“A pity Bramley is so lofty,” remarked Heloise disconcertingly. “This hall is spacious and yet intimate.”
“Different purpose and newer, too,” he answered, disturbed that she might actually have read his mind. “Built in the sixties on wool money. Word is that Crosby never actually lived here. Mayhap he overstretched himself. A Lucchese banker, Antonio Bonvice, owns it now.”
“It is perfect.” Heloise sparkled, bringing her palms together in sheer exuberance.
Why did she have to be so lovely? It took all Miles’s strength of will to wrench his gaze from her moist parted lips. He should not be standing with her in the common gaze. She was arousing too much attention and she was arousing him. He cursed, wanting to steal his seductive madonna-in-mourning away to a bedchamber and peel the black damascened silk away inch by inch. He forced himself to stare instead at the lords, spiritual and temporal, amassing below, gratified that there were plenty of lesser nobility like himself diluting the assembly.
“Others like yourself, sir?” Hell take her! She must be reading his mind. He frowned at Heloise’s profile and then let out his breath with a self-conscious grin. If the lady was actually tapping into his head, then she should have been blushing, but there were only healthy smudges of rose along her cheekbones.
“Yes, ability riding on the backs of lordly mediocrity for the most part, though I admit some of them were born with brains as well as titles.”
“Just as well they are talking too loudly to hear you.” She laughed. “Are there any Woodvilles?” He shook his head. With two in sanctuary, three in prison, one at sea, and Dorset, who had been tracked by dogs out on Moorfields, now in hiding, the queen had no glib defenders on the council. He did a swift calculation of how many councilors might still support the queen.
“Counting heads for the dukes?” Heloise’s soft chiding broke through his reverie.
“Mistress, will you stop—” He broke off. Lord Hastings had entered the hall and, glancing up at the gallery, recognized Miles.
“Dear God, who is he?” Heloise’s sunshine pleasure vanished. “That man nodding to you?”
“Ogling you, morelike, madam. The famous Lord Hastings. You might say he was to King Edward what I am to Buckingham.” Another cysgod.
Heloise stared wide-eyed at the great lord who had summoned the two dukes into alliance against the queen. “D-does he always wear sleeves like that?” The lower ends of the lord chamberlain’s mourning sleeves had been slashed from heel to midcalf level into equal strips, each edged with gold embroidery.
Miles tried to make light of her change of humor. “Italian, I should not wonder. Stand here for much longer and you will see him goose a passing maidservant. Keep a league from him, changeling, or he will charm your underlinen off you.”
Heloise gripped the rail to steady herself. Lord Hastings had been the beleaguered victim in her dream! Mercy Jesu! Was she meant to warn or prevent . . . She watched the late king’s friend move affably through the hall bestowing greetings until he drew level with Buckingham, who had just come in to take his seat to the right of the chair. The air vibrated with mutual jealousy.
“Do those two know one another well?” she asked.
“Harry and Hastings? Well enow. From what I have gathered, Hastings was one of the few who took pity on Harry when he was a page boy in the queen’s household.”
And haughty Buckingham might have wanted help but he would have loathed pity. A man who did not like sharing, thought Heloise, wishing now that Rushden had not brought her here. The interplay beneath the gallery was dangerous and the man at her side was reveling in it as though it were a chess game.
“And which bishop is that?” she asked sharply. A broad episcopal hat and dewlapped chin perimetered the shrewd face that perused them for a moment, before the man turned his head to observe Hastings and Buckingham with a thoughtful intensity.
“Morton, Bishop of Ely. He gave up his Lancastrian allegiance in seventy-one and became one of King Edward’s councilors.”
Unease tensed Heloise’s body. “I do not care for him.” Like a sentry under fire, she jerked out of the bishop’s range of sight and retreated against a solid door between the tapestries. As if gasping for air, she leaned back, eyes closed.
“What did you see?” Against his own will, Miles was beginning to acknowledge her damnable abilities.
“No. Dear God, I—” Eyelids lifting, she swallowed uncomfortably at him watching her. “I can feel their thoughts.”
Miles’s interest quickened even though the hairs of his head prickled at such evil. He had not been meant to play the confidant, but some presentiment had overwhelmed her cautiousness. “Tell me.” The words came hoarsely as he watched the glassiness of her gaze return to normal.
“Feelings. All scrambled.” Her hand slid up defensively to her throat as if shielding her heart.
“Are you telling me that you can stare at Morton and reach his thoughts?” he whispered fiercely, his fingers curling round her cuff.
“No, no. Their emotions. Greed, envy, fear.”
“Can you look at each?”
“To forewarn you?” Contempt turned down her lips and her answer was vehement. “Not for all the gold in Christendom!” Then fear shimmered, misting her eyes. “Your pardon. I should not have spoken so.”
Horrified at her sudden terror of him and at the ancient fear deep within his own being, Miles grabbed her chin, compelling her to look at him. His rational mind rebelled against the superstition urging him to recoil from her. “And I? What am I feeling?”
Delicate lashes, with a patina of rainbow, fluttered down in panic. “Do not burn me,” she pleaded, color seeping back into her pansy face.
So she knew how much he dreaded her other worldliness. “It is you who make me burn, changeling.” His kindness was a visor, hiding the rapid prayers within, and, confused by his own emotions, he walked across to the rail, leaving her uncomforted.
“So it is true.” The door gave way behind her and Heloise, righting herself, looked up horrified into John Dokett’s satisfied face.
“Miles,” she called out in panic, and Rushden turned.
“Dr. Dokett?” He frowned.
“Sir Miles.” The priest inclined his head in greeting and, with a tight smile at his prey, disappeared down the stairs.
“Heloise?”
She was shaking. “He—he overheard what I said.”
“So?” Rushden made no move to comfort her. “You are Gloucester’s ward.”
“It is not enough. He—oh, Christ, he wants to put me to the torture, I know it.”
“And you just accused me of that too. Be rational. Is this the courageous knight of Potters Field, hmm?” She nodded, trying to be brave. “That is better.”
Below, the benches scraped to the table. Gloucester had arrived. The guards’ pikes clanked into vigilance outside the lower entrances. “Time to go.” He put an arm about her shoulders and led her towards the stairs.
In the lower passageway, Heloise turned. “You do not attend the duke?” she asked huskily, in an attempt to restore normality between them, but his eyes narrowed.
Miles knew she had not intended to rile him. He had his own means of ensuring the decisions beyond the defended doors; today’s arguments had already been raised last night like targets for Harry to practice upon and the right words sat in the quiver waiting to be loosed. But no, he was not permitted in the council chamber—not yet, unless he chose to play at secretary.
“I—I should like to inquire whether my sister will be coming to London with her grace.”
“Of course, an excellent notion.”
To cheer her and safeguard his own sanity, he left Heloise talking with Gloucester’s steward, and made his way alone to the garden in search of solitude. His reluctant wife’s uncanny ability to show his thoughts back to him like a watery reflection disturbed him. If his mind could not stay free of her, might she not enslave him in time, invade his brain inch by inch unti
l he knew not whether it was his thoughts or hers impelled him? What if Dokett hauled her before the church courts?
Air warm and languorous with the perfume of honeysuckle and lavender soothed him as he traversed the cloistered gallery that ran below the duke’s apartments, and stepped down into a haven that was momentarily free of power-broking or, mercifully, Heloise’s unsettling presence. Beyond a stone wall, too high for enterprising thieves, the slate roof of St. Helen’s was bright with sunlight and he heard the sweet voices of the black nuns creating hills and vales of music for God’s pleasure. And this part of the garden was an earthly delight, designed for dalliance and planted with flowers to perfume the air and seduce the senses. Miles passed a fluted birdbath and strode beyond a flower bed brimming with lilies of the valley to the heart of the garden, a small, fashionable mede bright with white daisies and yellow cowslips, enclosed by a low oak lath trellis heavy with white roses. Crab apple blossom dappled the path and in the southern corner a grapevine twined into a canopy above a raised turf seat. Miles did not linger. The gravel path beckoned him beneath an arch, past spiked broom and hawthorn and a flower bed ready for planting, where someone had left a lady’s waterpot, before he came to the farthest corner hidden by a laurel hedge. There, casting his sleeves back, he sat beneath the honeysuckle, most loath to bend his mind to strategies. A ladybird in Stafford colors landed on his shirt cuff and he watched it idly, listening to the plainsong, and a blackbird’s descant, until the new sound of dibbing from the other side of the laurel hedge invaded his privacy.
Investigating, Miles paled. It was not a gardener but a gentlewoman and he had a sense of time reversing like a cart. Heloise’s sister knelt, a cloth tucked protectively over her mourning gown, planting seedlings. Sensing herself observed, she raised flirtatious eyes but, recognizing him, her amiability fled and she sprang to her feet, the dibber raised threateningly.
“You!” she snarled, springing up menacingly. “What have you done with my sister? By my soul, if you have done her harm, I will rend your face further, you vile man.” The girl’s hair blazed gloriously but he felt no warmth for her.
“Calm yourself! Denise, is it?”
“Dionysia! If you have murdered her . . .”
“Not yet,” he answered coldly. “Despite temptation. What are you doing here?”
“Oh, trying to allay the tedium,” she retorted shrewishly but her ruffled feathers settled somewhat. “Part of the distaff force under Lady Percy, sent ahead by her grace of Gloucester to womanize this male demesne. We are expecting her within the week. Now perhaps you will answer me! Where is my sister?” It gave him pleasure to walk away. The weapon was lowered but she chased after him. “Is she at Brecknock still? Answer me, you fiend!”
Not looking at her, he paused at the nearest doorway, praying for a corner untroubled by harpies, and nonchalantly stroked a gloved finger along the ribbed stone arching the door. “Middleham has not taught you better manners, Dionysia, but I shall see if it pleases her to come and speak to you.”
OH, IT DID! DELIGHT BROUGHT OUT THE SUNSHINE IN Heloise’s face as she almost skipped down the stairs to find her sister. Pleased, their go-between leaned out of the casement to watch the reunion.
“Ah, Miles.” He turned, annoyed to find Harry holding out a paper to him. “My notes of what the council discussed this morning. Let me have your comments by noon.” The duke halted by the door. “Oh, by the way, Dokett still thinks it possible to arraign the Ballaster girl on witchcraft before the annulment arrives.” Caution lowered his voice. “Can’t ruffle Gloucester’s feathers yet but we should soon have her out of your hair for good. I will leave you to it.”
Stowing the note angrily into the breast of his doublet, Miles left the chamber a few minutes later and sent a page with a message to his groom. High tide.
DOKETT WAS KNEELING IN THE DUKE’S PRIVATE CHAPEL—praying for his employers’ dead kinsmen was part of his duties—and he was alone. “Are you here for confession?” he asked officiously as the door closed, not opening his eyes.
“Yes, yours!” In an instant, Miles had the quaking bigot flat-palmed against the wall.
“R-Rushden?” Dokett scowled at the eight inches of determined steel pressing into his throat. “Are you insane? I am the lord protector’s chaplain. How dare you—oooff.”
The air whooshed out of him as he was bounced against a different wall. “I do not care if you are chaplain to St. Peter and St. Paul,” Miles told him with much satisfaction. “Slander Heloise Ballaster’s honor or her faith one more time, and you will not see sunrise.”
“Oh, I understand you, yes.” The priest pushed his arm away undaunted, rearranging his chasuble fastidiously. “I can read Satan in your eyes, I hear him in your voice. Holy Church destroys heretics and witches, and those who shelter them. I heard her confession to you just now.”
“You think I jest.” Miles strode to the altar and slammed his hand down upon the open Gospels, his gaze holding the priest’s eyes. “Did I not make myself clear? Bring charges against her and I swear in the name of Christ that I will have you killed.”
“My lord protector and his grace of Canterbury will hear of this, Rushden. This land is not going to be godless anymore, do you hear me! Blasphemers like you will not go unpunished.” Dokett’s body might be rigid against the wooden panel, but he was watching Miles with all the ferocity of a cornered boar. “I am not afraid of you.” He ran for the door.
Miles hurled the dagger. The priest screamed in pain as it landed with a quivering hiss, snaring his hair beneath its blade. “Now do you believe me?”
Pinned to the door like a proclamation, Dokett’s skin was bleached of blood. His eyes goggled, empty now of courage. “I believe you, yes.” The priest held his breath as Miles wrenched the dagger loose, and then bolted as though all the demons in Hell were after him.
Gloved applause wiped the satisfaction from Miles. “You have ruined the woodwork,” drawled Sir Richard Huddleston. He was sitting on the colonnade wall outside, his arms folded.
“How long have you been there?”
“Long enough. His grace of Gloucester can be quite blind to people’s faults sometimes, but we all have our weaknesses.” The lazy gaze seemed to say: And now I perceive yours. “You were rather precipitate. Dokett is on his way out. A month maybe.” He sauntered across and ran a gloved finger over the damage and turned. “The Loathly Lady . . . She asked Sir Gawaine the question, What do women most desire?”
“Yes,” answered Miles uncertainly, “I know the ballad.”
“Well, there you have it. Good day, Sir Miles.”
IT WOULD BE HARD TO DISCERN WHO WAS MORE SURPRISED, decided Heloise, as she confronted her aproned sibling. Returning Dionysia’s fragrant hug, she wondered with feminine perversity where her sister had acquired such expensive perfume.
“You look like a skeleton, Heloise, but then you must have been desperate until Father—God rest his soul, though it’s unlikely—offered that loan to Gloucester before he died. You see, I know all about Northampton. The White Boar men are such sillies, too easily bled for gossip. Matillis and I had a wager as to whether you could seduce Rushden but I suppose everything is settled between you now, since you have the lion’s share of the inheritance—not that I begrudge you anything. Certes, you may have your churlish husband to yourself and good riddance, say I! Why, I do not believe there is a gracious bone in his body. I heard Matillis had a girl-child. Fortunate for us, thank God!” A wonder she was not gasping for breath.
“Matillis!” echoed Heloise, her thoughts running the other way like panicked thieves. Loan? Lion’s share? Was that what people thought?
“Tell me about our father’s funeral. Did Sir Hubert stay sober?” It was a sure wager that she would interrupt Heloise’s account but, astonishingly, she listened. “Our father will be trying Satan’s patience now,” she said when Heloise was finished. “But enow, what of the living? Has Rushden got you with child yet?”
“
Dionysia!” Would a scathing glare be sufficient?
It was. Her sister gave a playful shrug and knelt back down. “So tell me this then”—she separated a seedling from its fellows—“are the Welshmen hideous? Is it true they wear leeks in their hats? What is the duke like? I should so love to meet him. I hear he has a garden at Thornbury.”
How could Heloise have forgotten that Dionysia’s mind was planed in one direction? “Why are you so anxious to meet his grace of Buckingham?”
“Because his grace may have some plants at Brecknock or Thornbury which might please her grace of Gloucester. Goodness, what other reason could I have?” Heloise recognized the worldly purr in Dionysia’s tone. “Now there is a handsome fellow coming towards us. I wonder what he is worth.”
“That is my lord of Buckingham,” answered Heloise in a fierce whisper.
“Saints be praised! Introduce me!” But the duke’s shade already fell across them. It was obligatory to curtsy.
“Good day to you, my lady,” he said to Heloise. It was a waste to answer, his interest was already captivated by the golden hair tumbling across the voluptuous satin curves of her sister. “What are you planting, demoiselle?”
“Marigolds, sir, and I had best get on with it.”
No novice at this art, Dionysia knelt, offering him an overgenerous view of her deep cleavage and, with a coy smile, stroked a seedling’s roots. Heloise helplessly looked on as the man fluttered like a hapless moth that could not see the web.
“If you were not clearly somebody in authority, I should ask your help.” The teasing allure stunned and held him like sticky threads.
“Important, no.” Unbelievably the duke went down on his haunches and tucked a plantling snugly into its hole.
“You have the right hands for a gardener.” Admiration oozed through every feminine syllable.
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