The Spitfire (10 page)

“She is too young yet,” Rowena protested his determination when he told her of it. “She is only thirteen!”

“Girls have been wed younger, sweet Row. It is not unusual. Thirteen is an average age for marriage,” Sir Jasper reasoned with his mistress.

“She is too young,” Rowena insisted stubbornly.

“You were thirteen when you married SirHenry,” Jasper Keane said. “It was your thirteenth birthday, you told me.”

“And I bore a stillborn before I was even fourteen, my lord, and another son eleven months later who lived but a short time,” Rowena said. “I was too young, and so is Arabella!”

“Henry Tudor’s mother bore him before she was fourteen,” he told her. “Plenty of women Arabella’s age marry and have children without ill effects. Are you trying to tell me that her monthly woman’s flow is
not
upon her? That she cannot yet conceive and bear children?”

She considered lying to him. She needed time to think. There were things he had to know, things he must consider before he wed with her daughter. Then she saw the look in his eye and knew that he already knew the answer to his questions. Once he told her that he would kill her if she ever defied him again. She had believed him then, and she knew now that nothing had changed. “Arabella is fit to be a wife in every sense of the word, my lord,” she told him truthfully, and Sir Jasper Keane smiled, well pleased.

“Good! Then have Father Anselm quickly cry the bans, sweet Row, for on the first day of June I shall take your daughter to wife,” and he smiled at her again, “in every sense of the word, my lady,” he concluded, laughing when she blanched at his none-too-subtle meaning.

“You are vile!” she whispered, near to weeping.

“You are jealous,” he chuckled, enjoying her pain. “Will you tell Arabella or shall I?”

“She is so young and inexperienced,” Rowena said. “She is still foolish enough to be romantic. Keep the illusion alive for her at least until after she marries you. How sad that it will be too late for her when she learns the truth of you, Jasper.”

“Do not be bitter, sweet Row,” he mocked her. “I shall not neglect you just because I am wed to Arabella.”

“You bastard!”
she flung at him.

“A show of spirit, sweet Row? No, no, my pet, that will not do. I can only handle one little spitfire, and Arabella is she. You are the biddable one, and so you must remain lest I become angered,” and laughing, he went off to find Arabella.

“But this is the twenty-fifth of May, my lord,” Arabella told him. “We were not to be wed until next summer.”

Quietly he explained to her. He knew that unlike her mother, Arabella had an intellect, although that was unique in a woman. “We are safest not taking sides in this matter,
mignon
, although, of course, our loyalties lie with the king,” he finished.

“But the question is
which
king,” Arabella said astutely. “I know I am a woman and not supposed to understand such matters, but I do, Jasper.” It was the first time she had ever called him by his given name without his title, and he was not displeased at her acceptance of their new relationship. “We must think of Greyfaire first, I know. I love my cousin, the king, and I pray that he will surmount this challenge to his lawful authority, but who are we in the face of the mighty? I shall never withdraw my loyalty, having sworn it before God, but it is God who will decide this matter, not you or I. His will be done, and while it is being done, we will protect England’s back here in our little keep, free of all controversy, my lord.”

“You surprise me,
mignon
,” he admitted frankly. “I know that you are not your mother, but such wisdom from one so young is perhaps a bit frightening. I salute you,
wife!”
He bent and brushed her lips lightly with his.

Immediately Arabella flushed with confusion and not just a little pleasure. She was suddenly very aware of him in a way she had never been before. The very air about them was charged with an excitement she had never experienced until now. Suddenly she was very curious to know exactly what it was that Jasper did with other ladies that made his reputation as a great lover such a legend. She found herself longing for their wedding day, their wedding night, even though she knew little of what was involved. She had attempted to question Rowena, but her mother’s answer, given with a strangely flushed face, had been brief and not particularly informative.

“It is too soon for you to ask me such questions, Arabella,” Rowena had said sharply. “I shall explain everything that you need to know just before you go to your marriage bed. I am disturbed that you would ask me such things now, for it bespeaks a lack of chastity on your part.”

Arabella was not put off by her mother’s harsh and unfair words. “Is it like the dogs in the hall, Mama? When the males mount the bitches?” she persisted. “Come, Mama, what difference does it make when you tell me? I would digest your words at my leisure in the event that I must ask you further questions. You know how I dislike being at a disadvantage. I would not have Jasper think badly of me, or that I am an ignorant country girl.”

“A bride should most certainly be ignorant of what transpires between a man and a woman, Arabella! I am shocked by your attitude,” Rowena said irritably. Then she arose from her place by the fire and left the hall, her skirts swishing with a strangely angry sound.

Arabella watched her go, wondering what on earth she had ever said to distress her mother so. Then she shrugged. Rowena was probably nervous about the wedding, but then so too was she. Rowena at least knew what being married was all about. She did not. Oh, she knew how to run her household, for Rowena had been certain her knowledge there was complete, but that wasn’t all to it. She had spoken to Father Anselm on the matter, but the dear old priest was full of vague platitudes about a woman’s duty toward her husband. But what of love? Where did that come into it? Her mother had learned to love her father. Would she learn to love Jasper? What exactly was love?

The next few days were filled with activity as Greyfaire Keep prepared for the nuptials of its heiress. Rowena spent most of her time in the kitchens overseeing the menu for the feast to follow the ceremony, though there would be few guests because of their isolation and the suddenness of the wedding. The wedding gown was quickly fashioned. Arabella was busily engaged seeing to the decorations in the Great Hall, as well as those in the church, which was situated in the little village that clustered at the foot of the castle hill.

Rowena was relieved that her activities prevented her from seeing much of her daughter. It meant she might avoid Arabella’s probing questions about the relations between a man and a woman. Thinking of Jasper and her child together filled her with impotent and unhappy distress. It wasn’t fair.
It just wasn’t fair!
She was still young and beautiful. Why should she not be the bride? She had to talk to Jasper. There were other things he must consider before he was irrevocably bound by this marriage.

Jasper Keane contemplated his bride-to-be in the hall the night before their wedding. Over the last months he had become acutely aware of how very innocent Arabella really was, and he was not only astounded, but delighted by this knowledge. He certainly expected Arabella’s maidenhead to be firmly lodged and totally intact, but the fact that she was so totally virginal in her person, particularly as she was so outspoken a girl, surprised him. He had broken a few maidenheads in his time, of course, but the girls involved were worldly wise, with lips used to kissing and breasts well fondled. It excited him to think of a female totally without carnal knowledge. When he lay with Row later he would instruct her to tell his bride nothing of a man and a woman. He would teach Arabella everything she needed to know. She would be without inhibitions, and she would please him as no woman ever had.

He looked down at the girl next to him, and taking her hand, smiled down into her face. “I have a small gift for you,
mignon
,” he told her, and reaching into a pouch that hung from his side, he drew forth a delicate gold chain from which hung a thistle carved from a single piece of pale violet quartz crystal which was banded in gold.

Her eyes grew bright with her pleasure as she took it from him and slipped it over her head. “It is beautiful, Jasper! Thank you. I shall cherish it always.”

“Wear it tomorrow,
mignon
. It would please me to see you in your wedding finery with this little jewel nestling between your pretty breasts.” He bent so only she might hear his bold words. “I long to caress those sweet fruits,
mignon
.” Then he dropped a kiss upon her shoulder. “How I hunger for the morrow when you will truly be mine!”

Arabella colored with his words. “My lord,” she said, “you should not speak to me so.”

“Why,
mignon
, you are to be my wife, and a husband may speak so to his spouse,” he told her. “Once we are wed I shall not simply speak of love. Do you not long for my arms as much as I long to hold you in them, Arabella? Do you know how difficult it becomes with each passing day as you grow in beauty before my very eyes, not to kiss or caress you? Not to love you as I so very much want to do?”

“I know naught of love, my lord,” she answered him. “It is not seemly, my mother says, for a girl to know such things before her marriage, although I think it foolish to be that ignorant.” Arabella’s heart was skipping beats within her chest. Jasper was being more attentive to her than he had ever been. Was it possible he was in love with her?

“Your mother is wise,
mignon
,” he purred low, his warm breath soft in her ear. “A husband should indeed be the only font of knowledge a wife has. It is he who should tutor her in all that would please him.”

For all her excitement over her marriage, Arabella slept well that night. The first day of June dawned unusually warm for the north. The mists cloaked the surrounding hillsides and draped themselves over the keep’s towers. The sun, a blur of mother of pearl, struggled to assert itself through the thick fog, but so far had not been successful. The wedding ceremony was to be solemnized early so that the rest of the day might be spent in celebration of the event, Greyfaire’s people having been excused from their labors today.

Rowena, overseeing her daughter’s bath and other preparations, looked exhausted. There was a mark upon her bared left shoulder that resembled a bite, but of course that could not be. The tawny orange of her gown, usually a most flattering color for Rowena with her rich gold hair, somehow looked all wrong today against her pale skin with those purple-black circles beneath her blue eyes. Lady Grey, considered by all who knew her to be a pretty woman, was definitely not at her best this morning.

She had left
his
bed to come to her only child. Left after a night of incredible passion and savagery that should have turned her against this man who was to wed her daughter. She could not dissuade him from marrying Arabella, though God knows she had tried. As wicked as Jasper Keane was, she loved him. She knew that he did not love her, but perhaps, just perhaps, he would love Arabella, and then her sacrifice would not be for naught. It would be for Arabella, even as everything she had done had been for the girl. Aye, Jasper was a wicked and cruel man, but if he loved Arabella, then mayhap he would not be wicked and cruel to her.

“How beautiful you are,” she said quietly to her daughter when at last the girl was dressed in all her nuptial finery. “You are so much like your father. If only he might be here today to see you.”

“Am I really beautiful, Mama? Do you think that Jasper will think it? He has, after all, been to court and seen so many really lovely women.”

“None as fair as you, my daughter,” Rowena said sincerely, a great sadness overwhelming her as she spoke, though she knew not why.

“I think I love him, Mama, and I would be the most beautiful woman in the world for him!” the bride enthused.

“Arabella, you know nothing of love,” Rowena said. “You are flattered by Jasper’s attentions and delighted that he is so fair to look upon, but that is not love. In your secret heart you know it. But come to my pier glass and see for yourself.”

“I do love him, Mama!
I do!”
Arabella cried earnestly, even half believing it herself.

“Perhaps,” Rowena answered, “or perhaps you but think you do. It does not matter which. He is to be your husband whether you love him or not. If believing you love him makes it easier for you, then believe it. But be warned, Arabella, never give yourself so wholly to a man that when you finally discover he is but a mere mortal and fallible as we all are, it breaks your heart and spirit. You must be strong to be a woman. Your strength must be beyond that of all others if you are to survive. Remember that, and remember that I love you!” Then giving her child a kiss upon her cheek, Rowena left her for a few moments to her own thoughts.

Arabella Grey was surprised. In her entire lifetime she had never heard her mother speak so profoundly. Rowena had always reminded her of a pretty, fluffy kitten, or a bright, darting butterfly. Charming, beautiful, sweet, and sometimes even amusing, but with little of a serious nature to recommend her. It startled Arabella to think that perhaps she did not really know her mother at all, or else perhaps it was just the excitement of today that made her feel that way. Rowena, undoubtedly, was moved to bestow upon her daughter some words of wisdom before her marriage, and indeed, her mother’s words had given Arabella pause for thought. How strange. She had never before thought Rowena wise.

Arabella turned her eyes to the pier glass to gaze upon her image once again. The glass was one of the castle’s most precious possessions, having been brought back to England by a Grey ancestor who had fought in the Holy Land and passed through Venice on his way home to England. Her wedding gown was the most beautiful garment that she had ever possessed, or she believed she would ever possess. Both skirt and bodice were of cloth of silver, embroidered with gold threads and small pearls. It was rather tight-fitting, with a long waist, long, close-fitted sleeves banded in ermine, a wide shawl collar of rich, soft ermine, and a low vee-neck which offered a tempting view of her breasts. A delicate gold
tussoire
hung from the jeweled girdle holding up her long skirt. On her feet she wore a pair of round-toed
sollerets
, fashioned from soft, gilded kidskin.