Summoning a tone of weary disinterest, she said “Is there any woman in this castle you haven’t slept with?” then turned and began to pull the door open.
It closed with an explosive slam that made her ears ring. She found herself pinned facing the door, his hands on either side of her head, his heaving chest pressed to her back.
“Martine.” He spoke quietly, obviously straining for control. “About Lady Estrude and... and the baby. Don’t judge me without knowing how it happened.”
“Oh, I think I know how it happened.”
She grabbed the doorknob, but he took her by the shoulders and turned her to face him. Hugging her mantle closed, she looked away from his intense blue eyes. He shut them for a moment and took a deep breath. “Does anyone else know about this?”
She kept her gaze averted. “Felda suspects.”
He nodded thoughtfully. “I’ll talk to her. She mustn’t reveal this. Nor must you. If Bernard finds out—”
“He’ll kill you, I know.”
“I can take care of myself. But Estrude is helpless against him. God knows I’ve no affection for the woman, but—”
“That’s right,” she said coldly, looking him in the eye. “I understand you never waste affection on your bed partners. You care more for those birds of yours than the women you use and then toss aside.”
She turned her head again, but he took her by the chin and forced her to face him. He had the grace to look affronted. He was a good actor, but then he would have to be, to have the kind of success he had with women.
“Is that what you think I’ve done to you?” he asked, looking convincingly pained. “Used you and tossed you aside?”
“You deny it?” He opened his mouth to speak, but she cut him off with a more pointed question. “What did you think would happen between us after... after this morning?”
“I didn’t think. It all happened so fast, and I felt so overwhelmed, so...” He dragged his hands through his hair. “When you went to the river and I thought you might kill yourself, I just panicked. Nothing mattered except finding you and—”
“And making sure I stayed alive long enough to marry Sir Edmond so that you could earn your precious—”
He seized her by the shoulders. “Martine, you can’t think that’s why I—”
“Enough of your lies!” she cried, shaking him off. “I’m sick to death of your lies. You needed me alive for your own purposes, and that’s why you followed me.”
“Then why did I make love to you?” he asked hoarsely.
“Because I was... convenient. You bed whomever is handy and spare naught a care for the damage you do to their lives. You’re no better than Jourdain.”
Gravely he said, “Martine, it’s not like you think. Your perceptions are tainted by memories of your father, but you mustn’t assign his sins to me. I have enough of my own.”
“God knows that’s true.”
He gently stroked her face, and she squeezed her eyes shut, reminding herself it was all an act, it meant nothing. “I know you feel used,” he said softly. “I know you feel hurt—”
Her eyes flew open and she flinched from his touch. “Not at all,” she lied. The less he knew of his power to hurt her, the better it would be for her. “You’re wrong when you say I wasn’t thinking when I... when we... I knew exactly what I was doing. I was using you the same as you were using me. I’d wanted to take a lover before my marriage, for the experience. You were available, and willing. That’s all it meant to me.”
He searched her eyes. She held his gaze for as long as possible before looking down.
“I don’t believe it,” he said quietly.
She raised her chin. “Believe what you like.” She turned and reached again for the doorknob, but he closed his hand over hers. “Is there some point to detaining me?”
Long moments passed before he slowly withdrew his hand.
“I thought not,” she said, and left.
Chapter 15
Thorne, on horseback, watched from far up the road as the wedding procession approached the barony chapel, cheered on by an enormous crowd of villeins. First came the hired musicians strumming their lutes and pounding their Spanish drums, their multicolored costumes exceptionally bright under the harsh noon sun...
And then came Martine, seated sidesaddle on a gaily decorated mule led by her brother. At the church door, Rainulf lifted her down from her mount and presented her to Father Simon. Edmond, his family, and all of the knights and retainers of Harford followed and dismounted, but Thorne spared them not a glance; his gaze was riveted on the bride.
She looked like a goddess of the North in ermine-trimmed gold brocade, her hair plaited in two long braids interwoven with gold threads. A veil of tissue-thin sendal silk floated around her, secured by a jeweled coronet. She was regal, ethereal... and haunting.
It was her eyes that made her so, eyes glazed with a kind of dreamlike melancholy, as if she had been drained of all of life’s pleasures and had resigned herself to its woes.
It wasn’t until Edmond joined Martine on the church steps and took her hand in his that Thorne was able to wrest his gaze from her. With an angry yank on the reins, he swung his mount around and galloped full speed away from Harford.
He’d go to Hastings, that’s what he’d do. He’d go to Hastings and make himself forget.
* * *
The whores all brightened when Thorne walked into the brothel. Those without customers, and even a few with, swarmed to him like bees to sweet balm, taking his mantle, bringing him mead, and vying noisily for his patronage.
Fat Nan soon took matters in hand, grabbing girls by their hair and yanking them aside to clear a path for her formidable girth. “Back off, you squawking hens!” she berated them in English. “He’ll make his choice in due time. Let the man breathe!”
Smiling sweetly, she offered Thorne her plump hand, and he kissed it. “Haven’t seen you in some time, Sir Falconer,” she said. “And I must say I’m surprised you picked this afternoon to pay us a visit. Ain’t there a wedding at Harford Castle today?”
He drained his cup. “Weddings bore me.”
Nan locked her arm with his. “Well, we ain’t boring. Are we, girls?”
“Nay! Nay!” they chorused, crowding around again to offer their services.
Freckle-faced Tilda, whom Thorne had tupped once last summer and avoided since, called to him from the lap of her customer. “What about me, Sir Falconer? I got rid of them bugs.”
“I liked them bugs,” said the customer, one of the regulars, a red-faced wool boiler. “They made you frisky! For once you didn’t just lie there like a bag of turnips.”
Tilda looked bored. “Did you ever stop to wonder why a girl’s gotta have a crotchful of insects before you can get her to squirm?”
A black-haired girl trailed her fingers through Thorne’s hair. “This one just looks at me and I squirm!”
Thorne saw that his cup had been refilled, and he quickly drank it down. “Where’s Emeline?” he asked.
There was instant silence in the brothel. Someone whispered, “He don’t know!”
“Nan?” said Thorne.
Nan crossed her massive arms. “Emeline got her neck broke.”
“Sweet Jesus.” Someone poured some more mead into his cup, and he swallowed it automatically. “What happened?”
More silence, uncomfortable silence, until Tilda spoke up. “‘Twas one of them Harford dogs.”
“Tilda!” Nan hissed.
“I ain’t telling him who.”
“Well, you better not,” Nan warned. “‘Twould be worth your life, and ours, as well you know.”
“You were threatened if you talked?” Thorne asked Tilda.
“Aye, we was told we’d get what Emeline got if we didn’t keep mum. And we got sixpence apiece from the cheap bastard.” She spat into the rushes.
It was Bernard himself, most likely. There were rumors that he’d killed a whore about twenty years ago, th
e crime having been hushed up through the influence of Lord Olivier, who had always been fond of his former squire. But although Bernard suffered no formal punishment for the murder, news of it gradually infiltrated every noble house in southern England. That was one of the reasons he’d had to go all the way to Flanders for a bride; there wasn’t a baron or knight in all of Sussex who would betroth his daughter to him after that. Yes, it was most likely Bernard, but why, after all these years of keeping his nose clean, had he done it again? He was vicious, but he wasn’t stupid.
Nan patted his hand. “I know you fancied Emeline. But I got a new girl to take her place, and you’ll like her just as well, I wager.” She turned and waved a girl over. “Wilona?”
A young woman in a pink wrapper stepped forward, grinning. She was fairly pretty, with all her front teeth, and pale blond hair pinned up in two coiled braids. It was the blond hair that clinched it. “She’ll do,” he said.
She led him upstairs to a curtained-off alcove he’d been in many times before, but always at night. It looked squalid in the muted daylight from the shuttered window, and smelled of sour rushes and quick sex.
Wilona shrugged her wrapper off and lay down unceremoniously on a straw pallet covered with a stained blanket.
“Take down your hair,” he said.
After a moment’s hesitation, she sat up and did as he said. Her hair fell only to the middle of her back, and was thin and lank. “Do you like it?” she asked. “Does it look like hers?” Thorne just stared at her. “I can always tell. You can call me by her name if you want. I don’t mind.”
Christ. He went to the window and opened the shutters. It was a cool day, and the air, although it reeked of sewage and ale, felt good on his face. Beyond this rank, narrow street, he could see Bulverhythe Harbor, crowded this afternoon with boats, its docks piled high with goods pouring in from northern France.
He remembered how she had looked, half hidden on the deck of the Lady’s Slipper, smiling that shy, mysterious smile.
From behind him, Wilona said, “Come on, what’s her name?”
Her name is Martine, he thought, gazing at the distant horizon. Martine of Rouen. And her hair is nothing like yours, and she looks nothing like you. She’s nothing like any other woman in the world.
And I can’t have her. I can never have her. She can never be mine.
God help me to get through this day, he prayed. And then the next, and the next, and the next, without going mad from needing her, without dying a little inside every time I think about her, which is every moment of the day, or see her, which, God help me, makes me want to gather her up and ride off with her and...
And what?
Leaning his elbows on the windowsill, he buried his face in his hands. And what, indeed? Martine had avoided him utterly since that painful night in the hawk house. She clearly felt hurt and angry, but in his heart he knew she cared for him, knew their lovemaking had been more than the coldhearted exercise she claimed it was. A thousand times this past fortnight he had challenged himself to find a way to be with her, to keep her... and a thousand times he had realized, in despair, that it was impossible.
It all came down to property, of course. Right now he had nothing: no home, no wealth, no land. Were he to marry Martine, Godfrey would dismiss him in disgrace, and he would have to abandon all that he had pursued with such single-minded determination for the past ten years—his falcons, his knighthood, and the holding Godfrey had promised him. Could he bring himself to give it up? That was a question he had trouble answering. For all that Martine meant to him, he couldn’t just casually dismiss a decade’s worth of struggle, sweat, and hope.
The question was academic, anyway. Even if he did make that sacrifice for her, then what? Where would they go? What would they do? They would be poor, bitterly poor, and homeless. Perhaps he could make a living as a woodsman, but there was no guarantee of that, given the rate at which land was being claimed under Forest Law. He could hire himself out as a mercenary soldier, but then he would have to leave her, and there was hardly any point to that. And what of Martine? It was bad enough to give up his own hopes and dreams. How could he subject her to a life of deprivation when she could live in luxury as Edmond’s wife?
Wilona sighed impatiently. “Come on, sir, let’s have us a bit of fun. Take off them things and come on over here.”
Edmond’s wife. He rubbed his fists on his forehead. By now, the ceremony would be over, the vows spoken, the rings exchanged, and there would be feasting and rejoicing in the great hall. After the celebration, there would be the ritual blessing of the marriage bed at Edmond’s new home. And then Father Simon and the witnesses would leave, and Martine and Edmond would be alone...
“God help me,” he muttered.
“What’s that, love?” Wilona said, yawning.
He shook his head. Don’t think about it, for God’s sake. She’s his wife by now. It’s done. You’ll get over it. You’ll get over her. Little by little, the pain will go away. You’ll care less and less as time goes on.
He never should have let himself care at all, of course. He had forgotten himself, lost all self-control, and his foolish, unchecked feelings had led to the madness at the riverbank. Ah, what sweet madness, though. I lived among madmen once, he had told her. Some of them were even happy. He’d never known such abandon, such ecstasy, never known that in uniting his body with a woman’s, he could join his very soul to hers. He’d been awestruck, rocked to the very core of his being. And yes, he’d been happy. For a brief time, in his sweet, unthinking madness, he’d even been happy.
But that happiness had, of course, come with a price. And now, in his anguish, he was paying it.
“Sir? It costs the same whether you do me or not, so you may as well do me. Your time will be up soon.”
He turned around. She had her legs spread and her arms open. He went to her, reached into his tunic, and withdrew his purse. She sat up, the sting of rejection in her eyes. But when he shook out a far too generous handful of coins, the hurt turned to awe at the sight of all that silver.
Taking her hand in his, he filled it with the coins and closed her fingers around them. “You’re very pretty,” he said. “And you have beautiful hair. The problem is mine, not yours.”
As he left, he heard her pouring the money from one hand to the other. “No wonder you’re so popular with the girls!” she called out. “You can ask for me anytime!”
* * *
Kneeling beside Edmond, Martine stared out the window of the bedchamber as Simon mumbled his Latin and swung his censer over the big rosemary-strewn bed, trailing streams of aromatic smoke.
Her new home was much like the prior’s lodge at St. Dunstan’s, a big stone house with a kitchen on the ground floor and living quarters above, although it had but one bedchamber; the rest was an open hall. It was a short ride from Harford Castle and surrounded on all sides by a flat lawn ringed with dense woods.
The unusually large window afforded her a good view of the yard on that side. She studied the moonlit grass below, contemplating the best spot for her herb garden, the one she would spend the winter planning and the spring sowing. It was all she had thought about all day, even during the wedding, especially then, when she couldn’t bear to think about what she was doing, about the overwhelming, irrevocable step she was taking... about Thorne.
She had pictured the garden in her mind—borage here, chamomile there, perhaps a border of silky wormwood—amending and rearranging the pattern over and over as she spoke her vows at the church door, scattered coins to the peasants, endured the wedding mass, and ducked beneath the shower of seeds that greeted her as she left the chapel hand in hand with Edmond: Edmond, in his long, elegant tunic with his dirty, ragged fingernails... Edmond, with his feral good looks and his breath like rancid meat... Edmond, now swaying drunkenly on his knees as this last tiresome rite of marriage concluded.
Rainulf kissed her cheek, whispered “‘Twill be all right, you’ll see,” and left w
ith Father Simon and Lord Godfrey. Felda led her into the hall, dressed her in a silken shift and wrapper, brushed out her hair, and dabbed her with fragrant oils.
When Martine took a deep, shaky breath, Felda said, “You oughtn’t to be nervous, milady. Not with a bridegroom who’s as scared as that one in there.”
“Scared?”
“Why do you think he’s got himself so sotted? If you ask me, he’s terrified of you. I can see it in his eyes every time he looks your way.”
“Why, for God’s sake?”
Felda shrugged. “I think it’s because you belong to a different world from him. You can read and play chess and talk about something other than hunting and whor—” She bit her lip and glanced sheepishly at her mistress. “I’d best getting to bed, milady.” She reached out with both fleshy hands and pinched Martine’s cheeks until they burned, nodding approvingly at the results. “And so should you,” she added with a wink as she turned and disappeared down the stairs.
It was some time before Martine could work up the courage to return to the bedchamber. When she did, she found Edmond facedown in the rushes, snoring. With a silent prayer of gratitude, she swept the rosemary sprigs off the bed, climbed under the covers, wrapper and all, and gave herself up to the blessed numbness of sleep.
* * *
“Do you suppose he’s dead, milady?” Felda asked.
The two women stood on either side of Edmond, still prone in the rushes, unaware of the late morning sun streaming in through the bedchamber window.
Martine sighed. “Probably not.”
Felda shot her a curious look, then leaned over her mistress’s comatose husband. “Sir Edmond, wake up! We’re due back at the castle for the noon meal. They’re expecting us.” Edmond didn’t move. “Please, sir. Milady’s brother leaves on pilgrimage today. She’s wanting to say good-bye to him.”
Shaking her head, Martine squatted next to him. “Give me a hand, Felda. Let’s roll him over.” With Martine pushing and Felda pulling, they managed to turn him faceup. He grunted but didn’t open his eyes. His normally swarthy complexion looked gray, his mouth gaped open, and rushes clung to one side of his face. Martine peeled one off, which left a dark mark like a fresh scar.
Lords of Conquest Boxed Set Page 158
