The Devil Claims a Wife

Jane stared at him aghast, realising he meant every word he said. For a moment the blue eyes looked savage. That this mighty lord should want her both fascinated and terrified her. He was confusing on every level. Unknown and intriguing, he was a new threat that could not be second-guessed. She knew beyond doubt that she was his prey, that he intended to seduce her, to dishonour her, and nothing was going to deter him from trying—not even the fact that she was about to be betrothed to another.

Guy St Edmond would have no pity on her and he would damn anyone who stood in his way.

She could not let that happen. Time that had stopped for a moment went on again. Unable to bear his taunting gaze, she dropped her eyes and made a curtsy. With a deep laugh and a touch of spurs to his horse’s flesh, Guy turned and rode off in pursuit of his companions.

Not until he was out of sight did Jane turn to Kate, who suddenly found her tongue.

‘Well, I never! The Earl of Sinnington! He has a way about him, doesn’t he?’

‘Oh, yes. He certainly has a way. Come, let us play a game of hoodman blind. I shall wear the blindfold.’

Determined not to let the encounter with Guy St Edmond spoil their game, Jane took the cloth from Alfred’s pocket and tied it around her eyes. Having no wish to go home just yet, the frightening interlude forgotten as they became caught up in the new game, the children giggled and erupted into gales of laughter as they darted this way and that to avoid their sister’s groping hands. Jane laughed delightedly as she pretended she couldn’t locate the giggling children.

Taking a moment to pause and look back, Guy was enchanted by what he saw. Mistress Lovet’s laughter rang out like tinkling chimes. It was a delightful scene—a scene of innocence and perfection that would become etched in memory and emblazoned on his heart.

From her seat on a stout trunk of a fallen tree, Kate watched the innocent play of her charges. Kate had watched Jane grow. As a child she’d been headstrong, pugnacious and daring. Surrounded by family all her life, especially her doting mother, she was an imp of a girl, always courting laughter with her japes.

Kate’s gaze took in the condition of Alfred and Blanche, which brought a frown to her brow. They had set off from home in their best and she was dismayed to see that Alfred had scuffed his shoes and ripped his hose, and that Blanche had leaves and twigs in her hair. They were in for a scolding from their father when they got back to the house, unless she could smuggle them upstairs and clean them up first. Knowing it was time to go home, she rose.

‘Jane, come. It’s time we were getting back. Enough play for today. Your mother stressed that you mustn’t be late.’

Removing her blindfold, Jane laughed at her maid, her beloved Kate, who knew her like no other, who saw to all their needs with affection and devotion. ‘Must we go now, Kate?’

‘Do you forget that soon you are to be betrothed? There is much to be done before the event. Even now your mother is sewing her fingers raw in her effort to complete your gown in time.’

Kate’s words were a harsh reminder to Jane that soon she would have the mundane affairs of the wife of a cloth merchant’s son to fill her days and occupy her mind—soon, but not yet. As hard as she resisted, she could not help wondering what it would be like to be married to a man like Guy St Edmond instead.

Not that she could now seriously entertain the idea of marriage to one other than Richard. She’d committed herself to doing right by her family and was not one to go back on her word, no matter how distasteful she found the consequences. She had been raised to know her place and knew better than to defy the rules of men and make her own destiny. It had come as no surprise to her and with much bitterness that, as a girl, her worth to her family was her marriageability.

Believing in the inherent wisdom of her parents, Jane was optimistic about her future and had not questioned their judgement—until now, when her betrothal was just days away and she had gazed upon the handsome face of Guy St Edmond.

Guy was staring straight ahead into the distance, a faint smile playing about his lips as his eyes embraced his home. He tipped his head in the direction he was staring and in a quiet voice, said, ‘Look, Cedric—the castle.’

‘It’s a fine demesne. You’ve been looking at it as if you’ve not set eyes on it before.’

‘Not in a long time, Cedric. Eight years, at least—and not since my father passed on and my brother was killed at St Albans. I kept meaning to come back, but the king always had urgent need of me elsewhere, which may have been for the best. The battles have made me wealthy, which will ensure my sons will not have to earn their living with muscle and blood as I have done.’

‘So you have done with fighting.’

‘I’d like to think I’ve breached my last castle wall and fought on my last battlefield,’ Guy said, his voice harsh with resolve. ‘Dear God, it will be good to be home at last, to have a soft bed to sleep in every night and good food in my belly.’

Guy drank in the incredible beauty of the wide vale of Cherriot. Twenty miles north of London, it was a fertile valley. The hills on either side were covered with forest and fertile fields, the lower slopes clothed with pear and apple orchards and fruit gardens. His vast demesne contained four villages, two visible to the eye. A lazy river meandered its way passed the picturesque town of Cherriot, with its main street, the stone bridge which spanned the river, and industrial premises along the waterfront: leather tanners, sawmills, manufacturers and the abattoirs. Smoke rose from a thousand chimneys and miniature people meandered through the streets going about their business. On a raised plateau overlooking this pastoral scene stood Sinnington Castle, with its soaring turrets and high, thick walls punctuated with six gracefully rounded towers.

Guy could hardly contain his excitement the closer they got to the castle. He was expected. There were sentries at the gate. They clattered over the bridge that spanned the moat.

‘I can see this is the ideal place for you to settle down and raise those sons you intend to have one day,’ Cedric remarked, appreciating all he saw.

‘I must first find a wife who will give me children, Cedric,’ Guy said with a fierceness that left Cedric in no doubt about his seriousness. ‘It’s no matter whether she is pretty or not, so long as she can give me fine sons.’

‘Then all you have to do is find the lady.’

Guy stared straight ahead. For months he had been plagued by a deepening awareness of a large hole in his life, an emptiness. He had sensed it vaguely and ignored it because for a very long time it evoked painful memories of Isabel Leigh, a callous, brown-eyed witch driven by ambition and greed. For a time her beauty had bewitched him and, when she had betrayed him with another, he had been shocked to discover how close he had come to losing control. He had vowed that his emotions would never again be engaged by a woman. He wanted none of their treachery and deceit. But his need for sons had sharpened since he had fought his last battle into a nameless hunger, a gnawing urgency.

He had a fortune to rival many of his aristocratic friends, but he had no heir to leave it to. If he died unexpectedly—and there was always a chance of that, the way he lived—everything he’d worked and fought for would die with him. But getting heirs meant putting up with the inconvenience of a wife, a prospect he so little relished that he had been putting it off for years. Where could a man find a woman who would bear his children and otherwise leave him alone?

Unbidden, an image of Jane Lovet came to mind. As Guy recalled the moment when she had smiled at him, a smile that had grown slowly and then shone, his expression softened and his eyes gentled. He had seen Madonnas whose features would pale before her loveliness. It was as though a shutter had been flung open and the sun had rushed in. And the way she had stood up to him! She had looked him in the eye and spoken her mind with a frankness most men wouldn’t dare.

With her anything might happen. There was a mark of destiny on her, quite apart from her beauty and the rare and subtle quality she emanated. She made one think of hot, tumbling love and sensual sport. She was a well brought-up young woman with a decent woman’s need for marriage which he was not able to give her. It would be social death to consider looking outside his own circle, a penniless girl from the lower orders, the daughter of a cloth merchant … but as a mistress? His eyes narrowed and a calculating gleam glinted in their depths.

He did not stop to wonder why he was so inflexible, it was just so. He was the Earl of Sinnington and he must rebuild. Men of his station married for advantage so that they might be the founders of dynasties. It was a business. Love did not come into it. He had decided long ago that such an affliction of the heart was best left to the peasants as compensation for their miserable lot in life.

‘Mistress Lovet is comely enough, Cedric. What was your opinion of her?’

Cedric gave him a knowing look and laughed heartily at his friend’s remark, knowing precisely where his thoughts were leading him. ‘Mistress Lovet is no ordinary girl, I grant you, but I imagined your interest to be in the way of finding a little amusement and nothing more. She is a strangely fascinating young creature, but hardly your type.’

Guy felt a moment of annoyance at Cedric’s pronouncement, remembering the exuberance of his most recent wild coupling with one of the more rapaciously demanding, hedonistic ladies of the court, who positively encouraged him in his more abandoned pursuits. But he had never lain with a virgin—had never been given the opportunity to discover the pleasures of such unblemished perfection, of making his mark on untouched territory. He imagined the sensation and felt a stirring in his loins.

‘You are quite right, Cedric. Jane Lovet is not my usual type at all. But then, one’s taste improves with age, I’ve been told.’

‘Aye, but for a wife you have to think about selecting a woman with an eye to forming political alliances and important connections. Mistress Lovet is merely the daughter of a humble cloth merchant.’

‘It is the way of things,’ Guy replied, knowing Cedric spoke the truth, but the image of Jane Lovet was too fresh in his mind.

Knowing Guy so well that he could follow his train of thought, Cedric smiled. ‘Did I not hear Mistress Lovet say she is to wed to someone else?’

‘Apparently so,’ Guy replied dismissively. ‘But I shall not be denied the pleasure of pursuing her if I so wish.’

‘Even though her brother was a supporter of the Lancastrians in the past.’

‘That no longer cuts any cloth with me, Cedric. Pray to God that after countless battles, the peace holds and Edward will sit on the throne of England for many years to come, leaving me free to enjoy the more enjoyable, gentler pursuits of life—and if I have a mistress as delectable as Mistress Lovet to enjoy them with, it will make life a damned sight more delightful.’

Cedric had seen how Guy had warmed to Jane Lovet, had been aware that his eyes had filled with the soft fire he felt when he’d looked at her. It could be interesting seeing how he dealt with the finer points of luring her into his bed. He had what other men envied. He was well favoured in looks and fortune, and he had any woman he wanted. It was no boast, but the honest truth. Women never turned him down.

Guy was also a fighter without equal, a soldier for whom violence was not indulged, but controlled—whose aggression was directed, not by ambition for personal glory, but by a sense of justice. He was a clear-headed, resourceful planner, a tireless campaigner, an entertaining, cheerful, unpretentious companion and faithfully loyal. But all Guy’s virtues were warrior virtues. He was made for war. He thought of nothing else. He was also an integral part of King Edward’s council, and as such the powerful barons saw him either as a shrewd friend to look to in times of trouble, or as a man to be wary of if they were involved in anything detrimental to the king.

But of late Cedric could see in his friend that he was, at thirty years old and having been brought low by the death of his brother, growing tired of war and that his thoughts were turning to the softer joys of hunting and hawking, of peace and music and love.

Guy rode into the outer bailey, casting an eye over the castle folk waiting to welcome their lord home, nodding in reply to their welcome. There wasn’t a man, woman or child that didn’t know of the black reputation he had acquired in France. He took a moment to look around. The main structure of the castle was built around the inner bailey in whose centre was the well that ensured the water supply. On the ground floor were the Great Hall, the stables, the kitchen and storerooms, and the living quarters communally shared by a large collection of human and animal dependants.

Guy and his men dismounted and handed their horses to the grooms who rushed forwards to take them, servants bowing low when they entered the great hall. The warmth and welcome of Sinnington Castle embraced him, along with the aroma of roasting meat from the kitchen. Guy felt himself relax, all the tensions easing out of him. After years of fighting, the need to be forever alert and watchful was being replaced by a sense of well-being.

Lovet House was a substantial family home. It was a long house, half-brick, half-timber, and commodious with glass in the windows. Its airy halls and parlours were decorated with many tapestries and carpets. Between the house and the river were the well-tended gardens which Margaret Lovet, Jane’s mother, had filled with sweet-scented roses growing on trellises and where peacocks flaunted their beautiful feathers like vainglorious lords.

Margaret, whose greatest pleasure was cosseting, watching over and cherishing her children, was elegant, charming and composed. She had a sweet, lilting voice and a patient smile. She was a perfect lady, one Jane had tried to emulate all her life. She kept the house in perfect order and the servants were devoted to her. She was the lady bountiful of Cherriot Vale and her hospitality to the poor was well known.

On entering the house, Jane sought her out after glancing into the spacious undercroft where her father carried out his work and stored his merchandise and seeing a happy band of silk women doing their needlework or weaving or throwing or twisting threads surrounded by the many bolts of cloth: brocades from Milan, Venetian velvets, the finest manufactured silk from Lucca—Italian silk being of supreme quality and a significant source of trade. Jane liked nothing better than fingering these sumptuous fabrics, hopefully destined for the wealthy when her father’s business picked up, as it surely would when she married Richard.

She found her mother in the parlour. She had opened the windows that overlooked the river shifting endlessly by. Her head beneath her tall headdress was bent over her work as she put the finishing touches to the dress Jane was to wear for her betrothal, her face still and serene as she embroidered her thoughts into the gown.

Looking up from her work when Jane entered the room, Margaret curved her lips in a smile of welcome. ‘Ah, Jane! I’m glad you’re back, although I do wish you had been home earlier. John Aniston called on us this afternoon.’

‘Did he? For what reason?’

‘Richard has to leave for Italy sooner than planned, so, as soon you are betrothed, the wedding will have to be brought forwards.’

Jane’s heart sank. That Richard was leaving for the commercial metropolis of Florence with a group of cloth merchants had been planned for weeks now. ‘I see. How soon?’

‘No more than two weeks after the betrothal.’

Jane stared at her mother in disbelief, panic taking hold of her. ‘You can’t mean that. The wedding is set for six weeks after the betrothal. There is so much to do. It is too soon. We cannot possibly be ready in time.’

‘We have to be,’ Margaret said, resuming her sewing. ‘Richard wants to see you settled in his father’s house before he leaves. With you and Kate to help me we can be ready with time to spare.’ Looking up, she noted her daughter’s pale face and sensed her unease. ‘Jane, you do want to marry Richard, don’t you? You know I love you and I would understand if you are against this marriage—but …’

‘I don’t think Father would be so understanding,’ Jane said when her mother’s voice tapered off. ‘Where he is concerned, my opinion counts for nothing.’

Neither, she thought, did her mother’s. Her father had not always treated his wife kindly and Jane could not remember him asking her mother’s opinion on anything. Docile and submissive, she was not a wilful woman and survived quite well. Unlike everyone else in the household, Andrew had not been afraid of his father. He had believed he knew his tempers, having been on the receiving end of his blows many times. Their father had expected Andrew to dutifully follow him into the business, but Andrew, with his sights firmly set on a military career, had had no such ambitions.

Their father had been furious when Andrew had shown support for the Lancastrian cause and went off to fight. Indeed, wild-eyed and monstrous, he had shouted curses that had rung to the rafters. Jane always squeezed her eyes tight shut at the memory, wishing to banish it from her mind, but could not.

Her father’s greatest fear was loss of status and, it seemed, when confronted with that possibility he lost all reason. Despite Jane’s sympathy for him, she could not bring herself to justify his treatment. She did not care if he was a man mad with disappointment and resentment or the master of the house and her person. There was no claim he could make great enough to make this right.

‘Your father is only doing what he thinks is best for you,’ her mother said in his defence. ‘You have to marry as your circumstances demand. And Richard does want to marry you so much.’ Sighing despondently, she shook her head and went on, ‘Circumstances have been—difficult of late. Indeed, as you are aware, the business has suffered very badly.’

Jane knew this was true. No one could do business in a town without belonging to or having the respect of the other members of the guild. Her father’s business and his standing among the other guild members had suffered greatly because of Andrew’s support for King Henry. They all felt the humiliation of his reduced status and it was like balm to her parents’ wounds to have their daughter marrying the son of an important and respected alderman of the guild.

‘Far more devastating to your father’s pride was the knowledge that you would have to share the grim consequences of his misfortune,’ her mother went on in an attempt to justify her husband’s strict treatment of his eldest daughter. ‘Everyone would realise that you would not have the great dowry formerly anticipated and the most worthy of the men seeking wives, those best able to provide the standing and security you deserve, would turn their attention elsewhere. Which is why arranging this alliance is just as important to your father as winning a battle. Marriage to Richard is a way in which John Aniston intends to honour him with such an important connection. Your father is hopeful of calming the temper of the guild and redeeming both his status and the respect he rightly deserves. Perhaps then the business will prosper once more.’

Jane took a deep, tight breath. That she was being sacrificed for her father’s ambition went against the grain, but this she kept to herself. All her life she had hoped she would have the freedom to choose her own husband, but, when it came to it, her father had chosen for her. A good alliance, he called it—but the last person she’d ever have chosen would be Richard. How she wished she could look upon him more favourably. It would be so much easier to welcome this marriage, but he was not her idea of an ideal husband—or lover.

Averting her eyes, she was unable to ignore the picture that entered her mind of the last time she had seen Richard when he had come to dinner with his parents and other guild members, when her father had put on a lavish meal in an attempt to impress the aldermen. Jane did not think she would ever grow to love Richard, not as a woman should love her husband. Would she be able to pretend to do more than endure? When she looked into his eyes she did not see love, comfort, laughter or companionship—in fact, when he had leered at her obscenely and tried to grab her knee under the table, it seemed his thin veneer of courtesy was easily dissolved by brandy wine.

Richard was the eldest son of John Aniston, who could refuse his son nothing. With his second son to run his cloth business, Richard had been free to follow his dream and became a squire in a nobleman’s household in Wiltshire, and later doing military service on the field of battle where his skill and bravery brought him acclamation from his superiors. It was his ambition to become a knight—but not all squires became knights.

There had been some kind of trouble at his master’s house. The true facts were not known, but Richard’s involvement was suspected and he had been dismissed. As a consequence, under great sufferance, Richard had returned home and joined his father and brother in the business. But the manufacture of cloth held no appeal for Richard and his life’s ambition, to become a knight, to ride, hunt, fence and fight in battle, was in no way diminished.

When Richard’s father had offered a sizeable stipend to be paid for Jane’s hand in marriage to his son, assuring Jane’s father that Richard’s dismissal from his master’s house was a trivial matter and nothing more than a young man’s exuberance, Simon Lovet had considered it a good match and seen no reason why Richard should not be considered as a suitor for Jane.

When he told his daughter of his decision, Jane knew she would have to give up all hope of marrying someone she loved in order to save the family. Her stomach twisted into sick knots at the thought of committing her body, her entire life, into the hands of a man she instinctively recoiled from, but, miserably resigned to her fate, she lifted her head and bravely met her mother’s gaze.

‘Please don’t worry, Mother. Everything will work out for the best, and this painful time will soon be forgotten. Of course I will marry Richard. It is already decided,’ she said, telling herself that the look of pride and relief on her mother’s face made the sacrifice worthwhile.

Chapter Two

It was the following day when Jane found herself alone with Richard. He had ridden over with his father. His stubborn beard was subdued with oil, his crinkled red hair smoothed down and close cut, which gave him an aggressive look. His clothing and accessories were stylish and well made of only the finest cloth.

Jane raised her eyes to his heavy-featured face. Tall and of stocky build, he wasn’t unattractive, in a coarse way. Surly and argumentative, he had a belligerent nature which simmered away beneath the surface. He was always in trouble for slovenliness, laziness and greed. The despair of his parents, he was without self-control, and it was his father’s hope that marriage to Jane was a way of getting someone else to enforce the restraint he could not impose himself.

Richard was delighted to be marrying Jane and to sit next to her at the dining table. He could stare at her while he ate, at her breasts, and every time she leaned forwards he could peek down the square neckline of her dress. His blood ran hot when he thought of the time not far away when he would command her to take off her clothes and stand naked before him, and he could look at her breasts and fondle them in their magnificent entirety.

When he suggested they take a walk, Jane was hoping her father would refuse his permission, but to her disappointment he obliged most readily.

Before Jane could utter any protestations, with the shadow of a sly grin upon his face and carrying himself with an air of arrogant self-assurance, Richard had taken her hand and drawn her outside. In no time at all they had left the house behind. He told her how happy he was that the wedding had been brought forwards and that he was looking forward to their betrothal party, seemingly unaware of how quiet she was.