LordoftheKeep (16 page)

“You will not sleep on the floor.”

“I’ll not sleep with you,” she returned.

They stared at each other. How could he undo what he’d
wrought in but a few maddened moments?

“You will not sleep on the floor,” he repeated.

“I beg leave of you to allow me to return to a pallet in
with the spinners then, my lord.”

“And when I require your ‘services’?” he asked acidly, pain
flaring in his chest at the aloofness of her words, the formality of her
address.

“You need only command, my lord. Just as you would should
you have need of your
swineherd
.” She met his gaze head-on. There was
little point in hanging her head, but she felt a deep flush of shame spread across
her cheeks.

“As you wish,” he replied, noting her high color and wishing
he could reach across the distance between them and beg her forgiveness. But to
do so would make him appear weak.

Emma rose with great dignity and scooped up Angelique. The
child began to cry and stretched out her arms to Gilles. Emma whirled away,
ignoring her daughter’s entreaties, and left him. Angelique. He had lost her,
too.

* * * * *

May touched Emma’s shoulder. “Have you need of me tonight?”

Emma shook her head. “I have no more need of your help, May.
Go. Join the other women.” Emma did not hear any of Sarah’s words, nor May’s
either. The two women exchanged knowing looks as Emma curled about Angelique
and turned her back to the other spinners sleeping amid the looms that were
scattered like small trees about the long, warm room.

“Leave her,” Sarah whispered as May made to go to them.
Sarah’s solicitous care only honed the knife edge of Emma’s pain. She knew
quite well how the castle tittered over the devastation Gilles had wreaked in
his chamber.

Emma did not sleep. She stroked her hand over Angelique’s
curls. She was out of tears. They no longer dampened the wool of her pallet.
She listened to the snoring of one spinner and shifted impatiently on the
scratchy wool bedding. How soon one grew used to the luxury of privilege—or the
illusion of it. At least the scents here of wool and work were familiar and
comforting, and those of honest living.

She knew in her heart what ailed Gilles. Everywhere she
turned, William would be. He stood too close and whispered what he would have
her do to him when Gilles grew bored and withdrew his protection. Surely it had
been only a matter of time before Gilles imagined there was something between
them.

How could she make Gilles see it was not so? What if he sent
for her? She knew she would go. She could not bear to think that he did not
want her. She was his—but she was afraid.

She meant no more to him than any other of his servants.

Nay, that was not true. Her heart told her it was not true.
No man ever looked at a woman with so much concern or ardor. She must believe
it, else she was what he’d called her and nothing more.

Was keeping her vows to William a fruitless attempt to spare
her child bastardy? Or did she secretly know a lord would never pledge himself
to a lowly weaver, and so weaved a tapestry of reasons she was not free, could
not have him even if he so desired it?

His passions were as easily aroused to anger as they were to
lust. The passion of his anger frightened her. What if he struck her? If he
did, he might kill her with one well-placed blow. His strength was huge. He had
lost control of himself, and how she’d savored his loss of control when he’d
made love to her. Why had she not seen that his incredible passion could also
spawn incredible jealousy?

Emma wavered between anger with Gilles and utter shame. She
deserved his treatment for yielding up again that which should have accompanied
sacred vows.

Angelique stirred and shifted in her arms. Angelique. What
if the child provoked his anger? Her body tense, every muscle tight, Emma spent
the night awake, uncalled.

* * * * *

During the day Emma kept to her weaving, Angelique close at
her side. She ate little, as her stomach churned with anxiety.

“What ails the two of you?” Sarah asked as Emma threaded the
heedles of the loom.

Emma could not look her friend in the eye. “Leave it be. It
is of no consequence.”

“Humpf. Lord Gilles storms about the keep, berates all from
lowest villein to my beloved Roland, and you say leave it be. How may I help?”
The words were kindly spoken and brought tears to Emma’s eyes.

“There is naught to be done.” Emma bent and continued to
thread the yarn that would form the warp of the fabric she would weave. Her
hands were clumsy at the task, for her eyes were suddenly blurred with tears.

“You and Lord Gilles have fallen out.” Sarah was relentless.

“Lord Gilles despises me.” Emma broke down. She fell back to
the low stool behind her and pressed her head to her knees. “Nay,” she
whispered, her voice barely audible. “Nay, despise is not strong enough. I had
convinced myself I went to Lord Gilles to spare Angelique the hard life. In
truth, I went to him for the basest of reasons. He has forced me to see myself
for what I am—”

“Oh, child.” Sarah gathered Emma to her ample bosom and
patted Emma’s back.

Emma raised her head. “I am no better than the women who
sell themselves at the village alehouse. I barter myself for Angelique’s food
and warmth—and to gratify my own desires.”

“I do not think Lord Gilles feels that is so. I think his
rage bespeaks his love for you.”

“Love!” Emma shot to her feet. “He has never said the word!
He speaks only of desire. He has mistaken what is between William Belfour and
me, and it has made him blind. I thought he esteemed me enough to trust me, but
I erred. He holds me in contempt.”

“William Belfour? I wondered when his attentions would draw
the master’s eye.”

“Aye. I could kill William for taking what was sweet and
wonderful and making it naught but filth and sin.”

“Hush,” Sarah shushed Emma, for her voice had risen and
drawn the attention of the other weavers.

“Hush! Aye! Let us hide my sins. ‘Tis my own fault.” She
fell to her knees by her friend. “Oh, Sarah, Lord Gilles will take another to
his bed and I…I will die from the pain of it.”

“It might be better if you stayed out of Lord Gilles’ sight
for a while. Mayhap with distance Lord Gilles will see that you are everything
to him. My Roland believes him completely besotted with you…and the little one.
Is William her father?” Sarah dared to put the question no one else had asked.

“Aye.” Emma nodded. “I was so lonely. I convinced myself
that I loved him, when I only saw his face and form—”

“And believed his honeyed words!” Sarah interrupted.

“Aye, I believed his honeyed words. He denied me, denied
Angelique. I counted myself one hundred times blessed that he did when I met
Gilles. Oh, Sarah, Lord Gilles, he is…the air I breathe, the food my body
needs, the very soul of me.” Emma could not continue, she could no longer weep
either. Emma could not tell Sarah that trust was gone—gone in one brutal
instant.

* * * * *

Gilles allowed five days to pass before he gave in to a need
he refused to name. He had neither looked for Emma in the hall, nor
acknowledged her presence in chapel. The immense pride that had fueled his
anger now kept him equally incapable of reconciliation or apology.

But standing on the wall-walk at night, when the stars
blazed in the inky sky, in the place she’d first come to him, he felt the ache
of her loss. Finally, he told himself ‘twas just lust that made him feel so
wretched—and lust was easily gratified.

He took the tower stairs two at a time and wove his way
through the hall to find a willing wench. He watched Mark Trevalin wrap an arm
about a serving woman—one of William’s cast-offs—and lead her from the hall.
Were they all—himself included—doomed to sup at a table only if William had
finished first?

William sat by the hearth with two men-at-arms, tossing
dice. Three women, Angelique’s nurse among them, leaned over the men’s shoulders
making suggestions, cheering William’s luck.

Angelique’s nurse looked up, saw Gilles, and offered him an
invitation, squaring her shoulders and at the same time thrusting her breasts
forward. He had hardly noticed the woman beyond her solicitous care of the
child. That she thought little of trespassing on Emma’s territory annoyed him.
Then he cursed his own folly. A serving woman’s loyalty lay with the lord, not
his leman.

He ignored May’s invitation and others that presented
themselves as women sought the man who was master. None met with his approval.
His footsteps neared the long stone building where the weavers and spinners
slept. As lord of the manor, all men, women, and children in his care must obey
him. He had planned to order Emma to his bed, but now he realized he could not
face her refusal and returned to his chamber, angry and taut with leashed
desires and envies.

With a few terse words, he sent a sentry for Emma, unable to
ask her to come himself. When she stood silently by his closed door, her head
down, her shoulders bowed, hands clasped tightly before her, her posture told
him all. He had shamed her, cowed her wonderful spirit, mayhap crushed it
irreparably.

He stood confounded for a moment, unsure how to proceed.
He’d let too much time pass for words to come easy.

All their moments of lovemaking had been a mutual coming
together, with her often reaching out to him. He knew only how to command men.

His voice sounded harsh in the silent room. “You know why
you are here, remove your clothes.”

“And if I do not?” her voice trembled. “Will you beat me?”

He did not believe his ears. He whirled to the hearth. “Get
on with it,” he ordered.

The spinners, when they’d thought she was asleep, had
whispered wagers on who Gilles would favor next. It only twisted the knife
deeper that May was considered the most likely choice. Emma had tried to tell
herself it did not matter—if he called for her, she would refuse.

But when the summons came, she went, a tiny part of her
heart sure he wanted to beg her forgiveness.

Foolish heart.

Emma did not look at Gilles as she walked to the bed. Every
night for days she’d rehearsed the words she thought might heal the rent
between them, but his brusque manner struck her silent, held the words deep
within her. She lost the will to say them and knew only a bleak despair. He was
treating her like a leman.

Although a free woman, she could not disobey him. To do so
might mean she and Angelique must leave. She was not yet ready to sever the
tenuous connection she had to this man and make the trek back down the hill to
the village.

With her back to him, fingers shaking, Emma unlaced her gown
and dropped it in a heap. She sat down and slid her shift off her shoulders,
then pulled up the covers. Her heart raced and her palms were sweaty.

She heard him strip off his clothing. Her eyes began to
smart with tears. How could she endure his touch, grant his demands, if he
treated her with cruelty?

She loved him, could not bear to have him touch her merely
to gratify some base urge. How could she show him she loved him? How could she
ever say the words aloud?

The bed dipped as Gilles climbed in beside her. She felt a
trembling in her legs from the tension and fear.

Gilles leaned over her. The coarse weave of the linen sheets
mocked him, for they were from a less-skilled weaver’s hands.

The mattress quivered with the trembling of her body. It was
fear of him, he felt. It shamed him. He would not be shamed by a woman who was
but a servant. “You know why you are here. Do you so soon forget your duties?”

His words killed any hope in her heart. She froze as his
arms closed about her. He buried his face in her hair, his breath warm against
her skin. She shivered. Then he ran his hand over her and, before she could
prevent it, she rose to his touch, moved into his embrace, clung to him.

Whatever she had expected, it was not this, this gentle
caress. He made love to her with all the skill he had at his command. He worked
upon her senses, tantalizing, teasing, licking, kissing. She closed her mind against
him. She willed her mind somewhere else, but could not stem the liquid rush of
desire that flooded through her body. ‘Twas shameful to be so enflamed by a man
who held her in contempt.

Gilles claimed her. When finally he fell upon his back, his
heart racing, his body drained, he knew a deep pain that might never be
assuaged, for as he’d spent himself, he’d faced a terrible truth.

Despite the fiery response of her body, his Emma was not
there. He’d killed some precious part of her and, in so doing, part of himself.

Words spilled from his mouth before he could stop them. “You
will not hold back from me what you so willingly gave him.”

Something within Emma snapped. She rolled from his embrace
and slipped from the bed, then jerked on her clothes, tearing laces. “What I
gave him? What tales have you heard? William, aye, let us name him, had nothing
from me!”

She knotted her hands before her. “William Belfour! Let’s be
done with pretense. Aye, he was my lover and I thought my husband. And aye, he
is Angelique’s father. Did he claim her or me? Nay. Did he ever help me? Nay. I
birthed his babe in Old Lowry’s stable, with rats eating the birth sac as I lay
in a faint.

“Widow Cooper saved me, not William! Why should I feel any
loyalty, any caring for him? I was just a vessel for his lust. And why do you,
his lord, not take him to task for his behavior? Because he is a man—
your
man
—and I am but a woman?”

Gilles sat up. She looked him over. The bedclothes pooled
about his hips. Just a few moments before, his beguiling body had claimed her,
driven sense from her, maddened her. Now, the fire painted harsh shadows on his
face. Hard man. Hard heart.