Kathleen Givens, Author | Excerpt - RIVALS FOR THE CROWN

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RIVALS FOR THE CROWN
Sequel to On A Highland Shore

The entire world, it seemed, would attend Queen Eleanor’s funeral. Leaders from every known country had been invited. For weeks London had been filling with those eager to see history made, and now that the day was here, the streets were almost impassable. Isabel watched the crowds from her spot in one of the many royal carriages.

She’d not expected to be here. She’d thought she would be dismissed upon their return to London, but instead, both she and her mother were instructed to continue as they had been before. Even more surprising, Isabel was instructed to be in court every day. Every day she woke with the expectation of being called to the Wardrobe Tower. And each evening, when she had not, she sighed with relief. It would not last, she knew.

The coach stopped and the door was flung open. Hands reached in for the women, and suddenly it was time to join the people crowding into the abbey. It was frightening to be jostled and shoved, and she did not complain when Alis, her eyes wide with fear, grabbed her arm.

ISBN: 1416509925

“You may despise me,” Alis whispered, “but stay close. I would have both of us survive this day.”

Isabel nodded, and together they pushed through the openings in the crowd the guards made, arriving at last inside the cathedral. They sat silently for what seemed like hours. A choir began to sing and Isabel heard the trumpets outside blare to the world that the king had arrived.

Edward made his way up the North Aisle, slowly. How strange this day must be for the king, Isabel thought, for Edward and Eleanor had been married in this building, and had been the first king and queen to be jointly crowned here. This was where Edward had raised monument to his father and where his son was buried.

Isabel remembered little of the ceremony itself, for the sights and sounds were mixed with her sorrow. And her worry for what the future would hold. At the conclusion of the hours long service, the king and his entourage filed out first, then the nobles who had sat near him. And then Isabel and the rest of Queen Eleanor’s ladies, walking down the North Aisle only to wait at the end of the Nave while the crowd outside dispersed.

It was there, as she stood next to Alis and pretended to ignore her, that Isabel met the gaze of a man standing near the door. He was blond, Irish, perhaps, or Norse, for he was quite tall.

His eyes were very blue, his hair pale and drawn back from his striking face. His nose was straight, his cheekbones were sharp, his jawline well-defined, his mouth wide and lips pressed together as he examined those leaving. He looked like a warrior, but was dressed as a noble, his wide shoulders covered by a beautifully woven cloak with a circular golden brooch set with jewels. He glanced at the others, then looked into Isabel’s eyes. And smiled. And suddenly the noise of the people around her disappeared, the slow shuffling as they moved forward now unnoticed.

She smiled in return, and his smile widened. Handsome man. Golden-haired man who lit the dark space he stood it. And then he was gone, his face blocked by a tall man who moved between them. She was hurried forward by the guards, through the crowd, and into the coach. She peered through the open door until it was slammed, looking him, but it was impossible to find one tall blond man.

Two days after the queen’s funeral, when a guard came to fetch her where she and Alis sat in their apartment, doing embroidery.

“There are men here to see you, Demoiselle de Burke,” he said.

Isabel looked up. She was expecting no one. “Who are they?”

The guard’s disdain for the visitors, or for her, was obvious. He examined his nails and waited for her reply. “Foreigners, but aren’t they all these days? I could not understand their names.”

She exchanged a glance with Alis, their uneasy truce since the funeral still untested.

“Don’t bring them here,” Alis said. “Go to them instead.”

Isabel nodded, for a moment tempted to ask Alis to accompany her, then thinking better of it. “They asked for me by name?”

“Which is why I am here, demoiselle.”

She stood, her irritation flaring. “Take me to them,” she said, tossing her needlework onto the cushion she’d abandoned, and wondering how quickly the word would get to Lady Dickleburough.

The guard did not answer, but led her down the stairs and through the corridors to one of the anterooms used by the queen’s household for meeting with tradespeople. He paused outside the door, looking down at her, then thrust the door open and waved her inside.

There were two men waiting there, both tall, both outlandishly dressed, their cloaks well-tailored but of a fashion she knew was not from London. They wore high boots and long saffron shirts and tunics of finely woven wool, with a pattern that featured lines crossing themselves. Gaels, she thought, knowing them now for what they were. One was dark, his black hair well-brushed and just below his shoulders, his blue eyes curious. A handsome man. He bowed, smiling.

And the other was the blond man from Westminster Abbey.