by Tamara Leigh
He retrieved his horse, sped over the land before the castle, and did not look back. Only when leagues separated him from all he had lost did he dismount and let his emotions make a boy of him.
In the sight of God, tears spilled from burning eyes, blood pounded in his ears, curses tore from his throat, and every muscle strained as he shook his fists at Clemencia de Vere. When he exhausted himself, the sun had sunk low and shadows crept over the land.
Kneeling beside a stream, he splashed chill water over his face and vowed that never would he be made a fool as his father had been. Never would he fawn over a woman as his friend, Bernart, did his betrothed.
As he sat back on his heels, a vision of the fair Juliana rose before him, she of fanciful notions of romance and chivalry her mother had learned at Queen Eleanor’s Court of Love. Based on the pure and noble love of a man for an unattainable woman—be she wed, of higher rank, or physically distanced—the concept of unconsummated love was something silly women sighed over. And some went beyond the bounds of bittersweet suffering. Women like Clemencia de Vere.
When Juliana grew into her woman’s body, would she prove no better than the one who had borne him—selfish, deceitful, wanton? Likely.
God help Bernart Kinthorpe.
CHAPTER ONE
Barony of Tremoral
England, March 1195
“I want a son.”
The words flung themselves into Juliana’s consciousness. Thinking she had not heard right, she looked up from the ledger.
Bernart stood before the dais upon which the lord’s table was raised, eyes alive with such hunger a shiver went through her.
“A son, Husband?”
“A son.”
Knowing he would not jest about something so sensitive, she glanced past him. Where minutes earlier servants had bustled about clearing the remains of the evening meal, the hall stood empty save for the young woman who sat before the hearth. As usual, Bernart overlooked Juliana’s sister, as if he could not see Alaiz any better than she could see him.
“Forgive me,” she said, “but I do not understand.”
He ascended the dais, pressed bloated hands to the table, and 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 black moods, she pushed the ledger aside and folded her hands atop the table. “You know better than I that can never be.”
Pain flickered across his face. “It can be.”
Though he was careful to avoid alcohol, she wondered if he had been drinking and breathed in the air between them. Catching no great scent, she said softly, “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 raise him as if he were.”
She raised her eyebrows. “You propose to bring another man’s child into our home?”
“Aye, through you.”
She startled. “Me?”
The hunger in his eyes deepened. “It would be your son, born of your body and your blood.”
His words striking with the force of a blow, she sat back hard. “What say you, Bernart?”
Limp more pronounced than usual, he came around the table and lowered into the chair beside hers. “I love you, Juliana.” He took her hands in his. “We were meant to be together. We are one.”
There was a time she had believed that. “What say you?” she repeated.
“If you…” His voice cracked as it did when he was not careful to modulate it. “Were you to lie with another, you could give me a son.”
She could not move, could not speak, could only stare at the one who asked the unthinkable of her.
Wake up, Juliana, she bade her sleeping self. Wake up and find yourself clinging to your side of the bed as you do every morn.
Bernart lowered his head and pressed his brow to the backs of her hands. “Do this for me, fair Juliana, and no more will I ask of you.”
She wrenched free and jumped to her feet. “I am your wife, not a—”
Out of the corner of her eye glimpsing her sister’s startle, Juliana closed her mouth. Lest Alaiz become an object of Bernart’s wrath, she swung away and descended the dais.
As she neared the hearth, her sister rose from the bench. Uncertainty making her appear younger than her seventeen years—shoulders shrugged up, lower lip caught between her teeth—she narrowed her lids in an attempt to center her sister in her ever-contracting and increasingly blurred field of vision.
Juliana halted before her and laid a hand on her shoulder that radiated heat and the scent of smoke. Ever she sat too near the fire. “Go abovestairs,” she said softly.
Alaiz loosed her teeth’s grip on her lip. “You are angry.”
“Worry not. ’Tis a small thing easily remedied.” Such a lie! Juliana drew her forward and pointed her toward the stairs. “Now 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 spread its shadows—only enough to ensure if she happened upon anything in her path, she had time to alter her measured and counted steps. As she neared the stairs, silence descended. Fearing it, Juliana turned.
Bernart’s gaze was fixed on her sister.
What was he thinking? Embarrassed as he was by Alaiz, he quickly looked away when she fell beneath his regard. Now he followed her progress with interest that made Juliana’s heart convulse.
Please, God, she silently beseeched as she started back, cast out the demon that puts such schemes in his head.
He stood as she neared. “You will do it, Juliana?”
She swallowed hard. “Truly, you would have me give myself to another man? Commit adultery?”
“Were my need not great, I would not ask it of you.”
Grasping for reason in a world that could not possibly exist, she said as level as she could, “Were a child born of such an unholy union, it would not be yours. Not of your body or your blood.”
“But he would be of yours. That is enough for me.” He reached to her.
She sidestepped. “How can you ask this? And why?”
The struggle to control his temper visible in fists that shone white, he said, “I am without an heir.”
“You have an heir. Your brother, Osbern—”
“Is not my brother!”
She shook her head. “Deny him you may, but his blood is your blood. The child you would have me bear would be misbegotten—could never be recognized as your heir.”
“No one but you and I would know the circumstances of his birth.”
She blinked. Were he not drunk, then crazed.
“I have thought long on it, Juliana. ’Tis what I want.”
“What you want? What of me? Nay, you will not make of me a Tamar!”
His upper lip curled, brow furrowed. “A what?”
It was long since she had thought on the story Alaiz had uncovered years ago. Though Juliana had named it scandalous, her sister had been fascinated and a bit smug to be privy to a tale neither had heard pass a priest’s lips. “I speak of the woman in the Bible who disguised herself as a prostitute to steal a babe from her father-in-law.”
He scowled. “I now naught of that, nor do I wish to. And do not think to talk of God anywhere near me.”
She set a trembling hand on his arm. “You may have turned from Him, but He hears what you say and shall see what you do—what you would have me do!”
He snatched free. “You think I fear Him? The one for whom I fought in the Holy Land? The one who did not answer prayers to give me victory?”
Though she knew he had been betrayed by the friend with whom he had set off for the Holy Land, never had she spoken aloud the one thing he would not consider. But she did so now in the hope of jolting him back to sanity. “He gave King Richard victory—in His time, not yours.�
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His eyes flew wide, then he thrust his face near hers. “Silence, Woman!”
She did not flinch. “What you ask of me is wrong, Bernart. It will pervert our wedding vows and mightily displease God.”
“Ha! What more can He do to me he has not already done?”
A scream was building inside her, but she pushed it down and put between her teeth, “If you will not consider the fate of your soul, consider mine.”
He turned away, quickly came back around. “Have you not a hundred times told me God is forgiving? Aye, so I need not worry over your soul. Do I give you no choice, you will be forgiven.”
She gasped. “No choice?”
His mouth opened, closed, and a muscle jerked at a corner of his mouth. “Ever you have wanted children. A half dozen, you said. Remember?”
How she remembered! Unable to stand the sight of him, she turned her shoulder to him and set her gaze on the tapestry that scaled the wall behind the table. “I wish children, but not like this. Never like this.”
He stepped to her back and curled his hands around her upper arms. “’Tis the only way.”
“Then I shall be childless.” Just as she had accepted long ago.
The spit of an oath sprayed her ear and the side of her neck, and 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 had bred only indifference between lord and lady?
Bernart’s fingers dug into her arms. “They say I am not man enough—infertile or women not to my taste.”
For the latter, he rejected his brother. Not that Osbern flaunted that the gentle sex were not to his taste. He simply did not bury it so deep it could not be unearthed. Thus, Bernart sought to prove his lost manhood.
Of a sudden, he dropped his chin onto his chest and leaned into her. Shoulders that had once been firm and thick with muscle convulsing, he groaned. “I can bear it no longer.”
Though her small frame quivered beneath the weight he made her support, she stood unmoving.
He raised his head. “I beseech you, give me a son.”
Not since their wedding night following his return from the crusade had his eyes shined so brightly. It was then he had revealed the injury dealt by the infidel and that she would be his wife in name only. Never to know his intimate touch. Never to bear his children.
Rising above her own sorrow, she had told him it did not matter and tried to comfort him, but he had cried that it did matter and thrust her away. With every passing day since, his bitterness pushed them further apart, so much it felt as if the crack between them had become a ravine.
“Bernart,” she whispered and laid a hand on his jaw—so utterly smooth and 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 had departed for the Holy Land, she had been but ten and five and he a young man worthy and capable of love.
“You know ’tis so,” she lied.
He nodded. “Had I not been faithful ere we wed, just as you required of me, I would have a son. True, misbegotten, but of my loins.”
A sound almost a whimper passed her lips, and she dropped her hand to her side. “Mayhap you do have one.” Only when she had found him with one of her father’s servants had she demanded his vow of celibacy—six months before he left on crusade.
“You think I have not searched?” he growled.
Had he? “I…did not know.”
His nostrils flared. “Because of you, I am denied a child of my blood. 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. I know you are hurting—”
“You know naught!” He shook her so forcefully her head snapped back, then shoved her against the tapestry. “All I ask is for you to give back some of what I sacrificed for you, and you deny me.”
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.
He wanted to strike her—it was in his eyes—but he pushed off her and swung away. With high-pitched curses that belied his earlier attempt to deepen his voice, he knocked over her 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 flecked Juliana’s bodice.
For some moments, she stared at the ink spreading like disease across the colorful threads, then gathered herself, descended the dais, and started across the hall.
Silence fell, but as she neared the stairs, Bernart called, “What of your sister?”
Feet nearly stuttering out from under her, she halted and silently beseeched, Dear Lord, do not let him be that far gone from the man I loved.
When Alaiz’s sight had begun to deteriorate at the age of thirteen, ruining her prospects for marriage, their parents had schooled her for the Church. Being of a studious disposition, 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 spend her life serving the Lord. Had Bernart not agreed to allow Alaiz to live with them, the verbal abuse doled out by the guardian could have turned dangerous. But must Juliana pay for Bernart’s concession with the fouling of her body?
Slowly, she turned.
Looking the predator in spite of his flaccid figure and limp, he advanced on her. “When Alaiz had nowhere to go,” he said, “I accepted her into my home.”
She lifted her chin. “My sister serves me well.”
His laughter was coarse. Mean. “’Tis you who dresses her. A lady in waiting! She is an imbecile.”
Juliana rushed forward and swept back a hand to strike him, but he caught her wrist and jerked it down between their chests. “She is of no use. An embarrassment.”
“Do not speak such of her!”
“It is the truth. 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 the love of him she had not. Only when he had refused to allow Alaiz to live at Tremoral had she threatened to reveal his secret. He had agreed, but not for love of her.
“Juliana?”
Now he held all the power. “You are cruel.”
“I am what you make me.” He put his face near hers. “If you will not give me a son for love of me, do it for Alaiz.”
She longed to cry at the injustice. “Truly, you would send my sister away?”
The man her girl’s heart had loved flickered in his eyes, but that was all. “I shall return her to her mother—and guardian.”
Not the Bernart who had set out on that fateful crusade six years past, but the man he had become…
She straightened to her full height of three fingers above five feet. “Never will I forgive you.”
“You will do it?”
“Have I a choice?”
Relief dropped his shoulders. “I thank you.”
She snatched her wrist free. “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.”
She gasped. “You would kill him?”
He paused. Keeping his back to her, he said, “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 ’tis not by death he keeps your secret, how? You will pay him to bed me?”
He shifted his jaw. “He will not know ’tis you who comes to him. Thus, no payment will be necessary.”
“He will not know?” she cried. “Pray, how will you arrange that?”
“Enough!” He backhanded the air, barely missing her face.
She blinked, stared, then said, “I shall pray for your soul,” and strode to the stairs. Upon the first steps, she swung around. “What if he does not get me with child?”
His answer came without hesitation. “When is your next monthly flux?”
Though tempted to lie so he would not know when she was most fertile, 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.”
Nausea roiled, burned. “If ’tis a daughter, will you ask it of me again?”
As if he had not considered that event, his brow grew more lined. “I will not.”
Though he longed for a son, a daughter would prove his manhood. “Give me your word.”
“’Tis yours.”
Now to distance herself from the man who had fed her girl’s dreams of love.
As she began her ascent of the stairs, he called, “Forgive me, Juliana.”
She did not look back. Upon reaching the landing, she traversed the corridor to its farthest end and entered the chamber most distant from the lord’s solar.
Alaiz halted her advance toward her bed, turned, and narrowed her eyes to make sense of her sister’s indistinct figure. “Are you well, Juliana?”
She who must do the unthinkable…the vile…the ungodly? She took her sister’s arm and lowered with her to the mattress edge. “I am well.”
Alaiz clasped her hands in her lap and lowered her chin as if to look close upon them. “Bernart does not like me.”
