A Choice of Secrets Page 5

  “I had to!” he shouted. “Did you hear what he said? Could you see his face? He was threatening blackmail, and he’d never have stopped with a minor position at court. So long as he was alive, he’d have power over us and Chloe would be in danger.”

  I began shaking and couldn’t stop. I kept seeing him ramming the dagger through Julian’s throat.

  “What happens now?” I asked, like a child. “What will we do?”

  “Nothing,” he answered. “Chloe will marry Christophe, and Christophe will live up to his end of the contract. He’ll send soldiers to guard our coastline.”

  “What if the child is a boy?”

  “Then it’s a boy.” He shook his head as if I were simple. “Nicole, the prospect of one bastard child inheriting the de Fiore lands and title is a small thing compared to the lives of our people. What do you think we live on? Our people grow food and raise livestock, and we take a share for ourselves and for our taxes to the king. If our people continue to be killed or taken as slaves and our villages burned, what will become of us? Have you thought on this?”

  He sounded as if the only thing that mattered to him was the comfort of our family and the preservation of our lands.

  “Do you love Chloe?” he asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Do you love me?”

  I looked up into his face, into his blue eyes. There were spatters of blood on his cheek. He’d need to wipe those away. “Yes,” I answered. I loved him. He was my brother.

  “Then you and I will keep Chloe’s secret, and you will keep mine.” He glanced back toward the river.

  I was beginning to hate secrets. Now, because of secrets, I would be complicit in Christophe’s marriage to a woman carrying a child that was not his own, and I was complicit in hiding a murder.

  But nothing in the world would cause me to bring harm to either Chloe or Erik.

  Nothing.

  * * * *

  Three days later, a farmer found Julian’s body downriver and brought it to the hunting hall.

  When Chloe heard, she lost her serene composure and ran to the hall. I ran after her, but she was faster, and when I arrived, I saw Julian’s still-wet body laid out on a table. His face and hands were completely white. Erik was holding Chloe to keep her away from touching the corpse.

  After fighting him for a few moments, she sagged and wept into his chest.

  The servants appeared taken aback by her raw sorrow, and both my parents were coming through the door.

  Erik held Chloe and looked to my mother. “She’s distraught. He had become a noble friend of our family, and now we must tell his father he died while under our protection.”

  Mother hurried forward and gently took Chloe from him. “Oh, my darling girl. You mustn’t distress yourself. This was a tragic accident.”

  I stood back in silence, watching Erik.

  My father strode to the body and looked down. “This was no accident.”

  Julian was a terrible sight with his white face bloated and the ugly wound at the base of his throat.

  Erik looked down as well. “I’ve heard he owed several of the guards large sums of money. Would you like me conduct an investigation?”

  Father glanced back at me and then to my mother and Chloe.

  “Your sisters and mother should not be exposed to this sight,” he told Erik. Then he spoke gently to my mother. “My lady, please take them both out.”

  Nodding, she drew Chloe toward the door. “Nicole, come.”

  Together the three of us went outside.

  “Chloe is delicate and she should not have seen that,” Mother said. “Nicole, are you all right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good. We will need your strength.”

  She and I had tended to wounded guards and villagers. She thought me strong. But today, I didn’t feel strong. My brother was standing over the body of a man he’d killed, and he’d just offered to begin an investigation.

  The only blessing here was that my parents thought Chloe’s emotional state was due to shock. Together, Mother and I took her to her room and put her in bed. She’d stopped weeping, but she said nothing and her eyes drifted like someone lost.

  “I’m going to the kitchen make her some tea,” Mother said. “Stay with her.”

  Once Mother left us, I crawled onto the bed and lay down behind Chloe, wrapping one arm around her and pulling her close.

  “I know you cared for him,” I whispered.

  “I loved him,” she whispered back.

  “I’m so sorry.”

  Reaching up, she gripped my hand.

  * * * *

  I made it through the next few weeks by caring for Chloe, and each day my resolution to protect her only grew. Erik had made the decision to protect both her and our family over Christophe, and now that this decision had been made, I was determined to follow it through.

  The day after the discovery of Julian’s death, my father and Erik placed his body into a wagon, and they rode out with several of our guards toward the Belledini estate. This type of news could not be delivered via proxy. But upon their return, my father explained that while Lord Belledini had been distraught, he’d not been overly surprised and related that Julian had long evaded other gambling debts.

  Erik launched into questioning several of the guards to whom Julian had owed money. Nothing came of this and the mystery went unsolved. My father launched into overseeing a new barracks and stable built down near the beach for the impending arrival of de Fiore soldiers.

  A week after this, Christophe arrived for his wedding.

  We all met him in the courtyard, but to my confusion, only his own guards accompanied him.

  “Your sister will not be attending?” my mother asked him, equally puzzled. “I’ve had the best guest room prepared for you and Chloe for tonight. But I reserved the second-best guest room for Mildreth.”

  I’d never met Lady Mildreth, as she had never visited, but she was all the immediate family Christophe had left. Surely she would come to his wedding.

  “No,” he answered. “She does not leave the island.”

  That might, we had a fine dinner of baked salmon and red potatoes in the gathering hall. Christophe barely spoke to me and the few times he glanced at me, I saw pain in his eyes. Chloe was serene and polite, but she spoke little and ate less.

  Their wedding took place the following day.

  Our gathering hall was decorated with dozens of white and yellow roses. A great feast had been prepared for a celebration after the ceremony. Father had brought in a magistrate all the way from Lascaùx, and a number of noble guests had traveled to see the happy event of this joining of the house of Montagna with the house of de Fiore.

  Christophe wore the blue tunic with the silver thread that I’d made for him. Chloe chose the emerald green silk that she’d worn to the banquet, for the last time she danced with Julian. She was still as slender as a river reed.

  They stood before a magistrate near the hearth of our gathering hall. All the guests stood behind them.

  “Does anyone have any reason why these two should not be joined in marriage?” asked the magistrate.

  My father and Erik both appeared tense.

  I had a knot in my stomach. There were a number of reasons the marriage should not take place, including the fact that Christophe had formally asked my father to replace Chloe with me…that Chloe was carrying another man’s child…and that Erik had murdered the other man.

  Yet the most important reason was that neither member of the couple wanted to share a lifetime with the other.

  Among our family, only my mother smiled. She knew Chloe was not in love with Christophe, but she believed they would come to treasure each other. My mother was possessed of a kind spirit.

  When no one offered an objection to the marriage, the ma
gistrate went on.

  “Do you, Christophe de Fiore, swear to love this woman, to protect her heart, to give her your loyalty, and to care for her all the days of your life?”

  “I swear,” Christophe answered.

  “Do you, Chloe Montagna, swear to love this man, to protect his heart, to give him your loyalty, and to care for him all the days of your life?”

  She hesitated. These were sacred vows, and she was promising to protect his heart and give him her loyalty.

  Standing beside me, my father watched her.

  “I swear,” Chloe said quietly.

  They were married.

  * * * *

  Two days later, Christophe had Chloe’s trunks packed into a wagon.

  Out in our courtyard, the new couple said their good-byes.

  “I’ll have two hundred troops sent as soon as we arrive home,” Christophe told my father. “They are good men, well-trained. Are the new barracks ready?”

  “They will be,” my father answered.

  I hugged Chloe, holding her tight, not knowing when I would see her again.

  “You will be the great lady of Whale’s Keep,” I whispered, “the envy of other women.”

  Pulling away to look at me, she tried to smile. “Yes. I will be that.” But then she embraced me again. “Write to me often.”

  “I will. I swear.”

  Christophe lifted her onto a horse and mounted his own.

  He glanced at me once, without saying good-bye, and I could still see pain in his eyes.

  Chapter 4

  Summer turned into autumn.

  Word arrived from Whale’s Keep that Chloe and Christophe were expecting a child in mid-spring. My parents rejoiced at this news. They sent gifts for the coming child and sweets for Chloe.

  Autumn turned into winter. We celebrated my eighteenth birthday. Then, before I knew it, winter was on the edge of turning into spring.

  I counted the months in my head.

  Although I wrote to Chloe several times a week, I had to wait until my father needed to send a messenger to Whale’s Keep before I could put my letters into a small packet for delivery. Still, when she wrote back, she always thanked me for having received numerous letters.

  She did not write nearly so much to me of her daily life, but she always asked me for more news of the family and life at the lodge. I began to worry that even after months in her new life, she was missing her home more than she had expected.

  And she was sorely missed here.

  Her absence left a hole that Mother and I did our best to fill, but neither of us were skilled in entertaining other noblewomen—or at hosting tea or embroidery parties to gossip. I began to realize that most of the other women found us rather odd. They commented on my mother’s “eccentric” habit of bringing medicines to our villagers. And Lady Richelle de Miennes once politely chastised my mother upon my obvious lack of education.

  Though Mother did not retaliate, I could see the barb set her teeth on edge. Later she said to me, “My girl. You are far more educated in the things that matter than her useless daughter.”

  Was I?

  As I found myself mourning the loss of Chloe, it would have been natural for me to turn to Erik for company and solace. But I didn’t. Something between us had been altered and I didn’t know if it would ever be altered back.

  I’d watched him murder a man without hesitation and then dump the body into a river.

  Keeping a secret was one thing. Living with it was another.

  But he and I pressed forward as best we could. The truly unsettling thing was that I wasn’t even sure he’d been wrong. Christophe’s soldiers had proven as good as promised. They rode up and down our coasts, and since their arrival they had stopped three landings by the strange, tall raiders who wore furs. Deaths had occurred on both sides, but my father said this risk was in the nature of choosing life as a soldier.

  Then one evening in late winter, not long before the dinner hour, a messenger arrived from Whale’s Keep, and Jenny brought a letter to my room.

  “Word from Lady Chloe.”

  “Oh, thank you, Jenny.” Hurrying over, I took the letter and sat down to read it. I’d not heard from Chloe in weeks and had been growing concerned.

  My dear Nicole,

  Although by Christophe’s reckoning, the child will not arrive until mid-spring, I am growing heavy somewhat early and find myself a little fearful of the coming birth.

  It would be a great comfort if you could convince Father to let you come and stay with me.

  I know I could face what’s to come if I had you with me.

  Love,

  Chloe

  I read this short missive several times. Chloe had never written me such a note. For her, this was the equivalent of begging. She was begging me to come. Closing my eyes, I thought on how alone she must feel, knowing her baby would arrive suspiciously early. Suddenly, I wished that before she’d left us last summer that I’d told her I knew, that I did not judge her, and that I would help her if need be.

  Though she’d have been mortified at first, later, she would not have felt completely alone. She’d have known she had someone on her side.

  Had I failed her by keeping my silence?

  I would not fail her now.

  At present there were no noble guests visiting the lodge—as few people traveled at this time of year—and so as opposed to eating in the gathering hall, our family had taken to meeting for dinner in our small private dining room near to the kitchens. None of us bothered to change into evening clothes, and Erik sometimes arrived in his armor and tabard.

  After hiding the letter, I donned a cloak, left my room, and made my way down the passage and out the back door. Two of the great log constructions at the lodge served as residence for my family, and the dining room and kitchens were in the second building.

  Going in the front doors, I headed through the entryway, past a staircase, and then through a tall archway into our dining room. Mother, Father, and Erik were already seated and I was the last to arrive.

  “Am I late?” I asked.

  “No, my girl,” Mother answered. “It’s been cold out today, and I think the rest of us were early.”

  “I’ve had a letter from Chloe,” I said. Since Erik was here—and I would need him in this matter—I decided not to waste any time. “She would like me to come and join her at Whale’s Keep until the baby comes.”

  My father blinked. “Travel to Whale’s Keep? Now? Certainly not. You’ve no idea what the crossing from the shore will be like at this time of year. It’s difficult enough in summer. I’ll not risk one daughter for another.”

  I remembered Christophe saying the only way to reach the island was by boat, and that the crossing was not easy at certain times of the year.

  But I turned my gaze to Erik and caught his eye. In a matter of seconds, the two of us spoke without needing words. He knew as well as I did that the child would come early, and Chloe would need someone there to help her convince the de Fiores nothing was amiss.

  “The weather has been unusually calm this month,” Erik said to my father, “and you know Chloe isn’t one to ask for help. If she’s asking for Nicole, she must be in need. I think we should allow Nicole to go. I can take a few days’ leave and escort her myself. I’m good in a boat and I’ll see her safely across.”

  Looking to my mother, I said, “Chloe is in a new home, surrounded by near-strangers and facing the prospect of childbirth. I can only imagine how she must feel. I would like to join her.”

  Though my mother still appeared somewhat uncertain, she nodded.

  “My lord,” she said to my father. “Erik will keep Nicole safe, and I agree Chloe would not ask unless she was feeling low indeed. She is in need of her sister.”

  Father frowned, but he seldom gainsaid my mother.


  The following day, I made arrangements to have my hens looked after, and then I began to pack.

  Mother came to help me and she brought a box of herbal medicines she’d made herself. “Take these along,” she said. “You may have need of them when Chloe’s time comes.”

  Mother and I had delivered many babies together and I knew what to do.

  “I will keep Chloe safe as her child comes into this world,” I promised.

  She grasped my hand. “I know you will.”

  * * * *

  Father sent a messenger ahead with news of our impending arrival—lest Christophe and Chloe be caught unawares by guests in late winter.

  Early on the morning of the third day following the arrival of Chloe’s letter, Erik and I set off with fifteen of our own guards, led by Corporal Devon.

  In spite of the cold air and in spite of my true reason for going, I found myself rather exhilarated as Erik rode beside me out the gates and up the northern path. I had never been on such a journey before.

  As if sensing my mood, he smiled at me. “It’s about time you saw something outside the lodge, or at least more than just villages filled with sick people.”

  I smiled back. I was grateful for his help in this, for his promise to protect me on the journey and to get me safely from the shore to the island. Perhaps we could become closer again. Nothing would ever be quite the same. I had seen him capable of violence, not on a battlefield or in self-defense, but of a personal nature. Yet he was on my side here, and on Chloe’s side, and it was hard not to see him as an ally and a friend.

  Whale’s Keep was a full day’s ride north.

  As we traveled, we had the forest on one side and the ocean on the other.

  “If there is still enough daylight when we arrive,” Erik said, “we’ll make the crossing by boat to the island. But if not, we’ll need to sleep at the boathouse or the barracks and wait for morning. I won’t risk crossing you over in the dark.”

  I was hoping to see Chloe tonight, but I understood his concerns for our safety.

  Though the air was cold, the day was fine, with blue sky and white clouds.