“I don’t care—”
“I don’t give a damn what you do or do not care to do. I can’t leave you sitting there fully dressed upon the chair; I know your talent for disappearances.”
She remained in the chair, staring absently at the ring, as if she hadn’t heard. With a muttered oath of exasperation, he wrenched at her arm, jerking her from the chair. Her eyes fell upon his with surprise and brilliant hostility. “Elise, I did nothing with malice in mind to hurt you. But, by Christ, I will not allow you out of this room, and therefore I will have you by my side to assure myself you do not attempt any of your foolish escapes. I am very tired, and weary of this pointless argument. You have until my count of ten to undress and be in bed—else I’ll see you there myself.”
She started to laugh. “The valiant man who never stoops to force—”
“And his wife the shrew,” Bryan interrupted her. “I won’t force anything from you—other than your form where it should, by right, be. But, sweet wife, that I swear I will force with little patience if—”
“Just don’t touch me!” Elise hissed, pulling her arm from his hold and turning her back to him. With shaking fingers she doffed her finery, allowing her clothing to fall at her feet. Tears were hotly stinging her eyes; she wanted to pound against him until he was black and blue, pound against him until he understood. . .
What? She didn’t know. She didn’t understand herself. He thought she wanted to run to Percy; she couldn’t even remember what it had been like to love Percy.
She had just wanted to run . . . from Bryan. And yet, if he had let her go, she would have known an even deeper misery.
Her shift fell to the floor. Still shaking, she threw aside her headdress impatiently and unwound her hair, wrenching the pins so that liquid rushed to her eyes with pain. Barely aware of any feeling, she climbed beneath the coolness of the sheets, turning her back to the center of the bed and closing her eyes. It would have been foolish to fight him, because he would have won.
It would have been even more foolish to fight him, because she would have touched him, and perhaps given away the fact that no matter how hurt and angry she was, she still longed to touch him. Maybe more than ever, she wanted to be reassured and held, and she wanted to believe that Gwyneth’s child couldn’t possibly be his, because Elise did not think she could bear to share Bryan in such a fashion. She would go mad . . .
She dug her fingers into her pillow, forcing herself to keep her eyes closed, her body perfectly still.
He moved about the room, snuffing out the candles. She felt his weight as he lay down beside her.
True to his word, he kept his distance. She heard his breathing in the silence of the night; she fancied she could hear his heartbeat.
It was but her own, pounding mercilessly against her chest.
She waited, tense and miserable, but the seconds ticked by to minutes, and the minutes continued to pass. He did not reach out for her. Elise brought her knuckles to her mouth and bit into them; she needed him . . .
She didn’t want to need him.
The conflicting desires created a havoc in her heart that was as painful as it was confused. Her emotions roiled within her, out of control like a wave begun at the ocean floor, and tearing now toward land. She could not stay in the bed, not without screaming, not without exploding like a dry log in a hot fire . . .
Her knuckles grazed against her cheeks and she found that they were damp. She tried to take a deep, steadying breath; instead, a muffled sob escaped her.
“Elise . . .”
At last he rolled to her, his fingers smoothing her hair away lightly, and grazing her throat.
“No!” she groaned out miserably.
“You’re crying . . .”
“I’m angry!” she retorted, and her very fragile grasp upon control snapped. She spun on him, entangling herself in the sheets, and pounding brokenly upon his chest. For a long while he allowed her to. Then he crushed her against him, holding her. He touched her cheeks and felt the tears, and he knew a feeling of tenderness to rival the passion she could always arouse. He abruptly rolled her beneath him, and, forgetting his promise, kissed the dampness from her cheeks, and then found her lips. To his surprise, her lips parted hungrily to his, and she clung to him, pressing fervently against him.
Elise discovered that anger could spark desire—dark, fierce, and tempestuous. Her heart had never been more in a tempest, but never had she longed for him more.
Yet suddenly he drew away from her. She had wanted the night to surround them with only the dim embers from the fire to break the blackness; Bryan began lighting the candles about the bed.
He met her eyes as he came to her again, lowering himself slowly over her.
“Tonight . . . tonight we will both see with clarity. You will keep your eyes open when I make love to you. And you will whisper my name to me . . . again . . . and again.”
She did not answer him. Their eyes continued to meet in a fiery clash of wills until all was forgotten but sweet urgency.
When it was past, Elise curled against him, and, exhausted in body and mind, slept.
Bryan lay awake a long time, watching the candles burn low and thinking that he should douse them.
And wondering bleakly what had driven his wife to such wild abandon. Could she keep her lashes wide, yet dream in her mind’s eye of another man . . . ?
He had to leave so soon. Too soon. He did not believe Gwyneth’s child could be his, but only time would tell. Elise . . . her pride was so great. She would never forgive him. It was possible that as soon as he left, she would be gone again. Crossing the Channel for Montoui, more determined than ever to escape.
At last he sighed and rose to pinch out the candles. He paused before snuffing out the last flame. She was beautiful tangled in the silk of her own hair, yet her cheeks seemed strained with pain, and a frown, even in sleep, furrowed her brow. She twisted and whimpered slightly as he watched her.
His fingers moved over the last flame and then he crawled beside her, taking her very tenderly against him and holding her to his heart.
* * *
Gwyneth and Percy departed in the morning. Bryan and Elise saw them off together, waving until the horses disappeared over the crest of a hill.
Elise murmured that she had something to do, and hurried away from Bryan. Bryan tightened his lips and went back to the tasks of building his army and his wall.
The days passed by quickly in an uneasy and too silent truce. Food was prepared for winter; the cellar stocks of ale and firewood continued to grow. Bryan spent several days hunting; Elise roused the household to long and tedious hours over the cauldron to make candles.
Each night Bryan held his wife and lay awake wondering if he held her at all.
Then came the inevitable day that was to be his last at home. Bryan was satisfied to see that the wall was rising steadily, and that his ragtag army of guards was shaping up well.
The manor had become an elegant and welcoming place; Elise had sent for tapestries and finely crafted furnishings, Belgian laces, and Mideastern rugs. It was a home.
Lacking only the warmth of those who inhabited it.
She came to him eagerly that last night; as always it was amazing that a woman so cool and aloof by day could offer such sweet heat by night. Night . . . his last night.
A despair of leaving seized him, and as soon as thirsts were quenched, they rose again. He was fierce and demanding, inexhaustible and insatiable. She did not murmur a single protest, but met him in a reckless, smoldering fervor of her own.
When dawn came he rose to dress, having never slept.
With his scabbard in place, he knelt down beside her. Shadows played beneath her eyes, and her flesh was pale. The dawn creeping through their windows played upon her hair, and she seemed to be wrapped in silken threads of red and gold.
He picked up her hand and played idly with the sapphire upon her finger. He looked into her eyes, and spoke with deep sincerity.
“Who are you, Duchess? Do I truly have you? Or have you forever locked away your soul in mystery and secret?”
Her eyes glistened, turquoise pools that threatened to spill and drown him. She shook her head.
“Do not hate Gwyneth because of me,” he told her softly.
“Another threat, my lord, or merely a warning?”
“A suggestion, not a warning or threat.” He smiled, suddenly bitter. “I leave you no threats—Percy rides with me.”
“Convenient, isn’t it?”
He shrugged. “To my way of thinking, yes.”
“And I am to be kind to your mistress!”
“Cordial, merely, to a neighbor. We are isolated here, and she is with child.”
“Ah, yes! Aren’t you wishing heartily now that she, our fertile neighbor, were your wife?”
“She has by far the better temper,” Bryan said lightly. “And I admit, I would feel more secure in the belief that I would return to find a wife. I wonder if you don’t intend to forsake this place yourself the moment the dust lies in my wake.”
“Run to Montoui?” she queried him. “I wonder what welcome I would find. Your friends, the king’s men, have surely taken a strong foothold in your duchy by now.”
“As that is mine, this is yours.”
“Don’t fear,” she murmured, turning her back on him. “I have no desire to be dragged through the countryside again.”
“Or do you merely wait with the hope that the Crusade will take her toll in the lives of men?”
“I do not wish your death.”
“Just my absence.”
“You have been as eager as Richard to go to battle.”
“And you have been as eager to see me go.”
“Richard is still in England.”
“Yes . . . so I will most likely be back before the forces take leave for the Continent.”
“A warning, my lord?”
“A statement. Perhaps of curiosity.” He reached out, touching her chin lightly with his thumb and forefinger, yet firmly forcing her eyes to look at his. “I will be intrigued to discover if you really do await me.”
“The future does promise to be intriguing, doesn’t it?” she murmured, and he knew as always that, as with himself, mockery lurked behind her words.
“Very intriguing. I shall be especially interested in the state of your health before we leave for the Holy Land.”
“My health? It is always fine—”
“I am hoping to find you wretchedly ill with sickness each morning.”
Her cheeks flooded with color. “You should truly have fought to marry Gwyneth, since ’tis likely she would have surely awaited you—wretchedly ill each morning!”
He stood and walked to the door, having no wish to leave her with the bitterness of a full-scale quarrel between them.
He paused at the door.
“I have no regrets about our marriage, Duchess.”
The door closed softly behind him, and in minutes she heard the clatter of hoofbeats as Bryan, with his party of soldiers and squires, rode out to greet the day.
The room grew chill; the manor seemed empty.
Already she knew a terrible void in her heart.
XX
Fall passed quickly to become winter, and by the middle of December the manor sat like an ice palace atop a mountain of snow.
Elise managed well enough. The guards had become proficient at their duties, the household ran smoothly, and the serfs seemed cheerfully resigned to the new order of things. The lord of the manor might be gone, but they had quickly learned that the Lady Elise could be both astute and hard if pressed, judicial and merciful when honestly approached. Disputes were settled each morning in the hall, and when there was no clear-cut answer to a problem by the law, Elise selected five men at random to deliberate the case, and so far, all had accepted the verdicts delivered. To her people, even to her closest servants, Elise presented a façade of complete stoicism and calm.
Inwardly, she seethed with a roiling of emotions that threatened to drive her mad. They would make her all the more insane because she didn’t in the least understand them.
With each day that passed, she yearned anew for Bryan. When each day came to an end she lay awake long hours in her chamber, alone and cold. She longed for him passionately.
When she awoke each morning, she longed to kill him.
Throttle him, thrash him, tear him apart limb by limb.
No matter how she tried to reason with herself, when Elise thought of Gwyneth and the child she was to bear, she felt an overwhelming cloud of black anger engulf her. She felt ill. And then she wanted to lie down and cry.
It was jealousy, of course, but she could not accept it as such. Nor could she allow herself to believe that she was anything more than resigned to her marriage.
She spent long hours wondering where Bryan was. Gwyneth might have remained behind, but London was filled with women, of the high and low variety, and she knew that, in the past, Bryan had enjoyed a level of entertainment from commoners and nobility alike. He had, after all, been intending to marry Gwyneth on that night when he had first taken her in the woods . . .
Men—from Percy to her father to Bryan (most certainly Bryan!)—were little better than animals. Henry, whom she had loved, had treated Eleanor and his scores of mistresses abominably. Percy, who had filled her with dreams of a different life, had proved himself to be little better than pathetically weak and hopelessly hypocritical. But thoughts of Percy no longer plagued her. Though she wanted Bryan to believe she was still in love with Percy because she sensed it gave her a small edge over all that she had been forced to swallow from him, she truly could not conjure her onetime betrothed’s face anymore when he was beyond her view.
While Stede’s image haunted her continually.
Angrily, she would remind herself that her husband might be anywhere. He had claimed that he had not seen Gwyneth since Richard had ordered their marriage—but had that been only to soothe ruffled feathers? Men, it seemed, were not expected to be faithful to their wives, especially not in the service of their king, when that service carried them far from their homes. Yet when thoughts of his probable infidelity plagued her, she did not imagine him with vague strangers. She saw him with Gwyneth.
When she closed her eyes at night, the picture could be disparagingly clear. They would stand in a room with only the glimmer of a few pale candles. A frothy bed of down and clean sheets would await them. Bryan’s eyes would meet Gwyneth’s; they would lock in a heated stare, Gwyneth would smile, her lips damp and parted, her dark eyes sultry. They would both begin to shed their clothing in eager haste, and Bryan would groan deeply. He would toss Gwyneth upon the bed, but she would rise upon her knees to greet his tall warrior’s body; she would touch the tight bronze flesh, press her face against his chest and hear the pounding of his heart, feel the ripple of hard muscle as she ran her hands and lips over him . . .
Elise would awaken with a start, groaning softly herself—and hating her husband with a fervor to match that of the night they had met. Why hadn’t he let her be? she would wonder savagely. She hated him because she yearned for him so passionately, and because she scorned herself for doing so. Her neighbor was about to bear her husband’s bastard, a neighbor who had openly been her husband’s mistress, who might, at a future time, become his mistress again.
Why not? Bryan wanted a child. Gwyneth was about to supply that want. Elise could picture them, meeting in a clandestine tryst, awed with the life they had produced between them.
But Gwyneth’s child could not be Bryan’s heir! Only Elise, his legally wed wife, could give him an heir . . .
But, she told herself to still her misery, hell and the devil himself would freeze solid if she gave Bryan his heir! Not when he ran about the country creating bastards.
Was it true, she wondered wistfully, that she could deny Bryan his heir by willing that she not conceive? Foolish thought, for even now she was left to wo
nder if she might not have conceived. A brief thought consoled her; if she did have a child, her child would not be a bastard.
As she was.
And that, too, was another thing she still held from her husband. Not that it mattered now. No one would dare lay claim to anything owned by Lord Bryan Stede. But the ring still bothered Bryan; that mystery was something he could not touch, and she felt it was a wall that protected her from completely . . .
Completely what?
She refused to face the answer. She did not love him, could never love him. She had once given him a wise truth; she would be a fool ever to lay her soul or her heart at his feet.
It was better to hate him. Better to deny him. Ha! she derided herself. She had never managed to deny him; when he had not reached for her, she had turned to him. What had he done to her that she longed for him night and day, and only him?
It was a riddle that would continue to haunt, no matter how serene the appearance she gave the world.
* * *
Gwyneth visited Elise in the middle of December.
She came encased in furs against the cold, her dark hair beautiful and lustrous against the white of the fox. Elise had stiffened immediately when informed that a party approached boasting Percy’s banners, knowing full well it could only be her rival. Yet when Gwyneth reached the manor, Elise was ready to greet her demurely, telling her that she shouldn’t have braved the weather in her condition.
“I was going stark, raving mad all alone!” Gwyneth proclaimed, settling herself before the fire. She still looked trim, Elise thought. Had her child been conceived before her marriage, her girth should have grown more rounded by now!
“I’m afraid there is little diverting here,” Elise told her.
“Oh, but we are at least together!” Gwyneth told her.
With the other woman’s dark eyes upon her, Elise felt a slight chill. Gwyneth was indeed beautiful. Yet, despite her friendly smile, Elise felt that there was something secretive and smug about the curve of her lips, and the knowing flash in those mahogany eyes, as she narrowed her lashes in appraisal. “I’ve been so anxious to see you, Elise, as I fear that I must throw myself upon your mercy! I know this might sound terribly silly, but I’d like to beg your hospitality from the month of March onward.”
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