Chapter Eight #2
Ophelia put her cloak back on, tying it around her neck. “Will you please take me to the nunnery?” she asked, sniffling. “Or the nearest church so that I may request sanctuary. If it is too much trouble, you can simply tell me where the church is and I shall find it.”
Creston could see the desperation in everything about her.
But the one thing that stood out, above all else, was the fact that she had confessed the scheme.
She hadn’t needed to do it. She could have very well married him under false pretenses and told him the child was his.
Once they were married, there was nothing he could do even if he figured out the offspring didn’t belong to him. She could have trapped him.
But she hadn’t.
The woman had sacrificed her future, so he didn’t have to sacrifice his.
It was one of the bravest things he’d ever seen.
“Hold,” he said, reaching out to grasp her arms carefully. “Just… hold a moment, lady. Sit down. We must speak of this situation.”
Ophelia was confused as he directed her into the chair. “What more is there to say?” she said. “You know the truth now. You cannot marry me.”
He was looking at her seriously. “You’re like your grandfather,” he said. “You are trying to tell me what to do. Stop telling me what to do.”
She looked as if he’d struck her with his words. She immediately lowered her head and seemed to shrink down. “My apologies, my lord,” she said. “That was not my intention, believe me.”
He pulled his chair close to hers and sat down so that their shins were practically rubbing against one another.
He leaned forward, elbows resting on his knees.
He was looking at her most intently and, after a moment, he reached up and pulled her hood gently off her head, revealing that glorious hair. Her features came into the weak light.
She seemed to grow more beautiful by the hour.
“I have something to say about all of this,” he said. “Did you think I would not?”
She shook her head. “It is your right to speak, of course,” she said. “But I have told you everything. There is nothing more to tell.”
He nodded. “I understand,” he said. “And I believe I am justified in saying that your news is most shocking. It is also infuriating. If what you’ve said is true, your grandfather is trying to trick me into this marriage, and I will tell you now that no man makes a fool of me, least of all the Earl of Sidbury.
What he’s done, to me, is the same as if he had declared war on the House of de Royans. Do you understand me so far?”
Ophelia nodded fearfully. “Please know that I did not support what he was doing,” she said. “But I am in a difficult position. If I did not obey him, he would punish me more than he already has.”
Creston shook his head with regret. “And that’s another thing,” he said. “Did the man truly starve you?”
“He did.”
“Then we add cruelty to his already horrific behavior,” Creston said. “Is your grandfather always like that?”
Ophelia nodded. “Since I can recall,” she said.
“He has never forgiven my mother for having been born a woman, nor has he ever forgiven me for the same reason. He never liked Cecil, and he was terribly upset at my mother for agreeing to the betrothal, but when Cecil walked out, he saw his chance to take control of my situation and get what he wanted out of it.”
“Like a good strategist,” Creston muttered. “Why did he not like Cecil?”
“Because he did not choose him.”
“He had no part in it?”
“Nay,” she said. “My mother and I live at Symondsbury, which is where I was born. Grandfather lives in Sidmouth. When my father died, my grandfather showed no real interest in my mother or me, so we remained in Symondsbury. When my grandfather came to the mass where I was supposed to marry Cecil, it was the first time I’d seen him in years.
Then, suddenly, he took control of everything, including my betrothal to you. ”
Creston grunted. “More than likely because he saw an opportunity to marry you to someone of his choosing,” he said.
“All the better for him to create an alliance. But I still cannot understand why Cecil would leave you before your wedding. That is unfathomable. Did he know you were carrying his child?”
She nodded. “He knew,” she said. “I met Cecil when we fostered together at Okehampton Castle. He was handsome, and quite pious, but I decided he was not meant for God but for me. No one rejects the Great Beauty of Dorset—at least, I thought no one would reject me. I was wrong.”
Creston’s eyebrows lifted. “The Great Beauty of Dorset?”
She smiled weakly. “That is what those at Okehampton called me,” she said.
“I think it was more of a jest than a serious title, but Cecil struggled between wanting to be with me and wanting to devote his life to God. I thought I could force him into marriage with a child on the way, but I was wrong. In that respect, I am no better than my grandfather. I tried to control Cecil. But God was stronger than I am, and He took Cecil for His own. ’Tis I who was left ashamed and remorseful.
I suppose I knew better all along. Cecil was quite devoted to God, but I thought I could change him. ”
It was a brutally honest and intimate confession. Creston listened seriously, seeing that situation for what it was—she’d tried to force something because she wanted it badly enough and it had slipped through her fingers.
That wasn’t too far off from what had happened to Creston those years ago.
Thoughts of Mary began to fill his head.
“Sometimes we learn lessons the hard way,” he said. “No matter how badly we want something, God has a way of showing us that we are never fully in control.”
“That is the truth,” Ophelia said sincerely.
“I learned my lesson with Cecil. I will never do something so unscrupulous again. It was wrong. Now that I see how my grandfather has tried to control you, I can see just how terrible I was. I do not blame Cecil for running. I never did. It was my fault.”
Creston was listening to her with some sympathy. “And confessing your grandfather’s scheme to me is penitence?”
She looked at him with a guilty expression. “Aye,” she said truthfully. “I have already tried to control one man. I could not let the same thing happen to you.”
Creston pondered that statement for a moment.
“You do realize that you have risked a great station in life by telling me everything,” he said.
“If you’d just kept your mouth shut, we would have married and quite possibly have been happy.
You would have been well respected and the mother of my children.
It would have been a good life for any woman. ”
She nodded steadily. “I know,” she said. “But I could not have lived with such a secret. Eventually, it would have come out, and you would have hated me for it.”
“I doubt I could ever hate you,” he said softly. “But it would have made things difficult.”
Ophelia was well aware of that. “Thankfully, now it does not have to be so,” she said. “May… may I tell you something?”
“Anything.”
“Today, when I arrived at The Black Cock, a servant named Greenie helped me bathe,” she said.
“Greenie was very kind. She asked why I had come to Exebridge and I told her. She proceeded to tell me what a good man you were and that you deserved someone worthy. I realize now how unworthy I am, so I hope you will not think too unkindly about me in the years to come. In the end, I did what was right for you and for me, so I hope you do remember that.”
He cocked his head. “Lady, the sheer fact that you confessed the scheme makes you quite worthy, indeed,” he said. “You have risked your entire future to preserve mine. How can I just walk away from that?”
“Because you were lied to,” she insisted. “How can you forgive that?”
“I am willing to forgive you because you confessed,” he said. “You told me that you were honest when I first met you, and you have demonstrated that. But the next question is the one that will decide our fate.”
“What fate?”
“Whether or not we will go through with the marriage.”
She looked at him in disbelief. “After everything I’ve told you, you are still willing to go through with this?” she said. “That’s madness!”
He grinned. “Probably,” he said. “But I have found a woman with impeccable honesty and I am not so easily going to let her go. That is why I must ask this question.”
“What question?”
“Are you still willing to marry me?”
She looked at him as if he’d lost his mind. “I… I do not even know how to answer that,” she said. “You know that another man has touched me.”
“I do. A man you believed you would marry.”
“And it is his child in my belly.”
“When I marry you, the child in your belly becomes mine. He will have no claim.”
Now Ophelia was dumbfounded. “Are you serious?”
He nodded. “Quite serious,” he said. “Since you have made a confession to me, I will make one to you.”
“Go ahead.”
He sat back, scratching his head, trying to summarize that terrible time in his life. She didn’t need to know all of the details, but she did need to know her situation wasn’t so different than one he’d been in once, too.
“Years ago, there was a woman I wanted to marry,” he said. “I knew her father did not approve of me, so I coerced her into my bed, and she became pregnant with my child.”
Ophelia studied him for a moment as their common situations began to become apparent, and the light of realization struck her. “You did it to force her father to approve of your marriage,” she said softly.