This Towering Passion

by Valerie Sherwood

  Lenore listened in surprise. Geoffrey had friends here. It occurred to her to wonder why he had not sought refuge in Oxford before, instead of scurrying about the country.

  Geoffrey gave Gilbert a steady look across his wine goblet. “Know you of a safe house here, Gilbert?”

  The resplendent Gilbert thought about that, turning his silver goblet around in his hand. “For the two of you?” He nodded toward Lenore.

  Geoffrey inclined his head.

  “And this lady is. . . ?” began Gilbert delicately.

  “The Angel of Worcester,” said Geoffrey dryly. Gilbert turned a startled look at Lenore, but Geoffrey leaned forward, and the look in those steady gray eyes bade him be silent. “She’s also my wife,” he said in a steely voice. “We’re going by the name of Daunt— Geoffrey and Lenore Daunt.”

  “Yes, of course—your wife. Mistress Daunt,” Gilbert agreed hastily.

  Lenore felt herself reddening again. That Gilbert knew about Geoffrey’s French wife she felt certain from something fleeting in his gaze as he looked at her. “I was fully clothed in Worcester!” she said stiffly. “Wearing this same green dress!”

  “Of course,” echoed Gilbert, his caramel eyes losing a bit of their languor and glinting at her. He bent to pour her more wine and she saw that at close range they were flecked with gold—disturbing eyes; their tan-gold depths reminded her she was not wed to Geoffrey. “Tom Burgh’s rooms are for let,” he told Geoffrey. “For Tom’s going home to wed an heiress—no more scholastic life for him!”

  “Sensible of him,” agreed Geoffrey laconically, and Lenore felt another unhappy pang. For Geoffrey had believed Letiche to be an heiress.

  Night found them lodged in Tom Burgh’s old lodgings off Magpie Lane. Gilbert had declared the house a “safe” one, and indeed Mistress Watts, the landlady, looked every inch a Royalist with her shabby fripperies and bows and curlicues and bedraggled wig. She was a wiry little woman with sharp dark eyes and a fringe of dusty-looking curls above a narrow, hatchet-like face. Though she peered at her new tenants somewhat curiously, she asked no questions, merely accepting the money which Gilbert gave her, stepping in front of Geoffrey with a flourish to do so. Startled at that, Lenore learned from a low-voiced conversation she overheard between the two men that this was part payment on a small sum Gilbert owed Geoffrey from some long-ago game of chance and which he called a “debt of honor.”

  She mentioned this to Geoffrey that night as she made ready for bed in the small but cozy room, sighing with pleasure at the fire roaring on the hearth which shut out the damp and cold. “ ’Tis few gentlemen would remember a debt of honor so long,” she observed.

  A small cynical smile played around Geoffrey’s mouth.

  “I had long ago written it off, as I’m sure Gil had, but—he had an urge to impress you. Tis your lovely face stirred his memory.”

  Stepping out of her dress, she straightened up in her chemise and gave him an indignant look. “I think your cousin is a very fine gentleman!”

  “All women think so.”

  "And he was thoughtful enough to give me these sweetmeats!”

  There was an odd light in Geoffrey’s hard gray eyes. “Gil’s also very sound of wind and limb,” he murmured. “Have ye not wondered why he was not at Worcester?”

  “Perhaps he was detained,” she began, and Geoffrey gave her a droll look.

  “By his studies? Which he’s not yet entered on?” He shrugged. “Ye’d best to bed, Lenore, before yon fire goes out.”

  A bed ... a real bed! Lenore gave him a winsome smile and drew aside the heavy woolen curtain that separated the sleeping alcove from the main room. Few luxuries did these barren rooms contain, but that big bed made up for everything. With a sigh, she pulled back the coverlet and heavy quilts and slid luxuriously between the sheets, blissfully curling her bare toes against the wrapped hot brick she had placed inside to warm the cold bedding. How long had it been since she had slept in a real bed? She had almost begun to believe that beds were but a memory, that nights were spent in forest glades, in caverns, tucked into convenient haymows or shivering in deserted sheds.

  “This is wonderful,” she murmured. “Geoffrey, stop banking the fire and come to bed.”

  Nothing loath, Geoffrey strode across the uneven flooring and climbed in beside her. She opened her arms to him lazily and curved her body languorously to his. Poor and hunted they might be, not even proper wed and with an uncertain future, but tonight, warm and cozy between fresh clean sheets, Lenore felt as if she'd been carried over a threshold. These rooms at Mistress Watts’s off Magpie Lane were her first real home—with Geoffrey, her beloved Cavalier.

  CHAPTER 10

  Lenore slept late and woke to find Geoffrey gone. Lazily she stretched in the unaccustomed luxury of a bed and studied the room beyond the sleeping alcove by daylight. Last night by the light of a single taper and the red glow of the fire the room had been filled with mysterious shadows, but the hard morning light showed her that it was plain but clean. The leaded casement windows had a satisfying sparkle. The meager rug that graced the floor was faded from Turkey red to a rich pink. The large cupboard would be more than sufficient for their few possessions. And since breakfast would be brought up to her on a tray by Mistress Watts’s indifferent servant girl, and they would sup of evenings downstairs with Mistress Watts herself, that sturdy wooden table and assortment of chairs would be quite sufficient for their needs. Through an open door she could see their other smaller room—hardly more than a dressing room and containing only a corner cupboard and a bench. With the woolen curtains drawn across the bed alcove, both rooms could serve to receive guests.

  Cheered, she jumped up and dressed, shivering in the cold. Geoffrey must have gone out early and expected her to rise very late, for no fire burned on the hearth. She had finished dressing and was combing out her long red-gold hair when a knock on the door announced her breakfast, and the servant girl, who was Welsh and whose name was Gwynneth, scuttled in with a tray.

  The girl gave the cold hearth a scared look, begged Lenore not to tell Mistress Watts she’d “forgot it—lor, she might be dismissed!” and hurried away to bring up a bucket of hot coals and some faggots.

  “There’s no hurry,” said Lenore graciously and wrapped herself in her cloak to enjoy the porridge and clotted cream and apple purée on the tray.

  Gwynneth had taken the tray away and the newly made fire was already knocking off the chill when Lenore heard footsteps climbing the wooden stair and ran on light feet to the door. Expecting Geoffrey, she tossed her cloak aside and would have flung the door open when a strange voice in the corridor stayed her hand.

  “Your wife?” exclaimed the strange voice. “You mean you’ve brought Letiche over from France, Geoffrey?”

  “Her name is Lenore,” was the stern rejoinder. “France is as may be. I’ve chosen to forget my name is Wyndham. Here I go by the name of Daunt, and I’ll thank you to remember it, Ned.”

  There were some more muttered words but Lenore, her eager hand reaching for the latch, snatched it back and shrank against the wall in humiliation. She was twisting her fingers together and trying to straighten out her confused thoughts when there was a light tap and the door opened to admit Geoffrey and a stranger.

  “Lenore, this is my old friend, Ned Bight,” said Geoffrey, with a careless wave of his arm. “Mistress Daunt, my wife.”

  Getting a grip on herself—for they must not know she had overhead—Lenore turned and regarded the newcomer steadily. She saw a carelessly dressed young man of medium height. He stood with an easy grace, and a wealth of brown hair cascaded down onto a worn brown velvet coat. Wilting yellow-starched lace cuffs, muddy boots which wouldn’t have gleamed even on a sunny day—yet it was his smile that attracted her, a bright beaming flash that showed friendship and a row of even white teeth.

  “Mistress Daunt.” Faultlessly, Ned Bight made her a leg. “I know not by what good fortune Geoffrey secured such a bride.” />
  Lenore winced inwardly. How smoothly Ned had carried it off—no hint here that he knew she was but a mistress! She gave him a stiff little smile.

  Geoffrey seemed not to notice her reserve. He sat Ned down and engaged him in a long conversation about a number of people Lenore had never heard of. She sat with her back very straight, her hands crossed firmly on her lap, and regarded them with a level gaze. When Ned finally rose to go, he promised to send Lally over as soon as she was recovered from the distemper which was going around—a bad cold.

  “And who is Lally?” Lenore asked Geoffrey when Ned had left.

  “I haven’t met her, but Ned tells me she’s the daughter of a captain in the Guards. Her father died of apoplexy when she ran away with a young officer in the regiment. Before they could tie the knot, he got drunk, fell in the river, and drowned. Lally found herself ‘ruined’ and with nowhere to turn, for none of her relatives would have her. Ned has a kind heart. He took her in.”

  Lenore looked away. Her voice was remote. “Does Ned plan to marry her?”

  “I don’t think so. As a matter of fact, I don’t think Lally expects him to. She knows about the girl he’s wooing in Marston.”

  So Lally did not expect Ned to marry her. Lenore turned squarely to face Geoffrey. “For three months now we have been driven hither and yon like foxes before the hounds—yet all the time you knew we would he safe in Oxford,” she challenged him. “Why did we not come here before?”

  He frowned. “No place was safe for us, Lenore—Oxford no more than any other.”

  Lenore’s knuckles clenched white on a chair top and her violet eyes flashed amethyst lights. “I will tell you why,” she said in a tight voice. “You did not bring me to Oxford because you had friends here. You were afraid one of them would tell me about your French wife!”

  “Lenore.” Geoffrey would have taken her arm but she shook him off.

  “You did not tell me about her until you decided to come here!” she accused.

  “What does it matter?” he demanded in a rough voice. “All will honor you as if you were in truth my wife. Either that or”—his eyes held an evil flicker—“feel the point of my sword!”

  Lenore felt stunned by the question. To have all his friends aware that she was not his wife—and he asked if that mattered! Smouldering, she turned away from him, coldly presenting a proud shoulder and a haughty profile to his gaze.

  “We’d best buy a new pair of shoes for you, mistress,” he said dryly.

  “I don’t need new shoes,” said Lenore in a muffled voice. It was untrue; her shoe soles had long since succumbed and her once-pretty shoes were stuffed with odd bits of leather and parchment in a vain attempt to keep out the rain.

  “We’ll to the cobbler’s. Tis close, so there’s no need bringing our horses from Mistress Watts’s stable.” Geoffrey held out her cloak.

  In silence Lenore slipped into it, and in silence accompanied him down the wooden stairs and out onto the cobbles. There they ran into Gilbert Marnock, just approaching the door, his honey-colored velvet cloak complementing his long caramel locks. Gilbert smiled broadly and made a sweeping leg to Lenore. “Mistress Daunt, Geoffrey—I come to see how you fared.”

  “We fare very well, Gilbert.” Geoffrey gave him a cool look. “And we’ll fare even better when Mistress Lenore has visited the cobbler and been outfitted with a new pair of shoes.”

  Gilbert’s head inclined gravely, and his lazy gaze wandered over Lenore, seeming to penetrate her cloak, her dress—even her chemise. “A dainty foot,” he commented. “ ’Twill be the cobbler’s good fortune to have shod it!”

  Something perverse in Lenore made her smile flirtatiously up into that narrow, handsome face and swing her skirt negligently so that more than a little ankle showed. “Dainty or not, ’tis true I’ve need of shoes.” She stepped by Geoffrey and took Gilbert’s proffered arm.

  Gilbert flashed Geoffrey a triumphant look and together the three of them walked to the cobbler Geoffrey remembered as a good one, though Gilbert strongly recommended another, saying Ned’s doxie had recently purchased a handsome pair of imported chopines there. At this careless reference to Lally, Geoffrey frowned, but Lenore tossed her head. Suddenly hard to please, she could find nothing she liked at Geoffrey’s cobbler and insisted on visiting the cobbler of Gilbert’s choice, only three doors away. There, in the little shop that smelled of leather, she immediately chose an impractical pair of high-heeled red satin slippers. Geoffrey looked doubtful at this choice and had the cobbler bring her a pair of velvet clogs with cork soles six inches tall to slip on over her slippers “against' the mud.” Lenore was grateful to him, but still too angry with him to say so. She swished out of the shop in her new shoes and clogs, not looking where she was going as she chattered to Gilbert—and promptly collided with a fat, elderly man just reeling out of an alehouse. Yet to learn that Oxford was a town of daytime tipplers, Lenore was knocked back against Geoffrey, who reached out a long arm to steady her. “Fool!” cried Gilbert. “Watch where you’re going!”

  His lace-cuffed arm shot forward:, and a hard slap from his open palm tumbled the old fellow backward so that he landed on his back in the muddy street, a look of abject bewilderment on his face.

  “Your pardon, young sir!” he bleated. “I did not see the lady!”

  “The toe of my boot will improve your vision!” cried Gilbert, drawing back his foot. But Geoffrey, who had righted Lenore, grasped him by the arm. “ ’Twas an accident, Gil. Have done with him, lad!”

  They hurried away down the street, with Gilbert angrily insisting the fellow should be taught manners and Geoffrey grimly retorting that brawling in the streets would bring them attention that they could ill afford.

  “I had forgotten you two were wanted by the law,” admitted Gilbert.

  “Well, keep it in mind, if you please. Unless you choose to see Mistress Lenore dangling from some gibbet!”

  Halfway to their lodgings, Gilbert spied a friend and parted with them, promising to catch up. When he did not, the Daunts stalked home together, Lenore testing her new shoes on the cobblestones.

  “Do not encourage Gil in his peppery ways,” Geoffrey cautioned her sternly. “Or your head may be forfeit to your lack of sense.”

  Lenore still had not forgiven him for this morning. “At least he would have fought for me,” she said in a mutinous voice.

  Geoffrey gave her an impatient look. “Gil challenged an old man he knew would not fight. Could you not see that? Where’s your common sense?”

  Driven too far, Lenore whirled on him. “I left it outside Worcester—where you left your honor!”

  She was instantly sorry, for his face turned gray. For a moment he towered over her and she quailed back, thinking that he would strike her down. But he got control of himself and slammed out, muttering, “Better by far had I left you to the Ironsides!”

  Lenore flinched, sank down on a hard wooden chair and burst into a storm of weeping. She was drying her eyes when Gilbert arrived, showing surprise to find Geoffrey gone.

  Lenore considered him through wet dark lashes. Geoffrey had implied that Gilbert was a coward. She would ask him directly. Her question was blunt. “Why were you not at Worcester fighting for your King?”

  If he was startled by this assault, Gilbert did not show it. With an elegant gesture, he brushed a speck of dust from his velvet sleeve. “I was in indifferent health and down with a bout of chills and fever when the King rode south. I recovered and was on my way to Worcester when news of the defeat reached me. There was no point in continuing on—I returned home.”

  Lenore was satisfied with that answer. It became apparent that Geoffrey was not.

  When he returned that night, Lenore apologized. “I was angry,” she said stiffly, and Geoffrey returned her a curt nod.

  “It is forgotten, Lenore.” He studied her for a moment, from under dark brows. “I have arranged with Mistress Watts to have a dress made for you. Of russet wool. You are too
thinly clad in that dress, lovely though it is. You will need the warmth of wool to endure an Oxford winter.”

  She felt shame flood her. She had been thorny and intractable, while Geoffrey was thinking only of her comfort.

  “I asked Gilbert why he was not at Worcester,” she said quickly, as a way of changing the subject.

  Geoffrey’s brows shot up. “Ah, then he was here after I left?”

  She ignored the overtones of that remark in her eagerness to tell him of Gilbert’s chills and fever. “ ’Twould have been madness for him to continue on after he had learned of the defeat.”

  Geoffrey smiled grimly at her. “My caramel-haired cousin has many endowments—not the least of them an imperishable charm for women, but valor is not one of them. He straddles the fence with a foot in Cromwell’s camp and one in the King’s and plans to ride easy with the winner.”

  “How can you say that?” demanded Lenore hotly. “You’ve no proof!”

  “No, but I know Gilbert. When we were lads, we once faced a wild boar in the forest. We were armed only with bows and arrows, and ’twas a full-grown boar. I could not loose my arrow because Gilbert was squarely in the way—but he would have had a clear shot. Instead he stood rooted to the ground until I knocked him aside to save his life, for the boar was charging. My arrow struck the boar in the snout—but the boar struck me also. I was fortunate that he tossed me over the branch of a tree where I clung until rescue came. I bear the scars of it yet.”

  She remembered a grisly scar on his right leg, an “old wound” that he had dismissed as being “of no importance.”

  “And what of Gilbert?” she asked faintly. “Was he injured also?”

  “Nay, Gilbert took off running and launched himself at a low cliff. He scrambled up the rocks and made it back to the manor.”

  “He brought you the rescue party!” she protested.

  “The rescue party did not come from Gilbert,” he said evenly. “ ’Twas a party of hunters chanced by and staunched the wound and saved me from bleeding to death. Gilbert must have been ashamed of his part in the encounter, for when he reached the manor he informed his parents that we had become separated in the woods, he knew not where I was. I did not inform them differently when the hunters carried me in.”