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 temperatures. It was a dismal day outside, and no less gloomy within the Cite 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 Cite 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
