When Christ and His Saints Slept

  “Some gifts are worth taking time and trouble with.” Leaning forward, he kissed her again, and then slowly and deliberately removed her last garment. As the chemise fluttered down to the floor, his breath quickened. “Helen of Troy must have looked like you,” he said, and she laughed softly.

  “That is a pretty compliment,” she said, “and I like it well. I like even better what I see in your eyes. We’ve waited a long time for this night, Harry, but there is no need to wait any longer.” He was in full agreement with her, already jerking at his belt. As he started to strip off his tunic, she reached over to help him, saying, “My turn.”

  “Next time, love. I can do it much faster!” This he proceeded to prove, as tunic and shirt went sailing across the room. His chausses were short, reaching to the knee, and quickly disposed of. That left only the linen braies, and as he slid them down over his hips, he grinned, saying, “This you can help with, love!” Marveling at how very different were the men she’d married, Eleanor did.

  Eleanor was realistic enough to be aware that their first lovemaking might be less than perfect. They might well need time for their bodies to become attuned, to discover what pleased each other, to trust enough to let down their defenses. As drawn as she was to Henry, she had no way of knowing what sort of lover he would be, not until they were in bed together on their wedding night. And if she’d misjudged him, by then it would be too late. She was sure he’d need no coaxing, for he was young and hot-blooded. But he might still prove to be a selfish lover, one intent only upon his own pleasures. Or too quick, too eager, spilling his seed too soon. Because she found that such a troubling prospect, she’d labored to rein in her expectations, reminding herself that a wedding-night disappointment did not mean marital disaster. They could adapt, they could learn. He was not like Louis.

  She soon discovered that she need not have worried. Making love with her new husband was as natural and easy as breathing, as satisfying and sensual an experience as she could ever have hoped for. There was not much tenderness in this initial coupling; they were both too aroused for that. What happened between them was impassioned, intense, and white-hot, like falling into a fire and somehow emerging unscathed. That was Eleanor’s first coherent thought afterward. She lay very still, loath to let Henry go even though he was no longer supporting his weight with his elbows, having collapsed on top of her as he reached his climax. She could hear the hammering of his heart, feel sweat trickling down between their bodies. It was not particularly comfortable, but she would have been content to stay like that for some time to come. When he finally lifted himself up, she felt bereft as he withdrew, and protested, “No, not yet…”

  “I must be squashing you,” he insisted, rolling over onto his back. His voice was normally hoarse and low-pitched, but now it had taken on a husky rasp, his words coming out slow and scratchy. Turning his head on the pillow so he could look at her, he said, “Good God, woman…” Eleanor smiled without opening her eyes.

  “Well put,” she agreed, and after a few more moments, he groped for her hand, kissing her palm.

  “Forget what I told you in Paris,” he said. “I would have married you without Aquitaine…”

  “You are a gallant liar,” she said, and he laughed. He seemed to be reviving faster than she was. Leaning over, he kissed the corner of her mouth, then reached down to recover their wine cup from the floor rushes. Finding it empty, he swung off the bed for a refill, pausing to snatch up a towel along the way. Back in bed, he shared both with Eleanor, trading sips as he patted her dry and then rubbed himself, far more vigorously.

  Eleanor stretched lithely, propping their pillows behind her back. “It seems ungracious to complain after you just gave me the most memorable wedding night any woman ever had,” she said. “But you also abducted me from our wedding supper ere I could get even a crust of bread.”

  “I’ve never yet let a hostage of mine starve.” Rising from the bed again, he strode over to ring for a servant. Eleanor enjoyed watching him, for he was so comfortable in his nakedness, so utterly unself-conscious, so unlike Louis. She wondered how long it would be ere she stopped comparing them, how long ere Louis’s spectre faded into insignificance. She did not think Harry would leave room in his marriage for any other man, even a memory.

  A servant soon came in response to the summons, and Henry opened the door just wide enough to order supper. The chamber was strewn with their discarded clothing, and as he started back to the bed, she asked, “Do you think we ought to pick up our clothes ere they bring in the food?”

  He glanced about at the telltale disarray, then shrugged. “Why? This is our wedding night. I doubt that anyone thinks we’re playing chess up here to pass the time.” But he was still pondering her query, and as he got back into bed with her, he gave her a curious, speculative look. “Was Louis one for setting up the chessboard?”

  “In a manner of speaking,” she conceded. “It is only natural that people should have been so interested in what happened—or not—in our marriage bed. He was the king, after all. But that scrutiny always made him uncomfortable. He would never have allowed servants to enter our room had it looked like this one does, as if we’d undressed in a mad race for the bed.”

  “That sounds like a race well worth running,” he joked, “given what is waiting at the finish line.” He had an exceptional memory, as Eleanor now discovered. “And always in the dark, too?”

  She nodded, somewhat reluctantly, for she did not really want to discuss her first husband with her second. Not only did it seem a gratuitous cruelty to Louis, but she could not abide the thought that Harry might pity her, a Queen of France who’d been forced to live almost as chastely as a nun. “I cannot believe you remembered my query about the candles! I think you may be too quick for my own good.”

  “Not when it truly counts,” he promised, and Eleanor rolled over into his arms, relishing another pleasure that had been scarce in her first marriage—the sweet sin of laughing together in bed.

  ELEANOR had never had a meal like this one, eaten in bed, a table pulled within reach so they could help themselves, for neither she nor Henry wanted servants hovering about. Henry preferred to do the honours himself, lifting the chafing dishes to offer her a spiced meatball, a taste of savory rice, a few spoonfulls of pea soup. “Your cooks must think I have a harem hidden away up here,” he said, “for they’ve sent enough to feed a dozen hungry souls. Do you want some more of the roast pheasant?”

  “No…what are those dishes off to your right?”

  Henry lifted the lids. “This looks like lamprey eels, in some sort of sauce, and this one has beef-marrow tarts.” When she selected the latter, he passed it to her on a napkin. “So…where were we? Ah, yes, you were telling me that your father once clashed with Abbot Bernard, too?”

  Eleanor nodded. “He was not as stalwart as Geoffrey, though,” she said regretfully, “for when Abbot Bernard confronted him with the Host, he went pale as death and toppled over like a felled tree.”

  “A pity,” Henry said succinctly, and Eleanor smiled fondly at him, for she found his skepticism a pleasant contrast, indeed, to Louis’s absolute certainty that Bernard was a living saint.

  “I think it bodes well for our marriage,” she teased, “that we seem to dislike all the same people.” Leaning over, she fed him the last of her marrow tart. “When shall I get to meet your mother, Harry?”

  “I’d not be in such a hurry if I were you,” he said wryly. “Most people find my mother to be a very formidable lady, indeed. It will be fascinating—in a scary sort of way—to watch the two of you take each other’s measure. But that is not likely to come about in the near future. Remember what I told you last night…that my English allies are growing impatient? They insist they need me in England, and cannot comprehend why I’ve kept finding excuses to put off the invasion. I just hope they understand why I could not risk telling them about our marriage plans. But I promised my uncle Rainald that I’d be at Barfleur in a fortnight an
d we’d start gathering a fleet.”

  Eleanor was momentarily taken aback, for she’d expected that they’d have more than a fortnight together. But she could hardly complain, for it was not as if he were going off on a pleasure jaunt. “Do you want me to go with you to Barfleur?”

  Henry was delighted with her matter-of-fact response. How many men were lucky enough to have a wife with such political acumen, and as seductive as Eve in the bargain? “I would love to have you with me at Barfleur,” he said, “but I need you more here, in Poitiers. I can rely upon my mother to keep watch over Normandy whilst I am in England. I want you to make sure that Aquitaine stays calm, too, Eleanor, or as calm as it ever gets.”

  “I will,” she said, and he kissed her gratefully, then selected a ginger-filled wafer for them to share.

  “What about your mother? Do you remember her, Eleanor?”

  “Truthfully, not a lot. Aenor, she was called. Did you know that is what my name means? ‘The other Aenor.’ I was eight when she died, but I have few vivid memories of her, for she was not like your mother, Harry, not a woman to be reckoned with. She was soft-spoken, not one for drawing attention to herself. I do not think she was ever happy with my father, nor he with her. They were coerced into the marriage by my grandfather and her mother, and I can understand why they were loath to wed. It had created enough of a scandal when my grandfather carried off the wife of one of his own vassals. But then to marry his son to that woman’s daughter—you can well imagine the gossip that stirred up!”

  Henry sat up so abruptly that he almost spilled his wine. “Did I hear you right? Your grandfather was having a tryst with Aenor’s mother?”

  “Not just a tryst, Harry. A notorious dalliance. The lady, who had the remarkably apt name of Dangereuse, was wed to a neighboring lord, the Viscount of Châtellerault. My grandfather always did have a roving eye, and he never seemed to see marriage as much of a hindrance—his or anyone else’s.”

  “I assume he already had a wife when he stole the viscount’s?”

  “By then he was working on his second marriage. His first wife was a kinswoman of yours, Harry, Ermengarde, your father’s great-aunt. Fortunately for us, that marriage fell apart ere they had any children. My grandfather took as his next wife the long-suffering Lady Philippa, heiress to Toulouse. She gave him two sons and five daughters, but their marriage was no happier than his first. As he put it, he loved women too much to confine himself to just one.”

  “But Dangereuse was different, not a passing fancy?”

  “More like a grand passion. Philippa had put up with his straying as best she could, but his infatuation with Dangereuse could not be ignored, for after he wooed her away from her husband, he brought her right under his roof, settled her here in the Maubergeon Tower. That was too much for Philippa, and who can blame her? When my grandfather refused to send Dangereuse away, Philippa left him. She retired to Fontevrault Abbey, where—as unlikely as it seems—she became good friends with Grandpa Will’s first wife, Ermengarde, who dwelt at the nunnery whenever the whim took her. Imagine the conversations they must have had on those long winter nights!”

  “I’m still mulling over the fact that your grandfather was having an affair with his son’s mother-in-law!” Henry said with a grin. “It is not as if I come from a line of monks myself. My own grandfather could have populated England with all his by-blows. But I have to admit that this grandfather of yours seems to have had a truly spectacular talent for sinning. What did the Church say about these scandalous goings-on?”

  “Oh, he was often at odds with the Church, but it never bothered him unduly. In truth, Harry, nothing did. He liked to scandalize and shock people, but there was no real malice in him. As you may have guessed, I adored him. Most people did, for he had more charm than the law should allow. He did treat my grandmother rather badly—one of them, anyway! But I was too young to understand that, and by the time I did, he was long dead. What I remember most is his laughter, and I suspect that is what truly vexed his enemies, that he got so much fun out of life. He could find a joke in the most dire circumstances, as his songs attest. That shocked people, too, that a man so highborn would write troubadour poetry, but he enjoyed it and so what else mattered?”

  Henry brushed back her hair. “Tell me more,” he urged, and she shivered with pleasure as he kissed the hollow of her throat.

  “Well…Grandpapa Will painted an image of Dangereuse on his shield, saying he wanted to bear her in battle, just as she’d so often borne him in bed. He liked to joke that one day he’d establish his own nunnery—and fill it with ladies of easy virtue. And when he was rebuked for not praying as often as he ought, he composed a poem: ‘O Lord, let me live long enough to get my hands under her cloak.’”

  Henry gave a sputter of laughter. “Between the two of us, we’ve got a family tree rooted in Hell! Once Abbot Bernard learns of our marriage, he’ll have nary a doubt that our children will have horns and cloven hooves.”

  “The first one born with a tail, we’ll name after the good abbot.” Eleanor reached for a dish of strawberries in sugared syrup, popping one neatly into his mouth. He fed her the next one, and when she licked the sugar from his fingers, as daintily as a cat, his body was suddenly suffused in heat. Dipping his finger in the syrup, he coated one of her nipples. She looked startled, but intrigued, and when he lowered his mouth to her breast, she exhaled her breath in a drawn-out sigh. “Abbot Bernard preaches that sin is all around us,” she said throatily, “but I doubt that even he ever thought to warn against strawberries!”

  “He’d likely have an apoplectic seizure if he only knew what can be done with honey,” Henry predicted, and Eleanor began to laugh.

  “I think,” she said, “that you and I are going to have a very interesting marriage.”

  Henry thought so, too. “I want you, Eleanor.”

  Her eyes reflected the candle flame, but brighter and hotter, making promises that would have provided Abbot Bernard with a full year of new sermons. “My lord duke,” she said, “tonight all of Aquitaine is yours for the taking.”

  THEY were both exhausted, but neither was ready yet to let the night go. Staving off sleep, they lay in each other’s arms, watching as the hearth flames wavered and danced and sent up white-gold sparks. Henry could not remember ever feeling so content. God truly did reward those willing to gamble. Breathing in the scent of his wife’s perfume, he nuzzled her neck and she nestled closer.

  He was not at all surprised that she could fire his passion as no other woman had. But he’d not expected to feel so intensely protective. She was quite capable of taking care of herself. He’d never thought to meet a woman more self-sufficient than his mother, but here she was, her thigh resting on his, her hair tickling his chest. It was not that she needed him to take care of her; it was that he wanted to, and this was a novel sensation for him. Lust took on a new taste altogether when tenderness was added to the brew.

  How had she gotten to him like this? Mayhap it was just the afterglow. It was only natural that he’d feel close to her after lovemaking like theirs. Any more heat and they’d have set the bed on fire. Or was it that any last lingering doubts about her honour had gone up in smoke? However much he’d insisted to his father that he did not believe the gossip and innuendoes and rumors, there’d been a small, dark corner of uncertainty, one he’d not acknowledged even to himself…until now.

  But no more. No matter what men said of her, he knew now that she was not a wanton. She was passionate and blessedly uninhibited and ardent. But she knew none of a courtesan’s erotic tricks, those special, seductive ways of pleasuring a man that most wives never mastered. He’d lain with enough harlots to recognize practiced passion, and from harlots, that was indeed what he wanted. But not from Eleanor. He’d not wanted her to be too knowing, too artful in her caresses, for she could never have learned such skills from monkish, fettered Louis. If she had ever been unfaithful, he was sure now it had been a brief tryst, no more than that.
br />   It was passing strange, for he ought not to care what she’d done whilst wed to another man. But he did. If tenderness was an unfamiliar emotion for him, so was this urge, too. He’d never been jealous of a bedmate before, never felt possessive of one, either. Was it because she was his wife? Was that what made it so different, so much more complicated?

  “Harry…what are you thinking about?”

  “Papal politics, the price of corn, whether I ought to get my stallion shoed, the usual…” he joked, while tightening his arm around her shoulders. She had the most luxuriant hair he’d ever encountered in a bedmate; he could not keep his hands away from it, running its silkiness through his fingers, wondering why men found blonde hair so alluring. It reached well past her hips, ebony in the night shadows, a deep rich brown whenever the firelight played upon it. Separating a long, gleaming strand, he entwined it around his fingers, looping it about his wrist.

  Her lashes flickered. “Are you worried that I might run off whilst you sleep?”

  “I just want to keep you close,” he said, and she smiled drowsily.

  “You need not worry, Harry,” she said. “I’ll not stray…”

  EUSTACE had moved to the open window, watching the river traffic on the Seine. Behind his back, the French king exchanged puzzled looks with his brother Robert and his cousin Raoul. Louis was as surprised as anyone by Eustace’s unexpected arrival in Paris. He must have left England within a few days of his mother’s funeral, which bespoke an unseemly haste to Louis. Moreover, his presence was something of an embarrassment now that Louis had made peace with his rival the Duke of Normandy. The other men in the chamber were regarding Eustace with no favor, for he had few friends at court. But he had to be made welcome. They could hardly turn away the Count of Boulogne, the French king’s brother-in-law.