Love Everlasting Page 2

  Marriage proved to be a great disappointment. Men in general, and her husband in particular, the fourteen-year-old, newly-wed Julianna had decided, were even worse than nuns. For while nuns prated about the soul and disparaged the body, a husband cared nothing about a woman’s soul, he only wanted to make use of her body - and he attempted to do so much too often for Julianna’s comfort or peace of mind, at least during the early days of marriage. She understood that the conjugal joining was a necessary, though not a very pleasant aspect of marriage. Outwardly obedient as she had been trained to be, for years she had tolerated what her husband did to her in bed, never enjoying it and certainly never thinking of it as lovemaking.

  Widowhood was a blessing. Unfortunately, Julianna knew it would be a brief blessing. A noblewoman in her position, with four very large estates accruing to her name, must have a husband to administer her lands.

  “I could manage my properties on my own,” Julianna said to Janet.

  “Of course, you could,” Janet agreed. “It’s too bad that so many men believe women are naught but giddy fools.”

  “I’ve been paying attention and asking questions for more than fifteen years, since I was first married. In that time, I’ve seen two stewards dismissed for incompetence,” Julianna went on. “In both cases, it was really my husband who should have been dismissed. All the poor steward did was disagree with his master, and he was right, too.”

  “Noblemen always expect everyone to agree with them,” Janet said.

  “Do you always agree with Lord Cadwallon?”

  “I? Not likely.” Janet laughed. “When I first met Cadwallon, I began by snapping and snarling at him. I made his life extremely difficult. I still do, at times. The thing is, Cadwallon grew to respect me because I am not meek and obedient. I want him to continue to respect me, so I am often contrary and argumentative.”

  “Doesn’t he beat you for being difficult?”

  “Ha! I’d like to see him try. He has never laid a hand on me in anger,” Janet revealed with pride. “Cadwallon loves me.”

  “Do you love him?”

  “With all my heart,” came the swift answer.

  Julianna grappled with the notion of a husband loving his wife. She found the idea quite beyond her comprehension. Even less believable was the thought of a wife who loved her husband. All the pawing and squeezing, the poking into intimate places, the heavy breathing, and the discomfort of those few moments in the dark did not represent love to her. She didn’t know what love was, but she was certain it was not what husbands did to their wives in bed.

  “Are you saying you don’t mind - don’t mind any of it?” Julianna whispered. She could feel her face burning red. Janet must have noticed, but she ignored the signs of her friend’s embarrassment.

  “I enjoy it,” Janet said. “It’s wonderful. Even the first time was fairly pleasant, and after that, it just became better and better.”

  “Oh?” Julianna tried her best to sound arrogant, because she didn’t want to remember her first night in bed with a man. Not for the first time, she began to wonder if something was wrong with her, if pleasure in the marital bed depended on the woman’s temperament, and if her own temperament was sorely lacking in whatever qualities were necessary for enjoyment of that uncomfortable and embarrassing act. She had been told often enough that she provided no pleasure at all. Certainly, she had received none.

  “Royce is a good man,” Janet said, as if she understood Julianna’s unspoken worries.

  “Do you know him well?” She pretended indifference to the next man she was doomed to wed, though secretly she was curious about him. Not that Royce’s character, or his kindness or lack thereof, would make a difference. King Henry had announced his decision. Julianna had nothing to say about it.

  “We’ve met a few times,” Janet said. “Cadwallon speaks of Royce with affection and respect. He used his influence with King Henry, so that Cadwallon and I were given permission to marry. I will always be grateful to Royce for that.”

  Royce of Wortham sounded decent enough, but Julianna wasn’t satisfied. Resentment simmered just beneath her carefully practiced, placid exterior. She was heartily sick of men arranging her life for her, bestowing her estates and her body upon husbands she did not know, and never asking what she wanted. Well, she had taken a few steps to free herself from a lifetime of obedience to King Henry and to the husbands he chose for her.

  “I trust Cadwallon’s judgment,” Janet said. “When you meet Royce, you may well discover that you like him, even though he is a secret agent.”

  “An agent?” Julianna could barely force the words past her lips. She stared at Janet in stunned horror while the world silently crumbled around her.

  “I’d be surprised if he actually does any spying himself, these days,” Janet said in blithe ignorance of the impression her words were making. “He used to, when he was younger. Now, he merely directs King Henry’s agents. Cadwallon sometimes works for Royce, you see. That’s how Cadwallon and I met, and it’s how I know what kind of work Royce does for the king.”

  “Dear heaven.” Trying to force her mind into some kind of order, Julianna hastily reviewed her present conversation with Janet, and all of their talks before this one. She didn’t think she’d ever said anything dangerous. No, she was certain she hadn’t. She was always careful about what she said.

  “Julianna, what’s wrong?” Janet cried. “Are you ill? You are so pale.”

  “His age,” Julianna gasped, clutching at the one safe topic in Janet’s terrifying revelations. “You said, ‘when he was younger.’ How old is Lord Royce?”

  “I don’t know, exactly. Let’s see now; his children are grown and married, so he must be in his early forties at least, perhaps much older.”

  “Another old man,” Julianna muttered.

  “Oh, dear,” Janet said with a smile that she must have thought was understanding. She patted Julianna’s hand. “I am so sorry. You were hoping for someone younger and vigorous, weren’t you?”

  “It doesn’t matter.” Julianna hoped Lord Royce really was an old man - so old and so infirm that he was incapable of forcing his attentions on her very often. But she had just spoken the truth; Royce’s age didn’t matter at all. They wouldn’t be married for long. If they ever were married.

  He was King Henry’s spymaster. Julianna fought the urge to burst into wild laughter. Why hadn’t she known? How long would it take before Royce of Wortham discovered who she was, and what she had done? Contemplating her recent actions, what she had agreed to do in the future, and the identity of her husband-to-be, Julianna foresaw her own imminent death.

  Chapter 2

  The Royal Fortress at Caen

  King Henry’s apartments.

  Never, not in his darkest hour, would Royce ever curse his liege lord, yet he could not deny to himself that he was greatly angered by the arbitrary arrangements that King Henry had made for him. Furthermore, he was alarmed and puzzled by Henry’s private remarks before Royce met his bride-to-be.

  “I fear,” Henry confided, “that Julianna may have been involved in some way with Deane of Craydon’s work as a secret agent for King Louis of France. It is possible that she aided his work, especially during Deane’s last illness, when he was too sick to continue his activities on Louis’s behalf.”

  “So, you think she could have done his spying for him, for a time at least?” Royce frowned, recalling his conversation with Cadwallon on the subject of Deane of Craydon.

  Royce entertained no doubts about Deane’s subversive actions. The late baron of Craydon had been a spy for most of his adult life. Yet Royce’s people, who kept a close watch on Deane, had never unearthed any evidence that implicated he man’s wife. If Lady Julianna really had been working for the French, she’d been damnably clever about it. Royce made a silent note to himself to have his agents reinvestigate the lady immediately, and much more thoroughly.

  “Whatever Julianna’s secret activities have been in the past, or still are, I want you to put an end to them,” King Henry said. “You must do it without a scandal, Royce.

  “The situation with the French king has altered while you were gone from court. Matters are even more irksome than usual,” the king explained. “Too many noblemen hold estates in French territory, as well as in England or here in Normandy. As a result, their loyalties are often divided.

  “We have discussed this in the past, I know, but just now I am walking a delicate line with those nobles. I cannot risk driving any more of them into Louis’s camp, which is what will happen if I declare Julianna a traitor and confiscate her lands. Rather than chance the same thing being done to them, at least a dozen men that I could mention, and possibly more, will renounce their oaths to me and swear fidelity to Louis instead, trusting in his promise to restore their forfeited lands after he has defeated me in battle. It has happened before.” He paused, apparently musing on past failures of his policy and successes of the French king.

  “I understand, my lord.” Royce took a long breath in an attempt to settle his thoughts. If he could prove Julianna guilty of working for King Louis, he could stop her quite simply, by locking her away in one of his many strongholds and keeping her confined there, allowing her no contact with the outside world. He would administer her lands properly and send all due taxes to the royal treasury on time. King Henry would be pleased by his spymaster’s discreet handling of yet another problem that he didn’t want made public. This particular problem, and its secret solution, was only what Royce had come to expect after years of working for King Henry.

  What he did not expect was his peculiar reaction to Lady Julianna of Louvain when the king sent for her to appear in his private audience chamber.

  The lady’s part-English, part-Fl
emish ancestry was immediately apparent to Royce. She was almost as tall as he, with a sturdy frame, an agreeably rounded figure, and creamy skin that was free of any obvious blemishes. Her head was meekly bowed and her lids were lowered, so he could not see the color of her eyes.

  She wore black in mourning for her late husband, and her white linen wimple covered all of her hair, though from her thick brown lashes and brows he guessed it was dark blonde or light brown, in keeping with the coloring of many folk from the Low Countries. He judged her age at somewhere near thirty.

  From Royce’s point of view Julianna’s age was her only advantage. He had feared he was being made to wed an impulsive, hot-headed girl in her mid-teens, who would regard him as a repressive father or, worse, as an aged grandfather.

  Royce had to wonder if it was possible for any noblewoman to be as meek as Julianna appeared to be. Did she lack all spirit, or was she pretending? He had known a few - thankfully, only a few - clever female spies who looked sweet and mild, but who were vicious killers. How in the name of all the saints did King Henry expect him to take such a woman to bed so their marriage would be legal and her lands would become his? It was asking too much of any mortal man.

  He wished Julianna would raise her eyes and look directly at him, so he’d have some hint of what she was thinking and feeling. He could not imagine that she was indifferent to her own fate.

  “My lady,” he said, making his voice as cold and hard as possible, “I trust that you intend to put off your mourning clothes before we are wed.”

  That did it. Julianna looked up at him. Her eyes were grey, and they appeared as bleak as the winter sea. No glimmer of warmth shone in those eyes. Their expression was blank and completely uninterested in him. Or was that a shaft of fear that sparkled in the grey depths for an instant, only to fade and be replaced by the peculiar deadness of indifference?

  “I shall wear whatever you wish, my lord,” Julianna said, so softly that Royce had to lean toward her to hear the words. Her voice was low and pleasing to the ear, her Norman French slightly accented. Were he not so suspicious of her, he’d have been charmed by her voice.

  He caught a faint whiff of scent. Lavender? Rosemary? Those herbs and something more, something astringent, an ingredient that he could not immediately identify. The fragrance hinted at the sharp edges of disloyalty that the woman was possibly concealing. No, she was not all meekness and soft voice. She was hiding mysterious depths, dangerous undercurrents. She was...intriguing. That he found her so annoyed him beyond reason.

  “I have no wish to marry a woman who is still mourning her previous husband,” he said, testing her by deliberately sounding rough.

  “My clothing is but a convention,” Julianna murmured. “I mourn no one.”

  “I am glad to hear it.”

  “We are agreed, then,” said King Henry with a joviality that Royce knew was false. He had been watching the meeting from across the room, and now he smiled upon the pair. “I have arranged for the banns to be eliminated. The bishop agrees with me that with so large a dowry involved, there is a real possibility of abduction and forced marriage. You have been a widow for too long, my dear.”

  Judging by Julianna’s expression, Royce decided she believed she hadn’t been widowed at all long enough.

  “Therefore,” the king continued, smiling upon the couple, “you will be wed tomorrow morning, just before High Mass. I shall host the wedding banquet at midday.”

  Royce wondered what would happen if either he or his proposed bride should refuse to consent to the marriage. He most certainly did not want a wife who might be a traitor, and he had an uneasy feeling that Lady Julianna did not want a new husband under any circumstances.

  “If you would like to speak to each other in private,” King Henry said, “you may use the anteroom, or the garden.”

  “Thank you, my lord.” Royce swallowed his anger and made a low, formal bow to the king. After a quicker bow to Julianna, he offered his arm. Her fingers were light and cool on his wrist. He noted her clean hands and neatly pared nails. She was not slovenly. He supposed that was one small thing for which he could be grateful.

  “The garden, I think,” he said to her. “The anteroom is hardly a private place.”

  “Whatever you wish, my lord.”

  “What I wish,” he said, ignoring the interested glances of the courtiers as he guided her through the crowded anteroom and into the corridor, “is that you will speak above a whisper and look at me. And, for the love of heaven, tell me what you are thinking!”

  “I cannot believe you want to know,” she said, her voice a little louder. “I have never yet met a man who cared about a woman’s thoughts.”

  “Well, that’s honest, at least. Do you care what a man thinks?”

  “Not particularly.” The slight upward tilt at the corners of her mouth was quickly smoothed away into the bland expression she apparently wore by habit.

  Royce found her expression perversely interesting, for it suggested that a great deal lay hidden behind it. Perhaps she believed it would be dangerous to reveal her thoughts. He observed her out of the corner of his eye until they reached the garden. Not once did she look toward him. Her gaze was fastened on the stone corridor floor, and then on the pebbly gravel path.

  The garden was small, enclosed by high stone walls, and at this late season, with the sun lower in the sky every day, most of the plants lived in complete shade. A few faded roses drooped half-heartedly from bushes that looked ready to give up for the year and retire to winter dormancy. The lily blooms were finished; the narrow leaves at each tall stem were yellow. Only a patch of green mint showed any sign of life. Even the stone bench in the corner was damp and uninviting.

  Royce surveyed the late autumn garden and found it a suitable image for a marriage that neither partner wanted. Yet, he and Julianna must make something positive from their forced association, or else their lives together would be unbearable. He caught himself in shocked surprise at his own thought. If King Henry was correct in his suspicions, then Royce and Julianna had no hope of a life together and he was a fool to think of a future with her.

  “You know we have no choice,” he said, regretting the situation even as the smoothly correct words flowed from his tongue. “You need a husband. King Henry has ordered us to marry. We must obey.”

  “I neither need nor want a husband,” Julianna declared with surprising vehemence, given her quietness until that moment. “If only men would cease their continual interference, I could manage my own properties, by myself.”

  “It’s possible you could,” Royce said, the remark earning him a quick, startled glance from her. “The problem is, men will not stop interfering, and a lady with so much property presents a sore temptation, especially to those who are unscrupulous. In your case, your estates in Normandy and Flanders are particularly tempting to King Louis of France.”

  “What do you mean by that?” She looked at him with such wariness that Royce came instantly alert.

  “You appear frightened,” he said in as mild a tone as he could muster. “Has someone approached you on behalf of King Louis?”

  “Why should you think so?” She stepped away from him. Clasping her hands behind her back, she faced him like a bound prisoner standing before a judge.

  “From your reaction, I assume it has already happened,” Royce said with a shrug that he hoped would suggest he considered such an approach inevitable, and not very important. “What response did you give to Louis’s emissary?”

  “That’s the trouble with spies,” she snapped. “You always think the worst of people, and you see subterfuge where none exists.”

  “Really? How many spies have you known?”

  “A few.” She lifted her square chin and looked down her nose at him. “Spying is a dishonorable trade.”

  “Some do think so.” He refused to acknowledge her deliberate insult, so he kept his voice quiet.

  “I know men entirely too well,” she said with chilly arrogance. “You are all alike. You want to seize a woman’s dowry and take control of her mind and body.”