by Ann Lawrence
“He will make all clear, I’m sure,” Cristina said.
“All is clear now,” he said abruptly.
Oriel touched her arm. “Excuse me; I intrude.” With that, Cristina found herself alone with him.
“You are a doubting man,” Cristina said, unable to keep a tart tone from her voice.
“Aye. I doubt what I cannot see or hear or touch.”
How intense was his gaze, a sharp dagger that stabbed through her composure.
“You need trust.” She looked at the raven’s head on his dagger and at the ends of the torque at his throat. They were predator birds and symbols of power. He would soon wield it for good or ill.
“You trust your husband?” he asked.
“I have no one else,” she said, unable to truly answer him.
“If you know something more about this business, you should tell me.”
“There are times when silence is best, my lord.” Could she tell him that to deny her husband was to deny the life fate and her father had chosen for her?
“Name one.”
“Lady Marion told me she had withheld her news of Felice from you until this spring, as she felt so ill she feared she might lose the child and disappoint you.”
A hard look overspread his face. It was as sudden as if someone had taken a torch and plunged it into water—cold water. “Is that what she told you?” His words were icy.
“Aye, my lord.” Cristina dropped a curtsey. “Forgive me, my lord, if I—or she—broke some confidence. Lady Marion was much alone as you traveled with King John, and as I was to have a child at the same time, we spent a great deal of time together and oft talked of babes and—”
“Husbands?” He almost spat the word. He pushed himself off the wall. He was suddenly taller and broader.
“On occasion. She gained much benefit from a soothing drink I made her, and she would talk to me as she sipped it.”
“And what were your opinions of husbands?”
Cristina bowed her head. She had done her best not to complain of Simon, but Marion had been like a bird pecking at seed, picking and picking at her for every detail of their life together. “In truth, my lord, Lady Marion spent more time peering into my life than I into hers. She spoke of you with affection.”
“And the babe? What were her thoughts on Felice?”
She raised her gaze to his hard face. The lines about his mouth were etched deeply. He looked to be in some pain.
“Don’t blame the child for your lady’s death, my lord.”
The pained look was replaced with blank surprise. “I don’t blame the child. Why would you think such a thing?”
She hurried on. “Lady Marion must have had some glimmer of her fate, for she feared the child’s birth. She oft asked Luke if you had sent word of when you would return.”
“I don’t blame the child for Marion’s death. Nay. Never that.” He began to pace. “Where’s the infant?”
Cristina indicated the hall. “Lady Nona took her, my lord.”
“Lady Nona! What business has she to take the child?”
Two men came past the alcove, and he made a quick gesture for her to follow him.
The path he took led to the west tower, a place she had heretofore never visited. He climbed the steps at a quick pace, then halted by a door similar to those in the east tower, a stout wooden door strapped with iron, guarded by a tall Ravenswood guard. Lord Durand drew a small, ornate iron key from his purse, unlocked the door, and gestured her in.
She gasped. Before her lay a chamber filled with shelves of books and rolls of parchment. “My lord,” she whispered.
He entered the chamber and threw open a shutter. “Come. No one will bother us here.” He had chosen the room as the guard was above reproach and the room without a bed or place of comfort in which to practice seduction or be tempted by it.
Durand watched as Cristina set one toe over the threshold. He thought of a wading bird, testing the water, a lovely, gentle bird, easily frightened. “Come,” he repeated, all anger with her gone. She was not responsible for Marion’s perfidy.
What had possessed him to suspect her? He could not see her stealing anything—save some man’s heart.
At last she stood a few inches within the chamber. “How is it no one mentions this room?”
He shrugged. “‘Tis mine, and mine alone. I rarely visit it myself.”
Sun gleamed on her hair as she edged along the shelves. He found he liked it loose at her nape rather than tightly plaited.
“Why have you shown me this, my lord?”
“You wished to speak where no ears were able to hear.”
She turned from the shelves. “You think me too bold?”
He leaned his shoulder against a shelf. “I think you have something of importance to say and need privacy. This a private place.”
The whisper of her skirt across the rushes reminded him of the first time he had seen her. She moved like a wraith. Mayhap if he looked away she would disappear.
Her soft white woolen gown hugged her ample breasts. The cool air of the chamber tightened her nipples and distracted him from her face a bit, but not enough that he did not see some shadow of the anxiety with which she had approached him.
Would she beg for her husband? And would he, so drawn to her as he was, find a way to release Simon and send them both safely away? How long would his conscience bother him? How long before he ceased to think of her in Simon’s bed somewhere?
“Speak, Cristina. My time is not my own.”
“I beg you believe me, my lord. I was not leaving by the postern gate.”
“Is that what you wished to say?”
“Nay, but if you doubt me…that is…Lady Nona said you might seek a new nurse for Felice.”
She bit her lip. He remembered well the taste of her mouth. “Lady Nona is bold,” was the only answer he had for her.
“Lady Oriel claims Lady Nona will soon be your wife. Should she not be so bold in such a position?”
Durand pushed away from the shelves and went to the deep window. As far as he could see was the land that should have been Luke’s. He turned his back on the window. “So I am wed to her already?”
“‘Tis none of my concern, my lord.” Her hands stroked along a shelf, skimming the spines of books, and he wished he could see her face. Her tone was bare of inflection or meaning.
He wanted her to care that he would wed, then realized she had gained a promise from him not to put her vows to any test, and so he could not demand or request such emotion.
“You’d be the wrong nurse for Felice if you didn’t have her welfare close to your heart.”
“I do, my lord, I do!” She finally faced him, a look of pain or sorrow on her face, but it was quickly chased away when she turned her back. “I’m not deaf to gossip, though, and the lady has indicated that a new nurse must be found if Simon is…” Her voice broke.
“If Simon is found to be a thief,” he finished for her.
“Nay, he is not,” she said, but with less of the heat of her earlier avowals.
“Cristina.” He said her name as he might if he were her lover, and she reacted to the tone. She turned to him, her face half in shadow, half in sun. “You will remain here, with Felice, for as long as you wish,” he said gently.
“You have judged Simon already.”
“I have not.”
“You will promise to be fair—to hear his excuses?”
He gave a curt nod. “I am considered very fair, else I would not be one of John’s justices.”
“Does not the king choose those who will see to his wishes, my lord?”
“You are hard to please,” he said, pacing the small chamber. He cared almost as little for this talk of justice as he did for the talk of marriage. “I will be fair.” I may even see a thief freed, he said silently.
“What penalties have you given for men found guilty of—”
“Theft?” He held out his hand as if offering it for punishm
ent. “From branding to hanging.”
Her face paled. “Are any found innocent and released?”
“Few.” If possible, her face washed even whiter.
Was there any chance Simon was innocent? He might assure her he would allow her to remain as Felice’s nurse, but would she want to stay if Simon was proved a thief? There was shame in such an association.
Where would she go? What should he do about Felice in such circumstances? In his mind’s eye, he saw Cristina with the child in arms. It was a wicked coil.
Her hand trembled as she raised it and briefly touched her throat. “What of Lady Nona’s wishes regarding Felice?”
“She will want what I want.”
Cristina shook her head. “She will want, as all good wives do, to direct a daughter. That would include choosing a nurse.”
“Felice is content with you.”
“And if Lady Nona is not?”
“Is she unkind to you?”
“Oh, nay, my lord. She’s very kind.”
“Then you have naught to fear.” In that moment he realized he was lying. Marion had once sent away a kitchen wench for teasing their son Adrian. Was that what Cristina thought, but would not say? That Nona might be jealous of her? That Nona might sense there was something between them? He knew well what it was to lie in a lover’s arms and wonder if it was someone else who filled the lover’s mind.
He could treat neither Nona nor Cristina in such a way.
Cristina went to the window where he had stood. Below, the river moved lazily in the sunlight, small sparkles lighting its surface. She breathed in deeply. He wanted to go to her and wrap his arms around her waist and offer her some strength for what was to come. But he stayed where he was.
“You must have no fear for your position here with Felice.” He could do nothing about her fears for Simon. They were an ugly truth she must face on her own.
“I do fear for my position—now. Yesterday you did not trust me. Today you do. On the morrow you may not again.” She turned from the view and met his gaze as boldly as a man might. “You have posted a sentry outside Felice’s chamber.”
“The sentry is not to keep you in, but to keep others out.”
She paced as he had, her skirts swaying with every step, her hair swinging across her back. “You must trust me.”
“How does one trust another?” he asked, his mind leaping to Luke and Penne.
“Trust the history you have with a person.”
“And if we have no history?” She moved close to him. Her skin was smooth and downy. He wanted to skim his fingers across her cheek, his thumb across her lips.
Her eyes snapped fire. “Then you must make a leap of faith. You cannot believe me to be leaving by the postern gate one moment, then not the next. You cannot have it both ways, my lord. I am completely confused!”
“Aye,” he said softly. “You are right. I cannot have it both ways.” He realized that in the moment the king had questioned him about her, in that moment when he had defended her, he had decided to believe her story. “Let us say I’ve had a few hours to consider your tale and find it more to my liking now. I ask that you trust me as well.”
She knotted her fingers together. “‘Tis difficult. I do not know what you are thinking.”
“It is better for both of us that you do not.”
Chapter Fifteen
Durand locked the room of books and led Cristina back to the hall. Lady Nona sat by King John, Felice on her lap. The child fussed, arching her back and struggling in the lady’s arms.
“Mayhap the child would like her nurse,” Durand said. Before he could stop himself, he had pulled the babe from Nona’s lap.
“Oh, aye. I am useless to a nursing babe,” Nona said with a laugh. “She is surely hungry.”
The babe fell silent in his arms. He stared down at the soft blue eyes and smooth cheeks. Her gown was stitched with delicate flowers, her wrap likewise embroidered with the bounty of summer. She stared up at him and then lifted a tiny hand. Her fingers explored the torque at his neck, then gripped it with surprising force. She tugged as if to pull the torque into her mouth.
“She will have it off if you let her,” Nona said.
The king smiled. “The child knows to reach for the symbols of power. She tried to eat our ring, did she not, Isabelle?”
“Aye, sire,” the queen answered indulgently.
Cristina stood silently by. Durand knew he should hand the child away, but somehow he did not wish to set her down. Gently he plucked her fingers from the torque. How small and delicate the bones of her hand felt. Fragile.
“You’ll drop her,” the queen said, and reached over to settle his hand behind the child’s head, showing him how to hold her more securely in the crook of his arm.
Nona and the queen hovered close by, each making small adjustments to Felice’s long skirts and her wraps.
“She’ll need a worthy alliance,” Isabelle said to John.
“The Count of Poitou’s nephew would do,” Nona said.
“Perfect! We approve,” the king said with a grin. “The count’s future is as uncertain as any old man’s, so she might be a countess before her teeth were in.”
Durand stepped away. The Count of Poitou was a very high match, but he knew the nephew. He lacked spirit. “Cristina, what do you think of the match?”
“I don’t know the count, my lord,” she said. She moved to the end of the table where the king sat. Durand didn’t offer her the child; nor did she reach out to take her. “You must do what you believe best for her.”
The child reached for his torque again and he shifted her to put his throat out of her reach. She opened her mouth. A high, keening shriek issued forth.
“She wants the gold,” declared the queen.
“She’s hungry,” Cristina said softly so only he could hear. Their fingers skimmed each other as she took the babe from his arms. “May I go, my lord?”
He nodded and forced himself not to watch her progress across the hall to the tower steps.
Nona touched his sleeve. “When you hang her husband she will need to leave,” she said gently.
“He’s not yet judged, my lady.”
Lady Sabina tapped his arm with her fingertip. “Her husband’s a thief. One has only to look upon his handsome face to know he’s filled with guile. Do you not fear for your daughter’s welfare in that woman’s care?”
Durand shook his head. King John was paying far too much attention to the conversation. “I would fear for Felice’s welfare if Cristina were not seeing to her care.”
One of the king’s knights, Roger Godshall, who had escorted Sabina to the table, moved closer. He was a dark, stocky man garbed in a fine but careless way.
“What gossip have I missed?” he asked the company in general.
“We discuss the future of Mistress le Gros should her husband be found to be a thief,” the queen said.
“She can earn her way on her back,” Godshall said, wagging his eyebrows.
“Be civil,” Durand said sharply.
“She’s not pretty enough for such sport,” Sabina said abruptly, hooking Godshall’s arm and stroking his hand.
John called for their attention. “Enough of children. Let us attend to the matter at hand. Our men are ready at Dartmouth. We but await William Marshall’s attendance and a favorable wind.”
“If Marshall is not successful, should we not consider one more attempt to make peace with Philip?” Gilles d’Argent asked. “He has the support of Gervase of Gascony and Ellis of Toulouse. I know both men well and would willingly go in hopes they may be persuaded to some peace.”
“They will not listen.” John’s face suffused a deep red as he faced the older man.
Roger Godshall rose and jammed his hands on his hips. “You do not go with us, so who are you to speak at all, d’Argent?”
Nicholas d’Argent shot to his feet. “How dare you. Draw your sword, Godshall.”
In the instant before
blood could be shed, Durand and Gilles stepped between the two men. It was the king, however, who ended the matter.
“D’Argent has no need to go. He is creaking with age, and his kind donation to my cause will yield forty fit men in his place. We know he loves us and will seek to support us in all ways. Be seated, you two whelps.”
Nicholas and Roger subsided to their seats, but their hands remained on their dagger hilts. Durand thought it would be best if they could leave and shed some Frenchman’s blood, or soon they’d be shedding that of each other.
He ventured to further restore some semblance of order to the table. “I’d go with you to speak with Philip or his agents, d’Argent, if you think the scheme would work,” Durand said. Gilles and he had made this same suggestion over and over to the king with the same results. John wanted war.
Roger Godshall spoke. “Is not your mother with Bazin in Paris, de Marle?”
Silence fell around the table. Durand had expected this event. The fists on dagger hilts remained in place.
Guy Wallingford, a baron with a son of Adrian’s age also fostered with de Warre, spoke up, “What does it matter with whom de Marle’s mother aligns herself? She has no retainers, and Bazin’s sword rusts from a decade of disuse.”
Laughter ran about the table; even John smiled. Several hands slid from daggers to lift their goblets. Durand gave a signal to the serving boy, who quickly rounded the table, filling the cups again.
Durand drank deeply of his wine as if unconcerned. “My mother is concerned with gems and sweetmeats. I doubt she knows what day ‘tis.”
“Still,” King John said, “Bazin supported Philip’s father. He may still wield some influence. Can you attest to your mother’s loyalty?”
“My mother has never been loyal to anyone.”
“But she makes a worthy hostage.”
“Aye,” Durand said. “And I’m honor-bound to do what I may to protect her, but you may be assured you have my loyalty and that of my men as well. If Philip takes my mother hostage, he will demand a ransom. I’m sure there’s a price we can agree upon.” He also knew he did not have the coin to pay it.
The conversation turned to swords and who best wielded them. When the discussion deteriorated to lewd comments from the younger men, Durand made an escape to the stable.