Hellion (58 page)

Isabelle made herself as comfortable as a woman in her condition could upon the birthing table. She half sat, her smock pulled over her hips, legs wide apart, waiting. The child would come when it would come, and not a moment before. Little Hugh’s birth had been easy, she seemed to recall. He had come very quickly, and her mother had complained how easy a time she had had of it. Isabelle winced. This birth, she sensed, would not be as easy.

All through the day her pains came, easy at first, harder as the hours passed; but the child remained unborn. Alette was
almost smugly satisfied that at least this time Isabelle was behaving as a birthing mother should, totally forgetting how quickly her own new daughter had come. Hugh would not leave his wife’s side. The servants brought him food and wine, but he ate sparingly, his main concern for his Belle.

Finally, in the hour before midnight, it became obvious to everyone that the child was close to being born. Belle pushed and strained, and slowly the baby slid from her body.

“It is a girl!” Alette crowed.

“She is not crying,” Isabelle said, aware, and frightened.

To both women’s surprise Hugh, with some inborn instinct, took his daughter and, placing her on Belle’s body, parted the infant’s lips, inserting a finger into the baby’s throat to gently lift a clot of mucus from it. Then, bending down, he blew softly into his daughter’s mouth several times. She coughed, her eyes flew open, and taking a great gulp of air, the baby began to wail at the top of her lungs.

Belle wept wildly with relief. Then, clasping her child to her breasts, she soothed it. “You saved her, my lord!
You saved her!
How on earth did you know what to do, Hugh?”

He was amazed himself, and shook his head. “I do not know, ma Belle,” he answered her honestly, “but I could not let our daughter die after all we went through to have her.”

The baby was taken up by her nursemaid, cleaned, and set in her cradle while her mother finished the birthing process. Afterward Hugh sat by his wife’s bedside, her hand in his. For a while they continued in silence, and then he spoke.

“She will be called Matilda, after the queen.”

“She will be called Rosamund, my lord. Matilda indeed! It is a name I dislike, although I like the queen,” Isabelle responded. “No Henrys and no Matildas, thank you.”

He laughed. “You may have your way, madame. I do not really like the name Matilda, either.”

“And you would have saddled our daughter with it? For shame, my lord!” Isabelle scolded him.

“I remember how good the king’s mother, the first Matilda,
was to me as a boy. It was more to honor her, I think,” Hugh said. For a moment they were as of old, but then the wall between them sprang up once again.

Several weeks later the king’s messenger arrived at Langston requesting that Sir Hugh, Baron Langston, and Sir Rolf de Briard, along with the other two knights belonging to Langston Keep—Sir Fulk and Sir Giles, formerly squires, who had been knighted in the absence of their lord and lady by Rolf—attend the king, who was planning his campaign for Normandy. The service was owed, and must be paid.

“You cannot mean to go!” Isabelle said to her husband.

“I can hardly refuse the king,” Hugh said testily.

“We are barely home six months,” she shouted, her temper boiling over at long last. “I cannot believe that Henry Beauclerc is so lacking in knights that he must have you. Was your earlier service in Normandy not enough? It almost cost us each other! Rolf, Fulk, and Giles are going. Are three knights not enough service from Langston? I would have my husband safe at home for a change, and I should like to tell the king that, damnit!”

“Madame,” Hugh roared back at her, “the king will hear
nothing
from you! You will shut your mouth and let me do my duty as I have always done it! What kind of an example would I set for young Hugh if I shirked my service to my overlord?”

“Go, then!” Isabelle said angrily. “But if you do not come back safely, I shall never forgive you, Hugh Fauconier!
Never!
”

Hugh Fauconier’s sense of humor suddenly welled up at the ridiculousness of her words. He burst out laughing. “Ahh, ma Belle,” he said, “if I did not come back to you, I should never know whether you forgave me or not for being such a fool,
chérie.
” Stepping forward, he gathered her resisting form into his arms. “Isabelle, Isabelle, what are we to do? I love you so, and I cannot be angry with you any longer. You have injured me to the core of my very being, but I yet love you with my
poor, sore-wounded heart. I cannot live without you.” He stroked her soft hair, delighting in its lavender fragrance.

“Ohhhhh, Hugh,” she sniffled, burying her face against his shoulder, “I love you, too. I only wanted us to be together again.” He will never really understand my part in our adventures in Brittany, Isabelle thought silently to herself, but what did it really matter? She had wanted her husband back, and now she really had him. She snuggled harder against his shoulder, sighing happily.

He laughed once more, but softly this time. “You chose an odd way of accomplishing your end, lady,” he said.

“Are we then reconciled?” she asked him ingenuously. “I cannot let you go off to war if we are not reconciled.”

In answer he picked her up, and, walking through the hall, found his way to the solar. She made no protest, instead cuddling in his arms and murmuring to him. There were no servants about; they had all disappeared, as had everyone else. Hugh laid his wife upon the bed and fell upon her. Her face was dwarfed by his two hands as, holding it, he rained kisses down upon her. Happiness overcame her. She kissed him back avidly, her hands caressing, stroking, touching him; and all the while the thought sliding through her head,
It has been so long
.

He wasn’t quite certain how it happened so quickly, but they were suddenly naked, limbs intertwined, still kissing and caressing. It was as if we had never been parted, he thought, surprised. She was, as she had always been, warm and loving and giving of herself. His mouth found her left nipple. He tongued it, then suckled upon her, his teeth gently grazing the tender flesh. Her sigh swept warmly over him as her fingers tangled themselves in his dark blond hair. Now his kisses covered her entire body, moving down her torso, turning her over to press his mouth against her supple spine, making her shiver with delight until he finally turned her about again, to lie beneath him.

I have missed you so, my dear lord,” Isabelle said softly to
him. Her full breasts pressed against the smoothness of his bare chest as she wrapped her arms about him.

“It has been hell without you, ma Belle,” Hugh said, equally low. His knee pressed between her thighs, levering them open.

“Say that you forgive me my transgressions as I have forgiven you yours,” she demanded. She could feel the hot head of his manhood seeking her channel. She wrapped her legs about him.

“You are forgiven, you impossible, but utterly irresistible hellion,” he said with a lusty sigh as he sheathed himself deeply within her. “Totally … completely … unequivocally … forgiven. Ahhh, ma Belle!” he groaned, and then he began to move with vigor upon her.

The pleasure he gave her was unlike any she had ever experienced, and Isabelle knew why. It was because they loved each other absolutely. This was not blazing lust.
It was love!
She gave herself up to it with a happy cry, soaring among the stars until she spiraled down into a dark and warm contentment, weeping with the emotions that overcame her.

“Ahhh, ma Belle,” he comforted her, “do not cry. Do not cry!” But Hugh Fauconier was crying, too, the tears sliding down his plain face. They had almost lost each other for good and all, and over what, really?

“I am so happy,” Isabelle sobbed as they cradled each other.

In the Great Hall the servants moved softly, all knowing of the reunion taking place at this very minute, for things like that could hardly be kept secret. Alette looked to Rolf hopefully. She had heard no shrieks of outrage, or breaking crockery from the solar. Dared they hope that Hugh and Isabelle had resolved their differences at last?

They had, and Langston was all the better for it. Isabelle was still not happy about her husband going off to war, but she knew his honor would not allow him to do otherwise. She was grateful to have settled their dispute before he went, not because she believed he was in any danger, but because she
loved him, and wanted his mind free to concentrate upon the business of survival.

How different it is now, she thought on the morning of their departure. Just a few years ago Langston had been a keep with one tower, and now it had two. There had been two knights, and now there were four. There had been a small complement of crossbowmen, and now there were fifty. Kissing her husband, and bidding them all Godspeed, Isabelle of Langston felt great pride.

King Henry gathered a great troop of men and knights about him, leaving for Normandy in late August. There, he was met by the bulk of the powerful Norman families who had pledged their fealty to him the previous year. They had remained loyal to Henry Beauclerc, having decided that of the Conqueror’s remaining sons, he was best suited to lead them and reign over them. Conspicuous in their absence were those two great lords, Robert de Belleme and William of Mortain. De Belleme had come to England the previous winter, attempting to make his peace with Henry, but the king had ignored him, not trusting him, but choosing not to imprison him.

Finally, on September 28, in the Year of Our Lord eleven hundred and six, exactly forty years to the day William the Conqueror, Duke of Normandy, had landed his armies in England, his youngest son, English-born Henry, fought a mighty battle at Tinchebrai Castle for control of Normandy. At day’s end he had won it. Duke Robert was defeated and sent to England, where he spent the rest of his days in comfortable but spartan confinement. With him, and suffering the same fate, went William of Mortain. Robert de Belleme fled the country, but was later captured and imprisoned. To everyone’s amazement, not a single knight was killed in this battle for Normandy, but Hugh had been wounded, losing an eye.

“It was,” Hugh Fauconier said to his wife when he had returned home, “as if God Almighty simply wanted the matter settled once and for all.”

“And you will no longer go to war, my lord?” Isabelle asked him.

“I will if my king calls,” Hugh said mischievously, “but Henry Beauclerc says he has no need for a one-eyed knight; even one with a strong sword arm.” He put that arm about her, drawing her tightly to him. “So, ma Belle, you are sentenced to my company for all of your days, I fear.”

Isabelle Langston, turning her head to look up into the plain but honest face of her husband, answered him with a smile. “It is a sentence I deserve, and right glad am I to accept it!”

“
Amen!
” said Father Bernard wholeheartedly, and the hall erupted into happy laughter.

“Amen indeed,” rejoined Isabelle of Langston, who always had the last word.

Afterward

H
enry Beauclerc, better known as Henry I, reigned in England and Normandy until his death in 1135. A warrior, he fought intermittently with the King of France, the Count of Anjou, and the Count of Flanders. It was his policy never to fight a war until he had obtained the diplomatic advantage first. In 1119 he defeated Louis VI of France. Anjou had been secured with the marriage of Henry’s only son, William, to the daughter of the Count of Anjou. Unfortunately, Prince William died shortly afterward, in November 1120, in the wreck of the White Ship while crossing the Channel, and in sight of England. The king’s only surviving legitimate heir was his’ daughter, Matilda. His Scots queen had died in 1118.

Two and a half months after his son’s death, Henry I married Adelaide of Louvain, but no children were born of the marriage. Although the king had acknowledged more than twenty bastards, none could inherit his throne. When his daughter’s husband, Emperor Henry V of Germany, died in 1125, the king recalled his daughter, made his barons swear to accept her as their ruler should he die without male issue, and saw Matilda married off again, very much against her will, to the sixteen-year-old Geoffrey of Anjou; but the Norman lords were not enthusiastic about being ruled by an Angevin.

Henry’s death at age sixty-seven from eating too many lamprey eels set his kingdom afire with civil war. Stephen, a young son of the Count of Blois and Champagne, and his wife, Adela, Henry’s elder sister, was at the center of the disputed throne.
For the next nineteen years, Stephen and his cousin Matilda fought over England. Each had powerful allies. Stephen was married to the heiress of Boulogne, giving him domination of the Channel. The Anglo-Norman lords also preferred not to have their loyalties divided again, and supported him.

Henry’s daughter, however, had her supporters as well, among them her uncle, the King of Scotland; her half brother, Robert of Gloucester; and her husband, Geoffrey of Anjou. Both England and Normandy suffered in the squabble. When all the battles were over and done with, and all the diplomatic ploys sorted out, it was agreed that Stephen would be allowed to reign for life, and be followed by his cousin Matilda’s son, Henry, Lord of Normandy and Anjou
and
, thanks to his wife Eleanor, Master of Aquitaine as well.