Armand would have said such a thing was impossible, or a happy delusion at best. But then he’d walked into a stable and discovered a woman with a kitten clinging to her back. A beautiful woman who looked at him with the most amazing eyes he’d ever seen, a few tendrils of hair encircling her perfect features, her lips parted as if begging for his kiss. She’d made his heart race and a vitality he hadn’t felt in months rip through his body.
He forced his attention back to Randall’s dilemma as a second course of duck stuffed with a mixture of eggs, currants, apples and cloves arrived, as well as roasted chicken filled with bread and onion and spiced with rosemary and sage. A carafe of thick gravy accompanied both, and Armand was liberal in its use. “What of Lady Eloise’s family? Perhaps if you were to approach them first…?”
“Lady Eloise has no family. She’s one of the king’s wards, so he’ll decide who she marries. Unfortunately, I have nothing to offer John for the privilege.”
Armand was well aware that the king accepted bribes for the bestowing of a bride, as well as for the guardianship of young male heirs whose estates could be picked clean before they came of age. “Did your father not provide you with money before you came to court?”
“Some, but what I had is gone.”
Armand stopped eating as a terrible thought seized him. “You didn’t use any of your own money for my ransom, did you?”
“A little,” Randall admitted.
Armand swore under his breath. “I’ll pay you back. Every ha’penny.”
“I know you will.”
His appetite gone, Armand muttered, “I should have surrendered to the French the first week. I should have realized that after what happened with Arthur and the men at Corfe, the French would show no mercy. We should have fled the castle when we could, and given up without a fight.”
“Don’t blame yourself for what happened, Armand,” Randall said. “You followed the orders of the king as best you—or any decent man—could.”
Armand surveyed the finely dressed men sitting in the Earl of Pembroke’s hall, eating his food and drinking his wine. One or two, like that dark-haired, bearded fellow, he didn’t know. A few had fought in Normandy; most had not, preferring to pay a scutage instead. Lording over them all was the king, lascivious and going to fat, his face glistening with grease from the duck and roasted goose on his trencher.
To think that he had done his duty to maintain such a king and such a court.
The very least John could do was give him a rich wife.
ADELAIDE would rather have been nearly anywhere than sitting on the dais beside King John. She could take some comfort from the fact that the king bathed more often than many a nobleman, but that was the best thing she could say about him.
She looked down the hall at Eloise, seated at the far end of a table and wedged between Lady Jane and her querulous, elderly mother.
Lucky Eloise. Lady Jane talked whether one listened or replied, and her mother was interested mainly in her food. You could eat and think without having to participate in any conversation; it was as close to being alone in the hall as it was possible to be.
“So, my lady, another bold knight has come to court and no doubt will be seeking a smile from your pretty lips,” the king remarked. “What do you think of Lord Armand? A handsome fellow, is he not?”
Adelaide’s every sense was suddenly on alert, as if alarm bells were pealing from the watchtowers. It wasn’t like the king to compliment another man.
“If one prefers that sort of rugged charm,” she replied, giving the king a slight smile and pretending that the jugglers who were keeping a series of brightly painted wooden balls in the air and passing them back and forth were distracting her.
“Do you, my lady?” the king pressed.
She had to turn to him then and she encountered a searching gaze that made the sweat start to trickle down her back.
In spite of her discomfort, she let her smile grow and willed her eyes to tell John that there was no one more interesting, important or fascinating than he. That would be an unspoken lie; what came from her lips, however, was the truth. “I find myself wishing to do something about his hair and find him garments more appropriate to your court, sire.”
She did want to do something with Lord Armand’s hair. She wanted to touch it. She longed to run her fingers through the unruly waves and comb it back from his handsome face. And although she should have been paying close attention to the king and his queen to ensure she made no misstep in either look or speech during the meal, she’d been imagining Armand de Boisbaston attired in garments more appropriate to the court—rich fabrics cut to accent his magnificent, well-muscled body. She’d spent the better part of the first two courses trying to decide if he’d look better in scarlet or in blue.
“Even so poorly dressed, he is a fine-looking man, is he not?” the young queen interjected with a cunning smile as the final course arrived at the table, a meat pie of rabbit and pork colored with saffron and spiced with cinnamon.
Adelaide gave the queen a smile. She didn’t like the spoiled, often petulant girl, but at least Isabel was no Eleanor of Aquitaine. Isabel had very little power at court; John even took the Queen’s Gold for his own use, something the awe-inspiring Eleanor would never have allowed.
“If one considers personal attraction to lie solely within outward appearance,” Adelaide replied. “Many women prefer a man of learning and intellect.”
Adelaide knew well that John considered himself a learned man. In many ways, he was, and had he been trained to a career in the law. Adelaide had sometimes thought, he might have been a worthy attorney. Sadly, his interest in the law, like so much else in him, had been corrupted by greed and ambition.
“They say Lord Armand is quite learned, too,” the queen noted. “He speaks Latin like a Roman, or a cleric.”
“You seem to know a good deal about him, Your Majesty,” Adelaide placidly observed.
The king cut his wife a glance. “Yes, you do.”
“It is my duty to know all about the men who have sworn their oath of loyalty to you, my husband,” the queen calmly replied.
John made no answer, but it was plainer than words that he was annoyed. He might treat his vows of marital fidelity lightly and expect the wives and daughters of his noblemen to be eager for his bed, but when it came to his queen, it was quite a different matter.
“I suppose he will be asking for money,” the queen said, “as if he should be rewarded for losing Marchant.”
The king sniffed. “He is welcome to ask.”
Adelaide bunched her linen napkin into a ball on her lap. It was no wonder the king’s barons loathed him. He seemed to treat their loyalty and risks on his behalf as no more than his due. He made light of their sacrifices, and demanded bribes and payment for what he should bestow as justly earned rewards. He ignored the rules of chivalry, and many believed he’d killed his own nephew with his bare hands. Even if he hadn’t, Arthur had certainly disappeared and was very likely dead.
Her appetite quite gone, Adelaide glanced at the king’s plump, bejewelled fingers. Were they capable of squeezing a boy’s throat until he died?
If he could order a boy blinded and castrated to prevent him taking the throne, what would he not do?
She couldn’t suppress the shiver that ran down her back. And to think this man had the power to compel her to go to his bed, if he chose to use it.
“My lady is cold?” the king asked, leaning closer.
It was all Adelaide could do not to shy away. “There must be a draft.”
“Perhaps dancing will warm you.”
The thought of touching John made