The King's Mistress

by TERRI BRISBIN

  Now, she had lost it all—her position, her power and, even worse, her child for a man who could not be faithful to her. She’d given up her daughter in the hopes of returning to the king’s side and instead he’d thrown her away. For all her intelligence, she was a stupid, foolish woman.

  That was her last thought as the warmth of the sun lulled her to sleep.

  “She’s gone where?” Orrick asked. Gavin had brought him word of Marguerite’s departure from the keep while he was still at the blacksmith’s workplace. “Did anyone think to stop her?”

  “She is being followed, Orrick. She is safe.”

  “If she’s on my lands, she’d better be safe.” He left the smithy with Gavin at his heels and went to his horse. “Which direction did she go in?”

  “Orrick, she has been in the sight of the guards at all times. Calm yourself, man.”

  “Damn it, Gavin. I asked what direction she went in.”

  “South. She walked to the water’s edge and went south.”

  Orrick mounted and pushed his horse to a gallop. Frustrated at having to slow for the steep path and on the sandy surface of the beach, he followed the shore away from Silloth Keep. Marguerite had not left the keep and yard on her own since she arrived in Silloth. Why now? To what purpose and to what destination?

  It seemed to take forever for him to cover the distance that she had walked, but a short time later he spied his soldier standing midway between the surf and the end of the beach. As he passed him, the guard pointed to an outcropping of rocks higher on the beach.

  She did not move. Was she ill? Surely she would have called for help if she needed it? He slowed his horse and jumped from it to her side. In sleep, the frown she’d worn on her brow for weeks was gone. Her breathing was slow and even. He watched her for a few minutes and realized how young she was to have experienced all that she had—the good and the bad. Clouds covered the sun and Marguerite shivered as the warmth decreased. He knew he must wake her.

  “Marguerite,” he said as he touched her shoulder. “Are you well?”

  Her eyes fluttered open and then her gaze focused and she blinked at him. Looking around, she seemed to remember where she was, but his presence probably puzzled her.

  “I am well…Orrick,” she said as he helped her sit up. “I did not realize I was so tired when I sat down here.”

  He nodded and dropped his hand to his side. Certainly she did not want his touch now. Not after what he had done to humiliate her earlier in the day. Before he could speak, the sound of many horses galloping erupted and they were surrounded by a troop of his soldiers led by Gavin. Marguerite slid off the rock and stood at his side, still half-asleep. As she swayed, she grabbed on to his arm.

  “My lord. My lady,” Gavin said, nodding to them. “Are you well?”

  “Gavin, you can go back to the keep. Marguerite is safe.”

  “Are you certain, my lord?” he asked with his smart-arse grin on his face. “The way you charged out of the keep to find the lady, well…we all thought Silloth was under attack.”

  The swine would pay for this impertinence. Orrick swore under his breath that he would crush Gavin into the ground in a pile of blood and bones when next they met in the practice yard.

  “You may return to the keep, Gavin. I will escort the lady back when she is ready to return.”

  With a final smirk, Gavin led the men away and left a fresh horse behind for his use. He waited until they were a good distance down the beach before facing her. Once more she surprised him.

  “How far do your lands extend?” She looked to the south as she asked.

  “About two days walking to the south. Silloth Keep and village and the lands attached to it are my largest estate.” She sat back down and looked up at him, her eyes unreadable and blank. “Were you trying to walk off my lands, lady?”

  “And where would I go?” she asked quietly. He was not certain if she wanted an answer or not, but he decided that this place and time were a good one to discuss his conclusion with her.

  “You could go to the convent where your sister lives. You could go to one of your dower properties. You could even go to my mother’s dower property when she goes there to live.”

  “So,” she sighed, “you are putting me aside, then?”

  “Is that not what you have been asking me to do?” She nodded slowly in reply, her gaze still empty. “I will ask Abbot Godfrey to petition the bishop for an annulment. Until it is granted, you may choose where you would like to live.”

  His heart was heavy as he spoke the words that would change their lives. “I will also petition the king for his support.”

  “You will?”

  “I am certain that with the letters you’ve been writing to him, he will assure the end of this arrangement and take you back to his…side.” The words burned his throat and the bile rose in his gut as he admitted them.

  “You know of my letters?” she asked. At his nod, she touched his hand as she spoke. “You did not deserve this, Orrick. A wife who is not a wife. A king who does not keep his faith with a vassal so loyal as you.” She sighed again and looked away, her gaze staring out over the ocean. “I will go wherever you wish to put me. At least you can have some happiness and comfort with your leman if I am gone from the keep. I can be ready to leave by morning.”

  He could not believe her words. “Leman?”

  “The woman Ardys. Is she not your leman and her boy your son?” She squinted up at him.

  He took her by the shoulders and turned her to face him. “Marguerite, whatever Ardys may have been to me in the past, she has not shared my bed since our marriage. She is but a friend. And the boy is not my son. She is a widow and cares for her brother’s child.”

  The frown was back between her brows. Did she not believe him? “I do not spread my seed in women not my wife. I have no by-blows like…” He stopped himself just before admitting that he knew about her daughter with Henry.

  “Like Henry? He has sired at least ten children by five women in addition to the eight given him by the queen.” She looked through him as she admitted it. “Mayhap you knew that already? I think that I was the only one in his kingdom that did not.”

  He thought back to her words when they met just before their marriage ceremony. She had completely believed in Henry and now she knew the truth.

  “How did you learn of this? Did my mother tell you?”

  “Nay!” she cried out. “Do not blame your mother for this. My sister’s letter told me that and so much more.”

  “And you still wish to return to the king knowing that?” How could she place so little value on herself?

  “The king does not want me back, Orrick. He has washed his hands of me.” Her voice was hollow as she spoke. But through the emotionless tone, he could feel the pain emanating from within her. “I was simply one in a line of available bodies in his bed. He used me, and then when I left court and my father feared losing his influence, he was given my sister.”

  “Your sister?” He shook his head. He did not know this.

  “She was not as well trained as I nor so ready as I to accept the honor of being the king’s whore.” Orrick winced at her words. “She escaped and begged the bishop to admit her to the convent. That is how she ended up there.”

  “Marguerite,” he began, not knowing what to say.

  “Did you know of the woman he called his ‘lovely English rose’?” Her gaze was sharper now. He nodded. Everyone in England had heard about the king’s affair with Rosamunde Clifford. Even Eleanor in her captivity knew of fair Rosamunde. “He used to call me his lovely lily of Alencon.”

  She broke free from his hold and took a few steps away. He searched his heart for something to say, something that would ease the terrible betrayal she had suffered. But he could find nothing that would not sound contrived or false.

  “You did try to warn me. I just was not ready to listen.” She turned and gave him a sad smile. “’Twas too late even the day of our wedding, b
ut I could not believe you. I was still living my father’s truths.”

  “Was it not unkind for your sister to reveal these things to you when no good can come of knowing them?”

  “Dominique is not a cruel person, Orrick. She thought to give me reasons to rejoice in our marriage. She did not know that I did not choose this. She thought that I had somehow managed to escape our father’s plans and wanted me to know that I had made the right decision.” Tears streamed down Marguerite’s face now. “She did not know that you do not want me, either.”

  “Marguerite, I want you.”

  “Oh, yes, that way.” She nodded at him. “I know of your desire to bed me.”

  “No,” he said, shaking his head. “Well, yes, that way, too. But I have wanted you as my wife since I met you in that little chamber at Woodstock.”

  “But I insulted you and rejected you. Why would you even consider me for your wife?” She reached up and wiped the tears from her cheeks.

  He lifted his hand and completed the task. “Because I need more in a wife than a bedmate. I need a wife who can oversee my lands and my people. I need a wife to whom I can talk about many subjects. I need a wife who can hold her own with my Scots friend and the brothers at Abbeytown. I want a wife who can think and speak for herself and can be my helpmate.”

  “You see more in me than I think is there, Orrick.”

  He lifted her hand to his mouth and kissed her palm. “I have been told that before.”

  “I cannot promise that my past will disappear. Or that I can fulfill the needs you have in a wife.”

  “Marguerite, you can make the choice,” he said. She visibly startled at his words. “I will not force you to stay. My offer to send you to your sister stands.” He looked away before saying the rest for it was painful for him to admit this truth. “I know you do not love me as you love Henry, but I would make a good husband if you stay.”

  He knew that if she agreed now to stay it would be because of the terrible secrets she had shared with him and out of a sense of beholding. He did not want that. She began to give him an answer, but he held his finger to her lips stopping her.

  “If you stay, it must be your choice. I am no longer willing to have a wife who is not a wife. If you stay, your life will not be as it was in Alencon or at the court. Overseeing Silloth and my other estates is a tremendous amount of work and even my wife will do her part. My mother is gaining in years and cannot do as she did in her younger days. The lady of Silloth will have many responsibilities to fill her days.”

  Orrick stepped back and held out his hand to her. “Take some time to make your decision. Come to me when you have made it.”

  She nodded in reply and he trotted over to his horse. Mounting, he held out his hand to her and helped her up behind him. She pressed up against his back and wrapped her arms around his waist and he touched the horse’s sides to spur it on. If anyone in the village or the yard thought it strange to see the lord and lady return together after such a tumultuous day, they did not comment on it. Riding through the gate, Orrick offered up a prayer that he would be her choice.

  Chapter Seventeen

  “When will you stop acting like a dim-witted, lovesick fool and tell the woman what everyone else in this keep knows?”

  Gavin had caught him off guard and Orrick reeled back away from the open window that overlooked the keep’s walled-in gardens. Marguerite worked there below with Wilfrid, gathering herbs and clearing away weeds. He grabbed his friend’s tunic and dragged him far enough away so that their voices would not carry out to the garden.

  “Damn you, Gavin! Have you no care for my privacy?” Orrick tossed the Scot to the ground.

  Jumping to his feet and dusting himself off, Gavin laughed. “She is your wife. Just take her to your bed.”

  “With that approach to women, I wonder not how you have escaped the bonds of marriage.” Orrick waved him closer. “I hope you meet your match when your uncle summons you home to a bride.”

  Gavin shuddered. “Do not be wishing such a thing on me just because you must suffer it. Besides, my ‘approach to women,’ as you call it, seems to yield many willing women in my bed. When it is time, any bride I marry will be a compliant, obedient lass, not like the willful, prickly one you married.”

  His friend shuddered again, and now it was Orrick’s turn to laugh. “’Twould not surprise me if you have as many challenges in your marriage as I have now. God’s luck be with you in that. So, did you come only to torment me or did you have some news?” Orrick walked toward the hall with Gavin in tow.

  “Although I would like nothing better than to witness it, François has offered to lead your escort to Abbeytown. He said all is ready for your departure in the morning.”

  Orrick still had not told Marguerite that she was accompanying him to the abbey on the morrow. Except for her brief escape to the beach over a week ago, she had not left the walls of Silloth. And in spite of his words giving her the choice of staying here, with him, or leaving, he had no intention of leaving her decision to chance or whim. And with this visit to the abbey, he was boldly bribing her.

  “You have not told her yet, have you?”

  “Not told her what?” he asked, not wanting to give his friend something more to harass him about.

  Gavin smacked him on the shoulder and laughed. “’Twould appear that you have not told her she is traveling with you to the abbey and you’ve not told her that you love her.”

  “Do not tread there, friend,” he warned. “She will know of the journey before dinner. The other is not something I plan to reveal to her.”

  “Orrick, as I said before, everyone in Silloth knows how you feel about the lady, except her. Your mooning gaze follows her every step. You are never far from her side. Just tell her she is yours and tell her she is staying and be done with this torment.”

  Now he laughed. If it were as easy as that. “I cannot compete with the love she bears for Henry.” He offered his fear to his friend. “He is her first love and in spite of knowing now of his betrayal, she loves him still.”

  Gavin frowned at him and stopped. Leaning against the wall of the corridor and crossing his arms, Gavin shook his head.

  “Did she tell you that she still loves him? She is far too intelligent for that. If she knows what you told to me, she cannot yet have tender feelings for him.”

  “She is a woman,” he said. He had not revealed the other bond that would always keep Marguerite’s heart bound to the king’s. Even though she knew about Henry’s other offspring, sharing a daughter with the king would always allow Henry a foothold in her heart.

  “But not a fool. Not now when she knows the deception and lies,” Gavin said, shaking his head. “She is too smart for that.”

  “When did you become her supporter? You did not trust her.”

  “I have always admired pluck in a woman, Orrick. And I would not wish a bride for you like that one you last considered…what was her name? She came from near your mother’s dower keep in Ravenglass.”

  Eloise, daughter of Lord Rupert of Furness. Orrick fought to contain his shudder. Lucky for him, meeting the prospective bride was part of his demand to his father for agreeing to the betrothal. The overwhelming ferocity of her religious practices unnerved him. He did not want a wife who, at their first introduction, sank to her knees praying that she would be spared from the abomination of carnal knowledge in their marriage.

  Now Gavin joined him in shuddering as they both remembered the vivid scene of wailing women and Lord Rupert’s reaction to his daughter’s behavior that happened here at Silloth just before Orrick’s father died. The debacle had so upset his mother that she did not pursue another match for him. “The Almighty must have the sense of humor of a Scot,” he said laughing.

  “Is this an insult or a compliment, Orrick?”

  “I am not certain, but it seems strange that He sends brides my way that are so extreme in their differences. Lady Eloise who would have died happily a virgin within
our marriage for one reason and Lady Marguerite who seems quite happy to avoid my bed for another. A strange sense of humor indeed.”

  “What will you do, Orrick? If Henry gave her to you, I cannot believe he will support an end to your marriage.”

  They arrived at the hall. Orrick slowed and lowered his voice to Gavin. “I had truly hoped that once she adjusted to the reality of our marriage she would settle to it. I never did want her to learn the truths of Henry’s other women or to crush her spirit with the existence of those others he sired even as she thought she owned his heart. Now—” he let out a breath “—I cannot find it within me to force her to stay here or to stay married against her will.”

  “’Tis already accomplished, Orrick. You are married. She must understand that fact?”

  “Of course she does. She knows I am completely within my rights as her husband to keep her here, or to lock her away or to punish her in any way I deem needed. She is, as my friend constantly reminds me, a very intelligent person.”

  “So, you plan to give her up?”

  “Hell, no,” Orrick said, slapping Gavin on the shoulder. “I plan to make her want to stay married to me.”

  “You will sink that low?”

  “Oh, aye. To whatever I need to keep her here. I know her weaknesses now and will play to them until she surrenders to me.”

  “Deception? Intrigue?” Gavin asked, rubbing his hands together and no doubt readying himself for a good battle.

  “Nay, Gavin. She’s had her fill of that. I will tempt her with honesty, openness and books.”

  “Books? Orrick, the lack of a woman’s touch and taste has made you daft!”

  “Books, my friend. Her education was extensive and I know exactly where there are books rare and special enough to make her hands itch to hold them.”

  “Books?” Gavin said, his face screwed up in disbelief and distaste. “I think my plan of taking her to your bed and pleasuring her until she agrees to stay is a better one. Even beating her into submission would make more sense than tempting her with books. Daft Englishmen and their bedeviled ways!”