“Is this a new fool you have ensnared to help you flee justice?” Maigrat asked.
“Let it lie, Nigel,” Gisele murmured when he took a step toward Maigrat. “It is not worth your trouble.” She looked at her cousin. “Some people actually pause to listen to my tale, and do not judge me solely on what the DeVeaux said. It is most sad that few of those can be found within my own family. Tell Guy I will let him know when I am safely away,” she added as she walked out of the kitchen.
Gisele said nothing as she and Nigel returned to their horses, sheltered their faces with the hoods of their cloaks, and rode away from her cousin’sdemanse. She was too choked with hurt and her own stung pride to say a word. It was almost dark by the time she pulled herself free of that emotional quagmire to look around. A moment later, Nigel signaled her to halt.
“We will camp here for the night,” he said, as he dismounted. “’Tis sheltered enough to hide us but not so enclosed that it could become a trap, and there is water near at hand.”
She nodded and dismounted. Silence reigned as they tended to their horses and built a fire. It was not until they had filled their bellies with Maigrat’s bread and cheese that Gisele sensed Nigel had had enough of silence. She looked up from the fire she had been staring into to catch him moving closer to her. He smiled faintly and held out the wineskin.
“I think ’tis time ye told me the truth,” he said quietly as she drank.
“Which truth? Mine, or the one so many others choose to believe?” She grimaced and took another drink of wine as she heard the bitterness in her voice.
“Just tell me what ye see as the truth. I believe I have the wit to judge for myself.”
“I wed Lord DeVeau nearly a year and a half ago. Oh, I protested the marriage in every way I could, but none would heed me or help me. He was of good family, a powerful family with a heavy purse. Such an honored knight could not be as evil as the rumors said he was.”
“But ye believed the rumors.”
“There were too many rumors, too many stories of his evil, for them all to be lies.”
“So, ye were forced to the altar.”
She had barely begun her tale and yet he could already see the pain it caused her. Nigel was tempted to tell her it did not matter, that she did not have to continue, but he bit back the words. He had to know what he was involved in. It would be hard enough to keep her safe until they reached Scotland. It would only be more difficult if he did not know why she was running, and from whom.
“I was. On my wedding night I realized that the rumors were true.” She expelled a short, unsteady laugh. “The rumors had not even begun to reveal the beast that was my husband. I again turned to my family, but they shrugged aside my pleas and stories as the fancies of a new bride. My only salvation came in the fact that my husband soon grew bored with me. Oh, he still insisted on bedding his wife, on making me the kind of wife he thought he needed, but the times he sought me out grew less and less very quickly. I was to be the breeder of his heirs. Aside from that, if I kept quiet and out of his sight he paid little heed to me. There were other women to pursue.”
Nigel found himself wishing that DeVeau was still alive so that he might kill him. She made no clear accusations, talked of how she was treated in subtleties, but he knew all too well the brutality she must have endured. The lingering horror of it could still be heard in her soft, trembling voice. He put his arm around her shoulders and felt her tense, but when she did not pull away he continued to hold her.
“My marriage fell into a pattern. He would beat me, bed me, and then leave me be for a while so long as I did not intrude. Becoming a shadow was difficult for me.”
“Aye, I can imagine. Ye arenae the sort of woman who wishes to be so meek.”
“He made me want it. I continued to try to gain the help of my family and to believe I was starting to get them to listen to me. I fear I did not help my cause by occasionally wishing the man dead, even saying that if someone did not free me of this torment soon I would free myself.”
Gisele felt Nigel’s arm tighten around her shoulders and fought the fear rising up within her, the fear she had learned in DeVeau’s hands. Nigel was merely offering an innocent comfort. Lurking right beside the fear was a sense of safety, of comfort, and she struggled to grasp that and push the blind fear away. It did feel good to be held gently by such a strong, handsome man, and she refused to let DeVeau steal her ability to enjoy that.
“Did no one seek proof of what ye said? Look at your bruises?”
“I was too ashamed to show them much proof.”
“Ye had naught to be ashamed of.”
“Mayhap. I was not a sweet child, and had grown into a woman cursed with a quick and often sharp tongue. I believe they thought I was finally getting the discipline no one had given me before. There were insults and injuries I could not bring myself to speak of. Private injuries,” she added in a whisper. “As the sixth month of my marriage began I was girding myself to bear all to my family. I realize now that one thing which had kept me silent was a fear that even those insults and brutalities would not turn them to my side. Then someone took the decision out of my hands.”
“Your husband was killed.”
“Oui, murdered. My husband felt all women were his for the taking. He took a young maid, a local farmer’s daughter. He brutalized her and left her near to death. The farmer could get no one to exact justice for this crime, so he and his family took justice into their own hands. They found my husband sprawled in a drunken stupor upon his bed and cut his throat, then mutilated him.”
“Mutilated him?”
Gisele blushed and stared into the fire. “They cut off his manhood and choked him with it. In truth, I think they did that first, then cut his throat. I found the body and there was a look upon his face that told me he did not die easily. For his crime, I think that is the punishment they would have exacted.”
“Aye, a horrible way to die but ye are right, it fits the crime. And the DeVeaux and your own family think ye did that?”
“Well, I fear I did threaten such gruesome things from time to time. They had already begun to watch me closely. I knew the moment I saw DeVeau lying there, I just knew, they would blame me. It may not have been wise but I ran, as swiftly as I could. I am certain some of the servants suffered for my escape, as the DeVeaux would have felt they had to have seen me leave. They did, and they did nothing to stop me. I ran straight to my family.”
“Only to find that they wouldnae help you.”
