“Tell me about yourself, I’m intrigued. Guy’s never been so taken with any woman enough to make her his mistress, let alone a foreign one. Where are you from?”
She was barely into the colorful portion of her tale when Alex sucked in his breath. In her opinion, the story sounded pretty credible. When the prince inquired about her homeland, she’d told him, Lapland. His interest didn’t abate with the simple answer and she added a bit.
“I was a foundling raised in a convent.”
The second time Alex sucked in air she gave him a shot to the ribs with her elbow.
They’d discussed possible explanations during the trip to London, but hadn’t agreed on one yet. While he met with the king and council earlier, she invented a flawless story. She never got the chance to tell him the basics. On the way to dinner she tried to, but Alex interrupted her and called Simon over to ask if he’d seen Basil. Simon had grinned and said he’d overheard one of Basil’s ladies say he’d arrive the next day. Simon gave Alex a wink when he said ‘ladies.’ It was the first time she’d ever seen sourpuss Simon crack a smile. At the entrance to the hall, she attempted once more to discuss her idea. Alex waved her off. He said he wasn’t worried. He said he trusted her judgment.
It didn’t take him long to go from Mr. I trust you to Mr. Uptight. What did he expect her to say? She couldn’t pick a place someone might’ve visited or someplace England trades with on a regular basis. She couldn’t risk the off chance someone might speak to her in a language she didn’t know. She guessed right. No one ever heard of Lapland and attributed her weird English to her foreign upbringing.
Those within earshot became convinced of her Lap origins and she couldn’t resist the temptation to embellish. She thought the added elements gave the story a certain verisimilitude. Shakira told a tragic tale of how, as a novice, she’d been en route to a convent in Anglesey.
“Our ship went down in a storm, not far offshore. I and several crew members managed to make it to land. Sadly, the other nuns and novices didn’t. We were taken to the village where Alex happened to be spending the night. We met and well...”
She cut the story short to pound on Alex’s back after he choked on a piece of mutton.
While the other magpies found seats at nearby tables, Cameo Face remained, talking first to two knights and then to Philippa and the king. Shakira hoped she was married to one of the knights, or engaged, or a powerful man's mistress.
“The blonde is comfortable speaking with the king and queen. She must be a familiar face here. Is she married to one of the courtiers?” Shakira asked the prince.
"The comely lady is Blanche Holland. Her brother, Sir John, is our household steward. They're both held in high esteem by my family." The prince cast an assessing gaze at Blanche. "My father will see she marries well. One of his favorite barons, I should think. One whose station he plans to raise after the campaign in France."
Edward's gaze slid in Alex's direction. As if on cue, Blanche’s discussion with the king and queen ended. She drifted past Shakira and the prince towards Alex. All the seats at the table were occupied. A horrified Shakira looked on as the gentleman next to Alex vacated the spot for Cameo Face.
The overactive imagination Alex accused her of possessing ran rampant with desperate scenarios--hideous imaginings of the king ordering Alex to marry Blanche. How could he say no? To the king, Shakira was nothing, just one more discarded mistress. What would happen to her? Would she be compelled to service the prince? Then what? What happens when the prince tires of a woman? Does the lady get handed off to another nobleman, passed around like a bottle of brandy? She’d probably survive that torment, women usually did. How would she survive losing Alex?
She took a deep breath and counted to ten. While the prince conversed with his father, she observed Alex. The other men attacked the platters. They tore chunks of meat from the bone and ripped hunks from the bread like a pack of lions over a gazelle. His manners were polite and refined as he shared his trencher. He patiently cut Blanche’s meat into bite size pieces and pulled the bread apart with genteel grace.
If she could choose any man to share the fourteenth century with, it would be Alex. If she could choose any man to share any century with, wherever fortune took them, it would be Alex.
"You've lovely tresses, black as night and thick as silk rope." Her attention snapped back to the prince. Edward separated a lock out, and twisted it around his finger. "They say when one door closes another opens." His gaze shifted from the lock and settled on Alex and his dinner companion. "Do you think there’s any truth to the sentiment?"
Afraid the innuendo would turn to invitation, she focused on her goblet of wine and answered with legal logic. "No. The observation assumes facts not in evidence.”
The prince eyed her for a long moment. His expression unreadable. “You speak like a barrister,” he said at last. “Not the language one expects from a former novice.”
Shakira held a panicked breath, thinking fast as she tried to find a reason a novice might’ve learned it.
The prince didn’t pursue the topic. He looked past her to Alex. "We leave at daybreak for the hunt. I assume you plan to join us?”
“Of course,” Alex said.
Shakira sighed in relief. She’d be more careful of how she phrased things in the future.
The prince continued toying with her hair as they discussed their hunt plans. Edward's ministrations turned to a slow caress down her arm. Alex looked unconcerned by the gesture.
His indifference struck a painful nerve. Caught up in her hurt, the gist of their conversation didn’t sink in right away. When it did, new worry alarms went off. A hunting party that included Alex left her in perilous territory, alone, without protection.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Alex hustled Shakira to their chamber right after the meal.
"You and Edward had a jolly time together. The two of you had hardly a word for anyone else at the table," he said, packing his saddlebag for the hunt. "I never saw you as the flirtatious or fawning type. It appears I was wrong."
Stunned by the bizarre accusation, Shakira stared at him speechless. His words reverberated in her head. Fawning? Flirtatious? How could he believe that?
How dare he suggest it?
"What was I supposed to do? Ignore the prince? Pretend I'm a deaf mute? What? You tell me," she said, ready to counter with Alex and Blanche’s intimate conversation that excluded their fellow dinner companions.
She managed "Oof," as she was pressed to the stone wall, by Alex's swift response to her sarcastic challenge. His weight strategically spread, he kept her pinned and immobile.
With his arms on either side of her head, he pushed against the upraised palms on his chest, her instinctual response. She met opposition from both sides. Hard stone poked through the layers of clothing and into her back. Hard planes of his flexed chest muscles resisted her defense from the front.
"What's wrong with you?" she asked.
Alex skimmed a hand behind her neck and up into her hair. His fingers twined and turned strands, tighter and tighter.
“You’re hurting me.”
He angled her head and eased the pressure without releasing his hold.
"Nothing changes. Modern women are no different from medieval women. The slightest flirtation from a prince of the realm and you all fall on your knees." Anger, different than she’d seen in him before, raw and uncivilized, sparked in his eyes.
She opened her mouth to argue. Her parted lips silenced by his brutish kiss, a savage assault of dominance. As fast as he'd fisted a hand in her hair, he let go.
Pressed to the wall, she couldn’t move as his hands slid under the heavy skirt to grasp her buttocks. With little effort he lifted her and wrapped her legs around his waist.
He nibbled a path the length of her throat, the nips falling just short of painful. Cool air touched upon the moist places he left behind as he continued further down. He knew all her secret spots, all the ways to drive her crazy. In the
far recesses of her mind, she was aware he'd loosened his hose, dropping the barrier between them. One arm supported her while he slipped his other hand up, cupping and rubbing her sensitive mound, his fingers burrowing inside her.
"You're wet. I wonder who for?" His warm breath was deceptively sensual and a cruel contrast to the ugliness of the whispered words.
"Let me go." She writhed against his iron hold.
"Not yet. We've unfinished business."
Knowledgeable hands teased her charged flesh.
"Don't...don't take me in anger," she said under a sigh as his fingers delved deeper, the objection pathetic and weak.
"Do you imagine Edward knows to kiss you here?" He ran his tongue lightly over an erotic spot on her throat, "Or here?"
His lips brushed back and forth over the juncture between her neck and shoulder, dipping into the hollow above her collarbone. Beard stubble burned her soft skin. She’d have a raspberry mark the next day.
"Say you don’t want this. Tell me no, and I’ll stop," he said, and bit here and there along her jaw. “Tell me to stop.”
Protest turned to compliance, the rough, cold masonry digging into her spine, forgotten. Flush with the heat of passion, she clasped Alex's shoulders.
He took her against the wall, fast and intense.
"Remember who brought you to this soiree," he said, finished and breathing hard. He lowered her onto rubbery legs.
“What a medieval bastard you are. In case you've forgotten, I asked to stay behind."
A myriad of dark emotions played across his face, suspicion, jealousy, others not easy to interpret. All left Shakira confused. Then, his expression softened and he kissed her sweetly, adding to her confusion. Each gentle touch of his lips paid detailed homage to a new place on her mouth with an inordinate amount of time spent on her lower lip. For the second time since they entered the chamber coherent thought abandoned her.
"You've no idea how medieval I can get, especially with what's mine," he whispered against her lips. He lifted his head and turned from her.
She reached out to grab his arm and pull him back. Her fingers closed around air. She missed him by inches as he stepped away, dismissing the emotion, dismissing her.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Loud thumps woke Shakira. Chimes rang out from close by. Westminster Abbey. The ringing stopped and a single bell tolled seven o'clock. The thumps started again. Her sleepy mind took a moment to focus and realize the sound was knocking. Who the devil pounded on the door this early?
"Alex, someone's at the door." She rolled over to shake him awake. The sheets on his side of the bed were cold. He'd left and hadn't bothered to wake her or kiss her goodbye.
The door swung open and a male servant entered. Startled, she burrowed under the covers until only her nose up remained exposed. He scanned the commoner mistress of Baron Guiscard with the blatant repugnance reserved for a hound in the kitchen.
"The king requests your presence." His terse tone carried an insolent edge. With Alex gone, the servant felt no need to hide his scorn. "I will be outside." He waved Enid, the maid, into the chamber. Before he left, he shot a beady-eyed warning glance at her, "'tis best not to keep the king waiting."
***
The advisement wasn’t necessary. Only a fool try’s a king’s patience. Preoccupied with reasons for the king’s request, she rushed through her morning routine, dressing in the first gown Enid pulled from the trunk.
“Will there be anything else, milady?” the maid asked as she finished tying the gown’s laces.
“No, you may go.”
Shakira stepped out of the chamber and was met by the surly servant who acted as her escort. He turned down a cold, dim passageway that intersected with the main corridor. The pathway ran perpendicular to the one she and Alex used the prior evening. Only the servant's torch lit their way. She thought they changed directions after a couple of minutes, but the bend, if it existed, was subtle.
She couldn't see the floor, or her surroundings, only flashes of stone where the servant's torchlight touched. Even his shadow was lost to the gloom.
The dark began to prey on her imagination and played tricks with her logic. The void tightened. The walls pressed closer. The air lacked oxygen.
She struggled to function in the vacuum-like atmosphere. Disoriented, she lost her balance and stumbled. She never suffered from claustrophobia and understood in some corner of her mind that her panic was self-induced. She stopped, bent and grasped her knees, and tried to take deep breaths.
"You delay while the king waits," the servant warned.
"Yes, yes, I know. I need a moment." This wasn't the way to the hall. Where was he really taking her? Perhaps Edward didn't await her at all. He had no real reason to speak to her. Perhaps this was a ruse to lure her to some dank dungeon or worse. A place the king put people meant to be forgotten, an oubliette, a hollow where madness or death is the only relief from the agonizing torture of starvation and thirst. She reached out a shaky hand seeking the support of the stone wall as she fought hysteria.
She recoiled as her fingers touched on a patch of damp slime. She straightened and took several slow steps toward the servant who started down the passage again. Faint light from a window appeared ahead and a breeze reeking of fish. It meant they traveled along the Thames side of the palace.
The river air brought thoughts of escape. How many stories up were they? The chamber where she and Alex slept was on the fourth floor. Had this passage taken a downward turn? She couldn't tell. She'd lost her bearings early. If it had angled down, she might be able to make a run for freedom and leap into the river. The desperate idea faded swiftly. She’d never survive. She wasn’t a strong enough swimmer to fight the fast currents, not to mention the heavy clothing she wore dragging her down. In spite of that reality, for a moment, she considered the option. It had to be better than a prolonged and horrible death. The idea faded too. Logically, before she met a watery end, men on cargo boats would retrieve her. They’d turn her over to the king.
She tamped down her growing fears and told herself the meeting was a big nothing. The king intended to chitchat with her and not secretly imprison her. The part of her that hysteria held onto whispered, what could the king possibly have to chat with you about? Whatever the king’s purpose, she had to believe Alex would find a way to prevent anything terrible happening to her.
***
Taken to a smoky, windowless antechamber, the servant told her to wait, the king was busy. Good. Her eyes burned and watered from the haze the fireplace generated but she’d be ecstatic to wait all day. Maybe Edward would forget about her.
When the abbey bells tolled eight o’clock, the same servant returned and led her to the well lit council chamber. It was a sea of wood: a floor of oak planks, walls of floor to ceiling mahogany panels interspersed with gilded rosettes, and a tray ceiling of various inlaid woods. If she hadn’t seen the room and someone described it to her, she’d have thought it tedious. She actually found it on the pretty side.
“You may approach, Lady Shakira,” the king said.
On a raised wooden platform, the creator of the Order of the Garter, the Victor of Crecy, and fingers-crossed not the Tormentor of Shakira, sat in a high-backed chair. A fox carved in beautiful detail and painted red decorated the top of the frame. The creature looked just like the one on the Fox and Hounds pub sign near her house.
“Your Highness.” Her curtsy brought her eye level with the upholstered arms of the chair. The hand rests were carved like animal paws, claws extended. An interesting feature if the piece was in a museum and not where it was at the moment.
"Rise," Edward replied.
At dinner, she estimated his height to be about six-foot, tall for the time, nothing to gush about. However, when a subject is not a favored courtier and ordered to appear before one's monarch, six-foot looms like seven-foot, even when seated.
Tense and anxious, she clasped her trembling hands in front of her.
Another man stood near the king, mute and arrow straight. He could be a councilor or a servant, she'd no idea. A third man stepped from a darkened alcove and stopped parallel to her, facing the king. His close presence cut off the fresh air on that side. A heavy dose of lavender drifted over but with an underlying musty scent of clothes not completely clean.
“Thomas Dankworth, milady,” the king said and inclined his head toward the man next to her. "Thomas, may I present my ward, Lady Shakira."
My ward. Her stomach lurched and a horrible sense of foreboding filled her. Denial exploded in her brain, nearly burst from her lips as a sick, dark image of what was about to occur formed. No. Please, no. The silent, terrified scream reverberated between her ears.
The king smiled in an impassive, humorless way. "It is our wish for you to spend the next few days at Thomas’s home."
Dankworth offered his hand palm up.
She stared. Her eyes darted from his face to his hand and back, not fully making the connection she was expected to offer her hand to him. Dankworth waited to execute a chivalrous greeting. His hand hung in the air prepared to take hers in his. When the penny did drop, she held out a white knuckled, clenched fist instead. Cool fingers clamped around her knuckles.
“Lady Shakira,” he said and bowed.
Waxy yellow, his skin had an unhealthy tint but was unmarred by the pox scars that ravaged the faces of many courtiers. Neither ugly nor handsome, he attempted in a contrived way to be more attractive. The effect, however, was smarmy and affectated. He stood about two inches taller than her with reddish-brown hair, curled pageboy style at the weak jaw line. From the sheen and strong woody scent, he used musk oil on his meticulous goatee and mustache. Instead of appearing debonair, which she assumed was the intent; the combination drew attention to his pencil thin lips and broad nose.
Dankworth’s flamboyant clothes brought organ grinder’s monkey costumes to mind. Forest green with an elaborate branch pattern embroidered on the hem, his cloak was on the feminine side but not bad. Shakira zeroed in on the gaudy gem brooch he used to fasten the cloak to the garment beneath. Her granny, who favored ostentatious jewelry, would’ve consigned the purple, red, and blue brooch to the white elephant bin in a blink.
Journey in Time (Knights in Time) Page 12