The Mistress of Normandy. Susan Wiggs

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СКАЧАТЬ Nor even because she had found the mate of her heart. Love and romance, she knew, existed only in the whimsical gesso paintings on her solar walls.

      Still, triumph rang through her veins. Her marriage to Lazare Mondragon, a Frenchman, shielded her from the English noble who was on his way to wed her at the command of Henry, King of England and pretender to the throne of France. Her life hadn’t been the same since King Henry had set his sights on Bois-Long, the gateway to the kingdom of France.

      She felt no regret at having defied the English usurper’s orders, no shiver of fear when she considered the consequences of her rebellion, because the sovereignty of France was at stake. Besides, a more immediate matter faced her.

      A scratching sounded at the door. She jumped, then calmed herself and glided to answer it. Clutching the doorjamb, the caller sagged drunkenly into the room.

      “Nom de Dieu,” Lianna said with mingled amusement and annoyance. “Look at you, Bonne.”

      The maid grinned crookedly, her pretty face flushed to ripeness. “Aye, look at me, my lady.” Wine-scented breath rushed from her mouth. “Sainte Vierge! That devil Roland, he has torn my best bliaut!” Bonne indicated the gaping garment, her big breasts nearly spilling from the bodice.

      Her red-rimmed eyes widened as Lianna stepped into a pool of light from the cresset lamp. “By the head of St. Denis, you’re already prepared for bed!”

      “Somehow, Bonne,” Lianna said dryly, “I knew you wouldn’t be much help to me tonight.”

      The maid stamped a slippered foot; the motion made her lurch. “You should have summoned me.”

      “I hadn’t the heart to pull you away from...” She tapped her chin, thinking. “Whose lap ornament were you tonight? Ah yes, Roland.”

      “My first duty is to you,” Bonne said, then hiccuped softly. “Roland would wait a hundred years for me, anyway,” she added matter-of-factly. “At least let me do your hair.”

      Bonne drew Lianna down to a stool. With the overcautious motions of a drunk, she fetched an ivory comb and freed Lianna’s hair from its coif. “Spun by the angels, I always say,” she said, pulling the comb through the silvery curtain of straight, fine locks.

      “I’d as soon have it cropped by the hand of man,” Lianna said, grimacing as the comb snared in a tangle. “Chiang nearly set my head aflame when we were testing those new charges.”

      “Chiang.” Bonne spat the name. “You’re too much in the company of that odd Chinaman, my lady. I trust him not.”

      “You’ve been listening to the men-at-arms,” Lianna chided. “They’re jealous because they know Chiang’s gunnery can defend Bois-Long better than their swords.”

      “I know naught of defending a castle. But I do know of pleasing a man. Tonight you’ll play the lady instead of dabbling in warfare like a soldier. Perhaps a woman’s pleasures will turn you from a man’s pursuits.”

      Lianna sat still as Bonne unstopped a bottle of fragrant oil and anointed her, secreting the scent of lilies at her nape and temples, between her breasts and at the backs of her knees. Despite her drunken state, the maid’s hand was steady as she imbued Lianna’s lips and cheeks with a discreet mist of rouge.

      Bonne stepped back and gasped in admiration. “By St. Wilgefort’s beard!” She took up a polished-steel mirror and angled it toward Lianna. “You look like a princess.”

      Lianna frowned at her image. The pale robe fluttered against her willow-slim form; her hair hung in drifts around her oval-shaped face. Her customary look of arrogance, worn to hide the intrepid dreamer deep inside, made her delicate features seem hard tonight, hard and bloodless.

      “How can you scowl at being so favored?” Bonne demanded.

      Lianna shrugged and eyed her maid’s ripe bosom and bold smile. “In sooth, Bonne, you have the looks that turn heads. Besides, an agreeable face doesn’t win a kingdom, nor does it endure.”

      “Happily for you, your beauty has endured into your twenty-first year, my lady. You look far younger. I was beginning to think your uncle the duke would have to drive you to the altar at sword point. Think you he’ll approve of your Lazare?”

      Lianna swallowed. “My uncle of Burgundy will send his spurs spinning into oblivion when he learns what I’ve done.”

      “Aye, I’ve always thought he wanted better for you.”

      Privately Lianna agreed. She’d often wondered why Uncle Jean had never pressed her to wed, but was too content in her spinsterhood to question him. Now King Henry had forced her out of that comfortable state.

      A burst of noise from the hall drifted in through the window, along with a breeze tinged by the smell of the river and the lingering acrid odor of Chiang’s fireworks. Bonne put away the mirror. “I’d best leave you to your husband. My lady...you must be biddable and patient with him....”

      Flushing, Lianna raised a hand to forestall her maid. “Don’t worry, Bonne.” Women’s talk made her ill at ease; she had no interest in secrets whispered behind a damsel’s hand. She propelled Bonne toward the door. “I daresay I’ll survive my wedding night. Go and find your Roland.”

      The girl swayed down the narrow spiral of stairs.

      Lianna returned to her solar to ponder that mysterious, much-lauded act that would solidify her marriage to Lazare Mondragon. With a stab of loss, she thought of her mother, long dead of drowning. Dame Irène might have guided her this night, might have prepared her to receive her husband.

      Glancing at the gesso mural, Lianna watched the firelight flicker over a detail of a young woman reading to a child from a psalter. Again Lianna searched her memory for her mother but found only a whisper of rose-sweet fragrance, the ghost of a cool hand against her brow, the soft tones of a female voice. She might have told stories to me, Lianna mused.

      Shaking her head, she tossed aside the useless sentiment. She had no place in her life for pretty stories and games. Fate had left her to learn on her own, to approach every task with calculated logic.

      She faced marriage in the same dispassionate manner. When the English king’s envoy had arrived three weeks earlier ordering her to marry a baron who styled himself Enguerrand of Longwood, she’d begun a swift, methodical search for an eligible Frenchman who didn’t fear her powerful uncle. In Lazare Mondragon, she’d found him. Sufficiently needy to be dazzled by her dowry, and sufficiently greedy to flout the duke, Lazare had proved instantly agreeable. The castle chaplain—aging, senile—hadn’t insisted on a lengthy reading of banns.

      The door swung open. With stiff movements Lianna inclined her shining head. “Mon sire.”

      Lazare Mondragon stepped inside. He was resplendent in his wedding costume, from the velvet capuchon on his graying head to his narrow pointed shoes. The shimmering cresset flame lit his handsome features—a strong nose, angular chin, and dark, deep-set eyes. Taking Lianna’s hand, he brushed it with dry lips.

      The brief contact ignited a flicker of trepidation in her. She snuffed it quickly and said, “Is all well in the hall?”

      “My son Gervais and his wife have won the hearts of the castle folk, Gervais with his bold tales and Macée with her pretty СКАЧАТЬ