‘Yet none but Lady Katherine and myself know the court and the language.’
Constanza flinched as if she had just tasted a bitter fruit. ‘Me gusta. Esta mejor,’ she said, looking directly at Valerie.
This one, better. She meant Valerie.
Ah. So there was something about Katherine the Queen did not like. Perhaps she feared Katherine’s loyalty lay more with Lancaster than with her. Whatever the reason, deference to the Queen’s wants might help her meet her own.
She touched her ancestor’s brooch. A reminder. ‘As you know, Your Grace, I carry the blood of Castile.’ Or, so she had been told. In truth, after a hundred years and multiple generations, the amount of Castilian blood she carried would run out if she pricked her finger. ‘I would be honoured to serve La Reina as she unites again the two great nations of Castile and England.’
She waited, silent, as the words were translated. A frown, a furrowed brow would mean she was held in no more favour than Lady Katherine.
The Queen studied her. Valerie kept her eyes wide and a hopeful smile on her lips.
Finally, the Queen nodded, then muttered a few words.
‘Hasta unas semanas,’ the priest said. ‘Until Easter. And then, we will see.’
Only a few weeks. Well, she was grateful for even a brief reprieve. ‘I will strive to serve Your Grace in all things.’
And the things most important to Constanza now were her child and her country. Well, those things would now become important to Valerie.
It was either that, or it would be some nameless husband who would decide what was important and what was not. At least Valerie could understand the longing for a child. And for home.
She bowed her thanks and left, wondering again who Lancaster would choose to be her husband, when, for some reason, Sir Gil’s face flashed across her memory, full of shock when he discovered Scargill had been false and he realised that the scrap of silk was not hers. The stern look in his light blue eyes had turned into one she might almost have called compassion.
Surprising, that a seasoned man of war would expect such virtue from one of his men. More surprising that he might think that she would expect it from a husband.
Because for all the protestations of chivalry, marriage was an exchange, with no more passion than the purchase of flour in the marketplace. It was true for the Queen of Castile, and true for Valerie of Florham.
She knew that, even if Sir Gilbert Wolford did not.
* * *
Not until March, when Lancaster sent Gil to summon the Lady Katherine from the Queen’s quarters, did he give himself permission to think of Lady Valerie again.
He had rarely seen her over the past few weeks. The palace was large, the Queen’s retinue kept to themselves and he was more interested in finding ships to carry the men across the Channel than in the Scargill widow.
And yet, she had lingered in his thoughts. Had the Duke selected her new husband? He found himself hoping Lancaster would choose a nobler man than Scargill.
Although he had come to the Queen’s quarters to summon the Lady Katherine, it was Valerie who caught his attention when he entered the chambers. She was sitting quietly in a corner of the room, still swathed in the black of mourning, with her eyes downcast. There was something small and neat and held back about her, as if she was trying not to take up too much space.
‘Ladies.’ He bowed, hoping Valerie would raise her eyes. ‘My Lord of Spain asks the Lady Katherine to come to him with word of his children.’
Lady Katherine smiled when he said it, bright as sunlight. ‘Of course.’ She rose and hurried from the room, not waiting for him to escort her, leaving him alone with Lady Valerie.
And silence.
He should have left as well. There was no reason to stay. But her stubborn refusal to look at him seemed a challenge. Had someone told her of his past? Or was she still blaming him for her husband’s death?
The chatter and whistle of a black-and-white bird, caged in a sunny corner of the room, shattered the stillness.
She lifted her head, abruptly, and when her eyes met his, he glimpsed again how much she hid, though he could not say what it was. Anger? Fear?
She stood, abruptly, and tried to brush past him to reach the door.
‘Wait.’ His hand on her arm again.
She looked down at his hold, as if uncertain whether it was an assault or a caress, and when she lifted her gaze to his again, she had shielded all emotion. ‘Why? Do you bring a command for me, as well?’
Anger, then. At him.
He let go of her arm. What had possessed him to grab her like that? It was as if his family’s blood could never be truly conquered, despite all his years of struggle.
He stepped back. ‘Your husband’s spouse breach...it was not my doing.’ And yet, he felt responsible.
She shrugged. ‘It is the way of all men, all marriages.’
‘No. Not all. Lancaster’s marriage to the Lady Blanche...’ He let the sentence fade. The Duke’s devotion to his first wife was the stuff of legend. Fodder for Chaucer’s verse.
‘So I have been told.’ A sigh, then. ‘But this marriage...’ She shrugged.
Yes, the Duke had a new wife now. One to whom he did not seem so devoted.
And then, a gasp. She touched her fingers to her lips, as if to take the words back. ‘I did not mean to suggest that My Lord of Spain, that he...’ She looked beyond him, in the direction that Lady Katherine had gone, and then met his eyes.
Wordlessly, they asked each other the same question. Was it... Could it be...? Had Lady Katherine been summoned because...?
‘No, of course not,’ he said. An idea not to be thought. Not to be suggested.
Neither looked away, now. Neither spoke. And before he could stop his thoughts, a spark leapt between them. His breath came faster, his pulse beat more quickly. He was lost, now, in her wide-open, brown eyes. No longer was he thinking of what the Duke might do, but of himself and Valerie, together—
She blinked, then backed away and circled the room, as if trying to escape what had just passed between them. ‘I only meant,’ she said, not looking his way, ‘that His Grace has been busy and we have not seen him here in the Queen’s quarters.’
He, too, tried to fill the air with denials, both spoken and silent. ‘And the Queen has not emerged from her rooms.’
‘Because she is with child,’ Valerie answered, still pacing. The magpie flapped its wings and began to chatter, as if to join the conversation. ‘It is difficult for her.’
‘Yes, that is true.’ Gil nodded, surprised that his tongue could still form words. ‘He knows she needs rest.’
Now that Valerie was safely beyond his reach and no longer gazing into his eyes, he could think clearly. The bird’s chirp filled the quiet air, sounding too much like laughter. Gil’s unwanted surge of desire ebbed, replaced by a safer emotion: resentment. How could she suggest that his lord behaved as anything less than the epitome of chivalry? ‘He has sent her gifts,’ he protested. ‘Jewellery.’
At the word, Valerie’s steps halted. The bird fell silent, as if waiting for her to speak. Safely on the other side of the room, she finally raised her head and met his eyes again. ‘Do you think,’ she said, her words now soft, but deliberate, ‘that La Reina cares for pearls and gold?’
Remembering the disdain with which the Queen had set aside the gold cup presented to her, he suspected she did not. ‘What does she want?’
‘To