By Arrangement Part 18

"Apparently not. Still, her brothers sought to solve the disaster in the usual ways. They demanded to know his name so they could force a marriage, but she would not give it to them. Gilbert tried to beat it out of her, and still she would not say. And so they found another husband who would accept her under those circ.u.mstances and sought to have a quick wedding."

Christiana grimaced inwardly. She remembered that first night in David's solar, and him asking if she was with child. He had thought that it was the same story, and that he was the other man whose quick wedding would cover up a girl's mistake.

"She would not have him," he continued. "She was certain that her lover would return for her. She went to the priest and declared that she was unwilling."

Braver than me, Christiana thought. My G.o.d, what must have been running through David's mind that night as he faced me so impa.s.sively in front of the fire?

"What did they do?"

"They sent her away. There are some relatives in Hastings and she went there. Gilbert told her to give up the child when it was born. If she did not, all of their support of her would cease and she would be as if dead to them. Under no circ.u.mstances was she to return to London."

"But she kept you. And she came back."

"She was sure that her lover would come, and she knew that he would not know where to find her if she wasn't here. And so she returned quickly. Somehow she found Meg and began working with the laundresses. Meg served as midwife when I was born. Those early years, we lived in a small chamber behind a stable near the river. Besides Meg and the other workers, I was my mother's only companion. Gilbert and Stephen never saw her, and true to their threat, did not so much as give her a shilling. She could have starved for all they knew or cared."

"And you? Did you know who she was and who they were?"

"Not until I was about seven. And then I would hear of these men with my mother's name and I began to figure some of it out. Stephen began rising in city politics then. And I knew by then that I was a b.a.s.t.a.r.d. The other boys made sure I knew that. Several years later she became David Constantyn's housekeeper and things got better for her, although Gilbert and Stephen never forgave him for helping her. In their minds she deserved all that had happened to her. Her misery was the price of her sin against G.o.d and them. Mostly them."

He had told this story simply and evenly, as was his way. But she sensed that many other thoughts were tied to this tale, and that some of them concerned herself.

She remembered the drawing of this woman's face which she had seen, and looking at his perfect bones now, she could see his mother in him. But another face had contributed to these planes and deep eyes. An unknown face.

"What was her name? Your mother's name?"

"Joanna."

"And your father? Do you know him?"

"The only father I ever knew was my master. The first time I saw him, he scolded me for stealing one of his apples. He came out of the ivy garden as I sat beneath the tree eating it while my mother helped with the laundry in the courtyard. I talked fast and hard to get out of a beating, I'll tell you that. He gave me a good wallop anyway and dragged me back to my mother. A few weeks later he showed up while we were here and took me into the city to see a thief hang. On the way back he told me that there were two ways for clever men to get rich. One was through stealing and the other was through trade, but that the thieves lived shorter lives. By age eight I had done my share of stealing, and the lesson was not lost on me."

She pictured the urchins whom she sometimes saw on the city streets sidling up to carts and windows, running off with food and goods. She imagined a little David amongst them. Never getting caught, of course.

"He offered to marry her, I think," he added thoughtfully. "I remember coming upon them one day when I was about twelve. They were sitting in the hall. Something important was being discussed, I could tell. I sensed what it was."

"She refused him, you think?"

"Aye. I a.s.sumed then that he offered because he wanted me. We had become close by then, much like father and son. We even shared a name. She had chosen mine from the Bible, but it is an unusual name in England and I knew from the start that it fascinated him that I had it. Even her position herea" I thought he had accepted the mother to get the son. But I think now that maybe it was the other way around."

"Did she refuse him because of the other man, your real father?"

"Aye. Her heart waited long after her mind gave up. I despised her for that when I was a youth, but by the time she died I understood a little."

She thought of David's patient understanding during their betrothal, but also of his cruel, relentless prods about Stephen.

You still wait for him, after all of this time and when the truth is so clear. It is well that Edward gave you to me. You would have spent your whole life waiting, living in some faded dream. In not repudiating her, he had taken a horrible, painful chance.

She pressed herself against the warm comfort of his body, feeling the texture of his skin against her length. It touched her that he had told her about Joanna and his early life. Little by little, in ways like this, perhaps he would cease to be a stranger to her. She also knew that it was not in his nature to make such confidences and that only the intimacy of their marriage and pa.s.sion had permitted it. Without thinking, she rubbed her face against his chest and then turned and kissed it. She tasted the skin and kissed again. Her desire to give and take comfort and revel in their new closeness changed to something else as she kissed him, and impulsively she turned her head and gently licked his nipple. He touched her head and held it, encouraging her. A languid sensuality spread through her, and she felt the change in him, too. Only then did she remember that this was one of the things that the servant girl had told her about during her bath this morning.

He let her lips and tongue caress him a while longer, and then gently turned her on her back.

"I think that I promised you slow pleasure," he said. "Let us see how slow we can make it."

Much later, for David could make the pleasure very slow when he chose to, they lay together on the darkened bed, the curtains pulled against the dimming sounds and lights from the wedding party. Christiana began drifting into sleep in his arms.

She felt him move, and sensed him looking at her nearly invisible profile.

"Did you speak with him?" he asked quietly.

She had forgotten about that. Had forgotten about Stephen Percy and her anger and hurt with David. This day and night had obscured her suspicions about his motivations with her, and she really wished now that he hadn't reminded her.

He lives with realities, she thought. You are the one who constructs dreams and songs. But he had written that song about her, hadn't he? Not a love song, though. He thought her beautiful and had written about it. Perhaps he composes such melodies about sunsets and forest glens too.

"Aye, I spoke with him."

"What did he want?"

"Nothing honorable."

He was silent awhile.

"I do not want you seeing him," he finally said.

"He is at court often. Are you saying that I cannot go back to Westminster again?"

"I do not mean that. You know what I am saying."

"It is over, David. Like you and Alicia. It is the same."

"It is not. I never loved Alicia."

She turned her head to his. He had opened this door and she felt a compulsion to walk through it now.

"You never planned to let me go with him, did you?"

"I did not he when I said it, but I was sure it would not come up."

"And if it had?"

His fingers touched her face in the darkness. "I would not have let you go. Early on I knew it."

Why? Your pride? Your investment? To save me from your mothers fate? She could not ask the question. She did not want to know the true answer. A girl should be allowed some illusions and ambiguities if she had to live with a man. There was such a thing as too much reality.

"How did you know that I would come that day?"

"I did not expect it. I planned to go and get you."

"And if I wouldn't come and agree to your seduction?"

"I would not have given you much choice."

She thought about that.

"You were very clever, David, I will grant you that. Very careful. Lots of witnesses. Your whole household. Idonia. How thorough were you? Did you even save the sheets? Did you leave them on the bed until Geva had seen them the next day?" Her tone came out more petulantly than she felt. He kissed her temple and pulled her into the curve of his body. "The first time I met you and every time after you told me that you loved him, Christiana. Up until last Wednesday itself. Despite what happened between us when I kissed you, despite his misuse of you. Aye, darling, I was thorough. And calculating and clever. I deliberately made this marriage a fact and bound you to me. I took no chances that he might tell the lies that your heart wanted to hear so that he could misuse you again. Would you have had me do otherwise? Should I have stood back from this knight like the merchant I am? Would honoring my promise to let you go have pleased you?"

She trembled a little at the blunt force of his words. It sounded very different when he put it that way, when she saw it through his eyes. It had been so easy to forget how she had been before last Wednesday.

"Nay," she whispered, and it was true. She would not have been pleased at all if he had proven indifferent and had simply let Stephen lure her away. Another reaction that she feared to examine too closely.

The silence descended again, and after a time she relaxed in his embrace. Sleep had almost claimed her when she heard him laugh quietly in her ear.

"Aye, my girl, I was thorough and took no chances. I saved the sheets."

Chapter 14.

David was drowsily aware of the curtains being pushed back. He turned his face away from the flooding light.

"h.e.l.l," a man's voice said, pulling him awake.

He opened one eye a slit. Unless he was still dreaming, his wife was gone and the King of England stood beside his bed.

"d.a.m.nation, David."

Not dreaming.

"My lord?" He rose up on his elbows.

The King stared down with a frown. "Will you be wanting to repudiate her? Philippa a.s.sured me the girl was whole, I swear. I told her we should have her examined, but she and Idoniaa"

David looked to where the King gazed. The coverlet and sheets were bunched over to reveal a bloodless marriage bed.

h.e.l.l. The last thing he had expected was someone looking for evidence of Christiana's virginity. What was Edward doing here, anyway?

"Do not let it concern you, my lord. There will be no repudiation."

Edward's frown relaxed. "d.a.m.n chivalrous of you, David."

"I am a merchant and we are apart from chivalry. That is reserved for your knights. I a.s.sure you that my wife came to me a virgin, though. If I had thought that someone would seek the evidence this morning, I would have bled a chicken."

Edward looked at him blankly.

The man was still half besotted. David noted the red robe. The King had been here all night. Where and with whom? David decided that he didn't want to know.

"Do you need to see the original sheets? I have them," he offered with a laugh, but as soon as he said it he realized that Edward's mind had moved on.

"I want to speak with you. It will save you a ride to Westminster."

David glanced around the bed. Christiana's and his clothes were still strewn around the posts and floor.

"Perhaps in the solar?"

Edward nodded and drifted off.

David grabbed a robe off a peg in the wardrobe, threw it on, and followed. Edward stood by the solar windows with a speculative, hooded expression on his face. David joined him and glanced down at the courtyard. A red-haired serving woman from a nearby house lounged against the well, surrounded by the litter of the night's revelry.

Edward sighed. "I suppose I have to give her something, eh? h.e.l.l, I can't even remember." He patted his robe for evidence of a purse or coins.

"She is not a wh.o.r.e," David said. "Wait one moment."

He went back to the wardrobe and returned with a purple silk veil embroidered with gold thread. Edward examined it. "Awfully nice, David. Don't you have something plainer? I don't even know if I enjoyed myself. This would be good for Philippa, though. Peace offeringa"

David went to the wardrobe once again and fetched a blue veil with no embroidery.

"What, do you keep a whole box of them to give to your women?" the King teased as he stuffed them in his robe. "Best hide them from your wife. See my wardrobe treasurer about them."

David pictured himself arriving at Westminster without a debenture or tally to claim payment for two veils purchased by the King for his s.l.u.t and his neglected wife.

"Consider them gifts," he said dryly. "You wanted to speak with me about something?"

"Aye. The council met two days ago. It was decided to embark right after Easter. I'll summon the barons shortly."

David waited patiently for the rest of it.

"We received word that Grossmont engaged with the French and has secured Gascony," the King continued.

David nodded. Gascony, below England's Aquitaine on the west coast of the continent, was territory held by Edward in fief to the French king. Among the many points of contention between the two monarchs had been the degree of control which France wanted to exert there. Henry Grossmont had been sent to stabilize the area.

"Furthermore, he has pushed as far north as Poitiers," Edward said. "The port of Bordeaux is secure now. We will go in that way, join with him, and head northeast. I'll not be needing that last bit of information from you after all."

"Poitiers is a long way from Paris. The spring rains will make movement difficult."

"The council considered all of that. Still, our army and Grossmont's will be a formidable force. And debarking at Bordeaux will be riskless."

Presumably the council of barons knew what they were doing. They were experienced soldiers. But it struck him as a fruitless strategy.

Edward watched him with an amused expression. "You do not approve. Speak your mind."

He knew that a merchant's mind was irrelevant, but he spoke it anyway. "Bordeaux is a seven-day sea voyage. A long way to take an army by boat, and you risk bad winds. The French already await you at Poitiers. Even with a decisive victory you will be a long way from Paris. If the French crown is your goal, you must take that city and the royal demesne, must you not?"

"I will have twenty thousand with me," Edward replied jovially. "We will cut through France like a hot blade through b.u.t.ter."

Like all armies paid with spoils, yours will slog through France like a feather through cream, David silently replied.