Anita Mills (29 page)

She hesitated, not certain she knew herself. In the beginning, she’d refused him because he was naught but a borderer, and then she’d taken him because she’d yearned to be as other women, because she’d yearned to be held by a strong, fierce man. But now …

“ ’Twas wrong of me to ask,” he decided finally, afraid to hear her answer. “ ’Tis enough that I have you.”

“I will tell my father that this babe I carry is born of his blood and yours, Giles, and that I’d have no quarrel between you. He will love our son for me.”

“My mother’s family hung my father on the gibbet for having her.”

“I know.”

“I’ll not yield you, Elizabeth. If mine lands are soaked in blood, if the burns run red with it, I’ll hold you, so help me God.”

“ ‘Twill not happen, for I gave my consent to you.”

“What if he will not allow your return to me once you are at Harlowe?” He had spoken his greatest fear. “I cannot take Harlowe.”

“Sweet Mary, but what ails you? My father is in Normandy, and even if he hates you for what we have done, he’d not kill my babe’s sire.”

“He could hold you from me. ‘Tis a worry to me that he has not answered your letter nor mine.”

“I am not without influence with my father, Giles. I have but to say that I would return to you, and he will not stop me. Jesu! I tell you I carry your babe, and it means naught to you! You cannot even be glad of it, can you?”

“My gladness would be greater if you did not leave me. I’d see your belly grow, Elizabeth. I’d feel the child move within you.”

“You will not be here to see it. You will answer King David’s call to arms.” She turned to slide an arm around him, holding him. “Can you not simply love me for the babe I bear?”

“Aye. There is no need to ask.” But even as his arms tightened around her, he did not feel as though she’d answered him. And despite what he’d said when he wed her, it was no longer enough that she lay willing for him. He wanted her to love him for more than the child he gave her. “I’d love you for more than a son, Elizabeth.”

She lay there, her head against his chest, listening to the steady, even beating of his heart. And she wondered if she had the will to leave him. But the words she’d given her father, the oath she’d sworn, echoed in her mind, haunting her. Nay, but she had to keep her fealty—she had to.

He pulled away from her and rolled to sit on the edge of the rope-hung bed. For a long moment he stared downward, seeing again the thick scars that crossed his palms, and once again he felt God’s retribution for his sins. The awful thought that he’d been allowed to seize his dream only for the greater pain of losing it washed over him. She was, he feared, but another instrument of God’s justice. With an effort, he heaved himself from the bed and moved to pick up his discarded clothes.

“Where are you going?” she asked behind him.

“To see Willie.” He turned around, forcing a twisted smile. “I’ll see he sups where you would have him today.”

After he left, she rose to clean herself. And as she touched herself where he had been, she knew she regretted that she’d wanted to be different from other women. Now she wished only to be loved by him.

The word Giles had dreaded since Harlowe finally came to Dunashie on the 9th of May. And Guy of Rivaux’s message, couched in the harshest terms, bore testimony to his anger.

With shaking hands Giles received it of the red-shirted messenger, then withdrew alone to read Elizabeth’s father’s denunciation. Using his thumbnail to slit the wax that sealed the parchment case, he opened it and drew out the rolled letter. His heart sank as his eyes traveled down the page.

There was no mistaking the anger, nor was there any mistaking Guy of Rivaux’s opinion of him. To Count Guy, he was utterly unworthy of Elizabeth, and every word conveyed his contempt.
Born at but not of Moray.
As though he were naught but a villein.
Who calls himself Lord of Dunashie.
As though he had not the right to his patrimony.
I swear afore God she will be twice-widowed. There will be not enough stone remaining at Dunashie to provide a burial crypt.

The message was clear: Elizabeth’s father would not treat with him, nor would he recognize a marriage contracted without his consent. There was no question of his accepting a fine or a payment for her. Giles’ blood ran cold as he reread the words. In taking Elizabeth he’d gained an enemy feared by kings, an enemy who promised to lay waste his lands and his life. It was like a blow that one had seen before it struck— expected but nonetheless painful. The letters and the carefully copied marriage agreement they’d sent to Guy of Rivaux had meant nothing to him. She’d been wrong to believe that the choice was hers—her father might wish her to be happy, but he also would have her wed to an equal.

Closing his eyes, he could see again the blackened skull his grandsire had held before him more than twenty years before. Aside from his name and a doubtful patrimony, it was all he had of his father. Nay, but he’d leave his own son more than that. And yet he was loath to face Guy of Rivaux for his daughter, for he did not believe he could win against the man who’d taken Robert of Belesme. He feared to be another vacant, staring skull hung above Harlowe.

He’d never truly believed it would come to this. He’d thought that once Count Guy knew she’d consented, he’d accept what Giles had done. And now he realized that the widened ditch and the thicker walls would not deter Elizabeth’s father. It had been but a futile gesture, one that would slow but not stop the inevitable should Rivaux attack.

And yet Giles knew he could not let her go. If he had to retreat northward, to withdraw further to his other Scots lands, he would, but he would hold her. He looked around him, seeing the whitewashed stone of Dunashie, knowing it would suffer heavily under siege. Nay, but he’d not see it fall—nor would he give up Elizabeth. It was time to join King David, for in doing so, he had hopes of aid there. With the weight of Scotland at his back, Giles would at least have a chance to hold her.

Stung, his mind still ringing with the words Count Guy had written, he answered Elizabeth’s father. His own quill stroked boldly across the stiff page.

It was a singularly arrogant response, and Giles knew it, but it gave him a certain grim satisfaction to answer Guy of Rivaux in kind. If Count Guy would demand his daughter, Giles would demand her dowry instead. He had, in effect, thrown down his own gauntlet. He reread his letter, grateful that Elizabeth’s father had never seen any of his keeps, for they were mean in comparison to those held by Rivaux.

“My lord …? Giles …?” Willie stood within the door, carrying a wineskin. And despite the fact that Elizabeth had accorded him a place of honor in the household, his manner was still diffident. “ ’Tis ill news?”

“Aye.”

“He beggars ye fer her,” he decided, kicking the door closed behind him.

“It depends on the worth of my life.” Giles smiled grimly, then held Guy of Rivaux’s letter over the floating wick of the lamp. It darkened, smoked, and curled as the flame caught the parchment, and the words upon it were consumed by the fire. He leaned to drop it into the empty brazier beside the table. “The payment is my head.”

“Jesu!” Willie sank down beside him and drank deeply from the wineskin itself. Wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, he met Giles’ eyes soberly. “Do ye give her back?”

“Nay. I have demanded dowry for her.”

Willie pursed his lips and whistled low. “Saint Andrew aid us—aye, and St. Columba also. Does he come after her?”

“Aye.”

“When?”

“I know not. ‘When I am come again into England, I come with the levies of my possessions,’ he writes, but he says not when.”

“Ye canna keep her and he comes here.”

“Holy Church will hold she is mine. I have the agreement between us for proof.” Giles reached for the wineskin and drank also. “I’d sooner lose mine arm, Will.”

“Aye.” The big man regarded him for a long moment, then sighed. “Well, ye canna say I didna warn ye she’d bring ye grief. Ye’ll be an old man ere the Church can be brought to rule fer ye.”

“She’s not barren.”

“Och, and what good does that do Dunashie and yer head’s above yon gate?”

“Would you have me send her back? Would you have my babe born at Harlowe, mayhap to be there as I was at Moray? Nay, I fight for her.”

“Ye agreed to let her go,” Willie reminded him.

“To defend Harlowe. But if Rivaux himself comes again into England, as he says, ready to punish me for taking her, then it can be argued there is no need.”

He stared unseeing into the cold brazier where the ashes of Count Guy’s letter lay. What he could not put into words was the greater fear that if he let her go, she would not come back to him, that she would choose her father over him. That she was Rivaux gave her greater pride than anything he could give her. Even now he could remember her pulling off her veil, revealing that mass of black hair, saying he’d not dare to raise his eyes to her.
“I am born of the blood of counts,”
she’d declared proudly,
“daughter to this earl, Moray.
’
Twas to the son of a count I was wed. Nay, I
’
d not have mixed my blood with the likes of you, sir.”
Well, he’d dared and he’d gotten a babe of her.

“What do you do?” Willie asked finally, cutting into his thoughts. “Ye canna win against him, ye know.”

“For all that is said of him, he is as mortal as I,” Giles retorted almost angrily.

“Och, but there’s not many as believes it, ye know. Fer langer than ye been alive, there’s been none as has stood against him to tell the tale.”

“He’s got more than fifty years, Will—’tis not the same now. Besides, I mean to take her to Kilburnie and answer King David’s call.”

“Kilburnie!” Willie snorted. “ ’Tis but a pile of wet rocks scarce fit fer the horses. Wraybourn or Blackleith are the better keeps. She’ll sicken at Kilburnie.”

“Aye, but Guy of Rivaux will have to invade Scotland to reach it,” Giles answered. “ ’Tis the northernmost of all I have. Were we not so far south here, I’d choose Dunashie above all of them.”

“But ye canna break yer word to her—ye canna. She’ll nae fergive ye fer it,” his half-brother predicted.

Giles rose. “A woman is ruled by her husband, Will.”

“Humph! If ye’d rule in yer household, ye got to sit above her.”

“God’s bones, but can you still complain of naught else? You forget she is higher-born than I,” Giles snapped. “ ’Tis her right.”

Shaking his head, Willie watched him go. “Ye got to give her pride in what ye are,” he muttered under his breath. “A woman’s pride should be her husband.”

Any hopes Giles had of his sovereign liege’s support died the next day. The message from David of Scotland was brief and pointed, reading in part:

It was an unexpected coil. Giles had thought that his king, when faced with an accomplished fact, would support his man against a Norman lord, and he’d been wrong. Like Giles, David had lived overlong at the English court, and with different result: David admired all things Norman, whilst Giles despised many of them. Even as David imposed the Norman feudal system on Scotland, Giles still maintained his household loosely, relying on the personal loyalty of those he called by the familiar Scottish names. Instead of Sir William, Sir Gilbert, and Sir Robert, he knew his men as Willie, Lang Gib, and Hob, and they served him as well as any bound by oaths taken for land. But now that did not matter.

He faced giving up Elizabeth to her father, or losing the patrimony he’d fought so bitterly to regain. Mayhap. But he was not done yet—not yet. Reluctantly, he turned to his other source of support. Aye, if King David would not stand with him against Rivaux, he expected that King Stephen would. And as well as he knew David, if the war turned against the Empress the Scots king would be more than willing to negotiate with him for the return to his lands. If it did not, then he would lose Dunashie—until he could take it back. He’d taken it once and he could do so again, he told himself.