Candle in the Window (28 page)

“I can’t marry him,” she
repeated.

“There’s another difference between us,
Saura. I’m old and past the time of my moon cycles.
Ye’re young, regular, fecund. Ye could be carrying a babe
right now.”

“I’m not.”

“Then ye’ll do so next month, or the
next. Will ye condemn your child to a life as bastard because their
mother is a coward?”

“Oh, Maud, I don’t know what’s
right anymore.” Saura put her head in her palms and
groaned.

Maud took Saura’s hands and held them in her
own. “Well, I know what’s right. Keeping that wonderful
man waiting while ye stew over nonsense, making him wonder if
ye’ll shame him in front of half the country by refusing
him—that’s wrong. ’Tis a poor way to repay his
gifts of silk and fur and kindness.” Pinching Saura’s
cheeks to bring up the color, Maud straightened the bridal clothes
and drew her to her feet. She soothed, “Ye’re the most
beautiful woman here. Go out and marry him.”

“Are you ready, Saura?” William stood
in the doorway, his golden voice encouraging. “Our guests
await. Will you come out and wed me now?”

Without a word, Saura stepped forward
and put out her hand, and William carried it to his lips. Tucking
it into his arm, he led her out to the place on the dais where the
priest stood. Their fathers flanked them, and Maud checked to
confirm that her Saura retained a determined look on her face. Then
she sank down on the abandoned stool and wiped the perspiration
from her face.

Saura and William swore before all witnesses and in
the presence of Brother Cedric to be man and wife. Theobald gave
Saura away without a quiver. His good grace was fueled, perhaps, by
the sight of Lord Peter’s steady hand on his sword. Maud
crept out of the solar halfway through the ceremony and stood with
her hand on her heart. No one produced any objections to the union
when asked, and when the vows were finished the company cheered.
They broke into little groups who took turns kissing the bride and
slapping the bridegroom across the shoulder.

The feast that followed was the best yet, for the
kitchen servants no longer wavered in their loyalties. With this
marriage, William and Saura joined themselves into one.

William helped Saura to her feet and led her around
to speak to the guests.

As the couple moved toward him, Theobald raised his
goblet to his lips and drank, never taking his hungry eyes off his
stepdaughter. “Saura is Eve,” he murmured. “A
temptress who leads men to disaster.”

“Eve!” Saura stood behind them. Her
keen hearing had picked up his words and she ignited at last at the
slur she’d heard too many times. For herself and for her sex,
she retorted, “Eve! By God, the world should be glad
’twas Eve who first took the apple. Had it been Adam, he
would have clung to his sin with such dedication and stubbornness
mankind would never be saved.”

She flounced away, leaving a stunned silence behind
her that slowly filled with the crackle of women’s
laughter.

Standing on the fringe of the group, William
grinned to see the gaping amazement on his father-in-law’s
face. “You’ve not improved that vixen you
married,” Theobald complained. “In my house, she would
have never said a word against a man. She respected her
betters.”

“She does so in my house, also,”
William said with amusement. “Dudley, the young men are
congregating in the bailey for some sword practice. Won’t you
join them?”

Eagerly, Dudley pushed away from the table.
“Aye, sir, thank you.”

“You’re a monk,” his father
shouted after him, and then muttered, “Fool boy.”

William bowed in his direction and walked away,
hearing Duana complain, “I tell you, she’s enchanted
him.”

With a light step, he caught Saura around the waist
and swung her close to him. “And so you have.”

“Have what?” She tilted her head up and
he could see tears no longer threatened. What his tenderness could
not do, her anger accomplished. She no longer drooped with
melancholy and uncertainty.

“You’ve enchanted me.” He swung
her in a pirouette.

“Be careful!” She snatched at the hem
of her skirt and tugged it down. “Do you want me to catch
cold?”

“Catch cold?” He stopped his exuberant
dance.

“Aye, that sends a breeze right up my
legs.”

His eyes narrowed as he examined her too-innocent
face. “What have you done?”

“Done?” Her voice squeaked with
sincerity. “Nothing. Why do you ask?”

“Saura….”

“Where’s everyone going?”

“Outside for some games. Saura?”

“The sun’s shining, let’s go out,
my lord.” She tucked her hand in his and smiled up at him,
and he’d taken two steps toward their marriage bed before
Rollo and Clare grabbed his elbows and cried,
“William’s on our team!”

The other members of the team crowded around him,
propelling him forward and away from Saura. Sanity prevailed as he
moved away from her; he couldn’t bed her when the day was new
and their guests begged for entertainment. “What are we
playing?”

“Football. Dudley brought the ball, and he
knows the rules. You must kick it or butt it but never touch it
with your hands. ’Tis a exhilarating brawl. We must make
merry on your wedding day.”

“So it is.” William smiled with gentle
sarcasm. “I’d forgotten.”

The guests surrounding them snickered and teased as
they bore him down to the bailey. Glancing behind him, he saw Saura
coming in the midst of the women, and when he reached the bottom of
the winding stair he broke away, muttering about an untied garter.
Stepping into the shadows, he positioned himself and waited. His
reward appeared above him. Her hand against one wall, Saura walked
down the stairs, and William had a clear view all the way up her
legs.

“God’s teeth, Saura!” He surged
to the bottom of the stair. “What game do you think
you’re playing?”

“’Tis not football,” Jane
answered him cheerfully.

He stood with his fists planted on his hips, his
chin thrust out. “You can’t go out there like that. You
go right upstairs and clothe yourself.”

In a diversionary maneuver he could only admire,
the women pulled Saura past him and left him confronting Lady Jane.
“We’re going to go for a walk,” she told him.
“We’ll watch the game and pick some flowers, and Saura
wants to show us her herb garden.”

“Her herb garden? That’s not what
she’s likely to show.”

Jane slipped around him while he was protesting.
“No other man knows to look,” she said blithely.
“Don’t worry, we’ll bring her in if the wind
starts blowing.”

That didn’t reassure him at all.

He didn’t play a good game of football, the
women told her with glee. He kept licking his finger and checking
the breeze and the big, hard ball knocked his feet out from
underneath him more than once. She laughed softly as they peered
from the gate of the herb garden and described the action, but she
could feel their impatience. They wanted to watch the games
rather than chaperone her, and so she suggested,
“Your men would play better if you went out and cheered them
on.”

“Do you want to come and see William,”
Jane hesitated, and then asked, “Damn, what word do you
use?”

“See,” Saura said firmly.

“Do you want to come and see William play
football?”

“Nay. If you kind ladies don’t mind,
I’d like to be alone. For just a few moments.” No one
said anything, and she added, “To think.”

“’Tis too late for thinking,”
Bertha advised, only half teasing. “The deed’s
done.”

“I know.” For the first time in many
days, Saura considered her own feelings, and she discovered she did
want to be alone. A great desire filled her, wanting the peace to
deal with the changes in her life. “I’d just like a
moment to rest.”

The women seemed to understand. One by one, they
slipped from the garden and left her alone. She groped her way to
the bench in the sun. It was warm and hard, a sleek stone propped
in a horizontal level. The breeze didn’t blow into the herb
garden, protected as it was by the tall wooden fence and the roses
that climbed the wall. Silence permeated the area; not a real
silence, for she could hear the voices beyond shouting in unbridled
glee. But it was the kind of comfortable silence she’d heard
too seldom lately. Alone and at peace, with nothing pressing to do
and no one demanding her attention, Saura put her back against the
fence and closed her eyes. Smelling the roses and the marjoram,
absorbing the light through her pores, she sank into a kind of
somnolence. Her mind emptied, her muscles relaxed their subtle
tension, and she drifted.

A tightness in her shoulders brought her back to
the garden, and she wondered, in a vague way, what had alarmed her.
Lifting her head from its spot against the wall, she lis
tened. A slight frown broke the serenity of her brow
and made her frown more. She had let the lazy afternoon carry her
away. Why should she be disturbed now?

No one was there. She listened, but nothing moved,
no one spoke. She almost asked, but felt foolish. She hadn’t
really heard anything; there was just a chill up her spine and that
uncomfortable prickle of awareness.

Relaxing back down, she eased her muscles until she
had returned to the light sleep, and then she felt it. A vagrant
wind touched her cheek, a rough whisper echoed through the air. She
came up with a spring, reaching out for the phantom, but nothing
was there. She listened, listened with all her might, and she heard
it. The light football of slippered feet, the forced and even
breathing of a demon bent on cruelty. She had heard those sounds
before, knew who played such evil games. “Theobald, you
whoreson, stop this at once.”

She stopped speaking, hearing only the breathing.
It sounded louder now, at odds with the breeze that rattled the
climbing roses and carried the scent on its wings. His silence
infuriated her. “Theobald, my cook’s meals have given
you a bellyache before. They can do it again.”

Nothing. No answer, and so she shouted the ultimate
threat. “Theobald, I’ll tell William what you’re
doing, and he’ll beat you to death!”

Only a soft chuckle answered her, and goose bumps
raised on her arms. It had to be Theobald, it had to be. Yet
Theobald would never laugh at the threat of violence to his person.
Slowly she stood, a light sweat beading on her forehead, and her
voice quavered, “Theobald?”

“Fear not, fair lady.” The voice
sounded muffled, almost inaudible, familiar yet disguised. “I
love you.”

Her heart skipped a beat and began a pounding that
al
most deafened her. She took long, slow
breaths, trying to calm herself enough to think, to trap him, to
really hear the voice. “You’re not Theobald,” she
said positively.

“Nay.” The answer blew on the wind.

“Who are you?”

“One who loves.”

The voice was bland, expressionless, terrifying in
its control and lack of intonation. She had to bring emotion to
him, to raise the inflections that divulge identity. “How can
you say that? You frighten me with your tricks.”

“As long as William lives, your
fear—”

The voice broke off, and Saura heard Jane calling,
ladies approaching. She cursed and plunged toward the molester, but
she was no match for him. A patter of feet and he was gone, leaving
the disheveled Saura to face the women.

“Did you see him?” she demanded.

“See who?” Jane asked, puzzled.

“You must have seen him,” Saura
insisted. “A man here talking to me.”

“Oh, ho!” Bertha said. “Dreaming
of your man?”

“There was a man here, and he said terrible
things. He said he loved me and called me fair lady.”

“No one left the garden.” Duana
snickered. “All this poetry has gone to your head.”

“Nay. Nay, I tell you.”

Jane laid a soothing hand on Saura’s arm.
“Duana’s right. No one left the garden as we approached
the gate.”

“There must be another way.”

“You were dreaming.”

“Impossible.”

“You were asleep and alone when last we
checked you. I promise you, you were dreaming.” Jane’s
hand tightened on
her, and she gave a little
tug. “Come, let’s go up to the solar where you can rest
properly.”

Hearing them, Saura despaired. They’d never
believe her, they believed only the evidence of their own eyes. How
could she convince them? She could hardly believe it herself.

In her room alone, she climbed up onto the bed,
obeying Jane’s injunction to relax. Bare between the sheets,
she thought about the strange incident in the garden. It
couldn’t have really happened. The incident had such a
strange, otherworldly feel to it. If only she could convince
herself, convince herself she wasn’t going mad. Reassure
herself about her panic of the morning.

It was nothing, she assured herself. Bridal
jitters. Why, she’d heard of brides who sobbed through the
entire ceremony. She wasn’t really unsure of herself. So what
if William should fornicate with a serving maid and bring in a poor
relation to be housekeeper and replace her totally? ’Twas her
he wanted, her he cherished. He said so and he was a man of honor.
So what if he were to discover a new love as she swelled with a
babe? All men kept a woman for amusement and a wife for children.
She wouldn’t care, would she?

A noise at the foot of the bed made her raise her
head, like a rabbit on the alert. Fear sprang into full bloom.
Memories raced through her mind: the echo of footsteps, a hoarse
laugh, a murmured expression of love. She wanted to speak, but
found her voice frozen in her throat. She lifted her hand slowly,
cautiously, afraid someone watched her, afraid of…of what?
She didn’t know, and that was the worst. With trembling
fingers, she massaged her neck until the tendons relaxed.
“Who’s there?” she whispered. Then louder,
“Who’s there?”

No one answered, and her heart gave a bound,
threatening to beat out of her chest. It was him again, she knew it
was.
Somehow that man had gotten into her room.
Whoever it was coughed, and she relaxed. It wasn’t him. It
wasn’t even a man, and now she could deal with the intruder
with some sense.

Calmly, she said, “You can’t fool me.
I’m trained to listen, and I know you’re
there.”

Footsteps dragged around the floor, and she sat up
and pulled the covers under her arms. Cocking her head toward the
sound, she tensed as she recognized the culprit. “Hawisa, how
did you get in here?”

“Ye think ye’re so cunnin’,
wi’ your good hearin’ what knows all, an’ your
good looks, an’ all th’ men sniffin’ after your
tail.”

Saura said nothing, trying to judge the depth of
Hawisa’s mood by the hostility in her tone.

“Ye think ye can hide your wickedness, but
folk are talkin’. They’re sayin’ ye’re a
witch. They’re sayin’ your blindness is a punishment.
They’re sayin’—”

“A lot of nonsense, it seems,” Saura
interrupted. “Hawisa, you didn’t come in here to tell
me what some mean-spirited people are saying. How did you get in
here?”