Almost Innocent by Jane Feather Page A

Lady de Gervais looked at each other in silent relief. It was over.
    T WO WEEKS BEFORE the Lady Magdalen of Lancaster married Edmund de Bresse at Westminster, Gwendoline died. She died in her husband’s arms, and he could only be thankful for the merciful oblivion that brought an end to sufferings that had become unendurable. His own grief was a canker, spreading from his soul to infect all around him, darkening his vision so that he saw the sun as a dim cold circle in a murky sky, dulling his senses so that the richness of new-mown hay, the freshness of lavender, the tang of cinnamon were as savorless as chaff upon the tongue.
    Everyone grieved for a lady so beloved, but all werethankful that her torment was concluded, and in no breast lurked the fear that the Lady Gwendoline’s soul was destined for anywhere but heaven.
    Magdalen’s sorrow was twofold. She grieved for the Lady Gwendoline, but she could not endure Guy’s grief. She did not know how to comfort him, yet she was unable to stand aside. The wedding would take place as decreed, because how could such a state and politic event be postponed for the death of a peripheral figure? But she ignored all the preparations. Her betrothed was far too busy training for the grand campaign that would win him his spurs and the power of his fiefdom to concern himself with anything outside the basic facts of the marriage that must be solemnized before he could depart for France. All his previous efforts at courting Magdalen had fallen upon stony ground, so he returned his attention to the other and most important function of the knight—war.
    Magdalen spent her time following de Gervais. She was always to be found at his side at the long refectory table, picking the choicest morsels for him from the serving platters, filling his cup. She crept into his privy chamber, sitting in a corner, quiet but watchful as he attended to his affairs or simply sat, staring into the wasteland of memory. When he went forth on business, she was waiting for his return, watching critically as his page cared for his needs.
    Guy was but vaguely aware of her until the evening before her wedding, when he went into the pleasaunce, a place painful to him because in every shadow he saw Gwendoline, picking lavender, dabbling a finger in the birdbath, bending to pluck a weed from the unsullied beds. The place was painful to him, yet he could not keep away from it and would pace for long hours along the walks.
    On this evening, he found Magdalen sitting beneath an espaliered apricot tree, and he remembered withguilty remorse that she was to be wed on the morrow and he had had no speech with her in days, it seemed.
    He sat beside her, but before he could say anything she whispered with a strange, fierce passion, “If I do not have my terms, then I cannot be bedded with Edmund before he leaves for France, and the marriage could be annulled and then we could be wed, you and I.”
    Shaken from his absorption, Guy stared at her in shock. “What folly is this, Magdalen. You are distempered.”
    “Nay, sir,” she returned stoutly. “I love you and I have always loved only you, and I will always love only you. When the Lady Gwendoline was your lady wife, then of course it could not be. But now—”
    He stood up abruptly. “We will forget this ever took place, Magdalen. You are still but a child and in the midst of much excitement and confusion. The day after tomorrow you will return to Bellair Castle, and you must pray for your husband’s safe return and successful enterprise.”
    “I will pray for yours,” she said, the gray eyes glittering with a determination that chilled him with its strength. She was indeed the child of Isolde de Beauregard and John, Duke of Lancaster.

Three
    L ADY M AGDALEN DE B RESSE had come to the conclusion that tourneys were simply occasions where bouts of murderous sound and fury alternated with irksome heraldic ceremonies. As a child, she had longed passionately for the