Castle of the Heart (33 page)

With a sob Selene pulled the shift over her
shoulders and head and threw it on the floor. Thomas could not
pause for kissing or tender caresses. His arm caught her across her
chest to push her down and take her without further delay. She
cried out, wincing again when her shoulders hit the bed. He was on
top of her, one leg thrusting upward between her thighs, his
fingers digging into her shoulders. Her scream of pain cut through
his blurring, pounding senses. He drew back a little, wondering why
Selene was not accepting him as she always had when it came to the
moment, why there was no desire in her at all, only pain in her
face and her continuing moans.

And then he saw the marks on her upper arms.
At that sight, all passion drained out of him, leaving him suddenly
weak, his manhood limp and shriveled. Tears were streaming down her
cheeks as he turned her over and stared at her back, seeing what
the linen shift had hidden.

“Who did this?” he demanded, horrified.

“My mother, with a stick. Because I said I
would not receive you back as my husband,” Selene told him. “She
meant well. It is a parent’s privilege to chastise an errant
child.”

“Dear God.” Thomas’s fingers traced the
pattern of welts and broken skin that ranged across Selene’s back
and shoulders and upper arms.

“Why are you disturbed, my lord? It was for
your benefit. You have your wife back in your bed.”

“Where you do not want to be.”

“No, my lord.”

Thomas sat up and swung his legs over the
side of the bed. He reached for the linen towel Selene had used on
him, and draped it around his hips slowly, giving himself time to
think.

“Do you hate me so much?” he wondered.

“I do not hate you. If I could love anyone, I
would love you. I do hate childbearing, and because of that I fear
your lovemaking. Women pay heavily for whatever pleasures they find
in bed.”

“And also I think you still fear you will
become like your mother. But you are not like her, Selene.”

“No,” she said. “I have no taste for lovers,
and I have never beaten my daughter. But I have done other things
to be ashamed of.”

Thomas was overcome with pity. He got back
into bed and, sitting up against the pillows, pulled Selene into
his arms, gentling her when she went rigid at his touch.

“Don’t fight me, my dear,” he murmured. “I
promise I won’t attack you again. It was an attack, God help me. I
wanted to humble you, teach you who your master is.”

“My mother taught me that, my lord.”

And now he did kiss her at last, gently, with
no trace of desire. Her lips were soft and unresponsive under
his.

“I cannot seem to make myself into the tyrant
husband I wanted to be,” he observed ruefully.

“It’s not in your nature. You are too
kind-hearted.” He felt her hesitation before she began to speak
again, plunging onward in a sudden spate of fearful words. “Thomas,
I have much to confess to you, and I will tell you everything, I
swear I will, all in time, but for now there is one very important
thing. It must be said today, since we are to leave on the morrow
for Barfleur and then England.”

“Well, what is it?”

“In the year and a half since I came from
court to stay here after we parted from each other, I have seen
Lady Isabel often. We are close friends.”

“You have been seeing my mother?” In his
voice was all the disapproval he felt.

“She has a small manor house nearby. The
provision was part of our marriage contract.”

“I remember. That is your confession? I’m not
happy you have renewed your old friendship with her, but since you
are not likely to see her again, we will forget it.” Thomas relaxed
a little against the pillows. Poor Selene, with her exaggerated
emotions and her tendency to feel terrible guilt over unimportant
matters. Her next words jolted him out of his growing
drowsiness.

“Thomas, she loves you and longs to see you.
Would you visit her before we leave?”

“No.” His tone should have quelled her, but
still she persisted.

“Please, she’s growing old. She says she
hasn’t long to live. She wants so much to see you again.”

“I said no.”

“It would be a Christian kindness. Honor thy
mother.”

“My mother,” Thomas responded harshly, “has
no honor. I will not see her.” He told himself it was weakness in
him to want to be with his mother again after the terrible things
she had done. It would be disloyal to Guy, and to the dear friends
whose deaths Isabel had caused, if he were to go to her now. He
forcibly stilled the childish longing in his heart.

“Then, if you will not go to her,” Selene
said, capitulating as gracefully as she could, “will you give me
permission to say good-bye to her? When last I saw her, we parted
on my promise to take you to her. Let me make a proper farewell,
and I can tell her that you are well. I could carry a message if
you would only send one.”

“There will be no message from me,” Thomas
said firmly, in control of his emotions once more. “But since you
have made a promise to her, you may go. Make it clear to her that
when you have parted today, there can be no further contact between
you.”

“I will, my lord. I will go now, if you have
no further need of me.”

Thomas assented, sighing. He doubted he would
ever feel need of her again. Pity, yes – he would pity this hapless
creature forced into a marriage she did not want, forced into being
wife and mother when she would have been better off by far in some
convent – but not need. He watched her dress, noting, every line
and curve of her exquisite body, and knew not the slightest craving
to possess her. He briefly considered leaving her in Brittany, but
decided against it. She would be safer at Afoncaer, away from her
mother. At least he would not beat her. And there she would be far
from Isabel’s pernicious influence.

Selene, fully dressed, came and curtsied to
him as he sat in bed, then took up her cloak and went out to see
Isabel. And still he sat, wondering what his future could possibly
be like, living in the same castle with an unwilling wife he did
not want, and a beloved friend he could not have.

“Thomas will not come here? You are a poor
friend, Selene, if you could not manage him better than that. I
depended upon you.”

“Isabel, I’m sorry, truly I am, but he
absolutely refuses. I have promised him I’ll not meet you again or
write to you. This is farewell.”

“Promised him? What of your oath to me?”

“I fulfilled that when I betrayed Afoncaer.
And when I wrote to you repeatedly from Wales, knowing I should
not.”

“I see. You think you are quit of me.”

“I plan to tell Thomas everything I have
done. After we reach Afoncaer I’ll tell him. After I’ve seen my
children again. Then I will accept whatever punishment he decides
upon.”

“To ease your guilty conscience?” Isabel
looked amused. “Confession and penance. How appropriate for one who
once wanted to be a nun.”

“I wish I had been.” Selene swallowed hard,
trying not to cry. “Thomas deserves a better wife than I have
been.”

“I suppose he does.”

“At least I can be honest with him now.”

“You poor fool.” Isabel began to laugh. “You
will never tell him anything. You are too cowardly.”

“I will! I swear I will!” Selene’s tearful
protests were drowned out by Isabel’s continuing laughter.

“Tell him or not, whichever you want,” Isabel
said, wiping her eyes, still laughing. “It doesn’t matter to me.
Either way, you have accomplished my purpose. You were the weapon,
Selene. I recognized you at once for what you are. I knew you would
never love any man, not even Thomas. I felt certain you would make
him unhappy, and bring strife and dissension to Afoncaer, and thus
make Guy miserable, too. When you let that Welsh woman trick you
into outright betrayal I was delighted, though sorry the attempt
failed. And now, if you can bring yourself to confess, what a
marvelous finish to my little plan. Knowing what you have done will
hurt them all deeply, I’ve no doubt of that. Guy, and his dear
Meredith, will suffer as much as Thomas. Their hearts will break
over his distress.”

The mockery in Isabel’s voice stunned Selene
as much as the revelation of how blind she had been. Isabel had
used her in much the same way Gwenefer had. Selene was consumed by
self-hatred and guilt.

“You were never my friend,” Selene cried. “It
was pretense, a lie. And I, fool that I am, believed you all these
years.”

“Five years, yes,” Isabel said calmly. “I’ve
been in exile fifteen years now, sent away from England by that
cruel man.”

“Guy is not cruel, he’s kind and good. He
would have been my friend if I had let him. He and Meredith. They
tried, but I always repulsed them. Because of you. And you used me
as though I were some common spy you had hired.”

“Have you no blame for yourself, Selene? You,
with all your prattling about sin, and your long hours at prayer?
You hypocrite!”

“You took a foolish, innocent girl and
perverted her mind and heart. But you are right, I am to blame,
too. I knew what I did was wrong, even as I did it. I have
committed deeds that betrayed Thomas, but I’ll do them no more.”
Selene looked at her mother-in-law, a long, hard look that finally
saw the vanity and coldness and the hatred beneath the elegant
exterior. Isabel was laughing at her again.

Selene lifted her head high and without
another word walked out of Isabel’s house. The groom who had
accompanied her stood waiting with their horses. It was not a long
ride back to her father’s castle, but Selene had ample time to
think over her meeting with Isabel.

She found Thomas sitting before the fire in
the bedchamber they would share. She threw off her cloak and fell
on her knees beside him.

“My lord, I have been a very bad wife to
you,” she cried. “But I will improve, I promise. I will learn to
love you as you want, I will even bear you more children if God
wills it. Take me to bed now, let me show you what a good wife I
can be. Please, Thomas, let me begin to repair the damage I have
done to you.”

“Is this my mother’s doing?” Thomas asked.
“One of her schemes?”

“Isabel? No, why should you think that?”

“You have just come from her. My mother
always has an intrigue a-plotting.”

“We said good-bye. I will never see her or
write to her again, I promise. I swear it.”

“Write? Again?” Thomas’s eyebrows went up in
surprise, and Selene realized what she had just revealed.

“My dear lord,” she began, but he stopped
her.

“It doesn’t matter,” he said.

“Will you come to bed now?” she pleaded.
“Come and love me.”

“I loved you once,” he mused, “until you
destroyed everything I felt for you.”

He knew he would never lay with her again,
but he would let her learn it gradually. When this odd mood that
was on her tonight had gone, she would recall how much she hated
everything about child-bearing and be grateful to him. He stood up
with a sigh.

“Come to bed, Selene. You on your side, I on
mine.”

Selene began to undress, as slowly and
provocatively as she could. Thomas avoided looking at her, but she
believed that would not last long. She knew she was still lovely,
and he had never been able to resist her before. In time, if she
were patient, he would come back to her, and she would make it up
to him, all the things she had done that he need never know
about.

For, now that she thought about it more
calmly, she was forced to admit to herself that Isabel was right.
She was a coward. The very thought of telling Thomas the entire
truth of the last five years made her quake with fear. But perhaps
he need not know after all. There would be no further contact with
Isabel, and no one else knew what had been done. She remembered
Reynaud’s constant scrutiny and dismissed it. She had been away
from Afoncaer for so long that Reynaud must have forgotten his
suspicions of her by now. No one would tell Thomas what she had
done if she did not, and if she could live with her own guilty
conscience and keep quiet, she would be entirely safe. She would
have her children, and Thomas would soon begin to care for her
again. If she were forced to bear more children, she would consider
it penance and endure the pain as cheerfully as she could.

No, she decided, lying beside him in the
dark, there was no reason at all to disturb Thomas with a truth
that he would not enjoy hearing, and that could only hurt herself.
All she had to do was keep silent, and soon Thomas would be content
with her, and she with him. And they would forget that Lady Isabel
had ever existed.

Barfleur, France

November 25, 1120

“Are you coming on the king’s ship, or will
you cross with young William Atheling?” Sir Valaire asked
Thomas.

“William has invited us, and Selene seems
delighted at the prospect of the entertainment he is planning. We
will both sail on the
The White Ship,”
Thomas replied.

“I thought you would. It will be a merry
voyage. The entire court is sailing to England, save for the
Atheling’s wife and a few of her ladies.” Sir Valaire clasped
Thomas’s hand in farewell. “If we are granted a fair wind, Aloise
and I will meet you and Selene in England tomorrow. A safe passage,
Thomas.”

“And to you and your lady.” Lady Aloise had
already boarded the king’s ship. Thomas could see her on the deck,
in animated conversation with several other women of about her own
age.

The younger courtiers were to embark in
William’s company, but King Henry’s heir was late. The king’s ship
had sailed and night had fallen before William arrived at the
harbor. In the meantime, the magnificent new vessel,
The White
Ship,
had been heavily stocked with casks of wine and great
hampers of food. The musicians had just boarded when William
appeared, accompanied by his younger brother Richard, his
half-sister Matilda, Countess of Perche, the earl of Chester with
his new bride and his brother Sir Ottuel, and a crowd of other
nobles and their ladies.