The Mistress Of Normandy (5 page)

He nodded. “I see. It’s common enough for a gentlewoman to surround herself with younger girls, common for those girls to learn polite accomplishments.” One eyebrow lifted. “Gunnery is hardly a polite accomplishment.”

“But far more useful than spinning and sewing.”

“And far more dangerous. Does your mistress know of your experiments with guns?”

A small, tight smile.
“Certes.”

“She approves?”

A regal nod. “Most heartily.”

Rand loosed a long, weary sigh. What manner of woman was his bride-to-be that she’d let this girl, clearly little older than a child, dabble in weaponry?

Lianna was staring hard at him. He sensed his questions had aroused her suspicions and so left off his queries. Instinctively he’d kept his identity from the girl. Now he was glad. Soon enough she’d learn he was Enguerrand Fitzmarc, the English knight come to claim the demoiselle and the château. Until then he merely wanted to be Rand to her.

“You’re trespassing,” she said matter-of-factly, pointing to a line of blazed poplars in the distance.

“So I am,” he replied, looking at the boundary of trees. He took her hand and helped her to her feet. Her hand felt small but strong and seemed to fit his own like a warm little bird in a nest.

“Come,” he said, “I want to be certain your gunshot didn’t frighten my horse all the way to Gascony.” Dropping her hand, he bent to retrieve her cloak and apron. The weight of the apron surprised him. He peered into the pocket, then stared at Lianna. “I don’t know why I expected to find winter stonecrop blossoms in here,” he said. “You’re a walking arsenal.”

She picked up her gun and stood while he tied the apron at her waist and draped the cloak about her shoulders. He let his hands linger there. “Your mistress is wrong to allow you to venture forth with a gun.” Silently he swore to stop Lianna once he took possession of the castle.

“My mistress understands the necessity of it.”

“Necessity?”

Her little wooden sabots kicked up her hem as she walked by his side. “We’ve had no peace since Edward the Third crossed the leopards of England with the lilies of France.”

What a curious mixture of innocence and worldliness she was. At once fragile, forceful, and forthright, she awakened powerful desires in him. She looked like a girl immortalized in a troubadour’s lay, yet her behavior contradicted the image. Jussie, he recalled, had never concerned herself with affairs of state.

“France is more at war with herself than with England,” he said. “King Charles is drooling mad, and the noble houses bicker like fishwives while the peasants starve.”

“And will subjecting ourselves to Henry’s usurpation improve our lot?”

“Better a sane Englishman than a mad Frenchman on the throne,” Rand said.

She stopped walking, whirled to face him. “Under whose banner will you fight? What cause do you champion?”

He swallowed, then affected a rakish grin. “Widows and orphans, of course.”

She sniffed. “A convenient reply.”

Discussing intelligent subjects with a woman, he thought, was not altogether unpleasant. “You speak ably of affairs that most men know nothing of.”

“I’m not one to hide myself away and pretend ignorance. ’Tis exactly what the English
god-dons
would like, and I’ll not oblige them.”

It’s not what every English
god-don
would like, he thought, watching the sunlight dance in the silvery mantle of her hair.

They found his horse grazing placidly on salt grass in a glade of water beeches. Nearby stood a weathered stone marker, its four arms of equal length marking it as St. Cuthbert’s cross. The horse looked up, ears pricked. His dappled flanks gleamed in the heatless light of the March sun.

Lianna stopped walking to stare at the hard-muscled percheron, then at Rand. “I think you should explain who you are,” she said. Her gaze slipped from the top of his blond head to the spurs on his mud-caked boots. “You are simply dressed, yet that horse of yours is no plowman’s rouncy.”

Inwardly he winced at the distrust in her tone. She was too straightforward to be easily deceived. “Charbu was a gift.” His hand strayed to the lump created by the amulet beneath his mail shirt. Henry had given him Charbu as one of many gifts and another thread in the web of obligation he’d woven around Rand.

Lianna set down her gun and approached the horse. “Charbu,” she said softly, stroking the handsome blazed face. “A fine, strong name. Tell me, Charbu, about your master. Does he hail from Gascony, as he claims? Does he ride you on raids with a band of
écorcheurs?
”

The horse whickered gently and tossed its head. Momentarily captivated by the sight of the small girl with her cheek pressed against the horse’s neck, Rand stood speechless. At length he found his voice and strode forward. “If you think me a brigand, why aren’t you fainting or screaming?”

“I never faint,” she replied smugly. “And rarely scream. And you’ve not answered me.”

“I am a...traveling knight, Lianna. I swear to you I do not ride with brigands. But I would like to ride with you. Let me take you to Bois-Long.”

“No,” she said quickly. “I think it best you stay clear of the château.”

Why? he wondered. Did the chatelaine treat trespassers harshly? God, did she mistreat Lianna? He touched a strand of her hair; it felt like spun silk. “Is Bois-Long such an inhospitable place?”

“I fear it has become so,” she replied, her eyes brimming with unspoken regret.

Rand felt a great urge to fold her against him then, to surround her with the tenderness that had been blossoming in his heart since he’d first laid eyes on her. “At least let me take you partway,” he suggested.

She balked; he persisted and, finally, prevailed. Her gun across the saddlebow, her arms clasped around his waist, she rode behind him and they talked. He learned that she often saved crumbs from her breakfast to feed a family of swallows that nested in the castle battlements. He told her that he invented songs to play on his harp. She confessed to a passion for comfits, and he admitted to holding frequent, absurd discourses with his horse.

Then she was silent for a long time. Glancing over his shoulder, Rand asked, “What are you thinking, Lianna?”

Softly, so softly he could barely hear, she said, “I’m thinking that you’ve come too late.”

The soft throb of sadness in her voice made something inside him ache. His hand stole to hers, cradling it. “Too late for what?”

She withdrew her hand. “For...nothing. It matters not.”

Although curious about her melancholy, he asked no more of her. If she yearned for a suitor, he could not be the one to court her.

Presently they came to a coppice of elm trees, and Lianna asked to dismount. Rand leapt to the ground and, grasping her at the waist, helped her down.

“Lianna?” he murmured, his voice deep and husky. He placed his fingers under her chin and raised her face to his. “Have a care for yourself,
pucelle.
”

“I will. And you, too, in your travels.”

Their eyes met and held for a breathless moment. Rand lifted a wisp of pale hair from her cheek and set it aside. She smiled, and her smile made everything inside him clamor with joy and fear. God, he thought, will she look at me so when she learns who I am, why I’m here?

His hands came up to frame her face, thumbs tracing the lyrical lines of her cheekbones. Slowly, like a man moving through a dream, he leaned down, drawn by a force that resisted every harsh rule that had been schooled into him. Their lips touched lightly at first, searching, tasting, and then their mouths fused into a kiss of desperate abandon. High, shattering waves of yearning crested within Rand, lifting his soul. He wanted to fill himself with this brave, winsome creature who smelled of soap and sulfur and who tasted of springtime.

His vows began to waver, but guilt bored a hole in his passion. Like it or not, he was betrothed to another woman. In kissing Lianna, he was betraying his obligation to the demoiselle and belittling his years of devotion to Jussie.

Slowly, unwillingly, he released her and drew his fingers from the shining white-blond hair that cloaked her shoulders. She wore a look of bewildered wonderment.

* * *

“I’d...best...go,” Lianna said unsteadily, feeling her every nerve vibrate with exultation. She put her fingers to her lips, to hold the taste of him there, to brand his touch on her memory. Her captivated heart wanted to beg him to come with her, but her cautious mind warned her off. Although a victim of Lazare’s treachery, she was a married woman. Trysting with this stranger was the act of an adulteress. One day, she thought hopelessly. Had I met him one day before, my life would have been different. This Gascon knight would not stray from her chamber, would not deny her an heir, a child. Quelling a surge of sorrow, she said, “I suppose you ought to get back to your travels.”

“I suppose....” He seemed as reluctant to leave as she was for him to go. “Lianna—”

The bright tones of clarions suddenly rent the air. Recognizing the distinctive blare, she froze. The familiar trills could mean only one thing: her uncle of Burgundy had arrived. Reality crashed down around her ears, ripping her mind from the fantasies she’d built around this great, golden archangel of a Frenchman.

“Who comes?” he asked, craning his neck to see the distant road.

“A...guest of rank,” she murmured, her thoughts already racing. Was the kitchen prepared to serve another feast? Was the hall presentable? A soft curse dropped from her lips.

“Did your father the gunner teach you to swear, too?” asked Rand.

She flashed him a smile. “I learned that on my own.” Her grin faded. Burgundy was coming to see her, and she was covered with soot and reeking of gunpowder.

“I must make haste,” she said. She pulled her hand from his, grabbed her gun from the saddlebow, and sprinted toward the château.

“Wait!”

“I cannot tarry,” she called back.

“When will I see you again?” he asked.

“I...we can’t...I shouldn’t...” Torn by indecision, she slowed her pace and turned, walking backward. She had too much to explain, and too little time.

“But I must see you again.”

The urgent, compelling note in his voice brought her to a complete halt. She stared at him, a sun-spangled vision surrounded by blue sky and budding trees, and her heart turned over in her chest. His eyes shone with a deep, inner light that she knew would haunt her for the rest of her days. He looked as if his very life depended on her answer.

“Meet me,” he said, “at the place of Cuthbert’s cross....”

The clarions blared again, startling her anew and driving a hot arrow of hopelessness into her heart. “
Nom de Dieu,
why?” she asked raggedly.

His face opened into that magical, mesmerizing smile. “Because,” he shouted, “I think I love you!”

Three

H
er mind reeling with apprehension at her uncle’s sudden arrival, and her heart snared by Rand’s parting words, Lianna raced over the causeway and bounded into the bailey.

Don’t let him see me, she prayed silently. Please, Lord, not until I make myself presentable. She skirted the band of ducal retainers, ducked beneath the flapping standard of a blood-red St. Anthony’s cross, and headed for the keep. A flock of chickens wandered into her path, panicking as they tangled in her skirts. Shrieking, the chickens scattered, winging up dust eddies and leaving Lianna on her knees.

A vivid oath burst from her as she blinked against the dust. When her vision cleared, she found herself staring up at the unfaltering blue eyes, stark face, and uncompromising figure of her uncle. A wide-cut, squirrel-trimmed sleeve gaped before her as he extended his hand and helped her up.

“You stink of sulfur.”

She blushed. A ripple of mirth emanated from the retainers. Burgundy silenced them with a single powerful scowl.

Abashed, she indicated her gun. “I was out shooting.”

He rolled his eyes heavenward, took a deep breath, and said, “Five minutes, Belliane. You have five minutes to present yourself to me in the hall—as a lady, if you please, not some ragged hoyden from the marshes.”

She dipped her head in a submissive nod. “Yes, Your Grace,” she murmured, and fled to her solar.

Exactly four minutes later, clad in her best gown of royal blue, her head capped and veiled in silvery gauze, Lianna careened down the stairs toward the hall. Bonne had doused her with a generous splash of rosewater and had scrubbed the last traces of gunpowder from her face. Lianna glanced down at the heavy velvet swishing around her slippered feet. The anonymous
pucelle
who had enchanted Rand was no more. She longed to fold his image into her heart, to cherish in private his avowal of love. But her uncle was waiting.

Nearing the hall, she slowed her pace, lifted her chin, and glided in to confront the most powerful man in France.

Styled Jean Sans Peur—the Fearless—by friend and foe alike, he kept a stranglehold grip on the political pulse of the kingdom. A ruthless man, Burgundy possessed stone-cold ambition and a penchant for intrigue and deeds done in secret. Men lived at his sufferance and sometimes died at his command.

Yet when Lianna greeted him, looked into his blue eyes, she saw only affection. Pressing her cheek to his chest, she felt the chain mail he always wore beneath his ducal raiments. But the hand he lifted to stir a lock of her hair was gentle. Burgundy’s cold, suspicious heart housed a small, warm corner for his orphaned niece.

“Better,
p’tite,
” he said. “Much better. You’re lovely.”

She nodded to acknowledge the compliment, although she would have preferred that he notice the new gun emplacements she and Chiang had worked so hard to build. “Come warm yourself by the fire.” She took his wind-chilled hand.

But Burgundy gestured toward the passage at the back of the hall. “I would speak to you in private, niece.”

She preceded him into the privy apartment, waited until he sat, then perched nervously on the edge of a stool.

His eyes full of dark fires, Burgundy looked at her for a long, measuring moment. He sucked a deep breath through his nostrils. “Your disobedience would not hurt so much,” he said quietly, “did I not love you so, Belliane.”

An unexpected lump rose in her throat. “I had no choice. King Henry would have made an English bastion of Bois-Long.”

“Better an English bastion than a French ruin. Where is this husband of yours?”

“Out riding with the reeve.”

“I know Lazare Mondragon,” Burgundy said, his mouth twisting with distaste. “He came begging favors some years ago. I turned him away.” Stroking a long-fingered hand over his Siberian squirrel collar, he added, “They say Mondragon loved his first wife to distraction, nearly grieved unto death when she died. Think you he will hold you in such esteem?”

“I do not need his esteem, only his name in marriage.”

Burgundy sighed. “You could have had better,
p’tite.

“Ah, for
certes
I did.” Frustration shadowed his face. “By marrying Mondragon, you’ve cheated yourself out of a brilliant alliance.”

Unbidden laughter burst from her. “What mean you, Uncle?”

“I speak in earnest,” he said harshly. “By my faith, Belliane, I was saving you for an English noble.”

Shock rocketed through her, then gave way to harsh understanding. So that was why King Henry had meddled with her life.

Bleakly she realized that she was her uncle’s pawn after all, a minor chess piece in his political game. An alliance with England would bring Burgundy’s power to a zenith, enable him to vanquish his hated enemy, Count Bernard of Armagnac, who now controlled the mad French king.

Recoiling from the idea, she took a gulp of air. “My allegiance begins and ends with Bois-Long and France. The promise of winning a title cannot lure me from it.”

“You should not have acted without my consent, Belliane.”

She could not meet his eyes, because he would see her distrust, her belief that his love for her was less compelling than his affinity for intrigue. “Uncle, your wardship over me ended when I reached my majority December last. I was free to contract for my own marriage, free to flout Henry’s directive.”

“You speak treason, my lady.”

“
He
is not my sovereign!”

“Yet he has styled himself so, claiming the lands won by his grandsire, Edward the Third. Henry will enforce that claim with military might. An alliance with him would be prudent at this time.” The duke’s face pinched into an expression known to strike terror into the hearts of royal princes. But Lianna didn’t flinch as she raised her head.

They sat facing each other, eyes locked. Then Burgundy’s expression changed to grudging admiration. “Would that more Frenchmen had your attitude,” he mused. “We’d never be under Henry’s thumb in the first place.” He strode to the hearth, stood before the blaze. Firelight carved hollows in his cheeks, and worry pleated his brow. Sudden tenderness touched Lianna. Her uncle held a difficult position. Caught up in the madness and dissension between the princes royal of France, Jean had spoken for the common people in the Royal Council, made enemies of the nobles. Now, banished from Paris and opposed by the Armagnacs, he had apparently thrown in his lot with the English.

“Young Henry means to regain the throne of France,” said Jean. “He’s a man driven, at least in his own mind, by divine inspiration. His ambition knows no scruples. Not a man to defy heedlessly.”

“That may well be, Your Grace. But I will not cede Bois-Long to him. I’d be doing my king and my countrymen a great disservice if I were to relinquish the ford to Henry’s army.”

“Your countrymen!” the duke spat. “Who are they, but a lot of quarreling children switching allegiance as capriciously as the winds over the Narrow Sea? France needs a strong guiding hand. Henry—”

“Is another English pretender,” Lianna snapped.

Burgundy sighed. “You may think you’ve thwarted him. Perhaps you have, for the time being. But Harry of Monmouth is too much like you for my comfort. He’s willful, intelligent, energetic.” Burgundy returned to his chair and sat in pensive silence. At length he asked, “What know you of Longwood?”

“Only what I could read between the lines of his overblown missive. This Longwood is
un horzain—
an outsider, an upstart bastard,” she stated. “His title is barely a month old. And he is a traitor like his father, Marc de Beaumanoir.”

“Beaumanoir was no traitor, Lianna. He simply hadn’t the means to buy his ransom from Arundel.”

“Traitor or not, his bastard will never have Bois-Long.”

Burgundy shook his head. “
Parbleu,
but you are an exasperating brat. You constantly meddle in male affairs.”

“Only those that concern me and my people, Uncle.” Seeing his face darken, she crossed to his side and took his hand. A cold tongue of apprehension touched the base of her spine. In the game Burgundy was playing, the stake was nothing less than the control of France. “What will you do?” she asked.

“I shall do as I see fit,” he said simply. His silence made her more nervous than any ruthless plan.

* * *

For the first time in her life, Lianna found herself too preoccupied to supervise the feast with her usual meticulous control. Ordinarily she would have chastised the servitor who brought the venison on a poorly polished plate. Her sharp eye would have noticed that the croustade Lombard, made with fruit and marrow, was placed too far from the high table, and that the pastry subtlety of the lilies of France was overdone.

Instead her mind worried her problems like a persistent itch. Burgundy seemed determined to undermine the steps she’d taken to protect Bois-Long. The Mondragons were intent on flaunting their new status. And all the while, sweet, lingering thoughts of Rand, his stunning declaration, the goodness that emanated from him, kept her heart in a state of high rapture.

Ignorant of Burgundy’s displeasure, the Mondragons feasted with delight. Lazare ordered wine casks to be unbunged and called to the minstrels’ gallery for livelier entertainment.

Gervais, darkly attractive and full of confidence, raised his cup. “To my mother,” he said, nodding congenially at Lianna. “Two years my junior, but I pray that won’t keep her from doting on me.” Laughter rippled from the lower tables.

The heat of a furious blush crept to Lianna’s cheeks. She darted a look at her uncle, who sat at her right. Only she understood the significance of Burgundy’s controlled silence, the tightness of his grip around his glass mazer. Damn Gervais, the
salaud!
He’d not speak so blithely did he realize how tenuous his hold on Bois-Long had become.

Artfully arranging a raven curl over her milk-white shoulder, Macée turned boldly to the duke. “Your Grace,” she said, fluttering her inky lashes, “don’t you wish for Belliane to perform for us? She has a fine hand at the harp.”

Lianna cringed inwardly. Macée had heard her play at the wedding feast and knew her art was poor. But Uncle Jean, merciful at least in this, shook his head. “I’m content to hear the minstrels, madame.”

Macée pouted. Lazare, affecting a dignified air to cover his drunkenness, clapped his hands and called for silence. “My wife will play for us,” he said.

Lianna had no choice but to comply. Lazare was asserting his husbandly control over her; if she wished to prove to Burgundy that she intended to uphold her French marriage, she must act the wife and obey.

Taking her place in front of the high table, she stroked the harp strings with her long, tapered fingers. She performed a
chanson de vole
that she knew to be a favorite of her uncle’s.

Her voice rang true, the notes hard and bright with unwavering clarity. Still, her style lacked the deep resonance of true artistry.

Burgundy watched her closely, seeming more interested in her somewhat dispassionate countenance than in her singing. When she finished on a clear, contralto note, he was the first to applaud.
“Enchantante,”
he commented.

She set aside the harp and returned to the table. She couldn’t resist whispering to Macée, “You’ll have to try harder,
chère,
to belittle me in the eyes of my uncle.”

Macée sent her a sizzling look. “Your art would improve did you not spend so much time in the armory, concocting gunpowder.”

The gibe hurt more than Lianna cared to admit. Of late her femininity had been called into question—by Lazare’s rejection, her uncle’s anger. Even Rand, in his kindness, had made a gentle censure of her interest in gunnery. Now Macée—fabulously beautiful, wise in ways Lianna was only beginning to suspect—challenged her.

“I’m defending the castle instead of warming a chair with my backside,” said Lianna, keeping her tone light.

Macée spoke slowly, as if to a half-wit. “The defense of the castle is men’s work.”

Lianna encompassed Lazare and Gervais with a dismissive glance. “The men in charge of Bois-Long have done little to see to its defense.” Flames of anger ignited in the eyes of both Mondragons. She stole a glance at her uncle. His mouth grew taut with suppressed merriment.

“Well spoken,” he murmured.

“But do you not think,” persisted Macée, “that a lady should have polite accomplishments? After all, if she’s to be received at court—”

A hiss of anger escaped from the duke.

“I’ll practice,” Lianna promised with sudden urgency. She prayed Macée, ignorant of Burgundy’s banishment, would speak no more of the French court. Inadvertently the foolish woman had stuck a barb in an old wound. Desperate to placate him, Lianna turned the subject. “Guy and
Mère Brûlot,
folk who remember my mother, say she made magic with the harp.”

The hardness left Burgundy’s eyes, as if he’d decided to let the offense pass. “Aye, my sister did sing well.”

“Perhaps there’s hope for me, then. I could send to Abbeville for a music master.”

He shook his head. “The feeling,
p’tite,
the passion, cannot be taught. It must come from the heart.” He glanced pointedly at Lazare, who seemed to have discovered something fascinating in the bottom of his goblet. “You have the skill. One day, perhaps, true music will come.”

She pretended to understand, because the duke wished her to. But in sooth she knew better than to suppose that passion would improve her singing. Unless... The blinding radiance of Rand’s image burned into her mind. The scene in the great hall receded, and she saw only him, her vagabond prince. The memory of his gentle touch and caressing smile filled her with a sharp, plaintive yearning that she likened to the ecstasy of an inspired poet.
Nom de Dieu,
could such a man teach her to sing?

* * *

“Sing the one about the cat again,” cried Michelet, tugging insistently at the hem of Rand’s tunic. The boy’s younger brothers and sisters chorused a half dozen other requests.

Rand grinned and shook his head. He set aside his harp and reached down to rumple the carroty curls of little Belle. “Later, nestlings,” he said, stooping to aim the baby’s walker away from the hearth. “I must not neglect my men.”