Threads of Love

Kathleen Coddington

Excerpt

Moonlight spilled through the windows filling the solar with a clear white light. Breathlessly, Aislinn skirted the heavy chests full of clothing and linens that she’d brought as part of her dowry. Her loom stood on the far side of the room. She reached it and whirled about to face Garrett.

He slid to a halt a hand’s breadth away. “God’s teeth, woman!” he gasped. “Why can you not accept the fact that you are my wife?”

“Why can you not accept the fact that I do not want to be your wife?” She threw out her hands in a pleading gesture. “Let me go, my lord. I do not love you. And you certainly have no love for me.”

He ran a hand through his black hair and sighed heavily. “’Tis too late for that, my lady. You know as well as I why there can be no annulment.”

She searched his face and saw truth there. Her shoulders drooped and she sagged against the side of the loom. When he would have stepped closer, she stopped him with an outstretched hand. “I shall never love you. Nothing you do will ever change my heart.”

His shoulders lifted in a shrug. “I am not interested in your heart, my lady. All I ask of you is that you care for my daughter, give me a son and do not disturb me when I read.”

She knew his demands were reasonable, but they did nothing to sooth the bitter aching of her heart. The injustice of everything that had happened to her in the last two months ripped at her like a wild animal clawing to be free. She didn’t care about reason; she just wanted to make him hurt the way she hurt. Her fingers clenched spasmodically around the linen cloth covering her loom. The weapon she sought lay at her fingertips she realized.

Raising her hand, she flung back the cloth covering the loom. “I am about to begin a new tapestry, my lord. Do you wish to know what it will contain when it is complete?”

“I am even less interested in your weaving, my lady, than I am in winning your heart,” he said.

“Then you will not mind overmuch when I hang it on the wall of the Great Hall.”

He shook his head, obviously impatient to be done with their conversation. “Hang it wherever you like.”

“’Twill be a May Day celebration with King Arthur and his court. Guinevere will look like me of course. Arthur will bear a striking resemblance to your brother, Roger.” A taunting smile curled her lips. “Each time you look at it, my lord, you will know that your brother is the only man I ever loved.”

Although his expression remained unchanged, she knew her words had reached the target with the precision of an arrow. He gazed down at her through narrowed eyes. “We’re not characters in some romantic ballad, my lady.” Grasping her around the waist, he swung her up into his arms. Their eyes met and locked. “Weave what you will, but remember this. Roger is dead, but I am very much alive.”