“I should call them,” Will said coolly. “Turn you in for the cheap strumpet you are. You’d look a fine sight with your head shaved, being carted off to the stocks at Smithfield.” He fingered one of Ruby’s coppery curls. “I don’t think Richard would find you so much to his liking without your pretty hair.”
For a moment, Ruby paled, and Will knew she was considering the punishment for prostitution. They shaved the woman’s head and then dragged her through the streets while the crowd pelted her with offal and called out dirty names.
Ruby jerked her head away from Will’s fingers and gave him a cold, malevolent stare. “The price of being a bawd ain’t near so high as the punishment for what
you
are. I’ve heard that men who buggar boys are sentenced to be boiled alive. You might think of that before you threaten me.”
Will met her eyes with a steady gaze, but deep down he knew she was right. He was not a man who could use the influence and wealth of his title to threaten others. He was too vulnerable himself. Still, there must be some way to get Ruby to quit Richard. It seemed she genuinely desired him. Perhaps the way to wipe the sneer off her painted face was to make her jealous.
“By the by,” Will began, leaning back casually. “You’re wrong about Richard’s wife. She’s not rich at all, and she’s a far cry from being old and repulsive. She’s as fair to look upon as any woman alive.”
Ruby snorted contemptuously. “I don’t believe you. If Richard’s wife wasn’t a plain, scrawny bitch, he’d not be here so soon after his wedding.”
Will shrugged. “Ask him. Richard will tell you that his wife has the face of an angel—and a body to make a man think he has died and gone to heaven.”
“How would you know? You’re hardly fit to judge a woman’s looks.”
“I’m only repeating things Richard has said. He can scarcely restrain himself when it comes to describing his wife’s beauty.”
“I don’t believe a word you say, Will de Lacy. If Richard’s wife is a beauty, why doesn’t he want to lie with her?”
“A lover’s tiff. He’ll forgive her by tomorrow, and return to her bed. He wedded her for love, you know. She didn’t even have a dowry.”
Ruby’s mouth fell open. “She can’t be poor. Richard had no reason to take a wife except for land and property.”
“She doesn’t have a silver penny to her name.”
Will struggled to repress a smile. Ruby’s face was unpleasantly flushed with jealousy, her painted lips twisted into an ugly grimace of hatred. Let Richard see her like this. It might well cool his ardor, especially if he recalled Astra’s sweet, tranquil countenance.
“Where is he?” Ruby asked suddenly. She looked around. “He should be back by now.”
“Why don’t you go find him? Ask him about his new wife.”
“I will.” Ruby rose haughtily from the bench. “I’ll do just that.”
As she walked away, Will let his grin break free. Richard was very sensitive on the subject of his marriage, and Ruby was too stupid and jealous to leave the matter alone. It should be an ugly fight.
“J
esu, you startled me!” Richard exclaimed as Ruby appeared beside him. “I thought you were some fiend out to slit my throat.”
“It’s only me, love. Why are you out here alone? It’s so much warmer inside.” Her fingers edged up his arm.
“I’m thinking.” He leaned away from her. He was tired, and the wine was giving him a headache.
“Will told me you’ve wed.”
“Bloody bastard can’t keep his mouth shut.”
“What’s she like?”
“God’s teeth, Ruby, I don’t want to talk about it!”
“Why not?”
He glared at her.
“Is it true she’s poor?”
“Damnation! I said I don’t want to speak—”
“Is she beautiful?” Ruby interrupted. “Does she truly have a pleasing form?”
Richard regarded the woman beside him resentfully. Will was right. He’d been a fool to come here. Ruby was an ill-mannered squall, worse even than Astra. At least Astra didn’t nag him.
“Aye, she’s fair. What of it, Ruby?”
“How fair? What’s she got that I don’t?”
“You don’t want to know.”
“Aye, I do,” Ruby said petulantly. “I’ve a right to know. I had you afore she did.”
Richard closed his eyes, fighting his weariness. His head seemed to be spinning. “You never had me, Ruby. You were merely a pleasant lay, that’s all.”
Ruby reached out and put her arms around him. “Tush, love, we had more than that. I never even charged you after the first time. I lay for you because I wanted to. You were always the best, the sweetest, the fiercest... my darling Leopard.”
He pushed her away in disgust. He could smell her, and she was none too clean. It had never mattered before, but now it did. Astra’s pretty flower scent still clung to his hair and skin. He could not believe he had left her for this.
“God in heaven,” Ruby muttered, struggling to regain her balance. “It’s true, isn’t it? You’re in love with her!”
He clenched his teeth, saying nothing.
“I can’t believe you’d be such a dense-pated fool, to fall for a fancy lady bitch. They’re all mewling, white-faced little sticks that don’t know the first thing about pleasing a man.”
“Shut up, Ruby. I told you I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Why? Because you’re on the outs with her? Not three days wed and already you’re fighting.” Ruby’s lips pulled into a delighted sneer.
“I told you to shut your nasty, painted slit!”
“You never had trouble with my mouth afore this,” she taunted. “You always liked what I did with it, swallowing your sweet pet almost whole.”
“Jesu, Ruby, what does it take? You keep up with this, and I’ll knock you into the street!”
“Try it,” she taunted. “I have naught to fear from a henpecked fool like you. Next you’ll be wearing the horns for your lady wife. Now that she’s wed she has no reason to keep her legs together. As soon as you leave London, she’ll be lifting her linen for some well-hung gallant.”
The rage rose in him, blotting out the dizziness. “You bitch!” he hissed. His hands clenched into fists.
Strong arms grabbed him from behind. “Christ, Richard. She’s not worth it!”
Will’s words sank in slowly. His friend was right. It was stupidity to let Ruby taunt him. He didn’t want to be here, in this filthy alley. He didn’t want to be anywhere near this place.
He sagged back against Will. His stomach was roiling dangerously. “We should leave,” he said. “Go back to Westminster.”
.“Sure, sure. Go back to your royal slut,” Ruby called out. She turned and went into the tavern, hips swaying.
Richard rubbed his hand over his sweaty face. When he opened his eyes, Will was standing there, watching him.
“I heard what Ruby said to you, how she provoked you,” Will said. “The thought of Astra with another man almost undid you.”
Richard shook his head, trying to clear away his confusion. Will had a point. Why should he care? Why should the thought of Astra being unfaithful anger him?
“You love her, Richard. You’re sick with it, out of your head.”
“That’s the wine.”
“You’re no better sober. Admit it. Admit that you love Astra.”
Richard leaned back against the rough wood of the tavern. Could Will’s words be true? Could he still love Astra, even after what she’d done to him? He’d told her that her deceit had destroyed all his fond feelings for her. But maybe he was wrong. His plans to punish Astra had all gone awry. Every taunt and cruel thing he said and did to her seemed to hurt him as much as it did her, until he felt as if he was bleeding to death from a dozen wounds. He would never forget the dread in her eyes on their wedding night, the tenderness on her face when she kissed him the morning after, the despair that made her weep at his feet. Every barb he aimed at her came back to haunt him. Was that love?
“Let’s go back to Westminster,” Will coaxed.
Slowly, he nodded.
* * *
The room was dark when Richard entered, and the curtains on the bed were pulled closed. His stiff cold fingers fumbled to undo his clothing. He could not forget how he had left her. Astra had offered herself to him, begged him to love her, and he had turned away, mocking her. The memory agonized him. Dear God, how he could possibly keep up this pretense that he hated her?
He pulled back the curtains. It was too dark to see, but he could hear her breathing and smell her faint female perfume. She lay there in her splendid beauty, offering him everything he wanted. And yet he must reject her, again and again. It was becoming impossible to keep his caresses cold and impersonal, to indulge his lust but reject her love. Her tears had tormented him, but no more than her tolerance of his anger. When she gazed at him with that aching look of love that promised acceptance and forgiveness of anything, he was undone. How could he fight an angel?
He eased slowly into the bed. It would be better if he did not wake her. She was a slippery, bedeviling foe, and he could not understand her. Any woman he had ever known would have begun to fight back by now, to wound him with words if naught else. They would have long since complained to the Queen and begged for release from their suffering. It was evidence of Astra’s amazing forbearance and selflessness that she had not done so. Her love made her protect him from the Queen’s wrath.
It was an amazing thing, and he had not known the like in his lifetime. Men could be loyal unto death, but women were weak, fickle creatures. Or so he thought before he met Astra. Now he wondered.
He shook off the mood with a shudder. Next he would be thinking of children and planning a future with Astra. He was not ready for that. He had no way to keep a family, and no instinct for fatherhood. It would not be fair to curse a child as he had been cursed. He had been lucky so far, but he could not predict that he would not be killed in his next battle. Then how would Astra fare? She was as poor as him. She might be so naive as to trust the future and the benevolence of her friends, but he was not so foolish.
The winds of fortune swept across England every few years, making paupers of lords and destroying great families. There was no security, no future at all. It was madness to bring children into such a world. Born to toil and woe—the Scriptures said man was destined to such.
Richard closed his eyes and let the images come to him until his throat was choked with despair: the men in his mother’s bedchamber, the grunts and moans, the vacant look in his mother’s dark eyes, the bruises that sometimes marred her creamy skin.
At first he had been afraid, but then he grew older and knew shame, the taunts of the other boys, the condescending looks on the faces of the knights he served. They marked him for what he was: a bastard, a whore’s son. Gradually the shame had turned to rage. He lashed out—and was beaten. He had vowed that day to become so strong and fierce no man would ever defeat him again. He trained to be an awesome, intimidating knight, but even as he neared his goal, he learned that strength and battle prowess were not enough. Only land and wealth gave true power, protection from the cruel words and mockery of others.
It was then he set his sights on being rich. It did not seem like such an unreasonable dream. Plenty of men had risen high by winning battles for their king, plenty others had married well and found fortune that way. But always the goal eluded him. Henry was too dissolute and wavering to raise a lowly knight. The heiresses he pursued mistrusted his handsome face and winning smile. He came away empty-handed.
Now his dream seemed farther away than ever. He was saddled with a penniless, helpless wife who foolishly believed in rainbows and the Holy Church and the goodness of her fellow man. A woman so childlike that she actually imagined that love could survive in marriage, that loyalty and faithfulness were the natural way of things between a man and his wife. She likely expected him to never go to whores—even when he was away from her.
It was preposterous, and he knew he would fail her eventually. Perhaps, more than anything, that was why he hadn’t wanted this marriage. He didn’t want to fail Astra, to destroy her fair enchanted dreams. It would be better if he abused her so much that she asked for an annulment. Let some other man try to live up to her fantasy of wedded life. It was not for him.
But so far, he realized ruefully, he had not had much success in driving Astra away. Here she was, lying beside him, sleeping peacefully, waiting for him to come back to her. If he pulled aside the bedcovers, he would likely find her naked... naked and willing.
The thought made his throat go dry, and he grew hard almost instantly. How could he resist such damnable temptation, even if he knew it would only lead to more suffering in the end?
He sighed and turned towards her. In the morning, he would be cold and cruel again. In the morning he would be sober and rested and sated. He would be better able to deal with her. His thoughts wouldn’t be so muddled, twisting and turning in hopeless circles.
He reached out and touched a silken shoulder. She sighed softly as she turned towards him.
* * *
It was a dream. Richard was holding her in his arms, and there was no anger and bitterness between them. His hands were tender, poignant in their gentleness. His body was hot and alive, scalding her. She wanted him with a great surging need that robbed her of fear and wariness, and it was the most natural thing in the world to open her legs for him.
He slid inside her without the slightest difficulty or hesitation. The fire sprang between them, burning them both as they writhed and twisted.
The bed danced, the night danced. She escaped the tangled cord that bound her to doubt, to thought, to the boundaries of her soul, and sailed in a long corridor of light, panting and gasping at the bliss of it.
Richard was with her, above her, within her, as one. He let her caress his face and cry out his name, and in the wordless darkness she even sensed he smiled. It is a dream, she thought. It must be, to be so close, so safe, so happy. And yet there was a raw edge to it, a slippery, savory fierceness, a quickening in the blood, a brutal merging of the flesh.
She shed her hazy contentment and sought the fury of it, the white-hot ecstasy of their joining. It came upon her like a vast, heaving storm, tearing her to bits, rending her asunder with a bucking, pitching crescendo that wrenched an anguished cry from her lips. She had reached it, some place far away and only half-known, and she was not alone there.
The storm subsided, and they were only tangled limbs and sticky bodies, hot skin and chests heaving like bellows. The division between their bodies renewed itself. It was dark and late, and Astra realized that she knew the man panting beside her only by his scent and the feel of his skin. He was a stranger still, and when the darkness lifted on the morn, his eyes might well be full of hatred.
The thought made her draw away. She remembered how he had left her, unsatisfied, humiliated, miserable. He had gone to a whore, to a common, filthy, unchaste woman, but one he liked better than her.
Tears burned the corners of her eyes. Why had he come back? Why?
He must have known she despaired, for he reached for her and gave her a vague, familiar pat, such as one might give a dog. Still it soothed her, kept her tears from falling. This time there were no mocking words, only the companionable sound of his breathing. This time he had not taunted her, but took her with a profound possessiveness that left her shuddering. Something seemed changed between them, but she could not be sure what it was.
She longed to look into his eyes, to search his harshly handsome face for the answer she needed. She heard his soft, rhythmic breathing and sighed.
It was too late. Already he slept.