Shields of Pride (30 page)

‘When I woke in the morning he was not there beside me, but I knew what we had done.’ Shivering, she risked a glance at Joscelin’s face but his expression was as unreadable as stone. ‘I had the maids prepare a tub and almost scrubbed my skin off, but it didn’t do any good. I dared not confess my sin to Father Gregory, so I kept it to myself.’ She rose from the bed and, pulling on her bedrobe, began to pace the room as if it were a cage. She rubbed her palms together and felt cold sweat between them. She would far rather have faced physical torture than have to reveal this shame to Joscelin. ‘Raymond said if I didn’t let him have his will whenever he wanted, he would tell Giles about what had happened in his absence and I knew that if he found out, Giles would kill me.’

A grimace crossed Joscelin’s face. ‘How long did you endure this?’

‘A little over a year - until my pregnancy started to show. He left me alone then. Corbette’s daughter Helwis was becoming a woman and he had started to notice. He had a new innocence to corrupt then.’

The question, unspoken, loomed between them. ‘I am almost certain that Robert is Giles’s,’ she said. ‘Raymond was away much of the month when I conceived, and the times he did pester me I managed to persuade him that other ways could be just as rewarding.’

Joscelin grimaced again.

‘I was trapped, don’t you understand!’ she cried, rounding on him in frustration. ‘If it had not been a mortal sin, I would have thrown myself off the battlements! How dare you sit there and judge me when you know nothing of what I suffered because I was helpless. How dare you!’

He shook his head. ‘I know you were Raymond de Montsorrel’s victim. The lack is within me. I keep seeing you with the vile lecher. I tell myself it doesn’t matter, the past should be buried. I don’t have to look further than my own father for proof of that.’

Linnet bowed her head. ‘Then where do we go from here, if you loathe me,’ she said, her voice cracking.

Joscelin’s heart wrenched as she began to weep. Unable to bear the anguish - his or hers - he pulled her against him and enfolded her in his arms. He could not tell her that it did not matter - it did. He was as susceptible as Giles to the torments of jealousy, suspicion and pride. But holding her now, he vowed that they were not going to ruin his life or Linnet’s. ‘No,’ he said. ‘I love you and that’s why it hurts. My heart was lost that first day on the road when you faced down Giles and myself for the sake of your child and I saw your courage.’ His lips tightened with determination. ‘I’ll be damned if Raymond de Montsorrel is going to defeat us from beyond the grave. Tomorrow I’ll burn this bed and all that has gone before and commission a new one that will be ours alone.’

Linnet raised her tear-streaked face, and upon it he saw the mingling of desperate hope and abject doubt.

‘For tonight you can sleep like a true mercenary’s woman,’ he added, ‘on skins by the fire.’ Without more ado, he tugged the fur coverlet from the bed and his cloak from his clothing pole. Catching her hand in his, he pulled her to the banked hearth. It was the work of a moment to spread his cloak upon the floor, lay her down upon it and cover them both with the coney-skin canopy.

She pressed against him, seeking reassurance and comfort. He curved his arm around her waist. The warmth of her breath fluttered at his throat. Beneath his hand, her skin was like silk and he felt the welcome renewed stir of desire. He blotted Raymond de Montsorrel from his mind by thinking of a summer night beneath the stars, of the champing of destriers at the horse lines and the mournful sound of a soldier’s bone flute. His hands moved in slow tandem with his thoughts. Linnet’s breath quickened but she remained very still. He could feel her tension, the inner coiling of her body in response to his touch. He parted her thighs, kneeling up as he entered her, teasing her with his thumb until her reticence was broken and, arching, she cried out. Her pleasure became his and, with a soft groan, he thrust fully home, claiming her for ever from Raymond de Montsorrel.

28

Raising his head, the buck sifted the wind, ears and eyes alert, jaws moving rhythmically on a mouthful of birch bark strips. Something had disturbed the deep forest but he was unsure yet as to what it was and whether it was dangerous. His breath vaporized in the frozen February air and beneath his dainty cloven hooves the ground wore a dusting of snow. Tiny flakes, needle-sharp, fell from a flat blanket of grey cloud, making it difficult for the buck to absorb any scent. He remained nervous, facing the east where the light was brightest and from which direction he sensed the disturbance came. The other bucks in the herd had stopped eating too and were staring eastwards with flickering ears and switching scuts. Faint but clear and true on the breeze, threading through the particles of snow, the buck heard the call of a hunting horn and scented the rank, terrifying odour of dogs and men. Within seconds, the clearing was empty as the deer bounded into Sherwood’s dark heart, but their spoor remained and the snow was falling too softly to cover it.

Chest heaving with the exertion of the chase, eyes bright with the lust of having witnessed the death of the magnificent buck, it took Ralf a moment to realize he was being addressed by Robert Ferrers, Earl of Derby.

‘I’m sorry, my lord, I was still caught up in the chase.’

‘So I see,’ Ferrers said with amusement. ‘I asked how your lord father was these days.’

‘He is well, sire,’ Ralf answered, suddenly on his guard. Robert Ferrers was not the kind who made small talk with relative strangers who were only here on the hunt because they happened to be friends with one of his knights.

Ferrers nodded and toyed with a loose thread on his saddle cloth. ‘He seems to have emerged from last year’s troubles gilded with honour.’

Ralf shot Ferrers a puzzled look, wondering whether he was being baited or courted here.

The kennel keepers were whipping the dogs to heel and two bearers were tying the buck upside down to a carrying pole. ‘Ride with me awhile,’ Ferrers commanded, and reined his horse out of the ring of trees where they had brought the stag to bay. The snow had all been trampled away, leaving churned soil and bloody leaf mould. When his squires made to follow, he gestured them to stay back.

The forest closed around them, the light a luminous grey filled with small, stinging barbs of ice. The heat of the chase began to seep from Ralf ’s veins, leaving him aware of the numbing cold. Weather like this always cursed the borders of spring.

Ferrers regarded him with pursed lips. ‘You and Sir William are reconciled, so I am led to believe?’

‘Yes, my lord,’ Ralf said warily.

‘And your half-brother, the one who married into such good fortune, are you and he on speaking terms?’

Ralf swallowed. Beneath him his horse paced smoothly, hoofbeats thud-thudding like his heart. ‘I haven’t seen him since we met in London last summer.’

Robert Ferrers grunted. ‘It is a pity your father did not try to obtain Linnet de Montsorrel for you instead of him,’ he said, watching Ralf closely. ‘I would have thought it was the natural thing to do, you being the heir.’

Ralf said nothing. He might hate Joscelin and feel scalding resentment for the way their father favoured his precious bastard over his legitimate sons, but his rebellion had taught him caution. Hearts and hatreds were not to be worn on the sleeve, and he could play as cagey a game as Ferrers.

‘Perhaps your father has a wife in mind for you, also?’

‘I do not know, my lord.’ Good God, was he going to be offered a wife of Ferrers’s blood? His gut churned.

Ferrers sighed down his thin, sharp nose. The snow was falling with determination now, the flakes penny-sized and dry, the kind that would settle and remain on the ground for weeks unless it thawed. ‘I can understand your suspicion,’ he said. ‘I suppose being locked in an apple cellar for two days and nights by a horde of ignorant peasants must have knocked some of the stuffing out of you, but there is no need to be on tenterhooks with me.’

There was every need, Ralf thought, but his curiosity must have shown on his face because Ferrers smiled and leaned intimately across his saddle. ‘The winter truces end soon. Robert of Leicester might be in prison but he was only one wave on a flood tide. What will King Henry do when France, Flanders and Scotland take up arms against him in the spring? What was won can soon be lost.’

Ralf looked into the gleaming, predatory eyes.
What was won can soon be lost
? He looked over his shoulder. Men were riding along the path behind them, fellow guests, equerries, beaters and foresters, keeping their distance but obviously concerned by the increasing heaviness of the snow. ‘What do you want of me, my lord?’

Ferrers smoothed the corners of his mouth between forefinger and thumb. ‘I believe we might be useful to each other in the future. Running to my banner as you ran to Leicester’s would be downright foolish and a waste of time to us both but if you were lord of Arnsby, matters might be different.’

Ralf ’s voice was suddenly hoarse. ‘You mean if my father were to die?’ What was Ferrers suggesting? In his mind’s eye he saw a vision of himself waiting in a dark stairwell with a dagger in his hand or tipping a vial of poison into a flagon of wine.

Ferrers saw him baulk and laid a hand quickly on his sleeve. ‘In the fullness of time, of course,’ he soothed, but his eyes told a different story.

Ralf looked at Ferrers, both drawn and repelled by what he was intimating. It was like the times he had committed rape: the excitement of the struggle, the subjugation, the final tremendous thrust and then the revulsion and self-disgust.

‘We’ll talk again later,’ Ferrers said, and turned his horse around to join his companions. Ralf sat where he was until the bearers came past him with the body of the deer. Snow fell, making new spots on its fallow hide, and was melted away by the residual body heat. Blood dripped in slow, black clots from its muzzle and stained the forest floor. Ralf gasped and spurred away from the sight of death to join his fellow huntsmen, seeking their company, their loud, trivial banter, to take the darkness from his mind.

‘A nunnery!’ Agnes said furiously to Ralf. ‘I’ll see him in hell first!’ Her tone was pitched low, making the hatred with which it smouldered all the more intense. Her maid, who had become accustomed to the low muttering these past few days, did not respond to it except to make herself as inconspicuous as possible.

Agnes left the window splay where she had been sitting to watch William and his entourage ride away in the direction of the Nottingham road. ‘He cannot force me. I’ll not be put aside like a worn-out rag.’ She faced her son, who was in her chamber to be fitted for a new tunic. He was standing somewhat impatiently for the seamstress, who was taking note of his measurements by making knots in lengths of string.

‘No, Mama,’ Ralf said, a glazed look in his eye, and stretched his arm horizontally to be measured from armpit to wrist.

Agnes regarded his broad, handsome strength and the gleam of light on his red-gold hair. William wanted to obtain a wife for Ralf and was looking around for a suitable girl. Agnes feared that she understood his reasoning. Martin would soon be squiring in Richard de Luci’s household and her nest would be empty of chicks. She was of no more use to him. He would replace her in the household with Ralf ’s young wife. Jealousy and fear gnawed at her. If she were placed in a nunnery, she would not be able to keep an eye on the girl - as she had kept an eye on Morwenna.

With an irritated sound, she grabbed the string from the seamstress and waved her away. ‘I’ll do it myself!’ she snapped. ‘Go and look in the coffers to see what fabric we have.’

‘Yes, madam.’ The woman curtseyed, her eyes downcast.

Agnes moved in closer to Ralf’s pungent, masculine warmth. She knew he had been out in the village last night, gaming in the alehouse and wenching. A residue of his indulgences still lingered in his pores. ‘You would not put me away in a nunnery if you were master here, would you?’ she wheedled.

His nostrils flared. ‘Of course not, Mama!’

Agnes smiled and kissed his cheek, feeling the prickle of beard stubble under her lips where once his skin had been smooth like a petal. ‘I knew you would say that, you’re a good son.’