Nude, she stepped toward the tub. The women in the chamber gasped. Standing at the tub’s side waiting to help her enter was Anne, the maid who’d brought her here. Her eyes were wide. “Mary, Mother of God!” she cried.
Philippa glanced down at her torso and the knife-point scars that crisscrossed her midsection. “They don’t hurt,” she said, unashamed of the marks she bore. Roger paid dearly for the laying of them. Margaret had beaten him for every day of the weeks it took her to recover.
“My husband is no longer allowed to damage me so badly that I cannot toil the next day.” As she heard what came from her own lips, she frowned. What sounded right and reasonable at Lindhurst didn’t seem as logical here.
Rowena came to her feet, her face pale as she eyed the scars. “Why did he do such a thing?”
The certainty that what she’d always accepted as normal might be wrong grew in Philippa. “Because he owns me,” she said, her voice flat. “Because his mother makes him do things to her that shame him. He hurts me rather than hurt himself.”
Wanting to escape this discussion, she climbed into the tub, then sank into the warm water. As Rowena promised, she was covered to the neck in warm water. Rose petals drifted on the surface. Philippa let her arms float upward to send the pretty bits of flowers sailing across the water’s surface.
“My God,” Rowena said, her voice shaken. “We cannot let him do such things to you.”
Even as this eased some of the new strangeness in Philippa, she sent her sister a disbelieving look. “Who’s to stop him?”
“I will,” her sister retorted in new anger. “I’ll protest to the bishop. Philippa! While the bishop is here we can request a dissolution of your marriage.”
Anne moved around the tub and lifted Philippa’s braids to loosen them. When her hair was free, Philippa sank beneath the water’s surface to wet it. She rose, sputtering happily as she wiped the moisture from her eyes. Leaning back against the tub, Philippa looked at her sister.
“On what grounds?” she asked simply.
“I don’t know.” Rowena made a face, then brought her stool to the tub’s side to sit. “Is there some degree of kinship between you and Lord Lindhurst that might render the union incestuous?”
Philippa shook her head. “You grasp at straws. Margaret would never have been so careless with my dowry. What Lindhurst owns, it holds forever. Anyway, nothing you do would change things. “No matter what you try, Roger won’t let me go. Despite what you’ve seen, he loves me.”
Anne began to massage soap into Philippa’s hair. With a sigh, she leaned her head forward to let the maid work at her nape. How strange and wonderful it felt to have someone else do this task for her.
Rowena made a rude sound. “Love? It isn’t love when he hurts you.”
Peering up through soapy strands, Philippa considered her younger sister a moment. Until today, and the experience of Temric’s gentleness, she’d wondered if it wasn’t she who wronged her husband by not returning his affection for her. “So we might say, but Roger sees it differently. I think he may be mad,” she added, her voice held so low only Rowena could hear.
Her sister caught a quick breath at this. “Sweet Mary,” she whispered, then said no more.
In the ensuing quiet, Philippa closed her eyes. Instantly, the memory of Temric and the glade woke. Again, she tasted his kiss and felt the pleasure his caress had given her. If only there were an honest order to life. Bastards, equals, like she and Temric ought to be wed.
Rowena gave a quiet cry. “What of your father? Is there any heritage there we can use?”
“Benfield?” Philippa asked without thinking. “Nay, Margaret researched him as well as our mother.”
“Nay, Philippa,” Rowena said slowly, “your true father. Is there any possibility of relationship there?”
Even as the need to admit she didn’t know who her father was filled Philippa, she caught it back. It wasn’t his identity that was important. To admit she knew she was a bastard was to relinquish the little bit of power she held over Roger and Margaret.
Anne stepped to the front of the tub, holding a bucket of water aloft in the offer to rinse Philippa’s hair. Philippa nodded, then sputtered at the cascade of water over her head. Once she’d wiped the sodden, clean strands of hair from her eyes, she looked at Rowena.
“Leave it go. Only a husband can petition for annulment and Roger will never do so. He holds me very dear.”
“Ach,” Rowena cried harshly, “how could our mother have given her favorite to such a monster?”
Pain exploded in Philippa. So deep and powerful was the emotion that she straightened with a start. Behind her, Anne cried out and took a startled backward step. Battling to force what ached in her back into its hiding place, she forced herself to relax back into the water.
“I don’t know,” she said, then sighed. “Not once has she come to see me, despite that Benfield isn’t far from Lindhurst. Nor has she written.”
Rowena lay a soothing hand upon her arm. “There must be some explanation for this, for she speaks of you with great love. Besides, what good would her visits or letter have done you? You’re right to say he owns you. For all her love, even our mother would be powerless to change things for you.”
Long habit of concealing her emotions made Philippa swallow the pain of her mother’s betrayal. Ah, but where yesterday she could have gone on and forgotten what ached in her, this day had changed her. Quiet, bitter words rose to fill her throat. “She could have chosen someone else to marry me. Four men applied to wed me.”
Her sister offered a tiny smile. “I’ve no way of knowing this, but I’d guess our mother chose Roger because she knows too many tales of love. I’ve seen your husband. By all appearances he is the perfect knight, being tall, but not too broad, with golden hair and long, straight limbs.”
“Aye, and a face like an angel,” Philippa finished, managing a small laugh. Roger’s features were exceedingly fine, with a perfectly shaped nose and jaw. “In Maman’s stories, the handsome knights are always kind and honorable. Mayhap she forgot that tales are only tales,” she said, only to fight off the tiredness of the soul that often affected her when she thought about how she’d once, long ago, believed those tales. Now she knew better. Would that she’d been given to Temric, whose plainer face hid a good, kind man rather than Roger, whose fairness disguised cruelty.
Rowena sighed. “I think with no cause for dissolution, the bishop won’t be interested in your fate. The nuns at the convent who’d been wives first said that ofttimes priests dismiss the most severe beating of a woman by her husband as rightful discipline.”
“Of course they do,” Philippa said swiftly. “Why wouldn’t they, when it’s our rightful cross to bear in life? It’s the penance we pay because Eve convinced Adam to sin.”
Only as she fell silent did she realize what Rowena’s words suggested. Taking the cloth and soap that Anne offered her, she looked at her sister. “Rowena, doesn’t your husband use his fists to discipline you when you err?”
Her sister gave a small shake of her head, the line of her mouth softening suddenly. When she spoke her words were very quiet, as if she were unaccustomed to discussing her marriage. “Nay, Rannulf loves me, and how well I know my fortune in that.”
Jealousy bit deeply into Philippa, then ebbed into pleasure for her sister. Of course Rowena wasn’t beaten. Temric’s brother would be no less gentle than Temric. It was a father who taught his son about a wife’s care. “I’m glad for you. I pray you and your lord lead a long and happy life.”
“Don’t tell our mother this,” Rowena said with a laugh, the sound of it harsh. “I fear she’s praying against you.”
Pausing in scrubbing her legs, Philippa frowned up at her sister. “What do you mean?”
The softness departed from Rowena’s face, leaving only pain in its place. “She despises me. It’s because of this that I feared our meeting. I thought you’d be like her, because she raised you at her kn
ee.”
That startled Philippa. “Surely, you’re mistaken. What reason could she have to hate you?”
It was a hard, harsh sound that escaped Rowena’s lips. “I doubt it. She’s very vocal in her dislike. She hated my father and the emotion carries over onto me who so resembles him. I wonder now if she wished to refuse him any heir, thus leaving you as the only heir to what our grandsire held. If so, then it’s no wonder she can’t forgive me for the simple fact of my existence.”
Rowena tried to smile but her mouth trembled badly. “Philippa, I suddenly find I’ve a precious bit of family where I believed none existed. How can I let your husband hurt you? Tell me how to help you?”
Although gratitude and love flowed through Philippa at this offer, she shook her head. “I expect nothing from you save the happiness of our time together. You cannot know the comfort I draw from being near you.” Setting aside the cloth and handing the soap back to Anne, she leaned against the tub’s edge. Suddenly, her legs and arms felt no stronger than yarn.
Rowena stood abruptly. “If it’s happiness you want from me, then I’ll do my best to see you get it. For the days to come I’ll fill your hours with naught but pleasant activity and hold you safe from your husband until the very last moment. Emma,” she called to a servant, “fetch my sister something to eat and wine to drink so she might rest in contentment.”
“My lady, what of her clothing?” Anne stood tubside holding Philippa’s discarded gowns by forefinger and thumb, alone.
“Burn them,” her sister said with a wave of her hand. “I think they’re useless even as cleaning rags.”
Even as the urge to protest woke, Philippa swallowed it. Not one word did she utter to stop the destruction of Margaret’s precious clothing.
Leaving Lady Lindhurst in his common cousin’s care, Temric walked swiftly across the hall. He couldn’t bear to look another instant on the woman who should have been his wife, especially when his love for her was worse than hopeless. Even as he willed his heart to heal, new loneliness snapped at him.
The onset of Lady Rowena’s rule here at Graistan had forced right and proper changes into his brother’s life. Prior to Rannulf’s marriage, Temric and Rannulf had shared a mutual loneliness. Now, with his half-brother consumed by his new love, their relationship as brothers altered. Without Rannulf to shoulder half the burden, Temric felt the emptiness of his life settle heavily on his shoulders. There was no one left who cared solely for him.
At the hall’s end, he descended a short flight of stairs into Graistan’s chapel. Temric stopped in its doorway. The chapel was dim, despite the three narrow, east-facing windows behind an altar draped with embroidered cloths. Ornate candle branches, as empty and lifeless as the room’s atmosphere, hung beneath each of the ceiling’s stone arches. Shadows born of the evening lay heavily against the plastered and painted walls and skulked at the feet of the columns, wrapping themselves around capitals carved to look like oak leaves studded with acorns.
Temric glanced at the door of his garrison, which lay at the chapel’s far end, then to the altar’s south end. The door leading to Father Edwin’s tiny chamber, the room cut from the very thickness of Graistan’s walls, was open wide. He listened.
A moment, then two passed and no sound emanated from the priest’s wall chamber. Temric chided himself as a fool. Of course the chapel was empty. It was time for the evening service, which Father Edwin attended at the town’s abbey.
Tension drained from Temric’s shoulders. Thank God for small miracles. He wasn’t ready to speak with the priest just yet, not before he had time to prepare. The old man would carve him to ribbons over what he’d done and with good reason. Sighing in relief, Temric strode into the chamber and past the doorway to the priest’s alcove.
“Temric!” Father Edwin’s call exploded through the alcove’s open doorway to ring against the chapel’s stone walls. Time might have robbed the priest of his teeth and his hearing, but it hadn’t touched the power of his beautiful voice.
Graistan’s master-at-arms, the veteran of many a battle, froze like a guilty child. Still cringing, Temric turned to look into the alcove’s doorway. At the far end of the long, narrow chamber hewn from the walls, Father Edwin sat on his cot. Although his back was bowed with age and only wisps of pale hair yet covered the old man’s freckled pate, there was nothing wrong with his eyesight. As their gazes met, Temric found entirely too much intelligence in the ancient priest’s blue eyes.
Coming to his feet, the man responsible for Temric’s baptism shuffled toward the doorway. “Did you think to rush into your precious garrison without speaking to me first?” There was a sharp edge to his voice.
Temric waited until the priest was close enough to read the words upon his lips. “Father, I didn’t realize you were here. You’re usually in town this time of night.”
“Aye, so I should have been,” Edwin replied, “but I had the strangest visit from Oswald. It was strange enough to keep me here.”
Knowing what would come next, Temric managed a halfhearted shrug. “Was it?” he asked.
“It was,” Edwin said, inserting his gnarled hand into the bend of Temric’s arm as if he meant to pull the larger knight into the alcove. “Come, sit with me so we can talk.”
“Can’t it wait, Father?” Temric asked, keeping his feet planted on the threshold. “I’m tired to death and still in my armor.”
Edwin’s gaze sharpened. “Can it wait?” he demanded, the very question revealing he knew well enough that time was of the essence when it came to this sort of sin.
Temric’s heart sank with his shoulders. “Nay, I suppose not.”
With no windows, the alcove was dim, lit only by a pair of flickering lamps, and barely wide enough for the two of them to sit, knee to knee. The room made up in length what it lacked in width. Father Edwin’s prayer station stood at the far end, the wall behind it painted with some biblical scene, what story it was Temric didn't remember. The priest’s cot took up the center of the room, while the forward portion of the chamber held a writing desk. Both long walls had been carved full of niches. In these little cubbyholes sat all the bits and pieces the priest used for services, as well as lamps, candles, wax, writing implements and ink for his other duties.
The old man stopped at the wall to take up two more tallow lamps. “Here,” he said, handing them to Temric, “go light these else I’ll not be able to read the words you speak.”
Once Temric had done as commanded, he found the priest again sitting on the edge of his cot. As he carried the burning lamps to the priest, Edwin pushed a stool out from the bed’s end in invitation. Temric shook his head in refusal as he set the lamps into the wall behind the priest’s head. “I’ll stand for now.”
“As you will,” the old man said shortly. “I understand you’ve brought Lady Lindhurst to Graistan.”
“We have,” Temric replied, refusing to give the explanation the priest expected.
Rather than upset Edwin, the old man smiled as he leaned back on his cot. “And, did you find she matched your dreams of her?”
Temric swallowed and closed his eyes as Philippa’s image sprang to life in the darkness of his mind. Not even the rags she wore could dim the glow of her beauty. How was it he could have come to love so completely in such a short space of time? When he spoke, his voice was low and harsh. “Nay, she’s very much different than I expected, being gentle, fearful and innocent of all that’s being done in her name.”
“Then, you were disappointed?”
There was enough amusement in the priest’s eyes to make Temric’s eyes open. Edwin was watching him, his shaggy brows raised in a mummer’s expression of surprise. Against that, Temric’s mouth twisted into a brief, wry grin. “I was not.”
Edwin nodded. “Now, would you be so kind as to tell me why Oswald thinks your soul’s in jeopardy?”
Temric tried to twist his face into a shamed expression, but found he couldn’t lie to a priest he’d known all his life. �
�I fear he came upon us as I kissed Lady Lindhurst.” His words were more challenge than admission. “Would that he hadn’t seen that,” he added in bold unrepentance.
With a sigh, Edwin shook his head. “Boy, when you choose to sin, you do it with great flair. Did I not warn you that your dreams would make your heart vulnerable? Now, you’ve not only broken God’s law by coveting another man’s wife, ‘tis adultery you court.”
The loneliness Temric had known a few moments before once again closed its teeth about him. “If this were a just world, she would be mine. A just God would have seen to it I met her before she wed her husband or my brother married her sister.”
“A just God?!” Edwin snapped back. “I say God has protected her well from your foolishness. She’s a noblewoman. What life could have you offered her, when you’ve made yourself nothing but a servant in your brother’s household?”
Anger rushed through Temric. “I can give her what no one else can. We are equals, she and I, both of us bastard born, each of us betrayed by a father’s will.”
Matching anger darkened Edwin’s blue eyes. “Temric, your father didn’t--.”
“Don’t waste your breath flogging that old horse,” Temric snarled, his eyes narrowed. “In eighteen years you haven’t convinced me to see other than what I saw in that document. I doubt I’ll willingly blind myself to the truth now.”
The old man’s expression soured. “As you wish,” he retorted. “Go on. You’ve more to say. I see it lingering on your mouth. Spew it and be gone with you.”
Where compassion wouldn’t move him, the priest’s brusque dismissal served like the opening of a dam. Emotions, rage, hopelessness, loneliness, all waged war in Temric. Battling for control, he dropped to sit on the stool, his clenched fists resting upon his knees. In that instant, the need to reveal his deepest and most painful thoughts to the priest was overwhelming. “All my life, I’ve known the limits being baseborn have laid on me.” The words were slow and stilted.
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