A King's Betrayal Read Online Free PDF Page B

bitterness overcome me.’
                  She stared at him, caught by something in his tone.  His eyes were hot with urgent need and for a moment she thought he would kiss her, demand his rights as a husband, perhaps beat her.  Her breath quickened and for a moment she wanted him to assert his right to touch and fondle her, to chastise her.  Beatrice was not certain how she might have responded had he done so, but at that moment the pain struck, making her cry out and recoil.  She staggered and might have fallen had Tomas not caught her to him.
                  ‘What is it?’ he asked, concern in his face now.  ‘Is it the child?’
                  ‘I think…’ Beatrice looked down at herself.  She clutched at the damp patch spreading from between her legs and cried out in fear.  ‘I am bleeding.  The child comes early.  Tomas, help me.  What is happening?’
                  ‘It was my fault for quarrelling with you,’ Tomas said.  ‘Forgive me, Beatrice.  I know how much you wanted this babe.  I did not mean to harm you.’
                  ‘Help me.  I must get to my couch.’
                  ‘Yes, of course, my love,’ Tomas said and bent to scoop her up in his arms.  He strode up the stairs, carrying her as if she weighed no more than a feather.  She was aware of his strength and power, and knew that had he ever decided to take what was his by right she could not have denied him.  Yet he had never used his strength against her.  ‘Forgive me.’
                  ‘It was not your fault,’ she said and turned her face to his shoulder as the tears coursed down her cheeks.  ‘I have fretted too much.  If the child dies it will be my fault not yours.’
                  ‘Do not talk of such things.  You must rest and all will be well,’ he promised as he carried her to her bed.
                  Her women flocked about her, shooing him from the room.  Men were not wanted or needed in the birthing chamber.  Even though Beatrice cried out and tried to cling to his hand the women wanted him gone. 
                  Tomas hesitated, then, ‘I shall return soon,’ he said.  ‘Be brave, Beatrice.  It will soon be over and you will feel better.’
                 
     
    Tomas listened to the screams coming from his wife’s bedchamber, pacing the floor of the chamber below in distress.  She seemed to have been in agony for hours now and he could hardly bear to wait here and listen, but each time he entered her chamber the women drove him out.  It was not fitting that he should witness her agony and yet he had heard her crying pitifully for help.  The rituals of giving birth were a mystery to him, but he knew that too many women died and the thought that Beatrice might die was like the thrust of a dagger in his chest.
                  If she died he would blame himself.  He had known how much it meant to her to believe that Richard would one day acknowledge her children.  He cursed the man he served, hating him in that moment for the pain he had caused Beatrice.  She was Tomas’s wife and he loved her, cherished her with a passion she would never understand for he would not tell her.  He knew well enough that she saw him only as a means to an end.  Richard had commanded her to marry him and she had done so, though from the start she had made it clear that the marriage was to be in name only.  He had given Beatrice her way in all things, even though it cost him dear.  How many nights he had lain in agony, burning with the need to lie with her, but afraid that if he forced her to give him what was his by right, she would hate him.
                  She would hate him if her child died.  Richard’s child, the child she hoped would be a son and King of England one day.  Surely she must know that Richard could not acknowledge her