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  Leave my home?

  Charlotte almost choked on the idea. She had to take a long, long breath to calm her nerves. In the end, her cold logic took over. She had not conducted prosperous business with a dozen nations only to be cowed by an envious man.

  “I won’t relinquish my name, my responsibility, because of some man’s bruised ego,” Charlotte said, heat rising to her cheeks. Men, all of them, were such arrogant, power-hungry tyrants. Well, she would teach them. At least, she would teach one. “I’m not leaving, Father, and if Guilabert wants to bring the Pope all the way from Avignon, I’ll see that His Holiness gets a nice bottle of my finest.”

  The old man paled considerably. He looked down at the cross resting on his black cassock. “There are things in the Church much more terrible than the Pope.”

  Chapter Three

  Charlotte woke with a scream struggling to escape. Sweat slicked her limbs. She sat and breathed in deeply. What had she been dreaming about? Something to do with water—it was all she could remember. Seeking comfort, she lay back down and turned on her side. With shaking hands, she hugged herself.

  A mental image flashed before her eyes—male hands, strong, with knuckles the size of walnuts. The three-day-old memory brought on a pang of regret so acute, so stinging, Charlotte let out a ragged sigh. The memory of his touch caused shivers up her spine.

  “And a rip in my soul,” she added under her breath.

  Yet, the worst part was she could tell no one about it. The burden suddenly felt too heavy to bear. This shed a new light on the fact she had no friends with whom to share her pain. Her eyes stung with tears. She ran the largest distillery in all of Europe, had done so since she was eighteen. She owned lands both in France and abroad. Hundreds, thousands, worked for her, directly or less so. And she had not a single person she could call friend.

  Charlotte kicked the coverlet from her legs and threw the cushion across the room. Her heart beat a mad cadence. What had this man done to her? Could it be his touch had caused as much damage as bliss? She climbed off the bed and paced the room. She felt like kicking something. Scanning the place, she spotted a small stool. As she stalked up to it with the full intention of sending it crashing out of her way, a flash caught her eye.

  Through the glass pane and over adjacent roofs the church’s steeple gleamed like liquid copper, its slender cross a beacon of golden light. She froze.

  She could tell someone.

  Charlotte was dressed within moments. Work hose, undertunic, the infamous man’s tunic Constance wanted to burn, the wide belt and high boots—Charlotte stepped out of the mansion resembling much more a male worker than a baroness. After church, she would go up to the distillery and lose herself in work. It always dulled the pain. Surely this new sort would be no different.

  After a short ride down to the town proper, Charlotte slid off her mount and stepped into the little darkened church. This early in the day, no one had seen her coming. Father Simon was always here at the crack of dawn. She rushed up the middle aisle, barely genuflecting when she reached the first pews and ran into the confessional.

  Charlotte waited, wringing her hands. Her sudden arrival was sure to have been heard by the priest. If his eyesight was failing, his hearing was not.

  A small sound caught her ear. Footsteps. She took a deep breath. Trying to sort out her thoughts, she paid little attention when the door to the next cubicle was opened and closed. The small, latticed panel was slid a couple of fingers wide.

  “What ails you?”

  Charlotte sat frozen in place.

  This was not Father Simon’s voice. A much younger man sat in the next cubicle. What to do? She took a deep breath and meant to speak but no words came out. She lowered her gaze to her trembling hands. What would she tell the priest? She had lain with a stranger? She had allowed her weak flesh to dictate her conduct? She cursed inwardly.

  “God can hear you even if I can’t,” came the reply. A hint of humor lined the words and made Charlotte smile alone in the dark. Perhaps she could still tell this man.

  “I’ve…um, I’ve sinned.” Original. She scolded her lack of courage.

  His patient silence bolstered her. She licked her lips. “I’ve committed the sin of lust. I’ve been intimate with a man not my husband.”

  “Have you told your husband?” the man asked.

  “I’m unmarried.”

  A short pause. “Will you tell his wife?”

  Charlotte could have punched the wall in dejection. “The truth shall set you free,” they said.

  “I don’t know him, Father. I had never met him before that night, three days ago.”

  This time, a sharp intake of air was heard followed by a long silence. Was he trying to identify her? Or the man? Was he searching for an acceptable punishment to give her? Sweat pearled on her temples. She took a deep, frayed breath and looked up into the darkened confessional. Tiny dots of light pierced the latticed ceiling.

  “I see. Do you still lust after this man?” the man asked finally. His tone was careful, modulated, letting no emotion sound through. Yet she could tell this was a loaded question. No judgment though, which was strange. She had to admire his self-control. Had she had any measure of it herself, she would not be in the trouble she was now.

  “No,” she lied. No use making it worse.

  “You lie very poorly, which is a testament to your character, I guess.” Now there was emotion in the remark. Mockery.

  She felt herself blush. “It’s true. I still…well, I try to forget him but it’s just… I’m not in the habit of bedding strange men, Father.” Of bedding men at all. The last bit held much more edge than she intended and the man seemed to take his time to absorb the words.

  “Lust is said to be enslavement of the senses and I don’t need to remind you how wicked a master it is—”

  “I’m not a slave to anything,” Charlotte blurted out before snapping her mouth shut. What was wrong with her? “Forgive me. Please go on.”

  “Then you are in complete control of your senses, are you? You would stop it if you could. If you were presented with the same situation, would you lie with him again?”

  “Of course not,” she replied weakly.

  A long sigh was heard from beyond the lattice. Movement in light and shadow indicated the man had changed position. “You truly are, my lady, an awful liar.”

  After a while debating whether to share her heart with this stranger or not, Charlotte took a long, steadying breath and nodded to herself. “It’s true, I’m afraid. Presented with the same situation, I would probably succumb again. Not because he was a man of great outward beauty—which he was—but because there was so much loneliness in his eyes, so much pain, that I couldn’t not reach out to him.”

  Silence greeted her words. When he spoke again, her confessor sounded tight and suddenly in a hurry to leave. “Perhaps you have seen things that weren’t there at all.”

  “Perhaps.”

  “Fair enough. However, you must deny yourself, deny your weak flesh. I sense that the guilt alone is adequate punishment. Perhaps a donation to charity would ease some of the burden while benefiting the less fortunate.”

  Charlotte caught herself nodding in agreement. Clever man. The problem was, she could not forget her companion from the cascade. His flesh was still seared on hers, as though he still touched her, caressed her. Stop it. “I’ll make sure to follow your words, Father,” she said, rising.

  After he gave her his blessing, Charlotte exited the cubicle, making sure to slide out of the nearest door she could reach. What if he tried to see to whom he had just spoken?

  * * * * *

  Later that day, Charlotte sat at work, absentmindedly running the lead plummet over her lips while gazing out the tiny window. Rain hit the glass pane like tiny rocks. The day was so dark she had lit all the candles. Quivering light chased shadows to the far corners of the office and up the thick rafters.

  She pivoted on the chair and scanned the ma
in floor beyond the balustrade. Workers busily crated another batch. When two barrels hit each other, the workers hurriedly checked up at the mezzanine to see if she had seen them. She had. Charlotte wanted to laugh when the men winced, cringed and took extra care with the rest. If they only knew what their feared baroness had done. She wondered what her indiscretion would cause should it become known. Would the townsfolk, who liked her and the generous wages she generated, fear her more? Less? Would she become more human in their eyes? Perhaps they did not care one bit. She grinned.

  “I was beginning to wonder if it was gone forever,” Armand said as he climbed the last few steps.

  “What?”

  “Your smile, mistress, I hadn’t seen it in a while. Thought mayhap you’d lost it somewhere or that my wife had stolen it…like everybody else’s.”

  Charlotte smiled widely. “If she hears you, there’s naught I could do to protect you. You’d be on your own.” She indicated the stool next to her chair.

  “I can’t, mistress. Actually, I’m here to tell you that something’s wrong with the river. The level’s never been this low at this time of the—”

  “Mistress,” called one of the workers—Renaud—a bear of a man who could lift an entire barrel all by himself.

  Charlotte nodded.

  “Sir Guilabert and the priest are here, mistress. That knight would like to see you.”

  That knight.

  She doubted Guilabert would appreciate being called “that knight”, but she did not mind, especially since his recent transgression.

  “I’ll be down in a moment.”

  She looked outside at the torrents slamming against her window. What could be so damned important Guilabert would drag poor old Simon out in such weather? She would make sure to remark on it. Someone had to tell the arrogant man he wasn’t lord around here. Charlotte would be glad indeed to inform him.

  Armand’s face tightened at the news. He crossed his arms over his chest and looked away.

  “Let it out before it burns a hole in your cheek.”

  He snorted. “Sir Guilabert is here a lot. I don’t like it one bit, if I may say so, Mistress Charlotte. Like he’s scouting the place, spying, yes.”

  She agreed with a nod. “Well, I intend to be your bitter-disposed master for another long while, Armand, don’t worry.”

  This seemed to cheer Armand considerably. He grinned and hooked his thumb at the window. “I’d be glad to let him wait outside for a bit longer, mistress, but he’s got old Simon with him. Be a shame to let him get soaked too.”

  “I agree. Have them wait in the bottling room, would you?”

  When Armand left, she stood and rearranged her work attire, making sure the dagger showed prominently at her belt. If she was to shock Guilabert with her crude dress and deportment, she may as well go all the way. A woman dressed in men’s clothes and armed. She allowed herself a small grin of mockery.

  Just so she would not shock poor Simon too much, she bound her brown curls back with a bit of twine lying about. She should cut it again. The bangs hung too close to her eyes and the curls brushing past the nape of her neck bothered her. A quick tug to the too-long belt made sure the tunic fit half correctly. She knew she could pass for a man, given distance and humble light, but she had to sacrifice her femininity. Her stature and mien allowed that extra bit of authority she sorely needed. With a sigh, Charlotte climbed down the steps.

  A few workers peeked at her as she navigated the maze of ricks and narrow alleys. Saluting one here, stopping to chat with another there, Charlotte reached the bottling room just as Armand was receiving Guilabert’s drenched cloak. Damn, she cursed mentally. His friend was there as well.

  As if he sensed her gaze on him, the friend in question, a short and solid man named Lussier, turned to her and bowed. She acknowledged him with a curt nod. This one, she would enjoy putting in a barrel and shipping off to a very far, very cold place.

  “Why you’d drag poor Father Simon out in such foul weather is beyond me, Guilabert,” she snapped. “Gentlemen,” she went on, coming into the cavernous room. She noticed Simon was not there yet. Perhaps he had stopped on the way in to speak to one of the workers. In which case, she had a while to give Guilabert the verbal lashing he deserved.

  Her booted feet clacked against the slate floor. The echo ricocheted in the domed room. Large oak and copper-belted vats took an entire whitewashed wall. A table filled with bottles, some waiting to be filled, separated her from the rest of the men. She made a point to go around it and stand among them. She did not want them to think she would use a barrier to separate herself from them, to protect herself against them. She needed no protection. They needed it—especially Guilabert and his foul-mouthed, ever-present sidekick. And since Guilabert seemed to be indeed housed at Lussier’s home, she’d be seeing a lot of the two. Too much so for her taste.

  “Baroness,” Guilabert said, bowing slightly at the waist.

  She raised an eyebrow at the use of her title. He never did that. Except in their youth, to taunt her or make her mad. Armand bristled and gave a good shake to Guilabert’s dripping cloak.

  “What a day, my lady. Suited for ducks, I’d say,” Lussier put in loudly. The man had only two tones—loud and louder.

  She shrugged. “Suited for dogs as well.”

  Her abruptness seemed to take some pluck out of Lussier’s plumage. He flushed right up to his chestnut hairline and looked at Guilabert, who did not seem at all stumped by her gruff words. He even offered her one of his lopsided grins. The one she found particular cause to detest.

  “I’d like you to meet someone,” he said, extending a hand to her, as if trying to convince her to come to him. Ha.

  She leaned back against the table, arms and ankles crossed, and made sure the large ruby ring showed well. Just a reminder to all they were not dealing with just anyone but a baroness, even if this particular one wore humble garments.

  Guilabert pivoted and motioned for someone she had not noticed standing in retreat. This one, a man wearing all black from close-fitting robe to boots to long cape, peeled his frame from the wall and walked into the light.

  This was not Simon. Charlotte could not see his face for his hood was pulled low. It still dribbled from his run-in with the storm outside. With large square hands, he pulled his hood back and let it drop on his impressive shoulders.

  Hair gleamed just like straw-colored silk while icy blue eyes stared unblinkingly at her. When he took a few steps forth, a gold cross gleamed on his chest.

  Charlotte could only stare in mute shock.

  The man from the cascade…he was standing right there in front of her, staring back at her. She must have been mistaken…

  No. It was him, down to the lush lips and broken nose.

  “My lady,” the man said.

  At least, he looked as shocked as she felt. His eyes flared wide like coins and his mouth thinned to a straight, tight line. He lowered his gaze to the ruby ring on her thumb. A muscle twitched along his chiseled jaw.

  “Brother Gautier comes directly from the Vatican, Baroness. He’s to be our new town priest of sorts, until Father Simon’s return.” Guilabert looked delighted to introduce this stranger, his champion from Rome.

  After the initial shock of seeing the man from the cascade—Brother Gautier—standing in front of her, Charlotte’s brain kicked into a mad gallop.

  She understood now.

  Father Simon had tried to warn her Guilabert had friends in high places within the Church. Simon must have suspected he would be temporarily, or not so, replaced, perhaps even transferred. He had hinted Guilabert met someone during the crusade—a cardinal he had said—someone who now worked inside the Vatican itself. Someone with enough political clout to send a supporter to a small French town and make sure some recalcitrant woman married the man she ought to. Charlotte’s blood boiled over. Would everyone conspire against her so she married Guilabert?

  “Well met, Brother Gautier,” she replied
with fake aplomb.

  Heat rose to her cheeks. She knew she looked blushed and hoped they would attribute it to hard work.

  Inside she wanted to scream, throw things, but more importantly, she wanted to hide in shame. To see him looking at her after what they had done was too much.

  She had been intimate with a man of God. A brother!

  No wonder she had heard him ask for God’s forgiveness. She felt as though she should beg for it as well. Charlotte wondered if there was a special place in hell for women who had lain with men of God. Perhaps the same place as brothers who had broken their self-imposed vows of abstinence. A groan of despair threatened to spill out of her.

  Brother Gautier bowed again and retreated to the wall where he crossed his hands inside the sleeves of his black habit.

  A pregnant silence settled over the group. Armand looked at her then at Guilabert.

  Charlotte cleared her throat. “Well, gentlemen, it’s very busy here at this time of the year. I must return to work.”

  She left the support of the table and hoped her legs would carry her out and back into her office where she could hide her head under something very large and dark. “I’ll see you Sunday, Brother.”

  She saw his flinch from where she stood.

  Guilabert shot a quick glance to Brother Gautier, who only nodded and pulled his hood back on. With a nod for Armand, he left, not even looking at her. She hated herself but had to admit a deep frustration that he would not even acknowledge her presence. After what they had shared…

  A look of vexation flashed over Guilabert’s face. He turned to Lussier and Armand and motioned for both to leave. While Lussier shook water from his cloak and left the room, Armand pretended not to have seen Guilabert’s imperious gesture. After Charlotte gave him a small nod, the overseer snorted and left as well. He cast one last look at Guilabert before he disappeared through the doorway.

  “Your workers are as undisciplined as your mounts,” Guilabert remarked.