The Rogue

He saw her mother’s first. Laurette, beloved wife. A smooth, unmarked stone stood beside that, no doubt awaiting Phillip’s arrival. It was the kind of gesture he would expect from the man. And beyond the blank stone was the one he’d been seeking. Flora, beloved daughter.

Nicholas walked the edge of the three graves and knelt at the far end. His hand traced the inscription on the stone. Flora. Such a cold, hard memorial for the warm, loving young woman he had known. Over and over he traced it, his eyes closed. He tried to picture her face. It had been alive and vital, he recalled, but the memory was dim. He knew that her eyes had danced when he’d lifted her onto his big horse. She’d loved to ride. Once in the Holy Lands he’d seen a girl on a pony and he’d thought to himself, When I get back to England I’m going to get Flora her own horse, a little mare as sweet and gentle as her owner.

His eyes prickled, then burned under the closed lids. He’d shed no tears for his father, but they came, unbidden, for Flora. Little Flora, whose pretty face he could no longer clearly remember.

He opened his eyes, blinked rapidly and gave an unmanly sniff. His old leg wound was telling him to change from his kneeling position, but he hesitated a moment, feeling as if he should do something more. He should have gathered some spring wildflowers from the meadow before he’d come, he thought. Flora had loved flowers. She’d made him a garland one afternoon and had hung it around his neck, laughingly proclaiming him King of the May.

He took a deep, ragged breath, then, impulsively, pulled the silver chain from around his neck. It held a tiny cross. He’d worn it all through the years abroad and it had come to be a talisman to him. He weighed it in his palm for a moment, then gently tucked it into the mossy grass just at the base of Flora’s tombstone. “Rest in peace, sweet Flora,” he whispered.

His head bowed, he didn’t see the woman coming around the corner of the church, but he heard her gasp plainly.

“What are you doing here?” she asked, her voice shaking.

Nicholas rose awkwardly to his feet, resisting the urge to rub his bad leg. His mental image of the sweet, departed Flora was replaced by the real life vision of her sister, face flushed with anger. “I come on the same mission you do, I’d suppose, mistress. To pay my respects to Flora.”

“’Twas more than you paid to her when she was alive.” Beatrice was carrying the wildflowers he’d neglected to bring. She brushed past him and scattered them equally over her sister’s grave and her mother’s.

Nicholas watched her distribute the flowers, then said, “I’ll not fault you for your words, since you no doubt are grieving your sister sorely. But I’ll tell you again that I never held Flora in disrespect. I was greatly fond of her.”

She dropped the last flower, then straightened up. Their faces were mere inches apart, her eyes glacial. For a long moment neither said a word.

“I’ll not argue the point standing over her grave,” she said finally. “But perhaps you will do me the respect of allowing me to mourn in private.”

Still their gazes held, and Beatrice was certain that Nicholas Hendry had more that he wanted to say to her. But after a moment, he nodded and said only, “As you wish.” Then with one final glance at the carved stone name, he turned and walked away.

She stood for several minutes until he had disappeared behind the church. His appearance there had left her feeling shaky. Could it be true that his eyes had been rimmed with red? she asked herself. It simply did not fit with the picture of Nicholas Hendry she’d been holding all these years to think of him weeping over her sister’s grave.

She gave herself a shake and sank to her knees beside the grave. Then she cocked her head as she noticed something glinting near Flora’s tombstone. Picking the object from the ground, she looked at it. It was a silver cross, suspended from a chain. Beatrice’s eyes widened. On her visit to Hendry Hall the previous day, she’d seen this very cross hanging from Nicholas Hendry’s neck.

She sat back, stunned. Could this be the callous knight she had pictured—this man who wept at his former lover’s grave and left his necklace as tribute?

Tears welled in her eyes. “Ah, Flora,” she said in a low voice. “Do you know that your knight has returned from the Crusades at last? Did you see him here, little sister? He’s left you a holy cross.”

She leaned over and pressed her warm cheek to the cool, mossy ground. “Help me not to hate him, Flora. Help me to understand why Nicholas Hendry came back from the dead and you never shall.”

Then she lay against the softly mounded grass and wept.

Owen was playing in his special cave. Phillip had made it from an old ale barrel that he had cut so that it rested on its side and made a perfect hiding place for a three-year old. Beatrice kept one eye on the child while she carefully poured hot tallow into the candle molds.

There were no customers in the inn that afternoon, which was not an unusual occurrence, and she’d sent the barmaid Gertie home early.

“He killed your daughter, and yet you defend him,” she said to her father, who watched her from his bench on the other side of the fire.

“I’m not defending him, lass, but neither did he kill Flora.” He looked over at the barrel where two protruding shoes were the only evidence of the child inside. Lowering his voice, he continued, “’Twas the childbirth that killed her, just as it did your mother. Both were too frail for birthing.”

“Flora would never have been birthing if it hadn’t been for Nicholas Hendry.”

“And your mother would not have given birth if it hadn’t been for me. Does that make me a murderer, too?”

His voice cracked with long held pain, and Beatrice felt a stab of remorse. Setting aside the mold, she crossed over to her father and dropped to her knees beside him, and put her arms around his shoulders. “Forgive me, Father. Let’s not speak any more of Nicholas Hendry. I’d be happy never to hear the man’s name again.”

“Now, that’s not likely. He’s our landlord and our neighbor.” Phillip pulled out of his daughter’s embrace and turned to her, his aging eyes watery. “This bitterness will solve nothing, Beady. What’s more, resentment works like a wicked little worm inside a person, gnawing away until you’re left with a rotted hole where your heart should be.”

A ghost of a smile crossed her lips at his use of her old childhood nickname. “’Twas my mother first gave me that name, was it not?” she asked.

Phillip smiled and stroked the hair back from her forehead. “Aye, our little Beady. What I wouldn’t give to have her see you now, a woman grown, proud and beautiful.”

His hand shook as he withdrew it from her hair. The palsy grew worse with each passing week, Beatrice noted with the familiar mix of sadness and fear. What would she and Owen do when her father was no longer around?

She gave him another squeeze, then got to her feet as the barrel across the room began rocking furiously back and forth. A small head poked out the entrance.

“Bear!” the child proclaimed, his dark eyes dancing.

Beatrice walked over to the contraption and hunched down at the mouth. “Did a bear come into your cave, Owen?” she asked.

Owen nodded, giggling.

“A big one?”

“Aye, fearsome big.” Bears had been Owen’s number one preoccupation since his grandfather and aunt had taken him to see one dance at the May Day fair. It had been a motheaten, sorry creature who could barely lift itself onto its hind legs, much less dance or look fierce, but to the child it had been a wonder.

“Did you wrestle with it?” Beatrice asked.

“Aye. It runned away.”

Both Beatrice and Owen turned their head toward the door as if following the departure of the imaginary beast. “I’m glad to hear it,” she said. “Bears aren’t allowed in the inn. Mayhap you’d like some porridge after such a fierce battle.”

Owen stuck his feet up in the air against the rim of the barrel and somersaulted backward, landing in Beatrice’s lap. “With a sweetcake?” His dark eyes pleaded with her from his upside down position.

She pulled him upright and hugged him. “Aye, with a sweetcake, if you finish your porridge. Warriors who want to fight bears need a lot of good food.”

He followed along beside her happily to one of the long tap room trestle tables. His hair was tangled from the tussle with the bear and she unconsciously combed it into place with her fingers. If she could help it, Flora’s child would never have to face any more adversity than an imaginary bear.

Out of the corner of her eye, she watched her father lift himself from his bench, trying to disguise what an effort it cost him.

They sat around the table and Owen lisped the quick prayer she had taught him, “God bless Mama Flora.” It came out as one word, “Gobblesmaflor.” Undoubtedly it meant little to the child, but Beatrice found the ritual comforting.

Phillip reached across the table and put his hand on his daughter’s. “I’ve not a doubt that our blessed Flora has found peace in another world, daughter. Would that her sister could find a measure of it in this one.”

Beatrice pulled her hand gently away from her father’s grasp and began ladling the bowls of porridge.

The rumor mill had it that a century before in Normandy, the Hawses had been mere peasants who had made their way up into the ranks of first a knight’s army and then a duke’s by their strength in combat. In any event, it was certain that the present Baron Hawse’s father had been made baron and granted title to considerable lands after returning from the ill-fated Third Crusade in which King Richard had ended up an ignominious prisoner. The senior Hawse had thrown his fortunes to the king’s brother, John, at precisely the correct moment and had then further ingratiated himself with the new king supporting him when most of the nobles of the land rebelled.

Gilbert, the present Baron Hawse, did not suffer close inquiries into the Hawse lineage. His power in the shire was nearly absolute. The Hendry lands and the small village of Hendry, which his estate encircled, were the only interruptions in his dominion. Now that wrinkle had been solved with his acquisition of the lands through Arthur Hendry’s deathbed grant, though he’d carefully refrained from pressing the claim while Constance Hendry was still in mourning. Sooner or later he intended to have Hendry’s wife, as well as his lands, but the baron was exercising uncharacteristic patience where Constance Hendry was concerned.

Nicholas had visited Hawse Castle a number of times in his youth, but the sight of it never failed to impress him. Built like a fortress, though the days of Norman-Saxon conflict were long over, the towering stone structure was surrounded by a stone wall with battlements on all sides.

As he and his mother rode through the raised portcullis into the bailey, he almost felt as if he should have come garbed in the chain mail armor that had become like a second skin during his years on the Crusades.