Chapter 21 #3
Raoul gave a sharp, humorless laugh. "Absolutely nothing. Which is probably the problem."
Galeran leaned back against a hogshead that was waiting to be rolled into the warehouse. "You can hardly have expected Aline to be a candidate for a pleasure bout."
A startling anger flashed through Raoul's eyes. "Do you think so little of me?"
Galeran raised a hand. "Pax, friend. But what do you want, and what is the problem?"
It seemed as if Raoul had some trouble putting the words together, but then he said, "I want Aline as my wife. The trouble is that she has again said no."
"Really?" Galeran might have been obsessed with his own affairs in recent weeks, but he didn't think he'd been mistaken in the bright sparks dancing between Raoul and Aline. "You did make it clear what you were offering, didn't you?"
"Ha! Entirely clear. It was the fair lady herself who proposed an unblessed romp. She wanted to test the blade before she purchased it."
Galeran was hard pressed not to chuckle. "You must have unsettled her mightily, then. A few weeks ago she never would have suggested such a thing."
"I've deliberately unsettled her, thinking she'd fall neatly into my arms like a plum loosened on the branch. But no. The women of your wife's family do nothing in the normal way."
"One becomes accustomed. And there are compensations."
Raoul paced restlessly in front of the vintner's house, the passersby keeping well out of the way of such a tall and frowning warrior. "I would be delighted to become accustomed, but how? I offered her marriage, and she wanted me to live in Northumbria. You know that's impossible."
"You'd shiver to death."
Raoul sent him a scathing glance. "More to the point, I have property and responsibility elsewhere. I offered to give her a year to make up her mind—and that stretched my nobility and restraint to its limit—and she proposed a test of the wares!"
"Perhaps that is the best idea."
"Test the wares?"
"Give her time."
"I don't dare." Raoul looked down the street, though Galeran suspected that he wasn't seeing much. "I daren't risk returning to find she's taken her nun's vows. Or married another now that I've whetted her appetite."
"She wouldn't do that."
"Women are fiendishly unpredictable. I've broken down her walls. I can't leave her now that she's vulnerable."
Before Galeran could ask an explanation of that, Raoul looked him in the eye and said, "I won't lose her, Galeran. I'll abduct her if necessary."
"I'd have to stop you."
"I'd try to make sure you didn't have the chance." But, his stance said silently, if it comes to blood, so be it.
Was this whole tangled affair going to end at sword's point after all? Not if Galeran could help it. He hadn't come through the war to lose all in a minor skirmish in the aftermath. "Why did she refuse you?"
"Some nonsense about my fidelity, and about traveling abroad."
"Hardly nonsense. Fidelity has not been your way to date. And would you rather have a wife who'd throw her common sense to the wind at the first touch of desire?"
Raoul grinned. "Sometimes, yes."
Galeran shared the smile. "Indeed. But it's no easy matter for some people to leave their home to live in a strange land. A girl like Aline, even if she had planned to marry, never planned to do such a thing. She would have married a man from a nearby estate."
"There's no choice in it, though. I've enjoyed traveling, but I've always intended to settle on my land in the Guyenne."
"Perhaps Aline would not care for the Guyenne."
"A person would have to be mad not to love the Guyenne."
"If people loved only the most pleasing corners of God's earth, we'd be in a sorry state.
My friend, I think you have wooed and won Aline's heart, but you will not woo her out of her common sense.
You'll have convince her head that she will be safe and happy in this strange soil, far from her family and friends, alone in times of trouble. "
"She will not be alone...."
"You must convince her of that."
Raoul exclaimed, "Christ's crown, if only I were a better liar!"
"What?"
Suddenly rueful, Raoul said, "She asked me if I would be faithful to her while she made up her mind."
"You said no?" Galeran could hardly believe it.
"I didn't say anything. I was trying to be honest, Galeran. I was giving it careful thought. I haven't been celibate for a year since I first had a woman, and I had no intention of making a promise I could not keep. She didn't wait to hear."
"Can you make that vow now?"
Almost as if in pain, Raoul said, "If it's her price, yes."
Galeran shook his head, pushing off the cask. "It's not that simple. She has to trust you with her life. Almost literally. I suggest you put your mind to convincing her, for I assure you, she's not leaving England unless she goes willingly."
* * *
Jehanne, propped up on cushions so she could lie on her front without pressing on her sensitive breasts, listened to Aline relate her adventures during her escape without actually mentioning Raoul de Jouray except in passing.
"You spent the night together in a bed?" Jehanne asked. It was a deduction, since Aline hadn't actually said as much.
"I slept!" Aline snapped.
"I'm sure you did."
"He didn't do anything... Well, almost nothing... He's amazingly restrained."
Jehanne worked at keeping a straight face. "You sound almost disappointed."
"Of course I'm not." Aline paced backward and forward, skirts swishing. "It's nice to know he can sometimes keep his weapon in its sheath."
"He seems to have acted competently in keeping you safe and getting into the convent. And I understand he spoke for me before the king."
Aline stopped. "I never said he wasn't competent."
"True. So, what holds you back from him?"
"Holds me back?" Aline asked with spurious puzzlement.
"If I'm any judge at all, the man loves you and wants to marry you. And yet you do not have the look of a happy couple."
"Would you marry half a world away?" Aline challenged.
"I'd follow Galeran beyond the ends of the earth, to heaven or hell itself."
"Yes, well... Would you have done that when you'd scarce known him a month?"
Jehanne laughed. "No, you have me there. But we were very young." Yet Aline was young, Jehanne thought. It was easy to forget that she was only eighteen and had lived, until recently, a protected life. "Perhaps it is wiser to wait."
"Wait! But what's the point in waiting? If he comes back in a year, will I know him any better?"
"You may know your heart better. It's been an intense time and he's tempting enough. Sometimes fiery interest fades down to cinders with a little time and distance. Once," she added with a grimace, "I thought Raymond of Lowick stood only one rung below God."
Aline laughed at that. "But there's no comparison between Raymond and Raoul.
" She picked up the salve pot, looking at it as if she'd never seen it before.
"You're probably right, though, that Raoul's interest in me will fade with a little time and distance.
I suppose I'd be doing him a kindness to send him away. "
"Aline, I was talking about you! Raoul is older, and a great deal more experienced. I doubt he'll change as easily."
"If he loves me at all..."
"Would a man like that want to marry unless he loved? I presume he did ask for your hand in marriage."
"Oh, yes." Aline gave in. She put down the pot and recounted the whole of her conversation with Raoul.
Jehanne groaned at the end. "But you know, cousin, when a man like that makes such a snarl of it, it is a sign of something."
* * *
By the next day, Jehanne could sit up, and even move around a little without too much pain.
As she worked her way along the narrow corridor to the hall at one end of the building, however, she took uncharitable satisfaction from the notion that Bishop Flambard had received a full cycle of the rod.
Perhaps Galeran could find the grace to forgive the man, but she couldn't. It wasn't the beating she held against him, but the harm he had tried to do to her family.
When she found Galeran in the hall, she said as much.
"You overestimate my charity," he said, as he helped her to a bench near an open window. "I hope he's in agony, and that there will be worse for him in the future."
They smiled with the easy understanding once taken for granted, now deeply appreciated.
"About Raoul..." she said.
"...and Aline," he completed with a humorous grimace.
"What are we to do?"
"Turning matchmaker?"
"Why not? Marriage is a wonderful institution."
Again, their smiles danced together, and they spoke silently of other things.
"Raoul didn't handle things well," said Galeran.
"An understatement! But Aline is sensible to have reservations, no matter what honeyed words he tempts her with."
"His words are true," said Galeran sternly. "That was the problem. He won't make a vow he cannot keep."
She reserved comment on that. "Is there any hope for them?"
"We'll have to see. But I have one thought I'd like your verdict on."
"Yes?"
"I don't think Hubert of Burstock will be best pleased to have his only daughter married off without his leave. We'll have to take them back home to be wed."
"Oh, poor Raoul! Back to the harsh north."
"And we're moving toward autumn. We'd better provide him with furs."
They laughed together at simple human foibles.