The Warrior's Wife (24 page)

Will’s eyes widened until they were nigh on circles. “You mean to meet them unarmed. By God, but you must have balls of iron.”

Rafe laughed. “I’ll take that as a compliment, Will.”

“I’m not certain that’s how I meant it,” his brother muttered, then shook his head. “Nay, Bagot is an enemy long of my acquaintance. I wouldn’t join him in a crowded room without a dagger at my belt much less make myself a quintain in Glevering’s yard for him to bash. Rather than remove my sword I’ll tell you to go fetch yours.”

It was a helpless lift of his shoulders that Rafe gave. “Tell me how to do that, Will. Bagot is now my father-by-marriage. Do you know any man who greets his wife’s relatives with the promise of violence? As for you if I’m Bagot’s son, then you’re his relative as well.”

Will’s mouth twisted as if he’d bitten into something sour. “Jesu. I hadn’t thought of that when I dreamed of you wedding your Kate for vengeance’s sake.”

For a moment Will pondered the riddle facing them, then once more shook his head in refusal. “Relationship or not, I won’t do it. Knowing the history of our families, no man among those who come will think ill of us if we meet Bagot armed. Go you and fetch your sword.”

“Others might forgive our lack of trust but what of us?” Rafe persisted. “When do we begin to heal the rift between our families, if not now? Nay, if it doesn’t start here it won’t start at all, and for all the days of my life I’ll have to guard Glevering’s walls against my own family. I won’t live that way, Will. If you won’t disarm, then go within and wait with my wife while I meet those who come. After all, I’m the one who married Kate, not you.”

Angry color flushed Will’s face. “Do you call me coward? Watch yourself, lad, or I’ll beat you bloody for your insult.”

“You know full well insult wasn’t my intent, Will,” Rafe protested.

His brother’s anger was gone as quickly as it came. “Damn me, but I do,” he said at last. “And, damn you for making sense.”

With an uncertain breath Will hand dropped to his sword belt. A moment later and the sheathed weapon lay upon the porch floor. Unencumbered by the tool of his trade Will pivoted to face the gatehouse.

“Open the gates,” he shouted to his men. Then, as the newly repaired machinery began to grind, he added in an underbreath, “so Bagot can come kill both my brother and me.”

 

When Kate heard Rafe invite the searchers to enter their hall, her heart took to hopping like a hare in her chest. God help her but not even to save her marriage was she ready to face these men. She edged backward from the dais set up along the long inner wall until she stood well inside the bedchamber’s doorway.

Fool! There was nowhere to hide at Glevering; she knew that well enough from yesterday. Despite that, she shifted until she stood half-concealed by the door’s frame. It didn’t help. No matter how dim the shadows here, there was no escaping what lay before her. Like it or not, these men would put questions to her that Kate wasn’t certain she could bear to answer.

Lord, but if her father didn’t do it first, they’d crucify her once they heard how foolishly she’d behaved. They’d accuse her of being too bold, which was naught but true. Worst of all, the very existence of her and Rafe’s affection doomed them. These men would never believe that Rafe and she hadn’t planned a secret marriage to escape the wedding her father intended for her.

Well, if she wasn’t ready for this meeting at least the hall was. It was in preparation for the search party’s arrival that Kate, Dame Joan and Glevering’s maids had labored this morn. From the cellar came the chair Joan said Kate’s sire used during Glevering’s hall moot. This they’d placed on the dais against the back wall.

The breakfast tables still stood, although now cleared of the potage and hard bread that had broken Glevering’s fast. Each table was laid with an array of the precious sweet cheeses made from the milk that came after the stock consumed the first of a spring’s grasses.

Fresh breads, their yeasty aromas filling the hall’s air, waited in baskets at each table. For drink there were pitchers of watered wine while the village alewives had provided barley water and their freshest brew for any who preferred a simpler drink. Later, if the matter was settled in Rafe’s favor--and even if it were not Kate supposed--there would be a meal of lamb.

Once all was in readiness, Rafe had sent the maids to the manor’s chapel. There they would wait along with the Godsol priest until called to bear witness to the wedding. Rafe claimed their stories would be better believed if they weren’t within the hall to hear what had come before their testimony.

Of those who came seeking Kate, Bishop Robert entered first. Sunlight sparked off his armor, haloing him in light. Even with that aura he looked far different dressed as a warrior than as a priest. Without his miter he seemed smaller, his face that of a weasel instead of a saint.

Rafe and Will followed at his heels. The instant Will was within he turned to the side and stopped a few feet from the doorway, as if he meant to guard the opening. Rafe looked well pleased with himself. As hard as Kate tried she couldn’t take heart from his confidence. A thousand churchmen could call this marriage legal and still her father would fight to see it dissolved.

“Will you sit, my lord bishop?” her new husband asked of Bishop Robert, sounding every inch the host as he led their exalted guest to the dais and the chair.

One by one, those who would listen to Kate’s tale entered. Of the judges there were only six, each a man of quality or, in the case of the countess’s knight, the agent of a powerful woman. However, each brought with him his own wee army as he came.

Safe in her shadowed spot, she studied them, seeking some sign that might indicate if they were friendly to her cause. When Lord Haydon entered, he removed his gloves and went immediately to the table nearest the door. There he took a seat and helped himself to a goodly slice of cheese. Sir Josce and Gerard followed him into the hall, but neither man sat, not because they didn’t wish to be comfortable in a hall Rafe claimed to own but because they weren’t here as judges. Neither were they of a rank to sit with the other men.

Behind them strode the countess’s marshal, carrying his helmet in the crook of his arm as if he expected to need it in the hall. Disapproval marked his face as he shunned the tables and made his way to the bishop, who now sat in the great chair. Taking a position a few feet to the right and behind that seat, the silent knight crossed his free arm over the breast of his sullied surcoat. Every surly line of his body shouted that she and Rafe had no friend in him.

The old man who’d played herald yesterday made himself comfortable on a bench near Lord Haydon. He tore off a hunk of bread to break his fast then offered what remained of the small loaf to his middle-aged heir, who, like Lord Haydon’s sons, stood at his father’s shoulder. The easy way they both studied the room suggested this family had no axe to bury in the Godsols.

But they and Haydon’s family were the only two. By the time her father entered, he being the last man into the room, the four men and their parties yet afoot solidly outnumbered those who favored the Godsols. Had any crumb of hope yet existed in Kate, it would have died at this point. Even if she survived the coming interrogation, she was going to lose her precious husband.

Aching over what was sure to come, Kate watched her sire stride into a hall that was no longer his. So stiff was his spine that he might have worn a lance beneath his mail tunic. His face was black as he glanced about the room, his expression so fearsome that Kate edged farther behind the doorframe. Only now did it occur to her that there were two people her sire could murder to end this marriage and regain control of Glevering.

Lord Humphrey’s gaze caught on Dame Joan as the hapless woman filled the old nobleman’s cup with watered wine. Her father’s surcoat snapped about his knees as he strode across the hall to confront the wife of his erstwhile bailiff.

“Where is that betraying husband of yours, woman?” her sire raged. “By God, I’ll have his heart out, I will! My property ceded to the Godsols when there’s not a mark of battle damage on a single wall! What did that traitor do, open the door and invite these foul worm-eaters to come in?”

The poor woman loosed a pitiful cry and dropped to her knees. Wine slopped over the edge of her pitcher as she set it on the floor in front of her. She folded her hands in supplication. Her ashen face said she expected a death blow at any instant.

In his borrowed chair the bishop slammed a fist against its thick arm. “We have a truce, Bagot! Leave off her,” he shouted in reprimand.

But Joan was already speaking, her tone that of one pleading for her life. “My lord, what were we to do? We knew not that they were Godsols, for no man among them wore a stitch of that family’s colors and every face was hidden beneath a cloak’s hood. When my Ernulf stood upon the wall yestermorn, it was Sir Warin’s horse, shield and helmet he saw. Aye, my dear husband opened these gates, but for your steward, not the Godsols.” The room was silent, every man straining to catch each astonishing word.

Lord Humphrey threw out his arms in frustration. “Sir Warin’s horse! Are you so gullible? You knew well enough that my steward was across the shire at Haydon’s wedding.”

“But my lord,” Joan cried in a voice stronger than her meek posture suggested possible, “only the previous day we’d received a message marked by your own seal, warning us to expect Sir Warin’s arrival in the near future.”

Bile stewed in Kate’s gullet as the extent of her foolishness over Warin settled heavily upon her shoulders. She’d thought his kidnapping of her a spontaneous reaction to her father’s misuse of him. Instead, just like Rafe and his brother, Warin had had a larger plan. Aye, and he’d laid his trap for her with care. No doubt he’d played the part of her courtly lover in the hope of winning her compliance to his scheme. No wonder he’d been so enraged when Rafe showed interest in her. By the same token, the thought of Warin fawning over her for nearly a month’s time when he wanted nothing more than Glevering made disgust shimmy down Kate’s spine.

Across the room her sire reeled as if struck. His mail jangled harshly in the hall’s breathless quiet as he stumbled back to collide with a table. There he stood, panting. Other than the steady snap and crack of the fire on the hearthstone, his rasping breath was the room’s only sound.

On his drawn face Kate saw that her sire understood very well what had given Warin the confidence to finally play his hand. She freed a scornful breath. That made her father double the fool she’d been. So completely had he trusted his steward that he’d made Warin a partner in a murder attempt, thus leaving himself vulnerable to betrayal.

“Nay, he couldn’t have plotted so,” her father said, his voice thready, his words quiet enough to suggest he spoke more to himself than to the room. “I was good to him, treating him more as a son than one merely oathbound to me.”

Mutters rose from his peers, echoing up into the rafters. No matter their affiliation, the good dame’s story discomforted them. No man cared to think that those he trusted might turn on him.

At the head of the room the bishop’s eyes narrowed as he looked at Rafe. “Do I assume ‘twas you who carried de Dapifer’s shield to trick your way into this place?” It was a dry and pointed question.

“It was,” Rafe agreed then held up a forestalling hand. “My lord, I think it hardly matters how I came to own Glevering now that I’m wed to the manor’s heiress.” He glanced at the men about him, his look meant to collect their attention. “Only if Lord Bagot chooses to disown his daughter will I put to your scrutiny the events by which I can now claim Glevering as mine own.”

Across the room Lord Haydon sucked in a swift breath. The countess’s knight lifted his chin with enough sharpness to indicate surprise. Even Sir Josce and Gerard stirred uneasily at his words.

The bishop looked no more pleased than they. “In that you are right, Sir Ralf,” he replied, his voice as tense as his face. “Best that we discuss the marriage first, hoping to leave the other where it lies.”

“No marriage,” her father rasped out, his face as colorless as a dead man’s. He held a fist against his heart as if that organ pained him and dragged in a ragged breath. “No marriage,” he tried again, but his words hardly came any louder.

For the briefest of instants concern for her sire jolted Kate, but the emotion swiftly ebbed. This was the man who cared so little for her that he wouldn’t have her in his presence, the same man who wanted her husband dead for no greater reason than that Rafe bore the Godsol name. Her sire had stolen Pelerin from the Godsols and killed Rafe’s sire. He’d even destroyed Warin’s honor in order to shield his own misdeed. Nay, he neither wanted nor deserved her care.

Concern marked Bishop Robert’s narrow face. “Do you ail, Bagot? Sir Reginald.” He gestured to one of his knights. “Aid Lord Bagot to a bench and help him sit.”

His face impassive, the young knight named by the churchman started toward the bent nobleman. Before he reached Kate’s sire, her father’s fist opened. Although his head yet hung, Bagot’s lord waved off the man, then struggled to reclaim his composure, just as he had done at the picnic. He wasn’t as successful this time. When he finally managed to straighten, his face was yet gray.

“I need no aid,” he told the room, his words louder now, but his voice still hoarse. “Not from any of you. All I need at this moment is my daughter at my side. Katherine?” he called out, an overly sweet tone to his voice.

Kate’s feet froze to the floor. Her father didn’t want her, only control over her person. Aye, and once he owned her again he’d find some way, fair or foul, to keep her from Rafe.

“Katherine,” he called again, more power in his voice this time, “come to me.”

When still no movement stirred in any corner of the hall her father frowned and glanced about the chamber, seeking her. So too, did those four judges who’d chosen to stand. Not so those who sat. Lord Haydon waved a miraculously restored Dame Joan to him to fill his cup while the old nobleman made his way, slice by slice, through the cheese.

At the center of the room Rafe turned without hesitation toward the bedchamber’s door. The corners of Kate’s mouth lifted. Of course he knew where she was. Love bound them, soul to soul, and so it would continue until the moment of death’s parting even if they were separated today.

Yet clinging to the shadows, Kate studied the man she’d wed, cherishing every line of his fine body and handsome face. Rafe’s stance was proud, his shoulders held in a way that only days before she might have called arrogant. Now she knew it for what it was: a reflection of Rafe’s boundless conviction of success.

Their gazes met. Rafe’s mouth softened. Pleasure warmed his dark eyes, his reaction both a reminder of his love and an encouragement for her to do as she thought best.

Whereas Rafe owned hope and confidence, grim resignation claimed Kate’s heart. Unfortunately, what she knew was best to do was what she least wanted to face. No matter what she wanted, it was time to face these men and pay the piper for her misdeeds. If her condemnation as ill-mannered and a lightskirt actually bought her marriage to Rafe, then it was a small price indeed.

Giving her borrowed overgown a nervous brush, Kate took a single step outside the bedchamber door to attract the attention of the room. Every head swung in her direction, including that of her sire. Mild surprise touched her father’s face as he took in what she wore. As he found the lingering redness along her jaw, all that remained of Warin’s slap last night, satisfaction lit his gray eyes. His mouth curled upward in a grin beneath the concealment of his wiry beard as he interpreted the mark as proof of Rafe’s force.