Within an hour of Sir Rolph’s arrival, during which he brimmed with news about his new son, his family’s health and Lady Griselle’s much improved temper, he was seen to be walking sedately down the garden path, deep in conversation with his former mistress. At suppertime, Rolph and Stephen atte Welle were equally engrossed in discussion about the market price of heifers and sows and negotiating the loan of two hay-wagons for the harvest.
Just in time for the double wedding at Handes Castle, Sir Phillip and Lady Cotterell arrived at Whitecliffe, reconciled, relieved and deliriously happy to be together again. There had been no birth. Lady Cotterell was, as her husband had been, unsure of Lady Eloise’s reaction to her appearance, but by this time there was no room in Eloise’s heart for dark thoughts of the past, only of the future. In one respect, she had been right; the lady was indeed a woman after her own heart who had been hurt and confused that her new husband appeared to be putting his love of jousting before her, during the first few unsteady months of their marriage. Like Eloise, she had tried to take matters into her own hands with a mind-bending lack of caution which had almost wrecked the very relationship she wished to preserve. In her, Eloise saw many of her own traits, and they became instant friends.
There was one thing, however, that Eloise had not confessed to her betrothed about which her conscience had fought for weeks. So she saved it until the morning of her wedding day, when she assumed he would care about little except making their final vows before time ran out on them. The king’s fines, he told her, could reduce them to begging for a living.
‘Dearest, I must tell you something,’ she said, arranging the full gores of gold silk around her feet.
He stifled a groan. ‘Can it not wait?’ Then he saw her concern and relented. ‘Tell me, what have you done? Forgotten—?’
‘No, not forgotten. This is more serious. I’ve lost the diamond.’
He was still. Clearly stunned. ‘Lost it? Where?’
‘I left it in the kitchen at Cold Harbour. We came away in a hurry, you see, and I forgot about it, and I suppose it must have been thrown out with the spinach water. I’m sorry. It meant such a lot to us both.’
He sighed gustily, drooping his eyelids. ‘In the spinach water,’ he said, flatly. ‘Not in the chicken broth or the barley soup or the nettle mush? Could I have swallowed it, perhaps?’
She blinked. ‘You knew…about me…using it…?’
‘In the cooking? Yes, my dearest and most adorable woman. You tried everything, didn’t you, even that? Well, it worked and here I am to prove it. As for your losing it, well, I was not going to show you until the ceremony…’ he fished inside his leather pouch ‘…but here is something you may recognise. I hope it doesn’t smell of cooking. Father Janos remembered it and brought it back with us. He thought, in the circumstances, that it might be safer with me for a while. Eh?’ He tipped the contents of the blue velvet pouch on to his palm where a gold ring set with the fabulous diamond winked blue and white like solid lightning. ‘Your wedding ring with the memento of our first night of loving. That was a tournament of hearts, my beauty, was it not?’ He laughed at her incredulity. ‘Now will you have me, at last?’
Gulping back a rush of tears, she threw her arms about his neck. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Yes, Owain of Whitecliffe. I will have you and keep you. For ever.’
ISBN: 978-1-4592-4321-7
THE KNIGHT’S CONQUEST
First North American Publication 2003
Copyright © 2002 Juliet Landon
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