The Mistress Of Normandy (13 page)

“Woman’s got a goddamned pair of lungs,” came the cautious whisper. “Rants like a fishwife. Think you we can reach the horses, my lord?”

A pair of arms like thews of iron wrapped around her. Thunder cracked the air. She heard the splash of rain and a string of English oaths. “It’s a bad landing, my lord. Too goddamned deep here to wade ashore. We’ll have to swim it.”

“No!” Lianna screamed against her gag. Strong arms lifted her.

Water.

Terror clawed at her gullet with talons of steel. She saw herself drowning, the water closing over her head, stealing her breath and her life.

Her life...and the new life she suspected was growing inside her. She’d never see Rand again, never bear his child. The thought made her fight harder. She jammed her elbow against her captor’s body. A gust of breath whooshed from him.

“Jesu, don’t drop her. She’ll sink like a millstone.”

“Don’t tempt me,” he grunted.

Hatred added force to her movements. She twisted, struck out with her bound feet. The men began whispering urgently, but she couldn’t hear their words above the hammering of fear in her ears. Just when death seemed a certainty, the movements steadied. The water receded.

The jogging motion of running feet jarred her. A distant shout rose. Hope surged within Lianna. Perhaps the
hobelars
would come to rescue her.

“No time to unbind her, my lord, and she fights like the devil anyway.”

She was lifted onto a horse, slinging her like a sodden sack of grain over its withers. The Englishman mounted behind her. The horse jolted forward. Hoofbeats rumbled. She tried to discern the number of horses and men, but pain and remembered fear overwhelmed her reason.

Bouncing against the saddle, she wondered with horror if she might lose the child. Her terrified mind clung to thoughts of Rand. He’d be waiting for her tomorrow in the forest. She gathered memories of him, the sun bright on his hair, his hands gentle on her body.

How long they rode she did not know but expected a catalog of bruises to tell the tale.

Something hissed overhead. One of the men said, “Sweet Mother, that arrow was damned close, my lord!”

Lianna longed to tear the sacking from her face. More frightening than arrows was the fact that she could not see, might at any moment be skewered.

“Just keep riding,” said a gruff voice behind her. The English sounded so crude, yet that voice...

Shouts rang out. She heard a grinding sound, then the clamor of iron-shod hoofs on wooden planking.

“Hurry, my lord! We must secure the gate against them.”

Lianna heard more hissing, a slashing sound, a gasp of indrawn breath. The gate groaned closed. The horse drew to a halt. Strong arms pulled her from the saddle, and her battered body was transferred to another pair of arms. She bent like a bow, fighting still.

“Your niece, sir,” said a grim, ragged voice.

* * *

Walking blindly into the night, Rand strode across the courtyard of Le Crotoy. Jack followed, his gamin face bright with the gleam of victory and streaming with the sheen of rain.

“We did it, my lord,” he exclaimed. “I never doubted for a moment...” His voice trailed off when he caught a glimpse of Rand’s face. He offered a skin flask. “Drink. ’Twill help you forget.”

Wordlessly Rand grabbed the flask and stalked away, deep into the shadows of the courtyard. Leaning against a wall, he unstopped the wineskin and drew deeply at its rich contents.

He felt sick with the deed he’d done. The stealth, the betrayal, the murder of the elder Mondragon, and the loss of Lianna all combined into a wave of nausea that nigh overcame him. He sucked at the flask, tried to assure himself that the demoiselle would emerge unscathed from the indignity he’d forced on her. But the outrage he’d committed might scar her for life. She’d defied a king, opened her home to outlaw knights; yet she didn’t deserve what he’d done.

He flattened his lips into a grimace. Only when the burn of wine entered his vitals did he look at his arm.

In the gloom, the blood looked like ink. Peeling away his tattered sleeve, he stared with cold disinterest at the angry slash of an arrow wound. He squirted wine on the gash as he’d seen surgeons do in battle. It might have been another man’s arm, for he felt no pain. And then he knew why.

He did not know himself at all.

* * *

The damp sacking fell away. Lianna squinted against the light. Her first sight was the rich, figured velvet of ducal raiments. The first word she uttered when her mouth was unbound was an oath so vile that her uncle blinked.

His face, illuminated by cresset lamps, quickly assumed a chilly mask of power. “
Tais-toi.
I’ll not have you railing at me like a beggarwoman.”

She made a sound of impatience as someone behind her fumbled with the ropes binding her wrists. Soreness engulfed her. Looking about, she recognized a well-appointed hall―Le Crotoy, twenty miles from home.

“You did not hesitate to have me trussed and dragged from my bed.” She cast her eyes about the
grande salle.
“Where is the English
god-don
who jumps like a spaniel to do your bidding? Has he skulked away like the coward he is?”

Burgundy propelled her toward a staircase. “He found his task every bit as distasteful as you did. Doubtless he didn’t want to add to your indignity by seeing you in such a state.”

She gripped the wet fabric of her bliaut. “It is because of him that I am in this state!” She wanted to weep, to scream, to run. But although retainers in Burgundy’s livery stood in deferential silence, she knew they’d not hesitate to restrain her. She would escape,
certes,
but not at a wild, headlong run. Still, she vowed that nothing would keep her from returning to Bois-Long...and Rand’s arms. With stiff, resentful steps she followed her uncle up the stairs.

The chamber, high in the round Tour du Roi, dripped with opulence, from the arras cloth on the walls to the fluted posts of the massive bed. She stared at the duke. He looked less fierce in the subdued light of the hearth fire. Lines of care creased his face. Taking a deep breath, she sought to forget that this was her uncle Jean, the man who had taken her into his lap and dazzled her with tales of his exploits in Paris and at Nicopolis. Childhood indulgences belonged to the past. The Demoiselle de Bois-Long and Jean Sans Peur were enemies now.

“What do you mean to do with me?” she demanded.

Burgundy eyed her coldly. “I intend to see that you do your duty. You will marry the Baron of Longwood tomorrow.”

She laughed humorlessly. Her throat ached from screaming. “Would you force me into bigamy, Uncle?”

“Bigamy? I think not.”

The certainty in his voice chilled her. A stiff sea breeze blew in through the window. She chafed her arms. “I am still married to Lazare Mondragon.”

Burgundy leveled an implacable stare at her. “He’s dead.”

She stumbled back, groping at a bedpost. “You
killed
him?”

“I did not. He drowned by accident in the Seine.”

In an ice-cold voice she said, “An accident. I wonder, Uncle, if the mishap was anything like what befell King Charles’s brother, Louis of Orléans?”

He sucked in his breath as if she’d struck him. Anger burned brightly in his eyes, and she knew her words had reopened the wound of an old disgrace. “You have ever forgotten your place. I suggest you remember it now.”

Deep inside, she wanted him to deny that Orléans had died at his command, but his fury confirmed what she’d never wanted to believe. And now Lazare. She pitied the man. He’d used her, betrayed her, yet his life was too high a price to pay for his scheming.

“So I am a widow,” she said hollowly.

“Tomorrow you will be a wife.” He took her chilled hands in his. “You were promised to Enguerrand of Longwood first.”

She yanked her hands away. “A pretender’s lackey. I spit on him. You pledged me to him without my knowledge, against my will.”

“Your own stubbornness brought this about. Soon after the wedding Longwood’s forces and my own will ride out to take Bois-Long back from Gaucourt.”

She drew herself up despite the indignity of being in wet bedclothes, her hair in disarray. “You presume much, Uncle. Think you I’ll go meekly to the altar?”

“Of course.” He smiled, yet his eyes glinted with sadness. “I am the Duke of Burgundy. If you refuse the marriage, then I will have you sent to a nunnery and gift Bois-Long to the baron.”

Her heart pounded. “You cannot take my home.”

He said nothing, only fixed her with a powerful stare. The meaning of that look seeped into her. She stood still, empty, unfeeling, for she knew her uncle’s will would prevail. She leaned against the bedpost. “I don’t suppose,” she said tonelessly, “you’ll allow me a mourning period.”

The mail shirt beneath his raiments rustled as he took a step toward her. “You gave up any right to my indulgence when you garrisoned Gaucourt at Bois-Long.”

“You gave up any right to my loyalty when you forced my betrothal to an English
god-don.
”

His manner thawed the slightest bit. “Calm yourself
.
I’ll send for a bath and a sleeping draught.”

A haze of bone-deep exhaustion settled over her. The baby, she thought. Dear Lord, was she bringing Rand’s child to this forced marriage?

As Burgundy turned to leave, she spoke again, softly. “How can you do this to me, to France?”

He turned back, and in his eyes she recognized—and tried to discount—a deep, abiding concern. “Because I love you,
p’tite,
and I love France. I would not see you wed to such a man as Mondragon, and I will not see France sink into despair because the Armagnacs control King Charles and play upon his madness.” He opened the door. She caught sight of two guards placed like stone stanchions outside the door.

“Rest,” Burgundy said. “Tomorrow is your wedding day.”

Nine

“I
will not wear the clothes the Englishman has foisted upon me.” Lianna pulled away from the waiting damsel who was attempting, with sorely tried patience, to plait a string of pearls into Lianna’s hair.

“You have no choice.” Margaret of Bavaria, Lianna’s aunt by marriage, stood beside a huge open chest. Noontide light from the chamber window streamed over the duchess’s handsome Germanic face.

Lianna glared. “It was not my choice to be dragged here in my bedgown.”

“That is neither here nor there, Belliane. I should think you’d be grateful that the baron has brought such a magnificent trousseau.” With a wave of her bejeweled hand, the duchess indicated the contents of the chest. Venetian silks, brocaded velvets, and fine linens crammed the coffer. Stooping, Margaret picked up a royal blue cloak trimmed with gray fur. “The miniver on this must have cost a small fortune.”

“More’s the pity for the squirrels whose bellies were robbed of their fur for the sake of fashion.” Lianna yanked her arm away from the lavish cotte a servant held out to her.

Margaret’s wide, noble face darkened. “I’ll not see the House of Burgundy shamed by your stubbornness. A woman’s lot is to obey. My own daughters never defied me. My Margaret wed the Dauphin Louis. She stands to become Queen of France.”

“She’ll have no kingdom to rule if I give Bois-Long to the English.”

Margaret set her hands on her hips. “Neither you nor I may judge that. You will let my ladies dress you, Belliane.”

Lianna stared hard at her aunt. Years of marriage to Jean Sans Peur had honed Margaret’s will until it rivaled that of her husband. “And if I don’t?...”

“I thought your uncle made the consequences clear last night. Surely you don’t doubt him.”

Lianna fell silent. The alternative to submitting to the Englishman was banishment to a nunnery. Unless...She slid a glance toward the window of her round tower chamber. Wooden shutters opened to an iron grille. Beyond lay a sandy peninsula, the meeting of the Somme and the Narrow Sea. The grille looked narrow, yet she might squeeze out.

Her mind snatched at the thought, caught it, and held fast. Lazare was dead. If she could escape, if she could get to Rand, she could convince him to marry her. He was an honorable man who loved her, who’d not refuse her—especially if she told him of the baby. Love stirred in her breast; then fear invaded her. What if her uncle tried to dispose of Rand as he’d done to Lazare?

The duchess’s ladies took advantage of Lianna’s utter stillness. Her mind racing, she barely felt the deft hands that dressed her hair in pearls and silver netting, the tug of lace points encasing her in a cotte of silver and ice-blue. Full sleeves, gathered at the wrists, rustled as she turned again toward the window. The moat lay far below. The thought of water made her shudder. Could she hazard the climb?

An ungentle jab to the ribs jarred Lianna from her planning. “My lady, your aunt speaks.”

She looked up to see Margaret smiling. “You look passing fair,” said the duchess. “How do you keep your hair so pale? Chamomile? Saffron?”

Her hopes bolstered by the chance of escape, Lianna returned the smile. “Perhaps ’tis the result of exposure to lime or Peter’s salt, Aunt.”

Margaret pursed her lips. “I’d hoped you’d abandoned your ridiculous interest in explosives.”

Lianna chafed as a maid covered her head with a silver veil and secured it with a jeweled chaplet.

“Come, my lady,” said the brisk maid. “See what a princess you look.” Unresisting, Lianna allowed herself to be led to a gilt-framed standing mirror of polished steel.

She stared at herself. The hasty needle of her aunt’s seamstress had tailored the gown to perfection. Ice-blue overlaid with stiff cloth of silver outlined her slim form. Pearls and aquamarines winked within the folds of her veil; one blue-green jewel descended in a teardrop on her brow. Flowing sleeves and a hem that rang with dozens of tiny bells gave her the aspect of a well-dressed courtier. But these were the gifts of the English
god-don.
The sumptuous costume imprisoned her as surely as the sentries who dogged her footsteps, even when she visited the garderobe.

Margaret started off for the chapel. Wildly Lianna considered leaping for the window. But the servants within and the sentries without made her squelch the impulse. Still, the hope of seeing Rand again burned high in her heart; this forced marriage would be a minor hindrance, nothing more.

She straightened her shoulders. Coldness swept through her. Rand had changed her, softened her, yet the Englishman was bound to turn her back into her former self. She’d revert to being the soulless chatelaine, the intrepid dreamer who hid herself from people for fear of being hurt. So be it. She might have been maneuvered into this position, but she resolved to fight back. She would wed the Englishman, aye, but he’d not find her a willing wife. A terrible smile curved her lips. If her suspicion were correct, she’d present the baron with a French heir. And the final triumph would be hers to savor. For the child was Rand’s.

Resolute, she raised her chin. She was the Demoiselle de Bois-Long, daughter of the warrior Aimery. She’d not allow the English king’s minion to wrest power from her.

With a last look at her own haughty face, cold eyes, and stubborn chin, Lianna followed her aunt to the chapel portico to await her bridegroom.

* * *

Walking through a cloistered upper gallery on his way to the chapel, Rand paused. Rain had cleansed the air, scented it with springtime. He peered through the open stonework at the courtyard below. A group of women stepped from the door of the Tour du Roi and moved toward the chapel.

His eyes flicked over the group; coldly he noted that the blue-and-silver costume looked lovely on the bride. Then he recalled his first glimpse of her, whipping a servant. Red had suited her better.

His hand went to his throat. He felt for King Henry’s talisman, then remembered he’d flung the jewel away in anger after leaving Lianna for the last time. Grimly he continued walking. After two steps he froze. In abrupt disbelief he reeled back to stare. Something about the gowned and veiled woman beckoned to him. Her back was to him, yet her movements seemed oddly familiar.

His hands, suddenly cold and damp with sweat, gripped the stonework ledge of the cloister. Leaning forward, he squinted through the sunlight and felt an unexpected yet undeniable attraction. Small and trim, she walked with light, purposeful steps at the head of the women. Disjointed images swan into his mind; Lianna walking beside him, her feet kicking up the hem of her smock. Lianna defending her mistress to him. Lianna tapping her finger against her chin in that appealing gesture of deep concentration.

Jack Cade appeared at his side. “All is ready, my lord. I’ve the rings here—” He stared down at the group in front of the chapel. “I see your bride awaits.”

His face alight with cautious joy, Rand faced his scutifer. “My bride...” His voice trailed off as he swung back to stare at her. She reached the chapel and turned. Jewels flashed in her veil. Her finger lay poised delicately at her chin.

“Sweet lamb of God.”
Rand’s heart leaped. His spurs clattered over the flagstones as he began to run.

* * *

Armor, ill concealed by Burgundy’s scarlet raiments, glinted in the sun as her uncle strode forth and took both her hands. “Belliane, you look so—”

She snatched her hands away. “Do not think I go willingly to this marriage.” Her voice and eyes were glacial.

Burgundy took hold of her arm more forcefully. Leaning forward, he said with quiet menace, “My patience is spent. You will behave cordially.”

Feigning indifference, she turned a disdainful glare to the crowd outside the chapel. The Bishop of Tours stood solemnly in his rich vestments. English men-at-arms, their garb bearing the hated leopard device, gaped at her, as did the castle folk. Beside the bishop stood another cleric, who bore the blunt features of a Saxon and a look of piety Lianna did not quite trust. Peeking from the sleeve of his robe, she noticed, was a bit of leather oddly like a cuff used in hawking.

Hawking... A memory emerged from the confused thoughts stewing in her mind. Rand had once mentioned a priest who had a fondness for hawking and hunting. Her stomach plummeted to her knees, and her head began to pound. Rand. The name might be a diminutive of—

“Enguerrand of Longwood comes,” said her uncle.

She turned.

He smiled.

It was all she could do to choke off the scream that climbed from the depths of her heart into her throat.

Blazing with power and confidence, wearing a white tabard adorned with a golden leopard rampant, he approached. His face wore the look he’d given her a hundred times, the look that had the power to melt her soul. His clear, leaf-green eyes danced with elation; his golden hair shone in the noontide sun.

Dear God in heaven, Rand. Enguerrand of Longwood. She trembled all over, inside and out, as Burgundy propelled her forward. Her hands, balled into fists at her sides, were ice-cold. So, she hoped, were the eyes with which she raked him from head to toe.

“You...”
Her voice was a harsh, tortured whisper.

“Neither dreams,” he murmured as he bent, adorning her cheek with a kiss, “nor even prayers could have so happy an answer.”

Stung by his kiss, his words, and her weak-kneed reaction, she pulled away. Betrayal burned in her heart. The man who had pledged his friendship, who had made her life bright with promises, was the
god-don
who had abducted her, who meant to steal her home and her dignity. And, sweet Virgin Mary, she might be carrying his baby. No French heir, but an Englishman’s child.

Staring hard at his face—so alight with joy, so devoid of guilt—Lianna heard her uncle speak. “Let the ceremony begin.”

In a ringing voice the Bishop of Tours blessed a pair of jewel-encrusted rings, held on a velvet pillow by Jack Cade, the mawkish herald Lianna had driven from Bois-Long. She cringed when the deed of settlement was read. All her worldly goods—her property, even her body—were given unto Enguerrand Fitzmarc, first Baron of Longwood. She belonged to him—but desperately, silently, she vowed he’d never own her heart.

The bishop called for the common consent. She nearly spoke her protest aloud. Catching a look of dark fury from her uncle, she quelled the impulse.

“Then let him come who is to give away the bride.”

Burgundy’s fingers closed around hers.

“And let him give her to the man as his lawful wife.”

Dazed by fury and heartache, she felt Burgundy place her hand into Rand’s keeping. A shock of sensation stung her. Recoiling like an exploding cannon, she pulled away from him. His touch had lost none of its potency. She was shamed by her reaction to the man who had duped her, used her, mangled her heart, and stolen her innocence. Ah, said a niggling voice at the back of her mind, but you were only too eager to give him that innocence. Such are the wages of the deception you practiced.

His face soft with an affection she now knew to be false, Rand took the smaller of the golden rings from Jack. He slipped the ring on and off three successive fingers of her right hand, in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, then placed the ring on her left hand.

His voice echoed across the crowded yard. “With this ring I thee wed, with this gold I thee honor, and with all my worldly goods I thee endow.”

He proclaimed his vows like a love song, striking a chord of response in Lianna that rang in her soul and left her shaken.

Duchess Margaret’s women sent up a collective sigh. With annoyance Lianna heard their whispers of admiration for the handsome Englishman.

Her fingers numb, she took the other ring, repeated the empty gesture and unfelt vows in a flat, lusterless voice. Rand stiffened beside her. So. She’d managed to communicate her displeasure, to penetrate his armor of self-confidence.

When she reached the end of her vows, Lianna went still. She knew well what was to come next—knew and resisted it with every fiber of pride she possessed.

“We are waiting, my lady,” Burgundy said icily.

“No,” she whispered. “No, I won’t—”

“You will prostrate yourself before your husband.” His eyes told her that this was her punishment for defying him, for bringing in his enemy to defend Bois-Long.

Cheeks flaming, she sank to her knees and bowed her head in a deep curtsy of submission. She clenched her eyes shut. She had lost all to deceit and treachery. The utter humiliation of the gesture sapped her of strength.

The crowd buzzed. A strong hand closed around hers. Slowly, as if waking from a bad dream, she dragged open her burning eyes and lifted her pounding head.

And found herself face-to-face with Rand.

Amazement flooded her mind. He had knelt before her, proving to all the celebrants that he and his wife were equals. Like a warm balm, the display soothed the sting of her mortification.

No, he lies even in this, she thought. Still, he’d saved her honor, her dignity. She let him raise her to her feet. Burgundy’s face pinched with displeasure as he led the way into the chapel, where the bishop’s clean white hands blessed the couple and lifted the Host in a mass of celebration.

“You’ve a right to be angry, my love,” he whispered. “But remember, I, too, have the right. You’ve installed an outlaw knight at the castle given to me. Now I must risk myself, my men, wresting it from Gaucourt and Mondragon.”

“My heart bleeds for you, my lord,” she said.

His eyes glinted with the soft, diffuse light of many candles. “You are not the fawnlike creature I met in the glade, but a warrior-woman. I must get used to that.” Firmly he took her hand. “And so I shall. Lianna, this marriage is what we have both wanted.”

“I wanted to be loved by the man I believed you to be,” she stated. “Not used and betrayed by a
god-don.
”

“We will be happy together.”

“We will be enemies forever.”

* * *

The music of timbrels and viols rang through the
grande salle,
mingling with the lively sounds of celebration. Despite his anger at his niece, Burgundy had spared nothing in staging the wedding feast. Sideboards groaned under the weight of puncheons of wine. Trenchers of boar’s meat, roasted onions, and spring pease littered the trestle tables. The wedding guests exclaimed over a subtlety of pastry and spun sugar, fashioned into a replica of lilies and leopards.