The elderly woman who rode by her side had been nurse and maid to Servanne’s mother, fiercely protective guardian to the orphaned daughter through the subsequent years. A face as round as a cherub’s and as softly crinkled as an overripe peach turned to Servanne with a feigned look of surprise. “Surely your memory has gone the way of your morning ablutions, for did I not spend most of the hours after Prime reciting the long litany of your betrothed’s accomplishments—both in the tourney lists and in the widows’ beds? It grows tiresome, child, to have to repeat every gasp and gurgle you yourself uttered when you first saw the man, let alone recall the exaggerations and imaginations of every weak-limbed fancy who crossed his path.”
Servanne blushed scarlet, warming under the smothered round of laughter her maids could not quite contain.
“I have heard,” one of them tittered bawdily “that as a lover, Lord Lucien is inexhaustible, often going days and days without a pause for food or drink or … or anything!”
“I saw him once.” The youngest attendant in the group gave a sigh so plaintive it caused the captain of the guard to roll his eyes and exchange a smirk with the knight who rode alongside. “In all of Christendom,” she continued, “there cannot be a taller, handsomer knight. Even Helvise admitted that to see him standing beside our glorious liege lord, King Richard, a maiden would be hard-pressed to choose between the two as to which one was the more godlike in countenance and bearing.”
“I said that?” a dark-eyed companion asked with a frown.
“You most certainly did,” the accuser, Giselle, said earnestly. “Do you not remember? The very same night you said it, you said you also had to take two of Sir Hubert’s guardsmen and—”
“Never mind! I remember,” Helvise snapped, aware of the sudden attentiveness of the nearby guards.
Servanne’s flush was still high on her cheeks, even though she was no longer the focus of the good-natured jesting. If anything she had grown warmer knowing she had not been the only one left with a searing impression of power and animal maleness. True, she had only glimpsed her betrothed across a crowded hall, and true the lone glimpse had occurred many months ago, but what healthy, warm-blooded woman could not have recalled his every stunning attribute, down to the last thread of flaxen hair, on much less than a half-stolen glance? Eyes the bold azure of a turbulent sea; a face that was lean and finely chiseled; a body splendidly proportioned from the incredible breadth of his shoulders to the trim waist and long, tautly muscled legs. One of the king’s champions, Lord Lucien had never been bested in the lists, never emerged from any tournament less than overall victor. His skill with lance and sword was legendary; his exploits in Europe and on the Crusades had earned him the respect of kings, and wealth beyond any mere knight-errant’s wildest dreams.
Comparing Lucien Wardieu to Sir Hubert de Briscourt was like comparing a gold, jewel-encrusted sceptre to a charred stick. Servanne was under no illusions as to why he had petitioned the king for her hand—indeed, she thanked God with every breath that a portion of the vast fiefdom she had inherited upon Sir Hubert’s death, was coveted arable adjoining the baron’s own landholdings in Lincoln. To him she was undoubtedly just a name and faceless entity; a pawn in the game of politics and economics. He would have petitioned for her hand even if she were fat, balding, and prone to passing wind from both ends simultaneously. And did she care? Not one whit! If it was her lot in life to serve as cat’s-paw to the king’s obsession, it was a much easier task to suffer in the arms of a golden champion than in the bed of a feeble old man.
Servanne stroked the neck of her beautiful mare, Undine, and smiled. Her mount had been among the many extravagant gifts sent to her by Lord Lucien by way of offering apologies that he could not ride to meet her himself. He was forgiven. Besides her own snow white palfrey, there were three pairs of matching roans to carry her maids. All were furbished with white trappings, the saddles bleached to bone-coloured leather, trimmed with silver bosses and tassles that glittered like fringes of diamonds. Blue silk ribbons were braided into the manes and tails; plumes dyed to the same