No Dark Place

19

The wind increased while the Chippenham household was at midday dinner, and by the time Hugh and Nigel started out on their return home, the temperature had dropped fifteen degrees. Both they and their escort were chilled to the bone by the time the walls of Somerford came into view.

Hugh had been silent for almost the entire ride, and Nigel did not attempt to force a confidence. From the expression on Hugh’s face, he had known he would meet with little success.

In fact, for the first time since he had met Hugh, Nigel was wondering if he had done the right thing in telling the boy who he was. Now that Guy had won the king’s backing, it did not look as if Hugh had any chance of winning the earldom that was rightfully his. It seemed to Nigel’s discouraged mind that the only thing that his disclosure had done for the boy was to bring him grief.

It was growing dark by the time Nigel’s party rode through the outer gate of Somerford. Grooms came running to take their horses, and Nigel and Hugh went wearily up the castle ramp and into the Great Hall.

Supper was finished and the tables had already been cleared away. The household knights sat around the fire, engaged in their usual pursuits of chess and dice. Thomas was plucking the strings of his lute.

Heads turned as Hugh and Nigel, followed by the knights of their escort, came into the room. One of the knights by the fire sent a page running up the stairs to relay the news to Cristen and her ladies that the lord of the castle had returned. Nigel and Hugh moved to stand by the fire and Nigel held out his cold hands to its warmth.

A few minutes later, the dogs came racing down the stairs. They were followed by Cristen.

Nigel turned from the fire when he saw his daughter. “How are you, my dear?” he asked, smiling at her. “Has all gone well in our absence?”

“I am fine, Father. Everything at Somerford is fine.” She reached up to kiss him on the cheek. “It is good to have you home.”

“Thank you, my dear.”

“Welcome home, Hugh,” Cristen said, turning to the slim silent figure who was letting the dogs sniff his hands.

Hugh nodded.

Jesu, Nigel thought. Is the boy ever going to talk again?

“You must be hungry,” Cristen said practically.

“Aye,” Nigel replied. “I think we all could do with something to eat and drink. It was a long, cold ride. It almost feels as if it might snow.”

By now Hugh was patting the dogs. He said nothing.

He ate the bread and meat that he was served, however, and drank a cup of ale. Cristen talked easily the whole while, detailing the things that had happened while they were gone.

“Emma Jensen came to see me about a bad cough her eldest son has developed,” she said. “I gave her some of my elixir of horehound. I hope it helps.”

“I’m sure it will,” Nigel said comfortably. “Your potions are always efficacious, my dear.”

“Not always.” For the first time, Nigel saw her shoot a worried look at Hugh. He remembered the boy’s words to him the previous night about his headaches. Cristen knows.

Hugh put down his ale and finally spoke. “I hope you won’t mind if I go to bed, sir. I am rather tired.”

He looked more than tired. He looked exhausted.

“Go ahead, Hugh,” Nigel said. “We’ll see you in the morning.”

“Good night, Cristen,” Hugh said.

For the briefest of moments, the eyes of the two young people met. Then Cristen said softly, “Good night, Hugh.”

Hugh walked to the door that led to the solar and family bedrooms. He went inside, closing the door behind him gently.

“Dear God, Father,” Cristen said. Her face was pale. “What happened?”

“I don’t know,” Nigel said wearily. “He came to me this morning and said that we had to leave Chippenham. He’s scarcely said a word since.” Nigel hesitated, then added, “He was awake all night with a headache, Cristen. I could tell that he was in a great deal of pain. He told me he’s had them before.”

She bent her head and replied, her voice very low, “I think this whole business of trying to remember his past is tearing him apart.”

Nigel said harshly, “All the while that we were riding home I was thinking that I should never have told him who he was, that I should have simply let him go on being Hugh Corbaille. He was better off so.”

At that she lifted her head and shook it in emphatic disagreement. “If being Hugh Corbaille had been enough for him, he wouldn’t have come here, Father. You were right to tell him. No matter how painful it may be, he needs to rediscover his past. It’s the only way he can make himself whole.”

Nigel rubbed his eyes. He felt almost as exhausted as Hugh looked.

Cristen got to her feet and went behind him to massage his shoulders.

“Aahh,” he said with grateful pleasure. “That feels good.”

The rest of the knights around the fire had gone on with their activities, although all ears were intent on the conversation between Nigel and Cristen.

Thomas said abruptly, as if he could contain himself no longer, “If Hugh is truly the son of Lord Roger, then isn’t he entitled to be the Earl of Wiltshire?”

“He is entitled by right of inheritance,” Nigel returned somberly. “But the king has the final say in such matters, Thomas. And it seems that the king is supporting Guy.”

There was a grumble of discontent among the knights.

“Guy was responsible for his brother’s death,” Ranulf said. “He should not be allowed to profit from murder.”

“There is no proof that Guy had aught to do with Roger’s murder,” Nigel pointed out.

Again came the grumble of discontent.

Cristen removed her hands from her father’s shoulders and signaled to one of the pages. “Take the dogs for their last visit outside, will you, Brian?”

Brian whistled and Ralf and Cedric obediently trailed after him to the door.

Cristen said briskly, “I am going to bed, Father, and I recommend that you do the same. You look tired.”

Nigel braced his hands on the carved arms of his chair and pushed himself to his feet. “I am tired,” he admitted.

He offered her his arm and, after bidding good night to the knights, the two of them crossed the floor to the door that led into the solar.

Cristen’s maid was waiting for her in her bedroom, and she helped Cristen out of her over-and undertunics and into her velvet robe. Then she brushed out the girl’s long hair and plaited it loosely into a single braid.

“Thank you, Emily,” Cristen said with a smile. “You may go to your own rest. I will see you in the morning.”

“Good night, my lady.”

After the girl had left, Cristen went to the door to make certain that Brian had returned the dogs. They were both curled in their usual places by the solar brazier. Ralf lifted his head to look at her, then closed his eyes again to go back to sleep. Cedric never stirred.

Cristen turned back into the room and got into her bed under the covers in order to keep warm. She turned the hourglass on her bedside table and started the sand falling. In a half an hour’s time, Nigel should be fast asleep. She would give him an hour, just to be sure.

She lay in bed, staring at the ceiling, thinking. Outside it had begun to rain. She could hear the drops bouncing off the packed earth of the courtyard beneath her window.

When all the sand had run from the top of the glass into the bottom, Cristen got out of bed, picked up the candle she had left burning, and let herself out into the solar.

This time both dogs raised their heads when they saw her.

She ignored them and crossed the floor to the door that led to Hugh’s bedroom. She pushed it open without knocking and went inside.

The room was dark. The only sound she heard was the drumming of the rain against the closed shutters. She held her candle in steady hands and looked toward the shadowy, silent bed.

“Hugh?” she said softly.

“What are you doing here?” His voice sounded harsh and strained.

She carried her candle over to the small table that was next to the bed. Hugh pushed himself up on his elbow and looked at her out of shadowed eyes. His hair was tousled, his shoulders bare.

She sat on the edge of the bed and regarded him gravely. “What happened at Chippenham?” she asked, her voice very quiet. “Why did you return so quickly?”

For a long moment she thought he was not going to answer her. Finally he said reluctantly, “I had a conversation with one of Roger’s former knights.” Exhaustion was etched in every line of his face, but she knew he had not been sleeping. “What he said was enough to cause me to doubt that Guy is guilty of his brother’s death.”

The single candle flickered in a sudden draft, then burned steadily once again. The rain still drummed steadily against the closed wooden shutters of the room.

“What did he tell you, Hugh?” Cristen asked.

He pushed himself upright, so that he was sitting with his back against his pillows. He pushed his hair out of his eyes. The bedcovers were pulled up to his waist, but his upper torso was bare. The light from the candle shone on the gold cross he wore around his neck.

He was so slender that it was always a surprise to see how well-muscled he was.

“Where’s your bedrobe?” Cristen asked practically. “It’s cold in here.”

He made an irritable gesture. “I don’t need it.”

She looked around, then stretched toward the bottom of the bed, reaching out an arm. She grabbed the worn red velvet robe that Adela had made for Hugh’s sixteenth birthday and handed it to him.

“Put it on.”

He took it from her and impatiently flung it around his shoulders.

“Now,” she said. “Tell me what happened.”

Speaking in an emotionless monotone, he told her what he had learned from Alan. He stopped, however, before he had quite reached the end.

There was a faint frown between Cristen’s delicate brows. “So Ivo stayed to try to protect your mother?” she prompted.

He nodded. His lips were folded into a tight, tense line.

“Hugh?” Her voice was gentle but implacable.

“He stayed,” Hugh agreed. Then, visibly controlling all his sense of horror, he managed to get it out. “Roger castrated him, Cristen. After that, once he was left alone, Ivo killed himself.”

“Oh my dear God,” Cristen whispered.

Hugh’s eyes were so dilated that they looked almost black. “So you see, Walter Crespin had good reason to kill Earl Roger. And you can also see why Roger’s knights transferred their allegiance so easily to Guy. They knew that Guy had had nothing to do with his brother’s death. Nor had they any cause to feel overly loyal to their former lord.”

Cristen reached out and took his icy hands into her own warm clasp.

“Aye, I can see all of that,” she said quietly. “But what I don’t see, Hugh, is why Walter would want to kidnap you.”

“I think…” His voice quivered. His hands clutched hers. He stopped and when he spoke again, his voice was steadier. “I think I was in the chapel when Roger was killed. I remember…things. Perhaps I was taken because I knew too much.”

“Oh, Hugh,” Cristen said. Her voice was full of an aching sadness. “This is so much for you to bear.”

“I have you,” he said hoarsely. “I can bear anything, Cristen, as long as I have you.”

They stared at each as the seconds ticked by unre-garded. Then he pulled her forward, into his arms.

There was desperation in his embrace. His face was buried in the warm fold between her neck and her shoulder. His lips moved on her bare skin. Their touch burned like fire.

“Cristen.” His voice was like a groan.

She slid her arms around him and held him close. He was quivering like a bow that has been strung too tightly. “It’s all right, Hugh,” she said. “It’s all right.”

His lips moved from her throat to her mouth. His kiss was hard and urgent with need. She yielded to it, yielded to him and the almost frantic passion that was driving him.

She loved him so much. She didn’t mind it that he hurt her, she was only fiercely glad that she was able to give him this release that he so desperately needed. When he finally lay still against her, she cradled him against her breast, buried her lips in his black hair, and whispered, “Go to sleep, Hugh. Go to sleep, my love.”

Long after he had fallen into the deep sleep of utter exhaustion, she lay awake, listening to the rain beating against the shutters and thinking of what he had told her and of what it might mean.

When Hugh finally awoke, the candle was almost burned out and the rain was still pelting against the shutters. He felt the softness of Cristen beside him and remembered instantly what had happened.

Cautiously, he raised himself on his elbow and looked at the sleeping face of the girl laying beside him. Her long lashes lay quietly on her cheek and her loosened hair streamed across the rumpled bed covers.

He shut his eyes in pain.

What have I done?

He remembered his frantic possession of her just hours before, and his mouth was taut with pain.

How could I have done that to Cristen?

When he opened his eyes, she was stirring, as if she had sensed his distress. He watched her, his heart hammering. If she should turn from him in revulsion, he would want to die.

Her lashes lifted and she looked at him. The first expression he saw in her great brown eyes was surprise. Then, as her memory returned, the surprise turned to a look of guilt.

“Are you angry with me?” she asked.

He stared at her in utter stupefaction. “It is I who should be asking that question of you,” he said at last.

She shook her head in disagreement. “It was my doing. I could have stopped you if I had wanted to.” She smiled tentatively. “I didn’t want to, you know.”

He looked at her for a minute in silence and then the glimmer of an answering smile softened his grim young mouth.

“We will have to get married now,” he said.

She reached her hands up to touch his face. “So we will,” she agreed. “So we will.”

It was an hour before dawn when Cristen finally left Hugh to creep back to her own room. This time the dogs got up to come and greet her when she came into the solar. She patted their heads without speaking, then slipped through the door into her bedroom.

The rain was still drumming against the shutters. Her bed, unoccupied for most of the night, was cold. She was sore between her legs.

But she was happy. Something irrevocable had happened between her and Hugh this night. Now they truly belonged to each other.

I can bear anything as long as I have you.

He had said that to her and she knew it was true. It had been like that between them almost from the moment they had met. He had never been a stranger. It was almost as if she had recognized him, as if they had known each other before and were only waiting for the time when they could come together again.

Beneath her joy, however, ran an irresistible current of fear.

What was the truth about Roger’s murder?

She had not said this to Hugh, but she could not help but wonder why, if Walter Crespin had killed the earl to avenge his brother, he had waited a full year to do it.

Perhaps it was done in a moment of uncontrollable anger, she thought. It must have been. There could be no other explanation for murdering a man in front of his son.

But Cristen could not rid herself of the conviction that there was more to the story than they already knew. Hugh had told her that he was going to seek out Father Anselm, who had been the one to find Roger’s dead body in the chapel.

“I need someone to corroborate Alan’s tale about Ivo,” he had said as they lay together after a second, heartstoppingly tender lovemaking. “There is always the possibility that he told me that terrible story in order to get me to exonerate Guy.”

Cristen’s brain agreed that Hugh needed to seek out the priest. It was her heart that feared for what else he might learn.