Castle of the Heart (15 page)

“You mean you have had yours. You very nearly
attacked me, Selene. You were ravenous.” An idea struck him,
dispelling the puzzled fear he had felt. He looked at her more
closely. “Why do you deny your feelings? Why do you pretend you
don’t want me when you so obviously do?”

She would have turned away from him and moved
to the other side of the bed, but he caught a fistful of her
shining hair and pulled her around so he could look into her
eyes.

“Answer me,” he growled. “What’s wrong with
you?”

Her expression was hostile, furious anger
filling her eyes, but Thomas’s determination more than matched her
rage, and after a while she relented.

“Let me go and I’ll tell you. It’s only fair.
You deserve that much. It’s not your fault, Thomas. You have been
very patient with me, though patience won’t make any
difference.”

He removed his hand from her hair and lay
watching her, ready to capture her again should she try to get away
from him, but she only pulled a fur up to cover her shoulders.

“What do you know of my mother?” she
asked.

“Lady Aloise? Not very much. I know more
about Sir Valaire. I do remember Aloise was once married to a very
old man. That was when I was page to King Henry. He wasn’t king
yet. His older brother was.”

“King William Rufus,” Selene said. “A wicked
man. And so was my mother wicked, Thomas. She was wed at fourteen
to Sir Stephen of Dol, who was nearly sixty and in his dotage. He
let her do whatever she wanted. My mother led a scandalous life at
court. She had numerous lovers.”

“I do recall,” Thomas said gently, “that she
was very pretty. But how do you know this, Selene? Whatever
happened during that time, it was before your mother married Sir
Valaire, and long before you were born.”

“I had the story from my father’s mother,”
Selene said. “My grandmother detested my mother, but there was
nothing she could do to stop her son from marrying his dear Lady
Aloise.”

“I have never heard a word of scandal about
your mother since she wed Sir Valaire. How can you blame her for
rumors about things that may or may not have happened before you
were even born?”

“I do blame her,” Selene replied heatedly. “I
was born just one week too late for my grandmother to call me a
bastard child, and I heard, throughout my childhood, how wicked my
mother was, how tainted with the sin of lust. That’s why I was
schooled in a convent instead of being fostered at another noble
home as most girls are. It was because my grandmother convinced my
father I’d bring him bastard grandchildren if I had the chance. In
a convent I would be safe, and he’d not have to worry about my
causing a scandal. I was no sooner in that school than my
grandmother died, but it was too late for me. I heard stories about
my mother from the other girls, and from the nuns. I had to endure
the shame of knowing that most of what my grandmother had told me
was true.”

“I knew you were not fond of your mother,”
Thomas said. “So this is why.”

“I came to hate her. And to hate the
lascivious nature I inherited from her. My grandmother’s fears were
justified. Aloise’s tainted blood flows in my veins. As I grew
older, I began to have sinful feelings. I thought about men. I have
five brothers, I knew well enough what a man looks like, and
sometimes I would imagine how it might be to be held in a man’s
arms, to have a man inside me.”

“There is nothing sinful about that, Selene.
Young men think about women, too, and about making love. It’s
perfectly natural.”

“The priest to whom I confessed said it
wasn’t. He gave me a long and arduous penance. It was then I
decided I had to become a nun. It was the only way I could think of
to curb my lustful nature.” Selene sighed and looked at him through
her thick lashes. “I’m more drunk than you thought, Thomas, to tell
you all this. I’ve never spoken of it before, not to anyone.”

“I’m glad you didn’t become a nun,
Selene.”

“That was my father’s doing. He decided I
ought to marry in a way that would be advantageous to him. I did
not want to marry anyone,” Selene went on. “I was afraid that once
I had lain with a man I would never again be able to control my
desires, that I would want dozens of lovers, just like my
mother.”

“And now that you have lain with a man, and
found pleasure in it, do you want lovers?”

“No!” Her emerald eyes were wide with fear.
“No.”

“But you do want your husband, I think.
Answer me truly, Selene.”

“I try not to, but when you put your hands on
me and begin to kiss me, then something happens inside me. There is
another Selene who takes over my thoughts and makes me do those
things, makes me touch you where I ought not to, and kiss you – oh,
Thomas, there is a demon inside me, a wicked, lustful devil! The
thing I have feared most all my life, that I would prove to be like
my mother, is true. I am every bit as wicked as she was in her
youth. That’s why I have avoided you and refused you. I have to
keep this demon locked up, lest it destroy me, and you.”

“My love, my dearest love.” Thomas pulled her
against his chest, holding her tenderly. “It’s no devil, it’s your
own divided heart.”

“Lust is a sin,” Selene insisted, her voice
smothered as she clung to him, shaking with the relief of telling
someone the terrible fears that had been bottled up inside her, and
of finding that person did not turn from her in disgust.

“You are right,” Thomas said. “It is a sin if
you want someone else’s husband or wife, or if you are not dealing
honestly with someone. But that is not what we are discussing,
Selene. Did you know I spent two years as a novice at Llangwilym
Abbey? I seriously considered becoming a priest. I’ll tell you what
the abbot told me when I finally left, knowing I would have to
marry some day. He said the good Lord meant His children to be
happy, and therefore love between husband and wife that brings them
pleasure is a joy to Him who made us.”

“An abbot said that?” Selene sat up, moving
away from him, her eyes wide. Thomas nodded, and she sat absorbing
his words. “An abbot ought to be wiser about such things than a
simple priest who comes to a convent to hear confessions.”

“I’m certain of it,” Thomas said.

“I’ll have to think about this.” Selene
frowned. “But that other person inside me. It’s as though Selene
vanishes and the other person becomes Selene. Because she was so
hungry for you I thought tonight that she would take over my being,
and I would never find my way back. But when you told me to open my
eyes and speak to you, I did come back. I wanted to be with you so
much that I was able to overcome her.”

“My dear love, don’t you see how torn and
divided you have been? Have you never heard a man say he is of two
minds about something? After he has made his choice, then those two
minds are one again. Isn’t it possible that your two halves could
become one? As you and I do when we make love? It might happen if
you could stop hating what we do together, and learn to accept it
as something good.”

It seemed to Thomas there was a new light in
Selene’s eyes, a gleam of hope he had never seen there before.

“I think it will take a very long time,” she
said after a while. “But I will try, if you will help me.”

“I will, my love.” She nestled in his arms,
coming to him willingly, and for the first time relaxing against
him in complete trust.

“Thomas, how are you so wise? How could you
be so certain of how I feel, and of what I ought to do about
it?”

“Because I have had similar feelings,” he
told her.

“You? About lying with me?”

“Never about you,” Thomas said, tightening
his arms about her for an instant, to reassure her. “I have loved
you since the first moment I saw you. But like you, I was ashamed
of one of my parents – my father – and like you, I tried to prevent
myself from becoming what he was by withdrawing from the world. Do
you know anything of him, Selene?”

“Baron Lionel? Only that he ruled Afoncaer,
and that he was Lady Isabel’s first husband.”

“I think it may be partly his fault that my
mother grew into the abominable person she is today. My father was
too dear a friend to King William Rufus, and far too ambitious. He
was a cruel baron to Afoncaer, until the Welsh rose against his
oppression and killed him. I was afraid that in time I would grow
to be like him.”

“You could never be cruel,” Selene said,
recalling all the provocation she had offered him. Any other man
would have beaten her many times over. “You have too kind a heart
for cruelty, Thomas.”

“That is just what Father Ambrose told me. My
friend, the abbot of Llangwilym, who helped me to better understand
myself. He said I had no true calling for the Church, that I should
go out into the world and do as much good there as I could, and be
an honorable heir to Uncle Guy, who needs me.”

“I think I would like to meet this Father
Ambrose,” Selene murmured.

“I’ll see to it that you do. Now you know why
I was two years late to my knighting, and how I understand your
divided heart. We will make each other whole, you and I.”

She was silent for a long time, and he
thought she had drifted off to sleep. At last she spoke again, very
softly.

“Thomas? Would you – could we make love
again, and this time I will try not to be afraid?”

Thomas could have wept for joy. It was a
sweet, slow surrender this time, filled with more tenderness than
he had believed her capable of, and her hands on him were gentle,
searching for ways to please him rather than to take from him,
until near the end, when she suddenly became greedy again. She
pulled him into her, demanding more, and still more, but by then it
did not matter because Thomas was as avidly desirous as she, they
were perfectly matched, and he had never, never been so completely
satisfied.

“Thomas was singing,” a laughing Guy told
Meredith in the privacy of their own chamber. “Singing to the
falcons in the mews.”

“Considering his voice, it’s just as well he
wasn’t singing to his wife,” Meredith said dryly. “Selene is
better, too, much easier to deal with, and she is beginning to
assume at least a share of her rightful duties. That’s a help to
both Joan and me. Whatever was wrong between them, they’ve resolved
it. She may even learn to love him in time.”

Selene tried. She had a warm feeling in her
heart each time she saw Thomas; she knew he was doing his best to
help her reconcile her powerful and disputing emotions. It was only
during the dark reaches of the night, when she lay beside him as he
slept, that she remembered the vow she had made to Lady Isabel, and
knew that one day it would have to be fulfilled. No opportunity had
presented itself yet, but sooner or later, Isabel had said, a
chance would come, and when it did, she must be ready to act. She
had sworn a sacred oath to help Isabel. And when she did, Thomas
would hate her for it.

Early spring, A.D. 1116

“Who is Lady Elvira?” Arianna could not read
very well yet, but she could make out the name on the packet Selene
had just sealed with wax and her signet ring. “And what is this
place where you are sending it?”

“Poitou. She lives there. Elvira is a friend
from my days in the convent. We promised to write to each other at
least twice a year.”

“You have never mentioned her before.”

Selene did not answer. She had gone white,
and Arianna could see her forehead was damp.

“Help me.” Selene gestured wildly. “I’m going
to be sick.”

Arianna looked around Selene’s bedchamber,
grabbing for the first vessel she could find, a wooden bowl. She
gave it to Selene, who began to retch violently, and as it turned
out, uselessly.

“My poor dear, you’ve nothing left in your
stomach. Selene, have you been sick earlier today?”

“Yes.” Selene leaned back in her chair,
looking exhausted. “It’s worse when I don’t eat, but I can’t look
at food, it makes me queasy.”

“How long have you been like this?” Arianna
felt Selene’s forehead, which was cool and damp, tested her steady
pulse, examined her clear eyes, and ended puzzled. Except for her
extreme pallor, Selene had none of the signs of fever or illness
for which Meredith had taught her to search. “Are you dizzy? Have
you pain anywhere?”

“No.” Selene shook her head. “Only the
sickness, every morning for a week. I believe it’s a punishment for
my sins. I am going to die soon, Arianna.”

Arianna was frightened by the statement, and
even more by the perfectly calm manner in which Selene made it. She
was still very pale, and the retching had been real. Perhaps she
was sick, and trying to hide it. That would explain her
self-absorption. Poor Selene. She must have been afraid to tell
anyone. Arianna felt a surge of pity.

“Stay in that chair, Selene. Don’t try to
stand. I’m going to get Meredith.” Arianna left Selene’s room, and
made her way along the passage to the opposite side of the keep,
knowing she would find Meredith with Reynaud.

“Have you come for another lesson?” Reynaud
greeted her cheerfully. There was no longer any doubt that he would
live, but he was still largely immobile, confined to his room by
the severe weakness that kept him in bed or in the chair only a few
steps away. Weak or no, his questing mind was clear and eager for
work. Meredith had decreed, over his protests, that he must rest,
postponing any possibility of his being carried out of doors to
review the castle’s defenses until the weather was warmer and he
was stronger. Thus prevented from returning to the work that had
engrossed him his entire life, Reynaud had fretted his time away,
the boredom of inactivity threatening to slow his healing, until
Arianna had devised a plan to occupy his thoughts while allowing
his body to recuperate.