June Francis

by Convenient Wife Rebel Lady

  She heaved a sigh. She should never have risked that walk across the sands. Her wits must have gone begging because otherwise how had she, normally a woman of good sense, convinced herself that the father who most likely didn’t know of her existence would be glad to see her? It was possible that she might end up in more trouble than when she had set out from Fenwick. For a start, she had lied to Jack about her reason for wanting to go to France and no doubt God would punish her for her sin. But perhaps causing Jack to carry out his plan to set her ashore on the south coast of England would compensate for her wrongdoing?

  What if she told him the truth? No! She still had hopes that she could get to France; if he knew of her plan, he might not be so keen to leave her to her own devices in England. She also knew that, if she told him, she would be admitting to being a bastard child, and she just couldn’t do it. This despite her belief that her parents had loved each other.

  She wondered if Jack had ever been in love. He had told Owain that he was not in the market for a bride. Did that mean he had no intention of ever marrying, or not just yet? If he did marry, would he make a marriage of convenience or had he delayed taking a wife because he was looking for love? She found herself remembering that frisson of pleasure and excitement when he had held her in his arms. Just thinking about it caused a tingle inside her.

  How had her thoughts strayed into such realms? She told herself that she needed something to do. The devil found work for idle hands. A shiver ran through her as she remembered her nightmare the last night she had slept in a proper bed. Suddenly she was aware of the slightest movement of the ship and the faintest creaking of ropes. It was like being rocked gently in a giant cradle.

  She stared out into the fog. Ireland would be to starboard and beyond that country lay the great ocean, where sea monsters were rumoured to swim in the deep cold waters. She tried to imagine what they looked like and what she would do if one should suddenly loom out of the grey curtain of the mist. Shout for Jack? She felt he was a man like St George, capable of fighting dragons for a woman. The voices of the crew sounded loud in the still air. Were they prepared for such an event? If only a breeze would spring up and the sun come out, then she could sit on the deck with her tapestry and think some more about how to persuade Jack to take her to France.

  ‘You’ll catch a chill if you remain here much longer,’ said Jack, appearing suddenly out of the mist and startling her. He placed his hands on the side of the ship, next to her elbow. He was muffled in a cloak and tiny droplets of mist clung to the dark fringe of hair curling on his forehead. She felt that tug of physical attraction. Had he deliberately come in search of her? Or had he just come upon her, without realising she was here?

  ‘Have you any idea when the mist will lift?’ she asked, more as a means of making conversation than expecting him to know the answer.

  He surprised her by giving her a definite answer. ‘Within an hour or so. There’s a change in the air on the starboard side.’

  She crinkled her brow. ‘I can’t feel any hint of a breeze.’

  ‘You soon will. In the meantime, perhaps you should sit in your cabin until the sun breaks through.’ He straightened up as if to move away.

  ‘I’d rather remain on deck,’ she said firmly. ‘I’ll enjoy watching the mist evaporate in the sun.’

  Jack said, ‘I saw a painting in Venice once. It was a picture of the sun piercing the mist over part of the city, the lagoon and its islands. Its rays gilded the domes of buildings so they seemed to float above the clouds as if by magic. If I could have afforded the artist’s price I would have bought it, but at the time…’ He shrugged broad shoulders beneath the brown cloak.

  ‘I’ve heard that the Venetians are talented in many ways, painting, sculpture, glassmaking…and, of course, I can vouch for their skill at making musical instruments,’ she added with a smile.

  ‘I never realised you could play the lute so well,’ said Jack.

  She looked him straight in the eye. ‘If you deem I play well, then why are you so against my playing? It seems foolish to deprive not only yourself of pleasure, but also the crew.’

  ‘I have my reasons,’ he said shortly.

  ‘Name them?’ she challenged.

  He looked away and over the side of the ship. ‘I don’t have to explain myself,’ he rasped. ‘This is my ship and what I say goes.’

  ‘When it involves the safety and the navigation of this vessel I agree,’ said Anna. ‘But how can a little music endanger this voyage?’

  He lifted his head and sighed. ‘You ask too many questions. We either change the subject or…’

  ‘You will distance yourself from me again,’ she said lightly.

  ‘I have to guard your reputation.’

  ‘To the extent that you scarcely do more than exchange greetings with me,’ she said coolly. ‘Or is your real reason because you believe me a witch and a wanton after all and that I seek to ensnare you in my coils?’ She realised immediately that her words had struck home. His hand tightened on the wood and for a moment she thought he would express his disapproval of her honesty by walking away.

  Instead, he said gruffly, ‘Of course not! I can only ask for your understanding. For a long time I was cut off from the company of decent women and I am out of the habit of making polite conversation. I find it especially difficult in the company of a lady such as yourself. Perhaps you don’t realise how comely you are.’

  She felt the heat rise in her cheeks. ‘I confess it is a long time since a man has paid me a compliment.’

  ‘If you had stayed at Rowan, then no doubt you’d have met the kind of men who would seek you out and pay court to you.’

  ‘That thought had not occurred to me. Just like you, I am not in the market for a spouse.’

  ‘Why not? Owain found you one good husband. No doubt he could do the same again. He has your well-being at heart and is a good judge of character.’

  ‘You almost persuade me, Jack, that I should have done what you said and stayed at Rowan,’ she said in a mocking voice. ‘But it is too late now. Besides, the past has a habit of coming back to haunt us and who is to say that Hal and Will might not already be spreading rumours about me, saying that I was responsible for Marjorie’s death.’

  ‘You should not have run away.’

  Her eyes sparkled. ‘I didn’t.’

  ‘If you’d stayed and taken them to court, you could have demanded they produce proof of their slander.’

  ‘They would have accused me of witchcraft and so many people are superstitious and act irrationally in such circumstances. You must know that, Jack,’ she said earnestly. ‘Not all folk are as enlightened as you are.’

  Jack made no answer. For he was remembering part of a conversation he had overheard between his father and stepmother. It had involved Owain. Apparently he had been acquitted after being brought to trial for the manslaughter of a nobleman suspected of murdering a knight. The murder had taken place at the ap Rowans’ other manor in Lancashire. He had only been a boy at the time and he could have misheard some of the conversation but he seemed to remember witchcraft had been suspected at first but in the end it was proved otherwise.

  ‘I think you misjudge the common sense of most folk, Anna.’

  ‘You think so?’ She sighed. ‘I wish the past was not always with us.’

  He nodded. ‘Sometimes I manage to put the past behind me but then suddenly it comes back to haunt me in dreams and I am back in Bruges or Amiens or Arabia. Whenever the fever recurs my nightmares are particularly vivid.’

  Anna placed her hand on his arm. ‘This fever—have you any notion what causes it? How often does it recur?’

  Jack recognised a genuine interest in her lovely eyes. Unexpectedly she reminded him of someone, but he could not immediately put a name to the person.

  ‘If you do not wish to speak of your suffering, I understand,’ said Anna gently, watching the differing expression flutter across his scarred face.

  ‘T
his I do not mind talking about,’ said Jack with a faint smile. ‘The ague came upon me after I was bitten by a mosquito. So many perish of the fever after such a bite, but I was fortunate. My mistress consulted her physician as soon as I fell ill. For a long time I hovered between life and death, but, as you can see, I survived.’

  ‘Your owner was a woman?’

  ‘She was one of several owners, but the others were men.’

  ‘She must have valued you greatly to consult her own physician for healing.’

  He jerked a nod. ‘She paid good money for me. I was grateful and I worked hard for her. She dragged me out of the pit and I vowed I would never fall so low again.’

  ‘She sounds a good woman,’ said Anna.

  ‘She was a widow…a dealer in cloth and dyes…and treated me like a son,’ he murmured.

  Anna was pleased that he had been more forthcoming about the years of his enslavement. ‘You say she dragged you out of a pit…’

  ‘I was not speaking literally,’ he said shortly. ‘Now, no more questions.’

  She knew that she must be patient if one day she was to hear more of the years he had spent as a slave. ‘Forgive me, Jack. I will not pry.’

  He did not reply and she realised that she no longer had his attention. He had lifted his head and was gazing in the direction of the mainsail. Anna’s eyes followed his and she saw that the canvas was stirring. ‘Your breeze is coming,’ she said.

  ‘Aye!’ His face was animated. He excused himself and hurried away to consult with Master Dunn.

  With the weather in their favour once more, they made good progress during the next couple of days. But any hope Anna had that Jack would tell her more of his past was frustrated, for he resorted once again to keeping himself aloof from her. She felt slighted, but she adopted an attitude of not caring and worked at her tapestry, picking out a cornflower in woollen thread dyed with woad here and a poppy in red there. She sang softly as she worked to help keep her spirits up. She was vexed with Jack. What was wrong with the man that he could not at least be sociable? He had his freedom, so should be making the most of it. Life was too short to be wasted dwelling on what one could not change. Often she thought of Giles and her son, trying to find some comfort these days in recalling the happy times they had spent together.

  But sometimes her thoughts dwelt on what Jack had said about the widow who had treated him like a son. Had he regretted leaving her behind when he escaped? How had he escaped? She wanted to learn more about this man, but knew she would have to be patient.

  Fortunately, at mealtimes they were joined by Peter Dunn. Jack’s master mariner was a man of medium height, whose weatherbeaten face was half-concealed by a great gingery moustache and beard. He had many a story to tell about sea monsters, as well as sirens who would lure a sailor to his death, if he didn’t have the God-given sense to close his ears to them. Anna was amused by his tales but, more often than not, she spent hours on her own with much too much time to think. There were times when she thought of her natural father and whether he had a wife and children. If he was a family man and she was to find him, how she could make herself known to him without hurting them? It was a question that demanded an answer.

  They were somewhere off the Cornish coast when Anna decided as a change from working on her tapestry that she would inspect Giles’s collection of parchments. So being of a mind to try to read some of the script, she unrolled the vellum and placed it on its cloth wrapping on the plank that served as a table. She could feel the sun on her back and the breeze caressed her cheek as she leaned over the manuscript and began to translate the Latin.

  ‘What have you there, Lady Fenwick?’

  She glanced up at Master Dunn and smiled. ‘It’s a parchment from the twelfth century, written by a monk.’

  ‘You can read the writing?’ he asked in amazement.

  ‘Some of it; the rest I guess.’ She hesitated before adding, ‘When I showed interest in learning the songs and hymns of the Abbess Hildegard, my half-brother paid for one of the nuns at a local convent to teach me Latin. Owain, himself, taught me some French as several of her songs were translated into that tongue.’

  ‘Master Jack will be interested,’ he said eagerly. ‘As well as other costly goods, he used to trade in old parchments. Of course, this was before he was abducted.’

  Anna secreted away this new information. She also decided to take the opportunity to ask Master Dunn whether he knew who had abducted Jack.

  ‘A rival in business, so he told us,’ replied the mariner, stroking his beard. ‘And it’s true there is rivalry between the different merchant houses, my lady. He was a Frenchman.’

  ‘I suppose Jack often visited France?’

  ‘Aye, regularly. We would set him ashore somewhere off the northern coast. Sometimes we would sail to Calais and tie up at one of the quays there, but more often than not he preferred a quiet stretch of shore.’

  Anna was puzzled. ‘Why was that?’

  ‘Didn’t want any enemies knowing his every move.’

  ‘I see,’ she said thoughtfully. ‘If Jack has enemies in France, what business takes him there now?’

  ‘Unfinished business, I should think. Master Jack is no fool and he does have many acquaintances and friends in France—so, no need for you to worry about him,’ said the master mariner.

  ‘What’s this, Peter, taking your ease?’ asked Jack, coming up behind him.

  ‘Nay, Master Jack,’ he replied hastily. ‘I was just admiring Lady Fenwick’s ability to understand this here ancient manuscript. She says it’s three hundred years old.’

  ‘Then she should not have it out in the sun,’ said Jack, his dark brows knitting as he gazed down at the parchment. ‘The light will cause the ink to fade.’

  Anna realised she should have considered that possibility and gave a wry smile. ‘You’re right, Jack. But I did not want to closet myself in the cabin on such a fine day.’

  ‘Then perhaps you should go beneath the awning,’ said Jack, bringing his head on level with hers, so he could inspect the parchment more closely. ‘Can you really read this script, Anna?’

  ‘I deem you suspect me of deceiving your master mariner, Jack,’ she said in a mocking voice. ‘Do you believe I am only admiring this beautifully illuminated work with its paintings of animals and fruit, demons, men and angels?’

  Jack smiled. ‘You have to admit, Anna, it is unusual to find a lady able to read a parchment such as this.’

  ‘She can read French as well as Latin, Master Jack—says her half-brother taught her so as to help her sing her songs,’ was Peter’s parting shot as he left them alone.

  Jack lifted his gaze and looked at Anna. Her cheeks were flushed by the sun, her eyes were bright and her lips were curved in a smile. He imagined how it would feel to plant a kiss on those soft lips and instantly had to clamp down on the thought. ‘You must get out of the sun.’

  ‘I will,’ she murmured.

  ‘Is your knowledge of written French one of the reasons why you believe yourself able to cope if you do go on pilgrimage through France?’ he asked.

  ‘I can speak some French and certainly I would hope that would be of some use to me,’ said Anna, shading the manuscript from the sun with her upper body. ‘I am certainly still of a mind to visit that country.’

  His expression was not encouraging. ‘You will find it nigh impossible to understand the different dialects of the provinces that make up France, Anna. As for its people understanding your attempts at speaking their language, no doubt they will find your accent just as baffling.’

  She drew in her breath with a hiss. ‘Jack Milburn, I would have you know that I have not only sung in French but Owain conversed with me in that language, as did my husband, Sir Giles. I think I told you that he fought in King Henry’s wars in his youth?’

  ‘You did. But what you say makes no difference to my decision to set you down in Plymouth,’ said Jack, his jaw set firm. ‘If it weren’t for the danger o
f rocks on the Cornish coast, I would drop you off now. I’ve heard there are several interesting places of pilgrimage in Cornwall to do with the Celtic saints.’

  ‘Parting company with you cannot come quickly enough for me,’ responded Anna hotly. ‘Now, if you would leave me be, I will continue with my perusal of this parchment.’

  ‘Why did you bring such a costly item with you?’ he said irritably. ‘It was foolish. Footpads haunt the lonely tracks across the moors and it could be stolen. Unless you originally had in mind to find a buyer for it in Chester?’

  ‘I had no choice but to bring it with me, for I rescued it with others from my burning house,’ replied Anna.

  He was astounded. ‘You have more than one?’

  ‘Aye. Giles was a collector.’

  He swore beneath his breath. ‘You would have been wiser leaving them in Owain’s safe keeping, Anna.’

  ‘Well, I didn’t,’ she snapped, annoyed with his oh-so-sensible remark. ‘If you are so worried a robber might snatch them away, I will donate the whole lot to a religious house once you set me ashore. Then neither of us will need to worry about them.’

  ‘That would indeed be a generous act, but use your sense. You will need the money they could fetch in the market place to rebuild your house. I don’t know how comfortably your husband left you when he died, but unless you remarry, it’s possible you’ll have to support yourself for some twenty years or more.’

  ‘Unless I go into a nunnery,’ she flung at him.

  He looked aghast. ‘You can’t still be contemplating doing so. I cannot understand your desire to live the secluded life when you should have no difficulty finding another husband.’

  ‘I thank you for the compliment, Master Milburn, but I have no intention of remarrying unless my heart is involved,’ she said rashly. ‘I understand you are concerned about my well-being, but I will make my own decision about what is right for me. At the moment I have made no decisions about my future when I return home—if I return home. Still, I agree with you that a widow woman out in the world can never have too much money. So perhaps I should hand the parchments over to you to sell when you reach France.’