Floundering as his last barrier against what he didn’t wish to do dropped, Oswald shook his head. “How can you promise this, when such a thing is so great a burden?”
Philippa smiled. Across the room, so did Alwyna. The two of them recognized that Oswald spoke from the ignorance of a man living in a man’s world. “Mayhap, to you it would be a burden,” Philippa said gently, “but you must remember I’ve never had the luxury of travel. For all my life, I’ve been held close. In the first twelve years it was to suit my mother’s selfish dreams for me, while in the second twelve it was to sate my husband’s twisted whims. Having known no different life, I’m comfortable in isolation. Besides, those who know and accept what we do will come to see me.”
“What of you, brother,” Lord Graistan asked of Temric. “Can you bear that your wife won’t be included in our family?”
Temric laughed at this. “Rannulf, your love for me ofttimes blinds you. I’ve excluded myself from the majority of the family we share as they disapprove of your affection for me.”
“Not true!” Oswald protested swiftly. “Well, perhaps not completely true. I’ve never minded you.”
“Until recently,” Temric reminded him gently.
Oswald waved away his words with an unconcerned hand. “Things have changed since yesterday,” he said, his tone friendly.
It was a knowing, laughing glance Temric sent Philippa. She smiled in return. He knew his family well, indeed. “So, my love,” he said, “I’ll ask you again. Will you wed me and let me hold you close behind my own boundaries?”
“Happily, for all my life,” she replied, joy blossoming in her. Despite the fact that everyone watched, she leaned forward and pressed a kiss to Temric’s lips. She sighed when he answered her caress. As the heat between them grew, he reached out with an arm to draw her nearer still.
Oswald groaned. “I’m heartily sick of watching the two of you kiss. I vow, that’s the only reason I’m agreeing to this. Mistress Alwyna, bring your witnesses. Their observations and memories will be duly noted and Pippa of Stanrudde created.”
With that, Philippa’s joy grew too great to be borne. She tore free of Temric to settle back onto her stool. Turning, she looked upon the woman who would soon be her mother-by-marriage. “Alwyna, on this new heritage of mine?”
“What of it, daughter of my heart?” Alwyna asked, her grin broad, indeed.
“Best give me a goodly dollop of Norman blood, or no one will wish to wed their child to ours. I don’t mind being a bastard once again.”
As Alwyna’s merry laugh rang against the rafters, Philippa met Temric’s startled look with a wry smile. “It’s true, love, I’ve never minded it.”
“Lord Meynell!” The child’s call echoed through the thickness of the forest, slipping past stands of birch and alder, yew and fir.
Temric turned atop his steed, his leather hauberk groaning with the movement from beneath his sodden cloak. Rain slanted through the canopy of newborn leaves to spatter against his cheeks. A palfrey topped by a tiny rider, one of the stable lads from Meynell, made its way along the path to halt near Temric.
“My lord, the midwife says you must come,” the boy announced in a bold voice. “Your lady delivers.”
Temric only frowned at such nonsense. “It can’t be,” he snapped. “The midwife swore the babe would wait another two weeks.”
One of the bishop’s foresters laughed at this. “Your first, is it, my lord? If this were your second you’d know babes enter this world on their own schedule. If the midwife says come, then best you go.”
With that, the terror that Temric had been holding at bay these last months stabbed into him. Women died in childbirth; Rannulf’s mother had, so had two of Rannulf’s wives. Indeed, only last year, Lady Rowena had narrowly escaped that same fate.
Roweling his mount around, he kicked it into motion wishing all the while he were atop his tall gelding, not this little, legless beast. Damn him, why had he agreed to become warden of the bishop’s chase? Now, he was ten miles too far from Meynell.
When they finally broke free of the woodlands, Temric sent his horse tearing across the green plain. Ahead of him, the landscape lifted into a chalky hill. Set atop the hill the thick walls of his new home seemed to melt into the low-hanging clouds. Through the village at Meynell’s base he went, scattering geese and piglets as he rode, then his mount was pounding through the armed gateway of his home.
Here in the courtyard, the soughing, damp wind tore around the squat keep tower, whisking away the smoke rising from the roof vent atop his wooden hall. Leaping from the heaving beast as a lad took its reins, Temric jogged up the stairs at the hall’s front, ripping off his sodden cloak as he went. He dropped the garment as he pushed past the door and started across the big chamber.
The hall was empty, not even the dogs here to greet him. Unnerved, he lifted his heels and ran toward the wooden partition he’d raised to create a private sleeping area for him and Philippa. The door’s leather hinges squealed as it opened.
Worry multiplied a hundred fold as he stepped within his bedchamber. Save for the fire crackling and hissing on the hearth, neither sound nor movement disturbed the room’s silence. Where were the maids, the midwife? Across the chamber’s width was his bed, the fire’s light playing across the rich folds of material that curtained it. The draperies were closed.
Now drowning in terror, he leapt across the room and shoved back the fabric. Philippa, her eyes closed, lay in utter stillness amid the twisted bedclothes. Her golden hair was strewn in wild disarray across the bolsters. Dark circles clung beneath her eyes, while her mouth was tight in exhaustion.
Temric’s heart stopped. The babe, his babe, had killed her. He dropped to sit on the mattress. Torn between the need to weep and his need to prove she wasn’t gone, he tore off a glove and pressed cold fingers to her throat. She started at his touch, shifting and stirring as her eyes opened.
His shout of surprise died unspoken beneath his relief. “You live,” he breathed, slipping his arms beneath her to draw her upon into his embrace.
She rested her head upon his shoulder, then turned her face into the cold dampness of his neck. “Oh, Temric,” she cried, her voice ragged as if from shouting and disappointment laying heavily in her tone. “It’s only a girl child I’ve given you.”
“What care I for that?” he said and truly meant it, even though he’d done naught but imagine his new son these last months. “You live.”
Hugging her close for another moment, he leaned back and grinned at her. “So where is this precious child of ours? I’d look upon the creature who’s so rudely stolen my wife from me this past month.”
“The midwife’s taken her to be baptized,” Philippa murmured, new tears springing to her eyes.
That surprised him. “Already? They couldn’t wait until my return?”
Fear darkened Philippa’s eyes. “Oh, Temric, all the women say she’s such a wee thing they fear for her survival, especially after I was delivered so swiftly. Fie on me,” she cried, her tears now staining her cheeks, “but why couldn’t I wait until next week when my sister comes? Little Alwyna should have at least one noble godparent as befits Meynell’s heiress.”
“Now, love,” he soothed. “You sister will still be her godmother. We’ll repeat the ceremony to see that she is.”
With the babe’s bulk no longer between them, he drew her close, then touched his mouth to hers. Her lips trembled at first, then what began as a gentle caress deepened into a fiery kiss that had nothing to do with comfort. At last, he tore his mouth free.
“By God, but it’s good to be able to put my arms around you once more,” he whispered against her brow. It was a soggy laugh that left his wife’s lips.
Through the open door to the hall came the echoes of excited voices. Releasing his wife back onto the mattress, Temric came to his feet and looked out through his chamber’s open door. A troop of folk, the midwife leading the way, marched across the hall toward
this room. In the midwife’s arms lay a bundle of blankets. Sweeping into his private chamber as if she, not he, owned the place, the midwife offered him a gap-toothed grin, a testimony to her own great brood of offspring, and laid her burden into his arms.
“Your daughter, my lord,” the woman said as if she’d done more than help the babe into the world. “She’s a beauty, she is, with no caul or disfigurements to mar her.”
Temric stared down at the wee bit of life in his arms and saw nothing beautiful. Still, she was so small and so helpless, so needful of his protection, that it pained his heart to think on it. So had his father felt about him and thus did a father love his child, without heeding reason or logic.
“Come sit by me,” his wife demanded.
Still trapped in the mists of budding affection, Temric did as he was bid and sat back onto the mattress. When he was down, Philippa leaned across him to remove their child’s christening cap, then teased the wisps of dark hair on the child’s minuscule crown. “Look,” she said, no sign of her previous sadness in her voice, “she has hair like yours. But, I think her face is like mine,” she continued, using a fingertip to trace the line of the babe’s cheek.
“Thank God for that,” Temric retorted with a swift laugh.
That made the babe in his arms start. She began making mewling sounds. The midwife thrust out her arms. “You may give the child to me, my lord,” she commanded.
“Nay,” Temric snapped, not much liking the woman’s manner. Against that, he certainly wasn’t going to let such a creature touch his precious child. “You may all leave us.”
Although the midwife sniffed at so abrupt and unusual a dismissal, she and the rest did as he commanded, one of the maids closing the door behind them. When he and Philippa were private, he again looked at his precious child. Lord, but it would be only a mere dozen or so years before he’d have to give her up to another man. Resistance woke. Too soon!
In his arms, his daughter’s stirrings grew more insistent. Her mewling great louder as her tiny head moved to the side. At last, she screwed up her face and began to squall.
Murmuring, Philippa scooped the child from his arms. She shifted on the mattress, leaving his side to lean back against the bed’s headboard. Temric watched his wife put their child to her breast. As the child nuzzled, finding what she’d wanted, Temric watched the expression on Philippa’s face soften. So great was the love touching her features that he sighed. At the sound, she looked up at him and smiled.
“You aren’t disappointed that she’s but a lass?” she asked, her voice warm.
“Disappointed?” he asked, strictly containing his smile while cocking a brow. “Aye, horribly. How you’ve failed me, wife. Because of you I’m forced to endure the travails of vassalage to my brother, title, lands, home, wife and, now, family.”
Philippa laughed. “Oh, you! You’re teasing me again.”
He grinned. “So I am. And, what of you? Are you content with this life of ours?”
“Aye.” Her smile grew. “But, I am sorely aggrieved at you, sweetling,” she said, touching a finger to their daughter’s head. “Too long have you kept me from your father’s bed.”
That made amusement grow in Temric. He leaned forward as if to share a private word with his daughter. “Aye, best you take heed, little Alwyna,” he said. “It’s a dangerous thing to stand between your mother and her lust.”
“It’s not lust,” Philippa protested, “only my heart’s need to feel you once again showing me how much you love me.”
At her words, Temric’s body tautened with the need to do just as his wife suggested. “Now, who’s teasing?” he complained.
Coming to his feet, he shucked his hauberk, tunic and muddy boots. Dressed in naught but shirt and chausses, he returned to sit beside Philippa. Once settled, he looked down at his daughter. Little Alwyna’s eyes were closed as she suckled.
“That’s right, wee one. Keep your eyes closed.” He leaned over to press his mouth to his wife’s, then breathed against her lips, “I have something to show your mother just now.”
Thank you for reading Summer's Storm, the second of my stories about the FitzHenry brothers. I thought I'd take a moment and give you a little context for this book, and how this series evolved. It all started in 1978 when I had a dream about two people, a couple, in Medieval England, a time in history I didn't know at all. In the dream they conveyed to me some of their complicated relationship. As I woke up I caught myself saying "I have to write this book!" But I also knew I wanted to write an accurate novel because I believe wrapping historical facts up in a good fictional story will teach you more about history and the way people lived back then than any textbook. Twelve years of research ensued before I felt capable of recreating this amazing time period.
Actually, while I was writing Winter I never really conceived that I'd be writing a series. After all, my ex-father-in-law had previously informed me that I had a better chance of making a killing on Wall Street than I did of ever selling a book. But then Winter sold, and the publisher asked for more. Luckily for me I'd fallen hard for Temric, Rannulf's brother. I wanted to know why he was refusing to accept the name his father had offered him and he, being Temric, was refusing to tell me. Moreover, I knew Temric's mother lived in a prosperous Medieval city and since I'd already seen how a baron lived, I needed to explore something different. But how and what sort of story was there in him?
Warning: Woo-Woo stuff follows. (Cue the Twilight Zone theme.)
Then one night I woke up and there was a ghostly figure standing in the doorway to my bedroom. This wasn't the first time this had happened to me. My mother's side of the family has a legacy of psychic ability that goes back some sixteen generations, and I seem to be the repository of it in this generation. Still, no matter how often it happens I'm always a little freaked. I mean, how do they find me?
Anyway, she--and I was instantly aware she was a she--was a girl of about twelve. Her story flashed through my mind. She'd lived in a Medieval keep of some kind as a servant or the child of a tradesman until she was killed by some high ranking soldier, possibly the lord of the place. She was in his way and he struck out while wearing a metal glove and the impact killed her.
As I came into her awareness I knew instantly what I was going to do with her and her story. Her personality was the perfect wife for Temric. It all clicked together from there: the story of abuse, which was tolerated if not accepted in that time period, the idea of bastardy and inheritance, the strange concepts of relationships imposed by the Catholic Church at the time, and a ghost.
In case this is the first of my books you've read, here is the full series:
Winter's Heat
Summer's Storm
Spring's Fury
Autumn's Flame
A Love for All Season
By the way, I don't title. My fabulous stepdaughter Amberly Neese came up with the original and very clever idea of using the seasons, and the publisher ran with it.
If you want to keep up with me or send me a note, please feel free to email me at [email protected] or visit my website at DeniseDomning.com where you can also read my blog under the link "Living with the OTHER Ed". I'll warn you, the blog has nothing to do with writing. Instead, it's the chronicle of how my husband takes me on a journey into Green Living and Permaculture. I have a feeling this will turn out to be a mangling of "Under the Tuscan Sun" and "Green Acres".
Wish me luck (I'll need it) and happy reading!
Summer's Storm Page 37