Belladonna at Belstone Read Online Free PDF Page A

lain at either side of his mouth were fading, and the scar which ran from temple to jaw seemed less prominent.
    His clothing too had undergone a transformation. Baldwin was not vain, as some of his older and threadbare tunics could testify. Most of them had been mended several times, making him look as tatty as an impoverished mercenary without a lord. These days, Jeanne was delighted to see her husband displaying the trappings of wealth. Today, for instance, his robe was fur-lined, his hat’s liripipe trailed to his shoulder, his tunic was a gorgeous blue. It was only right. Jeanne, as proud of her husband as any young wife, felt that a man with such authority should dress himself accordingly. Beforehand, few who met Baldwin would have guessed that he was the Keeper of the King’s Peace for Crediton, a man whose sway might technically have stopped short of the death penalty without a coroner’s formal approval, but who was still one of the King’s most important local representatives.
    It wasn’t the power which had attracted Jeanne to him. She had been unfortunate in childhood: a gang of trailbastons had murdered her father and mother, and she had been sent to relatives in Bordeaux as an orphan. Her uncle had married her off as soon as she was old enough to a Devon knight, Sir Ralph of Liddinstone, a brutal man who had blamed her when she was unable to conceive the children he craved, and took to beating her. It had been a great relief when he caught a fever and died.
    She had been anxious lest all husbands would behave in the same way. At first, when Ralph died, she was keen never to tie herself to another man - but then she met Sir Baldwin, and something about him made her review that decision.
    Sir Baldwin had an essential gentleness which she found reassuring, and his actions demonstrated a respect for her and her sex which was novel; whereas most men professed a chivalrous civility towards women, Sir Baldwin was one of the few she had ever known who took pains to behave respectfully, rather than simply using expressions of admiration and courtly love to obscure some very earthy intentions.
    Yet there was more to his attraction than mere politeness and kindness. He intrigued her, for in his eyes she could sometimes see a melancholy, as if a memory had triggered a sad reflection. At those times she loved him more than at any other, and had a strong maternal urge to defend him.
    “How was the horse, my love?”
    Baldwin finished his pot, tossed it to Wat, and caught hold of his wife, kissing her. “Magnificent! As fast as I could have wished, and steady, too.”
    Jeanne pulled back from his encircling arms and peered up into his face, ignoring the sound of the pot smashing on the cobbles as Wat fumbled the catch. Baldwin’s eyes shone with an honest brilliance, and she made a moue. ‘I wish you would be more cautious when the tracks are iced, husband. What if you were to fall far from here, and no one knew where you were?“
    “Do not fear for me, my Lady,” he grinned. “With a horse such as him I would find it difficult to lose my seat. And the important thing is, he should sire a whole generation of foals before the end of the year.”
    He stooped to kiss her, and she responded, but as he embraced her, he felt her stiffen at the sound of hoofbeats. Turning, he saw a messenger riding fast towards them.
    The sun shone brightly on the convent too. Lady Elizabeth could see that the night’s snow had mostly melted as she sat in the cloisters with the account rolls spread before her. She hated them. Not only was she unable to add and subtract, she found her treasurer’s scrawl difficult to decipher. Most of the time she reluctantly accepted what Margherita had written - not an ideal state of affairs, for she instinctively mistrusted the other woman.
    Lady Elizabeth was seated in her favourite spot. Here, she could keep an eye on her obedientiaries and now, as the women returned from the frater and their main