The Unveiling by Tamara Leigh (beach read book .TXT) 📖

me a man ’til last eve when—”

“Had I not come for you, would you have lain with him?”

It was she who had ended the kiss—a kiss that had done unspeakable things to her. Quivering with remembrance, she pulled her mantle nearer and wished it were longer so she could gather more warmth about her.

Rowan came across the cell. “I saw you in his arms. You put him from you, but not ere first you gave to him.”

She had prayed he had not seen that much. Though she knew she ought to preserve the little heat left to her, she stood. “I would not have lain with him.”

“Then he would have ravished you had I not come.”

All of her protested. Though once she might have believed Wulfrith capable of forcing his attentions on a woman, she no longer did.

She met the glint of Rowan’s gaze from beneath her hood. “I shall endeavor to forget you spoke such to me.”

“The same as you have forgotten what Wulfrith did to your brother?”

She drew a deep breath. “He did not do it, Rowan.” She pushed her shoulders back to brace for his response.

“Did not do it?” he bellowed. “Just as he did not put that bruise on your face?”

Annyn touched the tenderness. “Just as he did not. ’Twas Baron Lavonne who struck me, the one to whom Henry would see me wed.”

Rowan was silent a long moment, then demanded, “If Wulfrith did not hang Jonas, who did?”

“I do not know, but I tell you it was not he.”

“Fool woman! Your brother lies dead and you allow Wulfrith to lay the same hands to you that killed Jonas.”

“Nay, I was wrong. We were wrong. It was someone else. It had to be.”

“It had to be because you wish it to be!” He shoved his face near hers. “When you let him touch you, did you think to ask about the rope burns on Jonas’s neck that he hid from us?”

“He believes Jonas hung himself, but I—”

Rowan’s hands descended to her bruised arms. “Never would he have killed himself. You know it, Annyn!” He pushed her back against the weeping wall. “And yet you believe Wulfrith’s lies for want of giving yourself to him.”

She was sick unto death of being ill-used. “Believe what you wish,” she snarled, her tone so cutting its jagged edge sliced even her. “I no longer care.”

With a gust of breath, Rowan released her and turned away. “I do not understand how you can so easily forget Jonas and the evil done him.”

She pushed off the wall. “I have not forgotten him. He was my brother!”

Rowan swung around. “As he was my—”

Silence snapped up the rest of his words, his pain transcending Annyn’s anger and meeting her own that had yet to find its release.

Longing to cry, she dropped her chin to her chest. Of course Rowan despised her championing of Wulfrith, just as she had despised Uncle Artur’s refusal to believe Wulfrith was guilty of wrongdoing.

She lifted her head. “I know Jonas was as a son to you, and you were as a father to him, but so much has changed, so much I do not understand.” She laid a hand to his shoulder, and he tensed beneath it. “I do not know what our fate is to be, but while we wait, let us be at peace with one another.” Would he allow it? Or would he leave her utterly alone?

After what seemed minutes, Rowan heaved a sigh. “Let us be at peace. Come, ’tis bitter cold.” He guided her to the corner of the cell from which she had risen.

Side by side they huddled, near enough to draw heat from one another, though not enough to warm them that they might find rest after so many hours in the saddle. When Rowan’s arm finally came around her, drawing her closer than she had ever been to him, Annyn was grateful. Still, it was hours before she slept, but not a single minute did she waste as she gave herself over to prayer as she had not done in years.

Seeking refuge in God as Wulfrith had told her he did, she prayed for forgiveness for what she had intended to do, prayed for Rowan to see past revenge as she had done, prayed for those at Wulfen harmed by her deception, but mostly prayed for the man who lay bleeding somewhere beyond these walls.

“I would see those responsible for my son’s injury.”

The accented voice brought Annyn awake. She lifted her head from Rowan’s shoulder and realized he was rigid where he held her against his side.

“But my lady,” a guttural voice protested, “Sir Abel ordered that none were to enter without his leave.”

“Ah? A mother must seek permission from the whelp she bore?”

Annyn startled at the realization of who came to them.

“I say now and not again, open the cell!”

Wulfrith’s mother was Scottish, Annyn realized, though the lilting accent had obviously gone soft after many years among the English.

“Aye, my lady.” The light of a torch breached the dim of the cell.

Rowan withdrew his arm from around Annyn and stood. Though every muscle in her protested, she also rose.

The guard peered through the grate at them and, satisfied, fit the key in the lock. The door swung inward to reveal the broad figure of their jailer and the torch that brought the light of the outside in.

Annyn put up a hand to shade her eyes from the glare.

“Lady Isobel of Stern be here to see ye. Give her no trouble and I’ll give ye none.” The jailer stepped to the side and rested a hand on his sword hilt.

Lady Isobel appeared. Dressed in black, from her veil to her slippers, she stepped into the filth. Her pale face beautiful despite the age and sorrow etched there, she looked from Rowan to Annyn before continuing forward.

“Ye ought not go so near, my lady,” the jailer warned.

She continued forward until she was a stride from them. She measured them, though for what Annyn did not know. All she knew was that never had she felt so far from a woman than at that moment when she stood before one who would not look a man even if she sheared her hair, donned men’s clothing, and wore filth upon her as Annyn did.

“You are Lady Annyn?” the lady finally spoke, her eyes lingering on Annyn’s bruised cheek.

Annyn lowered her hand from her eyes. “Lady Annyn Bretanne of Castle Lillia upon the barony of Aillil.” She nodded to Rowan. “Sir Rowan, Castle Lillia’s captain of the guard.”

Lady Isobel denied him acknowledgment. “My son, Abel, has told me what transpired at Wulfen Castle and during the journey to Stern.” Her gaze traveled down Annyn and up again. “Incredible as it seems, I see ’tis true.” Her lips pressed to a thin line.

“I am sorry, Lady Isobel. What happened should not have.” Beside Annyn, Rowan stiffened further, still firm in his belief that Wulfrith had killed Jonas.

“It should not have happened?” The woman tilted her head. “Was it not my son’s death you sought, Lady Annyn?”

“It was, but—”

“Then you ought to be satisfied, hmm?”

Annyn felt as if speared. Had Wulfrith died? “Does your son yet live, Lady Isobel?”

Though the woman’s eyes turned moist, the accusation there did not soften. “Aye, Wulfrith lives.”

Relief swept Annyn, followed by bewilderment. Even Wulfrith’s mother called him by that name. Perhaps he did not have another.

“But if infection sets in...” The lady drew a breath and turned away. “I must needs pray.”

As Wulfrith had done the night Lavonne came to Wulfen. Had he learned it from his mother?

Lady Isobel swept past the jailer. “See they are given pallets and blankets and better than bread and water.”

“But, my lady—”

She halted in the doorway. “When my sons are gone from Stern, to whom do you answer?”

The man’s jowls jerked. “I shall do your bidding, my lady.”

Then it was she who kept Stern Castle? Most peculiar—and enviable.

In the corridor, Wulfrith’s mother looked back and fixed on Annyn. “Though ’tis true my son has a terrible anger, I need none to tell me ’twas not he who struck you, just as I need none to tell me he did not murder your brother.” Her dark eyebrows rose. “But this you already know, Lady Annyn.” Then she was gone.

Their jailer followed with a huff, a creak of the door, and a click of the lock.

Once more in darkness, Annyn looked to Rowan who pivoted and returned to the corner. She lowered beside him, but he did not offer his warmth again. And so the day—or night—wore on. Eventually, pallets, blankets, and passable foodstuffs were brought to them, but no further word did Rowan speak.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Four days lost to him, four days of hardly knowing dream from reality, four days of thundering pain and heat.

Garr stared at the ceiling of the solar his father had occasionally shared with his mother and breathed in the scent of mint-strewn rushes as his thoughts went to the woman who besieged his dreams. Where was she? The outer tower? It was what Abel had told.

“Garr?”

He followed the voice to the chair alongside the bed. His mother’s smile, that never quite met her eyes, greeted him.

Wafting the scent of roses, she stood and laid a palm to his forehead. “The fever has passed,” she pronounced as she had less than a quarter hour ago when he had first awakened—spoken once more as if to convince herself the danger was over.

She bit her lower lip. “I feared.”

“You feared wrong, Mother.” He had not been going to die, and certainly not from an arrow to the shoulder, regardless how much blood and infection it had let. He looked to his bandaged wound. It was clean and dry.

His mother stepped back. “You are right, of course. God would not allow it.” She who had given all of herself those first four years of his life to make him a godly man, lowered to the chair’s edge.

Garr shifted his gaze to the ceiling that was patterned with fleur de lis, closed his eyes, and sent thanks heavenward. His arm was spared, the fear of awakening and finding it severed having haunted his dreams. Then there was Annyn who had come in and out of them...

“Abel told me of Lady Annyn,” his mother said, “and the reason for her and her man’s imprisonment in the outer tower.”

It was to be expected, and likely Abel had left nothing unspoken. Determining he would not be drawn into a conversation about the woman, Garr flexed his shoulder. Though it pained him, it was no longer agonizing. He would be swinging a sword within a fortnight, would gain back what was lost—he prayed.

“I went to see her.”

“For what?” Garr demanded.

“To speak with her, of course.” She frowned. “The woman is not as expected.”

Garr felt his anger swell. “What did she say?”

“Little. Though, forsooth, I did not give her much leave to do so.” Isobel sank deeper into the chair. “What she did say was that she would not have had happen to you what did. Curious, hmm?”

Garr chafed. Though the physician had warned him not to move from his back, he pushed up to sitting and drew a deep breath against the pain.

“You should not.” Isobel protested. “The physician—”

“I know what he told, Mother, and I tell