Castle of the Heart (21 page)

He took her hand and placed it on his
engorged manhood, and Selene felt the fire between her thighs begin
to burn once more.

“I want you again,” she whispered in
amazement, pulling him toward her.

“I hoped you would.” He entered her slowly,
carefully, as though he feared he might hurt her. She sighed,
pressing herself against him, feeling his warm flesh on hers,
imagining she was slowly absorbing him into herself. She did not
even remember her earlier fears about this act, all she knew now
was Thomas, holding her close, bringing ever-increasing warmth to
the very center of her being. She lost all sense of time or place.
She was an empty vessel waiting to be filled, and Thomas filled
her, made her whole, and then broke her into a thousand tiny
fragments of intense joy, before he molded her softly back together
again. She lifted heavy eyelids and saw him looking at her with
love.

They made love again and again that night,
while across the room Deirdre slept peacefully. Selene was so
drugged with Thomas’s loving that she forgot her purpose for a
while, but in the grey dawn, with his head pillowed on her bosom,
she recalled it. He had just told her he adored her and would do
anything for her. Anything.

“Will you take me to Brittany?” Selene asked.
“I would like to show Deirdre to my parents.” She felt him tense
within her arms, and knew she had better not remind him that Isabel
was in Brittany, living in the house Sir Valaire had provided. Once
they were in Brittany, she would convince him to visit his
mother.

“You have told me repeatedly that you do not
like your mother,” Thomas said. “Why should you want to see her
now?”

“It’s for my father,” Selene replied. “I
would like to take his granddaughter to him.”

“We can’t leave Afoncaer. Uncle Guy needs me.
In any case, I think your father will have other concerns for a
while. King Henry is going to Normandy after the new year. There
will be war with France again. I won’t take you, or our daughter,
into danger.”

Selene could have cried with frustration at
the failure of her plan. She knew there was no way to change
Thomas’s mind, and in her heart she agreed with him about crossing
the Narrow Sea during a war. Isabel would have to wait. Selene
would discharge her obligation to Thomas’s mother at some other
time.

Meanwhile, Selene discovered she had opened a
door she could not easily close again. After their romantic night
together Thomas expected her to move back into their shared
bedroom, and he wanted to make love to her regularly. That could
only lead to one thing: another child.

Selene worried constantly, her nerves strung
to acute tenseness, her temper exploding at the slightest
irritation. Cristin began to avoid her again after being slapped
for picking up the baby without permission. Arianna was screamed at
when she tried to help Selene with Deirdre’s laundry. They did not
speak for two days, until Selene, at Thomas’s express order,
apologized to her friend, and the two reconciled with tears and
promises not to quarrel again. The next day Selene ordered Meredith
away from the baby. She could not seem to control herself.
Everything that happened within her sight or hearing annoyed her,
everyone who spoke to her was blasted with harsh words. Reynaud
bothered her most, watching her, always watching.

Deirdre became fretful. Selene’s milk dried
up, making her nearly hysterical. Meredith, who thought her concern
was all for the baby’s sake, assured her the wet nurse she had
found was clean and healthy and had more than enough milk for both
her own and Selene’s child. Having lost the protection nursing
offered against another pregnancy, Selene worried even more. She
used every excuse she could to avoid Thomas’s lovemaking, until he
threatened to take her by force.

Relations between them deteriorated still
further. To keep Thomas away from her, Selene quarreled with him
frequently, always over trifles. Too often the quarrels degenerated
into rages so intense that afterward she could not recall what she
had said or done, though the evidence lay all about her in broken
dishes or torn clothing or dismantled bed linens.

“I have tried not to strike you,” Thomas told
her after one such episode. “But I warn you, Selene, if this goes
on much longer, I will lose my temper, and when I do, I will surely
beat you.”

“I don’t care,” Selene raged at him, her
anger flaring again. If she made peace with him he would want to
make love to her, and the inevitable result of that terrified her.
She could not stop herself, she began screaming senseless threats
and scratching at his eyes and face.

Thomas, barely avoiding her sharp nails,
slung her over his shoulder, dumped her onto the bed, and held her
down until her shrieks of rage and fear had subsided into helpless
sobs, then tearful quiet. Finally, her fury spent, Selene slipped
into exhausted slumber.

Thomas sat there still, upon the bed they
shared, shaking with his own reaction to her unmanageable frenzy,
and wishing he could weep. He had wanted to make love to her. He no
longer did. He touched her beautiful, pale face, but she did not
move. Her silky hair had come loose during their struggle. It lay
tangled across the bedcover. He lifted a strand and twisted it
about his fingers, then sighed and let it go.

He sat a moment longer, watching her and
admitting to himself for the first time that the passionate
affection he had once felt for her was weakening. He loved her
still, with a sad, hopeless love coupled with deep regret for her
inability to love him in return. Despite her constant denials of
his need, he still desired her lovely body. But he had had to make
too many excuses for her, first for her lack of charity and
industriousness, then for the bad temper and self-absorption that
had characterized her pregnancy, and now for the cruelty and
indifference with which she treated everyone she met. He needed a
woman who would face life’s inevitable problems and tragedies with
reasonable calm and fortitude, who would gain the respect and
loyalty of the rest of her household.

Selene was not reasonable. There were
doubtless those who would say she was half mad. Pity rose in
Thomas, blocking out his anger and frustrated desire.

“Poor child,” he whispered. “We are linked
together whether you want it or not. I can only try to help you
grow into what you should be, and into what I need.”

Days passed, and Selene’s temper grew worse
instead of better. Thomas was close to complete despair. It was Guy
who offered a suggestion that might provide some relief.

“Selene is destroying the peace of everyone
in the castle,” Guy said. “She has become intolerable. I think it
might help if the two of you went away for a while. Leave Deirdre
with us, and take Selene to Tynant. If she refuses, you must insist
upon it.There’s good reason for you to go. Reynaud has completed
his plans to make Tynant safer from Welsh attack. Take the plans
and go help Geoffrey build the new defenses. Geoffrey can use you,
and Selene will be the only woman there, apart from the servants.
She will have no interference with anything she wants to do, no
woman who ranks above her. Perhaps that will pacify her. Settle
your differences there.”

Thomas recognized that Selene could not go on
as she had been doing. He agreed readily to Guy’s suggestion,
knowing Geoffrey’s placid character would accept Selene calmly
whatever she said or did, and offer no provocation to her uncertain
temper.

Neither Guy nor Thomas knew then of the most
recent addition to Geoffrey’s household. It was at Tynant that
Selene met Gwenefer.

Tynant Manor January, A.D. 1117

“I can hardly believe it,” Thomas said.
“Geoffrey and a woman.”

“Hasn’t he had women before?” Selene
asked.

“Of course, but not like this. Just
unimportant girls. This is different. I think he loves her. Do you
mind that she sits at meals with us? I can tell Geoffrey to take
her off the dais and send her to one of the lower tables while we
are here.”

“I don’t mind,” Selene said. “I’m so tired of
seeing the same people all the time at Afoncaer, and they always
talk about the same things. Gwenefer is different, and very amusing
with those songs she sings, and all those funny stories. She has a
lovely voice. She can provide our entertainment each night. I would
never have guessed a Welsh woman could be so delightful a
companion. I thought they were all half-naked barbarians.” Selene
did not think it necessary to add that Thomas’s mother had told her
that.

“I am glad to see,” Thomas said complacently,
“that here as well as at Afoncaer, fairness and a mild hand have
pacified the Welsh who live directly under Uncle Guy and Geoffrey.
It is only the Welsh who live outside their direct rule, or those
who live under less gentle Norman lords, who cause trouble
now.”

Thomas had reason to feel pleased, not only
with the peaceful Welsh, but with the improving condition of his
marriage. Selene had readily agreed to come to Tynant, wanting only
to bring Deirdre with her. Meredith had quashed that plan by
pointing out how much safer Afoncaer was, and how it might upset
Deirdre to be moved from her familiar surroundings. Selene had
relented with unusual graciousness. Now that they were at Tynant
she was calmer than she had been at Afoncaer. There had been no
quarrelling at all and no outburst of temper for these first two
days. She had even allowed Thomas to kiss and fondle her at night,
though her reluctance to do more was obvious. Not wanting to
disturb the new-found peace between them, Thomas had not persisted,
hoping she would come to him willingly if he were patient a little
longer.

Selene was content enough to be at Tynant.
She rather liked Geoffrey’s new mistress. Gwenefer exerted herself
to be agreeable to Selene, who recognized what Gwenefer was doing
and took it as a compliment. In the afternoons they sat together in
the second-floor solar, Selene with her embroidery, Gwenefer
spinning wool. Their conversation was light-hearted and easy, yet
Gwenefer always made it plain that they were not equals. Selene was
a great lady, Gwenefer only a servant, deferring always to one set
far above her. They discussed housekeeping concerns whenever
Geoffrey’s aging chatelaine Rohaise joined them, turning to more
intimate subjects when Rohaise had gone off to kitchen or
cellars.

“Doesn’t she resent your presence here?”
Selene asked one afternoon when Rohaise had just left them.

“Not at all. We are fast friends, and I am a
great help to her. She depends on me.”

“I thought she might disapprove of your
friendship with Sir Geoffrey.”

“He is the master here and we are all bound
to obey him. Rohaise will never object to anything Geoffrey
wants.”

“I have wondered, Gwenefer,” Selene
hesitated.

“What is it, my lady? About what do you
wonder?” Dark, compelling eyes looked deep into Selene’s.

“I do not condemn you. I understand the
situation of a young woman in a household where she is subject to
her lord and master’s wishes, and his desires. It is not so very
different from my own condition, after all. I know that you share
Geoffrey’s bed.”

A peculiar look passed over Gwenefer’s face,
then cleared. Her voice was without emotion when she answered. “I
do, my lady. What is it you wish to know?”

“You lay with him, yet you are not with
child.”

“No. Nor will I be.” There was mockery in
Gwenefer’s dark eyes. “I know ways to prevent it.”

“You do?” Selene could not hide her interest.
She laid down her embroidery and stared at Gwenefer. “What
ways?”

“Do you really want to know, my lady?” Now
the mockery had reached Gwenefer’s lilting voice. “Surely you would
never use such methods yourself.”

“I recently endured a very difficult birth,”
Selene confided. “I don’t want to go through that again. Just for a
little while, you understand, until I’ve had time to recover
completely. It was so painful.” Selene closed her eyes, remembering
the pain, and the blood, and the weakness afterward, and thus she
missed the gleam in Gwenefer’s sharp gaze, a flare of triumph,
quickly extinguished.

“I can sympathize with your feelings, my
lady. But you must understand, the ways of which I know are
ancient, and forbidden to outsiders. I doubt if your husband would
be pleased if he knew what you are considering. He’s Norman, after
all. He must believe you owe him a son and heir as soon as
possible.”

“Thomas loves me. He would not begrudge me a
little time to recover myself before another child begins.”

“Then tell him what you want, and refuse him
your bed. That’s the safest way.”

“I’ve tried that, but he won’t listen to me
any more.” Selene’s voice had taken on a desperate note. “He wants
to lay with me every night, Gwenefer, and I have no more excuses to
make to him. I really don’t want to refuse him. I – I -” She
stopped, near tears.

“You want him, too,” Gwenefer said softly.
“He touches you, and your blood runs hot, and all you can think of
is his body on yours, and the pleasure you give each other, and so
you willingly say yes to him, and afterward you hate yourself. And
always you live in fear of the future.”

“You do understand,” Selene breathed. “Is it
the same for you with Geoffrey?”

“Unfortunately, yes. I never thought it would
be, not with a Norman, but it is.”

“Then be my good friend, Gwenefer, and tell
me what you do so I may do it, too, and not have to deny Thomas, or
myself, any longer.”

“I cannot do that, my lady.”

“Please.” Selene caught at Gwenefer’s hand.
“I beg you. It’s so important.”

“I can see it is.”

“I’ll pay you, Gwenefer.”