Chapter 2 #2
Agnes rather suspected that her greyhound, Qwippe, would make a better companion for Earl Barden’s visit than Muriel.
‘I will be quite all right.’
‘Please, Agnes.’
Agnes huffed. She had faced her sister’s stubbornness too many times to know how this conversation would end: with Muriel dragging their parents into the argument to get her way.
‘Very well – if you insist on staying longer, you can meet him. And then you can ride off home and tell Mother and Father that he is a perfectly fine husband, and cease your worrying.’
This seemed to placate her. Muriel gave another smile, gripping her hands once more. Agnes had to steel herself not to pull away.
‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘Really, we do all only want you to be happy and safe. You know that, don’t you?’
Agnes swallowed, feeling Muriel’s sweaty fingers curled around her own. ‘I do.’
Agnes heaved shut the door to her bedchamber, leaning against it with her eyes closed.
After a moment, she stepped back and bolted it. That went some way to making her feel a little better.
Agnes already regretted allowing Muriel to stay.
She hovered, noting her worries about Barden or extolling the virtues of Francis so regularly that Agnes had given up attempting to silence her in favour of simply ignoring her.
She invited her on a hunt, which Muriel had refused, so Agnes had been forced to find other ways to entertain her.
In the end, she had settled for several walks of the grounds before leading her back inside to challenge her to a few games.
Spring was struggling this year, and the air was still chilly, so while Agnes would have preferred to remain outside with Qwippe at her feet and a bow in her hand, she couldn’t begrudge an afternoon spent at the fireside.
She had finally returned to her bedchamber not long after the sun had set, keen for some much-needed privacy and silence. With the door bolted and at last alone, Agnes shucked off the maddening dress and the shift beneath it, letting it drop carelessly to the floor.
The cold bit at her bare skin. Still avoiding the figure in the mirror, she pulled an oversized tunic, hose and braies from the clothes chest at the foot of her bed. She dressed quickly, already feeling the relief wash over her, then slid beneath the thick covers.
After a moment, there was a soft thump as Qwippe joined her, curling into a tight, white ball at Agnes’s feet. At least Qwippe didn’t need attentive entertaining; she was happy to snooze, occasionally raising her head and peering at Agnes as if to ensure she was still there.
Finally granted some peace, Agnes could think clearer about her future, and the man who was causing her sister such dreadful anxiety.
Agnes had known she would need to remarry the day she had become a widow.
It was what was expected of her by society as a still-young woman, no matter her own feelings on both her marital status and her apparent womanhood.
But she had waited too long. She had sought advice from allies and councillors as to any men who may make a suitable match, but she had assessed them too minutely, scrutinised them too hard.
Barden was the third or fourth potential suitor she had met – and, with luck, he would be the last. She had hoped she would be granted more time to seek out a husband, but since her dismissal of her last suitor – an elderly baron who had slapped her on the backside – her family had resumed their nagging for her to marry Francis.
If she did not wed soon, they would attempt to force her. She could not let them, and the longer she drew out her decision the easier it would be for them.
Her previous marriage to the English Lord Nicholas la Cleve had been a hasty match, a union bartered by important men shouting at each other in dark rooms. A small skirmish, an argument over land, settled before too much more blood could be shed with a hasty marriage between two powerful – but not too powerful – families, one from each side of the border.
Her parents had intended to wed her to Francis mac Cainnich, the son of a nearby laird – in fact, the agreement had all but been made – but the threat of war had scuppered their plans.
Agnes had no sorrow for the ruined match. The sudden marriage to Nicholas had been as convenient for her as it had been inconvenient for Francis.
Nicholas, as it transpired, was as much a pawn in the game of others as she was. He was a baron, old enough to be her father – perhaps her father’s father. He was a widower, and she quickly learned that he would not have been seeking a wife had it not been for the incident that forced their union.
He was, under the circumstances, as good a husband as she was likely to have.
He mourned deeply for the loss of his wife, which had been many years previously.
While other men may have leered and rejoiced at being tied to a young, untouched woman, he did not.
There was a gap in his heart – in his soul – that no one could fill.
Agnes certainly couldn’t, and they had fallen into a friendship.
They had only been married for a short while when the illness took his mind.
It took his body sometime later. They had no children together: it had caused suspicion at first, but after the illness set in that suspicion was allayed.
It would have been impossible for him to sire children.
Perhaps it had always been impossible: despite what had sounded like years of valiant efforts, he and his wife had produced just one child, who died just before his mother, a victim of the same illness.
They had lain together a handful of times, but more through a sense of obligation than much else. Neither wanted the other as a bedmate.
‘The problem of love,’ he told her once, ‘is loss. She was half of my soul. No one can replace her. They could send me a dozen beautiful girls like you’ – he took her hand, and she had pretended not to notice that his fingers were shaking – ‘but none of them would ever be her.’
Her second marriage would be different. Whether or not she accepted Lord Barden’s offer, she would be tied to a younger, more virile man. It was a little thrilling to think that she may find a husband who excited her, one who she wished to lie with beyond the need for making children.
The idea of children themselves did not overly worry her. She loved her elder sister Clara’s children and felt the room in her heart for where her own would sit one day.
It was the rest that concerned her: the having of children, trapped in a changing body that did not feel like her own. True enough, she loved Clara’s children, but even being around Clara in the months preceding their births had made her feel unpleasant.
Nicholas had come closer to understanding her than her family, but still even he had not known it all. Only Sara knew the extent of it – how her mind rebelled against her body. She could only imagine what that rebellion could swell into were she with child.
No one would know. She could never tell her husband how she was. But perhaps she could find a man who would give her the space she needed to breathe, either through kindness or disinterest. It would be a trial, she knew. But she would see it through.
Marrying was an awful risk. She had mere days to assess Barden before giving him a firm answer. At least it was longer than many got. At least she had a choice. She would need to trust her instincts, and ignore the rumours swirling around him, no matter what her sister said.
She cursed the uncertainty into the still air of her bedchamber. Qwippe stirred, looking up at her. Agnes reached out to scratch her behind the ears.
‘Let’s get up early,’ she said, as the hound blinked at her. ‘We’ll go for a hunt.’
Qwippe’s ears pricked up at the word hunt, and she sat up with her paws outstretched.
‘Tomorrow,’ Agnes insisted. ‘Good lass.’
Qwippe huffed, and feeling certain that the creature could understand her perfectly, Agnes settled down deeper beneath the covers.