No Dark Place (16 page)

“He’d feel more comfortable if you were dead,” Nigel said bluntly.

Hugh shook his head. “He won’t harm me. He can’t afford to have it whispered that another de Leon came to an untimely end at Chippenham. He must know that he has been suspected of doing away with his brother.”

“Don’t you understand?” Nigel said impatiently. “Guy is one of the greatest territorial magnates in all of England. He is an immensely powerful man, Hugh. He administers his palatinate free from any vestige of royal control. Within his own lands, he wields the power of life and death. Furthermore, he is arrogant and hotheaded. He has frequently been known to act first and think later.”

They had almost reached the mews.

“I cannot guarantee your safety if you go to Chippenham,” Nigel said.

“I am not asking you to guarantee my safety, sir,” Hugh said calmly.

Nigel swore.

Cristen and Henry Fairfax had already reached the mews, and Cristen was introducing the falconer to Henry Fairfax when Hugh and Nigel came up to them.

Nigel looked at his guest, clearly making an effort to focus his mind on a topic other than the one he had been discussing with Hugh.

“I don’t have very many birds, Fairfax, but I think the ones I do have are quite fine.”

The big man said indulgently, “Lady Cristen has been telling me that she does not care for the sport.”

“She never has,” Nigel said ruefully.

“I have a very pretty little merlin,” Fairfax said. “A perfect bird for a lady. If I may, I will send it over for Lady Cristen. Perhaps she will change her mind about hunting once she sees my Faence.”

He gave Cristen a charming smile.

Hugh scowled. Who the devil did this man think he was, offering Cristen a hawk?

Cristen said firmly, “Hunting for meat is one thing, Sir Henry, but killing for sport is not something of which I will ever approve.”

Fairfax looked amused. “Your daughter is very tenderhearted,” he said to Nigel indulgently.

Hugh gave him such a hostile look that if Fairfax had seen it, he might have been tempted to draw his dagger to defend himself.

“Come, Pritchard,” Nigel said to his falconer. “Let us show Sir Henry our birds.”

Hugh’s dislike of Henry Fairfax increased as the day went on. He hung around Cristen so closely that Hugh scarcely got a chance to speak to her himself. And Nigel seemed to approve, actively encouraging the man to spend time with his daughter.

By the time supper was finished, Hugh was ready to skewer the man.

The crowning insult came when the four of them were sitting around the brazier in the solar and Nigel
said, “You won’t mind if Sir Henry shares your room tonight, will you, Hugh?”

“Not at all, sir,” Hugh said between his teeth. “In fact, he may have it to himself. I’ll be glad to sleep in the hall with the knights.”

“That won’t be necessary,” Fairfax said with the genial charm that Hugh found so nauseating. “I don’t mind sharing.”

Well, I do
.

Adela’s training held firm, however, and Hugh did not speak his rude thought aloud. Instead he gave a long, lethal look to Nigel’s hated guest and said, “I shall be perfectly happy in the hall.”

Fairfax shrugged.

Cristen gave him a worried look.

“Suit yourself,” Nigel grunted.

When the group around the brazier finally broke up, Hugh went back to the hall, took one of the straw mattresses, and dragged it away from the beds of the other knights.

“Where are you going, Hugh?” Thomas said. “You’ll be warmer if you stay with us.”

“Do any of you snore?” Hugh demanded.

Every eye went immediately to Ranulf.

“I thought so,” Hugh said. “It will be quieter over here.”

Ranulf did indeed snore magnificently, but it was not the noise that kept Hugh awake. It was the image of Fairfax’s blond head bending over Cristen.

He scowled fiercely into the dark.

“Hugh.”

He didn’t know if she actually spoke or if he heard her voice in his mind, but he opened his eyes and saw her kneeling next to him. She was holding a candle and shading its light with her hand.

“Come with me to the pantry,” she breathed. “I have to talk to you.”

He rose soundlessly and followed her to the small service room where the food brought from the kitchen was arranged on platters before the servants took it into the hall to be served. Cristen put her candle down on one of the scoured wooden benches and turned to face Hugh.

“What’s the matter?” he said. A thought struck him and he went rigid. “That dolt Fairfax wasn’t trying to bother you, was he?”

“Nay, that’s not it.” She shook her head. Her hair was done in two loose plaits and hung over her shoulders and down the front of her green velvet robe.

“What the devil is your father thinking, letting that fellow hang all over you?” Hugh demanded next.

“He wants to marry me, Hugh,” she replied. “And Father thinks it’s a good match.”

Hugh was thunderstruck.

“He wants to marry you?”

“Aye.”

“Well, he can’t!” Hugh said fiercely.

She looked at him.

“You’re not going to marry anyone but me.”

The single candle did not give them much light to see each other by, but he thought he could see her eyes glisten.

“You can’t marry me,” she whispered. “You’re my feudal lord.”

“I’m not your feudal lord yet,” he said. “Besides, what does that have to do with anything?”

“An overlord does not marry the daughter of one of his vassals, Hugh.”

“I shall marry whomever I choose to marry,” he replied with splendid arrogance. “And I choose to marry you.”

It was the only time she had ever heard him sound young.

A note of doubt crept into his voice. “Don’t you want to marry me, Cristen?”

“Of course I want to marry you,” she said.

The doubt left his voice. “Come here,” he said, and held out his arms.

She walked into them and lifted her face. His mouth came down on hers.

His kiss was not tender, it was hard and hungry and fiercely possessive.

His passion did not frighten Cristen. She slid her arms around his waist, pressed herself against his hard young body, and kissed him back.

It was Hugh who finally separated them.

“We have to stop this or I won’t answer for the consequences,” he said. His voice was shaking.

Cristen pulled the front of her robe together with unsteady hands.

“I’ll talk to your father tomorrow,” Hugh said. His light eyes glittered in the semidark.

“No,” Cristen said. She took a deep breath to steady herself. “Don’t say anything to him yet.”

“Why not?” he demanded. His eyes narrowed. “I don’t want that obnoxious fellow laying his hands on you, Cristen.”

He looked and sounded dangerous.

“He won’t do that. He’s too much of a gentleman.”

Hugh snorted contemptuously. “I wouldn’t count on that.”

“Listen to me,” Cristen said urgently. “Now is not the time to speak to Father about us. He won’t let me marry you the way things are now.”

“What do you mean,
the way things are now?
”

“Father thinks you are in danger, Hugh. He won’t let me marry a man who is a target for an arrow in the back.”

He dragged his hand through his hair. “All right.” His voice was taut. “I suppose I can understand that. But what about this Fairfax fellow?”

“I will tell Father that I don’t like him and that I won’t marry him.”

“What if he insists that you do?”

“He won’t.”

“But what if he does?”

“A parent cannot force a woman to marry against
her will, Hugh. The pope has ruled quite clearly on that issue.”

There was a white line around his compressed mouth.

“I won’t marry him,” she said softly.

He let out his breath. “All right.”

“Find out the truth about your past,” Cristen said. “For your own peace of mind, you need to know it. Then, when all is made clear, we will go to my father.”

He scowled at her. “Don’t let that blond giant lay a finger on you.”

She smiled. “I have the dogs.”

Finally his face relaxed and he smiled back. “I love you,” he said. “I knew it the first time I met you. Do you remember? I had that headache and you asked me if I wanted you to stay with me and I said that I did.”

“I remember,” she said.

“I never want anyone near me when I’m ill, but I knew I wanted you.”

“I love you, too.” She stood on her toes, kissed him on the mouth, then turned to pick up her candle.

“Come,” she said. “I had better get back to my room before someone misses me.”

H
ugh wrote to Lord Guy, telling the earl who he was and asking if he could pay a visit to his old home of Chippenham. Nigel’s messenger returned with Guy’s reply the following day.

“What does he say?” Nigel asked. The messenger had found the two men at the blacksmith’s forge, watching while Nigel’s stallion was shod. Hugh had been patiently working with the horse, holding his feet for longer and longer periods until he was able to stand quietly for five minutes at a time. This was his first shoeing and he was behaving very well.

Hugh slowly rerolled the parchment upon which Guy’s letter had been written. “He says he finds my claim of identity dubious, but that I am welcome to visit Chippenham if I wish.”

The stallion swished his tail irritably and Hugh said, “Put his foot down, Giles, and give him a rest.”

“Of course he is not going to admit your identity,” Nigel said scornfully. “To do so would be to throw his own legitimacy into question.”

“There is also the minor problem that I don’t have any proof,” Hugh pointed out.

Nigel grunted. “Your face is proof enough.”

Hugh gave the stallion a treat and his thick, arched neck. “Not for Guy,” he said.

“If your memory returned and you could answer questions about your childhood, then your claim would have validity.”

Hugh rubbed the back of his own neck as if it ached. “Aye, I suppose that is so.”

The air was filled with the acrid odor of burnt hoof. The stallion looked at Hugh and blew softly through his nostrils. Hugh said, “All right, Giles, you can try again.”

The blacksmith lifted the stallion’s rear foot and Nigel said, “I am going to accompany you to Chippenham. You will need someone to watch your back while you are there.”

“You cannot accompany me,” Hugh said. He was watching intently as the blacksmith fitted a shoe to the stallion’s hoof. “You are Guy’s vassal and simply by finding me you have done enough to anger him. It would not be wise to oppose him further.” Abruptly Hugh switched his attention from the horse to Nigel. “You yourself have been at pains to point out to me exactly how much power Guy wields. You don’t want him to send an army against Somerford, sir.”

“He won’t do that,” Nigel said. “I haven’t openly opposed him in anything. And I would never forgive myself, lad, if something happened to you that my presence might have prevented.” He smiled ruefully. “My daughter wouldn’t forgive me, either.”

Hugh looked unconvinced.

“I am not asking you if I might come, Hugh,” Nigel said pleasantly. “I am telling you.”

Abruptly Hugh’s face lit with his rare, radiant smile, the one that made him look as young as he actually was. “Thank you, sir,” he said. “I shall appreciate your assistance. You can point out to me which of my father’s knights are still at Chippenham so that I may question them.”

The Somerford household was at supper when the knights whom Nigel had sent to accompany Stephen’s army to Arundel returned home. They brought the astonishing news that not only had Stephen raised the siege, but he had agreed to give the empress a safe conduct to join her half-brother, the Earl of Gloucester, in Bristol.

Hugh was incredulous. “
He let her go?
” he said to the mail-clad knight who was standing in front of the high table addressing them.

Matthew was one of Nigel’s oldest retainers and his seamed, weather-beaten face was grim as he replied, “Yes, my lord. He let her go. Bishop Henry and Count Waleran of Meulan were to escort her to meet her brother.”

Even Nigel looked shaken by such news.

“What could the king have been thinking of, to do such a thing?” Cristen asked in amazement.

“I believe his thinking is perfectly clear, Lady Cristen,” Henry Fairfax said in a pompous, patron
izing tone. “By raising the siege of Arundel, the king has freed his forces. This will enable him to concentrate them on Earl Robert, who is his real enemy.” He gave her the sort of smile one would give to a small child whom one was instructing. “Surely you can appreciate the chivalry of the king in choosing Robert as his main target, and not a lady.”

“His chivalry is misplaced, to say the least, if its result is to plunge the country into civil war,” Cristen replied tartly.

Fairfax looked first startled and then annoyed. Clearly he did not relish being contradicted by a woman.

Hugh said coldly, “What the king has done in releasing Matilda is to give Gloucester the moral claim he needs to make his cause a just one. What the king has done is to give Gloucester and his sister a solid, compact base in the west and Wales. What the king has done is to open the door to chaos.”

By now Fairfax was looking angry. “I rather think that the king has a better grasp of what is best for the country than does a young knight such as yourself, Corbaille.”

Hugh looked at him.

Fairfax’s already skin flushed a brighter red.

“You are disrespectful,” he said angrily.

Hugh said, each word dropping like a chink of ice into the vast silence of the hall, “It is difficult to respect a man who acts as stupidly as Stephen does.”

“What do you think he should have done?” Fairfax demanded. “Captured Matilda and thrown her into chains? Or perhaps you think he should have had her executed? I can imagine what the Church would have to say about that!” He leaned his upper body toward Hugh, who was sitting on the other side of Nigel, and said nastily, “Tell me, Corbaille, what would
you
have done if you were Stephen?”

“It isn’t difficult to answer that question,” Hugh said. As Fairfax grew hotter, Hugh was growing colder. “I would have captured Matilda and put her on a ship back to Normandy.”

“That would have been best,” Nigel agreed unwillingly. “I cannot see that allowing the empress to go free was a good move, Fairfax.”

Sir Henry scowled to find himself under attack from yet another quarter. “Stephen has a big heart,” he said. “It is one of his most admirable traits.”

Hugh lifted an ironic eyebrow. “I would rather have a king with a big brain.”

By now Fairfax’s face was scarlet. “I don’t know who you think you are, Corbaille…” he began furiously.

Hugh grew very pale. His light eyes glittered between their dark lashes. He stared at the older man for a long moment of silence before he replied evenly, “My name is not Corbaille, it is de Leon. And I can tell you who I think I am, Fairfax. I think I am your rightful overlord, the Earl of Wiltshire.”

Henry Fairfax retired to his bedroom early, still fum
ing at Hugh’s opposition and suspicious of his claim of identity. After Fairfax had gone, leaving Nigel and Cristen alone together in the solar, he told her that while he was at Chippenham he would ask Lord Guy’s permission for her to wed with the lord of Bowden.

Cristen was sitting in her usual chair, her feet resting on her footstool, her dogs on either side of her. “But I don’t wish to marry Sir Henry, Father,” she replied calmly. “I don’t like him.”

Nigel was sitting in the large, high-backed chair with carved lion’s paws for armrests that was next to hers. At her reply, his head snapped around and his brows drew together. “Don’t like him?” he repeated. “Nonsense. What is there not to like about him? He’s a fine-looking man, and, I might add, a careful steward of his own property. He is the sort of man who will look after you and Somerford the way I want you looked after.”

“He patronizes me,” Cristen said.

“Nonsense,” Nigel said gruffly, his frown deepening.

She shook her head decisively. “It’s not nonsense, Father. You heard him yourself this evening. He talks to me as if I were a child. I may not always be correct, Father, but I do claim the right to make my own moral judgments.
You
have always accorded me that honor.”

Nigel looked at his daughter. She seemed so small and delicate as she sat there, almost lost in her chair, but he knew better than anyone that there was steel in
Cristen’s backbone. The servants of Somerford adored her, but they also respected and obeyed her. They had done so since she had taken over as chatelaine when her mother died seven years before.

“You must marry someone, Cristen,” he said reasonably, “and good matches such as Henry Fairfax don’t grow on trees. His first wife died last year and he is in the market to replace her. The addition of Somerford to his honor would greatly enhance his stature. You would be a lady of some consequence if you married him.”

“I don’t like him,” Cristen repeated. “He’s too big. His face is too red. And he patronizes me.” Her eyes sparkled with indignation. “Did you hear him call me
tenderhearted
because I said I disapproved of hunting for sport? I disapprove of hunting because I find it morally repugnant, Father, not because I’m tenderhearted!”

“Cristen…” Nigel gave her a worried look. He bit his lip. “I trust you are not placing your hopes in Hugh.”

Her eyebrows lifted, two fine aloof arches over her inquiring brown eyes. “My hopes?”

“I trust you are not hoping to marry Hugh,” he said bluntly. “I can see how close the two of you have grown, but it will not do, Cristen. His situation at present is too precarious for him to be able to offer you any stability. And if he does succeed in winning his rightful place, he will be your overlord.”

“I know that, Father,” she said serenely.

He looked at her in frustration.

Her brown eyes were full of sympathy. “Poor Father. Am I such a trial to you?”

“You are not a trial at all,” he said gruffly. “You have always been my greatest joy. It is of the utmost importance to me to see you happily married.”

“I would never be happy married to Henry Fairfax,” she said positively.

“You haven’t given him a chance.”

She sighed. “He’s the worst sort of combination, Father. A man who isn’t clever and thinks he is. I also suspect that he’s a bit of a bully. And I do not take well to being bullied.”

Nigel slammed his hands down on the lion’s-paw armrests of his chair. “Is that what you want me to tell the man? That you think he is a stupid bully?”

Her full, serious mouth quirked. “I don’t think that would be terribly tactful.”

“Well, what am I to say, then?” Nigel was clearly disgruntled. “I don’t want to insult him, and he will be insulted if you refuse him.”

“Tell him I don’t want to leave you,” she said. She smiled at him. “It will be the truth, Father.”

He tried to hide his pleasure. “You’re seventeen years old,” he complained. “Many girls are married at fifteen, Cristen.”

She slid out of her chair and came over to give him a hug. “You should go to bed,” she said. “You and Hugh are to leave for Chippenham tomorrow.”

“Humph,” he said.

She kissed his cheek. “Good night, Father.”

“Good night, Cristen.”

He watched her trail off to her room, a worried frown between his brows.

Hugh awoke the following morning with a headache. Cristen ruthlessly evicted Henry Fairfax from his room and installed Hugh in his old bed.

“There must be something going wrong inside my brain,” Hugh said to Cristen tightly as she changed the cold cloths she was putting on his forehead. “I never had headaches before.”

She gently put the new cloths into place and said composedly, “I think they will go away once you find out the truth about yourself.”

The window shutters had been closed to keep out the light and no candles had been lit, but even in the dimness she could see how pale he was. The muscles in his face were tense with pain.

His lashes lifted. His eyes were much darker than usual. “Do you think the headaches have to do with my…search?”

“Yes, I do.”

In fact, she was convinced of it. He had managed to survive in his identity of Hugh Corbaille by denying his past. Now that his past had caught up with him, however, the fear of facing it was tearing him apart.

No wonder he had headaches.

He said wretchedly, “I think I’m going to be sick.”

She held the bowl for him.

“
I hate this
,” he said intensely when he had laid back down again.

She understood that it was not just the pain he was talking about. It was the humiliation of being ill.

“You’re not perfect,” she said calmly. “You can become ill just like anyone else.”

“What time is it?” he asked.

She looked at the hourglass. The last two headaches had lasted for eight hours.

“You have four more hours to go,” she said.

His lashes flickered.

Four more hours of agony
, she thought despairingly.
It isn’t fair, Dear Lord. Haven’t You already given him enough to bear?

“My lady.” It was Brian at the door. “Sir Nigel sent me to tell you that Sir Henry is leaving.”

“All right,” she said. “I’ll come.”

Brian left and Cristen stood up. “I told Father last night that I wouldn’t marry Sir Henry,” she said to Hugh’s pain-tensed face.

He managed a smile. “Good.”

She bent and kissed his hair above the compress. “I’ll be back,” she said softly, and left to make her farewells to a very indignant lord of Bowden.

The headache held true to form and lifted eight hours after it had begun. A pale and tired-looking Hugh was able to join the household for supper, although he ate very little.

Nigel, warned by Cristen, said nothing about Hugh’s illness. After supper, Cristen’s ladies joined the knights in front of the fire in the Great Hall, and everyone sang to the accompaniment of Thomas’ lute. Then, after the ladies had retired, Hugh remained in the hall to play a game of chess with Matthew.

The solar was dark when Hugh entered, and the doors to both Nigel’s and Cristen’s rooms were closed. Hugh went into his own room and told the squire who was waiting for him that he would undress himself. Once the squire had gone, Hugh returned to the solar.

He stood in the middle of the room, his eyes fixed on her bedroom door, and willed her to come out.

It took her thirty seconds.

She had on her green velvet robe and her shining hair was tucked behind her small ears, spreading in a smooth fan to her waist. She held a finger to her lips and pointed to his room. On silent feet the two of them went inside and closed the door behind them.