The Maiden Bride

by Becnel, Rexanne

  When a commotion at the gatehouse heralded his return, she leaned out the window, watching for her first glimpse of him. When he cantered into the yard with neither hood nor helm to cover his hair, when the orange glow of the torches showed him clearly to her—the dark glint of his hair, the white gleam of his teeth—she felt a swell of a painful joy in her chest.

  Then he looked up at her, at the window of the chamber they shared, and she knew in that moment that he could love her too. If she let him. Mayhap he already did.

  It was a thought that should have brought her to the pinnacle of happiness, and for the long moment that their gazes met and clung, it did. But then Sir John approached him and Axton looked away, and Linnea’s happiness became a hell.

  If he loved her, then her betrayal would be all the worse. Norma had said that the Lady Harriet would be proud of her for the role she did play. But, oh, Norma did not know even the beginning of it. Yes, Lady Harriet would be proud. Everyone of de la Manse would be proud, and she would have at last redeemed herself of the taint her birth had given her. But at what a cost …

  “Leave me,” she snapped to the two maids who yet fussed over the arrangements of towels and soaps. In a moment she was alone, and in almost as short a space of time, she heard Axton’s footfall.

  Moor bounded first into the room, followed by a frowning Axton and an anxious Peter.

  “Get that hound from here,” Axton barked when the dog gave an interested sniff to the black bear pelt that covered the high bed.

  “Mother had hoped to have an audience with you,” Peter replied.

  “Tomorrow.” Axton stared steadily at Linnea who stood silently before the window. Her hair hung in rippling streamers against the dark green of her gown. Her feet were bare and she’d shed all the complicated portions of her daily wear. “Tomorrow I will see her.” Then he seemed to relent and sent his brother a patient glance. “But convey to her, little brother, that no one need fear for my temper, nor for my lady wife’s well-being.”

  Peter’s tense posture relaxed and the crease in his young brow eased. He slapped his thigh, clearly content by what he’d heard. “Come, Moor. There is nothing for us here.”

  He sent a wink to Linnea, but she could not share his mood. That no one should fear for her well-being with Axton was no surprise to her. But it brought its own peculiar sorrow with it. Peter left; Axton shut the door firmly behind him. Then he faced Linnea.

  “Are you satisfied, woman?”

  “Satisfied?” Linnea repeated.

  “I have let my enemy be buried within the walls of mine own home. It remains for you to tell me whether or not you also have buried the remains of your animosity toward me.”

  “Yes. Oh, yes,” Linnea answered, without pausing even an instant to think. She moved forward until she stood just inches from him. Once before she had undressed him, though that night it had been a game to him, a hunter proving his power over his hapless prey. This, however, would be different, she vowed.

  Without speaking, at least not with words, she began to disrobe him. Hauberk, chainse. Chausses and braies. She removed all the trappings of the warrior from his beautiful warrior’s body until he was only a man—a husband—come home to his wife.

  She bathed him, slowly and reverentially. It was not playful this time. He did not drag her into the steaming waters with him. Instead it was a silent communion, a silent commitment between them.

  When they at last met, skin to skin upon the luxurious black fur, it became the union she could only have dreamed of—had she even known all those long, lonely years to dream of such a thing. She knew now, though. They came together in the hot, sweet violence of lovers who love with the completeness of their entire beings.

  One thing only marred the perfection of it. In the finest moment of his passion he cried out her name. Only it was not her name. How could it be? Though she refused to let that spoil the deep joy she found in him, this husband of hers whom she loved, that one word lingered afterward in her mind.

  They collapsed in a passionate exhaustion that encompassed both their bodies and their spirits. They rolled beneath the massive fur and burrowed into the quiet depths of a satiated sleep, tangled together in the perfect knot of marital bliss.

  But Linnea slipped into sleep with a single thought circling in her head. To hear Axton call out her name—her name, not her sister’s—was what she desired above all the many pleasures the wide world might offer. That one cry, in the moment of completion, that single utterance. It would mean both heaven and earth to her if he could just one time breathe out, “Linnea.”

  She awoke with the firm resolve to tell him.

  But Axton was not there. Not in the bed nor in their chamber. Linnea raked her hair back from her sleep-flushed face, and stared blearily about the bedchamber. It was well into morning, she realized by the bright spark of light that fell through the window glass, long past time for the morning mass and all the daily responsibilities that fell to the lady of any castle. She must order the meals and measure the spices. Today was the day to inventory the storerooms and plan for all the sacks and barrels that would be needed for next fall’s harvest.

  But first she must speak to Axton.

  After the hastiest of ablutions she dressed herself, only wondering for a moment why Norma had not come to her once Axton had descended into the hall. Though it was not important, she would have preferred to have her hair better dressed when she met with him.

  But then, the state of her hair or garments, or anything else was inconsequential, she told herself. What she had to tell him could not be made easier by the way she appeared to him. Truth be, she did court disaster this sunny morning. He might hate her—No, he would hate her, as would Peter, the Lady Mildred, and even that hound Moor. Their hatred, however, would be insignificant when compared to her grandmother’s.

  Still, her grandmother no longer mattered to Linnea. Even Beatrix, who was her beloved sister, her other, better half, could not compete with Axton when it came to Linnea’s deepest feelings. She was not betraying Beatrix, she told herself. She was only being honest with Axton. Wherever that might lead her, it must be better than this lie she’d been living.

  She found him in the hall. Only it was not the hall as it should be on a late morning in the spring. It was an empty cavern with no fire burning in the massive hearth and no servants busy with the myriad tasks necessary to maintaining a castle like Maidenstone.

  Her brow creased in concern. Something was not right, she thought as she stared across the wide plank floor to where Axton sat in the lord’s chair. He had pushed it back from the table and stared blankly at the de la Manse banner that hung down behind the dais. When she approached him on hesitant feet, however, his attention turned sharply to her.

  Something was wrong, terribly wrong. Then she spied a creased length of parchment in his left hand, and a quick comprehension sent her heart plummeting to her feet.

  He knew!

  “Axton,” she whispered. She did not know where to begin or how to explain, but she knew she must somehow make him understand. But he cut her off with a glare of such pure and frigid contempt that she stumbled backward. Had he struck her hard and with the full weight of his considerable strength behind the blow, he could not have hurt her more cruelly.

  “I have a correspondence from Duke Henry. It contains news that you will find most interesting.”

  “Axton …” She stepped forward, her hands upturned in entreaty.

  “No! You will be silent and hear me out!” He lurched out of his chair and stood, tall and forbidding. The lord of Maidenstone, standing in terrible judgment over the lowliest of his people.

  He raised the parchment. “England’s king does yield to the young duke. Stephen yields demesne by demesne, county by county to Henry. Soon enough it will be the entire country, and then the crown itself. The prediction is that Stephen is defeated in spirit as well as body, and that he will not long reign over this isle he has stolen.”

&n
bsp; Axton folded the parchment along its existing creases and laid it down on the table. Then he stepped down from the dais. In the intervening moments he had mastered his rage, it seemed. But the cold stone mask he had made of his face chilled Linnea even more so than did his temper.

  With slow, measured tread he approached her, then just as slowly circled her, as if he did examine her from every angle, or else did wish to view each aspect of her reaction to his words. “There is more to Henry’s correspondence,” he said in her left ear. When she turned to face him, however, he had already circled behind her, a dangerous, taunting beast of prey, playing with her before he pounced.

  Linnea resolved not to play the role of hapless victim. Since he was behind her, she stared instead at the de la Manse banner. “He has told you news of my family,” she said.

  With the lightest of touches he stroked the length of her unbound hair. “Your family,” he murmured. “Yes, your family, which I thought I already knew more than enough about. Your family, which I thought would grieve me no more. Your accursed family which I have shown considerably more mercy to than ever they have shown to me and mine!” he finished in a voice that again shook with rage.

  With a rough movement he jerked her around, then held her within the crushing grip of his powerful hands. “Tell me of your family,” he demanded, stretching out the word so that it sounded like the vilest entity, a cancer upon the earth. “Tell me about your sister!”

  Her sister. She’d known already that he had found out the truth. All of it. But still, the actuality of it hit her with renewed force.

  “My sister,” she whispered, echoing his words while her jumbled brain struggled for some direction to go, some words to explain, some way to negate the awful betrayal that consumed every portion of his being.

  “Yes. Your sister, Beatrix. The elder of twins. The one who has petitioned to wed Sir Eustace de Montfort, one of Duke Henry’s men who does now make claim to Maidenstone by virtue of his impending marriage to Edgar de Valcourt’s eldest daughter and heir!”

  Axton’s eyes were as dark as storm-lashed granite, only infinitely harder. If there was a pain in them, it was buried too deep for her to see, somewhere lost within the catacombs of his heart.

  But the pain in Linnea’s eyes was not so buried. It was there, raw and bleeding, in plain view. Only he did not care about her pain. He cared about his home, his mother, his family, and his heritage. He cared that he had been duped by a woman he had come briefly to care for.

  How could she ever hope to undo the damage she had wrought?

  “Perhaps … perhaps Duke Henry will still honor your claim—”

  “He is not a man given to fairness. He will enjoy the sport that pits me against Eustace.” He drew her inexorably closer, devouring her with his hard hunter’s gaze. “What is your name?”

  Linnea’s heart hammered in wild panic. “I am … I am Linnea—”

  “Twin to the real Beatrix. Younger of the two.”

  She nodded.

  “What a bond must be between you, that you would sacrifice yourself to your enemy for her—”

  “’Twas no sacrifice!” Linnea exclaimed. She gripped the front of his tunic, holding onto the pewter-colored wool with all the strength she possessed. “I have not been disappointed with my choice—”

  “You have whored for her!” He thrust her away, as if he tainted himself by the very touch of her. “You have whored for her and for everyone in your accursed family!” His handsome face was twisted with rage, and his words thundered through the empty hall. “That they could ask it of you sickens me. That you would agree—” He broke off, shaking with the power of his violent emotion. His nostrils flared as he drew a deep breath. His body quivered; his hands clenched.

  Then he stepped back again, as if he must distance himself from her or lose control entirely.

  “You wed yourself to me in the guise of another, in the hopes of denying me my birthright. Admit the truth to me. Linnea.”

  Linnea. Finally he had said her true name. But it was not as she had dreamed of. Indeed, it was the complete antithesis of her dream. It was the worst nightmare she could imagine. But it was far worse even than a nightmare, for she could not awaken from this horror and have it end. The sneer in his voice as he mouthed her true name was real. The contempt in his eyes would not fade away in the light of dawn. She was awake and all of this was horribly, horribly real.

  “I …” She swallowed hard, fighting down a sudden wave of nausea that left her light-headed. “I feared for my sister. For Beatrix,” she added in a whisper. “I love her and would do anything to save her—”

  “Even whore for her,” he broke in. When she shook her head against so ugly an accusation he let out a hollow laugh. “Such a display of loyalty even I would not demand of my sister, had I one.”

  “I love her!” Linnea repeated, for she could think of no other explanation which he might understand.

  Once again he laughed, but it was an awful sound in the deserted hall. “Your love has earned you naught but the contempt and disdain of everyone. You have failed in your mission, Linnea. For our bonds are severed by the existence of your lie. We are not wed, not in the eyes of the Church. But your sister—”

  He broke off, but she knew at once what he meant to say. Somehow she knew. She flinched away when he continued, however, for she could not bear to hear the words out loud.

  “Your grandmother is shrewd enough not to fight Henry. To choose de Montfort, who has Henry’s ear, was canny indeed. But Henry had not yet granted them permission to wed. They come here, all of them, to hear my argument.”

  He stalked her as she fell back, step by awful step. “I will challenge de Montfort for her hand. I have been wed to a false Beatrix, but I will make that aright. I will have the real Beatrix, though I must fight Henry’s entire retinue to have her. I know Henry, and I know that is his plan. His sport. And he, likewise, knows me well enough to be certain I will cooperate.

  “I have had you as whore for your sister. Now I will have her. You have failed, Linnea. You have failed!”

  She came up hard against a wall. He loomed over her, before her, around her, while his terrible words stabbed her through the heart. This was not the man she had loved last night. It could not be!

  But that denial gained her nothing, for she could not escape the truth any longer. Having seen the best of him, to see now the worst was very nearly a killing blow. But she deserved it. She deserved it. Every word he spoke was true. She could not lie either to him or herself any longer. She had goaded him to this and left him no other way to turn but against her.

  Yet as he pulled himself away from her, leaving her a boneless heap supported only by the cold, unyielding wall, she felt not hatred for him, nor sorrow for herself. What she felt was a monstrous envy of her sister. Her beloved sister, Beatrix, would have this man for her husband—for Linnea had no doubt that Axton’s rage would win him a victory over any man, be he a giant or a wizard, or possessed of unearthly powers. Axton would defeat this Sir Eustace de Montfort and he would wed Beatrix. Once his rage was exhausted, he and Beatrix would make a family together, while she …

  Slowly she slid down the wall until she was no more than a puddle, a morass of misery at its base.

  They would make a family together while she would be outcast from the only two people she had ever loved. Beatrix and Axton.

  The loss of her dear sister, she believed she could survive.

  But to lose Axton … to lose Axton was to lose the heart right out of her chest. And everyone knew a person could not live without a heart.

  Equynoxial

  “I crowned her with blisse, and she me with thorne … I did her reverence, and she me vilanye.”

  —unknown

  Chapter 18

  It rained. Starting just before the midday meal, continuing through the afternoon and on into the early dusk and dreary night, the sky seemed to weep for Maidenstone Castle, for its betrayed lord and its uneasy peo
ple. But it did not weep for the woman he had cast out of the keep. It could not, Axton told himself, for she deserved no pity, not from him nor the forces of nature. Nor even from God.

  He stood at an open window in the third story chamber opposite his mother’s. The rain misted in, cold against his skin, but it could not cool his raging mood. Beyond him stretched a portion of the yard, then the kitchens, the herb garden, the stable and outer walls, and then the black countryside beyond. He could make out little, only the struggling glow from the wet torches at the gate, and an occasional window or door outlined by lamplight. But in his mind’s eye he saw it. It was the home of his childhood—the home where he meant to raise his own children.

  At the moment, though, it was an ugly place, a hard and unaccepting place that harbored betrayal at every turn. He leaned into the window alcove until the rain fell upon his face. Why had no one revealed to him that there were two daughters? Why had the younger been so willing to whore for the elder? Damnation! What sick and perverted sort of family had held Maidenstone all these years?

  And now, what new and twisted entanglement did he pursue so recklessly? He’d had the one daughter, false-hearted jezebel that she was. Did he truly wish to have children of the other faithless bitch?