"Aye, Hayle Watteson is a stranger to you, but I will be with you, mignon. And Sir Udolf likes you, and I suspect already thinks of you as a daughter. The queen wants you safely wed, and I concur."

Alix sighed sadly. She might protest, but the truth was there was no other choice for her. The queen could no longer keep them, and her father grew frailer with each passing day. At least this marriage she was entering into would give her father a safe haven for whatever time he had left upon this earth. Alix was a sensible girl, and she knew her father's days were numbered. Aye. Her mother would want this both for Alix and for Alexander Givet. And she had to marry sooner than later, didn't she? Sir Udolf was a kind man. He always had a twinkle in his eye, and Alix suspected if she ran his household well, and gave him grandchildren, he would treat her with great kindness and respect. Although she honestly could not recall having seen his son, he certainly couldn't be a terrible person. Not with such a father.

"There is one thing you must know about your intended," her father said, breaking into her thoughts.

"What, Papa?"

"He has a mistress he holds dear. He will not give her up even for a wife," Alexander Givet said, looking closely at his daughter for her reaction.

"Many men have mistresses they will not give up. I care not as long as I am treated with the respect due the wife of the heir to Wulfborn," Alix said sanguinely, surprising her father. "Perhaps Hayle and I will come to love each other. Perhaps not. But as long as he is kind and my place is secure, it matters not to me."

"For a maid born and raised in England, you speak like a Frenchwoman," the physician said with a small chuckle. "I suppose it is being influenced by French women all your life that has made you such a practical girl."

"When is the wedding to take place?" Alix wanted to know.

"The contracts must be drawn. Then they will be signed, and we will adjourn immediately to the church for the priest's blessing," her father said. "A few days, mignon. No more than that."

"Am I to meet my betrothed husband before that day?" Alix wanted to know.

"Indeed, you should," he agreed. "I will speak with Sir Udolf."

Alix dressed carefully before she came to the hall that evening. Her gown was simple, of dark green jersey with a high waist, gathered sleeves with cuffs trimmed in a thin skim of brown marten that matched the trim around her neckline. She wore a gold chain to which was attached a small jeweled cross. A slender pretty girl of medium height with long hair the color of dark honey that she wore loose to denote her unmarried status, she had fair skin and hazel-green eyes.

Entering the hall discreetly, she let her gaze sweep about, seeking out those who were already there. Her father and Sir Udolf were sitting by the hearth drinking and talking. Alix was glad that they liked each other. It would make her father's last days pleasant to have a friend. And then she saw him. A tall boy, and yet he was said to be twenty. Still he had a boy's face. His hair was the lightest blond she had ever seen, and he wore a sullen look upon his almost pretty face. Was he to be her husband? Swallowing hard, Alix walked across the hall to greet her father and Sir Udolf. She curtsied to them.

"Ah, Alix, here you are," Sir Udolf said with a smile. Then, turning his head, he beckoned to the young man. "Hayle, come and meet your bride-to-be."

The young man sauntered from his place at the end of the room to where his father sat. He looked Alix over with a bold eye, causing her to blush. "Her breasts are small," he pronounced. "Maida has breasts a man can pillow his head upon."

Alexander Givet drew a sharp breath.

"Hayle," his father remonstrated, "some thoughts we keep to ourselves. Greet Mistress Alix politely now, and ask her pardon for your rudeness."

Hayle Watteson looked at Alix with a hard gaze. "She's pretty enough, and seems biddable. Are you obedient, mistress?"

"I try," Alix said. What kind of man was this who spoke in such a fashion to the girl he was about to wed?

"She'll do, Father, but you know my conditions for this marriage," Hayle Watteson said. "See she understands them. How long do I have before I must wed her?"

"My name is Alix," Alix said sharply. "And I greet you, my lord." She curtsied politely to him.

He looked startled, but then he bowed from the waist.

"Take Alix and walk her about the hall, my son," the baron instructed. "It is a good thing to get to know the woman you are marrying before the contracts are signed."

"They will be signed nonetheless whether I will or no," Hayle responded to his father. "But I will obey you, sir." He offered his arm to Alix. "Come," he said.

Alix took his arm, and they walked away from their fathers. "You are not happy about this marriage," she said. "Would it surprise you to know that neither am I?"

"You don't want to marry me?" He was surprised. "Why not? I am most eligible, and I am said to be pleasing to the eye, wench."

"I am not a wench," Alix told him. "I am a lady. The queen is my godmother. My mother served the queen as one of her ladies. My father is her physician. I had hoped to spend my life at court in the queen's service."

"The queen is brought down, as is our mad king," Hayle replied. "You have no court in which to serve. You must either wed, or enter a convent. Those are the choices open to a respectable woman. Since your father has decided to barter you in marriage so he may have a warm hearth in his old age, you are to be married to me."

"The queen proposed this match to protect us," Alix said angrily. "If my father's health were better, he would take me back to Anjou. Papa loves me, but you are near to correct in your assumptions. However, it is I who agreed to wed you so my father would have a safe place to live out the rest of his days."

"I have a mistress whom I love," Hayle said. "I would marry her if I could, but my father would not accept any children of such a union as his heirs."

"What is wrong with her?" Alix asked, curious in spite of herself.

"She is of low birth," he answered.

"Then your sire is right in the matter, I fear. My blood is more than equal to yours, and so we will wed. I to protect my father, and you to please yours. There is the long and the short of it, my lord."

"You are a hard girl," he told her.

"Nay, I am a practical girl," Alix replied. "If you treat me with respect, I will be a good wife to you, my lord. I will keep the hall, honor our fathers, bear your children, and care for all within my realm as chatelaine of Wulfborn Hall. Keep your mistress. I will not complain, but do not flaunt her publicly, I pray you."

"I am accustomed to doing as I please," he told her.

"That is a child's excuse. You are not a child, my lord. You are a man," Alix said to him. "Once you take a wife, you must act like one."

They had reached the end of the hall, and Hayle suddenly pulled Alix into a dark corner. Pushing her against the hard stone wall, he said, "You will belong to me as my dogs, as my horse belongs to me. I will do with you as I please." He pressed himself against her, his hand grasping one of her breasts and squeezing it hard. "Do you understand that, wench?"

Alix gasped with shock. "Take your hand away," she half whispered.

In response, he tweaked her nipple sharply. "No," he said, and he kneaded her soft flesh with cruel fingers. "Are you a virgin?"

Alix flushed. "Yes! Of course! Why would you think otherwise?"

"I thought nothing. I merely wanted to know," Hayle told her. He leaned forward and pressed his lips to hers.

I am going to swoon, Alix thought as his mouth ravaged hers. She had never before been kissed, but she sensed the anger in him.

He lifted his head from her. "You don't know how to kiss, do you? Well, it matters not. All I need to do is get you with child. Then I shall not have to be bothered with you for a while." And releasing his hold on her, he began to walk them back to where their fathers sat by the hearth.

Alix's legs felt wooden as she walked by his side. She was in shock. Would this coldhearted man ever care for her? Did she even want him to? Could she even marry him now? She had to, and tears pricked the back of her eyelids. There was no other choice. Her father had to be protected even at the cost of her own happiness.

Chapter Two

It would be a few days before the contracts were signed. To her credit, the queen did attempt to comfort her goddaughter. "I would not do this but that your father is ill and can travel no farther," Margaret of Anjou said to Alix. "And it is easier for us to find shelter with just one body servant each. The day after your wedding we will depart here. Only the isolation of this refuge has kept us safe, but we cannot take the chance of remaining for much longer. Sooner than later the Yorkists will scour the countryside most thoroughly, and we will be found."

"I understand," Alix said dully.

"He is an attractive young man," the queen noted.

"He wants to marry his mistress," Alix replied.

"Pah!" the queen exclaimed. "All young men want to wed their mistresses, but mistresses are not for marrying. Be dutiful to your husband, and he will eventually outgrow his mistress. This is a good match for you, ma chérie. The family is respectable, and the baron likes you. If your husband misbehaves, go to him, for Sir Udolf is the head of the family, and I suspect he will live to be a very old man. But most important, your papa has a safe refuge now. I could not desert him for the sake of your dear mama, who was always so good to me. Think of her, Alix. When my grandmother, and father decided she was to marry your father, she did what she was told. Can you do any less?"

"No, Highness," Alix replied. Think of your mother, the queen said. Alix was thinking of her. A day did not go by that she did not remember Blanche Givet. Her mother had been so beautiful. Many said that Alix resembled her, but while their coloring was the same, the daughter thought her mother far more lovely. Blanche was French to her fingertips. Elegant and quick. Charming and diplomatic with the most difficult of the queen's high-born English companions. Everyone had loved Blanche Givet. But especially her husband and her daughter.

What would her mother say about this match that Margaret of Anjou had made for Alix? Would she have made it had Blanche been alive? Alix wanted to believe that if Blanche had lived, she and her husband would have returned with their only child to Anjou to live out their lives. But no. Blanche would have never deserted Margaret of Anjou. Especially not under these circumstances. Alix sighed. But if her mother had lived, she was certain this marriage would have never been proposed.

Her mother's death had come as a complete shock to everyone who knew her. It was sudden, and totally unexpected. It was Alexander Givet whose health had begun to fail. But Blanche, up until the moment of her death, had appeared healthy and vibrant. And yet she had gone to her bed that fatal night and never awakened again. Oh, she had complained of being tired that last day, but was that so unusual for a queen's lady who was always kept running?

Alix felt the tears coming, and she brushed them away impatiently. From the moment they had told her that her mother had died she had attempted to remember the last words Blanche had said to her, but she never could. Her father had tried to comfort her, telling her the conversation was obviously not that important that she would have remembered. But shouldn't you remember the last words your mother said to you? Still, if you didn't know they were to be her last words…

Alix sighed sadly.

But she did remember standing by her mother's grave and promising her that she would take care of her father. Alix knew that would have been the one thing Blanche would have asked of her had she been able to ask it. So now here they were in the wilds of Northumbria, and she was about to marry a man who didn't want her so that her father could have a home, a place to die. The tears flowed silently, and she bit her lower lip to keep from sobbing. I have kept my promise to you, Mama, she said silently.

She considered Hayle Watteson. There was something not quite right about him that she could not quite put her finger upon. He was very childish. A spoiled child who must have his own way. He had made his dislike of her quite clear. He didn't want her, but he would accept her as his wife to please his parent. He would sire children on her to please his father. She would be nothing more to him than a broodmare would be.