A Marriage Made in Secret
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Jenni Fletcher
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Chapter One
‘Your Grace!’
Mathilde jumped to her feet in alarm as a boy burst like a small, grinning assassin into the Queen’s withdrawing chamber, provoking a chorus of muffled screams from the gathered ladies. If they’d been in London, she thought, he would have been dragged straight to the Tower for causing such a commotion, but fortunately for him, they were a long way from England, in a palace to the east of Paris on a rainy and uneventful afternoon.
The boy’s cheeks were red and he was panting, but his face was alive with excitement, as if he knew that his intrusion would be a welcome one. To the surprise of almost everyone in the room, he was right. He didn’t say another word, simply dropped down on to one knee, yet Queen Isabella lifted her gaze from the gilt-edged book of Arthurian tales she was reading and smiled.
Isabella, born a Princess of France and now the crowned Queen of England, smiled. Not a slight regal curve of her lips for once either, but a real, rare smile that transformed her whole face and sparked a fiery light in her usually impenetrable blue eyes.
Mathilde watched, enthralled. The first time she’d set eyes on the Queen, she’d thought her the most beautiful woman in the world, but at that moment she surpassed even herself, like a lily opening its petals in sunshine, emerging from a bud of passive prettiness into confident, blazing beauty. As Isabella rose imperiously to her feet, the effect seemed to become even more pronounced, the folds of her pale yellow surcoat catching the light from the dozens of candles around her so that they shone like molten gold. It was impossible not to stare at someone so dazzling.
‘Madame Baudin has arrived?’ Isabella arched one slender eyebrow and the messenger nodded, still panting from his exertions. ‘Good.’ She waved her fingers in a gesture of dismissal. ‘You may wait outside.’
The boy backed out of the room and the Queen’s eyes turned speculatively in Mathilde’s direction, narrowing slightly. ‘You. Your name is Mathilde, is it not?’
‘Yes, Your Grace.’ Nervously, she dipped into a curtsy, dropping her embroidery in the process. In two months, the Queen had barely acknowledged her presence, let alone used her name, treating her with the same resentful disdain she reserved for all her newer attendants. Mathilde couldn’t entirely blame her. They were only there because the King had locked up her loyal French ladies-in-waiting and replaced them with his English spies, but she at least wasn’t a spy. She was a nobody, the daughter of a man to whom the King had owed a favour, that was all, a last-minute addition to Isabella’s retinue before she’d embarked upon her diplomatic mission to France. She was new and young, as the other ladies never ceased to remind her. Obscure and impoverished, too, their tone suggested, which was true even if she couldn’t help it. Her family weren’t important or rich or even particularly noble, but her father’s past loyalty had been enough to secure her a position at court. It was a great honour, one she wished every day had been bestowed upon somebody else.
‘Come closer.’ The Queen lifted one elegantly manicured hand, beckoning her forward, and she obeyed at once. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Lady Berthe, chief of the spies, move as if to join them, before Isabella stilled her with a sharp look.
‘Cecily?’ The sharpness softened as the Queen called out to one of her older English attendants, the ones who’d joined her household when she’d first arrived in London as a young bride seventeen years earlier. There were only two of them remaining, Lady Cecily d’Abernon and Katharine Sykes, and both were fiercely protective.
‘Yes, Your Grace?’ Lady Cecily bobbed into a curtsy.
‘I want to wear my lilac gown tonight, the one with the silver trim, but I’m afraid there’s a tear in one of the sleeves.’
‘I believe you are right, Your Grace.’ Whether it was right or wrong, Lady Cecily’s face was a picture of innocence. ‘In fact, there are several items in your wardrobe that require attention. We have time to do some mending now, if Your Grace would excuse us?’
‘Of course.’ Isabella inclined her head as if she were conferring some great favour. ‘Mathilde here will stay and keep me company. Kat, too.’
Lady Cecily curtsied again, bustling the spies out of the chamber before they had a chance to think up excuses to stay.
‘That’s better.’ The Queen waited until the door was completely closed before letting out a long sigh, as if she’d been holding her breath. ‘How old are you, Mathilde?’
‘Seventeen, Your Grace.’
‘So old? And with such pretty eyes. Yet still unmarried?’
‘Yes, Your Grace.’ She blushed, pleased with the compliment despite the sting in its tail. Her sister Hawise had always said that her eyes were her best feature, a deep, dark brown like their mother’s had been, though as for the rest of her, she knew that she was ordinary. Pretty enough, but no great beauty and without any dowry. That was why she remained unmarried. Why she’d been sent to court, too, or one of the reasons anyway. At home she’d been surplus to requirements whereas here she could earn her own keep.
‘You need not look so embarrassed. There are worse things than remaining unmarried, is that not so, Kat?’ Isabella exchanged a knowing look with the widowed Katharine, who only grunted. ‘Tell me, which would you prefer, a bad husband or no husband at all?’
Mathilde hesitated, baulking at the question. It wasn’t one she’d ever had cause to consider before, but the Queen was waiting expectantly, the full penetrating force of her blue gaze focused upon her. ‘I think no husband at all, Your Grace.’
‘Then you may be just the girl I’m looking for.’ Isabella’s expression warmed. ‘You hail from the north of England, as I recall?’
‘Yes, Your Grace. From Rudstone Manor near Scarborough.’
‘Ah, now I remember. Your father helped my husband during the rebellion.’
‘He did.’ She nodded eagerly. After fourteen years, her father still seized any opportunity to talk about the day the second King Edward had ridden into their courtyard, fleeing from Thomas of Lancaster’s forces. ‘He gave him food and fresh horses and then rode to York beside him. He always says it was the greatest honour of his life.’
‘As it was...at the time.’ A shadow of some emotion crossed the Queen’s face, so fleetingly it was impossible to identify. Impatience? Annoyance? Mathilde dropped her gaze to the rug, afraid that she’d said something displeasing. ‘So now my husband has repaid him by giving you a place in my household?’
‘Yes, Your Grace. My father brought me to London to ask it.’ And then abandoned her there, she thought bitterly, biting her tongue to stop herself from saying the words out loud.
‘So you have no other connection to the King...or his friends?’
‘None, Your Grace,’ she answered with complete honesty. She’d only glimpsed the King from a distance and she knew nothing of his friends.
‘Good. What do you think, Kat? Is she trustworthy?’
‘If she’s not, then she’ll answer to me.’
‘I am, Your Grace,’ Mathilde countered at once, indignant at any suggestion otherwise.
‘I believe you, girl.’
Isabella’s tone was soothing and for the first time since leaving her family, Mathilde felt a sense of kinship with someone. No, she corrected herself quickly, that was the wrong word. She could never be kin with the Queen, but somehow the words made her feel less isolated.
‘Come over here.’ Isabella sat down in a window seat, as far away from the door as possible, laying a hand on the maroon velvet cushion beside her.
‘Thank you, Your Grace.’ Mathilde threw a quick glance at Katharine, who had her arms folded across her chest like a sentinel, before obeying, her heart thumping with excitement even as her knees shook with nerves. She was glad to sit down before they gave way altogether, although it felt strange to sit so close to someone as extraordinary as the Queen. As women, they were only thirteen years apart, but Isabella was everything she knew that she would never, could never, be.
‘I have a request to make of you, Mathilde, one that must remain a secret between us.’ Isabella paused significantly. ‘I need someone like you to carry messages for me. Cecily has been unwell of late and Kat cannot walk as far or fast as she once did.’ She pressed her lips together as Katharine made a loud tsking sound from across the room. ‘Do you think you could help me, Mathilde?’
‘I would be honoured, Your Grace.’
‘I thought so.’ Isabella pulled a ruby and gold ring from her finger. ‘I knew that you weren’t like the rest of them. Here, hold out your hand.’
Mathilde gasped as the Queen placed the sparkling band in the centre of her palm. It looked valuable, probably equivalent to several years’ worth of harvests at home.
‘Now, the boy will take you to someone, a guest. Show him this ring and tell him to meet me in the French King’s private apartments at once.’
‘Yes, Your Grace, but...’ Mathilde drew her brows together. The boy had spoken of a Madame Baudin...
‘A necessary deception.’ Isabella seemed to understand her confusion, throwing a telling glance in the direction of her dressing chamber. ‘When the others ask, which they will, tell them that an old nurse from my childhood has come to visit me. It doesn’t matter whether or not they believe it. All that matters is that they do not discover the truth. This must be our secret, do you understand?’
‘Yes, Your Grace.’
‘Thank you.’ The Queen touched a hand to her cheek. There was something almost maternal about the gesture, Mathilde thought, a tenderness that made her heart glow. ‘Remember to trust no one except myself, Katharine or Lady Cecily.’
Mathilde nodded and stood, dipping into another curtsy without asking for any more details. The identity of the guest was none of her business and the dour expression on Katharine’s face warned her not to pry. In truth, she didn’t care who it was. Isabella, her Queen, had touched her cheek and asked for her help. That was all that mattered now.
