“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.”
“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.