Page 81 of The Saxon Lord's Unwanted Bride
“What would she have to fear?”
“The shame, my Lord,” Agatha said. “She believed she had brought shame on the name of de Morigeaux by succumbing to the attentions of a man.”
“Devil’s holy cock!” Harald roared, ignoring the swift genuflection from the mother superior. “She had been raped and almost beaten to death—yet she was ashamed?”
“My lord,” the old nun said, “even you must understand how the world views a woman who is not pure—particularly one of her rank?”
“She felt the shame,” Agatha said. “When she began to recover she tried to take her own life. I vowed to care for her, and to ensure she didn’t harm herself—until, finally, she resolved to live.”
“Why did she change her mind?” Harald asked.
“She discovered she was with child. For the sake of the child, she began to take care of herself—to want to live again.”
“The child of a rapist?”
Agatha gave him a look of contempt. “A child is innocent,” she said, “a precious life to be nurtured. Lady Eloise’s confinement lasted a day and a night. It almost shattered her tiny body. But her will is strong. She lived and was delivered of a healthy child. A month later her father took her home.”
“And the child?”
“She remained with us.”
“She didn’t take it with her?”
“Nay.” Agatha wiped her eyes. “I’ll not forget the horror of seeing her broken body on the ground, but I have never witnessed such raw agony as I did the day she parted with her child. But, some years later, she returned, having persuaded her father to let her visit. To this day Violette only knows Eloise as her patroness.”
Harald’s throat constricted. What she must have suffered! And to think—he’d condemned her at every turn, for being unfaithful, for her deceit. Yet she was free from sin—a pure soul. He was the sinner, for not understanding, for not being a good husband. No wonder she’d been too afraid to reveal the truth.
“How did you come to England?” he asked.
“Monseigneur de Morigeaux received several petitions for her hand,” she said. “Yet she refused them all. Rumors circulated—spurned suitors spoke of her deformity, and the petitions grew less. Her brother Henri had been away during her—her illness. He never knew about the child, but I’m sure he suspected. He defended her against the rumors, challenged those who sought to stain her reputation. She told me how he protected her—how greatly she suffered when he was killed in battle. When de Morigeaux was offered an estate in England, he asked the king to bestow it on her and marry her to a good man—and a Saxon. She agreed only if Violette could live nearby. I pledged to accompany the child, and care for her here.”
Agatha nodded to Harald. “When she first spoke of you, she said you were treating her better than she could hope to deserve.”
Better than she could hope to deserve?
Did his wife value herself so little, that she believed his treatment of her was more than she deserved?
Harald shook his head. “I could not begin to deserve her,” he said. “But I must atone for my sins before it’s too late. I would only ask one thing of you now—the name of her assailant, so that when I have found her, I may bring him to justice.”
“He has a different title since the king bestowed an estate on him,” Agatha said, “but in Normandy, he was known as Ralph of Aquitaine.”
Her words confirmed his deepest fear. The icy fingers of dread, which had haunted his mind, tightened their grip on his heart, and forced the breath from his body as the word burst from his chest in a hoarse cry.
“No!”
He fell to the floor and the ground shifted beneath him at the image of his friend—that smooth smiling face, the smile which had never reached his eyes.
How he had trusted him—Baron Beauvisage. Fair of face indeed—his handsome features had disguised the evil within.
And he had taken her.
Only now, when he’d lost his wife, did he realize how he’d grown to care for her—to love her. She had given so much, asking nothing in return save an understanding that her past had been beyond her control. And, at last, he understood her meaning. She had been violated by a monster—the same monster he’d welcomed into his home, the man who struck down his people with such relish, who had persuaded him of Jeffrey’s treachery.
Eloise…
The last time he’d seen her, she had pleaded with him not to trust Beauvisage. The raw pain of guilt and self-loathing cut through his heart. Blinkered, boorish and pig-headed he had been, but most of all he had been a fool—deceived by a soft voice which had flattered and coaxed him.
How Ralph must have laughed at him!
