Chapter One

It was only because her husband slid his fingers inside her in the sixth year of their marriage that her carefully constructed mask began to slip. She had no cause to expect such a thing, and thought it was a simple miscalculation on his part, not unlike those moments when she was distracted by some stray thought and misjudged the placement of her needle while embroidering.

But he was not distracted. It was purposeful. His fingers stayed there, far past the usual perfunctory appraisal of her readiness. In truth, she was never eager for their coupling, though of course it was necessary if ever she was to have a child. Yet in spite of her aversion, she anointed herself with the oil when she knew he would come to her bed, blessedly rare as that was, and dutifully prepared her body to be entered by someone she loathed.

Strangely enough, she found she hated him a little less during these moments in their marital bed. Instead, she pitied him. She pitied herself. It was pitiful, all the fumbling and fakery in the dark, the awkward ritual that bound them. She often passed the time dwelling on the sin of Eve, wondering how simple curiosity could have condemned all of humanity to endure these indignities. A woman ate a fruit once, and now Lady Margaret of Ruardean must lay uncomplaining beneath her lord husband as he moved between her reluctantly oiled thighs.

His bold new touch interrupted this contemplation. His fingers lingered in her slick folds, moving gently on her, as in a kind of massage. His mouth went to her neck, as it did sometimes, and his other hand went to her breast. She waited impatiently for him to move on to the usual business, but he only continued the gentle stroking between her legs as she lay in a rising tide of confusion, wondering what he meant by it, feeling her flesh soften mysteriously while his hands and mouth moved on her as they had never done, not in six years of performing this marital task. It went on for quite some time, but it was only when her hips lifted suddenly, seeking more of his touch – like an eager pet begging for a treat – that she was suddenly repulsed.

"No," she said loudly, forcefully. Already her body was recoiling from him, turning cold. She could not seem to prevent it. "Stop it. Stop ."

It should have been a pretty pleading, an apologetic withdrawal caused by her natural delicacy. Instead it was this firm command, almost a hiss at his ear. If he had not pulled away immediately, she might even have pushed him. What an irrevocable mistake that would have been, years of effort lost in an instant.

He removed his body and sat not far from her on the bed. She was not sure if it was better to lay here meek and submissive, or to follow her impulse to sit up. At present she could not seem to think past the heated confusion he had stirred in her flesh.

"I have displeased you."

There was no temper in his voice, nor shame. It was a simple observation. She cast about for the proper thing to say – what would timid, pious Lady Margaret say?

"Nay, my lord could never displease me." It was not quite right, not placating enough. There was still a touch of outrage beneath the surface. "It is only… I did not expect…"

When he leaned over her with arm outstretched, she could not seem to stop herself from jerking away from him. Fool , she castigated herself, because it should have been a spiritless shrinking, not a sudden move of defense. Then she saw that he was only reaching for the lamp beside her. He took it to the hearth and she watched him light it, startled to see the look on his face as the glow touched his features. There was none of his usual carefully concealed dislike, or his cool distance. There was instead a frown of consternation.

"You fear me."

He watched her closely when he said it, and she was glad she did not have to lie in her response.

"Never has my lord given me cause to fear him." There, that was better. The compliant tone she had practiced for so long was returning to her voice.

"Why then do you cringe from me?"

She sat up, pulling the bedclothes modestly over her linen shift. "I did not know what you intended, my lord. We… Always has it been the same when you… when we…" She could not seem to find words. It was not false, this timid uncertainty, the downcast eyes and flushed face. "Tonight you are different."

"As are you," was his very reasonable response. "Never before have you said me nay, nor protested any touch."

Her mind worked furiously to find a way to answer this. It was hard to think past the sensation he had caused, that involuntary lift of her hips. How could she say that it had felt too different? For the first time, he had not treated her body impersonally. Nor had he treated the act like a chore that must be performed efficiently. There were rules, she wanted to say. Unspoken rules, laid down over the years, of how they would go about this – and he had broken them.

He returned the lamp to the table and sat on the bed again, at her feet. His linen undertunic was immaculate, a white that glowed in the night. The way he watched her now was the scrutiny he typically reserved for others. She had seen him trap countless people in his gaze, from the merest peasant to the king himself, all of them worthy opponents to his wit and cunning. But his dull and witless wife had never merited such an effort. Until now.

"I sought to give you pleasure," he said.

She kept her eyes down, a carefully calibrated measure of cloying in her voice. "It gives me pleasure to please God."

He hated her most when she said such things. Often she did it only to provoke him, to watch him hide his contempt. She had a hundred simpering rejoinders at the ready, filled with saints and prayers and humility, because she so enjoyed irritating him, seeing that imperturbable fa?ade falter for just an instant. These were her little amusements, her recompense for marrying herself to him.

"Would it not please God for you to give me a child?" he asked, and she knew he was resisting tightening his lips into that little pinch that showed his annoyance.

A child. She did want a child. She also wanted to spit at him for his arrogance. Give him a child, he said, making it clear that her only purpose was to furnish him with a coveted possession that was for him alone.

"It is not for me to question the ways of God," she replied in her most practiced tone of humility. "If He will bless us with a child, it will please me greatly. Never do I fail to pray for it." She clasped her hands and lowered her head, prepared to launch into a rousing paternoster.

He pressed the heels of his hands gently into his eyes and across his forehead, the sign of a man beleaguered by an unbearable headache of a wife. It was wonderfully satisfying to see.

"Nor do I doubt your prayers are constant and precise, lady, but surely you know prayer alone cannot produce a child. More earthly measures must be taken." His lip curled. "Unless you have been visited by an archangel, or have seen a star in the east?"

A huff of air, almost an identifiable snort, escaped her. The mask, slipping again. She managed to turn it into a gasp, and counted herself lucky he had not been looking at her in the moment. He so rarely missed anything when he cared to pay attention.

"There can be no greater sin than blasphemy, my lord! I will pray that God forgives you this mockery, and beg the intercession of the Virgin that your soul –"

"Enough of your prayers." His words were firm. He would not be goaded further. "Now we are in our sixth year of marriage and still I have no heir, though I put no blame on you for it. Too rarely have we shared a bed."

It certainly did not feel rare. But it was true that they were not often in the same place. He was nearly always at court, and she made endless excuses to travel to this or that shrine or holy place. And when they were in the same place, it must not be Advent or Lent, or a feast day or fast day or the Lord's Day – virtually every day was forbidden by the Church for one reason or another, and a pious lady would of course obey these strictures. It suited her very well. But it did not get her with child.

"Lately has my lord come more frequently to my chamber," she observed. He had come to her bed four times in these two months – a full year's worth of intercourse, in the normal way of things between them. "God may yet reward our prayers, now that our efforts–"

"I have spoken with Master Edmund." His voice cut across hers, clearly wanting to hear no more about her prayers. "He studied in Salerno in his youth, and his wisdom in this kind of physicking is unmatched."

He seemed to wait for her to respond, so she gave a nod to acknowledge the physician's skill. She liked Master Edmund very well, but she herself had more wisdom on the topic than either he or her husband could guess. She knew the kinds of cures employed for an infertile wife, and she could only hope the dear old man would not leap at the chance to subject her to them.

"There is no need yet," her husband continued, "to bring the physician's skill to bear in this matter. He tells me he thinks it very likely you will conceive, do we attend to our duty. It wants only your pleasure."

The words sat there between them, a fully present and unwelcome occupant in the room. She stopped breathing for a moment, trying to decide if she should pretend ignorance of what he meant. But she rejected that idea. Lady Margaret was submissive and pious and even modest, but she was not unlearned, or entirely stupid.

"My pleasure," she repeated. "My pleasure in our joining, you mean?"

"Aye, that is my meaning."

"But I know no greater pleasure than to share my bed with my lord husband. In faith, there is naught displeasing in the act for me," she assured him.

It was mostly true. He was clean, and respectful of her, and never spent too long at it. It was not painful. She wished it was not necessary, but it was a perfectly bearable unpleasantness.

"It is my touch I speak of," he said, blessedly free of any awkwardness or embarrassment. "It must give such pleasure that your body delights in it, if a child is to be conceived."

He was watching her closely again. She could feel his eyes on her in the dim light, and was glad she could use modesty as her excuse to look away. It was the spasm of pleasure he meant, the spasm that in a man released his seed. It was said that the same spasm in a woman was necessary for conception to occur. It was an absurdity if ever she had heard one, and she had dismissed the idea out of hand years ago.

But she was not a physician, and had certainly not read as much on that particular subject as Master Edmund. She must concede that it was possible a woman's pleasure made conception more likely, or easier. And just as she would drink herbs to encourage pregnancy, or use the meticulously concocted blend of oils between her legs, or say the prayers – actually say them and mean them – to increase her chances of having his son, so too should she do this.

More importantly, though, meek Lady Margaret was obedient. It did not matter if she secretly thought it absurd; it mattered that her husband wanted it.

She nodded, and felt her stomach give a slight lurch to remember his fingers on her, how her body had responded. There would be more of that.

"Gladly will I do as my lord husband bids me," she murmured.

"Gladly?" he asked, skeptical. "I think me you cannot know what I speak of, do you so readily agree."

"I know, husband." She lifted her eyes to his, one of the few times she had ever looked at him with something close to frankness. "I have read of it. The blessed Hildegard of Bingen wrote of it. I understand."

She quickly began to regret looking so directly into his eyes. They were very beautiful eyes, she could not deny it. Large and gray, framed by long, thick lashes and filled with intelligence. In their depths she could perceive a hint of his contempt for her, perpetually present, though he took even greater care than usual to conceal it this evening.

"So faithfully do you obey the teachings of the Church, lady, that I am full amazed to find you do not object." His brows lifted minutely, a mocking challenge. "Do you not fear the peril to your soul, to engage in such sin?"

"Sin?" she echoed. It happened this way sometimes, that her true feeling could be voiced, disguised as innocence. Her face relaxed into a guileless expression, wide-eyed and earnest. "How can it be sinful to do the bidding of the Lord? For if it is only in this way that a child can be conceived, then it verily must be His will."

He almost smiled. Almost, but not quite. Such a ruthless control he had over himself.

"If only the churchmen had such admirable logic." His gaze dropped from her face to where her arms still held the bedclothes against her chest. "They preach against all things that give pleasure and delight. To give lewd kisses and cause lascivious sensation – the Church tells us it is a grave sin, even in marriage. Do you say you will risk your soul to such sin?"

She put on a thoughtful look and answered, "Is it not you, my lord, who risks it? For if it is a sin to perform these acts and give pleasure in this way, then it is you who sins. If I do naught but receive pleasure, such as is necessary to conceive and no more, then I think me there can be no stain on my soul."

Now he did smile, an involuntary quirk of amusement on his lips for the barest instant before he stifled it. "Admirable logic," he said again, a murmur to himself.

He looked as if he might even laugh, and that would certainly cause her to laugh too. To prevent it, she reached out to clasp his hands and spoke in her most fervent manner.

"Your immortal soul is all my concern, husband. Before God, I did vow to love and to keep you. Do you choose this course and all the sin in it, I will pray for you most ardently. With all my spirit, I will entreat the saints to protect you and our Lord to forgive you." She swung her feet over the edge of the bed, preparing to kneel on the rushes. "I will pray now, for already it may be a sin of intention–"

"Nay, do not pray now." All his amusement vanished, as reliably happened when she began a prayer. There was distaste in his expression, an eagerness to be away from her. "If it will ease your mind, take counsel with the priest on the morrow. I will come to your bed again soon. A week hence, if naught has changed."

A week. Clearly he knew her courses were due. She had not realized he had been observing her so closely. It felt like a warning, a reminder to be careful, so careful, because his scrutiny would only increase. Already something felt different between them: her mask slipping, his attention so keen, this talk of pleasure and sin and what she might be willing to compromise. It had always been a dangerous game she played, and now the danger grew.

He stood and pulled his heavy robe over his linen, preparing to return to his own chamber. When he was only steps from the door, he stopped and turned to her again.

"One thing I would require of you in this, and I will not have you call it a sin." She nodded, startled by the unprecedented gentleness in his tone. "When my touch displeased you, you did not bear it in silence, but commanded me to stop." He was holding her trapped in his gaze again, the way he held peasants and kings. "I would have you swear that you will always do so, without fear."

It was a challenge to hide the little jolt of surprise that ran through her. She concentrated, as she always did, on finding just the right response. Normally she would object to swearing anything, because a pious woman made vows only to God, not men. But nothing about this evening was normal. And there were things between men and women that were entirely human, and had little to do with God.

She nodded, and set aside all artifice to answer him. "I swear it, my lord."

After the door closed behind him, she slumped back against the bed. She was suddenly exhausted, drained by the effort of keeping up the pretense through what was surely the longest conversation of their marriage, and slightly stunned by this extraordinary turn of events. Somehow she must accustom herself to the idea of taking pleasure in his company. Of being eager for his touch.

She took a moment to consider this. At least it would be in the dark, where she could close out the sight of him. If naught else, she could pretend. She had become quite skilled at pretending.

As the reality of it sank in, she turned her face into the mattress to muffle a sudden shout of laughter. What an agreement they had made. She would lie there and pretend to pray for his immortal soul while he worked diligently to give her spasms of great pleasure. All while they silently loathed one another.

She pressed her hands over her burbling mouth, and could not feel shame for laughing at the whole sordid business. Surely God was laughing along with her. And the devil too, for that matter.