Page 2 of Winter’s Heat (The Seasons #1)

Rowena of Benfield stared straight ahead. Beneath soft black brows, her wide-set blue eyes were fixed and unblinking. Neither the irregular jolting of the trotting horse nor the rider's cruel grip disturbed her. A biting wind teased out ebony strands from under her white wimple and stabbed through the thick gray wool of her habit, stinging her cheeks and the short, straight line of her nose until her pale skin burned and reddened.

Her father had taken her mantle so she'd be too cold to attempt escape, and now she was frozen through and through. Deep beneath her icy calm Rowena battled to control her anguish. Her father had taken more than her mantle; he'd torn from her all her life's ambitions.

Although the manor house at Benfield was only ten short miles from the abbey, a lifetime separated the two places. It was the difference between the wealthy, ordered serenity of the convent and the harsh poverty of her birthplace. The troop raced past the village's cottages, huts, and hovels, scattering peasants, chickens, and geese. The ancient gate in the tottering circle of the manor’s defensive wall stood open in slatternly invitation.

The troop entered at a brisk trot, their horses coming to a welcome halt before the stables. The hall within the walls was no more than a simple wooden building, grayed with age and disrepair, attached to a squat, stone keep tower stained with moss. Hall, byres, barns, the stable, even the dovecote, all suffered the same moldy thatch for roofing. Neglect lay as heavily in the air as did the smell of latrines left too long uncleaned. In the yard, servants and peasants worked in an uneasy cooperation. They didn't use the French language of their Norman masters, but rather spoke their own guttural English as they hastily prepared for the wedding of Lord Benfield's daughter.

Her wedding. Rowena glanced up at the wind-swept and icy blue sky. A solitary, hunting hawk floated high above her. She couldn't even summon up envy for the creature's freedom. Beyond help, beyond hope, she was.

Her father dismounted and dragged her off her perch, his hand clamped hard upon her arm. His steel-sewn gauntlet ripped into her sleeve. With a jerk, he pulled her through the doorway and into the hall.

Beyond hope Rowena might be, but there was no man who'd make her go like a lamb to the slaughter. She pried at his fingers and struggled against him as her shoes slid in the fresh rushes that covered the hard earthen floor. As he forced her past linen-covered tables set around the great open hearth, she grabbed at benches, baskets, cups, anything to slow their passage. The dogs yipped and snarled, eager to join the fight and servants scattered to find hiding spots from where they could better watch. But he inevitably wrestled her through the long, narrow room toward the back wall.

"Stop," Rowena finally cried out, breaking the silence between them. "No farther, not until I know why."

John of Benfield whirled on his daughter. "Watch your tongue, girl," he growled, "or you'll feel my fist again."

Her hand flew to her face to stroke the already purpling bruise at her jaw line. Rowena’s eyes narrowed. In a hard voice, she asked, nay, commanded, "Why?"

"Why, why," he mocked. "Is it not enough that I got for you a husband who is a powerful lord with rich holdings? He cares little that you are overage, only that you can yet bear children."

"How pleasant," she snapped back. "Does he know I’ve no dowry or have you not yet told him this inescapable truth?"

"Girl, you have dowry enough for any man. It’s you who inherited all your maternal grandfather held."

"All? Me?" Rowena stared at him in shocked surprise. "But, what of Philippa?"

"Philippa?" Her father's laugh held an odd, high-pitched tone. "Her husband can keep what she took with her when they married. To you goes all else, everything I received through your mother."

Her eyes narrowed. "If my mother had an inheritance, she’d see that I got nothing and her favorite received it all. How can you give me what is hers?"

"Your mother cannot inherit; her father's will forbids her from ever holding a furlong of what was his." He paused, seeming to savor the thought of his wife so humbled.

"There's more," Rowena demanded, her voice the whipcrack of command. "Tell me. Why are these holdings not divided with my sister? And why can I not have what's mine to buy me my position at the abbey? Why must I marry?"

"You'll not use that tone with me, girl." Her father once again lifted his fist .

Rowena only waved away his words. "Oh, be done with your threats and your pomposity. I’m no child to frighten, but a woman of one and twenty. If you batter me into senselessness you cannot hurt me any more than you’ve already done."

"How do you dare?" her sire gasped.

Rowena cut him off before he could continue. "I dare because I'm already dead. Aye, Father, this marriage of yours will kill me as surely as the summer's heat withers a spring blossom. Now," she continued, her words clipped and cold, "you'll tell me why I’m suddenly your only heir."

"And to think that I pitied you," John of Benfield ground out.

"Pitied me?" Rowena choked on a soundless sob. "If this is your pity God have mercy on my soul. Father, how well will your pride withstand the blow when my new husband curses you for what you've done to him?"

"How so? Where is this awful defect?" he sneered. "Before me stands a maid who, even though she’s dressed in an ill-fitting, coarse habit, is both comely and shapely enough to turn a man's head. Where is your defect?"

"Here, Father," she returned, touching a slender finger to her temple. "Here. Because Philippa was your eldest, I dared not dream of marriage. Is it not still true today, in the Year of Our Lord 1194, that a second daughter is convent bound?

"But I was not defeated. And sweet God in heaven, how I worked. I learned to read and write and tally up a column of figures in a moment's time, knowing that if the convent would be my life I would be more than a simple nun. Pride is my sin, for I coveted the power the Church could give me. To that end, I humbled myself and bit my tongue when the nuns taunted me because you wouldn’t allow me to take my vows. I bided my time patiently, because I knew—."

She swallowed hard, then lost all pretense of calm. "Now," she screamed, "you tear from me everything I desire and tell me it’s for pity's sake! I say you lie. Why are you doing this! I will know why."

"Oh, spare me your venom." Her father smiled a hard smile. "What foul words you spew won’t stop this wedding."

Rage exploded free of Rowena’s control. "Damn you!" She swung a vicious foot at his shin. Her shoe rebounded from his mail-clad leg. "Kill me! Kill me now and have done with it! Better that I die than wed and bed any man. It’s better to be dead than be your heir. Damn you, damn you to hell," she raged, and grabbed his mantle at the throat as if she could force him into honesty. "Tell me why."

Her father easily plucked her hand away, then held her at arm's length from him. "Because," he said, then repeated in a strained voice, "because, Philippa is your mother's bastard. Ha," her father threw his head back and laughed. "At last, I've said it. The truth wins out. The old man's dead, and there's no reason for secrecy any longer." His grin was cold and cruel. "Philippa's no spawn of mine, and I did not accept her when I married your mother. She cannot inherit. You," he said, with chilling emphasis, "are my only legitimate child."

Turning on his heel, he dragged Rowena to the back of the hall. There at that wall was a door, the only one within this manor house that sported a lock—his own bedchamber. He tossed her inside as if she were no more to him than a sheaf of wheat and slammed the door. The key scraped in the lock with a rusty groan.

Stunned, Rowena lay amid the dry and dusty rushes for a moment. Coming to her feet she threw herself against the heavy door. All she achieved was spent rage and bruised fists. At last, she sank to the floor and indulged herself in an ocean of pain.

From outside came the thunder of hooves, the jangling of harnesses, and hoarse cries of men. The noise pried her steadily from her pain-dazed state into alertness. She stirred. Had it been hours or minutes since she'd been locked in here?

The sound of an arrival grew in strength. Rowena’s eyes stung. Her husband no doubt. She swallowed her tears. Her sobs would no more free her than they would stop her wedding. Pity was only a self-indulgent waste of time that depleted energy without resolving an issue. How long had it been since she'd last given way to it? Too long ago to even remember.

Cut into the chamber’s wall was a narrow window covered by a simple wooden shutter. Rowena threw back the plain panel to reveal a thin slice of sky. Day’s light tumbled past her to chase heavy shadows from the dusty corners. Although the air was still light, she guessed it was a good three hours past midday. So, it was hours that she'd been locked in here without so much as a cup of ale or a bite of bread.

She breathed deeply. This February had been a harsh one, and the still-freezing air cooled her hot face and eased the ache in her lungs. At last, she turned away to stare once more around this room.

The poverty of Benfield hadn’t stopped outside this thick door. The master's private chamber was barely more than a storeroom. Neither straw matting nor an embroidered wall hanging served to keep the winter's chill from seeping through the walls. A single trunk squatted beside a solitary chair. The only sign that this wasn’t a nun's cell was the huge bed, which dominated the room. Thick, spiraling posts jutted up from each of its four corners to support a wooden canopy draped with heavy bed curtains. Drawn back to each corner of the bed, these curtains revealed the soft mattresses and thick blankets that filled its dark, cavernous interior.

The lock groaned. Rowena whirled to face the door as a woman carrying a basket entered. No taller than she, her visitor's golden hair was bound in a thick braid and concealed by a wimple of homespun fabric. Simple garments of green and gray clung close to a girlishly slim silhouette. Her features were beautiful, but bitterness etched the set of her mouth, and her green eyes were dull and lifeless.

So long had it been since they’d last seen one another that it was a moment before recognition flared. Her mother. All at once, Rowena was five again. She crouched, tangle-haired and frightened lest she be seen and sent away, before the door to this very room. Inside sat her mother, and Philippa.

Philippa, the golden-haired child, petted and cherished. In her recollection, her sister wore a clean and pretty gown and sang to their mother a playful, happy tune. Every so often, her mother's sweet voice rose to intertwine with her sister's, and in that moment, the child Rowena knew what sounds angels made in heaven.

How many times had Rowena streaked, barefoot and unkempt, from this hall while her sister and mother loved each other? Memory after hurtful memory tumbled through her, one upon the other. When she could bear no more she turned and slammed the shutter closed, plunging the room into dimness.

"Why did you do that?" The Lady Edith of Benfield's voice was toneless and flat, the voice of an old woman, not one in the midst of her fourth decade of life. Rowena’s dam pulled the door shut behind her, then moved gracefully to the room’s only candle. Flint sparked, and the wick took light. The room brightened only slightly.

Rowena's hands clenched at the pain in her heart. "Have you nothing to say to me? No greeting? Not even a How do you fare ?"

"What would you like me to say?” Lady Edith replied. “We both are well aware, as is every other soul in this keep, of how you feel."

Her mother turned and brushed dust from the chair at the wall, then seated herself. "I’m to supervise the maids as they prepare you for your wedding. There’s not time for a bath, but I have ordered a basin of hot water so you may wash." Setting down the basket she carried, Edith retrieved a piece of needlework and picked an imaginary speck of lint from its surface. A moment later she calmly pushed her needle through the linen stretched within the wooden frame.

As Edith’s needle worked, Rowena's rage grew until it outstripped her pain. "Madam, I’ve only now remembered what I must have worked so hard to forget. I’ve not even the smallest place in your heart. Please forgive me, but it has been fourteen years."

"Leave me be, Rowena." Her dam’s words were short and clipped.

"Leave you be?” Rowena retorted in disbelief. “How I would like to do so, but I seem to be trapped here. Be gone with you." Sarcasm lay thick and heavy in her tone.

Her mother shot her a sharp glance. "And I thought the nuns would teach you to curb your headstrong ways and sharp tongue. Lord Graistan has just arrived. Your father has some last-minute details to discuss with him. I’m here only because I was sent here."

"Thank the heavens," Rowena snapped. "For a moment I worried lest you actually meant to spend time with me."

"You rage like a spoiled child." Lady Benfield took another stitch.

"Oh, that I most certainly am not. The shameful way I’m being married proves the opposite.” Rowena ticked the items off on her fingers as she spoke. "Without warning I’m dragged from the life I love, held prisoner in my birthplace, and forced into marriage against my will. Do I guess wrongly in thinking that no gentleman other than my father and my new husband will break bread at my wedding feast? Nor, if I am right, will any noblewoman save my mother witness my bedding. Could it be that the village priest will be the one who sanctifies this horrid deed?"

Edith’s eyes narrowed a little, then she shrugged. Rowena loosed a quiet snort. "I see I’ve guessed correctly. But then, I always knew I wasn’t the favorite."

"Are you quite finished?" Edith raised a single, golden eyebrow.

"You must be lifeless to the core. Tell me, madam, is there not even a single grain of love within you for your youngest child?" Rowena demanded, prodding and prying for something she wasn’t certain she even wanted.

The woman coolly considered her daughter for a long moment, but when she turned back to her needlework, her fingers trembled so badly she couldn’t catch the needle. "You are not my child," she said at last, her voice breaking, "you are your father's spawn. The two of you are as alike in temperament as you are in appearance. Just like him, you demand from me what isn’t yours to demand."

Rowena waved her mother’s words away with an impatient hand. "Call it simple curiosity then. You spurned me. I will know why."

"You will," Edith hissed and hurled her handwork at the wall. The wooden frame shattered, then slid to the barren floor. Her hands in fists Edith left the chair to go to where the tangle of linen and wood lay against the wall. Rather than retrieve it, her ruthless kick sent it clattering across the room to rest, splintered and ruined, against the room's single chest.

"You will," Edith repeated, whirling on her daughter with an angry gasp. "Today, you and your sire are the victors. Think you'll someday sweep into this place and hear my lady, my lady from my lips? Place no wagers on it, for I'll yet make a pauper of you. You'll have no groat of what should be mine, and Philippa's after me."

Rowena studied her mother, awash in confusion and disappointment then retreated to claim the chair her dam had left. "What great hurt could I have possibly done to you before my seventh year to make you despise me so?" She cradled her head in her hands. Her parents, locked in a selfish war of hate, had made her their weapon of choice.

"Why vent your spleen on me and not Philippa if she is bastard as he says?" Her voice was steady, but within her grew a cold emptiness.

"She’s not a bastard!” her mother trumpeted, the sound holding more of panic than outrage in it. "Your sire only seeks to raise the child who looks more like him above the one who resembles me. I name his claim as naught but a vicious lie. Aye, your whole marriage contract is a lie, based upon the fact that my father denied me a right to inherit on my own.” Edith’s face twisted. “My father, may his soul rot in hell, who saw me wed to the Oaf of Benfield to humble me after my mother's death. Me," Edith laughed, still incredulous despite the years, "for whom no less than an earl had once been considered. My sire never dreamed he'd outlive all his sons to see his daughter's children become his only heirs.

"Now, your father seeks to debase me with his lies, denying Philippa any part of what should be my inheritance, leaving her with only the paltry fields she took with her when she wed.

"Aye, and he seeks to deny me any possibility of redress by winning for you a powerful husband, one who could keep these stolen lands from their rightful owners.” Edith’s anger drained away leaving only a scornful twist of her lips to mark her face. “Of course, it mattered not to John of Benfield the sort of man he found for you. I’ll warn you now, Rowena. Your husband is a hard, cold man who seeks only wealth from his marriage to you. Attempt to cross him as you did your father this morn, and he'll snap you between his hands like a dry twig."

Rowena sagged in the chair. Her strength, far overstretched by the events of the day, gave way. She hid her eyes as the words slipped from her in a whisper. "Help me, Sweet Mary Mother of God, I am afraid; I am greatly afraid."

"You?" A sneer filled Edith’s voice. "You, the haughty, commanding woman who so recently dared her father to beat her to death, are afraid?"

Rowena shrugged, filling the movement of her shoulders with both insolence and vulnerability then looked up at her dam. "Life has taught me bitter lessons, madam. I am, as you have said, commanding. I’m also prideful and solitary by nature. The priest at the convent ever admonished me to adopt gentleness and meekness in my manner." Rowena drew a shaky breath. "I swear by the Virgin, I tried. I truly did. I cannot change. It’s not in my nature to be less than I am. Now tell me, Mother, how well will my husband like me?"

Her mother smiled in grim satisfaction. "Poor rich heiress. He won’t like you at all, but then, you’ve been purchased for your lands and your womb. No matter whether you bear him sons or not, I don’t imagine you’ll live long after the king's councilors grant Philippa the inheritance that should have been mine, leaving you with half of what he thought you had. He's killed two wives before you, you know."

With that, Edith twitched the soft material of her skirt away from her feet, then went to the window and opened the shutter. Light once more filled the room. Rowena’s mother stared out at the sky for a long moment before speaking once again.

"God curses women who dare to dream of love or who hope for respect. Arrogant brat, you thought to fly free of all this with your convent-inspired ambitions? Well, welcome to Earth with the rest of us sinners."

There was a tap at the door. "Come," Edith called out.

Several maids entered, bearing a ewer of water and armloads of clothing. When Rowena’s mother turned away from the window, her hate was once again well hidden behind a bitter mask. "Stand up, daughter. You must be dressed now."

It was pointless to resist, so Rowena did as she was bid. All too soon the maids had washed away the signs of her travels and her hurts. She donned a fine linen chemise, then an undergown of deep blue. Its high neckline was stiffened by heavy embroidery done with silver thread, no doubt her mother's handiwork. This design was repeated in unheard of luxury about the wrists of the undergown's close-fitted sleeves. Her overgown was sleeveless and made from samite in a shimmering rose red. The same silvery pattern of embroidery trimmed its shortened hemline. All this finery was caught at her waist with a silk belt, sewn and studded in silver. The crowning touch was a fine silver and pearl band, which capped her free-flowing black hair.

Rowena smoothed the luxurious materials of her clothing over the full lines of her body then touched the rich band. "A fortune wasted on an unwilling bride," she murmured.

Edith sneered. "My husband seeks to buy Lord Graistan's respect. You’ve been clothed to the limit of my father's tightly-held purse and in the highest fashion as a part of your dowry."

"To what end?" Rowena's laugh was harsh. "Neither I nor my appearance is of any importance to this husband of mine." She lifted a rich, fur-lined mantle, threw it over her shoulders and fastened the clasp. The dark cloak nearly extinguished the brightness of her bridal costume in its heavy folds. "I am ready."

Her mother threw open the door and stood aside. Rowena swept past her into the hall. There were no ties to bind her to the past. All that remained was the future.