crown. It may be that our child might have brought us closer together. He very much wanted a son.”
Now that they’d come to it—the baby in her womb that was both a blessing and a curse—he did not know what to say, not sure how honest he dared to be. How much easier it would have been if only she’d not been pregnant!
Isabella proved to be the braver of the two. “We need to talk about it, Henri, about the fact that I am with child, Conrad’s child.” Instinctively her hand moved to her abdomen, a protective gesture that caught at his heart. “The welfare of my baby matters even more to me than the welfare of my kingdom. Not many men would be willing or able to accept another man’s child. I know it can be done, though, for Balian did it. I was just five when he married my mother and he always treated me as if I were his flesh-and-blood, even after they had their own children. Conrad could never have done that, not when a crown was at stake. But I think . . . I hope you can, Henri. The others chose you for your courage and royal blood, your kinship to the kings of England and France. What matters more to me is that you are honorable and have a good heart.”
They were very close now on the bench. Her eyes looked almost black against the whiteness of her face, and he found himself thinking that a man could drown in their dark depths. “Isabella . . .”
“I know you think we are both trapped,” she said softly, “and I suppose we are. But if you wed me, I promise you this—that I’ll do all in my power to make sure you never regret it.”
He reached for her hand, entwining their fingers together. How fearful she must have been and how brave she was now, putting her pride aside to offer herself to him like this. He could see the pulse throbbing in her slender throat, and suddenly knew he could not bear to think of her wedding another man, one who might not treat her and her baby with the kindness, tenderness, and respect they deserved.
“I will be honored to wed you, Isabella,” he said, and when she lifted her face, heartbreakingly lovely in the moonlight, he kissed her soft cheek, her closed eyelids, and then those full red lips. He’d meant it to be a pledge, a reassurance, but her mouth was so sweet and her body flowed into his arms so naturally that he forgot she was so newly widowed, forgot she was pregnant, forgot all but the passion that blazed up between them with an intensity, a hunger he’d not experienced before. When he finally ended the embrace, he saw that she was as shaken as he was. Her dark eyes were starlit, her breathing uneven. “This is not the destiny either of us expected,” he said. “But it is one we can forge together.”
ON TUESDAY, MAY 5, 1192, Henri and Isabella were wed in Tyre by a French bishop, a week to the day after Conrad of Montferrat’s assassination. Henri at once set about mustering an armed force to assist Richard in an assault upon Dārūm Castle. When he and the Duke of Burgundy moved the army to Acre, the chronicler of the Itinerarium reported that “The count took his wife with him, as he could not yet bear to be parted from her.”
CHAPTER 33
MAY 1192
Ascalon–Dárúm Road
Upon his arrival at Ascalon, Henri learned that Richard had grown impatient with waiting and had ridden south to begin the siege of Dārūm Castle on his own. Henri set out at daybreak the next day, his men soon complaining of the oppressive heat. It was Pentecost Eve, the weather already much hotter than it would have been back in Champagne. Henri wondered if he’d ever get accustomed to the sultry Syrian climate, and he was relieved when the seventeen stone towers of Dārūm eventually came into view. Raising his hand, he signaled for a halt so they could assess the situation. By now he could see Richard’s tents in the distance, and the siege engines he’d brought by ship from Ascalon, but they were strangely silent. A swirl of dust heralded the approach of the Duke of Burgundy, and Henri coughed when he inhaled a lungful, hoping the other man did not plan to ride beside him for the rest of the