She suppressed her emotions, knowing she must appear strong for her people. After three months of resisting the siege, they’d grown fearful for their lives, and it was up to her to go out of the safety of the castle gates to meet this knight—this traitor to the crown—who supported the Yorkist pretender’s claim to the throne.
Already, she hated the knight for betraying the king who’d been anointed by God. His dogged determination to starve her out of her own castle only added to her fury. A small part of her was tempted to secret a dagger beneath her horse’s saddle and plunge it into his heart when she rode up to him, but she knew he’d most likely be wearing armour. Besides, however much she detested the man, she wasn’t certain she could take a life.
She reminded herself, as the drawbridge descended the last few feet, that this knight—whoever he may be—had killed her husband and thus would deserve such a fate if she could bring herself to carry it out. She thought of Geoffrey, buried in a cold, shallow grave somewhere in the distant north rather than the elaborate stone tomb he’d planned for himself in the castle chapel, and tried to dredge up some feelings of regret at his death. Her annoyance grew when she could only manage a vague sense of relief that the Yorkist knight outside had actually done her a favour when he ran Geoffrey through with his sword during the Battle of Towton a week or so before the siege began.
Goodness. That was no way to think about the murderer of her husband. Then she sighed. Who was she fooling? Geoffrey had been a selfish, arrogant, sometimes cruel man, and she’d felt little sorrow when she heard of his death. But that didn’t mean she shouldn’t hate the Yorkist knight for betraying the lawful king and helping to cast the country into civil war.
The edge of the drawbridge bumped the ground on the other side of the moat. She shook now, more than aware as she exited the gates that she might find an arrow tearing through her yellow tunic and thudding into her breastbone. Still, she continued toward the waiting army, her long, blonde hair floating around her in the early summer breeze. Ahead of her, she could see two knights on horseback, awaiting her approach. She kept her face blank, hiding her hatred from them. It was up to her to plead for the lives of her people. She couldn’t afford to let her emotions take over.
Walking her horse forward, its hooves echoing on the wooden planks, Eleanor prepared to meet her enemy.
*
Sir Henry de Tracey shifted impatiently in his saddle, growing hot in his full plate armour as the sun reached its zenith in the bright blue June sky. His helm rested on the saddle before him, as it was far too hot to wear unless it was strictly necessary, which he hoped it wasn’t. Beneath him, the black stallion stamped the ground, sensing his growing irritation.
Henry quieted the horse with a pat to its neck. “It will not be long now.” Soon, Lady de Woodford would meet him, and then maybe this ridiculous charade could be brought to an end. He huffed a sigh. “Impertinent woman.”
Beside him, his younger brother Richard grinned. “I still cannot believe she has held out against you for nearly twelve weeks.”
“I was certain once I killed her husband, Woodford Castle would fall to me.”
“She must have been devoted to her husband, to be so determined to withstand the siege.” Richard’s brow creased. “Odd. I cannot imagine Isabella doing such a thing for me.”
Or Maud for me, Henry thought, adding guiltily: God rest her soul. “Perhaps it was one of those unusual situations where the wife actually loved her husband and vice versa.”
Richard laughed. “Is there such a thing? God knows, I have never come across it.”
Henry sighed and nudged his horse forward as a figure appeared through the gateway. Now was not the time to dwell upon what had been a loveless marriage or his lack of a male heir. Behind him, his army stood battle ready in the event that the castle guard decided to attempt a final, doomed sally forth. He’d received a message that Lady de Woodford wished to discuss terms, but he wasn’t a youth fighting his first battle, and he was determined not to be caught with his breeches down.
As the figure on horseback neared, however, he could see she rode alone. He stopped his steed and waited for her to approach. Richard drew up beside him, raising a gauntleted hand to shade his eyes against the sunlight.
Henry watched the slender figure draw nearer. To his surprise, she bore no armour for protection and wore only a thin tunic over leather riding breeches, her curves beneath the cloth evidence she had nothing more than a shift beneath. A courageous move. He raised an eyebrow, feeling a twinge of admiration. He’d known soldiers far less brave than she, and he was surprised at how young and slight she looked. After facing Geoffrey de Woodford on the battlefield, the man’s heavy, cumbersome frame making him slow in combat, Henry had assumed the Lady de Woodford would match her husband in stature and looks. It appeared he was quite mistaken.
Now, with her only a dozen feet away, Henry’s eyes narrowed. His gaze ran over her hair, the colour of wheat, spread around her shoulders to her waist, loose in the fashion of a maiden. He’d once known a young woman with hair bright as the sun. But it had been many moons ago, and she was in France somewhere, or maybe dead, long lost to him. He pushed the memory to the back of his mind, watching Lady de Woodford guide her horse easily, almost as at home in the saddle as he was, her long legs slender in her breeches, her pale hands relaxed where she held the reins.
She covered the last few feet, reined in the horse, and came to a halt in front of him. She surveyed him coolly, like a queen rather than a conquered widow and, for a moment, irritation flared in him again.
Then he met her gaze. Her dark green eyes, the colour of a forest river shaded by trees, widened with surprise. Almost as if she recognised him. Puzzled, he studied her refined, elegant features, a growing realisation dawning on him. The high cheekbones and full, wide mouth belonged to a grown woman, but he saw enough of the girl within them to recognise her.
His mind refused to believe she could be the one he thought he’d lost forever. It was left to Richard to say her name and confirm it was, indeed, the ghost from Henry’s past.
“Ella?” his brother asked, the incredulousness in his voice reassuring Henry that Richard was as shocked at seeing their childhood friend as Henry was.
*
“Dickon?” Eleanor addressed the knight who had spoken first. The last time she’d seen him, some ten years ago, he’d been fourteen, the same age as her, all elbows and knees and blushing cheeks. He’d grown into a fine man, and his hair had darkened a little, although it was still a lot fairer than his brother’s.
“I am known as Richard now.” He softened the words with a smile.
“Oh. I see.” She moved her gaze across to the knight who sat silently beside Richard. Her heart pounded so loudly, she was certain they must both be able to hear it. “Then I suppose I should no longer call you Hal, either.”
Henry said nothing. She thought he hadn’t recognised her, but then his horse shifted underneath him in response to an unseen tensing in his body, and she knew he had. He quieted the horse impatiently with his knees, hardly touching the reins.
Quietly, they studied each other. Three years older than his brother, Henry de Tracey had nevertheless been only seventeen when they’d held hands in the lake gazebo by her father’s castle and promised to love each other forever. She could remember the intensity in his eyes, the softness of his lips when he kissed her. They’d returned to her father to tell him of their love and to ask for his permission to marry. That had been the last time she saw Henry. Her father, enraged, had sent her away to France to be with his sister, and Henry’s father had sent him north to be a squire and learn the art of warfare. She had been forbidden to write.
But she hadn’t forgotten him.
Eleanor couldn’t count the number of nights she’d dreamed about him, or tried to transplant his face onto the grunting, sweating face of her husband as he lay on top of her. But now, as she looked at him sitting on his horse in full plate armour, she
realised she’d always dreamed of him as he had been then, eternally seventeen, slender, and intense with youthful, naive passion. She’d sometimes tried to picture what he might look like now. But she’d never imagined he’d grow up into such a man.
He’d clearly grown several inches in height in the intervening years, and in his armour, his physique was more than impressive—he was huge! His boyish good looks had developed into a man’s handsome features, and his hair was dark as midnight, with no signs of it receding, as Geoffrey’s had.
There were other changes, she noticed; he bore a few scars, both old and new, on his face and hands, a testament to the life of warfare he’d chosen. And his eyes—his eyes had changed the most. No longer the eyes of a youth, once alight with fun, enjoyment, and passion, they now seemed darker, the blue of a stormy evening, and they observed her with wariness and distrust.
This was not the young man with whom she’d fallen in love, but a battle-hardened warrior, the very knight who’d laid siege to her castle and had been thoroughly determined to conquer her. He was her enemy, and she mustn’t forget that.
As she observed him, he studied her, his gaze travelling insolently down her, stopping for longer than was decent on her bosom. She was aware the breeze sweeping up from the lake had raised goose bumps on her arms and, therefore, must also have caused her nipples to tighten, although she didn’t look down to confirm. His gaze lingered there momentarily before returning to study her face. Her cheeks burned, but she didn’t look away.
He stared. “You are the wife of Geoffrey de Woodford?”
“Well, I was, until you slew him at Towton.”
He said nothing, and she realised he wasn’t going to apologise to her. She swallowed, her heart thumping, looking from him to the watchful Richard and back again. These were not the boys she had known. She must act as if she hadn’t recognised them, had never kissed the mouth that was now thin-lipped with an emotion she could not decipher—anger? Annoyance? She wasn’t sure.
She lifted her chin. “I wish to offer terms for surrender.” She tried not to feel nervous sitting in front of two heavily armoured knights in nothing but a thin tunic.
Richard looked across at Henry, who shifted in his saddle, one hand resting on his thigh, the other holding the reins. “Terms?” His tone was hard. “It has been three months since you closed the castle doors to me. I believe you must be growing very short of food. If anyone should offer terms for your surrender, it should be me.”
So, it was to be like that. She quashed a stab of disappointment. Clearly, he was not going to let their past get between him and the castle he desired.
Richard had stared at Henry as he spoke, and she sensed he was about to protest. Henry glanced at him, however, and Richard said nothing.
What should she say? Should she rant and rail at them, call them all the rude words she’d learned from the castle guard, ride up and slap him in the face? Such actions might make her feel better, but what would they achieve? She’d lost; she had to be gracious in defeat and accept whatever these two men had planned for both her and the occupants of Woodford. But that didn’t mean she couldn’t try to appeal to his better nature. If he still had one, which she was beginning to doubt.
She tossed back her hair. “You are correct. We have no leverage to offer terms. My husband has fallen, and although we did our best to hold out for the king, we have not been relieved.”
Henry watched her silently. She could not tell what he was thinking. When had he learned to hide his feelings so skilfully?
He frowned. “You forget; Henry is no longer king. Edward, Duke of York, was crowned before Towton, and the Lancastrian weakling fled to Scotland with his wife.” This time, he didn’t hide his feelings. His scorn for the defeated Henry, sixth to rule by that name, was quite evident.
Eleanor moved her horse forward between the brothers so her knees brushed Henry’s. She looked up at him. “Then I concede Woodford to you. I do not ask anything for myself. Do with me what you will. But I do ask that you and your men do not harm my people. They merely followed my orders; they are themselves innocent of any wrongdoing. Do not punish them for my actions. If our relationship ever meant anything to you, I ask you to treat them kindly.”
It went against all her instincts to plead in such a manner, but she knew she must, for the sake of the inhabitants of the castle who were watching fearfully from inside the gates. Over the past few days, much talk had circulated about instances where attacking armies had raped all the women and put every defender of a besieged castle to the sword, and although she’d tried to reassure them this would not be the case, she’d not been able to dislodge the seed of doubt that had planted itself in her stomach.
A slight frown appeared between Henry’s eyes. He looked, she thought with surprise, insulted. “Do not beg, my lady. Neither you nor your people will be mistreated. The past has nothing to do with it. I am not a man who takes the lives of innocents.”
Relief swept over her and, briefly, she closed her eyes. Her people were safe. When she next looked, Henry had already turned away, barking orders to his men. She looked across at Richard, trying to blink away the tears threatening to fall. He gave her a small smile before also turning away to direct his men.
She waited for a moment, wondering what she should do. Should she head back to tell her people what had happened? Or were they expecting her to wait for them? As she hesitated, Henry moved his horse alongside hers.
He glanced at her. “Come with me. Ask the castle guard to lay down their arms, and they will not be harmed.”
Eleanor nodded, suppressing the urge to tell him not to order her around. He had every right to now. She turned her horse and, side-by-side, they crossed the drawbridge into the castle.
*
Henry organised the surrender of the castle guard and moved his own men in to garrison in a semi-dream. Outwardly, he worked as efficiently as ever, but his stomach had knotted and he struggled to concentrate. He still couldn’t believe the wife of Geoffrey de Woodford and the Ella he’d known as a young man were one and the same.
He half-listened to his men relaying details about repairs to the damaged walls, his gaze sliding across to where Eleanor stood talking to Richard, discussing the food and supplies remaining in the castle. Sometimes, it seemed like only yesterday he’d been standing by the lake with her in his arms. At other times, it seemed like a lifetime. Though he could remember vividly the way he’d felt when he promised her he would love her forever, he found it difficult to relate that inexperienced, innocent youth to the man he had become.
He should never have expected their parents would let them be together. It seemed like such a foolish notion now, and he couldn’t believe he’d been so naive. Maybe if he’d been a stable hand and she a milkmaid, they might have stood a chance. But theirs were not the sort of lives where one chose to whom he or she were married. Marriages were political alliances, made between men who sold their children to the highest price; the idea of love never entered the equation. At the time, they’d both assumed that because their families were of a similar level in society, their fathers would think their match ideal. But ten years ago, the houses of York and Lancaster were starting to collide like jousting knights, and with the families supporting opposite sides, neither would have approved of the marriage.
Ten years. And she was still the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen. But she was no longer the fourteen-year-old girl he’d fallen in love with; that much was clear. Her hips had widened and her breasts were fuller, heavier, and the innocence he’d loved so much had disappeared from her eyes. Almost, but not completely. He thought about her husband, and wondered what the oaf had been able to teach her about love. Had she enjoyed his touch? Or merely borne it with the same passive endurance Maud had borne his own gentle hand?
He shook his head. Once Eleanor had looked at him, her eyes filled with love. Now, she knew him only as the enemy. Much had changed since they first declared their affection. He had t
o live in the present, not in the past, where his mind kept pulling him.
At that moment, Eleanor looked over at him. His heart beat faster, and the surge of blood to his groin as he surveyed her curves surprised him. He turned away and strode out of the Hall. Perhaps a fast walk around the castle in full armour would help steer his mind back on track.
*
Eleanor watched Henry’s tall form as he marched outside, her insides twisting at the angry look he’d thrown her. She wasn’t sure why he was so cross, but it was something to do with her. Did he dislike the fact she reminded him of a time when he was young and inexperienced? Perhaps he thought of his past actions as a weakness, something he wanted to forget.
She didn’t see much more of him for the rest of the day, and it crossed her mind that maybe he was trying to keep out of her way. As darkness fell, the men started filling the Hall for the evening meal. His squire—a youth who followed Henry around like a puppy—informed her that his sire wanted a bath before he ate.
Eleanor considered telling him to ask his master to take a dive in the moat if he wanted to get wet, but refrained from saying the words. She’d always considered herself a good hostess, and decided for the moment she would think of him as her guest—perhaps that way she would avoid getting herself into too much trouble.
She ordered two serving lads to fill the wooden tub resting in the corner of one of the guest chambers with hot water, and was busy laying out towels and fresh clothing when Henry appeared in the doorway.
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