Lord Tristram’s Love Match by R.R. Vane
Chapter 11
Present time, 1174
Tristram looked upon the lady Fenice, after he’d given her a bow. The lady did look pale and somewhat older than he recalled her. She was still an uncommonly beautiful woman, graceful and poised, who met him with a serene expression upon her countenance and a regal tilt of her head.
“My lord Tristram,” she said, in a sweet, mellow voice which sounded very much like Judith’s.
Tristram strived to look stern, because this woman, just like Judith, had stood against King Henry and he was bound to deliver news from his monarch. Yet Henry had decided to be gracious with most of those who’d stood against him. And Lady Fenice was ailing and her family was still a powerful one. Henry was well aware he needed to show himself magnanimous, since the whole Christendom’s eyes were still upon him after the killing of Thomas Becket.
“My lady,” Tristram said. “King Henry has decided to be gracious. You’re pardoned for rebelling against him. Henry means to be honourable to his vanquished foes.”
Lady Fenice nodded, and Tristram saw a look of sheer, warm gratitude in her blue eyes. He suddenly felt very guilty for his own part in this war. He’d been ordered to capture her castle. And he knew too well Judith’s mother had only been supporting Eleanor’s cause. Judith might have spurned and betrayed her husband. But Judith’s mother was not guilty of any wrong against him. She’d just taken an opposite side to his, and Tristram could not hold that against her.
“I thank you for being so gracious!” Lady Fenice said with tears glistening in her eyes. “And for allowing us to still reside here!”
“Things have been harsh on both sides in this war. Rest assured, I will never bring myself to chase you from your home as long as you wish to remain here. It would be most dishonourable of me,” Tristram spoke in a soothing voice, with an incline of his head.
He’d have abided by Lady Fenice’s decision and aided her to re-join her French home or allowed her to seek a convent, but it seemed that, like Judith, Lady Fenice wished to remain at Redmore. He bit his lip in anger when he thought upon Judith. Judith certainly still believed the worst of him, failing to see he had done what he’d done in order to protect her from a more dire fate. As always, she was blind to him and to his attempts to aid her. He supposed it was just as well. Since he’d chastised her in front of everyone, she had true cause to hate him. It was plain she couldn’t see he’d chastised her but mildly, though he had been required to deliver a harsh punishment upon her. And it was, for the time being, perchance best she thought herself wronged. As long as his cousin was here, it must look that Tristram was a harsh husband to her. Yet it didn’t help that Judith still appeared defiant rather than chastened.
“Speak to your daughter for me,” he found himself telling Lady Fenice. “Make her see that as long as my cousin is here, she must strive to look repentant for the way she behaved. I vowed for all the court to hear that I would chastise my wife for what she did if I decided not to cast her away, and I am not a man who’s ever broken a vow. So chastise her I must! Until the Church and the King are satisfied I have her contrition and obedience. It’s best she soon show contrition! So that my cousin would send word of it and we can all be free of his watchful eyes.”
He already knew Lady Fenice was an astute woman. And, unlike Judith, Lady Fenice was a woman who saw reason. He hoped this time Judith’s mother would make her daughter see reason. As for speaking to Judith himself – he no longer felt his wife deserved this courtesy from him after the wretched way she’d behaved. She’d broken her vow to him and had unjustly spurned him years ago when he’d strived to earn her love. He had no words to share with Judith. Not any longer.
“I will, though I fear very much Judith won’t heed me. She is her father’s daughter and quite wilful, you see,” Lady Fenice said with a chagrined expression on her face.
Tristram nodded with a grim expression of his own.
“It would be for her own good to let go of her wilfulness. Make her see there is no other way! Better that I chastise her. And once my cousin sees she is repentant, there’ll be no need for more chastisements. I am not vengeful. I’m only doing what needs to be done for us all to have our peace.”
Yet as he spoke the words, he went in his head over the chastisements he’d delivered in the bedchamber, and his blood heated just at the thought of them. To him, they had become love play and not punishment, a dangerous game he found sinfully wicked and pleasurable. And he was well aware that, unlike the belting he’d delivered for all to see, the pain he’d bestowed upon his lady in the privacy of their bedchamber had been always mingled with pleasure.
He stifled a sigh, resolving not to think too much upon the punishments. They were punishments, nevertheless. And Judith would do well to submit to them and appear to have learnt her lesson in obedience. It was for her own good to do so.
Lady Fenice seemed to easily understand he was playing his own part in this dire state of things, striving to spare Judith from true pain and humiliation. It would be dishonourable of him not to attempt to shield his wife from harm, although she didn’t deserve his aid. Tristram found he could never behave otherwise.
“I shall tell my daughter it’s best she submit to you, as a good wife should,” Lady Fenice said in her melodious voice.
Tristram let out a rueful laugh. The Judith he’d first known had looked sweet and shy and ready to do his bidding, but during his marriage he’d learnt Judith wasn’t all sweetness. Perhaps the sweetness had been entirely feigned, just like her shyness.
He raked a weary hand through his hair.
“You and I both know she won’t truly submit. She is most wilful. Yet tell her to use the guile she most certainly has. As long as it looks to the others I have schooled her to obedience, we shall all weather this!”
