“Is there something to which I’m not privy?” Robert asked, eying them.
Crawford looked back at him and took a swig of the wine as though it was a clay jug and he a tavern letch. “Aye. I’ve betrothed her to William of Nottingham here. He’ll marry her in front of the first priest we find after she’s captured. Hopefully, that will be in the next few days or sooner.”
Robert didn’t let his eyes betray him and slice over to Nottingham, but there was no negotiating elopement with Mariel any further. Nottingham would probably chain her in the bedchamber. If Nottingham was anything like his own father, he would take great pleasure in breaking her.
“The woman attacked us in the woods with a band of thieves. William got a good look at her,” Crawford said, smoothing his beard but not mentioning getting shot by her, though Robert noted a bandage over his right wrist and his fingers didn’t seem to work properly. Thankfully, his own injury hadn’t interfered with the function of his arm, and his bandaging was well hidden beneath the fabric of his tunic.
Now he shifted his gaze to Nottingham, who stood silently with a triumphant smile.
“Whilst I intended to end her life,” Crawford said, “Nottingham devised a better punishment. If he takes her to wife, she can be reminded each day of her transgression, and I tire of the lass’s antics. Best to pass her off to someone else who will bring her to heel, and I will still benefit from an alliance with Nottingham, whom I trust with my estates.”
Chains, bedchamber, broken spirit, and misery.
Nottingham nodded. “I saw the tart straight on, and though your family would offer a nice alliance, I am the Sheriff of Nottingham, in charge of the king’s business at my discretion until he returns, so I believe I offer a, shall we say, better option.”
Did Nottingham sense competition in Robert?
“Ah, there’s the rub. King Richard is due to return soon, and is his kingdom not suffering in his absence? From the amount of folk coming to my door, asking for a bit of food or a place to remain until they can find a new home, I’d say being poor is quite the dangerous predicament these days. I wonder if King Richard will be pleased with the state of his affairs?”
“Are you suggesting I do my duty dishonestly?”
Robert and Will exchanged a glance. If the boot fits, of course you ought to don it proudly. “Ah, good man, I suggest nothing. I’m simply saying things change like the wind. Both of us would offer a fine suit for marriage, and yet the power or influence one has can change courses with little to no notice…” Robert trailed away cryptically. “But alas for me, if you are Lord Crawford’s chosen son-in-law, despite mayhap being older than him, who am I to complain?”
He turned back to Crawford. “I have little else to offer you. Your betrothal contract with my late father is locked in my drawers, and I was hoping we could simply amend it to my name. More’s the pity for me.” He added a perturbed sigh. “Lady Mariel ruined two sets of bed linens, French imports, I should add, by making a rope and escaping out her window. Mayhap I would have made a poorly husband if I cannot even keep track of the girl for one night. And unless you plan to recompense me for the loss”—he paused, though no such offer materialized; not that he thought it would—“I suppose there’s no business to conduct here at all.” Robert smiled, motioning for all to finish their drinks, and then ushering them out the door once more.
Yet Crawford took his time with his drink. He seemed reluctant to leave. Perhaps with just a little more time, Robert could have swayed the man to agree to a marriage between himself and Mariel. But time was not a luxury either Robert or Mariel possessed.
“We’ll partake of some food and be on our way. I’ll not let the wench slip through my fingers again,” Crawford said, seemingly coming to a decision and throwing back the remains of his goblet.
Chapter Twenty-One
Mariel paced to her window, looking at much of nothing for the hundredth time. The sky grew dim, and though she had picked at her trencher brought up from the kitchens, she was too nervous to eat much. She couldn’t see the approach to the castle, which was good, because her father would spot her if he had a view to the old guard tower she was entombed within.
The tower was small and circular with arrow slits meant to protect the side wall of the castle. Still, Robert had gone to pains to make it comfortable. Only one candle had been provided to keep the light dim, but a rug, a chair and table, and a mountain of blankets upon a single pallet had been moved in so she might stay warm, since the tower had no hearth. She smiled, even if it was strained. It was clear Robert didn’t want her associating the old tower with the prison her father had used on her. After Alice had brought her dinner, the woman had clicked her tongue at Mariel and deposited a fur-lined cloak upon the pallet along with the same pink gown she had worn the night before, chemise, stockings, comb, and ribbons—things a lady might need for a special liaison—but had left promptly.
She sighed. It was clear Alice didn’t approve of Robert’s interest in her, and yet it was also clear the woman had resigned herself to her master’s whim. If Robert did, in fact, succeed in stealing her right out from underneath her father’s nose to marry her, she would have to learn to get on with the head servant, and it was clear the woman didn’t think a Scottish wildling was good enough for her earl.
She paced once more, fidgeting her fingers together, and returned to the pallet where she sat and shivered, pulling a blanket over her. Perhaps the gown would be the better garment right now, for it was thicker with its underskirts and she would be warmer. Her mind made up, she threw off the blankets once more and stripped out of her tunic, dropping the chemise over her head and trousers, then the gown, which she fastened up as far as she could go before the assistance of a maid would be needed. Letting her hair down, she combed it out, making two thin braids at each of her temples, which she then pulled back over her loose tresses. Mayhap the hair could also help to insulate her.
She stripped her trousers and pulled on the woolen stockings, pulling the trousers back over them and fastening everything beneath her skirts. Wind howled against the walls and shot through the arrow slits, and she returned to the bed, lying down, and pulling the pile of blankets up and around her head. At long last, the shivering subsided, and with the sky darkening and the single candle so dim, she yawned, fought the urge to sleep, and ultimately failed, drifting off, just as the door was pushed open.
Instinctively she darted upright, whipping loose a dagger she had placed within her skirt pocket.
“Easy, Mari.” Robert smiled, taking in her mussed hair and the quickness in which she rallied her arms. “’Tis only me.”
She relaxed. Lord help him if he ever startles me awake in our marriage bed. He might end up without an important appendage, and wouldn’t that be a shame? “I’ve been unable to see a thing from this horrible vantage up here. What a misplaced tower,” she grumbled. His smile grew. “I’ve been expecting Crawford to shove through my door for hours. What took so long?”
“He’s just now gone,” Robert said, coming to her pallet and retrieving her cloak, noting a pair of slippers as well as a pair of boots.
She pushed back the blankets and he turned. A pleased light twinkled in his eyes. “You donned your gown. I had Alice bring it to you, for alas, Bridget was unaccounted for, but I wasn’t sure you would want it…for tonight.”
Bridget was always about and ready to jump at her lord’s command.
“Well, I have it on account that you liked it, and I was bloody freezing—”
“You wore it because I liked it?” The revelation didn’t inflate his arrogance as she thought it might, but instead made him step back and look at her, taking her hand at arm’s length and holding it outward as if making an inspection as his eyes drifted up and down. “I cannot believe all of this will be mine.” He shook his head, taking up the ends of her hair to rub them with his thumb. “I’m a lucky man.”
“Well, here, future lord and master. Do me up, if you would. I haven’t a lady’s maid to tend to the hard to reach places.” She turned around and swept her hair over her shoulder, revealing her back and chemise exposed as the fastenings hung open partway down to her waist.
…
A wash of dirty thoughts tumbled through his mind. Do her up? Indeed. Up and down and up again, to all the hard to reach places she had. And yet the way she stood so comfortably requesting his assistance spoke of the trust he wanted from her. It was the trust a woman had for her man of many years, a simple, intimate, yet routine task that spoke of comfort many never achieved in their lifetime with their wives, but only with their mistresses.
Lord and master of Huntington? Slave and pawn was what he sensed he was becoming. Because aside from his king, the only other person he would willingly bow down to was this woman, right before he started kissing his way back up from those feet before reaching her lips, where he intended to plant kisses for the rest of his life until they were old, shriveled prunes of their former selves.
His hands came up to her shoulders, gently, sliding to the exposed skin on her back. He sensed her inhale and watched gooseflesh rise on her skin. His fingertips made tender circles at her nape, before he snapped out of it and began securing the delicate fastenings.
“We mustn’t dawdle,” he whispered beside her ear. “I decided to make your father an offer for your hand, but he has already given you to the Sheriff of Nottingham. As soon as they find you, Wendenal’s to take you to the nearest church by force.”
He took her shoulders once more and turned her around to see her stunned eyes.
“I’m sorry I won’t be able to give you a beautiful ceremony full of fanfare and entertainments…” he said, hesitating with the next part. “And in order for no annulment to be possible, I cannot waste time in…”
“In bedding me,” she finished for him.
He shook his head. “No, Mari. Whilst our marriage union might be in haste, with you…” He brushed her hair back, unable to look into her eyes, and instead taking in her hair and lips and cheeks, fighting to force the intimate words over his lips. “With you, it can only be loving, not bedding. But I’m sorry all the same that you’ll not have the perfect night you deserve.”
She reached up and cupped his cheeks. “You give up your freedom in order to protect me. How could I feel entitled to more? Even if you never touch me again, you will have given me protection under the law of the king and the law of God.”
“Make no mistake, woman, I’ll be touching. If we are to marry, we ought to make the most of it, no?” He teased, though he sensed her growing nerves.
“I can nay go to Nottingham. I can nay ever let my faither find me.”
He felt her shiver, heard the brogue she tried to mask reemerge in her nervousness.
He offered the crook of his elbow. “Then we leave without further delay. Come, future Lady Huntington. Father Tucker awaits.”
…
They rode separate horses through the forest, he on Goliath, she on a horse from his stables, taking deer paths that only a native to Huntington would know. They connected to other deer paths, crossing through trickles of streams. The wind was blocked deep in the forest, but it was still cold and Robert’s nose and ears stung.
He glanced back at Mariel, bundled in her fur cloak, gown, and boots, with a hood draped over her head. Nothing about her appearance denoted a wedding. There were no flowers, no maids-in-waiting to bathe her and dress her, no rosemary scattered at the church door. And yet, he felt…excited? Was he actually excited to marry her? What they were doing was forbidden, more rebellious than Mariel running away from home. What Mariel was doing was handing over her life to him, putting herself in his control. No doubt a part of her heart rebelled violently at the notion of having a new lord and master, making this gift from her all the more profound. If there was any part of her that still believed in a happy future, in spite of her dreadful past, he was resolved to make it reality, for Mariel’s sake and in his mother’s memory. Her threat was genuine, that much was certain. She would leave him if he ever hurt her.
…
They continued on for the better part of two hours, Robert’s eyes and ears open to every sound, every little movement. He refrained from looking back at her, but rather sensed her there and kept his words to himself. He might admit he was excited, but he was certainly nervous, too. She stopped suddenly.
He turned and looked over his shoulder at her halting. The foliage and undergrowth was so thick that turning his mount around to face her would be impossible.
“What’s the matter?” he asked, worried. “Don’t tell me you’ve decided not to go through with it.”
“Why? What if I have?”
“Dammit,” he cursed, his good nature gone. He swung his leg over, hopped down, and marched to her. He swung her down from her horse before she could register what was happening. “Why do you do this to me?” he demanded.
She flinched from him, only for a split second, but regained her composure quickly. He dropped his arms and took a step back, raking his hand through his hair. If he wasn’t careful, he would make her fear him, too. No words emerged from her lips.
“Mariel.” He breathed her name. “God, woman, you make me feel more irritated than I’ve ever felt. I’m sorry. I just, I can’t understand what I have ever done to make you wary of me. You’re on your way to marry me, of your own volition. Why do you keep bouncing back and forth?”
“It’s silly of me,” she said, then fell quiet.
“Speak to me,” he urged. “Have I done something?”
She shook her head, lowering her gaze in an uncharacteristically modest expression. “I’m just nervous. I wondered if you had regrets, and then my imagination ran away from me and I had a fleeting fear that you in sooth took me to my faither to exchange me, or gather a reward, or some such. It was nonsense,” she added, “but it still frightened me for a moment. I’m sorry I—”
“Mari, I’m pleading with you. Your father was an awful man to make you so wary,” he said, taking her arms once more and pulling her to him. “But don’t keep punishing me because of it. I have been good to you and will continue to be so. This I vow.”
She nodded and stepped out of his embrace, reaching up to her saddle once more. He wanted to hold her a moment longer, but there wasn’t time. He lifted her aloft, and she swung her leg over. Continuing in silence, they finally wove through a widening path that broke out onto a road toward a clearing. In the clearing, she realized a torch stood within an iron sconce on the door of what appeared to be not only a chapel, but also an abbey. The outer walls were stone, the roof timbered, and the location bucolic. Robert stopped, coming to her side to help her down, and this time, unlike all times before, she waited for him. He smiled but didn’t speak.
Placing one hand at his back, he held out his other to her, which she took. The two of them walked to the front door.
“Rob, are you sure you want to marry—”
Robert whipped a finger up and rested it on Mariel’s lips. “Hush, woman. Don’t make me regret this marriage before it’s even happened,” he teased, his eyes twinkling, “Or you’ll turn me into one of those crotchety men who does nothing but complain of bad weather and his wife’s peevish nagging.”
Mariel cracked a smile and turned to face the door. She squeezed his hands so hard he felt the need to twist his fingers to ease her grip. He lifted his other fist and rapped the door.
After some minutes, a metal latch began to clank and was lifted. A round-faced priest in a cassock held out a lantern to see their faces, his belly bulging and his chin hanging low. His face brightened.
“Ah, my Lord Huntington. I received your missive and have been waiting up for you. So you’ve finally settled on a woman to tie the proverbial knot with, eh?”
“I have indeed,” Robert replie
d, the cheer in his voice overdone, when in reality, his stomach was twisting nervously.
“And she is a beauty, I see,” the priest said, shifting the lantern to illuminate Mariel’s face. “Come inside, my children, and welcome to Creake Abbey, my lady. Mind not the bodies lying in the corridor. They’re weary travelers needing a roof under which to sleep. We’re an almshouse and sadly, business is booming. We ran out of pallets and blankets sennights ago, so they must sleep on the cold floor.”
He led the way toward the chapel through the humble entrance. The walls were not adorned with niches and fine woodwork, but were plastered and whitewashed, and only a few tallow candles burned in plain sconces. On either side of the entry, against the walls, lay people sleeping. Some had their own blankets or cloaks, most had naught. Snores and breathing of weary folk filled the void and yet succeeded at making the void emptier.
The priest opened another door, thick and wooden, rounded over the top. They entered a small chapel. The walls here were also plastered and plain. There were no gilded shrines to the Virgin Mary, Jesus, or any saints. No stations of the cross were inlaid into the floor or hanging upon the walls. Plain benches were aligned for travelers and holy men to hear mass, and to one side were four small prie-dieus for receiving communion. An altar of roughly hewn wood sat at the front flat on the floor with a goblet of earthenware and a clay platter, with a cut of bread upon it.
The only candles lighting the darkness sat perched in a candelabrum upon the altar.
“Remove your cloaks,” Father Tucker said, “and come stand before the altar.”
They did so. Robert took Mariel’s cloak, laying them both across a bench. He guided her to the front of the chapel, flashing her a smile, before Mariel’s face dropped.
“Oh, I almost forgot,” she exclaimed, hoisting up her bunches of skirts to reach into the pocket of her trousers.
“My lady!” exclaimed the priest, shielding his eyes.
“I nearly overlooked this.” She pulled out something. “Don’t worry, Faither, I’m wearing trousers. You’ll nay go to hell.”
An Earl for an Archeress Page 27