Love Thine Enemy (2 page)

Removing the bloodied rags from his chest, she tossed
them to the floor and pressed clean folded strips against the wound, then
pulled the vair pelts up to his shoulders to warm his soon-permanent chill.

“Thirsty.”

She snatched the goblet from the tray that sat atop the
high chest and raised his head, pressing the rim against his lips.  Wine
slipped past his mouth and dribbled down his chin as he swallowed.  He closed
his eyes as if exhausted.  She returned the goblet to the tray and wiped his
chin with a torn sheet.

"
Mon père
, you must reveal to me this
mysterious pact.  Perhaps the telling will impart a solution of how to protect
DuBois . . .” She hesitated, guilt-ridden, knowing her next comment would
arouse his fury.  "And Pierre."

His eyes flew open.  "
Non."

"Why won't you acknowledge him as your son?  As of
now, 'tis a secret between Pierre and me, but now that . . .” She squeezed his
hand, unable to say aloud how near to him death hovered, although she knew he
understood better than any.  "I vow to always care for my brother, no
matter your decision.  But at this point, what do you gain by refusing to admit
he is of your seed?"

"His life."

Rochelle felt the blood drain from her face.  "I
don't understand."

"All the children but you, including bastards, dead. 
Slain."  The words shoved from his throat in an angry rasp.

“You declared they were accidents, or of natural causes.”

“So I believed.  At first.  But surely one child
besides you would have survived.  I began to suspicion the others died from
poisonings because their demise occurred at the same time each year, in the
spring.”  His chest rose as if with labored effort.  “But Pierre is alive, you see,
because no one else knows.” 

Stunned at this new revelation, she searched his
troubled eyes.  "Who would kill children?  Pierre is no threat, nor were
the other bastards because only legitimate heirs can inherit.  And why have I
not been slain?" 

Her father merely groaned in answer, his teeth clenched
as hard as her fists. 

Rochelle panicked that he might die before she knew the
truth.  “Tell me about the pact.  Hurry!”

The door-hinges creaked.

Gaston?
 
Her
heart leapt to her throat as she spun to confront him.  She relaxed at the
sight of the old servant, Jacques, who had been at DuBois since before her
birth, one of the few people she trusted.  How had he passed the guards?  
Unless he had an order from Gaston to see if her father still lived.

"Milady?"  Jacques peered from the doorway,
his white hair like wisps of fog atop his burn-scarred head.  Scars contorted
his face due to a fiery disaster that dated before her memory, but to her, he
couldn’t be more beautiful.  She noticed that his gaze focused on the open
window instead of on her as if he couldn't meet her eyes.  But then, they were
all upset this day.  She, more than any.     

A shadowy figure lurked behind him.  

Rochelle rubbed her fingers against the ache in her
temple.  "Jacques, is that one of Gaston’s guards behind you?" 
Perhaps, despite Gaston’s orders, she could appeal to him to summon Griselda. 
Not likely, though.  Not if he valued his life.

"More visitors, milady.  Strangers."  Jacques
sniffed and swiped his gnarled knuckles over his nose.  "A knight and his
squire.  Says his horse is lame.  He seeks shelter for the night."

“Visitors?  You came straight to this door and no one
stopped you?”  Maybe Gaston had merely bluffed and she could escape the chamber
after all.  But Gaston never bluffed.  And anyway, she dare not leave until she
received vital information from her father. 

“Milady?  What about the knight and his squire?”

Rochelle swallowed a cry of frustration.  She didn't
have time to receive guests.  Not when death panted and secrets skulked. 
"Take care of them for me, Jacques.  Show them the knights’ quarters above
the stable."

"A knight, you say?"  Her father gestured
toward Jacques with unexpected energy.  "Bring him to me."

The illusive figure moved forward.

“Non!”
  Rochelle whirled to face
her father.  "We have no time for this.  You must tell me about the
pact!"

"Pardonnez-moi
. 
Reynaurd de DuBois? 
I'm Becket,
Le Vengeur
, the king's
knight."

Rochelle stilled. 
Le Vengeur.
 
The
avenger.  A dangerous name.  As menacing as the underlying tone of his voice,
sonorous and deep.

Then
hope straightened her spine.  The king’s knight?  Perhaps he would relay a
message to King Jean about her plight.  No, she had not enough time.

"
Entré
, Sire Becket.”  Her father struggled
to sit upright.” 
Entré
."

Releasing an angry sigh, Rochelle smoothed the faded
wool of her too-small gown, then turned to greet the intruder.

Her heart tripped. 

The stranger stood tall, lean and . . . and provocative
. . . a vision of shimmery silver.  His vest of armored plate gleamed in the
firelight like molten metal.  He appeared as a god newly formed, dynamic,
invincible.  Mail sleeves hinted at well-muscled arms.  A shirt of the same
linked metal skimmed to below his hips.  His well-shaped legs, firm and strong,
confirmed the raw power beneath the metal plates on the front of his
mail-covered thighs.  He loomed a formidable knight in all his masculine
glory.  Yet despite his claim as a king’s knight, he wore no jupon with
identifying coat of arms.  How curious.  The man pulled off the pointed iron
bascinet that protected his head.

Her heart stumbled again.  His hair hung in soft curls
of disarray to below his ears---thick, lustrous, as dark as ebon wood. 
Rochelle's response to the knight startled her, especially after her abuse from
Marcel.

Venom flickered in the midnight of his eyes as he
stared at her father.  Predatory.  Dangerous.

A burning chill rippled along her flesh.  Why would the
stranger feel hatred for a dying man who gave him shelter?

He met her too-studied perusal, one dark brow raised,
as if faced with the unexpected.  The glimmer of his hatred blurred to
surprise, confusion, doubt, then hardened to determination.

The rapid flash of his reactions tightened her stomach
another notch.  Rochelle stepped back, bumping the stool, which teetered much
like her courage.  Lifting her chin in defiance, she curtsied.  "Welcome
to DuBois, Sire.  I---"

"Come here, knight.  Rochelle, move aside until
you're summoned."

Damaged pride flamed her cheeks.  She should be
hardened to her father's treatment, but his offhand dismissal in front of a
stranger humiliated her as much as a slap.  And yet her father was dying,
desperate.  Which didn’t excuse the past two decades of maltreatment.  Rochelle
retreated to the open window in the deep reveal of the wall and pressed her
hands against the coolness of the window frame.

 "Come closer, Sire Becket."

A breeze swept away her father's whispered words as the
gust lifted the edge of the wimple that covered her head and swirled past her
into the chamber.  Her damp nape chilled before the linen settled again against
her neck.  Rochelle inhaled the purity to cleanse the stench from her lungs,
and to clear a mysterious knight from her thoughts.  In spite of the stranger's
hasty burial of his hatred beneath his nonchalance, an inner tempest seethed
beneath his surface.  She didn't trust him.

Drawn by the allure of the land, she skimmed her gaze
across the magnificent vista, never tiring of the view from their mountaintop
perch in the Pyrenees foothills that overlooked the valley of Armagnac.  She
had two loves in her life, DuBois Estates and Pierre.

And now Gaston plotted to pollute everything she cared
for with his greed and treachery, to pilfer and leach the life from the land
that meant more to her than the blood that flowed through her veins, to abuse
her, and perhaps to kill Pierre.  For if her father spoke true, and she claimed
Pierre as brother, the boy might be torn from her protection, or slain.  Either
way, he would die.  No, to protect Pierre, she would not allow any man to claim
the land, or her.

Rochelle inhaled another breath, then stilled.  A glint
in the copse of cedars caught her curiosity.  The woodcutter, most likely, for
no one else had permission---

"A bit cool for your father, don't you
think?"

Rochelle gasped and spun toward the sound of the
too-near voice.  The knight towered less than an arm's length away and stole
her breath.

The morning sunlight washed across Becket's down-tilted
face revealing a Latin ancestry, highlighting his Roman nose, his sensual lips,
his square-set jaw.  Thick brows, as black as coal, accented his wide
forehead.  And his eyes, like moonless skies, penetrated hers as if in search
of her innermost secrets.

Beware.

He leaned closer and she caught the scent of cedar and
leather, of outdoors and . . . and danger.  Her pulse thudded a warning in her
ears.

He lifted his hand.

Rochelle flinched.  He meant to strike her!  "You
dare touch---"

Becket reached past her; the room darkened as he closed
the shutters.  "There.  Much improved."  He flashed a smile that sent
lightning through her veins.  "I appreciate your hospitality,
demoiselle
. 
In payment, take a moment's respite while I visit with Lord Reynaurd.  I'll
inform you when I'm . . . finished."

The deep timber of his voice, his nearness, his
masterful virility, pulled the strength from her knees.  Her shaky fingers
brushed against his mail-clad arms as she reached toward the wall for support. 
Hot beneath cold.  Muscle beneath metal.  Hatred beneath kindness.  She
swallowed at the tight knot in her throat.

"Sire, I saw a glimmer in the woods and I wondered
who---"

"'Tis a glorious day, is it not, my lady.  But the
magnificence pales in comparison to your beauty.  Bless the sun with your
presence and refresh your weariness." 

The ludicrous statement only heightened her
suspicions.  "You'll find me impervious to vain falsity and obvious
distraction.  Tell me, Becket,
Le Vengeur
.  What do you avenge?"

"Injustice." 

His hand tightened on the hilt, drawing her attention
to the ornate chasing revealed beyond his grip.  Something familiar about the
pattern . . . wings . . . no, too much remained hidden, like the man himself. 
She lifted her gaze and saw that he looked beyond her toward her father, and
again the hatred, the sense of danger.

"Tell me,
Le Vengeur
. 
What
brought you here this day?  A lame horse?  Or, injustice?"

The question seemed to stir him to action, for he
grasped her arm and urged her toward the door. 

 "'Twould be best if you left the chamber, Lady
Rochelle."

She twisted from his hold and stepped back, as unnerved
by the peculiar heat that streamed from his touch as by his sudden urgency for
her to abandon her father.  "Why your eagerness for me to leave,
knight?"

"I would spare you the ugliness of death."

Rochelle scoffed.  "The plague half a decade past
showed me how vile life's end.  I remain here."

"Your presence will not stay the reaper's
claim."

"
Non
, but perhaps 'twill delay him."  
She must delay him.

"Impossible."  Becket dipped his head in a
slight bow, then strode with controlled grace across the rush-strewn floor to
her father.  His sword clanked at his side as if impatient to taste blood.

The sight jolted her to defensive action.  "
Mon
père
, this man is not as he seems---"

"Rochelle, leave us."  Her father gestured
with impatience toward the door.

"But,
mon père
, I
sense
danger. 
Sire Gaston might have sent him to--"

“Cease!”  Becket spun to face her, fury like a barely
hidden flame within his eyes.  "If you love him, you will honor his wishes
and give us privacy."

Stunned by the stranger's audacity as well as his
words, Rochelle slid a glance to her father, wondering if the odd tangle of
emotions she felt for him could be called love.  And yet, despite his coldness
toward her, something unnamable buried beneath her scars longed for his
acceptance, for his affection.

 Did he feel any guilt that he had never protested her
harsh treatment from Marcel?  Did her father remember how she had knelt before
him, her face bruised and swollen, pleading for him to interfere, to protect
her?  He had merely echoed Marcel's accusations and had belittled her lack of
femininity, berating her to be more like her companion, Angelique.  He had demanded
she accept her woman's lot without complaint and to try harder to please
Marcel, to stroke her husband and to kiss him wherever he willed until his
passion overcame his distaste for her.   She had wondered why her father had
sided with Marcel and Gaston instead of with her.  And now he revealed a secret
pact.  The particulars of which she still had yet to discover.  She returned
her attention to Becket.