by Lisa Hendrix
At some point, she had recovered her ability to think beyond the moment and remembered she needed to know what the devil she’d signed. Unfortunately, this realization had taken place after Ari had stolen away the steward, and she’d been forced to while away the afternoon with her embroidered tortures. Her limited patience was now wearing thin, and it threatened to fray entirely as she waited for Hadwisa to do her bidding. She plucked the needle out and poked it in lower, right at the spot where the little lordling’s legs met. Even better.
Geoffrey soon appeared with the document in question, a rare smile on his face that waned as he saw her glowering. “Sir Ari guessed you would be ready to see the contract by now. Would you like me to leave it, or shall I read it out?”
“Read it. I am of no mind to puzzle out your hand today.”
“As you wish, my lady.” He came to stand near the window, where the light was better. “There is a bit at the first about the authority for the contract. God and king. The usual. I assume you want to hear the endowment.” He waited for her nod.
“Let me see, then … Ah, here. ‘Therefore I, Ivo, Baron of Alnwick, by my authority and according to ancient practice, give thee, my wife Alaida, by this document, everything of mine within the vill of Chatton.’—And here it is all listed out, my lady, from the lands and the men down to the doves in the cote and the bees in the skep—’And I give thee in the vill of Houton five oxgangs of land, which you may choose of the best of the demesne excepting the orchard, and I give as well the mill and the perquisites of the hall-mote, and the profits of its wool. And I give thee in the manor proper of Alnwick, the pasture called Swinlees and its herbage. All these things I cede in perpetuity to thee, my wife Alaida, to have, to sell, to give, or to do whatever you wish with them at your will, saving only the obligations of fealty …”
There was more, including a section detailing the one-third portion that made up her dower, but Alaida barely heard it. At some point, along about the mention of doves and bees, her hands had begun to tremble. By the time Geoffrey listed out the names of those who had signed and witnessed, they were shaking so hard she had to twist them into her skirts to keep them from flapping about like crows.
“He gave me all of that?” she asked when he came to the end, surprised to hear that her voice was not shaking as well.
“Yes, my lady, all of it. That first night, after you went upstairs, he looked at the accounts again and told me what he wished you to have. I set it down as he said.”
Alaida tried to absorb it. A manor—a small one, worth only a half knight’s fee, but a manor—and the largest parts of the income from another, plus land of her own within the demesne. Even the marriage contract her grandfather had made had not secured so much for her outright. She had money and property now, of her own right, and all thanks to this husband she barely knew, whom she had fought at every turn, and who had ridden off this morning and left her to a day of humiliation. What was she to make of him?
There existed a more pressing problem, however. “I was foolish last night, Geoffrey. I do not have good witnesses to this.”
“Oswald and the others were in the hall as Lord Ivo commanded me what to write, my lady,” said Geoffrey. “They heard what he said. Their witness is sound, with or without the reading.”
“Nonetheless, I will have you read it out again at supper for all to hear. It will do me well to protect myself, even if I am late at it.”
“Very well, my lady. I will see that Wat and Edric are in the hall with Oswald to affirm their marks.”
“Good. Leave the parchment as you go. I wish to read it for myself after all. And have the accounts brought to me so I may see the value of what I own.”
Geoffrey left, and Alaida turned to where Bôte sat in the corner, hemming a gown and grinning to herself. “You are unnaturally silent, old woman. Out with it before you burst.”
“I have naught to say, my lady.”
“And I have a pig’s ears. Fetch me a wax tablet.”
“As you say, my lady.” Bôte broke off her thread and held her work out to admire before she rose. “As you say.”
EVERY EYE SWIVELED toward Ivo as he and Brand walked into the hall that night. Half of them asked the same question that had hovered beneath the guard’s words that morning, a question he was now going to have to answer for Alaida. The others—men mostly—were filled with a kind of open admiration, owing to Wat’s mouth, no doubt. A fierce scowl sent them all back to their business.
“I don’t see her,” said Brand. He lifted the raven off his shoulder and set him carefully on a perch. They had noticed the bird seemed to be favoring one wing and suspected an owl or hawk had hit him. “Perhaps your lovemaking drove her to the convent after all.”
Ivo scanned the hall. “She must be upstairs.”
Brand grunted. “Bad sign, that.”
“What?”
“Losing your sense of humor over a woman. And a wife, at that.”
“Hmm?” It took Ivo a moment to come back around to what Brand had said. “Oh. Lovemaking. Convent. Very funny. Ha-ha.”
Chuckling, Brand thumped Ivo on the shoulder with enough force to rattle his teeth. “Go on. See to your lady and make that pretty speech you’ve been practicing in your head all the way home. I will find me some ale and a place to read this saga your new steward left.” Brand patted the spot where Ari’s latest message hung in a pouch from his belt. “He must be trying to show you he’s good with words after all.”
“I heard much of it already. Tell me if he says anything important,” said Ivo. As Brand bellowed for ale, he trotted up the stairs, unpinning his cloak as he went.
Brand was right. Ivo had been playing out various explanations for his absence in his head and finding none of them satisfactory—especially the part where he had to tell her to expect him to leave every day before dawn. There was no way to do it, just as there had been no way to tell her last night amid the love play that he would not be beside her come morning. He should never have come to Alnwick, never have married Alaida, never have expected this madness to work, but he was here and he didn’t have it in him to leave until the gods or Cwen’s magic forced him to. He would tell her somehow.
When he pushed the door to the solar open, he found Alaida alone and bent over a thick book and a sheet of parchment that lay spread out on the table. She pursed her lips in concentration as she traced out a line of script with one finger then scribed a few marks onto a wax tablet with a stylus. Ivo watched her for a moment, enjoying the peace of it, until she heard some small noise and looked up. The crease between her eyebrows deepened.
“My lord.”
Not the cheerful greeting he’d hoped for, but neither was it the hostility he’d expected. He hung his cloak on a peg and pushed the door shut so their words would not feed the gossip. “Is that the marriage contract?”
“Yes, my lord. And the accounts.”
“I hoped you would take time for it today.” He went over and picked up the wax tablet. She had been tallying rents, by the look of it. “Are you satisfied?”
She nodded. “I am. I have asked Geoffrey to read it out at supper, for Oswald and the others to confirm their witness.”
“I will confirm it as well, for all to hear.” He handed back the tablet. “Never again sign a contract without knowing what is in it, Alaida. You are my vassal now, as well as my wife, and you owe me care in your dealings.”
“I have always been careful until now, my lord.” She looked down at her lap, so he couldn’t see her face. “I let my anger make me foolish.”
“Well, you are being wise now, and that is what is important.” Her words made him hopeful, and he dragged a stool around so he could sit before her. “Does this sudden wisdom mean you’re no longer angry with me?”
“Yes. No.” She raised her head to meet his eyes, and her lips thinned as she considered the question. “I do not know.”
He wasn’t sure what to say to that, so he waited.
; “You confuse me, my lord. You threaten and yet you’re kind. You force yourself into my life and yet you woo me with a gentle hand. You take everything, even myself, and yet I discover you have done this.” She touched the contract almost reverently, as though it were some sort of holy relic. “This most generous thing. Few men would have given so much when they held the advantage that you hold over me.”
“My father always told his sons that too much of an advantage is a bad thing in a marriage, that a husband should be openhanded with his wife. The king gave me much and took all from you. The lands and monies are to … balance things a little, as well as to ensure that you are protected, no matter what comes.” Like your husband suddenly disappearing, he thought.
Her eyes narrowed and she looked at him aslant. “You wish to protect me,” she said doubtfully.
“You are my wife.”
“And yet you leave me here alone while your men come in to examine the stains of our lovemaking.” She shook her head. “It is strange protection you offer, my lord.”
Her voice was calm and even, but her words fell like a lash on Ivo’s guilty conscience. He pushed to his feet before she could see the blood she had drawn rise into his neck and ears. “Ari was here, as were your women. You were safe.”
“I was humiliated.”
“That was not my wish.”
“And then I had to go to Mass,” she continued without acknowledging him, working herself into a fine rage, no matter what she said about not being angry. “Also without my husband at my side. And there I knelt, trading blushes with Father Theobald while you galloped around the countryside. Was your hunting good, my lord? That’s what I told him you were doing. I thought it sounded better than saying I had no idea where you were or why you had gone. I decided lying to a priest was no more of a sin than some of the things we did last night.”
“It wasn’t a lie, and it wasn’t s—”
“So you were hunting?” Her outrage lifted her off her stool. “You left me to go hunting?”
“No. I left for other reasons, but I did hunt a little while I was out, which means you did not lie to the priest. Nor did you sin with me.”
“That’s not what Father Theobald said. He spoke this morning of the intemperate acts husband and wife should avoid. We missed very few last night, I think.”
“For a man who has forsaken women, Father Theobald has over many opinions on the subject.” He fought to keep his voice calm. He was getting angry, and he was not the one wronged. “Nothing a husband and wife enjoy together is sin in any reasonable man’s religion. As to the humiliation, all I can do is say again that it was not my intention, and tell you I would not have left without good reason.”
“What reason?” she challenged.
He shook his head. “You would not understand.”
“I am not witless, my lord. Explain it so I can. Was it punishment for my sharp tongue?”
“No.”
“Did I displease you so much in bed?”
“No! God’s legs, Alaida, is that what you’ve been thinking all day? You pleased me beyond words. Surely you know that.”
“Then why?” she demanded.
“I cannot tell you.”
“Cannot or will not?”
“Both,” he snapped back before he could stop himself. “And you may as well know now that I will ride out every day, without fail.” There. It was out. Poorly, but out.
She looked as though he’d slapped her, open mouthed with shock. “Every day?”
“Every day, all day, fair or foul, and for the same good cause which has nothing—nothing!—to do with you or whether I am pleased or displeased. It is not my choice. It is … what I must do.”
“But why?” she fairly shouted.
“Because I must. Stop asking, woman. That is all the answer you will get.”
“It is—” she began, but Ivo moved toward her, warning in his eye, and she snapped her mouth shut again. With a “Hummpf,” she stalked over to the embroidery frame that sat near the window.
“’Because I must. Because I must,’ ” she repeated to herself, catching his tone precisely. She reached down, snatched up her needle, and jabbed it into the cloth. “Coillons!”
The sound of Brand’s favorite curse coming from the mouth of his lady wife—even this termagant of a wife and even in French—caught Ivo off guard. He started to laugh, and when she whirled on him, ready to do battle, it only made him laugh more. “I knew you would make no nun—unless nuns now talk like sailors.”
She choked on something that could have been either another profanity or a strangled laugh, and the fire suddenly drained out of her. She pressed her fingers between her brows as though her head pained her. “This is what I mean, my lord. You announce you will be husband only by night, you mock me, and yet you expect me to laugh with you.”
“Which you nearly did,” he pointed out, for which he earned a quick flash of almost-smile followed by a frown so sour it could have curdled milk. He tried a different tack. “Many men are husband only by night, and many of their ladies are glad of it.”
“Many ladies wish they had no husbands at all.” She heaved a sigh that sounded for all the world like she might be one of them, but when she spoke again, it was in resignation. “I am not going to change you in this, am I, my lord?”
“No.”
“And I suppose I am to wave farewell obediently each morning as you ride off.”
“I doubt you ever do anything obediently,” said Ivo. She looked up sharply, but he raised his hands in surrender before she could find reason to rage again. “I leave long before dawn, Alaida. I do not expect you to wake.”
“Before dawn,” she repeated in disbelief. “Every morning?”
“Yes. But I will return each night, and I promise you, the return will be more willing than the leaving.”
“So you say.”
“So I swear.” He ventured a little closer to her, and when she didn’t back away, closer still, so he could take her hands in his. “I do not wish to leave you, sweet leaf, but I must. I cannot tell you any more. You will have to trust me in this.”
“Trust you?” Her question carried a note of bitterness. “I barely know you, my lord. You are a stranger to me, for all that I lay beneath you last night. I have exchanged more words with your seneschal than with you.”
“That will change,” he vowed firmly, ignoring the flicker of envy that rose at her mention of Ari. Ari, who had already seen the sunlight touch her face, as he would never do. “You will come to know me over the next days and weeks, and trust will come with knowing.”
“And in the meantime?”
“In the meantime, I can offer only this as my pledge.” He swept her into his arms before she could protest and kissed her until he heard that little catch in her breath and felt her melt against him. When he finally set her back on her feet, her eyes had gone all smoky, in a way that made him feel reckless, like he would carry her off into the woods and keep her for his own no matter what came. “Do you understand?”
She swallowed hard. “I believe so, my lord.”
“Good. Now, would you like the gift I brought you?”
“I would not refuse it,” she said carefully. “But I did not put on a pretty gown as you asked. I was not happy with you when I dressed.”
“I suspect you are not happy with me, even now.” Ivo took in her plum-colored gown, laced just tight enough to show the curve of her body, and the pale yellow underdress that brightened her neck and wrists. On her head, instead of the head-swathing wimple, she wore a simple couvre-chef that let her plaits show. He nodded in approval. “’Tis plain, but better than that horror you wore last night. Hold out your hand.”
He pulled a pouch from his belt, unknotted it, and spilled its contents into her palm. A dozen small, dark green stones glinted within the knot of gold vines that formed the brooch.
“Emeralds!”
The surprise and delight in that one word was worth the fat purse it
had cost him. “I’d been told you had red hair and thought you might have green eyes.”
“I am almost sorry I do not, even though they would likely mean even more freckles.” She held the brooch up, tilting the bruted stones against the firelight. “They are as if the leaves had turned to stone.”
As Alaida pinned her brooch in place and found a bronze mirror in which to admire it, Ivo glanced down at the piece on her embroidery frame. He immediately picked out his shield among the army of figures on the tapestry. He was beginning to puff up a bit at the idea that she had already stitched his image, when he noticed where her needle sat—where she had stabbed it so viciously only moments before. Coillons, indeed. His crotch throbbed as though she’d stabbed him instead of this bit of cloth. Wincing, he looked to his wife and the blade hanging at her waist, trying to decide whether he needed to disarm her before he sat beside her again. Then she turned, and thoughts of knives and needles faded in the glow of pleasure that lit her eyes.
“I have long wanted an emerald,” she said softly. “And now to have so many.”
“You like it, then?”
“I do, my lord, though once again I find myself lost in confusion, this time of my own making.” The light in her eyes dimmed a little as she touched the spot at the base of her throat where the brooch rested. “I vowed I would not be appeased with a bauble.”
“It was meant to please, not appease. I would have given it no matter what your mood.”
“Then you have accomplished your intent, my lord, for I am most pleased.”
“Good. Now, let us go show off your new jewels and have the contract read. I wish for every man in the hall to know how much I value my wife on all counts. Come.” He stepped out from behind her frame and held out his hand, and she crossed the few steps to lay her fingers on his palm. This time they were warm and steady. “Afterward, we will come back up here and I will try once more to convince you to say my name. Perhaps twice more.”
The gold of the firelight made the blush that rose in her cheeks look like sunrise. For the first time that evening, she smiled an honest smile, a woman’s smile. “If you must, my lord.”