Elizabeth Chadwick - The Wild Hunt

Agnes stopped and bobbed a curtsy.

Alicia turned round and her heart began to drum to a battle beat.

Miles le Gallois studied the travelling chests, open to reveal their neatly packed contents — clothes, cups, vials, combs and embroidery. His eyes ranged over the strewed bed and the bare clothing pole, then returned to Alicia. 'If it is on account of me,' he said, 'there is no need. I am leaving tomorrow.'

Alicia mutely shook her head.

'I need to talk to you alone,' he said and as she answered him with stricken eyes, added, 'you may tie me up if you wish, but I swear on my honour not to harm you.'

Alicia carefully folded the veil she had been holding and, after a hesitation, drew a deep breath and gestured Agnes to leave. The maid's mouth thinned, but she dropped a curtsy and retreated beyond the thick wool en curtain.

Miles sat down on the bed and picked up the veil that Alicia had so painstakingly folded. 'Last time we were alone I acted like a green youth in rut,' he said. 'I have come to apologise if you will accept.'

'There is no need of apology,' she said in a low voice, 'unless it be mine.'

'Alicia, look at me.'

Wearily she raised her lids. Her eyes were the colour of twilight and storms and full of vulnerability.

'Do you think that it has gone unnoticed? For the sake of our children, we must come at least to a truce.'

'Why do you think I am going to my dower lands?' she replied.

'Because you are running away?'

Her mouth twisted. 'Not for the reasons you think.'

Miles unfolded the veil. It was made of fragile gauze, the embroidery edging it skilfully worked in gold thread. 'You will miss her,' he said gently.

'She has her own life to live and will the sooner grow into a woman without me for a leaning post. In time I would become the child. Indeed, it has begun already. She shuts me from her thoughts and she is very strong willed.'

'Not a whit like her father, is she?' he mused.

There was a hesitation that made him look up. Alicia's face had blenched. Then she rallied, smiled and drew a shaky breath. 'I wouldn't say that.' She turned her face into the shadows. 'There are many similarities.'

Something rang false. Memory searched and pieced disjointed fragments. 'Who is he?' Miles asked.

He saw the silent vibration of her shoulders.

'That is my own affair,' she answered in a choked voice.

'And mine too since it will touch the blood of my grandchildren.' He rose and went to her and turned her to face him.

'And if I say a baseborn groom or a passing pedlar?' she challenged.

'If that were true, you'd not have denied me the day of the boar hunt.'

Alicia shook beneath his light touch, knowing what she risked if she told him the truth.

'Does he still live?'

'Yes.'

'Does he know?'

'No,' she said. 'To him it was a night of pleasure, a comfort along the road to be forgotten in the dawn.'

'And to you?' He watched her with checked tension.

She laughed at some private bitterness. 'Expedient. When your cow fails to calf, get a different bull to service her.'

Miles released her and, folding his arms, frowned.

'Not pretty, is it?' she said. 'I cuckolded my husband in his own keep and deceived him with my lover's child. You see too much, my lord, or perhaps I have just grown careless of late.'

'I see too much,' he said, smiling painfully, 'because I want you.'

'You don't know me.'

'Well enough to see too clearly.' He tried to decide from her expression the approach he should take. 'I've known you for a long time, ever since you were Judith's age and defying your father's will . And in the years since then, I've watched you from a distance grow and change.'

'And wanted me?' she challenged.

Miles saw the trap yawning at his feet and skirted it deftly. 'I had Christen,' he said. 'There was no space in me to want another woman. You know that.'

Some of the hostility left her eyes, but she remained strongly cautious.

Miles shrugged. 'It is two years since I lost her. Sometimes it seems as close as yesterday. Sometimes the loneliness rides me so hard I think I will go mad. I have taken women to my bed so that I do not have to sleep alone, but there is no lasting solace in that. What I need is another wife and, if I can get a dispensation, your consent.'

Alicia stared at him, dumbfounded. 'It is impossible!' she said huskily.

'The dispensation or your consent? Rannulf Flambard will perform any miracle for the right amount of gold and I will not take no for an answer from you ... not without excellent reasons.'

Alicia sat down. 'I could give you them,' she said shakily.

Miles persisted. For every protest that she made, he had an answer ready, a reasonable solution. He made a nonsense of her fears ... all but one. She told him the name of Judith's father.

Miles drew breath, held it, stared at her in dawning amazement, and very slowly exhaled.

She saw his mind make that final, vital connection, saw his eyes flicker.

'Yes,' she said harshly. 'He was fourteen years old and I was twenty-eight, and in one night he taught me everything that Maurice did not have the imagination to know.'

'Sweet Christ and his mother,' Miles swore, staring at her while he tried to assimilate what she had just told him.

She watched his face, waiting for the revulsion, but it did not come. It was a blank mask behind which any thought could have lurked. She covered her face and turned away.

After a moment, Miles mustered his wits. She was trembling so hard that he thought her flesh would shiver free of her bones. He laid a firm hand on her shoulder. 'It makes no difference to me,' he said finally. 'It is in the past and, knowing him, even at fourteen he was no innocent to be seduced unless he so wished.'

Alicia swallowed, remembering how it had been. She with a plan half formed, afraid to dare, and he with his mind already made up.

'So you will marry me?'

Alicia removed her hands tentatively from her face and looked at him. 'How can you say it makes no difference? I set out deliberately to cheat my husband. I bedded with a boy whose voice had barely broken, I--'

'You flay yourself with guilt,' he interrupted, capturing her hands in his. 'I do not doubt you.

The Welsh have a saying: Oer yw'r cariad addiffydd ar un chwa o wynt . Cold is the love that is put out by one gust of wind. I have taken women to my bed for the comfort and the pleasure they offer, never out of forced desperation. I account your sin the lesser.'

Alicia's mouth trembled with a smile. 'You are very persistent, my lord.'

'It's the mix of Welsh and Norman blood,' he agreed cheerfully.

She shook her head and sniffed. 'I cannot give you an answer. I am so confused that I do not know my head from my heels.'

He put out his hand as if to touch her, but let it drop again to his side, aware of how much was at stake. It was like stalking a deer. Softly, slowly and no sudden moves. 'Perhaps you should remove to your dower lands,' he said thoughtfully.

'It will give you time to think.'

Alicia stepped away from his disturbing proximity. It was obvious that his own mind was made up. She had shown him the black secret lurking at the bottom of her soul and he had dismissed it as of no consequence, still valuing her enough to offer her marriage. It was the first time she had felt her worth to be above that of a mere chattel. A pity it was thirty years too late.

'I hazard you do not often lose an argument,' she said.

'It depends on the subject.' He gestured. 'I could escort you home if you wish it. I have business with Hugh of Chester, but I could take you when I return, say in four days' time' return, say in four days' time'

'And if I say no?' Her tone was sharp, for she received the distinct impression that she was being manipulated in the direction he desired her to go.