Having steadied her lady, Tina whipped up her own skirt and wiped at Laura’s face. She dropped back, winced. “Well ’tis not as if Her Majesty is not expecting this, eh?” She squared her shoulders and opened the door—with no time to spare.
“Lady Laura!” Eleanor’s voice was like a whip against its recipient’s back. “Do we waste our time finding you a husband and your daughter a protector?”
Laura splayed her hands amid her skirts, turned.
The queen’s frown deepening, she made a sound of disgust and peered over her shoulder at Tina. “You. Close the door.”
“I should remain, Yer Majesty?”
“You should.”
As Tina swung the door in the faces of the queen’s ladies who stood in the corridor, Eleanor motioned Laura forward.
“Forgive me, Your Majesty.” Laura halted before her sovereign. “I know I should not have left the hall, but would that you had told me Baron Soames was in attendance. As you must know, it was a shock to see him again. ’Tis difficult enough accepting I am to wed a man I do not want without so painful a reminder of the man I…”
“Loved,” the queen said. “Perhaps still love, hmm?”
“I do not. Can not. It has been ten years, and I would be a fool to love one who feels only loathing and revulsion for me.” A tear fell. “Pray, send him away so I may do what I came for.”
The queen studied her so long a half dozen more tears fell ere she spoke again. “What you told us is true, Lady Laura?”
That which had remained a secret to nearly all while Lady Maude lived. “It is, Your Majesty.” She felt the presence of Tina who may have guessed but did not know with certainty the circumstances of Clarice’s conception. “’Twas not I who made a cuckold of Lord Soames.”
Eleanor’s smile was slight. “Then you have four prospects. By week’s end, you shall be betrothed.”
“Four! Surely you do not mean Baron Soames—”
“We do, and him most of all.”
Not ill timing. The queen’s timing. Laura’s knees softened, but she snapped them back lest she drop at her sovereign’s feet and make Eleanor further regret the aid given her cousin. “Pray, reconsider, Your Majesty. I do not know I can do this with him present. ’Twill be torture.”
The queen put her head to the side. “Have we not given counsel every day since your arrival? Have we not been heartened to see your body and resolve strengthen? Have we not summoned these men to court given your assurance you are ready to be a wife to the one we deem best for your daughter and you?”
Laura was ashamed by the spill of more tears. “Aye, Your Majesty, but—”
“Then enough! You will not disappoint us.” Eleanor raised her hands and stepped forward so suddenly Laura startled. But the queen did not slap at her. She took the younger woman’s face between her soft, fragrant palms. “Listen to me,” she eschewed the royal us, her reference to her singular self nearly setting Laura to sobbing. “If Baron Soames loved you as you say you loved him, he is the one. And when he learns the truth of your daughter, a good marriage you can make.”
Dear Lord, Laura silently bemoaned, she as good as tells she will choose him!
The queen lowered her hands and stepped back. “And he shall right another of his wrongs.”
Another? Laura wondered.
“Providing,” Eleanor added, “he is the man we believe him to be and is willing to take our advice on removing his mother from his home.” She shook her head. “That woman will be the ruin of him does he not sever her influence—as she would be the ruin of you and your daughter. Such bitterness over her husband’s faithlessness, his disappearance, and now…” She waved away whatever else she meant to say.
However, what she had revealed was intriguing enough to distract Laura. She knew Lothaire’s father had gone missing when his son was six years old and that he was never found, but Lothaire had not revealed his father was unfaithful. It accounted for his mother’s severity and portended how deeply Lothaire and Lady Raisa must have felt what they perceived as Laura’s faithlessness.
“You will return to the hall, Lady Laura.” It was not a question. “And you will spend time with your suitors in our sight so we may observe.”
Laura longed to fall on the bed and only be bodily moved from it, but she would appear ungrateful for all Eleanor had done. More, though at times the queen was nearly as severe as Lothaire’s mother, Laura sensed she genuinely cared for her scandalous relation.
“If you will allow me some minutes to put myself in order, Your Majesty, I shall rejoin you belowstairs.”
“And charm your suitors?”
She inclined her head.
“Even Lord Soames?”
She hesitated, asked, “Ere he appeared before me, did he know my purpose—that I am the one he must take to wife to ease his financial difficulties?”
“He did not, but whatever the others said of you following your departure, he did not like. And we venture it nearly moved him to a display of jealousy.”
That Laura did not believe. He was angered, but only by her presence and the waste of his time. Thus, he would surely be gone by the morrow, leaving her with three suitors.
And were he desperate enough to stay? Then within days he would depart. Painful though it would be, Laura would charm him as much as the others—nay, more. If purity and modesty were as important to him as once they had been, he would find her seriously lacking.
“Lady Laura?” Irritation edged the queen’s voice.
Laura forced a smile. “I shall charm all my suitors, Your Majesty.”
Eleanor’s lids narrowed, and though Laura expected her to warn her cousin about the lengths to which she could go to charm, she said, “A quarter hour. No more.” She turned, and Tina opened and closed the door behind her.
“I know what ye are thinking lass.” She drew her lady to the dressing table. “I saw the steel straightening yer back—and I am glad of it—but proceed carefully. Ye do not want to fall out of favor with a woman such as that.”
Laura lowered to the plump stool before the mirror, looked near upon her reddened eyes and cheeks. “Worry not, Tina. Cruelty by cruelty I am finding my way through the world.”
And shall leave a well-marked path for Clarice to follow, if necessary, she did not say. Then she silently prayed, Lord, let it not be necessary. Let me do for her what I should have done long ago. Do not let her life mirror mine.
When he was not discreetly tracking the woman who had betrayed him, ensuring their paths did not cross, he watched the queen. But though he did so with the hope of receiving permission to approach, whenever she bestowed her gaze, it was dismissive.
But he would not play her game. And that she would have to accept.
Moments later, Lothaire heard her voice and looked around to discover the distance between Laura and himself had narrowed considerably.
She was in the company of Lord Benton, having shed Lord Gadot with whom she had sat at meal, and the two strolled the path upon which Lothaire stood.
He nearly turned opposite, but when she looked up, pride demanded he not scurry away.