Free The Captive Heart by Bertrice Small Page A

with grief,” Bab said. “Aye, he is.”
    “I am sorry,” Alix replied, not knowing what else to say. She had seen Maida several times, but she had never spoken a word to her, nor had the girl addressed her. As for Hayle, he would undoubtedly find another girl to love, for like any child who loses a toy he would want it replaced. It would not, Alix knew, be her, but maybe before he found another she might soften his heart long enough to conceive a child. And it would not be done in the dark. She would have no more of that foolishness, Alix decided. As soon as Hayle’s grief had eased, she would cease taking the wild carrot seeds her father had prescribed. She would attempt to win him over enough to give him a child. A child who would not be overshadowed by Maida and her son. She would try to make peace with him for both their sakes, and for Sir Udolf, who so desperately wanted to know that his son had a legitimate heir to follow him.
    It would not be easy, Alix knew. But it was her duty. Both her mother and the queen would be pleased that she was attempting to make things right. Had they both not taught her that a woman had a duty to her lord and must honor it? She couldn’t run. There was no place to go, but she would do her best to be the kind of lady that Wulfborn Hall deserved. And surely her husband could be brought around even if only temporarily.

Chapter 3
    A t first Hayle Watteson would not allow them to either prepare for burial or bury his mistress and her infant. Only when Sir Udolf pointed out to his son that he was endangering Maida’s immortal soul were the women in the girl’s family allowed to wash and dress her. They laid her out in the gown that her lover had given her. It was a simple yellow jersey, but no woman in the village had anything nicer. They braided Maida’s long black hair with the yellow ribbons he had given her to match the dress. The dead child they wrapped in clean swaddling clothes. The priest would not bury her, for by her actions she and her child were both damned souls. And so Maida was sewn into her shroud with her son and carried to her grave by her family.
    Hayle Watteson did not go to see her buried. The thought of them placing his mistress in the ground and covering her with the earth was too painful for him to watch. But when she had been interred he went and sat by the grave for almost a week while he wept and called her name. He would not eat and he would drink but little. His heart was broken by his loss. Finally Sir Udolf went to his son, and with the help of two men they pulled Hayle from the graveside.
    “You must come home,” the baron told his only child. “Maida is gone, and your mourning will not bring her back.”
    “I want to be with her” came the dull reply.
    “You have a wife,” Sir Udolf snapped angrily. “And she has been more than patient with you. You have a duty to me, to her, to Wulfborn.”
    “The whore cannot conceive!” Hayle cried. “I have plugged her almost every night since you forced this marriage upon me. My seed does not take root in her womb. She is useless to me, to us, to Wulfborn. If you had but accepted Maida, Da.” And Hayle began to weep inconsolably.
    “Maida is gone,” Sir Udolf repeated. “Neither she nor the lad she bore will come back to you. Nothing will be the same ever again, my son. Cleave to your wife, and do not again call her whore. Alix is a good girl. She will give you a son in time.” He nodded to the two men holding Hayle’s arms. “Bring him home, lads.”
    “Let me be!” the distraught man cried out. “I want to stay with my Maida!”
    The two serving men, however, did their master’s bidding, and half carrying, half dragging Hayle, brought him to the house. There servants forcibly removed his clothing and bathed him. When the candles and lamps were lit they escorted him to the hall where he was seated at his father’s right hand while Alix sat on Sir Udolf’s left. The meal was brought, but