Where Love Has Gone (22 page)

“But I never would have put Benedicta aside!
I wasn’t so lost to sensual passion as that. She needn’t have
feared ending her life in a convent. I would not have dishonored
her so.”

“I do wish you would cease to speak about
honor,” Desmond told him with icy contempt. “You must know that by
your weakness you have forfeited all claim to knightly honor.”

“He’s not weak in battle,” Flamig said with a
flare of lingering loyalty. “Never in battle. In the midst of the
worst fray, Lord Bertrand is the soul of bravery.”

“Very likely,” said Cadwallon. “I’ve known
several men who were valiant enough in battle, but who proved
themselves weak fools where women are concerned. Even, sometimes,
women the man doesn’t love.”

“Enough delay,” Desmond said with more than a
touch of impatience. “Lord Bertrand, in the king’s name, you must
answer the question I have put to you. Who is Lady Benedicta’s
secret correspondent?”

“I have no idea who it could be. But I
believe Aglise knew,” Lord Bertrand said, sounding as if he had
made up his mind and was embarking on a treacherous and uncertain
route. “Just a few days before she died, she hinted to me that she
possessed information that would destroy my wife. Aglise begged me
to call Benedicta to this room so she could face her in my presence
with what she’d learned. She claimed Benedicta would be forced to
retire to a convent and then, she and I could be together.

“Poor girl, she envisioned a life of
excitement at court. She insisted if I revealed to King Henry what
Benedicta was doing, then he would reward me – and Aglise, as well.
I couldn’t make her understand that if Benedicta had committed a
crime, Henry would blame me as much as her. After all, a man is
held responsible for what his wife does. A wife is only chattel, so
of course Henry would believe I knew about and condoned Benedicta’s
misdeeds, whatever they were.

“Aglise refused to listen to sense.” Lord
Bertrand rubbed his face in the weary motion so characteristic of
him. “And she never did tell me what she thought she had
discovered.”

“Are you saying, after hearing Aglise’s
claims you still made no attempt to learn what your wife was
involved in?” Cadwallon demanded. “I find that exceptionally hard
to believe.”

“Lady Benedicta and I are not close. The mild
affection that once lay between us is long gone. Some years ago she
chose a separate room for herself, and I am not a man to force an
unwilling woman.”

“Where love has gone,” Cadwallon said, “other
emotions arise to fill the void in an empty heart. The question we
must ask is, what emotion filled Lady Benedicta’s heart?”

“She loves our sons,” Lord Bertrand said.

“No doubt she does,” Cadwallon agreed. “I was
thinking of a devotion more deadly and dangerous.”

“Lord Bertrand, what happened after your
attempt to talk Aglise out of facing Lady Benedicta failed?”
Desmond asked.

“I think she confronted Benedicta on her own,
and told her what she knew. Whatever Aglise revealed, it was most
unwise of her to speak to my wife without a witness present. I
suppose Aglise’s accusations frightened Benedicta, who probably
feared she had no recourse but to dispose of the poor girl.” Lord
Bertrand paused to wipe his eyes.

“How little you know of women,” Cadwallon
told him. “Especially your own wife. Lady Benedicta is no fragile
creature, to be terrified by a girl young enough to be her
daughter. No, it’s far more likely she killed Aglise with cold
calculation, in order to protect her position as an effective spy
for King Louis of France.”

“A spy for France?” Lord Bertrand repeated,
sounding utterly bewildered.

“You cannot expect us to accept your
contention that you knew nothing about this,” Desmond said.

“I knew something was wrong and I admit, I
ought to have looked into the matter more closely,” Lord Bertrand
said.

“Indeed, you should have,” Flamig declared
with barely suppressed rage. “My lord, you are charged by King
Henry with keeping this castle and this island safe from any and
all intruders. It’s your business to know what is happening on
Jersey, and on Guernsey and Sark and the other islands, too, and to
report to the king any indication of a threat from the French. This
little group of islands would make an ideal base from which to
launch an invasion of England.

“Or an invasion of Normandy, now I think of
it,” Flamig continued. “If King Louis is as clever and devious as
he is reputed to be, he’d assemble an army on these islands and
another army on the mainland, and seize Normandy in a pincer
movement.”

“I can tell you’ve been paying attention.”
Desmond’s wry smile lasted only until he looked again at the lord
of Warden’s Manor. “Lord Bertrand has been otherwise occupied.”

“Yes, occupied in seducing a girl who was
placed in his care,” Flamig exclaimed. “Lord Bertrand, you make me
ashamed that I ever respected and admired you. Now, I can only
conclude that you have sorely neglected your duty. And so have I
neglected mine, for I should have spoken up long before this.
Perhaps, if I had spoken about what I guessed at, Lady Aglise would
still be alive, and you would not be disgraced. You are disgraced,
you know. I hope you do know it.”

“Aye.” An expression of deep sadness
overspread Lord Bertrand’s harsh features, softening them. He
looked thoroughly defeated and at least ten years older than his
true age. “I’ve spent months denying the truth instead of facing
it. I’ll spurn the facts no longer. Perhaps, in the end, I can
redeem a little of the honor I have violated. What do you want me
to do, Sir Desmond?”

“The ship
Daisy
will likely put into
Gorey Harbor tomorrow or the next day, to take us to Caen,” Desmond
said. “When we leave Jersey, you and Lady Benedicta will go with
us, and when we reach Caen, you will explain yourself to Royce, if
you can. He will investigate the charges I intend to level against
your lady, of murdering Aglise and of suspicion of spying for the
King of France. I also intend to charge you with seducing a noble
virgin who was under your protection and with willfully ignoring
your wife’s possibly traitorous activities. After that, I expect
Royce will want you to confess to King Henry and hand Lady
Benedicta over to royal justice.”

“You know as well as I what her end will be,”
Lord Bertrand said. “Henry will order her beheaded.”

“Perhaps not.” Out of pity, Desmond was
willing to offer a faint hope to a ruined man. “Henry is not a
bloodthirsty king. Depending on the amount of damage Lady Benedicta
has caused, he may decide to remand her to a strict convent for the
rest of her life.”

“You could promise King Henry that you’ll
take the cross and go on crusade to absolve your sins, and your
lady’s,” Flamig added. “It might help your cause.”

“Ever the faithful man-at-arms,” Lord
Bertrand murmured.

“Flamig is obviously a man with a good grasp
of your situation,” Cadwallon said. “Lord Bertrand, if you want
this Island of Jersey kept safe from King Louis during your
absence, I suggest you appoint Flamig as seneschal.”

“Once I leave Jersey, I will never return,”
Lord Bertrand responded with a sigh. “King Henry won’t trust me to
guard this place. Flamig is right; my best recourse is to throw
myself on Henry’s mercy and offer to take the cross.”

Jean fell asleep on top of Elaine’s bed as
soon as she finished applying the herbal ointment to his injuries.
She could see him relaxing as she gently rubbed his back and
shoulders. Once his eyes were closed she didn’t have the heart to
wake him up and make him move. Instead, she covered him again with
her warm shawl. Then she removed her shoes and climbed, still
dressed, under the covers.

She wakened with the first light of the new
morning to find the boy curled up next to her. When she stirred,
Jean bolted upright, then scrambled to his feet.

“My lady, I am sorry,” he exclaimed. “I
should not have presumed—”

“Oh, do hush, please,” she interrupted, glad
of a chance to smile. “No harm is done because you didn’t sleep on
the floor. I do think you’d be wise to hurry to the kitchen,
though. If the cook complains that you are late, tell her you were
in attendance on me and that I’ll vouch for you.”

“Yes, my lady. Thank you. My shoulders are
quite healed now.”

Her smile slowly fading, Elaine watched
Jean’s departing back. His mention of the injuries inflicted by
Lady Benedicta recalled the events of the previous evening.

“Lady Benedicta,” Elaine said between set
teeth, “you will be punished for what you’ve done.”

“Were you speaking to me, my lady?” asked the
maidservant who came through the bedchamber door Jean had left
open. She carried a pitcher of warm water so Elaine could wash.

“I was only wondering aloud where I might
find Lady Benedicta this morning.”

“She’s in the linen room, of course,” the
maid said, rolling her eyes. “I expect she’s folding the sheets
again. The laundresses sent up a large basket of clean linens late
yesterday, though how they managed to dry them in all the heavy
rain is a mystery to me. You know Lady Benedicta cannot abide
untidy linens.”

“Yes, I do know,” Elaine responded. “Lady
Benedicta is very particular. It’s the mark of a good
chatelaine.”

“If you ask me, she’s a bit mad on the
subject,” the maid said. “Who cares about the linens?”

“Lady Benedicta cares, and so long as we are
under her rule, we will do as she wishes,” Elaine said sharply. “Do
not criticize your mistress.”

If the truth be told, Elaine wanted to do far
more than just criticize Lady Benedicta, but she wasn’t going to
discuss her opinion with a servant whom she knew to be overly fond
of gossip.

“Yes, my lady,” said the maid. “I mean, no,
my lady. Was that Jean I saw leaving just now?”

“I set Jean a task, which he has just
completed, and he did it very well, too,” Elaine said in a
repressive tone. “You may tell the cook I said so.”

“Yes, my lady.” The maid sounded properly
admonished, though Elaine was sure she would begin to repeat their
conversation the moment she arrived in the kitchen. Perhaps,
Elaine’s praise of Jean would absolve the boy of any blame for his
absence from early morning chores.

“You may go now.” Her dismissal of the maid
was deliberately cool.

Left alone, Elaine quickly washed her face,
combed and braided her hair. The dark grey gown she had worn since
the previous morning was impossibly wrinkled, so she changed into
an older dress of brown wool, suitable for travel.

Then it was time to prepare for the journey
to Caen, which Lord Bertrand had decreed must begin as soon as a
ship left Gorey Harbor. Elaine needed only a few minutes to fold
her dresses and her other, meager possessions into the wooden
clothing chest that had come with her from Dereham. When she was
finished, the little chest was barely half full.

Aglise’s clothing chest was larger, and it
was overflowing with the brightly colored gowns she had loved.
Before setting out for Jersey, Aglise had cajoled their mother into
providing two new dresses, a green silk and a blue woolen gown.
Soon after Aglise’s disappearance Elaine had searched the chest,
looking for a clue as to where she had gone. But she had found
nothing and she had tried not to rearrange her sister’s possessions
too obviously, in case Aglise returned and was annoyed with her for
prying.

With Aglise gone forever, the chest couldn’t
stay at Warden’s Manor. The last thing Elaine wanted was to turn
her sister’s belongings over to Lady Benedicta to paw through and
dispose of as she pleased. She devoutly hoped Lady Benedicta would
soon be brought to justice, but in the meantime, she remained the
chatelaine of Warden’s Manor, in charge of all domestic matters.
Elaine decided she’d take Aglise’s chest aboard ship with her own.
When she reached Caen, she’d give it to Lady Irmina and let her
decide what to do with its contents. As she tucked the shining
folds of the green silk gown into the wooden chest, she discovered
an unexpected thickness in the lining at the bottom of one sleeve.
She hadn’t noticed it in her previous search, because the lining
backed a wide band of embroidery at the hem of the sleeve,
stiffening it. Aglise had loved the way those sleeves flared out,
and had practiced using her arms to show off both the embroidery
and her slender wrists.

Now, trying to flatten the sleeves so the
gown would fit more neatly into the chest, Elaine felt a foreign
object under the hem. When she looked closely, she could see how
the stitches securing the hem had been plucked out and then resewn
rather clumsily. Sewn by Aglise’s own hand, Elaine was sure; her
sister was no seamstress. But she had known how to hide something
she didn’t want anyone to find.

Elaine reopened her own clothing chest,
located her embroidery scissors, and removed the questionable
stitches. Between the lining and the embroidery lay a tiny piece of
parchment, rolled into a tight tube and somewhat flattened to make
it less noticeable. Elaine pulled it out and unrolled it. The
parchment was covered with words and numbers, all written in a
miniscule script.

The object was decidedly odd; Aglise could
barely read and she certainly wasn’t interested in writing
anything. Wondering if Lord Bertrand had written a poem to her
sister, though he didn’t seem the kind of man to do such a thing,
Elaine examined the parchment more closely. She began to think it
was a puzzle of some kind.

Or a code.

Her hands suddenly shaking, she carried the
parchment to the window so she could see it better. It was so
small, and the writing was barely decipherable. In one place the
ink was smeared by what looked like a water spot, which made her
attempt to read even more difficult. After careful scrutiny she was
able to make out a word that was repeated several times.
Henri
. She could not have explained how she recognized the
king’s name; the letters that appeared to form another word
abruptly rearranged themselves in her mind to make sense to her. So
did a date, written once.
Le premier Mai
. Less than a week
away.