Page 78 of Come the Morning

“Ah, but my love! There is the king’s way …”

She exhaled, shaking, meeting his eyes. Now upset and angry, she suddenly realized that she was at his bath, looking at his naked body in the water. She pulled back, face softly flushed.

“Just what do you want?” she demanded.

“To know what I’m getting,” he said sternly.

“A lot of land!” she reminded him angrily.

“I get the land with or without you,” he reminded her bluntly. “I told you what I wanted,” he said, wearily. But she had caused him endless torment, and if he were being cruel now, there was little else he could do. Long years ahead were at stake here, hisson, his family, his dream of life itself. Besides, she deserved a little torment. “You, soft, sweet, perfumed, pleasant—and silent. Listening avidly to my every word.”

“And then—” she broke off, swallowing. “And then there will be no public … entertainment?”

“Aye.”

“You swear?”

“Aye, and I do keep my word.” He had no intention of letting his wife be anyone else’s entertainment.

She sprang up, anxious now to flee his room.

“Mellyora,” he said, calling her back, “you haven’t lied to me.”

“No, I swear it.”

“I warn you, my love, don’t ever lie.”

She shook her head again, turned, and was gone.

He sank back into the tub, thoughtful, curious. She was going to be in for a surprise on their wedding night, and she might even be furious for the anxiety he had caused her. He also meant to carry on his charade until she realized just how serious he was about the future, but then …

Well, then, she would probably be quite grateful for a while. She would be reprieved. For a time.

And he would be the one in torment.

CHAPTER14

Mellyora slept most of the following morning, having fallen asleep very late. Father Hedgewick had come to her so that she could give him her confession, and she’d struggled long and hard deciding just what was and wasn’t sin. In the end, she begged forgiveness for the sins of pride and disobedience, and left it at that. She’d then paced her room endlessly, certain that God couldn’t really expect her to beobedientto the king when he was asking her to defy the laws of love, or how she could possiblyhonora husband who disliked and distrusted her—even if she had possibly caused a bit of that distrust. She was angry with everyone, even her father. He’d had no right to die, and leave her to the mercy of others.

When she slept, she prayed she’d wake up and it would have all been a nightmare. When she woke at last, she knew instantly that it was not. Jillian had been anxiously waiting for her to awaken. She had to prepare for her wedding.

By early afternoon, preparations were fully under way. Three of the ladies of the court had come to help her dress—it was the way such things were done, though she would have dearly loved to have been alone. Among the women, however, was Lady Dougall, once her mother’s friend.

“Oh, dear girl, if only your mother were here to see you!” she exclaimed when Mellyora was dressed in the fine, erminetrimmed linen she was to wear for the ceremony. Lady Mary Dougall was slender and elegant, beautiful in a sad way, for she’d lost her husband and daughter to a sweating sickness, and her eldest son had died fighting in the king’s service. Her youngest child, Darrin, served the king now as well, and she seemed constantly afraid that she would lose him, too.

“Thank you,” Mellyora told her. “I wish my mother were here, I wish I remembered more about her.”

“She was not so tall as you, and her hair was auburn, her eyes were greener, but you have her smile, the shape of her face … she was beautiful, full of laughter, and she captured your father’s heart.”

“Aye, and tamed a beast!” said Lady Judith Rutherford, coming forward with a necklace, a jewel-studded cross dangling from a delicate link chain.

“Now, Judith,” Lady Dougall protested. She looked at Mellyora with a smile that warned her Lady Rutherford was prone to gossip.

“Well, it’s the truth,” Judith Rutherford said with a sniff.

“Mellyora adored her father,” Lady Dougall said warningly.

“What are you trying to say?” Mellyora demanded.