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Now we’re back to offer our weekly free Romance excerpt, and if you aren’t among those who have downloaded Heirs & Spares, you’re in for a real treat:
Heirs & Spares (The Realm Book 1)
by J. L. Spohr
It’s 1569. Elizabeth I sits on the English throne, the Reformation inflames the Continent, and whispers of war abound.
But in Troixden, just north of France, the Lady Annelore isn’t interested in politics. Times are hard, taxes are high, and the people in her duchy need her help just to survive. Her widowed father is a good man easily distracted by horses, and her newly knighted childhood friend…well, he has plans of his own.
Then Annelore receives a call she can’t ignore.
When Troixden’s sadistic king died childless, his younger brother William returns from exile to find his beloved country on the brink of civil war. He’s in desperate need of the stability that comes with a bride and heirs. But Annelore, his chosen queen, won’t come quietly.
Now the future of Troixden lies in the hands of two people who never wanted the power they’ve received and never dreamed that from duty and honor they might find love and a path to peace.
Heirs & Spares is one part history, two parts palace plotting, and a whole lot of juicy romantic intrigue. Break out the spiced wine and sink in to this rousing read.
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And here, for your reading pleasure, is our free excerpt:
CHAPTER 1
Milady
In the far-flung duchy of Beaubourg, where the Truss Mountain foothills tumble soft and green to the sea, Annelore, biting her cheek in concentration, tended to the blacksmith’s broken leg. He was splayed atop the table in his rank kitchen, struggling in vain not to whimper.
She massaged his lower thigh to relax the knee, then pounced, pinning his leg down with a strength that belied her small frame.
“You’ve got to keep the leg straight, Charity,” Annelore said. “Like this.”
Charity screwed up her fresh, freckled face, tried to help, then backed up to the wash basin. Mary, Annelore’s maid, took over.
The smith bit down hard on a leather strap.
“Ungh…”
Annelore wrung out a rag and moved to the top of his head, stroking back his hair.
“One more adjustment and we’re done.” She smiled at him, took out the strap, and wiped it on her silk skirts. He took it back to his mouth, steadying his breath.
Mary, face stern, sleeves up to elbows, apron covered in salve and blood, stood at the ready by his foot. Annelore returned to his leg. They needed to realign the bone, drain the pus, and pray to God the infection did not spread.
Annelore laid her torso on his thigh as Mary grabbed hold of his foot and calf. Charity backed further away, knocking over dirty dishes with a clang. Anna and Mary exchanged a nod.
“One,” Mary said. “Two. Threeee—”
The blacksmith’s howl rang in the rafters.
###
Annelore retreated to her gardens as soon as she and Mary were back at Castle Beaubourg. She squatted in the dirt, plunged her grimy, bloody hands into the cool earth, and began lifting the last of the sage into a raised bed.
Plants died, of course, but at least they didn’t grip her hands and beg her to save them when she knew there was nothing more to be done. Plants didn’t have to bury their children. Plants merely drooped or refused to thrive, silently bearing their grievances only to sprout anew the next year. The blacksmith’s leg would not be so resilient.
“Don’t be taking it out on the herbs.” Mary had come up behind her.
Annelore sat back on her haunches and saw she was practically choking the stalk.
“Owk—” She plunked it in the ground.
“Annelore!” The duke leaned out the kitchen window, calling into the sunny June day. “Annnaaaaa!”
She brushed a tendril of brown hair off her cheek, leaving a smudge of earth in its place.
“What is it, Papa?” Even from that distance she saw the delight in his face.
“Anna! Bryan is here—you must come to see. I’m in fits at the very sight of him! Dust yourself off, my dear, make haste.”
She grabbed a basket full of pruned peppermint and fennel and came into the kitchen, Mary following.
“Papa,” she said, a hand on her hip, “certainly he has seen me in much worse.” And she him. She had first met Bryan when they were children, he peeing pictures in the snow.
“Have you forgot what this week is, my dear?” Her father ruffled her hair. “Or do you forget your oldest and dearest friend unless he’s right in front of your nose?”
Anna clapped her hands. She thought her mood could not be lifted, but this—how could she have forgotten?
“And here I have nothing to give him but peppermint!”
“I daresay your smile will be sufficient.”
She tore through the castle, tossing her filthy apron on the Great Hall table as she flew past. She washed her hands as best she could, pinched extra color into her cheeks, then hurried into the stable yard to find Bryan mounted on his steed.
She stopped short. He wore full chain-mail regalia—he was positively glowing.
“Bryan!” she called. “Or do I say Sir Bryan now?”
He dismounted, fell into a bow, and doffed his helmet, revealing all that golden hair.
“My lady,” he said.
Laughing, she ran to him.
“Our very own knight, newly minted!”
He lifted her up and swung her around, laughing himself.
“Yes, my dear, ’tis true.”
“Well done.” She paused a moment when he set her down, hands on his cheeks, taking him in. He released her and she took his arm.
“And what of court? What of the new king? Even more wicked than his brother? What wore the ladies? What did they serve you?”
“Questions, questions—you’re worse than my mother,” he said. “But let’s walk and I’ll tell you all there is to tell, starting with silk—the ladies wear burgundy silk.”
“Owk, and here I am in blue damask.”
“Even in a woolen tunic you would shine like a princess amongst all of those painted peacocks.”
She blushed, looked down at her hands, and picked at sediment under the stubbed nails.
“Court has no use for Beaubourg and I have no use for it,” she said as they set off toward their favorite spot, the willow tree by the stream at the far end of the east meadow.
“Oh, I think we’d make a fine pair there. Don’t you? The Knight of Beaubourg and his lady love?”
“Court just seems such a whole other world,” she said. “’Tis almost as if you’ve traveled home from the Far East.” They reached the willow. “And I suppose the ladies were no less exotic…”
Bryan reached for her but lost his footing and the two of them tumbled down to the soft moss below in peals of pleasure.
Anna lay on her back, pulling at the new summer grass. Bryan propped himself up on an elbow as best he could, shining suitor at her side. The sun dappled their faces, a soft breeze lifting the willow branches like a swishing skirt over their heads. He picked up a lock of her chestnut hair and wrapped it around his finger.
“May I be lashed severely if I thought even one held a candle to you, my love.” He gave her hair a kiss. She made a face.
“I see they haven’t spared your education in the art of courtly love.”
He laughed, then gave a drawn-out sigh and threw himself, clanking, on to his back.
“You vex me, Anna. One day I think you love me, the next you don’t. One day we’re to marry and care for your father in his old age, the next you shall never marry and I’ll be cast out to haunt the lands sad and alone.”
“Well, then, shall we find out today’s answer?” She picked a clover daisy, smiled, and began to pluck its petals. “I love you, I love you not, I love you, I love you not—”
Bryan grabbed the flower, tossed it aside, and seized both her hands in his.
“Annelore, hear me.”
She cocked an eyebrow.
“Now don’t tease,” he said. “Being knighted—it’s made me take a firmer look at the future. Even the king is casting about for a wife. I too want my future to be secure, to be settled. You know I’ve planned for us…” He looked into her dark eyes and swallowed. “You’ll be twenty-one by month’s end, well past time to marry—”
“And my father will finally relent to any suitors I may have, yes, I know.” She kissed him gently on the hand. Bryan scowled and pulled away.
“Bryan, you know you’re the nearest and dearest person in the world to me, forsaking Father and Mary. Be of good cheer. Why would he refuse you?” She picked up his fallen right hand, intertwining their fingers.
“But you’ll tell him, won’t you?” He smiled. “That it’s what we both want? We can start our own little family soon—the girls will look like you and the boys like me, and—”
“And any second now you’ll be naming our grandchildren.” She patted his hand and smiled at his frown. “Come now, tell me more of court.”
Relenting his talk of love, he told her of the grandeur of Palace Havenside, its courtiers and feasts, becoming even more animated when he talked of the king.
“I met him once, when I was a child,” Anna said. “He was kind to me then but he’s sure to be a brute now. Just like the rest of his family, God rest their souls—if he must.”
“He’s no brute, Anna. He—”
“What?” She could feel her cheeks turn hot. “I for one have had enough of his family. Beaubourg’s wool market sold more than ever, but we saw no profit—though I’m sure the crown did. Not to mention the—”
“Anna, I tell you, this King William…” He paused. “There’s something in his countenance—something in his manner of being, in the set of his jaw… I can’t describe it.” He looked up, as if the right words might be found in the wind. “I would follow the man wherever ordered, even straight down the road to hell.”
“I see the drink at court is quite strong.”
“Don’t.” He scowled, then lay back and sighed. “Speaking of hell, this waiting for us to wed grinds my soul.”
“Tush, tush. I say again, Sir Bryan,” she gave him a dazzling smile she knew would appease him, “you must wait till my father is at his leisure—”
He interrupted her with a kiss full on the lips. She broke away and stood up, dusting off her skirts.
“I must bid you adieu for a time,” she said, “but come sup with us—we are to fete you properly.”
“Mother won’t have it.” He gave her a half smile. “She’s impatient to hear more of court and the goings on.”
She started to back away from him up the hill.
“For heaven’s sake bring her along, and your brothers and Charity too. That’s an official order from the House of Carver and the Duke of Beaubourg.”
With that, she turned heel and ran back home. When she reached the castle’s outer gate, she looked back at their tree and saw him still sitting beneath it, plucking a clover daisy, sun splattering his armor with shocks of light.
Sweet boy.
###
“He can’t be serious.” A blond curl escaped Lady Margaux’s headdress and quivered with the ire of its mistress.
Robert, Duke of Norwick, seated behind his desk piled high with papers, arched a black brow and considered her.
“Dear sis, while the king isn’t thrilled, he has steeled himself to his duty.” He signed a contract with a flourish, blew off the blotting dust, and gave the parchment to his secretary, whom he dismissed with a flick. Robert made his way to the front of his desk and perched on the edge.
“We need an heir—one of Troixden blood, not of some foreign country that will pitch us into war with the Empire or the French.”
“Save your lecture for council! How dare you recall me to court for this? Even your wife hinted that I—”
Robert glared at her. She waited for his entourage to exit, smiling sweetly at the bows they gave her as they left. With the close of the door she was at him again.
“How dare my own brother go along in recommending His Majesty look outside court for such a match? Have you no heed for your family?”
Robert was up and twisting her arm before she could move. She yelped.
“Keep your voice down!” he whispered. “You come here screaming like a banshee about succession when King James’s grave is barely cold, William one month on the throne, and I next in line?”
He thrust her toward the window, where she tripped onto the waiting settee, her skirt a wine-red cloud swelling about her.
“Don’t pretend you have no interest in the throne,” she said. “Friend or no, you want your boys in our fair cousin Will’s place.”
Robert turned to the girl he had once adored, the girl he had played knight and princess with, rescuing her from dragons and stern tutors. Now she sat there, a shrill annoyance, twitching her nose like a rodent. Perhaps not a rodent—her nose was too lovely for that, even he could admit.
“And how does your becoming queen get me or mine any closer to the throne? My sons would be well behind any brats you’d bear—”
“Perhaps I wouldn’t have any brats.” She crossed her arms and frowned out the windows at an early summer gloom.
“The king will have children—it’s the entire point of the marriage. And with one as virile as His Majesty, he’ll be fathering children like Abraham.”
“There are ways women know to keep children from coming.”
Robert walked over to the settee and frowned down at her.
“’Tis vile, what you speak of—and unholy.”
“Then what if the king should pass before I conceive?”
Robert was upon her in a second. He jerked her off the settee and shoved her, shoulders first, into the stone wall.
“Listen to yourself! You come to my rooms in the middle of the day while the king’s away and speak of his death!”
She had the grace to flinch.
“Do you not think all eyes are upon me?” he said. “Do you think because he and I are old friends I’m immune to his vengeance?”
He held her a moment longer until her perfect face crumpled like a crushed flower, then dropped his hands and walked back to his desk.
“Guards!” he called.
Margaux stood where he left her, shriveled against the wall like a dead spider.
“Please show my sister the door,” he said when the guards came. “And my lady, I trust I won’t be hearing from you anytime soon.”
She straightened to her full height, regal as ever, gave Robert a small curtsy, and preceded the guards out, leaving him alone with his discomfited thoughts.
###
Anna returned to the castle to find her father doling out coins to a royal messenger at the foot of the Great Hall table. The little man doffed his feathered cap and left the duke holding a letter sealed in thick, red wax.
“Well, what news?”
“’Tis from the king,” he said.
“And why do you not open it?”
“You’d like me to read it?” He smiled.
Anna put her hands on her hips.
“If it’s not too much trouble.”
He turned it round and round, ever so slowly broke the great seal with a knobby finger, and began to read to himself.
“Out loud, Papa, out loud.”
The duke’s mouth curled into a smile.
“But of course, my lady—if you demand it.”
“Owk!” She stamped a foot, but couldn’t help her own grin.
He cleared his throat and began.
“From His Royal Highness, King William the Second of the Mighty Kingdom of Troixden, to His Grace the Honorable Duke Stephen of Beaubourg et cetera, et cetera…” He scanned the letter, lips twitching. “Ah! Here’s the meat: On a matter of both personal and national import, Our Royal Person shall arrive to Castle Beaubourg on the fifth of June, the year of Our Lord fifteen-hundred and sixty-nine. All persons of the House of Carver are obligated to attend…”
“June fifth? That’s the morrow!”
“The courier said there were some delays on the road…”
While the duke continued reading Anna hollered for Mary, who was peering over the ledge of the balcony above them, outside Anna’s chamber.
“I’ve already started on the beds,” Mary called down, “and I suppose we’ll be having to strangle the swans for feasting.”
“Surely not.” Anna looked over at her father. “We don’t want things too pleasant, lest His Majesty want Beaubourg for himself. For why else would he lower himself to come here? We’ve been disdained by court for years.”
The duke, still reading, pursed his lips and frowned.
“Papa?”
“We must ready the castle—no time to waste. You as well, my dear—and until the royal party leaves, there’ll be no more digging about like a mole!”
She was about to make a retort, but glanced at her hands and thought better of it.
CHAPTER 2
His Highness
The royal carriage was stuck—again—leaving the freshly crowned King William II and Daniel, Duke of Cecile, standing in the mud under a hastily erected canopy. It did not put the king in a courting frame of mind.
As William’s closest friend and advisor, Daniel was as new to Council Table as the king to his throne. It was against all tradition to name a novice to such high standing, an unpopular decision in any case thanks to Daniel’s being a bastard, in lineage if not in manner. But the king was happy to have his friend by his side again.
Except at the moment. At the moment, William could have wrung his neck. Although, to be fair, much of the king’s anger derived from endless talk about the inevitable royal marriage. Daniel had just told him, not for the first time, that a willing bride would not be hard to find.
“Can she not be comely as well as willing?” William said.
“I don’t see why not, Majesty.” Daniel said. “You’ve the face of a man who’s seen and loved the world, the smile of a contented soul, the wise blue eyes of your mother, may she rest in peace—”
William rolled his wise blue eyes.
“You sound like a courtier wanting another title.”
“I think you’ve done enough for me already.” Daniel looked at his feet and blushed. “Besides, you’ve not exactly had a hard road where women are concerned…”
Daniel kept talking, but William had heard it all before. With the effects of his family’s disastrous, bloody reigns still lingering and the heretical Germans hoping to take a bite out of his realm, the crown needed security. The country needed stability. William needed heirs and spares and he needed them soon.
“Negotiating with England for the hand of Elizabeth appeals more and more at the moment.” William looked at his men working valiantly and thus far fruitlessly to dislodge the carriage wheels from the thick mud.
Daniel smiled in his quiet way.
“Majesty, you’ve been out of the realm these fifteen years in lands hostile to the Holy Father. To marry a heretic—”
“I know, I know.” William watched his straining men, itching to put his own shoulder to the task. “We’ve been through the debate most heartily. Besides, she’s too old for our purposes—though not much older than my creaky self.”
He began creating little haphazard rivers and tributaries in the sludge with his foot. “But at least I’d be dry. And her wit would make me merry. And I daresay, if our past acquaintance is any indication, she wouldn’t find the idea abhorrent.”
Daniel watched the progress of William’s miniature riverbed for a minute, then frowned and looked up at him.
“You’re but thirty, sire. And since when has Your Majesty ever balked in the face of such exploits as—”
“It’s William when just the two of us.” He clapped his friend on the back. “Didn’t think I had to tell you that twice. And as for exploits, I’ve never had to tromp through fields, forests, and foulness in such absurd costume.” He held up his arms, showing his damp royal finery. “As king come a-courting, I cut a damned sorry sight.”
Daniel looked at William’s mournful expression and pouted his lips in consideration.
“Yes, friend,” William said, “I’ll give you all the gold in the realm if you can spin this yarn into something agreeable.”
Daniel swallowed a smile.
“We can head south, turn back to—”
“Turn back?” William said. “As you say, our people already have a foul opinion of their sovereign. Shall they now find a little mud forces him to retreat on his tour?”
“They shan’t, Majes—William.”
“Then let’s review our route. Again.” William rubbed his large hands together as if to magic away the damp. “Why on earth we started by going north…”
“Seven duchies. Seven ladies. Seven chances to charm your people—”
“I’m sure the people of Hosmer were quite charmed as we sloshed through town in a hail of filth and rain, not even stopping for a royal wave.” William grimaced at the thought of what his brother had done to their land.
“Hosmer is not even the halfway point,” Daniel said, “and we’d already been delayed over four hours. We may have to skip Beaubourg entirely—”
William looked up at the canopy just as a large drop of rain hit him square on the nose. He swore.
“We’ll not skip it. Though the duke will have to wait.” He massaged his jaw, feeling its close-cropped stubble. “As will the rest.”
At the rate they were moving, the Duke of Beaubourg would have to wait quite a while.
###
That evening, Anna retired to her chamber. Mary was standing ready with a hot bath and Anna’s most luxurious gown hung to air.
“Oh Mary,” she said, stretching her arms to the air, “what a day, and what a morrow.”
To Anna, Mary was frozen in time, smelling of spice-bread and roses. As a child Anna had spent many a night nestled against Mary’s ample bosom as the nurse sang away the witches and goblins.
“What a day indeed, m’dear. Now off with your filthy clothes and into the tub.” Mary helped Anna out of her day dress and into the copper bath in front of the fire, then set to scrubbing Anna’s hair with a frenzy normally reserved for an outbreak of lice.
“Do you want me to go bald?” Anna said.
She turned to her nurse who, holding the ends of Anna’s dripping tresses in her knobby, calloused hands, continued unabated to thwack the dark locks into submission.
“Mary, do you think he means to take our lands?”
Mary stopped and looked square at Anna, opened her mouth, seemed to reconsider, then snapped it shut.
“I’ll be saying nothing about the whole matter—I’m just a servant here, after all.”
Everyone was so peculiar today. Even Anna’s brown cat Mae sulked under the bed, refusing to come out. Perhaps it was the approaching dark clouds from the sea harkening yet another storm that put them all to such brooding.
Anna resettled herself in the deep tub.
“Once he sees our natural splendors, how could he not want them for the crown?” she said. “And then what would happen to us all?” If she had to start wearing muslin again to keep food on the tables of her people, she would do it.
“Well, m’love, as I said, I’ll not say a thing about it.” Mary helped Anna out of the bath and into a towel, then her shift. “’Cepting I think he’s here for some other reason altogether.”
Anna, looking at her, saw tears starting in her eyes.
“Mary, whatever is the matter?” She thought of her father. Was he going to be called away? How could she manage running Beaubourg by herself?
“Tell me or I shan’t sleep a wink!”
Mary patted her head.
“’Tis nothing, dearie. The early summer winds are making me head fuzzy.” She
went about turning down the bed, Anna following right behind.
“Tell me or I’ll leave my candle burning all night and read the whole of St. Paul’s epistles. Aloud. In the Greek.”
“You wouldn’t do that to your old Mary, now would ye?” She wouldn’t meet Anna’s eyes.
“If it’s about Papa…”
“Don’t be playing on my old heart, dearie. I told you ’tis not my place. But I daresay you’ve nothing to badger me about.”
Anna sighed. She would not be getting more information from her unusually tight-lipped maid. Perhaps things would be clearer in the morning. She climbed into bed and opened her precious Bible.
While Protestantism was gaining purchase in other lands, the Pope still held sway in Troixden. And the gentry were expected to know their Scripture, if only to appear learned. If they had a Bible at all. Anna enjoyed the stories—they fed her sense of adventure and drama. She loved the wisdom and poetry, the epic tales. Every night she read until her candle burned out or her eyes fluttered to a close.
Mary, who slept in Anna’s chamber, patted her shoulder.
“Not too late, dearie. You’ll be needing your sleep.”
Anna arched a brow.
“For what, pray tell?”
Mary shook her head and Anna smiled through a yawn.
“I’m tired—and in Leviticus. I’ll soon be asleep.”
She watched Mary give her one last lingering look and wipe away another tear from a creased eye.
###
It was getting on eleven the following evening, and the entire House of Carver, from the lowest stable hand to the duke himself, stood at attention in Castle Beaubourg’s courtyard. The rain was misting, a fine drizzle that showed no sign of letting up.
Anna had been up and down and up and down what seemed like twenty times that day. No one dared touch the feast—now gone cold—and no one dared take a bit of leisure, lest His High and Mighty arrive without warning. They had been kept apprised of the king’s halting progress by a succession of messengers, all claiming His Majesty would arrive soon, the last one having left them a half-hour ago.
He’d been due early that afternoon.
Blast these royals! Anna shivered in her damp gown. Selfish, slow, full of their own airs. The butcher’s wife due with her babe any moment and Mary and I stuck here.
She heard the thick clomp of hooves fast approaching. No doubt another fleet of messengers. She’d go to bed after this final insult, king or no.
Just as she turned to go to her father to beg his permission, twelve horses tore into the yard, mud flying, whining and wet, their riders bedraggled in their court dress. A tall, cloaked man at the center dismounted in haste, barely waiting for his black beast to halt, the others scrambling after him.
“Your Grace,” the man said, striding to her father, not bothering to pull back his hood. His boots were covered with mud. How disrespectful of her father’s rank and wait! They were all alike, no matter what Bryan said.
“Please accept our most humble apologies for our tardiness,” the man said. “It seems the weather up north frowns upon our journey. And as you can tell from our state, we have been stuck a long while.”
Anna gasped as she realized who he was.
“Your Majesty,” her father said, taking the king’s proffered hand and kissing his ring. “’Tis a trifle to wait upon such an honor. Please, let us retire to dryness and warmth.”
The two men entered the castle followed by another four of the king’s party. Anna heard the king’s deep voice booming out.
“Our carriage shall be along at some point. Hopefully by the time of our needed departure.”
“Certainly, sire, my men shall attend to every need,” her father said. “They’ll soon be about seeing to your steed. A creature of rare beauty, I might add…”
The voices faded and Anna was finally able to enter the castle, where Mary caught hold of her arm.
“Owk, you look a fright.” She busied about Anna’s hair, which had frizzled in the damp.
“What does it matter? I shall retire and make my official appearance in the morning.” She was tired and didn’t care how the king would look upon such a breach. It served him right, keeping them waiting like this. Weather! What a paltry excuse.
“You’ll do no such thing, my dearie,” Mary said, moving to re-fluff Anna’s sleeves. “’Tis the king who’s here, not some horse trader.”
“And the king needs to learn his manners.”
“By flouting your own? Nay, Anna, you were raised better, if I say so meself.” Mary gave a final shake to Anna’s skirts. “Maybe with the light so dim he’ll not see dirt on the hem.”
Anna stood glowering as more laughter echoed in the hall.
“Out with you.” Mary gave her a little shove on the backside.
Anna walked the few steps to the archway leading to the sunken hall where the men had all sat down to eat, the king at the far end—in her father’s usual place—her father to the king’s right.
The hall was darker than normal, as if the gloom from outside had drifted in with the king’s party and hung over the table. She could barely make out the men’s faces closest to her, shadowed as they all were by this pall that even a surplus of candles could not pierce.
She stopped on the top stair, unsure whether to enter there or go around through the hallway to her father. The laughter was cresting and she noticed the king joining in. He glanced in her direction, stroking his cheek. His smile faded. Even at such a distance she could feel his eyes bore through her. Her heart sped like a sparrow under Mae’s paw.
Benches and chairs scraped the stone floor as the men rose to honor her entrance. The king remained seated, watching. She furrowed her brow at him and saw the flicker of a smile break. So she was entertaining, was she?
“Your Highness,” her father said, hurrying to her side, “may I present my daughter, the Lady Annelore Matilda of Beaubourg.”
Anna curtsied low, glad to avoid the king’s sharp eyes.
“Lady Annelore,” the king said, “we are pleased. And hope you accept our regrets for the lateness of the hour. Please, join us at table.”
At her table.
“Thank you, Majesty,” she said.
She rose and moved to the lone open seat at the far end of the table between two of the royal party, a thin blond man and an older one, heavy and balding. She sat without ceremony, took a long swig of wine and set her goblet down with too much force, hushing the conversation enough to attract Bryan’s attention. He gave her a sheepish look from across the table.
She picked up a fork and stabbed at a piece of cold venison. Meat secure, mouth open, and morsel halfway to its mark, she looked up to find the king still staring at her. She put her bite down slowly, her eyes following it to her plate.
Dammit. Stop looking at me with those blasted eyes!
“By all means, dear lady, eat,” he said. The men were silent, everyone now waiting for her next move.
“Begging your pardon, Majesty,” she said, eyes glued to her plate. “As we long awaited your party, I had not a moment to eat since noontime.” She knew it was rude, but it should stop his stares.
“Of course,” the king said. She thankfully felt his eyes leave her. “Your Grace, tell me more of your stables.”
This was the cue for the rest of the men to resume eating and talking. How skittish they all seemed, all save the two flanking her. The one to her left, the fat one, reached out and patted her forearm.
“Pay no heed, my lady,” he said. She glanced up to find hazel eyes dancing in the dim candlelight.
“I especially enjoy the plum sauce with the venison,” he said. “Finer plum sauce is not even found in Havenside I daresay.”
His smile was so sincere she couldn’t help smiling back.
“The Duke of Halforn at your service, my lady.” He made a little twirling salute with his hand. “And the gentleman to your right is Daniel, the Duke of Cecile.”
Daniel turned to her, nodded, smiled.
“My lady, it is indeed a pleasure. And His Grace is correct—the plum sauce surpasses that of even Rome.”
“Your Grace has been to Rome?”
His pale cheeks flushed. She had not been able to mask her eagerness.
“Yes, my lady, but I did not mean to boast, only to compliment the sauce.”
“But of course. I merely wish to—it’s just that… please, Your Grace, speak to me of your travels.”
Daniel acquiesced with almost enough details to satisfy her, the jolly Halforn interjecting his wit until the talk of travels finally subsided.
“So it’s true. Your Ladyship has a learned mind,” Halforn said through a mouthful of sweetbread. “If only my daughters would take a lesson from you, my dear.”
“What you have heard, Your Grace?” How could anyone outside of Beaubourg have heard anything about her, let alone the state of her mind? Ah, but of course: Bryan had just returned from court. Halforn laughed.
“Why, it’s our business to know of all the ladies of the land—”
“What His Grace means to say—” Daniel started, but the voice of the king rose above them.
“We are afraid there’s no remedy, Your Grace, as we are already so delayed. We really must away tomorrow morning. Please do not take it as any reflection on your hospitality.”
“Of course not, sire,” her father said. “I only wished you to have the time you needed, as the matter is of such import.”
“Worry not, Your Grace,” the king said. “Things shall present themselves much more clearly after a night’s rest. If her ladyship would be so inclined as to break fast with us, we do not believe our early departure will hamper things.”
“If that be the case, Highness,” Anna said, “I shall to bed now, if you please.”
The king raised his thick brows at her. Her father looked stunned.
“Please excuse my daughter, Highness,” he said. “She is used to less formality, as in usual circumstances only she and I are at table.”
“Think nothing of it, Your Grace,” the king said. “A lady who speaks her mind is one to be admired, is she not?”
Several at the table called out “Here, here!” and raised their glasses in a toast. To her or the king she could not tell.
She pushed herself away from the table.
“Then I shall—”
“You have our leave,” the king said, fixing her in mid-rise with that unnerving stare of his.
How dare he make her feel so small in her own home? But of course, that’s what kings did best.
“Majesty,” she said, dipping into the faintest of curtsies and meeting his gaze with the force of her own, “the distinct honor of your presence has been mine. Please continue to enjoy our hospitality as seems fitting to you.”
With that she turned from all those men with their disconcerted faces and left them to grovel before their tyrant of a king.
