Once He Loves (Medieval 3)

“The son of a farmer? Who would think it? Do you ever feel the urge to go back to the soil? Mayhap Mary can help you sow your seed.”

He took off for his horse with speed, but not before Sweyn had struck him a solid and painful blow on his shoulder.

“You are very foolish and very stubborn, Briar. But then so you always were.”

Jocelyn stood before her, hands on hips, but there was worry in her blue eyes. Mary had gone to help with the hall—there were never enough hands. The girl seemed full to brimming with energy since Sweyn had stayed with them, as if her thoughts could not be still.

The sickness of this morning had passed again and, although tired, Briar had passed an uneventful day. It was only now, as darkness fell, that her stomach had begun to roil again. As if in sheer bloody-mindedness it sought to upset her plans for the evening. Lord Shelborne had offered them more money than they had yet had for any one performance, and Briar was determined to have it.

“Mayhap Lord Shelborne has discovered who we really are,” Briar said now, amidst the bustle of Jocelyn’s kitchen. “Mayhap he wants to make amends for the past.”

“What past?” Jocelyn retorted, frowning.

Briar chose her words with care. “I have heard a rumor that Lord Shelborne was our stepmother Anna’s lover.”

Jocelyn seemed to freeze, the curious expression in her eyes slowly draining away. Her voice sounded strange. “Her lover? Lord Shelborne?”

“Aye,” Briar replied, watching her doubtfully. “And Lord Fitzmorton. And others. Did you not know this, sister? Did you not know how many others, apart from Lord Radulf, our stepmother was merrily welcoming into her bed?”

Slowly, as if she were in a daze, Jocelyn turned to the table. Her hands shook as she put the finishing touches to a songbird pie, and Briar had the odd feeling she was just fiddling with the elaborate pastry decorations to gain time.

“I wondered.” She spoke at last. “When I first saw her, I thought her beautiful, and afterward I heard ’twas all skin deep, and she had never been faithful in her life. I hoped ’twas nothing more than talk, for our father’s sake. He was happy, and so blind with love for her—”

“Why did you never tell me!”

Jocelyn flinched at the accusation. “I had no proof, and it seemed unnecessarily cruel to speak of such things.”

“I have believed all this time that Lord Radulf was the one who sent her to her death.”

“He probably was. I can tell you this, Briar, that of them all, Radulf was the one she cared about. She wanted him to come to her, and when he wouldn’t she was furious with him.”

Briar shook her head, feeling abandoned and adrift. “You should have told me. Now ’tis too late.”

“Why too late?” Jocelyn retorted, a strange bitterness flavoring her words. “I thought you were determined to revenge our father, right the wrongs? Once you could talk of nothing else. What has changed now?”

Briar opened her mouth to defend herself, and promptly burst into tears.

Jocelyn made a wordless cry and moved to comfort, but Briar pulled away. Furiously, she dashed at her cheeks, as if to scrub away the evidence of her weakness before it fell.

“What in God’s name is wrong with me!” she wailed. “I am sick, I am well, I am tired, I cry, I think foolish thoughts that I never thought before! Jesu, I beg you, heal me or let me die!”

Jocelyn had stopped to stare at Briar, and now her eyes widened. Purposefully, she grasped her sister’s shoulders in hard, hurting hands, forcing her to look up. Even Jocelyn’s lips were white, Briar thought in amazement. What had she said? What was wrong?

“When did you have your last flux, Briar?”

Briar moved to shake off that cruel grip, and then she froze. Last flux? She had not even thought of such a thing. She had been too busy trying to survive and being angry at Ivo de Vessey…Ivo! The night they had spent together under this very roof, his seed spilling into her, finding fertile ground in her womb…

“No.” The word stuck in her throat. She shook her head. Her vision wobbled and darkened.

“Aye,” Jocelyn retorted grimly. “How long ago was it? Briar?”

Briar pulled herself up, swallowing past the shock and disbelief. “Near to three moons. ’Tis late October now.”

“Then you are with child.”

The idea was too big, too overwhelming for her to take in. A child. Ivo’s child. Her fierce and brooding knight, a father? Briar, a mother? Wild emotions flooded her, each clamoring for their turn, until she put her head in her hands and cried, “Enough!”

Silence, blessed silence.