But as Eleanor’s liege lord, Louis would be the one to choose another husband for her, and Petronilla did not think he’d choose a husband to her liking. Whatever Louis’s failings as a husband, he was still King of France. It seemed to Petronilla that whomever Eleanor married next, it was bound to be a comedown. She could not help thinking that Eleanor’s wretched marriage to Louis was still the lesser of evils, but she knew better than to say so. Eleanor took no more kindly to unsolicited advice than she did; she would only be leaving herself open to a pointed reminder of her own stubborn insistence upon having Raoul, even if that meant they’d be together in Hell.
No matter what angle she viewed it from, her sister’s future looked precarious at best. But one thing she never doubted—that Eleanor would not sit placidly by whilst her destiny was decided by others. “What mean you to do?”
Eleanor sat down beside her on the bed. “Well, this much I know for certes—that the only fate worse than being yoked to Louis for the rest of my life would be marriage to a man handpicked by that sanctimonious, self-proclaimed saint, Bernard.”
Eleanor’s greyhound reached up suddenly, swiping her cheek in a wet kiss and making her laugh. Almost at once, though, she sobered. “And so,” she continued coolly, “I mean to do my own husband-hunting.”
Petronilla rolled her eyes. “And you dare to call me reckless!”
“Why is it reckless to want a say in my own life? You can well imagine the sort of pathetic French puppet they’d choose for me, a lackey who’d look to Paris for guidance the way infidels look toward Mecca. Do you think I’d entrust Aquitaine to such a weak-willed wretch? I need a husband who’d not be afraid to defy the French Crown or even the Church, a man who could command respect from my duchy’s unruly, quarrelsome barons.” She paused, and then added dryly, “A man I could respect, too, would be a pleasant change.”
“You are not asking much, are you?”
Eleanor reclined back against the pillows and smiled impishly at her sister. “Oh, but I want much more than that, Petra. Those were Aquitaine’s needs, but I have my own, too. I want a man who knows his own mind, who sees nothing odd about reading for the fun of it. A man who likes to laugh, even at himself. A man who is not so intent upon the glories of the next world that it blinds him to the pleasures of this one.” Eleanor was no longer smiling. “Above all, I want a man I do not have to coax to my bed.”
“And where do you expect to find this paragon of manhood? I can think of only one man who measures up to those exacting standards, and Raoul is already spoken for!” Picking up the brush, Petronilla combed out her sister’s long hair, then began to braid it with nimble fingers. “What of Geoffrey? Why then were you flirting with him? Merely to vex Louis?”
“I had a twofold purpose. I wanted to remind Louis how mismatched we are, just in case he’d begun to have second thoughts about the divorce. The only voice he heeds these days is that of our saint in residence, who divides all of womankind into three categories: nuns, sluts, and potential sluts. So I knew he’d look upon flirtation as only slightly less heinous a sin than sacrilege, and I was right. You see, Petra, those famed mystical trances of Bernard’s are only part of his sleight-of-hand. When Louis opens his mouth, lo and behold—Bernard’s words come out.”
It was not often that Eleanor let her bitterness show so nakedly, and Petronilla felt a surge of immediate and indignant sympathy. Her loyalties burned too hot and too deep ever to allow for detachment or objectivity; she supposed that Louis had his side, too, but she had no interest whatsoever in hearing it. Eleanor was right to look for a way out, she decided. The marriage was indeed dead and decomposing, and keeping up the pretense would be like living in a charnel house, trying all the while to ignore the stench.
“Forget what I said earlier about attempting to mend the rift. I’d not urge you to run back into a burning building just because you had nowhere else to go. But I am still curious about that ‘twofold’ remark of yours. Why else were you seeking Geoffrey out? I know you claim you have no interest in a dalliance, but you must have been tempted, at least a little…?”
“I am beginning to think Raoul had best keep an eye on you till Geoffrey departs Paris! Must I assure you again that I am not as susceptible as you to a handsome face? Geoffrey of Anjou was my red herring, no more than that.”
Petronilla’s frown was one of bafflement. She had hunted enough to understand Eleanor’s allusion; drawing a herring across a trail was said to throw pursuing dogs off the scent. But she did not see its application, not at first. When it finally came to her, she gasped aloud and inadvertently jerked on Eleanor’s braid. “Holy Mother Mary! It is not Geoffrey at all, is it? Not the sire—the son!”
Eleanor laughed. “Glory be, at last! Are we such an unlikely pairing, that you never once thought of Henry?”
“It is a brilliant match, Eleanor,” Petronilla enthused. “When I was ransacking my brain for a suitable husband, I did not even think of him, I admit it…mayhap because of the age difference. And yet he is the ideal choice! Of course he is rather young, but he is no green lad, for certes. No son of Maude and Geoffrey could lack for boldness, so you’d be getting a husband willing to challenge the French Crown. One with prospects enough to unsettle even the most complacent of former husbands—Duke of Normandy, heir to Anjou and Maine, not to forget that very intriguing claim across the Channel. Jesú, Eleanor, he might be King of England one day!”
“I’d say that is a foregone conclusion, Petra. Henry strikes me as a bowman who rarely misses the target. I’d wager he gets whatever he aims for.”
Petronilla looked closely into her sister’s face, and then grinned. “So, that is the way the wind blows, does it? I think you fancy the lad!”
Eleanor grinned, too. “Let’s just say I think he has…potential.”
Petronilla burst out laughing, leaning over to give her sister an exuberantly affectionate embrace. Eleanor’s greyhound took that as an invitation and jumped onto the bed. “Felice, down!” Eleanor fended off the dog with a pillow, laughing, too, and for a few moments, they managed to forget about the high stakes, the all-or-nothing gamble that Eleanor was about to make.
It did not even occur to Petronilla to wonder if Henry would be receptive to Eleanor’s overtures. No man in his right mind would turn down Eleanor and Aquitaine; that she never doubted. Nor did she see a need to speak of Eleanor’s daughters, six-year-old Marie and one-year-old Alix. They were lost to Eleanor, whether she married Henry or not, for the French king would never give them up. There’d already been discussions about finding them suitable highborn husbands, forging marital alliances that would further French interests, and as likely as not, they’d grow to girlhood in far-off foreign courts, just as the eight-year-old Maude had once set sail for Germany, child bride of the Imperial Emperor Heinrich V.
“You have not yet had a heart-to-heart talk with Henry?”
Eleanor shook her head. “I have been observing him closely all week, and I like what I’ve seen so far. He is quick-witted, deliberate, and rather cocky—but I need to know if he is also discreet. If Louis had even a suspicion of what I was planning, I’d find myself convent-caged for the remainder of my days, and I do not think I’d make a good nun.”
Eleanor had spoken lightly, but there was too much truth in what she’d said for humor. Petronilla was suddenly and uncharacteristically pensive. Eleanor was right. Louis would do almost anything to keep her from marrying Henry and uniting Aquitaine with Normandy and mayhap even England. She could not have chosen anyone better calculated to appall the king and desolate the man.
“Eleanor, are you sure you want to do this? Have you thought about all you’d be risking?”
“Of course I have,” Eleanor said impatiently. After a moment, though, she smiled. “But then I think about all I’d be gaining!”
PARIS had been sweltering in a high-summer heat wave, but the weather changed abruptly by week’s end. The city awoke to a steady downpour and dropping tempe
ratures. It was a dismal day outside, and no less gloomy within the Cité Palace, where the peace negotiations had broken down in recriminations and acrimony. Geoffrey had a hangover and a throbbing headache, and he’d walked out in midmorning, once again declaring he’d had enough and would be departing for Anjou on the morrow. This time Henry believed him.
Henry remained a while longer, in a final attempt to come to terms with the French king. It was another exercise in futility, for neither one was willing to compromise. The rain was still falling by the time Henry and William de Vere, his chancellor, emerged out onto the wide stone steps of the Cité Palace. Henry was just starting down them when he was accosted by a woman in a red mantle.
“May I have a few moments of your time, my lord Henry?” Her face was half-hidden by her hood, but Henry readily agreed, for he’d recognized the voice and was curious to find out what the Lady Petronilla wanted from him.
Sending his men back into the hall, Henry fell into step beside Petronilla, hiding his surprise when she led him out into the deserted, rain-drenched royal gardens. If not for the weather, it would have been an idyllic setting, with bordered walkways, raised flower beds abloom with poppies, Madonna lilies, and spectacular scarlet peonies, a grassy mead spangled with snow-white daisies, and an abundance of fragrant red roses. Today, though, it was wet and wind-raked, the turf seats soaked, the paths pockmarked with puddles; even the River Seine looked different, flat and leaden-grey under a lowering slate sky.
Petronilla kept up a comfortable flow of chatter, the sort of soothing small talk that put people at their ease and yet revealed nothing of importance. She tactfully made no mention of the flagging peace negotiations, instead told Henry an amusing story about her young son’s latest misdeed, asked politely about his mother, the empress, and reminded him playfully that they’d nearly been kin, for several years ago, Geoffrey had suggested a marriage between Henry and Marie, Louis and Eleanor’s baby daughter. Henry had almost forgotten that, and he was glad now that nothing had come of it, for he had no wish to be so closely bound to the French king. After a moment, he laughed aloud, unable to envision the exotic Eleanor of Aquitaine as his mother-in-law.
The rain had eased up, but not for long; the clouds were thick and foreboding. By now they’d reached the far end of the island, jutting out into the Seine like the prow of a ship. A trellised garden arbour lay just ahead, sheltered by climbing roses and tangled honeysuckle. It was so well shielded that Henry did not at first see the woman seated within, not until he and Petronilla were almost upon her. She was clad in a hooded mantle of a glistening silver grey, and looked elegant and somehow ethereal, too, a maid of the mist that was rising off the river. When Henry glanced her way, she reached up and drew back her hood. He came to an abrupt halt, staring at the French queen, and then moved swiftly toward her.
As he kissed her hand, Eleanor gave him a vivid smile. “I apologize for the deception, and for dragging you out into the rain, but I needed to speak with you—in private.”
“I’m willing to brave some rain for your sake.” When she gestured toward the bench, he did not need to be asked twice, and seated himself beside her in the trellised hideaway. Only then did he remember Petronilla, but she was already retreating back up the walkway to keep watch. The dreary day had suddenly taken a dramatic upswing for the better. Henry could not imagine a more pleasant pastime than an intrigue with Eleanor; that he did not yet know the nature of this intrigue troubled him not at all. “This is very clandestine and mysterious,” he acknowledged, “and I am eager to find out why you’d want to talk in such secrecy. Not that I am complaining, just curious.”
“After being lured out into a secluded garden, many men would leap to the simplest, most obvious conclusion, that the woman had dalliance in mind.”
“I doubt that there is anything obvious about you, Lady Eleanor,” Henry parried. She did not have sea-green eyes, after all; he was close enough now to see gold flecks in the green. Hazel suited her better, he decided, for it was an uncommon color, subtle and ever-changing. She was watching him with an odd intensity, as if a great deal depended upon his answer. “A rain-soaked garden is a good place for privacy,” he said, “but not for a tryst. It would be too damnably wet.”
His candor seemed to amuse her; like a shooting star, that dimple came and went. “Moreover,” he continued, “infidelity has more serious consequences for a woman than for a man, and for a queen, most of all. No, whatever your reasons for this rendezvous, it is not because you yearned for an hour of high-risk sinning with a stranger.”
She said nothing, but her sudden smile was blinding. “Why do I get the feeling,” he joked, “that I’ve just passed some sort of test?”
Eleanor laughed, marveling at his intuitiveness, and sure now that her instincts had been right. He was looking at her with alert interest, slight wariness, and undisguised desire. As their eyes met, he grinned. “But if you ever did decide to throw yourself at me, I’d be right pleased to catch you.”
“How gallant of you, Henry.”
“My friends call me Harry.”
His nonchalance was just a little too studied to be utterly convincing; she suspected that he was not as confident as he’d have her believe. But she was not put off by this hint of youthful insecurity. She found it rather endearing, for she was untroubled by the ten-year gap in their ages. In some ways, he seemed more mature to her than her husband, who at thirty was still dithering indecisively at every royal crossroads.
“Harry?” she echoed. “I like that. Tell me…what do your bedmates call you?”
He blinked. “Unforgettable.” But he could not quite carry it off, and burst out laughing. So did Eleanor, for she was more and more charmed by this engaging youth; bravado and self-deprecating humor and unabashed lust were an appealing brew to a woman whose marriage had been sober and chaste and desert-dry more often than not.
Henry still did not know what she wanted from him, but he was willing to wait—with rare patience—until she was ready to reveal her intent. He was also very willing to carry on this fascinating flirtation, and he was disappointed when she then steered the conversation into a more innocuous channel, one with no erotic depths.
The rain had stopped, and he jerked his hood back, running his hand absently through his damp, unruly hair, all the while trying not to stare too openly at the soft hollow of her throat or the solitary raindrop that had splashed onto her cheek and trickled like a wayward tear toward her mouth. She was the most desirable woman he’d ever seen, and when he found himself thinking that a man could get drunk just by breathing in her perfume, he realized how prescient his father had been to call her “dangerous.”
Eleanor was well aware of the effect she was having upon him. For fully half of her life, men had been looking upon her with hot hunger and carnal lust; only the man she’d married had never been singed by her heat. Here in this trellised grotto that was scented with honeysuckle and glimmering with crystal droplets of rain, she was seducing Henry merely by inflaming his imagination.
The conversation was deceptively casual; for the moment, they were both pretending to be oblivious of the undercurrents swirling between them. The questions were mainly Eleanor’s, the answers Henry’s. He explained that his father had gotten the informal surname Plantagenet because of his habit of wearing a sprig of broom or planta genesta in his cap. He confirmed that he called himself Henry Fitz Empress rather than Fitz Count or Fitz Geoffrey. While he did not elaborate upon his reasons for this break with tradition, Eleanor understood the realism of it and approved. After fourteen years of marriage to a man without a shred of practicality in his soul, she could appreciate Henry’s pragmatism as much as she did his ambition.
Petronilla had lamented the fact that Henry did not resemble his father more closely. While she’d agreed that he was attractive, he was too rough-hewn for her taste, utterly lacking Geoffrey’s flamboyant good looks and dashing sense of style. Eleanor conceded that no one would ever call Henry su
ave, as they did Geoffrey. Geoffrey always looked as if he’d just been visited by his tailor, whereas Henry’s clothes were of good quality but carelessly worn, as if he’d flung on the first garment at hand. Geoffrey had hair any woman might envy, bright gold and gleaming, rarely mussed. Henry’s hair was redder, unfashionably short, and usually tousled. Petronilla had remarked that he looked more like a huntsman than a highborn lord, and Eleanor tended to agree with her sister. She thought it a fine joke that the son of the Empress Maude and Geoffrey le Bel should be so down-to-earth, so indifferent to the trappings of power.
But Henry was not indifferent to the power itself, that she never doubted. As she studied him now, she was struck again by his presence. She had to keep reminding herself that he was not yet nineteen, for already he had it, that indefinable quality that would give him the mastery of other men.
He’d been in motion constantly as he talked, gesturing expressively with his hands, stretching out his legs. He wore high leather boots, not shoes, as if he’d dressed for a day’s hunting, and with sudden insight, she realized that this was indeed how he seemed to her—as a man always on the verge of action. His energy was awesome, like a fire at full blaze, and she found herself wondering what it would be like to feel all that energy between her thighs. The erotic image of the two of them entwined together in a rumpled bed startled her somewhat, for she’d not expected to be drawn so strongly to him.
“I think,” she said, “that it is time I told you why I contrived to meet you out in these rain-sodden gardens. You were right when you said it was an unlikely place for a tryst. But it is a good place to avoid eavesdroppers or onlookers, whilst not compromising me beyond repair if we are discovered together.” Her dimple flashed again, almost too quick to catch. “Rumors to the contrary, I am more careful of my reputation than certain churchmen claim.”