Meanwhile, Tate had reached Isabella’s fine carriage. It was a smaller cab purely for the warmth it would provide and several ladies, including the queen, were stuffed into it. They were alsocovered by mounds of furs, doing theirpetit poito pass the hours of travel. One of them was reciting her own poetry from memory. When Tate pulled up to the carriage, however, all movement stopped.
Isabella was wedged in between two of her women to keep warm, supported by layers of heavy furs. She smiled at Tate when he opened his visor to look at her.
“A que dois-je le plaisir de votre visite?” she asked sweetly.
He eyed the whores surrounding her and dismounted his charger. “Partir vos femmes et marcher avec moi,” he replied.
Leave those women and walk with me. It was rare when he spoke French but he wanted the ladies to understand that he wished to speak with the queen alone. They did not need followers. Isabella climbed out of the cab, no easy feat with the amount of furs and cloaks they had covering them, and took Tate’s offered hand as her small feet hit the slushy road. When he realized that it would be difficult for her to maneuver the muddy road bed in her fine slippers, he lifted her up to sit upon his horse. Leading the animal, he walked several feet away from the army, paralleling the column as it proceeded.
“What did you wish to speak of?” she asked him.
“We are nearing Wigmore,” he replied. “We should be upon it by this eve.”
Isabella’s smile faded. “I see,” she said quietly, eyeing him a moment before speaking again. “And you are wondering how I will convince him to release your wife.”
“It has crossed my mind.”
Her smile returned, knowingly this time. “I have been thinking very heavily on this, Tate. I have thought of little else. It is my belief that you should let me go alone to speak with Mortimer.”
He turned to look at her. “Alone?”
She nodded. “He should not know that an army is waiting to attack him if he does not turn your wife over; at least, not yet. It will be easier to deal with him if it is simply me. I am not a threat, you see; I have given him something he very much wants. I have given him power. I can take it away as well. I believe that will be a stronger influence over him than your army.”
Tate brought the horse to a halt and faced her. “I have almost ten thousand men waiting to lay siege to Wigmore,” he said frankly. “You do not believe he will respond to that?”
“He will respond,” she said softly. “But it will only drive him to war. It will not drive him to negotiate.”
Tate cocked an eyebrow. “I want my wife back. I will have her back tomorrow one way or another.”
“I understand,bien-aimé,” she said soothingly. “But your method will have you kill Mortimer in order to regain her. I do not want him harmed. I believe I have another idea that will gain us all what we wish.”
Tate stared at her for a moment. “He cannot have Edward.”
She shushed him. “I did not mean that. I mean another way.”
“What other way?”
Tate found that he was willing to listen. Mid-way through her explanation, they both looked up to see Edward bearing down on them. Isabella stopped talking, looking at her son anxiously as the lad came to a halt. Tate watched him, waiting for him to say something to his mother, but the youth remained silent. He just stared at her. After pausing a few moments to see what would transpire, Tate finally motioned to him.
“Go and get Wallace,” he told him. “I think you both need to hear what your mother is suggesting. And be quick about it.”
With a lingering glance at Isabella, Edward galloped off in search of Wallace. He returned with the former priest in short order, whereupon Isabella resumed outlining her plans for Mortimer and Wigmore.
It was the first step towards a son opening communication with his mother and it was the first step in a mother perhaps redeeming herself to her son. Perhaps in helping Tate and Toby, they were helping each other as well.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
The nooning mealcommenced two hours after its normally scheduled time. Toby had pouted and raged in her chamber about the fact that she did not want to attend but she knew that she must. Even the candied pumpkin Kenneth had managed to locate did not improve her mood. So the knight was forced to give her a very stern talk about her behavior and the necessity for cooperation. Toby had thrown pumpkin at him. Kenneth had calmly picked it up off the floor and ate it.
Pushing the limits, Toby waited until the last minute to dress for the meal in another Joan Mortimer gown. Toby had fleetingly wondered about a woman who would allow her husband to so openly cavort with another woman, even if it was the queen. She didn’t imagine the woman had a lot of self-respect or, more likely, a lot of choice in the matter. Not that she particularly cared, but it was a curious situation.
Toby dressed in a cream-colored lamb’s wool with white ermine lining. It was an exquisite gown that was both very soft and very warm. The sleeves were long and belled, the neckline rounded and flattering. A gold belt draped around her waist, giving her a very angelic appearance. She brushed her golden brown hair vigorously, securing it at the nape of her neck in a delicately wrapped bun pattern. Mortimer’s wife had left avariety of hair ornaments and she secured her bun with an ornate golden butterfly comb. It was extremely flattering.
Gazing back at her reflection in the polished bronze mirror, she found herself thinking on the whirlwind that had been her life for the past month. At the turn of the New Year, she had been Toby Cartingdon, the same as she had always been. Her days had been filled with managing her father’s estate, tending to her invalid mother, and tending to her younger sister. While she had not been particularly happy, she had been moderately content. She had been resigned to her existence. Never in her wildest dreams could she have imagined the life she now led. To have married Tate de Lara had given her more joy than she could have imagined, but everything else that had happened during those few weeks still had her disoriented. She still expected to wake up and realize that it had all been a dream.
She smoothed the skirt of the surcoat, fingering the neckline and noticing how the cut emphasized her round breasts. They had filled out quite a bit over the past two weeks. Her waist was still slim but her breasts were lusciously full. It didn’t look like her usual figure; she was delicious and round. But Timothy told her that the filling out of the body was normal in early pregnancy.
Toby grinned as she ran her hand across her belly, slightly rounded beneath the belt.A baby. She remembered when her mother had been pregnant with Ailsa and how ill the woman had been. Other than being ravenously hungry constantly, Toby felt fine. And, of course, the mood swings, but she wasn’t particularly concerned about that. At the moment, her most predominant thought was the baby and somehow reuniting with Tate. She missed him so much that her heart literally ached and with each passing day that he did not appear, her anxiety was growing. Kenneth had told her to have faith but it was becoming increasingly difficult.
