The Captive Heart Read Online Free PDF Page A

will honor my wishes,” Sir Udolf said.
    “Then I will speak to my daughter,” the physician said.
    Alix was not pleased to learn the future that was being planned for her. “Why can I not just serve the queen as Mama did?” she wanted to know.
    “The queen is no longer honored as England’s queen,” her father answered her. “There is no court or royal household in which we may serve. I am too weak to take you home to Anjou, Alix. You do not wish to devote your life to God. There is no other choice open to you but marriage.”
    “But who will help old Edmee if I am not with them? Who will sing to the king when the dolor is upon him if I am not with them?” Alix demanded to know.
    “There is no other choice,” her father repeated.
    “Have I ever seen this man you propose to wed me to, Papa?” she asked.
    “He is the tall young man in the hall with the white-blond hair,” the physician said. “He is there in the evenings sometimes.”
    “I do not recall such a man,” Alix answered her father, “and I am in the hall every evening. Wouldn’t he sit at the high board? Yet only the queen and the little prince sit with Sir Udolf. The king eats in his chambers.”
    “I have seen the lad,” Alexander Givet responded stubbornly. “Look more closely this evening, mignon . Perhaps if you did not gossip so much with Fayme and Edmee you would pay more attention to the high board.”
    “We speak of bygone days,” Alix told her father. “They miss their old life greatly. I do too, and I miss Mama.”
    “That life is gone for us all,” he replied. “And you will not spend your days at court, ma petite . You will live out your life here in the north as mistress in your own hall. It is not a bad future, mignon . Your mama would be pleased by what I have done.”
    “You are marrying me to a stranger,” Alix said unhappily. “At least you and Mama knew each other a little bit when the Count of Anjou approved your match.”
    “Aye, Hayle Watteson is a stranger to you, but I will be with you, mignon . And Sir Udolf likes you, and I suspect already thinks of you as a daughter. The queen wants you safely wed, and I concur.”
    Alix sighed sadly. She might protest, but the truth was there was no other choice for her. The queen could no longer keep them, and her father grew frailer with each passing day. At least this marriage she was entering into would give her father a safe haven for whatever time he had left upon this earth. Alix was a sensible girl, and she knew her father’s days were numbered. Aye. Her mother would want this both for Alix and for Alexander Givet. And she had to marry sooner than later, didn’t she? Sir Udolf was a kind man. He always had a twinkle in his eye, and Alix suspected if she ran his household well, and gave him grandchildren, he would treat her with great kindness and respect. Although she honestly could not recall having seen his son, he certainly couldn’t be a terrible person. Not with such a father.
    “There is one thing you must know about your intended,” her father said, breaking into her thoughts.
    “What, Papa?”
    “He has a mistress he holds dear. He will not give her up even for a wife,” Alexander Givet said, looking closely at his daughter for her reaction.
    “Many men have mistresses they will not give up. I care not as long as I am treated with the respect due the wife of the heir to Wulfborn,” Alix said sanguinely, surprising her father. “Perhaps Hayle and I will come to love each other. Perhaps not. But as long as he is kind and my place is secure, it matters not to me.”
    “For a maid born and raised in England, you speak like a French-woman,” the physician said with a small chuckle. “I suppose it is being influenced by French women all your life that has made you such a practical girl.”
    “When is the wedding to take place?” Alix wanted to know.
    “The contracts must be drawn. Then they will be signed, and we will adjourn immediately to the