Page 15 of Winter’s Heat (The Seasons #1)

"Temric!" she cried out, leaping away from him in fright.

"My pardon, I did not mean to startle you." He opened the gate. "Why not come sit for a moment and settle your senses. You seem overwrought," he added dryly.

Rowena laughed, but the sound was nearer a sob. She hurried within her garden's shielding walls to pace the sole path. The morning’s rain had blown over around noon, leaving nothing behind it but damp gravel and the fresh smell of a world washed clean of filth. Her brother-by-marriage leaned casually against a tree trunk. It was only the enclosing privacy of darkness that finally loosened her tongue. She let fly the harangue she'd so long suppressed.

"I’ve kept his home, seen to his table, denied him nothing, and what does he do? Not only does he treat me as if I were the least of his servants whose only value to him is in my inheritance, he plans to betray me with Maeve. What have I done that he should so deeply hate me? Why must it be with her?" Her voice broke in a breathless cry and she stopped, her hand pressed to her lips to still her pain.

"Betray you with his ward?" Temric's surprise filled the air around them. "What do you mean?"

Rowena whirled, her heels scratching deep marks in the fine stones covering this path. "Maeve told me that my husband has arranged her marriage to Sir John so the two of them could be lovers."

"And you believed her?" he retorted. "After all she's done, you believed her? Surely, when you told this to Rannulf, he set you straight."

"Nay," she cried out in wild hurt, "he protected her. He threatened to name me a liar when I repeated what she'd said."

Temric shook his head. "Listen now and make no mistake on what you hear. Rannulf could no more do what you accuse than he could fly. Whether or not he will stray from his marriage vows I cannot say, but my brother would die before he dishonored his vassal by lying with that man's wife." His voice was as deep and soft as the night around them. The very tone of it made his words unassailable truth.

"Am I to believe you when he wouldn’t deny it?" All the same Rowena held her breath waiting for his answer.

"What you believe is up to you. I can tell you what I know and let you make what use of it you will. I know Rannulf better than any man alive, and I tell you now, he is not capable of what you accuse."

Rowena paused as the rightness of what he said filled her. Only then did she realize the enormity of what she'd just done. Like the angel with the fiery sword who'd banished Adam and Eve from Paradise her burning words had irrevocably driven her husband away from her. She sat on the bench as rage and hurt gave way to despair. "How could I have been so blind to her trap? Sweet Mary. I’ve destroyed my marriage over her, just as she desired."

"Well, I don’t doubt you shocked my brother with your accusations, but it does him no harm to find you can be driven to a jealous rage over him." Temric stated this so matter-of-factly, as if it were nothing at all.

"Not jealousy," Rowena sighed, "but fear of humiliation drove me to accuse him. Oh Temric, tell me something, anything, that can be done to ease this accursed match of ours. I cannot spend my life surrounded by so much hate. What is it about me? I need only speak two words to send him raging. Whatever you suggest, I swear I’ll do it, although now I fear it may be too late."

"Accursed." Graistan’s bastard managed to make that single word ring with ironic amusement. "Now there's an accurate description for this trap into which we shoved you. Your union will continue to be troubled until Rannulf can see himself free of his past. That I cannot change. But why did you cease to try?"

"Cease to try?" she cried out. "What is there left to do that I haven’t already done, all of it wrong. I’ve even accused him of adultery."

"That may be the only thing you've done right so far. Now, tell me what you’ve done save let him belittle you and treat you as if you didn’t exist? Three nights ago he spoke to you with unforgivable rudeness, and you let him do so unchallenged. I took you to be a different woman. Was I wrong?"

Rowena gave a harried sigh and hugged herself. "If I cannot have the man, I won’t lose the hall," she breathed.

"There's a particularly odd turn of logic. Do you think you secure yourself here by allowing him to treat you without the respect due to your position?"

She shook her head in frustration. "You’re right, I do know better. But Temric, his anger comes exploding out at me from deep inside him. Dear God, I couldn’t live with the shame if he were to beat me before my own servants." Her last words were almost a sob.

"Nay, this again is something you need never fear from Rannulf."

"You might be right if it were anyone other than me at whom his anger is directed. When I should remain calm to soothe him, he says the one thing that drives away all my common sense and control. I find myself goading him, although I cannot explain why I do it. I thought if I were silent, he would come to care for me, so, I gritted my teeth and humbled myself. Aye"—the word sprang from her in enraged anguish—"I’ve borne it all while it ate my stomach through to my spine. I don’t know whom I hate worse for it, him or myself."

"It hasn’t been all silence." His calm, certain tone told her he knew they shared their bed as man and wife.

"Ilsa talks too much," Rowena said darkly.

"I don’t need old women to tell me what I can see in my brother's eyes."

"If that is what I must do to keep my home," her voice died away into the night.

"Now you are truly lying." There was quiet amusement in Temric’s voice.

"Let me," Rowena snapped back. "It doesn’t hurt as much if I say it so."

There was a long, quiet moment broken only by the echo of music from the hall and the rustle of wild creatures moving within the garden. In that time, the moon lifted above the wall. Its pure light made silvery tracework from branch and bough.

Temric sighed, and she studied him. His harshness was gone or at least hidden for the soft illumination revealed only sadness.

"I would have warned you, but I was loath to interfere in my brother's life. There'll be no peace for you here, at least not of the kind you knew at your convent. How you must regret what you’ve lost."

Rowena hesitated to answer, for oddly enough, what she could never have found in the Church she'd discovered here. "Nay, I have no regrets." Then, suddenly, she straightened. "Do you say that my lord intends to send me back? Then you may tell him that I’ll fight him with every ounce of my strength. If I must stay locked in with my women for the remainder of my life, I'll not leave Graistan."

Temric's chuckle rumbled deep within his chest. "To the best of my knowledge Rannulf has no such intentions. My brother needs your pride and your arrogance, not the quiet nothing you have shown him. If you’d been a biddable child, he wouldn’t have married you."

"In that you’re wrong," Rowena returned with firm certainty. "My father forced him to fulfill their contract. He accepted me only to avoid losing my inheritance."

"And I tell you my brother went to Benfield that day to say he wouldn’t complete the deed despite the richness of your holdings. Don’t forget that I was there as well and saw what you saw, but also what you didn’t see. Your father could never have forced Rannulf if my brother hadn't found something about you he couldn’t refuse."

Rowena stared at Temric as if she could pick the truth out from the white and black relief of his face. "Even if this is as you say," she replied quietly, "I fear your words come too late to help me. I held my anger too long and vented it too soon. I not only accused him of intending betrayal, I also told him I want no more to do with him and swore to confine myself to the women's quarters."

To her utter astonishment Temric laughed aloud. "Good work, my lady. First you show him your jealousy, then you remove yourself from his reach. That'll tweak him right merrily. It looks as though you needed no help from me after all."

"How can you laugh," Rowena replied, a little irritated by his amusement. "You come to see why I stop trying, then laugh when I say I not only quit fighting, but also left the battlefield. You laugh when I now give up all rights to the title Lady Graistan?"

Temric only smiled. "You lost nothing. Of your rights to this keep, you took those in one masterful stroke on your first night here and will hold them as your own until you choose to release them. You know that. It’s my brother you want. Don’t shake your head at me, for only a blind man couldn’t see what lives in your face. If you had no place for Rannulf in your heart Maeve's words would not have given you a moment's pause."

Stung into silence by his statement Rowena watched him straighten as if to signal the end of their unexpected conversation. "There has been an ocean of heartbreak here. It trapped us all in its chains until we believed we'd never again be free of it. Yet, in you come and sweep most of it clean as if it was no more to do than lift a spilled cup and wipe away the slop. You’ve opened the door for him, now Rannulf must free himself."

Rowena relaxed back on her bench. "What happened here? What plays between Rannulf and Gilliam, and how is it Maeve has such a hold over them?" she asked softly, but Temric’s upraised hand forestalled any further questions.

"Ask your husband. If you are the woman I think you are, he’ll tell you."

"It’s too late," she whispered to herself.

"Not yet," he answered easily.

"So you say," Rowena sighed. Despite his words, she found no reason to hope. "But I thank you for your friendship. Ofttimes, I feel so alone. Until I came to Graistan my solitariness never pained me. Here, where there are so many who love me and I should feel accepted, the hole in my heart seems greater than ever."

"You, lonely? I am surprised," he said, sounding genuinely so. "You know who you are."

"Know who I am? What do you mean?" Rowena frowned at him in confusion.

"I mean that you are noble by class."

"What has rank to do with loneliness or identity?" she returned. "A title didn’t spare me from being an unwanted daughter, rejected by my mother simply because I was my father's spawn and only desired by my father as a weapon to use against my dam. Who am I now but Lady Graistan, except that Lord Graistan won’t acknowledge that’s who I am." She plucked a pink and held the bloom to her nose. Its warm, rich scent eased the throbbing in her head. "Identity has nothing to do with being common or noble nor should you judge it so."

"My apologies. It’s an unfortunate habit of mine, since I am both and neither." His smile gleamed lopsidedly in the moonlight.

Rowena leaned forward a little to brace her elbows on her knees. "But Rannulf loves you so. I cannot believe he’d deny you if you asked him for your acknowledgment as the son of his father."

"Oh, he’d give it to me, all of it, Graistan included. But it’s not his to grant. If my father—" His voice went so flat and hard that he had to turn his face away from her for a moment to escape the pain he'd revealed.

"You are the elder," she said in understanding. If not for Temric’s bastard birth, he would have been Graistan’s lord.

The man's tenseness drained away. She saw it in the steady drop of his shoulders. When he again faced her, she read resolve in his shadowy outline.

"Well, I’ve pried ham-handedly into your deepest secrets. It’s only just that I grant you the same courtesy. Aye, I’m the elder by only months. My mother was Rannulf’s nurse, for his mother was sickly and died giving him birth. But don’t think I ever coveted him his birthright, for I have not."

"You wouldn’t care so for him if you did." And in speaking these words she knew Temric was right. It was no title or building she fought for. She ached for what these brothers shared, the thing that touched every soul within this keep and of which she'd had so little in her life. Their love for each other was like the mortar that held Graistan's walls stone to stone. It created an unbreakable bond that even Maeve, for all her trying, had been unable to destroy. And suddenly Rowena knew it was only her husband who could fill the hole in her heart, no other. And this he would never grant her, for she herself had dealt her chances a deathblow. Despair took hold of Rowena’s heart.

"We were raised together, trained together, and would have been knighted together, had our father lived or so Rannulf insists." Temric spoke on.

"And you were not knighted?" It was with great cost that she kept her voice unemotional.

"Nay. We were nigh on eighteen when he died, and Rannulf, being so close to his majority and forward for his age, took his spurs along with his inheritance."

"There was nothing for you?" It seemed odd that a man who so loved his bastard child to raise him in the hall with his heir would forget that child in his will.

"Why should there have been anything for me? I was not his legitimate son." Try as mightily as he did, Temric could not hide how it had hurt him and how it hurt him still. The harshness in his voice wasn’t meant for her, and she knew it.

He sighed, then stepped away from the tree. Even if she had not seen it, she would have known his expression was once again closed and hard. "Now, mayhap, you’ll do me a good turn, my lady."

"If I can, I will." It would be her only chance to repay him for his friendship. There'd be no further confidences between them, not this night and most probably ever again. It was not his way.

"My mother is recently widowed and has asked me to come to her. She and my stepfather were wool merchants and makers of parchments, and my half-brothers are yet too young to be of great help to her. She claims to need my company, but what she really wants is my strong back for some time to come." He paused here, as if thinking on his mother's situation.

"You must leave Rannulf," she said in slow understanding, "and he doesn’t suffer his family leaving him with much grace. "

"You’ve put the problem in a nutshell, my lady. But, go I must. There are two sides to my family, and I cannot be torn down the middle even to please him. I’ve promised her to be there before Midsummer and that is now just weeks away. Mayhap you can make him understand."

"Well, I cannot imagine I’ll have the chance to speak with your brother, but should I, I vow I’ll try to plead your case as best I can," she said, then rose to her feet.

"That’s all I can ask," Temric replied, his sudden smile so like his brother's. "Now, let me see you back into the hall. You really shouldn’t wander about unescorted in the dark. These men of mine are a rowdy crew when they've had a drink or two too many."

Rowena smiled wanly as he offered her his hand. "I wasn’t thinking when I left, or I would never have come this way, but you know that."

"So I do." Temric led her out of the garden and to the base of the outer stairs. "Now, go quickly. I’ll watch until you are safe within."

From his chair near the hearth, pushed well to the side and out of the way of the celebrants, Rannulf watched his wife re-enter the hall. She wasted no time in crossing the room and nearly ran up the stairs, as if she couldn’t wait to reach the women's quarters and freedom from his grasp.

There was no cause for her to hurry. He wanted nothing more to do with her. He drained his cup, wishing he could as easily wash away his now bitter regrets. This marriage was an error of the gravest sort, and her wealth was the only compensation he'd ever gain from this union. Once he settled her inheritance, she could take up residence at Upwood and be out of his life.

Hours passed. The servants ended their amusements and pulled out pallets and benches to find their peace in sleep. Yet, Rannulf lingered where he was, unwilling to retire to the tower chamber that had been prepared for two and would now be occupied by one. The summer night had begun its swift descent into dawn, and there were naught but embers on the hearth when Temric entered the room. Rannulf watched as his brother crossed the hall, stepping carefully over snoring bodies.

"What do you want," he asked sourly when Temric came near enough.

"So you've not been able to drink yourself into unconsciousness after all."

Graistan’s lord made a sound that was only half laugh. "Unfortunately not, although I can no longer feel my feet. There's nothing strong enough to stop the ache in my head. Are you so solidly in her camp that you come to taunt me?"

"Don’t put me in the middle of your silly spat," his brother retorted mildly.

Rannulf made a low, angry noise. "Not so silly. She accused me of planning to betray John with Maeve."

"Did she? I didn't know she cared enough to worry over whom you bedded. I thought the two of you didn't speak."

Rannulf gave his brother a sharp look. "I doubt she was jealous over me. She has only two concerns: her pride and her coins. Anyway, I’m sick to death of her vicious tongue. See what price I again pay for my foolish desire to own a pretty thing? I should have learned my lesson from the last time, when it ended in disaster."

Temric stared down at him for a long moment. The shake of his head was almost sad. "You cannot compare her to Isotte. They are cut from different cloths. Open your eyes, Rannulf. Will you destroy a fine wife in order to prove yourself cursed?"

Lord Graistan jerked as if the words physically impacted with him. He opened his mouth to protest, but before he could speak Temric continued. "I came to give you this, not to discuss your marital problems. Oswald's man tapped at the postern only moments ago." He dropped the leather scrip into his brother's lap.

Rannulf dug into the packet and found the message, then squinted in the low light to make out the words. "Oswald," he said and laughed, "you devious fox." He glanced up at Temric. "Our cousin has whispered reminders into the bishop's ear of how wondrous the hunting is in our chase. The bishop, being extraordinarily fond of the sport, can be convinced to bide a while here before he completes his return to Hereford. It will then be convenient for him to take this time to determine whether the wills should be set aside and the inheritance reconsidered. I doubt it can hurt our cause if the hunting is as good as promised." Rannulf grinned widely. "I’m to meet them where the river crosses the north road on the morrow to make a formal invitation.

"In the meanwhile Graistan must be readied." He briefly studied the message again. "The bishop presently travels with two knights, for whom only one must be provided with a bedchamber, besides Oswald and his master, of course. There are some twenty others, all of lesser consequence, servants or soldiers. "

Rannulf came to his feet already eager to be gone. "Bear this message to my wife for me when she rises. She is to tear the purse strings from the purse and not to stint in the slightest thing. If we haven't enough in coin, she’s to borrow what she needs. Tell her the bishop eats but once a day, but that meal must be rich with delicate sweets and soups to accompany his fish and fowl. And he requires wines of the finest quality."

"You’ll have to move your present guests from your chamber to accommodate the bishop," Temric reminded.

"John will understand." Rannulf waved away that concern, then stepped around the hearth to lay a hand on a man's shoulder. "Ulric, wake up. I need you to creep quietly into my chamber and retrieve my armor and my best surcoat. Take care you don’t wake the newlyweds."

The man rubbed his face as he rose and straightened his shirt and hose. "Aye, my lord," he muttered, and stumbled toward the stairs.

"Temric, I'll take ten men with me. See that they’re dressed in their best, and their horses well fitted out. But it must be quick as I wish to ride as soon as I’m armed."

"They’ll be ready before you are," said his brother as he walked away.

Rannulf was still studying the message when his servant returned with his clothing and armor. He was followed by Maeve, swathed in a blanket, her golden-red hair tumbling over her shoulders in long waves .

"My lord, what is amiss that you must dress so swiftly in the middle of the night," she cried in a low voice while touching his arm with gentle concern.

"Maeve, did this churl awaken you? My apologies to you and John, as well. I hadn’t expected to need access to your chamber tonight." Rannulf spoke more gently than was his custom, as if his tone could wash away the stain of his wife's accusations even though Maeve knew nothing about them. He waited, still smiling, expecting her to immediately excuse herself and return to her husband.

"Your armor? Is there an attack? Oh my lord, my heart stops at the thought of you in danger."

She stepped nearer and gazed up at him. Her face was all gentle curves and beautiful hollows, her eyes warm with her concern. She laid her hand upon his upper arm, her fingers stretching upward toward his shoulder. Rannulf shifted uneasily at her touch. When she did not withdraw her hand, he took her fingers in his hand and stepped back.

"Nay, no attack. I must meet the Bishop of Hereford this morn regarding my wife's inheritance. You should have no concern for me, Maeve. Brothers," he gave emphasis to the word as he let her hand slip from his grasp, "you must forsake when you cleave unto your husband. Now, go back to your bed and think no more of it. If John asks, I should return before the sun sets tonight."

"You’re right that I must now cleave unto my new lord, but I’m so newly married that surely I can be excused for my persistent care of you. It may take me time to unlearn my habit of worrying over you." As she spoke she bared an arm to lift her hair over her shoulder, then let her blanket sag open to reveal the curve of her breast.

Rannulf frowned sharply. "Cover yourself, madam. Dear God, this is your wedding night. What sort of man is John to let you come down like that? Go back to bed."

Maeve’s laugh was low and husky, and she didn’t return the blanket to her shoulder. "Do drop your pretense. Really, all this concern over my husband. And a meeting with a bishop? At this hour? Such a story. If you’re worried over your man carrying tales, you need not. I’ll make very certain he keeps his mouth shut. Oh, my poor heart, until he woke me, I despaired of finding a moment alone with you."

She took another step toward him, exposing one long, slim leg. Firelight glimmered on her bare thigh. "Your greeting yesterday was balm to my soul. If you hadn’t held me next to your heart when you proposed this ridiculous marriage, I wouldn’t have known what you intended."

"Intended? I intended nothing, and my greeting was no more than a greeting," he started, but his voice caught as he remembered his wife's pointed remarks about the same event. He'd only meant to sweeten the news of so sudden a wedding. Where had he erred?

"Nothing more?" Maeve persisted, her voice like the sensuous rasp of silk against skin. "You drew me into your embrace and held me as you had never before held me, and now you say it is nothing? Don’t lie to yourself, Rannulf. It’s me you desire. I know how unhappy you are in this marriage of yours. Look, here I am beside you. I can ease your pain. Let me love you as you deserve to be loved. And don't fret over John, for I can manage him. He is very simple."

"No."

Hard and cold, the word hung so heavily in the air between them that even the smoke could not rise. Instead, it curled and circled around them until it filled the space between them. Maeve made no movement except to tighten her fingers into the blanket.

Rannulf stared at her, truly seeing her for the first time, and what he found in her eyes made him look away in sickened shame. Why had he been so determined not to recognize her for what she was?

When he finally spoke, his voice was taut with revulsion. "How could you believe this of me?" He rubbed a hand against his brow, then turned to face her once again. "How? You’ve lived beneath my roof for years, and never have I touched you or given you any sign that I desired you. What did I do that gave you cause to believe me capable of dishonoring a loyal man who has done me no harm? Tell me now so I may be sure to never do it again."

He watched her face, but there was no change in her expression. Neither did she move to draw the blanket closer. There was something obscene in the way that simple wool sheet draped about her to reveal her breast. Rannulf reached out to yank the edge of it over her shoulder until she was decently covered once again.

"Sweet Jesu, this is your wedding night. To do a man so on this night of all nights would stain my soul forever."

"How very righteous of you," Maeve purred, something dangerous in the sound. "But this must be a new side of you. You could hardly have been so righteous when you left my sister to die. How grateful you must have been when she breathed her last. After all, it solved the problem of what to do with the bastard she carried. Tell me, my lord, did you ask for whom she cried as her lifeblood ebbed away? Or could you not bear to hear that she'd cried for Gilliam and cursed you for separating them."

Rannulf closed his eyes as his stomach rolled. He tried desperately to shove away the memory, but Maeve's words were like daggers ripping away all his carefully constructed barriers. The scene exploded to life in his memory, every detail clear and fresh as if it had happened yesterday, not five years ago.

Isotte, only just past her fifteenth birthday and late into the breeding of the child he hadn’t fathered, miscarried. The midwife did what she could, but the bleeding wouldn’t stop. Blood soaked the mattress and dampened the bedclothes; even his own clothing had been filled with it.

"Aye," Rannulf said at last, his voice soft. An odd sense of peace flowed over him. The scene faded gently away without any of the horror it had once held for him. In its wake came sadness, but it was a sadness without pain. "Aye, she cried, but it was for your mother, child that she was. Poor thing had only me and the priest to bear her company. At the end, she clung to me. All I could do was hold her until she was gone. And when we laid her to rest it was I who cried for her.

"But I doubt that was what you hoped to gain by your ploy." He let his voice harden. "So, have you anything left to use against me or is your arsenal now spent?"

Maeve’s shrug was casual. "Call it a desperate attempt to hurt you for rejecting me if you like, a parting blow. Now, I'll give you a warning. You’re a cuckolded fool, not once, but twice. Is this the same as the last time, or do you know what's afoot at Graistan? I'm told you’re never far from Gilliam's side these days, my lord."

When she fell silent, she watched him as if waiting to see what effect her words had. Rannulf only looked down at her, keeping his face expressionless. She sighed and shrugged again. "Ah well, see what you want to see."

Turning toward the embers on the hearth, she moved a step closer as if to catch what remained of the fading warmth. "But really, Rannulf, if you had to see me wed, why choose such an oaf? Did you see how he smeared grease on my sleeve? Now I’m to be a farm wife, with geese and goats forever at my heels." The sudden sharp edge to her voice hinted at real despair, but it disappeared as she continued. "How rustic. He’s worse than my first husband."

"Dear God, what have I done," Rannulf whispered, as the realization of all this woman was finally came home to him. "Rowena warned me and I said she hated you and saw the worst for her own reasons. John is a good man who deserves better than you," he bit out. "Well, what’s done is done and there's no hope of undoing it. I saw to that, but I can still warn him. Perhaps he can beat some goodness into your soul."

"Too late," Maeve returned with a tiny laugh and a confident lift of her brow. "My power over him is complete. He’s wholly smitten and won’t hear you." She tilted her head until the firelight revealed her at her most beautiful. A soft smile turned her lips upward ever so slightly, and her eyes sparkled. "Challenge me, and I’ll see you destroyed in your man's eyes." Then she made him a mock bow and turned on her heel to start back toward the stairs.

"Ulric, escort her," Lord Graistan commanded. "Make certain she returns to her husband's bed. Wake two fellows and tell them they’re to stand by either door to ensure that she stays there until her husband rises. When this is done, come help me dress. And all of you who listened here this night, if one word of this incident is repeated to anyone before I speak with Sir John, your heads will be the forfeit."

There was no response from the sleepers around him, but Ulric nodded his assent and hurried after the bride. By the time the servant returned, his lord already wore the padded woolen chausses and shirt that served as buffer between his skin and mail. After they had pulled and shrugged the mail shirt in place, they paused for a breath.

"I’ve been a fool," Rannulf said to himself, not expecting a response from his servant.

"Aye, my lord," said Ulric, "so you were. But, then you regained your senses and wed your lady, may God preserve you both." The man turned to lift the metal stockings and missed the marked reaction his master had to that comment.