Rexanne Becnel (37 page)

No, that was the one thing Joanna
was
sure of. She would never abandon a child of her own. Never. Still, that was small comfort now. She looked around in renewed panic, but the only friendly face she spied was the queen’s. Despite their abrupt parting the day before, Isabel was watching Joanna closely, and even appeared sympathetic to the dismay so clear on Joanna’s face.

But Joanna did not want the queen’s sympathy. She wanted to be released from this marriage. She knew, however, that the queen would not relent, and a spurt of righteous anger helped restore her control.

From the eastern arm of the transept Marilyn and her father arrived together, the one positively glowing with happiness, the other beaming proudly. Marilyn met Joanna’s troubled gaze with a smile so joyous that Joanna could not help but smile back. At least Marilyn and Evan would be together. She could take some comfort in that.

Then a murmur at the main entrance to the cathedral drew her attention. There, pausing at the door, were the two men who roused such differing emotions in the two women they had come for. Evan stood straight and tall with an unrestrained grin on his face, despite the somber surroundings. His russet hair had been groomed back and he was dressed handsomely in a robe of brown and gold damask, ornamented with gold braid, a huge brooch, and a gold-worked girdle. But for all his fine appearance, it was the man who walked beside him who drew Joanna’s eyes.

Next to Evan’s lavish costume, Rylan looked almost severe. His dark hair was freshly cleaned and was tied in the back with a wide strip of black riband. His tunic was a dark metal-colored gray, plain in style with the arms of a paler gray undertunic showing through. Both garments were finely made of the best-quality linen, but Joanna was aware—as she’d been the very first time she’d laid eyes on him—that he was a man with no particular need to project his authority with his clothing. The sheer strength of his personality ensured that one and all recognized his power. The way he stood, the direct way he looked at a person, and his arrogant attitude all emphasized that here was a man better left unchallenged. Here was a man to step lightly around.

As if to underscore her fanciful thoughts, King John entered the room directly after the bridegrooms, followed by three priests. He was dressed in his finest robes, purple lined with silver-tipped ermine and banded in silver and gold braid. His hands were bejeweled; his crown was in place. He was groomed and coiffed and outfitted in the finest that English coin could purchase. Yet beside Sir Rylan he appeared insignificant. He forced a smile but his eyes reflected his resentment, and the result was an expression of peevishness ill-suited to a kingly demeanor.

The king wanted this wedding no more than she did, Joanna realized. What had Rylan done that could force a king to agree to a match of which he plainly did not approve?

She had no time to find out. Isabel stood up and signaled Marilyn to approach her. For a moment the two conversed quietly, then the girl bowed her head to receive the queen’s kiss on her brow. When Isabel turned to face Joanna, her expression was watchful.

“I know you go into this marriage with more than the normal amount of dread,” she began when Joanna had drawn near. Her voice was quiet so that her words carried to no one else. “Sir Rylan has treated you cruelly in the past and may very well do so in the future. But take heart, my dear.” She searched Joanna’s pale face before continuing. “You have an ally in me. Keep me well apprised of your husband’s activities and you shall be rewarded.”

“Rewarded?” Joanna stared at Isabel. Did the queen wish her to spy on Rylan?

Isabel smiled when Joanna’s face made it clear she understood the implication in her words. “Should he ever be accused of traitorous intent, I can ensure that you and your heirs are held blameless. And
not
deprived of your rightful properties,” she added with a confident nod.

She did not seem to expect a response. With a regal inclination of her head she bestowed a kiss upon Joanna’s brow, then reseated herself. But all the while Joanna’s mind turned over this strange new aspect of her marriage. Had John and Isabel thought to plant a spy in Rylan’s camp when they agreed to this wedding? She lifted her eyes to search out Rylan, but that only increased her turmoil. He and Evan followed the king up the nave, then stood opposite their brides as the king sat down next to the queen. The three priests moved up to the altar, followed by the wispy trails of smoky incense. A choir of monks began a haunting chant, and the entire assembly grew quiet and still as the ceremony began.

Joanna, however, could not concentrate on the mass. She was acutely aware of Rylan beside her and even felt the probing sweep of his sidelong gaze. But she refused to meet his eyes. She was confused enough without adding to it. Experience had proven already that Rylan was well able to muddle her thoughts and dilute her resolve. Between his unconscionable manipulations and the queen’s, she felt like a fly caught up in a spider’s gigantic web.

Except that one spider’s poison was so sweet as to cause her struggles to cease.

She bowed her head lower and closed her eyes in prayer. Spying for the queen was not something she could ever do. Yet who knew what her future would be under Rylan’s tight control? All she could do was beg God’s grace in guiding her future.

The Latin incantations passed in a blur. The sermon was brief—one of St. Paul’s diatribes on the wickedness of women and the husband’s responsibility to discipline his wife most strictly. As if that misguided apostle’s words counted for more than the kindly instructions of the Savior’s, Joanna thought. Her outrage at the entire plight of womankind negated any uncomfortable twinges her blasphemous thoughts incurred. By the time the marriage vows were to be exchanged, she had worked herself into a fine fury.

Evan said his vow and received Marilyn’s in return. They exchanged rings and then a chaste kiss. When it was their turn, Rylan faced Joanna.

Perhaps it was the fiery light in her eyes that alerted him, for instead of taking one of her hands to rest lightly on his opened palm, he grasped each of her hands in his, enveloping them in a tight hold.

“I take thee, Joanna Preston, maid of Oxwich, to be my lawful wife. To have and hold you in fair times and foul. For better; for worse. In sickness; in health. Though rich or poor. From this time forward until death us do part. Thereto I plight thee my troth.”

Then it was Joanna’s turn. She had not planned what she would say. In her anger and pain she wanted only to strike out at him—at all of them. As if he sensed her heightened emotions, Rylan squeezed her hands.

Joanna raised her eyes to his and opened her mouth to speak. But the words would not form on her lips. Rylan’s eyes had never been bluer. His gaze had never been more compelling. Although his hold was tight on her hands, he did not give her pain and thereby threaten her to say the words. Instead, he seemed to promise her something. Say the words and reap the benefits of my goodwill, his burning gaze seemed to avow.

She swallowed and began in a whisper only Rylan and the foremost priest could hear.

“… in sickness and in health. Though rich or poor. To be blithe and—” She broke off, unable to promise obedience to him either in the bed or the board. The priest cleared his throat pointedly and she continued. “From this day forward until death do us part.”

Rylan smiled then and relaxed, and Joanna realized just how unsure he’d been about her. The ring was hastily produced and slipped upon her finger.

“With this ring I thee wed,” he vowed hoarsely. Then he leaned down and kissed her.

Joanna met his lips but briefly, then quickly pulled away. Yet she could not call the kiss entirely chaste. The instant clamoring of her senses at the touch of his lips made it as intense as the lick of a flame.

They knelt for the priest’s blessing, then rose once more to hear the closing incantations and the monks’ final hymn. But Rylan kept her hand enclosed in his the entire time. She tried once to free herself from his disturbing grasp, but he would not allow it. His face was unexpectedly relaxed, however, when he looked down at her.

“You make me very happy this day,” he murmured for her ears only. “I will endeavor to do the same for you.”

More so than his marriage vow, those brief words lingered in Joanna’s mind. Through the inevitable feasting, toasting, and entertainments that followed, they stayed in her head, almost haunting her with their unaccountable sincerity. I will endeavor to do the same for you. Did he truly mean to make their marriage a good one?

Before the high table a team of jugglers displayed their skills, tossing daggers and burning brands in impossible numbers and incredible speed. A little boy juggled apples. An even younger girl juggled eggs. Tumblers catapulted across a special carpet, flinging themselves about in what appeared the most heedless of fashions. But they always managed to land upright or within the correct person’s grasp. Had Joanna not been so preoccupied with her own circumstances, she would have enjoyed their energetic performances enormously.

But Rylan sat on the one side of her, and Isabel on the other. A most unnerving position for her to find herself in. The king was steadily imbibing in the bishop’s free-flowing wine stocks until his crown slipped askew upon his head.

“John. Have a care for your dignity,” the queen whispered furiously under her breath.

He straightened his crown with one hand while reaching for his jewel-encrusted goblet with the other. “Where’s the dignity in being coerced by the likes of him?” He sent a baleful glare toward Rylan.

Coerced? Joanna also peered at Rylan for she had suspected as much, though she could not understand just how he had managed it. But before she could speculate any further, the king shoved his ornamented trencher aside and leaned forward with both elbows on the table. He shrugged off the queen’s cautioning hand.

“A less fair-minded king than I would have seen you hanged long ago for your unreasonable ways. Certainly my warlike brother Richard would have skewered you upon his mighty lance for your many presumptions. But I have been patient, as befits a noble king, waiting for all my errant children to end their divisive bickering and line up behind me. Their king. Their one true liege.”

He pushed his crown back and took another drink. Then his squinting eyes swung over to Joanna.

“Despite the kingship that weighs so heavily upon me, however, I am nonetheless still a man. Touched by the hand of God, to be sure. But a man nonetheless.” He grinned then, a wide smirking grin that put Joanna in mind of a weasel. “And I’ll admit on occasion to finding humor in another man’s misfortune. You and your bride make a fair couple, Kempe. You shall have the envy of many a man this night when you climb between the thighs of the winsome wench you wed.” He belched, then laughed. “The winsome wench you wed. Indeed, the bards do well to heed the poetic words their king doth pronounce.”

Joanna frowned and looked to Isabel for help. In the past the queen had not countenanced such unseemly language from her husband. Today, however, Isabel appeared content to let him speak.

“The winsome wench you wed.” John chuckled once more. “Yes. Many a man here will envy you. But at least one among them has preceded you, it appears.”

Joanna’s eyes widened in surprise at his cruel words. She darted an accusing look at Isabel, who had obviously related the information to the king. But that lady was staring pointedly at Rylan with a faint but unmistakably smug smile on her lips. For a moment there was silence. The king and queen waited, obviously anticipating Rylan’s humiliation to learn such a thing. Marilyn and Evan turned at the odd silence from the other side of the table. Even Joanna held her breath, wondering what Rylan would do. Of course, John knew only part of the truth, for she’d not named the man who had compromised her. Still, Rylan could not be happy with this revelation by his foe.

Rylan’s response, however, was a far cry from anyone’s expectations. First he casually turned to Joanna and gave her a reassuring smile. Then he caught her hand in his and lifted it to his lips. He kissed the gold band that now circled her finger, then planted a warmer, lingering kiss on her palm before closing her hand up within his own. Only then did he answer King John.

“You find us out, it seems. But I would not have my fair wife suffer for my own impetuous nature. She fires my passion to an unholy degree,” he admitted with a wide, lusty grin. “Though I abducted her most foully, ’tis I who found myself well and truly caught. But this is a trap I enter willingly and shall never struggle against.”

With that startling little speech he stood up, pulling the dumbstruck Joanna with him. “Enough of feasting and these handsome festivities. I have waited long past the limits of mortal man. ’Tis time to take a wife. What say you, Evan? Shall we be freed from this pretty company to woo our ‘winsome wenches’ as they deserve?”

A great roar of approval went up from the besotted crowd seated below the salt. Joanna flushed scarlet to realize that Rylan’s words had carried throughout the hall. Pewter mugs pounded against the long wooden tables. Bone-handled knives banged approval in a hundred hands. Amid much mirth and many cries of advice, Rylan pulled Joanna along, away from the table, through the crowded banqueting hall until they broke free into a wide passageway.

Joanna glanced back once to see astonishment still plain on the king’s face. Isabel too was taken aback. But Sir Egbert was grinning in delight, as was Evan, almost as if this were not a surprise to either one of them at all.

Had this somehow been prearranged? she wondered in amazement. Could Rylan have planned to marry her all along?

How Joanna wished to believe that. How she would have preferred that to the terrible doubt she now felt. But as Rylan hurried her through the antechamber, then out into a small paved courtyard, she had no time to think. Horses awaited them, as did a small contingent of guards led by the towering Sir Kell.

“We are off,” Rylan called with an exuberant smile. He lifted Joanna onto his own big-boned destrier, then mounted behind her. “Come greet your new mistress, my lads. The Lady Joanna of Blaecston.”