Lady of Hay by Barbara Erskine (reading an ebook TXT) 📕

It's my right! It should be me!" But William, now Lord of the Three Castles in addition to his other titles, and deeper than ever in the king's debt, had been adamant. He wanted Reginald to marry Gracia de Burgh. "She's a red-blooded young woman. She needs a man. And now. Will is always ill. I doubt sometimes he'll live out another winter, " he had said with outspoken brutality. "Mattie is too young to marry yet, so they can wait. If Will is strong enough when she is old enough, then they can marry. But I need the de Burgh alliance now. "

He needed, as they all knew, the de Burgh power behind him. But, in the event, the de Burgh marriage had been fraught with delay, and it had been only a short while before that Reginald had married his Irish heiress, with his brother Giles officiating at the ceremony.

Among the first favors John had granted after his accession had been the installation of Giles as Bishop of Hereford. She thought back to how William had watched so proudly his tall, copper-haired son, who now sported mitre and cross with much grave dignity. The young man's calling unnerved William, and filled him with superstitious awe that annoyed and puzzled him, even as he bathed in the glory that his son's position brought to him.

Matilda smiled quietly to herself. They had been so lucky, on the whole, in their children. Isobel and her husband, Roger Mortimer, had presented Matilda with two grandchildren. Margaret, married five years before, wrote long letters regularly from Ireland, where she now spent most of her time and she too seemed very happy, although the girl did have one sorrow, unskillfully hidden in her letters. This was that no child had as yet been born to her marriage with her beloved, handsome Walter, the Lord of Meath.

"I have vowed, Mother dear, " her latest letter had said, "to found a nunnery to the blessed memory of the Virgin Mary, if she grants my great desire to have a son. And Walter too has made the same vow. He has expressed the longing to found an abbey somewhere in the shadow of Pen y Beacon, perhaps at Craswall, where he holds tenure. Pray for me, Mother dear, that my own prayers may be answered. I hope we may return to Ludlow soon, so that I can see you—"

Only the thought of Tilda brought real sadness. Widowed now for four years, after Gruffydd had died of some sudden, virulent fever, she had helped bury him in his father's abbey at Strata Florida, but when Matilda wrote to suggest she return to her family, she sent a snubbing reply that it was her intention to bring up her two boys as true sons of Wales and when that task was done she would be content to lie at the side of her husband. There had been no exchange of messages after that, and Matilda nursed her hurt in secret, showing that final letter to no one before she held the parchment in the flame of a candle and watched it blacken and curl in her fingers.

And now Will's wedding had arrived and with it a new honor for William, for King John, the threat of invasion by Philip of France at last over, had agreed to attend the marriage.

Matilda bit her lip. So once more they shared the same roof together, the three men who so ruled her life: William, the king, and Richard de Clare.

She had been shocked by Richard's appearance. He had grown thin and stooped since their last meeting, and his skin strangely sallow. His eyes were the same though—as searching and powerful in their hold over her as ever.

He had arrived alone at Bramber with Mattie and his son, Gilbert. It was five years since he had, at last, separated from the embittered Amicia, and she had chosen not to come to her daughter's wedding feast, a fact that had caused Matilda to send up a prayer of thanks.

Behind her, one of her women appeared and cleared her throat loudly. "My lady, Sir William has asked for you again. His Grace is impatient to proceed. "

Slowly Matilda turned. She smiled. If her eldest son and Richard's daughter could be happy together, then perhaps, after all, there would have been some point to their own impossible love story.

Too soon the ceremony was over. The chapel was hot and stuffy from the candles and incense and the press of people. As she knelt for the mass following the nuptials Matilda glanced sideways at Richard, who was beside her, and he turned at once, instantly conscious of her gaze. At the altar Giles was the celebrant, attended by his own chaplain from Hereford and the castle chaplain and the priests from the neighboring church at Steyning, all clustered around him like so many highly colored butterflies.

"Are we now brother and sister, my love?" She heard

Richard's whisper over the slow sound of the chanting. They were kneeling so close to one another she felt him stir and then his fingers feeling for hers hidden by the stiff folds of her kirtle.

A happy warmth filled her heart. "For always, Richard, " she murmured back, and for a moment they looked at each other again. On her other side William, unaware of anything but the mystery before him, knelt, his eyes fixed to the altar. In front, the newlyweds shared a faldstool together, solemn-faced, intent on the words their brother was uttering, while the king also knelt on the purple velvet of a cushion to one side of the sanctuary steps.

Matilda's happiness was so complete it was a shock to find John's gaze not on the mass but fixed on the place where an embroidered fold of damask hid her hand as it lay still gently clasped in Richard's.

Slowly John raised his eyes to hers and she saw the hardness in them masked only by a slight speculative frown.