‘That’s hogwash and you know it.’
‘Gwenn, such language!’
Higher went that defiant chin. ‘Well, it is hogwash, Mama. If you’re trying to say that the common folk lack the finer qualities, then I must disagree with you. Ned is kind.’
Ned. Yolande suppressed a groan. She called him Ned. Worse and worse.
In full spate, Gwenn rushed on. ‘Ned listens to me. Ned doesn’t patronise me like Papa. And unlike my dear brother, Ned Fletcher keeps his promises. It seems to me that Ned Fletcher is more honourable than both my father and my brother put together! Remember that it was Ned,’ Gwenn caught the spark in her mother’s eyes, ‘I mean Fletcher and his cousin, Alan le Bret, who saved me. That took courage. If that doesn’t put the case for those of common stock, I don’t know what does.’
‘Oh dear,’ Yolande said weakly, trying and failing to put her objections into a reasoned argument. She was too old to be carrying, and wished she was not so fatigued. ‘I never did like Fletcher’s kinsman.’
‘But he did save me.’
There was no answer to that. ‘I was misguided,’ Yolande murmured, ‘to let you sit in on Raymond’s lessons. It’s enabled you to talk the hind leg off a donkey, and it’s not becoming in a girl. You’ve grown so clever, you could argue wrong into right. We’ve spoiled you. God knows if we’ll ever find a husband to take you.’
‘Oh, Mama,’ Gwenn tossed her head, ‘it’s your thinking that is crooked.’ But then she saw how tired her mother was, and relented. She led her mother to her bed in the curtained recess. ‘I’m sorry, Mama. You should be resting. You’ve the babe to consider.’
Meekly, Yolande permitted Gwenn to direct her to her couch. As Gwenn pointed out, she had the babe to consider. Since de Roncier had loosed his fiends and set that terrible fire, Yolande had dismissed all thought of marriage from her mind. Marriage to Jean would not legitimise the children they already had, and any wedding might provoke the Count to further outrages against her family. She did not expect her lover to honour his promise to marry her in view of the attendant dangers.
But if there was to be another child...
After Gwenn had crept out, leaving her with the lantern, Yolande settled under her downy coverlet, and laid a hand over her womb. The babe was growing within her. Growing with it was the resolve that by hook or by crook, this child would be legitimate. She accepted that in many respects Jean had been criminally irresponsible. He had neglected his inheritance for years, claiming he had not the funds to manage it, when a more far-sighted man would have put his shoulder to the plough, and husbanded his land to make it fruitful. Latterly, Jean had seen the light and had mended his ways. These two years past had seen him wearing his fingers to the bone. Kermaria was improved beyond recognition. A disloyal voice chimed in, suggesting Yolande consider how much more improved Kermaria would have been if he had begun his stewardship of his estate when he had first inherited it.
No matter. Jean was...Jean. He may have been irresponsible, but he was reformed, and even in his earlier, feckless days he had always been able to win her over with his charm. She loved him.
A yearning sigh fell from her lips. It was all very well for her to feel inside her that their unsanctified relationship was blessed by God, but lately she had come to the conclusion that it mattered little what one thought, if one was out of step with the world. It was the world, after all, that named her children bastards, and it was the world that thought the worst of them for it.
If only Jean could be persuaded to marry her. Yolande hoarded another, more telling wish close to her heart. She did not wish for gold, or for power or influence. Her wish was simple, and it astonished her, for she liked to think of herself as a free spirit. Yolande wished that one day she might be able to present Jean with a babe and say to him, ‘This, my love, is your heir, your legitimate heir.’
***
A flagon of Rhenish later, Jean tiptoed past the sleeping women of his household, heading for bed. The women’s pallets, neat as a row of beans, ranged across the floor of the solar, a hazard to the unwary. Of the four recesses built into the walls of the solar, three had beds in them. Jean glanced at the one Gwenn and Katarin shared. All was quiet there. Katarin must be sound asleep. Releasing a thankful sigh, for his youngest could raise hell if she did not feel like sleeping, he picked his way across the shadowy room. The third niche, which Raymond had appropriated for his sole use, was empty, for Raymond was drinking below. The fourth and last recess stank. No one slept there. One day, Jean vowed, he would have the mason fit another privy. The need for it was dire.
Above his bed a lantern burned. ‘Are you awake, my love?’ he whispered, as was necessary if he did not want to be overheard by his household. Jean unbuckled his sword and, as was his habit, placed it within arm’s reach by the bed. His mistress stirred and yawned. ‘What ails you? You looked as though you were miles away at dinnertime.’
Yolande propped herself up on her pillows. ‘Perhaps I was.’
‘Eh?’ Jean couldn’t find her meaning easily, and was too full of wine to try very hard. Sinking onto the edge of the mattress, he unlaced his knee-high boots and flung his tunic aside. In a corner, a bowl of water waited on a stand. He splashed his face perfunctorily with it; it was as chilly as a March sea. ‘Hell.’ He shivered, and cracked his elbow against the wall. ‘This bedchamber is too cramped,’ he observed, not for the first time.
‘It grants us some privacy.’
‘You have something there.’ Jean grinned and, leaving both chausses and linen chainse on, he clambered into bed. He slid a hand over a warm, rounded breast, and nuzzled her arm. ‘You have something here.’ But instead of the response that he hoped for, he was greeted with a soft sigh. He shifted his hand to her waist and lifted his head. His lover looked pensive. He resigned himself to a lengthy and probably tedious conversation, and valiantly tried to rally wits that were more than ready for rest. ‘What is it?’
Under the sheets her breasts rose as she inhaled deeply. ‘I had thought to keep it from you, Jean. I had thought to cope with it on my own. But then I realised that that would never do. I have never liked keeping secrets from you, and to do so in this instance would be very wrong.’
Linking his hands behind his head, Jean waited for her to come to the substance of the matter, and watched the rise and fall of her bosom under her chemise. It must be no trifling concern, that she went about telling him in such a circuitous way. He’d picked a good woman, he thought complacently, admiring her breasts – they were still firm, still beautiful, even after three children and more years than he cared to count.
Yolande sat up abruptly and leaned across him; one long brown plait tickled his neck. She tugged one of his hands from under his head and pressed it to a soft breast. ‘Go on, Jean. Touch me. You want to, I can see it. Touch me, and tell me if you notice anything different about me.’
In a flash, Jean understood. So that was it. That was what he had, without realising it, noticed. Her breasts were fuller because she was breeding. ‘You’re with child!’
‘Aye.’ She sank into her pillows, and folded her hands over her belly in that prim nun’s manner that Jean was learning to suspect. Her eyes were cold. Green ice. ‘Are you pleased?’
‘Pleased? Naturally I am pleased.’
‘I thought at first to keep it from you,’ she said, and he noticed her voice lacked colour. ‘I thought it best to try and...lose it.’
‘Lose it?’
‘There are women who know just what to do. Why even here in Kermaria, I’m told Berthe–’
‘Blessed Jesu!’ Jean grasped her shoulders. ‘I forbid it! I forbid it! Do you hear?’ He felt hollow with fear.
Throwing a pointed glance at the curtain screen, Yolande said, mildly, ‘I should think all Kermaria can hear.’
He shook her, hissing, ‘I’ll not have you going to those old crones. Will you swear it? Besides, it’s a mortal sin.’ Bewilderingly, Yolande’s shoulders began to shake. The ice in her eyes had melted. She was laughing. ‘Yolande?’