‘Pray leave us, madam!’ he ordered her chaperone curtly.
The nuisance of a woman shook her head. ‘Certainly not. We know her unfortunate circumstances. Her reputation is in our care.’
Amusement and the utter joy that Rushden had sought her out fizzed Heloise to life as she gazed in astonishment at the eyes without humility behind the twin glasses and observed the absurdly serious hat and the dull, long gown of broadcloth. Then she nodded gravely as though he were a notary of her acquaintance, and waited to unleash her temper.
‘We shall go and sit on the exedra,’ she told her elderly keeper. ‘You may observe us from here.’ The stone bench to which she led her visitor was framed by columbines and periwinkles. It was tempting to ask him, as they bruised the lavender with their passing, why he was dressed so strangely and carrying such a curious box, but there were other matters to be dealt with first. Spreading her skirts, she sat down and, knowing that he longed for her to comment, perversely waited with demure indifference.
‘What in Heaven’s name have you done to yourself?’ he growled, doubly angered by the lack of privacy. ‘Surely you have not let these hens talk you into taking some foolish vow of chastity? How long have you been here?’
‘Too long,’ Heloise muttered, endeavouring to keep her fists on her lap. ‘And they have certainly tried. Perhaps you should tell Dr Dokett that you will become a monk instead! That should solve the problem just as well. They have vacancies at the Crutched Friars. “Trust me,” you said, you lying cur! Well, your stratagem has failed. I am not in the least penitent!’
‘Well, that is a relief,’ he answered lightly. The metal tip of his dagger’s leather scabbard scraped the stone as he made himself comfortable beside her. ‘Jesu, what have these fools done to you? And there was I thinking you happy.’ His grey eyes were kind and concerned. ‘Devil take it, Heloise, why did you not send to me?’ She bit her lip, determined not to cry. His letter had contained news and no endearments. ‘And what is this nonsense that it is my order you are to receive no male visitors.’
‘Dr Dokett has told Father William and the rest of the household that my sinful behaviour brought about my father’s death and that I am a featherheaded woman whose body tempts men, and therefore I must ask God’s forgiveness and stay out of sight.’
‘A murrain on these interfering old crabs!’ He scowled at their voyeuse. ‘Look at her watching. Anyone would think you were St Edward’s crown and I was trying to thieve you.’
‘I am not supposed to tempt you.’ Heloise reiterated, tears hidden like water beneath the ice. He belonged to Myfannwy now. Oh, but he looked so utterly adorable behind his glasses.
‘You do not have to be with me to tempt me, changeling.’ He smiled, stroking an inkstained forefinger over the scrolls carved into the edging of the seat. ‘I am sorry about what happened at Northampton.’
‘Please, I have tried to put it from my mind.’ Afraid of the painful feelings tumbling inside her like well-paid acrobats, she huskily resorted to something that was not about next week or next year. ‘So why bone frames and broadcloth, sir?’
‘To test the guise upon you. Would you believe me a notary?’
She glanced derisively at his garments. ‘Does a leopard change his spots?’
‘Oh.’ He took off his hat, and ran an annoyed hand through his lustrous black hair. ‘What then? You see, you were right about Bishop Stillington. I have to find a means of getting him out of the Bishop of Worcester’s house.’
Heloise tried to stay sane. ‘You do? Why you?’
‘Part of my duties. Besides, I want to find out why he is being held.’
And maybe a grateful Bishop Stillington would speed the annulment, she added to herself as a postscript. ‘I believe a brawnier guise might suit you, sir.’ She sent him a glance that might have swiftly breached a lesser man’s walls.
‘You could be right. I do know that some of Bishop Alcock’s lay servants drink at the Strand Tavern. I suppose that if my purse is generous and my willingness to lose at dice fortuitous, they might welcome my company. If I sleek my hair down …’ The cogs were still turning in one direction and it was not hers. ‘It might take a couple of days or more to gain their confidence but, yes, there is merit in your suggestion.’
‘My dragon is fidgeting,’ she warned, hoping to raise his hackles, and read the mischief stirring above the lenses. ‘Here is your turkisse back.’
Distractedly, Miles slid the ring into place. ‘Do you just look half-starved, changeling, or is there a hungry demon perishing in there? What if …’ He wickedly took her hand prisoner, and watched the older woman’s neck crane. ‘I can meet you with fanfares at the main gate, or we could stir these watchdogs up. What if you were to wear good shoes and your plainest gown and steal out the Watergate tomorrow?’
‘For what purpose, sir? To ride in at Bishop Stillington’s window on my broomstick? Or am I to stand below with a blanket while you shin up a rope and smash your way in through the shutters with your boot heels?’
Miles flicked her cheek. ‘Sourpuss! No, a hearty meal and a dose of frivolity.’ He would come back tomorrow in more seemly clothes and speak with the duchess. Heloise was no sinful creature to be starved into holiness. This misunderstanding had to be remedied. ‘Here comes the guard dog now. Receive your hand back. I will come by water boat. What o’clock?’
‘Five.’ She rose to curtsey. ‘The duchess takes her supper then.’
‘And this is for you.’ He lifted the crate into her surprised arms.
*
With excitement shining in her eyes, Heloise waited sinfully next day at the top of the castle’s broad stairs that led grandly down to the Thames. She felt like a princess waiting to be rescued from a dragon. The mullioned windows of Baynards glowered down at her truancy, but the wavelets licking at the walls of the palace were whispering of adventure as the Thames oarsman brought the boat alongside. It was an exquisite evening and she longed to hug the gentle air to her like a soft mantle.
‘I have never been in one of these,’ she exclaimed as Rushden steadied her beside him in the little cog. ‘And thank you for the psaltery. It was a wondrously kind gift. I shall make great use of it, I promise you. I have already driven the household demented with my practising.’
His eyes gleamed good-humouredly. ‘So long as you never send it back with an order to shatter it over my unworthy head.’
‘Oh no, it is far too valuable.’ Heloise shook her head solemnly and wondered why he was laughing as he set his arm protectively behind her.
‘And did any of your watchdogs try to stop you leaving?’ he asked.
‘No.’ That was a wonder. Even the porter at the watergate had kept a still tongue. Maybe her quelling look had silenced him. ‘I would have let no one stop me.’
‘Good. Now forget Baynards.’ Above the odour of the southern muddy shoreline and the stinks of fish and pitch, the pleasing musk Rushden was wearing stirred her senses. She wanted desperately to reach up and kiss his cheek in gratitude, but shyness reined her back. Freshly shaved and clad as became a knight, he was once more a man of authority.
As they were rowed from Vintry ward past Queenhythe, Rushden told her about the prince’s entry into London. Beyond the warehouses, she could see the pennons fluttering above the houses of the great lords. ‘Some of these wharves belong to noblemen. See the gold lions, that is my lord of Suffolk’s barge.’
‘Shall your father be coming to see the coronation?’
‘Yes, but he will delay setting out to give my mother more time to recover. Did I ever tell you that your prediction at Bramley was true? She fell from her horse and broke a rib. Now no more soothsaying, hmm?’ he flicked her cheek.
‘God willing.’ What was Rushden at? Was he courting her for Saturdays in London when he was tired of begetting lambs in Wales? But she was so hungry and so deliriously happy that if he offered her a mutton pie and a cup of ale, she would kiss the ground he walked on. ‘Can you se
e Crosby Place from the river?’ It was where Gloucester lodged.
‘Heavens, no. It is in Bishopsgate, close to the north wall of the city.’
‘And the Tower of London?”
‘No, that is east of the bridge downriver. Another day, changeling.’
Because it was too dangerous to pass the narrow channels beneath London bridge, they disembarked at Dowgate. ‘We will go down to Eastcheap, but up there in Suffolk Lane, Heloise, lies the Manor of the Red Rose where I lodge – see that high, square tower with the crenellations, across from St Laurence’s?’
‘Where is your duke tonight?’
‘Feasting with Lord Hastings close to Baynards.’ No wonder the disguise! ‘You see I have also taken leave when I should not.’
The revelation that she could distract Rushden from feasting with the Lord Chamberlain made Heloise cheerier than an apprentice on holiday. Her gaze was everywhere as her husband guided her through the labyrinth of streets, but his hand in the small of her back gave her the greatest pleasure as if this were a courting. And the food! He bought a double share of beef ribs and a little pannier of lip-red cherries, and found her a seat beneath a pear tree in the garden at the Garland Tavern. Except for the wasps and a drunken, long-haired pardoner, who tried to flirt outrageously with both her and Rushden, she thought it Paradise until her particular Adam wanted her to bite the apple.
He stretched out his legs, his gaze idling upon her. ‘Why is it that when you hide behind a mask, you are quite incorrigible, but today our conversation limps like a lying beggar? Do you realise you have had me pointing out each tower and turret as though I am some hireling. Por favor, my lady.’
The unexpected assault threw her. ‘Mask?’ She slid a cherry between her lips.
‘Visor then.’ He counted off his fingers. ‘The knight, the beekeeper, the governess, the singer.’ And the cockatrice, she added in silently. ‘Trust yourself, Heloise.’
‘Why does it matter what I am, sir,’ she flared. ‘It is what the world thinks.’
‘Not with me. Do I scare you without a sheath of metal between us?’
‘I did not realise I was behaving badly.’
‘I wish you were.’ He snapped his fingers at the tapboy to refill their leather tankards. ‘A common fellow takes the wench he is courting to a tavern to make her drink and make her pliant.’
The way he said the word so languidly, watching her, sent a sensual shiver streaking down her lower spine.
‘How can I be pliant?’ she reminded him. He was making her feel voluptuous, moist by just looking at her.
‘I am not sure.’ Watching her lick the gravy from her fingers, he added, ‘Would you want to be?’
‘Perhaps,’ she said recklessly. ‘I wish that Bramley had never happened, that we could begin again. I like you,’ she looked down at the cherries in her lap, ‘too much for my own good.’
‘Bramley,’ he smiled a rogue’s smile and aimed a cherry at her cleavage. ‘There were aspects of Bramley I have not forg—’ His shoulders went rigid as if she were Abraham about to sacrifice him on a stone like Isaac. Oh, a plague on whatever had interrupted him!
Fellow patrons may have thought when he leaned forward that his finger bestowed a kiss instead of cautious silence on her lips. ‘Go, dabble your fingers in the water butt.’ He joined her there a moment later. ‘I have paid. Let us go.’ With a hand upon her back, he swiftly pushed aside the wicket gate and led her rapidly up the lane towards St Leonard’s.
‘I glimpsed one of Alcock’s men,’ he explained, and seeing the fellow had not left the inn, slowed to a more appeasing pace.
Not her fault then. ‘You heard something at the Strand Inn?’
He must have thought her interest sincere. ‘Aye, talk aplenty. I have been there twice. Mind out!’ He shielded her from the mucky wheels of a passing donkey cart. ‘Stillington is ailing of a sudden, some seizure which I do not like the sound of one whit. I shall speak to Harry about it tonight.’
‘Did you hear those basket weavers talking just now, saying that my guardian will make himself king?’
‘The gossip is inevitable until the prince is crowned.’ No elaboration there. ‘Are you content to walk a while. Not footsore yet?’
‘No, I am enjoying myself.’ Heloise tucked her arm through his and they walked on companionably up the rise sharing the cherries. Valerian flowered lavishly along the stone walls and the perfume of pinks stole from a garden. A brace of evening rats skittered across their path and one of St Anthony’s pigs watched them morosely from the central gutter where it had discovered a dead kite.
‘You know, we are not out of the woods yet as far as the Woodvilles are concerned.’ At Grasse Churchyard, he paused, less on edge. ‘They sell herbs here by day,’ he murmured, shielding his eyes with his hands as he looked back to make sure that no enemy had followed them.
Heloise, her fey instinct for danger unstirred, stooped to rescue a forgotten sprig of rosemary and tucked it into one of the silver loops that fastened his doublet. ‘Rosemary alerts the senses. You fear your Strand friends may have found you out?’
‘No, just taking care.’ He studied the rooftops as though they were enemy battlements. Above their heads, a flock of jackdaws wheeled noisily. ‘It is three weeks to St John’s Eve. Enough time for the queen to rally her friends.’
‘Which means?’ she prompted, as they turned towards Dow gate once more.
‘Midsummer madness, changeling. Bonfires in the streets, free tables of viands and ale, and every door garnished with St John’s wort and white lilies. You should see Thames Street. They cast ropes between the gables to hang wrought-iron candelars. Half the city watch, the aldermen and the old soldiers, all clad in armour or else scarlet – white fustian if they are former archers – march from Paul’s Gate to Aldgate and back through Fenchurch Street. The guilds supply the cressets. You shall marvel, I promise. The procession is almost a mile long and a fine sight to behold, for the street is like a river of light and there are pageants and morris dancers aplenty.’
‘I could dispense with the morris dancers,’ commented Heloise tartly. ‘So the queen’s retainers might be in armour and no one will suspect them and everyone will be watching the procession.’
‘Exactly. It is the day after the coronation, perfect to dispatch an unwanted duke or two.’
‘A pity there is no such a feast day this week, else you and your men could disguise yourself as revellers and invade the Bishop of Worcester’s. What you need is a cockatrice.’
She was abruptly lifted and spun above the cobbles. ‘Such brilliance, my little owl of wisdom!’ he exclaimed, kissing her on the mouth.
There should not have been air beneath her feet as they returned to the stairs at Old Swan, not far from London bridge, but there was. Rushden whistled up a boat and bade the oarsman row them as far as the Temple so she might behold more of the city. Heloise leaned against his arm, enthralled and happy. The encircling sun was drawn beneath the horizon, leaving the clouds in a glorious rosy wake across the sky, and the river was no longer silver beneath their little craft, but a great bale of shimmering cloth of gold flung across the broad valley.
‘Oh,’ she exclaimed, with a sigh. ‘I wish I could save this moment forever and take it out whenever I feel sad.’ But shortly it would be curfew; glittering cressets were already lit along the long waterfront of Baynards and soon the boat must turn and the evening would end. ‘Thank you, sir.’ For once, she dared to be froward and chastely leaned up and kissed the pitted cheek that Dionysia had so disdained.
‘That is a paltry thanks, lady. I want more than that.’ His kiss slid a dagger into her self-resolve. What magic and mysteries did a woman need to please a man? she wondered, despising her innocence, and she kissed him back rebelliously with all her heart, flattered when his right hand slid from her waist to clasp her silk-sheathed breast. Oh, if Lancelot had caressed the tip of Guinivere’s breast so cunningly, no wonder that queen had broken her vows, w
eak and dazed with desire. Kingdoms had been lost for love and now Heloise understood why.
‘This is heresy,’ she whispered, her fingers tangling in his hair and drawing his head back so she might fathom him. He might want her now but it was not enough.
‘Why?’ The words were breath against her cheek as he took possession of her lips again.
‘Baynards!’ announced the boatman and unkindly let the rocking timbers slap against the steps to jolt his passengers apart.
Rushden boldly squired her in past the duchess’s guards. There were no scoldings, no raised eyebrows at her high colour. Wafers and fruit had been left beside her pillow. Wonderful! She crossed her arms across her breast and threw back her head in sheer happiness only to come back to reality with a bump. Her eyes opened again. What were Rushden’s motives in being so kind? Guilt or … Was it not madness to encourage him when all she might be left with was a broken heart? Opening the window, she sought out the boat that might be carrying him away. I’ll not be Miles Rushden’s mistress, she told the faeries and St Catherine. He must not come again.
But next day Miles arrived respectably at Baynards’ front gate, and kissed hands charmingly with her grace of York before he requested his lady’s company.
‘Where are we going? To sign our annulment?’ Heloise goaded, trying not to care as he lifted her onto Cloud’s saddle.
‘Nothing so exhilarating. Merely to collect a wagon, bribe our way into the interlude cupboard of the royal wardrobe, don our disguises and create misrule. And pinned to a feather cushion, owlet, is already a ribbon with your name writ large.’
*
Sniffing at the doorways, scratching its underbelly and lifting its leg to piss upon random doorsteps, a cockatrice danced its way along the Strand, accompanied by an individually selected entourage of twenty of Buckingham’s more imaginative men-at-arms costumed as roosters, gryphons and yales. In the procession’s midst was a curtained cart containing a featherbed, and upon the driving board, a beleaguered carter had been joined by a crowing gryphon whose minions whooped and perched upon the vehicle like maddened apes, hurling firecrackers at the apprentices. By the time the raucous procession trooped over the bridge, the noise of its coming had emptied the Strand Inn of customers and collected such a crowd that Miles, shaking with laughter in his feathers and fustian, was sorry they had not thought to pass an upturned hat for donations; he might have broken even with the bribe to the deputy keeper of the royal wardrobe for loan of the costumes.
The Silver Bride Page 28