by Speer, Flora
“I don’t believe what I’ve just seen,” Gina murmured.
“I do,” Dominick responded. “But then, I’ve seen it before.”
“She shames him,” said a voice from directly behind Gina. “Fastrada quirks her little finger and bends the greatest king in Christendom to her will.”
Gina spun around to confront the speaker, an elegantly gowned, middle-aged woman with brown hair liberally streaked with gray. Pale blue eyes regarded Gina with interest before the woman turned her gaze on Dominick.
“My Lady Adalhaid. What a pleasure to meet you again.” Dominick’s manner was polite, his bow impeccable, yet Gina noticed the wary tension in him.
“Welcome back to court, Dominick,” said Lady Adalhaid. “You are looking well.”
“Thank you,” Dominick said. “I am in perfect health.” Despite his almost painful politeness, he did not ask after Lady Adalhaid’s well-being.
“You always were in good health. It’s one of your most attractive qualities.” Lady Adalhaid’s smile altered her plain, lined face, giving Gina a brief glimpse of the pretty girl she must once have been. “Would you like me to introduce Lady Gina to some of the other women? She will want friends if she’s to remain at court for more than a few days.”
“I would like that very much,” Gina said quickly. Her curiosity was aroused by Lady Adalhaid’s manner toward Dominick and by his odd response. More importantly, Gina saw in Lady Adalhaid’s offer the ideal opportunity to gossip with the noblewoman and perhaps find out whether the ladies of the court knew about the plot to dethrone Charles.
Gina also saw her chance to make up to Dominick for her mistake in speaking her mind to Queen Fastrada. She was painfully aware that she had been foolish in not thinking through what she wanted to say before she opened her mouth to the queen. She couldn’t understand why Dominick was frowning and looking so reluctant when she had an opening to the information he needed.
“It’s quite all right, Dominick,” said Lady Adalhaid. “I mean the girl no harm. Take yourself off to visit with your male friends for an hour or two, and then rejoin us for the evening meal. I doubt if Charles will return to the hall much before then.”
“Gina,” Dominick began.
“I’ll be just fine,” she insisted, trusting him to understand the hidden message in her words. Dominick had investigative work to do, too. “Lady Adalhaid is right; you ought to talk to your friends. You’ve been complaining that you haven’t been at
court for a long time. Here’s your chance to catch up on all the latest news.”
Still Dominick hesitated, looking as if there was something he wanted to say to her. He was probably going to warn her to be more cautious in her conversations.
“I promise to mind my manners and not offend anyone,” she said, laughing to reassure him as she waved him away.
Dominick looked from her to Lady Adalhaid. Finally he left, taking Harulf with him.
“This is my companion, Ella,” Gina said to Lady Adalhaid.
The noblewoman looked Ella up and down, as if trying to decide her actual social status.
“Stay within sight of us,” Lady Adalhaid instructed Ella. “Lady Gina or I will call if we have need of you.”
Gina was annoyed by Lady Adalhaid s curt order to a girl she clearly deemed no more than a servant – and someone else’s servant, at that. On the other hand, Gina didn’t want to antagonize a woman who could possibly provide vital information, so she kept quiet, contenting herself with a quick wink at Ella behind Lady Adalhaid’s back. Ella grinned to show she wasn’t insulted and dropped a few paces behind, as Lady Adalhaid had commanded.
“I am sorry the queen is ill,” Gina said, hoping to elicit a remark or two about the royal marriage.
“Fastrada is not ill,” Lady Adalhaid responded in a voice so low that Gina was forced to lean close in order to hear what she said. “She is a willful child who has been given too much power at too young an age. After bringing forth two daughters in three years, her dearest hope lies in bearing Charles a son who will permanently secure her position.”
“I thought Charles already had sons,” Gina said.
“He has four, all of them by Hildegarde.” Lady Adalhaid added in a whisper, “There was a true queen. Did you know Hildegarde?”
“Unfortunately, no. I only recently arrived in Francia.”
“Ah, yes. Your journey was interrupted by robbers who seized all your belongings. How sad for you.” Lady Adalhaid sounded as if she didn’t believe the robbery story. “Where were you before you came to Francia?”
“Northumbria,” Gina replied. “I was raised in a convent there.” She thought that little detail was an inspiration. If she had spent years inside a convent, she couldn’t be expected to know much about Northumbrian life outside the cloister. She reckoned without Lady Adalhaid’s determination to learn all about her.
“Which convent?” asked Lady Adalhaid. “Where was it located?”
“I beg your pardon?” How many convents were there in Northumbria? Did Lady Adalhaid have actual knowledge of any of them? Where was Dominick? Gina looked around frantically, wishing he would suddenly appear to rescue her. She couldn’t see him, which meant she was going to have to rescue herself. On the spur of the moment she decided to adopt Fastrada’s method.
“Oh, dear.” Gina clapped a hand to her forehead. “Would you mind if I sit down? It’s this awful dizziness. It comes and goes, ever since the robbers hit me over the head.”
“Certainly.” Lady Adalhaid led the way to a bench at one side of the hall. There she sat and patted the wood beside her. “Sit here, my dear. I do hope you were properly cared for at Feldbruck. Perhaps you ought to ask Charles’s physician to examine you. A bit of bloodletting can do wonders for almost any illness.”
“Hedwiga is a very competent nurse, and she says I will recover completely without any further treatment,” Gina stated firmly. “It will just take a little while, that’s all. Hedwiga says I’ll need to be patient.”
“Ah, yes, I remember Hedwiga. An overbearing woman.”
“Have you been to Feldbruck?” Gina asked, surprised.
“Once,” said Lady Adalhaid. “Briefly. Dominick and I are old acquaintances.”
“Did you know his parents?” Gina couldn’t resist the chance to learn more about Dominick and his family.
“My dear, in Francia everyone knows everyone,” Lady Adalhaid said with a superior smile that suggested Gina wasn’t anyone. “Dominick’s mother and I were friends as girls. After she died, Dominick’s father and I were lovers for a time. You look shocked.”
“Just surprised that anyone would admit a love affair to a complete stranger.”
“Really? You are an innocent. I suppose that means you won’t admit to me that you and Dominick are lovers.”
Gina could feel the blood rushing into her face. She turned away from Lady Adalhaid, too embarrassed to meet her eyes any longer. Lady Adalhaid uttered a soft, knowing laugh and patted Gina’s hand.
“Let us speak of something else,” Lady Adalhaid suggested.
“Yes, let’s.” Gina’s thoughts floundered about for a minute or two while her companion regarded her expectantly. The conversation wasn’t going at all the way Gina wanted. She was supposed to be ferreting out information about the plot against Charles. Instead, all she had done was embarrass herself. She didn’t think Lady Adalhaid was capable of embarrassment, which was a good thing, because it was time to get down to serious information-seeking.
“You mentioned that all Charles’s sons are the sons of Queen Hildegarde,” Gina said. “I thought he had another boy, from his first marriage.” Did she only imagine it, or did Lady Adalhaid’s spine stiffen a little at that remark? Certainly, the lady’s smile was gone.
“You must be thinking of the hunchback,” said Lady Adalhaid. “A pitiful fool, a creature of no importance.”
“Pepin is still a king’s son.” Gina repressed the urge to snap out a few well-chosen wo
rds at the cold-hearted woman. If everyone at court reacted to him the way Lady Adalhaid did, it was no wonder Pepin was ready for all-out rebellion.
“Since you are new to court,” Lady Adalhaid remarked, unperturbed by Gina’s irritation, “I will pretend you did not say what you just said, and I will offer you a piece of valuable advice. Never repeat those words, or anything similar to them, within Fastrada’s hearing. She cannot bear the sight of Pepin or even to hear his name spoken. In fact, if you are wise, you will never say anything that might upset Fastrada.”
“Not even if what I want to say is the truth?”
“I can see you have much to learn. There are many subjects that displease Fastrada. Those who incur her displeasure suffer dreadful punishments.”
“Yet Charles seems like a good man.”
“He is.” Lady Adalhaid’s voice took on genuine warmth. “A wise and generous king.”
“But he can’t control his wife?”
“When Hildegarde died and Charles married Fastrada, he exchanged an angel for a devil. I am not the only person who thinks so. Fastrada exerts an evil influence on him.”
“Because she is young and beautiful, and he’s going through some kind of mid-life crisis,” Gina mused aloud. “Relations between men and women never seem to change, do they? I suspect that Charles needs Fastrada to prove to himself and his friends that he’s still the virile man he used to be. Meanwhile, Fastrada makes a habit of pawing him in public and then dragging him off to bed to keep his attention focused on her.”
“Perhaps you are not as innocent as I first thought.” Lady Adalhaid’s serious expression gave way to a faint smile. “Walk carefully here at court, Gina, for your own sake and for Dominick’s. Always think before you speak. And stay as far from Fastrada as you can.”
“I will take your advice. Now, weren’t you going to introduce me to some of the other ladies?”
“Is there anyone special you’d like to meet?”
“I don’t know anyone at all, so I’ll leave the introductions to your discretion.”
“There’s a clever girl. Are you quite recovered from your dizziness? Then come along, and I’ll present you to the ladies you ought to know.”
“Well?” Dominick asked. “Were you able to learn anything about the plot?”
It was after midnight, and he and Gina were alone in his bedchamber, speaking softly in case any of the servants were still awake. After helping Gina to remove her court gown, Ella was in her bed – or with Harulf – and Gina was clad only in a soft woolen robe that opened down the front.
“Lady Adalhaid introduced me to at least a dozen women, and they chattered for hours while I listened,” Gina said. “They were all young unmarried girls. I guess Lady Adalhaid assumed I’d have something in common with them. Anyway, I don’t think those ladies are involved in anything more serious than deciding which gown to wear. If they’ve overheard their parents plotting, they either disregarded what they heard or they aren’t interested. They remind me of the butterflies in the garden at Feldbruck, pretty, thoughtless things fluttering from blossom to blossom.”
“The blossoms being the unwed noblemen who frequent the court?” Dominick said, chuckling at the comparison. “Those girls aren’t as heedless as they appear. Most of them have been brought to Regensburg specifically to be married off, or at least betrothed. Their parents are busy in the background, arranging the marriages, and the more intelligent girls are dropping hints to Mama or Papa about which men they prefer.”
“I was hoping Lady Adalhaid would introduce me to some of the older women who might have husbands involved in the plot, but every time I suggested I’d like to meet someone other than a giggly girl, she changed the subject.”
“She’s a clever woman. She is also one of Fastrada’s closest companions.”
“You must be joking! She warned me against the queen, told me to be careful of anything I say to her. I got the impression she doesn’t like Fastrada.”
“I wouldn’t be at all surprised if she dislikes the queen,” Dominick said.
“She doesn’t like Pepin, either. She called him a fool. And she thinks Hedwiga is overbearing. Yet I don’t think she’s the kind of woman who just criticizes everyone indiscriminately. There must be a purpose behind the remarks she made to me. Dominick, why are you staring at me that way?”
“I am marveling at your insight,” he said. “Did Adalhaid reveal how well she knows me?”
“Actually, it was more a revelation about how well she knew your father.” Gina felt herself beginning to blush. “I didn’t ask. She told me. Now that I think about it, I wonder why she did that.”
“You may be sure there was a reason.” Dominick drew a long breath. “Did Adalhaid mention her daughter?”
“No. I didn’t know she had a daughter. Come to think of it, she didn’t say anything at all about her family, though she certainly did ask a lot of questions about mine. I followed her advice and guarded every word I spoke. Dominick, what is it? I can tell something is wrong here. We are supposed to be working together, so you’d better start talking.”
“Adalhaid’s daughter,” said Dominick, “is Hiltrude.”
“Merciful heaven!” Gina gasped. “Do you mean to say I just spent an entire evening with your mother-in-law?”
“Former mother-in-law,” Dominick corrected her.
“Right there at court, where every person but me knows who she is – oh, I’ll bet the gossips are having a fine time with that story! Why didn’t you warn me?”
“I did try,” he said. “But you were so eager to hurry off with her and begin spying on the ladies of the court that you weren’t willing to listen.”
“Well, there’s an opportunity wasted. After I made such a fool of myself, I won’t get a second chance to learn anything. The ladies will all be laughing at me. So will their husbands and fiances when they hear about it. Not to mention their lovers. I understand from Lady Adalhaid that noblewomen frequently take lovers. I guess that means their husbands have mistresses. Nice society you have here.”
“In fact, I believe you did learn something valuable,” Dominick said.
“If you’re trying to make me feel better, forget it.”
“Why do you suppose Lady Adalhaid spoke so freely to you?”
“Oh, I don’t know. It could be that she realizes I don’t know what I’m doing here, so she can say anything and it won’t matter.”
“It’s far more likely that she was trying to send a message to me, while taking care to be seen speaking to me for no more than a few moments and with someone else present.”
“What message? That she doesn’t like the queen? I’m not sure we ought to believe that. After all, the queen and Hiltrude were apparently close friends. That’s why Fastrada urged Charles to arrange your marriage, isn’t it? So she and Hiltrude together could ruin you? By the way, why does Fastrada hate you enough to want to destroy you?”
“When Charles led the Frankish army to war, I advised him not to make Fastrada regent in his absence. She was, and still is, much too young to wield power wisely, and she is stubbornly certain that she is always right. Fastrada refused to listen to the advisors Charles left in Francia to guide her. Several of those men are no longer welcome at court. Some of them are dead.”
“So,” Gina said after a moment to absorb those unsettling facts, “Fastrada is trying to ruin anyone who spoke out against her? Can’t you talk to Charles about this? He seems like a reasonable man.”
“Not where his wife is concerned. Fastrada holds him in the palm of her hand. She is young and beautiful—”
“Beautiful is as beautiful does,” Gina interrupted. “That’s a saying one of my foster mothers often used. Judging by what I’ve seen and heard so far, Fastrada is an ugly witch.”
“Don’t let Charles hear you say so. Or Fastrada, either.”
“I’m beginning to understand why you prefer Feldbruck to court,” Gina said with a sigh. “Life at Feldbruck is much si
mpler, isn’t it?”
“Seldom have I been able to speak openly to anyone at court.” Dominick pulled her into his arms. “Your honest presence is a joy and a delight to me.”
“Gee, I was afraid I was more trouble than I’m worth,” she murmured, cuddling against his chest. She was so comfortable there, safe and secure. That was not the kind of thought that usually came to her when she was close to a man, but Dominick was different from all other men. She could trust him, relax with him.
“I’m sorry I’ve been such an amateurish spy. I’ll try to do better next time,” she said, relishing the touch of his lips on her forehead and then on her nose and eyelids. “Were you able to learn anything about the plot?” she added just before Dominick’s mouth came down on hers.
“Hmm.”
She wasn’t sure whether he was saying yes or no or simply expressing masculine pleasure at her eager response to what he was doing. When she felt the pressure of his tongue against her lips and the hot surge of him into her mouth, she forgot all about traitors’ schemes and the childish, spoiled queen and her overindulgent husband. All that mattered to Gina was Dominick’s strength and vitality and his fiery passion. Without removing his mouth from hers, he swept her off her feet and carried her to his bed. He lay down beside her and gathered her close, showering her face and throat with kisses.
Dominick smiled when Gina reached up to stroke his face and push back the blond hair that had fallen into his eyes. With growing anticipation he opened the folds of her robe and gazed in delight at her small, nicely rounded breasts. He bent his head to take one nipple into his mouth.
Gina yawned.
Dominick stared at her and laughed softly at himself. He should have known what would happen the moment she was lying down.
“I am sorry,” she whispered.
“Don’t be. You’ve been awake since dawn, and it’s now past midnight. You rode for half the day, then spent long hours at an unfamiliar royal court. It’s no wonder you’re ready for sleep.”