The Avenger (The Blackchurch Guild: The Shadow Knights #5)

Prologue

St. John the Baptist’s Church

Symondsbury, Dorset, England

“He’s not coming.”

She’d heard him.

Words coming forth from a cold man, colder still by the expression on his frozen face as he gazed steadily at her grandfather.

He wouldn’t even look at her mother or at the bride herself.

That icy, calculating gaze was fixed upon Lord Oscar de Bulverton, Earl of Sidbury, as if willing the man into accepting his truth.

The truth that this marriage would never happen.

Even as Oscar looked at the man in disbelief, Randa, Lady de Camville, wasn’t quite so controlled or so silent. She exploded out of her seat.

“What do you mean he’s not coming?” she said. “He must come, Lord de Bosque. He has a bride awaiting him!”

Edward de Bosque looked at Lady de Camville, his gaze finally moving to her daughter.

The young woman was dressed in pale green that brought out the green in her eyes, a delicate shade to indicate purity.

She was a beautiful girl by anyone’s standards, accomplished and articulate.

Perhaps a bit too headstrong sometimes, but that was to be expected.

She was a de Camville and everyone knew they had big mouths and a bold manner.

Her father certainly had possessed those traits, and they had contributed to his unfortunate death.

In fact, the family seemed to have very little good fortune as a whole.

Today was just another example of that.

The Curse of the de Camvilles.

“I realize he has a bride awaiting him,” Edward said steadily. “You state the obvious, Lady de Camville. But I am here to tell you that my son is not coming. He departed for Glastonbury this morning from what I was told.”

Randa’s expression was twisted with incredulity. “You were told?” she said. “You do not know when your own son departed his home?”

Edward shook his head. “Nay, my lady,” he said, eyeing de Bulverton as if wondering just when the man was going to let loose with a fist to his head.

“I had my own duties this morning. I was informed by his manservant that he had departed for Glastonbury Abbey. Lady de Camville, it is no secret that a monastic life was his destination before he met your daughter. In the past year, I have watched him wrestle with it terribly. He wanted to serve God. But your daughter provided a… diversion. Clearly, it was not permanent.”

Standing a few feet from his daughter in stunned silence, Oscar had had enough.

He whirled on his daughter, pointing fingers at her.

“I told you this was a mistake,” he hissed.

“I told you that this marriage was a folly, but you would not listen. You insisted it was for Lia’s own good. Now look what you have done.”

Randa was aghast. “What I have done?” she cried. “I’ve done nothing! This is not my fault!”

“It is your fault,” Oscar snapped. “It is your fault for listening to your daughter and letting her dictate her future, and it is de Bosque’s fault for forcing his son to do something he did not wish to do!”

Now, Edward was being attacked as well, which was what he had expected—and he was prepared. “Cecil is my heir,” he said as calmly as he could. “I wanted what any father would want, what it is our right to want.”

“A marriage your son did not want!”

“A marriage to continue our family legacy,” Edward said, trying not to raise his voice. “Cecil understood this. He understood his role.”

Oscar threw up his hands, and given that he was a big man with a big voice, that was saying something.

He was intimidating in his anger. “He may have told you that he understood, but here we are,” he said, throwing a finger in the direction of his granddaughter.

“She is to be shamed now. Shamed by your son. What about Lia? Or do you not care about anyone other than your son?”

Somehow, the only person at the church who wasn’t up in arms was, in fact, the bride. Lady Ophelia de Camville, known as Lia since infancy, watched her grandfather rage, her mother fall apart, and Edward de Bosque try to defend that which was indefensible.

A son who had left her standing at the altar.

On their wedding day.

But somehow… she wasn’t surprised. As Ophelia watched the scene before her, strangely, she wasn’t surprised in the least.

If there was anyone at fault, it was her.

Cecil de Bosque was a handsome man, one she’d known for many years.

He’d fostered with her at Okehampton Castle, a strapping young knight who had been particularly pious.

Not a day or minute or second went by that Cecil hadn’t been praying one way or the other.

He was more devoted to God than to the knighthood, though he was a decent knight.

He was brave and bright. Ophelia had focused her attentions on him, flirted with him, and finally received the response she’d been hoping for even though rumor had it that Cecil was destined for the cloth.

He made a yearly pilgrimage to Glastonbury, but Ophelia refused to believe that he was truly destined for the priesthood.

Not when he had her to be his willing life companion.

The Great Beauty of Dorset.

That was what Ophelia was referred to as.

At Okehampton, they’d simply taken to calling her Beauty, something she detested, but it also gave her a lot of attention.

Sometimes it was unwanted, but other times it was welcome, as it was with Cecil.

Ophelia had started showing him some interest first and it wasn’t until his fellow knights encouraged him that Cecil responded.

Ophelia couldn’t help but feel that he’d been pushed into it, something she’d vacated from her mind because it didn’t do her pride any good to imagine the man she was fond of had to be forced into reciprocation.

But he had.

Ophelia knew it.

As her mother, father, and Edward argued over whose fault it was that Cecil had run from marriage, Ophelia simply sat down in the nearest chair.

Everyone at the church was arguing or hissing or getting excited about the situation, and she knew the rumors would start flying quickly until her grandfather boomed to the people in attendance that if word got out, he would personally punish every one of them.

Those in attendance were friends and relatives, on both sides, and even Ophelia knew that something of this magnitude couldn’t be kept secret for long.

Nor could the secret she carried in her belly.

The last-ditch effort to force Cecil de Bosque into matrimony.

That had been a folly.

“Come, Lia.” Her mother was suddenly by her side, grasping her by the arm and pulling her from the chair. “We are leaving.”

Ophelia did as she was told. She let her mother pull her out into the morning of a fresh new day, out to the waiting horses that were gaily bedecked with flowers.

It was July, after all, and the land was awash with blooms. One of her mother’s men helped her onto her white palfrey, but before she could get away, Edward stopped her.

“My lady,” he said softly. “Truly, I am sorry for this. Cecil should not have done this to you.”

Ophelia had come to know Edward de Bosque as a truly kind man. She smiled weakly at him.

“You are not responsible for his actions,” she said. “But I must tell you that I am not surprised by any of this. He was destined for the church when I met him. I was but a slight delay.”

Edward sighed heavily. “He should have been honest with you from the start,” he said.

“Cecil has wanted to be a priest his entire life. He should not have entered into an agreement with you, knowing that. I suppose I am to blame for pushing him into… Well, it does not matter. He has made his decision. We shall simply have to accept it.”

“You can accept it,” Oscar said, having just exited the church. “Know that this insult will not stand, de Bosque. I will make sure the priests at Glastonbury know what your son has done. Let us see, then, if they accept him into their commune. No one will want a man who breaks his promises.”

Edward knew he had no defense for his son.

“Please,” he begged quietly. “Do not punish him for what were my actions. I forced this on him, I swear it. I will give you money as compensation for the loss. I have several fine horses I will give you also. But please… do not make trouble for my son. He is tortured as it is.”

Ophelia was off her horse, coming to Edward’s rescue by putting her hands on her grandfather’s arm, pulling him away.

“He is right,” she said. “If anyone should be upset about this, it should be me, but I even I understand that Cecil loved the church before he ever loved me. You cannot fault a man for making a choice that is best suited for him.”

Oscar looked at her incredulously. “You defend him?”

“I understand him.”

“And you are not troubled by this situation?”

Ophelia tried not to let her emotions show, as was usual with her.

Emotions only showed her weaknesses. “Of course I am,” she said.

“I am very troubled by it. But I love Cecil enough that I want him to be happy. I thought I could make him happy, but it seems it is not to be. I tried. God knows, I tried. But even I cannot compete with a lifelong dream, Grandpapa.”

Oscar wasn’t the least bit moved by her speech. “So you simply intend to accept what he has done to you?”

“Is there a choice?” Ophelia said, rather strongly. “I cannot compete with the lure of the church and you cannot fight them, so we are at an end. Cecil has made his decision and it is not me.”

Oscar didn’t have an argument for that. Truth be told, he was angry at the humiliation, but not the act itself. He was actually quite relieved, but he wasn’t going to let on. Edward owed him something for this debacle and he was going to collect.

“Our family’s dishonor is worth something,” he said, looking to Cecil’s resigned father.

“Lia’s dowry was to be eighty gold crowns.

I want that from you to compensate us for this…

this horror, and I will not go to the church and tell them what I think of a man who very much wants to be a priest. Do you understand? ”

Edward did. He nodded wearily and turned away, heading back into the crowd of flabbergasted guests and trying to calm everyone down and convince them to return to his home, where food and drink would be waiting.

He wanted to get away from Oscar as fast as he could lest the man come up with something more as a penalty for his son’s behavior.

But Oscar let him go. He was looking at his daughter, who was distraught over the entire situation, and he couldn’t hold back the anger.

“I told you not to agree to this,” he said again. “You let your daughter dictate her life, and do you see what it has cost you?”

Randa was verging on tears. “What do you want me to do?” she snapped quietly. “What do you want me to say?”

“Nothing!” Oscar boomed, but quickly lowered his voice. “There is nothing for you to do or say, but I will tell you this—Lia’s future is now in my handsand I will handle it the way I want. You and your foolish daughter will have no say in my decision, so I suggest you prepare for what is coming.”

There was nothing Randa could say to that. She knew she was beaten. She’d let her daughter choose her own husband, something that was unheard of, and it had blown up in her face.

But there was something else that was going to blow up in their faces if they weren’t careful.

“Whatever it is, make it happen quickly,” she muttered. “You know that we cannot wait.”

Oscar frowned as his level of displeasure was taken to a new level. He closed his eyes for a moment, struggling not to erupt in fury. When he finally opened them, he had to take a deep breath to fortify his composure.

For surely, it was in danger of breaking.

“That,” he said. “God’s Bones, now we must deal with that. Everything would have been fine had Cecil gone through with the marriage. No one would have been the wiser.”

“Nay,” Randa said, eyeing her daughter, who was hanging her head. “No one would have been. So whoever you find as her husband, you had better do it soon. Otherwise, we may not be able to convince him that his firstborn is actually his child.”

There it was. Out in the open now. That secret they’d been trying to hide.

Randa had never been able to get a straight answer out of her daughter, whether Cecil had forced himself on her or whether she’d been a willing participant.

Whatever the case, Ophelia was with child.

Nearly six weeks now, by her estimation.

Another few weeks and she would begin to show it.

But right now, they had a window of opportunity.

She still didn’t look pregnant even if her breasts were filling out, but that seemed to be the only symptom so far.

Thankfully.

But they didn’t have much time.

Ophelia needed a husband or the de Bulverton family would be the source of rumors for years to come.

“Why, girl?” Oscar finally grunted. “Why did you do it?”

Ophelia kept her head down, unable to look at her grandfather. “I told you why.”

She had. Oscar growled angrily. “Because you’re a whore,” he said.

“I never thought a grandchild of mine, my heiress, would be a whore, but here we are. You are with child and you have no husband. Now I must rush to find you a husband, and even then, he may not believe the child is his. I will have to promise him my earldom to keep him silent, I am certain, but that is what I must do to preserve you and our family honor. Damn you for this. Damn you, damn you.”

With that, he walked off, leaving Ophelia in tears and Randa trying to comfort her.

But he didn’t care. He had a plan and had since before his foolish daughter listened to her foolish daughter and this foolery had infected his entire life.

A plan he’d been formulating for years, something that would turn his granddaughter into the catalyst for something much greater than she deserved.

Thank God that Cecil de Bosque had broken the betrothal, because now, Oscar’s dreams were going to come true.

He was taking over his granddaughter’s future.

Never mind the fact that Ophelia would be a pawn. As long as Oscar got what he wanted, that was all that mattered. The fact that she was carrying de Bosque’s child might complicate things, but in the end, he would have his way.

He would put that plan in action.