Gift for a Lady Fair

by Ling, Maria

  Hope quivered within her, just briefly, but then faded again. If she were a man, she could use that fact to end her marriage. As a woman, and subject to Henry's court, with only his chaplain to appeal to, she had no chance at all.

  "I want to leave Henry," Maud blurted out. "That is... I wish I could. But he'll keep the children."

  "Very likely." Alice raised finely shaped shoulders under the modish cut of her dress. "He says you've given him an heir and a spare, plus a couple of girls to marry off well, and it's enough and you won't do more. Is that true?"

  Maud regained the power to breathe, which Alice's crude remark had robbed her of. Or Henry's remark, more likely, it was exactly the sort of thing he'd say. Delivered in Alice's smooth tones, it carried the force of a slap.

  But it was essentially true. "Yes. I've told him I don't want to bear more children."

  "Too painful?" Alice leaned forward a little, interested rather than sympathetic. "I never had occasion to find out."

  "Horrific. But it wasn't just the pain -- I honestly believe I could have borne that. It was the terror of death. Two of my sisters perished bearing theirs, and I was convinced I'd die too." Maud grimaced: it was better than tears. "I don't have much in the way of courage."

  "You did it four times," Alice said. "That sounds brave to me." She straightened, watched Maud as if considering some weighty matter, then said: "I envy you, though. At least you had the chance to be a mother."

  Maud flinched. She had not considered that angle. "Forgive me. I've distressed you."

  "Not really." Alice shrugged. "I grieved at the time, of course -- it was all I'd been raised for. But if I'd had them, I'd be stuck with my husband still, living in that ghastly castle with all his ghastly men. I wouldn't have all this." She gestured to the simple comfort that surrounded her. "Maybe I don't envy you, after all."

  "Not even Henry?" Maud challenged.

  That brought silence, and a longer and more careful scrutiny. "Why do you want to leave him?"

  The thought of Geoffrey rose irresistibly before Maud's mind. But she dared not breathe that name. "We're nothing to each other any more. I dare say he's told you that." She didn't even wait for Alice's nod, though she noted it with relief when it came. "In truth, we loved each other once -- we really did, it was wonderful. And then, I don't know, it all faded. Twisted, somehow, little by little. We almost hate each other now."

  "Poor kids," Alice said. "They must be suffering."

  "Oh, they don't know anything about it. We're always civil to each other when they are by."

  "I grew up in a household like that," Alice said. "Believe me, we knew."

  Maud hesitated. Watched that cool impassive face. "Your parents?"

  Alice nodded. "Not to say things would have been better if they'd separated. Who knows? But that icy silence -- it kills you from the inside. Children deserve better than that."

  "They seem happy." Maud cast anxious thoughts back over the past few weeks and months. The children didn't seem to be suffering. Attentive, if anything. Eager to please. It worried, her now. They hadn't quarrelled, either. As if they sensed, perhaps, that something might shatter if they spoke too loud or too contrary.

  "We always knew it was our job to keep the peace." Alice shifted a little, unsettling the embroidery yarn on her lap. She tidied it up, then returned to her work. Neat, precise stitches created a whorl of colour on the fabric stretched across her frame.

  "I don't think we treat the children so," Maud said slowly. "I'm sure they don't suspect. But thank you for the warning. If things get worse, they might well be made unhappy."

  "A wife should be able to leave her husband," Alice said with decision. "It's not as if he's doomed to cleave to her all his life, if he chooses not to." She spoke with a surprising lack of bitterness, Maud thought. But then, for Alice, things really had worked out for the best.

  "Do you care for Henry?" Maud asked. "Love him, even?"

  "I wouldn't go that far." Alice snipped off the thread and chose another colour, threaded her needle anew. "He is pleasant company, and keeps me well. I can't complain."

  Maud thought of Geoffrey. She could not in truth expect more from him. But there would be something beyond that, surely.

  She wished it were possible for men and women to find out more about each other before they married. To spend time together, even live together, and discover whether their lives truly fitted. But that wouldn't have saved her and Henry. They really had been in love once. She still didn't know what had gone wrong.

  Maybe it was having the children. All that fear and pain and anxious care, the broken sleep over so many years... it had eaten away at the thing they shared. Even with help from her attendants, she had not wanted to be far from cradle and cots. And Henry had never insisted. Took his own turn to hold those small trusting bodies, even on the worst nights.

  "You've never seen how he can be," Maud said slowly, remembering so many moments of fleeting tenderness. Under the dry surface and the unwavering calm, Henry had passion. She knew that. Had felt it, more times than she cared to count.

  Alice smoothed her thread. "He's always civil to me. Within reason, of course."

  Laughter bubbled in Maud's chest, unexpected. "He's a bear. Terrible manners. That's not what I meant."

  "I know what you meant." Alice tucked the needle into the cloth, folded her hands and directed at Maud a gaze of such luminous intensity it ached on the skin. "He's a splendid lover."

  Maud flushed. "When he wants to be."

  "And honest. Forthright and frank. I like that."

  "I believe you," Maud said. She did, too. There was a kinship of sorts, she reflected, between Alice and Henry. A fearless certainty in expressing themselves. Maud did not share it, indeed it frightened her a little. But she saw it, and admired it to a degree.

  "Would you consider life in a castle?" Maud asked. "If it were Henry's."

  "No. I'm perfectly happy as I am."

  That settled it, then. Why should he wish for change, when the current arrangement gave him everything he wanted and on his own terms?

  Maud stifled a sigh. She didn't know why she'd come here, or what she'd hoped for. A confidante, perhaps -- but Alice could never be that. No one could. It would be far too dangerous for Maud ever to speak of her own secret desires to anyone other than Geoffrey himself.

  Whom she yearned to see. It had been almost a week since their last encounter. She knew Henry had ridden over once or twice, and she'd caught sight of Geoffrey from her window, sauntering across the estate in Henry's company, clearly at ease. But he hadn't called on her again, or invited her over.

  A chill fear gripped her. Perhaps he'd thought better of their dalliance. Or Henry had warned him off, as only Henry could do, crude and harsh under the calm exterior.

  "I have to go." Maud rose, concealing her sudden sense of urgency as best she could. There was no need of haste. But she trembled with nervous energy, as if she had something to fear.

  And then boots thudded on the porch, a familiar step that made her shiver. Henry's: she knew it well.

  He was smiling as he entered the room, stood for a moment relaxed and at ease, a man in good temper and satisfied with himself and the world. As she'd been used to seeing him, years ago, and had entirely forgotten. A handsome man, in his own way, but utterly alien to her now. Remote, as if she saw him from a great distance that neither of them could ever bridge.

  Then he saw her, and the smile vanished. His expression grew forbidding, his body tensed. She saw it, and the answer grew within her own body, a hard cold knot that settled deep in her belly.

  "What in God's name are you doing here?" Henry demanded.

  "Maud kindly decided to pay me a visit," Alice said in a cool tone. "I was delighted to see her. Don't be a brute about it, Henry. I will not have you insulting my guests."

  Maud shot her a glance of awe. Of envy, too. Either Alice stood well protected, or else she truly had no idea how much power this man wielded
over them both. Maud would give plenty to share in either position.

  Henry shook off his riding-cloak and tossed it over a hook. Then said: "Very well. I suppose my wife may call on my ward without objection from me. Are you done, my dear?"

  "Yes," Maud said meekly.

  "No," Alice amended. "Go away, Henry. I am not at home to you in the mornings."

  "You're at home whenever I care to call." He slumped into a seat and glared at Maud, whose unease grew further. "What did you two have to discuss?"

  "Needlework," Alice said firmly.

  "Reach any conclusions?"

  "It takes a great deal of time, but the results are worth it."

  Maud's tension began to dissolve. Alice's fearless attitude was rubbing off on her. "We have been discussing the relative merits of castles and cottages."

  "Really?" Henry looked from one to the other, wary now. "Should I be concerned?"

  "We discovered each of us is happiest in her own sphere."

  "That's good news, at least." His tone was dry as usual, but his expression watchful. "No plans to change places, I take it?"

  "Not at present," Maud said. "Perhaps at some future date."

  "I don't want to be lady of the castle," Alice said. "Can't do with all the staring and gossip."

  "You'd be clear of that," Henry said. "I don't take well to idle chatter, and my men know it."

  "Even so." Alice glanced at Maud. "There is already a lady in residence."

  "I thought I might go away for a while." Maud's breath gave out as she spoke. She didn't really want to leave. But the temptation overwhelmed her for a moment, to get away -- far away, somewhere Henry could not reach her. She could think things over more clearly there. But she could not bear to leave the children.

  "Go where?" Henry demanded, with suspicion in his voice and eyes.

  "Here, of course." Alice spoke with such artless simplicity that even Maud was momentarily confused. "And she'd be most welcome. But we won't change places. I've done my share of heading table in hall. Besides, your children would not like it."

  "Not much," Henry admitted. "But they can take their gripes elsewhere." He gave her a long thoughtful stare. Then turned it on Maud, who flinched. "You'll stay put. I won't have my wife gallivanting about the countryside, getting up to God only knows what mischief."

  "To my brother's house," Maud said with dignity. "It is not such an alarming notion."

  Henry considered her for a while longer. "I suppose that could be arranged, if you're sure it's what you want. The children stay with me, though."

  "I never thought otherwise," Maud confessed, trembling.

  "You'll come back on my terms or not at all."

  "What are your terms, Henry?" Alice asked in a cool tone, and set another precise stitch into the cloth.

  "That's between my wife and me."

  "Ashamed of them?"

  Henry paused, and gave Alice a long dark look. "Why should I be?"

  "Because there's a decent man buried somewhere underneath all that posturing. I wondered if you'd be inclined to let him out."

  The silence that followed echoed within Maud's skull.

  "I don't see what I've done to offend either of you." Henry sounded weary. Bored, too. "What do you want from me?"

  "I am not offended," Alice said. "But I do think you might offer a little common decency to a woman you once swore to love."

  Maud flinched. She didn't want to be reminded of that moment when the shackles had been fastened. She would never be free of them again.

  Henry sighed, and turned to Maud directly. "What do you want?"

  "Freedom." She said it without thinking, and entirely without fear. Refused to quail, because she had Alice with her.

  He frowned at that. "Meaning what?"

  "Meaning I can come and go as I please. Visit anyone I like. Without threat of my children being taken from me."

  "I'm not taking them from you," Henry said, clearly frustrated. "All I've ever said is I'm keeping them here."

  "What if I told you I was taking them with me?"

  "You can't."

  Maud quelled her rising anger. "Exactly. But imagine you were in my position. Imagine you had no power to take them away."

  "Why should I? They're perfectly happy."

  Alice tucked her needle into the cloth, and raised her head to give Maud a beatific smile. "If you wish to club him to death, do not be hampered by my presence. I'll help you bury the body."

  Henry shook his head at the pair of them. "I don't understand what's got into you two. If this is what comes of letting women meet and speak, I'm not inclined to allow it."

  "Which is precisely the problem," Alice pointed out. "How would you feel if we did not allow you the freedom to come and go as you pleased, and speak with anyone you chose to?"

  "Don't be silly. A woman has no such power over a man."

  "Exactly."

  Henry stared at Alice. Then at Maud. "I don't understand."

  "God!" Maud struggled for breath. Rage choked her, wordless and fierce. "What is to understand? How would you feel if your life were as constrained as a woman's?"

  Henry shrugged, and said in a bored tone: "Who knows how women feel? Now you are leaving. I wish to speak with my ward alone." He rose, and stood waiting for Maud to obey.

  "Women know how women feel," Alice said coldly. "And we are telling you. And you choose not to listen."

  "Of course not. What concern is it to me?" He glared at Maud, who rose slowly.

  "None, evidently." Alice laid her sewing aside and rose likewise. "I'll see you both out. Go away, Henry. I am not at home to you."

  "You are when I tell you to be." He faced off against her, grim with anger. "Do not presume to order me around."

  "Why not?" Maud challenged. "You're comfortable enough doing the ordering yourself."

  "That's because I am lord here."

  "Not in this house," Alice said with deadly calm. "This house, and the land it stands on, is mine. You gave it to me under contract. All written and signed and kept safe elsewhere. You can't go back on it now, because it does not depend on your good will -- it depends on the king's law. And since I am lord in this house, you have no jurisdiction here. If you attempt to abduct a guest of mine by force, there will be consequences."

  "Indeed there will," Henry said quietly. "For you. I'll do as I please, here and elsewhere, and you will not stand in my way."

  "Or what?" Maud demanded. "What threat will you level at us, Henry, to make us obey your commands?"

  He just stared at her. Frowned a little, as if attempting to recall some forgotten poem. "Whatever secures your compliance. Why shouldn't I?"

  Alice heaved a deep sigh. "Because you would not like it if others treated you so."

  "Well, I'm not them."

  "But we are," Maud said sharply. "We are those you treat so shabbily – in a way you would never tolerate being treated yourself."

  "What's shabby about it?" Henry snapped back, heated now. "You have a home, a family, every convenience. What in God's name do you desire more?"

  "Respect," Maud said. "As a human being, fellow to yourself."

  Henry turned away. "I'm not listening to this. Alice, I'm taking my wife away and you will not give me any trouble about it. Maud? One more word from you and I'll send you to a convent. Speak to me with the deference due from a wife to her husband, or not at all. I don't know what the pair of you have been up to, but I absolutely forbid you from meeting again. And I will make you respect that command, by whippings if necessary."

  He strode across to the door, caught up his cloak and slung it around his shoulders. Then swung around to glare at Maud, who froze with fear at the naked threat in those hard uncaring eyes.

  "Thank you for making that so admirably clear," Alice said with icy calm. "Don't trouble to return. You are not wanted here."

  "I'll come when I like," Henry snarled in return. "I'll fuck you when I like. That's what I pay for, and you'll supply it."
/>
  Alice dropped a deep curtsy. "Why, of course I will, my lord. Forgive me for speaking to you as anything other than the chosen one of God."

  Henry glared at Alice for a long moment. Then grabbed Maud by the arm and dragged her away.

  ***

  CHAPTER 7

  Maud didn't travel to her brother's house after all. When it came to it, she found she couldn't bear to leave the children. Or Geoffrey, whose company she craved. They met often, in quick secret trysts, enough for a word and a kiss and a soft embrace. No chance for more, not now.

  In time, Geoffrey promised her. She believed him. Maud was becoming adept at scheming -- and Geoffrey, she thought with a thrill of glee, was proving expert at it.

  True, she did harbour occasional misgivings on that point. He'd clearly had a lot of practice at setting up ruses and secret trysts, and it would surprise her to find that it had all been in combat. Especially given the deft caresses he bestowed, the perfect mastery of touch that he demonstrated every moment they could snatch to be alone.

  He'd known women -- many women -- and they had met him like this also, in quick clandestine meetings. Or maybe not so quick. Her suspicions grew dark on that subject, and painful.

  She meant to ask him. Truly meant it. But they had so little time, mere moments, enough for a brief caress and whispered promise, a kiss fervent with passion. After that they must separate again, grow cool and indifferent once more.

  She couldn't stand it. She wanted so much more than this. But it was all she had, right now. And she dared not spoil their stolen moments with questions or surmises, or even outright challenge.

  Besides, even if he had been such a rogue, what of it? She gained the benefit now.

  For how long, though? She asked herself that question, too. Because if this was all he wanted -- if mere flirtation could satisfy him -- then she would do better to break it off. Now, today, while her heart still belonged to herself and could not be destroyed.

  Today she would speak. She promised herself that. No matter what the cost.

  They would meet at the third place. That was their arrangement, with the last breath of their previous meeting. They always agreed before they parted, and after that it was Geoffrey's task to arrange an opportunity. Maud remained innocent, aloof, which protected her well against probing questions. Not that any were asked.