By Design (19 page)

But that old passion met competition from the numbing disillusionment that he had worn for two years. And from the compelling desire to discover what might be with Joan. The quelling effect of that latter emotion proved surprisingly strong. For the first time, he had something to lose.

“I will not betray what you have told me, and I will keep the door a secret. Beyond that, I cannot commit to this.”

Voices disturbed the garden's quiet and drew their at tention. Moira and Joan had come out from the house, and together they admired the flowers while they chatted.

“How can you risk her and the boys' future?” Rhys asked.

“She does not know, but if she did she would have it no other way.”

He meant that it was the price of wedding the son of Barrowburgh. But she did know, and Addis knew that she did, but they pretended otherwise. She had made it easy for Addis to get Rhys alone because she wanted men she could trust beside her husband.

Joan bent to smell a late rose. Moira said something that made them both laugh.

“How can you take the chance of losing it all?”

Addis glanced over in a way that suggested too much had been revealed by the question. “I do not intend to lose anything. But if I do, I can work the fields with my own hands and be a happy man if my wife and sons are beside me.”

“And if you lose your life? What then?”

Moira noticed them, and called that the feast would soon be served. They began walking toward her.

“That is an eternal danger for a knight. I will confess that I have always slept better knowing that should the worst happen, there is a mason who I know will never re fuse my family sanctuary.”

Something more than a normal friendship existed between Moira and Rhys. Joan could sense it in the warmth they showed each other and in the freedom with which they spoke. She wondered if Rhys had once loved this serf-born woman. Maybe he still did. She couldn't blame him. Moira was lovely. Comforting and giving and full of heart. She would have been good for Rhys. He would have been happy with her.

That was what her mind said, but her heart was not so kind. It resented the ease they showed with each other. It twisted when they kissed on greeting, and kept twinging all through the feast.

She really didn't care, of course. It was none of her con cern if he pined like a fool over a lord's wife. But when she found herself sitting with Moira as the feast wound down, curiosity got the better of her.

“You seem to have known Rhys a long time.” “Not so long, but he is one of my dearest friends.” “You met him while you lived in London?” “Soon after I first came here. I served Addis then. I was his bondwoman.” She did not pretend that it was something to be forgotten.

“So you were neighbors in the ward then? You met Rhys in the marketplace?” Joan hoped that she would not learn that it had been similar to her own first encounter with him. Not that it really mattered or would have any significance.

“Not in the market, and not as neighbors. He came to the house one night. He brought some men. It was right before the rebellion, and they had come to ask Addis to join with them.”

Joan just stared at the clear blue eyes of the woman who cradled an infant in her arms. Surely she had heard wrong.

“These men came to ask Addis to join against the King? To foreswear his oath of fealty?”

“Addis foreswore nothing. His home had been taken while he was on crusade. He had made no oath to the last king.”

It was not the information about Addis that mattered. “But Rhys brought them, you said. He was with them.”

“Of course he was with them. All of London was with them. The whole realm was with them.”

Not the whole realm. Not her father. “If Rhys brought men to Addis, he must have been closely involved.”

“He was one of a handful of London citizens who helped more, and risked more, than most.”

“How much?” It came out too sharply.

Moira eyed her curiously. “Perhaps you should ask him to tell you about it.”

“It is not secret, is it? How much was he involved? How much did he risk?”

“He risked everything, as Addis did, and all who stood tall to stop what was happening. If they had failed, it would have been treason and they all would have died.”

Success or not, it still had been treason. A treason that had put Roger Mortimer in power, and sent Guy Leighton to the Welsh marches.

Resentments and anger instantly deluged her. For a moment she could not even see.

“I fear that I have distressed you,” Moira said gently. “I thought that you knew. Everyone in London does. Rhys was very valuable to the cause, and when the Queen
landed he rode to meet her, as bravely as any knight. He was one of those present when the King abdicated in favor of his son, along with Addis and myself and members of every degree, from bishops to serfs.”

Joan almost could not absorb it. She had been so stupid. So blind. No wonder he worked at the palace, and had been elevated to master builder at such a young age. No wonder Mortimer sent a summons for him, and met with him. It had not been skill with stone that had brought him into that circle.

He had helped depose a king, and had been gifted with status and prestige for his role. He had raised Mortimer up, and had been rewarded for his help.

He had chosen the winning side, and had benefited.

And men who had chosen the side of honor had been destroyed.

Bits and pieces of horrible memories flashed through her head. Arrows of pain stabbed her heart with each one.

She had known from the start, but had ignored the signs and her instincts to be wary. John's suspicions were right. Rhys had served Isabella and Mortimer once, and would again. He would not want his patrons to fall, and would warn them if he heard of plans to bring them down.

She lifted her dazed gaze from the ground. Moira was watching with concern. And too much interest.

She forced composure on herself and made her expression go bland. Addis de Valence had also supported the re bellion, and Roger Mortimer. She suddenly felt very vulnerable in this house.

“It was bigger than one man, Joan.” Moira said it as though many moments had not passed. “As to what hap pened after the abdication, these things take their course and can not always be directed. Least of all by a mason.”

That did not soothe her. She experienced fear and agi tation such as she had not in many months. The old
vulnerability and caution possessed her, and Moira's words did not assuage them at all. No words could.

Rhys walked by, talking to a merchant. She could not believe that she had been so stupid, and been so easily blinded by a handsome face. He was worse than she had thought. No mere lackey, he. While her life was being torn to shreds, his hands had been among those grasping the edges of the fabric.

It overwhelmed her. It filled her head until she felt half crazed.

She could not sit here any longer. She could not chat about neighbors and children and pretend that nothing had changed.

She rose. “I must take my leave now. Please tell Rhys that I feel unwell, and have returned to the house.”

“Let me send for him, so that he can take you back.”

“Nay, do not.” It came out harshly, like a command. She took a deep breath to calm herself. “Please do not. I would rather be alone, so I can rest.”

Moira let her go. Rhys did not see her departure, and did not follow.

C
HAPTER
13

“I
HAVE DECIDED
to judge the chamber floors after all. I will come and look at them for you.”

Joan said it while Rhys broke his fast two mornings after the feast. It was the first conversation that she had initiated in all that time. They were not the words he had been waiting to hear.

Accusations. Insults. That was what had silently screamed off her during her silence. He knew why. Moira had told him that Joan had learned about his role in the rebellion.

He knew how she felt about Mortimer, and the power that the rebellion had handed him. She had made her opinions about that very plain that first day in the bath.

Still, her reaction had been extreme. He had spent the last two days thinking about that, putting together bits and pieces. A word, a look, a sigh.

A hatred, a quest, a denial.

It would not be the way that you think
.

“I could come today,” she said as she fussed around the
kitchen, finding chores to do so she could avoid seeing him.

The quick offer surprised him. Her retreat these last days had been complete. It wounded him more than he liked to admit. He did not like the notion of living with her like this, as two strangers. He did not want only the service he had bought, even if that was all she had ever claimed to offer.

And so, although he had sworn to himself ten times over that he would not invite her anger and accusations, he did so anyway.

“Moira told me that she told you how she and I met.”

A sharp look, one that could slice steel. “Aye, she told me. How you aided that butcher. Do you still?”

He told himself that he read too much into her piercing gaze. Still, she waited as if she wanted to know.

He looked right back, and hoped she believed him since it seemed to matter. “Nay, I do not.”

Something passed in her eyes. A slight softening. A moment of wavering. Then blankness.

A word. A look. A pause.

A quest and a dream.

“Why do you have this hatred of Mortimer, Joan?”

“I do not approve of what he is doing. I am not alone.”

“Your emotions far exceed the usual discontent. Moira said that you grew very distressed at the feast, and you have treated me like an enemy since.”

She instantly looked very wary.

“How did your family die? You never said.”

He should probably leave her to her memories, but having begun to wonder, he now discovered that he needed to know. “Do you blame him for it? After the rebellion he knew no restraint on the marches. Did his army attack your town?”

“Aye,” she said bitterly. “I blame him for it.”

And you
. It was there in her tone and the glare she shot him.

“Your brother knows horses, and says that your father owned one. You lost more than your family, didn't you?”

“Aye, more than my family.”

“What happened?”

“I do not speak of it.”

“Nay, you do not, but I ask you to now.”

Her eyes glinted fiercely. Her mouth hardened, as though she clenched her teeth. “His army came, to take by force the estate of a lord who had stayed loyal to the last king. My father joined the fight. He died when the castle fell. So did every man who defended the keep. The new lord was a vile man, one of Mortimer's favorites. He took everything belonging to anyone who stood against him, all in the name of the crown. So Mark and I left that place and came here.”

She got through it only by speaking quickly. Glinting anger flashed behind her blinking lids.

“Your fall was farther than I guessed. I assumed you were a townswoman, a craftsman's daughter. But your father was landed. He was not a poor freeholder either, was he? A yeoman farmer, from your tale. No wonder your brother knows horses, and thought it below him to stuff pallets.”

“Do not pity us. I can not bear that from anyone, least of all a man who was in part responsible, but pretends he was not. A man who hides what he really is.”

So there it was.

“I did not lie to you.”

“You did. You let me think that your craft alone had brought you your position, but it was something else.”

“In part it was something else. I like to think that my skill with stone helped.”

“You deceived me.”

“Nay. The mere mention of Mortimer distressed you enough to avoid talk of it, and what had happened years ago had no meaning between us.”

“How could you support such as him? How could you put that man in a position to do what he has done?”

“It was not about him. We supported the Queen and her son, and we fought to rid the realm of a king who was the pawn of men without honor or scruples. Perhaps in your father's home you did not see how it was back then.”

“Are you saying that I was blinded by comfort?”

“I am saying that you were young, and protected, and isolated from the injustice.”

“That certainly changed, didn't it?”

“Joan, what happened to you and your family pains me. But there was no way to know that would happen and the last king had to fall. I will not apologize for helping to bring down a monarch who was not fit for the throne.”

“How comfortable you must be in your lofty principles. How reassuring to know that you did the right thing as you saw it. How easy to play the dangerous game when you made sure that you had nothing to lose except your life.”

“That is hardly a small thing.”

“I have learned that sacrificing one's self is much simpler than sacrificing those you love. You formed no family and put down no roots, so that you never had to face that dreadful choice. You could ignore the innocents who might be trampled, because none of those innocents belonged to you. Well, I do not remember those times as noble men doing great deeds in the name of high ideals. I see only a castle yard filled with blood, and brave men butchered as they stood in surrender, and a conqueror with eyes like those of a devil who has escaped hell.”