visibly open while he pillaged inside.
Gerrard eased the door open farther with the tip of his sword and listened. Nothing. Not a whisper, not a sound, not even the soft scurrying of a mouse. It was as if the house, too, had died.
He stepped over the threshold. Still all was silent.
He continued to the main room. The last time he’d been in that chamber, many of the furnishings had been broken and strewn about, obvious signs of the struggle between poor Audrey and her attacker. Since then, the unbroken furniture had been righted, if not returned to its proper place, and the ruined pieces taken away. The horrible bloodstain, however—
He wasn’t alone.
Someone else was there, swaddled in a long black cloak and standing still as a statue, looking down at the large, dark stain upon the floor, as if Death itself was brooding over the spot where Audrey’s murdered body had lain.
Gripping his sword tighter, Gerrard moved closer, making a floorboard creak.
The intruder looked up.
It wasn’t Death, or even a man. It was a woman in a nun’s habit, her skin as pale as moonlight, the wimple surrounding her heart-shaped face white as his horse, her eyes large and green, her lips full and open in surprise. Her nose was straight and slender, her chin pointed...
“Celeste!” he cried, his hand moving instinctively to the collarbone she’d broken years ago.
Audrey’s younger sister regarded him warily. “Who are...” Recognition dawned. “It’s Gerrard, isn’t it? Or is it Roland?”
“Gerrard,” he answered, hiding his dismay that she hadn’t been able to distinguish him from his twin. She had always been able to tell them apart when they were younger.
He reminded himself that ten years had passed since they had last been together and in that time more than their height had changed.
He was about to ask her what she was doing there when the obvious answer presented itself. She was there because Audrey was dead, and she was Audrey’s only family. “We thought to see you days ago.”
He saw the flicker of anguish cross her features, yet when she spoke, her voice was calm and even. “I was on a pilgrimage.”
“An odd time of year for traveling.”
“I came as soon as I was informed.” She turned away and added, “Of course I would have come sooner had I known.”
Silently cursing himself for speaking without thinking, Gerrard said, “If you’d sent word you were coming, I would have met you and escorted you to the castle. You need not have come here.”
“I wanted to see,” she replied, sounding exactly as she had when they were children and one of the hounds had caught and worried a badger to death. Gerrard had tried to keep her away, but she’d gotten past him and then stood staring at the torn and bleeding body, silent and white as a sheet, the same way she’d been staring at the floor moments ago.
“And now you have seen,” he said with quiet compassion, nevertheless determined to get her away from this place with its blood-soaked floor and unhappy memories.
“How did Audrey die? The mother superior would only say that she’d been murdered.”
God help him! He didn’t want to have to describe what had happened to her sister. He didn’t want to remember, either. “You don’t need to know more than that, do you?”
“I would rather hear the truth, however terrible, than have my mind run wild with speculation. Some of the furniture is missing, other pieces are not in their proper place, and there is that,” she said, pointing to the stain.
She regarded him with pleading eyes. “Please, Gerrard, tell me what happened here, or I will imagine a thousand awful things, each worse than the last.”
He well recalled Celeste’s vivid imagination. There had been times she’d frightened them all, even Roland, with tales of ghosts and demons, ogres and monsters.
Besides, she was Audrey’s only relative, so he supposed she had a right to know. And she would likely hear the horrific details from someone else, anyway. Better, perhaps, that he should tell her and as gently as he could. “She had a bodyguard, a Scot named Duncan MacHeath. Apparently the man was in love with her and fiercely jealous. One day when her servants were out of the house something happened between them and he attacked and killed her. She fought for her life, but in the end she lost it.”
“Not easily, then,” Celeste replied, with a catch in her voice. She bowed her head. “Not quick.”
“No,” Gerrard said softly.
After a moment of heavy silence, Celeste raised her head and looked at him with unexpected composure. Perhaps the knowledge of what had happened to Audrey—the main details of it, at least—had indeed brought her some peace.
“What of the bodyguard?” she asked. “Is he imprisoned, or has he already been hanged?”
That, fortunately, was an easy question to answer. “He’s dead, drowned in the river after he was wounded attacking Roland.”
Her green eyes widened. “He attacked your brother, too?”
“Aye. He thought Roland was Audrey’s lover.”
“Roland? That’s ridiculous!” Celeste exclaimed. “Audrey didn’t even like...”
She fell silent and her cheeks colored with a blush.
Gerrard had often wondered how Audrey really felt about Roland. Now he knew.
Nor was he particularly surprised. Roland was hardly the sort of man to appeal to Celeste’s older sister, at least until he’d been named heir and lord of Dunborough. “Aye, Duncan was wrong about that, but he nearly killed Roland just the same. Roland wounded him and Duncan fell into the river afterward, trying to flee, and drowned. Too easy a death for a man who’d...”
Gerrard hesitated and looked away, but not fast enough.
“There is more,” Celeste said with certainty. She walked toward him, her steady, determined gaze holding his. “This MacHeath molested Audrey, didn’t he? A man angry enough to kill would be angry enough to forcefully take what a woman would not willingly give.”
Gerrard was sorry she was so perceptive, or his features so revealing. “If there is justice in the next life, he will burn in hell forever.”
“Did no one see any signs that she should fear him?”
“He was a fierce-looking fellow, but nobody ever thought Duncan MacHeath would hurt her. Surely she didn’t, either, or she would have sent him away.”
“Then there was no sign of his feelings for her? No hint that he might be jealous?”
“The man gave no sign of any feelings at all. He was a silent, sullen fellow.”
“Where did my sister meet him? How did she come to hire him?”
“York, I believe. I don’t think she ever told anyone here in Dunborough how he came to be in her employ.”
Gerrard braced himself for more questions that would be difficult or uncomfortable to answer, but fortunately, Celeste seemed satisfied. She began to move around the room, putting the remaining furniture back in place. With a sorrowful sigh that touched his heart, she ran her hand over the unfinished needlepoint on a stand beside the window. Audrey had been skilled at needlework, among other things.
He wondered what Celeste planned to do now. The burial had been weeks ago. “I suppose you’ll be returning to Saint Agatha’s.”
“Not for a few days,” she replied. She made a graceful sweeping gesture. “I shall have to deal with all of this first.”
Of course. The land was held by the lord of Dunborough, but the house and its contents were hers, with a portion to go to the overlord. “Roland might waive the heriot, considering.”
“What should be paid will be paid, and the rest I shall give to the church.”
“You’re welcome to reside at the castle for as long as necessary.”
She shook her head. “I thank you for the offer, but I don’t wish to impose.”
“I assure you, you won’t be.” He gave her a smile. “I’m happy to offer the hospitality of Dunborough to an old friend.”
“Again I thank you, but I would rather stay here until the house is sold.”
“You brought servants with you?”
“No, I need none.”
“You came alone?”
“Yes.”
“What the devil was your mother superior thinking?” he demanded, appalled. The roads and byways were dangerous for a woman alone, especially a beautiful one, even if she was a nun. “Did she have no fears for your safety?”
In spite of his shocked and angry tone, Celeste remained remarkably calm. “I was never in any danger, nor did I ever have to walk far. Many farmers and carters are happy to help a nun, and many a nobleman and innkeeper pleased to give one shelter while asking nothing in return, just as you have done.”
Although it took considerable effort, Gerrard managed to subdue his temper. “Be that as it may, you can’t stay here alone, and none of Audrey’s servants will come back to the house. They think it’s haunted.”
“As I told you, I need no servant, and even if Audrey’s spirit does still linger here, I am quite safe. Alive or dead, she would never hurt me.”
Gerrard felt like a fool for mentioning any supernatural concern, especially when there were other, more worldly reasons she couldn’t spend the night alone in that house. “Rumors of your father’s hidden wealth might tempt outlaws and thieves.”
She sighed, but otherwise remained the same. “I suppose that’s to be expected. Nevertheless, I’m not leaving. The locks are strong and God will protect me.”
God? God had not been here to save Audrey. “Just in case He is otherwise occupied, I must insist you come to the castle as my guest.”
Her expression turned wary and suspicious, a look he unfortunately recognized. Women who’d heard the worst of him looked at him like that. Then he remembered who else was at Saint Agatha’s.
“You will be quite safe there. I give you my word.”
He steeled himself for another refusal.
That did not come. Instead, she spoke as if she’d been agreeable all along. “Very well, and thank you.”
He tried not to show his relief as he held out his arm to escort her.
She did not take it.
Instead, with her expression as placid as if they were in a cathedral, she walked out of the chamber.
At least she’d finally seen sense, he told himself as he followed her outside. He went to his men and ordered them to continue to the castle, and told the fair-haired Hedley to take Snow to the stable for him.
By the time he’d done that, Celeste was at an outbuilding at the far end of the yard.
As he hurried to join her, Gerrard still couldn’t quite believe she was there. When she hadn’t arrived in the days after Audrey’s death, he’d assumed she never would. Now here she was, and staying in the castle, too.
He wasn’t the only one who’d changed. Celeste had been a lively little elf of a child who skipped and danced more than she walked, and laughed and sang. She’d had freckles and long brown hair that curled as if it had a life of its own.
Maybe it was long under that cap, veil and wimple. Or maybe it had been shorn to the scalp.
Not that it mattered what her hair was like, or how beautiful she was, even if she was more lovely than Audrey had been, something he hadn’t foreseen.
She was a nun here to sell her family’s goods and house, and then she would return to the convent.
When he reached her, she regarded him quizzically. “Where is Audrey’s horse? She liked to ride, so I’m sure she had one.”
“She had two and they were taken to the castle stables for safekeeping until we learned what you wanted done with them. Roland was going to ask you.”
“I’ll pay you for their keep.”
He gave her another smile as he shook his head. “No need. Roland can afford it.” Gerrard held out his arm again. “It will be my pleasure to escort you to the castle.”
She didn’t decline, but neither did she touch the arm he offered. Instead, she once again left him to fall into step beside her.
No doubt she wasn’t used to walking with a man.
* * *
From his hiding place behind a tree at the side of the D’Orleau house, Lewis watched the smug, arrogant Gerrard and the nun walk toward the village. He’d seen the patrol stop and suspected they were looking for thieves.
If outlaws were inside, they’d be sorry they tried to steal from that accursed place, the slender youth thought. Whatever other people believed, Sir Roland or his brother probably wouldn’t be any more merciful than their father.
He’d nearly fallen over when Gerrard had come out of the house with a nun. Then he remembered that Audrey D’Orleau had a sister who’d been sent to a convent because she’d dared to attack Gerrard for cutting off her hair. That was probably who it was.
Lewis left his hiding place and followed the couple to the village. He ducked into an alley and hurried past the buildings lining the green, including his father’s shop. That way he was able to get ahead of them and come out near the smithy, where he could see her face.
She was beautiful! Even more beautiful than Audrey! Indeed, she was far too beautiful to be a nun.
Maybe she wasn’t a nun and maybe she wasn’t Audrey’s sister. Maybe she was a thief in disguise, come to search for the treasure. Gerrard must not think so, though, or he would have had her taken to the dungeon. Or perhaps he wouldn’t, since she was young and pretty.
Lewis glanced at the rogue and got another shock. Gerrard looked as stone-faced as his brother. Usually he was all easy, affable charm when he was with a pretty girl.
Maybe then she really was a nun. Lewis almost laughed aloud to think of how disappointed the lecherous Gerrard must be if that was so.
On the other hand, given what Gerrard’s father had been like, the lout might still try to have his way with her although she was a bride of Christ.
He’d tried to warn Esmerelda about Gerrard and she’d ignored him. Audrey D’Orleau hadn’t been worth his help, despite her beauty.
Surely, Lewis thought, it was his Christian duty to protect this pretty, holy woman, this lovely creature undoubtedly too innocent and naive to see Gerrard as he truly was, even if he was only the chandler’s son.
Chapter Two (#ulink_9aa766b4-877c-5bb4-a2c8-4f6f1e00f601)
As Celeste and Gerrard walked through the village of Dunborough, she was very aware of the tall, broad-shouldered man striding so confidently beside her. He had always been a bold and merry fellow, ready with a smile, and laughter in his shining brown eyes. Now he looked more like the cold, stern Roland.
Given the passage of time since she had last seen either of them, change was to be expected. She had been twelve years old when she had left Dunborough, and Gerrard and Roland fifteen.
It was also surely to be expected that whispers of surprise and speculation would follow them like a breeze through bracken. No doubt many would wonder who she was and what she was doing there, especially with Gerrard. Some, perhaps, would recognize her, although it had been ten years since she’d been sent to Saint Agatha’s.
She cast her gaze toward the castle. The stronghold had grown more massive in the time that she’d been gone. Even when she lived there, Gerrard’s father had always been adding to it, building more walls and towers, raising the money from the tenants’ labors and merchants’ fees, as well as fines for almost any infraction, no matter how minor.
She tried not to think about Sir Blane or the old days as she walked past the stalls and shops of the village, the smithy with its gaggle of old men outside and the well with a similar group of matrons, all eyeing them with curiosity. A gaggle of children, laughing and giggling, chased an inflated pig’s bladder down a nearby alley. She turned away, ignoring the little pang of loss. The lack of children was a small price to pay for the peace and security of the religious life.
Gerrard was still silent as they reached the outer walls and proceeded through the thick, bossed gates, the grassy outer ward, the inner gate and then the inner ward, beneath the portcullis and through the final gate into the cobblestoned courtyard.
She said nothing, either, even when they reached the great hall.
It was just as huge and barren as she recalled, awe-inspiring in a bone-chilling way. It wasn’t only the size that made it so. There was a central hearth and stone pillars, but no ornamentation of any kind. No pennants, no tapestries, no paint, no carving. The floor was covered in rushes and she could smell the fleabane, but that was the only herb she could detect. There was no hint of rosemary or anything else to add a pleasant odor.
Hounds of various ages and sizes rushed up to Gerrard and he gave them each a pat before telling them to sit. They did, looking up at him like an adoring chorus about to burst into song.
He had been a favorite of the dogs when he was a boy, too, no doubt because he gave them ample attention of the sort he rarely received from anyone save Eua, a serving woman who had been his nurse, and who had praised and spoiled him.
Indeed, the hall was so little changed, Celeste half expected to see Sir Blane seated on the dais, with his cruel features and even crueler sneer while he berated his sons.
She removed her cloak as a maidservant appeared from the entrance to the kitchen. The woman was young and not unattractive, slender and with chestnut-brown hair, the sort of girl a parent would have kept far from the hall of Dunborough when Sir Blane and his eldest son, Broderick, were alive.
More surprising still, the maidservant merely nodded when Gerrard asked her to bring refreshments. She didn’t blush or smile at him as she took Celeste’s cloak.
Not that it mattered to her if Gerrard was carrying on with a servant. If he were, he would be no different from most men of his rank. As for the other things she’d heard about him, rumors were often exaggerations, if not outright lies.
And poor Esmerelda might have been mistaken about where she was to meet him, or if she was to meet him at all. Given her own youthful infatuation with the handsome, merry Gerrard, Celeste could easily imagine a girl misinterpreting his words or intentions.
“Now then, this is better, isn’t it?” he said with a familiar smile as they sat on finely carved chairs on the dais and the maidservant brought wine, bread and cheese. “Please, have some wine. It’s very good. I’m working my way through Father’s cellar.”
Celeste accepted the wine and took a grateful sip. It was indeed very good wine, which meant it was a hundred times better than anything she’d had at the convent. The mother superior kept all the best wine for herself or her favorites. The rest got much cheaper fare.
“It’s been a long time,” Gerrard said after he took a drink of wine, fixing his brown-eyed gaze upon her in a way that made her grateful for the nun’s habit she wore.
“I heard about your father and Broderick,” she said, knowing better than to offer him any sympathy for their demise.
Gerrard gave a little shrug with his right shoulder, as he used to do when they were children. “Then I suppose you know Roland is lord of Dunborough now.”
She was surprised at how calm he sounded. “Yes, I did hear that.”
“And that Roland is married?”
“Yes.”
She had been even more surprised by that news. Audrey had often said Roland would have to marry a statue to find a wife as cold and stern as he, and Celeste had not disagreed.
“He’s not here at the moment. He’s at his wife’s estate recovering from the wounds he got fighting Audrey’s killer.”
Gerrard didn’t sound overly concerned. Nevertheless, she remembered what he’d said at the house, about Audrey’s bodyguard nearly killing Roland. She’d been too overwhelmed by all that he had told her to inquire about Roland’s state then. “So he will recover?”
“Yes. I’m garrison commander in charge of Dunborough until he returns.”
Being the temporary lord was better than nothing, she supposed, although she nevertheless found it hard to believe that Gerrard could be so apparently accepting of his lower status.
“Things are better between us now,” he added.
Much better, it seemed. “So Roland won’t be angry if you drink all the best wine.”
Gerrard laughed softly. As much as she’d remembered, she had forgotten the sound of his laughter and the way it seemed to brighten everything around him.
“It would take years to do that,” he assured her, “even if I drank as much as I used to.”
She had heard that he drank to excess, among other sins, so that was not a surprise. The surprise was that he was willing to admit it.
“Enough of what’s happened here in Dunborough,” he said. “I have some questions of my own to ask.”
The last thing she wanted was to be interrogated by Gerrard. It would be worse than facing the mother superior at her most irate.
Celeste got to her feet. “If you don’t mind, Gerrard, I’m quite tired and would like to rest.”
A flash of irritation crossed his leanly handsome features and she waited for a protest.
Instead, he rose and called to the maidservant who had brought the refreshments. “Lizabet, show Sister Celeste to Roland’s chamber.”
He turned back to regard her with those brilliant dark brown eyes. “Or are you Sister Something Else?”
She kept her composure and silently prayed for forgiveness for the lie she was about to tell, along with her other recent sins. “I am Sister Augustine now.”
“Until later, then, Sister.”
“Yes, until later,” she agreed as she turned to follow the maidservant to the stairs leading to the family chambers.
Despite her answer, though, she had already decided she would not be joining Gerrard in the hall later, or at any time. When she was with him, the past crowded in on her, the memories fresh and vivid, both the good ones and the bad.
Lizabet passed the first door. “That was Sir Blane’s,” she said, her voice hushed as if she thought someone would overhear.
“And that was Broderick’s, the late lord’s eldest son,” she continued as they passed another. “I suppose you heard what happened to him? Killed by a woman! Sir Roland’s wife’s cousin. I can hardly imagine it.”
“A woman?” Celeste repeated, unable to hide her surprise.
Gerrard’s older brother had been a big man and a bully, fierce and cruel. To think that any woman had been able to—”
“Aye, it’s true. He was about to kill the man Lady Mavis’s cousin loved, and Lady Thomasina killed Broderick instead.”
Sister Sylvester once said that a loved one in trouble could give a person great and unforeseen strength. It seemed that she was right. “From what I remember of Broderick, I find it difficult to be sorry, however he met his end.”
Lizabet slid Celeste a questioning glance. “You know the family?”
“In a way. I’m Audrey D’Orleau’s sister.”
The young woman came to a startled halt. “I—I’m sorry, Sister!” she stammered.
She didn’t wait for Celeste to respond, but quickly continued on their way.
“This chamber is Gerrard’s when he sleeps here,” she said, hurrying past another door, “and this is Sir Roland’s.” Lizabet opened the last door in the corridor and stood aside to let Celeste enter.
The room was a far cry from the way she’d imagined any chamber of Roland’s. She’d been expecting bare walls and few amenities, something Spartan in keeping with his cold, stern demeanor. Instead, there were tapestries on the wall, linen shutters as well as wooden ones on the window to keep out the cold, a dressing table and two brightly painted wooden chests for clothing. Against the far wall was the biggest bed Celeste had ever seen, made up with thick blankets and a silken coverlet. The bed curtains were a bright blue damask and there was even a carpet on the floor.
She immediately conjured a vision of a couple in that luxurious bed, a well-built man with shoulder-length hair making love to some faceless naked woman with long, curling brown tresses.
But what price did a woman pay for such luxury?
“Aye, it’s big,” Lizabet said with a smile when she saw where Celeste was looking. “Lady Mavis—Sir Roland’s wife, that is—she asked for a new one the day she got here. Could have heard a cow cough a mile away when she said his bed wasn’t big enough.”
The maidservant blushed and lowered her eyes. “Sorry, Sister. I didn’t mean to offend.”
“It’s all right,” Celeste assured her, turning away to hide her own embarrassed blushes.
“Anything you need, Sister? Other than some warm water to wash?”
“No, that will be enough. Thank you.”
“Then I’ll be back soon with the water and some fresh linen,” Lizabet said, leaving the room.
Celeste immediately removed her cap, veil and constricting wimple. She was relieved to be rid of them and glad to be alone, away from curious people and their stares and whispers, as well as Gerrard and the memories he brought back.
She unpinned her braid and ran her fingers through the thick, waving brown curls. As she did, she wondered what Gerrard would think if he could see her hair. More than once the mother superior had threatened to cut it off. More than once Celeste had avoided that.
It wasn’t that she cherished the long locks so much. Her hair had been a sort of battleground, and every time she kept her curls, she felt the mother superior had lost a battle, although the war wouldn’t be won until she was allowed to take her final vows.
Sighing, Celeste looked down at her hands and thought of all the times she’d tried, usually without success, to braid her sister’s shining hair.
These were the same hands that Audrey had held tight when their father raged at their unhappy mother, proof that marriage was no sanctuary. The same hands that had scrubbed and cleaned and been clasped in prayer when Celeste displeased the mother superior at the convent, which was almost every day.
The same hands that she hoped would be carrying a cask of gold and jewels when she returned to Saint Agatha’s, if what her father had said was true and he had hidden treasure in the house. She would present the cask to the bishop and tell him it was for the church on the condition that the mother superior be sent to a convent as far away from Saint Agatha’s as possible. Then life at Saint Agatha’s would be perfect. She would be safe and at peace, out of the world that had so much conflict and misery.
First, though, Celeste had to find her father’s hidden hoard, and soon, in case the mother superior came looking for her.
Not that she regretted running away. She’d had no choice about that, for the mother superior never should have forbidden her to come back after her sister had died. Celeste was only sorry she’d stolen Sister Sylvester’s habit, even though that, too, had been necessary, for safety on the road. As for claiming to be a nun, that was for safety, too.
Especially when she saw the look in Gerrard of Dunborough’s eyes. She didn’t want to be the object of any man’s lust.
And certainly not his.
* * *
Norbert regarded his son with scornful disbelief as they stood in his shop, surrounded by candles of various sizes.
“Your eyesight must be going, boy,” the well-dressed chandler sneered. “Gerrard and a nun? I’d as soon believe you could make a decent wick.”
“I saw her myself,” Lewis insisted, his tall, thin frame slightly hunched as if to protect himself from a blow. “They were coming from Audrey D’Orleau’s house. Maybe she’s her sister come to look for the treasure.”
Norbert gave his pockmarked son a sour look. “There’s no treasure in that house and you’re a fool if you think so. And if that is Audrey’s sister, she’s probably come to sell the house and all the furnishings and maybe her sister’s clothes, too. After all, a nun won’t have any use for them.”
Norbert stroked his beardless chin. “Put up the shutters. It’s nearly time to close up for the day, anyway.”
Lewis stared at him, dumbfounded, and wasn’t fast enough to avoid the slap that stung his cheek.
“What are you gawking at, boy?” his father demanded.
“You’ve never closed the shop early before.”
“I am today.” His father licked his palm and smoothed down what remained of his hair, then straightened the leather belt around his narrow waist and long, dark green tunic. “I’m going to the castle to find out if that woman is Audrey’s sister, and if she is, to offer my condolences.”
“But you said Audrey was no better than a whore who got what she deserved.”
Scowling, his father raised his arm and Lewis immediately moved out of reach. “Don’t you dare repeat anything I said about Audrey D’Orleau to anybody,” Norbert warned, “or you’ll feel the back of my hand.”
“I won’t say a word,” his son promised. “I wonder what Ewald will do when he hears about her.”
Norbert’s eyes widened. If he hadn’t considered that, Lewis thought, his father was the fool, not him.
“It would be like that lout to try to see her first,” Norbert muttered, although he was clearly preparing to do the same thing.
“She might be tired after her journey and unwilling to talk about business so soon after she’s arrived,” Lewis suggested.
Norbert frowned. “You may be right—for once,” he grudgingly acknowledged. “Ewald probably won’t be so thoughtful. On the other hand, if that is Audrey’s sister, I wouldn’t want him to get the house for a pittance. What does a woman, let alone a nun, know about the value of things? Now get those shutters up. I’m going to the castle.”
* * *
“Aye, a nun and the prettiest one I ever saw,” Lizabet said as she got a ewer for hot water in the kitchen. “And she says she’s Audrey D’Orleau’s sister!”
Baskets of beans and peas, lentils and leeks, were on low shelves nearby. On higher shelves were the spices, some very expensive indeed, for Sir Blane had liked fine food, at least for himself. Doors led into the larder and the buttery, another to the hall, and there were stairs for the servants to the family chambers.
“Audrey D’Orleau’s sister?” Florian, the cook, cried, looking up from the pastry he was rolling on the large, flour-covered table. He was of middle height, not exactly fat but not slim, either, and could have been any age from twenty-five to forty. Tom, the skinny, freckled spit boy, likewise took his attention from the chickens he was turning over the fire in the enormous hearth.
Peg stopped shelling peas into the wooden bowl she had in her lap and rested her forearms on the rim of the bowl, regarding her companions gravely. She was a little older and a little plumper than Lizabet, and a little prettier, too. “Audrey D’Orleau’s sister, eh? That would be Celeste. My ma told me she used to follow Audrey about like a puppy, and Gerrard, too, back in the day. Once, when the girls were at the castle—their father was doing some kind of business with old Sir Blane—Gerrard, rascal that he was, cut off Celeste’s hair almost to her scalp. Something about a game, I think. Anyway, she had a devil of a fit—knocked him down and broke his collarbone. She got sent to Saint Agatha’s after.”
“Must have been some fit,” Lizabet said. “And if she was a hoyden, well, all I can say is the convent’s calmed her down. I can’t imagine the nun up in Sir Roland’s chamber raisin’ her voice, let alone attacking someone.”
“If she’s Audrey’s sister,” Florian pointed out, wiping his forehead with a floury hand, “why didn’t she come here sooner? It’s been weeks since her sister died. Sir Roland sent word after, didn’t he?”
“Aye,” Peg said. “He sent a priest and Arnhelm went with him as escort.” She lowered her voice as if about to reveal something shocking. “Arnhelm told me the mother superior at Saint Agatha’s was the most hard, mean-spirited harridan he’d ever met. When he said why he’d come, she looked at him as if he’d come to sell a loaf of bread, and stale at that.” Peg shook her head and leaned back. “Made Sir Roland look soft, Arnhelm said.”
“God have mercy!” Florian murmured, aghast, while Lizabet’s eyes filled with tears.
“A sister murdered, and to have to hear it from a woman like that!” she exclaimed.
“Aye,” Peg agreed. “I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s the mother superior’s fault Celeste took so long to get here. Probably had to say prayers for days.”
“Tom!” Florian cried. “The chickens!”
The spit boy hurried back to his duty, the chickens only slightly charred.
“We had all best get back to work,” the cook added.
Peg returned to shelling the peas and, with a heart full of sympathy, Lizabet took the hot water back to Sir Roland’s chamber.
* * *
Celeste realized something had changed the moment Lizabet returned. She was like a candle that had been snuffed, and Celeste could guess why.
She didn’t want to talk about Audrey, but she had other questions, ones she hoped Lizabet could answer. “I grew up in Dunborough, but I don’t think we’ve ever met. Are you from here, too?” she asked as Lizabet poured warm water from the ewer into the basin on the washstand.
“Aye. My father’s a woodcutter. I came to work in the castle after Sir Blane and Broderick died. Peg and me both. My father wouldn’t let us come before that because of them, although we could have used the wages.”
“Yet he had no such reservations about Sir Roland and Gerrard?”
Lizabet shook her head. “Not once Sir Roland was named the lord. My father was sure he’d see that the servants were safe. And ever since Sir Roland got wounded, Gerrard’s been like a new man. It’s as if he’s seen the error of his ways. O’course, it could be Sir Roland’s wife helped him see that. She wouldn’t put up with any nonsense from Gerrard, that’s for certain.”
“Were you here when Sir Roland came home with his bride?”
“Indeed I was, Sister. We were all that surprised, I must say! Rumor was Sir Roland was going to DeLac to end any talk of an alliance with the lord there, and then he comes home with the man’s daughter as his bride. Verdan—he come with her from DeLac, one of the escort—he said they was all surprised Lady Mavis agreed to the match and didn’t run off. Spirited, she is, Sister. And beautiful, so maybe no wonder Sir Roland wanted her.”
“I remember Sir Roland as a boy, and he didn’t seem the sort of fellow to make a very pleasant husband. If it was a contracted marriage, perhaps his wife felt she had no choice. Indeed, I can find it in my heart to pity her.”
Lizabet’s eyes widened. “Oh, there’s no need for that, Sister! It might have been arranged at the start, but it was a love match, too, for all that. She looks at him like he’s the most wonderful man in the world and he looks at her like she’s an angel come to earth. She’s expecting already.”
That might not be a surprise to Lizabet, but it seemed miraculous to Celeste.
“Verdan says...” Lizabet flushed and looked at her toes. “I’m sorry, Sister, I forgot you were a nun.”
“Can’t you pretend I’m not? And it’s not as if I haven’t heard things in the convent from the other women. Some of them are widows.”
The maidservant looked around furtively, as if about to divulge a state secret. “Verdan says they go at it like rabbits, even in the woods one time where anybody might have seen them.”
Now it was Celeste’s turn to blush, and blush she did as she envisioned not Roland, but Gerrard, making love with a woman in the woods to assuage their carnal desires. Yet when desire died, what was left?
Celeste decided she’d asked enough questions. “I’m rather tired, Lizabet, and fear I’ll be very poor company tonight. I’d rather take my meal here. Please convey my regrets to Gerrard.”
Lizabet bit her lip and her brows contracted.
“If you’d rather not tell Gerrard—”
“No, no, it’s no trouble, Sister,” Lizabet replied, although her attitude implied otherwise.
Celeste gave the nervous maidservant a reassuring smile. “I shall tell him myself. Is he still in the hall?”
“I think he’s in the outer ward with some of the men, Sister.”
“Then I shall go to him there.”
Chapter Three (#ulink_382c33c3-76de-546a-aaf0-90c88c146500)
Stripped to the waist and crouching, Gerrard circled his opponent. Gerrard was fast and clever, while Verdan, likewise wearing only breeches and boots despite the chilly air, was big and slow and sometimes clumsy. Nevertheless, Gerrard knew it would be a mistake to think Verdan was too slow to beat him or too stupid to guess his next move.
Other soldiers had formed a ring around the wrestlers, shouting encouragement and advice to both. Gerrard could also hear the wagers being made, albeit in quieter tones, especially from those who were betting against him.
“Now then, Verdan,” he said, not taking his eyes from the man’s bearded face, “it’s time we put an end to this, don’t you think? Concede and we can all go have an ale.”
“Aye, give up!” one of the younger, thinner soldiers called out, stamping his feet. “I’m getting bloody cold!”
“Ah, shut yer gob,” another, with darker hair and clean-shaven, retorted. “Verdan can take him. Show him, Verdan!”
“A southern man beat a Yorkshireman born and bred?” a third demanded, scowling as he crossed thick and powerful arms. “Not likely!”
“He’s got half a head on Gerrard.”
“Half a brain, too. Come on, Gerrard, take him down!”
“Show ’im what a good soldier’s made of, Verdan!”
“Show ’im what a Yorkshireman’s made of!”
Gerrard suddenly feinted left, then dived right, grabbing Verdan around the legs and pulling him down. In the next instant, more cheers went up as Gerrard flipped the big man onto his stomach and sat on his back. Verdan flailed about, trying to grab him, but Gerrard got his arms under his opponent’s and his hands clasped behind Verdan’s neck. The bigger man was helpless.
“I had somethin’ in me eye!” Verdan declared, spitting out bits of grass as he continued to shift from side to side as well as up and down, trying to buck Gerrard off.
“Come, man, you’ve lost,” Gerrard said. “Admit it and let’s go get some ale. I think we’ve both worked up a mighty thirst. And since you’re no doubt exhausted, I’ll excuse you from guard duty tonight.”
“Well, since you put it that way...” Verdan stopped moving and let Gerrard climb off him.
Grinning, Gerrard reached down to help the soldier to his feet. Bets were paid off, some grudgingly, while the two combatants wiped the perspiration from their faces, put on their shirts and tunics, Gerrard’s of wool and Verdan’s of boiled leather. Before the contest, Gerrard had taken a loose bit of thread from the hem of his tunic and tied back his hair to keep it off his face, and he didn’t bother to undo it. “As for the rest of you men, I expect to find all your weapons clean and sharp tomorrow,” he said. “And nobody the worse for drink, myself included,” he added ruefully, earning chuckles from the men, who began to move toward the castle gate.
He clapped a hand on Verdan’s broad shoulder. “So, your mother still won’t come to Yorkshire?”
“Not yet. But Arnhelm and me have hope,” Verdan replied, grinning and revealing unexpectedly good teeth.
Out of the corner of his eye, Gerrard noticed the thin chandler scurrying toward them, his woolen tunic flapping about his ankles, his silk-lined cloak fluttering behind him.
“Sweet Mother Mary, what the devil is he doing here?” he muttered under his breath before he addressed Verdan again. “You go ahead. The chandler must have business to discuss.”
Although what that could possibly be, Gerrard had no idea. He hoped it wouldn’t take long, either. He had never liked the greedy little man who had browbeaten his late wife and treated his son like a lackey.
“Greetings, Norbert,” he said as the panting chandler reached him. “What brings you to the castle?”
“I’ve come to give my condolences to Audrey’s sister. I heard that she had come.”
Gerrard frowned. “Yes, she has, and you wish to speak with Sister Augustine?” he asked as Norbert shifted from foot to foot like a horse nervously awaiting the start of a race.
The last thing Celeste—or anyone—needed was to talk to this fellow, about anything.
“If that’s what Audrey D’Orleau’s sister is called now, yes,” the chandler replied with a hint of defiance.
That was not something to encourage Gerrard to grant his request. “Sister Augustine is resting and cannot be disturbed.”
Norbert frowned and looked far from pleased. His state of mind, however, was not Gerrard’s concern.
“Perhaps you’ll be good enough to tell her I was here,” Norbert said.
“Perhaps,” Gerrard replied with a smile that was not meant to be pleasant.
“Now see here, Gerrard—” Norbert began. He fell silent when he saw the look in Gerrard’s eyes. “Oh, very well!”
The chandler turned on his heel and started back to the inner gate just as it opened to admit another man, this one also richly dressed, but plump and darkly bearded. His tunic was shorter and more embellished, with an embroidered hem and neck. His boots were of fine leather, as were his bossed belt and gauntlet gloves.
Ewald. Of course. The dealer in hides and tallow was as broad and boisterous as Norbert was thin and wheedling, but equally as greedy. The two were like vultures come hurrying to the battlefield, and Celeste a corpse.
“Good day, Gerrard! And you, too, Norbert!” Ewald declared. “Why am I not surprised that you’re here already, Norbert? That nosy son of yours should be a spy for the king.”
“I doubt you’ve come to pass the time of day,” Norbert retorted. “You want to see her, too, don’t you?”
Ewald’s cheeks flushed. “Well...” he began, drawing the word out as he rocked back and forth on his heels, his thumbs tucked in his wide leather belt beneath his protruding belly, “as a matter of fact, I do. To give her my sympathy on her sister’s death. A bad business, that, a very bad business.”
Business had nothing to do with it, Gerrard thought sourly. Warped and thwarted love did. “Unfortunately, Sister Augustine is resting and cannot be disturbed,” he said firmly.
Norbert, not surprisingly, continued to scowl, while Ewald, equally not surprisingly, smiled like a man who’d won a bet.
“Tomorrow will do just as well,” the tanner jovially replied. “Tell her I was here, if you will, and I’ll be delighted to speak with her at a time of her convenience. I’ll offer her a very good price for the house.”
“I will do no such thing,” Gerrard said. “You will wait to discuss business with her when she comes to you, and not before. Now I give you good day, gentlemen.”
With a look of sly triumph, Norbert nodded and started toward the gate. Only slightly subdued, Ewald bowed and followed.
Carrion crows, the pair of them, and Gerrard would be damned before he’d tell Celeste that they’d been there. He wasn’t their messenger and she didn’t need to be bothered, he thought as he walked back to the gate.
He came to a startled halt. Celeste—Sister Augustine—was gliding toward him across the grass, the ends of her veil lifting in the breeze. Even in a nun’s habit, she looked like royalty, poised and proud and beautiful.
“I thought you were resting,” he said, baffled by her presence and wondering if he should have let Norbert and Ewald meet her.
“I am rather weary,” she replied, her lips set in a thin line, “so if it’s possible, I’d prefer to have the evening meal in Roland’s chamber. Alone.”
He was glad he’d sent the chandler and the tanner away, yet couldn’t help feeling somewhat dismayed by her manner and that she apparently didn’t want to dine with him, either. Still, that might be for the best. She aroused old memories and some of them were best forgotten.And if she hated him, he could hardly blame her. It was his fault she’d been sent to Saint Agatha’s.
“Since you’re a guest, you’re free to do as you like,” he said. “I’ll have the meal and some wine sent up to the chamber in due course.”
She nodded and her lips curved up into a little smile. A very little smile. “Thank you, Gerrard.”
After that, she walked gracefully away, leaving him to ponder what she would think of him if she ever found out all that had happened while she was in the convent.
* * *
Later that night, Gerrard sat alone on the dais in the great hall of Dunborough. The evening meal had been served, and most of the soldiers not on guard duty had already returned to the barracks or bedded down on pallets in the hall, along with the ever-present hounds. A few of the household servants were still awake and talking quietly in a corner. The female servants had their own quarters above the kitchen, while the rest either slept in the kitchen or in the loft above the stalls where the grooms and stable boys also bedded down.
Gerrard glanced at the stairs leading to the family chambers. What would Celeste think if she knew about his dealings with her sister? And the offer Roland had made to him?
He had planned to use Audrey’s wealth for his own ends and had even been prepared to marry her to get it, although that hadn’t been his idea. It had been Audrey’s suggestion that he bribe the king to give him Dunborough and a title. When he and Audrey wed, she would have had what she desired most—a powerful and titled husband—and he would have had his heart’s desire, the estate of Dunborough and the power to rule it.
Now Audrey was dead and Roland had another estate, thanks to his marriage, so he had offered Dunborough to Gerrard, pending the king’s approval.
Although Roland was no doubt sincere, Gerrard still couldn’t quite believe that he would willingly give up the estate they both had craved for so long, especially after his father’s will revealed Roland was indeed the elder twin and given the way Gerrard had treated Roland all these years. But he had.
It was tempting to accept Roland’s offer, even though that would mean being beholden to his brother for the rest of his life. And when he remembered that he’d been willing to use Audrey D’Orleau and her wealth to get what he wanted, he felt so ashamed, it seemed better to leave Dunborough and never return.
Yet to give up the chance of being the lord of Dunborough! He had yearned for that for as long as he could remember.
Gerrard abruptly rose and started for the door, grabbing his cloak from a peg before he went out. It did no good to sit and brood. That was the sort of thing Roland would do. Better to be doing something—anything—than mope.
He’d go to the tavern in the village. It was always lively, even at this time of night. There were other places a man could find companionship of a different sort, but he’d given that up along with too much ale.
Gerrard stepped into the yard. A quick glance confirmed that the watchmen were on the wall walk and two guards stood at the gate.
A cold Yorkshire wind sent clouds scudding across the half-moon and he sniffed the air, wondering if it would snow before morning. Hard to say.
How much he hated winter and the cold that forced him to spend too much time indoors! He felt imprisoned when the weather was too bad to ride. Perhaps that was what being in a convent was like, and not only in the winter. Considering that and celibacy, he knew he could never stay in such a place. He would flee at the first opportunity.
A movement near the large oak beside the inner wall caught his eye. Someone clad in a long dark cloak was moving in the shadows near the kitchen.
“You there, what are you doing?” he demanded as he hurried forward.
Celeste—Sister Augustine—stepped out of the shadows. At the same time, one of the soldiers appeared on the wall walk above and the guards at the gate charged toward her.
“All’s well,” Gerrard called to them. “You can go back to your posts.”
They obeyed and he turned to face Celeste, trying not to notice her large eyes or full lips. “You had better stay inside at night. My men are all trained archers. You might have been mistaken for an intruder and shot.”
“Fortunately, I was not.”
Her voice was as placid as her expression. Where had that lively, daring girl gone? He would have wagered much that even the nuns couldn’t stifle her vivacity, although apparently they had.
“Is anything the matter?” he asked. “Is there something you require?”
Dolt! If she wanted something, she would go to the hall and summon a servant, not wander about the yard like a lost soul.
“The chamber is very comfortable, thank you,” she replied. “I simply couldn’t sleep. And you?”
“I often check to make sure the watch is awake,” he lied. He never did that. He didn’t have to. His father had severely punished any man caught sleeping at his post, and it was still too soon after his father’s death for the men to realize neither he nor Roland would ever be as cruel.
Celeste nodded at the oak tree. “That’s the tree we climbed that All Hallow’s Eve, isn’t it?”
The memory rose up as vividly as if it had been yesterday. He and Roland had gotten out of the castle by climbing the oak, then slipping out a postern gate, one All Hallow’s Eve. They’d wanted to go to the village to see the bonfire. Audrey and Celeste were already there when they arrived. Audrey claimed she didn’t believe they’d done anything so bold as climb over the castle wall like thieves. Sir Blane must have let them come.
Determined to prove her wrong, Gerrard had suggested that she return with them the same way and spend the night in the hayloft. Roland had been against the idea from the first. It would be too dangerous. She surely couldn’t climb as well and they’d all be caught and punished.
Audrey had laughed at Roland, and Gerrard and she had called him a grumpy old woman and a host of other unflattering names until he gave in.
Celeste had begged to go along and finally they had let her. She had kept up with them, and never made a whimper, even after they were caught, as Roland had predicted. Audrey and Celeste had been escorted home, for their father was too wealthy to offend, while the twins had been beaten and forced to stand until dawn.
“I was so afraid I’d fall,” Celeste murmured, moving back into the shadows.
“You never gave any sign you were afraid,” Gerrard replied, following her. “I thought you were very brave.”
She laughed softly, a sound that roused more memories. Of chasing her through the forest, but never quite catching her. The admiring look in her eyes when he told a funny story. The time he’d suggested they play a kissing game and she had laughed and blushed and run away.
He wanted to kiss her now.
She is a nun, he reminded himself, even if she’s also a beautiful woman. “I was afraid, too,” he confessed.
Glistening in the moonlight, her large eyes widened with a look of wonderment. “I didn’t think you were afraid of anything.”
She is a nun. “I was afraid of many things, my father most of all.”
“So was I.”
“Everyone was frightened of him.”
“I meant my own. He used to fly into terrible tempers. Audrey and I would hide, and she would tell me stories to make me feel better.”
“I never knew that.” Even as a girl, Audrey had seemed too cold and calculating to offer a younger sister comfort.
“I realize she had her faults, but I loved her very much,” Celeste whispered, her voice full of sorrow.
Nun or not, there seemed but one thing to do. Gerrard put his arms around her and pulled her into his embrace.
He meant only to offer comfort, yet heat coursed through his body as her breasts pressed against his chest. He thought of her full lips so close to his own. All he need do was put a knuckle beneath her chin and tilt her head up to kiss her.
They were in shadow. No light shone from the narrow windows nearby. No one could see them.
She is a nun! She is a nun!
“I’m sorry I broke your collarbone that day, Gerrard,” she said softly.
“I’m sorry I cut off your hair,” he replied just as quietly.
If he were wise, he would move away. Leave her. Go to the farthest corner of the castle. Or the village.
He wasn’t wise.
Chapter Four (#ulink_59769c74-0bab-501a-b567-1e08ec0a96b9)
Celeste knew what Gerrard was going to do before he did it. What he shouldn’t do, especially if he thought she was a nun.
She also knew what she ought to do. Stop him. Move away. Leave. Go back to her chamber.
She didn’t. She couldn’t. For too long she had dreamed of being in Gerrard’s arms. For too many years he’d been her idea of a hero, the ideal man. Of all the worldly longings she’d sought to stifle in the convent, the most difficult was the dream of being held in Gerrard’s arms with his lips upon hers.
So when he kissed her as she’d always imagined, she could not resist. She couldn’t protest, for his kiss was even more wonderful and exciting than her most vivid dreams, and some of them had been very vivid indeed.
His embrace tightened about her and her body seemed to become like liquid wax in his arms, without bones or muscles or sinews. Her only strength seemed to be in her hands as she clutched his shoulders to keep from falling, and to continue kissing him.
Her desire increased, heating her blood and sending it throbbing through her body. This was the sort of passionate encounter some of the girls had talked of. Being with the men they loved, and how they’d felt in their arms.
They hadn’t described the yearning building within her, the need for something more than lips on lips, or that a man might slide his hand along her arm and down her side, letting it rest on her hip before he began to slowly glide his palm up toward her breast.
When Gerrard cupped her there, she opened her lips to gasp, and his tongue slid into her mouth—a shocking, unexpected act she had never heard of or imagined.
Surprise and shame hit her like twin blows of a hammer.
Horrified by her own weakness, she put her hands on his chest and shoved him away. She knew too well what men were like, how violent and angry they could get, yet it seemed she’d forgoteen everything for a moment’s fleeting pleasure. “Stop! How could you?”
His brow furrowed, Gerrard spread his arms wide as he moved back. “I only meant to—”
“What?” she demanded, hiding her regret and remorse behind anger of her own. “Seduce me?”
His expression hardened and his lips became a grim, hard line, like Roland’s. Like Broderick’s and, yes, like their father’s. “No, that was not my intention.”
“I am a nun!”
“I forgot.”
“Forgot?” she repeated incredulously, as if she’d never heard anything so ridiculous.
“That’s the truth, whether you believe it or not,” he defensively replied. “And it wasn’t my idea to move farther back beneath the tree. It was you who led us here.”
“I thought...” What had she been thinking? She had no explanation. Nevertheless, she gave him one. “I thought it would be more sheltered from the wind and so easier to talk. And that was no excuse to kiss me.”
“I may have begun the kiss, but you were just as eager once I did.”
“I was not!” she protested, although that was a lie. A terrible, shameful lie. “You caught me off guard.”
He made a sweeping bow and his expression became a sort of mocking grin. She’d seen that look on his face before, but never had it been directed at her.
She didn’t want to see it now, even if she had been in the wrong to accuse him so unjustly, and even if it was better than his anger.
“I beg your forgiveness, Sister Augustine,” he said, his voice smooth and full of derision. “I promise I’ll never surprise you again. Now I give you good night and I hope you’ll have very pleasant dreams.”
In spite of his sardonic attitude, she saw something else in his eyes that filled her with dismay and regret and shame. She had hurt him. He’d been hurt many times in the past by his father and his brothers and now she had hurt him, too.
Gerrard turned on his heel and started across the yard toward the gate, chin up, back straight, like a conquering hero.
A hero she had wounded.
Another sin to beg forgiveness for, like letting him kiss and caress her.
No, the greater sin was his, she told herself as she hurried back to Roland’s chamber. Gerrard had kissed her first. That was the truth, whatever else had happened.
They were never going to kiss again. She would see to that.
They must never kiss again. She was going to be a nun. She wanted that more than anything in this world or the next. Then she would be protected, secure and close to God. She would be free of worldly cares and concerns and no longer troubled by the desires of the flesh. She would be away from violence and hatred and quarrels, men and women arguing far into the night regardless of the children who could hear, trembling and clutching each other for comfort in the dark.
She would be safe and maybe even happy, and if she had to give up certain longings and desires, it would surely be worth it.
* * *
The two guards at the inner gate snapped to attention as Gerrard approached. The garrison commander frowned when he saw that one of the guards was Verdan.
“What are you doing here?” he demanded. “I gave you leave from duty.”
“Well, sir, it’s like this,” Verdan replied, shifting his spear from one hand to the other. “The roster was all made up and one of the lads has a sweetheart in the village and he was plannin’ to see her, and he’d have to take my place, so—”
“Oh, very well. Spare me your explanation. I, too, am going to the village and I likely won’t be back until morning. And the next time you’re excused from duty, Verdan, stay excused. I won’t make such an offer a third time.”
“Yes, sir,” the soldier gruffly replied as young Hedley opened the smaller wicket gate.
After Gerrard had passed through and Hedley closed the gate, Verdan regarded his fellow soldier with dismay. “I didn’t think he’d be cross because I was on duty. And where’s he goin’ this time o’ night? You don’t think he’s goin’ back to his old ways, do ya?”
“I hope not,” Hedley glumly replied. “Maybe Sister Augustine was trying to talk him into staying in the castle.”
“What?”
“He was talking to the nun who came today, there by the tree.”
“Never!” Verdan exclaimed, although Hedley was famous for his eyesight. He could hit an apple with an arrow from fifty yards.
“Aye, he was. At least he met her there,” Hedley said. “Then they moved under the tree. I couldn’t see them after that.”
“Maybe you’re right, and she got wind he was goin’ to the village and tried to put a stop to it. He wouldn’t like that. No wonder he looked so peeved.”
“Aye,” Hedley agreed, leaning on his spear. “I could have sworn it was Sir Roland standing here.”
“Reckon there’s anything we ought to do?”
“Like what? We can’t stop Gerrard if he takes a notion to go to the village at night. He’s the garrison commander. And he might only have said he was going to the village and won’t be back till morning to see if we’re slack on the watch, and he’ll circle round and check again. He’s a clever one, after all, and takes his duties serious.”
Verdan hitched up his sword belt. “Aye, that’s true enough. Still, we’d best keep our eyes open. I like Gerrard, but our first duty’s to Sir Roland. He’s the lord of Dunborough, and he ought to know if his brother’s a sot or up to no good, no matter how much we hope he ain’t.”
* * *
The proprietor of the Cock’s Crow smiled broadly as Gerrard entered the smoky confines of the tavern. “Greetings, Gerrard! It’s been a while since you’ve darkened our door.”
“A mug of ale,” Gerrard said as he sat at a table in a far corner of the taproom, which smelled not only of smoke from the fire in the hearth, but also ale and beef stew, herb-strewn rushes on the floor and the bodies of hardworking men taking their ease after a day of toil.
“Aye, sir, aye!” Matheus replied. He hurried to bring it, setting it down and standing back. “Anything else you want?”
“A bed for the night—and just a bed,” Gerrard added when he saw Matheus’s expression. There had been times a woman had joined him there, but not tonight and not for days. Not since he’d returned from DeLac after Roland had been attacked.
“Of course, sir! And more ale when that one’s finished?”
“Perhaps.”
Ignoring the curious looks from the other customers, Gerrard took a swallow of the excellent ale, then wrapped his hands around the cup. He would have this one drink. It wouldn’t be wise to get drunk, not with Celeste—Sister Augustine—no doubt ready to denounce him for a drunkard as well as a libertine.
Even though she’d returned his kiss with equal passion, he still felt like the most disgusting reprobate in the kingdom—deservedly so. Only weeks ago he had been what gossip and rumor claimed he was: a rogue and a wastrel, carrying on with no concern for whom he hurt or why, seeking to annoy Roland, assuage his own desires and assert some independence.
He’d chosen for his friends young men with little to recommend them except their agreement that he deserved to be lord of Dunborough more than his brother.
Gerrard had paid for his pleasure, cheated at games of sport and toyed with women’s hearts, although he truly hadn’t meant for Esmerelda to get hurt.
Ever since the attack on Roland, though, he’d kept away from taverns, gambling dens and unwholesome women. He’d busied himself with training the men and the business of the estate, as much as he was able. He’d sought to lead a better, more respectable life and thought he’d been succeeding.
Until today. Until tonight, when his desire had compelled him to take a nun into his arms.
Perhaps he truly was his father’s son.
No, he was not. If his father had wanted Celeste, he would have taken her, no matter what she said or did, and even if she’d fought him tooth and nail.
Gerrard ran his hand through his hair. God help him, why had he kissed her?
The first answers came to him in Roland’s censorious voice. Because you wanted to and didn’t care about the consequences. Because she’s pretty and you have a weakness for pretty girls.
Yet in his heart he knew there was more to it than that. Standing so close to her in the dark, he had felt as he had when they were younger, when he was afraid of his father and brothers and she had regarded him with awe and admiration, as if he could do anything. Be anything.
And then what had he done? He’d lost his temper over some stupid game, held her down and cut off her lovely, curling hair.
His feelings had overruled his head tonight, too. Was he never going to be master of himself? Why could he not foresee the consequences of his actions, especially the ones that would cause hurt and pain and anger?
He would. He must.
He drained his ale and took himself to bed.
* * *
Just past dawn the next morning, Celeste walked across the courtyard toward the gate. The weak November sun did little to warm the air and frost was heavy on the ground, but at least it wasn’t snowing.
Mercifully, and perhaps in answer to her prayers, Gerrard hadn’t been in the hall this morning, nor had any of the servants acted as if there had been any talk of improper behavior on her part.
For a long time last night she’d prayed for forgiveness for her lust, and the strength to resist the temptation Gerrard embodied. In future, she vowed, she’d have as little to do with him as possible. If Roland returned soon, she might never have to speak to Gerrard again.
Which was what she wanted, just as she needed...wanted...to be safe and secure in the religious life.
Nevertheless, and despite what had happened between them, she couldn’t help wishing that the tales told about Gerrard weren’t true. That he wasn’t a drunkard and lust-filled libertine. That he was a better man than his father and older brother, and more like the hero of a ballad than the wastrel gossip and rumor said he was.
That she was right to still have hope that Esmerelda had unjustly blamed him for what had happened to her. Even if she never saw him again, she wanted to think of him as a good man.
As Celeste got closer to the gate, she couldn’t be sure if the guards were the same men who’d been on duty last night. In case they were and had seen that shameful embrace, she would do her very best imitation of the always serene Sister Sylvester. That way they might have doubts about who had been with Gerrard under the tree.
“Good day,” she said with a pleasant smile when she reached them. “Please open the gate.”
The two men exchanged wary glances.
“Is there some reason you should not?” she sweetly inquired.
“Not at all, Sister,” the older, bearded one replied, moving to open the wicket gate for her.
With a nod of thanks she lifted her skirts to pass over the threshold—and nearly bumped into Gerrard.
He fell back a step and his surprise soon gave way to that slightly mocking grin. “Where might you be going this fine morning, Sister Augustine?”
He didn’t look the worse for drink, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t. She had learned from her father that a man could be far from sober and still look it.
Perhaps he’d been in his cups last night when he’d kissed her. She hadn’t considered that.
Even if he had been, that didn’t excuse him. Indeed, if anything, it magnified his offense.
“Since I am a guest, I don’t believe I need answer that question,” she replied.
“No, you don’t,” he agreed with exaggerated courtesy as he stepped aside. “After you, Sister.”
“Good day, Gerrard,” she replied, walking briskly past him. She did not look back to see what, if anything, he did as she continued toward the village and her family’s home.
She passed a group of old men gathered by the smithy and several servants already gossiping by the well. More than one gave her a quizzical look, and one of the women immediately covered her mouth and turned aside to whisper to another. About her? About Audrey? About their father and his mistreatment of their mother, or had those tales of quarrels, harsh words and bruises been forgotten long ago?
As Celeste quickened her pace, a youth of about sixteen, with sandy hair and a pockmarked face, paused while removing the shutters of a shop. He gave her a shy smile and nodded a hello, reminding her that not everyone in Dunborough was regarding her with curiosity.
A baby cried from within a nearby house and a woman began a lullaby, soft and low and tender. Again she felt that yearning ache, and she pictured herself by a glowing hearth with a dark-haired baby at her breast.
But the image quickly faded, for she had already decided what her fate would be.
Reaching the house, she slipped the key into the sturdy lock, silently blessing Audrey for making sure she had a key, and for telling her to hide it. Otherwise, she would have turned it over to the mother superior, who would surely have taken as long to “find” it as she had to send word to Ireland that Celeste should return to the convent. There was news of her family, the message had said, giving no hint of what Celeste was going to hear when she arrived back from her pilgrimage, which had been more of an exile.
Celeste pushed open the heavy door and stepped into the empty house. As she had told Gerrard, she didn’t fear ghosts, but there were unwelcome memories and, worst of all, no Audrey there to greet her and remind her of the few happy times they’d shared.
She hurried past the main chamber with that horrible stain, trying not to envision what had happened there or imagine a man capable of such jealous rage that he could brutally attack a woman he claimed to love.
In the kitchen at the back of the house, a pot with a ladle still in it hung over the cold ashes in the hearth. A basket of laundry, wrinkled and musty, lay on its side beside the worktable, its contents spilled onto the floor. There were spoons and a wooden bowl in the stone sink. The room looked as if it had been suddenly, abruptly abandoned, as it probably had.
She went to the larder, noting that the door stood slightly open. That was not so surprising if the servants had fled quickly. Inside, a few mice had been at work, tearing open a sack of lentils and another of peas to get at the contents, although the destruction was less than might have been expected. Fortunately, there were plenty of other stores that were untouched, enough to last her for several days.
Her eyes narrowed as she ventured farther into the storeroom. The contents on the shelves were as neat and tidy as Audrey would have wanted, but there was only the slightest coating of dust on the shelves. To be sure, the nearly closed door might explain that, but perhaps somebody else had been there looking for—
Two eyes gleamed in the dark.
She gave a little shriek and jumped back, her heart racing until she realized it was a cat. A big orange cat. The animal studied her solemnly, then jumped down and walked out of the larder, bushy tail swishing, as if this was his house and she an unwelcome intruder.
His presence likely explained the lack of dust, given the size of his tail.
“Have you been keeping the mice at bay, too?” she asked, reaching down to stroke it.
The cat ran under the worktable, then crouched and stared at her again.
“Very well, I’ll leave you alone,” she said, before she went to the servants’ stairs that led up to the second floor, where the bedchambers were.
She peered into the one she had shared with Audrey. The shutters were closed and the room dim. Nevertheless, she could see well enough to tell that the two cots were still there, albeit without any bedding. Otherwise, the space was empty.
Audrey must have taken her parents’ bedchamber for her own.
It, too, was dark, the shutters closed. Celeste could make out the bed, though, and the shape of other furnishings. She felt the softness of a carpet beneath her feet as she went to the window and opened both the cloth and wooden shutters. Cold air streamed into the room, as well as light, so she hurried to close the cloth shutters over the opening before she turned back.
Yes, the bed was the same; the opulent silken hangings and bedding, however, were not. A large and colorful tapestry depicting a colorful garden hung on the wall opposite. A bronze brazier with a full bowl of coal stood near the dressing table.
She spotted a flint and steel on the table and, taking some straw from the mattress beneath the feather bed, kindled a fire. Grateful for the warmth, she also lit what was left of a candle on the dressing table, noting the fine sandalwood combs, the carved box of hairpins, the brush and, most expensive of all, a mirror.
She couldn’t resist looking at her reflection, so she did—and gasped. Why, she looked like Audrey! Although God didn’t care what she looked like, and neither should she, Celeste couldn’t subdue a little thrill to discover that she resembled the sister everyone called a beauty more than she remembered.
Trying to dismiss such vain thoughts, she began to examine the contents of the largest wooden chest. It was full of clothes—costly gowns and fine linen shifts, silken stockings, veils and beaded caps. These things must have cost a great deal of money...
Audrey must have found their father’s treasure! How else would she have been able to afford all these clothes and run the household, too?
How much was left and where was it? There had to be a considerable amount still. Many times their father had bragged to their mother that he was rich as Croesus and if she left him, she would never see a penny of his wealth.
Rummaging again in the chest, Celeste found a carved wooden box and opened it to find a host of jewelry—rings and necklaces, as well as broaches and pins that glittered red and green and blue and white among their golden settings.
Trembling with excitement, she took the box to the window, setting it on the sill. The value of these things would surely be enough to bribe...encourage...the bishop to send the mother superior away from Saint Agatha’s, perhaps even to the far reaches of Scotland.
Celeste drew out a ruby necklace and held it up to the window to examine it closely.
Her stomach knotted.
The one lesson their father had purposefully taught them was how to tell the difference between real gems and fake, “so you won’t be cheated by charlatans, even if you’re only women and all women are mostly fools.”
The rubies were paste and a swift examination proved the other jewels were false, too, as well as the gold that bound them.
These couldn’t be part of the wealth her father had hidden.
Another moment’s reflection gave her some relief. Of course Audrey wouldn’t keep real jewels in so obvious a hiding place, even if she had a fierce Scot to guard the house. Any thief who managed to get in and overpower him would look in the chests. Audrey must have found a better hiding spot.
A loud series of knocks rattled the door at the front of the house.
She went to the window and opened the cloth shutters to look into the yard, trying to see who it might be. Unfortunately, she couldn’t. However, there was no white horse or group of soldiers outside her gates, so it couldn’t be Gerrard, not that there was any reason for him to come here. As for anyone else, she was in no mood to entertain inquisitive visitors.
Perhaps if she stayed upstairs and didn’t answer, whoever it was would go away.
The knocking commenced again, just as loud and persistent. If it was Gerrard, he was stubborn enough to knock for a very long time, especially if he was sure she was there.
Her lips pursed, Celeste adjusted her veil and wimple and went to deal with whoever was pounding so insistently on her door.
Chapter Five (#ulink_0aca08e2-20d6-5aa0-8bb2-a93a85ab89ae)
It was not Gerrard. A thin man wearing a dark brown cloak over a fawn-colored tunic cinched with a tooled leather belt stood on the threshold. There was something about his narrow face, pale blue eyes and long nose that nudged the edge of her memory, but she couldn’t come up with a name.
“Good day, Celeste! Or I suppose I should say, Sister! Welcome back to Dunborough.” A sorrowful frown came to the man’s homely face. “Although naturally we’re all upset at the reason why. Your dear sister will be much missed.”
His name came to her. “Norbert, isn’t it?”
“Indeed, indeed!” he cried with delight. “To think that you remember me!”
He wouldn’t have been so pleased if he knew that she remembered him as a skinny young man several years older than Roland and Gerrard, a nasty fellow Audrey called “Nosy Norbert.” Since he was the first of the villagers to come to call, she suspected that name would still apply.
“How delightful to have you back home in Dunborough!” he exclaimed as he stepped over the threshold, although she hadn’t invited him to enter. He half turned and made a swift, impatient gesture for someone on the other side of the door to enter, too.
The slender, pockmarked youth who’d been taking down the shutters of the shop sidled into the house, his head bowed, his cheeks aflame with a blush. His cloak was of a lesser quality than the older man’s and frayed about the edges. His short tunic exposed lean legs and knobby knees, and his boots looked old enough to be castoffs.
“This is my son, Lewis,” Norbert said. She recalled that Norbert’s father had been a chandler and the shop that the young man had been opening had been full of candles. Clearly Norbert had become a candle maker, too.
“I’m pleased to meet you, Lewis,” she replied, hoping to dispel some of the lad’s obvious embarrassment.
Lewis raised his head and bright blue eyes met hers. His gaze was unexpectedly intense before he looked down again and mumbled, “Good day, Sister.”
Disconcerted by the boldness of that swift glance so at odds with the rest of his demeanor, she turned toward his father.
“Forgive him, Sister,” Norbert said, regarding his son with displeasure. “He’s a shy lad. Takes after his late mother that way.”
That glance had been anything but shy. Nevertheless, Celeste let the remark pass. “It’s a pleasure to meet a modest young man. So many are not these days.”
“That is sadly true,” Norbert agreed. He came farther into the house. “I hope, Sister, that you have not had any impertinence from that young rogue in the castle.”
She certainly wasn’t going to tell Norbert about her dealings with Gerrard. “If you mean the garrison commander,” she replied, “he has been courteous and accommodating.”
Most of the time.
“I’m glad to hear it, Sister, very glad!” Norbert cried. “When I heard you’d spent the night there, I confess I feared...”
He fell awkwardly silent, and she wasn’t about to ease his discomfort.
“If you’ll excuse me, I have business to attend to,” she said. “I thank you for coming, Norbert, and I’m happy to have made your acquaintance, Lewis.”
“Anything I can do to help, you have only to ask,” Norbert replied. “I was a good friend of your sister’s. A very good friend.”
Celeste doubted that, given what Audrey used to call him.
“Ah, Norbert! Trust you to be first to pay a call on a lovely lady!” a voice boomed from the doorway.
A middle-aged man dressed in a fur-lined red cloak and long black tunic strode into the house. He had a belt of silver links around his broad middle, and his hair was cut in the Norman fashion.
It was not a flattering style for a man with such full cheeks, and his eyes above his wide nose were beady and rather too shrewd.
Nevertheless, she smiled in return. “Greetings, sir.”
“You must forgive me for not waiting to be introduced properly,” he declared. “I came as soon as I heard you’d returned to the house.” His gaze darted to Norbert, who did not hide a scowl. “I wanted to express my condolences. I cared very much for your sister.”
“Thank you...?”
“Ewald!” he bellowed. “Ewald of York, and Dunborough, too.”
“He deals in hides and tallow,” Norbert clarified, his tone implying that Ewald’s profession merited disdain.
“Indeed I do! Best hides, best tanning, best tallow, although this fellow won’t agree.”
“Most expensive tallow,” Norbert retorted, “and not worth the cost.”
Ewald’s eyes narrowed until they were mere slits. “Plenty of folk in York disagree, but then, they make better candles.”
Celeste noted Lewis edging his way toward the door and didn’t blame him. “Please, gentlemen, I must ask you both to excuse me. I have much to do.”
“No doubt, no doubt!” Ewald agreed, giving her a sympathetic smile, though his tone was no milder. “I suppose you’ll be wanting to sell the house quickly and get back to the convent?”
“I shall be wanting to sell the house, yes.”
“I’m your man for that!”
Norbert stepped in front of him. “If you wish to sell the house, Sister, I wouldn’t deal with this fellow.”
“Who should she deal with? You?” Ewald demanded as he elbowed Norbert aside.
“Better me than you,” Norbert retorted, shoving him in return.
Ewald tried to ignore him. “About this house, though, Sister, should you wish to sell it, I shall be more than happy to—”
“His offer will be far too low,” Norbert interjected.
His thick fingers balling into fists, Ewald glared at the chandler. “Shut your mouth, you—”
“Gentlemen!” Celeste hurried to interrupt before they came to blows. “I am not yet ready to discuss the sale of this house.”
Ewald loudly cleared his throat and straightened his belt. “Of course. You need to take an inventory of the furniture and other goods first. I understand. Take as long as you like.”
“How magnanimous!” Norbert sneered, fairly trembling with rage. “She has no need to deal with you at all, you...you scoundrel!”
“And I suppose you came here because of your vast sorrow over Audrey D’Orleau’s death? I’ve heard you denouncing her more than once in the Cock’s Crow because she owed you money.”
“I’m not the only one complaining about that. You yourself have sat in the tavern bemoaning how much she owed to you.”
Celeste regarded them both with stunned disbelief before she managed to speak. “What are you saying? Did Audrey owe you money?”
How could that possibly be true, with all the fine and costly garments upstairs?
The men blushed and neither one would meet her gaze.
“Did Audrey owe you money?” she repeated.
“As a matter of fact, Sister,” Ewald began, after darting another angry look at Norbert, “she did. I’m sorry to say there are likely a few other merchants who will be looking to you to pay her debts. But the house alone—”
“If Audrey was in debt, I will repay all that she owed,” Celeste interrupted. “Any debts she left will be honored once I sell the house.” Or find our father’s wealth. “Now if you’ll please excuse me, I do have things to do.”
Mercifully, or perhaps because he understood her tone of voice, Ewald gave a brisk nod and headed out the door. “Good day, Sister.”
Norbert looked as if he was about to refuse. Once Ewald had gone, however, he likewise nodded and with a hasty “Good day” mercifully took his leave.
Flushing as red as a holly berry, Lewis was the last to go. “I’m sorry, Sister,” he said quietly, his expression one of genuine sympathy, “but I’m afraid it’s true about your sister. She left many debts.”
Sorrow and dismay washed over Celeste and she leaned against the wall.
“Can I get you anything?” the youth asked anxiously. “Some wine perhaps?”
“Lewis!” his father shouted from outside.
“No, no, I’m all right,” she assured the kindhearted young man, even though she’d been shaken to the core. “You should go.”
Lewis gave her a last pitying look, then hurried away, softly closing the door behind him.
“Oh, Audrey,” Celeste murmured as she slowly made her way to the kitchen, “what did you do?”
* * *
Some time later, Celeste was in the storeroom looking for any signs of a hiding place when she heard a tentative knock on the kitchen door. She hurried from the room, grabbed the veil and wimple lying on the kitchen table and swiftly put them on. “One moment!”
Going to the door, she tucked in any stray wisps of hair that might have escaped, then pushed down the rolled-up sleeves of her tunic. “Who is it?” she asked, dreading another creditor.
People had been coming to the house ever since Norbert and Ewald had left, making it difficult for her to search, and adding to her worries. Apparently Audrey owed money to the butcher, the shoemaker, the smith for repairs to a kettle and some pots, the alewife, the wine merchant and the miller. Indeed, Celeste was beginning to think there was no tradesman in Dunborough to whom she did not owe money.
“It’s me, Sister. Lizabet, from the hall.”
Celeste let out her breath slowly and opened the door, to find the young woman standing on the threshold. Instead of a cloak, she wore a large and colorful shawl and a kerchief over her dark hair. Her gown was of thick wool and she had an apron over that.
Despite her heavy clothing, her nose was red with cold and she had her hands tucked in her shawl to warm them.
“Please, come inside,” Celeste said at once.
“No, thank you, Sister,” Lizabet replied, her teeth starting to chatter. “I can’t stay. I came to tell you that it’s nearly time for the evening meal.”
Celeste’s brows contracted. If it was a busy time at the castle, why had she...?
“It’s nearly time for the evening meal,” Lizabet repeated more firmly, as if she thought Celeste hadn’t heard her. “You’re a guest of Dunborough.”
With sudden understanding, Celeste replied, “Only for last night. I should have made it clear that I had no intention of imposing on Gerrard’s hospitality for any longer than that.”
The maidservant frowned with concern, or possibly dismay.
Celeste gave the young woman her most pleasant, placid smile. “Please convey my thanks to Gerrard for the invitation, as well as my assurances that I’m quite content to remain in my family’s house while I’m here.”
“If you say so, Sister,” she hesitantly replied.
“I do. Now you’d best be off before you catch a chill.”
Lizabet did as she was told and, thinking Gerrard would likely be as glad of her absence as she was relieved not to see him again, Celeste went back to searching the larder for any sign of money hidden there.
Albeit with a heavy sigh.
* * *
The sun was setting when Gerrard and his men returned from their patrol. There was no reason for them to go so far that frigid day except that Gerrard wasn’t eager to return to Dunborough.
This time, though, it wasn’t his irate, cruel father he was reluctant to see. It was a nun.
He handed the reins of his horse to a stable boy and went to the hall. A few of the hounds trotted toward him, eager for a pat and a good word. The trestle tables had been set up for the evening meal and the servants and soldiers not on duty or seeing to the horses and other tasks were already assembled.
Gerrard removed his cloak and hung it on a peg beside the door, then scanned the hall.
He scanned it again, thinking he must be mistaken.
He was not.
Celeste—Sister Augustine—was not there.
Gerrard sighed with relief, then frowned. It would look bad to the soldiers and servants if she kept to her room a second night, and rumors would start circulating in the castle and probably the village, too, that she refused to have anything to do with him.
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Margaret Moore
She's sworn to resist temptation!Journeying to Dunborough to learn the truth about her sister’s murder, novice Celeste D’Orleau dons a nun’s habit for safety. But seeing her childhood hero, Gerrard of Dunborough, makes her dream of pleasures that will be forbidden once she takes her final vows.Gerrard wrestles with his desire for the innocent beauty. After striving to redeem his wicked reputation he won’t seduce a nun. Yet as Celeste’s mission draws them closer together, it soon becomes clear their passion is stronger than any vow!
“I like you, Celeste, even when you’re angry with me.”
Warmth flooded through her. The heat of desire. Lust. Sin.
“I don’t care whether you like me or not. I am not leaving.”
“Oh, yes, you are,” he replied, in that same low, seductive tone. “You can come quietly and obediently, like a good little nun, or I’ll have to carry you.”
She must be strong. Her faith, her duty and her self-respect must make her so. “I will not allow you to drag me through the village like some chattel.”
“I didn’t say I’d drag you. I shall pick you up and carry you—like a groom carries his bride across the threshold.”
She swallowed hard and fought to maintain her composure … such as it was. “I am a bride of Christ and shall never be a man’s.”
Author Note (#ulink_192f90c9-3b3f-5896-b870-705dbbc75192)
I enjoy creating the main characters of my novels, but I also really enjoy coming up with secondary characters—the ‘best friends’, ‘second bananas’ and ‘bit players’. Sometimes I know from the planning stage who my secondary characters are going to be— especially if the character is a villain. Other times I realise in the writing that I need somebody for my hero or heroine to interact with. So sometimes very minor characters become more important.
Arnhelm and Verdan, who first appeared in Bride for a Knight, began as basic background characters. Then I realised I had more than one place where I had such characters. Why not combine them? Why not give them names?
Once they had names, I began to give them more to do. They were soldiers in the household of the heroine’s uncle, so they would know her better than the hero—at least at first. Why not make them a sort of protective Greek chorus, wondering and worrying about her?
Then I made them brothers, and the minute I did that I realised their friendly relationship could contrast with that of Roland and his twin brother, Gerrard.
Being a romance writer, I couldn’t resist giving Arnhelm and Verdan their own love interests—two female secondary characters who live in Dunborough. And I gave them a mother who is making a bit of trouble for them.
That’s how secondary characters become just as real and vital to me as the heroes and heroines of my stories—and I hope for my readers, too.
Scoundrel of Dunborough
Margaret Moore
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
Award-winning author MARGARET MOORE has written over fifty romance novels and novellas for Harlequin Mills & Boon, Avon Books and HarperCollins Children’s Books. Her stories have been set in the Dark Ages and medieval Britain, Restoration, Regency and Victorian England, and pre-Civil War Massachusetts. Margaret lives in Ontario, Canada, with her husband and two cats.
She can be found online at margaretmoore.com (http://margaretmoore.com), margaretmoore.blogspot.com (http://margaretmoore.blogspot.com) and @MargMooreAuthor (https://twitter.com/margmooreauthor) on Twitter.
With thanks to my family and friends for their love and support, especially during times of crisis. It’s appreciated more than words can say.
Contents
Cover (#u2ce1663f-4b61-5097-ad3e-892c50c592cb)
Introduction (#u152a3435-667a-5409-9859-bb4e1de217a5)
Author Note (#u940fe78a-0fe1-5fc1-863f-d1dc23b14638)
Title Page (#u9b91e697-2c91-539d-8053-7e494c2d2c89)
About the Author (#u7cdc35d5-4b96-5cfe-b29f-aef08069320c)
Dedication (#u97c79282-0677-59fa-9cc8-cf1d1e9d8809)
Chapter One (#u6c0dd780-91d6-5dea-bdc5-5b170a87d623)
Chapter Two (#u5e709482-ad7f-553b-a5ba-28ecec4f33ca)
Chapter Three (#u89fd0f06-797a-58fc-9dbe-763cd0ce3858)
Chapter Four (#u75ec9b88-3e23-55ce-b6a4-9de98d60cad6)
Chapter Five (#ud69b0499-2f5a-5e16-a42f-a3abb3189928)
Chapter Six (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Thirteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fourteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fifteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Sixteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seventeen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eighteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nineteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-One (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-Two (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-Three (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-Four (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-Five (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-Six (#litres_trial_promo)
Extract (#litres_trial_promo)
Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter One (#ulink_19c50c32-542a-599b-ab2d-d6b8c2ee7f2e)
England, 1214
The November night had fallen, but inside Sir Melvin’s hall, warmth and light dispelled the cold and gloom and provided a welcome shelter for the young woman dressed in the habit of a nun. She had been traveling many days, and it had been a long time since Celeste had enjoyed such comfort.
A fire blazed in the long central hearth and several torches lined the gray stone walls. Two beeswax candles in silver holders graced the trestle table covered in linen on the dais. Behind the high table where Celeste and the plump and prosperous Sir Melvin sat, a tapestry of knights and finely dressed ladies swayed. His wife, the calm and competent Lady Viola, was seated to his left. Servants male and female moved among the other tables, where the steward, a priest, retainers, senior servants and household guards prepared to eat the evening meal.
The elderly priest, who put Celeste in mind of Methuselah, finished the grace. Serving maids brought trenchers of stale bread to hold a thick beef stew. More bread sat in baskets on the table, and wine was poured into bronze goblets that gleamed with the reflected glow of the firelight.
“It’s kind of you to offer me shelter and such a fine meal,” Celeste said to her host, her voice soft and sincere.
“We’re delighted to have you stay the night, Sister,” Sir Melvin said with hearty good cheer and a broad smile. “Delighted!”
“We’ll be happy to provide you with an escort for the rest of your journey,” Lady Viola offered.
“I thank you,” Celeste replied, “but I have not far to go. I should reach Dunborough tomorrow.”
“Dunborough?” Sir Melvin couldn’t have sounded more astonished if she’d announced she was going to the devil and happily so. “Why are you—”
He caught his wife’s eye, cleared his throat and began again. “Dunborough, eh? I know the lord there. Sir Roland. He and his bride stopped here on their way from her home to Yorkshire. Lady Mavis of DeLac, she is.”
Celeste stopped reaching for a small brown loaf from the basket of bread on the table. “Sir Roland is lord of Dunborough and he’s married?” she asked, doing her best to hide her astonishment.
“His father and older brother died a short time ago and he is recently wed,” Lady Viola supplied.
Celeste had to believe her, and yet she still found it hard to imagine.
“A fine fellow, a fine fellow!” Sir Melvin cried, picking up his eating knife to carve a piece of beef from the roasted loin a neatly dressed servant set before them.
“Quiet and a bit stern for my liking,” he continued, “but I’m not the bride. Our byre caught on fire when they were here and she lost all her dower goods. He never asked for a penny in compensation.”
“And he led the efforts to put it out,” his wife noted.
“He’s not in Dunborough now,” Sir Melvin continued, unaware of the relief he was giving his guest with that information. “He’s at DeLac. He was—”
Lady Viola touched her husband’s arm and shook her head.
“Well, that’s not a fit subject when we have a guest.”
Celeste wondered where Roland was and why, although it didn’t really matter. Her business was not with the lord of Dunborough.
“Have you been to Dunborough before?” Sir Melvin asked.
“I lived there until I went to the convent,” she admitted.
“Ah!” Sir Melvin cried. “So you’ll have seen Sir Roland. Grim fellow, isn’t he?”
“Rather,” she replied. Indeed, she remembered him very well, and his brothers, too. “He had a twin brother, too, I believe.”
“Oh, yes, Gerrard.” Sir Melvin’s pleasant face darkened with a frown. “Quite a different sort, he is, even though they’re twins.”
Gerrard had always been very different from Roland.
“It’s too bad he’s a wastrel and a lecher, like his father, or so they say,” Sir Melvin remarked. “From the stories I’ve heard, old Sir Blane was as bad as they come.”
Worse, Celeste silently supplied. She could have told him stories about Sir Blane that would have made her host’s beard fall out from shock.
She also could have told him how Sir Blane had raised his sons to hate each other and compete for any crumb of praise. He’d even kept the knowledge of which of the twins was the elder from everyone, including them, using it to goad or torment them, always dangling the hope that one of them could be the heir someday, should anything happen to their older brother, Broderick, before he married and had sons, as it had. Blane had made the twins bitter foes and rivals in a constant competition.
She could have described how the younger brothers had fought and quarreled and come to blows more than once when they were boys, and that only their stubbornness and their features were alike. Roland was hard, cold, stoic, a stickler for rules and duty. Gerrard was bold, merry and exciting.
As for what had happened to Gerrard in the years since she’d been gone, Celeste had only gossip and tales told by girls who’d arrived at Saint Agatha’s for information. One story had been particularly upsetting. Esmerelda had claimed that Gerrard had lured her into the woods with a promise to meet her there. He’d failed to arrive and outlaws had found her instead. Esmerelda had barely survived. Her maidenhead had not.
“Have you family in Dunborough?” Lady Viola asked, bringing Celeste back to the present and this comfortable hall and the reason for her journey.
“Not anymore,” she answered, turning away to hide her face before the sudden rush of sorrow became visible.
“I’m sorry, Sister,” the older woman said sympathetically.
Clearly, Celeste realized, she had been too slow to keep her reaction from her features.
“It’s all right,” she replied, giving her hostess as much of a smile as she could muster. “My mother died shortly after I went to the convent and my father some years later. My only sister passed away recently. I have no brothers, so I’m on my way to Dunborough to see to her things and sell my parents’ house.”
“Oh, dear me! How sad!” Sir Melvin exclaimed. “Your sister must have been very young. Sickness is a terrible thing, a terrible thing!”
“She was murdered.”
The moment the harsh and horrid truth escaped her lips, Celeste regretted saying it. She need not have used the same words with which the mother superior had informed her of Audrey’s death and the manner of it. “Forgive me for being so blunt. I have only my weariness for an excuse.”
“It’s quite all right,” Lady Viola hastened to assure her. “We’re so very sorry about your sister.”
“We’ll speak no more of it,” Sir Melvin said, his usually booming voice hushed with respect as he shut the door on any more talk of murder.
Or anything else to do with Dunborough and its inhabitants.
* * *
Shortly after noon the next day, Gerrard of Dunborough pulled his snow-white horse to a halt outside the stone fence surrounding the yard of the house that had belonged to the D’Orleaus. The soldiers of the patrol returning with him likewise reined in, exchanging puzzled glances at this sudden and unexpected halt.
“Seen something amiss, sir?” young Hedley asked the tall, broad-shouldered commander of the garrison.
“It may be nothing,” Gerrard replied as he slipped from the saddle, “but the door to the house is open.”
A few of the men gasped and more than one made the sign against ghosts and evil spirits. They all knew what had happened in that house and that it should be empty.
Gerrard did not believe in ghosts or evil spirits. He did, however, believe in outlaws and thieves drawn by rumors that money and jewelry were hidden inside the D’Orleau house.
“Take some of the men and search the stables and outbuildings,” he said to Hedley as he drew his sword. “Quick and quiet, though, so no warning given.”
The young man nodded and Gerrard walked swiftly toward the house that had been built by Audrey D’Orleau’s father, a prosperous wool merchant. The air was chill with the approach of winter, the sky gray as slate. Rain would come soon and wind from over the dales, bringing more cold and perhaps turning the rain to snow.
Gerrard’s steps slowed as he neared the front entrance. No ordinary thief or outlaw should have been able to pick that lock, yet only a foolish one would have left the door visibly open while he pillaged inside.
Gerrard eased the door open farther with the tip of his sword and listened. Nothing. Not a whisper, not a sound, not even the soft scurrying of a mouse. It was as if the house, too, had died.
He stepped over the threshold. Still all was silent.
He continued to the main room. The last time he’d been in that chamber, many of the furnishings had been broken and strewn about, obvious signs of the struggle between poor Audrey and her attacker. Since then, the unbroken furniture had been righted, if not returned to its proper place, and the ruined pieces taken away. The horrible bloodstain, however—
He wasn’t alone.
Someone else was there, swaddled in a long black cloak and standing still as a statue, looking down at the large, dark stain upon the floor, as if Death itself was brooding over the spot where Audrey’s murdered body had lain.
Gripping his sword tighter, Gerrard moved closer, making a floorboard creak.
The intruder looked up.
It wasn’t Death, or even a man. It was a woman in a nun’s habit, her skin as pale as moonlight, the wimple surrounding her heart-shaped face white as his horse, her eyes large and green, her lips full and open in surprise. Her nose was straight and slender, her chin pointed...
“Celeste!” he cried, his hand moving instinctively to the collarbone she’d broken years ago.
Audrey’s younger sister regarded him warily. “Who are...” Recognition dawned. “It’s Gerrard, isn’t it? Or is it Roland?”
“Gerrard,” he answered, hiding his dismay that she hadn’t been able to distinguish him from his twin. She had always been able to tell them apart when they were younger.
He reminded himself that ten years had passed since they had last been together and in that time more than their height had changed.
He was about to ask her what she was doing there when the obvious answer presented itself. She was there because Audrey was dead, and she was Audrey’s only family. “We thought to see you days ago.”
He saw the flicker of anguish cross her features, yet when she spoke, her voice was calm and even. “I was on a pilgrimage.”
“An odd time of year for traveling.”
“I came as soon as I was informed.” She turned away and added, “Of course I would have come sooner had I known.”
Silently cursing himself for speaking without thinking, Gerrard said, “If you’d sent word you were coming, I would have met you and escorted you to the castle. You need not have come here.”
“I wanted to see,” she replied, sounding exactly as she had when they were children and one of the hounds had caught and worried a badger to death. Gerrard had tried to keep her away, but she’d gotten past him and then stood staring at the torn and bleeding body, silent and white as a sheet, the same way she’d been staring at the floor moments ago.
“And now you have seen,” he said with quiet compassion, nevertheless determined to get her away from this place with its blood-soaked floor and unhappy memories.
“How did Audrey die? The mother superior would only say that she’d been murdered.”
God help him! He didn’t want to have to describe what had happened to her sister. He didn’t want to remember, either. “You don’t need to know more than that, do you?”
“I would rather hear the truth, however terrible, than have my mind run wild with speculation. Some of the furniture is missing, other pieces are not in their proper place, and there is that,” she said, pointing to the stain.
She regarded him with pleading eyes. “Please, Gerrard, tell me what happened here, or I will imagine a thousand awful things, each worse than the last.”
He well recalled Celeste’s vivid imagination. There had been times she’d frightened them all, even Roland, with tales of ghosts and demons, ogres and monsters.
Besides, she was Audrey’s only relative, so he supposed she had a right to know. And she would likely hear the horrific details from someone else, anyway. Better, perhaps, that he should tell her and as gently as he could. “She had a bodyguard, a Scot named Duncan MacHeath. Apparently the man was in love with her and fiercely jealous. One day when her servants were out of the house something happened between them and he attacked and killed her. She fought for her life, but in the end she lost it.”
“Not easily, then,” Celeste replied, with a catch in her voice. She bowed her head. “Not quick.”
“No,” Gerrard said softly.
After a moment of heavy silence, Celeste raised her head and looked at him with unexpected composure. Perhaps the knowledge of what had happened to Audrey—the main details of it, at least—had indeed brought her some peace.
“What of the bodyguard?” she asked. “Is he imprisoned, or has he already been hanged?”
That, fortunately, was an easy question to answer. “He’s dead, drowned in the river after he was wounded attacking Roland.”
Her green eyes widened. “He attacked your brother, too?”
“Aye. He thought Roland was Audrey’s lover.”
“Roland? That’s ridiculous!” Celeste exclaimed. “Audrey didn’t even like...”
She fell silent and her cheeks colored with a blush.
Gerrard had often wondered how Audrey really felt about Roland. Now he knew.
Nor was he particularly surprised. Roland was hardly the sort of man to appeal to Celeste’s older sister, at least until he’d been named heir and lord of Dunborough. “Aye, Duncan was wrong about that, but he nearly killed Roland just the same. Roland wounded him and Duncan fell into the river afterward, trying to flee, and drowned. Too easy a death for a man who’d...”
Gerrard hesitated and looked away, but not fast enough.
“There is more,” Celeste said with certainty. She walked toward him, her steady, determined gaze holding his. “This MacHeath molested Audrey, didn’t he? A man angry enough to kill would be angry enough to forcefully take what a woman would not willingly give.”
Gerrard was sorry she was so perceptive, or his features so revealing. “If there is justice in the next life, he will burn in hell forever.”
“Did no one see any signs that she should fear him?”
“He was a fierce-looking fellow, but nobody ever thought Duncan MacHeath would hurt her. Surely she didn’t, either, or she would have sent him away.”
“Then there was no sign of his feelings for her? No hint that he might be jealous?”
“The man gave no sign of any feelings at all. He was a silent, sullen fellow.”
“Where did my sister meet him? How did she come to hire him?”
“York, I believe. I don’t think she ever told anyone here in Dunborough how he came to be in her employ.”
Gerrard braced himself for more questions that would be difficult or uncomfortable to answer, but fortunately, Celeste seemed satisfied. She began to move around the room, putting the remaining furniture back in place. With a sorrowful sigh that touched his heart, she ran her hand over the unfinished needlepoint on a stand beside the window. Audrey had been skilled at needlework, among other things.
He wondered what Celeste planned to do now. The burial had been weeks ago. “I suppose you’ll be returning to Saint Agatha’s.”
“Not for a few days,” she replied. She made a graceful sweeping gesture. “I shall have to deal with all of this first.”
Of course. The land was held by the lord of Dunborough, but the house and its contents were hers, with a portion to go to the overlord. “Roland might waive the heriot, considering.”
“What should be paid will be paid, and the rest I shall give to the church.”
“You’re welcome to reside at the castle for as long as necessary.”
She shook her head. “I thank you for the offer, but I don’t wish to impose.”
“I assure you, you won’t be.” He gave her a smile. “I’m happy to offer the hospitality of Dunborough to an old friend.”
“Again I thank you, but I would rather stay here until the house is sold.”
“You brought servants with you?”
“No, I need none.”
“You came alone?”
“Yes.”
“What the devil was your mother superior thinking?” he demanded, appalled. The roads and byways were dangerous for a woman alone, especially a beautiful one, even if she was a nun. “Did she have no fears for your safety?”
In spite of his shocked and angry tone, Celeste remained remarkably calm. “I was never in any danger, nor did I ever have to walk far. Many farmers and carters are happy to help a nun, and many a nobleman and innkeeper pleased to give one shelter while asking nothing in return, just as you have done.”
Although it took considerable effort, Gerrard managed to subdue his temper. “Be that as it may, you can’t stay here alone, and none of Audrey’s servants will come back to the house. They think it’s haunted.”
“As I told you, I need no servant, and even if Audrey’s spirit does still linger here, I am quite safe. Alive or dead, she would never hurt me.”
Gerrard felt like a fool for mentioning any supernatural concern, especially when there were other, more worldly reasons she couldn’t spend the night alone in that house. “Rumors of your father’s hidden wealth might tempt outlaws and thieves.”
She sighed, but otherwise remained the same. “I suppose that’s to be expected. Nevertheless, I’m not leaving. The locks are strong and God will protect me.”
God? God had not been here to save Audrey. “Just in case He is otherwise occupied, I must insist you come to the castle as my guest.”
Her expression turned wary and suspicious, a look he unfortunately recognized. Women who’d heard the worst of him looked at him like that. Then he remembered who else was at Saint Agatha’s.
“You will be quite safe there. I give you my word.”
He steeled himself for another refusal.
That did not come. Instead, she spoke as if she’d been agreeable all along. “Very well, and thank you.”
He tried not to show his relief as he held out his arm to escort her.
She did not take it.
Instead, with her expression as placid as if they were in a cathedral, she walked out of the chamber.
At least she’d finally seen sense, he told himself as he followed her outside. He went to his men and ordered them to continue to the castle, and told the fair-haired Hedley to take Snow to the stable for him.
By the time he’d done that, Celeste was at an outbuilding at the far end of the yard.
As he hurried to join her, Gerrard still couldn’t quite believe she was there. When she hadn’t arrived in the days after Audrey’s death, he’d assumed she never would. Now here she was, and staying in the castle, too.
He wasn’t the only one who’d changed. Celeste had been a lively little elf of a child who skipped and danced more than she walked, and laughed and sang. She’d had freckles and long brown hair that curled as if it had a life of its own.
Maybe it was long under that cap, veil and wimple. Or maybe it had been shorn to the scalp.
Not that it mattered what her hair was like, or how beautiful she was, even if she was more lovely than Audrey had been, something he hadn’t foreseen.
She was a nun here to sell her family’s goods and house, and then she would return to the convent.
When he reached her, she regarded him quizzically. “Where is Audrey’s horse? She liked to ride, so I’m sure she had one.”
“She had two and they were taken to the castle stables for safekeeping until we learned what you wanted done with them. Roland was going to ask you.”
“I’ll pay you for their keep.”
He gave her another smile as he shook his head. “No need. Roland can afford it.” Gerrard held out his arm again. “It will be my pleasure to escort you to the castle.”
She didn’t decline, but neither did she touch the arm he offered. Instead, she once again left him to fall into step beside her.
No doubt she wasn’t used to walking with a man.
* * *
From his hiding place behind a tree at the side of the D’Orleau house, Lewis watched the smug, arrogant Gerrard and the nun walk toward the village. He’d seen the patrol stop and suspected they were looking for thieves.
If outlaws were inside, they’d be sorry they tried to steal from that accursed place, the slender youth thought. Whatever other people believed, Sir Roland or his brother probably wouldn’t be any more merciful than their father.
He’d nearly fallen over when Gerrard had come out of the house with a nun. Then he remembered that Audrey D’Orleau had a sister who’d been sent to a convent because she’d dared to attack Gerrard for cutting off her hair. That was probably who it was.
Lewis left his hiding place and followed the couple to the village. He ducked into an alley and hurried past the buildings lining the green, including his father’s shop. That way he was able to get ahead of them and come out near the smithy, where he could see her face.
She was beautiful! Even more beautiful than Audrey! Indeed, she was far too beautiful to be a nun.
Maybe she wasn’t a nun and maybe she wasn’t Audrey’s sister. Maybe she was a thief in disguise, come to search for the treasure. Gerrard must not think so, though, or he would have had her taken to the dungeon. Or perhaps he wouldn’t, since she was young and pretty.
Lewis glanced at the rogue and got another shock. Gerrard looked as stone-faced as his brother. Usually he was all easy, affable charm when he was with a pretty girl.
Maybe then she really was a nun. Lewis almost laughed aloud to think of how disappointed the lecherous Gerrard must be if that was so.
On the other hand, given what Gerrard’s father had been like, the lout might still try to have his way with her although she was a bride of Christ.
He’d tried to warn Esmerelda about Gerrard and she’d ignored him. Audrey D’Orleau hadn’t been worth his help, despite her beauty.
Surely, Lewis thought, it was his Christian duty to protect this pretty, holy woman, this lovely creature undoubtedly too innocent and naive to see Gerrard as he truly was, even if he was only the chandler’s son.
Chapter Two (#ulink_9aa766b4-877c-5bb4-a2c8-4f6f1e00f601)
As Celeste and Gerrard walked through the village of Dunborough, she was very aware of the tall, broad-shouldered man striding so confidently beside her. He had always been a bold and merry fellow, ready with a smile, and laughter in his shining brown eyes. Now he looked more like the cold, stern Roland.
Given the passage of time since she had last seen either of them, change was to be expected. She had been twelve years old when she had left Dunborough, and Gerrard and Roland fifteen.
It was also surely to be expected that whispers of surprise and speculation would follow them like a breeze through bracken. No doubt many would wonder who she was and what she was doing there, especially with Gerrard. Some, perhaps, would recognize her, although it had been ten years since she’d been sent to Saint Agatha’s.
She cast her gaze toward the castle. The stronghold had grown more massive in the time that she’d been gone. Even when she lived there, Gerrard’s father had always been adding to it, building more walls and towers, raising the money from the tenants’ labors and merchants’ fees, as well as fines for almost any infraction, no matter how minor.
She tried not to think about Sir Blane or the old days as she walked past the stalls and shops of the village, the smithy with its gaggle of old men outside and the well with a similar group of matrons, all eyeing them with curiosity. A gaggle of children, laughing and giggling, chased an inflated pig’s bladder down a nearby alley. She turned away, ignoring the little pang of loss. The lack of children was a small price to pay for the peace and security of the religious life.
Gerrard was still silent as they reached the outer walls and proceeded through the thick, bossed gates, the grassy outer ward, the inner gate and then the inner ward, beneath the portcullis and through the final gate into the cobblestoned courtyard.
She said nothing, either, even when they reached the great hall.
It was just as huge and barren as she recalled, awe-inspiring in a bone-chilling way. It wasn’t only the size that made it so. There was a central hearth and stone pillars, but no ornamentation of any kind. No pennants, no tapestries, no paint, no carving. The floor was covered in rushes and she could smell the fleabane, but that was the only herb she could detect. There was no hint of rosemary or anything else to add a pleasant odor.
Hounds of various ages and sizes rushed up to Gerrard and he gave them each a pat before telling them to sit. They did, looking up at him like an adoring chorus about to burst into song.
He had been a favorite of the dogs when he was a boy, too, no doubt because he gave them ample attention of the sort he rarely received from anyone save Eua, a serving woman who had been his nurse, and who had praised and spoiled him.
Indeed, the hall was so little changed, Celeste half expected to see Sir Blane seated on the dais, with his cruel features and even crueler sneer while he berated his sons.
She removed her cloak as a maidservant appeared from the entrance to the kitchen. The woman was young and not unattractive, slender and with chestnut-brown hair, the sort of girl a parent would have kept far from the hall of Dunborough when Sir Blane and his eldest son, Broderick, were alive.
More surprising still, the maidservant merely nodded when Gerrard asked her to bring refreshments. She didn’t blush or smile at him as she took Celeste’s cloak.
Not that it mattered to her if Gerrard was carrying on with a servant. If he were, he would be no different from most men of his rank. As for the other things she’d heard about him, rumors were often exaggerations, if not outright lies.
And poor Esmerelda might have been mistaken about where she was to meet him, or if she was to meet him at all. Given her own youthful infatuation with the handsome, merry Gerrard, Celeste could easily imagine a girl misinterpreting his words or intentions.
“Now then, this is better, isn’t it?” he said with a familiar smile as they sat on finely carved chairs on the dais and the maidservant brought wine, bread and cheese. “Please, have some wine. It’s very good. I’m working my way through Father’s cellar.”
Celeste accepted the wine and took a grateful sip. It was indeed very good wine, which meant it was a hundred times better than anything she’d had at the convent. The mother superior kept all the best wine for herself or her favorites. The rest got much cheaper fare.
“It’s been a long time,” Gerrard said after he took a drink of wine, fixing his brown-eyed gaze upon her in a way that made her grateful for the nun’s habit she wore.
“I heard about your father and Broderick,” she said, knowing better than to offer him any sympathy for their demise.
Gerrard gave a little shrug with his right shoulder, as he used to do when they were children. “Then I suppose you know Roland is lord of Dunborough now.”
She was surprised at how calm he sounded. “Yes, I did hear that.”
“And that Roland is married?”
“Yes.”
She had been even more surprised by that news. Audrey had often said Roland would have to marry a statue to find a wife as cold and stern as he, and Celeste had not disagreed.
“He’s not here at the moment. He’s at his wife’s estate recovering from the wounds he got fighting Audrey’s killer.”
Gerrard didn’t sound overly concerned. Nevertheless, she remembered what he’d said at the house, about Audrey’s bodyguard nearly killing Roland. She’d been too overwhelmed by all that he had told her to inquire about Roland’s state then. “So he will recover?”
“Yes. I’m garrison commander in charge of Dunborough until he returns.”
Being the temporary lord was better than nothing, she supposed, although she nevertheless found it hard to believe that Gerrard could be so apparently accepting of his lower status.
“Things are better between us now,” he added.
Much better, it seemed. “So Roland won’t be angry if you drink all the best wine.”
Gerrard laughed softly. As much as she’d remembered, she had forgotten the sound of his laughter and the way it seemed to brighten everything around him.
“It would take years to do that,” he assured her, “even if I drank as much as I used to.”
She had heard that he drank to excess, among other sins, so that was not a surprise. The surprise was that he was willing to admit it.
“Enough of what’s happened here in Dunborough,” he said. “I have some questions of my own to ask.”
The last thing she wanted was to be interrogated by Gerrard. It would be worse than facing the mother superior at her most irate.
Celeste got to her feet. “If you don’t mind, Gerrard, I’m quite tired and would like to rest.”
A flash of irritation crossed his leanly handsome features and she waited for a protest.
Instead, he rose and called to the maidservant who had brought the refreshments. “Lizabet, show Sister Celeste to Roland’s chamber.”
He turned back to regard her with those brilliant dark brown eyes. “Or are you Sister Something Else?”
She kept her composure and silently prayed for forgiveness for the lie she was about to tell, along with her other recent sins. “I am Sister Augustine now.”
“Until later, then, Sister.”
“Yes, until later,” she agreed as she turned to follow the maidservant to the stairs leading to the family chambers.
Despite her answer, though, she had already decided she would not be joining Gerrard in the hall later, or at any time. When she was with him, the past crowded in on her, the memories fresh and vivid, both the good ones and the bad.
Lizabet passed the first door. “That was Sir Blane’s,” she said, her voice hushed as if she thought someone would overhear.
“And that was Broderick’s, the late lord’s eldest son,” she continued as they passed another. “I suppose you heard what happened to him? Killed by a woman! Sir Roland’s wife’s cousin. I can hardly imagine it.”
“A woman?” Celeste repeated, unable to hide her surprise.
Gerrard’s older brother had been a big man and a bully, fierce and cruel. To think that any woman had been able to—”
“Aye, it’s true. He was about to kill the man Lady Mavis’s cousin loved, and Lady Thomasina killed Broderick instead.”
Sister Sylvester once said that a loved one in trouble could give a person great and unforeseen strength. It seemed that she was right. “From what I remember of Broderick, I find it difficult to be sorry, however he met his end.”
Lizabet slid Celeste a questioning glance. “You know the family?”
“In a way. I’m Audrey D’Orleau’s sister.”
The young woman came to a startled halt. “I—I’m sorry, Sister!” she stammered.
She didn’t wait for Celeste to respond, but quickly continued on their way.
“This chamber is Gerrard’s when he sleeps here,” she said, hurrying past another door, “and this is Sir Roland’s.” Lizabet opened the last door in the corridor and stood aside to let Celeste enter.
The room was a far cry from the way she’d imagined any chamber of Roland’s. She’d been expecting bare walls and few amenities, something Spartan in keeping with his cold, stern demeanor. Instead, there were tapestries on the wall, linen shutters as well as wooden ones on the window to keep out the cold, a dressing table and two brightly painted wooden chests for clothing. Against the far wall was the biggest bed Celeste had ever seen, made up with thick blankets and a silken coverlet. The bed curtains were a bright blue damask and there was even a carpet on the floor.
She immediately conjured a vision of a couple in that luxurious bed, a well-built man with shoulder-length hair making love to some faceless naked woman with long, curling brown tresses.
But what price did a woman pay for such luxury?
“Aye, it’s big,” Lizabet said with a smile when she saw where Celeste was looking. “Lady Mavis—Sir Roland’s wife, that is—she asked for a new one the day she got here. Could have heard a cow cough a mile away when she said his bed wasn’t big enough.”
The maidservant blushed and lowered her eyes. “Sorry, Sister. I didn’t mean to offend.”
“It’s all right,” Celeste assured her, turning away to hide her own embarrassed blushes.
“Anything you need, Sister? Other than some warm water to wash?”
“No, that will be enough. Thank you.”
“Then I’ll be back soon with the water and some fresh linen,” Lizabet said, leaving the room.
Celeste immediately removed her cap, veil and constricting wimple. She was relieved to be rid of them and glad to be alone, away from curious people and their stares and whispers, as well as Gerrard and the memories he brought back.
She unpinned her braid and ran her fingers through the thick, waving brown curls. As she did, she wondered what Gerrard would think if he could see her hair. More than once the mother superior had threatened to cut it off. More than once Celeste had avoided that.
It wasn’t that she cherished the long locks so much. Her hair had been a sort of battleground, and every time she kept her curls, she felt the mother superior had lost a battle, although the war wouldn’t be won until she was allowed to take her final vows.
Sighing, Celeste looked down at her hands and thought of all the times she’d tried, usually without success, to braid her sister’s shining hair.
These were the same hands that Audrey had held tight when their father raged at their unhappy mother, proof that marriage was no sanctuary. The same hands that had scrubbed and cleaned and been clasped in prayer when Celeste displeased the mother superior at the convent, which was almost every day.
The same hands that she hoped would be carrying a cask of gold and jewels when she returned to Saint Agatha’s, if what her father had said was true and he had hidden treasure in the house. She would present the cask to the bishop and tell him it was for the church on the condition that the mother superior be sent to a convent as far away from Saint Agatha’s as possible. Then life at Saint Agatha’s would be perfect. She would be safe and at peace, out of the world that had so much conflict and misery.
First, though, Celeste had to find her father’s hidden hoard, and soon, in case the mother superior came looking for her.
Not that she regretted running away. She’d had no choice about that, for the mother superior never should have forbidden her to come back after her sister had died. Celeste was only sorry she’d stolen Sister Sylvester’s habit, even though that, too, had been necessary, for safety on the road. As for claiming to be a nun, that was for safety, too.
Especially when she saw the look in Gerrard of Dunborough’s eyes. She didn’t want to be the object of any man’s lust.
And certainly not his.
* * *
Norbert regarded his son with scornful disbelief as they stood in his shop, surrounded by candles of various sizes.
“Your eyesight must be going, boy,” the well-dressed chandler sneered. “Gerrard and a nun? I’d as soon believe you could make a decent wick.”
“I saw her myself,” Lewis insisted, his tall, thin frame slightly hunched as if to protect himself from a blow. “They were coming from Audrey D’Orleau’s house. Maybe she’s her sister come to look for the treasure.”
Norbert gave his pockmarked son a sour look. “There’s no treasure in that house and you’re a fool if you think so. And if that is Audrey’s sister, she’s probably come to sell the house and all the furnishings and maybe her sister’s clothes, too. After all, a nun won’t have any use for them.”
Norbert stroked his beardless chin. “Put up the shutters. It’s nearly time to close up for the day, anyway.”
Lewis stared at him, dumbfounded, and wasn’t fast enough to avoid the slap that stung his cheek.
“What are you gawking at, boy?” his father demanded.
“You’ve never closed the shop early before.”
“I am today.” His father licked his palm and smoothed down what remained of his hair, then straightened the leather belt around his narrow waist and long, dark green tunic. “I’m going to the castle to find out if that woman is Audrey’s sister, and if she is, to offer my condolences.”
“But you said Audrey was no better than a whore who got what she deserved.”
Scowling, his father raised his arm and Lewis immediately moved out of reach. “Don’t you dare repeat anything I said about Audrey D’Orleau to anybody,” Norbert warned, “or you’ll feel the back of my hand.”
“I won’t say a word,” his son promised. “I wonder what Ewald will do when he hears about her.”
Norbert’s eyes widened. If he hadn’t considered that, Lewis thought, his father was the fool, not him.
“It would be like that lout to try to see her first,” Norbert muttered, although he was clearly preparing to do the same thing.
“She might be tired after her journey and unwilling to talk about business so soon after she’s arrived,” Lewis suggested.
Norbert frowned. “You may be right—for once,” he grudgingly acknowledged. “Ewald probably won’t be so thoughtful. On the other hand, if that is Audrey’s sister, I wouldn’t want him to get the house for a pittance. What does a woman, let alone a nun, know about the value of things? Now get those shutters up. I’m going to the castle.”
* * *
“Aye, a nun and the prettiest one I ever saw,” Lizabet said as she got a ewer for hot water in the kitchen. “And she says she’s Audrey D’Orleau’s sister!”
Baskets of beans and peas, lentils and leeks, were on low shelves nearby. On higher shelves were the spices, some very expensive indeed, for Sir Blane had liked fine food, at least for himself. Doors led into the larder and the buttery, another to the hall, and there were stairs for the servants to the family chambers.
“Audrey D’Orleau’s sister?” Florian, the cook, cried, looking up from the pastry he was rolling on the large, flour-covered table. He was of middle height, not exactly fat but not slim, either, and could have been any age from twenty-five to forty. Tom, the skinny, freckled spit boy, likewise took his attention from the chickens he was turning over the fire in the enormous hearth.
Peg stopped shelling peas into the wooden bowl she had in her lap and rested her forearms on the rim of the bowl, regarding her companions gravely. She was a little older and a little plumper than Lizabet, and a little prettier, too. “Audrey D’Orleau’s sister, eh? That would be Celeste. My ma told me she used to follow Audrey about like a puppy, and Gerrard, too, back in the day. Once, when the girls were at the castle—their father was doing some kind of business with old Sir Blane—Gerrard, rascal that he was, cut off Celeste’s hair almost to her scalp. Something about a game, I think. Anyway, she had a devil of a fit—knocked him down and broke his collarbone. She got sent to Saint Agatha’s after.”
“Must have been some fit,” Lizabet said. “And if she was a hoyden, well, all I can say is the convent’s calmed her down. I can’t imagine the nun up in Sir Roland’s chamber raisin’ her voice, let alone attacking someone.”
“If she’s Audrey’s sister,” Florian pointed out, wiping his forehead with a floury hand, “why didn’t she come here sooner? It’s been weeks since her sister died. Sir Roland sent word after, didn’t he?”
“Aye,” Peg said. “He sent a priest and Arnhelm went with him as escort.” She lowered her voice as if about to reveal something shocking. “Arnhelm told me the mother superior at Saint Agatha’s was the most hard, mean-spirited harridan he’d ever met. When he said why he’d come, she looked at him as if he’d come to sell a loaf of bread, and stale at that.” Peg shook her head and leaned back. “Made Sir Roland look soft, Arnhelm said.”
“God have mercy!” Florian murmured, aghast, while Lizabet’s eyes filled with tears.
“A sister murdered, and to have to hear it from a woman like that!” she exclaimed.
“Aye,” Peg agreed. “I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s the mother superior’s fault Celeste took so long to get here. Probably had to say prayers for days.”
“Tom!” Florian cried. “The chickens!”
The spit boy hurried back to his duty, the chickens only slightly charred.
“We had all best get back to work,” the cook added.
Peg returned to shelling the peas and, with a heart full of sympathy, Lizabet took the hot water back to Sir Roland’s chamber.
* * *
Celeste realized something had changed the moment Lizabet returned. She was like a candle that had been snuffed, and Celeste could guess why.
She didn’t want to talk about Audrey, but she had other questions, ones she hoped Lizabet could answer. “I grew up in Dunborough, but I don’t think we’ve ever met. Are you from here, too?” she asked as Lizabet poured warm water from the ewer into the basin on the washstand.
“Aye. My father’s a woodcutter. I came to work in the castle after Sir Blane and Broderick died. Peg and me both. My father wouldn’t let us come before that because of them, although we could have used the wages.”
“Yet he had no such reservations about Sir Roland and Gerrard?”
Lizabet shook her head. “Not once Sir Roland was named the lord. My father was sure he’d see that the servants were safe. And ever since Sir Roland got wounded, Gerrard’s been like a new man. It’s as if he’s seen the error of his ways. O’course, it could be Sir Roland’s wife helped him see that. She wouldn’t put up with any nonsense from Gerrard, that’s for certain.”
“Were you here when Sir Roland came home with his bride?”
“Indeed I was, Sister. We were all that surprised, I must say! Rumor was Sir Roland was going to DeLac to end any talk of an alliance with the lord there, and then he comes home with the man’s daughter as his bride. Verdan—he come with her from DeLac, one of the escort—he said they was all surprised Lady Mavis agreed to the match and didn’t run off. Spirited, she is, Sister. And beautiful, so maybe no wonder Sir Roland wanted her.”
“I remember Sir Roland as a boy, and he didn’t seem the sort of fellow to make a very pleasant husband. If it was a contracted marriage, perhaps his wife felt she had no choice. Indeed, I can find it in my heart to pity her.”
Lizabet’s eyes widened. “Oh, there’s no need for that, Sister! It might have been arranged at the start, but it was a love match, too, for all that. She looks at him like he’s the most wonderful man in the world and he looks at her like she’s an angel come to earth. She’s expecting already.”
That might not be a surprise to Lizabet, but it seemed miraculous to Celeste.
“Verdan says...” Lizabet flushed and looked at her toes. “I’m sorry, Sister, I forgot you were a nun.”
“Can’t you pretend I’m not? And it’s not as if I haven’t heard things in the convent from the other women. Some of them are widows.”
The maidservant looked around furtively, as if about to divulge a state secret. “Verdan says they go at it like rabbits, even in the woods one time where anybody might have seen them.”
Now it was Celeste’s turn to blush, and blush she did as she envisioned not Roland, but Gerrard, making love with a woman in the woods to assuage their carnal desires. Yet when desire died, what was left?
Celeste decided she’d asked enough questions. “I’m rather tired, Lizabet, and fear I’ll be very poor company tonight. I’d rather take my meal here. Please convey my regrets to Gerrard.”
Lizabet bit her lip and her brows contracted.
“If you’d rather not tell Gerrard—”
“No, no, it’s no trouble, Sister,” Lizabet replied, although her attitude implied otherwise.
Celeste gave the nervous maidservant a reassuring smile. “I shall tell him myself. Is he still in the hall?”
“I think he’s in the outer ward with some of the men, Sister.”
“Then I shall go to him there.”
Chapter Three (#ulink_382c33c3-76de-546a-aaf0-90c88c146500)
Stripped to the waist and crouching, Gerrard circled his opponent. Gerrard was fast and clever, while Verdan, likewise wearing only breeches and boots despite the chilly air, was big and slow and sometimes clumsy. Nevertheless, Gerrard knew it would be a mistake to think Verdan was too slow to beat him or too stupid to guess his next move.
Other soldiers had formed a ring around the wrestlers, shouting encouragement and advice to both. Gerrard could also hear the wagers being made, albeit in quieter tones, especially from those who were betting against him.
“Now then, Verdan,” he said, not taking his eyes from the man’s bearded face, “it’s time we put an end to this, don’t you think? Concede and we can all go have an ale.”
“Aye, give up!” one of the younger, thinner soldiers called out, stamping his feet. “I’m getting bloody cold!”
“Ah, shut yer gob,” another, with darker hair and clean-shaven, retorted. “Verdan can take him. Show him, Verdan!”
“A southern man beat a Yorkshireman born and bred?” a third demanded, scowling as he crossed thick and powerful arms. “Not likely!”
“He’s got half a head on Gerrard.”
“Half a brain, too. Come on, Gerrard, take him down!”
“Show ’im what a good soldier’s made of, Verdan!”
“Show ’im what a Yorkshireman’s made of!”
Gerrard suddenly feinted left, then dived right, grabbing Verdan around the legs and pulling him down. In the next instant, more cheers went up as Gerrard flipped the big man onto his stomach and sat on his back. Verdan flailed about, trying to grab him, but Gerrard got his arms under his opponent’s and his hands clasped behind Verdan’s neck. The bigger man was helpless.
“I had somethin’ in me eye!” Verdan declared, spitting out bits of grass as he continued to shift from side to side as well as up and down, trying to buck Gerrard off.
“Come, man, you’ve lost,” Gerrard said. “Admit it and let’s go get some ale. I think we’ve both worked up a mighty thirst. And since you’re no doubt exhausted, I’ll excuse you from guard duty tonight.”
“Well, since you put it that way...” Verdan stopped moving and let Gerrard climb off him.
Grinning, Gerrard reached down to help the soldier to his feet. Bets were paid off, some grudgingly, while the two combatants wiped the perspiration from their faces, put on their shirts and tunics, Gerrard’s of wool and Verdan’s of boiled leather. Before the contest, Gerrard had taken a loose bit of thread from the hem of his tunic and tied back his hair to keep it off his face, and he didn’t bother to undo it. “As for the rest of you men, I expect to find all your weapons clean and sharp tomorrow,” he said. “And nobody the worse for drink, myself included,” he added ruefully, earning chuckles from the men, who began to move toward the castle gate.
He clapped a hand on Verdan’s broad shoulder. “So, your mother still won’t come to Yorkshire?”
“Not yet. But Arnhelm and me have hope,” Verdan replied, grinning and revealing unexpectedly good teeth.
Out of the corner of his eye, Gerrard noticed the thin chandler scurrying toward them, his woolen tunic flapping about his ankles, his silk-lined cloak fluttering behind him.
“Sweet Mother Mary, what the devil is he doing here?” he muttered under his breath before he addressed Verdan again. “You go ahead. The chandler must have business to discuss.”
Although what that could possibly be, Gerrard had no idea. He hoped it wouldn’t take long, either. He had never liked the greedy little man who had browbeaten his late wife and treated his son like a lackey.
“Greetings, Norbert,” he said as the panting chandler reached him. “What brings you to the castle?”
“I’ve come to give my condolences to Audrey’s sister. I heard that she had come.”
Gerrard frowned. “Yes, she has, and you wish to speak with Sister Augustine?” he asked as Norbert shifted from foot to foot like a horse nervously awaiting the start of a race.
The last thing Celeste—or anyone—needed was to talk to this fellow, about anything.
“If that’s what Audrey D’Orleau’s sister is called now, yes,” the chandler replied with a hint of defiance.
That was not something to encourage Gerrard to grant his request. “Sister Augustine is resting and cannot be disturbed.”
Norbert frowned and looked far from pleased. His state of mind, however, was not Gerrard’s concern.
“Perhaps you’ll be good enough to tell her I was here,” Norbert said.
“Perhaps,” Gerrard replied with a smile that was not meant to be pleasant.
“Now see here, Gerrard—” Norbert began. He fell silent when he saw the look in Gerrard’s eyes. “Oh, very well!”
The chandler turned on his heel and started back to the inner gate just as it opened to admit another man, this one also richly dressed, but plump and darkly bearded. His tunic was shorter and more embellished, with an embroidered hem and neck. His boots were of fine leather, as were his bossed belt and gauntlet gloves.
Ewald. Of course. The dealer in hides and tallow was as broad and boisterous as Norbert was thin and wheedling, but equally as greedy. The two were like vultures come hurrying to the battlefield, and Celeste a corpse.
“Good day, Gerrard! And you, too, Norbert!” Ewald declared. “Why am I not surprised that you’re here already, Norbert? That nosy son of yours should be a spy for the king.”
“I doubt you’ve come to pass the time of day,” Norbert retorted. “You want to see her, too, don’t you?”
Ewald’s cheeks flushed. “Well...” he began, drawing the word out as he rocked back and forth on his heels, his thumbs tucked in his wide leather belt beneath his protruding belly, “as a matter of fact, I do. To give her my sympathy on her sister’s death. A bad business, that, a very bad business.”
Business had nothing to do with it, Gerrard thought sourly. Warped and thwarted love did. “Unfortunately, Sister Augustine is resting and cannot be disturbed,” he said firmly.
Norbert, not surprisingly, continued to scowl, while Ewald, equally not surprisingly, smiled like a man who’d won a bet.
“Tomorrow will do just as well,” the tanner jovially replied. “Tell her I was here, if you will, and I’ll be delighted to speak with her at a time of her convenience. I’ll offer her a very good price for the house.”
“I will do no such thing,” Gerrard said. “You will wait to discuss business with her when she comes to you, and not before. Now I give you good day, gentlemen.”
With a look of sly triumph, Norbert nodded and started toward the gate. Only slightly subdued, Ewald bowed and followed.
Carrion crows, the pair of them, and Gerrard would be damned before he’d tell Celeste that they’d been there. He wasn’t their messenger and she didn’t need to be bothered, he thought as he walked back to the gate.
He came to a startled halt. Celeste—Sister Augustine—was gliding toward him across the grass, the ends of her veil lifting in the breeze. Even in a nun’s habit, she looked like royalty, poised and proud and beautiful.
“I thought you were resting,” he said, baffled by her presence and wondering if he should have let Norbert and Ewald meet her.
“I am rather weary,” she replied, her lips set in a thin line, “so if it’s possible, I’d prefer to have the evening meal in Roland’s chamber. Alone.”
He was glad he’d sent the chandler and the tanner away, yet couldn’t help feeling somewhat dismayed by her manner and that she apparently didn’t want to dine with him, either. Still, that might be for the best. She aroused old memories and some of them were best forgotten.And if she hated him, he could hardly blame her. It was his fault she’d been sent to Saint Agatha’s.
“Since you’re a guest, you’re free to do as you like,” he said. “I’ll have the meal and some wine sent up to the chamber in due course.”
She nodded and her lips curved up into a little smile. A very little smile. “Thank you, Gerrard.”
After that, she walked gracefully away, leaving him to ponder what she would think of him if she ever found out all that had happened while she was in the convent.
* * *
Later that night, Gerrard sat alone on the dais in the great hall of Dunborough. The evening meal had been served, and most of the soldiers not on guard duty had already returned to the barracks or bedded down on pallets in the hall, along with the ever-present hounds. A few of the household servants were still awake and talking quietly in a corner. The female servants had their own quarters above the kitchen, while the rest either slept in the kitchen or in the loft above the stalls where the grooms and stable boys also bedded down.
Gerrard glanced at the stairs leading to the family chambers. What would Celeste think if she knew about his dealings with her sister? And the offer Roland had made to him?
He had planned to use Audrey’s wealth for his own ends and had even been prepared to marry her to get it, although that hadn’t been his idea. It had been Audrey’s suggestion that he bribe the king to give him Dunborough and a title. When he and Audrey wed, she would have had what she desired most—a powerful and titled husband—and he would have had his heart’s desire, the estate of Dunborough and the power to rule it.
Now Audrey was dead and Roland had another estate, thanks to his marriage, so he had offered Dunborough to Gerrard, pending the king’s approval.
Although Roland was no doubt sincere, Gerrard still couldn’t quite believe that he would willingly give up the estate they both had craved for so long, especially after his father’s will revealed Roland was indeed the elder twin and given the way Gerrard had treated Roland all these years. But he had.
It was tempting to accept Roland’s offer, even though that would mean being beholden to his brother for the rest of his life. And when he remembered that he’d been willing to use Audrey D’Orleau and her wealth to get what he wanted, he felt so ashamed, it seemed better to leave Dunborough and never return.
Yet to give up the chance of being the lord of Dunborough! He had yearned for that for as long as he could remember.
Gerrard abruptly rose and started for the door, grabbing his cloak from a peg before he went out. It did no good to sit and brood. That was the sort of thing Roland would do. Better to be doing something—anything—than mope.
He’d go to the tavern in the village. It was always lively, even at this time of night. There were other places a man could find companionship of a different sort, but he’d given that up along with too much ale.
Gerrard stepped into the yard. A quick glance confirmed that the watchmen were on the wall walk and two guards stood at the gate.
A cold Yorkshire wind sent clouds scudding across the half-moon and he sniffed the air, wondering if it would snow before morning. Hard to say.
How much he hated winter and the cold that forced him to spend too much time indoors! He felt imprisoned when the weather was too bad to ride. Perhaps that was what being in a convent was like, and not only in the winter. Considering that and celibacy, he knew he could never stay in such a place. He would flee at the first opportunity.
A movement near the large oak beside the inner wall caught his eye. Someone clad in a long dark cloak was moving in the shadows near the kitchen.
“You there, what are you doing?” he demanded as he hurried forward.
Celeste—Sister Augustine—stepped out of the shadows. At the same time, one of the soldiers appeared on the wall walk above and the guards at the gate charged toward her.
“All’s well,” Gerrard called to them. “You can go back to your posts.”
They obeyed and he turned to face Celeste, trying not to notice her large eyes or full lips. “You had better stay inside at night. My men are all trained archers. You might have been mistaken for an intruder and shot.”
“Fortunately, I was not.”
Her voice was as placid as her expression. Where had that lively, daring girl gone? He would have wagered much that even the nuns couldn’t stifle her vivacity, although apparently they had.
“Is anything the matter?” he asked. “Is there something you require?”
Dolt! If she wanted something, she would go to the hall and summon a servant, not wander about the yard like a lost soul.
“The chamber is very comfortable, thank you,” she replied. “I simply couldn’t sleep. And you?”
“I often check to make sure the watch is awake,” he lied. He never did that. He didn’t have to. His father had severely punished any man caught sleeping at his post, and it was still too soon after his father’s death for the men to realize neither he nor Roland would ever be as cruel.
Celeste nodded at the oak tree. “That’s the tree we climbed that All Hallow’s Eve, isn’t it?”
The memory rose up as vividly as if it had been yesterday. He and Roland had gotten out of the castle by climbing the oak, then slipping out a postern gate, one All Hallow’s Eve. They’d wanted to go to the village to see the bonfire. Audrey and Celeste were already there when they arrived. Audrey claimed she didn’t believe they’d done anything so bold as climb over the castle wall like thieves. Sir Blane must have let them come.
Determined to prove her wrong, Gerrard had suggested that she return with them the same way and spend the night in the hayloft. Roland had been against the idea from the first. It would be too dangerous. She surely couldn’t climb as well and they’d all be caught and punished.
Audrey had laughed at Roland, and Gerrard and she had called him a grumpy old woman and a host of other unflattering names until he gave in.
Celeste had begged to go along and finally they had let her. She had kept up with them, and never made a whimper, even after they were caught, as Roland had predicted. Audrey and Celeste had been escorted home, for their father was too wealthy to offend, while the twins had been beaten and forced to stand until dawn.
“I was so afraid I’d fall,” Celeste murmured, moving back into the shadows.
“You never gave any sign you were afraid,” Gerrard replied, following her. “I thought you were very brave.”
She laughed softly, a sound that roused more memories. Of chasing her through the forest, but never quite catching her. The admiring look in her eyes when he told a funny story. The time he’d suggested they play a kissing game and she had laughed and blushed and run away.
He wanted to kiss her now.
She is a nun, he reminded himself, even if she’s also a beautiful woman. “I was afraid, too,” he confessed.
Glistening in the moonlight, her large eyes widened with a look of wonderment. “I didn’t think you were afraid of anything.”
She is a nun. “I was afraid of many things, my father most of all.”
“So was I.”
“Everyone was frightened of him.”
“I meant my own. He used to fly into terrible tempers. Audrey and I would hide, and she would tell me stories to make me feel better.”
“I never knew that.” Even as a girl, Audrey had seemed too cold and calculating to offer a younger sister comfort.
“I realize she had her faults, but I loved her very much,” Celeste whispered, her voice full of sorrow.
Nun or not, there seemed but one thing to do. Gerrard put his arms around her and pulled her into his embrace.
He meant only to offer comfort, yet heat coursed through his body as her breasts pressed against his chest. He thought of her full lips so close to his own. All he need do was put a knuckle beneath her chin and tilt her head up to kiss her.
They were in shadow. No light shone from the narrow windows nearby. No one could see them.
She is a nun! She is a nun!
“I’m sorry I broke your collarbone that day, Gerrard,” she said softly.
“I’m sorry I cut off your hair,” he replied just as quietly.
If he were wise, he would move away. Leave her. Go to the farthest corner of the castle. Or the village.
He wasn’t wise.
Chapter Four (#ulink_59769c74-0bab-501a-b567-1e08ec0a96b9)
Celeste knew what Gerrard was going to do before he did it. What he shouldn’t do, especially if he thought she was a nun.
She also knew what she ought to do. Stop him. Move away. Leave. Go back to her chamber.
She didn’t. She couldn’t. For too long she had dreamed of being in Gerrard’s arms. For too many years he’d been her idea of a hero, the ideal man. Of all the worldly longings she’d sought to stifle in the convent, the most difficult was the dream of being held in Gerrard’s arms with his lips upon hers.
So when he kissed her as she’d always imagined, she could not resist. She couldn’t protest, for his kiss was even more wonderful and exciting than her most vivid dreams, and some of them had been very vivid indeed.
His embrace tightened about her and her body seemed to become like liquid wax in his arms, without bones or muscles or sinews. Her only strength seemed to be in her hands as she clutched his shoulders to keep from falling, and to continue kissing him.
Her desire increased, heating her blood and sending it throbbing through her body. This was the sort of passionate encounter some of the girls had talked of. Being with the men they loved, and how they’d felt in their arms.
They hadn’t described the yearning building within her, the need for something more than lips on lips, or that a man might slide his hand along her arm and down her side, letting it rest on her hip before he began to slowly glide his palm up toward her breast.
When Gerrard cupped her there, she opened her lips to gasp, and his tongue slid into her mouth—a shocking, unexpected act she had never heard of or imagined.
Surprise and shame hit her like twin blows of a hammer.
Horrified by her own weakness, she put her hands on his chest and shoved him away. She knew too well what men were like, how violent and angry they could get, yet it seemed she’d forgoteen everything for a moment’s fleeting pleasure. “Stop! How could you?”
His brow furrowed, Gerrard spread his arms wide as he moved back. “I only meant to—”
“What?” she demanded, hiding her regret and remorse behind anger of her own. “Seduce me?”
His expression hardened and his lips became a grim, hard line, like Roland’s. Like Broderick’s and, yes, like their father’s. “No, that was not my intention.”
“I am a nun!”
“I forgot.”
“Forgot?” she repeated incredulously, as if she’d never heard anything so ridiculous.
“That’s the truth, whether you believe it or not,” he defensively replied. “And it wasn’t my idea to move farther back beneath the tree. It was you who led us here.”
“I thought...” What had she been thinking? She had no explanation. Nevertheless, she gave him one. “I thought it would be more sheltered from the wind and so easier to talk. And that was no excuse to kiss me.”
“I may have begun the kiss, but you were just as eager once I did.”
“I was not!” she protested, although that was a lie. A terrible, shameful lie. “You caught me off guard.”
He made a sweeping bow and his expression became a sort of mocking grin. She’d seen that look on his face before, but never had it been directed at her.
She didn’t want to see it now, even if she had been in the wrong to accuse him so unjustly, and even if it was better than his anger.
“I beg your forgiveness, Sister Augustine,” he said, his voice smooth and full of derision. “I promise I’ll never surprise you again. Now I give you good night and I hope you’ll have very pleasant dreams.”
In spite of his sardonic attitude, she saw something else in his eyes that filled her with dismay and regret and shame. She had hurt him. He’d been hurt many times in the past by his father and his brothers and now she had hurt him, too.
Gerrard turned on his heel and started across the yard toward the gate, chin up, back straight, like a conquering hero.
A hero she had wounded.
Another sin to beg forgiveness for, like letting him kiss and caress her.
No, the greater sin was his, she told herself as she hurried back to Roland’s chamber. Gerrard had kissed her first. That was the truth, whatever else had happened.
They were never going to kiss again. She would see to that.
They must never kiss again. She was going to be a nun. She wanted that more than anything in this world or the next. Then she would be protected, secure and close to God. She would be free of worldly cares and concerns and no longer troubled by the desires of the flesh. She would be away from violence and hatred and quarrels, men and women arguing far into the night regardless of the children who could hear, trembling and clutching each other for comfort in the dark.
She would be safe and maybe even happy, and if she had to give up certain longings and desires, it would surely be worth it.
* * *
The two guards at the inner gate snapped to attention as Gerrard approached. The garrison commander frowned when he saw that one of the guards was Verdan.
“What are you doing here?” he demanded. “I gave you leave from duty.”
“Well, sir, it’s like this,” Verdan replied, shifting his spear from one hand to the other. “The roster was all made up and one of the lads has a sweetheart in the village and he was plannin’ to see her, and he’d have to take my place, so—”
“Oh, very well. Spare me your explanation. I, too, am going to the village and I likely won’t be back until morning. And the next time you’re excused from duty, Verdan, stay excused. I won’t make such an offer a third time.”
“Yes, sir,” the soldier gruffly replied as young Hedley opened the smaller wicket gate.
After Gerrard had passed through and Hedley closed the gate, Verdan regarded his fellow soldier with dismay. “I didn’t think he’d be cross because I was on duty. And where’s he goin’ this time o’ night? You don’t think he’s goin’ back to his old ways, do ya?”
“I hope not,” Hedley glumly replied. “Maybe Sister Augustine was trying to talk him into staying in the castle.”
“What?”
“He was talking to the nun who came today, there by the tree.”
“Never!” Verdan exclaimed, although Hedley was famous for his eyesight. He could hit an apple with an arrow from fifty yards.
“Aye, he was. At least he met her there,” Hedley said. “Then they moved under the tree. I couldn’t see them after that.”
“Maybe you’re right, and she got wind he was goin’ to the village and tried to put a stop to it. He wouldn’t like that. No wonder he looked so peeved.”
“Aye,” Hedley agreed, leaning on his spear. “I could have sworn it was Sir Roland standing here.”
“Reckon there’s anything we ought to do?”
“Like what? We can’t stop Gerrard if he takes a notion to go to the village at night. He’s the garrison commander. And he might only have said he was going to the village and won’t be back till morning to see if we’re slack on the watch, and he’ll circle round and check again. He’s a clever one, after all, and takes his duties serious.”
Verdan hitched up his sword belt. “Aye, that’s true enough. Still, we’d best keep our eyes open. I like Gerrard, but our first duty’s to Sir Roland. He’s the lord of Dunborough, and he ought to know if his brother’s a sot or up to no good, no matter how much we hope he ain’t.”
* * *
The proprietor of the Cock’s Crow smiled broadly as Gerrard entered the smoky confines of the tavern. “Greetings, Gerrard! It’s been a while since you’ve darkened our door.”
“A mug of ale,” Gerrard said as he sat at a table in a far corner of the taproom, which smelled not only of smoke from the fire in the hearth, but also ale and beef stew, herb-strewn rushes on the floor and the bodies of hardworking men taking their ease after a day of toil.
“Aye, sir, aye!” Matheus replied. He hurried to bring it, setting it down and standing back. “Anything else you want?”
“A bed for the night—and just a bed,” Gerrard added when he saw Matheus’s expression. There had been times a woman had joined him there, but not tonight and not for days. Not since he’d returned from DeLac after Roland had been attacked.
“Of course, sir! And more ale when that one’s finished?”
“Perhaps.”
Ignoring the curious looks from the other customers, Gerrard took a swallow of the excellent ale, then wrapped his hands around the cup. He would have this one drink. It wouldn’t be wise to get drunk, not with Celeste—Sister Augustine—no doubt ready to denounce him for a drunkard as well as a libertine.
Even though she’d returned his kiss with equal passion, he still felt like the most disgusting reprobate in the kingdom—deservedly so. Only weeks ago he had been what gossip and rumor claimed he was: a rogue and a wastrel, carrying on with no concern for whom he hurt or why, seeking to annoy Roland, assuage his own desires and assert some independence.
He’d chosen for his friends young men with little to recommend them except their agreement that he deserved to be lord of Dunborough more than his brother.
Gerrard had paid for his pleasure, cheated at games of sport and toyed with women’s hearts, although he truly hadn’t meant for Esmerelda to get hurt.
Ever since the attack on Roland, though, he’d kept away from taverns, gambling dens and unwholesome women. He’d busied himself with training the men and the business of the estate, as much as he was able. He’d sought to lead a better, more respectable life and thought he’d been succeeding.
Until today. Until tonight, when his desire had compelled him to take a nun into his arms.
Perhaps he truly was his father’s son.
No, he was not. If his father had wanted Celeste, he would have taken her, no matter what she said or did, and even if she’d fought him tooth and nail.
Gerrard ran his hand through his hair. God help him, why had he kissed her?
The first answers came to him in Roland’s censorious voice. Because you wanted to and didn’t care about the consequences. Because she’s pretty and you have a weakness for pretty girls.
Yet in his heart he knew there was more to it than that. Standing so close to her in the dark, he had felt as he had when they were younger, when he was afraid of his father and brothers and she had regarded him with awe and admiration, as if he could do anything. Be anything.
And then what had he done? He’d lost his temper over some stupid game, held her down and cut off her lovely, curling hair.
His feelings had overruled his head tonight, too. Was he never going to be master of himself? Why could he not foresee the consequences of his actions, especially the ones that would cause hurt and pain and anger?
He would. He must.
He drained his ale and took himself to bed.
* * *
Just past dawn the next morning, Celeste walked across the courtyard toward the gate. The weak November sun did little to warm the air and frost was heavy on the ground, but at least it wasn’t snowing.
Mercifully, and perhaps in answer to her prayers, Gerrard hadn’t been in the hall this morning, nor had any of the servants acted as if there had been any talk of improper behavior on her part.
For a long time last night she’d prayed for forgiveness for her lust, and the strength to resist the temptation Gerrard embodied. In future, she vowed, she’d have as little to do with him as possible. If Roland returned soon, she might never have to speak to Gerrard again.
Which was what she wanted, just as she needed...wanted...to be safe and secure in the religious life.
Nevertheless, and despite what had happened between them, she couldn’t help wishing that the tales told about Gerrard weren’t true. That he wasn’t a drunkard and lust-filled libertine. That he was a better man than his father and older brother, and more like the hero of a ballad than the wastrel gossip and rumor said he was.
That she was right to still have hope that Esmerelda had unjustly blamed him for what had happened to her. Even if she never saw him again, she wanted to think of him as a good man.
As Celeste got closer to the gate, she couldn’t be sure if the guards were the same men who’d been on duty last night. In case they were and had seen that shameful embrace, she would do her very best imitation of the always serene Sister Sylvester. That way they might have doubts about who had been with Gerrard under the tree.
“Good day,” she said with a pleasant smile when she reached them. “Please open the gate.”
The two men exchanged wary glances.
“Is there some reason you should not?” she sweetly inquired.
“Not at all, Sister,” the older, bearded one replied, moving to open the wicket gate for her.
With a nod of thanks she lifted her skirts to pass over the threshold—and nearly bumped into Gerrard.
He fell back a step and his surprise soon gave way to that slightly mocking grin. “Where might you be going this fine morning, Sister Augustine?”
He didn’t look the worse for drink, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t. She had learned from her father that a man could be far from sober and still look it.
Perhaps he’d been in his cups last night when he’d kissed her. She hadn’t considered that.
Even if he had been, that didn’t excuse him. Indeed, if anything, it magnified his offense.
“Since I am a guest, I don’t believe I need answer that question,” she replied.
“No, you don’t,” he agreed with exaggerated courtesy as he stepped aside. “After you, Sister.”
“Good day, Gerrard,” she replied, walking briskly past him. She did not look back to see what, if anything, he did as she continued toward the village and her family’s home.
She passed a group of old men gathered by the smithy and several servants already gossiping by the well. More than one gave her a quizzical look, and one of the women immediately covered her mouth and turned aside to whisper to another. About her? About Audrey? About their father and his mistreatment of their mother, or had those tales of quarrels, harsh words and bruises been forgotten long ago?
As Celeste quickened her pace, a youth of about sixteen, with sandy hair and a pockmarked face, paused while removing the shutters of a shop. He gave her a shy smile and nodded a hello, reminding her that not everyone in Dunborough was regarding her with curiosity.
A baby cried from within a nearby house and a woman began a lullaby, soft and low and tender. Again she felt that yearning ache, and she pictured herself by a glowing hearth with a dark-haired baby at her breast.
But the image quickly faded, for she had already decided what her fate would be.
Reaching the house, she slipped the key into the sturdy lock, silently blessing Audrey for making sure she had a key, and for telling her to hide it. Otherwise, she would have turned it over to the mother superior, who would surely have taken as long to “find” it as she had to send word to Ireland that Celeste should return to the convent. There was news of her family, the message had said, giving no hint of what Celeste was going to hear when she arrived back from her pilgrimage, which had been more of an exile.
Celeste pushed open the heavy door and stepped into the empty house. As she had told Gerrard, she didn’t fear ghosts, but there were unwelcome memories and, worst of all, no Audrey there to greet her and remind her of the few happy times they’d shared.
She hurried past the main chamber with that horrible stain, trying not to envision what had happened there or imagine a man capable of such jealous rage that he could brutally attack a woman he claimed to love.
In the kitchen at the back of the house, a pot with a ladle still in it hung over the cold ashes in the hearth. A basket of laundry, wrinkled and musty, lay on its side beside the worktable, its contents spilled onto the floor. There were spoons and a wooden bowl in the stone sink. The room looked as if it had been suddenly, abruptly abandoned, as it probably had.
She went to the larder, noting that the door stood slightly open. That was not so surprising if the servants had fled quickly. Inside, a few mice had been at work, tearing open a sack of lentils and another of peas to get at the contents, although the destruction was less than might have been expected. Fortunately, there were plenty of other stores that were untouched, enough to last her for several days.
Her eyes narrowed as she ventured farther into the storeroom. The contents on the shelves were as neat and tidy as Audrey would have wanted, but there was only the slightest coating of dust on the shelves. To be sure, the nearly closed door might explain that, but perhaps somebody else had been there looking for—
Two eyes gleamed in the dark.
She gave a little shriek and jumped back, her heart racing until she realized it was a cat. A big orange cat. The animal studied her solemnly, then jumped down and walked out of the larder, bushy tail swishing, as if this was his house and she an unwelcome intruder.
His presence likely explained the lack of dust, given the size of his tail.
“Have you been keeping the mice at bay, too?” she asked, reaching down to stroke it.
The cat ran under the worktable, then crouched and stared at her again.
“Very well, I’ll leave you alone,” she said, before she went to the servants’ stairs that led up to the second floor, where the bedchambers were.
She peered into the one she had shared with Audrey. The shutters were closed and the room dim. Nevertheless, she could see well enough to tell that the two cots were still there, albeit without any bedding. Otherwise, the space was empty.
Audrey must have taken her parents’ bedchamber for her own.
It, too, was dark, the shutters closed. Celeste could make out the bed, though, and the shape of other furnishings. She felt the softness of a carpet beneath her feet as she went to the window and opened both the cloth and wooden shutters. Cold air streamed into the room, as well as light, so she hurried to close the cloth shutters over the opening before she turned back.
Yes, the bed was the same; the opulent silken hangings and bedding, however, were not. A large and colorful tapestry depicting a colorful garden hung on the wall opposite. A bronze brazier with a full bowl of coal stood near the dressing table.
She spotted a flint and steel on the table and, taking some straw from the mattress beneath the feather bed, kindled a fire. Grateful for the warmth, she also lit what was left of a candle on the dressing table, noting the fine sandalwood combs, the carved box of hairpins, the brush and, most expensive of all, a mirror.
She couldn’t resist looking at her reflection, so she did—and gasped. Why, she looked like Audrey! Although God didn’t care what she looked like, and neither should she, Celeste couldn’t subdue a little thrill to discover that she resembled the sister everyone called a beauty more than she remembered.
Trying to dismiss such vain thoughts, she began to examine the contents of the largest wooden chest. It was full of clothes—costly gowns and fine linen shifts, silken stockings, veils and beaded caps. These things must have cost a great deal of money...
Audrey must have found their father’s treasure! How else would she have been able to afford all these clothes and run the household, too?
How much was left and where was it? There had to be a considerable amount still. Many times their father had bragged to their mother that he was rich as Croesus and if she left him, she would never see a penny of his wealth.
Rummaging again in the chest, Celeste found a carved wooden box and opened it to find a host of jewelry—rings and necklaces, as well as broaches and pins that glittered red and green and blue and white among their golden settings.
Trembling with excitement, she took the box to the window, setting it on the sill. The value of these things would surely be enough to bribe...encourage...the bishop to send the mother superior away from Saint Agatha’s, perhaps even to the far reaches of Scotland.
Celeste drew out a ruby necklace and held it up to the window to examine it closely.
Her stomach knotted.
The one lesson their father had purposefully taught them was how to tell the difference between real gems and fake, “so you won’t be cheated by charlatans, even if you’re only women and all women are mostly fools.”
The rubies were paste and a swift examination proved the other jewels were false, too, as well as the gold that bound them.
These couldn’t be part of the wealth her father had hidden.
Another moment’s reflection gave her some relief. Of course Audrey wouldn’t keep real jewels in so obvious a hiding place, even if she had a fierce Scot to guard the house. Any thief who managed to get in and overpower him would look in the chests. Audrey must have found a better hiding spot.
A loud series of knocks rattled the door at the front of the house.
She went to the window and opened the cloth shutters to look into the yard, trying to see who it might be. Unfortunately, she couldn’t. However, there was no white horse or group of soldiers outside her gates, so it couldn’t be Gerrard, not that there was any reason for him to come here. As for anyone else, she was in no mood to entertain inquisitive visitors.
Perhaps if she stayed upstairs and didn’t answer, whoever it was would go away.
The knocking commenced again, just as loud and persistent. If it was Gerrard, he was stubborn enough to knock for a very long time, especially if he was sure she was there.
Her lips pursed, Celeste adjusted her veil and wimple and went to deal with whoever was pounding so insistently on her door.
Chapter Five (#ulink_0aca08e2-20d6-5aa0-8bb2-a93a85ab89ae)
It was not Gerrard. A thin man wearing a dark brown cloak over a fawn-colored tunic cinched with a tooled leather belt stood on the threshold. There was something about his narrow face, pale blue eyes and long nose that nudged the edge of her memory, but she couldn’t come up with a name.
“Good day, Celeste! Or I suppose I should say, Sister! Welcome back to Dunborough.” A sorrowful frown came to the man’s homely face. “Although naturally we’re all upset at the reason why. Your dear sister will be much missed.”
His name came to her. “Norbert, isn’t it?”
“Indeed, indeed!” he cried with delight. “To think that you remember me!”
He wouldn’t have been so pleased if he knew that she remembered him as a skinny young man several years older than Roland and Gerrard, a nasty fellow Audrey called “Nosy Norbert.” Since he was the first of the villagers to come to call, she suspected that name would still apply.
“How delightful to have you back home in Dunborough!” he exclaimed as he stepped over the threshold, although she hadn’t invited him to enter. He half turned and made a swift, impatient gesture for someone on the other side of the door to enter, too.
The slender, pockmarked youth who’d been taking down the shutters of the shop sidled into the house, his head bowed, his cheeks aflame with a blush. His cloak was of a lesser quality than the older man’s and frayed about the edges. His short tunic exposed lean legs and knobby knees, and his boots looked old enough to be castoffs.
“This is my son, Lewis,” Norbert said. She recalled that Norbert’s father had been a chandler and the shop that the young man had been opening had been full of candles. Clearly Norbert had become a candle maker, too.
“I’m pleased to meet you, Lewis,” she replied, hoping to dispel some of the lad’s obvious embarrassment.
Lewis raised his head and bright blue eyes met hers. His gaze was unexpectedly intense before he looked down again and mumbled, “Good day, Sister.”
Disconcerted by the boldness of that swift glance so at odds with the rest of his demeanor, she turned toward his father.
“Forgive him, Sister,” Norbert said, regarding his son with displeasure. “He’s a shy lad. Takes after his late mother that way.”
That glance had been anything but shy. Nevertheless, Celeste let the remark pass. “It’s a pleasure to meet a modest young man. So many are not these days.”
“That is sadly true,” Norbert agreed. He came farther into the house. “I hope, Sister, that you have not had any impertinence from that young rogue in the castle.”
She certainly wasn’t going to tell Norbert about her dealings with Gerrard. “If you mean the garrison commander,” she replied, “he has been courteous and accommodating.”
Most of the time.
“I’m glad to hear it, Sister, very glad!” Norbert cried. “When I heard you’d spent the night there, I confess I feared...”
He fell awkwardly silent, and she wasn’t about to ease his discomfort.
“If you’ll excuse me, I have business to attend to,” she said. “I thank you for coming, Norbert, and I’m happy to have made your acquaintance, Lewis.”
“Anything I can do to help, you have only to ask,” Norbert replied. “I was a good friend of your sister’s. A very good friend.”
Celeste doubted that, given what Audrey used to call him.
“Ah, Norbert! Trust you to be first to pay a call on a lovely lady!” a voice boomed from the doorway.
A middle-aged man dressed in a fur-lined red cloak and long black tunic strode into the house. He had a belt of silver links around his broad middle, and his hair was cut in the Norman fashion.
It was not a flattering style for a man with such full cheeks, and his eyes above his wide nose were beady and rather too shrewd.
Nevertheless, she smiled in return. “Greetings, sir.”
“You must forgive me for not waiting to be introduced properly,” he declared. “I came as soon as I heard you’d returned to the house.” His gaze darted to Norbert, who did not hide a scowl. “I wanted to express my condolences. I cared very much for your sister.”
“Thank you...?”
“Ewald!” he bellowed. “Ewald of York, and Dunborough, too.”
“He deals in hides and tallow,” Norbert clarified, his tone implying that Ewald’s profession merited disdain.
“Indeed I do! Best hides, best tanning, best tallow, although this fellow won’t agree.”
“Most expensive tallow,” Norbert retorted, “and not worth the cost.”
Ewald’s eyes narrowed until they were mere slits. “Plenty of folk in York disagree, but then, they make better candles.”
Celeste noted Lewis edging his way toward the door and didn’t blame him. “Please, gentlemen, I must ask you both to excuse me. I have much to do.”
“No doubt, no doubt!” Ewald agreed, giving her a sympathetic smile, though his tone was no milder. “I suppose you’ll be wanting to sell the house quickly and get back to the convent?”
“I shall be wanting to sell the house, yes.”
“I’m your man for that!”
Norbert stepped in front of him. “If you wish to sell the house, Sister, I wouldn’t deal with this fellow.”
“Who should she deal with? You?” Ewald demanded as he elbowed Norbert aside.
“Better me than you,” Norbert retorted, shoving him in return.
Ewald tried to ignore him. “About this house, though, Sister, should you wish to sell it, I shall be more than happy to—”
“His offer will be far too low,” Norbert interjected.
His thick fingers balling into fists, Ewald glared at the chandler. “Shut your mouth, you—”
“Gentlemen!” Celeste hurried to interrupt before they came to blows. “I am not yet ready to discuss the sale of this house.”
Ewald loudly cleared his throat and straightened his belt. “Of course. You need to take an inventory of the furniture and other goods first. I understand. Take as long as you like.”
“How magnanimous!” Norbert sneered, fairly trembling with rage. “She has no need to deal with you at all, you...you scoundrel!”
“And I suppose you came here because of your vast sorrow over Audrey D’Orleau’s death? I’ve heard you denouncing her more than once in the Cock’s Crow because she owed you money.”
“I’m not the only one complaining about that. You yourself have sat in the tavern bemoaning how much she owed to you.”
Celeste regarded them both with stunned disbelief before she managed to speak. “What are you saying? Did Audrey owe you money?”
How could that possibly be true, with all the fine and costly garments upstairs?
The men blushed and neither one would meet her gaze.
“Did Audrey owe you money?” she repeated.
“As a matter of fact, Sister,” Ewald began, after darting another angry look at Norbert, “she did. I’m sorry to say there are likely a few other merchants who will be looking to you to pay her debts. But the house alone—”
“If Audrey was in debt, I will repay all that she owed,” Celeste interrupted. “Any debts she left will be honored once I sell the house.” Or find our father’s wealth. “Now if you’ll please excuse me, I do have things to do.”
Mercifully, or perhaps because he understood her tone of voice, Ewald gave a brisk nod and headed out the door. “Good day, Sister.”
Norbert looked as if he was about to refuse. Once Ewald had gone, however, he likewise nodded and with a hasty “Good day” mercifully took his leave.
Flushing as red as a holly berry, Lewis was the last to go. “I’m sorry, Sister,” he said quietly, his expression one of genuine sympathy, “but I’m afraid it’s true about your sister. She left many debts.”
Sorrow and dismay washed over Celeste and she leaned against the wall.
“Can I get you anything?” the youth asked anxiously. “Some wine perhaps?”
“Lewis!” his father shouted from outside.
“No, no, I’m all right,” she assured the kindhearted young man, even though she’d been shaken to the core. “You should go.”
Lewis gave her a last pitying look, then hurried away, softly closing the door behind him.
“Oh, Audrey,” Celeste murmured as she slowly made her way to the kitchen, “what did you do?”
* * *
Some time later, Celeste was in the storeroom looking for any signs of a hiding place when she heard a tentative knock on the kitchen door. She hurried from the room, grabbed the veil and wimple lying on the kitchen table and swiftly put them on. “One moment!”
Going to the door, she tucked in any stray wisps of hair that might have escaped, then pushed down the rolled-up sleeves of her tunic. “Who is it?” she asked, dreading another creditor.
People had been coming to the house ever since Norbert and Ewald had left, making it difficult for her to search, and adding to her worries. Apparently Audrey owed money to the butcher, the shoemaker, the smith for repairs to a kettle and some pots, the alewife, the wine merchant and the miller. Indeed, Celeste was beginning to think there was no tradesman in Dunborough to whom she did not owe money.
“It’s me, Sister. Lizabet, from the hall.”
Celeste let out her breath slowly and opened the door, to find the young woman standing on the threshold. Instead of a cloak, she wore a large and colorful shawl and a kerchief over her dark hair. Her gown was of thick wool and she had an apron over that.
Despite her heavy clothing, her nose was red with cold and she had her hands tucked in her shawl to warm them.
“Please, come inside,” Celeste said at once.
“No, thank you, Sister,” Lizabet replied, her teeth starting to chatter. “I can’t stay. I came to tell you that it’s nearly time for the evening meal.”
Celeste’s brows contracted. If it was a busy time at the castle, why had she...?
“It’s nearly time for the evening meal,” Lizabet repeated more firmly, as if she thought Celeste hadn’t heard her. “You’re a guest of Dunborough.”
With sudden understanding, Celeste replied, “Only for last night. I should have made it clear that I had no intention of imposing on Gerrard’s hospitality for any longer than that.”
The maidservant frowned with concern, or possibly dismay.
Celeste gave the young woman her most pleasant, placid smile. “Please convey my thanks to Gerrard for the invitation, as well as my assurances that I’m quite content to remain in my family’s house while I’m here.”
“If you say so, Sister,” she hesitantly replied.
“I do. Now you’d best be off before you catch a chill.”
Lizabet did as she was told and, thinking Gerrard would likely be as glad of her absence as she was relieved not to see him again, Celeste went back to searching the larder for any sign of money hidden there.
Albeit with a heavy sigh.
* * *
The sun was setting when Gerrard and his men returned from their patrol. There was no reason for them to go so far that frigid day except that Gerrard wasn’t eager to return to Dunborough.
This time, though, it wasn’t his irate, cruel father he was reluctant to see. It was a nun.
He handed the reins of his horse to a stable boy and went to the hall. A few of the hounds trotted toward him, eager for a pat and a good word. The trestle tables had been set up for the evening meal and the servants and soldiers not on duty or seeing to the horses and other tasks were already assembled.
Gerrard removed his cloak and hung it on a peg beside the door, then scanned the hall.
He scanned it again, thinking he must be mistaken.
He was not.
Celeste—Sister Augustine—was not there.
Gerrard sighed with relief, then frowned. It would look bad to the soldiers and servants if she kept to her room a second night, and rumors would start circulating in the castle and probably the village, too, that she refused to have anything to do with him.
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Margaret Moore
Тип: электронная книга
Жанр: Современная зарубежная литература
Язык: на английском языке
Издательство: HarperCollins
Дата публикации: 16.04.2024
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О книге: She′s sworn to resist temptation!Journeying to Dunborough to learn the truth about her sister’s murder, novice Celeste D’Orleau dons a nun’s habit for safety. But seeing her childhood hero, Gerrard of Dunborough, makes her dream of pleasures that will be forbidden once she takes her final vows.Gerrard wrestles with his desire for the innocent beauty. After striving to redeem his wicked reputation he won’t seduce a nun. Yet as Celeste’s mission draws them closer together, it soon becomes clear their passion is stronger than any vow!