Devil's Consort (88 page)

As dispassionately as I could, I surveyed the scene, a milling bustle of armed men and horses, my captors making the most of the food and drink with enthusiasm and laughter at the expense of young Geoffrey, neatly foiled. My own escort, now released, were gulping the wine and as perplexed as I.

‘By the eyes of God!’ My head snapped round. ‘That was hard work. Damn Geoffrey for a fool—and an inefficient one at that!’

Well, I recognised that. The voice. The oath.

‘Thirsty work too. Find me a mug of ale, if you will …’

Who else could it possibly be? Who would sweep me up with such insolent assurance? Who would now be making himself at home in my own damned courtyard?

He walked towards me and bowed with more respect than his brother had shown me. He was clad in mail for hard riding and danger, indistinguishable from his men except for the confident assumption of authority. He had removed his helm, tossing it to his squire, and was scrubbing his still-gloved fingers through his sweat-matted hair. He was as filthy and rain-soaked as I.

Henry Plantagenet looked me up and down.

‘Very nice.’

I stiffened.

‘Almost flattering. I’m surprised, but I suppose I shouldn’t be.’

‘It’s practical.’

‘I’ve never seen you quite so … unwashed, lady.’ He grinned. ‘Or so inappropriately dressed.’

Colour rushed to my cheeks. My escape from Beaugency with all its attendant dangers had been no place for feminine skirts. But now, dressed in male attire, in tunic and leather chausses, sweaty and mud-spattered,
my hair stuffed unflatteringly into a felt hat, I might argue its practicality but suddenly I was embarrassingly uncomfortable under that quizzical stare. And angry that it should matter so much to me what he thought.

‘So you got my message, I see. A pity you could not have acted on it sooner.’

I buried my discomfort under a show of temper. I was tired to the bone. We were both tired—but you would not have thought it to look at him. Not for the last time I suspected that would take more than a whirlwind ride across his dominions to exhaust the man.

‘No, I did not get it. Your courier must have gone astray. It happens.’ Stripping off the gloves, Henry slapped them against his thigh, dislodging clods of earth from his mail and boots. Then his eyes pinned me, accusatory. There was no humour in him now.

‘What were you thinking? You knew the dangers. Did you not think to travel with a stronger escort?’ His face was stern, the lines stark giving him a hard maturity. No humour and equally no compassion for my travails.

‘I thought to travel fast. I didn’t expect to be waylaid not twelve hours after my annulment!’

‘You should have expected it. You’re not a fool!’

It had been a long two days. I felt emotion build in my chest and I was perilously close to tears. For a moment I daren’t speak.

‘It’s to your advantage that I had news of what my enterprising brother was planning,’ Henry continued.

‘How fortunate for me,’ I managed.

‘Nothing to do with good fortune. I make it one of my priorities to keep an eye on Geoffrey.’

‘So I find myself ambushed by both of you.’

He looked down his blade of a nose. ‘You don’t seem very grateful for my rescue, lady. You’ll fare better at my hands than Geoffrey’s, I promise you.’

My control was back in place. ‘You don’t have a tame priest in your saddle bag, waiting to tie the knot, do you? Should I be grateful for being treated like a … like a haunch of venison?’

‘A prettier cut of venison I’ve rarely seen! I thought I treated you with all consideration, lady!’ Henry seemed taken aback at my lack of gratitude, a blankness descending on his features, and I was not sorry. A lingering residue of fear still churning in my gut, I was in no mind to be conciliatory. Why the haste, why the damned secrecy when he already knew my mind? Had we not made a pact in Notre Dame? Had I not invited his interest now that I was free? I felt the heat of anger begin to warm my blood again.

‘I suppose I should expect such cavalier treatment at the hands of an Angevin!’

A spark of temper lit my rescuer’s eyes too. ‘I know exactly what’s due to you. When you wed me it will be in the full light of day, lady, not some hole-and-corner event. I’ve more finesse than my brother. I’ll have you
know I’ve covered a lot of distance in an impossibly short time to keep you from Geoffrey’s greasy clutches. Three fine animals foundered under me and I regret their loss. Perhaps I should have left you to him.’

‘Let Geoffrey become Duke of Aquitaine? I think not. And why the need to keep me in suspense once you had rescued me, I can’t understand!’

‘It pleased me.’

‘To see me in your power? To see me at a disadvantage?’

‘If you like.’ To my pleasure, the muscles in his jaw and throat were taut. ‘Be content I didn’t throw a bag over your head! Perhaps I should have done just that, to keep your tongue from sharpening its edge on me!’

I had wounded his smug satisfaction. Good! My own anger settled to a simmer of mere irritation.

‘Why the cloak and dagger with your brother?’ I demanded, intrigued as I remembered.

‘Because I might have need of Geoffrey’s support at my back at some point in the future. I didn’t consider it worth antagonising him over something so inconsequential as the waylaying of a woman!’

‘Inconsequential!’ I took a breath to reply—the anger had leapt into flame again. As I detected the gleam in his eye and saw that he was goading me, I resorted to the most edged courtesy I could manage. I was proud of it. ‘I’ll give orders, my lord, for you and your men to be cared for.’

‘No need, lady. We’re not staying longer than an
hour. All we need is hot food and ale, and fodder for the horses.’

And I saw that my steward had already begun the operation to find stabling and roust up the kitchens. Henry Plantagenet had an air of command about him, even in my own home. He reached to snag a cup of warm ale from a passing servant and took a hearty gulp, wiping his mouth on his sleeve. Then held my eyes with his, and they were deadly serious.

‘What now, Eleanor—no-longer-Queen-of-France?’

‘I’ll not discuss it here,’ I snapped ungraciously, then remembered. ‘I’m sorry about your father’s untimely death.’

‘Yes. Unexpected, as you say.’ He took a step towards me, holding out the cup of ale. ‘We can’t delay discussing what next, Eleanor.’

‘I know.’ I disliked his peremptory attitude. A shiver shook my whole body as the cold wind swirled round the courtyard.

‘Drink.’ He nudged the cup into my hand.

I shook my head, deliberately wayward. Henry promptly retrieved it. ‘Well, if you won’t, I will!’ He drank it to the dregs, then took my fingers and kissed them in a surprisingly gallant gesture. Until I snatched my hand away.

‘Always gracious and charming,’ he grinned.

‘Perhaps I am when I’ve not ridden through two day and two nights without rest. Now, go away and see to your men.’

‘Is that how you reward your rescuer?’ He was already striding across the courtyard.

‘Yes. Until I’ve put my appearance to rights.’

I found myself addressing his back and was more than conscious of my travel-stained, unorthodox and unfeminine state. I left him and marched to my rooms in the Maubergeonne Tower. I heard him laugh behind me, although I thought it held more irritation with me than appreciation of any absurdity. It infuriated me, but the exhaustion had quite vanished from my bones. Once more I felt full of energy, of anticipation.

‘I swear you’re as wily as a bag of ferrets. The Devil take you, Henry Plantagenet!’ I recalled, once in the past, thinking that he was unsubtle. I could not have been more wrong. Here was the king of ferrets that could fool the rabbit into hopping into the bag as a close friend.

I had bathed, dressed—for some illogical reason I did not want to remain in male attire—and my mood had improved. I had considered very carefully. I would let him take the initiative. I would like to be wooed—so let him do the wooing. I would like at least to think that I was an object of desire rather than a necessity in a political alliance.

Yes, yes, I had agreed to marriage when we had knelt together in Notre Dame—but that had been when Henry’s support had been crucial for an undertaking fraught with personal danger. Now I was safely back
in my own fortress and could make my own decisions. Nothing was engraved in stone. Unless I wished it to be. Unless I really did want him.

And I did. I’d made him pay for frightening me, shaken him a little out of his composure. But I wanted him—and now I’d have him. As he had said, I was no fool. To keep Aquitaine and Poitou safe, I needed Henry Plantagenet.

Henry had made no attempt to clean up. Still in his mail, he brought with him the pungent aroma of sweat, horse and dust—but his annoyance with me was in abeyance. He laughed, eyes alive with some keen emotion as he took in the changes I had made in so short a time. My gown was pearl-stitched cream damask layered over pale silk, more appropriate for a formal reception than a confrontation with a chancy robber baron.

‘Very fine! I’ve rarely seen such a transformation. From drowned rat to a pearl of great price.’ He bowed. ‘A finer pearl I’ve never seen.’

‘Like the haunch of venison?’ I snapped, unsure whether this was Henry’s brand of mockery at my expense. But no. I could read admiration in that open stare. So he could be gallant. Where had he learned that little trick, that a compliment would take him a long way to a woman’s heart? Geoffrey or Matilda? I recognised his father’s elegance of phrase with not a little discomfort. How many women, I wondered, had Henry practised on? Dozens if rumour held true, yet still I liked the compliment. I turned away, conscious
of the burn of my cheeks, grateful for the slide of rich silk and fine linen to add to my dignity. What was it about this man that touched me so closely? I walked to the window to see my courtyard warming in the early spring sunshine now that the rain had passed, the enclosed space bursting with horseflesh and men in mail. Henry followed me without compunction, leaning against the carved sill to look down.

‘This is a fine place,’ he observed. ‘I remember it—we had good hunting from here.’

‘Are you considering it for your own possession?’ I slid him a glance. ‘Not without my permission, you won’t. The Devil take you and your scheming!’

‘I think he already has.’

Before I was aware of it, he straightened and stepped close. His breath was warm against my cheek, stirring my hair against my temple. He stood so that he could view my profile, so close that I deliberately kept my eyes on the view, even when he lifted the jewelled end of my ribboned braid and wrapped it around his fingers.

‘The Devil and I came to terms long ago.’ He inspected the carved finial that restrained my hair. ‘After all, it’s said I’m descended from Melusine.’

It meant nothing to me. He was watching me as a kestrel watched its prey. But I would be no prey of his. I kept my mind on his words rather than on the fluttering in my belly.

‘And are you? Is she another ancestress like Herleva?’
The Angevin had a tendency to brag about the women in his family.

‘So the stories say.’ He leaned back against the stonework but kept my braid loosely held. ‘A distant Count of Anjou—one of the many indecipherable Fulks, I expect—took a beautiful wife—Melusine. No one knew her background, her family. She brought no land or wealth, no important bloodline that any could trace, only the fortune in jewels around her throat and her beautiful face. Fulk insisted on marrying her, against all advice.’

‘As he would.’ I smiled, lured by his soft voice. It shivered down my spine.

‘She was so very beautiful, you see.’ Releasing my hair, his knuckles rubbed across my wrist, but his eyes were still on my face, always watchful. Where had he learned such skill in the years since I had first seen him loping up the stairs, here in this very palace? Here was no callow youth but a man seasoned with sword and with discernment and the ability to charm when he chose to use it. It crossed my mind that this was the wooing I had wanted, in Henry’s own particular way.

‘So Count Fulk wed the fair Melusine and she carried his four children. They were blissfully happy—except for one small matter.’

‘There’s always one.’ I felt myself flushing under his scrutiny.

‘Of course there is. Melusine stood dutifully at her husband’s side in church—but refused to remain during
the elevation of the Host in the Mass or to take the blessed sacrament. No matter how the Count remonstrated with her, even to using a whip about her sides, she would not.’

‘A whip? I advise no man to try that against me if I displeased him.’

‘As I wouldn’t dare.’ His grin was mischievous. ‘Besides …’ Henry shrugged, ever the pragmatic ‘ … it did no good. Melusine refused. Fulk’s suspicions grew. In the end he decided to outwit her by ordering four of his knights to stand on her cloak, to prevent her leaving.’ Henry released me to raise his hands in graceful mimicry of the priest. ‘As the priest elevated the sacrament, Melusine turned to go—and eight mailed feet crashed down onto the edges of her mantle. So what did the enterprising lady do?’

‘I’ve no idea.’

‘Struggling from the cloak—she left it in a heap on the floor—she grasped the hands of two of her children and flew shrieking out of the window.’

I smiled. ‘Never to be seen again.’

‘Exactly! Have you heard this story before?’ He grinned as I shook my head. ‘And thus she was, as proved by her flight, the daughter of the Devil.’ His glance was sly. ‘You don’t believe me, do you?’

‘I’ve heard taller tales. Do you believe it? That you are descended from the Devil?’

‘Why not? We’re all red-haired with a temper to match, enough to scorch the tapestries on the walls
when the mood’s on us. I make no apology for it. It is so. You saw Geoffrey’s behaviour. Is that the action of a sane man?’

‘Obviously not.’

‘You should take it as a warning, when you’re wed to me, Eleanor. The Devil’s in us for certain. When you’re my wife, there will be times when you’ll wish that you were not.’

Ah! We had reached the crux of the matter with great speed after the diversion into Angevin genealogy. And perhaps even that had had its purpose, as a warning for me. Henry, as I was learning, did not let grass grow under his feet.