Gilliane (Roselynde Chronicles, Book Four)

by Roberta Gellis

  Gilliane

  Roberta Gellis

  The Roselynde Chronicles, Book Four

  Fate made them enemies…

  Temptation made them passionate lovers.

  An exquisite beauty trapped in a deadly game of political intrigue, Gilliane is an innocent pawn of the ruthless, power-hungry barons swarming around her. Forced to marry a man she abhors, she soon becomes the helpless prisoner—and dazzling prize—of her husband’s most dangerous foe, Adam Lemagne—only to surrender her heart to her handsome captor. In a breathtaking tale of forbidden desire and smoldering temptation, the star-crossed lovers must survive pain and peril in their stormy quest for love.

  Ellora’s Cave Publishing

  www.ellorascave.com

  Gilliane

  ISBN 9781419931819

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

  Gilliane Copyright © 1979, 2011 Roberta Gellis

  Cover art by Syneca

  Electronic book publication April 2011

  The terms Romantica® and Quickies® are registered trademarks of Ellora’s Cave Publishing.

  With the exception of quotes used in reviews, this book may not be reproduced or used in whole or in part by any means existing without written permission from the publisher, Ellora’s Cave Publishing, Inc.® 1056 Home Avenue, Akron OH 44310-3502.

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  This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locales is purely coincidental. The characters are productions of the author’s imagination and used fictitiously.

  Gilliane

  Roberta Gellis

  Chapter One

  Fear! Gilliane could scarcely remember a time when there was no fear. There was a vague memory of a man with a deep, warm voice who had tossed her in the air until she shrieked with laughter and had then folded her in his arms, who had called her his dark rosebud. But that had been long ago. All of Gilliane’s more recent memories were of shrinking into corners, of hiding when possible if a man came into view.

  Someone had said—that was long ago, too, soon after the warm, strong presence had gone out of Gilliane’s life—that patience and resignation brought an end to fear. It was true and yet false. Perhaps if the fear had stayed the same, it would be possible to become accustomed, to become resigned. But it did not stay the same. It changed and changed, and with each change it pricked anew, so that again Gilliane was forced to try to avoid the pain. And there lay another source of her inability to become resigned. By and large, Gilliane had been successful in discovering ways to escape the fear—not completely, though, never completely.

  Always the fear lay like a shadow over her heart and mind so that she could never be happy, really happy. Resignation might have been better than cleverness, Gilliane thought. The early fears, now that she thought back upon them, had been like pinpricks, although they had seemed huge terrors to a little girl. It was a black horror to have changed, in one day, from being the center of loving attention whose every action and word called forth delighted laughter and warm embraces, to being the focus of blows and curses. Cleverness had taught Gilliane to avoid drawing notice to herself and, more important, to read every nuance in the faces and voices around her. She had learned to efface herself when possible, and when forced momentarily into notice, to match her words and manner to the mood of others. The blows became less frequent, the curses changed to indifference. The agony of terror diminished to a dull misery.

  Too soon the agony had been reawakened. Gilliane found she was no longer a child, that the dark rosebud was blossoming into a beautiful flower. She noted a new expression in the eyes of the men of the family and in the eyes of men who came to visit the keep. At first Gilliane had been pleased, thinking she had at last won approval. Her brief hope had been quickly dispelled.

  It was the shock of disappointment, as much as the physical pain and shame, that had brought black terror into Gilliane’s days and filled her nights with nightmares. Desperate for affection, she had responded quickly and openly to the sly, whispered praises of a young visitor to the keep. When he had begged her to meet him in the little wood a half mile from the keep, she had agreed happily, thinking that there they would have freedom to talk, to gather spring flowers.

  It was not that she was ignorant of the facts of life. Beasts coupled freely in the keep and on the demesne farms, and the servants coupled almost as freely and publicly. Merely, at twelve, Gilliane did not associate the act with herself. She was unaware of the invitation implicit in the small breasts that pushed out the front of her cotte, or the waist that had narrowed to emphasize the soft curve of her hips.

  Thus, Gilliane was totally unprepared when she was seized and kissed hungrily. Surprise and a tentative gladness at what seemed for the moment a display of affection kept her quiescent at first. It was not until the tie at her neck was undone and a hand was thrust into her bosom that Gilliane understood the young man’s intentions. Then she began to struggle. The delayed reaction communicated the wrong message. Because Gilliane had responded so eagerly to his words and to the suggestion that they meet, the young man bought at first that she was being playful. When it became clear that her struggles to free herself were in earnest, fury inflamed lust. This young man knew the right treatment for teases. He tripped her with a leg behind her knees, knowing that he would fall atop her, that she would be half stunned and bruised, while his fall would be cushioned by her body. In the few moments that Gilliane gasped helplessly for breath, paralyzed by shock and pain, he had her gown up, his chausses down to his thighs. Despite his success this far, however, the young man was not an experienced rapist. Before he could make good his threat and truly thrust home, Gilliane had recovered her strength and breath.

  Until that moment she had fought in silence, more afraid of the punishment she would receive for having sneaked out of the keep and exposed herself to this situation than of the situation itself. The violence and pain tilted the balance of her fear in the other direction, however, and she began to scream for help. The sudden shrill cries and renewed frantic struggle disconcerted the would-be rapist enough so that Gilliane was able to twist out from under him, roll away, and leap to her feet.

  Unfortunately, escape did not end the nightmare for Gilliane. Had it done so, the memory might have been more amusing than terrifying. She had been bruised, of course, but she was accustomed to being bruised, and fear had never destroyed her sense of the ridiculous. When the shock was past, she would have remembered the outraged cries, the limping pursuit that ended in a fall. A last glimpse over her shoulder as she fled showed Gilliane her attacker’s hasty struggle to stuff himself back into his chausses and tie them. That, together with the satisfaction of having accomplished her escape, would have overlaid Gilliane’s fear and made her cautious rather than bitter.

  The real anguish began when she fled into the keep. Her distraught manner, the stained and disheveled clothes, the dirt, leaves, and twigs in her hair, told too plain a story. Still too shocked to think of an adequate excuse, Gilliane confessed the truth. She endured the beating she received sto
ically—being beaten was nothing new. What sealed horror into her mind was what followed. The questions were not so bad. Gilliane could answer those with truth; nothing had really happened, she had won free. However, her word was not accepted. She was stripped, spread-eagled, and questing fingers were thrust into her.

  Revulsion had overwhelmed fear. Revulsion, too, would not allow the horror to pass from her mind. It returned again and again until, desperate to fix her thoughts anywhere else and unable to remove them from the central shame, Gilliane began to wonder why it should matter whether or not she was a maiden.

  Little by little, from a remembered sentence, from a snide remark made by the daughters of the house, from misty memories, Gilliane pieced together her condition. She was an heiress! Not a great heiress, probably—she had no way of estimating what by law was hers—but enough of an heiress to make her a valuable pawn. Her father—that was the deep, warm voice, the tender, loving hands. Tears came to her eyes, although by twelve she thought she had been wept dry. She had almost completely forgotten him, suppressing the memory because it gave her such pain to compare her present condition with what it had been. Never mind pain—her father had been Guillaume de Chaunay and he had been pledged to…to King John, who was both Duke of Poitou and King of England.

  In the beginning, those were the only facts Gilliane had, but clever, seemingly pointless questions and assiduous attention to what she had ignored previously gave her the story over the months and years. When Richard, who had also been Duke of Poitou and King of England, had died in 1199—the year after her birth and her mother’s death—John had inherited the lands. But John was not able, as Richard had been, to keep the barons from fighting among themselves. Little wars had broken out all over Poitou, and in one of them Gilliane’s father had died. She, the sole surviving child, had inherited the property.

  For his services to the Comte de la Marche, Saer de Cercy had been given Gilliane as a ward. That meant that Gilliane’s estate was managed by Saer, and that the revenues from that estate came completely into his hands, except for the amounts paid to the Comte de la Marche. That fact told Gilliane two things. First, her estate was not very large or she would have been taken into the comte’s own household; and second, her life, as long as she had no children, was perfectly safe. She could be beaten and left hungry and cold, but she could not be killed or starved or frozen to death. As long as she was alive, Saer had the lands; if she died, they would revert to the Duke of Poitou.

  The key word, however, was children. That was why she had been so eagerly examined. If she had been secretly acting the whore—as the incident might have led people to think—she might be with child, and that child would be her heir. A brief, vicious notion flicked in Gilliane’s mind, but she knew it was hopeless. Saer would never allow any child of hers, except from a husband of his choice, to live. There was another key word—husband. By the time Gilliane had worked out her situation, she was well ripe for marriage—fifteen.

  Fear—sharper, deeper fear than ever before stabbed her. Soon—soon Saer would choose a husband for her. Gilliane thought of the life his wife led and had to press her hands to her mouth to muffle her whimpers of terror.

  For months after that revelation, Gilliane crept around the keep, trying harder than ever to be invisible. She also did her best to conceal the fact that she was now completely a woman. Previously, she had made her clothes to fit her neatly. Now she let out all the seams until the garments hung loosely upon her. No one seemed to notice. Marie de Cercy was too dull, too numb from years of ill-treatment and humiliation, to care what Gilliane did—unless, like the escapade in the wood, it brought her husband’s wrath down upon her.

  However, more months passed and no husband was brought forward. As her fear receded, Gilliane realized that Saer had no intention of marrying her to anyone, for as soon as he did, her revenues would go to her husband. Worse, the husband could ask for an accounting if the estate had been damaged or diminished. Gilliane guessed that Saer did not look forward to that. She was safe from the threat of marriage.

  Perversely, once she was sure Saer meant to keep her unwed, Gilliane began to dream of marriage, of a strong man with a deep, rich voice who would protect her from her cruel warden. But the months slid slowly past and changed to another year, and no such romantic knight even passed briefly through her life to give form to her dream. Only the sound of a bass voice and a vague image of bigness drifted in and out of her night thoughts.

  By 1214, it was not for the lack of seeing men that Gilliane’s dream still had no form. In the spring of that year, King John came to France to win back the lands that had been lost to the French king since 1203. Saer and his sons rode out to war. Twice, battle was joined quite near the keep. The castle itself was not attacked, but after each battle the wounded were carried there for shelter, and Gilliane learned to sew and clean wounds and to brew medicines that cooled fever and dulled pain.

  It was then that her ease with the lesser castlefolk and with the fighting men-at-arms developed fully. Gilliane had always liked them—they were the only people who did not hurt her or regard her with contempt. Now she learned how to deal with them. Because she was the least of the ladies of the keep, it fell to her to direct the servants who performed the foulest tasks and to treat the common foot soldiers. Fear had pricked her again when she was ordered to these tasks, but very soon she blessed her fate. The “gentle” knights cursed and struck their nurses, reviling them for clumsiness or slowness in attendance. The “brutal” men-at-arms knew their place. They might strike or revile the maids and womenservants, but for Gilliane—a lady of the keep—they had only soft words of thanks.

  Warmed by appreciation from even so unworthy a source, Gilliane strove to deserve the thanks. She became deft and gentle and begged the leech and the priest to tell her the herbs that would best bring ease to her suffering patients. She learned to give orders with a kind of gentle authority that made the servants and men-at-arms desire to obey her and feel ashamed to be slack or coarse.

  Gilliane was very sorry when she learned, in August of 1214, that King John had been driven off. It was not that she regretted the loss of her little power—she pitied the sufferings of those who had brought her the power too much to regret its loss. Her disappointment was only because she associated John with her father, who had been John’s liegeman. Also, she had had a tiny hope that, if John won, she would be taken out of Saer de Cercy’s hands. Perhaps she should have feared a change of guardians or a marriage to one of John’s supporters, but hate had grown strong over the years and it seemed to Gilliane that her suffering in other hands—if she should suffer—would be amply repaid by Saer’s loss.

  Instead, it seemed that she had fallen even further into Saer’s power. Emboldened by the part he had played in the destruction of John’s initiative in Poitou, Saer applied to the Comte de la Marche for the right to marry Gilliane to his second son, Osbert. The fear that seized her when she heard this news made her past terrors shrink into insignificance. Of all that loathsome family, Osbert was the worst. The eldest son was like his father; he was cruel and brutal but not unintelligent, and he was a brave man with confidence in himself. Osbert, however, was a coward—stupid, incompetent, and insecure, which made him torture and bully those weaker than himself and snivel and abase himself before the strong.

  Gilliane understood Saer’s purpose in choosing Osbert to be her husband. On the one hand, there was probably no other way to provide for him. He was not a good enough fighter to win a prize of war or make a living out of tourneys. No one, not even a poorer knight than Saer, would want him as a son-by-marriage, so there was no hope of gaining a wife with a dower for him. On the other hand, Osbert was much too afraid of his father to question the condition of Gilliane’s estate when it was his. In fact, by marrying her to Osbert, Saer could keep things exactly as they now were. Osbert would not even dare to suggest that he and Gilliane live in her father’s keep or that they manage the property themselves.
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  One of the reasons Gilliane regretted that she had not become resigned was that the habit of struggling would not permit her to take her own life. She did think of running away, but Saer thought of that, too, and she was closely watched. All she could do was pray, and at first it seemed that those prayers were answered.

  Permission was withheld. The Comte de la Marche did not refuse, he merely put the request aside because he was much busied with affairs of state stemming from John’s withdrawal and the truce that was being negotiated between King John and King Philip. He would look to the lands, he said vaguely, as soon as he had time, and then give his decision. Saer cursed and raged and beat Gilliane until his eldest son intervened, pointing out that, if he killed the girl, Marche would be looking all the sooner at the property, and with a less indulgent eye. Gilliane was abed for a week but still considered herself blessed by God because she knew Saer would not press the marriage.

  For a time, life seemed to grow somewhat better, except that Gilliane’s anxieties were kept in the forefront of her mind by her need to avoid Osbert. He regarded her as his property and could see no reason why he should not use her while he waited for the official sanction of ownership. Fortunately, Saer ordered Osbert not to take her by force. He did not discourage his son from pursuing Gilliane; if Osbert could win her agreement, it would be a strong point in his favor. However, there was enough of a chance that the Comte de la Marche would ask her if she was willing and remove her from Saer’s power if she complained to make Saer order that she be treated with consideration. The comte might not really care how Gilliane felt, but her objections would serve as an excellent excuse to give her to someone of his own choice;