Chosen for the Marriage Bed

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‘As I know.’ He cuffed the lad gently on the shoulder. ‘Should I fear her retaliation, do you suppose?’

At which David guffawed inelegantly. ‘I am not afraid of Elizabeth.’

Richard’s lips twitched at the implication. What had he expected from his betrothed? Well, more than he had received. She had scowled at him when he left and scowled when he returned. His tardiness was not entirely his fault, but Elizabeth de Lacy had not bothered to discover the reason before putting him in the wrong. His temper began to simmer again, and Richard Malinder was aware of a level of disappointment that the understanding they seemed to have achieved in their battlement discussion had vanished in his absence.

Since it was not in his nature to leave it like this between them, Richard followed her into his home, catching up with her in the Great Hall. ‘Madam!’ His commanding voice, brooking no refusal, stopped her as she placed her foot on the first stair. Elizabeth turned.

‘My lord.’

With long strides he caught up with her. ‘When I return to my home, I expect to find a gracious and welcoming wife waiting for me, not a sharp-voiced shrew. I will not have my people entertained and intrigued by your lack of propriety and good breeding. My lateness was not of my doing, nor should you as my wife question it.’ He found his irritation in full flow and did not consider the force or direction of his words. ‘I had hoped the tales in the March of your wilfulness and lack of courtesy were mere gossip and exaggeration.’

He saw her hands clench, her lips whiten with pressure, her face grow pale, and watched curiously as she took a breath under the onslaught of his words. Her eyes, suddenly dark with unknown anxieties, held his and he could not fault her courage. Unnerved by the grief, even pain in her face, still he was driven to make his point or what respect would there be in this marriage? ‘There is no excuse for rank bad manners in my household, lady.’

Her eyes fell. ‘No, my lord. There is no excuse.’

‘I expect you to receive me and my guests graciously.’

‘Yes, my lord. Forgive me. I was at fault.’

‘Then we have an understanding.’

‘Yes, my lord. I will not be guilty of…of graceless ill manners again.’

He waited to see if she would say more, surprised by her acquiescence. When she merely stood, head bent, because he could think of nothing more to say and was now perhaps regretting his choice of words, Richard left her.

Through her lashes Elizabeth watched him go. She had been entirely at fault, but how could she tell him of her fears that made her lash out? Of seeing herself in comparison with the achingly beautiful Anne Malinder, who undoubtedly schemed to become the equally lovely Gwladys’s successor. Of fearing his attachment to the lover in Hereford. Embarrassment, slick and cold, coated her from head to toe. She had undoubtedly been in the wrong—what was it he had said? A sharp-voiced shrew?—and she had no idea how to make amends. Despair washed through her. Still she forced herself to walk up the stair with magnificent dignity.

To meet Anne Malinder, watching, waiting, at the top, her perfect teeth glinting in a smile of sheer delight.

‘I see dear Richard is returned. Have you fallen out with him already?’

‘No. We understand each other perfectly.’

The girl leaned close. ‘He’ll go back to Mistress Joanna soon enough if you quarrel with him.’ A trill of laughter. ‘His mood is not sweet for a bridegroom. I will go and talk to him for you. I could always wind Richard round my fingers, even as a child. Now I am a child no longer. Don’t worry, Elizabeth. I will see to his needs.’

‘I am sure you will!’

It was the final straw. Elizabeth brushed past her nemesis and shut herself in her bedchamber, regretting the mistakes she had made, unable to see any way forwards.

Whilst Richard, back in the courtyard, wallowing in the lost sadness in a pair of deep blue eyes, was finding it difficult not to regret his intemperate words. His impatience flared when Mistress Bringsty placed her stout figure in his path.

‘I need to speak with you, my lord.’

‘I don’t have time for this.’ He would have stepped past her, but she surprised him with a hand to his sleeve. His glance sharpened. ‘Well?’

‘Spare her the public bedding, my lord.’

And before he could ask more, the woman had bustled away. But of course he did not need to ask. He had not needed her warning. Or perhaps he had, because in the deluge of demands on his time he had not thought of the repercussion for Elizabeth of the traditional, very public disrobing of bride and groom, had accepted that it was part of the drink-fuelled celebration as much as the vows and the priest’s pious words. The memory of silvery weals of the lash on her shoulders jolted him back to what he must do. Whatever the residual annoyance from their recent encounter, he could not inflict an array of prurient and inquisitive eyes on her.

He was sorry to have spoken to Elizabeth as he had. There were depths—uncomfortable ones—to his bride that he had not even come close to discovering.

The door to Nicholas Capel’s circular chamber at Talgarth was shut and bolted. There must be no prying eyes to this ceremony. The marriage was imminent; now was the time to take action. All it took was the wax from two stalwart candles, judiciously softened, to fashion two figures. He smoothed, formed, crimped and carved, until two figures lay on the table, male and female. Crudely manipulated yet easily recognisable, naked and sexually explicit.

So the marriage was assured, but it would do no harm to give fate a twist. Capel smote his hands together in a sharp gesture of authority.

‘Let us draw the pair together, with or without their will. Let us ensure the power of Malinder’s loins to get an heir on the woman.’

Capel poured water from an ewer into a silver bowl marked with Christian symbols. He murmured Latin words over the water, consecrating it, and then sprinkled the holy liquid to name the two figures.

‘I name thee both: Richard Malinder. Elizabeth de Lacy.’

From a fold of parchment he shook the contents. Two dark hairs from the head of Richard Malinder. Two longer, equally dark, Elizabeth’s hair from before her departure to Llanwardine. Then, winding the hair around their crude necks, Capel placed the figures face to face, breast to breast, thigh to thigh, and with strong wire he bound them close until they were tight knit.

‘May your union be effective and fruitful,’ Capel murmured with a vicious satisfaction. And smiled gloatingly.

How trusting John de Lacy was in his innocence, believing that the authority was fast in his own fist. How willing he was to follow advice when power was dangled before him, a juicy plum to fall from the tree into his waiting hand.

Except, Capel rubbed his hands together, de Lacy would not be the one to catch the falling fruit.

Richard offered his hand to his bride. Elizabeth placed hers there, lightly. He gave a little nod, either of acceptance or encouragement, his fingers closing warm and firm before they turned together for him to lead her up the final steps to the waiting priest. And there was something that needed to be said.

‘Forgive me my harsh words of yesterday.’

‘I do.’ Her gaze was solemn. ‘I ask pardon for my lack of grace.’