By His Majesty's Grace

by Jennifer Blake

  Eager though he might be, he had a care for Isabel’s reluctance, expressed weeks ago, to be the subject of ribald humor from the men-at-arms. He remained below for a tankard of mead while Gwynne prepared her mistress for bed. He took note when the serving woman descended the stairs, supped on ale, soup and bread and rolled into her cloak in a corner of the common room to sleep. Still, he waited a good half hour before draining his tankard and mounting the stairs. Though he knocked with all politeness, he stepped inside with scarcely a pause. Isabel must know full well who asked entry. If she did not realize asking for admittance was a mere courtesy because he intended joining her whether she willed it or not, then it was time she understood it.

  She sat propped on pillows against the head of the bed. The sheet was pulled high and locked under her armpits, and her hair cascaded around her in shimmering, golden-brown waves.

  Rand stopped for an instant, too stupefied to move. Dear God, she was everything beautiful he had ever seen or wanted.

  Recovering with stringent effort, he paced forward with footsteps timed to the hard throb of his heart, and did not stop until he reached the end of the bed. Framed by the bed curtains that draped to either side of the end posts, he braced his hands on the heavy oak foot-board. He gazed at his wife, noting the quickness of her breathing, the rise of color like the blush on a peach that stained her skin from the curves of her breasts to her hairline. The ache in his groin made his eyes water at the corners.

  “Welladay, my lady,” he said in quiet reflection, “you have saved me from hanging. Now what would you?”

  Green fire flashed in her eyes and her chin came up. “You sound as if you would prefer I had not bestirred myself.”

  “I did tell you to refrain.”

  “Forgive me, but what happens to you concerns me, as well. I have had enough notoriety as one of the accursed Graces of Graydon without becoming known as the widow of a man hanged for murder.”

  “You prefer being the wife of a bastard.”

  “Aye, I do indeed. That’s if you mean instead of coming under Graydon’s thumb again. Or being handed over to another man Henry may feel like rewarding.”

  His smile was sardonic. “I am, after all, the devil you know.”

  “You could put it that way.”

  “One you disobeyed by seeking out Mademoiselle Juliette’s babe.”

  “I meant to take her to Lady Margaret, I swear it,” she said, swallowing with a noticeable movement in the fine line of her throat. “She would have been safe with her, even…even from Henry.”

  She was right in that. Why had he not considered it? “Possibly.”

  “Besides, if I could surmise where you had her concealed, others could do the same.”

  “As I said, the devil you know. Others might not have understood him so well.”

  Her lashes fluttered at that. “But the fact remains that she was not safe at the convent. You should be glad that I…that I…”

  “Disobeyed me?”

  “If you insist!”

  Passionate anger was in that capitulation. It acted like a goad. “I do insist,” he answered in grim implacability, “though it seems we are well matched, you and I.” Straightening, he began to unfasten his doublet. “Would you not say so?”

  “Unaccountably.”

  She moistened her lips as she watched him, in a movement that made the lower part of his body feel on fire. “What troubles me,” he went on, removing his sword and laying it across the end of the bed’s mattress, shrugging from the doublet and tossing it aside, “is what you had to do to secure my release. With Elizabeth banished to Winchester, Henry has had little to do except brood over the business with Mademoiselle Juliette. I trust you were not required to, shall we say, raise his spirits?”

  “You think I would sleep with the king to save your stiff neck?”

  Other parts of him were the same or worse, if she only knew. “He is a man, and not beyond temptation. In his place, I might have demanded it.”

  Her eyes narrowed, though she did not look away as he jerked hose points free in a fast series, then skimmed off his shirt over his head. “You seem to believe every man at court wants to…to tup me.”

  “Am I wrong?” That word on her lips was absurdly stirring. Who would have guessed she would use it?

  “The question is whether I am willing to oblige them.”

  “And are you?” he asked, the words a rasp like drawn steel in his throat.

  “By no means, having other things on my mind! As does the king, I dare swear, since he has been somewhat busy with a royal progression, an insurrection and the birth of his heir.”

  “Unlike your husband, you mean, who has had little to occupy him of late. Or little else besides…tupping.” He struggled with the need to laugh at the way her eyes widened when he shucked out of his hose and braies, then rounded the end of the bed in flagrant nakedness.

  Her hot gaze lifted from his strutted erection to meet his eyes. “Apparently!” she snapped.

  “But there lies the difference between us. I am able to give my attention to two things at once, in this case your delectable body and your disobedience.”

  “I am not a servant to bow always to your will!”

  “No, you are my wife and sworn to obey me. And it is my right to chastise you as I choose.”

  Catching the sheet in his fist, he pulled it from her grasp with a single, hard twist of his wrist, leaving her naked as Eve. An instant later, he caught her arm and dragged her to her knees, pulling her close until her every curve was plastered to him and his heated flesh rested exactly where he wanted it, in the cradle between her firm, white thighs.

  “Rand…please,” she said as a tremor ran over her, leaving goose bumps in its wake.

  “Please what?” He was lamentably distracted by the way she twisted in his arms, straining against his hold so he was forced to slide a hand down her back and grasp a hillock of soft flesh to hold her close.

  “I did nothing to shame our wedding vows, this I swear before all the saints. I only…”

  “Tell me later,” he said, lowering his head until his lips brushed hers with every word he whispered against them. “Right now, my mind is divided between whether to kiss you into submission first and tup you later, or tup you into submission first, then kiss you.”

  Abruptly, she ceased to fight him. The fearful tension drained from her, though another shiver beaded her flesh and tightened her nipples into small, hard knots against his chest. She moistened her lips with a flick of her small, pink tongue. “And that’s your idea of punishment?”

  “It’s all I can think of at the moment,” he confessed, his gaze upon her mouth before he took it like a man slaking thirst in a desert, drinking from it in a frenzy, driving his tongue into that sweet well again and again while she twined around it with her own, taking it deeper.

  “You could,” she said with a gasp when he finally paused for breath, “do both at the same time.”

  “Both of what?” he asked in husky bemusement while bending his head to lick the curves of her breasts, then draw the warm and tender firmness of a nipple into his mouth.

  “Tup me and kiss me, kiss me and tup me.” She let herself go boneless while clasping his neck, which she had circled while he was busy elsewhere, taking him with her as she fell back onto the straw-filled surface of the mattress, pulling him between her thighs.

  How could he resist such an invitation? It was selfish, he knew, but she was so open, the core of her so damp and heated, that sinking into her seemed as natural as breathing. He groaned aloud at the tight perfection of the fit, the bliss of burying himself in her pulsating depths. He reveled in it for long moments, until the need to move, to increase the pressure, the friction, became too powerful to resist. He stroked into her then, filling her, stretching her to accommodate him, molding her to fit his most fervid desire. And it was rampant glory, delirious beguilement, the most heartrending and joyous of possessions.

  At its he
ight, he whispered many things into the fragrant mass of her hair, among them the words that confessed his love, but his heart was beating so hard he could not tell if he said them aloud, could not know if she heard them above the soft cry of her completion.

  Afterward, he rolled from her, then gathered her close, tucking her into the curve of his body, turning her so her hips fit against his groin. The sensation was so satisfying that he heaved a deep sigh and was asleep in an instant.

  He woke once to the sound of hoofbeats passing on the roadway. The riders were abroad late, he thought in bemusement. The speed of their travel suggested they had come from Westminster on the king’s business, as he was almost certainly with the queen and his new son at Winchester.

  Poor Henry, ever destined to be harassed by the problems of ruling a kingdom. It was unlikely he ever enjoyed waking with a warm wife nestled so enticingly, and conveniently, against his body. Gently questing, Rand captured a breast in his hand, using his thumb to brush it into arousal. Isabel murmured in her sleep, pressing against him. It was all the invitation he needed.

  Well before the first light of dawn, they were on the road again. It was Rand who rousted them all out. He awoke consumed with impatience to spring to horse, to put the miles behind them and make his bow to Henry’s queen. He could guess what she wanted to know, for though a princess all her life and now a queen, she was also a woman. He was not quite sure how he would answer her, but wanted the interview behind him. Only when it was over could he take up the reins of his life and guide it in the direction he wanted to go.

  They rode through the day and into the early evening, stopping only to rest or change horses. The days were growing shorter as September advanced for it was well after dark by the time the outskirts of Winchester appeared. The town was silent save for the barking of dogs disturbed by their entrance. The clatter of their hoofbeats on cobblestones echoed off the walls of buildings, carrying ahead of them. It almost seemed to Rand that they echoed behind them, as well, but he put the notion down to weariness and imagination caused by too little sleep.

  Time and again, he had slid into the softness between his wife’s tender thighs, slaking an insatiable need for the solace he found there. She had not protested, had seemed to revel in the elemental friction almost as much as he. Yet lavender shadows circled her eyes when morning came, and she seemed half-asleep in her saddle now.

  The walls of the palace loomed ahead of them. Though Henry’s child had been born at the priory of Winchester Abbey, Rand could not suppose that the queen had remained there. She would not take up her public duties for forty days after the birth, and then only after the blessing of the church, but the comforts of the palace would be far superior to those in the priory. Accordingly, he sent the leader of the king’s guard to inform the queen’s steward of their arrival. He had no expectation of being received; in truth, he was not sure they would see the queen in anything under several days. She must be less than half a week out of childbed.

  They had not yet selected the tavern for their domicile while in the town when a messenger came galloping after them. The queen would be pleased to receive them at once.

  They were met by the queen’s steward, who asked that they follow him. Elizabeth of York awaited them in the privacy of her solar. Their retinue, including David, Gwynne and the king’s guard, could wait in the great hall outside the queen’s apartments.

  Rand exchanged a glance with Isabel, who only shook her head. “Mayhap,” he said so softly only she could hear, “she prefers to have done before Henry discovers the required proof of my release.”

  “Or else she would know more from you of Mademoiselle Juliette without him being present,” Isabel said in agreement.

  They were both wrong. Elizabeth of York was not alone when he and Isabel attended her in her solar. With her was her newborn son, asleep in his large and ornate royal cradle. Lying next to Henry’s son and heir was a small girl child of surpassing beauty, small Madeleine, not quite three months of age. The pair had been placed near to the thronelike armchair on which the queen sat. Not far away stood a young woman in cap and apron, no doubt the nursemaid to both infants. And standing behind the queen, richly dressed in burgundy brocade sewn with gold thread set off by garnets, was His Majesty, Henry VII.

  Rand was aware of Isabel’s swift-drawn breath as she halted beside him and dropped into a deep curtsy. Conscious that he might be in the queen’s apartments without the sanction of his king, he went to one knee with bowed head.

  “Well met, Sir Rand and Lady Isabel,” the king said in dry tones. “You are surprised to see us?”

  “I thought…that is, we expected an audience with the queen,” Rand answered.

  “Which you shall have, though she invited us to join her for the occasion. May we say how much we rejoice to see you free again?”

  “Thank you, sire.”

  “Rise, then, so we may express our regret for your time in the Tower. We thought to protect our queen, you perceive, but have learned not to underestimate her powers of discernment, her wisdom in coming to us with her knowledge or her generous absolution. It makes—” The king broke off as the door through which they had entered crashed open behind them.

  A hulking figure burst into the solar. The light of the oil lamps burning atop their triangular stands illuminated the device of a bear emblazoned on the tabard he wore. It glittered with flashes of silver-blue from the blade he lifted like an executioner’s sword high above his head.

  “Nay, don’t rise, Sir Rand,” Viscount Henley said, his voice mounting to a hoarse shout of triumph. “Kneel and meet the end you deserve!”

  20

  The blow aimed at Rand’s bent neck should have severed his head from his shoulders. He was not there.

  With fierce power, he plunged aside, catching Isabel so she was flung, crying out, beyond the danger area. She heard the whistle of the blade, felt the hot whiff of its passing as it sliced air near her shoulder. She saw in shivering horror the instant when it seemed to slice into Rand’s arm, but caught instead in the knotted rag of white silk he wore around it. In that brief moment of entanglement, he snatched free and leaped erect.

  Then she was scrambling farther out of Rand’s way while behind her the nursemaid screamed, the queen rose to her feet with a shaky cry and the king, earthy in his rage, bellowed curses like a Breton sailor.

  Rand snatched his knife from his belt even as he ducked away from another two-handed sword slash, swirled like blown smoke from where a third singed the air. The table blade was his only weapon as he had surrendered his sword before entering the queen’s presence. He seemed not to recognize its inadequacy as he steadied his gaze on the man intent on killing him.

  “Sir!”

  The shout came from David, most faithful of squires, who had followed after them. Beyond him lay the bodies of the yeoman guards, still in bloody death, the guards that should have stopped the armed invasion of the queen’s private chamber. In the lad’s hard right hand was Rand’s own trusted sword David must have taken from them. In his other was a second blade taken from a fallen guardsman.

  Hard upon his forewarning, he sent the first great, long weapon in a glittering arc, straight toward his knightly master.

  Rand tossed his knife to his left hand, caught the sword from the air with his right. In the same movement, he whirled to face his attacker as David eased deeper into the solar, his young gaze fiercely alert as he waited to see if his further aid was required.

  Isabel drew a sobbing breath so deep it tore at her throat. The sound was drowned out by the harsh clang of metal on metal, like the first toll of a funeral bell, as Rand blocked a hammering blow on a cross of steel made by knife and raised sword. He threw Henley stumbling back.

  Immediately, he skipped aside to allow a wider field of play. He dropped into a swordsman’s crouch, his face set in grim lines as he faced a new threat.

  His opponents had multiplied.

  Surging through the door, they sp
read to either side of Henley, forming a semicircle around their target. They numbered only two more, though they seemed in the first onslaught to be twice as many. And Rand faced them with hard purpose and not a tremor in his sword hand.

  Undaunted indeed, Isabel thought in aching remorse for the jibe about his motto she had thrown at him in his Tower chamber. Her heart shuddered in her chest and she blinked away burning tears of despair as she stared at the dangerous tableau. She should have told Rand of Henley’s attempt, along with Graydon, to take Madeleine from her. Their clumsy effort had almost slipped her mind, in truth, swept away by the loss of the baby to Henry. With the distraction of Rand’s perfect punishment of her the night before, she had not recalled it.

  The newcomers stalked their prey, their creeping forms casting grotesque shadows that shrank and grew like beasts of legend. Their features were brutally clear as they faced the lamplight. With no great surprise, she recognized Graydon and William McConnell.

  The trio had joined forces, the three men who had reason to want Rand dead. Or had they been confederates from the first, each with his part to play in bringing him down, and his king with him? They must have followed from Westminster, she thought, recalling the ghostly sound of horsemen in the distance and Rand’s listening attitude. Had they claimed to be with their party that they had gained entrance to the queen’s apartments?

  Her stepbrother and McConnell must have thought Henley to be in control while Rand was unarmed. They had hung back to watch the slaughter. Now, all three moved around him with the caution of weasels facing their prey, watching for any sign of weakness, depending on their numbers to overpower the quarry. Rand moved in counterpoint, his gaze vigilant as he waited for their move.

  In that moment, the king’s majesty vanished and he became the knight he had surely trained to be in his exile. He stepped forward, placing himself between the struggle and his queen with the cradle beside her. Gems gleamed on his short velvet cloak as he whipped it aside to free the pommel of a ceremonial sword. The fine blade sang as he unsheathed it from its swinging, jeweled scabbard.