By Arrangement

by Madeline Hunter

  Three entwined serpents … shocked alertness shook her. She sat upright and stared.

  The knight entered the chamber. Tall and lean, he looked around placidly as he removed his gauntlets. His body moved fluidly in the clumsy armor as if he wore a second skin. He stood proudly with a touch of arrogance. Mussed brown hair hung around his perfect, weatherbronzed face. Blue eyes met hers intently.

  She watched speechlessly. To her right, the women turned to regard the strong and handsome new man. To her left, the Comte strode forward, smiling, his hands outstretched.

  “Welcome to France, nephew.”

  David de Abyndon, her David, her merchant, turned to the Comte de Senlis.

  Nephew! Stunned, she looked from him to the Comte and then back again. She suddenly understood the odd familiarity she had felt when she looked in that older man's face.

  She glared at David, standing there so casually and naturally in his damn armor, looking for all the world like a knight, accepting a kinsman's welcome from this French baron.

  Of course. Of course. Why hadn't she seen it before? The height. The strength. The lack of deference. He hadn't told her. He had never even hinted. The urge to strangle her husband assaulted her.

  The Comte spoke quietly and gestured David toward the hearth.

  “I will see to my wife first,” David said, and dismissing his uncle's interest, he crossed the space to her.

  She glanced up the molded metal plates and looked him accusingly straight in the eyes. He looked straight back. Placid. Inscrutable. Cool.

  “You are well and unharmed?”

  “Aside from feeling like an ignorant and stupid fool who is married to a lying stranger, I am well.”

  He bent to kiss her. “I will explain all when we are alone,” he said quietly. “Come now, and sit with me. Do not take to heart what I say to him, darling. I would have the Comte think that we are not content together.”

  “I should be able to help you with that.”

  The Comte wanted to speak with David alone. He had dismissed the barons and mayor, and frowned in annoyance when David led Christiana to the hearth.

  “Thanks to you, I gamble with her life now as well as my own,” David said. “She has a right to know my situation.”

  She sat in a chair. David stood near the hearth and she watched him with confusion and shock and anger. In a strange way, however, a small part of her nodded with understanding. Something seemed appallingly right about seeing him like this, as if a shadow that had always floated behind him had suddenly taken substance and form. Who are you really?

  She glanced at the Comte and could tell from that old man's approving gaze that he saw what she saw.

  David turned to his uncle and let his annoyance flare. “I told you that she was not to be involved.”

  The Comte raised his hands. “You did not come in April. I sought to encourage you.”

  “I did not come because the storms rose as soon as I reached Normandy. Why deliver news that would have no value? The fleet barely made it back to England.”

  So he had come to France at Easter. But then, she had known that as soon as she saw him enter the hall.

  “I had men waiting for you at Calais and St. Malo. You did not come.”

  “Do you think that I am so stupid as to put in at a major trading port where I might be recognized? Would you be so careless?”

  The Comte considered this and made a face of tentative acceptance. “Still, you are late. I expected you weeks ago. The army is ready to move.”

  “I am late because my wife disappeared and I sought to find her.”

  “You knew where she was.”

  “I did not. I could hardly leave England without knowing her fate.”

  The Comte flushed. “They were to leave—”

  “No note or word was left.” David stared hard at the Comte. “You sent Frans to do this, didn't you? Against our agreement.”

  “He knew the people. He knows your habits.”

  “Aye. But he relied on Lady Catherine, who holds no love for me. Also against our agreement. And she had her own plans for me. I was lucky to get out of England alive.”

  The Comte reddened. “She endangered you?”

  “You probably assumed that I would know, note or not, that you had taken Christiana. What other explanation could there be? What you did not know is that my wife has a lover who lives in the north country.”

  The Comte glanced in scathing disappointment at her. She faced him down. David had better have a damn good reason for telling his uncle that.

  “Lady Catherine knew this, however,” David continued. “And so she had the men whom she and Frans hired leave no note or sign, so I would wonder if Christiana had gone to this man. They even took her out of the country by way of a northern port, so that I could follow her trail toward her lover. All the while, time is passing and I am still in England.” He paused and smiled unpleasantly. “And during that time, Catherine went to King Edward and told him about me. She had a lot to tell, because Frans had let her know of my relationship to you.”

  A very hard expression masked the Comte's face. Christiana drew back in alarm. She had seen that expression before, but not on this Frenchman's face.

  “I will deal with them both. The woman and Frans.”

  “I have already done so.”

  “If the woman betrayed you to Edward, what you know may be useless. He may change the port.”

  She had been correct in her suspicions then. David planned to give the port's location to the Comte and the French. But not in exchange for silver and gold. And, as a son of Senlis, not even in treason. Every noble knew and respected the loyalties of blood ties. An oath of fealty bound one just as strongly, but a wise king or lord never asked his liegemen to make a choice between the two obligations.

  “I thought of that,” David said. “And it may happen. But before I slipped out, I learned that, even two weeks after hearing Catherine's tale, he had not changed his mind. He had already sent word to the English forces on the Continent, and there was no time to undo that. But he may hope that you expect him to, so that you resist committing all of your forces to the one place. I wonder if he did not let me escape with the news of Lady Catherine's betrayal in order to cast doubt on the value of this information in the event that I had managed to send it to you earlier.”

  All of David's attention was concentrated on his uncle, and those blue eyes never wavered in their scrutiny of the older man's face. The Comte's own eyes, brown rather than blue but so similar nonetheless, appeared just as piercing whenever he studied David.

  Who are you really? Well, now she knew. She was too numb and confused to decipher how she felt about this startling revelation. She should be relieved. Her husband was not common. His father's blood, the important blood, had been noble.

  So why did this anger unaccountably want to unhinge her?

  The Comte paced and nodded to himself. “I think that you are right. The summer is passing quickly. If he comes at all, he must do so now. His army has been mustered. It is too late to change course.” He pivoted toward David. “Do you have it, then?”

  “I have it. More than he knows that I have. The roads he will take and the direction he will head. The size of his force. I have it all.”

  The Comte waited expectantly.

  David smiled faintly. “Do you have the documents?”

  The Comte gave an exasperated sigh. “Mine is here and witnessed. The constable brings that from the King when he arrives. But we waste time …”

  “You have already broken most of our spoken agreement. And because of that, I have been left no choice but to do this. I cannot return to England, and although Edward may one day acknowledge Christiana's innocence and welcome her back, she is forced now to a future that she did not choose either. I do not plan to start life over with the little gold I brought with me. I go no further without the documents.”

  A very ugly tension seemed to paralyze the two men, and something
threatening and dark flowed out of the Comte. Christiana sucked in her breath. She had felt this dangerous presence before, too. She wondered what the Comte contemplated. He was as unreadable as David.

  Except to David.

  “I was tortured once in Egypt,” David said calmly. “The French mind cannot compete with Saracen invention on that. You will buy no time that way, and will have an heir who waits to see you dead.”

  Beneath hooded lids, brown eyes slid subtly in her direction. A horrible chill prickled her neck.

  David's eyes narrowed. “Do not shame your name and your blood by even considering it. She knows absolutely nothing, as your wife would not under the circumstances.”

  But I do know, she thought frantically. She suspected that this uncle could read people as well as David. She lowered her eyes from his inspection and prayed that he saw only her palpable fear in her face.

  The Comte considered her a moment and then laughed lightly.

  “When do you expect the constable?” David asked.

  “By early morning.”

  “You are too impatient then, and too quickly consider dishonor. Is it any wonder that I demand written assurances?”

  A dangerous scolding for a merchant to give a baron, kinsman or not. Laden with distrust and insult. But the Comte seemed more impressed than angry.

  “All men consider things that they would never do, nephew. Recognizing one's options is not the same as choosing them.”

  David frowned thoughtfully and then nodded, as if he completely understood the Comte's explanation and had reason to accept it as sound.

  The tension slowly unwound.

  “I promise that there will be time enough to move your forces. The ships were not even half ready to sail when I left,” David said.

  That seemed to lighten the mood even more. The Comte smiled pleasantly, even warmly.

  David walked over and took her hand. “Show me our chamber, Christiana. I want to get out of this steel that has broiled my body under the hot sun all day.”

  “I will send my squires to help you,” the Comte said. “And tell the mistress to have servants prepare a bath for you.”

  Christiana wordlessly led David out of the hall and toward the tall side building that held the chambers.

  “The man drains me,” David muttered as they walked through the warm night. “It is like negotiating with the image I see in a mirror.”

  CHAPTER 20

  THE TWO SQUIRES removed David's armor. They kept calling him “my lord.” Christiana glanced with annoyance at her husband's tall body standing spread legged while the plate came off. One would think he had done this a thousand times.

  Near the low-burning hearth fire, servants prepared the water in a deep wooden hip bath. One girl kept looking at David and smiling sweetly whenever she caught his eye. Christiana grabbed her by the scruff of the neck when the last pail had been poured.

  “Out. I will attend my husband.”

  The servants scurried away. The squires finished their long chore and, calling merry farewells, drifted off. David stripped off his inner garments and settled into the tub.

  The sight of his body stirred her more than she cared to admit. She cursed silently at her weakness and at her traitorous heart's independence from her will and mind. Our life together has been one long illusion, she fumed. It was a mistake to think that I could find contentment in pleasure alone. He will always be a stranger. I will always be the plaything who shares his bed but not his life. I will have it out with him once and for all and then demand another chamber.

  She pulled over a stool, sat down, and faced him.

  “Aren't you going to attend me?” he asked.

  “Wash,” she ordered dangerously, throwing him a chunk of soap. “And talk.”

  “Ah,” he said thoughtfully.

  “And no ‘ahs,’ David. One more ‘ah’ and I will drown you.”

  “I understand that you are angry, darling. Believe me, I went through great trouble not to involve you. I intended you to know nothing. Edward would never have blamed you for my sins. The Comte surprised me with this abduction. Frankly, I am disappointed in him.”

  “Are you indeed?”

  “Aye. I expected more chivalry of him. To abduct and endanger an innocent woman … It is really very churlish.”

  “He wants the name of the port, David. He would probably kill me if he thought it would make you give it to him a minute sooner.”

  “Which is why I want him to think that we are not content together. I do not want him debating whether he can use you against me. Once the Constable d'Eu arrives, I will get his assurance of your safety before I speak with them. The constable is reputed to be honorable to the point of stupidity.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Let us start at the beginning. Is the Comte in fact your kinsman?”

  “It would seem so.”

  “How long have you known?

  “Almost my whole life. My mother told me of my father when I was a child. So I would know that I was not an ordinary, gutter variety bastard.”

  “Why didn't you tell me?”

  “It is a claim easily made but hard to prove, Christiana. And unless a bastard is recognized, it has no value.” He watched himself lather an arm. “Would it have helped, darling?”

  She sorely wished that she could say not. “It might have. At the beginning.”

  “Then I am sorry that I didn't tell you.”

  “Nay, you are not. Your pride wanted me to accept you as the merchant, not the son of Senlis. You can be very strange, David. Not many men would think noble blood makes them less than they are instead of more.”

  He glanced at her sharply. She let him see her anger.

  “You lied to me,” she said. “Over and over.”

  “Only to protect you. This began long before we met. I sought to keep you out of it, ignorant of it, so that you would be spared if something went wrong.”

  “I am your wife. No one would believe my ignorance.”

  “You are the daughter of Hugh Fitzwaryn and were a ward of the King. All would believe it. Neither Edward nor his barons would have blamed you for the actions of your merchant husband.”

  His bland excuses infuriated her. She raised her fists and slammed them down on her lap. “I am your wife! If something went wrong, I would have had to watch them tear your body apart even if I was spared. I still may have to, for all that I know. But worse, you hid yourself from me, hid your true nature, who you are.”

  That hardness played around his mouth and eyes. “You have not been my wife for months now. Should I have trusted the girl who lived in my home like a guest or a cousin?”

  “Better a guest than some precious artwork. Better a cousin than a piece of noble property purchased to salve the forgotten son's wounded pride.”

  His eyes flashed. “If you truly believe that, then there is no point in explaining anything to you. No matter what I said that day, you should know better of me.”

  “Know better of you? Right now I don't think that I know you at all, damn you. And do not insinuate that our separation led you to maintain your deception. You had no intention of telling me anything until this was over, no matter how dutiful I might have been. What then? Would you have stayed in France and sent for me? Written a letter that bid me to attend on you here?”

  “It always was and still is my intention to give you a choice.”

  “Indeed? Well, your uncle has closed that door!”

  “That remains to be seen.”

  She looked away until she regained control. She smoothed the skirt of her gown. “I want you to tell me all of it. Now. I would know my situation and my choices. From the beginning.”

  He told his tale while he washed. “It began simply enough. Edward had asked me to make the maps. It occurred to me that when the time came, I might learn the port that he chose from the questions that he asked me about them. I have never really forgiven my father for what he did to Joanna. He destroyed her and left her
to the mercy of the world. Perhaps I also resented his ignorance and neglect of me. Anyway, not really expecting it to work, I began making enough mistakes in France so that anyone paying attention might suspect what I did there. And I began using the three serpents as the device on my seal. They were carved into a ring my father left with my mother. She thought it like a wedding ring, but I suspect he had intended it as payment for her favors.”

  He paused and lathered the soap between his hands. The gesture distracted him. Christiana watched him examine the white foam and then the cake itself. She had to smile. The merchant's wife had been similarly distracted during her first bath here.

  “It comes from a town on the Loire,” she said.

  David smelled the foam. “Superior, isn't it? I wonder …”

  “Twenty large cakes for a mark.”

  He raised his eyebrows. She watched him silently begin calculating the cost of importation and the potential profit.

  “David,” she said, calling him back.

  “Aye. Well, my plan was to let the Comte know of me, realize our connection, and then approach me for the port. I would resist and let him cajole me by playing on the bonds of kinship. I would relent, accepting no payment so he thought that I did it for my blood and so trusted me. But I would give him the wrong port. The French army would go in one direction, Edward would come from the other, and the way would be clear for an English victory.”

  She looked at his expression. Matter-of-fact. Blasé. As if men calculated such elaborate schemes all of the time and spent years manipulating the pieces.

  He enjoys this, she realized. He traveled to the Dark Continent and he crosses the Alps every other year. He needs the adventure, the planning, the challenge.

  “And you would have punished that family for your mother's fate,” she added.

  “That too. I doubt that the Comte de Senlis would remain on the King's council after giving such bad advice. A loss of status and honor, but no real harm. Unlike Joanna's fall. Still, some justice.”

  “So what went wrong?”

  “Nothing. It unfolded as planned. Except for a few surprises. Early on, Honoré, the last Comte, died, and his brother Theobald took his place. A more dangerous man, Theobald.”