Castle of the Heart (29 page)

“But I do care.” The words slipped out before
she had given them thought. She saw something in his eyes that
answered her, a quick glimmer of understanding, as quickly
extinguished in favor of merry laughter.

“Don’t,” he said. “Never give your heart lest
it be broken. Come.” He took her hand and led her to the dancing,
and she did as he had bidden her. She laughed and flirted with
every young man who asked her, and some not so young, and even
danced once with Guy as her partner, after Thomas had pulled him
onto the floor.

Selene, prevented by her condition from
joining in the fun, sat in her chair at the high table, watching,
pretending she did not notice Meredith and Reynaud talking quietly
two seats away from her, refusing to join them when they spoke to
her. When she finally slipped away and went to her chamber, no one
missed her at all.

Arianna was well liked and much respected.
There were few in the castle who had believed the gossip about her,
so the talk ended as quickly as it had begun. To assure that
tongues did not begin to wag anew, Thomas saw to it that he and
Arianna were never alone together again.

Spring and summer dragged on, Selene growing
more sharp of tongue each day, until Guy swore he would have her
confined to the dungeon were she not carrying Thomas’s child. At
dawn on the second day of August, with Meredith, Arianna and
Blanche in attendance, she produced a son with remarkable ease.

“It was dreadful, an endless torture,” she
said to Thomas, exaggerating her discomfort when he came to see her
and the baby. She was in fact feeling quite well, and was much
relieved that she had lived through it, believing heaven had
granted her a reprieve, but she would not have Thomas know how easy
it had been. “You cannot expect me to give you any more children,
not in such unbearable pain. You have your heir. Be content with
him.”

Thomas said nothing. He listened with
apparent meekness to all Selene’s complaints, but Arianna, standing
at one side of the room holding the baby, sensed deep anger in him
at this shrewish attack during what should have been a tender
moment between husband and wife. There was in his eyes a cool
emptiness in place of the love that had once filled them each time
he looked upon Selene, and Arianna saw this if Selene did not.
Selene took his gift to her, a pair of heavy gold bracelets set
with precious stones in many colors, and tossed them carelessly
upon the bed.

Arianna, fearing Selene in her present
defiant mood would provoke him into open warfare, came forward and
gave Thomas his squalling, robust son to hold. He regarded the
red-faced baby with a serious expression.

“I’d like to name him Jocelyn,” Thomas said.
“I had a friend once, when I was page to King Henry. Joce died of a
fever before he was old enough to become a squire. I’d like to
remember him.”

“Whatever you want.” Selene turned her head
away from the sight of her husband and son. “I don’t care. Just
stay away from me.”

Thomas clasped his son to his bosom and bent
to kiss the baby’s forehead, and Arianna bit her lip to keep from
crying out at the look on his face, half proud over the child, half
desolate at his wife’s rejection.

She found him in the chapel an hour or two
later, prostrate before the altar. So deep was her concern for him
that she did not wait until he had finished his prayers.

“Thomas, don’t, you’ll catch a chill,” she
cried, bending over him. “The stone is so cold.”

“How would you know that,” Thomas asked,
rising, “unless you have lain on it yourself?”

“I have, once or twice,” Arianna
admitted.

He stood staring down at the cold stone
floor, and when he spoke again it was as though he was continuing a
conversation with her, and expected her to understand his
thoughts.

“I tried to help her, to be patient with her.
I hoped she would change if we had a son.”

Thomas whispered. The blue and red of the
stained glass windows shone on his head when he moved into the
light, facing her. “I see now that won’t happen. It will always be
like this, for the rest of our lives. How can I bear it? How can
she?”

Arianna could think of nothing to do but take
his hand and hold it tightly. She was reassured by the answering
pressure of his strong fingers before he went on.

“I, who wanted to love my wife as Uncle Guy
loves Meredith, no longer feel anything for her at all, except
irritation, and contempt when she is cruel to others. As she has
been to you these last months, though you have always been her
staunchest friend. And Reynaud. She treats him as if he were a
leper. Everyone I love she has harmed in some way. Nor am I so
blind as she thinks. I suspect there’s more, some secret she keeps,
some great guilt. I may never know the truth of that, but it’s
there, between us.” He turned aside, hiding his face, dark red
light splashing across his golden hair, outlining his head in a
fiery halo, and Arianna ached for his torment.

“I shall go away,” he said. “I’ll go to
Normandy and join the king in his war with France. I should have
done it long ago, but Uncle Guy said he needed me here.”

“He does. Don’t leave us, Thomas. You could
be killed.”

“Better if I were.”

“Don’t say that.”

He turned quickly at that frightened sound,
and saw the look on her face before she could compose her features.
They stood in the glow of stained glass and sunlight, their faces
patterned with vibrant color, looking at each other, looking for an
eternity, while full comprehension grew in Thomas.

“I should have known,” he whispered. He
opened his arms and she went into them. His mouth found hers,
taking her freely offered lips with tenderness and warmth, finding
in this dearest and most steadfast of friends all that he had once
hoped to find in his wife. Their embrace lasted only a moment,
before Arianna was pushing against his chest, fighting to free
herself from his arms.

“No,” she cried, “not in this place. Not
here. What we do, what we are thinking of, is a sin.”

“Arianna,” he whispered hoarsely, his
discretion overcome by deep emotion, “Selene doesn’t want me. I’ve
lived like a monk all these months. If you and I chose to enjoy
each other, where’s the harm?”

“It is adultery, that’s the harm. Selene is
my kinswoman. She has just borne your son. How can you say such a
thing? Perhaps you should go to Normandy after all.”

She was gone. She had run out of the chapel
in tears, taking the light with her, leaving him more alone than he
had ever been in his life. Thomas was wracked with shame. There was
no excuse for what he had just tried to do to Arianna.

It was not at all unusual for men of rank to
lay with the women in their households, whether servants or
noblewomen, but Thomas, inspired by his faithful uncle, had tried
to be content with his own wife. Until today he had honestly
imagined his feelings for Arianna were those of friendship and no
more. But in those few magical moments when they looked at each
other without pretense, he had finally seen what ought to have been
apparent to him long before.

Arianna loved him. Worse, what he felt for
her was much more than friendship. It was something deep and true
and enduring, richer by far than the wild, erotic passion he had
once known for Selene and in his youthful inexperience had mistaken
for love. He did not love Selene. He might have grown to love her
had she been a different kind of woman. But after years of an
impossibly difficult marriage he saw his wife clearly for what she
was – a tormented, half-mad creature, unable to control her
emotions and incapable of loving him.

And he was bound to her for the rest of their
lives. He could not set her aside as some men did with wives they
no longer wanted. He and Selene were in no way related by blood;
Guy had made certain of that before agreeing to the match. And she
had given him children. These were the only two acceptable reasons
for ending a marriage: a too-close blood relationship or a wife’s
barrenness. Selene was his wife forever, and Arianna was lost to
him. He knew Arianna’s strength and firmly believed she would never
consent to adultery.

Thomas moaned aloud and sank to his knees,
acknowledging bitter truth. Grief and despair overcame him. He fell
onto the stone floor of the chapel, lying as Arianna had found him
earlier, struggling with his sorrow and his shame.

He did not know how long he stayed there.

When he rose at last he was in no way
comforted about the future of his marriage, but he knew two things.
First, because he loved her, he could never do anything that in any
way might hurt Arianna. Second, after Meredith’s child was born and
his own present tasks for Guy were completed, by early spring at
the latest, he had to leave Afoncaer.

On the first day of September, after a brief
labor, Meredith brought forth a daughter, and then, half an hour
later, surprised everyone by giving birth to a twin, a tiny, but
completely healthy son. Casks of wine were sent to the village so
everyone might celebrate, and the entire household gathered in the
great hall to drink to the health of the castle’s lord and lady and
their children.

“It’s wonderful,” Thomas rejoiced, refilling
his cup for another toast. “Uncle Guy is so happy. He won’t leave
Meredith’s bedside. I’m to lead the celebrations here.”

“It is not wonderful.” Selene glared at him.
“Don’t you see what this means? You are displaced as Guy’s heir.
Your son, my son, will be shunted aside and replaced by this new
baby.”

“It doesn’t matter, Selene. I am still to
have Adderbury. It was my grandfather’s estate, and then my
father’s. Uncle Guy has said it will be mine in time. Kelsey will
be Cristin’s dowry, and Adderbury will come to me. We will never
lack for lands or a home.”

“Adderbury is not the same as Afoncaer,”
Selene snarled. She saw Reynaud watching her again. Wherever she
was, his eyes followed her. “What are you staring at, Reynaud?” she
demanded.

“At a young man whose heart is great enough
to rejoice at another’s good fortune,” Reynaud replied smoothly. “A
man whose uncle loves him and will never forget him.”

But Selene was not satisfied. Reynaud knew
something about her, she was sure of it. She had to get away from
Afoncaer, and the sooner the better. She began that very evening to
work on Thomas. Not using her body, as she had in the past. It was
too soon after Jocelyn’s birth for that, and she was not certain
Thomas would be amenable to that kind of coaxing after her long
denial of him. But she had a tongue, and she employed it well.

“Adderbury may be a fine place,” she began,
“but would you not like to have more to leave to your son? And what
of a dowry for Deirdre? You cannot expect your Uncle Guy to provide
one. He has two daughters of his own now. Thomas, the time has come
for you to go to court and make your fortune. The king is fond of
you; I’ve seen that for myself. Who knows what honors you might
earn by employing your sword in his service during this war with
France?”

“I had thought of it,” Thomas admitted
cautiously. He had not told her of his earlier decision to leave
Afoncaer. Now it occurred to him that it would be wise to take
Selene with him when he went, for the sake of everyone’s peace,
except his own. But he would leave her soon enough, to go to
war.

“Isn’t the king’s son to be married in the
spring?” Selene went on. “The one who was at our wedding?”

“William Atheling, yes, to the Count of
Anjou’s daughter.”

“We should be at the wedding, Thomas, to
represent Afoncaer. Guy won’t want to leave – who knows what the
Welsh might do during such a long absence – but we could go in his
place.”

“What about the children?” He would miss them
both, but he did not want them with Selene. Her ready answer
relieved his concern about them.

“We will leave the children here with
Arianna,” Selene said blithely. “She can take care of them.”

“I’ll speak to Uncle Guy in a day or two. You
are right, Selene. There will be honors and lands to be won in King
Henry’s war.”

It was not very difficult to convince Guy. He
understood far more than Thomas had realized, and agreed it would
be best for Thomas and Selene to leave. He asked only that they
wait until after the new year had begun. Then he would entrust
Thomas with dispatches for the king’s secretaries, and private
information about activities on the border which Thomas was to
deliver to the king’s ears only.

Selene was making her own plans. While Thomas
was away from court with the army, she would visit her parents’
castle in Brittany, and from there she could easily contact Isabel.
Perhaps if she could meet Isabel face to face that lady would
relieve Selene’s guilt over all she had done and then would finally
discharge Selene from her oath. Selene might even be able to
arrange for Thomas to meet his mother. That would further please
Isabel. Whatever happened, she would be far from Reynaud and his
penetrating eyes. Selene began to feel a little hope.

For Arianna, caught between relief that
Thomas was going away, thus removing her great temptation to sin,
and fear each time she remembered that he was going into danger,
for Arianna, there was heart-rending anguish such as she had never
known before. It had been easier for her when he had not known she
loved him, before she had seen that he loved her. Now all pretense
was gone between them, and their every meeting was an agony of
trying to hide their feelings from others, and of trying not to
give way to the need to touch each other or to embrace. They
scrupulously avoided being alone together. How she got through the
days and the long, sleepless nights Arianna did not know. She moved
like a sleepwalker, discharging her duties competently enough,
though often she could not remember later whether she had done a
thing or not.