"And if I refuse?"
"Your betrothal to Gaspar is being announced tonight. A refusal will make you a married woman within the month. Consider it well, cousin."
Madelon rode back to Santa Maria de Carrion in a daze. For the rest of the day she remained in her room, touching neither food nor drink.
Diya was beside herself with anger when she heard her young mistress's plight and voiced all manner of threats against Urraca, from plunging a dagger into her scheming black heart, to having a spell cast on her which would cause her to die very slowly and in great agony.
Madelon lay on her bed, oblivious to the fiercely whispered comments. She was wishing she had never left the grim sanctuary of the convent.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Madelon sat on a stool by the window watching a group of acrobats in the crowded street below, while Diya brushed her mistress's hair until the pale blonde strands shone like silk in the candlelight.
"How will you wear it tonight, my lady?"
"Hide it all, Diya, let none of it show," Madelon replied quietly.
Some white later when the maid had finished, Madelon rose from her seat and surveyed herself in the mirror on the wall. She was clothed from head to toe in black. Not one piece of jewellery broke the severity of her attire.
"Are you sure you want to go down there dressed like that?" Diya asked apprehensively. "Don Paco will be furious."
"Why should I consider his feelings, when he cares not one iota for mine?" Madelon retorted. "Let him think what he likes - let them all think what they will. Did you hear how the contests fared after we left?"
Diya's dusky face lit up with excitement.
"The Castilians are leading by two wins to one. When I went down to the kitchens they were laying wagers on Sancho being crowned king of both kingdoms by the end of the week. They say El Seid played with his opponent for the amusement of the crowd. Of course he was undefeated."
"I pray the Castilians are victorious," Madelon said. "Only cousin Sancho can help me now. If he is king he can overrule his brother's command and give me my freedom."
"But would he?"
"I will throw myself on his mercy. Beg, if necessary - anything to be free of Gaspar Vivaldes. The marriage is a farce, Diya. I am to be married off and made respectable and then this man is going to train me as Urraca's pawn. I won't have it - I won't."
"There are many ways he can break your spirit, my lady and who will come between a husband and his rebellious wife. Not your brother - this is his way of ensuring you do not disobey him further and not the lady Urraca, for you will be very useful to her once you have been suitably trained. Of course, there is the alternative you mentioned."
Madelon wheeled on her with an angry expletive.
"To become Valentin's mistress and secure information for Urraca? Never! I would rather die than turn my love into such a sordid affair. It will be like dying, Diya, when the Count of Segovia touches me."
Tears welled into the maid's eyes at the sight of the desperation on Madelon's face. She flung her arms around her mistress as if to protect her and they clung to each other like small children.
"Don't he afraid, my lady, that man will never touch you, I swear it."
"Hush, you foolish girl. If you want to stay with me you must never give the Count any indication of the way you feel. If you are taken from me I shall be totally alone and friendless. Is that what you want?"
"Oh, no," Diya breathed, horrified. "I will do anything to make you happy."
"Happiness, it seems, is not meant to be mine," Madelon murmured with a sad smile. "You are the only friend I have, Diya. We must be patient and pray some miracle occurs to prevent this marriage. If not - I vow Gaspar Vivaldes will never make me his wife. I must go downstairs now. No, don't come with me, the less cousin Urraca sees of you the better. If anyone would think of parting us, it would be her."
With a brave smile, she went downstairs to join her brother and the rest of the court for the celebration supper Sancho was holding in honour of his victorious knights. It had been decided before the tournament began, that for its duration, which would be two or three days, the king whose knights had been victorious that day, would entertain the losers at supper.
As she reached the bottom of the staircase and steeled herself to enter the banquet hall, she heard the sound of laughter and quickly stepped to one side as Alfonso and Urraca came in through the street door, followed by Paco. The laughter was coming from Sancho who had been drinking steadily since Rodrigo, on whom he was leaning heavily, had provided such, amusement by "playing" with his opponent for over an hour. Bringing up the rear was Valentin Maratin, resplendent in rich burgundy-coloured velvet.
Alfonso stared at the downbent head of the girl curtseying before him without recognizing her and then, as Urraca whispered something in his ear, anger registered on his sallow features. Before he could give words to his obvious displeasure, Sancho drawled mockingly,
"Is this the newest fashion for prospective brides, cousin?"
Madelon stood up and stared into Sancho's handsome features, unable to keep the bitterness out of her voice as she said:
"My attire matches my mood, sire."
"Madelon - tiresome wretch! Are you to embarrass me to the last?" Paco stepped towards his sister, glaring at her furiously. "Go and change this instant."
"No, Paco, it doesn't matter." Urraca laid a hand on his arm and moved closer to him. "The girl needs to be disciplined, but not by you. Leave her to Gaspar. I suggest she returns to her room and stays there until tomorrow. Come and enjoy yourself, she is no longer your problem."
"Of course, the Count of Segovia is to be the lucky bridegroom. How many tame lap dogs will you have when he is gone, Urraca?" Sancho asked with a sidelong glance at his sister. He was still smiling and swaying unsteadily as if the worse for drink, but Rodrigo who was nearest to him, saw the sudden wary look which sprang into his eyes. The grip on the El Seid's shoulders tightened. "Come Rodrigo, we are late for the celebrating."
In the doorway Valentin had been a silent onlooker to the proceedings. He followed his king into the crowded banquet hall, giving Madelon a faint nod of acknowledgement as he passed, but nothing more. After her actions at the lists that morning she had expected at least a smile to break from those berry-brown features and she felt sick with disappointment. Did he care nothing for her predicament? She noticed Paco's eyes follow the tall figure of the Lord of the Eagles into the room and saw the satisfied smile on his face as he turned to her.
"You see! Your gallant gesture this morning was wasted, he cares nothing for you. Urraca is right. It is best if I leave you to Gaspar. You are a great disappointment to me, Madelon, but I have only myself to blame for taking you out of the convent in the first place." For the first time in many days a little of the harshness faded from his features and Madelon was sure she glimpsed sadness in the depths of his brown eyes. "You are too much like our mother for your own good. Go to your room and try to remember you are the future wife of a Count of Segovia. We have nothing more to say to each other," he added quickly as his sister appeared to be going to speak. Taking Urraca's hand he led her after Alfonso into the hall and as the large doors closed behind them, Madelon found herself alone in the shadowy corridor.
***
Madelon was roused from a deep sleep by someone shaking her urgently by the shoulder. Diya's dusky face loomed over her, her eyes gleaming with excitement in the light of the candles she held. As Madelon opened her mouth to protest angrily at the awakening, the maid put a finger to her lips. "Hush, my lady. You must get up quickly." "Get up?" Madelon stared at her as if she had taken leave of her senses. It was still dark outside the unshuttered windows.
"He wants to see you," Diya hissed. "His squire is waiting to take you to him."
"He?" Madelon was so dazed with sleep it took some while for the full meaning of the words to penetrate her mind. She sat up in bed unbelievingly. "You - you can't mean Don Valentin?"
&n
bsp; "Who else would risk your brother's anger by seeing you again? The squire says he's waiting in the stables below. Don't you want to see him?" she asked when her mistress did not move.
"Find me something warm to put on ... quickly," Madelon breathed, throwing aside the bedclothes.
Within minutes she was dressed and enfolded in a warm fur cloak, her face well bidden beneath the hood. Diya insisted on accompanying her, saving if anyone saw her and Stephen, the squire, together they would merely think they were lovers and not keeping watch.
Twice Stephen waved the two young women to hide as patrolling sentries came close, but thanks to his vigilance, the stables were reached without mishap. A shadowy figure moved forward to greet them, gave a quiet order to Stephen who immediately turned and left them, followed by Diya. She stared through the gloom, trying hard to distinguish the features of the man before her. She discovered she was trembling violently at the thought of being able to snatch a few stolen minutes alone with the man she loved.
"Don Valentin," she said in a whisper, "are you quite mad? If my brother should discover us ..."
"Are you not willing to take the risk?" Valentin's silky tones mocked her. "Perhaps you are not the same girl who handed me her token this morning or who showed such distaste at being forced into an unsavoury marriage. I thought your brother would burst a blood vessel when he saw that black gown."
"I wanted to hurt him. I am not proud of it," Madelon replied, a catch in her voice. "Once we were close."
"Come, we cannot stand talking here. Give me your hand and we will go up into the loft. I chose this place because it is the last spot anyone will search for you if you are missed - but I regret it is not the most comfortable."
Strong, lean fingers fastened over Madelon's wrist and guided her to the ladder at the far end of the stalls. Valentin climbed up first and then helped her negotiate the ladder, chuckling infuriatingly as she repeatedly trod on the hem of her dress.
"Pray what do you find so amusing?" Madelon demanded, when she stood beside him at last. Bright moonlight was flooding through the open window embrasure behind them and she saw his face was wreathed in smiles.
"You, shafra - and my own stupidity. Why I don't carry you off to my mountain fortress and let Paco go to the devil, I really don't know. Here I am in love for the first time in my life and yet I've done little - of nothing to tell you how I feel or to get you out of Paco's care and into mine." With a soft laugh he picked her up in his arms and laid her down behind several bales of hay and then knelt beside her, smiling at the incredulity on her face. "You are young, shafra, only nineteen, and I am thirty, perhaps that's why I have held back my feelings for so long. I've known enough women in my thirty years to know what I feel for you is real; the most wonderful thing I've felt in my life. If you don't feel this way too, or if you are not sure, then be honest with me. We can part as friends, if nothing more. If it is the Count of Segovia you really want, then I'll even give you my blessing."
Madelon's senses reeled under the shock of his words. Reaching out her hands, she touched the velvet of his doublet, slowly, wonderingly, as if afraid it was all a dream and when it ended she would find herself in bed and not in the company of her lover. Her eyes, bright with tears, shone like two brilliant sapphires as she stared up at Valentin. Freed from the confines of the hood, her hair streamed past her shoulders like a golden cloud. To Valentin, she had never looked more beautiful. His golden savage was suddenly an angel again.
"Whenever men have looked at me I have been flattered, sometimes amused, but never moved as I am when your eyes are on me," she confessed quietly. "When I am with you ... Oh, Valentin! I have no words the describe the depths of my love. I only know when you hold me in your arms and kiss me I feel as if I am being transported to another world. I love you and I am not ashamed to offer you proof if you need it."
"At last we are honest with each other," Valentin muttered.
Catching a handful of her loose hair he pulled her into his arms and kissed her hungrily, allowing himself for the first time, to give way to the tumult of emotion raging within his breast. Madelon melted immediately in his embrace, fired to a response only the unleashing of a deep, suppressed love could bring. Her skin burned like fire beneath his caresses and she pressed closer to him with the eagerness of an unawakened child, returning kiss for kiss, touch for touch, until she was seized in a tide of passion and swept towards inevitable surrender, unable to deny the love she had hidden for so long. This ache in her heart was love. This longing to stay crushed against Valentin's chest for the rest of her life. It was wonderful, frightening and she wished the moment would go on forever.
Valentin pressed her down into the hay and had unfastened her bodice before she was aware of what he was doing. Her young body trembled and was awakened by the gentle, exploring hands on her breasts. Madelon knew she was near to surrender, but nothing seemed to matter while he held her and whispered soft endearments in her ear. She knew it could not last for she was not free to follow the dictates of her heart, but that did not make it any the less wonderful. She felt the hard muscles of his shoulders beneath her hands and clung to him with a cry that was as much out of despair as it was from passion.
Raucous, drunken laughter drifted up to them from the courtyard below, followed by a lewd comment from a soldier who had come upon a couple making love in a doorway. Madelon felt Valentin stiffen. For a long while he was still, then slowly he drew away from her. Even with her limited knowledge of life she knew how easy it would have been for him to take her and she could not understand why he had not done so, until she saw the fierce colour flooding into his cheeks. Slowly he shook his head.
"Not this way, shafra, though if our soldier friend outside had not given vent to his feelings, I would have taken you and not regretted it for an instant."
Madelon drew herself up and laid her head against his shoulder, content to watch the handsome profile shadowed above her in silence. She felt drained of all strength, but at peace.
"You were right about cousin Urraca," she said at length. "Gaspar Vivaldes is to be not only my husband, but my tutor. I am to be Urraca's pawn, just as you said. How can anyone be so evil, Valentin, so cruel as to try and manipulate another person's life? Paco is completely under her thumb. She is horrible. She even offered me a way out of the marriage, but it was too awful to contemplate."
Valentin looked down at her, his expression growing alarmed. Silently he cursed Urraca and wished her dead for the tenth time that day.
"What way?"
Madelon baulked at telling him, but she had gone too far to back down.
"She said if I allowed our friendship to - to develop into something - more - more binding - and I used it to get information for her ..."
"In other words you were to become my mistress?"
"Yes."
"And you find the suggestion too terrible to contemplate?"
Madelon's fears for his reaction were dispelled by the laughter in his voice.
"I can no more lie to you than I could become the wife of that awful man."
"You won't be his wife. Tomorrow Alfonso will be sent into exile and you and I will be on our way to church."
"You make it sound so simple," Madelon whispered. "What if it is Sancho who is exiled?"
"Then you and I will leave this town under the cover of darkness and by the time our absence is discovered we will be well on our way to my home. I'm not letting you go now, my love, and I'll kill anyone who stands in our way. Anyone, do you understand me? I've allowed him to live twice - there will be no third time."
Madelon nodded and clung to him, gaining strength from the arms which held her so possessively, Paco's anger would dissolve once she and Valentin were married and safe from everyone in the Castle de Aguilas. She would have to take the chance anyway. She had put her love for him before that for Valentin too many times. If he really cared for her he would not be so ready to surrender her to his mistress's choice of a bridegroom. Was he so
blind that he could overlook the gossip which flowed through the court about the Count of Segovia and the women he had seduced on the orders of the king's sister? Madelon had been appalled by the lurid details and a natural loathing of her future husband had turned to fear.
"Take me away tonight," she pleaded. "Valentin - I'm afraid if I leave you, I shall never see you again."
Valentin's mouth on hers effectively dispersed her agitation. She felt herself begin to grow drowsy crushed so close against him and was quite content to he against him without thought to the lightening sky outside the window. Valentin's hand with the strange star-shaped birthmark slid lovingly over the satin softness of her breast and then was withdrawn abruptly.
"You must go now, sweetheart." He stood up and drew her to her feet. Moving to the edge of the loft he stood surveying the empty floor below while she refastened her bodice and rearranged her cloak about her shoulders, then he helped her down the ladder and they crept to the outer door. As if by a prearranged signal, Diya and Stephen materialized from the shadows. Madelon was too happy to mind if her maid and the squire had been enjoying a few stolen kisses.
Valentin caught Madelon up in his arms and kissed her so hard she was breathless when he let her go. Stephen led the way back to her room and left her at the foot of the stairs.
Safe once more in her own room, with the door securely bolted, Madelon tore off her dress uncaring even when she heard it rip at the seams and tumbled into bed suddenly feeling exhausted. Diya tucked the clothes around her as if she was a little baby, smiling in satisfaction at the glow in Madelon's cheeks. Never before had she seen her mistress look so radiant.
Madelon Page 18
