The Rose Of Lorraine Part 4

Clearly, she was still very much alive. There were things like virtual reality, but so far, this game bore no resemblence to any computer odyssy she had any knowledge of. It just didn't jibe.

Bella waited until she was alone to drop to her bare feet from the high bed. The hem of her nightgown floated down to the floor. She ran to the lone window and pressed her face close to the thick and hazy diamond panes of gla.s.s. They made it very difficult to see anything other than the gloomy overcast sky and the rain piddling down in zigzagging rivulets.

The stone wall was deep and thick, covered on the interior with smooth, painted plaster. The wooden sill and frame holding the window panes didn't have the smooth finish of normal millwork. It was rough and gouged. The iron latch had the appearance of being hand forged and it was rusty.

Bella twisted the latch, then pushed the heavy pane out as far as she could and leaned over the sill. She was in one of the cupola towers she'd seen on approaching the castle. The tower was situated at the corner of the inner ward above the manor house, very high off the ground.

This window looked down on the gatehouse that she thought she remembered entering. There was still daylight out doors, but it was fading fast.

Numerous crude lanterns provided some additonal light in various positions for the dozen sentries she counted posted on the allure. They were all in chain mail, sporting infamous English long bows for weaponry and appeared oblivious to the steady rain.

Beyond the castle walls, she could see no asphalt roads, no paved parking lots, no utility poles or wires strung along the landscape. There was nothing to see but raw, cleared land to the crest of the nearby hills. No highways, no restaurants with flas.h.i.+ng neon signs advertised their wares or prices. No cute tourists signs, no halogen lights brightened the gloomy twilight. No airplanes buzzed across the lowering sky. No satellite discs and definitely no television antennas poked up from the roof of any building in plain sight.

This was definitely not the England Bella had motored through that morning.

She didn't like the sight of the choppy, green, lichen- covered water in the moat one bit. A river twisted away from the complex, devoid of commerce, bridges, motorboats and houses.

This was not good news.

Bella slammed the window shut then sank to a heap on the floor and just stared at the unlit room. She reached to her left hand to twist her rings around her finger, an old habit when she was feeling stress. Her rings were gone. A thick band of yellow gold encircled her ring finger. She could not twist or slide the heavier band off her finger.

Where had it come from? She pressed the fingers of her left hand against her mouth and thought back to each and every event that she remembered happening this day.

She had a huge void of time. She went back to the moment when she'd woken up and got out of bed, showered and ate breakfast with Ari at their London hotel, and motored down to Lewes on their way to Brighton for the afternoon. Her memory was clear and intact until she left the Anne of Cleves Museum. From that point on, events began to jumble and swirl and disconnect.

There had been Ari in his khaki shorts and white s.h.i.+rt, smirking while he demanded a divorce. Black ravens and sun, lightning, wind that had toppled a power pole, and a moil that had turned into a maelstrom--and Ari had laughed when she fell into the void.

How she got from the green field at Lewes to being naked and filthy in the black knight's arms, Bella could not explain.

There was a dullness, a blankness in her, as if that bolt of lightning had struck deep in the core of her emotions. She wasn't dreaming. She was wide awake and more alert than she'd felt in years. Was she dead? Was this the afterlife? Heaven, h.e.l.l or purgatory?

What if she had travelled through time?

No. She couldn't have, could she?

And what about that other woman...the one who looked just like her...the one who had cut her own wrists? What about her? Who was she?

Another woman...from another time...whose name was the same as hers...who looked just like her? It wasn't possible. Was it?

That's when Bella began to shake and s.h.i.+ver and clutch her arms against her body moaning no, no, no, no, no.

Because it wasn't possible that she, Bella Wynford, could have fallen through some fifth dimension hole in the earth and travelled from one time to another. It wasn't possible. It wasn't.

These people thought she was somebody else. That man did...Sir John...but there were no such things as Doppelgangers, soul twins, stretched across time and place co-existing in opposite planes, were there? Am I crazy? Have I lost my mind?

The cat padded over to Bella, meowed, and very determinedly rubbed the top of its head against her hand demanding her attention. It struck Bella that the cat's show of affection was more than she'd been given in the past year from her husband. That same husband had howled with delirium, "It's over, Bella."

Yeah, it was over all right. Look where she thought she was--in the Fourteenth Century!

A cat wouldn't get cozy with a perfect stranger. Yet this cat again insisted on climbing onto her lap, sat and purred loudly.

Aristotle the cat's behavior with Bella seemed incontrovertible proof that she wasn't in the same world that she'd woken up this morning. And maybe not the same person either. Both thoughts were utterly terrifying.

Bella drew the animal into her arms and hugged it, accepting the companionable comfort it offered. Its eyes closed and its motor revved, contentedly. Dear G.o.d in heaven, now she'd lost her parents and family, her friends just like she'd lost her son, her Iain. Tears overflowed her eyes and blurred her vision.

Everything that was dear to her was gone. It's over, Bella. She had never felt so forlorn, lost and alone in her life. Is this what death was? Did you just wake up and find yourself some place else? What, dear G.o.d, happens now? Did she have to stay here? Was there someplace else to go? Could she go back? Or was this her punishment for the sins of her lifetime?

THE ROSE OF LORRAINE.

-5.

Bella dashed her tears away as she lurched onto her feet. She wouldn't sit wallowing in self-pity. She must do something to go back where she belonged. She began searching through the room, looking in every nook and cranny, wardrobe and trunk.

She could not open the double doors when she pulled on the handle. Behind the only other bolthole door, there was a garderobe, a privy.

Bella gawked at the lavish round room set in a round bartizan, jutting off the side of the tower. It had an incredible peaked dome ceiling and beautiful painted tiles on the floor. A polished wooden shelf offered a seat for doing what was necessary, though she feared it drained into that slimy moat she'd seen out the window.

Knowing she couldn't afford to be squeamish, she checked for spiders and scorpions anyway. Back home in Texas where there was still an outhouse or two in the open countryside, one was mighty careful where one sat.

After examining every inch of the king's bedroom, Bella stood beside a plain three-legged table, thinking. The huge cylindrical room had exactly five pieces of furniture; the ma.s.sive bed, an escritoire and chair, this table with its lyre stool and an impressive high-backed chair that faced the fireplace.

This room may be given over to the king of England when he was in residence (Bella retained her doubts about that) but it was clearly the favored haunt of a woman. Or else her prison, Bella thought darkly, looking at the locked doors that were the only exit.

She came to grips with the fact that there must be an Isabella de Saint Pierre of the fourteenth century who had married the cold-hearted Norman Bella had had the dubious pleasure of meeting earlier.

Now what? Where was the woman who belonged here? Bella curiously touched the writing tools on the escritoire; quills and pen, stoppered ink, blotter, parchments and razor sharp penknife. The quill was fragile and delicate and had no feel of weight or substance to it.

In the whole room she found only one leather-bound prayer book. Each page was handwritten in cramped Gothic script. Bella felt a headache brewing as she tried to decipher the Latin words by the light of a single candle. She laid the prayer book on the desk and turned round and round, lost, searching for any touch of reality that would make her sane again.

Another burst anxiety welled like an overflowing drain at the back of her throat, making her want to scream and howl. Before the scream came out one of the dark, heavily carved doors swung open. A liveried footman granted Clarise entrance. She bobbed into the room bearing a laden tray between her hands.

"Your supper, milady." Clarice curtsied again. "And the young masters will be up to see you just as soon as we've got you ready to receive them. Now, just you come sit and eat a bit. You'll feel much better then, to be sure."

Clarise's company and cheerful tone was a G.o.dsend at that moment, grounding Bella back to reality. Life went on with certain rituals unchanged, meals and conversation.

Bella sat to the table and ate the strange a.s.sortment of food. She was famished, terribly hungry. The whole grain bread had speckles of charcoal in its crust. A minute crock of b.u.t.ter lacked salt flavoring and had no artificial coloring added to it. It tasted sweet, like freshly churned b.u.t.ter that she remembered eating as a child on her parents' farm.

While Bella ate, Clarise puttered around the room, gathering clothing from the various trunks and a standing wardrobe. Bella didn't care about anything except the food, which she devoured like someone who was starving without questioning what any of it was.

Replete at last, Bella summoned the patience to sit while Clarise worked the snarls out of her hair with a wide tooth wooden comb. The woman coiled strands skillfully, and turned the coils into a coronet on top of Bella's head. She used carved wooden pins to hold keep the coronet in place.

There was no looking gla.s.s in the chamber, which Bella thought odd. She knew that mirrored gla.s.s would be rare indeed for this time, but a polished silver handmirror ought to be part of this obviously indulged and wealthy lady's possessions.

Dressing proved a much easier task than Bella had feared it would be. First, came an unbleached muslin undergown Clarise called a cotte. It had wrist length sleeves and the bodice crisscrossed over Bella's b.r.e.a.s.t.s and was tied by tapes sewn at the waist. That was followed by an overgown, or bliault, of heavy sendal, dyed a deep, rich green. To Bella's eye this garment was little more than a floor length vest with a deeply flaring skirt, sewn at the shoulders, but open down the sides. It was fitted very closely to her body by lacing cords through grommets. Then the strong laces were tightened until the gown hugged Bella's torso.

The laces dropped from her armpit down her sides only as far as the crest of her hip where her thigh broke forward to stride. Spreading the now layered skirting with her hands, Bella was frankly surprised at how perfectly the two gowns fit and allowed her freedom to move.

The neckline dropped in a deep vee, which had more than enough cleavage exposed, almost too much for her taste.

An embroidered girdle fastened around her hips just low enough to emphasize the tease of the undergown when she moved. There were silken stockings, sheer dainty things, held up by garters at the knees and b.u.t.tery soft leather slippers for her feet.

Everything fit as if it had been tailor made for her.

Last, she was offered her choice from an impressively full jewelry chest and an array of gossamer thin caps to wear on her head. She waved away the stones and ornaments and chose a cap made from sheer white linen and Flemish lace. She didn't question how she knew it was Flemish lace. It was beautiful and she wanted it.

There was no makeup to worry with, but she didn't know if that was a blessing or not without a mirror.

Seated at the highbacked chair before the fire, Bella turned her head at the sound of a soft knock on the door. Clarise bid the caller welcome and enter. Three stair-step boys shambled into the room.

The tallest took Bella's breath away. He was so similar to the black knight anyone would know at a glance whose son he was. His hair was black as midnight, as were his brows and beautiful lashes, but his eyes were the brown of ginger snaps.

He had a tight grip on a smaller, much younger version of himself, a st.u.r.dy boy of perhaps four or five whose dark hair and smoldering blue eyes made Bella think instantly of the black knight.

The last and middle rung of their stair-step ladder was a s.h.a.ggy brown-haired, b.u.t.ton-eyed child too serious and too solemn for his less than ten years. But when that child raised his chin and looked directly at her, Bella gasped.

As surely as she lived and breathed she was looking at Iain's dear and precious face.

"Iain," Bella whispered, half-rising from the highbacked chair before the fire.

"Madame." The oldest bowed gracefully. "Votre fils sont a votre pieds."

Dear G.o.d, they believe I am their mother. How long had it been since they had seen their mother? Bella sank back to the seat as she studied the oldest's solemn eyes. What if these three sons did not speak English? Her French was idiomatic at best. "In English if you please."

The eldest's eyes darkened to the chocolate that Iain's had so often flashed to when he'd been crossed, then the youth nodded quickly and repeated, "We are at your service, Maman. How may we a.s.sist you?"

So formal and proper. Bella let her eyes linger on the second oldest. Her fingers ached to touch him. She folded her trembling hands in her lap, shaken to her soul. "Thank you. That's very kind. I've got a feeling that you all have been very worried."

She looked to the littlest one and saw a quiver in his chin. She wanted to cry, too. Instead she held out her arms to him and the little boy broke free of his elder's grip and jumped into her arms. He babbled in tearful French, and squeezed Bella's neck with an intensity she had longed for and achingly missed since the day Iain had died.

For a few minutes the two older boys let the little one have his bout of tears. Both made it clear by the looks on their faces they thought his tears were the parvenu of the weak.

Then the middle son, the one who could have been Iain's twin, strode forward and pulled the smallest's arms from around Bella's neck, telling him sternly, "'Tis enough, Henri. Papa said he'd get a stick to us if we made Maman sad. May I give you a hug, too, Maman?"

"Of course, you may. I need one from you very much."

Bella wrapped the boy with her arms and rubbed her cheek against his soft, sun-kissed curls. He had two whorls at the crown of his head identical to Iain's. Even the smell of his s.h.a.ggy head was familiar to her. She had hugs for them all, but the eldest held back, full of an adolescent's reserve.

"Robin found you, Maman." Little Henri settled on the floor at Bella's feet, his astonis.h.i.+ng blue eyes solemn and serious. "Geoffrey was with him, but I could not go to rescue you. Papa said I was too small and the wind might blow me away. Were you scared in the Well of Souls?"

Out of the mouths of babes...bless him. Little Henri had given her his brother's names and identified the place where Bella must have been found. The Well of Souls. She tucked that information aside for later. "I was very scared, Henri. And I am very glad your Papa took good care of you and let nothing bad happen to you."

"Tell us what happened after you escaped out the postern gate." Geoffrey's chocolate eyes were his best feature. Huge and expressive, they dominated his whole face. "Did varlets accost you because you were alone and unprotected and throw you into the pit?"

"I don't remember anything about it."

"You don't remember fighting with Papa and the king?" The high color in his cheeks darkened. "You threw Queen Phillipa's vase at Papa's head. It broke into pieces. Then you called your knights, and Papa and the king both yelled an oath. You told Papa you were going back to France and if the king wanted to make war, so be it. You would fight England to the death. You were very brave to go out all alone, Maman."

And clearly very foolish to have put on such a show before the eyes of that innocent child. Bella worried the corner of her mouth.

"Brave, Geoffrey?" She tried the sound of his name on her tongue and was satisfied with it. He was not Iain, she scolded herself. He was his own delightful, little person that she'd had the wonderful chance to touch. "I guess I just got caught in a sudden storm and lost my way."

Bella knew she must answer these children as honestly as she could. She would certainly not say anything that would alarm them any further. They were anxious enough about their missing mother to think that she was that woman. What child wouldn't be anxious if their mother disappeared?

"Did scoundrels and thieves capture you and take away your ermine cloak and all your jewels? Did they ravish and rape you? A peasant found Lorette grazing in his wheat field and brought her back to us. I swear, I didn't tell a soul you had got out the postern gate. You do believe me, don't you, Maman? It was all right to tell I dreamed you had fallen in the Well of Souls when Lorette came back, wasn't it? If Papa hadn't begun a search for you, you might be dead. Robin says you could have drowned in that pit. The water was knee deep when I got into it so he made me wait on top where Papa could see me."

Geoffrey had questions and information galore. Bella was at sea not knowing what was the root of his parents' estrangement or how she should react now in the face of what he asked. So she settled for the oldest parent trait on the books--selective hearing.

"Where did you hear words like ravish and rape?" She frowned at him.

"Ravishment, c'est le beaste Diable. Gunni Dougles says that's what happens to women who travel alone and unprotected." He made an animal face, snarled and raised his hands like a bear. "Papa said the devil's beast lives down that hole and we are not to go there, ever again."

"I see." Bella nodded solemnly. "Well, you set your mind to rest over that. I will be very careful when I come across this Well of Souls in the future."

"I thought you didn't remember anything," Robin spoke at last and there was definitely an accusation there.

"Did I?" Bella countered in the face of his implied disapproval. "Maybe now isn't the time to discuss what I do remember. I don't have to justify my behavior to three impertinent children."

The eldest blanched. Bella realized too late she'd gone farther than necessary trying to put him in his place.

"Now you've done it." Geoffrey jumped to his feet and punched Robin with an amazingly direct right hand cross. Obviously, Geoffrey was his mother's champion.

Robin put his hand on the younger one's head, and said one word, "Cease." Geoffrey ceased. The eldest shot a withering look at Bella as he again took charge of his brothers. "We mustn't tire you. Papa will return soon. Geoffrey, Henri, kiss Maman. You have lessons still to finish this day. Vite."

The younger two popped to attention, bestowed kisses then marched to the door. They were well disciplined little soldiers. Bella didn't think she'd ever seen the like. She stood to watch them go. While the little ones' ramrod backs were turned, Robin unbent enough to bestow a dutiful kiss to her brow. To her brow, Bella realized. This handsome lad had five, six inches over her already. Surely he couldn't be more than fifteen. She searched his face carefully for signs of maturity and age. The down of peach fuzz glazed his cheeks and jawline, but more telling was the impressive width of his shoulders.

"I am glad you are back and safe, Maman," he said formally. "No one has ever lived through a fall into the Well of Souls."

Bella shook her head. "I don't know how I got there. Maybe you could show it to me first thing in the morning."

"No." He negated that quite firmly. "'Tis forbidden to trespa.s.s there. It nearly cost your life today. Rest, Maman. You are pale and you are not yourself. You must save your strength for later. I pray, you will find a way to make peace with your husband." With that bit of patronizing advice, he departed.

Husband? Not my father, but your husband. That was rich. What was she going to do about this husband? Bella smoldered as the door was firmly closed and the lock clicked. She was a prisoner of this husband. She paced the chamber anxiously.

Her hand balled into a fist and smacked into the palm of her left hand. What was she going to do? What if these children's mother was the woman she had met in her nightmare? The woman who had looked so much like her it made the hair on the back of her neck rise right now just because she was thinking of her? A woman who had deliberately slit her own wrists? Could that be true? Bella feared it was. But why had she done that? Who had driven her to committing such a horrible deed? Sir John? Who else could have done? Had she also been locked up in this very same room? Did women of this backward century have so few rights that they could be imprisoned in their own home? She was beginning to feel great empathy for poor Lady Isabel.

But the bigger question was, was she ready to accept that time had somehow warped, and instead of going forward, had s.n.a.t.c.hed her backward centuries?

Bella looked through the smoky drift of four burning candles as she stared at the s.h.i.+eld above the mantle. If the man she'd had the spectacular encounter with this afternoon was coming back soon, she thought it was definitely time to start praying.

No, she thought. It was time to start doc.u.menting.

To put down in writing every fact she could remember and discover. How or when that might help her, Bella had no idea. But somewhere the truth existed and in uncovering that, she might just learn the secret of how she got here. Then, she could return to her own time...where she belonged.

THE LORD'S DILEMMA.

-5.