Chapter Two
F or a moment the world was frozen as they stared at each other. Behind her, Hester could feel the stunned silence of William and the men.
‘My husband’s dead,’ she managed to say at last, her words falling like stones into the stillness of the courtyard.
‘Who told you that?’ he challenged, fixing her with his dark stare.
Hester hesitated, her eyes mesmerised by his face, scanning its contours for clues, searching for some resemblance between this dirty, scarred stranger and the handsome youth who had stood beside her ten years earlier, making his vows to the priest. ‘I—no one. I thought…’ she trailed off.
‘You hoped,’ he said, finishing her sentence for her. He tossed back his hair with a sardonic, humourless smile that shaped his lips but did not touch the rest of his face. ‘I’ve been away protecting the Holy Land from the Saracen and you’ve been wishing me dead.’
Hester tried to measure him with her eyes. Was he her husband? All those years ago she had spent only minutes in his presence, and even then, timid and bewildered, she had hardly dared to look her bridegroom in the face. He had seemed so tall, so fine, so grownup, but she had been only a small, frightened girl, newly orphaned, who had been passed from pillar to post for the sake of the fortune she had inherited.
The memories of those terrible days came storming back. The fever which had killed her parents within two days of each other. The arrival of the king’s men to wrench her away from everything she knew. The news that the king had accepted the Lord of Abbascombe’s offer to stake finances for the crusades in return for Lady Hester Rainald, whose fortune made her a fitting bride for his son, even though Hester was only twelve and his son, Guy, was twenty. The memories charged through her head until she thought it would explode.
‘How do I know you’re who you say you are?’ Hester said out loud, her voice bold and challenging, hoping to break the spell of the past. Maybe he was just a chancer trying his luck, a vagabond who had happened to hear the story of the missing lord of Abbascombe. Perhaps he would have no proof at all.
‘Don’t you know your own husband, lady?’ leered one of the five cronies, who had gathered in the gloom behind the dark rider. ‘My God, you have been away a long time, Guy.’
The name shot through her. Guy. But, of course, his accomplice would call him that. It was just part of the plot. It proved nothing.
‘Prove that you’re Guy Beauvoisin,’ she demanded.
‘Prove it!’ he repeated, fixing her with a menacing glint. ‘I come back to my own home, my land, and you ask me to prove that I am Guy Beauvoisin. You take an awful lot upon yourself, my lady.’
‘I’ve had to,’ Hester snapped. ‘There’s been no one else to do it.’
He glared back at her. His eyes, full of anger, flashed at her like daggers and stirred another memory in Hester’s breast. Suddenly she was back ten years ago, standing in the hall, watching as her new husband confronted his father. Both men with their broad shoulders flung back and their eyes ablaze, the father heavier and a little shorter, the son fired by rage, rebellious indignation spilling from his lips as he cursed the marriage which had just been solemnised. ‘I’ve carried out your will to the letter, sire,’ he was saying. ‘I have married this pathetic, orphaned child. I have done what you required to save your precious Abbascombe from ruin. And now I consider myself free to do as I choose. I intend to leave with the crusade immediately. I will not remain here to continue this mockery of a marriage.’
The painful scene played itself in her memory. Hester tried to blot it out, attempting to concentrate all her attention on the here and now. She must keep her wits about her, watch this man’s every move in case he gave himself away as an impostor. He was hesitating now.
‘Go on,’ she prompted, pushing her advantage.
‘You’re serious?’ he questioned. ‘You really don’t recognise me?’ Hester shook her head. He sighed and Hester tried to read his thoughts, but his face was inscrutable. ‘I am Guy Beauvoisin,’ he began, ‘direct descendent of Guy the Harrier, who fought with William the Conqueror and was given Abbascombe for his services to the king.’
‘Anyone could have found that out,’ she scoffed, then fixed him with a challenging stare. ‘Continue, if you still wish to try.’
He took up the gauntlet. ‘You are the Lady Hester, only child of Sir Richard Rainald. You were a twelve-year-old orphan, a ward of the king, when my father chose you to be my wife.’
‘That is widely known. You’ve still proved nothing.’
‘You want something that only you and your husband could know?’ he asked, his voice carrying a hint of danger which made Hester clench her fists involuntarily, until she felt her fingernails grazing into the flesh of her hands.
‘Of course,’ she breathed, feigning insouciance, but feeling herself cornered. Her heart pounded with the rhythm of the doubts in her mind. Was he her husband? Don’t let it be him, she wished. Please let him be dead.
Suddenly he was advancing towards her, his long, muscular legs covering the ground in an instant. Hester shied back instinctively. The air between them seemed to crackle with his presence.
‘You want me to tell you?’ he demanded and the question sounded like a threat.
At that moment there was nothing she wanted more than to keep him at a distance, as far from her as possible. The memory of his closeness that afternoon sent those same shivers coursing up and down her spine. She searched her mind desperately for a way to avoid his proximity, but before she could find one, he was there at her side, his hand gripping her elbow so tightly it made her flinch, as he bent his lips to her ear. He was so close she felt again the tips of his bristles grazing her cheek as he rasped, ‘After our vows, when we were truly man and wife, I looked deep into your eyes and said, “Don’t look so scared, little girl, I shall never force you to fill the office of a wife. You may go back to your dolls.”’
A dart of pain shot through Hester at the memory of those words of rejection. Suddenly she was back ten years ago, that frightened girl, fighting back the tears when she realised that this new husband felt only contempt for her. It had been exactly as he said, the same words, the same voice. She pulled away from him and again found herself looking into those eyes. They were the same too, in spite of the way the scar pulled at his brow, in spite of the changes the years had wrought on the rest of his face. She had to admit to herself now that she recognised his eyes.
But she was no longer the terrified little girl whom he could buffet with his scorn. She was strong now, strong enough for the whole of Abbascombe, and she would not be bullied. Hester summoned up her strength and fixed him hard with her eyes. As she glared at him, she thought she detected some effort in his face as he returned her stare.
‘My lord,’ she said, curtsying low, her muddy skirts sweeping the cobbled floor of the courtyard. ‘You are welcome to Abbascombe. We have long awaited your return. Speak your will and it shall be done. Your humble wife asks your bidding.’ The words came out somehow, however unwilling she was to speak them.
There was a clamour all around her as the spectators, who had held their peace for so long, suddenly spoke all at once. Hester felt rather than heard their voices. All her attention was fixed on him, the so-called husband she had never expected to see again as long as she lived. He was back and she knew he was trouble.
