Chapter Twenty-Four
“Aliénor.” Blanche hiked her hands upon her hips. “Didn’t you hear the summons? The regent has called everyone to the great hall.”
“You go on ahead.” Aliénor didn’t raise her head from her embroidery though the room had come alive with the rustling of skirts. “I have to a rose to finish.”
“A sad-looking one, too. In any case, the embroidery can wait. The assembly won’t.”
“I don’t need to hear any more bad news about riots in Paris, Blanche.”
“This melancholy doesn’t suit you.”
She dipped her head. Guy de Baste had said much the same thing at table the night before, his smile going thin as she answered all his questions in single sentences, and never ventured any queries of her own.
Blanche said, “He might be there, you know.”
Blanche didn’t have to say the name for Aliénor to know of whom she spoke. No man filled her mind like Jehan. How wild he’d looked when he’d approached her last night. His dark hair fell long below his shoulders. There were shadows around his eyes and inside them, too. How she had ached to run her fingers through the stubble of his three-day beard, drawn by the current vibrating between them.
“Aliénor,” Blanche began on a sigh.
“I’m sure he’s gone,” she said. Jehan had disappeared long before dinner ended last night. And through the open windows of the solar, she had heard horses coming and going all morning. “It’s a long way to Prussia.”
“Or he could be waiting downstairs to say farewell to the prince.”
She flinched as her needle slipped and found its way into flesh. She sucked her thumb into her mouth, numbing the pain. She only wished she could numb all pain so easily, including how much it hurt to love.
But Blanche was standing in front of her, hands on ample hips, unrelenting.
With a sigh, she put aside her embroidery.
In the main hall, excitement vibrated to the rafters. People chattered and jostled for position. Blanche used her bulk as well as her prerogative to find a place close to the action, where Aliénor intended to lean against a pillar and think of nothing. But when Aliénor saw who waited in the empty space in front of the regent’s table, her shield of numbness shattered.
Jehan was dressed in black hose, a scarlet tunic, and a shirt as bright as a fuller could make it. She’d seen such clothing once before, when her brother Bertrand had bent a knee in church to be dubbed a knight. The scarlet tunic stood for the blood Bertrand might shed for God, king, and honor; the black of his hose stood for the death that must be faced without fear; and the white of the shirt represented purity of soul and character.
“Sir Jehan,” the regent said, lifting a parchment from his table. “I understand you are in possession of a castle in the Gascon borderlands, once owned by my late knight the Viscount de Tournan.”
Were it not for the column of stone at her shoulder, she would slide into a heap upon the floor.
“Yes,” Jehan said. “Castelnau-sur-Arrats.”
“Seized by you?”
“Yes.”
“By force of arms?”
“In a time of war.”
“By order of the Prince of Wales.”
“And with his help,” he added, “for it’s a strong castle, well-managed by the family, positioned on a promontory overlooking a sweep of fertile land.”
“Has the English prince gifted this stolen castle into your care as a reward for your loyalty?”
“It is in my physical possession, but the prince has made only promises.”
“The English prince,” the regent repeated, “your liege lord.”
“Yes, Your Grace.”
“And yet today, you stand before me, offering to cede the castle back to France.”
Aliénor pressed a hand against her heart. The skin vibrated against her palm. Why would Jehan surrender the castle? Had the prince found him a rich wife?
“I cede it to you,” Jehan said, “and your father the king, upon my own free will. And with it, I offer to pay homage.”
A shivering whisper of surprise shuddered through the hall as her thoughts raced in a thousand directions.
The regent said, “Does your liege lord, the Prince of Wales, know what you are offering me?”
“He does not.”
“You defy him.”
“I do, Your Grace.”
“And how am I to trust a man who breaks a solemn vow?”
“Because I break this vow in order to right a wrong. There is one, single condition to my offer.”
Aliénor’s fingertips started to tingle and she realized Blanche was gripping her hand like a vice.
“This condition,” the regent said, “no doubt involves the heiress to the castle, the lovely sister of the brave, crippled Gascon boy Thibaud has told me so much about.”
The regent had not spoken her name, but heads turned nonetheless, skirts rustled, sword sheathes jangled, and she felt the heat of the perusal of those around her like the blaze of torchlight upon her face.
“Everything I do today is for the lady.” Jehan lowered himself to one knee and held out his sword, flat between his outstretched hands. “Your Grace, I offer you the castle, my loyalty, and my sword—everything I possess—in return for my heart’s one and only desire: Aliénor de Tournan, as my wife.”
***
As Jehan’s proclamation echoed in the rafters, Aliénor stepped back, and then stepped back again. She ignored the whispers and stares as she pivoted on one foot and headed toward the front door of the great hall. She wasn’t sure what propelled her away from the ceremony—shock or instinct or just the need to breathe—but she didn’t stop in the courtyard. She passed kitchen maids chatting as they pulled water from the well, stable boys dozing, and men heaping hay into troughs for the horses, increasing her pace to a run as she headed toward the castle portal.
Outside the cool tunnel, the sun warmed her hair, braised her cheeks, and stoked her thrumming excitement. The air smelled of warm grass and recent rain, and she knew she was standing on it only when she felt moisture soaking through her slippers.
She turned her face to the sky. Had she imagined what she’d just seen? Was she dreaming? Certainly she must have misunderstood what was said. Or had Jehan really just offered himself up as a knight to the king of France?
A clatter of hooves upon paving stones made her swirl around, but the rider leaving the castle was not Jehan. At the sight of her, the knight stopped, his mount kicking up gravel so fiercely that a shower of stones sprayed her leather-clad feet.
Guy de Baste said, “I see by your expression, my lady, that this news was as much a surprise to you as it was to me.”
Words were impossible, she could barely think.
“It’s a pity our plans have gone awry.” Guy de Baste’s reluctant smile held no humor. “But I suspect you won’t mourn me, eh?”
Indeed, she would not. The force and clarity of that singular thought knocked the fog from her senses. She had been numb since Sir Guy had made his offer, but as the numbness dissipated she realized she would never have vowed before God to be this man’s wife. She was no longer the girl she’d been before Jehan stormed into her life. She would never again consider offering her hand without offering her heart, as well.
Even a convent would have been better than a loveless marriage.
“The regent is generous,” she said. “Perhaps he’ll suggest another dispossessed heiress, or a rich widow.”
“Rich widow or not, sweet Aliénor, none will be as lovely as you.”
Gallant to the last. She granted him a smile. “I wish you great fortune, Sir Guy.”
“And to you. Adieu, ma chou.”
Sir Guy kicked his horse and headed along the path toward where the gate opened to the bridge across the river.
But she didn’t follow the path of his passing, for when Sir Guy moved away from the portal, another silhouette stepped out of the shadows.