by Jane Feather
Instinctively, she touched the bracelet at her wrist as if, despite its sinister qualities, it could give her courage to face the small knot of people in the hall. Her cousin and her husband, two of the French lords, and the duke, whom Maude immediately recognized from her brief peep the previous night. But she hadn't been aware then of the sheer physical power of his presence. He seemed to be too big for the hall. He towered over the others, and yet she could see that he was not that much taller than his French lords. It just seemed as if he were. He appeared to be paying scant attention to the conversation but slapped his gloves into the palm of one hand with an air of impatience that made Maude's heart jump painfully.
He glanced toward the stairs and smiled. "Ah, there you are, ma chere. I grow impatient for the sight of you." He came with quick step to the bottom of the stairs and extended his hand to her.
Maude's heart lurched again in panic. But she laid her little hand in the duke's large, square one and smiled shyly. "My lord duke, forgive me if I've kept you waiting."
"No, not at all. I sadly lack patience, I'm afraid." He smiled rather ruefully. "I trust you'll not take it to heart if I seem unreasonably fretful at delay… but how well you're looking now. I thought you a little peaked at breakfast, but you have recovered your looks."
Maude couldn't help a smile of pleasure at the compliment. It was couched in such terms as to deny any hint of flattery; indeed, she rather thought this rough-hewn man would be incapable of flattery.
"The prospect of a morning on the river in Your Grace's company would bring out the best in any young woman," Imogen said with an obsequious smile.
The duke raised an eyebrow in such comical fashion that Maude was hard-pressed to keep a straight face. It was no wonder Miranda liked the man. She laid her hand on the duke's arm and they proceeded through the garden to the river. It was only as they passed through the wicket gate that Maude realized they were unaccompanied. Her foot faltered and she looked behind her.
"Is something amiss?" the duke inquired, pausing as he was about to hand her onto the barge.
"I… I was wondering where our companions are, sir. My… my chaperon?"
"Ah. I thought we could dispense with chaperons and companions on this occasion. My time is too short to spend overlong on formalities. I have your guardian's permission to be alone with you… although we are hardly alone." He gestured with a laugh to the bargemen, who stood at their oars.
Maude's heart was beating very fast. Miranda had assured her she would not be alone with the duke, and for all his jocular references to the boatmen, it was as clear as day that they would not be looking at their passengers. She hung back and the duke, with a laugh, caught her around the waist and lifted her bodily onto the barge.
"My lord duke!" she protested with a squeak. He'd said he was an impatient man. He clearly knew himself very well.
"Such a delicious little packet you are," he murmured with another of his rumbling laughs. "And I have to tell you that, while I'm sure you are virtuous as the Virgin Mary, you are not as demure and shy as you make out."
Maude gripped the rail, unable to find her voice. The duke laid a hand over hers but when she jerked it free with a little gasp, he smiled and rested his hands on the rail beside hers as the boatmen pulled the barge into the middle of the river.
Maude had very rarely been on the river. Her life as a reclusive invalid had granted few opportunities for such outdoor activities and for a moment she was able to forget the duke and enjoy the sights as they glided past the mansions lining the riverbanks, and the city of London passed slowly before her eyes. The cupola of Saint Paul's, the palace of Westminster, the great gray hulk of the Tower, the dreaded Tower steps, thick with green river slime, leading up to Traitors' Gate. Maude knew that very few people who entered the Tower through that grim portcullis ever emerged.
The sun shone on the river although there was an almost autumnal chill to the breeze and she was glad of her cloak. The sounds of the river entranced her-the shouts and curses, the ribald exchanges from craft to craft, the flap of sails, the smack of oars hitting the water, the watery sucking as they emerged dripping. And the variety of craft. Barges flying the pennants of the rich and noble, or the queen's standard as they went about Her Majesty's business between the palaces of Westminster, Greenwich, and Hampton Court. Flat-bottomed fishing boats, the wherries ferrying people across the river and from steps to steps along the city, the rowboats laden to the gunnels with fish and meat going to the great markets.
Henry leaned beside her on the rail, his eyes resting on her profile. The wind was whipping pink into her cheeks and there was something about her rapt expression that he found peculiarly endearing. "You're very quiet, Lady Maude," he said after a while. "Something more than usual is interesting you?"
"It's all so busy and so alive," Maude confided. "I hadn't realized how many people there are in the world and how much there is to do."
Such a curiously naive observation puzzled him. "But you have been on the river countless times. It's always thus in the daytime."
"Yes… yes, I realize. But each time I see it as if for the first time," Maude improvised, cursing her unruly tongue. She must be more careful.
That made Henry smile. She was quite enchanting. "How delightful you are, ma chere." He laid his hand over hers, and this time, when she tried to withdraw it, he tightened his hold. "Let us sit in the bow and talk. We have much to talk about, I think."
There seemed nothing for it but to accede. When they were seated, the duke kept hold of Maude's hand and she began to think that it was rather pleasant to sit in this fashion with a companion whom she had to admit was as pleasant and congenial as anyone she had ever met. She let her head fall back against the cushions behind her and closed her eyes against the warmth of the sun, listening to the soft plash of the water against the bow, the rise and fall of the oars, the distant calls of the river traffic. Her hand continued to lie passively in the duke's.
Henry smiled to himself, surprised to find that he was perfectly happy to leave things as they were. His impatience to press ahead with his wooing had abated.
There was a sweetness to this maid that he found refreshing and moving. Marguerite was lusty, powerful, manipulative, magnificent. His many mistresses had satisfied his physical needs, sometimes they'd provided mental companionship also, but his emotions had always been untouched. And he couldn't remember ever feeling protective before.
He looked down at her and wondered if she was sleeping. Gently, he moved her head onto his shoulder. Nothing happened. The breeze fluttered the wispy strands of dark hair escaping from her coif and her eyelashes were thick crescents against the cream
y pallor of her cheeks. He drew her cloak closer around her throat. Still she slept on. It was a very charming passivity, he thought, tracing the line of her jaw with his thumb. Her eyes shot open, blue as a cloudless sky, and she jerked upright, snatching her hand from his grasp.
"What were you doing?" Her voice again came out as a squeak.
"Nothing," he replied with a smile. "I was enjoying watching you sleep."
Maude touched her coif, praying it was still straight. She blinked vigorously to banish the last treacherous strands of sleep. It was terrifying to think that she had been lying there, unconscious, her head resting in that shameless fashion against his shoulder, and all the time he'd been observing her as she lay defenseless.
"Forgive me, sir. I didn't mean to be discourteous. It was just that the sun was so warm," she stammered. Had she revealed anything in her sleep? Had he noticed anything different about her while he was observing her so closely and without hindrance?
"It was very charming and not in the least discourteous," he responded. "But now you're awake, I wanted to talk some more about the discussion we were having last night."
Last night? What had he and Miranda been talking of last night? Miranda hadn't told her, and the duke was waiting for Maude to say something and her mind was a blank.
"Yes, my lord?" she said, tilting her head invitingly. "Please continue."
"I wish to be certain that you have no reservations about this union," he said. "You understand what it means to marry into the court of Henry of France?"
"I understand that only a Protestant could marry into that court, sir."
He nodded. "That is certainly the case." Then he laughed and it was a bitter sound. "But there are always circumstances when a man's religious convictions must be massaged to suit a certain end." He was thinking of the dreadful night when, at Marguerite's pleading, he had forsaken his Protestant heritage and converted to Catholicism. Her brother's sword had been at his throat. The conversion had saved his life, and ultimately had brought him the crown of France. And it had been simple enough to refute when circumstances permitted.
Maude swallowed then said vigorously, "I could not imagine the circumstances in which I would change my religious allegiances, my lord duke."
"Ah, you are fortunate in never having had to face such circumstances," he said after a minute.
Maude looked up at him. "Could you imagine converting to Catholicism, my lord duke?" There was a strange, deep throb in her voice.
Henry laughed again, but it was the same bitter sound. "Paris would be worth a mass," he said, with a cynical twist of his thin mouth.
"I don't understand, sir?"
Henry the king had spoken, not the duke of Roissy. Henry, who would do anything to secure the crown of France. He cleared his throat, said, "An idle joke. But I am very pleased to find that you hold so strongly to our Protestant beliefs."
Maude began to cough. It was a trick she had perfected over the years when she didn't care for the turn a conversation was taking, or she wished to cause a distraction. It was a dreadful hollow cough and she buried her face in her cloak, her shoulders quivering with the spasms.
"My poor child, you are ailing," her companion declared with concern. "I should never have exposed you to the river airs. There's no knowing what contagion they may carry. Bargemen, turn back and return to Harcourt at once."
Maude's coughing ceased almost as soon as the barge had been turned and was on its return journey. She raised her head from her cloak and delicately wiped her streaming eyes with her handkerchief. "It's nothing, sir." The hoarseness of her voice was not feigned after the violence of her coughing. "I suffer from the cough now and again, but I assure you it's not in the least serious."
"I am relieved-to hear it. I trust it's an infrequent affliction."
Miranda, of course, wouldn't have exhibited the slightest tendency to coughing fits. Maude said, "Oh, yes, sir, very infrequent."
He nodded and once again took her hand. She didn't dare take it back but sat stiffly upright beside him, saying nothing except murmured monosyllables to his various attempts at conversation, and when they reached home, she parted from him with a curtsy and a blushing farewell.
"Until dinner, ma chere?
"Yes, indeed, sir." Maude fled up the stairs to the safety of her own bedchamber.
Chapter Twenty-One
Miranda walked over London Bridge. The shops lining both sides of the bridge were crowded with customers, women haggling over material, ribbons, thread; merchants in fur-trimmed robes examining gold and silver; men arguing over the price of chickens, ducks, geese, squawking in their overcrowded cages; a man and a boy leading a ragged dancing bear by a rope through the ring in its nose.
The houses were rickety, leaning at all angles as the wooden bridge rode its pylons, the top stories beckoning to each other across the street. Chip rode on her shoulder, crouching close against her neck. There was a volatility to this crowd that disturbed him. The voices were too loud, too argumentative, and when a scuffle broke out in the doorway as they passed, he leaped into Miranda's arms and clung to her neck.
She stroked him to quiet him as she hurried on her way. If the troupe were heading for one of the Channel ports, they would have crossed the bridge to the south bank of the Thames. She would find news of them in one of the taverns. They would have stopped for the midday meal and they would have chatted with the innkeeper and his customers over their ale. Once she knew what port they were making for, she could send a message. The carriers who carried letters as a side business lined up at the gates of London advertising their destinations. They'd have no trouble finding the troupe for the right coin. And coin she would have to beg or borrow from Maude.
This determination kept at bay the great waves of unhappiness, but the dikes were fragile and she knew that it would take very little for them to collapse. She tried to strengthen them with common sense. But then everything would become muddled under the invincible memories of that morning. She had lost all her mistrust in the joy he had given her. But it had returned in full force the minute he had spoken words outside the charmed circle of that loving.
Bitterly, she blamed herself for being so gullible, for thinking that a nobleman could ever really care a farthing for a vagabond, a strolling player. He had simply bought her services. It was as simple as that, and only a fool would think that there had been anything else.
And like a fool, she had forgotten that. She'd allowed herself to see something else. She'd allowed herself to love him.
Miranda laughed aloud as she threaded her way through the narrow streets of Southwark.
She laughed at the absurdity of someone like herself falling in love with a nobleman at the court of Queen Elizabeth.
She drew amused glances from the men hanging on street corners, waiting for the brothels to open up for the day's business. But apart from calling insults after her no one bothered her. A girl in a ragged orange dress, laughing aloud to herself, must be crazed. And, indeed, she had to be as mad as any bedlamite.
Stupid… stupid… stupid. But no more.
She found news of the troupe at a tavern on Pilgrimage Street. They'd stopped for dinner here but to Miranda's surprise hadn't paid for their dinner by performing for the tavern's customers as they so often did.
Instead, they'd paid in silver. The tavernkeeper remembered the little dog, and the crippled lad, and the large woman with the gold plumes in her hat. But she hadn't noticed whether they seemed cheerful or downhearted. Only that they'd talked of going to Folkestone.
Miranda made her way back over London Bridge. Where had the silver come from? The only explanation was so terrible she had to force herself to think about it. They couldn't have sold her for Judas's thirty pieces of silver? It wasn't possible. Unless the earl had told them some he… that Miranda herself wanted them to go, to leave her. Had he told them that Miranda herself no longer wanted to be associated with them? That she was moving up in the world and believed herself too good for her old associates?