Snow in July (23 page)

Forebodings redoubled when he considered this meal. His every instinct warned him away, and yet his failure to attend wasn’t a viable option either.

At least this event should afford him one final opportunity to see Kendra.

A page, dressed in a linen tunic the same shade as Alain’s but featuring a gray wolf snarling upon the chest, entered to announce the meal. The lad bowed, but his self-discipline yielded to several long moments of gaping at what was probably the first Norman knight he’d ever seen.

“We Normans do not eat children.” Alain broke into a grin. “Well, perhaps only the naughtiest ones. But I shall tell you a secret,” he whispered, drawing the lad closer. “Children do not taste very good.”

That won a chuckle and a crooked grin. After another bow, the page scampered from the room.

The manservant, burdened with the remains of Alain’s outlaw disguise and undergarments, gave Alain an approving nod and asked if he needed aught else. Alain declined, thanking him. The servant bowed as best he could and left.

What Alain needed was a means to marry Kendra without forcing her to foreswear her vow. And under the roof of his chief rival, he stood even farther from solving this conundrum.

With a final tug on the collar and offering a swift, silent prayer that he would survive whatever Ulfric might be devising, he strode from the chamber.

His host had spared no expense, Alain observed upon entering the hall. Fine linen sporting the gray wolf rearing on a crimson background adorned the high table. The lower tables were covered in coarser material bearing the same colors and lupine design. Ropes of ivy festooned every table and looped between the ornate brass wall sconces. Peering closer at one of the garlands, Alain noticed tiny purple flowers nestled among the leaves. Silver platters and gorgeous red blown-glass goblets adorned the high table, complemented by matching pewter and less finely wrought glassware throughout the rest of the hall.

Such preparations required several days to get everything scrubbed and ready. Alain searched his memory to determine whether this could be a holy feast day and failed. His suspicions ratcheted up another notch.

It made him seethe at how neatly Ulfric had maneuvered him into agreeing to depart before he could learn more.

A servant approached to conduct him to his assigned seat at the high table, a chair not much less ornate than the one belonging to the hall’s master.

Out of deference to his absent host, Alain remained standing behind his chair, as did those assigned to the lower tables, whom he judged to be members of Ulfric’s fyrd and their wives. Surrounded by the plethora of crimson banners, tunics, dresses, tabards, and table coverings, Alain felt less like a target than a member of the thane’s household.

He preferred to be a target.

A pair of heralds stepped inside the hall’s main doors. During the ensuing trumpet flourish, Alain gaped at the sheer ostentation as Thane Ulfric appeared, standing framed in the doorway, with Kendra hooked on to his left arm.

God, what a vision!

Her crimson gown—the exact hue of Ulfric’s surcoat, though devoid of the wolf design—enhanced the high color of her cheeks. Tinged with a hint of pink, like the blushing dawn, her pale veil did its best to cover her golden locks, which had been brushed till they fairly glowed in the torchlight. Her eyes remained lowered as she and a beaming Ulfric strode toward the dais, but when she chanced to glance up, her gaze locked to Alain’s.

She smiled briefly, sending a thrill through his soul.

Feeling Ulfric’s glare boring through him, he restrained his response to the barest twitch of his lips.

“Before we begin the meal,” Ulfric addressed the entire company, “I have a presentation to make.”

At the thane’s signal, the same page who’d visited Alain’s chamber stepped forward bearing an object hidden in the valley of a plump pillow. The page marched to where Kendra was standing, in front of the table, and dropped to one knee, lifting the pillow.

Alain tightened his jaw. If Ulfric thought for one moment that he could propose marriage—

“Lady Kendra, I believe this is yours,” Ulfric said.

He reached toward the pillow and withdrew a length of black cord. A slim silver box swung from the bottom of the loop. Ulfric held it aloft for all to see.

Kendra gasped, eyes wide.

“Wh-where did you find this?” She cupped her hand under the trinket, and Ulfric dropped it onto her palm.

“My men recovered it from one of the outlaws.” Ulfric laid his hand upon her arm. “He shall not trouble you or anyone else ever again.”

That had to be Wart, Alain thought regretfully, the only one of his captors who’d seemed to be an otherwise decent soul fallen in with the wrong company. Alain had searched the bodies of the other two for Kendra’s locket after Wart had escaped.

She seemed not to have heard Ulfric, for she’d busied herself with opening the case.

An anguished wail pierced the ambient chatter.

“What have you done?” she cried to Ulfric. “Where is it?”

Ulfric gave her a helpless look. “What do you mean?”

But the only coherent words she could utter were, “’Tis gone! Lost! Forever lost!”

The open locket clattered to the flagstones. Tears spilling down her cheeks, she fled from the hall.

When Alain surged to follow her, a hand clamped around his arm and yanked him back. Alain spun free, glaring.

Ulfric raised both hands, palms outward. “I was trying to protect my cousin from suffering further distress.”

Alain itched to point out that Ulfric was the one causing her distress but elected to exercise diplomacy. “She wishes to know what became of the contents of her locket, and she deserves to hear the truth from a witness.”

Without waiting for Ulfric’s response, he scooped up the locket and quit the hall as fast as propriety permitted.

Chapter 12

T
HE POUNDING OF her feet as she ran down the corridor intensified the pounding in her head. She found the right door, yanked it open, dashed through the antechamber, slammed the inner door, and collapsed facedown on the bed, sobbing.

“Poppet? What ails you, child?” Ethel’s voice drifted through from the other room. Before Kendra could reply, she heard heavy footsteps enter the antechamber. “My lord, Lady Kendra cannot receive visitors,” Ethel said sternly. “Please leave at once.”

“Good woman, I apologize for the intrusion. But I believe Lady Kendra will want to hear the tidings I bring.”

She rolled over and sat up, drying her face with the sleeve of her underdress. Mustering her courage, she crossed the room and opened the door. “Sir Alain may stay, Ethel.”

“Aye, my lady.” Ethel smiled and stepped out of Alain’s path but did not leave the chamber.

Alain strode forward until he stood a pace from Kendra, proffering the locket. “Its contents are safe with your father, my lady.” He knotted the cord’s cut ends.

She bent her neck in an invitation for him to slip it on. His fingertips brushed her skin, leaving a fiery trail that snaked down to the pit in her stomach.

“Many thanks, good sir knight,” she murmured, biting her lip to quell her rampaging emotions. “The relic this contained means a great deal to me.”

When she looked up, she noticed the earnestness of his gaze. “I presume you plan to rest at Thornhill a while yet, Lady Kendra. Would you like me to retrieve it for you?”

His suggestion presented a tempting offer, but if fate was determined to condemn her to a lifetime without him, then the sentence may as well start sooner rather than later. “I thank you for your kind offer, Sir Alain, but I cannot in good conscience keep you from your other duties.”

And, she thought glumly, it would just postpone the inevitable.

He cocked an eyebrow. “Other duties?”

“Finding Sir Ruaud and finishing the regent’s mission.”

“Ah.” His smile, regretful yet affectionate, caused her heart to flutter. When he reached for her hand and raised it to his lips, she thought she might faint from the intensity of her longing. “My lady makes me forget all else while I stand in her glorious presence.”

“My bri—my cousin had best not make you forget that you are leaving, Sir Alain.”

Countenance darkening, Alain released her hand to turn toward Ulfric, who had shouldered past Ethel to stand in the center of the antechamber.

For a long moment, the two men faced off like a pair of bucks readying for the charge.

“Ulfric is right.” Kendra glided between them. “If you leave now, Sir Alain, you will have ample daylight to begin your search for Sir Ruaud. Mayhap someone in Glastonbury has seen him. He is not an easy man to miss.”

“And I have already ordered a horse to be saddled and provisioned for you,” Ulfric said. “It would be a pity for you to miss the fine meal that was prepared today. If you are finished here, I shall escort you to the stables.”

“Thane Ulfric, you have been more than kind.” Alain bowed, but not before Kendra saw distrust flare in his eyes. Straightening, he faced her. “Fare you well, my lady.” Although his face remained impassive, the muscles around his eyes tightened with unmistakable anguish.

“God’s speed to you, Sir Alain, in all your travels,” she murmured, thankful that her voice didn’t betray her.

After Alain left the antechamber, trailed by Ulfric, she jammed a fist to her mouth to stifle the welling sob. The door swung to with a thump, and her sentence began.

The hand that came to rest upon her forearm startled her.

“Handsome, courtly…virile too, if I don’t miss my guess,” Ethel said. Kendra couldn’t prevent the rush of heat to her cheeks, sparked by the vivid memory of Alain’s caresses. Ethel’s grin displayed pure mischief. “Child, you are three kinds of fool if you insist on banishing him from your life.”

By “him,” she presumed Ethel did not mean Ulfric.

“Aye.” It came out more a sigh than a word as she collapsed upon a nearby chair. “But I am betrothed to another man. Until that fact changes, I know not what else to do.”

Ethel stooped to grasp Kendra’s hand, the one Alain had kissed. As Ethel’s fingers touched Kendra’s palm, the woman’s eyebrows lowered. After a moment, the look of puzzlement grew into a knowing one.

“Have faith, poppet.” She skimmed her wrinkled fingertips over Kendra’s knuckles, taking care to avoid the skin that Alain’s lips had touched. “Have faith in the power and magic”—Ethel winked—“of true love.”

She gazed into the woman’s bright black eyes, which sparkled with ageless wisdom. In that moment, she found her heart believing in Ethel’s words, in spite of what her head insisted upon telling her.

PLODDING ALONG the road to Glastonbury—little more than a cart track winding through the wooded hills, rolling pastures, and fruitful grain fields—Alain felt like more of a target than ever. He drew curious stares from every company of pilgrims he passed. Not only was he still dressed in the bright crimson tunic, but Ulfric had gifted him with a fox-trimmed cloak and one of the best mounts in his stables.

That issue, however, did not absorb Alain’s attention.

Kendra had rejected his implicit offer to see her. In so doing, she had rejected him.

And yet he couldn’t have mistaken the love he’d seen glistening in her eyes during their final moments together.

She loved a lie, he reminded himself, a lie of his own devising. A lie he must set to rights before he could claim her hand and heart. A lie that scorched his soul.

Not only had he hurt her, but his ruse probably had resulted in the death of his closest friend. For if Ulfric had spoken the truth when he claimed not to have seen Ruaud, then chances were slim that he’d been seen alive by anyone else.

Yearning for a modicum of peace and forgiveness, Alain nudged the horse into a canter toward the abbey they had passed earlier that morning, en route to Thornhill.

If peace and forgiveness eluded him within those sanctified walls, at least he could ask to swap Ulfric’s garb for something less conspicuous.

Halfway to his destination, along a deserted section of the track, a hurtling streak of midnight fur ambushed him. His horse shied, whinnying, as the hound he and Kendra had freed from its underground kennel sprang from the bushes, barking with obvious pleasure.