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“You knew my father?”
“As a young man in King Edward’s company, aye, I knew him, as did most of the young knights. Sir James was brave and trustworthy. It is a pity he died so inopportunely. Edward missed him sorely in the Holy Land.”
The chapel door suddenly opened and the earl reappeared. “Well, girl? Tell me the correct response.”
Daria didn’t change expression. She repeated swiftly, her eyes lowered meekly, “Et cum spiritu tuo.”
The earl nodded. “Well said. I am pleased with you. I have never agreed that women had not the ability to learn, and you have proved me correct. Do you agree with your brothers, Father?”
Roland looked benignly upon Daria as he would upon a dog who had just performed a trick well. He smiled to himself as he said in a pontifical voice, “Women can learn to mouth words—in any language—if they are allowed sufficient time for repetition. It’s doubtful she gleans the true meaning, but God is understanding and forgiving of his most feeble creation.”
The earl nodded and Daria ground her teeth.
“You will come with me now, Daria,” the earl continued. “A tinker is here and I wish you to select a piece of finery you wish to have. You will become my wife at the end of the month, and thus I wish to show you my favor.”
She stared at him dumbfounded, and Roland waited, tense and anxious, but she said nothing, merely nodded and followed the earl docilely from the chapel. Only when they were alone did she touch the earl’s sleeve to gain his attention. She looked up at him, her expression puzzled, and said, unable to keep her surprise to herself, “This is why you kidnapped me, my lord? You wished to wed me?”
The incredulity in her voice was understandable, as was her question, though it bordered on impertinence. He decided to deal gently with her this time. “Nay, little one, I took you in revenge against your uncle, who is a man I hate above most men. At first I demanded your dowry as a ransom. Then, your graceful presence has made my heart quicken in my breast, and I changed my demand to him. He will send me his own priest and your dowry by the end of May and we will be wedded. Then he will be safe from my vengeance.” He frowned even as the words came out of his mouth. “Mayhap not. Mayhap I shall change my mind, for Damon Le Mark is a poisonous snake to be crushed.”
“What did you tell him you would do if he refused your demand? Did you threaten to murder me?”
The earl reacted swiftly, for this was beyond what in his mind was permissible for a woman, particularly for a woman who would be his wife. He struck her with his open palm on her cheek and she reeled backward, her shoulder striking the doorway, sending pain jolting through her body.
“Keep your pert tongue in your mouth, Daria. I will tell you what you need to know, and it will be enough for you. No more of your insolence—it displeases me, as it must displease our Lord.”
It was odd this rage she felt. It wasn’t the same she felt toward her uncle. This rage burned hot within her, but she also saw Edmond of Clare as apart from the awful anger he’d brought her. Her uncle was purposely cruel. Worse, he pleased himself with cruelty and the suffering of others, whereas Edmond of Clare simply saw her—a female—as a being to be constantly corrected and admonished, for her benefit, not because it gave him demented pleasure. He believed devoutly in God, at least in a God that suited his own convictions and expectations, and saw it as his duty to teach her the proper way of behaving. Her rage simmered and she sought to control it.
Roland held himself back in the shadows. It required all his control to do so. He’d heard her question of Clare and seen him strike her.
He didn’t particularly wish to, but he found that he admired her in that moment. He saw the grit in her that would grow stronger as she gained years, if only she would be given the least encouragement and opportunity. She didn’t cry. She didn’t speak. She merely straightened her clothing and stood there stolid and silently proud, waiting for the earl to tell her his bidding. Roland wondered how many times he’d struck her during her captivity, to show her a woman’s place. He must get her away from here, quickly. Not only was the earl growing perilously close to ravishing her, he just might injure her badly in a fit of rage.
During the remainder of the day, Roland examined the castle and found the escape route he would use. He learned that Daria had her maid with her, but he knew the older woman would hold them back and they wouldn’t have a good chance of escaping if they took her with them. The old woman would have to stay here. If Daria protested, he would simply—What would he do? Strike her, as did Edmond of Clare? He shook his head on that thought.
That evening the earl again monopolized him so that he had no opportunity of speaking privately with Daria. She no longer looked at him as if he were some sort of specter to be gawked at, or a man she’d seen before, perhaps in another place or in another time. Still, though, she tended to avoid his eyes, and it bothered him because he didn’t understand her.
“There is a debate that fascinates me,” the earl began as he moved a chess piece on the board between them.
Roland moved his king’s pawn forward in answer and waited. He’d learned the value of patience, the value of allowing the other man to speak first.
“Do women have souls? What do the Benedictines offer as their belief?”
“It is a matter of some debate, as you know. Even the Benedictine order finds itself in contention on the matter.” Roland moved out his king’s knight in reply to the earl’s pawn move.
“Tr
ue, true, but surely you, as a Benedictine, believe that women should be chastised for disobedience, for ill temper, for sloth or impiety?”
“Certainly, but it is the husband who applies the proper chastisement.”
The earl drew back, his thick red brows knitting. “She is nearly my wife. She is young and thus malleable, but still, because she carries the perversity of her gender, and the blood of a man whose heart rots with sin—I speak of her uncle, of course—she grows more impertinent as the days pass. She needs a man’s correction. I wish only to provide her proper guidance now.”
“She is not yet your wife.”
“Does it matter, if she has not a soul, what she is? Wife, harlot, maid?”
Roland’s fingers tightened around his queen’s bishop. He slowly moved the piece to the knight-five square. “It is my belief that women are creatures of God just as are men. They are made as we are—they possess arms, legs, a heart, a liver. They are the weaker, true, in body and mayhap in spirit as well. But they do have worth. They birth children and protect them with their lives, and thus their claim to God’s grace is as great as is a man’s. After all, my lord earl, we are unable to procreate ourselves; we are unable to suckle our children. It was God who bestowed upon them these gifts, and it is these gifts that speak to our continuity and thus our immortality.”
“You beset me with vain sophistry, Father, and address not my concern. Surely women are vessels, and they have breasts that carry milk, and wombs that hold babes, but are they more? I do not see their birthing us as God’s gift to them, for they often die doing it. It also wastes a man’s time. The two wives I have held as my own knew not honor or loyalty or fierceness of spirit. They were weak both of body and of mind. I never saw them as more than the means to continue myself.”
