She thought she had recouped brilliantly in choosing Simon of Beresford as Gwyneth’s bridegroom. It was true that Beresford had taken badly to the idea, but Adela had reckoned on his displeasure and had calculated to temper it, if necessary, with the bestowal of the Northumbrian earldom.
Although she knew that Beresford’s elevation would be viewed with envy by several of the barons, she also knew that the grumbling could not be too great, for Beresford’s loyalty was well known and his reward justifiable. From the reports she was receiving, she was reassured that Beresford’s new honor was being met with general approval in the castle. Adela had good reason to be pleased with her day’s work.
She was pleased, as well, when Gwyneth of Northumbria was announced at the queenly bower and ushered into the room by two ladies-in-waiting. At her entrance, Adela summarily dismissed her councilors, rose from her chair and moved forward.
“Thank you for coming, as I requested, my dear,” she said, her hands outstretched to grasp Gwyneth’s. “Let me look at you.” She stood at arm’s length. “Very lovely. Yes, very lovely. Perfect for this evening.”
Adela, indeed, approved of Gwyneth’s appearance. The young woman had left Northumbria with little clothing, so Adela had provided her with a dark blue kirtle, over which she wore a light blue linen bliaut that laced at the sides and fit closely to her hips, flaring out below. The pretty woven -leather belt that Gwyneth had passed twice round her waist and knotted in front was her own, but she had no jewelry, nor did Adela intend for her to wear any until she remarried. Particularly satisfying was the change in Gwyneth’s hair. Adela had provided her with a plain circlet and a small round veil as a replacement for the snood, and this proper headdress made the young woman look less Norse and more Norman.
Gwyneth thanked her hostess modestly for the compliment while Adela led her to a wide window seat piled luxuriously with pillows and cushions. “Lady Chester has already informed me,” Adela said, “that your initial meeting with Simon of Beresford went exceeding well. Now I would like an account of the event from your lips.”
“It went very well,” Gwyneth agreed in her lilting accent. “But as for a precise account, I would not know where to begin.”
“You might begin by telling me whether you are in any way displeased with your husband-to-be,” Adela suggested gently. To the nearest lady-in-waiting, she requested that two cups of wine and a bowl of nuts be brought then she drew Gwyneth down next to her on the gaily-striped cushions. Lowering her voice in a conspiratorial tone, she said, “The matter is not cast in stone until the wedding vows are spoken, you know.”
She saw Gwyneth pause a moment before replying demurely, “Displeased with him? No, madam.”
Adela smiled encouragingly. “Are you pleased by him, then?” she prodded.
Gwyneth lowered her thick, blond lashes. “I am pleased to accept your choice of husband for me,” she replied, ever demure.
This was not the response Adela was angling for, and she wished she could have seen into the young woman’s eyes. “Very proper,” she confined herself to saying. Hoping to coax Gwyneth into revealing her feelings, she ventured, “Simon of Beresford has many fine qualities.”
“Oh, yes, I am sure that he does,” Gwyneth replied.
“He is strong and rich,” Adela continued, “although he is not one to display his wealth.” She paused long enough to take a cup of wine from the tray held by the lady-in -waiting and to gesture invitingly toward Gwyneth. “And he is kind.”
Gwyneth took the cup and raised her eyes. In the benign light of the dying day, Adela found herself looking straight into a limpid, limitless violet that told her nothing of Gwyneth’s thoughts.
“I have seen that he is strong,” Gwyneth said sweetly, “and I believe you when you say that he is rich. However, I have too slight an acquaintance with him to know yet whether he is kind.”
Adela laughed once, musically. “You may as well state that his manners are harsh and that his social graces are few!” she said humorously, switching tactics. “Such a man is our Simon! But I assure you that he is honorable and that beneath his ragged manners beats a warm heart.”
Gwyneth nodded acquiescently, and Adela felt the first stirrings of dissatisfaction with her day’s work. “But you are not drinking, my dear,” she said, noting Gwyneth’s untouched wine. “It will relax you after the excitement of the day.”
Thus commanded to drink, Gwyneth obeyed.
“Now that I have mentioned Beresford’s rather blunt ways,” Adela continued, keeping her tone light, “I must say that they were in full evidence earlier today in the council room. A number of barons were present when I bestowed upon Sir Simon the privilege of marrying you, and in his surprise, he reacted without thinking!” Her voice was cozily confidential. “You, dear Gwyneth, know how rumors can scurry throughout a castle, becoming more distorted with every telling. The ones circulating about Sir Simon that so closely concern you are bound to come to your ears, and I did not want you to be distressed, my dear, if you were to hear that Sir Simon was not happy with the match.”
Gwyneth replied with an openness that gave her words the ring of truth. “You need not worry about untoward rumors of such a nature coming to my ears, madam, for Sir Simon told me himself that he was against the marriage.”
Adela was mightily displeased by this information, but had enough experience not to show it. She had not thought it necessary to speak to Beresford alone before he met his bride, figuring that Gwyneth would win him over with her beauty. She did not know what ailed the man, but she made a mental note to meet with Beresford immediately before supper.
Before replying, she fortified herself with a leisurely sip of wine and encouraged Gwyneth again to do the same. Then she set down her cup and matched Gwyneth’s openness with a pleasant candor of her own. “Our Simon, again!” She shook her head in affectionate dismay and chuckled. “I shall make a point of having you visit Beresford at his home in town tomorrow. You will have a very different impression of him when you see him in his element. Your feelings will undergo a measurable change for the better.”
Adela paused. The young woman’s obvious retort would have been, ‘Ah, madam, it is not my feelings about the marriage that need to improve, but those of my husband-to -be, who has expressed his displeasure at the match.’
Instead, Gwyneth said nothing. She merely nodded. Adela waited another moment for a response, and when Gwyneth glanced at her modestly and expectantly, as if waiting for the next topic, Adela felt her dissatisfaction grow into frustration. For all her skill at eliciting valuable information from the unsuspecting, Adela was baffled by Gwyneth. She could not determine whether the young woman was remarkably docile or exceptionally smart.
Adela sensed that her plans could go awry if she did not realize them soon. “Everyone will feel better, I am sure, when the date for the wedding is set,” she said with a smile. “I will have it announced at supper this evening, when the toasts to your happiness are made.”
So saying, Adela rose, thereby bringing the brief conversation to its conclusion. She touched her hand to her forehead and said, “Ah, but I have just bethought myself of a task left undone.” She turned toward one of her ladies. “Marta, I pray you, escort our guest to the hall for supper.” Turning back to Gwyneth, she said, “I will follow shortly. You will understand if I am unable to accompany you there myself just now, won’t you, my dear?”
****
Gwyneth understood perfectly. She had held no illusions before the summons to the king’s consort’s solar and held none now. When Adela had opened the discussion with, “The matter of your marriage is not cast in stone until the wedding vows are spoken, you know,” Gwyneth had not been deceived into thinking that she had the power of refusal. When Adela had brought up the little matter of the rumor circulating that Simon of Beresford was not well pleased with the match, Gwyneth had grasped the true reason she had been honored with an invitation to the private chambers: Adela had wished to for
estall a potential scandal and avoid an openly unwilling bride. Gwyneth had seized upon the occasion to reaffirm Beresford’s opposition to the scheme, and although her ploy might not undo the match, she was not sorry to have tried. Not for anything would she have revealed her own fears for her future, for she had lived with Canute too long to ever expose weakness. And her tongue was never loosened by strong drink.
Accompanied by Marta, Gwyneth arrived back at the great hall, where preparations for the lighter of the two daily meals were going forward. Even in this warm weather, low fires mulled on the hearths of the wide fireplaces that faced one another across the length of the room, chasing any chill and damp. Pages were setting up the trestle tables and benches and arranging the silver spoons and cups of horn. Servants with bronze ewers circulated throughout the hall so that the nobles could wash their hands.
Upon stepping into the activity, Gwyneth felt a calm that came from knowing the worst of her fate. A glance around the room confirmed that Beresford was not there. She did not have a moment to feel at a loss in this gathering of strangers, for several women came up to her, friendly and curious. She had hardly been introduced to them and begun to receive their congratulations when a man joined the group, smooth and smiling, and somehow she found herself separated from the women and alone with him.
“You are Cedric of Valmey,” she stated. The handsome man, dressed in a rich burgundy tunic that enhanced his dark good looks, was standing too close to her, and she took a discreet half step away from him.
He bowed and said, “You flatter me, Gwyneth of Northumbria.”
Since she had earlier perceived him to be a man who would think himself irresistible to all women, she did not bother to deflate him by saying that she was hardly likely to have forgotten the one responsible for her captivity. She also refused to blush or simper in apparent confusion. “I did not mean to do so, sire,” she said. She regarded him steadily, a disconcerting trick, she had learned, that sometimes put overbold men at a disadvantage.
Not Cedric of Valmey. “Then, perhaps, madam, you accuse me.”
She knew that it was wiser to preserve a respectful silence than to respond.
Valmey sighed with a smile. “Perhaps you know that I led the attack on Castle Norham. It is natural for you to hold it against me, but in sooth, it could have been any knight present who did the deed.” He waved the topic away and continued, still overly solicitous. “Because I wish to give you a much better impression of me, I have come forward with the rest to offer my congratulations to you.”
“I thank you.”
“And to complain,” he continued with a sly, sensuous, teasing smile, “that Simon of Beresford received two remarkable honors today.”
Gwyneth looked at him questioningly.
“The second remarkable honor being, of course, the fact that he is to marry you.”
“And the first?” she demanded.
“He has received the earldom of Northumbria, in addition to your hand and your land,” Valmey informed her.
Gwyneth lowered her lashes. Beresford had not mentioned the earldom, and neither had Adela. Was Valmey telling her this now to suggest that an additional honor had been necessary to overcome Beresford’s obvious reluctance to the marriage? Or was it, rather, that Valmey was jealous, since the land should have been his by right of conquest? She replied, “It seems a proper honor to bestow on him, under the circumstances.”
“Under the circumstances,” Valmey repeated.
“What circumstances?” asked a voice at Gwyneth’s side. She turned to find Geoffrey of Senlis standing there. “But let me guess!” he said.
Gwyneth greeted him and said, “We were just discussing the appointment of Simon of Beresford as Earl of Northumbria.”
Senlis bowed. “An excellent appointment,” he said approvingly, “and unlooked-for on Beresford’s part, I can assure you!” He gazed frankly at Gwyneth as he continued, “Simon has never sought honors.”
Gwyneth perceived the merest hint of tension in Cedric of Valmey and wondered whether Senlis’s comment was less for her benefit and rather more for Valmey’s. “You mean that he is modest,” she said.
“I mean that, too,” Senlis said, his eyes twinkling.
Gwyneth riposted, “I refuse to credit, sire, that as Simon of Beresford’s friend, you are suggesting he is unambitious.”
Senlis laughed. “I did not mean that, my lady!” he disclaimed instantly, stepping back and putting his hand over his heart.
Cedric of Valmey smiled at the good-natured raillery, but the smile did not reach his eyes. When he murmured his excuses, Senlis said affably, but with an undercurrent of challenge, “What, Valmey, you are leaving us?”
With equal affability and challenge, Valmey replied, “I shall return when I may have Gwyneth of Northumbria to myself.”
Gwyneth supposed that she was to feel flattered, but she did not. She had no doubt that Cedric of Valmey was a rat, and not just because of his sacking of Castle Norham. He was a handsome rat, but a rat all the same. She turned to Senlis. He was handsome, too. But he was not, she thought as she looked into his fine eyes, a rat. She felt a kind of relief in his presence that she had not experienced since coming to the Tower. Perhaps it was his blue eyes and blond hair, which made him seem so very familiar to her. For the second time that day, she thought how much easier her life would be if he had been the chosen bridegroom.
He extended his arm. She laid her fingertips lightly upon it. He invited her to stroll and she accepted prettily. He spoke easily of this and that. He regaled her with an inconsequential story or two. He sketched for her the foibles of those present in the hall and mapped their family ties to those who would be presently joining the evening’s festivities.
The context thus existed for Gwyneth to ask casually, “And Cedric of Valmey? He is not married?”
Senlis shook his head. “No, my lady.” He smiled charmingly. “Promised, however, I think.”
Gwyneth let the subject pass. “And to whom is that man married—Ah, I believe he is the Earl of Exeter?”
“Very good! You have a head for names, it seems. Exeter is married to Catherine of Kent, and I perceive,” Senlis said, with a glance at her, “that marriage is on your mind.”
She returned his look and admitted, “I suppose that it is.”
“It’s very understandable,” he replied, “but if you are determined to pursue the subject, I think you would find it far more interesting to ask about my marriage plans.”
Gwyneth entertained the rather attractive thought that Geoffrey of Senlis might be flirting with her. “Well, then, sire,” she said, deciding to oblige him, “what are your marriage plans?”
“I have none!” he answered. “Like Valmey, I am unmarried. Unlike Valmey, I am promised to no one.”
“Oh? You are, perhaps, too particular?”
“No,” he said, shaking his head sadly, “too poor!”
“Some woman will take such a well-set-up man for preference.”
“It’s a lowering thought to be loved for one’s face.”
“You’d rather be loved for your land?”
Senlis cocked his head and looked down at her. “No,” he said slowly, “you are not at all simple.”
She glanced quickly at Senlis, then away, startled by this reminder of her initial, disastrous encounter with Simon of Beresford. She raised her eyes and was startled again, for suddenly Beresford stood in front of her. She felt a stabbing sensation somewhere in the region of her heart. With the part of her perceptions that were still functioning normally, she noted that he had been cleaned up. Someone had taken a razor to his face with not indifferent results and had tried to bring his hair into order. His tunic, though far from stylish, was clean and in good repair. For all these improvements, he looked not one whit less formidable.
Beresford’s slate glance had struck his friend and stopped. “Geoffrey,” he said pleasantly, but something in his tone sounded distinctly unpleasant to Gwyneth, “tha
nk you for attending to my wife-to-be while I was speaking with Adela.”
“You are most welcome, Simon,” Senlis replied, with an elaborately polite gesture then threw out an appetizing morsel. “We were discussing, in fact, the very subject of marriage.”
Beresford did not bite. He had come to escort Gwyneth to supper and said as much. He took possession of her hand and began to lead her to the head table without so much as a by-your-leave. The maneuver was adroit, and Gwyneth had the notion that he must have relieved many an enemy of his weapon in a similar way. She also saw that his customary rudeness could work to his advantage, for there was nothing in his manner to make her think that he was angry or jealous or otherwise moved by her conversation with Senlis. He was simply being Simon of Beresford.
So why did she feel just the tiniest grain of guilt? There was no reason, of course, for she owed Beresford nothing. She decided that she was merely irritated at having her conversation with a charming, handsome man rudely interrupted. The self-righteous thought gave her courage.
They arrived at the head table and sat down, having exchanged the kind of pleasantries two people would say to one another as they sought their seats. Gwyneth acquainted herself with Walter Fortescue on her left. Beresford withdrew his knife from the leather sheath at his belt and laid it on the table between the trencher and cup that he and Gwyneth would share. They were honored this night to be placed at the table on the dais, which was under the central vault of the hall. They were not, of course, directly next to the king and his consort, but Gwyneth was seated close enough to receive a tasty morsel from Stephen’s knife, if he cared to extend one to her.
She turned back to Beresford at the same moment he turned toward her. It had seemed to her that he had been avoiding looking her way, but now he was staring fixedly at her.
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