by Betina Krahn
She glanced at Chloe in confusion, then turned back to the king. “I learned my lineage when quite young, Your Highness, but have had little cause to recount it in recent years.”
“Not since you were sent to the convent by your widowed mother, I would suppose,” the king mused aloud. “I have in my hand another accounting of your lineage … which, fortunately, matches your own.”
“B-but wh-where did you—” She turned to Graham, who seemed immobilized by some inner turmoil, then looked to Chloe, who rushed to her side and wrapped a protective arm around her.
“You were testing her?” Graham finally demanded, stalking forward.
“Indeed I was,” the king said, meeting his resentment with frankness. “She passed. And in passing, she has helped to authenticate the claim of nobility for them all.”
“How d-did you …” Lisette stammered again.
“Your lineage was provided by a member of your family, who helped to uncover the duke’s scheme for us. Your uncle, I believe. Sir Jean de Mornay.”
“Uncle Jean?” She came to life. “We believed he was dead. Wherever did you find him?” She looked frantically around the hall. “Where is he?”
“He is here, at Windsor,” the king said, looking out over the onlookers without finding him. Edward then turned to Bromley, and after a brief exchange, Bromley ordered a pair of guardsmen to summon Lisette’s uncle.
“I’ll go,” Graham declared, stepping forward to take charge of the guards. He paused just long enough to give Lisette a turbulent look, then stalked out to retrieve the living proof of her identity.
While they awaited Lisette’s reunion with her uncle, the king declared they would hear Lady Chloe’s pedigree.
When Chloe looked up from her own feet, her sisters were staring at her with both compassion and dismay. The whole convent had known about her lack of credentials, though no one ever spoke of it. They had believed it was one of the reasons she was given to the duke as a daughter, to provide her with a family and a future. Now to be called to such a cruel accounting …
As silence stretched out to blanket the hall, there was a faint rustle of movement among the onlookers near the door. But Chloe and, in fact, everyone else was so intent on what she would say that the arrival went unnoticed.
“Any time now, Lady Chloe,” the king commanded. “Begin.”
She looked up, her eyes burning dryly, and glanced to the side of the hall, where the Earl of Sennet sat gripping his knees and nodding in support of her. Seeing the trust in his face—which looked so much like Hugh’s—turn to disgust would be the most devastating thing of all. She braced inside, while knowing she could never truly be prepared for what was to come.
“It will not take long, Highness,” she finally said, her voice small but steady. “I have no lineage to recount. I know nothing of my parentage.”
Commotion broke out in the hall as the impact of that admission registered. The maid who had wedded the self-righteous Sir Hugh of Sennet did not even know who her family was?
“What the devil do you mean, woman,” the king said tautly. “Speak plainly. You must know where you came from.”
“I do know that, Highness. I came from a basket left at the gate of the Convent of the Brides of Virtue. I was … a foundling.”
In a world where the circumstance of one’s birth and the connections of generations of family determined the scope and substance of one’s life, those words struck terror into hearts. Foundling. It meant she was unconnected by ties of kinship, ungrounded as to rank and place in the world. It was as if she had confessed to being a drop of rain … blown on the wind, fallen randomly to earth, and absorbed into humanity without anyone taking notice.
With the shame of her foundling status came the realization that in all likelihood, she was a bastard. Children born into even the lowest and meanest of circumstances had the comfort of knowing where they came from and who to blame. Those who left infants at the gates of convents did so because they had sins to hide. Worse still, those sins left indelible marks on the people those unfortunate babes became.
Foundling. Bastard. She might as well have thrown herself off the ramparts of the round tower. Her life, as she had known it, was over.
As if her sisters’ pitying looks, her father-in-law’s alarm, and the outrage stirred in king and council weren’t enough, she heard footsteps behind her and turned to see Hugh standing some distance away. He was mud-spattered and windblown and his face was drawn with fatigue, as if he’d been riding day and night. His dark-circled eyes were filled with so many emotions that no one feeling seemed to claim the power of expression.
Her knees weakened at the sight of him, and tears began to fill and sting her eyes.
He had heard. Knowing how much he despised his father’s bastards, she could guess what his reaction must be to finding himself wedded to one such as them. Still, hoping against hope, she sought his gaze with hers and, through a blur of tears, sent him a visual plea of apology.
Before he could respond, a rumble of protest came from the Duke of Avalon.
“Just because she has no known pedigree does not mean she was base born. It may yet be found that she has a true and noble father.”
“And where do you propose we begin to look for this ‘father’ ?” the king demanded. The duke straightened and turned his gaze on Chloe.
“Here.”
It took a moment for the duke’s point to register.
“You?” Edward gave a snort of derision. “You offer yourself as her father? Good God, but you French have ballocks! How many times will you try to make soup out of that old bone?”
“It is no ruse, Highness.” The duke stepped forward, and his chains made a dull clanking sound. “I have reason to believe that this young woman may indeed be my natural-born daughter.”
“Natural-born? Now you would have me believe you misplaced one of your offspring?” Edward bolted to his feet. “Take him away!”
“No!” Hugh’s voice rang out as he rushed forward to prevent the duke from being dragged away. “Please, Highness, hear him out. It is my name and family at stake. Do I not have the right—as should Lady Chloe—to hear what he has to say?”
Edward studied Hugh’s anxiety and then looked to Bromley and Bedford, neither of whom protested. With a growl of irritation, he sat back down in his great chair and leaned on one of the arms.
“Very well. Speak your piece, Avalon. And it had better be good.”
“It is not generally known, but … I was wedded once before my current marriage,” the duke began. “I was young. I had been sent to England to learn the language and help establish ties for the wool trade, and I lost my heart to the daughter of an English baron. Her family had little to offer, and, in any case, my father would never have countenanced my taking an English wife. But I was a fool in the hot grip of love and could see none of that. I carried her off with me to Calais and wedded her there.
“My father refused to recognize the marriage or allow me to bring her into his house, so we were forced to stay in Calais. She was soon with child and died in childbirth. I never saw the child … was told that it was stillborn and never drew breath.” He turned to stare at Chloe as if seeing in her another’s visage. “But I have reason to believe that this young woman may be that child.”
“What reason?” Edward demanded.
“She is the very image of the wife I lost.” The duke’s voice thickened with emotion as he searched Chloe’s face. “Looking at her is like rolling back the years. Eighteen years. How old are you, Lady Chloe?”
“Eighteen years,” she managed to say.
“And what was it you told me on the day you were wedded … the name that accompanied you into the convent?”
“Gilbert.” She swallowed hard, unable to fathom what the duke hoped to gain from this dangerous gambit. “The abbess said that in the basket that bore me into their care was a bit of hide with my name and the word ‘Gilbert.’ ” She lowered her voice. “Please, You
r Grace, you only make things worse for me.”
The duke ignored her to turn back to the king.
“The maid I married was Clarice of Gilbert.” A wave of murmuring raced through the hall. “In the short time we had together, Clarice spoke of naming our child ‘Chloe,’ if it was a girl.”
Chloe heard what he said, but it seemed so outlandish, so unbelievable, that the words just echoed meaninglessly in her mind. If the king would only stop him and allow her to escape this horror! But Edward showed no sign of halting the duke’s ranting. The name Gilbert circled in her head. Gilbert. Somewhere in her the possibility finally lodged … Clarice of Gilbert. Was it a coincidence? She recalled the duke’s strange reaction to her when they met: the way he stared into her face, the way he had gripped her shoulders. In all innocence she had spoken the name “Gilbert” to him on her wedding day. Now he used it as a wedge to give him room to escape his desperate situation.
“Why are you doing this?” she said in agonized tones that were swallowed up in the king’s demand.
“What proof have you of this marriage? This birth?” the king demanded.
“You have in this castle, somewhere, an old woman,” the duke continued, “who may be able to verify some of what I have said. A lady who, upon meeting me, called me Manfred. That is my given name, used by few in my lifetime. She must have known me when I visited England. She may know of my marriage.”
“You mean my aunt? Lady Marcella?” Bromley recalled the incident, stepping forward.
Edward called for the old lady, who rose from a bench at the side of the hall, then swayed and staggered back onto her seat. Bromley rushed from the dais to her side, and after a worrisome moment, she seemed to recover and insisted on rising to answer the king’s call. With Bromley’s help, she presented herself and stood trembling with her nephew’s arm around her. Her age-lined face was splotched with emotion.
“Lady Marcella”—the king gestured to the duke—“do you recognize this man?”
She squinted and wrung her hands in distress. “I—I cannot see so clearly anymore. And so many years have passed …”
The duke dragged both chains and guards along as he approached her, presenting himself for inspection.
“When we met, you called me Manfred,” he said. “Who was Manfred?”
“The wretch who stole my little cousin … spirited her away. He wedded her and she died … in a strange place, without family or friends.”
“Who was this cousin? Her name, my lady?” the king prodded gently.
Lady Marcella looked over at Chloe and tilted her head, squinting. Then she pushed Bromley’s assistance away and tottered over to Chloe, remembering. But was she remembering the story or the fact that she had told it to Chloe not long ago, or simply Chloe herself? “My little cousin. My little Clarice. We were like sisters.” The old lady’s eyes filled with tears as she reached out to touch Chloe’s cheek. “This cannot be her. She is dead.”
Chloe clutched her chest as her heart stopped for an instant, then began to beat wildly. Lady Marcella’s little cousin was Clarice? She looked to the duke in dismay. Could the duke be the foreigner who stole her away from Marcella?
“This is an outrage, Highness!” Bromley rushed to reclaim his aunt. “Trading on an old woman’s sadness … claiming to have married and fathered a child … all without a shred of proof!”
“But there is proof! Send for my brother, the Compte de Sabban. He was there—he can attest to the vows and the child. You must—” The duke suddenly tried to reach Edward’s chair and was rushed and thrown to the floor by his guards. Edward leapt up and shouted an order for the duke to be taken back to the dungeons.
“I am a duke—a prince of France. I have the right to hear the evidence against me!” the duke shouted as he was being hauled away. “Where is this ‘informer’ who told you of my treachery? Send for my brother—”
The courtiers witnessing the proceedings broke from the restraint of the guards and surged forward. As chaos threatened, Edward ordered Chloe held under guard and order restored, then exited with Bedford in a cordon of castle guards.
Chloe turned to Hugh as she was being led away. His gaze was narrowed and fierce, his face ruddy with anger and humiliation. She was desperate to touch him, to plead with him, to beg him not to hate her for bringing such shame down upon him. But he gave no sign that he would even listen, much less accept such a plea.
As the king’s guards pulled her toward the small door where the duke had just disappeared, she brought with her the image of Hugh standing like an embattled colossus, with his pride and his disgust for the venality of her birth both evident in his countenance.
“No! Where are you taking her?” Lisette rushed to put a protective arm around her, dragging them to a halt. “She’s no prisoner—you cannot take her to the dungeon. She is a lady and innocent of any wrongdoing!” She appealed to Lord Bromley and Lady Marcella. “Please, my lord, my lady … you cannot let them treat her like a common prisoner!”
The Lord Treasurer melted under the entreaty of his aunt’s bewildered face and caught the notice of the captain of the guard.
“I believe confinement to her chambers would satisfy the king.”
As the duke and the girl Chloe were being led away, Capitaine Henri Valoir had pulled the hood of his tunic closer about his face and slipped out the main doors of the great hall. Rounding his shoulders, he measured his pace to blend in with a number of people headed down the path that led into the town of Windsor. He had much to report … some success, some failure. Dreading his capricious lord’s reaction to the mixed news he bore, he threaded his way through the people and past the carts that clogged the main street. Soon he was again at the little-used stable where the compte and his men waited.
“Well?” His seigneur now pounced on him the moment he entered and dragged him toward the light coming through the rear door. “What news? What’s happened?”
“The duke was brought before the king and council, along with his false daughters. The English king is furious … feels betrayed … smells deceit everywhere …”
The Compte de Sabban rubbed his hands together with delight.
“Dieu! If I could only have been there to see it with my own eyes. What next? Les putaines, what does he do to them?”
“The English king … he has allowed them to recite their lineages. If the church records can be found … he says … the marriages may stand.”
“What?” The news went through the compte like a lightning bolt. “How can he do this?” He pivoted away and smacked a post with his fist. The pain that shot up his arm was small compared to that of watching his plot against the Duke of Avalon unravel. “It is an insult to the families of—has he no sense of obligation to his nobles?”
“The husbands did not seem willing to part with the women, seigneur.”
“If he places their rut-maddened mewling above his own royal honor, then he is a bigger fool than I thought,” the compte spat. “And the one they call Chloe? What of her?”
“She did not have a lineage to recite. The king … he ordered her to be held under guard.”
“What excuse did she give?”
“None, seigneur.”
Sabban took a long breath and seemed more in control. “What did the English fool say to that? More important, what did Avalon say?” Valoir shrank back a bit, causing Sabban to grab his arm. “What?”
“Le duc said … he may be her father.”
The compte looked as if he’d been impaled. “Merde!” He whirled away, holding his middle, then gradually straightened and began to pace the straw-littered floor. “How could he think such a thing? He believed the child!”
“He said that she is the image of her mother … he recognized her. And she seems to have mentioned something to him. The name of Gilbert.”
“Sacrebleu!” A frisson of bitter recognition went through him as he recalled those events of years ago. “I left the whore’s name with the child so that she mi
ght be identified if I ever needed her. Idiot!” He smacked his forehead with his open palm. “I feared something like this from the moment I learned she was among the ones the convent sent to ransom my pig of a brother.” He ground his teeth. “I should have smothered the little bastard when I had the chance.”
Then suddenly, in the midst of pacing and muttering, he stopped. His shoulders squared and he looked to the door, thinking of the castle beyond and the two confined within its walls.
“Perhaps it’s not too late to rectify that mistake.” He spoke to himself more than Valoir. “The duke is accused of treason, of seeking to foment an uprising against English rule. If he were to escape … along with his bastard daughter … and both were to die on their way back to France … there would be no one to disprove the charges against him. They would be deemed true.” He smiled with cool malevolence, feeling once more in control, once more driving events. “The duke’s estates would fall to his young son … who would, of course, need the guardianship of a dear and attentive uncle.” His chuckle was humorless. “And boys of twelve are so very prone to accidents.”
He turned to Valoir with a new glint in his eyes.
“We will need garments and armor … like that worn by the castle guards.”
Hugh stood speechless with disbelief as Chloe was ushered off under armed guard. The shame and confusion he had felt when he heard her confess that she had no parents and no lineage was even now being dispelled by the sight of her anguished face and the realization that whatever his embarrassment, hers must be many times worse.
And Edward—how dare the king order his Chloe dragged away and held under guard like a criminal? What did it matter that she had no knowledge of her forebears?
She certainly had forebears or she wouldn’t even be here. What did it matter that she couldn’t rattle off a list of names? How could a streak of ink on dusty parchment in moldy parish books improve her—or the lack of them diminish her?
She was perfect just as she was … his bright, headstrong, impossibly forthright and loving wife. Chloe, who never ceased to think the best of everyone, even him, and to put a good construction on even the worst of situations. Who thought of others first, especially him, and never lost faith in the possibility that someday he might lay down his saintly burden of guilt and superiority to become just a man. A good man. A whole man. A loving man.
