00:00Stop!
00:01Make sense!
00:02Stop!
00:02I'm old enough to be your mother, you inseparable...
00:05Then teach me, my lady.
00:08He pins my wrists above my head with one hand,
00:11my own rosary beads tangled between his fingers and mine,
00:14and tilts my chin up with the other,
00:16forcing me to look at him.
00:1725 years old.
00:19Jaw carved from marble.
00:21Eyes dark with fever and want.
00:23Want.
00:24For me.
00:25A woman of 49 with aching knees and grey at her temples.
00:29Blessed Virgin.
00:30This is a mortal sin.
00:32I'm gonna burn in hell.
00:33Then we burn together.
00:34His pace is relentless.
00:36I hate you.
00:37You're dripping down my thighs.
00:39I hate you.
00:41I'm not stopping until you scream.
00:43I scream.
00:44Three times.
00:45I am the Dowager Countess of Everwood.
00:48I came to rescue my granddaughter from an abduction.
00:51Instead, I ran headlong into the Lord Protector of the Realm,
00:54drugged out of his mind and burning alive with poison.
00:57He pinned me down.
00:58One catastrophic night later.
01:01Me?
01:01The Lord Protector?
01:03In my previous life,
01:04my granddaughter Eleanor was violated before her wedding.
01:07After the marriage,
01:08her husband bled her dry,
01:09funneled her entire dowry into his debts,
01:12and made her raise his mistress's baspert as her own.
01:14In the end,
01:15she was sent to a condent.
01:17She spent the rest of her days behind those cold stone walls,
01:20watching the man who destroyed her live a respectable life with another woman,
01:24raising children that should have been hers.
01:26No one came to visit.
01:28No one came to mourn when she died.
01:30Then I wake up.
01:31And I'm back.
01:33Back to the weeks before Eleanor's wedding.
01:35I can't stand by and watch history repeat itself.
01:38My legs ache,
01:39they always ache,
01:40but I grab my walking stack
01:41and in the dead of night,
01:42I climb the stone steps up the hill to the abbey.
01:46Eleanor!
01:47I'm here, my child!
01:48I won't let that beast lay a finger on you!
01:50I remember it clearly.
01:52Last time, Eleanor went to St. Andrew's Abbey for mass,
01:55and the Lord Protector's wretched attendant snatched her,
01:58dragged her to his master's chambers,
02:00and threw her to him like medicine for a fever.
02:02Except, I'm early.
02:04The attendant hasn't taken Eleanor yet.
02:06I'm the one the Lord Protector catches instead.
02:10So hot.
02:11Help me.
02:12God have mercy.
02:13I lost my husband at 30.
02:16Nearly 20 years without a man's touch.
02:18And now a boy barely past 25
02:20has his arms locked around me like a vice.
02:23I grip my walking stick.
02:25Un-unhand me!
02:26I am the Dowage Countess of Everwood.
02:30Let go of me this instant.
02:31I'm old enough to be your grandmother in rank.
02:34Roland of Leonhart.
02:35The Lord Protector of the Realm.
02:38Forged in military campaigns,
02:39built like a battering ram,
02:41a face all hard angles and sharp authority.
02:43He commands the kingdom's armies,
02:45controls the Privy Council,
02:47holds more power than any man alive.
02:49My words don't make him let go.
02:51They make him tip my chin up with his fingers
02:53and seal his mouth over mine.
02:56Shh!
02:57What are you murmuring about?
02:59The scent on you, it's calming.
03:01It makes me feel safe.
03:03Of course it does.
03:04Years of kneeling in chapel
03:05have soaked frankincense into my very skin.
03:07The rest is parchment and iron gull ink
03:09from copying scripture.
03:10Naturally calming.
03:11But that is not the point.
03:12The point is,
03:13my name day is next month,
03:15and I will be 50 years old.
03:17I probably smell like dust and old lavender sachets.
03:20And he's still kissing me?
03:22Blessed virgin,
03:23how long has this man been starved?
03:25Let go of me.
03:27My walking stick clatters onto the stone floor.
03:30But what chance does a woman pushing 50
03:32have against a young man built like a warhorse?
03:34He scoops me up with one arm
03:36and sets me on the oak table.
03:40A heartbeat later,
03:41my flaying hands are binded
03:43with my own rosary.
03:45Be good.
03:46Give yourself to me.
03:48I'll take responsibility.
03:50Holy mother of God,
03:51that makes it worse.
03:52If he takes responsibility,
03:55how do I explain this to Henry,
03:57dead 20 years,
03:58to my 32-year-old son,
04:00to my 16-year-old grandson
04:01and 15-year-old granddaughter?
04:03What am I supposed to say?
04:05Children,
04:06grandmother found you a new grandfather.
04:08He's 25.
04:11I'd rather you just killed me.
04:13My little witch.
04:15That can be arranged.
04:17He rips the lacing clean off my kirtle.
04:19Strips of linen chemise fly everywhere in I.
04:21I lose my mind.
04:23That's not what I meant!
04:24So,
04:25a woman of nearly 50,
04:27ravished by the Lord Protector of the Realm.
04:29All night long,
04:31thank God I've taken care of myself.
04:33To Zanz,
04:34Hippocras,
04:34regular walks up the hill to the abbey
04:36for Massachusetts decades of discipline.
04:38Otherwise,
04:39he truly would have killed me.
04:42Somewhere around midnight,
04:43a knock sounds at the door.
04:45Your Grace,
04:45the girl's here,
04:46to help you break the fever.
04:47What he hears in response is,
04:49not conversation.
04:50The sounds coming from inside that room
04:52are deeply,
04:53profoundly improper.
04:54Roland doesn't stop,
04:56doesn't even slow down,
04:57just turns his head and snars.
04:58Get out!
04:59Ah,
05:00Your Grace already has
05:01company.
05:03I'll return the young lady at once.
05:07Save,
05:08save me!
05:09Roland clamps a hand over my mouth.
05:12Don't scream.
05:13I'll have you begging soon enough.
05:15He is
05:16formidable.
05:17More formidable than Henry
05:18was on our wedding night
05:1934 years ago.
05:21And Henry had been a young man then.
05:23We married at 16.
05:25By 25,
05:26Henry was already flagging.
05:28By 30,
05:29he left me altogether,
05:30went to meet his mager.
05:31This kind of vigor?
05:33I've only ever read about it
05:34in those courtly romances.
05:36Lancelot,
05:37Tristan,
05:37none of them hold a candle.
05:39The pleasure is like nothing.
05:41How is this even possible?
05:43You're enjoying it too.
05:45You're so sweet.
05:46Aren't you?
05:47That night,
05:48we are utterly shameless.
05:50The rosary snaps.
05:51Beads scatter across the linen sheets,
05:53clicking softly,
05:54catching the firelight.
05:56That rosary,
05:56my most treasured possession,
05:58blessed by Father Benedict's own hand.
06:00I used it every single day in prayer.
06:03At first,
06:03I can't fight him.
06:05Later,
06:05I don't want to.
06:07It is magnificent.
06:09I never imagined,
06:10not at my age,
06:11with one foot already in the grave,
06:12that I could feel something like this.
06:14But beneath the bliss,
06:16a cold thread of worry coils in my chest.
06:18This man controls the kingdom.
06:20The Everwoods are respectable,
06:22yes,
06:23but we are no great house.
06:25If Roland decides to destroy us,
06:27it takes nothing to do.
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