Marie Helene had not come in early as she usually did, and I dozed a little past dawn, and woke with a smile on my face. Gerald was still with me. I had half expected him to steal away when I was no longer looking, but he smiled down on me, raised on one elbow. He had a look of pride about him, as if I were a mountain he had long wished to climb. I had seen the same look once or twice on Henry’s face when we had first been together, so long ago.
I turned my mind from Henry and from any thought of my husband downstairs. I blinked the sleep from my eyes and let my new lover kiss me.
“Good morning, my lady.”
“So, it is, my lord.”
He flushed at the courtesy I paid him, for he was not high-ranking enough to be the lord of a princess of France. “I must go, Countess, before your ladies come i
