The Widow's Kiss

by Jane Feather

  “Your sister is a very graceful dancer,” Hugh said re-pressively. “You will have to be more than ordinarily good to give a more elegant demonstration.”

  “Oh, I am,” Pippa assured him, totally unaware of any snub as she skipped beside him down to the floor.

  Guinevere rested her head against the carved back of her chair, closing her eyes briefly. She felt for a minute utterly exhausted, wrung out as if she’d been in some kind of wrestling match. Then she sat up again, took a sip of wine, and watched the dancing. Pen and Robin were very earnest, Robin watching his steps. Pen's bottom lip was caught between her teeth, evidence of her own concentration. Conversation was obviously beyond them, Guinevere thought with an inner smile, some of her desperation and fatigue lifting as she watched.

  Pippa was bounding around looking like a tiny green butterfly flitting around her tall partner. For all his square bulk and soldierly bearing Hugh of Beaucaire moved with smooth grace, Guinevere noted, and he didn’t appear to find anything incongruous in his exuberant and minute partner. Pippa, unlike her sister, was talking nineteen to the dozen, and Guinevere saw how Hugh seemed to select only certain parts of the stream for a response. A man who didn’t believe in wasting energy in futilities, Guinevere reflected. He was still smiling, his eyes were warm and filled with amusement as he bent now and again to respond to Pippa, and once more Guinevere wondered how two such separate personalities could exist in the same body.

  She became aware of a strange tingle on her skin and a sudden wash of heat bringing the color to her cheeks. The last time she had felt like this was when she had first seen Timothy Hadlow. It had been on a Twelfth Night when the Lord of Misrule reigned and nothing was forbidden. She had laid eyes on Timothy Hadlow and he had laid eyes upon her. She could feel his hand now gripping hers as he led her wordlessly to that little room, barely more than a cupboard, where they had fallen to the floor, tugging and thrusting clothing aside in a glorious explosion of passion. She could see his bright hazel eyes in her mind's eye now, laughing down at her as he held himself above her, moving slowly within her, gauging her mounting excitement until the moment when he …

  God's bones! She could feel the warm liquid arousal in her loins, the deep pulse in her belly, the heat of her skin, the jolt of excitement. No man before or since Timothy had given her this wondrous lusty desire.

  Until now …

  No, it was absurd, lunacy! Hugh of Beaucaire was her enemy, dedicated to bringing about her death, to robbing her and her daughters. This was not a man to lust after.

  The stately measures of the galliard came to an end and Pippa darted away from Hugh and ran up to Robin, her voice rising above the minstrels’ strings and the buzz of voices in the hall. “Did you see me dance with your father, Boy? I mean Robin. Don’t I dance well? Will you dance with me now? It's a country dance. We can all dance together … you, me, and Pen.” She tugged at their hands, pulling them back to the floor.

  Hugh came back to the table; he was laughing, his stride light as he took the steps to the dais two at a time. “What a jaybird she is!” He sat down as the page pulled out his chair. He reached for the goblet and drank deeply. “Just listening to her gives me a thirst.”

  Guinevere smiled faintly. His proximity was setting her senses swirling. She could detect a hint of lavender, a trace of rosemary from his hair as he leaned sideways to help himself to a manchet of bread from the basket on the table. A man concerned with personal hygiene was an unusual one indeed, particularly when he’d been so many weeks upon the road.

  To distract herself, she leaned back in her chair and told the page to tell the kitchen staff to bring in the birthday cake.

  “I think, my lady, that if I may be so bold I’ll beg Pen for the honor of a dance,” Magister Howard called up from his place well above the salt at the long table in the main body of the hall. “If she won’t despise an old man's creaking steps.” He smiled a somewhat toothless smile and nodded, his black-hatted head bobbing like a jackdaw, his thin gray beard wagging.

  “She will be delighted, Magister,” Guinevere said, knowing that Pen, whatever her true feelings, would show her tutor only a smiling respect and apparent pleasure.

  “And young Pippa will be even more so,” murmured Hugh. “To have That Boy to herself.”

  Guinevere laughed. It was impossible not to respond to his amused tone. “It won’t be for long. The magister's not as spry on his feet as he used to be although his brain is as sharp as ever. Anyway, the cake will soon attract Pippa's attention.”

  “Does the mother dance as well as her daughters?” Hugh inquired. “Or does she consider herself still to be in mourning?”

  “I did not mourn Stephen Mallory,” she said in a low voice. “And I’ll not pretend otherwise.”

  Hugh regarded her closely, an arrested expression in his eye. One of the tall tapers that marched down the center of the table flickered in a sudden draught and her purple eyes seemed to catch the flame and throw it back at him.

  Hugh said slowly and deliberately, “In that case, madam, will you dance?” He offered her his hand and there was challenge in his bright blue gaze.

  Almost without volition, Guinevere laid her hand in his and rose to her feet in a graceful sweep of amber velvet. The diamonds at her breast and in the high arc of her headdress shimmered in the light of the torches sconced high on the wall. Her long black silk hood reached almost to her heels and as she turned in the stately movements of the dance it swirled against her velvet skirts.

  She smiled at him as she had smiled at him in the chapel and Hugh felt again the bewildering sensation of losing his balance. He believed so strongly in her guilt, in his mission, in his determination to get back from her what was his by right, and yet in this moment beneath that smile all conviction, all determination melted like butter in the sun. Was this truly witchcraft? Was she trying to bewitch him as she had bewitched four husbands? He couldn’t help but respond to her even as he struggled with himself to keep his distance, to keep his clear-sighted detachment.

  “Mama's dancing … look, Pen, Mama's dancing,” Pippa squealed from the other end of the set where she was bounding around Robin, who had had to yield his place with Pen to the magister. “She's dancing with your father, Boy Robin.”

  “So I see,” Robin said. “I don’t see why it should be a matter for such excitement. I’m going back to the table now. Are you coming or are you going to dance by yourself?”

  Pippa looked momentarily crestfallen but she followed him off the floor and back to the table. “I haven’t seen Mama dance for ages,” she confided. “She never danced with Lord Mallory. Not even at Christmas and Twelfth Night.” A little frown drew the faint lines of her brows together. “He was a very nasty man. He shouted and threw things. Everybody hated him. Once I heard Crowder telling Greene that Lord Mallory was a drunken brute.”

  Robin, who knew only that his father had come to lay claim to disputed property, was somewhat shocked by this confidence. “You shouldn’t eavesdrop,” he said. “One of these days you’ll hear something you’ll wish you hadn’t.”

  “Oh, I don’t do it deliberately,” Pippa reassured earnestly. “It's just that sometimes people don’t know I’m there.”

  “How could that be?” Robin wondered, opening his eyes very wide. “Are you telling me that sometimes you actually stop talking?”

  “I think you’re being horrid!” Pippa stated. “I’m going to talk to Greene.” She slid off her stool and ran to where the chief huntsman was cradling a full drinking horn and engaging in an intense conversation with the sergeant-at-arms. Greene regarded the child's precipitate arrival with an air of mock dismay, but moved up on the long bench to make room for her beside him.

  She propped her elbow on the table and, resting her chin on her palm, regarded him solemnly. “What were you talking about?”

  “Nothing for your ears, little maid,” Greene said.

  “But it looked very important,” she insisted.

/>   “Aye, that it was,” he agreed placidly, taking a long draught from his drinking horn. He winked at the sergeant-at-arms who grinned broadly. Pippa was a universal favorite. However, she couldn’t be a party to their earlier discussion. Their talk had been all of Lord Hugh of Beaucaire and his men. The sergeant-at-arms had been in the court when Hugh of Beaucaire had announced his mission, and Greene had been witness to the initial encounter in the forest during the hunt. While no one knew exactly what was in the wind, it was clear to the senior members of Lady Mallory's household that there was trouble abrewing. And no one liked the idea of an armed bivouac beyond the gates.

  “Were you talking about the hunt?” Pippa persisted.

  “Aye,” Greene agreed. “That we were.”

  “Did the boar really charge Pen's pony? Did she scream? I expect she did. Was that why her arrow missed?”

  Robin, alone on the dais, was beginning to feel self-conscious and rather wishing that he hadn’t driven Pippa away when a bustle from the hallway beyond the door in the wooden screen and the accompanying blast of a ceremonial trumpet interrupted the dancing. A procession of torchbearers entered the hall; in their midst walked the cook bearing a great square cake, its surface lavishly decorated with a complete replica of Mallory Hall, its gardens and gatehouse, even the topiary gardens. A miniature pony with a tiny figure representing Pen was riding over the packhorse bridge with the river flowing green and brown beneath.

  Pen, flushed with pleasure, abandoned her partner and ran up to the table, Magister Howard wheezing in her wake. “Oh, Master Gilbert, how beautiful!” she breathed as the cook carefully placed the cake in front of her place. “Oh, I can’t possibly cut it. We can’t eat it.”

  “Of course we can, Pen!” Pippa declared, bobbing up beside her. “What a waste it would be if we didn’t. Is it marchpane, Master Gilbert? I do so love marchpane.”

  “As we all know to our cost,” Guinevere said with a half smile. “Master Gilbert, you are a true artist.”

  The cook beamed his pleasure and handed a knife to Pen. “Just cut it straight down the middle, Lady Pen, and I’ll do the rest.”

  “You have to make a wish … make a wish!” Pippa cried, bouncing on her tiptoes to watch the magic moment. “You must wish for something wonderful … oh, why don’t you wish for a new pony, or … or that your hair will go curly … or that next hunt you’ll shoot a boar … or …”

  “I can make my own wish, thank you,” Pen said.

  “You have to close your eyes and wish really really hard,” Pippa advised, not in the least put out. She fixed her sister with an anxiously critical stare to make sure that she followed instructions to the letter.

  A deep rumble of laughter came from Hugh, and Guinevere could feel his shoulders shake as he stood beside her. Pen glanced quickly at Robin who said, pointing, “If you cut straight from here, you won’t spoil any of the decorations.”

  Pen nodded and took up the knife. She placed it carefully on the cake. Closing her eyes tightly she cut down.

  “What did you wish … what did you wish, Pen?”

  “I can’t tell you that, it won’t come true,” Pen told her little sister. She shot Robin a sideways glance and he smiled at her.

  “Well, I hope it was something really splendid,” Pippa declared. “Such a cake deserves a really special wish, doesn’t it, Mama?”

  “Indeed it does,” Guinevere said. “But you, my child, will have one very small piece. You may have one of these marchpane trees, but that's all for today.”

  She nodded at Master Gilbert who grinned and said, “I’ll see to it, my lady.” He took up the cake and carried it away for serving.

  “Should the butler bring the fine rhenish, my lady?” Master Crowder in a waft of black gown appeared on the dais.

  “Yes, indeed. I for one prefer it with a sweet dish.” She glanced pointedly at Lord Hugh as she said in an undertone, “Perhaps you would care to open the flagon and pour it yourself, my lord. That way you could be certain you were in no danger.”

  Hugh, whose original barb had been intended only to make a sardonic point, said, low voiced and smooth, “I enjoyed the intimacy of our sharing, madam. It added greatly to my pleasure in the feast. I’d be loath to drink alone now.”

  Guinevere felt her color rise as indignation warred with a resurgence of tormenting and unruly sensations. He had picked up her glove and, indeed, she had not expected him to do otherwise. But the lightly mocking taunt spoke so readily to her present confusion she was suddenly rendered mute. Did he feel any of this himself? she caught herself wondering.

  She had sensed how he had responded to her when he first saw her in the chapel, and womanlike she knew what effect her smile and her soft melodious tones could have. They were the only weapons in her arsenal, and it was a pathetic enough arsenal compared with Hugh of Beaucaire's. But when she used them on this man she seemed to forget what she was using them for. Then just when they both slipped into a moment of ease, as they had while dancing, when her guard was down and she was powerfully aware of the humorous, warm, vibrantly attractive man, the fierce hostility and distrust between them would rise up like a tidal bore, sweeping away anything approaching accord.

  She merely inclined her head and returned to her seat, supervising Pippa's consumption of marchpane and cake with a sharp eye. The butler with great reverence withdrew the stopper from the flagon of rhenish and poured it with appropriate solemnity into fresh goblets.

  This time Hugh did not cover his goblet. He leaned back in his chair, watching the stream of golden wine glowing in the candlelight as it arced into the delicate crystal. There was enough worth in Venetian crystal on this table to build and fortify a small castle, he reflected. His eye roamed around the hall. The tapestries on the paneled walls were lush, their hues of varied blues and greens, gold, crimson, and silver thick and rich under the torchlight. The tapers on the dais table were wax not tallow and the air was perfumed with the scents of dried woodruff, watermint, and sweet herbs sprinkled lavishly upon the wooden floor.

  King Henry's court was renowned for its show; nobles vied with each other to prove their wealth and standing, bankrupting themselves to dress their households in the finest garments. They displayed their possessions with an apparent disregard for their value that they believed only added to their consequence. Hugh had seen many a noble try to hide his wince as a priceless flagon of Venetian crystal was carelessly thrown to the floor on his own orders.

  Guinevere Mallory was probably as wealthy as Privy

  Seal but the display of luxury around Hugh was not done for show. It was part of the woman. Something she accepted as natural. She was not trying to impress him.

  He glanced at Robin who was eating cake and marchpane with the dedicated concentration of the perpetually growing, perpetually hungry youngster. Robin would inherit a small estate in Kent, his mother's dowry. Hugh himself, the youngest son of a family of sons, had little of his own. For his service to the king he had been given the lands of Beaucaire in Brittany. They were fertile but not extensive. He had money, the king was generous when he remembered to be, but he hadn’t had the time to improve either the estate in Kent or his French lands, and he certainly didn’t have the money to acquire the trappings of wealth he saw around him tonight. Compared with the Lady Guinevere, Hugh of Beaucaire was a pauper.

  He sipped the rhenish, noting its quality. Which of the husbands had furnished this for the cellars?

  “It meets with your approval, Lord Hugh?”

  “It's very fine. I was wondering which of your husbands was responsible for this acquisition.” His eyes, heavy lidded now, were slits of blue in his tanned face.

  Guinevere hesitated, then said, “Lord Hadlow had agents in Burgundy, Bordeaux, and in the wine-growing districts of the Rhine. He taught me much and I buy through the same agents who served him.”

  “They make wise choices for you,” he commented.

  “No, my lord, they advise me. I make the choices.
”

  “I see.” He wasn’t sure that he believed her. Women knew little about such things. But then women did not ordinarily write their own marriage contracts and inherit lock, stock, and barrel from their deceased husbands. He touched his lips with his fingertips, considering.

  “Did none of your husbands have families who would lay claim to some part of their estates?”

  “My lord, I am willing to answer your questions … to cooperate in your ‘investigation’ if you choose to use that term. But not at my daughter's birthday feast.” Her tone was clipped.

  “Later then?”

  “When the children are in bed, if you will come to my apartments I will do what I can to put your mind at rest.”

  “Madam, I doubt that is within your capability.”

  “Not if you have already closed your mind to the truth,” she said softly.

  “My mind is always open to the truth.”

  She looked at him then, full in the eye, and her gaze mocked such a pathetic defense for his presence under her roof. “Is it, Lord Hugh?”

  He was saved from the need to respond by a renewed tucket of trumpets. Pippa jumped to her feet the instant before her sister. “Pen, ’tis your procession! It's beginning. Boy Robin, you have to walk beside Pen because you’re an honored guest and Pen likes you … you do, don’t you, Pen?” There was a momentary hesitation and then gallantly she continued the exuberant flood. “And I’ll come behind you two. Mama will come behind us with …” She hesitated, looking at Hugh.

  “ I will walk behind your mother,” he said firmly.

  “And everyone else will come where they’re supposed to,” Pippa said happily.

  The procession, preceded by trumpets and torch men, wound its way out of the hall, across the lower court, and out of the house. They went over the packhorse bridge, across the meadow under the starlit sky, and back up through the topiary garden that skirted the outside walls of the house.

  Once more back in the lower court, Guinevere kissed her daughters good night and dismissed her household with smiling thanks and a generous purse to Master Crowder to be distributed as he thought fit.