With his fists clenched in anger and his head thrown back as he spoke, his words echoed through the chamber and sent shivers through Marguerite as she reconsidered her approach.
“Sire, I beg your forgiveness for my brazen words. I wish only to love you and to give you pleasure and heirs as you desire. I carry one now within my womb and simply want to share my joy at the honor with you.”
Nothing inside her could make her take back the words. She wanted to be queen. She carried his son now. Her blood was noble enough to take her place next to him. Bastard or not, the blood coursing through her veins could be traced back to Charlemagne.
But she was a realist if nothing else, and so, gathering her pride in a bit, she lowered herself into a deep curtsy at his feet and tilted her head down until she was lower than his hand. After a minute in that humbling position, she raised her head and lifted his hand to her mouth. With a reverent kiss on it, she touched it to her forehead and whispered to him.
“I am yours, Henry. I live to love you and to serve you only.”
His manner calmed for his heavier, angrier breathing slowed and he did not pull away from her. Instead, he assisted her to her feet and he guided her to a chair. Once she’d taken her seat, he paced across the chamber without speaking. Marguerite had seen this behavior before in him. When first confronted with news that was neither pleasant nor wanted, he exploded, his temper getting the best of him. Then, when given time to acclimate himself to the news, he dealt with things in a fairer way.
Ridding himself of the disgraced Eleanor would take some maneuvering with both church and nobles and Henry was probably thinking of ways around the objections that may be made to it. In spite of their age difference and her perfidy to him in matters of family, he was most likely seeking a benevolent manner to remove Eleanor, yet one without losing the wealth and lands she brought into the marriage as her first husband had.
Marguerite reached over and, to soothe her parched throat, took a sip of the sweet wine still in her goblet. Watching the king pace back and forth, she knew he was beginning to agree with her assessment and ideas. She relaxed against the back of the high chair and waited. There was no sense in interrupting Henry now. Just as she began to get nervous over his silence, he stopped and turned to face her.
“Several years ago, I supported a monk from Sempringham in his battles against the revolt and the charges of his lay brothers,” the king said. She knew not where these words led, but waited for his explanation. “The order now thrives and is under my protection. One of their lay houses would be a good place for you to remain until you give birth.”
He was banishing her?
“My lord, do you mean to send me to a convent?” She could hardly draw a breath at the thought. “I only want to…”
“I understand, Marguerite,” he said, smiling that charismatic smile that had entranced her from their first meeting. “’Tis best to have the babe before any other plans are made between us.”
A small measure of fear crept up her spine at his words. Something within her knew that he was twisting her words and her desires for his own. But then, was that not what kings did when given the choice? She had not reached the level where she was now by avoiding the difficulties, and so she pressed her suit before he could leave and not give her some commitment to hold on to.
“And marriage, sire? Will there be marriage after the babe?”
Henry walked swiftly to her and pulled her to stand. The goblet dropped from her grasp as he wrapped his arms around her in possessive embrace and brought her mouth to his. His mouth took hers in a lustful, claiming kiss like the many they had shared for months and months between them. Over and over, he tasted her lips and his tongue played against hers as she felt her resistance to him and his ways diminished. When she was breathless, he drew back from her, tilted his head so that he met her gaze with those clear, Angevin eyes and he smiled at her.
“Oh, fair Marguerite, there will be marriage.”
Chapter One
Abbeytown
Silloth-on-Solway, England
July in the Year of Our Lord 1178
“My lord!”
Orrick turned at the brother’s call and stopped in his stride to his horse. Brother David, large and lumbering, approached him without calling out again. A message then?
“Good brother, what do you need of me?”
He knew most of the brothers by name because he had spent time since he was a babe here both with his father and alone on his own tasks. This one had been a member of the community for nigh onto ten-and-four years and in charge of the abbey’s vast assortment of clerks.
“The abbot requests another moment of your attention, my lord. In his office chamber.”
Orrick nodded to his men and, with his helmet still in his hand, followed Brother David to the abbot’s office. ’Twas something important or the abbot would not summon him back so soon. A few minutes brought him face-to-face with Abbot Godfrey.
“Come in for a moment, my lord. There is someone to see you and I thought you might want some measure of privacy.”
Orrick ducked lower to enter under the short doorway and straightened to his full height when inside. The royal envoy, wearing the insignia of the Plantagenet king, stood before the abbot’s table that was already strewn with papers and scrolls. The abbot left quietly without looking at either of them.
“My lord,” the man said, bowing before him. “Abbot Godfrey thought to save us both some travel. This is from the king.”
The sealed scroll lay in the air between them and something within Orrick made him hesitate to touch it. Not expecting word from the king who was in Anjou at the present, he could not imagine what tidings were carried within this roll of parchment. And part of him did not wish to know.
Pushing off his mail coif and tucking his helmet under his other arm, he reached out and accepted the messenger’s duty. The waxed seal cracked off the parchment in his hand and he stepped back away from the man to unroll the parchment until he could read the words. Then he stopped breathing as the words began to make sense to him.
Henry wanted to reward him for his father’s past and his current service to the Crown. A woman, nay, a wife, befitting his standing in the esteem and respect of the king. More gold for some service already performed. Another title.
Orrick swallowed as the words struck him. His father had been no fool and neither was he. He knew, plain and simple, that he was being bought. And the price being paid was high enough to make him worry. If Henry was stepping into the affairs of his nobles, Orrick knew he should be worried. Especially when it happened in the remote area of England where he lived and breathed. And when it brought him the likes of a bride named Marguerite of Alencon.
The messenger asked if he should wait for a reply and Orrick shook his head. “My answer will be my attendance on the king’s call, sir.”
“I shall convey your willingness to him, my lord.”
The man’s words were said almost as a question rather than a statement. His call to wed the king’s vassal was obviously not a secret at court for even the envoy
