Blue Heaven, Black Night

by Heather Graham

  This was one of those occasions when the Lady Elise might well lose the regal composure for which she was well renowned. Michael chose wisely to turn quickly and hurry toward the kitchens to find Jeanne, his lady’s maid.

  From the great banqueting hall at Montoui a flight of wide stone stairs led to the gallery and the richly furbished family quarters. Elise tried to walk calmly up the stairs, but as soon as Michael’s footsteps faded toward the kitchens, she found herself running without ceremony. Upon reaching her door, she threw it violently open and slammed it behind her as if the devil were still after her.

  He was not, she reminded herself. He had already caught her and . . .

  I am home. In my own castle. I am the Duchess of Montoui and he will never ever have the power to touch me again. Here the power is all mine . . .

  And it is all worthless! she thought with renewed dismay and fury. All of her life she had been trained to understand that she was the nobility. That she need only speak to be obeyed. That if she was fair and just, she would be served without question.

  She had learned that the most powerful knight could be stalled with a winning smile. Henry had promised her that she would rule her own destiny.

  And now . . . it was gone. Bryan Stede had taken away all of it. He had taught her that nobility meant little or nothing when a man decided that he wanted a woman; and worse, far worse, he had taught her that she could be completely powerless . . .

  According to the messenger, Bryan Stede had “seen” her. So he had limped back to Chinon. Apparently, he knew for a fact who she was, and it still meant little to him. She had taken Henry’s ring, which made her a thief, and therefore fair game for whatever he had done.

  He had ruined her damned life, and all he had had to say was that he had “seen” her!

  “Oh, God!” she moaned, leaning her head against the door. “Dear God, just let me forget him! Cleanse my mind of him before I go mad with the fury and humiliation . . .”

  Her whispered entreaty broke off as there came a soft tapping at the door.

  “Milady?”

  Elise turned swiftly about and drew open the door. Jeanne bobbed a quick curtsy and moved out of the way. Several of the servants moved in quickly, bearing the heavy bronze tub. Several moved in quickly behind them, carrying huge buckets of steaming water. The bulky youths all blushed and offered her a welcome home, then hurried out of the chamber. Only Jeanne stayed behind.

  Jeanne, Elise thought, grating her teeth together hard, was not going to be easy to evade. Jeanne’s will matched the steel color of her graying hair. She was a slim woman, but by her competent manner, she might have been a stone tower. She was like a second mother, and Elise knew that Jeanne loved her with complete loyalty—and she was grateful for that love, and returned it. Like Michael, she had been with the household for decades. She had served Elise since the duchess had been eight years old.

  She was not going to be put off by any regal airs, no matter how practiced or majestic.

  The others were gone, the door had closed. Jeanne had stayed behind; her work-worn hands upon narrow hips, she scrutinized Elise quickly.

  “You look all right, child. Where have you really been?”

  “Making my way home,” Elise replied crossly. “Jeanne . . . I do have the most horrible pounding in my head! I need no help—”

  “You won’t rid yourself of me that easily, Elise de Bois!” Jeanne stated firmly, moving with determination into the large and sumptuous chamber.

  Once, the main chamber had belonged to her parents. It was appointed with a massive, postered bed. The draperies that hung about it were silk, brought back from the east when her father had gone on a Crusade. In the Holy Lands, William had found time to shop and barter. Persian rugs adorned the floors, and heavy tapestries adorned the walls. Fine cabinets, hewn by German master craftsmen, flanked either side of the archer’s windows, and a twenty-foot-length wardrobe stretched along the left wall. At the foot of the bed were two Turkish trunks, one housing a supply of fine linen toweling, and one containing such an assortment of rose and herbal soaps and scented bath oils as to be decadent.

  Jeanne, long accustomed to attending her mistress, hurried to the trunks and—ignoring the dangerous scowl upon Elise’s face—began to gather an assortment of accoutrements for the bath. Jeanne placed linen towels and soaps upon the bed, then dug farther, and withdrew an empty vase that had once contained an Egyptian musk. She grimaced as she approached Elise, handing her the vase.

  “What—” Elise began.

  “Throw it,” Jeanne advised, her dark eyes still brilliant despite her four decades.

  “Throw it?”

  “Aye—throw it! Hard—so that it will take strength! Make it shatter against the stone of the wall!”

  Elise thought of quickly reprimanding her maid and ordering her from the room—not even Jeanne could disobey a direct order—but suddenly she laughed. It was a bitter sound, not a pleasant one, but it was, at least, laughter.

  She accepted the empty vase and sent it flying against the wall with admirable power.

  “Good!” Jeanne applauded the action. “Now, do you feel any better.”

  “Aye, I do,” Elise admitted.

  “The bath will help improve your disposition even more.” Jeanne smiled. She took Elise’s cloak, and, with a sigh, Elise stripped away her shoes and the rough woolen tunic and stepped into the water.

  It was hot. So hot that it burned. But it stole away the tension in her muscles, and the mist that rose high above the tub helped to ease the pounding in her temples. She closed her eyes for a moment, then opened them to find Jeanne ready at her side with a cloth and a thick sliver of rose-scented soap.

  “Thank you,” Elise murmured, accepting both. Jeanne moved away, taking a hard, straight-backed chair that gave an archer’s view of the countryside beyond the castle. Elise glanced at her maid, then at the soap and cloth. Then she began scrubbing herself with fury. If she washed and washed, she could begin to wash away the memory of Bryan Stede.

  “So,” Jeanne said at last, “did you lose your heart to a thief, milady?”

  Startled, Elise desisted with her furious scrubbing. “Don’t be absurd, Jeanne!” she replied with annoyance.

  Jeanne was silent for a moment, and then she sighed. “I am glad, milady. Yet you would not have been the first noble maid to leave the confines of her class and find love with a strapping young peasant. Nor the first to know the pain that such a foolish affair could bring.”

  “Have no fear,” Elise said coolly, sinking beneath the water to wet her hair, then rising again. “I assure you, I have given my heart to Sir Percy, and it will belong to no other.”

  “Ahh . . .” Jeanne murmured. “Then you think that you will fool Percy?”

  Elise closed her eyes once more and gritted her teeth together. “Jeanne, I do not wish to be queried, or annoyed. I am exhausted, and—”

  “Elise! I am quite sure that I do try your patience! But you must bear with me—for my age, for the service I have rendered your family all these years. And for the future of Montoui.”

  “Montoui? Jeanne, whatever are you babbling on about?” Elise placed the cloth over her face with annoyance as she allowed the soap to linger upon her hair. If she could smell roses, she would not be plagued by the male and musky scent of the knight . . .

  “Milady, you may fool an old man like Michael, and your guards dance to your tune, but I am a woman—an old one at that—and I have seen too much of life. You returned in clothing not your own, alone, on a horse that could only belong to a knight—or to a thief who had stolen it from a knight. There is a deep burning fury in your eyes, and you seek nothing but your own company. ’Tis been my experience that only one thing can cause this in a woman—and the one thing is a man.”

  “All right—I am angry with a man,” Elise muffled out through the cloth.

  “Were you raped, or seduced?”

  “Jeanne!”

  “Hav
e me whipped, milady, the question still stands. I ask for your future, and because I love you.”

  How had she known? Elise wondered dismally. She might as well have worn a placard that decreed she had warmed the bed of that indigo-eyed devil! Would it all be so evident to Percy? What was she going to do? Tell him? She had to tell him. It would only be honorable.

  But what if Percy challenged Stede and swords were drawn? She could be responsible for the death of one of them.

  Stede deserved to die. To be drawn and quartered, hanged, disemboweled, beheaded . . . But what if it were Percy to die? She wouldn’t be able to bear it . . .

  What was she—crazy? She couldn’t tell Percy!

  “Is the man no one that you could marry, milady?” Jeanne asked softly.

  “Marry!” Elise shrieked, at last pulling the cloth from her face to stare at Jeanne. “Never!”

  “But if he raped you—”

  “He didn’t . . . exactly.”

  “No matter who he is, if he seduced you, he can be brought to the altar. Henry is gone now, of course, but surely Richard will prove to be just in his dealings—though God forgive him for hounding his father to his grave!—and you are the Duchess of powerful lands. ’Tis a pity that if you were an ordinary maid—”

  “Jeanne! You do not comprehend this situation. I do not wish to marry this man! I hate him! I will marry Percy as I have planned. I am in love with Percy Montagu, as Percy is with me.”

  “Will he be so in love, I wonder, if you carry another man’s child? Or is that a possibility that has not crossed that shield of anger you wear?”

  Elise’s silence assured her maid that her words were true. Elise dipped back into the water, carefully rinsing the tangling mass of her hair. She still felt Stede’s touch upon her; more so now, with Jeanne’s words. Still silent, she started to scrub herself again.

  “Elise, speak to me,” Jeanne pleaded softly. “Tell me what happened. Who was this man? How did—”

  “Nay, Jeanne, stop! I will tell you no more than what you have discerned. I cannot talk about it, and I will not! Rest content with what you believe, because I will say no more!” Elise lathered the soap against her flesh with a greater fury.

  “You cannot wash him away,” Jeanne advised softly.

  “Just his scent,” Elise replied briefly.

  Jeanne sighed softly. “It seems he made more of an impression upon you than you care to admit.”

  “Oh, he made quite an impression,” Elise replied bitterly.

  “Come out, little one. I will dress your hair, and we will talk. I will question you no more, I promise. I will try to help you see the future, since what is done is done.”

  Elise bit her lip. Perhaps it was best. Jeanne might well nag at her like a mother hen, but she would never betray her confidence. And Elise knew she had to regain her poise and sort out her thoughts before she did see Percy again.

  “Aye,” she said softly.

  Jeanne was ready with a huge towel, and then with a soft robe of caressing silk. In moments Elise was seated before her dressing cabinet, facing the huge oval mirror of hammered silver. Jeanne began to comb the tangles from her great mass of damp hair.

  “I am certain that I do not carry his child,” Elise said, suddenly quite calm. “The timing is not right.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes. And I would never marry such a man.”

  Jeanne at last lost her worried frown to laugh for a moment. “Ah, Elise! Your fate has been a good one! Most ladies of noble birth are bartered to husbands they have never seen! No more than pawns upon the king’s chessboard. Yet you say ‘aye’ or ‘nay’ with complete authority! Sometimes I worry about you because of this. The world is hard and brutal; it is oft easier to face when you have not been led to believe in your own mind.”

  “Nothing has changed!” Elise said vehemently. “Somehow, I will find a way to wreak vengeance upon that arrogant. . . bastard! And I will marry Percy!”

  “What do you intend to do?” Jeanne queried softly.

  “Lie,” Elise murmured unhappily. “Oh, Jeanne! I don’t know what to do! I love Percy because we are open with each other. We come together as equals. He respects my mind and my thoughts, and he has seen that I am capable and just and manage quite well what is mine. We talk, Jeanne. About everything. I’ve never lied to him . . .”

  Her voice trailed away. She hadn’t ever really lied to Percy; but she had never told him the truth about her birth. Henry had warned her to tell no one; she had respected his wishes.

  But she wondered now if—in the back of her mind—she hadn’t also known that Percy might not love her if he knew the truth. Bloodlines meant everything to Percy.

  “We love each other,” she murmured, and then she eyed Jeanne sharply through the mirror. “What would happen to me if I didn’t lie?” she asked herself softly. Holding back the truth of her birth was one thing; she could think of it as a “vow” to Henry. But lying about herself, about something that had just happened . . .

  “It would be noble, milady,” Jeanne said dryly. “And stupid.”

  “You’re right, aren’t you?” Elise sighed. But what about the pretense she would have to assume? She had tried to pretend that she wasn’t a virgin when she was, and had been caught. Now the time would come when she would have to pretend that she was a virgin when she wasn’t. It all seemed an ungodly mess, and it was all Stede’s fault.

  Jeanne appeared to be reading her mind.

  “There are ways to fool a man such as Percy, Elise,” Jeanne said softly. “A scream upon the wedding night; a tiny vial of calf’s blood—”

  “Oh, Jeanne! It’s so horribly unfair! I have never been so grateful for anything in life as my freedom—to love and marry where I would! To escape the fate of being bartered or manipulated for political reasons! My marriage was destined to be one of sharing, honesty, and trust. And now I am to begin it all with lies and deceit!”

  She felt a jerk upon her hair, and frowned, then noted that Jeanne had absently left her to walk to the archer’s slit of a window.

  “What is it, Jeanne?”

  Jeanne turned around with her dark eyes wide and alarmed.

  “Think, then, what you will say quickly, milady Elise, for he rides this way.”

  “Percy!” Elise cried out, flying from the chair to rush to the window.

  “Aye! See his standard upon the hill? He comes this way now!”

  Elise’s heart began to pound; a thunder to join that which remained in her head.

  No . . . it was too soon. She was not ready to greet him. It hadn’t even been a night since . . .

  “I will need my tunic with the ermine-lined neck, please, Jeanne. And the white headdress, I believe. It goes well with the flowing sleeves.”

  “Aye, milady,” Jeanne murmured miserably. Elise was standing straight; her chin was high. There was no quiver to her lip, nor tremor to her voice.

  She was calm, and poised. And regal.

  Jeanne had never felt more proud of her young mistress.

  And yet she was frightened of the folly of youth. Elise was so horrified at the thought of her lie, and so passionately furious. Would she give herself away?

  Don’t! Jeanne wanted to tell the girl. Forget your vengeance against this other man, forget it completely, if you wish to wed Percy in happiness. Men could behave so strangely. Percy might well love her, but he would be furious and hurt—and he would feel betrayed. And though men might wander where they would, even a great heiress lost half her value when she lost her virginity.

  Elise adjusted a golden girdle low upon her hips. “I am assuming Michael has alerted the kitchen that Percy is arriving. I believe he comes with a retinue of . . . I counted five men. Does that sound right?”

  “Yes, milady.”

  “See that we have a fine Bordeaux wine with which to greet them. They will be thirsty from the road.”

  “Aye, milady,” Jeanne murmured.

  Elise left the ro
om, resplendent with the beauty nature had bestowed upon her, and with the elegance of her fur-trimmed white silk. She was majestic. And she was a duchess of a rich land.

  Percy loved her. It was true, too, that men even married old, ugly women to possess their land.

  And Elise was clever and quick. Very mature for her age—as a duchess must be. She had kindness and mercy, and a touch of steel when the need arose. Her people loved her; she knew how to speak without saying a thing when the need arose, how to command, and how to reward. Surely, she would handle herself well with Sir Percy.

  But Jeanne had an uncomfortable feeling in her bones. She would do all that Elise had asked . . .

  Then she would await her mistress in this chamber. She would be there, in case her regal and poised charge needed a shoulder to cry upon when the audience was gone and she was allowed to be what she was—a young girl, stunned, furious, bewildered. And very hurt.

  Jeanne felt a little shudder rake through her. What if things did not go well with Percy?

  Elise was so very angry. Furious to the depths of the soul.

  Jeanne wondered with a miserable shiver just where that streak of blazing anger might take her proud and reckless young mistress.

  VIII

  Elise moved down the stairway with a decorum that belied her thundering heart. She wished that there was no one about—none of her own guard, none of Percy’s retinue. She would have loved to have raced down the stairs and throw herself into his arms, begging that he hold her and give her all his gentleness and tenderness and ease her mind of the confusion and pain that filled her.

  But there were people about—a household full of servants, and a great hall full of knights. And a duchess did not pelt down stairs like a child, ignore her other guests, and shame a man such as Percy.

  “Milady!”

  It was Percy who hailed her, striding from the fire to greet her, his eyes flashing with his pleasure as he bowed low over her hand, then tenderly took it in his own to lead her to the fire and the others. “Lady Elise, you know Sir Granville, Sir Keaton, and Sir Guie. I give you Lord Fairview, and Sir Daiton.”