By His Majesty's Grace

by Jennifer Blake

  No one came.

  The place was far too quiet, as if no one had been there in years. Regardless, the torch that burned near his right shoulder, dropping soot and rosin down the wall, flared like a signal. Rand’s every instinct shouted that this was a trap. His best course, he knew with absolute certainty, would be to take to his heels in imitation of his guide.

  He couldn’t do it. If any chance existed that Mademoiselle Juliette and her babe were imprisoned in this dismal ruin, then he could not desert her.

  The door shuddered as he pounded upon it again. With the last blow, it bounced out of its frame, then creaked open a few inches. Rand hesitated with his fist still upraised. Giving it a quick push, he slid inside and moved at once to put his back against the near wall.

  It took a moment for his eyes to adjust to the gloom. He was in a vestibule of sorts, he saw, one devoid of any kind of welcome other than a stone bench formed in one wall. Doors opened on three sides, the larger being straight ahead. He moved forward, his footsteps grating in the dirt that lay over the stone floor.

  The torchlight behind him shed a muted, wavering glow through the open doorway, casting his shadow into the cavernous blackness of what appeared to be the keep’s great hall. Just inside, he paused again to listen while he scanned the hollow, echoing void.

  Not a sound, at least nothing human.

  He eased past the area from which opened the pantry, buttery and kitchen passage. Here, too, all was silent. No men-at-arms cast dice by the light of a tallow candle, no manservant snored on any of the trestle tables left set for a last dinner, no hunting dogs scratched fleas among the rushes. All he saw was a nervous mouse that skittered away, pausing only once to look for crumbs in a cracked wood platter. Nothing existed here except emptiness and the smells of stale ashes, moldering rushes, rancid grease and mice droppings.

  Or was there something more, after all, some metallic, too-human odor? Rand’s stomach muscles contracted as his mind registered, belatedly, the scent of fresh blood. Bile rose in his throat and he swallowed it down again, swearing in a savage whisper.

  Retreating back to the entrance, he snatched down the torch from its holder. With it gripped in a hard fist, he retraced his footsteps.

  Juliette d’Amboise lay crumpled at the foot of the stairs that led to the private chamber of the keep’s master directly behind the great hall dais. Her eyes were glazed with death. Her head lay at an odd angle, but she had not fallen by accident, had not died of a broken neck or head injury. Her throat had been cut, sliced so viciously that her head was half severed from her body.

  Her hair seemed alive, shining with coppery highlights in the flaring light of the torch he held over her, while her skin took on its rosy glow. Rand, remembering her laughter in the early summer, her courage as she gave birth and her joy and pride in being a mother, felt his throat close. He coughed, almost choking on rage and raw, unexpected grief. She had been so young, so cheerful in her awkward, uncertain situation, and had lived so briefly, so briefly.

  The torchlight glistened also on the ends of her tresses where they trailed in a pool of blood. And though her skin still retained a faint trace of warmth, it made no difference. He had come too late.

  He had come too late.

  That was, he was too late unless this had been a fool’s errand from the start. Had her plea for aid been real, smuggled out of the keep in some fashion? Or had it been penned at the behest of whoever had killed her? These were questions that might never be answered.

  Rand could do nothing for the lady. He might yet aid the child she had borne.

  Rising, stepping over the body, he searched the chamber behind the dais. He found nothing, but did not despair. With grim endurance and rigorous method, he ranged through the remaining rooms of the keep, first those on the lower floor, then those above. No chamber, no chest, no armory built into the stone walls—no smallest nook or cranny—was left undisturbed. He found divers small items of clothing fit for a babe, found a crude oaken cradle of the kind used by villeins in their cottages, but no tender suckling babe called Madeleine.

  It was as he crossed an upper passage, which had an arrow slit at its far end, that he glimpsed the flare of light. Reaching the slit in a few long steps, he held his torch low, standing to one side as he peered through.

  A troop of men rode toward the keep, their heads bobbing in unison with the torches they carried. The flames gave a lurid, sulfurous glow to the dust that hung on their heels. They were armored, for metal cuirasses shone copper and gold with reflected light. Their lances and pikes bristled above them like the fur of some great beast.

  The ancient keep was a trap indeed, and it had been well baited.

  Rand shoved away from the arrow slit, slung himself from the passage and down the shallow stone stairs. Leaping into the great hall, he strode for the entrance.

  He was almost there when he heard a mewling cry like that of a half-drowned kitten. Rushes skidded and shattered beneath his feet as he plunged to a halt. Lifting his torch high, he stared around.

  A pale shape beneath a trestle table leaped to his sight. In an instant, he was on his knees beside it, dragging it from under the planks held up by rickety supports. It was a small, hard board, broader at the top than at the bottom and wrapped by yard upon yard of white linen. Attached to it was a weak and unhappy babe.

  There was no time to lose. Drawing his knife from its sheath, he slashed through the linen bindings, dragging them from around the child, casting them aside. Juliette must have been carrying the baby when she was caught from behind, he thought as he worked. The swaddling board had protected little Madeleine from real injury, but she might have been stunned into silence by the jarring fall. Either she had been overlooked by the killer or left behind to die if no one answered her mother’s plea.

  With the baby free of its awkward wrappings, he tucked it inside his doublet, grimacing a little at the smell that came with it. Supporting the small head against his shoulder, he refastened his doublet but left it open at the neck for air. Perhaps his body heat and the thundering of his heart provided some comfort, for the baby ceased its feeble cries.

  Rising to his feet with his burden, Rand stamped on his torch to extinguish it, then crossed to the entrance in a few bounding strides. He clattered down the stone steps, half falling into the bailey in his haste. Shadow stood where he had left him. He snatched up his reins and dragged the great destrier toward the postern gate he had noticed earlier by rote, the result of too many prisons, too many battles against superior forces.

  He did not mount once outside the keep, but led the stallion down the embankment that gave the outer wall its height. Using the enormous stone bulk as cover, he forced his way through the shrubs and bracken that crowded around the place, dodging limbs, tripping over briars, until he reached the cover of the forest. He mounted then, but resisted the urge toward swift flight. Keeping to the deeper darkness of the tree line as much as possible, he held Shadow to a slow walk. Only when he was certain the troop of men had reached the bailey and were well inside did he kick the gray into a gallop. Leaning over his powerful neck then, holding the baby to him with one hard arm, he rode for London and Westminster.

  The rain that had threatened all night came when he was halfway there. Rand welcomed it, for the gray curtain would make it that much harder to pick up his trail. He also cursed it, for it foiled his attempts to hear any pursuit, turned the road into a river of mud that made slow going and soaked him through except where he hunched over the child. Little Madeleine was reasonably dry and warm, however, and that was all that mattered.

  What was to be done with her? He could hardly appear at the palace with a babe in arms. Her crying and need for a wet nurse would draw attention and inevitable questions among the servants. Henry would hear of it before good light.

  Isabel would know sooner than that. What would she think if he showed up with another woman’s child? Would she be glad of the proof that he had not done away with the s
mall mite or outraged that he dared ask her help in hiding her? Would she take little Madeleine in gentle arms or scream until someone came to take the baby away?

  Of course, he could turn the child over to Henry. But what if the king discovered she was Leon’s daughter, what would become of her then? Or what if Henry knew it already and Mademoiselle Juliette’s death had been the price for her betrayal? If Madeleine had been left once to die, what was to keep it from happening again?

  No, some temporary sanctuary for this little one was required, and soon. It must be hours since she had nursed. She could not go much longer without it.

  There was only one solution that he could see, try as he might to find another while the miles thundered away beneath the destrier’s hooves. Rand despised it, felt he failed Juliette by considering it, yet it was better than delivering her baby to an enemy.

  David waited at the stable next to the tavern, as had been arranged. When applied to for his advice, the lad at once suggested the convent of Saint Theresa. It was all Rand could do to unclench his jaws enough to agree. Coward that he was, he gave the warm weight of the baby into his squire’s young arms, then walked away so he need not see her delivered to the nuns.

  Isabel was asleep when he let himself into their chamber. Or he thought so as he stood listening to her soft, even breathing from behind the bed curtains. He sighed, grateful for that one small boon. Moving with great stealth, he stripped to the skin, washed with a goodly lathering of soap, sniffed at his chest where the baby had nestled and washed again. He rubbed some small amount of heat into his body with a length of linen toweling, then tossed it aside and eased toward the bed.

  “You may go and sleep with the horse you smell like,” Isabel said in stringent anger. “There is no room for a fornicating husband in my bed.”

  Did he smell like a horse? Rand held his right hand to his nose, thinking he had neglected that possibility. As he could catch no trace of it, he suspected the odor was in the clothing he had left piled on the floor. He would not argue, however, as he had noticed long since that women had more sensitive noses. Still, the injustice of it acted like a goad after the betrayal, the grief and difficult decision of the night. Outrage lent force to his movements as reached the bed in a single stride and swept the curtains aside.

  “My bed,” he corrected, “and the only one I use for fornication, the only woman in it that I’ll have this day.”

  She sat up so the linen sheet that covered her slipped down into her lap. He could just discern her outline in the dim room, a shapely and warm figure that made his hands itch to touch, to feel, to hold. That he could see her at all told him dawn was near, particularly as it approached through the steadily falling rain.

  “You expect me to believe such a tale when you have been gone the whole night through?” she demanded.

  “I don’t care what you believe as long as you lie down and let me hold you.” He had not meant to say such a thing, but realized he needed it with an ache that verged on desperation. Snatching back the sheet, he slid in beside her, lofted it over them both.

  “Don’t,” she snapped, fending him off as he reached for her.

  It was too much. He was tired, cold and heartsick at the death of a young Frenchwoman who had done nothing except allow herself to be loved. His proud, disdainful wife had refused him once already this day, and now he had been falsely accused on top of it, as he had been falsely accused since she first came to him. She would not gainsay him now.

  With a swift lunge, he rolled above her, trapping her thighs beneath his long legs. Catching her forearms, he slid his fingers upward to pin her wrists to the mattress beside her face, though with a care for her injured finger. He pushed his knee between hers and spread her legs while he pressed down with his chest, absorbing the softness of her breasts, the flutter of her abdomen. The heat radiating from her skin sent a violent shudder over him from head to toe.

  He expected her to struggle, to gasp and threaten before she turned to pleading. He thought to force her to lie still, accepting his right to lie beside her, if nothing more.

  It did not happen.

  “You are frozen,” she said in tones of wondering discovery as his shivering was communicated to her. “How did you get so cold?”

  “Rain,” he said with difficulty, “and a long ride for next to nothing.” He could not open his jaws for more without his teeth chattering. He felt palsied, almost ill. It was not merely cold, he recognized abruptly, but the aftermath of danger, the violent surging in the blood that stayed with a man after it was past. As with battle frenzy, it had at its heart the need to defy fear, to deny human frailty, human mortality.

  He wanted to tell Isabel what he had seen and what it meant, to talk away the guilt that he had been too late to prevent Juliette’s death, to explain that he had no part in it and hear her absolve him of responsibility. It was impossible. Once begun, he might never stop. Besides, she did not need to hold such horror in her mind, would not if he could help it.

  He kissed her instead, blindly seeking the warm depths of her mouth, her sweet sanity and sweeter surcease. And miracle of miracles, she met his lips, opened to him, took his tongue into her precious heat.

  Suddenly he was rapacious, a ravening beast who could not get close enough to her, could not fill his hands with enough of her body, her softness, her moist and glowing heat. She moaned, rubbing against him, as ferocious in her need as he. They came together with grasping, squeezing hands, skimming over mounds and hollows, dipping into sensitive valleys, following with lips and tongues and mindless intent. They rolled over the bed, legs entwined. He shifted to heave her above him, pressed her down upon his strutted flesh while he spread his fingers over her hips, urging her, silently demanding her encompassment. She took him in, gasping a little at the depth of his reach. Then she arched her back, sinking upon him still more, eyes closed, a low hum in her throat with the sound of gratified need.

  He raised his head and upper body, sought her breast with desperate hunger. The nipple was so sweet on his tongue, so tender a morsel. He suckled her, sliding his hands to her rib cage to hold her close for his pleasure. She rocked gently upon him, then stronger, and stronger still until he was forced to release her so she might move freely.

  She leaned forward then, shaking the thick, sweet-scented curtain of her hair around them. He felt the ends of it whip his face as she moved, felt the hard clutch of her hands as she braced herself on his shoulders, gripping the bones beneath them as she slid in the hot moisture that poured from her now. He surged against her, ramming upward, seating himself so firmly inside her that he felt her heartbeat, felt her quick, hard breathing, felt the tremulous flutters deep inside her. He felt the swift flow of her life’s blood, her warm and vibrant life, and was deliriously glad.

  Suddenly she tensed, holding him with the hard possession of a rider, stronger than he would have thought possible, triumphant in her possession. He gave her what she wanted, his quiescence, his acceptance. Gave it until she sighed, until she relaxed and keeled forward to lie upon his chest.

  He turned with her then, raising her knees to accommodate him completely as he stroked in steady rhythm as endless as the rain that poured from the roof to stream into the stable yard below. He took her, sounding her, molding her to his form, basking in her heat, her acceptance that held nothing back. And still he strove with every muscle as hard as stone, every intention like steel, every iota of his will awaiting, needing, her surrender.

  Her eyes flew open, and she stared into his face as her body tensed again, throbbing against him, around him, drawing him deeper. He redoubled his efforts, took them both spinning into insanity and beyond, to a place where they were two no longer, but only one. She was his and he was hers, whether she wanted him or not. She would not sleep separate from him, would not escape him, would not, could not, never, not ever….

  Unless…

  Unless he was forced to let her go.

  It was some time later, as he lay
in stunned sleep with Isabel held in the curve of his body, her bottom against his belly and her breast captured in his hand, that booted feet tramped into his dreams. In the way of such things, he could not move, though he knew what the sound portended. He was seized by near-superstitious awe for the way things happen, of fatalistic submission to the will of his God and his king.

  It was always meant to be this way. He had known it from the first, had fought against it with all his might and will, but to no purpose. The end had been there in the beginning.

  The curse of the Three Graces had come to him.

  The door of the chamber crashed open, slamming against the wall behind it. Isabel cried out, sat up. She swept back the bed curtains with one slender arm while holding the sheet to her breasts. She was tousled, lovely with her hair streaming around her, curling over one shoulder to shimmer in the morning light through the window as her chest rose and fell with her swift breathing.

  Rand was reminded for a fraction of an instant of Juliette’s bloodstained tresses shining in the torchlight. Forcing the image from him, he pushed up in the bed, sat with his knees drawn up and his share of the sheet draped across his lap.

  The chamber filled with men-at-arms fitted with mail and armed with halberds. They tramped inside, broke formation and took positions on either side of the door. With the way secured yet clear, a trio of nobles stepped through. Two of them were Graydon and Henley. To their fore was McConnell, Rand’s half brother, his expression almost sorrowful as it rested upon him.

  “Rise, brother, and dress yourself,” he said as he came forward, stopping less than a yard from the bed with his hand resting on his sword hilt. “I regret to be the bearer of ill tidings yet again, but you are ordered to the Tower.”

  “No,” Isabel whispered, her gaze moving over the men as if unable to accept the meaning of their presence.

  “The edict is signed in Henry’s own hand and set with his seal, Lady Isabel. That’s if you care to see it.”

  She put out her hand on the instant. It was a brave gesture, Rand thought, for a woman lying barely covered in a room crowded with men-at-arms who pretended to look straight ahead but cut the corners of their eyes in her direction. Her gaze was imperious, however, her manner as stately as if she had been gowned in velvet sewn with jewels. Taking the heavy parchment, she ran her gaze down the closely written lines, making short work of the Latin phrases. The color drained from her face. She closed her eyes, and it was a moment before she looked up again.