Yearning Heart (25 page)

Stephen did not move but stared with fixed blue gaze at Rebecca's pale features. Finally, he spoke.

“A wife deserves a good husband who provides for her. Nothing more.”

Her head lifted, chin pointed. “Not love?”

“Love? Thou art bought and paid for. The cost was plenty for a wife to serve me.” Stephen wondered at his own words. Bought and paid for. How cold, how thoughtless of him. He remembered vividly the young girl he had taken from Grinwold—so long ago. She had been so young, so innocent. Even now, after four years, she seemed the same. How could he say such to Rebecca? This woman he'd made love to the past days as though it were the end of time? As though he'd never had a woman before?

He hadn't ... not a woman such as Rebecca.

“Ah.”

Rebecca's one word was steady, but her legs trembled, and she suspected her mouth quivered. How could she have forgotten that Stephen had paid a huge price to Sir Oliver for her? How could she have forgotten she was his possession the same as Tor? Or Aubin. The servants. Sadness flowed through her like the warm honey over the bread at the evening meal. Her eyes lowered to the laces on Stephen's gold silk waistcoat.

Gold, satin, linen, laces, clothing of the richest materials. Furnishings for a new house, which must have cost an amount, she could not imagine since most were shipped from France or Italy. Building stones that had not been long in use on England's foggy shores. Every material used was the best because Stephen refused to have less. He must feel cheated in his dealings with Papa, to have come off with only a skinny, outspoken child who had naught to offer him except an untried body. One who couldn't seem to learn her place in this home of luxury.

Her love for Stephen was wasted, yea, not even desired. It mattered not that she had lost her heart to him even before she carried his child. Nothing had really changed since that long-ago day close to four years past.

“Why do you keep me, Stephen? Surely there are women willing to sleep with you on demand, women who would cost less, would give you less cause for worry.”

“You are my wife. That is answer enough.”

She rubbed her hands along the folds of her dress, stuck her hands behind her back and paced the room. How could she love a man like Stephen, a man with no feelings in his heart for her, nothing but hot desire for her body ... only because she was his wife. What is wrong with me that I cannot attract even my own husband?

I can give him my body, which is perchance, less than a man deserves, but I have no choice. It's what I was born with, all I have to offer.

She was hurt and angry, and so she fought back.

“You should get on well with papa, Stephen. You are so alike. Your worldly goods, your horses, lands, servants, women. Possessions.”

She smiled at him but there was no happiness in it.

“You are successful, Sir Stephen, therefore, because you are a man, you are happy.”

He said naught to deny her accusations.

“I visited with Sir Oliver and Lady Elizabeth while searching for you.”

So he had looked for her at Grinwold, the last place she would go.

“How is Lady Elizabeth?”

“In good health although time has not been kind to her.”

Rebecca laughed and touched her hair.

“Nor to any of us.”

“Thou art changed only in being the lovelier, Rebecca.”

She shrugged. Her mirror reflection showed a plain face with freckles across a small straight nose, fair teeth, blue eyes that stared at the world with curiosity. Nothing to excite the heart of a nobleman, or even a peasant.

“I do not expect that you saw Richard.”

“Yes, I talked with him.”

Her eyes brightened. “Tell me what he is doing.”

“He was sore worried about you and still angry with his father for giving you to me. He was to take over care of the land whilst Sir Oliver and Lady Elizabeth journeyed to Genoa.”

Wonderful, sweet Richard. How she still missed him.

“I am sorry to have worried him.”

“And cared not that I worried?”

“About what, Stephen? I sent Tor back to you. ‘Twas only the steed's well-being over which you worried, so I took care to return him to you.”

“Rebecca, I care not to talk of your childish complaints about things of which you know naught.” He wanted to grab her, shake her, and hold her close. Instead, he folded his arms. “Wouldst like a glass of wine before sleeping?”

“Yes, thank you.”

She sat on the bench, sliding one hand over a plum-colored velvet cushion. A glass of wine might cause her to sleep and keep her from dreaming of Stephen. Or from thinking that he might make love to her. If he wanted her, there would be nothing she could do to keep him from her bed. It would not be love, but lust. However, he was in New Sarum now where Malvina resided also. He would not need Rebecca again so soon.

Her thoughts punished her, so she clenched her fists and waited for Stephen to return with the wine.

* * * *

Stephen idly watched his hands tremble as he handled the wine flask and two delicate glasses. He turned the glasses around in his hand, seeing the sparkle of expensive crystal, a prism of light flashing. Rebecca would not be impressed that the glass she drank from was costly or that it was shipped from France. He frowned. Nothing impressed her, it seemed. Not New Sarum, more spacious and comfortable than Glastonbury. Not the numerous servants to do her slightest bidding. Not him, who loved her beyond thought. And could not say the words for fear she would laugh at him.

He missed the light laughter he had become accustomed to in the two years Rebecca lived in Glastonbury. He wondered at the light steps she took, always in haste, as a child, anxious to see what was behind the next door, over the next hill. They were missing, those light moments. She walked as a woman, quietly, assured, distant.

Distant.

His body was suddenly hard and tight, his breath rasping and quick. Rebecca's body was that of a woman's not the child's he had bought from Sir Oliver. Satin-skinned curves beneath the rough clothing in the gypsy camp, the gold and silver sequined jongleur outfit. The lovely gown she wore tonight. Anything she wore, she made beautiful. Even when wearing nothing ...

He glanced to where Rebecca sat, unmoving, on the velvet covered bench. Her head was down, and thick golden ropes of hair fell over her face so that he could not see her expression. Her eyes were closed, her lips moving as though in prayer, but Stephen did not see it. He saw only the straight, insolent appearance of his wife of four summers.

He breathed deeply and sought to control the raging desire he felt for her. He could take her if he so chose. He had done so a few hours before, over and over, but the next time, Rebecca would do the begging. He would see to it.

Stephen strode back and stopped in front of Rebecca. She looked up, curled black lashes shadowing her eyes, causing them to darken. Without speaking, she took the glass from his outstretched hand.

“To your safe return, Rebecca,” he said. “And to our continued happiness.”

“Art happy, my lord?”

“Aye. And thee?”

“Do I dare be otherwise?”

Rebecca got up and moved across the room to the windows. There were four of them, unusual in a manor house sitting room, she imagined. Mullioned, they reflected the candlelight broken into light and shadow and, in the center of the wavering reflection, stood Stephen, tall and wide-shouldered.

How she had missed him. All the endless days and nights, roaming the countryside, performing in rain, sun, wind and snow, he had lingered in the background of her life. Just to look at him, just to know he was nearby, even though he still used her as a chattel and demanded obedience, her heart longed for him, for his attention, for a word that would mean he had missed more than her body's favors, more than someone to greet him when he returned from long trips, more than someone to take to bed until his desires were quenched.

She longed to be the cool drink to help him survive. She wanted his arms reaching for her because she was the only one who could fill them to his satisfaction. If a love song wafted on the air, she wanted to be the one he turned to for enjoying the sweet music of love. She wanted, oh, how she wanted, and she dreamed. After all these years, after all the disappointments, she still dreamed.

Stephen was surprised to see a smile light Rebecca's face. He could not know she was laughing at herself for her romantic dreams, dreams that remained with the jongleurs where she could sing and dance and think thoughts of love with Stephen the center of them. Where she could remember all those long-ago hours spent in his arms, carefree and loving, believing that he returned that love. She could build her own dream world with Stephen the center of it, pretending he returned all the love she held in her heart for him.

And no one knew or cared.

“Who remains at Glastonbury to care for your animals and lands? Who tends the garden Aubin and I worked?”

“There are servants to tend the house. I gave land to the older serfs in payment for services, and they likewise, tend to what is mine.”

“And Tor?”

“Bundy is there yet.” Stephen drank the last of his wine and reached for Rebecca's glass. It was full. “The wine is good, Rebecca. Finish it.”

“Yes, my lord.” She tilted the glass and sipped, paying no attention to the frown forming on Stephen's face. She well knew his anger when she called him ‘my lord’ but she cared not. If he took his hand to her, at least he would have to touch her.

“Dost Malvina like New Sarum?”

“Yes. The house is bigger, there are more servants, and she has a separate room with place for bathing, and the ovens are nearby. Why would she not like a place more comfortable and easier to care for?”

“Why indeed?” Rebecca murmured.

She drank her wine and passed the goblet to Stephen.

“If it pleases you, my lord, I am tired and would go to my room.”

Stephen set the glasses atop the table and opened the door to the hall, allowing Rebecca to walk past him. She moved quickly, entered the gallery, passed another fireplace with roaring fire, and on into the orchid room. She paused and glanced over her shoulder.

“Good night, my lord.”

“Good night, Rebecca.”

Uncertain, she stood there, wondering if he would follow her into the room.

“Wouldst care for me to join you?”

“Nay, my lord.”

She closed the door and leaned against it, her head back, her eyes fastened on the vaulted ceiling. How could she endure this kind of life? How much punishment and rejection could her heart take before it shattered into tiny pieces?

She had changed, but Stephen was the same man. She could not explain her feelings, could not account for loving him, knowing full well he cared naught for her. Instead of a child worshipping him, she was a full-grown woman, loving him with all her heart.

But Stephen would never know.

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Chapter Eighteen

Stephen did not return to her room. She didn't see him except at evening meal, sitting at the head of the table, talking to passing pilgrims who stopped for the night in the shelter and warmth of New Sarum. There was gossip about the Plantagenets, about Sir Thomas Becket, about ever-increasing tax demands from the king. Rebecca listened and wondered how long it would be before Stephen's presence was demanded back in King Henry's court. Not long, if past experience was an indication.

Snow blew in from the hills, covering the meadows, frosting the glazed windows, icing the courtyard, and forming peaks on the stone walls. Malvina brought fresh-scented boughs for the halls and, one day, left a vase of berry-laden branches for the stand in Rebecca's bathing room.

Rebecca, inhaled the fragrance, looked from the rushes to Malvina, but she did not speak. Where she had once asked her maidservant questions of every kind, she could not now bring herself to talk of everyday chores. It was too much to remember that Malvina and Stephen ...

She turned back to the linen piece she was embroidering, a troubled frown wrinkling her forehead. Sometimes, she thought she would scream at the dullness of her life here with no one to talk with, nothing appealing for her to do. How long must she suffer being near Stephen and keep her useless feelings of love to herself? ‘Twas only pride that made Stephen refuse to let her go. He didn't love her, so why was he such a stubborn man to hold onto one he didn't care for? She'd asked herself the questions over and over, and she feared that neither she nor Stephen would ever answer them.

“ ‘Tis near the Christmas season, my lady. Wouldst like to help with the cakes and sweet loaves to give to the peasants who have naught?”

“Are there those who live on Sir Stephen's lands without food, Malvina?”

“No, my lady, but on the moors and in the villages, the poor are many. Sir Stephen orders that we bake and deliver to them.”

“Only during the yuletide?”

“Nay. Each fortnight.”

Rebecca smiled at Malvina for the first time since arriving at New Sarum. There was a good side to Stephen after all.

“I will help.”

* * * *

Stephen remained cold and distant, speaking with Rebecca seldom, working in the stables and shops during the day and disappearing into his rooms after the evening meal. He did not demand her body, and Rebecca accepted his not wanting her as meaning he took his satisfaction from Malvina. If her heart ached at his neglect and the thought that Malvina had replaced her in his arms, she hid it well. If the hurt inside was sometimes unbearable, she suffered quietly.

She watched and waited, but she saw no way she could venture forth into the country alone and on foot with the snow falling daily and the cold gnawing its way into the far recesses of unheated rooms of the huge manor house. Her escape would have to wait until spring when the weather improved. If she didn't die of boredom before then.

Rebecca stood near a vat of stew, stirring with a long wooden spoon. She watched a tiny girl crawl beneath a table and pick up a bread crumb to poke into her pink mouth. Had her son lived, he would have been two years old. She would have someone to love and to hold, someone who would love her in return. Stephen had spent his seed inside her several times. Was she even now with child? Was that the reason he avoided her? He did not wish to repeat his mistake of long ago so he stayed away.