’Tis not fair! a niggling voice whined in the recesses of her mind. Miranda squeezed her eyelids tighter to hold back a hovering tear of self-pity.
Kat gently shook her. “Miranda? Let us talk. I promise you, all will be well in time. What is it about Brandon Cavendish that particularly distresses you?”
With yet another sigh, Miranda pulled herself upright. “Nothing distresses me about him. He is peerless among men. ’Tis you who give me no rest at night”
“Aye? How so?”
“You have not spent one private moment in his company. You barely look upon him, let alone engage him in conversation. How long do you intend to keep up this deceit?”
“Till Midsummer’s Day,” Kat replied in a cheerful tone.
Miranda gasped. “The poor man! What is he to think when you present yourself to him at the church door?”
Kat laughed lightly. “They do say that midsummer brings a certain madness with it.”
“’Tis not the magic of midsummer that infects Bodiam with lunacy, but you, Kat! This false face you have made me wear will cause me to loose my wits long before the wedding day ever comes.” Miranda gave a small sob despite her efforts to stifle it. “And I am too young to go mad.”
Putting her arm around Miranda’s shoulders, Kat pulled her closer. “Have no fear, gentle cousin. You will not rue this time, I swear it to you. All will be well that ends well.”
“How?” Miranda sniffed.
“What do you think of Sir John?” Kat asked, after a pause.
Miranda stiffened. “Is this your device? To marry me off to that...that bluff rascal? I’d rather retire to a nunnery!”
Kat laughed softly. “So, my Lord Stafford does not stand high in your estimation?”
Emboldened by Kat’s apparent lack of anger, Miranda continued. “Nay. He does not sing well, nor write poetry. Granted, he is a handsome brute to look at, but methinks Sir John lacks a certain grace that Sir Brandon is blessed with in abundance.”
“And you think these attributes are important in a good husband?”
Miranda sighed deeply. “Aye, I do!”
Kat hugged her. “Well, harken to this, dearest coz. I do not like the man who courts you, for all his pretty ways. If, by magic, mystery or mayhem, I could leave him to you on Midsummer’s Day, would you take him?”
Miranda could scarcely believe her ears! Was Kat planning to run away and become a nun? How ludicrous! Of all the women Miranda had known in her twenty-eight years, Katherine Fitzhugh was the least likely person to yearn for a cloistered life.
“But how is this possible?” Miranda sucked on her lower lip with forbidden hope.
Kat laughed. “The moon will be full.”
Miranda shook her head. Poor sweet Katherine! She was the one who had gone mad!
“Would you take him?” Kat prodded her.
Miranda swallowed at the thought. “Aye, in a heartbeat.”
Kat hugged her again, then sang, “‘Jack shall have Jill, naught shall go ill, and all shall be well.’ Good night, coz, and sweet dreams attend you!” With a loud yawn, Kat slid beneath the covers.
Miranda stared at the dying embers in the fireplace. I will speak to Sondra first thing in the morning. Perhaps Kat is in desperate need of a purge to clear her addled wits.
Pacing behind the stables, Jess cursed himself for the twentieth time. Sir Brandon would have his hide when he found out what Jess had done. Actually, Jess had not meant to do it; ’twas Sondra’s fault. Hang the pretty wench! If he hadn’t fallen under her spell...
Jess licked his lips. Not that he minded being in Sondra’s thrall. Aye, she was bonny and buxom, and she pleased him more than any other woman had ever pleased him. In or out of bed. She could make him laugh with her tales and her jests; she brewed a good ale; she had banished that troublesome wart on the back of his hand. At night, she warmed both his heart and his loins. Each morning, she left him with a kiss lingering on his lips, like a drop of honey. But, somehow, she had conned him into betraying his master. Now there would be hell to pay when Lord Cavendish learned of Jess’s perfidy.
Was he a man, or a runny-nosed apprentice afraid of his master’s ire? Jess drew up to his fullest height and expanded his chest to give himself courage. With a resolution stuck firm in his heart, Jess strode into the stables where he knew the knights were giving their horses their morning’s oats.
“Good morrow, Jess.” Brandon grinned at him over the back of Windchaser. “How fares the day? Will the weather hold?”
Jess blinked to accustom his eyes to the dimness of the stable’s interior. “Aye, my lord. Not a cloud to be seen. Just now, I spied a kestrel winging high in the sky. ’Tis a good omen.” He shifted his feet on the straw-strewn floor.
Brandon chuckled, then called to Jack, who was in the act of inspecting one of Thunder’s shoes. “Do you mark that, Jack? Jess predicts ’twill be a fine day. A good day for hunting.”
Jess looked up from studying the toe of his boot. “Hunting, my lord? Do you have in mind a hart, or some rabbits, mayhap a boar?”
Brandon flashed him a wicked grin. “Nay, we will not need your services this day, Jess, save to give Windchaser and Thunder a good run in the fields. I speak of a heart of a different sort. And our hunting grounds will be a picnic, eh, Jack?”
Jack’s chuckle answered him.
Jess licked his lips. “Aye, ’twill be a fine day for that, my lord.” Tell him now, his conscience prodded him, while Sir Brandon was in a good mood.
Jess cleared his throat. “My lord...” he faltered, trying to decide exactly how to begin.
Brandon patted Windchaser’s rump as he crossed behind the horse. “Aye, Jess?”
“My lord...” he started again. God’s nightshirt! What was he going to say?
Brandon regarded him with a thoughtful air. “Methinks you are much troubled, Jess. Has the delightful housekeeper thrown you out of her affections?”
Jess’s eyes widened. “You know of her, my lord?”
Grinning, Brandon nodded. “Aye, with two large-eyed squires such as Mark and Christopher, there are scant goings-on in this place that we haven’t heard about.”
“Save for the personal activities of Mark and Christopher,” added Jack, wiping his hands clean with a piece of old felt. “Come, Jess, you can tell me your sad tale, for am I not the acknowledged Jack of Hearts? I am at your disposal to advise you how to win back the good woman’s interest.”
“Nay, my lords. Sondra and me...” He shuffled the straw some more. “We do right well. That is not what I’ve come to tell you.”
Brandon clapped him on the shoulder. “Well, then, out with it, man! My stomach rumbles for some bread and a bit of last night’s roast duck. What is on your mind?”
Jess hung his head. “Your pardon, my lord. I beg your forgiveness, for I’ve gone and betrayed you.”
Brandon shook his head slowly. “How now? Take me with you, huntsman. Just what have you betrayed?”
“’Twas not all my fault, my lord.”
“It never is,” Brandon muttered under his breath.
Jess felt a warmth crawl up the back of his neck at that remark. “But I’ll take the blame for all.”
“I’ll wager two shillings the matter has a woman behind it,” Jack remarked, leaning against the stall.
Brandon pointed to a bale of hay. “Sit down, Jess, and tell us this interesting tale.”
Jess plopped onto the hay, took a deep breath and embarked with his story. “This morning Sondra left me as usual—”
Jack snapped his fingers. “Ha! The wager is mine!”
Brandon shot Jack a dark look. “Go on,” he urged Jess.
“And as it was still some time afore I was to rise, I lay back and thought upon what we did—Sondra and myself—”
Brandon held up his hand. “We do not need to hear the details of that, Jess.”
“Why not?” Jack grinned.
Jess plunged on, afraid that, if he was stopped again
, he would lose his nerve. “And I got to remembering the first night we...ah, met, and the most peculiar thing of it was, that I didn’t remember when Sondra came to me.”
“How now? Forget taking that buxom wench?” Jack arched his eyebrow. “How much ale did you drink that night, Jess?”
“Jack!” Brandon growled.
Jess nodded. “Just so, my lord. ‘Twas more than my usual. And as I lay there, twixt waking and sleep, it came to me in bits and pieces. And ’twas right pleasurable in the remembering.” Jess grinned in spite of the situation.
“I am all ears.” Brandon upended a wooden bucket, then sat down on it. “Pray, tell us more.”
“Then, as I was remembering the things we said and did, I recalled saying something like I was fortunate to be a-sleeping true, when my lord was a-sleeping false.”
Brandon whistled under his breath but said nothing. Jess relaxed a little. At least his master wasn’t bellowing—not that bellowing was his lord’s usual practice—but Jess wasn’t too sure how Sir Brandon was going to react, when he finally got to the meat of the problem.
“And then Sondra tickled me in...well, in a private place of mine, and she asked what did I mean. And I, feeling drowsy and content, said something like that my lord was a-playing at being Sir John, and Sir John was a-wooing up a storm to Lady Katherine as Sir Brandon.”
“Hoy-day!” Jack slapped his leg. “The horse is out of the stable now!”
“And what did Sondra say?” Brandon asked in a calm tone.
Jess cut a quick glance in his direction and was relieved to see that Lord Cavendish had not changed color. This boded much better than Jess had hoped. “She did nothing but laugh and tickle me some more. And she asked me to repeat what I said. I confess that my mind was on my nether parts, and not on what I was a-saying. But the more I thought on it this morning, the more clear the vision got. And now, I swear to you, I believe I did tell her of your disguising, my lord. But I never did it intentionally, by God’s holy word, I swear.”
Brandon patted the huntsman on his shoulder, which cheered Jess considerably. “Peace, my friend. ’Twas not your fault. It appears we are surrounded by a flock of scheming women.”
“Pretty ones, though,” interjected Jack. “You have to give them that. I have never seen such a sweet bunch of posies in my life—chambermaids, housekeepers, musicians, companions—and the fair lady, who rules over them all.”
Jess blinked at Jack. “Aye, my lord. They are right handsome.”
Just then Brandon laughed, the sound floating up from his throat and filling the stable. A few of the grooms looked out from the stall boxes where they were sweeping.
“And we three are a right handsome trio of pantaloons!” Brandon continued to laugh so hard he had to drape himself over Windchaser’s back to support himself.
“Then you’ll forgive me, sir?” Jess asked, looking from one lord to the other.
Jack shrugged. “Methinks he does—when he can get his breath back.”
Brandon finally ceased, with a chuckle or two, then wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. “Gentlemen, had I a pitcher of Mistress Owens’s beer, I would bid you join me in a toast to the fair ladies who have bedeviled our lives. Since I have neither beer nor cups, think on it when next you drink.”
“Aye.” Jess nodded. He could do with a cup of cool beer right about now. Confession took a lot out of a man.
Brandon fished in his poke and drew out a sixpence, which he handed to Jess. “Take that for your pains, Jess, and be gone. I am right glad to hear that Mistress Owens has not yet grown tired of you, even after she got what she looked for in the first place.”
“Thank you, sir.” Jess wasn’t too sure what his lord meant by all that, but a sixpence in the hand was a far better punishment than a lick or two on his back.
“I take it you are not dismayed by this turn of events?” Jack asked.
Brandon smiled with a smug, cat-in-the-cream look. “Nay, ’tis better than I had hoped for, Jack.”
“How so?”
“Why now, I have no qualms against seducing the sweet mistress of this fine abode. If I know who she is, and she knows who I am, then I have no fear of cuckolding myself—in her eyes.”
“But does the lady know that you know that she knows?” Jack asked.
“Jackanapes! You quibble like a lawyer!” Brandon rubbed his hands together. “What a picnic we will have this day! I have set my mind upon a most particular dessert—of a private nature—and I mean to enjoy it fully!”
Both the gentlemen burst out laughing. Jess scratched his head. Hang it all if he could understand the nobility! Nodding to the knights, who continued to bray at each other, Jess left the stable a satisfied man. A clear conscience, and a sixpence to go with it—not a bad day’s work, and ’twas only seven of the clock in the morning.
“Queen Mab’s Malady? Ha! A pox upon it! I have been made the fool of all fools, Wormsley!” Fenton glowered through the red haze of his anger at his servant. “And by that bitch of an aunt!”
Wormsley returned Fenton’s look with a complete lack of concern. Fenton curled his lip. Idiot! Kat had played her wicked deed on the boy, as well as the master. Didn’t the slug care that he had great itching hives, or that his nose had run green snot and pepper for two days? Fenton gnashed his teeth. Hell wasn’t hot coals and dancing devils. It was being cooped up in a rank Dover inn with a mewling idiot for company, and a tender skin racked with nettle stings and peeling blisters!
Wormsley snuffled. “Your aunt is a most loving lady, and has always shown you kindness, my lord. Pray, sir, hold still, so that I can apply this ointment upon the proper spots.”
The cooling medicine did very little to soothe Fenton’s festering anger. “Loving and kind? Your head has been ass-kicked. She is a shrew, and a cunning woman—two traits I abhor in a female.”
“Perchance ’twas some of the maids who put the nettles in our beds, and pepper everywhere else.” Wormsley’s fingers swirled more ointment on the angry red welts down Fenton’s back.
Fenton snorted. “If I believed that, I would beat every one of them within an inch of their miserable lives, then throw the little sluts out onto the road. Aye, methinks I will do just that, once I have Bodiam in my control.”
“How can that be, my lord? Lady Katherine will be married in ten days. My advice is that you make peace with my Lord Cavendish, since he will hold the purse strings then.”
“That great blond ape?” Fenton glared over his shoulder at Wormsley. What a puking moon-face the boy had! When I can afford it, I will heave this bit of vermin back into the pigsty from whence he came, and find myself another servant, one whose thoughts will be the brothers of mine.
“Sir Brandon would sooner see me locked in the clink for indebtedness than lift one finger on my behalf. He wants Kat’s fortune all for himself. But I swear to you, he will not have that pleasure. Furthermore, I’ll thank you to keep your advice to yourself.”
Fenton smiled grimly to himself. He needed no one’s help. Last night, a brilliant plan had sprung full-blown from his brain. As soon as he could sit upon his horse in comfort, they would return to Bodiam.
The problem had now come to a head. No more time to sweet-talk Aunt Kat into assigning over to him his proper rights. Besides, after the treatment he had suffered at her hands, Fenton was not inclined to be sweet to her about anything. Uncle Edward Fitzhugh had had the right idea—keep a woman in her place by a good swat or two. Never let them get the upper hand. Yes, ’twould be a pleasure to turn the tables on her—to make Kat beg and grovel for her sustenance. And the husband the king had sent her? This time next week, he’ll be dead and in the ground.
“Dead,” Fenton muttered aloud, savoring the very sound of the word.
Wormsley stopped his ministrations. “My...my lord?”
Fenton smiled at him. It pleased him to see the boy take a step backward. “Dead, Worm. Do you hear? Colder than a gravestone!”
The whey-fac
ed servant licked his lips. “Who, my lord?”
“You will see anon. Aye, before Midsummer’s Day. My double-dealing aunt will go to the church, not for a wedding, but for a funeral.” Fenton removed his dagger from its sheath. He pointed it at the boy. “And I trust that you will say nothing, or ’twill be the worse for you. Mark me, you scurvy knave?”
Wormsley’s eyelids blinked rapidly. “Aye, my Lord Scantling. I mark you well.”
Fenton fingered the blade. Perchance, when he tossed Wormsley back into his father’s sty, ’twould be in the manner of a corpse. Fenton needed no tale-teller in his shadow. In less than ten days, Lord Scantling would become a very rich man.
Chapter Eleven
“Do not twitch so, my lady,” Sondra muttered through a mouthful of pins. “If you want the skirt’s hem even, you must stand still.”
Kat released a deep breath. “Aye.”
For the past hour, Sondra had fussed over the fitting of Kat’s wedding gown. First she worried about the hang of the outer sleeves, trying to make sure they were even. Now she knelt on the floor of Kat’s chamber working on the hem of the chapel train.
Kat looked down at the dress she wore. The white brocade gleamed in the sunlight streaming through the window. Sondra had done an excellent job fitting the bodice; it accented the rise of Kat’s breasts without revealing too much. Gold lace and pearls edged the square neckline. The underskirt, revealed by a split that ran from waist to hem, was made of sumptuous gold satin. The same material lined the gown’s outer sleeves, while gold lace, sprinkled with pearls, made up the puffed inner sleeves. Truly, the wedding gown was a masterpiece fit for Queen Catherine herself.
A cold lump settled itself in the pit of Kat’s stomach. Stars! This wedding was really going to happen! The past several weeks had been a pleasant diversion—almost like a dream, and one Kat had thoroughly enjoyed. Now the reckoning was due. In eight days—unless the world came to an abrupt end—Kat would wed for a third time. The game would be over. Reality would return to stay. Her fingers plucked at the lacy cuffs; a pearl bounced across the floor.
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