Nothing Else Matters (5 page)

Lord Roger had spoken much of his lands on their journey, but now she saw that his observations were colored with his love of the place. His tongue had the storytel er’s craft for exaggeration. Or, she added unkindly with a sideways look for the son he’d praised so highly, Roger of Harelby was simply an outright liar.

She wondered if the man beside her was capable of conversing in more than grunts and curses, for she had heard not a word from him since they had

come down to dinner. Perhaps she should be grateful for his silence and his indifference. She hoped she would be content enough with her lot if the man left her to herself. As long as she was with Edythe and had her few books to keep her company, her life would not be unbearably lonely. Stil , for now she was hungry despite her nerves and curious despite the strangeness of her situation. She hoped a bit of civilized dinner conversation might be obtained from her betrothed along with a few bites of the meal.

Sir Stian and she had a single trencher of food before them. A mixture of meat and vegetables had been ladled onto the thick round of bread that served as a plate. Ignoring custom, the red-haired lout had yet to offer her a bite of the meal. She’d waited in self-effacing silence for Sir Stian to gal antly offer her a tasty morsel. She was beginning to realize that she could starve waiting for the man to behave properly.
Patience
, she told herself.
Be patient, be
gentle, be dutiful. For you are his to command from this day forward.
She reminded herself once more of Lady Constance’s lessons and moved a bit closer to Stian.

“My lord?”

She wondered if he was as aware as she was of her thigh pressing against his as he answered, “What?”

She had spoken meekly, politely. His tone showed no signs that he noticed. So she found herself saying, “You might think to offer me a smal sup of wine.”

“Oh,” he said, and thrust the goblet toward her.

Al her efforts toward meek acceptance couldn’t keep her indignation at bay. Her temper flared merely at the sound of his voice. Eleanor did not know why the man made her angry by his mere existence, but it took a mighty effort not to snatch the goblet from his hand and toss the liquid in his face.

Perhaps if he had not dared to kiss her sister in such an unseemly fashion or treated her with such lewd contempt, dealing with him would not rankle so.

Whatever it was that caused her incautious emotions, Eleanor curbed the desire to deal violently with the brute and forced a smile.

She saw him looking at her as if he’d just noticed her presence and made her lips form a smile. She wanted to shout at him. She had her duty to perform and Lady Constance’s lessons as a weapon. Somehow she had to make the man see her as desirable. She could not manage to look Sir Stian in the

eye but she did deliberately turn the cup so that her lips touched the same spot his had. Then she took a smal sip of Lord Roger’s very bad wine.

Stian was used to sharing his meal with Lars, not a mouse with pretty manners. She smel ed good and her body felt good sitting snugly next to him on the bench. He wanted to reach down and touch her, to run his hand up and down the soft inside of her thigh. He almost laughed thinking how the mouse would react to such a touch. He wondered if she’d bite or scream or kick.

Then she smiled and drank from the goblet in a deliberate way that made him think perhaps her closeness was no accident. Her action left him more

confused than ever.

“What do you want?” he demanded.

The girl flinched at the sound of his voice but she pointed at the trencher. Her eyes flashed up at him as she answered, “Some supper.”

“Oh.”

He shoved the trencher closer to her. He hadn’t realized he’d been keeping the meal to himself. He’d been trying not to think at al . And instead, he’d been thinking and feeling far too much.

He’d been trying to cope with the fact another woman was seated in the place that had been empty since his mother’s long ago death. He hadn’t known

how much he stil missed her until his father graciously put Lady Edythe by his side at the high table. Stian’s life had changed drastical y at his mother’s death, the pain of it was throbbing anew inside him as he tried to accept that his father had a new wife.

There had been music and fine stories at Harelby before his mother died. There had been laughter and love and kindness between his parents and him

and his two little sisters. Mother and the girls died of a fever and the world went dark. His father had fled his grief, gone to court and to wars. He’d been anywhere but at Harelby. For years Stian had known nothing but the pain of being abandoned. He’d learned to drown the pain and keep himself

entertained.

When his father had come home nearly two years before, they had made peace and reaffirmed that they loved one another. It was damned hard to

remember how much he cared for the man as he watched his father proudly gazing at the woman in his mother’s place. Stian didn’t know where to look,

what to say, what to do.

He’d been trying not to give in to the urge to touch the mouse. Until now he’d never had to talk to a woman before lifting her skirts and he didn’t know how to do it. He listened to his father’s easy way with words and Lady Edythe’s easy answers, knowing he could never entertain a court-bred woman in such a way. Roger had been able to teach him how to fight, but there hadn’t been much of his easy polish that his father had been able to pass on to him.

He’d been casting sidelong glances at Lars, seated farther down the table, and at the men-at-arms eating at the trestle tables below. He kept tel ing

himself that their laughter and lewd gestures were wel meant but he hated being the butt of even friendly jokes.

And most importantly, he’d been trying very hard to get drunk enough not to care about any of it. It seemed to him that he was being remarkably

unsuccessful at getting drunk.

He might have apologized to the girl for keeping her from her meal but she slapped the goblet back into his hand just as the server appeared with the

wine pitcher. Stian let the moment pass and took another glass of wine.

* * * * *

Eleanor didn’t know what to say as Lord Roger led her toward the chapel. Stian had disappeared with a group of young men the moment the meal ended.

She’d had a moment of relief to be out of his presence. Then Lord Roger had announced it was time for the wedding. He’d had her on the way to the

chapel before she’d had any chance to flee. Her mind was racing, alternating schemes of escape with a litany of al the marital advice she’d ever heard.

Now Lord Roger wanted her to actual y answer a question. She could do no more than look up at him and blink.

He responded with a fond smile and a pat on the head. His reassurance helped to steady her nerves. She tried not to think about the swift pace Lord

Roger was setting across the courtyard or about the crowd of merrymaking strangers around them. She tried not to think about the fact that she was going to her doom. She tried to think about Lord Roger’s question instead, and look around her at Harelby.

The night was clear but it was the dark of the moon. There were servants carrying torches, giving il uminated glimpses of structures she barely

remembered seeing by daylight. There was light spil ing out through the chapel door. She found herself concentrating on the arched entrance of the smal building as they hurriedly approached it. In the depths of her mind she saw the doorway as the mouth of a fearsome dragon, fiery maw opened to engulf

her. Or perhaps it was the very gates of hel .

She was shocked out of her panic by her blasphemous thought. She said a swift prayer under her breath, not only for forgiveness but for strength. And for inspiration, for surely there was some way out of this tangle.

Then it struck her as Lord Roger swept her through the door that perhaps the priest could help her. If she protested that this was not a wil ing union to the priest, perhaps he would take her plea up with the bishop.

“Where is the nearest bishop, my lord?” she heard herself asking Lord Roger even as the plan formed in her mind.

She gasped at her own words. Though she and Edythe were of no great rank, they had been raised in a queen’s court where every word and gesture

must be careful y considered before being made. When had she forgotten caution? What was it about this wild northland that made her abandon sense? It

seemed as if she’d been nothing but a bundle of reckless emotion since Stian had forced his brutal kiss on her.

Lord Roger gave her an odd look but answered. “York. The bishop is in York.”

Of course she had no idea where York might be. They had passed through no town large enough to be a bishop’s seat on the long journey. She hoped the

distance to this York was not too far. Perhaps she could write a letter to the bishop there and prevail upon Harelby’s priest to deliver it for her.

“And here, my dear,” said Lord Roger as they neared the altar, “is Father Hubert.”

Eleanor came to a dazed halt. “You are the priest?” she asked as she looked dubiously at the thin young man before her.

Hubert had masses of thick, dark hair and a scraggly, barely there mustache. He was dressed like al the other young men and without the slightest hint of a tonsure. She had seen him in the hal and assumed him to be one of the squires.

His face was narrow—his smile was not. His eyes lit with pride as he answered. “Oh aye. Like my father before me and his father before him and his

father before him and his, and his mother before him. No matter the religion we’ve always been priests in my family.”

Eleanor did not understand. “What sort of pagan, barbaric place is this?”

“Wel ,” the young man said pleasantly, just as Stian came staggering up, his arm around another of the castle’s supply of rowdies, “it gets pretty cold in winter but you’l learn to like it.”

Eleanor ignored Stian as she stared at the priest in shock. Father Hubert was obviously not the one she could plead her case with. Stil , she asked, “Do you know where York is? Do you know there’s a bishop there?”

Hubert scratched his chin. “Aye. And I pray the bishop stays right where he is.”

Before Eleanor could respond, Dame Beatrice pushed forward and said, “Get on with it, Hubert. It grows late.”

Late.
Oh indeed, it grows very late
, Eleanor thought as she closed her eyes. People bustled around her at the chatelaine’s command. She could feel Stian’s large presence as he moved closer, swaying slightly before he drew to a halt. She breathed in a hint of flowery scent as Edythe touched her

shoulder then was gone. The members of Lord Roger’s household had taken their places, leaving Stian and her with the priest before the altar.

Eleanor opened her eyes. She couldn’t bring herself to look at Stian. She concentrated on the young priest. If she were going to do something to save

herself, it had to be now. She knew she must go on with the marriage ceremony but there was a way she might be able to break the vows later.

She took a deep breath, though her voice came out as only a whisper when she spoke. A whisper that carried no farther than to the priest and the man

looming like a stone wal beside her. “I consent to this wedding because I am forced to. I do not make this marriage of my own freewil ,” she said to

Hubert. Her voice barely shook but she was trembling al over, inside and out.

The priest gave a sympathetic look between Stian and her. “Oh,” was al he said.

Stian however, was quivering in rage. Though she kept her gaze firmly fixed straight ahead, she could feel her groom’s evil glare.

When he spoke, his voice was as quiet as hers had been, but cold and deadly with it. “I’d as soon marry a plow ox than this mouse, Hubert.”

“Oh,” the priest said again. He didn’t seem at al perturbed by their declarations. He crossed himself, smiled his bright smile and said, “May the Lord Christ bless this union.”

Eleanor could find no more brave words of protest. In fact, as the ceremony went on, she could find no more words at al . She could only nod when the

priest asked her to acknowledge the wedding vows. Stian merely grunted when Hubert asked the questions of him. She supposed it didn’t matter that she

had no voice and the bridegroom didn’t bother to speak, not with al the witnesses to swear that the marriage was true.

Like it or not, they were wed.

“Your horse is outside,” Lars whispered in his ear as Stian dragged his bride toward the chapel door.

Stian felt a moment of confusion then he remembered the plan. He gave his cousin a curt nod. The idea had been Lars’, but Stian liked it just fine. Privacy was what he wanted. He did not want every person in the castle to oversee his bedding of the woman. In the forest would be silence, freedom. He could

hardly wait to get away.

He held the mouse firmly by the arm as he hustled her to the church door. Several people clapped him on the back as he pushed past. He saw his father

smiling with one arm around Edythe, his other hand on Dame Beatrice’s shoulder. Beatrice was squinting and scowling, her hands tucked into her

sleeves, suffering the situation and his father’s touch with no great grace. Lars fol owed hard on Stian’s heels, laughing loudly. Everyone was making for the door, to form the procession to the bedchamber. Bodies surged around him but he was the biggest, strongest man in the crowd—they had to make

way for him.

The night was cool. As he stepped outside, he saw that a groom held a cape as wel as his horse for him. Stian swung his bride up in his arms as they

stepped across the threshold. Ignoring her smal cry, he made it to his horse in two swift strides. He threw the cloak over the girl’s head as she began to struggle. A couple of quick twists and the material of the cloak bound her near as tight as a rope.

“Be stil ,” he ordered, and tightened his grip as he felt her shudder of fear. He ignored the muffled whimper she made in response.