Fayth sat on the floor before the large wooden chest, searching through it for the smaller casket where she kept her personal things. She had feared looking for it before this, for, by rights, it all belonged to her new husband. Surely, though, he would not begrudge her a few small trifles to remind her of her parents. Leaning against the chest, she opened the box that had been a present to her on the twelfth anniversary of her birth. The intricate carving and decorations were still beautiful and reminded her of the care that had gone into making the box.
Edmund had claimed to be inexperienced at woodworking, but the results proved him wrong. To this day, he would carve a piece of wood into small shapes when he needed time to examine his thoughts—or he had, before this war had come to their gates.
Moving the top items aside, Fayth reached to the bottom and took out the two rings there. Not big enough to draw attention, they both still carried memories of her parents. A matching pair, one larger for a man’s finger and one smaller for a woman’s, these were the rings her parents had exchanged at their betrothal ceremony. Her father’s liege lord had gifted them with the rings as a sign of his support for the coming marriage of Bertram, heir to Taerford, to Willa, a distant cousin of Earl Harold.
Searching in the box, she found the scrap of ribbon and tied them back together so as not to lose one or the other. Just as she was about to return the box to its place in the bottom of her chest she realised she was not alone. Looking up, she met her husband’s gaze.
‘What is that?’ he asked, coming towards her and crouching down. She handed him the box and watched as he examined it. ‘The workmanship is excellent. Is this yours?’
‘Aye, my lord. A gift from a…cousin,’ she replied, not wanting to mention and explain Edmund’s true place in her or her father’s life.
‘And inside?’ he asked, handing the box back to her.
She opened it and showed him the ribbons and circlets for her veils and then decided to show him the rings. As she held them out he frowned at them.
‘I know that they are yours by right, my lord, but they are all I have left of my parents and would beg—’
‘Do not beg, Fayth.’ He placed the rings in her hand. ‘These are yours and I would not take them.’ He closed her fingers over the rings and stepped away. ‘If I had wanted them, I would have taken them when my men found them.’
‘You knew of them? How?’ she asked.
‘My men searched everything in the keep, every room, every chest or trunk, every nook or hidey hole where something of value could be hidden. ’Tis the way,’ he said with a shrug. He turned as though to leave and then faced her again. ‘But what made you seek them out today?’
‘I have thought of little else this day, but my parents. When you stood in the hall and announced yourself lord here, accepting the pledges of those in service to you, and when you faced me so forthrightly and tried to make me understand about my father’s death and your part—’ he raised his brows at that, so she continued ‘—or not in it, or then the way you gave me orders about the village, all of those things reminded me of the way my father and mother ruled here.’ She climbed to her feet and held the rings out to him once more.
‘I would like you to keep these as a sign of my pledge this day to you.’
She’d surprised him, she knew it, for his mouth opened and closed several times before he actually spoke. ‘Nay, lady. I have no need of your parents’ rings.’ Fayth watched as he took the rings from her, placed them back in the box and handed it to her, looking on as she placed it back at the bottom of the chest.
‘I would ask for your honest efforts rather than a grand showing like this. And, though I am not questioning your intentions, I think you do this from all of the emotions of this day and not in the same way that those in the hall pledged to me this morn.’
‘But you demanded it of them, and you accepted their gestures,’ she argued. ‘Do you not expect the same of me?’
‘What I want from you is different, lady. I want more than just your labours or words. I want you, heart, body and soul.’
Overwhelmed by his words and what they meant, she shivered. ‘But you do not want me. You said you will not…’ Now when she needed to say it, the words escaped her.
‘Bed you?’ he offered.
Fayth shook her head, no longer trusting words.
Lord Giles stepped closer and took her hand once more. Pulling her towards him, he lifted his hauberk and placed her hand against his body. That part of him sprang to life, hardening as he held her hand there.
‘Oh, make no mistake, lady. I want you.’ He released her hand and she drew it back, feeling out of breath from the contact and what she knew it meant. ‘If I could believe your words, I would take you into our chambers, strip you naked and not stop until we exhaust ourselves in bedplay.’
Before, she might not have understood, but after last evening’s pleasuring she could only imagine what that meant. Her body grew hot and wet in the places he’d touched as she waited for his words…or touch. He dropped the shirt of metal from his grasp and took a breath then.
‘Wanting you is not as important to me as knowing the truth and so I wait. But know this, I am tempted today to believe your words. I want to believe them. It is just not in me to do that now.’
If he’d said those words a day ago, they would have infuriated her. Now, after his disclosures today in the chapel, she understood a bit better his need for proof. Though it still stung her that he could not—or would not—believe her. Bastards were part of life and many in their culture inherited alongside their legitimate siblings, but she knew that was not generally true in Norman or Breton life. And in spite of Giles’s duke being one, it was still not accepted by most in high standing.
‘Very well,’ she said, trying to understand and yet not. ‘Were you looking for me, my lord, when you came in?’ She brushed her hands over her tunic to smooth it.
‘Ah, yes,’ he said, smiling at her. His eyes seemed more blue now and his face appeared much younger when he smiled, not so fearsome as it did when he raged in anger.
‘I decided to wait until the morrow before leaving to see the extent of the lands. So I thought that you and Brice could share the noon meal with me and we can make plans about moving whatever supplies are left in the village to the keep on my return?’
‘Very well, my lord. Mayhap someday you will reveal to me what places Brice so far in your debt that he will follow me around with little argument?’
