My Lady Midnight
Evidently Hardouin felt he had played with her long enough, for then he said, “I would have you use your ability to pass as English as a means to get close to the baron of Hawkswell.”
Her stomach clenched at the name. Hawkswell, who had once married her cousin, Julia. Aloud she said, “Hawkswell? But isn’t he sworn to Matilda?”
With a snort, the earl threw the rind of the cheese into the rushes at his feet. “Well, I would hardly need anyone’s help to get close to one of Stephen’s supporters, would I? If I am on the same side, I have but to send them a message requesting a meeting, yes?”
His tone was still mild, but Claire felt the sarcasm strike her like the lash of a whip. She could feel her face flame in response.
“No, I suppose not…” she began. “My lord, surely you’re not suggesting anything dishonorable…that I…” She made herself say it. “You don’t mean you want me to act the whore, and obtain Hawkswell’s secrets by sharing his bed?”
Hardouin threw back his massive head and laughed. The sound seemed to echo off the stone walls of the room. “Hardly! From what Neville tells me, you’re a cold fish who has no desire to experience the joys of the marriage bed again, so your trying to become Alain of Hawkswell’s mistress would be an exercise in futility, and ‘twould not achieve our goal, would it?”
Claire felt as if she had been punched in the belly. With tears stinging her eyes, she turned to glare at Neville, but her brother was suddenly preoccupied with examining his fingernails and would not meet her gaze.
She would not rise to the bait, Claire resolved, she would not. She blinked back the tears. “But you said you wished me to get close to Hawkswell. How, and to what end?”
From his startled smile she guessed her uncle was pleased that she was ignoring his jab.
“The baron of Hawkswell controls the Hawkswell Valley, an important piece of land that guards the southern approach to London. He has been a relentless warrior in Matilda’s service, one of her most trusted vassals. He has not bent, no matter how the winds of change have blown in Stephen’s direction, no matter what favors and promises were used to lure him.”
“An honorable man,” Claire murmured. “How unusual.”
Hardouin raised a bushy eyebrow, but he went on. “Stephen wants him.”
“Then he needs to catch him away from his castle, and to have a large enough force with him to subdue Hawkswell. Why are you speaking to me, a mere woman, about this?”
Her uncle ignored her sarcasm. “Nay, I didn’t mean Stephen wanted to capture him, Claire. He could do that, easily enough. But Stephen wants him to be his man.”
Claire shrugged. “And how can I possibly help in that regard? He is a widower, but you said this did not involve marriage for me, is that not so? And since you do not expect me to seduce him and I am not willing to do so anyway, what is it, then, that you wish me to do?”
Hardouin leaned forward, past Neville, and took her hand in his big fleshy one. She tried not to squirm, though she longed to yank her hand away.
“Claire, Claire…you give yourself such a limited role as a woman! There are more places than in bed where you can use your womanly wiles! But never mind. I have developed a masterful scheme based on your talents and your English appearance, niece.”
Claire nodded, unable to guess where this was leading. What he said was true enough. Normans tended to have dark hair and eyes, but she had always been told she resembled her Saxon granddam.
Willing herself to leave her hand quietly in his, she let him go on speaking.
“The baron’s wife gave him a child before she died of a fever last year, a daughter. He already had a bastard son who lives with him. From all I have heard he is a devoted father, so they may well be Lord Alain’s Achilles’ heel.”
Claire rubbed her forehead, feeling the beginning of a headache. “Perhaps I do lack imagination, my lord, but I still don’t see where this is leading.”
Hardouin gave her a wolfish smile. “What I wish you to do, niece, is to go to Hawkswell Castle in the guise of an English wench, and become nursemaid to his children.”
Claire let her jaw drop. Perhaps she had overestimated her powerful uncle. “And spy on him thus? My lord, he is hardly apt to drop state secrets in front of his children and their nurse!”
Hardouin clucked disapprovingly at her. “Of course not, Claire. Nay, what I had in mind for you to do, once you’re in a position of trust with my lord of Hawkswell, is to kidnap his heir and the other whelp and bring them to us. The baron will find it advantageous to switch sides, right enough, if we hold his children hostage.”
Chapter Two
Claire gasped. “You—you wish me to abduct his children?”
Hardouin smiled broadly. “Just so, niece! Isn’t it a brilliant plan? Who would suspect a young nursemaid? You will go in, gain his trust and that of his whelps, and one day, you will stroll out of his castle with them on the pretext of gathering herbs or some such idea, and voilà! You will bring them right to my waiting arms! He’ll come over to our side, right enough, especially if I hold his heir! Close your mouth, Neville, you look like the village idiot.”
“But my lord, I hardly think—” Claire began, her mind whirling with a hundred reasons why the count’s plan couldn’t possibly work.
“What, Claire, objections? Can it be you do not want to avenge your friend Julia, his dead wife?”
Leave it to Hardouin to ferret out the one reason why she was honor-bound to agree to his plan, Claire thought dully. But in spite of what Alain of Hawkswell had done, the very idea of stealing a man’s children…
“And if I refuse?”
Hardouin looked grim. “Then I think you had better resign yourself to wedding Fulk,” he said.
“But—but you said you had no quarrel with my unwillingness to marry him…that he was a blowhard! You said you supported my choice not to marry at all, if that was what I wanted!” she cried indignantly, feeling her face flush with rage.
Hardouin’s eyes narrowed, and Claire could see a small vein throbbing in his forehead. “I have said you need not marry, Claire, but I have no patience with unproductive leeches. If you refuse to be of any service whatsoever to the head of your family and our cause, then I would at least expect you to marry and remove yourself from our care,” he ground out.
She felt her face flame at being called a leech. “I believe I would rather take the veil after all,” she countered, lifting her chin and looking him right in the eye. Never again, she had promised herself, would she allow herself to be coerced into carrying out a man’s will. She wasn’t sure at all that entering a convent was preferable to agreeing to Hardouin’s plan, but seeing his implacable gaze, she rebelled. There would be opportunity to escape from a convent, surely, once she was safely away from her uncle’s control…
“I think not,” he said. “No convent in the land will take you if I say nay.”
He meant it, she saw. And she had no doubt he had that power. Hardouin would see that she had no dowry to give a religious foundation, and what abbess would take her if a powerful male relative opposed her entry?
Besides, a voice murmured inside her head, was it not true that she owed something to Julia’s memory?
“But what if there already are nursemaids aplenty?” she asked skeptically.
His returning smile told her he knew her question meant she was submitting. “My spy tells me there is but one old beldam caring for Hawkswell’s whelps. She’ll no doubt welcome the help.”
Claire shrugged. “How very convenient. And I will be free once I deliver my lord of Hawkswell’s children to you? You will then give me the manor—in writing?”
Hardouin nodded, chuckling. “So suspicious! So earnest! Yes, you’ll be free as a bird, niece. A woman of property.”
It was an unfortunate comparison, for just inches from Hardouin stood the perch on which the earl kept his falcon, a peregrine. Claire glanced over at the bird, seeing the jewel-studded hood over the falcon’s head, keeping it blind and relatively tranquil, and the jesses with little silver bells at her feet. As if the bird of prey sensed Claire’s scrutiny, she bated on her perch, setting the tiny bells tinkling. Hardouin’s falcon was only free when she had been launched after some prey, and even then the lure of food kept her returning to the earl. Claire did not want to be like that tethered falcon. Having her own manor would be a start.
Alain of Hawkswell’s castle was a day’s journey away. Situated at the entrance to the valley that led straight to London, it was directly in front of the best ford over the Hawkswell River, which cut through the downs. There was forest on the west side, but anyone who attempted to go around the fortress to ford the river was exposed to those who paced the wall walk of Hawkswell Castle. If any would cross the valley, then, they must have the consent of the castle’s lord.
It was a commanding position, thought Claire, studying it from the safety of a copse of oaks. Even now she could see a pair of sentries marching back and forth on the wall walk, their nasalled helmets obliterating their features. The drawbridge was down, the portcullis raised, and with the great wooden planking extending over the moat, Claire was reminded of a huge, hungry mouth.
She shivered, though the day was warm enough despite threatening clouds. Was the castle waiting to devour her? Would they see through her disguise of an English peasant right away, and take her prisoner? Hardouin would never allow Neville to ransom her, she knew; money was better spent, he would say, on something useful to King Stephen’s cause than on a useless and rebellious female. She would be left to her fate, which for a friendless female would be too awful to imagine. She had better be so convincing at playing the English peasant that Alain of Hawkswell would never guess she was as Norman as he.
Suddenly something struck Claire on the tip of her nose, startling her, and bounced off the toe of her crude leather shoe. She saw that it was but an acorn, and relaxed, only to feel another strike her head, and then another.
Was there a squirrel above her, dislodging them? She looked upward, expecting to spy a twitching, tiny gray body among the leafy upper branches, only to have another acorn impact her cheek with stinging accuracy. She ducked and covered her head with a muttered curse. No squirrel had so accurate an aim! But who?—
Then she heard a smothered but unmistakable giggle from high among the branches.
Remembering just in time that she was supposed to be a English peasant, Claire called, “Saints! Who be up there? Stop that right this minute!”
She heard another giggle, then a small face framed by unruly dark hair appeared from behind the thick upper trunk of the tree. “Sorry,” the little girl said in Frenchaccented English, staring down at Claire. “I hope I didn’t hurt you!”
She looked so anxious that Claire felt compelled to reassure her. “Nay, I be not hurt, girl. Ye’ve a right keen aim, though!” she said, rubbing her stinging nose. “What’re ye doing up there?”
“Hiding,” the little girl replied.
“From who?”
“From my old nurse, Ivy, who said I must take a bath. I don’t wish to take a bath, so I stole away to the wood. I’ll go back when I’m ready,” she announced primly, and then her gamine face crinkled into a grin. “By then she’ll have forgotten all about it. What’s your name?”
“I be called Haesel,” Claire said, using the typically English name she had chosen before departing Coverly Castle. “What’s yers?” she asked, though she had a strong suspicion that she already knew.
“I am Lady Peronelle of Hawkswell, only daughter of the lord of Hawkswell,” she announced with a grand gesture that nearly caused her to lose her balance and tumble headlong out of the tree.
“Oh, be careful, my lady!” Claire cried, alarmed. “Don’t fall! Mayhap ye’d better come down!”
“Don’t worry! I never fall,” Peronelle boasted after she had steadied her position. “But I will come down, because I wish to see you better. You’re very pretty, you know. I like you.”
Claire watched as the little girl began her descent, ready to catch her if she should slip. But Peronelle was surefooted, cautiously placing slippered feet on succeeding branches, then hanging from the lowest by her arms for a moment before dropping to the ground.
Claire congratulated herself. She had already met the first of her “targets,” as Hardouin had coldly referred to them before she had left his presence, and the child liked her already. She suppressed her reproachful conscience. She was not going to hurt the children she was plotting to abduct, and neither was her uncle, she reminded herself. They would be well cared for—in fact she would probably be the one to care for them—until they could be returned to their father.
Peronelle straightened and brushed dirt from her blue kirtle as she peered up at Claire. “You’re tall,” she informed her.
“Aye, my lady. My brother called me Beanpole, when we was young,” Claire said, remembering to speak like a serf. What she had said was true—Beanpole was but one of the hurtful names Neville had called her. He had never apologized, even after her tall frame had filled out.
“Beanpole?” The nickname sent Peronelle into another fit of giggles.
The child’s laughter had an infectious quality to it, and Claire felt herself smiling back. “Ye speak English well, my lady,” she told the child.
“Thank you,” Peronelle said. “My old nurse is English. I spoke English before I spoke French, she says.”
Claire’s heart sank. The child’s nurse was English! She’d never be able to convince a real Englishwoman that she was English too! A real Englishwoman would see right through her pose and become suspicious. But she had to try…Perhaps, since Peronelle had so easily escaped her nurse, the old woman was deaf and therefore could be fooled.
“Would you like to come back to the castle to meet Ivy?” Peronelle invited, gesturing to the gray mass of stone rising behind her.
Claire nodded, praying that the old nurse was both hard of hearing and unsuspicious. “Your father won’t m—”
“So there you are, Perry,” came a perturbed young voice from behind them, speaking in French. “I’ve been looking everywhere for you! And who is this?”
Claire whirled and found herself facing a lad of perhaps six years, who had come from deeper in the wood. He eyed her suspiciously. “Who are you? Who said you could talk to my sister?” he demanded.
So this was the boy, the bastard, Claire thought. This was the child whose birth had broken Julia’s heart. She stared at him, wondering if he took his brown hair and eyes and his sturdy build from Alain of Hawkswell or from the serf woman who had given him birth. Claire had never seen Julia’s husband; Julia had wedded Hawkswell at his castle and only her immediate family had been present. Julia had called Lord Alain swarthy before they had wed, but her rare letters had never described any further the man her father had commanded her to marry.
“I said, who are you, woman?” the boy repeated, switching to English and lifting his chin to stare up at her with a challenging glint in his eye.
“I might ask the same of ye,” Claire countered, his precociously imperious tone causing her to forget the appropriate humility.
“I asked you first.” He switched back to French. “Peronelle, how many times have I told you not to go into the wood by yourself? There could be outlaws who might hurt you,” he added, with a meaningful glance at Claire.
“Haesel’s no outlaw,” the girl insisted, her hands on her hips. “She’s nice, and I like her, so you stop being so horrid to her. She’s going to come back to the castle with us and meet Ivy.”
“Why?” the boy asked, turning back to eye Claire suspiciously.
“Why not?” Peronelle retorted. “Because I want her to, and that’s all you need to know, Guerin.” She turned back to Haesel, and spoke again in English. “This is my older brother, Guerin, Haesel. He doesn’t mean to be so rude, I’m sure.”
Claire saw the boy stiffen and look affronted. Clearly she must defuse the situation if she was going to win the trust of both children.
“My lady, I’m sure he just means to protect ye, like a good elder brother should. He be right, ye know. There might be bad folk about outside the walls of yer castle. Ye should not be wanderin’ around with no one to protect ye.” She curtsied to the boy. “Ye’re son of Alain of Hawkswell? I be pleased t’ meet ye.”
Mollified, the boy nodded. “I am Guerin of Hawkswell. You are called Haesel? Well, come along if you wish, but I have to take my sister back to our nurse now. It’s going to rain soon, and Father is due home at any moment, Perry. Ivy’s frantic that he not find you missing again. She’s afraid he’ll be angry, and you’re a wicked girl to worry her so.”
So Alain of Hawkswell tries to rule his nursery just as firmly as he did his wife. A bully, just as I thought.
But Peronelle was not at all intimidated by her half brother’s announcement. “Oh, Guerin, you’re as much a worrier as Ivy is. Father would never say a cross word to Ivy. Come on, Haesel.”
A thought struck her as hard as the acorn had hit her cheek minutes before. She had both of Hawkswell’s children with her! Perhaps she could summon the foot soldiers who had escorted her here and hand over the children without ever entering the castle and exposing herself to danger! But if they were watching her from cover, she saw no sign of them. Probably they had already sought shelter in the nearest alehouse, damn their black souls, she thought bleakly. She picked up the edge of her skirt and followed the children, who had already set off in the direction of the castle.
As they walked, Claire stared at Peronelle, seeing Julia’s fine bone structure in the girl and the same tiptilted nose that Claire had often teased her childhood friend about. But Julia had been blond, so Peronelle’s nearly black hair must be a legacy from her father. She saw little resemblance between Peronelle and her half brother; Peronelle was as slight and delicate as Guerin was sturdy and strong-boned.
Did Peronelle and Guerin know they were but half sister and half brother? There was certainly nothing deferential in the boy’s manner to indicate he knew he was born on the wrong side of the blanket, and that his sister was Alain of Hawkswell’s only legitimate child. Had their sire let them believe that Julia had given birth to both of them? If so, how long before some servant let slip the truth?
They came out of sheltering trees and Claire saw Hawkswell Castle before her in all its glory. It was larger than Coverly, both in breadth and height, its square gray walls rising twice as high. It seemed to touch the lowering sky. Atop its high towers sat turret rooms, clearly defensive in purpose. There was an uncompromising air about the way the stone fortress sat on its motte, as if by its very presence challenging anyone and everyone who came near.
“Come on, Haesel! Don’t be afraid!” called Peronelle, who had already skipped across the wooden planking.
Uncompromising. Pray God its lord was not so uncompromising, thought Claire, with a glance at Guerin, who stood in the middle of the drawbridge, looking curiously back at her.
Her crude leather shoe touched the wood of the drawbridge. Once I cross over that bridge, my part in the plot to capture Hawkswell’s children begins, she thought. At this point I can still turn tail and run, and I will have done nothing but tell two children a harmless fable. Once I reach the other side, I am committed.
But did she have any real choice? If she failed to carry out Hardouin’s command, she would be sacrificing her own freedom, for she had no illusions that she could survive on her own indefinitely. And she believed Hardouin when he had told her he would hunt her down like a wounded doe if she tried to play him false. She took a step upon the drawbridge, then another.
Just as she reached midway over the water-filled chasm, however, the thunder of hoofbeats reached their ears, and she turned around.
“Father!” Peronelle shouted, pointing to a horseman riding a huge red destrier at the head of eight mounted menat-arms. The party was cantering toward the castle from the direction of the woods. It was too late to run.
As they drew closer, Claire saw that two of the horsemen’s hands were bound and that their horses’ reins were held by those riding at either side of them. She suppressed a gasp as she recognized them as Ivo and Jean, two of Hardouin’s men-at-arms. She avoided looking at them as the man at the head of the procession reined in his horse just in front of them.
He wore mail, as did the others, and the flat-topped helm with its jutting nasal shadowed his features just as theirs did. The fineness and shine of his mail and the emblem on his shield proclaimed him the baron of Hawkswell, even if Peronelle had not gone rushing headlong across the drawbridge toward him, calling “Father! Father!”
The child was heedless of the way the destrier laid back his ears at the sight of her running toward him.
“Peronelle!” cried Claire, dashing after the child even as the man on the enormous stallion fought to control the rearing beast. She gave little thought to her own danger, for her mind was full of the horrible image of the child’s lifeless body, crushed by one swipe of a powerful hoof. Reaching the girl, she grabbed her and pulled her out of harm’s way.
Moments later, Hawkswell managed to subdue the stallion. “Peronelle!” he shouted down at the girl. “How many times have I told you my war-horse is not some fat, friendly pony like your Dacy? You must never come near him, and especially not like that! You might have been killed, Peronelle!” He tossed the reins to the nearest manat-arms and dismounted, striding over to where Peronelle was huddled in Claire’s arms, weeping.
Claire bit back a sharp retort. She was supposed to be a mere English serf, therefore she could not give this monster of a father the tongue-lashing he deserved. But as the little girl continued to tremble and hide her face against Claire’s kirtle, she knew she had to say something.
“She be frightened of yer tone, my lord, as much as the horse,” Claire murmured, trying to see the features of the man behind the jutting nasal.
A pair of fierce dark eyes narrowed as they fixed on her. “Who might you be, woman?” he answered her in heavily accented English. “And more to the point, who are you to tell me how to speak to my own child?”
Claire looked down at the bent head of the child clutching her skirts, hoping to appear appropriately humble, when she was actually trying to conceal the seething anger he had provoked in her by his high-handed attitude.
“I be Haesel, my lord,” she said evenly, and added, when a glance from beneath her lashes told her he was continuing to favor her with a piercing regard, “please, my lord, the child…”
Just then she noticed a younger man, on a horse next to Lord Alain, smiling encouragingly at her. He must be a squire, she thought. She liked him instantly, if only for his friendly gaze in the face of Hawkswell’s disapproval.
Hawkswell shifted his eyes to Peronelle, and his gaze softened. Kneeling on one knee, he pulled off his helm and laid it on the ground with a clunk before holding his arms open. “Perry, come here, daughter,” Alain of Hawkswell said, his voice soft and coaxing.
Peronelle raised her head and peered at her father, knuckling her hand over her tear-flooded eyes for a moment before leaving Claire’s side. Then she threw herself into his arms.
In spite of her anger, Claire found herself oddly moved at the sight of the powerful Norman lord, embracing his daughter, his eyes closed as if he breathed a thankful prayer.