Chapter Seven
“What are you going to do?” Christian asked softly.
Ronan eyed his cousin. They were in a small outbuilding where visiting knights were usually housed, according to Odo, but it was cramped and uncomfortable and dark but for a couple of fat tapers burning on the table in the tiny common room.
That’s where Ronan had found Christian when he’d entered the outbuilding, sitting in that teeny common room, trying to repair a nasty scratch on the leather of his expensive boots.
He’d told Isabeth he’d find Marian, but he hadn’t.
He’d gone looking for Christian instead.
“I do not know what I am going to do,” he replied. “Chris, I came here because of Dyce and for no other reason than that. I had to bring Marian – you know that. I could not have come alone with Dyce’s widow.”
“I know.”
Ronan threw up his hands. “All I need is for something to get back to my father, or worse, Marian’s father,” he said.
“You know how that man smothers everything in his world. Edmund de Grey controls everything and what he cannot control, he still tries to control. It has been that way for ten long years and if he thought, for one moment, that I was somehow being unfaithful to Marian with the widow of a good friend, he would go to war against my father. He would not even ask questions – he would simply show up at Roxburgh with an army.”
“I know,” Christian said patiently. “Roe, you have done nothing wrong in this case but you risk looking like a weakling if you do not do something about Marian. Lady de Brito is right – you cannot have your wife turn Ravenscar into chaos. That is not fair to Lady de Brito.”
Ronan shook his head slowly. “Nay,” he said. “It is not.”
“Which brings me back to my question,” Christian said quietly. “What are you going to do?”
Ronan stood there a moment, refusing to look at him. He seemed more interested in the floor than in providing an answer. When he did speak, it was soft with regret.
“I have tried, Chris,” he said. “You know I have tried. I have been trying for ten years, but she will not… she does not…”
“She’s a bitch in heat,” Christian said frankly, but he held up his hands quickly in apology.
“I know I should not say it, but that’s all she is, Roe.
She was like that before you met her, when you met her, and after you married her.
Edmund de Grey thought that marrying her off would keep her from jumping into men’s beds, but that has not worked.
You tried to keep her happy, but she is the kind of woman who will never be happy with just one man. She should have never married at all.”
Ronan sighed faintly. “But she did marry and I am the one who is saddled with her,” he said.
After a moment, he shook his head. “When Dyce was killed and his wife mourned him deeply, do you know that I was jealous? If I die tomorrow, no one will mourn me so deeply. Not like a wife should mourn a husband. Certainly, my family would mourn me. My friends would mourn me. But my wife… she will dance on my grave and throw a feast, a joyful feast, celebrating my death. That is what Marian will do. She will not weep one tear for me.”
Christian snorted, an unhappy sound. “Uncle Blayth should let you get an annulment,” he said. “Or a divorce. You can, you know. You can provide proof of adultery. Your daughters, as pretty as they are, do not look like you in the least. Everyone knows they are not your children.”
Ronan shook his head before the man was even finished speaking. “You know I cannot,” he said. “I would be risking the entire House of de Wolfe against the House of de Grey and we need them like they need us. It is out of the question.”
Christian was disgusted on his behalf. “So you are the sacrifice,” he said. “The human sacrifice to have a strong alliance with a major northern family.”
“It seems that way.”
“That’s because it is that way,” Christian said. Then he paused as an idea came to him. “Roe… I just thought of something.”
“It is probably nothing I haven’t already considered.”
“Have you considered making the woman so miserable that she’ll seek the divorce?”
Ronan nodded wearily. “Of course I have, but it is impossible.”
“Why?”
“Because it will anger Edmund de Grey and he’ll march on Roxburgh.”
“But our army is bigger than de Grey’s,” Christian reminded him.
When Ronan continued to shake his head, Christian grew annoyed.
“So you are a martyr for the rest of your life because you let your wife do as she pleases? It makes you look like a weak fool, Roe. You let that woman walk all over you.”
“As my father has told me, it is better than ruining an important alliance.”
“What would it take for you to stand up to your father and tell him that you are divorcing Marian no matter what he says?”
Ronan lifted his shoulders. “I do not know,” he said honestly. “Nothing. Something. Anything. I simply do not know.”
Christian could see how defeated Ronan was and he blamed the man’s father.
He was the one who had brokered the marriage and who forced Ronan to remain trapped in a miserable affair.
It wasn’t that Christian didn’t understand the importance of politics for he most certainly did.
He was a de Wolfe and they were schooled in such things from an early age.
It was more that he hated to see Ronan – big, handsome, gentle, but also quite deadly Ronan – be made a fool of by a woman who wasn’t worthy of him.
Marian de Wolfe was no better than a common whore and everyone knew it.
But Ronan couldn’t, and wouldn’t, do anything about it.
It was a terrible situation in so many ways.
“As you say, Roe,” he said, resigned. “But know that I do not like the way that woman treats you. I never have. No one does. She’s simply not worthy of you.”
“So you’ve said.”
“It’s true.”
“Then who is?”
Christian rolled his eyes at the question. “I seem to remember several young women who would have been very grateful to have been Lady de Wolfe,” he said. “Who was that lass from Sedburgh? Iris or Heather or something?”
Ronan smiled weakly. “Wintersweet,” he said. “Wintersweet de Leia. A lovely woman.”
Christian grinned. “One of many who would have fallen at your feet at the first mention of marriage,” he said. “But instead, you had to marry the harpy. It is one of life’s unexplained horrors as far as I’m concerned.”
“Mayhap so, but you needn’t keep reminding me at every turn,” Ronan said. “There is nothing I can do about it, so just… stop.”
“But…”
“Please, Chris. I need your advice, not your condemnation.”
Christian finally put up a hand in surrender. “Very well,” he said. “I am sorry. I do not mean to make you feel bad. I simply do not like what she does to you.”
“Nor do I. But scolding me does not help the situation.”
“Then what advice do you need that I’ve not already given you?”
That was a good question. Ronan already had the man’s advice and he knew what he should do – send Marian out of Ravenscar.
But his father had him so paranoid about creating an incident that would alienate the House of de Grey that it was easier to ignore the problem than to act on it.
That’s what Christian didn’t seem to understand.
Ronan wiped his hands over his face, wearily.
“I suppose I know your thoughts on the situation,” he said. “I suppose I should…”
He was cut off when a soldier suddenly entered the outbuilding, slamming the door back on its hinges. Light from the moonlit night streamed in through the doorway.
“My lord,” the soldier said. “You must come. There has been a fight.”
Ronan frowned. “You do not need me to intervene,” he said. “Where are the sergeants?”
But the soldier shook his head. “Not a soldier’s fight, my lord,” he said. “Your wife. You must come.”
Ronan was out of the outbuilding in a flash.
*
Marian’s ladies, who she had evidently sent away so she could carry on her tryst with the young French knight, returned in time to see Isabeth with a fire poker in her hands, whacking Marian on the arms and back with it as the woman tried to run from her.
That had been all they needed to go after Isabeth and try to fight her, but Isabeth was in the flight or fight mode at that point.
Seeing Marian’s ladies rush towards her, she began swinging the fire poker with a vengeance.
It was clear from the beginning that neither Marian nor her women were used to anyone fighting back.
They reigned with terror wherever they went, slapping and shoving and making demands, so the fact that the chatelaine of Ravenscar fought back was something of an anomaly.
They weren’t sure how to respond other than to try and slap her, but Isabeth was in panic mode.
All of those heightened emotions during early pregnancy were in full bloom as she found a target for her anger, her fear, and even her grief.
Marian was that target.
Her ladies couldn’t get near her as she cowered in a corner and screamed.
Isabeth had brained one of the ladies on the side of the head and she was on the floor, dazed, as the second lady stood out of range and bellowed at her.
All Isabeth could do was order them to leave, to go far away from Ravenscar.
But they had no intention of leaving so it was a screaming match as Isabeth stood with her back to the wall, poker raised as the women screeched at each other.
Servants and soldiers began arriving.
Odo was the first one to appear to settle the situation, but he ran directly into the woman who was bellowing at Isabeth.
She shoved at him, thinking he had come to harm her, and he stumbled back through the door.
That brought Isabeth with her poker and she struck the woman with it, defending Odo, and ended up cracking her across the neck and jaw.
She fell to the ground, next to her dazed comrade, as Marian screamed from the corner at the top of her lungs.