By His Majesty's Grace

by Jennifer Blake

  “Never!” Marguerite exclaimed.

  “The outcry and weeping among the ladies would be insupportable,” Cate declared with a roguish look from under her lashes.

  “We can’t have that, so I shall certainly compose something new soon.” He tilted his head, his gaze on Isabel. “For now, I should concentrate on a grand theatrical for your wedding feast. It will be soon?”

  “Tomorrow, I fear.”

  “Fear? Le diable! Distraction is in order, then, to banish thought of the bedding. What will serve? A chorus of minnesingers chanting of marital bliss? A martial display of jousting and other games with blood and gore?”

  “Neither, and it please you,” she said with a grimace. “Besides, there will be no time.”

  “It must be my spectacle already planned, then, with only fire and thunder and moving parts.”

  “Only?”

  “You will like it exceedingly, I am sure of it.”

  No doubt she would, Isabel thought as she smiled at the transports, or pretense of them, of her sisters over the coming treat. The Master of Revels had a genius for constructing machines capable of odd things, and of creating spectacles to amuse and amaze. He had served as an apprentice in Italy to an obscure master he called Leonardo the Procrastinator. Instead of using his inventions for practical purposes, however, Leon dedicated them to entertaining nobility and royal heads of state.

  How he had come to Henry’s court was something no one knew, not because he did not explain, but because he told so many different versions of the tale that it was impossible to discern the truth. He was the grandson of a dethroned king, he claimed, now forced to make his own way in the world. Or he was a younger son who had fallen passionately in love with the wife of a nobleman and persuaded her to flee with him, though she died tragically in a storm at sea. He had killed a man of influence in an ordeal by combat and was forced to leave his homeland to wander the world. Then again, he was a priest who had loved a veiled novice too well, but not permanently. These were only the ones she remembered.

  “I shall look forward to this spectacle,” she said, “though I hardly see how you will manage anything very grand.”

  “Oh, I’ve worked on it for some time. It will please my heart to have such a fitting occasion to display it.”

  Cate put her hands on her hips with an air of assumed affront. “See, Isabel? He hints and teases but will not explain what this contraption may be. Yes, and he works in a grain storehouse beyond the palace walls, allowing no one to enter.”

  Isabel tilted her head. “I am honored, then, that it will be unveiled for me.” Even as she spoke, her youngest sister, Marguerite, touched her arm and tipped her head toward something behind her. Forewarned, she gave only a small start as a deep voice, layered with irony and grim forbearance, reached her ears.

  “And I also, being the man who will sit at her side to share the spectacle.”

  Leon, looking past her, grew pale around the mouth while a flash of something cold and hard passed over his face. Isabel turned with a swing of velvet skirts to face Braesford. At the same time, she became aware of whispers all around them, of nudges and grimaces and the shuffle of feet as those nearest to where they stood drifted away.

  It was Leon who recovered first, his face clearing as if accepting an accused murderer into their circle was a mere nothing. “And a lucky one you are, if I may say so, for you will have the best seat in the hall—barring the throne, of course—at the side of the lovely Isabel.”

  “Your pardon, but I put my lower seat over the most high.”

  “Well spoken!” the Master of Revels exclaimed in approval. “You may even be worthy of her, though that doesn’t mean we will not mourn her disappearance into wedded servitude. Alas.”

  “Oh, but we are still here,” Cate said, linking arms with Marguerite as she gave Isabel a meaningful look.

  Isabel took the hint and introduced her sisters to her prospective groom. They were all smiles and appraising eyes as they performed their curtsies, though the quick glance Cate flung her way seemed to hold qualified approval. Not that this meant a great deal, as Isabel well knew. Her sister next in age appreciated a strong man. Moreover, any female given in marriage to a gentleman who still had his hair and teeth was to be congratulated, never mind the circumstances.

  Braesford acknowledged Marguerite and Cate, asking after their health, before turning back to Isabel. “I regret taking you away from such congenial company, but there is a matter we should discuss.”

  “Now?”

  “If you please.”

  The words were a mere courtesy. A command lay in the way he offered his arm, Isabel thought. She could refuse to go with him, but it seemed unwise. More than that, given the veiled animosity of those who surrounded them, she was willing enough to quit the hall. She placed her hand upon his sleeve, made her adieus and walked away at his side.

  The outer bailey was a tempest of noise and activity in the gathering dusk, of hurrying pages and heralds, swaggering men-at-arms, horses being led to their stalls for the night and priests striding here and there with pale moons of scalp marking their tonsures. Men swore, dogs barked, a minstrel sang a bawdy song from inside the Boar’s Head tavern across the way and serving maids called back and forth while leaning from windows above the narrow lanes that led away from the hall.

  Isabel and Rand skirted the great open space, making their way past the timber kitchen beyond the great hall, passing through a heavy gate between stone posts that led to a rear kitchen garden. Here, the clamor faded to a distant roar. All was lingering heat, the drowsy hum of bees and birdsong. Thyme, mint and sage gave off their distinctive scents as they brushed against the rampant growth that encroached upon the trodden path. A blackbird, startled from its search among great heads of cabbage, flew up ahead of them with a squawk of alarm. It landed atop an apple tree espaliered against the stone wall, where it watched their progress with a suspicious eye.

  “The Master of Revels seems well known to you,” Rand said when they had walked a few yards.

  She had been waiting for some such comment. That it was rather more subtle than expected did not make it less annoying. Removing her right hand from his arm, she used it to cradle her injured finger at her waist. “He is pleasant company and has proven himself a friend.”

  “Your brother must have warned you against such friendships.”

  “You don’t know Graydon if you think so. He takes little thought for the welfare of a mere stepsister. Cate, Marguerite and I have been left to find our own way at court. But if you mean to suggest Leon would take advantage of any of us, you malign him.”

  “Any man may take advantage under the right conditions.”

  A vision of the two of them enclosed inside the litter rose in her mind’s eye, and she was suffused by the heat of a flush. Through stiff lips, she said, “Your warning is no more necessary now than it was before. I am quite aware of the conduct required of a wife.”

  He gave a brief nod, and they walked on in silence. Isabel glanced at his set features and away again.

  How very imposing he was when measured against Leon. Not only was Rand taller and broader, but he seemed more essentially male, more virile in his aspect. He was also, she had to admit, extremely attractive in a hard-edged fashion. Not only had Cate been impressed, but Isabel had noticed other women turning to stare after him as they left the great hall.

  Braesford had paid not the slightest attention. Ego was not one of his faults, it seemed, though it was possible he had been too intent on removing her from Leon’s presence. Watching a gray kitten that sat cleaning an outstretched leg at the side of the path ahead, she considered the idea that her groom might be jealous. She abandoned it almost at once, as she could conceive of no reason why he should be. He had no fondness for her, after all. Did he?

  “It’s late to ask, but it had not occurred to me before,” he said after a moment. “Your heart is not engaged elsewhere?”

  She gave him
a small frown. “Are you still thinking of the Master of Revels? If so, you may rest easy. Leon prefers widows and adventurous married ladies for his amours.”

  “Wise of him,” Braesford said in dry comment, “though you make it sound as if his conquests are legion. God is subject to odd humors in that he makes some men so much more appealing than others.”

  “Mayhap it is Leon who makes himself appealing.”

  He turned to rest his gaze upon her again for a frowning instant, but did not contradict her. “In reality, my thought was for a lover of a different sort, possibly some nobleman met here at Westminster.”

  “There is no one, has been no one, past the foolish infatuations of a young girl. Such attachments are discouraged as they only lead, so the good nuns assure us, to disappointment.”

  “You are heart-whole, then.”

  “It could be put that way.”

  “Amazing, that no one has taken the trouble to draw close.”

  “There is the curse, you will recall.”

  He lifted an indifferent shoulder. “Even so.”

  Such oblique flattery did not require an answer, particularly as she could not be sure what he meant by it. They strolled on, past the kitten, beneath an arbor where a climbing rose released its sweetness upon the evening air, alongside a bed of vivid green parsley. She asked finally, “Is that what you wanted to discuss, the state of my affections?”

  “In part.” His voice was without inflection as he answered, though he gave her a swift glance. “You are holding your hand. Does your finger pain you still?”

  “No more than you might expect.” She immediately lowered the injured member to her side. Protecting it had become such a habit that she had hardly noticed what she was doing. That he had been attending was gratifying in some odd manner she did not care to examine.

  He stopped, held out his hand. “May I?”

  Isabel came to a halt at his side. As if compelled, she surrendered her fingers to his grasp.

  His touch was as gentle as when he had set the break with a rush stem, and as impersonal. Regardless, it set her heart to hammering in her chest. Holding perfectly still, she watched as he inspected the bindings, turning her hand this way and that before tightening the ribbon that held that splint in place. The fading light slanted across his face, softening its hard planes, highlighting the curves of his mouth, leaving his eyes in shadow.

  With his gaze upon what he was doing, he said, “I wanted to ask if you have changed your mind about the charge lodged against me. After our audience before the king, I mean.”

  “What does it matter?” she asked with difficulty. We…we are to marry, regardless.”

  “You seemed… I would like to know what you think.”

  It was a novel attitude in her experience. Certainly, neither her stepfather nor Graydon had ever sought her opinion. Wary of the gratitude and warm softness that rose inside her, she answered with care. “I see no reason why you should wish to harm the child delivered at Braesford Hall.”

  “I am obliged to you for that much, at least,” he said with a trace of huskiness in his voice. “And the rest?”

  She swallowed, looking away from him. “Men-at-arms must have come for the mistress afterward, as you said, for too many can attest to it for it to be otherwise. As for who sent them, it seems impossible that it was other than by Henry’s order.”

  “Yet you heard him deny it. Do you doubt the king’s word? Can you believe him capable of destroying his own flesh and blood?” He gazed down at her with a frown darkening his eyes.

  “What a man may do with his own hands and what he may order done by others are often two different things.”

  “You think I would lend myself to such an act?”

  “Many have done worse to retain royal goodwill.”

  “Not I,” he said, his voice like forged steel.

  She would like to believe him, yet how could she? The numerous treacheries of the past few years gave her little faith in the sworn word of any man; it sometimes seemed honor and chivalry had died in the bloody battles between York and Lancaster. Nor would she take the easy way and assure him of a belief she did not hold. Let him prove his innocence if he wished to have her good opinion.

  Nevertheless, he was such a powerful presence as he stood so close in the waning light that it seemed unbelievable he could be taken by men-at-arms and hung upon some scaffold. A great emptiness echoed inside her at the thought that he could die.

  “You are forthright, and that pleases me,” he said after a moment, though his voice did not sound like it. “There is another matter I would present, however. The king has offered a chamber not far removed from the royal apartments for our use. It is larger than those either of us occupy now, but puts us under the surveillance of the king’s household guard. We could, if you prefer, lodge beyond the palace walls where we might be more private and less at our sovereign’s beck and call. The difficulty is that Henry may consider it an insult if we refuse his offer. He could also insist that I accept this billet as a form of house arrest.”

  “What is in this to discuss?” she asked in frowning confusion. “You seem to have the matter in hand.”

  “I desire to learn your pleasure, will convey it to Henry, either way.”

  It was another peculiar pass, being consulted about where she would reside. She was not sure she liked it, considering the responsibility attendant upon it. “I own I would prefer a less public lodging,” she said finally. “Yet it seems folly to refuse the king’s generosity.”

  “Shall I accept for both of us, then?”

  “If that is what you prefer.”

  A short laugh left him. “What I would prefer is to set out for Braesford as soon as our vows are spoken, deserting king, court and celebration. Or better yet, never to have left there.”

  “But you cannot. We cannot.”

  “No.” He held her hand in both his for a moment longer. Then he bent his head to press his lips to her palm in a tingling salute. “In which case,” he said as he released her, “it hardly matters where we lie abed tomorrow night so long as it is together.”

  That last was an important caveat, she thought, one that had lodged in both their minds while they discussed sleeping chambers and the king’s will. Hearing it spoken aloud made it seem more real. Her stomach clenched while apprehension swirled in her mind. With it, however, ran a disturbing vein of heated curiosity for what it would be like to lie naked in this man’s arms, subject to his will, his touch, his possession.

  She wished he had not spoken of the bedding aloud. She really did.

  6

  A smile spread across Rand’s face when he saw Isabel coming toward him, one made up of relief that she had appeared, of possessiveness and, he feared, sheer randy anticipation. She was every inch the beauteous and noble lady in her wedding finery of green-and-white silk set off by gold thread and emeralds, and soon she would belong to him. He almost felt worthy in his matching garments of lustrous fabrics. Almost, but not quite.

  By His Majesty’s grace, their vows were to be spoken in the king’s private chapel of Saint Stephens, as Henry had indicated last evening. The setting could be considered either a high mark of favor or a ploy to make certain their vows were spoken as commanded. The dim and stately space was gilded and painted with vermilion, bejeweled with windows in ruby, sapphire and emerald. Its very stones held the scents of stale smoke, dust, incense and holiness.

  Isabel’s hand was cool and not quite steady as she placed it in his. Rand held it with firm support as they faced Bishop Morton for the ceremony. Behind them sat the few witnesses—the king, the queen, the king’s mother, Isabel’s two sisters, Catherine and Marguerite, her stepbrother, Graydon, and his own half brother, William McConnell. That was more than enough in Rand’s opinion.

  Nothing impeded their vows. There was no armed assault, no divine intervention, certainly no manifestation of the notorious Graydon curse. Rand had not expected it, but was nonetheless relieved whe
n they were done.

  Afterward he walked beside his bride along the gallery that led from the chapel to the palace, breathing the fresh evening air as a married man. And he could not stop looking at his wife as she moved beside him, surveying her calm, pale face, the rise and fall of her breasts beneath their covering of soft silk, her unbound hair that made him want to bury his face in its shimmering length. He could not stop the exultation that rose inside him at the night that lay ahead, no matter how insecure his future.

  He thought Henry should have included one of the new codpieces with his gift of a wedding costume. Though an awkward bit of equipment in Rand’s opinion, that mock erection could have helped conceal one that was uncomfortably real.

  “What is it?” Isabel asked, speaking softly enough to escape being heard by the king and queen and the bishop, who walked ahead of them, or their relatives, who followed behind. “Have I dirt on my face that you look at me so?”

  “You are perfection, as you must know,” he returned with strained humor. “I am merely admiring my bride. Well, and trying to think how to ask for her favor.”

  “My favor,” she repeated while her eyes widened and wild-rose color stained her cheeks.

  A crooked smile tilted his mouth while hot anticipation slid down his spine. “Not that kind, though I will accept it willingly and anywhere you care to name. No, a token to wear for the tournament that has been ordered, or rather the melee.”

  “Melee?” she inquired, seizing on the subject, doubtless to avoid his suggestion. “Is such mock combat not forbidden?”

  “The king has decreed it as a special event. Have you not seen the preparations being carried out in the courtyards?”

  “I thought they must be for some military expedition he would send into the countryside.”

  “I will grant there is not a lot of difference.”

  The floor-length, bell-mouthed sleeves attached to the shoulders of her gown caught the breeze as she turned to him. “You will not participate? Surely a new-made groom is exempt.”