Castle of the Heart Read online

  “How do you know this?”

  “She visited my mother this past summer.” Selene saw the shock on his face at her words. Disregarding his obvious distaste for this conversation, she pressed on, saying what Isabel wanted her to say to him. “She was most kind to me. I learned to know her well, and to know how much she loves you.”

  “Was it she who suggested we marry?” asked Thomas.

  “Oh, no, my lord,” Selene lied with every appearance of innocence. “It was my mother’s idea; she had spoken to me about it long before Lady Isabel visited us. Though my mother did tell her what was planned, and Lady Isabel was greatly pleased that the children of two old friends should be joined. But the most important thing, of course, was my dowry, the chest of gold coins.”

  “Yes.” Thomas gave her a searching look, which Selene bore as best she could, trying to look sweetly innocent. She understood in a flash of insight that Thomas believed her because he wanted to believe her, and in that moment she realized the power she might hold over him if she were very clever, power that would help her in her task for Isabel.

  “Lady Isabel spoke to me often of her sorrow at losing you,” Selene went on guilelessly, “and so I thought you might write to her, a letter now and then. You could tell her she need not break her vow by answering you, and your letters might relieve her grief by letting her know how you are faring.”

  “I will not do that. It’s not wise, and it would upset Uncle Guy. My mother is a devious woman, Selene. She has earned her exile.” Thomas looked at her shrewdly. “If you had any idea of writing to her yourself, you may forget it. I forbid you to have any contact with Lady Isabel.”

  “Yes, my lord,” Selene said meekly, her eyes downcast, apparently accepting her husband’s will. “Please forgive me. I did not mean to make you angry. I only wanted to help you. I want you to be happy, Thomas, and content in our life together.”

  “Do you? It pleases me to hear you say so. Of course I forgive you, my love. You are so innocent you could have been no match for my mother when she tried to influence you to speak to me on her behalf. We’ll think no more of it. It’s over.”

  She did look directly at him then, and smiled with sweet artlessness when he kissed her tenderly and patted her on the shoulder, telling her to hurry her preparations for the journey. Thomas then went off to the stables to oversee the men-at-arms who were charged with transporting and guarding Selene’s dowry. He left his wife well satisfied with the first steps she had taken in Isabel’s plan.

  Isabel had warned her what Thomas’s reaction would probably be to the suggestion that he write directly to his mother, but they had agreed that Selene would try it before resorting to stealthier methods. Now Selene would begin to disobey her husband. She had a friend, a girl who had been at the convent school with her and who was wed to a nobleman of Poitou, and this Lady Elvira loved secrets and intrigues. She would be delighted to receive an occasional letter from her friend Selene, and to pass along a second letter enclosed inside the first. It would be a long way from Afoncaer to Poitou to Dol in Brittany, and Selene could use the route only once or twice a year, but it would be enough to maintain contact. Isabel would have her revenge, and she would know about it, if not from Thomas, then from Selene.

  In the meantime, Selene had deflected Thomas’s anger from herself and turned aside his unwelcome questions, in the process discovering a way to manage her husband by using his love for her. She dismissed the serving woman who had arrived to help her and, humming a little tune as she worked, she finished packing her own gowns for the trip to Afoncaer.

  That trip proceeded as Selene assumed it would. As she had hoped, she was separated from Thomas each night. Selene, Arianna, and Meredith regularly shared a bed, with their female servants rolled into blankets on the floor of whatever chamber the women were occupying, while the men all slept together elsewhere. The rigors of a journey over rough roads, the biting cold that whitened and numbed fingers and toes, noses and any uncovered ears, did not dismay Selene. She would sit patiently upon her palfrey, waiting while Guy’s men forced their horses through the snowdrifts that so often blocked their way, and then, when her turn came, she would ride calmly through the trails they had made.

  “How brave you are,” Arianna said, shivering. “I’m wet and half-frozen, and my nose keeps running. You always look absolutely perfect. Your face isn’t even chapped like everyone else’s.”

  “I have a warm cloak,” Selene replied. She patted her horse’s neck, watching the steamy vapor flare from the beast’s nostrils. There was a constant fog of expelled breath hanging about the travelers, and at night the smell of damp wool drying by a wood fire filled the air.

  Selene loved it all. The frigid weather matched the cold in her soul, and Thomas could not touch her body to thaw her into lascivious need of him. She wished the journey could go on forever. But it could not, and despite a delay of two days when they were holed up in a miserably dirty inn by yet another snowstorm, they came eventually to Much Wenlock Priory.

  The short winter day had ended and it was already dark when they arrived. Selene could see little in the dimness of the carefully husbanded oil lamps. She had only confused impressions of the priory’s guest-master handing the women over to a lesser monk who escorted them from the entrance gate to their chamber in the abbey guesthouse.

  “It’s not much different from St. Albans,” Arianna said, looking around the room, “only smaller and more sparsely furnished. We women must still all sleep together. But it is clean, and we have our own fresh sheets and blankets.”

  Selene stood to one side of the chamber, watching the servants unpack what they would need for one night’s stay, and secretly praying for a howling blizzard that would delay their trip even longer.

  “Are you coming with us?” Arianna asked.

  “Where?” Selene had not been following the conversation.

  “To see Reynaud,” Meredith answered. “He has been carried to one of the guest chambers within this building so we women may visit him while he’s in bed, and so we can remove him from here in the early morning without disrupting the priory’s usual routine. Guy wants to leave at dawn. We must travel more slowly with Reynaud than we did before, and Guy wants to reach Afoncaer before the weather turns bad again. Arianna and I are going to Reynaud now. Will you come with us?”

  Selene was not at all interested in this injured architect who so concerned Meredith, but the two women were looking at her expectantly, so she followed them out of the room, along a short, dimly lit passage to a tiny chamber that was little more than a cubicle. It contained a stool, a small table cluttered with basin, ewer, drinking cup, and rolls of linen bandages, and a narrow bed, upon which rested a person Selene could not see because the room was so full of people. Or at least so it seemed to her at first, but it was not long before Selene realized it was not the number of people but the size of the room that made it seem so crowded. Besides the three women, Guy was there, and Thomas, and a tall, thin monk in a black robe who was explaining just how serious Reynaud’s injuries were.

  “I shall try not to die of this, my friend,” came a weak, yet firm voice from the bed. “I will not be a burden to you. I pray I will soon be able to work again, and thus earn my bread.”

  The tall monk moved aside and Selene could see Reynaud. She gave a cry and started backward, hands pressed to her mouth, trying to control the sudden heaving of her stomach. Beside her, Arianna gave a soft moan of pity and moved forward, reaching both hands out to Reynaud, but Selene stood rooted, leaning backward, away from the sight. She had never been able to endure being in a sickroom. In her father’s castle or in the convent she had stayed away from anyone who was injured or ill. Now she wanted to turn and run, but Thomas had seen her. He crossed the tiny room in a single step and put one arm around her shoulders, urging her forward.

  “Come and meet my dear friend Reynaud,” Thomas said. Selene knew he expected her to join Arianna, who was just being presented to the a
rchitect, and Meredith, who was sitting on the edge of the bed, holding a bandaged hand and talking to Reynaud while tears ran down her cheeks.

  “This is my wife, Selene,” Thomas said proudly.

  Reynaud tore his one visible eye away from Meredith’s face and looked at Selene. A pale blue warmth searched her face, growing steadily colder as he examined her expression and looked deep into her eyes. By the time he was done, Selene felt pierced by ice, and she thought Reynaud must have seen the cold evil lurking inside her, for he said nothing to her but only listened to Thomas’s account of their wedding in the king’s presence, and how happy he was with the wife his Uncle Guy had chosen for him.

  Of Reynaud himself, not much could be seen but stained and dirty bandages. His head was almost completely swathed in linen strips, except for the one eye and his mouth and chin. His left arm was heavily bandaged, only his fingers showing, and these Meredith held. Reynaud was leaning rather awkwardly on his right elbow while Arianna adjusted pillows so he could sit up. Selene noticed below his hips, where his legs should be, a high mound beneath the thin blanket on the left side, a mound that reached only as far as his knee and then ended abruptly in a perfect flatness. Selene swallowed hard, imagining what the ugly mound contained.

  The tall monk went out, followed by Guy.

  “I’ll join them,” Thomas said to Selene. “There are some formalities to discuss with the prior, and I want to be there. From this time on, Reynaud is no longer a member of this particular religious community, but is a guest as we are. He’s in our care now. Meredith will make him well. Help her as much as you can, my love.” Thomas left her wondering what to do next.

  “Come and help us, Selene.” Meredith wiped away her tears and began to unwind the bandages around Reynaud’s head. “We’ll cleanse his wounds first. I’ve brought an ointment to put on them, to take away the pain and inflammation, and then we’ll re-bandage him with clean linen. That’s all I can do until we reach Afoncaer and my other supplies. The medicines I brought with me were almost all used up on Guy’s men-at-arms and their minor injuries during the trip. I’m afraid there is a hard journey ahead for you, Reynaud. Perhaps the infirmarer here has some poppy syrup that would ease the discomfort you are sure to feel.”

  “No,” Reynaud said, his one eye on Meredith’s intent face, his lips drawn tight with pain as she carefully eased the last of the linen off his nose and left cheek. “When I was first injured, Brother Infirmarer gave me that poppy syrup. It did help the pain, but it was all too tempting to ask for it again and again, so I could sink into the oblivion it offers. I’ll not take that way. I can bear a few twinges and aches for the sake of reaching Afoncaer once more.”

  “I think you will have more than aches and twinges, Master Reynaud.” That was Arianna, her face pale and set into severe lines of determination, her grey eyes dark with pity as she watched Meredith’s hands slowly uncovering the architect’s battered face. There was a wide gash extending from his right forehead across his nose and left cheekbone, and all the area around his left eye was hugely swollen.

  “I can’t open it,” Reynaud said in answer to Meredith’s question. “The swelling won’t go down, and Brother Infirmarer thinks I will never recover use of that eye.”

  “I’m not sure,” Meredith said, her fingers probing very gently. When Reynaud winced, she stopped her examination. “I can’t tell for certain, Reynaud, but it may be that with the medicines I have at Afoncaer, I will be able to help your sight. Arianna, wash his face carefully while I get rid of this dirty linen. Selene, you may help with the ointment. You can learn, too.”

  “No. No, I can’t.” Selene stared at Reynaud’s broken, discolored face and tried to choke back the bile that rose into her throat at the thought of touching that awful wound. “I can’t. Don’t ask me. I can’t stay here.” She fumbled for the door latch, found it, and tore it open. She nearly fell through the doorway in her haste to be gone from the room, with its heavy odor of sickness and infected flesh.

  The drafty air of the passageway outside Reynaud’s door fanned across her hot, perspiring face, cooling and calming her a little. Selene took a deep breath. She knew she was going to be sick. It was always that way whenever she had to look at something bloody or unpleasant. She hurried toward her room, hoping she would reach it in time. The passage was so dark and gloomy it was frightening.

  Selene broke into a run, turned a corner she did not remember passing before, and flew straight into Thomas’s arms. She did not recognize him at first. She gave a gasp of terror, reared back her head, and then saw who it was. His features were just discernible in the dim light. She clutched at him, catching his leather sleeves in fingers made strong by fear and horror.

  “Thomas, don’t make me stay there. Don’t make me touch him. I can’t do it. Please, please.” Thomas’s astonished face spun before her, the passageway blurred into total blackness, and Selene felt her knees buckling. There was a great roaring in her ears that blocked out all sound.

  Then strong arms lifted her, and her head rested on her husband’s broad, leather-clad shoulder. She kept her eyes closed while he carried her back to the chamber door she had passed unknowing in her panic-stricken flight. Selene opened her eyes to candlelight as Thomas laid her down on the bed, then removed her veil and loosened the tight coils of her raven-black hair.

  “You may go,” Thomas said to the maidservants who had been unpacking and now stood about the room, staring at him. “My lady has fainted. I’ll stay with her until she’s herself again. Just give me some wine for her, and then go and eat. There’s food set out for you in the guest hall.”

  Thomas held the wine cup to Selene’s pale lips. When the maids had all left he latched the door and came to sit on the bed beside her once more. She was weeping, and he smoothed back her disordered hair and wiped away the tears.

  “My dearest,” he said softly, kissing her forehead and then her quivering lips.

  “Thomas, please.” She touched his face with a shaky hand. “Don’t make me go back there.”

  “To Reynaud? Why should he frighten you?”

  “It’s not Reynaud. Not him alone. I can’t stand the sight of blood, or of wounds. I never could. It makes me ill. Arianna is strong, she can help Meredith, but I can’t.”

  Thomas gathered her into his arms, holding her and rocking her as though she were a hurt, frightened child. Indeed, she was so small and fragile that she might have been a child, and at first his feelings were an odd combination of paternal tenderness and disappointment. She had displayed a weakness most unbecoming in a woman who one day would be the mistress of a castle and who might, in the future, have to assume sole responsibility for the care of those wounded in defending that castle.

  Ah, well, he told himself with a sigh, she was still young. She would have plenty of time to lose this peculiar fear of hers. Meredith would help in that. Meanwhile, they were alone together for the first time in too many days, and he had missed their nightly lovemaking. She was clinging to him and nestling her head beneath his chin while his one hand stroked her undone hair and his other arm and hand pressed her closer against him. Thomas felt the heat in his loins, felt his manhood growing in response to her nearness. His lips brushed across her cheek, and the hand that had been stroking her hair lifted her chin until their mouths met. Thomas tasted the salt of her tears on her lips, along with the sweetness that only Selene brought to him.

  “Oh, my love,” he breathed, and put his mouth on hers again and moved his hand downward to cup a small, firm breast. She moaned, and he felt the nipple harden beneath her fine woolen gown. His hand moved further, catching her hips and pushing them against his own as he pressed her down onto the bed and rolled on top of her, letting her feel his need, sensing her initial hesitation and then the sudden flare of her desire. She had been like that each time they made love. First refusal, then wild passion.

  “Thomas, Thomas,” she murmured, moving her head back on the pillows, her emerald eyes bright
with yet unshed tears, her lips parted softly, her tongue poised to do battle with his own. ‘Thomas. You do love me, don’t you?”

  “More than my life.”

  Her hands pulled his head down toward hers, the small pink tongue reached out and captured his lips, playing with him, tormenting him until at last she ground her mouth against his and her tongue surged into him, attacking the hot moistness, demanding his response. He could not get enough of her mouth. He returned to it again and again, hungrily craving the excitement of that moist, welcoming warmth, until even that was not enough, and he knew her mounting passion was as great as his own.

  He fumbled at his clothing, pulling up his leather tunic, tugging at the thongs that held his hose, Selene helping him eagerly, her fingers grasping, greedy, rubbing on him, bringing him to a point of intense, painful need. Then she let him go, and lifted her skirts, or tried to. Her dress had become tangled around her legs and she could not get free of it. She twisted and turned and lifted her hips, pulling at the fabric, her body brushing against his repeatedly during her struggles, further inflaming him, while Thomas tried to help her with clumsy, over-eager hands. Both of them were aware that someone might come to the chamber door at any moment, but they could not wait, they had to come together, they were desperate with wanting each other, and no matter what happened they could not stop now.

  “Hurry, hurry,” she moaned, finally dragging both skirt and underdress up to her waist. Thomas had a hasty glimpse of green leather shoes, of stockings held at the knee with blue ribbon garters, and above the stockings the smooth, creamy skin of her thighs, opening to him, inviting him. “Thomas, please hurry. I burn. I burn. Ah, there, like that. I thought we’d never – never – oh, Thomas, Thomas!”

  She raised herself to meet his every stroke, taking him deeply within her, crying out in pleasure, and Thomas, his senses raised to feverish heat by her response, felt as though he was floating on the tide of her desire. He was lost in her, he loved her completely, he had never imagined a woman could be so exciting. She was everything he had ever wanted, and he gave himself to her totally, plunging into her sweet body again and again until she had had her fill of him and he was free to take his own pleasure, gasping out his love of her, his adoration, then at last coming to a peaceful rest across her now quiet form.