The Mistress of Normandy. Susan Wiggs

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       Three

      Her mind reeling with apprehension at her uncle’s sudden arrival, and her heart snared by Rand’s parting words, Lianna raced over the causeway and bounded into the bailey.

      Don’t let him see me, she prayed silently. Please, Lord, not until I make myself presentable. She skirted the band of ducal retainers, ducked beneath the flapping standard of a blood-red St. Anthony’s cross, and headed for the keep. A flock of chickens wandered into her path, panicking as they tangled in her skirts. Shrieking, the chickens scattered, winging up dust eddies and leaving Lianna on her knees.

      A vivid oath burst from her as she blinked against the dust. When her vision cleared, she found herself staring up at the unfaltering blue eyes, stark face, and uncompromising figure of her uncle. A wide-cut, squirrel-trimmed sleeve gaped before her as he extended his hand and helped her up.

      “You stink of sulfur.”

      She blushed. A ripple of mirth emanated from the retainers. Burgundy silenced them with a single powerful scowl.

      Abashed, she indicated her gun. “I was out shooting.”

      He rolled his eyes heavenward, took a deep breath, and said, “Five minutes, Belliane. You have five minutes to present yourself to me in the hall—as a lady, if you please, not some ragged hoyden from the marshes.”

      She dipped her head in a submissive nod. “Yes, Your Grace,” she murmured, and fled to her solar.

      Exactly four minutes later, clad in her best gown of royal blue, her head capped and veiled in silvery gauze, Lianna careened down the stairs toward the hall. Bonne had doused her with a generous splash of rosewater and had scrubbed the last traces of gunpowder from her face. Lianna glanced down at the heavy velvet swishing around her slippered feet. The anonymous pucelle who had enchanted Rand was no more. She longed to fold his image into her heart, to cherish in private his avowal of love. But her uncle was waiting.

      Nearing the hall, she slowed her pace, lifted her chin, and glided in to confront the most powerful man in France.

      Styled Jean Sans Peur—the Fearless—by friend and foe alike, he kept a stranglehold grip on the political pulse of the kingdom. A ruthless man, Burgundy possessed stone-cold ambition and a penchant for intrigue and deeds done in secret. Men lived at his sufferance and sometimes died at his command.

      Yet when Lianna greeted him, looked into his blue eyes, she saw only affection. Pressing her cheek to his chest, she felt the chain mail he always wore beneath his ducal raiments. But the hand he lifted to stir a lock of her hair was gentle. Burgundy’s cold, suspicious heart housed a small, warm corner for his orphaned niece.

      “Better, p’tite,” he said. “Much better. You’re lovely.”

      She nodded to acknowledge the compliment, although she would have preferred that he notice the new gun emplacements she and Chiang had worked so hard to build. “Come warm yourself by the fire.” She took his wind-chilled hand.

      But Burgundy gestured toward the passage at the back of the hall. “I would speak to you in private, niece.”

      She preceded him into the privy apartment, waited until he sat, then perched nervously on the edge of a stool.

      His eyes full of dark fires, Burgundy looked at her for a long, measuring moment. He sucked a deep breath through his nostrils. “Your disobedience would not hurt so much,” he said quietly, “did I not love you so, Belliane.”

      An unexpected lump rose in her throat. “I had no choice. King Henry would have made an English bastion of Bois-Long.”

      “Better an English bastion than a French ruin. Where is this husband of yours?”

      “Out riding with the reeve.”

      “I know Lazare Mondragon,” Burgundy said, his mouth twisting with distaste. “He came begging favors some years ago. I turned him away.” Stroking a long-fingered hand over his Siberian squirrel collar, he added, “They say Mondragon loved his first wife to distraction, nearly grieved unto death when she СКАЧАТЬ