LADY UNDAUNTED: A Medieval Romance (3 page)

“Dear Lord, he has come!” She ran, desperate to reach Oliver and get him inside and the door bolted.

How I wish this once he had disobeyed me and followed!
she silently cried. There being no entrance into the manor from the garden, she would have to retrieve her son and retrace her steps.

As she neared the great house, the servants called to her, but there was no time to attend to them.

She lunged past the gate. “Oliver!”

He was where she had left him, eyes wide. “Mama?”

She gathered him up and hastened back to the gate. But when she stepped from the garden, she saw the red-headed rider had broken from the others and was headed across the green toward her. He had seen her, surely guessed who fled him.

Joslyn measured the distance from the manor door to the one whose hair proclaimed he was Liam Fawke. She could not make it. What, then? She would not simply stand here and allow this man to do what he intended, but neither could she scale the high back wall.

“Who’s that?” Oliver asked of the one thundering toward them.

She pivoted back into the garden and ran to a portion of the wall in need of repair. If she and Oliver could squeeze through the hole, the wood beyond the village wall would provide refuge.

She set her son on his feet, dropped to all fours, and shoved aside the fallen stones. But there was only time to clear enough to allow the little boy to pass through.

“Listen to me, Oliver. There is a bad man coming. You must hide.”

“Bad man?”

“Do you remember—”

“The red knight?”

She pulled him near and lifted his chin. “Aye, the red knight. Do you remember the old oak by the stream, the one with the large hollow in its trunk?”

“Uh-huh.”

“I want you to crawl through here”—she nodded at the breach in the wall—“and run as fast as you can to the postern gate.” Unless someone had closed it this past hour, it would be open. “Go into the wood and hide in the oak.”

“But there is bugs in it. You said I could not—”

“This is different. You must hide there so the bad man cannot find you. Do you understand?”

At his nod, she kissed his brow. “I will come for you shortly.” She pushed him toward the hole.

Oliver dropped to his knees. “Will he hurt you, Mama?”

She forced a smile. “He will not. Now make haste.”

Once his bottom disappeared and she heard the beat of his feet over the ground, she straightened, retrieved the rake she had earlier discarded, and hurried back across the garden. Pressing herself against the wall alongside the gate, she raised her weapon.

She expected Liam Fawke to propel his mount into the garden as recklessly as he had over the green, but he reined in before the open gate, his destrier’s heavy breathing and the shadow the animal and its rider threw the only proof of their presence.

Here was no unseasoned knight. Certes, he suspected what he could not see. And that was good, for the longer he stayed without, the more time Oliver had to reach the wood.

The horse bolted into the garden.

Joslyn swung at the man’s back and landed a blow to the air that nearly spun the rake out of her hands. Fingers splintered by the wooden handle, she raised her crude weapon again as the knight wheeled his horse around.

What a sight! She had known him only by the hair of which Maynard had spoken—the Irish of him. From that, and her husband’s tales of this cruel, treacherous man, she had envisioned a far different person.

The misbegotten brother Maynard had described had been neither so tall nor broad-shouldered. He had been older and had not possessed a handsome face beneath hair she had imagined long and unkempt, rather than groomed—cut short above the ears but longer in back where it curled over his collar. He looked more the nobleman than the knave of Maynard’s tales. Still, he was dangerous.

Liam stared at the woman. From her flight across the manor green, he had guessed she was Lady Joslyn and that she ran to hide her son. But this could not be the woman whom Maynard had wed and made a child upon. The creature wielding a rake would have held little appeal for his brother.

From the crooked veil atop her head that revealed strands of blackest hair, to the hem of her drab skirts, she was streaked with dirt. If she was of the manor, it was in the capacity of a servant, and she had run out of fear.

“He is dead,” she said.

Frowning, he searched her amber eyes.

She tilted her smudged chin higher and, in a voice at odds with her appearance, said, “He told me you would come. That you would try to murder my child and me. Is that what you intend, Liam Fawke?”

It
was
Lady Joslyn. Perhaps cleaned up, Maynard’s wife would be presentable, but there seemed little about her to attract a man. Who even knew what figure she possessed beneath those soiled, ungirded garments?

“Is it?” she pressed.

Ignoring the question reaped from Maynard’s warning that if Liam came he would be the bearer of death, he asked, “Where is the boy?”

“What are your intentions?”

She stalled. Allowing her time he could afford, he said, “To claim what is mine.”

“Ashlingford.”

He inclined his head.

“Then I am correct in believing Maynard is dead?”

“You are.”

She lowered her lids, but when she lifted them, he glimpsed no grieving in her eyes.

Unfeeling, then. The same as Maynard. “You do not seem saddened, my lady.” He nearly laughed at bestowing the title on one who could not look less the noblewoman. “But then, when one weds but for gain, ’tis to be expected.”
 

Her eyes flashed. “As you do not know me, your attempt to gauge my character offends.”

He did know her, for what more needed to be told of the lady than that she had wed Maynard? Of course, she may have had little choice. Though women could not be made to wed against their will, there were ways to convince them.

“I ask again, what are your intentions toward my son?”

Liam prodded his destrier forward.

She raised the rake higher. “Come no closer!”

He turned his mount sideways and moved his gaze down her weapon. As a mother protecting her babe, she would use it—albeit in vain. “I ride to London on the morrow to put my claim before the king. Oliver shall accompany me.”

“Why?”

He had not planned such when Ivo had questioned him, but the more he had thought on it, the more it appealed. Let the king see the heir Maynard had named. Let him decide if a barony of the magnitude and importance of Ashlingford belonged in the hands of a child—rather, those who would make a puppet of him. “Where is the boy?”

“Where you cannot touch him.”

“I vow no harm will befall him.” He gestured to the rake. “Do you plan to use that?”

“If I must.”

Liam pondered what his father would have said of an armed and mounted knight facing off a bedraggled waif whose only defense was a rake. And nearly smiled. “Put it down, Lady Joslyn. You need not fear me.”

“You are no stranger to me, Liam Fawke. I know the man you are.”

Maynard had made certain of that. “Then what makes you think a rake will prevent me from taking what I want?”

Her gaze moved to the thrusting sword hanging on the front of his saddle, then the long sword suspended from his hip belt, lastly the dagger.

“Were I the murderer Maynard led you to believe, you would not be standing.”

“I will not allow you to take my son.”

Liam was about to assure her again of the boy’s safety when he heard a child’s voice raised in protest. “But I have him already, my lady.”

Fear widening her eyes, she dropped the rake and ran from the garden.

Liam prodded his destrier forward and followed her to the rear of the manor, where John and three other knights rode toward them.

“Nay!” The lady lunged for the squirming, screeching child beneath John’s arm.

Liam rode past her and turned his destrier into her path. “You will be trampled!”

She stumbled to a halt, splayed her hands at her sides, snapped them into fists. “That would fit your plan well.”

Knowing she would believe Maynard’s lies before she would give weight to the words of a stranger, and having no occasion to prove his brother false, he shifted his regard to John. And had his first look at the child Maynard hoped would forever deny Liam his inheritance. It hardly seemed possible, but the boy was filthier than his mother.

“Mama!” He stretched out his arms as if he thought she could fly into them.

John halted his horse before Liam’s and growled, “He bites.”

Lady Joslyn stepped forward. “Give him to me.”

At the knight’s questioning look, Liam shook his head.

The lady shot him an angry look. Then, as if fearful of further upsetting her son, she smiled tightly and patted the boy’s knee. “All is well, Oliver.”

Her touch and nearness comforted the boy enough to still his fitful movements, but he continued to reach to her.

“If you promise to keep your teeth to yourself, boy,” John said, “you may share my saddle with me.”

Oliver looked around, seemed to consider the merits of remaining beneath the man’s arm against being allowed to sit on the exquisitely worked saddle, and nodded.

“So this filthy little urchin is Oliver,” Liam said as John settled the child before him.

“I am not little!” Bright-eyed outrage replaced the boy’s fear.

Liam needed no more confirmation the child was Maynard’s. Cleaned, his hair would be as golden as his father’s, and visible beneath the dirt he bore the same forehead and jaw as generations of Fawkes before him. And though his amber eyes were gifted him by his mother, their shape was Maynard’s—and Liam’s.

Outrage slipping, Oliver pointed at Liam. “The red knight, Mama. The bad man!”

Liam looked to Lady Joslyn, raised an eyebrow.

Averting her gaze, she said, “He will not hurt you, Oliver.”

He narrowed his lids at Liam. “You hurt Mama?”

His childish concern softened Liam as he did not care to be softened. “Nay, Oliver, I am not the bad man she believes. I am your Uncle Liam, brother to your father.”

“My father?”

It was said with great bemusement, to which Lady Joslyn exclaimed, “This is not necessary!”

Liam picked over Oliver’s features. “How old are you, boy?”

He raised a hand, uncurled one finger, another, chewed his lip, and thrust his hand forward. “One…two. See?”

“I see.” Liam captured his mother’s gaze. “Let us go inside.”

“You expect me to welcome you into my father’s home?”

Tolerance nearly spent, Liam leaned down from his mount so she could better hear the words he would not have fall on her son’s ears. And was surprised by her scent. Instead of the rank odor of an unclean body, she smelled of earth and roses.

“If you prefer, I will take Oliver up before me and continue on my way.” Not that he had any intention of doing so. He must not only verify the boy’s claim to Ashlingford—that Oliver was legitimate—but it would be foolish to have tales of abduction follow him to London.

Defiance tamed, the lady said, “Of course not.”

“Then to the manor.” Liam urged his destrier around, a moment later checked the animal’s progress to receive the two riding toward him—Sir Gregory and Ivo.

Insufferable priest! Two days of hard riding should have tired the man, who was twenty years older than Liam, but Ivo had kept pace. Thus, to reach the boy without his uncle’s interference, Liam had resorted to trickery. After Ivo had gained them entrance into the village in the name of the Church, Liam had set Sir Gregory on the man, and in the midst of the fray, Liam and the rest of his men had ridden on the manor.

Ivo dragged his horse to a cruel halt, glared at his nephew, then landed his gaze on the woman who stood alongside John’s mount. “Where is your mistress, girl?”

The lady stood taller. “You are mistaken, Father. I am—”

“Lady Joslyn Fawke,” Liam said. “Maynard’s widow.” As disbelief jumped across Ivo’s face, Liam gestured at the boy. “Maynard’s son, Oliver.”

In spite of the child’s appearance, some of the harshness drained from the priest’s eyes. “Maynard’s son,” he breathed.

“Who are you?” Lady Joslyn asked.

It seemed with effort the priest pulled his gaze from the boy. “I am Maynard’s uncle, Father Ivo.”

The lightening of her grimly-set face evidenced Maynard had told her of his beloved uncle, and in him she saw an ally. Rightly so. Ivo would defend Oliver’s right to Ashlingford all the way to the papacy.

“We shall continue this inside,” Liam said and urged his destrier forward.

At the manor steps, he was met by hand-wringing servants and the men he had ordered to position themselves there in the event of trouble. But trouble did not come from those of the manor. It came from the villagers, who amassed on the road Liam and his men had taken. Their weapons implements such as Lady Joslyn had wielded, they came to ensure all was well at their lord’s manor.

Liam looked around. “Lady Joslyn, assure your people naught is amiss and instruct them to return to their homes.”

Contempt flared in her eyes, but a glance at John, who held her son, made it smolder. She set a hand on the boy’s leg. “The knight has a fine horse, does he not?”

“Bigger than A-papa’s.”

“Much bigger than your grandfather’s. Do you think you can watch him while I talk to the villagers? I shall not be long.”

A frown puckered the space between his eyes, and he looked at John. “You not a bad man?”

The knight smiled. “Indeed, I am not.”

Oliver nodded at his mother. “I watch the horse.”

The lady sent Liam a narrow-eyed look and started toward the road.

Motioning Sir Gregory forward, Liam noticed the red-rimmed cut tracing the man’s cheek. Ivo’s dagger had done that, though surely his uncle would have preferred to sink it in the young knight’s breast. “Sir Gregory, accompany Lady Joslyn.”

The lady halted, but though she must have longed to argue, she put her shoulders back and continued on as if she went alone.

CHAPTER THREE

Liam Fawke’s eyes.

They drew Joslyn’s when she entered the hall, pierced her, then shifted to the knight who had accompanied her to speak with the villagers.