ASilverMirror (8 page)

“You know my reason for coming,” she said. She had intended
to sound cold and angry, but her voice trembled. She was furious at him for
playing such a role at his aunt’s request, and at herself for responding so
violently that she could hardly keep from flinging her arms around him. Her
anger made her say, “The reason I cannot go back is that Guy de Montfort,
Leicester’s third son, has decided he would like me to be his whore, and I wish
to give him some months to find a more delectable and willing morsel.”

Alphonse stared at her. His mouth opened, closed, opened
again to emit a harsh croak. Then dark color came up under his skin and he
looked away. “Is there no one to protect you?” he asked stiffly.

“Give me my net,” Barbara repeated, barely preventing
herself from sobbing with fury.

“Is your husband afraid to offend Leicester’s son?” he
asked, as if he had not heard her. “Or—”

“Husband!” Barbara exclaimed. “Have you forgotten me
completely? My husband has been dead for over eight years. Do you expect him to
rise from his grave to fight Guy de Montfort when he could not be bothered to
come to court to meet me?”

“Dead for eight years?” Alphonse echoed. “You mean you never
married again?”

“What is that to you?”

“Barbe,” he cried, “you need fear nothing and no one. I will
protect you. I—”

“Thank you very much,” she interrupted with icy formality,
“but having been born a bastard and seen the bitterness that grew between my
father and mother, I have a strong aversion to placing myself under any man’s
protection outside the bonds of marriage.”

Alphonse gaped and words he did not seem able to form
gurgled in his throat. A bitter satisfaction filled Barbara. That lecher was
too accustomed to having foolish women leap at his invitations in the hope of
seducing him into marriage. Marriage had been her mother’s hope too—and her
mother had almost succeeded—but with regard to women her father was a simple
soul compared with Alphonse.

“Barbe—”

“No!” She cut him off again. “Why the devil should I prefer
being your whore to being Guy’s?”

“No. No. Not that. I love you—”

“I have been assured that when they first came together my
father loved my mother also, and she him. Besides, if I had not concealed Guy’s
pursuit from my father for political reasons, he would have protected me. And
if you think the word ‘love’ makes whoring more or less—”

“Will you be quiet!” Alphonse bellowed. “My offer of
protection had nothing to do with inviting you to my bed. I am your knight, you
are my lady. You have had the right to my protection ever since I carried your
favor in that tourney many years ago. But if you feel that my challenge to
Leicester’s son will in some way be damaging to you, then I offer myself as
husband, not lover,” he stopped shouting abruptly and held out the hair net to
her, going on very softly, ”if you will have me. I have loved you for a very
long time, Barbe. Will you have me?”

“Of course,” she said, snatching the crespine from his hand
and dancing out of reach. She called back over her shoulder, “Have I not been
passionately enamored of you since I was thirteen years old? Surely eleven
years of constancy should be rewarded. If you can get King Louis’s approval, I
will be delighted to be your wife.”

Chapter Five

The little devil believes I was jesting, Alphonse thought.
It would serve her right if I went to Louis and asked for her. He rubbed the
back of his neck fretfully, settled his cap more squarely on his head, and went
to the front of the stable to order a groom to bring his horse. When he was
mounted, he did not ride back to Hugh’s house but out into the countryside,
where he soon found a meadow whose thin grass could support only a few sheep.
Those were at a distance, and Alphonse dismounted, tied his horse, and sat down
in the shade of an outcrop of rocks.

Somewhere during the ride, although he had not been
conscious of thinking at all, he had decided to launch an all-out campaign to
get Barbara for his wife. Had there been any truth at all in the teasing remark
that she had loved him since she was thirteen? He knew she had thought her
father had decided on him for her husband and had allowed herself to feel she
loved him then, but she seemed to have recovered very easily when he pointed
out how unsuitable he was. But had she really recovered or simply been too
proud to show what she felt once he made it plain he did not desire her?

Alphonse laughed softly. What a fool he had been not to see
what she would become, not that she had the kind of beauty over which the
romances raved, but beauty was nothing. It seemed to him now that the more
beautiful a woman was, the more likelihood existed that she would bore you to
death every minute your shaft was not in her sheath, and the brief pleasure of
futtering was never worth the hours of boredom that preceded and followed it.
Barbara was different. The spirit in her and the bright mind that loved
intrigue as much as he did somehow combined with her odd features to ravish
him. When her eyebrows went up and made a little pointed tent on her forehead,
his knees felt like jelly and his sword and hangers heated almost painfully.

“Stupid,” he muttered aloud and shifted position, his body
having responded immediately to the appealing subject of Barbara’s thick,
shining eyebrows. No, he would not imagine how it would feel to brush his lips
over them and down her long nose to that wide mouth whose every movement—and it
was very mobile—presented a sensuous invitation.

Sighing with exasperation, Alphonse wondered at his
inability to control his wayward fancies. It never happened with any other
woman. For many years he had been as easily able to send away as to call forth
the image of his current mistress, or any other woman. As a curative, Alphonse
asked himself sternly whether the feeling Barbe had been concealing from him
was not love but hate. That idea cooled his heated body, but though he dwelt on
the notion, it did not gain in reality.

He asked himself whether his self-love was preventing him
from seeing the truth, but he did not think so. Barbe had never acted like a
woman scorned, a horrible condition with which Alphonse had experience despite
all his care. And it was to him she had come for help when the marriage to
Thouzan le Thor had been proposed. She had been in despair when her father
agreed to it, had threatened everything and anything to escape the match. But
she had become calm and reasonable when he pointed out the advantages of being
married to a rich man who had promised not to take her from Queen Marguerite’s
care for two years, and she had accepted his promise to protect her from her
husband if she could not like him after they finally met.

Nor did she come to hate me later
, Alphonse thought.
The proof was that she had come to him and reminded him of his promise to
protect her when Pierre sent word he was coming to consummate their marriage at
last. By then Barbe did not need his protection. Any number of other men would
have been glad to kill Thouzan le Thor for her. Alphonse probably would have
done it himself, despite the fact that he knew Pierre and liked him. But she
did not ask that of him, only that he agree to escort her to England to her
father if she found her husband distasteful. And of course the question had
never arisen, because Pierre had died of a fever on the way to Paris.

Should he have joined the mob of men who rushed to Louis to
propose themselves or their sons as husbands for Barbe as soon as news of
Pierre’s death came to the court? No, that had not been a mistake. He was sure
of that because it was again to him Barbe had run for help, reminding him that
her father had bade her come to him when she needed advice. She had been cool
when she asked if he could think of a way to save her from the “ghouls” who
wished to batten on Thouzan le Thor’s death leavings, but Barbe was always
cool, except to men who pursued her, and to them she was freezing cold. Her
teasing and laughter and clever hints about court intrigue or how to manipulate
people were only for “friends,” male or female.

However, it might have been a mistake not to follow her to
England, Alphonse thought. She had seemed to respond to his tentative
approaches when he returned to court from Aix almost a year after Pierre’s
death. But when he tried to discover whether that warmth meant she looked on
him with favor, she had told him—so lightly—that she was going home to England
with her father. Alphonse had been hurt and angry, thinking himself rejected,
and had gone to fight off his spleen in tournaments. By the time he had begun
to wonder whether he had not taken offense at innocence rather than rejection,
she was gone.

At that time Alphonse had felt there was no sense in
presenting himself to Norfolk as a suitor. He was no match for Barbe. Although
she was not Norfolk’s heiress, she was his only child and his fondness for her
made her a valuable prize. Certainly there was no need for the Earl of Norfolk
to urge his daughter to make so unequal a match. Had Alphonse had time to woo
Barbe so that she would plead with her father to accept him, Norfolk might have
considered him favorably. He had also assumed Norfolk took her with him because
he already had in mind a marriage far more suitable than the virtually landless
younger brother of the Comte d’Aix. However Barbe had not remarried at all and
considering her father’s fondness for her, that could only have been because
she was unwilling to marry.

Alphonse drew his shapely lower lip between his teeth and
gnawed on it. Could it be that she had no taste for men at all? But it was he
who had suggested that she say she wished to live celibate for a time to save
her from a second marriage immediately after Pierre’s death. Barbe had not
thought of that device herself. Besides, if she had really wished to live
celibate, all she needed to do was tell King Louis she wanted to be a nun. He
would have done all in his power to satisfy that desire. No, Barbe had no
inclination for the cloister. But that did not mean she had any inclination for
marriage either.

Had he a right to try for marriage if Barbe was happy living
under her father’s protection? Alphonse uttered a soft obscenity. He did not
care! She had become a fire in his blood. He would make her happy. He had to
try for her at least, and at once before anyone else at court realized she was
still a widow.

So after all the thinking, he had come again to what he had
decided without thinking at all, but he was no nearer to how to achieve his
purpose. It was hopeless to ask either Marguerite or Eleanor for help. Both his
aunts would think Barbe a bad match and present him with great heiresses more
suitable to be his wife. Nor could he go directly to Louis. That good man would
certainly not press Barbe to marry him against her will unless some greater
good for all would come from the arrangement. That was something to think about
when he knew more of the political situation than he could learn from Queen
Eleanor’s narrowly prejudiced view. Hugh Bigod and John of Hurley could tell
him most of what he would need to know. And Eleanor might support his request
to marry Barbe if he said he could thus control her, and possibly her father
through her.

No, that would not do. To approach Barbe through others
would only make her angry and disdainful. If he convinced her that he did love
her and took seriously her agreement to marry him, she would keep her word and
become his wife. She would be angry at being held to a promise made in jest,
but not nearly as angry as she would be if he tried to work his will on her
through others.

Barbara fled from Alphonse without heed across the courtyard
and through the great hall of Princess Eleanor’s house to the stairs that led
to the women’s quarters above. She had not taken five steps into the chamber
when her maid’s voice, shriller than normal with alarm, checked her.

“My lady! What has befallen you?”

The speed with which Clotilde had separated herself from the
gossiping knot of maidservants clustered not far from the entrance to the large
room in which all the ladies slept and the fright in her voice brought Barbara
to her senses. She forced a laugh and explained what Frivole had done.
Clotilde, who was not unfamiliar with the damage to Barbara’s clothing caused
by her fondness for animals, tch’d and clucked but busied herself with putting
her mistress to rights, allowing Barbara’s thoughts to slip back to the subject
that was consuming her.

She had been far more shocked than Alphonse by the answer
she had made to his proposal. When she opened her mouth, Barbara had intended
to make a lighthearted joke comparing the two frivolous creatures who had
snatched her crespine, implying that Alphonse was as thoughtless as Frivole.
The jesting tone had been true to her original intention, but the words… She
had accepted his offer of marriage! An offer she had shamed him into making!

The shock faded slowly as a much more important notion took
hold of her. Alphonse
had
intended to seduce her. His reaction to her
accusation was proof of that. And if he intended to seduce her, he found her
attractive.

Her first reaction to his seductive voice and manner had
been hurt and rage because she leapt to the conclusion that he had made the
advance on Queen Eleanor’s order, but second thought had cured her of that
notion. It was possible that Eleanor had suggested seduction to him, but
Barbara had known Alphonse for years, and he was no meek performer of anyone’s
will but his own. If he had not wanted to seduce her, he would have convinced
his aunt that it was the wrong thing to do and that it was Eleanor who was
turning him aside from a disastrous idea. Barbara had seen him work that magic,
had he not worked it on her to make her agree to marry Thouzan le Thor? Only
good had come of that, but…

That was not important. The significant fact was that
Alphonse had decided to seduce her on his own—or Queen Eleanor’s suggestion had
coincided with his own wishes. Whichever was true, he now found her
desirable—desirable enough to say “I love you.” Barbara’s breath quickened and
she reminded herself sternly that his saying the words did not mean he did love
her. No doubt he felt that the declaration was required at the beginning of
every affair and he said it by rote. Then was it fair to hold him to an offer
of marriage forced out of him by shame?

Barbara considered the question while her maid recombed her
hair. She held the silver mirror, the tourney prize he had faithfully given to
an ugly child made still uglier by constant weeping with homesickness. Later
she had learned that he had a beautiful mistress who had quarreled with him for
not carrying her favor in the tourney and for bestowing the mirror she desired
on “an ugly child”. But Alphonse was always faithful to his word, even when
that word was only meant to draw a smile by asking for a child’s favor to carry
in a tourney. She had been so ignorant that she had pulled the scarf from her
hair and given it to him at once, not realizing he was jesting. But Alphonse
had not laughed at her. He had taken the scarf and thanked her and kissed her
hand as gravely as if she were the most beautiful lady in the land.

So he would keep his word and marry her if she did not offer
to release him from his proposal. Was it fair to bind him to words forced from
him? By a path of reasoning similar to Alphonse’s, Barbara came to the same
conclusion, that she would make him so good a wife that he would, in the end,
be content. She had wanted him for years. Now, having seen him again and felt
pangs as sharp and eager as those of great hunger, she was ready to admit the
truth. There was no use in lying to herself anymore. She had refused to marry
only because she desired no man but Alphonse.

He would not regret the marriage, Barbara vowed. But there
was another problem. Would she regret it? A confirmed chaser of women does not
change his ways because the priest pronounces him a husband. Adultery would
only be a little pebble piled on the mountain of sins of fornication Alphonse
had already committed. If he loved her and vowed to be faithful, there was a
chance that he would cleave to her, forsaking all others. But that was not a
vow into which she could, or even wanted to trick him. Real hatred would grow
out of such a trick, the kind of hatred that existed between her father and his
wife. Barbara shuddered.

“It is growing cooler,” Clotilde said, laying the comb on
Barbara’s knee and bringing a short cloak from the chest that held Barbara’s
clothes. “And I have told you many times, my lady, that you must let me make
the crespines larger. I cannot stuff all your hair into this net, and there are
holes in it.”

Barbara allowed her maid to slip the cloak over her
shoulders. She had changed from her sturdy riding dress into summer silks
because she had run all the way from the stable and arrived hot as well as
disheveled. Now that the evening breeze had brought a slight chill with it, she
did not need to explain why she had shivered. Nonetheless, Clotilde’s care for
her was soothing, and she smiled slightly. She and the maid seemed to have this
argument about her hair at least three times a week. Besides Clotilde’s comment
had broken her train of thought, which was a welcome interruption.