Author: Catherine Coulter
Category: Suspense
Go to read content：https://onlinereadfreenovel.com/catherine-coulter/page,16,36478-secret_song.html
“Aye,” Roland said more to himself than to anyone else, “it is likely that the earl did rape her and she is too ashamed to admit to it.” But why me? Because she loves you, that’s why. She believes she has no other choice.
The king said nothing. He wasn’t stupid. He nodded to Robert Burnell. “Send Eric to her majesty and inform her that we are to have a wedding right now, or as soon as Daria can be prepared.”
Roland looked a moment as if he would protest; but he held his peace, resuming his pacing the tent. The king drank the remainder of the sweet Aquitaine wine. “The wine comes from Graelam de Moreton’s father-in-law,” he said to break the tense silence. “It is excellent. You will shortly be neighbors. And you will keep an eye on my dear daughter, Philippa, and that scoundrel husband of hers. Aye, de Fortenberry is a scoundrel, but the girl wanted him, wouldn’t hear of anything else, as you well know. Wedded him, and that was that.”
Roland was drawn from self-pity for a moment. “She didn’t know of you when she wedded him, sire.”
“More’s the pity. Someone should have known. She looks like me, all that beautiful Plantagenet hair and those eyes of hers. Aye, someone should have known.”
“De Fortenberry won’t shame you.”
“I will keep the royal eye on him nonetheless,” the king said, and sat back in silence now to watch Roland continue his pacing.
His pacing stopped suddenly when the queen unexpectedly came into the tent. She looked worried.
The king rose quickly and went to her. They spoke softly together.
He frowned, then sighed, saying, as he turned to Roland, “Daria refuses to marry you.”
“What?”
Eleanor said, “She refuses because you believe her a liar and naught more than chattel or a possession to be returned to her uncle for money. She claims she would rather go to a convent.”
“I hadn’t thought of that as a possibility,” Edward said in a thoughtful voice. “Perhaps that is the best, perhaps—”
“It isn’t the best. A convent would drain her of all spirit.” He saw her suddenly in that small valley in Wales, breathing in the clear air, her arms wrapped around her, so happy in her freedom that he’d smiled as she’d danced. “No, she isn’t fashioned for the religious existence. It is absurd. She is being willful. Damn her for an ungrateful wench.”
“But, Roland—”
“I shall thrash her, now. Have the priest readied. I will fetch her. Is she in your tent, your highness?”
“Aye, Roland, she is there,” Eleanor said, and said not another word. When the king would have spoken, she clutched his arm.
“Damned female,” Roland muttered as he strode from the royal presence without permission.
“All will be well now,” the queen said, and smiled up at her husband.
Daria was alone in the queen’s tent. She was sitting on a thick Flanders carpet, staring fixedly at the swirling red-and-purple patterns. Her arms were wrapped around her stomach. She knew she should rise, should prepare herself to leave. Would the king allow her to enter a convent? Would her uncle allow her to remain there? She’d heard that convents demanded huge amounts of money—indeed, dowries, because she would be the bride of God—to take a lady of her class. What if her uncle refused? She shook her head; she simply didn’t know. Anything would be preferable to the Earl of Clare or Ralph of Colchester. Besides, she didn’t want to die, and the earl would surely murder her once he discovered she no longer possessed a maidenhead. She thought of Roland and lowered her head. She felt tears well up and blinked them back. She swallowed. No, what had happened, she’d done, and it was she who would carry the responsibility.
When he strode into the tent, she raised her head to face him, her expression not changing. She’d expected him to come; after all, hadn’t he made a grand sacrifice? Wouldn’t he now be angry to have it flung back in his face? But only for a little while. Then at least he would remember her fondly, for she’d released him from a gesture he’d hated to make in the first place. She couldn’t make him pay for his generosity. She would have no honor if she did.
“Hello, Roland. What do you want?”
He didn’t like her emotionless voice or the dullness in her eyes, nor did he like the fact that she was sitting cross-legged on the floor, her hair spilling down her back and over her shoulders.
He drew a deep steadying breath. He said quite calmly, “I want to know why you told the queen such nonsense.”
She raised a brow at that but made no move to rise. She simply looked at him until he dropped to his haunches beside her. “Why, Daria?” He was three inches from her face. He didn’t touch her.
“I am profoundly religious, Roland. No, you wouldn’t believe that, would you? Very well, the truth. There is naught else but a convent. I wish to live. You said yourself that this would happen if you returned me to my uncle. He would kill me to have my inheritance. I know for a fact that the Earl of Clare, were he forced to wed me, would beat me and my unborn child to death, for he would know it wasn’t his. It is not so hard to understand, is it? I don’t particularly wish to die. I’m quite young, you know.”
“I’m offering you another way. I won’t kill you, nor will I beat you.”
The pain threatened to choke her.
“You will marry me, Daria. Now, at once.”
She shook her head. “Nay, I can’t do that either.”
“You believe I am lying? You believe I would beat you? Abuse you?”
“No.”
“I shan’t murder you, even if I do manage to gain your immense inheritance.”
“I know.”
“This is your grand gesture, isn’t it? Free the poor man because he cares nothing for you? But first, bring him to his knees, make him grovel and plead, make him offer to do exactly what it is you wanted all the while. Then you scorn him? You are more perverse than that damned bitch Joan of Tenesby. I won’t tolerate it, Daria, not for another instant.”
She had the damnable gall to simply sit there and shake her head.
For one of the few times in his life, Roland knew such anger that he nearly choked on it. “By the saints, I cannot hear this.”
He hauled her to her feet and flung himself onto the queen’s chair. He dragged her over his thighs and brought his right palm down hard on her buttocks. She froze, then reared up frantically. She made no sound, but she struggled furiously. She was strong, he thought, as he brought his hand down again. He admired a silent fighter. “Not even the smallest sound from you, eh? You’re a stubborn wench. Should I pull up your gown and let you feel the heat of my palm on your bare flesh?” Before she could speak, if she would have spoken, Roland had bared her to the waist, ripping her gown and her shift. But he didn’t strike her again. His hand remained raised in the air. He stared down at her buttocks, white and smooth and rounded, her long white legs, sleekly muscled. He swallowed. He moaned, then cursed. He shoved her off his legs and rose. He stood over her, panting, his hands on his hips. “Damn you, Daria. I would have remembered if I’d taken you. Now, prepare yourself, you stupid wench. You will wed me, and it will be tonight, before I change my mind, before I realize that you have shoved my honor down my throat. If you continue to refuse, I will beat you until you beg for mercy. No one will prevent me—don’t think that anyone will.”
He said nothing more, merely strode to the tent opening. He turned and pointed his finger at her. “I mean it, Daria. You will wed me, and not another word out of your mouth.”
11
The Benedictine priest Young Ansel, as he was affectionately called, exercised unflagging loyalty first to Robert Burnell and then to King Edward. He performed the marriage ceremony with as much dignity as his twenty-three years allotted him. His voice shook only a little when he spoke the soft Latin phrases. He thought the bride lovely and modest, and though she looked at him once, and that when he mispronounced a Latin word in his nervousness. A coincidence, he thought, swallowing. As for the groom, Young Ansel found him
somewhat forbidding. For all his presence, he seemed absent from the proceedings.
Roland de Tournay was unwilling, Young Ansel finally realized, and wondered at it. He couldn’t ask, of course; it would be considered an impertinence. Even though he was the king’s second priest, Burnell had advised him never to take liberties. The royal temper was unpredictable.
Young Ansel looked at the bride more closely as he blessed the couple, and thought she was ill, so pale was she. He glanced over at Roland de Tournay, wondering if he saw how pale and still she was. But the knight was looking beyond Young Ansel’s left shoulder, his face expressionless, his eyes cold. As he’d thought before, the groom seemed absent. He also looked miserable.
There were congratulations, exuberant and bawdy, because the king wished it so and his servants and soldiers willingly obeyed him. He wanted everything to appear as normal as possible. He wanted no talk about Roland, no talk about Daria. Even Robert Burnell managed to exclaim in modest enthusiasm several times. The queen hugged the bride and spoke softly to her. Young Ansel wondered what she said.
Eleanor was worried. As she gently held Daria, she said softly, “Do you feel ill, child?”
Daria shook her head against the queen’s shoulder. She couldn’t stand close to the queen because of her swollen belly. I will become like this, she thought blankly, and for a moment stared down at her own thin body. She’d known no illness from the babe as yet. How could there be a living being in her belly? So small? She wished her mother were here holding her. Perhaps her mother could make sense of it.
“You’re afraid, then. Afraid of your new life, perhaps even of your new husband?”
“Aye.”
“My sweet lord speaks so highly of Roland, has always done so. He’s a man of honor and loyalty and he never treats his vows lightly. You’re also an heiress and thus will bring much advantage to your husband. It’s important, you know. Have no fear, Daria.”
“No.”
The queen frowned over Daria’s head at her husband. He was still loudly extolling Roland’s good fortune, alternately buffeting Roland’s shoulder as he gave him thorough advice and telling him he would soon be so rich he could well afford to assist his king. Edward raised his eyes at that moment and met his wife’s gaze. He quieted, then said to Roland, “It is done. You are now a husband and soon you will be a father.”
“It is amazing.”
“It is done,” Edward repeated. “All of us will go to Tyberton on the morrow. I wish the Earl of Clare to see you and know that Daria is yours now and that he has no claim on her. I wish him to know that you have my favor.”
Roland wished that as well. He nodded. He wondered how the earl would react. He wanted in odd moments for the man to become violent. He wanted to fight, to bash in his head, to relieve his frustration.
“I have had a tent prepared for you, my friend. You and your bride will spend the night there. I see the queen has released Daria. Come, we will dine now and drink to your health and your future.”
There was nothing for it, Roland thought. He wanted to yell at the king that the last thing he wanted to do was spend the night with the girl who was with child and who was also his wife. He even managed to smile at Daria as he helped her into the chair beside his at the quickly erected banquet table. They were outside under the bright stars and the full moon. Torches lined the perimeter of the royal encampment. There were one hundred people milling about, eating their fill, turning at odd times to salute the bride and groom. All the food, Roland learned, came from the larders at Chepstow. He wondered if the Earl of Hereford would starve come winter. It appeared the king had stripped the castle granary bare. Perhaps in the misty future the king would visit him in Cornwall and delve with a free hand into his granary.
“Eat something, Daria.”
She wanted to tell him that she would vomit if she did, but she said nothing, merely picked up a chunk of soft white bread and chewed it. When he turned away from her, she spit it onto the ground.
“You will be silent tomorrow.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that we go to see the Earl of Clare. You will be silent and not flit and flutter about on me. I want neither your advice nor your protection, if that is what you’re about now.”
“I don’t think I’ve ever fluttered about on you, Roland. As for my protection, it’s true, I succeeded that one time.”
He shrugged with masculine indifference. “Perhaps, perhaps not. Nor have you ever been silent. I wonder if the earl has guessed that you carry his child. I would imagine that his rage would know no bounds. Therefore, you must keep silent and let me deal with him.”
“I don’t carry the earl’s child. Therefore he could have no rage, save the rage that he’s been made to look the fool and he’s lost all my dowry.”
He just looked at her, thin-lipped, then tipped back his goblet and drank deeply of the red Aquitaine wine.
“It’s true, Roland. You must be careful, for I don’t believe him entirely sane. Seeing you, the embodiment of his undoing, might make him act foolishly.”
He made an elaborate pretense of turning to speak to Burnell. Inside, his stomach churned with anger at her. By all the saints, she’d gained what she wanted, so why did she continue to play innocent? She infuriated him. He drank another goblet of wine. But he couldn’t become drunk.
“You’re very fertile if you indeed became with child with but one time.”
“I am or you are.”
He stiffened but his smile remained firmly in place. Did he really expect her to change her tune now?
“Then I’d best take my fill of you whilst you carry the babe. I’ll be tired of you by the time the child is born and that will be just as well. I don’t wish to have a dozen babes hanging on to me within as many years.”
She wanted to yell at him; she wanted to howl at the glorious full moon. She did neither. She lowered her head and played with the bread on her trencher. He was trying on purpose to hurt her. She wouldn’t let him see that he was succeeding.
“You have been so very kind to me, your majesty,” Daria said later to the Queen of England. “I thank you, truly.”
“Fret not, child. I will see you again. You and Roland will come to London, or perhaps my lord and I will visit Cornwall. Now, my dear, allow my ladies to prepare you for the night.”
With those prosaic words, and not a bit of well-meant advice, the Queen of England left her to the ministrations of two ladies-in-waiting. The ladies weren’t so reticent as their mistress. They’d drunk their share of wine and were thus giggling and giving Daria advice on making a man shudder with lust.
Roland paused outside the tent and listened to the women’s laughter coming from within. And then he heard Daria’s voice, puzzled and low, “Truly, Claudia, how do I do that? Just tell him to stick it into my mouth? Would I not choke? Would I not hurt him with my teeth?”
“Silly girl. Daria, you must stroke your hands over body and follow your hands with your tongue and mouth. It’s a wonderful sound.”
Roland’s eyes widened. So the queen’s ladies were as bawdy as any others. So they were educating Daria. Then his smile turned to a frown when she said, “Perhaps Roland won’t like me to do that because I wouldn’t do it well. Perhaps he would want another, more skilled and—”
“Daria, hush now. The only way for you to become skilled is to practice. Ask your husband if he minds that you practice on him. Then watch him lick his lips and watch his eyes grow large with anticipation.”
Roland didn’t hear what his wife said to that. His wife. It was almost more than a man of few years but vast experience could take in. He hadn’t wanted a wife, not yet, not until his keep in Cornwall was in proper condition and he’d become—bored. He shook himself. Bored. He wouldn’t ever become bored, and how could his mind assume that taking a wife was the cure for boredom anyway?
He pulled back the tent flap and chuckled at the drunken grins he received from the two women. Their th
oughts were clearly writ on their faces, and his sex responded. He quickly turned to Daria. She simply stood where she was, staring at him. With new eyes, he thought.
Claudia poked her elbow into Daria’s ribs. “Practice, my dear, practice.”
“Good night, Daria, and enjoy what God and the king have given you. The saints and women know there aren’t many men as potent and well-formed as this one. Aye, he’s a lovely lad, he is.”
The two women eyed Roland through wistful drunk eyes, Claudia brushing her breasts against his arm as she went past him.
Daria stared, feeling no particular anger at the woman. They’d dipped freely into the wine, and Roland was a beautiful man. She supposed it made Claudia forget herself. Roland was standing there saying nothing, merely looking at her.
“Will you take their advice?”
Her face turned instantly red. “You heard what they told me to do?”
“Aye, I heard. Excellent advice.”
She straightened her back and looked him squarely in the eye. “Then I will do it. But you must tell me what to do, Roland. I have no wish to offend you or perhaps hurt you.”
“This is a very strange conversation,” he said as he began stripping off his outer tunic. He tossed the wide leather belt onto the fur-covered floor. “The queen’s ladies were eager to teach you what to do to me.”
“They seem to understand men,” she said, frozen to the spot, watching as Roland matter-of-factly removed his tunic. There were three candles lit in the tent, in a brass holder sitting atop a small sandalwood table. There was a low cot covered with animal furs. There was nothing else in the tent. When Roland was bare to his waist, the candlelight casting darkening shadows over his body, Daria found herself staring openly at him. He was lean and firm, dark hair covering his chest. When she’d seen him in Wrexham he’d been ill and lying on his back. He’d been beautiful, she’d thought that very clearly, but she hadn’t recognized the sheer strength of him, the tautness of his arms, the fluid motion of the muscles in his back and shoulders, the ridges of muscle over his belly. She swallowed, for now he was stripping off his chausses. He stopped then and looked at her. “Why do you stand there? Get off your clothes and into the bed.”