Something flashed in her dark eyes—nearer a fire than a sparkle—then she returned her attention to her companion and said, “She is nine years aged.”
Lothaire ground his teeth. He did not wish to hear of the child she had made with another. Hoping Lord Benton and she would alter their course, he remained unmoving.
“As lovely as her mother?” the nobleman asked.
Lothaire would not know her smile was forced were he not acquainted with the true turn of her lips.
“Clarice is still very much a girl, my lord, but I believe she will be far lovelier than I. She has the most beautiful sable hair.”
Likely given by her father, Lothaire succumbed to bitterness. But that emotion was short-lived, for the two were nearer yet, and he would not have her know how much she disturbed him.
“I look forward to meeting her, my lady.”
She inclined her head, moved her gaze to Lothaire. As if surprised, she gasped, “Baron Soames, I meant to seek you out.” She and Lord Benton halted. “I apologize for not acknowledging you earlier. I did not intend to be rude, but I had to change slippers.”
Though Lothaire had no desire to converse with her—and would not outside Lord Benton’s company—it was she who provided him with satisfying small talk. He looked down her skirt, eyed the fine shoe visible beneath the hem. “Do you not wear the same slippers, my lady?”
She gave a little laugh. “’Tis a style and color I quite like.”
How easily she lied between her words. “Indeed.”
“Oh!” She angled toward the man at her side, touched his arm. “In my absence, did you have the chance to introduce yourself to Lord Benton?”
“Well enough,” Lothaire said sharply. And berated himself for not controlling his tongue. And he paid for it when she clapped a hand to her mouth and smiled on either side of it. That expression making him ache, he steeled himself for what was to come.
“Is this jealousy, Baron Soames?”
“Jealousy?” Lord Benton jerked as if his chin were clipped. While behind Lothaire’s face, distaste and anger jerked through him.
“Ah, we must remedy this,” the lady said. “’Tis only fair all my suitors know who they must better to win my hand.”
Almighty! Lothaire sent heavenward. She does not even try to disguise the Daughter of Eve who bore a child out of wedlock.
And there was more. She stepped forward and placed on Lothaire’s arm the slender fingers recently familiar with the other man. “Your rival, Lord Benton, the handsome Baron Soames of Lexeter. The fourth of four—well, I believe ’tis only four—suitors.” She made a face that once more sent Lothaire into the past. “We shall see, hmm?”
She released him, and he breathed again. But only for a moment. As she turned away, the ends of her unbound hair swept his wrist and the back of his hand, and he remembered the feel of strands he should never have drawn his fingers through.
Not for the first time, though it was long since he had pondered it, he questioned if the kisses and caresses shared prior to the wedding that had not taken place were responsible—at least in part—for making a Jezebel of her. He had liked the intimacies. Had she felt as much as he, perhaps she had gone in search of one willing to show her what came next.
“Now I must find Lord Thierry,” she returned him to the present he longed to leave behind. “I promised I would sit with him whilst the troubadours encourage us to fall in love. Lord Soames,” she said, then touched the other man’s arm again. “Lord Benton. Good eve.”
Head high, she left what she wrongly believed to be two rivals.
“Just passing through, hmm?” Benton grumbled.
“The lady has a high opinion of herself and her charms,” Lothaire said. “Aye, just passing through.” He turned, gained the queen’s gaze, and lost it. Not as dismissive as before. There had been interest in the arch of an eyebrow, but not enough to grant him an audience.
“Curse you, Eleanor,” he muttered and strode toward the stairs that would deliver him from the presence of the woman who would make one of her suitors wish he had found another way to return prosperity to his lands. Just as Lothaire had long sought to do. And would continue to do.
Even if every day the rest of my life I must work the land myself, he vowed.
“Lothaire.”
There. She had spoken his name. It swept her back to when she had called it over her shoulder as he chased her across soft spring grass, dry summer grass, leaf-covered autumn grass, frost-bitten winter grass. But most painful were memories of when she had whispered his name against his lips and he had groaned over hers.
Laura love, he had called her.
Though they had both wanted more than kisses and caresses, neither had tempted the other too far past want. And there had been no need, certain as they were of a nuptial night and every night thereafter.
Laura drew a shuddering breath. Assured Tina slept on her pallet, snores so soft her lady rarely had difficulty sleeping through them, she said again, “Lothaire.” Slowly, so she felt each tap behind her teeth and the warmth of her breath across tongue and palate when she came to the end of his name.
She had been glad she had eaten little at meal, so sickened was she by her behavior which Lothaire would name wanton and her taunting words that confirmed she was not merely thoughtless.
He would be gone on the morrow and, God willing, she would not see him again.
“Please, Lord. Not again. I love him still.”
Chapter 5
“Can you pay your taxes, Lord Soames?”
Lothaire turned to the queen where she halted just over the threshold of the private apartment to which he had been summoned a half hour past, bowed. “Your Majesty.”
She motioned for him to straighten. “Can you, Lord Soames?”
“I can.” Though it would strain his coffer’s every joint, his purse’s every seam.
She looked almost disappointed. “But not easily, hmm?”
Feeling the shame of it, though every year he gained ground lost by his mother ere he had wrested control of Lexeter from her, he said, “Not easily, Your Majesty.”
“Then for your family and people it is imperative you prove the best choice of husband for our cousin, Lady Laura.”
He opened his mouth to decline, hesitated over her kinship with his former betrothed. He had not known of it, but it explained why the queen took an interest in a woman disowned by her father. Or did it? Lady Laura’s scandalous behavior also reflected on the Queen of England.
“Distant cousins,” she guessed at what cramped his expression.
“She requested your aid, Your Majesty?”
“She did. Her protector, Lady Maude, passed last year. Hence, Lady Laura and her daughter are in need of a home.”
Not his home. It would be barely tolerable seeing her every day, but to also suffer the girl who surely bore some resemblance to the man gifted with Laura’s innocence? And even if he could accept both, never would his mother. Lady Raisa would make their lives torture.