“I do not care.” He paced forward to tower over her. “You see, Mary, I am glad you have conceived, but nothing more. It changes not what you have done, or what you are. As soon as you have recovered from the ordeal of the journey, I am sending you back to Tetly.Nothing has changed.”
Mary choked on a sob and covered her face with her hands. It was as she had feared. Stephen had not forgotten, nor had he forgiven her, and he intended for her to bear his babe in exile.
Slowly he walked to the door and paused on the threshold without turning to face her.
Mary looked up. “Stephen,” she whispered. It was a plea.
He did look back, but reluctantly.
“Take me back. I love you. I need you. How I miss you.”
His jaw tightened. He turned and left the room.
The household was asleep.
Except for Stephen, who knew sleep would never come to him that night. He stood alone in the hall before the dying fire. He was anguished.
It had not been easy, these past few months. He hated Court but, once delivering Malcolm’s three sons into Rufus’s care, he had chosen to stay. The decision had been a cold, calculated one. Although he did feel obligated to make certain the three boys were well cared for, he mostly wished to remain as far from his treacherous wife as was’ possible.
The distance that separated them, though, could not wipe away the memories. She remained a part of his mind. He could not shake her from his thoughts no matter how he tried. He woke up to her image, sometimes playful, sometimes serious, sometimes wanton and wicked. He went to sleep with her image. She haunted him far better than any ghost could.
Stephen stared at the fire, but he saw only Mary. Mary, his wife, who had become even more beautiful, as if she had not suffered at all during the long winter of her exile. Beautiful and so very pregnant. He could not tamp down the rush of choking emotions. Dear God—he had actually missed her.
These past few months he had thought that he hated her, and he had allowed his hatred to consume him, nourishing it, even relishing it. He knew that he would never be able to forgive her leaving him in a time of war, pledging her loyalty to her home and kin instead of him. The hatred was so welcome, because it eased the hurt. A hurt he must not, at all costs, feel.
But feel it, he did. The hurt consumed him, too.
But he had been lying to himself. He did not hate her after all.
For he had given her the greatest gift that he ever could, that day when he had given her the rose; he had given her his undying love. If only he could take it back. But he could not. A man such as he only loved once and forever.
It would not do. Stephen paced. He must be insane. Tonight he confronted feelings he did not want to face, much less to own, but he could not rid himself of them. Perversely, he did not even want to really be rid of them.
But how a man could miss a woman who had committed such treachery escaped all logic. How a man such as he, with such an iron will, could love such a woman, such a treacherous woman, defied all rationality. But now he understood the greatest mystery of the universe, too late. How obvious, how profound, it was. Love was not rational, could never be rational; its mere definition defied rationality. Love was sown not in the power of the mind, but in the power of the heart.
He must not cave in to his obsessive love, his obsessive need for her. He must not cave in to the burning desire.
If he gave in to his desire, he would lose, not just the battle, but the war. How well he knew that.
For no other woman could give him satisfaction; he had discovered that well in these past months of separation. There had been a few other women, all whores, women whose faces he did not remember and whose names he had forgotten, but the encounters had been brief, impersonal, and merely a physical outlet for his perfunctory lust. Nothing at all like being with Mary.
Stephen closed his eyes. He ached for her. Even now, knowing better, he was as hard as a rock, desperate for the release only she could give him. He was desperate for the release she would provide his loins, and desperate for so much more. In truth, was he not desperate for her love? A love she would never give him.
He would not go to her, he would not.
For if he did, even once, he would be lost.
How tempted he was.
She had not changed—he kept repeating that lifesaving litany to himself—thus he could not allow her back into his bed … and his life. She was too dangerous. She still had power over him. That had not changed, either.
He knew that he had made the right decision. As soon as a physic pronounced her fit, he would send her back to Tetly. It was his only hope.
The only problem was, he did not know how he could stay away from her now that he had seen her again, now that she was there in his house, just up the stairs, asleep in his bed.
While Stephen paced in front of the fire at Graystone, Henry lounged in a chair on the dais in the Great Hall at the White Tower. The hall was a shambles. It had been a long evening, with much entertainment and feasting. Most of the visitors lolled drunk on the benches of the endless table, a few copulated freely in the shadows with serving maids— and serving boys—and many snored from their places on the floor.
Beside Henry, his brother the King was finishing yet another liter of wine, as well as the explanation of his latest plans. William Rufus had decided that the time had come to put his beloved friend Duncan upon the throne of Scotland.
