The Marriage Bed (The Medieval Knights Series) (18 page)

He slipped out of her, still standing by the edge of the bed. She had drawn her knees up to her chest and curled like a child in the middle of the bed, crying out her pain and her guilt. All he wanted in that moment was to wrap her in his arms and rock comfort into her, giving her his warmth and his strength. He had known the same desperation, the same hunger for forgiveness.

Poor Isabel; her sins were as splinters to his logs.

"Do not ask forgiveness of me," he said, his voice far above her.

So, he could not even forgive her. He would never forgive her. Mayhap if he understood, if he would only give her the chance to explain her heart, then he might find the grace to forgive her.

"I could not help wanting you," she said over her tears, the words choppy and wet, like a sea in a storm. "I never meant to shame you. It was only that... it was only that I wanted to be near you."

She made herself uncurl her body, made herself speak slowly, made herself look at him. He was not looking at her; his face was to the unlit taper, as if he would light it with a look. He was most likely angry enough that he could see the deed done.

"Did you not want the same? Did you feel no fondness for me?" she asked, hating the tremor in her voice. "Our kiss... that single kiss... in the stable that day... I know you must remember it. It marked us both, did it not? You were for the abbey soon after, and... I knew... or thought it was because of our kiss. And because you could not have me as I could not have you. Because of Hubert."

She was crying again. She could not seem to stop, and she knew that Richard was not overfond of womanish tears. She had to stop the tears. She had to convince him to forgive her.

"I prayed to be released from my betrothal, but I said nothing, neither to your father nor mine, and not a word to Hubert. I did not shame you in that, Richard. I only spoke to God, telling Him the desires of my heart, imploring Him to grant me the man of my heart. It was not wrong, was it, though all are now dead? I did not think that they would die. I never meant…”

She looked at his back, so broad and implacable; he would never forgive her. Her marriage was broken before it had begun.

"You did feel something for me, did you not? And could you not still find something in me to love?" she said. She sounded pitiable, she knew, yet she could not stop herself. She was fighting for Richard, and he was worth any price.

"Richard?" she asked, her voice hoarse with crying. "Forgive me," she whispered, burying her face in the bed cover. "Forgive me."

It was all there for him to see, her fears and her burdens laid out for him; her heartfelt contrition was obvious. Her hair fell about her, masking her shape in the faint light of the rising moon. The moon rose above the clouds, defeating them, shining forth over the earth as if the day had never known rain. And once, long ago, it had been so; the earth had not known rain until God, sickened at heart over the world's sins, had caused it to rain for forty days. He had washed the world clean. Would that Richard could wash this marriage clean.

But he could not.

What he could do was share Isabel's burden of guilt and blame; he could not allow her to bear the weight of so much false guilt. Let her see the man she had pledged her life to, not this youth she had admired from afar. She had wanted the image of him. Let her see him as he was.

"You have done nothing which requires forgiveness," he said to her bent form. "I bear you no enmity. Face me, Isabel, and read my face. You will see that it is so."

She lifted her head, the moonlight shining off her tear-streaked face, her eyes black with hurt and darkness. Isabel... her emotions ran so wild and hot.

"My decision to join the Benedictine brothers had naught to do with you," he said from his side of the room. He would not stand near her, not when he could smell his seed on her and see her breasts gleaming white through the dark snakes of her hair. He knew himself better than to stand near.

"What, then?" she asked, her voice a croak. He could see that she did not believe him; her memory and her dreaming had told her another tale, which placed her at the center. But it was a dream that wounded, and he would not stand idle while Isabel suffered hurt. The fault was not hers, but his. She must see that.

"What did you see when first you saw Malton?" he asked gently.

Isabel studied him, her tears slowing, before she shrugged listlessly and answered, "A fine hall of darkish stone dominating a strong river."

"I saw my destiny," he said. "I saw the place where I would make my name."

"All young boys would see it so," she said.

Richard looked into her eyes and said, "But I was going to
make
it so. 'Twas no idle dreaming for me; Malton was where I must and would prove myself."

"And you did."

Richard looked beyond her, out to the moon, well above the clouds now, shining white and strong, the only light in the night sky. She did not understand. She had placed him too high.

"It was difficult at first for me there. At Malton. I do not mingle easily. I cared only about my task, that of becoming a great knight. I had no time for games or the jokes one boy plays upon another." He would not tell her of the ribaldry that followed him when her devotion to him became obvious; whatever chance he had hoped for to bond with another squire had been snuffed out with her adoration. Yet he did not fault her; it was her nature, and her intent had been innocent of evil. "Henley marked my devotion to advancing my skills and drew me in, close to his side. You remember?"

"I remember he thought well of you and that he spoke of you fondly."

"Like a father."

"Yea, like a father," she agreed.

"Bertrada, his lady wife, she also... drew me in."

"They were both pleased with you. I do remember it," she said. She did remember it as she was so often in Bertrada's bad graces for not attending to her duties. But she had not wanted to sew; she had wanted to follow Richard.

"She was a worthy lady, did you not think? So generous and gracious. So beautiful," he said, his voice trailing off. He looked down at his hands, clenched into fists before him. "I worked hard, thinking to please her."

"And Henley."

"Aye," he said jerkily, "and Henley."

"And you did," she said, her tears dried upon her cheeks so that all that remained was the glimmer where they had been. “You did well at Malton. You won your spurs."

"I won my spurs," he said woodenly. "I did not achieve my goal. Or at least, I did not make the name for myself I had imagined when first I beheld Malton as a youth."

Isabel was at a loss. Richard was making no sense. She did not even know the words to ask. But Richard did.

"Did you not note, you who were ever at my heels, how often Bertrada came near? She understood my determination. She understood what was in my heart—words a youth can hardly think to form. With her I felt..." His voice trailed off. "I felt..." he said softly. Valued? Understood? He did not know the word for what she had made him feel, not then and not now.

Whatever the word, sin had been the result.

"I committed a cardinal sin. That is why I joined the Benedictines," he said finally, his tone clipped and cold.

A cardinal sin? Isabel ticked them off in her mind, thinking Richard was surely exaggerating. Pride. Envy. Sloth. Intemperance. Avarice. Ire. Lust.

Nay, he would not have clouded his soul with any cardinal sin... though perhaps he edged close to the sin of pride.

His words echoed in her mind. He had felt... something... in Bertrada's company. A tickle of warning ran along her ribs and settled in her middle. When did Richard ever speak of "feeling"? Richard was duty and purpose; he did not prate on about "feeling." He had never confessed to "feeling" anything for her, and she was his wife. The woman he had kissed with a raging passion when she had been promised to another.

She had been promised to another. His very brother.

The tickle turned hard and heavy within her, like the weight of a hand pressing down.

How different the memory of their kiss looked when turned upon itself.

How much honor lay in a man who would display his ardor for a woman who could never be his?

All the words came together in her mind then, in just the correct ordering.

Lust.

Bertrada.

Benedictine.

Isabel flinched against the horror of it, shaking her head, willing away the truth. It could not be so. Yet Richard said it was so, in his awkward way.

He had lusted after Bertrada, his lord's wife, the untouchable woman in the center of Malton's orbit. She was mother to them, lady to the same lord Richard had sworn to uphold. It was akin to incest; had Richard not gone to Malton at the age of ten? It was certainly adultery with the one woman among them who could not, must not, be touched.

Bertrada had taught her, trained her to be a noble lady and blameless wife. And Bertrada had copulated with Richard.

"It is why you left Malton so abruptly?" she managed to ask, determined that he say it, confess it to her openly.

"Yea," he only said.

And she knew it for the truth. Richard had run to the Benedictine brotherhood to expiate his sin with a lifetime of prayer and service. It had not been because of their single kiss; she had been so naive, so foolish to place such import on a single, chaste kiss. She was a fool. Had they shared a love, a passion, that could not be fulfilled? Nay, he had respected no such boundary with Bertrada. There had been no boundary with Bertrada. He could not resist Bertrada.

It came to her then, sitting upon her marriage bed in the dark, that she had been flattered beyond measure to think that Richard had given up his spurs because of thwarted love for her. There was sin in such pride, and she was reaping her penance now.

But that was not the worst of tonight's confession. The room was dark and Richard a darker shadow within it, the moon long since beyond their sight, yet she could see all as bright as day. Richard could not hide from this truth, no matter the depth of the darkness, and neither could she.

"But hiding in the monastery, cloistered among the brothers, did not work, did it, Richard?" she asked, her voice hard and unrelenting. "You love her still."

Chapter 17

He spent the night in prayer, in the chapel. It was almost as if he had never left the monastery. Except that instead of wrestling with his succubus, he had wrestled—and bedded—his wife. Isabel. Her tears clung to him still, no matter that the dawn was sliding up the sky. It was time for Matins, and for the first time in a year, he was not eager for another hour of prayer.

He truly was a married man.

And he had spent the night on a cold floor when a bed and wife were within reach.

She had charged him with loving Bertrada. Still, after all he had confessed, she did not understand the man she had wed. She attributed love as the cause of what had gone between him and Bertrada. Isabel—such an innocent, to think that love must precede fornication. Love Bertrada he did not; not even at his most innocent had he believed he loved her. Desired her? Yea, it had come to that, and he had acted on his desire, as he had acted on his desire with Isabel when he had unleashed his passion on her in their solitary kiss. His was a sin most deep. He battled lust daily, knowing himself to be insufficient to the battle, losing daily. Hourly.

Isabel was angry. Her pride had been wrenched from her by his confession, to lie as bloody and torn on their marriage bed as her maidenhead; this he had done to her, with his words and with his hands. A night of prayer had not absolved him of his sin with his wife of a day. She had wanted to believe that their kiss had driven him into the holy brotherhood; such thoughts would well please a young woman in love with an unattainable man. Now she had been told he had not been running from her, and such knowledge would dig deep into pride.

And he had hurt her. Their coupling had not gone well. The performance of his duty had been a disaster. She had not been ready for him. Ready? With her tears fresh on her cheeks and her hands pulling at his, scrambling to be free of him and of the marriage bed? Nay, she had not been ready. But he had. He could not have waited longer. His need, his hunger, had been hard upon him, and his duty had compelled him to proceed, even against her unreadiness. God knew he was such a man as to take a woman unready. And now, Isabel knew as well.

Tonight would be better. Tonight he would not fail. Isabel deserved better, even from such a man as he knew himself to be.

Richard stood, his knees stiff from a night of kneeling, and turned to leave the chapel.

Tonight would be better. She was no longer a virgin. Her fears were behind her. He would not fail her tonight.

He would not fail.

With that thought, Richard walked out of the chapel with a smile on his face. Those who saw him wondered at the change a night of marriage had wrought in their new lord and smiled in return.

* * *

Isabel was not among their number.

Isabel awaited the dawn alone in her chamber, sitting upon the great bed of the Lord of Dornei with her arms clasped around her knees and her face turned to the wind hole. Thus she had spent the night. She rocked herself gently, humming beneath her breath, searching for comfort and finding none.