The Lion Triumphant (36 page)

“You should have married him long ago, Mother.”

She said: “I am happy now. He wanted me to come here because he knows of my love for you, but he is eagerly awaiting my return.”

“And Kate?”

“She is as ever.”

“She did not marry again?”

“Kate does not wish to marry, though there are many who try to persuade her. She wishes to keep her freedom. She is rich, independent, she wants no man to govern her.”

“No man would ever govern her. She would govern him.”

“You still speak of her bitterly, Cat.”

“I still remember. And Carey?”

“He has a place at Court.”

“So you see him now and then?”

“Yes.”

“Does he speak of me?”

“We all spoke of you when we lost you.”

“Carey too?”

“Yes, Carey.”

“And is he well, Mother?”

“He is indeed. Now, Cat darling, what will you do? Will you marry Jake Pennlyon? I want you to be happy, dearest Cat. More than anything I want that. Jake Pennlyon brought you back. He plans to marry you. He was betrothed to you before and he has waited for you.”

I laughed aloud. “I think I may be going to bear his child.”

“Then you love him.”

“Sometimes I think I hate him.”

“Yet…”

“He insisted,” I said. “He was the Captain. He offered me marriage, but he was impatient.”

She took me by the shoulders and looked into my face.

“My dearest Cat,” she said, “you are changed.”

“I am no longer your virgin daughter. Twice I have been forced to submit. It’s odd, Mother. They both offered marriage.”

“Now you must build up a new life for yourself, Cat. Come home with me to the Abbey.”

“I thought of it. There I should see Carey perhaps. I do not want to open that old wound. Perhaps he will marry. Has he married?” I asked swiftly.

She shook her head. “You married the Spaniard,” she reminded me.

“I married him because I thought I would stay there forever. I wanted to assure my son’s position.”

“And this child you are carrying?”

I hesitated. Was I beginning to ask myself if I could overcome my grief for Felipe, which stirred sadly in my heart, by my hatred of Jake Pennlyon?

I said: “I will marry Jake Pennlyon. He is the father of the child I am carrying. I shall stay here, Mother, for much as I long to be with you I could not return to the Abbey.”

She understood as she had always understood.

Jake Pennlyon was triumphant. The preparations for the wedding began at once.

“We want our son’s birth to take place at a respectable time after the wedding day.”

During the previous year Jake’s father had had an apoplectic fit and died instantly. He had lived so lustily that he had shortened his span, was the general opinion. So Jake was master of Lyon Court and I was to be its mistress.

I made conditions.

The children were to remain with me. He wanted Roberto to go to the Abbey when my mother went. “For to tell the truth,” he said, “the sight of that brat makes my gorge rise.”

“He is my son,” I said. “He shall never be parted from me as long as I live.”

“You should be ashamed of consorting with our enemies. A brat that was forced on you!”

“That could be said of the child I am to bear.”

“Not so. You were willing. Do you think you deceived me?”

“It is you who deceive yourself. My son stays or there will be no marriage.”

“There will be a marriage,” he said. “Don’t think you’ll cheat me twice. No plaguey sweat this time, my girl.”

I laughed at him. “Roberto stays,” I said.

“And the other two,” he said. “By God, I’ve no objection to a nursery. We’ll fill it. Those two boys are game little fellows. I like them.”

“You would. They resemble you. Manuela and Jennet will take care of the nursery, but let me tell you this: There will be no more merry games with my servants.”

He took my chin in his hand and jerked up my face in one of his ungentle gestures. “You must see to it that there is no one but you. I warn you I am a lusty man.”

“I do not need the warning.”

“You need to
heed
it. You can keep me solely yours, Cat, and you will.”

“Do you think I can manage to retain such a prize?” I asked with sarcasm.

“If you are wise, Cat, you can.”

“Who is to say? Who knows I might welcome your lust for others? All I say is it shall not be in my house and with my servants.”

“I have never had difficulty in finding willing companions.”

“A pretty subject for a man about to marry.”

“But we are not as others, are we, Cat? We know that, do we not? It is what makes the prospect of our union so enthralling. Tell me how does my son today?”

“I am not at all sure that he exists. If he does not … there may not be the need for this wedding.”

“If he is not there rest assured he soon will be.”

I said: “I would like to see the house. There may be changes I wish to make.”

He laughed at me, exulting. I knew he was longing for our wedding with deep intensity.

The day dawned when I was married to Jake Pennlyon. The ceremony took place in the chapel where once Jake had spied through the leper’s squint. There was feasting in Trewynd Grange and afterward I went back with Jake to Lyon Court.

It is no use pretending that I was not excited by this man, and to enter that house of which I should be mistress, to go with him to our bridal chamber, and stand there with him. In those first moments I believe he was moved almost to tenderness. I knew that he had achieved that which he had long desired and when he put his arms about me he was momentarily gentle. This was different from those adventures which were familiar to him.

The moment did not last. His passion was fierce; and because I knew that there was a need in him to subdue, to fight, I resisted him.

But I shared his passion. He knew it. Yet I did not want him to realize how overwhelming were these encounters, how they drove everything from my mind but this intense physical satisfaction.

My relationship with Jake was entirely physical. I could not uphold my refusal to admit my pleasure in them, but it was always the pleasure of the senses and I did not attempt to hide this. If he had no tenderness for me, I had none for him. I was not going to pretend to love him. I was not even going to pretend I had need of him. I found him coarse, crude, arrogant and I was not going to pretend otherwise. I had married him because I was to bear a child he had forced on me. I was a woman with strong natural impulses and his tremendous virility matched a similar quality in me. It was possible to share a sexual encounter and yet not to love one’s partner.

I made this clear to him, but he laughed at me. He had always known, he told me, that I wanted him as he wanted me. He had always been aware that he only had to beckon and I would be in his bed.

“There was much beckoning,” I reminded him, “but I never was in your bed till forced to be there on your ship when there was no escape for me.”

“I could see you longed for me.”

“As silly Jennet did. I’m not Jennet, remember.”

“I know it well. But you are a woman even as she is and a woman like you needs a man like me.”

“Nonsense!” I retorted.

“Let’s prove it.”

And there was no holding him back.

Yes, I was exhilarated by our encounters. I could not hide it. “We were made one for the other,” he said. “I knew it. From the moment I clapped eyes on you on the Hoe, I said to myself, ‘That’s your woman, Jake Pennlyon. She’ll be the best you ever knew.’”

But afterward we would argue and I usually won and he was pleased to let me.

He had only to seize me and although I would often resist he would always have his way … at any time, anywhere.

I said he was shameless and he answered that I was equally so.

And so passed the first month of my marriage to Jake Pennlyon.

Then my mother said she must go home. She had left Rupert too long.

Honey would go with her. Trewynd had too many unhappy memories for her. She would live with my mother at the Abbey and they both said that this was a consolation for saying good-bye to me.

So with Edwina, she set off for the Abbey; Roberto, Carlos and Jacko stayed behind and in the nursery Jennet and Manuela were their nurses.

I was certain by this time that I was pregnant.

Soon, I promised myself, there would be another in my nursery.

Roberto was pining. His dark eyes grew larger in his little olive-skinned face.

“Madre,” he said, “I want to go home.”

“Roberto, my precious,” I answered him, “we are home.”

He shook his head. “This is not home. Home is not here, Madre.”

“It is now,” I told him. “Home is where I am and that is where you belong.”

He conceded this.

“I want my father. Where is my father?”

“He is gone away, Roberto. He is dead. You have a new father now.”

“I want my own father, Madre. Who is my new father now?”

“You know.”

He shrank in terror. “Not the Man…”

“He will be your father now, Roberto.”

He shut his eyes tightly and shook his head. I had said the wrong thing. I had frightened him.

I took him onto my lap and rocked him. “I am here, Roberto.” That did comfort him. He clung to me. But he was terrified of Jake, and Jake, who had no understanding of children, did nothing to alleviate the situation. Carlos and Jacko had been taken over the
Rampant Lion;
they played wild games which involved ships and captains. Carlos was always Captain Pennlyon and this pleased Jake. He was proud of those two … his boys. He didn’t seem to care that one of them was the son of a Spanish lady of high degree and the other of a serving girl. They were Pennlyons and that was good enough for him.

How different it was for my little Roberto!

I was so concerned about the child that I spoke to Jake about him. I even went so far as to plead with him to show a little interest and kindness to the boy.

“Interest in that man’s son?”

“He is mine also.”

“That does not endear him to me.”

“It should. I have taken your sons and cared for them.”

“You’re a woman,” he said.

“If you have any decent feelings in you…”

“But you know I have not … only indecent ones.”

“I beg of you. Be kind to my son.”

“I must act as I feel.”

“Oh, so you have become honest, have you?”

“In this matter, yes.” He turned to me suddenly. “I tell you, I hate the boy. When I see him I think of you with that Don. I want to break every bone in his body; I want to destroy anything that reminds me of that.”

“You’re inhuman. To blame a child.”

“You should have let him go with your mother.”

“My own son!”

“Will you stop talking of
your
son? Soon you’ll have mine and then that dark-skinned brat can be sent away. I might take him with me when I sail and drop him off at his old home. How would that be?”

“You dare touch that boy.”

“And?” he mocked.

“I’d kill you, Jake Pennlyon.”

“So we would become a murderess.”

“Yes, if any harmed my son.”

“Oh, come, what’s a bastard now and then? You’re going to have that nursery so full of real boys you’ll not miss this one.”

I hit him across the face. This sort of encounter always excited him. He had me pinioned and forced me down.

There was the inevitable ending, but it solved nothing.

He hated my son because of his father and I was worried.

When Roberto became ill I was with him all the time. I think it was the cold east wind which blew up suddenly and which was too much for him.

Jennet and Manuela were worried about him and I spent a day with them in the nursery.

He was a little better as the dusk fell.

“He do seem comforted to have you with him, Mistress,” said Jennet.

It was true, when I sat beside his bed he slept a little, holding my hand; and if I attempted to release it momentarily his hot little hands clung.

I decided I would stay with him.

When night fell Jake came to the nursery. Jennet and Manuela hastily disappeared.

“What means this?” said Jake. “I am waiting for you.”

“The child is sick,” I answered.

“Those two women can care for him.”

“He is uneasy when I’m not here.”

“
I
am more than uneasy when you are not with me.”

“I am staying here for the night.”

“Nay,” he said, “you are coming to bed with me.”

“I shall stay with my son tonight.”

“You will come,” he said.

He caught my arm and I stood up and threw him off. “You will wake the child.”

“Why should I care?”

“I care,” I said.

I stepped out of the room with him, for I greatly feared the effect a scene would have on Roberto.

“Go away,” I said. “I have made up my mind.”

“And if I have made up mine?”

“You must needs unmake it.”

“You are coming with me.”

“I am staying with my son.”

We looked unflinchingly into each other’s eyes.

“I could carry you there,” he said.

“If you touch me, Jake Pennlyon,” I said, “I will leave this house. I will take my son to my mother and never see you again.”

He hesitated and I knew that I had won.

“Go away,” I said. “Don’t shout. If you wake the child, if you frighten him now I shall never forgive you.”

“Are you not afraid that if you deny me I might turn to others?”

“If you are so desperately in need you must do so.”

“You would not wish that.”

“I tell you I care for nothing tonight but that my son sleeps peacefully and I shall stay with him to make sure that he does so.”

“Cat,” he said. “I want you … now … this minute.”

“Go away.”

“So you don’t care what I do?”

“Do what you please.”

He caught my arm and shook me. “You know full well that I have a fancy for no one but you.”

I laughed at him. Exultantly, yes. I had won of course. I went back to Roberto.

In the morning the child was better, but I knew that he was terrified of Jake Pennlyon.