Candle in the Window (32 page)

She wrapped her arms around her stomach, in pain
and at a loss. “I don’t know what you want.”

It was a cry of bewilderment, and his voice
gentled. “I want a wife, Saura. I want a woman who loves me,
who glories in my love for her, who values my judgment enough to
know I’d not love an unworthy vessel. Anne was the wife
chosen for me by my father, and we formed ourselves into a marriage
and we were happy. Yet I speak no treason to Anne when I say
you’re the wife chosen by me for me. There’s no need to
file away rough edges; we already fit. We always fit. We could have
the kind of love that shines like a light for all to see, but
you’re afraid.”

“What do you mean, afraid?”

“Afraid to trust me with your confidence.
Afraid that I’ll be like Theobald and the others, and laugh
at you. Afraid to look into my soul and see the kind of man I am.
I’m open to you, and you’re afraid to
see
.”

He struck at the very heart of her anxiety. He was
in her mind, and for the first time she realized what a coward she
was. She didn’t want him to know her so well, she
didn’t want to know him as if he were the other half of her.
She couldn’t maintain her anger in the face of his sadness,
and when she spoke she found her voice thickened with tears.
“You don’t believe me about Charles.”

“You haven’t given me a logical reason
to believe you. You haven’t given me someone else to suspect.
For God’s sake, tell me what’s in your mind.”

Crying in earnest now, she muttered, “I
can’t. I just can’t.”

He was silent, accepting her words, and then he
walked away from her. Kneeling on the ground, he cursed. “I
can find my breeches, but not my hose. That’ll have to
do.”

She heard him struggling to dress, readying himself
to walk away from her, and her sobs overwhelmed her. She remembered
crying in front of Theobald, back when he could still hurt her. She
remembered his scorn, remembered hearing him say,
“Don’t play that game with me. Sniveling won’t
win my sympathies.” Stuffing her skirt into her mouth to
muffle her sounds, she stood desolate while William prepared to
walk away, and flayed herself for cowardice. He was dressed, he was
going.

But he came to her and wrapped his big arms around
her. “Don’t cry, sweeting. You’re breaking my
heart. Please don’t cry.”

That made it worse. Kindness when she expected
scorn,
caring when she deserved a shaking. The
sobs shook her in earnest and he held her and crooned.

When the storm subsided, he petted her and said,
“Let’s go in now. ’Tis dark out here. ’Tis
getting chill.”

“Nay! Nay.” She shook her head against
him and mopped her face on the skirt of her cotte. “I want to
stay out here and think.” He began to deny her, but she
begged, “Please, William, I have so much to consider. Leave
me alone, just for a while.”

Surprisingly, he did as she implored. He left her
standing in the dark, in the damp, in a garden that was no longer a
refuge from herself. When she knew he had gone in, she said to the
empty air, “I just want to be the right kind of wife. I just
want to be a normal wife.”

“Bula!” Saura tossed aside the handful
of dry leaves she was shredding and called him. Listening, she
could hear the distant snuffling noises as Bula sought to scare up
another squirrel, and called firmly, “Bula, come.”

He snorted in protest, but galloped to her,
bringing his ready affection and need for constant attention. She
fended off the attack of his tongue on her face. Scrubbing under
his chin, she listened to his ecstatic whine and crooned,
“Aye, you’re a sweet boy, you are.” She used his
collar to lever herself off the bench and groped for the rope
tacked from tree to tree, marking her path.

She didn’t want to be alone, for it left her
mind open to the fears and regrets, but today the pain had chased
her from the castle. She’d had to promise Maud she
wouldn’t wander far. She’d promised to take Bula for
security. When Maud snorted and pointed out that the dog was
nothing but an
overgrown puppy, Saura had had
to agree. Still, his mere size discouraged most, and his
unrestrained friendliness acted as a protection in itself. Maud had
snorted again, but reluctantly consented to let Saura go. Maud saw
the torment that trapped her mistress, and she trusted Lord
Peter’s woodsmen to keep her darling safe.

Saura followed her fingertips from the castle wall
into the forest where she could sit in solitude and think. And
think. And curse herself and her inhibitions and wish she had
William back.

William had stayed for three days after their night
in the garden, hugging her, touching her, preparing to leave.

He’d been kind and encouraging, praising her
good sense and helpful hands. He’d done everything to mend
the rift between them. He’d given her every chance to tell
him what he wanted to hear. Time and again she opened her mouth to
tell him; tell him she’d be his wife, give her whole self,
hold nothing back. But her intrinsic truthfulness restrained her.
She couldn’t surrender herself so completely, and she ached
with the knowing.

Why couldn’t she? What led her to keep her
heart safe? She couldn’t understand her own mind. She’d
never believed she was a coward, she’d never believed
she’d be satisfied with less than complete union. So why did
she step away from her heart’s desire?

They’d fooled the servants, they’d
fooled everyone. They’d seemed easy with each other, and only
the two of them had heard the dreadful silences between them when
conversation had lagged.

And he’d left.

Housework hadn’t filled the gap. She’d
attacked all the duties of the chatelaine with vicious
determination. She’d ordered the undercroft scrubbed, rotting
fruit from the pre
vious year discarded, and a
thorough cleaning performed. Last year’s salted meat had been
placed in the front to be used first, and the pickling barrels
awaited the first cold snap and the butchering that would fill
them. Eating apples were packed in wooden boxes, cushioned by
straw, and the tiny apples were pressed for cider. Herbs were hung
to dry from the ceiling.

It had all been in vain, worthless distractions
that couldn’t keep her mind from wandering. Now she walked
with Bula, seeking a solution to the ache that plagued her.
Together they proceeded down the path, the crisp air wrapping them
round.

Saura wanted to reach the large oak. She’d
turn back there, she promised herself. It wasn’t far, but she
wanted to explore the flaking bark with the palm of her hand. She
wanted to feel the carving William had made for them one day as
they walked the path in their honey month, a
W
entwined with an
S
,
he’d explained, guiding her fingers through the loops of the
letters. She wanted to find the marks, wedged in between the
reminders of other sweethearts, and trace them lovingly. Like a
fool, she wanted to hug the tree that kept the remembrance of their
happiness.

For the first time since William left, she
descended into the depths of pathos. The whole world was unfair.
Her brothers didn’t need her. Pertrade Castle still stood
without her. Her husband was gone, her faithful serving maid had
found a love. She tripped on a rock in the path and sobbed out
loud. A branch smacked her in the face and she knocked it aside.
She wrapped her hand around Bula’s collar and urged him
forward.

Bula tried to veer off, away from the rope that
directed her, and Saura admonished, “Nay, boy, this way.
We’re almost there.”

He insisted they should go into the trees, and she
found the rope with her hands again. “The squirrels must be
allowed to gather their nuts, and we must go to the tree.
We’re not getting there very quickly, between your frolicking
and my laziness. Come on.” She tightened her grip on his
collar and tugged.

He came, whining insistently and leaning sideways
against her guidance. His weight created an ache in her arm and she
pulled him sharply. “Come
on!
” He yelped as if she had hurt him, and
she scolded, “You fool dog. You’re the biggest baby.
Don’t you want to go to the tree with me? We’ll be
there straightaway.”

Obediently, he trotted along beside her for another
moment and then began his sideways pull. He stopped and sniffed the
ground, tangling beneath her feet, and she let him go in
exasperation. Released, he didn’t run off, as she expected,
but stood in her path and barked.

His bark puzzled her. He wasn’t sounding an
alarm, yet he seemed unwillingly to let her go on. He seemed
uncertain, in doubt.

Putting her fists at her waist, she asked,
“Bula, are you mad?”

For answer, he bumped her hard with his big head,
and the tears that threatened overflowed.

“I can’t go back yet.” She
stopped to suck in her breath and stifle the sobs that broke her
voice. “I’ve got to be alone.”

He nudged her away from the rope, but she found it
and gripped it with her fist.

“I can’t leave the path. I’d be
lost in the forest.”

He didn’t understand, insistent that he
wanted her to go away from the cable. He pushed her, and when she
wouldn’t leave, he trotted a few feet away and whined with
entreaty.

“I can’t.” Even the dog was
abandoning her. Her emotions broke, and she cried with unstifled
sadness. She turned away from him and groped unsteadily down the
path, and when he sprang in front of her and tripped her once more,
it was too much. “Go away!” She smacked him with the
side of her hand, hurting her bones and his feelings. “Go on
and leave me. I don’t need you!”

He whined and ducked, tried to insist and whined
when she swung at him and deliberately missed. Then he sat in the
middle of the path behind her and complained as she followed the
cord around the bend—and stopped in midflight, in midsob.

This wasn’t right.

She trusted that dog. Not even her own battered
emotions could shake her faith. He was her eyes, and if he tried to
stop her from going where she wished, there had to be a reason.

Sniffling, she dug her handkerchief out of her
sleeve. Wiping her nose, she listened. The woods sounded quieter
today. Deeper. With a subdued hush. Shuffling her feet, she found
deep leaves, leaves so deep it seemed they hadn’t been
disturbed by feet tramping a worn path. Odd. And jagged stones,
lots of stones. Lifting her hands out, she swung around. Trees hung
their shaggy branches thick about her and broke the ground with
their untamed roots.

She stiffened; she clasped her fist to her chest.
Her fingers kneaded the handkerchief and her teeth chewed her
lip.

It almost seemed as if she were in a part of the
forest where she’d never been before.

It was impossible.

Unless the ropes had been moved.

“Bula,” she called uncertainly.

He barked in reply and scuffled in the leaves.

Raising her head, she sniffed and smelled it: the
sour smell of men who had spent many hours in the woods.

Whirling, she grasped the rope in her fingers and
ran back toward her dog. “Bula!” She heard his bark of
recognition, but he wasn’t barking at her. She ran faster,
stumbling in an agony of dread, and she heard heavy footsteps
racing toward her. She heard Bula growl, deep in his chest, and
heard it grow to a full, hostile snarl. Men yelled warnings. A
human being screamed. From Bula came the noise of desperation.

She gasped at the sound of a heavy thump, like a
rock against a hollow log. Abruptly, the agonized canine noises
stopped, and she called Bula again, but he didn’t answer
her.

As her panic rose up to choke her, she heard a man
speaking the same words she’d heard before, but now his voice
was unmuffled and recognizable.

“Fear not, fair lady. I love you.”

William was a man who prided himself
on his logic. The world would have been shocked to hear he
didn’t believe in witches or wizards or imps. He’d been
a skeptic since the day he’d captured a squeaking goblin. The
goblin had turned out to be nothing more than a stained and
frightened man, a charcoal burner who lived deep in the woods.
Nothing in his later life had changed William’s firm
conviction that men feared the unknown for no reason. No one, be
they magician or juggler, had displayed powers he couldn’t
understand, and so he dealt with logic and found it a convincing
substitute for humbug.

He’d used logic to decide Charles was the
bastard who sought his downfall, but there lodged in his mind a
tiny niggling doubt.

Something was missing from his logic.

Staring at the stronghold where Charles lived,
William tapped his fingers on his saddle and wished he knew what to
do. Somehow, as he’d ridden farther from
Saura and closer to Charles, he’d convinced himself she spoke
the truth. Slower and slower he’d ridden, the burden of his
uncertainty growing heavy. The trip that should have taken three
days took seven as he debated the wisdom of his move. He ached to
turn around and ride back to Saura, to tell her she was right and
he was wrong. But perhaps he simply felt guilty.

He’d thought he could slowly teach her to
love him as he loved her. He’d thought the patience he
possessed was sufficient to lay siege to her restraints. He’d
found, to his own amazement, that it was not. How could he have
demanded so much of her? Saura’s brothers had told him of her
legacy from Theobald; he’d been prepared for years of slow
and steady support to wean her from her
idée fixe
. Instead he’d discovered he
couldn’t tolerate her gratitude, offered him at the end of a
halcyon interlude.

Gratitude: It made him want to spit. How could she
cheapen their matrimony by offering nothing more than what other
women gave? How could she demand less than he was willing to
give?

Shaking his head in disbelief, he stared again at
the battlements before him. Was he ignoring Saura’s
conviction from vindictiveness or good sense? She swore it
wasn’t Charles, but offered no other candidates. With
feminine illogic, she’d deemed Charles innocent, but could
offer no other suspects.

She couldn’t be correct.

Like a well-oiled wheel running in a well-worn
track, he again reviewed the facts. Charles needed the money.
Charles was weak-willed and envious. Charles was always at the
right place, at the right time for the attacks.
Charles…Charles was all that was logical. And unlikely.

Damn! Saura had affected him more than he realized.
Raising his hand to his band of soldiers, he signaled them to
dismount. His squire lowered his banner and
together they slid to the ground to rest and prepare for battle the
following morning.

“How could you kill my dog?”

“I didn’t kill him. My men killed him.
I just got him to sit still long enough so they could tether
him.”

“Bula knew you,” Saura said in misery.
“He knew you were a friend of William’s. When he should
have attacked you, he didn’t because he knew his master let
you in his house.”

“When I ran after you, he didn’t trust
me any longer. He mauled one of my men so badly I had to leave him
there to enrich the soil. So you see, I didn’t kill that dog.
I couldn’t kill him and subdue you at the same
time.”

“You’re mad.” Saura sat before
Nicholas in the saddle, her knees on either side of his horse and
her skirt tucked up beneath her. He held her with his arm, leaning
her back against his chest. She hated it, she hated to touch him
and she shuddered when he touched her, but she had no choice. The
battle to subdue her had been swift and brutal and lonely. There
had been no one in the forest to help her, no one to save her when
he had wrestled her to the ground. Her frenzied use of her
fingernails and her eating knife had only earned her marks on her
face and a swollen wrist, and a grudging respect for her
captor’s ability to wield his strength. Everyone had a
contempt for his knightly skills, but she now held a healthy
respect for his cunning and brutality. And a healthy fear of his
obsessions.

“I’m not mad,” he assured her.
“I’m brilliant. The normal run of mankind isn’t
worthy to receive my foot on their neck.”

“This is despicable.”

“Dishonorable.” She felt him nod in
agreement. “So sly and sneaky and clever it’s hard to
believe one man could have planned it.”

“Aren’t you ashamed?” she asked
desperately. “You’re soiling the very men who fostered
you.”

He laughed in genuine amusement and dropped a light
kiss on her neck. “Lord Peter of Burke is nothing but a pious
old windbag. Always blathering on about knights and the sanctity of
your sworn word and the contracts of loyalty.”

“He means it.”

“Of course he does. More than that, he lives
it. ’Twas so easy to fool him, ’twas pathetic.”
He grunted. “William wasn’t so easy—that’s
why I’ve enjoyed it so. William worships at the altar of
logic, and so I planned very carefully. You see, he doesn’t
believe I’m the logical blackguard.”

“You
aren’t
the logical blackguard. Why are you doing this?”

“’Tis no mystery.” His hand began
a slow slide up and down her arm. “I was the fourth son of my
father. Did you know that?”

“Nay, I thought you had one brother, your
eldest.”

“Aye, that was Lance. But there were two
others ahead of me, and my father used to exult at his good
fortune. Three healthy boys before me. I didn’t stand a
chance to inherit, and he was glad.”

Nervously, Saura urged him to continue.
“Didn’t he like you?”

“My father….” His hand dropped to
the reins again and his voice developed a nasty sneer. “My
father was a man like William. Big and fierce. He lived for
fighting. And my brothers acted like brawling gods, always propping
themselves on a horse and going at the quintain. They didn’t
understand me, understand how I could increase
the property by using my brains. Only my mother understood
me.”

“Your mother? She understood you and your
brothers?”

“The other boys betrayed her, leaving her
alone in the castle while they fought and got wounded and worried
her into illness. I held her hand as she coughed and wheezed when
they came home with bruises and broken bones. She used to get so
sick she couldn’t care for them. She had to leave them to the
nursemaid.”

“She left her sick children in the hands of a
nursemaid?”

“Mama was too delicate to care for such
rambunctious boys,” he said piously.

“Hm.” Saura withheld judgment.

“The boys always said they were sorry, but
they went out and did it again. I watched her cry when my brothers
left for fostering, and I swore I’d never make her cry like
that. God, how I hated them.”

She felt the muscles of his chest tighten, as if he
would explode into violence, and asked timidly, “Did they
beat you?”

“Oh, nay. Nay. Just treated me with a kind of
contempt that lashed at my bones.” He laughed with an
unpleasant snarl. “Beat me? Nay, they tried to make a man out
of me. Tried to make me enjoy getting my head smashed in. My father
used to say he didn’t understand how he could have sired such
a sneaky little wheyface.” The horse jolted forward as his
hands struggled with the reins. “He sent me to Lord Peter to
be fostered because Lord Peter was the best knight in all
England.” He puffed out his chest and lowered his voice in
imitation of his father. “Lord Peter had
bred
the best fighter in all
Christendom.”

A return of her normal spirit made her protest,
“You can’t tell me Lord Peter and William were cruel to
you!”

“Nay, indeed. The only reason I became a
knight was because of Lord Peter’s constant coddling. I
hardly ever saw his contempt. William wasn’t so clever at
hiding his.”

She didn’t answer; she knew that was true. He
fell into a brooding silence, but soon they climbed and broke into
the sunshine and Saura knew they’d reached the road. Both
Nicholas and the horse perked up and his hands began their slow
wandering on her belly. Desperate to divert him, she asked,
“Where are we going?”

“To Cran Castle. ’Tis my finest keep.
It sits high above the sea on the great white cliffs. The great
hall is drafty with the wind off the ocean, but the solar is better
than Burke’s.” He laid his stubbly cheek close against
hers in a parody of affection. “I picked it especially for
you.”

Never the fool, she twisted aside, saying shrewdly,
“And for its defensibility?”

He chuckled, that low and breathy sound that had
haunted her at Burke and now raised goose bumps on her skin.
“That’s one of the reasons I love you. You’re so
pragmatic.”

When he’d had her down on the ground in the
woods, his knees in her back and her wrists twisted up and behind,
he’d spoken in that rasping voice chill with intent. “I
could take you right now,” he’d said, “but
I’ll teach you to love me first.”

The memory made her want to pull her knees together
over the horse’s neck in convulsive fear, but she was afraid
to move and call his attention to her open position. Instead, she
argued, “This is silly. You can’t love a blind woman.
You might love my lands, but never me.”

“Your lands are indeed attractive, but
you’re wrong. I do love you. At first I only coveted you, as
I covet all of William’s possessions. But as I watched you
with William, in my
heart bloomed a great
longing to be the object of your loving attentions. When I saw how
enamored of you he is, that greed turned to love.”

“You mean you love me because William wants
me.”

“Nay,” he corrected. “I love you
because William loves you. He’s devoted to you. He lives for
you.”

“He doesn’t love me, not really.”
Despondent tears unexpectedly filled her eyes as she remembered his
restrained courtesy before he’d left.

“Oh, he loves you. I recognize all the
signs,” Nicholas said in the singsong voice of a gossip.
“He loved his other wife, too, you know, but I think he loves
you more.”

“What do you mean?” She felt stifled;
she knew she shouldn’t encourage this conversation, yet she
couldn’t resist hearing his analysis of her William.

“With Anne, he was content, pleasant, happy.
With you, he’s not content, he’s desperate for you all
the time. He’s happy when you’re happy, always looking
for ways to please you. He wants to kill the men who look at you.
He dotes on you at mealtimes, as if you were some dish fixed just
for him.”

Wanting to believe, yet afraid, she laughed
unsteadily. “Oh come, Nicholas.”

With evil intent, he added, “He’ll come
after you.”

The blood froze in her veins. “He’s not
at Burke. He’ll not realize I’m gone.”

“I know. I saw him go haring off toward
Charles’s castle. I’ve been watching since the last
full moon.”

“Since the last full moon.” Her
statement no longer contained surprise.

“After the wedding, I had to go to Cran and
prepare it for you and give my orders. Then I came back and lived
in the
woods, but you never came out. You were
all I was waiting for,” he explained intensely.

“Am I so important?”

“Fair lady, you are the center of my whole
plan! With your capture, I’m assured of you and assured of
William!”

Her hands curled at her waist. “He’s
gone, I tell you. He’ll not know where I am.”

“He’ll know. He’ll know soon if
he doesn’t know already. I’ve made sure of
that.”

Feeling like a complete idiot, William stood below
the walls of Charles’s castle and roared, “You
can’t surrender, plague take you! This is a siege!”

Charles leaned out one of the crenels in the
battlements and shouted back, “You’ll win, what the
hell difference does it make? I don’t even know why
you’re besieging me!”

“You jest!”

“Jest! I stand here in ignoble nudity,
shivering in the cold air, a beautiful damsel left unsatisfied in
my bed, and you say I jest? You are mad,” Charles said with
heavy conviction.

“
I’m
not
mad,” William denied.

“You are if you stand out there when the
drawbridge is open and a healthy fire burning on my hearth. But do
as you like.” Charles turned away and cried over his
shoulder, “I’m too cold to argue with you.”

William shifted from one foot to the other. His
forces had waited until the early morn to attack, waited in the
first cold snap of the year for the sun to rise. Now the
men-at-arms crouched on their haunches or leaned against trees and
observed their breath as it steamed in the frigid air. They
didn’t
look at William, standing alone
and furious, or at the castle, where the drawbridge lowered with
majestic slowness.

William stared at the beckoning gate and then at
his men. A trap? “God’s teeth,” he muttered.
Adjusting his belt, freeing his sword, he strode forward over the
bridge and into the bailey.

Trained to think with their master’s brain,
half of his force followed on his heels, and the other half
remained outside on alert. The knot of men who walked into the
clear area inside the walls stared around them with bright eyes.
The partially dressed soldiers inside stared back in disgust,
yawning, shivering. They were in such a state of unreadiness
William reeled with horror. “God’s teeth,” he
muttered to Channing. “Didn’t my father train Charles
better than this? He’d be destroyed in a siege.”

“Perhaps he doesn’t think he’s
got anything worth fighting for,” the man-at-arms
suggested.

William whipped around and glared, and Channing
shrugged. Turning back, William paced up to the door of the keep
and peered in. Nothing. No hidden soldiers, no boiling tar to fling
on him. He drew his sword and climbed the stairs to the great hall.
Nothing. Just servants scurrying back and forth placing clothes on
the trestle table and the smell of fresh-baked bread rising from
baskets on the sideboards. He edged into the room, keeping his back
to the wall and feeling absurd, and his men imitated him. By the
grimaces on their faces, he suspected they felt even more absurd,
and he straightened and said, “God’s teeth,” one
more time.