The Marriage Bed (The Medieval Knights Series) (8 page)

"Brother Richard seeks no man's counsel. Nor heeds it when it is thrust upon him."

"A headstrong Benedictine?"

"Nay, but a man ever certain of his path."

"A good trait in a baron, but in a monk?"

John smiled and said nothing for a pace. "Isabel appears well content in the marriage."

"She, too, has seen clearly the path of her choosing," Langfrid answered, his own smile stilled.

"She has had many stumbling blocks in her path," John said diplomatically.

"Yea, she has," Langfrid agreed. "But God and God alone knows the number of our days, does he not, Brother?"

"And the desires of our hearts," added John.

And therein lay the small seed of Isabel's misery: She believed she had caused the deaths of two men in her heartfelt prayers to be Richard's wife.

But that confidence had been whispered to Father Langfrid in the sanctity of the confessional and was not destined to be dinner conversation.

"It has been a hard season for Isabel," John said, coming too close to what had been on Langfrid's mind.

"Yea, she has been sore pressed, for every estate needs a lord. It is God's blessing that Isabel is well wed, the betrothal contract intact, overlord and king satisfied."

"All pieces in their place, each person in his station."

"Even so, Brother. God's order maintained on earth."

"Even so, Father," John echoed.

And if either man considered how many deaths it had taken for Isabel to have her heart's desire, they refrained from speaking it aloud.

* * *

Dinner proceeded apace, each dish a masterpiece to the eyes and to the tongue, richer food and more bounteous than was Richard's custom. Monks ate meat rarely, and yet he was being served venison, lamb, and rabbit, as well as eel and quail. It was more food than he ate in a month as a Benedictine. But he was no longer a Benedictine. He was Lord of Dornei, Warefeld, Bledelai, Hilesdun and all the rest. A lord of many, when all he wanted was to be a servant to One. And he had never wanted to be a husband.

Never had begun a year ago, just past Whitsunday.

Richard cast his eyes to glance at Isabel; her dark hair fell heavy and thick to her hips, unbound and glorious, a tribute to her maidenhood. He flicked his eyes forward and ate lightly of his venison; Lord of Dornei he may be, but he would not forswear his Benedictine appetites. But how long would discipline last before he slid back into gluttony?

Debauchery.

He glanced at Isabel again. She was watching him. Their eyes met. He could read her desire in the parting of her lips and the flush of her cheeks, but most especially in the clear depths of her gaze.

It was always so.

She had pursued him with her eyes as a child and then as a woman of marriageable age and now as a wife. He had beaten back her desire for him for an age, and except for one moment of sin-soaked weakness, he had resisted her. He would resist her still.

Everything about Isabel's too blatant desire for him had been wrong—wrong in God's eye and the world's. She had been betrothed to his brother, therefore, she was his sister by marriage, her attraction for him both incestuous and adulterous. She had followed where he did not want her, her dark hair flying behind her as she watched him when he trained in the bailey. He had endured it, knowing her to be impetuous and willful and in need of training; ignoring her presence until the boys who shared his fostering at Malton had made Isabel and her hawklike devotion to him the point on which every joke, every ribaldry, was raised. Until Henley had noted it.

She had become a stone thrown against his honor and the honor of his house.

And now again. He had sought to honor God with the gift of his life, but his life had been given to Isabel. Everything in his life seemed to turn around Isabel, like the sun around the earth, the unwelcome center of all his thoughts and all his plans.

Lifting a morsel of bread to his lips, he could feel her eyes on him. Always she watched him. Without shame or modesty, she watched him. He could feel her carnal desire, see it in the flush of her cheek and the twitching of her hands. He knew all the signs of a woman's desire. He had learned at Malton.

But Malton was the past and Dornei was the present. Thinking of Malton would not help him in Dornei. Richard studied the men in the hall, dining on his food at his tables. He did not like the manner of the one called Adam. That one had been too close upon Isabel, his smile too false, his bearing too eager. Nicholas he knew too well from Malton to trust overmuch. Louis's bright look he distrusted. The steward regarded him cautiously, the bailiff suspiciously, and the men-at-arms with grim silence. Yet none of it touched Richard as much as Isabel's ill-concealed desire for him. That, he must fight, and it was the only struggle in his path which challenged his confidence, for it was a battle which he had waged often and never victoriously.

Isabel and her desire were as constant as the sun, as hot and as bright. 'Twas his battle against Isabel's carnal desires that might topple him.

But this was where God had sent him, even if only for a season, and he would master all to which he laid his hand. Brother John had come expressly to remind him of his duty as Lord of Dornei.

And of his duty to Isabel? He did not want to master or lay hand to Isabel. Not again.

With that thought foremost, he spoke to her, though he would not look at her.

"It is expected that we will consummate our marriage tonight."

Isabel dropped her knife with a clatter against the table. It left a dark stain against the cloth. Richard picked it up and handed it back to her, all the while keeping his eyes lowered, in the Benedictine fashion.

"It is inappropriate," he continued, almost without pause. "To commit such an act on the heels of Lord Bernard's death is unseemly. God would surely not smile on such behavior, and I would not begin our marriage on so precarious a step."

He chanced a brief look at her face. She was as still as a salt pillar; she did not even blink a response. Her eyes, though, gave all away.

She wanted him.

Yet she would not fight his will.

All this he could read in her eyes. Richard felt a surge of hope. Perhaps, after all, he could make it through this trial God had set before him.

"In service to God and to honor Lord Bernard," he announced to all present in the hall, "prayers will be said throughout the night. All are encouraged to participate."

The silence that heralded his proclamation pleased him. The ease with which he had avoided the marriage bed exhilarated him. Until he saw Adam smile in unmasked male pleasure.

Chapter 7

"He does it out of concern for you," Joan whispered. "'Tis an act of highest chivalry."

Isabel said nothing. She washed her hands in the communal lavatory with as much vigor as if she were pounding linen. She knew Richard; a chivalric act of graciousness had not been his goal.

"He but performs his holy duty to your father. For a man on his wedding night, it is the height of self-sacrifice. You should be pleased, not insulted," Joan insisted.

Isabel held her tongue and shook her hands like a hound shaking himself after a dousing.
Holy duty?
What of his duty to her? He would like the world to think him the most devout of men, but she knew him better. She knew what he was capable of, once he removed the cowl. No matter what Joan said to appease her, she knew what Richard had done to her in the full view of all Dornei: he had insulted her. He had rejected her. He had refused the pleasures of the marriage bed and
of
her.

"One night is little enough to complain of," Aelis said, standing just beyond Joan. "You have a handsome and virile husband, at least."

Aelis, ever on the watch for Edmund, a young man on whom she could slake her thirst for romance, was betrothed to a man three times her age who was missing the most important of his teeth. She was buxom, blond, and robust; too much for her betrothed, but an even match for Edmund, only three years her senior.

Elsbeth, small and dark and fragile in appearance, spoke up from behind Isabel. "In that, Aelis is correct; one night is only that. Other nights, and days, will follow. This is but a moment."

Isabel smiled ruefully at Elsbeth. Of them all, Elsbeth understood best what she was feeling. It was humiliation; her desire for Richard was so clearly unreturned.

"A moment only," Joan said softly into her ear, giving her a quick hug. "It hurts, I will grant, but he is your husband now and nothing can change that. Remember that, my dear, and dwell on it."

If she but could, but she had known Richard for year upon year and one thing she knew above all else: Richard was an elusive prey. He was like the sun, ever in the sky and clearly seen but eternally unreachable. She had watched him, season after season, and she had yet to catch him. Once, she had thought... but then he had fled Malton for the abbey. She had known she had lost him then. Yet did not God work miracles? Was not Richard now her husband in fact? Aelis was right. It was but a single night.

But it was her wedding night, and instead of learning of the joys of the marriage bed, she would be praying through the long hours until dawn.

And was she so ungrateful to the God who had given her Richard? Nay, she was not. One night of prayer was not such a great sacrifice. She would pray for her father, Bernard, and his wife, Ida, and for Hubert and for Geoffrey; she would pray for them all, they who so recently departed this earth for heaven and eternal rest. She would pray. She had Richard.

Tomorrow, night would come again. Tomorrow, Richard would make her his wife in fact.

With a faint smile to show she was encouraged by their words, Isabel led the way out of the lavatory. But she was not encouraged, she was only patient. With Richard as her heart's desire, she had learned the necessity of patience long ago. One night she had to wait, one night more, when she had thought never to have the gift of Richard in her bed and in her life. She could wait one night.

Did Richard, ever elusive, understand that he had achieved a reprieve of only one night?

The sight of Adam, smiling and handsome, interrupted her circling thoughts. Could not her husband of hours be more like Adam? More attentive, more cheerful? Nay, she had married Richard, and Richard was none of those, at least not with her.

Adam met them on the last stair, his smile wide and his posture open; in all ways he looked a man eager. She had never seen such a look on Richard. Adam, comely and winsome, meant nothing to her. In all her life, there had been only Richard.

When first she had come to Malton, she had entertained no dreams of love. Richard had been her friend, ready with encouragement when she muddled the tapestry or a grin when he bested her at chess. As they had grown, their relationship had changed, and she could well recall the exact moment when she had passed through friendship and into love. Watching him one day serving at table, the angle at which he held his head, the dark shadow of his lashes against his cheek, the pulse of blood at his throat, had ensnared her. Yet she was not taken, not completely. That had happened the next day, when she had strayed out of the hall to watch the men at their warplay. Richard had been wielding his sword, his face pulled into a frown of concentration, besting his mock foe. He was tall, taller than his opponent, and his reach greater. His fighting style had been graceful, even for a youth. At the knight's command, the battle ended. Richard pulled off his helm and ran a hand through his dark hair. A word was spoken, both squires turned to her, and Richard smiled. A hesitant smile, yet a smile.

In that moment, she was lost.

She had been lost in wanting Richard ever since.

Adam's charm in no way stood against the power of the memory of that one halting smile.

"Isabel," Adam said gently.

Isabel jerked her thoughts away from memories of Richard and onto the man who stood so attentively in front of her.

"Adam," she greeted, "have you come to escort us to Vespers?"

"Indeed I have, Lady. The wind is strong within the walls of Dornei, and I fear it may try to carry you off."

Indeed, Adam was playful today. Never had she known him to be so frivolous in his speech. Perhaps he merely celebrated her wedding day. He was of a certain more cheerful than her husband.

"What will you do, then," she teased, "hold us all within your grasp? Can one man protect four women from a wind so fierce?"

"He shall have no occasion to protect me," Joan said, "for even the wind respects women of my years. Also, I wanted to wear my new wimple for Vespers, in honor of the day. Do not wait upon me. I shall not be late," she said in parting, turning to reascend the stair.

Aelis was not there to answer Adam and his offer of protection. Aelis had seen Edmund across the wide width of hall and was in pursuit of him, her hips undulating under the soft weight of her bliaut. A shaft of sunlight from the wind hole caught the gold of her hair before she disappeared.

"It seems there are but two women who need male protection," Adam said, looking askance at Elsbeth.