Lady of Valor Read online

  “Milady!”

  From the bailey came a pre-adolescent bark of alarm. The mare started, tossing her head and whinnying, eyes wide. The shout startled Emmalyn as well. She whirled toward the heavy pound of running feet as they neared the stables. One of her fostering pages skidded to a halt in the doorway, breathless.

  “Milady, come quickly!”

  “What is it, Jason?” she scolded. “You frightened poor Minerva nigh to death--”

  “Arlo sent me, milady! You must come at once--he's in the south field! Hurry!”

  At the mention of the seneschal's name, Emmalyn bristled. It did not surprise her that Arlo would waste no time in defying her instructions, but what troubled her more was the urgency in Jason's voice. Doubtless Arlo had threatened the boy with some form of bodily harm if he did not carry out the order to fetch her at once. Or perhaps the seneschal had taken it upon himself to terrorize the villeins in the name of commerce. “I've had about enough of Arlo and his bullying ways. Where is he now, Jason? The south field, you say?”

  The page shook his head fiercely. “Nay, milady, 'tis not Arlo in the south field, but a rider! He approaches Fallonmour as we speak!”

  “A rider?”

  “A knight, milady, wearing the white cross of a Crusader!”

  Instantly, Emmalyn felt her confidence falter. She drew in a deep, strengthening breath and made sure her voice remained steady, even if it was little more than a whisper. “A Crusader? Are you certain?”

  “Aye! Riding a great black steed and heading for the castle! Milady, think you 'tis Lord Garrett, returned at last?”

  Garrett.

  Could it be? After three years without a word from him, had he now come home?

  Although King Richard had been captured by one of his enemies upon leaving the Holy Land, news of his army's return had been circulating for many months now. Inasmuch, Emmalyn had been expecting to see Garrett ride through Fallonmour's gates, preparing herself for the eventuality of her husband's homecoming and how it would affect life as she had come to know it in his absence.

  But she wasn't prepared. She knew that now, feeling her stomach tighten and twist with every passing moment. She struggled to appear calm. “Tell Arlo to assemble the folk in the hall, Jason. I'll be along in a moment.”

  Emmalyn turned back to Minerva's soulful gaze and idly stroked the mare's neck. Already her hands were shaking. Mercy, but she had to collect her thoughts. Collect her nerve. Perhaps the war had changed her husband. Gentled him. Perhaps things between them would be different now.

  She was different. No longer the child he had married, but a woman of twenty summers. She had managed Fallonmour and its holdings during the more than three years he had been away, acting as castellan and negotiating with tradesmen, even fending off a raid on the village last autumn. So why should the thought of facing one man--her husband--still terrify her so?

  Beside her, Thomas's voice was a low, soothing drawl. “Courage, milady.”

  Emmalyn nodded, but her smile was weak. If the stable master only knew how much she needed his gentle words of support. If he only knew what strength it would take for her to face Garrett again, to return to her role as his wife. But no one knew; Garrett had been careful enough to make sure that the scars she bore were inside, where no one could see them. Not that they were any less ugly; surely no less painful.

  Straightening her shoulders despite the weight of her dread, Emmalyn marched out of the stable and across the bailey toward the keep. Castlefolk tending their work glanced at her as she passed them, everyone clearly made aware of the approaching Crusader and watching for her reaction to the news. But Emmalyn kept her chin high, her gait purposeful.

  To mask some of her own internal disquiet, as she neared the keep she called out orders to a knot of people standing idle in the bailey. “Nell, shoo those chickens back into the roost. Alfred, see to it that straw and fresh water are brought to the stables. And Jane, find Cook. Tell him to warm the venison and lamprey from last eve and use the fresh beans I brought in from the garden yesterday. Bring bread, too, but not the dark--fetch the lightest loaf you can find. Make sure there is wine on the dais, but it mustn't have any grit, so strain it twice before you decant it.”

  Emmalyn did not slow her pace until she had ducked under the cool shade of the pentice, an arched gateway that led from the bailey to the keep. She stood there a moment, thankful to be away from watchful eyes while she summoned a steady breath.

  Dieu, but how quickly Garrett's expectations came back to her, even after all this time. All of the demands he placed on her, from the way he wanted his meals prepared to the way he required her to dress in his presence. She'd had three years to make her life her own, to come out of the shadow Garrett had cast over her. Three years of freedom, yet she felt her hard-won confidence slipping away even before he darkened Fallonmour's threshold.

  Could it be so easy to fall back into that life now? Could he control her that effortlessly? Nay! She could not allow anyone to do that to her again. Not now. Not ever.

  Knowing Garrett would expect her to greet him dressed in her finest gown, her disobedient hair braided and modestly covered, Emmalyn mounted the keep stairwell, taking a small amount of rebellious pleasure in her current state of drab attire.

  She'd had no use for richly-toned silks or embroidered slippers in recent days, favoring instead the russet wool tunic she wore now and her practical leather boots. There was no bejeweled girdle circling her hips, only a utilitarian belt adorned with nothing more than a sheathed dagger and ring of jangling keys. Her blond hair she usually plaited, simply to keep it out of her way while she worked, but in her haste to dress this morning she had left it unbound. Its weighty mass tumbled over her shoulders and down her back in a tangle of unruly curls that was sure to set Garrett's teeth on edge.

  But she willed herself not to let the thought of his displeasure sway her as she passed her chamber door and climbed the rest of the way up to the tower roof. Two of Fallonmour's knights stood at the farthest parapet, shielding their eyes from the rising sun as they looked to the far hill.

  “It has been too long since I last saw Lord Garrett,” said one man to the other. “I vow he looks bigger now, does he not?”

  “Aye, and hale, too. See how bold he sits in the saddle!”

  Emmalyn came up beside them nearly without their notice. She peered over the ledge at the approaching knight and dread coiled in her belly. The men were right; he did look larger than even she had recalled.

  Gone was the rounded slope of Garrett's shoulders; now they looked nearly the width of his steed's broad back. The long red surcoat he wore was faded and torn, a tattered rag that did little to conceal the muscular bulk of the man it clothed. Indeed, from where she stood, Emmalyn could see the power in his thighs, the proud set of his spine as he guided his horse at an easy gait over the plain. There was an air of calm about him now, a self-assuredness and almost regal bearing that even this fair distance could not disguise.

  Though she fought it, curiosity began to stir in Emmalyn's mind, a subtle interest that made her study him more closely.

  The black destrier she had given Garrett as a wedding gift--a beast he could never tame and had always despised for its willfulness--now cantered cooperatively beneath him, completely mastered. Horse and rider made an admittedly impressive picture, a striking image of the home-coming hero, but something was not quite right. With a mingling of wonder and suspicion, Emmalyn watched the firm but respectful way he handled the stallion. The way he made no move to dominate it, yet managed absolute control.

  And then she knew.

  “'Tis not him,” she said with quiet, utter certainty.

  “Milady?”

  Emmalyn had turned away from the wall-walk to head back for the keep, but stopped when she heard the guard's puzzled question. “He rides my lord's mount,” she confirmed, “but that man is not my husband.”

  * * *

  It took but a glimpse at Fallonmour
's grandeur to make Cabal understand the king's concern for its safekeeping, and indeed, the avarice that a holding of this magnitude would inspire in even the wealthiest vassal. Not even recall of the many nights the regiment had endured Garrett's tedious boasting of his riches back home in England could have prepared Cabal for the abundance of noble prosperity he saw unfurled before him. For all the hardship and desolation he had witnessed along his trek north from the port of Dover, Fallonmour appeared to have well survived the long absence of its lord. More than survived, he reckoned; the place looked to have thrived.

  The early morning sun bathed the stone of the tall, whitewashed keep in brilliant light, gilding its crenellations and towers and setting the entire castle awash in a spangled, ethereal splendor. Lush crops of wheat and oats and vetch spread out as far as the eye could see, flourishing and fragrant with the promise of a rich harvest come Lammas. A large flock of newly sheared sheep dotted the fallow lands, grazing on the sprouted weeds and verdant grass.

  At the base of Fallonmour's great sloping motte, a village bustled, alive with activity as folk came in from the fields and out of their cottages to see who rode through their midst. Cabal paid no mind to their quizzical faces, cantering forward briskly through the center of the little village and up the hill, headed for the castle and the commencement of his unwanted mission as this demesne's guardian.

  As he approached, he saw more clearly the solid indomitability of Fallonmour. The massive wall that enveloped the stone keep and various outbuildings seemed to grow out of the craggy earth itself, from its jutting, flared base to the thirty foot height to which the ramparts soared. Gathered in the gatehouse, perched between two crenellated towers, stood a half-dozen guards. They stared down at him in defensive silence, as did the like number of crossbowmen lining the battlements.

  “I bring word to Lady Fallonmour of her lord husband,” Cabal announced in the Norman tongue of England's nobility.

  From within the bailey, a female voice ordered simply, “Open.”

  At her command, the portcullis began its slow grind upward. Cabal urged his mount forward and rode beneath the heavy, spiked grid work into Fallonmour's wide outer bailey. A gathering of servants, maids, and castle folk had assembled in the courtyard and now stood staring at him expectantly as he rode into the center of the grassy enclosure. The group parted when he dismounted then strode forward, the men watching him cautiously, a clutch of young maids whispering behind their hands as he passed. But their many faces blurred to nothingness the instant Cabal's eyes lit on Lady Emmalyn.

  “Greetings, my lord. I bid you welcome to Fallonmour.”

  Standing at the base of the steps that led into the keep, she met him with a pale, unsettling gaze so clear and frank it seemed to look right through him. A wealth of unbound, flaxen curls softened the striking angles of her face but only emphasized the intelligence gleaming in her mist-green eyes.

  She did not trust his presence there; he could see it in her rigid stance, in the way she offered him kind greeting but withheld her smile. Like an angel warrior guarding the portal to Heaven, she stood before him, garbed in a simple gown and boots, armed with nothing but dagger and keys...and the power of her intrepid stare. Not at all like the meek young woman Richard had warned he should expect to find in Garrett's new widow.

  Lady Emmalyn looked as if she had become more lioness than lost little kitten in her husband's absence. A thought that intrigued Cabal as much as it raised concern. Did her loyalties yet remain with the king? If they did, would they still, once she learned of Garrett's death?

  “You say you bring word of my husband,” she prompted, her pert chin climbing up a notch under Cabal's lingering scrutiny.

  “I do, madam.” He stepped forward and offered a perfunctory bow of his head. “I have come by order of the king, a duty impressed on me before his departure from Palestine.”

  At the mention of Coeur de Lion, the lady grew pensive. “The king sent you?” she asked warily. “Then your news must be of the most grave nature, my lord.”

  Cabal gave her a grim nod. “It is.”

  She looked at him for a long moment, unblinking, then glanced to the fine black mount that had belonged to her husband until his death. Garrett's sword belt and a small satchel of his belongings were strapped to the saddle of the destrier, token remembrances to be delivered to the widow at the king's request.

  “Garrett is dead?”

  “He is, my lady.”

  “I see,” she said quietly.

  Her gaze returned to Cabal, lucid with comprehension. He waited for the tears that were sure to come, allowing her a moment to absorb this news before he conveyed the rest of the king's message. But her eyes remained dry. She did not quake or dissolve with inconsolable grief. Instead, she reached out with a steady arm and hailed a young squire to her side. “Alfred will take your mount to the stables, my lord. You will find refreshments and a pallet in the hall, should you wish to rest before continuing on in your travels.”

  She pivoted and started to walk away.

  Cabal cleared his throat. “My lady, I do not think you understand...”

  Her step halted. She turned an unblinking gaze on him. “My husband is dead, sir. What more would you have me understand?”

  With that, she resumed her cool retreat, heading for the keep without excuse or waiting for his reply. From the schooled briskness of her gait and the rigid line of her back, it seemed to Cabal that he had just been efficiently, albeit mistakenly, dismissed.

  Chapter 2

  Dead. Although Emmalyn had managed to maintain her composure in front of the dark stranger who had been sent to deliver the news, she walked back toward the keep stunned. She did not want to think that Garrett's death could affect her so, but she was truly saddened. More than saddened, she was guilt-ridden, for how many times had she wished he might never return? How often had she hoped to live the rest of her life without him? Free of his censure, free of his rage. In all her hoping and praying for a peaceable life, could she have brought this woeful fate upon him?

  She tried not to think about that as she entered the busy castle. Wanting only a bit of solitude in which to consider the new course of her future, she headed to the stairwell. She had alighted only the first step when she heard a crash of pottery in the Great Hall, followed by Arlo's shrill voice harshly reprimanding one of the kitchen maids for her clumsiness.

  Emmalyn's heart sank. Abiding Arlo's attempts for control at Fallonmour these past years had been trial enough for them all, but in light of this morning's news, she knew that her troubles were about to worsen. Arlo was a nuisance, but not half as dangerous as Garrett's brother, Hugh de Wardeaux. Emmalyn's confirmed widowhood was the very thing her brother-by-marriage had been waiting for. The only excuse that Hugh would need to tighten his grip on Fallonmour. And on her.

  Arlo's continued tirade in the Great Hall brought Emmalyn's attention back sharply. Pivoting from the stairwell in sheer disgust with the man, she walked into the cavernous dining hall. Two pages were on the dais, setting a place at the high table before Garrett's long-unused cushioned chair. Trestles that had been tipped against the walls during the night were now being positioned in neat rows across the large room in preparation for the morning meal. Everyone worked quietly and with haste, as if loath to attract any bit of Arlo's tyranny to themselves. Neither did they come to the defense of poor young Bea, who was on her hands and knees on the floor, picking up shards of pottery from a broken serving vessel.

  Arlo stood over her, bellowing, the front of his rich blue robes splashed from hem to knee with wine. He looked up when Emmalyn entered, and the spectacle that surely would have continued until Bea had been reduced to tears, ceased.

  “That bumbling, awkward girl has ruined my garments,” he groused as he came forward to meet Emmalyn. She did not acknowledge his complaint, merely glared her displeasure and brushed past him. Arlo cleared his throat and wiped idly at the stains. “Am I to understand it, milady, that the Cru
sader who arrived was not Lord Garrett after all?”

  “No.”

  When Emmalyn invited no further conversation and stepped forth to retrieve a far-flung bit of debris, the seneschal shuffled along beside her with eager steps. Though his greed for information was nearly palpable, his voice was soft, hesitant with calculated concern. “Did this man tell you anything at all, milady? Is there any word of your husband?”

  “Yes, Arlo, I have received word.” Emmalyn was deliberately evasive, bringing the errant shard of earthenware to Bea and taking a moment to assure the maid that she had done no wrong.

  The seneschal huffed his impatience, all thoughts of posturing and gentle persuasion evidently forgotten. “Milady, please, enough of your games! What have you learned of Lord Garrett this morn? Nothing grave, I pray...”

  At that blatant insincerity, Emmalyn pivoted and faced him. “Garrett is dead, Arlo.”

  She ignored his gasp of shock, knowing full well it was done only for politic effect. “Oh, good heavens!” he breathed dramatically, one hand splayed at his chest. “What dreadful news.”

  “Yes,” Emmalyn agreed, nearly able to hear the wheels of opportunity begin to grind inside the seneschal's balding head.

  “There is much we should do,” Arlo said. “Of course, a messenger should be dispatched to Lord Hugh at once. He must be informed of his beloved elder brother's demise.”

  “Of course.”

  The seneschal seemed too caught up in his plotting to notice Emmalyn's sarcasm. Tapping a bony finger against his lips, he rushed on with his thoughts, murmuring the various details that would now have to be addressed. It was not until she started to walk away that he seemed to recall himself. “Emmalyn,” he said confidentially, shocking her with both the use of her familiar name and his hand at her elbow. “Rest assured that your needs will be met. I'm certain Lord Hugh will see that you are well cared for upon your removal from Fallonmour.”