ar away, to the southeast of Paris, Margaux de Montvieux was troubled. ’Twas some commentary on the mood of Rowan’s foster mother that she found herself within Chateau Montvieux’s chapel and that her steps turned in the direction of the altar. Though she sought solace of a kind, ’twas not absolution of a religious nature that would do.
Margaux had been trained young to apologize to her father directly, without evasion or delay. His death changed naught but the location where that apology was rendered.
The weight of her legacy hung heavy on this day and ’twas, Margaux knew, because she had done naught right. She strode to the altar in the chapel, pausing long enough on the threshold of a darkened doorway to take a flickering torch in her hand.
The golden light spilled down the curling staircase before her, making her path look more welcoming than she knew it was. With cane and torch, Margaux had no hand to steady herself upon the wall, and she was doubly wary of the crooked flagstones underfoot.
She would have to have them reset again, lest she take a fall as she had once before. Her cursed hip had never healed aright, but that was no excuse for catering to its complaints. The joint ached as she descended, as if ’twould protest her return to this place, but Margaux had other matters on her mind. She could have called for aid on this day, but that would have interfered with her privacy.
She gritted her teeth and descended, one careful step at a time. The staircase wound tightly, the opening to the chapel lost to the shadows behind by the time she had taken half a dozen steps. Margaux shivered, though not due to memories of that fall. Though she would have admitted it to none, she dreaded coming to the crypt, just as she had dreaded going to her father as a child.
All the same, she could not conceive of staying away.
Her father demanded her presence, as commandingly as if he still drew breath. Her father missed no fault, he never had. No misdemeanor went unpunished, no slight went without remark.
Margaux came to a halt at the foot of the stairs, leaned heavily on her cane, and stared at her father’s tomb. Beyond the stone sarcophagus lurked the shadow of another—that of her grandfather—and behind that was yet another. She needed no further reminder that the lineage of Montvieux culminated in her—and ended with her.
Margaux lifted the torch higher, willing the light to banish the shadows lurking in the corners of this place. ’Twas damp again, the must making her nose twitch.
Aye, the river had risen high last spring. That caprice of the season felt like another failure, another inadequacy, another instance of a sole daughter failing to measure up to the expectations of her lineage.
Margaux realized suddenly that she had loathed her father, almost as much as she had revered him. Was that the gift of age, that all should become ambiguous?
She lifted her chin and stepped farther into the crypt, realizing even as she did so that it was foolish to try to impress her father with bravado. He was naught but dust and bones after all these years, and even in life, he had not been one apt to be deceived.
She slid a hand across the sarcophagus and found it fitting that he should slumber forever thus, encased in stone as set and as cold as he had always been.
Then she chided herself for her impertinence. Just the measurement of the sarcophagus reminded her of how tall he had been, how broad and strong, how magnificent his booming laughter, how terrifying his anger. She rubbed a fingertip along the edge of the stone and felt tears prick at her eyes.
Margaux blinked quickly and composed herself. She never cried. She slipped the torch into the sconce to one side and eased down on to her knees, wincing at the pain that shot through her hip. She braced both hands on the head of her cane, inclined her head, and submitted to the overwhelming tide of her failure.
She had failed Montvieux. She had failed her father. She had failed the legacy of the ages, and she had done so even more thoroughly than her father had ever feared. There was no son to seize the reins of power, no blood heir to rule this estate, so long the pride of her family.
Margaux had sacrificed everything for Montvieux, and, in the end, she had only Montvieux to show for it.
It had proven to be precious little consolation. Alone with only her father’s tomb as her witness—and that of his father and his father before him—Margaux permitted herself to cry. She did so silently, her shoulders shaking as the tears rolled down her face.
She had fulfilled every dire prediction her father had ever made. Despite herself. And how she hated that, in the end, he had called the matter right.
Margaux truly had not been as good as a son.
She was so lost in her misery that she did not hear the scrape of a boot on the stairs behind her. ’Twas only when a man cleared his throat that her head shot up. When she saw who ’twas, she struggled to her feet, hoping against hope that the torchlight hid her tears.
“Gavin,” she managed to say with a measure of her usual reserve.
For indeed, none other than Gavin Fitzgerald, the spouse she had taken hastily and nigh as hastily regretted, stood framed in the doorway behind. The man she had wed to defy her father, the man she refused to divorce lest she grant her sire another complaint against her, had returned.
God only knew what he wanted from her.
“Tears, Margaux?” Gavin shook his head and took a step closer. He was a rough man, and age had done naught to aid his looks. His complexion was tanned as dark as a peasant’s and nearly as thoroughly lined. His brown hair was shot with silver these days and was thinner on the top than when she had last seen him.
But all the same, there was a certain vigor about him. Indeed, he looked cursedly hale. And that shrewdness still lingered in his eyes. Margaux braced herself for a verbal sparring.
“ ’Tis unlike you to weep for anything,” he continued, rapping his knuckles on her father’s tomb with annoying familiarity. “Especially this old bastard.”
Margaux stiffened. “You will not speak of my father this way.”
“Aye, ’tis too late for that.” Gavin pursed his lips. “I wish I had told him what I thought of him whilst there was a chance.”
“He thought naught of you!”
“Aye. He made that clear.”
Their gazes met for a long moment and Margaux abruptly recalled another reason she had wed Gavin Fitzgerald. There was something ruthless about him, to be sure, a self-motivated streak that was not unfamiliar to anyone raised at Montvieux.
But in Gavin, that selfishness found its greatest outlet in passion. There was no compromise with him abed—he wanted all the pleasure he could sample and he demanded that she match him touch for touch. Margaux’s heart skipped a beat and she quickly averted her face from unwelcome reminders of the past.
“What do you want?” she asked sharply. “Why have you returned here after all these years?”
She felt rather than saw Gavin fold his arms across his chest. “Is it so unsuitable to visit one’s spouse?”
“You are no longer my spouse!” Margaux spat. “It has been over twenty years since I cast you out, and you still are not welcome in this place!”
“Because I ask questions you would rather not answer?”
“Because you are a wretched liar! Because you despoil all you touch, like a vagrant dog!” She pointed imperially to the portal. “Get out.”
But Gavin smiled slowly. His eyes glinted and there was a knowingness in his smile that quickened her blood. “Ah, Margaux, I always recalled the fire in your eyes. ’Tis good to see that has not changed.”
Margaux backed away hastily, afraid he would touch her, then regretted showing such weakness when he obviously noted the gesture. “You are not worthy of me, you never were.”
“But you wed me all the same.” He knocked on her father’s tomb again, as if he would awaken that man. “Tell me, Margaux, how much did your choice have to do with me—and how much with him?”
He was too perceptive by half. ’Twas one of the things she had always loathed about Gavin.
That and his need to utter whatever words came to his lips. Oh, he was rough and crude, a barbarian unworthy even to kiss her slippers.
Margaux recalled him kissing her slippers once when she had made such a charge, and all that had ensued. She felt her cheeks heat. “You dare overmuch!”
He chuckled, not in the least bit insulted. “ ’Tis why we are two of a kind.”
Margaux gasped in outrage, appalled that he should compare them favorably. “We have naught in common,” she snapped. “I wed you because I wanted one thing of you and one thing alone. Even that, you were knave enough to steal from me.”
“That,” Gavin echoed, enunciating the word clearly. “No doubt our son Burke would be pleased to know that he was but a trinket you desired above all else.” He took a step forward. “Does he know that you loved him only for his prick, for his future as the next Lord de Montvieux?”
Margaux folded her arms across her chest. “Get out.”
But Gavin raised a finger, feigning recollection. “Oh, he does know, does he not? Is that not why he declined to accept suzerainty of Montvieux? The only son you ever wanted and he refused the legacy you had so carefully saved for him.” He folded his arms across his chest in turn and clicked his tongue, surveying her with far too much satisfaction in his gaze.
“He spurned you first!”
Gavin inclined his head. “Aye, that he did. In the end, we have even more in common.”
“You poisoned his thinking!” Margaux cried. “You turned my boy against me! You stole my son from me.”
“You have more than one son, Margaux.”
“Not with the blood of Montvieux in his veins. Luc is your son by your first wife and Rowan is your bastard.”
“You raised Rowan.”
“The crime of the parents is not the burden of the son. ’Twas not his fault he was born of a whore and cur.”
Gavin chuckled to himself. “Ah, your tongue is still as sharp as a viper’s kiss. I always did love that about you.”
“Liar! You loved naught in me!”
He sobered and watched her carefully. “You do me disservice.”
“As you did me!” Margaux settled her weight on her cane and let her anger loose. “You twisted Burke to your view, you tried to make a mercenary of him that he might follow in your lead and be damned to hell fast behind you!”
“Nay, Margaux.” Gavin shook his head. “I might have tried,” he admitted softly, his gaze searching hers. “But in the end, there was too much of you in his blood.”
The unexpected words hung between them. “Why are you here?” Margaux demanded, turning hastily away. She saw his shrug from the periphery of her vision.
“I did not know where else to go,” Gavin admitted, his uncharacteristic thoughtfulness making Margaux glance again his way. He frowned at his finger, tapping it against the cold stone. “ ’Tis unsettling to have the purpose of one’s days and nights snatched away.” He looked up suddenly, his gaze snaring hers, and Margaux turned away that he might not see how affected she was by his mood. “It makes a man wonder whether he was wrong.”
But Margaux had no reassurance for her mercenary spouse. “They have tempted even Rowan to leave me, with some fool wager,” she declared instead, her words heated. “Now there is not even laughter to be found in this hall—nor will there ever be, if he does not return.”
Gavin was clearly unsurprised by this tale. “Rowan will return.” He smiled. “He loves the scraps that fall from your hand too much.”
“Rowan may not have a choice,” Margaux snapped. “You know what a fool that boy is when he believes he can win a challenge. Naught stands in his way!”
“You fret for him.” The amusement lurking in his words did naught to appease her.
Margaux shot a lethal glance his way. “I fret for no man.”
Gavin chuckled and leaned a hip against the stone. “I knew you cared for Rowan. Were Rowan your own fruit, I daresay you would love him best of all.”
Margaux was appalled by the very suggestion. “Lineage is not the point! Rowan will die and I shall never see him again!”
“The boy has more wits than that.” Gavin shrugged. “You might even approve of his bride. You do have a fondness for heiresses.”
’Twas galling that he could simply appear and know as much as she did of matters. Margaux averted her face. “I suppose you have heard all the news, then.”
Gavin shrugged. “I paused in the village and bought a round of ale.”
But there was one thing he did not know, could not know from there. “Did they tell you that Burke’s Alys is with child?”
His surprise was obvious and satisfactory. “Nay. When?”
“In the spring.”
“They spoke of it already? ’Tis only past midsummer.”
“They did not speak of it,” Margaux said bitterly. “They did not need to. I know Burke, I know him as a woman knows her son, and I saw it in his manner to his wife.” She cast Gavin a dark glance. “Do you know what this means?”
He lifted one brow. “That you will be a grandmother?”
She exhaled in frustration. “Use your wits, Gavin! It means that Burke will never return to Montvieux.”
And the cur laughed. “Margaux! Surely you already knew as much?” Gavin held Margaux’s gaze when she glanced up. “The boy took from both of us and grew to become his own man, to make a life of his own choices.”
Margaux snorted. “So now you are a philosopher.” She sneered. “You who can read naught and cannot make a sum or even sign your own name.” She paced across the low vault. “I am not only a failure in my father’s eyes, but blind to the truth in the eyes of my unlettered oaf of a spouse.”
Gavin snorted in turn, the sound so feeding Margaux’s annoyance that she crossed the room to stand before him.
“A failure! Do you understand the import of that? I have proven my father perfectly aright in this. I have not proven to be as good as a son!” She flung out her hand. “A son. ’Twas the only thing he wanted and the only thing I could not be. This legacy will crumble to dust when I die and ’tis all my fault!”
Gavin clicked his tongue. “So, an education does not necessarily ensure one cannot become a fool.”
His implication angered Margaux as naught else could have done. Fury fired through her like quicksilver, for he had never understood anything of merit.
Her palm cracked loudly against his cheek, the sound echoing loud in the stone room. Gavin turned his head from the force of the blow, he blinked, he opened his mouth and closed it again.
Margaux’s hand shook as it fell back to her side. She had never struck another, she had certainly never struck this man, and she feared belatedly what he would do.
But she would not back down.
To her surprise, when Gavin met her gaze, a slow smile eased across his lips. He had a roguish charm, a rough allure that Margaux had never been able to deny. Indeed, he was like an animal in his passions, wild and untamed, oblivious to everything but what he wanted in that moment.
She saw in his eyes that he wanted her.
A part of Margaux admired his bold desire. Even now, after all these years, that glint in his eye awakened a flicker of white heat that reminded her what it had been like to be young.
With Gavin.
“I invite you, my lady wife, to vent your anger upon me. You know full well that I can answer to your passion as none other.”
“Knave!”
Gavin stepped closer and Margaux realized suddenly that he was clean. Aye, her nose told no lie. He had washed to meet with her, a fact not without portent.
Had he returned to Montvieux to court her anew?
She stared into his eyes, incredulous, as his smile broadened. “I should even hold you, if you should cry beneath the burden of the old bastard’s expectations.” He touched his finger to his lips. “And I should tell none of what I witnessed.”
She could not summon a protest to her lips. Just the clean smell of his skin was enough to remind her of their bodies tangled together, of the way they had nearly devoured each other in their desire, of the feel of his tongue upon her flesh. He would do anything for pleasure, he would anything to please her.
He had agreed, many years ago, to wash before he came to her bed. When he lifted his fingertip from his own lips and touched it to hers, her knees weakened at the rough edge against her lips.
“Why are you here?” she demanded, her voice more breathless than was her wont.
Gavin’s smile widened. “I wanted to see you,” he said with quiet heat. “I needed to know whether you took Burke’s choice better than I.” He swallowed. “But mostly, I needed to know whether there was still fire in Margaux de Montvieux’s eyes.”
“You came to steal Montvieux,” she charged.
But he laughed beneath his breath. “Nay, Margaux. Though ’tis true I once thought to seize the prize of Montvieux by wedding you, I know now that Montvieux will never be mine. It matters naught.”
“You came to die in comfort, to live out your days here at Montvieux.”
Gavin shook his head. “Nay. I will not stay.”
Margaux could not comprehend the softening in him. Was it truly as he declared? “You lust for Montvieux alone,” she charged, only half certain that was the truth. “I knew your intent when we were wed and I know it now.”
“And you wanted naught but a son from me.” Gavin arched a brow. “Ours was not a match wrought of love or even of dynastic alliance, Margaux, and we are each as guilty as the other in that. At least we were equals, as few others can say.”
Margaux looked away, because there was no argument she could make to the truth.
“But in the end, despite all that has passed between us and all the women I have lain with, ’tis the memory of you that haunts me.”
Margaux tried to be skeptical. “And all the riches you left behind, no doubt.”
“Aye,” Gavin agreed with startling ease. “And you were the richest of them all, though I realized the truth too late.” With that, he took a quick step to close the distance between them, framed her face in his hands, and kissed her.
’Twas not an embrace born of finesse, nor was his manner filled with grace. ’Twas not his way. But there was a hunger there, a hunger Margaux well recalled, a hunger she had never been able to deny or to resist.
Because that same hunger burned within herself. In that, he was right—they both accepted no compromise abed. They both were greedy for pleasure. And when they touched, some alchemy made them insatiable for each other, driven to grant and seize as much pleasure as could be wrung from the moment. Margaux leaned against Gavin, closed her eyes, and abandoned herself to sensation, admitting only to herself that she had missed this.
She had missed him.
If he did not intend to stay, she had best make the moment count. When Gavin finally lifted his head, her lips felt bruised from his devouring kiss. His eyes had darkened, as always they did in desire, and Margaux felt younger than she had in weeks. Perhaps years.
“Take me to your bed, Margaux,” he said quietly. “For all we had, and all we never had.”
Margaux laughed, the weight of failure and years shed by that single kiss. “Nay,” she said, savoring her spouse’s surprise. “I would not wait so long as that.”
“Here?” he demanded, incredulous.
“You have a fine wool cloak and I see ’tis lined with fur.” Margaux permitted herself to smile. “And ’tis time that I did something to shock him once again.” She rapped her cane on the sarcophagus to make her point.
Gavin began to laugh. Margaux stepped into his embrace and ensured he had naught to laugh about for a long time.
’Twas just before the dawn the next morn when Gavin Fitzgerald rose from his wife’s bed. They had indeed ended up there, when joints and old bones complained overmuch of the hard flagstones, despite the luxury of that fur-lined cloak.
He shook his head as he stared down at Margaux, her strength of will formidable even in sleep. Her hair had turned from ebony to silver, her once-smooth flesh was lined, her lips had thinned. But she was still the beauty he once had glimpsed and then had wanted so badly that he ached.
He had never met a woman like her.
He knew he never would again.
Yet she believed she was a failure. That was enough to break even his hardened old heart. He could not tell her that he saw the old bastard in the steel of her spine, in the glint in her eye, in her determination to see her will done at all costs.
In her desire to shackle her child to the servitude of her dream.
Nay, that truth would be too cruel, even for Margaux. Gavin dressed quickly, intending only to slip away from a place where he had never been welcome, his curiosity sated. But Margaux’s insistence upon her own failure echoed in his thoughts.
She had confided in him, as he had never known her to confide in another. He felt as if she would compel him to set matters to rights, as if she alone believed he could accomplish anything of merit. As if she still would demand of him the only thing she had ever said that she desired.
An heir for Montvieux.
How like Margaux to keep a reckoning, to remind him of his debt unpaid.
It would have been simple for the man he once had been to turn away. But Gavin was not the man he had been. He had fought all his life to create a fitting legacy for Burke, for the son he had always dreamed of having, only to have Burke decline the gift.
That refusal had shaken Gavin and forced him to reconsider all he had held dear. Now it seemed that he had matters backways ’round, as if he had always chased what in the end had no merit at all.
And abandoned what might have been his greatest treasures.
Gavin lingered when he should have gone, watching the dawn’s fingers creep through the window and paint a rosy hue over his wife’s flesh. It made her look like a girl again, though, indeed, Margaux had never been like other young girls.
There was some truth in her accusation that he had stolen Burke from her.
There was more truth in his reply that she had more than one son.
He had come to Montvieux, finding himself rootless, seeking some purpose, instinctively guessing that his estranged wife might hold the key. And she had indeed offered him a quest to guide his footsteps.
Aye, Gavin would ensure that Margaux did not confront the old bastard in the beyond as a failure, he would give purpose to his own days and make his last goal a noble one.
He would fetch Rowan back to Montvieux.
For Margaux.
His course decided, Gavin turned and left his lady’s chambers for the last time. He would never see her again, he knew it in his very bones. Though the knowledge saddened him, for once he had no complaints of how they parted.
’Twas probably the sole time he could have said as much about himself and Margaux—and that prompted Gavin to smile as he seldom had within the walls of Chateau Montvieux.
Even the clatter of his steed’s hoofbeats had faded by the time the sun crested the horizon and shone upon Margaux’s lonely prize.
But Gavin Fitzgerald never looked back.
