Knight's Honor (15 page)

Suddenly Elizabeth's eyes were dancing with merriment. "Yes, Lady Leah is wily as the serpent. Did you ever find out, Roger, how you fell into that quarrel with—with Lady Gertrude just before you left London to go to France?"

"Lady Gertrude?" For a moment Hereford's eyes were blank and then he did remember. He had gone to stop the Earl of Pembroke from coming to court and had been drugged and fooled. On Pembroke's evidence he could have been imprisoned as a traitor, and, in a desperate attempt to make the evidence one man's word against another, he had been about to spread a tale that he had spent the time with a woman.

Matters had been taken out of his hands, however, by Lady Gertrude, who had been his mistress briefly. In front of Elizabeth and a whole crowd of loose-tongued court hangers-on, she had accused him of infidelity, raging and weeping and reviling. The tale had spread like wildfire and Hereford, embarrassed, chagrined, and unable to defend himself, had been believed to have been illicitly disporting himself in a manner that no efforts of his own could have brought about.

"Yes. That was Lady Leah's doing. She came to me and told me of your trouble. Even I could not think of how to help, but she bid me set Lady Gertrude on to you. How we laughed; I nearly choked to death trying to look outraged while that—that whore let you have the edge of her tongue. Not that you did not deserve it in general, even though that once you were innocent. Leah told me that Radnor nearly had a fit when she described the scene to him."

Hereford had to join her laughter although he was stung. "No, I never knew. I have a score to even with her then—and with you too. Could you not warn me of what was to happen?"

Shaking with remembered merriment, Elizabeth leaned her head against Roger's knees. "Oh, no. We counted on your shock and surprise to give veracity to your dumbness, and it did. Oh, Roger, Roger, never will I forget the look on your face." She sighed and sat up again, the laughter fading. "But this other affair is no laughing matter. If any definite hint of Henry's place or time of arrival comes to her or if she finds out that Arundel is involved in it, I would not put it beyond Maud to lead an army herself or risk military disaster in Norfolk or Gloucestershire to recall Eustace or Stephen. You know what taking Henry would mean to her."

"I do know. I wish I could meet him myself, but—"

"That would be worse. Once the fighting starts, not all your vigilance will be able to exclude her spies from the mass of men surrounding you and you will be watched closer than any other. If you move any force other than your own household guard, she will know. Another thing, be careful how much you drink at the coming celebrations so that your own tongue does not wag too freely."

"Do you think I need that warning, Elizabeth?" Hereford frowned and bit his lip to prevent himself from pointing out that if she slipped a word to her father or uncle they would be far more likely to be indiscreet sober than he would be drunk.

"Every man needs that warning. When the wine flows at table, men are all children together," she retorted dryly. "I think," she added, as if reading his mind, "that perhaps it would be as well to tell my father nothing more of Henry's coming. So long as you plan to take him to Scotland with you, his interests will be well served by that exhibition of his loyalty. You must tell him something, however, or he will look for trouble. It could do no harm to confide the plans for the fighting in Gloucestershire and Norfolk to him. He will be content to stay clear of it, I believe, if he knows he is to go to Scotland, and if he does talk it will not matter too much, because you want Stephen to know you are launching that attack."

The words barely made sense to Hereford because his desire was drowning his reason with the irresistible pressure of the incoming tide. With his last bit of resistance he asked steadily, "Will you tell him, or shall I?" But then, without waiting for her reply, he rose roughly and walked away. "I cannot bear to be so near you, Elizabeth. I am no more than a man, after all. You want of me what I cannot give. I cannot love you without desiring you. If that must lower me in your eyes to the level of a beast, then a beast I am."

Elizabeth stood up too, frightened by the change of mood. He had hidden his feelings so well that she had no hint of what was coming. An impulse to run away touched her briefly, but she was not the kind who ran away, and even if she had been, he was back beside her too quickly to have allowed her to act on it.

"Let me kiss you, Elizabeth. Let me have you. It is only six days more until our wedding. We are already betrothed—"

"If you have such a need," she gasped, "there are other women."

His eyes were almost black and glistened with the tears of his aching desire. "I do not want another woman. I am only a man, and I love you. Let me but touch you. If you are not willing I will force you no further."

Elizabeth went livid with her fear. She was only a little afraid of the act itself, having heard much both good and bad about it and seen every variety of domestic animal mate. What terrified her into near paralysis was the fact that she was willing—at least her body was willing. Her mind cried out that once she showed that willingness she would be only one more body. She would be Elizabeth no longer, no longer the companion whom a man could ask about the thoughts and temper of the queen, only another breeder of young who warmed a man's bed. Worst of all, though, was the little whisper that ran under all the thoughts telling her that the struggle was useless for once she gave in she would like it better so.

While she was frozen immovable between her strong will and her stronger craving, she lost the time in which she could have acted. Hereford pulled her hard against him, her back to his chest so that he could hold her, caress her, and press himself against her all at once. It was, perhaps, not the usual way to hold a woman, but to Roger of Hereford love was a fine art and he was not content with the usual. As long as he held Elizabeth thus, every sensitive part of her body was open to his hands while against her buttocks rose the insistent demand of his manhood.

Her lips alone he could not reach, but her lips were given often to her father, her brothers, and even for courtesy to favored male guests. He had accessible areas that were most unlikely to have been touched by other mouths, her throat, her shoulders if he could open her tunic, her ears, and the little spot just under and behind the ear lobe that had brought shudders and sighs from more women than Hereford cared to remember.

He had won many reluctant females to his will, from terrified serfs to previously faithful wives, and he was familiar with the rigid resistance that melted into uncontrollable trembling or helpless weakness. He knew too just the stage at which the trembling or weakness would change to voluptuous moans of acquiescence, only it had all been a game to Hereford previously and now he was in earnest. If by some chance he brought a woman so far in the past and she still rejected him, he might have been a little piqued but he had always known that any other woman would do just as well. Now the contrary was true; there was no substitute in the world, for him, who could take Elizabeth's place, and his recognition of that fact made him clumsy. His hands were not quite as sure as usual—he himself was trembling—and when he had brought her almost to the point of yielding his urgency robbed him of his controlled gentleness and he hurt her.

For some time Elizabeth had been leaning back against him without resistance, and he was no longer making any attempt to restrain her. He was unprepared, therefore, for the sudden desperate effort that tore her loose from his arms when that tiny, unexpected pain woke her from her sensual trance. The thrust carried her some three feet away and she faced him; both were panting, both trembling. Roger raged inwardly at his own stupidity. It was too soon for pain; that would come later when every aspect of gentler pleasure had been often savored. He moved slowly, cautiously, to his left to block the path to the door.

"Roger, do not—" Elizabeth faltered, with a pathetic attempt to keep her voice from openly pleading, "you said you would not force me."

"If you were unwilling! You cannot lie to me. I care not what your mouth says, your eyes, your hands, everything, tells me different. Elizabeth …" He came toward her, his gait a little stiff because he dared not move quickly for fear he would stampede her into flight. He could have rushed her; she would not run, now or ever, from him or anyone else.

"Perhaps you are right, Roger," she whispered, "but do not make me do this. Do not take my maidenhead from me before my wedding. Do not break my pride."

Pride, it was what he loved in her, what made her different from other women; he would not touch her pride. "Then tell me you are willing. Let me hear you say you love me and you want me and I will let you be. It is not easy for me to let you go—give me something."

What he asked of her was far more difficult, however, a greater blow to her pride than physical yielding. Unwittingly he had twisted a knife in a bleeding wound. Elizabeth's eyes were suddenly as alight as the golden flames leaping in the hearth.

"Yes, I am willing. Because I am sinful, because my will is not as strong as my lust, therefore I am willing. You will rule my body, I see it. No matter how I struggle, you always win because my lust answers yours. I cannot help it. Only remember that my soul is
not
willing, and when you have your desire of me the more eager I seem the more I will hate you, and myself, and the tie that binds us."

Hereford looked at her helplessly. "Elizabeth," he protested, "Elizabeth." But he was drained of strength and even of will, and he let her go, hurt more deeply than he realized himself.

CHAPTER 5

THE SIX DAYS THAT FOLLOWED WERE A NIGHTMARE TO ALL CONCERNED
in what Lady Hereford silently referred to as "this unhappy match." The nightmare quality was intensified to the Earl of Hereford who was living a life split in two parts and who was temperamentally totally unsuited to it. With the majority of his guests he had to remain madcap Roger while all the time his mind was busy with treason and his soul was sick with the knowledge that it was treason he was engaged in.

From Elizabeth, who could have eased his burden greatly by carrying on many of the negotiations with the men of the court who knew her and trusted her of old, he was completely estranged. It seemed, on top of everything else, horribly appropriate that with his companions he should hunt and hunt, kill and kill, until even that passionate sportsman, Chester, when wakened to ride out in the dawn of the day before the wedding, groaned that he never wished to hunt again.

"This is not sport," Chester grumbled at table that morning, "we are no better than butchers cutting the throats of sheep."

And Hereford, sitting beside him with hanging head, too tired to eat, felt that Chester was predicting his future. That was what he was to come to, a butcher. First a butcher of animals for the table and then a butcher of men. Of the two, the first was more laudable for that at least had some clear purpose. Was he to spend his life thus, drenched in blood?

Crazed, he told himself when the thought first passed through his mind. You are crazed. What is a little blood? Always there was blood, hunting as a boy, fighting as a man. Why does it matter now? But he drove his uncomprehending sisters distracted with his demands to be washed and to have his clothes cleaned, ignoring their pleading that he release them to serve the multitude of guests who by now had arrived, and his squires cursed him with elaborate oaths as they labored every night far into the dark hours to clean his armor and hunting equipment.

Still the odor and feel of blood hung about him, and he felt like the little stuffed figures that the jongleurs sometimes amused them with, laughing and jesting with his guests as the dolls did, without reality. Stuffed with odds and ends of fleece and rags as they were too, without bones, he went moment by moment in dread that the soft stuffing would collapse leaving him in a shapeless heap.

That evening was the worst of all, and Elizabeth, hearing her lord's high-pitched, nervous laughter, had ample cause to regret her hasty words. She had been regretting them all week, blaming herself with clear insight for more than Hereford realized she was responsible. She had tried more than once to have a few private words with him, but although he was unceasingly kind, courteous, and painfully gay, he had avoided any personal conversation, and his eyes were like blue ice, clear and cold and fathomless. Elizabeth swallowed the tears that rose in her throat and looked down at her hands to hide her emotion from the women with whom she was sitting.

"Elizabeth," said the sharp voice of her stepmother, "Lady Hereford is speaking to you."

"I am sorry, madam, I did not hear."

A smile passed around the circle of women; Lady Hereford repeated her question, some unimportant query about Elizabeth's clothes for the morrow, which she answered without really being conscious of what she said. All she could hear was Hereford's laughter. She started as a small, warm hand touched her cold one and looked up to meet Lady Radnor's large, greenish eyes. For days she had dared meet no woman's eyes, for her behavior had been unnatural and the glances she met were so often filled with contempt, compassion, or jealousy that she had been hard put to control her tongue. Leah's eyes held nothing but warning, however, and Elizabeth focused on the conversation around her with a sense of urgency.

"She is nervous, poor thing," Lady Hereford was saying, and speaking with sincerity. She did not like Elizabeth and told herself, untruthfully, that she never would, but Roger's treatment was working. So many women did not like Elizabeth that Lady Hereford was forced to protect her to vindicate her son's choice, and that sense of protectiveness was unconsciously making a place for the girl in her heart. "Roger keeps talking about great doings in such a mysterious way that he has even made me quite nervous. It is no wonder if the girl is upset. What with pushing her into this sudden marriage and threatening to run away almost the moment it is consummated to—"