Free Constant Heart by Siri Mitchell

them,” I protested, “then I go about unarmed.”
    “If you do not, then he . . . simply . . . goes about.”
    It was the first time I had considered such a thought. I had worked so hard at protecting myself from him. Might I only have succeeded in driving him into the arms of another? If he were steadfastly ignoring me, then on whom was he bestowing his attentions? I knew him to return home quite late. “Joan, is he . . . has he been . . . ?”
    “I do not know. But why should he not?”
    I could not let myself think too long on what he might have been doing with his time and attentions. But I could start to consider the cost of reversing my own course.
    I must reverse my course.
    My father had populated the countryside of Norfolk with his bastards. The one thing I hoped from my marriage was that my own husband would not do the same.

9
    T he celebration of Her Majesty’s Accession Day, the day she had ascended to her throne, arrived. I attended the tilts at he the palace and watched as the earl took his place among the other nobles. Some of them had their lady’s glove fixed to their helmet or their sleeve, but the earl had asked for nothing from me. And had he asked for something, I confess I do not know what I would have given him.
    What kind of man was he that he could ignore his own wife? That he was more solicitous of his servants’ interests, of Joan’s even, than my own? I could not call him unkind, just as I could not call him unhandsome. His dark curls were pleasing. And his beard was quite precisely trimmed. His mustaches were long enough to make themselves known, but not so grown as to be overlarge. In short, he looked the perfect courtier. In fact, he courted all but one.
    All but me.
    And I could not understand why.
    Not that I wanted to be courted.

    I had sent my armor to the armorer’s to be polished and had commissioned a new spear. I commanded that a new gown be made for the girl as well. All seemed perfect. Except that everywhere I looked, the ladies of the court were bestowing tokens upon their husbands or lovers. Sometimes both. I may not have a lover, but I was a husband, and my wife had given me nothing. Not a look nor a word nor a token of any kind.
    Not that it mattered.
    Oh, but it did!
    I intended to wait no longer. “Nicholas!”
    “My lord?”
    “I would that you request a handkerchief from the . . . my . . . countess.” “
    My lord?” He offered his own handkerchief to me. “Please, do me the honor.”
    “Thank you just the same, but I will not fix your handkerchief to my helmet.”
    Knowledge lit his eyes. “Of course not, my lord.”
    I kept watch on Nicholas as he made his way toward the girl.
    I could not hear their conversation, but I was able to read their gestures.
    At Nicholas’s approach, she smiled. The red of her gown made her skin glow like a moonstone. Nay. In truth, it could not be the red, for there was something that ever glowed from within. There was such . . . goodness about her. It flowed forth like a moonbeam.
    There now! Was that not magnanimous of me?
    Could the nobles around me hear my thoughts, they would think me daft indeed.
    As Nicholas spoke, her smile grew broader still. She pulled a handkerchief from her sleeve and offered it to him with a laugh.
    And then, he betrayed my interest. He pointed in my direction.
    Her smile withered.
    Our eyes met.
    I bowed.
    She held my glance for a long moment, then turned back toward Nicholas and spoke to him.
    He bowed in leaving and made his way back to me.
    “She would not have offered it had she not thought it was for you.”
    “She sends it with her regard, my lord.”
    “Regards?”
    “Regard.”
    Then she sent it with nothing. For I already knew that she had looked at me. What I wanted to know was what she thought of me.
    But I took it from Nicholas and ordered my squire to tie it to my sleeve.
    It was such a dainty, delicate thing.
    Not entirely unlike its owner.

    I watched as the earl had my