Rhuddlan (9 page)

There came a week when heavy
rain forced him to remain indoors for several days. By suppertime
of the third day, he was pacing his antechamber like a caged
wildcat and snarling at anyone who looked at him the wrong way. At
the table, Eleanor avoided his eye. Suddenly, he felt all the
impotent anger of the past three days well up in him—against her.
As he cut meat for himself, he saw her hand reach for the salt and
imagined his knife marring her pale, unblemished skin. He pictured
her in his mind, reaching for her throat with his rough hands,
squeezing her neck…Why hadn’t it been
she
who had died? Of what use was she
to him? She couldn’t give him what her brother had, and she had yet
to realize her only possible value: making him heirs. It was
another mockery of his life, wasn’t it, that he was stuck for
eternity with the wrong side of the triangle?

She knew he was thinking about her. He could
tell because she had suddenly lost her appetite. He must have been
staring at her out of the corner of his eye. At that moment he
truly hated her.

He thought again about her childlessness. If
he had to suffer her presence, the least she could do in grateful
return was get herself pregnant! How many times was he going to
have to endure sleeping with her? God, every time Miles de Gournay
visited his wife at their manor she seemed to have a child nine
months later!

He retired to his chambers after supper. He
knew he was dangerously drunk and he didn’t want his men to see him
in such a state. He wondered briefly where Haworth was but almost
immediately his mind returned to Eleanor. The chit! Prancing around
like the queen of the castle when she ought to be ashamed that she
wasn’t with child. The ugly thoughts of violence returned and this
time he couldn’t control them. He swung out of his room and went
down one flight of stairs to her chambers. The door was closed but
not latched and he heard voices behind it. Without knocking, he
pushed it in with such force that it banged into the wall and
shuddered.

The rain had made the summer air chilly and
Eleanor sat on a stool before a glowing brazier. Gwalaes was
standing behind her, combing out her long brown hair. They both
looked up and froze when they saw Hugh on the threshold, his body
swaying just a little but his eyes focused and glaring.

Eleanor rose quickly to her feet. “My lord,”
she started but Hugh angrily interrupted her.

“Get rid of her!” he
snapped. Eleanor and Gwalaes exchanged a surprised glance.
“Yes,
her!”
Neither
girl moved and he took a step in their direction. “Have you lost
your ears!” he shouted. “I told you to get rid of her!”

Eleanor turned to her friend. “Gwalaes,
please leave,” she said calmly.

“Eleanor, no!”

But Hugh wasn’t waiting any longer. With an
oath, he grabbed Gwalaes by her arm, pulled her forward and shoved
her through the door, which he slammed closed on her face and
latched. Then he swung around on his wife.

Eleanor was confused by Hugh’s unaccustomed
behavior but she had no reason to fear him and she stood by the
brazier with her face composed and her arms down by her sides. The
lack of reaction bothered Hugh. Bolsover was dead but she was alive
and she dared to stand before him as if everything were all right.
He loathed her. He regarded her as the physical symbol of all his
mourning and suffering, of the tension of the past few months, of
his self-doubt, of his need to lash out and ease his own pain by
inflicting it on someone else, of all that was wrong in his
life…She stood there so innocent of his simmering transgressions
while he—he waited for the spark to come and set him off.

She began to wilt under his relentless stare.
“Is something wrong, my lord?” she asked tentatively.

He laughed harshly, not
quite drunk enough to be blind to the irony in the question.
Everything
was wrong! “How
long have we been married, my dear wife?” he said.

She considered. “A bit longer than ten
months, my lord.”

“So long, eh? And why haven’t you yet
conceived?”

The words were growled and Eleanor’s face
suddenly transformed from placid to nervous. She stammered, “I—I
don’t know, my lord.”

Hugh took a few steps in her
direction, which seemed to further unnerve her. She moved slightly
backwards. “You don’t know!” he snapped. “
Is
there something wrong—with
you
? Are you barren? Did I
get a bad bargain?”

“No, my lord!” she protested. He was still
advancing on her, in a slow and almost menacing manner, and she
retreated until she felt the wall at her back. “Perhaps we haven’t
been trying often enough!” she said desperately.

There was finally fear in
her eyes. For the first time since Bolsover’s death, he felt as if
he were in control of the situation. “Are you telling me
it’s
my
fault?” he
demanded. “Any one of the sluts in the kitchens can conceive on one
shot! Why are you any different?”

“I don’t know! I’m sure it’s not your
fault!”

“Then it’s yours! I’m an important man! I
must have heirs!”

“I know, my lord—”

“If you can’t give them to me, I’ll put you
aside and find someone who will!”

“But you can’t do that!” she objected,
momentarily forgetting his rage.

“I can do whatever I please!” he shouted.

“But we’re married! You can’t put me
aside—”

He backhanded her across the face and she
screamed, as much from surprise as pain. Outside, Gwalaes pounded
on the door and anxiously called out her name.

They were close now; Eleanor with her back to
the wall and Hugh only inches from her face. Tears welled in her
eyes as she stared accusingly at him, still uncertain of his
motives and not quite believing he had hit her. He grabbed her
shoulders and pushed her hard into the wall. She cried out
involuntarily.

“I can do whatever I please,” he repeated
harshly. “Perhaps a little accident…a fall down the stairs…or a
sudden illness…Perhaps it needn’t even look like an accident. Who’s
to know? I’m an earl, a respected man. Who will challenge me?”

She realized he was in deadly earnest. He was
gripping her shoulders so tightly she thought he would break her
bones—and he was threatening to do much worse. She could see the
contempt in his blue eyes and wondered fleetingly why it was there.
Amazing how the mind could be so detached while every nerve in the
body was bracing itself for an assault. Since she was tall, they
were almost equal in height, but she felt as helpless under his
glaring scrutiny as a mouse between the paws of a cat.

“Please,” she said.

Gwalaes continued to bang on the door,
shouting out Eleanor’s name over and over. The noise bounced around
Hugh’s head, angering him to such an extent that he suddenly
wrenched Eleanor from the wall and shoved her across the room with
all his might. She stumbled and fell onto the floor in a heap.

“Tell her to shut up!” he demanded. “Tell her
to shut up or I swear to God I’ll kill her! Tell her!”

His face was red with exertion and rage.
Eleanor scrambled to the door on her knees and tearfully begged
Gwalaes to leave. She could hear the other girl crying as well,
pleading to be let in to help her. Eleanor looked back to see Hugh
bearing furiously down on her and she screamed at Gwalaes to go
away. “The noise is inciting him!” she cried. “Go, Gwalaes! Go
away, please!”

Hugh grabbed a fistful of Eleanor’s long hair
and hauled her to her feet by it. “It’s you who are inciting me! I
can’t stand to look at you! You’ve been nothing but bad luck since
you came here! Why Robert? Why not you? You’re not the one I want!
You can’t even give me children!”

“Please, let me try—”

“Try? I don’t want attempts, I want heirs!”
He pushed her up against the wall again and regarded her weeping
face with distaste. “You’re nothing much to look at, are you?
Robert was so beautiful. And clever. I only married you because he
wanted it. I would have done anything for him…” He trailed off,
seemingly lost in thought. Suddenly he frowned at her. “You didn’t
like him at all, did you? He was a good man, your brother, and you
hated him. Isn’t that right? You’re glad he’s dead!” He shook her
violently. “Can’t you answer? Or is what I’m saying the truth?” She
tried to protest but he overrode her. “Your father’s as graceless
as you but at least he had the decency to feel the tragedy of
Robert’s death. Now he’s left with the one he never wanted!” He
banged her shoulder into the wall and she cried out again. “And so
am I!”

Without warning he released her and stepped
away. She collapsed onto the floor, sobbing with confusion and
pain, and he stared at her unseeingly while he collected his
breath. He felt strangely exhilarated. It was a relief to finally
speak his feelings about Robert out loud and tell her what he
thought of her. All the insecurity and the belief in his
unimportance that had plagued him for some time had suddenly
vanished. He was finally in control; at last he was the
master…Eleanor recaptured his attention; she had stopped sobbing
and the silence tore him away from his musings. He looked at her
and hated her. It wasn’t right, he thought, that he should be the
only one to suffer because of Robert Bolsover’s death. He bent
down, roughly seized her forearm and dragged her to her bed. She
shrieked but he barely heard her. He pushed her face down into the
mattress and fumbled with his robes. She screamed again when his
body hit hers but her fear and pain only spurred him on. His last
coherent thought before the rage and sensation obliterated
everything else was that he wanted her to hurt as much as he
hurt.

Gwalaes was waiting in the shadows when Hugh
finally emerged from his wife’s chamber but he didn’t see her. He
went up the stairs to his own rooms. Haworth was there; he’d been
lounging on the bench in the antechamber but jumped to his feet
when Hugh came in. Hugh, who couldn’t remember calling him, gave
him a puzzled nod.

“Your wife’s chit fetched me, my lord,”
Haworth explained. “Hysterical she was, screaming that you were
killing the lady. She assumed I would break down the door and drag
you away. I decided to wait here, if you needed anything.”

Hugh crossed the room to the side table and
served himself from the decanter. “I’m glad you did,” he said. He
swallowed his wine in three long gulps and poured another cup. “I
feel strangely omnipotent tonight, Roger. I feel I’ve put
everything straight.”

“So you
did
kill her, then?”

Hugh laughed and Haworth smiled, happy to see
the earl in an easier mood. The tension of the last few weeks
seemed to have left him. “Sit down,” Hugh said, and Haworth
obediently returned to the bench and stretched his thick legs out
before him, crossed at the ankles. Hugh brought him a cup and
filled it from the decanter. “I haven’t killed her; I’ve decided to
give her another chance.”

“That’s very generous of you…”

“Is it? I think I just can’t be bothered
finding another one. What’s the saying? ‘Better the devil you
know…’?” He swallowed more wine and said abruptly, “I’m afraid I
haven’t been very generous with you lately, Roger. You’ve been my
only comfort. I know I’ve behaved badly towards you.” He put his
hand on Haworth’s shoulder.

Haworth wasn’t used to emotional compliments.
He stared at the floor. “You never have,” he muttered with
embarrassment, but he was pleased and covered Hugh’s hand with his
own.

Now that it was in the open, Hugh wanted to
explain what he could. “This thing with Bolsover—I never meant for
it to come between us,” he said. “I can’t properly describe the
effect he had on me. I just wanted to be with him. All the time. I
don’t quite understand it now.”

“He only wanted money from you!” Haworth
burst out, indignant on Hugh’s behalf and unable to contain himself
any longer. “Manors and mercenaries! Wealth and status!”

Hugh was silent. Then, in a calm voice, he
said, “I knew it.”

Haworth looked up with astonishment. “You
did?”

“Of course.” Hugh shrugged. “I’m not an
imbecile, Roger. I suppose I was so besotted, I was willing to pay
his price.”

“That’s not love, my lord!”

Hugh sighed. He moved away
from Haworth’s side and fell into his great chair, suddenly tired.
“The thought had occurred to me that the relationship couldn’t have
gone on much longer. It was exhausting, Roger. I was so eager to
please him, I tried to stay a step ahead of him, anticipating what
he might want so that I could give it to him without hearing him
ask me for it and knowing,
knowing
, Roger, what our relationship
was truly based on.”

“I’m sorry, my lord,” Haworth said
softly.

Hugh looked at him. “I know you are. Because
you care about me. Bolsover never did…I’ll tell you something—it’s
almost a relief he’s gone. Even though I would have been too stupid
to realize it at the time, it would have killed me if you had
gotten fed up and left me because of this association with
Bolsover.”

Haworth was visibly moved by the admission.
He crossed the room to Hugh and fell on his knees before him.
“Never, my lord, never!” he swore fervently. “You know I would
sooner die than betray you!”

“Thank you, Roger.” He looked down on
Haworth’s bent head. So unlike Bolsover’s, even in such a little
matter as hair. Haworth’s was dark and coarse while Bolsover’s had
been fair and soft. But, he thought, it was also hair that couldn’t
be easily blown awry or tousled; it was tough and true, like the
heart beating beneath it. He owed this man everything. Haworth was
the only person in the world upon whom he could rely absolutely and
without a second’s hesitation. It was Haworth who had been at his
side from the very beginning—how could he have dared to risk losing
him over someone as shallow as Robert Bolsover? “Roger…” he said
softly. Haworth looked up into his eyes. “I hope to God it will
never happen again but if it does…well, you must bring me to my
senses straight away. Please. Don’t let me make a fool of myself
again. Swear it.”