AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I see only too well the way you look at her. She already has you twisted around her little finger. Do you think me blind? And she deserves far more punishment for what she did.Truepunishment! You know it as well as I.”
“She has been punished. And she’ll be further punished, never fear,” Tristram countered.
“Or so you say,” his cousin retorted drily, before heading to the chapel for his long prayers of the morning.
Tristram felt thankful at least that his cousin had not attempted to replace the castle’s chaplain for the time he was residing at Redmore. Father Thomas was, as he recalled from his earlier days at Redmore, a kindly man and far less austere than his cousin. Tristram hoped Isidore would not seek to oversee the spiritual welfare of Redmore in Father Thomas’ stead. He wished to avoid that at all costs.
“He has a cruel streak in him, your cousin, like many churchmen,” FitzRolf muttered with a shake of his head, as they watched upon Isidore’s gaunt form heading towards the chapel.
Tristram nodded with a frown. If it had been entirely up to his cousin and the Church, Judith was to have received a flogging and had her hair shorn as a mark of her shame. And if it had been entirely up to the Church and to his family, Tristram was supposed to have sent his wife to spend the rest of her life locked in a convent. Yet Henry truly ruled over the Church in this land, ever since Thomas Becket had been killed, and Tristram had pleaded with Henry. He’d taken it upon himself to formally bestow a punishment on his miscreant wife. A punishment harsh enough to satisfy those called to witness it. And he supposed he’d failed in that task. Isidore was to report to Henry and to the Church, and Isidore wasn’t happy, thinking the discipline Tristram had bestowed upon his lady had been too mild.
“You did what you could. I do not think I could have done any better in your stead,” FitzRolf said with a sigh, obviously guessing Tristram’s thoughts.
Tristram conjured up the punishment he’d delivered. It had been good he was angry with Judith. His anger had helped him harden his heart against her when he’d used the belt. Even in his anger, he’d not been able to bring himself to give her anything other than a good spanking. Isidore had wanted a harsh beating. AndthatTristram had been unable to provide.
“I hope we’ll soon see the back of him,” Tristram muttered grimly, knowing, however, his overly zealous, austere cousin would not be so easy to dismiss.
His cousin took his ecclesiastical duties far too seriously, just as Thomas Becket had. Tristram supposed it was blasphemous of him to think it, but he fully agreed with King Henry that Becket’s extreme fervour had been a menace to their land.
“When he is finally persuaded you’re able to keep your wife subdued and well chastened, I suppose he will at last go back to London. And I with him,” FitzRolf said rather wistfully.
Tristram cast his friend a sympathetic look. It had been many months since Bertran FitzRolf had glanced upon his own wife, and FitzRolf loved that wife of his quite dearly. Tristram couldn’t help but picture a world where he himself had a wife he loved dearly, and who loved him dearly in return. It was what he had wished for when he’d wed Judith. Yet things hadn’t turned out to be the way he’d wished them. And now, due to the course of the war which had torn their country, both Judith and he had to suffer each other for the rest of their lives. Still… he recalled the lust they’d shared and the heated abandon with which his wife had given herself to him. It was strange. Now he’d decided he would have no love between them, and that he would be harsh to her rather than gentle, things seemed to have settled far more easily. Perhaps he had been wrong those years ago, and there was no true place for love or gentleness in this marriage. Lust and heat and harshness were perchance the only way in which he could deal with his wife.
“How fares the lady Judith?” FitzRolf asked, astute as always when his friend’s thoughts were concerned.
“Her bottom’s still sore, but other than that she fares quite well,” Tristram muttered, unable to shed from his mind the plans of heated discipline he had in store for his wife.
“She’s different than you described her to me,” FitzRolf suddenly said, and this made Tristram frown.
“How so?” he queried.
“The woman you talked to me about was shy and withdrawn and skittish. Uncertain of herself at times. But it is not how I perceived your wife. She seems self-assured and more than capable in caring for her people. And she bore the surrender of her home and the punishment far better than I thought she would.”
When his friend went to oversee their men’s training, Tristram had occasion to muse upon what had been said. Perhaps Bertran had the right of it. Tristram himself had noticed a change in Judith. She was far bolder and more decisive than she’d been years ago. And the passionate manner in which she’d responded to his lovemaking had nothing to do with the timid maiden she’d been when they’d first wed. But perhaps this was no change at all. Judith herself had told him last night she had been lying to him. The way she’d acted then had surely been part of her treachery and deceit. But why had Judith wanted to wreck their marriage? It was a question he’d often thought upon during the time they’d been apart. And there was no clear answer he could conjure up. He’d treated his lady graciously and had sought to earn her love. And for a while he’d thought she could easily grow to love him. But then she’d spurned and betrayed him.
He raked a hand through his hair, knowing that what he’d resolved upon could not be undone. More than a year ago Henry had prevailed upon the Church not to grant the annulment of Tristram’s marriage. Redmore was one of the few stone castles in England, and Henry would have only someone loyal to him oversee it. The king had known too well that while Judith’s father had been alive, he’d had Redmore’s allegiance. After Sir Edward’s passing, it had however become plain Judith and her Occitan mother were loyal to Queen Eleanor’s cause. And Henry was shrewd enough not to sever the bond between the heir of Redmore and a De Brunne. The De Brunnes had always been loyal to their king. So it was convenient for Henry that the De Brunnes should keep their ties to Redmore.
Tristram’s marriage to Judith had been convenient for Henry as long as Eleanor was still a threat. Now Eleanor lay vanquished, and Judith was no longer a valuable pawn in Henry’s game. When it had become clear Redmore could be easily taken, the King had advised Tristram to cast Judith aside as soon as the castle was captured. The Church and Tristram’s family had urged that the miscreant wife be harshly chastised, and then forced to take the veil. But Tristram had not wanted it so. He’d sought to be magnanimous to Judith even if she’d betrayed him, and had meant to let her seek her sanctum in the South of France with her lady mother. He had not truly expected her to comply with his haughty terms of letting her stay on at Redmore as his wife, because he’d come to understand she despised him. Nevertheless, he should have guessed Judith would, after all, want to stay, in spite of her disgust with him. She loved her home and her people far too much to go.
Tristram heaved a deep sigh. He’d made an oath to chastise his wife for her misdeeds and have her repent, because they’d all demanded it of him. Henry, his family, the Church… As long as he decided not to cast her away, he was forever bound to ensure her obedience. Last night he hadn’t meant to claim Judith. He still resented her, and he supposed it had been petty of him to want to taunt her for what she’d done to him. He’d meant to humiliate her just as she’d humiliated him, expecting she would never be able to bring herself to touch him. Yet Judith had touched him. She had done much more than touch him. And then he’d found himself unable to rein in his lust for her. Now it was done. She was in truth his wife.His wife –the wife he still lusted after and who, as it turned out, lusted after him in spite of herself. Tristram smiled bitterly. Lust for her he may, but he no longer sought to love her –heneverwould. A loveless marriage – he’d doomed himself to it by allowing Judith to stay, and there was no undoing it now.
Four years ago,1170
The bedding ceremonywas an ordeal to Judith, because she’d always been shy, and now she had to display her naked body in front of her new husband and strangers. She and Tristram were forced to stand naked facing each other, in order for the wedding attendants to confirm both the bride and groom were hale and fit for marriage. At last, the door closed behind the last of the wedding attendants, and Judith tried to avert her eyes from Tristram’s beautiful form, knowing she found even his manhood beautiful. It now stood unashamedly erect in front of her. She tried to tell herself she should be very afraid of it, just as her aunt Edith had cautioned her, when she’d readied her for the bedding.
“Men of Sir Tristram’s ilk have their urges. It will hurt mightily when his rod tears through your maidenhead,” her aunt Edith had told her with a sad shake of her head as she was combing Judith’s long luscious hair, in preparation for her wedding night.
Judith had said nothing, recalling her mother had also told her most men had brutish urges, which were a trial to their God-fearing wives. Yet Tristram de Brunne had always been gracious to her, and she had a hard time reconciling the fluid, elegant manner in which he always carried himself with the savage ways of a brutish beast.
“You’ll have to suffer him, because this is Eve’s lot. Have a care though not to succumb to his sinful ways,” Aunt Edith had cautioned her, handling the brush somewhat forcefully on Judith’s mass of midnight dark hair, which made Judith wince.
“Sinful ways…” Judith had muttered, not fully understanding.
She’d often heard priests speak of the sins of the flesh, but she’d mostly turned a deaf ear on what they had to say, because the ways of the flesh hadn’t been her concern at all. But now she would be a married woman.
“You will know what they are, because they’re plainly sinful!” her aunt Edith had scoffed, but hadn’t enlightened her in any way.
Sinful? Judith now mused, trying to hide her blush. Would Tristram kissing her ardently count as sinful? Would Tristram’s long-fingered hands caressing her naked breasts count as sinful? Would her brushing her lips against those impossibly thick dark lashes of his beautiful eyes count as sinful? Would… There were so many things she pictured in her mind she could share with Tristram.
