You are cordially invited to Blythe Gifford’s

Royal Weddings

A hint of scandal this way comes!

Anne of Stamford and Lady Cecily serve two of the highest ladies in the land. And with their close proximity to the royal family they are privy to some of the greatest scandals the royal court has ever known!

As Anne and Cecily’s worlds threaten to come crashing down two men enter their lives—dashing, gorgeous, and bringing with them more danger than ever before. Suddenly these two strong women must face a new challenge: resisting the power of seduction!

Follow Anne of Stamford’s story in

Secrets at Court Already available

And read Cecily, Countess of Losford’s story in

Whispers at Court June 2015

AUTHOR NOTE

Historically, for most children of royal birth, the course of true love not only ‘never did run smooth’, it was not expected to run at all. A royal wedding was typically more like the signing of a treaty than a celebration of love.

But King Edward III, who ruled England for most of the fourteenth century, had a soft spot in his heart for his oldest daughter. And her romance with a French prisoner of war—or hostage—is one of the most astonishing love stories of the medieval era.

Today, the very word ‘hostage’ brings shivers of fear. But during the medieval war between England and France an elaborate set of rules—both economic and chivalric—guided the taking of prisoners in battle. A hostage was held until a ransom was paid, but he was treated according to his noble station and expected to conduct himself accordingly. In return, some of the French knights held in the court of the English King were entertained (dare I say?) ‘royally’.

Cecily, Countess of Losford, has no sympathy for the French hostages—men she blames for her father’s death—and she disapproves of the Princess’s flirtation with one of them. In an effort to stop ‘whispers at Court’, she forms an unlikely alliance with Marc de Marcel, a French hostage who learned long ago that for too many of his fellows, ‘honour’ is no more than a word. As Cecily and Marc try to keep the English Princess and the French Lord apart the two of them become dangerously close—until finally each must choose between the demands of honour and the desires of the heart.

Whispers at Court

Blythe Gifford

www.millsandboon.co.uk

After many years in public relations, advertising and marketing, BLYTHE GIFFORD started writing seriously after a corporate lay-off. Ten years later she became an overnight success when she sold her RWA Golden Heart finalist manuscript to Mills & Boon. Her books, set primarily in medieval England or early Tudor Scotland, usually feature a direct connection to historical royalty.

She loves to have visitors at blythegifford.com, ‘likes’ at facebook.com/BlytheGifford and Tweets at twitter.com/BlytheGifford

For my readers, with all my thanks.

A special wave to the Chicago Divas,

who happily listened to me whine, and to Keena Kincaid,

Terri Brisbin, Amanda Berry, Robin Owens and Kim Law, whose brainstorming triggered a solution.

Contents

Cover

Introduction

AUTHOR NOTE

Title Page

About the Author

Dedication

Acknowledgments

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Epilogue

Author’s Afterword

Extract

Copyright

Chapter One

Smithfield, London—November 11, 1363

Mon Dieu, this island is cold.

Frigid English wind whipped Marc de Marcel’s hair from his forehead, then slithered beneath the chainmail circling his neck. He peered at the knights at the other end of the field, wondering which would be his opponent and which would face his fellow Frenchman.

Well, it mattered not. ‘One pass,’ he muttered, ‘and I’ll unhorse either one.’

‘The code of chivalry calls for three runs with the lance,’ Lord de Coucy said, ‘followed by three blows with the sword. Only then can a winner be declared.’

Marc sighed. It was a shame that jousts had become such tame affairs. He would have welcomed the opportunity to kill another goddam Anglais. ‘A waste of the horse’s strength. And mine.’

‘Best not offend someone when you are at their mercy, mon ami. Cooperation with our captors will make our time here much more tolerable.’

‘We are hostages. Nothing can make that tolerable.’

‘Ah, the ladies can.’ De Coucy nodded towards the stands. ‘They are très jolie.’

He glanced at them. Women stretched to King Edward’s right, near impossible to distinguish. The queen must be the one gowned in ermine-trimmed purple, but the rest were a blur of matching tan and violet.

Except for one. Her dark hair was graced with a gold circlet and she glared in his direction of the field with crossed arms and a frown. Even at this distance, he could read a loathing that matched his own, as if she despised them all.

Well, the feeling was mutual.

He shrugged. Les femmes Anglaise were not his concern. Two visiting kings sat beside the English Edward today, overlooking the tournament field. ‘It is les rois I would impress, not the ladies.’

‘Ah, a chevalier always strives to impress the ladies,’ his dark-haired friend said, with a smile. ‘It is the best way to impress their men.’

It amazed him, this ability the younger man, Enguerrand, Lord de Coucy, had to cut down a foe with an axe one day and warble a chanson with the ladies the next. Marc had taught him much of the first and nothing of the second.

‘How do you do it?’ Marc asked. ‘How do you nod and smile at your captors?’

‘To uphold the honour of French chivalry, mon ami.’

What he meant was to preserve the pretence that Christian knights lived their lives according to the principles of chivalry.

And that, as Marc well knew, was a lie.

Men spoke allegiance to the code, then did as they pleased.

‘French honour died at Poitiers.’ Poitiers, when cowardly French commanders, even the king’s oldest son, had fled the field, leaving the king to fight alone.

Enguerrand shook his head. ‘We do not fight that war today.’

But Marc did. He fought it still, though the battles were over and the truce had been signed. He was a hostage of les Anglais, trapped in this frozen, foreign place, and resentment near strangled him.

The herald interrupted his thoughts to give them their order and their opponents. De Coucy would ride first, against the larger, brutish man. A foe worth fighting, at least.

The one left to him? No more than a boy. One he might kill by accident if he were not careful.

How careful did he feel today?

* * *

By the saints it is cold.

Shivering, Lady Cecily, Countess of Losford, saw her breath turn to fog in the frigid air as she gazed over the frozen tournament field. Red, blue, gold, silver—colour ran rampant before her eyes—decorating flags and banners, spilling across surcoats that shielded armour and draped the horses. A splendid display for visiting royalty. And King Edward, third of that name, reigned over it all, triumphant after his victory in France.

She lifted her chin, struggling to keep her countenance worthy of her rank.

It is your duty.

Her parents’ words, their voices alive only in her memory now.

‘Is that not so, Cecily?’

She turned to the king’s daughter, Isabella, and wondered what she had missed. Six other ladies also attended the princess and, sometimes, Cecily’s attention strayed. ‘I’m certain you are right, my lady.’ That was always a good answer.

‘Really?’ The princess smiled. ‘I thought you did not care for the French.’

She sighed. Isabella loved to tease her when her thoughts wandered. ‘I’m afraid I was not listening.’

‘I said the Frenchman looks fierce.’

Lady Cecily followed her gaze. At the far end of the field, two Frenchmen had mounted their destriers, but not yet donned their helmets. One of them, a knight she had not seen before, was tall, sharp and blond. Like a leopard. A beast who could kill in a single leap.

‘He is handsome, is he not?’

Cecily frowned, ashamed that Lady Isabella had caught her staring at a French hostage. ‘I do not care for fair-haired men.’

Her lady did not bother to hide her smile. ‘I meant the dark one.’

Ah, the one she had barely looked at. Yet it did not matter which the princess meant. Cecily despised them both. Despite the conventions of chivalry, she could not understand why the king allowed the French hostages to take to the tournament field. They were, after all, little better than prisoners and should be denied such privileges. ‘Both of them will be handsomer when they are unhorsed and covered in mud.’

That sent Isabella and the other ladies into peals of laughter until a frown from Queen Philippa forced them to stifle their mirth.

Cecily smiled, relieved she had saved the moment with a jest. Yet she had been deadly serious. In fact, it was a shame that the joust had become so tame and ceremonial. She would not have minded seeing a bit of French blood spilled.

‘I wonder,’ the princess said, ‘which one rides against Gilbert?’

Cecily looked to the other end of the field where Gilbert, now properly Sir Gilbert, sat tall and straight and hopeful on his horse. Her favour, a violet silk scarf, fluttered expectantly on his lance.

Opposite him, covered in chainmail and plate armour, the blond French knight on his battle-tested mount looked even more imposing. She was no expert at war, but the way he sat on the horse and held his lance bespoke a confidence, a sureness, that she could see through the armour. ‘I am certain,’ she said, not certain at all, ‘that Gilbert can unseat either man.’

Isabella flashed a sceptical expression. ‘Don’t be gooseish. This is Gilbert’s first tournament. He’ll be blessed if he doesn’t drop his lance. Why ever did you give him your favour?’

Cecily sighed. ‘He looked so forlorn.’

A quick frown deepened the lines between Isabella’s brows. ‘You are not thinking of him as a husband.’

‘Gilbert?’ Cecily laughed. ‘He is too much like a brother.’ He had come to her father as a young squire, just a couple of years older than she. And when the king selected her husband, he would not choose a lowly knight, but a man powerful, and trustworthy enough to hold the key to England.

But who?

Frowning, Cecily leaned closer to Isabella and whispered, ‘Has your father said anything more of my marriage?’

Since her father had died, Cecily had become a very eligible heiress. She was now near twenty and it was time, past time, that she and Losford Castle be delivered to a man of the king’s choosing.

The princess shook her head. ‘His royal guests have consumed his attention. The King of Cyprus, Jerusalem, and whatever else he styles himself is urging my father to go on Crusade.’ She rolled her eyes. ‘At his age! It is bad enough he plans to lead the final charge in the tournament today.’

At least he is alive to do so, Cecily wanted to say, but held her tongue.

‘Besides—’ Isabella squeezed Cecily’s cold fingers ‘—I don’t want you snatched away so soon.’

But it was not ‘soon’. It had been three years since her father had been cut down by the French. And the first annual death mass for her mother was barely two months away. The time to mourn was over. And yet...

She smiled at Isabella. ‘You just want a companion for your revels.’

Isabella was an astonishing thirty-one years old and unmarried, with an abundance of time and money for all the pleasures of the court.

‘You’ve been in mourning too long. You should enjoy yourself before you wed.’

Trumpets blared, signalling the next joust, and as the herald announced the rules for the single combat, Cecily could summon no joy. She frowned at the French chevaliers. God should not have let them live when her father had not.

* * *

De Coucy’s red, white and blue banner snapped briskly in the breeze. He smiled at Marc, eager to ride. ‘A glorious day! The king thinks to impress us! He is the one who will be impressed, n’est pas?’

Marc grinned. So many times, they had ridden side by side. Memories of successful battles quickened his blood. ‘Will you take him in one pass or two?’

Enguerrand put on his helm and lifted his mailed glove in a brief salute. And three fingers.

Marc laughed. Ever the perfect knight, de Coucy, unlike too many of his fellow Frenchmen.

Yet as his friend rode, Marc watched each move, as if his attention could ensure the outcome. He still looked on the younger man as a novice, though de Coucy had long ago assumed his title, his lands and his rightful place as a leader of men.

On the first pass, his friend’s lance hit the opponent’s shield squarely. On the second, he allowed his opponent a touch, but with a last-minute twist, made certain it was only a glancing blow, one that scored poorly.

Matchless skill, to fight so that the poor English knight might actually believe he had landed a blow.

Finally, on the third pass, Enguerrand returned with a perfectly placed hit and knocked the other man’s lance out of his grip and halfway across the field.

The squires rushed out to help them dismount and hand them their swords for the next phase of combat. Again, de Coucy made the contest look like an intricate dance. The first blow clean, but leaving his opponent standing. The second, he took himself, yet in such a way that it was inconsequential. With the third, he knocked his opponent’s sword out of his hand, forcing him to concede the match.

Cheers rose from the stands, approval more generous than Marc had expected from their captors.

De Coucy strode back, helmet off, smile on. Three passes he had declared. Three it had been.

‘Well done, my friend,’ Marc said. ‘Although that last blow was a little off.’

Enguerrand laughed. ‘Only if I had intended to kill him.’

Marc looked down the field at the young knight who would face him. Marc’s match, dwarfed by his armour, looked as if he had just earned his spurs.

‘They insult me, to make me fight a boy.’ At the other end of the field, a brave little purple scarf drooped from the knight’s lance. ‘You wanted me to impress the ladies. Do you think his lady will be impressed when her favour is trampled by the horses?’

‘Behave yourself, mon ami.’

Marc sighed. He was expected to fight as de Coucy did: well enough to bring honour on himself, his colleague and his country, but not so well as to harm the Anglais. That was what the code of chivalry said.

For a moment, he pondered taking pity on the young man. He had a few crumbs of chivalry left in his trencher. A very few.

He could ride the requisite three passes with a gentle touch and allow his opponent to leave the field with his pride intact.

But men said one thing and did another. They gave an oath of fealty, then deserted their posts at battle. They swore to protect women and then raped them instead.

They cared nothing for honour, only the pretence of it. Some days, it seemed as if life was only a giant disguising with everyone pretending to be what they were not.

He was tired of pretending.

Today he would protest the only way he had left. Not to kill the young man, no. But embarrass him? That, he could do. That, he would enjoy.

His destrier shifted beneath him, stamping cold, hard ground that did not yield. He looked to the side, the starter gave the sign and he kicked his horse to ride.

* * *

Cecily refused to applaud the first Frenchman’s victory until Isabella nudged her in the ribs. ‘The dark-haired Frenchman fought masterfully, don’t you think?’

Forced into clapping, she did so without enthusiasm. ‘How can you say anything good about a Frenchman?’

‘You talk as if he were an infidel. You forget my father’s French blood.’

Yes, it was French blood flowing through the royal veins that had entitled King Edward to claim the throne of France. Cecily felt no such tie. Men like these, perhaps even these men, had killed her father. And then after his death had come her mother’s...

She sighed, chastened by Isabella, and gazed back out on the field. With a helmet covering his face, the blond warrior in the blue-and-gold surcoat looked even more threatening, as if he were not human at all. She could only hope he would not wound Gilbert. Of course, this was not war. No one died in a tournament.

At least, not very often.

The herald gave the sign, she sent up a prayer for Gilbert’s safety and braced for another drawn-out contest with lance and sword.

The horses charged, hooves pounding the turf, blue and gold galloping towards green and white. Atop his horse, Gilbert sat off-centre, unsteady, while the Frenchman rode as solid and immovable as Windsor’s walls. She held her breath, as if that would make a difference. They were going too fast, what if the Frenchman really—?

Lances clattered on steel. Something flew across the field. A lance tip? A glove? Gilbert’s horse reared.

Then, Gilbert lay flat on his back, his green-and-white surcoat covering the earth like spring grass.

She jumped to her feet. Was he wounded? Or worse? Not another loss, please...

The Frenchman backed his horse away, so the beast would not accidentally trample the boy. As Gilbert’s squire scampered on to the field, Gilbert sat up unaided and removed his helmet. Without the protection of his armour, shadowed by the man towering over him on the horse, he looked as young and thin and untried as he was.

But, thank God, unhurt.

Isabella arched her brows. ‘I fear your scarf is a lost cause.’

‘It was hardly a fair match. And since it was not, the French knight should have been chivalrous enough to spare the boy.’

‘I don’t think that one cares for courtesies. His friend, however...’

And as Isabella spoke, the French knight, the warrior Cecily had wanted to see toppled, turned his horse and left the field.

This time, there was no applause.

Westminster Palace—that night

Cecily scanned the cavernous Hall of Westminster Palace from the edge of the dais as servants bearing flambeaux wandered among the crowd. Torchlight flickered, casting shadows over the faces, and she studied each one, searching for her future.

Would the tall earl from the West Country be chosen as her husband? Or perhaps the stout baron from Sussex who had recently buried his wife?

Yet French hostages dotted the crowd as well, marring her mood. She was not inclined to feign politeness to more of her father’s killers. At least, surely, the one who bested Gilbert would dare not show himself tonight.

Determined to impress the visiting kings with the full power and glory of his court, King Edward defied the darkness of the night. The high table was crowded with bronze candlesticks and dozens of twinkling flames.

Yet, for Cecily, memories lurked in the shadows. When her father was alive, he sat at the king’s table. When her mother was alive, they whispered their judgements of the ladies’ gowns. The scarlet that Lady Jane was wearing, her mother would have admired—

‘Cecily? Did you hear me?’

She leaned forward to catch Isabella’s whisper. ‘I’m sorry. What is it?’

A frown creased Isabella’s face. ‘Attend. Father has had good news about Scotland. He’s in a bounteous mood and not as clear-headed as usual,’ Isabella whispered. ‘You may find yourself promised to the nearest available lord before the night is over.’

Cecily looked around the hall, steeling herself. ‘Has he mentioned anyone in particular?’

Isabelle shook her head. ‘Not to me.’

She did not know who she would marry, yet she knew he would be an Englishman, loyal and strong. A man the king could trust as implicitly as he had trusted her father, for Losford Castle, Guardian of the Channel, was the most important bulwark in all of England, the one that could keep England’s enemies away from her shores.

It could only go to a man for whom duty was all.

As it was for her.

She had grown up knowing this would be her lot, always. She was the only child of the Earl of Losford and sole holder of the lands and title. She would marry as her parents, and the king, decided.

‘Do you think about him?’ Isabella’s question brought her back.

‘I think about my father every day.’ Not that she had seen him every day while he lived. Like all men, he had spent much of his life at war in France.

‘I meant your husband. Who he might be.’

Strange question to come from a woman long unmarried. Yet Cecily’s father had not hurried her marriage, either. Even as she passed an age to be wed, her world had remained her parents, their castle and the court.

She’s not ready, her mother had whispered to her father.

But the death of her parents had rent her world so thoroughly that she wondered whether even a husband could make it whole again. ‘I think only that I will accept the king’s choice.’ As was her duty.

‘Well, Father demands that a man acquit himself well on the tournament field,’ Isabella said, ‘and he was more impressed with those hostages today than with any of our men.’

Resentment wrestled with relief. At least a hostage would not be a prospective husband. ‘The dark one I can understand,’ she admitted, grudgingly. ‘He conducted himself according to the rules of chivalry, but the fair-haired Frenchman was a disgrace.’

‘Perhaps, but Father said he would be a useful man to have on your side in the midst of a battle.’

A surprising admission, for a king who modelled himself and his court on the ideals of King Arthur’s Round Table.

‘Look,’ Isabella said. ‘Over there. There he is.’

‘Who?’ Relieved at Isabella’s wandering attention, Cecily followed her gaze. ‘Where?’

‘The French knight. The dark one. There by the fire.’

The man was standing comfortably beside his blond friend before one of the hearths, halfway down the hall, as if they were lounging in their own hall instead of the king’s.

‘It is time we met,’ the princess said. ‘Go. Bring him to me. I would congratulate him on today’s joust.’

‘I refuse to speak to that man,’ she said, thinking of the blond one. What was his name? Somehow in the noise and chatter of the tournament, neither she nor Isabella had heard either of the knights announced. ‘After the way he treated Gilbert...’

Isabella twisted her mouth.

Cecily’s frown twitched.

And then, they both gave in to laughter. ‘Poor Gilbert.’

After initially appearing uninjured, Gilbert had developed blossoming bruises and left the hall early, limping. At least Cecily would be spared the need to feign an interest in a detailed account of his embarrassing performance.

‘Send one of the other ladies,’ she said, after she stopped laughing. ‘Or a page.’ That would be a proper insult to the man.

Isabella shook her head. ‘Speak to the man or snub him as you choose. Just bring me his friend.’

Sighing, Cecily stepped off the dais and started down the Hall. And as she made her way through the crowd, her resentment grew. She lived in England, under an English king and in an English court, yet French music surrounded her. When she danced, French steps guided her feet. Even the words on her tongue were French. No wonder the hostages looked so comfortable. But for sleeping on this side of the Channel, they might as well be at home.

Isabella was right. They shared culture, language and even, in some cases, blood. Yet all that had not been enough to keep them from killing each other.

Just as she reached the two men, the dark one slipped away. She paused, thinking to escape, but she had moved with too much purpose. The fair-haired knight looked up and met her gaze.

Now, she could not turn aside.

He leaned against the wall, seemingly at ease, but when she came closer, she could see that despite the sweet music and laughter all around him, he seemed coiled and ready for battle.

Cecily paused, waiting for him to acknowledge her and bow. Instead, he looked down at her, silent.

‘It is customary,’ she began, through gritted teeth, ‘for a knight to acknowledge a lady.’

He shrugged.

Could nothing stir this quiet barbarian? ‘I am attached to the royal household.’

‘So am I to bow not only to the English royals, but also to those who serve them?’

‘I am no serving girl,’ she snapped at the demeaning suggestion. But he could not have mistaken a woman wearing velvet for a serving girl. He wanted to make her furious, that was clear. Worse, he was succeeding. She unclenched her fingers and forced a shrug to match his own. ‘You have proven again that French chivalry is vastly overrated.’

He stood straight, then, as if her words had been the blow she’d intended. ‘Chevalier Marc de Marcel at your service.’ A slight inclination of his head, its very perfection a mockery.

‘Chivalry is more than courtly manners. A chivalrous knight would have allowed an untried opponent to hold his honour on the field.’

He glanced at her violet gown and an expression she could not decipher rippled across his face. ‘The favour he carried. It was yours.’ Something in the timbre of his voice reached inside her, implying that she and Gilbert...

But it didn’t mean what you think. ‘I would have said the same even if it was not.’ Pinned by his expression, she had trouble taking a breath. The anger in his eyes matched her own. Or was it something besides anger? Something more like hunger...

He smiled. Slowly and without mirth. ‘You would have frowned at me the same way if I had been the one unhorsed.’

True, and she blushed with shame to be thought as rude as he. A countess should be above such weakness. Assuming the disguise of polite interest, she reached for her noble demeanour. ‘You are newly come?’

The scowl returned to his face. ‘Weeks that seem like years. The Compte d’Oise pined for home. Before your king allowed him to leave, he demanded a substitute. C’est moi. Now you have your answer. You may leave.’

‘The king’s daughter would like to meet you.’ A lie, but one that would explain her presence.

‘She takes a lively interest in her father’s prisoners.’

Only the handsome ones, Cecily thought, but held her tongue and turned, praying he would follow.

He did.

Lady Isabella suppressed a smile as they approached and Cecily could only hope she would be spared the humiliation of being teased for returning with the man she had sworn to snub. ‘The Chevalier Marc de Marcel, my lady. He has come only recently.’

His bow to the king’s daughter showed little more deference than the one he had made to Cecily. ‘May a hostage be presented to his captor, my lady?’

An edge to his words. As if they had two meanings. Well, Isabella would enjoy that. Her lady was always ready for laughter, and if it held a suggestive edge, all the better. All for show, of course. A princess, and a countess, must live above reproach. Still, Isabella’s light talk and her constant stream of diversions had kept Cecily from being devoured by despair.

But strangely, the man was not looking at Isabella. He was looking at Cecily.

‘Yes,’ Isabella said, drawing his eyes to her. ‘In fact, it is required. And your friend...’ she inclined her head, regally, in the direction of the other knight, who had reappeared in the hall ‘...has not yet been presented. And he, I believe, has been in England much longer than you have.’

As if he had heard her request, the dark one approached. As if he had expected this. As if this was what the two of them had been planning when they put their heads together.

And when he arrived before the king’s daughter, he did not wait for permissions or introductions. ‘Enguerrand, Lord de Coucy.’ No explanation. As if his name and title were enough.

Well, they were. The de Coucy family was well known, even on this side of the Channel. Once, the family had even held lands here.

Silent, Isabella inclined her head to acknowledge him. She did not need to tell him who she was. Everyone knew she was the king’s oldest, and favourite, daughter.

The minstrels’ horns signalled the beginning of a new dance. Isabella rose and held out her hand to de Coucy, forcing him to lead her to the floor. He did not look reluctant.

Cecily searched the room, hoping for rescue. She should join the dance with a partner who might become a husband, not with a hostage.

And the hostage did not offer his hand.

Well, then, if she were trapped, she would attempt to be gracious. She pursed her lips. ‘You are from the Oise Valley?’

A frown, as if the reminder of home had angered him. ‘Yes.’

‘And do they dance there?’

‘On occasion. When les goddams give us a pause from battle.’

She blinked. ‘The what?’

He smiled. ‘It is what we call the Anglais.’

‘Why?’ Did they wish to curse the English with every name?

‘Because every sentence they utter contains the phrase.’

She stifled a smile. Her father, indeed, had been known to swear on occasion. She could imagine that he would have had many more occasions in the midst of battle.

But she held out her hand, as imperious as the princess could be. ‘If you can dance, then show me.’

‘Is this part of a hostage’s punishment?’

‘No,’ she retorted. ‘It is one of his privileges.’

‘Then, pray, demoiselle, tell me your name, so I may know my partner.’

He shamed her with the reminder. Anger had stolen all her senses. She was acting like a common serving girl. ‘Lady Cecily, Countess of Losford.’

The surprise on his face was gratifying. He looked at her uncovered hair and then glanced behind her, as if expecting an earl to be hovering close behind.

‘I hold the title.’ Both a matter of pride and sadness. She held it because the rest of her family was gone. Held it in trust for a husband she did not yet know.

His nod was curt, yet he held out a hand, without hesitation now, as if that had been his intention from the first.

Surprise, or something deeper, unfamiliar, stirred when she put her fingers in his. She had expected his hands to be soft, as so many of the knights’ had become now that war was over. Instead, his palm was calloused; his knuckles scraped. Wounds from today’s joust, she thought at first, but in the passing torchlight, she saw he carried scars of long standing.

They joined the carol circle. On the other side, de Coucy and Isabella smiled and whispered to each other as if the evening had been prepared for their amusement. That man showed not a whit of resentment at his captivity, while beside her, de Marcel glowered, stubbornly silent as the music began.

They could not have been more unlike, these two.

Carol dancing, with its ever-moving ring of dancers holding hands, did not lend itself to talk. And he moved as he spoke, with precision, without excess, doing only what was necessary.

She wondered whether this man enjoyed anything at all.

Certainly he did not enjoy her. When the dance was done, he dropped her hand quickly and she let go a breath, suddenly realising how tense she had been at his touch.

He stood, silent, looking around the Hall as if searching for an escape. And yet this hostage, this enemy could, if he wanted, lift a goblet of the king’s good wine, fill his belly with the king’s meat and his ears with sweet music played by the king’s minstrels, all the while alive and comfortable while her father lay dead in his grave.

‘What did you do,’ she asked, ‘to earn the honour of substituting for the other hostage?’

‘Honour?’

‘You were defeated in battle, you killed my...countrymen, yet the king welcomes you to his court where you have food and wine aplenty and nothing to do. It seems a generous punishment for defeat.’

‘A prison with tapestries is no less a prison.’

‘But you are safe. You may do as you please.’

‘And if it please me to go home?’

And yet her father would come home no more. ‘You must pay some penalty. We conquered you!’

As the words escaped, she saw his expression change.

‘No! Not conquered. Never conquered. We were betrayed by cowards. Lord de Coucy and I were not among them. We would have fought until the last goddam was dead.’

This time, it was a curse he hurled.

‘So you hate the English,’ she said. Blunt words, but he was a blunt man.

‘As much as you the French,’ he answered.

‘I doubt that,’ she said, sheer will keeping her voice steady. ‘But since you detest us and disdain the king’s hospitality, I hope your time here will be short.’

He bowed then, the gesture a mockery. ‘In that, my lady, we are in accord.’

Chapter Two

Marc watched the countess walk away, his eyes lingering on her swaying hips longer than he intended.

De Coucy, relieved of his attendance on the king’s daughter, rejoined him and followed his gaze. ‘Ah, she is lovely, is she not, le belle dame de Losford? The way her head balances on her slender neck, that cloud of dark hair...’ His voice trailed off to delights unseen.

Marc had a momentary vision of sweeping the woman into his arms for a kiss, erasing the frown that turned her lips when she’d looked his way, even before they had met.

She would think even less of his honour then. Of course, if she knew all he had done, and all he was willing to do, she would think nothing of it at all.

Marc forced his gaze away from Lady Cecily’s retreating form and shrugged. ‘I’ve no interest in les goddams, men or women.’ Yet he lied. The countess, by turns ice and fire—he had an interest in her. An interest of the wrong kind.

Enguerrand shook his head. ‘Your voice would curdle milk, mon ami.’

‘How can you stomach this?’ Yes, the English king was hospitable, and their detention truly a prison courtoise as Lady Cecily implied, created by a shared sense of honour that required a hostage to submit, according to the rules of chivalry, rules which all pretended to follow.

Yet Marc resented the disguise.

His friend looked puzzled. ‘Pardon?’

Marc sighed. It was a question too large. ‘How can you be so gracious to your captors?’ De Coucy had been here for three years. Perhaps he had become accustomed to it.

‘Better to get along with all men when you can.’

‘And women, too?’

‘Bien sûr. Avec les femmes most of all.’ His friend laughed.

So easy for de Coucy to do as he was expected, to cloak his warrior’s sins with the charm of a courtier. And so hard for Marc, though that was the way of the world. Chivalry said one thing. Chivalrous men did something different and all the while, the code winked and smiled.

Enguerrand lowered his voice. ‘Sometimes, a more subtle assault can obtain the objective when a frontal attack cannot.’

‘What do you mean?’

Now Marc saw the smile with a plan behind it. ‘If I...befriend the Lady Isabella, she might persuade her father to restore my lands, n’est-ce pas?’

He had heard Enguerrand speak of the English lands, soil he had never seen in places with strange names like Cumberland and Westmorland. Northerly lands, near to Scotland, where a de Coucy great-grandmother had gone as a bride. The holdings had been forfeited to the English crown years before.

‘Why would King Edward relinquish holdings to a hostage?’

A shrug and a smile. ‘How do I know if I do not try? In the meantime, the months grow long. I’ve been told the princess creates gay entertainments for those of her circle. Better that we enjoy more nights such as this than moulder in the draughty tower, eh?’

Ah, that was his friend, still viewing himself as a guest instead of a prisoner. ‘I want to spend no more time with the court.’

‘Not even with the lovely countess?’

‘Particularly not with her.’ Yet, unbidden, he searched the room, catching sight of her purple gown, and let his gaze linger. She had stirred a dangerous mix of anger and desire. One to be avoided.

He turned his back on the hall. ‘You do not need me for this campaign.’

‘Not tonight, mon ami. But soon, there will come a time. And when I do...?’ A raised eyebrow. Waiting.

Duty. Honour. Little more than empty words. But loyalty? A man was nothing without that. ‘When you do, you need only ask.’

‘Now come.’ Enguerrand rested a hand on Marc’s shoulder and turned him towards the crowded hall. ‘Sing. Dance. Make merry. Make friends.’

‘I leave that to you, mon ami.’

With a wave and a laugh, Enguerrand left to do just that. He moved through the Hall with a nod and a smile, as gracious as if he were at home in the Château de Coucy.

And why should he not? De Coucy and the other French hostages all lived in certainty that some day, the ransom would be raised, money exchanged and they would go back to a castle very much like this one to sing and dance.

He did not.

The Compte d’Oise had promised to return, or send the ransom, or send a substitute, by Easter. Marc would have to stay in Angleterre only six months. Less if the Count could make arrangements more quickly.

But in retrospect, replaying the conversation, the man had not met his eyes when he described his promises and plans. Options and timing had been vague.

So why had he come? Why had he chosen to put himself in enemy hands? The debt of fealty. The chance to see his old friend, who had been held by the English for three years.

His own foolish attempt at honour?

But tonight, the only person in the hall whose bitterness seemed to match his own was the Countess of Losford.

* * *

Gilbert, Cecily was pleased to see, had rallied by the next day, walking stiffly, but all of a piece. Feeling guilty for her laughter with Isabella, she approached him after the morning mass, but he refused to meet her eyes.

‘I am sorry I did not uphold the honour you bestowed on me,’ he said, as they walked from the Abbey back to the Palace. His head held slightly down, a shock of brown hair almost in his eyes, he looked as young as a squire, though he was two years older than she.

And yet, in making that hard admission, he took a step towards being a man, a man who regretted not his own humiliation, but that he had disappointed her.

‘The fault was not yours, but de Marcel’s,’ she said. ‘I’ve never seen such a violation of the rules of the tournament.’

Uneasy, she refrained from telling him she had danced with the man the previous evening. His hand on hers had been rough, but sure. Implacable.

The warmth of the memory touched her cheeks and she searched for the dignity of her title.

Gilbert, fighting his own disappointment, did not notice. ‘I was ill prepared. A good lesson.’

‘Are you not angry?’ She was. Easier, better, to channel sorrow into anger. Anger had righteous power. Grief was an open wound.

‘At myself,’ he said. A hard confession. ‘I will do better next time.’

She shook her head. ‘Think of him no more.’ She certainly wouldn’t.

* * *

In the coming days, as the tournament celebrations ended, the hostages were returned to their quarters and preparations began for the court to move to Windsor for the Christmas season.

Cecily put the rude Frenchman out of her thoughts.

Well, perhaps she thought of him once or twice, but only because Gilbert replayed the entire joust in great detail every time she saw him, each time suggesting what he might do differently, should he ever face de Marcel again.

And if she, once or twice, replayed her own private joust with the man, it was only to scold herself, as her mother would have done, for losing her temper and her dignity. She would not see him again, of course, but she vowed to maintain her calm the next time she was confronted with any of the hostages.

A week later, as she watched the tailor unpack Isabella’s Christmas gown, she had more immediate concerns.

Although her family had spent Christmas with the court for as long as she could remember, her mother had always been the one to make the plans. Cecily had helped, of course, but now the season loomed before her, only three weeks away.

She must make the preparations, alone. She must demonstrate that she was not only an eligible heiress but would be a competent wife. The problem was, she was not quite certain what she should be doing.

‘Isn’t it beautiful?’ Isabella held up her new dress, so heavy with ermine she could barely lift it.

The train piled on the floor of the princess’s chamber, nearly as high as her knees. ‘Fit for a queen,’ Cecily answered.

‘Not quite,’ Isabella said, handing it to the tailor who spread it carefully across the bed. ‘Mother’s has ermine on the sleeves as well.’ She smoothed the dress, her fingers caressing the fabric. ‘But this one is paid for by Father’s purse.’

Cecily bit her lip against the sudden reminder. She had no father, now, to dote on her and shower her with gifts. No mother to advise her on which gown was most flattering. Yet sometimes she would hear the door open and think she heard her father’s step or her mother’s voice—

‘Cecily, attend!’ Isabella’s voice, jolting her back to the present.

‘Yes, my lady.’

‘What are you wearing?’

Ah, that was one of the things she should have done. ‘I...don’t know. I have nothing new.’ Deep in mourning, she had ordered no new Christmas clothes except for the matching gowns she shared with the other court ladies. ‘Perhaps no one will notice.’

‘Don’t be a fool! You must look ready for a wedding, not a funeral.’

She looked down. While she had not put on widow’s garb, she had chosen colours dark and subdued since her mother’s death unless she was wearing the royal colours. ‘I could recut one of Mother’s gowns. The green one, perhaps. Mother liked me in green.’

‘That shade is too strong for the current fashion.’ Isabella shook her head. ‘I thought this might happen.’ She waved to the tailor. ‘So I had something made for you.’

Eyes wide, Cecily watched him lay out a fur-trimmed sideless surcoat. Worn over her current gowns, it would make them look new. ‘I don’t know what to say.’

Isabella laughed. ‘Just try it on, you silly goose.’

And with the help of the tailor and the maid, she pulled it over her head. It fitted loosely, with a large, curved opening from shoulder to hip, revealing the dress beneath and the curve of her waist and hip.

She slipped her hands beneath the surcoat, where the soft, sable lining tickled her fingers, and tried not to tally the cost. Isabella never did, which was why she regularly exceeded her household allowance. The king grumbled, but always covered his daughter’s debts. ‘My lady, how can I thank you?’

Isabella waved the servants out of hearing. ‘This is your last Christmas season as an unmarried woman! You can thank me by enjoying it!’

Last as an unmarried woman and the first without her mother.

Her father had been gone for three years; her mother not yet a year. The loss was still new, raw. Still, she must convince the court that she was ready to look to the future and her duty instead of wallowing in her grief. There must be no tears this season.

She lifted her chin and twirled, making her skirt sway. ‘So you would have me sing and dance and smile at all the men from now until Twelfth Night!’ The light words, the forced smile were an ill-fitting mask.

Yet, Isabella laughed and clapped in approval. ‘Yes! By then, every man at court will hope to be the king’s choice as the new guardian of Losford. Even the hostages!’

Cecily stumbled at the memory of de Marcel’s eyes. Angry. Hungry. ‘What?’

‘Father has invited some of them to Windsor.’ Isabella’s smile, normally so bright and open, turned shy. ‘Including Lord de Coucy.’

Cecily bit her lip. How was she to smile when her father’s murderers could dance and sing beside her?

But Isabella did not notice. ‘Lord de Coucy is a very good dancer. And handsome, don’t you think?’

‘I think of the French as little as possible.’ And it was not the dark-haired hostage Cecily thought of now. She turned away, hoping Isabella would not see her blush. ‘Will there be other hostages there, as well?’

‘Other Frenchmen, you mean?’

‘Have we any other hostages?’

‘Have you an interest in any one in particular? His fair-haired friend, perhaps? What is his name?’

‘Marc de Marcel, and, no, I have not,’ she answered, dismayed. Could Isabella see her thoughts?

‘De Marcel, yes! A delightful distraction for you.’

‘No!’

But Isabella was not listening. ‘The perfect answer. One for each of us.’

‘Totally unsuitable!’

‘Exactly! That’s why they are the right companions for the season. To be enjoyed, to make your suitors jealous, and then, tossed aside.’ Laughing, she plucked a riband from a pile, tied it in a bow, then tossed it the air and let it fall to the ground, where she kicked it away. ‘Like that! In the meantime, for a few weeks, Lord de Coucy’s attention can be devoted to me alone. And de Marcel’s to you.’

The words Marcel and alone made Cecily shiver. Even in a crowded hall, his eyes had near devoured her. What would happen if she were close, day after day, to a man who had told her clearly he cared nothing for honour.

‘My lady, Lord de Coucy appears to be a man of the code while de Marcel has proven quite the opposite. What if your trust is misplaced? What if...?’ To finish the question would be an insult.

And the expression on Isabella’s face proved it. She was suddenly the princess again, her haughty frown as regal as her father’s. ‘Do not mistake my meaning. I would permit nothing unseemly.’

Cecily nodded. ‘Of course not, my lady.’

There could be no suggestion, ever, that either of them had been less than chaste. By deciding to remain unwed, Isabella had chosen a life of chastity as pure as a nun’s. And as for Cecily, her title was not the only gift a husband would expect. He would demand her purity, as well.

Isabella’s stern frown dissolved. ‘We will both be quite safe, Cecily. And a little romance will be guaranteed to lift your spirits. I will make certain Marc de Marcel is also invited to Windsor.’

‘Invite him if you must, but do not expect me to waste my time with him.’

No. Marc de Marcel was the last person she wanted to see this season.

* * *

Suddenly awake, Marc blinked, peered out the window of the Tower of London at the frigid London morning and shivered. Their gaolers were not ones to squander money on firewood to warm French hostages.

‘Arise, mon ami! Did you hear what I said?’

Marc rubbed his eyes and turned to look at his friend. ‘You’re doing what?’ He must have misheard. It was too early in the morning for anyone to be awake and so talkative. ‘What did you say?’

‘We have been invited to join the court as guests of the king. We shall celebrate Noël at Windsor Castle!’

The words made no more sense the second time. He sat up and looked at his friend. ‘Are you mad?’

‘I would be fou indeed to refuse the invitation of a princess.’

Ah, the princess that de Coucy saw as the key to the restoration of his lands.

A vision not of the princess, but of the countess drifted into his sleep-fogged brain, as if she were a leftover dream. Her dark hair, her square jaw.

The hatred in her eyes.

His friend was fou indeed. But it was none of Marc’s affair. ‘Then accept and leave me out of it.’

‘Ah, but she specifically asked me to bring you.’

Strange. Certainly the Lady Cecily had no desire to see him again. Why would the princess? ‘Pourquoi?’

De Coucy shrugged. ‘Perhaps she wants to be certain I am not isolé.’

Marc laughed. The thought of his gregarious friend being lonely was absurd. ‘You do not need me to press your cause with the Lady Isabella.’

‘It is no sin to find some joy in our captivity.’

Perhaps not, but the one joy Marc had found in England was the chance to be reunited with his long-time friend. Other men had wives and families. Marc had only Enguerrand. ‘If I did not know you so well, I would think you cared for nothing but pleasure.’ His friend was a man of extremes. Dancing or fighting, he would do both with all that was within him. And the time for fighting was over. For now.

‘And you do not care enough for pleasure.’

Marc had never been a man accustomed to soft comforts and pleasure seemed even more discordant in the face of defeat. To dance and sing seemed to imply that the deaths in battle had been only an illusion and that the dead would rise and join the carol ring. ‘I do not celebrate my enemy’s victory.’

‘No, you celebrate Noël. You will feast on English mutton and drink Gascon wine and, for a few weeks, they will pay the cost.’

It was the final insult. Every day he ate and drank in England would be added to the required ransom, as if he had to pay for the privilege of being held hostage. ‘Tempting, my friend, but English food sours my stomach.’

‘Would you rather sit in this cold tower and chew tough meat?’

With so many hostages to be housed, the city gates and the Abbey were full, so he and Enguerrand had been given quarters in the grim and impregnable Tower of London. And as the winter cold crept through the stones, the vision of Noël without even Enguerrand beside him seemed bleak.

But not bleak enough that he could force himself to smile with cheer at les goddams. To say yes would make him sound ungrateful. And yet... ‘Yes. I would.’

Enguerrand sighed, clearly exasperated. ‘The princess will be désolée.’

‘All the better for you to console her.’ He turned over and pulled the covers up. ‘Joyeux Noël, mon ami.’

There would be three masses on Christmas Day. He might even arise in time for one of them.

And if the guards decided to celebrate too heartily, perhaps a prisoner might roam the halls freely and unnoticed.

Perhaps, he might roam even further.

* * *

Cecily should have paused when she heard the soft laughter beyond Isabella’s door, but she was hurried and distracted and had important news, so she knocked and opened quickly, as she had so many times before, only to see Isabella standing close to Lord de Coucy.

Too close.

For a moment, they looked at her, guilt gilding the silence.

Cecily looked away and scanned the room. Alone. The two of them had been alone. Smiling, relaxed, and standing so close they could have—

She opened her mouth, but could summon no words.

‘Ah, the beautiful countess,’ de Coucy said, bowing so smoothly that before she blinked, he had moved a safe distance from the princess. ‘A reminder I have overstayed my welcome, my lady. The guards will wonder where I am.’

He took his leave with all the proper deference, then paused before Cecily with a knee bent slightly less deeply than the one for the princess. Another bow, a smile, an exit. As if nothing were wrong. As if a young, French hostage had every right to stand too close to the king’s daughter and whisper bon mots.

Cecily looked at Isabella, a hint of accusation in her gaze. To dance and laugh together in public, that was allowed. When the music and the wine flowed, many a couple kissed and embraced, a moment’s passion, but always in a place too public for true indiscretion.

But to be alone with a man opened up other dangers.

At least, that was what Cecily’s mother had told her.

In the silence, Isabella did not rebuke her or ask why she had come, but moved with the regal assurance of one whose behaviour was never questioned. ‘I’m afraid you will have to enjoy the season without your growling Frenchman,’ Isabella said, as the door closed behind de Coucy.

‘Pardon?’

‘Lord de Coucy came to tell me he would attend, but his friend won’t.’

‘Is he ill?’ The thought did not displease her.

‘No.’ She shrugged. ‘He refused.’

Irrationally, Cecily felt a twinge of insult. No matter that she had not wanted him invited—no one refused the king. ‘How could he?’

‘No matter,’ Isabella said, without a touch of indignation. It had been only de Coucy the princess cared to see. ‘You’ll find someone much more pleasant to dally with for the Yuletide.’

Cecily made a non-committal humming sound. Isabella persisted in thinking male company was essential for enjoyment of the season. But Cecily must be mindful that prospective suitors were watching. She should not be seen laughing and smiling and standing too close to a captive chevalier.

Yet the insult of de Marcel’s refusal soured her mood, like wine kept too long in the air.

And then she remembered what had driven her here. ‘There is news. The King of France is returning to England.’

Isabella’s eyes widened. ‘My father’s message must have succeeded.’ She smiled. ‘It was quite pointed. Something about kings must have honour.’

‘Even if their sons do not?’ When King Jean had been allowed to return to France, several nobles were sent to England in his place, including two of his sons. After less than a year, one of the sons had escaped captivity and fled home to France.

So like a Frenchman, her father would have said. De Marcel, she was certain, was no better.

‘Did you hear when he would arrive? Will he be here in time for the Yule celebrations?’

Yet another Frenchman to entertain? Cecily stifled a groan. ‘I don’t know. Why?’

‘If so, we must entertain him according to his station. Lord de Coucy will be so pleased. Ah, what a Christmas this will be!’

De Coucy again. Cecily frowned as Isabella chattered on. Surely there was no cause to worry about the princess and the hostage.

But Cecily worried anyway.

Chapter Three

‘Marc! Ecoute! I have news!’

Marc weighed the last bunch of faggots he was holding in his hand and momentarily thought of heaving it at Enguerrand’s head instead of into the dwindling fire.

For the last week, his friend had talked of nothing but the progress of his campaign to convince the princess to support the restoration of the de Coucy lands in England. Marc was now counting the days until Enguerrand would set off for Windsor and leave him in peace. ‘Spare me, my friend. I have heard all I care to.’

‘No. You have not heard this.’

The tone of voice, the shock on Enguerrand’s face—no, this was something different. ‘What’s wrong?’

‘King Jean. He comes to England encore.’

Marc shook his head, certain he had misheard. ‘What?’

His friend slumped on the bench at Marc’s side, staring into the flames. ‘The king. He will cross the Channel and deliver himself back into King Edward’s hands until the ransom has been paid.’

‘Why?’

‘To redeem the honour his son defiled.’

Marc shook his head. Honour, and the treaties negotiated after Poitiers, dictated that the king remain a hostage until the ransom of three million crowns was paid. The amount was more than double the yearly income of the entire country, or so the whispers said.

There had been negotiations, many of them, before Marc had even come to England. Finally, the king was allowed to return to France to help raise the ransom, but four dukes of France, including two of King Jean’s sons, had been forced to come in his stead.

Marc himself had questioned the honour of the Duke d’Anjou when the man ran home to his wife, but for the king to surrender to the enemy again? It was folly. There was no reason for it.

None but honour.

Ah, yes. Here was the king Marc had seen on the field at Poitiers, fighting even when the rest had fled. ‘It is like him.’ One man, at least. One man upheld honour, still.

‘King Jean sent these words to King Edward,’ Enguerrand said. ‘“That were good faith and honour banished from the rest of the world, such virtues ought still to find their place on the lips and in the breasts of princes.”’

Good faith. Honour. The things that made a hostage’s imprisonment a sacred duty. For they were held captive not for the ransom alone, but for a promise made, one knight to another.

And with that thought came the larger realisation. Lord de Coucy, one of the most eminent lords of the land, was one of the forty royal and noble hostages held surety for the king himself. If the king returned to England, even if part of the ransom remained unpaid...

‘This will mean you can go home.’ Marc felt envy’s bite. England would be a colder place without Enguerrand.

His friend nodded, silent, his face a mix of perplexity and wonder. ‘Yes. Home.’

Marc stifled a moment’s envy. He had known no other home but de Coucy’s.

‘Was there any word about the rest of us?’ Marc was not one of the treaty hostages, but a poor and partial substitute for the Compte d’Oise, taken captive by another English knight who had sold his interest in the ransom to the king, a man better equipped to wait years for full payment.

Enguerrand shook his head. ‘Only the king.’

But the king had proven that honour must rule all things. Marc had brought partial payment for the count’s ransom with him. His presence here was to ensure the Count would pay the rest. By Easter, the man had promised. At the latest.

Until now, uncertain, restless, Marc had thought of escape, perhaps during the lax days of Christmas when the king’s own son had disappeared. But with this news, his doubts and plans seemed shameful. He could not dishonour his own vow and have the king, the one shining example of chivalry he knew, arrive to hear the name of Marc de Marcel covered in shame.

‘When does he come?’

‘He celebrates Christmas in Paris, then crosses the Channel.’

So King Jean would be here at the end of the year. Surely, the honour of the Compte d’Oise would match his king’s. Surely he would send the remainder of his ransom with the king’s party. Or return himself, as his sovereign had. It did not matter which. Marc would be free.

Enguerrand rose and headed for the door. ‘So soon. There is much to do to prepare.’

Marc threw the faggot into the fire, shivering. He was beginning to regret having turned down the opportunity to go to Windsor. It was going to be a long, cold, Noël.

* * *

‘I shall need a new dress,’ Isabella said. ‘To greet King Jean.’

‘Do you think he remembers the one he last saw you wear?’ Cecily smiled, wishing that Anne of Stamford were still at court. Despite their differences in station, they had exchanged knowing smiles when the princess and the Countess of Kent had engaged in wars of the wardrobe.

She wondered what had happened to Anne. The last Cecily had heard, Anne had retired to a small priory. Probably for the best. Life was difficult for a lame girl.

‘The fashion has changed since then,’ Isabella said, ‘as well you know. And there isn’t much time to organise a royal welcome.’

Cecily’s familiar resentment boiled. ‘For a hostage?’

‘For a king,’ Isabella said, spine straight with all the shared solidarity of royalty.

A good reminder. Though the king’s daughter might sometimes seem frivolous and volage, she, like Cecily, would never forget her position and her duty.

‘I spoke to Enguerrand,’ Isabella said, ‘and he thinks that the king will want to go to Canterbury first, before he comes to court. So we decided...’

Enguerrand. We. ‘We?’

‘Enguerrand and I. Since he will be at Windsor I asked him to help arrange a proper royal welcome.’

Wrong to hear the princess sharing decisions with anyone, worst of all with a hostage. She was royal and unmarried. The only people who could gainsay her were the King and Queen of England. ‘Can we not plan a king’s welcome without the help of a hostage?’ It was one thing to invite him and de Marcel to Christmas at Windsor. It was quite another to allow him to plan a royal ceremony.

‘He is Lord de Coucy,’ the princess said, in her stern, royal tone. ‘He deserves the treatment accorded his station.’

As, yes, even among hostages, rank mattered. De Coucy was one of the greatest lords of France. Of course he would not be treated as if he were no more than a simple chevalier.

He would not be treated as though he were Marc de Marcel.

And yet...

‘But are you not concerned that such access might become...?’ She dared not insult the princess again. ‘That it might raise his hopes?’

‘Hopes of what?’ Said with a raised eyebrow.

Cecily blushed. It was his lust that must not be raised. Men aroused were hard to control. And so were women. Or so her mother had told her. ‘What I mean is, if you spend too much time together, might he not become too bold?’

A wave of dismissal. ‘Have no fear. Enguerrand is as chivalrous as a knight can be.’

De Marcel had proven that chivalry was in short supply among the French. Such a man might not stop at a bow or a dance. Or a kiss. ‘Still, to treat him as you would an Englishman does not seem...wise.’

Isabella answered with a merry laugh. ‘It is the Yuletide season. Why should one be wise?’

To prevent disaster.

Isabella was extravagant and headstrong, and her dalliances had been many, but, as far as Cecily knew, none of them had gone beyond hidden kisses and a passionate embrace. None of them had put her at risk. Each had been easily cast aside.

Yet the way she spoke of this Frenchman, the excuses she created to keep him near, were troubling.

They would have three weeks at court, full of Yuletide cheer. It was a time when fools ruled, when the proper order of things was deliberately turned upside down. What if things went further? What if things went too far?

Cecily could raise no more questions without angering Isabella, but she must be vigilant. She herself must stand guard, silently, to make certain nothing unbecoming happened. Yet, what could she alone do? And who else would be in a position to help?

Marc de Marcel.

She fought the idea, but as unlikely as it seemed, they might have a common purpose. The chevalier had no more love for the English than she for the French. Surely he would hate to find his friend in a tryst with an English princess.

But he had refused to come to Windsor.

‘Well, if the king needs a royal welcome,’ Cecily said, as if it were of no consequence, ‘de Coucy will need company of his own kind. Perhaps his friend should be forced to come as well.’

Isabella’s smile broadened. ‘You scold me for my interest in Lord de Coucy, yet you’ve come around to my suggestion at last. But the man has refused our invitation.’

No. He could not refuse. She would not allow it. ‘Then I must persuade him.’

‘I saw him do little but growl, your leopard. Does he do anything else?’

Cecily gritted her teeth. ‘I will have time to discover that, won’t I?’

All she had to do was make him understand the urgency of the matter without casting any aspersions on the princess.

That meant she must convince him that Lord de Coucy was to blame.

* * *

Cecily plotted for a week, then, when the princess was busy, had de Marcel brought to her at Westminster.

Isabella was right, she thought, as he stood before her, as menacing as a beast about to pounce on the prey. Nothing about him was soft or easy. Nothing of his face was gentle. Everywhere a hollow, a sharp corner, an unexpected turn, a scar earned. And yet, taken together, a face that drew her eye...

‘Why am I here? Why have you had me dragged before you with no more courtesy than if I were a prisoner to be executed?’

She fought a twinge of guilt. ‘You are a prisoner.’

And the pain that flashed across his face near made her ask the guards to let him free.

Instead, she motioned them to stand outside.

Did his gaze become more fierce when the door shut? Did she have trouble catching her breath? He had warned her what kind of man he was. Yet here she was, alone with him, just as Isabella and Enguerrand had been.

As she must be. Her fears for the princess were not for other ears.

She straightened her shoulders and lifted her chin. ‘Lord de Coucy has been much at court in recent weeks.’

‘He is as skilled a courtier as he is a chevalier.’

‘And you are not?’

A shrug. A frown. But he did not argue.

Looking down at her clasped hands, she took a few steps, summoning her composure before she faced his eyes again. ‘Lord de Coucy has spent much time with Lady Isabella. And I fear that they...’ No. She must not involve the princess. ‘That Lord de Coucy may have developed...feelings. I mean a...’ What did she mean?

‘Tendresse,’ he said, in a tone that conveyed no tenderness at all.

‘Yes. Exactly.’ What did she say now? That she was afraid Isabella might... No.

She must not let this man upset her. You are a countess. He is a chevalier and a hostage. He must bow to your will.

She raised her head. De Marcel seemed disinclined to bow to anyone. Yet his lips carried the hint of a smile. And that made her angry. ‘I am sure you like it no more than I do.’

‘Moins.’

She raised her brows. ‘Oh, I don’t think you could possibly like it any less.’

Now, he smiled in truth. ‘But it is all according to the laws of courtly love, n’est-ce pas? Nothing serious.’

As if de Coucy should not be honoured that the second-greatest lady of the land had deigned to honour him with her attention. ‘It is she who is not serious. And yet, they have...’ what could she say? ‘...spent much time together.’

‘You worry overmuch.’

Did she? The games Isabella was willing to play with the hostage angered her. But to think the Frenchman did not take the honour Isabella bestowed on him seriously made Cecily furious. ‘She is a royal princess! To disport herself with a...a...’

‘The de Coucy family is one of the most respected in France.’

Now she had made him angry and an angry man would not agree to help her. She took a deep breath. ‘Forgive me,’ she hated to say it. ‘I see that we both are loyal to our friends. But there is more. Last week, I found them...them alone and...close.’

So, finally. The shock on his face mirrored hers. ‘Imbécile!’

She nodded, afraid to ask whether he was referring to de Coucy or the princess. ‘Exactly. We must do something.’

‘We?’

‘We do share the same goal, do we not? You can see how foolish he is acting. And how bad it would be for him if...’ Now she must say the words. ‘And why I need your help.’

His jaw sagged a bit and he blinked. ‘Pardon?’

‘Votre aide,’ she said, more loudly. ‘Assistance.’

‘I know what it means,’ he said. ‘And I am not deaf.’ Yet he glowered as if the last thing on earth he would do would be to help her.

‘So will you?’ She held her breath.

He glared at her, then his eyes became thoughtful, as if he were seeing her as a person for the first time, trying to assess who she was aside from simply a femme Anglaise.

‘What would you have me do?’ he asked, finally.

He had not agreed, she could tell that. ‘I want you to accept the invitation to Windsor for Yuletide.’

Something flashed across his face. Disappointment? Calculation? ‘Why? What good would that do?’

‘If we work together, we may be able to keep them apart. There will be more than a fortnight of Yuletide festivities. Celebrations, the upside-down time of year. Opportunities for...’ His eyes did not leave hers. Her cheeks flushed.

She fell silent, unable to speak the words.

His smile carried no trace of chivalry. ‘Opportunities for what?’

And suddenly, she saw not Isabella and Enguerrand, but herself with Marc, in a dark corner, in an embrace...

‘For trouble, chevalier,’ she said, sharply. ‘Opportunities for trouble.’

‘But she is a king’s daughter.’ At least, the idea had surprised him.

‘Exactly.’ And so she must make it clear the fault would be his friend’s. ‘Which presents special dangers if Lord de Coucy is not a careful man.’

He stood still, unbending, as if considering all she had said. But he did not say yes.

Cecily glanced at the door. They had been alone too long as it was. Stepping closer, she raised her eyes and lowered her voice. A command would not sway this man. A plea might. ‘Please. Say you’ll come. To help your friend.’

Regret flashed across his face. Ah, so friendship was something he understood. Something that meant something.

He sighed. ‘You are as relentless as some of the knights I faced on the field.’

A strange compliment to give a woman. And yet, a glow of pride touched her. Only because he complimented her countrymen. Not because he approved of her.

‘And what,’ he asked, in a tone devoid of approval, ‘do I gain from this bargain?’

He did not pull away. Worse, he moved closer.

She refused to step back, refused to look down, but his very gaze seemed an assault. All the risk of this course shimmered between them. In helping Isabella, she might jeopardise herself at a time when all would be watching her, waiting to see the man the king would choose.

‘You gain the satisfaction of saving your friend from disaster!’ Now she could put distance between them. Now she could breathe again. ‘Is that not enough?’ If it were not, she was at a loss, for she could think of nothing she could offer this man except what she must not give.

He took a step closer and again something—desire—emanated in a wave, washing through her, hot and sweet. Oh, if Isabella felt this for de Coucy, they were all doomed.

‘No, Countess. It is not enough. I live as your prisoner and now you want me to dance like your puppet?’

His anger broke the spell. Relieved, she could match it with her own. Anger was permitted to a countess. Fear was not. ‘I am helping you to accomplish something you also want and cannot get alone. Do not expect too many mercis!’

‘I expect,’ he said, ‘that if I do this, you will help me return to France.’

She was glad she had not faced this man when he carried a sword in battle. ‘How can I do that? Treaties and ransoms are in the hands of the king.’

‘When the time comes, I will tell you.’

What could that mean? She was promising to do...she didn’t even know. But that was in some distant future. The celebrations at Windsor were an immediate threat. ‘When the time comes, then, I will do my best.’ Not exactly a promise.

He stared, silent, as if trying to read her face.

Did he believe her? Should he?

‘Even our kings have called a truce,’ she said. ‘Can’t we?’

She refrained from saying it was a truce only because her king had bested his. And yet, Jean, not Edward, was King of France. The thought gave her pause.

‘D’accord,’ he said, finally, as if they had shaken hands on a battle plan.

It was as close to a truce as they would get.

But as she called the guards and they led him away, she wondered what she had promised. To help him return to France? But that, after all, was the ideal solution. Send both men back, and quickly. Yet by treaty, a hostage returned home when his ransom was paid or a substitute sent. She could not change that. There was no other way.

Except the dishonourable path the French king’s son had taken.

Tucking her hands inside her fur-lined surcoat, she gritted her teeth against the chill. Surely de Marcel did not expect her to help him escape.

She would see him freeze in hell first.

* * *

‘So I will come to Windsor after all,’ Marc told Enguerrand that evening as they sat across the chessboard before a dying fire.

His friend looked up, brows lifted. ‘I’m not sure which surprises me more. That you changed your mind or that you found a way to change your refusal.’

Marc shrugged and pushed his pawn to the next square.

‘You can’t just say that without telling me more,’ Enguerrand said, sitting back and folding his arms. ‘I know the Lady Isabella did not press you to come.’

He knew, Marc thought, much too much about the Lady Isabella and her plans. ‘No. But her friend the countess did.’

‘The countess? I did not think you impressed her so highly the other night.’

‘I didn’t. But you did.’

‘Moi?’

‘She is worried that you have developed a tendresse for the Lady Isabella.’ He watched for Enguerrand’s reaction, for any hint that the Lady Cecily might be right.

‘Ah, then my plan is working.’

‘Working well enough that she fears the Lady Isabella might not be safe in your company.’

‘Safe? From de Coucy?’ The shocked look was undercut by his wink. ‘How can she worry?’

How indeed? But Marc had not realised until today how serious this was to the Lady Cecily. Here was a woman as loyal to her friend as he. ‘She is worried enough that she begged me to come to Windsor and help her keep you and the princess apart.’

And now, a wicked grin. ‘Which is exactly what you will do, mon ami, bien sûr.’

They shared a smile that held the trust of years. A smile which meant Marc would do no such thing. He was glad to help his friend, and yet... ‘You know that I am no good at subterfuge. I may do you more harm than good.’

‘You will do me a great deal of good just by keeping the Lady Cecily entertained.’

Marc groaned. ‘How do I do that? I have no more use for the woman than she for me.’

‘You’ll find a way. Just don’t let her know I seek Lady Isabella’s influence, not her virtue. I can do the rest. Once I get my lands back, the countess will find all her worries disappear.’

His own, Marc was certain, had just begun.

Chapter Four

Windsor Castle—December 1363

On a blustery December afternoon, Cecily left London for Windsor Castle, fighting memories. Last year, her mother had been with her. This year, she was alone.

Yet Gilbert rode beside her and she was grateful for his company, though all his thoughts were on how he might redeem himself for his tournament disgrace.

‘You were sitting near the king,’ Gilbert said, as Windsor came into sight. ‘What did he say about me?’

She swallowed. There was no disguising the truth. ‘I’m afraid the king was disappointed.’

He nodded, as if the answer were exactly what he had expected. ‘I don’t blame him. Those men, they were hardened during war. I’ve done nothing.’

‘You served my father in France! You were...’ The words would not come. You were there when he died.

‘But only as a squire. I was never in battle as a warrior. Now all I have is this pretend fighting. I want something that matters. Something of life and death.’

His very eagerness clutched her heart. ‘The war is over now. You can stay safe.’

He looked at her as if she were a babe. Or a woman who lacked all wit. ‘I don’t want to be safe. I want to prove myself. The King of Cyprus is recruiting knights for a Crusade. Perhaps I will join him.’

‘So you, too, can die in battle?’ A question more sharp than she intended.

He looked at her, some sort of realisation in his eyes. ‘You have not buried your father.’

She turned away from him and looked to the Castle. ‘Of course I did.’ She remembered it all. They had brought the body home in a sealed, stone coffin. The funeral mass was said on a bright summer day, with the sea breeze wafting into the church and ruffling the black cloth covering the bier. ‘You were there.’

‘But his effigy is unfinished.’

A stark accusation of what she had left undone. She winced. She had allowed grief to interfere with her duty. You have not buried him. She had not buried either of them.

There should be a carved image of her father and her mother, side by side, as if they had been turned to stone in death. It was her duty to see it completed.

To honour them both.

Her mother had begun work on her father’s effigy, soon after he died. She chose the stone, had it shipped all the way from the Tutbury quarry, and selected a sculptor, one of the best alabaster men from Nottingham.

And when the man arrived, her mother had spread his sketches on the table, but Cecily could barely see them through her tears.

Her mother sighed. I can see you are not yet ready. Her tone, sharp. Go. I will look at them first.

And so, while Cecily stared at the sea and took long walks along the cliffs, her mother was left to sort through the choices so she could give the sculptor approval to begin.

Peter the Mason was a careful man. The work proceeded slowly, or so her mother said. Cecily refused to look.

And then, early in this year, nearly three years after her father’s death, her mother said the carving was all but complete. Shortly after, she had ridden on a boar hunt again for the first time since the earl’s death. Left with the rest of the court, smiling again at last.

And never came back.

The grief that had just begun to ebb smothered Cecily again, worse this time. She, who had been expected to take command, to make decisions, could not face the cold stone. She put aside the sculptor’s sketches of her mother’s effigy. She had not picked them up again.

Disgraceful weakness. Unworthy of a Countess of Losford.

But that was not the excuse she gave to Gilbert. ‘The king needed the sculptor. You know that.’ Indeed, for the last several years, there had scarcely been a stone cutter or a carpenter to be found beyond Windsor’s walls. The king had called them all to work on the renovations and punished any man who sought to pay the workmen enough for them to leave their work on the palace. ‘I loaned the sculptor to the king.’

No need to explain that the king would have made an exception to let the man continue to work on the tomb of his old friend.

‘It has been three years,’ Gilbert said.

‘It’s been less than a year since Mother died.’

He raised an eyebrow. ‘Waiting won’t bring her back.’

‘I know.’ Yet she felt as if to cast them in stone would be to admit they were truly gone.

They passed through the gate to Windsor and she was spared the need to answer as servants converged to take care of horses and trunks. A welcome to the Christmas season the same as every year, and yet, this year, different.

You will be the countess some day, my dear. The honour of the name will rest in your care.

And yet, she had failed to uphold the simplest duty, to complete their tomb. Now, she must prove that that she was ready, willing, able to take up the mantle of Losford with the man of the king’s choosing.

Leaving the chests for the servants, she and Gilbert ran for the shelter of the castle and the warmth of a fire. Inside, she took a breath, glad not to be fighting the cold. And as she soaked in the heat and loosened her mantle, she put a hand on Gilbert’s sleeve.

‘I will ask if the sculptor can be released,’ she said.

He did not simply smile, as she had expected.

‘When?’

Ah, and with that question, Gilbert proved he was no longer the youth she remembered. Now, he spoke as a man who would hold her to her word. Yet she could forgive the lack of deference in his question, for he had loved them, too.

‘Soon. Before Twelfth Night.’

And with the completion of the effigies, her mother, and her father, would finally be laid to rest.

Her feelings about the men who killed him, men like de Marcel, would never be.

* * *

Marc rode beside his friend, surrounded by the king’s knights, as the walls of Windsor Castle emerged in the distance. He had seen castles across the whole of his own country, beginning with the stronghold of the de Coucy family, one of the strongest châteaux in France. He did not expect to be impressed by anything les goddams had to show him.

But he was.

‘Well sited,’ Enguerrand noted, as the walls rose before them.

Impregnable was the word Marc would have used.

Like the Château de Coucy, Windsor perched atop a hill above a river, the steep approach making an assault nearly impossible. Parts of the walls seemed hundreds of years old, as if they must have been built when the Norman-French bastard had crossed the Channel to become England’s ruler.

Yet as they rode inside, Marc saw handsome buildings of freshly cut stone flanking the inner walls. This king was a builder, he thought, with grudging admiration, though he suspected French crowns had paid for most of it.

He had not expected a royal welcome, but the Lady Isabella herself received them graciously, as if the castle were solely hers. And Enguerrand greeted her as if he were the most honoured guest attending.

Marc gave his horse into the care of the stable master, then stood a safe distance from the couple, giving them time to exchange whispers and smiles. And when he looked around, he saw the countess wrapped in a mantle against the cold, watching them as well.

She shifted her weight and took a step, as if to interrupt their greeting. A sharp wind swept over the walls, sending her mantle flapping. He stepped in front of her, blocking her view, and tried to pull the edges close again.

She looked up, surprise parting her lips.

Tempting. The way her head balances on her neck...

Dark hair set off her fair skin and her square jaw drew his attention to her slender neck, now hidden by layers of wool.

Meeting her eyes again, he tugged the cloak closed and let his hands fall to his sides. He must be careful of his hands around the countess, careful they did not come too close, or be too bold. ‘Your island is the coldest place I have ever been.’

She shivered. ‘Truly, it is the worst winter I can remember. Frost came in September and has not left us since.’

‘So we agree on the miserable weather of Angleterre.’

She smiled. ‘Do you blame us for the cold?’

He wanted to blame them for everything, but standing this close to her, he was warmed by unwelcome desire. Mon Dieu. Did he not have obstacles enough?

Trying to speak, he had to clear his throat first. ‘Even a king cannot control what God sends.’

His words seemed to summon some private grief, but she quickly looked away, peering over his shoulder, trying to see what was going on behind his back. ‘You must move. I cannot see what are they doing.’

Instead of giving her clear sight, he moved to block her view. This was why he had come. Not to help her, but to keep her at a distance. ‘You cannot make your intentions so plain.’

She sighed. ‘I know, but the princess—’

‘Cecily!’ And there was her voice. ‘Attend!’

‘Come,’ she said and he let her turn him to see. ‘The princess herself is taking you to your quarters.’

Cecily walked quickly, no doubt intending to catch up with the couple and interrupt their private conversation. Marc deliberately slowed his stride, so that when she turned to see where he was, Enguerrand and Isabella pulled ahead, disappearing inside the great tower in the centre of the castle grounds.

Lady Cecily was forced to wait for him at the door.

Together, they stepped inside the stone gatehouse, blessedly away from the cold wind, and started up a long, enclosed stairway, climbing steeply up the mound to the tower. The walls sheltered him from the wind, but they also felt as close as his prison in London.

‘Are you taking us to guest quarters or to gaol?’

‘If it were not for me, you would still be in the Tower of London. These were the royal quarters until recently. You should be honoured.’

‘You are always telling me I should feel honoured at things that honour me not at all.’

Ahead of them, out of earshot, the princess and Enguerrand had their heads together. Then, a feminine laugh echoed off the stone walls.

His friend was having success already. He could see why the Lady Cecily might be worried. But he was there to keep her occupied so that Enguerrand would be free to win the princess’s support for regaining his lands. At the same time, he must make her think he was working with her to keep them apart.

He sighed, wishing instead to be leading a battle against an enemy of overwhelming force. It would be simpler.

He put a hand on her arm to slow her. As in battle, he must delay the enemy’s arrival to give Enguerrand as much time to advance as possible.

She frowned. ‘We are falling behind.’

Unfortunately, he could not take the forthright approach and physically hold her back. He must be subtle.

And Marc de Marcel was not a subtle man.

‘We cannot simply force them apart,’ he said. ‘We need a plan, just as if we were in a battle.’

She frowned again. ‘The plan is for you to keep your friend away from the Lady Isabella. That is why I brought you here.’

He gritted his teeth, wishing that he was back in London. ‘In order to do that, I must know something about her.’

Still watching the couple mounting the stairs far above them, she sighed, exasperated. ‘She is the king’s oldest and favourite daughter, generous and loving to her friends and family and to the poor. She enjoys all manner of entertainment and gaiety.’

The princess sounded no different from any other noble man or woman he had known. ‘Why is she not yet wed?’ He had not wondered at it before, but now that he did, the question was baffling. He was not a man privy to the plots of kings, but such a woman would be an important chess piece. The right marriage, to the right ruler, could have secured an unbreakable alliance. From what he knew of Edward, he was not a man to let such an advantage go unclaimed.

Cecily slowed her steps and dropped her voice. ‘There were many suggested. I don’t even know them all. And finally, there was a Gascon noble she wanted to marry.’

‘She chose her own husband?’

She nodded.

He looked back up the stairs. Enguerrand and the Lady Isabella were no longer in sight. ‘I did not know she was a widow.’ That could change many things. A woman who had already known a man’s touch...

‘She isn’t. The king consented and all the arrangements were made, but when she went to board the ships, she...could not.’

‘She refused?’ He could not comprehend such a thing. The court of le roi Anglais was truly a strange place. ‘The king allowed that?’

‘The man had been her choice. So her father allowed her to change her mind.’ A rueful smile touched her lips. ‘The Lady Isabella is accustomed to getting her way in all things. No one tells her no.’

‘Not even the king?’ He knew little of women, but in his experience, they did as they were told. Perhaps les femmes Anglaise were different.

She shook her head. ‘She has a loving father and mother. They have given her everything she needed. Or wanted.’ Her words were wistful.

‘So she has everything she desires.’

Cecily shrugged.

‘And you, Countess? Did your parents give you everything you desired?’

She nodded, her smile quick but sad. ‘Until they died.’

He should not have reminded her of her loss, yet he felt a moment’s regret. He had lost his family years ago. Had he loved them? He could not remember.

‘Yet you have not wed either.’ Suddenly, he wanted to know why.

‘Only because the king has not yet selected my husband. I expect the man to be named by the end of the Christmas season.’

I hold the title, she had said, the first night they met. She, and her title, would be a prize for some nobleman. One far above a humble chevalier. He wondered, with a thought he refused to call jealousy, who the man would be.

‘So now,’ Lady Cecily said, in a tone that he now thought of as her ‘countess voice’, ‘I’ve told you about Lady Isabella. What is your plan?’

He must convince this woman he was doing something. ‘She sounds wilful and capricious.’ And thus, perhaps more dangerous than de Coucy had suspected. ‘Perhaps knowing that will cool his ardour.’

‘You shall not disparage her! Would you have me tell the princess vile tales about Lord de Coucy?’

‘You would find none. He is admired even by his enemies.’

‘The Lady Isabella has no enemies!’ As if there were nothing more to say. ‘She is the daughter of the king.’

‘If you will not let me speak ill of her, how am I to dampen his ardour?’

They had reached the top of the stairs and, ahead, saw Enguerrand enter a room. The princess followed.

Cecily gripped his sleeve. ‘We must do something.’ She looked towards the open door, then bit her lip. Suddenly, she smiled. ‘I know! While you are here, you will entertain the princess.’

‘What?’

‘That way, she will find it difficult to spend too much time with Lord de Coucy.’

Already, the plan had gone awry. ‘The princess may be content to while away her hours with one of the mightiest lords in France. She will not feel the same way about a landless chevalier.’

‘Ah, but that is the way it is practised in the French courts of love! The landless knight inspired by the high-born lady. That is what Isabella told me.’

Landless knight. Did she know how true that was? ‘And you? Will you then distract Lord de Coucy?’

‘Of course not.’ Her voice dripped with disdain. ‘I am to be betrothed soon. I cannot be seen too much in the company of a French hostage.’

The Lady Isabella emerged from the room, looked over her shoulder with a smile and waved to de Coucy unseen, still inside.

Marc raised his eyebrows and looked back at Lady Cecily. ‘You blame de Coucy for this folly,’ he whispered, as the princess approached. From what he knew of women, this one seemed as eager as his friend. Or more. ‘I think Lady Isabella shares the fault.’

‘How can you say such a thing?’ She gestured towards the room and then raised her voice so that the princess would hear. ‘You will share quarters with Lord de Coucy.’

Then, putting on her countess posture, she joined the princess, who smiled in his general direction, though he could not be sure she actually saw him. The Lady Isabella, he was certain, had already chosen her courtly lover for the season.

Now, he faced three weeks of Yuletide celebrations pretending to interfere with Enguerrand’s plans in order to support them. He sighed.

This Noël would be anything but joyeux.

Chapter Five

With the hostages settled, Cecily left the tower to give her deference to Queen Philippa.

Isabella had said renovations were complete, but as Cecily entered the new wing in the upper ward, glassmakers, painters and carpenters still littered the corridors.

‘I thought the work was done,’ she said, rising from her curtsy. Yet it obviously continued. The sculptor would still be needed and she could not possibly ask for him to be released.

Despite her promise to Gilbert, she felt a sense of relief.

The queen dismissed the workmen still painting the walls of her receiving chamber. ‘Their work on the outer walls and the Hall is complete. My quarters are near finished, as are the king’s, but your guest quarters are still wanting, I’m afraid. Edward plans two more wings...’ She waved her hand in the direction of the outer walls. ‘But until those are built our guests are still crowded, I’m afraid.’

Cecily swallowed a grimace. They would not be so crowded if rooms had not been sacrificed to de Coucy and de Marcel.

‘But come,’ the queen said. ‘Let me show you my chambers.’

She led Cecily through rooms for praying, for sleeping and for dressing, pointing out the details, including the glass windows, each embedded with the royal coat of arms, which quartered the lilies of France with the leopards of England.

As if de Marcel and his kind had invaded the most private heart of England. As if she could escape him nowhere.

‘And this,’ the queen said, when they reached the final chamber, ‘is for dancing.’

Cecily looked around in wonder. ‘Mother would have loved this. She loved to dance...’ She bit her lip.

A countess does not cry. Not even when her husband is killed.

The queen paused. ‘This is your first Christmas without her.’

The queen’s compassion made Cecily feel like a child again. How many Christmases had she spent with the royal family and her own? And now, only her royal family remained.

‘I also miss my son Edward this year,’ the queen said.

‘Yet you will see him again, some day.’ The queen’s son was absent, but still on this earth. The prince and his bride, Joan, the Countess of Kent, had left for Aquitaine in July, one corner of France, at least, where an Englishman still ruled. She wondered how far that was from Marc’s home.

‘But not the others. I will not see the others.’

‘Forgive me, Your Grace.’ How could she complain of her own loss when the queen had lost six of the twelve children she had borne? Yet the king’s wife, plump and motherly, was full of sympathy that made it easy to forget her station. ‘I should not have spoken so.’

The queen reached for her hand and squeezed. Forgiveness. ‘Your parents did not expect you to mourn for the rest of your life.’

Cecily’s parents, she knew, would have been appalled to see her languishing as if diseased. Neither had any patience with ill moods, tantrums or tears. Yet despite her struggle against her grief, the last three years seemed to have disappeared in a fog of loss. ‘I know, Your Grace.’

They expected me to put emotions aside. And she had failed, utterly.

‘You remind me of your mother.’

Cecily mumbled her thanks, forcing her lips to curve upwards, knowing it was far from true. ‘I am proud that you think so.’

‘The last few years have been difficult, my dear,’ Queen Philippa said, ‘but life must go on. We must see you settled.’ She pursed her lips. ‘I fear in the past we have been too lenient. There are risks, dangers, for a woman alone.’

Cecily blinked. The scandal surrounding the prince’s marriage must have made the queen more sensitive to behaviours at the court. ‘I assure you, Your Grace, you have nothing to fear.’

‘Yes, I know that you would do nothing that would disappoint your parents.’

Cecily stiffened. ‘Out of doubt!’ Surely the queen did not fear for her chastity. ‘No more than Isabella would disappoint you and the king.’

Queen Philippa’s smile was fleeting. ‘The king has been preoccupied with state matters, but he is now considering the question of your husband.’

‘I am ready, Your Grace, to wed the man of the king’s choosing.’ She donned a determined, hopeful face. And yet, her hopes were that the man would be one who, when he died from war, or illness, or accident, she could release without mourning.

She could face no more losses.

Queen Philippa studied her, silent. ‘What do you think,’ she said, finally, ‘of Lord de Coucy?’

Cecily considered the question with horror. Surely the king would not consider de Coucy, or any Frenchman, as her husband and custodian of the most important stronghold in the kingdom. Yet she must choose her words carefully, uncertain why the queen asked. ‘He seems skilled and chivalrous at the joust.’

Even if his friend did not.

The queen sighed. ‘Isabella has been urging Edward to restore his English lands.’

‘Should a Frenchman be given soil my father died to protect?’ Isabella had said nothing of this to her, perhaps because she knew Cecily would be aghast.

The queen put a hand on hers. ‘Sometimes, we must hide our feelings, my dear. Sometimes, we must even forgive.’

Ah, the queen, whose tender heart had spared more than one man who deserved her husband’s wrath. ‘Yes. Of course, Your Grace.’ Cecily renewed her vow to suppress her tears. But she would not forgive. Ever.

‘Cecily, I would like you to keep close company with Isabella this season.’

Ah, now it became clear. The queen’s true concern was not Cecily’s behaviour, but her own daughter’s.

Had Isabella’s folly become so obvious? If she were advocating for de Coucy to receive English lands, the situation was even worse than Cecily had feared. In that case, her desperate plea to de Marcel was justified.

‘I intend to, Your Grace.’ She smiled, as if casting off all care. ‘She is determined that I enjoy all the giddiness of the season before I marry.’

‘We have been selfish, I fear, keeping her close.’

‘She is glad of it. I know she is, Your Grace.’

‘Still, she is alone.’

There was no answer to that.

In the silence that followed, the queen seemed to be lost in thought. Perhaps she was thinking of the lost alliances, lost opportunities. If Isabella had married the King of Castile or the Count of Flanders or the King of Bohemia, perhaps King Edward would hold the French throne, as well as French gold.

But when next the queen spoke, the moment had passed. ‘Come. Let me show you the Rose Tower. The paintings are not yet complete, but it will be exquisite.’

She did not speak of Isabella again.

* * *

Yet later, as she left the queen, Cecily knew she had been right to be concerned. Now, she must not only protect Isabella from the Frenchman and her own foolishness, she must protect the queen from worrying about her daughter.

And more, she must ensure that de Coucy never was given sway over even an inch of English dirt.

Had Marc de Marcel been privy to this plan all along? Did he truly share her goal to keep the princess and de Coucy apart? Or was his real objective to undermine her efforts?

Determined to know, she searched the castle and found him, finally, talking to the keeper of the hunting dogs. A deep breath first, before she entered the kennel. Everything about the hunt seemed a cruel reminder of her mother’s death.

The boar charged your mother’s horse and she fell to the ground. It was all too fast. There was nothing we could do.

De Marcel rose when he saw her, and the huntsman bowed and backed away.

‘We must talk,’ she said, when they were alone with the hounds. ‘Your friend. De Coucy. He seeks control of English lands.’

His face turned dark and grim. ‘The lands belonged to his family. They are rightfully his.’

‘So you knew.’

‘It is no crime.’

‘Do you also think to gain by stealth what you could not earn in battle?’

‘I fought for my own country and king. I want no part of yours.’

‘And yet, you killed my father!’

But instead of the shame or guilt she had hoped to see on his face, there was only shock.

At her shout, the dogs started to bark and she flinched. The hounds must have bayed so, just before they found her mother.

Their keeper rushed in, quieting them with a few stern words. He threw a puzzled glance their way and she motioned de Marcel to follow her outside.

‘What did you mean?’ he said, when they stood just beyond the door. The walls sheltered them from the worst of the wind.

She cleared her throat, trying to swallow her fury and bring her voice back to its proper tone. ‘I said, you fought long enough to kill my father.’ It sounded absurd, to repeat such a thing.

‘The earl?’

She lifted her head, proud still to claim him. ‘His colours were gules and or. With three lozenges on the shield.’

He frowned, as if trying to remember, then shook his head. ‘I never met him in battle.’

How could he not understand? ‘He was killed by a Frenchman.’ He must have been, for he died in war.

‘From where? I am of the Oise Valley.’

‘What difference does that make?’

‘The men of Bourgogne are different from the men of Picardy or Normandy.’

‘Not to me. He was killed by one of you.’

‘But not by me.’

What difference did that make? ‘You are French.’

‘And so, he claims, is your king. Your king who insisted on taking France from its rightful ruler!’ He shouted now, having caught her fury. ‘If you want to know who killed your father, look to him! To his greed! To his lust for power!’

‘I will not listen to such slander. You know nothing of the king.’

He must have heard himself shout, recognised his anger. He clenched his fists and his jaw and took a breath. But lost none of the intensity. ‘I do not need to know him. It is thus with all men. Kings, peasants. Even those who boast of chivalry. They are brutal and cruel and seek only for themselves.’

‘And are you the same?’

A stricken look on his face, and then the edge of yearning, as if he had glimpsed something he wanted and lost it. ‘Do not ever doubt it, Lady Cecily.’

She did not.

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