Of the ride home to Lexeter, he recalled little. Nearly all was a blur, though less so his stop at the village of Thistle Cross to seek solace at the church whose priest had once ministered inside the castle walls.
A year after his lord’s disappearance, Father Atticus had displeased Lady Raisa. Like others in his lord’s service, he had been cast out. But rather than leave Lexeter, he had withdrawn to the nearest village and ministered alongside its aging priest. When the latter passed, Atticus had assumed the other man’s duties, returning to the castle only when called upon on the rare occasion Lady Raisa hosted other nobles and the presence of a man of God was required.
On that day of Laura’s betrayal, Lothaire had hated himself for the tears shed over the faithless woman, and Atticus had consoled him by listening and praying with him—as had become habit over the years since.
“Ah, but ever I am to blame,” Lady Raisa returned her son to her presence.
“Leave it be, Mother,” he said and strode to the stairs off which stepped Martin, his mother’s physician of too many years to number. A coincidence? Possible. Had he been listening in on the exchange between mother and son? More possible. If not that Lady Raisa was so dependent on the man, he would have been replaced years ago.
“My lord,” the physician acknowledged him.
Lothaire inclined his head and continued past. As he ascended the stairs, he glanced over his shoulder. Martin had hold of his mother’s arm and guided her toward the kitchen.
Moments later, Lothaire closed himself in the solar. When his breathing calmed, he read the queen’s missive again. He did not like the wording. It begged a question. Did she or did she not have a wife for him? She said she did, and yet in closing she wavered.
We shall expect you within a fortnight, Lord Soames. Do you present well, we believe you will gain the hand of the lady who shall bring to her marriage the relief many a lord seeks to save his lands. Do not disappoint us.
Chapter 3
Windsor Castle, England
Late May, 1163
She knew she was awake, but it seemed a dream she inhabited as she stared at the lady before her.
It was the finest mirror, with so little distortion she wondered if she had truly seen herself before. The pond she had not visited since before Clarice’s birth had offered the truest reflection, but she had never presented as clearly as this.
She did not think herself beautiful, but she was quite fair, especially after a month beneath the queen’s eye and that woman’s sighing over all that must be done to transform her cousin from disagreeably delicate to agreeably desirable.
Desirable. Laura detested the word. It told of things that happened in the dark whether a woman wished it or not.
“Milady?”
She blinked, looked to the maid beside her. “Am I ready, Tina?”
“Oh, lass.” She patted her lady’s cheek. “More ready than ever I have seen ye. And it has been six years since Lady Maude gave ye into me care, eh?”
Six years—following the visit to Simon’s half-brother whose wife had nearly suffered the same as Laura.
How she adored Michael and Lady Beatrix. How she wished she could accept their offer for Clarice and her to live at Castle Soaring. The temptation was great, but were she to agree, she would not fully awaken. And she was determined not to be a burden to anyone again—excepting whomever she wed, but he would have payment enough in the bedroom.
She almost smiled at the realization her throat did not burn with bile. She was growing accustomed to the idea of violation. That was good, for a poor marriage it would be—and of detriment to Clarice—if the man whose ring Laura wore discovered how she felt about what he did to her.
Still no bile.
“Six years, Tina. I pray we have many more.”
Blessedly they would, Maude’s stepson having agreed the maid could leave Owen, and Queen Eleanor concurring that Laura’s husband would accept Tina’s services.
“’Tis time,” the maid said.
Laura slid her palms down the skirt of one of a dozen gowns gifted her by Maude over the years.
The queen had been pleased with the quality and colors of Laura’s wardrobe, surely having expected the royal coffers to bear the cost of clothing her cousin in finery needed to capture a husband. Though a few gowns were no longer fashionable, a seamstress had been engaged to alter their fit and design.
Were I happy, Laura thought, I would feel like a princess.
“I am ready,” she said and followed Tina to the door of the luxurious apartment that had been hers these past weeks. Soon she would leave here, collect her daughter from Michael D’Arci and Lady Beatrix, and journey to wherever she would spend the remainder of her life with the man to whom she must give herself to provide her daughter a good future.
Now to see which lord so badly needed funds he would pay the price of a used lady newly awakened.
Which one was she?
The tall lady whose eyes rushed about the hall as if in search of someone? The freckled lady twisting a tress of glorious red hair? The elegant blond lady of an age several years beyond his own? What of the lady with hair the color of burnished bronze?
Lothaire looked nearer upon the latter. She stood in profile, but there was no denying she was lovely, albeit thinner than he liked.
He grunted. Though given a choice, he would pick a wife pure of body and passing pretty, he grudgingly accepted that what mattered was she possess dowry enough to return Lexeter to the prosperity it had enjoyed before his father’s murder over twenty years past.
He pushed that remembrance aside. Though determined to learn where Ricard Soames was buried so the old baron could be moved to consecrated ground, Lothaire was here to secure a wife.
He looked to the queen who had yet to grant him an audience though he had arrived at Windsor last eve. Likely, she remained displeased with him for wedding Lady Beata Fauvel without her permission, forcing her to arrange an annulment of the unconsummated marriage before she could see her favorite—Sir Durand Marshal—wed to the lady.
As Lothaire started to move his gaze from Eleanor, she settled hers on him. And smiled.
That he did not expect. Though he did not like her, he returned the smile.
She inclined her head and pointedly looked toward a gathering to her left.
Then it was to be the lady with the burnished bronze hair, she who had added another nobleman to her audience.
Lothaire was not averse to the queen’s offering. Of all those whose unveiled hair proclaimed them unwed, she was among the few with whom he would have sought an acquaintance. Young enough to bear children, but not so young he would suffer the foolishness of a girl who believed her maturing body made her a woman. Though more pleasing to the eye than he liked, he would simply have to be vigilant. As for her weight, once she knew he did not find half-starved women desirable, she would eat more.