Launce broke off the kiss and, casting a final hot glance at Isabel, clattered down the stairs. The woman remained where she was. With a catlike smile on her face, she took her time to pluck stray bits of straw out of her hair. Then she combed through her tresses with her fingers before gathering them under her widow’s headdress. She slipped her feet into her shoes, shook out the creases in her gown, then slowly descended to the ground floor. She hummed a little tune under her breath.
Mary sagged against the wall with relief. She wondered what she should do and whom she should tell. Perhaps she should put the fear of God into Isabel. That idea appealed; however, Mary realized that she was still too young and insignificant in the household to be able to cow her sister-in-law. Her best course was to bide her time, and see what happened.
She peeked out the chamber’s lancet window, and saw Tom ride into the courtyard. Silver Charm and the other horses were lathered to a froth. Andrew looked as if he would fall out of the saddle with fatigue. Mary hoped that he would. She would love to see the fastidious boy get his fashionable garb muddy—just once. The packhorses carried several fine-looking deer. One wore an admirable rack of antlers—another trophy to mount in the great hall.
Tom should have looked pleased with his success, but Mary noted the deep furrow in his brow. What news had brought him home so early? She gasped as Launce, acting like a dutiful servant, caught the reins that his master threw to him. He even wished his lord a good day. What a false face the varlet wore!
Just then Isabel ran up to Tom, and attempted to throw her arms about him. The earl stepped out of her intended embrace. His expression grew even darker. He scooped up Tavie in his arms, then strode toward the entranceway.
Mary nodded with satisfaction. Just let that minx try any of her wiles on her brother. “I know your secret now, my lady,” she whispered to herself. “If indeed you carry a babe within you, he is not a Cavendish.”
Chapter Eight
Thomas hurried toward the sanctity of his chamber before Isabel could catch up with him. He was halfway across the great hall when he stopped in amazement The high arched windows sparkled in the late-morning sunlight. The flagstone floor was not only swept, but scrubbed clean of its crusted filth. The twin fireplaces on opposite walls had been cleared of their accumulated ashes. Even the high rafters looked a little lighter in color than before. The cobwebs in the corners had disappeared. The family’s battle flag was…missing from its pole!
“Stokes!” he roared.
The steward appeared immediately as if conjured by magic. “My lord?”
Thomas pointed to the empty spot above the fireplace. “Where?” he snapped.
Stokes grinned. “Mistress Alicia took it down, my lord. She—”
“What!” he bellowed. “How dare she meddle with my family’s most prized possession!”
“To clean and mend it,” the steward explained in a rush.
Thomas felt as if someone had punched the wind out of his stomach. “Oh.” To hide his embarrassment, he glanced around the hall once more. “And all this?” he muttered, pointing to the polished armchairs, the gleaming high table and side benches.
“Mistress Alicia, my lord. She directed us to rub everything with beeswax.” The steward looked positively enraptured. “She is a wonder, my lord.”
Thomas admired his clean hall. It had not glowed like this since his good mother had died while bringing Mary into the world. “Aye,” he agreed in a softer tone. “A wonder, indeed.”
“I am glad the hall pleases you, Thomas,” Isabel spoke behind him.
He wheeled around to stare at her. From the safety of his arms, Tavie growled at her.
“How now, woman?” he asked in a low, dangerous tone.
Ignoring the warning signals from both dog and man, she waved her arm as a dancer in the midst of a pavane. “The servants have worked long into the evening hours to ready Wolf Hall for your return.”
“You say you ordered this?” Thomas asked, his incredulity mixed with his anger.
She folded her hands over her breast The gesture of humility looked out of place with her character. “I am your chatelaine, Thomas,” she reminded him.
“Humph!” He glanced at Stokes who stood behind Lady Cavendish. The steward shook his head.
Just then Georgie trotted into the hall from the direction of the kitchens. Spying his master, he gave a joyful bark, then broke into a trot. Tavie wriggled, wanting to be set down.
Kneeling, Thomas released the terrier, while he rubbed Georgie’s ears in greeting. “What’s this, old boy? You are damp.” He ran his hand along the mastiff’s gleaming coat. “By the book, someone has bathed you—and you let them.” He glanced up at his sisterin-law, a wicked grin on his face. “I suppose that you are responsible for this miracle as well?”
She covered her surprise with a toss of her head. “Of course. He was filthy.”
A light patter of toenails on the flagstones caused him to look beyond Georgie. Vixen pranced across the floor, leaving a trail of water and soapsuds behind her.
“Here, Vixen!” Alicia called from the direction of the kitchens. “Where are you? Vixen, come back, girl. I have not done—”
She burst through the archway. Her skirts were pinned scandalously high, showing a goodly amount of her trim ankles and shapely calves. Her braid had fallen out from under her cap. Her muslin shift was soaked to almost a sheer transparency. Her full, round breasts pushed against the top of her simple bodice. The wet cloth revealed her nipples, their tips hardened by the cold water. Devouring the sight of her with his eyes, Thomas found it difficult to breathe.
She skidded to a halt, then dropped a charming, disheveled curtsy. “Sir Thomas!” she gasped. “I…we did not expect your return so soon.” She laughed like silver bells on a May morning. “I fear I have not yet finished my surprise for you.” She pointed to Taverstock, who sniffed at Vixen’s soapy fur. “Indeed, methinks ‘twill take a full day alone to bathe that one.”
“Indeed,” Thomas agreed with a smile. “Tavie was once thrown into the meadow pond by Wil—” He glanced at Isabel, who had turned very pale. “By my brother. Since that ducking, the dog has avoided any body of water larger than his bowl. Though I must admit he could use a good scrubbing.”
Alicia returned his smile. “Then I think I can manage the work with a wet cloth instead of a tub.”
Thomas picked up Tavie, and held him out to her. The little dog tried to wiggle free, but Alicia gripped him firmly with both hands.
“Courage, Taverstock,” Thomas admonished his favorite. “Cleanliness is an indignity that all of us males must suffer.”
She paused, then laughed. “Indeed, my lord? Shall I order you a bath as well?”
It was on the tip of his tongue to suggest that she accompany his tub of water, when Isabel broke the spell.
“You tend to the dogs, Alicia, as befits your station. I shall minister to Thomas as befits mine!”
Alicia went very white, then blushed to the roots of her golden hair. “Your pardon,” she apologized in a soft voice. “I mistook. Let us be gone, Tavie.”
With a carriage that would befit a queen, she returned to the kitchens with Taverstock, who gave his master pleading looks over her shoulder.
Thomas took several deep breaths before confronting his brother’s shrewish widow. “My squire will attend to my bath as he always has. Meanwhile, I suggest that you spend the hour betwixt now and dinner relearning your good manners. You have obviously misplaced them. Come!” he commanded Georgie and Vixen with a snap of his fingers.
The three of them climbed the broad staircase without a backward glance at the fuming woman.
After his bath, accompanied by much unsolicited advice from Andrew, Thomas whiled away the time until the dinner hour in his library. First, he reviewed the marriage contract between William and Isabel that had been drawn up shortly before his own. On William’s death, his widow’s dower house in Yorkshire reverted to her, along with the
tenancies and rental fees belonging to it. Any children would inherit William’s portion of the Cavendish estate. As the second son, he owned a small holding near the Scottish border, an inhospitable place where the family’s cattle often fell into the hands of the lawless reavers.
Thomas furrowed his brow, then he consulted his almanac, wherein he jotted his personal notations. Sir Giles had died on the twelfth of June. Pausing, the son said a little prayer for his stern father’s soul. Moving his finger down the page, he stopped at the sixteenth. Next to that date, Thomas had written a single word. William. John, who had become the Earl of Thornbury while fighting a raging fever, had died on the twenty-first.
Thomas rubbed the side of his nose with his forefinger. William was never the earl, not even for a day. At his death, his property had reverted to the eldest, John, though his wife retained an interest in the revenue until she remarried. He shuddered. The witch wanted it all—through him. The idea of Isabel as the Countess of Thornbury made him gag.
“She should be sent to a nunnery,” he confided to Georgie and Vixen. “She has dower enough to lead a comfortable life there. Aye, but how to get her into one? There is the rub!”
The dogs wagged their tails.
He dreamed briefly of abduction: a dark cloth thrown over Isabel as she lay sleeping, a wild ride at midnight with his trussed sister-in-law clawing and spitting like a wildcat, and finally, depositing her, in her shift, at the convent doors.
He grinned. “The idea has a certain appeal, I must admit, though I have not the spleen to do it.” He sighed. “Especially now that she carries a child.”
One thing was certain. Since its father had never been the earl, the unborn Cavendish did not inherit Sir Giles’s title. Thomas breathed easier.
He had never considered fatherhood. But when he became the earl, he had assumed a number of serious responsibilities, not the least of which was the begetting of the next generation. That meant marriage—and a wedding night.
Thomas’s hands grew cold at the thought. How on God’s green earth could he be a good lover? He was such a big man. He would hurt any woman brave enough to be his wife. Besides, he had only the vaguest idea how to woo, and so far, he had been a dismal failure with Alicia.
Her image swam into his memory. A radiance shone around her wherever she went. Her smiles beguiled him as no others ever had. Her soft voice thrilled his heart. Yet the whole idea of bedding a woman terrified him. The thought of giving his heart unconditionally to another made him break out into a sweat, like a horse that had been raced to the farthest end of the moor.
Thomas picked up the other paper on his desk. He slowly reread his own betrothal contract to one Mistress Alicia Broom, ward of Sir Edward Brampton. He sat up with a start, and reread the exact wording. Ward, not daughter. How had he missed that in his first reading? If she was not the daughter of a humble goldsmith from the city of York, whose daughter was she? And why did she have so noble a guardian?
“There is something that lies hidden betwixt these lines,” he informed his four-footed companions. “My father was always a shrewd man,” he mused aloud. “Methinks this goldsmith’s daughter is much more than she seems.”
He recalled William’s years of painful taunting. The lackwit betrothed to a merchant’s daughter—mayhap she could teach him to cipher. Thomas needed no instruction in that area. ‘Twas William who could barely read or sign his name. All those years of cruel jibes about Thomas’s bride-to-be—what if everyone was wrong?
He closed his eyes and rubbed the bridge of his nose. Why the deceit? If the goldsmith was a counterfeit, which was most evident when Brampton reappeared at Wolf Hall dressed as a gentleman, why didn’t Sir Edward reveal the truth then?
Because I ran away too soon!
Thomas expelled a deep sigh. He was a dolt and a coward and much more. He suspected that he may have misjudged sweet Alicia. Not that he had played false with his own feelings toward her. In simple fact, he had adored her from the first moment he had met her ten years ago. Those feelings had deepened since her arrival.
Then why hesitate? Proclaim the banns this day, and marry Alicia.
A happy thought—and a terrifying one, as well.
He returned to the contract. The amount of the dowry astounded him. He had not noticed the sum before now. One hundred gold sovereigns was a princely dower for any man to give—far too much for a simple goldsmith, no matter how prosperous. Who had fathered Mistress Broom, and bestowed such a goodly fortune upon her?
Ask her.
Thomas shrank from the obvious. Perchance she did not know who her parents were. Then his question would sound petty, or worse, full of avarice. She would think he only consented to marry her for the gold that his father had already spent years ago. Thomas shook his head. She must never think that for a moment, because it was not true. He would marry her because he had promised to do so a decade ago—and because he had lost his heart to her.
Inspired by this resolution, he opened his writing case, and drew out paper, pen and ink.
To the angel of my dreams, Alicia—he wrote.
The dinner bell rang just as he sealed his note with red wax. He discovered his squire loitering outside the library’s door. Thomas handed his letter to the boy.
“Put this where Mistress Alicia is certain to find it,” he instructed him.
Andrew grinned. “My lord? Methinks you have—”
Thomas interrupted him. He had no desire to hear any more of his squire’s sly observations of his master’s love life. “Away with you, magpie. You talk too much, and think not at all.”
Alicia hurriedly changed out of her wet clothes, and into a gown of light blue linen before going down to the hall for dinner. She grinned to herself in the huge gilt-framed looking glass. This morning’s toil had been worth all her effort, she mused. She undid her loose braid, then brushed out her hair. Afterward, she covered her head with a plain wimple that allowed her tresses to hang freely down her back.
As she pulled on a clean pair of stockings, she heard the outer door of her suite open without a preliminary knock. She wondered who invaded her privacy. A chill gripped her. Perhaps someone knew of the treasure she had hidden under her mattress, and they had now come creeping into her room to steal it. Gathering her courage, she quietly lifted the iron poker from the side of the fireplace. Gripping it tightly, she peeked around the corner. To her surprise she spied Andrew putting something into her sewing basket.
“How now, Master Ford?” she inquired, coming into the solar. “Have you taken up embroidery as a pastime?”
It gave her a certain sense of satisfaction to see the boy jump, and flush with guilt.
He covered his embarrassment with a dramatic flourish and a low bow. “Ah, Mistress Broom, you have found out my little vice. I pray you, do not bandy it about the hall, or, I fear, I shall have more requests for my handiwork than I have time to stitch them.” He started to back out the door. “Your pardon, but the dinner bell has rung, and I must attend my lord straightway. We awoke before the sun this morning, and barely paused to eat before returning to Wolf Hall. He is quite famished. And so am I,” the squire added as he made good his escape.
Alicia ran to her workbasket. Nestled among her skeins of bright-colored floss, she found another note. She sank down on the stool beside the cold hearth. “Oh, Andrew! Not again!”
She broke open the seal. Once more the sweet written words plucked at her soul.
To the angel of my dreams, Alicia—
Methinks I have gone mad, though I appear to the world as if I have not. ‘Tis a sham. I can no longer think of anything but you. I cannot form two words together without whispering your name between them. You have quite overwhelmed my heart, and have made your abode therein. Each passing hour makes me desire you more and more. I swear I shall be moonstruck before the next month turns the calendar—unless I hear from your lips that you love me.
She stared at the paper in her hand. “Oh, Andrew, ‘tis folly in
deed, and none of my doing. This greensickness of yours is truly madness, and must be stopped today.”
Since there was no fire in the grate, she tore the loving message into tiny pieces, then wrapped them in her handkerchief. She pushed the little bundle up her sleeve. As an afterthought, she withdrew a small blue velvet bag from under the bolster of her bed. If the squire could come and go in her chamber without risk, so could anyone else. The contents of the bag were too precious to leave unattended. She stuffed it up her other sleeve, then went down to dinner with the firm resolve to put a large flea into Andrew’s ear.
This proved much harder to carry out than she had expected. As before, Thomas seated her on his right, and shared his trencher and goblet with her. How could she possibly talk to Andrew about his ill-conceived infatuation with her betrothed sitting a heartbeat away? The squire’s smirks as he served the courses to his master did not help her digestion either. She could barely taste the food she had worked so hard to prepare.
“By the rood! What wizard has enchanted Master Konrad?” Thomas asked, after he had finished a second portion of pigeons stuffed with dates and mustard. “‘Tis the best victuals I have eaten in a year—nay, more.”
Alicia struggled to think of a way to claim responsibility without appearing vain or proud. Isabel laughed in a bright brittle manner. “La and a day, Thomas! Thank you for your kind words. I do believe that is the most I have heard you praise anything in too long a time to count.”
Alicia gulped as she fumbled for the wine goblet She wondered how she could denounce Isabel’s false claim without giving offense to Thomas.
The lower table grew silent Thomas placed his eating knife beside his trencher. “How now, Lady Isabel? Am I to understand that we should give you thanks for this delicious repast?”
His sister-in-law tossed her head. “Oh, ‘tis but a trifle, I assure you, dear heart. As your chatelaine, I felt ‘twas my duty to rectify the deplorable matters in the kitchen. I—”
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