The Harlot’s Daughter

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‘Do your part and perhaps I will provide a grant for your family next year.’

Next year, when the Council’s charter expired and she would still be married to a man who hated her. ‘Your Majesty is ever generous.’

King Richard waved to a page standing outside the door. ‘Summon Lord Justin.’

The King’s summons bode ill, Justin thought, as he entered Richard’s chamber with a brief bow to what looked like twin kings.

Solay stood before the King and Hibernia. She touched her lips when he entered and his blood surged as he remembered the taste of them.

The King’s fury of two hours ago had been replaced with his dangerous, calculating look. ‘It seems the Lady Solay would marry.’

Startled, he ignored the twist in his stomach. Was this not exactly what he had suggested? ‘Most women do.’ He should be grateful the King had backed down from a confrontation with the Council over the woman. Belatedly, the amount she needed seemed minor.

‘You seemed to enjoy her kiss.’

No reason to deny the truth. ‘What man would not?’ He felt a flare of envy for the one who would be her husband and have the right.

‘So, then, you will be pleased to have her as your wife.’

Lust surged through him from staff to fingertips, drowning logic. To be able to bed her, to take her, seemed the only yes in the world.

He saw a flash of fear in her eyes, but she blinked and it was wiped away. Lips slightly parted, she looked up through her lashes as if she were at once trying to seduce him and play the innocent.

He was sure, and the thought brought him pain, that she was not.

His mind regained control over his body. The woman had neither honour nor honesty in her. ‘She is not what she seems,’ he said, the words shaken up through a rusty throat. It was long past time for truth. ‘She does not share a birth date with Your Majesty.’

She flinched and he fought the feeling that he had somehow betrayed her.

‘So she told me,’ the King said. ‘She was misinformed about her birth.’ He smiled. ‘As was I. Lady Solay seems to have some talent as a reader of the stars.’

‘Or so she has convinced you. Did she also confess that her flattering verse was borrowed?’

Her eyes widened in surprise. Justin smiled, grimly. Had she expected he would keep her secrets for ever?

The King frowned, shifting on his chair. ‘So you already know what a clever woman she is.’

‘I would prefer an honest wife to a clever one.’ It was not only the King he must dissuade. It was himself.

‘You have difficult requirements, Lamont,’ the King continued. ‘You’ve already turned down two honest heiresses most younger sons would have embraced with fervour.’

He met Solay’s eyes again, full of fresh pain. Just as that first time when she entered the Great Hall, he could not break away from the force that flowed between them.

‘Speak.’ The King’s voice seemed to come across a great distance. ‘Will you have her?’

What would the King do if he said ‘no’? Give her to Redmon? The man likely pushed his last wife down the stairs when she became quarrelsome over his dalliances.

Solay mouthed the word ‘please’. Her pleading, desperate eyes held echoes of another woman, another time. He had not been able to save that one.

For a moment, nothing else mattered.

‘Yes,’ he said, his gaze never leaving Solay.

The word stood between them, a pillar of fire. She released a breath and a smile trembled on her lips.

Having broken the spell, he found a kernel of sense left in his brain. This time he would not sacrifice his happiness for a woman he could not trust. This time he would be sure there was an escape.

He faced the King. ‘But I have a condition.’

The King frowned. ‘Condition?’

‘I must be convinced that she loves me.’

She gasped and he smiled at her. It was an unusual demand, and, in this case, an impossible one. Yet he had seen the disaster of a marriage forced. He would not brook it again.

The King dismissed him with a wave. ‘I never thought you a man who believed the love poems, Lamont. Love can come later as my dear wife and I discovered.’

Having planned his escape, he found he could breathe again. ‘Nevertheless, the Church requires we both consent freely. If I have stated a condition that is not met, the marriage will not be valid.’

He and Richard glared at each other. Even the King could not deny the power of the Church.

Solay glanced at the King. ‘Allow us a word, Your Majesty.’

They stepped out of earshot of the King. As she touched his arm, he struggled to keep his mind in control.

‘I know you care nothing for my life, but have you no care for your own? You are angering the King beyond reason.’

‘I told you not to let him force you. And I won’t be forced either.’

‘There is fire between us, Justin,’ she whispered, but her fingers choked his arm. ‘I am willing and I shall learn to love you.’

He steeled himself against the fear in her voice. ‘If I believe a word of love you say, I’ll be sadly deluded. I have bought you some time to find a man you really want to marry. Perhaps you can convince some other fool of your love.’

He stepped away from her to face the King again, relieved to be removed from her touch. ‘I stand by my word.’

‘Nevertheless,’ the King said, smiling, ‘I shall have the first banns read next Sunday.’

Sunday. The reality of what he had done pressed on his shoulders like a stone.

‘So soon?’ she asked. ‘We cannot wed until Lent is over.’

Hibernia cut in. ‘There’s time enough for you to marry before Lent begins.’

‘We won’t be married at all unless I am convinced of her love,’ Justin said.

The King shrugged. ‘Very well. Lady Solay, you have until the end of Lent to convince him of your love.’ His look turned menacing. ‘And, Lamont, you have until the end of Lent to be convinced.’

Chapter Six

Solay ran after Justin as he left the King’s solar, determined to begin her campaign to convince him she would be a loving and pliable mate.

She touched his arm to stop him before he reached the end of the hallway.

‘I shall ask the King’s permission to visit my mother and inform her of the impending marriage,’ she began. ‘Would you accompany me?’

‘No.’

‘Later, then. I would not interfere with your work—’

‘Solay, stop. This is folly.’

‘You were the one who suggested I marry.’

‘I did not mean to me.’

‘Then why did you agree?’ Surely her whispered ‘please’ could not have convinced him. ‘You care nothing for the King’s approval.’

He met her eyes with that cold honesty she had come to know, yet a hint of caring shadowed his gaze. ‘I did not want him to force you.’

‘I was not forced. I want this marriage.’ If she said the words more loudly, would they sound more convincing?

‘You want a marriage, not a marriage to me.’

I don’t have a choice! The thought screamed in her head. Without this marriage, she would return home empty-handed.

She tried to calm her mind. Fighting him would get her no closer to learning the Council’s secrets.

She leaned against his chest. All those courtiers who had fawned over her mother for the King’s sake, what words did they use? ‘I think the King suggested we marry because he could see how much I already love you.’

He undraped her like an unwanted blanket. ‘For someone with so much practice, you’re a poor liar.’

No one else had ever thought so. ‘Why can you not believe me? You feel the attraction between us.’

His eyes burned into hers. ‘Lust, yes. I would lie if I denied that.’

She could feel his breath on her cheek, feel the tingle starting again deep inside her. He moved nearer and she closed her eyes, lifting her chin. Now. Now he would kiss her.

Suddenly the air was empty of him. She opened her eyes to see him standing out of reach, arms crossed. ‘But lust is not love.’

She forced her eyelashes to flutter. ‘But it can be a start, can it not?’

He shook his head. ‘I am not a senile King looking for someone to warm my bed. I demand more than your body.’

What else did a woman have? ‘The King lusted after many women who shared his bed. My mother shared much more.’

‘Let me tell you why you said “yes”.’ He held a finger to her lips to stop her from interrupting. ‘You agreed to please the King. And I assure you, whatever reasons he had for this marriage are for his benefit, not yours.’

She said a silent prayer that he never discovered the real reason. ‘Perhaps they were for your benefit. Isn’t it high time you took a wife?’

‘I have no interest in a wife. And if I did, I would not want a viper in my bed. Do you think if we are married I will change my mind about the living you want from the Crown?’

Any ordinary man would. She held her tongue.

He did not wait for her to answer. ‘If you think to share my life, then you will be wasting your time long past Lent. I agreed so you could have time to pursue one of those men who has stared at you moon-eyed. By the end of Lent, you could have a willing husband. One you want, or at least one who wants you.’

‘If we are betrothed, I hardly think others will see me as a potential bride.’

‘Marriage itself doesn’t stop most men,’ he muttered.

She shook his stubborn sleeve. The King had given her a husband. She would have no second chance. ‘But I want this marriage!’

‘Then you will be very disappointed come Eastertide. Nothing you say or do will convince me that you are capable of love for anyone, particularly me.’

As he walked away, she realised that instead of merely pleasing the King, she now had to convince a man who hated her that he should be tied to her for the rest of his life.

Given the task, the forty days of Lent seemed no longer than a flicker.

Within days, Solay left Windsor, riding in solitary splendour in a cart driven by one of the King’s men, to inform her family of the impending marriage.

She rubbed her nose in the fur trim of her new cloak, rehearsing the smile she would wear when she told her mother she was to be wed. She knew not how to explain that she had failed to secure the grant her mother was expecting. Alys of Weston had been away from court too long. She would never understand that a Council might gainsay a King.

Despite her worries, peace melted her bones as the two-storey dower house with the six chimneys came into view. Pretending to be a castle, it was surrounded by a small moat. The whitewash had yellowed and the thatch needed patching, but it was all the home she’d had for the last ten years and more dear now than Windsor’s corridors.

Jane ran out to meet her while her mother looked down from her upstairs window, smiling. Her fair-haired sister, clad in tunic and chausses, seemed to have grown in the weeks Solay had been away. Her boy’s garb could no longer disguise her womanhood.

As they gathered in her mother’s chambers, her mother’s blue-veined hands stroked Solay’s heavy cloak with reverence. ‘The King has given you a magnificent gift. You must have pleased him.’