“I wonder why he wishes to marry her,” Roland said, stroking his chin.
“He wishes to humiliate me further.”
“Your niece—is she beautiful as well as rich? Would her face and physical gifts charm him as does her dowry?”
And in that instant, Roland saw quite clearly just what the earl thought of his niece. Living in Reymerstone with this man for master could not have been pleasant. Roland wondered where the mother stood in all this mess.
“She is well-enough-looking, I suppose,” Damon said finally, shrugging. “She is but a female, nothing more. Her tongue is impertinent upon occasion, but nothing a strong man can’t control. She must continually be reminded that obedience and submission are what are expected of her. As I said, she needs a strong man.”
And you saw yourself nicely in that role. “I met her mother. I imagine she was once quite lovely. Does the daughter have her coloring?”
The earl merely shrugged. “No, the girl has dark hair, filled with autumn colors, and her eyes are the oddest green. Pure but dark. Her features resemble her mother’s but they are less coarse, more finely drawn.”
“I find it fascinating that Clare demands you send your own priest. Do you know why?”
“Clare is a religious zealot. He is a man controlled and dominated by his fanaticism. If he requests I send a priest, it is because he believes a priest will not cheat him of the dowry money, that the priest will fairly wed him to my niece. He does not seem to realize that priests are as venal a company as any. Will you try to rescue her before the whoreson ravishes her? Before the last day of May?”
“You don’t believe he’s raped her already?”
“No.” This was said grudgingly but firmly. Interesting, Roland thought as he said, “Why not? After all, what does a man’s religious beliefs have to do with his lust?”
“Edmond of Clare keeps his word, at least that is his reputation. But if you haven’t rescued her by the end of May, he will do exactly as he says he will, whether he wishes to or not. I know him well enough, and it’s true.”
Roland held off giving the earl his answer that evening, even though he knew he would go to Tyberton and he knew exactly how he would present himself. The coin he would earn for this rescue would give him sufficient funds to purchase Sir Thomas’s small keep, Thispen-Ladock, and the surrounding rich grazing lands in Cornwall. And that was what he wanted. He would no longer be beholden to any man for his survival. When this was over, when the wretched niece was returned to her uncle, Roland would use his wits to further himself, not be at the behest of another. He wanted to remain in England; he wanted to be master of his castle and his own lands, and once he rescued this girl from Edmond of Clare, he would have his wish. It mattered not that Damon Le Mark had lied to h
im throughout; it mattered not that it was more than likely he, Damon Le Mark, and not the fat Earl of Colchester, who had killed Clare’s brother.
That night Roland was given one of the serving wenches to warm his bed and his blood. She was clean and sweet-smelling and he took her three times during the long night, for he was hungry for a woman after being absent for several weeks from Marie and he gave her pleasure as well and wished he could remember her name the following morning to thank her.
He said to the earl as he mounted his destrier, a stark black Arab named Cantor, “As I told you, I will rescue your niece and I will do it long before the deadline Clare has set. You, however, must swear to me that you will try no more schemes on your own. They might endanger me and my plans.”
The earl frowned and pulled on his ear, a lifelong habit that had left one earlobe a bit longer than the other, but finally agreed. Roland wondered if his word meant anything. He doubted that it did in the normal course of events. However, a good deal of coin was now in Roland’s possession, half of the payment he was to receive. Perhaps that would keep Le Mark out of the game.
“Nor will you send a priest or your niece’s dowry. There will be no need.”
The earl’s pale eyes gleamed. “You have great confidence, de Tournay.”
“I will rescue her. Count out the rest of my coin, my lord, for I shall surely return to claim it.”
Roland prepared to whip Cantor about, when the earl called after him, “De Tournay. If the girl is not a virgin, I don’t wish to have her back. You can kill her if you wish to. It matters not to me.”
Slowly Roland stilled his destrier and dismounted to stand facing the earl. He was sickened but not over-surprised. “I don’t understand you. What matter if the girl is ravished? Her dowry remains the same size, does it not? Her dowry doesn’t constrict even if her maidenhead is gone.”
“All changes if she is not chaste.”
“For that matter, how do I know if she’s been ravished? How would you know?”
“I would examine her myself.” The earl paused, then said, fury lacing his voice, “That damned fool Colchester says he won’t have her for his son if she isn’t pure. His foul mother gave his father the pox and killed him because of the men she took to her bed. He’s terrified that if Daria is ravished, she’ll kill his precious son with disease as well.”
Roland was seeing the earl thrusting his fingers into the girl’s body to feel if her maidenhead were still intact. To humiliate another thus was incomprehensible to him, particularly a girl who had no recourse but to accept the shame of it.
“Colchester isn’t the only unwedded man in the kingdom,” Roland said mildly. “Wed her to another. She’s an heiress, I gather. Most men aren’t so absolute in their requirements for a wife, I doubt.”
“She is to wed Colchester, none other. It is the only match I will accept.”
And then, finally, Roland understood. The Earl of Reymerstone had made an agreement with the Earl of Colchester, and what he would gain in the marriage mattered more to him than the dowry. Roland wondered what the bargain was that the two men had struck.
“If she’s a virgin when I rescue her, she will be a virgin when she arrives here.”