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DROIT de SEIGNEUR by Alice Gaines

Copyright © ALICE GAINES, 2009
All Rights Reserved, RED SAGE PUBLISHING, INC.

EXCERPT FROM DROIT de SEIGNEUR

 

“You’re obsessed with her, aren’t you?” John asked quietly.

“Do you even know whom you’re talking about?”

“Claire. Claire.” John tapped his lips with his finger a few times. “Is she the girl who’s always singing when she brings her father’s wheat to town?”

The fool had barely noticed her. Guy had thought of no one else since he’d first heard her voice, so sweet and light above the crude sounds of day-to-day living. Then, her beauty captured what he had left of a heart. Her dark eyes and flawless skin, the swell of small breasts beneath her bodice, the way she’d blushed and cast her gaze aside the few times she’d caught him staring at her. And her purity. Always, her purity. That would be ruined now.

“She is the songbird, then,” John said.

“She’s the one who sings, aye.”

“A comely piece of tail. I’d gladly have her as a bed warmer.”

Damn the man. Guy’s hand went unthinking to the hilt of his sword. He didn’t pull the blade from its scabbard, though. John was only teasing him. Testing to get a reaction, and he’d given the fellow exactly what he wanted.

“You really are obsessed,” John said. “Why not just swive her and have done with it?”

“I can’t ruin her, you bastard.”

“You can’t marry her, either,” John said. “You need a wife who brings a powerful alliance.”

Did John think he didn’t know that? As a newly minted noble, having inherited his lands at his brother’s death, he needed allies. A powerful family to stand with him, or a wife who brought her own lands. He’d barely held off the neighbors who’d tried to take Bournwood from him. He couldn’t do it forever without help.

No, he couldn’t marry Claire, and he couldn’t ruin her, but he couldn’t let another man have her, either. God’s blood, what a dilemma.

“There’s another way,” John said. “You can have her and still leave her virtue intact.”

“Impossible.”

“Not her virginity, I’ll admit, but her husband will have to take her back.”

Guy studied his squire. John served with his wit as well as with his sword. He’d long ago learned to hear the man out. By the Holy Mother, if he could find a way out of this miasma, Guy should find him a noble wife and lands of his own.

“What if your Claire had no choice but to surrender her maidenhead to you?”

“I won’t rape her,” Guy answered.

“Of course not. You’d seduce her the same way you’ve done with dozens of other women.”

She wasn’t the same as any of the others. They’d never meant anything to him beyond the momentary pleasure they could share. Claire would mean the world to him, the last shining moment of his life before the coldness of a political marriage settled around his heart. There must be some way to make John’s plan work.

“But,” John continued, “her husband would surrender her to you for the seduction.”

“Why in God’s name would he do that?”

“He won’t have any choice if you demand your right of first night.”

The jus primae noctis, the droit de seigneur. His prerogative, nay, his duty to protect her husband from the power of her virgin’s blood. The whole idea was nonsense, of course. A delusion created out of frustration in some cleric’s overheated brain. Virgin’s blood held no curse, but lords used the pretense to bed whatever peasant girls they wanted when the wenches married. A nasty trick to play on some poor lout who expected to wed a virgin. He’d never thought of doing such a thing before. Was he really that desperate now?

 

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