Desiree

  Desiree

  Roberta Gellis

  Blush sensuality level: This is a suggestive romance (love scenes are not graphic).

  Part of the Roselynde Chronicles.

  Marriage saved her from a tyrant…and kept her from the man she loved.

  In order to protect herself from a ruthless suitor, Desiree of Exceat married the aged Frewyn of Polegate, sacrificing passion in favor of platonic companionship. But three years later Frewyn is struck with an apoplectic attack, leaving him partially paralyzed. When France threatens to invade England, Desiree has no choice but to beg for help.

  Assistance comes from Sir Alexandre Baudoin, the sheriff of Sussex’s nephew, who is assigned to be the castellan of Desiree’s land. Frewyn warmly invites him into his home, unaware of Sir Alex’s burgeoning desire for Desiree. Torn between the two men, Desiree is desperate for any distraction…until Sir Alex’s brother arrives, armed with a plan to murder the sheriff—and return Desiree to the man from whom she escaped!

  Desiree

  Roberta Gellis

  Characters

  Alexandre (Alex) Baudoin de Lessai (born 1167)—Castellan of Exceat

  Alinor of Roselynde—Simon Lemagne’s wife

  Desiree d’Exceat (born 1176)—Heiress to Exceat, a keep overlooking her other properties of Seaford and Cuckhaven (fishing villages)

  Elias—Served as steward in Polegate, now Frewyn’s caretaker

  Frewyn of Polegate—Desiree’s husband

  Father Harold—Priest

  Lady Isobel—William Marshall’s wife, Alinor’s friend

  Marie Baudoin—Alex and Vachel’s mother

  Nicolaus of Dover—Castellan of Lewes

  Simon Lemagne—Husband of Alinor of Roselynde, sheriff of Sussex

  Vachel—The second eldest of Alex’s surviving brothers

  William Marshall, earl of Pembroke—Marshall of England

  Chapter One

  Desiree of Exceat gazed with round, frightened eyes at the small roll of parchment her steward handed her. He held the roll gingerly, as if it might fall apart…no, as if it might bite him, and said it was from the sheriff.

  “Oh, dear,” Desiree said faintly, “I wonder if he has found a castellan for us. Oh, I am sorry now I ever wrote and asked for help. We have been managing well enough.”

  “Sir Frewyn thought it necessary,” Elias of Polegate said, but he looked no happier than Desiree.

  “But what if I do not like the castellan? What if he does not approve of our way of doing things and wants to turn Exceat upside down? What if he is dishonest or offers me…insult?” Desiree shivered.

  “Whoever it is will not be dishonest or dishonorable, of that I am certain. Sir Simon is honesty and honor itself and would make sure any man he dispatched to manage Exceat would truly put your best interests first.”

  The steward’s voice was steady but his expression of anxiety remained. Elias was called steward more by courtesy than by his duties and he suspected that a new castellan would want his own man so that Elias would be reduced to no more than a body servant to his dying master. Desiree did not notice; heartened by Elias’s assurances, she broke the seal on the scroll and unrolled it. She stared at it for a moment and then held it out toward the steward.

  “I cannot read it, Elias!” Her voice trembled. “Some of the words look familiar but…but…”

  Of course, three years earlier Desiree could not read at all. One of the benefits of marriage to Frewyn, who was old enough to be her grandfather and had been her grandfather’s friend, was that he had taught her to read and write as well as many other things—so many that Desiree was essentially her own steward.

  Frewyn had taught her how to manage her income from the fisheries, direct the plantings of the demesne farms, oversee the breeding and slaughter of the livestock and know the law concerning what her serfs owed to her and what she owed to her overlord. She could read and cipher too so she was no longer at the mercy of any clerk. Now in all things save directing the defense of her keep and lands, Desiree could rule her estate.

  “It is in Latin!” Elias exclaimed.

  “Why would Sir Simon write in Latin to tell me who is to be my castellan and when he is coming?”

  “He would not,” Elias agreed.

  His original expression of anxiety had changed to relief when he saw the formal heading and signature. Now he was looking anxious again. What if Sir Simon was not the pattern of rectitude that Sir Frewyn believed he was? Elias turned and called to a manservant and sent him for the castle priest.

  Like Elias, Father Harold was another who had come from Polegate with Sir Frewyn, suspecting that his age and his piety might not be very welcome to Sir Frewyn’s son. He had been troubled too when Sir Frewyn married a girl nearly fifty years younger than himself. He had wanted to be near the man he had prayed for and prayed with if the marriage turned sour.

  Polegate was a large and prosperous holding. Father Harold had been charged with all the reading and writing and keeping of accounts. Thus he was learned compared with most village priests and fluent in Latin. He recognized the formal summons for what it was at once.

  “It is from the sheriff, Sir Simon Lemagne, and is an order that Exceat be made ready to resist any attempt at invasion from France.”

  “Made ready to resist invasion!” Desiree echoed. “How? What am I to do?”

  Both men’s heads turned to the other end of the lesser hall, where the husk of a man was propped by many pillows in a high-backed chair near the fire. His head lolled to the side and his arms lay limp on the arms of the chair. Desiree drew a deep breath and tears misted her bright brown eyes. She blinked them back, took the scroll from the priest and walked to her husband, taking one of his icy hands in hers and sitting down on the stool set near the chair.

  “Frewyn?” Desiree’s voice was soft, gentle, but her husband’s name was spoken very clearly.

  With infinite effort, Frewyn lifted his head the few inches necessary to permit him to look at his wife.

  “We have just received an order from the sheriff saying that we must make Exceat ready to resist an invasion.” She spoke slowly, sometimes Frewyn understood, sometimes he did not.

  “Cas… Cast…” His lips twisted and would not form the word, but his eyes were steadily fixed on hers and held understanding.

  “There is nothing in this scroll about any castellan. It is in Latin. Father Harold says it is just a formal order to guard against attack.” She hesitated, swallowing, trying to contain her fear because it only upset her helpless husband and made him less able to help her if he saw she was frightened. “I am very willing to do what is necessary.” Her voice trembled, and hearing her own uncertainty made her even more uncertain. “But I do not know what to do!” The last words came out in a muffled wail.

  The icy hand in hers moved a trifle, as if Frewyn wanted to grip her hand or pat it. His eyes closed. Desiree bit her lip, fearing that he had drifted away into sleep as he sometimes did, but a moment later his eyes opened again.

  “Who… Who signed?”

  Desiree unrolled the scroll and held it out at the right distance for Frewyn to read it. Sometimes he could not focus his eyes.

  “Si…himself… Wr…wri… Simon.”

  “I have already done that.”

  “Dep…deputy.” Frewyn swallowed. “Write Simon himself.” Once he got his tongue and lips working, speaking became easier. “Tell him about…me. Tell him you will…prepare the…the keep but do not know how…or what to tell the…the fisherfolk and that I…” A tear rolled down his sunken cheek. “I am too ill.”

  “But you are getting better! See how much you were able to tell me.” Desiree lifted his limp hand and kissed it.

  The fingers twitched again and the lips tw
itched too as if trying for a smile, but then Frewyn’s expression took on a look of pained concentration. “Elias knows how to…to stuff and garnish…a keep for war. That much…you can do. At worst…if invasion comes before we…we are ready, we can close…up the…keep and be safe.”

  “Could Paul come, just for a few days?”

  Frewyn’s eyes were closing. He forced them open. “He must have…his own orders…to obey. After he is prepared…may be too…late.”

  Desiree felt the utter flaccidity in the hand she held and saw Frewyn’s head list to the side. She bit her lip and let the tears roll down her cheeks. She had upset him and his mind had slipped away. What a fool she was to show how frightened and how desperate she was by asking for Paul.

  Paul had been quite nasty about the dower property Frewyn settled on her. Perhaps Paul was not greedy and had only been trying to protect his father, who, he feared, had entered his dotage, marrying a pretty young girl when he was nearly three score. But how Paul could have suspected her of marrying Frewyn for profit! She had been only fourteen years old. Imagine Paul telling his father that she was a seductress and would make a fool and a laughingstock of him!

  After a moment Desiree sighed and put aside her anger. After all, when Exceat had been threatened by Nicolaus of Lewes, Paul had come promptly with an armed force from Polegate and driven Nicolaus away. And he had been much pleasanter when he saw that his father was content, not fawning on his new wife, but teasing her and laughing with her as if she were a child. Anyway, Paul would have been better than some totally unknown castellan.

  Gently, Desiree squeezed Frewyn’s hand and tried to rouse him, but he did not respond and she sighed and placed his hand carefully in a comfortable position. She sat for a few moments longer, remembering her reluctance to have a strange man set over her to order her lands as he pleased—even if it was to her benefit.

  Then she sighed again. Doubtless Frewyn knew best. In time of war likely everything would be different. She rose and went to join Elias and Father Harold and related to them what Frewyn had said. Elias did not look happy, but the priest nodded.

  “Will you write or do you wish me to write for you?” Father Harold asked.

  “I will… No, there is no reason to tell the world that I can read and write. Let it be thought that I am as ignorant as any other woman. So we will know the sooner the intentions of our overseer.”

  “Sir Simon is a good man,” the priest protested.

  “So I have heard and so I hope. Still, it does no harm to be cautious. You write, Father. Be sure to explain to Sir Simon what has befallen Frewyn and tell him that I am stuffing and garnishing my keep against siege, but that I know not how to prepare it for war in terms of men and arms. Tell him too that the fishing villages of Seaford and Cuckhaven are bound to Exceat and that Cuckhaven guards the mouth of the Cuckmere River.”

  Elias and the priest smiled. “You have a good grasp of what is important, my lady,” the steward said. “It is a pity my master had no time to teach you the arts of war.”

  “I think so too,” Desiree said. “If I knew what to tell Godric, he could carry out my orders and we would not need to have a stranger put over us.”

  Sir Alexandre Baudoin sat staring into the flames of the roaring fire of winter toying with a cup of ale. Alternately he blamed himself for lack of faith and worried about his future. He should have faith. He had already been fortunate beyond expectation. His uncle, Sir Simon Lemagne, had more than welcomed him; he had fulfilled every dream.

  After suitable testing, he had been knighted by the first nobleman of England, William Marshall, Earl of Pembroke. His uncle had assigned to him tasks usually only given to a trusted liege man and made no complaint about how those tasks had been completed, but…cold coursed down Alex’s back despite the heat of the hearth…he had not been asked to swear fealty or been taken into Simon’s household.

  Had he somehow failed Simon’s expectations? Alex began to review the months since he had arrived at Roselynde, penniless, friendless and on a broken-down horse. Memory, unbidden, took him further back, back to why he had come to Roselynde…back to his mother’s death. Then, temporarily, old sorrow wiped out his present fears.

  He had been his mother’s last child, her comfort and her favorite. That had mostly brought him nothing but trouble because his four elder brothers had combined two and three at a time against him. He was black-and-blue most of the time and sometimes hurt worse, but he learned to defend himself so well that Sir Simon had taught him to joust and deemed him worthy of knighthood. And the comfort he had given his mother by his attention to her had been well repaid. Two days before she died she had given him a letter and told Alex that when she was dead he should go to England, to Roselynde Keep, and find there Sir Simon Lemagne, her youngest brother.

  Memory jumped ahead replaying the scene of his meeting with his Uncle Simon as if he were living it again. The castle steward had led him to the open doorway of such a wall chamber as he had never seen before. Wall chambers were dark and dank, they smelled of must and mold and the greasy smoke of burning torches. Not this one. Rich. His uncle must be very rich. Scented wax tapers burned on the table at which Simon worked and in sconces on the walls so that the chamber was bright and sweet smelling. Two braziers of glowing charcoal warmed the air. And there was a lady standing beside the table.

  Instinctively, Alex bowed and then wondered if he should have. She was so young, less than half his uncle’s age, he thought, and quite beautiful. Could this be Lady Alinor?

  She laughed when she saw him and he saw her eyes take in his shabby cloak, his stained and worn surcoat, but then she said, inexplicably, “Ah, well. This one at least is innocent. He cannot have been born thirty years ago. And he seems to have suffered the same treatment you did. Put out so the land would not have to be divided.”

  Then Alex understood that she must have been thinking back to when Simon Lemagne had left his father’s lands to win a livelihood for himself. He started slightly when, from the doorway behind him, the steward said his name. His uncle nodded.

  “So you are Marie’s son,” Simon said to Alex. “I hope she is well.”

  The mention of his mother reawakened grief, but he managed to say, “No, my lord, my mother is… She died in November. She took a chill in the rains and…” Alex swallowed, tried to steady his voice, which had developed a tremor. “And she never recovered.”

  “I am sorry to hear that. My memories of Marie are dim—she was the eldest of us and I the youngest—but what remains is a feeling of…gentleness, kindness.”

  Alex swallowed hard again and nodded without speaking. His uncle gestured for him to come farther into the room and then pointed at a stool at the end of the table. Alex bowed acknowledgment, but crossed the room to hand Simon a folded and sealed parchment.

  “When my mother knew she would not recover, she bade me seek you out and give you this letter.”

  Simon nodded and cracked the wax seal. Alinor came around the table to where she could read over his shoulder. Alex was surprised at Simon’s indifference to her boldness and to her interest since he assumed she, like most women, was illiterate. His mother had been; the priest had written the letter for her. However, when Alinor put her finger on a word and asked Simon what that was, Alex was barely able to keep from letting his mouth drop open. Lady Alinor sounded annoyed, as if reading were an easy thing and she did not expect to find a word she did not know.

  Alex saw surprise dawn on Simon’s face, but he grinned, then sighed and shook his head. “I’d forgotten,” he said. “It was something I used to say to Marie when I was a baby.” He sighed again. “I suppose she hoped I would remember and pass forward her kindness to me when I was a babe. It means begging favor.”

  Alinor nodded and bent forward to read again, but the hand she had rested on her husband’s shoulder slid up and around and tickled the back of his neck. She finished the letter and bent farther forward to kiss him. Whatever the difference in the
ir ages, Alex realized, Lady Alinor loved her husband, more than loved him—she desired him. Alex could feel himself flush and saw that Simon had reddened too.

  “Alinor!” he protested…but he did not push her away.

  It seemed that Uncle Simon was modest and Lady Alinor not. She laughed, but desisted from fondling him and said, “So your sister is counting on your sympathy for a son in the same position you were.”

  “Or she knew we would be needing men… No, that is not possible. In November Richard was still free…at least I think—”

  “My lord,” Alex said, “if you are thinking that my mother knew anything about the troubles between England and France, it is not so. She was a woman and cared only for Lessai and her family.”

  Alinor snorted. “I am a woman, and I care only for Roselynde and my husband, but Roselynde does not stand alone in an empty world. What happens in the rest of the realm—indeed, in France and the Holy Roman Empire and Italy and the Holy Land, all might affect Roselynde.”

  Alex looked nervously at Simon, expecting him to erupt and put his wife in her place. He was embarrassed, he did not wish to be present at Lady Alinor’s humiliation and beyond that had no idea what he could or should do if Simon chose physically to punish his wife for her temerity. He drew a breath to protest harshness before he realized that Simon was not in the least put out by Alinor’s remark.

  “Well, yes,” his uncle said, twisting to look up at his wife. “But you are not considering that Lessai—if I remember aright—is a bit like Iford. It is a solid place and has a good income from fishing and from fertile fields in the interior—but it does not command miles of seafront nor did my sister’s husband have any other property. It would be highly unlikely that any party would consider holding Lessai either an advantage or a danger, so unless a neighbor goes to war, no one will trouble Lessai. Whereas Roselynde—”