Author: Catherine Coulter
Category: Suspense
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“I don’t understand how the queen—Perhaps she is mistaken, because I haven’t felt ill or—It must be very complicated—”
“Being with child is the simplest thing in the world. All that’s required is that a man plow a woman, nothing more, not a single blessed thing.”
“I didn’t know, I tell you. I suppose the queen recognized signs in me that I hadn’t noticed. I haven’t been very aware of things, Roland. A prisoner isn’t, you know.”
His hold tightened on her arm and she winced but made no sound. He shook her. “All right, you didn’t know you carried a babe. Now you do know. It’s true, isn’t it? Have you had no monthly flow? Have your breasts swelled?”
She shook her head. He wouldn’t stop; she knew him well enough to realize he would keep questioning her, keep pounding at her, until she told him the truth. Ah, the truth. That was the only thing he wouldn’t believe. He had no memory of that night. What was she to do?
“Very well. Now, you will not lie to me. It will do neither of us any good. The earl had you, didn’t he, took you before I got back to rescue you? Did he rape you when he first caught up with you? I thought that he would take you, for there was no priest to try to hold him back from going to your bed. It is his babe you carry. Why didn’t you tell me he’d ravished you? Why? You know I still would have rescued you if you’d wished it.”
“The earl didn’t force me,” she said, her voice low and dull.
He cursed and stomped away from her. He yelled at her over his shoulder, “Damn you, Daria. A female is born with lies in her mouth, just waiting for a gullible male to come along. More fool I. By all the saints, I will take you back to the Earl of Clare this very night. You said he didn’t force you. Therefore you were willing. No wonder you left me in Wrexham. You couldn’t before, but then I was too ill to know what you were about.” He smote his forehead with his palm. “Will I never cease being a fool?”
“Evidently not.”
He turned on her then, fury radiating from him. “There was no need for you to escape with me this second time, at least none that I can think of. He must have taken you until you were well used to it. Unless you wanted me to punish him? I cannot fathom your mind, curse you. Tell me why you escaped with me. Why?”
10
“The earl didn’t ravish me, nor did I give myself to him willingly. He made a vow that he wouldn’t touch me until we were wedded, and he kept it. I believe he was quite proud of himself that he didn’t break his oath. It’s not his child that grows in me.”
Roland could but stare at her. He’d believed her guileless, candid, faultless as a child. But she wasn’t a child. She was a woman and she was with child. Whose could it be? He’d been with her constantly, save when he’d been ill in Wrexham. If the earl had forced her, why didn’t she admit it? Did she think he would blame her for that whoreson’s violence? When he’d come to rescue her that second time, he’d fought the knowledge that the earl had raped her, for it had made no sense to him that he wouldn’t have. But she was claiming that he hadn’t taken her. He shook his head.
“Then who took you?”
She looked at him straightly. The time for deception was long over, as was the time for protecting him from the knowledge of what he’d done. He wanted the truth; very well, then, he would have it. “You did.”
She winced as he laughed, even though she wasn’t surprised at his reaction. He marveled aloud, “Such a lie as that can never work, Daria. A man knows when he takes a woman. It isn’t something that passes unheeded like a belch. When is this babe of yours to arrive?”
“Since I know the precise day the babe was conceived, I can figure it out quickly enough.”
“And just when was this precise day?”
“In Wrexham, over two months ago.”
He’d been so very ill there; he hadn’t protected her. “Were you ravished there? You went out alone and a man attacked you? You can admit it to me, Daria. I won’t blame you, I swear it. Come, tell me. Were you ravished there?”
“No. You didn’t ravish me.”
“You tempt me to beat you, Daria. I order you to cease spinning your tales.”
“When you were sick, you became delirious and you were dreaming of a woman—no, women—whom you’d bedded in the Holy Land. I . . . well, I cared for you and I decided that I wanted you to be the man who would teach me what this is all about.”
He could only stare at her. “You’re telling me that I took you—a virgin—and have no memory of it?”
“You believed I was Lila.”
He drew back, stunned to his toes. “Lila,” he repeated quietly. “She would have been naught more than a fevered dream. I couldn’t have made it into something remotely real; I couldn’t have taken you in her place, not unknowingly. It’s absurd. I couldn’t ever mistake you for her in any circumstance. You aren’t a thing like her.”
“No,” she said sadly, turning from him, “you appeared to care for her mightily. And there was Cena, too.”
“Cena,” he repeated, feeling like a parrot. Roland shook his head. This was lunacy, all of it, her lunacy, and she was trying to draw him into it. “Listen to me, Daria, and listen well. I don’t remember any of this, and I’m not lying. I can’t believe that a lady—a virgin—would allow me to breach her maidenhead without marriage—nay, you claim you even assisted me to take you?
“And just how many times did I—a man fevered and ill and tossing about out of his skull and evidently as randy as a goat—just how many times did I take you, Daria?”
“Just once.”
“Ah, I see. And as a result of that mating, you are now with child.”
“Yes.” Daria was beginning to wonder if she could still believe herself. He’d demolished her quite thoroughly.
“And you expect me to believe this? Truly? Why are you doing this to me? What have I ever done to you to deserve such treatment? Why are you lying to me? Ah, I doubt not I was so fevered that I dreamed myself in other places with other people and that I may have spoken of people in my past, Lila and Cena included.”
She looked at him. She was weary. She supposed it was the babe she carried that was pulling on her. She had nothing more to say, no proof to give him, no other arguments to present. He thought she was going to speak again, and slashed his hand through the air.
“No, Daria, no more. I’m tired of your lies. And now you’ve managed to seduce the king and queen with your charming innocence, though you and I both know it is all false. God, how could I be such a fool? Again and again it would appear, only this time you make me—the villain, a liar without conscience.”
“I’m only telling you the truth.” He looked at her as if he hated her, and Daria felt such pain that she couldn’t bear it. She’d known he wouldn’t believe her, but still the reality of his feelings made her raw. She turned on her heel and broke into a run. She cared not where she ran, only that she get away from this man who despised her.
“Damn you, I’m not through.”
But Daria didn’t slow even at his furious shout. She felt a stitch in her side but didn’t stop. When his fingers closed about her arm, she cried out and turned on him, her fists pounding his chest. “Let me go. What care you where I go? Or what I do?”
“I don’t,” he said, his voice calm now. “Well, that’s not precisely true. I do care. However, I told you once, I believe, that your uncle didn’t want you back if you were no longer a virgin. And it’s very easy to determine that, as you must remember.”
She closed her eyes over the memory of the earl thrusting his finger inside her, pressing against her maidenhead. She shivered with the memory of it, the humiliation of it made more awful because Roland had been there, watching.
“I fancy your uncle would kill you were you to return to him now, for he would want your inheritance if he couldn’t have the land from Ralph of Colchester. You’re nothing but an encumbrance to him now, Daria, nothing more. But you know that, don’t you? Thus the reason for all your tales
? You’re simply trying to save yourself.”
“And what am I to you?” She regretted the words the moment they were out of her mouth. Her face blanched.
He gave her a brutal look. “A mission to be accomplished, a possession to be returned to its rightful owner. Once valuable chattel, Daria, but now you are worthless.”
“Stop it.” She slapped her hands against her ears to shut out his words.
He clasped her wrists, pulling them away. “Tell me the truth, Daria.” He shook her. “I’ll help you, I swear it, but you must tell me the truth.”
“I did tell you the truth. You were fevered. At first you thought I was a woman named Joan. You yelled at me and accused me of betraying you. I tried to reason with you, but it was no use. Then you spoke that strange language and you called me Lila and you wanted her to cover you, to allow you to come into her body. I didn’t know what you meant, but you showed me. You wanted to suckle her breasts and you scolded me for still wearing clothes when you wanted me naked.”
“And so,” he said, his eyes hard and disbelieving, his voice filled with sarcasm, “you hurried to rip off your clothes, ready to do whatever I asked of you. There was a Joan—it’s likely I would speak of the bitch if I was out of my head. But nothing else, Daria. An innocent young girl wouldn’t allow a man to command her to sacrifice her maidenhead.”
“And you spoke of Cena but said you were too fatigued for her. She would have to wait.”
He tensed, resisting. But no, he could have spoken of both women. A fevered man could speak of any ghost or memory. A fevered man wasn’t, however, strong enough to force a virgin to give over to him.
“I have told you the truth, Roland. That I did it was perhaps foolish, but I lo—I wanted you to be the first, I wanted to know you”—to have your hands on me, feel you kissing me, holding me—I wanted the memory—“if I was to be forced to wed with Ralph of Colchester, I wanted just the one time for myself, for there would be nothing more that I could have.” There, now he had the truth, all of it. She watched the anger pale his eyes and tighten his expression.
He shook his head. It was foolishness and lies, all of it. “No. I cannot accept it. Why would you give yourself to me knowing that I believed you to be another woman? That I was speaking her name, seeing her, feeling her when I came into your body—knowing I believed it to be her when I kissed you and caressed you? It is absurd. No woman I have ever been with would do such a thing. And I have known many women, Daria. A woman would sooner stick a knife in the man’s ribs and curse him to hell.”
“Perhaps it is absurd. Perhaps I am absurd. I don’t know. I haven’t much experience with men and their ways, or ladies either, for that matter.” She looked at him and her eyes were as sad as her voice as she said softly, “All I know is myself and what I feel.” She drew a deep breath and blurted it out. “Rydw i’n dy garu di, Roland.”
He stared down at her for a very long time. Finally he said, his voice emotionless, “Lying bitch.” He turned from her and strode away, yelling over his shoulder, “Leave if you wish. I shan’t stop you. By all the saints, I care not if I never gaze upon your face again. Return to your uncle, or, if you’re afraid to, then return to the Earl of Clare. Perhaps he’ll still want you if he hasn’t plowed Tilda silly by now and finds he’s forgotten all about you and your dowry and his hatred of your uncle.”
He forced himself to keep walking. He forced himself not to turn back to her. She couldn’t love him, damn her lying heart. She couldn’t. It made no sense. No more sense than her recognizing him instantly, no matter his disguise. Who had told her the words in Welsh? He shook his head. He didn’t care.
He knew he must return to the king and queen, explain somehow. Convince them of the truth without their believing Daria to be a conniving whore. He cursed. What to do?
“The Earl of Reymerstone would kill me, and I wouldn’t blame him. Worse, he would kill her as well, and he would do it without hesitation, without mercy.”
Edward merely shrugged. “It isn’t as if you were a peasant, Roland. Your family is as old as his, and—”
Roland interrupted his king. “You don’t understand, sire. The man wanted Daria to wed Ralph of Colchester, and only him, because in return he would gain the lands he wants to add to his own.”
“And then the Earl of Clare abducted her?”
Roland nodded.
“The story is complicated, like one of your tales, Roland, with many twists and unexpected turns. Only this tale, well, it is up to you—regardless of all your protestations—to find a satisfactory ending.”
“You refuse to believe that I am not the father of this child? Have you ever known me to lie to you?”
The king looked troubled. “No, I haven’t. The queen is convinced that the girl is telling the truth. Listen, Roland. It is possible that you took her believing her another, is it not?”
“Not that I can imagine. Can you imagine it yourself, sire?”
“No.”
“She also claims that she is with child after but one time. One time and she becomes pregnant? I cannot credit that either.”
At that the king smiled even as he shifted restlessly in his chair. “I can, Roland. It happens frequently. I can attest to that.”
Roland fell silent. The king fell equally silent. He detested tangles like this. He wanted to face down the Earl of Clare and strip him of his power; he wanted to strip all the Marcher Barons of every drop of power they possessed; he, the King of England, wanted the power in Wales and he wanted to build castles to assert his power and bring the damned Welsh to their knees before him, their king—and here he was instead trying to solve a problem that had no apparent solution. None that was satisfying. Unless—“There is a way out of this perhaps. We can keep the girl with us until she is delivered of the babe. If the babe resembles you, then you can wed her. If it resembles the Earl of Clare—does he not have hair red as scarlet?—then it is proved.”
“And what if the babe looks like no other? Or looks like its mother?”
The king cursed softly. “What do you think, Robbie?”
Robert Burnell, silent to this point, looked decidedly uncomfortable. “Do you wish an opinion likely to conform to the Church?”
Roland snorted.
“Go ahead, Robbie.”
“The Church would hold that the woman, regardless of her rank or supposed innocence, was the one culpable. It would be her fault and none other’s. She would bear the censure and the condemnation and—”
“Hold. That’s enough, damn you.”
“She would be viewed as a harlot, a deceiver, a stain on her family’s honor—”
“Be quiet, I tell you.”
“But, Roland,” the king said reasonably, “you claim it cannot be your babe. Thus, she lies. To protect whom? Robbie, what do you think Stephen Langton would have recommended?”
“He would have doubtless ruled that she be deprived of her dowry, and shunned and reviled by her family and all those who’d believed in her virtue.”
Roland looked appalled. “If that were true, then she would die, the babe with her.”
Robert Burnell shrugged. “Aye, very likely.”
“I suppose the Church would also say that was proper—two dead—but the man responsible free and absolved.”
“The man is but weak of the flesh,” Burnell said. “The woman is the evil one who plots to exploit the man’s weakness.”
“Such a testament to the mercy of God and his infinite fairness. It sickens me.”
Roland rose swiftly to his feet and paced the vast interior of the royal tent. He cursed fluently in four languages.
“Very well,” Edward said, watching Roland closely. His friend wasn’t indifferent to the girl. He saw the likely result in that moment. Aloud he said, “I see two options. The first, she is returned to her uncle, and the second, she is returned to the Earl of Clare. Are there others?”
Roland said on a sigh, “Her uncle will kill her if she’s returned
to him. If by chance the child she carries isn’t the Earl of Clare’s seed, why, then he would kill her too.”
“As I inquired of you two,” the king said patiently, “are there any other possibilities?”
There was dead silence. Roland could hear a soldier laughing from a goodly distance outside the royal tent. He could hear his own heart beating a slow steady rhythm. Then he laughed.
He turned, and the king knew in that moment that Roland had accepted the inevitable. But still, what if she carried another’s child? He couldn’t simply force his friend into a corner.
“Very well. I am the other option. I will wed her.”
“But I have yet to see the Earl of Clare,” Edward said, raising his hand. “Be reasonable, Roland. I can determine if he is the father and whether he will or will not abuse her. I am said to be a good judge of men. Well, let me judge this Earl of Clare. Perhaps he will want her, and if it is his babe she carries, then—”
“She claims to despise the earl. Even you wouldn’t wish to hand her over to a man she hates. Nor is he a gentle man. He would abuse her endlessly, believe it, and once you were gone, who would there be to stop him?”
“But if she deserves his abuse, if she is lying for some reason unbeknownst to us, then his treatment of her will—”
“I will wed her,” Roland repeated, and he looked defeated and very weary.
The king looked pleased, but he turned his head in time so that Roland did not remark upon it. Roland did care for the girl, regardless of the paternity of the babe she carried. She could bring him a goodly dowry; the King of England would see to it. The world was filled with bastards. Even his precious daughter, Philippa, was a bastard. It mattered not, not when there were money, land, and prestige involved. He would pray the child would be a female. Thus Roland wouldn’t have to pass his worldly possessions down to another man’s son.