“No!”
Dienwald picked up her long braid and wrapped it around his hand, drawing her face close to his. “Listen, wench—”
“I am not a wench. My name is Philippa de—”
“You will do my bidding in all things, no matter you’re the Queen of France. Now, what is the poor crackbrain’s name?”
Philippa swallowed. She smelled the tart ale on his breath, felt its warmth on her temple. His eyes were darker, the flecks of gold more prominent. “I won’t tell you.”
“I think you will. You lack proper submissiveness and obedience. You need training, as I told you earlier. I think I should begin your lessons right now.” He looked quite wicked as he said, “Take off your gown and dance for my people.”
She stared at him. “Your priest would not approve.”
Dienwald took his turn at staring. “ ‘Tis true,” he said. “Father Cramdle would flee to meet his maker.”
“Very well. If my choices are between being your mistress and telling you the name of that awful man my father wished me to wed, and if you then plan to ransom me to that horrid old man and make me suffer his presence for the rest of my life, then my answer is obvious. I will be your mistress until you don’t want me anymore.”
It took a moment for her flow of words to make sense. When they did, he refused to let her see how stunned he was. Was her intended husband that repulsive? Or had she simply no womanly delicacy? No, she was just toying with him, first telling him nay, then changing her tune.
“I could give you over to my men,” he continued thoughtfully. “You are really not to my taste, with your big bones and your legs as long as a man’s. Have you also feet the size of a man’s?”
Philippa was frightened; she didn’t understand this man. Unlike her father, who would have been purple-faced with rage and yelling his head off by now, this man’s agile tongue cavorted hither and yon, leaving her mind in disarray. She didn’t want to have to prance atop the trestle table naked. She didn’t want Father Cramdle to clutch his heart with shock. All the power she’d felt whilst they fenced with words had been an illusion at best. The fact that this man didn’t kick children or dogs or chickens didn’t automatically endow him with an honorable nature. Now he was showing his true colors. Now he was get ting down to serious business. She opened her mouth, but what came out was unbidden and unsanctioned.
“You make me sound like an ugly girl.”
She was appalled that such errant vanity could come from her brain, much less from her mouth. But his insults, piled up now as high as the stale and matted rushes on the cold stone floor, had cut deep.
He laughed, an evil laugh. “Nay, but a gentle soft lady you are not. Now, let me see. There must be something about you that is . . . You do have very nice eyes. The blue is beyond anything I have ever seen, even beyond the blue speckles on robins’ eggs. There, does that placate your female vanity?”
Philippa managed to say nothing. To her surprise, she saw the fool, Crooky, who’d been crouched beside Dienwald on the floor beside her chair, leap to his feet and sing out a coarse lyric about the effect a woman’s blue eyes could have on a man’s body.
Dienwald burst into loud laughter, and at the sound, the remaining fifty people in the great hall guffawed and thumped their fists on the tables until the beams seemed to shake with their raucous mirth.
“Come here, Crooky, you witless fool,” Philippa called out over the din, caution again tossed to the four winds, “I want to kick your ribs.”
Dienwald looked at the girl beside him. She was laughing, and she’d mimicked him perfectly.
Philippa, basking in her temporary wit, failed to notice that utter silence had fallen. She further failed to notice how everyone was gazing from her to Dienwald with ill-disguised consternation.
Then she noticed. If he didn’t cut her throat, he’d throw her to his men. She didn’t doubt it. He hadn’t a shred of honor, and she’d crossed the line. Without a word, she quickly slipped out of the chair, jumped back, and ran as fast as she could toward the huge oak doors of the great hall.
5
Windsor Castle
Robert Burnell, Chancellor of England and King Edward’s trusted secretary, rubbed a hand over his wide forehead, leaving a black ink stain.
“ ‘Tis time to take your rest,” King Edward said, stretching as he rose. He was a large man, lean and fit, and one of the tallest man Robert Burnell had ever seen. Longshanks, he was called fondly by his subjects. A Plantagenet through and through, Burnell thought, but without the slyness and deceit of his sire, Henry, or the evil of his grandfather, John I, who’d maimed and tortured with joyous abandon anyone who chanced to displease him. Nor was he a pederast like his great uncle, Richard Coeur de Lion—thus the string of children he and his queen, Eleanor, had assembled to date. And that brought up the matter at hand. Robert wondered if his broaching the topic would call forth the Plantagenet temper. Unlike his grandfather, Edward wouldn’t fall to the floor and bash his fists and his heels in bellowing rage. No, his anger was like a fire, perilous one moment, cold ashes the next, a smile in its place.
“I work you too hard, Robbie, much too hard,” Edward said fondly, and Burnell silently agreed. But he knew the king would continue to use him as a workhorse until he met his maker, thanks be to that maker.
“just one more small matter, your highness,” Burnell said, holding up a piece of parchment. “A matter of your . . . er, illegitimate daughter, Philippa de Beauchamp by name.”
“Good God,” Edward said, “I’d forgotten about the girl. She survived, did she? Bless her sweet face, she must be a woman grown by now. Philippa, a pretty name—given to her by her mother, as I recall. Her mother’s name was Constance and she was but fifteen, if I remember aright. A bonny girl.” The king paused and his face went soft with his memories. “My father married her off to Mortimer of Bledsoe and the babe went to Lord Henry de Beauchamp to be raised as his own.”
“Aye, sire. ‘Tis nearly eighteen she is, and according to Lord Henry, a Plantagenet in looks and temperament, healthy as a stoat, and he’s had her educated as you instructed all those years ago. He reminds us ’tis time to see her wedded. He also writes that he’s already been beleaguered for her hand.”
The king muttered under his breath as he strode back and forth in front of his secretary’s table.