Chosen for the Marriage Bed (4 page)

‘Oh.’ Anne’s eyes danced. ‘How shocking!’

‘The nuns,’ Elizabeth found herself explaining, ‘believe that long hair encourages vanity and distracts a woman from her vocation and the true meaning of life. At least they did not shave my head. It could be worse.’

‘Not much worse!’ Anne answered with devastating frankness.

True enough, even though the comment was pure malice. The shortest of dark hair covered her head. Soft and short, raggedly cut, it hugged her skull, hardly a covering at all.

Knowing that she had no control over the next few minutes, Elizabeth tensed against what must follow, grateful that the candles in the room were few, the light dimly shadowed. Her gown was removed and then her chemise until she stood, clammy and damp in shivering flesh beside the steaming tub. A little draught touched the skin of her neck and shoulder, as of a door opening, and with it a sudden presentiment. Elizabeth lifted her head, quickly glancing over her shoulder, to see that the door was indeed partially opened. There, unmoving on the thresh old, was a dark figure. He must have knocked and, receiving no answer, opened it to ask after her needs. This was far worse than any of her imaginings. Richard Malinder, shockingly aware of the most intimate of her secrets.

Elizabeth stood immobile, as unmoving as he, her eyes wide and lips parted in dread, appalled at what she knew he must see. His face might be expressionless, but she could imagine the thoughts clamouring in his mind. To her horror his gaze moved from hers to slide over her shoulders, her back, down to buttocks and thighs. Then back to hold hers again. Light, insubstantial his appraisal might be, yet she felt that his keen eyes had taken possession of every inch of her skin—and presumably found her undesirable. How mortifying! Elizabeth shivered in awareness at the chill in that direct judgement, the only blessing that the flickering of the candles might mask the worst of the scars.

And that was not the worst of it. By the Virgin! Would he come in? Would he find a need to comment, to draw even more attention to her with its ensuing degradation? And if he did, would she be forced to abandon what dignity she had left to snatch up her robe to cover herself and her shame? Elizabeth prayed he had enough sensitivity to retreat and not inflict any more humiliation on her. Was it not bad enough that his beautiful cousin should see her punishment revealed?

Even as the thought crossed her mind, as if hearing her silent plea, as if reading the dismay on her face, Richard Malinder bowed, and withdrew before the others in the room knew of his presence, closing the door softly. Leaving Elizabeth to claw back her control. The whole had only lasted a matter of seconds, yet it had seemed to Elizabeth a lifetime of raw exposure, to be scrutinised and judged.

Meanwhile, Anne Malinder, unaware, looked at Elizabeth with emerald-eyed interest.

‘What did they do to you?’

In her mind, Elizabeth saw herself as Anne would see her. As Richard Malinder must have seen her. She carried no extra flesh. Her ribs could be detected beneath her skin, as could the press of bones at hip and shoulder. Her breasts were small and undeveloped. Almost a child’s body in its slightness, despite her age and obvious womanhood. She could almost hear the condemnation. If Richard wanted a wife for childbearing, he had not chosen well. Overcome with shame, as if her deficiencies were all her own fault, Elizabeth turned her back on her unwelcome audience to pick up a bedgown and so hide herself from this too public view and inspection. An action that allowed the candlelight to glimmer along silver welts. Healed but visible. As she realised what her action had revealed to Anne Malinder, Elizabeth stiffened again, but it was too late.

A fraught silence descended. Until the sharp tension was broken by a quick and attractive gurgle of laughter. Mistress Anne covered her smiling mouth with her hands in what Elizabeth instantly recognised as a parody of regretful sympathy. Her eyes shone brilliantly.

‘What
do
you suppose Richard will say when he sees you?’

For the first time Elizabeth truly looked at the girl who stood beside the bed with one of her desperately unattractive and unfashionable gowns in her pretty hands. And immediately recognised in Anne Malinder a danger. There was no friend ship offered in those sparkling green eyes.

But was Mistress Anne Malinder not accurate in her observation? Elizabeth decided Anne was everything that she was not. Beautiful, well groomed, compliant, socially at ease in this house hold. And cousin to Lord Richard. In that one moment of blinding recognition, Elizabeth had no doubts of the girl’s intentions. She wanted Richard for herself, and resented Elizabeth’s presence. To be so out spoken suggested a child-like naïvety but Elizabeth recognised the sly deliberation for what it was. Recognised the deliberately fashionable clothing that displayed Mistress Anne’s figure to perfection, and would high light her own failings. No wonder the Lord of Ledenshall had looked as if struck with a battle-axe when Anne had so cunningly positioned herself in close proximity to the new bride!

But would Richard care what she, Elizabeth, looked like? As long as he had the alliance he desired and a wife who would bear him an heir, he would not care at all. She was only a replacement for Maude, after all. She must not forget it.

‘Forgive me, my lady.’ Anne smiled, eyes wide in regret. It could almost have been a simper, but the charm was heavy, as if Anne was aware of her lack of discretion and would make amends. There was no harm in offering an apology after all since the damage had been done. ‘I should not have been so out spoken,’ she murmured. ‘I meant no ill.’ But it was difficult for the girl to disguise the glow of triumph in her eyes.

Yes, you did!
Elizabeth swallowed the words. Recognising an enemy, swamped with alarm at Richard Malinder’s reaction to what he had seen, Elizabeth returned the smile as she pinned the girl with her night-dark eyes in which there was no humour. ‘Why should you ask forgiveness? You spoke nothing but the truth, as all here must recognise. Perhaps I will tell you what my lord has to say, Mistress Anne, when he has made his thoughts known to me. And
if
I consider his words to be any of
your
concern, of course. And now—’ she turned her back on the girl ‘—I would welcome that hot water!’

Elizabeth realised that she had stoked the enmity further, but sank into the warm water in delicious relief. So much for a comfort able home coming as Richard Malinder’s betrothed. Elizabeth sighed. She would think about it all tomorrow.

For now, the battle lines had been drawn.

As she tumbled into sleep, one impression remained with Elizabeth. The sleek dark hair, the bold grey eyes, the austere features of Richard Malinder. How much had he seen of her in that brief appraisal? It had been cursory enough, and she had been in the shadows, but was it enough to cause him to regret his decision to take her? She had been able to read nothing on his face, but could well imagine. Dismay at best, but perhaps revulsion, outrage. And what
would
he say when he saw her uncovered and fully revealed in his marriage bed? Their marriage would have, of necessity, to be consummated. He was hardly marrying her for the sharpness of her wit or for her unusual education, was he? What if he touched her only out of necessity, because he had no choice, or even worse out of pity for her deficiencies? The thought appalled her.

Retreating rapidly from so intimate a female preserve, to stand silently for some minutes outside the door, Richard was forced to consider the impression that had been made on him with the sharp bite of a lance against unprotected flesh. In retrospect he should not have gone there, and had known better than to linger when all had become clear. What was it he had seen in that brief instant, what had taken his eye to the exclusion of all else? A bride with marks of a whip on her shoulders—oh, yes, he was sure of it, as the weals had caught the light, although the intensity of the punishment was overlaid by the poor quality of light. A bride with eyes wide in fear and shock. Had the whip been used to force her into marriage with him? The thought that it had made it necessary for him to breathe deeply. Elizabeth de Lacy certainly gave the impression that the last thing she wanted was to spend a night in
his
arms, as if the act of love would be nothing more for her than an assault, the touch of his flesh against hers simply a matter of loath some tolerance. Richard prayed wordlessly to God that she would not flinch from him. He could not—really could not—tolerate his wife shrinking from him yet again.

Chapter Four

L
edenshall looked cold and rain-washed from the vantage point of Elizabeth’s bedchamber, with a nasty little teasing wind, but she felt no inclination to remain in her bed.

‘This is now my home,’ she stated firmly to the empty room.

Weeks of rules and in sis tent bells had awakened her before first light. With the stir of the castle around her as the servants took up their duties for the day, and no urgent need to break her fast, Elizabeth was driven by a desire to explore. She pulled on the first gown to hand, hating the coarse material, but it was not as if she had a choice in the matter, even if the garment had curled Lady Anne’s mischievously disdainful lips. She covered it with a heavy fur-lined cloak borrowed from one of the clothes presses. Considerably shorter than Elizabeth’s own garments, barely reaching down to her ankles, yet it was fine and luxurious, better than anything she had ever possessed. Elizabeth pulled the collar close around her throat with a little shiver of pleasure at the touch of the soft fur, and would have left to begin her investigations until she remembered, with a little
moue
of distaste. Hurriedly she pinned a plain linen veil into place to hide her shame from the view of any interested eyes.

For the next hour she indulged her own whims with no one to hinder or forbid. From the main family rooms in a comparatively new wing, she descended into the Great Hall, remnant of the original castle with its square keep. Here the windows were still arrow-slits, the roof timbers high above her head, the spaces vast and the draughts lethal enough to swirl the smoke and shiver the tapestries that deco rated the walls.

On to the kitchens, where, with a brief smile and a word of greeting, Elizabeth accepted the offered heel of a loaf, before climbing the outer stair case to the battlements, to look out over the bare hills and leafless trees, the muddy track leading back to Llanwardine. Her spirits lifted. By the Virgin, she would never return there! Then back down to the stables, brushing crumbs from her fingers and the damask of the cloak. The chapel. Pantries and store rooms, a rabbit-warren of corridors and doors. Aware of the glances and whispered comment from soldiers and servants who knew this inquisitive newcomer was to be their mistress.

Richard Malinder, another early riser, watched her investigate. He saw the flutter of movement, saw her emerge from the Great Hall in a well-worn cloak which swirled some ten inches from the ground as the tall figure strode across the inner court yard. Noted the energy, the light, confident step as the lady explored his home. Her curiosity, her quick agility as she ran up the stair case, striding around to inspect the view on all four sides. And she talked to people as she passed. The guards on duty. His steward, Master Kilpin, answered some query with a nod and a wave of his arm. The servant girls from the dairy. Anyone who crossed her path. It was as if the pale, damply reserved creature of the previous day had been reborn, a butterfly, if still a sombre one, so perhaps a moth—his lips twitched—emerging from a dull chrysalis.

He should speak with her. He had agreed to take her in matrimony, had he not? Lord Richard had to resist a sigh after that one vivid memory of her, naked and vulnerable, wary as a wild hare before the hunting dogs. No time for regrets now. He climbed the stair case to meet his betrothed where she leaned on the stone parapet to look to the distant Welsh hills.

Elizabeth turned quickly at the sound of his boots on stone. Solemn, her steady gaze watchful, careful, but unnervingly direct. Waiting, he realised, to gauge his mood.

‘You took no harm from your journey, Lady.’

‘No. I am quite recovered from the drenching. Thank you, my lord.’

She said no more but stood, motionless, cautious, as he advanced. He held out his hand in invitation. Elizabeth promptly placed hers there with no sign of reluctance. Richard’s interest was caught. Perhaps she was not wary at all, simply circumspect, unwilling to give too much of herself away until she had taken his measure. Then she surprised him when she reversed their clasped hands, turning his uppermost to reveal the back of his own wrist. And touched the long red scratch gently with apologetic fingers.

‘I’m sorry for this.’

His brows twitched in sardonic humour. ‘I take it the animal isn’t hidden beneath your cloak this morning.’

‘No.’ The corner of her mouth quirked in the faintest of responses. The deep blue of her eyes, reflecting the rich hue of the cloak, picked up a glint of gold from the weak rays of the sun.

‘Do I call you Beth? Or Bess?’ he asked. ‘What do your family call you?’

‘I am Elizabeth,’ she replied gravely.

‘Then Elizabeth it shall be.’ It told him much of her up bringing, that she had never been named informally with affection. ‘Do you approve?’ he asked.

‘Of what?’

‘Ledenshall.’ He gestured to their surroundings. ‘Your new home.’

‘Of course.’ The slightest hint of colour rose from the fur at her neckline, as if in guilt that she had been found out in some lack of courtesy. ‘You didn’t mind?’ A quick contact of eyes, as if she feared a reprimand.

‘Of course not. It’s your home. You’re free to enjoy it.’ A contradiction here, he realised, between confidence and vulnerability. He thought about what he wanted to say to put her at her ease, which she clearly wasn’t. ‘I’m sorry you should have had to face this ordeal alone. Your uncle should have been here to welcome you.’

The heightened colour deepened. ‘And I am sure we can deal well enough without him, my lord. Sir John is the last person I would expect to be here to make
me
comfort able.’ She closed her lips firmly.

So the tale of the estrangement between uncle and niece was true. He found Elizabeth was now looking squarely at him, head tilted, whilst Richard awaited the outcome, senses on the alert. It was not often that young women appraised him in so serious a manner, without a smile on their lips or an invitation in their eyes. She was definitely taking his measure. Her words surprised him further.

‘Let us be frank. We both know it, my lord. I am here as a replacement for my cousin Maude because Sir John wishes it,’ she announced gruffly. ‘And because for you the de Lacy connection would have its advantages in the March. There’s no need for pretence between us. You did not want
me
, I know. But I presume that Sir John was most persuasive with my dowry—my mother’s Vaughan lands, I expect. And, of course, you’ll need a Malinder heir. I shall do all in my power to oblige.’

Well, here was plain speaking. But if her words took him aback, he hid it and answered in kind. ‘That is all true. And I warrant that my offer to take you as Lady of Ledenshall would give you far more sat is faction than the narrow life of a nun in Llanwardine. There are advantages on both sides.’

The colour flared as if she had been struck, and he was sorry for his lack of finesse, but her reply was immediate. ‘That is also true. I regret Maude’s loss to you. She had the promise of such beauty and spirit.’

What could he say to that? His mind scrabbled for an answer, until it was made obvious that she had no expectation of empty flattering remarks.

‘I have studied what I see in my mirror, my lord.’ She turned from him to look out over the battlements. ‘I shall try to be everything a wife should be. You need not fear for my loyalty, if that would be a concern. I would not wish it to be an issue between us.’ Now he was definitely startled that she should pick up so contentious an issue, almost as if she could read his mind. Honesty indeed on such brief acquaintance, even if it proved to be painful. ‘My family is Yorkist—you and I have been brought up as enemies from our cradles, and I shall always consider the claim of the Plantagenet House of York to be superior to that of poor mad King Henry. But I swear that my loyalty in marriage will be to you.’

Richard looked at his bride’s stern face with a complex mix of astonishment and admiration and decided to be just as forth right. ‘My own oath is given to that same King Henry, whatever the state of his wits, because he is the anointed King, whilst the Plantagenets have bloody treachery in mind.’ He smiled a little as she stiffened at his accusation. ‘I see we shall never agree on this divisive issue—but with such honesty between us, we shall do well enough together.’

‘I expect we shall.’ She risked a slanted glance ‘We are both adult and see the value of honesty and loyalty between man and wife. I dislike pretence and disguise.’

‘And I.’ How strong she was beneath her pale fragility, how magnificently controlled in the circumstances. But she was not a comfort able presence. He felt it was a bit like negotiating an alliance with a potential enemy with the flags of war still raised on both sides.

‘And the marriage ceremony?’ Elizabeth asked bluntly.

‘Soon. I see no reason to prolong the arrangements.’ He leaned against the parapet to watch the play of emotion over her face. ‘If that is to your liking, of course—I suppose I should never underestimate the amount of time needed by the females of a house hold.’

‘I have no objection. I have no experience of such matters.’ Her flat words were accompanied by a little lift of her shoulders as if she did not care.

Although his hackles rose, instinct quickly told Richard Malinder that it was a pretence. It mattered to her, though she would not admit it. He did not think she would admit anything to him—yet. He took possession of her hands again, turning them over, smoothing them with fingers callused from sword and reins. Hers were no better than his, he mused, no softer, and impossibly red and rough with swollen knuckles and chapped skin, nails chipped and broken. Not the hands of a lady of birth. His lips tightened as he came to under stand her life at Llanwardine.

‘You will not have to scrub floors here, lady.’

‘Thank God.’ She looked at her hands with a little frown of distaste. ‘This was from digging for roots in frozen ground. And breaking the ice on the water to wash the bowls after meals.’

‘Chilblains?’ he enquired in some sympathy. He enfolded her fingers gently within his.

Elizabeth sighed. ‘I fear so. And my toes. Jane Bringsty urges pennyroyal salve on me, but to no avail.’

‘We must look after you here. I cannot have a Malinder bride suffering.’

He looked again at her hands, warmly enclosed within his. They might be damaged and painful, but her fingers were long and slender, the nails pale ovals. They could be beautiful, he suspected. And it reminded him that he must give her some symbol of their union. Not a ring yet, he decided. Not until she could wear it with pride and some sat is faction. But he knew exactly what he would give her.

Elizabeth made no attempt to pull away. When, in a noble gesture of chivalry towards his bride, Richard bent his head to kiss her work-scarred hands, he felt the slightest return of pressure as she tightened her fingers on his. The little gesture of trust tugged at his heart, surprising him, so that he felt compelled to turn her hand to press his lips to her palm. In contrast to her fingers the skin was enticingly soft so that he lingered, his lips warming, then looking up to find her eyes searching his face. He was trans fixed by the beauty of their violet depths, a leaping connection that made him want to soothe and reassure her as he would a newly broken mare.

For a long moment they simply stared at each other.

The she pulled her hands free and the moment was broken.

‘Let us go down. The wind has too much of an edge here.’ He made to lead her down the steps, placing himself unobtrusively between the lady and the increasing gusts. ‘Food, I think. And you need to be introduced to those of the household whom you have not already met.’

On level ground again within the court yard, sheltered from the worst, he pulled her hand through his arm to walk back to the living quarters, in no manner dissatisfied with the turn of events. Out spoken to a fault she might be, she would never be easy to live with—too much obstinacy, too wilful, he had decided—but there was at least a measure of agreement between them.

Whilst Elizabeth de Lacy fought a difficult battle to repress the little spurt of hope that warmed her heart.
Take care!
she warned herself. It would be too easy to allow this man to break down the barriers so effectively constructed over the years to protect her heart from further hurt. But Richard Malinder was kind. He had shown her a level of under standing that she had not expected, and his arm was strong beneath her hand.

‘What is it?’

Glancing across at her as they reached the court yard, he seemed to catch her line of thought, and smiled at her as he made his enquiry. But Elizabeth, after a little hesitation, merely shook her head and veiled her eyes with dark lashes. How could she tell this man who was concerned for her happiness and the state of her hands that he was so very beautiful? That his dark hair, ruffled to a tangle by the wind, and the stunning lines, the flat planes of his face, brought an uncomfortable flutter to her heart.

A sudden gust of wind blew her cloak, rippled her veil. She raised her hands to hold it secure, conscious of her unsatisfactory pinning of the folds. Aware of nothing but the sheer magnetism of this dark figure who stood so close and to whom she would soon be bound. Aware of nothing but the throb of her blood beneath his touch. The imprint of his mouth on her palm still burned like a brand. She closed her fingers tightly over it.

Before they parted company at the main door, their paths crossed that of Robert, who had unashamedly been watching their approach. Smiling, he bowed to the de parting Elizabeth, then cast a wry look towards at his cousin.

‘A pity that she…’

Robert lurched to a stop as he read the cool expression, most definitely a warning that dared him to say more. ‘No matter. I was always tactless.’ And then, irrepressible to the last, ‘But she’s not a cosy armful, and you can’t argue that she is!’

Richard merely stared at his cousin, searching for a suitable reply, only to find himself thinking of Gwladys. Beautiful, desirable in face and figure, any man’s dream to own and hold. He remembered as a young man falling hopelessly in love with her undeniable beauty, his physical response to her, his desire to kiss her and caress her into mindless delight. He recalled his pride in her as his wife and his hopes for that marriage. How his breath had caught, his loins stirred whenever he set eyes on her. Now Elizabeth… A complicated woman who roused in him—what? He wasn’t sure.