The Unveiling by Tamara Leigh (easy books to read txt) 📕

moment he would have the miscreant at his feet. But there would be no escape for him.

Looking out across the hall, Garr wondered which of the young men’s heart beat with fear. Whose brow perspired? Hands trembled? Who had so strongly stood the side of Henry that he would murder for the man who would be king?

“You are well, Brother?” Abel asked as he and Everard gained Garr’s side, both wearing skewed tunics donned in haste.

Garr searched those in the hall. The one who captured and held his gaze was Lavonne where he stood near the stairs, a knight on either side. The baron’s clothes were rumpled as if he had slept in them, face red-nosed and squint-eyed. However, his only surprise at being awakened so early was surely that it was not for the reason expected—to look upon the death of the one who had trained him to knighthood. So which of these young men had he set to do the deed?

Garr tightened his robe and stepped to the edge of the dais. “Silence!”

All turned to him.

He contemplated each, many of whom had teeth so crooked they were easily eliminated along with those too tall and stout. He paused on Braose where the young man stood not far from Lavonne. As was known to be his preference when he settled on his pallet, he was fully clothed, unlike the other squires and pages who either hugged blankets about themselves or had hastily donned tunics.

Might it have been Braose? Garr held the young man’s gaze. Not only was he small of stature, but he was Henry’s side. Too, this eve he had squired for Lavonne. But behind those unreadable eyes, could he murder? Remembering the deer in the wood, the tears in Braose’s eyes when he looked upon the slain animal, Garr concluded it was not possible. Braose could hardly kill, let alone murder.

Garr considered the next squire, but dismissed the young man who was not only tall, but lacking a front tooth. Still, among the many were possibilities, and one belonged to the misericorde.

Garr raised the weapon and stepped forward. “To whom does this belong?”

There was interest, but no one claimed it. Not that Garr expected his assailant to reveal himself. Fortunately, there was a way he might draw the young man out, providing he had any honor about him.

Garr descended the dais and strode through the rift that opened before him as the young men stepped aside. He passed Braose, halted before his guest, and lifted the misericorde. “You recognize this, Lavonne?”

The man’s brow puckered. “Why do you ask?”

“You know this dagger?”

“Of course I do. ’Tis the same as you gave me the day of my knighting, the same given to all knighted at Wulfen.”

Garr held out his other hand. “I would see yours.”

The baron sputtered. “You think I carry it on my person?”

“No longer, for this night you gave it to another to put through me.”

As outrage darkened Lavonne’s face, the baron’s knights on either side set hands to their swords.

“I would not,” Everard spoke in a deep rumble. He, Abel, and Sir Merrick had slipped behind Lavonne and his men. Swords drawn, they stood ready.

“What is this?” Lavonne demanded. “You think me so fool as to try to kill you whilst I lie beneath your roof?”

“I do.”

Lavonne glanced left and right. “Upon my word, this night I did not seek your death.”

Though Garr detected no lie in the baron’s eyes, he doubted his judgment as he had done many times since Jonas—

He did not want to think there. Meeting Everard’s waiting gaze, he nodded.

Everard laid the edge of his sword to Lavonne’s throat. The man’s knights were helpless to aid him as Abel and Sir Merrick were too soon upon them.

Fear peeling away arrogance, the baron demanded, “What do you intend?”

Very soon they would know whether or not the assailant had honor. Garr slid the misericorde beneath the belt of his robe, folded his arms over his chest, and considered the man before him long enough to cause a sheen of perspiration to form on Lavonne’s upper lip. “What I intend is to return you to Henry on the morrow, drawn and quartered.”

Behind, a sharply drawn breath rose above the murmurs of pages and squires. Braose?

“You would not dare!” Lavonne roared.

Garr waited for the assailant to drag honor from fear, but when he did not, nodded. “I would. After we hang you.”

“Nay!” Braose cried in a voice pitched higher than Garr had ever heard it. “’Twas not he.”

Disgusted at having been so blind, angered that he should be so betrayed as he had vowed never to be again, Garr strode to the young man who stood with chin high and hands clenched at his sides. “It seems the baron shall not be alone in paying the wages of treachery.”

Braose swallowed, and when he spoke his voice was hardly familiar—husky, but lacking depth. “He has done naught to warrant your vengeance. ’Twas I and no other.”

“See now!” Lavonne yelped. “I demand recompense for the injustice done me!”

Garr could almost believe Braose was alone in this. Ignoring the baron, he pulled the misericorde from his belt and thrust it before the young man’s face. “Is this not Lavonne’s?”

“Nay, it belonged to my brother.”

His brother... Something about the young man’s voice and the accusation in his eyes wrenched Garr far from Wulfen.

It could not be. He looked again to the misericorde, turned it, and found the initials that, newly knighted, he had scratched into the blade beneath the hilt: G.W.

It was. The filthy urchin who had so hated him with her eyes, who had marked him with her nails, and now her teeth, had become a woman.

Anger coursed through Garr, once more testing the first lesson his father had taught him. Before he could dam the emotion, it flooded him and he caught the front of his assailant’s tunic. Staring into her startled blue eyes, he slashed the dagger down through the material.

A cry parted bowed lips and showed straight, even teeth.

Garr stared at the bindings revealed between the edges of the rent tunic. And he was not the only one to see the truth of Jame Braose.

Amid shock that parted mouths and put tongues to voices, Garr returned to the face he had never truly seen. A pretty face. The face of a woman, and one whose chin did not fall, whose eyes were wide with an anger that challenged his own.

He dragged her near. Not until her face was inches from his, and no less defiant, did the full impact of her presence hit him. A woman within Wulfen’s walls where there had never been one. A woman! And one not unknown to him.

Were I a man, I would kill you. Were I a man...

Garr put his face nearer hers and dared her to hold his gaze. Though something flickered in her eyes—fear, he thought, though with women one could not be certain—she did not look away.

“A woman at Wulfen!” Lavonne jeered. “Tell, Lord Wulfrith, who is this foul creature who has made a fool of you?”

Still Garr waited for her to look away. “The lady’s name is Annyn Bretanne.”

Despite the unveiling, she did not even blink.

Lavonne choked, spluttered, and demanded, “What do you say?”

“This is Lady Annyn Bretanne of Aillil,” Garr repeated, the hand with which he held her aching to batter flesh and bone. Praying Lavonne would give him a reason to turn his anger from the woman to whom he could not put a fist, he looked to the baron.

The horror in Lavonne’s eyes turned to rage. “Unhand the termagant!” From the color that rose on his face and the spasming of his right eye, he did not demand the Bretanne woman’s release that he might offer her his protection. “Unhand her I say!”

Garr twisted her tunic in his fist, bringing her so near he could feel her breath on his jaw. “She is my prisoner.”

“Nay, she is my...” Lavonne drew a rattled breath. “...betrothed.”

The grudging pronouncement stunned Garr, as it also seemed to stun the woman who gasped and breathed, “Nay.”

“This termagant,” Garr bit, “the same who tried to murder me, is to be your wife?”

Lavonne raised his seething gaze. “By order of Duke Henry. But do not think I knew what she intended, for until this hour she was unknown to me. Nine days past she and her man, Rowan, fled Castle Lillia. None knew she was destined for Wulfen, and certainly none knew she had donned men’s clothes to pretend herself a man.”

Though Garr was unconvinced Lavonne was blameless, for the moment he was done with him. He looked to Everard, Abel, and Sir Merrick, and momentarily wondered at the unease wreathing the latter’s face. Did his breath trouble him again?

“Clear the hall!” Garr shouted. He would have none lend an ear to his dealings with the Bretanne woman. He dragged her toward the dais.

“Lord Wulfrith,” Lavonne called, “I demand—”

“Remove the baron!” Garr shouted over his shoulder.

Despite Lavonne’s protests, his voice quickly faded from the hall.

Garr pulled the woman around the high table, thrust the curtain aside, and propelled her ahead of him into the solar. If not for the table she stumbled against, she might have lost her footing. He almost wished she had. Such anger he felt to once more know betrayal at the hands of a Bretanne!

Annyn returned the stare of the man whose death she had denied herself. Now it was surely she who would die, for regardless that Henry had promised her to the detestable Lavonne, Wulfrith would not deny himself.

Though fear made her long to clutch her tunic closed, she found strength in knowing her destiny. Laying her hands flat on the table behind, she raised her chin.

Still holding the misericorde that had waited four years to bleed him, Wulfrith strode toward her.

Annyn steeled herself for his assault.

He halted before her. Eyes so cold it was as if an icy wind swept the solar, he slid the misericorde beneath his belt. “You have made a fool of me, Annyn Bretanne.”

Though she longed to sidestep and put the room between them, she stretched her chin higher. “I would think you pleased that I did not make a corpse of you.”

A muscle in his jaw leapt, but the anger that had pulsed from him in the hall had diminished as if he were gaining control of it. “Were you a man, you would kill me, hmm?” he repeated the threat she had made upon seeing Jonas laid out at Lillia.

She squeezed the table edge. “It is what I said. It is what I meant.” But what I could not do. Did he know? As no sooner had she forsaken her vow to Rowan than Wulfrith had seized her, she could not be certain. “My brother’s death was no mishap as you told—as you lied. He was murdered.” She gave a short, bitter laugh. “Did you truly believe the rope burns around his neck would go undiscovered?”

Wulfrith’s jaw strained, his only reaction to learning she knew the truth.

“Honorable death!” Were she a man, she would spit.

“I kill when ’tis necessary to defend home, land, and my people,” Wulfrith growled, “but I am no murderer. No innocents fall to my sword.”

“Do they not? You were ready to hang, draw, and quarter Lavonne!”

He smiled grimly. “Was I?”

Had his threat to the baron been only that—meant to reveal the one whom Wulfrith believed Lavonne had enlisted?

“In one thing you are right,” Wulfrith conceded. “Your brother’s death was not honorable. Forsooth, ’twas most dishonorable.”