Chapter 12 #2
He turned back and pulled up the sheet from the bed, then with it draped over his right arm he took her hand in a ruthless grip and dragged her out into the crowded room.
The trestles were down; the king was dictating something to a clerk while reading a document.
Most of the men were already armed and ready to leave, but they turned as Aimery and Madeleine entered the room.
When he announced loudly, “It is done!” and waved the sheet, several men took the trouble to cheer.
As if a minor castle had been vanquished, thought Madeleine. Her face was burning, and she didn’t know where to look. Count Guy came over and released her from Aimery’s imprisoning grip for a gentle kiss. “Welcome, daughter.”
She bobbed a curtsy, not able to forget it had been the count’s ruthlessness that had brought her to this point.
Leo gave her a hearty buss. “Welcome to the family.” He was so big and warm and normal, Madeleine almost broke into tears on his wide chest. “Aimery should bring you over soon to meet everyone. Mother wanted to come this time, and she’ll have things to say about her son being wed without her here.”
Count Guy grimaced. “Don’t remind me. But I didn’t think it safe, and now I fear I’m to be proved correct.”
“Doom and gloom?” said the king as he joined the group. He, too, drew Madeleine to him for a dry kiss. “As you have married my godson, Lady Madeleine, we have a spiritual relationship. As long as you do my will you may look to me for a father’s kindness.”
Madeleine curtsied her gratitude even as she thought that kindness such as William’s she could do without. If it hadn’t been for him, she would still be safe in the Abbaye.
The king embraced Aimery warmly. “I have rewarded you richly, so serve me well.”
The fondness was so sincere, Madeleine didn’t know how Aimery could meet the king’s eyes. She knew she couldn’t, for now she was embroiled in treason herself, guilty by association and silence.
“I will look in on Baddersley later in the summer,” said the king heartily, “and hope to see it in better heart and you, Lady Madeleine, already swelling with child.” He glanced at the bandage. “That hasn’t been changed, Lady Madeleine. You are remiss.”
“We were short of time, sire,” said Aimery dryly.
“How long does it take?” the king demanded.
“Oh, you young people . . .” With that he turned on his heel and returned to his documents, giving a curt order for departure.
Most of the men surged out to the bailey, and soon the clerks packed up all the parchment and joined them.
The hall emptied of all except a few servants clearing up the debris.
Madeleine and Aimery trailed after everyone and saw the men mount. Loaded packhorses were formed into line. Dogs were brought out on leads. Then the procession was passing through the break in the palisade where a gate should be, and off down the road to Warwick.
Madeleine looked sideways at her husband. Here she was, alone with Aimery de Gaillard, Golden Hart, traitor. “You had better let me see to your hand,” she said.
He gave her no trouble. Once the bandage was off, it could be seen that the wound was healing well. The design was clearly a leaping hart, but neither of them mentioned that.
Madeleine put a clean pad over the wound and bound it up with a long strip of linen. “Try not to use it any more than necessary.”
“I doubt Edwin will attack Baddersley, so I should be able to avoid swordplay. I won’t be able to avoid work, however. We must do the king’s bidding and put Baddersley in order. Go and make an accounting of all the household goods and supplies, and I will look at it later.”
With that he walked away.
It had been a curt order, master to servant, stating clearly how it was to be.
Madeleine thought back to their time in bed and that mystical feeling of oneness.
He must not have experienced it at all. That was disturbing, but she couldn’t suppress a little glow at the thought that they would repeat the experience tonight and every night.
She would have that to set against his coldness by day.
Later, however, when she sought him out with the lists prepared, she was apprehensive.
Matters were a great deal worse than even she had imagined.
In the few hectic days since Aunt Celia had taken to her bed, Madeleine had not had time to make a careful check of supplies.
Now she found they were dangerously low, and there was no money.
If there had been silver it had gone with Paul de Pouissey.
She found her husband sitting at the desk in the solar working on some figures and drawings. His own assessment of the defenses. She gave him her lists and was left standing there like a servant as he ran an eye over them. He looked up. “We are all likely to be thin.”
She put the matter more plainly. “There is no possibility of surviving the winter. Even if such crops as have been sown come to harvest, it will be a poor supply.”
“Someone should pay for such mismanagement.”
Madeleine swallowed. “My uncle and aunt had the running of the place, as you well know. And,” she added angrily, “the best people were encouraged to run away to other manors!”
“Speak softly, wife,” he said, “or I will be forced to teach you manners.” The silent message was understood. Don’t ever mention Golden Hart.
She brought her anger under control. “What are we to do, husband?”
He looked over the depressing lists again. “I will buy supplies to keep us through the winter and to complete the building of the defenses. I will look to you, however, for better management from now on. I think I know,” he added, “where to find some people to bring here.”
Madeleine clenched her teeth. Doubtless he would “find” some of the people who had fled at his instigation. But he was being generous after a fashion and making practical arrangements for the future prosperity of her manor, so it would be unwise of her to object.
She knew he was also making it clear how their marriage would be, and that he had all the power.
When Madeleine left him, Aimery relaxed his stern features and sighed. What sins had brought him to this point? If this was William’s idea of a rich reward, Lord have mercy on those he thought to punish.
Baddersley was in such a state it was hard to imagine recovery—shoddy construction, debilitated workers, empty stores. In addition, Aimery had to straighten all this out while dealing with a wife who could tangle his brain in knots with a look from those heavy-lidded brown eyes.
He remembered those eyes warm with the wonder of her body’s pleasure, and the way they had driven him into the depths of passion. He cursed his weakness.
He couldn’t surrender to her wantonness. She’d already tried to twist him to her will with a threat of exposure; Sweet Savior help him if she ever realized the power she had over him. He had to keep her in her place and remember that she was deceitful and cruel and never, ever to be trusted.
Day after day. Week after week. For the rest of their lives.
Yesterday, entangled in her efficient healing, he’d begun to weaken, but now he reminded himself of her true nature. She had sworn to him she wouldn’t choose him, then had gone back on her vow. She’d also wanted to lie about the marriage bed.
Madeleine was as two-faced as Janus, but she had Eve’s power. The first time he’d touched her he’d known it, but he’d not known then that fate would throw him into her snare.
Tight-lipped, he applied himself once more to the plans for Baddersley’s defense.
If he could put it into some kind of order, then he could leave—even if his only excuse was to join William against Edwin.
Even fighting his cousin and Hereward was preferable to living day by day with Madeleine de la Haute Vironge.
Dinner that night was a sober affair. The hall seemed empty with just the off-duty guards, a few higher servants, and Aimery and Madeleine. True, there was his squire, Geoffrey de Sceine, but he was a quiet, intense young man who did not lighten the atmosphere.
When the tables were taken down, Madeleine thought of asking for a song or a game of chess. After a glance at her stern husband, she did neither. In the end she simply retired for the night. The sooner he came and carried her off to that special place, the sooner her world would be right again.
She wished she knew why he was so angry.
So, she’d said she would marry Stephen and had been forced to change her mind.
She had done the king’s will by that, and what terrible fate had befallen Aimery de Gaillard?
He was married to an heiress, and one he had seemed, now and then, to find pleasing.
Perhaps she should tell him about Stephen, but she wasn’t sure she could bring herself to speak of such things . . .
Madeleine fell asleep before her husband came, and woke at sunrise when he rolled out of bed and left the room.
He hadn’t touched her.
He likely never would.
Then Madeleine truly knew despair.
Dawn often finds me grieving in solitude,
for no one still lives
with whom I dare share
the truth of my heart.
The bard responsible for that piece knew well the human condition. To Madeleine, living with Aimery de Gaillard in this cold and barren place he had constructed—always together and yet never joined—was the tree of despair which could bear only the most bitter fruits.
She could not live with this cold courtesy. She wanted his hand to reach for her again with tenderness. She wanted to look up and see his smiling eyes upon her. She wanted to relax with him and share a joke, and see him glow with laughter as she had that once . . .
She wanted him to hold her against him and murmur soft magic as his hand explored her and brought her to pleasure. She wanted a kiss. She wanted him in her . . .
Madeleine leaped out of a bed which held nothing but torture. Plague take all men!