by Jane Feather
Rosamund was holding her breath, all the better to savor the exquisite sensations. Alone with the chevalier, she found her misgivings drifting away. He found her attractive, he wanted to kiss her, and she enjoyed those kisses . . . more than enjoyed them. It was new and wonderful and if she was careful she could indulge in the experience and learn from it.
After a minute, Arnaud stepped back. He held her waist as he smiled down into her flushed face, her dreamy eyes. “I didn’t scare you then, ma fleur.” It was a statement, not a question, and Rosamund shook her head, entranced by the unusual endearment. She wasn’t accustomed to thinking of herself as a fragile, sweetly perfumed blossom.
“We should return before someone misses you,” he said.
Rosamund nodded, reassured that he had her reputation in mind even though for a moment back then she seemed to have forgotten it herself.
He helped her mount and they continued along the path in a silence that for Rosamund was charged with remembered sensation. Her lips still tingled, the crowns of her breasts pressed hard against her bodice, and there was a tension in her belly she couldn’t identify.
After a moment a side path opened up ahead. Arnaud pointed with his whip. “That will lead us back to the main ride.” He drew back so that she could ride ahead on the narrow path. He followed her at a little distance as she emerged into the stragglers on the broad ride.
There was no sign of Will, or indeed of anyone Rosamund knew, until she saw Joan on her dappled pony plodding along just ahead. She glanced over her shoulder and Arnaud merely gave her a nod and a half smile. She trotted up to Joan, greeting her with a cheerful salute. Joan looked astonished to see her.
“What are you doing back here? I thought you must be up at the head of the party.”
“I thought Jenny seemed lame, so I stopped to check her hooves for stones. But she seems fine now.” Rosamund fell in beside Joan, slowing Jenny to the pony’s steady plod. She had had enough excitement for one morning and was quite happy to keep Joan company while savoring the two delicious encounters. The two men were so different, and if truth be told, she was much more comfortable with Will, enjoyed her banter with him without reservation. The chevalier made her uneasy even as he excited and challenged her in some way. She felt on her mettle and on her guard the entire time in his company. But she also loved every minute of it.
Thomas, deep in conversation with Kit, had fallen way behind the main body of the hunt. He looked up in surprise to see how far back they had fallen. At this rate they’d be lucky to beat the litters to the picnic ground. He shaded his eyes, peering down the ride, then suddenly stiffened. He thought he saw Rosamund emerge from a side path. What the devil was she doing off the ride? Maybe a call of nature, he reasoned, until he saw a man emerge a couple of minutes after her.
His temples began to pound and he felt the blood rush to his face. What the hell was he doing here at the English court?
Kit looked at him in astonishment. “What, Thomas? You look as if you’re about to have an apoplexy.”
“No, not that,” Thomas said, staring ahead. “There’s an old friend up yonder, whom I haven’t seen in an age. I’d renew our acquaintance.”
Kit, still staring at him, gave a shout of exultant laughter. “An old friend, is it? Well, if it’s an old friend to be greeted on a sword point, I’m with you, Thomas. Let’s have at him.”
Thomas hesitated for barely a moment, then he put spur to his horse. It jumped forwards and Kit with another exultant cry set his own horse in pursuit. He had no idea what Thomas was up to, but it felt like a scrap and Kit loved nothing more.
Arnaud heard the beat of the hooves and glanced in surprise behind him. His face was abruptly wiped clean of expression. He drew rein and turned on the path, waiting. His hand rested on his sword hilt.
Thomas drew up a few feet from him. The stragglers had continued placidly on their way and the ride was quiet, deserted, behind them. “Chevalier, I give you good morrow.” He bowed in his saddle. “Are you acquainted with my sister?”
Arnaud blinked in bemusement. “Your sister, Master Walsingham? I was unaware you had such a one. But if you believe you have a score to settle, then I am more than willing to accommodate you . . . even if you feel it necessary to bring reinforcements.” He flicked a scornful glance at Kit.
Thomas’s countenance was brick red, his breathing swift. He drew his sword in one clean movement and, as Kit made to draw his own, said in a fierce hiss, “No. This is mine alone.”
The chevalier drew his own sword and they sat their horses on the path, facing each other and yet neither making a move to dismount.
“For God’s sake, Thomas, have at him, or let me do so,” Kit exclaimed.
In silence, Thomas swung down from his horse and the chevalier followed suit. “There’s a clearing back there.” Arnaud gestured with his sword to the path through the trees.
“Stay with the horses, Kit.” The instruction ill-suited Marlowe but restraint prevailed for once despite his frustration. He took the bridles of the two riderless animals and, fighting impatience, sat and waited.
The two men emerged into the small clearing. The ground was uneven, tree roots twisting in an untidy obstacle course beneath the moss. They took up positions, made the formal pass through the air, and Thomas lunged, aiming for the chevalier’s unprotected underarm. Arnaud parried and their blades clashed. It was clumsy swordplay on the uneven ground, but none the less determined for that. Thomas drew first blood, his blade slicing into the chevalier’s forearm as Arnaud was wrong-footed by a tree root. Arnaud grimaced as blood dripped to the ground, but it was instantly absorbed and presented no danger of slipping. Thomas dropped his point and stepped back. “Bind it.”
Arnaud tore a strip of his shirtsleeve with his teeth and twisted it around the slash, using his teeth to hold the knot. He stepped back, sword point up. Neither of them was aware of Kit, who, unable to stay out of this scrap whatever it was about, had tethered the horses roughly and come up quietly into the glade. He watched, realizing that, for all its ferocity, this was not a fight to the death. A score was to be settled, but they weren’t going to kill each other over it. Or at least, not here.
Arnaud feinted, danced back, lunged, and his sword point slithered across his opponent’s ribs, causing Thomas to curse and fall back, blood soaking his shirt.
“Honors even?” Arnaud gasped, dropping his sword point.
“For the present,” Thomas returned coldly, pulling his shirt free of his trunk hose to wad it against the wound. “But if I ever see you near my sister again, de Vaugiras, there will be no honors even.”
Arnaud laughed and picked up his doublet from the tree stump where he had thrown it. “As I said, Walsingham. I didn’t know you had a sister.”
“Come, Kit. The air is poisonous here.” Holding his side, Thomas walked from the glade, leaving Kit to pick up his doublet and follow.
He mounted with difficulty, one hand still pressed to his side.
“We had better return home,” Kit said. “The wound needs tending.”
“ ’Tis only shallow,” Thomas muttered.
“Maybe, but you risk infection if you leave it untended.”
Thomas turned his horse back the way they had come without saying anything and rode in the same furious silence until Kit finally asked in jovial tones, “So what is this business between you and the Frenchman? Is it a matter of love perhaps? Requited . . . unrequited?”
Thomas cast him a scathing glance. “ ’Tis not a matter for your ill-placed jests. And it lies between me and the Frenchman.”
Kit shrugged, not in the least put out by this dismissal. “As you will, my friend. It matters naught to me.”
Arnaud remained in the glade, sitting on the tree stump tightening the torn sleeve of his shirt around the wound on his arm, until he was sure Walsingham and his companion had departed. He would be hors de combat for the rest of the day, and the prospect of riding back side by side with his opponent
to have their wounds tended was so laughable it couldn’t be considered. But his morning had not been unsatisfactory on the whole. It had been inevitable that at some point he and Walsingham would come face-to-face.
Chapter Fifteen
THE CHOSEN PICNIC ground was set on the brow of a small hill crowned by a coppice of beech trees. A stream gurgled musically at its base, competing with the musicians’ lutes. Rosamund drew a breath of astonishment as she and Joan emerged from the trees. She had had many picnics in her life, but never had she seen an alfresco meal served in such grandeur.
The queen sat in her chair of state surrounded by the senior ladies and gentlemen of her household seated on padded stools. A canvas pavilion had been erected to shade long trestles, their pristine damask cloths laden with food, flagons of wine, kegs of ale. People were seated on canvas stools or rich Turkey carpets laid upon the grass, and servants scurried between them with laden chargers and jugs of wine, filling goblets and silver platters. It could not have been more elegant if it had been a state banquet in the great Banqueting Hall of Whitehall Palace.
“The queen will not have anything unceremonious, however casual the setting,” Joan informed Rosamund, guessing accurately at her amazement. Joan dismounted as a groom came hurrying up to take their horses, and Rosamund followed suit, handing Jenny’s reins to the groom, who took the animals away to water them at the stream.
“Let us find somewhere to sit on the grass.” Joan looked around at the throng, seeking a familiar face. “Oh, look, there’s Will Creighton and some of the younger folk. Let’s join them.”
Nothing loath, Rosamund followed Joan across the grass to where a large party of young people were sprawled, in the case of the gentlemen, and elegantly disposed in the case of the ladies, their skirts billowing around them, the deep, rich colors blending with those in the thick carpet beneath them.
Will was stretched out, his head resting on one elbow-propped palm, a thick turkey leg held in his other hand. He sat up as Rosamund and Joan approached. “Ladies, come and join us,” he called. “Mistress Walsingham, what happened to you? You disappeared as if spirited away by demons.”
“My horse stumbled and I took her out of the path for a few minutes, and by the time I looked up, you were long gone,” Rosamund said lightly, sitting on the rug beside him, arranging her tawny velvet skirts to best advantage with a deft twitch and a pat.
With an air of carefree informality the group was seated around baskets and platters of food from which they helped themselves liberally. They greeted the new arrivals in friendly fashion and Will waved his turkey leg at the food. “We stand on no ceremony on this carpet. Eat, ladies.”
He leaned forward and took up the basket of manchets, offering it to Rosamund. His eyes flickered in a conspiratorial half wink that sent the strangest jolt of warmth through her belly. It was as if he were underscoring a secret understanding that they shared, yet nothing had happened between them. He hadn’t even attempted to kiss her. But perhaps youth held him back, where it could not hold back the chevalier. She smiled and touched a finger to her lips in a fleeting gesture before taking a manchet from the basket.
Someone passed over a wine cup filled to the brim with canary wine, someone else a platter of sirloin. Joan was sitting beside her, eating hungrily, but Rosamund noticed that her gaze was concentrated on Will, who didn’t appear to notice her. His eyes were all for Rosamund.
“Master Creighton, I haven’t heard you play for some time,” Joan declared through a mouthful of cheese tart. “Have you given up the lute?”
Will looked startled at this strangely abrupt non sequitur. “Why, no, Mistress Joan. I’ve been playing as much as usual, I’m sure. Have I not?” He looked a question around the company.
“Aye, Will, you’ve been plaguing us with your sorrowful, romantical lyrics as often as usual,” one of the gentlemen said with a grin. Will threw a cherry pit at him and he laughed and threw a cherry back. It caught Will on the cheek, leaving a scarlet smear. Will cast an oath at his assailant, but it was in jest and greeted with general laughter.
“Here.” Rosamund twisted to wipe the smear from his cheek with a lace-edged handkerchief. It seemed such a natural gesture in the present atmosphere, and no one appeared to see any significance in it, except that suddenly she was aware of Joan’s sharpened gaze.
“My thanks, Mistress Rosamund.” Will stretched out again on his side, idly chewing on his turkey leg. “Shall we play a word game?”
There was a ready chorus of agreement and Will, frowning in thought, began to tell a story. After two lines he stopped and looked at Rosamund. “Your turn, Mistress Rosamund.”
“To do what?”
“You must tell the next bit of the story,” Joan explained. “It’s a game often played at court. But then you haven’t been here very long.”
Rosamund was prepared to forgive the condescension, guessing at Joan’s chagrin over her failure to engage Will in conversation. She frowned in thought and Will said, “No, no, Rosamund, you must not think, you have to say the first things that come into your head.”
“I see.” She obliged with a piece of utter nonsense that had them all laughing, and they played companionably for the next half hour.
“I must take a stroll. . . . If you’ll forgive me, ladies.” One of the men rose from the carpet, glancing towards the coppice. The rest of the men rose with him and they walked off in a purposeful group into the trees.
“I wish we could gain relief as easily,” one of the women said to a groaning chorus of agreement. “I daren’t drink very much on this kind of excursion in case there’s nowhere to go.”
“There’s a line of bushes over there.” Rosamund, who was anxious for relief herself, pointed to what looked like a shrubbery. She got to her feet. “I’ll see how private it is.”
She stood for a moment looking around the hillside. She could see Agathe in a group seated comfortably on stools a few yards from the queen’s party, but there was no sign of the chevalier anywhere. Perhaps the hunt had lost its savor and he’d left. Rosamund was not sorry that he was absent, she found that the intensity of their encounters was too high to be experienced too often.
She set off across the hillside and ducked behind the bushes. They provided a screen of sorts, and she could hear no close voices on the other side. It was as always a struggle with skirts and petticoats and the wretched farthingale, but she managed and feeling greatly relieved she adjusted her gown and moved casually away from the screen.
“Feeling better?” Will’s laughing voice came from just behind her and she spun around.
“Were you watching?”
He shook his head, raising his hands in protestation. “No, I wouldn’t dream of it.”
She regarded him suspiciously, not quite convinced. He looked like a particularly mischievous boy at the moment. “I’m not sure I believe you.”
“I swear it.” He held out his hand. “Come walk with me a little.”
Rosamund glanced around. Couples were strolling across the hill, some people seemed stretched in sleep upon the carpets, others gathered in chatting groups. The queen was still seated in her chair of state among her household listening to the musicians as she sipped from her crystal goblet. It was a delightfully pastoral scene that showed no signs of breaking up.
She took Will’s hand and walked with him over the brow of the hill. The far side was deserted, almost as if no one had realized that a hill had two sides. A scattering of trees littered the hillside and they walked down to the stream, the crystal clear water bubbling over large white stones. Will sat on the bank and pulled her down beside him. He put an arm around her shoulders and turned slightly to face her. His eyes glowed with purpose and she knew he was going to kiss her.
She tilted her face up, her mouth curving in a smile of invitation, and he brought his lips to hers. It was a very different kiss from the chevalier’s, less assured perhaps, but also stronger, more passionate, and Rosamund found herself respo
nding with a ready instinct.
When he raised his head, he looked at her as if seeing her for the first time, and Rosamund wondered for an uneasy moment if her willing response had somehow transgressed a rule she knew nothing about. But then she saw that the glow in his eyes had deepened.
“You are lovely,” he said, and she was suffused with a wonderful feeling of triumphant satisfaction. Even Agathe could not have been paid a stronger or more sincere compliment.
Will regarded her for another moment, then the glow in his eyes was replaced with the wicked gleam of mischief she had come to expect. “Shall we go to the theatre?”
She remembered his earlier suggestion, a suggestion she had thought made mostly in jest. She had certainly responded to it as such. But now, after the wonderful adventures of the day, the clandestine encounters that still infused her with a sense of power, she thought, Why not? She could do anything. She had learned that there were ways around every rule, as long as the rules were broken with discretion. And what a wonderful adventure it would be.
“When?” she asked, and he laughed delightedly.
“So you do have the courage, after all.”
“Of course I do,” she stated with mock indignation. “I just wasn’t sure I had the inclination before.”
That made him laugh anew, and then he became serious. “I understand the court is removing to Greenwich in three days just for the night. The queen is to receive her ambassadors there. If you could contrive some excuse to remain behind at Whitehall . . . ?” He raised an eyebrow.
“I suppose I could have an ague . . . some woman’s complaint . . .” She was thinking out loud.
“I will procure the disguise if you procure your freedom,” he promised, getting to his feet.
“Oh, I will.” She took the hand he held out and let him pull her to her feet. Briefly he pulled her against him and she felt the heat of his body, then he released her quickly as the sound of voices reached them from the hilltop.