Castle of the Heart

by Speer, Flora

  He took her into his arms, and, forgetting all her vows to keep her distance from him, she nestled there, trying to regain control of herself, knowing she should not be where she was.

  “I couldn’t let you do that,” he murmured, his lips on her forehead. “You are a part of all that makes Afoncaer dear to me.”

  “Oh, Thomas, what are we going to do?”

  He did not answer that despairing cry with words, but with his mouth. His lips were warm and firm, and Arianna, in answer to that most-desired kiss, let her arms creep around his neck, and pressed herself against him. The kiss deepened, Thomas’s tongue sought entrance to her mouth and she accepted him gladly, giving herself up to the embrace she had dreamed of for so long. His arms tightened around her until Arianna felt she was becoming part of him. It was what she wanted, to be one with him and never let him go. They strained together in that herb-hung, sweet-scented room, tasting love without fear or reserve.

  Too soon the kiss ended. They both drew back, staring at each other breathlessly, wanting to kiss again, knowing they could not, for if they did, they would never stop until they had done the thing that would condemn them both as adulterers.

  “We promised we wouldn’t,” Thomas said.

  “I should never have allowed this,” Arianna breathed.

  They stepped apart slowly, backing away from each other, fingers sliding off shoulders and down arms until only hands touched, then fingertips. Then they were separate.

  “Upon my honor, I will not do this again, my love,” Thomas vowed.

  “Nor I, my love.”

  “My love,” he repeated softly. They smiled at each other, tears glistening on their cheeks.

  He was gone from the room. Arianna knew he would not break that vow. They would see each other every day, speak to each other as friends. She would care for his children, help to mend his wounds, if he were injured, but he would never, after that oath, embrace her again. Never.

  Chapter 15

  Spring came, and with it news that King Henry had resolved his differences with King Louis VI of France. With the war’s end William Atheling had been made Duke of Normandy.

  “Peace at last,” Guy said. “Will you be content to stay at Afoncaer now, Thomas, or are you still determined to seek your fortune elsewhere? King Henry and his son are both your friends. You could have a brilliant future at court.”

  Guy’s health had improved steadily but more slowly than he would have liked. He had begun walking about the inner bailey, using a cane to support himself when he grew weary, but he could not sit a horse yet, and climbing stairs left him breathless. Thomas watched him, standing in the sunlight with the keep behind him, and thought how old and gaunt he looked. There were heavy streaks of silver in the thick hair that had once been as golden as Thomas’s own. Deep lines etched his eyes, deeper creases ran from nose to mouth. The old battle scar on the left side of his jaw showed white against his sun-flushed skin. Guy was forty-three years old, and looked it, and Thomas, who had always thought of his uncle as young and strong and indestructible, was suddenly filled with frustration by the unstoppable passage of time.

  “I think,” Thomas said, “that you need me here.”

  “That I do, but what do you want, lad? What’s in your heart?”

  “Lad?” Thomas laughed. “Hardly that any more.” His gaze swept along the castle wall, scanned the solid bulk of the tower keep and the great hall next to it, and came to rest on the gate to Meredith’s herb garden, where she and Arianna were working, Deirdre babbling happily beside them. “Afoncaer is home to me. It always has been.”

  “A man may feel he should leave his home.” Guy’s glance had followed Thomas’s. It rested now on Arianna’s slender back and bent head as she patiently explained something about an herb to Deirdre. “Sometimes he leaves for good cause.”

  “I have been thinking,” Thomas said slowly. “The reports we’ve had lately all say King Henry plans to bring his court back to England in autumn. I’ll stay here through the summer, Uncle Guy, in case the Welsh attack again, and I’ll see the harvest safely gathered in. Then I’ll travel to Normandy. I’ll carry any messages you have for King Henry, and when he sails for England, Selene and I will be with him. I’ll let her have Christmas at court. That will please her. Kenelm can manage well enough here until the new year; the Welsh seldom attack in winter. After Twelfth Night, Selene and I will return to Afoncaer, and we will stay here permanently, except for the times when Henry requires our presence at court.”

  “I do not think Selene will be pleased with your decision.” Guy was still watching Arianna. “Are you sure you want to bring her here again?”

  “She is my wife. I have been too gentle with her. It’s time she resumed her duties. All of them.” Thomas’s face was grim. He had lain a few times with serving women, driven by a purely physical urge, and he found himself much changed from the days of his casual youth, for there was no pleasure in the dalliance. He wanted Arianna, but knowing he could not have her, he would force himself to lay with Selene. It was his duty as her husband, and his right. He would expend his manly desires upon his lawful wife, and if he got her with child again, well, he would see to it that her ill temper did not disturb those he loved. Selene would have to learn to control her emotional outbursts, as he was learning to control his desire for Arianna.

  “I received a letter from Sir Valaire in the last packet from court,” Thomas went on. “He made it quite clear he is unhappy at Selene’s long stay in his household. She and her mother quarrel constantly. Valaire wants her removed. He will join me in insisting that his daughter obey me.”

  “We will try to make Selene welcome here,” Guy said.

  “I’ll see to it she causes no trouble. Not to anyone.”

  It seemed to Thomas that his decision had lifted a burden from Guy. The older man’s step grew almost springy as summer progressed. His health was noticeably improved, and that made Meredith happier. Thomas felt certain he had made the right choice.

  There were no Welsh raids that summer. Geoffrey rode in from Tynant several times, looking more cheerful than he had done for a long while. One of his men told Guy and Thomas that Geoffrey had recently taken a pretty Saxon mistress, a placid girl who adored him. The deep wound to his esteem inflicted by Gwenefer’s betrayal seemed to be healing.

  Thomas and Arianna had kept their oath to treat each other as friends. They met daily, maintaining rigid control over their feelings, though Arianna could not hide the sadness that filled her eyes when Thomas told her he would bring Selene back to live at Afoncaer.

  “It is the best thing for Jocelyn and Deirdre,” was all she said. “And you need a lady by your side.”

  “You won’t leave, will you, Arianna?”

  “No. You and Selene and I need not be thrown together constantly. Linnet is well enough trained by now to care for the children, so I am not in the nursery as often as I once was. I am spending more time with Meredith in the infirmary she has set up in the village. I still have a great deal to learn from her. And Reynaud has agreed to begin teaching me Greek this winter. At last I’ll be able to speak my mother’s tongue. I shall be well occupied, Thomas. There is nothing to prevent me from being friendly with Selene again, if she wishes it, too.” She gave him a bright smile that fooled him not at all.

  Because of the constant unrest along the Welsh border, Guy was exempt from sending fighting men to the king’s service for the usual forty days each year. When Thomas left Afoncaer he took with him only a dozen men-at-arms for protection, and, at Guy’s suggestion, Benet as one of his squires.

  “He has little to do until I’m fully recovered,” Guy said, “and he deserves a reward for his faithful service. Let him see something of the world beyond Afoncaer. Let him see a royal court.” Thomas, who liked Benet, readily agreed.

  Their crossing of the Narrow Sea was delayed by bad weather. It was not until mid-November that Thomas and a properly impressed Benet knelt before King Henry.
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br />   “You have come here only to turn around and go back to England,” Henry said. “Still, I’m glad to see you, and William will be, too. Come sit here and tell me all the news of Wales before you leave to find your lady wife.”

  It was his father-in-law Thomas found later. He learned from him that Selene had not come to court but was still in Brittany with Lady Aloise.

  “They will join us next week,” Sir Valaire said, “since they are both to sail to England with us.”

  “I want to see Selene before that,” Thomas told him. “I have made my report to King Henry, and I visited with William, so I’m free to join her. My men and I will ride to Brittany and escort the ladies to Barfleur in time to meet the ships on sailing day.”

  “I’ll send a message to Aloise that you are coming,” Valaire said. “A word of advice, Thomas. Use a firm hand with Selene. She has done as she pleases for too long, and you leave yourself open to gossip and mockery by letting her have her own way. She’s had naught to do with other men while you were living apart, I can vouch for that, but I am ashamed to say my daughter is willful and stubborn, and entirely too bad tempered.”

  “I intend that she will change greatly,” Thomas assured him.

  Selene was not waiting in the great hall of Sir Valaire’s castle to greet him as a wife should. It was left to his mother-in-law to do that honor.

  “She’s in the solar,” Lady Aloise told him apologetically. “She asks that you join her there after you have bathed and refreshed yourself from the journey.”

  “Does she indeed?” Thomas’s eyes narrowed. Lady Aloise looked distracted. Thomas suspected she was having a difficult time with her daughter. “Is she very angry that I expect her to return to Afoncaer with me?”

  “She was.” Aloise produced a bitter smile. “I spent two extremely unpleasant days trying to convince her. For a while I feared you would have to take her back by force. She is more reasonable now. If she opposes you, beat her as a good husband should. You have been too lenient with her. Her stubborn pride must bend to your will, and would have done so long ago had you not always been so foolishly gentle with her.”

  Thomas almost asked if Sir Valaire had ever beaten his wife, but seeing Aloise’s expression, he bit back the irritated words. He doubted Aloise would understand his desire to have a wife who looked upon him with affection rather than fear.

  “I’ll not wait. I’ll see her now if you will show me the way,” he said.

  “But I’ve ordered bathwater taken to your room at once.”

  “Good,” Thomas responded. “Selene can help me bathe. She can begin her wifely submission in that way.” Aloise nodded in grim agreement.

  Thomas paused in the hall just long enough for Benet to remove his heavy chain mail hauberk, before following his mother-in-law up the staircase to the second floor of the castle.

  Selene sat on a stool in the solar, close to a window, her head bent over bright-colored embroidery. A few silken strands of thread glowed smoothly across the knee of her dark green woolen gown, placed there until she should need them for the next stitches. The light fell softly upon her face and set her crisp white linen coif aglow. Her profile was perfect. Thomas concentrated his thoughts on her beautiful face and body and the pleasure he had once found in both, trying to dredge up some faint stirring of desire for her.

  She heard his step and looked up. Thomas saw her emerald eyes grow almost black as the pupils dilated and a look of fear crossed her face. It was swiftly erased into smooth blankness, but her eyes still glowed bright and dark. Gathering up her embroidery, she rose from the stool and knelt to him.

  “My lord,” she said, her husky voice trembling just a little. “Welcome, sir.”

  “In the future,” Thomas said coolly, “when I return to a place where you are, you will greet me at the door.”

  “Yes, my lord.” Grey-shadowed lids were lowered over her eyes so Thomas could no longer see the expression in them. He wondered if it was hatred.

  “Get up,” he said, “and come and bathe me.”

  “Surely one of the serving women can do that.”

  “It is you I want to serve me, Selene.” He put out his hand and she took it, rising and following him meekly along the corridor to the room Lady Aloise had shown him.

  A tub of steaming water waited by the blazing hearth. Two serving women stood next to it, one with a bowl of soap and linen towels, the other with a large pitcher of hot water for rinsing.

  “You may go,” Thomas told them. “My lady will wait on me.”

  When they had left he bolted the door after them. Selene stood with hands folded before her, in the posture he remembered so well, looking at the floor with apparent great interest, so that her face was hidden from him.

  “You may undress me now,” Thomas said.

  She did not speak, nor did she look directly at him while she removed his travel-stained garments, his padded gambeson and hose, and his silk undershirt. Thomas thought she was trying not to see his body, which was beginning to react to the touch of her slender fingers as she handled his clothing. He encouraged his own response, trying to recall how much he had wanted her in the early days of their marriage, making himself remember the feel of her smooth flesh beneath his hands and the way she had always moaned in pleasure as he took her. When at last he was naked and shivering slightly in the drafty chamber, longing for the muscle-easing warmth of the inviting tub of water, she walked across the room and picked up the soap bowl and a small linen cloth.

  “If you will get in, my lord, I will soap you,” she said, still not looking at him.

  “Not yet, Selene. You will stain that lovely gown. Take it off. Your headdress, too.”

  “Please, my lord, no.” The delicate hand holding the soap bowl was shaking.

  “God’s Holy Teeth, woman!” Thomas exploded. “I’ve had enough of this nonsense. You are my wife, Selene, not some terrified virgin about to be raped. I want you bare-headed, in your undershift, kneeling before me.”

  “Yes, my lord.”

  He watched her undress. When she bent to remove her shoes and stockings, Thomas, satisfied that she would not run away, stepped into his bath. He sat in the linen-draped wooden tub, with knees drawn nearly to his chin, and felt his tense muscles begin to relax in the pleasant heat.

  Selene knelt beside the tub wearing only a long-sleeved linen shift. Its wide, rounded neck left the beautiful line of her throat exposed. She had partially released her hair so that it hung down her back in a single thick braid. Still she did not lift her eyes, and her small mouth was pressed into a firm line, but Thomas could see her lips were trembling a little.

  “Shall I soap your back, my lord?”

  “Yes,” he said, and moved forward a little to make room for her to reach between his back and the side of the tub.

  She worked silently, efficiently, her eyes never meeting his, and Thomas marveled how she held herself in check. The Selene he had once known would have drowned him in a flood of angry words. He sensed the churning emotions beneath her serene exterior, and found they gave an exciting edge to the physical need that at last had begun to rise in him as she handled his body. Selene, however angry and determined to avoid lying with him, had always turned into a wanton, wildly passionate woman as soon as she realized he would have her no matter how she protested. He chuckled aloud at his body’s sudden, urgent reaction when her hands, lathering soap across his chest and abdomen, met the stiffly raised banner of his manhood and stopped.

  Her eyes flew wide open, no longer shielded from him. Thomas saw anger, fear, and pain mingled in their emerald green depths, and something more, the flaring, passionate look they always held just before she accepted his lovemaking, and he knew she would offer him no great resistance. He wanted to rise dripping and soapy from the tub and fling her onto the floor and have her there. He could almost feel her hot flesh pulsating beneath him. Somehow he controlled himself, knowing that if he waited, and lured her cleverly, she would come to him,
and it would be all the better for his patience.

  When she finished soaping him and had poured most of the pitcher of fresh water over his head and shoulders, he stood up so she could finish rinsing him. He stepped out of the tub and stood on the wet floor, letting her dry him.

  “My legs, too,” he said when she had finished his back. He felt the linen cloth along the backs of his legs, felt it linger across his buttocks. “The front, too, Selene.”

  He reached around and grabbed one arm to pull her forward, disregarding her sudden yelp of pain.

  “Kneel,” he commanded, pressing downward on her arm. She went to her knees, face to face with his rising desire for her.

  “Thomas. Oh, Thomas.” A dry whisper, wrenched out of a constricted throat. She touched him, with her fingers first and then with her mouth, and pleasure and heat and throbbing physical need surged up in him, mingling in sensation so intense he thought he would burst with it.

  He bent down and took her by each arm, raising her to her feet. She was weeping. Her rosy lips were slightly parted, and with a surprised start he remembered he had not kissed her yet. He would, in a moment.

  He lifted her into his arms and carried her across the room to lay her on the bed. She cried out, wincing, as he moved his hands across her back, then lay still, watching him. He stretched out beside her, and with one hand turned her face to his. That beautiful face, pure and delicate, and without blemish.

  “Selene,” he murmured, “wife, this is our duty. We’ve neglected it too long.”

  “Yes, my lord.”

  She was still wearing her damp linen shift. It clung to her body. He could see beneath its sheerness the pointed contours of her small breasts, the soft mound of her belly, and below that, the patch of smooth black hair, into which, in a few moments, he would plunge as they slaked their violent passion on each other. But first, he wanted to see her entire body without covering. She was his possession, he owned her, and if he must live with her, he would look at her whenever he wanted. He tugged the shift upward.