"You spoil him," Richard protested, jealous of the loving look she gave the beast and the fingers caressing the long forehead. They could be put to better use.
"Where is my palfrey?" She was frowning but obviously prepared to go with him. It had been easier than he had imagined.
"I thought it unfair to give the grooms extra work for so short a distance. Besides, you have forgotten you are not clothed for sidesaddle. Up with you, wife." His hands lightly touched her waist, lifted her away from the horse's head and easily onto the saddle before he swung himself up behind her.
"Is this to impress upon everyone that I am your property?" she muttered angrily. "Is Lady Warwick waving at us from a window?"
"Yes." He slid his arms around in front of her and jerked the reins. The wench felt right, comfortable between his arms albeit she was apprehensive. It would feel right waking up holding her too. "Be at ease, mistress. You do not have to give an impression of rigor mortis. They have all seen dead bodies before."
She let out her breath. "Richard, please stop quarreling with me."
"So what must I do to buy my line in your judgment book, Margery? What do you want of me this day—a jeweled cross, a bracelet, a pearl brooch, a paternoster?"
"The truth," she whispered. Did she ever wish that their union could be deep-set in trust or was she still yearning for the King of England?
"Truth, my dear, is never perfect and I want to buy you something that is. Something of exquisite workmanship because you have never had a proper wedding gift of me." He shifted behind her, holding her protectively back against him, hoping she would soften against his body.
The guards in their blue and gold surcoats at the postern eyed them with amusement. The wench edged forward, her back proud and stiff. For an instant, Richard thought she might shame them both by casting herself off the horse and he readied his arms to imprison her, but once they were over the drawbridge, he felt the tension trickle out of her. The clean fresh scent of her filled his breathing and he could enjoy the joyous curve of the breasts, which he now owned, rising from the summer neckline. Perhaps the day might truly bring its reward.
"Look out!" Her hand grabbed the rein as a runaway piglet sped squealing across the road, chased by two raggedy children. He cursed and tried after that to keep his attention from her cleavage, but it was not easy.
He had found a goldsmith's shop in Amboise where the workmanship was excellent. Added to which, Monsieur Levallois had a vivacious second wife and a sultry daughter by her predecessor. And there were other coincidences that linked him to them but Richard did not bother to explain all this to Margery nor did he tell her he had already spent two hours with them earlier in the week lingering over wine and cakes.
They were expected. A stableboy was waiting to take his horse as they rode into the courtyard behind the main street. Before Richard could dismount, Jacques Levallois, followed by his wife and eldest child, strode out to welcome them. Adèle, his much younger wife, was Margery's age and so great with child that she could hardly curtsy to the daughter of the famous Earl of Warwick, but it was clear that Margery was flattered by her attempt. The girl Katherine's smile as she sank dutifully was selective.
Madame Levallois left them to her husband's selling ploys. As he ushered them into the downstairs workroom, their merchant host spoke swiftly to Margery in such a torrent of language that she looked as though she might drown in it. For her sake, Monsieur Levallois lightened his enthusiasm to a drizzle of words and a veritable thunderstorm of Gallic gestures. But what made her eyes go truly owlish was hearing Richard reply in French more fluent than her father's.
"I never realized you could speak French so well," she murmured as he led her across to watch a brawny apprentice, sweaty from the fire, beating gold into a setting for a cabochon ruby. Richard grinned and moved her on to where an older youth, at the end of his seven years of service by the look of him, sat chiseling facets on a topaz. Across from him, a mastersmith was setting an enameled scene of the Annunciation into agate. "I never told you about the master brewer's wife in Kendal or the recorder's daughter in Gloucester either."
"And…" she mimicked him.
"And my old nurse was from Rouen."
In the shop that opened onto the street, the air was cooler. Margery gravely handed over her ring and Levallois conducted her to a table covered in black baize, where an apprentice shook a row of simple silver rings off a tapering steel rod. The merchant gave her several to try for size. When he was happy with her selection, he led her to the inside counter to see his other wares.
Golden goblets, musk balls, chalices, and silver saltcellars glittered on high shelves around the shop, while at nose height, pinned upon a broad piece of scarlet felt behind the counter, rosaries of gold, lapis, crystal, coral, and chalcedony beads were roped between collars of pearls. A pendant cross framed with twined lopped branches of matted gold was fastened above, flanked on either side by two lozenged golden reliquaries depicting Christ's entry into Jerusalem and his Passion. Rows of enseignes, hat badges for travelers and the devout, made of gold or enameled with the lives of saints, hung on straps. Below, upon the counter, buckles, tassels, and bracelets were anchored to timber covered with velvet cloth.
Multi-drawered cabinets were now fetched to the board and unlocked ceremoniously for Margery's pleasure to reveal rows of rings lolling on ebony velvet. Smoke-blue sapphires to aid in childbirth, emeralds to ward off envy, unlucky opals hazy with hidden hues that took the breath away, and lodestars in all sizes, set into delicate twists of sinuous gold or couched in opulent rings.
"Perhaps Madame 'uddleston wishes something for her lovely throat?" Madame blushed and protested, sending Richard little covert glances from beneath her lashes. Without a doubt, his lady was dazzled and he was enjoying the fact.
Monsieur held up a succession of necklets against his daughter's throat. Katherine Levallois showed no embarrassment. Clearly, she was used to it. A clever ploy to sell women's jewelry to male customers.
Margery turned away. Such wealth and workmanship glittering around her was heady liquor for a poor woman's head, already reeling from unaccustomed flattery. Wonderment at finding herself with Richard Huddleston now when the day had begun so sourly filled her with amazement. What in the name of Heaven was she doing here? Letting the Devil buy her? These were not sugar mice before her now. His sincere enthusiasm for spending money on her was utter bribery and yet… She stole a thoughtful glance at him now as he jested with the merchant, at ease, articulate, so confident. He brushed a wing of lustrous hair behind his ear. The life force shone from him in the healthy pallor of his complexion, the laughing white teeth, his very strength. Jesu, sometimes is was possible to like him so much, possible to forget to fight. How was it that one could both like and hate a person to such extremes?
"Do you want a heart device set with diamonds, or there's this?" He held up a collar of three fine silver chains harnessed parallel and fingered the pendant rose as though its petals were soft and fragile. Margery shook her head. "Ah, here is beauty." Richard picked up a golden flower on a collar of two lustrous pearl strands, its center a circle of latticed gold, surrounded by an aureole of daisy petals. Standing behind his new wife, he held it hard against her throat, watching her face in the mirror that the merchant's nubile daughter held up for her.
Margery felt his breath clean upon her cheek. Sometimes— just sometimes—it was like… like being married. Like a marriage could be with someone who cared. The fleeting companionship fragmented as she saw the girl Katherine was tempting Richard—sending him an alluring glance one instant and then coyly veiling her large eyes with silky long black lashes the next. Margery tensed, uncomfortable. Was it all pretense on Huddleston's part, this wanting to choose a gem for her?
"No, concentrate, it's a marguerite," he commanded, his breath stirring the tendrils of hair escaping from her headdress. "Look again! Enjoy what you see. We must be sure." The mirror showed a girl with roses in her chee
ks, wide-eyed, and Richard's face behind her laughing at her confusion— behaving like a veritable lover.
Her breath came unevenly at his closeness.
"Do you not like it?" For an instant she doubted his sincerity, yet when her eyes flew back to the silver mirror, of a surety, genuine disappointment hovered in his face.
She moved forward, out of his touch and turned. "It pleases me well if it pleases you. But I am sure it is too expensive." Sweet Heaven, what was she saying? She was moon-mad, surely. To let him purchase this was to owe him. It was wrong and yet she could not bring herself to wipe the charm from that smiling mouth. He had not even noticed the French girl tucking her neckline lower.
"You may sell it if ever we become penniless. Let me fasten it properly so you may be sure it is comfortable."
There it was again—we—the word of unity with its implication of infinity. And his fingers, so gentle as they deftly fastened the collar about her throat. A woman's collar, despite the golden daisy the size of a rose noble that hung below it. Was this his way of demonstrating that he owned her despite her rebelliousness? First the ring that must be displayed, now this.
Unpredictably, contrarily, the thought warmed her woman's senses, uncoiling the serpent of lust within her.
"My wife shall have it. There!" One hand held her by the shoulder and he thrust the hand mirror before her with his free hand. The gold looked well between her throat and bodice, lending her the appearance of a cosseted wife, an earl's daughter.
"It complements your wife's fair looks, if I may say so, Monsieur 'uddleston." The merchant bestowed a kiss upon the back of her hand. "Alors, madame, it will now delight my wife if you will go upstairs and partake of refreshment while your husband and I negotiate a price."
Margery's fingers flew to unfasten the clasp. "Sir, I beg you, keep this by you. The price may be too high."
Richard's eyes sparkled with charming mischief. "You may wear it for the nonce. If I cannot afford it, then I will come and fetch it back."
"You promise?" She looked up at him gravely and marveled at the amused tenderness in his face.
His long fingers brushed down her cheek and he nodded. "Go now, the girl is waiting to show you the way."
Katherine Levallois curtsied and gestured to the door.
Margery did not want to go up the stairs; she wanted to stay by this different Richard before his mood was blown like a pennant in a different direction.
On the next story, it was like entering another world. Furs and imported eastern coverings made the floor soft beneath Margery's fragile soles and an illuminated book was propped upon a wooden stand on a small table. Tiny diamond panes let in the sunlight from the casement and proud upon the walls were not painted arras cloths crudely daubed but tasseled tapestries in subtle hues depicting love.
Adèle Levallois left her cushioned window recess and a small lapdog rose indecisively from its basket, stretched, and waddled across to sniff at the beaks of Margery's shoes as she gazed at the tapestry.
"Le Jardin d'Amour." Adèle fondly stroked the chevalier who knocked upon the wicket gate, with his lover shyly tugging back at his hand, her eyes modestly lowered. "It was a marriage gift from my husband. Come, sit, we shall have hypocras and strawberries."
Although her French limped where Adèle's skipped and cavorted, Margery could grasp the gist of what she said. Although halting at first, her answers now became more sure as she happily fell under the spell of the woman's charm and hospitality. In return her hostess required gossip about the princesses, the fashions, Queen Charlotte, the expected dauphin, and the mighty rebel Englishman, le comte Warwicque.
It was after the city bells began to strike three that their husbands finally came up the stairs, discussing the greed of Lombard bankers, with Katherine following in their wake like a camp follower behind an army. There was a gray-haired man with them too. Adèle's father, Henri Badoux. It seemed he was also a merchant but an outsider who had come to the valley to trade.
A carafe of Touraine muscatel was sent for and Monsieur Levallois declared that they must toast the babe beneath his wife's girdle from glass goblets imported from Venice. The mother-to-be, blushing despite past pregnancies, beamed upon her guests as though they were a knight and lady magicked from some romance.
"I have a boon to ask, monsieur." She turned an irresistible smile upon Richard. "Alors, I want to show your wife my twins and then I wish us to play cards. We have a new set arrived from Paris. Perhaps another afternoon, Mistress 'uddleson shall visit me and we shall play picquet instead. You will translate, please."
Amusement twisted the edge of Richard's lips. "She wants you to admire her children and then play a hand of cards."
"She is so kind. May we do that?"
He swept a bow to Adèle. "We are at your command, madame."
She giggled. "D'accord! You will also come, Monsieur 'uddleson?"
He was too polite to correct her. "To please you, gracious lady, of course!"
The wet nurse, a girl of about eighteen years, rose to greet them. On each side of her stood a waist-high wooden cradle. The twins, no more than a twelve month, and out of swaddling bands, had wakened from their afternoon sleep and Adèle scooped up the girl-child and thrust her into Margery's hesitant arms.
She put the little girl against her shoulder where the child sucked her thumb thoughtfully at Richard. "She is heavy!"
"Your arms will grow stronger after your first child." Henri Badoux fondled the child's dark curls and lifted curious eyes to study Margery.
Richard watched his wife's cheeks flush pink. If they had only been home at Millom, she might have had a babe inside her by now. The thought of beginning the process must have showed in his eyes for she lowered hers with sweet embarrassment.
"Stop laughing at me," she whispered in English.
"Why should I when you provide me with such entertainment? Do you know anything at all about babes?"
"More than you, I wager. You want to hold her?"
"Why not, but I had rather hold you if you promise to behave."
He took the little girl gently into his arms and carried her to the window, whispering softly. The child responded with a delighted gurgle and reached up a chubby finger to his mouth. He turned his head challengingly to Margery only to catch her off guard, staring at him with an expression he could not fathom. "You think I would make a poor father?" Tiny fingers pulled at his hair.
She shook her head, swiftly drawing a smile over the sudden rawness as if it were a clean dressing.
Handing the child back, Richard sighed. Could Margery interpret the desire that must be burning in his eyes? She must know his patience was at an end. He wanted her vulnerable, confused, and so aroused that her surrender would be exquisite.
"You are most fortunate. Madame 'uddleston is a pretty and modest young woman," Levallois observed politely, after Henri Badoux had taken his leave.
Richard had returned downstairs with the two merchants to where Katherine was waiting, eyeing him slyly, her fingers stroking the frets of a lute.
"Modest?" Richard tasted the word like a new flavor. It was disturbing that what he took for artful coyness, others interpreted as modesty. Levallois, of course, did not know of her past. "I suppose, monsieur, that we all want our wives modest in company and forward in the bedchamber."
His host's eyebrows arched. "You have a bedchamber in the chateau? You are exceptionally fortunate."
"A bedchamber with Mistress Huddleston?" Richard's tone was wry. "No, I am unable to make my way to the garderobe without clambering over a half score of snoring knights, let alone extricating my wife from a chamber packed with a dozen sleeping women. It but wants the vow of silence and I could think myself in a monastery."
"Malheureusement, you suffer the penance for waiting on the mighty. But come, deny it if you will. Would you be elsewhere, young man? Is not the court of our King the heartbeat of Christendom?"
"It is, but sometimes I could wish myself a si
mple plowman."
Levallois chuckled and called for more wine. "This visit brings much pleasure to my wife. I should like you to stay this night with us."
Richard's loins grew taut at the possibilities. It took all his control to keep the rising excitement from his voice. "Stay? Now there's a thought. It is true we have no duties at the chateau, but I think we have prevailed sufficiently upon your hospitality."
The older man patted his shoulder. "Treat it as an act of selfishness upon my part because I have a young wife, a good sweet wife, whom I wish to please. We can play cards and sup together, then play again and forget the curfew. Besides, we always keep a bedchamber in readiness for guests. There is no extra travail on our part, I swear. Now tell me, does your wife play a fair hand?"
"I do not know."
Jacques clapped a hand on his shoulder. "Eh bien, we shall try her! Perhaps Adèle and I may conquer England, like William the Bastard, hein?"
Richard clinked his goblet against the older man's. "Monsieur, if it means this most excellent wine will flow in London's streets, I will personally pilot you up the Thames."
"We play cards, oui?" Adèle came jauntily into the chamber.
A cushioned settle, rearranged for summertime, had its back to the fireplace and here Adèle settled Margery beside her. Richard sat down opposite his wife on a cross-legged chair. He stroked the smooth planed wood, marveling at such luxury. His family had but one huge carved chair that belonged to his father. He observed Jacques Levallois lower his large body onto a matching chair. Surprisingly, it held. Now if he could find an English joiner to imitate the design, a simple x-form to balance the weight when they returned to England…
"Alors, let us begin." Adèle gestured to her husband to deal.
"Are we to revive La Guerre de Cent Ans?" Richard asked but his eyes rested thoughtfully upon Margery, already imagining how he would slowly slide the gown down over her shoulders to reveal those taut, concealed breasts.
The Maiden and the Unicorn Page 25