The Heir - Catherine Coulter [110]
My beloved Charles, even though he knows of the growing unrest, the now violent revolts of the rabble against us, he forces me to come. He keeps my baby here to ensure my return to England. You know he is furious over what he believes to be my family’s treachery. He wants the remainder of my promised dowry. Listen, my love, do not worry, for I have a plan that will free us forever from him. Once in France, I shall travel to the château . . .
Try as she might, Arabella could not make out the next few lines. They blurred into shadowy shapes. Who was this Charles, anyway? And this woman? She shook her head and skipped the smudged lines.
Though our little Gervaise cannot escape with us, I have learned to bear the pain of separation. At least he will know safety with my brother. Josette will post this, my last letter to you. Soon, my love, we will be together again. I know that we can escape him and rescue Elsbeth. We shall be rich, my darling, rich from his greed. A new life. Freedom. I trust in God and in you. Magdalaine.
Arabella sat quietly with the letter laying loosely in her fingers. She felt as if Magdalaine had come to her and unraveled the tangled, poignant threads of her short life. This man, Charles, was Magdalaine’s lover. Gervaise was their child. He was not the Comte de Trécassis, but a bastard. She reeled back then as it struck her. Magdalaine was also Elsbeth’s mother. Dear God. Elsbeth was his half-sister. Oh God, did he know? Surely not, even he could not be so evil. Of course, she was aware of the likeness of their features. But now she no longer saw it as the mere resemblance of cousins, but the deep inherited traits of brother and sister.
Poor Elsbeth. Dear God, she had to protect her sister. She couldn’t let her ever find out that she had made love with her own brother. It would destroy her.
Arabella jerked as the truth hit her. Her father’s first wife had been unfaithful to him. Indeed, she had borne a child before her marriage to him. Had the Trécassis family bribed her father with some fantastic sum to marry Magdalaine to save themselves from scandal? She looked down again at the letter. If only she could make out those yellowed blurred lines. She read once again.
“We shall be rich, my darling, rich from his greed.”
She sat silently for a long while, sorting through what she knew and what she could only guess at. She looked back at the skeleton, her eyes fastening on the bullet hole in his chest. She thought of the times her father had expressly forbidden her to explore the ruins. Was it simply because he had feared for her safety?
No.
Her father must have killed this man, Charles. A duel of honor—yes, it must have been a duel of honor. Her father was no murderer, no matter what, no.
She suddenly remembered that Magdalaine had died suddenly after her return from France. She felt her blood freeze in her veins. A hoarse sob broke from her throat. “No, God, please no. He did not kill her, too. He would not have. No, please.”
Yet the faded passionate words from so long ago were damning. Hate, pain, and suffering clutched at her from every word. Her only thought now was to protect her father’s name, to destroy this wretched letter. She jerked it up and with quivering fingers drew it near to the slender candle flame. She was not certain what stopped her, but she pulled the paper back, folded it again into a small square, and slipped it into the sole of her shoe.
The candle was burning low. It could not be much longer now. Gervaise said he would fetch help. Gervaise. An impostor, a liar. She remembered the strange thudding sound just before the stones over the doorway collapsed. Had he trapped her in here on purpose? Had he tried to kill her? If so, why? What in heaven’s name did he want?
The candle sputtered and died. Her voice caught on a sob as she was plunged into darkness, her only companion a long-dead man who had betrayed her father.
As Gervaise jerked open the great front doors of Evesham Abbey and burst into the entrance hall, he yelled, “Crupper, quickly,