FLAME OF DESIRE (28 page)

“Ah, but I would, and all would think me justified if I did. To trifle with another man’s intended bride is a serious crime. Were I to strike the man down in a jealous rage, I would be forgiven, even by the queen.”

Hatred choked her. Never had she truly detested another human being, but Seton was beneath contempt. “I will warn him.”

“You will not leave this room until the day of the ceremony. If you speak one word, tell even your mother, I might decide to kill you as well.” He lunged for her, his catlike movement so quick that he had her in his grasp before she could wield the basin. “I will stay here in the room next to yours and see to this matter of your marrying me.” Tearing the basin from her hold, he shattered it on the floor.

“I hate you1” she hissed. She tried to shake him off, but he was strong. His beady brown eyes were angry and menacing as he forced her to look at him. “You’re hurting me.”

“That is nothing compared to what you will get from me, woman. I have long hated my brother and wished for his death, but I now see a better way to deal with him, by taking from him that which he values most dearly. However, if you give me cause, I will cut him down.”

“Why?” she sobbed.

“Why? I will tell you why. He has robbed me of my rightful inheritance by refusing to acknowledge me as his brother.” His eyes took on a faraway look as he seemed to be transported to another time, years long past. “I lived in near-poverty with my mother. A gentle woman, she was raped by a noble and cast away by her family to fend for herself and her bastard child. Me. We lived on the charity of others, on scraps of food and kindness, while all the time your lover and his brother lived in splendor. How I hated them both, but especially Richard.”

“Richard?”

“Our father’s favorite. He took his own share of father’s love and mine as well, leaving me nothing.” In anger he pushed her down on the bed as if reliving his boyhood days. “I vowed someday I would live in that manor house. I did, but only after my mother died of the plague. I wanted her to live in luxury too, but they robbed her of any happiness.”

She felt sorry for the boy he had once been, could imagine his pain, but that did not excuse him for the man he was now. Hatred and violence were ever-festering sores which would never heal.

“You did live at the manor. What more could you ask?”

Sparks nearly flew from his eyes as he answered her. “A name. The Morgan name. but that woman, Richard’s and Roderick’s mother, saw to it that I was denied. She had the old man wrapped around her finger, you see, and even on his deathbed he denied that I was his child. He tried to tell me that my mother, that sweet and gentle lady, had been a whore, sharing her favors with all the men in the countryside.”

“Your hatred is misdirected. It is your father and his wife that you should hate, not Richard. No, not Richard. He is as innocent in this as you are.”

He looked at her as if he would strike her down, but held his temper in check. “I will speak no more about it!” Opening the door, he turned back to her. “Remember what I have said, wife-to-be. Think on it when you rest your lovely head on your pillows. You will marry me or his death will be on your hands.”

Even long after he left, Heather sat staring at the walls. She was doomed to marry a man she hated and feared because of her love for a man she must now protect. Such a travesty of fate. Such cruel mockery.

If only I could escape from here and warn Richard, she thought wildly. Was it possible that Tabitha could help her gain her freedom? Putting her face in her hands, she sought desperately for a way.

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Richard looked about him at the changing colors that September always brought, and smiled. His brother was on the road to Canterbury and Richard was on his way back to Greenwich and Heather.

He made his way on horseback down the rocky cobblestone road, feeling his heart quicken as he spied the familiar landscape which marked the grounds of Greenwich.

“I will tell her of Roderick’s promise to take my case to the pope himself,” he said aloud as the hooves of his horse clattered against the stone of the outer courtyard. Dismounting from his horse, he gave the animal up to the hands of a groom, then hastened up the walkway to the thick double door. Opening the door wide with his own hands, he strode toward the hall, his eyes scanning all those assembled for the familiar figure of his love. She was nowhere to be seen, and he supposed her to be upstairs in her bedchamber.

I will surprise her, he thought. I will take her into my arms and never let her go again. We belong together, she and I. I will make her see that.

He headed toward the stairs, but Stephen Vickery intercepted him. “Richard,” he exclaimed. “Richard, I am sorry.”

Richard looked at him with mild annoyance. “Stand aside, Stephen. Now is not the time to speak of court matters. I have been away longer than I intended and I must see Heather.”

“She is not up there.”

“Not up there? Then she must be with the queen.” Thrusting back his shoulders, he hastily brushed at his garments and pushed past his read-haired friend.

“She is not with the queen. Heather is gone, Richard. Gone. I told you I would watch over her, but I could not.” The sound of his friend’s voice filled Richard with foreboding.

“What do you mean, Stephen?” thinking that perhaps Heather had suffered some accident, he reached out and grasped his friend’s arm. “Tell me. Where is Heather? What has happened? What?” All sorts of thoughts ran through his head. “Is she hurt? Is that it? Where is she?”

Stephen’s voice was soft, as  if to spare his friend this necessary pain. “She is to be married, Richard.”

“Married!” Richard’s face turned deathly pale, as if all the blood had drained from him at the sound of the word. “No!”

“Yes.”

“Damn Courtenay. I never thought he would actually convince her to marry him. Damn the man. Damn!” Richard fought against his sorrow, the unmanly tears which threatened to flood his eyes. How could he live without her? How? How could he come to terms with the fact that she was someone else’s’ wife? In frustration and helpless defeat he strode up and down, wearing a path with his steps. He felt betrayed, angry, yet he knew that he was wrong in feeling this way. Courtenay had wooed her and won. Had he really expected her to tell him that she would wait for him to be free? That she would be his in spite of the scorn that their love would bring?

“Yes, dammit, yes. I wanted her to love me as much as I love her. Not give herself to Courtenay the moment I was gone.” Anger replaced his sadness and he lashed out at the stair post as if at Courtenay himself.

“It is not Courtenay,” Stephen whispered.

Richard whirled about. “Not Courtenay.” He knew of no other men who had courted Heather, though with her beauty it would not have been surprising if several of the men at court had longed for her. “Who?”

Stephen shook his head, not wanting to be the one to tell him, yet knowing that he must. “It is Seton. Hugh Seton has asked for her hand, and she is to wed him this very day.”

“Seton!” The cry which tore from his throat was like that of a wounded animal. “Noooooo!” Forgetting where he was, all the people staring his way, he sat down and grasped his knees, hugging them with his arms as he had when he was a small boy. Rocking back and forth, he sought to fight the demons which tore at his heart. “How could she marry? How? How?” At last his tortured eyes looked into Stephen’s. “I can’t let this happen.”

“There is nothing you can do. The queen herself favors the match. She does not know him for the beast that he is.”

“But he will destroy her.” Slowly he rose to his feet, determined to do what he could.

“He will destroy you if you intervene. Marriages of convenience are commonplace, you know that. Your Heather will learn to be happy, much the same as other women have done. There is nothing you can do, Richard. Nothing.”

Anger flared in Richard’s heart. “Do not dare to say to me that I must stand idly by and watch the only woman I will ever love be sent like a lamb to the slaughter. I will think of a way to stop this mockery of a marriage. I might not have been able to save myself, but I
will
save Heather, though heaven and hell move to stop me.” Flinging himself free of Stephen Vickery’s restraining arms, Richard left the hall.

Chapter Thirty-Nine

The last day of September dawned bright and clear with hardly a trace of a cloud in the sky, but the beauty of the day went unnoticed by the young woman whose wedding day it was.

“I am lost. There is nothing I can do,” she whispered upon hearing the cock crow. Long into the night she had been awake, tossing and turning upon her bed. She was trapped!

Heather began to weep, great sobs of anguish which poured forth warm and salty from her eyes until they were red and puffy from her weeping. Frustration and anger had brought forth this torrent.

“There is no escape. None. He has thought of everything.” She had sought a way out of her predicament these last few days but had found none. Even the thought of jumping from the third-story bedroom window had come to mind. Ignoring the broken bones that might have been her reward, she had reasoned that she would at least have been able to attract attention and thus get a message to Richard. As if sensing her thoughts, her father had nailed the shutters closed.

Neither Tabitha nor her mother had come to talk with her since the day Seton arrived. Hugh Seton forbade it, as was his right as her intended bridegroom. She was trapped, caged—as surely as the lions and bears inside the Tower that were kept for the amusement of the court. She was trapped and all alone.

Seton. The man was an animal. He seemed to delight in being cruel to her, and her father, impressed at the thought of one of the queen’s councilors as son-in-law, bowed to his every whim. With each passing day another luxury had been taken away from her. Light, the candles and oil lamps extinguished until it was almost dark; then even Saffron’s company had been denied her. All the while Hugh Seton had growled his threats through the door.

“It will be your fault if I kill your lover. Your fault,” he said over and over until it was an echo in her brain. She had neither consented to nor disavowed her betrothal, hoping that by stalling for time she could find some way to escape her sad fate.

“Oh, Mother, what am I to do?” she asked, talking to herself. Heather could not be angry with her mother. Not being a cruel person herself, Blythe was not fully aware of all that was being done to her daughter. No doubt she trusted her husband to do what was right.

Putting a hand to her face, Heather realized she was thinner than ever, her cheekbones prominent, her face pale. It made her all the more beautiful in an ethereal way, but this she did not know. She knew only that she was desperately unhappy.

“What am I to do?” she whispered, her spirit nearly broken by the constant deprivation and fear she had suffered in the last few days. If need be she could wait until the actual words were to be spoken and then deny her consent before the priest. The priest would help her. Surely when she refused to say the words, told him what was happening to her, he would stop this mockery of a marriage. This thought was all that sustained her. That somehow all would be well. Seton could not marry her in front of wedding guests who witnessed her refusal.

The sound of her chamber door opening signaled her doom, as the light from the hallway nearly blinded her. She was like a mole who had been too long away from the light.

“For the love of God, don’t frown so, girl,” came her father’s voice. She felt his hand on her arm and winced. “Do you want all the guests to think that I have beaten you?”

She turned slowly. “That torment at least you have spared me,” she said sarcastically. “You no doubt leave that for my husband to do.”

Her father eyed her with worry. “I do what is best for you, girl. Someday you will thank me. As Seton’s wife you will receive one-third of all his estates. You will be a wealthy woman and someday when he regains his rightful lands and title you will be a woman of great renown.”

“Do you think I care about that?” Her voice was hardly more than a whisper. She was weak and had not the strength to argue with him. “I feel sorry for you. You do not know what is truly important in life. All you care about is money.”

He did not answer her, but held his tongue, and for a moment Heather had the hope that perhaps his conscience might lead him to stop this thing he had brought about. Her hopes were dashed by the entry of her mother and Tabitha bringing her wedding dress. Thomas Bowen had sold his so-called daughter and would not renege on the bargain.

“Heather! Heather, are you all right?” The anguish in her mother’s voice was heartrending. “Here, drink this. It will calm you and make what you must do easier to bear.”

Trusting her mother, Heather reached for the cup of herbs in wine and drank it. It went to her head quickly because of the lack of nourishment in her stomach and she felt strangely as if she were floating.

“Your eyes,” Tabitha whispered. “I shall fetch cucumber slices to take down the swelling. If you will but lie back for a few moments they will soothe you.”

Tabitha’s words, her pitying glances, only served to start Heather weeping anew, and her mother came to her instantly to offer her loving arms to soothe her.

“Please, don’t let him make me marry that man. I can’t. I can’t. He told me that if I do not, he will murder him. I have to warn Richard. Send someone to find him. That is all I want now. Please,” Heather babbled between sobs. Her tongue was thick and she could hardly get the words out, but somehow she managed, yet by the look in her mother’s eyes she could tell that Blythe Bowen didn’t want to believe Hugh Seton capable of murder and thought her daughter merely distraught about the pending marriage.

Leading her daughter toward the bed, Blythe sought to calm her. “Lie down for a few moments. Rest before we dress you.”

Heather did as she was bid, exhaustion and the power of the drugged wine taking effect. Closing her eyes, she felt the cool chill of the cucumbers which Tabitha had brought.