Time and Chance Read Free

was the lot of all women, even queens. She was not surprised when a servant announced that her son had ridden into the bailey, for Henry never let the weather interfere with his plans; he’d sailed in a winter gale to claim England’s crown.
    Within moments, he’d swept into the hall, and as always, her spirits soared at the sight of him. Flinging off his sodden mantle, he gave her a damp hug and she resisted the impulse to urge him closer to the fire. He’d just laugh and remind her that he was twenty-three, nigh on two years a king, no longer a stripling in need of a mother’s coddling.
    Maude suppressed a sigh. Henry had reached manhood years ago, but she doubted if Geoffrey would ever cross the border into that adult domain. She very much feared that he’d be as irresponsible and immature at forty as he’d been at sixteen, as he was now at two and twenty. “I do hope you brought an escort,” she said, half-seriously, for Henry was known for traveling fast and light.
    “Only those who could keep up with me.” Henry strode over to greet Minna, the elderly German widow who’d been his mother’s companion since her girlhood at the imperial court. Minna beamed and blushed when he kissed her cheek; in her eyes, Henry could do no wrong. Even when he’d hired mercenaries and sailed for England to help his mother in her war against Stephen—at the ripe age of fourteen—Minna had found excuses for his reckless folly. Maude rarely joked, but she sometimes teased Minna that if she saw Henry slit a man’s throat, she’d claim it was just a very close shave.
    Beckoning Henry away from Minna, Maude touched her hand gently to his face and then said, low-voiced, “What mean you to do with Geoffrey?”
    “I would to God I knew. . . .” He found a smile for her, hoping it might give her the reassurance that his words could not. But then Geoffrey was forgotten and he was striding hastily toward the woman just entering the hall. She was a sight to draw most male eyes, a slim, dark-haired daughter of the South, the Lady Petronilla, widowed Countess of Vermandois, his sister by marriage.
    “How is she, Petra?”
    “How do you think? Hurting.” Petronilla’s green eyes were coolly appraising. He supposed she blamed him for not being with Eleanor when she’d most needed him and he resented the injustice of that, but not enough to stay and argue with her. Instead, he went to find his wife.
    CRESSET LAMPS still burned in the nursery. A young wet-nurse was drowsing by the fire, a swaddled baby suckling hungrily at an ample breast. The infant paid no heed to Henry’s entry, but the woman jumped to her feet, flustered and stammering as she sought to cover herself. Henry ordinarily had an appreciative eye for female charms. Now, though, he hardly glanced at the girl’s exposed bosom. “Let me see my daughter,” he said, and she hastily complied.
    The baby wailed in protest as her meal was interrupted, showing she had a healthy set of lungs. Her hair was wispy and soft, as bright as the flames licking at the hearth log, and her tiny face was reddening, puckered up into a fretful pout. Henry stroked her cheek with his forefinger and then handed her back to the nurse.
    There were two cradles, but there ought to have been three. That missing bed cut at Henry’s heart like the thrust of a sword. His eyes stinging, he halted by one of the cradles, gazing down at his second son and namesake. Hal was sucking on his thumb, the firelight gleaming on his cap of curly fair hair, and even in sleep, his resemblance to his dead brother was wrenching. Henry was tempted to wake him up. He was afraid, though, that the little boy would not remember him. He’d been gone for the past six of the child’s sixteen months on earth.
    Will would have known him. But he’d been away so often in Will’s pitifully brief life, too. He’d meant to be a good father, to forge a bond with his sons that could never be broken. His own childhood had been a