“Aye. So be off with you, Ivo de Vescy. ’Tis either my lovely Bernice or—”
“But, my lord, who would claim her? Whom would you prefer over me?”
Philippa, whose curiosity was by far greater than her erstwhile ravisher’s, pressed her face even closer, her eyes on her father’s face.
“She is to wed William de Bridgport.”
De Bridgport!
Philippa whipped about, her mouth agape, not believing what she’d heard. Then she caught the sound of her mother’s soft footfall and quickly slithered behind a tapestry her grandmother had woven some thirty years before, where only her pointed slippers could be seen. She held her breath. Her mother passed into the chamber without knocking. Philippa heard some muttered words but could not make them out. She quickly resumed her post by the open door.
Philippa heard her mother laugh aloud, a rusty sound, for Lady Maude had not been favored with a humorous nature. “Aye, Ivo de Vescy, ’tis William de Bridgport who will wed her, not you.”
Ivo stared from one to the other, then took a step back. “William de Bridgport! Why, my lord, my lady, ’tis an old man he is, a fat old man with no teeth, and a paunch that . . .” Words failed Ivo, and he demonstrated, holding his hands out three feet in front of his stomach. “He’s a terror, my lord, a man of my father’s years, a—”
“Devil’s teeth! Hold your tongue, you impudent little stick! You know less than aught about anything!”
Lady Maude took her turn, her voice virulent. “Aye, ’tis none of your affair! ’Tis Bernice we offer, and Bernice you accept, or get you gone from Beauchamp.”
Philippa eased back, her face pale, images, not words, flooding her brain. De Bridgport! Ivo was right, except that de Bridgport was even worse than he had said. The man was also the father of three repellent offspring older than her—two daughters, shrill and demanding, and a son who had no chin and a leering eye. Philippa closed her eyes. This had to be some sort of jest. Her father wouldn’t . . . There was no need to give her in marriage to de Bridgport. It made no sense, unless her father was simply making it up, trying to get Ivo to leave off. Aye, that had to be it. Ivo had caught him off-guard and he’d spit out the first name that had come to mind in order to make Ivo switch his ardor to the other sister.
But then Lady Maude said, her voice high and officious, “L
isten you, Ivo de Vescy. That giant of a girl has no dowry from Lord Henry, not a farthing, hear you? She goes to de Bridgport because he’ll take her with naught but her shift. Be glad de Bridgport will have her, because her shift is nearly all Lord Henry will provide her. Ah, didn’t you know all call her the Giant? ’Tis because she’s such a lanky, graceless creature, unlike her sweet-natured sister.”
Lord Henry stared in some consternation at his pallid-faced wife whose pale gray eyes hadn’t shone with this much passion since their first wedded night, a very short wedded night, and slowly nodded, adding, “Now, young pup, ’tis either you return to York and your father or you’ll take my pretty Bernice, as her mother says, and you’ll sign the betrothal contract, eh?”
But Ivo wasn’t quite through, and Philippa, for a moment at least, was proud of him, for he mouthed her own questions. “But, my lord, why? You don’t care for your daughter, my lady? I mean no disrespect, my lord, but . . .”
Lord Henry eyed the young man. He watched his wife eye de Vescy as well, no passion in either eye now, just cold fury. Even her thin cheeks sported two red anger spots. Ivo was being impertinent, but then again, Lord Henry had been a fool to mention de Bridgport, but his had been the only name to pop into his mind. And Maude had quickly affirmed the man, and so he’d been caught, unable to back down. De Bridgport! The man was a mangy article.
“Why, my lord?”
There was not only desperation but also honest puzzlement in the young man’s voice, and Lord Henry sighed. But it was Maude who spoke, astonishing him with the venom of her voice. “Philippa has no hold on Lord Henry. Thus she will have no dowry. She is naught to us, a burden, a vexation. Make up your mind, Ivo, and quickly, for you sorely tax me with your impertinence.”
“Will you now accept Bernice?” Lord Henry asked. “She, dulcet child, tells me she wants you and none other.”
Ivo wanted to say that he’d take Philippa without a dowry, even without a shift, but sanity stilled his impetuosity. He wasn’t stupid; he was aware of his duty as his father’s eldest son. The de Vescy holdings near York were a drain at present, given the poor crops that had plagued the area for the past several years. He must wed an heiress; it was his duty. He had no choice, none at all. And, his thinking continued, Philippa wasn’t small and soft and cuddly like her sister. She was too tall, too strong, too self-willed—by all the saints, she could read and cipher like a bloody priest or clerk—ah, but her rich dark blond hair was so full of colors, curling wildly around her face and making an unruly fall down her back, free and soft. And her eyes were a glorious clear blue, bright and vivid with laughter, and her breasts were so wondrously full and round and . . . Ivo cleared his throat. “I’ll take Bernice, my lord,” he said, and Lord Henry prayed that the young man wouldn’t burst into tears.
Maude walked to him, and even smiled as she touched his tunic sleeve. “ ’Tis right and proper,” she said. “You will not regret your choice.”
Philippa felt like Lot’s wife. She couldn’t seem to move, even when her father waved toward the door, telling Ivo to repose himself before seeking out Bernice. In an instant of time her life had changed. She didn’t understand why both her parents had turned on her—if turn they had. She’d always assumed that her father loved her; he worked her like a horse, that was true, but she enjoyed her chores as Beauchamp’s steward. She reveled in keeping the accounts, in dealing with the merchants of Beauchamp, with settling disputes amongst the peasants.
As for her mother, she’d learned to keep clear of Lady Maude some years before. She’d been told not to call her “Mother,” but as a small child she’d accepted that and not worried unduly about it. Nor had she sought affection from that thin-lipped lady since she’d gained her tenth year and Lady Maude had slapped her so hard she’d heard ringing in her ears for three days. Her transgression, she remembered now, was to accuse Bernice of stealing her small pile of pennies. Her father had done nothing. He hadn’t taken her side, but merely waved her away and muttered that he was too busy for such female foolishness. She’d forgotten until now that her father hadn’t defended her—probably because it had hurt too much to remember.
And now they planned to marry her to William de Bridgport. They wouldn’t even provide her with a dowry. Nor had anyone mentioned it to her. Philippa couldn’t take it all in. From a beloved younger daughter—at least by her father—to a cast-off daughter who wasn’t loved by anyone, who had no hold on her parents, who was of no account, who had only her shift and nothing more . . . What had she done? How had she offended them so deeply as to find herself thus discarded?
Even as Ivo turned, his young face set, she couldn’t make herself move. Finally, when Ivo was close enough to see her, she did move, turned on the toes of her soft leather slippers, and raced away. The toes of the slippers were long and pointed, the latest fashion from Queen Eleanor’s court, and they weren’t meant for running. Philippa tripped twice before she reached the seclusion of her chamber. She slid the bolt across the thick oak door and leaned against it, breathing harshly.
It wasn’t just that they didn’t want her. Nor was it that they simply wanted her away from them and from Beauchamp. They wanted to punish her. They wanted to give her to that profane old man, de Bridgport. Why? There was no answer that came to mind. She could, she supposed, simply go ask her father why he and her mother were doing this. She could ask him how she had offended them so much that they wanted to repulse her and chastise her.
Philippa looked out the narrow window onto the inner ward of Beauchamp Castle. Comforting smells drifted upward with the stiff eastern breeze, smells of dogs and cattle and pigs and the lathered horses of Lord Henry’s men-at-arms. The jakes were set in the outer wall in the western side of the castle, and the wind, fortunately, wafted away the smell of human excrement today.
This was her home; she’d never questioned that she belonged; such thoughts would never have occurred to her. She knew that Lady Maude cared not for her, not as she cared for Bernice, but Philippa had ignored the hurt she’d felt as a child, coming not to care over the years, and she’d tried instead to win her father, to make him proud of her, to make him love her. But now even her father had sided with Lady Maude. She was to be exiled to William de Bridgport’s keep and company and bed. She felt a moment of deep resentment toward her sister. Bernice, who’d been the only one to garner the stingy affections Lady Maud had doled out as if a hug or a kiss were something to be hoarded.
Was it because Philippa was taller than her father, a veritable tower of a girl who had not the soft sweet look of Bernice? Lady Maude had told Ivo that she was called the Giant. Philippa hadn’t known; she’d never heard that, even from Bernice in moments of anger.
Was it because she’d been born a girl and not a boy?