Stealing Heaven

by Madeline Hunter

  He paused on the landing. Excited voices came from behind one door. He heard footsteps scurry toward him, and the unmistakable sound of a bar starting to slide. Half charmed and half annoyed, he firmly pushed the door open.

  He expected a chorus of feminine shrieks to greet his abrupt intrusion. Instead the chamber instantly filled with silence. A servant stood near the door, wide-eyed at his boldness. Another glanced over from where she folded some garments near the hearth. Yet a third sat on the bed, her back to him, and this one did not even acknowledge his presence. Instead she tended her mistress, who indeed was abed, propped up on pillows and with a sheet tucked to her chin.

  He saw long black tresses spreading out over pillow and linens, and glimpsed her lovely face, glowing pale in the shadows formed by the shuttered windows.

  “My lady is ill,” the servant near him whispered anxiously.

  “Not too ill to stroll almost naked in the garden last night.”

  He walked over to the bed and filled his eyes with his future bride. The light was not much stronger here than it had been under the full moon, but it was less ethereal and diffuse, and it permitted more details to be clear. She appeared very young now, no more than a girl, and he regretted a bit how aggressive he had been.

  He had frightened her. It was obvious from the way she refused to raise her gaze and in the way her hands clutched the bedclothes up to her neck. Her head was bowed submissively, as if she expected him to castigate her for permitting those kisses.

  “You do not have to be afraid,” he said. “I am pleased and flattered, and do not question your virtue. I am glad that it will not just be duty that we share in our marriage bed.”

  She raised her head. Large dark eyes took him in as if she had never seen him before.

  He suddenly realized that she hadn’t.

  It dawned on him in a rush of perceptions, all of them lasting no longer than a blink. Dark hair, but straighter than the waves he had grasped. Large eyes, but too vacant for a woman who had shared those kisses with him. Pale skin, but without the curving line of a heart forming the jaw and chin. Beautiful, exquisitely so, but lacking something he could not name but which had held him spellbound just hours ago.

  The servant moved off the bed. With her gone he could make out the shape of the body beneath the blanket, much thinner than the curves he had caressed.

  “Sir Marcus,” the servant said. “I would like to introduce you to Genith verch Llygad.”

  The voice penetrated his confusion. It was quiet and melodic, and lacked fear or deference. He swung his gaze to the woman standing beside the bed.

  And saw a face much like the one he had just been studying, only older and less beautiful, but also more interesting. There was nothing at all confused or submissive in its expression. His blood instantly reacted, and he knew the truth.

  “Hell.” He barely breathed the word.

  He had been commanded to marry Genith, a sweet, innocent virgin. But he had almost made love last night to her older sister, Nesta.

  A whore.

  And not just any whore.

  The King’s whore.

  Nesta nipped away before Sir Marcus could react with more than that one low curse. He appeared sufficiently stunned that she doubted he would attempt anything improper with Genith. In fact, it looked as if he would not even be able to speak for a good long while.

  All the same, she gestured for the servants to stay. As she swept out the door, she glanced back at her sister meaningfully. Genith barely nodded, but the reminder had been received. Keep him dangling. Two days at most, and you are free.

  Her glance also took in Marcus, watching her departure. His handsome, angular face was set severely and his mouth formed a straight hard line. His expressive, deep-set eyes flamed, and the wayward, dark gold locks skimming his temples seemed to point to his glare. He no longer appeared stunned, but furious.

  His examination made her pause in her stride, as if those fiery eyes locked her in place. If he had been compelling in the garden, he was twice so here, where she could see him more clearly. His livid, revealing gaze made the chamber disappear for an instant, and she half expected him to walk over and grasp her in a furious embrace. Caution rose in her, but so did a disgraceful excitement.

  Shaking off his spell, she hurried down to the hall, and grabbed a basket waiting for her. Perhaps two days would not be soon enough. She had better arrange things very quickly.

  One of the King’s guards moved to stop her as she approached the gate of Genith’s comfortable prison. She held up her basket to indicate her purpose and cast him a look so quelling that he faltered and stood aside.

  She hurried to the markets on the Cheap and quickly bargained for provisions to be delivered to the house. She eyed the vendors and their wagons as well as their wares, and stopped a bit longer with a few. She did not waste any time doing so, however, for she had much to accomplish and this might be her only chance.

  Soon, probably today, her presence in London would become known to Archbishop Stratford and the other councillors who governed the realm in the King’s absence. Once that happened she doubted that the guards at the gate would let her leave again. She would be confined there, a guest of the crown, just as Genith had been.

  Finally, most everything was bought. Now it was time to sell. Her own wares could not be hawked in a market, however. A side lane showed merchant shops, and she strolled along it, entering one to make some small purchases while she chatted with the owner.

  Her questions procured the information that she needed, and she aimed down the lane toward a fine, tall house and entered the mercer’s shop on its first level.

  Walls full of luxuries surrounded her, creating a square cave of visual delight. Silks and fine wools, some in colors she had never seen before, formed stacks higher than her head. One could tell without a touch that even the basic linens were better than most. The other merchant had said this shop was one of the best, but the abundance of riches astonished her.

  An apprentice assessed her, then hustled into a back room. Soon the master emerged. He did not appear much older than an apprentice himself, no more than in his mid-twenties. He was handsome, with golden brown hair and deep blue eyes.

  “How can we serve you, my lady?”

  She set down her basket on a shelf’s edge in front of a stack of delicious velvets. “I am told that you trade in Flanders, and visit there often.”

  “Not often, but I go there sometimes.”

  She plucked out some parchments from the basket. “I have some tapestry designs to sell. I have sold them before to merchants who take them to Flanders and get a good price from the weavers there.”

  He took the parchments and unfolded them. “They are very handsome, but tapestry drawings are normally full size.”

  “Enlarging these will be easy for their workers. They will have men who know how to do it.”

  He smiled vaguely. “I can see that you know this trade better than I do.”

  “I have sold them before, as I said. There is a merchant in Edinburgh who buys from me.”

  “Then why not sell these to him?”

  “Because I am in London, not Edinburgh.” She suddenly understood the suspicion behind the question. “You fear that I have already sold the same images to him, and seek to duplicate my good fortune by duplicating the images themselves, don’t you? I assure you that each one is different. You will not find when you get to Flanders that the pattern is already in use. These are unique.”

  He looked them over once more, than began folding them. “One pound.”

  “You will get three in Flanders.”

  “I may get nothing in Flanders, and it will be many months before I find out. By then I could have turned the one pound into three without the trouble of leaving London.”

  For a handsome man with a gracious manner, he drew a hard bargain. “One pound then.” It would be enough, and she had a bit more coin stashed away. The provisions today had not depleted t
hat little hoard. She had bought them on King Edward’s tally. Edward’s orders had hauled Genith here and, by the saints, he could pay the cost of getting her out, too.

  “Would you prefer coin or goods?”

  She eyed the velvets bulging on the shelves above her basket. Reaching up, she fingered the sensual nap of a green bolt. It had been years since she had indulged in such pleasures. “Coin. I cannot afford your mercery now.”

  While he went to the back chamber to get the coin, she stroked the velvet again. Her mind’s eye saw it cut into a slim surcotte, with a cotehardie of deep rose wool underneath.

  “If you have more tapestry designs, bring them. If I carry three to Flanders, I may as well carry six,” he said when he returned.

  She took the coin and picked up her basket. “I thank you, but I leave the city soon and there will be no time to bring you more. Good day to you.”

  Her duties completed, Nesta walked down the street more slowly than she had come, admiring the colorful signs swinging overhead, enjoying the talk and laughter leaking into the lane from the open doors and windows. That was what she had missed most the last few years— joyful noise. She dawdled at some windows, watching the craftsmen work or feasting her eyes on the expensive wares. These were very fine shops, the kind that made a person itch to buy and buy and gorge the senses on colors and textures and glittering surfaces.

  She was admiring the weavings in a draper’s window when the air around her changed. A thundering storm had appeared out of nowhere to spoil her morning.

  “When did you arrive in London? I was told that Genith’s sister was in a convent in Scotland.” The voice by her shoulder was very annoyed.

  She glanced up at Sir Marcus. His dark eyes glinted and his face appeared incredibly handsome but extremely stern.

  “I arrived at sunset yesterday. And I have not been in that convent for some months now.” She returned her attention to the weavings. “Shouldn’t you be attending my sister? Composing poetry to her beauty or speaking other sweet words?”

  “I will have a lifetime to attend on her, damn it. Right now I want to speak to you.”

  “I cannot prevent you from doing so, although your mood does not bode well for any courteous conversation. I trust that you will not create a spectacle.”

  “I will make a spectacle fit for hell if I want to.”

  “Then let us leave this lane of polite shops and return to the market, where other ill-mannered people and animals gather. Then if you start bellowing it will not be noticed.”

  She began walking up the lane. Long booted legs fell into step beside her.

  “You should have made yourself known to me last night.”

  “I did not have much chance with your impatient assault.”

  “It was not assault, lady, and we both know it.”

  “You hardly asked permission.”

  “I did not need to ask permission. I thought I was with my future bride. You knew my error, and you allowed me—”

  “I allowed very little, and would have permitted far less if you had not overwhelmed me with your boldness. I am flattered that you found me so beautiful that you could not control yourself, but look at the mess you have made.”

  He grabbed her arm and swung her around to face him. He pierced her with a gaze too knowing, too male, and far too full of memories of the garden. “It was not my boldness that overwhelmed you, Nesta. Nor merely your beauty that lured me. And it was your deception, not my actions, that has created this hell of a mess.”

  “If you expect me to blush with shame, think again. A woman as notorious as I am is spared such nonsense.”

  “I am not looking for shame but for some common sense. How am I supposed to live with both her and you in my household after what happened?”

  She pulled her arm free and continued walking. “You were not yet betrothed to her, and you did not make love to me. Even a priest could not find any great fault.

  Also, I have no intention of imposing on your household. After the wedding, I will be gone.“

  “Nay, you will not. I have been commanded to let you stay with your sister.”

  “Thank you, but that will not be necessary.”

  “It is the King’s pleasure, so the choice is not yours.”

  That shocked her so much that she almost stumbled. It was a problematic discovery. The awkwardness of living with him and Genith after those kisses last night was the least of her concerns.

  She ambled around the market stalls, bending to sniff foods and examine objects so Marcus would not see her dismay. She purchased a little flask of mead and several candles. Marcus seethed alongside her the whole time. She chose a variety of dried stalks from a woman who sold herbs. One was hanging very high, and Marcus helped cut it down, then absently plucked a coin from his own purse to pay for it.

  “Tell me, Sir Marcus, are you saying that the King has commanded that I am to live with my sister?”

  “Since your husband is dead, you need a place. It disturbed him to learn you had retired to that Scottish convent for lack of a home. And that is his goal in all of this—to restore your family’s honor, and return Llygad ap Madoc’s home to his daughters.”

  “Except in marrying my sister, the home will become yours.”

  “It will also be hers again. And yours. Your nobility will be restored. Someday our son will gain it all, so your father’s bloodline will sit in the lord’s chair again one day.”

  Not only her father’s bloodline. Not just the blood of a family that could trace its lineage back to King Hywel Dda centuries earlier. It would be diluted by that of this Englishman, and her nephew would be more English than Welsh, and sworn to do England’s bidding.

  “Does he expect this to appease the men who followed my father’s banner? They will not lay down their arms, but only be angered.”

  “I do not know what Edward expects, except from me. And that is to wed the daughter of Llygad, and be lord of those lands until our son succeeds me.”

  “And crush the rebellion that her father started, so that it does not grow into something other than a small mountain band raiding English-held lands.”

  “Aye, that too.”

  She stopped and faced him. “Do you know why Edward disseized my father?”

  “Your father raised his standard against the crown.”

  “Do you know why?”

  He looked past her, avoiding her eyes, exasperated by the question. “Everyone knows why, Nesta. The songs about it are still very popular.”

  “Ah, the songs. Which one have you heard? That which describes how I was forced, or that which credits me with virtue and the King with restraint.”

  His gaze swung back, sharply. “Both of those, and also the one that says you were willing.”

  “There is a fourth song, of course. The one where the fault was all mine, where the Welsh temptress bewitched him. It is the favorite one in Wales among the common people. They laugh so hard when they hear of the great king made weak by lust that they split their sides.”

  “That one I can most easily believe, having been a victim of your spell.”

  “Well, for all of the songs, it is the endings that should matter to you, the parts that describe how my father was so insulted that he broke with the King, and with England. That is the verse that gives you our home, and my sister’s hand.”

  The mention of her sister darkened his expression again.

  “If you find that too unpleasant, do not do it. If bedding her after kissing me distresses you, refuse this marriage,” she said.

  He looked down in a way that seemed to see right through her. “Ah, so that was your plan. Beguile the dim-witted knight so he lusts after the wrong woman, and spurns the one he has been given. Very clever. Nay, lady, this marriage will go forward. As you said, the King’s man should not be easily swayed by a few kisses in a garden.”

  He appeared too determined, and not at all inclined to delay as long as she needed. In fact, he didn’t appear ve
ry distressed at all anymore.

  That wouldn’t do.

  She lowered her head and looked up at him through her lashes. She tried to summon a blush. “My lord, you give me far too much credit, and yourself far too little. It was not I casting the spell in the garden, nor I doing the beguiling. Last night… I could not help myself. You were very good.”

  She had intended to be coy and audacious, and to confuse him again. But his eyes had locked on hers, and what passed between them made her voice falter on the last words. She felt her face truly burn.

  The man gazing down at her did not appear at all shocked or perplexed. His expression did not soften, but its harshness transformed into a different sternness. The intimacy from the garden instantly appeared again, like a brisk, enlivening wind nipping at her, making her shiver from her scalp to her toes.

  She turned away from his hot eyes and strode out of the market, toward the house.

  In attempting to be clever she had spoken the truth.

  She hadn’t been able to stop herself. It had been good. Too good.

  And he knew it.

  “I hate him.”

  “You cannot hate what you do not know.” Nesta sat beside her sister in the garden where she had found Genith upon returning from the market. Genith was still sniffing back tears, so Nesta did not insist that they go inside, much as she wanted to. She would prefer to discuss Marcus of Anglesmore anywhere but here, on the very same bench where she had embraced him last night.

  “I know enough,” Genith said. “He does not care for me, either. He sat in the hall pretending to attend on me but thinking about other things. Doing his duty, that is all. He barely looked at me, and asked me questions about my life with our kinswoman in Wales in a tone that you would use with a little child. I half expected him to give me a doll. As it is, he brought no gift, and scowled the whole time. He is the kind of man who is always angry, I think, and I am very glad that I will not have to marry him.”