Dauntless by Tamara Leigh

Chapter Twenty-Seven

She loved the dawn, and this day’s had been particularly promising.

Awakening rested and finding her hand on her abdomen, for a long while she had stared at her husband whose back was turned to her, listened to his breathing, and warmed to certainty he would make the wrong between them right. It would not be easy since soon there would be no hiding the babe fathered by one other than Valeur’s baron, but it would be honest and her child was certain to be raised well and loved by her if no other. That was something even if it had to be everything to this little one.

Now, hours after departing the donjon to deal with the smithy, next the mason who had begun repairs to a portion of the outer wall that had begun cracking, Robine lifted her skirts and descended the steps from wall walk to bailey. As she came off them, she heard Sir Olivier’s voice and would have continued to the inner bailey to check on preparations for the nooning meal if not for words spoken by another.

“To the convent you say, Sir Olivier?”

“Oui, departing mid-afternoon.”

“I will arrange the lady’s escort, but for what does she depart so soon after her husband’s return?”

Robine stumbled back against the steps and steadied herself with a hand to the wall. Though she told herself she misunderstood, it became impossible to believe when Sir Olivier said with rebuke, “Surely none need tell you how hard our lady has worked these months. The baron but wishes to provide the rest she deserves distant from all responsibilities.”

A lie, for which Sir Olivier could not be faulted, but her husband could.

After a telling silence, the other man said with suspicion, “Of course he does.”

Robine’s stomach rolled. I am going to make this as right as possible, Godfroi had said on the day past, and you must trust me to do it how I think best.

She had agreed—and now she knew she had been lulled into a false sense of security. Since revelation of her sin, had he merely bided his time lest greater suspicion was roused in immediately sending her away?

She drew breath, then another as she struggled against yielding to anger that urged her to seek him out and confront him over his deception.

Prayer, she told herself. First prayer. You will only make it worse if you go to him like this.

Worse? countered anger. How much worse could it be? And you have not much time. This day—hours from now—he sends you away, denying your sons their mother, denying the mother her sons.

Hearing footsteps, she peered across her shoulder and saw the mason descended.

Determined to start with God by prostrating herself before the altar, she hastened forward, going wide around Sir Olivier to avoid being seen. But hardly had she set foot in the inner bailey’s chapel than reason prevailed.

She misjudged Godfroi—not entirely, for there could be no doubt he had meant to send her away as she had known was under consideration. Where she erred was the timing of his determination to conceal her pregnancy. It had not been after he confronted her over Michel’s missive but before whilst interception of her former betrothed’s words followed by a humiliating fall was still fresh. Simply, he had forgotten to tell his man that plans to deliver her to the convent had changed.

That must be it. She was not leaving Castle D’Argent. She would stand Godfroi’s side, and together their family would weather the scandal coming close on the heels of the Baron of Valeur’s return.

She turned away. Before word of the Lady of Valeur’s departure carried, she must speak with her husband. Now.

* * *

She was returned.The steward having revealed Valeur’s lady had departed the donjon just after dawn to attend to matters in the outer bailey, Godfroi had set in motion what was firmly decided when he left her to her sleep on the day past. He had not wanted to involve his mother, but she had learned from Paulette what this day portended. Despite her beseeching to hold just as Johannes advised, he had told her it would be done and to ensure the hall was cleared to afford husband and wife privacy.

That was two hours gone. Having expected Robine sooner, Godfroi had nearly sent for her. Instead, he had used the time to consider what she might say and how best to respond. Though that should have firmed all in his mind, it had made him question his decision and long to pace. Hence, a quarter hour past he had found some relief in further strengthening his upper body.

Now, tunic cast off with crutches and legs supports, the fingers of clawed hands bearing the weight of raising and lowering his torso, arms quaking and perspiration trickling, Godfroi rasped, “Lord, be with me.”

Then he rolled to his back on the robe spread atop the rushes and heard the creak of the dais beneath her slippers. As he adjusted his chausses, she called his name. As he pushed up onto his forearms, she swept open the curtains before which sat the traveling companion that told all.

“I must speak with you, Godfroi. I was in the bailey and overheard—” She gasped when her gaze that went first to the chair near the brazier landed on him where he lay alongside the bed, chest bared. “What are you—?”

This time, it was not sight of him that stole her words, it was notice of her trunk far removed from the foot of the bed. Paulette had made it so, ensuring all his wife needed for the next six months was packed, then the woman had pushed it near the curtains in preparation for conveyance to a wagon.

Color draining, loss of breath lowering her shoulders, she said, “It is so. Banishment.”

He had not realized breath had also gone out of him until it was needed to answer. “This is what I think best for all, Robine. We shall discuss it, but the decision stands.”

Her gaze swung back to him and in a cracked voice she said, “When was the decision made?”

“Though I have had occasion to waver, it was decided well before now.” His eyes lowered to her midriff. “On the day past, I knew it could wait no longer.”

Quickly, she closed the distance between them. Skirts brushing his hips, stonily she said, “When I was at your knees, melting into assurance you would make this right, you knew you were sending me away.”

“I did.”

A sob escaped. “You hate me.”

He glared. “I do not! What I hate is what was done my body. What I hate is that what I believed the balm in coming home to you half a man is no balm.” Seeing moisture flood her eyes, he said more gently, “Robine, you told whatever I need from you, you would give. This I need.”

Chin starting to crumple, she said, “You do not need this. Having persuaded yourself it will ease pain and pride, you want this. But you fool yourself as I would know even had I not overheard Sir Olivier arranging for my escort and his man suspiciously questioning the reason you send me away so soon after your return.” She swallowed loudly. “Regardless whether I go or stay, rumors will abound since the reason most women are suddenly sent from their homes is to hide pregnancy. However, what you do not account for is how much worse those rumors will be for laughable duplicity.”

She sank to her knees beside him, set a hand on his perspiration-dampened arm. “The damage is done, and it can be hidden from our sons a short while only. Hence, all that is gained in banishing me is saving you and others from looking upon greater evidence of my sin.”

He knew she was right, but imaginings of that evidence bared to all was excruciating.

She leaned in. “I can weather this, Godfroi, and I know the Baron of Valeur can as well.”

He wavered again, then moved as much by her pale, gaunt face as resentment, said, “Distant from obligations, the convent will provide rest, of which you are in need and shall have greater need in the months ahead. Too, you will have peace in growing the child away from prying eyes.”

Color returning to her face, she drew her hand back. “But that is not all the convent will provide, is it?”

He shifted his jaw. “It is not.”

“Say it, Godfroi.”

“Very well. When you return home, once more you will be the mother of two, having left Roche’s child in the care of the Church.”

Chest rising and falling, eyes shifting, he knew her mind worked furiously, then she gasped as if pleased to catch hold of a solution pacing the edge of consciousness. “If I remain at the convent several months beyond the birth, I could return with the babe who would be thought merely large.”

Godfroi nearly growled. “First, I would have to publicly accept it as mine. Second, even had it your dark hair rather than blond, when no silver shows like that beginning to appear on Guarin’s head, it would set afire the rumors—and higher they would leap for what you call laughable duplicity.”

She made a sound of distress. “If you ask me to leave behind this babe that will be far more a part of me in the months to come, it will break my heart.”

Ire on the rise, silently he scorned, And if I allow you to bring it into our home, the part of Roche ever underfoot will further break mine.

“Pray, Godfroi, do not render this innocent fatherless and motherless, leaving it at the mercy of—”

“You should have considered that ere you allowed Roche to make a child on you!”

Her eyes widened, and he saw there anger that thought to challenge his. And so it did when something between a cry and scream parted her lips and she thrust forward on her knees and began slapping and punching him.

As he dropped onto his back, the natural reaction was to render her blows impotent by catching hold of her, dropping her to her back, and pinning her, but he had enough sense to know that in the state she was in, more than fending off blows could cause her to harm herself—worse, his efforts to aggressively end her raging could harm her.

“You let me believe you dead!” she cried as he deflected a slap.

Her flailing so wild it was difficult to anticipate where next she would strike, he took a punch to the ribs. It jolted, but surely hurt her small fist more than him.

“You and William required this false widow to wed again though she wanted only you or none!” She nearly landed her next slap, but the altered course of her hand raked nails across his shoulder.

“I sinned! I know it!”

He turned aside a punch to his collarbone.

“But only when I accepted it was the return of a ghost I awaited!” She brought down a fist center of his chest.

That one hurt for the jolt to his heart, but he let her continue loosing her rage, and not only because he feared doing her injury—because her argument was just. Bearing as much blame for this, he had no right to be cruel. And perhaps none to send her away.

As she shouted more accusations and her hair lost its braids and gown went askew, he continued deflecting slaps, punches, and scratches, but allowed many in the belief sooner she would tire and they could move forward though he was no longer certain where forward was.

“We were betrothed! It was wrong but…he loved me!”

As Godfroi had himself professed—belatedly. Now another blow to the heart, though he was fairly certain this one was all emotion rather than fist.

Then as if long underwater and finally surfacing, she gasped loudly and reared back. He thought this the end of it, that she would collapse and they would go silent as both sought to put themselves back together. However, as he peered beyond crossed arms he raised before his head and past her hair he had never seen so mussed—not even when barely restrained passion made them seek privacy beyond the solar—he saw she remained wild-eyed and color high. And there was sway in her body that had naught do with wine.

“You could have”—she panted—“did not”—she bared her teeth—“come home”—she widened her eyes—“sooner!”

All terribly true.

Fists shaking at her sides, she stared fire at him, then her eyes went searching and she reached. And snatched hold of a crutch.

He knew what she meant to make of it even before she rose to her knees and raised it above her head.

Heaving breaths becoming sobs, tears falling from eyes returned to his, once more she bared her teeth, and he knew she prepared to bring the crutch down on him.

He could stop her, but he had handled this poorly, further hurting her and dishonoring both.

Though the crutch gripped above her rocked as if building momentum to deal a killing blow, he knew she wavered, emotional impulse battling reason.

When her sobs turned more convulsive, he parted arms raised before him and slowly lowered them to the sides to provide a larger target to beat out her hurt and anger.

As he watched, bewilderment swept the other emotions from her face and transitioned to horror. Then sobs becoming whimpers, Robine cast the crutch from her, closed her eyes, and sank back on her heels. Hands dropping to her sides, chin to her chest, she began crying softly like a child who, too tired to tantrum, contents itself with a slow leak to empty what pains its insides.

“Lord,” Godfroi breathed, then pushed onto an elbow and reached to her.

Though she startled when he closed a hand around her upper arm, she did nothing to prevent him from doing with her as he would. Hoping that meant she trusted he would not hurt her rather than evidence of apathy, he drew her down, settled her chest on his, and tucked her head beneath his chin.

“Stay, Robine,” he rasped.

If she heard him above her crying, she did not understand, and since he could not think how to say it better, he simply held her, which perhaps he needed as much as she.

Partway through waiting for her to quiet, footsteps sounded. As they were light, he was certain they were his mother’s and guessed two things delivered her here—the first the escort surely waiting on Robine, the second her daughter-in-law’s weeping.

Lady Maëlys pushed aside a curtain and, peering within, gave a choked sound over sight of her half-clothed son holding his despairing wife on the floor alongside the bed.

Forcing a smile of assurance, Godfroi raised a staying hand.

She arched her eyebrows and gestured at Robine’s trunk.

He shook his head.

Her smile of relief proof of understanding, her brisk retreat evidencing she would see the escort disbanded, silently Godfroi beseeched the Lord’s guidance in this change of course.

When Robine spent the last of her tearful misery and he lifted her chin, she opened swollen eyes. “You are right,” he said, “the damage is done, and so I will be strong with you, Wife.”

She blinked. “Then…?”

“I will not send you away. You shall remain with your family.”

More tears, but though he thought she would weep again, she said, “The baby, Godfroi?”

He drew breath through his nostrils. “You know it will be hard for all. Thus, I am more grateful my mother retrieved Brother Johannes and persuaded him to remain a while longer.”

“I thank you,” she whispered. “Can you forgive me for striking you? Though I knew what I did, I could not stop myself. I was so…” She shook her head. “Why did you do naught?”

He frowned. “What should I have done? Retaliate in kind? You think me capable of that?”

“Non, but you were so angry, and I attacked you.”

“None need tell me that only in extreme circumstances, as when a woman must be protected from herself or endangers others, a man should never raise a hand to her. To do so makes him less than an animal which at least has the excuse of base instinct and little wit for such behavior.”

“But you did not even try to stop me.”

“I was in no danger, and I would not risk harming you.”

Setting a hand on his opposite side, she pushed up and glanced at where the crutch lay. “It was as if you wanted me to strike you.”

He was nearly ashamed of that. “I cannot say I wanted to feel its blow, but neither did I not want to feel it.” He sighed. “Your anger is well-earned, Robine.”

“Not that well-earned.” She started to lower again, but she frowned over something near his head. “Your robe,” she said as if only then noticing it was beneath them. “Know you how often I wore it when all said I was a widow?”

Once more, ache in his heart. And a stirring of remembrance of the robe spread not on rushes in the solar but hay in the loft. Did she recall as well?

Eyes that flicked to his confirmed it, then she lowered and set her palm center of his chest. Knowing she felt the stronger, faster beat of his heart, he wanted to set her away. However, when she sighed into him, he eased as best he could and tried to send his thoughts and feelings to a place beyond the woman holding to his side as often done following lovemaking.

The silence they drew around each other calmed his heart enough to return his thoughts to her, then move them to the consequences of a sin whose impact would soon be felt though not fully realized for years.

As he had told, it would be difficult for the D’Argents. As she had told, no matter which way he had gone regarding her and the babe, neither path was easy. All would pay a price. Were the hermit to be believed, and Godfroi wanted to heed him, the greatest ease would be had in wrapping their collective strength in stronger faith and confronting the scandal head up and head on.

Frowning at the ceiling, he pondered if it was wrong to think more than ever God was needed here. And guessed Johannes would say it was an ill thing to hold the Almighty in reserve only for the worst trials like a general first sending out lesser soldiers when fewer would be lost if the greatest led the charge.

More I will seek You, Lord, Godfroi sent heavenward, and I ask Your aid in moving Johannes to stay and complete the work begun in me. I must protect all You gave into my keeping, must be the father our sons need and the husband my wife—

“Godfroi?” she spoke across his prayer and raised her head. “The night of your return, you said I had your love then disavowed it the day after.”

He tensed, searched for words to end such talk without dealing more cruelty.

“Fleeting and fragile though it must have been for roots so easily torn out,” she said, “I want it back.”

He breathed her in, wished the scent and sight of her did not tempt him to offer hope. “I do not know that is possible, but I care for you still.”

Raising herself further, she set a hand on one side of his head and her face above his. “I want it back, Godfroi.”

“Wanting it back will not get it back,” he snapped, then turned hands around her arms to set her aside.

She closed her own over his shoulders. “Do you know how hard it is to be this close to you? Only this close, Husband?”

For how much passion she possessed, he knew. But another thing he knew was though he wanted what she wanted, he remained uncertain it was possible. And exploration of that ought to be done many months from now when there was only husband and wife.

“The day I cut your hair, you asked where we go from here and how we get there,” she said. “This is how we get to that new place, Husband.”

“Robine—”

She captured his protest in the mouth lowered to his, then her hands on his shoulders began moving downward—caressing muscles, exploring hollows, lingering over scars—exploring him as once she had done and to which he had given good answer.

“Robine,” he groaned when she moved kisses across his jaw to his ear, “we should wait.”

“More waiting? Are you sure you want that?”

He wanted to be sure, and though he was not, his hands began exploring her, his lips entreating him to follow where they went. But…

“I do not know I can,” he rasped.

She returned her gaze to his. “If you do not tell me to stop, soon you will know as I believe I do.”

Her words stirring him as surely intended, he wavered, then he allowed himself to believe the same as she. Gripping her arms, he swept her beneath him. When she smiled as if unaware of how tear-ravaged her face, he hesitated, but only long enough to remind himself she wanted this too—more, she wanted him, despite him failing to return to her whole.

“Robine,” he breathed, then lowered his head, closed his mouth over hers, and proved his wife wondrously…beautifully…almost perfectly right.

* * *

They wereslow to come back to themselves, and she was glad when she realized she returned ahead of Godfroi.

One moment it was wonderfully natural to be held with his chest against her back, arm around her waist, hand on her belly. The next, it was not. Natural was only if the slight bulge were of his doing.

Knowing the bliss attained could be utterly undone when he realized he did the same now as when Guarin, then Cyr, grew within, Robine decided to turn into him to shift his hand to her back.

But he had returned to himself, as told by how swiftly he removed his hand. Though she expected him to draw his other arm from beneath her, even turn his back to her, he pulled her around to face him.

Knowing there would be no languid smile preceding half-hooded perusal of the woman in his arms, Robine raised wary eyes. There was struggle in their green counterparts but, unexpectedly, it was not punctuated by anger of a strength to show itself. What showed was sorrow and regret.

“We should have waited, Robine, but now better I understand how difficult it is not to yield to seduction where there is much desire.”

Knowing he compared her seduction of him to Michel’s seduction of her, guessing he wished her to disavow great desire for her betrothed, she nearly closed her eyes in the hope of ending such talk.

It was Godfroi who went behind his lids. When he raised them, he said, “Never has it been so wearying to think ahead of words and do it well. What matters is your body is mine again as mine is yours now the unknown is known, and I am grateful intimacy was not also stolen from me—that still we have this.”

What he did not say, though she guessed it occurred, was they might yet add to their family—after this babe. Sliding her hand from his chest around to his back, she trailed fingers down his spine as done often after they made love. But this time was different, a ridge interrupting the gentle undulations that caused him to stiffen as she followed its diagonal path toward his hip.

“There my undoing,” he rasped.

She withdrew her hand and set it on his jaw. “I am also grateful still we have this, but we can have more, Godfroi.”

“This is enough for me,” he said harshly, then groaned. “For now. Let it be enough for now, Robine.”

Better this than no arms holding her again, she told herself. Better this than both endure a life of abstinence.

Settling her head beneath his chin, she said, “It shall be enough, Husband. For now.”