“I doubt it. Your father kept the key to the chest holding the important documents on a chain around his neck, and the solar locked, too, when he wasn’t there. Algernon would never have had the chance to take it from the room before you came.”
Merrick gave her a look of bleak dismay. “If I’d known what was in that chest, I would have kept it locked, too. And the solar. But I haven’t. It’s possible Algernon found it after I arrived.”
“But there’s a copy in the cathedral in Canterbury, and another in Westminster,” Constance hastened to assure him. “Your father sent them there for safekeeping. Remember, he trusted no one. And even if Algernon somehow managed to have them destroyed, Alan de Vern witnessed it, and the scribe who wrote it still lives. I’m sure that poor man remembers every word. Your father was not an easy man to please.”
Despite her revelations and assurances, Merrick still didn’t look relieved, or joyful. He was puzzled, confused. “Lord William acknowledged me? Did he not believe I’d drowned?”
She shrugged her shoulders and wished she knew what had been in his father’s mind. “I don’t know. He never spoke of Tamsyn’s son, not once in all the years I was with him.” There was one reason she could give that made sense of the will of the late lord of Tregellas. “I suspect it’s more likely that he was trying to make trouble for Algernon, whom he loathed and believed was conspiring against him—which, we now know, he was. By putting that clause in his will, Algernon would have to go to great lengths to prove that you were dead. It would tie him up with legalities for months.”
She gripped Merrick tighter at the thought of so much malignant hate, pondering what else Wicked William might have done. “I fear your father may even have planned your abduction, using an innocent child to protect his own son, or taking you to torment your mother and grandfather. Peder made no secret of his hatred for Wicked William.”
“If my father knew about the ruse, would he not suspect it was the impostor, and not his son, who’d survived?”
Her heart ached because of what she had to tell him, but she had known his father well, as he had not, and she wanted no more secrets between them. “Perhaps he did know, and didn’t care. He gave no sign of affection toward Merrick while he was alive, although he was his son. He loved nothing except his castle and his money, and he feared nothing more than losing them, even to a son. It wouldn’t surprise me to learn he had wanted you both dead. By killing everyone in the cortege, he would do away with both his sons and Egbert, leaving only Algernon to fear. That would also explain why he sent his brother with the cortege instead of taking his son himself.”
Merrick sucked in his breath. “There were accidents when I was training and in tournaments. I often wondered…feared…He must have been mad.”
She looked into her husband’s eyes and spoke firmly. “Whatever he was, you’re the lord of Tregellas by right of birth, for there is no other living child of Lord William. And more, you’re the lord of Tregellas because you deserve to be.”
He still looked uncertain. “I hope the earl thinks as you do, and the king.”
“You’re going to tell them? There’s no need—”
“Yes, there is,” he insisted. He brought her hands clasped in his to his chest and regarded her with grimdetermination. “As I love you, Constance, I won’t lay the burden of living with this lie on you.”
“But I gladly accept it,” she replied, not understanding why more people needed to know. Those who hadn’t known Wicked William might question why he’d lied for so long.
Then another explanation came to her and it made her gasp with dismay. “Or do you fear I’ll betray you?”
“I know you won’t,” he said softly, and with a sincerity that reassured her. “Yet I also know what it is to live with the dread that one slip of the tongue, one incautious word, will be your ruin. Most of all, I fear that you’ll come to resent having to keep this secret and, therefore, me.”
“I won’t,” she vowed.
“I wish I could be as certain of that as you, but I would always be seeking the signs that you grow weary of that cross, as I’ve watched for signs that people suspected I was not nobly born for fifteen years. I’m going to tell the earl of Cornwall the truth. And Peder, too. I especially want him to know his grandson is still alive.”
When Constance saw Merrick’s firm resolve, she knew nothing she could say would dissuade him. This, too, was part of the man she’d married. “I’ll go with you when you speak to the earl, to tell him that whatever happens, I’ll still be your wife. I love you, whatever your name may be.”
“And if he imprisons me for my ruse?”
“Then, my lord,” she said, as resolute as he, “the earl had best be prepared for the battle of his life. You are the rightful heir of Lord William, and not only do I love you, I care about the people of Tregellas. I would go to war to win you your lawful rights and keep Tregellas out of the king’s—or the queen’s—hands.”
At last he smiled, and in a way she’d never seen before, as if he had lost a heavy load he’d carried for too long, and was finally free. “I think you could defeat even the king and all his counselors. With you by my side, how can we lose?”
“Then you’ll fight for what is yours in law?”
“Yes,” he whispered as he leaned in to kiss her.
Excited passion flickered through her body as it had when they’d first married. The desire that she had tried to stifle in more recent days broke free. She laughed with the joy of it, even as they kissed.
He drew back, puzzled.
“I’m happy.”
He smiled slowly, wonderfully. “I’m happy, too. Truly happy.”
“And come what may, I am yours forever, Mer—Bredon.”
“As I am yours,” he whispered, his voice husky with need as his hands opened her bedrobe to reveal her thin shift. “And I have been Merrick for so long, I hardly recognize my rightful name. I’ll feel like you’re talking to somebody else if you call me Bredon.”
