Almost Innocent (54 page)

But it was there, nevertheless. The courier, Olivier, knew it to be there.

He sat back, mentally reviewing potential suitors for his daughter’s hand. Another French connection could yield powerful allegiances. Then there were the Italian
Viscontis. Rich and powerful, bandits in essence, but all too eager for a royal alliance. There were several young English lords whose absolute loyalty could be bought with the gift of such a bride. The girl had a proven ability to bear children. Where would it be most useful to plant his Plantagenet seed?

Without volition, his hand moved to the deep pocket in his furred gown. He drew out the enameled miniature and gazed for long minutes on the face of the woman he loved and could not marry. Katharine Swynford was not of the blood that made royal brides, even were he free of his wife, Constanza of Castile. But he loved Katharine and he knew he would snap his fingers at the conventions of breeding if he were free.

There were no such conventions preventing the marriage of Guy de Gervais and Magdalen of Lancaster, only a father’s desire to dispose of his daughter as advantageously as possible.

John, Duke of Lancaster, took a sheet of parchment from the press, mended his pen, and began to write to his vassal, Guy de Gervais, Earl of Redeforde. He wrote fluently for many minutes, and at the end sanded the script, and without rereading it, folded the parchment, dropped wax from the candle upon the fold, and sealed it with his great ring.

The following day, Olivier set out on his return journey, the duke’s parchment sewn into the lining of his doublet.

He arrived at the Castle de Bresse a week after his lord’s return from Carcassonne. It was a tawny gold day of early autumn, and the castle wore the orderly air of a place under the command of its master, as if assaults, breached walls, and abduction had never disturbed the smooth pattern of daily life.

He found Lord de Gervais and the Lady Magdalen in the pleasaunce, playing with the child whose red-gold hair and gray eyes offered the promise of an unusual future beauty.

“You have made good speed, Olivier,” Lord de Gervais said. He was counting sunflower seeds into Zoe’s rosy palm as she sat on his knee, showing her how to hold her hand out to the softly murmuring doves. It was not an entirely successful exercise, but one that seemed to amuse the baby mightily.

Guy shifted his hold to encircle his daughter with one arm and took the duke’s parchment with his free hand. “Go to your rest, Olivier. We will talk further when you are refreshed.” He waited until the courier had slipped with his usual discretion from the pleasaunce before breaking the Lancastrian seal. Zoe gleefully snatched at the parchment, and he captured her grasping fingers in his encircling hand, holding them firmly as he read. Finally he looked up.

Magdalen was sitting back, her lap brimming with the embroidery silks she had been sorting. The warm glowing vibrancy was back in her face, her lips softly parted, the candid gray gaze containing love and the knowledge of its fulfillment. Her contentment was as one with the soft golden surfeit of the autumn garden, and he knew that for her it mattered nothing what John of Gaunt said. She knew that their love could not be touched by her father’s manipulations. John of Gaunt would decree, but she and Guy de Gervais would find their own way.

But he had not been able to share her resignation or her calm certainty. Therein lay the difference between them, a difference that had always been there and always would be. The thought pleased him with its encompassing of the future, a future that he could now allow to enter his soul.

He smiled. “We go to England, pippin.”

“Why so?”

“To be wed. His grace of Lancaster sees fit to bestow the hand of his dearly beloved daughter Magdalen upon his loyal vassal, Guy de Gervais, Earl of Redeforde.”

“‘Dearly beloved’?” said Magdalen. “I believe my father lies.”

“Do not be tiresome.”

Her eyes closed for a minute under the soft autumnal sun, and a tiny, secretive smile played over her lips as she remembered all that had been and contemplated all that was to come. She opened her eyes. Guy was watching her, his own smile, comprehending and amused, illuminating his face.

“I love you,” he said.

“Yes, I know,” she returned. “I even believe you love me as much as I love you.”

“You are learning, it seems.” He set Zoe on the ground and stood up, reaching down a hand to pull Magdalen to her feet. “I think it’s time this little one went for a sleep, don’t you?”

Magdalen stood up, heedlessly scattering embroidery silks in gay profusion on the grass at her feet. Zoe seized the bright swatches with a gleeful chuckle as her parents moved out of the sunlight under the golden canopy of a beech tree.

“She’ll be happy enough for a little longer,” Magdalen whispered, lifting her face imperatively. “We can have a little interlude under the trees.”

“Or we could simply let matters take their course,” he replied, grazing the curve of her cheek with his lips.

“Or we could do that,” Magdalen agreed, tracing his ear with a delicate fingertip before standing on tiptoe to nip the lobe. “Yes, I think we should certainly do that. It’s always the best plan, I’ve found.” He laughed against her mouth.

Zoe yawned, settling down amid the bright colors of her carpet to sleep. It was quiet in the warm, late afternoon garden, only the soft rustles of an affirming love mingling with the indolent drone of a wasp and the sharp chatter of a starling.