Chosen for the Marriage Bed. Anne O'Brien

to toe. She had undoubtedly been in the wrong—what was it he had said? A sharp-voiced shrew?—and she had no idea how to make amends. Despair washed through her. Still she forced herself to walk up the stair with magnificent dignity.

      To meet Anne Malinder, watching, waiting, at the top, her perfect teeth glinting in a smile of sheer delight.

      ‘I see dear Richard is returned. Have you fallen out with him already?’

      ‘No. We understand each other perfectly.’

      The girl leaned close. ‘He’ll go back to Mistress Joanna soon enough if you quarrel with him.’ A trill of laughter. ‘His mood is not sweet for a bridegroom. I will go and talk to him for you. I could always wind Richard round my fingers, even as a child. Now I am a child no longer. Don’t worry, Elizabeth. I will see to his needs.’

      ‘I am sure you will!’

      It was the final straw. Elizabeth brushed past her nemesis and shut herself in her bedchamber, regretting the mistakes she had made, unable to see any way forwards.

      Whilst Richard, back in the courtyard, wallowing in the lost sadness in a pair of deep blue eyes, was finding it difficult not to regret his intemperate words. His impatience flared when Mistress Bringsty placed her stout figure in his path.

      ‘I need to speak with you, my lord.’

      ‘I don’t have time for this.’ He would have stepped past her, but she surprised him with a hand to his sleeve. His glance sharpened. ‘Well?’

      ‘Spare her the public bedding, my lord.’

      And before he could ask more, the woman had bustled away. But of course he did not need to ask. He had not needed her warning. Or perhaps he had, because in the deluge of demands on his time he had not thought of the repercussion for Elizabeth of the traditional, very public disrobing of bride and groom, had accepted that it was part of the drink-fuelled celebration as much as the vows and the priest’s pious words. The memory of silvery weals of the lash on her shoulders jolted him back to what he must do. Whatever the residual annoyance from their recent encounter, he could not inflict an array of prurient and inquisitive eyes on her.

      He was sorry to have spoken to Elizabeth as he had. There were depths—uncomfortable ones—to his bride that he had not even come close to discovering.

      The door to Nicholas Capel’s circular chamber at Talgarth was shut and bolted. There must be no prying eyes to this ceremony. The marriage was imminent; now was the time to take action. All it took was the wax from two stalwart candles, judiciously softened, to fashion two figures. He smoothed, formed, crimped and carved, until two figures lay on the table, male and female. Crudely manipulated yet easily recognisable, naked and sexually explicit.

      So the marriage was assured, but it would do no harm to give fate a twist. Capel smote his hands together in a sharp gesture of authority.

      ‘Let us draw the pair together, with or without their will. Let us ensure the power of Malinder’s loins to get an heir on the woman.’

      Capel poured water from an ewer into a silver bowl marked with Christian symbols. He murmured Latin words over the water, consecrating it, and then sprinkled the holy liquid to name the two figures.

      ‘I name thee both: Richard Malinder. Elizabeth de Lacy.’

      From a fold of parchment he shook the contents. Two dark hairs from the head of Richard Malinder. Two longer, equally dark, Elizabeth’s hair from before her departure to Llanwardine. Then, winding the hair around their crude necks, Capel placed the figures face to face, breast to breast, thigh to thigh, and with strong wire he bound them close until they were tight knit.

      ‘May your union be effective and fruitful,’ Capel murmured with a vicious satisfaction. And smiled gloatingly.

      How trusting John de Lacy was in his innocence, believing that the authority was fast in his own fist. How willing he was to follow advice when power was dangled before him, a juicy plum to fall from the tree into his waiting hand.

      Except, Capel rubbed his hands together, de Lacy would not be the one to catch the falling fruit.

      Richard offered his hand to his bride. Elizabeth placed hers there, lightly. He gave a little nod, either of acceptance or encouragement, his fingers closing warm and firm before they turned together for him to lead her up the final steps to the waiting priest. And there was something that needed to be said.

      ‘Forgive me my harsh words of yesterday.’

      ‘I do.’ Her gaze was solemn. ‘I ask pardon for my lack of grace.’