At the King's Command

by Susan Wiggs

  “He’ll learn no bad habits from me.” Stephen stood watching as Jonathan bade Kit good-bye and trotted off down the lane. Chastity. Stephen was reputed to be the most profligate of noblemen, frequenting the dives of Bath, the harborside stews of Bristol, the gaming houses of Southwark.

  He took no pride in his reputation, only a bleak satisfaction that it had made him distasteful to marriageable maidens. Now that Juliana had come into his life, he wondered what would become of the bad habits he’d cultivated so assiduously.

  For a long while, he stood in the formal garden with its cruciform walks enclosing fragrant beds of foxglove and woodbine. The clean fragrance of springtime enveloped him, and he paused near a fountain to gird himself for the coming hours. The stone basin still held the warmth of the sun.

  He pressed his fists against the basin, trying to banish all feeling, all emotion, forever. Yet he was like a rock in the sun, holding its warmth even as darkness surrounded him. He remembered Juliana’s smile when he had no business thinking of her at all.

  The sun slipped below the horizon. A few more minutes, and it would be time for him to go.

  Shuddering, he turned and went back inside.

  Juliana stood waiting in the entrance to the hall. She held a hooded candle in one hand. The diffuse light showered her eyelashes and hair with gold dust and carved mysterious shadows in the hollow of her throat, between her breasts.

  God Almighty, Stephen thought. Didn’t Jillie know a lady should wear a silken partlet there for modesty?

  Just below the overtly feminine hollow, the jeweled brooch winked, its large center stone as darkly brilliant as fresh blood.

  “What do you do after supper, my lord?” she asked softly.

  Her question panicked him, and he lashed out in anger. “I’m sometimes wont to tumble a wench or two.” Narrowing his eyes, he let his burning gaze sweep over her. “Three are even better.”

  Her small teeth caught in the fullness of her lower lip. “I do not believe you.”

  “You know nothing about me,” he said.

  She shrugged, the motion of her shoulders as graceful as a waterfall. “How much I learn is up to you. I noticed a music room connected to my chambers. Perhaps I could play for you—”

  “The collection of instruments does not include gypsy bells and guitars.” Stephen saw the look that crept into her candlelit eyes. I have to hurt you, Juliana, he thought, wishing he could explain, knowing he could not. To show her kindness would be a far greater cruelty.

  Juliana came awake slowly. Just for a moment, she was confused by the lavish bed hangings that soared above her, the silky warmth of the fur-lined covers blanketing her.

  In that distant, half-aware realm between waking and sleeping, she fancied herself in the nursery at Novgorod, waiting for Sveta to come with a cup of warm honey-sweetened milk and a tray of soft bread and herbed sausages.

  The image drifted away and Juliana came up on her elbows. Lynacre Hall. She was here in this noble house, not in a bedroll under a tree, nor beneath the rank mildewed covering of Laszlo’s caravan. She lay in a strange, beautiful chamber that had once belonged to the wife of Lord Wimberleigh.

  What had the first baroness been like? Had he loved her, hated her, regarded her with cool indifference?

  Had she been responsible for making Stephen into a cold, angry man, or had he always been that way?

  Juliana decided to find out. In the cool morning breeze through the open window, she called Jillie and then waited, absently petting Pavlo’s long, sleek head and listening to the manor come to life—the call of the goose girl, the sound of shutters being opened, the scolding of chickens, voices from the bakehouse. A few moments later, Jillie came into the room, balancing a salver between her arm and hip.

  “Ah, you’re awake, then,” she said briskly, thumping the tray down on a spindly gaming table. “Good morrow, milady. Hungry?”

  “Always,” Juliana admitted, throwing back the counterpane. During her years with the gypsies, she had often gone to sleep with hunger gnawing at her belly. Begging, pilfering and poaching had their limits.

  Jillie rummaged in the carved chest at the foot of the bed and emerged with a long wrinkled robe of finely woven wool. As Juliana put her hands through the gaping armholes, the scent of lavender and bergamot rose from the garment.

  “Uneven dye job,” Jillie muttered, shaking out the folds. “Me da does better work—when he can get it.”

  “Is there no work for a dyer, then?” Juliana peered at the thin brown liquid in the cup.

  “Time was, he had the vats in the dying shed bubbling day and night—year ’round. But the trades have been moving to the cities—to Bath, to Salisbury and even London town.”

  Juliana took a sip. Small ale. Hardly her favorite for breaking her fast. She bit into the bread. The flour had been coarse ground and was mealy; her teeth crunched down on a hard piece of chaff. She was going to have to make some changes around here.

  With elaborate casualness she said to Jillie, “Didn’t the former baroness patronize local tradesmen?” She crumbled the bread crust between her fingers. “Dyers, millers and such?”

  “No.” Jillie looked down at her large red hands. “The lady Margaret never seemed to … to think of such things.”

  Margaret. Her name was Margaret. “I see. What sorts of things did she think of?”

  “Don’t know, rightly. Fashion things, music, needlework, mayhap gaming in the hall.”

  “And her husband.” Juliana hated herself for wanting to know. “Did she think of him?”

  Jillie slapped her hands on her thighs. “Blind me, but I forgot to draw your water, milady. I’ll be back in a trice.” Moving with surprising swiftness, she left the chamber. When she returned with a ewer of warm water for washing, she seemed disinclined to speak.

  Juliana did not press her. She had not a single friend in this place, and she was loath to test the loyalty of her only prospect.

  Jillie helped her dress in a pale peach-colored bodice and gown. “Nance was up late tucking this to fit you, taking up the hem.” She stepped back to survey her mistress. “ ’Tis a good fit.”

  Juliana heard the flatness in her tone. “But?” she prompted.

  “Ah, listen to me. ’Tis not my place to judge my betters—”

  “Jillie.” Juliana spoke the name carefully. “You must always speak your mind to me.” It felt strange inviting intimacy with a servant. Yet in her present circumstances, she had sore need of an ally.

  “The color’s wrong, milady,” Jillie blurted out. “You’ve a fine rich mass of hair and roses in your lips and cheeks. ’Tis the jewel tones you’ll favor, not this pale washed-out stuff.”

  “Then dye my gowns,” Juliana said simply.

  Jillie’s jaw dropped. “Truly?”

  “Truly. Tell your father I’ll gladly pay his price.”

  “Ah, milady, you’re—”

  A loud clanking sound rattled through the open window. Juliana hurried over, followed by Jillie. In the courtyard below, on the gravel drive, rolled a sturdy cart laden with crates and oddly shaped parcels.

  “What is this?” Juliana asked.

  “The new shipment. His lordship’s always bringing things from London town.” Jillie sighed and propped her chin in her hand. “The world is so big,” she said wistfully. “ ’Twould be a rare blessing to see it. I ain’t once been out of the shire.”

  “Never?” The very thought made Juliana feel cramped and restless. “I’ll tell you about it someday.” She moved toward the door. “For now, we must receive our guest.”

  An hour later, she stood in an airy solar and looked through oriel windows over the apple yard, enclosed by a high brick wall and white with May blossoms. Lynacre was a strange and beautiful place. She had yet to make sense of the house, with its gable-ended great and small wings, the porches, the clusters of chimneys, the crenellated parapets. The grounds provided a puzzle of their own. Thus far she had noticed at least three sepa
rate walled gardens, thick woods rearing almost menacingly to the west, and layer upon layer of soft green fells leading down to the river.

  She lowered herself to the window seat, drew her knees to her chest, and rested her temple against the sun-warmed leaded glass. Aye, the estate was strange and beautiful—much like its master. The thought of him reminded her of the old Russian story of Stavr, an enchanted prince who was trapped in his forest kingdom. He could only be freed by the kiss of a princess, freely given.

  “What the devil are you doing?” snapped a furious voice from the doorway.

  Juliana froze. To her mortification, she discovered that she had pressed her fingers to her lips and closed her eyes, lost in the fantasy of a magic kiss. With as much dignity as she could muster, she jumped up and shook out her skirts.

  Stephen stood there in the same trunk hose and jerkin he had worn the day before. A light golden stubble softened the hard lines of his cheeks and jaw. His pale hair looked mussed, as if long fingers had run through it. The disarray gave him a certain rakish charm that made her breath quicken and her cheeks grow warm.

  It struck Juliana, disturbingly, that he had not yet been to bed—unless it was with one of the wenches he had so pointedly mentioned last night.

  She silenced the jangle of alarm in her mind. If it was his habit to carouse each night away, that was his affair. She’d be a fool to let herself be hurt by it.

  “My dear,” he said in a gravelly voice, “you’ve not answered my question.”

  “A carter arrived with goods from London. I received them and sent the carter round to the kitchen for a meal. My lo—Stephen,” she corrected, boldly using his familiar name. She took an ivory whistle from a box and blew a high note. “What is this? For a shepherd, perhaps?” Before he could answer, she drew a light shroud from a dome-shaped cage to reveal a bright yellow canary perched inside. “And this … an addition to your dovecote?” She flipped through the stiff pages of a small, fat book, noting a few block-printed illustrations. “I do not read English well. Perhaps you could tell me what this says. And this—” She reached for a wooden box made of interlocking pieces.

  A large male hand snatched the box away. “Are you quite finished?” Stephen demanded in a low, lethal whisper.

  “These are children’s playthings,” she said, refusing to flinch. “I just wondered—”

  He paced the length of the solar, his booted feet kicking up dust from the rushes. “I’ve a fondness for invention. My own, and those created by others. You need not read any further meaning into it.”

  Perhaps the toys were gifts for the children of the nearby village. Perhaps Stephen de Lacey concealed a heart of gold behind a facade of stone.

  Prodded by a devil of mischief, she picked up a tiny reed pipe and blew, her fingers covering the holes to vary the pitch.

  “Stop that.” He stood inches away, glaring down at her.

  Juliana continued to play. She would rather suffer the heat of his anger than the chill of his indifference. She picked out the first few notes of an old Russian song about a cherry tree. There was something compelling about his nearness.

  “Damn it, Juliana!” He took her wrist, bringing her hand up between their bodies.

  Never had she stood so close to her new husband—close enough to hear the labored rasp of his breathing and feel it warm on her cheek. Close enough to catch his scent of leather and lye. Close enough to study the faint lines that fanned out from his exquisite pale eyes.

  She stood riveted, staring up at him, feeling her pulse leap wildly beneath the firm grip of his fingers. And suddenly she knew. He, too, had felt the shock, the heat, the awareness. The recognition.

  Of what? she wondered crazily.

  Of desire.

  The answer came to her like an arrow shot out of the dark, hitting home with stinging accuracy.

  “Stephen?” she whispered.

  For a moment, he seemed to waver, caught up in the same unbearable tension that held her breathless. His sculpted, unsmiling mouth twitched and he bent his head, golden hair falling forward, almost brushing her brow.

  Closer and closer, until a mere whisper of distance separated their hungry lips, until anticipation thundered in her blood.

  And, just as suddenly, Stephen plucked the reed pipe from her hand and stepped back.

  “I’ll see to the parcels,” he snapped. “You need not trouble yourself with them. And in the future, Baroness, I shall receive all goods and dispatches.”

  He withdrew quickly, his footsteps ringing on the flagged floor outside, then stopping.

  Juliana hurried to the solar door and peeked out.

  He stood in the narrow, dim passageway, his big hands pressed against the stone wall. His head was thrown back to reveal a taut brown throat. His teeth were clenched, his eyes tightly shut. It was a posture of such anguished frustration that Juliana felt like an intruder.

  She slipped back into the solar. She had learned something about her husband this morning. He wanted her. That was one secret he could not keep from her.

  Faintly, through a thick blanket of sleep, the sounds came to Stephen. A cry in the dark. A ragged sob of terror and depthless despair.

  His awareness weighted by the quantity of sack he had drunk the previous evening to forget the startled hurt in Juliana’s eyes, he barely acknowledged the sounds. And then, slowly, like a stalking sneak thief, realization crept over him.

  The moment had come. For years, he had dreaded this night. And yet a small dark part of him had craved it. This was the end of the waiting, the uncertainty. At last, he would be free—

  “No!” Denial broke from him, loud and fierce and anguished. He leaped from his bed, tearing back the covers, bare feet slapping the chilly flagged floor.

  No, please God, no … With jerky movements he groped for his leather leggings, his billowy cambric shirt, and in seconds he flew out the door of his chamber and into the night-black passageway.

  He expected to find Nance Harbutt, come to impart the long-dreaded tidings, but no one waited in the gloom.

  Still the weeping sound that had awakened him reached out, drew him along the passageway …

  To his wife’s room.

  The fog of sleep and wine blew away on a cold, knife-sharp wind.

  Juliana. It was his gypsy wife, with her weeping and strange mutterings, who had roused him.

  Both relief and annoyance eddied through him as he stepped into her chamber.

  A low, throaty growl greeted him. Her lethal weapon of a dog stood stiff-legged in the middle of the room, glaring with malevolent eyes.

  Stephen glared back.

  The dog looked away first and crouched down, warily letting him pass.

  For a moment Stephen stood still, uncertain. Watery moonlight, faint as fairy’s breath, streamed through the open window and fell upon the imposing draped bed.

  Juliana had been at Lynacre Hall only a week, yet already her presence pervaded what had once been Meg’s domain. The fragrance of lavender haunted the air; gowns and shifts made a cheerful disarray on the stools and chests; an old lute stood propped in a corner.

  Stephen noticed this only in passing. He stood spellbound by the soft, terrible sounds coming from the figure on the bed.

  Though she spoke in a foreign tongue, his heart constricted, for he knew the meaning well. In her sleep, she uttered the words of a soul that knew the icy black depths of despair and hopelessness, the supplication of a heart yearning to be healed.

  Praying the dog would behave, he swiftly crossed the room to the bed. He of all people knew not how to comfort an unquiet soul, yet he could not stand to watch her suffer.

  He sat on the edge of the bed, the heavy frame creaking under his weight. His large hands came to rest on the one shoulder that protruded from the twisted bedclothes.

  She held herself curled up like a child shivering from cold. Her arms were hugged tightly around her torso. The trembling that emanated from her tore at Stephen. With a low, hel
pless curse, he pulled her against him. He felt her warmth, the wild tattoo of her racing heart, the hot dampness of her tears seeping into his shirt.

  “Hush,” he whispered into her hair. His lips brushed the silky strands. He breathed in the faint herbal fragrance. “Hush, Juliana, please. ’Tis a night fright, no more. You are safe.”

  She came awake with a loud, air-swallowing gasp. “Stephen?”

  Feeling awkward and ungainly, he held her away from him and peered at her face. Her eyes were wide and staring, her cheeks wet.

  “I heard you cry out,” he explained, gruff-voiced and struggling to sound matter-of-fact. “I thought to quiet you before you awakened the whole household.”

  “Oh.” She scrubbed the voluminous sleeve of her nightrail over her face. “Didn’t Pavlo try to stop you?”

  “He understands I mean you no harm.”

  She nodded. “I—I am sorry I awakened you.”

  “Are you all right now?” It was too dangerous to be alone with her like this—in the darkened bed, with her all warm and soft and tumbled from sleep. And vulnerable.

  “Yes,” she said. But her voice was hoarse, her eyes tearful.

  He knew he should make haste away, but it was contrary to his nature to leave a creature in pain. “It’s over, Juliana. You’re safe. ’Twas only a nightmare.”

  “But the nightmare is real,” she whispered. “I see things that happened to my family, hear things—”

  “What things?”

  “Fire,” she said, starting to tremble again. “Hoofbeats and screaming, flames shooting from the windows—”

  “The windows?”

  “The house at Novgorod. My father’s house.” She tipped up her head, for a moment looking almost haughty. “It was a place that makes Lynacre Hall look like a peasant’s dwelling.”

  Stephen felt a sinking sense of disappointment. This was yet another part of the fiction she had created to support her wild pretenses. Another thread in the web of lies.

  “In the dream, I am looking at the snow,” she went on, oblivious to his skeptical thoughts and seemingly immune to his touch, to the hand that moved from her chin to her shoulder, his thumb tracing whorls in the hollow of her throat.