“Jealous?”
“Because I prefer to spend my time with him rather than you!”
Kate leapt to her feet, arms akimbo at her waist. “I am not jealous and if I were, I assure you I would not be jealous of that, more than likely I would be jealous that you have Richard’s company than that I lack yours!”
“Ah,” he said.
“Ah what?” Kate demanded.
“You have fallen into the trap…you are jealous and just as you admit. You cannot stand that Richard prefers me to you and your damned Abbot! That he longs for the hunt and butt rather than your dull books and psalm singing.”
“Believe that if you wish, but I assure you Richard really wants to go and he will have told you as much.”
“You and that damned Abbot have persuaded him!” Efan would not be gainsaid. She saw that he was hurt by what he saw as Richard’s defection. He really loved the lad. Kate knew that, and in spite of her feelings for the man, she had married, a tiny core of sympathy welled up inside her.
“I do assure you Efan that it has come from Richard. He is curious as boys are, it does not mean he loves you the less.”
“What is this obsession you have with love, woman? I shall miss his company. Love has nothing to do with it, as it has nothing to do with anything. There is no such thing as love, as you go on about it!”
“As you will,” she said, bowing her head, surprised that she felt an arrow of hurt pierce her.
“You cannot even get him to do his Latin. He has no saintly virtues. He is a boy fast becoming a man and one with an eye for the wenches too!”
Had he truly an eye for the wenches? Kate had not noticed this interest, but then Richard spent all his time now with Efan so how could she know of their conversations.
“I have little influence over Richard’s decisions,” she said, as coolly as she could.
“That is a lie. You have much influence. There is something, some power over him that you hold.”
Kate felt the heat rising. It crawled up her throat, darkening her cheeks. She had to turn away lest he see it, for he had come close to recognizing something between her and Richard. It was not power, it was conspiracy. He had not seen that, but he was no fool and had seen something!
“Efan,” said another voice, so fine and strong. Kate saw Richard in the doorway, his complexion berry-brown from being outdoors, his tall angular frame covered by a long, full cloak, not quite a man but not the child anymore either. “It has nothing to do with Kate. Please do not be angry with her, or with me.”
Caradoc whirled around, arms still at this side, his hands clenching and unclenching. “Why did you never tell me?” he insisted, but in a voice that was a little broken. Kate realized that he was hurt, that he was not insensitive to emotional pain. H felt betrayed. Her heart went out to him. Odd that she could feel hatred and tenderness for this man ,that she could not glory in his confused pain. In that brief moment, she longed to share the awful truth with him, to offer him comfort. Was she going mad? He would never countenance their deceit. He would never offer Richard protection.
It would be his duty to turn Richard over to the authorities and she knew he would never hesitate. He owed everything to the Tudors!
Richard said, after some long time, “I was ashamed to.” And the lie came out so easily! He had a goodly share of diplomatic skills at this fingertips, something that had to be inherent to his nature.
Efan went to him, putting a hand on his shoulder, the intimacy of the gesture not lost on Kate. She saw that he truly loved the lad.
“Never be ashamed of anything, not with me Richard. My days shall be oh so lonely. I cannot give you my blessing lad. I shall only pray for your return. Will this God of yours listen, do you think, to an old sinner such as I?”
“Yes Efan,” Richard flung his arms around him, clinging to him, causing Kate’s heart to ache even more. It would be a painful separation for them both. They were entwined together with a bond like that of father and son. Efan had become his father, Richard had become Efan’s son. If only, she mused, if only she had a child to take his mind away from Richard. If only Richard did not look so like his own father if only…if only…there were so many if onlys.
* * * *
The lord was morose. He pined for the kind of companionship only Richard could offer to him. “He is like a sheep without a lamb,” Dame Caradoc murmured, eyeing Kate as she watched her husband stalking the hall.
“A wolf would be a better description,” Kate said. “He is very angry as well as pained.”
“Now should be your time, you should be worming your way into his heart, Kate and not sitting here with me,” the Dame spoke firmly, more firmly than Kate had heard her. She turned to meet the bright blue eyes.
“He does not even like me,” Kate retorted a little sharply. “And you know why. He has saddled himself with a barren and penniless wife!”
“You are not barren, girl.”
“Aren’t I? It would seem so to me, to me and to everyone else.”
“The time is not right, that is all. You are young, there are many years to go before you pass the childbearing age. You will have a child when the time is right and not before.” Dame Caradoc looked at Kate, at the rosy cast to her complexion and the dark shadows her long lashes made on her cheek. “Do you care for him at all? There was a night when you dallied with him.”
Kate blushed. “How do you know that?” She knew the Dame referred to that Christmas night. It seemed eons ago, but that heat had withered, had been put out by her husband’s cynical vision of reality.
“I have eyes to see and I can read my son. I may not read words, Kate, but I can read him. He has feelings Kate. Life crushed those from him, the good hidings he took, the cruel jibes.. He learned to be tough and strong. He had to do so, had to become as hard and even harder than his tormentors. But Richard, well Richard awoke the dormant tenderness inside him. It is still there. It has always been there but just hidden. Take it for yourself Kate, take it before it is too late.”
“But I…” Kate stopped the words. She and Richard might not be here forever, the time of their moving on could be almost upon them. If the army that Henry Tudor feared would come and conquer, then Richard’s true position would be revealed. Yet should that happen where did she belong? Oh not by Richard’s side to be sure, for he would have greater people around him than her. Instinctively she knew he would never harm one hair on Caradoc’s head. They had gone too far the other way for that. Richard would perhaps even let them, she and Caradoc choose whether they wished to be together. What would Caradoc say to that? What would she?
Looking at Dame Caradoc, she realized that the good woman had become as a mother to her, the mother she had never known. Love had grown between them and for her husband? As she gazed at him a terrible kind of tenderness grew inside her. She took hold of Dame Caradoc’s hand, squeezing it gently in her own.
“He does not care for me. He said as much,” Kate murmured.
“You must make him care!” the Dame replied. “He is afraid of feelings, of being vulnerable. The marriage was forced on him, on you both, but it is up to you Kate, to make it more than a marriage of convenience. And now is the time. There will never be a better to make things wonderful between you.”
“Wonderful? They will never be that, for he cares little for me. He told me we have only to make the best of things. Not much of wonder can come of something so prosaic.”
“I believe it is actions that show, not words, words can lie but actions never can, my dear.”
The two women sat in silence for a long moment, each deep in their own thoughts. Life Kate reflected, had become a tangled web of deceit. It was not how she had ever envisaged living. Every road she had taken had a treacherous bend. She knew, however, that the good dame spoke sense. She had to try to fill the vacant place in her husband’s heart. They were married and that marriage could never be annulled. They would always be together. She squeezed the Dame’s hand once mo
re, and then left her seat. Crossing the hall, she joined her husband.
As she reached him, she was acutely aware of a desire to deceive no longer, to throw the dice into his corner, whether for good or ill. Yet she did not give way to this temptation. She had sworn to King Richard that she would never betray his nephew. Instead she made her voice light and pleasant and asked him to take her to the butts. Merely nodding his head, he acceded to her request with a weakness that came from his own lack of joy.
Outside it was warm and sunny. The torturous east wind was temporarily tamed, lightly teasing her skirts and making Efan’s sleeves billow gently.
Her first arrow went shooting giddily through the air to end up in the grass in front of the target. “You have not been practicing, lady,” he said. He came to stand behind her, his strong brown hands cupping hers on the bow string, holding it firmly. His rock hard body pressed into hers was both reassuring and disturbing. The familiar scent of him teased her nostrils. His body arched over hers, supple yet hard, causing deep implosions of desire deep inside her. Unaware of the devastating effect he was having on her, he firmed the arrow against the bow, tensing his fingers, her own fingers limp beneath his own. The arrow sped through the air, hitting an outer ring. “There,” he murmured against her cheek. But the arrow had not reached its target because of anything she had done. She was weakened by the potency of her desire. When he moved away she gave a soft cry of protest.
“What is it?” he asked from a little distance behind her.
“Hold me in your arms!” What was shame when compared to the hammering of her body? It was that Christmas night all over again. Her breasts rose and fell, greedily pressing against the soft wool of her dress and not daring to look across at him, she waited.
It seemed a long time and the ache between her thrusting breasts intensified so much she could have cried from it. He came then, folding his arms around her, thrusting her back against him, his arms tight around her waist enveloping her. “Tighter, tighter,” she murmured. He was breathing hard. She heard the rasping breath as his mouth came to her neck. His tongue ran silkily over the curve of her throat, up to the light hollow behind her ear, then he moved swiftly, turning her around, swinging her up into his arms, crossing the green sward in front of the target and then down the faint incline to where the grass grew long and sweet, where the poppies made vermilion splashes against the pale green.
“Efan.” She made a slight protest as he lay her down.
“Hush sweetheart,” he murmured, coming beside her, kissing her parted, swollen lips. His hands were a torment on her body. She writhed in an ecstasy of pain, longing for fulfillment, her arousal so complete his touching of her merely increased the ache of longing.
“Efan…take me, Efan, please now my love…for I cannot wait!”
“Katy,” he groaned her name, surrendering to her demands, joining her to him, scorching through her, her moans of pleasure, arousing inside him a potency of desire that sent intense shaft of light into his yes, making him aware of nothing but this moment.
He lay content in her arms, his head against her breast, listening to her breathing gently. She slept. Complete, fulfilled, the sun spilling down on her, making her hair, free from its cap, shine like highly polished oak.
The sun was it? The warmth of the late Spring, the scent of the meadow, all about them, who knew? For months she had been cold, their coming as one a chilling act so that he had even ceased to come to her. It was his fault. He knew that, for a woman liked sweet words and did not desire the kind of honesty he had given to her.
Enchantment. There had been a difference today, and a difference for the good; begetting could be good, he mused. He moved his head, his mouth slightly brushing the brown-pink center of her breast. Excitement mounted inside him.. His woman! The thought pleased him, fiery, intelligent, warm, He had looked at others but nothing had happened to his body. There had been no stirrings and only in his dreams in the dark of night did he find himself in agony and in agony too, because his dreams were full of this woman.
The priest shared with him Kate’s intelligence, but he had the rest. The rest of her belonged exclusively to himself. Thoughts of the Abbot and the things she shared with him aroused is jealous anger. He put is tongue urgently to that delicious center, heard her moan and experienced a fleeting moment of power before it was swamped by a wild passion that was tempered by tenderness.
* * * *
There were strange horses in the courtyard. They came within the gates a little sheepishly, as if everyone would know what they had been about. Seeing the horses, Kate reached out for his hand. Her feelings of contented pleasure drained from her. She knew the answer to Efan’s demand. “Who are these?” but she made no reply.
Dame Caradoc came through the door of the keep, making urgent gestures with her hands “Efan, the King’s men are here. They wish to see you!”
The Dame’s bright blue eyes saw Kate pale, saw fear come into her eyes. Her daughter-in-law was still not over her fears. She gave her a reassuring smile, for there was naught for Kate to fear, now she was safe. The wife of a loyal follower of the King, and indeed a man respected by all those in power.
Most of the men were coarsened by battle, ex-mercenaries, eking out a living where they could. Some knew the lord’s retainers and greeted them in friendly fashion. Ale was brought, their officers escorted into the solar, where wine and sweetmeats were brought. Kate served the refreshments, waiting for the lord’s dismissal. It did not come. She went to the back of the room and sat on a chest, her heart racing, listening to news and instructions.
They were laughing about it. The Irish had crowned a jackanapes. The pretender was not the Earl of Warwick. The Earl was locked away in the tower. He was an addle headed youth anyway. If it was not Warwick, then who? They speculated for a while. Could it be the Prince Richard? The hair on Kate’s neck stood up stiffly. It was Efan who had suggested the name. No, came the roar of them all, how out of touch the lord was, did he not know that the two princes, the innocent brothers of their lovely Queen, had been put to the sword by Richard of Gloucester.
Efan looked across, found Kate and looked deeply into her eyes. She kept her face expressionless and was so full of fear that she felt her features were carved from stone.
“Just some impostor,” the men agreed, “or that bastard son of Gloucester.”
Regardless of who it was over there in Ireland, an invasion was planned. All were called to the alert, forces gathering behind the Earl of Oxford to rout the traitors.
How times had changed, Kate reflected, for how soon did not those who were the original traitors call others, who had more right, that heinous name. If only you knew, you raving blackguards, that the king of England was just six miles away, hiding himself away like a leper, and fearful for his life.
It cost Kate much in pride and honesty to be the amenable lady and hostess. To arrange accommodation for these who would set out to do battle with those she supported.
She whispered her frustration to Edgar as she gave him instructions. He was a salve to her aching conscience and he offered consolation. There was nothing she could do, he counseled. It was safer too to awaken no suspicion, to give no cause for gossip and he talked her out of slipping something in their food that would give a mild stomach upset, although she had not been truly serious!
It was not until he came to her that night that Kate realized that Efan would leave the next day, that he would be part of that battle, that he might die, and his death would free her. She would be safe either way. If the battle went to the Yorkists she would be protected. Should the battle go the other way, then she would be the widow of a hero. This would legally be her home, no one would take it from her, she and Richard would be free.
His arms went around her as these thoughts entered her mind. It came suddenly and fearfully, the terrible realization that she feared for his safety, that she wished him not to have to go, and more terrible to her confused conscience, that if he
went, that she needed him to return.
This man whom she had hated, his hard naked body close to hers, his flesh firm against her hands, his auburn head against her breast. This man who had awakened her sensuality and who had aroused something else inside her, something that she dare not even name.
“Will you miss me?” he asked.
Words stuck in her throat, would not somehow transmit themselves to speech. In answer she tightened her hold on the flesh of his back. They were as close as two oysters, still she was afraid to express her feelings in words; the physical was somehow easier and would never be rejected.
He moved his mouth along her jaw, seeking her lips, tangling his tongue with hers, his hand cupping her breasts, playing with the pouting peaks. He slid his mouth downwards, capturing a hardened nipple between his lips, running his tongue around and around until she thrashed with pleasure. He move his mouth ever downwards, pausing to take the tender flesh of her belly between his teeth. Her hands were on his shoulders, grinding the flesh between her fingertips and when his mouth, eventually, cupped the very core of her being, she tore at his back with her nails, crying out her pleasure and pain. Slowly he came back to her. Her hands eagerly sought his maleness, longing to thrust him inside herself. He laughed very softly…and rolled onto his back. “If you must my angel…you may dominate me!” Eagerly she wrapped herself around him, slowly lowering herself over him, gasping with pleasure as she felt him sliding into the liquid heat of her. He moved her down to him she so he could take her breast into his mouth. Then he held her at the hips, his eyes glittering and half closed, his breath a long low moan that filled her with a mad kind of power.
“Woman, I love thee,” he groaned.
* * * *
At dawn she felt him move, leaving the massive bed, tucking the furs about her firmly. “Is it time?” she asked, drowsy and physically satiated, bruised and wonderfully exhausted.
“No, I am going to see Richard. I cannot leave without saying goodbye to him. You must know that I cannot!”
Seed of the Broom Page 15