This Towering Passion

by Valerie Sherwood

  With fear in his heart that he had lost his woman —nay more than that she was, his life—he made his way back to his lodgings at an even faster gait.

  “It must be true,” Mistress Watts sighed, when Geoffrey confronted her with Gilbert’s allegations. “For Mistress Daunt did leave word with me that Master Michael was to catch up with her, that if he did not, she’d wait for him at the first crossroads.” She gave him an accusing look. “She believed you gone to France.”

  Geoffrey winced. Indeed it must have seemed like it when he’d been gone almost a week! “Should she come back, Mistress Watts, tell her I have gone seeking her.” He paused, studying the landlady keenly, for he sensed she was holding something back. “Have you any knowledge of where she may have gone, Mistress Watts?”

  “Ye’ll not . . . harm her?” Mistress Watts asked in an altered voice.

  “Nay,” Geoffrey sighed. “I wish only to make amends.” “She did ask cook to provision her to Banbury—and told me she would send me the lodging-money from the fair there, or from some other fair.”

  Geoffrey frowned, and then his face cleared. Snowfire! Of course!

  “But after Master Michael came over, she may have changed her mind.” She bit her lip. “And when she left, I asked her what to tell you if you came back—and she said you could go to the devil.”

  So she had consigned him to the devil, had she? Geoffrey’s expression was wry.

  “Ye’ll not—ye’ll not harm her because I told ye that?”

  He shook his head. “I deserved it. And as to the lodging money, I’ll see ye receive it. Mistress Watts.”

  She watched him mount up, her faith in fine gentlemen somewhat restored.

  But it was a grim face Geoffrey turned toward the north as he rode out of Oxford. He liked not the idea that Lenore might have changed her mind after speaking with Michael. She was proud, and if his apparent desertion of her had caused her to fall into Michael’s arms, she well might turn him away when he found her.

  That he would find her had no doubt. Gilbert had said Michael was bound for Coventry, and Mistress Watts had said Lenore planned to take in the Banbury fair. In either case, they’d have taken the Banbury road that led north along the Cherwell. They were only a day ahead of him, and Michael was no kind of rider. If he moved swiftly, he might even catch up with them, lying over at an inn on the way.

  North along the Cherwells beautiful riverbank he rode, making inquiries at all the inns along the way. Had they seen a young fellow garbed in red accompanied by a beautiful woman riding a white horse and carrying a small baby? A pair worthy of remark surely, yet none had seen them.

  He passed tall haycarts pulled by sleepy-eyed lumbering oxen, and trudging farmers carrying pitchforks, moving sturdily along the roadside, big muscles rippling. He passed apple-cheeked country girls who looked at him with bright interest, and an occasional painted coach drawn by four or six horses. At one point, he rode down a green tunnel of overhanging branches where the trees pressed in upon the road. And midway down that tunnel he almost had to jump his horse over a deep depression some turned-over wagon must have dug in the mired earth. He looked at it grimly. A bad overturn, that. Someone could have been hurt, and it must have blocked the road in a place as narrow as this. He was distracted by a flock of sheep that poured like foaming water from a sheep track on the left and overflowed the road in all directions. They were being driven in from the Cotswolds and their baaing filled the leafy countryside with sound. They flowed around him like white-capped rapids, their woolly sides brushing his horse’s legs, and the shepherd smiled at him for sitting his mount so still and letting the flock stream by. In desperation, Geoffrey even asked the shepherd if he’d seen a beautiful woman on a white horse, but he got a regretful shake of the head. Plainly the young shepherd would have liked a glimpse of the woman Geoffrey described in terse, vivid terms.

  It was easy for Geoffrey to paint Lenore’s picture in words. And his gray eyes betrayed his longing. He parted company with the shepherd, brooding about her. By heaven, how she had fitted into his arms! With a twisting pain in his heart, he remembered the silken feel of her slender body, her soft murmurings as he held her close, the agonizing sweetness as he took her. For a moment the summer air was filled with the fragrance of her hair, the sunlight blazing on a gilded coach ahead no brighter than its sheen.

  But although he combed the road as thoroughly as he could and asked all likely travelers, though he stopped to inquire at inns and taverns and searched for her at Banbury where the fair was being held, no trace did he find of Lenore. She seemed to have vanished from the face of the earth.

  Haggard now—and with fear eating at him—he rode on to Coventry, dismounting at Michael’s ancestral home, Maltby Manor, just south of the town. He found it to be a crumbling stone manor house, pleasantly situated on a little knoll amid a grove of beeches. The rotting outbuildings and air of general decay—no less than the ancient farthingale in which Michael’s mother, the mistress of Maltby, was attired—attested to the fact that all their substance had been spent on their adored only son, Michael. On learning that he was a friend of Michael’s, they ushered him in as if he were a prince and promptly supplied him with partridge and wine while the whole family gathered round to question him eagerly. Michael was not expected until next week—what, had he taken the road already? Geoffrey assured them Michael had left Oxford.

  ‘‘But we have not heard from him!” Michael’s mother interrupted anxiously. “Are you sure he left Oxford before you and came up the Banbury road?”

  “I am not sure he came by the Banbury road,” said Geoffrey thoughtfully. “But that he left Oxford the day before me—of that I am sure, and I set no great pace, for all the way I stopped and inquired if any had seen him.”

  “And why?” This penetratingly from Michael’s grandmother, a sharp old lady who sat bolt upright wearing stiff brocades and a yellowed ruff—obviously one she had worn as a girl, from its present state of dilapidation. “Why do you seek Michael in such haste, young man?”

  They seemed so impoverished that Geoffrey was almost ashamed to eat the food they urged on him. “ Tis not Michael I seek.” He chose his words carefully. “But the lady Lenore who travels with him.”

  Michael’s mother blanched. “T-travels with him?” she asked faintly.

  “Aye,” he said gravely. “She is my wife. She was under the mistaken impression that I had left her, and I think Michael gives her his protection on the way to . . . some safe place.”

  “And where would that be?” demanded the grandmother testily.

  Geoffrey gave her a sad look. “If I knew, I would not be here.”

  “Oh,” said Geoffrey’s mother. “Oh, I see. But surely word will reach her through friends that you have not deserted her and—oh, I see, you believe it will not?” Geoffrey inclined his head in assent.

  “Perhaps he has taken another road this time,” suggested Michael’s aunt placidly, her cherubic face reminding Geoffrey sharply of young Michael.

  Michael’s worried mother threw her sister an impatient look. “It is not like him not to let us know,” she said sharply. “And he should be here by now, if he left Oxford when this gentleman says he did.”

  “You see, Michael has always come straight home to us from Oxford—no dallying along the way,” explained the wispy gentleman who was Michael’s father, suddenly entering the conversation. He studied Geoffrey’s worried face. ‘If Michael brings this lady here, we will promptly apprise her that you have been here seeking her,” he said earnestly. “Where can we reach you?”

  Geoffrey had been thinking about that, although he now had little hope that Michael would return to Maltby Manor anytime soon. Michael had always had with him a little money, provided by this poverty-stricken crew. It would be enough to provide a brief wedding trip, Geoffrey realized bitterly, should Michael’s intentions be honorable. The thought gnawed at his insides. ‘Tell her I’ll to Oxford,” he told Michael’s father. “And
if she finds me not there, she can reach me through Ned—she will know where to find him. I will be in touch with Ned.”

  He thanked them for their hospitality, rose and escaped the bare, run-down surroundings that had spawned a cheerful young popinjay who—he drew his gauntlets on his hands with unnecessary force—had made off with his mistress.

  He was about to ride away when he saw Michael’s mother hurrying after him, impeded by her awkward farthingale. He halted and waited for her to catch up.

  “You are not—you are not saying that Michael is—is enamored of this wife of yours?” she blurted, when she could catch her breath.

  Geoffrey gave her a wintry look. “Such is Mistress Lenore’s beauty that all men are enamored of her,” he said savagely. “Michael no more than others, perhaps.”

  “But—but—”

  “I believe him to be protecting her,” he said shortly. “Perhaps from me.”

  He cantered rapidly away, leaving her staring after him, her face white and drawn.

  Geoffrey’s mind was working furiously as he rode away. Where could they have gone? Twainmere he discounted as impractical—Lenore would be afraid to return there with her lover. It was doubtful any of Michael’s relatives would take him in. They might have gone to London, pretending to ride away as a feint, but actually slipping into a boat and floating down the Thames. If so, someone in Oxford might have seen them leave—Lenore with her bright hair and Michael in his red cloak would have made a memorable pair.

  It occurred to him suddenly that Mistress Watts might know more than she had told him, that Gwynneth the serving-girl, with whom Lenore had been on friendly terms, might have heard her say something about her destination before she left—and he cursed his stupidity that he had not wrung them dry of information before he galloped off to the north. And that fellow who lodged upstairs from Michael, Barney—he’d seen them ride off together, according to Gilbert. Perhaps he’d have a clue as to where they might have gone.

  Fast he rode back to Oxford. On his way back from Banbury he passed a crossroads marker. Above it some vultures were circling. A dead sheep, he thought, or perhaps a fox. He was impatient to get to Oxford and put those dark, circling wings from his mind.

  Had he stopped to investigate, it would have changed the course of his life.

  As it was, he went on to Oxford, riding in openly, impatient for news. He headed directly for Barney’s lodgings.

  But he had reckoned without Gilbert.

  CHAPTER 19

  When Lenore had branded Gilbert, he had rushed to a surgeon to have his face attended to. It would leave a scar, he was told calmly.

  A scar on his handsome countenance! Gilbert had leaped up and staggered from the surgeon’s house and gone running to the authorities intending to denounce her. But on the way a crafty thought had entered his head. He wanted to punish Lenore himself, and perhaps there was a way....

  Seething with rage and pain, he had charged her with assault upon his person. Once imprisoned, he told himself with demonic glee, she’d do anything to gain her release. His price for dropping the charge would be that she move in with him—and he’d keep her docile by threatening to denounce her as the Angel of Worcester. His caramel eyes glittered with anticipation. He’d stripe that pretty back of hers! Mayhap he’d even tie her up and brand . . . the sole of her foot, perhaps? For he’d no wish to destroy the beauty he intended to enjoy. Half his pleasure would be making her beg!

  With a ferocious smile on his injured face, Gilbert accompanied the authorities to Lenore’s lodgings. There a pale and shaken Mistress Watts stuttered that Mistress Daunt had ridden off, she knew not where.

  Gilbert had given her a black look. He did not believe that—a woman with a small babe and no money! Lenore was in hiding. Well, he would find her himself!

  On his way back to his lodgings, he ran into Barney. Barney, intrigued by the court plaster that adorned Gilbert’s face as much as by the angry scowl that brought those caramel brows together, hailed him.

  “Ye look like ye’ve been in a duel,” he observed.

  “An accident,” said Gilbert shortly. It would hurt his pride to have Barney know he’d been branded by a woman. “What news?” he asked, to change the subject.

  Barney laughed. He was full of news today. “Michael has run off with Mistress Lenore.”

  Rage broke over Gilbert like an onrushing wave. She had escaped him! Almost he rushed back to the authorities he had so recently left and denounced Lenore as the Angel of Worcester. But as the mist cleared from his eyes, he pulled himself together. He muttered something incoherent, flung away from Barney, and went back to his lodgings with murder in his heart.

  There he quickly downed a brandy and sat down to plan. Perhaps she had not escaped him after all, this woman who had marked his face forever.

  He touched the court plaster and winced. Barney had assumed he’d been pinked in a duel. He poured himself another brandy, and his eyes narrowed. He bethought him that he could indeed brag to strangers that it was an old dueling scar—even, in the right circumstances, that he had been wounded at Worcester; none would know the difference, and it would enhance his reputation. His mother had contemptuously called him “too pretty” more than once—this scar would give his narrow face character. On thinking it over, he could almost be glad it had happened because he could turn it to good account.

  Lenore, of course, must not go unpunished. He thought about that, too, as the brandy burned his throat, and his lazy countenance was evil. He’d a mind to get her back and ... there was a way.

  Michael was a weak reed, he reasoned. He knew something of Michael’s circumstances, enough to know that Michael always wore red because by having clothes of the same color, he could distract attention from a frayed cuff, a worn sleeve, by wearing some other garment that was dazzlingly new. Although Michael had pocket money, Gilbert was fairly certain the lad had no source of income other than his doting family.

  Lenore was obviously without resources; if she’d had a place to go, she’d have taken Geoffrey there and had her baby. So she must go where Michael took her.

  Even should Michael marry Lenore—and Gilbert thought him mad enough to do that—it would be beyond belief that Michael’s mother would take in as a daughter-in-law, this cast-off doxie dragging another man’s bastard.

  So, Gilbert reasoned, times would become hard for Michael, his money would be quickly exhausted, he would abandon Lenore and scuttle back to the safety of his home near Coventry.

  And at that point, Gilbert thought with a cruel smile, Lenore would be ripe for the taking.

  He sharpened a quill, dipped it in the inkwell, and dashed off a letter to Michael at Maltby Manor, Warwickshire, in which he said:

  “I know that you have run off with Geoffrey’s doxie, Lenore, and knowing her fickle ways, must believe that you have now tired of her and returned home. Having lain with her myself—” he paused with the quill in the air; he wanted to say “on numerous occasions,” but young Michael might not believe that; he sighed and began to write again—“I would account it a favor if you would apprise me of her whereabouts—and would send you my new ‘jackanapes’ coat which you so admired as a token of regard, upon receipt of such information.

  Your obedient servant,

  Gilbert Marnock.”

  He posted the letter and sat back with satisfaction to await developments.

  Geoffrey’s attack had come as a complete surprise. He had been so sure the doings at the alehouse at Headington Quarry would never be traced to him. And for Geoffrey to know that Lenore had branded him! In the agony of his burn and the horror that his handsome face might be marred for life, he had not even noticed Mistress Watts, her eyes popping, gaping at him from the downstairs hallway as he rushed out. Never had he thought that she might tattle to Geoffrey!

  But Gilbert, for all that he had been found out, had in the end been born under a lucky star, and when Geoffrey threw him through the window of his lodgings, his luck
had held. He had landed, not in the alley below, but in a tall-sided haycart parked beneath his window. The farmer who owned the cart had gone inside to collect for his hay in advance, for Geoffrey’s landlord was careless with his hay payments for the stable he kept behind the house.

  It was in this hay that Gilbert had landed—undoubtedly saving his life, for he arrived head first.

  Hearing the crash of broken wood and glass and Gilbert’s high-pitched shriek, the farmer, the landlord, and the cook all came running out to see in amazement Gilbert’s flailing boots protruding from the mound of hay and weird inhuman noises issuing from its soft depths.

  Sure he was dead and groaning loudly, Gilbert was pulled out. They brushed the hay off his handsome clothes —he struck one of them in a petulant rage as this was done—and stood him on his wobbly legs. There was nothing broken, but he presented a bloody sight, bruised and cut as he was from breaking through the stout casements with his body. That they were all minor wounds save one—a gouge in his other cheek where he had grazed a hidden pitchfork in the depths of the hay— attested to his luck.

  “Geoffrey will pay for this!” he sobbed, putting shaking fingers to this new marring of his handsome face. “Geoffrey will pay!”

  The landlord, secretly pleased at Gilbert’s mishap, for he was an unruly tenant and slow to pay, was solicitous in helping Gilbert up to bed. There as the afternoon progressed his friends crowded around, clucking their tongues, for it was a self-serving tale Gilbert told them. Lenore had been bent on fleeing Oxford with Michael, he said—adding spitefully his own invention: Lenore’s scheme was not to elope with Michael, as the lad believed, but to bilk him of what money he had, to steal his purse as he slept at the first inn they put up in, and make her way to London, where a woman of her endowments would have greater scope—she had bragged to him of this.