Always (3 page)

“I do not agree,” he snapped, then added, “And I have been making arrangements. But what I meant was, why was I not informed of the imminent ceremony?”

“Well…I do not know, Your Majesty. I did send word. Some time ago, in fact. It should have reached you in plenty of time for you to attend. We hoped you might.”

The king turned on Shrewsbury again at that news, eyes narrowed and accusing, but the bishop flushed helplessly and murmured, “We have been moving around quite a bit, my liege. Le Mans, then Chinon…Mayhap it arrived after we left. I shall, of course, look into it the moment we return.”

Henry glared at him briefly, then turned on his daughter. “You are not taking the veil. You will marry. You are the only child of mine who has not turned against me. I will see grandchildren from you.”

“John has never turned against you.”

“He has joined with my enemies.”

“That is just gossip,” she argued with disdain.

“And if 'tis true?”

Rosamunde's mouth thinned at the possibility. Truly, no man in history had suffered so from betrayal as her father. Every one of his legitimate sons, her half brothers, had come to turn on him under the influence of their mother, Queen Eleanor. “There are still William and Geoffrey,” she whispered, mentioning Henry's other two bastard children.

His expression turned solemn at that, and he reached out to clasp her by the shoulders. “But they were not born
of my fair Rosamunde. The love of my life. I am a selfish old man, child. I would see the fruit of out love grow and bloom and cast its seeds across the land, not be stifled and die here in this convent. I would see you marry.”

Rosamunde sighed at that, her shoulders slumping in defeat. “And so I shall. Who is to be my groom?”

Aric stiffened as the king suddenly turned toward him.

“Burkhart.” The king gestured for him to step forward, and Aric unconsciously straightened his shoulders as he did so. “My daughter, Rosamunde. Daughter, your husband, Aric of Burkhart”

“How do you do, my lord?” she murmured politely, extending her hand. Then, grimacing apologetically as she saw its less than pristine condition—it was stained with residue from her recent work with the foaling—she retracted it and dropped into a quick curtsy instead. “I regret my apparel, but we were not expecting company today.”

Before Aric could even murmur a polite response, the king announced, “You should change.”

Her head whipped around. “Change?”

“Aye. You will not wish to be wed looking so.”

“The wedding is to take place
now?” Dismay
was the only word to describe her reaction, and Aric could actually sympathize. It was all a bit dismaying to him as well.

“As soon as you are changed. I must return to Chinon.”

“But—”

“See her properly dressed,” the king ordered Sister Eustice, then snatched up Adela's arm and urged her out of the building. “I would have a word with the abbess.”

Rosamunde gaped after them, then glanced at Eustice with a start when the sister took her arm and urged her to follow. “I am to be married.”

“Aye.” Eustice glanced worriedly at the girl as they stepped out of the stables. The child was unnaturally pale.

“I thought I was going to be a nun like you.”

“Everything will be fine,” Eustice murmured reassuringly, directing her through the convent doors and down the hallway to the left. King Henry and Adela were already out of sight.

“Aye,” Rosamunde agreed, drawing herself up slightly. “All will be well.” Then her shoulders slumped, and she whispered bewilderedly, “But I was to be a nun.”

“It would seem you were never truly meant to take the veil.”

“Oh, but I was,” Rosamunde assured her. “My mother wished it so. She told the abbess. And my father never arranged a betrothal. I was born to be a nun.”

“It would seem not,” Eustice corrected gently.

“But what if the Lord wants me to take the veil? What if he is angered that I am not to be one?”

“'Tis more likely the good Lord has his own plans for you, Rosamunde. Else He would have stopped your father from arriving until after it was done. Would He not?”

Frowning, Rosamunde tilted her head to consider that. Sister Eustice continued, “It seems to me that it must have been God Himself who led your father here in time to prevent the ceremony. Were your father even a day later in arriving, the ceremony would have been done by now.”

“Aye,” Rosamunde murmured uncertainly. “But why would God wish me to marry when there is so much good I might do as a nun?”

“Mayhap He has something more important for you to do as a wife.”

“Mayhap,” she murmured, but it was obvious by her tone that she was having trouble fathoming that possibility.

Sighing to herself, Eustice urged her into moving along the hall again, managing to get her to the small cell that had been Rosamunde's room since childhood. Ushering the bemused girl inside, Eustice urged her to sit on
the side of her tiny, hard bed, then turned to search through the girl's small clothes chest for the dress Rosamunde had made to wear while taking the veil the next day. Coming up empty-handed, she whirled to frown at Rosamunde. “Where is your white gown?”

Rosamunde glanced up distractedly. “White gown? Oh, Sister Margaret offered to hang it for me, to let out any wrinkles.”

“Ah.” Nodding, Eustice turned toward the door. “Wait here. I shall return directly.”

Rosamunde watched the door close behind her friend and mentor, then sank back on the bed with a sigh. She was having difficulty absorbing what was happening. Just that morning, her life had been fixed, her path a comfortable, secure one. Now events had careened out of control, changing the course of her life, and she was not sure it was in a direction in which she wished to go. It looked as though she had little choice, however. Her father's decisions were final.

So she would be married, to a man she had never met before, a man she had gotten only a fleeting glimpse of moments ago when her father had introduced them. She should have looked at him longer, but had found herself suddenly shy. It was a new sensation for her. But then she had had very little occasion to be in the presence of men during her life. The only men she had ever even met were her father; his servant and constant companion, Bishop Shrewsbury; and Father Abernott, the priest who ministered the Sunday mass at the abbey. The reverend mother said mass the rest of the week.

She had known a stable boy, several years before. But he had not been around long. A week, perhaps; then he had cornered her in a stall, and pressed his lips against hers. Too startled to react at first, Rosamunde had just stood there. By the time she had gotten over her surprise, curiosity and the beginnings of a sort of shivery pleasure had kept her from protesting. Much to her shame, she
hadn't even stopped him when he had covered one of her budding breasts with his hand.

Rosamunde had considered stopping him, knowing that anything that felt so wickedly interesting had to be a sin; everything fun did seem to be sinful, according to the sisters. But she did not know if she would have stopped him on her own, for Eustice had come upon them. One minute she had been wrapped in the lad's enthusiastic embrace, and the next he'd been dragged away and was having his ears boxed. Eustice had then dragged Rosamunde off to lecture her: she must never let a man kiss and touch her so again. It was evil. Lips were for speaking, and breasts for milking—and that was that.

The abbess had sent the stable boy away that very day.

 

“She did not look pleased at the news of her upcoming marriage,” Robert murmured.

Shifting on the bench seat where the nuns had seated the men to eat while they waited, Aric turned his gaze from the food he was unable to choke down—despite how delicious it looked—and peered at his friend. “Nay,” he agreed dismally.

“Well, mayhap 'tis just a result of surprise.”

Aric grunted with little conviction.

“She is quite lovely.”

Aric grunted again. He looked far from cheered by the news, and Robert sighed.

“Surely you do not fear
she
will be unfaithful? This girl was raised in a convent, man. She could not have learned the lying, cheating ways of a woman raised at court.”

Aric was silent for a moment, then shifted his position at the table and murmured, “Do you recall my cousin, Clothilde?”

“Clothilde?” He thought briefly, then laughed. “Oh, aye. The girl whose mother would not allow her sweets, lest she grow in size, or lose all her teeth ere she married.”

Aric grimaced. “Not a single sweet passed her lips ere her marriage, but they had a great tray of them at her wedding feast.”

“Aye.” Robert laughed again as he recalled the event. “She quite liked sweets once she tried them. As I recall, she nearly ate the whole tray all on her own.”

“She still likes them. Perhaps more so because she was deprived of them for so long. In the two years since her marriage, she has grown to six times her original size. She has lost three teeth at last count.”

Robert winced. “Do not tell me you fear your wife will grow overlarge and lose her teeth?”

Aric rolled his eyes, then sighed. “What is missing in a convent?”

“Well, I realize they can be strict in these places, but I am sure they have an occasional sweet or—”

“Forget the blasted sweets!” Aric snapped. “
Men.
Men are missing in convents.”

“Aye, well, but that is the very reason behind their existence and—Oh!” A chagrined look on his face, he shook his head. “I think I see. You fear that having been deprived of the company of men all these years, your wife soon will find herself overly fond of their company.”

Aric muttered under his breath and turned away with mild disgust at the length of time it had taken to get his point across. Surely his friend had not always been so dense?

“Aric. Friend. Do not allow Delia's behavior to color your views. She was raised by her uncle, Lord Stratham, the most notorious reprobate in the land.”

“Yet my mother was not.”

“Ah.” Robert sighed.

“She was raised most strictly.”

“Yes, but—”

“And
she
could not contain her passions.”

Robert shook his head. “I can see you will not be easily reassured, but 'tis not as bad as all that. If you fear she
will become overfond of the company of men, you merely have to keep her away from court. Keep her in the country, where the only men she may meet are peasants and serfs. Surely she was brought up with enough sense not to dally with one of
them.”
He clapped his friend on the back encouragingly.

“Oh, aye. The king would most likely be very pleased should he never see his daughter again,” Aric muttered. Robert frowned.

“Oh, there is that. He will most likely wish her at court on occasion.”

“Most likely,” Aric agreed dryly.

“He appears to hold great affection for her.” Robert's frown deepened as he thought on that. “That could be a problem, could it not? Jesu! A king for a father-in-law,” he marveled in horror as he realized the full significance of it. “Should you not make her happy, he might have you drawn and quartered. What a spot to be in!”

“Robert.”

“Aye?”

“Stop trying to make me feel better.”

 

Rosamunde's fretting ended abruptly at the opening of the door. Sighing, she pushed herself to a sitting position as Sister Eustice reentered with the gown she had fetched lying carefully over her arm.

“The creases are all gone, fortunately enough,” the nun informed her and started to push the cell door closed, but paused when the abbess's voice sounded in the hallway. By the time Adela arrived at the door, both Rosamunde and Eustice were waiting curiously. Adela took one look at Rosamunde's expression and hurried forward.

“Oh, my dear child,” she murmured soothingly, seating herself on the cot beside the girl. She embraced her briefly. “All will be well. You will see. God has a special path for you to follow and you must trust in him.”

“Aye, 'tis what Sister Eustice said,” Rosamunde whis
pered as tears welled in her eyes. Oddly enough, the small droplets of liquid had not threatened until the very moment that the abbess offered comfort. It had always been that way. While both Eustice and the abbess had taken the place of her mother on that beautiful woman's death, it was the abbess to whom Rosamunde had turned to bandage her banged-up knees and soothe her hurts. And it never failed that Rosamunde could stand absolutely anything with a stiff upper lip and grim smile until the abbess came around; at the first sight of Adela's kind face, though, she always broke down.

“Oh, now. Shh, my child. Do not cry. You must have faith in the Lord. He chose this path for you. Surely there is a reason.”

“I am not crying out of fear of what is to come. Well…” she corrected honestly, “mostly I am not. Mostly I am crying for what is ending.”

Bewildered, the abbess shook her head slightly. “What is ending?”

“I will have to leave you all, the only family I have ever known. Aside from my father,” she added loyally.

Eustice and Adela shared a dismayed look, their own eyes filling with tears at the realization. They had been too distracted to consider that truth.

“Well…” Sister Eustice glanced desperately around, everywhere but at the young woman who had been her student in the stables since being a small child—young Rosamunde had latched onto Eustice's voluminous skirts and trailed after her the moment she had gained her feet and been able to walk. The nun had taught her everything she knew, and the look on Eustice's face conveyed her misery at their separation.

“Aye,” Adela murmured unhappily, her own watery gaze on the floor. She had been taken with Rosamunde from her birth. The baby's red curls and sweet smile had melted her heart as nothing else ever had. Contrary to tradition, she herself had overseen the girl's lessons in the
schoolroom. She had spent hour after hour feeding the child's expanding mind, encouraging patience, and curbing the temper that seemed always to come with redheads. The rewards for her effort had been great. Rosamunde was everything she had ever wanted in a daughter. With a grimace of pain, the abbess rose to her feet.