The Order of the Lily Read Online Free Page A

when he learned the nursery of his home was to have two new inhabitants. It took all her willpower to refrain from rubbing her own small protuber-ance, hidden by the cut of her surcotte.
    â€˜As you can see, Marguerite will soon be in confinement. We intend to spend the winter quarter here.’
    Armand raised Marguerite’s hand to his lips, his eyes never leaving her face. ‘I am sure Gillet will be pleased to learn of his new nephew,’ he grinned, ‘or niece, as am I for greeting a new cousin. Madame, you are as radiant as Mother Earth herself.’
    â€˜Ha,’ scoffed Arnaud. ‘Tilled soil she was but fertile she was not!’ He grabbed Marguerite’s chin and turned it to face him. ‘But even the poorest field, when regularly ploughed, must eventually yield a crop, eh, my love.’
    Marguerite blushed and cast her gaze to the floor. Armand still held her hand, and tactfully she withdrew it.
    The men’s attention was redirected to the arrival of the wine. Three things did Cécile notice in that one moment. Marguerite’s hand was misshapen, the smallest finger jutting out at an odd angle. Her rapid blush had paled to a sickly grey, and when she glanced at her husband’s broad back, it was with fear.
    â€˜No, I must return to France on the first tide,’ Armand was saying as he returned with two goblets of wine. He handed one to Cécile with a wink. ‘I have a pressing duty to which I must attend.’
    â€˜My wife will be grateful for female company,’ replied Arnaud, seating himself once more as Armand furnished Marguerite with a drink. ‘I scarce have time to play wet nurse. Ghillebert should have been here a month ago. There is much to be done before the onset of winter.’ The men’s talk shifted to trade and the latest consignments. England’s court had established a fondness for Gascon wine and the Albret vine-yards in France were profiting well.
    Cécile relinquished her chair to Armand and moved to the alcove seat. ‘How long before you expect your babe?’ she asked Marguerite, smiling warmly. To her amazement, the young woman turned away, tears filling her eyes. Some moments elapsed as she struggled for control.
    â€˜Forgive me,’ she whispered, turning back. ‘I am all of a dither lately. I believe it was three to four weeks at the last reckoning. And please call me Margot.’ She glanced at her husband again, only this time, instead of just fear, there was hate. ‘My name is Margot.’

    When Armand departed the following morning Cécile felt desperately alone. Not since their parting in Arras had she felt so miserable. Margot kept to her chamber and Arnaud took up his duties on the estate, content to ignore her. Cécile saw them only at supper, a brief affair in which they ate in silence and the void of conversation was filled with Arnaud’s slurping and belching.
    The days dragged on, each hour clawing at its predecessor’s heels with indeterminable slowness. Cécile visited Ruby and Inferno but even these visits began to irritate her as the stable boys regarded her with mixed awe and suspicion. The sight of her hand-feeding their most difficult charge, and he, nuzzling with the docility of a unicorn in a myth, gave rise to nervous whispers and many signings of the cross.
    â€˜Your master will come,’ whispered Cécile, ignoring the stable boys as Inferno snuffled into her hair. ‘He will not abandon us.’ But each day dawned and darkened with no word.

    By the fifth day Cécile seated herself on a bench beneath an aged oak, her soul steeped in melancholy. Her humours felt out of balance or perhaps, she thought, her stars had come into Saturn’s orbit and the malicious planet was executing its baleful influence. She took stock of her life in the hope of counting good fortune. She was alive, albeit in her enemy’s land with no family, and the man she loved,