A Love For All Seasons (31 page)

At fright in one usually so bold, panic erupted in the hallway. Women screamed and leapt to their feet. Needlework flew in all directions. Some turned toward the chapel in the hopes of sanctuary while others went toward the dorter to hide under their blankets. In the chaos two tallow lamps fell, their crockery bowls shattering on the stone floor. Rendered fat oozed across the hard, cold surface.

The scattering women thrust past their prioress. Mother Sybil released Johanna to steady herself. With her mind yet fixed on the sheriff and death, Johanna once again started for the office.

"Catch her, Father," the prioress screamed to the chaplain and his aides at the head of the corridor. "Bring her to the chapel. We will bar the door and hold her there against them."

Johanna sat on the cot in her bedchamber. She hadn't moved since Helewise had placed her here, once she was fully dressed. With her head bowed, her hair flowed freely down around her, a curling red-gold curtain. She stared at her hands in her lap. Her fingers seemed a deathly white against the blue-gray of her wedding gown.

"Rob will come for me," she whispered to herself, her voice as pale and wan as she felt.

Today was Dies Mala, a day for bad luck. Even the priest at St. Stephen's had suggested the wedding date be changed, but Katel was in a great hurry to say his vows to her. Until he'd done so, Papa's will could not be read, or so the abbot had told him.

"Rob will come for me," she repeated to herself. Only these words stood between her and what she could not bear.

Papa had died three days ago. She tried to find tears to shed at that thought but she'd cried so much of late there was no moisture left within her body. With a shaking sigh, she forced her head to lift. This took every ounce of energy she owned.

Her father's bed still stood in its corner, just where it always had, but it no longer belonged to her sire. Katel ordered it be stripped, its linens, draperies, and mattress, burned. So, too, had her husband-to-be demanded that the woodwork be washed with the harshest of soaps, against the possibility that what felled Papa might be contagious. Katel's new curtains were blue and gold. For vanity's sake, so were the blankets. It was a finer, softer mattress that filled the bed's box.

Where her father had been frugal and simple in his tastes, Katel was already spending Johanna’s inheritance, even before he had it. In the last days he'd bought himself three robes, all of them made of the finest fabrics, and sent the goldsmith into bliss by ordering four heavy chains for himself. He was sating his anger, repaying himself for having to take a bride who was no virgin. Still, if Katel continued at this rate, what her father had accrued over his lifetime would be gone within the year, leaving her impoverished as well.

Once again, desperation nipped at Johanna's heart. "Rob will come for me."

In her mind's eye she conjured Rob. He would appear out of the crowd at the moment the priest demanded any objections to her joining to Katel. Rob would call out that they were already wed then take Katel's place before the church door. Together, they would share new public vows to replace the private ones they'd traded.

"Rob will come," she assured herself.

He had to come, else she would be trapped in a horrible place from which she would never escape. Beneath her depression there was the tiniest spark of anger at this thought.

"I think that he will not, little mistress," Helewise responded from the doorway. There was a quiet sadness in her voice.

Johanna stared up at her. It was time. She could see it in Helewise's eyes.

The need to run from Stanrudde, as far and as fast as she could, woke. It would do no good. No matter where she went Katel would find her. Even if Katel no longer wanted her he still meant to wed her. Only if they were married could he spend what Papa had earned.

Johanna tried to stand; she swore she did. "I cannot rise," she breathed. "You must help me."

The housekeeper came to sit beside her on the cot. Wrapping an arm around Johanna's waist she pressed her former charge's head into her shoulder. For just a moment Helewise rocked her, crooning just as she'd done when Johanna was a babe.

"Helewise!" Katel's impatient call rose from the courtyard floor. "Hie you and bring her down. It is time."

Glancing at the window, Helewise huffed in deep dislike. "How he slavers to get his hands upon what was once your sire's. God be praised he had sense enough to keep this a private affair, given that your father is barely cold."

Johanna loosed a dry sob at this reminder.

Helewise pressed a kiss to her forehead. "You will survive this," she said softly. "You are my strong and fiery girl, who is always brave where I feel weak and powerless. Vow to me that no matter what he does to you, you'll not let him take your spirit from you."

For some reason Johanna could not fathom, Helewise's words made that spark of anger in her grow. In its heat she found, if not strength, comfort. Even Helewise knew that this marriage to Katel was an awful, evil thing. How could her father have demanded that they wed when Rob loved her?

Guilt shot through her at this thought. Her father was dead. It was wrong to think ill of him. Her thoughts slipped to Rob. Better than any other on this earth Rob knew the sort of man Katel was. How could he have left her to this fate?

Anger grew yet again. This time, its heat sent the illusion of power through her. Rob had better come. If he did not she would never forgive him.

"God be damned," Katel sneered from the doorway. His new tunic was a maroon samite over which he wore a summer mantle of gray. A braided chain, loaned to him by the goldsmith until his own were finished, lay across his chest. Atop its clasp sat a great round piece of amber to match his new tunic's golden trim. "Here you sit, Helewise, when I have called that it is time to leave. I will not tolerate such insubordination in my servants. You are dismissed. Be gone by week's end."

Johanna's back stiffened in surprise at this. Who did he think he was, telling her housekeeper that she must go? The anger in her expanded, eating up all that ached in her. By God, it felt good to hate. Her eyes narrowed as she plotted some way to see he paid for this.

"Such was my intention, Katel," Helewise replied. There was nothing of her usual show of meekness in her voice. "I will not be in a house over which you are the head."

Shock dashed across his features then died. He shrugged. "We are in agreement, then. Now bring her, or you'll not stay the night to witness her bedding He turned on his heel and left the bedchamber.

Johanna stared at Helewise. "I hate him," she breathed with every ounce of passion that lived in her.

"That's my fiery girl," the housekeeper replied in proud approval. "Come then."

Together, they rose and descended to the courtyard.

"Johanna!" The shout echoed from the prioress's office. "Where are you?"

New fire took life in Johanna's cold, dead heart. "Rob?" she breathed. "Rob!" she shouted.

As joy exploded within her she lifted her heels. The priest and the farm laborers were holding the inner office door shut against Rob. She heard the crash of his shoulder against the panel.

"Let me by!" she screamed at them. "It's Rob!"

"You cannot go with him, child," the priest told her, yet straining to hold the door shut. "To do so is sin."

There was a brief pause in the battering. Footsteps tapped on the office’s tile floor, receding away from the inner door. "Take her now," the chaplain cried. The two serfs released the door then grabbed her by the arms.

"Rob," Johanna shouted as she writhed between them. "They are forcing me away!"

Although she fought them, the two men steadily dragged her down the corridor toward the chapel. She peered hopelessly over her shoulder. The office door was yet closed with no sign of Rob. Ahead of her the prioress was waiting at the chapel's door. Sister Porter had the bar in hand.

"Do not let them keep me here!" Johanna screamed to Rob.

One of them slipped in the spilled fat. As he stumbled, his grip loosened. Johanna wrenched her arm free and turned on the other. With every ounce of strength she owned, she kicked him. The man barked in pain and released her to grab his damaged leg.

Once again there was a crash, and the old priest stumbled aside as the door flew open. Rob stepped into the corridor. He wore a thick brown tunic with a soft leather vest atop it. Despite his hooded cloak, traveling had left his hair badly in need of combing. His face was reddened with the cold, and he looked not to have slept for several days.

Never had he looked more beautiful to her. Johanna threw herself against him, latching herself tightly to him that no man could part them. He laughed and wrapped his arms around her, his embrace no less tight.

"I thought you were dead," she cried into the curve of his neck. His skin was warm against hers. "When you did not come two days ago, I thought I had failed."

"I was here," he said, lowering his head to press his lips against her cheek. "She would not let me see you."

Of a sudden a touch of his lips on her cheek wasn't enough for her. Johanna turned her head and pressed her mouth to his. With her lips she begged Rob to prove to her this was no dream, that he was indeed alive and that he had come for her. Rob's arms tightened in response to her request. His kiss deepened until Johanna gasped against the heat he made in her. The joy of loving him, of desiring him, tumbled through her, feeding her starving senses and making her hungry for more. She rose slightly, letting her body flow into his in that wondrous unity. Rob drew a sharp breath at this then his mouth slashed across hers. Johanna's knees weakened with desire.

"Do not!" the prioress screamed from the corridor's opposite end. "Stop, I say," the churchwoman shouted, the angry tapping of her stick growing louder with each breath. "Adulterers! Sinners!"

"Stop, sinners!" the priest echoed.

This only made Johanna hold Rob tighter. Adultery or not, she would let no one separate them. Not today, or ever.

Rob lifted his mouth from hers. "It is not adultery to kiss one's own wife," he replied calmly.

"Wife?" Johanna breathed. Astonishment was followed by spiraling pleasure. "It was true, then? What we did was no lie?"

"It was no lie," Rob told her. The gray of his eyes was so soft with love for her that it took away her breath. "You love, are a bigamist, but no longer. The one who pretended to be your husband has suffered the fate he planned for us."

Tears filled Johanna's eyes. This was no fantasy. She had succeeded, and Rob had not abandoned her.

"Deceiver! Her husband is Katel le Espicer." The prioress came to a halt alongside them. Behind her stood her chaplain. The menservants had thought the better of this whole matter and remained at the far end of the cloister corridor. "It was Master Katel who brought her here demanding that I give her sanctuary against you, who had beaten her. To do so, she committed herself to Christ."

"I did not!" Johanna retorted, shocked that the prioress would lie about such a thing.

"I did not think you had," Rob replied, his mouth lifting into a smile.

He stepped back far enough from her to retrieve a fold of parchment from his vest. This he handed to Mother Sybil. "You'll pardon me my lady prioress, if I do not tarry to explain my rights to you. The abbot has done a much better job than I ever could.

As the prioress stared at the great disk of wax that hung from the skin by a thread, Rob placed his arm around Johanna and turned her toward the office door. His hand at the small of her back urged her to haste. They hurried through the small chamber into the courtyard.

Johanna stared in surprise at the dozens of mounted armed men who filled the space between the priory's simple wooden walls. At the troop's head rode a knight astride a tall brown warhorse. The nobleman wore full mail, the helmet and mail coif on his head obscuring almost the whole of his face.

"Are you so wealthy that you can afford to hire an army?" she asked in awe as Rob swept her toward the only riderless horse in the courtyard. A pretty chestnut color, it was as tall as the knight's destrier but lacked the heaviness of muscle, a merchant's mount, not a warrior's.

Rob shook his head and laughed. "Nay, not at all. At least I wasn't yesterday. When we combine our estates the matter may be different. Come love, I'd be gone from here before the prioress finishes reading what lies in that missive."

He grabbed her by the waist and lifted her into a sideways seat on the saddle then mounted behind her. Johanna caught her arms around his waist. Pulling herself into the shelter of his arms, she rested her head against his shoulder. When the nobleman saw they were mounted he gave a call that set his men into motion. Saddle leather creaked, harnesses jangled. Horses danced as they turned. As each man exited the priory's gate, he spurred his horse to its fastest speed. Rob turned his horse and followed the other men out of reach of the Church.

The quick pace they kept made all conversation impossible until they slowed near the crossroads. Johanna looked up at Rob. "We are not married then?"

If there was disappointment in her at this, so too, was there a touch of relief. Had her marriage with Katel been a lie then her son was now a bastard. She did not want that title for her child when neither she nor Peter had had any choice in his creation.

"Abbot Eustace believes we are," Rob replied. "However, it may well take a hundred pounds and years of bickering among churchmen to verify it. Against the possibility he was wrong, the abbot could not command the prioress to release you, had you indeed offered yourself to God. But I could not tolerate the thought of being separated from you for another day."