folded the parchment over and ran her finger across the two halves of the thick seal. She dug her thumbnail into the wax until the edges chipped.
‘Do you know what this letter says?’ she asked her guest.
Hugh D’Avranches, Palatine Earl of Chester, reached across to the low table and refilled their goblets. The jug nestled among the remains of the late meal they had shared. It had been pleasant before Hugh had produced the parchment.
‘I can hazard a guess,’ he replied, handing Constance her wine. ‘When your brother-in-law asked me to carry this message I asked if he would like me to bring your reply back to Cheshire. He said there would be none as he was certain you would obey his instructions and begin your travel preparations immediately.’
Constance suppressed a shudder.
‘He would have me travel in December! He expects me to return to live in Hamestan.’
She flung the hateful letter to the floor beside her and began pacing around the chamber, her stick striking loudly on the stone floor. When she had left Hamestan seven years ago she had intended never to go back.
‘Who is he to command me to do anything!’ she exclaimed. ‘And why now? You should have refused to bring this to me.’
Hugh folded his arms; a calm, thickset, tawny-haired man who was more jowly every time Constance saw him, despite not yet being thirty. He regarded Constance with an expression of mild reproach, then beckoned her to sit down. It was impossible to stay angry with him for long so she returned to the settle by the hearth and eased herself on to the cushions, stretching her leg on to a low stool.
‘Robert de Coudray is one of my tenants-in-chief. It would have been churlish for me to refuse to bear his letter as I was travelling past Bredon on my way to Gloucester. Besides—’ Hugh smiled and took Constance’s hand ‘—I would not pass up the opportunity to visit you. I have seen you so rarely this past three years. My new responsibilities keep me busy.’
Such familiarity was unbecoming, even if she was a widow. If anyone were to find them in such a position she was risking scandal, but Constance was beyond caring. One way or another she would be gone before long.
‘I’m glad to see you, Hugh. I have so few friends. I don’t want to quarrel with you when you’re here for such a short time.’
Hugh placed the letter on the table alongside the wine jug.
‘You could intervene and make Robert change his mind,’ Constance suggested hopefully.
Hugh pursed his lips. ‘Not without causing bad blood and I need the loyalty of all my vassals at this time. As much as you hate it, now you are a widow, your brother-in-law is your legal guardian. If Robert commands you to live within the protection of his household that is his right.’
The notion of Robert de Coudray offering any sort of protection would be laughable. Except it wasn’t funny. Not when she wondered who would offer protection from Robert himself. She rubbed her ear, feeling a faint scar beneath her fingertips left by Robert’s belt buckle.
‘I don’t want any man’s protection,’ she said. She stared into the fire, watching the flames rising from the logs and entwining sinuously, like lovers dancing.
‘You cannot stay in Bredon,’ Hugh said.
‘My late husband’s nephew has inherited the land and title. He has agreed that I may live here until twelve months have passed. After that I intend to return to take holy orders at the convent at Brockley.’
‘Constance, you’re far too young to shut yourself off from the world in such a way,’ Hugh exclaimed.
Constance took a long drink of wine. She didn’t feel young. Dark shadows under her eyes and a permanent worry crease on her forehead was evidence enough of that. The ever-present stiffness in her leg merely accentuated it.
‘I am twenty-three. Many women commit themselves to life in the cloisters from a much younger age and, as you say, I have to live somewhere.’
‘Why Brockley?’ Hugh asked. ‘Why not somewhere closer to here?’
Constance clasped her hands around her arms and shivered.
‘The sisters cared for me when I arrived there from Hamestan. I would have stayed then if I’d been permitted, but once Robert brokered my marriage I was brought here.’
‘You never speak of that time,’ Hugh mused.
Constance lifted her chin and fixed him with a fierce glare, her stomach lurching violently. None but the nuns knew what she had learned about herself when she had arrived there and she intended to keep it that way.
‘No,’ she said curtly. ‘I don’t.’
After an unusually tactful length of time Hugh broke the silence by throwing another log on to the fire.
‘Tell me...why did you question the timing of this letter?’ he asked.
‘Piteur—’ Constance winced slightly as she always did when mentioning her deceased husband ‘—has been dead for nine months. Lord de Coudray has made no attempt to communicate with me until now.’
‘Perhaps he has finally realised the necessity of deciding your future,’ Hugh pointed out. ‘If you had borne an heir matters would have been different.’
That was the problem. Five years of marriage had produced no child who had lived. Hugh, like all men, would think only of the lineage that must be carried on and her failure to provide the required child. The grief for her daughter, dead after only four days in the world, was still raw after three years. It seemed unlikely ever to diminish. The pain, helplessness and indignity that had accompanied her other failed pregnancies, before and afterwards, still clawed at her in nightmares.
She thought back to the first baby. The one she had not even suspected she was carrying and tears burned her eyes. Tears of sorrow, and hatred for the man who had unknowingly caused its death.
Hugh took her hand gently.
‘King William dislikes widows living alone. You know you will have to marry again,’ he said. ‘I know your husband granted you a legacy when he died.’
Piteur’s legacy had been earned many times over in ways Constance did not wish to contemplate ever again. She would crush every jewel and melt every ring if she could.
‘I’m sure I could find a dozen husbands who would look past my deformity—’ she indicated her crooked foot ‘—and spend it for me, but I have had enough of marriage,’ Constance said bitterly. ‘I’m done with men using me for their own ends.’
‘If I had been in England when your brother-in-law was searching for a husband, I would have put myself forward.’
Constance’s eyes widened in surprise. She was fond of Hugh, but it had never crossed her mind his feelings ran that deep.
‘I’m flattered,’ Constance said sincerely, ‘but you are married now so that is not a possibility.’
Hugh stretched out his stocky legs towards the fire. ‘That
