—she wanted Oliver Bellecote to suggest something inappropriate to her so that she might agree.
Oliver’s eyes flicked to Sybilla’s and in that next instant, both the notorious nobleman and Cecily’s sister burst out in peals of laughter.
“I am sorry to tease you so, Oliver,” Sybilla chuckled, drawing her arm back around Cecily’s middle, and Cecily hung a brittle, fragile smile on her numb lips. “My dearest sister would not have the likes of you wrapped up in the holy shroud itself.”
“Nor should she,” Oliver agreed with a naughty grin and deep bow in Cecily’s direction, although his eyes did not look at her directly again. “Alas, I am not worthy of such a gentle lady’s attention, as our wise parents decided so long ago.”
Sybilla quirked an eyebrow. “Yet you are worthy of my attention?”
The rogue winked at Cecily’s sister. “One must never cease to aspire to the heights of one’s potential.” He bowed again. “Ladies.” And then he slipped back into the writhing crowd with all the grace of a serpent in the garden.
Cecily felt her eyes swelling with tears, and she swallowed hard.
Sybilla sighed. “Perhaps he—Cee? Cee, are you all right?”
“Of course, Sybilla. I’m fine.”
Sybilla’s expression turned uncharacteristically sympathetic. “I’m sorry. You appeared so forlorn standing there, I only wanted you to join in a bit of merrymaking.”
How would you have me join in?
Cecily screamed in her head.
No one will so much as speak to me, and I’ve just been rejected by the most notorious womanizer outside of London!
But she pulled together every last scrap of her dignity to give Sybilla a smile. “I’m fine, Sybilla. Don’t apologize. It was ... it was amusing.” She tried to laugh but it came out a weak, stuttering breath. Cecily pulled away from her sister slowly, deliberately. “It
is
late. I am off to Compline and then my own bed.”
Sybilla’s fine brow creased, and Cecily leaned in and pressed her cheek to her sister’s. “Don’t worry so. Would that you ask Alys and Piers to wait for me in the morn so that I might bid them farewell. I fear ’twould take me an hour to find them tonight in the crush.”
“Of course,” Sybilla promised. “Good night, Cee.”
Cecily could not return the sentiment, as it had been anything but for her, and so she simply smiled again and walked away.
She made her way around the perimeter of the hall beneath the musicians’ arched balcony, excusing herself quietly around little clusters of people oblivious to her passing, until she at last came to the lord’s dais—Sybilla’s dais now. The stacks of tables and benches cleared away from the great hall floor to give the dancers room felt like a haven, a fortress, shielding Cecily from the cruel celebration as she ducked through the hidden door set in the rear wall.
The stone corridor was cool and blessedly unoccupied, a welcome relief from the humid cacophony of the feast. Cecily’s footsteps were quick and quiet as she made her way to her rooms to fetch her cloak for the walk across the bailey to the chapel.
He hadn’t considered her for one instant, even in jest.
She reached her chamber and stepped inside, forcing herself to close the door gently, when what she wanted to do was slam it loose from its hinges. She crossed the floor to the wardrobe.
She didn’t understand why she was so completely and suddenly enraged. She had decided her path long ago, even if she had dragged her feet in formally committing. She loved the peace of a prayerful life, found meaning in service. The beauty and wonder of the world—and its wickedness too—explained and supported by faith. In pledging herself to the religious, her life would forever be simple, predictable. Peaceful.
Cecily found her cloak easily among her few gowns and pulled it out. She held the worn material in her hands and looked down at it, musing suddenly that the old cloak was not unlike her life in the present—the weave coming slowly apart, rubbed thin and transparent in places, the hem ragged and uneven. In truth, the garment was much too short for her now. She hadn’t noticed before that moment how shabby it had become, although when her mother had sewn the final stitches, it had been quite enviable.
She realized that had been ten years ago. Had any at Fallstowe known peace since then?
Her parents had seen little peace while they’d lived. Morys Foxe had held Fallstowe against the Barons and with King Henry III, and then after that weak monarch’s death, as well as Morys’s own, Amicia had seized the reins of Fallstowe in bitter defiance of the king’s son, who thought her a spy against the Crown. And now that Amicia was gone, Sybilla had taken up their mother’s dangerous banner, rebelling against Edward I so that Cecily was certain the consequences would be most dire.
Alys was safe now that she was married with the king’s own blessing, yes. But what of Sybilla? Her pride would never allow for surrender to Edward’s demands, no matter how rich and well-tended the monarch promised to leave her. Cecily did not often dwell on the possibilities that lay in store for her older sister, although she knew they were quite real, and more pressing now than ever. Alys and Piers had carried rumors from London of a siege only two months ago. Sybilla could be imprisoned.
She could be put to death.
One of her sisters was a solitary warrior, the other now a simple farmer’s wife. Cecily was truly in the middle, and not just because of the order of her birth. She could not choose either path—to fight or to surrender. And so she had chosen the only other option that was likely to bring her peace—
She had become invisible. And for years, her inconspicuousness had served her well.
Then why was she, this night, so very unhappy? So atypically discontented, and even envious of the carefree and pretty Joan Barleg, of all people? And why was she so put out at the thought that a man who would lie naked with a donkey paid her no mind?
Cecily wondered for the hundredth time this evening how her life would have been different if she and Oliver Bellecote had married. Would they be happy? In all likelihood, she would still be known by the hated moniker of Saint Cecily, if only because people would surely look upon her with pity at being married to such a scoundrel as Oliver Bellecote.
The terribly handsome, lonely scoundrel.
She sniffed loudly and then wiped at her face with the hem of her cloak before swirling it around her shoulders. She turned to the little plain clay dish on the table near her bed to retrieve her prayer beads.
This will all have passed away by the morn,
she reasoned with herself. After all, Alys had been in the very depths of despair when she thought she was to marry against her will, and Alys had gone on to meet her husband at the F—
Cecily’s head came up. Her chamber was as silent as the bottom of a well.
“The Foxe Ring,” she whispered aloud, and brought her fingers to her mouth, the smooth, round beads in her hand pressing against her lips, as if trying too late to stifle her words.
The old ring of standing stones at the crumbling Foxe ruin was rumored to be a magic place. Men and women throughout the land had used the mysterious circle for generations in order to find a mate. The legend was unlikely, yes, but Alys had gone, and Piers had found her in the midst of a very unlikely set of circumstances.
Perhaps ... perhaps Hallowshire
wasn’t
Cecily’s true vocation, which might explain her sudden, fierce reluctance. Perhaps she, too, should visit the Foxe Ring. Perhaps—
Cecily dropped her hands and her gaze went to the floor while she shook her head. “Superstitious nonsense,” she said sternly, quietly. “Likely a sin, as well.” Hadn’t she herself warned Alys of such on the very night her younger sister set out for the ring?
But weren’t you also wrong then?
a little voice whispered in her ear.
She tried to ignore it.
Besides, the moon wasn’t even full presently, as the legend commanded. It wouldn’t be full again for a fortnight, and by that time, her letter of intent would be firmly in the hands of the kindly and elderly abbess, and this indecisive madness that had suddenly seized her would be naught but a faint and unpleasant memory.
Cecily took a deep breath and blew it out with rounded cheeks. Then she walked determinedly to the door and quit her chamber, her feet carrying her purposefully toward the wing of the castle that would allow her to exit in the bailey closest to the chapel. The sounds of the feast behind her— the shouts and laughter—chased her from her home in diminishing whispers until she was running, and she burst through the stubborn wooden door with a gasp, as if coming up from the bottom of a lake.
The bailey was empty, the sky above black and pin-pricked with a hundred million stars. Her panting breaths clouded around her head as she recalled her mother telling her that the night sky was a protective blanket between the earth and heaven’s blinding glory. Starlight were angels peeking through the cloth.
The thought led Cecily’s mind to another faded, bittersweet memory—herself and her two sisters, as girls, playing at the abandoned keep. It was springtime, and Cecily, Alys—she could have been no more than four—and even Sybilla collected long, spindly wildflowers, yellow and white, while Amicia watched benevolently from the shade of a nearby tree.
The girls weaved in and out of the tall, standing stones, singing a song Amicia had taught them, their arms full of ragged blooms.
One, two, me and you,
Tre, four, forever more,
Five, six, the stones do pick,
Seven, eight, ’tis my fate,
Nine, ten, now I ken.
Cecily stared up at the sky for a long time.
When her heart beat slowly once more, she began walking determinedly toward the chapel—the exact opposite direction of the Foxe Ring, which seemed to be sending out ghostly echoes of that almost forgotten childhood song. As penance for her sinful thoughts and desires, Cecily decided then that she would specifically pray for Oliver Bellecote. Surely that would be akin to wearing a hair shirt.
Any matter, she would
not
be going to the Foxe Ring.
She stopped at the doors to the chapel, the night still around her, as if the angels above the blanket of sky held their breath and watched her to see what she would do. Her hand gripped the latch.
Cecily looked slowly, hesitantly, over her shoulder.
Chapter 4
Great pain woke Oliver.
He gasped, and the sudden, deep motion of his lungs brought another hellacious wash of torture upon him, so that his breath was stolen away. He lay still, his jaw clenched, his eyes squeezed shut, his mouth pulled into a wide grimace. He tried to bring his left hand across his chest to reach the wellspring of the most intense pain, but the motion of his bicep pressing so slightly into his chest bit into his breath again, and even though his left hand was still more than six inches away from his right arm, the pain increased, as if warning him not to touch it.
“Gah!” he shouted, and opened his eyes as his left arm fell back to his side, against a hard, rough, cold surface.
A roof was above his head, or at least, it had at one time been a roof. Now a semicircle of low, gray clouds mated with a corresponding arc of sky-shot black. The stone walls supporting the decaying shelter were also curved, gaping holes letting in the day where many of the squares had tumbled away as if at the insistence of prying years.
Where was he?
God, his head hurt. He tried to recall the events of the previous night—the feast of Candlemas at Fallstowe Castle. He remembered drinking—heavily—and then trying to no avail to get Joan Barleg alone. But the damnable woman had run off, thinking to engage him in another one of their old games, and Oliver had given chase on a horse stolen from the Foxe stables. He’d tracked her for hours, it had seemed, and then—
Then what? He couldn’t remember.
Oliver gingerly turned his head to the right to look at his arm—the slim-fitting sleeve over his bicep looked as though it was ready to burst. He tried to clench his hand into a fist and felt a queer mix of nothing and stinging tingling. He was certain that at least a pair of his ribs were broken on his right side—Jesus! Even his knees felt butchered.
He heard muffled footsteps approaching.
“Hello!” he called out, and his head threatened to split open from the bridge of his nose up and over to the very base of his skull. A black outline appeared over him a moment later, and he squinted as his eyes tried to adjust. A gorgeous, pale, solemn face coalesced within the darkened hood of a cloak.
“Good morning, Lord Bellecote,” she said. “How is your arm feeling?”
“Lady Cecily?” Oliver frowned. And then in an instant he remembered flying through the air, landing against something very stationary.
She returned his frown, only hers was tinged with a wariness that Oliver could not explain. “Yes?”
As her brown eyes skittered over his face, Oliver’s mind was muddling together pieces of nonsense, Lady Cecily naked—an old fantasy, but this time, there was detail, nearly the caliber of an actual remembered event. Snippets of a female voice, throatily speaking to him in a manner more befitting a harlot.
Her cheeks began to pinken as he remained silent, and Oliver blinked and glanced away. “I apologize.” He knew he had likely embarrassed her, staring at her so boldly. He looked back into her face. “Where are we, and how did I get here?”
Her fine brow crinkled for only an instant, and Oliver wondered if he had imagined her fleeting look of surprise. “We’re at the old Foxe ruin,” she said evenly. “You ... you were thrown from your horse into one of the stones in the Foxe Ring.”
That explained his memory of flying through the air. Perfect! August had only been put in the ground a month ago from the very same accident. Oliver noticed that he was trembling.
“I think my arm is broken,” he said to the lady as she sank to her knees at his side and pushed back the hood of her cloak. She folded her hands primly in her lap over her drab skirts, and Oliver’s eyes followed her face as she glanced down the length of his body and then back to his face. “My ribs, as well.”
She nodded. “Yes, I do believe it is. I would have cut your sleeve to examine it, but I have no blade, and I was afraid of exposing your skin to further chill lest we remain here for any length of time. I’m afraid you left your cloak in the ring, and it has been rendered useless by the rain.”
“Have you been caring for me since last night?” he asked incredulously.
After only a breath of hesitation, she nodded a single time.
God, the woman was truly a saint! Alone the whole of the night in what had to be for a woman a frightening location. And he had been so drunk that he could not remember one whit of what had transpired after his accident. He prayed silently that he had not been his usual, crass self.
“I owe you a great debt,” he said solemnly, and he meant it. He realized then that, alone after an accident like that and so very inebriated, he might have died. “Surely you did not drag me here?” She was so slight, so fragile looking, she could not possess such strength.
“I ... I washed you up a bit,” she confessed, her face going a wild shade of scarlet. “You came into the ruin on your own though.” Cecily gave him a little smile and a nervous huff of a laugh, but her eyes remained wary. “You nearly fell into the pit. You don’t remember it at all?”
“No. No, I—” He broke off, looked away as again a sordid fantasy of the chaste woman bloomed in his mind, begging him to take her, over and over. He forced himself to look back at her. “Did I hit my head as well?”
“Yes,” she said. “But you also seemed quite ... ah, well.”
“Drunk?” he offered with a grin that increased the ache in his head. She nodded and her eyes darted away toward his knees. This conversation must be torturous for her. “Yes, I believe I was. Again, my most sincere apologies.” He paused, and then although he knew it might cause her some discomfort, he had to ask, “Lady Cecily, did I ... I didn’t say anything untoward last night, did I?”
She looked back at him, and her face took on an expression Oliver could not decipher. “Not at all, Lord Bellecote.”
“Are you certain?” he pressed. “Don’t feel as though you need to spare my feelings. I am fully aware how boorish I can be when into my cups and I would never wish to offen—”
“No,” she cut him off abruptly, and then softened her tone somewhat. “I was not offended by you in the least.” She cocked her head and her gaze was curious, as if there was a question she wished to ask him but didn’t dare.
Oliver was struck once more by how very lovely Cecily Foxe was. So much softer, warmer, more human than her older sister. He had the sudden notion that she would smell sweet, like honey on warm bread, were he to lean close enough to her to place his nose just beneath her ear.
“It’s just—nothing. I simply must have endured some strange and punishing dreams while I slept.”
“Well, you certainly slept deeply. Your back had no sooner met with the ground then you were snoring.”
He would have laughed had his head not warned him better of it. “I hope I didn’t keep you from your rest.”
She shrugged. “I wanted to stay awake to ... to keep watch over you, and in case anyone happened to search for us in the night. I didn’t wish for us to be overlooked.”
Oliver knew he did not deserve such compassion and kindness after he had made such a terrible ass out of himself. Fallstowe would be losing its finest resident when Cecily Foxe devoted herself to the religious life. For some reason, the thought of that now brought an odd pang to Oliver’s gut.
“Would you like something to drink?” she asked. “The old keep well in the back of the ruin is still sweet.”
His mouth felt as though it had been scrubbed with a burnt piece of firewood. She gave him a thin smile as she rose to her feet.
“I’ll be back directly,” said Lady Cecily.
She turned and began walking away from him and Oliver noticed the back of her cloak—the material seemed to have been nearly shredded. It also came to his attention that Lady Cecily seemed to be moving quite gingerly.
Had she been injured in his accident?
“My lady!” he called out.
Cecily stopped and half turned. “What is it, Lord Bellecote?”
“Your cloak—were you also injured in my accident last night?”
The cold air inside the ruin seemed to go thick and humid. A breeze rushed through, blowing Cecily’s hair from over her shoulder to flutter behind her back, and she chuckled. Oliver’s breath caught in his chest at the sight of her.
“This old rag? It’s a disgrace, I know. My mother made it for me many years ago, and the material is simply giving up its life. Its poor condition and my stiffness are simply the only witnesses of my back against stones last night. Nothing more.”
Oliver smiled his relief and Cecily turned to disappear from his line of sight. He stared up at the half ceiling, waiting for her to return, while in his mind the last word she’d spoken to him needled him incessantly.
More. More ...
Cecily wanted to weep, but she was unsure whether it was from relief or frustration as she struggled to extract the small, folded leather cup in the pouch on her chained belt. Certainly, she had been quite anxious about meeting Oliver Bellecote in the light of day after the night of reckless sin they had shared. Would he think her a harlot? A shameful, sinful woman no better than any tavern wench? Would he tell his friends of his conquest of the meek and chaste Cecily, forever exposing her to painful gossip and damaging her reputation? Those had been some of her worries.
And in the darkest hours of the night, she had also foolishly dreamed. Dreamed that he would awaken and be completely enamored with her for her secret boldness. He would swear to love no other above her. He would rush to Sybilla, broken arm and all, and beg for Cecily’s hand in marriage. She would become the lady of Bellemont, her husband the most sought-after bachelor in all the land. Their sudden love affair would set all of England on its ear.
But he didn’t even remember.
She bit her lip as she filled the cone-shaped leather. He remembered nothing beyond being thrown from his horse. Oliver Bellecote had taken her virginity, and the only one who knew it was Cecily.
She drank the water that was in the cup and then refilled it slowly, buying time before she must return and face him once more. Would her reputation still take a lashing? It was completely unseemly for an unmarried woman to spend the night alone with an unmarried man—even one who was so desperately injured.
Especially
if that man was Oliver Bellecote. Obviously his reputation was spot on—a broken arm had been little hindrance to him in his conquest of her. Verily, Cecily had all but thrown herself beneath him. She hoped that she would not have to endure the sideways glances cast upon a woman tainted with whispered scandal, but in that same instant, she wondered how it would feel to be thought of for once as reckless, dangerous.
What of poor Joan Barleg, though? How would she withstand the rumors of her betrothed spending the long, dark night alone with an unmarried woman? Speculation would be thick, and ugly, surely.
Shame filled Cecily then. She was an adulteress. A liar. A woman of no moral fortitude whatsoever. Thank God the only mortal who would ever know it was she. Cecily composed her face and then turned to walk back around the pit to Oliver.
He had propped himself up against the stone wall, and Cecily’s heart clenched at how haggard he looked. His dark stubble was more beard than shadow now against his gray skin, and deep purple crescents cupped the undersides of his eyes. He held his right forearm over his stomach, his right knee drawn up and his left one crooked and falling open—his pants over them ruined. Cecily saw a straggling lace trailing along the stones at his hip and it made her stride falter.
She had mistied his breeches in the dark.
Cecily recovered and held out the cup to him before she had even come to his side.
“Here you are,” she said lightly, sinking to her knees and placing the cup in his left hand. “No gulping—’twill only aggravate your ribs.”
He sipped obediently, pausing often to take shallow breaths, and Cecily realized how much pain he must be enduring. When the cup was empty, she took it, and he looked up at her, his face solemn.
“Forgive me, Lady Cecily,” he said.
“Forgive you for what?” she replied, gaining her feet once more to shake the cup dry and then return it to her tiny pouch. She turned her back to him as he spoke.
“I can’t imagine your embarrassment.”
Cecily froze, but did not turn. “Why, Lord Bellecote, whatever can you mean?”
“You know what I mean,” he said in a low voice.
Cecily turned slowly, the blood leaving her face, her heart quickening.
“An innocent, such as yourself.” He looked away, as if shamed. “Forced to care for a drunken sot, forever overcome by foolishness. I only hope that I have not damaged you irreparably.”
Cecily huffed out a laugh, her heart still pounding in her chest. “We all make mistakes, Lord Bellecote.”
“Not you,” he argued.
“Yes, even me.” She cinched her pouch closed with more force than was necessary, although she kept her slight smile. “I can assure you that any embarrassment I am enduring is of my own making. Had I not ventured from Fallstowe last night, I would not be here now.” She let her bag thump against her hip, and then swirled her ruined cloak from around her shoulders and held the fragile material between her hands. It made a weak cry of resistance as she tore the cloth up the back.