Heather Graham

by The Kings Pleasure

  “She’s not much like her father,” he said apologetically.

  Lenore lowered her lashes. Her infant daughter proved to be more like her true father daily, she was afraid.

  “Time will tell, as she’s just a babe!” she told him.

  “You loved him very much,” Adrien said, and she saw how he mourned Robert. “The babe’s father.”

  She smiled. “Indeed, very much.” No lie was spoken. She had loved Robert, deeply. And she hated the fact that she loved the king, but she loved him as well. That was one of the reasons she was so desperate to leave.

  “Aye, Adrien!” she said. Then she kissed his cheek swiftly. She knew the boy’s strategy had been part of the downfall of Aville, but she knew as well that Edward would never have relented, and she did not blame Adrien, knowing full well that a siege might have brought about more deaths.

  He flushed slightly. “God speed you, lady.”

  “And you, Laird MacLachlan! Until we meet again.”

  Again, she felt a strange tremor. They would not meet again. And yet she had a strange feeling about the handsome young MacLachlan. As if their lives had become intertwined the day Aville had fallen.

  The wind blew cold.

  As she had said, time would tell.

  Chapter 2

  DANIELLE ADORED HER MOTHER. She held her own court at Aville, and with a smile, a tilt of her chin, and coolly spoken, totally authoritative words, she kept everyone within it under control.

  Even as a child, Danielle knew that her mother’s house hosted both Englishmen and Frenchmen, and that her mother was deeply distressed any time she heard that even minor fighting had broken out between the two countries. Thankfully, as the years passed, Aville was not involved.

  Among the many men who visited Aville, there were those, both English and French, who sought her mother’s hand in marriage. One of them, Roger, the Count of LacLupin, was exceptionally charming, and Danielle was very fond of him. He brought her presents every time he came. She was certain that her mother cared about him, too. She came to her mother’s chamber one night when Roger visited, crawled into bed with her, and asked, “Mother, why don’t you marry Roger?”

  Lenore smiled. “He has not asked my hand as yet.”

  “And if he does, you’ll marry him?”

  Lenore was silent a long time. “I don’t know.”

  “Why not?”

  “I don’t think that I wish to marry again. For many reasons. It would be very hard to make you understand.”

  Doctor Coutin, a physician who had trained at the fine university in Bologna, kept a manor in Aville and was now her tutor. He had told her that she had an incredible mind for a child—a female one at that. She could understand.

  “You must obey the King of France, is that it?” she asked, pressing her mother for an answer.

  “My love, the King of England is the one I am compelled to obey first. He seized this castle, and proved that he is duke here, and I have been returned here as countess through his permission alone. By right, he owes his fealty for these lands to Philip, my cousin, but since he claims himself to be King of France as well—and since he has the military power here!—Edward of England holds sway over the future of us all. He is also your godfather. Your father served him. And he can give orders, when he chooses.”

  “The King of England can make you do something you do not want to do? But mother, just tell him no!” Danielle’s world revolved around her mother’s household, where Lenore’s firm but gentle words were law.

  Lenore laughed, and the sound of her laughter was strange. She tousled Danielle’s hair. “My sweet, trust me, kings have the power to try very hard to make people do whatever they choose.”

  “But you mustn’t allow the king to make you do anything that you do not want to do.”

  “Ah—never surrender!” Lenore said, and still she sounded strange. “Ask no mercy.”

  “Never surrender!” Danielle agreed. “Ask no mercy.”

  “Ah, Danni, my little love! Alas, it seems we can lose battles though we do not surrender them, and then again, sometimes mercy comes when it has not been asked. Men will do what they are determined they will, and often, our wits are all that we have against them, and against their strength, wits are not always enough.”

  “Pardon?”

  “I am rambling!” Lenore laughed.

  “Did my father make you do things you did not wish to do?”

  Lenore hesitated, then took her chin between her hands. “Robert of Oxford was one of the finest, gentlest, most chivalrous knights ever to draw breath. He would have fought any danger for you—real or not, man or dragon!”

  “You loved my father very much, didn’t you, milady?”

  Lenore hesitated several seconds. Her voice was husky, something like a strangled whisper when she answered. “Yes, I fell in love with—your father. Enough questions. Now, go to bed, my sweet!”

  She set Danielle upon the floor and kissed her forehead. “Go! It is late. Call Monteine, and she will see you in.”

  Monteine was the youngest daughter of a knight killed while fighting the English. She had told Danielle that Edward’s armies had ravaged every town in France they had come near. She detested the English, and Danielle could certainly agree that they had done very cruel things to the French.

  And now, it seemed, the English king—who thought Aville owed him allegiance!—was preventing her mother from marrying Roger. The king was a monster, and Danielle knew very early on that she hated him. She hated the story about her parents, of course. King Edward had been furious with Danielle’s mother for keeping the castle against him, and he had kidnapped her back to England, but it hadn’t mattered because Robert of Oxford, who had been Lenore’s escort and guard, had fallen madly in love with her, and she with him. He had been one good Englishman, so Danielle grudgingly decided that there must be one or two others as well. Tragically, her father had been slain just after her birth. Danielle was certain that her mother mourned him still, and they said Masses constantly for his soul. Danielle was proudly convinced that he had been the bravest and finest of all knights—even if he had been English. He had left her vast holdings in England, and she was a countess there, too, in her own right, just as her mother was Countess of Aville. He had been a very great man. It made her feel good to realize that everyone within her household seemed to agree with her, those who were French, and those who were English.

  When she was about to lose her temper, which seemed far too often, even to her, she tried to think of Robert of Oxford, who had always been calm and fair. In his honor—for she had heard he loved learning—she worked hard with her tutors and masters. Her days were filled with lessons. She sang, she rode, she learned to stroke the lute. She learned to read, for she loved to do so, and Lenore believed that men prospered far more than women because their minds were expected to be far more expanded. “You’ll never regret knowing how to read!” Lenore assured her daughter once, and so Danielle studied all the harder to please her mother. She was to learn Latin, Spanish, French, Flemish, and English, and no one thought a thing of teaching a child all languages at once. Doctor Coutin taught her the theories of Hippocrates and other great men, the beginnings of medicine from the Greeks and Romans. Her mother was so practiced with herbs and healing, she knew that she must be as knowledgeable as well, able to give advice to the surgeons and barbers who were not nearly as well-educated as doctors.

  She learned to ride expertly. She insisted, by her tenth birthday, that she was too big for a pony, and must have a fine horse. She was given one—a very special mare. She received the horse from her mother’s distant cousin, Philip, the King of France.

  He arrived at Aville with great ceremony, a striking man despite the fact that he seemed old. He arrived with all manner of retainers, and all of Aville—including the Englishmen there—had scurried around wildly in preparation for his arrival.

  Monteine helped Danielle dress in special finery in a silk underdress
and a fur-trimmed tunic in ivory. Even her hose were silk that day, and her hair was dressed in flowers. When she came to the great hall where she had been summoned, she paused, entered, and grinned in response to the elegant smile given her by the Valois king.

  “Ah, my lady cousin!” he declared. “This child may exceed even your great beauty.”

  “Indeed, merci, my lord!” Lenore said softly.

  Philip came to Danielle, capping her head with his palm. He bent down to her. “If ever you need me, little cousin, remember that you must call upon me!”

  Danielle nodded, tongue-tied for once, pleased with this great man’s attention. “I’ve brought you something,” he said. “A mare. She is outside, big enough for a girl who is quickly growing to be a woman. You must go see her.”

  Impetuously, Lenore hugged the king and kissed his cheek. He was deeply pleased with her show of affection. “Go see your mare now. Her name is Star, and you will get on quite well, I am certain.”

  Danielle ran out of the entry to the keep. As the French king had promised, the mare was there. She was big and beautiful, bay-colored with a star upon her forehead. With the help of a groom, Danielle patted the mare’s nose. When Monteine came to the stables to tell her it was late, she insisted that she had to thank King Philip.

  She started to enter the great hall, but realized then that her mother and Philip were deep in discussion. Philip was talking and her mother was nervously pacing the room.

  “He breaks all his treaties, he is coming against me again, and he is determined that he will claim to all that he is King of France!” Philip said, vastly agitated. “Even now, we gather men and prepare for war again. He will never take Paris, I swear it, and I will beat him back to the farthest borders of his own domains! If you would but agree to marriage with Roger yourself—or give me leave to have the child wed to a noble Frenchman! Someone who will give me a strong alliance against that wretched Plantagenet cousin of mine!”

  “Philip! I tried to fight him once—I bought you time upon that occasion!” she reminded him.

  “I am the King of France!” Philip roared. “Your kinsman. I can command a marriage for you—or the girl!”

  “You can command what you will, but if you don’t lower your voice, war will break out here and now. Edward’s loyal men, Gascons and Englishmen, fill this place! You would lose if you were to try to fight here now. You must take care, for you are fighting him to keep your title to all of France, and losing a battle here would not help your quest!”

  “I’m not sure it matters!” Philip said angrily. “I’ve an army at my back, preparing to take on his!”

  Lenore sighed deeply. “Philip, please, you put me in a precarious position. Let me think on this!”

  “I must leave, but I’ll return before he can press an attack upon me,” Philip said. “Lenore, your daughter should have been betrothed by now. Why have you hesitated—”

  “I have not found the proper man—one who might be satisfactory to me, to God—and to two warring kings!”

  “One of us will shortly take the matter out of your hands,” he warned softly.

  “Philip! I beg of you—”

  “Lenore, tonight I will leave you,” Philip said. Danielle still hid against the door as he kissed Lenore’s cheeks. “I am in your debt, for once. You did buy me time against the wily bastard! But don’t forget—I am the King of France.” He turned to leave the room. From the hall, his retainers saw him prepare to leave, and all jumped up, ready to follow him.

  He all but ran into Danielle, just outside the door. He touched her cheek gently.

  “Thank you for my horse!” she told him.

  “Care for her gently!” he said. He paused then, studying her. “My God, but you are a young beauty!” he told her, and strode on by. Then, with a great amount of tumult, he took his leave.

  She didn’t want her mother to catch her up so late, so she went to bed and awaited Lenore, for her mother always came to see that she was safely in. But that night, Lenore did not come to her. There had been a fever outside the castle—a smith had died of it, along with one infant boy and an old peasant woman—and that night, the fever made its way into the house. Danielle dozed, then awoke when she heard running footsteps and cries in the night.

  She crawled out of bed. Monteine was not in her adjoining bedroom. Danielle wandered into the hall, and saw that servants were rushing to and from her mother’s chambers. She ran among them, pausing in the doorway. She had stood there just hours before while her mother spoke with the French king in the vast space before the fire by the light of the windows. Now Lenore was far across the room in her massive bed, her black hair splayed out across the pillows, her features frighteningly ashen against the white linen sheets.

  Danielle cried out, and rushed to her.

  “The child!” someone shouted.

  But Danielle had thrown off whatever hands tried to stop her and come to the bed, crawling atop it.

  “Danielle, come away!” commanded a voice, and she realized that it was Father Giles, her mother’s friend and confessor. Doctor Coutin was there as well, gravely standing just away from her mother’s side.

  “Mother!” Danielle cried.

  Lenore’s beautiful eyes opened and fell upon her. She tried to reach for Danielle’s hand, but could not. Danielle caught her hand, crying out again. “Mother!”

  “Dearest love!” Lenore managed to whisper painfully. Her eyes began to close again.

  “Lenore, save your strength!” Jeanette entreated.

  Danielle’s eyes fell upon those of Doctor Coutin.

  “There’s nothing more to be done,” he said gently.

  She looked to Fattier Giles.

  He met her gaze, and found pity for her. “Lenore is dying!” he said sorrowfully, staring at the others. “Let her daughter speak with her. It is all they will have.”

  Dying? Her mother? No, no, it could not happen! “Mother!” Danielle cried then, lying beside her, holding her, as if, with her own slender body, she could hold her mother to life itself.

  Lenore was whispering again. “Yes, Mother, yes!” Danielle said, crawling closer to her mother’s lips. “Ask me anything, ask me anything …”

  “The king,” was all she heard at first. “You must honor the king. Care for him, you do not know … he will care for you. Danielle, do you hear me?”

  “Yes, Mother! Yes, but—”

  “Honor him. Keep him safe.”

  “Mother, I swear I will do whatever you say. But you mustn’t keep talking, you must rest. You can’t die …”

  Her voice trailed away. Lenore was not answering her. And something about her mother had changed. Her body had been afire. It was as if that fire had suddenly been extinguished.

  “You must come away now, Danielle,” Father Giles said. “Monteine, take your young mistress. She must leave this place of contagion!”

  Monteine came forward to take Danielle, sobbing still.

  “No, I cannot leave her!” Danielle cried.

  “Child, she has left us already!” Father Giles said, not unkindly.

  Tears sprang to her eyes. She tried to cling to her mother’s body. She was dragged away by Monteine and Jeanette while Father Giles gave orders to other servants as to the care of the body.

  Danielle thought that she would never bear the pain. She sobbed herself into exhaustion, and from there, into sleep.

  By the morning, she could no longer mourn, for the fever had seized her.

  The plague had come to them, and throughout Aville, people fell sick—the poor, the rich, the peasants, and the nobles. A full half of those inside the castle fell ill.

  And half of those who fell ill, died.

  Danielle drifted in and out of light for days, sometimes knowing that she had lost her mother, sometimes knowing that she was close to death herself, and caring little. By the sixth day, however, the fever pustules that had formed on her burst. Her body began to cool. She was going to live.

&n
bsp; She gained full consciousness one morning to learn that despite the fever that had raged all around them, the beautiful, beloved Lenore d’Aville had been buried with all care and ceremony.

  Father Giles had waited until after the services to succumb to the fever himself, and perish.

  Losing her mother was agony. For days, Danielle, still very weak, lay in bed and wished that she might have died and gone to heaven with both her parents.

  Jeanette told her that it was a sin to want to die, that she was a countess, that she had to learn to accept God’s will with fortitude. She had always been so very wise and mature; she must be even more so now.

  Danielle didn’t want to be wise or mature, and she didn’t know why she should accept anything about God—God had taken her mother. But she was too desolate to argue with Jeanette.

  The weeks passed, and she gained her strength again. The dead were all buried; the fever had done its damage, and passed them by.

  She became dimly aware that people within her household were talking about battles once more—it seemed that the English were ready to make war again. Danielle still hadn’t roused herself enough to care.

  But she awoke one morning to discover that Monteine was in her room, her face damp with tears, muttering as she packed trunks full with Danielle’s belongings.

  Danielle sat up and demanded to know what she was doing.

  “Countess, we are going to the king!” Monteine said.

  “The king?” Danielle replied, perplexed. She bit her lip, remembering that she had promised her mother she would honor the king.

  “It seems that there are all kinds of legal documents,” Monteine said with a sigh. “Your mother made arrangements for your care in case of—in case of her death!”

  “Why must we leave? Philip could care for me here—”

  “It is not Philip who will care for you at all! Your mother has placed you into the care of your godfather, the King of England. Danni, your father was an English lord—you know that well enough. You have heard the stories over and over again, you have told them over and over again. And Robert of Oxford was a baron well admired by the king. But, oh God, that my life should come to this! The Lady Jeanette and I are to remain your retainers. We are duly summoned before the King of England—even as he plans another attack upon the French!”