The Bought Bride

But underscoring everything else in her mind was the way in which the Norman, Judhael de Brionne, had seen Toft Green during his visit to York and had instantly decided to acquire it, despite the king’s first choice of recipient. He had told her so, knowing that his kiss would be far more to her taste than de Lessay’s bungling attempt, and that she would file it away amongst ‘things to be savoured again’ in the dark privacy of her bower. And, like a fool, she was already doing it, regardless of her determination never to let a man into her dreams.

He had entered her hall, impressing those within by his civility, his courteous greetings to Eric. And to Neal, who could almost guess the result of Rhoese’s visit to the king, if her angry expression was anything to go by.

‘So there’s to be a higher bid, you think?’ said Eric. ‘That man?’

Instead of an answer, she took his hand and held it on her lap. ‘I’m going to speak to Father Leofric,’ she said, ‘at St Martin’s. I can’t just leave it like this, love. I’m not going to let them walk all over us and let that woman take over my house without putting up a fight for it. She’s taken everything I had, so far, and I’ll be damned if she’s going to get this so easily.’

‘I can’t see that he’ll be able to do much to help. An English priest.’

‘It’s worth a try. I’ll be back before supper.’

‘You’re taking Els with you?’

‘No.’ She smiled for the first time. ‘She prefers to gawp at you.’

He stood up to go with her. ‘Then I’d better not deprive her of that pleasure before I join the monks. What’s that man’s name? Judhael Debrion?’

‘Yes, love. Something like that.’ Jude, he had told her. Jude. She held a hand to her mouth and pressed gently, feeling the warm skin with her lips and the quick surge of something vibrant within her belly. ‘The house martins have almost gone,’ she said, ‘so we shall not have their protection from thunderstorms now. Come into the hall, love. Mind that bucket on your left.’

Whilst not expecting a miracle from Father Leofric, Rhoese felt that he might have been the one to offer her something more positive than Brother Alaric, her chaplain, whose position in her household was principally to lend an air of respectability to her masterless menage, and to keep the accounts. She had, in fact, already put the idea to Brother Alaric that the best way for her to avoid the king’s command would be to enter a nunnery, but his response had been guarded rather than sympathetic, and he had advised her to ask Father Leofric what he thought about it. Whether the chaplain had an inkling of what the priest’s reaction would be was debatable but, if so, he had the wit to keep it from showing when Rhoese returned to Toft Green an hour before supper.

He laid down his quill as her shadow fell across his doorway, rising to his sandaled feet to invite her into his hut. A flurry of leaves swirled round the threshold and rattled away as the chaplain drew up a stool to the door where they could be seen, careful for her reputation.

‘He’s shocked,’ she said. ‘Very shocked.’

He made a small sound of agreement. ‘Understandable. What’s his answer to the convent idea? Concerned about Eric, is he?’

That, indeed, had been a consideration. For Rhoese to commit herself to taking the veil before they knew whether Eric had been accepted at St Mary’s was to tempt fate. The last thing any of them wanted was for him to be left to rejoin Ketti’s household, and Father Leofric’s admiration for Eric was less well disguised than he believed it to be.

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Naturally. He thinks that running off to a nunnery immediately would leave Eric in a difficult position, but he also knows the man the king is selling me to. He’s one of the worst types. A real ruffian, he says.’

‘He told you that? That can hardly have put your mind at rest.’

‘I wish I hadn’t gone now. The only helpful thing he said was that he’d try to find a way of getting me out of it, but for the life of me I don’t know what he means.’ It was not the only thing Father Leofric had suggested. The lie had been for modesty’s sake and because she could not repeat to her chaplain exactly what the parish priest had suggested to her, in private. His words still rang in her ears.

‘My Lady Rhoese,’ Father Leofric had said to her, not unkindly, ‘I can see a way forward in this. Will you take a beaker of mead with me?’

He was not physically unattractive, on the young side of middle age, spare and smiling—too smiling?—busy with his hands, which should have been hidden and still. Rhoese did not want the mead, but took it anyway and thanked him, wondering about the way forward.

‘Now,’ he said, seating himself just a little too close to her, ‘I’m not a man to mince words, as you know, and my thinking is that, if the king were to be told that you are already married, in secret, you understand, then he’d have to release you from this humiliating sale you’ve told me of. We really cannot allow that to happen. Can we?’ His hand touched hers and withdrew, but that one gesture alerted her to the direction of his mind.