Ordained by God

Section Thirteen

The disturbance disturbed Clement whose eyes snapped open. For a moment, he lay frozen with horror under the weight of Eleanor. He tapped her shoulder saying, “El, El...”

She stirred slightly. “What is it, my love?” She kissed his neck and stroked his chest.

“Stop it,” he said with an unprecedented sense of emergency. His voice was wobbly.

She stopped her actions and looked at him with genuine concern.  Following his gaze, she swivelled her head around and meet Lord Roland’s uneasy gawk. She shrieked and rolled off the warmth of Clement’s bare body.  Pressing the cloak to her chest, she sat up. “Lord Roland...I-I...” she stopped speaking, knowing there was nothing she could say to explain or forgive her actions.

Roland stood over the two people who seemed no more than children under the pressure of his wrath. He let go of his sword and left it slicing the bench in half. “You whore and bastard.” He chose his words carefully with the intent on hurting each one with correct terms.

Eleanor looked away, close to tears.

Tossing them their garments, Roland said in a harsh tone, “Get dressed, now.” With some sense of morality, he turned away to let them dress in a shred of privacy. 

Turning back around to face them, he sat on the bench. “Lady Eleanor, I’ve only known you for a few hours but I believe I am in love with you.”

Clement stood away from Lord Roland, looking at the sword on the ground with great consternation.  “My Lord, “Clement gulped uneasily. “Lord Roland, I apologise for anything I have done to put you in an obstinate situation. But if you want to take revenge, take it out on me not Lady Eleanor.”

Eleanor sank to her knees in front of Lord Roland. Taking his hands in hers and kissing his rough skin with impassionate pecks, she said, “I would not blame you if you ended our engagement.” Tears filled in the brim of her eyes, but she held them back. 

For a moment, Roland smiled in mock appreciation. “Thank you, My Lady, for your consideration. But no, you would make me cuckold and a fool.”

Roland’s smile made Clement feel uneasy. Only a man of a black heart could have the will to smile like that.

With his back pressed against the wall that divides the shed from the tannery, Clement cleared his throat. “No, that wouldn’t work.” Clement drew the attention to him with his words. “There would be too many raised questions. People would know it wasn’t a random act. Eventually, people would link it back to me.”

Eleanor started to cry. She wrapped her cloak around her body and leaned away from Roland, not bothering to show her lady manners.

Clement carried on. “There’s also the issue of...” He looked down before he said the next part. His face flushed a deep red in pure embarrassment.  “Pregnancy.”

Roland bit hit knuckle, drawing blood, to suppress a cry of anguish. Eleanor cried harder. Neither of them had seemed to think of that factor.

To Clement that had been the second thing he thought of when h saw Roland standing above them. The first was, notions of happy to be alive and not baring the sword’s mark in his neck. But when that moment passed and he felt the warm skin of her inner thighs pressed against his hips, her breasts against his chest and himself still inside her, fear paralysed him.

 Clement paced. “Of course I hope that you are not pregnant,” he said to Eleanor, hardly glancing at her. His face was scrunched tight as he thought about all the possible things that could happen because of his actions. “But there’s a possibility. People would know it is not your baby, Lord Roland for several reasons. One, you are not to be married for several more weeks and by then your body would be too changed to cover it. Two, Lord Roland and I have no common features. You both have faire traits and I have dark. Even if the baby took after you Eleanor, there would be traces of me.”