The First Princess of Wales (10 page)

Just when Isabella had begun to flounce about and mutter something dire about showing even the great Prince of Wales he must not keep fair ladies waiting, the door of the hushed chamber seemed to explode inward, and—he was there.

His appearance, so close across the room, staggered Joan anew, and a nervous, chill foreboding of his magnetism crept up her legs and seized her very core. He seemed even taller and broader-shouldered than she had remembered him as she had reenacted their two brief meetings over and over in her mind. Resplendent in azure and gold tunic, he stopped just inside the door. His garments, arranged in alternating quarters, displayed the gold
fleur-de-lis
of French royalty on the azure background and the dark blue Plantagenet leopards on the golden sections. His hose were deepest blue and a low-slung gold-link belt set with winking jewels held a foot-long dagger encrusted with emeralds.

Across the span of the chamber and the nod of heads as Isabella’s
mignonnes
swept him curtsies, their eyes met and held before she, too, bent deep in the obligatory sign of deference. When she arose, still holding her ground by the window, he had looked away and was greeting his younger sister with a kiss on her carefully hued and perfumed cheek.

“Ma chérie,”
his deep voice was saying, “before you give me one of your scoldings, let me assure you I was not tardy here on purpose. The king has had me sitting with him at emergency council all morn, and besides, I do not favor a scolding shrew. Just give me a sweet, compliant maid any day.”

Isabella laughed in response and poked him in his gold and azure ribs while the ladies twittered. There, Joan thought grimly, he has made his first sally and he intends to do me in by bits and pieces.

He kissed and smiled and complimented his way through the cluster of Isabella’s
belles femmes
toward where she stood. Of course, all the ladies and knights kissed for mere greetings, so she must steel herself to accept that taunt from him and show him no sign it meant a whit to her, she lectured herself desperately. Saints, but she wanted to reach out and slap that smug face which could make her feel all hot and cold and tilt-a-whirl like this!

“Joan, my dearest, do not hang back,” Isabella’s sweet tones floated to her. “My lord, our distant cousin you have inquired about and wanted to meet. My dearest new companion—and I hope our Lady Queen lets me keep her and does not spirit her off to her own household now she is almost better—Lady Joan, the Fair Maid of Kent.”

He was next to her, towering over her in the expectant hush. He emanated the clean, masculine essence of rich, lemony bergamot this close, and she felt her nostrils flare at the sensual assault of it.

“My lord, Prince Edward,” she said quietly and thrilled at how calm her voice sounded when her heart nearly pounded out of her chest. His blue eyes dropped to the soft folds over her bosom. Dearest saints, he could read her thoughts! She was to be entirely undone and taunted at his hands!

But his lips merely brushed her cheek in the most appropriate of brotherly greetings. “A fair maid from Kent, indeed, sweet Isabella, rather with Plantagenet coloring and carriage, I think.”

“I said the same from the very moment I met her—was it just last week, dear Joan?”

“Ten days, Your Grace.”

“And now two days you have been ill, I believe,” the prince said solicitously and took her cold hand in his warm, big one. “Thank St. George, you are much recovered now.”

She darted a quick look up at him, but he appeared sincere and his eyes held no hint of mockery. She breathed easier and gently tugged her hand from his grasp so no one would notice but he. He pulled his avid, if hooded, gaze away and swept the circle of others with a somewhat stiff smile. “My dear little sister, however do you manage to set yourself like a jewel in a lovely frame of the fairest, most enticing females in the kingdom?”

Joan kept her face serious as a palpable wave of excitement shuddered through the surrounding beauties. “I detest having to leave so soon but I will see everyone at the banquet this evening. The king says the queen may even appear at table, though I shall soon discover that for a certainty as I am set for to visit her—and to bring with me the Fair Maid of Kent, her new ward Joan, whom she regrets not being strong enough to greet these last ten days.”

A murmur echoed in the room. “Am I to come along too, my lord?” Isabella asked, her pink lips in a near pout. “I have quite adopted Joan—I and my ladies—and Euphemia. She has a chamber with my Constantia and Mary. I believe I shall go with you to the queen, too.”

Edward’s big brown hands rested lightly on Isabella’s India silk-clad shoulders. “Not today,
ma belle.
Do not fret but I shall accompany the lady to the Queen Tower, and we shall both attest to the fact you have taken excellent care of her and would like her to stay with you. Still, you know, Isabella, that may be unlikely as our queen is to be Joan’s guardian even if you depart court with your own retinue.”

He turned to Joan again. “We had best hurry, lady, as I was delayed in coming to fetch you by that other business.”

That other business, the words echoed in Joan’s mind. As though she were some sort of business to be attended to and then put away or ignored. He nodded and his eyes told her to move behind him as he wended his way back out through the others with low words and continual kisses. She dared not balk or disobey, at least not in front of Isabella and her ladies, as well the knave knew! If he had tried to take her arm, to even touch her gently, she would have insisted his sister acompany them no matter what imperious orders he gave!

When they were out in the hall and the door had closed upon all the staring, annoyed faces, two blank-faced guards fell in behind them as the prince hurried her down the corridor. She walked obediently two steps back as was customary, but when he turned off into a side hall, she halted.

He spun back to face her, but before he could speak, she accused, “That is not the way to the queen’s suite, Your Grace.”

“Granted, I wanted a word with you in private before we face the queen.”

“This hall looks very private.”

One corner of his mouth crooked up. Aye, he admitted to himself, he should have known better than to try this with her so quickly, but she owed him some compliance for his exemplary behavior toward her the last two days and this morn in there with Isabella’s sweet-faced little harpies.

“Do not fight me and look at me that way,
ma chérie.
I intend to be your friend if you will let me.”

He saw that confused her. So she had been expecting a rough, teasing tone. She stood there all serious-faced, expectant, so ravishingly, naturally beautiful in that clinging, draped velvet the color of her disturbing eyes. Her face was so elegant, so perfect in its oval shape; with its high cheekbones, pert nose, and pouting mouth. St. George, he had never wanted another woman in this deep—this desperate—way, and this one had ties to the queen and his sister, the whole blessed family to cling to if she chose.

“You look lovely today, Lady Joan,” he ventured, to follow his initial thrust when she did not parry. “The gown is exquisite and quite shows off your lavender eyes—the color of sweet lilacs, I think.” She smiled and his heart flopped over.

“Thank you, my lord prince. I am pleased you noticed.” Saints, she thought, and felt herself color. She had not meant to hint she had attired herself to please him; it was only that no one else had noticed her appearance.

“I told you we would begin over when we met again, and I meant it sincerely,
ma chérie.
I did not intend to hurt you the other times, but you were so full of fire and it was quite a temptation not to ruin that.”

He stepped closer and his eyes sought her lips. From a distance, one of the guards coughed. “Thank you, my lord, for your kindness and restraint today, and for not calling me out on a point of honor for insulting the Plantagenet heir.”

“But I am calling you out, sweet,” he pursued despite the fact he saw her tense again. “The challenge is that—that we can be friends and you will let me get closer to you and should you need a protector, you may rely on me.” He bit his lower lip and frowned as if he were dismayed by his rush of words.

Her heart pounded. Her eyes widened. Her gaze flowed out to meld with his intense stare. These two days hiding in her chamber, fretting, cursing him—this was not the tactic she had expected or the battle she had meant to enjoin. She needed time, time and distance to think, to stop this rush of desire to touch him and be as yielding as water, whatever he asked of her.

“The queen, Your Grace. I would like to meet the queen. Will she not be awaiting us?”

“Aye. But you know I had only one brief brotherly kiss back there from you and two from all the others. Shall we not seal our new-won truce with a little kiss? There is a small room just down this hall.”

“Your Grace, I have been ill and I should never forgive myself if you should catch the malady. I fear for your sake I must needs refuse.”

His mouth set in a firm line at being gainsayed, but his eyes lit at her refusal. Aye, she asked for a battle, a jousting match, and he knew well how to win that sort of tournament.

“Then we shall straight to the queen, sweet Joan, with no more dire detours. Only, I fear I have already caught the same malady that has laid you low for these two days and with a vengeance.”

She started away down the dim hall toward the guards before he could see his words had angered her. Then, furious again that he had made her forget herself so that she dared to precede him and walk away without being dismissed, she halted dead still in her tracks until he gallantly offered her his gold and azure arm and they went on together.

T
he last two weeks of May swept by in a blurry haze; then the first two sun-lit, crystal weeks of June tripped quickly after. Everyone knew her now and spoke her name or called her Joan, the Fair Maid of Kent. Everyone nodded gaily, and even Isabella’s pouting
mignonnes
sought her out and if they whispered aught did so entirely out of her hearing.

The warmth of the Plantagenet sun—or was it son, she mused—shone full upon her. Queen Philippa, plump and soft-spoken with only a hint of a Flemish accent, was motherly, stern, but incessantly kind. She spoke fondly of the handsome, gentle Edmund of Kent, the father Joan had never known. The queen allowed her new ward to stay, for now, housed among Isabella’s ladies because she felt Joan was a “sensible breath of fresh country air” to mayhap temper the frivolities of her own young, but sophisticated, daughter.

Joan tried with all her might to fulfill the queen’s description of her as sensible. Though she was frequently in the circle of friends of Prince Edward, and it was greatly from his favor that her reputation at court grew, she fought to keep her head and to have other people about her.

Yet even with others in attendance, his lure for her was undeniable and there were no others she noted even in a very crowded room. They all faded into the hazy mist of background when Edward smiled or gazed on her. He talked her into playing her beloved lute and singing for him and the queen, and many praised her talents.

He taught her backgammon and regularly beat her at dice or chess; he took her and Isabella hawking and even arranged for her once to sit at the royal family’s table in the Great Hall, but he had not repeated that since the king had monopolized her conversation all evening and had stared at her in front of Queen Philippa, too. However, Joan forgot that problem at once and the raised eyebrows it caused. The complicated world of Windsor had suddenly become very simple and very wonderful: Edward, Prince of Wales, evidently kept his place, and so, she, too, could be sensible and happy all at the same exciting time.

Tomorrow the court bustle would culminate in a fabulous Midsummer’s Day Tournament before the court moved on to Westminster Palace in London and the prince and his household would be gone for a time. Joan’s world bubbled and cascaded on despite that little worry of upheaval on the horizon out there. A new palace to learn, the city of London nearby, her charming prince gone off to his lands at Berkhamstead, which she would probably never see. Yet today, tomorrow, and the next day, it was fair Windsor at Midsummer Tournament time.

The entire castle and environs took on an expectant, different feeling. Knights and their retinues arrived from shires near and distant to set up their striped, beflagged tents outside the battlements on the greens near the tournament fields. Even over the tall tower walls wafted the scents of oxen turning on massive spits over cook-fires; the smithies, farriers, and, armorers sent up a merry din from their forges in the south precincts of the castle. Drovers’ carts laden with mountains of piled food arrived daily; pyramids of barrels of ale, beer, and wine grew under archways near the lists and the newly erected and decorated galleries for ladies and guests to watch the jousting. Like filings to the great magnet of Windsor, musicians and entertainers, prostitutes and vendors flocked in with their lures of trestle stages, juggling bears, wares to sell, and fiery swords to swallow.