The Captive Bride

Chapter Four

He carried her back to Lomas tossed over the bow of his saddle, ignoring her squirming and muffled complaints. After a while she subsided, and the only thing he worried about was what deviousness she might be plotting. But perhaps Lady Katharine was too weary for any further adventures, for they arrived at the castle before dawn without mishap.

She renewed her struggles when he lifted her from his horse and carried her past the many servants who were yet awake and waiting for their return. They stared, murmuring, as he strode by them and started up the stairs. When he passed Katharine’s chamber and continued upward, her eyes widened and she made a long protest of, “Mmm-mmm!”

“That is the chamber for the lady of the castle,”he told her, understanding her complaint. “When you are the lady of the castle, as my wife, you will return to it. In the meantime, you will be kept in the north tower.”She began to struggle in earnest, and squealed furiously beneath her bonds. “Aye, you understand me well,”he said with satisfaction, hefting her wet, muddy person higher in his arms with ease. “There are no tunnels there from which you may escape. How foolish you are, Katharine, to think I would not find you out. I know every secret Lomas possesses, and probably many that you’ve yet to discover.”

The chamber he took her to was almost as dark and dismal as the one at The Bull and Dog, although certainly cleaner. Katharine had never allowed any part of the castle to be let run with vermin. He deposited her on the stone floor, which was barren even of straw, and, without a word, turned about and walked out, locking the door behind him.

Katharine lay in the darkness, too exhausted and miserable to be angry. He had left her to die, to lay upon the cold floor in wet clothing without heat or comfort, to freeze in the chill of early dawn. He’d not even removed her bonds, or the gag about her lips. She would die in silence, immobile.

She was almost too frozen to think, but she tried to send up silent prayers for Dorothea, Magan and Ariette. God alone could keep Dorothea now, wherever she was. It had been beyond foolishness for her to go off alone as she had, but Katharine could both admire and love her for it, and be thankful for the friendship that had caused her to attempt such a dangerous task. A woman traveling without escort on England’s roads was in no way safe. Robbers, thieves and worse would be glad of such easy prey—although Doro, cunning and brave, would certainly make any attack of her person a difficult chore.

In a way, Katharine was more afraid for Ariette, and even more for Magan. Ariette was tiny and delicate, and could so easily be harmed, while Magan was young and readily frightened. When they had left The Bull and Dog, Magan had been tucked under the arm of the dark, hugely muscular Sir Aric as if she were a child’s doll. She’d looked utterly terrified, and Sir Aric, scowling and unfriendly, had done nothing to reassure her. Poor, dear Magan. Katharine could only imagine how difficult the return to Lomas had been for her in the company of such a brutish man. Ariette had fared somewhat better, riding with Sir Kayne who, unlike his friends, appeared to take his knightly vows seriously in being courteous to ladies.

What would happen to them if she died? Katharine wondered. Would Sir Senet treat them well? And the people of Lomas? He might know the secrets of the castle itself, but how could such as that benefit the castlefolk and townspeople? He wouldn’t know about the agreement she’d worked out between the dye merchant and the town’s weavers; it was so uncertain that one wrong word would have the two sides warring again. And what of the new children in the convent? Senet Gaillard would not know of all that she’d promised to the tanner in exchange for leather for shoes for them, or to the cobbler for making them. The children had to have new shoes before winter. She’d promised them—indeed, all of her people—so much. They depended on her, day by day, to keep everything moving along, if not smoothly, at least in the right direction. To make certain there was food enough in the winter, and labor enough to bring in the harvest each fall. And pleasure faires in the spring. So many matters were beneath her command. So many things that Senet Gaillard would let go by, just as her father had done, while he played at being lord of the castle.

Exhaustion made it impossible to keep her eyelids open, and Katharine at last relented and let them drift shut. Sleep pressed heavily, a dark, alluring blanket, but before she could give way to it the door was unlocked and pushed open. Light spilled into the room, along with voices.

“Bring everything in. The pallet goes there by the wall. Make a fire in the hearth. Quickly.”

The chamber came alight and alive as what seemed like a dozen or more men entered.

Sir Kayne knelt beside her, concern filling his handsome face. “Lady Katharine.”

“Leave her to me,”Senet Gaillard said curtly. “And save your pity for Mistress Dorothea, who for the sake of this lady has exposed herself to every manner of danger. If John doesn’t find her soon, she may not live to see Lomas again. Now, be pleased to leave me with my lovely betrothed. Aric will need your help with the other women.”

Sir Kayne set a warm, comforting hand briefly against Katharine’s cold cheek. “John will find her, my lady,”he murmured, then stood and, with the other men, left the room.

Katharine heard the door shutting, then Senet Gaillard’s footsteps moving back toward where she lay. She was shivering too hard to protest when he pulled her into a sitting position.

“Kayne means to reassure you,”he said as he cut her bonds away. She gasped when the gag about her mouth fell to the floor. “But it is his misfortune to be possessed of a kind nature.”

“He is,”she said, fighting the cold pain that gripped her, “a ch—chivalrous kn—knight.”

When her hands were released she nearly fell forward on her face. Senet’s arm circled her waist, pulling her up.

“And you think I am not?”

“Wh-what will h-happen to D-Dorothea?”

He hesitated, then said, “John will find her, if any man can do so. He possesses a rare gift for finding the lost, for finding anything or anyone. I make no promises, but you may be easy at least that all is being done that can be done for Mistress Dorothea’s sake.”

“Th-thank God.”

“He will certainly be the one to thank, should she survive your thoughtless care,”he said, leaning her back until he could reach the laces of her surcoat.

“No,”she protested weakly, trying to push at the knife as he began to cut her dress away.

“You wish to lie in wet clothing and take ill?”He put the knife aside in order to pull the dress down her arms.

“Aye!”she said defiantly, forcing the words past chattering teeth. “M-mayhap I will be f-fortunate enough to die—p-p-please God—and be free of you! L-leave my chemise!”

“It is too wet. And filthy.”He began to strip it off, as well.

“No!”She was shaking violently from both cold and shame. “P-please.”

He paused. She could feel his indecision.

“Please,”she whispered.

He swung her up into his arms and carried her to the fire, setting her before it and saying, “Can you sit while I fetch a blanket?”

She nodded. But her muscles were not as convinced. The moment he let go of her she rolled down to the floor and lay there, helpless and weak as a babe, until he returned and pulled her up to sit.

“Sleep will do you good,”he muttered, setting the blanket about her shoulders. “Now you shall have your modesty while I rid you of this foul garment. Don’t squawk at me, woman. I’m not the one who sent you out into the mud and rain, whatever you see fit to tell yourself. Hold still.”He took the back of her chemise and, with an easy motion, tore it apart. Katharine made a sound of protest, but he ignored it and pulled the garment from her body.

“Now,”he said, tossing the ruined chemise away, “to wash you.”

She was too weary to argue when he lay her down once more, still wrapped in her blanket and near the warmth of the fire. He rose and brought back a bucket and cloth, then knelt and drew out one of her arms.

“What have you done with my ladies?”she murmured as he dipped the cloth in the bucket. “Ariette and M-Magan?”

He glanced at her as he began to wash the mud away. The water, to Katharine’s surprise, had been heated. She closed her eyes and murmured with utter pleasure as the warmth soothed her chilled flesh.

“I gave them over to Sir Aric and bid him do as he pleased. By now I imagine he’s beaten them both senseless.”

Katharine’s eyes grew wide and she tugged to free her arm. “No…”

“What? You’re not troubled for them, are you? Not when you took them out into the night for such adventure? What did you think to do, Katharine?”He drew her other arm out to give it the same cleansing as the first.”You knew you could not run from me forever.”

She was silent, and gave him a stubborn glare.

“It is no matter,”he told her. “I shall have Aric persuade Mistress Magan to give me the truth. It should not take long. She’s terrified of him.”He shoved her arm back beneath the blanket and moved down to wash her legs.

“How did you attain knighthood, Senet Gaillard?”she asked with all the hatred she felt for him. “Beating in-nocent women to your own purpose? You’re an animal, and no better, I vow.”

The warm, damp cloth in his hand slid slowly upward from her foot across the curve of her calf, to her knee. The touch was so pleasurable that Katharine had to bite her tongue, hard, to keep from murmuring with it. All the while, the man held her gaze.

“An animal,”he repeated thoughtfully, drawing the cloth back toward her foot in a slow, gentle caress. His other hand, holding her ankle, spread its fingers wide over her flesh, pressing soothingly against the aching muscles there. He dipped the cloth into the water again, then brought it back, hot and new, to bathe her frozen toes. The pleasure was so intense it was nearly painful. Katharine drew in a slow, steadying breath.

“Aye,”she said unevenly. “To treat w-women so.”

He set her leg on the floor, beneath the cover, and drew out the other. Dipping the cloth into the heated water again, he said, solemnly, “One day, Katharine, I vow, you shall say otherwise.”

They were silent again. Her eyes drifted shut with the tingling sensation of warmth returning to her limbs, and weariness tugged mightily, but she murmured, “I meant to find Lord Hanley. To wed him before I might be forced to marry you.”

“Lord Hanley?”he said with a measure of surprise. “Did you think to go all the way to the Holy Land?”

“No,”she said wearily.

Silence again, until he tucked her finished leg into the covers. “It is a grave sin for a man to love his wife, or for a woman to love her husband,”he told her. “Has not the church declared it so? We must give all our love to God. Perhaps I do you a kind service in forcing you to wed with me, rather than this Hanley, whom you appear to hold very dear. You love him?”

“Yes,”she lied. “With all my heart. And I find no sin in it, nor in anything so pure and abiding.”

He moved to wash her face. The cloth stroked gently over her forehead and cheeks, across her nose and lips and chin, then moved down to her neck.

“I once loved in such a manner,”he said at last, his voice soft and careful. Katharine couldn’t keep the surprise she felt at such words from her expression. “You think it impossible?”he asked at the sight of her raised eyebrows. “I assure you I speak the truth.”He turned to toss the cloth into the bucket. His voice, when he spoke again, was void of emotion. “I loved well and deeply, and with this same abiding passion of which you speak. The church would have found me a very great sinner.”

“Why did you not take her to wife?”Katharine asked. “If you loved her so well, surely you would not have given her up for the sake of Lomas?”

He shook his head, busying himself with picking up her torn clothes and making a pile of them. “Nay, not even for Lomas would I have given my Odelyn up. Nothing could have parted us, save death.”He turned to look at her. “She was foully murdered shortly before we were to marry, and I have grieved her every day these ten years past.”

Katharine touched her lips with her fingers, unable to find words to say for the pity she felt—for him, her basest enemy. Her weariness had surely robbed her of sanity, she thought, for her to feel any manner of sorrow for a man she so fully hated.

He stood with the clothes under one arm and the bucket in his hand.

“And so you see, Lady Katharine, that we are two of a kind, for our hearts have been given to ones forever lost to us. You may at least take comfort in the knowledge that I shall never attempt to win your love. Your devotion to Lord Hanley may remain hallowed and untouched, just as mine for Odelyn ever will.”

She gripped the blanket tightly about her shoulders. “It matters not,”she told him. “I will never wed you of my own free will.”

He began to walk toward the door.

“There is wine and food by your pallet, and a dry chemise that you may don. The pallet and fire should keep you warm enough through what remains of the mom.”

“I will not wed you!”she repeated fiercely.

He ignored her and unlocked the door. “Sleep,”he advised. “We will be wed this evening, when you have had sufficient time to rest.”

“We will not, sir,”she stated.

“Katharine,”he said, making her a mock bow at the open door, “we will.”

Chapter Five

“A wager,”said Sir Aric, “that she’ll not come of her own accord.”

“She’ll come,”Senet said, sitting calmly in the lord’s chair in the great hall. He was flanked on either side by Aric and Kayne. Farther away, in his finest robes, sat Lomas’s priest, Father Aelnoth, waiting in stony silence for

Lady Katharine to attend her own wedding. “She understood me well, I vow.”

“I fear Aric has the right of it,”Kayne murmured, his gaze moving slowly over the castlefolk who filled the hall, each and every one of them staring up at Senet with mute reproach. They clearly loved their lady, and had no wish to see her wed by force. “And I do not think it wise that you sent Clarise to tend her. You know what Lady Katharine thinks of her. You might have done better to let her own ladies help her to prepare.”

“It is best, I find, to give no importance to what Lady Katharine thinks,”Senet told him. “At least not until we’ve wed and she’s had time to reconcile herself to her new state. At the moment, she’s not capable of thinking rationally. As to her ladies—”he looked to where Mistresses Ariette and Magan were sitting, on the other side of Father Aelnoth, their faces and bodies rigidly held “—they are not to be trusted until they have made their allegiance to their new lord.”

“I cannot see Mistress Magan bowing to you for any reason,”Aric said irately. “She’s a stubborn, meantempered little wench. Put her elbow in my stomach when I merely tried to set her on my horse, so she did.”He rubbed the offended area and cast a look at the female in question. She took note and gazed back at him with narrowed eyes.

“Clarise returns,”Kayne said, drawing the attention of them all toward the stairs. “Alone.”

Concern was written on the delicate girl’s face as she hurriedly moved toward them. Senet didn’t wait for her to cross the great hall, where all those waiting had turned to watch her, but rose and strode to meet her halfway. He took her hand before she could speak and led her back toward the stairs.

“Lady Katharine will not come,”the girl said breathlessly, in French. “She would not even dress. When I tried to speak to her, she threatened to—”

“I’ll deal with her.”Senet cut her off in a low voice, striving to maintain his outward calm for the benefit of their avid audience. “You need never be afraid of Lady Katharine, Clarise. I promise you this on my honor.”

Kayne and Eric had joined them, and he set Clarise’s hand on Kayne’s arm. “Take Mistresses Ariette and Magan to the solar and wait for me there. I will bring Lady Katharine.”He began to ascend the stairs. “And bid Father Aelnoth to prepare himself. We will begin the ceremony shortly.”

Guards stood at the door of the chamber in which he’d locked his bride. At the sight of him, they stood aside and let him enter. The first thing Senet saw, apart from Katharine standing by the room’s small, lone window, yet dressed in her chemise, was the expensive gown he’d brought her as a wedding gift—lying on the floor.

“We will have an understanding regarding Mademoiselle Clarise,”he said, shutting the door behind him.

Katharine lifted her chin and folded her arms. “Will we?”she asked insolently.

“Indeed, my lady, we will. She is to be treated as an honored guest at Lomas, by yourself, as my wife, and by every other person who bides on my lands, including your ladies. I will not tolerate the least slight toward her, and if she should even once be driven to tears—”

“Never have I met such a hypocrite,”Katharine said, sneering. “Only a few hours ago you spoke so sweetly of the eternal love you bear for your departed betrothed, yet now you trumpet openly an even sweeter concern for your French whore. If you love her so well, Senet Gaillard, then pray, marry her.”

He moved toward her slowly. She stood her ground, eyeing him with defiance. She was, he thought, a beautiful creature, with her long red—gold hair unbound, flowing down the length of her shapely body and past her hips. The chemise she wore was thin enough to tease and entice. He felt a shocking, overwhelming lust for hersomething he’d not felt with the myriad other women who’d tempted him before. But just as he’d not let other women rule him during the past ten years, with passion or lust or anything so foolish, he would not let her do so either. He would be master at Lomas, and the sooner she learned that, the better for all concerned. Especially for her.

“If Mademoiselle Clarise should shed even one tear because of you, Katharine,”he repeated, moving until he stood directly in front of her, “I will turn you over my knee and punish you.”

She pressed her face closer to his, unafraid and daring. “If you think I should deign to waste my time in tormenting your witless little whore, then you greatly mistake the character of my mind. I would rather labor in the kitchens, on my knees, yet, than lower myself to so much as countenance her existence. Keep her away from me, and we shall have no quarrel.”

He shook his head. “Such a sharp tongue you possess, Katharine.”Setting a finger beneath her chin, he lifted it even higher. “No soft and gentle wife will you be, I vow.”

She slapped his hand away. “No wife will I be. I will not wed you!”

“I will give you a choice,”he continued in the same calm tone. “You may don the wedding gown I have brought—”he nodded at the heap on the floor “—or you may be married as you are, in your chemise.”

“You are deaf, dumb, blind and senseless!”she shouted furiously, her hands balling into fists at her sides. “I will not wed you!”

“I give you the span of a minute to make your decision.”

“You would not humiliate me so,”she said with disdain. “You, a knight of the realm? You would not parade any woman before her own people so nearly undressed. And certainly not the woman you mean to have as a wife.”

Senet felt the sharp truth of her words deeply, as if they were knives striking a wound. It would be the meanest manner of torment, especially for a proud woman like Katharine.

“Nay, I would not subject you to such a humiliation, but if you are determined, so be it. You are the one who will conclude the outcome. Quickly, now, Katharine, for we will be wed, even if 1 must carry you naked before all those assembled below.”

“So be it,”she said in a low, heated tone. “I take no responsibility for what you have forced me to, and my people will know the full of it. You may carry me naked before them and stand me in front of a priest, but I will not say the words, Senet Gaillard. I will not.”