Read The Maiden Bride Online

Authors: Rexanne Becnel

Tags: #Fiction, #Romance, #Historical, #General, #Medieval

The Maiden Bride (6 page)

BOOK: The Maiden Bride
8.62Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads
Linnea started to rise, to go to her, but Lady Harriet must have anticipated just such a possibility, for she stepped between the pair, blocking their view of one another. “Whilst you see to our Maynard’s physical needs, Beatrix, Father Martin and I will see to his spiritual ones. Once finished here, come attend me in my chamber.” Then she turned away, and leaning on the maid Dorcas for support, she made her way regally toward the chapel.
 
Were it possible, the morning proved to be even worse than the day before, Linnea thought as she gathered up the dirty cloths that had bound her brother’s injuries. Yesterday they’d labored under the dark cloud of fear and uncertainty. Today they were immersed in a storm of despair. Linnea could almost envy Maynard his oblivion.
At once she willed her self-pitying thoughts away. To envy poor Maynard! How selfish of her to think her misery worse than his! At least she was healthy and unharmed.
Thank the Lord that his wounds had not festered. But Linnea could take little comfort from that, for he yet remained in a deep sleep. He was also far too warm despite their efforts to cool him. She feared he was more likely to die than to live, though she would admit as much to no one. Mayhap her grandmother’s prayers and Beatrix’s would pull him through.
Where was Beatrix right now? she wondered.
She stretched her back and rolled her aching neck from side to side. Maybe her grandmother would know. “Stay with him at all times, and send for me should he awaken or begin to sweat,” she told Frayne. “I’ll come back later, though I hope to prevail upon this de la Manse to allow Maynard to be nursed in his own bed.”
Frayne did not reply but only glanced warily at the two men who guarded his master. No doubt she should have held her tongue as well, Linnea castigated herself as she and Norma made their way back to the keep. She was three times a fool to speak her mind too plainly in front of
his
men. But she was too tired and too cross to be cautious.
“’Tis more as it should be out here,” Norma remarked as they came into the bailey. Indeed, as they stared about them it was true. Most of the army and its accoutrements no longer filled the yard to overflowing, though their presence was plainly felt. Still, Iron James worked in the open shed of the armory, sharpening swords and other weapons as he often did. A pair of knights instructed several squires in hand-to-hand combat, and the laundress and her helpers worked over their large wash kettles. A half-grown pup romped good-naturedly behind a furiously hissing cat.
Linnea rubbed her tired eyes. It was almost as if nothing had happened here yesterday. As if her life had not been shattered apart in one tense afternoon.
Would that it had all been a dream.
But it was no dream. Rather it was a nightmare come fully to life, she realized. For striding along the wall-walk toward the gatehouse was none other than the author of this disaster. Axton de la Manse. He of the two clawing bears. And now he and that awful boy, trailing him like a flea-bitten bear cub, were up there inspecting
her
family’s castle, with Sir Hugh and two other men accompanying them.
It was an outrage! Worse, though, there was nothing she could do about it—at least not at the moment.
But in the end, once Beatrix was wed to someone willing to challenge de la Manse …
“St. Joseph’s bones,” Norma murmured. “He makes himself quickly to home, doesn’t he? Oh, milady, ’tis hard to think that you and he—”
Linnea cut her off with an impatient oath. “Then don’t think about it. And for mercy’s sake, don’t speak of it, least of all to me!”
Then Linnea sighed. She was behaving like her grandmother, blaming everyone around her for things not within their control. “Forgive me, Norma. You’re in no way to blame for this and I’ve no call to be so sharp with you. Please, let’s just find the Lady Harriet. I won’t feel better until I know Bea—till I know
Dorcas
is safely away from here.”
Lady Harriet and Lord Edgar sat at an empty trestle table in the hall, taking a late morning meal alone while the servants prepared for the midday meal. When Linnea and Norma joined them, Lady Harriet gestured impatiently for Norma to take some food and then leave. Linnea she drew to sit beside her on the bench.
“He shames us before our own people!” the old woman hissed, though not loud enough for it to carry. “Eating here, below the salt!”
“Is Dorcas well away from here?”
“Father Martin journeys to Romsey Abbey tomorrow. The maid will accompany him,” Lady Harriet confirmed.
“Thanks be to God,” Linnea breathed.
“Yes, and thanks be to me for devising such an escape for her.”
“’Tis a very good plan,” Linnea agreed. That her grandmother did not give Linnea credit for the idea galled her, but she buried any resentment beneath her relief that her sister was safe.
“Now,” Lady Harriet said. “We must be agreed. Should word of another daughter of de Valcourt be raised, we will say she has deserted her family during the attack. That Linnea has ever been a curse upon this family and has abandoned us. They
must
believe that you are Beatrix.” She fixed Linnea with her stony stare. “He may not hear of the second sister, but happens that he does, we must all of us adhere to the same tale. Linnea has ever been wild and uncontrollable. None among us is surprised that she has gone off on her own.”
Linnea tried to be as hard and callous as her grandmother, as thick-skinned and insensitive. But in the face of such cruelty she could not remain firm. Must she paint her own self as disloyal to her family? A coward who would run from duty? A woman who would abandon her family at the first sign of trouble?
Aching inside, she sought her father’s support. But when she met his gaze it was to find him already staring at her, a wrinkle of bewilderment on his weary face.
“You are Linnea?” he asked disbelievingly. “I can hardly credit it—”
“Don’t be a fool, Edgar!” Lady Harriet cowed him with her vicious tone, and even the several servants across the hall looked up in alarm. “Don’t be a fool,” she repeated more quietly. “Speak not that name out loud. Never. She is Beatrix now, until such time as we decide to expose our deception. Beatrix, I say.”
He nodded and wiped a hand across his brow. Again the thought occurred to Linnea that he looked even older than his mother, and much less able to cope with the abrupt change in their circumstances.
But she was given no time to contemplate her father’s quick decline, for her grandmother pinched her arm, demanding her complete attention.
“How fares Maynard?”
Linnea sighed. “Much the same. Once I have eaten I will return to him. Do you think there is any hope that he will allow Maynard to be brought into the keep?”
Lady Harriet’s fingers drummed restlessly on the tabletop. There was no need explaining to her which
he
Linnea referred to. “Mayhap … mayhap if he is well pleased with you this evening, he would grant that favor to you.”
“Well pleased?” Linnea asked, unaccountably remembering that quick, appraising look he’d sent her this morning. “How am I to please him tonight?”
Lady Harriet gave her a shrewd look. “He will wed you this very evening. He reasons that there is no cause for delay. Methinks he finds you comely in that garb of Beatrix. So if you behave with him as a loving and dutiful wife would—”
“Loving! Dutiful!”
Once more the several people in the hall glanced over at them. But Linnea did not care. It was bad enough to marry the man and suffer the groping that surely must follow. But to appear to relish it—for that was clearly her grandmother’s implication. To appear to relish it was simply too much to ask!
She rose from the bench—or tried to. But Lady Harriet grabbed her trailing sleeve and jerked her back down.
“You said unto me that you would save your sister,” the old woman hissed, her faded eyes slitted with fiery emotion. “You said you would save your family. But I ken what truly you wish, wretched girl. You wish only to prove me wrong. You wish to prove your miserable existence of some worth. Well, this is your chance. This is the only chance you ever will have. Do it, and do it well. Else, tell me now that you be unequal to the task—and that I have been right about you these seventeen years and more!”
She let go of Linnea’s arm as if it disgusted her to even touch so loathsome a creature. But though Linnea was free to run away from the bitter old woman and her hateful words, she found that she could not do so.
That
was
her goal: to prove her grandmother wrong. To prove them all wrong, but especially her grandmother. If she were as pure of heart as Beatrix, she would only care about saving her loved ones. But she was selfish and she’d let herself become caught up in the glory she might gain for herself.
She bowed her head, ashamed of herself. She must do this for her family—and for the right reasons. If she must wed this man … if she must subjugate herself to him, though it degrade her body beyond imagination, then that was what she would do. After all, hadn’t Maynard done as much? He’d used his body in defense of his family, and suffered terribly for it. But he’d done it just the same. Could she do any less?
Linnea thought of Maynard lying near to death. She would keep that image of him tucked away in her mind as the source of her courage. If cruel, mean-spirited Maynard could be so noble, surely she could do as much.
“I will do it,” she said, then took a slow, shaky breath. She raised her head and met her grandmother’s narrowed stare. “I will do it, but …”
“But what?”
“But I …” She swallowed hard and shot an embarrassed glance toward her silent father. “But I do not know what … what … how to be a loving and … dutiful wife.”
Her father cleared his throat and looked away. But Lady Harriet, far from becoming uncomfortable with Linnea’s question, began instead to laugh. “You do not know the way of it? All the time you have stolen away to the village and your coarse friends, ’twould seem you would know all there is to know of it by now.”
Linnea drew back, aghast that her grandmother could think such a thing. Her outrage, however, was met with equal portions of pain. No matter what she did, somehow her grandmother always made it look wrong. Even her innocence—something that should prove she was not so sinful as everyone believed—appeared a shortcoming now.
“Leave us, Edgar.” Lady Harriet waved him away with her bony hand. “I would speak with your daughter, to make certain she plays her part well tonight.”
He needed no more encouragement than that. But as he made his slow way up to his chamber, Linnea saw a guard follow behind.
They were but prisoners in their own home, free to move about, but only under the watchful eye of their captors. And so would she be a prisoner of her husband, at least until the truth could be revealed.
“Now then, listen close, girl,” her grandmother began. “When he takes you upstairs this evening, you must needs be attentive to his mood. Some men want a woman afraid. Cowed. They would take her roughly and relish her tears as fuel for their lust. Since he sees you as his enemy, he is very likely to use you thus. ’Tis rape, plain and simple, but within the bounds of marriage, and so permissible.”
Lady Harriet’s mouth thinned in distaste, and despite Linnea’s anger at her, and horror at the picture she painted, she felt a faint connection between them. Not that of grandmother to granddaughter, but of woman to woman. Women were too often misused by men. Though Linnea had never considered it before, now she wondered about her grandfather who’d died long before she’d been born. Maybe he’d used his lady wife roughly too.
“On the other hand,” the old woman continued, “some men there are who want a woman eager for them and willing to partake eagerly in their bed sport.”
“But how will I know which he is?” Linnea asked when her grandmother did not elaborate.
“If he throws you down, lifts your skirts, and begins to rut like some randy destrier, you will know. If that is the case, you need not hide your fear nor withhold your tears, for he will want to see them. To enjoy them.
“But should he woo you with kisses and soft touches, that will be your sign that he wants as much of you. ’Tis very simple. If he be cruel, then you may crumple. If he be gentle, then you must appear well pleased and willing.”
But it was not simple to Linnea. “How … how do I appear willing?” she whispered.
Lady Harriet shifted on the hard bench. It was plain that they’d gone deeper into this subject than she was comfortable with. “Simpleton! Just do whatever he asks of you—and smile! Keep your eyes half-closed, your lips half-parted, and smile. And be certain to act impressed when he reveals himself to you,” she added.
“Reveals himself?”
“His manroot,” she hissed impatiently. “His arousal. He will want to push it inside you. That’s the whole point, girl. He will grow it long and hard, then will he push it inside you so that he can spill his seed. Have you never seen the hounds?”
Linnea pulled back in disbelief. Like the hounds? Dear God! He meant to do
that
to her?
BOOK: The Maiden Bride
8.62Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

Other books

Steeling My Haart by Lizzy Roberts
Ghostwalker (Book 1) by Ben Cassidy
The Divided Family by Wanda E. Brunstetter
Back From the Dead by Rolf Nelson
Simplicissimus by Johann Grimmelshausen
The Prize in the Game by Walton, Jo