“Nay,” she smiled under his mouth, “’tis not Jube but Clem that she will wed.” She kissed him back, now, reveling in how simple it had all become. She loved him and they would wed and they would kiss like this every day.
A shiver of comprehension flitted through her. So this was love, she thought, pressing her mouth to his, feeling his hands as they came around her body to pull her close—as their breaths joined, mingling with their mouths and mixing with their sighs.
“Clem?” he said, pulling back as though the words had just made their way to his consciousness. “Never. He cannot stand the sight of her.”
Madelyne looked at him, as sure now that Tricky would have her man as she’d been certain she would not. “Aye, my lord Gavin, they will wed…for Tricky has a faultless way of knowing.”
“And what would that be?”
“I would not tell you that. Just mark my words and when you learn that I’m right, you may beg my forgiveness for disbelieving me.” She allowed herself one of her rare, capricious smiles and was rewarded by an expression of pure desire—there was no mistaking it—that washed over Gavin’s face.
“Madelyne,” he whispered, pulling her to his chest; not to kiss her, but to hold her ear to his heartbeat, “have I told you that you are the most beautiful woman I have ever seen?”
His arms around her, gathering her to him, her head settled under his chin, and her own hands splayed over his muscular back, Madelyne felt a security that she’d never felt before. She closed her eyes and smiled.
Twenty-Three
The news spread like wildfire through the court: Gavin Mal Verne was to wed again, and to the shy little nun who was his sworn enemy’s daughter.
Reginald D’Orrais took his loss with self-deprecating grace, which found him favor with the ladies. And his slightly injured air—a sensitivity attributed to his broken heart—only garnered him more favor with them.
“He appears to be recovering quite well,” Judith commented to Madelyne as she surveyed her friend—soon to be her cousin-by-marriage—in the gown she would wear for her wedding on the morrow. “Maddie, you look stunning! Gavin will be unable to catch his breath when he sees you!”
Madelyne peered at herself in the polished mirror that Judith kept in the corner of her chamber. “Did Nicola look beautiful on their wedding day?” she asked. She had been fighting the curiosity for days—weeks, really, since her arrival at Mal Verne—and now she felt she had the right to know what had happened to Gavin’s first wife. Judith would know, and would tell her the unvarnished truth…and she would live with whatever it was she learned about her husband.
“She was beautiful, aye, in a brittle, golden sort of way…while you, Maddie…you are the cool, sensual, exquisite moon to her brassy, harsh sun.”
“What happened to her, Judith? I have the right to know now that I am to wed with Gavin. All that I have been told is that she took a lover…and that she died on the eve she went to go to him.”
Judith settled back on her stool, looking at her in surprise. “You do not know the whole of it then.” Her greenish-brown eyes scanned Madelyne, and what she saw there must have convinced her to speak the truth. “Her lover was your father, Maddie.”
Madelyne could not contain a gasp, and she felt the warmth drain from her face, leaving it cold and pale. “My father? But…my father is mad!”
Judith took her hands into her warm ones. “Aye. He is mad. But betimes he was a great favorite of the court—at the least, for those who did not know him well. I know from your own words that he laid a heavy hand to you and your mother…and that the smile he bestowed upon the ladies hid only the poison behind it. He spoke of his work with such fervor that he was praised by all—even the priests.
“Work?” Madelyne felt a crawling in her belly. “Aye…his work in that below-ground chamber… I knew only that it was a dark, frightening place…but I do not know what work he did that would have caused praise from the priests.”
“Aye, you must have been too young to understand… Your father is an alchemist, in search of the Holy Grail—the Philosopher’s Stone…which he believes will give him everlasting life. He claims that through his devotion to Mary Magdalen a vision was made known to him in which God revealed the secret of the Holy Grail. He even believes that the saint’s own blood runs in his veins!”
“My father? A holy man? Never…nay, my God would not reward him thus. ’Tis just the proof that he is mad. How is it that you know so much of my father…and yet I know so little?” Madelyne tried to pull the threads of her whirling thoughts together.
“Gregory was my betrothed, the one I was contracted to since birth. He was a boy I’d grown up with. He’d fostered at my father’s house, as had Gavin, and they were friends—although Gavin was the elder by three years. My Gregory made a foolish decision and became swayed by the fantasies of your father, and he tempted Gregory to his side with promises of immortality and power. The same as he has done with many a man. And when they beseiged a keep that belonged to Gavin, a great battle ensued…and in the course of which, Gavin struck down Gregory.”
“Oh, nay!” Madelyne sank onto Judith’s bed. “Gavin killed your betrothed! Judith, I am so sorry… ”
Judith nodded her head, but her eyes were clear. “Aye, ’tis true. Gavin did nothing wrong, Maddie… I know that—he sought only to defend his own, and his people, and he did not know it was him, covered in his helm and filthy with dirt. Gregory, in his foolishness, led Fantin into the keep through a way only he knew because of his relationship with me… aye, Gregory made a terrible mistake and he paid the price. I have long forgiven Gavin, Maddie…but I do not believe he has forgiven himself.”
“And…Nicola? Was she too struck down…?” Madelyne could not speak the words, though fear simmered in her heart. Nay, Gavin could not also have the death of his wife on his conscience…by accident or design.
“’Tis said she was leaving Gavin to go to your father…she raced across the fields and into the forest, and Gavin followed, trying to stop her. He tells me that she fell from her mount—that the horse took a jump it should not have, and she tumbled from his back. I believe that is the truth, Maddie, but there are some who believe that Gavin—in his rage—took his hands to her neck and broke it himself because he could not stand the thought of losing her to another man.” She stopped, looking directly into Madelyne’s eyes.”
“He has too much honor to do such a thing,” Madelyne told her quietly—knowing that her friend needed to hear her affirmation for Gavin.
“Aye, he does. I believe that. And that is why it has been such agony for me to see him as he has slid into this blackness which has surrounded him since the death of Nicola…and that of Gregory. If I could see that anguish wiped from his face, I’d be happy again. Mayhap you will be the one to help him do so.”
“Mayhap I will.” Madelyne sat with her hands quietly in her lap. On the morrow, she would wed him—this man whom she knew not well, but one who’d shown her both gentle and harsh sides.
“It is my greatest hope that you will, Madelyne. ’Tis my belief it is God’s will that you have been turned from your intent to be a nun so that you might save the soul of a good man.”
“My daughter is to wed with Mal Verne ?” Fantin’s heart roared in his chest and for a moment, his head felt as though ’twas lifting from his shoulders. He slammed his palms onto the table in front of him to keep his balance and stared in disbelief at the man who carried the news.
“Aye, ’tis so. The king—with a bit of prodding from his queen, as Mal Verne tells it—has gifted him with your daughter.”
Yet another reason the queen must be punished. Fantin’s eyes pounded as they bulged in his face.
This cannot happen.
He could not allow it to happen. To have his beautiful daughter—the product of his love with Anne, the manifestation of their pure joining—wed with the rough, dangerous, Mal Verne…