“I am so lonely, Walter.” She looked into
dark eyes unfocused with his desire. He came nearer and this time
she did not slip out of his grasp. His arms went around her. His
mouth came down on hers.
It was shattering. Isabel had never before
been kissed passionately by a man who knew exactly what he was
doing. She had planned the appearance of eager response, certain
she would feel nothing. She had guarded her emotions so carefully
for so many years, surely nothing would happen when Walter kissed
her.
There was nothing feigned about her response.
Her arms were around his neck, her fingers stroking through his
thick black hair, he was forcing her mouth open, his hands were on
her breasts. What in heaven’s name was he doing to her? She pushed
against his shoulders, forcing him to let her go.
“No,” she gasped. “Please, Walter, let me
think.”
“You thought before you led me here,” he
said. He unfastened his cloak and spread it on the ground with a
swirling flourish, then knelt and lifted one hand. “Will you sit,
my lady?”
“I don’t think I should.” What if he kissed
her like that again? How would she remember what she meant to say
to him, how convince him to go along with her scheme? By letting
him kiss her, of course, while feeling nothing herself. That, after
all, was what she had planned to do. She would make herself feel
nothing.
“Isabel,” Walter said, “sit down.”
She sat. He was uncomfortably close, but that
was what she wanted. He had to be close if she was going to charm
him. She smiled at him, and as though the smile were a signal, he
began kissing her again. It took a great deal of determination, but
she managed to keep her wits about her, while Walter grew steadily
more perturbed.
It was awkward sitting side by side kissing,
so when she found herself lying on her back with Walter propped
beside her on his elbow, she did not protest. It was pleasant to
have him lean over her and kiss her again, pressing down on her,
and it was quite natural for her arms to slide around his waist,
but when he stretched out full-length and she could feel all of
him, even through her thick wool skirt, then she began to be
uneasy. It was too pleasant. There was a warm, moist sensation
spreading though her loins and she kept pushing herself against him
without really meaning to. And his hands … his hands should not be
stroking her breasts like that, she could feel the hard nipples
rubbing against her linen under shift, and the sensation increased
the heat that was rising through the lower part of her body.
“Walter, stop.” She was gasping for air. She
had not intended to grant him so much. She would make him stop now,
and tell him her marvelous plan, whatever it was, if she could only
remember it. “Please, Walter.”
“Isabel, my darling, my love. After all these
years of waiting, at last, at last you are mine. Do you know how
much I adore you? How I have longed for you, prayed you would come
to love me, too, and never dreamed it would happen, not like this.
You are all that is beautiful, you are wonderful. I adore you,
worship you.”
“Walter…please…wait…you don’t understand … I
only…Walter!” She saw his face and knew there was no stopping him
now. Her skirts were up around her waist and his hands were
stroking along her thighs, moving ever closer and closer to the
moist, throbbing heart of her, a place that needed something, she
did not know what.
“My sweet, gentle flower, my rose. You make
me so happy. Isabel, my love, my dearest.”
She screamed when his fingers touched her,
probing into her, driving her mad. She saw her own hands tearing at
his clothes, pulling up his tunic, unlacing his hose, pulling him
to her, into her, wanting him with a desperate, hungry need unlike
anything she had ever felt before.
They were together, he filled her, pounding
at her with unrelenting passion, and she cried out his name over
and over as she exploded into tiny fragments. He held her and would
not let her go, keeping her one with him until she had come back to
some semblance of Isabel again.
“I did not mean for this to happen,” she said
later, when she could talk once more.
”Of course you did,” he told her. “Why else
would you have led me into the woods like this? And now, my
beloved, my beautiful flower, it is going to happen again.”
It was a long time before she remembered her
plan and found the words to tell it to him. To her delighted
surprise, he was more than willing, even adding a few clever
details of his own. She had feared that having claimed all she had
to offer, he would lose interest in her and refuse her idea, but he
did not. It was almost as though a similar plan had been secretly
fermenting in his own mind, needing only her suggestion to bring it
into the open. All he required of her was that she say she loved
him as much as he loved her, which was easy enough to do with his
hot, strong body pressing against hers, and then, to seal their
bargain, they feasted on each other again, one more time, before
returning to Afoncaer.
Isabel’s cool politeness over the next few
days was a relief to Guy. Perhaps she had at last resigned herself
to his rule. He decided he would try to be more patient with her.
He might even, before too long, allow her a few baubles for
adornment. It would give her pleasure, and she had little enough
entertainment here in Wales.
Walter fitz Alan asked leave to go to Chester
on some unspecified family business. Guy sent him off with six
men-at-arms for his protection and then went back to the work of
building Afoncaer.
“Doesn’t it strike you as odd,” asked Brian,
“that Walter should have need to go to Chester when his older
brother, who is all the family he has, is in Brittany?”
They were sitting at the trestle table after
the evening meal. The cold meats and breads had been removed. The
women had retired behind their partition for the night, and those
men not on guard duty had wrapped themselves in blankets and lain
down to sleep, either here in the great hall or in the stable. Guy
could see Geoffrey stretched out near the opposite wall, and
Thomas, curled almost into a ball guarding the entrance to the
women’s quarters even in his sleep. Only Guy and Brian and Reynaud,
sitting at the far end of the table poring over some parchments,
were still awake. Guy slid the ale pitcher across the table toward
Brian.
“I haven’t thought much about Walter’s
purposes,” Guy said. “Had he some other reason for going to
Chester?”
“I fear it may be so.” Brian refilled his
cup. “Guy, we have all three been friends for years, since we were
both his squires, but you know him much better than I do. After
all, you were together on crusade, while I stayed at home all that
time. Do you trust Walter completely?”
“He is my sworn man.” Guy frowned,
remembering. “He is very ambitious and overly fond of luxury. He
did not go all the way to the Holy Land with me. We went by way of
Byzantium, and Walter remained there. I went on to the siege of
Jerusalem and then, after I received King Henry’s letter, to Sicily
to find a ship sailing for England. I did not see Walter again
until we were both back in London.”
“Why did he stay in Byzantium?” Brian
asked.
“He had some plan to marry a wealthy Greek
woman he met there. He now says he abandoned that plan because he
was homesick.”
“More likely,” Brian said softly, “he heard
the news that Lionel was dead.”
“What could Lionel’s death have to do with
Walter’s plans?” Guy paused, thinking. Then, “Isabel. He once
wanted Isabel. But that was seven long years ago.”
“He still wants her. I’ve seen the way he
looks at her. Guy, I believe one reason Walter came to Afoncaer so
readily when you sent for him, and then became one of your
household knights so easily, was because Isabel is here. He
pretended he was surprised to see her the day we arrived, but I
think he knew he would find her here.”
“You may be right. I agree Walter is capable
of romantic foolishness of that kind. But Isabel is not. If she
ever chooses to marry again, it will be to a man with an important
title and great wealth. She would not waste herself upon a simple
knight who has neither. In any case, I’ve seen no sign that she is
seriously interested in Walter, so if he came here to coax her into
accepting him, it hasn’t worked.”
Reynaud, at the foot of the table, lifted his
head and spoke. “Walter fitz Alan is not a simple man, my lord, as
you should know, being his friend. I have heard the Earl of Chester
is presently in residence there.”
“In Chester? Why should he not be? It is his
castle and his town.”
“My lord Guy,” Brian said, “everyone at
Afoncaer knows you and the Lady Isabel have quarreled, and that you
have placed restrictions upon her. I cannot believe she will accept
such public insult without attempting to repay you.”
“She has spoken often with Walter,” Reynaud
added, “alone, my lord, and at times when you could not be aware of
it.”
“What are you two suggesting?” Guy asked,
laughing. “Do you think Walter is carrying a message from Isabel to
the Earl of Chester? ‘My lord earl, my cruel brother-in-law refuses
me new clothes. Please send me a bolt of the finest blue silk at
your earliest opportunity, and if you have extra men-at-arms to
spare, let them rescue me, I beg you.’ Walter would have told me
about such a frivolous message, and not gone riding off to Chester
to deliver it.”
“Perhaps,” said Reynaud, “Sir Walter has
another, far more serious purpose.”
“Was it only last week,” Brian mused, “I
heard you warning Thomas that knights do not always keep their
vows?”
“Have you any proof, either of you?” Guy kept
his voice level, trying not to betray the knot that suddenly
tightened in his stomach. He remembered Isabel’s angry threats of
vengeance, which he had dismissed as meaningless. Outwardly still
calm, he could not keep back the thoughts tumbling through his
mind. The Earl of Chester was so powerful that King Henry had
wanted Guy at Afoncaer to help balance Chester’s power in favor of
the crown should conflict arise. Guy knew Chester resented his
presence at Afoncaer. King Henry had taken his army to fight in
Normandy, too far away to help Guy in an emergency. Afoncaer’s
defenses were not yet strong enough to withstand an attack by an
army such as Chester could call to his banner. Guy spoke his next
thought aloud. “What could Walter possibly say or do that would
bring Chester down on us?”
“I do not know,” Brian said. “I have no proof
that anything is wrong, just a feeling. Walter has a look about him
these days that makes me uncomfortable.”
“I agree with Sir Brian.” Reynaud’s pale blue
eyes were intense with worry. “Your own honesty sometimes blinds
you to the falseness of others, my lord. We must all be on our
guard, I think. Something is in the wind, and it comes from
Chester.”
But Walter, returning to Afoncaer in mid-July
with the same six men with whom he had left two weeks earlier,
appeared to be unchanged. It was not until after Guy had seen him
conferring alone with Isabel in a corner of the great hall, that
his friend approached him.
“My lord, may I speak with you?” Walter
spread his hands, smiling with disarming charm. “I fear I have a
serious confession to make.”
“Why to me and not to Father Herbert?”
“Because, dear friend, this confession is
about earthly matters. About family.”
“That family business upon which you went to
Chester?”
“Indeed, yes, my lord. Shall we go outside
and stroll where no one can hear us? It is, like most confessions,
a private matter.”
“Very well.” They left the hall and walked
across the bailey in silence, until Guy sat down on a pile of
dressed stones that were awaiting the masons. Walter sat beside
him. “Tell me now, Walter. This is private enough. There is no one
else here.”
“I wish to marry the Lady Isabel.”
“I’m afraid that is impossible. You have no
lands, no title. I could not in good conscience give her to you,
knowing she would have to live in poverty, and I doubt Isabel would
agree to such a marriage.” When Walter would have interrupted, Guy
held up one hand and went on speaking. “While there are honors in
my holdings that I could settle on you in recompense for your loyal
service to me, none of them would provide the income you would need
to keep Isabel as your wife. So you see, in fairness to both you
and Isabel, I must refuse your request.”
“You don’t understand,” Walter said. “I have
the prospect of receiving quite a lot of land, and a title,
too.”
“I did not know your older brother was likely
to die soon,” Guy said dryly.
“Not Baldwin. He’s in perfect health so far
as I know. I’ve no chance of inheriting from him. No, it is the
Earl of Chester who has promised me land.”
“Has he indeed?” Guy regarded Walter with
great interest. “In return for what?”
“We are friends, are we not, Guy?”
“So I have always believed.”
“Then release me from my oath of fealty to
you so I may pledge myself to the Earl of Chester. He will create
me one of his vassals and grant me lands at Tynant, and the manor
house there in which to live. I shall be Lord of Tynant. Isabel has
said she will be content with that.”
“I’d be astonished if Isabel were content
with the crown of England. You had no right to speak to her about
this without consulting me first.”
“I love her. And she loves me.”
“Then you are both fools. That sort of thing
is for common folk. No nobleman should love his wife. Such a
passion could only interfere with the important duties of one’s
life. You should choose a wife who can manage your affairs while
you are away at war, an agreeable, placid lady who will cause you
no trouble on her own account and who will bear you sons you can be
absolutely certain are your own. Surely you are not ignorant of
Isabel’s extravagance, her ill-temper, or the fact that the queen
demanded she leave the court?”