She had no choice but to answer, he was so enraged. “You will not believe me if I tell you the truth.”
“Oh ho! And what truth are you going to foist upon me now, Mary?” He straightened, looming over her. “That you love me? That you would never betray me?” He was shouting.
Mary trembled, for it did not seem possible that she had thought herself in love with this man such a brief time ago. She sat up, clutching the blanket beneath her in her fists.
“Why did you spy?” He ground out the words.
“To learn your intentions!” Tears filled her eyes again. “And how vile your intentions are!”
“To learn my intentions.” Stephen’s mirthless laugh was harsh and grating. “And to warn Malcolm. To warn Malcolm against me. To betray me.”
“No!”
For an instant he did not speak, he only stared at her. “Give me cause, Mary. Give me cause to believe you.”
Mary was panting. “Have I not given you cause, these past few days, to trust me?”
“You expect me to trust you!” Stephen was momentarily in disbelief. “From the moment we first met, you have sought to deceive me. Repeatedly. It would take more than a few days of shared lust, Mary, for me to come to trust you, or do you perceive me to be a weak, besotted fool?”
Mary flinched. How hurtful his words were. She had seen these past few days as more than “shared lust”; she had seen them as the beginning of a shared lifetime. More tears swelled and fell. Her husband was an unfeeling brute—how could she have ever thought otherwise?
Finally she met his cold, unwavering stare, and when she spoke, her tone was bitter. “Treachery suspects treachery, does it not?”
Stephen moved so quickly that Mary had no time to react. He hauled her to her knees and up against his body. “I am so angry that if you continue in this vein, I will lose all control, Mary. You do not want to be near me when that happens. You would not survive should that happen.”
Mary did not doubt it. She could feel him shaking with his fury. They were almost nose to nose and eye to eye. His gaze was black, livid. He was terrifying under these circumstances. His grip hurt her tender flesh, too, but in a way, she welcomed the physical pain, for it was easier to bear than the other. She choked on the pain in her heart. “If you cared for me at all, you would not do this.”
“If I cared for you, Mary, all that is dear to me would be lost. How clear that is! And even if I cared for you, you could not sway me from my duty to my King.” His jaw tightened, their gazes held. “Never could I love an unfaithful wife.”
Mary was still. The way he stared at her made her want to tell him that she was not unfaithful, to insist again that she had not been ready to betray him. He almost seemed to be waiting for such a denial, but surely she was wrong. Surely there was no hint that he might love her if she were loyal to him. His manner, his words of the day before when he had given her the red rose, swept through her with stunning force. She began to cry. “Stephen—”
His smile was twisted and he held up his hand, halting her before she could begin she knew not what. “Enough. Cease your tears, cease them now. Your actions have proven your guilt more than any words—or tears—can ever prove your innocence.”
“No,” Mary whispered, aware of the crushing pain of heartbreak. It flashed through her mind that nothing but a future of misery could await her now—as she had foreseen. Unless they stopped this now. But, dear God, how?
He turned away from her abruptly. He was leaving, and their marriage had been shredded, her love trampled into dust. She raised herself up onto her hands, staring after him. She was almost compelled to run after him. She should not let him leave her upon this note. But then Mary thought about what he intended, and was choked with bitterness, unable to go after him, unable to call out.
He paused abruptly in the doorway, standing with his back rigidly to her. He appeared to be waiting. Mary told herself to speak before it was too late, before their marriage was forever destroyed. She opened her mouth but only sucked air.
His shoulders stiffened. “I am a fool,” he said harshly—and then he was gone.
“No!” Mary cried. It struck her then that despite his treachery and his betrayal, it could not end like this. She lunged to her feet and ran after him, out into the hall. “Stephen! Stephen!”
But it was too late. There was no response—he was gone. Mary sank down on the floor, awash freely now in bitter tears and heartache.
Chapter 19
Mary had been confined to her chamber as punishment for her treachery. She had not cared at the time, but she quickly lost her indifference. When her tears finally subsided, she realized that it had grown dark outside, that the stone floor beneath her body was terribly cold, and that she was chilled to the bone herself. She was shivering. Although exhausted from the fight and the emotional upheaval that had accompanied it, she got to her feet.
Her glance took in the small chamber, lost in the night’s dark shadows. No fire burned upon the hearth, no tapers were lit, and although she was not hungry, she was thirsty, but no pitcher of water was present. Most of all, she would love to drown her sorrow in a cup of spiced wine. But she might as well ask for Stephen to return to her now, on bended knee, begging her forgiveness.
Mary moved to the bed, suddenly realizing just what her confinement meant. Her husband might very well make her suffer with the cold and with the lack of the usual comforts of food and water, but she could survive that. She wondered, though, if she could survive the humiliation of her punishment. Everyone at Alnwick would soon know of it. By now Stephen’s family and retainers certainly knew she was in a forced confinement. Her absence at the dinner table had surely been remarked, and Mary did not doubt that Stephen would explain just why she had failed to appear. He had no reason to dissemble. He was not the kind of man to dissemble in this instance. Mary’s cheeks flushed.
She was not the first wife to be so shamed, but that did not matter. She had never expected her marriage to Stephen to come to this! By tomorrow, when Stephen left to make war upon Scotland, all of Alnwick would know that its new mistress was in her chamber in confinement. Mary folded her arms and hugged herself, wondering how she would face his family once she was able to do so, how she would face the lowest of servants.
It was not fair. She had spied, and perhaps that was wrong, but she had never intended to betray him. While he, he had betrayed her, marrying her while intending to war upon her family. Nevertheless she had taken vows, vows to honor and obey him, vows she would keep. They might never recover from this terrible time, they might never recapture the brief joy they had known, but she was his wife regardless of any and all circumstance until God saw fit to pan them.
Slowly she adjourned to the bed. She moved like an old woman, but not because of her aching body; because of her aching heart.
