“Aye, Mama.”

She swallowed tightly. “Your Papa did not know—oh, I did not believe he knew. I did not tell him. ’Twas my greatest sin….” Dear God, she was cursed. Damned!

If Merle knew that Maris was not of his loins, it would have been no hardship to tell him of Bon’s threats…and why he could not betrothe her to Victor. Instead, she had lived the lie, protected it for eighteen years. Now Merle was dead, and she still had judgment to face. A sudden trembling overtook her and she stuffed her hands into the folds of her skirts.

“I must go to confession.” She stood abruptly, moving without hesitation and without a backward glance, to the door. She ignored Maris’s shocked stare as she swept from the chamber.

Later, when night had come, and when Allegra had said enough paternosters and Ave Marias, she hoped, to salvage her soul, she crept from the chapel, tucking her graying hair into her veil. She cast about, looking for a page, a maidservant, someone to guide her back to the ladies’ chamber.

“Allegra.”

The smooth voice from the shadows caused her heart to leap into her throat, and she whirled to face him. “Michael! Oh, Michael!”

“Sshhh,” he admonished, stepping fully into the light. He pressed a finger against her dry lips with a soft caress, “‘Tis not meet for us to be seen together.”

“Why? Why should we care?” she said, just so she could feel her mouth moving against his beloved flesh.

“Come.” He dropped his hand from her lips and grasped her own fingers, firmly tugging her along in his wake.

Allegra followed. She would do anything he bid—and he drew her along in the shadows of the dark hall. Reaching a small alcove, he pulled her inside and into a bare chamber, then into his embrace.

With a cry of delight, she pulled his face to hers, sampling his mouth with her starving lips. “Michael,” she sighed. “Oh, my beloved, how I have missed you. I thought to lose you yet again after you left Langumont.”

His hands were warm and possessive over the swell of her hips, pressing into her the need that pulsed at his groin. “You are my only love,” he told her as his mouth slid to the hollow of her neck. “Marry me. Dearling, be my wife.” He pulled back so that she could see the glitter of hope and desire in his eyes.

“Oh, aye, Michael, aye. ’Tis half my life I have waited to hear those words of your lips!” Her hands were busy, pulling his tunic up so that she could feel his warm, solid chest against her fingers.

“’Tis a lifetime I have waited to utter them.” He helped her by yanking off his tunic, then pushing his chausses down past his waist. Michael slid her to the floor, pulling up her gown so that it bunched above her hips. When he thrust inside of her welcoming body, she cried at the pleasure of it, raising and lowering herself to meet his rhythm.

With a sharp, guttural groan, he met his end, and she with him. They lay for a moment in a heap of tangled clothing, sweat, and lust.

“Let us marry on the morrow,” he suggested, pressing a kiss behind her ear, at a place that never failed to cause her to shiver.

“But, Michael, what of the banns? We cannot find a priest to marry us so soon! And what of Maris?”

“I have already paid a priest to marry us without calling the banns. I meant to ask you tonight and could not bear to wait any longer than need be. He awaits us on the morrow. And,” he slid his tongue into the depths of her ear, sending a sharp, pleasant twinge down her spine, “let us not tell Maris as yet…she may look askance at us for marrying so soon after Merle’s death.”

Allegra pulled away as a thought struck her. “Did you tell Maris that you are her natural father?”

Michael peered down at her in the dim light as if trying to read her face. “What did you say?”

“Her betrothal to Victor was repudiated and now she is to marry Lord of Ludingdon…was it you who told the king of her relation to your son so that he would deny the betrothal?”

Michael nodded. “Aye, he was prepared to formalize the contracts between them, and I could do naught but step forward and share the truth with him. ’Twas all for the best. Dirick of Derkland seems a fine fellow.”

Allegra nodded, pleased at his concern for their daughter, and overwhelmed by the comfort of his nearness. “I have never stopped loving you, Michael, and I cannot believe that we shall be husband and wife at last!”

She felt him smile against her cheek. “Aye. ’Tis all that I have ever hoped for.”

CHAPTER TWENTY THREE

Dirick leaned heavily against Raymond’s shoulder, his head reeling from the large amount of ale he’d imbibed at The Blue Goat, The Bow and the Apple, The King’s Shield…and all of the other places his men had been dragging him to.

“This way, m’lord,” directed Raymond, his voice slightly slurred. The party of men stumbled along the street, their way lit as much by the full moon as by the lanterns that hung intermittently about.

“I know where I am,” growled Dirick, struggling to hold his head upright. It was not the best thing to do the night before one’s wedding, but it had been impossible to deny his men their chance to celebrate his marriage and the betterment of his position as well—for his increase in stature with the king translated into their own improvement.

Verily, dawn could be no more than two or three hours away. Dirick groaned at the thought. Henry expected him, as well as the other two bridegrooms, to join him for a celebratory hunt not long after the sun rose…to be followed shortly after by the wedding ceremony. In a matter of hours, he would be married to Maris.

Even in his befuddled state of mind, Dirick grasped the clarity of that fact. At this time on the morrow, he’d be abed with his new wife. And despite the amount of ale his men had poured down his throat, Dirick’s body reacted accordingly, filling and hardening with desire.

He’d not seen Maris since the announcement that her mother had arrived from Langumont. Between the king’s demands on his time, his new responsibilities as Lord of Ludingdon, and Maris’s attention to Allegra, neither of them had been in the great hall for meals at the same time. He’d not see her again, he realized, until they met at the altar on the morrow.

Not for the first time, Dirick wondered if she’d become accepting of the fact that he was to be her husband. He did not want a battle in their bedchamber on the night of their wedding if she had not.

She’d ever welcomed his kisses in the past, he reflected, the heaviness between his legs growing…and if they were truly wed, she’d have no reason, and, he prayed, no desire, to refuse him.

Dirick stumbled over a rock in the street and would have pitched face first onto the ground had Raymond not had a firm grip on his tunic. One of the men in their group—he thought it might be Sir Gerald, but everything was a bleary mess—guffawed loudly in the still night, commenting that his lord had nearly fallen into a pile of dung. Dirick responded with a slurred insult, which the rest of the men found so uproariously funny that they nearly failed to spot the shadow slouching along the wall near the castle’s entrance.

“Ho!” Raymond stopped short. He was the least inebriated of the bunch, Dirick realized, and was thankful ’twas he who’d offered to guide him home. “Who goes there?”

As the shadow moved into the torchlight, metamorphosing into Bon de Savrille, Dirick pulled himself upright, standing solidly under his own balance. His muscles tensed.

“What do you here?” Dirick demanded, separating himself from his men and approaching Bon. Through the haze of drunkenness, he found the comforting handle of his dagger.

“Do not fear,” sneered the other man, “I do not wait to accost you, but only to issue a warning.”

“You seek to warn me? Against what?” Dirick choked back a deprecating laugh. Then he lashed out to grab the other man’s arm. “Is it you who seeks to show Maris to an early grave?”

Bon shook off his grip with effort. “Nay, fool! Why would I wish to see the woman dead? ’Tis why I come to warn you.”

Dirick stared at him, uncomprehending. “Speak more clearly, then, man!”

Bon leaned toward him, his dark eyes glittering with intensity. “I do not wish to see her dead, but there is one who does…and the same one wishes harm to you as well.”

“Why do you warn me, then, as I know you have no love for me!”

The other man shook his head. “Nay, I do not,” he agreed, “but ’tis Maris for whom I care…and I would see her protected.” He looked at Dirick with bleary eyes. “I love her.”

“She is mine.” Dirick snapped the words, suddenly afraid that Bon might find a way to have her.

“I am aware that the king has promised her to you.” Bon’s reply was bitter. “But that is not the purpose of my warning to you. Ask yourself why did Merle of Langumont not return from Breakston, and you will know why someone desires her dead.”

“Merle of Langumont died in the siege of Breakston, most like of your own hand,” Dirick returned slowly, the ale still swimming in his mind.

“Nay. Merle of Langumont was alive to accept my surrender,” Bon told him.

“You do not—”

Bon began to melt back into the shadows. “Nay, that is all I can tell you, sirrah, as I do not wish to be the next casualty…an’, in faith, I wish to be the one left to hold and comfort my lady when all is said and the battles done.” With that parting promise, he disappeared from sight.

“Who is it!” demanded Dirick of the shadows.

“Her father.” whispered a voice before its owner swept away into the night.

Her father. Dirick’s mind swam as he lay on his pallet, Bon’s words echoing in his memory, swirling among the ale that sopped his brain. Her father was dead, he reminded himself. What did the man mean? Nay, Merle was not her father, he remembered foggily. Ask yourself why Merle of Langumont did not return from Breakston. Why?

I love her. Those words taunted him with their sincerity. Another man loved his betrothed wife—truly loved her, if the pain in Bon’s voice was to be believed.