The day he left for the Crusades Sir Edward had come to her with a strangely smooth metal girdle with a lock on it, and odd magical signs carved into it, and despite her pleas and protests, had locked her into it. She would never forget the satisfied expression on his face.
“There, my love,” he had said in his gruff, gravelly voice. “Now you will be mine forever.”
Terrified of the thing that now encased her, struggling not to scream, she had whispered, “But you will come back, Edward? You will come back and free me?”
Edward had smiled but his eyes were cold. “You must pray every day that I return to you, Yolanda. Because if I do not . . .”
“I cannot be locked up forever! Please, leave me the key, Edward! Tell me where is this man, this Taskill? Surely he can give me a key?”
“Taskill made only one key,” he said with satisfaction.
Shocked, she stared up at him in silence.
“Whether I am dead or alive, you are still my wife, my love, and the chastity belt will ensure you never betray me by giving yourself to another man. When you married me you became my property and so it will remain even unto the grave.”
***
Simon had heard the whispers.
He tried not to listen to the gossip spread by Yolanda’s ladies but it was difficult when they spoke right under his nose while he was practising his music.
“He locked her up before he left. A warlock came and fashioned the evil thing, and she will never be free.”
Was it true? Had Sir Edward Arbuthnot used magic on his wife to keep her his, even after death? From what Simon had heard of the man he would not be surprised if it was true. The Lady Yolanda was brave and beautiful, and it was a terrible thing if she was suffering. Besides, Simon loved her and wanted to make her his, and how could he do that if the ladies’ gossip was true?
He’d noticed lately that when he played the lute for her she smiled at him, and once she’d touched his hand with hers, a brush of her fingertips upon his skin. Simon was aware of the courtly love of Queen Eleanor’s circle, the stilted declarations and promises, the pledges not to despoil their love with physical contact, and the setting of the object of their love upon a pedestal.
Although Simon liked to believe love was a little beyond the earthly, he was also a man whose thoughts were often carnal. The son of a poor knight who had struggled to rise above his poverty, he’d also worked hard to become the man he was, singing his songs in the great halls to the great people of the land. He knew that it was all very nice and romantic to put a woman on a pedestal but in reality such a love could not last. He loved Yolanda but he also saw her as a flesh and blood woman, someone who needed not stilted promises but a warm pair of arms. If she was his he would hold her and make love to her, their bodies pressed together, their flesh melded as one. Pedestals were all very well but in his mind Yolanda would be much better off in his bed.
And he was beginning to believe that she was falling in love with him, too. He didn’t dare to hope too much but sometimes when she spoke to him, smiled at him, he thought that anything was possible. That this son of a poor knight might one day win the hand of the beautiful lady of Arbuthnot Castle.
***
Yolanda wished she could ask Simon to play for her more often, but as it was she ordered him to her side for many hours of the day. The ladies smirked and thought her a besotted fool, but she didn’t care.
He was kind and handsome and he loved her ; she could see it in his blue eyes. This was love as she had never experienced it, certainly not from Sir Edward. When she listened to the romances that Queen Eleanor had made so popular she wanted the kind of love they promised. A knight who would love her so much that he would dedicate his life to her.
Yolanda wanted to kiss Simon and tell him she loved him. She wanted to rest her head upon his
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