ASilverMirror (25 page)

Even as King Henry was led toward his private chamber,
Bohun, Norfolk, and the two French emissaries came toward Alphonse. Others rose
to follow, throwing off the shock and doubt the king’s emotion had caused them
and beginning to laugh and jest as they approached. The increasing levity
assured Alphonse that King Henry was gone, and he buried his own doubts and
anxieties, smiling and shaking his head at his father-by-marriage who was
asking dryly if he needed help to stand.

By the time the wedding party reached the lodging on St.
Margaret’s Lane everyone had sobered enough to begin suffering the lowering of
spirits that follows too much drink. All tried to hide it to spare Alphonse and
Barbara, but no one had any desire to linger after the witnesses were assured
there was no hidden fault in either bride or groom and they were set into their
bed. Somehow jests and laughter sounded hollow, even cheap and ugly, when at
the back of every mind was the image of the prince being led away to
confinement and the old king weeping helplessly.

Only Barbara and Alphonse were not touched by those visions.
For each, this moment was far more important than king or prince, and the
little time the witnesses remained was too long in their opinion. The guests
were not aware how eagerly their departure was desired because the face of the
groom was filled with false merriment and that of the bride was blank. Both
knew those expressions were a polite mask, yet though each saw only the other
and there was no lack of light, many candles being lit and the bedcurtains
drawn back to catch any breeze, neither could read beneath the mask.

The moment the door closed behind the last of the witnesses,
Barbara said, “Alphonse, what—”

But he dared not let her finish and he covered her mouth
with his, pressing her back, flat on the pillows, and leaning over her so that
his greater strength held her in place. He felt her stiffen and ran a hand down
her right arm to her wrist, extending his last three fingers to tickle her
palm. It was a playful, sensuous gesture, and it also immobilized her right
hand and arm so that she could not use it to push him away or strike at him. He
felt her shudder, but she made no attempt to free either the right hand he held
or her left, which was pinned against her side by his body.

Alphonse was torn between his knowledge that Barbe would
never have married him if she did not intend to honor her vows and his jealous
conviction that she had unwillingly sacrificed herself to some purpose. In this
moment knowledge became a thin wraith beside the solidity of his jealous fear.
To release her arms seemed to him still too great a chance to take. He could
feel the tension in her, as if she might try to fight him off. He could not
allow that. He must possess her. What he was doing now could be excused as
playfulness. To take her after she had fought free of him would be rape and
unforgivable. But the wraith of knowledge beckoned temptingly. Perhaps, it
whispered, she was only suffering last-moment fears. Perhaps she had no deeper
reluctance that was making her desperate.

He lifted his lips enough to whisper, “This is no time for
words. There are better things to do with your mouth.”

The invitation gained him nothing. Barbe did not respond to
what he had said in any way, but neither did she turn her head to avoid him.
And when he barely touched her mouth and then bent farther down and kissed her
throat, she shuddered again. He tried the tactic of moving his lips in
butterfly touches here and there on her face and neck and breast. She began to
shiver continually, sucking in her breath in shaking sobs and letting it out in
long, broken sighs. By then Alphonse was almost certain she would not try to
refuse to couple, but there was no way to tell whether her reaction to his
caresses was owing to eagerness or to fighting her revulsion.

He kissed her mouth again and lifted himself cautiously on
one elbow at the same time releasing her wrist. She lay quiet except for her
trembling, and he stroked her arm from the shoulder down, touching her breast.
A sharper gasp broke the uneven rhythm of her breathing, and when he brought
his hand up again, cupped the breast, and brushed the nipple with his thumb, a
soft moan—of pleasure or protest?—rose from her throat.

Releasing her lips, Alphonse quickly brought his mouth to
her breast to replace his hand. She jerked under him, uttered a wordless cry,
and raised her knees. Alphonse pushed them flat and brought a leg over to hold
her, which permitted him to slide his hand between her thighs. Carefully, he
cupped her nether mouth, pressed gently, released and pressed again, then bent
one finger to invade. The broken breathing grew faster, and to Alphonse’s
surprise he found Barbe’s lower lips were full and very wet. Her body was ready
for him.

Before he had time to wonder, she cried, “Oh, be done! Take
me and be done!”

There was a kind of desperation in her voice. Alphonse knew
that was wrong. Love should lie down only in joy. Had Barbe not been his wife,
he would have tried to lighten her mood. If he had failed and a mistress took
offense because he seemed to make light of her trouble, there would have been
an end to the affair. But he could not chance that kind of offense with a wife,
whereas obedience to her demand would be easily excused. And he was achingly
ready himself so that her words brought him to a state where he could not
resist the invitation.

For all her readiness, though she opened her legs for him
and even rose a little to meet him when he had placed himself, his gentle
thrust did not get far. Poor Barbe cried out once more, this time in simple
pain and surprise, and he had to hold still and soothe her before he thrust
again. The second time he drove hard and found himself seated. The impediment
was fragile, but Alphonse had no doubt of having thrust himself where no man
had been before. She was so tight that he almost spilled his seed at once in a
mindless physical reaction.

An equally mindless habit saved him, the habit of not taking
his own satisfaction until he was sure his partner was also content. This restraint
was an absolutely necessary behavior pattern to a man who had little wealth and
a very fastidious taste in women, and it had gained him his reputation as an
irresistible lover. Instinctively, as the urge to spend came upon him, Alphonse
fought it. He lay still and kissed the least erotic part of his partner—her
face—not completely aware for a few minutes of who she was. As the worst of his
need receded, he remembered that his new wife lay under him, and he thanked God
that his many sins had provided him with great skill.

Now he lifted himself, supporting most of his weight on one
elbow and caressing her breast with that hand. With the other he stroked her
thighs, tickled her ears. Soon she twitched under him and her movement wrung a
groan of pleasure from him, but that was half policy. Alphonse knew that open
evidence of a man’s lust often excited a woman. As if to confirm his thought,
Barbe twitched again and he lifted his body a little to give her more freedom.
She followed, and when he did not thrust again, she began to push and squirm
against him, her breath coming in harsh gasps quicker and quicker until she
wailed aloud. He loosed his will then, letting sensation drown him, hardly
aware that he too cried out as her voice stilled.

When sense returned, he slid off her and sat up. Her eyes
were wide open under their heavy brows, and she looked—terrified. “My God,” he
whispered, “why are you afraid? Did I not pleasure you at all?”

Chapter Fourteen

The anguish in Alphonse’s voice and expression wiped every
consideration other than the need to make him happy from Barbara’s mind. “Too
much,” she cried. “You gave me too much pleasure.”

The profound relief Alphonse felt over what he knew was an
honest confession translated immediately into irritation. “There cannot be too
much pleasure in loving!” he exclaimed. “How can you say such a silly thing?”

Barbara did not answer, her sympathy for him already
replaced by wariness and by a fear that she had made herself cheap. Had his
hurt even been genuine? Or was that another practiced gesture in an old pattern
of conquest? No matter if it was, she thought bitterly, she was as weak as any
other woman he played like a fish. She dared not try to test the truth of her
questions. She dared not hurt him or even give him an excuse to look hurt. To
see his pain, real or pretended, reduced her to idiocy.

Alphonse’s irritation was as ephemeral as his relief. He was
glad indeed that she had come to joy in their coupling. With that as a
beginning, he could win her love. But before he could find the path that led to
the fulfillment of his deepest desire, he had to uncover her trouble and cure
it. Barbe had been desperate when she urged him to couple with her and
terrified after coupling. Neither emotion fit any pattern familiar to him.

Alphonse did not find any significance in her silence. His
question had been rhetorical, and he had not expected any answer. After a brief
pause in which he studied her face, he continued suspiciously, “You have not
let some overholy priest convince you that all natural pleasure is sinful, have
you?”

“No, of course not,” Barbara replied, thrown off balance by
the accusation. “You are more in danger of being converted to that view in
Louis’s court than I am in Henry’s.”

The answer brought him no closer to an understanding than
had her earlier silence, and Alphonse suddenly felt ashamed of trying to
manipulate Barbe as he would a harebrained, discontented mistress. If he wanted
an answer from a woman he loved, whom he wanted to trust him, he needed to ask
a direct question. “Then what did you mean when you said I had given you too
much pleasure?”

Barbara had been waiting for that. She knew Alphonse too
well to believe he would forget a problem that puzzled him. Fear lent agility
to her thoughts, and she had found a suitably ambiguous reply. “I was
surprised,” she said. “I did not think a broaching could be anything other than
painful for a woman, and…and it seemed to me from what my friends have told me
that, for a woman, love is necessary for pleasure.”

Since she had already admitted her passionate response to
his lovemaking, she hoped he would take the implication that it did not mean
abject devotion, but the ploy was dangerous. If Alphonse asked her outright
whether she did not love him, she would have to tell the truth. But she
remembered his teasing talk with women and knew he always avoided direct
questions and statements. His eyes flicked away, and he did not speak of love,
but his next remark was direct enough to catch her off balance again.

“You did not look surprised,” he said slowly. “You looked
affrighted. Why, Barbe?”

“Because I felt myself helpless in that—that cascade of joy.
I was enslaved,” she answered, more truthfully than she had intended.

He stared down at her, his face frighteningly without
expression for one moment. Then he sighed and let himself drop flat. She had
given him an honest answer. It rang true, more especially because of her long
freedom from any domination through her senses.

“But Barbe, I was equally helpless, equally enslaved,” he
said softly. “You must learn to trust me and I to trust you. What we share, one
cannot use against the other.”

“
If
we share.” Barbara’s voice was hard, her memory
bringing up images of one woman and then another preening herself under
Alphonse’s flattery. Had not each of those women heard these same smooth words?

Alphonse misunderstood her completely, associating the
reproach with her precoital desperation. “If you were concerned because you
felt your anger slipping away while I gave you plea­sure—”

“What anger?” Barbara asked, so surprised that she sat up.
Then she felt still more surprised when Alphonse’s dark skin reddened.

“I should not have let your father provide that bride gift,
but—”

“I was not angry.” She laughed. “I almost got down on my knees
and thanked God for your good sense. Those who love me were near tears, and the
envious were licking their lips over my shame when it was near time for the
church and nothing had come.” She reached down and touched his face, growing
serious. “I thank you, my lord. You were generous to abate your own pride so
that mine would not be hurt. How could I be angry?”

She seemed sincere, but women set such store on mementos
that marked great days in their lives that Alphonse felt he had to probe
further. “I will return them to your father, of course, and you may choose what
you like, new from a goldsmith,” he said.

“Oh. I suppose Papa does not really wish to part with his
mother’s jewels.”

Barbara was disappointed. She had always rather coveted the
necklace and armlets. No one did work like that anymore, not blandly beautiful
but haunting, as if some magic spell was in the pieces if one could only read
them aright.

“No, love, no.” Alphonse sat up, too, and put his arm around
her. “They are for you. Your father wanted to give them to you in any case. But
when I remembered—too late, after squandering away the few free hours I had in
a stupid celebration instead of trying to find a bride gift for you—he offered
to present them as my gift. I only said I would return them because I was
afraid if I did not you would always feel cheated of a bride gift. But you will
not be. I swear it.”

“I trust you for that.” Barbara laughed aloud and let her
head rest on his shoulder. “No one ever called you ungenerous, Alphonse.” Then
suddenly she sat up straight and pushed him back so she could see his face
clearly. “Was that what you were worried about? Oh, you idiot! You frightened
me half to death by the way you looked at me all day, as if some disaster had
overtaken us and you dared not tell me.”

“I frightened
you
to death?” Alphonse repeated
indignantly. “What about the way you looked at me when I took your hand at the
altar? I thought you would repudiate me right there in the cathedral.”

“What had you to do with my being worried?” Barbara asked,
thoroughly exasperated. “The king—”

“I was the groom!” Alphonse interrupted with haughty
dignity. “It is generally conceded that when a bride looks frightened at the
altar, the cause is the man who will be her husband.”

Barbara burst out laughing again. “Well, yes, but you should
have known better. We have been friends for more than ten years. I would need
to be an idiot to suddenly grow afraid of you.”

Alphonse did feel foolish for a moment, not for being
concerned about the bride gift but for what now seemed a senseless fear of
losing her completely. She was so much at ease with him, not trying to shield
her nakedness, her eyes glinting blue rather than bleak gray when a gleam of
candlelight caught them that Alphonse almost laughed too. But then came a
memory of her strained voice crying “Be done. Take me and be done.” The
contrast with what she said was too vivid to put aside. He shook his head.

“It was to do with me when you bade me take you. And you
were not crying out in eagerness.”

She bent her head, but she could feel his anxious gaze on
her and could not lie. “Yes, it was eagerness.”

Her blush rose up from her throat to dye her face and ran
down to her breast. It was the latter stain that caught Alphonse’s eyes and
what he saw stifled the hot denial he had been about to utter. As she whispered
what he thought a lie, Barbe’s nipples had swelled before his eyes. That mute
testimony proved her confession was the truth and showed him to be a fool.
Alphonse did not think even the most practiced whore could order that response.

“I was ashamed.”

The second whisper, even lower, made him put one hand on her
shoulder and raise her chin with the other so that he could look straight into
her eyes “Not about joining with me,” he said. “Never feel shame. No part of
you is other than beautiful to me. Nothing you desire is other than pleasing to
me.”

And nothing different from any other woman either, Barbara
thought bitterly, but what she said was, “I felt myself to seem no better than
a common whore to you, to be so consumed with pleasure of the body only.”

“I know very little of common whores,” Alphonse replied,
“but I doubt they feel any pleasure at all, a good reason why I do not frequent
them. Barbe,” his voice took on a pleading note, “do not hide your joy from me
or seek to crush it out. I love you. I cannot have true pleasure if you have
none. You will turn the need of my body into poison for me.”

“Oh, no,” she said, “I could not bear that.” It was the
truth. Barbara knew quite well the quickest way to drive a husband into another
woman’s arms was to be cold abed. “I want us to be happy as man and wife, and I
will gladly learn of you anything that will increase your joy abed or abroad.”

He drew her close and she came willingly, swaying forward at
his light pull. Alphonse kissed her forehead tenderly, more joyous over this
victory than any he had ever won on the tourney field. Neither gold nor jewels
nor honor could compete with Barbe’s offering. She might not love him, but she
had taken away all fear that she resented their bonding. She wanted to be happy
and make him happy! Then she was halfway down the garden path that led to the
bower of love.

“So you wish to learn of me?” he murmured. “Then we will
play
un jeu de la queue leu leu
—do as I do—and we will see who wins the
prize.”

As he bent his head to kiss her lips, he wondered what she
would do. But as his lips parted and hers opened also, as she moved with him to
lie down again, as his hand slid over her belly to her mount of Venus and hers
found his swollen shaft, he had just time enough before he drowned in a fiercer
pleasure than he had ever known, to remember that she had warned him already.
She had loved and trusted him for years. She would do exactly what he urged,
anything he did, she would try to imitate.

Barbara was utterly delighted with the course of events. She
was relieved of her worst fear, that her inability to conceal her violent
response to her husband’s lovemaking would make her seem a dull domestic cow.
She had seen his doubt when he begged her not to act cold and his pleasure when
she said she wished to learn. Enough doubt of her was in him to keep his
interest, at least for a time. And for the future there was also hope. Alphonse
would surely show her what gave him the greatest delight for purely selfish
reasons. Just as surely, she would make those things her special pleasure. It
mattered little to her where he kissed her or touched her, all he need do was
want her and she was afire.

The theory was excellent, but Barbara found the practice
near impossible. Not that she was loath to ape Alphonse’s movements, and
certainly not that she found any place he touched or kissed unpleasant to her.
On the contrary! Everything he did to her brought pleasure, and what she did to
him blew up the little flames of delight he created into so roaring an inferno
that she soon lost track of any special place or touch. She remembered a tangle
of limbs, a warmth and pressure that threatened to split her open and yet so
filled a gaping hole in her senses that she struggled to draw it farther in
despite the pain. But was it pain? Whatever it was mingled and blended and
swelled and swelled until she must burst or die. Was she dying? Was it she
crying out in extremis? Surely the voice that groaned in higher and higher
tones was not her own. But her throat was sore with cries as shrill as those of
a victim on the rack.

“Barbe? Barbe?”

No, she was not dead. Barbara’s lips curved as she slowly
opened her eyes. Alphonse hung over her, his dark face anxious. “Mmmm?” she
responded.

He uttered a sigh and dropped flat on his back. “Thank God I
did not cheat you,” he muttered. “You took me too far out of myself. I lost my
hold.”

The words meant nothing to Barbara at the time. What was
important then was that Alphonse said no more and let her drift asleep, a state
she craved more even than his love.

Barbara woke first, disturbed by touching a companion in
bed, since she had slept alone since childhood. Her heart gave a single giant
leap of joy when she saw his face, the features harsher in their stillness and
yet more innocent. But the first real thought she had, which overlaid but could
not spoil the deep satisfaction she felt about Alphonse sleeping beside her,
was that she had never had a chance to tell him about the king. Imagine his
being so foolish as to worry about her reaction to a bride gift when they were
in the midst of so delicate a political situation! But it was a foolishness
very easy to forgive.

Smiling fondly, Barbara eased herself out of the bed, used
the pot, and started to the door to bid Clotilde bring her washing water. She
stopped abruptly, remembering that she was naked and Chacier might be waiting
to attend his master in the solar, and turned to get a bedrobe. As she pulled
it over her, she glimpsed Alphonse, still peacefully asleep, and suffered a
shock. She had forgotten his service with the prince. Should he be on duty?
Before she stopped to think that Chacier would surely have called his master,
she was shaking Alphonse’s shoulder.

“What time must you be with the prince?” she asked as his
eyes opened.

He shot upright, then sagged back against the headboard of
the bed, rubbing his hands over his face while he yawned and shook his head.
“No service today.”