By Possession (43 page)

“You have heard?” she asked.

He frowned and nodded. “He says he is sure.”

“Will he give Brian to you? You are his uncle.”

“I have not asked yet, but I fear not. The truth of his birth will always be ambiguous. Addis can repudiate him, but there is no proof except Addis's word. When he is of age, Brian can challenge it, and will be a threat to any future son's hold.”

“A man would not repudiate his own blood. Surely Addis is right.”

Raymond shrugged. “Presumably. But it might be his final revenge on Claire. It is said she forsook him, and I know she fought the marriage. If he hated her for that, he might not want her son as his heir.”

Could he do that? He had not warmed to the boy, and said that whenever he saw Brian he saw betrayal. “Do you know where he is?”

“Nay.”

Nor did she. But she knew the direction they had gone,
and the time it had taken to bring Brian to his hiding place.

“I want to leave here now, Raymond. Will you help me?”

That startled him. “You are in no condition for a journey, Moira. And Addis—”

“Today, Raymond. Now. As soon as you can arrange a wagon. Some of the farmers will take me where I want to go. You need not escort me.”

“Moira, you are wounded and shocked. You loved the boy and this news troubles you. Wait to speak with Addis.”

“Aye, this news troubles me, and so does the realization that he will want to leave Brian wherever he is, a child alone with no family's love. But I always intended to leave. I said that I would see him enter these gates and sit in that chair and I have done so. The news about Brian only reinforces my decision.”

Raymond sighed and shook his head. “You have always had enough pride for three women, and it is a hell of a thing that you do. He will not forgive you, or me for helping you.”

“Will you do it?”

“I will do it. In the name of my sister's friendship for you and because you sacrificed part of your life to help my nephew, I owe it to you. But will you not wait to see him again first? To make your farewell?”

If she saw him again she might never leave, even with the disappointments and misgivings filling her heart.

“I have already said farewell to the Addis I love.”

CHAPTER 22

S
HE DID NOT NOTICE
him enter the chamber. She was bent out the small window, the golden light of the late afternoon coloring her veil and flooding her form, the thin wool of her gown draping appealingly over her rounded hips. He could see her profile from the doorway and watched silently as her blue eyes scanned expectantly, then sparkled when a lovely smile enlivened her face. She lifted one hand from the sill and waved, then straightened and quietly stood like a sentry.

She appeared to him as an oasis of softness in a harsh world, a ray of light illuminating the chamber more than the sunbeams. His two souls had begun to accommodate each other, but her presence produced the old serenity and he welcomed the soothing grace made even more potent by the memories attached to it.

She did not move, but he knew the exact moment when she realized that she was not alone. Even so, her gaze did not leave whatever she watched.

“How did you find me?”

He went to her. “You were not in London and your people there had not seen you since we left together in the spring. You were not at Darwendon, and Raymond finally convinced me that he did not hide you at Hawkesford. Then I remembered that you had lived in Salisbury when you were married, and I wondered if maybe you had figured out that Brian was here too.”

He looked out the window. The house backed against the abbey wall, and from here she could see into its yard. A group of boys kicked a ball among themselves. The smallest one's hair gleamed pale and blond.

“The friars would not let me speak to him, but I watch him every day from this window. He knows I am here now, and looks for me when they come out to play. His little face lights with a smile that says he knows that he is not alone anymore.”

He looked down on the child whose existence symbolized betrayals far worse than the act that conceived him. It really didn't matter anymore. Nothing did from that time except the love and loyalty and strength that the Shadow had selflessly given.

“He is not mine, Moira. I am not punishing Claire by repudiating him. Raymond accused me of that, but it is not true.”

“Nay, it is not. There is nothing of you in him. I see that now. Little of Simon either, for that matter. He is all Claire's son. She lied to me about him. About you. She said that you had demanded … before you went on the crusade that you had …”

“Forced her. And you believed that?”

“At the time it was not so hard to believe. It was a bitter young man whom they carted back to Barrowburgh, with a bitter girl by his side. You hated her then, I think, even if you do not remember it.”

He remembered it. That part he had never forgotten.

“I had known Claire since she was born. Aye, I hated her, but not because she turned from me as a wife and a woman. She turned from me as a friend as well. Those years should have left us with that at least.”

“She was young and frightened.”

“She was shallow and vain and could only love herself. A woman with your depths and heart probably cannot understand that people can be thus. I had begun to see it as I outgrew my youth. Her radiance could not blind me forever. Her behavior when I was wounded only made me face what my heart had known for some time already.” She had not looked at him. She still watched the child. “It troubles me to think that whenever you looked at that boy, you saw a child born from violence. That the memory you held of me those years was of a man who would hurt his wife.”

A small frown tweaked her brow while her gaze turned inward. “Not really. She described it thus, but I did not believe you had used violence. She was your wife, and I assumed that you had demanded her duty to you. To her mind it might have been force, but I thought maybe it had just been like James and me.”

“It was not even like James and you. I know he is not my son because despite the wedding I never lay with her after my return. I could not undo the marriage, but she was dead to me and I did not want her in my bed.”

She nodded, as if he had just confirmed her own thoughts. “I have wondered why she lied about such a thing. To claim the child was yours made sense, of course. But why accuse you of such cruelty?”

“The whole household knew how things stood between us. Perhaps she feared that if she did not give a story that fit those facts some would wonder about the child's parentage. Certainly my father would have found it curious, since he knew we rarely spoke and that I had not touched
her. An enraged husband forcing his rights on the eve of his departure would explain the child no one expected to see conceived.”

“How did you know he was Simon's?”

“I suspected when it was clear that he had not searched for Brian very hard at all. He knew about Darwendon even if he did not know about you.”

Brian gave the ball a wild kick. The boys raced around a corner of the building to catch it. She watched him disappear and finally turned, those clear eyes seeking his. “Could you have done it? Used him in vengeance against his father?”

“In truth, I do not know. If Simon had killed you, maybe so. What do you think, Moira?”

“I think not, but I do not know either. You are a complex person, Addis. You once said you feel as if two souls exist in you, but sometimes I sense many more, and some of them frighten me. There are times when I do not think I know you at all and never really can.”

“You know me, Moira. If anyone does, you do. You know me as well as I know myself, which I will admit isn't very well.”

She dropped her gaze to the floor between them. “I am glad that you came to explain it to me, Addis.”

“That is not only why I came.”

She looked a little frightened, and shot glances blindly around the room as if he cornered her and she sought an escape.

“This chamber is overwarm. Come down to the garden with me so we can speak.”

“I don't think so, Addis.”

He took her hand in his. The delicate warmth made his heart swell with relief and love. He had feared he would never feel her touch again.

She resisted warily. He coaxed her with a firm tug,
gearing himself for a battle more vital to his life than the one at Barrowburgh.

She should not go. She should send him away and not listen to whatever words he had for her. Her good sense chanted this while he led her down the stairs and into the small walled garden filled with young plants.

Aye, she should not go, but she looked at the lean strong back beneath its brown cotte, and the fine, tanned arm stretching to hers, and the handsome face looking back. Her heart flipped as it had since she was a girl, and the part of her that had long ago abandoned good sense with him would not be denied this final, brief time, no matter what raw pain it renewed.

He found a bench against a wall where a hedge hid them from the curious eyes of the goldsmith's wife who owned the house. She pried her hand loose and restlessly smoothed the folds of her skirt. She felt him watching her. Sitting close beside him left her a little breathless.

“Is all well at Barrowburgh?” she asked feebly.

“Well enough. The crops look good and the people are content. Lucas Reeve has recovered, although he lost sight in an eye that night. I gave each of his sons a virgate, and have said they need not pay heriot when their father dies.”

“You are a generous and fair lord. The villeins at Darwendon thought so too.”

“It was an easy generosity.”

“And Owen. What of him?”

“At my encouragement Owen decided to expiate his sins with another crusade. A very long one. And Simon's mother asked if she might retire to a convent and I gave my permission.”

“So it is all done then. You have your life back. It is as it should be. I am joyed for you, Addis.”

He tilted his head thoughtfully. “It is done. I should be more than content. And yet I feel little joy myself, Moira. I have my life back, and I am not so foolish or ungrateful as to forget the value of it. But that keep is a cold place, full of lifeless shadows. I do my duty as I was taught from birth, but my heart cannot warm to it. Sometimes I feel like a slave again, now serving the ghosts of my ancestors.”

She could imagine that and her heart ached for him. Loneliness was something she understood and had come to know again far too well. “It will change. When you marry and have a family, it will be a true home again. Lady Mathilda will bring life and warmth to Barrowburgh.”

“When I marry it will not be to Lady Mathilda. Thomas Wake regretfully told me that the girl does not think we suit each other. He knew even when he brought that army that there would be no marriage. Mathilda thinks I am not refined and courteous enough. She wants a knight who will write her poetry and hang on each of her many words as if they are pearls that drop from her mouth.”

“She is a silly little goose!”

He reached over and brushed back some errant hairs that had escaped her veil. “Perhaps she suspected that the whole time she chattered in Yorkshire, I was making love to you in my mind.”

The light touch and the look in his eyes made her tremble. She barely found a voice. “If so, that really was discourteous.”

His fingers drifted to caress her face, gently moving over the flesh as if he were learning its structure. He summoned an anguished love in her full of poignant, impossible yearnings that said she would pay dearly in the days ahead for this visit. In the three months since she left him she had finally learned to dull the pain, but had also
learned that the punishment of loving the wrong person lasted a lifetime.

“I want you to come back with me.”

“Oh, Addis …”

He embraced her with one arm and kissed her into silence, his palm resting warmly on her cheek. “You will come. You must.”

So tempting to sink into that embrace forever. “There will be another betrothal, another Mathilda. You speak of only a reprieve, and my heart can take just so many such partings before it breaks forever. You are proof enough that each of us lives several lives before we perish. There is wisdom in accepting when one ends and another begins. I love you, Addis. I always will. But there is no place for me in the life you have now.”

“If that is wisdom, then I will never be wise. I do not want a life that has no place for you in it. You will come back with me and take the place that is yours in my heart. No obligations to the past stand in the way. We will marry.”

He looked so serious, so determined, as if he spoke logic instead of nonsense. She caressed his face and his head bowed to her touch until they sat with foreheads pressed and palms on each other's face. “It is impossible. You know that better than I do.”

“It is not forbidden. Once done, no one can undo it.”

“You will be scorned by your own, and mocked for your choice of wife. Even the peasants will think you mad.”

“Those who know you will not scorn me but envy me, and I do not care what is said or thought.”

“I am serf-born, Addis. It might as well be forbidden.”