The First Princess of Wales (41 page)

Instantaneously, Joan recognized their captor with the broadsword. Even as the man’s huge gloved hand caught Stephen’s chin to shove him away from where he hovered panicked in front of Joan, the skies thundered and Joan shrieked his name.

“Captal de Buch! Stop! Do not harm him. I am Lady Holland, Duchess of Kent, and we have come to see the prince!”

De Buch, one of the king’s Gascon advisors on the French wars, halted with his sword in midair as though he still considered hacking Stephen apart.

“Saints’ souls!” the Captal cursed. “Here? The Fair Maid of Kent? And think, we were looking for spies of the French king and we find a
belle demoiselle
out for a ride with a
beau,
eh?”

A low rumble of nervous laughter welled up to match the next roll of thunder, and Joan felt her dirty cheeks go hot at their eager-eyed perusal.

“His Grace, the prince is not exactly holding parties on the lawn while waiting for the French, Duchess, but I know he will be pleased to entertain so enterprising a lady, eh?” His words rolled off his tongue roughly with a strange accent, and his deep laughter bubbled up again as Stephen moved closer to stand guard over her and someone brought her bolted horse back.

“Then, Captal, we have ridden a long way today and would appreciate an escort to His Grace’s castle,” she brazened, feeling both relieved and nervous.

Huge guffaws punctuated by the rumble of even closer thunder erupted and, to her chagrin, Joan noted even Stephen, grim-faced as he was, dared to join in. “Saints’ bones, pardon my bluntness, Duchess, but this is war you have come to see! Still I know with this storm on that French army we have been fleeing from, the prince,
certainement,
will be glad to see you. Let us be off then, before this coming rain drowns us all. Back to Monbarzon men, onward!” de Buch shouted grandly.

Under the Captal de Buch’s annoyingly amused gaze, Stephen helped her remount. The rain had washed much of the road dust away in a great driving deluge by the time they sighted the English sentries lining the crenelated battlements of the little village of Monbarzon.

E
dward, Prince of Wales, had become increasingly more ill-tempered as the calm September day turned more humid and a violent thunderstorm approached to rend the peaceful French landscape. He had sent his Gascon ally and advisor, the raucous but wily Captal de Buch, out to reconnoiter the area around the little village of Monbarzon which they had just captured and fortified several miles south of Tours. As soon as de Buch returned from his survey of the area, Prince Edward would summon his advisors to decide what to do next about their increasingly perilous predicament.

King Jean with his French army twice the size of the English forces was temporarily resting at Blois a mere twenty-five miles up the Loire, and his own troops, tired of marching and laden with heavy goods and booty from their two-month raid on hostile French territory, would be no match for size or vigor at this point. A rest, if they could afford one, was desperately needed. Now, with this sudden devastating change in the weather, he was beginning to worry whether they would make it back to safe haven south in English-held Aquitaine. And worse, he feared his brother John’s forces would not manage to get across the Loire from Normandy to help in time—especially in this hellish weather that would probably trap them here!

A sharp rap rattled the door of the rich merchant’s house the prince had made his temporary headquarters here in the heart of the little, high-walled village of Monbarzon. He looked up, annoyed, from where he had been studying a finely detailed map of the terrain to the south around Poitiers where he hoped to make a stand if retreat were impossible. It angered him that his mind continually wandered and he had planned little strategy in the hour he had been left alone at his request to do so. Another knock sounded.

“Enter!”

The young, slender, William Montacute, Lord Salisbury, whom the prince appreciated for his good brain in battle tactics despite the fact Jeannette had once been technically wed to the man, entered. Salisbury looked tired, but the sun color on his often pale face made him look healthier than most of the men.

“Is de Buch back, Will?”

“No, Your Grace, but the rain we feared has started like Noah’s deluge out there. At least it will bottle up the bloody French at Blois just as well.”

“Aye, but they are rested and not so heavy burdened nor short on supplies after all this marching and fighting. Then what is the news?”

“The French pretender—the French king, my lord prince—”

“Aye, John the Good, as he so pompously dubs himself. Well, say on.”

“Our own envoy back from Blois is at the gate to say that Pope Innocent IV is sending two holy cardinals as envoys to sue for peace between King John and Your Grace, and that the French believe we are so ripe for the picking, they will no doubt demand ludicrously insulting terms.”

The prince’s handsome face barely changed, but his aquamarine eyes shifted back to the map. “St. George, Will, I can see one blessing in disguise in that. The Pope’s elaborate negotiations always take a good deal of time, you know, and time to rest and plan is more a gift to us than to King John’s forces at this rather tenuous point in our campaign.”

“Aye, my lord prince. There is that.”

Prince Edward, garbed casually as he often was on campaign in dark blue tunic and hose under an embossed leather jerkin, regarded Salisbury through slitted eyes. The look of intense perusal used to set Salisbury’s teeth on edge, for once he knew he had been greatly out of favor with this prince on whom they all so desperately depended and admired. But now Salisbury had come to know such a look of glittering blue ice came anytime the prince was deep in serious thought, and his increasingly sharp temper stemmed from the fact he drove himself hard in this effort to please both his royal father and his own high standards. At least since Salisbury had lost Joan of Kent over six years ago and now had married well himself, he had evidently been returned to his prince’s favor. Joan of Kent—he had not thought about her for days now—flashed across Salisbury’s memory and he knew she must sometimes haunt the prince too.

Salisbury wondered again if it was due to the fact that Joan of Kent lived in Normandy that the prince had been sent to Aquitaine by the king and Prince John had been sent north to Normandy. After all, each prince knew the other area more thoroughly, but the king had been adamant as to assignments. Hell’s gates, the ironies of life, Salisbury mused, that he and the prince might actually have been sent to Normandy to march shoulder to shoulder past Joan of Kent’s present home. But that would have been too rare, too fatalistic for the three of them to be thrust back together after all this time.

“I said, Salisbury, when this rain lets up, our best move is to hie ourselves, baggage trains and all, down these mud-slogged roads south to Poitiers to make a stand. We will retreat from there if we can. That is all for now. I will send for you when de Buch returns if he has not been drowned in this downpour. If we are to have several days of this, these walls and roofs are God’s blessing compared to those sodden tents.”

“Aye, Your Grace. I shall just be about then until there is news from de Buch.”

When Salisbury went out, there was a commotion at the door and Prince Edward heard the Captal de Buch’s unmistakably distinctive southern French accent in the hall. He rose from his maps and strode to the door. Salisbury had halted halfway out and looked as if he had seen a ghost, or at least a bloody Frenchman with a raised sword. The Captal muttered something to Salisbury that sounded like a threat to hold his silence, and he shoved by the startled man with a sopping wet, hooded boy in tow.

“De Buch!” the prince protested as the Captal nearly pushed past him into the room and slammed the door in Salisbury’s very white face. “Who in hell’s hot borders is this wretch and what did you learn out there?”

De Buch was soaked to the skin: his leather jerkin actually squeaked to punctuate the water he dripped into a growing pool on the carpet. “This wretch, my lord prince,” de Buch gasped out as if he had run for miles, “is—saints’ bones, my prince, all I can say is the fishing is damn fine out there, and this is what I caught for you!”

The wet knave with de Buch lifted two slender-wristed, graceful hands to slide back his hood. The small green beryl ring set in ivory filigree that rested on the finger shocked the prince, and he grunted as though he had been struck in the stomach. He stared astounded, entranced, as the wet, rough hood dropped back to reveal a flawless forehead and straight nose tilted up at the end—and shattering lilac eyes flashing a fire appropriately accompanied by the crackle of lightning and roar of thunder overhead.

“Jeannette!”

“Aye. Did you think I would never find out your tricks or just ignore them if I did, Your Grace?”

The taunting way she drawled his title, the cryptic words stunned him, but he was so amazed at the vision of her, he had trouble thinking, trouble forming his words. He was aware the Captal de Buch looked all smug and greedy-eyed from Jeannette to him and then back again. He was astounded when he finally spoke that his voice was as cold and sharp as steel.

“Wait outside, Captal, and tell no one of this visitor.”

“Salisbury knows, Your Grace, and my men. Also, that minstrel once in your employ was captured with her—ah, Stephen Callender, our Grace.”

“Then get out and tell them all to hold their tongues, man. I will take care of this guest—this prisoner, for now.”

“Aye, my lord prince,” de Buch managed gruffly, and sorry he could not stay to see the obvious battle brewing, he nearly stumbled over his feet on the way out.

Joan of Kent faced the prince squarely, her fists on hips accented by the tight boy’s hose and her cinched leather belt which sported a pitifully small lady’s table dagger. Her heavy champagne-hued curls and coiled braids dripped water forlornly on her face and shoulders, but her chin was held high in defiance. The pouting lips and elegant, high cheekbones were streaked with road dust and rain, but the eyes flashed a spirit within that made his stomach cartwheel over and his loins ache to bury himself deep within her. Fragmented visions of her in boy’s garb that day they fought in the straw at Windsor and in that little room at Canterbury made him go hot all over as if he had been doused in the sweat of furious, blood-pounding battle.

“I suggest you explain this mule-headed, stupid action of yours before I lose my temper entirely, woman. You could have been killed out there, or worse, you know!”

“I am not your prisoner. You told the Captal I was your prisoner.”

“St. George, Jeannette, it is either that we find sneaking about our camp or a spy—or mayhap you are a camp trull. They are the only women foolish enough to trespass near armies where they can be paid for their services and so used at anyone’s whim and—”

“You would say something like that! Oh, I am sure that is the only sort of women
you
consort with, but I only came here from home to tell you I know of your vile deceit and treachery and I will have no more of it!”

“Lower your voice or the whole army will know the Duchess of Kent rides about the enemy countryside with musicians chasing the Prince of Wales. First to Canterbury all intimate with Wakeley, now here with Callender! I tire of this passion for musicians!”

“Musicians—no. I have a great longing for spies paid for by the royal purse, since you ask, my lord prince.”

“You have needed taming for years, Jeannette. I knew—
I knew
no one else could handle you. And I swear I will kill Callender for this!”

“Your eternal pomposity boggles my mind, our Grace. I do not care what anyone thinks. Let them all know you hire spies and buy people off with lands and titles to keep them silent.”

The tension which had held him rigid only six feet from her across the barrier of astonishment snapped, and he charged at her to clamp one iron arm around her waist and one big hand over her mouth. He bent her head back against his left shoulder forcing her to look up into his ice-cold, crystalline blue eyes. Beneath the sudden onslaught of his fury and his strength, she went momentarily limp against him. His hard mouth under the full blond mustache seemed carved from marble, and a frantic pulse beat at the base of his throat.

“Aye, I will have your silence and anything else I want from you, vixen. You could have been killed or captured, prancing in here like this through enemy territory, clear from Normandy, I take it. This is war here and not the kind you and I always wage. I have no intention of sanctioning such female willfulness and stupidity—nor insubordination as you have shown today, and always. You will go with the Captal now, and you will hold your tongue until I come to you later. And if you value that beautiful little hide of yours, you had best find a sweet smile and soft voice before I come, or so help me, I will—”

He bit his lower lip as if to silence his tirade forcibly, and his distraught gaze softened barely perceptibly as his heavily fringed eyes glittered greedily over her. He loosed her mouth and stood her upright. “De Buch!” he gripped her elbow tightly, holding her at arm’s length. His eyes devoured her again before he tore his gaze away almost guiltily as the Captal snapped open the door across the room.