The Queen's Bastard
the hard hammering of her heart. Maybe the night’s dream of her birth had been a portent, a harbinger of coming change. Perhaps that was what had driven her from her bed in time to see Robert’s impetuous midnight arrival.
    Robert swung out of the coach before it stopped moving, his ground-eating strides bringing him to her before she could jump down from the gate. He swept her off the iron bars, disregarding her size, and spun her around before setting her on her feet again. “You’ve grown,” he said approvingly. “Now go on, Belinda. Pack your things. We leave the moment the horses are changed.”
    Belinda gaped. “Tonight?”
    “Tonight. There is a man at court whose business is yours, and the need is urgent.”
    Ice slid through Belinda’s insides. Stillness overtook her even more quickly than the ice, and her gaze remained steady on Robert’s face, her hazel eyes expressionless. “Papa?”
    “Your wardrobe, Primrose. Come, quickly now. I’ve no time to tarry. I’ll tell you what you need to know in the carriage.”
    “Of course, Papa.” Belinda curtsied, an instinctive thing, and stepped around him. Wind picked up, sending freezing shards through her sleeping gown, and her feet took her back into the manor heedless of the turmoil in her belly and mind. Her maidservant, Margaret, met her at the head of the stairs, hands twisted in her skirts with excitement.
    “A husband, my lady, think of it,” she whispered, herding Belinda down the hall. “Do you think he’ll be young and handsome, or old and rich?”
    “I’m sure Papa will have made the best match for me,” Belinda replied, as reflexive as her curtsey earlier had been. She was very nearly twelve, the legal age for marriage, though young. She hadn’t expected it so soon: adopted daughter or not, Robert was not yet old, and a marriage might yet be made for him. Heirs of his blood might still be possible, though Lorraine’s favouritism showed no signs of waning, and the queen had flown into tempers before when her courtiers made matches of their own. The man Robert had in mind for her would be without an heir himself, a child bride extending the years it might be possible to get one. If he was old enough, he might die before she caught, and his lands would become Robert’s.
    Belinda expected him, then, to be older. Not handsome, but wealthy, with any sons already dead in wars or foolish accidents. She allowed Margaret to dress her without awareness of what she wore. Her dagger caught in the folds of her chemise, pressing uncomfortably against her spine. Belinda straightened it before the stiff fabric of her corset was tightened around her. He would be minor nobility; a duke or an earl was beyond her scope.
    “Your boots, my lady.”
    Belinda startled, looking down. Margaret knelt, waiting patiently for Belinda to respond and be done with the dressing process. “We’ll want to bring makeup,” the woman said as she slipped first one boot, then the other, onto Belinda’s feet. “It’ll run if we apply it so early, my lady, but you can’t be seen at court without it.”
    “Yes, of course. I leave the details to you, Margaret. I know you won’t embarrass me.”
    Margaret dimpled and ducked her head in a nod. “I won’t, my lady. I’ll have you packed within the hour. Lord Robert will be waiting for you downstairs now, I think.”
    “Yes, of course,” Belinda repeated. “Thank you, Margaret.” Skirts and petticoats gathered, she ran to the great hall, then to the kitchen, where Robert sat on a rough wooden table before the fire, gnawing a goose leg to the bone.
    “Margaret says my things will be packed within the hour, Papa,” she said from the door. Robert glanced up, gesturing with his meal. Belinda came in, smoothing her skirts as she sat on the table’s bench, facing the fire. Robert twisted, propping a foot on the table.
    “An hour. Worse than I’d hoped, better than I’d imagined. Keep that one, Primrose; she’s
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