Excerpt from The Land Beyond the Sea by Sharon Kay Penman, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

She'd not expected that Agnes de Courtenay would continue to play a role in their lives. Fairly or not, scandal attached itself to a repudiated wife and she'd assumed that Agnes must have withdrawn to a nunnery as such women usually did. Instead, Agnes had promptly remarried, taking as her new husband Hugh d'Ibelin, who'd once been her betrothed, and as Hugh's wife, she had to be made welcome at court, however little Amalric or Maria liked it. When Hugh died unexpectedly on a pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela three years ago, Maria had na•vely hoped that Agnes would retreat into the sequestered shadow world of widowhood. To the contrary, she'd soon found another highborn husband, the Lord of Sidon, and continued to haunt the royal court with her prickly presence, reminding one and all without saying a word of her checkered history with Maria's husband.

As always, there was a stir as Agnes entered the great hall, heads turning in her direction. She paused dramatically in the doorway-to make sure that she was the center of attention, Maria thought sourly. Amalric avoided Agnes whenever he could and he'd put in a perfunctory appearance earlier, then disappeared. In his absence, Maria knew she'd be the other woman's quarry, and she was not surprised when Agnes began to move in her direction, as nonchalantly as a lioness stalking a herd of grazing deer. At first, she'd wondered why Agnes hated her so much, finally realizing it was because she had what Agnes so desperately wanted-not the gold band on her finger, but the jeweled crown that had been placed upon Maria's head on the day of her coronation.

She watched Agnes approach. Maria was not yet eighteen and Agnes must be nigh on twenty years older, her youth long gone, but Maria knew she would never be the beauty that Agnes once was. Agnes could make her feel awkward and inadequate merely by arching a delicately plucked brow. No matter how often Maria had reminded herself that she was the Queen of Jerusalem, she'd been acutely uncomfortable in the older woman's presence, tensing whenever that cool sapphire-blue gaze took her measure, knowing she'd been judged and found wanting.

But she was no longer intimidated by this worldly, elegant enemy. Turning to one of her attendants, she said, "Let me hold her," and as soon as the baby was lifted from her cradle and placed in her arms, she felt it again-a surge of such happiness that it was as if God Himself were smiling over her shoulder, sharing her joy. When the midwife had declared that she'd birthed a girl, she'd felt a stab of guilt, fearing that she'd failed Amalric by not giving him a son. Yet once she held her daughter for the first time, all else was forgotten. She'd not known she was capable of a love so intense, so overwhelming; she spent hours watching the baby sleep, listening to her breathing, marveling at the softness of her skin, the silky feel of her hair. That past week, Isabella had smiled for the first time and Maria did not doubt that this was a memory she'd cherish till the end of her days. Why had no one told her that motherhood was so life changing?

But it was only after Isabella's birth that she fully comprehended how much Agnes de Courtenay had taken from her. When Amalric told her that his two children with Agnes would come before any child of hers in the line of succession, it had seemed a remote concern to a thirteen-year-old girl with more immediate worries of her own. Now, though, as she looked down lovingly into the small, petal face upturned to hers, she felt a resentful rage that her beautiful daughter would never be a queen, cheated of her rightful destiny because Amalric had been foolish enough to wed that hateful, unworthy woman.

Agnes's curtsy was so grudgingly given that those watching smothered smiles and edged closer; interactions between the two women were morbidly entertaining to many. Their exchange of greetings was edged in ice, followed by silence as Maria waited for the customary congratulations due a new mother. When she saw it was not coming, she made an effort at courtesy, acutely aware of their audience. "Your lord husband is not with you?"

Excerpted from The Land Beyond the Sea by Sharon Kay Penman. Copyright © 2020 by Sharon Kay Penman. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.