Almost Innocent by Jane Feather Read Free Book Online Page A

She looked with frank envy at the other girl’s budding breasts, the faint dusting of hair beneath her arms and at the base of her belly. “My Aunt Elinor said I could not expect to have my terms for a year at least.”
    “Then you are most fortunate,” declared Catherine. “For they are a great inconvenience, are they not, madame?”
    Gwendoline, who had been helping the nurse with the little ones’ dressing while listening without comment to the older girls’ conversation, agreed with a sigh. For her, the bleeding was more than an inconvenience; it was a near permanent condition and had been these last six months. She had tried physicians’ remedies and midwives’ cures. She had been cupped to the point of fainting, had lain upon her bed for weeks at a time, but nothing would stop the steady, life-draining flux. And now there was the pain, a deep inner stabbing that wrenched her vitals and took her breath away. But she had told no one of that. Guy could not bear the suffering that he knew about, and it was easier for her to endure in fortitude if she did not feel his pain and fear and anger.
    “But such a lack, Magdalen, will not delay your wedding, only the time at which you and your husband can be truly man and wife,” she said, wondering why no one had thought to explain this to the child before.
    “Oh.” Magdalen thought about this for a minute, then shrugged. It did not seem to make much difference. “Do you know why I am to go to London, my lady?” She fastened the buttons of her gown. “Is it then because of the wedding?”
    “It has something to do with it,” Lady Gwendoline said vaguely. “Lord de Gervais will explain all, I am certain. Let me tie your girdle. It is twisted at the back.”
    Why was it, Magdalen thought not for the first time, that one was so rarely afforded a straight answer to a straight question? Lady Gwendoline did know why she was to go to London, the child was sure of it. However, whatever the reason, the journey itself promised joy. Lord de Gervais’s exclusive company was a rare treat, and in the months since she had been established in his household, he had lost none of his divine luster.
    Finally dressed, the excited troop of children ran from their wing of the stone manor house. The house stood on a hill and was therefore not fortified with moat and drawbridge, although watchtowers stood at the corners of the outer walls. In one of the two inner courts, a group of young men, the pages and squires of the de Gervais household, waited for the children. Among them was Edmund de Bresse. As his betrothed came bounding down the hall steps, her plaits flying, he came toward her, in his hands a bunch of marigolds that he had picked along the riverbank before the first touch of the sun had dried the dew. He was very conscious of the correctness of his romantic gesture as he presented the bouquet with a flourishing bow.
    Magdalen looked both pleased and surprised, but the significance of the gift in terms of courtly etiquette completely escaped her, and she failed to respond to the bow with the appropriate curtsy. “Why, how pretty, Edmund. We will put some in our hair,” she said gaily, distributing the flowers among her companions. “But we must pick more in the fields as we go to the village, for we must all have crowns and garlands.”
    Guy watched the little scene with an inner smile. He approved Edmund’s gesture as indicative of chivalric lessons well learned, but Magdalen’s response showed how ill prepared she was to be the object of a suitor’s ardor. She had too little artifice in her nature, hereflected, perhaps ever to become adept at the game of flirtation. Edmund was doing his best, but his betrothed was more inclined to jump with joy at the prospect of a visit to the mews or a ride to hounds than she was to sentimental tunes on Edmund’s lyre or soulful walks in the pleasaunce. He rather suspected that soon the lad would give up and return to his neglected