My Lady's Favor

She would be free. Her life would be her own again, and she could return to Nevering. To her linen business. She would not attempt to take a farthing from Vannes, no matter what Conon thought to the contrary.

Yet she could not force the lie past her lips. “I am sorry, my lord but—”

“Jesu, Conon.” Arundel strode to Elysia’s side and put a protective arm about her. “How can you humiliate the girl in front of the whole keep? ’Tis obvious the deed was done.”

Conon stared at her bare shoulders and the linen duvet wrapped carelessly around her body.

“Belle, get her dressed, please.” His voice held a gruff edge. “There will be little sleep for any of us this night.”

“Yes, my lord.”

Elysia felt like a child, but saw the wisdom of clothing herself. It frustrated her, however, that Conon just stepped in and assumed control. The men, she knew, would decide her fate without her. By the time she returned, Arundel and Conon would probably have the rest of her life planned without so much as a glance in her direction.

She needed to tell them the truth of the situation before they began discussing her future. Elysia looked back to the chamber, weighing her options.

But she did not want to return and bring up the awkward situation in front of a crowd of gossipmongers. She would go to the earl later, when he met privately with Conon, and tell them what really had happened.

Belle hustled Elysia down the hall and to a private chamber. She scarcely noticed what garments Belle chose for her as the maid dressed and groomed her with expert thoroughness.

Elysia focused on the upcoming meeting with the earl and Conon. She would tell them she would not marry again unless forced. Tonight’s experience surpassed humiliation, and for all she knew, it was because of her ineptitude as a wife that her husband died.

“Do not fret, sweeting,” Belle soothed. The French maid had served at Vannes prior to Elysia’s arrival, and Elysia had liked her from the moment they met.

“It had nothing to do with you, you know,” the servant continued. “The lord has been drinking with no care for his health for as long as I have been here, and from what I hear, for twenty years before that. No man can abuse his poor body that way and expect to escape unscathed.”

“Perhaps I hastened him to his grave.” Elysia hid the knife wound on her thigh as Belle helped her into a fresh gown. Elysia would tell Arundel what happened, but she didn’t want the servants to hear the news first. “The excitement of the marriage and the strain of the wedding day. It was too much.”

“If so, he has no one to blame but himself. If you had not consented to wed, he would have found another young woman half his years.”

But guilt racked her. Guilt because the count died. Guilt because she let his nephew and Arundel think her wedding night left her a widow.

The whole mess required unraveling. She would proceed immediately to the earl’s chamber and tell them what happened—and hope with all her heart Arundel did not immediately marry her off to some other unfortunate soul.

After giving instructions to the staff for moving the count’s body and cleaning the master bedchamber, Conon sent for his fellow knight, Leon de Grace, to oversee the movement of the count while Conon met with Arundel.

A trusted friend, Leon had fought beside Conon during Conon’s first battle. Some odd command of the Fates had left them standing when hordes of other men had died all around them. They’d stuck together after that, neither one willing to turn his back on a partnership that seemed somehow preordained. Neither man had a family, but for ten years, they’d counted on one another as if they’d been born brothers.

De Grace arrived immediately, offering his condolences by clapping Conon on the shoulder. “He is at peace now, my friend.”

Conon nodded, heartened by Leon’s presence. Ten years older than Conon, de Grace would handle everything with his usual efficiency. The man was endlessly capable.

“You are to meet with the girl’s overlord now?” de Grace asked, peering around the room as the maids removed the linens to clean the chamber.

“Arundel will want every facet of the bridal contract enforced, of course,” Conon remarked, trying unsuccessfully to keep the bitterness from his voice.

“As is his right, of course.” The voice of wisdom returned as he tore off a bit of bread from the food on the sideboard.

“And I will honor it.” Conon swiped a hand over his face, weary of the day. “I am a man of honor if not wealth.”

“’Tis a better recommendation for a man anyhow,” de Grace reminded him between bites of bread. “If only your uncle had possessed a bit more of the former, you would now be possessed of a bit more of the latter.”

“Aye.” Conon knew his friend meant no insult. “He was a good man once.”

De Grace gazed upon Jacques’s bloated body and nodded. “You lost that man long before tonight, Con. Just remember his bride knows naught of his empty promises to you. ’Tis not her fault he did not keep them.”

Conon thought of Elysia’s frightened eyes tonight, the way she had looked when she’d realized the count was dead. Had that been sorrow he’d read in her expression? Or relief? “Nay, but it is her fault I cannot leave Vannes now. I will need to stay here a bit longer while matters are settled.”

If Elysia carried his uncle’s heir, Conon would need to make arrangements for the child’s care and protection. For that matter, he would be honor-bound to protect the child’s mother.

“We will leave when you are ready. I am in no hurry,” de Grace assured him.

Of course Leon was in no hurry to find work as a mercenary. He had a modest fortune stashed somewhere on the continent thanks to more wars fought than Conon. This new delay was a blow to Conon’s coffers.

They parted company then. Conon traversed the dimly lit corridors toward Arundel’s chamber, preparing himself to face the earl and discuss the fine points of his uncle’s marriage contract. No doubt, Conon’s fears would be confirmed—he would learn his grandmère’s dower property would indeed fall into Elysia’s hands. Before Conon could knock at the earl’s door, it was flung wide by Arundel’s squire.

“Very good, then, St. Simeon,” Arundel muttered, waving him inside the sparsely appointed chamber. “We can proceed now.”

Conon wondered what had become of the furnishings. The last time he had been in this room, rich tapestries adorned the walls and woven mats covered the floors. Now there was little to recommend the cold chamber except the fire that crackled merrily in the hearth.

Ten men crowded in the earl’s small solar, all Englishmen loyal to the earl. The only one Conon recognized was Huntley, Arundel’s crass second in command.

“Sorry about your uncle, St. Simeon. He was a good man.” The earl shook his head in sympathy as he clapped a hand on Conon’s shoulder. “An honorable man, too. ’Twas one of the reasons I consented to wed my ward to him.”

Shaking off Arundel’s grip, Conon did not care to be wheedled. “I will honor the bridal contract. Let us go over it in detail.”

Although the earl nodded politely at Conon’s acquiescence, Huntley had the gall to grin, as if he were solely responsible for winning a great battle.

“But I would see him—” Conon addressed Arundel as he jerked his head in Huntley’s direction “—and his disrespect out of the room before I do so.”

Huntley would have protested, a black look marring his face, but Arundel stepped in. “Perhaps that would be best.” He nodded to Huntley and the other knights. “Excuse us, please.”

Chain mail clinking, the knights filed out of the room with Huntley muttering under his breath. Conon did not care. He turned to the earl, ready to discuss the specifics of Jacques’s agreement with Elysia and her overlord.

“I understand Lady Elysia will inherit the Vannes dower lands, even if there is no heir?” The dower property represented a small fraction of the Vannes holdings, but its worth was immeasurable to Conon. His happiest childhood memories revolved around the nearby keep and time spent there with his grandmother. He had inherited his grandmère’s family pride while a boy at her knee.

“Aye. But she inherits much more if she has conceived.”

Pacing the length of the solar, Conon rubbed his temple in a futile attempt to relieve the pounding in his head. He didn’t want to ask for clarification, but he had to know.

“All of it?”

Arundel pulled the contract parchment from his surcoat and allowed the scroll to unravel onto the chamber’s only table. “Everything. At least until her eldest son comes of age.”

Conon should have expected this. Hell, hadn’t his uncle practically told him as much? Still, he had hoped Jacques would realize how unfair that would be. Conon would be left with nothing, unable to afford a noble marriage and family. He schooled his features in spite of the knife his dead uncle had just twisted in his back.

“It is unlikely there will be an heir after such a brief marriage.” Conon glared at the words upon the scroll, willing them to be different.

“Perhaps,” Arundel agreed, stroking the tuft of beard at his chin. “In which case I will send her home to Nevering until I have found another suitable match for her.”

Conon paused in his pacing. “She would not live on the Vannes dower lands?”

“Nay. She is a wealthy heiress in her own right, and a prize I must safeguard. Her bridal portion is worth almost as much as the Vannes fortune. Many a man would lay claim to her.”

For a moment, Conon envisioned himself wed to the English woman. Although her slender form had looked enticing as hell wrapped in naught but a linen blanket, Conon guessed she was cold as a hard frost. The curves he had detected beneath her impromptu robe didn’t soften her perpetually stiff spine or proud bearing.

Yet her skin had been soft enough beneath his lips, a contrary part of his brain reminded him.

“If she is so damn wealthy, why does she need the dower lands?” Conon asked, not expecting an answer. He should have found a way to ensure the inheritance Jacques had promised him long ago. Conon didn’t care about the money. He cared about his family seat.

“’Tis the politics of marriage.” The earl rolled the bridal contract with brusque efficiency and returned it to a pouch at his waist. “I knew you would be difficult about this.”

“What if she killed my uncle?” Conon inquired. It was entirely possible. Heaven knew it had been the first thing Conon thought when he entered the bedchamber tonight and saw the count lying on the bed. How many young maids would go eagerly to the bed of a lust-ridden, aging knight?

“How?” Arundel scoffed. “By being too damn beautiful for an old man’s heart to bear? Surely you jest.”

“I have heard she has knowledge of herbs.” Even though Elysia struck him as proud, Conon did not truly think she had killed his uncle. She had looked too genuinely horrified at the sight of Jacques’s face in death.

“Flax plants for linen, but I assure you that is all. Elysia is no wisewoman.”

“Mayhap she contacted one to be rid of an unwanted groom,” Conon pressed, wondering why he bothered. Some part of him seemed to want reassurance she could not have committed such a crime.

“You impugn the honor of your countess, St. Simeon.”

“I say nothing the whole keep has not secretly thought already. But I will give her my protection as my uncle’s widow until it is known whether or not she is breeding. Once it is proven she is not, I want her out of Vannes.” And then Conon would be rid of the unwanted temptation she posed.

“I cannot afford to wait that long. I will leave Huntley here to protect my interests and a few men to guard the countess until that time.” The earl scooped up the parchment, making it obvious he wanted Conon to leave. “Keep in mind, St. Simeon, if Elysia carries the next Count of Vannes in her belly, ’twill be you who is ousted.”

“Aye.” Conon raised a brow in the earl’s direction as he stepped into the corridor. “Unless, on top of being a fortune-hunting opportunist, your ward proves to be a murderess.”

The earl made no reply, despite the furious blue pulse that leaped in a thick vein down his forehead.

Conon departed the guest tower for his own quarters in the family wing of the keep. His door was one removed from the Countess of Vannes, the only other occupant of the wing.

He lingered in front of Elysia’s chamber for a moment, noting the light that still shone brightly under her door. Was she upset by the count’s death and unable to sleep? Or was she privately celebrating her success in ridding herself of an unwanted bridegroom? A cynical thought, mayhap, but Conon could not dismiss the sense that the countess had been hiding something about her wedding night.

Perhaps she would think him rude to interrupt her in the middle of the night, but she was evidently not sleeping anyway. “Lady Elysia?” He rapped on the heavy barrier.

Silence answered him for a long moment until the door creaked open to reveal his uncle’s widow illuminated in the glow of a blazing fire. She blinked slowly, as if surprised to see him.

Unrepentant for his late intrusion, Conon shoved the door open the rest of the way and invaded the bright chamber.

Candles wreathed the room as if it were a church. Conon shook his head at the blatant extravagance. Since leaving the comfortable household of his father almost fifteen years ago, Conon had not wasted so much as a drop of wax or a skinful of wine. His frugal existence forbade it. Lady Elysia, on the other hand, was evidently used to indulging herself.

“Do not answer your own door,” Conon admonished, pushing his way into the room before someone saw into her chamber. “Where is Belle?”

The temperature soared as hot as midsummer in the chamber, and Elysia was wrapped in a jumble of blankets.

“I am afraid the heat made her sleepy, though she fought to stay awake by me.”

His eyes found the maid, sprawled across Elysia’s rumpled bed. This was not the chamber the countess had briefly shared with Jacques, but the smaller, private quarters she had been appointed upon her arrival a fortnight ago.

“You should be abed, as well.” He worked his way around the room, pinching candles as he went. “It is almost dawn.”

“I have been worried. I was denied entry into the guest tower, let alone the earl’s solar. I wanted most urgently to speak in my own behalf—”

“Denied entry?” Conon hovered over a candle, focusing on Elysia for the first time since entering. Her hair hung in a shimmering black mass down her back, rumpled and out of place. She had the delicious look of a woman who had just rolled out of bed—an enticing contrast to her usual stiff posture and cool reserve.

Her eyes, however, were sunken and dark; her skin pale. She seemed to shiver right through the pile of blankets that covered her.

“Who denied you entry?”

“Sir Huntley.” Her tone conveyed her distaste for the man. They agreed on one thing, anyway.

“Huntley is an arrogant son of a—”

“I know.” She put her hand up as if to ward off his forthcoming curse. “He is a vulgar man, and my words with him topped off an already horrifying day.” Voice breaking, she crumpled to the bench by the fire. “Please excuse me, sir, if I am not myself.”

For a long moment, she did not speak. Seeming to collect herself, she fixed him with her gaze, chin high and proud in spite of her nearness to the breaking point. Un-shed tears glittered in her eyes, refusing to fall.

A wave of pity tempered by admiration washed over Conon, surprising him with its force. Perhaps there was more to this woman than he had anticipated.

“But I have to know.” She took a deep breath, as if frightened of his response to her words. “What did you discuss with the earl? What is to be my fate?”

His pity dissolved when he recalled the discussion with Arundel. “You mean how much of Vannes will you walk away with?”

All signs of weakness vanished from Elysia’s expression as she stood, though she kept the blanket wrapped about her. Conon tried not to remember how unsettling it had felt to view her with nothing but bedclothes to cover her earlier tonight.

“Nay, sir.” Her voice cold and controlled, she sounded at odds with her vulnerable appearance. “I am not concerned with the Vannes fortune, but with my person. Because you are a man, you cannot possibly understand the frustrations of being unable to control the most basic decisions of your life.”

“As a man who stands a good chance to be disinherited, chère, I can tell you exactly how frustrating it is to have no control over your life. And to be undermined and outmaneuvered by a woman is especially insulting.” Crossing the room to stand toe to toe with her, he willed her to be intimidated.

Stubbornly she stood her ground, though she was forced to look up at him. “How could my marriage possibly disinherit you? Do I look like a successful candidate for Count of Vannes?”

“Nay, lady, you do not.” She looked more like a petulant child in need of sleep, but he was not cruel enough to say that.

Some surge of protectiveness moved Conon to tuck a stray strand of her midnight hair behind one ear. The dark, rumpled locks felt as soft as they looked. Softer. He recalled the impetuous kiss he had given her earlier that day. Her skin had been warm and smooth, too. Now, she stiffened at his touch, though she did not pull away.

“However, you might carry the future count within your womb. If that is the case, you have dispossessed me of much.”

“No.” Stepping back from him, she walked toward the fire and gazed in its heated depths. “That will not be the case. I am certain of it.”

“You cannot be sure, Countess.” He forced her new title past his lips. “That is why the earl and I thought it best you remain here until such time it may be proven one way or another.”

Her gaze flew to his, revealing a depth of vulnerability Conon would not have thought her capable of, before returning to the safety of the fire.

“As you will,” she responded with quiet assurance, indicating no hint of the anxiety he had seen in her countenance. “Yet I am certain I will carry no babe. Am I free to leave once that is…established?”

She spoke with such quiet conviction, Conon wondered about the events of her sordid wedding night. Of course the blood on the sheets told the story anyhow, but the countess spoke as confidently as if she knew no heir would result.

“Aye. You may leave.” With the deed to Grandmère’s dower lands as a prize for her virginal sacrifice.

Perhaps one day she would allow him to buy it back from her. Surely she would exchange a fortune for a plot full of memories.

His gaze flitted over the countess’s rumpled hair and pink cheeks. Despite her more approachable disheveled state, Conon could not imagine the stiff-necked Elysia Rougemont knew anything of love or sentiment.

“And if that is the case,” Conon continued, backing toward the door, “your time in France will have been more brief than either of us could have imagined.”

By month’s end, he could well possess the security he had longed craved, but he would never see the fair lady again.

Chapter Four

S he had lied.

The knowledge ate away at Elysia long after Conon’s departure, keeping her awake into the morning hours. Although she’d never actually told a lie, her failure to correct the popular misconception that her marriage had been consummated was as good as an outright falsehood.

Brooding as she stared into the cold ashes of her bedroom hearth, she regretted her continued silence. She had every intention of revealing the truth to the earl last night when she went to meet with him and Conon.

But she hadn’t been allowed to see them.

Although unaccustomed to such treatment, Elysia knew such was most women’s lot. At Nevering, she had ruled the keep. Even while her brother lived, Elysia had been the one to oversee the linen trade and issue orders. How galling to go from a position of importance—one which she enjoyed immensely—to being treated with open disrespect.

Recalling Huntley’s rude treatment the previous evening riled her all over again. She had assumed the earl instructed Huntley to keep her out of their private meeting, though Conon seemed genuinely surprised when she mentioned she had been denied entry. Perhaps it was only the earl who wanted her kept in the dark.

In her anger, she decided if the earl did not want to share his plans for her, she would not bother to confide the truth to him. This morning, when she had calmed down and realized she had a moral obligation to tell him the truth no matter if she had to fight Huntley to do it, she discovered Arundel had already departed.

Since first light she had paced the floor, fearing for her soul with so grave a sin to hang upon it. She thought, too, of Conon and his fear that an heir would usurp his fortune. But how could she tell him the truth? The matter was most delicate.

She would have to live with his anger for another couple of weeks until it was proven she would not bear the next Count of Vannes. Surely, once she displayed no signs of being enceinte, she would be allowed to go home. She would simply confide the truth to her overlord when she saw him once again.

Who would it hurt if she kept the truth to herself at this point? After all, she would take nothing from Conon’s inheritance except a small dower property, and that could be returned to him as soon as she spoke with her overlord. It wasn’t as if she would be dragging the French estate home on horseback. Besides, Conon had an enormous estate to live in now, so he wouldn’t miss the deed to a minor keep for a few weeks.

Somewhat appeased by her plan, Elysia donned her old gardening kirtle to work among the flowers she’d spied the previous day. She hated idle hands. In the garden she would escape the oppressive keep, with its reminders of the horrible night before, and soothe her frayed nerves with a healthy dose of weeding.

Scarcely aware of the departing wedding guests, Elysia lost herself in the mundane task of tending an unused section of the garden, visualizing the seeds she would have planted to best utilize the space.

The male voice startled her.

“The garden seems to be a common hiding place for you, Countess.” Conon appeared out of nowhere as he had the day before.

When his kiss upon her hand had seared her flesh.

Although he was as incredibly handsome as the previous day, Elysia noted the shadows under his eyes, the sadness that lurked within. Guilt nagged at her.

As Conon helped her to her feet, she tried not to wince at the pain in her thigh from the count’s knife wound.

His eyes narrowed as he assessed her, obviously seeing the hurt.

“What is it?”

Embarrassed and guilty, she could not look at him. “It is nothing, I—”

“You should not be out so soon after a wedding night, Elysia.” His voice was as rough as the hand that still gripped her arm.

“I am fine, truly—”

“There will be talk all over France about the beautiful young English woman who came to Brittany to wed a rich count, poisoned him on his wedding night, then flaunted herself about the gardens the next day as if nothing were amiss.” His words might be accusing, but his tone was merely tired.

Ignoring the unwelcome warmth that still tingled where he touched her, she stepped out of his grasp. “Poisoned? Is that the verdict this morning?”

“Aye.” He smiled halfheartedly. “Though that verdict is subject to change several times by the end of the day and will no doubt become more embellished as the tale travels to all corners of France and England.”

“Do you believe I had a hand in the count’s death?” She brushed the soil from the worn linen kirtle she favored for gardening.

“Your refusal to stay in your chamber like a proper grieving widow today does nothing to ease my mind regarding your possible guilt.”