A Place Beyond Courage by Elizabeth Chadwick Page A

chapel for her churching and the feast. At least that seemed to have gone well and their guests had enjoyed themselves. Most of the conversation had been beyond her, but then it was men’s talk.
    She watched John strip his rings and place them in the wall niche, then his tunic brooch and the jewelled cross from around his neck. Just looking at him stopped her breath. He had spoken little to her since his return, but had seemed genuinely pleased by their infant son, and proud.
    ‘I told Father Geoffrey that I would ask you about a new silk chasuble for him,’ she said in a breathless rush.
    He swung round. ‘Do you know how much a single ell of silk costs?’ he asked. ‘I don’t dress in silk to serve the King.’
    ‘He’s serving God,’ she said in a small voice.
    ‘Yes, but God sees people, not their clothes.’ He made an impatient gesture. ‘Silk is wasted on a priest who is not going to further our family. By all means let him dress to suit his station, but he’s hardly a bishop, is he? You wouldn’t clad a beggar in the robes of an earl.’ He came to the bed and stopped beside her. Aline’s stomach clenched with a mingling of fear and anticipation. ‘I need to do something about Hamstead itself. Better new walls and defences than gauds for the clergy.’ He reached across to examine the cloth of the bed hangings. ‘Come to that, we need new curtains for the chamber. These are full of moth holes.’
    Aline swallowed. ‘I was thinking of our souls.’
    ‘Our souls will be saved because I dress my priest like a court whore?’ John gave a bark of laughter. ‘Oh, that is funny!’
    Aline gasped in horror. ‘You should not mock!’
    ‘ I should not mock?’ he snorted. ‘God on the Cross, woman, if cladding a common priest in silk is not a mockery, I don’t know what is. Small wonder he was all over you at the dinner table. He knows when his daily bread has honey on it.’ He clamped his jaw.
    ‘Don’t be angry,’ she whispered tearfully. ‘I’m sorry.’
    He closed his eyes for an instant. Then he sighed and looked at her. ‘Aline, you do not know,’ he said with laboured patience. ‘I wish you did.’
    ‘Know what?’ She searched his face, feeling desperate.
    Very gently, he removed the pins from her wimple and unfastened the brooch at her throat.
    ‘I . . . please, I . . .’
    ‘No more,’ he said, kissing her. ‘It’s late. Stop being sorry.’
    Aline closed her eyes. The candles were still alight. Perhaps if she didn’t protest about that, it would atone for annoying him. Perhaps she shouldn’t have mentioned the priest’s robes as soon as they retired. It was so important to her - but obviously not to John. He didn’t see things in the same light. Determined to be a good wife, she let him disrobe her and take her to bed. She even managed not to hide herself from his gaze.
    He was slow and thorough, making a banquet of his pleasure, and she spread herself for him, eager to please. It had been a long time since they had lain together and she had not realised how much she ached to have him touch her. Even if it was a sin, her body answered the smooth motion of his. He kissed her as he moved within her and she writhed, digging her fingers into his arms, holding on to him for dear life.
    When it was over, he stroked her hair and continued to nuzzle and kiss her. Torn between guilt and ecstasy, Aline lay in his arms, scarcely daring to move.
    From beyond the curtain in the antechamber, Gilbert started a hungry wailing. The nurse’s rope-framed bed creaked as she left it and shuffled over to the cradle, her voice pitched to a soothing croon. Aline had been glad to give the duty of breastfeeding to the woman. Some said it was essential a child should be nourished from his mother for the first weeks of his life at least, but Aline hadn’t liked the feel of the baby suckling at her breast, especially when she thought of the detail that a mother’s milk was formed from purified blood