So Great A Love (22 page)

She lay down next to him, pulling his left
arm around her shoulder. She tugged up the bedcovers and snuggled
into the warmth provided by Arden's body. As she moved around to
arrange the quilt, her hand brushed against the part of him that
was still rigid. She wondered if it would stay that way
indefinitely. There was an empty place deep within her body that
still ached for what he had refused to give her and it disturbed
her to be so close to what she could not have. The reason Arden had
given her for withholding himself was a good one, but Margaret
believed it was not his only reason.

As she worked at his left hand until his
fingers loosened from their fisted shape so she was able to weave
her own fingers through them, she thought again of Arden's
reasoning – that she could not remain in a convent if she were
found to be carrying his child – and she almost laughed out loud.
For the realization came to her as naturally as the sun rises each
morning that she no longer wanted to enter a convent. After what
Arden had made her feel, Margaret knew she would enter a convent
only as a last resort, to save herself from her father's ambitious
scheming. At that thought she released a long, rough sigh, for it
was her father's schemes that had set her on the path toward a
convent in the first place, and the same path had led her to
Arden's bedchamber. She had come full circle, and she had no idea
what to do next.

* * * * *

Arden felt Margaret's sigh, felt, too, the
way her soft breast rose and fell against his side. He reflected
that he seemed to have a genius for inflicting difficult forms of
penance upon himself. He inhaled Margaret's fragrance with every
breath he drew, her willing body lay curled next to his, her
fingers were wound into his, and he feared he would die of wanting
her. Or, worse, that he would give in to his vile desire and
attempt to take in full all that she so generously offered.

The minutes passed. Margaret's breathing
became slow and even, and Arden could tell she was asleep. He told
himself he ought to carry her across the solar and put her to bed
in her own room, but he delayed, suffering the sweet anguish of
holding her while denying himself.

After a while a peculiar kind of peace came
to him, a further easing of the hard knot that had lain in his
heart for so long. Untying of that knot had begun in this same bed,
on the first night he had come to Bowen. Now, with Margaret in his
arms, Arden discovered that he could almost believe in hope
again.

He inadvertently tightened his arms around
her shoulders and she stirred, murmuring softly, and cuddled a
little closer. Arden stroked her hair and she quieted, trusting his
touch and his nearness.

He wondered how she would react if he told
her all about himself, what had befallen him, and what he had done.
He thought he knew what her response would be. She would flee from
him in utter disgust. She would race to the nearest convent and
hide herself there and refuse ever to see him again.

He could not bear to tell her. He did not
want her to learn the terrible truth. To keep Margaret safe from
the horror and the guilt that lurked in his heart, and to protect
himself from her revulsion if she knew, he must end their sweet
winter interlude – and with its ending, his faint glimpse of hope
would vanish.

A single tear escaped his burning eyes, the
first tear he had shed since the day when his old life ended. One
tear, no more. He could not allow himself any further weakness,
could not let the bitter, pain-releasing tears fall, any more than
he could allow himself to attempt to release his seed into the
beautiful, eager body of the woman he – the woman he—

Arden swallowed hard, fighting for emotional
control. Grief, the desire for sexual pleasure, and the admission
of the depth of his feelings for Margaret, all must be ruthlessly
suppressed. Arden had a duty to perform. It was his only possible
chance to save his wicked soul and make right the monstrous wrongs
he had committed. He dared not fail in that duty. And he could not
drag Margaret with him into the blackness of the pit where his
heart, his hope, and his lost youth lay bleeding.

“You moved me after I fell asleep last
night,” Margaret said to Arden. She looked a bit flushed, her
wimple forgotten again, her face pale save for a spot of color that
rose on either cheek when Arden appeared in the solar.

“I thought it a good idea to put you in your
own room before the household began to wake up,” he said, trying to
invest his voice with a coldness he did not feel. “It will be
better if you don't have to respond to prying comments or
questions. How is Catherine this morning?”

“Much improved. She's dressing now. If you
wait a few moments, you may see for yourself how well she is.”
Margaret seemed confused by his manner. Her eyes were worried and
her lower lip trembled a time or two before she got control of
herself.

“In that case, I will say what I must
quickly, before she comes.” Arden looked into Margaret's soft
silver-grey eyes and marveled at the pain he felt at what he was
compelled to do. Surely, the pain was for her sake, because of the
emotional distress he was about to inflict upon her.

For himself, since he did not believe in the
romantic love that troubadours sang about, the discomfort he was
experiencing could only be his body's reaction to the loss of a
particularly tempting bed partner. So he told himself, convinced by
the morning's light that the tender emotions of the darker hours
were naught but fantasies. He would fight and conquer the demands
of the loathsome body that had betrayed him too often with its
weaknesses and its demands. Then, when he finally faced his father,
he would confess his sins and pay the price for them like the true
man he had once been.

And he would never again touch Margaret in
desire. Still, there was no need to hurt her unnecessarily. To
spare her, he would take the blame upon himself.

“We must end this affair between us,” he
said, speaking as gently as he could. “What I did to you last night
was wrong.”

“What you did to me?” Margaret exclaimed,
looking every bit as upset as Arden feared she would be. She lifted
her chin, regarding him coolly. “Allow me to remind you, my lord,
that I cooperated without a word of protest. Indeed, I encouraged
what you did. I invited it.”

“Since you have often expressed your wish to
become a nun, your cooperation and your encouragement were both
most unseemly, Lady Margaret,” Arden said, matching her sudden
reversion to formality with his own. “A sinful man can have nothing
to offer a woman who lives in the happy expectation of one day
attaining heaven.”

“I see.” She didn't, really. Margaret thought
he was talking nonsense. In purely practical terms, Arden had a
great deal to offer any woman. Bowen was his and, in time and with
the king's consent, he would inherit from his father Wortham Castle
and the rank of baron. Any sensible Norman father would be pleased
to give his daughter to Arden – except for Margaret's father, who
had other plans. But then, so might Arden have plans. For all
Margaret knew he, or his father, had already arranged his marriage.
He had not mentioned a betrothal, but it was one possible reason
for his unexpected behavior this morning.

And yet, Margaret believed what Arden was
talking about had nothing to do with the practicalities of life. It
had to do with the secret part of him, that he intended to keep
concealed, the part of his soul that had prevented him from
possessing Margaret as she had wanted – as she wanted still – to be
possessed.

“The snow last night has turned to rain this
morning and the ice that remains will soon melt,” Arden continued.
“The roads will be muddy for a while, but in a day or two they will
be passable. You will want to continue your interrupted journey to
a convent as quickly as you can, before your father discovers your
hiding place.”

“Yes, of course,” Margaret agreed quietly,
bowing to a change in circumstances that she had known all along
was inevitable. She had hoped the change would not come so quickly,
that she and Arden would have more time together shut away from
their real lives. Margaret's practical nature urged her to accept
reality. At the same time, a newly awakened portion of her heart
sought frantically for a way to avoid what she no longer wanted.
Her inner discordance sounded in her voice, making her next words
husky and slightly unsteady. “Soon you will have to deal with the
world, Arden, while I will have to deal with Mother Church and,
when he finds me, with my father.”

* * * * *

Refusing to weep over Arden's decision to end
an affair that had barely begun, keeping her head high and her
voice calm, Margaret went about her morning chores. Suddenly, it
became a matter of pride to her to take a few minutes to return to
her bedchamber, there to put on her wimple. With steady hands she
bound up her hair, pinned on the narrow linen strip that wrapped
from her chin to her crown, and the second strip that wound from
her forehead to the back of her head. Having secured the fresh
linen wimple to these strips by more straight pins and with the
cloth properly folded to cover her hair and her ears, Margaret
resumed the dignified mien of a noble widow.

While she slid the last pin securely into
place, using the image of her face in the small, cloudy mirror that
hung on the wall of her bedchamber as a guide, she decided that
leaving her hair uncovered had been a serious mistake. With a loose
braid and no tight head-covering, she had felt entirely too free to
follow her own inclinations. She must not allow such untrammeled
freedom to occur again. She understood the world to which she
belonged, the world of a Norman noblewoman. For a little while she
had broken loose from that world's restrictions, but her time of
freedom was coming to an end. Setting her lips firmly to keep them
from trembling, she left her room.

Catherine's health was so much improved that
she insisted on demonstrating the fact by descending to the great
hall for the midday meal. Her presence was a diversion that
Margaret welcomed. Gladly she handed the chatelaine's keys back to
her friend and sat down as a guest at the high table between Arden
and Sir Wace. Arden and Catherine began a friendly argument about
chess, with Catherine promising to demolish Arden's most clever
defense during the evening game. Upon hearing Catherine's bold
claims, Sir Wace laughed and made a suggestion or two to Arden on
how to forestall his sister's game. Even Aldis, who was usually
silent in Arden's presence, dared to offer a few humorous
remarks.

They were almost finished with the meal, with
everyone at the high table either in a good mood or pretending to
cheerfulness, when a man-at-arms appeared at the entry. He came
striding across the hall toward the dais, skirting the benches set
at the two long, lower tables where the men-at-arms and squires and
servants ate.

“My lord,” the man-at-arms called out, bowing
to Arden, “we have visitors. A nobleman, a lady, a long baggage
train, and at least a dozen guards are at the gate. Will this be
the party you told us to expect?”

“If it is Sir Tristan of Cliffmore, then he
is the noble I mentioned,” Arden answered. He motioned to his
former traveling companions at a lower table. “Guy, Michael, you
know where the carts are to be stored and where the men-at-arms and
the carters are to be housed. See to their comfort. I will greet
Sir Tristan and his lady in the courtyard. Go back to the gate and
bid our guests enter,” he added to the man who had announced the
arrival.

“I will join you if I may,” Sir Wace said,
rising from his seat when Arden stood.

“They will be hungry,” Arden said to
Catherine.

“We have plenty of food,” Margaret answered
him. She was on her feet, too, with her arm around Catherine, who
was trembling and looking as if she might cry. “The guest rooms are
ready, my lord. You need not be ashamed of the hospitality you
offer.”

Arden met Margaret's eyes with a quick,
probing look. He glanced at Catherine's bowed head and frowned.
Then he looked back at Margaret. She experienced the oddest feeling
that he was no happier than his sister to have his friends
arrive.

“Go,” Margaret said to him. “All will be
well, my lord. I promise.”

“What you mean,” Arden said with wry
assurance, “is that whatever is left in your charge will be well
handled.” On that, he turned on his heel and hastened after Sir
Wace.

“Oh, Catherine,” Aldis whispered, “I am so
sorry.”

“I wish they had not come today,” Catherine
murmured, resting her head on Margaret's shoulder. “I wish we could
have one more day and evening of peace and comfort, with Arden
eager to spend time with me. Just one more pleasant chess game,”
she ended on a sigh.

Margaret could see that between an unhappy
host and a youthful hostess who was unwilling to have the arriving
guests there at all, it was going to be up to her to provide
suitable hospitality. She also decided it would be no favor to
Catherine to allow her to shirk her responsibilities. Nor could
Aldis be permitted to flee from Arden, however much his refusal to
discuss her father and brother hurt her feelings.

“First, we must greet them with every
appearance of pleasure,” Margaret said, speaking to Catherine and
Aldis both, rehearsing the immediate duties of those who welcomed
guests. “Next, we will offer hot water so they can bathe. And then,
food for all.”

“He is here,” Catherine said in a low voice.
“Tristan has come.”

“Yes, and you must conduct yourself as your
father would expect of you,” Margaret retorted, allowing a sharper
note to creep into her tone. “Offer your brother's best
hospitality, and with everything you do and every word you speak,
remember who you are.”