“Listen.” She drew his head down. “I am no drag-weight to thy life? Thou wouldst not do otherwise if there were no foolish Angèle?”
He did not hesitate. “What is best is. I might do otherwise if there were no Angèle in my life to pilot my heart, but that were worse for me.”
“Thou art the best lover in all the world.”
“I hope to make a better husband. To-morrow is carmine-lettered in my calendar, if thou sayest thou wilt still have me under the sword of the Medici.”
Her hand pressed her heart suddenly. “Under the sword, if it be God’s will,” she answered. Then, with a faint smile, “But no, I will not believe the Queen of England will send thee, one of her own Protestant faith, to the Medici.”
“And thou wilt marry me?”
“When the Queen of England approves thee,” she answered, and buried her face in the hollow of his arm.
An hour later Sir Hugh Pawlett came to the manor-house of Rozel with twoscore men-at-arms. The seigneur himself answered the governor’s knocking, and showed himself in the doorway with a dozen halberdiers behind him.
“I have come seeking Michel de la Forêt,” said the governor.