THE AWAKENING_A Medieval Romance

by Tamara Leigh

  Laura almost wished her daughter were still very little. Such questions she would not ask. She would be unconcerned about what Lothaire thought of her or her mother, confident he had no choice but to like them. “’Tis true the queen wished us to wed, but Lord Soames is quite agreeable.”

  “What am I to call him?”

  It felt as if someone pushed a needle into Laura’s heart. “Methinks Lord Soames is best.”

  “Aye, for now. But when you are wed?”

  Laura knew what she sought. Though Clarice had ceased asking for a father two years past, and Laura had prayed the man she wed would become that to her, it could never be. But Laura had no cause to mourn lost opportunity. Just as Lothaire could not be a father to Clarice, none of the other suitors would have been. Where her daughter was concerned, Lothaire was safe.

  “What am I to call him when he is your husband?” Clarice repeated with annoyance.

  “Once we are settled in our new home, we shall discuss that with Lord Soames.”

  Color shot into Clarice’s cheeks. “He would rather you did not have a child.”

  Another needle to the heart, this one going all the way through. “I vow he will come to care much for you,” she spoke what was only a dream. But the truth boded ill for Clarice’s first meeting with Lothaire which could forever mire their relationship.

  Clarice looked as if she might fall into argument as she did often since her grandmother’s passing, but she seamed her mouth.

  Lady Beatrix, Laura thought. Not only had she exerted a good motherly influence these weeks, but the lady must have prepared Clarice for Laura’s return and the man who would accompany her.

  “I should meet him now?” she asked.

  “If you wish. Or later, ere supper.”

  “We leave on the morrow?”

  “We do.”

  “Then let us be done with it now.” Clarice led the way across the roof, down the stairs, and into the hall.

  Lothaire was seated before the hearth opposite Michael, Lady Beatrix standing alongside her husband. He leaned back in the chair, a tankard in hand, legs thrust out before him, one ankle atop the other. It surprised that he looked at leisure—as if he were amongst friends. Ironically, he could be had what happened ten years past not. Michael’s half brother had been her childhood friend, but ever she had adored Maude’s second stepson, and he had been fond of her.

  Was this Lothaire’s way of showing indifference to his hosts? Worse, Laura’s daughter? It must be, and it nearly made her snatch Clarice back up the stairs. However, the moment Lothaire caught sight of what softly slippered feet did not sooner reveal, he drew his legs in, set the tankard aside, and stood.

  Laura released her breath. Were he willing to make an effort to hide what he felt about the greatest evidence of his cuckoldry, there was hope Clarice would not know how little she was wanted.

  Drawing alongside her daughter who had preceded her off the stairs, Laura sought Lothaire’s regard. But his was upon Clarice, and so intently she wondered what he searched for. The one who had fathered her? Her disposition that he had said was all that mattered for how it affected his household? Or did he steel himself for the introduction to one it could not be easy to look upon?

  Laura understood that last. After Clarice’s birth, she had averted her gaze and held her arms close lest someone try to place the infant in them. If not for Maude’s persistence that had been moved to anger, Laura might not have looked upon her child, might not have held her.

  It had been difficult, and how she had cried those first times and been repulsed by the babe at her breast, but that had passed. And her heart had opened to Clarice and seen her daughter. Mostly. Clarice did not have her mother’s eyes. Unfortunately, though Laura loved the girl, it had been easier to allow Maude to love her better.

  As Lothaire stared, he silently rebuked himself for being so quick to gain his feet. He was as saddle weary as he was determined none would see what went behind his face these past days as he drew nearer life with the woman he had believed lost to him.

  The moment he had seen the dark-haired girl trailed by her mother, he had reacted as he should rather than as he wished. Here was the one who had lain beneath Laura’s hand that day at the pond—the reason for their broken betrothal. But though he had expected to be repulsed, he saw only a girl years from a woman, an innocent tainted by her mother’s sin. And as she neared, he saw in the eyes fixed to his that she but tried to appear bold. Vulnerability and uncertainty dwelt there.

  “Lord Soames, this is my daughter, Clarice.” Laura halted a reach away. “Clarice, my betrothed, Lord Soames.”

  Lothaire inclined his head. “Clarice.”

  The girl curtsied. “Lord Soames.”

  He glanced at Laura and wished away the pleading in her eyes—wished he had not spoken words that made her believe he would behave poorly toward her child. “I am pleased to meet you, Clarice. On the morrow we shall journey to the barony of Lexeter, my—” He smiled tautly. “Your home. I hope you will be comfortable at High Castle.”

  “Are there—?” She closed her mouth.

  “What?”

  She shrugged. “Other children?”

  “I have none of my own.” He looked to Laura. “Yet.”

  His betrothed’s eyes lowered, but not before he glimpsed what seemed fear. And wished that away as well. Though she was no longer pure, their marriage would be consummated and he would know her often enough to gain an heir. Mayhap several, though he had said he required only one. But she need not fear him in bed any more than outside it. A child was what he wanted, not revenge.

  “However,” he continued, “there are servants’ children with whom you may play.”

  “Babies?”

  “A few.”

  “I will have brothers and sisters?”

  Feeling Michael D’Arci’s gaze, he said, “God willing, those as well.”

  Clarice took a small step forward. “Mother says I am to call you Lord Soames for now. What am I to call you when she is your wife?”

  Lothaire’s chest tightened. In looks she resembled her mother, but more so in her forthright manner that Laura had revealed of herself that day they had first walked—then run—to the pond.

  He raised his eyebrows. “What would you like to call me?”

  “I have long wanted a father. If you are good to me and my mother, that I would call you.” She raised her eyebrows. “If you agree.”

  “I will be good to your mother and you.” That was answer enough. He looked to D’Arci and his wife. “If my chamber is ready, I shall refresh myself ere supper.”

  Lady Beatrix smiled. “If ’tis not, soon it shall be. Come. And you, Lady Laura. Our children shall sleep in the solar this eve so Clarice and you may have their chamber to yourselves.”

  Laura murmured her thanks and followed the lady, and Lothaire stepped past Clarice who seemed of a mind to remain belowstairs. That made him wonder. Though mother and daughter had been reunited whilst he waited in the hall, they could not have had more than a quarter hour together. Should not the girl wish to stay near Laura after so long a parting?

  He could not accurately gauge mother-daughter relations by comparing them to the disagreeable Lady Raisa and his sister, but there seemed something missing between Clarice and her mother.

  Shortly, Laura closed the door of the chamber alongside the solar, and Lady Beatrix led him to a room at the far end of the corridor.

  “’Tis ready.” She motioned him inside.

  He stepped over the threshold and started to close the door. “I thank you, my lady.”

  “Lord Soames?”

  He stilled. “Lady Beatrix?”

  “I fear I t-trespass,” she stuttered as if nervous, “I pray you will forgive me, but my husband and I are fond of Lady Laura and her daughter—so much that were the lady not fearful of being a burden and determined to provide Clarice a home of her own, we would have them remain with us.”

  Then Laura had n
ot needed to seek a husband she did not want. Because she truly did not wish to burden D’Arci and his wife? Or did she weary of no position of her own, she who was to have been a baron’s wife?

  “Thus,” Lady Beatrix continued, “we would be assured they are happy with you.”

  He was not going to like this. “Speak, Lady Beatrix. If I can, I will put your mind at ease. If I cannot, you will have to accept I have good cause.”

  She looked dismayed, then annoyed. “I know once you were betrothed to Lady Laura, and I know you broke the betrothal when—”

  “I did not break it.”

  She blinked.

  “Though I would have had Lady Maude not done so.”

  Her nose wrinkled, reminding him of a rabbit, albeit a beautiful one. “And yet now you shall wed a woman you believe cuckolded you.”

  Bitter laughter broke from him. “Believe? Are you so slow of mind you forget I just met her daughter?”

  Her eyes flew wide, replacing the image of the rabbit with that of a hawk who made prey of that other lovely creature.

  “I am but slow of tongue, Lord Soames. You are the one slow of mind.” She drew a deep breath. “But I make allowances for your ignorance. At least, I hope that is all it is. If ’tis cruelty…” Now she flashed a smile that brought to mind a wolf. “I give warning. Not only does Lady Laura have a friend in my lord husband, but one amongst the Wulfriths.”

  He should not be surprised. “Abel Wulfrith is your brother?”

  “A most beloved brother.”

  Lothaire nodded. “I met him last year upon the barony of Wiltford the day Sir Durand and Lady Beata wed.” Following annulment of Lothaire’s marriage to that lady, which could have ended in spilled blood had he not overtaken the men sent by his mother to murder the newlywed couple, he did not say.

  Lady Beatrix appeared taken aback. “Well, assuredly you know our family’s reputation, even if you have had no occasion to engage my brother at swords.”

  “I have had occasion. Several. He offered to hone my sword skill at Wulfen, and I accepted. Had the queen not summoned me to court and offered a great incentive to wed Lady Laura, I would be training with Sir Abel now.”

  She blinked. “Regardless, as I shall count it an offense should you ill treat Lady Laura and her daughter, so shall my husband and brothers.”

  What offended Lothaire were threats and others’ sins cast upon him. He was not Lord Thierry, Lord Gadot, nor Lord Benton. But as anger rose, it occurred to him had Eleanor not pried back the masks worn by the other suitors, he would want such defenders for Laura. And this lady could not know he was not of the same ilk.

  “Forgive me, Lady Beatrix. I would not argue with you. And certainly I do not want you to think so ill of me to believe the threat of harm to my person is all that holds me from injuring Lady Laura and her daughter. Our circumstances are difficult, but I am no monster. I am a man wronged, the life promised me stolen and replaced with one that shall ever remind me of how much I lost. I accept my marriage will not be happy, but I am determined neither will it be miserable for either of us. Or Clarice.”

  She raised her eyebrows. “I am sorry you do not believe in God.”

  He stood straighter. “I believe in God.”

  “Do you? Then why is it impossible for your marriage to be happy?”

  He blew out a breath. “As told, I do not wish to argue.”

  “Then listen. Though Lady Laura should have defended herself long ere—” She closed up so suddenly, he took a step forward.

  “Of what do you speak, Lady Beatrix?”

  She shook her head. “Anger too much loosens my tongue.”

  “How has Lady Laura not defended herself? And how can you think it possible to do so when—” Now he closed up. It was no secret Lady Maude’s ward was seduced by a visiting knight, though it surely would have been had Laura’s body not betrayed her as she had betrayed Lothaire. But that he would not speak of. Suffice that he knew he should have listened to his mother’s warnings against Delilahs and Jezebels. Suffice he knew he was responsible in part for Laura’s sin. Had he not succumbed to temptation, giving them both a taste of kisses and caresses, she might not have fallen prey to desire and given her virtue to a man who left her with living proof of her shame.

  Lady Beatrix sighed. “Only one more thing shall I say, Lord Soames, then I will leave you to your rest. Do you gain Lady Laura’s trust—give her cause to love you again—I believe God will bless your marriage far beyond the ability to tolerate each other.”

  He needed to gain Laura’s trust? He needed to give her reason to love him? “You have said it, Lady Beatrix.” He gripped the door’s edge. “I shall see you at supper.”

  She inclined her head and turned so swiftly her fat braid whipped against the door jamb.

  The morn could not come soon enough.

  Chapter 9

  “I thank you,” she said so softly he barely caught the words.

  Lothaire looked at where Laura sat beside him at table. “For?”

  She touched the tip of her tongue to her upper lip as if to moisten it, but seeing it drew his regard, seamed her mouth.

  “For what am I owed gratitude?” he asked again with an edge that had little to do with her delay in answering.

  “I know you do not like my daughter, but you hid it well. The appearance of discomfort is far preferable to loathing.”

  Did she truly believe he disliked a child who had done him no ill? Was that how he presented—as the monster Lady Beatrix also feared?

  He angled toward her, creating a wall between them and Michael D’Arci on his other side. “You wrong me again, Laura.” He caught the widening of her eyes as her familiar name came off his lips. “I do not loathe…Clarice,” he said, though the girl’s name was not easily spoken. “I know she is not to blame for the sins of her parents, that she is merely proof of it.”

  Sparks. Not sparkles.

  “It is discomfort with which I am afflicted,” he continued, “and considering what I once felt for you that I thought you felt for me, methinks I can be forgiven.”

  She looked away, reached to her spoon.

  Impulse made him catch her hand, the sense of being watched by her daughter who sat at the children’s table below the dais made him cradle it. As he stared at her curled fingers, he remembered when she was near on fifteen and he had done the same. As then, he slid a thumb beneath her fingers, eased them open, lowered his head, and pressed his lips to her palm.

  He heard her breath catch, and as he drew back, he marveled that her hand appeared smaller ten years later. But it was no error in memory. She was a bit taller and fuller of breasts and hips, but he was the one who had added to his height those first few years following her betrayal. More, his body had broadened to accommodate muscles required of a man of the sword.

  He had not thought Laura fragile before, and she would not break as easily as the petite Lady Beatrix, but it would not be difficult to snap her in two.

  “Lothaire?”

  He opened eyes he had not meant to close, lifted his chin he had not meant to lower, found her gaze near his.

  A slight smile touched her mouth, and he wondered if she put it there for Clarice. But then she whispered, “Judge me as you will, but do not think those same memories do not haunt me.”

  Unsettled at being read, he nearly spoke words that would cause the blossoming of her hand in his to close up tight as a bud beyond hope of opening. But he did not challenge her, nor say it was a pity she had made ghosts of those memories.

  “How am I your somehow?” she spoke more softly.

  He had hoped she would not remember him naming her that following her collapse in the queen’s apartment, but it did not matter, especially as it had naught to do with the heart. Indeed, it was all business. “I vowed somehow I would save Lexeter,” he said all that needed to be told. Then for Clarice, Michael D’Arci, and Lady Beatrix, he retrieved Laura’s spoon and set its slim handle across the palm to which
the Samson and Ahab in him longed to put his mouth again.

  “I am pleased you are eating better,” he said, and noting her lips had lost their curve, picked up his own spoon.

  “Lord Soames,” Michael D’Arci said. “I understand your lands are mostly given to the commerce of wool. My liege, Baron Lavonne, wishes to expand his grazing lands. Have you advice I may pass to him?”

  To further remind Lothaire he was no longer a young man made foolish by love, the Lord of Castle Soaring could not have chosen a better topic—sheep, the restoration of Lexeter more possible with the concessions gained from his acceptance that Laura was his somehow.

  Only that, he told himself. And wished he believed it.

  On nights like this, when the air was still and sweet and lowered voices the only evidence she was not alone in the world, she liked to walk the inner bailey. Sometimes the outer.

  At Soaring, she ventured to the latter and spent a quarter hour inside the dovecote listening to the gentle birds in their nest-holes, those awakened by her entrance cooing and shushing as if to settle their young ones back to sleep.

  Face tipped up, Laura peered at the circular walls lined all around with roosts. And remembered again Lothaire’s breath and lips upon her palm. She had nearly leaned in to offer her mouth, as once she had done. Would he have hungrily kissed her as once he had done?

  “Lothaire,” she spoke his name, and doves to the left and right responded with a whisper of wings.

  She slid down the wall onto her knees, clasped her hands before her, and prayed for what only the Lord could grant. “For Clarice’s sake above all, Lothaire’s next, mine last, help me find the right moment and words to fix what I did not mean to break. Show me your arms are not so full you cannot hold all of us.”

  Another quarter hour she sought the Lord’s arms and would have continued seeking had she not heard a familiar voice ask after her.

  She pushed upright and opened the door as Michael D’Arci reached for it.

  Concern on his torch-lit brow, he searched her up and down. “My lady wife thinks you gone too long. She sent me to see you returned to the donjon.”