his heart, she entwined bright golden strands of chest hair around her forefinger, tugging gently. He already had an early morning erection, and she could feel it swelling against her thigh as her fingers trailed across his belly. He kept his eyes shut, pretending still to sleep until her intimate caresses evoked an involuntary gasp. Laughing, she rolled over into his arms, and did her very best to reward him for being so responsive to her overtures.
Eleanor would never have admitted, even to herself, that she was beginning to feel the first stirrings of insecurity. She had a beautiful woman’s confidence, which had indeed often bordered on arrogance, for she’d been accustomed to bedazzling men since her fifteenth year. But marriage to a much younger man, one with a roving eye, had made her vulnerable in a way she’d never anticipated and was not yet willing to acknowledge, not consciously. For now, she assuaged these instinctive and unfamiliar pricklings of foreboding with the sweet balm of seduction, finding reassurance as well as pleasure in her husband’s eager embrace.
The fire had burned out during the night and servants were attempting to rekindle it. Henry’s squire was searching in a coffer, selecting his king’s clothes for the day while he flirted with Veronique, the newest and youngest of Eleanor’s ladies-in-waiting. Listening to the commotion filling the chamber, Henry and Eleanor realized that they could no longer keep the world at bay. But for now, the bedcurtains remained drawn, giving them a few more moments of precious semiprivacy. Leaning over, Henry smoothed his wife’s dark cloud of hair back from her face. “I’d better get out of this bed ere you cripple me.”
He didn’t move, though, and Eleanor smiled at him lazily. “Well, then you could boast it was a war wound, gotten in the service of your queen.”
Henry laughed and tightened his arms around her. “Ah, but I am going to miss you,” he said, and then reluctantly reached out to open the bed hangings and start their day.
Eleanor sat up, too, catching his hand. “You’re here but one night and already planning your departure?” she asked, not able to hide her dismay. “Where do you mean to go now?”
“Not me, love… you. I need you to return to England.”
“Why?”
“Because I’ve been gone from its shores for more than a year and I cannot leave Normandy just yet, not until I’ve patched up a peace with Louis and made sure our plans to wed our children have not been jeopardized. I know I have a good man in Leicester. But I’d feel more secure, Eleanor, if you were there to watch over our English interests. Leicester is merely my justiciar; you’re my consort.”
Eleanor was silent for a moment, sorting out conflicting urges. As Henry’s wife, she was troubled by the prospect of another long separation, and even more troubled that he was not. But as his queen, she was pleased that he had such faith in her. She’d been disappointed that he’d not given her a larger role in his decision-making, and she harbored an unwelcome suspicion that he valued his mother’s advice more than he did hers. It was heartening, therefore, that he wanted her to be his eyes and ears in England, even if it did mean sleepless nights in a cold, lonely bed.
“When do you want me to go, Harry?”
“Soon, love, mayhap after the Christmas revelries. Is that agreeable to you?”
“No,” she said, “but it is acceptable.”
The seacoast manor of Aber was the favorite residence of Owain Gwynedd. On this frigid night in late December, not even a well-stoked hearth could dispel the chill that was pervading his bedchamber. Settling back in his chair, Owain studied his son. Hywel was drinking deeply from a brimming cup of mead, putting the cup down with a satisfied smile.
“I got to fancy some of the French wines, but I missed mead and, believe it or not, the wet Welsh climate. I suffered a few minor injuries in the course of Harry’s war, but nothing gave me more discomfort than the sunburn I got in Quercy!”
Owain smiled, too. “And did you get to meet the English queen, as you’d hoped?”
“At Poitiers. She is as beautiful as men say, and too clever by half, I suspect.” Hywel could not resist glancing toward his father’s concubine as he spoke, an insinuation that was not lost upon Cristyn. Taking up her mantle, she slipped unobtrusively from the chamber.
Owain’s interest in Eleanor was peripheral. “Tell me,” he said, “of the English king. I notice you call him Harry now. You found him likable, then?”
“Yes, I suppose I did. He looks upon life with a humorous eye, and for a man reputed to have the Devil’s own temper, I never saw him unleash it upon the truly defenseless. It helped, too, that he laughed at my jokes!”
“What are his failings?” Owain asked, and leaned forward intently to hear his son’s answer.
“He thinks he can get whatever he sets his mind upon.”
“God help him, then,” Owain said dryly. “Is that why he attempted to lay claim to Toulouse?”
“I think it was in part to please his woman, and in part because he thought he could win it without paying too high a price. Becoming a king at one and twenty has made him rather cocky, prone to overvalue his own abilities and undervalue those of his opponents.”
“Does he, indeed?” Owain said thoughtfully. “That is most useful to know, Hywel. But I’ll confess that I am uneasy about his hunger for lands not his. Your friend Ranulf sought to assure me that he had no desire to swallow Wales whole. Think you that he is right?”
“Well… we are a much poorer country than Toulouse and that probably works to our advantage. Harry is a practical man for all his youth, and I cannot see him lusting after a land that has no towns, little sun, and more sheep than people!”
“Ranulf said also that if we provoked him into all-out war, he’d be the most dangerous foe I’ve ever faced. What say you to that, Hywel?”
Hywel didn’t hesitate. “Ranulf spoke true. I have no doubts whatsoever about that.”
“I would say, then, that your time in these foreign lands has served us well.”
Owain was usually sparing with his praise and Hywel flushed with pleasure. Draining his cup, he pushed his chair away from the table. “It is late,” he said, “and I’d best find a bed over in the hall ere they are all taken.”
Owain nodded. “I am glad,” he said, “to have you home,” and Hywel departed with a light step and a lingering smile.
Outside, the sky was clear, stars gleaming in its ebony vastness like celestial fireflies. It was bitterly cold, and Hywel’s every breath trailed after him in pale puffs of smoke. The glazed snow crackled underfoot as he started toward the great hall. He’d taken only a few steps when a ghostly, graceful figure glided from the shadows into his path.
Hywel came to a halt. “Were you waiting to bid me good night, Cristyn? How kind.”
Cristyn pulled down her hood. The face upturned to his was bleached by the moonlight, her eyes dark and fathomless. “I was hoping,” she said, “that you’d not come back.”
“I missed you, too,” he drawled and heard her draw a breath, sharp as a serpent’s hiss.
“I know what you are up to,” she warned, “and it will avail you naught. You may be Owain’s spy, but you’ll never be his heir.”
“You might want to check with my father ere you settle the succession for him. I daresay he has an idea or two on that particular subject.”
Cristyn gave him a stare colder even than the December night. “You will not cheat Davydd of his birthright.”
Hywel laughed softly. “Now if I were facing you across a battlefield, darling, I might be worried. But little brother Davydd? He could not out-fight a flock of drunken whores. Ask him to tell you sometime about the night he balked at paying for services rendered and the outraged bawd chased him through the streets of Bangor, walloping him with a broom.”
Hywel waited to see if she would respond. When she did not, he walked on, still laughing under his breath. Cristyn stayed where she was, as if rooted to the frozen earth, watching as he sauntered toward the hall. But he never looked back.
CHAPTER NINE
