Free ASilverMirror by Roberta Gellis

ask me to do what
I could not only for William and Aubery but for Henry’s cause too.”
    “I hope no help will be needed,” Barbara said. “I have just
come—the day before yesterday—from England. The Earl of Leicester has sent proposals
for peace. If they are accepted this long misery will be over.”
    She was able to speak quite calmly by then. Barbara had made
little sense of what Alphonse said, but his explanation had given her time to
recover. He was not cruel, she told herself. Alphonse was never cruel. He was
trying to protect her from herself, as he had all those years ago when she had
flung herself at him. She had not known then that half the ladies of the court,
some of them great heiresses, panted after him like bitches in heat because he
was one of the great tourney champions, and was said to be as skillful with his
lance in bed as on the tourney field. If she had only known, but no one had
spoken of such things to her. They had thought her a child because her breasts
had not yet budded, and she had not guessed how he drew women because he was
not particularly handsome.
    If she had known, Barbara reminded herself, she would have
understood he acted out of simple kindness, a desire to comfort one he thought
of as a child, when he supported her through her first misery of being, as she
believed however wrongly, cast away by her father. Barbara now knew she had
interpreted wrongly Alphonse’s reasons for explaining that only great love and
fear for her safety had forced her father to leave her with Queen Marguerite.
But in 1253, as she recovered from the shock of being “abandoned” in the French
court, she had assumed she had been sent there to be married. And, because her
father said he was placing her affairs in Alphonse’s hands and that she was to
go to Alphonse for help if she needed it, she also assumed that if she liked
Alphonse, he would be chosen as her husband. He had even carried her sleeve in
a tourney and given her the prize—her silver mirror.
    He had not even laughed at her when she offered her love,
only said gently that he could never look so high for a wife, for she was an
earl’s daughter and he only a landless younger son. She was to have a much
better husband than he, he had told her then, a rich count who would settle on
her her mother’s lands. Kind. Alphonse was always kind. It would have been far
better for her if he had not spared her feelings but laughed and called her a
fool as her father would have done.

Chapter Four
     
    “My dear Sieur Alphonse, do forgive me for not coming out to
welcome you as soon as John told me you were here, but I was so eager to hear
his news that I took for granted your good nature.”
    Hugh Bigod’s voice interrupted Alphonse’s surprise at
Barbara’s statement, which seemed to imply, no matter how unlikely, that she
had brought peace terms to Hugh from England. Both he and Barbara stood up, and
as Hugh took his hand, he made a polite disclaimer of any offense taken.
However, before he could say that he was sure Hugh’s house was too crowded to absorb
another unexpected guest, Bigod pressed his forearm and turned to smile at
Barbara, saying, “I will keep the new arguments against Leicester’s proposals
Queen Eleanor has sent, if that will not inconvenience her.” He shrugged and
added, “I will need some time to find answers that will content her.”
    “You may keep them. I am sure those copies are for you, but
is there something I can tell her that will induce her not to insult
Leicester’s emissaries? I do not think any harm will be done to Prince Edward,
but I do believe that total confiscation of property and other very harsh
measures will be taken against Leicester’s enemies if arbitration for peace is
not begun.”
    Hugh sighed. “I can think of any number of things I would like to tell her, but—”
    “Uncle!”
    Barbara’s lips curved with amusement at the exasperation in
Hugh’s voice and Alphonse set his teeth. He