“Chandra, wait! By all the saints’ prayers, you did not understand me. I want you for my wife. I am asking you to wed me.”
“I understand you well enough, Jerval.” She stopped and turned back to him, her hands splayed in front of her to keep him away from her. “What I don’t understand is why you would do this to me. I believed that you liked me, that perhaps you even believed me somewhat skilled, that you enjoyed being with me. But this? What is in your mind? Are you perhaps ill?” Her eyes lit up with that, and she nodded as she added, “Yes, that is why that rash of nonsense came leaping out of your mouth. You are ill and perhaps even fevered, and that is why you didn’t want to swim with me. You know you are sick and you could perhaps die if you got wet.”
He just stared at her, absolutely amazed. Could she actually be serious? “I swear to you I am not ill or fevered. I am in my right mind. It is time for us to be more to each other than simple friends. Marry me. Be my wife. Belong to me.”
She said nothing at all to that; she just ran to Wicket, climbed onto his broad back, and was off and away. He rose slowly, staring after her, his hands on his hips.
His first marriage proposal hadn’t gone especially well. Then he realized that he’d forgotten to say anything of love to her. Would it have mattered? Did she even have a single idea what love was between a man and a woman?
CHAPTER 9
Richard was speaking with Crecy when Chandra burst into the Great Hall and ran to where he was standing beside the huge fireplace. She was panting and she was pale, very pale, almost as pale as that time when she was thirteen and had been felled by that strange sweating fever that had attacked the village. He’d never left her side.
Then he knew, of course. He waited.
Chandra said, “Crecy, forgive me, but I must speak to my father now. It cannot wait.”
Maybe he was wrong. Perhaps her mother had been tearing at her again, telling her how unnatural she was. No, it wasn’t that. Anything Dorothy said now, Chandra merely flicked away without a thought. He said, “We will finish this later, Crecy.” He waited a moment, until Crecy was out of hearing, then nodded to her.
“Father, he has changed. He must leave. There is nothing more for him here.”
Her face was no longer pale; it was flushed red now. She looked as if she’d run from the Croyland harbor back to the keep. Her hair was flying about her head, and she was still panting hard.
“Who has changed?” But he knew, knew that Jerval had spoken to her of being his wife, and this was the result. No surprise, really, but he had prayed, prayed until he’d been out of words. He sat down heavily in his big chair and tapped his fingertips on the beautifully carved wooden arms.
“Jerval, of course.” She came down onto her knees beside his chair and grabbed his sleeve. “We were having such a very nice discussion of things. Look at the necklace he bought me Everything was as it should be, as I would want it to be, and then he did that. He wants to wed me.” She actually shuddered. “He said he wanted me to belong to him. Can you imagine such a thing?”
Richard gently pulled away her fingers, praying for some kind of inspiration. He knew it was coming. Why hadn’t he practiced what he would say to her? He had to say something, and so he did. It wasn’t much, but it was a start. “I thought you liked Jerval de Vernon.”
“Of course I like him. He does everything so well and he teaches me and laughs at me, but I don’t care. The men like him. He has humor in him that makes everyone smile. He is strong and he is kind. He is very good.”
“You have painted the image of an estimable man.”
“Well, aye, I suppose that I have. But listen to me, Father. I didn’t wish to hear what he had to say to me. Don’t you understand? He wants me to live with him, to bear his children. He wants me to leave you and go away to this place Camberley. Father, you know that I cannot leave you, that nothing like that was ever to happen to me. That is why you didn’t let Graelam have me. You wanted to keep me here, with you. I belong here. That is what you must tell Jerval. Then you can tell him he can either change back to what he was before an hour ago, or he must leave. There is no middle ground here.”
Spit it out, nothing else to do, and so Richard said, “Jerval de Vernon is here because I asked him to come.”
She cocked her head to the side, exactly as he did it, and said slowly, “Why would you do that?”
“Listen to me, daughter. You are a beautiful woman, the pride of my body. I have held you overlong with me, and that’s the truth of the matter. If Graelam had taken you, it would have been my own fault. I should have let Jerval wed you at least a year ago.”
She sat back, wrapping her arms around her bent knees. She was aware of voices in the Great Hall—there were alwa
ys noise and voices and animals running about, fighting, yapping. But the voices were distant; they didn’t touch her. She said even more slowly now, clearly disbelieving still, “You want me to wed Jerval? You knew? That is why he is here?”
“Aye, certainly. I wanted to give you both the chance to judge if you could like each other. You do. He spoke because he was finally ready to speak, because he knew that you were ready as well. Evidently he was wrong, but no matter. What’s done is done.”
“No,” she said, shaking her head. “No.”
He reached out his hand and lightly began to stroke her dirty braid. “Chandra, Croyland cannot be your home forever. Surely you must realize that. Don’t you understand? Graelam wanted you, as have others. I even turned away Earl Malthorpe, a cousin of King Henry.” He could see that she wasn’t impressed. He remembered that he had agonized over that, but after having met the man, he knew that his proud daughter would slit Malthorpe’s throat because he, unlike Jerval de Vernon, wasn’t kind or nice or anything good at all. Just rich. Just related to the damn king of England.
“I met Jerval four years ago and I knew he was the man for you, no other, just him. And now everything has come together as I wished it to. You will marry him, and our two houses will be united. It is a good alliance, Chandra.” Not splendid, like the one with Earl Malthorpe, but good enough.
“You cannot mean it,” she said slowly, her eyes never leaving his face. “You cannot mean to send me away.”
It smote him, the rawness in her voice, that look of pain in her eyes, but he had to hold firm. “I wish it. Jerval’s father, Lord Hugh, also wishes it. Jerval has decided he will have you. You like him, you have admitted it. You will continue to deal well with him. He will not try to change you, Chandra. He admires you. Why should he try?”
“He is a man, Father. Whatever else he is, he will want to rut me. He will own me. He will force me to be his broodmare. It is something I won’t do. It is something I cannot do.”