Mary Ferrers was another of Eleanor’s half sisters, this one from her mother’s first marriage—and very much more pleasant than those from her father’s first marriage. “She was. But I wanted to sit with you, so I sent her off.”
“You did? Truly?”
Eleanor nodded, paying no heed to the guilt that poked at her. She truly did want to be here, after all, though less for mother and child than for their windows: the lying-in chamber had clear glass windows that overlooked both inner and outer gates and the ward between. She could even see a bit of the road beyond the wall—the road down which Sir Gunnar was to ride today.
Except today was already over, the sun having set on a misty, cold afternoon with no sign of him. And despite full knowledge that the man had lied with his promises before, the more the light faded, the more this particular lie stung.
But her mother didn’t know any of that, and she beamed up at Eleanor, happy. Eleanor could only smile back.
The baby started to fret again, tiny mewing sounds of distress, and her mother held out her arms. “Bring him here. There is nothing the nurse can do that I cannot. Except feed him, of course. I want you to watch. You will have babes of your own soon, God willing.”
And God willing, they would not be Richard’s
. Eleanor carried the tightly swaddled infant over and laid him in his mother’s arms. Lady Joan checked his clout to make sure he was still clean, then brought him up to her shoulder and patted his back until he produced a belch worthy of a smith.
“See? Wind.” Her mother settled Edward into the crook of her arm, where he rooted at her bound teats a moment before sticking his own fist in his mouth and promptly going back to sleep. She patted the bed for Eleanor to come sit by her. “See, after twelve, I have learned a bit. You should have, too. You were meant to have experience of birthing and infants while with York.”
“Her Grace cannot help that she is barren.”
“She is
not
barren,” said Lady Joan.
“But everyone said—”
“They always say it is the woman’s fault, whether ’tis true or not. Philippa produced a son for Fitzwalter with no trouble at all, while York has been swiving his way across England for years and has not a single bastard to show for it.”
“How do you know?”
“If he did, he’d be bringing one forward as heir, wouldn’t he? No, his seed is bad, mark my word. I doubt he could get even me with child, while all your father need do is walk past my chamber door to get me breeding. With luck, Richard will show similar vigor. Ah, there you are at last,” she said as the door opened on a plump young peasant woman with teats worthy of her station as wet nurse. “Take him, and carefully, for he sleeps. And you, Eleanor, go down to supper. I think I heard the horn.”
“Yes,
madame
.” Barely containing a grimace at the idea of Richard in her bed, Eleanor made her courtesy and escaped—though to what and from what, she wasn’t sure. Neither the man she wanted nor the one she didn’t was here. In no particular hurry, she trudged down the long passageway past the family apartments.
By the time she reached the solar, it was empty but for Lucy, who stood by the grilled window that separated solar from hall. “I thought you would come sooner, my lady, to watch for Sir Gunnar.”
“I have had enough of watching. It holds no more interest.”
“No?” Lucy put her eye to the grill. “Then should I have someone carry his gift to him and say you are ill?”
The center of Eleanor went still. “What?”
“Should I send word you are ill? I could say your head aches. It might be best anyway.”
“He is here?” Eleanor hurried the few steps to stand beside Lucy and peer through the wooden lacework.
There.
Her eyes found him instantly, drawn to that thatch of red-tinged gold as though his curls were the tongues of a signal fire. “But I watched from the tower. How . . . ?”
“He only just came. You must have missed his approach in the gloom.” Lucy paused a moment, then ventured a hesitant, “My lady?”
Below, Gunnar stripped off his cloak and sword and handed them to a varlet. Hardly able to breathe, Eleanor watched him join the line for the ewer. She should go down. She’d been waiting all day for him, and she should go down, but her feet were suddenly as heavy as millstones.
“My lady?” repeated Lucy more insistently.
“What?”
“As cousin and friend, I must remind you. You are betrothed.”
Lucy’s quiet words echoed the very thought that anchored Eleanor to the floor, the same thought that had dogged her all week: that Richard, confirmed as Lord Burghersh these three years past, would come to claim her someday soon.
But she was not yet wife, and her champion was here.
Here.
All those months, watching for Sir Gunnar, dreaming of him, praying for him; all those years of struggling to resign herself to a marriage she never wanted; the past week of soaring hope; her mother’s wishes for Richard’s vigor abed; they all collided now in the face of the man below. He hadn’t seemed real last week, come so suddenly and without intent.
But now he was here because he wanted to be.
For her
. She really should go down to him. Her feet stayed frozen to the floor.
“My lady.” Lucy’s tone was a warning.
“You watched with me, Lucy. Every night. You never worried about my betrothal then.”
“We were girls. It was a game, like in one of the fabliaux. But I have watched you this last week, and I see your face now. I worry that it is no longer a game.”
No. No, it isn’t.
Eleanor wiped her palms, damp with sweat, against her skirts. “Is the clothing I made ready?”
“You know it is, my lady. You have asked after it every day this sennight.”
“Good. When it is time, bring it all here to the solar. He will have to try everything. I may need to make alteration.” Oh, she did hope so. It would give her leave to be close to him, to touch him.
Lucy’s frown accused Eleanor, as if she’d read her intent. “Be careful, my lady. ’Twould be sin to betray Lord Burghersh.”
“I know that.”
But it would be far worse sin to betray Providence.
The thought formed whole, as if dropped into her head from above, and in the same instant, the weights fell from her feet. “I know what I am doing.”
She ran for the stair, sending a silent prayer to Heaven that she truly did.
THERE SHE CAME,
sailing across the hall, the crowd parting before her like the sea before the prow of a fast ship.
Gunnar watched Lady Eleanor approach with a mix of anticipation and apprehension. Not one for the background, this one. If he was wrong about this, she would surely be the ruin of him.
As she glided to a stop, he commended his fate to the
Nornir
and bowed. “My lady.”
“
Monsire
.” She stood there, wearing a pleased expression as she suddenly sprouted up an inch and settled back down. “Your business went well, I hope.” Up and down.
“It did.” He watched her rise and fall again. “Is something wrong, my lady?”
“No.” Up and down she went. “Why do you ask?”
“You seem to be . . . bobbing.” He waved his fingers up and down. “You do it often.”
“What?” She looked down at her toes just as she sprouted yet again. “Oh. So I am.” She settled firmly to the ground, embarrassment spotting her cheeks. “And so vanishes my pretense of calm and grace.” She shot him a rueful grin. “ ’Tis rude of you to point it out, sir, when the cause lies at your feet.”
“It does? How?”
“You are here.”
“As I said I would be.”
“Aye. But when the sun set and there was no sign of you, I thought you had failed me again. Thus my great pleasure at seeing you now.” Another flash of smile. “And my bobbing. I fear it gives me away when I am happy. Your pardon while I wash for supper.”
She slid into the front of the line, leaving Gunnar shaking his head in amusement.
They were soon seated once again at the high table. “Because we were interrupted last time,” the lady explained. “Though for good reason.”
“A very good one. Mother and child are well, I hope?”
“Very well, and thank you. My new brother is named Edward, and he already smiles at me, even if my lady mother believes otherwise.”
She chattered on proudly about the babe. Gunnar tried to listen. Much as he wanted—needed—to keep his mind on the lady, the day’s chill weather and travel had left him as hungry as ever, and the aroma of the food being carried in made him slaver like a mad dog. As a pair of men entered with a spitted goose, his stomach rumbled even more loudly than it had before.
Lady Eleanor glanced up at him, her eyes sparkling with humor. “I must be ware that my hand does not come between you and that gander,
monsire
, lest I lose it.”
“You have your bobbing, I have my belly. They both betray us.” He held up his hands in surrender while Lady Eleanor broke off a piece of bread, smeared it with butter, and handed it to him.
As he popped it in his mouth, she leaned near and lowered her voice. “’Struth, my stomach often rumbles as loudly as yours. My lady mother despairs of it. She says a lady of royal blood should not make noises like a peasant.”
Gunnar almost choked on his bread. He swallowed quickly and wiped away the crumbs with the back of his hand. “Royal? But . . .” He wracked his brain for what little he knew of Ralph de Neville. “The earl is not a Plantagenet. Or is he?”
“No. ’Tis my lady mother who carries the line.” She raised an eyebrow. “Ah, you do not know her, and I did not make a good introduction last time. She is Lady Joan de Beaufort. Her father—my lord grandfather—was John of Gaunt, God rest him.”
“Of course. I should have remembered,” muttered Gunnar, stunned.
John of Gaunt!
It was a fruitless task, trying to keep track of the English and all their marriages and alliances from the forest deeps where he hid, but even he knew John of Gaunt, the third Edward’s middle son, who had been Duke of Lancaster. It was Gaunt’s son and heir, Bolingbroke, who’d deposed his uncle Richard to steal the throne and become the fourth king called Henry, but Gaunt had also sired a pack of bastards with his mistress in France. If the countess was one of those Beaufort by-blows, that made Eleanor . . .
Ballocks.
“King Henry is your uncle.”
“So he is. Or half an uncle, at the least.” Her lips thinned as she buttered a piece of bread for herself. “Or better said, an eighth part of an uncle, since he is only half uncle to half of us, and only acts like uncle to half of those. He has always greatly favored my sisters and me over my brothers.”
Gunnar shrugged. The reason was obvious to him. “You and your sisters cannot claim the throne.”
“Nor can my brothers. Parliament has said it.”
“Nor could Henry, himself, by right,” pointed out Gunnar. “Richard was the one born king. And yet there Henry sits.”
Lady Eleanor’s expression went flat. “Be careful of what you say, sir. Richard’s supporters are not well suffered here. Nor Mortimer’s.”
“I supported neither of them. But truth is truth. If your brothers grow powerful enough, one of them might attempt what Bolingbroke himself succeeded at. Perhaps he keeps your brothers at a distance for fear he or Prince Harry will find themselves obliged to go to war against them one day. It is difficult to fight a man once you’ve coddled him as a child.”
She looked down to where her brothers sat, and a crease formed between her brows. “My Beaufort uncles have certainly given the king cause to consider such a possibility. You surely have it right.”
“I wish I did not, if it makes you frown so. I should have held my tongue and kept your smile.”
“As you say,
monsire
, truth is truth. And your explanation does help me better understand the king. And my father,” she added softly, almost to herself.
They both dropped silent as the varlets approached to fill their trencher. Despite the bread and butter, Gunnar’s stomach rumbled even more loudly as the pile of food before him grew.
Lady Eleanor’s face cleared, and she snatched up a sliver of roasted goose and held it up to him. “Here, Sir Gunnar, quickly, before you frighten the dogs.”
Chuckling, he leaned forward to take the morsel and, with barely a thought, closed his lips over the tip of her finger and sucked.
It was something he’d done scores of times through the centuries, letting a bite of food shared with some wench lead to the “accidental” contact of lip to finger. ’Twas always an enjoyable moment, whether it led to more or not. But this time . . .
The surge of Gunnar’s pulse was mirrored in the slight widening of Lady Eleanor’s eyes.
Yes
. He released her finger before anyone could notice, but not before he ran his tongue around the tip. He grinned as he caught that sound again, that little catch in her breath he’d heard when he’d collected his victor’s kiss. A warm, rosy glow flowed up from the neck of her gown, making her look less embarrassed than . . . aroused.