Free Love Everlasting by Flora Speer Page A

was unable to think of any man but him.
    And, he told himself, if she ever gave the
faintest hint of having betrayed him or King Henry, he’d kill her
without thought or remorse.
    Julianna turned her head to look directly at
him and Royce felt an unusual tightening in his chest. He told
himself it was because, though he was old enough and wise enough to
control his body’s urgings, his new wife presented the most
delicious temptation he’d met in years.
     
    The next morning Royce was enjoying the sight
of Julianna combing and braiding her hair while he rather
absentmindedly buckled his belt around his dark green tunic when a
sharp rap sounded at the bedchamber door. Thinking it was one of
his squires, he opened it without asking who was there. No squire,
but a short and remarkably unattractive woman confronted him.
    “Good day to you, my lord.” The words were
polite, but the voice was not. The greeting issued from a hard
mouth set in a scowling face. A scrawny figure clothed in a brown
wool dress, black hair only partly covered by a white wimple and
dark, very sharp eyes completed the unpleasant picture. Without
waiting for permission to enter the woman began to push past Royce
and into the room. He moved to block her entrance.
    “Who are you and what do you want?” he
demanded.
    “I am Marie.” Her lips barely moved when she
spoke.
    “And?” Royce regarded her with his brows
raised.
    “You do not know me, my lord? Have you not
been told?” The woman made an annoyed clucking sound and tried
again to move past Royce. Again he stepped squarely in front of
her. “I am Lady Julianna’s personal maidservant,” the woman
explained.
    “No, you are not. Not any longer.” Julianna
stood at the far side of the room, clad only in her shift,
clutching her comb in one hand as if she intended to use it as a
weapon. “Marie, I dismissed you yesterday. You are to return to Dol
today, along with the other servants from that estate. I have no
further need of you.”
    “But you have, my lady,” Marie said in a
startlingly insistent manner that was most unbecoming in any
servant. “Every noblewoman requires a personal attendant. If I am
gone, who will dress you and arrange your hair? Who will carry your
messages and return the answers to you?”
    “Messages?” Royce looked from the sour-faced
Marie to his wife, noting both anger and fear on Julianna’s lovely
countenance. Fear of a mere maidservant? Or of what the servant
knew? How very interesting. With an inner sigh Royce recognized
that it was time to put aside the pleasures of a newly consummated
marriage and resume the mantle of the king’s spymaster.
    “I do not understand,” he said smoothly,
speaking to Julianna. “My lady, this servant is correct. You do
need at least a small retinue, among their number a female to
assist you in dressing and to attend you when you venture out of
doors.”
    “Then I will find new servants,” Julianna
said. “I have ordered all of my former people to return to their
home estates, where they will be well cared for. Marie can become
maidservant to the wife of my seneschal at Dol. The wife of your
seneschal,” she hastily corrected herself.
     
    “But, why?” Royce asked, offering a bland
smile while he observed the play of emotion across her face. “My
dear Julianna, I have no objection to you taking your own servants
to Wortham. Indeed, I expected you would do so.” He intended to
alert his own servants and his squires to pay close attention to
anyone who came in Julianna’s retinue and to report to him all
signs of suspicious behavior. Her refusal to take any of her own
people when she left Caen was in itself suspicious.
    “I am capable of dressing myself.” Julianna
set her square jaw so her face assumed a stubborn aspect. “I can
also comb and arrange my own hair.”
    “You do understand that because King Henry
frequently orders my presence I cannot always be with you?” Royce
said, still employing the