LADY EVER AFTER: A Medieval Time Travel Romance (Beyond Time Book 2) Page 18

She tilted her head back. “Only a little, and then…” Face warming, she said, “I did not know such pleasure existed.” Though Hildegard had spoken briefly of the duties owed a husband in bed, it had been enough for Catherine to think it would be unpleasant. How wrong she had been.

  Collier drew a hand down her arm. “You’re beautiful.”

  As beautiful as Aryn? she wondered. When he had made love to her, had he imagined he held that other woman?

  Do not do this, she silently counseled. ’Tis too lovely a moment to ruin.

  “The next time it will be even better,” he said.

  “How could it be?”

  He chuckled. “Is that a challenge?”

  “’Twas not meant to be. But do try.”

  And he did.

  Sometime before dawn, Collier’s breathing deepened into sleep. But there was little rest for Catherine. Cradled in his arms, her thoughts persisted in returning to the woman her husband loved.

  Was this jealousy? Wanting something she could not hope to attain? She ought to be content with what she had, but the ache inside her would not leave her be. Then she posed a more unanswerable question. Was this love? Had Catherine Algernon, Yorkist hater and defender of Strivling, come to feel so deeply for her conqueror?

  She squeezed her eyes closed. Impossible. Utterly impossible.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Irondale Castle against a darkening sky was not as large or grand as Catherine recalled. Still, the home from which she had long been absent was impressive.

  A hand touched hers, and she looked to where her husband sat atop the destrier Morrow had given him—the horse that had belonged to her betrothed. For most of the ride, Collier and she had hardly spoken due to his refusal to allow her to bring her portrait and that he had offered no explanation. Her plan to have it completed to present to him as a gift ruined, she had mostly ignored him these past hours, but it was no longer possible.

  He squeezed her hand. “You are not alone, Catherine.”

  Her anger began to dissolve, but as worry over how her family would receive her filled that space, she peered past Collier and the accompanying men-at-arms to where Tilly perched in the saddle. As if awaiting Catherine’s gaze, the maid nodded.

  “Are you ready?” Collier asked.

  “Aye, and you?” After all, a Yorkist would be less welcome at Irondale than she.

  “I am.” He urged his destrier forward.

  When they reached the drawbridge, darkness had cast its mantle over the land, and it was by the light of torches set about the castle walls they passed beneath the portcullis.

  Catherine heard the stirring of their escort and knew their weapons were at the ready. Not only did they distrust what they could not see, but what they could.

  Though Collier had sent a man ahead to announce their arrival, it was not Catherine’s father who received them. It was the castle garrison—soldiers who brooded as the new Lord of Irondale rode among them. As Collier had worked hard to win the respect of Strivling’s castle folk, the same would be required of him at Irondale.

  When they reined in before the keep, Catherine shivered and pulled her mantle closely around her. At the least, her family should have met them atop the steps, but the landing was empty, testament her father no more welcomed Yorkists at Irondale than she had at Strivling—even though his daughter was among them.

  “Catherine.”

  She looked to where her husband stood alongside her with arms raised.

  Knowing she was watched by those who had long served her father, she was tempted to decline Collier’s offer, but when she went into his arms, it felt so right she wished this day had not so soon followed the wondrous night they had shared.

  Clasping her elbow, he led her up the steps to the landing where one of a half dozen of Strivling’s men who had preceded them opened the door.

  Seated across the great hall at the lord’s table were the four with whom Catherine had blood in common. They did not stand as husband and wife advanced. Worse, her father occupied the high seat now belonging to another.

  As Catherine walked beside Collier, she glanced at him. If he was angered, it did not show.

  It was over a year since she had seen her father, but she recognized him, haggard though he was. In contrast, the brothers she had not seen for three or more years were vaguely familiar. From their expressions, they did not like Collier’s hand upon her—nor that she allowed it though Morrow must have told them she was to wed a Yorkist.

  As for the woman whose gaze was fixed on her, she barely recognized Lavinia Algernon. Not since the day Catherine was sent to live with Hildegard had she seen her mother. Twelve years.

  Long-buried hurt and resentment surfacing, she watched Lavinia clasp and unclasp her hands. Was she eager to be reunited with her daughter as Tilly believed? If so, why had she never visited or even corresponded?

  Collier halted his wife before the dais. “I am Collier Gilchrist, Lord of Irondale by grant of Baron Edmund Morrow.”

  Lewis Algernon stared.

  He did not look well, and there was something peculiar about his face. As Catherine moved toward an explanation, her mother surged upright.

  But before Lavinia could entirely abandon her chair, her husband slapped the table, causing Strivling’s men-at-arms to ready themselves for trouble and the household knights on either side of Lewis Algernon to tense. It would take little provocation to shed blood.

  “Nay, Husband,” Lavinia said. “Our daughter has come home.”

  Though he slapped the table again, and twice more, his wife turned away.

  Why did he not speak? Catherine wondered, but before she could make sense of his appearance and behavior, her mother stood before her. Should she embrace Lavinia as if she knew her? As if she loved her?

  Eyes moist, her mother brushed the hair out of Catherine’s eyes. “We were told it was to Harden Castle you would journey with your husband,” she said softly.

  Catherine swallowed. “It was to have been, but my lord husband requested charge of Irondale.”

  “Lord husband!” exclaimed the eldest of Catherine’s brothers.

  Lavinia peered over her shoulder, but whatever look she leveled at Antony, he appeared unmoved.

  Catherine wondered if she had exuded as much hate as her brother when she had stood before Montagu. Likely more. And it was an ugly thing.

  “I am so very pleased,” Lavinia said, then clasped her daughter’s face between trembling hands, kissed her cheeks, and embraced her.

  Something hopeful unfolded within Catherine. Awkward though it felt, she put an arm around the woman.

  When Lavinia finally drew back, tears wet her face. “Now that you are returned to us, we have much to discuss.”

  “I thank you for your welcome…Mother.” Catherine looked to Collier, who should have been acknowledged before her. “Here is my husband. Sir Collier Gilchrist.”

  Lavinia inclined her head. “Lord Gilchrist—”

  A grunt sounded from Lewis Algernon, then the slam of his tankard atop the table.

  Lavinia swung around.

  Catherine hardly knew her father, his occasional visits to Strivling spent mostly in Hildegard’s company, but there was one thing she did know—if he could speak aloud the anger rioting on his face, he would. Try though he did to look the Lord of Irondale, his body betrayed him. Likely due to an attack of apoplexy.

  “’Tis time to step aside, lord husband,” Lavinia said. “The new Lord of Irondale has arrived.”

  As Lewis Algernon glared, Collier wondered what had become of these people under the lordship of Rudd Walther in that other past. It could not have been good.

  Antony stood. “I accept no mercenary as my lord, nor Yorkist. And neither does my father.”

  “Antony!” Lady Lavinia reproved.

  “Play the Lord of Irondale, Gilchrist,” her son continued, “but know your days here are few.” He strode from the hall.

  Catherine’s younger brother, Eu
stace, also rose. “Neither do I accept a Yorkist,” he said, sounding like a ten-year-old trying to sound like a man. Then he descended the dais.

  Though Collier had known to expect this, there was no consolation in discovering how right he was.

  He considered Lewis’s knights. The youngest regarded him without flinch or waver, but the one whose silver hair and beard proclaimed he was past his prime swept an assessing eye over Collier.

  Until the new lord proved capable of ruling Irondale, it would not be pleasant. But at least he was no longer fighting Catherine—providing he did not lose ground with her.

  “I pray you will forgive our sons, Lord Gilchrist,” Lady Lavinia said. “They are too young to know better.”

  She stood shorter than her daughter, but her auburn hair, violet eyes, and generous mouth evidenced she had, indeed, birthed Catherine. “Of course,” he said.

  “Mabel, Sibyl!” she called. “Bring food and drink for your lord and lady and their men.” As the women hastened away, Lavinia once more addressed Collier. “I shall send maids to clear the lord’s solar so you may have it for yourself.”

  He looked to Lewis Algernon, who appeared ready to erupt. “That will not be necessary. Your husband and you may remain.”

  A murmur went around the hall, causing the lady to step near and say low, “Since you are now Lord of Irondale, ’tis rightfully yours.” As though in being lowly born he did not understand his new station.

  “One of the other rooms will do just as well, my lady.”

  “But there are only those of Antony and Eustace.”

  “Then we will take Antony’s, and he may share with his brother.”

  Though she was clearly confused, relief flickered in her eyes. “As you wish, Lord Gilchrist.”

  “I thank you, Husband,” Catherine whispered.

  Though he made allowances more for the right of it than for her, he was glad it pleased her.

  Shortly, the serving women reappeared bearing pitchers, and worry once more pinched Lady Lavinia’s face.

  Collier understood. Just as he should claim the solar, he should divest Lewis Algernon of the high seat where a lord took his meals and presided over demesne business. But neither would he do that.

  “It’s cold in here,” he said. “We will sit before the fire.” However, as he started to draw his wife toward the hearth, she resisted.

  “Catherine?”

  “I wish to speak with my father.”

  Before he could advise her to wait, her mother stepped near. “’Tis not the time, Catherine.”

  She looked ready to protest, but a glance at Lewis Algernon made her incline her head. “You are right.”

  Lady Lavinia gave a slight, sorrowful smile. “I shall see your chamber is made ready.” She stepped past Catherine, gave a little gasp, and cried, “Tilly!” Moments later, the two women embraced.

  From his rightful place at the high table, Lewis watched his daughter where she sat beside the Yorkist. Did he not know her face, he would have said she was not of his body. A year ago, she would have died rather than wed her enemy.

  What had happened to change the young woman Hildegard had transformed into her own image? Where was the daughter who had made his own hate for the usurper seem that of a youth?

  Weariness settling deeper in his bones, he closed his eyes. Many were the nights he had lain awake since sending Catherine to Strivling—ruing his proposal that she wed Hildegard’s son. But at the time he had thought it for the best, believing if there was any possibility of her surmounting the curse, much discipline was needed. And there had seemed none better suited to dispensing discipline than Hildegard. But never had he expected to lose his daughter so completely.

  He lifted his lids and focused on Gilchrist. A more peculiar Yorkist he had not encountered, this one who was not as easy to hate as the others. Was he the reason for the change in Catherine? Might she feel something for him—providing, of course, she was capable of such feeling?

  He sighed. Was she still dreaming those dreams of hers?

  Hours later, Antony came for him. Moving past the others who had bedded down for the night, the boy strode through the shadows. It was how Lewis wished it so none would see the indignity suffered at being carried to bed like a child. Ere first rising, Antony would carry him down again.

  Though his eldest son was tall and beginning to thicken—very nearly a man—it would yet be years before he reached his full physique. And then what?

  Lewis’s resentment welled. Irondale was now Gilchrist’s, and unless King Henry miraculously returned with an army capable of burying the usurper’s, it would remain thus. Meaning there would be naught for Antony.

  The boy knelt beside his father. “I have word,” he spoke low.

  Lewis wiped the saliva from the sagging side of his mouth. “Wor…?” he asked. Just as he allowed none to witness the extent of the infirmity that caused him to be carried to bed, only with Antony did he use his grossly deformed speech.

  “Aye, Father, an army is being assembled. We are to await instruction.”

  Hope, then? Or a useless cause that could see his boy dead?

  Lewis considered Antony. The anger that had radiated from him in the presence of Gilchrist was gone, in its place confidence that Henry would rise again. Foolish confidence?

  “Father?”

  Lewis nodded, and his son carried him to bed.

  “I should have told you about your father.”

  Catherine met Collier’s gaze in the mirror. “You knew?”

  “From Edmund.”

  She lowered the hairbrush. “Why did you not speak of it?”

  “I meant to, but the time never seemed right.”

  Because she had refused to talk to him during the ride. “What happened to him?”

  He hung his belt over the back of a chair. “I know only that he had a stroke—an attack of apoplexy—when Montagu brought his army against Irondale.”

  Catherine looked down. So many lives the war had taken, among them that of Hildegard, the old baron, and her betrothed. Now it sought to claim her father. Would it succeed where it had failed with her?

  She turned. “Tell me about the winch room. How are you so sure Walther would have killed me had you not come between us?”

  A guardedness entered Collier’s eyes. “That is the kind of man he is. Had you landed the blade to his arm rather than mine, his retaliation would have proved deadly.”

  As seen in all her dreams of the encounter in the winch room—except the last. But Collier was not telling all. She stood. “You hide something.”

  He smiled wryly. “We each have our secrets.”

  “I have none.”

  His smile lowered. “Don’t you?”

  He surely referred to her Lancastrian sympathies, doubtless believed they would see him betrayed. “How can you speak such after I gave you the missive?”

  “I appreciate that you trusted me with that, but I refer to your dreams.”

  Her breath caught. How did he know? Had he dreams as well? Was that the means by which he knew Walther would have killed her? “How know you of my dreams?”

  “Tilly told me.”

  “Tilly? But I have not spoken of them to her.”

  He raised an eyebrow. “And yet she knows.”

  From time to time, the maid asked after her lady’s dreams, but Catherine always excused it as being idle chat.

  “She thought you might have dreamed of my coming,” Collier said.

  How had Tilly known?

  “Did you, Catherine?”

  If she revealed the truth, would he think her a witch as her father had years ago warned would happen? She considered a moment longer, then said, “I did dream of your coming, but not until after you appeared in my chamber that first night.”

  He crossed to her and set his hands on her shoulders. “Tell me of that dream.”

  She moistened her lips. “It was the same I’d had many times, but it ended differently. Again, I w
as in the winch room. Again, a Yorkist raised his sword against mine. Again, I swung. Then there you were, and ’twas you who took the blow, not…”

  “Walther.”

  She nodded. “When I saw the blood on my gown, I believed it was the death of me as in the other dreams, but the blood was yours. And that changed all.” She frowned. “No matter how I have tried to alter what I see in my dreams, always they come to pass. Until you. Do you have such dreams?”

  His smile was slight. “Only if you are a dream, Catherine, and I do not believe it.”

  “Do you think me a witch?”

  “Of course not. Why?”

  “Before my father sent me from Irondale, I revealed to him my dreams, and he made me promise to never speak of them—warned that if I did, I would be thought a witch.”

  “Then you told no one else? Not even Hildegard?”

  “Especially not her.”

  He pulled her close.

  Reveling in the size and strength of him, she pressed her face into his shoulder.

  “You will tell me if you have such dreams again?” he asked.

  So he could change them as he had changed the one of her death? “I will.” She drew back. “Now will you trust me with your secret as I have trusted you with mine?”

  That guardedness again.

  She sighed. “You will not.”

  Collier hated hurting her, but he could not forget the Catherine he had first encountered—not so very long ago. True, she had shared the missive, but only after he discovered it. True, this night she had confided her dreams, but only after she learned Tilly had revealed them. And now that she was returned to Irondale, she could succumb to her family’s Lancastrian sentiments, reversing whatever progress she and he had made toward each other.

  “I am tired,” she said and moved out of his arms and toward the bed.

  He watched her slide beneath the covers, and when she turned her back to him, he snuffed the candles and joined her. Amid the silence that made itself uncomfortable between them, he assured himself all they needed was more time.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO