By Design (30 page)

A noise penetrated their sad bliss. Footsteps padded through the garden. She clung desperately, blocking out the intrusion, not wanting to hear the sounds that signaled the end.

He broke the kiss, but held her tightly. A figure walked past them, and stopped near the statue.

Joan reluctantly turned her head. Mark gazed not at their embrace, but at the propped stone saint. He stood like a soldier, legs parted and braced, back and shoulders squared, his hands clasped behind him.

“I looked at it this morning,” he said, nodding to the statue. “You completed the face.”

“Aye.”

“She is very beautiful, and you handled her with great skill and affection. But it is over and done now, isn't it. It is time for her to leave this garden. You are finished with her.”

Rhys brushed Joan's hair with his lips, and loosened his
embrace. “Take the horse,” he whispered. “Take whatever you need.”

Her heart screamed a protest as he rose, separating from her.

He walked away, heading to the house, taking parts of her with him, making tears that would never heal.

Aye, it was over and done now. He was finished with her.

She tried to calm her emotions, and see past the pain. Mark waited, giving her a little time.

She had to collect herself. She had to explain to her brother just how over and done it was. They needed to be off, and find some way to get through the city gate tonight.

He shifted slightly. His right hand emerged from behind his back. A long, dark line appeared by his side.

He held his sword.

Her heart stopped, then began again with a rapid, desperate rhythm.

“He is here. In the city,” he said, flatly.

No wonder he had spoken with such finality to Rhys. “I know. How did you find out?”

“The man whom I pay to train me is the father of one of Mortimer's household guards. He gossips when he is in his cups. I make sure that happens often.”

“What else did he tell you?”

“That Guy's arrival was unexpected. He was not called. I think that he came looking for us.”

“Perhaps not, but we can not risk it. I also learned he was here. I have been waiting for you, so that we can leave tonight.”

“Nay.” The word came out too calmly.

She realized what he was thinking. What he planned to
do. She shot to her feet. “You can not. It will be just what he wants.”

“We do not run like criminals anymore. I do not.”

“You are a boy.”

“Man enough to know I have only one choice in this.”

She grabbed his arm. “He knows we are here. He saw me. Do you understand how dangerous this is? He will be looking, and waiting. You will not be able to take him by surprise.”

“I never intended to. I am not some coward who cuts a man down from behind.”

Saints
. “It will be like Piers. Do you forget so easily? Is your pride making you blind? You are no match for him. He will kill you.”

“Then I will die with honor, where the whole world sees, and before I do I will let everyone know what he is, and what he did. And you will survive and tell the rest.” He reached out and smoothed his hand over her hair. “All of the rest. What happened to Father and the others might be excused by war, but not what happened to you.”

Dear God, he knew. He had always known. And now he would go to his death rather than live with it unavenged.

“Do not do this for me. I am alive, at least, and so are you. I do not want your rash bravery on my behalf.”

“Women never do. That is why men do not ask their permission, and I do not ask yours now. I only tell you because I promised to.”

“You will die. Are you still so callow a youth that you do not comprehend that? And public challenge or not, it will change nothing.
Nothing
.”

“It will change everything. Despite my youth, he will not be able to resist meeting me, and all who see him do so will know him for the murderer he is.”

“At best you will wound his honor. Do you think a man like that cares about such things?”

“What matters is that
I
care about such things.”

He was not listening. His pride had made him deaf. She gripped his arm tighter, until her fingers clawed. “I beg you, brother, do not do this. Do not leave me alone.”

“You will not be alone. When it has all come out, the King's council will see to your safety. They will find you a strong husband, who will protect you and our lands until you have a son.”

Mark did not understand. Full of youth's rash heroism, he did not realize it would not be that way at all. He had been only a boy when it happened, and he had not perceived how every move Guy had made had been directed by another man. A man who would gladly bury her brother and her and blithely ignore the questions Mark's bold act raised.

It was her fault. She had kept his pride alive, breathing on its embers whenever poverty threatened to extinguish it. She had fed his anger with tales of Guy's atrocities. She had never led him beyond that, to take into account the distant hand that had guided the whole thing.

And now it was too late. He had worked himself up all day, and made his hard decision. The path of valor shone in front of him, and he would not listen to words that insisted it would all be futile.

She could understand that. For three years she had not seen it, either. In her hatred for Guy, she had ignored the totality of it. She had dreamt of destroying the smaller evil, when a bigger one was the source of its power.

“Wait one day. Give me one day, I beg you. I will make this right.”

“You can not accomplish in one day what three years could not make happen.”

“I can. I know how.”

“If you think to buy a champion, put the idea out of your head. You do not have the coin, and I will not permit the alternative.”

“Rhys has the coin.”

“He does not. He used it to purchase the tile yard. So his pretty leman could practice her craft, and be bound to him in a partnership. Twenty pounds it cost him, I heard. I doubt your mason had much more than that hidden under the floorboards.”

The news stunned her. She had not thought about the cost of the yard, and the potential loss of the investment when she left. It became one more misery to add to her distress.

“I still ask for one day. I know another way to settle this. If I am wrong, if I fail, one day can not matter. In fact, it will make it easier. You will not have to go searching for Guy, because he will be waiting for you. Tomorrow next, at the Temple. He thinks that we will come at tierce.”

Mark's head snapped around in shock. “You spoke with him?”

“Aye.”

“You promised this to him?”

“To buy some time, so we could leave.”

“What other promises did you make?” He sounded furious.

“What he wanted to hear. What he needed to believe, so he would not look for you at once.”

He calmed a little, and considered the options. “The Temple at tierce. It is busy there at that time. If we meet thus, many will see it.” His boyish pride liked that, as if it would make a difference.

“If I fail and you meet him, I will make sure that the whole city of London sees it.”

He wavered. “It would be better than going to him at the palace, I suppose.”

“Much better.”

He toed at the tip of his sword. It was a childish gesture, revealing the boy who still lived inside the man. Joan
wanted to gather that child in her arms, and scold him and protect him and forbid this dangerous game.

“One day only?”

“One day. I will know by tomorrow evening if I have been successful.”

He shrugged. “I suppose that after three years, it can wait one day.”

Relief oozed through her. Relief and numbing dread. She had made a promise, and now could avert his death only by finding a solution very quickly.

There was only one that would work.

No champion. No coin. No time. That left only her, on her own. In coming to look for them, Guy had forced her hand in ways she had never anticipated.

No more running. No more dreaming. The past pressed along her back, and her brother's sword blocked the future. In the next day it would all be over. Truly finished and done with.

She released her hold on Mark's arm, and smoothed her palm up to his shoulder. “I want you to go to David's house tonight. I want you to wait there until I come and get you tomorrow.”

“Why? Does Guy know where you live? Do you worry that he will come to this house? If so, I will not leave you to face him alone.”

“He does not know. But I will sleep better if you are safe and hidden, just in case. It is foolish of me, but we women are like that.”

“Oh, aye, if you are going to worry all night, I will go.”

“You should probably leave the sword here.”

“I suppose that I should.” He paced down the garden. He slipped the weapon behind the plants along the wall, then aimed for the portal.

She ran and stopped him. She gazed at him in the darkness, and wished that she could see his face clearly. She ran
a caress over his strong shoulders and down his arms, and her memory felt the frame of a boy and a youth even though her hands traveled along the body of a man.

A surge of nostalgia washed her, and a new expectation of loss pierced her heart. She took his hands in hers, and lifted them to her face. He shifted, uncomfortable with the intimacy in the way of boys his age.

She stretched toward him, and kissed his cheek. “You have been my world, Mark, and my life, for three years. One day more, and I will finally make it right. You will have it all back.”

He stilled suddenly. “As will you. We will reclaim our home as we left it, hand in hand.”

She was grateful that he could not see her face, and the tears brimming in her eyes. “Aye, hand in hand. Go to David now.”

He hesitated, as if he sensed her hidden sorrow. As if he knew. He reached for her impulsively, and clutched her in an awkward embrace against his chest.

He released her, and stepped to the portal. “I will wait for you. Only until vespers, though. I will return here then if you have not come or sent me word.”

He meant that he would return for the sword. His heart suspected that he would not find her here if he had to wait that long.

She stepped into the alley, and watched as he was swallowed by the night. She waited long after he had turned off the path, imagining that she could still see him. Then she closed the portal, and went to sit among the flowers and face the only choice left.

We will reclaim our home as we left it, hand in hand
.

That was how it was supposed to be. That was the dream, and the plan.

But it would not happen that way now. If she did what she had to do, she would not live to see that day.

C
HAPTER
21

J
OAN SAT AMIDST
the flowers, unnaturally alert to their scents. She drifted her hands through them, reveling in the textures of their fibrous stalks and soft petals. The white ones shone like tiny ghosts in the night, reflecting the vague light cast by the moon.

Her senses absorbed it all, moment by moment. Reality existed in a new way. Sharper. Immediate. It was as if God had slowed time for her tonight, and heightened her awareness, so that she might live as thoroughly as possible.

Strength battled with fear in her heart, but it was the fear that fed the strength. Fear for Mark, and for Rhys. If her brother did what he planned, someone from the ward would recognize the bold youth, and go to Guy or Mortimer later to tell of the house where the son of Marcus de Brecon had been living.

She had no choice, and that was a good thing. Given one, she would have run and run. She would have spent her life running, and never lived in the present again.

Right now, in this garden, the present existed as it never
had before. Was it always like that at the end? Did a body's senses only completely come alive right before they perished? She plunged her hands through the flowers to the soil, and relished the sensation of cool darkness around her fingers.

There was no choice, but she did not welcome what she faced. She was not that strong. Swells of panic rose again and again, and only the fear for Mark and Rhys kept them from overwhelming her. She prayed that fear would not desert her tomorrow, or be drowned by the soul-chilling dread for herself that lapped at her resolve.

She was glad that she had not seen the solution earlier. Her childish ideas had bought her three years. Even their poverty seemed beautiful now, because it had led her to this house, and the man who owned it. The foolish dream had kept her alive long enough to know him.

Her spirit cringed from thoughts of tomorrow. She did not doubt that she would succeed. She would make sure that she did. But she did not lie to herself. There would be no escape after she stilled the hand that had moved the pieces on the board of her life.

The earth and breeze and sky knew that. They bound her to them in this precise present. They let her see and feel them as she never had before. The acute awareness of her senses and soul both soothed her and pained her.