Rosamund almost tripped. ‘What?’
‘You heard. I told him you are very comely and he gave a little smile. Seemed to think it amusing.’
‘Amusing!’
Alfwold’s chest heaved. ‘Then Sir Geoffrey told us that he’d let your father off paying the merchet if we brought you straight to the castle after the ceremony. He said that he’d never claimed the right of the first night before, but that he was going to do it today.’
‘The right of the first night?’ She stared. ‘Isn’t that a myth?’
‘Not according to Sir Geoffrey.’
‘And you accepted it,’ Rosamund said, bitterly. ‘Without a word.’
Alfwold swung round to face her. ‘Not at first I didn’t. You must know me better than that. But Baron Geoffrey was dead set on having you...er...on you going up to the castle. Rosamund, lass, I had no choice. You’re not the first person in the world to have things foisted on you.’
She put her head in her hands. ‘I wish you’d warned me...’
He pulled her hands from her face and steered her inexorably on. Towards the castle.
‘Rosamund, I know this must grieve you, especially with that vow you have made.’
‘Vow?’ Her brows knotted, and then she remembered the lie she had fabricated and laughed aloud. ‘Oh, aye. My vow.’
‘I wanted to marry you, lass. I won’t hold it against you that you do not come a virgin to our marriage bed.’
‘How kind.’
Her sarcasm was lost on him. ‘Well, my lass,’ he said reasonably, ‘I don’t see how I can blame you. It’s not your fault. The baron will only have tonight. We’ll have the rest of our lives.’
Already, they had reached the castle footbridge. In another moment or two they would have passed the sentries and she’d be inside. At the mercy of Baron Geoffrey of Ingerthorpe whose whim it was that she should spend the first night of her marriage with him and not with her husband. He even thought it funny.
God save her.
***
Rosamund lay quaking in bed. Waiting.
She was so full of anger and fear that she was oblivious to the luxury of her surroundings. She could hear, floating up from the hall below, gales of drunken laughter. What kind of a monster was Baron Geoffrey that he should decide to take, sight unseen, an unwilling girl to his bed?
She hadn’t had to face the devils carousing in his great hall. The porter at the castle entrance had dismissed Alfwold and summoned an elderly woman. The woman’s face, if Rosamund been able to see past her fury, had been kind and full of sympathy. She had been led up a wide, twisting stairway past the hall, and higher still. She had been taken along a cold, dank and badly-lit corridor between the castle walls. To this bedchamber.
She had been bathed and scrubbed white in a large wooden tub. They’d brought hot water. And as if that were not extravagance enough, the water had been fragrant with the scent of the wild roses which would soon be blooming in the hedgerows. A fragrance she would normally have favoured.
Rosamund had barely noticed. She had withdrawn into herself, away from a grim reality where a girl could be taken against her will and put in a man’s room and no-one, not even her husband, would lift a finger to help her.
Her limbs had felt stiff. She had allowed the woman to dry her. She had allowed her to comb out and dry her long, honey-brown hair, and tie it loosely with a white silk ribbon. She had allowed herself to be dressed in a soft blue gown which had gold threads running through it. She hadn’t lifted a finger to help.
And now she lay waiting, numb in mind and body, with her eyes fixed on a flickering candle in the wall sconce. A burst of crude laughter drew her gaze to the door – it was solid oak, and studded with nails. There was no key.
Was it her imagination or were there voices approaching? As sounds ebbed and flowed, she tried to force her muscles to ease. Her nails were ploughing furrows in her palms. Deliberately she unclenched her fingers and willed herself to relax.
What was she going to do? Fight her liege lord?
Then she heard it again – another wave of sound. Footsteps were surging up the steps. Towards this chamber. She shrank under the fine linen and dragged the furs over her head to muffle the shouting. It didn’t work. Someone roared with laughter, a deep belly laugh which rumbled through the air and brought into her anguished mind the image of a bear of a man with a large paunch. She thought she heard a shout of anger. Then her mind went blank and she could not for a moment recall what Sir Geoffrey Fitz Neal looked like.
She burrowed deep under the coverings and curled into a ball like a hedgehog. She had never felt such dread. She knew she was a coward for she couldn’t bring herself to peer out and look at her would-be seducer.