Prologue
The Year of Our Lord, 1233
Iam Catherine of Somerset. A woman without place or time. A woman, God help me, without hope.
Even as a small child my first awareness of myself mingled inextricably with a keen sense of disappointment. I knew that somehow I’d failed, and that I was doomed to be corrected for my inadequacies. You see, I fail to fit the delicate, pale ideal of beauty for women in my world, and I was never allowed to forget it. My comforts were few, yet though ’twas difficult to keep my spirits up, I strove to remain cheerful.
When I was sixteen, Father managed to rid himself of me. He was lucky enough to find a man willing to take me as a wife, if only for the offering of a sizable dower. Father begrudged me that allotment, claiming he’d have been the one receiving payment and goods, if only I was beautiful.
’Twas naught but exchanging one brutal man for another, though the burden increased in that my new husband demanded the right to use my body for his pleasures. Still I considered myself fortunate to have escaped my father’s household. To have made a fresh start, even if ’twas with a man who showed little care of me.
Life passed tolerably for me. Within a year of my union with Geoffrey, God blessed me with the birth of two fine children. Twins, as fair and bright as the sun itself. I named them Ian and Isabel, and lived the next years waking and breathing each day only for them. My darlings grew strong and healthy, with none of the coarse traits for which I’d been condemned all my life.
The year they turned seven was the most difficult of my life. ’Twas as if I’d lost my reason for living. As was customary, Geoffrey had begun to search for a proper family with which to foster the twins, to help Ian learn the skills of a page and for Isabel to study needlework, writing, and household management. But to hurt me, since he knew the love I bore them, Geoffrey chose to foster my babes far from us. ’Twas three days’ ride to reach them, and since he rarely allowed me free movement off of our estate, I saw but little of my children that first year.
I thought my heart would break from grief. I pined for the sight of their little faces and the smiles that would light them when they saw me. I longed to feel the sweet caress of their breath on my neck as I carried them to their beds of an evening. Now all was vacant and barren. Their tiny beds were cold, and I’d huddle in their chamber, sobbing my loss into the empty blankets.
But God showed me his mercy yet again in a way I’d never have dared to pray for. Geoffrey returned from one of his jaunts to London shivering with a fever. In less than a week he died of the ague, and I felt a sense of freedom I’d never known. I was readying to send for the twins, to bring them home at least for a while, when my brother by marriage, Baron Eduard de Montford, arrived, bringing with him his gentle sister Elise, and an entire garrison of men to witness Geoffrey’s funeral.
Within two days, I was glad I’d waited to bring my babes home. If those innocent children had found Elise, as I did…I shudder when I think of the possibility. I walked into her chamber early one morning, intending to wake her, to accompany me to vespers. Instead of seeing the delicate young woman sleeping in her bed, I found a corpse, dangling from a sash tied to the bedpost.
’Twas not long I’d need wait to learn why Elise had chosen so desperate a path. Eduard heard my scream and rushed in. He helped me to cut the sash and together we lowered the body. Then he sent me to my chambers with a sleeping powder to calm me. When I awoke, my chamber door was bolted, and none would answer my calls.
Eduard came in later and told me of his diabolical plan. He had already primed Elise with beatings and threats to make her do his deadly bidding, but she’d escaped his plots with her desperate act. That left him with no other option but to find a replacement for her.
To my everlasting misery, he chose to use me.
I cannot describe the sickness and shock that flooded me upon hearing his scheme. I tried to tell myself that he played a perverse jest: that as Geoffrey’s brother, he too enjoyed tormenting women. And he showed himself his brother’s equal in one respect; when I refused to take part in his plans, he beat me savagely.
It took two days for me to rise from my bed after that first time, and yet he came again and again, trying to coerce me to take part in his evil. Each time I refused, the beating was repeated, until I began to tremble every time the door opened.
He never would have gained my consent, no matter what the physical cost to me, had he not used the one weapon he knew I could not bear. He gave me a choice—either I would help him, or he would kill my children, his own niece and nephew.
I begged him, pleaded on my knees…but he only laughed. I hated him even more for that, though I knew then that I had no real choice. I didn’t possess the luxury of escaping as Elise had. My children’s safety depended upon my cooperation.
And so I said yes. Yes, I would help Eduard to achieve his unholy ambitions. Heaven help me, but I would do what he commanded in order to save my innocent children from destruction.
May God have mercy on my eternal soul and the soul of the one who must die because of me.
Amen.
Chapter 1
Ravenslock Castle, Wiltshire
’Twas but the first step toward damnation.
Catherine swallowed the nausea that rose in her throat and forced herself to stand stiff in the entrance to the chapel. She shut her eyes against the sun’s glare, murmuring a prayer that the veil she wore would continue to hide her feelings from any that looked on her. But though the silken gauze might mask her guilt from the world, she knew that nothing could stop the horrible truth from piercing deep into her own soul.
In a few moments she was going to pledge herself in holy wedlock to the man she’d promised to help murder.
Revulsion washed over her again, and she swayed into a cool stone pillar. Reaching out, she tried to regain her balance, squirming at the trickle of sweat that made its way down her spine. Her amethyst kirtle clung to her in sticky folds, worsened by the day’s heat. ’Twas stifling for September, and undoubtedly a sign from God—a taste of the hellfire she was sure to suffer for the mortal sin she was about to commit.
“Damn you, Catherine,” Eduard hissed into her ear. “If you faint on me now, I vow to make you sincerely regret it.” He grasped her elbow and hauled her to a standing position.
The movement made her wince. Every inch of her body ached from the constant abuse he’d lavished on her in the past two weeks, compounded by the wrenching pain she felt in knowing that she’d never see her children again, never look into their sweet faces or hold them close. Thanks to Eduard, the twins thought her dead, and that truth had cut her even more fiercely than any of his beatings; she’d wanted to die from it alone. But she couldn’t. He’d made certain she knew the deadly consequences of changing her mind. If she refused to go through with his plan, her children would suffer what she did, only worse, before he killed them.
The message hadn’t been lost on her.
