His face darkened further, then with a sound of disgust, he dropped onto his back.
And there they lay side by side until he said, “If I am so disagreeable you are reviled, you should have refused the queen.”
She turned her face to his, saw his forearm was on his brow, eyes on the ceiling. Wishing she had been able to hide her fear, hating she gave him cause to believe he repulsed her, she said, “As told, Lothaire, I am glad it was you the queen chose, not…”
He turned his eyes upon her. “It is no compliment to be favored over a deviant, Laura. Do not try to make it one. All I wish to know is why, feeling toward me as you do, you spoke vows. And do not say you had to make a home for Clarice. You did not.”
She sat up. “You know we could not remain at Owen after Donnie—”
“You could have made your home at Castle Soaring where Clarice was content.”
Laura stared, understood.
“Aye,” he said. “Lady Beatrix told me she and her husband offered their home to you.”
She nodded. “They did, but I could not accept.”
“Why?”
“I could no longer be a burden to others, and I wanted Clarice to have a home of her own so never would she be owing to any. As a wife, I could earn our place by keeping my husband’s household and…”
“Suffering his attentions?”
“Nay!” She reached to him.
“Do not, Laura!”
She snatched her hand back.
“You wish to know what I am inclined to believe?” he said.
She was certain she would not like it, but it was not truly a question he asked.
“I think you could not accept the offer to live at Castle Soaring because, unbeknownst to Lady Beatrix, her husband is Clarice’s father. And if that is not deterrent enough, despite what you would have me believe of the man who made a child on you, perhaps you love him still.”
Laura’s belly churned so violently she feared she would be sick. She weathered silence beneath his regard, then said, “I do not understand why you think ’twas Michael. And again, I tell you it was not.”
He sat up, turned to her. “The night at Castle Soaring, I was at my window when you and he returned from the outer bailey. I saw you go into his arms.”
That was easily recalled, but not because of any passion between Michael and her. It had not been appropriate, but she had missed the brother he had been to her and been so grateful for his kindness that she acted on impulse. Here now proof of what had turned Lothaire cooler toward her and made him curt with Michael. She should have guessed they were seen and judgment passed on one believed to be free with her body.
“Certes, you were not averse to his touch as you are to mine,” Lothaire pressed.
“I was not because I do not fear his touch.”
“As you fear mine.”
“Yours is…” She dropped her chin, moved her gaze over the rose petals between them. “You want…”
“I want to make love to my wife, just as he—”
“I tell you he did not! He is not Clarice’s father and never has Lady Beatrix had anything to fear from me. Indeed, ’twas she who sent Michael to me that night when she thought me gone too long.”
He considered her, said, “You deny you care for him?”
“I do not. I love him as a brother.”
Finding hope in the uncertainty in Lothaire’s eyes, she drew a calming breath. “I cannot fault you for thinking the worst, for that is my doing.” And Maude’s, she silently added. For love of the lady and gratitude for the home provided the woman’s illegitimate grandchild, Laura had not revealed the sin of Clarice’s conception was another’s—or mostly. As long accepted, she had been a party to it.
She returned Lothaire to focus, glimpsed pain in his eyes. Though this should not be the time or place, she had made it so by not sooner telling him as Michael urged her to do.
“But you are right in believing Lady Beatrix’s husband is more than a brother to me. He…” She dropped her chin, and he waited. At last as ready as she could be, she said, “Michael D’Arci is Clarice’s uncle. That is why he cares so much. That is why I do not fear his touch.”
Her words shot through Lothaire, flinging themselves here and there in search of a fit. When it found one, he rejected it more quickly than he had done years ago. But though he once more sent it on its way, it returned and fit the hole even better alongside the boy’s slingshot, whatever had nearly struck Lothaire at the pond, and Laura calling out the name of Michael D’Arci’s younger half brother.
Still, he said, “You would have me believe Simon and you… Him?”
“Him,” she said softly.
A moment later, he was off the bed, his back to her. Simon did fit, but as if forced into the hole. What was he missing? What would knock off the resistant edges? Unlike with Michael, Laura had shown no affection for Simon.
“Lothaire?”
He swung around and found her standing before him.
“It was Simon,” she said.
“You lay with that whelp—gave yourself to him? He of blond hair fathered Clarice, not he of dark hair like your daughter’s?”
Her eyes lit with sparks rather than sparkles. “For the last time, I tell you ’twas not Michael.”
“So you wish me to believe, and how convenient Simon is dead.” Though in that moment he realized he had yet to discover the nature of that death, he thrust the curiosity aside. “He who cannot defend himself can easily bear his brother’s sin so Lady Beatrix never learns the truth.”
Laura’s face went livid, and he steeled himself for her denial, but she brushed past him.
“Where are you going, Laura? It is our wedding night.”
She halted, turned. “Then do the deed and make an heir on me that you may sooner seek better company elsewhere, just as your father did.”
As he had allowed her to believe of him that day in the garden at Windsor Castle when she asked how many illegitimate children he had and he told he would leave it to her to discover once they wed.
“Do it,” she prompted.
He shifted his jaw, but it remained so tight it ached. “Were I one to force my attentions on a woman, I could not. You, my lady wife, know well how to cool a man’s ardor. Now be finished with your outrage and come to bed that all believe their lord and lady are pleased with each other.”
“You are right. Appearance is everything.” But it was not the bed to which she retreated. She dropped into a chair before the hearth.
Moments later, his stunned bride was in his arms. Halfway to the bed, she demanded he set her down and began to struggle.
Lest her protests grow loud enough to be heard beyond the solar, Lothaire bent his head and captured them in his mouth. She stiffened before she began to go soft, but there was no time to discover if she would return his kiss. And no need.
He lifted his head as he lowered her to the mattress. “Fear not, Laura. That was but to silence you for the sake of Clarice whom we would not wish to know the true state of her parents’ marriage.” He snapped the sheet over her, causing the rose petals to rise and scent the air before resettling on the bed where their marriage would not be consummated.