The Holding - Book 1 in The Medieval Knights Series (11 page)

This time it was no kiss of peace he offered her, but a kiss of war—a war he would win; neither of them had any doubt of that. But it was a war against her resistance that caught her unprepared, for he
did
not deal harshly with her, no matter that he had been sorely prodded. Nay, he did not move directly against her mouth—did he fear she would bite?—but instead set his mouth against the tender spot near her ear. His hands moved from her arms to capture her breasts in a gentle and beguiling embrace, and as his thumbs teased her nipples to reluctant life, his mouth, warmer now than before, traced a path along the line of her chin. She stirred against him, against the onslaught of touch and emotion, pressing her locked arms against the width of his chest and pushing hard. He did not move. She had not really thought that he would, but it was all that was left to her. And she kept her eyes wide open. He would not win her. She would not lose herself in the sensations he was striving to tap. She was Cathryn of Greneforde and she would not melt for him.

His mouth, moving constantly, reached hers, and now he did take that strategic point. His effort was valiant in its persuasion and perseverance, but she kept her lips closed against his, no matter what wiles of tongue and breath he used. There would be no sweet taste there for him to savor, just the bitter gall that filled her own mouth.

At last he understood that there would be no winning her, that she would not yield to his touch and grow soft and warm for him. He had the small satisfaction of knowing that this, at least, was the Cathryn he recognized. There would be no parley, no compromise; she would be breached tonight. She would be wife in full measure, no matter her distaste for the act, for he would be lord of Greneforde. Besides, with practice, she might grow to like it.

He pressed his hips fully against hers and rubbed against her. She arched her back so violently away from him that he wondered if she would do herself an injury before submitting quietly to his touch. But she was quiet, as was he. Their battle, for it was nothing else, was waged in silence. Desperate silence.

He could do naught else. The time for him to penetrate her had come. It would be best to get it over with as quickly as he could; pleasure would come with subsequent beddings.

Pushing her onto the bed, he fell atop her, keeping the bulk of his weight off of her with his raised arms. Trying once again to coax pleasure from her, he kissed her, feeling gently with his fingertip for the small slit that would receive him. She was as dry as bone and as stiff. And still she watched him with eyes wide and panic-filled. In truth, he found he had the compassion to pity her.

With his pity, and those eyes staring in such horror at him, he felt himself grow soft.

Muttering a curse, he yanked up her shift, tearing it in the process, and stared at the delicate beauty of her golden nakedness, carefully keeping his eyes from hers lest she unman him again.

She was a beauty of fine proportion and fashionably slim—too slim, in fact. More food and less wine would serve her better. But her breasts were perfectly round mounds surmounted by dusky pink peaks of generous size. Her nipples were large and greatly extended, despite her apparent lack of response; perhaps she was not as unmoved as he had feared. Feasting his eyes upon her, he felt his manhood grow until it pressed against the soft skin of her inner thigh. It was time.

"The first time there is fear and pain," he said softly, his voice low and gentle. "Let us get the first time behind us, Cat."

And she went wild beneath him, clawing and twisting so that he knew she meant to draw his blood before he drew hers. So great was the strength of her panic, she almost succeeded in tossing him from the bed. The rest of her shift was ripped away as she battled him. But he had had enough. The marriage would be consummated. Greneforde would be his without any doubt—and so would Cathryn.

"This marriage will be consummated!" William thundered, positioning himself between her legs, pressing his weight against her so that she could not shift position. When one of her fists rocked against his face, he held her hands above her head in one gigantic fist, while with the other he spread wide one leg. She was helpless.

With one thrust he breached her and he roared out, his voice rebounding off the walls of the room. But his cry was not in ecstasy or in victory.

Cathryn of Greneforde was no virgin.

* * *

She lay still beneath him, as unmoving now as she had been volatile before. Eyes wide, she looked straight up with an unseeing, unblinking stare. Her legs were splayed out across the disheveled bed. Her hands clenched even as they were held in William's fist. She felt nothing, except that perhaps this was what it was to be dead.

William felt much, much more. His manhood was again gone, and this time he did not care; the marriage had been consummated, if just. He slid out of her and escaped the bed, hastily arranging his clothing. He did not look at her. He thought that if he did, he just might kill her.

She had known a man before him.

A tidal thrust of betrayal and fury rose to choke him. He had been on the mark when he suspected her of betrayal. His instincts were never wrong, but how he wished—and not for the first time—that they could be more specific.

She had lain with a man. At least one man. If she had soiled herself with one, she could have been with many, for how was a man to know when once the wall had been breached how many poured through the gap?

William walked to the fire, just a flicker of embers now, and stared, his body as cold as his heart. What manner of woman was he shackled to for the remainder of his days? But he need not be. He could have the marriage annulled if he chose. His wife had been unclean upon the marriage bed. The pope himself would endorse his claim.

And he would lose his claim on Greneforde. Henry had made it clear that Cathryn and Greneforde were one. Relinquishing Cathryn would equal relinquishing Greneforde. Was she worth losing all he had struggled for?

He turned to look at her. She had not moved. She lay spread wide on the bed, shamelessly. Her eyes were as calm and as dry as any harbor whore's, and as cold.

No, she was not worth it. Greneforde was his and would remain his.

William walked past the bed to the curtained doorway. Not once did he glance at her. It was just as well; the icy metal of his eyes would have pierced her through.

At the curtain he stopped and, staring into the darkened portal, informed her coldly, "I had no wish for a wife. Greneforde was the prize. Since you cannot be separated, I will keep you because I desire your hall, your people, and your land."

A rustle of the curtain and he was gone.

When he had been gone for a long time—how long she did not know—Cathryn slowly curled into a small, tight ball in the middle of the bed. The room was cold and dark, the only light coming now from the taper near the doorway.

She turned her back to the light.

Wrapping her arms around herself, she began to shake, the tremors rising from the black pit in the center of her soul to rattle her teeth.

Recalling William's bitterly spoken words, she whispered into the darkness, "Verily, 'tis true, and truly I know it."

Tears ran silently in a steady and never-ending stream down her face until they were soundlessly absorbed into her tangled hair.

Chapter 6

Hearing William's roar, his hands clasped fervently to his chest, Father Godfrey hastily resumed his prayers.

John, having loitered in the hall long past the final meal of the day, heard the lord of Greneforde's cry. With solemn eyes, he quietly left the hall for the kitchen.

Rowland stopped in the act of polishing his sword before the great fire in the hall. As William's roar faded away, he smiled and resumed his methodical polishing.

* * *

The door to the chapel opened with unearthly quiet. It was only when the candles before the altar flickered that Godfrey looked up from his prayers. Only one man could move about so quietly, and he always did so when his warrior instincts were running high. Father Godfrey looked up to find William's hard face before him; the look in his cold gray eyes set Godfrey's hands to trembling.

"You knew." William barely spoke, his words making a small cloud of fog in the cold air.

Godfrey could not find breath to answer. He hid his shaking hands beneath his robes and prayed for God's deliverance.

"And I had a right to know," William said with just slightly more force.

Swallowing heavily, Father Godfrey answered, "I had no right to tell you."

"She told you in confession."

Godfrey could neither confirm nor deny that statement; to do so would be a violation of his vows.

"Confession is between a soul and God," he tried, "and I am but—"

"I need to know!" William cut him off, his eyes blazing points of cold light. "Was it one? Ten? Every man within the curtain wall?" His left hand clasped the sword hilt with whitened knuckles, and it was then that Godfrey saw that the lord of Greneforde was armed. "Was it love or only an unruly woman with no man or priest to control her?"

Godfrey saw the pain etched on William's face. To know only part of the truth was eating away at him like a worm.

"I cannot say," he choked out. "You must find your own way in this. Think on what she has said, on what I have said," he tried.

William did think on it. Truly, there had to be a way for him to decipher this mess that lay before him, if only he could shunt the pain of her betrayal to one side and concentrate on all that he had seen and heard since riding through Greneforde's gate. But it was harder than any battle he had faced. She, with the fine-boned face of a saint, had lain with another. She, with a heart as cold as winter turf, had warmed another man's bed. No, she was not cold. She was cold only to him.

"Think, William!" Godfrey charged.

William tightened his grip upon his sword and trained his thoughts to pursue the path he directed. Snippets of information flew up from his mind like birds flying wild from a pack of dogs. The serfs were beaten, Rowland had said. The land was barren and war-torn. There were no knights, no squires. And Cathryn had a stone for a heart.

"She said," he forced himself to repeat, "that it had been a hard year for Greneforde."

Godfrey clutched those words desperately. "Verily," he said with force, "she said the truth of it." And he willed William to continue.

"And you said," William repeated with suppressed anger, "that I should treat her as part of my own body."

Godfrey, to his credit, did not back away from that indictment. "'Tis the Lord's word on marriage..."

"Ah, the Lord's word," William repeated bitterly. "Did you not teach me, 'If thine eye offend thee, pluck it out'?"

"Nay, William!" Godfrey admonished, his eyes wide in horror, unsure just how far William intended to follow that analogy. "She is the weaker vessel and has been..."

"Filled with another man's seed before mine!" William all but shouted.

"...sorely used," Godfrey said over him.

"And not I?" William choked out, his eyes almost glazed with pain. "I have been gifted an empty donjon near ruin and a wife ruined complete." With a hard and mocking laugh he added, "Verily, service to one's sovereign yields bitter fruit of late."

Godfrey reached out his hand and laid it atop the hand that clenched the sword hilt.

"William," he beseeched, "love her. You have become one flesh in the eyes of God."

The pain in William's eyes died as quickly as a fire on winter ice. With cold calculation, he responded, "Nay. I will love Greneforde and give my body's strength to its nourishment." His eyes as cold and lifeless as hammered steel, he added, "To Greneforde only."

Turning swiftly, he departed as silently as he had come.

* * *

John opened the door that entered on the kitchen. The fire had been banked for the night, and the capacious room was as tidy as Lady Cathryn liked it to be. John sighed wearily. It had been a long and busy day. First the messenger from King Henry and then the arrival of the man who would take charge of both Greneforde and Lady Cathryn. The wedding feast had been prepared in the midst of frantic cleaning, and then good time spent in surreptiously studying the men in William's service while delaying the presentation of the meal. It had been a full day. Yet not one eye was closed at this late hour, and surely they all knew that dawn came early enough.