My Beloved Read Free Page A

advancement.
    Enchantment. He should not feel it. Or a host of other emotions, all out of place for this moment: bemusement leavened with a slice of curiosity and the oddest amusement. The hand that carefully bracketed her neck, thumb and fingers splayed, was blotched with ink.
    As he watched, her skin seemed to grow whiter, so fragile a hue it was as if snow had been given life. Such paleness set into relief the plump pinkness of her lips, the startling brilliance of eyes the shade of spring grass, her hair the color of a Saracen night. She blinked a few times, rapidly, her mouth fell open, her hand still touching her throat as if to measure the beats of a struggling heart.
    He almost reached out with his hand, his fingers braced to feel her skin before he remembered.
    He had no doubt of how he appeared to her. A frightening vision of a cloaked and garbed monk. A cleric in appearance but not in soul. His cowl had been slipped forward a few inches in front of his face, a shadow was all that anyone could see of him. The rest was covered adequately by the black wool and gauntlets crafted of leather. Hardly a sight to reassure her, Sebastian .
    But somehow, he must. She must agree, else his future, and that of Langlinais, was in jeopardy.
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    No fire burned in the fireplace, but she wished, improvidently, that there was one. She might have turned and extended her hands toward the warmth of the blaze. Allowed some time to elapse during which she might be able to think, do something other than stare at the black-robed figure of her husband.
    â€œWill you not sit?” he asked, and she sat heavily on the bench.
    Of all the thoughts she’d had of her marriage, of all the fears and trepidation, she had never imagined herself confronted by such a vision. A man, cowled and wrapped in black, draped in the color of night with a voice that sounded like muted thunder.
    Her heart beat so hard her chest trembled with it.
    He sat in the corner on a chair constructed with an X for a base. His monk’s habit pulled back from his arms, exposing gloved hands. He linked his hands together and folded them beneath the cloth. A gesture done so quickly it seemed second nature to him.
    â€œI submit to you an agreement, my lady wife, about which you must decide before I leave this room.”
    She spread her hands at her waist, wished she could rid herself of their dampness. “We have already forged one bond, my lord, that of marriage. What other understanding would you wish?”
    Silence, while he seemed to weigh her words. Was he surprised by them? She had shocked herself by voicing her thoughts. She did not often do so. It was easier to remain silent. That way, she could only be ridiculed for being timid, not for the thoughts of her mind.
    Sebastian studied her. “If you will agree to poseas my wife, you will have Langlinais as a reward.”
    Juliana stared at him in shock and confusion. “I am not posing, my lord. I am your wife.”
    â€œWithout consummation,” he explained softly. “Or hope of it.”
    The Church endorsed two ways of marriage, the first that of declaring “words of the future” uttered by young children. Such a marriage was valid only as long as it was later consummated. Vows considered “words of the present” could be exchanged when the bridegroom was at least fourteen, the bride twelve.
    They had been put through a marriage ceremony when they were children, in order to effect a peaceful transfer of her dower lands in Merton. But by his words he was saying that their wedding would never be considered legal and binding.
    â€œYou wish me to pretend that I’m no longer a maiden.” The bluntness of her speech surprised her again. She was not given to such candor. Perhaps the reason for it was simply that this meeting was too abrupt, the questioning too odd, the bargain he offered strange and disconcerting.
    â€œYes,” he said. Simply that. No more