Lyonene watched Lucy climb into the wagon, too old and too fat now to ride a horse, and then turned to her own place beside her husband. Ranulf stared at her a moment, his black eyes intense, searching her face, before lifting her to her horse.
They rode in silence, and several times Lyonene wanted desperately to tell Ranulf of Giles, but each time, the solemness, even the sheer size of him, stopped her.
“We will stop early for dinner. The fire has taken much strength, and there is no rush.”
He helped her from her horse, left her a moment to tend to the people in his charge and then returned. “You would walk with me?” He held his arm for her.
Happily, she took it, and he led her into the woods, within sound of the others, but out of sight. “I fear I make a poor husband, as my brother has warned me. Here, let us sit and talk a while.”
The cold ground seemed to seep through her, and she shivered.
“You are cold.” He spread his mantle and pulled her near him, his arms and cloak surrounding her, his heart beating against her cheek.
“You will be glad to be home again, my lord?” she asked.
Ranulf could not suppress a small frown, so quickly had she gone from “Lion” to “my lord.” “Aye, the Welsh clime is too harsh since I have grown used to the softness of my isle.”
“Tell me of it.”
He described with pleasure the island, the meadows, the woods, the nearness to the sea.
“You live there alone with just your men? No family?”
“My parents died when I was very young.” He lifted a curl of her hair from his leg, rubbing it between his fingers. “It seems we know little of each other and must struggle for words, yet once we had not enough time to say all there was.”
Lyonene blinked back tears, for she felt the same way. She turned her face to his and smiled at him slightly. He touched his lips to hers, and she lost herself to his demanding kiss. It was as if he sought to draw the essence of her soul from her with that kiss. Yet her growing passion was replaced by something more, something higher than mere earthly passion. The tears rolled down her cheeks, hot, wrenching tears.
“Tell me.” Ranulf drew back from her. “What plagues you so?”
“I will tell you,” came a quiet voice from the trees. Giles stepped into view. “Do you not wonder that a bride of three days should cry when her husband kisses her? You will draw sword with me, Lord Ranulf, and we will see who wins this woman.”
“You are a boy. I cannot fight with you. My wife has told me of you and I trust her.”
Lyonene could see the pain on Ranulf’s face as he said these words.
“Then mayhaps these will persuade you of the truth of my words.” He tossed a leather pouch at Ranulf’s feet.
“Nay!” Lyonene screamed and made a lunge for the letters, but Ranulf had them first.
Slowly, he withdrew one, then the others, his face losing color, expression, emotion. When he had finished, he turned to his wife. Lyonene felt she could have handled rage, violence, any emotion but the look of total bewilderment and agony that flashed across Ranulf’s eyes.
“You wrote these letters?” he asked quietly.
“They were not written to Giles, I swear it. They were…”
“To another?” He brushed her hand from his arm and looked across to the young man before him. “She is my wife now, for all her past deeds, and I will not kill boys.”
“You bastard! You are so good, so pure you cannot dirty your sword with a commoner, but there is one sword you have bloodied when you wielded it against a baron’s daughter. Think you she loved you at first sight or mayhaps it was the silver on your mail? We planned all this, did you not guess? Already she has ransacked your goods and tossed me a jewel.” He flung the stone at Ranulf’s feet.
When Ranulf looked from the ruby to his wife’s terrified face, she saw then the rage there, the hatred in his eyes. “Get you from me. I must kill this boy for you. Will you rejoice when he is dead? Will you seek another to replace him soon?”
“Ranulf! You must hear me out. He lies! The letters were written to a man unknown, a girl’s dreams. He said he would kill you if I did not give him the jewel.”
“I am to believe you think this boy threatened my life? That you stole from me to save me from this child? Nay, woman, I believed you once, but I can no more. Now get you from me.” He nodded his head to someone behind her, and one of the guardsmen grasped her arm and pulled her from the clearing. “Ranulf, please!” she cried.
“It is too late for your pleas. Take her from here that she does not see the horror she has wrought.”
Lyonene turned then and left, stopping by the horses when she heard the first clank of steel against steel. The battle did not actually take very long, but to Lyonene it seemed hours, and each clash, each sound, made her heart leap in agony.
He stood before her and she looked into those cold, hard eyes. “See you the blood you have spilled this day. A boy who will never grow to be a man because of you.”
He swung into the saddle of his horse, leaving his wife to be helped by Hugo Fitz Waren. She could look at none of the men, knowing they all must hate her, and so she was surprised when she felt a hand on her knee, a light touch, quickly gone, but reassuring. She turned to the others of the Black Guard. One by one, the men solemnly nodded to her, telling her they believed her words, for in truth it had been easy to see the boy was not of his right mind.
Only once on that long journey to Aylesbury Castle did Lyonene attempt to speak to her husband, and the black hate she saw there soon made her hold her tongue.
“Your lordship,” Pask, the steward of Aylesbury Castle, warmly greeted Ranulf. “We are proud that you honor us again with your presence. The cook has worked for days preparing your meal, and it promises to be a meal worthy of you and your men. Ah, you bring a lady?”
“She is my wife.” Ranulf’s tone caused the small man’s eyebrows to lift. “Put her things in the room across from Edward’s; I will take his.”
Lyonene was too tired to care where she slept. She was plagued by memories of a childhood friend, now dead, and a husband who hated her. Lucy dropped on the narrow bed.
“This has been an evil day. Sir John’s boy always was a bit odd. It was only you who gave of your time to him. I always knew…”
“Please, Lucy, could we not speak of it again? I am tired and wish to rest.”
“Aye, Lady Lyonene,” she said as she helped her young mistress to dress. “Shall I send a tray to you?”
“No, I am not sure I shall ever eat again. I would just like to sleep, to lose myself in sleep.”
Lucy tiptoed from the room.
Ranulf paced, ignoring the tray of food that stood before him. He had been a fool to marry again and certainly to marry for any reason but advancement. The Castilian princess would not have caused him problems such as he had now.
Lyonene—emerald-eyed beauty with tawny hair and thick, dark lashes—she was his wife now, and look at the hell he had been through for three days. Maularde had told him of Giles’s presence, and he had given her every chance to explain, to be honest with him, and yet she had not. He had tried not to kill the boy, but he had been mad, insane as he attacked. Ranulf rubbed his hand across his eyes as if to erase the memory. He knew too well what it was like to be young and so in love.
Love? What did he know of love now? This girl had led him easily, yet now that she had her marriage to him she had changed. She was no longer eager for him, nor did she seem happy, as she once had at her father’s house. All seemed to point to a trick, to the truth in the boy’s words.
Too many thoughts overlapped. Frustrated, he removed his clothes and walked to the bed, only to stare at the empty coldness of it, puzzled for a moment. Without dressing, he stepped into the cold hall and pushed open the door to Lyonene’s chamber. She did not waken until she felt herself roughly lifted, the bedclothes twisted about her sleepy body.
Ranulf’s dark eyes were even darker in the dim light, his face shadowed by a day’s growth of his heavy black whiskers. He did not look at her as he silently carried her, and she longed for his glance, for the sound of his voice. He threw her onto the feather mattress of the wide bed. Only then did she notice his nudity, the sight of him riveting her eyes, making her heart beat faster as he looked at her, her leg and hip exposed by the twisted covers.
“Whatever else you are, you are my wife, and you will not rid me from your bed.” He straightened the covers and climbed beneath them, pulling her to him.
“Ranulf…” she began.
“I do not wish to speak of this day, not now or ever again. The boy is dead now and whether his words be false or no, I will know.”
“How will you know? I will tell you…”
“Nay, I wish for only one thing from your lips now.” His hand caressed her stomach, and he felt her tense and hold herself rigid against him. Mayhaps she thinks of the boy, he thought as he fiercely pulled her to him, causing her to gasp in pain as his hand held her chin and pulled her mouth to his. “You think of him now? You wish you had him near you?”
“Nay, I do not,” she gasped, trying to pull away from him. “Please do not hurt me more. I will lie still. It hurts less so.”
He dropped his hand and moved away to stare at her thoughtfully. “Last night, after the fire, did I … hurt you again?”
She nodded her head.
“Damn, but you try me sorely! I have known you but weeks, yet you have upset my whole life, now as well as the past. This morn I read a letter writ by you, mayhaps to a boy I needs must kill. I have no proof of your innocence; in truth all seems to point to your guilt. The first day I met you, you threw yourself at me with such force I was near blinded, and I have no proof you have not treated other men so. Now I am wed to you for three days and I have been driven to rape you twice and kill a boy for you. Yet here you lie in a tangle of hair and naught else and all I wish to do is make love to you.”
Lyonene blinked up at him, torn between wishing he would kiss her and wanting to avoid what she knew the kissing would lead to.
He pulled her close to him, and she buried her face in the thick mat of hair on his chest, rubbing her cheek against the softness. “I do not know of your loyalty yet,” he said, “whether you be an innocent or worse than Eve, but I know I desire you more than any other woman I have ever seen. Here, do not pull away. I will hurt you no more. I fear I have used you badly in my clumsy attempts, but I will try to redeem the time we have lost.”
He lifted her mouth to meet his and softly, gently, touched her lips, taking a long, slow time before building the pressure on the sensitive flesh. He moved his lips, raking his teeth on her lower lip before drinking of the sweet honey of her mouth.
Lyonene felt herself go liquid at his now gentle touch, at the feel of his skin, the size of him. He rolled her on her back, and she stiffened against the pain she knew came next, regretting the end of the sweet moments of his kisses. But he did not seem to notice her movements and began to trail hot kisses from the corner of her mouth to her ear, tasting her earlobe with the tip of his tongue.
His lips moved down her neck, causing her to arch her neck, to surrender herself to him more fully. One hand moved along her hip, her waist, strong fingers on her ribs; then he touched her breast and she almost protested, so startled was she, but the sensation his hand sent along her body was not to be thwarted. His mouth traveled slowly down her body, igniting exquisite new fires.
She felt herself leaving her body, her reason fleeing, and all that remained was a new, unfulfilled desire, a desire for something unknown. He seemed to have a hundred hands, a thousand lips, all seeking, touching and filling her mind till she was only sensation, nothing else. Frantically, she put her hands into his hair, the thick, soft mass curling about her fingers—her sensitive, vibrating fingertips.
“Lioness, sweet Lioness,” he murmured, the deep rich tones adding to her wildness, the tremors of violence that shook her body. He came to her and there was no fear, no pain, only the beginning of the end of a need that consumed and blinded her.
She did not need to follow his example, but the desire that overpowered her took hold and she more than met his passion. At last she cried out as she sank her nails into his back and arched to meet him. Slowly, receding waves shook her and she gradually relaxed and fell back on the white linen sheets. As Ranulf moved to roll from her, she pulled him back, not able to release him yet, exulting in the heaviness of him, the way his dark skin covered her body, damp, smelling strongly of earthy, masculine sweat.
He rubbed his damp face in her neck, playfully, whiskers caressing, and moved to one side of her so he could see her face in the light from the thick candle by the bedside. He smoothed back a damp strand of hair from her temple.
“I pleased you?” she whispered.
He gave her a startled look and seemed amused by her question. “If you but knew…” he began and then stopped. “Aye, you pleased me exceedingly well and I fear you have taken all my strength,” he added as he saw her eyelids flicker in weariness. She was asleep almost before he finished speaking. In spite of his satiety, his tiredness, he watched her for a moment, curled against him, looking even younger than her few years. His passion was spent, and he remembered the day. He rolled from her and slept, his dreams troubled.
In spite of the passion of the night, the morrow brought no respite from the pain between Ranulf and Lyonene. Giles’s death hung over them, as did the boy’s accusations. They crossed the ferry onto the Isle of Malvoisin, and for awhile Lyonene’s thoughts were overcome by the beauty and massive strength of the enormous castle complex. Black Hall was a stone house, furnished as she had never seen before, with the new tapestries Queen Eleanora had brought from Castile and windows covered with leaded panes of glass. She saw Ranulf’s pride in his house, which she would have shared if he had but given her some cause to feel that she was wanted, that he did not always regret his marriage to a baron’s daughter.
In her loneliness, for Ranulf was nearly always gone, she sought to busy herself in the intricate workings of the castle.
“What is this you do while I am gone?” he demanded one evening as he threw his wet tabard to Hodder. “William de Bec says you interfere with the running of my castle.”
Her eyes flashed at him.
“All of Malvoisin has been under my steward’s care for many years. He is a freeman and I would give him no cause for complaint.”
Lyonene straightened her back, meeting the anger in his black eyes. “Excuse my impertinence, my lord, I but wished to be useful. Pray tell what I am to do here each day if I cannot have a hand in ordering what is reputed to be my own home. I am not accustomed to being idle.”
His face was cold, the expression ungiving. “Mayhaps William can find some gold for you to count. You have earned that pleasure.” His eyes looked meaningfully to the bed where they shared their only moments of happiness.
Lyonene stared at him wildly, suddenly feeling dirty and despicable. She ran from the room, finding the hall blocked by Lucy’s massive form. She turned and ran to a small door that led to the tower in the back of Black Hall. The darkness inside the tower was absolute and she unseeingly made her way up the cold stairs. The room at the top was filled with light, blinding her. She touched her cheek and realized then how wet her face was.
“My child,” a man’s voice said. “Come and sit here.” A fat man, tonsured, in monk’s garb, put his arm about her shoulders. He led her to a crude wooden chair by a charcoal brazier. “Sit down and drink this.” He handed her a pewter flagon of dark wine. “I am Brother Jonathan,” he said to Lyonene’s silent form. “And you are the lovely Lady Lyonene, Lord Ranulf’s bride.”
The tears started afresh.
“Come now,” he said. “Married not a month and already such a quarrel?”
Lyonene gulped the wine, choking but needing the warmth. Brother Jonathan patted her arm. “Tell me of it. I am a good listener.”
“I cannot,” she managed to gasp.
He was quiet a moment and then said quietly, “I have heard that yours was a love match, that you loved one another from your first sight.”
Lyonene tried hard to remember those first two days with Ranulf. “Aye,” she whispered, staring at the fire, thinking of the time he had held the longbow for her.
“But something has happened since then? Something has caused you to lose sight of your love?”
“Aye, it has.”
Brother Jonathan smiled and wondered what slight incident could have caused the break. Probably Ranulf’s jealousy, he thought. Ever since his first wife he could not abide anyone touching what was his, be it his horse, his home, his men or, he imagined, his woman. “I have known Lord Ranulf since he was a boy and he has reason to … to be somewhat intolerant. Tell me, do you still love him? You cannot have stopped so soon, not if it were a true love.”
Lyonene blinked her blurred eyes. “I … do not know. He has changed so. When I met him he smiled and laughed with me, now he does but glower and at times he frightens me. I have tried to explain about Giles but he does not listen.”
So! Jonathan thought, it was another man, probably someone who dared to look upon Ranulf’s wife. He smiled patiently. “Lord Ranulf is not a cruel man, but he sometimes cannot reason about some things. He is a gentle man under his harshness. Did you not once see that?”
“Yes.” She began to smile and some of the memory of Ranulf came back more clearly, blocking the time after their wedding night.
“Good, then.” The monk smiled. “It is up to you.”
“Me? But how may I change him? I can do naught that pleases him.”
Jonathan blinked. That is not what he’d heard from the servants’ gossip. “You must prove to him that you love him. You must do whatever you can to prove to him that you care for him.”
“Aye,” Lyonene whispered. “I must show him.” She set the empty mug down. “I will prove to him that I am not as he thinks. Somehow I will find a way. Thank you, Brother Jonathan.”
She left the room, and the monk sat blinking for a moment before refilling his cup and taking her chair. Ah, the young, such tiny problems they had in the world. He wondered again what had caused Lyonene’s distress. Probably a spat over a new dress, or mayhaps not that serious.
Ranulf did not return to Black Hall that night, and Lyonene lay quietly in the big bed, staring upward, unseeing. She felt that it had all been her fault, that her husband hated her for something that she had done. She thought of Brother Jonathan’s words and she made a vow that someday she would prove to Ranulf that her love for him was true, that she loved no man but him.
In the morning she went to the south of the isle to see to the welfare of the serfs there. Sir Bradford, one of the youngest garrison knights, joined her for the ride back to the castle.
“I think I feel a touch of spring in the air,” he said. “Or mayhaps it is just my hearty wishes that make it feel so.”
She laughed. “I, too, grow weary of this cold. On the morrow I shall follow the river and look for signs of early crocus.”
They both looked up to see Ranulf thundering down on them, his face black with rage. With one arm he pulled Sir Bradford from his horse and then leaped from the Frisian’s back to stand above the boy, hand on sword hilt.
Lyonene jumped from her own horse’s back and threw herself between them. “What is this you do?” she demanded. “Why do you draw sword against this boy?”
“That, I think, you can more easily answer than I. Did you think you could meet so that I would not know? I have warned you, but you have ever defied me, and now you have gone too far.”
She stood straight before him, refusing to bow to him. “What you say makes no sense. The boy did but ride by me this day and we talked, no more. It is you with your temper that has made it more.”
“Ah!” he said with a deathly coldness. “You have given me no reason to doubt you? On our wedding night you meet another boy, one I must later kill. You steal from me to pay your lover and now you start afresh with this boy. Do you wish to see his blood also? Does your greed include his death as well as his seed?”
Anger near blinded her. “You are the only man I have allowed to touch me, and each day I regret that anew. Would that I had gone away with Giles or anyone, better to have taken my own life before I said vows to one of your vile nature.”
Ranulf’s hand swung and hit her across the mouth, cutting her lip and sending her sprawling. “Then we will undo what we have done. On the morrow I travel to Wales and when I return, do not let me find you here.” He mounted his horse and rode away.
Lyonene lay still a while, blood trickling from her torn and bruised mouth. She waved away Sir Bradford, and the boy left her alone. Tears came first, tears of despair and desolation. She had not meant to say what she did, but always her temper made her words uncontrollable. So what now of her noble vows to prove her love? Her husband had ordered her away from him, and there would be no more opportunities to prove aught to him.
“Ranulf,” she cried into the grass, feeling the sobs tear through her. On the morrow he left for Wales and it was over between them.
Suddenly she sat up and stared through her tears into the distance. Was she named for a lioness for naught? Had she no more courage than a serf? She would not give up so easily as this.
Her head spun with ideas. If he traveled to Wales, he would not travel alone. There would be women to clean and cook for the men.
She wiped her tears away and began to smile secretly. He would not refuse her again once his anger was gone. She knew that if she had more time, she could make amends for what had passed. She knew she could find some way to prove her love for him.
Confident again, with a purpose in mind, she rode back to Black Hall. There were many things to do before the morrow.