Betrayed, Betrothed and Bedded

by Juliet Landon

  * * *

  They were there in less than an hour, riding along rutted tracks hardened with frost and white spikes of plants waiting for spring rain, past low timber-framed cottages interspersed with a few taller, sturdier ones, the ale house, blacksmith and priest’s house by the stone church, the village cross, with the great walls of the house in the distance that took the name of the village, Lea Magna. Through the tiled gatehouse, an array of buildings sprawled inside a very large courtyard where household staff went about their business of carrying, cleaning, supplying and ordering, then running to welcome Sir Jon’s party, to hold the bridles and to take a first look at the new mistress with grins of approval. Even before she entered the house, Ginny knew that she would like to live here as its mistress. She had made a mental list of concerns, but this was on it no longer.

  Their first stay here was to be too short for Ginny to do more than absorb the flavour of the place, to find out how it worked and to meet its inmates before removing to Whitehall where the queen awaited her services. There was no question of delay, for her attempts to make the queen more attractive to her husband in so many ways would also help to decide Ginny’s own involvement with the king. One could not predict Henry’s mind these days; even the greatest men in his employ dared not do that, except by being certain of his unpredictability, so what chance did a new queen have? she wondered.

  But one little person of whom Ginny was most eager to make the acquaintance was Sir Jon’s small daughter, who lived here with only a staff of nurses to deputise as parents. Not that the child would know any different, Ginny supposed, but how sad that her father had had so little time for her in those most formative years. At the noble household in the north of England where Ginny had lived and been ‘polished’, along with other daughters of wealthy and ambitious parents, there had been several very young members of the family whom she had been expected to supervise occasionally with games and exercise, with learning to eat correctly and grown-up manners, reading and writing, too. It was all good practice for her when she would have a family of her own, they said. Fortunately, she had enjoyed this part of things, so the thought of being stepmother to the infant held no fears for her, only concerns that any bond they were able to forge would be continually broken by her absences. One remedy would be to bear a child of her own, but the thought was fleeting and not particularly attractive after what she’d just learned about the uncertainties of who might father it. Sir Jon had tried to assure her of his protection. She believed he meant it, but how far did that stretch? Paul’s unkind prank had frightened her. It was all so very possible.

  ‘Will you take me to see her now?’ she asked Sir Jon. ‘I long to see where she lives. I’ve heard no child noises. She must be a very quiet child.’

  ‘I’ll take you, if you wish,’ he said, holding open a very wide carved door under which a draught blew icily. ‘She lives in the far wing, so I never hear her. I expect she’ll have grown by now.’ He sounded far from enthusiastic.

  Ginny noted the unemotional tone of voice, the distance between them, the lack of sight or sound. It was inevitable and not something she could change easily without changing him, too. The little girl registered no recognition or cries of welcome for her papa. As they entered, she was energetically propelling herself across the wooden floor inside a walking frame, like a small cot strapped to her waist, with wheels at each corner, requiring all her concentration to avoid the furniture. Her staggering walk showed that her legs were strong and that there was little wrong with her determination, either. ‘May I pick her up?’ Ginny said to one of the two nurses, a youngish woman wearing a white apron over a dark gown. The lack of colour in the room was noticeable, bare of comfort, containing only a few stools, tables and a large wooden cot for the child, a chest and a dresser, with a roaring fire in the chimney piece, the dark-curtained windows wet with condensation.

  The child, Etta, was sturdy and as pretty as any two-year-old Ginny had ever seen, with a shock of red-gold hair the colour of new copper, tightly curled under a padded band tied round the crown of her head, known as a ‘pudding’ to prevent injury when she fell. Ginny went to pick her up, but removing her from the walking frame did not meet with Etta’s approval, her howls of protest being enough to convince Ginny that practising this skill was far more important than relationships. Clearly, the little lass had a mind of her own, and a temper to go with it. ‘Psh! Psh,’ she yelled, telling Ginny what was on her mind. Mobilisation.

  Placing herself in front of Etta, squatting on her heels, Ginny held out her arms. ‘Come on, then,’ she cooed. ‘Come on, push! Push it to me!’

  The child’s face lit up, clearly delighted that someone understood the seriousness of the game. ‘Psh!’ she yelped, steering herself towards Ginny with an energy so unexpected that the crash, when it came, resulted in a tumble of bodies that ejected Etta into Ginny’s arms, squealing and laughing with excitement.

  The nurses rushed to help, but Ginny waved them away while Etta struggled to her feet and wriggled back into the frame. ‘Gen! Gen!’ she cried, eager for a repeat. Much to the disapproval of the audience, Ginny allowed a repeat of the crash that gave her the chance to hold her new stepdaughter without the awkwardness of introductions, to carry her to the window and open it wide, to smell the sharp air and to see the courtyard below where men went about their work. The child was entranced and responsive to the quiet invitations to look and to tell Ginny what she saw. Clearly, Ginny thought, she was an intelligent little thing, but lacking as much in stimulus as in cuddles. For although she was well kept, the nurses revealed that she had not been out of that room for weeks because of the frost and snow, and no one told her stories, sung to her, or played the rough games she obviously enjoyed. Taking her role as stepmother seriously from the start, Ginny asked them questions about how Etta’s days were organised, but was not entirely happy at her findings.

  Undoing the clinging arms of the adorable little child from her neck, Ginny found herself almost in tears at having to leave her in that dull room. ‘It’s more like a prison in there,’ she whispered to Sir Jon on the way down the passageway. ‘You see how she needs companionship and fresh air. Can she not come out with us?’

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘She’s too young for adult company yet.’

  ‘But you saw how she responded to me when I talked to her. She longs for adult company. She’ll never learn to talk properly if she doesn’t hear it.’

  ‘The two women are doing their best,’ he said.

  ‘I’m sure they are, Sir Jon, but I could do better.’

  ‘Really? It’s difficult to see how, unless something changes,’ he said.

  Ginny blushed at the criticism, for she had not so far been a dutiful wife. Withholding herself had seemed to be her only weapon against him and his part in her controversial relationship with the king, yet something deep within her body had stirred like a yearning, an ache for something she was denying herself just to gain some kind of control. Or was it revenge? She had felt it up there when she’d held the child in her arms, felt the soft weight, the clinging arms, the warm, moist little mouth and lisping words, those amazing brown eyes like hazelnuts, and the scent of baby skin. Sir Jon was right; she would not do better than that, nor would she even equal it unless she had a change of mind about a husband’s rights. She was not able to answer him or to broach the subject again as he showed her round the many rooms, the outside buildings, introducing her to the senior staff who ran the place in his absence.

  But there was a distraction in his manner that grew as the day progressed, which Ginny believed might have much to do with seeing his daughter again and the home where he and his late wife had once been happy, where now he was bringing a new wife in the most unusual circumstances. A wife who did not want him any more than he wanted her, or so she had tried to convince him. She was not sure she’d convinced herself after two nights of trying to sleep alongsid
e his naked body, which, until only recently, she had done her best not to look at. She knew it would have taken only the touch of her hand to reverse all her resolutions, for she also knew that, however loving his memories were of his late wife, he could have taken her at any time. Men, she had heard, were like that. So she was not too surprised when he left her to her own devices later that day. He had his house steward to consult, his bailiff and his accountant, while she and Molly needed to see her housekeeper about the stores and where to put her few belongings, the dairy and laundry, the stillroom and larder, and, of course, the gardens. Without him, she would also return to see Etta.

  Standing beside the cot in the semi-darkness, she felt again all those strange yearnings and the beginnings of a bond that would inevitably weaken with distance. Time and time again. Would they ever be more than strangers to each other? she wondered. Would Sir Jon ever know his daughter as well as a father ought? The older nurse came to stand by her, watching fondly.

  ‘We shall take her out tomorrow, mistress,’ Ginny said. ‘After breakfast, wrap her up well and we’ll show her what the frost and snow and sun really feel like.’

  ‘My lady, I doubt very much whether Sir Jon will allow it,’ the nurse said. ‘He’s very protective.’

  ‘Sir Jon will agree,’ Ginny said firmly. ‘I’ll change his mind somehow.’

  * * *

  For Jon, the old house was filled with memories both pleasant and desperately sad, for it was the family home as well as the place to which he’d brought his first wife, hoping to make the marriage work. As he walked along the dark passageways, he heard the echoes of his parents’ voices, the merry singing of his mother before his father’s departure for France. The singing had stopped when they’d heard of his capture and the appallingly high ransom demanded for his release; his mother’s despair, her gradual decline, her death, the desperate efforts to keep the estate going while fulfilling his duties to two demanding masters, the king and his private secretary, Sir Thomas Cromwell. Life had presented him with the mother of all dilemmas, although in reality there had been only one solution.

  His chamber held no comfort for him now. Conflict of duties had seen to that. Succumbing to a moment of bleak sadness, he sat on the oaken chest while his mind played out a scene where Ginny would come to him, submissive and sweet, to offer him the unconditional love he craved. The clack of the latch brought him back to reality.

  At the sound of Ginny’s entry, the head lifted and the hands slid down the handsome face, but stopped over his mouth, as if to stop himself speaking. Cupping his chin, he held a look she could only identify as despair, raw and harrowing, and far from the arrogant, assured, insouciant expression he was used to wearing at court. ‘Sir Jon,’ she whispered, shocked by the change in him. ‘What is it?’ Quietly, so as not to disturb the silence, she closed the door and placed her lantern on a nearby table, but hesitated to approach what must surely be a profound grief. What else, she wondered, could cause such pain in his eyes?

  As it had only an hour ago in the child’s room, a small part of her melted deep inside, calling for another soul to comfort her body’s craving in some small way, even if she could not identify the reason. At the same time, she felt that he needed her, too, though nothing had been said to make her sure of it. What was she to do? Should she ask him? Ought she to offer herself, to comfort them both for what they’d lost? Even though she could not approve of what he was doing? It would not be the sacrifice she had at first pretended, for now she knew how her body had responded to his touch and how she had thought of little else since then. Would she hate herself for it? Would she not be what he required after all? Would she care if he took her as a substitute for his late wife rather than for what her own body could offer him?

  There was no need for her to make a decision, for she had only to move into the arms he stretched out towards her and place herself between his knees as silently as a ghost, with no explanations. His embrace closed around her hips while his head, smooth and velvety, pressed hard against her bodice. His eyes were closed and now it was in her power to speak the words and to know that he would act upon them, to bridge the gulf, to make a beginning on her promise to him as a wife, which to her shame she had not yet kept. ‘Husband,’ she whispered to the top of his head, ‘let me comfort you.’ She smoothed one hand over the short cap of his hair and down one cheek like a mother with a small child at her apron. Perhaps, she thought, there were times when a man might need a mother as much as a wife. Was this going to be one of those times?

  From his throat a hoarse sound emerged, half pain, half excitement, the kind of triumphant cry a man made when he’d won a bout with his sword master. But however Ginny had imagined her first time with a man would be, she thought—she was sure—that this would not be it. In the semi-darkness, he would imagine her to be his beloved late wife, the one for whom he longed, here in the home they had loved. She could not expect him to treat her like the virgin she was. That would be too much to expect. Whatever happened, she would have to accept it and give him back without complaint what she owed in terms of lost nights, his patience with her caprice, his attempts to understand her, his protection, and his cooperation in shielding her from what they’d thought was the king’s demand. So when his kiss was more searching by far than the one in the chapel, Ginny was convinced that her expectation of a certain pretence was accurate. He would surely not have kissed a virgin as if she were an experienced woman. Would he?

  These concerns vanished, however, when she realised he was treating her as an equal, not like the young unmannerly girl of D’Arvall Hall, but as a married woman capable of pleasuring him in the height of his passion. Their undressing, already practised, was conducted with trembling fingers in the semi-dark and chill of the room, helping each other over every lace and hook punctuated by soft caresses in places where usually only hooks and laces went. This time, his hands lingered over her skin, purposely setting her alight in secret places that had always been covered and chaste, and hardly looked at. Her beautiful firm breasts were fondled, lifted and weighed in his palms, turning her knees to water. It was the sweetest and most startling undressing Ginny could have imagined, with mouths and lips being used for other things than talk, for talking might spoil his illusion. Or was it hers? Or were they sharing it?

  Then, with her skirts falling away from her feet, she was scooped up and carried over to the bed, already melting in the strength of his arms and the assertive power of every movement. Pretending not to, she had seen how he moved at court, masking her desire from others as well as herself. Here in the dimness of the candlelit room, there was no more need of the mask, for she had already revealed, even in that short time, that her willingness had only been waiting to be kindled. Lifting her arms to enclose him, she drew him to her like a blanket. This would be no time for reticence. Whatever she had intended in her earlier moments of resentment no longer had any merit, for now she could not have held back for even a moment when he was teasing her body along its length with hands and lips. There was no part of her to be spared from his quest, hands exploring every surface, every luscious curve, every detail usually hidden from view and imagined, played upon with fingertips and lips, tormented into life, making every part of her long for more. Hazily, through a surge of ecstasy, she wondered if he had made love to his first wife like this, or whether after all this was for her alone, as a virgin. Would she have known the difference?

  Although she had no means of knowing exactly what to expect as a preliminary to coupling, or indeed that there was much to expect at all, she discovered that lovemaking took longer than she’d supposed when he sought out every small and delicate area of her skin for his attentions. As if he knew how all her sensitivities were combined in those places, he touched, teased and drew from her lips the moans of delight and gasps of pleasure that neither of them had expected to hear with such abandon or so soon. Now she could begin to understand the stricken e
xpression on his face as she’d entered the room, for, if this was how it had been with the beautiful first wife, he must indeed have missed her more than he had divulged to anyone. Still, there were no words between them and none needed when she used all her innate knowledge as a woman to pleasure him, as if she had always known what was required of a wife by her husband. It appeared to succeed when she explored and stroked his taut muscular body and smoothed the rippling back with its valleys and silky contours, like hillsides under her hands and when she whispered, ‘Show me what to do,’ she fully expected him to take her to the next level of fulfilment, for she could feel the hardness of him against her body.

  ‘No,’ he whispered, ‘not this time, my amazing wife.’ Smoothing her hair away from her face, he kissed her forehead and, drawing her into his arms, lay on his back with a deep sigh.

  Puzzled, Ginny tried to understand what was happening. ‘Why?’ she said, passing a hand tenderly over his chest. ‘Why not this time?’

  ‘I cannot accept your offer,’ he replied. ‘I told you when we made our vows that I would not take advantage of you until I was sure you came to me for all the right reasons. You saw my pain and, even without understanding the reasons for it, you gave me the comfort I craved. And for that I must be satisfied. And I am. You are everything a man could desire.’

  ‘But I do understand your reasons, Jon. You lost a beautiful wife. I know I cannot replace her, but at least I can give you some release. And anyway, you have shown me what I’ve been missing and I’d like to know the rest.’

  ‘Your curiosity delights me, Ginny. But...’