Page 114 of The Saxon Lord's Unwanted Bride
Harald nodded.
“How fares your wife?”
Eloise. Each time Harald’s thoughts turned to her his body surged with need.
“Wulfstan should have brought her home by now,” he said. “I’ll never let her leave again.”
“You mean to imprison her? As Beauvisage imprisoned her at Exeter?”
“Only for her own safety. She must remain where I can protect her.”
“Shouldn’t she be free?”
“From what?” Harald asked. “From me?”
“She needs time to heal,” Edwin said. “Even when she reached out to me and pleaded with me to help you, she shrank from my touch. She’ll recover in time, Harald. But I’d urge you not to insist upon it. She must be given peace.”
Harald’s cheeks burned with shame. His brother was pleading with him not to force his attentions on her.
“Do you have so poor an opinion of me, brother, that you think I’d take her unwilling?”
Edwin colored and averted his gaze, focusing on the road ahead. “Forgive me,” he said. “I ask only for her sake.”
“Have no fear,” Harald sighed. “I’ve resolved not to touch her again. I have instructed the household to leave her alone, and insisted that none but Wulfstan, and the woman, Jeanette, tend to her.”
“Wulfstan?”
“He’s assigned himself as her protector. He said that from the day he heard she’d ridden to London to beg for my life, he swore an oath of fealty to her. He asked forgiveness for not treating her with respect.” Harald shook his head. “To think—Wulfstan! A man who did so little to harm her compared to I. Marlin chides me for it.”
“Marlin?” Edwin’s tone hardened. “Good lord, Harald, have you lost what little wit you possessed? Does your cock continue to make decisions for you?”
“She gives me comfort, nothing more.”
Edwin snorted. “By letting you rut her?”
“God’s bones, Edwin!” Harald exclaimed. “You still think the worst of me? I haven’t lain with another since I married Eloise. Marlin and I talk, that’s all. She understands me.”
“And I don’t?”
“What would you say to me, Edwin, if I told you my troubles—if I said that I wake each night thinking of Eloise, with a cockstand that cannot be eased? I see her face and I crave to bury myself inside her. When I came across her in the forest by the convent, in the snow, I thought she was an apparition, a faerie spirit in the woods sent to bewitch me. I don’t know what stopped me from throwing her to the ground and taking her on the forest floor, so great was my need.”
He gripped the reins of his horse and leaned forward in the saddle, his manhood tightening once more at the mere thought of her.
“My body cries out for her,” he groaned. “I cannot control my desire when she’s near me, yet I cannot seek gratification with another. Nothing will ease my pain, brother, save her. Yet, I know that if I took her, I wouldn’t be in command of my body and it would destroy her. What would you have me do?”
“Forgive me, brother, I didn’t know.”
“To whom can I speak of it?” Harald asked. “You? My men?” He shook his head. “Marlin is my friend. She, like no other, understands my desire—and love—for Eloise. She saw it, even before I recognized it myself.”
“What will you do?”
“There is nothing I can do, Edwin. I must fight my demons alone. One day my beloved wife may return to me. But if she does not, that is the punishment I shall bear. If the child she carries is a son, I’ll have my heir. If not, then Wildstorm will pass to you. I cannot touch her again—I will not risk her peace of mind.”
The Norman tower came into view. No longer imposing, it stood as a symbol of strength, but also of protection.
“I see the tower is complete,” the king called out. “It gives me great pleasure to see it complete—and to reward you for your service.”
Harald bowed his head before the man he’d once seen as a conqueror, but was beginning to view as a friend. He might never experience the joy of having Eloise in his arms again, of having her sweet little body quiver with pleasure beneath him. But the gift he’d asked William to bestow on him—and on his wife—might at least bring forth her sweet smile again.
