Keely wrapped her arms around him, rested her head against his chest, and prayed, “We thank the Goddess for accepting this humble offering of our bodies joined as one.”
She walked to the western periphery of the circle and picked the carnelian up. “This way.”
Richard followed her out of the circle and led her across the chamber. He filled a goblet with wine and sat beside her on the bed. Leaning against its headboard, they shared the wine and the cheese.
Muffled laughter drifted up from the second floor, and Keely whispered, “What are they doing?”
“Drinking and gambling.” Leaning closer, Richard flicked his tongue along the fragile column of her neck, sending delicious shivers down her spine. “Mmmm. Good enough to eat.”
“Is that what you meant the night of our betrothal?”
Richard gave her a wolfish grin. “Share the news from Devereux House, dearest.”
“Odo and Hew stole your cousins’ virginity,” Keely told him. “Of course, we’ll see them wed as soon as you come home. My brother is determined to snatch everyone else’s virtue. If the queen keeps you here much longer, there will be nary a maiden left in your household.”
“Henry is a man after my own heart,” Richard said. “Oh, the glory of my roving days—gone forever and nevermore to return.”
When Keely cast him an unamused look, Richard kissed her for her trouble. He slipped one hand beneath the coverlet and caressed the mound of her belly. “I pray I’m home in time for the babe’s birth.”
“Elizabeth will free you in no more than a month.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“The Goddess passed her wisdom through me,” she said. “She revealed that we would be together when the Beltane fires blaze, the first day of May.”
Richard decided to humor her. He kissed her hand in courtier’s fashion and said, “I feel so much better knowing that. Come, dearest. I want to show you something.”
Richard rose from the bed and offered her his hand. He led her across the chamber to the wall beside the hearth. “See what I did.” Richard pointed to words carved into the stone. “I’ve immortalized us.”
Keely stepped closer and peered at the words Richard and Keely. She looked up at him and smiled. Their names would be linked together for all of eternity, even if they were not.
“And we’re in excellent company,” he added. “See here.”
Keely read the words Jane and Guildford.
“Who are they?”
“Jane Grey, England’s ten-day queen,” Richard answered. “Guildford Dudley, the present Earl of Leicester’s brother, married her. Together, they ruled England for ten days, until Mary Tudor and her army put an end to it. This chamber housed him while he awaited the executioner’s ax.”
“What happened to Jane?”
“She met the executioner after her husband.”
Tears welled up in Keely’s eyes. Richard pulled her into his embrace and stroked the delicate column of her back.
“’Twas foolish to upset you with so sad a tale,” he apologized. “I swear I’m in no danger.” A knock on the door drew their attention. “I’m sorry, child,” the Duke of Ludlow called. “You must prepare to leave.”
“Give us five minutes,” Richard answered.
Keely hid her face against her husband’s chest and wept quietly.
Richard planted a kiss on the ebony crown of her head. “Shall I help you dress?”
Keely shook her head and struggled against her tears. Refusing to allow his parting memory of her to be anything but cheerful, she pasted a sunny smile onto her face and teased, “We’d he here another five years if you dressed me.”
Richard smiled, relieved that her mood had passed. Everyone knew sadness in a pregnant woman could mar the child.
When they descended to the second floor, Richard flicked a glance at the constable. “Is it permissible to walk them downstairs?”
Kingston noted the lady’s tear-bright eyes and took pity on the lovers’ plight. “I’ll accompany you.”
Reaching the courtyard below, Richard enfolded Keely in the circle of his embrace and kissed her passionately, stealing her breath away. He gently brushed the teardrops off her face and said with a smile meant to encourage, “Remember, dearest. Your Beltane fire will see us together again. ’Tis a matter of a few weeks only.”
Through twilight’s fading light, Richard watched his wife and her father cross the Tower Green. Keely looked back once and waved, then disappeared inside the Lodgings.
Richard turned away, but a movement near the Lodgings caught his eye. He whirled around and saw a woman pacing back and forth in front of the Lodgings’ windows. She turned in his direction and stared at him.
A ripple of unease danced down his spine, yet Richard was unable to tear his gaze from hers. He recognized the woman whose portrait he’d passed hundreds of times in the Long Gallery at Richmond Palace—Anne Boleyn, the queen’s long-dead mother.
And then Richard heard her words of warning as clearly as if she’d been standing beside him: “Beware the blacksmith.”
Chapter 18
“Greedy Tudor bitch.”
Morgana Talbot heard the grumbling from within the chamber and paused, staring at the door instead of knocking on it. The voice belonged to the baron, but cursing was so unlike him. At least, she’d never heard Willis utter crude words.
Had coming here been a mistake? She had planned to give the baron a tongue-lashing for failing to meet her at the appointed hour. After all, Willis had invited her on a romantic outing upriver to see how April’s warmth had transformed the surrounding countryside. But now . . .
Willis sounded out of humor. On the other hand, she was the Duke of Ludlow’s daughter, while he was a near-penniless baron. Any decent man would have sent his regrets instead of making her wait on the quay like a conspicuous fool. With her anger rekindled, Morgana lifted her fist and banged on the door.
“Who’s there?” The question sounded like an animal's growl.
“Morgana.”
“Begone.”
Morgana narrowed her blue-eyed gaze on the door as if the offensive portal had ordered her away. She stood in indecision for one long moment, then opened the door and stepped inside the chamber.
With his back to the door, Willis placed the last of his possessions into his leather satchel and buckled it closed. Glancing over his shoulder at her, he scowled. “I told you to leave.”
“What’s wrong?” Morgana stood two feet inside the room. She’d never seen the baron in so foul a mood. That fact, coupled with a feeling of foreboding, kept her from walking across the chamber.
Willis turned around and faced her. “Lady Luck played me for an April fool, but I mean to best her yet.”
“I don’t understand,” Morgana said, becoming alarmed. “What has happened?”
“Even as we speak, your father is on his way downriver to fetch Devereux and transport him home,” Willis told her. “Elizabeth has eased her dear unhappy Midas’s imprisonment to house arrest.”
“That’s good news.”
“The bastard leads a charmed life,” Willis snapped. Realizing he’d let his facade drop, he advanced on her. “You should never have come here, my dear.”
The coldness in his voice and the unholy light shining from his eyes frightened Morgana. She backed up two paces and reached for the doorknob. “I’ll leave now.”
“Sorry, angel.” Willis grabbed her upper arm in an iron grip and whirled her around. “Ruining my future is a thing I cannot allow you to do.”
Morgana wet her lips, gone dry from fear. The baron had lost his mind, and she needed to escape.
Willis reached into his doublet, withdrew a yellowed parchment, and waved it in front of her face. “Remember this?”
Morgana recognized the marriage certificate she’d found in the Talbot Bible, the damning document proving that Henry and she were ducal bastards. “You said you’d destroyed it.”
“’
Tis an exceedingly valuable document.”
“Destroy it this minute,” Morgana demanded, trying to grab it out of his hand. “’Tis valueless to you.”
“On the contrary, angel.” Smythe hid the parchment inside his doublet. “It guarantees me control of two fortunes, Devereux and Talbot.”
“What do you mean?”
“You cannot be as simple as you sound,” Willis said. “I plan to snatch your legitimate sister. When Richard tries to escape Devereux Home to rescue her, Dudley’s men will kill him. As Richard’s best friend, I’ll wed the grieving widow. When your father later suffers an untimely accidental death, I possess the proof that the Talbot fortune rightfully belongs to Keely.”
“You cannot get away with that,” Morgana said, trying to pull away from him. “I’m telling.”
Willis whirled her around and pressed her back against the door. “So beautiful, but so incredibly stupid. Did you actually believe you’d leave this chamber alive?”
“Help!” Morgana screamed.
With both hands, Willis grabbed her throat and began to squeeze, but her seeming lack of resistance disappointed him. “Even Jane struggled more.”
Desperate for air, Morgana raised her leg, and kneed his groin. Pained surprise forced him to release her for a fateful moment.
“Help!” she shouted. “Murder!”
Recovering himself, Willis grabbed her again and squeezed the life’s breath from her body. As Morgana lost consciousness, someone in the corridor pounded on the door.
“Open up!” a boy’s voice ordered. “Open up, or I’ll call the guard!”
“Help me. The door’s unlocked,” Smythe called, hurrying to place Morgana down upon the bed.
Twelve-year-old Roger Debrett barged into the chamber. “I heard a woman scream.”
“Lady Morgana became ill and swooned.” Willis gestured toward the bed. “Sit with her while I fetch the leech.”
Roger hurried across the chamber. He sat down on the edge of the bed and peered at the lady’s bluish-white face. “Sweet Jesus! She looks dead. Her throat—”
Wham! Smythe struck Roger on the back of his head, and the boy slumped unconscious across Morgana’s body.
Willis grabbed his satchel and started to leave, but paused in momentary indecision at the door. Should he take the time to finish the job and kill the brat? No. Even now, Richard could be leaving the Tower. He needed to finish his business at Devereux House before Richard returned home. With that in mind, Willis quit the chamber.
Roger swam up from the depths of unconsciousness. He opened his eyes and tried to sit up, but the room spun dizzyingly, sickeningly around. Roger snapped his eyes shut and waited for the nausea to pass. His head pounded, but he realized he had to get help. Baron Smythe had murdered Morgana Talbot.
And then Roger heard it: A faint, whimpering moan from the dead woman’s lips. He opened his eyes and stared at the lady for along moment. She wasn’t dead, only in need of reviving.
Roger staggered across the chamber to the table. A full basin of water sat on top of it, and he dunked his face into it, the startling cold water clearing his head. Roger carried the basin back to the bed and poured the cold water onto the lady’s face.
Morgana sputtered and opened her eyes. “Smythe tried to murder me,” she said in a hoarse, breathless voice. “Find my stepmother.”
“Lady Dawn?” Her choice of words surprised Roger. He’d never heard this one refer to the duchess as her stepmother. “You mean Ludlow’s wife?”
Morgana nodded.
“Rest here while I call the guard and a leech,” Roger ordered, starting to turn away. “Afterward, I’ll find Lady Dawn.”
With surprising strength, Morgana grabbed the boy’s wrist and jerked him down on the bed. Nose to nose with him, she rasped, “Listen, idiot child. Smythe is downriver by now. He plans to abduct my sister . . .”
* * *
“Soon, my daughter,” Keely cooed, caressing her swollen belly. “’Tis ten days to Beltane, and then your father will be home with us. Por tous jours—for always.”
Following her usual afternoon routine, Keely strolled around her husband’s garden. May and June nagged her to nap, but Keely enjoyed her afternoon walks, loved to witness the seasons passing. Today she roamed the garden’s far perimeters and admired the startling changes that the month of April had lavished upon the landscape.
Nature’s new life emerged wherever she looked. Robins, trailing thin strands of grass from their beaks, flew to familiar haunts in the maples and built their ancestral nests, while bees foraged for nectar within the trees’ blossoms. A blanket of purple violets covered the ground beneath the window of the earl’s study. Yellow bordering daffodils nodded gaily at their friends, the blooming yellow forsythia, in the rear of the garden.
Home. Like a siren’s song, the mountains and the glens of Wales called to her.
Keely closed her eyes and imagined the woodlands and the meadows of her native land, her own ancestral nest. White bloodroot blossoms and red trilliums would even now be greeting the spring as the scent of lilacs wafted across the crisp clean air. The recently born lambs would be frolicking together in the meadows beneath the sun’s warming rays.
Keely sighed. Someday she would take her children to visit the land of her birth, that special place called home.
Wandering across the garden, Keely stood at the sacred site where the birch, the yew, and the oak conversed. What the earl needed was a sanctuary garden, and this appeared the perfect spot for it. Come next spring, she would plant a garden to honor the Goddess for gifting her with the daughter she carried within her body. Lady’s slipper, maidenhair fern, and moon vines—flowers revered by the Goddess—would grow here.
Keely smiled to herself and pictured the scene in her mind. Each day, no matter the season or the weather, Keely would sit here with her daughter and teach her the Old Ways, pass the Golden Thread of Knowledge to her. Exactly as Megan had done.
Other daughters and sons would surely follow this one. Each would be special in her or his own way. Lovingly would she share the knowledge she possessed. Her single worry stemmed from her pragmatic husband. Keely prayed that the earl’s inability to see beyond the horizon wouldn’t be too negative an influence on their children.
“Countess?”
Keely gasped and whirled around. Willis Smythe stood there, his dark presence blocking the sun like a storm cloud. Baron Smythe was dark and dangerous—and something even more sinister.
“I do apologize,” Willis said, an easy smile touching his lips. “I never meant to frighten you.”
“No man frightens me,” Keely said, unable to mask her dislike of him. “Being yanked out of my meditation makes me uneasy.”
“Meditation?”
“I’ve been contemplating nature’s glory,” Keely said, gesturing at the garden. “Do you not see the beauty surrounding us?”
Willis flicked a quick glance at the grounds. “Very pretty, indeed.”
“From where did you come?” Keely hadn’t heard his approach, nor had Jennings announced him.
“Hampton Court,” Willis answered. “My barge docked next door at the dowager’s quay.”
“Is aught wrong with Richard?” Keely asked, panic rising in her breast, her hands protectively touching her swollen belly.
“Richard is well,” Willis assured her. “Though, I do carry an urgent message concerning him.”
“Come into the house.”
“No. ’Tis best we avoid any possible eavesdroppers.”
Keely cast him a puzzled look. The baron’s presence made her uneasy. The aura of untimely death again surrounded him like a shroud, and the black cloud that hovered above his head seemed larger and more threatening than ever. In a flash of total awareness, Keely knew the baron was a walking corpse. Death would soon embrace him.
Willis lowered his voice. “Richard plans to escape the Tower this evening—”
“Escape? How? Why?”
�
�Please, madam. Your questions do waste precious time,” Willis said, putting the proper amount of sternness into his voice. “Will you listen to me without interrupting?”
Keely nodded. She didn’t want to endanger her husband.
“Several days ago, Richard transferred his lodgings from Beauchamp Tower to Cradle Tower,” Willis told her. “Built to accommodate the direct hoisting of boats up from the river, Cradle Tower is lower than the other towers. Under cover of night, the earl’s men from Basildon Castle will approach on a barge, dock at the wharf below the tower, and throw him a rope. Then the barge will take Richard upriver, beyond the gates of London and Devereux House, where a fast horse provided by his parents will be waiting.”
Keely couldn’t credit what he was telling her. Why would England’s favorite son destroy his future at court by escaping the Tower and thumbing his nose at the Crown’s justice? Elizabeth would never forgive him.
She opened her mouth to question the baron, but he spoke up. “Meanwhile, you will accompany me to Smythe Priory,” he went on. “I have horses waiting in the dowager’s garden. Richard will rendezvous with us in Shropshire. From there, your husband and you will travel to Monmouth, where one of his ships waits to carry you to France. One of his mother’s brothers will harbor Richard until Elizabeth recovers her senses and the danger has passed.”
Keely doubted such a plan could work. Would her husband truly endanger his firstborn by demanding she travel to France? But what alternative did they have? If the queen kept him locked in the Tower, their daughter would never know her father.
And then Keely remembered the Goddess’s revelation: Richard and she would be together forever on Beltane. What the Goddess foretold had come to pass.
“Fetch the horses,” Keely said, turning away. “I’ll tell Odo and Hew to prepare themselves.”
Willis grabbed her forearm. “Your cousins cannot accompany us. Shall we announce our intentions to the world by parading out of London?”
“I see what you mean,” Keely agreed, the prospect of traveling alone with him troubling her. “Fetch the horses while I pack a change of clothes.”
“We haven’t the time for that.”
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