(Medieval Plantagenet, #1) The Falcon and the Flower by Virginia Henley

Author:Virginia Henley [Henley, Virginia]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-307-56752-9
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 1989-01-16T05:00:00+00:00

As it turned out, Queen Isabella was nowhere near ready to depart at the end of the twenty-four-hour ultimatum John had issued. Thinking only of himself, as he was wont to do, he left for Gloucester, taking the lion’s share of the knights and men-at-arms. The Earl of Chester was stuck escorting the queen and her ladies. This, however, gave him ample time to discuss the plan for the secret wedding. Isabella was extremely excited by her own cleverness for she had thought of the perfect cover to blind everyone to her plotting.

It was the upcoming wedding of Falkes de Bréauté to Joan, the widow of the Earl of Devon. Joan had provided the thirty thousand crowns King John demanded for her hand in marriage, and the wedding was to take place as soon as de Bréauté reached Gloucester after he had done the king’s dirty work of dispossessing the bishops of their Canterbury holdings. So all the talk was of “the wedding.”

Much to Jasmine’s annoyance, Chester seemed to enjoy her company. For the most part she remained silent while Ranulf impressed upon her his exalted ancestry, his importance to the realm, the number of cities and towns he ruled, the jewel of these being Chester, an ancient, walled Roman city.

When the weather turned cold and nasty for traveling, which was unusual for autumn, he described the sun-warmed coast of Brittany around the Gulf of St. Malo, an area he had governed for her grandfather. She knew the stark and graceless earl was wooing her. She tried being cold and distant, but he did not seem to notice. Next she told him pointedly, “My lord earl, I do not think it is wise for us to be seen so much together. I am promised in marriage.”

He was amused. “No man is more aware than I that you are promised in marriage,” he said enigmatically.

She relaxed a little, offering a silent prayer for Falcon de Burgh. He served as a powerful barrier between her and men’s unwanted attentions. But Ranulf de Blundeville seemed impervious to the implied wrath of her betrothed.

To Jasmine the journey seemed endless as mile after weary mile they walked their horses at a snail’s pace toward Gloucester. She was tired, irritable, and a small knot of apprehension was growing inside of her because of Chester’s insidious presence. She was picking up vibrations from the man that frightened her. He was almost like a predator circling his prey in ever smaller circles, and she had the feeling that she might be trapped if she didn’t proceed with caution. At last the spire of Gloucester Cathedral could be seen in the distance. It had taken them over three weary weeks to make the journey.

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