In the Shadow of Midnight - By Marsha Canham Page 0,179

of the Princess Eleanor and Marienne, Robin, Littlejohn, Dafydd, and Sparrow, stirred as well, and together with Henry and Ariel, converged on the descending knight as he reached the bottom of the hill.

“It is settled. The abbess has agreed, most heartily, to welcome Eleanor into their midst. She has also agreed to guard her anonymity, even amongst the other sisters, who will be told only that the new novitiate is the orphaned daughter of a noble who fell out of favour with the king. A common enough story these days, it seems.”

“What did you tell her?” Henry wanted to know.

Eduard responded with a smile. “That the lady was in fear of her life. That she was indeed an orphan, persecuted by the king, and if word of her presence here—even the merest hint of a whisper were to reach the royal ear, not even the cloisters of Kirklees would be sacrosanct. It tended to raise her hackles a little, as I had hoped it would. She was ever a fearless old grisette; the only one of my memory who dared to challenge the Lord of Bloodmoor Keep’s droit du seigneur with the village maids who chose to marry themselves to the Church rather than submit to his lusts.”

“Did she remember you at all?” Eleanor asked.

“If she did, she kept it confined to the gleam in her eye. And if she suspects our lady’s identity, I have no doubt she will keep the secret with her unto the grave.”

“Eduard …” the princess stretched her hand across the darkness. “How can I ever thank you? How can I ever begin to thank any of you?”

“Your happiness is more than thanks enough,” Eduard said, pressing her slender fingers against his lips.

“And yours,” she whispered, “is all that I could have hoped for.”

“You still have the ring,” Eduard reminded her firmly. “If you ever need me, for any reason—”

Eleanor smiled. “I will dispatch it to Amboise with all haste, I promise. But between Lord Henry and Marienne, I doubt if even so much as a flea would dare trouble me.”

Robin’s gaze burned through the gloom and held Marienne’s for a moment, only to lose it in the next as she lowered her eyes. Eduard did not miss the pinched expression that came over the young squire’s face. Nor did Eleanor, with her strangely heightened perceptions, fail to detect the sudden tension that quickened her maid’s breath.

“Marienne is still young,” she said to no one in particular. “But she is old enough to know the Church is not her life, as it has always been mine. A year or two from now, when she is convinced I am content and at peace, she will be able to choose her own way in the world.”

Robin’s expression brightened. “She will be free?”

Eleanor laughed softly. “She is free now, Robert. A convent is not a prison, it is a place of peace and tranquillity. Marienne will be free to leave any time she wishes.”

Robin muttered a hasty pardon and, snatching up Marienne’s hand, pulled her to one side where they stood with their heads together, a flurry of whispered promises passing between them.

Still smiling, Eleanor tilted her head slightly to acknowledge the source of another bemused sigh. “Lady Ariel?”

“Your Highness?”

“I must needs thank you as well, for more than you can possibly imagine. With the exception of Marienne, I have never had the pleasure of female companionship before—none that I would care to call ‘friend’ by any rood. And I would so like to think of you as my friend, and to know that you might smile with fondness sometime when you happen to think of me.”

“I … we … shall think of you all the time, my lady,” Ariel insisted, tossing protocol to the wind as she leaned forward and gave the last Angevin princess a fervent hug.

Startled, and overwhelmed to the verge of tears, Eleanor squeezed Ariel’s shoulders just as tightly, her voice ragged against her ear. “I had almost forsaken all hope of Eduard ever finding a woman willing, or surely even able, to convince him he is worth loving. Indeed, the most fearsome opponent he ever defeated on or off the battlefield could have crushed him afterward by uttering but a single word: bastard. Love him, Ariel. Love him with all your heart and you will not regret it, not for one single moment.”

“I do not regret it now,” Ariel said earnestly. “Nor will I ever.”

Beside them, Eduard cleared his throat and glanced up