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.She let the silk robe as black as Becket’s hair slide to the floor, then slipped in beside.beside her husband.How wondrous a word.No, more than a word.A miracle.She, who had once believed she wanted no man, now craved one very special man.Becket.She snuggled against him for warmth.Even though asleep, he turned and encircled her with his body.How glorious the weight of his arm and leg across her, like a heavenly prison she longed never to escape.With each of his breaths, moonlight and firelight shifted and flickered over the sheen of his shoulder and cradling arm.She absorbed the peaceful moment, wishing the sun would never rise.How might he feel about her now? Disappointed? His curiosity sated? To her inexperienced heart he had seemed feral, barely clinging to a forced control as if fearing he might hurt her, frighten her.Had she imagined his sense of awe? Maybe he responded the same with all women.Her stomach twisted with jealousy.She shook her head in silent rebuke.The entire night seemed but a blur, yet she remembered every incredible detail.But above all, one question haunted.Why had he bedded her?"Why, Rochelle?"She started, then gazed at his incredible face that surely must have graced some brave Roman soldier in centuries past, a face covered with worry."Why, what?""Why did you allow the seduction?"How should she respond? Serious, confessing her love? No, too soon.Lighthearted and teasing, assuring him he had made the right decision? Oh, dear heart, what to do? Dear heart.Of course! Answer as had Angelique when testing men’s moods of how much to reveal.Rochelle attempted a flirtatious smile and tweaked his nose."How could you not know, mon mari? Surely you guessed long ago."He recoiled as if struck, his eyes blazing with hurt anger as he gripped her wrist, forcing her hand from his face."What I guessed long ago is that you will suffer aught to remain at DuBois, even to my bedding you.What a fool I am.I hoped." He rolled away from her to rise."You misinterpret!" Cursing herself for her horrific blunder, she grappled for his arm of warm steel."Oui, you are a fool if you cannot see how I feel about you.How can you not know that I--""Murder!" A scream ripped the night and along Rochelle’s spine.Someone hammered on the door."She’s dead."Sire Becket leapt to open the door, the linen sheet wrapped around his waist.A silhouetted Lady Isabelle stood in the opening."Lady Anne is dead.Poisoned." She pointed to Rochelle."By your wife."CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE"Lady Anne is dead?" Rochelle hastily donned her robe and scrambled to her feet, the rushes prickling her soles like the dread that prickled her nape."You play not well the innocent, Lady Rochelle." Isabelle shoved past Sire Becket and into the chamber, her gray-streaked hair in a wild tumble about her shoulders.Becket caught his mother’s arm."Lady Rochelle lay here with me.""Which shows you, the fool."Rochelle closed her eyes, sickened by his mother’s choice of words that echoed Sire Becket’s.Surprised he hadn’t immediately denounced her, Rochelle glanced at him in apprehension of his certain reaction.With a slow purpose that she recognized as controlled anger, Sire Becket shut the door, then leaned his back against the wood, ankles crossed, arms folded over his dawn-tinged chest that Rochelle ached to explore again, a wantonness she feared he might now forbid.No, she would make him understand she loved him.But first.Rochelle strode toward her accuser."I fathom what you attempt, Lady Isabelle.Despite what Sire Becket wrongly believes about me, he knows killing is not of my nature.""He’s blinded by lust.And you are well capable of murder.You are polluted by Gaston’s blood."Sire Becket’s scoff trembled as if with repressed rage, but whether at her or his mother, Rochelle didn’t know."And thanks be to you, ma mère, I am polluted by Reynaurd’s.""I chose Reynaurd with care: Cunning; strength; shrewdness, qualities necessary for you, the next master of DuBois.""A bastard.""Only one other knows.Your wife.The murderess.Do away with her and your secret is safe.""She could not have murdered Lady Anne.Rochelle lay with me." Sire Becket straightened to a stand.Rochelle stared, stunned that he had not grasped at any excuse to indict her in front of his mother.And yet, maybe he but opted for privacy before he…what? What would he do?He opened the door and motioned to Lady Isabelle."Await me in the great hall.You will tell me all you know about the evil bargain which culminated in Alberre’s death, the man whom I’ve always believed as my father.No threats.The truth."His mother shook off Sire Becket’s hold."If you seek the truth, ask your wife about her presence in Lady Anne’s and my chamber less than one mark past on the candle.""’Tis falsehood! I never entered your chamber." Rochelle glanced at Becket then stilled, frozen by the hardness in his expression."Sire, surely you don’t believe her."He shifted his attention to his mother."Forgive me if I am slow to accept your accusations, ma mère.Your credibility has been dashed by your recent revelations.""Heed me, son.A sound awakened me.In my drowsiness I saw movement.Hair as white as snow reflected dying embers.A robe as black as the shadows covered her body.The robe she now wears."Sire Becket slammed his gaze into Rochelle’s, scanning her from head to toe."Did you leave the chamber while I slept?""Well I.merely to go to the garderobe."His mother laughed, hard and vicious."As flimsy a lie as your marriage.The sunrise glints off the chamber pot that sits beneath your bed.Yet you tell me you trod dark, draft-chilled halls to sit upon cold stone when you could have relieved yourself in comfort?""I am unused to a husband within my chambers.""You’ve been wed before." Isabelle turned her back on Rochelle as if dismissing her."Ask yourself this, son.Who else would wish Lady Anne dead? Who else has that robe? That hair?""Wait below." Becket urged his mother into the opening.Fury vibrated in his tone, and this time Rochelle had no doubt his anger was directed at her, not Lady Isabelle.How to persuade him otherwise?The thud of the shut door sounded with the thud of Rochelle’s heart."Sire Becket--""Cease." He tossed aside the linen and jerked on his hose, covering his powerful legs which had moved him so rhythmically, so exhaustively inside her that she still throbbed from the intimacy.She stepped toward him."Husband--""Your threat, rather innocent at the time, repeats in mockery inside my head.""My threat?""That you would not allow Lady Anne to have me." He pulled on his jupon without even donning the underlayer."You misinterpret again.I merely meant to seduce her from your mind.But even so, we had already consummated the vows, thus I had no reason to kill her.""You also expressed concern that I might still send you to a convent and then wed Lady Anne." He buckled on his sword as he strode to the door."Sire Becket, side not against me.""Death has no side.Except permanency." He paused, hand on handle, his attention locked on her like a vigilant predator."You have denied the killing.I must decide whether truth or lie.""As God is my witness, I did not kill her.""God is witness to innumerable atrocities, many committed in His name.And yet He does naught.I thought at first He merely cared not.Then when a lad of nine, I learned the bitter truth.God does not exist.""He exists for me.""Then we are both fools."The slam of the door reverberated within her soul.She stared at the closed wooden panel, a representation of the barrier between her and Becket, thick and impenetrable [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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