The Yearning Heart Read online

  Richard, she loved dearly. Peter, the oldest, married to Virginia, was distant and cold—like papa—and Rebecca did not care that he visited Grinwold seldom.

  * * * *

  “What is this?”

  The angry roar stopped Rebecca in her tracks, and she looked up to see papa. Bushy brows drew together in thunderous disapproval, and she had no time to dodge as he lunged toward her, swinging her around by her arm to lay his thick hand to her backside.

  “Canst not remember that young ladies do not hunt in the fields like a lowly serf? Richard causes such disobedience.”

  Papa's hand fair stung her bottom, but Rebecca blinked back tears, defiantly refusing to say Richard was with her. She held out the rabbit to Sir Oliver.

  “'Would make fresh meat for the evening meal for you and mama,” she said.

  “Take it to the cook room and make haste to the front hall,” Sir Oliver said, his lips curling in distaste. He turned and strode away from her, grumbling his displeasure.

  Rebecca made her way to the big room where the meals were prepared and left the rabbit with cook who was cleaning vegetables by the back door. Then she went toward the room where papa waited.

  Rebecca stopped outside the heavy door and knocked, pushing inward at the strident command from within. Her father stood in front of his desk, black waistcoat gaping over a protruding stomach. His ruddy face shone as though polished with the oil Nora used on the ugly dark wood furniture. A self-satisfied smile pulled thin pink lips back over too-perfect teeth. He smiled—until he saw the condition of his daughter.

  “Rebecca!” His shout was enough to halt her slow steps just inside the door.

  Inwardly, she sighed, looking down at her soiled shoes, dirt-spattered skirt, and blood from the rabbit streaking her hands. She pushed at her blonde hair with one hand and blew upward at the straggly wisps falling into her eyes. She could well imagine what her father saw when looking at his only daughter. She did not really care. Since the day she was born, she had never pleased him.

  Hand upraised, Sir Oliver grunted in rage as he took a step toward Rebecca. She closed her eyes, waiting for the blow.

  “Sir Oliver.” The words were soft-spoken, but they stopped her father. He sputtered, thrusting his hand behind his back.

  Until then, Rebecca hadn't noticed the other man standing across the room. She opened her eyes as he moved toward her and stopped, bowing from the waist.

  “Stephen Lambert, Lady Grinwold,” he said. For a moment, a sympathetic grin touched his mouth and deep blue eyes sparkled with laughter as he took in her smudged nose and tousled hair. His expression once again solemn, he faced Sir Oliver.

  “You have told Rebecca of our agreement?”

  “She will agree.”

  Sir Oliver rubbed smooth hands together, a confident smile making small eyes disappear into cheeks grown fat through overindulgence.

  The man glanced once more at Rebecca.

  “I would speak with milady about the arrangement.”

  Sir Oliver frowned at her, his black eyes promising punishment should she say the wrong thing.

  “Go change your clothing, Rebecca.” Papa didn't just speak, he ordered.

  “No need. I will speak with her now.”

  “Of course, Sir Stephen.”

  Her father's frown disappeared as he answered his guest. With a last threatening scowl at her, he walked behind his desk out of her line of vision. She could feel him hovering, waiting to strike should she disobey him in some way.

  She stared at the man who introduced himself as Stephen Lambert, wondering at his ability to make her father listen to him. She had not known anyone to override Oliver Grinwold's temper as this stranger had done. Her gaze went over the tall, straight figure, recognizing the best quality of material in the well-cut, light-blue waistcoat laced over matching pants tucked into shining black boots.

  “Rebecca?” The deep, even tone of Sir Stephen's voice interrupted her thoughts.

  She brought her gaze upward to meet dark blue eyes set wide apart in a rough-angled face. Blond hair, the color of the ripe grain in her father's fields, curled away from his face and lay on his coat collar. His chin beneath a dark blond beard was square and hard.

  She dipped her head. “My lord.”

  A deep chuckle brought her head up once more.

  “You say that with doubt, Rebecca.”

  “Nay, my lord.” Her denial was quick, hoping Sir Oliver wouldn't bellow his displeasure at her attitude. It would not do for him to hear her voice with less than respect for this man.

  “Then you do agree with the plan?”

  “What plan is this, my lord?”

  “Sir Oliver has agreed to give you as my wife.” But why in hell did I ever agree to it? he wondered. She is but a child.

  Rebecca stared at Sir Stephen, eyes widening to overflow her thin face. She should not be shocked, but she was. She should have known ... the pursing of papa's narrow lips when he looked at her, appraising dark eyes disappearing behind soft flesh as they went over her slim body. She looked around at papa, and then back at the stranger she was promised to.

  Sir Oliver was finally getting rid of his unwanted daughter. He didn't need a daughter; he needed a third son to work his vast land holdings. Richard and Peter could use help in the fields. She would gladly have worked alongside Richard, the gentle one, but she was not allowed because she was a woman. She was only capable of doing housework, a chore she detested as much as Sir Oliver disliked her.

  Rebecca lifted wide eyes to meet the questioning look in the man's expression. How like papa to marry her off to a complete stranger, trade her like the cows and pigs on market day. Her throat clogged, and her eyes stung.

  “And what does Sir Oliver get in exchange for a skinny, ugly, unwanted daughter?” she said.

  She stood straight, turning once more to stare into her father's face, took a step closer to him and continued. “More lands for Peter to lord it over? More sheep you can skin the wool from the way you have long wanted to skin me? An empty bedroom to house pilgrims and minstrels to bring in money where you must, at the least, feed me? What?”

  The triumphant look on Sir Oliver's face disappeared in an angry frown. His hands made into fists, and he started to raise them, but looked instead at Sir Stephen.

  “It is not your place to question a business transaction between Sir Stephen and me.”

  “Not even when I am the one traded like an unhealthy cow?”

  “Rebecca.”

  Sir Stephen put a hand on her arm. He had thought to take her and not marry, but now he knew he could not. I will have to marry her, he concluded to himself at that instant. She would not make a good mistress. He felt reluctant sympathy for her and couldn't bring himself to quiet her, as he knew he should. It was a cold, heartless contract viewed from the child's eyes.

  Rebecca whirled on Stephen. Tear-glazed eyes fastened on the third hook of his waistcoat as she shook off his hand.

  I will not go with you, she thought. I will run away. I will hide in the next carriage to pass and ...

  “Be good enough to pack what you will need for a three-day journey. I will wait for you here,” Sir Stephen said. “I must leave for Glastonbury today.”

  “Today?”

  She meant her answer to be loud and protesting, but it was only a whisper. How could she run away if he took her now? Her eyes locked with the stranger's and for a moment, she imagined sympathy in the brooding look he gave her.

  “Now,” he said brusquely, turning his back on her to walk to the window. “I have paid well for you. Do as I say.”

  So. I trade one master for another, she thought, smarting from his cold order. At least, he is more handsome than papa. But to marry. It meant sleeping with him, allowing him to fondle her body and ...

  Head high, she whirled. Sir Oliver stepped from behind the desk, but she shoved him aside as she rushed out the door and up the stairs to the small bedroom assigned to her. However grudgi
ngly. Left to papa, she would have been bedded down with the sheep.

  Inside the room, she looked around. Small, yes, but her own privacy. Her dreams began here and went with her the miles she walked and ran through papa's lands. He didn't allow her to ride, but she did anyway, smiling her way past the smitten stable boy when papa was away on business. Elizabeth never asked where she had been. She didn't want to know should Sir Oliver inquire as to her daughter's whereabouts.

  Glastonbury, Sir Stephen had said. The only thing she knew about the distant city was what Sister Emilie taught in Suffolk School. It was on the coast, a rocky, rugged coastline twisting its way along the water, misty and forbidding, of poor farmland, of scattered sheep and few human beings.

  Among them, one Sir Stephen Lambert. Soon-to-be husband of Rebecca Grinwold.

  She crossed the room to drag a carrying case from the narrow closet. Inside it were the sheets of manuscripts kept hidden from Sir Oliver, treasured to read over and over. He had seen she was educated enough to justify being his daughter, but he knew nothing of the precious parchment pages she kept pressed beneath her mattress.

  If Sir Oliver ever discovered the pages and learned how she came by them, he would beat her, and then take them to offer ingratiatingly to some nobleman in exchange for a gambling debt. Or just to show Rebecca she was going beyond reason in owning such treasures.

  There had been a fire at school over a holiday when she was not allowed to go home because Lady Elizabeth was away with Sir Oliver for an extended trip. Rebecca had been asleep when fire broke out in the classroom. She, along with a few other students, ran down the steps to gawk at the brilliant flames.

  Men fought the fire, passing buckets of water from hand to hand as students watched. Rebecca, standing near a small desk not yet ablaze, spied the vellum pages curling at the edges. She grabbed them, protecting them with her heavy woolen gown. She started to hand them over to someone but was paid no attention. She held the treasured writings to her for a long time, and then quietly went back to her room and hid them in the case with unused clothing.

  A secret smile curved her lips now as she gently covered the pages with old clothing. They were hers. She would never leave them for papa to profit from. Even if Sir Stephen took them later, she would rather give them to him than to Sir Oliver.

  A plain brown, woolen dress, a linen chemise, a black skirt and white high-necked top were placed over her prized possession. Her black slippers were dusty, having been worn only to church. She wiped them with her hand, made a trough on either end beneath her clothing and poked them down. There was a red shawl, the only colorful piece of clothing she owned. She rolled it into a corner under the dark dress.

  A hesitant knock came at the door.

  “Come,” she said, and her mother stepped into the room. They stared at each other, and then Rebecca ran into her arms.

  Lady Elizabeth patted her shoulder.

  “It is best for you, Rebecca.”

  “But, Mama, I do not wish to go with him. I know nothing. I...”

  “Papa has made the bargain, Rebecca. You have to go.”

  “But—can you not—please, tell papa it is not right to, to trade me. For what? More land? I have never seen this man, Mama, and I do not wish to marry him.”

  Eyes bright with tears, she pleaded with Lady Elizabeth, knowing it would do no good. It was the way of the master. His word was law. Elizabeth had never defied her husband. What he decided would take place, no matter the pain for Rebecca.

  “You will be happy with Sir Stephen. Papa says he is a rich man and influential with the king.”

  Rebecca sniffed and pulled away to look up into her mother's vacantly pretty face. Lady Elizabeth had never been her champion where papa was concerned, but at least, she lamented not the fact she had given birth to a daughter instead of a son—the way papa did. Elizabeth had taught her to cook, how to plan good meals, to sew, to garden, but they did not talk of a girl's duties in marriage. Marriage to a stranger.

  “It is far away, Mama,” she said in a small voice.

  Lady Elizabeth nodded, and Rebecca waited for a word of reassurance.

  When none was forthcoming, she said, “Will Richard come to say goodbye?”

  “I think not, Rebecca. He must go to Worcester trading today.”

  Her throat tightened as she turned away from her mother. She would not, would not, let them see her cry. Mayhap it was best not to see Richard. Had he known about Papa's bargain? No. No, Richard would have told me. He would have objected.

  Sadness such as she had never known settled in her heart at the thought of not seeing him again. She would miss Lady Elizabeth, of course, but Richard was her staunchest support in the cold Grinwold family. If she had but known she wouldn't see Richard again, she would have hugged him more tightly ere she left him.

  * * * *

  Rebecca stood stiffly by as Sir Stephen's driver lifted the one case to the top of the carriage. A hand touched her arm, and Sir Stephen helped her inside. She turned once to look for Lady Elizabeth, but her mother was not there. Sir Oliver stood smiling benignly at the prancing horses in front of the carriage, but he did not look at Rebecca as the driver shouted to the team, and the carriage lurched into motion.

  Rebecca huddled in the far corner of the carriage, looking across the cold, winter-dead fields. They looked as she felt—abandoned.

  “I thought you were eighteen,” Sir Stephen said after they had traveled miles in silence. “You are young.”

  “I will age in time, I should imagine,” she said, still turned away from him.

  Long fingers lifted her chin and directed her to face him. Deep blue eyes beneath thick brown brows smiled at her, and a wide mouth opened slightly to reveal white teeth, one of them crooked out of line with the others.

  “I daresay that is true.” A slim forefinger brushed across her mouth. “It will be all right.” Abruptly, he released her chin and looked toward the road in front of them. “Try to rest. It is a long journey.”

  They stopped at a roadside inn for the night and were served cold lamb and dark bread by the innkeeper. Rebecca was surprised when Sir Stephen bade her goodnight and went into a room across the hall. She had no idea what to expect from this stranger but assumed he would take her body whenever he pleased. He had paid for her, had he not? He was not required to wait for marriage to sleep with her.

  She undressed, drawing on the only sleeping garment she possessed, a rough material of an ugly shade of rose. Some distant cousin had left it with Mama and nothing was to be wasted, so she now owned the plainly made wrap. It was warm, the only worthwhile thing about it.

  She turned back the woolen quilt, crawled into bed, and hunched against the pillows, her arms around knees drawn up to her chest. A hard lump formed in her throat, and her eyes felt tight. There was little love at home to miss, but at least the small bedroom was her own, with its bright coverlet Lady Elizabeth made while she carried Rebecca for nine months.

  And Richard. She sorely missed him already. Would he forget her immediately as she knew papa would?

  A knock sounded at the door and made her jump. Her heart thudded, and she didn't answer right away. Sir Stephen was coming to claim his rights.

  “Rebecca?” a quiet voice said, and then the door swung open to reveal the man who would soon be her husband. His big frame filled the doorway, and he lowered his head to enter without bumping. He stood just inside the room, staring at the small figure huddled on the pillows, missing nothing in the forlorn face with tear-bright eyes.

  “You are comfortable, Rebecca?”

  “Yes, my lord,” she whispered over the pain in her throat.

  Two steps brought him to the foot of the bed.

  “Do not cry, Rebecca.”

  She shook her head, afraid to speak.

  “How old are you?” he said, pursuing his earlier question.

  “Sixteen, my lord.”

  He frowned and uttered a word she did not understand, but he cont
inued to look at her. “Do not be sad to leave your family. We will visit them within the year.”

  “Yes, my lord.”

  It wasn't papa and mama she missed. It was the warm aloneness of her room, the wide-open fields she roamed, dreaming and singing soft melodies she built in her head. And, if she found Richard on the far side of papa's land, joining him to eat fruit as he rested or just being quiet and comfortable together.

  Richard had never wished she were another brother or criticized her for her lack of restraint as she ran through the fields or rode bareback on one of the horses left to pasture.

  An odd gentleness filled Sir Stephen's face, then he straightened to say roughly, “Goodnight, Rebecca. We leave at first light.” He left her, closing the door quietly behind him.

  She let go her breath and lay back, dragging the cover over her. Soon, Sir Stephen would not leave her at night. Soon, he would stay and ... she squeezed her eyes shut.

  What will it be like to have a man touch me so? she wondered. The poems and songs Sister Emilie read aloud in school awakened her romantic dreams. The manuscript pages spoke of tender love, of touches and affection between man and woman. But she was a bought and paid for wife. There was no love or tenderness to be hers. Only to be claimed by her lord and master. Sir Stephen was big, he would hurt her.

  Her hands moved over her small body, over barely existing breasts, a flat stomach with bones protruding on each side, thin legs. She knew a man coveted mostly that part between her legs. She touched herself hesitantly, drew in her breath and pulled her hands from beneath the covers. She could not imagine how it would feel for a man to put his big hands—and more—on her. She shivered and covered up, head and ears. Soon, she slept.

  * * * *

  Rebecca couldn't eat the next morning. Her stomach seemed to be in knots and her throat too tight to let pass anything other than the strong tea served by the innkeeper. Sir Stephen watched her small efforts but said nothing.

  Outside, the sign overhead rasped and groaned as the wind whistled around the corner of the old inn. Clouds hung low overhead like gray drapes. She looked at the sky as their travel cases were loaded onto the top of the carriage. Sir Stephen helped her aboard, springing lightly behind her. She felt old and heavy and ugly, a parcel traded to the highest bidder. The weather, angry and dark, matched her mood.