by Ana Seymour
Alyce shivered, her wet skin grown chilly. She sank deeper into the water, then went back to her original question. “But why didn’t he want to tell me about his conversation with Richard?”
“I think ye should ask him,” Lettie said. “Get it straight.” She turned aside, avoiding her charge’s direct gaze.
Alyce sat up again, sloshing water out of the tub. “Lettie? Do you know something you’re not telling me?”
The nurse hesitated, then shook her head. “Not really.”
Alyce crossed her arms in front of her. “Tell me,” she demanded.
“Honestly, Alyce, I don’t know anything. Like I told ye, the man’s in love with ye.”
“But you did hear something?”
With obvious reluctance, the older woman said, “I’ll admit that after ye two left for the hall last night, there was some talk among the knights.”
Alyce was shivering in earnest now, but she paid no attention. “What kind of talk?”
“They were saying that it was fortunate that Sherborne was in safe hands. I didn’t really understand it all that well, lass. ’Twas men’s talk.”
Her expression told Alyce that Lettie didn’t want her to pursue the question any further, but Alyce refused to let up. “Whatever it was they were saying, Lettie, you understood it perfectly. So you might as well tell me.”
Lettie sighed and reached for a towel. “They were saying that although Sherborne is small, it would serve as a good strategic point to hold the northwest for Prince John. That’s why Baron Dunstan wanted the estate.”
It wasn’t hard to imagine the rest. Alyce spoke softly. “So now that King Richard is going to the Continent once again, leaving the kingdom vulnerable to John, it’s much better for Sherborne to be held by a supporter of Richard.”
Lettie bit her lip. “There was some such talk,” she admitted.
“By a faithful supporter of Richard’s such as Sir Thomas Brand,” Alyce added.
Lettie gave a reluctant sigh. “Aye. But ’tis as I said, Allie, that doesn’t mean the man doesn’t love ye.”
Alyce remained silent as Lettie helped her rise from the tub and dry herself. When she’d first met Thomas, he’d been risking his life, traveling under a false name raising money for the king’s ransom. She knew his loyalty to Richard was fierce. So fierce that he would even be willing to marry if it would further the king’s interests. She had no doubt of it.
But was that the only reason he’d wanted to marry her? Lettie said that he was in love with her, and Alyce herself had felt that same thing, at least in their closest moments together.
She thought back to the time she and Thomas had first made love, at Sherborne. For long, wonderful moments, she’d experienced a closeness that she’d never known before with any human being. But abruptly, the closeness had been shattered. By talk of Dunstan and duty. Their disagreement unresolved, Thomas had ridden away, in the service of his lord, King Richard.
She stepped out of the tub and sat on the edge of her bed while Lettie dried her long hair. “Ye will give it a chance, Allie, won’t ye?” Lettie asked finally after a long silence. “’Tis yer chance for happiness, lass.”
Alyce thought about the afternoon she and Thomas had just spent on the riverbank. At the end of their lovemaking Thomas had held her for endless moments, crooning a love ballad in her ear. “I love you, Alyce Rose,” he’d said, his voice deep with conviction. Surely it was not all a ruse.
“Aye,” she told her nurse. “I’ll give it a chance.”
Philip of Dunstan crumpled the message and threw it across his counting room. The clerk who had brought it to him looked over at it, wondering if he should scurry to retrieve the page for his master or leave it lying in the dust.
“When did this arrive?” Dunstan asked the young man.
“Not an hour ago, milord. The messenger came straight from the prince.”
“He’s turning into a coward.” Dunstan sneered.
The clerk’s eyes went wide. After a moment’s hesitation, he stuttered, “Aye, mi-milord.”
Dunstan rose and pounded both fists on the solid oak table. “I’ve told him that he needs to act now to get his forces in place. As soon as Richard leaves, we must be ready to move. But the fop lingers at his Easter holidays in London and refuses to listen.”
“Mayhap he’s afraid of angering the king,” the clerk ventured.
“Aye, and mayhap he doesn’t deserve the crown I’ve been trying to place on his head,” Dunstan roared, stalking toward the hapless clerk. The baron’s face had gone almost as red as the tunic he wore. “Meanwhile as he dallies, he’s costing me a bride.”
The clerk began taking steps backward so as not to be trampled by his enraged master. “Perhaps the message is a mistake, milord. There can be no church marriages during Lent, so—”
“’Tis a betrothal, not a marriage,” Dunstan shouted. “Which means that Brand has had first dip into the delectable Lady Sherborne’s pot.”
The clerk winced at his master’s crudity. He’d backed up as far as he could without leaving the room, and still Dunstan advanced.
“The wench should have been mine,” the baron said, towering over his cringing servant.
“Aye, milord.”
“And so she shall be.” His voice was suddenly quiet. The red drained from his face as he straightened up with a chilling smile. “And so she shall be,” he said again.
The clerk bobbed his head several times in agreement, then, at the baron’s wave of dismissal, dashed out of the room with a sigh of relief.
It wasn’t difficult to keep her promise to Lettie. The inclination of her heart made it easy to forget about what Thomas’s motive might be for wanting her, and just rejoice in the fact that he did want her. In fact, it had become almost an embarrassment, since it seemed that the two of them couldn’t go more than a few hours without seeking out each other’s company, and once they were together, the urge to steal away for more delicious lovemaking inevitably took over.
“We’ve created a scandal, Thomas,” she told him as they lay in bed on Easter morning, when everyone else in the castle was at the church to witness the opening of the Easter sepulchre and the return of the cross to the altar.
“The court will always find something to gossip about,” he said, unconcerned. He was occupying himself with making a braid in her hair. He’d pulled the long tresses to the front, where they reached past her naked breasts. As he wove the strands, his hands occasionally brushed the tips of her nipples.
“They say we do nothing but lie in bed all day making love,” she protested.
Thomas stopped his hairdressing for a moment to grin at her. “Aye, and they’re sick with envy.”
She laughed. “I’m serious. Lettie has scolded me more than once. She says people will think I’m a loose woman.”
“Nonsense. You’ve been with only one man, and you’re legally betrothed to him. There’s nothing scandalous about it.”
“But we seem to…need it all the time. Is it normal, do you think?”
Thomas had resumed his weaving, but he laughed. “I’d say that any man betrothed to you who did not want it all the time was not normal.”
Alyce closed her eyes and lay quiet, enjoying the light movements of his hands and her hair against her skin. Her nipples had grown hard and started sending signals to the rest of her body. She tried to tamp down the urges. She and Thomas had already made love twice that morning. Perhaps such excess was normal for a man, but she wasn’t sure that it was quite decent in a woman.
She opened her eyes. “Well, this morning, for example, we should be in church. What will people say?”
The braid was completed. “What can we bind it with?” he asked, looking around.
“There’s a ribbon over on that chest.”
He frowned. “Too far away. I’d have to get out of this warm bed.” Instead, he took the end of the braid and began to use it like a little brush, lightly stroking her chin, then her nose.
“It’s too cold to get up,” he repeated.
“But what will people say?” she asked again.
He swept a little path from her chin down to the hollow between her breasts. “Now that Lent’s over, we can go ahead with the wedding. Then no one will have a right to say anything.”
The hair tickled, and Alyce felt a chill run down her bare skin all the way to her feet. “You’re anxious for the wedding?” she asked.
She had the feeling that Thomas was paying little attention to the conversation. He’d taken the tuft of hair and was using it to play with her nipples.
“Aye,” he said absently. “Richard will be leaving soon. It would be best to get it done.”
Best for whom? she wondered. Best for the two of them to start a happy life together? Or best for Thomas Brand, loyal servant to the king? She shivered.
Thomas laughed and dropped the braid to gather her in his arms. “I’m sorry, sweetheart, I didn’t mean to tickle you. Now I’ve given you chills.”
He rolled her over and pulled the covers more closely up around them.
“I didn’t mind,” she said, trying to pull her mind from the topic of marriage.
“No? Then perhaps I’ll think up some other ways to torture you.” He wiggled his eyebrow suggestively.
His teasing made her laugh, and soon she had forgotten completely about marriage or any other topic that required reason.
By the time they reluctantly pulled themselves from the bed an hour later, the carefully woven braid was only a memory.
The week between Easter and Hocktide was a holiday for the villeins of the town and shire. The Nottingham market would be running all week, and various festivities were planned, including games, a mummer’s play and a mock joust with tilting at a quintain. On Easter itself, several delegations from the town had brought eggs to the castle to present to the king, and he had thrown open his hall to feed as many of the prominent citizens as could crowd in.
Thomas and Alyce drifted happily from one activity to another, regularly finding time by themselves for more intimate entertainment. He hadn’t mentioned again the idea of taking their marriage vows, though with the proscription time of Lent ended, the wedding could be held anytime.
Alyce was grateful not to face the question. But as spring blossomed in the countryside around Nottingham, she found her thoughts returning often to Sherborne. By now the crops of oats, peas, beans and barley should have been planted. She wondered how Fredrick and Alfred were managing in her absence. Had Fredrick gone through with his plan to leave some of the fields lying fallow? she wondered. Were the wheat and rye crops she’d had planted earlier this winter flourishing?
Thomas noticed her distraction as they sat on a hillside watching the end of a mummers’ pageant depicting the classic battle of St. George and the dragon.
“Are you tired, sweetheart?” he asked her, then teased, “’tis your own fault for keeping me up half the night.”
“We could debate who kept whom awake,” she scolded with a smile.
The mummers were dragging away the remnants of the defeated dragon, which looked nowhere near as fierce now that it lay in pieces on the grass. “If you’re tired, we could go back to the castle and take an afternoon nap,” he suggested.
She gave a little huff. “I suspect your motives, sir,” she said.
He grinned. “Wise lady.”
Her answering smile had a touch of sadness. She’d been happy these past few days, forgetting all else except the new pleasures she was learning with Thomas. But it was time for her to make some decisions. She had a responsibility to Sherborne and to herself. If Thomas was to be her husband, it was time that she reconciled herself to the idea, time that she, in truth, stopped suspecting his motives. And it was time for her to go home.
“When is the king to leave?” she asked him.
He looked surprised at the question. “Soon, I suspect. He’s been closeted with his ministers daily, hasn’t even been out to enjoy the holiday.”
Alyce took a deep breath. “And you want him in attendance at our wedding?”
Thomas went very still. “Aye,” he said carefully. “I would like it. It would be an honor.” He looked at her, his expression serious. “But it’s not essential. I’ll do whatever makes you happy.”
She looked down the hillside. The grassy clearing that had served as a stage was empty, except for one tattered piece of the dragon’s tail that had been inadvertently left behind.
“The spring planting should be nearly finished at Sherborne,” she said.
“Aye, and Sherborne’s mistress is anxious to see that it’s been done.” He leaned over and kissed her on the cheek. “Sweetheart, I know that we’ve neglected our duties these past few days, but I think we’ve needed this time for ourselves.”
She nodded. “But as you say, even the king is choosing duty over merriment this week. We can’t forget the rest of the world forever.”
He sighed. “Nay. In fact, I’ve been called to Richard’s council this very afternoon. Will you miss me?”
She smiled. “Mayhap I’ll take a nap—a real nap.”
He stood and held his hand out to her. “Then we’ll start back to the castle. But why did you ask if I wanted Richard at our wedding?”
She let him pull her up, then brushed the dry grass off the back of her skirt. “Because,” she said, her voice determined, “if ’tis to happen, we’d best get it done.”
Thomas’s face lit up. “I swore I’d not pressure you this time. I don’t want to risk being turned away from my bridal bed.”
She smiled. “Promise me never to break my heart, and I promise never to turn you away from our bed.”
He seized her shoulders and, heedless of the crowds of villagers still milling about in the aftermath of the performance, drew her to him for a long kiss. “I promise, sweetheart. Your heart is safe in my care.”
They’d chosen the cloth-of-gold tunic again. It was the only garment Lettie declared fit for a wedding that would be held in the presence of the king.
Lettie had been fussing over her all morning, which had done nothing to calm Alyce’s jitters. In spite of Thomas’s promise never to break her heart, the doubts she’d been pushing away since Lettie had told her about the importance of Sherborne to both Prince John and the king had wriggled their way to the surface.
She should have sat down with Thomas to discuss the issue, out in the open, but once she had agreed to the wedding, things had moved too fast for any kind of prolonged conversation.
Thomas had spent the afternoon with Richard, and when he had emerged, he’d declared with a triumphant smile that the wedding had been arranged for the following day, with Richard and all his ministers in attendance. Then there had been the dinner, with Kenton and Ranulf vying to see which one could make prettier toasts to the bride-to-be.
Thomas joined in every one, happy and flushed, and by the time they retired to their chamber that evening, he’d been more than a little intoxicated. With a mumbled apology, he’d fallen asleep immediately, without even kissing her good-night.
In the morning, he’d been contrite, but also in a hurry to be off to a final strategy meeting with Richard, since after the wedding he and his new bride would be leaving for Sherborne.
The whole thing had left Alyce bemused, half regretting her decision, but she allowed Lettie to spin her romantic fantasies and wax nostalgic, as befitting the hours before a girl was about to take the vows that would forever alter her life.
“Ah, Allie, yer sainted mother should be here to see ye. She’d be so proud. Yer father, too, of course, but yer mother would have loved to see how beautiful ye’ve become and what a fine young man ye’ve found to share yer life with.”
Alyce’s smile was sad. “Aye, a girl would like to have her mother around on a day like today.” She stood up from the stool where she’d been sitting while Lettie finished the last touches on her hair, and enveloped her nurse in a big hug. “But though I can’t have my mother, I h
ave the woman who has been a mother to me for as long as I can remember. Lettie, dear, I love you.”
Lettie wiped away tears with the edge of her sleeve. “And I love ye, Allie, ye little scamp. I want nothing more in this lifetime than to see ye happy.”
“I am happy, Lettie,” she assured her. “And if Thomas truly loves me as much as you say he does, then we’ll be happy together.”
With a resolute sniff, Lettie made one last adjustment to the circlet of pearls around her head, then stepped back. “Ye’re perfect, lass, and if Thomas Brand doesn’t love ye the way ye deserve, then he’ll have me to reckon with.”
Alyce grinned. “And the entire population of Sherborne, as well, I suspect,” she added. “I’m a lucky lady to have so many people to support me.”
There was a solid rapping on the door. “’Tis time,” Lettie said, her eyes filling all over again.
Alyce walked over to the door herself and pulled it open, assuming that Thomas had come for her. To her surprise, it was Ranulf.
“Where’s Thomas?” she asked.
His expression was serious. “He’s with the king. They’re meeting with the ministers.”
“Shouldn’t they be going to the church by now?” Lettie asked with a frown.
Ranulf shook his head. His blue eyes, so like his brother’s, were full of concern. “Thomas sent me to fetch you, Lady Alyce. I’m sorry, but I don’t think there’s going to be a wedding today.”
Chapter Fifteen
She’d waited in the antechamber for over an hour, alternately pacing the floor and sitting nervously in the window seat next to Ranulf, who was as much in the dark as she about what was transpiring behind the closed doors of the king’s receiving room.
“All I know is that Thomas sent Kenton to find me, with instructions to go to you and tell you that the wedding would be delayed,” Ranulf had told her with a smile of apology.
“And now Kenton is with them inside?”