Elizabeth kept her somber expression but nodded, urging him with her intense gaze to get on with the telling. She wanted to understand and to agree with him, to find peace and have vengeance too; she found that placing the burden of punishment in his hands was not so very difficult.

"The soldier that you pointed out last night?" he began with a question and continued before she could respond. "He too has been allowed to leave. One of my men, his forty days of work for me completed, has joined Belwain's group. He let it be known his duty to me was ended and that he was in need of extra coin. He will watch and listen and then report his findings to me."

"Why didn't you just force the soldier to tell you the truth?" Elizabeth asked.

"You suggest that I torture him, sweet wife?" he asked, smiling.

"Do not smile at me, Geoffrey. I am not normally such a vengeful person. But you were not there, you did not see them, what they did. I do not mean for you to torture the man, only make him tell you-"

"You are right. It is no smiling matter, this." He pulled her back into his arms and squeezed her. It was the closest he had ever come to saying he was sorry, and he decided that she would have to be content. He could give her no more.

"I accept your apology," Elizabeth said. Her expression was still serious. Geoffrey started to tell her that he had not actually apologized but decided against it. She certainly could twist his words, he thought with some admiration.

She was looking directly into his eyes and Geoffrey read the innocent acceptance there. She has given me her loyalty, without question or much argument. And God help me, I will not fail her. In such a short time she has turned my world upside down and sideways too with her very existence; he would accept the responsibility she trusted him with, just as he had already accepted her as his wife. He refused to ponder the reasons for his feelings, knowing that if he did, he would have to admit to feelings and emotions he thought long ago dead.

"But what is your plan for Belwain?" she asked.

"I have told it," Geoffrey said. "I am going to wait."

"Geoffrey, I am trying to see your reason," Elizabeth said with irritation. "But getting you to explain to my satisfaction is the same as trying to pull a tooth, I swear it."

Geoffrey felt he had told her enough. As far as Belwain was concerned, it was his plan to let him be for the time. She did not need to know that he was setting a trap for the other, and when the trap was closed, Belwain would be named as accomplice. It was too soon to tell her. She would have to wait.

"Have patience a while longer," Geoffrey tried to soothe. "Proof will-"

"Will what?" Elizabeth said, struggling out of his arms. "Pop up in front of you like the flowers of spring?" She stood and turned her back on him. "It could be years before such proof is found unless you look for it. You put all your hopes in one man, this soldier you sent off with Belwain's men. And that is not enough. I made a promise, aye," she yelled, "a vow, to avenge my family and I will see it through."

"You will do nothing," Geoffrey commanded. He came to his feet in one bound and grabbed her by her shoulders. "I will have your word. Leave this business to me." He was yelling again, infuriated for the second time in the space of one morning's time. It was more than any man should tolerate, he decided. She would know her place in this matter.

"I will not give it." Her defiance was like a piece of dry wood thrown on top of his sparks of fury, and an explosion was the only possible outcome.

"You will," he bellowed, "and you will not see food or water until you realize that fact." The way she stood, facing him with her defiance, her small hands balled into tight fists and resting on her hips, both amazed and incensed him. The top of her head barely reached his shoulders, yet she thought she could glare him into her way of thinking.

He pulled her roughly into his arms and all but threw her on top of her mare.

Elizabeth struggled to right herself, and when she was done, she stared straight ahead. "Then you will soon be a widower, my lord," she yelled. Her voice trembled with conviction. "I will starve to death before I give a promise I cannot keep. My word is my honor."

"You have the audacity to imply that mine is not?" Geoffrey demanded in another roar that made her mare prance with fright.

He will soon go hoarse if he continues to scream and yell at me, she thought, and then decided that that was not so very terrible at all. It would do him good to lose his voice as penance, and give her ringing ears some quiet.

"I would challenge a man for such foolish words."

"Then challenge me," Elizabeth snapped.

"Enough! Do not speak to me," he said. "And do not raise your voice to me ever again!"

Do not do this, do not do that… always he orders, and I am truly sick of it. He has no understanding, no sympathy for my feelings. No, she thought with despair, he cannot see my torment, else he would not demand that I wait.

Geoffrey slapped the back of her horse and then followed behind her. Elizabeth never looked back during the ride to the manor. There must be something I can do, she thought, trying to think of a plan Something… someone I can turn to…

Chapter Nine

Everyone tried to interfere. Even the servants, Geoffrey thought with exasperation. He should have been angry over their disregard for his orders, but found that he was not.

Two grim weeks had passed, and Geoffrey was ready to call a truce-yes, he admitted without shame, even to concede defeat. He would welcome it just to glimpse one small smile from his wife.

His every thought concerned her, he realized as he walked into the great hall. There were several servants busy cleaning the area, and two of his loyal knights sat, drinking from cups at the table. He walked over and sat in the chair he had used when he assumed the role of judge, placed next to the hearth, and waited. He was conditioned to what was happening around him, and sat there without expression until one and all had fled the room on missions they just then remembered. Aye even my knights desert me, Geoffrey thought. But he was smiling; he knew the reason for their vanishing act. They feared him. It was true, and it did not displease him overly. It was a fact that he had been known to blow his temper on occasion… but what man, pushed to his limit of endurance, would not? he asked himself.

It did not matter, he told himself. He was used to being alone. It was his way… as a child raised among the battle-hardened warriors and now as his own ruler-save William as his overlord, of course.

Yet he was not alone, not even now, in the emptiness of the silent hall. She was always with him. She haunts me, Geoffrey muttered with disgust.

He could not understand it, this hold she locked him within. As a small boy he had learned to harden himself against the need for food or water; as a squire he had braved the frigid winter nights, all for short periods but long enough to learn the discipline of body. But how to discipline himself against Elizabeth? he found himself asking. What form of exercise could he call upon to accomplish that?

He braced his hand against his brow and closed his eyes. He was weary of the fighting with his wife, though they had barely exchanged a word since their argument in the forest. Except at night, when their bodies came together, only then did they speak. He remembered that first night after their argument with both arrogant pride and a little shame. He had not forced her, knew that he could never force her, yet he was not gentle with her either.

The sight of her had inflamed him when he had finally sought his bed. He had indulged in perhaps one too many cups of ale, but his head was still clear. She had thought him drunk, and he did not tell her otherwise.