Purebred by Georgia Fox

freed!"
    Thus they were both freed.

Chapter Ten
     
    Guillaume d'Anzeray sat up in his bed.
"This is news indeed! Finally one of my sons brings home a wealthy
bride."
    "Aye, but she happens to be someone
else's bride," his eldest son Salvador remarked wryly. "Trust
Lon."
    Their father shrugged. "That can be
undone. No real man wants to keep a wife who has no taste for him
and desires another."
    "The marriage is already undone," said
Alonso. "Her husband thinks her infertile and does not want her
back. She has written to her father and asked for the marriage to
be voided. It was never consummated in any case," he grinned,
"except by me."
    Guillaume looked at his son and
nodded. "You have done well. She is a fine woman. Elegant, eh? Just
needs feeding up a little."
    Alonso laughed. "I'm working on
it."
     
    * * * *
     
    She met her two new sisters, Princesa
and Aelfa, who quickly helped her and Jeanne to settle in. It was a
large castle but primitive compared to those in which she'd lived
before. Isobel was eager to fit in there and prove to Alonso that
she could belong with his family. Jeanne, on the other hand, found
almost nothing there to her satisfaction. Anyone would think she,
and not her mistress, was the true daughter of the Duc de
Bressange, not merely a handmaiden who was once plucked from a poor
family to serve a little girl who took a fancy to her.
    Alonso's brothers, all dark and
handsome, surprised Isobel by their manners, which were almost
gentlemanly — at least around her. For now. She did not know how
long it would last. Men generally slipped eventually, so she'd
found.
    But she blossomed under Alonso's love
and attention. When the time came for his brothers to share her, as
was their tradition, they did so gently and with care.
    "If I had not fallen in love with my
darling Alonso first," she exclaimed to her maid one morning, "I
think I might not be able to choose which of my husbands I adore
the most."
    Little Jeanne shook her head in
disgust. "I don't know what is to become of us, my lady. We have
thrown in our lot with this disreputable band of mercenaries and
the good lord cannot help us now."
    "But can it not also be said, Jeanne,
that the good lord put us here in the first place? If he did not
want me to meet Alonso d'Anzeray, why send him to me?"
    The maid pondered this with her lips
pursed and finally announced, "It was a test, my lady. A test of
temptation."
    "Oh, dear." Isobel sighed as she
stretched languidly in her bath. "Looks as if I failed then,
doesn't it."
    Jeanne somberly agreed. "And you'll be
going straight to hell come the day of judgment."
    "For now at least I still have you
with me, little one," her mistress added with a wry smile. "We'll
just have to make sure you do not succumb to the same wicked
temptation, won't we?"
    Affronted, Jeanne squared her small
shoulders. "I can assure you, my lady, I am quite safe from all
that nonsense. I'm a good girl, I am."
    "Indeed. A good girl." Isobel chuckled
and put a finger to her lips as a new idea came to her.
    "What's that look for, my lady?"
Jeanne began folding clothes, brisk and efficient as
always.
    "Oh...nothing."
    "Nothing, my arse! I've seen that look
before. Don't you go getting any ideas, my lady."
    Slowly Isobel smiled. She
really couldn't bear to part with little Jeanne. So if she was going to
hell...
    "I mean it, my lady. Don't you go
getting those thoughts in your head. Wipe that smirk off your
face."
    ...She'd just have to make sure Jeanne
came too. All she needed was a bit of that wicked temptation. And
there was plenty of it around in her new family.

     
    THE END

Note for the
historians - Lady Isobel Bressange (and
thus her scribe) took a slight liberty in using the song "Bryd one
Brere" for this story, as the lyrics were not written until
approximately 1299, more than two hundred years after she met
Alonso "Blackheart" d'Anzeray. But perhaps we can allow her this
naughty transgression. After all, the words may have been