“It will always be filled with my daughters, Lyonene!”
She understood his command. “I thought you would marry Amicia. She said…”
“I know of this. Hodder has told me. I want to know why you believed the woman and why you did not trust me.”
“I trusted you, but men always take other women.”
“Do they? You know this for fact? And if they do, do they always marry them and forsake their wives?”
“Nay, but Amicia said King Edward…”
“Edward is my king, but he does not rule my life. He cannot force me to do what I would not.”
“But what of Gilbert de Clare? He has left his wife to take a daughter of King Edward.”
“You met Gilbert at court. You would compare him to me? He is a greedy man and Edward has been warned about him often. You will see problems with the man soon. He does not wish to please his king as much as equal him. Now what other puny reasons do you give for leaving me?”
“I do not know. They seemed so logical, Amicia’s words. I saw letters from you. She had the ribbon. I saw you kiss her.”
“Nay, you did not! You saw the woman wrap her ugly body about me. I had to restrain myself from tossing her to the ground.”
“Ranulf, I have not seen you for a long while. Why must we speak of this unpleasantness? I have come to my senses. I know Amicia’s words were false. I heard her tell Sir Morell how they plotted it all.”
“We have all night, for I do not plan to take you from here until dawn and I wish to know what caused you to believe the woman’s words. Had you more faith in me you would have seen a hundred letters and would not have believed them.”
“It is as you say, but there were some things that I knew were certainly true.”
“Name them.”
Lyonene was silent for a moment, wishing Ranulf would not force her to speak of her doubts. “Amicia said that when she first looked at you… I know,” she cried desperately, “I know her feelings. It was the same with me. Ranulf! You laugh at me! I tell you my innermost thoughts and you dare to laugh at me!”
He caught her hand as she swung to strike him. “You will not injure my babe by your headstrong movements. So, Amicia told you she could not resist me after even the first look at me.”
“I do not understand it now, either. I vow I am a fool to want such as you. You are a vile creature.”
He kissed her forehead. “You are a liar and I shall see your sins confessed when we are home. Lyonene, now, here in this dark place, I will tell you something, but I say it once and once only. Hereafter I will deny it was ever said.”
She moved her head back on his arm to look at him. Ranulf’s honor was so strong that for him to say he might ever even consider a lie made her look at him in astonishment.
He ignored her. “There are times when I boast to you of my beauty, but it is only because you look at me so. I will tell you that you fair drool at the sight of me. Do not protest, for I know I look at you in a like manner. But what you see in me is not seen by other women. They think me too dark or ungraceful in my form.”
“What you say is not true! What of the women at court? I had to fight them from you.”
?
??Think you they would be so interested in me if I were not so rich? It is Dacre who is the ideal of beauty.”
“Dacre! Why, he is as the underbelly of a fish. His eyes and hair have no color, and he is so thin he casts little shadow, even.”
“You seem to have spent overlong studying him.”
She ignored him and ran the back of her fingers along the unshaved whiskers on his cheek. “And when he has three days’ growth of a beard, from a distance he looks to be a girl; you can tell no difference. Know you that in certain lights your beard shows almost blue?”
He kissed her fingers and smiled at her. “It is good to know you feel so, but it does not change what I try to say to you. I wish, by this confession, to prevent what happened from occurring twice. Although you made a fool of yourself over me on the first day I saw you, other women do not.”
“You lie again! I have never made a fool of myself over you.”
“True, you have ever been calm near me, except mayhaps when you lusted after me when you bathed me, or threw yourself into my arms when I but showed you the longbow, or when…”