The Devil Claims a Wife. Helen Dickson

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      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 СКАЧАТЬ