by Jane Feather
“They are of no importance with the woman gone,” Philip declared. “But by the mass, when they're caught they will die a hard, unshriven death.” He took up a silver chalice and drained its contents.
Simon Renard pushed back his chair with an impatient movement, his customary poise disintegrated. “Where would the woman go? And where in the name of grace is Ashton?”
“He has gone after her, I imagine,” Gomez said.
“Why would he not tell us then?” Renard demanded. He stood up and began to pace the council chamber like a caged panther.
The question remained unanswered as its incredible implications dawned for the first time. Ruy Gomez stared down at the table. “He cannot be working against us,” he said finally, almost in an undertone. “'Tis not possible.”
The sound of Westminster's bells ringing the six o'clock curfew penetrated the closed windows of the chamber. Philip stood up abruptly. “Send to the gates and question the watchmen. If Ashton left the city . . . if the woman left the city . . . someone must have seen them. I go to the queen.” He stalked from the room, slamming the door at his back.
“Please God, the queen comes to full term and a healthy delivery,” Renard muttered.
Ruy Gomez looked across the table at him. “You would do better to pray that we lay hold of Lady Nielson and her bastard.”
The hold of the boat reeked of fish oil and was slippery with blood and silvery scales. Gabriel and Stuart were barely aware of their uncomfortable, malodorous surroundings as they waited for the rattle of an anchor chain, the sound of creaking sails that would tell them they were on their way from Southwark docks downriver to the English Channel.
They had entered Southwark Cathedral boldly through the main doors. Stuart had made confession to the Bishop of Winchester, Gabriel to a lesser priest, but they had both departed the confessional clothed in the robes of novices, hoods drawn low to hide their untonsured skulls. They had left the cathedral through a side door from the sacristy.
Stuart knew he was an able man, only blackmail and terror had robbed him of the ability to think and plan with the natural wit and wisdom that had attracted Pippa back in the days when the sun shone. Now, as he heard the anchor rattle, the feet on the deck turning the capstan, as he felt the first swing of the boat's hull beneath him, he knew again the stirrings of his old pride and self-confidence. He had defeated the spies. He was taking Gabriel to safety. Pippa was in Lionel Ashton's hands, in the care of a man who had sworn to protect her. And she was now free of her betrayer. Her husband was no longer her husband.
He reached over and lightly brushed Gabriel's hands, tightly clenched across his lyre. They would sail first to the island of Jersey while the fisherman trawled the deep waters of the Channel for its rich catches, which they would salt in the barrels behind Stuart's head. And from there they would find a small boat to take them to the French coast. They would go overland from there to Italy. No one could touch them now.
Pippa woke from a disturbed sleep as the moon fell across her face. She was disoriented for a moment, aware of that same deep unnameable fear that had dogged her for so long. And then she remembered that the fear had a name. A face. She knew all about it and so it was no longer a fear. It was a matter of fact.
She touched her belly. It felt the same. Flat. Concave, actually, as she lay on her back. But there was a life in there. A life that had been put there without her consent . . . without her knowledge.
She tried to force herself to bring Philip's face into her mind's eye but her mind slipped away from the image whenever it began to take on structure.
She heard a sound from the floor beside the cot and softly turned her head. Lionel was sitting up on his pile of straw and blankets. She held her breath, not knowing why she didn't wish to let him know that she was awake. Just that she didn't.
He stood up carefully, and she knew he didn't wish to wake her. He trod softly to the puddle of moonlight on the floor beneath the unglazed round window high on the wall. He was fully dressed except for his cloak.
She watched him, watched his rigid back, the set of his strong neck, the line of his profile as he turned his head up to the moon as if seeking warmth from the pale silver light. She knew that he was thinking of his sister. Reliving his helplessness in the agony of her death.
She wanted to go to him, to hold him and comfort him as he had once comforted her. But she was as wounded as he and while he had been helpless to prevent his sister's torment, he had not been helpless to prevent her own.
She lay with her head turned on the cot, looking at him as he continued to stand in the moonlight. Was forgiveness ever possible? Even if it wasn't was there some comfort they could give each other?
Without conscious decision she slid from the cot and trod softly towards him. He didn't turn, whether because he wasn't aware of her or chose not to be, she couldn't tell. She stood behind him and silently put her arms around his waist, resting her head against his back.
A slight shiver went through him but he made no other move. He felt himself suddenly devoid of will. The strength of his authority had evaporated up here in the little moonlit chamber. He was stripped to his frailties, the ordinary human weaknesses that he had not allowed himself to admit lest they interfere with a purpose that transcended all things ordinary. And now, as he felt Pippa's body against his, he knew that he had misunderstood the importance of ordinary things. A misunderstanding that was going to cost him all hope of happiness.
“You're thinking of Margaret.” Her voice was low and he could feel the warmth of her breath on the back of his neck.
“Aye.”
“Of how you could do nothing to help her.”
He made no reply and she stood there, encircling him with her arms, her bare feet chill on the wooden floor, the night air cold on her nape. But his body was warm against hers as she pressed herself into him with a hungry, urgent need for contact in her own hurt and loneliness.
“They all just stood there watching as she died. Hundreds of them. Blank-faced, silent, unmoved, and unmoving.” He spoke suddenly, his voice a harsh rasp in the moonlight.
“And like them I stood there and watched as Philip violated you . . . But I swear to you, Pippa, on Margaret's grave, that while I kept silence I was not unmoved.”
“'Tis possible that that faceless crowd were also moved but unable to speak,” she said, her hold loosening a little.
“I did not keep silence through fear,” he said.
“No,” she agreed, her arms dropping to her sides. “In the interests of a greater good.”
He turned slowly towards her. “I will not defend myself, Pippa. Your accusations stand true.”
Silently she gazed up into his face. He held her gaze, his gray eyes clear and steady. Then he took her face in both his hands and kissed her, a hesitant, questioning kiss.
She held herself very still, her eyes still fixed upon his, as his lips pressed lightly, warmly against her mouth. Was there something perverse in this need she had for this kind of contact, the reassurance of another loving body? The reassurance of Lionel's body? But she felt through the hands on her face his own need for the same thing.
He drew her backwards to the bed. He touched her breasts through her shift and she felt their new tenderness. He opened the shift and kissed her breasts. Every movement was hesitant, as if he waited for permission. She ran her hands through his hair, pressing his head to her bosom. She kissed the top of his head, her hands moving to his shoulders as she fell back on the narrow cot.
And later he shifted himself on the narrow cot so that he held her in the crook of his arm, and she slept like an exhausted child with her head in the hollow of his shoulder.
Lionel did not sleep. He kept vigil, watching over her, filled with such a fierce need to protect her he couldn't imagine ever sleeping again.
Twenty-three
Malcolm left as dawn's gray light encroached upon the night. A sleepy Jem harnessed the horses to the carriage a few m
inutes later and took the London road. Within the inn the kitchen boy bent to poke the embers in the range and throw on kindling to create a burst of flame that would satisfy Goodman Brown and his wife when they came down yawning from their chamber above the kitchen.
Luisa, who had lain awake most of the night beside Nell, who had slept the sleep of the truly exhausted, wondered how she was to get out of bed with any decency when Robin lay on the truckle bed beyond the curtains.
She leaned over and twitched aside the curtains. Nell grunted in her sleep. Groaned and sat up.
“Lord'a'mercy! Missus'll be 'ollerin' to raise the devil!” She tumbled through the bedcurtains, hauling down her petticoats. “I'll be up in a minute wi' fresh coals.” And then she was gone.
Robin was on his feet, straightening his doublet, rubbing his beard, which seemed to have grown to unruly proportions during the short night.
“I'll be in the taproom,” he mumbled to Luisa's tousled head, showing between the bedcurtains like an autumn daisy.
She waited for the door to close then got to her feet. She was in chemise and petticoat and her bare feet immediately took the chill from the floor. Her farthingale and stomacher and gown lay where she had discarded them with Nell's help on the chest at the foot of the bed. Without Nell's help she would have difficulty putting them on again.
Pippa, too, would have difficulty dressing for the morning. They would have to help each other.
Luisa wrapped herself in her cloak and gathered up her outer garments and the embroidered bag containing her other necessities. Don Ashton had said the washhouse was outside the inn beyond the kitchen.
She found the back way to the kitchen, was ignored by yawning folk tending fires and bacon just as she ignored them, broke out into the kitchen yard and identified the washhouse by its smells of lye and pig-fat soap.
She climbed the rickety stairs and a heartbeat after she knocked on the door remembered that Don Ashton was sharing this chamber with Pippa.
Her knock sounded like Gabriel's trumpet.
“Who is it?” It was Don Ashton's voice but Luisa couldn't retrace her steps. Not with an armful of lace and bone and silk and the steps creaking beneath her.
“'Tis Luisa,” she tried, her voice quavering.
“In the name of grace!” The door was flung open.
Don Ashton stood there in his hose and shirt, his boots in his hand. His shirt was unbuttoned, and Luisa found her eyes riveted to the broad expanse of chest thus revealed. His nipples were hard and small and brown. She had never seen a man's bare chest before.
Lionel stared at her for a minute as if he didn't know her, then realized what she was gazing at with her mouth slightly open, her deep blue eyes wide as platters. He dropped his boots with a clunk to the floor and buttoned his shirt, fumbling with the tiny pearl studs in his haste.
“What in the devil are you doing here?” he demanded, trying to take command of the situation with a show of impatient annoyance.
Luisa did not immediately reply. Her fascinated gaze drifted downwards and Lionel was acutely conscious of the prominence of his sex in the tight hose. The image of Dona Maria, Luisa's mother, rose in his mind. If she witnessed this scene she would have hysterics. And Dona Bernardina . . . God's blood, it didn't bear thinking of. He fought the urge to cover his genitals with his hands, it would only draw yet more attention to this ludicrous and inappropriate situation.
Instead he said with an assumption of haughty dignity, “What is it you want, Luisa? You have no business here.”
“I . . . I . . . thought that I did have,” Luisa said, her eyes still wide, still riveted on her guardian's pronounced dishabille. “I thought Pippa and I could help each other dress.”
She glanced quickly at the intimate bundle of clothes in her arms, then unable to help herself returned her eyes to the overwhelming evidence of her guardian's maleness. Had he thought nothing of revealing himself in this way to Pippa?
“But perhaps . . .” she stammered. “Perhaps she doesn't need me. Perhaps you are helping her.” The thought flashed that someone must have helped Pippa undress the previous evening. And Nell had been with Luisa.
Lionel decided it would be best to ignore this. Any attempt at an answer would lead only into a quagmire that made him shudder.
Pippa, who had woken at the sound of the knock and was now blearily blinking sleep from her eyes, realized that the situation required intervention. Lionel seemed for once at a loss for words. She swung herself off the cot and went to the door. She smiled reassuringly at Luisa over Lionel's shoulder.
“Come in, Luisa. Laces are the very devil. Mr. Ashton can repair to the taproom and finish dressing with Robin.”
“Oh, I wouldn't wish to drive Don Ashton from his chamber,” Luisa said on a mischievous impulse. She had never seen her guardian at a disadvantage before, and he most definitely was at this moment. “I didn't mean to interrupt.”
“You are not interrupting anything,” Pippa stated, hearing Lionel's quick indrawn breath. “Mr. Ashton was repairing to the taproom anyway.” She gave Lionel a little punch in the small of his back.
Lionel shook his head like a dog shaking off water. “Yes . . . yes . . . I was . . . so I was.” He hopped first on one foot then on the other as he pulled on his boots, then stepped away from the door, holding his doublet and cloak modestly against him.
He brushed past Luisa in the doorway and his descent of the rickety stairs was loud and rapid.
Luisa turned her wide-eyed gaze on Pippa. She took in her state of undress. She wore only a crumpled shift that was unlaced almost to her waist, and there was something shockingly intimate about the length of bare leg revealed below the hem of the thin white garment. It was as clear as day to her that Pippa and Don Ashton were a great deal more familiar to and with each other than they had hitherto indicated.
A fact that Luisa found very interesting. Her guardian always backed up Dona Bernardina's strictures, prated about his ward's reputation, the need to keep her in seclusion to maintain her maidenly modesty, and here he was enjoying a liaison with a woman married to another man. She wondered if Robin knew and decided that she would ask him at the earliest opportunity.
“No one will ever tell me what 'tis like to lose one's maidenhead,” she said. “Of course Dona Bernardina still has hers, at least I can't believe that she doesn't, and my mother could never bring herself to talk of such indelicate matters. But I think I should know, don't you, Pippa?”
“I think for the moment you should be satisfied with reducing your guardian to a state of utter discomposure,” Pippa replied, but she couldn't help a chuckle.
“I didn't mean to be indiscreet,” Luisa said primly.
“Oh, spare me the piety!” Pippa exclaimed. “You knew exactly what you were doing.” She grinned. “And I don't blame you in the least. I would have enjoyed the same game in your shoes. Come, let me lace you.”
Luisa breathed in deeply as Pippa tightened her laces. She reached for the farthingale but Pippa said, “No, don't bother with that. Petticoats will have to do. We don't need any more encumbrances than we already have. Fasten me now, but not too tightly.”
Luisa, emboldened by Pippa's evident amusement, tried for some more information. “Are you running away with Don Ashton . . . leaving your husband?”
Pippa twisted her hair into a silk snood at the nape of her neck. Luisa was entitled to some explanation. “Well, I am running away, and I am leaving my husband. But I am not running away with Lionel in the way you mean.”
Luisa nodded thoughtfully. “I did wonder why Robin would be helping you to do such a thing. 'Tis a grave sin to leave one's husband.”
“Now, that piece of piety I can also do without,” Pippa stated with an edge to her voice. “You should bear in mind that sometimes one sin cancels out another.”
She gathered up her bag and made for the door. “Come, we must hurry. We need to be on the road soon after first light.”
Luisa, now a litt
le discomfited herself by Pippa's remark and puzzled by the edge in her voice, followed in a more subdued frame of mind.
The four of them stood in the taproom making a hasty breakfast of bread and fried bacon, washed down with ale. No one said much, the atmosphere was taut in the dim light of a single tallow candle, and Luisa watched her guardian and Pippa with a covert eye. They stood apart, not even exchanging a glance, but she knew what she knew. She shot a quick sideways glance at Robin, who stood with his back to the window and the gray square of light, and she wondered again if he knew the true nature of his sister's relationship with Don Ashton.
If he did, he presumably condoned it. Luisa decided it was past time she discovered some of these mysteries that were so well known to her companions. And as she thought that, she was aware of a most peculiar sensation. A curious tingling in her lower body, a sudden clutching in her belly. She watched Robin's mouth and knew that she had to feel his mouth on hers. Not the light brushing, almost teasing kisses he had hitherto bestowed, but something else entirely. She had to feel his hands on her body.
Her cheeks flooded with color and she had the horrid feeling that one of her companions might be able to read her innermost thoughts. She choked on a crust of bread and turned away, hiding her embarrassment in a fit of coughing.
It was Robin who thumped her back. “Eating too quickly,” he observed. “And the bread's stale into the bargain.”
Lionel set down the ale pot. “Let's be on our way. We must get beyond Newbury by nightfall.”
“More than forty miles,” Robin said, casting Luisa a doubtful glance. He knew Pippa's strengths but he was not so sure of Luisa's.
“We have no choice” was the curt response. “I'll settle up with the innkeeper. Robin, make sure the horses have pillion pads.”
Robin went out into the gloomy morning. Their horses were saddled and waiting in the stable yard, horse-hair pillion pads attached to the rear of the saddles. Pippa was not going to be happy slummocking along in such an undignified fashion, he reflected, and the horses were going to be exhausted carrying a double load for more than forty miles. The latter issue concerned him more than the former.