So Great A Love (31 page)

He stared at her for so long that Margaret
began to worry lest he might have changed his mind about wedding
her. When Arden put out his hand, she placed her own into it and
felt his fingers curling around hers in a warm grasp.

“How very beautiful you are,” he said. He
lifted her hand to his lips, then transferred it to his arm,
keeping his own hand over it, as if to offer his strength to
her.

“I expected my father to lead me to the
chapel,” Margaret said.

“Neither Phelan, nor Eustace, will ever touch
you again,” Arden told her, his fingers tightening on hers. “I will
not allow it. Are you ready, my lady?” His voice and face were
grave.

“Yes, my lord, I am.” She took a long, slow
breath. Arden looked into her eyes and the last of her doubts
evaporated like morning dew in bright sunshine.

With Catherine and Isabel preceding them and
Aldis and Laure following, Margaret and Arden walked into the entry
hall and thence to the chapel. Royce, Tristan, and Sir Wace were
already there, with Phelan and Eustace standing a little apart from
them. Margaret noticed Arden's squire, Michael, Guy the
man-at-arms, and a few of Arden's other men who had come to Bowen
with Tristan.

When the bride and groom and all the
witnesses were assembled, Father Aymon read aloud the simple
contract, which transferred to Lord Phelan a large plot of land
near Sutton Castle in exchange for his daughter's hand in marriage.
Margaret was surprised to hear there was no dowry involved. Even
more startling was the clause that came at the very end of the
contract.

“In the event of the death of Arden of
Bowen,” Father Aymon read, “the guardianship of his widow, Lady
Margaret, and of any children of their union shall pass solely to
Royce, the baron of Wortham, who has sworn to undertake their care
and protection.”

Margaret gasped and looked at Arden. He was
staring straight ahead at the crucifix hanging over the chapel
altar and was paying no attention to her or to anyone else. So
absorbed was Arden in his meditation that Margaret wasn't sure he
was aware of what Father Aymon had just said.

Then she looked at Royce, who smiled at her,
and she understood the two of them, father and son together, had
taken care for her so that, no matter what happened in the future,
she could never again be sent back to Sutton, there to be subject
to her father or her brother, to be a victim of their schemes.

It was the most wonderful wedding gift they
could have given her. When Father Aymon was finished reading,
Margaret took up the quill and signed her name on the contract with
steady fingers and a heart filled with gratitude. Then she put her
hand in Arden's and went with him to kneel on the altar steps while
the priest blessed their union. She was so grateful, and so
relieved to be Arden's property and no longer her father's chattel,
that she did not even wonder why Father Aymon did not celebrate the
Holy Mass.

* * * * *

“Well,” said Phelan, quaffing yet another cup
of Arden's finest wine and looking around the great hall at those
who were enjoying the wedding feast, “it's over, Eustace. We've rid
ourselves of our troublesome Margaret, we've won against the mighty
Royce of Wortham and his high-principled son, and we've come away
with a handsome profit in the tract of land I made them give to me.
You will note I now hold the property in fief from King Henry, and
thus I have a direct connection with him. That arrangement should
prove useful in the future.”

“Aye,” Eustace agreed, grinning. “All we have
left to do is see the newlyweds bedded, so the contract is made
fully legal. Now, there's a mating I'd like to watch – my skinny,
cold-blooded nun of a sister, and that finer-than-thou knight. How
will they manage it, I wonder?”

“In the usual way,” Phelan said, “and, no
doubt, as quickly as possible, to have it over and done with so
they can go back to their prayers.”

Eustace's guffaw at his father's joke drew a
disapproving look from Arden.

“At first light tomorrow,” Arden muttered to
Royce, “I care not how queasy their bellies are from all the wine
they've consumed, off those two go, back to Sutton or to the devil,
whichever they choose, and I hope never to see either of them
again.”

“I will do all I can to speed them on their
way,” Royce promised, “for I do not expect to see you out of bed
early tomorrow.”

“I intend to be in the hall, fully dressed
with my sword girded on, to bid farewell to them,” Arden said.

“That I very much doubt,” Tristan remarked
with a knowing smile for his friend. “Surely you remember, Arden,
how on the morning after our wedding, Isabel and I did not rise
until midday. I suggest you leave the departure of your new in-laws
to your father and me.”

“Come, now Margaret,” Isabel said,
interrupting her husband's comments with a teasing laugh. “It is
time for your ladies to prepare you to receive your new
husband.”

Isabel caught one of Margaret's hands,
Catherine took the other, and together with Aldis they drew her
from her place at the high table, where she had been sitting
between Arden and Royce, and led her to the solar. Seeing what was
happening Laure also rose from her seat at one of the lower tables,
running after the other women in her eagerness to attend the new
bride.

“Well, then, Arden,” Phelan yelled, leaning
forward to see down the length of the table, “while the ladies
prepare Margaret, your friends and relatives will see to it that
you are ready to do your duty by my daughter.”

“That's right,” Eustace said, waving his
winecup in the air so enthusiastically that he spilled half its
contents. “I say, we take the bridegroom to the lord's chamber and
strip him naked, just to be sure he has all his manly parts.”

“And I say, if you take one step toward the
lord's chamber, you are a dead man.” Arden's voice was quiet, and
so cold it cut through Eustace's wine-induced certainty that he and
his father held the upper hand about the wedding and the
festivities following it.

“There is no need for a public bedding,”
Arden said. “I will go to my wife by myself.”

“Well, you see, that's just the trouble,”
Phelan told him. “You are so unwilling a bridegroom that we want to
be sure the marriage is consummated, so you can't send that stupid
creature back to us later.”

“I give you my solemn word, Margaret will
never be returned to your care,” Arden said.

“Still,” Eustace objected, “just to be sure,
we'd like to see the two of you in bed together, and the dirty
sheets in the morning. It's too bad Margaret isn't a virgin, so we
can't be absolutely certain you've done your duty by us.” He
favored Arden with a knowing grin that only slowly faded as Arden's
next words sank into his wine-befuddled mind.

“Do you doubt my word?” Arden rose, towering
over Eustace. “You, who have accused me of getting Margaret with
child, now dare to question whether the marriage will be
consummated? Either you were lying beforehand, or you are speaking
falsely now. Which is it, Eustace? You cannot have both.”

“Under these unusual circumstances,” Royce
spoke up in a manner aimed at stopping the incipient quarrel before
it escalated, “let us rely upon the two parties most involved to do
the right thing. Arden, may I suggest, it is time for you to join
your bride, while Phelan and I stay here in the hall to see to the
continuation of the feast? I promise you, the lord's chamber will
remain inviolate for the entire night.”

Arden knew his father meant well. If Arden
were, in truth, about to take possession of his new wife, he would
have been glad of his father's intervention. Royce's understanding
smile and the warm twinkle in his eyes nearly destroyed the
emotional barriers Arden was keeping in place with ever-increasing
difficulty. He longed to unburden himself of years of blood guilt,
to tell his father everything. But he must wait, at least until the
morrow, and perhaps longer.

“Thank you, Father,” was all Arden could
trust himself to say. Leaving the dais he headed toward the solar
and the lord's chamber beyond, knowing he was about to betray the
two people who were dearest to him in all the world, for his father
believed he would perform a bridegroom's duty and Margaret—

Margaret.
Arden paused at the top of
the steps leading from great hall to solar. The door of the lord's
chamber had been left open a crack and a band of light projected by
the candles within stretched across the solar floor, extending from
the doorway to Arden's feet. A path of light, leading to his
heart's desire. It was a path he could not take, for the sake of
his shattered honor and to keep Margaret safe from him and from the
bleak future he would face once he had spoken to his father.

But to keep her safe from Phelan and Eustace,
Arden would have to pretend to tread the path to his bedchamber, to
his bed, and to Margaret's body, as if he were a true bridegroom.
He was forced to make a sham of her wedding night, in the same way
he had made a lie of his life in recent years.

He told himself that what he was doing was
solely for Margaret's sake, though he knew even as he formulated
the thought that it was the greatest lie of all. He placed one
booted foot into the band of light on the floor, breaking the
clean, sharp-edged pattern of it, and then he walked the rest of
the way to the lord's chamber and pushed open the door.

The women noticed him at once and drew back,
letting him see Margaret as they had prepared her for him, using
nightclothes that surely belonged to Isabel.

She was wearing a sheer, sleeveless white
linen shift, with a dark blue, open-front silk robe draped over her
shoulders. Both shift and robe were much too short. Yet the
delicate wrists and long-fingered hands that extended from the
sleeves of the robe, and the ankles and white feet beneath the hem
of the shift, combined to give to Margaret's tall figure an air of
vulnerability she did not ordinarily display. Her hair was unbound
and her ladies had brushed it until it swung in a shiny black river
over her shoulders and down her back to below her waist.

All of it was for him, for his delight. And
all of it was for naught. Still, when Margaret turned her huge,
silver-gray eyes on him, the shudder that shook Arden went deep
into his ice-encased heart as well as through his body. He took a
deep breath to steady himself, only to find his senses assaulted by
Margaret's flowery perfume.

“
Ah,la,
Margaret,” said Isabel,
teasing as usual, “here is your husband, come to claim you for his
own, and he appears to be most impressed by our preparations. But,
Arden, where are the others?”

“Below, in the hall, kept there by my father,
at my insistence,” Arden said. “They are all still enjoying the
feast.”

“In that case, I think the three of us ought
to join them.” Isabel kissed Margaret on both cheeks. She would
have kissed Arden, too, but she was too short to reach his cheek
and Arden did not bend to her. Isabel contented herself with a pat
on his stiffly held shoulder. “Be kind to your wife, Arden. She
will make you happy, if only you will allow her to do so.

“Come along, Laure, do not dawdle.” Isabel
shooed her maid out of the room when she would have hung back on
the chance of observing something interesting.

Catherine also embraced Margaret, holding her
tight for a moment. Then she went to Arden, and her kiss he
permitted, bending down to let her touch her lips to his cheek. But
when Aldis, having also kissed Margaret, came to him, Arden stood
stiffly, rejecting her kiss, refusing to acknowledge the hurt look
on his cousin's face.

At last the bedchamber door was closed and
Arden and his bride were alone for a long, quiet moment.

“I am surprised to my father and Eustace did
not demand to see us properly bedded,” Margaret said, breaking the
silence.

“I have told you, neither of those men will
ever again be allowed to touch you,” Arden said. “Neither will I
permit them to enter my most private chamber, to whet their
salacious fantasies on the sight of you, naked in my bed.

“Margaret,” Arden went on, taking a step
toward her, “we have much of importance to discuss. Our wedding
happened so quickly that we've had no time to talk, to settle
certain matters between ourselves.”

“Bowen will be a quieter place after my
father and his party leave,” Margaret said. “Then you and I will be
able to speak together for as long as we please, and you may hold
that very private conversation with your father, the one you have
been forced several times to postpone.”

As she spoke Margaret slipped off the blue
silk robe and laid it at the foot of the bed, so she was left
wearing only the sheer linen shift that veiled and yet revealed
every soft contour of her figure. She took her time about carefully
folding the robe. She did not look at Arden, and her hands were
shaking just the slightest bit.

Arden could recall seeing marble statues in
Eastern lands, human forms created out of stone by the great
sculptors of ancient times. Not one of those statues compared to
the living, breathing wonder that was Margaret. No marble, however
smoothly polished, had ever tempted him to touch it as he was
tempted by the flawless white skin he could just glimpse beneath
the linen. It took all of his considerable willpower to make
himself speak as he must.

“What I have to say to you will not wait
until tomorrow,” he told her.

“Speak, then,” Margaret said, still not
looking directly at him.

The words were on his tongue. Arden had every
intention of uttering them, so that Margaret would want to stay
away from him, would never want to be alone with him or touch him
again. But she turned from the bed, the blue robe finally arranged
to her satisfaction, and she came forward, into the full
candlelight again and out of the partial shadow cast by the
bedcurtains.