My eyes lifted. “Thank you, your Grace.”
“Now, I believe you know another dear friend of mine.”
“I do?”
“The former earl of Huntingdon?” he whispered to me.
My blood ran fast. “You know Rob?”
He smiled, tasting his soup. “So I imagine the stories are true, then. It’s him that truly has your heart.”
Allan had said as much before. “Who the hell is telling these stories?” I asked.
He chuckled. “More than likely, Eleanor of Aquitaine and her minstrels,” he told me, nodding down the table. I could see past Gisbourne and the princess to the prince; he leaned back and gave glimpse of an elegant grayed lady.
“That’s the dowager queen?” I asked.
He nodded. “There is no fairer personage to serve in the royal court,” he whispered to me. “Her youngest son may know little of what honor and grace truly represent, but trust me, she is the font of such qualities.”
Like a cloud, the prince blocked my view of her again.
“And she loves nothing more than a well-told story. She encourages such amongst the royal court. Courtly loves are always her favorites.”
“The love me and Rob have ain’t so courtly,” I told him.
He laughed. “God will judge you, not I,” he said. “But I would love to see him again. We knew each other well when we were boys.”
Perhaps he were true, and he loved Rob, but it were equal as likely that he weren’t, and this were some trick to find Rob—another wolf in the royal court. “I’ll speak of it when I see him, your Grace, but as he’s a bit of an outlaw he ain’t so easy to find,” I told him.
“Thank you,” he said, patting my hand.
“What are you two whispering about?” Gisbourne asked, but his eyes were on our touching hands.
Winchester released me. “The lady was assuring me her bruises didn’t hurt overmuch,” he said. “I had inquired after her welfare.”
“Your gallantry is misplaced,” the prince fair shouted round a mouthful of food. “The lady isn’t some delicate flower in need of chivalry, but rather the firmness of her husband’s hand, Winchester.”
“Surely no woman should lack for chivalry, my son.”
The prince looked to his side and I reckoned it must have been Eleanor that had spoken.
“Hardly a woman at all, is she, though?” he said, and a bit of food spat out. Even the princess made a stuck-up little face at that. “She’s a thief. A criminal. An outlaw—hardly falls into the same category.”
“The gentility befitting her sex should be inalienable,” Winchester said.
“Don’t be silly,” the prince railed on. “I suppose you bow and scrape for peasant women too, Winchester?”
“My wife is no peasant,” Gisbourne said.
I frowned. Honestly, why bother piping up at all?
“No, of course not. She elevated you, in fact, didn’t she?” the prince crowed. My husband’s face went dark. Didn’t much think he liked to be reminded of that.
The far ends of the tables were still talking amongst themselves, but the closer bits were listening to the prince make sport of me. “But my prince,” someone spoke up. “Surely you must take deportment into account. If anything, dear Gisbourne has lowered himself by his association. It’s like mating with a wild animal.”
“And what should we take into account about a person that so lowers the conversation during such a lovely meal, my lord de Lacy?” the queen said.
“If you can call de Lacy a lord, my lady queen,” said another man.
“Lord enough to see you on the field, Wendeval!” de Lacy roared back at him.
“My dear mother,” the princess said. “You must forgive him. We are all so confused about what to do with such a curiosity in our midst. We have all heard such stories about her, and now it seems she cannot even muster the words to speak. You must understand how this lends a certain air of savagery.”
“And yet the court’s ability to discuss a young lady as if she were an object seems savage also,” the queen said. “Most unbecoming, Isabel.”
I saw the princess flush at this rebuke, and Gisbourne looked to her.
“My dear mother,” she tried again, “I only meant to allay his thoughtless words. I, of course, have been eager to get to know the lady Leaford and am eager to hear what must be such … colorful stories. In her own words.”
“Ah, yes, you do love a good story, Mother. Come, Lady Marian, regale us,” the prince sneered at me.