She suspected he would never come back.
Lysabel was accustomed to disappointment. She’d been suffering it most of her adult life, so this was just another disappointment in a long line of disappointments. God didn’t want her to be happy; she’d already decided that. He wanted her to stay miserable because she was evidently doing penitence for some terrible sin she must have committed in her life, and she was so embittered about it that she could taste it upon her tongue.
Bitter with the sorrow that was her life.
A squeal from Brencis caught her attention and she looked over to see her mother plucking a thorn from the little girl’s finger and wiping her tears away. Brencis wasn’t a particularly happy girl, anyway, because a few hours after Cynethryn’s pony went lame, Snowdrop turned up with a sore hip, so both ponies were tucked away in a stall, healing from too much riding by overeager girls. Lysabel took the opportunity to have the girls do other things, like tend the garden with their grandmother, but they weren’t too eager about it. It didn’t have the same allure as ponies.
In fact, Brencis was wailing by this point because of her pricked finger, but her grandmother gave her a kiss and turned her towards a bush with lovely pink flowers that she could tend. There were a few servants around, women who always tended the gardens, and one of them began to help Brencis cut off the pink flowers and put them in her basket. As Cynethryn rushed to cut her own pink flowers, Alixandrea wandered over to where her daughter was sitting.
“God’s Bones,” she muttered, pulling off her gardening gloves and wiping at the sweat on her forehead. “’Tis a warm day today.”
Lysabel nodded, watching her daughters fight over the pink flowers. “It is.”
It was a short answer, not impolite, but it conveyed her unwillingness to be drawn into small talk. Alixandrea eyed her daughter a moment before sitting down on the bench next to her.
As Matthew’s wife and Lysabel’s mother, Alixandrea knew what was wrong. All of the information had come from her husband, and none from her daughter, and she’d vowed to remain silent on the matter unless Lysabel wanted to discuss it. But as the days passed and she saw how depressed and lifeless her daughter was, she was having a difficult time holding to that vow. Lysabel was avoiding both of her parents for the most part, and Alixandrea felt sorry for the woman. She very much wanted to hear her side of it.
Perhaps it was time for a mother’s understanding.
“Lys,” she said as she pulled the wimple off her head, the one that was meant to keep the dust and dirt out of her hair. “Would you like to talk about it?”
“About what?”
“Your father told me what happened with Trenton. Did you think he would not?”
Lysabel shifted uncomfortably. “There is nothing to discuss,” she said. “Papa has sent Trenton away. He has made his decision.”
Alixandrea looked at her. “Mayhap he has,” she said. “But I want to hear about the situation from you. All I have heard is your father’s side of things. Will you do me the courtesy of telling me yours?”
Lysabel sighed heavily. “Why, Mama?” she asked. “Will it change things? Will it cause Papa to change his mind?”
Alixandrea could hear the distress in her child’s voice. “Probably not,” she said. “But I would still like to hear it from you. Will you tell me?”
Lysabel fell silent, still watching her daughters. As she sat there, her eyes began to fill with tears, which she quickly blinked away.
“Oh… Mama,” she whispered. “He simply does not understand.”
“What does he not understand, sweetheart?”
Lysabel wiped at her nose. “I cannot help that I have fallen in love with Trenton,” she said. “He cannot help that he has fallen in love with me. I know he is married, but his wife hates him and he hates her. They should have never been married in the first place. All we want is to be happy without Papa’s interference.”
Alixandrea watched her daughter struggle and she was greatly sympathetic. It was essentially what her husband had told her, but without Matthew’s fatherly take on the situation.
Now, she was hearing the emotional side.
“Your father only wants what is best for you, even if what is best for you does not make you happy at first,” she said gently. “I think he believes it is an infatuation you have with Trenton because he saved you from your terrible life with Benoit. It is natural that you should look to Trenton as your savior, but that does not mean you love him.”
Lysabel looked at her mother, incensed. “I am a grown woman,” she said. “I know what love is. What I feel for Trenton was not something that suddenly appeared. It was something that grew until I realized what it was. Mama, he is kind to me and he makes me smile. He is good to Cinny and Cissy, better than their own father ever was, and at least I know that Trenton will never raise a hand to me and that is more than I can say for Benoit. I have not felt safe since I left Wellesbourne to marry Benoit.”
Alixandrea’s brow furrowed. “What do you mean when you say that is more than you can say for Benoit?”
Lysabel looked at her mother. “Did Papa not tell you that?”
“Tell me what?”
“That Benoit beat me.”
Alixandrea stiffened, an expression of horror creeping over her features. “He did not,” she said, sounding weak. “Sweet Jesus… he beat you?”
Lysabel looked away, hating that she now had to explain Benoit’s behavior to her sweet mother. “I thought Papa told you,” she said. “Benoit started beating me after he realized Papa would not give him my inheritance. I endured at least ten years of my marriage being beaten black and blue. He would beat me when he was sober, when he was drunk, or simply because he felt like it. He was beating me the night Trenton came to Stretford on the orders of Henry. The king wanted Benoit for an offense, which Trenton never told me, but instead of taking him back to Henry, Trenton killed him when he saw that the man had beaten me.”
Now, Alixandrea’s eyes were filling with tears and a hand went to her mouth, indicative of her shock. No, she hadn’t heard any of this and in the times she had seen her daughter over the years, she never saw bruises or anything else to indicate what was going on. Her daughter never seemed particularly happy with her marriage, but she never saw the signs of abuse. Whatever signs there were had been covered well, and she was absolutely devastated.
Alixandrea’s first reaction was to be furious at Matthew for not telling her, but she suppressed that instinct. This was her daughter’s crisis and the focus needed to be on her. She had to assume that if Matthew didn’t tell her any of this, he must have had a good reason. She knew the man too well to believe his intention in withholding the information had been anything other than to protect her from the horrors of the truth.
Taking a deep breath, Alixandrea forced herself to calm, at least as much as she was able.
“Then Trenton truly saved you, more than I realized,” she said hoarsely. “I am so sorry for what Benoit did, Lys. Your father and I knew that you were not particularly happy with him, and when the visits became less and less frequent, we were deeply distressed and did not know why. But now… I suppose the situation makes a little more sense. Clearly, you were living with a monster but you never asked us for help. Why not?”
Lysabel could see the pain in her mother’s eyes, the same pain she had seen in her father’s when discussing Benoit. As a parent herself, she understood what it would be like to have one of her daughters abused by a husband and being powerless to stop it. In a show of sympathy for her mother, she reached out and grasped the woman’s hand.
“I will tell you what I told Papa,” she said. “My father would have killed Benoit. He would have felt such guilt and rage for marrying me to a man who abused me that he would have killed him, and that guilt would have weighed on him for the rest of his life. I love Papa too much to burden him with such a thing. It was better to suffer in silence… Benoit was my husband and he had every right to do whatever he
pleased. There would have been nothing you could have done about it.”
Alixandrea squeezed her daughter’s hand tightly, a sob escaping her lips. Lysabel could see her mother breaking down and she moved closer to her on the bench, putting her arm around her mother’s shoulders to comfort her.
“No tears, please,” she whispered. “The girls will see and it will upset them. They are mending nicely in the wake of their father’s absence.”
Alixandrea nodded quickly, forcing herself to still her tears. “He never… he never touched the girls, did he?”
“Never.”
Alixandrea felt some relief about that, but she was still shattered over the revelation of her daughter’s treatment. But in that realization, she came to see why Lysabel would have fallen for Trenton. Literally, the man had saved her. He represented a new life and a new hope to her, in more ways than one.
“Then you are all on the path to healing,” she said, squeezing her daughter’s hand again. “I understand now why you hold Trenton in such regard. It makes a good deal of sense. But even so, he is not the man of your future. He has been kind to you, and he has made you feel safe and warm, but you must face the reality of his situation – he is married, Lys. Regardless of the fact that it is a bad marriage, it does not erase the marriage. I am not diminishing your feelings for him, but did you ever consider the long-term implications of such a relationship?”
Lysabel wasn’t as defensive as she had been earlier. Holding her mother’s hand, she was starting to feel comforted and even vulnerable in a sense. She knew she could be honest with her mother and the woman would be honest with her in return.
“You mean children?” she asked softly.
“Aye.”
Lysabel sighed heavily. “I am pregnant now, Mama,” she whispered. “It is Benoit’s child, conceived the night he died during the terrible beating he dealt me. Trenton knows of this and it does not matter to him. He is willing to accept the child as his own, and love it as his own. Only a man of great honor and of noble heart could do such a thing.”
Alixandrea had to close her eyes, reeling from two doses of rather serious and intense news in a short amount of time. First Benoit’s abuse, and now a pregnancy. It was a struggle more than ever to hold herself together.
“A baby,” she murmured.
“Aye, a baby.”
“Your father did not mention this, either.”
“I have not told him. Unless Trenton did, there is no way he could know.”
Alixandrea was coming to think her daughter had been dealt a horrible lot in life. Lysabel had been such a bright, beautiful child, and they had always hoped for such great things for her. But the hopes of the parents had been dashed by the realities of a man Alixandrea had never liked.
In truth, she saw no point in telling her daughter her opinion of Benoit as she had told her husband. She was coming to blame herself for not saying anything those years ago, but there was no sense in looking back. It didn’t matter any longer if she had an intense dislike for the man; he was dead and gone now, and Lysabel now had a chance for a much better life with a man who deserved her.
But that man wasn’t Trenton de Russe.
Alixandrea was going to side with her husband in this case, now that she understood the entire situation. To allow Lysabel to go with Trenton would be to condemn her to a life that would be dishonorable at best. She couldn’t allow her daughter to enter into such a relationship, but she also knew Lysabel well enough to know that to forbid her of such a thing, as Matthew had done, wasn’t the way to convince her.
Alixandrea had to be more subtle than her husband had been, but she was going to get her point across.
“There is no shame in the child you carry now,” she finally said. “It was conceived with your husband, who is now dead, so no man would find that shameful. But I will say something about this situation, Lys, and I will say no more, so please listen. It is important that you do.”
Lysabel looked at her mother seriously. “I am listening.”
Alixandrea patted her hand. “I understand that you love Trenton,” she said. “We all love Trenton. I have known him for most of his life and we shall always be grateful to him for what he has done for you. He has given you the opportunity for a new hope in life, the hope of a new beginning for you and the girls. That is a remarkable thing.”
Lysabel smiled timidly. “I think so, too,” she said. “And I do want a new life… with him.”
Alixandrea nodded. “I know, sweetheart,” she said. “But I want you to think very carefully about this because it is important for you to see the situation from all sides. Will you do that?”
Lysabel nodded hesitantly. “I will try.”
Alixandrea smiled sadly, her gaze intense upon her daughter. “I want you to put yourself in your father’s position,” she said. “He is a great man, of great standing, and he has the respect of all of England. He is the White Lord of Wellesbourne, and that is a burden that he labors to maintain every day. He has worked hard for it. Now, imagine you are your father – you have seven wonderful children. But then, your eldest daughter decides that it is in her best interest to become the mistress to a married man. Now, the reputation your father has worked so hard for is blemished by your choice. Your father has an eye on a wife for your brother, James, but because of your decision to enter into a relationship that is considered dishonorable, the family of James’ potential wife rejects your father’s marriage proposal. In time, the same thing happens for Thomas and William. No one wants to have the Wellesbourne name because it is tarnished. What I am saying is that your decision, although it seems to be the right one for you, can have lasting effects on the entire family. The shame will not only be yours, but all of Wellesbourne, and your father’s good reputation will be lost. Is that what you wish for all of us?”
Lysabel was looking at her mother, greatly distressed. “Of course not,” she said tightly. “But why can I not be happy, Mama? Why can I not be with a man of my choosing?”
Alixandrea leaned forward, kissing her daughter on the forehead. “You can be happy with a man of your choosing,” she said. “But not this man. He is already taken, sweetheart. You must do what is right, for all of us.”
With that, she squeezed her daughter’s hand and stood up, smiling gently at her as she walked away, heading back to her granddaughters who were still fighting over the pink flowers. But one word from Alixandrea stopped them and, together, they followed her from the garden with a servant in tow.
Lysabel watched her daughters and her mother leave, her mind still lingering on what her mother had said. The woman had a way of putting things that made sense, even if Lysabel didn’t want to accept it. She really couldn’t argue with the logic because everything her mother said was true. Her decision to go with Trenton was a decision that would affect them all. Her father had tried to tell her that, but she didn’t want to listen. She had accused him of being selfish when the truth was that she was the selfish one.
It wasn’t only her life she would be ruining, but her entire family’s lives.
Oh, God… must I really give Trenton up?
Lysabel hung her head, thinking of Trenton, of the life she wanted with him so badly. She could feel it slipping away, this idea of a perfect world where Trenton and her daughters were the center of it. A world of ponies and babies and joy and love… did she really have to give it all up? Had she been living in a fool’s paradise, after all?
The mere thought was making her sick.
Lysabel lost track of time as she sat there, pondering the situation. The servants who had been tending to the flowers had moved to the other end of the garden, pruning and cutting, but still she sat, mourning for the life she so badly wanted. As she sat there, staring at the dirt, she heard the gate next to her open.
Casually, she turned to see Ranse de Troyes entering the garden. He spied her immediately since she was sitting so close to the garden gate and he smiled politely when their eyes met.
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br /> “My lady,” he greeted. “I do not mean to disturb you, but I was looking for Lady Cynethryn and Lady Brencis.”
Lysabel pointed to the southern gate. “My mother took them out of the garden that way,” she said. “They left a little while ago. Why? Is there something I can help you with?”
His smile grew. “I found two ponies they can ride,” he said proudly. “I heard how disappointed they were when their own ponies came up lame, so I searched the village and found two very nice ponies that they are welcome to ride.”
Lysabel had to grin at him. “But they already have two ponies,” she said. “Now they need two more?”
He shrugged. “It is only a loan,” he said. “They can ride the ponies until their animals heal. They have been having such fun with them that it is a shame to see them so disappointed.”
Lysabel laughed softly. “You are a tender heart,” she said. “You must have children of your own if you are so sympathetic to them.”
He shook his head. “I do not,” he said, his smile fading. “At least, not a living child. My wife died in childbirth last year along with my daughter.”
Lysabel’s smile vanished. “I am so very sorry,” she said sincerely. “I did not know. I have not been to Wellesbourne in a few years, but the last time I was here, I am not sure if you were serving my father yet or not. Forgive me for not remembering.”
He waved her off, his manner easy going. “Not to worry, Lady de Wilde,” he said. “I do not expect you to remember every knight under your father’s command. I came into your father’s service six years ago, and I believe you have come to visit Wellesbourne once during that time, but we have not been formally introduced. I am Ransom de Troyes, your father’s captain.”
Lysabel nodded politely, eyeing the tall man, with long, muscular arms and legs, and blond hair to his shoulders. He was a handsome man and seemingly quite friendly. She’d seen him around since her arrival, especially in the feasting hall, but she didn’t know his name. It simply hadn’t come up.