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Authors: Heather Grothaus

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“It was at the Foxe Ring that he sustained his accident.”
“So I’ve heard,” the vicar said patiently. “Father Perry said it was a miracle that you were nearby when Lord Bellecote was thrown from his horse. The rumor is that he was quite into his cups, as usual. He could have easily been killed. You cared for him through the night.”
“He was indeed very drunk,” Cecily admitted. She raised her eyes to John Grey’s, and she felt heat rippling from her cheeks. In that moment, she wished that she had confessed to Father Perry. It was so much easier to whisper your wrongs in a dark little cupboard, with no blue eyes looking at you expectantly in the bright light of day.
She took a deep breath. “Some ... inappropriate things happened between us.”
John Grey’s face froze, the patient smile still on his face, but now without any life behind it. He cocked his head after a moment, his brows drawing down in a confused frown. “By inappropriate, do you mean—”
“
Inappropriate,
” Cecily said emphatically.
“I see,” John Grey said slowly.
“And I believe Oliver Bellecote is betrothed to be married.”
Now the vicar’s eyebrows rose. “Did you find out after ... ?”
“His intended told me herself, only moments before Lord Bellecote arrived at the ring.”
John Grey frowned, displaying clearly his concern.
“Lord Bellecote didn’t immediately remember our ... indiscretion. And once he started to think clearly, I lied to him about it. And I’ve told no one else.” It seemed that once she had started, Cecily could not stop. “No man has ever dared pursue me, and I think perhaps I only wished to feel how other women feel. And what better man to accomplish that feat than the most notorious scoundrel in all of England? I thought perhaps after spending the night with him, people would begin to see me differently.”
“I see,” John Grey said, his posture now slightly stiffened. “But no one has accused you of anything, have they? I believe I would have heard of the rumors from Father Perry.”
“They suspect nothing,” Cecily admitted bitterly. “In fact, I do believe I am in danger of being nominated for canonization because of my selflessness.”
“And Lord Bellecote now recalls your ... encounter?”
“He is beginning to, I think,” Cecily said, and at last let her eyes retreat to the blanket once more. “I do not know how to respond to him. I don’t know how I want him to respond to me.”
“He could ruin your reputation,” John Grey said matter-of-factly, and Cecily was relieved that the vicar no longer seemed quite so uncomfortable. She was shamed that she had put him in such an awkward and personal position so early into their friendship.
“He could, yes. But I don’t know if I care about my reputation at this point,” she said honestly. “And I have done naught but deny any little memory he has mentioned, thus far.”
“Are you in love with him?” he asked, his tone incredulous.
“I don’t know.” She looked into his face once more, the heat of the most embarrassing details having thankfully fled. She took a deep breath. “But I think that perhaps he is the reason I cannot go to Hallowshire. Is it possible to fall in love with someone in only a pair of days?”
“I think so, yes.” The look he gave her caused a strange sensation in her stomach. “Lady Cecily, he is not worthy of you.”
“Worthy of me!” Cecily laughed. “Vicar, did you not hear my confession? ’Twas I who was the seducer!”
“We all stumble,” John Grey said easily. “Especially in those areas where we are not well traveled. And although you are called Saint Cecily, no human is without sin. And this little fall of yours should not keep you from Hallowshire, if that’s where you truly feel God is leading you.”
“I don’t know,” she admitted miserably. “I don’t think I’m being led anywhere, actually. I feel very ... lost. And like I don’t know who I am, or even who I want to be anymore! It’s as if my entire life thus far has been naught but an act!” She sighed, letting the heat of her emotions pass. “Do you think me a farce?”
“Not in the least,” he answered immediately, emphatically. “You are actually quite noble for tempting Father Perry’s curiosity. A lesser woman would have gone ahead, even while under such a heavy heart. You are purer than you realize, Lady Cecily. There is nothing at all wrong with a woman choosing marriage over the convent, even if it is not the path she always thought her life would take. And a simple kiss ... well, most girls have that out of the way before their years number a dozen.”
Cecily was still for a moment, and then threw back her head and laughed, tears coming into her eyes. The vicar thought that she and Oliver Bellecote had done nothing more than kiss.
“I’m sorry,” she said, pressing her fingertips to her eyes. For some reason she felt like weeping now more than ever. “I’m not laughing at you, only at the notion you suggested.”
He smiled at her. “Don’t be so hard on yourself.”
“What shall I do, Vicar?” she asked, her smile fading.
“You should spend an inordinate amount of time with me, I do think.”
She raised her eyebrows.
“I will tell Father Perry that I am counseling you intensely. When you feel you are able, you may decide on a confessor and put the whole lot behind you, once and for all.”
“What about Oliver Bellecote, though?”
“If he remembers, there is little you can do about it save for lie, and that I do fear would only buy you a small amount of time, and perhaps an even larger consequence to bear. If he is not heartless or stupid, perhaps the pair of you can come to an agreement that your transgressions will not be mentioned outside your shared history. I’m certain you have no wish to hurt his betrothed.”
“No.”
“And he is well known for his dalliances, so I do feel that he will adapt to discretion more readily than you.”
Cecily winced inwardly at the reminder of Oliver’s prolificacy as John Grey continued.
“I do hope that you will be wise enough, though, to make the time you must spend with him as brief and impersonal as possible. Intimacy with a man of that sort is ... well, it is dangerous.”
“And well I know it,” Cecily muttered. She looked up at him sheepishly. “You will make a fine priest, Vicar.”
He shrugged. “Perhaps. Perhaps not.” He looked into her eyes, and Cecily saw something there, something more than the courteous respect previously apparent. A softening, an intrigue, as he looked at her. “Will you call me John, in private? In truth, I am not actually a vicar, and ’tis my father and older brothers who are titled.”
“I will call you John, if you will in turn call me by my given name.”
“I would be honored.”
Cecily looked at the sun. “He’ll be asking for me soon.”
“Yes. And I must be on my way back to Hallowshire.” The regret was plain in his voice. “I’ll return soon enough, though. Will you see me again ... Cecily?”
She smiled at him. “Of course.
John
.”
He helped her to her feet, and after he had gathered up the blanket and affixed it to his horse’s saddle, Cecily rashly grasped his right hand in both of hers.
“Thank you,” she whispered.
His fingers tightened around her own, so lightly that Cecily could barely feel them. Then he pulled away, a strange but pleasant smile on his face.
“Let’s get you home.”

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Chapter 13
The sun had just pulled itself fully over the low eastern hills by the time Cecily and Father Perry approached the farthest of the small villages in the Fallstowe demesne. It had been a cold night, and the dead grass looked like a blanket of crushed diamonds, the horses’ steamy snorts like censers before them.
The beloved priest whom Cecily had known since childhood had thankfully made no mention of her absences from chapel the past several days, and indeed, Father Perry had had little at all to say to her since the morning prayers. His eyebrows had risen when she’d walked into the chapel hours before the dawn, but that was all.
It wasn’t as if she had roused herself from a comforting slumber.
Wrong atop of wrong. It seemed that she had been incapable of making a correct choice since the Candlemas feast. In truth, she was unsure if she even knew the difference between right and wrong anymore. Her desire to be with Oliver Bellecote, even in the most innocent manner, overwhelmed her body and mind. She longed to talk with him, laugh with him, discover his plans for Bellemont. Like he was a sickness she had caught in the old Foxe Ring, and no remedy existed that could ease her suffering. And that was only the most benign facet of her desire for the scoundrel.
When Cecily was near him, her body reacted. Her good sense, her notions of propriety and purity and honor, fled with a pitiful wail under the onslaught of the pure physical lust that she felt for Oliver Bellecote.
It was bad enough to experience the sin of lust. To have experienced it and acted upon it, not only once, in the old keep, but also in Oliver’s room, where she had allowed him to kiss her. And likely would have allowed him much more had he been more able bodied and had they not been interrupted.
By Joan Barleg
. The woman who had been his companion for a pair of years, and honestly thought that Oliver was going to marry her.
Yes, bad enough to have given in to lust twice, but the greater humiliation was her inability to stop, when she knew what she was doing was so very wrong. Stop thinking about him. Stop going to his room, even under the guise of caring for him. He was the sort of man who would humiliate the woman who loved him while she waited for him on the other side of his chamber door!
Cecily couldn’t know for certain where their kissing yesterday would have led had Joan Barleg not come knocking, and she wondered if she would have had the fortitude to refuse his further advances. Her worry increased when she could not answer yes straightaway.
Well, you hateful little tart,
she thought, but to her dismay, she sounded rather pleased with herself.
He was a sickness with no remedy.
She pulled the cowl away from her mouth. “Father?”
“Yes?”
“I am certain you’ve noticed the ... the neglect of my duties.”
He was quiet for a moment while the horses plodded along. “If you mean the duties you have assumed at the chapel, yes, I have missed you there. But you have many duties at Fallstowe, Lady Cecily. The castle is no abbey, and I am not your superior. You are not beholden to any task. I am only pleased that you accompany me this morning.”
She swallowed. Of course, he would be understanding. “I have not been ... present as much because, well—” She took a deep breath of the teeth-achingly cold air. “What if my heart has been consumed with worldly thoughts and desires? What if ... what if I’m
possessed?”
Father Perry laughed. “Although demonic possession is really naught to make sport of, I do highly doubt that your soul is the ideal breeding ground for evil.” His chuckles died away, but left a serene smile as a reminder of his mirth. “Are you in love, then?”
Cecily was surprised. “I don’t know. Perhaps. Although if this is what being in love is about, what it feels like, I’d really rather not.”
“If you’d rather not, then I’d say you
are
in love,” Father commiserated. “Love doesn’t give you a choice. I know him, don’t I?”
“Yes,” Cecily said hesitantly. “But not well, I don’t believe. In truth, I don’t know him very well myself.”
“A nobleman?”
Cecily nodded. “But, until recently, no one of consequence. He is not his family’s firstborn.”
Father Perry was looking at her keenly now, a knowing light in his eyes. “Could he commit to you? Is he willing?”
“No.” Cecily looked away for a moment, toward the glowing ball of orange in the sky. “I don’t know.” She shrugged.
“Anything is possible,” Father Perry said lightly. “Of course, you would be unable to join Hallowshire as a married woman.”
“I’m not worried that he would
want
to marry me, thus making me ineligible for the veil,” Cecily said wryly. “I am more afraid that he does not wish to, and that my time with him has ruined me. Ruined the plans I had for my life. That the brief time in which I have known him has given me a glimpse of something both terrible and wonderful at once, and now nothing else will ever fulfill me as he has.”
“That is troublesome,” Father Perry agreed. “But only because when we look to another human being to fulfill us, they always fall short. They are always a disappointment. Each of us falls short of God’s glory. Only He is perfect, and so only He can fulfill us.”
“I know,” Cecily whispered.
The kindly priest smiled at her. “I know you know.” He drew his horse to a stand and Cecily was prompted to follow suit. “Which is why I am not at all concerned for the state of your soul. Don’t think that I have not noticed your absence, for I have. Greatly. But I do believe with all my heart that you are being led in the way He has prepared for you, whether that be at Hallowshire, at Fallstowe Castle, or ...” He shrugged.
“I went to the Foxe Ring,” she blurted. It was as close to a confession as she was able to make to the man, like an uncle to her.
“Did you, then? Well.” He smiled, nodded, and looked over her shoulder. “I go there often myself. Very peaceful place for meditation, I have found.”
“I didn’t go to meditate though,” Cecily began in frustration. But before she could try to elaborate on her sins, Father Perry turned a widening smile to her.
“It seems as though we will have some company on our mission this day, Lady Cecily. Company I believe will please you.” He nodded in the direction that lay behind her.
With a frown Cecily turned in her saddle, wondering who on earth would be game enough to be about the frozen land at sunrise, to minister to the sick and poor with a ruined noblewoman and an old priest.
 
 
“A bit tardy this morn, are we, Lord Bellecote?” Graves asked dryly as Oliver neared Sybilla Foxe’s chamber door. The dusty, walking corpse was standing watch to the side of the corridor opposite the portal.
“The sun’s just come up,” Oliver muttered. “Had I been any less tardy, it would still be
night
. Is she awake?”
“Think you I would dare chastise a man of your impeccable manners for his tardiness were Madam not ready to receive you?” Graves countered.
“You are a cheeky one, aren’t you, old codger?” Oliver growled, narrowing one eye and looking at the steward sideways.
Graves mirrored exactly Oliver’s expression.
Oliver sighed and rolled his eyes.
“If my lord will follow me?” The servant at last moved across the corridor and knocked discreetly on the thick wooden door before engaging the latch and swinging it wide.
Oliver moved past the man, expecting him to remain in the corridor, but Graves was close at his heels, shutting the door with barely a sound and sliding the bolt home.
Sybilla Foxe was completely dressed for the day, including her coif and crispinette, sitting on a tufted chair at a large, plain desk on the far side of the room before a bank of windows. Her mouth was covered by her hand, her elbow resting on the tabletop, and she seemed lost in the misty view before her.
In the center of the desk was the large crystal cluster from her table the night before.
“Sybilla,” Oliver said.
She didn’t start at the sound of her name, only continued to stare out the window. She slid her hand down to her chin. “Good morrow, Oliver. Did you sleep well? How is your arm?”
“Good morrow. No. And I believe it’s still broken.”
She raised her slender eyebrows briefly; her mouth turned down, and then she nodded.
Oliver glanced over his shoulder at Graves, who seemed as though he was paying no attention to them whatsoever. In fact, the old man had turned his back toward them and appeared to have a hairbrush in his hand, grooming his thin, gray hair in a small mirror.
“I thought we were to speak in private,” Oliver said in a low voice.
Sybilla at last turned her chin away from her hand to look at him. “Graves, you mean? I can assure you that we are more warranted our privacy with his presence than without.”
“Very well,” Oliver said grudgingly. “So I’ll just come out with it then. I received a missive from Edward, mustering Bellemont’s due at Midsummer.”
She laid her arm along the edge of the desk. “Of course you did.”
“Because my brother cared for you so deeply, I would spare you such unpleasantness was it within my power to do so. But there is no gentle way to say this, Sybilla. The king is going to march on Fallstowe.”
“I know.”
“You know? You seem very calm about it.”
“I’ve had more time than you to become accustomed to the idea.” She gave him a faint smile. “The king warned my youngest sister, Alys, himself. And August told me of Edward’s plans when Bellemont’s service was first summoned, while your brother was still lord.”
She hadn’t said “when your brother was still alive,” or “before he died,” and Oliver was unsure whether he should be offended by her lack of empathy or saddened by the idea that she was unable to bring herself to say the words.
“Are you to surrender?” Oliver asked.
Sybilla wrinkled her nose while she shook her head slightly, and behind him, Oliver thought he heard old Graves snort.
“No, I don’t think I shall
surrender,
” Sybilla said coyly. “August and I had been working on a plan. Obviously, that’s gone awry.”
Her words put his idea that she might be saddened over losing August to rest. Oliver felt the aching blood in his arm pound harder, until his vision seemed to tremble with each clenching of his heart. Was this woman so cold, so heartless, as to speak of his brother’s death as an inconvenience? The roaring in his ears was nearly deafening.
“But I do believe I have come up with a way to partially implement August’s ideas, any matter,” she continued. “As well as possibly secure you a vast fortune for Bellemont in the process. The king acknowledged your lordship of Bellemont and its holdings, did he not?”
“He did. But why would you care to secure me of anything?” Oliver demanded. “It was August who was in love with you, Sybilla, not I. And I don’t think you were ever in love with
him,
so why should
you
give a damn not only about his younger brother, but about pitiful little Bellemont?”
Her blue eyes pierced his, hard, sparkling, and with a seriousness that made Oliver’s throbbing blood run sluggish and cold. “Your brother was the best friend not of my own blood that I have ever had,” Sybilla said quietly. “Present company excluded, of course, Graves.”
“How could I think otherwise, Madam?” the old steward muttered mildly. He came to stand nearby, juxtaposed between Sybilla and Oliver, his hands clasped behind his back and his eyes trained somewhere on the still dark ceiling.
“I care very much about Bellemont’s welfare, and your own, for reasons that you will discover as soon as I am able to tell you,” Sybilla continued. “In the meantime, I need you to trust me, for I desperately need your help, Oliver.”
“You desperately need
my
help?” Oliver sneered. “With what?”
Sybilla’s chest rose slightly as she drew a deep, silent breath.
“I need you to propose to Joan Barleg.”
 
 
Although she had always enjoyed being among the villagers and their simple life, Cecily had never experienced a more gratifying day of service as the one she was spending with Father Perry and Vicar John Grey.
They had passed out sacks of meal and dried fruit, as well as crumbly little ropes of seaweed. Cecily had brought an enforced arsenal of salves and potions, tinctures and powders, bandages, and herbs for teas. Before the noon meal she had lanced and dressed three wounds, treated an old man for ague, and mixed a special tea for a new mother and her tiny newborn baby, both bedeviled by a nasty case of thrush. Father Perry was kept distant and busy hearing the confessions of the villagers before the celebration, and so Vicar John became Cecily’s handsome and merry attendant.
He was the best of assistants, drawing on his experiences at various religious enclosures that often served the ill and dying. He was no stranger to sickness and misery, and yet his training thus far combined with his vocation ensured that he exuded a kind of gentle calm to Cecily’s patients. He was not uncomfortable with their poverty or their ignorance, and indeed, he seemed to enjoy conversing with villagers of all ages.

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