Promise of the Rose (14 page)

“W
hat?!” Mary cried, disbelieving.

“I am going to take you to wife, Mary.”

Mary backed away from him, her eyes wide with horror. “No! Never!”

He stared at her, his face hard with displeasure, his gauntleted fists on his hips. “You have no say in the matter, demoiselle.”

“No, I do not, but Malcolm does!” Mary cried.

“That’s correct. ’Tis a matter for Malcolm and me to decide.”

She was filled with panic, hysteria. “Malcolm will never,
never,
give me to you. He
hates
the Normans, he
hates
Northumberland!”

Stephen was as still as stone. Then he said, after a long pause, “Perhaps when you are calmer, you will be more rational. We can discuss this union at Alnwick.” He turned, dismissing her, but not before she saw how furious he was.

“No!” And fool that she was, Mary ran after him, tripping in her haste, grabbing the hem of his tunic. Stephen stopped abruptly, and Mary careened into him. She did not
care. Righting herself, she demanded wildly, “And when he refuses you? Then what? Then what will you do?”

He was clearly making a great effort to control his rage; he was shaking, not touching her. “He will not refuse me, not once he understands you might be carrying my child.”

“I am to marry Doug!”

“I doubt he will wish to have you, demoiselle, in your ravished state.” His anger spilled forth, twisting his features. “No one will have you in your ravished state, unless you wish to be the wife of some impoverished laird, the mistress of a crumbling shack filled with sheep and pigs!”

Mary felt as if he had struck her physically—so awful was the truth. “Then so be it,” she whispered.

He gripped the bodice of her tunic, dragging her close. “You would prefer a life of drudgery to what I offer you? One day you would be the Countess of Northumberland!”

“Never,” she cried into his face. “I will never be your wife, I promise you, for Malcolm will reject your suit. He will! He
hates
you!”

“Then I shall wed you anyway,
chère.”

Mary froze. Then her heart began to work again, pumping in huge and painful bursts. “
I hate you!”

“I do not care,” he said, clipped, his face dark. He turned his back on her abruptly. His strides long and hard, he moved towards his horse. He gestured once at Geoffrey, who leaped from his mount and went to Mary, taking a hold of her arm. Mary came to life. She writhed like a crazed vixen caught in a snare, but Geoffrey was unaffected. Stephen leapt upon his stallion. Mary ceased struggling, panting and desperate and out of breath. But she would have the last word.

“You are exactly as they say!” Mary shouted. “You have a care for no one other than yourself, a care for nothing other than your own power! Your ambition is a fearsome thing!”

He whipped his stallion around to face her, so brutally that the beast reared. His jaw was clenched hard, and the skin stretched across it had turned white. He spurred his destrier forward, coming dangerously close to treading over her slippered feet. But Mary did not move, in one of the bravest displays of her life—for she was quaking. Even Geoffrey, who held her tightly, stiffened and pulled her
farther back and more closely up against him. The big brown stallion danced, its huge, iron-shod hooves just inches from her toes.

“And my fearsome ambition is to wed with you,” Stephen said harshly, his eyes glittering. “A union that will take place, Princess, regardless of your distaste.”

Mary had nothing left in her, she collapsed back against Geoffrey, her face stark white, her eyes never leaving Stephen’s enraged face.

He yanked on his stallion’s reins, whirling the beast around. He lifted his hand in a terse signal to his men, and a moment later Mary found herself astride Geoffrey’s mount in the midst of the thundering cavalcade, imprisoned once again.

   Several hours had passed since her failed escape. Mary had been sent to the women’s solar the moment Stephen had returned her to Alnwick. Despite that confinement, she was well aware that shortly after her recapture on the moors, despite the encroaching night, a group of knights had left the keep, displaying the proud Northumberland banner. Mary had not a single doubt that these men had been sent on a mission that involved her fate.

Had they been sent to Scotland, to Malcolm? Sometime this night, would he be apprised of her whereabouts, and asked to give her in marriage to his age-old enemy?

Was her fate to become Stephen de Warenne’s wife?

Mary shivered again. The night had grown inky black, the wind whining, perhaps in prelude to another storm. It would never happen. Malcolm hated Stephen de Warenne, and ravished or not, he would never agree to the union.

Tears gathered hotly behind her lids. She pressed her cheek against the cool stone wall. Dear Jesus, what if she were already with child?

Mary’s distress increased. She closed her eyes, refusing to cry. She must pray she was not with child, she must not get with child, and she must not entertain an image of herself holding some swarthy newborn babe.

Mary’s heart beat harder. They were in a game much like chess. She must anticipate and forestall his next move. She knew what his next move would be. He would be merciless
in his attempt to get his son upon her. If he did, Malcolm might be persuaded to give in to the alliance. Mary did not think her father would allow her to be stigmatized with a bastard child.

Mary hugged herself. Undoubtedly the bastard would visit her tonight, soon, and continue to do so until she became pregnant. Too well she recalled the feel of his unyielding body against hers, within hers. Would she be able to resist his lovemaking now, knowing the ultimate stakes?

Her nerves were stretched so taut, they felt as if they might snap. She felt as if
she
might snap. The sounds coming from the hall below did not soothe her, far from it. Apparently a group of traveling players had arrived at the keep just before dark and had gained admittance. They had been entertaining the lord and his retainers all evening with their fine voices, their lutes, and their merrymaking. Once or twice Mary had heard the deep nimble of Stephen’s laughter, and it made her furious.

He was not disaffected, oh no. To the contrary, he was well pleased with the turn of events.

Mary stood for a long time beside the parchment-shuttered window, embracing the cool stone wall. The hall below became quiet, and the knot of tension in Mary’s belly grew. Isobel returned to the room. She would not speak with Mary, still angry at being used. Mary was too upset to make an overture to the child. Isobel stripped off her clothes and slid into the bed, taking up all of it when they were to share.

The rain pounded more forcefully. Silence reigned in the keep. Isobel appeared to be sound asleep. Mary made no move to light the dying tapers. She listened to the fast, hard staccato drops of rain, a rhythm not unlike that of her heart. She tried to listen through the drumming beat, for the sound of his footsteps. There was only the rain.

Mary tried to envision her life as the mistress of some small, isolated northern keep, where pigs and sheep ran in the hall, and she imagined attending the holy day feasts, when all the great clans gathered, with her faceless husband at her side, and her heart sank. Pride was a sin, but she was not sure she could lose hers—the thought of such a marriage appalled her. It was far easier to imagine herself as the next
Countess of Northumberland. In the next instant, she was appalled with herself.

Mary did not know for how long she stood at the window, consumed with dismay, with fear, with anger. It was all his fault; how she hated him.

Mary heard footsteps. Her body stiffened. She recognized the deceptively soft tread instantly. Her breath seemed to catch. Slowly Mary turned away from the arrow slit and gazed through the darkness at the indistinguishable door.

Too well she recalled the impossible rapture she had attained in his arms. Too well she recalled his every manipulative caress, his every deliberate touch. Too well she recalled the feel of him within her, hot, hard, and huge. She had become weak-kneed.

But he did not come.

Many long, interminable minutes passed. He did not come. He was not coming.

Mary swore that she was not disappointed. She did not move, unable to, not until she had recovered her scattered senses and control of her limbs. Finally she stumbled across the chamber, drained, to creep into the bed she would share with Isobel. She lay on the edge of the bed, the totality of her predicament overwhelming her. Monsters materialized in the night, monsters of loneliness, hopelessness, and fear. Monsters of desire. She rolled up on her side in a ball, pressing her legs tightly together, her fist to her mouth. How could she feel at once a child Isobel’s age, one lost and desperate to find her way home, and at the same time like a worldly wanton capable of dying of desire for a man?

Finally, softly, she sobbed.

Eventually Mary fell asleep in sheer exhaustion, her final thoughts of a shabby single-room keep, filled with pigs and sheep, and although he had no right being there, of her captor, Stephen de Warenne.

   “You do not appear to have passed a good night, brother,” Brand remarked as he entered the Great Hall.

Stephen had not passed a good night; sleep had eluded him. He sat not at the long trestle table, but in a chair in
front of the hearth. “Why are you not in the chapel with the others?” His tone was sour.

“I follow your example.” Brand grinned, coming to stand in front of him. He leaned one hip against the wall. “Besides, this morning I must return to London, as you know.”

“Say nothing about the princess,” Stephen instructed. “Later, if Rufus questions you, you can defend yourself by saying that you left before we learned of her identity.”

Brand nodded, grim. “It will be best for me to remain aloof. You send Geoffrey to Father, then, with the news of the princess’s capture?”

“Aye. He will travel with you.” Stephen dropped his head in his hands. Today he was physically tired, a very different feeling from the weariness he so often felt in his soul. But that weariness seemed to have grown overnight, as well.

He sighed. “Be careful,” he told his brother. Because Brand was one of the King’s household knights, it was important for him to remain loyal to his king—without jeopardizing Northumberland’s interests. He walked a treacherous tightrope—as all loyal men did. Thus he would have Brand pretend ignorance of what had passed these last few days. Geoffrey would inform their father of Mary’s capture, and Rolfe would proceed as he thought best.

“Do not worry,” Brand said, his wry facade gone. “Father will undoubtedly agree that marriage to the princess is far better for you than marriage to the Essex heiress. And if anyone can persuade the King, he can.”

“I have little worry on that score, although Rufus can be most difficult.” Stephen responded, his lips thinning as he thought about the King.

“What is wrong, Stephen?” Brand asked quietly, his blue eyes somber.

Stephen met his youngest brother’s gaze. “She will drive me to insanity,” he said just as softly.

“I thought so.” Brand smiled then, patting his arm. “Have no fear. In no time at all you will have her in your bed—as often as you choose.”

“That is only the half of it,” Stephen muttered. “Did you notice how she hates me?”

“She does not hate you in bed, I daresay.”

“For some reason, that thought hardly eases me.”

“She will come to accept you with her mind as well. She will have no choice.”

“But her sense of honor is a man’s! Never have I heard a woman speak as she has—she thinks she has failed her King!”

“I heard,” Brand admitted. “ ’Tis most unusual, I admit.”

A shadow passed across Stephen’s face. “I am tired of fighting secret battles, brother. I am sick to death of intrigue. Last night it struck me—I choose to wed not a helpmeet, but a hate-filled enemy.”

“When she makes her vows, Stephen, that will change.”

“Will it?” he asked. “Or will she forever be a viper in our midst?”

“Would you change your mind?” Brand asked quietly.

Stephen threw back his head with a harsh, bitter sound. “Oh, no! I value the peace she might one day bring far more than the wealth of Adele Beaufort’s dowry. But God’s blood, Brand, I am tired.”

Brand’s gaze was sympathetic. “You are father’s heir,” he said at last. “ ’Tis your duty to do what you must do, and marrying the Scot princess is the greatest alliance you can make for Northumberland.” He left unspoken the chastisement—that being tired or sore of heart had little to do with duty.

“I know well that you are right,” Stephen said at last. But his smile was feeble and flitting. He had not voiced his darkest fears. That if Mary clung to her sense of duty, she would forever be his unwilling wife. Too well he recalled what it was like to be at the mercy of powerful men and unkind circumstance—too well he recalled being powerless and a prisoner.

   Mary awoke after the sunrise. Isobel was gone, undoubtedly rousing early in order to attend the morning mass in the family chapel with the rest of the household. Mary felt a twinge of guilt. She needed God’s help, and it would not do her any good to miss any more masses.

She could not abide another moment in the chamber. She could not abide being alone with the kind of thoughts she
had entertained last night. Mary had slept in her clothes, and now she performed her ablutions as quickly as possible, using a pitcher of water left for that purpose, and brushed out her hair. As she prepared to descend the stairs, she heard many voices below, as the family and retainers entered the hall to break the night’s fast.

Mary lifted her chin, her eyes flashing. Some sleep had done her a world of good. It would be good, too, to face her captor, even to be challenged. It would be far better than remaining alone in the chamber, dwelling upon a dark and dreary future, or the bloody war that would decide her fate.

Mary slipped from the room and down the stairs. Her captor was not yet at the table, although many vassals were. He stood in front of the hearth, a fireplace so oversized that its mantel was level with his chin. Upon hearing her, he abruptly turned, his dark gaze pinning her to the wall. She paused, unable not to stare back. Tension throbbed in her.