He’d done that before—when she was hurt during the attack on Taerford, he’d visited her in the night to see how she fared. Emma had told her of those times once she had recuperated from the injury. This was not that kind of visit, though, and as his breath grew ragged she could almost feel his anger pouring out over her.
He’d sworn never to take her in force or anger, but now she’d driven him to madness. The thought that she loved another so deeply that she would risk everything they had together tore his heart into pieces.
Ignoring her did not make it easier.
Confronting her had made it worse.
And drinking the bishop’s potent spirits, offered in brotherly compassion, made him want her even more intensely than before.
Now he stood over her, wanting her, needing her and hating her at the same time. If she’d remained asleep or pretended to sleep, he would have found the strength to leave her alone, but not Fayth.
Nay, when she found him staring at her in the night, she lifted the coverings and invited him to take her. He did not even take off his clothes, only loosened his belt and lowered his breeches and climbed in on top of her.
His anger moved him then, increasing his desire for her even as he reached out, took hold of her shift and tore it down the front, baring her breasts to him. Then using the edges of it, he drew her up and possessed her mouth, touching his lips to hers, entering with his tongue. He gave no quarter as he moved over her, nipping the skin on her neck and shoulder and sucking on it to soothe and to mark it, so she would remember his touch when she saw them.
She made no sound except the soft gasps of passion—damn her! She should not allow this, but she did. Every moment he pulled himself back under control, she touched him or stroked him or kissed him back, inciting both more anger and more lust within him. Fayth whispered gentle words as he plundered her body, making her whimper under his touch.
When he gave in anger, she accepted it with gentleness. When he spread her legs and joined with her, she opened to him, softening under him and allowing him everything he wanted. When he tried to ignore her pleasure and see only to his own, riding her as deeply and as hard as he could, her body tightened around him and she cried out her release even as she milked him of his seed.
He collapsed on her, empty and still angry. Giles wanted in that moment to beg her forgiveness for such an act, but he was unable to even think of the words he would need. As he pulled out of her body he saw the tracks of tears streaming down her face.
He could stand no more.
Climbing from the bed, he tied his breeches and tightened his belt as he walked to the door. He glanced back at her, alone in their bed, and realised she had taken his anger and refused to let him hurt her. His hand was on the latch of the door when she whispered to him.
‘I do not love Edmund,’ she said, taking in a ragged breath.
He knew what she would say next. She’d just shown him by allowing him his anger, but he did not want to hear the next words, yet prayed for them.
‘’Tis you I love, husband.’
He leaned his head against the frame of the door and closed his eyes. At another time, he would have sought out those words from her, even begged her to say them. But now?
‘Damn you, Fayth,’ he replied and he stormed out as angry as he’d stormed in.
Giles made his way back to the hall where Brice sat waiting for him. Another cup of the bishop’s spirits, brought with him for medicinal purposes, he’d claimed as he shared the brew with them, waited on the table. He lifted it to his mouth and drank it without pause.
Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.
Through my fault, through my fault, through my most grievous fault.
She was praying for forgiveness as he took her.
Giles closed his eyes and pressed his palms against the pain.
‘Did you swive her?’ Brice asked.
‘Aye,’ he said, letting out a breath.
‘I take it that the act did not rid you of your anger,’ his friend observed.
If not for the matter-of-fact manner, he would have punched him for speaking of anything so personal. But then he, Brice and Soren had tupped their way into manhood together, so he was about the only person who could discuss something like this with him.
‘She begged forgiveness and told me she loves me.’
By Brice’s silence, he knew he was shocked, too. He poured them both another cup of the liquor and neither spoke as they drank it down.
‘What will you do next?’
‘After I beg her forgiveness?’ Brice nodded. ‘I know not, other than trying to come up with a plan to capture Edmund, get rid of Sir Eudes and Lord Huard and make my wife obey me in all matters.’
‘I would wager that the first of those are more attainable than the last one,’ Brice offered.
‘Just so. Come, friend. Let us seek our beds, for the morning will arrive quickly and there is much for us to do.’
Brice went off to sleep in the barn with the other soldiers and he went back up the stairs. Giles did not doubt that she would allow him back in their chambers and even in their bed, but until they spoke on matters personal, and about Taerford, he would not ask it of her.
For tonight, he slid down against the wall outside their chamber and slept there. When the servants began moving through the keep, bringing it to life, he opened the door and hoped she would forgive him.
It was morning, from the sound of it, so Fayth opened her eyes and stretched her muscles while still under the coverings. She ached as she moved and then she remembered why.
Giles.
Closing her eyes again, she remembered him coming like a storm to her bed, fury in his gaze and making love to her fiercely. Fayth understood it came from his pain and she could not cause him to hurt even more because of her, so she had simply allowed him to take her. She had feared for a moment, when he had torn her syrce open, but then she had known he was more angry at himself than he was at her.
The rest of it had been no more vigorous than their most passionate bout of bedplay.
She sighed, wondering if speaking of her love at a time of such anger had been a good thing. Too late now—she decided to dress and face the day. Fayth pushed the coverings back and sat up.
And found her husband watching her once more.
His face could have been carved out of stone, so grave and hard it was. But his eyes gave him away, for there was such pain and guilt there.
‘Can we speak now?’ he asked quietly.
Giles stood and handed her a new syrce and cyrtel, so she hastily pulled them on. She would worry about the rest when they finished.
‘First, I know you think you deserved what I did, but you did not. I promised you that I would never take you in anger and I broke my word when I did,’ he said. He glanced at her then and looked away. His expression filled with guilt. ‘Forgive me, Fayth,’ he said. ‘I can only give you my word again and pray I have the strength to keep it next time.’
‘Next time? What do you mean, Giles?’
She’d convinced herself in the darkest part of the night that he meant to rid himself of his troublesome wife either by annulling the marriage or by shutting her away. He certainly had cause to do either—even the duke’s bishop would support him, knowing of her deeds.
‘Although I have never been married before, I have seen many marriages, amongst nobles and amongst peasants. Some are happy and smooth, some are troubled and unhappy and some are a mixture of all of those. I suspect that ours will never be smooth, but I do believe we can find some happiness between us.’
‘I thought you would put me aside,’ she said, sharing her deepest fear.
‘I have thought of doing that. I asked for your trust and your obedience and you gave it, or so I thought. Now, it will take some work to begin to rebuild what has been lost between us.’
‘What must I do, Giles, to show you that I want this?’ She stopped then, knowing exactly what he would demand of her—he
had already demanded it. ‘Must I betray Edmund to gain your trust?’
He walked over and pushed one shutter open, allowing the sunlight and some cool air in. Gazing out of the window for a minute and breathing in deeply, he shook his head.
‘If I demand that of you then I am no better than he. I want to believe that I am better than that. I’ve told you why I must stop him—it is up to you to trust me to handle it or to withhold the information and protect him.’ He pushed the second shutter and shook his head.
‘I will think on it, Giles,’ she offered.
‘There is not much time, Fayth. Soon the choices will be taken from me and others will see to it.’
He walked to the door then. ‘I will send Emma to you, but I wish you to stay here today. Eudes is still at the keep and I want you out of his path. If the bishop wishes to speak to you, I will summon you.’
She nodded, knowing he was trying to protect her. She felt as though she wanted to say something more, but dared not upset the tentative balance they’d somehow achieved.
He left, pulling the door closed, and she collapsed back on the bed. She’d expected far worse, but a glimmer of hope pushed into her heart then. He did not force her to betray her dearest friend.
No, instead he simply asked her to do it, putting the burden on her. Now she understood what he meant about how being forced to do something lessened the guilt involved.
It would have been easier if he’d forced her. Fayth did not know if she was strong enough to take that step on her own.
Whatever her doubts were, by the noon meal that day she faced the consequences—and they were of the most horrible kind imaginable.
Chapter Nineteen
F ayth heard the yelling begin a distance away from the keep and grow closer and louder. Putting down the tunic she mended, she opened the shutters of her window and tried to find the source of it. Recognising the voices then, she knew that Sir Eudes was in the middle of whatever was happening. Standing on her toes, she leaned up as far as she could, but still could see nothing.
Giles had asked her not to leave her chambers this day, but surely he did not mean she could not go into the storage room next to their room. Opening the door to that room, she went to the window and looked out of it. Unfortunately, she could see everything that was happening from her place there.
Sir Eudes and his men surrounded a bound and gagged man who lay twisted on the ground. As he struggled, to get up or to get away, she knew not which, they kicked him and pushed him down. When he fell on his back, she got a glimpse of his face.
Siward!
She nearly fell from the shock of seeing him there, but she knew that if Lord Huard captured him he would die a slow and painful death. Looking around, she prayed that Nissa was not caught as well.
Fayth needed to get down there, needed to stop this from happening. Giles must…he must…She paused for a moment and thought on what he could do.
Siward was marked as a slave, a serf, someone attached to the lord’s lands and not free to move about. He’d been found on Giles’s lands. As a Norman lord, Giles had to comply and allow the man’s return to his rightful owner. With the bishop here, observing and noting everything for Duke William, Giles had no choice.
The thought made her sick. Fighting against the choking feeling, she knew she must do something. Opening the door, she rushed to the steps, but Giles’s voice, asking her to stay within, came back to her.
A man’s life was at stake, she decided in that moment, and she would have to face his anger later.
Racing through the keep, she ran to the steward’s closet and grabbed one of the parchment scrolls that listed her father’s tenants. She prayed there was a name close to Siward’s that she could find to make the case to the bishop. Pushing her way through the growing crowd, she arrived in front of the spectacle just as Giles did. His anger was obvious when he noticed her.
‘My lord,’ she called out to him.
‘Lady, you do not belong here. Return to your chambers now,’ he ordered.
‘My lord bishop, I have the rolls of tenants…’
He reached her then, caught her hand as she held out the scroll and dragged her aside, stopping her from saying anything more by squeezing her arm.
‘Get you gone from here,’ he ordered through clenched jaws. ‘Now.’
‘I can help in this,’ she began.
‘You are the cause of this. Now get back inside and let me see to it.’ She was about to do as he said when Sir Eudes called out to them and the bishop.
‘There is no need for her records and lists, my lord bishop,’ the knight said. He reached down and tore Siward’s tunic and shirt open, revealing his skin. ‘He is Lord Huard’s legal possession.’
Skin into which the letter H had been burned.
Fayth gaped as she realised that it had not been done with one iron carved with the letter, but by applying a long one three times against his skin to form it. As the one on Nissa’s bottom had been done. Before she could do anything, Giles whispered to her that all would be well, pushed her into Roger’s arms and loudly ordered her taken inside. He walked off without ever looking back at her.
She would not have made it back inside or up to her chambers without help, and she barely made it even with Roger’s assistance. Fayth knelt there on the floor until Emma came in and helped her to the chair.
She should have told him about Nissa and Siward. She should have told him about Edmund and his demands for help and his plans. She should have told him.
He should have told her the truth about his hand in helping Huard’s runaways, but for now he would have to try to find a way out of this.
Brice had come to him with his reports about Lord Huard’s treatment of his people and the bodies he’d found. All Eudes needed was to find one runaway, dead or alive, on his lands and he could bring Giles before the duke’s justice and demand that his lands be forfeit. An easy way to break his claim and Huard stood to gain them by proximity alone. Until now, they’d managed to get those who had escaped him to the relative safety of the rebels’ camp a few hours from his lands.
Why had Siward returned? It mattered not now, for he was caught and Giles feared he would not have enough time or a way to help him escape again.
‘My lord bishop,’ Giles began without a clue as to what to say next. Eudes helped him.
‘No, my lords, with this mark as proof, we need not wait on any decisions or scrolls. Raoul, take this—’ he kicked Siward again ‘—back to Lord Huard’s keep.’
There was no way that the rebels could take down eight mounted knights if they were alerted to this, so Giles knew he must even the odds somehow. Two they could manage. He walked over to the bishop to try to gain his help. Eudes was not going to make this easy for him.
‘As Lord Huard’s man, I would say it would be within his rights to search the rest of the village for other escaped slaves now that we found this one, my lord,’ Eudes stated, staring him down. ‘Should I send this one back to the keep with my men or should I search the rest of your village, my lord?’
Damn! He knew! The only thing Giles could do was capitulate and hope to get word to the others. He leaned in close to the bishop, informed him about his suspicions over the dead bodies—whether they were his or Huard’s villeins mattered not—and asked that Eudes’s men be limited if they were travelling unaccompanied across his lands.
For reasons known only to the bishop, the former Father Obert agreed and gave the orders. Looking over the heads of the crowd, Giles found Brice, having arrived during this scene, and signalled him to move on their plans. By the time two of Eudes’s men left Taerford, Brice had already sent his message to the rebels to intercept them.
The crowd dispersed and Giles went in search of Fayth. Emma was just coming down and told him of the lady’s condition and he decided he would not upset her more now. With a word to Emma, he left the keep to find Brice on his return and to come up with a plan to find Edmund.
If onl
y she could trust him.
Fayth lay abed the rest of the afternoon. Her stomach finally settled and she managed to keep some broth and watered ale down. She dared not leave the room lest Giles discover she had disobeyed him once again.
She considered her actions and realised that once more she had fallen head first into trouble. Before Giles had arrived, she had made nary a misstep, she had known her place and her duties and none could have called her incompetent. Now, she was nothing like the daughter of Bertram used to be. Not used to reporting her actions to anyone while her father was away, and not accustomed to asking for guidance, she had had her life turned upside down by this man.
However, these were dangerous times and never could she remember an action of hers resulting in someone’s death until she’d fallen in with Edmund’s plan. Now, in addition to the men who died fighting Giles, she must add Siward to the list on her conscience.
Fayth knew she must stop her rash behaviour and, if she was committed to her promise to Giles, she must trust him with the truth and allow him to choose the right course of action for them.
And that meant telling him where the outlaws’ northern camp was, and where he would find Edmund.
She had no choice, too much hung in the balance. If Edmund had heeded her warning he would be long gone from this area, seeking his relatives in Northumbria or beyond.
Reconciled to her decision, she waited for Giles to come to her so that she might prove her love and her trust to him. She’d nearly ruined it yet again, but she was certain he would give her another chance. He’d whispered all would be well to her and she could only hope it would be so.
Her head was still spinning from her bout of stomach sickness, so she lay back on the bed to rest. The sun was much lower and the room grew dark when she opened her eyes. This time the man who stood in the shadows of the room was not her husband.
The evening meal was laid by the time Giles could seek Fayth out to explain. The day had gone from bad to worse, then even worse, and each time he had thought to go to her another catastrophe had occurred requiring his attention. After the disastrous morning and then the incident with Siward, he’d been called to the training yards where a fight had broken out.
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