The First Princess of Wales (43 page)

“Morcar? I have not thought of him for years. His astrological casting of your horoscope, you mean?”

“And yours. I acquired his castings of your life from his goods after he died. You are destined for greatness, sweet, to bear a ruler of men.”

“To bear—saints, I do have two sons, you know,” she floundered.

“They are Holland’s sons and not likely to be more than fine landowning king’s men someday. Listen, Jeannette, I usually put little stock in magicians’ words or foretellings of the stars—and mayhap I just want this to be true too much, only—St. George, love, our charts align perfectly with the sun in the seventh house as Morcar shared the charts with me. I will show you on the morrow. I brought them along hoping at first His Grace would send me through Normandy at the last minute and I might see you there.”

Through Normandy. He had desired to come through Normandy to see me, a little, joyous voice echoed in her head. “You have the old man’s chart of my life?” she said only. “You have it with you?”

He rose quickly and came to kneel beside her chair, and before she could rise, his big, warm hand covered her wrist. “Aye, Jeannette. I told you I care and that my spying, as you put it, was only concern for your continual well-being these years you were away from Plantagenet protection. You never have really believed or understood me, have you?”

“That is not true.”

“We will not argue tonight, I said. We are destined in the stars, old Morcar said, and whether that is true or not, we are destined to be here tonight, alone together whatever storms of foul weather or foul warfare await outside.”

The grasp of his hand slid smoothly up her arm ruffling the jade sleeve of robe in a big cuff around his wrist. He stood slowly, towering over her and then tugged gently to raise her. The top of her head came only to his broad shoulder as she stared stubbornly at the base of his throat where a little pulse beat visibly.

“We have tonight here in our grasp, sweet, sweet Jeannette,” he breathed, and bent to take her lips.

She yielded her mouth while her mind darted about for a reply, a subtle twist away, a flat denial. His open hands dropped to span her waist, and his thumbs stroked her fluttering belly through the softness of the woolen robe. The kiss was gentle, beseeching at first, but then he moaned in his throat and started his lips eagerly across hers to taste deeply of her. His mustache grazed her upper lip; his tongue plundered, then retreated, then launched a delicious, little foray into the moist cavern of her mouth that left her breathless. Her arms lifted to clasp his powerful neck, and she let him pull her full length against him. His hands ran riot over her back and bottom as she arched up to return his kiss that consumed all desire to resist.

The fire crackled, and a log settled lower on the hearth, bathing them in a warm glow. His mouth pulled away from hers and trailed a molten path of kisses down her throat to the top of her robe. He nuzzled her neck and breathed heavily of the scent of her rain-sweetened hair. Then, as she lifted her mouth to be kissed again, his hands rose to open her robe. In a smooth motion, he pulled her arms gently away from his neck to allow him to slide it from her shoulders.

She stood mesmerized, trembling before him in the fireglow which flicked golden shadows on her skin. “So beautiful, my Jeannette, so exquisite.”

He lifted her high in his arms and strode to the deep bed. Awkwardly, rushing now, he yanked back the velvet coverlet and sheet while still crushing her to his chest.

“I love you, Jeannette. I love you. Always.”

“Aye, I, too.”

“Say it then,” he insisted as he put her down and lay beside her. “I have waited years to have you say it. I told you you would say it. ‘I love you, my Edward.’”

“I love you, my Edward.”

He shifted over her like a warm shelter against the world. Now nothing else mattered, nothing else existed but their love and their mutual union. At last, when their wild breathing slowed and her limbs went limp in floating exhaustion, he gathered her close to his warmth, her back to him, her body curled into his lap. The cocoon of covers made a warm little nest and, for one drifting moment, she thought she could simply die of utter peace and joy.

They lay unspeaking for a while, and then his breath moved the hair at the nape of her neck as he spoke. “I pray you meant those words, Jeannette, that they were not just forced in the heat of the moment.” His voice sounded drowsy, but the tone was crisply urgent.

“Aye, my Edward. I meant those words and my actions too.”

“Then, for this one night, I do not care what is outside this little bed of ours.” He pulled her so possessively against him she could not breathe for one moment. “Sleep, Jeannette. I have been so exhausted for days. Sleep here against me, my wild, little love.”

He seemed to doze instantly on that last word. Love, she thought. Love with Edward whom she had ridden so far to hate, tried so hard to hurt ever since she had learned who he really was at Windsor that first summer. But who was he indeed, and who was this woman who turned to flame at his mere touch? All these years separated and the yearning between them had sprung full-blown as if they had never been apart. He had battled hard for her and won her too—but, though they would lose each other soon again, were they not both victors?

T
he next day at midmorn when she awoke all warm and drowsy in the big bed, he had dressed and gone. Rain still pounded on the roof and spouted noisy rivulets off the thatched eaves as she surveyed the room lit by pale daylight. She stretched, luxuriating in the feel of rested muscles, though she felt slightly bruised in places she had never felt before.

“Saints,” she said at the thought of his returning to find her waiting in bed for him in all too obviously invitation. She threw back the covers only to be smacked with chill air as she darted to the hearth expecting to find her discarded robe. Instead, all laid out on chairs, were a soft velvet kirtle of sky blue, matching velvet slippers, and a cream-hued
surcote
in ribbed velvet dusted with tiny seed pearls. She only stared one moment before she slipped them on and tied her heavy hair back with a red ribbon draped on the arm of the chair. In the coals at one side of the broad hearth, she discovered an iron pot of delicious frumenty and a metal decanter of warm, spiced wine. She had barely completed a gobbled breakfast when the door opened and Prince Edward was back again, soaking wet.

“St. George, slug-a-bed, I thought perhaps you meant to sleep all day. Rainy weather can make one tired, eh?”

She smiled back at him despite the fact she had told herself she must not be so pliable, so eager. Then as he came closer, she noted what he was unwrapping from under his wet cloak even as he stamped the water off his boots.

“Oh, a lute, my lord.”

“Aye, for my own private little musician. I need music to soothe the savage beast.” He grinned again looking like a naughty boy as he dared his next jest. “Since it appears you will be my guest here for several days, there really ought to be something you can do to amuse me.”

“Saints,” she shot back, her face serious but her heart dangerously exuberant, “a quick song or two it shall be, and then we shall be even for whatever you might have done to amuse me.”

They laughed together and she took the lute from him to twist the tuning pegs until the eight strings resounded to her satisfaction. She felt strangely at home where she sat beside him along the hearth side of the table, and she looked up to note he had spread a parchment map on the table before him.

“I have been in meetings all morn with the pope’s cardinals here to negotiate a peace, Jeannette.”

She let the notes die away at his new, serious tone. “Then your army will not have to fight?”

“Hell’s gates, but I have no doubt we will fight. The French terms are so despicably ludicrous, I cannot believe they are serious to propose them.”

“Such as?” she asked and noted the surprise that flashed in his eyes before he decided to answer.

“Such as, sweet, complete return of all prisoners and conquered territory, and total fealty and surrender of my own royal person and my one hundred most honored knights on our knees before King John the Good.”

“The man is daft!”

“My thought exactly, my lovely, little advisor. Damn, but I ought to just put you on council. I am only pretending to listen to such doltish negotiations to give my men time to move ahead to dig in at Poitiers and light diversion fires in the suburbs of Tours.”

“In all this rain?”

A new respect sobered his gaze and he said simply, “The rain is the problem, but we must try. Time negotiated is time for a rest—and for us to be together here which, may saints preserve me, I actually considered in my answer to the French when such personal concerns should play no part at all.”

Touched, she lay the lute on the table before her and folded her hands in her lap to listen further.

“Jeannette, I have only thrashed your comrade in arms Callender with my tongue and not the whip he deserves. Now that you are here and safe with me, I find it nearly impossible to punish the man, and besides, he had best go back with you in one piece when I deem it safe to send you home.”

“And when will that be?”

“As soon as the rain slackens and the pope’s cardinals head back to the French at Blois. One day or two.”

“Oh.”

Their eyes held. She knew her grief that all this peaceful calm must be shattered by the outside reality of war and danger and lives lost was plainly written on her face.

“Jeannette, Callender claims much of the blame for your coming here. The man has simply fallen all over himself trying to excuse you. It seems—hell, love, it seems you have won him over as you have others and under the most dire of circumstances.”

She felt her hackles rise at what would surely be his old scolding, argumentative tone about other men. “Saints, our Grace, I cannot help what any of your little spies report to you!”

He seized her arm. “Sit, love, sit. I do not criticize. Quite the contrary, though you usually manage to madden me beyond control one way or the other. I understand the poor rogue’s desire to protect you—his begrudging admiration. You may drive me to distraction, but I can hardly resent a man who falls for your charms—not that he is getting the same return from those charms as I, of course. And now, before those violet eyes pierce me like a lance, I have something else for you.”

From a little leather pouch dangling at his belt, he drew out a huge strand of pearls as large as spring cherries. Her eyes grew enormous at the bounty dripping from his fingers. “Oh, so lovely. And this gown, too. I meant to thank you.”

In a single strand, the necklace fell over her breasts nearly to her waist, and wrapped around her head to hold her tresses back it would surely go four widths. Her eyes glowed with pleasure as he rose and let the stiff parchment map roll itself back into a tight coil on the tabletop.

“I was going to have you show me,” he said low, “the little bridge you and Callender finally got over the Loire on. I was hoping a messenger could go that way to locate my brother’s forces, but I am afraid it will have to wait.”

“It will?”

“It will.” He reached for her waist and pulled her to him. Mesmerized by the clear aquamarine eyes, she moved forward as one who walks through a heavy-footed dream.

“I want to—I must see those white pearls against your bare, silken skin,” he whispered. Their lips joined breathlessly as time stood still in their precious haven sealed by the driving storm.

O
n their third day together, the rain stopped, and the picturesque little village of Monbarzon came alive with myriad noisy preparations for an army on the move. The prince’s love-making before dawn was possessively rough as if he could no longer bear to be tender or unhurried. Word had come from the Captal de Buch’s spies that the French army was crossing the Loire at many points nearby and haste meant survival. After much equivocation in the pope’s negotiations, the Black Prince, flower of all English chivalry, had thrown the harsh terms of surrender back in the French king’s face, and everyone knew it. Joan, Stephen Callender, and three armed guards dressed as merchants were to set out to Normandy by a circuitous northwest route; the prince at the head of his greatly outnumbered battalions was to retreat south toward Aquitaine hoping to reach safety before the huge enemy army forced them to turn and fight.