~𝕭𝖊𝖙𝖗𝖆𝖞𝖆𝖑 𝖎𝖘 𝖔𝖓𝖑𝖞 𝖙𝖍𝖊 𝖇𝖊𝖌𝖎𝖓𝖓𝖎𝖓𝖌~
Born the youngest daughter of Charles I, Duke of Bourbon, Constance of Bourbon grows up amidst comfort and splendour on her powerful family's estates in France. A shy child, she prefers her...
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~Smoke and Mirrors~
January 1460, Château de Moulins, France....
Seventeen summers the man she was to marry had seen she discovered within the two months it took to arrange a meeting. It was two more summers than she had, two more years of knowledge, two more years in the world.
Despite her initial reluctance, she'd sought to learn all she could about her betrothed, mostly from James who proved the perfect spy!
More than once he'd slunk up the winding servant's stairs into the Duke's study and memorised letters to John from the Earl of Warwick, returning to his sister ever ready to repeat his findings. Or rather, yell them.
He hadn't been pleased, returning to her rooms angry when he found Warwick and his sister's intended husband were in fact exiles, forced to flee their own country by the Lancastrian King and Queen.
"They are all but sending you onto a battlefield defenceless!" He'd cried indignantly one day, pacing across her chamber "You are the daughter of a Duke! You should be marrying a man worthy of our Bourbon blood! No barbaric Englishman can ever hold such worth but certainly not this one! He is no more than an exiled man of war, Connie!"
She'd never been a part of war. She never expected she would be. Now it was her destiny it seemed, a destiny that was intertwined with a boy named Edward. Edward of York.
It was a name she pondered on often, each syllable, each letter, testing it on her tongue as she did with his title: Earl of March. It was one of the few things she could say in English, having only studied Latin as a child, but the words meant little to her, even less when she tried to link them to her own name.
If she couldn't even do that, connect his name to hers, how could she be expected to be a good wife to him? Would he be a good husband to her? What would he be like, this Edward of York, this figure shrouded in mist, reaching forth a hand she'd been instructed to take?
Would he be a good man? A kind man? Her parent's alliance had been happy but she knew not all were so - her Father had told her so. Some wives despised their husbands, some husbands beat their wives. Such horrid thoughts made her shiver beneath the covers at night. Would Edward beat her? Would Edward be cruel?
She could only pray he was not.
The most she hoped for was not love, but respect, something she believed any working alliance could be based upon. If they could find a mutual respect, there was no reason why their marriage could not be civil. Perhaps they would even grow to be friends....
