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

I give it and accept responsibility for the lie that began it.”

“Then why will you not release me?”

“Lesson fourteen—be slow to make decisions of great import.”

Indignation flared in her eyes, proof that all she had learned this day had not broken her. She pulled her chin from his grasp and began to rise. “I am no longer your pupil, Lord Wulfrith. There is naught else you can teach me that I need to know.”

Better she was angry than beset—at least, that was what Garr told himself to excuse what he did next. He stood, caught her arm, and pressed her back against the stairwell wall. “Is there not?”

She jerked her head back, causing the circlet to slip from her head veil and ring stair to stair on its descent. “Let me go!”

He had heard that before and made the mistake of yielding, which had seen an arrow put through him. He looked to her mouth and remembered it as if it were only yesterday he had first tasted its sweetness. “Is that what you truly wish, Annyn? For me to let you go?”

Her gaze wavered.

Garr drew the skewed veil from her hair, pushed a hand through the silken black strands, and gripped the back of her head. The moment his lips touched hers, she shuddered and gave her breath to him.

He tilted his head to more fully possess her, and beneath the urging of his mouth, she parted her lips and whispered, “Wulfrith.”

It was not what he wished to hear. He wanted her to call him as no woman he had known had called him. “I am Garr,” he said.

“Garr,” she whispered, then slid her hands up his chest, wound them around his neck, and urged him nearer with a desperation that should have given him pause. He wanted her more than he could remember wanting any woman, even his first who had cost him—

Opening his eyes, he saw Annyn’s lashes were moist with tears. And cursed himself for taking advantage of her battered emotions. She was no harlot. She was a lady, albeit unlike any he had met. And certainly he had never touched any lady as he now touched Annyn, having always slaked his need on those whose profession it was to pleasure a man.

When she finally opened her eyes, he raised a hand to her bruised cheek and gently swept the moisture from it. “You are right, you ought to be alone,” he acceded what he had denied her when she had believed Rowan was dead.

He pulled her hands from his neck, stepped back, and stiffly bowed. “Once more, I apologize for my behavior. It seems I have been too long without a woman.”

He could not have said anything more hurtful. Pained by what she perceived was regret at having lowered himself to one as undesirable as she, Annyn swung her palm against his cheek. “Then find yourself one and do not touch me again.”

Jaw convulsing, Garr said, “As you wish, my lady.”

Choking down the knot in her throat, she turned and somehow made it to the base of the tower without putting her heels over her head.

As she started for the doorway, the jailer stepped out of the shadows and offered the circlet that had fixed her veil in place—the same veil that now lay somewhere upon the stairs. “Yours, my lady?”

Embarrassment warming her for what he must think—nay, what he knew—had happened, she snatched the circlet and hastened outside.

As she traversed the bailey to the donjon, Rowan’s sins, beget by her mother and uncle’s sin of cuckoldry, drove a pike through her. Though her mother had often been distant, absorbed by something not understood until now, and she had been unable to hide her favoring of Jonas, Annyn had loved her. No arms comforted more, no words soothed better. But the lie Elena had lived, the deceit...

It hurt a deep path through Annyn. Was all the world made of such people? Were there none who lived a straight course? Who spoke true?

Not that she was one to judge, Annyn chastened herself for the guile she had worked at Wulfen. Indeed, it seemed she was spun of the same thread as those whose falsehoods now burdened her. Yet, at that moment, what she would not do to crawl into her mother’s lap and bury her face against Elena’s breasts.

Rising above the memory of the last time those elegant arms fit around her, Annyn’s gaze fell to the horses before the steps, the reins of which were held by a single squire.

She faltered, causing the dirt to cloud up around her skirts. Someone had come to Stern, meaning she must go past them to gain her chamber.

Scrubbing the back of a hand across her cheeks as she neared the steps, she wondered whence the tears had come when Garr—Wulfrith!—had kissed her. Her tumultuous emotions that had first mourned Rowan? Her revulsion for him shortly thereafter? The benevolence of Wulfrith’s forgiveness? Her frustration when he had put another lesson to her? The passion, desire, turning and churning of once more knowing his touch?

All these things and more, though the tears that now threatened were for his rejection. Her mother’s daughter she might be, but none would know it to look upon her.

Hearing Garr call to his men, Annyn quickly ascended the steps. However, he must have taken them two at a time, for no sooner did she step past the porter than he appeared at her side.

“Your veil.” He thrust the material at her.

She accepted it, but did not settle it atop her head. It was too late, for she had already fallen beneath the regard of most in the hall, including Lady Isobel, her daughters, Sir Merrick, and Squires Warren, Samuel, and Charles.

Garr lengthened his stride, distancing himself from her as he crossed to the dais before which two men stood.

“Here now,” Abel said, stepping past the men, “the Baron Wulfrith is returned.”

Who were they? Dreading the answer, Annyn halted before an alcove and tightly gripped the circlet and veil.

“My lord,” the tallest of the visitors said when Wulfrith stood before them, “I am Sir Christienne, come with Sir Drake to deliver tidings from Duke Henry.”

Annyn hardly dared breathe.

“Sir Christienne,” Garr acknowledged, “Sir Drake, what are these tidings?”

No offer of drink, nor of a seat to ease the ache of their long ride. Doubtless, they noticed the lack of hospitality. But then, until Garr decided which side he would join, they were the enemy.

“Duke Henry shall arrive at Stern in a fortnight,” Sir Drake answered. “He bids us to tell you there are three things he requires.”

“First?” Garr clipped.

“Your allegiance, my lord.”

“Next?”

“Sir Rowan, who is to bound up as a traitor for aiding Lady Annyn Bretanne in her flight from Castle Lillia.”

Annyn clenched the circlet so tight the metal gave. In spite of Rowan’s confession that had so reviled, she would not have him suffer more. She looked to where Garr stood with his back to her.

“Last?” he prompted.

“That you deliver Lady Annyn Bretanne who has been given to be Baron Lavonne’s betrothed.”

Though Annyn was not surprised, she felt as if a dagger rent her innards. Garr had said he would think on letting her go, but in that moment she knew he would not. Those who held against Henry’s rule would lose everything once he came to power.

Ignoring Lady Isobel’s gaze, Annyn awaited Garr’s acquiescence.

“Tell Duke Henry that the Baron Wulfrith grants him leave to come unto Stern Castle.”

Annyn caught her breath at so bold a message to one who would soon be his overlord. His king.

Sir Christienne stepped forward. “That is the message you would have us deliver, my lord?”

“Exactly as spoken.”

Finally, the knight said, “Aye, my lord. Now what do you say to the Duke’s demands?”

“That I shall give answer myself when he arrives.”

“But my lord, Duke Henry would know—”

“Exactly as spoken, Sir Christienne!”

The man inclined his head. “As spoken, my lord.”

Garr motioned to a serving wench who hovered near a sideboard. “Ale for these men that they might refresh themselves ere their return journey a quarter hour hence.”

Annyn startled. A quarter hour? That was all he gave? Of course it was. They had served their purpose and he was done with them.

She stared at Garr’s profile, but as the memory of his kiss sought her out, she retreated to the stairs. Halfway up, she realized she was not alone and, looking around, saw that Squire Warren followed.

With a self-satisfied smile, he raised an eyebrow that told how Garr had learned she had gone missing. Had she fooled Warren, he would not be so light of mouth. “What was it that revealed me?” she asked.

He pointed to the hem of her bliaut. “Though Josse is not a lady, she would not allow her ankles to show.”

But Annyn Betanne, who had pretended to be a man, had no such qualms. Worse, on the stairway she had allowed Garr—

How was it that having known and thought of him all these years as “Wulfrith” she so suddenly accepted his Christian name? Because of a kiss he would have given any harlot?

“Too”—Squire Warren glanced at her bodice—“her...uh, Josse bounces when she walks.”

As the hose could not do. She smiled tightly. “Most observant, Squire Warren. I am pleased that some good came of my having outwitted you and Squire Samuel at Wulfen.”

As his humor paled, Annyn turned up the stairs. It was time to return Josse’s bliaut.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

She would no longer hide in her chamber. Knees sore from kneeling amid the rushes, hands cramped from clasping them hard before her, throat tight from all the words she had given to God’s ear, she gripped the bed post and pulled herself up.

She glanced heavenward. “I lay it at your feet, Lord. At least, I shall try.” Pained that her faith was not stronger, she crossed the chamber. When she opened the door, Squire Samuel frowned over her.

“There is something you require, my lady?”

She smoothed the bodice of Gaenor’s bliaut that fit better than Josse’s and tried not to think on the maid’s indignation that had awaited her upon her return to the chamber. “Aye, you may see me to the hall for supper.”

“A tray is to be brought to you.”

Though tempted to turn back, she stepped past him. “You are coming?”

He muttered something and followed.

Conversation was at its height when Annyn entered the great hall, but when attention turned to her, a hush fell.

Advancing on the high table where Garr reigned, she briefly met his narrowed gaze before searching out a place for herself. A bit of bench was between Beatrix and Sir Merrick, but as she settled between the two, Beatrix scooted nearer her sister. And not likely out of kindness.

Keeping her chin up, Annyn clasped her hands on the table edge to await the arrival of her trencher.

“You may share mine,” Sir Merrick offered. He pushed it between them and motioned to a serving wench.

Once more bothered by the feeling he knew something of Jonas’s death, she said, “I thank you.”

As the din of the hall was slow to resume, she looked to the nearest of the lower tables and met the stare of a man there. He shifted his gaze to the trencher he shared with another. That man also looked away, and the next. By the time the serving wench delivered a spoon to Annyn and a goblet of