So Great A Love Read Free

outward evidence of her growing inner tension. Her
wind-chilled cheeks were numb. She was sure her face was as bleak
and pale as the cold winter sky above. Afraid someone would appear
in the garden to interrupt her before she could say all she
intended, she began to speak more rapidly, keeping to the subject
of her planned marriage, not mentioning the other, darker secret.
“My father and Eustace have both broken the solemn oaths they swore
to me before my first wedding. That is why I no longer feel myself
obligated to obey them.”
    “Broken an oath?” Catherine spoke the words
through chattering teeth. “Whatever do you mean?”
    “More than ten years ago, when they insisted
I must wed Lord Pendance, I refused to do what they wanted unless
they swore to me that, if I should outlive my husband, I would then
be free to enter a convent, or that I would at least be given some
say in the choice of my second husband, if I decided I wished to
marry again. Rather than drag a weeping, unwilling young girl
before her bridegroom and the necessary witnesses to the ceremony,
my father and Eustace agreed to what I wanted. They swore an oath
to me – an oath neither of them intended to keep.”
    “I find it impossible to believe that you
would ever marry a man and then wish for his death,” Catherine
cried, openly disturbed by Margaret's words.
    “I did not do so,” Margaret said. “Lord
Pendance was sixty-five years old, while I was only fourteen when I
wed him. It seemed reasonable to assume that he would die before I
did, unless I should die in childbed, and that was a fate I soon
discovered was not likely to occur.” Margaret paused, unwilling to
continue along her present line of thought. She could barely bring
herself to recall Lord Pendance's frantic efforts in their marriage
bed, much less speak of them to a maiden like Catherine.
    “I did not expect to find love in a marriage
arranged as mine was,” Margaret said, “but I did want to be
important to someone and I thought Lord Pendance might need my
nursing skills. I hoped that I could bring comfort and perhaps a
little joy to my husband's last years, and that he would treat me
with kindness in return. I quickly learned how mistaken my good
intentions were. I mattered as little to him as I did to my father
or brother. Lord Pendance made a business agreement with my father,
two unimportant barons joining forces to strengthen themselves,
their bargain sealed with a wedding and a transfer of land. It is a
common enough story. Father made a similar arrangement when Eustace
married.
    “Nevertheless,” Margaret went on, “I did all
I could to be a good wife to Lord Pendance. For ten years I managed
his household with skill and economy. I accompanied him to court
whenever it was his duty to attend the king and while I was there,
I behaved with the utmost propriety. In the last months of his long
illness I was his constant nurse, and I honestly grieved for him
when he was dead.”
    Margaret paused, remembering the cold
insolence of the stepson who had always detested her and his
unseemly eagerness to be rid of her. She had been glad to leave
Pendance Castle the day after her husband was buried, since her
presence was no longer wanted there. During her journey from
Pendance north to Sutton Castle, she had looked forward to a brief
visit with her father and brother over the holy Christmas season.
She hoped to make her peace with them, for they had not been on
good terms since before her marriage. Then, as soon as the Twelfth
Night celebrations were over, Margaret intended to enter a convent.
She felt no desire ever to marry again.
    “When I returned to Sutton two weeks ago,”
Margaret continued her story, “I learned that my father had already
made his own plans without consulting me. As you know, I am to wed
Lord Adhemar two days hence, the day after Twelfth Night and only a
month after Lord Pendance's death. Lord Adhemar is sixty years old
and not in the best of