Chosen for the Marriage Bed (24 page)

‘I’m sorry I could not save her.’

‘I loved her. Jane was the only mother I ever knew.’

‘Then I owe her a great debt for watching over my wife for me.’

‘First she loved my mother and then she loved me and cared for me my whole life, when no one else cared…’ She could not go on, but wept bitterly for all the memories and the loss, Richard allowing her the healing out pouring of grief in the security of his arms.

Eventually she was calm again. Sighed against him as she remembered.

‘Jane saved my life. She took the blade that she thought was meant for me. She was wrong, wasn’t she? I see it now.’

‘Yes.’ Richard smoothed the damp hair from her cheeks. ‘She thought your life was in danger, but it was not so. She would not have known. Capel’s blade was not intended for you, Elizabeth. You were central to your uncle’s plan and always have been since he released you from Llanwardine. Capel would have used the dagger against me, or anyone who stood in the way of his success, but your present health—and that of the child you carry—was vitally important to the de Lacy future.’

Richard drew her to the stone ledge that provided a sheltered seat around the cloister where the nuns would read and take their leisure hour, where the shadows were darkest as seemed most appropriate, and told her the tale of deceit and unscrupulous plottings. He kept her hands enclosed in his as he separated and recounted the strands of the complicated tapestry from Ellen’s revelations, his own knowledge of past events, Lewis’s role in the tragedy. Seeing how well it fit as he spoke it aloud. Weaving together a whole that would damn Sir John de Lacy as a man of blood and treachery.

‘So I would be a means to an end. Have always been so—to consolidate my uncle’s hold on the March. Our child who would inherit the Malinder land would give him the means to absorb your land into his.’ She turned her face against him as thoughts raced through her mind, quick to see the implications. ‘But of necessity your life would be forfeit.’

‘Yes.’ He moved his hands to bracelet her wrists, feeling the firm pulse of her blood beneath his grasp, taking comfort from it.

‘And mine too.’ She looked up, eyes wide. ‘Once the child was born. If I resisted him.’

‘Yes. You would not be allowed to reject his guardianship.’ At the thought, the rage returned, diamond bright. Unknowingly his grip tightened until Elizabeth squirmed and pro tested. ‘Forgive me.’ He immediately loosened his fingers, raised her wrists to his lips. ‘I find it impossible to contemplate it without…’ But he could not speak it. ‘Perhaps Sir John thought he could persuade you to be amenable.’

‘Then he does not know me! And David would replace Lewis, would be the chosen heir, could be moulded to ask no questions, but accept my uncle’s orders. Which Lewis would not.’

‘Undoubtedly. Except that he did not know David very well either. David is very like his sister with a mind of his own.’

She thought for a little while, then covered her face with her hands, although her voice was strong. ‘It shames me, Richard. That such an outcome should have been in his mind when he offered me as your wife. And you accepted me in all ignorance that he plotted your downfall—your death.’

‘There’s no shame. You were an innocent weapon to be used against me. There’s no blame on your shoulders.’ Reaching out, he lifted her chin, so that she must look at him. ‘As you see, I have come to no harm.’ At last he rose from the cold stone, drew her hand through his arm to lead her from the cloister. ‘Do you wish to leave Jane here?’

‘No. I think she is too restless a spirit for this place,’ Elizabeth replied after only a moment’s thought. ‘What would she think of nuns lighting candles around her and praying over her? I think she would rather rest at Ledenshall.’

‘I shall arrange it.’

Grief took hold again, and an intense gratitude that Richard was
here
. She continued to lean into the shelter of his embrace. ‘I can’t believe that you are here,’ she murmured. ‘He said you were near death.’

His lips on hers, warm, tender beyond bearing, confirmed the life force that beat beneath the palms she spread against his chest, which echoed her own raised pulse as she sank into his reassurance.

‘Where can I stay until dawn?’ he asked as intense weariness finally bit.

‘Come with me.’ She took his hand, recovered the candle and led him from the cloisters to her own room, closing the door after them. ‘This is the best I can offer.’ A ghost of a laugh stirred the dank air, her breath coming in little puffs of moisture. ‘The holy sisters would be horrified if they knew I had brought you here, but I will not be parted.’

She saw the room, little more than a cell, through Richard’s eyes. The stone walls with their slimy gleam of damp, the bare flagged floor, the single unglazed window that let in the cold night air. The narrow bed and the lack of all furnishings, other than a crude crucifix fixed on the wall—nothing to offer any comfort to the chance guest.

Richard’s quick grimace said it all. ‘A penance in itself! And that bed, if we are to share it, is as narrow as a coffin.’ He hissed a breath at his clumsy words. ‘Ah! Elizabeth, forgive me…’

She placed her fingers over his mouth, then her own lips before pulling him to the bed where they stretched together in a supreme discomfort that neither would have refused. More precious than the most sumptuous of bedchambers, more acceptable than the softest of mat tresses, the smoothest of linens, the hard pallet provided all they needed. Fully clothed, their body heat as Richard held Elizabeth close in his arms, her head on his breast, made magnificent compensation for the thin covering. By mutual decision they left the candle burning until it guttered, as if to keep at bay the images that might encroach with the dark. Whispered words of love, a quiet acceptance of what had almost destroyed them, an in se parable closeness of mind and body, it was the sweetest and saddest of reconciliations, but finally a strange contentment wrapped them round. The visions of death and murder, of headlong fearful flight through the night, gradually ebbed away. Until they were silent, content to simply be together after all that had separated them.

Richard kept watch until dawn. Perhaps Elizabeth slept a little, until the ringing of the Priory bell for Prime stirred them into a new awareness of each other. Without a word they moved together in a very necessary healing. Soft kisses, soft sighs, the minimal removal of garments to reaffirm their love. A slow slide of hands, a catch of breath the only sound in the little room. Lifting her above him, Richard lowered her, filled her, owned her, gave all his tenderness to her, whilst Elizabeth took him in, surrounding him with her body and her love, her gaze never leaving his, drowning in the love she saw in his face for her. Breath ragged, completely involved in their own small world within the four walls of the cell, they rocked together in the gentlest of rhythms until it was done.

Her words, finally, against his mouth expressed both their desires.

‘Take me home, Richard. Take me to Ledenshall.’

Epilogue

E
very surface was covered with a thick layer of dust. They breathed it. Ate and drank it, the bed linen scratchy with it. Yet they were home and it lifted Elizabeth’s heart.

Ellen was at Talgarth under David’s watchful eye. Sir John was in London, petitioning the new Yorkist King, young Edward, for justice. Nicholas Capel had vanished, without trace. Elizabeth shivered as if a cloud had obscured the sun. His crimes, and those of Sir John, were beyond penance. As for the future…she turned her mind from it. The scrying dish had not been used since Jane’s death.

Voices in the distance informed her where Richard would be. The shattered stone work and sinking foundations of the massive wall took much of his attention. When it was not focused on her. Elizabeth under stood how hard he had to try not to cushion her with care, and loved him for it. Her lips curved, complacent as a cat in a sunbeam, at the anticipation of the gleam in his eye when he looked at her.

On the battlement walk, Richard rolled up the plan for new buildings and looked across to where Elizabeth had come to stand at the top of the steps outside the Great Hall, her skirts blown against her thickening waist line as she raised a hand to hold her veil back, a very feminine gesture. Immediately he went to her. The threats to her freedom, even to her life, were still too vivid to be easily cast off. Losing her was more than his mind could contemplate.

‘What are you doing?’

‘Do you need to ask? I can sign my name in the dust on every surface!’

His mouth was firm on hers, his hand possessively gentle on the swell of her belly, but knowing better than to suggest that she rest as he brushed the cobwebs from her sleeve.

‘Don’t worry. David will make an excellent Lord of Talgarth,’ he assured her, sensing the shadow that still lingered in her mind.

‘I know.’

Richard drew her close, an arm around her waist so that she fit neatly against him, resting his cheek against her frisky veiling, content for that sun-filled moment to stand and look towards the activity where the stone blocks were being chipped and shaped. Until a familiar feline figure wound round their feet, down the steps and across the court yard to the stables. Ears alert, her sides bulged and rippled under soft fur.

‘Another with off spring on her mind,’ Richard remarked drily.

‘Perhaps one of them will have the gift.’ Elizabeth laughed softly as the cat disappeared round the stable door. ‘I hope the kittens are better tempered than their mother.’

‘Amen to that. And I think my Black Vixen is content too.’

‘Dear Richard. More than content.’ Her words expressing all the love that was between them.

‘My lord.’ Below, Simon Beggard raised his hand as they began to hoist a large block with rope and pulley.

Richard lifted Elizabeth’s hand from where it was tucked within his arm and rubbed his lips over her fingertips, still tempted to linger in the sun. The future was suddenly full of promise. Time would tell what manner of man Edward of York, their new King, would be. A better man than his father, he admitted, and perhaps a king who would bring peace to a war-torn country.

‘You are needed.’ Elizabeth sighed, nudged him gently.

‘Later, then.’ Richard ran down the steps to discuss the finer points of wall construction.

The Malinder heir kicking in her belly, her heart unfurling with an intense happiness, Elizabeth remained on the top step and watched him.

ISBN: 978-1-4268-7621-9

CHOSEN FOR THE MARRIAGE BED

Copyright © 2009 by Anne O’Brien

First North American Publication 2010

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