The Fatal Crown by Ellen Jones

Author:Ellen Jones [Ellen Jones]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9781453289099
Google: 0HV--_i-TnAC
Amazon: 0380717077
Barnesnoble: 0380717077
Goodreads: 17239822
Publisher: Open Road
Published: 2012-12-11T19:31:00+00:00

Chapter Thirty-one

England and Normandy, 1131

IN MID-MARCH, UPON HEARING the news that Maud had born A son, King Henry, who had spent the past eight months in Normandy due to ill health, rallied sufficiently to return to England.

“Well, Nephew, you will be pleased to hear that, by God’s grace, the Countess of Anjou has been safely delivered of a boy,” the King told Stephen the morning he arrived in London.

A hot stab of jealousy knifed through Stephen’s vitals but he kept his face impassive. That should have been our child, Maud’s and mine, he reflected bitterly.

“Excellent news, Sire,” he managed to reply. “A day of rejoicing indeed. I had not realized the babe was due so soon.”

The King, looking older and quite frail, Stephen observed, frowned. “Although the child was born a few weeks early he is healthy and well formed. Reports from the midwife are very encouraging; he should most certainly survive.”

“I’m pleased to hear it,” Stephen said. “Maud—she is also well?”

“Very well. Up and about already.” The King fixed Stephen with an unblinking stare. “The child is the very image of Geoffrey, I’m told.”

Stephen, growing more and more uncomfortable under his uncle’s scrutiny, could not think of an appropriate response.

“As soon as the infant is fit to travel,” the King continued, “Maud and Geoffrey will bring him to Rouen. All nobles will attend me there to swear homage to the future Duke of Normandy and King of England.”

Stephen forced a smile but his blood chilled. Of course. His attention had been so fixed on Maud that for a moment he had lost sight of the fact that the birth of a son meant the succession was now assured. What this would do to his own hopes, he dared not think. He was spared the necessity of a reply when the King’s attention was suddenly claimed by a group of barons crowding around him. As his uncle became engaged in conversation, Stephen took the opportunity to escape.

Walking swiftly to the courtyard, he mounted his horse and, attended by several grooms, made straight for the Tower. As he rode through London, his black mantle streaming out behind him, Stephen’s body began to shiver uncontrollably, and his head felt heavy as an iron helmet. Exactly the symptoms he had experienced last summer.

When he had first heard that Maud was pregnant, Stephen refused to believe it. Consumed by anger and jealousy, he had immediately become suspicious.

Was it possible the child was his?

In his mind, he went over and over the last conversation with Maud in her chamber, reading all manner of significance into every word. He recalled her abrupt departure, with no word to him then or since. Everything pointed to an unusual circumstance. Yet it did not seem possible that his cousin could have dissembled so adroitly. It was totally unlike her open, forthright nature. If Maud carried his child she would have told him, Stephen argued with himself. He would swear an oath on it.

Stephen had listened carefully to the King’s

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