He nodded, no longer smiling. “I would have followed the king into Hell itself if need be.”
That was not what she’d wanted to hear, but at least he’d been honest. “Well, you followed him to Germany,” she said dryly, “so that was close enough to Hell, I expect. And John?”
“He is my liege lord,” he said, and she gave him another searching look, for he sounded dutiful, not enthusiastic. Who would be enthusiastic about serving John, though, with his history of broken promises and betrayals? They walked in silence for several moments before he said, “There is this you must know, my lady. If we were to wed, my first loyalty would then be to you, as my wife.”
He sounded sincere. She knew how easily sincerity was feigned, yet she sensed no guile in him. “So you’d not resolve any of our marital disputes by locking me up in the castle keep?”
“Jesu, no!” he exclaimed before realizing that she was being flippant. He smiled again, ruefully this time. “My brother thinks I am a chivalrous fool,” he admitted, “and he may be right. But I am comfortable in my own skin, my lady, and have no desire to be other than as I am.”
Constance thought there were worse fates than being married to a chivalrous fool. “I believe you to be an honorable man,” she said, “and I think you have a good heart.”
“I sense a ‘but’ coming,” he said lightly. “I was planning to plead my case with you. Yet I do not know how persuasive an argument it is to say, ‘You could do worse, much worse than me.’”
Constance was realizing that Guy was also quite likable—and that he had a very engaging smile. He was not at all like Geoffrey. But mayhap that was for the best. “Did you mean it when you said that if we were wed, your first loyalty would be to me?”
“Yes—to you and to our children.”
For some reason, that caught her by surprise. “You want children?”
“Of course. Do you not want them, too?”
During her marriage to the Earl of Chester, the last thing she’d wanted was to become pregnant. Whilst she was no longer young, women of thirty-eight could still get with child. Would she want that? “Yes . . . I think I do.”
Still, she hesitated. Was it such a risk, though? If he were to prove too troublesome, her barons could always run him out of Brittany as they had Chester. Why not take this attractive, good-humored man? For indeed, she could do much worse. “Very well,” she said. “I will marry you, Sir Guy.”
“You truly will?” He laughed, looking so boyishly elated that she could not help laughing, too. At least he had the mother wit to understand how lucky he was.
She was not expecting what he did next, for so far they’d discussed the marriage as the political arrangement it was. But he stepped forward then, tilted her face up to his, and kissed her.
“I shall do my best to make sure you have no regrets,” he vowed, and kissed her again. The first kiss had been tentative. This one was not, and Constance found herself responding to it. It had been so long since a man had shown her tenderness. She felt as if her body were awakening after years of sleep. His mouth was warm, and when he pulled her to him, she did not care that she was embracing a stranger in a public garden, probably under the shocked eyes of her ladies and barons.
When they ended the embrace, she gazed up at him in wonderment, for this was the first time that she’d felt herself free of Geoffrey’s ghost. He’d always hovered close at hand during her unsatisfactory couplings with Randolph, reminding her of all she’d had and lost. Was it possible that Guy de Thouars could exorcise his sardonic spirit, banish him back to the realm of memory where ghosts belonged?
It was obvious to her that Guy had been singed by the same flame. He was still holding her close, his body offering her flattering proof that he desired the woman, not just the duchess. “When,” he asked throatily, “can we wed? I’d say the sooner, the better!”
One of John’s spies later reported on their garden encounter, and upon being told that he’d seen Constance and Guy laughing together as if they were lovers, not political pawns, John frowned, for that was not what he’d expected to hear.