The Mistress of Normandy. Susan Wiggs

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      Wishing the world would fall away and leave them to themselves, Rand hauled her against him and crushed his mouth down on hers.

      But by the time he reached Eu, he knew he’d not go to the place of St. Cuthbert’s cross again. The selfish joy of being with Lianna was not worth the pain she’d suffer when she learned his purpose.

      He rode out to sit alone on the cliffs where the breakers leaped up in an endless assault on the rocks. He longed to yank his dreams out of his heart and cast them into the sea, to turn himself back into the hollow shell he’d been before he’d met Lianna. She made him too human, too sensitive, and those qualities would serve him ill when the time came to take Bois-Long and his new wife.

      He went back to the village, walked into the taproom, and found Jack Cade, who had agreed to act as his herald. Cheeks ruddy from too much hard Breton cider, Jack raised a wooden mug. “My lord of Longwood.”

      Rand nodded curtly. “Tomorrow.”

      * * *

      Lianna lay wrapped in the cloud coverlet of a dream. She’d been dreaming of Lazare, her haughty husband. In the dream he’d stood in the shadows beside her bed, a dark, unwanted presence. But then he’d stepped closer. Darkness gave way to golden sunlight, and the figure by her bed was not Lazare at all, but Rand, his face alight with that heart-catching smile, his arms open, inviting her.

      She moved toward him, reaching, getting close enough to catch the scent of sunshine and sea winds that clung to him, to feel the warmth emanating from him....

      He faded on a shimmer of light, and she felt herself being pulled out of the dream and thrust into the cold gray drizzle of dawn.

      Wondering what had awakened her, she stared bleakly at the long, narrow window. A shout sounded. She jumped up, wrapping herself in a sheet as she hurried to the window. The sentry at the barbican was gesturing at the causeway spanning the river.

      Spying a lone rider, Lianna suddenly felt the cold of the stone flags beneath her bare feet. The sensation crept up her legs and crawled over her scalp. The traveler wore a white tunic emblazoned with a gold device. The leopard rampant.

      Her throat constricted; she swallowed twice before finding her voice. “Bonne! Come quickly.” Moments dragged by before the maid appeared. Frowning at the wisps of straw in Bonne’s hair, Lianna guessed the maid had been dallying with Roland. Bonne’s sleepy, satisfied smile confirmed the suspicion.

      “Honestly, Bonne,” Lianna snapped. “You’re supposed to sleep on your pallet in my wardrobe. Surely it doesn’t take the entire night to...to...” A hot flush rose in her cheeks, and, irritated, she looked away.

      Bonne’s smile widened. “Not the whole night, my lady, but afterward...” She indulged in a long, luxurious stretch. “It is so agreeable lying in a man’s arms, you know.”

      Lianna didn’t know, and that fact annoyed her all the more. “In the future, you’re to be here by cockcrow.”

      “Yes, my lady,” the maid said, knitting her fingers together in front of her. “What is your pleasure?”

      Lianna motioned toward the window. The rider was in the bailey now, his horse being led to the stables. Bonne looked out, then drew back, fully awake now. “By St. Wilgefort’s beard,” she breathed, “it’s the English baron.”

      “Not the baron, but surely his messenger.”

      “Gervais was up playing at draughts until the wee hours, but I’ll send for him. With your husband gone to Paris, it’s Gervais’s place to receive the message.”

      “Don’t you dare awaken him,” said Lianna. “I shall dispense with Longwood’s man myself.”

      Bonne reached for a comb.

      “Never mind my hair,” Lianna said. “Just cover it with a hennin and veil. I’m anxious to meet this English bumpkin.”

      Wearing her best gown and her haughtiest look, she found the man in the hall. He was sucking prodigiously at a wine flask. Then he gaped at her, his mouth slack as a simpleton’s.

      She refused to ease his task. Flicking her eyes over his ruddy hair, oiled and mercilessly furrowed by a comb, she asked, “What business have you here?”

      “I am Jack Cade. I bear a message for the Demoiselle de Bois-Long.” His crude French assaulted her ears.

      “I am the demoiselle,” she said in English. The language, schooled into her by tutors sent by her uncle, tasted bitter on her tongue.

      He gave her a sealed vellum letter. Distractedly she noticed his right hand was missing three fingers. A cripple, she thought uncharitably. What must the master be like?

      The seal bore the hated leopard device. Breaking it savagely, she scanned the message. Though long and arrogantly worded, the grandiloquent phrases could not sweeten the outrageous proclamation. King Henry, self-styled sovereign of England and France, ordered her to receive one Enguerrand Fitzmarc, Baron of Longwood, along with the customary bride-price of the uncustomary sum of ten thousand gold crowns.

      Momentarily dazzled by the amount, she glanced up. Bonne had entered, bearing cups of mulled wine. The herald stared at the maid. His eyes bulged, and mangled phrases of admiration burst from him. To Lianna’s disgust, Bonne accepted the tribute with smiling grace and gave him a cup of wine.

      Furious, Lianna said, “Move aside, Bonne. I want him to see exactly what I think of his message.” She rent the vellum into tiny bits and scattered them among the rushes with her foot. “Your king is a pretender! I reject his edict, and I reject the spineless lackey he has sent to wed me, along with the pittance he mistakenly thinks will make him palatable. Tell your master that he can take his foul carcass back to England.”

      Red-faced, the man stammered, “But...but my lady—”

      “I wouldn’t marry that English god-don if the moon fell out of the sky. And if he thinks to force me, tell him to think again. I am already married to Lazare Mondragon.”

      Cade’s jaw dropped. He grabbed a second cup of wine and drained it. “Married?”

      She nodded. “I’ve had a copy of the marriage contract drawn up, so there can be no question as to its validity.” Drawing the document from the folds of her gown, she thrust it under Cade’s nose.

      She couldn’t resist a slow smile of dark satisfaction. Today she would dispense with the Englishman; now she could turn her mind to the problem of Lazare. “There is nothing your master can do. Even King Henry cannot undo what has been wrought before God. Begone, now. The sooner you and that god-don you serve leave our shores, the better!”

      With jerky motions he pocketed the contract, sent a look of longing at Bonne, took the last of the wine, and left the hall.

      “You were a bit hard on the poor fellow,” said Bonne, staring after him. “He’s only a messenger, after all.”

      “He’s an English god-don.”

      An impulse of wicked mischief seized Lianna. She ran to the armory, put on her gunner’s smock, and climbed to the battlements. The new culverin, on its rotating emplacement, was small СКАЧАТЬ