“Thank you,” she said softly. “I had not dared hope you would remember.”
Her eyes were full of emotion, and Thomas had to look away from her. “It seems,” he said, “that we are to be married.”
The corners of Margaret’s mouth tilted in a small, cynical smile. “So I am to be a Neville, after all.”
“The child needs a father, and a home.”
Margaret’s face softened as she looked down at her daughter. “Aye, that she does, and for both the name and the home, I do thank you, Thomas.”
“How is it, Margaret, that Prior General Thorseby knew that you and I had fornicated in Lancaster’s London palace?”
“Fornicate? I had not thought that is what we did.”
“Answer my question.”
Margaret lowered her eyes to the child. “I was seen as I went back to the Duchess’
apartments.”
“By whom?”
“By Master Wycliffe.”
Thomas gave a short bark of harsh laughter. “He has served your purposes well, my lady.”
“Tom,” her eyes lifted back to his, “I do beg your forgiveness for the manner in which I have trapped you. I needed protection, for both myself and the child.”
“When I was a priest, Margaret, you refused to beg forgiveness for anything. But when I am a man, the plea falls readily from your lips.”
“The man is a state more honest to who he truly is. The priest was not. Tell me, Tom, what do you feel, knowing you must be my husband?”
“Lust,” he said, without hesitation, and watched her eyes wince with pain. “I do not deny that I lust for you, and marriage to you allows me to indulge that lust with honesty. But I also distrust you, Margaret, and that you must know also. Our bodies may join, but never our souls. You have not truly trapped me.”
Now her entire face flinched. “You do not love me?”
“No. I will never love you, Margaret.”
“No matter,” she whispered, and turned her face aside.
“Margaret, soon Lancaster and Raby will be here, no doubt with one of the friars in tow, to witness our betrothal. Then I must depart, for I am to go north to reclaim my estates from my uncle.”
At that, Margaret turned her face back to him, a peculiar light in her eyes.
Thomas remembered the way Raby had fretted for Margaret this last night, and the way he’d rushed to her side. Again Thomas felt the horrid slide of jealousy through him. Could it possibly be that there was love between Raby and Margaret?
“But the north will not be our home,” Thomas continued, and watched with even greater emotion as the light died from her eyes. “Lancaster will give us Halstow Hall in Kent as a wedding gift, and there we will make our residence. Raby must be left to enjoy his own wedded bliss, Margaret, without interference from you.”
Her face tightened. “I will not cuckold you, Thomas. I know you think me the
whore, but I am not, nor have ever been.”
Thomas leaned over the bed, and tightly clasped her right wrist in his hand. “If ever I find that you have betrayed me with another, Margaret, I will drag you screaming down to the salt flats of the Thames estuary and there hold you face down in the briny silt until your whoring soul drowns.” If ever I find you with my uncle…
Margaret’s eyes filled with tears, not so much at the threat, but at his need to mouth it. “Then I will enjoy a long life, Thomas, for I shall be a true wife to you.”
Thomas was going to say more, but then a knock sounded at the door, and Maude poked her head in.
“The lords Lancaster and Raby, my lord, and Brother Harold.”
“Then show them in, Maude, for this is indeed a joyous day.”
THE VOWS of betrothal—the most formal vows that bound a man and a woman—were done, and Thomas and the witnesses had left, and now Margaret was alone with her daughter and her thoughts.
She was to be his wife. Ah, if she wasn’t so exhausted and in such discomfort, she would rejoice at that. Wouldn’t she? Wasn’t this what she and her kind had worked toward for so long? Why she had pushed Raby and Lancaster until they, in turn, had pushed Thomas? Why she had gone to Thomas that night, so that it could be said they were already lovers?
Oh aye, but Margaret had also gone to Thomas that night because she was desperate to have him hold her. So, yes, she was glad she would be his wife, but fearful also. She would have a husband who distrusted her, and who had vowed he would see her in hell before he loved her. It would not be the best start to a marriage.
“But at least we shall be a family,” she whispered to Rosalind. “You and I and he.”
And there was cause for optimism. Thomas had defended Rosalind against the archangel. Margaret had been unconscious, yes, when St. Michael had come to Thomas and said to him, It is better that six die. But Margaret was particularly attuned to St. Michael, and even so deeply unconscious as she had been, she had been aware of what was happening about her when the archangel had appeared.
When Thomas had denied him.
“There is hope for us yet,” Margaret whispered, kissing the top of Rosalind’s head. “Hope yet,”
One day, perhaps, he would love her.
Margaret closed her eyes, and dreamed, a slight smile on her mouth. One day, perhaps, he would love her.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Low Sunday
In the first year of the reign of Richard II (17th April 1379)
THOMAS SPENT FOUR WEEKS in the north—barely enough time to accomplish what he needed—before he resumed his travel south again. His uncle had made good his offer to transfer back to Thomas the estates that had been his from his father, although the
deeds would not receive their final signature until Thomas also made good his promise to wed Margaret.
Thomas’ father, Robert, had been Raby’s younger brother by some eighteen months. While Raby, as elder son, had inherited the vast ancestral estates of the Nevilles, Robert had inherited the manors that their mother had brought into the family as her dowry. These had, on Robert’s and his wife’s deaths during an outbreak of the pestilence in 1353, then passed to their five-year-old son, Thomas, who had in turn deeded them to his uncle on entering holy orders.
Now these manors were back in Thomas’ hands… or soon would be. The five manors were scattered in a rough semi-circle extending from the small town of Pickering, skirting the southern edges of the Pickering Forest, to the coastal port of Scarborough. Between them they would give Thomas a comfortable income.
Lancaster’s gift of the Devon estates and Halstow Hall, as well as the influence and preferments to be gained within the Lancastrian court, would make Thomas a rich man. Thomas had spent a bare four days at Sheriff Hutton before riding out to make a tour of his northern manors.
He’d spent a few days at each manor, speaking with the stewards and reeves, and going over the accounts and tallies of livestock and grain. Raby, understandably, had not taken a great interest in the manors during the past five or six years they’d been in his care, and Thomas had spent most of the daylight hours walking over the manors, talking with the bondsmen and free tenants, inspecting livestock, and discussing improvements for the land and stock and possible new markets for their produce, making fuller use of the port and market facilities at Scarborough.
If nothing else, Thomas’ time spent traveling about as a friar had opened his eyes to the possibilities of the European fairs and trading guilds.
Thomas had returned to Sheriff Hutton in time to spend Easter with his uncle and his new wife and had then ridden south on Easter Monday.
Thomas did not ride in the company of his uncle. Raby and the Lady Joan would return to London in time for Richard’s coronation and Thomas’ wedding, but Thomas preferred to ride ahead of them.
Best, perhaps, to keep Margaret and Raby apart until she was safely wedded. If Thomas did not ride with Raby, then he did not ride alone. In York he had joined up with the Earl of Northumberland, Henry Percy, his son Hotspur, and the Northumberland retinue, all on their way down from the far north for the coronation.
Indeed, it seemed half of northern England was on the road to London.
Thomas enjoyed the company of Northumberland and his son, but the week they
spent on the road before they reached Lincoln had its uncomfortable moments.
Northumberland was highly suspicious of Raby’s new marriage, and questioned Thomas at length about it. The Northumberlands and Nevilles had long been rivals for power in the north of England, a wild and independent region far enough from Westminster’s control to make whoever held the tide of Lord of the North almost as powerful in the northern counties as the king himself. For many years Northumberland had held the upper hand, as also the title Lord of the North. But now that Raby had allied himself so strongly with Lancaster, and Lancaster wielded such influence over Richard, Northumberland could see his power being whittled away.