Nothing Else Matters (28 page)

“Oh my dear, those were children’s promises. We’re women now. We must go where love demands. We must listen to our hearts.”

“Our hearts.” Edythe wavered in front of her. Eleanor shook tears from her eyes to clear her vision. “Not our hearts, your heart. You’re leaving me to fol ow your heart.”

Edythe nodded. “I must. Lars must return to his own land.”

“Why?” Her question had nothing to do with Lars.

Edythe answered as though it did. “He says his father grows old and needs him. Since his fealty was pledged to Lord Roger and Roger is dead, Lars now

feels free to return to Denmark. Besides,” she added, “I believe he and Stian have had a fal ing-out of late. At least, Lars seems to think Stian might not wish his presence at Harelby.”

Edythe acted as if she had no idea why Stian might be annoyed with Lars. “Could it be because Lars is his stepmother’s lover?” she asked.

“We are not lovers,” Edythe answered, her voice taking on unaccustomed harshness. “I did not betray Roger while he lived. You know I would not have.”

She looked away. “Though I was tempted.” She gave a sad little laugh. “To think I enticed Lars for your sake and found my true love in doing so.”

“For my sake,” Eleanor repeated. “For my sake you’re leaving?” Her voice rose with every word. She sprang up off the bed and stalked toward her sister.

“You’re betraying my trust for that…barbarian!”

As usual, Edythe betrayed no sign of anxiety. “But, my dear, you don’t need me anymore,” was her reasonable response.

“Don’t need you?” Eleanor screamed the words while the servants gaped. “What wil I do without you?”

Edythe said, “It is you who don’t need me. You have Harelby and al the other manors in the honor of Harelby to manage. You’l soon have a babe and then another and another. You have Stian.”

“Stian!”

“Who you obviously adore. You have blossomed like a spring violet since we came to Harelby. I’ve never seen you so happy as when you are with Stian.”

“I am not happy with Stian,” Eleanor insisted. How could Edythe say such a foolish thing. Perhaps she’d been content, at least until Roger’s death. She’d made the most of a bad situation but what else could she have done? “I’m his wife.”

Edythe just laughed. “Fortunate child. You have so much and so do I. I have Lars. Be happy for me. Give me your blessing when I go.”

“When you go?” Eleanor looked around, at the chest the women had been packing. She realized it would do no good to argue with her sister. Edythe

would do what she would do. Eleanor supposed she could lock her sister in the bower and send Lars packing to the nearest port under guard. But would

that change how Edythe felt? Would that bring back the serenity and security of their childhood? No, there was nothing she could do, nothing more she

could say.

Except, “When do you leave?”

“Today.”

So soon? She saw the look of determination in Edythe’s eyes. Al Eleanor could do was take Edythe in her arms for one last, long embrace and wish her

happiness and Godspeed.

* * * * *

One could say any fool thing to a priest as long as it was true. Stian made the confession because they were alone but for the wolf curled up at the end of the bed. They were alone because Eleanor never bothered to come to his room. At least she came no more than once a day, spoke a few words, saw to

his needs, but she never stayed long. He’d been in bed seven days now and he was even wil ing to concede to being a bit petulant from the pain and

inactivity. The pain wasn’t so bad now, the arm was healing cleanly. The inactivity was beginning to wear on him at last.

It was inactivity he’d imposed on himself, real y. He could have been out of bed sooner, he admitted, but it had been easier to curl up like a bear and sleep than put on a sling and go downstairs. Hubert had been tel ing him so before Stian mentioned Eleanor to him.

“You are right, friend. I need to visit my father’s grave,” he said as he sat up.

He remembered how he’d scoffed at the idea of his father’s mortality when Roger’d commissioned a sculptor to carve his effigy on top of a stone tomb at the back of the chapel three years before. Now he could picture the statue of a sleeping knight quite clearly in his mind. It was a good likeness, drawn from life.

“Damn the man for dying on me,” he grumbled as the ache of loss shot through him. It was a constant ache real y, just worse some times than others.

Hubert hit him hard on his good arm. “Never swear so about the dead. Lord Roger’s not damned. Though he’s surely finding purgatory a bit uncomfortable just now, I’m sure my and Lady Eleanor’s prayers are doing him good.”

“Prayers? Eleanor’s praying for my father?”

So that was where she spent her time instead of being with him. Stian couldn’t fault her for her devotion to his father’s memory. In fact, he was very touched, even if he did wish she’d spend more time with him.

“She spends much of each day in the chapel,” Hubert answered.

The young priest’s voice held just enough hint of recrimination for Stian to say, “I’ve been sick.” Perhaps five days had been too long to lie in bed after the fever broke, he told himself. Perhaps he should have at least gone down to the hal . He certainly should have gone to the chapel to pray.

Instead he’d been staying within the safety of his own room, where he kept the future at bay and hoped his wife would pay more attention to him. Of

course, if she had found time for him, he admitted, he probably would have been a silent, sulking, despondent companion. It was just as wel —and wise—

that she had kept her distance. Eleanor, he thought, was wonderful y wise.

While he’d been lost in a fog of pain and grief, she had been going about the business of setting Harelby to rights and attending to the safety of his father’s soul. He couldn’t fault Eleanor for what she did but he missed her. He didn’t fault himself for his behavior either. He had to get past the pain of his father’s death in his own way. He didn’t feel ready to face the world but he knew it was time he did. If he waited until he was ready, he might never leave.

“I’m not ready to make this an anchorite’s cel just yet. Not while I’ve a beautiful wife to share it with,” he said, and laughed at Hubert’s puzzled look. “Send somebody for bath water,” he told the priest.

First he was going to get clean then he was going to get dressed. Then he was going to go find Eleanor.

* * * * *

Eleanor was taken by surprise by the sound of Stian’s voice behind her. She was even more surprised when he grabbed her around the waist with his

good arm and spun her into a kiss. In the hal , on the dais. In front of everyone—and everyone cheered. It wasn’t as if he hadn’t kissed her in public before.

Once. She’d bitten him that time.

This time she found herself melting against him, her mouth hungrily pressed against his, eager and wil ing. Until she remembered Katherine.

As she broke away from him and hurried to put the width of the table between them, she told herself she’d only responded in such wanton fashion

because he’d taken her unawares. It had been a reaction born of astonishment…that was al it was. She certainly hadn’t missed kissing the likes of Stian of Harelby.

He is a rough, crude, barbarian, she reminded herself as she faced him across the table. His mind is as often bent on rape as it is on lovemaking. Any kind of sex with any female who moves is al the same to him. “Men,” she muttered.

“What’s wrong?” Stian asked, taking a step toward her. He looked bewildered.

“Nothing,” she answered quickly. “How are you feeling?”

Her courtesy had an almost hostile undertone that Stian did not understand. He touched his left arm, which was supported by a sling made from one of her embroidered headrails. Perhaps that was what annoyed her, that he’d used what was probably a piece of delicate silk in such a way. He promised

himself to have an el of silk fetched from the merchants in York for her.

“The arm’s mending wel ,” he told her.

She nodded and pointed toward the high-backed chair. Her expression remained closed, unhappy. “Please sit down, my lord,” she said. “I have to see to

serving breakfast.”

Stian had promised himself before coming downstairs that he wasn’t going to growl or show any il temper this day. He had put Eleanor through enough of his bad behavior recently. He was determined to make up for it.

Frustration bubbled near the surface as he made himself sit in his father’s chair but he held it in check. He’d been left wanting to do far more than just kiss her when she moved away. Jesu, but it had felt good to have her in his embrace, to have her mouth on his. He wanted her badly, but he already regretted the public show he’d made of his lust. She’d been right to stop it. He let he go about her duties, though he would much rather have had her seated beside him as he presided over his first meal as lord of Harelby.

“Lord of Harelby,” he whispered to himself as he watched his wife leave the hal . He crossed himself. “Sweet Jesu, help me. I am indeed lord of Harelby.”

So thinking, he turned to Hubert. “Since the steward’s dead, you might as wel fetch me his work. Can’t trust you to read the rol s and tal y sticks, so I best do it until we can send to St. Randolf’s for someone to take the steward’s post.” He’d consult with Eleanor about the needs of the manor when she

returned from the kitchen.

Eleanor went outside to the kitchen and stayed there as long as she could. She inspected the double cookfires, tested the meat already slow roasting for the evening meal over one fire and complained about the cleanliness of the porridge pot bubbling on the other. She complained about the coarse ground

state of the flour, though the fault was more the mil er’s than the cook she berated. She picked through a pile of freshly pul ed carrots and counted baskets of eggs. She did everything she could to linger and to keep her mind off Stian.

Much to the cook and his helpers’ annoyance, she ended up pacing around the smal building long after she was done with the food. Al was in order in the kitchen, her presence wasn’t needed. The place was crowded enough, hot and smoky, besides she was just in the way. Final y, the cook got up the

courage to point al these things out to her. He asked her to leave.

Stian was probably long gone from the hal by this time, she decided. He might have gone back to bed or to the stables or to oversee fighting practice. It would be easy enough to go up to the bower without his seeing her. She could spend the rest of her day with the women.

But what about the night? she asked herself as she returned to the hal . Where could she hide from his bed now that he was getting wel ? She didn’t know why she even wanted to. It was her duty to sleep with her husband but she didn’t want to. Wel , perhaps her treacherous body was missing the sins of the flesh, but in her mind, Eleanor was repulsed by the idea of sharing Stian’s bed.

She didn’t know why she was so hurt by the things he’d said about rape in his fever. She didn’t know why she expected him to be any different than every other man. She didn’t know why she expected some sort of heroic self-restraint from him, some sort of fidelity to her. She just knew that she did expect it and her soul was in pain. She felt more betrayed by his lack of constancy than she did by Edythe’s leaving.

She thought perhaps she would not go up to the bower as she entered the hal . Instead, she wanted to find somewhere she could be alone to cry. She

knew that neither privacy nor an escape from Stian was to be had the moment she glanced at the high table. He was stil there, surrounded by a pile of parchments. His head came up the moment she looked at him. He smiled and waved her forward. There was nothing she could do but swal ow her tears

and join him at his command.

As she took the chair beside him, he asked, “Where’s Lars? Where’s Long Kate?”

She answered the second question, stiffly, “In the bower. Under guard. Two guards. And al the household women I can spare.”

Stian chuckled. “That should keep her safe enough. Pity the poor gentlewomen, especial y Lady Edythe. Now, where’s my cousin? I’ve an errand for him

to St. Randolf’s.”

“Errand?” Eleanor stood. “I’l fetch Ranald for you.”

“I don’t want my squire. Lars could use some time away from Harelby. I’l send him.”

Stian didn’t know why Eleanor was so nervous at the mention of Lars. Had the man tried to ravish Long Kate when he’d been told not too? If he had, he

was a dead man. Surely, Eleanor would never al ow any impropriety under her roof.

Her roof. He smiled, liking the thought. His roof as wel . He knew he would never stop missing his father, just as he would never stop missing his mother, but he was a man now. Harelby was his, his and Eleanor’s. They’d make the blessed spirits of the last lord and lady proud of the heirs they’d left behind.

He turned to Hubert, who stood at the end of the table, trying to look helpful though he could read neither Latin or French nor count very wel . “Go find Lars for me,” he told the priest.

“I can’t,” Hubert answered promptly.

Stian’s brows lowered in annoyance. “What do you mean, you can’t find him? Where is he?”

“At sea by now, I expect.”

Stian stared blankly at Hubert but the priest offered no more explanation. He turned to Eleanor. She was looking anywhere but at him and she was

blushing. His arm was aching, which didn’t help his mood any.

“What,” Stian asked, holding hard onto his patience, “is going on? Where’s my cousin?”

“Returning to Denmark,” Hubert answered.

That came as a surprise and as another painful jolt. Even as annoying as Lars’ behavior had been recently, he was going to miss him. Why hadn’t he even come to say goodbye? Had he left because he was angry at Stian? Or were there other reasons? Stian could tel from the look on Eleanor’s face that

there were.

“What? Where’s Edythe?” he asked, suddenly suspicious.

The answer was barely audible. “With Lars.”