Gytha fought against tensing. She wanted nothing to halt the tale he was about to tell. As she waited for him to continue, she prayed she would not hear anything that would hurt too badly.
“I must spit this out now,” he muttered, mostly to himself. “’Tis easier to speak of such follies in the dark.”
“One feels less bared to view.”
“Aye. Bek is my son.”
“I had suspected that.” She slid her fingers through his thick hair. “This color is somewhat rare.”
“This is a confidence.”
“I will tell no one,” she said, adding to herself, “except, mayhap, Margaret. Mayhap Edna too.”
“His mother is Lady Elizabeth Sevilliers. Her birth name was Darnelle.”
“Neither family is familiar to me.”
“You will come to know of both if we are summoned to court. Where the court is, there is Lady Elizabeth.”
“She is very beautiful, is she?” Gytha grimaced over the insecurity that prompted the question.
“Aye, very. Ebony hair, ivory skin, green eyes, and soft, full curves. I was very young, but one-and-twenty, when I met her. At sixteen, she was already well trained in the flirtatious ways of the court, her virtue already naught but a memory. But I was not only young, I was foolish. I thought her an innocent, overwhelmed and misused by the corrupt, sinful ways of court. I became her lover.”
A flash of pain made Gytha inwardly wince. She sternly reminded herself that she had been but a child of eight at the time. It was enough to push aside her hurt.
“How blithely she returned all my vows of love.” Thayer shook his head. “She let me believe there was a chance for us to wed, though I was but a landless knight. I sold my sword to an earl in the hope of a reward which would alleviate that. She carried on mightily when it was time for me to leave. It made me feel sure of her avowed love.”
“So you returned to her?”
“I did. Six months later, with no land but a heavy purse. It was heavy enough to purchase some small manor. She, however, was no longer at court. It took me over a fortnight to find her.”
“Where had she gone?”
“To a nunnery to bear my child. Bek was several days old when I found Elizabeth. She sat, listening calmly, as I told her of my gains and spoke of love and marriage. Then she began to laugh.”
Hearing the pain of humiliation in his voice, Gytha tightened her hold on him. She wished she could wash it from his heart, from his memory.
It was hard, but Thayer pressed on with his tale. “She said she had not thought me such a fool. Did I truly believe all she had vowed? I reminded her of the son she had just borne me. Surely that proved her love. Again she laughed. All that showed, she said, was that the tricks she used to stop my seed from rooting were not perfect. Neither were the methods she had used to rid her body of the child.”
“She tried to kill the child she carried?” Gytha whispered in deep shock.
“Aye, but Bek was strong. I found out later that his first breath could well have been his last. When left alone with the babe, she tried to smother him. One of the nuns caught her, and they took the child away. They excused her actions by saying she had been driven to near madness by the living proof of her sins. I knew she planned to leave no proof of her lack of chastity. You see, a wedding was arranged.
“I could not believe it, did not want to. Yet again I pressed her to wed me. She called me a fool to ever think she would choose a landless knight, one who must sell his sword for his livelihood, over the rich, titled Sevilliers. Over a man with many a rich holding. I told her he would lose his love for her quickly when he found her unchaste. She laughed off that warning. There would be blood spilt at the bedding, and the Sevilliers would be made to believe her virginal.”
“And so you left her, taking Bek.”
“I took Bek, aye. But I could not quit Elizabeth, and therein lies my shame. Not long after her marriage to Sevilliers, I became her lover again. God’s tears, but she could play upon the blindness of my heart. I thought myself her only lover. There were whispers of her wanton ways, but I stoutly ignored them.”
“But the whispers were true, were they not?”
“Aye, very true. I discovered that truth in a garden one night. She was frolicking with some courtier there, much like some hedgerow whore. Do you know, I think I was stupid enough to forgive her even that? It was what was said that finally broke her grip upon me. The man spoke as if he had gained some great victory over me by lying with her, one he could never have gained with a sword. She laughed, saying I was but the longest enduring of all her lovers. She said my besotted state amused her. The man confessed surprise at her bedding of one so large, so red, and so lacking in looks. She agreed that I was an ugly brute, well deserving of all the taunts, but I was handsomely endowed. I have not been near her since that day.”
He sighed. “Well, there is the whole ugly tale. Now, I must ask you—what of Bek?”
Hurt settled into a corner of her heart when she realized he had not said he had ceased to love the woman. She set that trouble aside. Right now, he needed her answer concerning his son. He needed to know that she would not scorn him or the boy because of the past.
“Bek is your son. He is a very good boy from what little I have seen. I would never turn him away because of some mischance about his birth.”
