Page 10 of Lion and the Lamb: Easter

“Nonsense. This is your wedding night,” said Agnes. “The place you should be is at your husband’s side.”

“I’m not so certain about that,” Rachael answered under her breath, wanting to be anywhere but alone with the Lion in his bedchamber. Especially since he had been so randy, and then they hadn’t coupled. This was going to be a very long night.

“I’ll take Andrew and prepare him for bed. Don’t worry, my lady, I will watch over him, just like I did with you when you were a child,” Agnes assured her.

“I’m sure you will,” she answered, trusting Agnes completely. The woman would be there to comfort her son in his new surroundings. But who would be there to comfort her?

“Good night, Mother,” said Drew in a sleepy little voice.

Rachael bent down, kissing him and giving him a hug. “Don’t worry, Drew. I’m sure you’ll get used to your new home and new family. Eventually.”

“I know,” he said with a smile. “Since I don’t even remember my father, it will be nice to have a new one now.”

“Yes,” she said, standing up and running a hand over his head as she looked back at the Lion’s closed door. “I suppose it will.”

“Here is your bag with your night rail and a few things in it,” said Agnes, handing her the small bag made of cloth. “The steward said in the morning he’ll bring the rest of your things as well as the dowry up to Lord Lionel’s solar. He is keeping it in his chamber tonight, since he said it was too late to bother Lord Lionel with it now.”

“Thank you, Agnes. Good night,” replied Rachael, watching her handmaid and son walk away down the hall. She had never felt so lonely. There was a wall torch burning outside the lord’s chamber, making dark shadows flicker and dance over the stones. Her heart beat quickly. The corridor was drafty and gave her an eerie feeling. A shiver ran up her spine. This wasn’t at all like her castle, and it only made her long for home.

She jumped when the door opened, not expecting that to happen. Lionel stood there, shirtless and dressed only in his trews.

“Oh, my lord!” Rachael held a hand to her thumping heart. “You frightened me.” Her eyes swept down his broad chest, and she couldn’t help noticing his lean stomach or the muscles in his upper arms. The vision was breathtaking.

“Well, are you going to stand out in the corridor all night? Get in here, Wife.”

“Yes, my lord.” With her face turned downward, she tried to squeeze past him, her body brushing up against his bare skin causing a flit of excitement to flow through her as she entered the room. He closed the door and held his arm outward.

“I suggest we get some sleep. It has been a long few days and I am fatigued.”

When she turned to look what he was motioning at, her jaw dropped. There, in the center of the room surrounded by open blue velvet curtains, was a very large bed atop a raised platform. Two stairs were built around the bed, leading up to the thick stuffed mattress.

“That’s the . . . biggest bed I’ve ever seen in my life.” Now she found it hard to breathe. Was she really supposed to spend the night there? With him?

“I like a lot of room when I sleep.”

She wanted to suggest that if she slept somewhere else, he’d have even more room, but didn’t think it a wise thing to say right now.

“There are stairs,” she said, walking over to inspect the dais, running her hand along the velvet curtains that surrounded the bed. She looked up to see the curtains were hanging from iron rings that had the heads of lions on them.

“Yes, I had the stairs made for my last wife to make it easier for her. She was sickly, and basically spent most of her life up to her dying day in this very bed.”

“Oh!” Rachael pulled her hand away, not wanting to think of an ill and dying woman having spent years of her life on a pallet that she was about to sleep on. Something about it seemed . . . wrong. Would she be cursed and end up sickly, too, if she took his last wife’s place upon the bed? God’s eyes, she hoped not.

“I can sleep in the chamber with my handmaid and son,” she offered, not really thinking he would agree but she had to try. She turned to go, but his hand on her shoulder stopped her.

“Nay. You are my wife now, and it is expected for us to share a chamber. And a bed.”

“I won’t couple with you,” she blurted out. Her eyes shot up to his and she clutched her night bag to her chest. “I will not break the rules of the church during Lent.”

He let out a sigh and his hand slipped off her shoulder. “I wasn’t insinuating that you should.” He walked over to the far side of the bed, his eyes interlocked with hers as he reached to his waist to untie his trews.

Rachael spun around, looking the other direction.

“There is a screen you can change behind,” he told her.

Sure enough, there was a dressing screen at the far side of the chamber near the raging fire in the hearth. There was also a small table and two chairs, a hutch, and several trunks in the room. His weapon belt and blades hung on a hook on the wall.

“I can sleep in the chair,” she told him, feeling very uncomfortable now. “In my clothes,” she added softly, not wanting to undress with this strange man in the room. Even if she was behind a screen and he was her husband.