Page 80 of The Captive Knight
“And youarea woman of good sense,” Blanche added, “yet you’re acting as if you’d climb onto the nearest horse and gallop through those gates just to be free of him.”
Aliénor flushed, embarrassed she could be read so well. More than once she’d gazed upon the many men-at-arms making the rounds in the field and wondered if she could bribe one to take her away from this place, from this man, from this fate.
But to where?
Aliénor took a sharp turn at the northwest turret to continue their walk. “Is it so wrong,” she said, “to want to love the man I’m to marry?”
“Ah,” Blanche said. “So now we come to it. This is about St. Simon, isn’t it?”
Even the sound of his name felt like velvet against her ears. “You’ve been talking to Thibaud.”
“Only when forced.”
“Yet he confides to you the very secret I’ve been forbidden to speak.”
“Thibaud understands that I have your best interests at heart.”
Aliénor sighed, irritation quickly giving way to relief now that she wasn’t the only person aware of the weight in her heart.
“Once, long ago,” Aliénor said, pushing up her loosely laced sleeves to let the sun kiss her skin, “I’d hoped for no more than kindness and mutual respect from a husband. But since I met Jehan…”kissed Jehan, made love to Jehan“…everything has changed.”
“True love, then. My dear, this is a rare and wonderful thing, no matter how forbidden or short-lived.”
Aliénor sidled a glance to her friend, who looked upon her with a soft smile and a gaze full of understanding.
“Come, do you think you’re the only woman who has ever fallen in love?” Blanche squinted past the ramparts as she adjusted her veil. “For me, it was a blacksmith in my father’s castle. We had little time together, yet not a day passes without a thought of Gabriel.”
Aliénor covered Blanche’s hand with her own. Nearly two decades separated them in age, but for a moment their sentiments resonated as one.
“What you need,” Blanche said, “is time. I would suggest waiting several months before the marriage ceremony.”
“Months?” She dropped her hand. “As if that would matter.”
“You don’t want to risk losing the knight’s interest, my dear. These days, such offers are few and far between.” Blanche pulled her veil down her forehead to better shade her face. “And surely you want your castle back?”
Yes, she wanted her castle, but marrying Guy de Baste would not bring it to her. It would only start a bloody conflict between a husband she’d be stuck with and the man she truly loved.
She loved her castle and she loved Jehan.
She could never have them both.
A shout came from the ramparts, drawing her attention to where a group of knights peered over the battlements.
Blanche’s fingers dug into her sleeve. “We should go inside now.”
“It’s not an attack,” she said, as the gears of the portcullis screeched. “The men-at-arms are welcoming someone in.”
Horses pounded into the courtyard. The regent led the way, followed by a dozen of his men. The knights in the king’s colors were followed by a line of other knights, strangers with pennants of azure and argent, displaying stars and lilies and couchant lions.
No strangers toher,she realized with a start. Thibaud’s teachings had sunk deep, for she instantly recognized the heraldry of the Count of Foix and the Captal de Buch, riding behind the regent under the white flag of truce.
Blanche sensed her surprise. “You know these men?”
“They’re Gascon,” she said, “of English loyalties.”
Then another knight with English loyalties rode in through the portal. A tall, straight-backed rider with eyes the color of a Gascon sky, whose dark hair tossed in the wind.
