A Flame Run Wild (7 page)

Alexandre's jaw tightened as he tore his gaze from her, searched for some distraction to block his mind from his body's urgent demand. His attention was caught by her small pile of clothing. "A fair long ride you had today," he commented tersely. "As you do no know the land, I had thought of sending out searchers."

Although Liliane yearned to wrap herself in the towels nearby, she managed to remain still and shrug casually. "There was no need. I am accustomed to finding my way in unfamiliar terrain."

Alexandre fidgeted, still not looking at her. "Apparently. I should not have thought the Andalusian Moors so forgiving of ladies wandering unattended. Do the women there not go in veils?" Somewhat perturbed that she had made no effort to cover herself, he gave her body a thorough perusal, a mocking glint in his eyes,

"In veils," she replied evenly, "and often accompanied by eunuchs."

Alexandre flushed at her inference. "You will find few eunuchs in King Philip's France, milady," he shot back. "While my fief is fairly safe, you would be wise not to go without escort." Glancing at her piled clothes he added, "Also, I do not know your habit in Spain, but in France, ladies of birth do not flaunt their charms in male dress."

Liliane sidestepped the challenge. "So you think me charming, milord? I confess I had begun to wonder." With a deliberately arch glance, she rose from the bath and held out her hand. "As my ladies are unavailable, would you mind giving me my robe? The silk one, over the chair."

He was sorely tempted to catch her hand, throw her over his shoulder, haul her to bed and tame her impudence. Was she trying to seduce him, to bait him into bed and whatever snares she could devise? "You do well enough, Madame, but do not take on airs." He tossed her the robe. "I may have married you, but I have no reason at all to trust you, only to end some night with your poignard in my gullet."

Liliane slowly stepped, into the gold-embroidered violet robe and wound it securely about her. "Blunt words, sir. Do you propose to evade my wicked schemes by celibacy till death do us part? Surely, a more congenial arrangement might be devised."

"Celibacy?" His eyes full of her, Alexandre laughed without mirth. "I am not the one with a foul reputation,
Dona
. I shall not suffer unduly for company."

She swept the trailing robe into her hand. "And what do you propose I do?" Her lashes flicked up teasingly. "For entertainment, that is?"

Alexandre, angry at her attempt to play the wanton, snapped, "Why not try being a lady for a change?"

Liliane's temper kindled and her eyes flashed with anger. "You have no cause to assume me unchaste!"

His eyes narrowed. "Have I not? Even your uncle and cousin do not know where you spent your wedding eve. Would you care to enlighten us all?"

Liliane paled. Had Alexandre somehow talked to Jean? How could he know? Unless . . .

Alexandre saw by her distraught expression that he was pushing too far. He had to retreat unless he wanted her to guess the truth. "Do not worry," he said slowly. "Your secret, whatever it is, is safe ... for the time being. But I warn you, play me false and you will regret it. That you are my wife matters naught; I will brook no traitors."

"Perhaps you see traitors where none exist," Liliane whispered, turning away. Alexandre knew that Jacques had given her orders to spy, but he could not know that she had no intention of serving Jacques's ends any more than she must. Achieving justice for Diego's murder was proving much more of a burden than she had anticipated.

Aware that he had hurt Liliane, Alexandre wanted to comfort her but he knew that she must be warned not to meddle in his affairs on behalf of her family. He did not want to be forced to punish some treacherous act, and the idea of sending her back to her relatives was repugnant. If only he could tell her how glad he was that, devious or not, she was his bride.

He came up behind her, his lips close to her ear. "Prove me wrong, Liliane, and I will make you happy. You will want for nothing that is in my power to give."

Liliane wanted to turn to him, for he sounded so much like Jean that her heart was torn. "But how long will you trust me, Alexandre, when any passing breeze might rouse your suspicions? I foresee nothing but your disillusionment."

He touched her hair. "Do you suggest I trust you?"

"I suggest you do not judge when I have done you no ill."

No ill, he thought. When you have brought me nothing but confusion and a troubled heart? And yet. . . and yet... I had not thought to know love in my life. So much time has passed, so many weary roads have I traveled in fighting other men's battles. And when I so desperately needed peace, I was forced into this marriage, one that promised only emptiness with a stranger. Then you come, my bride and temptress, my eternal torment. If this is love, my hope of peace is forever gone. He stroked her hair. Stay. Stay and take whatever peace I have left. Make my days restless with longing, turn my ambitions to dust; only kiss me as you did one rain-swept night when the fire and the moon were spent, and ancient lovers danced round us. . . .

Liliane thought that Alexandre was about to make love to her. She hoped for it and at the same time dreaded it. Ah, the cruelty of being doomed to live with a man in the haunting image of her lover. But Jean's spirit was gone, gone forever like a far-off hawk. Liliane became breathlessly still when Alexandre touched her shoulder. When he turned her around to face him, she offered no resistance.

Alexandre saw the waiting in her eyes. She was soft in his arms, but the waiting was terrible. If he kissed her now, the passion within her would be lost forever. Although she did not hate him, she was ready to endure him and this knowledge cut him to the core.

Tell her!
Par Dieu
, tell her the truth! But he could not. For the sake of generations of his family and the defense of their demesne, he could not. If she knew he was her Jean, she would know her very nearness made him go weak in the knees. He must first test her loyalty and prove her useless to the Signes— they must give up any idea of using Liliane to undermine the de Brueils. If he could also persuade her to like the part of him that was Alexandre, he might reveal himself entirely. Not bedding her gave him a valuable way to manage her. If he did not consummate their marriage she knew he could always get rid of her if she gave him too much trouble. She did not have to know just how much trouble it would cause him not to pull her into his arms—and into his bed. "Shall we go down to dinner?" he murmured. Liliane looked startled, then dismayed. Not for want of his attentions, he warranted.

"Milord. If you will give me a moment to dress?"

The robe dropped to the floor and his resolution almost went with it. She could not continue to bait him if he was to keep his hands off her tonight and the nights to come. His mind in a whirl, Alexandre adopted a tone of prudery. "Madame, if you know not modesty, pray learn its virtue or I will send you for instructions to the Sisters of Avignon!" Nearly driven to desperation, he swiftly left the room.

With a low, heartfelt cry of frustration, Liliane kicked the bath bucket over.

Chapter 4

~

The Intractable Lady

Castle de Brueil

Next day

L
iliane was up at cockcrow to continue her inspection of the demesne and to explore the beach. To her chagrin, when she went to the stable for her stallion, two castellans mounted to accompany her. An attempt to dismiss them would avail her little; they took their orders from Alexandre. By noon, she had completed her tour but refused to ruin her first enjoyment of the beach by towing a pair of burly bodyguards with her. Demurely pleading a call of nature, she directed her stallion into the small woodland bordering the village near the castle. In minutes, she emerged from the other side of the wood and galloped down to the shore.

The castellans waited for some time before sheepishly reporting to Alexandre. They found him troweling mortar and resetting stones in an old byre, and their reception was blistering. Leaving them to finish the byre with its muck and stench, Alexandre rode off to find his errant lady.

When Liliane looked up to see Alexandre pounding down the beach on his big sorrel, she knew she could outrun him on the black; but to do so would only be foolish. She wanted no one with her now, wanted to hear no human voice. For this brief moment, she had harkened only to the singing voice of the turquoise sea, the same sea that touched Malaga, her home with Diego. Across the shining black pebbles, Alexandre came surely and swiftly. The shore line was irregular, not so rocky as Malaga's, but with steep cliffs rising above calm inlets, protecting the smooth beaches from the fierce storms. This gold and blue shoreline was giving her a peace that she was not eager to have disturbed.

Alexandre reined up with a clatter of pebbles. "Why did you leave your escort?" he demanded curtly. He was flushed and perspiring, more so than the early spring warmth warranted.

"I wanted privacy, milord," Liliane replied, waving a hand at the foaming surf and low wind-shirred white clouds. "Your castellans are polite but not poetic."

"My castellans are not obliged to be poetic but to be guarding you."

"For what purpose, milord?" she countered. "To keep me safe . . . or you?"

He ignored her implication. "Hereafter, milady, you will go" nowhere alone. The castellans have been punished, so I warrant you they will be less easy to lose next time." Alexandre leaned over his saddle pommel, "And if there is a next time, you will be confined to the castle."

Liliane's crimson cheeks matched his. "Do you intend to treat me as a prisoner, sir?"

"I will be obeyed, lady. How you are treated is entirely up to you." His eyes took in her boy's attire with a scathing glance. "I told you I would not have my wife appear before my people in unseemly dress. Wear that garb again and I will burn it!" With that, he sharply motioned her to ride before him back to the castle.

The hard glint in his eyes warned her not to try his patience now. She wondered if he was ill. He sat gingerly in the saddle as if it hurt him. In no mood to be sympathetic, Liliane pelted past him.

Alexandre left her in the castle courtyard and rode out again to resume his unfinished task. She wondered briefly where he was going; he did not look well enough to go very far. No doubt he was just angry, for his cold seemed to have passed. She had not heard him sneezing and coughing since their wedding day.

Once he was gone, her anger began to subside. After all, she grudgingly conceded, her boyish attire and lack of chaperonage was unconventional, and her new husband appeared to be an exceedingly conventional man. She would gain little by flying flamboyantly in the face of his social prejudices. Certainly his retinue was equally conservative, and she wanted their respect, as well. Until everyone grew accustomed to her, she must play the decorous lady. And so, to keep peace with Alexandre and his retainers, Liliane donned a smoothly draping blue bliaud that laced at the sides over a white chainse.

Properly clothed, she set out to inspect the castle. As she descended the winding staircase, she ran her fingers along the inside wall. Upon first entering the castle, she had been determined to discover a hidden escape route. Every old castle had secret tunnels and exits in the event of a siege. She had soon noticed the stair's curve did not encompass the entire width of the tower. Another private staircase might well wind within the first. When she had been alone in the turret chamber, she had searched for a door to the secret stairs, bat so far she had found none.

Upon reaching the courtyard, Liliane headed for the less frequented part of the castle. The rooms she had seen on her arrival were virtually the only ones intact; most of the ones on the south side at the rear of the castle were damaged. There, countless sieges and wars had left pocked walls and cascading nibble where a band of masons clambered on new scaffolding. Alexandre had wasted no time in repairing his defenses. Two of the workers noticed her and waved furtively to their foreman. By the time his head swiftly turned, she had disappeared from his view, but she knew he would inform Alexandre that she had been watching their work. He would undoubtedly think she was spying.

Putting aside that chilling thought, Liliane went to the kitchens; they were huge, the fireplaces so sooty and poorly drafted that the food cooked unevenly. The cooks were willing and knowledgeable, but they were hampered by their inefficient facilities. While they greeted her politely, they clearly did not welcome her presence. The sturdy maids also performed their work with reasonable diligence but steadfastly avoided her. All the servants eyed her now with open suspicion, and why not, Liliane thought, when they were expected to follow their master's lead? At dinner the previous night, Alexandre had scarcely said a word to her.

That night he did not even appear at dinner. A wave of anxiety washed over Liliane. No one else appeared to be disturbed; they seemed to take his erratic habits for granted. Had he gone wandering like his brother Jean? As the hour grew late and the fire's glow crept low upon the castle walls where she sat alone in the hall, Liliane doubted if Alexandre meant to return that night. If he did, he would not come to her chamber. The castellans were now abed and he would not hear of her "spying" until the morning.

Lost in her thoughts, she tapped her fingers on her chair arm. The night was hers, if she cared to take it. If she were to go out alone, she must do so at night. She could not pass through the guarded gate, but there were places in the battle-scarred wall where a clever climber might wriggle through. Aye, best try her lack tonight, for she knew Alexandre's mind now. The castellan guards were just the beginning; he would make sure she saw no one alone, sent no messages to Jacques. She must see if she could get out of the castle and saddle her horse, if only for a brief ride. Tonight, her sole desire was to escape through the castle walls and return without discovery. In the future, she would have to repeat tonight's performance.

Liliane went up to the turret chamber and, holding her candle high, minutely examined the stones of the inner tower wall. After nearly an hour, she finally found a stone near the floor that was unlike the rest. By candlelight, its shadowed lower edge was set a little higher into the mortar than the other stones. She pressed both ends individually, but nothing happened. She gave the stone a hard blow with her hand on the right side, then the left. With a faint grind from behind its stone face, the wall developed an irregular crack from floor to ceiling. She hit the stone again and the crack groaned open until it could accommodate a body only a little wider than her own. From the look of the well-oiled leverage workings, the stairs had been recently used.

After she changed to dark hose and a short, hooded cotehardi, Liliane took a long silken cord from her wardrobe. Before she had left Spain with Jacques and Louis, she had made her preparations. At her shoulder, an iron mantle pin was mounted with a decorative brass stud; about her waist, a heavy braided silken cord was many times wrapped with knots every span or so.

After glancing, out the window to make sure the courtyard was empty and the guards preoccupied on the ramparts, Liliane took the candle and stole down the secret staircase. The stairs were only an inch or two wider than her body and ended abruptly against a stone wall perhaps seventy-five feet down. Assuming that the stairs continued beneath the castle wall and led to some point outside, Liliane looked for another opening, but without success; Finally, giving up and exploring the outer wall, she needed only a few minutes to find, the sister mechanism that would open the door to the courtyard. Dousing the candle, she shivered slightly in the murky darkness that filled the stairwell. Hastily, she struck the stone and the door ground open. The sweet, pungent scent of newly sprouting vegetables and flowers drifted into the stairwell from the courtyard garden. She slipped outside the door, then fumbled to close it before the guards took notice of her. She ran carefully over the stepping stones in the garden, guarding against leaving telltale footprints in the moist earth.

Beyond the garden lay the rear wall. Liliane climbed a rubble pile to the lowest of the gaps that would accommodate her body. On the other side, the wall dropped away some fifteen feet to the craggy base of the castle. She unfastened her iron pin and angled it between two solid stones, thrusting it inward, and testing it with a hard jerk. The pin slipped and, on the second jerk, worked loose. Liliane bit her lip nervously. If the pin gave while she was dangling from the wall, her fall would be sure to break bones. She found a new spot, angled the pin until it resembled a fishhook, drove it in and jerked it. The pin held.

Liliane smiled in the darkness. The Moors had many tricks, and she had learned several of them well. The guard watching the wall had his back turned, as he was looking for someone trying to enter the castle, not leave it. In moments, Liliane had slid down the wall. The moat was easy enough to cross, although it was smelly and unpleasantly chilly. Dripping, Liliane scaled the rocks on the moat's far side and crept toward the smithy on the edge of the small market beyond the castle gate. When Alexandre had brought her back that afternoon, she had noticed several destriers and peasant plow horses outside the smithy: too many for the smith to reshoe in an afternoon. She checked the string of horses. The destriers had been shod and were now stabled at the castle. The remaining unshod plow horses were plodders except for one likely prospect with an unfinished shoe.

Liliane was good with horses. After wrapping woolen rags on its hooves, she had the mare untethered and cantering into the darkness without the drawbridge guards noticing more than a slight shuffling among the string. Soon Liliane was beyond the castle, its black bulk rising against the moon. She and Jacques had designated a place to leave messages near the Signe border, but she had no need to go there tonight. Jacques would not expect her news for at least a month. As Liliane rode toward the sea, she felt giddy with glee at her escape.

Liliane would have been far less self-satisfied had she known that she had been watched from the moment she crossed the courtyard. As every ship had a rat, so did every castle have a malcontent. Mentally composing his report of the castle's activities, he had been sitting idly in his window watching the guards' movements on the wall. A stealthy figure under the garden trees had drawn his notice. He did not recognize the figure in the shadows, but once it ventured into the open courtyard, he readily guessed from its undisguised walk that the person was a female despite the male costume. Also, from what he had been privately told of her purpose at Castle de Brueil, he was reasonably sure that the woman was Liliane. With an intrigued smile, he watched her wriggle through the hole in the castle wall and anticipated the pleasure her adventure would give his master.