Time and Chance Read Free Page B

his arms, she shuddered, then clung fast. “Come on, love,” he said, “let’s go to bed.”
    She nodded, letting him lead her toward the bed. Kicking off her shoes, she started to remove her stockings, then gave him an oblique glance through her lashes. “Do you want to help?”
    His surprise was obvious. “It is not too soon?”
    “Maude was born on the second Wednesday after Whitsun, and today is the twenty-third. That makes six weeks by my count.”
    “Two days short,” Henry said; he’d always been good at math.
    Eleanor lay back against the pillows. “Would you rather wait?”
    “I’ve never been one for waiting,” he said and kissed her, softly at first, until her arms went up around his neck. When he spoke again, his voice was husky and he sounded out of breath. “You were wrong about my not trusting anyone. I may be wary of the rest of mankind, but I do trust you, my mother, and Thomas Becket.”
    Eleanor’s eyes shone in the firelight, golden and catlike. “Not necessarily in that order,” she murmured, and after that, they had no further need of words, finding in their lovemaking a familiar pleasure and even a small measure of solace.

CHAPTER TWO

    May 1157
St John’s Abbey
Colchester, England
     
     
     
     
     
    ADAME, WAIT!” The hospitaller hurried along the cloister walkway, hoping to intercept the queen before she reached her destination: the abbey chapter house. He did not have high expectations of success, but he had to try. A woman—even a highborn one—could not be allowed to wander at will in this hallowed sanctum of holy men. He was taken aback when Eleanor stopped abruptly, then swung around to face him.
    “You wish to speak with me, Brother Clement?”
    “Indeed, Madame, I . . . I wanted to show you our herb gardens.”
    “That is kind of you, but I’ve already seen them.”
    He could think of no other pretext, could only blurt out the truth. “My lady, forgive me for speaking so boldly, but you do not want to enter the chapter house just now. The lord king and our abbot and Archbishop Theobald are discussing a Church matter and . . . and so lovely a lady would be bound to be a distraction.”
    His patronizing attempt at gallantry had Eleanor’s ladies, Barbe and Melisent, avoiding each other’s gaze lest they burst out laughing. No monk in Aquitaine would have dared to presume so, but this English monk clearly knew little of his young king’s consort. Grateful that they were to be present at his epiphany, they smiled at him with malicious mischief that he, in his innocence, took for coquetry.
    His sudden blush made him look so young and vulnerable that Eleanor felt a glimmer of pity and chose not to prolong his ordeal. “Your ‘Church matter’ is, in actuality, a trial, Brother Clement. When the Bishop of Chichester sought to exercise jurisdiction over the abbey at Battle, the abbot balked, contending that the abbey was exempted from episcopal authority by royal charter. Eventually this dispute came before my lord husband, the king, and we expect the issue to be resolved today.”
    The hospitaller was staring at her, mouth agape, and she wasted no more time in driving the stiletto home. “Now you may escort me to the chapter house,” she said in a tone that he recognized at once, for all that it was sheathed in silk: the voice of authority, absolute and indisputable.
    Eleanor’s entrance put a temporary halt to the proceedings. The chamber was studded with stars of the Church: the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Archbishop of York, the Bishops of Chichester, Hereford, and Winchester. Eleanor harbored genuine respect only for the venerable Theobald of Canterbury. York and Chichester she considered to be self-seekers, men whose ambitions were thoroughly secular in nature. She did not know Gilbert Foliot, Bishop of Hereford, well enough to assess, and the aged Bishop of Winchester she utterly mistrusted, for he was the brother of the usurping Stephen, damned both by