The Marriage Bed (The Medieval Knights Series) by Claudia Dain Page B

to maintain the distance he deemed both courteous and proper. What he usually achieved was a restrained disgust. Gilles was pimply and short; no one bothered to flirt with him.
    Father Langfrid had never trusted Adam of Courcelle, and less so now with his open and too bright courtesy of Lady Isabel. That man looked after his own interests too well for common comfort. Louis he was unsure of; his blunt courtesy ran along the edge of incivility, yet he seemed honest enough. Not the sort of man to deal falsely with the man he was sworn to. Yet none had taken the oath of hom age to Richard. Nicholas was a knight who might not swear. Nicholas had high ambitions for his earthly life, giving little thought to his eternal one. And then there were the men-at-arms and squires and household servants—all tilted on their ears to have a devoted Benedictine as their reluctant lord. But, sitting at the high table with Isabel at his side, Richard did not appear a reluctant lord, only a reluctant husband.
    "A strange beginning," said Brother John at his side. Father Langfrid had always liked Brother John; he was good with both medicinals and people and knew how to keep his own counsel.
    Father Langfrid nodded gently. "Pray God it is the beginning only."
    "'Where two or more are gathered together...'" John quoted. "I pray it without ceasing. There is much here beyond what can be seen, but God sees all, and I am certain that He will lay all to rights. At least I pray for certainty," he added with a smile. "You know conditions here. What will Brother Richard—that is, Lord Richard—face?"
    "Whether he will be Brother or lord is its own answer. Do you seek to counsel him?"
    "Brother Richard seeks no man's counsel. Nor heeds it when it is thrust upon him."
    "A headstrong Benedictine?"
    "Nay, but a man ever certain of his path."
    "A good trait in a baron, but in a monk?"
    John smiled and said nothing for a pace. "Isabel appears well content in the marriage."
    "She, too, has seen clearly the path of her choosing," Langfrid answered, his own smile stilled.
    "She has had many stumbling blocks in her path," John said diplomatically.
    "Yea, she has," Langfrid agreed. "But God and God alone knows the number of our days, does he not, Brother?"
    "And the desires of our hearts," added John.
    And therein lay the small seed of Isabel's misery: She believed she had caused the deaths of two men in her heartfelt prayers to be Richard's wife.
    But that confidence had been whispered to Father Langfrid in the sanctity of the confessional and was not destined to be dinner conversation.
    "It has been a hard season for Isabel," John said, coming too close to what had been on Langfrid's mind.
    "Yea, she has been sore pressed, for every estate needs a lord. It is God's blessing that Isabel is well wed, the betrothal contract intact, overlord and king satisfied."
    "All pieces in their place, each person in his station."
    "Even so, Brother. God's order maintained on earth."
    "Even so, Father," John echoed.
    And if either man considered how many deaths it had taken for Isabel to have her heart's desire, they refrained from speaking it aloud.
    * * *
    Dinner proceeded apace, each dish a masterpiece to the eyes and to the tongue, richer food and more bounteous than was Richard's custom. Monks ate meat rarely, and yet he was being served venison, lamb, and rabbit, as well as eel and quail. It was more food than he ate in a month as a Benedictine. But he was no longer a Benedictine. He was Lord of Dornei, Warefeld, Bledelai, Hilesdun and all the rest. A lord of many, when all he wanted was to be a servant to One. And he had never wanted to be a husband.
    Never had begun a year ago, just past Whitsunday.
    Richard cast his eyes to glance at Isabel; her dark hair fell heavy and thick to her hips, unbound and glorious, a tribute to her maidenhood. He flicked his eyes forward and ate lightly of his venison; Lord of Dornei he may be, but he would not forswear his Benedictine