Yearning Heart
By
Zelma Orr
(c) copyright by Zelma Orr, December 2008
Published by New Concepts Publishing
Smashwords Edition
Cover art by Alex DeShanks, December 2008
ISBN 978-1-60394-253-9
New Concepts Publishing
Lake Park, GA 31636
www.newconceptspublishing.com
This is a work of fiction. All characters, events, and places are of the author’s imagination and not to be confused with fact. Any resemblance to living persons or events is merely coincidence.
Chapter One
Sir Stephen Lambert was tired. In fact, he was exhausted. His trips into London became more complicated with each passing fortnight, and on this late summer day of the year 1166, he decided that, as King Henry’s favorite manorial officer, he was destined to starve to death or become ill from lack of sleep.
The king and queen argued like two spoiled children, each demanding Stephen’s ear, complaining of insults real or imagined one from the other.
Queen Eleanor. Such a lovely woman. A headstrong, determined, lovely woman. Stephen sighed, struggled with the laces on his waistcoat, and bent to remove his boots.
And the king. Never the twain shall meet, he muttered to himself. As wife of the king of France, Eleanor must have presented an irresistible challenge to King Henry, someone he must win and claim for his own.
“Now that you have her, what do you propose to do with her?” Stephen’s dark mutterings filled the room.
King Henry was energetic and too intelligent for his own good in Stephen’s estimation. The king’s efforts to establish a workable judicial system for his country, no matter how good the idea, was going to cause him no end of worry. The church courts had already condemned him for his recently issued Constitutions of Clarendon limiting the jurisdiction of the church. It was going to get worse.
King Henry and the Archbishop of Canterbury had been close friends until the Constitution was signed. Now, Sir Thomas Becket was putting a crimp into that friendship by withdrawing his support.
Still, the king is right, Stephen thought as he stretched out across the bed in the room prepared for him. The church clerks cannot be exempted from capital punishment. If guilty of murder, they’re guilty, church clerks or no. Everyone must abide by the laws if they are to work. Everyone.
He was between sleep and waking when the knock sounded on his door.
“Who is it?”
“Sir Oliver. A game is commencing in the great hall. Join us?”
Stephen cared little for gambling, but he needed something to distract him from his royal worries.
“I will join you within the half hour,” he said.
In spite of only a short rest, he felt his energy returning. If he could find something to eat, he’d feel better. It seemed all the day he had been too late for a meal or too early.
He did get a portion of fresh bread and roast meat from a sympathetic servant down the hall, and then settled in to enjoy the game of chance with Sir Oliver Grinwold and three other gentlemen he’d met in the past.
At the end of several hours, Sir Oliver was into Stephen for a goodly sum of money.
Stephen was about to suggest an end to the games when Sir Oliver laughed loudly.
“Well, Stephen, I have you now. I call you and raise one thousand pounds.”
An indrawn breath came from around the table as the others placed their cards face down and pushed back in a gesture of defeat.
Stephen looked at the rotund man across from him, his double-chinned face alight with expectancy. From experience, he knew the man was an accomplished gambler but was prone to foolish betting. Stephen’s eyebrows drew downward in deep thought as he tried to decide whether to call the man’s bluff or withdraw, thereby saving Sir Oliver from embarrassment.
“I will see you, Sir Oliver,” Stephen said.
When the cards were shown, Sir Oliver lost the bet. Stephen watched the color drain from the man’s face in disbelief.
Sir Oliver chewed on his full red lips. He made an offer.
“One more hand. All the money against my lands.”
“Sir Oliver,” Stephen said. “Mayhap ...”
“You know my land holdings, Sir Stephen,” Oliver said, his voice deep with rage.
“Yes, but you ...”
“They are worth more than the money.”
“I know and, for that reason, you should think about this. I will hold your note until you can pay.”
“No. This is the better way.”
The bet was made. Sir Oliver lost.
* * * *
Sir Oliver followed Stephen to his room and once inside, slumped on the chair near the door.
“I will have to deed the lands to you from Gloucester if you will trust me.”
“Of course, Sir Oliver. Your word is good.”
Stephen, a brooding look on his face, watched the other man. Sir Oliver was almost round, product of over-indulgence in food and drink, and sitting at a table rather than overseeing his lands. There were two sons, Stephen knew, who took care of the land holdings at Grinwold. Sir Oliver needed to use his own body in performing physical labor.
“You are a widower, Stephen?” Sir Oliver said.
Stephen grew still. He did not discuss his past life with anyone. Especially with this man—he would not talk about his beloved Mary.
“My wife died several years ago,” he said.
The other man gave him a probing look.
“I will give you my daughter in exchange for the debt.”
Stephen looked his surprise. The Lady Grinwold he remembered from a brief meeting a year or so ago was a skinny young woman whose big blue eyes overflowed a plain face.
“And what would I want with the Lady Rebecca?”
“She is good at work in the house. She sews, cooks and is learned from two years in Suffolk School in London,” Sir Oliver said. “She is young and will make a good wife.”
The man groveled as he expounded the virtues of his daughter. Stephen, disgusted, turned away. He’d heard that men bargained for wives, but he had no desire for a wife, no matter how accomplished or how young. What man would trade a daughter for a gambling debt, be it small or large?
“I will be ruined if I lose my lands. Elizabeth will never forgive me.” Oliver buried his face in pudgy hands.
That would serve you right, Stephen thought, but he didn’t tell that to the man in front of him.
Instead, he thought of the big house in Glastonbury, long without the touch of a gentle woman to place flower cuttings in dark corners or one to meet him when he returned from the tiring trips around the royal kingdom. Mary had been everything to him, but she was dead, lo, these many years.
He had not thought to marry again. His tired brain fumbled with the idea. There would be gains for Stephen with such an arrangement. Mayhap ...
“Very well. I will arrive at Grinwold seven days hence to pick up the Lady Rebecca.”
Long into the night, he pondered his sudden insanity in making such a foolish agreement. My mind is becoming unsettled between the constant royal battles and collecting more and more taxes that the king’s subjects can ill afford, he decided. But, he reasoned, Sir Oliver will have a chance to think over the arrangement and change his mind. Or Lady Elizabeth will refuse to let her daughter go for such a reason.
He could only wish it would be so.
The summons from King Henry came early. Stephen faced his royal highness without enthusiasm, recognizing his reddened countenance as a mark of the king’s well- known fits of temper.
Without benefit of a greeting, the king faced his senior manor officer.
“What say you, Stephen?” The king waved mighty arms in the air, his large round head on a short neck shaking from side to side. “What say this young upstart I gave all to? Even to my son he teaches as he wishes. And to what end?”
The king stomped across the room, tearing at the reddish hair behind his ears.
“I put him in the highest office of my lands, yea, even above me, and he insults me.”
Stephen silently sympathized with Queen Eleanor as he watched her husband’s awesome display of temper. Who could blame her for straying afar from the castle grounds?
The king, aware of Stephen’s silence, turned. He shook the paper he had crumpled in one big hand.
“Sir Thomas begs to inform me—inform me—that I have no rights toward ruling the church, that townships, castles, farms, everything must be returned to the church or—” The king unfolded the offending letter and read to Stephen. “Otherwise, know for certain that you shall feel the divine severity and vengeance.”
“I will speak with Sir Thomas, Your Highness, and ask his rethinking the problem,” Stephen said when the king lapsed into a sullen silence.
King Henry eyed him for a moment, and then waved thick arms in dismissal.
“You are my rock, Stephen,” he said, and retreated morosely to his private rooms.
His talk with Sir Thomas Becket was as fruitless as he’d known it would be. How could two men, formerly close friends, end up in such obstinate disagreement? Would that I could quit this thankless job and live out my life at Glastonbury where there’s no quarrel between the church and me, Stephen thought as he waited for Sir Thomas to reply to his request he visit the king to soothe him.
Sir Thomas turned sorrowful eyes to Stephen.
“I knew if I accepted this post, I would lose either the favor of God or that of the king. I warned King Henry of the nomination. Now it seems I should have refused as I thought to.”
“Yes, Sir Thomas,” Stephen said, not agreeing, only letting the archbishop know he was listening. He thought there was substance to gossip Sir Thomas envisioned himself as important as Jesus Christ, at the least. Stephen had not succeeded in bringing the king and his protégé any closer together. It would take a bashing of heads to get their attention.
King Henry had made a mistake he was unwilling to admit. His headstrong appointment of his friend, Thomas, chancellor at the time, as archbishop, was a perfect solution to reconciliation of differences between church and state ... so reasoned the king. By combining the two offices, Henry had counted on a pawn at Canterbury to favor him, but his pawn was asserting his independence much to the king’s royal displeasure.
If this problem is ever resolved, Stephen vowed as he left London, I shall retire and live out my old age at the manor house in Salisbury—should the king ever allow me time to complete it. No, that is too close to the royal grounds. I shall dwell at Glastonbury, even with its sad memories. His body swayed inside the carriage as the driver sought to miss the deepest holes in the narrow roadway between London and Gloucester. Stephen shook his head, wondering as he had a thousand times what possessed him to accept a young woman in exchange for Sir Oliver’s vast lands. He would have been better served to allow Oliver to oversee the lands until such time as he could arrange to buy them back.
Do I not have enough trouble with the king and the archbishop that I should gain an unwanted wife in the bargain? For a certainty, I am insane, he thought now, as he watched the desolate scenery they rode past.
In truth, he reckoned, there were times having a wife would benefit him. Perchance it would keep the ladies of the royal court from inviting him to their bedchambers. And he could satisfy his own desires at home rather than depend on favors. The favors, he acknowledged, were satisfactory enough, but it was the sly offerings of marriage later that he found hard to combat. He had no wish to marry again.
I can take the Lady Rebecca home with me and keep her for my pleasure. It will not matter to Sir Oliver whether I marry her. He has his lands back, which is what he wanted most.
Stephen leaned back in the carriage to give it some thought.
* * * *
“You cannot do this, Oliver,” Lady Elizabeth said.
Her face had whitened and for the first time in years, a rebellious expression replaced the usual indifference.
“Rebecca is but sixteen. She does not know the ways of a wife. Or does he plan to keep her and not marry? The royal ladies of the court gossip that Sir Stephen is not interested in marriage, only in sleeping with many to satisfy his desires.”
“It does not matter, my wife.” Sir Oliver growled at Elizabeth as he paced back and forth in front of the fireplace. “It is all I could do to hold onto my lands. What would you have me do?”
“Mayhap you could one time think of your family before engaging in such games.” There was bitterness in Elizabeth’s voice as she stood to walk from the room.
Sir Oliver whirled but one look at her face stopped him. Elizabeth never disagreed with him no matter the subject. Never had she argued about his decisions where Rebecca was concerned. He had found her crying when he sent Rebecca to school in London for two years, but she did not object. Today was different.
“You will not argue with me, Elizabeth,” he said and started across the room to her.
“I do not argue, my lord.” Her voice was quiet, disturbing. “I am saying that you are a stupid, arrogant, selfish man who will do as he wishes no matter it hurts his family. You are the reason Richard lives alone across the hills, the reason Peter and Margaret come to this house to visit only at Christmas time.” Her head lifted. “Perhaps you do Rebecca a favor. Mayhap Sir Stephen will be a gentler master than you.”
She picked up her skirts and, ignoring her husband’s spluttering protest, walked briskly from the room.
* * * *
Rebecca knelt carefully, knees locked for balance. One eye closed, she sighed, bit her tongue between small white teeth. The singing twang of the arrow sent a quiver through her body, a thrill of knowledge that she had handled the heavy bow with more skill than usual. As the young rabbit scampered away, the arrow caught him cleanly, and he dropped.
“’Allo, Rebecca. Great shot.” Her brother, Richard, emerged from a grove of trees, his face wreathed in a big grin. “Mayhap papa will be happy for fresh meat on the table for which he does not have to part with money.”
Rebecca skipped to meet Richard. He was her favorite brother, gentle, kind, patient with his sixteen-year-old sister who tagged after him in the fields when she could escape Lord Oliver’s watchfulness.
Papa expected work from her, sun up to sun down, with no time out for pleasures such as sitting with Richard as he tended flock or walking behind him along the straight rows he plowed. Richard was not one to run to Papa with tales, and she was safe to enjoy small things such as riding one of the pastured horses bareback, writing poems and reading them aloud to Richard, laughing over silly words, and sometimes being serious. Richard was fun, a brother who returned her admiration and love full measure.
“Hark!”
Richard cupped his hand to his ear.
Rebecca heard it, too. Papa’s command blast on the horn: Get yourself hither, young lady, was the content of the angry sound.
Rebecca reached up and kissed Richard’s cheek.
“I must needs go before Papa cracks his crown,” she said.
Richard rumpled her tangled blonde curls and laughed.
“Take the rabbit and papa will forget his anger.”
Rebecca knew better. Papa needed no reason to swat her backside other than to remind her that she was his daughter to do his bidding at all times.
Richard watched the slight figure race away, the rabbit dangling from her small hand. Rebecca was such a lovely, sweet child, and he resented Lord Oliver’s treatment of her. That was why he had built his two-room lodging on the far side of Grinwold’s acreage and seldom darkened his father’s door.
He looked now at the crumpled page of vellum Rebecca had left him. One of the many poems she wrote for or to him or about the school she’d attended years before. Words where she could wish for her own knight in shining armor. One more reason for papa to take a whip to her should he find such nonsense on her person. Mayhap one day some kind gentleman would come by Grinwold and take Rebecca away to a better life. Richard wished with all his heart that this would happen.
Rebecca hurried through the wild tangle of rushes along the small stream, jumping from stone to stone, missing one and muddying her already dirtied slippers. Papa would be unhappy about that. Papa was always unhappy. She couldn’t remember ever pleasing him in her entire sixteen years. The only way she could have made him happy, she guessed, was to have been a third son.
Richard, she loved dearly. Peter, the oldest, married to Virginia, was distant and cold—like papa—and Rebecca did not care that he visited Grinwold seldom.
* * * *
“What is this?”
The angry roar stopped Rebecca in her tracks, and she looked up to see papa. Bushy brows drew together in thunderous disapproval, and she had no time to dodge as he lunged toward her, swinging her around by her arm to lay his thick hand to her backside.
“Canst not remember that young ladies do not hunt in the fields like a lowly serf? Richard causes such disobedience.”
Papa’s hand fair stung her bottom, but Rebecca blinked back tears, defiantly refusing to say Richard was with her. She held out the rabbit to Sir Oliver.
“’Would make fresh meat for the evening meal for you and mama,” she said.
“Take it to the cook room and make haste to the front hall,” Sir Oliver said, his lips curling in distaste. He turned and strode away from her, grumbling his displeasure.
Rebecca made her way to the big room where the meals were prepared and left the rabbit with cook who was cleaning vegetables by the back door. Then she went toward the room where papa waited.
Rebecca stopped outside the heavy door and knocked, pushing inward at the strident command from within. Her father stood in front of his desk, black waistcoat gaping over a protruding stomach. His ruddy face shone as though polished with the oil Nora used on the ugly dark wood furniture. A self-satisfied smile pulled thin pink lips back over too-perfect teeth. He smiled—until he saw the condition of his daughter.
“Rebecca!” His shout was enough to halt her slow steps just inside the door.
Inwardly, she sighed, looking down at her soiled shoes, dirt-spattered skirt, and blood from the rabbit streaking her hands. She pushed at her blonde hair with one hand and blew upward at the straggly wisps falling into her eyes. She could well imagine what her father saw when looking at his only daughter. She did not really care. Since the day she was born, she had never pleased him.
Hand upraised, Sir Oliver grunted in rage as he took a step toward Rebecca. She closed her eyes, waiting for the blow.
“Sir Oliver.” The words were soft-spoken, but they stopped her father. He sputtered, thrusting his hand behind his back.
Until then, Rebecca hadn’t noticed the other man standing across the room. She opened her eyes as he moved toward her and stopped, bowing from the waist.
“Stephen Lambert, Lady Grinwold,” he said. For a moment, a sympathetic grin touched his mouth and deep blue eyes sparkled with laughter as he took in her smudged nose and tousled hair. His expression once again solemn, he faced Sir Oliver.
“You have told Rebecca of our agreement?”
“She will agree.”
Sir Oliver rubbed smooth hands together, a confident smile making small eyes disappear into cheeks grown fat through overindulgence.
The man glanced once more at Rebecca.
“I would speak with milady about the arrangement.”
Sir Oliver frowned at her, his black eyes promising punishment should she say the wrong thing.
“Go change your clothing, Rebecca.” Papa didn’t just speak, he ordered.
“No need. I will speak with her now.”
“Of course, Sir Stephen.”
Her father’s frown disappeared as he answered his guest. With a last threatening scowl at her, he walked behind his desk out of her line of vision. She could feel him hovering, waiting to strike should she disobey him in some way.
She stared at the man who introduced himself as Stephen Lambert, wondering at his ability to make her father listen to him. She had not known anyone to override Oliver Grinwold’s temper as this stranger had done. Her gaze went over the tall, straight figure, recognizing the best quality of material in the well-cut, light-blue waistcoat laced over matching pants tucked into shining black boots.
“Rebecca?” The deep, even tone of Sir Stephen’s voice interrupted her thoughts.
She brought her gaze upward to meet dark blue eyes set wide apart in a rough-angled face. Blond hair, the color of the ripe grain in her father’s fields, curled away from his face and lay on his coat collar. His chin beneath a dark blond beard was square and hard.
She dipped her head. “My lord.”
A deep chuckle brought her head up once more.
“You say that with doubt, Rebecca.”
“Nay, my lord.” Her denial was quick, hoping Sir Oliver wouldn’t bellow his displeasure at her attitude. It would not do for him to hear her voice with less than respect for this man.
“Then you do agree with the plan?”
“What plan is this, my lord?”
“Sir Oliver has agreed to give you as my wife.” But why in hell did I ever agree to it? he wondered. She is but a child.
Rebecca stared at Sir Stephen, eyes widening to overflow her thin face. She should not be shocked, but she was. She should have known ... the pursing of papa’s narrow lips when he looked at her, appraising dark eyes disappearing behind soft flesh as they went over her slim body. She looked around at papa, and then back at the stranger she was promised to.
Sir Oliver was finally getting rid of his unwanted daughter. He didn’t need a daughter; he needed a third son to work his vast land holdings. Richard and Peter could use help in the fields. She would gladly have worked alongside Richard, the gentle one, but she was not allowed because she was a woman. She was only capable of doing housework, a chore she detested as much as Sir Oliver disliked her.
Rebecca lifted wide eyes to meet the questioning look in the man’s expression. How like papa to marry her off to a complete stranger, trade her like the cows and pigs on market day. Her throat clogged, and her eyes stung.
“And what does Sir Oliver get in exchange for a skinny, ugly, unwanted daughter?” she said.
She stood straight, turning once more to stare into her father’s face, took a step closer to him and continued. “More lands for Peter to lord it over? More sheep you can skin the wool from the way you have long wanted to skin me? An empty bedroom to house pilgrims and minstrels to bring in money where you must, at the least, feed me? What?”
The triumphant look on Sir Oliver’s face disappeared in an angry frown. His hands made into fists, and he started to raise them, but looked instead at Sir Stephen.
“It is not your place to question a business transaction between Sir Stephen and me.”
“Not even when I am the one traded like an unhealthy cow?”
“Rebecca.”
Sir Stephen put a hand on her arm. He had thought to take her and not marry, but now he knew he could not. I will have to marry her, he concluded to himself at that instant. She would not make a good mistress. He felt reluctant sympathy for her and couldn’t bring himself to quiet her, as he knew he should. It was a cold, heartless contract viewed from the child’s eyes.
Rebecca whirled on Stephen. Tear-glazed eyes fastened on the third hook of his waistcoat as she shook off his hand.
I will not go with you, she thought. I will run away. I will hide in the next carriage to pass and ...
“Be good enough to pack what you will need for a three-day journey. I will wait for you here,” Sir Stephen said. “I must leave for Glastonbury today.”
“Today?”
She meant her answer to be loud and protesting, but it was only a whisper. How could she run away if he took her now? Her eyes locked with the stranger’s and for a moment, she imagined sympathy in the brooding look he gave her.
“Now,” he said brusquely, turning his back on her to walk to the window. “I have paid well for you. Do as I say.”
So. I trade one master for another, she thought, smarting from his cold order. At least, he is more handsome than papa. But to marry. It meant sleeping with him, allowing him to fondle her body and ...
Head high, she whirled. Sir Oliver stepped from behind the desk, but she shoved him aside as she rushed out the door and up the stairs to the small bedroom assigned to her. However grudgingly. Left to papa, she would have been bedded down with the sheep.
Inside the room, she looked around. Small, yes, but her own privacy. Her dreams began here and went with her the miles she walked and ran through papa’s lands. He didn’t allow her to ride, but she did anyway, smiling her way past the smitten stable boy when papa was away on business. Elizabeth never asked where she had been. She didn’t want to know should Sir Oliver inquire as to her daughter’s whereabouts.
Glastonbury, Sir Stephen had said. The only thing she knew about the distant city was what Sister Emilie taught in Suffolk School. It was on the coast, a rocky, rugged coastline twisting its way along the water, misty and forbidding, of poor farmland, of scattered sheep and few human beings.
Among them, one Sir Stephen Lambert. Soon-to-be husband of Rebecca Grinwold.
She crossed the room to drag a carrying case from the narrow closet. Inside it were the sheets of manuscripts kept hidden from Sir Oliver, treasured to read over and over. He had seen she was educated enough to justify being his daughter, but he knew nothing of the precious parchment pages she kept pressed beneath her mattress.
If Sir Oliver ever discovered the pages and learned how she came by them, he would beat her, and then take them to offer ingratiatingly to some nobleman in exchange for a gambling debt. Or just to show Rebecca she was going beyond reason in owning such treasures.
There had been a fire at school over a holiday when she was not allowed to go home because Lady Elizabeth was away with Sir Oliver for an extended trip. Rebecca had been asleep when fire broke out in the classroom. She, along with a few other students, ran down the steps to gawk at the brilliant flames.
Men fought the fire, passing buckets of water from hand to hand as students watched. Rebecca, standing near a small desk not yet ablaze, spied the vellum pages curling at the edges. She grabbed them, protecting them with her heavy woolen gown. She started to hand them over to someone but was paid no attention. She held the treasured writings to her for a long time, and then quietly went back to her room and hid them in the case with unused clothing.
A secret smile curved her lips now as she gently covered the pages with old clothing. They were hers. She would never leave them for papa to profit from. Even if Sir Stephen took them later, she would rather give them to him than to Sir Oliver.
A plain brown, woolen dress, a linen chemise, a black skirt and white high-necked top were placed over her prized possession. Her black slippers were dusty, having been worn only to church. She wiped them with her hand, made a trough on either end beneath her clothing and poked them down. There was a red shawl, the only colorful piece of clothing she owned. She rolled it into a corner under the dark dress.
A hesitant knock came at the door.
“Come,” she said, and her mother stepped into the room. They stared at each other, and then Rebecca ran into her arms.
Lady Elizabeth patted her shoulder.
“It is best for you, Rebecca.”
“But, Mama, I do not wish to go with him. I know nothing. I ...”
“Papa has made the bargain, Rebecca. You have to go.”
“But—can you not—please, tell papa it is not right to, to trade me. For what? More land? I have never seen this man, Mama, and I do not wish to marry him.”
Eyes bright with tears, she pleaded with Lady Elizabeth, knowing it would do no good. It was the way of the master. His word was law. Elizabeth had never defied her husband. What he decided would take place, no matter the pain for Rebecca.
“You will be happy with Sir Stephen. Papa says he is a rich man and influential with the king.”
Rebecca sniffed and pulled away to look up into her mother’s vacantly pretty face. Lady Elizabeth had never been her champion where papa was concerned, but at least, she lamented not the fact she had given birth to a daughter instead of a son—the way papa did. Elizabeth had taught her to cook, how to plan good meals, to sew, to garden, but they did not talk of a girl’s duties in marriage. Marriage to a stranger.
“It is far away, Mama,” she said in a small voice.
Lady Elizabeth nodded, and Rebecca waited for a word of reassurance.
When none was forthcoming, she said, “Will Richard come to say goodbye?”
“I think not, Rebecca. He must go to Worcester trading today.”
Her throat tightened as she turned away from her mother. She would not, would not, let them see her cry. Mayhap it was best not to see Richard. Had he known about Papa’s bargain? No. No, Richard would have told me. He would have objected.
Sadness such as she had never known settled in her heart at the thought of not seeing him again. She would miss Lady Elizabeth, of course, but Richard was her staunchest support in the cold Grinwold family. If she had but known she wouldn’t see Richard again, she would have hugged him more tightly ere she left him.
* * * *
Rebecca stood stiffly by as Sir Stephen’s driver lifted the one case to the top of the carriage. A hand touched her arm, and Sir Stephen helped her inside. She turned once to look for Lady Elizabeth, but her mother was not there. Sir Oliver stood smiling benignly at the prancing horses in front of the carriage, but he did not look at Rebecca as the driver shouted to the team, and the carriage lurched into motion.
Rebecca huddled in the far corner of the carriage, looking across the cold, winter-dead fields. They looked as she felt—abandoned.
“I thought you were eighteen,” Sir Stephen said after they had traveled miles in silence. “You are young.”
“I will age in time, I should imagine,” she said, still turned away from him.
Long fingers lifted her chin and directed her to face him. Deep blue eyes beneath thick brown brows smiled at her, and a wide mouth opened slightly to reveal white teeth, one of them crooked out of line with the others.
“I daresay that is true.” A slim forefinger brushed across her mouth. “It will be all right.” Abruptly, he released her chin and looked toward the road in front of them. “Try to rest. It is a long journey.”
They stopped at a roadside inn for the night and were served cold lamb and dark bread by the innkeeper. Rebecca was surprised when Sir Stephen bade her goodnight and went into a room across the hall. She had no idea what to expect from this stranger but assumed he would take her body whenever he pleased. He had paid for her, had he not? He was not required to wait for marriage to sleep with her.
She undressed, drawing on the only sleeping garment she possessed, a rough material of an ugly shade of rose. Some distant cousin had left it with Mama and nothing was to be wasted, so she now owned the plainly made wrap. It was warm, the only worthwhile thing about it.
She turned back the woolen quilt, crawled into bed, and hunched against the pillows, her arms around knees drawn up to her chest. A hard lump formed in her throat, and her eyes felt tight. There was little love at home to miss, but at least the small bedroom was her own, with its bright coverlet Lady Elizabeth made while she carried Rebecca for nine months.
And Richard. She sorely missed him already. Would he forget her immediately as she knew papa would?
A knock sounded at the door and made her jump. Her heart thudded, and she didn’t answer right away. Sir Stephen was coming to claim his rights.
“Rebecca?” a quiet voice said, and then the door swung open to reveal the man who would soon be her husband. His big frame filled the doorway, and he lowered his head to enter without bumping. He stood just inside the room, staring at the small figure huddled on the pillows, missing nothing in the forlorn face with tear-bright eyes.
“You are comfortable, Rebecca?”
“Yes, my lord,” she whispered over the pain in her throat.
Two steps brought him to the foot of the bed.
“Do not cry, Rebecca.”
She shook her head, afraid to speak.
“How old are you?” he said, pursuing his earlier question.
“Sixteen, my lord.”
He frowned and uttered a word she did not understand, but he continued to look at her. “Do not be sad to leave your family. We will visit them within the year.”
“Yes, my lord.”
It wasn’t papa and mama she missed. It was the warm aloneness of her room, the wide-open fields she roamed, dreaming and singing soft melodies she built in her head. And, if she found Richard on the far side of papa’s land, joining him to eat fruit as he rested or just being quiet and comfortable together.
Richard had never wished she were another brother or criticized her for her lack of restraint as she ran through the fields or rode bareback on one of the horses left to pasture.
An odd gentleness filled Sir Stephen’s face, then he straightened to say roughly, “Goodnight, Rebecca. We leave at first light.” He left her, closing the door quietly behind him.
She let go her breath and lay back, dragging the cover over her. Soon, Sir Stephen would not leave her at night. Soon, he would stay and ... she squeezed her eyes shut.
What will it be like to have a man touch me so? she wondered. The poems and songs Sister Emilie read aloud in school awakened her romantic dreams. The manuscript pages spoke of tender love, of touches and affection between man and woman. But she was a bought and paid for wife. There was no love or tenderness to be hers. Only to be claimed by her lord and master. Sir Stephen was big, he would hurt her.
Her hands moved over her small body, over barely existing breasts, a flat stomach with bones protruding on each side, thin legs. She knew a man coveted mostly that part between her legs. She touched herself hesitantly, drew in her breath and pulled her hands from beneath the covers. She could not imagine how it would feel for a man to put his big hands—and more—on her. She shivered and covered up, head and ears. Soon, she slept.
* * * *
Rebecca couldn’t eat the next morning. Her stomach seemed to be in knots and her throat too tight to let pass anything other than the strong tea served by the innkeeper. Sir Stephen watched her small efforts but said nothing.
Outside, the sign overhead rasped and groaned as the wind whistled around the corner of the old inn. Clouds hung low overhead like gray drapes. She looked at the sky as their travel cases were loaded onto the top of the carriage. Sir Stephen helped her aboard, springing lightly behind her. She felt old and heavy and ugly, a parcel traded to the highest bidder. The weather, angry and dark, matched her mood.
Sir Stephen didn’t talk as they traveled. Instead, he removed a ledger from the satchel he carried and turned pages to stare at columns of figures. She studied the uneven features, his well-molded mouth beneath a heavy mustache.
What would it be like to have him kiss her? Fascinated by the thought, feeling warmth in her cheeks, Rebecca put her hand to her own soft mouth. She had never been kissed. All she had ever done was dream.
She turned to look out the carriage window. Brown fields stretched in all directions, windswept, dreary fields. Sheep grazed near the road as they came upon a small village.
“We will have tea and walk a bit to stretch our legs,” Sir Stephen said.
She didn’t answer. She was accustomed to obeying and did not question him even though she didn’t want anything. Her stomach craved to be left alone.
“Hot tea will relax you,” he said as though reading her thoughts.
It was nearing dusk when the carriage stopped, and Rebecca sat up, startled at the sudden quiet, to realize she had been dozing. She glanced at Stephen who smiled at her. Rebecca smoothed back her hair and tried to smile in return, but her face muscles were frozen.
Nearby, a few dark shapes of small houses stood near the highway. The inevitable ale sign hung over a rough-hewn building where the carriage stopped. Inside, it was warm and comfortable, the dimly flickering candles giving the hallway a welcoming glow.
The beaming face of an old woman peeped from the stairway.
“This way, my lord. I have a comfortable room at the top of the stairs.”
Rebecca swallowed hard. One room. The time had come when ...
“We would have two rooms, if you please,” Sir Stephen said.
The woman looked from Stephen to Rebecca, her mouth opened in mild surprise, but she nodded. “There is another across the hall, my lord,” she said, and Stephen followed the bent figure into the other room.
Rebecca went into the small clean room, noting the bed with its dark quilted coverlet, a shuttered window barred against the night, one candle casting shadows. She sat on the edge of the bed, staring at her slippers, so dusty now she could no longer be sure of their color.
“Mrs. Heaton will bring us tea and stew she has left from the evening meal,” Stephen said from the doorway.
“I do not wish to eat.”
Sir Stephen stepped into the room.
“I will not have your death from starvation on my conscience, Rebecca,” he said. “You will eat, and you will drink the tea.”
“Very well, my lord.”
She ate the stew and it tasted good. She took a drink of the tea and immediately, the stew and everything eaten the past week spewed from her stomach. Gagging and coughing, she watched in horror as the mess spread over the spotless wooden floor.
Then she was being lifted and moved away from the ugly remains of her meal. A soft cloth wiped at her mouth. She pulled away, tried to get her feet on the floor to go look for something with which to clean.
“Be still,” Sir Stephen said. “Stay there. Do not move.”
Shivering, Rebecca remained on the edge of the bed where Stephen left her. A few minutes later, Mrs. Heaton came in, clucking her tongue, working industriously all the time.
“I should ha’ known,” she said. “So pale. So young to be with child.” She clicked her tongue once more. “Men. They know nothing of how to care for a wife when she carries their seed.”
Rebecca stared dumbly at the woman, and then realized Mrs. Heaton thought her with child. She gagged. Soon enough, it would be so. That’s what women were for—carrying cases for man to bring forth sons into the world.
She thought the woman would never finish cleaning, but still, she was thankful Mrs. Heaton did the job. Papa would have beaten her before making her clean up her own mess. At least, Sir Stephen did not beat her—yet. Mayhap as his wife, she would present a better target.
“Rebecca?”
She raised her head.
“I am sorry, my lord.”
“I should have known your stomach was not settled enough for food, but you have not eaten since we left Grinwold. I am afraid you will become ill.”
She was already ill, but it mattered not.
“How much longer to Glastonbury?”
“We will arrive late on the morrow.”
She went completely rigid. Tomorrow night, Sir Stephen would ...
His hands on her shoulders forced her to look up at him.
“Rest tonight. You will be all right once we get you settled in your new home.” He spoke as to a small child and brushed his mouth across the top of her head. “Go to sleep now. I will see you early the morning.”
Chapter Two
They reached Glastonbury late the afternoon of the third day of travel. It was raining and colder than when they left papa’s house. The horses pulling the carriage snorted and blew mist from their nostrils as they struggled up the steep hillside to reach the dark gray building overlooking a rocky cliff.
Rebecca eyed the forbidding structure that stood in silent vigil over the waters of the rugged coastline. Several outbuildings loomed a distance away from the main house.
“We are home, Rebecca.” Sir Stephen’s voice was gruff as though expecting an argument.
Her mouth twisted. Did not papa tell you he never allowed argument? She wanted to ask. She accepted his hand as he helped her from the carriage. Her legs trembled mayhap from weakness. She still hadn’t eaten.
He led her, without speaking again, inside the rough stone house, into a high-ceilinged hallway with a stained glass window letting light in from the top of a stairway. If the outside presented an imposing, almost hostile appearance, the inside of Sir Stephen’s home welcomed her. The wide hallway was not cluttered with dark, ugly furniture as Grinwold was. Instead, there were wall hangings of bright wools, resembling paintings she had seen of rugs from the unknown country of Persia.
Chandeliers, a dozen amber candles shining in each of them, hung from wide-spaced beams. The stairway curved after six steps, reaching the second floor way above them into another wide hallway. She could see two doors closing away other rooms.
To their right an archway led into another high-ceilinged room where she could see a harp, dark shiny strings reaching higher than Rebecca’s head. She stared, fascinated by the same type instrument Sister Emilie had taught her to play after her book lessons were finished. For that one reason, she had loved the strict discipline and did well in school work in order to be allowed to continue playing. Her fingers tingled, remembering the lilting tunes Sister Emilie had taught her to play.
“Welcome home, Sir Stephen,” a soft voice tinged with an Irish lilt said.
Rebecca turned to see a tall, red-haired woman standing in the doorway just left of the bottom stair step.
Stephen smiled, his expression relaxed and warm as he said, “Malvina, this is Lady Rebecca. She has not been well and will need a bit of care before she can hold food.”
He took Rebecca’s cold hand, rubbing it between both of his.
“Malvina is your personal maid, Rebecca. Whatever you need, ask her.” He bent to touch her cheek with his lips and his warm breath stirred a tendril of hair pulled loosed from the combs. “Rest before dinner.”
It was an order, but Rebecca cared not. She was exhausted. She followed Malvina’s black clad figure up the stairs, turned once to look back at the vast expanse of hallway. If the house was built on the same scale, it must be furlongs wide. The beauty and luxury took her breath. Papa’s house was comfortable, but this ...
Stephen stood near the steps looking upward, and he met her quizzical glance with his own solemn one. She stopped to stare down at him. He was a man of culture, a handsome man, presumably with plenty of wealth or land or both. Why did he choose a plain, sixteen-year-old daughter of a landholder as his wife? He must be more than twice her age, but wives die young, Lady Elizabeth had said. Childbirth, disease, beatings ...
According to her stolen manuscripts, there was love and romance to be found with men. According to Lady Elizabeth, such things were hard to come by. Standing there in the strange house, staring down at a strange soon-to-be husband, Rebecca thought her mother more right.
Malvina moved ahead of her and entered a room at the end of the long hallway. Rebecca followed to stand just inside the door, her gaze taking in the mellow warmth of the room. The oil wick in a milk glass lamp gave off enough light so she could see the bed cover of pale orchid with green sprigs laced in tiny white blossoms. The heavy chest was covered with a matching cloth, and two milk glass lamps sat on each side of the beveled mirror.
Malvina opened the clothes case and pulled out the ugly garments, one by one. Rebecca watched her, tempted to laugh at the disapproval on the older woman’s face.
“Will my lady sleep in this?” she said, holding up the rose-colored gown.
“I suppose my lady will, Malvina, since that is all my lady has.”
Rebecca sat on the bed, running her hand across the rich material.
“Tell me, Malvina. Why has your master chosen me as his bride? I bring nothing, not a dowry, not even knowledge of what a bride does with a husband.”
Malvina stared.
“You are married to Sir Stephen?”
“Not yet.”
“Oh.”
Malvina turned away to hang dresses in the closet, which ran the width of the room. The maid worked quickly, not looking at Rebecca, and when her task was completed, the clothing took up a pitiful amount of the generous space.
“Oh, what? Oh, what in the world does Sir Stephen want with this ugly child? Oh, how could Sir Stephen be taken in by such innocence? Oh, she must be with child and Sir Stephen is a true gentleman and has taken the blame?”
Rebecca slid off the bed and walked across the room so when her newly assigned personal maid turned, she was directly in her path.
“Oh, what, Malvina?” Her head reached only to Malvina’s straight nose, so she had to tilt her head backwards to see the other’s expression.
“I, I’m sorry, my lady, I meant no harm.”
They stared at each other, and then Rebecca smiled and retreated to the bed. It was none of Malvina’s affair what her master did. Like Rebecca, she had no say in the matter. Rebecca was so tired, she did not care what Malvina thought, cared not what Sir Stephen would do with her, did not care if they dumped her over the cliff into the waters below them, did not care ...
She flung herself on the bed, buried her face beneath the ruffles on one of the plump pillows. As she lay there, she felt the dusty slippers being removed and her woolen hose pulled from stiff legs.
“I will pour my lady’s bath,” Malvina said. Her footsteps moved away.
After a moment, Rebecca gave a shuddering breath, got up and followed Malvina into the anteroom. Mayhap a bath would rid her of grime, but would it ease a sore and uncertain heart?
The enamel on the tub matched the bed cover, pale orchid with green sprigged leaves. She shrugged out of the scratchy wool skirt and white high-necked blouse, and stood still as Malvina unfastened the chemise and slid it away, pulling the next layer of clothing off along with it, leaving her thin body completely exposed.
Rebecca had never undressed before anyone save Lady Elizabeth, but she offered no objection, as Malvina looked her over. What difference? Next, it would be Sir Stephen ...
Tears tightened her throat, but she swallowed over them, refusing to let her maid see she wished she were back at Grinwold even with papa’s disapproval.
The water, bubbling with something Malvina sprinkled into it, was hot. Thankfully Rebecca sank beneath it, leaning her head back over the curved edge of the tub. She kept her eyes closed as the woman rubbed her body with a thick cloth, passing it between small breasts as though they were not there. Over her belly, her thighs, her feet. It was a luxury just to lie there and let someone wash her, something she had never experienced. She could almost laugh, thinking of papa parting with enough money to have servants other than Nora, their one maid, to take care of everything at Grinwold.
When she finally emerged from the tub, scrubbed and pink, Malvina covered her with a thick wrap.
“Sir Stephen brought a bowl of gruel and a muffin he wishes you to eat.”
“Sir Stephen cooks?”
Malvina giggled. “No, my lady. Cook thought perchance Sir Stephen would reach home today and kept things warm. There’s more solid food if you can abide it.”
Rebecca walked barefoot into the bedroom and looked at the steaming tray by the table. Her stomach rolled in protest.
“You eat it, Malvina,” she said. “I just want to sleep.”
“Perhaps not until Sir Stephen comes to say goodnight.”
“You tell him for me,” Rebecca said, let the wrap drop from her body and slid between the heavy muslin sheets. They smelled of moor winds and damp sunshine.
Please don’t let him touch me tonight, she pleaded to that God she prayed to occasionally. Please.
“I prefer you to say your own goodnight, Rebecca.” A quiet voice spoke from the doorway.
Malvina had conveniently disappeared.
Rebecca watched Stephen cross the room, met his dark blue gaze with her own rebellious one, and wondered how long he’d been there before he spoke. She was too tired to care.
“Goodnight, my lord.”
He didn’t speak for a long time, his eyes going from the untidy fall of bath-tumbled hair to the faint outline of her body beneath the covers.
Please don’t touch me. She felt sixteen—too young for the world papa had thrust upon her. She must accept whatever Sir Stephen offered, but tonight, she needed to be left alone.
“You did not eat.”
“I am not hungry.”
He tugged the sheet up around a bare shoulder.
“Mayhap your appetite will return once you are rested from your travels.”
He didn’t smile, but continued to look steadily at her face. She thought this man with the sad eyes did not smile often.
“Goodnight, Rebecca.” He turned and moved to the door.
“Why?” she asked of his back.
He turned. “Why?”
“What could you possibly have that you would trade to papa for me? You must have wanted badly to be rid of it.”
“It is between Sir Oliver and me, Rebecca. Do not trouble yourself.”
She sat up. “How like one of papa’s friends. ‘Do not trouble yourself, Rebecca,’ he says, ‘that we trade you between us like an unwanted cow. Do not—’ ”
“Be quiet.”
He was by the bed in an instant, staring down into the pale face, at the blonde hair tumbling past thin shoulders, suspicious moisture brightening her eyes.
“I will not be quiet,” she said, fists balled beneath the covers. “Tell me, or is it of such little worth you are ashamed to admit it?”
Why do I argue with this, this child? he wondered and sighed.
“Nay, Rebecca. You are payment for Sir Oliver’s gambling debt. A large gambling debt.” His voice was cold as he grudgingly answered her questions.
She knew papa gambled. Sometimes she heard Lady Elizabeth quarreling after one of his trips when he must have lost goodly sums of money.
“How much?” Her voice was only a whisper. How much am I worth? she wanted to know. Papa placed little value on me until now.
Sir Stephen looked her over for long moments before he finally said, “At the royal court not long ago, I was in several games of chance with Sir Oliver. He knew not enough to quit, and I won a large portion of his land. When it was over, he offered you in exchange for his debts.”
Rebecca’s heart hurt. Sir Stephen could not know how it felt to be bartered by your father for a piece of dirt. She swallowed before she could speak.
“And you accepted without ever seeing me?”
Papa came out a grand winner, ridding himself of his biggest liability while retaining his beloved land.
Stephen moved to the door.
“I remembered seeing you from the holiday ball last Christmas. You reminded me of a small elf.”
An elf. How quaint.
“Still you accepted me as payment?”
“Why not?” His glance strayed around the room and came back to rest on her resentful expression. “These dark halls could use an elf to liven them. I do not need more land, and I can use a wife.”
Use. He could use a wife. How forthright of him.
The door closed behind him.
* * * *
Stephen frowned as he saddled the giant prancing horse. Why had he made such a remark to that sad-faced child last night? An elfin face with haunted blue eyes—she was that, indeed, but his light words did not make her feel better. If anything, her face twisted as though she might cry. Perchance she would feel better if she did cry. Would not he— taken from everything he loved and was familiar with—taken by a strange man who planned to marry you to settle a debt?
Many men took advantage of trades and debts to find a wife, sometimes to rid themselves of one. It didn’t make him feel better knowing the child in his house did not hold him in high esteem. It did not matter. She was not required to do so. He shook himself to remove the disapproval he felt over his own decision.
Stephen yanked on the strap beneath the horse’s solid chest, and the steed snorted and rolled his eyes.
“Sorry,” he said. He adjusted the strap to a more comfortable tightness, and then threw a long leg across the saddle.
“Now, boy,” he said, flipped the reins lightly this time to set the horse off in a slow trot.
Tor, a light chestnut, carried him easily, taking the trail they often rode over to the cliffs, down the straggly path slanting to the water. Along the narrow beach of pebble-strewn sand, through the mud where water stood at high tide, around the sharp jutting edge of Cloud Reef, so named because low clouds obscured its jagged edge during winter storms.
His mind stayed on Rebecca. She was a mistake. He should have given Sir Oliver back his notes and escaped with the knowledge he had best be more careful the next time he gambled. He could satisfy his body’s demands with more experienced women and come home alone without the burden and worry of a wife.
This was certainly the worst decision of his life, and he wondered at the solution he had chosen.
So engrossed in his thoughts, he took no notice of the low-hanging clouds until they were almost close enough to touch. He swore as rain suddenly pelted him.
* * * *
There was no sun when she awoke. Instead, a soft rain patted against the shutters. She pulled the coverlet with her, wrapping it around her nude body, and went across the room to open the door leading into the hall. Such quiet. She did not even hear animal noises as she did at Grinwold.
“Good day, my lady,” Malvina said as she appeared at the top of the stairs. “Did you sleep well?”
Rebecca backed into the bedroom and sat on the small rocking chair near the bed. Malvina placed a tray across her knees and removed the snowy cloth from over the dishes. There were muffins and orange jam, a coddled egg, gruel, a slice of meat, and warm goat’s milk.
Sir Stephen will be angry if this does not stay in my belly, Rebecca thought as she took the first bite. Then the second. Then a drink of milk. Her stomach trembled a bit, and then settled. She ate slowly.
“Where is Sir Stephen?”
Malvina was making the bed, eyeing her new mistress as she picked at the plate of food.