managed a crooked grin. “I do not trust myself around you!”
But still he lingered, until Petronilla turned and gave him a slight push. “Hurry,” she urged, “for I do not trust either one of you!”
Henry insisted upon kissing Eleanor’s hand one last time before turning away, adjusting his clothing as he strode along the pathway. He paused once, looking back at Eleanor, as she’d known he would, and she watched until he’d vanished from view.
Stepping into the trellised arbour, Petronilla sat beside her sister and reached over to pull Eleanor’s hood up. “I hope to God he does not look at you like that out in the hall. Apart from the danger of starting a fire, it would be a signed confession of adultery!”
“You need not worry, Petra. Harry will be discreet.”
“For your sake, he’d better be!” Petronilla gave Eleanor a sidelong, appraising glance, and then, a sly smile. “So,” she said, “how did your hunt go? Did you get your quarry?”
Eleanor nodded, only half listening to her sister’s banter. She was still gazing out across the wet, empty garden. “In truth,” she said softly, “I think Harry and I may be getting more than we bargained for.”
Upon his return to the abbey guest quarters, Geoffrey had instructed his men to prepare for departure in the morning, and then took his hangover and his headache off to bed. He awoke long before he was ready, to find his head still hurting, the rain still coming down, and his son carrying on like a lunatic, banging around the darkened chamber in search of a lamp and making enough racket to be heard back in Anjou. Rolling over, Geoffrey groaned and called Henry a foul name just as a light flared, half blinding him.
“Go away, Harry, ere I get my strength back and kill you,” he mumbled, trying to blot out the glare and noise with his pillow. But his son seemed to have developed a death wish, for he snatched the pillow away and insisted that Geoffrey sit up, utterly unfazed by the steady string of curses being hurled at his head.
“Here, Papa, have some wine. It’ll make you feel much better,” he said, sounding so odiously cheerful that Geoffrey began to suspect that Maude was an even worse wife than he’d realized, for how could this be a son of his loins?
He protested in vain, soon found himself propped up with pillows, scowling at Henry as the young man sloshed a wine cup into his hand and then settled himself cross-legged on the foot of the bed. “Maude put you up to this. I know she did, so you might as well admit it.”
Henry laughed. “Stop grumbling, Papa, and listen. I have a great favor to ask of you.”
“Quit whilst you’re ahead, Harry, whilst you’re still in my will.” Geoffrey took a tentative swallow of the wine and grimaced. “Where did you get this? It tastes like goat piss.”
“You were certainly guzzling it down last night without complaint. I am serious, Papa. I want you to set Giraud Berlai free.”
Geoffrey’s wine cup froze in midair. “Are you drunk?”
“I am as sober as the sainted Bernard, and very much in earnest, Papa. On the morrow I am going to tell Louis that I’ve decided to cede the Vexin to him. I want peace with the French king, and I want you to help me get it.”
“This morning you were determined to hold on to the Vexin. What has changed since then?”
“Everything!” Henry leaned forward, splashing wine onto the bed, but not even noticing. His eyes were shining, his color high. Geoffrey had rarely seen him so excited, not off the hunting field.
“I think you’d better tell me what this is all about, lad,” he said, and grabbed for Henry’s wine cup, just in time to keep it from being dumped in his lap. “Why are you suddenly willing to give up the Vexin?”
“For Aquitaine,” Henry said, and grinned. “For Eleanor and Aquitaine. I’d say that is a fair trade, Papa, more than fair.”
“You…and Eleanor?” Geoffrey was stunned, but not disbelieving; his son was too euphoric to doubt. “Are you saying what I think you are, lad?”
Henry nodded vigorously. “As of this afternoon, I have a wife…or I will have as soon as she gets shed of Louis. Once she does, we shall wed. So you see why I need to make peace with Louis. I want nothing to distract him from the urgent matter of getting his marriage annulled.”
“Holy Mother of God…” Geoffrey shook his head slowly. “I thought I’d taken your measure, Harry, but clearly I’ve been undervaluing you!”
“No, Papa. As much as I’d like to claim credit for this, the idea was Eleanor’s. She is a remarkable woman, and if she were mine, I would never let her go. But Louis will, and once he does, the English crown will be ours for the taking. Can you imagine how Stephen will react when he hears?”
Henry laughed again, swung off the bed, and went to get another flagon from the table. “So…what say you, Papa? Will you set Berlai free for me?”
“Of course I will. Although you’ll owe me for this, lad, and you may be sure I’ll remind you frequently of that. Now pour me some more of this swill and let’s talk. I agree that Stephen will likely have a seizure when word of this gets out, for the day you wed Eleanor, you’ll cast a shadow across half of Europe…and all of France. That is why you must think about how Louis will react, too. He is your liege lord as well as Eleanor’s, and if you marry the woman without his consent-which he’d never give-you’ll be making a mortal enemy.”
“He’ll not like it any,” Henry admitted, “but he’ll get over it.”
“No, Harry, I think not. He does love her, you see. And if she divorces him because they are fourth cousins or whatever, and then marries you, also a fourth cousin…well, believe me when I say a wound like that will never heal. Trust me on this, for I know more about hating than you. He’ll be cursing you both with his dying breath.”
“Mayhap you are right,” Henry agreed, “but what of it? Surely you are not suggesting that I do not marry her?”
Geoffrey’s smile was wry. “No, I am not-and you’d not heed me even if I did. You cannot turn down an opportunity like this, for marriage to Eleanor could make you master of Europe one day. Normandy and Aquitaine and England and Anjou and Maine-Christ Jesus, Harry, Caesar might well envy you! And if you were mad enough to spurn Eleanor’s offer, you’d have to worry then about the man she might marry in your stead. I just want you to understand that she’ll be bringing you the undying enmity of the French king as her marriage portion. It is still, as you said, a fair trade, but you need to bear that clearly in mind, for this marriage will turn Christendom upside down and that is no lie.”
“I understand that, Papa, truly I do. But can I not have one day just to be happy about it?”
Henry’s smile was coaxing, and so contagious that Geoffrey had to smile back. “Fair enough, lad.” Reaching out, he clinked his wine cup against Henry’s in a mock salute. “To you and your bride-to-be. I think I can safely predict that your life together will never be dull. What of your mother? Do you plan to tell Maude?”
He’d caught Henry off balance. “I’d rather not,” he confessed, “for the fewer people who know, the better. But I suppose I should, for Mama would not soon forgive me if I did not.”
“No, she would not. But you need not worry about her keeping your secret. Whatever she may say to you about this marriage in private, she’d never breathe a word to the world at large.”
Henry lowered his wine cup. “You think she will not approve?”
Geoffrey’s mouth twitched. “The empress will counsel you to wed Eleanor as soon as she is free to do so. But I suspect that the mother will find it deplorable that her beloved son must settle for damaged goods.”
He saw Henry’s head come up at that, and held up a hand to stave off his protest. “You do not like that, do you? Well, you’d best get used to hearing it, Harry, for you will be marrying a woman whose honour is frayed around the edges, or so men think.”
“Spiteful gossip and slander,” Henry said scornfully, and Geoffrey shrugged.
“Gossip is still something we all have to live with, lad. If you can ignore it, more power to you. Look, Harry, I am not saying I believe the stories. I told you honestly on the road to Paris that I do not know if the rumors about Eleanor are true. Nor will I lie to you now just because it would be what you want to hear. Eleanor might well be as pure and chaste as the Blessed Lady Mary. Or she may indeed have strayed. But-”
“If she did, Louis gave her cause!”
“I am not arguing with you, lad. You need not defend her to me. But I will give you some advice, and I hope you heed me. Let it lie. Decide now that whatever may or may not have happened in her past is between Eleanor and her confessor, and do not pry. Can you do that?”
“Yes,” Henry said, after a long pause. “But I still say rumors prove nothing. Accusing a woman of wantonness is the easiest way to discredit her, for some of the mud is always sure to stick.”
