‘I wouldn’t want a husband I could forget.’ Her younger cousin, sixteen-year-old Emma, came scurrying along the gallery to join them, bending over to avoid being seen from below.
‘Not so loud!’ Isabella hissed with a look of irritation. ‘Father will be furious if he finds out we’re up here. And you’ll be lucky to find a husband at all with your long face. You look like a horse.’
‘I do not! Take that back!’
‘Not when you listen in to other people’s conversations.’
‘If you don’t take it back, then I’ll tell Mother you’re spying!’
Constance rolled her eyes as the two sisters began hurling insults at each other. It was a regular occurrence, though if they weren’t careful, their increasingly irate whispers would start to attract more than their father’s attention below. It wasn’t even as if they had anything to insult each other about. They were both strikingly pretty, blue-eyed and flaxen-haired with small figures and even smaller features, whereas she...
She looked down at her body in chagrin. She was too tall for a woman for a start. As tall as, and frequently taller than, most men, with curves in places she hated and a bosom that drew all the wrong kind of attention. She was the one who felt like a horse. A giant carthorse beside two delicate palfreys. Even her face looked wrong, her wide forehead and round cheeks a long way from the ideal of pale, fragile beauty that both of her female cousins naturally exemplified. The only thing she did like about her appearance was the dark hair she’d inherited from her mother, a thick wavy mass that reached all the way down to her too-wide hips, though even then the deep sable shade was unfashionable.
As much as she loved her cousins, it hadn’t been easy growing up with such paragons of female beauty. Men looked at them with expressions of admiration and awe, as if Isabella and Emma were somehow pure and untouchable, perfect examples of womanhood to be idealised from a distance. It was a stark contrast to the way they looked at her, their eyes raking over her figure with a darker, more primal emotion that made her feel obscurely frightened and even more self-conscious. She couldn’t help but wonder if her husband would look at her in the same way. Or would he simply be disappointed that he hadn’t married one of her golden cousins instead?
Not that it mattered what he thought of her, she reminded herself. Her marriage had nothing to do with looks, or compatibility for that matter, and definitely nothing to do with love, that all-consuming emotion the minstrels sang about. It was simply about her inheritance, about the property and fortune that nobody thought a woman ought to be allowed to keep or to manage on her own, no matter how much her upbringing might have prepared her for it.
As the only child of Philip and Eleanor Lacelby, she’d found herself one of the most eligible heiresses in the east of the country when they’d both succumbed to the same illness just weeks before her fourteenth birthday. It was a position that, according to her uncle, had left her vulnerable to fortune hunters, would-be seducers and villains alike. After weeks of attempting to assert her independence, she’d eventually realised that protestations were futile and marriage inevitable. Exhausted and numb with grief, she’d agreed to a union in name only until she came of age, though she’d still been unprepared for the consequences...
Marriage to Matthew Wintour, the eldest son of a neighbouring baron, had been the safest, most practical option, but while their union had meant he would become one of the most powerful men in the country some day, all it had made her was his wife. In a few short minutes, everything that she’d inherited from her parents had become his, including the home and land that she loved. To add insult to injury, he’d wasted no time in exerting his new-found authority either, simply adding Lacelby to the long list of properties already controlled by his family and ordering her away to be raised in her uncle’s household instead. He hadn’t even had the decency to tell her himself, leaving England a few days after their wedding without so much as a goodbye. It was hard not to feel outraged about it, even five years later. Even harder to think of him as anything other than a cold-hearted, arrogant and insensitive tyrant!
‘You’re just jealous!’ Emma’s high-pitched exclamation jolted her back to the present. ‘Everyone says I’m the prettiest. Even Tristan.’
‘He does not!’ Isabella looked as if she were about to hurl herself bodily at her sister. ‘When did he say so?’
Constance heaved a sigh and pressed her eye back to the gap in the slats, pushing reminiscence aside as she focused all her attention on the men below. There were three of them, not including her uncle, though in the murky light it was hard to make out whether they had dark or fair or even green hair for that matter. Judging by their style of dress, they were all soldiers, wearing chainmail collars above brown-leather gambesons and russet-coloured surcoats, and they were all faintly bedraggled, though since it had been raining for most of the day that was hardly surprising.
She frowned, chewing on her thumbnail in frustration. The clouds of steam emanating from their damp clothes made it look as though there were a layer of mist floating around them, obscuring her view and giving the scene a somewhat uncanny aspect. It would help if they would only turn their heads since the way they were gathered meant that she could catch only fleeting glimpses of their profiles, though no sooner had the thought occurred to her than a servant entered the hall and they all did just that, finally allowing her a clear view of their faces.
She caught her breath, examining each of the men as quickly and intently as possible. One of them was too old, in his fifties by the look of him, which effectively narrowed the choice to two. Which still didn’t help since there was nothing remotely familiar about either.
They were both above average height, with broad shoulders and distinctly weather-beaten aspects, but whereas the one on the left of the fireplace had an amiable, handsome face and what appeared to be chestnut-brown hair, the one on the right looked as if he’d never smiled a day in his life. He might have been good looking, but it was impossible to tell by the way he was glowering, as if he suspected the servant approaching them to be carrying a dagger and not a tray laden with cups. The very thought made her uneasy. What on earth could they be talking about to make him look so defensive?
She bit down hard on another fingernail, dismayed to note that in the glow of the firelight his hair looked to be fairer than that of the others, tinged with a hint of copper and swept back from a square-shaped face in which every feature, from his heavily stubbled jaw to his high-angled cheekbones looked as if they’d been sculpted with a knife. They gave him a faintly dangerous aspect, exacerbated by his scowling brows and an air of restlessness that she could sense even from her position above and at the opposite end of the hall. The longer she looked, the more she thought there was something familiar about him, too, something about the rigid set of his shoulders and the way he planted his feet so firmly apart as if he were bracing himself for something... Just as he’d stood on their wedding day.
She felt a shiver run down her spine, struck by the same glacial aspect she’d tried so hard to forget. Not him! Surely her memory was playing tricks on her and she was mistaken. She had to be mistaken! Unfortunately, she didn’t think she was. The glower, the stance, the sense of coiled, tightly leashed tension... Suddenly they all seemed too familiar... Her chest contracted almost violently as her heart plummeted all the way down to her toes.
‘Mother’s coming!’
She almost jumped into the air in surprise as William, her youngest cousin at five years old, poked his head around the gallery door where he’d been posted as lookout.
‘Come on!’ Isabella grabbed hold of her hand, hauling her back to her feet as Emma scampered quickly away.
‘Wait, I think I know which one he is.’
‘There’s no time!’
‘But that’s him! That’s my husband!’
She pointed over her shoulder, saying the words at the same moment as the object of them lifted his head and looked up. Despite the darkness, she had the distinct impression that he scowled straight at her.
* * *
Sir Matthew Wintour waved away the offer of wine with a grimace. Tonight more than ever he needed a clear head, even if none of his companions shared the same sense of caution. Laurent in particular was draining his cup as if they were toasting each other’s good health and not discussing the future of the whole kingdom. As if treason were something to drink to.
There had been noises from the gallery a few moments before, like muffled voices and the rustling of skirts, which he’d been relieved to see had been the case. He’d dimly been able to make out the shape of one woman at least, though he wondered if he’d guessed her identity correctly.
His wife’s residence in her uncle’s household had provided a good excuse for leaving the King’s increasingly suspicious court and coming to visit Roul d’Amboise so soon upon his return to England. A useful one, too, since it allowed him to bring Jerrard and Laurent under the pretence of a belated—very belated—wedding celebration, though personally he would have preferred to postpone the reunion with his wife a while longer. Another five years preferably, but now that she’d reached a more suitable age for marriage he could hardly avoid it.