Honor & Roses (18 page)

“How can I when she’s so close?”

“You could leave.”

“I am bound by my oath to my lord. I go only where he sends me.”

The priest sighed. “That is true. I have no easy answers for you, my son. You must pray for guidance and hope your urges pass. You must avoid the woman too, as much as you are able.”

“I already do,” he said, even though he sought Cecily out whenever he could.
Now I’m lying to a priest
, he thought.

As he left the chapel, he almost laughed out loud. Whatever devil chose to torment him had an exquisite sense of timing. He saw Cecily hailing him.

“I’m glad to see you on your feet,” she said when she reached him. “You’re the one to lead the party north. I’d like to ask you about the journey.”

“Yes,” he said. “I’ll be healed by then. You’ve nothing to worry about as far as your safety.”

“Who else is coming along?” she asked, her voice intent. “Octavian? Rafe?”

“Why does it matter?”

“Alric,” she said, keeping her gaze on the ground, “while you were at Hawksmere, I chanced to overhear a conversation between Rafe and Laurence. I didn’t hear much of it, but it troubled me. Rafe agreed to do something when
he
returned. But I don’t know who they spoke of.”

“You think they were speaking of me?”

“I fear so. I wonder…I wonder if Rafe wounded you deliberately.”

“It was a sparring session,” Alric said. “Injuries do happen from time to time. Rafe helped me walk off the practice ground. It was an accident.”

“Do you believe
this
was an accident?” Cecily lifted her hand and fleetingly laid it over his deepest wound.

Alric swallowed, trying to distract himself from her nearness. “Rafe has saved my life more than once. Why would he try to hurt me now?”

“Because someone gave him a reason to?” She shook her head. “I have no proof. Just a feeling.”

He closed his eyes, thinking. It was difficult when he could smell Cecily’s lavender sweetness. “Feelings are not enough to make an accusation,” he said finally. “But I know you wouldn’t speak unless you believed it was important.”

“Don’t let Rafe accompany us north,” she pleaded. “Ask Octavian to join us, if he is willing.”

“That decision may rest with Theobald. Would you take your suspicions to him?”

Cecily returned, “What would I say? We both know I have no proof.”

“Your uncle listens to you.”

“No, he doesn’t. If he did, I would not be married off like chattel taken to market!”

He wished he could comfort her, but what could he say that would not seem subversive?

Cecily sighed. “Such words are not becoming,” she said. “I ought not to have said them.”

“You were only speaking truth.”

“My uncle would not see it so, and he’s the one we must obey.”

“What would you have me do, my lady?”

She shook her head. “I know not. But I am grateful you are leading the entourage. To go alone to a new place, with no one to trust…at least you’ll be there for a few days. Until…”

“Until the wedding,” he finished. Until she was lost to him forever.

At the beginning of August
, Pavia, Runild, and Mary visited Meaholt once again. They were guarded by several men, including Alric.

Cecily was barred from returning there, despite all her arguments. She had to content herself with packing for her journey north, a task she despised. Agnes ended up making nearly all the decisions herself.

“I should be tending to the sick,” Cecily muttered from her seat at the window, watching for the group to return.

“You should be planning for your new life of being married to a lord,” Agnes said practically.

“I’ll ask Pavia, then,” Cecily said. “She was married to a lord for many years.”

Not long after Pavia returned from Meaholt, though, the older woman came down with a serious illness, and she was confined to the bedchamber. All questions about how to prepare for the wedding flew from Cecily’s head.

Pavia could scarcely breathe without coughing. She lay abed, and Cecily attended her as best she could. She made tisanes to drink, bunched mint to hang on the bedposts to sweeten the air, and prayed daily.

“You see, girl,” said Theobald, who’d come one day to see how Pavia fared. “What foolishness it is to go among the sick.”

“She wanted to help!” Cecily protested.

“She ought to have considered herself first,” her uncle said.

Cecily saw one bright spot in the clouds. “I can’t go until Pavia is recovered.”

“Don’t use her illness as a shield, Cecily,” he said. “You’ll go north, with Pavia or not.”

“But I won’t have a lady to attend me. I won’t have a family member with me.”

“Your nurse Agnes can chaperone as well as Pavia. It won’t alter the wedding at all.”

“How can you…”

“Enough, Cecily. You have no say in the matter. The words are spoken, the paper signed. It is done.”

She turned her head and waited sullenly until Theobald left the room.

Pavia took a wheezing breath, then said, “He’s right, you know.”

“I hate him,” Cecily whispered.

“You hate no one,” Pavia said. “You have no hate in your heart. Only love. Your husband-to-be is more fortunate than he knows.”

“Well, he would know if he bothered to come for me himself. Why could the marriage not take place here?” In the wake of Theobald’s pronouncement, Cecily needed to express her anger to somebody.

“Women go to their men,” Pavia said. “That is the way of the world. I left my father’s home and went to my husband’s. When I was widowed, I chose to come to my cousin’s home, because Theobald would take me in to help raise you. Men rule, women follow.”

“Tell that to the Empress Maud. If she followed
her
husband, she’d never leave the Continent.”

“She is a queen, and thus an exception,” Pavia said, “and judging by what is happening throughout this country, we may argue that her example is not one to be followed.”

“If I leave here, I’ll never see you again,” said Cecily.

“Oh, don’t start. I’ll visit you and stay till you beg me to leave. Or you will come back to Cleobury to show off your first child.”

At the thought of that, Cecily quailed, thinking of a whole new problem. “Oh, Pavia! You can’t send me up there alone! I’m to be wed and I know nothing about…my wedding night.”

Pavia bit back a smile. “That is easily remedied. I can tell you what you need to know now.”

“But…”

“Trust me, my dearest. Once it is your wedding night, there is nothing more to be said. That is between you and your husband.”

Cecily looked away. “I can’t. I just can’t.”

“You can, and you will, and with luck, you’ll soon enjoy it. There’s no sin between husband and wife.”

“What will he do to me?”

Pavia smiled. “Once you’re alone in the bedchamber—if he has any sense at all—he’ll kiss you. You’ve been kissed before, I expect, even if you haven’t told me.”

“Yes,” Cecily murmured, blushing.

“And the kiss was not so bad?” Pavia teased her.

“No.” Not bad at all.

“Then you’ll know how to begin. A kiss is always a good way to begin.”

“But then what?”

“He’ll certainly start to undress you, and kiss your body.”

“Oh.
Where
?”

“That depends,” Pavia said. “Tell him where you like to be kissed, or not. He ought to listen because he’ll want to show off and show he can please you.”

“I just have to stand and let him…do that?”

“Or lie down and let him do that. Most men aren’t patient creatures. But you need not pretend you’re asleep. Kiss him back. Touch him.”

“Touch him? Where?”

“Nearly anywhere.” Pavia laughed weakly, then coughed before continuing. “Ask him what he likes. Or he’ll simply tell you.”

Cecily said, “I can do that, I suppose.”

“Good. Because he’ll then do what a husband does. The consummation of the marriage happens in the bedroom. Usually.”

“How, exactly?”

“He’ll take your virginity. He’ll spill his seed in your womb. It hurts at first, but your body will grow used to him after a few nights.”

“And does the act take very long?”

Pavia reached out to take her hand. “As I said, most men aren’t patient. It may be a matter of a few minutes. Or he might choose to take his time. You’ll both learn how to treat each other. Don’t fear. Most men strive to please their wives. He’ll want to impress you and he certainly won’t want your eyes to stray to another.”

“Oh!” Cecily couldn’t even imagine that scenario.

“With luck, you’ll soon be with child. You’ll be a mother before you know it.”

“Alone.”

“Not
alone
,” Pavia said. “With your husband. The man who sought your hand and will be at your side. You’ll have him and you’ll feel as if no force on earth could stop you both.”

“Is that what you felt when you married?”

“It is.” Pavia sighed. “Those years were the happiest of my life.”

“Do you still miss him?” Cecily asked in a low voice. Pavia rarely spoke of her lost husband, other than the most cursory of comments. It was as if speaking too much of him would dull the memory.

There was a long moment of silence, where the only sound in the chamber was the breath of the two women.

“I do,” Pavia said finally. “I think of him every day, every night. No one has ever replaced him in my regard. I pray to be reunited with him when it pleases God to do so.”

Cecily blinked back tears. Pavia, who always seemed so much younger than her years, now looked exactly as old as she was. She looked frail and fragile. It was not merely the sickness in her lungs, but the weight of her loss. She bore it so well most of the time that it never seemed a burden. But in this moment, she revealed how much her love cost her over the years, as she kept her husband’s spirit so close that no other man could ever slip between them.

Cecily wondered if she would ever dare to love so fiercely. True love seemed a dangerous and chancy thing.

* * * *

A few days later, Cecily walked through the gardens, surveying each bed with a practiced eye. The servants would manage the gardens well enough after she left, but she still fretted after the plants as if they were her children. What if a dry spell scorched their leaves? Or if worms sapped the roots? Some of the herbs were rare, not to be found in most gardens. If they died, some products could never be made again.

But such was not her task today. Instead, she sought a rosebush to take with her to her new home.

She selected a rose which bloomed a creamy white and had a marvelous fragrance. A whole row of them grew along one path, so she could take one plant without fearing that a failed transplant would mean the loss of that variety forever.

She dug out the root ball and ordered a servant to find a container large enough to accommodate it. The man came back with an old barrel that had been sawed in half.

Once the plant was safely placed inside the barrel, Cecily added more loam and soil and watered it carefully.

“Just a few weeks,” she told the rose, “and you’ll be in new ground, with room to grow again.”

At first, Theobald told her that the rose was unnecessary, and there was no place for it among her goods.

Cecily felt a new calm as she replied, “If you wish me to go, the rose goes as well. If it stays here, so do I.”

He shook his head, grumbling. “You’ve become saucy, girl.”

“That will be my new husband’s concern,” she said.

“If you insist on such frivolity, we’ll soon need to pay for another cart, which means feed for more horses!” Theobald’s fixation on such minor costs showed he was merely trying to maintain his authority in the argument.

“I have been told Pierce of Malvern is a great lord,” she countered. “Will you forgo such an alliance to save on feed for two horses?”

He sighed heavily. “Saucy indeed. Do you truly need the rose?”

“It will remind me of my home,” she said. “No matter what, I’ll have a flower that I tended here, even if it is forced to bloom somewhere far away.”

The inevitable day came, and
the lady Cecily could delay her fate no longer, though Alric could tell she wanted to.