The Baron's Bride

by Marina Oliver

  'He – he attacked me,' she said in puzzlement.

  'So did I, when we met for – was it the second time?' he pointed out, 'and you did not resist me for long.'

  Eva's face flamed at the recollection.

  'I had no choice when you caught me unawares and are so much stronger than I am!' she retorted furiously. 'I am no drab like the Lady Blanche!'

  To her surprise he laughed in genuine amusement.

  'Was it then jealousy which drove you from under her roof?' he asked softly. 'Could you not tolerate the thought of another in my arms, enjoying the favours I had so far denied you?'

  'You think too highly of your supposed charms,' she snapped. 'I left because I hoped to free myself of you. I did not wish this marriage, I love Gilbert Fitzjohn, and I will always love him. You may take me by force, Sir Piers, because you are stronger than I, but I shall always try to imagine it is Gilbert, and wish he were in your place.'

  'How rash an assertion,' he commented lightly. 'Was the gallant Gilbert so skilful a lover?'

  'Gilbert was not my lover!' Eva blazed at him. 'We wished to marry, we would have persuaded my father to agree had you not been so rich! Ambition has made my father restless all his life, and he has sacrificed me to his ambitions. But I do not come to you willingly, of that you can be sure.'

  *

  'You will, Eva,' he said softly. 'You will encourage my attentions, and sooner than you expect, I promise you. You showed me when I first held you in my arms that you were willing to respond, like this,' he added, and suddenly Eva found herself pinned down to the bed as he held her shoulders in his hands. He looked down at her, an inscrutable expression on his face, and then, with calm deliberation, he began teasing her lips with his, slipping one hand behind her head to force her to remain still as she writhed to escape those insidious exploring lips which caused her own to tingle in fear and that other uncontrollable response he always seemed capable of provoking in her.

  It must have been several minutes later, when Eva was almost swooning with the effort not to give way to him, that he raised his head and gazed down into her eyes, his own expression inscrutable. She was staring up at him with a mixture of terror and puzzlement on her face, and then she passed her tongue slowly over her lips and breathed deeply.

  'Well, my lady wife, can you say you are totally indifferent to me? I think not,' he said mockingly.

  'I hate you,' Eva whispered.

  'Not so. But soon you will realise your true feelings and then you will crave my kisses. You will plead for my attentions. Soon you will give me sons.'

  He stood up and moved away from the bed, picking up the candlestick, then turned to hold it so that the light shone down on her dishevelled hair and flushed countenance. 'Sleep well, my lady.'

  'You – are going?' Eva exclaimed in astonishment, unable to believe he was intending to leave her alone.

  He looked at her calmly, a grim expression crossing his face. His voice was harsh when he answered.

  'For a while. You have a respite of a few weeks, wife. Do not imagine I can restrain my lusts for ever. I married you for a purpose, to breed my sons.'

  'But – ' Eva paused. If he did not wish to claim his rights it was to her advantage, and while the marriage remained a marriage in name only there might still be some escape. Eva's knowledge of the intricacies of marriage law was scanty in the extreme, but she had heard that marriages were sometimes annulled. If hers was no true marriage, and perhaps because she did not recall much of the actual ceremony, and could claim she was unwilling, she might be free again and able to marry Gilbert.

  Sir Piers laughed, a bitter sound.

  'Don't hope to escape me for ever,' he warned. 'I mean to share your bed soon. I intend to be very sure, however, that the sons you give me, especially the first you bear after our marriage, is mine, and not the son of a man-at-arms or a servant, or even worse. Goodnight, my lady wife.'

  *

  Chapter 7

  The door snapped shut and Eva heard the click of the latch. How dare he accuse her of such infamous conduct, she fumed to herself. Gilbert had never done more than kiss her, but Sir Piers clearly assumed they were lovers. She was tempted to run after him and demand he retract his accusation, then she realised that if he did believe her she would not have the respite his suspicions had granted her.

  That gave her pause, and she wondered how she might turn it to her advantage. Could she pretend she was with child, at least for a short while until she could devise some way out of the trap she was in? It suddenly occurred to her most men would cast off a bride they suspected of such behaviour. Why should Sir Piers compel her to this marriage in the face both of her opposition to it and his own suspicions?

  The puzzle was too much for her and she eventually fell asleep, but awoke several times during the long night, tossing and restless.

  Soon after dawn there was a knock on the door.

  'Who is it?' Eva demanded suspiciously, although she did not think Sir Piers would have troubled to knock.

  'Gerda, my lady,' a strange voice replied, and Eva told the woman to enter.

  She carried a tankard of ale and a platter of cheese.

  'Good morning, my lady,' she said briskly. 'Sir Piers told me to look after you. I was his mother's maid until she died a few years since, God rest her soul. He's ridden out to look at some trees they're felling, and bade me tell you he'll return in an hour.'

  Eva nodded, and Gerda busied herself folding the clothes Eva had brought with her and laying them in the huge chests which were placed near the windows. She was a woman of forty, Eva guessed, but still strong and active. Indeed, her arms were almost muscular, and she did not look a typical maid, able to launder fine clothes and mend them neatly. She would have been more suited to field work with her sturdy figure. Her hair was a deep brown, hardly touched with grey where it showed beneath the wide linen band and barbette she wore. Though her face was lined the skin looked healthy and was firm.

  When Eva had broken her fast Gerda helped her to dress, selecting a creamy yellow surcoat of fine wool and a dark brown undertunic with tight-fitting sleeves. Eva told herself she did not care how she looked, but would submit to the woman's ministrations, permitting her to order her clothes if that was what she seemed to expect. What could it matter whether she looked attractive?

  However calmly Eva tried to feel, when she made her way from the solar to the hall she could not suppress a faint stirring of interest to see the rest of the house.

  The hall, which she recalled only dimly from the previous day, was wide and lofty. There were huge fireplaces on both sides and screens at either end, one in front of the doorway and the other by the kitchen entrance. Gerda led the way to the latter, assuming the new mistress of the house would be most interested in seeing them first. Inside a bright clean room Eva discovered several maids at work. They greeted her with smiles and bobs, and she smiled back shyly. Gerda took her down a narrow spiral staircase to inspect the storerooms beneath and then Eva scrambled up a ladder to the room above the kitchen where the maids slept. The menservants, Gerda said, occupied a similar room beside the storerooms.

  'Would you care to see the gardens, my lady?' Gerda asked as she led the way back to the hall. 'The weather is more springlike today.'

  'Are they large?' Eva asked, feeling it necessary to reply.

  'Middling. The orchard is famous, fine apples and pears we have and make good strong cider and perry. But the herb garden was my late mistress's pride. This way, my lady,' Gerda said and went through the hall and out of the front door. A flight of shallow steps led down to the path in front of the house, and Gerda turned left to pass the kitchens and on into a peaceful, enclosed garden laid out in small beds where even at this season of the year Eva could tell that there were many different types of plants.

  'Are you skilled in herbs, may I ask, my lady?' Gerda asked hopefully.

  'I know something about their properties,' Eva told her, 'but I have had little to do with
the growing of them. Who cares for the garden now? It is very well tended, that is clear.'

  'Edgar, my brother. He'd be so pleased if you were to take an interest, my lady. It's been strange having no mistress these last few years, especially when Sir Piers has been away so much. We were all so pleased when Sir Piers sent to say he had chosen a wife. Perhaps he'll stay here himself more now. The orchard is behind the house. There is a gate in the hedge here, my lady.'

  'Where has he been?' Eva asked curiously. She knew so little about her husband, she realised, apart from the fact he was a friend of Richard of Cornwall.

  'In France and other foreign parts,' Gerda replied disgustedly. 'I don't see why men need to leave their homes, but Lord Richard sets a great store by Sir Piers, we hear, and depends on him. Especially since he became King of the Romans. Why they have to go looking for a king beats me. Why can't they choose one of their own men, instead of taking a good man like Lord Richard away from England.'

  'Has Lord Richard ever been here?' Eva asked, curious about this brother of the King who had won a crown for himself, and seemed to regard her husband so highly.

  'Once or twice, just for a night when he has been on his way to his own manors. This tree, my lady, is said to be near a hundred years old. A seedling in the days of the first King Henry, Edgar says, he had it from our grandfather who heard it from his grandsire. But it bears no fruit now. Granfort Manor will be a happy place, my lady, when we have children here again.'

  Eva turned swiftly away to hide her confusion. Would they all be watching her, gossiping, measuring her waist in anticipation of the heirs she would bring? Not if she could help it, she vowed silently to herself, and felt a sudden rush of misery as the recollection of her predicament came back in full force. She had managed to forget for a little while as they walked round the gardens.

  'Look, my lady, a sign of spring,'

  Gerda said suddenly, stooping down and pointing to a pale yellow flower hiding under a hedge which surrounded the orchard. 'Summer will soon be here. And here is Sir Piers.'

  *

  Eva looked up apprehensively. How would he treat her, and how should she behave towards him? Offended, or behaving as though his monstrous suspicions of the previous night mattered nothing?

  Sir Piers was coming from the direction of the stable yard. He smiled as Eva looked at him, and nodded to Gerda, who was moving away.

  'Thank you, Gerda, I will keep my wife company now. Well, my love, what do you think of your home?'

  'Never my home,' Eva corrected quietly. 'It is a lovely house and your servants do well by you, considering you have been away for so much of the time.'

  'They will appreciate having a mistress take an interest in them,' he replied, ignoring her first comment.

  He led her to the stables and showed her a small lively mare, black with one white sock.

  'Dusky Rose, I named her. She is yours, but you must never ride out alone, there are too many lawless folk about.'

  'She is lovely, but I would prefer you did not give me gifts,' Eva said stiffly. 'I am perforce here, but against my will. If I am constrained to remain here I expect my own mare, Fleet, will be sent to me as soon as she is recovered and fit to travel.'

  'You may have Fleet as well, naturally,' he replied imperturbably, and Eva ground her teeth together at his bland refusal to respond to her challenges.

  After a brief tour of the rest of the gardens they returned to the house and Sir Piers led the way into the solar where he took two delicate glass goblets from a large, ornately carved aumbrey and poured wine into them. He handed one to Eva.

  'It is time for us to talk, my dear.'

  She sipped the wine and stared at him over the rim of the goblet.

  'I shall welcome it,' she replied quietly. 'We have talked too little, I have been constrained to listen and my views have been totally ignored while I have been forced to obey the commands of others. What have you to say?'

  To her fury he was smiling broadly at this speech, and shaking his head slowly.

  'If I listen to your views it does not follow I do as you wish,' he said softly. 'I have made my position plain. If you wish to persuade me into a certain course of action you will have to behave very differently. I think you know what I mean.'

  Eva threw up her head and stared back at him. He should not be allowed to discompose her by such hints.

  'I scorn to offer my body to men simply to win my own way,' she declared haughtily.

  'Not to men in general,' he said softly. 'I shall take good care of that, which brings me to what I have to say.'

  'What you have to say?' she demanded scornfully. 'You mean to give me orders, I think, despite your pretence of talk.'

  'There are certain matters in which you will obey me, to be sure,' he agreed. 'As I said last night, I mean to be certain your sons are also mine. Therefore I do not propose to share your bed yet awhile, until I can be sure.'

  'You are insufferable!' Eva burst out. 'Do you intend to keep me a prisoner merely to satisfy your lusts, as the infidels do in the Holy Land?'

  'Oh no, not like they do,' he replied with a laugh. 'They have several wives and I am content with one.'

  'And your mistresses, no doubt!'

  He raised his eyebrows, and Eva shivered, but she held his gaze and would not drop her own.

  'What do you know of my mistresses?' he asked coldly.

  'I know only of one, in whose bed you sport even when I am in the next room,' Eva said furiously. 'I have no doubt you have others as well as Blanche. Does she know them? Would she tell me if I asked her?'

  'That is something you will not do, however. Lady Blanche is coming here to keep you company in a few days, and you will treat her with every respect due to an honoured guest.'

  'No! I will not be forced to receive a whore! You may – oh!' Eva cried and put her hand to her cheek where he had slapped her.

  It had been a sharp though not painful slap, but Eva had never before been subjected to such chastisement, and she glared at him in speechless fury.

  'That is but a taste of the treatment I will accord you if you dare refer to the Lady Blanche in such a manner again,' Sir Piers said in a cold even voice which was more terrifying to Eva than any display of hot anger would have been.

  She took a deep breath.

  'You insist this is now my home, that I am perforce your wife,' she said in as steady a voice as she could manage. 'I demand therefore to be treated with respect equal to what you demand for – that woman,' she finished hastily, changing her words as she saw the gleam of warning in his eyes.

  'Just as you will show honour to my guests,' he said quietly.

  'Am I not to be consulted before you impose unwanted guests on me?' Eva demanded.

  'I have to go away soon for a few days and I do not wish you should be lonely,' he replied.

  'Away? Where do you go?' Eva asked, a spurt of hope causing her eyes to shine with excitement. She might be able to escape while he was gone, particularly as she had a horse once more. She would go to find Gilbert, she resolved, and with difficulty dragged back her attention to what Sir Piers was saying.

  'Lord Richard wishes to see me. He has been in London and there has been trouble. Simon de Montfort and Richard de Clare almost came to blows. The Candlemas Parliament solved little as far as the rebel barons are concerned, and Lord Richard is worried. He will be in Gloucestershire and I am to visit him there, but I expect to be gone a short time only. Lord Henry will be there too,' he added, and Eva looked up at him and frowned.

  'Lord Henry?' she said as calmly as she could. 'I thought he intended to go to Windsor.

  'He did, but word came just before we left Holdfast, and he will be in Gloucestershire. No doubt Gilbert will travel with him, so I advise you to abandon the notion of fleeing to Holdfast. You would not, in any event, find it possible to leave Granfort.'

  *

  Eva deigned to make no reply to this provocative speech. She resolved suddenly that meeknes
s would serve her better than her angry rebellion, and there was little chance, after what he had said, that Sir Piers would unexpectedly change his mind and seek to share her bed. Especially if Blanche were here.

  And why, Eva asked herself in exasperation, should she object to the woman's presence? It was not jealousy, and she did not care what others thought of the odd situation. She had no pride of position to maintain. Indeed, her husband's callous behaviour might aid her when it became necessary to confront her father again with the problem and appeal for his aid in annulling the marriage.

  She listened dutifully to whatever Sir Piers said to her, even bearing a part in the conversation, for he had travelled a great deal with Lord Richard, and his descriptions of life in other countries provided Eva with an unexpected interest, even a desire to see for herself the strange sights he described so vividly.

  'How delightful to be warm all the time,' she commented, recalling with a shiver the cold of the winter, especially her own fall into the river and the cold walk she had endured when she had thought she had escaped from Lady Blanche's manor.

  The thought made her frown.

  'Who is Blanche?' she asked suddenly.

  'Her husband was Sir Hugh of Dawtrey, he died before Roger was born,' Sir Piers replied quietly. 'Hugh was my best friend, we were pages together. I promised him I would care for his children.'

  Eva looked at him and saw a smile playing round the corners of his mouth. And his wife, she added silently. But if true it could explain why Sir Piers had been so welcome, and the boys had called him uncle. His concern for their future was also explained, but then Eva recalled the sounds she had heard through the thin wall, and pursed her lips. However much he denied it she could not believe Blanche was not his mistress. And the elder boy looked so like him, was it a chance resemblance of colouring only?

  The next two days passed peacefully, and Eva rode out on Dusky Rose, accompanied by her husband, who was ever attentive in public, to see the land he owned. It was extensive, too far for one day's ride, he said solicitously, and he did not take her in the direction of her old home at Rudge Manor. He does not wish me to meet Father and complain to him, Eva thought cynically.