The Devil Claims a Wife Read online

  ‘Thank you,’ Jane said, suddenly shy. ‘That is indeed thoughtful of you, but I—I could not possibly accept …’

  ‘To refuse is to risk offending the earl,’ the rider closest to the earl said jovially. Cedric was a big, brawny squire with a wild thatch of bright blond hair in dire need of a trimming, who looked more like a bear than a man. He looked Jane over from head to foot, his voice and eyes lazily good humoured. ‘When a pretty girl takes his eye, you will find Guy St Edmond a man of the grand gesture,’ he quipped, winking good naturedly at his master. ‘Now we must be on our way, Guy. We have ridden far and my belly is demanding food. I haven’t had a mouthful since I ate that bacon at breakfast.’

  His fellow riders laughed heartily at this, for apparently his appetite was a well-established joke among them.

  ‘The deuce you haven’t, Cedric,’ the earl chided with mock reproach. ‘Come, then, we’ll be on our way.’

  The men wheeled their horses round and as Guy St Edmond’s turned, its forelegs lifted high, he turned his head and looked at Jane once more. Perhaps it was the heat of the day or the sun that filled the glade with its golden light, or the blackbird that continued to sing its delightful song, but in the depths of that gaze she felt time was suspended.

  ‘We will meet again, Jane Lovet. Do not be in any doubt of that. I shall see to it.’

  Her mouth went dry as alarm gathered apace, along with wild, wanton sensations she had never experienced before that were beginning to fill her body, taking control of her, making her weak and helpless. Recollecting herself, she reminded herself who he was. They had been told it was Guy St Edmond who had issued the death sentence on her beloved brother when he had been taken prisoner at the Battle of Towton in 1461—just one of almost thirty thousand cut down that day. She took a step back, her heart beating sickeningly fast. As she stiffened her shoulders in an effort at least to appear composed, her eyes were intense.

  ‘You forget yourself, sir. It would be inappropriate for us to meet in the way I believe you are suggesting.’

  He flashed her a mocking smile, his tone suddenly taunting. ‘Why? Would it have anything to do with me being a barbarian?’

  ‘I have told you that I am to be married, sir—yet even had that not been the case,’ she said, unaware that she was plunging lightning-fast into unchartered territory, ‘your reputation has preceded you. People say you are the spawn of Satan and that men and children fear you. For years there have been rumours that you enjoy killing—that it was by your order that my brother died and that you take pleasure in the suffering of others.’ When he didn’t deny it, Jane felt her insides cringe.

  ‘Since you appear to know so much about me,’ he said in a dangerously soft voice, ‘there is little wonder I am persona non grata in certain company.’

  ‘You must have luck on your side in war,’ she replied tersely.

  Guy’s leisurely perusal swept her as he tried to control his restive mount. ‘I am as lucky in war as I am in love, sweet Jane. I’ve been a long time at the wars. I confess there might be some justification in the rumours you have heard about me. Killing makes barbarians of many brave and honourable men. However,’ he said, his eyes glowing in the warm light as he gave her a lazy smile, his gaze settling on her lips, ‘I doubt that in your case my reaction would vary had I just left the king’s court.’

  Jane’s eyes flared at his boldness. Lifting her nose primly in the air, she coolly glanced askance at him. ‘You press yourself beyond the bounds of propriety, sir! As I said, I am to leave the village shortly when I am wed.’

  A crooked smile slanted Guy’s lips. He had seen her eyes flash and he approved. It was a sign that she had spirit. Mistress Lovet was clearly prepared to reject his further attentions. Where with another woman he would have felt merely challenged, if he felt anything at all, her rejection, delivered with a sweet but dauntless pride, cut dangerously deep. He rarely encountered occasions when he bothered to exert himself to change a woman’s mind, but a man like Guy St Edmond got what he wanted, and meet with her again he would.

  As he leaned forwards there was a flash in his eyes that Jane could not recognise. It was like a sudden hunger, as when a starving man sees a banquet. Bravely she stood her ground. She was neither afraid nor coquettish, but she was still young and there was something about the power and the energy of this man that she didn’t want focused on her.

  He stared at her with his head tilted to one side. The corners of his mouth lifted as his eyes left hers and wandered to her feet and back, slowly, slowly appraising, approving, for his smile broadened as he looked back into her eyes. Reaching out, he touched her cheek with the backs of his fingers. When he spoke, his voice was solemn and he held her gaze with an intensity of his own.

  ‘You’re very beautiful,’ he murmured, both entranced and repelled by what he wanted. ‘I remember your father and your mother,’ he said equably. ‘I have known them since I was a boy, in good times and bad. So know this, and never doubt it, sweet Jane.’ He seemed to measure his words carefully. ‘My word is my bond and I pledge it to you. You can rest assured we shall meet—and at my instigation. I promise you.’

  Jane stared at him aghast, realising he meant every word he said. For a moment the blue eyes looked savage. That this mighty lord should want her both fascinated and terrified her. He was confusing on every level. Unknown and intriguing, he was a new threat that could not be second-guessed. She knew beyond doubt that she was his prey, that he intended to seduce her, to dishonour her, and nothing was going to deter him from trying—not even the fact that she was about to be betrothed to another.

  Guy St Edmond would have no pity on her and he would damn anyone who stood in his way.

  She could not let that happen. Time that had stopped for a moment went on again. Unable to bear his taunting gaze, she dropped her eyes and made a curtsy. With a deep laugh and a touch of spurs to his horse’s flesh, Guy turned and rode off in pursuit of his companions.

  Not until he was out of sight did Jane turn to Kate, who suddenly found her tongue.

  ‘Well, I never! The Earl of Sinnington! He has a way about him, doesn’t he?’

  ‘Oh, yes. He certainly has a way. Come, let us play a game of hoodman blind. I shall wear the blindfold.’

  Determined not to let the encounter with Guy St Edmond spoil their game, Jane took the cloth from Alfred’s pocket and tied it around her eyes. Having no wish to go home just yet, the frightening interlude forgotten as they became caught up in the new game, the children giggled and erupted into gales of laughter as they darted this way and that to avoid their sister’s groping hands. Jane laughed delightedly as she pretended she couldn’t locate the giggling children.

  Taking a moment to pause and look back, Guy was enchanted by what he saw. Mistress Lovet’s laughter rang out like tinkling chimes. It was a delightful scene—a scene of innocence and perfection that would become etched in memory and emblazoned on his heart.

  From her seat on a stout trunk of a fallen tree, Kate watched the innocent play of her charges. Kate had watched Jane grow. As a child she’d been headstrong, pugnacious and daring. Surrounded by family all her life, especially her doting mother, she was an imp of a girl, always courting laughter with her japes.

  Kate’s gaze took in the condition of Alfred and Blanche, which brought a frown to her brow. They had set off from home in their best and she was dismayed to see that Alfred had scuffed his shoes and ripped his hose, and that Blanche had leaves and twigs in her hair. They were in for a scolding from their father when they got back to the house, unless she could smuggle them upstairs and clean them up first. Knowing it was time to go home, she rose.

  ‘Jane, come. It’s time we were getting back. Enough play for today. Your mother stressed that you mustn’t be late.’

  Removing her blindfold, Jane laughed at her maid, her beloved Kate, who knew her like no other, who saw to all their needs with affection and devotion. ‘Must we go now, Kate?’

  ‘D
o you forget that soon you are to be betrothed? There is much to be done before the event. Even now your mother is sewing her fingers raw in her effort to complete your gown in time.’

  Kate’s words were a harsh reminder to Jane that soon she would have the mundane affairs of the wife of a cloth merchant’s son to fill her days and occupy her mind—soon, but not yet. As hard as she resisted, she could not help wondering what it would be like to be married to a man like Guy St Edmond instead.

  Not that she could now seriously entertain the idea of marriage to one other than Richard. She’d committed herself to doing right by her family and was not one to go back on her word, no matter how distasteful she found the consequences. She had been raised to know her place and knew better than to defy the rules of men and make her own destiny. It had come as no surprise to her and with much bitterness that, as a girl, her worth to her family was her marriageability.

  Believing in the inherent wisdom of her parents, Jane was optimistic about her future and had not questioned their judgement—until now, when her betrothal was just days away and she had gazed upon the handsome face of Guy St Edmond.

  Guy was staring straight ahead into the distance, a faint smile playing about his lips as his eyes embraced his home. He tipped his head in the direction he was staring and in a quiet voice, said, ‘Look, Cedric—the castle.’

  ‘It’s a fine demesne. You’ve been looking at it as if you’ve not set eyes on it before.’

  ‘Not in a long time, Cedric. Eight years, at least—and not since my father passed on and my brother was killed at St Albans. I kept meaning to come back, but the king always had urgent need of me elsewhere, which may have been for the best. The battles have made me wealthy, which will ensure my sons will not have to earn their living with muscle and blood as I have done.’

  ‘So you have done with fighting.’

  ‘I’d like to think I’ve breached my last castle wall and fought on my last battlefield,’ Guy said, his voice harsh with resolve. ‘Dear God, it will be good to be home at last, to have a soft bed to sleep in every night and good food in my belly.’

  Guy drank in the incredible beauty of the wide vale of Cherriot. Twenty miles north of London, it was a fertile valley. The hills on either side were covered with forest and fertile fields, the lower slopes clothed with pear and apple orchards and fruit gardens. His vast demesne contained four villages, two visible to the eye. A lazy river meandered its way passed the picturesque town of Cherriot, with its main street, the stone bridge which spanned the river, and industrial premises along the waterfront: leather tanners, sawmills, manufacturers and the abattoirs. Smoke rose from a thousand chimneys and miniature people meandered through the streets going about their business. On a raised plateau overlooking this pastoral scene stood Sinnington Castle, with its soaring turrets and high, thick walls punctuated with six gracefully rounded towers.

  Guy could hardly contain his excitement the closer they got to the castle. He was expected. There were sentries at the gate. They clattered over the bridge that spanned the moat.

  ‘I can see this is the ideal place for you to settle down and raise those sons you intend to have one day,’ Cedric remarked, appreciating all he saw.

  ‘I must first find a wife who will give me children, Cedric,’ Guy said with a fierceness that left Cedric in no doubt about his seriousness. ‘It’s no matter whether she is pretty or not, so long as she can give me fine sons.’

  ‘Then all you have to do is find the lady.’

  Guy stared straight ahead. For months he had been plagued by a deepening awareness of a large hole in his life, an emptiness. He had sensed it vaguely and ignored it because for a very long time it evoked painful memories of Isabel Leigh, a callous, brown-eyed witch driven by ambition and greed. For a time her beauty had bewitched him and, when she had betrayed him with another, he had been shocked to discover how close he had come to losing control. He had vowed that his emotions would never again be engaged by a woman. He wanted none of their treachery and deceit. But his need for sons had sharpened since he had fought his last battle into a nameless hunger, a gnawing urgency.

  He had a fortune to rival many of his aristocratic friends, but he had no heir to leave it to. If he died unexpectedly—and there was always a chance of that, the way he lived—everything he’d worked and fought for would die with him. But getting heirs meant putting up with the inconvenience of a wife, a prospect he so little relished that he had been putting it off for years. Where could a man find a woman who would bear his children and otherwise leave him alone?

  Unbidden, an image of Jane Lovet came to mind. As Guy recalled the moment when she had smiled at him, a smile that had grown slowly and then shone, his expression softened and his eyes gentled. He had seen Madonnas whose features would pale before her loveliness. It was as though a shutter had been flung open and the sun had rushed in. And the way she had stood up to him! She had looked him in the eye and spoken her mind with a frankness most men wouldn’t dare.

  With her anything might happen. There was a mark of destiny on her, quite apart from her beauty and the rare and subtle quality she emanated. She made one think of hot, tumbling love and sensual sport. She was a well brought-up young woman with a decent woman’s need for marriage which he was not able to give her. It would be social death to consider looking outside his own circle, a penniless girl from the lower orders, the daughter of a cloth merchant … but as a mistress? His eyes narrowed and a calculating gleam glinted in their depths.

  He did not stop to wonder why he was so inflexible, it was just so. He was the Earl of Sinnington and he must rebuild. Men of his station married for advantage so that they might be the founders of dynasties. It was a business. Love did not come into it. He had decided long ago that such an affliction of the heart was best left to the peasants as compensation for their miserable lot in life.

  ‘Mistress Lovet is comely enough, Cedric. What was your opinion of her?’

  Cedric gave him a knowing look and laughed heartily at his friend’s remark, knowing precisely where his thoughts were leading him. ‘Mistress Lovet is no ordinary girl, I grant you, but I imagined your interest to be in the way of finding a little amusement and nothing more. She is a strangely fascinating young creature, but hardly your type.’

  Guy felt a moment of annoyance at Cedric’s pronouncement, remembering the exuberance of his most recent wild coupling with one of the more rapaciously demanding, hedonistic ladies of the court, who positively encouraged him in his more abandoned pursuits. But he had never lain with a virgin—had never been given the opportunity to discover the pleasures of such unblemished perfection, of making his mark on untouched territory. He imagined the sensation and felt a stirring in his loins.

  ‘You are quite right, Cedric. Jane Lovet is not my usual type at all. But then, one’s taste improves with age, I’ve been told.’

  ‘Aye, but for a wife you have to think about selecting a woman with an eye to forming political alliances and important connections. Mistress Lovet is merely the daughter of a humble cloth merchant.’

  ‘It is the way of things,’ Guy replied, knowing Cedric spoke the truth, but the image of Jane Lovet was too fresh in his mind.

  Knowing Guy so well that he could follow his train of thought, Cedric smiled. ‘Did I not hear Mistress Lovet say she is to wed to someone else?’

  ‘Apparently so,’ Guy replied dismissively. ‘But I shall not be denied the pleasure of pursuing her if I so wish.’

  ‘Even though her brother was a supporter of the Lancastrians in the past.’

  ‘That no longer cuts any cloth with me, Cedric. Pray to God that after countless battles, the peace holds and Edward will sit on the throne of England for many years to come, leaving me free to enjoy the more enjoyable, gentler pursuits of life—and if I have a mistress as delectable as Mistress Lovet to enjoy them with, it will make life a damned sight more delightful.’

  Cedric had seen how Guy had warmed to Jane Lovet, had been aw
are that his eyes had filled with the soft fire he felt when he’d looked at her. It could be interesting seeing how he dealt with the finer points of luring her into his bed. He had what other men envied. He was well favoured in looks and fortune, and he had any woman he wanted. It was no boast, but the honest truth. Women never turned him down.

  Guy was also a fighter without equal, a soldier for whom violence was not indulged, but controlled—whose aggression was directed, not by ambition for personal glory, but by a sense of justice. He was a clear-headed, resourceful planner, a tireless campaigner, an entertaining, cheerful, unpretentious companion and faithfully loyal. But all Guy’s virtues were warrior virtues. He was made for war. He thought of nothing else. He was also an integral part of King Edward’s council, and as such the powerful barons saw him either as a shrewd friend to look to in times of trouble, or as a man to be wary of if they were involved in anything detrimental to the king.

  But of late Cedric could see in his friend that he was, at thirty years old and having been brought low by the death of his brother, growing tired of war and that his thoughts were turning to the softer joys of hunting and hawking, of peace and music and love.

  Guy rode into the outer bailey, casting an eye over the castle folk waiting to welcome their lord home, nodding in reply to their welcome. There wasn’t a man, woman or child that didn’t know of the black reputation he had acquired in France. He took a moment to look around. The main structure of the castle was built around the inner bailey in whose centre was the well that ensured the water supply. On the ground floor were the Great Hall, the stables, the kitchen and storerooms, and the living quarters communally shared by a large collection of human and animal dependants.

  Guy and his men dismounted and handed their horses to the grooms who rushed forwards to take them, servants bowing low when they entered the great hall. The warmth and welcome of Sinnington Castle embraced him, along with the aroma of roasting meat from the kitchen. Guy felt himself relax, all the tensions easing out of him. After years of fighting, the need to be forever alert and watchful was being replaced by a sense of well-being.