Lady Betrayed

by Tamara Leigh

  CHAPTER ONE

  Barony of Tremoral

  England, March 1195

  “I want a son.”

  The words hurled themselves at Juliana, landed like a scourge to her empty womb. She could not have heard right.

  The entries in the ledger blurring, she looked up.

  Bernart stood before the dais upon which the lord’s table was raised, eyes wide with such hunger it frightened.

  “A son, Husband?”

  “A son.”

  As he would not jest over something so sensitive, she glanced past him. Though a half hour earlier servants had cleared the remains of the evening meal, the hall stood empty save for the young woman who sat on a bench before the fire. As usual, Bernart overlooked Juliana’s sister, as if he could not see Alaiz any better than she could see him.

  “Forgive me, but I do not understand.”

  He ascended the dais. Pressing bloated hands to the table, he leaned forward. “I want a son.”

  Of course he did. Did not every man? But it was not possible for him. Cautious lest she goad him into one of his blacker moods, she set the quill in its stand, pushed the ledger aside, and folded her hands atop the table. “Better than I, you know that can never be.”

  Pain flickered across his face. “It can be.”

  Though usually careful to avoid alcohol, had he been drinking? She breathed in the air between them. Catching no great scent, she said, “Tell me.”

  The harsh lines of his fleshy face eased, allowing a glimpse of the handsome man he had been. “The child would not be of my blood, but I would train him up as if he were.”

  She raised her eyebrows. “You propose to bring another man’s child into our home?”

  “Aye, through you.”

  “Me?” She shook her head. “I am no more enlightened, Bernart.”

  He leaned nearer, and she saw the hunger in his eyes was more than that of a man who had missed several meals. It was of one who suffered famine. “It would be your son, born of your body and blood.”

  So unbelievable were his words they were slow to strike, but when they did, it was with the force of a blow. She sat back hard in her chair.

  As if to reassure her, he smiled, but his mouth had long forgotten how to curve in a manner pleasing to the eye. Limp more pronounced than usual, he came around the table, lowered into the chair beside hers, and took her lax hands in his. “I love you, Juliana. Ever I have. Ever I shall.”

  There was a time she had believed that—when she had embraced lofty notions of love—but those scales had fallen from her eyes when Bernart lost his capacity for emotions of the heart.

  “If you…” His voice cracked. “Were you to lie with another, you could give me a son.”

  Still she could not move, could not speak, could only stare at the one who asked the unthinkable.

  Wake up, she bade her sleeping self. Wake up and find yourself clinging to your side of the bed the same as you do every morn.

  Bernart dropped his head and pressed his brow to the backs of her hands. “Do this for me, Juliana, and no more will I ask of you.”

  She wrenched free, leapt to her feet. “I am your wife, not a—” Movement at the corner of her eye silenced her, and she saw Alaiz had turned to them, face puckered as much with searching as concern.

  Lest she become an object of Bernart’s wrath, as averted several times in recent months, Juliana hastened from the dais. As she neared the hearth, her sister rose. Worry making her appear older than her seventeen years, she narrowed her lids to center her sister in her ever-contracting and increasingly blurred field of vision.

  Juliana laid a hand on her shoulder. “Go abovestairs.”

  “Why are you angry?” Alaiz whispered. “What has he done?”

  “Worry not. ’Tis a small thing easily remedied.” When had she last told so great a lie? Juliana wondered as she drew her sister forward and pointed her toward the stairs. “Go.”

  “You will come soon?”

  “I will.”

  Alaiz set a hand before her, not so high and distant it was terribly obvious she felt her way across the hall over which night cast shadows—only enough to ensure if she happened on anything in her path, she had time to alter her measured steps. When she reached the stairs, Juliana became aware of the pregnant silence at her back. She turned, saw Bernart’s gaze was fixed on her sister.

  What was he thinking? Embarrassed as he was by Alaiz, he looked away when she fell beneath his regard. Now he followed her progress with interest that made Juliana’s heart shudder.

  Please, Lord, she silently beseeched as she started back toward him, cast out whatever demon puts such schemes in his head.

  He stood as she neared, and spears of light shot from the jeweled hilt of the dagger he wore—that coveted weapon awarded him at Wulfen Castle which proclaimed him among the worthiest of England’s defenders.

  “You will do it, Juliana?” he asked as she halted before him.

  She swallowed hard. “Truly, you would have me give myself to another? Commit adultery?”

  “Were my need not great, I would not ask it of you.”

  Searching for reason in a world gone foul, she said, “Were a child born of so unholy a union, it would not be yours. Not of your body or blood.”

  “He would be of yours.” He reached to her. “That is enough for me.”

  She sidestepped. “How can you ask this? And why?”

  The struggle to control his temper visible in fists gone white, he said, “I am without an heir.”

  “You have an heir. Your brother, Osbern—”

  “Is not my brother!”

  She breathed deep. “Deny him you may, but his blood is your blood. The misbegotten child you would have me bear could never be recognized as your heir.”

  “No one but you and I would know the circumstances of his birth.”

  She blinked. Was he crazed?

  “I have thought long on it, Juliana. It is what I want.”

  “What you want? Nay, you will not make a Tamar of me!”

  His upper lip curled, brow furrowed. “A what?”

  It was years since she had thought on the story Alaiz had uncovered. Though Juliana had named it scandalous, her sister was fascinated and a bit smug to be privy to a tale neither had heard pass a priest’s lips. “Tamar of the Bible who disguised herself as a prostitute so she might lie with her father-in-law who she believed owed her a child.”

  He scowled. “I know naught of that, nor do I wish to. And do not speak of God anywhere near me.”

  She touched his arm. “You may have turned from Him, but He hears what you say and sees what you do—what you would have me do!”

  He jerked free. “You think I fear the one for whom I fought in the Holy Land? He who did not answer my prayers for victory over the infidel? He who betrayed me the same as the one I called friend? He who left me bleeding and not even half a man?”

  Though she knew he first blamed Gabriel de Vere’s betrayal for what had befallen him and second blamed God, when she had voiced doubt over his friend being such a coward, so enraged had he become she had closed her mouth on further argument. Now on the chance she could jolt him back to sanity, she opened it.

  “God gave King Richard victory. Thus, He did answer your prayers. Aye, in His time, not yours, but He did not abandon you.” Bernart’s eyes flew wide, but she was too desperate to heed the warning. “He brought you out of Acre, and if you will turn back to Him—”

  He thrust his face near hers. “Close thy mouth, Woman!”

  She flinched but pressed onward. “What you ask of me is wrong. It will make a mockery of us, pervert our wedding vows, displease and dishonor God.”

  He gave a grunt of laughter that swept foul breath up her nostrils. “What more can He do to me He has not already done?”

  She pressed her lips against the scream expanding her chest. When it eased, she said, “If you will not consider the fate of your soul, consider mine.”

&
nbsp; He swung away, came back around. “Have you not a hundred times told God is forgiving? You have! Hence, I need not worry over your soul. And do I give you no choice but to do as your lord husband commands, you need not worry over it.”

  “No choice?” she gasped.

  Nostrils flaring and constricting with the rapid movement of his chest, he said, “The wife hath not power over her own body. The power belongs to her husband.”

  She suppressed another scream. “You would not have me speak God anywhere near you, yet to serve your own purpose you speak it to me!”

  “Wives are to submit to their husbands as they would to God!”

  She clenched her hands. “Aye, God who commands husbands to love their wives as their own bodies!”

  “This body?” He peered down it. “This crippled, mutilated thing?”

  Juliana swallowed a sob, dropped her chin.

  Bernart drew deep, rasping breaths, entreated, “Ever you have wanted children. A half dozen, remember?”

  Hurting more for his loss, just as he would have her do, she turned her shoulder to him and faced the tapestry that scaled the wall behind the table. “I wish children, but not like this. Never like this.”

  Bernart stepped to her back and curled his hands around her upper arms. “It is the only way.”

  “Then as accepted years ago, I shall be childless.”

  The spit of an oath spraying the side of her neck, he dragged her around. “You think I do not know what is said of me?”

  She knew, just as she was versed in what was said of her—that she was so frigid as to be barren. Servants talked, and what other conclusion was to be drawn from three years of marriage that bred only indifference between lord and lady?

  Bernart’s fingers dug into her arms. “’Tis told I am not man enough—infertile or women not to my taste.”

  For the latter, he rejected his brother. Not that Osbern flaunted his lack of attraction for the gentle sex. He simply did not bury it so deep it could not be unearthed. Thus, Bernart sought to prove he was unlike his brother.

  Of a sudden, he choked, “Help me, Juliana!” and leaned into her. Shoulders that had once been firm with muscle shaking, he said, “I can bear it no longer.”

  Though her small frame quivered beneath the weight it was made to support, she did not move.

  “I beseech you, give me a son.”

  Not since their wedding night following his return from the Holy Land had his eyes shined so brightly. It was then he had revealed his injury and that she would be a wife in name only. Never to know his intimate touch. Never to bear children.

  Rising above her own loss and sorrow, she had told him it did not matter and tried to comfort him, but he had shouted that it did matter and thrust her away. With every passing day, his bitterness pushed them further apart, so much it seemed as if the crack between them had become a ravine.

  She set her palm to a jaw devoid of beard. “I am sorry, but I cannot give you a son.”

  He squeezed his eyes closed. “Do you love me?”

  She had loved him and thought she would die if he did not return from the crusade. But when he departed for the Holy Land, she had been ten and five and he a young man capable of loving and being loved.

  “You know ’tis so.” Not entirely a lie. She did feel for Bernart—more, the memory of him—but what remained of her love was so slight as to be hardly recognizable.

  “Had I not been faithful ere we wed, Juliana, as you required of me, I would surely have a son. Misbegotten, but of my loins.”

  Recalling when she had found him with her father’s servant and afterward demanded his vow of fidelity—months before he left on crusade—she dropped her hand to her side. “Mayhap you have one.”

  “You think I have not searched?”

  She startled. “I did not know.”

  “Because of you, I am denied a child of my blood.” His nostrils flared. “And for what? I cannot even hold you.”

  “That is your choice!”

  “I have no other.”

  He spoke true. He could not stand to touch her when he could do naught to slake his desire. He clung to his side of the bed and she to hers.

  “Pray, Bernart, let us speak no more of this. You are hurting—”

  “You know naught!” He shook her hard, snapping her head back, then shoved her against the tapestry-covered wall. “All I ask is that you give back some of what I sacrificed for you. And you refuse.”

  She tipped her face up. “Have I not been a good wife? Do I not keep your household in order? Your accounts—”

  “It is not enough!”

  “’Tis all I have to give.”

  “You can give me a son!”

  Throat so tight she could hardly breathe, she shook her head.

  His eyes told he wanted to strike her, but he pushed off her and swung away. With high-pitched curses, he knocked over a chair, swept the ledger from the table, and sent the ink pot soaring. Though the latter missed the tapestry, it shattered against the wall and splashed its dark contents across the beautifully woven cloth and her bodice.

  She stared at the ink spreading like disease across the colorful threads, then descended the dais and started across the hall.

  “What of your sister?” Bernart called.

  Feet nearly going out from under her, she halted. “Dear Lord,” she whispered, “do not let him be that far gone from the man I loved.”

  When Alaiz’s sight had begun to deteriorate at thirteen, ruining her prospects for marriage, their parents had schooled her for the Church. Of a studious nature, she had seemed content. But the nobleman who bought wardship of their young brother upon the death of their father a year past had refused to pay the enormous sum the Church required for a near-blind girl to commit her life to the Lord. Had Bernart not agreed to permit Alaiz to live with them, the verbal abuse doled out by the guardian could have turned dangerous. But must Juliana pay for that concession with the fouling of her body?

  She turned.

  Looking the predator in spite of his flaccid figure and limp, Bernart advanced. “When she had nowhere to go, I brought her into my home.”

  She lifted her chin. “Alaiz serves me well.”

  He gave a bark of laughter. “’Tis you who dresses her. A lady in waiting! She is an imbecile.”

  Juliana rushed at him, but he caught the hand raised to strike him and snatched it down between them. “She is of no use. An embarrassment.”

  “Do not speak such of her!”

  “For love of you, I shelter, feed, and clothe her.”

  She nearly laughed. Though she could have sought an annulment on grounds he was incapable of consummating their marriage, for love of him she had not. Only when he had refused to allow Alaiz to come to Tremoral had she threatened to reveal his secret. He had agreed, but never for love of her.

  “Juliana?”

  Now he held the power. “You are cruel.”

  He released her. “I am what you make me. If you will not prove your love by giving me a son, do it for her.”

  She longed to weep over the injustice. “Truly, you would send my sister away?”

  The man her girl’s heart had loved flickered across his face, and that was all. “I shall return her to her mother—and guardian.”

  Not the Bernart who set out on that fateful crusade six years past, but the man he had become…

  Grasping for a way to move him off the wicked path he meant to drag her down, she realized he did not possess all the power. She yet wielded a sword. “If you return my sister, you will leave me no choice but to reveal the truth of our marriage. And its cause.”

  His hands at his sides closing slowly as if her throat were between them, he said, “’Twould shame me, but better that than the inability to father children continue to cast me in the light in which my brother dwells.” He nodded. “Tell your tale, Juliana. I have little left to lose.”

  The power running through her fingers like water, she felt herself move
toward hatred—the line between this side and that so thin and short it would take but a nudge to push her across it. But though Bernart gave her great cause to hate him, she knew the Lord into whose arms she had run three years past would have her stay on this side of it. And so she did. But as for forgiveness…

  She straightened to her full height of a hand’s width above five feet. “When it is done, God may forgive me and mayhap you, but I do not know I will ever forgive you, Husband.”

  His throat convulsed. “You will do it?”

  “You make it sound as if I have a choice.”

  Relief dropped his shoulders. “I thank you.”

  Though she longed to flee, she said, “Whose child will you plant in my belly?”

  He averted his gaze. “I have not decided.”

  “What if the one you choose tells?”

  He stepped around her. “Fear not. I will see to all.”

  “You would kill him?” she demanded.

  He paused. “I would not.”

  Did he lie? Determined to see if murder was in his eyes, she stepped in front of him, but he denied her his gaze.

  “If it is not by death he keeps your secret, how? You will pay him to bed me?”

  His jaw shifted. “He will not know who comes to him. Thus, payment will not be necessary.”

  “He will not know?” she cried. “How will you arrange that?”

  “Enough!” He backhanded the air, barely missing her face.

  Juliana stared at him through tears. “I shall pray for your soul,” she said and crossed to the stairs. Pausing on the first step, she looked across her shoulder. “What if he does not get me with child?”

  Without hesitation, he said, “When is your next monthly flux?”

  Though tempted to lie so he would not know her time of fertility, she did not believe it would turn him from his course. God willing, it would take only once to make a babe. “A fortnight hence.”

  He nodded. “He will get you with child.”

  “If it is a daughter, will you ask it of me again?”

  As if he had not considered that possibility, his brow became more lined. “I will not.”

  Though he longed for a son, a daughter would suffice. “I want your word.”