Lady of the English - By Elizabeth Chadwick Page 0,140
she held and shushed him as if he were one of their children until eventually he pulled away and cuffed his eyes on his sleeve. “I do not deserve you,” he said hoarsely. “I have never deserved you.”
“Hush.” Adeliza kissed his cheek and rose. “Let there be no such talk between us. Say your words to God and seek His help and forgiveness, then come and bathe and eat and sleep.
Tomorrow is time enough to decide what we must do.” When she had gone, he clasped his hands and bowed his head again and tried to concentrate on the smiling Virgin in her blue robe, but nothing came into focus beyond his sense of failure.
ttt
“Why did you marry me?”
Adeliza looked across the hearth at Will. He had eventually come from the chapel, grey with cold, shivering and barefoot, his shoes in his hand. She had renewed the bath with fresh hot water and made him eat a bowl of mutton and barley pottage washed down with hot spiced wine. Colour had gradually returned to his face and although his eyes were still heavy, they were less haunted. She had dismissed their attendants and they 347
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were alone in their chamber with the hangings drawn across the shutters and the fire a comfortable glow of ruddy embers in the hearth. Teri, his favourite dog, stood on his hind legs and sniffed at the almost empty pottage bowl. Will held it for the dog to lick out, which told Adeliza he must be feeling more at home with himself.
“Because I chose to,” she said.
“But why?” He fixed her with a puzzled stare. “You were a queen. You could have had anyone you wanted.” He put the bowl on the floor.
That was not quite true, she thought. Any man she took as a husband would have had to have Stephen’s approval. “You offered me an alternative life,” she said. “You made me realise that I was not quite ready for the cloister.”
“I never thought you would consent. You are as far above me as the stars.”
“But you dared to ask—and I dared to answer, and I do not regret it. You have given me gifts of far greater worth than any number of crowns.”
“I thought it was another gift to stay away from you,” he said in a low voice. “That is why I said I should not be here.
My absence will keep you and the children safe. If I am not at Arundel, there is no cause to besiege it.” Adeliza raised her brows. “You are not going to acknowledge the empress?”
“I swore my oath to Stephen. Should I disavow it because he is a prisoner? What does that say about my honour? Until he renounces his kingship I have a sworn duty to support him.
Yet if he is truly overthrown, I have a sworn duty to protect my family also.”
Adeliza bit her lip. “No one has come to Arundel of either faction yet, so I say we do nothing and wait and see. We should tend our estates and keep them orderly and secure. We should 348
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succour those who have suffered through no fault of their own.” She took his arm. “Come, it is late and this can bide until the morning.”
She led him from the hearth to their bed and helped him to disrobe, kissing him as she unfastened ties and laces, offering him reassurance and comfort, encouraging him with little touches and signs. Then she removed her own garments and pressed her body against his. “Husband,” she said tenderly. He uttered a soft groan and his arms tightened around her and suddenly, with appetite awakened, he started to kiss her in return.
She had had her women remake the bed with clean, fresh sheets, scented with lavender and thyme, knowing that to him, the perfume was associated with her and with home—with coming home. She drew him into her with desire, with compassion, and with the urge of a nurturer to make him whole again in any way she could. At the climax, Will pressed his face into her neck and gasped that he loved her and needed her. She was his heart and his world. She was his queen. Adeliza held and soothed him while he fell into a deep, healing slumber on her breast, and then she wept a little too, and, despite her reassurances to him, wondered what indeed was going to happen to them.