Isabella jumped to her feet and flew down the stairs to him. “Thank you, how can I thank you?” she gabbled, hugging him with surprising strength. “I am coming!” she shouted with such force that the staircase rattled.
“We are,” said Stephen and Amice together, both of them caught as Isabella was, between laughter and tears.
****
Isabella did not see the countryside passing as she rode out from London. Stephen insisted she ride behind him and she was glad to do so. Amice, changed into a man’s tunic and hood, might pass for a striking youth as she handled her spirited roan with the casual ease of a knight, but Isabella was less certain of her abilities, especially now.
I am about to see Matthew.
She could think of nothing else. Even Stephen’s reassuring bulk seemed as insubstantial as smoke. She clung to him, her arms tight about his waist, her cheek pressed firmly against his back, and wished only to go faster.
“Will Matthew be pleased to see me? I have no gift for him. Will he have grown? Will he know me? Will he like me? Will he like my gown? I wish I had something for him.”
She did not realize she was speaking aloud until she had an answer.
“He will love you,” Stephen called, above the pounding of the horses’ hooves. “He will brag to all his friends of your beauty.”
I pray so. Stephen’s extravagant claims still comforted her and she inhaled his musky scent, glad she rode behind him and not Amice, feeling him moving with the snorting horse.
They stopped at a forge on the Roman road to feed and water the horses. Stephen suggested she take a brief walk with Amice while he spoke to the farrier. “I took your suggestion, Isabella, and went with it,” he added with a smile.
While she and Amice wandered, Isabella staring always at the road ahead of them, at the large skies of scudding clouds, a carpenter suddenly ran out from a lean-to workshop.
“Black demon and whore! Get away!”
More startled than shocked they faltered, Isabella keeping a sharp eye on the saw in fellow’s left hand, but Stephen was the quickest. In a few long strides he stepped between them.
“For God, man, leave off your bullying of these good womenfolk.” He caught the carpenter’s raised hand, stopping it and the saw in a grip of steel. “Go back to your shop and drink no more today.”
The carpenter gawped and worked his mouth until words spewed out. “They y’orn?”
“Under my protection and that of my guild.” Stephen removed the saw from the smaller man. “Come, I shall walk you back.”
They disappeared into the lean-to and a few moments Stephen reappeared, to the sound of furious sawing. He went first to Amice.
“I am sorry for that,” he said, taking her hand in his, smiling down at her with his eyes. “That a man of Kent should be so ignorant.”
With a regal gesture, Amice waved it aside. “I have had worse in London. Are we good to go?”
Stephen nodded, glancing at the larger thatched building beside the lean-to. Eyes blinked back at them from the smoky gloom of the ale-house. “Aye, it be best.”
“Amice,” Isabella began, sorry and ashamed for the trouble she was causing, but her friend shook her head. “This place smells wrong now.”
They moved out quickly.
****
Stephen felt exposed on the Roman road and glad to canter off it as soon as they were out of sight of the hamlet. He drew rein beneath a blossoming apple orchard and stepped down, passing a flask to Amice as she also drew rein.
“I know the way to Newington blindfolded from here,” he told them. I will take us by old track ways and green paths so we may reach the village unnoticed.”
“Good,” said Isabella, glancing at the cloudy sky to check the position of the sun. “We should hurry.”
“We shall be there long before sunset,” Stephen reassured her though he wondered at her insistence on speed. Amice promises me her apprentice will deliver my message to Bedelia, so my daughter and sister are now safe at Tom’s and out of harm’s reach of the wretched Martinton clan. We ourselves are way ahead of any pursuit or news from her in-laws. What else does she fear?
“That will be a blessing,” Amice murmured and she hid her face behind the flask. She had been a little subdued since her rude encounter with the carpenter, which was scarcely surprising.
Isabella slid off his horse and went straight to her friend. She touched Amice’s stirrup. “I am so sorry for this, for the trouble I am causing.”
“No,” said Amice at once, more forcefully, speaking for Stephen, too. “A pig of a carpenter is not your fault, Issa. Your pigs of in-laws are not your fault.”
“Believe her.” Stephen said quietly.
Isabella turned and stumbled toward the trees, muttering about needing to make water. Amice lowered the flask. “If you hurt her, master armorer, I shall have your hide. That is one reason I have come on this venture. Just so we understand each other.”
Stephen smiled at her vehemence. “She has loyal friends.”
“Isabella tended me during the pestilence. Everyone else, including my ‘prentice, fled in fear. Issa kept coming. Hers is a quiet courage.” Amice gave a quick grin, her eyes very bright. “A little fever laid me out but we did not know that until later. It could have been the plague.”
“Pity she did not pass it to her relations,” Stephen growled, and Amice laughed out loud. “I like you, master armorer! Help us get Matthew for her and I will love you forever.”
“I will do that gladly,” Stephen said. And if I can bring the smiles back to my Mistress Angel’s face I shall do that, too.
****
As Stephen foretold, they reached the village of Newington a good hour before sunset. Spotting the church tower, he suggested that Isabella and Amice stay back in a small wood until he had scouted about the place. “I shall visit the forge, discover the news,” he said. “I will say my wife has a little boy and ask if there are any children hereabouts who might be his playmates.”
“That is fine,” Amice agreed, eyes gleaming.
Isabella also thought it good but could not help adding, “You will be quick? And take care?”
“Both, Mistress Angel,” came back his cheerful reply and then he cantered off.
Isabella fretted in the wood while the horses browsed the hawthorn bushes and Amice scoured beneath the trees for orchids. Hope warred with despair in her so that when she heard a lively horse galloping toward them she rushed from cover, too anxious to be prudent and wait to see who was coming.
****
“A hearty welcome!” Stephen reined in, leaned down and lifted her onto his saddle before him. He kissed her for the joy of seeing her again. He kissed her again so she would keep him in mind when they had her child safe. He kissed her a third time because he had great news. “I have learned of and seen the house we want, my dear, and a small boy in a blue tunic is playing with whip and top outside it even now.”
Isabella paled and tried to scramble off his mount. Guessing her intent, Stephen coiled an arm about her narrow waist.
“No lass, we shall be quicker on horseback.” He could feel her trembling, heard her hiccup of surprise and tension. “Come,” he went on gently, “Let us ride and rescue your son.”
Chapter 6
Their ride was over in moments. Isabella felt as if the crown of her head were exploding and light flooding through her. She saw the small, brave figure playing in the street ahead of them and feared for an instant that it was a dream. So often I have woken from this lovely hope and found the nightmare goes on.
She started as someone—no, Stephen—lifted her from the horse and set her gently on the ground. She felt a breeze tug at her collar and watched it ruffle the soft baby curls of the small, fair-haired boy who played on the house-step, now only feet away from her. She took a step nearer, then another step, certain and at the same time wanting to be absolutely sure…
He was still there, still wonderfully real. A small, fair-hai
red boy dressed in a creased blue tunic, sitting with a forgotten whip and top beside him as he doodled in the dust. My little boy.
“Matthew,” she croaked. Intent on his drawing, he had not seen or heard her yet. She drank him in as a man that is dying of thirst will fall upon a sparkling fountain: his long, trembling eyelashes, the sweet infant curve of his forehead, his long, narrow arms and legs. He will be tall, like his father, but nothing like Richard in nature.
I wish I had a gift for him.
She did not realize she had spoken aloud until she felt a warm hand on her shoulder.
“Here,” said Stephen softly. He offered her the gold and silver flower that he had caught from her hand when she had floated in the golden cage above The Street in London. “I would have been sorry to lose it, for ‘tis a lovely thing,” he went on, smiling down at her, his gray-green eyes a sea of feeling, “but will gladly give it to your son.” He twirled the jewel, the glints of gold shining across his face.
“Thank you,” she whispered.
He put the trinket in her palm but she could not hold anything right now and it slipped through her nerveless fingers. The flashing bauble fell to the ground, brighter still as the sun broke through the clouds.
Matthew must have spotted the sparkle for he looked round. His eyes widened. “Mamma,” he said, and laughed. He rose to his feet on unsteady, heron-thin legs and held up his arms to be picked up and gathered in. “My mamma.”
Isabella flew to him.
****
Sitting on the house-step, Matthew and Isabella were at last united. The boy was in his mother’s arms and lap, holding up his fingers to be kissed one by one. Isabella rocked him, crooning a lullaby. Her face, transfigured by exultation, shone brighter than the sun so she was as gold and blue as any Madonna, sun, moon and stars in one. She wept and laughed, at one point swinging Matthew up off her knee to show him to the world. “My boy, my beautiful boy.”
Stephen knelt to this miracle and was swept into it, Isabella flinging an arm around his shoulders, weeping and laughing against his chest. He kissed her and Matthew, delighting with them, wishing his daughter were here, so she could join in.
“Ami!” Matthew held up his arms again.
Coming up rapidly to join them, Amice swung the child into her embrace, standing beside Isabella and stroking her friend’s golden hair. “All done, all safe,” she was saying, over and over. As Isabella shuddered, Amice crouched to release Matthew, who toddled instantly back to his mother.
“Hurry,” Amice hissed against Stephen’s back, and he nodded. He knew they were too visible, that at any instant there could be a shout, a warning to the Martinton household, but how could he interrupt this reunion?
Thank God the villagers are at their suppers so they do not see. It was surely part of a larger neglect that Matthew was not at supper, was even unattended, but right now that was a blessing. Newington, too, like other English places since the pestilence, had fewer souls to keep watch.
Besides, there was no need to hurry his golden girl. With her little boy riding on her hip Isabella pushed herself from the step and began to walk steadily back toward the wood where she and Amice had waited for him.
“Look at her!” Amice hissed, with a jab of an urgent finger. “Sees nothing but Matthew, strolls as if she is in heaven already, sails straight past the backside of my roan who kicks like a mule. Has she noticed that I have brought the horses? Have you?”
“I grudge her nothing.” He could hear her singing another lullaby.
“She is not safe for human company.”
“Not yet.” Stephen smiled. “She will be.”
****
He wanted to hasten back to London, hug Joanna close and shelter all of them within Thomas’s house, but instinct warned him that Isabella needed peace and time with her son. A roadside inn was too risky, with too many people who might remember them if Sir William’s men came searching—as they surely would.
“A religious house will take us for tonight,” Isabella said serenely, when Stephen, striding beside his horse with Isabella and Matthew riding, tried to speak quietly to Amice on the matter. She was right, of course.
“Alms for the monks will buy us silence, too,” remarked Amice. She was right as well.
“Agreed.” Stephen knew of a small monastery that they could reach easily before nightfall. He squeezed Isabella’s foot and she smiled at him, haloed by the evening sunset. Already she looks less thin. I know that to be impossible, but still, there it is. The brightness has returned in her, because she has her son. He hoped, too, a little brightness was for him.
“Tell them you are married,” Amice said, with a knowing glance at her friend. “They will put you together in a guest room.”
Isabella blushed. She kissed her son’s downy hair as Matthew dozed before her in the saddle, but said nothing.
Besieged by images of himself and Isabella in a bed, Stephen cleared his throat. “We should all stay together. It will be safer.”
But mark this, Isabella did not object.
He did not object, either.
****
Still he was patient. He wanted her—how he wanted her!— but instinct told him to rein in, be still. She has been months without her son. Nothing else must come between them. His desires must wait.
The monks welcomed them, fed them a supper of leek porry and fish and put them in a guest chamber with a great four-poster bed that could sleep all four of them. At once, Amice claimed the bed space closest to the doorway. “I like to be able to move at night, in bed and out of it,” she said.
Stephen noted how she did not quite look at Isabella as she spoke and felt his heart expand with gratitude. He nodded thanks to her as Amice took her place beside the door, preparing to sleep in her clothes.
“Then I do not have to dress again when we rise for the midnight services,” she said, and shrugged. “You may choose to do differently.”
“I will stay as I am,” said Isabella quickly.
“Goodnight,” Amice called and instantly rolled over.
“Goodnight, my friend, and thank you.” Isabella bedded down beside Amice, her son cradled in her arms. She looked up and Stephen’s heart raced afresh as he saw her eyes. “Are you for bed, St…Stephen?” she stammered, shyly patting the mattress in invitation.
“I am.” He settled next to her, with the monastery stone wall at his back. Isabella in her creased gown and her blond tresses unruly on the pillow had never looked more delicious, more kissable. He did not want to roll away from her, but still…. Keeping his eyes fixed on her, Stephen reversed in the bed and forced his reluctant body right up to the cold stones, willing their chill into his loins.
Matthew, after demanding and receiving a night-time story from Isabella, slept quickly. Stephen watched her watching him and was surprisingly content.
She has her child. Now I must ensure she keeps him. Whatever happens between us, I must do this. As a mother, as herself, Isabella deserves no less. Pray God I can do this.
If he failed, she might forgive, but he would never forgive himself.
Chapter 7
Isabella was sleeping after the early service. Beside her, Matthew played with her hair and the silver and gold flower that Stephen had retrieved from the dust and handed again to his mother. Now, dropping a kiss onto the boy’s head, trailing a hand over Isabella’s shoulder, Stephen eased himself off the great bed and slipped out of the chamber into the dawn.
He stood in the yard, looking at the great monastery church, and listened to the birds and the silences between their calls. He drew in a large breath, inhaling the smells of his childhood—the sea, the blossom, the green earth. How have I forgotten this? He had a small-holding in Kent, close to the coast. It was time, and perhaps safer, to take his family down there, take Joanna and his sister and Isabella and Matthew, if Isabella will come.
A whiff of spices told him that Amice had entered the yard. She wasted no words in greeting. “What next?”
/>
Stephen half-turned, glad to speak to Isabella’s closest friend. The matter had kept him awake all last night. “If I ask her, will she take me?”
“Ginger and pepper! Have you not noticed how she looks at you, man?”
“But after her first marriage, is it too soon?”
Amice clicked her tongue, as if impatient. “Do you love her?”
Stephen smiled.
“Then ask!”
“It will be safer for her and Matthew,” he added, trying to be practical and sensible. Sensing a change in the air behind him, Stephen looked round. Isabella was standing on the threshold, Matthew riding on her hip.
Amice moved first. “I will take Matt,” she said, holding out her arms to the chuckling little boy. “Go, walk in the cloister or something. You two have things you need to say to each other. Go on.”
Seeing nothing but Isabella, Stephen held out his hand to her. Please accept me, his heart thundered. Please.
Her warm little fingers wrapped round his. “I know the way,” she said. “Follow me.”
****
The cloister was quiet, the rising sun beating down on a single gardener and some drowsy bumblebees. Isabella sat beside a narrow pillar and looked out over the herbs and flowers. She felt Stephen crouch beside her, still clutching her hand.
She glanced at him and the world stopped. The ardor in his lean, tanned face, the feeling in his green-gray eyes made her forget everything.
He squeezed her fingers and spoke. “You know I love you. I did not say it earlier to Amice because I wanted to say it to you first. I loved Cecilia and I will never forget her.”
She felt him tremble after that confession and said quickly, “That is a good thing, Stephen.” Please say more. Say about us.
Perhaps he understood her thought for he swallowed. “Is it not too soon? You have your son now. I do not want you to feel in any way compelled.” His voice deepened. “Especially by gratitude.”
She shook her head. “I will be forever grateful to you, Stephen, for helping me win back Matthew, but—” She stopped. How could she say this? It had been the growing wish of her heart but until Matthew was with her again all the rest of her life had stuttered and failed. “I would like more.”
Lindsay Townsend Page 6