He took her by the shoulders and looked down into her face. He could feel her quivering beneath his fingers, and he smiled a slow smile. “Arabella is to be my wife, sweet Row. Soon enough I will see her both in and out of her shift. There is no lack of propriety here. Will you not be with me?” Then taking her hand, he practically dragged her off to Arabella’s chamber, which was located on the floor above the hall.
FitzWalter’s young daughter, Lona, sat upon the bed, playing a game with pebbles with Arabella. Looking up at him, they both began to giggle, and Sir Jasper playfully threw himself on the bed between them. Lona shrieked a sound that was almost kittenish, and he reached out to tickle her ribs. Lona squirmed and wiggled, her laughter rising even as Arabella threw herself upon them.
“No! No! Lona is the most ticklish girl in the world, my lord. Have mercy!” Arabella cried.
For a moment he ceased his frolic, and then turning his gaze on her, he said, “And are you ticklish, Arabella,ma petite?”
“Nay!”
“Liar!” he retorted, and before she might escape him, his fingers reached out to find her.
“Ohhhhh!” Arabella gasped, laughing wildly, tears coming to her eyes. “Stop! Stop!” And she writhed desperately to escape, her shift riding up to display her naked legs and bottom.
“Arabella!”Rowena’s voice was shocked, but her shock was more due to the fact that Sir Jasper’s hands seemed to be everyere upon her daughter’s body. They skimmed lightly over her barely-forming breasts, brushed casually over the girl’s belly and lower.“Arabella! Sir Jasper!Stop it this minute. Lona! Get off the bed this instant and pull down your skirts!” She dragged the little girl onto her feet and then reached out for Sir Jasper.
At the touch of her hand upon his shoulder, he immediately ceased his frolic with Arabella and, turning, looked full into her face as he said, “If our life together is to be so happy, I regret the necessity of our waiting to celebrate this marriage.” He stood up, giving Arabella a pat upon her bottom even as he drew the negligent shift back down to a more respectable level.
“My lord!” Rowena said angrily. “Arabella is ill and must stay quiet. I cannot allow this outrageous rollicking. Lona! Go to your mother and help her with the laundry.” With a sudden chastened look, Lona curtsied to her mistress and scampered from the room.
Rowena took her daughter’s rosary beads from the girl’s bedside table, saying as she did so, “Say your beads, Arabella. It will calm you and hopefully restore you to a more obedient spirit.” She handed the rosary to her daughter. “Come, my lord. We will leave Arabella to her meditations.”
“I wish we were wed now too,” Arabella said defiantly to her mother. “Then I should be my own mistress here at Greyfaire!”
“Apologize to your mama,ma petite,” Sir Jasper said quietly. “She thinks only of your good.”
Arabella’s lower lip quivered mutinously, but then she said, “Pardon, Mama.”
Rowena flew across the room and, bending down, hugged her daughter. “You are forgiven, my darling, but now rest. I know how very much you dislike being ill.” She kissed her child upon herforehead and then led Sir Jasper from the bedchamber. Once again in the keep’s hall, Sir Jasper turned to Rowena and said, “Arabella will be twelve at the end of March, will she not?”
“Aye, my lord,” Rowena said, giving him a goblet of wine as he stood by the fire.
“Plenty of girls are married at twelve, lady. I will not truly be master here at Greyfaire until I am your daughter’s husband.”
“None here have denied you, my lord, and both the king and the queen have said the wedding may not take place until Arabella is fourteen, or more.”
“But if you asked them to allow the marriage now, I doubt that they would gainsay you,” he said. “I have needs, madame, if I may be blunt with you.”
“Needs?”For a moment she was puzzled, and then Rowena’s cheeks flamed.
He shrugged his shoulders. “I am a man, madame. If I do not have a wife with whom to satisfy these needs, I must find another. Sooner or later word of my nocturnal roamings will reach your daughter’s ears. She will be hurt, and she will be angry. Virgins like Arabella, raised gently, do not understand the darker nature of a man. I regret my weakness, sweet Row, but what can I do?”
“Could you not take a mistress, my lord? Many men do,” she said.
“Whether I visit one woman or a dozen, my comings and my goings would still be commented upon,” he said. “I can see but one solution. I must wed your daughter in the spring.”
“No!”
He saw the agony in her eyes, and suddenly he decided that the idea must come from her own lips and hers alone. “What other choice have I, sweet Row? For months I have kept my desires in check and at bay, but even as winter draws to a close and the sap begins to rise in the trees, so my passions begin to rise once more.”
Rowena swallowed hard. “My daughter is still a child, my lord, and not yet ready for childbearing.”
“She can still be a wife in the fullest sense,” he said with meaning.
“She is not ready for such things, my lord. I fear that you could injure her, though certainly you would not hurt her deliberately, I know. What can I say to you that will convince you not to force this marriage?” Rowena’s pretty face was a mask of motherly concern and fear. She could not help wringing her hands with her worry.
He took one of those hands, and turning it palm up, planted a kiss upon the fragrant flesh. Then their eyes met, even as he said softly, “What other choice have I, sweet Row?”
She knew. She knew what she must do to save her child from what would amount to virtual rape. This, then, was to be her punishment for her lustful and wicked thoughts. She would become Sir Jasper Keane’s whore that Arabella might be spared hisneedsuntil she was old enough to serve them herself as his wife. So great was Rowena’s shame and her guilt that she could bring herself to say nothing more but one word,“Tonight,”before she turned away from him, pulling her hand from his grasp and walking from the hall.
