Harlequin Historical July 2021--Box Set 1 of 2

by Virginia Heath

  She didn’t move.

  ‘Mathilde?’

  She tensed, seeing the door open again and Henry step inside. Judging by appearances, he was alone.

  ‘Mathilde?’ He repeated her name softly, but she still didn’t answer. She didn’t nod or blink or twitch as much as a muscle, simply watching as he moved closer.

  ‘Is the Queen in there?’ He gestured towards the withdrawing chamber. ‘With Mortimer?’

  She gritted her teeth, still refusing to answer. She could have said yes to both of those questions, but he’d find out the truth soon enough. As much as she didn’t want him to get hurt, she wasn’t going to help either.

  ‘Mathilde, I know what you think of me.’ His tone was anguished. ‘But I beg you to do one thing for me and stay where you are. No matter what happens in the next few minutes, don’t move.’

  Slowly, she twisted her face away. She was aware of other people entering the room now, but she couldn’t bear to watch. Instead, she stared into the fire, watching a log wrinkle and turn white in the flames.

  There was an almost unbearably long moment of silence, followed by a loud scraping sound as the door to the Queen’s bedchamber was flung open suddenly. Then there were several noises at once: raised voices, oaths, trampling feet and the shriek of metal against metal. She heard Mortimer call out for help, then a thud and a scream. Isabella’s scream.

  She put her hands over her ears, wincing as the sound seemed to fill her whole head. It was strange how something so momentous could have happened so quickly. An hour ago she’d been sat in this very same spot, innocently reading a book. Now, out of the corner of her eye, she could see Mortimer being half dragged across the floor, bleeding, but not dead.

  ‘Mathilde?’ She felt Henry’s hand on her shoulder and stiffened. ‘The Queen...’

  She looked around dully, past him towards the open doorway. There was no sign of Isabella, just a wailing sound from within the chamber. He was suggesting that she go inside now, she realised, to go and comfort her mistress, as if that was still her place, as if she hadn’t just betrayed her.

  ‘What are you going to do with her?’ She forced the words through numb lips.

  ‘Nothing. She’s the King’s mother. She can stay here under guard.’

  ‘I see.’ She stood up, feeling as though she were facing a stranger. Feeling like one herself. ‘Then you can go. Your work here is done.’

  For a moment he looked on the verge of saying something else before changing his mind, bowing his head and following after the rest of his companions.

  ‘What’s happened?’ Katharine passed him in the doorway, her face aghast. ‘They have Mortimer!’

  ‘Yes.’ Mathilde met her gaze evenly. ‘It’s over.’

  ‘What? Isabella!’ The older woman rushed forward, faster than she’d ever seen her move before, charging past her into the withdrawing chamber.

  Mathilde followed slowly behind. There were only a few signs of a struggle—an overturned chair, a sword mark on the bedpost, a slashed curtain—and the former Queen Consort of England on her knees in the middle of the floor, weeping into her hands as Katharine rocked her back and forth like a child. Mathilde wanted to join them, to offer some kind of solace, but how could she? She was partly responsible.

  She shut the door against the rebels who were now stationed outside. The least she could do was give the Queen some privacy.

  * * *

  It was almost dawn by the time Isabella fell into a fitful sleep and Mathilde and Katharine were able to talk.

  ‘Were you a part of it?’ The older woman confronted her at once. ‘Did you know what was going to happen?’

  ‘Not until last night. When I went to get the King...’ She swallowed and then looked her friend square in the eye. ‘I saw them preparing to come here.’

  ‘Then you sent me away?’

  ‘Yes. I didn’t want you to get hurt.’

  ‘And the Queen?’

  ‘I didn’t want her to be hurt either.’

  ‘You had time to warn her.’

  ‘Yes, but... I didn’t.’

  She braced herself, expecting Katharine to either denounce or strike her, but to her surprise, she only closed her eyes, looking tired and sad and very old suddenly.

  ‘Your husband was with them.’

  ‘I know.’

  Katharine sighed and rubbed a hand over her face. Her skin was speckled with brown spots and her fingers were trembling slightly. ‘If you want to go to him, you should do it now while she’s sleeping.’

  ‘I don’t want to.’ Mathilde shook her head. It was true. At that moment she didn’t want to see Henry ever again. She didn’t even want to think about him. She felt like Isabella. Betrayed.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  Westminster Palace, London

  —winter 1330

  Mortimer’s trial was held in London. It was brief, a formality like Despenser’s had been, with the verdict already decided at the start. Isabella didn’t ask when and where the sentence was carried out and Mathilde didn’t tell her, but somehow she still seemed to know, spending the day sitting by her window and doing nothing. It was even worse than the death of her husband. She seemed deaf and mute with grief.

  The King came to visit her two mornings afterwards, but Isabella barely looked up and he left again quickly. Henry was with him, but Mathilde pretended to be just as impervious as the Queen. She was still reeling in shock from what had happened. She didn’t even know which of them she was angrier with, him or herself, just that she couldn’t bear to be near him.

  * * *

  Henry was also the one who brought news of the Queen’s fate a week later. Isabella was lying down on her bed, but Mathilde and Katharine were sitting outside her bedchamber, waiting in case she called for them.

  ‘Henry Wright.’ Katharine acknowledged his approach with a scowl. ‘Or must I call you my lord now?’

  ‘What?’ Mathilde looked between them, startled out of her angry silence.

  ‘Didn’t you hear?’ Katharine’s tone was openly resentful. ‘It’s going to be Sir Henry Wright from now on.’

  Henry’s jaw tightened though his expression remained impassive. ‘Call me what you wish, but the King has been generous enough to offer me that title, yes.’

  ‘For your loyal service?’

  ‘For liberating him from a tyrant.’

  ‘And did he offer it before or after you agreed to help him?’ Katharine narrowed her eyes accusingly. ‘What is it you want now, my lord?’

  Henry’s shoulders stiffened. ‘The King suggests that his mother remove to Castle Rising in Norfolk. She can go as soon as the weather improves.’

  ‘Then we’d better start packing.’

  ‘Before that, however, I’d like a private word with my wife.’

  Wife. Mathilde gave a small start at the word. It was the first time she’d ever heard him use it around anyone else. The first time he’d claimed her publicly, now it was too late.

  ‘Would you?’ Katharine’s eyes flashed. ‘Well, that would depend on whether or not she wants to talk to you.’

  ‘It’s all right.’ Mathilde stood up decisively. ‘I’ll speak with him.’

  ‘As you wish, but I’ll be here if you need me.’

  ‘I suppose I deserved that,’ Henry murmured when they were out of earshot, standing in one of the window bays.

  ‘Yes, you did.’ She gave him a quick look up and down. His expression was tense and there were new frown lines ingrained in his forehead and between his eyes, ones that hadn’t been there the last time they’d spoken, as if the past year had taken a heavy toll on him, but she was still too angry to feel anything like pity.

  ‘I came because you deserve an explanation for what happened.’

  She folded her arms. She already knew the explanation
—her side of it anyway. That was as much as she needed to know, but she supposed she might as well hear the rest. ‘Go on.’

  ‘The King had been looking for a way to depose Mortimer for a while, but until Nottingham, there were no opportunities to get close enough. He was always so well-guarded. He was getting more and more suspicious, too. It was only a matter of time before we were discovered. Fortunately, for us, it turned out there was an old tunnel through the rock beneath the castle. A secret one, used for escaping in times of trouble. Some of the townspeople told us about it.’

  ‘They just told you?’ She lifted her eyebrows sceptically. ‘You make it sound easy.’

  ‘It was. Mortimer had a lot of enemies. They were more than happy to betray him.’

  ‘Were you? Happy, I mean? I remember you once told me you owed him a debt.’

  ‘One I repaid when I helped him escape from the Tower.’ A muscle tightened in his jaw. ‘But, no, I wasn’t happy about it. Nothing about this has made me happy. I didn’t want to betray him, Mathilde, but I had to. He was trying to usurp the King.’

  ‘It wasn’t like that.’

  ‘It was exactly like that! Maybe you didn’t see it because the Queen didn’t let you see, but innocent people were suffering. Again! I couldn’t just sit by and watch and let them get away with it. And Isabella was no innocent victim in all this either. She became a tyrant with an even worse tyrant at her side. It was wrong.’

  ‘Mortimer was still your blood!’ She glared. ‘Or is that the real reason you did this? Because he was your blood and he never acknowledged you? Was it some kind of revenge?’

  His chin jerked as if she’d just struck him. ‘Do you really think so little of me?’

  She opened her mouth to say yes and then closed it again. Whatever else she might accuse him of, she knew that he would never have acted out of spite.

  ‘You still betrayed him.’

  ‘I know that!’ He lifted a hand and pushed it through his hair, his eyes wild looking. ‘But I couldn’t carry on serving him no matter who he was to me.’ A look of pain crossed his face. ‘I hated myself for what I did. I always will, but when there’s a choice between tyranny and doing what’s right, then there is no choice!’

  ‘So that’s why you resented my loyalty to the Queen so much? Because you thought I was choosing the wrong path?’

  ‘No, I never resented you. Even when I was angry, I understood why you felt so attached to her.’ He moved closer. ‘But I had to end our marriage, at least for a while. It was for your own safety.’

  ‘What?’ She felt her lips part. ‘But you said...’

  ‘I know. I didn’t mean any of the things I said. I didn’t want to say them, but this was something I had to do alone. If anything had gone wrong, then I didn’t want you to be implicated and if they’d found out that we had any kind of association... It would have been dangerous for us to keep on seeing each other.’

  ‘So all of those things you said about our marriage being a mistake and being tired of waiting for me...?’

  ‘All lies. I would have waited for you for ever, but I had to protect you. That was more important than any of this.’ His blue eyes glittered with intensity. ‘You’ve no idea how good it feels to be able to tell you the truth now, Mathilde. I never stopped caring about you, not for one single moment.’

  ‘Wait...’ She shook her head. ‘I don’t understand. You broke my heart and now you’re saying it was all for my own good?’

  ‘Yes.’ He reached for her wrists, clasping them in his hands. ‘It broke my heart to say them, too, but it’s over now. There’s no need for secrecy any more.’

  She stared at him blankly, looking back over the past year with new eyes. Could he be telling the truth? He looked sincere. He sounded it, too, but how could it be over? She felt as though her emotions were being wrenched in several different directions all at once. She felt relieved, amazed, happy and utterly miserable at the same time. Most of all, she felt sick, as if her body couldn’t physically cope with so many conflicting feelings at once. Henry sounded as if he just expected her to forget the heartache of the past year, all of the nights she’d lain awake reliving the pain of his words, not to mention the gut-twisting agony of rejection. Even if it had all been a pretence for him, the pain she’d felt had been real.

  She twisted her arms away, breaking the connection between them. ‘If that’s true, why didn’t you just tell me you were involved in a plot? You said that you trusted me. I would have understood that we couldn’t see each other.’

  ‘How could I have told you? I knew how you felt about Isabella. How could I have asked you to betray her by keeping that kind of a secret? Mathilde...’ He looked hurt when she flinched. ‘It wasn’t that I didn’t trust you, I promise, but I knew that it would have torn you apart to choose. If there had been any other way then I would have taken it, but there wasn’t. I didn’t want you to have to make the same choice I did. This way the burden was—is—all on my head, not yours. You’re innocent in all of this.’

  Innocent... She almost laughed out loud at the irony. She could understand his argument. She could even feel a vague sense of gratitude for it, but a shared burden might have been easier to bear. It wasn’t his fault that she’d discovered the plot early, but she still had and she’d had to face it alone, believing he didn’t care. He might not have asked her to betray the Queen, but it was still what she’d done in the end. Whether or not it had been the right thing to do, she’d chosen him and in so doing, she’d failed her second mother just like she’d failed her first. Only this time, she’d done it with her eyes open.

  She let her shoulders sag, feeling as if a heavy blanket of guilt were being draped around them, dampening any joy she might have felt at his words, demanding that she make amends for her failure all over again.

  ‘Mathilde, I love you. I always will.’ Henry reached a hand out, his voice wavering. ‘Please. Tell me it’s not too late for us?’

  * * *

  Henry watched, heart sinking as Mathilde took a step backwards, her gaze fathomless. After years of telling her that she needed to learn to guard her expression, today she finally managed it, just when he wanted to know her thoughts the most.

  ‘What will happen to Isabella now?’ Her voice was completely flat, without any inflection at all.

  ‘Isabella?’ He swallowed an oath. Even now, even after he’d just told her he loved her, all she could think of was her royal mistress, as if they were already a lost cause. ‘I told you, the King suggests that she move to Castle Rising.’

  ‘Suggests?’

  ‘Strongly suggests.’

  ‘Will she be free to come and go?’

  ‘Only with his permission.’

  ‘Then it would be more honest to call her a prisoner, wouldn’t it? Will she be kept as safe as the old King?’

  ‘Edward would never cause any harm to his mother.’

  ‘No.’ Her gaze dipped. ‘I suppose I know that.’

  ‘Mathilde...’ He cleared his throat, trying to find the words to get through to her. ‘I know that I hurt you. I know that this past year has been terrible. It has for me, too. Every time I saw you, it felt like a dagger twisting in here...’ He placed a fist over his chest. ‘But we can still put things right between us. We can be together properly now.’

  ‘Together?’ She repeated the word as if she didn’t understand it.

  ‘Yes. There’s no need to hide our marriage any longer. I’ll tell the King about us and we can live as man and wife from now on.’

  She lifted an eyebrow, her gaze questioning for a moment, before she opened her lips and began to laugh.

  ‘What is it?’ He put his hands on her shoulders, holding her steady as she swayed from side to side. ‘Why are you laughing?’

  ‘Because of you!’ She sobered again suddenly, staring straight at him instead, her eyes
bright with tears. ‘Do you think it’s so easy? Do you think we can just go back to the way we were?’

  ‘Yes! No. I don’t know. When I joined the conspirators, I didn’t know whether or not I’d even survive. The odds were against us. I didn’t let myself think any further ahead, but I hoped that if I explained to you...’

  ‘That I’d understand and forgive you?’ Her eyes flashed again and then softened, as if all her anger were slowly draining away. ‘I do understand. About Mortimer anyway. As for the rest...how could we ever be happy now? It would all be at Isabella’s expense.’

  ‘Not everything is about her!’ He tightened his grip on her shoulders. ‘Do you imagine that she would think twice? If it came to a choice between her happiness and yours, whose do you think she would choose?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter. Everyone else will abandon her now.’

  ‘She still won’t be alone! The King will appoint people to take care of her. She’ll have Katharine, too.’

  ‘Katharine needs looking after herself.’

  ‘Neither of them is your responsibility!’

  ‘I know, but I owe her this.’

  ‘So you’ll bury yourself in the middle of nowhere with a woman who’s never deserved one ounce of the loyalty you’ve shown her? What if I forbid it? You’re my wife!’

  ‘Forbid?’ One corner of her mouth lifted in a cynical smile. ‘I thought you were against tyranny?’

  ‘Mathilde...’ He could hear the desperation in his voice now. ‘Just give me—us—another chance and I promise I’ll spend the rest of my days proving how sorry I am and how much I love you. I’ve never said those words to anyone before, but I mean them with every part of me. I love you. Please, I beg you, don’t go. You’ve already given her five years of your life. You don’t have to give her the rest, too.’

  ‘I have to go.’ Her gaze didn’t as much as waver. ‘You were right when you said that our marriage was a mistake. Goodbye, Henry.’