The Courts of Love - Jean Plaidy [52]
“I live in the present. I fancy you are like me in this. Indeed, have you ever known anyone who understands you as I do? I share your thoughts, your emotions.”
He had come close to me and was looking intently into my face.
“No,” I said vehemently, “I never have. When I am with you I feel I am right back in my own beautiful country. I have missed it so much . . . ever since I left it.”
He kissed me with passion.
I was delighted and startled. I said: “That was scarcely an avuncular kiss.”
“What are such relationships,” he said, “when people know they are as close as you and I? What matters anything . . . race, creed, blood ties?”
My heart was beating very fast. I said slowly: “I suppose that is so.”
He held me against him. “I have never known this feeling for any other,” he said.
I replied: “Nor have I felt for any other what I feel for you. It is because you and I were brought up in the same country. There we spent those early and important years. Aquitaine will always be home to us. You have made another Aquitaine here. How wonderful it is to be here! After all I have suffered . . . you cannot understand the hardships.”
“I can, my beloved. I have suffered something like them myself. That is why I want to stay here . . . make this my Heaven upon Earth. Could I have a more beautiful setting?”
I agreed vehemently that he could not.
“Out there . . .” He waved his arms to indicate the world outside Antioch. “. . . there is strife . . . everywhere, it seems. In England, where I was helped by King Henry when I was more or less a boy and starting out on my adventures, there has been trouble since his death. Stephen on the throne, Matilda claiming it. Stephen Matilda’s prisoner . . . Matilda reigning. What sort of a country is that to live in?”
“Two claimants to the throne is certain to cause strife. Who is the better ruler?”
“Neither is good, and coming after Henry it is even harder for the people to bear. Matilda wants the throne for her son. It’s natural. After all, she is the granddaughter of the Conqueror and Henry’s direct heir. Stephen only comes through the female line. If he were a strong man it might have worked for I do not think the people want Matilda.”
“Well, all that is far away.”
“And our concerns are here . . . in Antioch.”
“It is so wonderful to be here. Everything is so cultured . . . so gracious. And to hear people speaking our language as we speak it—moves me deeply.”
“I have brought many Poitevins into Antioch.”
“The poets and the musicians . . .”
“I wanted to make it as much like my father’s Court as possible.”
“What an outstanding man he was.”
“He lived his life fully, did he not? He obeyed no rules. Who else but my grandfather could have carried off Dangerosa and lived with her at his Court as he did?”
“She came very willingly.”
“One would expect that with such a man.” He turned to me. “Eleanor,” he went on, “since you have come here I have been so happy.”
“And I . . . Uncle. It is still like a dream to me . . . after all that suffering to come to a place like this . . . and you. It was like dying and then finding oneself in Heaven.”
“Pray do not talk of dying. You have much living to do yet and why should we not create a Heaven here on Earth?”
“That is what you have already done.”
“Now that I have you here, yes. I never want you to go. I want you to stay here . . . with me . . . for as long as we both shall live. You are silent. Does it seem so impossible to you?”
“I fear so, though it enchants me.”
“There has always been a special bond between us.”
“I know.”
“Then we must accept what Fate has given us.”
“You mean . . .”
He held me tighter.
“There should be complete intimacy, complete understanding between us. I love you.”
“But . . . you are my uncle.”
“My dear, what of that? Why should an uncle not be in love with his niece? Who can decide where love shall come? I love you. I need you to make my contentment complete. I am planning now to keep you here. I live in fear that Louis is going to suggest moving on. I am going to do my