When Christ and His Saints Slept by Sharon Kay Penman Page A

his own wife? Stalking from the hall, he rapidly mounted the stairs to Maude’s bedchamber.
    They were ready for him, having heard the jangling of his spurs on the narrow stone steps. He wasted no time on preliminary skirmishing, saying curtly, “Minna, leave us,” vexed but not surprised when she looked to Maude for confirmation of his command. But he knew how to pay her back, and as soon as she’d reluctantly withdrawn, he slammed the bolt into place, knowing she’d be hovering on the other side of the door, listening.
    Leaning back against the door, he said, “Alone at last,” more for the eavesdropping Minna’s benefit than for Maude’s. His wife had yet to say a word. She knew more ways to unsettle a man than any woman he’d ever met, silence being only one of them. She was standing in the shadows behind the table, but he was sure she’d not stay there for long. However much she might fear him, he knew she’d fear showing it even more.
    As he expected, she soon circled around the table. But he drew a sharp breath as she moved into the lamp’s light. Jesú, her face was swollen up like a melon! He had not realized he’d hit her that hard. Not that he was sorry. She deserved it, by God she did.
    He found, though, that he did not like to look at her bruises, for they were uncomfortable reminders of his own failure. He had his share of the notorious Angevin temper. His father had always claimed it was Lucifer’s legacy, passed down from the Devil’s daughter, said to have beguiled a long-dead Count of Anjou into taking her to wife. But Geoffrey had never given that accursed anger free rein, not as his father had, for it was very important to him—being in control at all times. That was why he’d suffered through so few drunken dawns like today’s, why he’d learned at such an early age that words could be crafted into weapons, giving him power over others. Yet not over Maude, never over her. No matter how often he vowed not to let her goad him again into a heedless, fool’s rage, it always came to that: someone he did not even know shouting and raving at her like a madman, losing more than his temper.
    Maude watched warily as he moved about the chamber, slanting toward her an occasional sideways glance that gave away nothing of his thoughts. He guarded his secrets well. In that, he was a worthy opponent, for she rarely knew what he was thinking. What was he doing here? Not to offer an apology, for certes! What did he want of her? To share her bed? God, no…not after last night’s ugliness. Surely he could not expect her to…not so soon? But of course he would, if that was what he wanted. Had he not proved that often enough?
    “We need to talk, Maude,” Geoffrey said abruptly. “Things must change between us. This constant quarreling must stop. I am bone-weary of entering this bedchamber and having it become a battlefield.”
    “I assure you it gives me no joy, either, Geoffrey.”
    “Then you ought to be willing to do your part. Are you?”
    Maude hesitated, searching his face intently. Was he sincere about making a new beginning? Or was this some sort of trap? “What do you want of me?”
    “It is very simple. I want you to start acting like a wife.”
    She should have known better. “You mean obey you in all particulars?”
    He ignored her sarcasm. “Why not? You alone would think to question that, for the rest of Christendom recognizes it as a natural right, that a wife owes her husband obedience.”
    “And does the husband owe nothing? Is that all marriage is to you, a lifelong debt incurred by the woman?”
    She saw the muscles tighten along his jawline, but he surprised her, then, by saying coolly, “So tell me what I owe. I cannot very well satisfy a debt unless I know what it is.”
    “I want you to treat me with courtesy. If I balk at obeying you, it is because you shame me in front of others. In truth, you speak more kindly to your dogs than you do to me. It would not unman you to