And so I shall sell this used body to the highest bidder, Laura silently vowed. It mattered not were he young or old, only that he had sufficient income to support a wife and child and could be trusted to treat Clarice well and protect her.
It seemed easily attainable, as if Laura would have many to choose from, but she would be fortunate to find one, and only then were she given aid. Would Queen Eleanor help her distant cousin who had borne a child out of wedlock, so shaming her family she was disavowed? No chance if the truth of Clarice remained a secret, but now Maude was gone…
“Come, milady, give me yer back.”
Laura scooted forward and lowered her chin in preparation for the stiffly bristled brush.
As Tina piled her lady’s wet tresses atop her head and began working the brush over a shoulder blade, that voice persisted in reminding Laura it was time. Drawing a deep breath, she peered over her shoulder. “Not the brush, Tina. A washcloth.”
The maid’s eyes grew so round, Laura knew in her first life—before Clarice—she would have laughed. “I do not know I heard right, milady. Did ye say washcloth?”
“I did.”
“Huh!” She dropped the brush to the floor and snatched up the cloth she had earlier worked over face and hands.
It was so lightly felt that twice Laura looked around lest she imagined the soft fibers.
“Are ye comin’ into sickness, milady?”
Laura lowered her chin again, caught her reflection in water so clouded with soap she could see no more than the outline of her torso and limbs—as preferred.
“I am not.” She stared into eyes one would never know had once shone with happiness. “’Tis just…” She nearly said it was time, but that would make as little sense to Tina as using the washcloth. “I am clean enough.”
Rather, she could get no cleaner. She was sullied and would ever be. More, were she to capture a husband, he would expect soft unmarred skin, and for the sake of Clarice, she would have to keep him content. Especially in bed.
Bile shooting into her mouth, she convulsed.
“Ye are ill, milady!”
Laura grimaced as the acid burned its way back down. “’Tis but something I ate.”
After a long moment, Tina said, “Or something ye did not eat. I saw ye nibble all ’round yer bread, and did ye even taste the soup? Methinks not.”
Though Laura’s appetite was often lacking, it had been absent this eve after the incident with Clarice and the lady of the castle’s son, which had propelled her in a direction she had not yet fully accepted she must travel.
Laura sat back. “I am done with my bath. Pray, bring a towel near.”
Tina shook out the large cloth and stretched it between her hands.
Gripping the tub’s rim, Laura set her chin high and stood. Yet another thing she must overcome—distaste for an unclothed body. As difficult as it was to look at her own, how was she to look upon a husband’s?
More bile, but she was prepared, and Tina did not notice her lady’s discomfort as she enfolded her in the towel.
“I shall get ye into yer chemise and braid yer hair, then to bed.”
“Clarice—”
“Tsk, milady. Worry not, I shall go for her and see her upon her pallet.”
The one alongside Laura’s bed, which her daughter had rarely used before Maude’s passing. Most nights the girl had slept in her grandmother’s chamber. Though Laura told herself it was because of her own restless sleep, it was a lie. Clarice had loved her grandmother more. She still did, and with good cause.
But I am awake now, she assured herself.
Another lie, though she was awakening, and would do right by her daughter as had not seemed necessary until now. Maude had made it too easy for Laura to live inside herself—to be more a creature of the water than the air.
Guilt had done that to the older lady. And love of Clarice.
I am sorry, Laura sent her thoughts in search of the dead. I did not say it often enough, but you were too good to me. I should have been stronger for Clarice. Should have been a mother not a…
What was I? What am I? Not even a sister.
Tina pressed her onto the stool before her dressing table and, in a moment of unguardedness, Laura caught her reflection in the mirror.
Forcing her awakening self to confront the stranger there, she wondered how she was to secure a husband. Though with Maude’s guidance and encouragement she had maintained the facade and carriage of a fine lady, these past months had been less kind to her appearance than all the years before. She was thin and pale, eyes shadowed, lips low, shoulders bent.
Awaken, Laura. That voice again. For Clarice.
She opened her eyes wider, raised her shoulders, and watched as Lady Laura’s hair was gently combed and worked into braids.
A quarter hour later, Tina swept the covers atop her, fussed over the placement of the braids on the pillow to ensure the crimps lay right when she uncrossed them in the morn, then snuffed all but one candle.
“Sleep in God’s arms, milady,” she said and closed the door.
Laura stared at the ceiling and thought how much more she liked it seen through water. “God’s arms,” she whispered. “Ever too full to hold me. Lest I drop Clarice, I shall have to hold myself.”
Chapter 2
Barony of Lexeter, England
Mid-May, 1163
King Henry was returned, and with him his queen. For four years he had occupied his French lands, not once setting foot in his island kingdom. But now he was everywhere, traveling across England at a furious pace, setting aright wrongs, and—it was said—increasingly disillusioned with his old friend, Thomas Becket.
The archbishop, a favorite to whom the king had entrusted the education of his heir, was not behaving. At least, not how Henry wished Thomas to behave.
As for Queen Eleanor, she was also making her presence felt. In this moment. Inside these walls.
“What does that harlot want?”
Lothaire stiffened. He had heard footsteps, but since they did not scrape or land heavily, he thought they belonged to a servant come to prepare the hall for the nooning meal. When his mother wished to be stealthy, she made the effort to lift and softly place her feet.
Setting his teeth, he turned.
She stood before the dais upon which the lord’s table was raised. Wisps of silver hair visible beneath her veil, face loose and heavily lined, she arched eyebrows above eyes so lightly lidded they seemed unusually large.
Having wed a man six years younger than she and birthed Lothaire just past the age of thirty, Raisa Soames could more easily be his grandmother. Though fifty and nine, she looked older. But then, she had always appeared aged beyond her years. For that and her temperament, it was told her now departed husband had often strayed from the marriage bed.
“My son,” she said with an imperious lift of her chin, “I asked a question.”
And he would answer when he answered. They were years beyond her ability to dominate him, but ever she tried to take back ground lost a decade past after his betrothal to Lady Laura Middleton was broken.