Lord of My Heart Read Online Free PDF

grasp on her fate and try to steer it. I will support you as far as I am able. I also point out that the responsibility for choosing a husband is not a light one. Take heed what qualities you seek.”
    Madeleine nodded.
    “My cloak,” the duchess commanded. Madeleine picked up the soft, white cloth embroidered in gold and red, and draped it around Matilda’s shoulders. She pulled the ends through the heavy brooch of gold and garnet, and arranged it on the lady’s shoulder.
    Matilda nodded her approval. “As for now, I am on my way to Saint Lo on the business of the duchy. I will visit here again in two weeks and take you into my company of ladies.”
    With this Madeleine was dismissed. She stood in a quiet corner of the cloister and considered her strangely altered future with excitement and trepidation. She would be joining the court and going to England. She would be entering the hitherto forbidden world of men and the marriage bed.
    The convent had not left her totally ignorant, for there was much whispered speculation about sins, especially those of immodesty and fornication. And she had, after all, lived in the world until she was ten. She believed she knew well enough what men did to women, though she hardly thought, as Sister Adela had insisted, that some women became as crazed with lust as men. And as for Sister Bridget’s assertion that men sucked magic fluid from a woman’s breasts in order to stiffen their member for the act ...
    All such issues were irrelevant anyway. Madeleine had been given a chance to live in the world. That meant more to her than a sweet lover in her bed.
    She understood the duchess’ lesson perfectly. She would need a strong man to hold her barony safe in a troubled land—one skillful in war and careful in administration. The color of his eyes, the shape of his limbs, were irrelevant.
    She would take care to choose well. Then Duke William would have no pretext for rescinding the privilege she had won and imposing on her a choice of his own.

    Chapter 1
    contents - next

    Baddersley, Mercia May 1068

    Madeleine walked along the woodland path, searching the undergrowth for valuable plants. Baddersley had suffered, first under the rule of her sick father and careless brother, and now under the harsh hand of her uncle, Paul de Pouissey.
    She would never understand men. What point was there in conquest if everyone starved, or died of disease? Medicinal supplies were scarce at Baddersley, and the herb garden was rank with weeds. She had brought a small box of medicinal and culinary herbs and spices— a farewell gift from the abbess—but more, much more, would be needed.
    Most, but not all, of the plants here were the same as those she was familiar with back home—she stopped and picked a handful of cinquefoil, so good for toothache. When she had more skill with the strange English tongue perhaps she would be able to learn from the local people.
    It was not very likely, she admitted with a sigh. It wasn’t just language that cut her off from the English, but the sullen resentment they felt for their Norman conquerors. Quite reasonably, she supposed, especially when the representative of Norman rule hereabouts was Paul de Pouissey. Madeleine had never liked her uncle, and now she was coming to hate him.
    Things were not turning out at all as she had planned.
    After two months of training at Matilda’s court in Rouen, Madeleine had joined the duchess’ train en route to England, the proud owner of chests full of fine clothes, jewels to wear with them, and a tiring woman to care for them. She had new skills in music and dance, and new friends, including the duchess’ thirteen-year-old daughter, Agatha, and her sixteen-year-old niece, Judith. The three young women had a common interest, for they were all to find husbands in England.
    Now Agatha and Judith were at Westminster, enjoying the festivities surrounding Matilda’s coronation as Queen of England—and meeting all the eligible