Giles mumbled something behind her, whether in his tongue or badly spoken English she knew not, and then he stepped farther away, opening one of the chests that lined the wall with her clothing in it. Handing it to her without looking at her, he remained turned away while she gathered the soiled gown and pulled it over her head, replacing it with the clean one before climbing back into the bed. A heaviness now lay on her heart and she could do nothing but pray it would lift.
She heard him walking around the chamber, preparing for the coming night, and she waited for him to climb in next to her. Turning on her side away from him, she allowed the tears that had threatened for days to flow now, in silence, for all that she had lost and still stood to lose in the coming months.
Chapter Eight
‘What the hell did you do to her?’ Brice whispered furiously, his voice kept low so others would not hear. Giles’s friend looked around to make certain no one stood near and then repeated his question. ‘What happened between you?’
‘Nothing happened, Brice. Now see to your duties,’ Giles ordered, hoping Brice would take his hint and stop asking anything more.
‘She looks like a dog that’s been kicked down, Giles. She did not even rise to my bait as we broke our fast. She has done nothing but insult my intelligence, my plans and my actions these last days since you asked me to watch over her and the work she does for you. And this morn, she arrives at table and will not even meet my eyes.’ Brice glared at him. ‘Nor yours.’
When Giles tried walking around him, Brice stepped the other way and blocked him there. ‘What did you do, my lord Taerford?’
Giles huffed out a breath and looked heavenward, praying for patience in dealing with his friend. ‘I pleasured her,’ he admitted.
Brice crossed his arms over his chest and narrowed his gaze, watching Giles’s expression. ‘Against her will?’
‘Nay! I would do no such thing.’
‘And the problem lies…where?’ Brice asked, probing as a healer dug at a splinter.
‘She cried.’
Giles shook off his hold and walked out into the yard. There was much to do today and he really did not have the time to waste worrying over a woman’s tears in their marriage bed. He had not even forced himself on her and yet…yet. Brice caught up with him and they walked towards the stables.
‘I thought you were not going to bed her until you know if she is breeding or not?’
‘I did not,’ he answered. ‘But this was a simple bit of…?’ He could not think of the phrase so he waved Brice off. ‘I did not hurt her.’
‘Did you frighten her?’
That question brought him to a halt. Was that the problem? Had the response of her body to his touches and kisses frightened her? If so, did that mean she was innocent? Certainly she was inexperienced, that much was clear to him. He would swear on his mother’s soul that what had happened to her last night, under his hand, had been the first time she’d reached sexual release.
He glanced over at his friend, who stood waiting for his answer as though she were under his protection. ‘I may have. But why is this of concern to you? Have you nothing better to do with your time here than to plague me with questions about my bedplay?’ He crossed his arms and glared at his friend. ‘I wish Soren was here now for he could entertain you with stories of his exploits and you would leave me in peace over this.’
‘You asked for my help to watch over your wife, Giles, and to discover if she is still in league with Edmund. Work with her, you said. Judge her worthiness, you said. Discover if she is a traitor to you or a spy for your enemies, you said. I do not do this for the amusement, my lord. The work of a reeve and steward are more than I wish to do.’ Brice crossed his arms over his chest matching Giles’s own stance and glared back.
Truly, though Brice did not serve him, he had been invaluable during the attack to chase the rebels from Taerford and in these first few weeks of trying to organise the people and lands now his. He but waited on the king’s word and the king’s men to continue on to what would become his fief, Thaxted, in the north. And they both waited on news of Soren’s recovery from his battle wounds.
‘Your pardon, my friend. I did ask for your help. And your service has been very useful to me. It is just that this is a private matter, between the lady and myself.’ He realised the falseness of his words as soon as he said them.
‘Not learned that lesson yet, have you, my friend?’ Brice replied sarcastically.
And, as if to prove the point, the very subject of their discussion made her way out into the yard and towards where they stood, stopping along the way to speak to some of the men working there. The part that made Brice’s point in the argument again was the way everyone there looked first to the lady and then at him and back to her again. It seemed they all thought her in some way injured or mistreated…by him. He looked at Brice and hung his head in surrender.
Brice clapped him on the back. ‘Their lady is an innocent, raised amongst them and the one thing standing between them and their new invading Norman lord,’ he began.
‘Breton,’ he corrected.
‘It matters not to these people. She stands for them and you rejected her on your wedding night.’
‘I did not reject her,’ he tried to explain, but Brice stopped him.
‘You have not bedded her and they know it. But you gave them hope when first you saw to their protection and then when you asked for her help. They believe that they could survive with you. Now, this morn, they only know that something ill transpired between the two of you and they take her side.’ Looked at from that eye, Brice was correct.
‘I think it will take no more than a week before I know for certain. Either the lady bleeds or…’
‘She approaches now.’ Brice turned to her. ‘Have you told her that you are leaving?’
