“Not from me,” Rowena snapped. “Think you Gilbert will ever give up my lands? He’ll have them back, and when Lyons dies, he’ll have me back as well, to marry off again the next time he finds himself in similar straits.”
“So that is the way of it, is it?” Mildred asked indignantly.
“So he as much as admitted. But in the meantime, I am to get myself with child to secure Lyons’ lands to Gilbert as well.” Rowena gave a broken laugh. “Can a man so old still beget children, Mildred?”
The maid snorted. “So all men would like to think, but ’tis nigh impossible. Yet did I spend the eventide being regaled with stories of how this lord has tried to get himself another son to replace those who died in war. Four wives he has had in as many years, recent years, and that does not count the six he had in his youth.”
“What happened to so many?”
“The early wives all died of one means or another, but the servants claim mostly by foul means. The recent wives he repudiated. All innocent maids they were, yet he claimed otherwise when they did not give him the hoped-for son as quickly as he expected. ’Tis all he wants from you, my sweet one.”
“So if I do not give him a son, he is like to repudiate me within the year. No wonder Gilbert assured me I would not be married long.”
“Nay, that old lord will not last even that long, do you ask me. Five years ago he should have been dead. Why he still lives can only be from a pact with the devil.”
“Shush,” Rowena hissed, crossing herself, yet she was inclined to agree. She herself had thought that he already looked like a corpse.
Mildred looked at her narrowly now. “Do you truly mean to wed Lord Godwine?”
“You say that as if I have a choice.”
“Aye, you do. We could kill him instead.”
Rowena scowled to have her hopes raised in one instant, then dashed in the next. “Think you I have not considered that? But if I ruin Gilbert’s plans in that way, he might well beat my mother to death, he will be so furious with me. I am not prepared to take that chance.”
“Nay, of course not,” Mildred agreed. She bore as much love for the mother as she did for the daughter, and could not bear to think of either one suffering when she had certain skills with herbs to prevent it. “Then if it must be, it must be, but you need not share your body as well as your bed with that old lecher. He can be rendered incapable—”
Rowena waved that notion aside before it was completed. “Only blood on the sheets will satisfy Gilbert.”
“It need not be yours.”
Rowena had not thought of that. She need not suffer those wrinkled and twisted fingers, that fetid breath, the revulsion that was like to wither her soul? If only…She cringed inwardly. “If onlys” had never come to her aid, nor would they now.
“Lord Godwine might be ready for the grave, but that does not mean he is stupid. If he has no memory of consummating the marriage, is he not like to see the matter repeated the next morn?” She shuddered at the very thought. “I would rather suffer this horror in the dark of night than in the light of day, Mildred. I do not think I could bear watching him touch me, as well as feeling it.”
“Very well, my sweet one. I will make a drink for you instead. ’Twill not put you to sleep, but ’tis the next best thing, for you will be so unaware of what goes on about you, you will not care what that old lecher does to you.”
Rowena frowned. She wasn’t sure she wanted to be totally senseless around Godwine Lyons. She was helpless enough in this situation; that would just make her more so. But which was better, not knowing, or merely not seeing?
“How long would your potion last?” she asked thoughtfully.
“A few hours. Long enough for him to do what he will do.”
“And if he took it by mistake?”
“’Twould do him no harm. If he can perform, then he will. Merely will he not recall it.”
Rowena groaned, dropping back on the bed. “Then again I must deal with him come the morn.”
“Nay, why should there be a mistake? I will leave the potion in the nuptial chambers, already mixed in your wine. Yours will be poured and ready to drink, his will not. Merely do you drink it as soon as you arrive there. No matter who will be with you, no one would gainsay you that extra fortification for what you must endure.”
“Then do it just so. Anything must be better than—”
Rowena broke off at the sound of a knock at her door, but it was not Gilbert, as she had half expected. Servants came in, a great number of them, with bath and water, with a tray of bread and cheese to break her fast, with a wedding gown of deepest cream. She was told Lord Godwine would like her to wear it, if she had nothing appropriate. She was also told, or actually overheard the maids’ whisperings, that his last two wives had also worn that gown. How frugal of the man, to get so much use out of it. This certainly showed how little he cared for her feelings.
When one of the maids held the gown up for her to better examine it, Rowena said, “Why not? His other wives were fortunate enough to escape him. It might bring me the same luck.”
There was an appalling silence for a moment that made Rowena realize she should have kept her thoughts to herself. These servants were his after all. But she had done no more than shock them with her frankness, and soon there was a nervous giggle, then another, and she found that they were in wholehearted agreement with her, for all of them hated the man who was to be her husband.
