“Come, wife, we are to bed.” He smiled—he’d waited a long time to say that.
He awoke hours later, suffused with contentment. Nothing and no one would ever take Isobel from him now. With her at his side, he was ready to take his place in the world. He would claim his lands, serve his king, be a husband and father.
His life was full of golden promise.
Epilogue
Northumberland, England
1422
Ouch!” Isobel sucked on her finger and set her needlework aside.
He should be here by now, should he not? She paced up and down the empty hall, glancing toward the entrance at each turn.
Where was he?
Sunlight fell across her face as she passed one of the long windows, reminding her how much she loved this house. She and Stephen built it on the Carleton lands. It held only good memories for her.
Only this last remnant of discontent from her old life remained. Both Stephen and Robert urged her to put it to rest.
When she turned again, he was standing at the entrance.
“Father!” Her heart constricted. When had he become an old man? She gestured toward the table set up near the hearth. “I have sweet wine and cakes for you.”
“You remember my sweet tooth.” He pulled a handkerchief from inside his tunic and blew his nose.
After pouring him a cup of wine, she took a cake for herself from the platter between them. There were so many unspoken words between them, she did not know where to start.
“I am grateful to your husband,” he said, “for bringing the children to visit me from time to time.”
Isobel’s cake caught in her throat.
“Sir Stephen is well respected on both sides of the border,” he said. “He seems an honorable man.”
The word “honorable” hung between them like an accusation.
“His eyes shine when he speaks of you,” her father said, his voice cracking. “I need to know you are happy, Issie. Tell me you are.”
Her happiness mattered to him. She nodded. When she could speak, she asked, “Why did you do it?”
Even after all this time, she wanted to know.
He ran his hands through his white hair. “We lost everything. Everything. I was responsible for the three of you. Geoffrey was so young, and your mother… she was never strong like you. You were the only one who could restore the family. I could think of no other way.”
He took a deep breath and shook his head. “I did not believe Hume would live through the winter.”
Isobel folded her hands on the table and fixed her gaze on them. “I know men marry off their daughters for such reasons all the time,” she said, keeping her voice steady. “But you did not raise me like other girls. You made me believe I was special.”
“You were special from the day you were born,” he said, wrapping his big, warm hands over hers. “God knows I’ve made more than my share of mistakes, but the one thing I did right was to claim you as my own.”
Isobel’s eyes flew to his face. Could he know the truth?
“Your mother gave birth six months after we were wed.” He gave Isobel a bittersweet smile and shrugged. “I can count as well as the next man, but what was I to do? Send her away?”
He never considered it, Isobel was certain.
“She seemed happy enough in those first years,” he said. “But when our lands were taken, she saw it as God’s punishment for her sins. I thought if I could get them back, she…” He sighed and shook his head over long-ago regrets.
“His name is Robert,” Isobel said in a quiet voice. “I met him in Normandy.”
His eyebrows shot up, but he knew whom she meant.
“He would not have made her happy, either,” she said.
After a quarter century of traveling and philandering, Robert finally settled down. Thank God he found Claudette.
“He is a good friend now. But when I was a child, he would not have been as good a father to me as you were.”
As soon as she said the words, she knew them to be true. For the first thirteen years of her life, he was the best possible father she could have had.
He was looking at her with such hope, such love, she felt the bands of anger around her heart give way. She leaned down and pressed a kiss against his rough knuckles. When she looked up, tears were running down the crevices of his weathered cheeks.
A squeal of laughter tore her attention from her father to the arched entrance of the hall.
“They escaped their nursemaid again,” Stephen called out as he came through the doorway carrying one child under his arm and holding the other by the hand.
“I found the little one outside eating dirt,” he said, tilting his head toward the giggling boy under his arm. “His big sister told him to do it.”
Their daughter, Kate, gave Stephen a mischievous grin so like Stephen’s that Isobel felt her heart swell. Lord help her, that child was a trial to raise.
Stephen gave his father-in-law a cautious greeting. Kate, however, ran to her grandfather, blazing red hair flying out behind her. In another moment, she was dragging him across the room, pointing at something out the window.
“You are back early, love,” Isobel said as Stephen settled down on the bench beside her.
“I was worried,” he said and kissed her cheek. “But I assume all went well, since I did not find your father with your blade in his heart.”
She smiled at him. “Tell me about your day.”
Stephen rubbed his hand over his son’s head as he gave his report. “We’ve lost no more cattle to raiding, and the fields look good after yesterday’s rain.”
“Who would have thought my wild young man would make a contented farmer?” She pinched the hard muscle at his side. “I expect you’ll go to fat soon.”
He leaned close until she felt his warm breath in her ear. “We shall both be contented, once I have you alone.”
Isobel turned at the sound of Kate’s happy shrieks ringing through the hall. As she watched her father toss the giggling girl into the air, the last of the resentment she held in her heart cracked and melted away.
Forgiveness made her feel light, happy. She turned, smiling, to Stephen.
He gave her one of his slow winks, full of the devil. “As soon as your father leaves, we’ll lock the wild heathens in with their poor nursemaid, and…”
Isobel threw her head back and laughed for the sheer joy of it.
Historical Note
The map of Europe might be different today if Henry V had not died in the prime of his life at the age of thirty-five. At the time of his death in 1422, he controlled all of Normandy and was well on his way to becoming the ruler of France. To make peace with Henry, the French king agreed to marry his daughter to Henry, disinherit his son the Dauphin, and name Henry as his heir.
Under this arrangement, Henry permitted the ailing King Charles to remain the nominal king during his lifetime. This would have been a politically astute move had Henry outlived his father-in-law and been crowned king of France. The long years of fighting, however, took a heavy toll on Henry’s health. During the lengthy winter siege of Meaux in 1421–1422, he fell ill, probably with dysentery. By July, he was so ill he had to be carried on the campaign in a litter. He was dying when he was brought to the castle at Vincennes, outside Paris, where his French princess waited. He died August 31, 1422, predeceasing his father-in-law by two months.
Henry left a nine-month-old babe as heir to two kingdoms. The men who ruled on his son’s behalf were for the most part good men who did their best to carry out Henry’s vision. However, none was Henry’s equal.
If Henry had lived, he might have succeeded in securing all of France. He might, on the other hand, have cut his losses and settled for Normandy when Joan of Arc came along. It seems extremely unlikely he would have lost it all, as his son eventually did.
I should mention that there is some dispute among historians as to whether there was a massacre when the English took Ca
en. I assumed there was one because it served my story. If a massacre did occur, it would have been contrary to the king’s orders. Henry V prohibited his soldiers from committing the rape and mayhem that was common for victorious armies at the time.
Henry V was held up as the ideal to which later kings should aspire. For many years after his death, men sought to preserve his legacy and carry out his will. They continued to be The King’s Men.
Margaret Mallory’s
All the King’s Men series
continues in her next passionate
medieval romance!
Please turn this page for a preview of
Knight of Passion
Available in June 2010
Chapter One
London
October 30, 1425
The stench of the Thames made Sir James Rayburn’s eyes water as he rode through the angry crowd. The “Winchester geese,” the prostitutes who worked this side of the river under the bishop’s regulation, would not do much business today. The men filling the street were not here to seek pleasures banned inside the city; they were spoiling for a fight.
Earlier, Jamie had crossed the river to gauge the mood within the city of London—and found it on the verge of riot.
The crowd grew thicker as he neared London Bridge. Men glared at him but moved out of the way of his warhorse. As he pushed through them, his thoughts returned to the evening before. There had been far too many men-at-arms at the bishop’s palace.
Over supper last night, Jamie had tried to discern the bishop’s intent in bringing so many armed men to Winchester Palace. Under the bishop’s watchful eye, however, no one dared speak of it. Instead, they pressed Jamie for news of the fighting in France.
He obliged them, telling them of the recent battle against the Dauphin’s forces at Verneuil. As he warmed to his tale, the ladies leaned forward, hands pressed to their creamy bosoms. He liked to tell stories. Just when he had begun to enjoy himself, Linnet’s words came back to him.
What you need, Jamie Rayburn, is a dull English wife who will be content to spend her evenings listening to you recite tiresome tales of your victories.
After all these years, Linnet’s ridicule still rankled. He had brought his story to an abrupt end last night and left the bishop’s hall for bed. Damn the woman. Five years since he’d seen her, and she could still ruin his evening.
Calling him boring was the least of Linnet’s crimes against him. No matter that she was not even sixteen at the time. Next to her, he’d been a babe in the woods. It embarrassed him to recall how he had worn his heart on his sleeve back then. While he professed eternal love and adoration, Linnet used him without a shred of guilt or regret.
After the debacle, he left Paris at once in the hope of reaching England before his letter. But nay. He had to suffer the additional mortification of telling his family he and Linnet were not betrothed, after all. Someone should have told him that men value a woman’s virginity far more than women do themselves. He had mistaken the gift of hers as a gift of her heart—and a pledge of marriage.
Never again would he let a woman humiliate him like that.
That did not mean he’d sworn off women. In sooth, he had bedded any number of them in his determination to wipe Linnet’s memory from his mind. Most of the time he succeeded.
Thinking of her now put him in a foul mood. Suddenly, he could not breathe with all these people around him. He had seen enough. The message he must send back to France was clear: the situation at home in England was far worse than they had feared.
The conflict between Gloucester and his uncle, the Bishop of Winchester, had been simmering for months. This dispute between two members of the royal family was far more dangerous now that it had spilled over into the streets.
As Jamie turned his horse to head back toward the bishop’s palace, someone grabbed hold of his boot. He lifted his whip but checked his arm when he saw it was an old man.
“Please, sir, help me!”
The old fellow’s eye was purple with a fresh bruise. From the livery he wore, he was not a part of the rabble, but a servant of a nobleman.
Jamie leaned down. “What can I do for you?”
“The crowd separated me from my mistress,” the man said, his voice high and frantic. “Now they’ve taken my horse, and I cannot reach her.”
Sweet Lamb of God, a lady was alone in this mob? “Where? Where is she?”
The old man pointed toward the bridge. When Jamie turned to look, he wondered how he had missed her before. London Bridge was three hundred yards long, with shops and houses projecting off both sides. But in the gap where the drawbridge was, Jamie had a clear view of a lady in a bright blue and yellow gown. She sat astride a white palfrey, sticking out from the horde around her like a peacock atop a dunghill.
“Out of my way! Out of my way!” Jamie shouted, waving his whip from side to side above the heads of the crowd. Men flung themselves aside to avoid the hooves of his horse as he forced his way forward through the throng.
As he rode up onto the bridge, he heard the familiar sound of an army on the move. He turned and saw men-at-arms marching up the river from the bishop’s palace. God’s blood, the bishop had even sent archers.
Jamie had heard a rumor that Gloucester intended to ride to Eltham Castle to take custody of the three-year-old king. Such a move might well cause the bishop to fear Gloucester meant to usurp the throne. Apparently, the bishop had decided to stop his nephew at the bridge by force of arms.
God help them all.
But in the meantime, Jamie needed to rescue the fool woman caught between the forces of the two feuding royals in the goddamned middle of London Bridge.
The mass of people caught on the bridge began to panic as word spread of the men-at-arms marching toward them. As Jamie pushed his way over the first part of the bridge, their shouts echoed off the buildings that connected overhead.
He was still twenty yards from the lady when he heard her scream. Sweet Jesus, hands were grabbing at her, attempting to pull her off the horse. She fought back like a savage, striking at them with her whip.
Someone caught hold of her headdress. Despite the noise on the bridge, Jamie heard the gasps of the men around her as a cascade of white-gold hair fell over her shoulders to her hips.
The air went out of him. There was only one woman in Christendom with hair like that. Linnet.
And she was in grave danger.
“Do not touch her!” he roared. He raised his sword and pulled the reins, making his horse rear to clear his way. He pushed forward with vicious resolve.
As he fought his way the last few yards through the seething mass, he heard Linnet’s voice over the clamor, cursing the men in both French and English.
A burly man gripped her thigh with a filthy hand, and murder roiled through Jamie. Linnet looked up then and saw him. Her eyes went wide and her lips parted, and all the sounds around him faded away.
In that moment when she was diverted, the burly man caught her arm that held the whip. Another man yanked at her belt. Through the blood pounding in his ears, Jamie heard her bloodcurdling scream as they pulled her off her horse.
“Hold on, Linnet!” he shouted.
She was hanging off the side, clutching at her saddle with both hands. God help him, she would be trampled to death in another moment. Her horse had remained remarkably steady until now. With its rider unsaddled, however, it was wild-eyed, tossing its head and sidestepping into the crowd. Jamie’s heart went to his throat as Linnet swung sideways and slammed against her horse’s side.
The men, whose hold was snapped by the horse’s movement, were grasping at her skirts as the horse flung her from side to side. She was hanging on by one hand when Jamie finally broke through. With one sweep of his sword, he slashed the two men as he leaned down, caught Linnet around the waist with his other arm, and lifted her up onto his horse.
Praise God, he had her! Now he just had to get her off this damned bridge before arrows start
ed flying.
“My horse!” she said, twisting to look over his shoulder.
Without warning, she leaned over the side of his horse with both arms outstretched. Was the woman mad? He gripped her tighter as she reached out to catch hold of her horse’s loose rein with her fingertips.
She sat up and gave him a triumphant grin as she held it up in her hand. Good God, she hadn’t changed a bit. She was happiest in the midst of tumult and trouble. He wouldn’t be half surprised to discover it was she, and not Gloucester, who caused the riot.
“Don’t gloat,” he said in a harsh voice. “We could be killed yet.”
Her eyes flicked to the side, and she brought her whip down on an arm reaching for her horse’s bridle. She was as fearless and bold as when she was a girl. He resented that he still admired her for it.
He turned his horse and shouted at the crowd, “Get off the bridge! Get off the bridge!”
The panicked mass of people surged against them like rolling swells against a ship at sea. Linnet ignored his repeated command to “Let go of the damned horse and hold on.” Instead, she held tight to her horse’s reins, slashing at anyone who tried to grab them.
Since she was doing nothing to hold herself on to his horse, he held her tight—so tight his fingers would probably leave bruises on her ribs. She felt so slight against him. It seemed a miracle she had been able to fight off those men and stay on her horse for so long. Anyone who touched her now would be a dead man. He was a battle-hardened knight. Now that he had her, he had no doubt he could protect her from the rabble.
Flying arrows, however, were another matter.
Somehow, he managed to reach the end of the bridge a hair’s breadth before the bishop’s men-at-arms got there and blocked the way. He rode east along the river, away from the bridge and the crowd, until his heartbeat returned to normal.
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