Virginia Henley (2 page)

After the thick oaken door was firmly closed, Roseanna
cried, “The bitches!” She walked to the bed and looked at her new garments with distaste. Only last week, when she had stood for the final fitting, the delicate white underdress with its trailing sleeves had brought her pleasure. Even now, Alice caressed the red velvet tunic and murmured, “It’s lovely. The red and white make a beautiful contrast.”

Roseanna tossed her head. “I’ll not wear it!”

Alice protested softly, “But you must, my lady.”

“Ah yes, a command performance. Well, so be it!” said Roseanna, stubbornness firming her soft pink mouth. In a deceptively sweet tone, she bade Alice hang the white underdress in the wardrobe. She slipped the crimson velvet tunic over her head and smoothed its slimness down over her hips until it fell to her ankles. The overdress left her neck and arms completely uncovered.

“You cannot go down like that!” gasped Alice, scandalized.

“Why not?” demanded Roseanna.

“It—it is so bare!”

“My mother bids me to stop acting like a child, so tonight I’ll dress like a woman. Fetch me the coffer with my gold jewelry, Alice.” She chose eight golden bracelets —two for each of her wrists and two to clasp about each of her upper arms. She fastened a golden girdle about her hips and surveyed the effect in the polished silver mirror.

As Alice came up behind her to cover her hair with the veil, Roseanna shook her head firmly. “I shall wear my hair uncovered. Hand me the brush while I try to tame it a little.” Her eyes fell upon a dog collar of garnets that her mother had designed for her. Each stone had been chosen for its depth of color, and when she clasped it about her slender throat, they looked exactly like rubies.
“Mm, Mother is an artist, you know. I must be a sore trial to her sometimes.”

Alice said low, “Oh, dear. I feel quite sick.”

Roseanna put her arm around the girl and hugged her warmly. “Do stop worrying, Alice. It’s me they’ll punish, not you.”

“But you look like a pagan, my lady!” whispered the girl.

Roseanna smiled radiantly. “I think perhaps I am a pagan, Alice!”

    The good-natured laughter of the King reached Roseanna’s ears even before she entered the great hall. As she stepped through the archway, she easily glimpsed Edward’s golden-red hair; he stood head and shoulders over any assembly—six feet six inches when wearing his crown, it was rumored. Her father’s knights and the King’s gentlemen stepped aside to clear a path for her to the King. No man hid his admiration for her incomparable beauty.

When Edward spied her, he almost snatched her up to the rafters as he always did, reveling in his great strength. But now, when she demurely went down before him murmuring, “Your Grace,” he raised her and kissed her hands. “My Rosebud. I see you have begun to bloom!”

She expressed her pleasure with a smile and took up the wine goblet her father offered her. As she turned toward Neville, her eyes widened in surprise. “Jeffrey! I did not know you had returned.”

“Sir Jeffrey,” the King emphasized. “Your brother was knighted by my brother during his service in Ireland.”

Sir Jeffrey bowed to the King. “His Majesty graciously allowed me to travel from London in his party.”

Roseanna smiled happily at Edward. “You have brought my mother the one gift in all the world that will please her most.”

Jeffrey was one year younger than Roseanna. But now that he had finished his service with the Duke of Clarence and had fought in Ireland, he looked the elder. Jeffrey had his mother’s blue-black hair and his father’s handsomely shaped head. Roseanna knew without a doubt that he would set the heart of every one of her mother’s ladies aflutter.

Edward winked at Roseanna. “I’ve a present for you, you saucy baggage.”

She looked in wonder from the King to her father, who was fairly bursting to tell her the news. “A horse?” she ventured hopefully.

Edward’s good-natured grin spread across his handsome Plantagenet features. “A pure-blooded Arabian. I can’t wait to see what you breed from him.”

The musicians arrived with their fiddles, flutes, harps, and dulcimers. Close on their heels, Joanna made her entrance. She was as slim as a reed, with high, upthrusting breasts that belied her thirty-odd years. No posy cap and veil for Joanna, but a jewel-encrusted device of her own design that lifted her blue-black hair high from her temples before it fell in a smooth waterfall to her shoulder blades. To honor the King, she wore the York colors of murrey and blue. Her underdress of pale blue was complemented by a velvet tunic of purplish murrey, its borders gilded by real thread of gold.

Joanna did not so much as glance at Roseanna, having eyes only for her men, but her daughter smiled inwardly and reminded herself not to think her mother hadn’t noticed every last detail of her pagan attire. There would be
a reckoning, but not now, not tonight. So Roseanna vowed to enjoy the royal visit to the fullest!

The hall was crowded tonight. All the Castlemaine men-at-arms had come for a glimpse of their King; they lined the walls, and young pages and squires sat high on the ledges of the casements. As the food was being brought in, Roseanna made her way toward the head table. Her brother Jeffrey touched her shoulder. Whirling toward him, she looked into a face that had a strong impact upon her senses. She heard Jeffrey’s voice as if from a great distance: “Roseanna, I would present my great good friend, Sir Bryan Fitzhugh. We were knighted together.”

The knight who stood before her was her own age, perhaps a year older.
He’s beautiful,
she thought as her eyes lowered demurely; her cheeks flushed at his nearness. Through her lashes she saw him place his hand over his heart, and he bowed gravely. She saw his lips say, “I am honored, my lady,” but there was such a roaring in her ears, she heard nothing but the thunderbeat of her own heart. He had a golden beard and a smiling mouth, and by a trick of the torch behind his head that bathed him in its golden light, he looked like the shining knight of her dreams.

Her mind went blank. No clever phrase flew to her lips, and her voice almost deserted her along with her wits. “Sir Bryan,” she managed to whisper at last; then she fled to the safety of the King and her father.

She knew not what she ate; swan or boar—it was all the same to her. When her dinner companions spoke to her, she did not hear them, and they had to repeat everything. She answered with sighs. Her eyes ever traveled in one direction, slipping along the diners to the young man
seated next to her brother. Finally, she had to turn her head away, for her eyes would not leave him of their own accord. Suddenly she wished she had worn the delicate white underdress with its pretty trailing sleeves and matching hair scarf. Sir Bryan would think her nothing but a bold piece dressed as she was, with her hair uncovered and falling to the backs of her knees.

She panicked when she saw the servants stack the trestle tables to make room for the dancing. What if he asked her to dance? Or worse, what if he did not? She sat rigid, unable to move; then with vast relief she saw Sir Bryan take leave of her mother to retire early. Suddenly she relaxed, found that her saucy wit hadn’t deserted her after all, and rose to dance the first measure with the handsomest of the King’s gentlemen.

    The torches had burned low in their cressets and the hour was well advanced before the last servant at Castlemaine Manor laid down his weary head that night. Roseanna dismissed Alice to her bed quickly, for she wanted to be alone to savor the memory of Sir Bryan’s handsome image. She shivered as her body touched the cool sheets; then she let her mind wander dreamily to the man with the golden beard and the smiling mouth.

But thoughts of her mother began to intrude. She tried to push them away as she concentrated on the young knight, but try as she might, the image of Joanna came stronger and stronger. Roseanna sighed. The trouble was, her conscience was bothering her. She had. Spoken disrespectfully to her mother and had added insult to injury by behaving overboldly. She knew her mother loved her and wanted only what was best for her. This was the lady who had dismissed the servants to tend her herself whenever
Roseanna was sick with a childhood illness. She turned restlessly in the bed, wishing sleep would claim her.

Coincidentally, Joanna’s mind was centered on her daughter at that moment. In her cozy bedchamber in the west wing of the manor, she lay curled in the King’s lap before the warm fire. She raised her head at last from his massive chest as he murmured, “She is wondrously fair, Joanna.”

“The young baggage is monstrously conceited. She knows she is beautiful,” said her mother.

“How could she not know? When men see her for the first time, their mouths fall open.”

“She is willful and spoiled,” insisted Joanna, “and she has a fiery temper to boot.”

Edward’s lips twitched as he gently mocked, “Traits that run in the blood of her mother and father.”

“Your Plantagenet blood perhaps, not mine,” she teased. “Ned, promise me you will speak to her about riding that wild uncut animal.”

He stroked her blue-black hair, which reflected the flames of the fire; his fingers sought to unfasten her bedgown.

Joanna stayed his hands. “Ned, my love, I know that our precious time together is short, but I must speak of this. Roseanna’s betrothal to Ravenspur has stood for six years, and he has never come forward to claim her. I have no quarrel with the match; she could do no better than your close friend, Roger Montford. But if he cannot be brought to the altar, perhaps we should look elsewhere.”

Edward shifted uncomfortably, and Joanna slipped from his lap to stand her ground on this most pressing
matter. “Joanna, I’m sorry, but we were not completely honest with you at the time of the betrothal.” He shrugged helplessly, knowing that the truth must now be faced. “At the time I was thinking only of what was expedient for Roger. You know he had two disastrous marriages, and he swore he’d never enter the state of wedlock again. To remove him from pressure applied by his family and matchmakers, I suggested a betrothal to Roseanna, who was only eleven at the time.”

“Damn men! Women are only pawns to be used in your interests!” she said, clenching her fists.

To placate her and restore her loving mood, Edward poured them a goblet of malmsey and held it out to her as a peace offering. “My love, I promise you I will broach the subject to him. He’s just back from a hellish campaign in Wales. You know what it’s like to subdue those wild Welshmen. I’ve loaned him the hunting lodge for next month. God knows, he’s earned a little sport and relaxation. I’ll urge him to either claim her or withdraw.”

“But it’s a legal contract,” she said stubbornly, hating to give up the prize.

He moved toward her purposefully, taking her slim shoulders in his strong hands. “You will be compensated if it comes to naught, and I’ll find her a match with the highest in the land.” He took the goblet from her fingers and drained it. “Enough of my daughter; it is you I need.”

She laughed up at him, “You have a greater capacity for wine than any man in England.”

“Not true. Ravenspur once drank me under the table! However, my capacity for making love is another matter entirely.”

After a sleepless hour of tossing in her bed, Roseanna arose and slipped on her bedgown. She couldn’t rest until she had apologized to her mother. The passageways that led to the west wing were cold and only dimly lit at this hour, so she hurried along, hoping her mother’s fire would soon warm her hands and feet.

She passed quietly by Kate Kendall’s adjoining chamber, hoping she would not come face to face with the watchful servant. Quietly she turned the iron ring that lifted the bar on the door to her mother’s room. The dark oaken door swung back to reveal a pair of lovers. The King’s massive torso was bare. The fire’s glow highlighted his muscular shoulders as he lifted the naked Joanna high above him. She laughed down at him like a young girl with her first great love.

Roseanna’s eyes widened in shock. Her hand flew to her throat as she gasped her disbelief. On legs that threatened to collapse, she fled the chamber.

she reached for her bedgown and whispered, “I must go to her.”

“Nay, Joanna. At this moment she hates you. I will go to her.” He pulled on hose and soft boots and reached for his purple velvet bedgown. He had no trouble finding her chamber, as her door stood ajar and the sound of choking sobs reached his ears, mixed with the soft voice of her maid, pleading to know what was amiss.

The King spoke softly to Alice: “Leave us.”

Roseanna was huddled miserably on her bed. But Edward’s voice made her fly from her haven and face him like a vixen in her lair. “You have no right!” she hissed. “You may be the King of England, but you have no right to be here.”

There was pain in his eyes as he said with quiet authority, “I have a right. Not because I am King, but because I am your father.”

Her eyes widened in disbelief. The truth of his words had not yet reached her heart; she flung at him the accusation, “You are lovers!”

He winced at the ugly implication she attached to the word. “Sweethearts, Roseanna. Since we were fourteen.”