Chapter Twenty-three

R anulf watched his wife trot off in the direction in which they had come, unaware he was still smiling. She was like the other ladies he had known, yet different, too, in a way that was a welcome relief. Most ladies would cry or plead, cajole or bring forth every available wile when they did not get their way. Not his lady. Her manner was too direct. She either cut softly with stinging sarcasm or let loose her temper, which he found he did not mind at all. Her temper in fact amused him, coming from such a little baggage.

Why she was wroth with him this time, he was not quite sure. Could she really have objected to a quick tumble in the woods on such a fine spring day?

Lady Anne had never objected. She had in truth been the one to instigate most of their encounters together, and in the most unlikely places. Lady Montfort had also tried to seduce him in the woods, after arranging for him to accompany her hawking. That he had not accommodated her was not owing to where they were or who she was, for he was as randy then as now and took his relief where and when he could. But he liked his wenches a bit younger than two score and ten years. Grandmothers just had not appealed to a lad of fifteen.

Ranulf shook off thoughts of the past before they threatened his good humor. And his humor was good, ever since challenging his wife this morn and coming out the winner. That had been unexpected. He had wanted her vassals told the truth about their first wedding, but if Reina had given him valid reasons why they should continue the deception, he would have conceded. After all, she knew those men well and so was better able to judge their reactions. That she still wanted Sir Henry kept in the dark was all right, too. Perhaps one day, when he came to know his new overlord, he would tell him the truth. Or mayhap not. If Reina wanted her father’s memory to remain unsullied, he could not object to that.

But she had agreed with him, at least in part, proving she was not as inflexible as some ladies were wont to be just out of sheer perversity. He suffered from that himself at times, as he had this morn, being unable to resist tossing the true wedding sheet at that group of giggling women who had barged in on him just as Lanzo finished dressing him.

The women had been surprised to find him alone, and surprised more when he told them the truth. But their reaction to that sheet was truly laughable, almost as bad as his own reaction when he had first seen it. At least he had had his wife standing before him, proving he had not killed her. The ladies did not have that to ease their horror, since Reina had conveniently absented herself.

Reina? Aye, Reina. ’Twas a lovely name, and not one he was like to forget, as she had accused him of doing. But what difference what he called her? And what difference where he tumbled her? Could that really be what she had objected to? She had tried to protest, and yet she had turned soft and yielding once he kissed her. Or was it more that he had not undressed her? Not that he had had much choice. To do so would have taken time that that traitor in his braies was not willing to allow, may it fall off and rot. Never had he had so little control over the cursed thing. And ’twas becoming a habit.

Verily, ’twas not such a bad habit to fall into, Ranulf thought with a grin as he swiped up his mantle. There were worse things than to lust after one’s own wife. And then his grin widened and became a chuckle when he saw the scrap of white linen on the ground. She had been so wroth with him, she had ridden off without her braies!

He picked up the forgotten underwear, made of the softest linen he had ever felt. He could not recall feeling that softness earlier when he had stripped them off her, aware then only of what lay beneath them. He rubbed the linen against his cheek, thinking how his wife did pamper her body with luxuries—but that was a mistake. Her essence came to him, and his manhood stirred at the scent. Again!

Disgruntled, Ranulf stuffed the material inside his tunic. But his annoyance did not last. He imagined the little general’s expression when he returned her braies to her, and that had him chuckling to himself again.

And so he was when Walter found him, at least after Walter’s close scrutiny and exclamation that he had thought the lady had done him in.

“And can a man not tarry for other reasons than to get himself done in?”

“What was I to think,” Walter grumbled, “when you disappeared with her in woods unfamiliar to you? And when I just passed her, she like to smote me with her eyes.”

“Aye, she was in high dudgeon when we did part.”

“So you stopped to have words?”

“Why we stopped is none of your business, my friend,” Ranulf replied.

Walter accepted that for about five seconds, then burst out, “ Tarry for other reasons? God’s wounds, Ranulf! Say you did not…you would not…. God’s wounds! In the woods? No wonder she is again wroth with you. Do you not know ladies like to be wooed gently?”

Ranulf’s snort was loud. “What needs to woo a wife already won?”

Walter gave a short bark of laughter. “Methinks you have avoided ladies too long. You have forgotten what ’tis like to live among them, subject to their moods and spites. And your lady rules your household. Remember your thoughts on wooing when your clothing lacks repair, your dinner comes ill-done, and there are no warm bricks in your bed come winter.”

Ranulf grinned despite these dire predictions. “All things I have always done without.”

“But now you have a wife who will or will not see to your comfort. There is no reason to do without, Lord Ranulf.”

It was Ranulf’s turn to bark with laugher. “Lord Ranulf? You are determined to tease me from my good mood, but it cannot be done today. I am well pleased with my lot, so do you let me worry about my wife and her humors.”

Walter shook his head, but finally shrugged, then added a grin. “Well pleased, eh? And nary a word of thanks did I get for convincing the lady to have you.”

“Convincing her? ’Twas my handsome face that did it. Did she not swoon at first sight of me?”

“She fell at your feet right enough.”

They continued jesting back and forth until they came upon the hunting party again. The kill had been made, the huntsmen now attending it, the group in high excitement discussing it. Walter joined right in to this, but Ranulf was subdued at the sight of his wife again, especially as she made a point of deliberately ignoring him now.

He had to wonder if there could be some truth to what Walter said. Had he been too rough with her? He had somehow forgotten how really small she was, at least small to him. Had he hurt her? Was she too stubborn to tell him if he did, reverting to anger instead?

What he knew of ladies he did not like, but in truth, he knew very little about them. The two who had turned him against their kind had done a good job, for he had avoided gentlewomen ever since. Now he was married to one, a woman he had no understanding of at all, and who set him to doubting his own behavior when he knew no other way to be.

She was right about what he was used to with women. Getting right to it was necessary when the moments were stolen, for a servant or villein rarely had any free time to herself. And they had always been easy to come by, costing no more than a cheap bauble or a decent meal, or nothing at all because they found a man his size a novelty and wanted to try him.

He had never had to woo a woman, not even Lady Anne, for she had been the one to start their affair. Yet she had never complained of his roughness, if rough he had been. He could not recall much of their passionate encounters except that they had been hur ried, too, the fear of being discovered very strong. But he had been only ten years and five at the time, and well and truly smitten. By the time his head had come out of the clouds, it was too late for him to see through the sweetness to the rotten core beneath.

Rationally, he knew ’twas unfair to compare all ladies with that bitch Anne, yet he had done exactly that. As for his wife, she had had fair warning of how he had been raised, as well as a sample of his manners before she had decided to settle on him. A man learns by example, and his example had been first his blacksmith stepfather, then Montfort, both men as churlish as they come and ever quick with a blow. Walter had tried to show him differently, and teased him mightily about his lack of courtly ways, but Walter’s own were nearly lost during their years at Montfort.

Ranulf was what he was, a product of his upbringing. If his wife wanted different, she would have to find it elsewhere.

That thought cut deeply into his good humor. There would be no finding aught elsewhere, not for her. The lady had stuck herself with him and would just have to lower her expectations accordingly. But he supposed he could not call his treatment of her gentle thus far.

Since he had met her, he had dropped her on the floor, bound her and rolled her up in a blanket, ordered sacks of grain dumped on her, literally rolled her out of same blanket, and God only knew in what manner he had taken her on their true wedding night, for he had been too sotted to remember his part in it. In all fairness, she deserved none of that, and what would it cost him to be less—brutish? Aye, that was her word.

He could at least try to be as she would like. There were those comforts Walter had mentioned as a reward. And she had given him so much, more than he had ever expected to have. He would try.