by Jo Beverley
She could feel his touch affect her, but the magic was gone. This was all manipulation, like pulling the tendons of a severed chicken leg. Pull this tendon and one claw shut. Pull the next and another . . .
But her breathing had fractured all the same, and her legs trembled and fell open. He rolled back on top of her, and she felt his member, hard against her. It slid into her, hard, long, finding places she had never known and yet which ached knowingly for it.
She gave a trembling moan; she rather thought it was grief.
But she was made for a man, for this man, and her body knew it. Her arms went around him, her thighs tensed to hold him. Then pain made her go rigid.
“Easy,” he murmured. “At least I don’t have to beat you today.”
She laughed nervously. She remembered his endurance under the needle and accepted him even as the pain stretched and burned. Then it broke and he settled deep in her, letting his breath out long and slow.
He was taking his weight on his arms, but his left hand brushed away a strand of hair which had drifted across her face. It was a tender gesture which brought her close to him as she had never been close to anyone. His face was only inches away, his body overlaid her like a blanket, and a part of him was deep inside, but it wasn’t that. It was an intimacy quite different that came from his darkened eyes.
“What now?” she whispered. “Do we stop now?”
“And miss the good part?” he asked with a smile. He began to move, sliding almost out then deep inside, slowly, almost tenderly, again and again and again . . .
The rhythm took over her mind and soul, pulsing in her veins and driving her back into her dream world. She recognized the path of faery delight and welcomed it. She closed her eyes and let him sweep her along, glorying in the feel of him in her arms and between her thighs. Even through his clothes she could sense the fluid muscles, the clean bones she had admired naked that day. That beauty and strength were now hers, while deep inside, her body had found its match.
She cried out as the path dropped off into a deep, dark swirling pit where he found her and joined them mouth to mouth, hip to hip.
One.
Slowly they were cast back up to reality, dazed and trembling. Madeleine opened her eyes to smile at him, but his head was lowered to her shoulder, and she could only see his golden, sweat-dark hair. He was truly her husband.
How utterly extraordinary.
He took a deep breath, rolled to his feet, and adjusted his clothing. “Get dressed,” he said curtly.
Madeleine stared at his back.
He turned back. “Get dressed, unless you want to return to the hall like that.”
Trembling with icy shock, Madeleine scrambled for her clothes. She found them on the floor, dragged them over her head, hurried into their protection. How could he come back from that place and be so cold, so distant?
He ran his fingers through his hair before turning to survey her. He twitched her tunic into better folds. “There’s water and cloth over there. You may want to wash yourself.”
He turned to look out of the window as she did so. There was, of course, blood on the cloth. She looked and saw blood on the sheet. She felt as wounded as the blood would indicate, but her wounds were not physical.
She swallowed tears and spoke. “I’m ready.”
He turned back and pulled up the sheet from the bed, then with it draped over his right arm he took her hand in a ruthless grip and dragged her out into the crowded room. The trestles were down; the king was dictating something to a clerk while reading a document. Most of the men were already armed and ready to leave, but they turned as Aimery and Madeleine entered the room.
When he announced loudly, “It is done!” and waved the sheet, several men took the trouble to cheer.
As if a minor castle had been vanquished, thought Madeleine. Her face was burning, and she didn’t know where to look. Count Guy came over and released her from Aimery’s imprisoning grip for a gentle kiss. “Welcome, daughter.”
She bobbed a curtsy, not able to forget it had been the count’s ruthlessness that had brought her to this point.
Leo gave her a hearty buss. “Welcome to the family.” He was so big and warm and normal, Madeleine almost broke into tears on his wide chest. “Aimery should bring you over soon to meet everyone. Mother wanted to come this time, and she’ll have things to say about her son being wed without her here.”
Count Guy grimaced. “Don’t remind me. But I didn’t think it safe, and now I fear I’m to be proved correct.”
“Doom and gloom?” said the king as he joined the group. He, too, drew Madeleine to him for a dry kiss. “As you have married my godson, Lady Madeleine, we have a spiritual relationship. As long as you do my will you may look to me for a father’s kindness.”
Madeleine curtsied her gratitude even as she thought that kindness such as William’s she could do without. If it hadn’t been for him, she would still be safe in the Abbaye.
The king embraced Aimery warmly. “I have rewarded you richly, so serve me well.”
The fondness was so sincere, Madeleine didn’t know how Aimery could meet the king’s eyes. She knew she couldn’t, for now she was embroiled in treason herself, guilty by association and silence.
“I will look in on Baddersley later in the summer,” said the king heartily, “and hope to see it in better heart and you, Lady Madeleine, already swelling with child.” He glanced at the bandage. “That hasn’t been changed, Lady Madeleine. You are remiss.”
“We were short of time, sire,” said Aimery dryly.
“How long does it take?” the king demanded. “Oh, you young people . . .” With that he turned on his heel and returned to his documents, giving a curt order for departure. Most of the men surged out to the bailey, and soon the clerks packed up all the parchment and joined them. The hall emptied of all except a few servants clearing up the debris.
Madeleine and Aimery trailed after everyone and saw the men mount. Loaded packhorses were formed into line. Dogs were brought out on leads. Then the procession was passing through the break in the palisade where a gate should be, and off down the road to Warwick.
Madeleine looked sideways at her husband. Here she was, alone with Aimery de Gaillard, Golden Hart, traitor. “You had better let me see to your hand,” she said.
He gave her no trouble. Once the bandage was off, it could be seen that the wound was healing well. The design was clearly a leaping hart, but neither of them mentioned that.
Madeleine put a clean pad over the wound and bound it up with a long strip of linen. “Try not to use it any more than necessary.”
“I doubt Edwin will attack Baddersley, so I should be able to avoid swordplay. I won’t be able to avoid work, however. We must do the king’s bidding and put Baddersley in order. Go and make an accounting of all the household goods and supplies, and I will look at it later.”
With that he walked away.
It had been a curt order, master to servant, stating clearly how it was to be. Madeleine thought back to their time in bed and that mystical feeling of oneness. He must not have experienced it at all. That was disturbing, but she couldn’t suppress a little glow at the thought that they would repeat the experience tonight and every night. She would have that to set against his coldness by day.
Later, however, when she sought him out with the lists prepared, she was apprehensive. Matters were a great deal worse than even she had imagined. In the few hectic days since Aunt Celia had taken to her bed, Madeleine had not had time to make a careful check of supplies. Now she found they were dangerously low, and there was no money. If there had been silver it had gone with Paul de Pouissey.
She found her husband sitting at the desk in the solar working on some figures and drawings. His own assessment of the defenses. She gave him her lists and was left standing there like a servant as he ran an eye over them. He looked up. “We are all likely to be thin.”
She put the matter more plainly. “There is no possi
bility of surviving the winter. Even if such crops as have been sown come to harvest, it will be a poor supply.”
“Someone should pay for such mismanagement.”
Madeleine swallowed. “My uncle and aunt had the running of the place, as you well know. And,” she added angrily, “the best people were encouraged to run away to other manors!”
“Speak softly, wife,” he said, “or I will be forced to teach you manners.” The silent message was understood. Don’t ever mention Golden Hart.
She brought her anger under control. “What are we to do, husband?”
He looked over the depressing lists again. “I will buy supplies to keep us through the winter and to complete the building of the defenses. I will look to you, however, for better management from now on. I think I know,” he added, “where to find some people to bring here.”
Madeleine clenched her teeth. Doubtless he would “find” some of the people who had fled at his instigation. But he was being generous after a fashion and making practical arrangements for the future prosperity of her manor, so it would be unwise of her to object.
She knew he was also making it clear how their marriage would be, and that he had all the power.
When Madeleine left him, Aimery relaxed his stern features and sighed. What sins had brought him to this point? If this was William’s idea of a rich reward, Lord have mercy on those he thought to punish.
Baddersley was in such a state it was hard to imagine recovery—shoddy construction, debilitated workers, empty stores. In addition, Aimery had to straighten all this out while dealing with a wife who could tangle his brain in knots with a look from those heavy-lidded brown eyes.
He remembered those eyes warm with the wonder of her body’s pleasure, and the way they had driven him into the depths of passion. He cursed his weakness.
He couldn’t surrender to her wantonness. She’d already tried to twist him to her will with a threat of exposure; Sweet Savior help him if she ever realized the power she had over him. He had to keep her in her place and remember that she was deceitful and cruel and never, ever to be trusted.
Day after day. Week after week. For the rest of their lives.
Yesterday, entangled in her efficient healing, he’d begun to weaken, but now he reminded himself of her true nature. She had sworn to him she wouldn’t choose him, then had gone back on her vow. She’d also wanted to lie about the marriage bed.
Madeleine was as two-faced as Janus, but she had Eve’s power. The first time he’d touched her he’d known it, but he’d not known then that fate would throw him into her snare.
Tight-lipped, he applied himself once more to the plans for Baddersley’s defense. If he could put it into some kind of order, then he could leave—even if his only excuse was to join William against Edwin. Even fighting his cousin and Hereward was preferable to living day by day with Madeleine de la Haute Vironge.
Dinner that night was a sober affair. The hall seemed empty with just the off-duty guards, a few higher servants, and Aimery and Madeleine. True, there was his squire, Geoffrey de Sceine, but he was a quiet, intense young man who did not lighten the atmosphere.
When the tables were taken down, Madeleine thought of asking for a song or a game of chess. After a glance at her stern husband, she did neither. In the end she simply retired for the night. The sooner he came and carried her off to that special place, the sooner her world would be right again.
She wished she knew why he was so angry. So, she’d said she would marry Stephen and had been forced to change her mind. She had done the king’s will by that, and what terrible fate had befallen Aimery de Gaillard? He was married to an heiress, and one he had seemed, now and then, to find pleasing. Perhaps she should tell him about Stephen, but she wasn’t sure she could bring herself to speak of such things . . .
Madeleine fell asleep before her husband came, and woke at sunrise when he rolled out of bed and left the room.
He hadn’t touched her.
He likely never would.
Then Madeleine truly knew despair.
Dawn often finds me grieving in solitude,
for no one still lives
with whom I dare share
the truth of my heart.
The bard responsible for that piece knew well the human condition. To Madeleine, living with Aimery de Gaillard in this cold and barren place he had constructed—always together and yet never joined—was the tree of despair which could bear only the most bitter fruits.
She could not live with this cold courtesy. She wanted his hand to reach for her again with tenderness. She wanted to look up and see his smiling eyes upon her. She wanted to relax with him and share a joke, and see him glow with laughter as she had that once . . .
She wanted him to hold her against him and murmur soft magic as his hand explored her and brought her to pleasure. She wanted a kiss. She wanted him in her . . .
Madeleine leaped out of a bed which held nothing but torture. Plague take all men!
She went out to take up her work as mistress of Baddersley manor and lady of Aimery de Gaillard. There was solace to be found in work; Madeleine threw herself into it with a vengeance.
With supplies likely to be scarce, it was crucial that they be well kept and guarded. She organized the cleaning of the storage rooms and set boys to catch the rats. Then she studied the soundness of the structures and found them wanting. She would again have to argue with a man about the relative urgencies of defense and domestic concerns. She began to look for him, but her nerve failed her. If she sought him out, she’d have to face that coldness again, accept that he hated her. Perhaps in a day or two his mood would thaw.
If it did, it wasn’t obvious. He was punctiliously courteous, but cold. Madeleine strove to be as cold in return, but as she went about her work she was burningly aware of him—on the earthwork, in the keep, training the men in their exercise area. She noticed everything he did, including, one day, a messenger he sent out. To whom?
The fact that he was Golden Hart returned like a blow. Had he enchanted her that she’d forgotten? She’d give her soul to Satan before she’d allow him to continue his treasonous activities from Baddersley. But what was she to do about it? Even now, she couldn’t imagine handing him over to the king’s justice.
She’d watch and wait. If she uncovered proof of his continued wickedness, she promised herself shakily, she would inform the king. She stopped by the chapel to beg Sweet Jesus’ mother to turn Aimery’s heart from treason before Madeleine was faced with such a task.
Now she had even more reason to watch his every move.
She noticed how often he stopped for a word or two with the village people, and how often the village person was Aldreda. Madeleine’s reaction was an unpleasant mix of loyal fear and blind jealousy. It had been through Aldreda that he had summoned Madeleine to the hut that day. Was she a go-between for Golden Hart again? Or was their talk of a more personal nature? Which was worse?
When Madeleine checked on the work of her needlewomen, did she imagine the disdainful smirk on Aldreda’s face? Madeleine had to admit that, now that food was more plentiful, Aldreda was filling out handsomely. She could only be a couple of years older than Aimery. The nuns had warned Madeleine that men’s sexual appetites were insatiable. As Aimery wasn’t satisfying them in the marriage bed, he could well be doing so elsewhere.
Madeleine developed a sinful hatred for Aldreda, and prayed hard against it.
Five days after the wedding the watchcorn blew a warning, and Madeleine hurried out from the hall to see two carts and a line of packhorses rolling up toward the gate. For a moment she thought it was the king again, but there was no royal standard.
Aimery was in the training square with the guards. He climbed nimbly up onto the half-built parapet around the palisade and signaled for the train to be admitted.
Madeleine realized these must be his possessions.
Aimery was in mail and glistened with sweat in the heat, but his step was light an
d his smile broad as he raised his hand to one of the horsemen who was just dismounting. “Welcome, Hugh! You are sorely needed.”
Two hounds in the first cart strained at the ropes that tied them and were loosed. They gamboled over to fawn on their master. There were also two hawks, and Madeleine fancied their hooded heads turned, seeking his voice.
The horseman pushed back his own mail hood to reveal silvered brown hair above a square, rugged face. “So I see,” he said with a twinkle of amusement. “Sweating? After a little light sword work?”
Aimery laughed and gave the man a buffet that would have felled most but merely swayed him. “There’s ten lazy tubs of lard need whipping into shape, and this place to be put into some kind of order for defense. There’s few available workers, and the food lacks variety and quantity. You’ll soon be in a sweat, too. Down,” he said crisply to the hounds, and they sat. But Madeleine could see the longing to dance around him twitching in their sleek muscles. Their bright eyes watched him adoringly.
Hugh’s eyes moved past Aimery to Madeleine, and Aimery brought the man over. The hounds stayed yearningly still. “Madeleine, I make known to you Hugh de Fer. He’s been my Master at Arms at Rolleston and has come here to take that position at Baddersley. With your approval of course.”
A trifle belated, thought Madeleine, but she smiled at Hugh, who looked able and solid. “You are welcome, Lord Hugh.” She couldn’t resist adding, “Matters are improving here, and with God’s help, will continue to do so. We hope not to starve.”
“With God’s help and my money,” said Aimery dryly. Then he asked Hugh, “Have you ever come across Paul de Pouissey?”
The man grimaced. “Aye.”
“Then no further explanation is needed. Come, let me show you the place.” Aimery moved away, then turned back to Madeleine. “See to the unloading. There will be clothes and books, but there should also be food, wine, and spices for you to do with as you wish.”