Rosehaven

by Catherine Coulter

  Lady Marjorie turned to Alice, smiled brightly, and said, “What has MacDear planned for our midday dinner?”

  A sharp evening wind came up just when the sun was beginning to set. Hastings had ridden Marella hard for the past three hours. She’d seen two farmers, one of them sitting in an old cart pulled by a swaybacked mare who snorted with every step she took, the other walking bent over, a thicket of cut hay strapped to his back.

  Neither of them paid her any attention. The one farmer did look at Marella, a combination of wistfulness and greed in his eyes. She didn’t blame him.

  Her bow and six arrows were snug against her side. She had practiced a good dozen times to get her bow notched quickly were outlaws to attack her. She was fast now.

  She slowed Marella. She had come to the top of a small rise. Nestled in the valley below was a village filled with small thatch-roofed cottages. She would simply have to go around it.

  Marella, sensing that a warm stable was near, was none too happy to be steered away from the village. She reared on her hind feet, but Hastings, well used to her palfrey’s ways, wasn’t moved. “All right, we’ll stop soon. It grows late. We’re both hungry. Aye, I’ll find you a nice stream and thick grass. Trust me, Marella, you do not wish Lord Severin to catch up with us.”

  The cold wind eased off a bit. Then it just became a mild breeze. This was not the England she knew. Perhaps this was a sign that good luck would follow her. Perhaps she would find this Rosehaven before any outlaws found her.

  But what about Severin?

  She shuddered, remembering clearly what it felt like to shove her feet into his groin. She’d felt his shock in that instant, his disbelief, the quivering of coming pain.

  He had deserved it. He would have hurt her and probably her babe as well.

  She found a perfect place to tether Marella some thirty minutes later. After seeing to her horse, she spread the blanket on the grassy slope that rolled gently to the stream and went through her belongings. Not much.

  Three loaves of bread.

  The bread was delicious. She forced herself to eat only one loaf, then slid down the slope to drink the cold water.

  Night was falling fast.

  She left Marella saddled, just in case, apologizing to her all the while. She gathered her bow and arrows close, closed her hand over the knife handle, and pulled the blanket around her.

  “Wot’s a mere lad doing with a mare like that? Think ye the little blighter thieved her?”

  Hastings was awake in an instant, frozen still at the sound of the man’s voice. He was whispering, but the night was very still. She heard every word. She could practically see another man shrugging. How many were there?

  “Ease yer knife in his ribs and let’s take the mare.”

  “Ye saw, he’s a pretty boy. We can sell him.”

  “Lookee, we watched him, believing his kin were close, but there’s no one here but the boy. Let him be. He’d be too much trouble. I jest want the mare.”

  There were just two of them.

  Not that it would matter. Her luck had run out.

  They were too close for her to use her bow and arrows.

  Slowly, holding her breath, Hastings closed her hand around the knife handle. It wasn’t well balanced, a perfect weapon for killing, like Severin’s was. No, it belonged to Master Thomas the baker. She just prayed it would slice a man as well as it did bread.

  She felt the ground moving as one of the men walked to her. Just one, thank God. She waited, ready.

  She opened her eyes, saw him over her, staring down at her, the knife raised.

  “So ye’re awake, are ye?”

  “Aye, you filth.” She brought the knife up, felt it slide so easily into his belly, felt the vomit rise in her throat, and quickly jerked the knife out of him. He was still over her, staring down at her, so surprised that he opened his mouth but only blood came out, not words.

  “Ye done with the boy?”

  She had no choice. She plunged the knife in again, this time higher, into his chest. The knife point hit a rib and wouldn’t go any farther. The man howled, twisted over, and fell to his side.

  “Wot’s the matter?” The other man was at his side. As for Hastings, she was on her feet, running to Marella.

  The man wheezed out, “The little whoreson struck me down and kilt me.”

  Hastings was on Marella’s back in an instant. The other man was running toward her, yelling curses. Marella reared on her hind legs and struck the man hard in the chest.

  He went over backward with a grunt.

  It was at that moment that she heard more curses. Hideous curses curdled with the names of body parts and animals. This man wasn’t whispering. He was roaring.

  She recognized that voice.

  She kicked Marella’s fat sides. Her palfrey couldn’t move. There were three men on horseback blocking her. Hastings whipped her about to see Severin sitting on his horse behind her, three more men at his back. How had he positioned his men so quickly? Curse him.

  She slid off Marella’s back, ducked around a stallion, and ran into the forest, Severin’s curses following her.

  The curses stopped. The feet pounding the ground behind her didn’t.

  Something huge and hard hit her square in the back, flinging her forward. She fell flat on her face, the boulder flattening her down.

  “I should let you play the fool in my castle,” he said close to her ear. “My men would never stop their laughter. All you would have to do is recount what you have done this day, Hastings, nothing more.”

  He was breaking her back, but she didn’t say a word. It would have been difficult because her mouth was pressed into the earth.

  Severin rolled off her and came up to sit beside her. At least there was a half-moon. She didn’t move for the longest time, just lay there. He knew he hadn’t killed her with his lunge because her ribs were going in and out. Her face was flat down. Good, he hoped she had a mouth of earth. Mayhap a worm or two.

  Then, finally, she pulled herself back onto her knees. Her head was down and she was breathing slowly, with difficulty. He merely watched her, saying nothing.

  She sat back on her heels. She said at last, “No matter what you had done, I doubt I would have stuck Master Thomas’s knife in your belly. You’re my husband, after all.”

  “Where would you have stuck Master Thomas’s knife?”

  She just shook her head. “I don’t know.”

  “I didn’t have time to save you.” He sounded incredibly angry.

  “I didn’t need your help.”

  “No, you didn’t, did you?” He sounded even angrier. Why? “What if there had been a third man?”

  She would be dead, she thought, but didn’t say it aloud. “I would have dealt with him as well.”

  Severin got to his feet, brushed himself down, then just stood there, staring down at her.

  She felt suddenly very weak. Why was that? She started to rise but discovered she couldn’t. She felt a wave of dizziness. She looked down to see the knife on the ground where Severin had thrown her down. She had been carrying the knife.

  She’d fallen on it.

  She touched her fingertips to her side. They were wet and sticky. She looked up at him.

  “You expect me to help you rise? See to yourself, madam.”

  He turned to walk away from her, then said over his shoulder, “If you run again, I will surely make you regret it more than you can imagine.”

  “I won’t run again.”

  “Come then. I am tired and hungry. Then I will deal with you.”

  She tried again to rise. Slowly, slowly, she got to her feet. Even more slowly, she turned to face him. “I can’t come, Severin. You can just leave me here. It doesn’t matter. You have Oxborough, you have Marjorie. Aye, just leave me here.”

  He took a step toward her, his feet planted right in front of her. His hands were on his hips. He sounded like he was ready to do murder. “Do you wish me to strangle you righ
t here, Hastings?”

  Such anger in his voice, she thought, but it didn’t really touch her. All that touched her now were sharp jabs of pain that went deeper with each moment that passed. She felt light-headed. She felt dizzier. The pain was bowing her forward, folding her in on herself.

  “Aye, mayhap it would be better than this,” she said, and with a sigh, she fell to the ground at his feet.

  She heard him cursing again, the ripest words woven with animal parts. Then she felt his warm breath on her face, felt his hand on her side. She made a small sound deep in her throat and was gone from him.

  “Drink this. Don’t turn your head away, Hastings. Drink, you need this.”

  Need what? she wondered, and opened her mouth. It was warm ale with something in it, what, she didn’t know. It tasted wonderful. Until the pain came and she choked, the ale running down her chin onto her chest. She heaved with the pain, jerking upward, then twisting onto her side, anything to avoid it. But she couldn’t. It held her close.

  “Did you poison me?” she whispered. “Is that what I tasted in the wine? Poison?”

  “Shut your mouth. Gwent, help me hold her down. She’ll make the bleeding start again.”

  “Carlic swears the chives he found near the stream will staunch the bleeding. He said he would have bled to death once if his grandmother hadn’t ground it up and fed it to him. We’ll see. No, Hastings, try not to jerk away from me.”

  His face was close to hers now. “Listen to me. Don’t drag air into your throat, it will just make the pain worse. Breathe lightly. That’s right. Focus on my face. No, don’t look away from me, Hastings.”

  “The babe?”

  It was at that moment that he knew he’d been a fool, knew he could have harmed her and his babe when he threw her over his saddle, when he had shoved her down the path to the beach, but he hadn’t believed her.

  But he did now.

  He had gotten her with child. He felt a burst of satisfaction deep within him, a feeling he had never before experienced. It was satisfaction and something else, something else that was deep and now a part of him. He shook his head, leaned close to her, and said, “The babe is fine. The knife went through the fleshy part of your side. There was a lot of bleeding but the wound didn’t go deep. I cleaned it through with hot water. Besides the chives for the bleeding, Carlic found some delphiniums. He said his grandmother gave it to him for toothache, but pain was pain.”

  “Not poison.”

  “No, not poison.”

  She tried to nod, but the pain ground her down. “ Severin.” His name was a whisper of sound.

  “Aye?”

  “Have you ever beaten or strangled a woman?”

  “No. In fact I only began talking about it when I married you. It seems to relieve my spleen.”

  She laughed. It was too much. She gripped his hand, feeling a wave of pain brim through her body. Then, suddenly, it lessened. “The delphiniums,” she whispered, “they are good. I will speak to Carlic about this.”

  “Not just yet.”

  “Mayhap his grandmother still lives.”

  “Mayhap. Sleep now, Hastings.”

  She slipped away, but not for very long. He lifted up the bandage on her side. The wound was bleeding sluggishly. It needed to be stitched. He said to Gwent, “Take two men and go to that village we passed. I don’t want to carry her there, it’s too dangerous. Get me needles and thread, Gwent.”

  The big man shuddered. “I’ll bring what else I can find as well.”

  Severin covered the wound with a pad of clean gray wool. Almost clean wool. Now the second sleeve of his tunic was gone. He hunkered down beside her. When she awoke, he would have her drink more of Carlic’s potion. He looked up to see that his men had made a small fire and were roasting several rabbits. The smell made his stomach sing out. His men had buried the two outlaws. They had found nothing worth keeping on the men.

  She remained awake, of course.

  He cursed.

  “Those animal parts I had never before considered.”

  “They’re useful,” he said, then leaned close. “You know that when Gwent returns with the needle that I must stitch the wound, Hastings. Is there anything I can do so the pain will not be so bad?”

  “Rub some of the delphinium root over it. It will help deaden it.”

  He called to Carlic, who immediately was at his side, the long slender root held out in his hand. “Just rub it on her as it is?”

  “Clean it first in the stream, then hold it close to the fire. It will warm the root and soften its flesh.”

  Severin rubbed it lightly over the skin around the wound. Then he drew in his breath and rubbed it directly into the tear.

  He gave her more of the potion to drink. An hour later Gwent returned with a roll of clean white linen, a skin filled with rich ale, and needles.

  “I am sorry, Hastings. I could get only black thread.”

  She laughed and moaned at the same time.

  “Get it done,” she said to Severin, and turned her head away from him.

  “If you would faint, Hastings, I would be pleased.”

  But she didn’t. He rubbed the delphinium root on the wound again.

  To his relief, she barely jerked when he sank the needle into her flesh. He continued quickly. It did not take long. When he was done, he poured hot ale over the wound, then patted her dry. He made a thick pad of the white linen and pressed it against her. He tied the rest of it around her belly.

  He looked at her belly. She was flat.

  “When will the babe make you round?”

  “By the fall,” she said. “Thank you, Severin.”

  He did not sleep for a very long time. He sat cross-legged, watching the fire burn itself into embers. His men all slept, many of them snoring as loud as Edgar the wolfhound. His wife was with child. He still could not quite grasp it.

  She moaned, turning onto her side.

  He gently pressed her again onto her back. Her eyes opened. She raised her hand, lightly touching her fingertips to his jaw.

  “I don’t know what to do, Severin. I had not meant to stab myself with the knife. I do not think I am able to run from you now.”

  “I hope you will not want to run from me ever again.”

  She could only stare at him. “Marjorie will not continue to be your mistress, Severin. She wants my place.”

  “She is not my mistress.”

  Hastings closed her eyes and turned her head away from him.

  24

  “YOU HAVE LOVED ME SINCE I WAS TWELVE YEARS OLD.”

  “Aye, I loved you with a boy’s unformed passion.”

  “Your passion was not unformed when you took my virginity.”

  He remembered, she saw it in his dark eyes. He remembered and he wanted her again. Severin gently kicked his horse’s sides. Marjorie called after him, “Did you know your child was in my womb when I married that old man?”

  He whirled around in the saddle.

  “Aye, it’s true. When that filthy old whoreson discovered that I wasn’t a virgin, he beat me. I lost the babe. He enjoyed that. Perhaps now I am barren, for my second husband never got me with child.”

  “You were only married to him for two years. That is too short a time to be sure of such a thing.”

  “His name was Keith. I hated that name. He was not like you are, Severin. He was weak and easily led. His father criticized him constantly. Both of them died within months of each other. I was glad, but I was left with nothing. If the king had forgotten that he was indebted to Keith, then I would be some man’s leman now, just to survive. You should not have left me, Severin. I should have been your wife, not this one at Oxborough.”

  “I could do nothing else. Had I taken you with me all those years ago, we would not have survived. I was a boy, strong for my age, skilled in weaponry, and loyal, but I had nothing, Marjorie. Nothing. I had to make my own way, you know that. Even when I returned, it was to find my lands devastated. I still ha
d little enough. Were it not for the king and Lord Graelam de Moreton, I would not now be the Earl of Oxborough.”

  “You still love me.”

  “I thought that I loved you when I was a boy, but I have learned it is folly to believe in such a thing. There is lust. That commodity flourishes everywhere. It is what makes men behave like fools, witness what Sir Roger did at Langthorne. He betrayed me because of his lust for this girl. Aye, there is nothing more than lust. It can be controlled if a man manages not to forget who and what he is. And there is responsibility and duty. There is rarely peace at Oxborough, but then again, there is rarely boredom either.”

  “It is because of her that there is no peace.”

  “Aye, you’re right about that. I am married to her, Marjorie. It is done. Why did you tell me that Hastings had begun her monthly flux?”

  “I did not. I merely told you that she complained of belly cramps and said she had to change her gown. It is obvious, is it not?”

  “Evidently not. Hastings is with child.”

  “So,” Marjorie said very slowly, looking out over the sea, glimmering bright green today beneath a golden sun, her hand shading her eyes, “that is how she plans to hold you. That is why you are withdrawing from me.”

  Severin leaned forward to pat his warhorse’s neck. “I do not believe that Hastings has any particular wish to hold me at the moment. Nor did I ever believe that a woman could make herself pregnant just by wishing it so.”

  “Ah, but she could seduce you to her bed and that is what she has done.”

  Severin only stared at her, remembering those precious few times Hastings had come to him, kissing him, telling him how she wanted him. There had been too few times.

  “She is jealous of me. She knows that it is I you would prefer to have as your wife.”

  “Aye, she is jealous of you. Once you return to Sedgewick she will forget. As to her being with child, why, that is one of my responsibilities. I must have an heir.”