Lady of the English - By Elizabeth Chadwick Page 0,54

an isolated shower blustered in from the west. She left the battlements but by a different door that led her along a corridor and past a small chamber set into the thickness of the wall. Two women sat within. One was suckling an infant, her ample white breast poking through a slit in her gown. The other knelt beside a tiny little girl who was made in Geoffrey’s image, with his coppery curls and the same stubborn chin. She was stacking wooden bowls one inside the other and chattering away to herself.

On seeing Matilda, both women hastened to rise and curtsey, the wet nurse clutching the baby awkwardly to her bosom.

“These are the count’s children?” Matilda asked as a formality.

“Yes, madam.” The wet nurse lowered her gaze to the suckling baby.

“What are their names?”

“The babe is Hamelin, madam, and this is Emma, his sister.” The woman’s voice was tinged with anxiety.

“Have no fear,” Matilda said. “I do not persecute innocents.” She left the chamber deep in thought. With these children Geoffrey had proven that he could beget bastards with ease.

They would serve his bloodline as they grew up in the same way that her father’s numerous illegitimate offspring served him. Had she not been taking precautions, and given different circumstances, they could have been hers. She had almost died birthing her stillborn son in Germany and the pain and grief of that time would scar her for the rest of her life, as would the 134

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fear that she might die in the bloody struggle to deliver a child.

For Heinrich, she would have laid down her life in the effort to provide him with an heir. She had no such loyalty to Geoffrey, but the sight of the babies had filled her with a bittersweet pang of longing.

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Sixteen

Le Mans, Anjou, June 1132

S tanding in Geoffrey’s chamber, Matilda compressed her lips as she read the letter that had arrived from her father in England.

“Well?” Geoffrey arched his brow.

“He says he is considering,” she replied with angry disappointment. She felt betrayed. She had sent to her father asking him to hand over the castles of Argenten, Montauban, Exemes, and Domfront in southern Normandy, which were pledged as part of her dowry, but he had declined to do so and it was a slap in the face.

“There is nothing to consider,” Geoffrey snapped. “All the old spider wants to do is keep everything in his own hands and yield not one iota of power or control to anyone. It was the same when my sister was your brother’s widow. He refused to return her dowry. He swallowed everything into his stout belly and there it sits. When he dies, everyone will be tearing him open with knives to get at their share.” Matilda shuddered at the image. “He has ever been thus. My stepmother says we should be patient a little longer. She will do what she can on our behalf.” She did not add that Adeliza said her father was disinclined to hand over anything while she and Geoffrey had no heirs.

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“He will not heed her,” Geoffrey said curtly. “She does not have that kind of power over him. She is thistledown. Your father ignores people unless they sing his tune—and very few know what his tune is because he changes it at his whim, and tells no one what the notes are. He has had his barons swear to uphold you as queen one day, but be assured he will not have abandoned other plans.”

Matilda said nothing because Geoffrey was right. She did not trust her father, especially when he refused to hand over her dower castles, but where else was she to turn? To Geoffrey?

Their interests were mutual in many ways, but she did not trust him either. Her brother Robert might speak for her—he often knew her father’s tunes. And Brian might if he deemed it right, although he was strongly committed as her father’s man. But Robert and Brian were far away and her only influence was the written word, which would have as much impact as spitting in the ocean.

She made to leave and return to her own chamber, but Geoffrey caught her by the waist. “Perhaps he would be more amenable if we provided him with an heir?” Matilda pushed against him. “Not now,” she said impatiently. “I have things to do.”

“But surely none more important that begetting offspring to inherit,” he