Hellion (13 page)

Rolf had known that Alette’s late husband had not been a particularly kind man; but now he was certain that Robert de Manneville had been a brutal lover who had terrified his wife. Hugh was not that sort of man. “Lady,” Rolf said in kindly tones, “your daughter is a happy woman, I swear it! Did you not look at her when she came with her lord to the meal? She glowed with happiness. Hugh is a kind man. He should never misuse a woman. You are mistaken in your assumptions.”

“Am I?” Alette’s blue eyes were grave as they looked at him. “Why were they not up with the dawn and about their usual business? Why did he take her back into the privacy of the solar if not to use her over and over again?” She shivered with distaste, realizing as she did that Rolf’s arms were about her.

“The lady Isabelle did not look either abused or unhappy,” Rolf said softly, seeing her confusion and removing his arms from her person. “I have known Hugh since we were children. We shared our first woman, and have had many adventures together. He is a gentle lover. Women have always enjoyed his attentions. So I believe it to be with your daughter, my lady Alette.” Rolf remained kneeling by her side where he might make eye contact with her.

Her blue eyes looked at him disbelievingly. “
Enjoy that
? “she whispered. “How could any decent woman enjoy a man’s lust?”

“I think she could if it were co-joined with her own,” Rolf replied. “Have you never felt lust for a man, my lady Alette? Not even once?”

“I was fourteen,” Alette explained candidly, “when I was married to Robert de Manneville. Because I was orphaned young, I lived with my aunt and uncle until I was ten. Then my cousins and I were incarcerated within a local convent where
we were to remain until suitable marriages were arranged for us. We saw no man there but the ancient priest who heard our confessions and administered the sacraments to us. I knew Robert de Manneville only by sight as a child for he was one of my family’s neighbors. There was no courtship. He was a virtual stranger when I married him. I have known no man but Robert de Manneville. I am ashamed to say I never felt anything for him except perhaps fear, and loathing.”

“He was cruel to you,” Rolf said. It was a statement, not a question.

Alette gazed at him through bleak eyes. Then to his surprise she began to speak further, telling him of the horrors she had endured on her wedding night and the nights that followed, until she was mercifully relieved of her spousal duties by her pregnancy. And of afterward, when Robert de Manneville could not function with her in a normal manner, and held her responsible for his failure. She spoke of his cruelties, of the beatings she endured at his hands. Finally drained, Alette grew silent once more.

After a long moment Rolf said to her, “If you were my wife, Alette, I should treat you with respect and use you gently. I would teach you to sing with joy at my touch. You should never be afraid again,
if you were mine.
” He was shocked by what she had confessed to him. Many men of his generation had a tendency to be over-rough with their women, but neither he nor Hugh had ever been deliberately cruel to the fairer sex. To take a maiden’s virginity while forcing her over the neck of a horse was horrific. He wanted a chance to prove to Alette that not all men were brutal; that passion could be sweet.

“I will never marry again even if the king commands me to do so,” Alette said with grim determination. “I should die before I placed myself into the keeping of another man.”

“But Hugh Fauconier is now lord of Langston,” Rolf reminded her. “You are already in his charge, my lady Alette.”

“He will not distress me if I keep his house well, Rolf de Briard, nor will I be forced to serve his baser desires. That, alas,
my poor Isabelle must do.” Suddenly she was very aware again of his close proximity to her. Alette flushed nervously, and seeing it, Rolf arose from her side where he had been kneeling.

“Hugh will never send you away, lady,” Rolf told her, “but you will have no real place in this household once your daughter takes up her rightful duties. What will you do then? You are yet young, and you are far fairer than your daughter.”

“You should not say such things to me, Rolf de Briard,” Alette chided him. “You are, I think, too bold a man.”

“Nay,” he said with a slow smile. “I have certainly never been called
too
bold, madame, rather the opposite; but I now give you fair warning that I mean to court you. My lord Hugh has absolutely no objections, for I have already expressed my admiration of you to him. I shall prove to you,
ma petite
Alette, that not all men are uncaring and cruel. I shall teach you to crave my touch, to enjoy it when we make love. You shall be my wife, and only my loyalty to Hugh Fauconier and King Henry will take precedence over my love for you. What say you to this?” His look was warm, his voice firm with his resolve.

“I think you quite mad, Rolf de Briard,” Alette answered him. “I have already told you I shall take no man to my bed again. I will not be at your mercy as I was at the mercy of Robert de Manneville!”

“I think my lady Isabelle gets some of her spirit from her mother, not just her father,” Rolf teased Alette wickedly. “You have the most tempting mouth,
ma petite.
”

Startled, Alette blushed, then standing abruptly, she fled the hall for the relative safety of her chamber. Rolf de Briard
was
too bold, whatever he might say of himself. Yet his words touched her in ways she did not understand. No man had ever spoken to her as he did. Certainly not her husband. Was this what her cousins had called
wooing
? Her conversations with Robert had been mostly one-sided. He would tell her what he desired. She would obey. He would criticize her for some fault,
real or imagined. She would abjectly apologize for whatever it was that displeased him.

Not once in all the years that she had been married to him had Robert de Manneville said he loved her, that he cared for her, that she satisfied him in any manner. When Isabelle had been born, he raged at her for her failure to produce him another son. He had not thanked God, or His Blessed Mother, for her safe delivery from the perils of childbirth, or for the healthy baby daughter he now had.

His two sons were little better than their father. William, the elder, seemed, to hold her responsible somehow for his mother’s death, although she had known neither of the de Mannevilles prior to her marriage. William had been eight years old when his mother had died from the complications of a stillbirth—a third son who was buried with her, Robert was forever reminding his second wife. Sibylle had been a woman who knew her duty. William had been his mother’s particular pet, and while Alette knew she could not replace Sibylle in her son’s heart, she hoped at least to be a good mother to him. He, however, would not allow it, and the horrific old woman who was his nurse, who had been his mother’s nurse as well, encouraged the boy in his rudeness, in his misbehavior, in his open hostility to his young, uncertain stepmother.

Richard, her younger stepson, had been only a littler easier. The second son, he had been no one’s child really. Richard enjoyed the attention Alette gave him, for at five years of age he was yet in need of mothering. Still, the poor child was torn between his kindly stepmother and his elder brother, whom he very much sought to please. In the end his behavior was scarcely better than William’s, until William at age fourteen had returned to Normandy to oversee the estate that would eventually belong to him. Richard, of course, had assumed that Langston would one day be his. His displeasure in learning several years later that it would not, but would rather go to his half sister, was not pleasant.

“Could you not have spoken up for me?” he raged at his
stepmother. “A large dowry would be good enough for Isabelle, would it not? A wench with a fat purse is a respectable match for a landed man. You have worked your wiles upon our father, and allowed him to leave me landless! William warned me! He said that you loved that red-haired changeling you birthed far better than you loved me. I have been cheated. I will never forgive you.” Then he had returned to Normandy, joining his brother at Manneville. Alette had not seen him since, which had actually been a great relief. Such had been her experience with men.

Now, here was Rolf de Briard, murmuring soft, coaxing words into her ear, setting her heart to beating as it had never before beat, confusing her totally! Men were absolutely not to be trusted. Had life not taught her that, even if it had taught her nothing else? Still, she had to admit that Isabelle had not appeared to be in any distress. If anything, she had had a look about her that reminded Alette of a large ginger cat that had gotten into the cream. Alette had experienced few surprises in her life, but she had to admit that this was one of them. What on earth could have turned her fierce-tempered daughter into a smiling, well-tempered young woman? Had her son-in-law threatened his bride? She had not heard any cries, although she sat up half the night in the hall listening, until Ida had come and made her seek her bed.

In the days that followed, Alette watched carefully, but she saw absolutely no indication that Isabelle was unhappy. Her daughter, in fact, was beginning to take a strong interest in the household duties of a chatelaine. She asked questions constantly about preserving food, making soap, and all manner of things relating to the running of the house. She also seemed to be the instigator in leaving the table with her husband immediately after the evening meal. Some nights they would not even stay at the high board, but rather take bread, meat, cheese, and wine into the solar, closing the door firmly behind them. Once she heard Isabelle laugh in so seductive a tone that Alette was
positively shocked. The sound was positively lustful. Rolf’s eyes met hers and he chuckled.

“You need not be so smug!” Alette snapped. “He has bewitched her. Like all men, he will eventually show his true colors.”

“You are being very foolish,
ma petite
,” Rolf told her.

Several days later Hugh and Isabelle fell into a raging argument. Isabelle ran to their chamber, angrily slamming the door shut behind her.

Hugh dashed after her, furiously pounding upon the door to the solar as he shouted, “Open this door at once, Belle! I will not be denied my own bed because of your idiocy!”

“The door is not locked, you lumbering oaf,” Belle shouted back for all to hear.

Alette watched in terror as her son-in-law burst through into the solar, banging the door so hard behind him that it shook upon its hinges. Those remaining in the hall could hear the tempestuous uproar going on behind the closed door. There was much shouting. There was the sound of crashing crockery. Then suddenly all was very silent. Alette ran to the door of the solar, frantic, but she could hear nothing.

Trembling, she whispered to no one in particular, “
He has killed her!
He has every right. Ahh, Isabelle!”

“More than likely,” Rolf said soothingly, “he is kissing her. It was, after all, just a lover’s quarrel,
ma petite.
”

“How do you know that?” Alette demanded as he gently drew her away from the solar door and brought her to sit in a chair by the fire.

“My lady Isabelle saw Hugh speaking with a
very
pretty serf this morning. The girl was shamelessly flirtatious, flaunting herself at her master. Hugh was amused. He quite enjoyed her behavior, though he did nothing to encourage her. I observed the lady Isabelle watching the wench with her husband. Have you not noticed that she has been sniping at Hugh all day? The lady Isabelle is jealous. I believe she is becoming quite fond of her husband. They are, I suspect, at this very minute resolving
their differences in that age-old negotiation known to lovers the world over. Besides, Hugh is not a violent man,
ma petite
. It is more likely the lady Isabelle would strike him than he her. Your fears are, as usual, groundless.”

Alette said nothing, and Rolf believed the matter solved, particularly when Ida came to take her mistress off to bed. Rolf bade her sweet dreams and continued sitting by the fire, watching the flames leap and dance amid the great logs. Then he dozed, waking suddenly at a sound he could not quite identify. Reaching for his sword, he carefully looked about the hall. All was exactly as it should be. He stood up, and when he did, he saw Alette, in her white chemise, crouching by the solar door. With a sigh he went to her, speaking gently in soft tones.

“Alette, my petite, what are you doing?” Her hair was loose, and her eyes had a wild look to them.

“I cannot hear anything,” she half sobbed.

“Because Hugh and my lady are either sleeping or involved in each other,
ma petite
,” he told her. Bending, he raised her up.

Alette looked straight at him. The expression in her blue eyes almost broke his heart. “I am so afraid,” she said low.

He caught her up in his arms as she crumbled into a swoon. For a moment he just held her, uncertain as to what he should do. How could he return her to her chamber without arousing the two serving women who slept with her? They would raise a fine hue and cry. Then Alette’s fears would be known to everyone. There was no one, Rolf knew in his heart, who could cure her of those terrible fears but a tender lover. He walked swiftly to his own chamber, opening the door without dropping her, and laid her upon his bed. Then shutting the door behind him, he disrobed but for his linen chemise, and climbed into the bed next to her.

Alette stirred. “Where am I?” she murmured.

“You are with me, in my chamber,” Rolf said quietly.

She trembled. “Let me go, my lord,” she begged him.

“The door is not barred, Alette,” he told her, “but if you stay,
ma petite
, I will show you that you need not fear a man’s desire.”

“You would coerce me?” Her voice was ragged as she forced the words out. Then she shuddered again.

“
Never!
” he declared vehemently. “I would take nothing from you, Alette, that you would not freely give me. I am not a barbarian, I have told you that before. Because Robert de Manneville was a brute, you believe all men to be brutes, but it is not so. You fear for your daughter, but the lady Isabelle revels, it is clear, in the passion she shares with her husband. If you choose to leave me now, I will, of course, regret your going, but I will understand, and I will be patient. You may not believe it now, but I have loved you from the moment I first saw you. You know I want you for my wife. I will have no other woman if I cannot have you,
ma petite.
”