Alinor (6 page)

"I do not see what is funny," Ian snapped, his voice tight with anger. "If I am no match for you in wealth, I am no pauper either. I am sufficiently a man of my hands to be well respected in tourney and battle. I am not contemptible―"

"Ian! Ian!" Alinor rose and went to him, gripping his upper arms. "You are all that any woman in her right mind could desire."

"Any woman except you!"

A faint color came into Alinor's pale face. "My dear, I cannot allow you to make such a sacrifice, nor to endanger yourself by gaining the king's hatred for my sake."

The flush receded from Ian's complexion, leaving it gray and tired; his eyes went blank and hard again. She had avoided answering him with skill and kindness, but there was no doubt of what Alinor meant in Ian's mind. "You do not understand," he said quietly. "I am not asking you to marry me. I am telling you that you must do so. I will take no naysay from you. There is no sense in raging. I do not mind if you do, if the raging will make your heart lighter, but I tell you there is no sense in it Whatever you do, I will have you to wife."

"You are mad!" There was sufficient color in Alinor's face now, and her eyes were brilliant She backed off, tensed as if to attack or resist attack. "Do you think I am some delicate court flower, some powerless, poor puppet―"

"You are powerless against me." He did not move toward her, and there was no triumph in his expression. "Oh, I have heard you say a dissatisfied wife should search for love in her husband's heart with a knife, and I believe you would do it—but not to me, not when you know I desire only your good and your children's good. You can even call your men and have me thrust out of your keep—you can, but you will not What would Adam and Joanna think when they saw the gates locked against me? What will you tell them? That I wished them ill? Even if you could bring yourself to lie to them, to destroy the love that has always been between us, you cannot stay pent in Roselynde. You must visit your other lands, especially in these times. You have delayed too long already in that duty. The moment you are out, I will have you. Will you order your men to kill me, Alinor?"

"Do you think I will love you for this?" she blazed. "You may well hate me." His voice was very low. "I cannot help that. I can only do what I know is best for the children and for you."

The flat despair beat down her anger. "I will never hate you," Alinor soothed. "I desire only to save you from hurting yourself. There must be some other way. I have thought already―"

"You have thought for an hour. I have thought for three long months. I did not come to this decision quickly or lightly, Alinor. It will solve all your problems, and suit my needs also. It is time for me to marry. I need an heir for my lands."

"But I am no fecund mare," Alinor protested. "In all the many years Simon and I were married, I conceived only four children. Of those, one I did not carry long, and one died."

Her plain, unembarrassed earnestness made Ian smile. "Simon was not a young man," he suggested. He shook his head at the indignant rejection he saw rising to her lips. "I did not mean that he was no ardent lover, but it is known that fewer colts are vouchsafed to older stallions, no matter how willing or eager they are. In any case, it will be of less account to me in that Adam will be mine. If I get no brother for him on you, he may have it all with my love and good will."

That was too practical and reasonable a solution for Alinor to argue against. "The king's hate is not so lightly put aside. It seems to me it were better to allow him to foist whatever man he wishes upon me. I will settle with any unwelcome husband."

"I have no doubt you could," Ian agreed, torn between anxiety and laughter. "But whatever is said of the king, he is no fool. Do you think he would not notice if husband after husband fell off cliffs, or was accidentally drowned while sailing, or shot while hunting?"

"I am no fool either," Alinor snapped. "What would that get me except another husband? I assure you that the man chosen for me by the king would not die. I would care for what was left of him most tenderly, and most assiduously would I pursue those who harmed him." She paused and added with a half smile, "I can think of a number of men I would be well pleased to be rid of."

Ian swallowed. She was not jesting. She would not only have the king's henchman maimed, which he would probably deserve, but would put the blame upon some person who had nothing whatsoever to do with it but had happened to incur her dislike. Alinor certainly needed a firm, guiding hand. It was quite useless to reason with her about right and wrong. He knew Alinor. However, she was never impervious to practicalities in a situation.

"It will not do," he said more calmly than he felt. "Who knows what rights or lands of yours the man might swear away in order to have you for a wife? Whatever he promised would be forfeit to the king."

Alinor thought about that with narrowed eyes, but it was the horrible truth and one thing that she had not considered. Alinor did not mind parting with money, but she would not willingly give up a stick or a stone of her property nor a tittle of her right to administer it as she thought best. Ian was right. It would be best to marry him. No one knew what was in the strong rooms of Alinor's castles except Alinor, but she was confident that whatever fine the king set she could pay. Her vassals would contribute, too. She had a right to an aide for being married.

Having added up the benefits, Alinor raised her eyes to Ian's face. God help her, what was she thinking of? This was Ian, not a book of accounts. This was a man with whom she had quarreled, with whom she had laughed, a friend who had wept for her when her baby died.

"Ian," she exclaimed with real distress, "I would repay you for your help and care with false coin." He did not misunderstand her. With those dear to her, Alinor was always honest. She was telling him she could not love him. Ian shrugged. "There is nothing to repay." He looked away into the fire. "This will suit my needs as well as yours."

For the first time in years, Alinor again wondered why Ian had not married. Certainly he was not afflicted with a love for men. Equally as certain he was not indifferent to love altogether. If he had been, he could have married greatly to his profit many years ago. Between the deaths on Crusade and the deaths in the wars Richard had waged, there were suitable heiresses in plenty. There were also well-dowered daughters of mighty houses that would have been glad of a blood bond with Ian de Vipont. Thus, either he still sought a woman he could love or, more likely, there was already a woman he loved but could not have. As I love and cannot have, Alinor thought. She was moved by sympathy for him who might also suffer the hopeless longing she endured.

Only doubtless his woman was still alive. Alinor was shocked to feel a prick of jealousy. I will be no dog in the manger, she admonished herself. I will be blind and deaf. I cannot demand from Ian what I cannot offer to him. If he loves, I will look aside. So much I can do for him, who does so much for me. Perhaps that is what he desires, a woman who cannot offer a heart-whole love and thus would not be hurt because he cannot offer that either.

"Since you say you
will
have me, and I can see it will be greatly to my benefit that it should be so, let us consider what fine the king will lay upon us."

Ian turned sharply from his contemplation of the fire, his face a comical mixture of incredulity, relief and wariness. It was not like Alinor to yield so readily. On the other hand, she was essentially reasonable and clear headed, and the solution he had offered was practical. Watching her, he said, "None. I have paid already for the right to marry 'whomsoever I will.' It is common enough to gain such permission when a man does not know from whom he will obtain the best offer."

"The king was not suspicious?"

"He was so delighted by the success of the siege and his attack on Montmarillon and Clisson, he had no room in his heart for anything else. Besides, I had a strong advocate. I had a piece of really good fortune at Montauban. I did not wish to tell the children, because I would not have it spoken about, and they are heedless. I was so fortunate as to save William of Salisbury's life."

More concern than delight was apparent on Alinor's face. "Is that fortunate?" she asked. "I never thought it a comfortable thing when one of the Angevin blood owed a debt."

"Not Salisbury. I suppose his nature must come from his mother. I cannot deny that I was not easy at first, and I sought to avoid him. He came to me." Ian's lips twitched with remembered amusement. "He said, 'Thank you.' I said, 'It was nothing.' Then he began to laugh and said his life might be nothing to me but it was rather valuable to him. I replied that that was how it should be. From that we came to talk, and later we were close battle companions for some months. He is a good man."

"Perhaps," Alinor agreed, but doubtfully.

She was not willing to condemn out of hand a man to whom she had never spoken more than indifferent courtesy. On the other side, she did not trust Ian's judgment of men the way she had trusted Simon's. Simon might have dreamed of the long future, but his near vision was keen, and he was not given to enthusiasms. Ian was more warm-hearted than Simon, more easily moved to sympathy, and, of course, he had not Simon's years of experience. That, naturally, would make him less tolerant of doubts of his judgment.

"I fear, however," she added hesitantly, "that the old saw is true, and birds of a feather flock together."

"But he is not," Ian insisted. "He is as unlike King John as it is possible to be."

"Salisbury loves the king, or at least pretends to do so."

"There is no pretends with Salisbury. He is very open, and he does, indeed, love John."

Alinor's silence was eloquent Ian frowned, trying to find a way to say what he meant "Look, I think it comes from their being children together. Salisbury is some two or three years the elder. John, being what he is, was always in trouble, even as a child. Salisbury, as elder brother, always protected him. It has grown into a habit. Often he disapproves of what John does―"

"You did not listen to him say that?" Alinor asked, horrified.

"Yes I did," Ian snapped, "and I spoke my mind on the subject also, and neither of us spoke treason! You need not look like that Alinor. I am not a child."

"That remains to be seen," Alinor flared back, "but I have no desire that my husband be summoned for conspiracy or whatever other fancy name the king wishes to use to destroy you. Do you doubt that every word you said was poured into the king's ears?"

Several impulses hit Ian at once. There was the normal male reaction—a desire to tell Alinor to mind her needle and keep her mouth shut. Unlike Simon, Ian had not been raised in a court where the queen wielded almost as much power as the king. Long as he had known Alinor, he was still often surprised by her masterful manner, more now because she had been so soft and yielding to Simon in the last year of his life. Then, there was his desire to defend Salisbury from the accusation of deceit and, incidentally, himself from the implied accusation of being a fool. Overriding all was the conviction that Alinor really had accepted his offer. The possessive way she had said "my husband" left no doubt in his mind. He moved closer.

"You will take me, then?"

"I have said so. This business―"

"We will come back to that anon. To me there is something more important." It still seemed unnatural to Ian that Alinor should yield so quickly and easily. He had said she was powerless against him, but that was not true. There were a number of expedients she could use. She had not even tried very hard to reason him out of the marriage. "Upon what terms will you take me?"

"Terms?" She was impatient, feeling that he was trying to draw her away from a more important issue. "I suppose the same terms upon which I took Simon. Yours to you, mine to me, during life. Your lands to be left in male tail—unless you wish to set something aside for a daughter, but that is not necessary. I have enough to dower any girls. There would have to be a special clause if you wish to leave your lands to Adam, failing male issue of your own blood. It is for you to say. He will be well enough to do with what he has from Simon. Ian, this can wait until we summon the clerks to write the marriage contract. You will not find me unreasonable. It is more important to consider what Salisbury means and what he may do."

Certainly the catch was not there. She did not mean to set impossible conditions so that he would withdraw his offer. For some reason of her own, which doubtless he would know only in her own sweet time, Alinor had decided after the most token protest to marry him. Tension oozed out of Ian so that his limbs felt weak. He was suddenly aware that he had not slept at all in three days and little enough before that. His eyes were burning with tiredness. He yawned jaw-crackingly, and then grinned.

"I can tell you one thing he will do very soon. If you will deign to invite him, he will dance at your wedding."

That was interesting. More than that, fascinating. Since Ian knew of the king's grudge, he would be un- likely to invite anyone to the wedding beyond those obliged to come; particularly, he would not invite a confidant of the king. That meant that Salisbury had offered his company. Was this the result of simple gratitude and friendship, as Ian thought, or was Salisbury planting some secret seed? He was the youngest royal bastard that Henry II had fathered, but strong bastards had sat on thrones before. Color rose in Alinor's face; she raised eyes sparkling with interest to Ian. He was so tired he was swaying on his feet.

"Good God," she exclaimed, "what a fool you are. Why did you tell me you had slept? Why did you not go to bed right after dinner?"

"Because I had to know—" His voice was thick with the sudden overwhelming fatigue that followed relief.

"There is nothing more you are going to know. Go to bed!"

The answer Ian began was interrupted by another jaw-cracking yawn. That defeated him. He laughed, stepped still closer to take and kiss Alinor's hand.

"Yes, madam," he agreed meekly.