So Great A Love

by Speer, Flora

  “Uncle Royce is here?” Aldis cried. “I am so glad. Surely, Arden will tell him where my father and brother are, and Uncle Royce will tell me. It has been difficult to be patient with Arden.”

  “Arden, I fear I have more bad news to give you,” said Margaret. As she pressed up behind him to look over his shoulder and into the courtyard, Arden caught a faint hint of her delicious perfume. “Even without the squire's warning to tell us, I could make no mistake about the identity of the leader of those horsemen. The color of his hair is the same as Catherine's, and the bones of his face are similar to hers.”

  “Yes, the tall man in the green cloak is my father.” Arden looked with sad longing upon the parent who would surely be glad to see him at first, but who undoubtedly would soon reject him.

  “I regret to inform you,” Margaret added, “that the red-faced man riding next to Lord Royce is my father, and behind him is my brother, Eustace.”

  “Lord Phelan is here with my father? Truly?” Catherine exclaimed in a breathless voice. She pushed against Arden's dark woolen sleeve, trying to make him move aside. He would not be moved and Catherine, who, unlike Margaret, was too short to see over anyone's shoulder, was forced to settle for the view she could achieve by peering between her brother's sturdy form and Tristan's. “Oh, yes, it is Lord Phelan. Ah, Margaret, I am sorry my hiding place has failed you. It's plain we've been found out.”

  “I should have known,” Margaret said to Catherine, “my scheme would not work, and if I involved you, my father would apply to Lord Royce for help in locating us. It's I who should apologize to you, for dragging you and your family into my troubles.”

  The barely suppressed fear in Margaret's voice made Arden take his gaze from the men who were dismounting into the mud of the courtyard, to look at her again. What he saw in her face made him put his own concerns aside. Margaret was pale as her severe white wimple, with not a trace of color in her cheeks. Her lips were pressed firmly together, yet Arden detected the trembling of her mouth that she was trying to hide. Her gray eyes were far too wide, and far too bright, as if they were filled with tears that she was determined not to let fall.

  Arden discovered to his surprise, in the midst of his unhappiness over the unexpectedly imminent meeting with his father, the fear and self-loathing he felt when he considered all he was duty-bound to confess to the parent he loved in spite of everything, and his concern for Aldis' wellbeing – still, Arden's strongest emotion in the moment when his eyes met Margaret's was the desire to protect her. It seemed a terrible thing to him that Margaret, who was guilty of very little, should be as afraid of her father as Arden, with far more cause, was of Royce.

  He did not dare to touch her, for if he did, he would not be able to stop himself from gathering her into his arms and promising to keep her safe. That would never do, not if he really wanted to protect her from all harm, and certainly it was not the thing to do within the sight of the grim-faced fathers who had left their horses in the care of squires and who were approaching the manor house stairs.

  With his foot on the first step Royce looked up at the son he had not seen for more than a decade. After a heartbeat or two he transferred his gaze to Tristan, whom he knew of old. Finally he sought out Catherine, still squeezed behind and between the two men. The frown Royce sent in Catherine's direction made her tremble so hard that Arden felt it against his arm.

  Royce's gaze moved on from his daughter, to the place behind Arden where Margaret stood. His eyebrows rose and he looked startled, as if he could not believe the innocuous-appearing Margaret, with her huge gray eyes and pale skin emphasized by her white linen wimple, was the young woman who had caused so much trouble to her parent and her brother.

  And then Royce was smiling and running lightly up the steps to embrace Arden.

  “You have been sorely missed,” Royce said, his eyes glistening. “It's good to have you home, my son, and for more reasons than you can possibly know.” He threw his arms around Arden and kissed him on both cheeks.

  After a momentary stiffness Arden returned the embrace. Long ago, before his heart had frozen over, he and his father had always expressed their mutual affection without any reservation. Nor could Arden deny to himself the tug of old emotion that threatened to undo all the careful barriers he had erected to prevent himself from feeling too much at this long-desired, long-feared reunion.

  “My dear boy, I will not embarrass you by playing the overly affectionate father just now, while we are in public.” Royce, ever sensitive to the reactions of others, quickly released his son. “We will make an hour or two for ourselves later, when we can talk in private and say all that's in our hearts.”

  Royce turned aside from Arden to greet Tristan and Isabel, whom Tristan brought forward to introduce. Next his eyes lit on Aldis.

  “I have been told how you allowed yourself to be caught up in one of Catherine's schemes,” Royce said, chiding her.

  “Not at all.” Aldis responded with lifted chin and unfaltering gaze. “I was a willing conspirator, and with good cause, as you will hear.”

  Royce raised his eyebrows at Aldis' unexpected firmness. Then it was Catherine's turn.

  “You and I have a few things to say to each other,” Royce said to his daughter in a tone very different from the one he had used with Arden.

  “I know it,” Catherine responded, unafraid of him, “and I accept responsibility for my actions. I am not ashamed of anything I have done.”

  “Child, have you been ill?” Royce asked, his gaze sharpening. “Has she?” He glanced quickly at Arden as if seeking an answer to his question there, then looked back to his daughter.

  “I was sick for a while,” Catherine said. “My health is greatly improved, thanks to Aldis' nursing skill and the medicines that Margaret made for me.”

  “Then you must introduce me to your friend, so I can thank her,” Royce said, looking away from his daughter and into Margaret's eyes.

  Watching the three of them as Catherine performed the introduction, Arden was convinced by Royce's gentle manner with Margaret that his father understood and sympathized with her plight. Still, there was little any outsider could do for her. Margaret's blatant disregard of the marriage plans her father had made for her was strictly a family matter, to be resolved by her legal guardian, who, unlike Royce, appeared to harbor no sympathy at all for his errant daughter.

  “Are we going to stand out here in the cold all day?” Lord Phelan demanded, pushing his way up the narrow steps, past Arden, and thence into the entry hall. “Royce, stop sheltering my wicked daughter. I see how you are deliberately standing between us. Don't think you can prevent the punishment she so strongly deserves. I'll see her black and blue before this day is over.”

  “How do you do, Lord Phelan?” Arden said, moving through the manor house doorway to stand shoulder to shoulder with his father, the two of them forming a protective barrier between Margaret and Phelan. Arden could not bring himself to offer the usual words of welcome and so he contented himself with the obvious. “We have not met before.”

  “My business is not with you,” Phelan said rudely. “It's with the obstinate, ungrateful creature who hides behind you. Step aside, my lords. Margaret belongs to me. Eustace, come and help me.”

  Phelan did not wait for either Arden or Royce to move. He simply ploughed his way between them, with the brawny Eustace at his back. Phelan grabbed one of Margaret's arms. Eustace took the other. Ignoring the shocked stares of the servants and men-at-arms they passed along the way, Margaret's relatives dragged her from the entry into the great hall. Those left at the entryway followed the little group into the hall, all of them still uncertain what her father intended to do to Margaret.

  “Lord Phelan,” Royce cautioned him, “remember your dignity and your station in life. This is too public a place. Do not humiliate your daughter like this.”

  “Why should I not, when she has humiliated me?” Phelan demanded in a belligerent tone. “Margaret has cost m
e a profitable bridegroom who was also an important political ally. And if you don't punish your daughter in the same way I punish mine, then you deserve to be saddled with a disrespectful, irresponsible wench, who thinks nothing of ruining the plans made by decent men. That goes for your niece, too.” He shook Margaret, who was trying valiantly to stand with some dignity of her own, despite the fact that she was being pulled from one side to the other as first her brother and then her father tugged on her arms, which they continued to hold in a brutal grip.

  “Lord Royce,” Margaret said, “the fault in this affair is entirely mine. I coerced Catherine into helping me. She tried to refuse, but I insisted until she agreed. The same is true of Aldis. Please, I beg you, do not punish them.”

  “My lady, I know who is at fault here,” Royce said, his voice quiet.

  “Aye,” said Phelan, grinning wickedly, “there's no doubt of it. Even she admits as much. It's all Margaret's doing. Ungrateful, selfish, inconsiderate bitch that she is!”

  “Did you guess Lord Adhemar would break his agreement to marry you if you ran away?” Eustace demanded of his sister. “He doesn't want you any more. I wish to God that Father and I were rid of you, for you have cost our father a valuable connection, and me a wife.”

  “What do you mean?” Margaret cried. “I have done nothing to your wife.”

  “Have you not?” Eustace, still holding tight to Margaret's upper arm, pushed his face near to hers and spoke in barely controlled fury. “It did not take me long to convince Gertrude to confess what little she knew about how you escaped from Sutton during the Twelfth Night celebrations. Did you really think she would remain silent?”

  “You beat her,” Margaret accused him. Her eyes welled with tears for her sister-in-law. “Did you hurt her badly? Oh, I am sorry for poor Gertrude.”

  “Sorry for her?” Eustace yelled. “Rather, feel sorry for yourself, Margaret. You'll pay for what you've done, encouraging my wife to run away as you did.”

  “Are you saying that Gertrude has escaped, too?” Catherine cried. “Oh, I am glad to hear it.”

  “Catherine,” her father cautioned in a stern voice, “be quiet. This is not your affair.”

  “Indeed, it is,” Phelan told him, in tones scarcely calmer than his agitated son's. “Your daughter and mine put the notion of flight into Gertrude's feeble mind. As a result, Eustace and I returned to Sutton after our first day of searching for Margaret, only to discover that Gertrude had also departed. She told my seneschal she was going home to her parents for a visit.

  “Two days later,” Phelan continued with rising anger, “I received a message from Gertrude's father, telling me he intends to keep her with him and will not allow her to return to Eustace. Gertrude has fed him some story about the appalling way she claims Eustace has mistreated her. The witless girl's father says if we try to get her back, he'll go to war against us and declares he is planning to apply to the Church to have the marriage dissolved and Gertrude's dowry returned to him. It's bad enough to lose the connection with Adhemar. Thanks to Margaret and Catherine, my son and I also have a serious feud on our hands.”

  “Were it not for your example,” Eustace said to Margaret, “my weak-willed wife would never have found the courage to defy me in so public a manner, and her dowry would still be securely in my hands. So you see, dear sister, I hold a mighty grudge against you.”

  “Hasn't it occurred to you,” Margaret said, meeting her brother's eyes with bold disregard for her own safety, “that if you had treated Gertrude with more kindness, she would not have left you?”

  “No,” Eustace said. “It hasn't occurred to me. Gertrude was properly cowed, until you returned to Sutton and began to instill your treacherous notions in her foolish head.”

  “The fault is partly yours,” Margaret insisted. “I refuse to accept all the blame for the end of your miserable marriage.”

  “You ungrateful, rebellious creature!” Phelan shouted. He released his hold on Margaret's arm, lifted his right hand, and dealt her so hard a blow across her cheek that she staggered backward. Eustace let her go, too, at exactly the moment when his father hit her. Without her brother to keep her upright Margaret fell to the floor. Phelan raised his hand again and Eustace, grinning in expectation, stood waiting his turn.

  Catherine screamed to see such violence directed at her friend and an instant later Aldis, too, cried out in shock. Isabel shrank back against Tristan, who held her close as if to keep her secure from Lord Phelan's anger. Royce exclaimed in outrage and, in complete disregard of Phelan's parental rights, started forward to pull him away from Margaret.

  But it was Arden who reached Margaret before anyone else in the great hall, stunned as they all were, could act in her behalf. Arden raised Margaret in his arms, holding her tenderly while he turned so his back was toward Phelan. For just a moment she wound her arms around his neck, clinging to the kindness and the safety he represented. She knew the illusion of safety couldn't last. For Arden's sake, she had to leave the embrace she longed to continue.

  “Thank you, Arden,” Margaret said on a sob she was unable to prevent, “but I must accept the punishment my father decides is warranted for my disobedience, and the law says you may not interfere between parent and child. Please put me down.”

  “I shall interfere!” Arden exclaimed. He set Margaret on her feet, keeping his arm around her waist to support her. “No one may strike a defenseless woman while on my domain. I will not allow it. Furthermore, all the rules of chivalry forbid brutality against a noblewoman.”

  “The laws of chivalry be damned,” Lord Phelan said on a snarl. “I'll take Margaret home and punish her there, on my own lands.”

  “No,” Arden said, holding on yet more tightly to Margaret when she tried to wriggle free of him. “Margaret has done nothing to deserve such harshness from you.”

  “Because of her intransigence, I've lost a nice piece of land and an improved position at court,” Phelan said, “and Eustace has lost his wife and her dowry. All of that is worth a beating, and more.”

  “Unless,” said Eustace, with the sudden shrewdness of a truly stupid and dirty-minded individual, “unless she's carrying Arden's brat in her belly and that's why he's so tender with her.”

  “What?” exclaimed Phelan. For a long moment he appeared to be unable to speak for rage at Eustace's suggestion. Then, slowly, his red face assumed a shrewd look remarkably similar to the one worn by his son. “Aye, Eustace, you've a point there. These two young people have been holed up in this place, kept indoors by the heavy snows, with no chaperone except the two unmarried girls who brought Margaret here to meet Arden. Ah, Eustace, my boy, you are a good son to me, and almost as clever as I am. I see it all now.”

  “See what?” Arden said, made wary by Phelan's abrupt switch from anger to serious consideration of some other option. Somewhat belatedly, Arden removed his arm from Margaret's waist. To his relief she stayed where she was, next to him and well out of Phelan's reach.

  “Well, it's clear as the finest glass,” Phelan said. Assuming an injured expression that was patently false to everyone who observed him, he continued, “Whether Margaret ran away just to get free of Adhemar, or whether she came here knowing you'd be at Bowen or not, doesn't matter, my lord Arden. The fact is, the two of you have been here, together, night after cold winter night. Eustace is right; you've been swiving my daughter, and it's possible that Margaret is carrying your child as a result.”

  “That is a damned lie!” Arden shouted, recalling all too well that swiving was exactly what he had wanted to do with Margaret. But he had not done what he wanted. Knowing what would undoubtedly happen if he tried to obey the command of a desire he must not permit himself to feel, he had controlled his base urges in order to save Margaret from just such a scene as she was now being subjected to by her own father.

  Another of Arden's baser urges surfaced, making him long to kill Lord Phelan, and Eustace, too, for their violent treatment of Margaret. The fact th
at his murderous impulse arose out of his concern for Margaret's welfare only made him more miserably unhappy than he already was. And Royce's immediate statement of confidence in his son further increased Arden's aching sense of guilt for all the things he had done with Margaret.

  “If you say Lord Phelan's accusations are not true, then I believe you,” Royce said to Arden. “Nevertheless, the disgraceful slur Phelan speaks against his daughter's virtue is what the world will believe, if he declares his vile suspicions outside these manor walls.”

  “My lord,” Margaret said, turning to face Royce, “when I left Sutton Castle, my intention was to enter a convent as quickly as possible and to remain there for the rest of my life.”

  “Is that, in fact, what you want to do, Lady Margaret?” Royce asked her.

  “Under the circumstances, it is the only honorable thing I can do,” Margaret replied. “If I am readily accepted by a convent, then my leaving Bowen will free Arden of any stain upon his honor, and that same conventual acceptance will also clear my name.”

  “Oh, no!” Phelan yelled at her. “I'll not pay any dowry to a damned convent, not while I can still make a good bargain with some nobleman and marry you off for my benefit. And every father in the land will agree with me.”

  “Do not be certain of that,” said Royce, sparing a glance for his own daughter.

  “Who would have me after what you've just said of me?” Margaret asked Phelan.

  “Why, you stupid wench, the man who wronged you, that's who,” Eustace answered her, still grinning in pleasure at his own cleverness.

  “Arden never wronged me.” Margaret spoke slowly and clearly, with her head held high as if to challenge anyone who dared to contradict her claim.

  “You have heard your future father-in-law declare that the world will believe what I say of this matter,” Phelan told her.

  “You'd do that to your own daughter?” Tristan cried in undisguised horror. “Have you no shame?”