“Oh, you’re going to Rouen,” Lord Richard said coolly. “If only to tell the king to his face what you’ve just told me—if you’ve got the stones for it—but you’re going.”
Hugh slammed his hands on the window sill, growling out a raw oath.
“What’s troubling you, Hugh?” asked Lord Richard, his voice gentling but his gaze as unnervingly astute as ever.
“Nothing,” Hugh said quickly, his gaze lighting on the Map of the World over the justiciar’s shoulder.
“You really must learn how to lie more credibly than that,” Lord Richard observed mildly. “Looking elsewhere will give you away every time.”
Hugh just sighed and kneaded the bridge of his nose.
“Is it the girl?” his lordship asked.
“Nay, I—”
“You’re worried about her.”
Hugh exhaled harshly. “Yes.” It was the truth—or part of it.
“Don’t be. She’s smarter than either one of us—resourceful, ingenious, analytical. She was born for this type of work.”
“I know, but—”
“She’ll be fine. And your presence is required in Rouen.”
“Lord Richard...”
“It’s a royal summons, Hugh,” Lord Richard said quietly. “You have no choice.”
He didn’t, of course. His jaw set, Hugh said, “Very well.”
“I suggest you leave at once.” Sitting at his desk and sorting through a stack of documents, Lord Richard said, “I have some items for you deliver to the king, if you don’t mind.”
“Not at all.” Turning back to the window, Hugh closed his eyes and did some quick mental calculations. Assuming no delays on the road to Hastings, clear weather across the Channel and a trouble-free ride from Fécamp to Rouen, it would take Hugh, at best, four days there and four days back—but probably more. And he must add to that however long the king kept him waiting at the ducal palace before their audience...if he was even there, Henry Plantagenet not being known for lingering in one place very long. Hugh might end up having to chase the man halfway across France...
By the time he returned to England and made his way to Halthorpe Castle, eight or nine days at least would have passed—probably a fortnight or more, and Phillipa...
Hugh opened his eyes, his gaze seeking out the stone bench at the far end of the courtyard, still empty.
Phillipa would be Aldous Ewing’s leman.
Chapter 13
Halthorpe Castle, a week later
“Milady...” the young maid said hesitantly as she lowered the sleek white shift over Phillipa’s head, “are you sure you want to be doin’ this?”
Phillipa couldn’t imagine anything less appealing than stealing into Aldous Ewing’s bedchamber tonight all oiled and perfumed and bedecked in a slippery little film of silk, but she merely said, “Yes, Edmee, quite sure.”
Edmee smoothed down and adjusted the low-cut, sleeveless nightgown, frowning at its scandalous design. It was slashed wide open on both sides down to the hips, with lacings to pull the fabric snug, like the newest style in ladies’ tunics—however, instead of displaying a coy little glimpse of kirtle beneath, the two side slits revealed a generous and tantalizing expanse of flesh. It was a garment whose sole purpose was to incite a man’s lust.
And Edmee obviously didn’t approve. One of a handful of servants whom Lady Clare had brought with her from Poitiers to Halthorpe, Edmee was, in fact, a simple Poitevan peasant, and a pious one at that, judging from the crude wooden cross around her neck. Tall and buxom in the sturdy manner of a farmwife, with straw-colored hair peeking out from her kerchief and a broad, freckle-spattered face, Edmee was Phillipa’s antithesis both physically and temperamentally. Nevertheless, she was one of the few Halthorpe denizens with whom Phillipa felt truly at ease—one of two, actually, Orlando Storzi, who shared an intellectual rapport with her, being the other.
Clare had other guests, a coterie of posturing poets and decadent Frankish nobles who’d followed her here from Poitiers over the past few weeks. Despite Phillipa’s tolerance for radical ideas, their careless amorality repulsed her. Perhaps that was why the like-minded Edmee had gravitated to her upon her arrival at Halthorpe, prompting Phillipa to request Edmee as her personal maid during her stay here—although, as Castle Halthorpe was somewhat understaffed, Phillipa had to share her with Clare and Clare’s friend and confidante, Marguerite du Roche.
But now that affinity would be compromised. For, after a full week of deflecting Aldous’s amorous advances by claiming it was an inconvenient time of the month, Phillipa had no choice but to offer the sexual favors she had managed with such effort to withhold thus far. Edmee was clearly disappointed by her mistress’s fall from grace.
“Lift your arm, milady.” Lacing up the left side of the provocative shift with work-roughened fingers, Edmee said, “You’ll pardon my asking, but...does your husband...Hugh of Oxford, is it?”
“Aye.”
“Does Sir Hugh know about you and Master Aldous?”
Phillipa drew in a steadying breath and let it out. “Aye.”
Edmee glanced at Phillipa as she tied off the cord, her eyebrows rising in disapproval. “I never will understand you highborn folk,” she said in a provincial blend of Norman French and her rustic ancestral dialect. “The priests say as how adultery is a grievous sin. Don’t none of you fear the torments of Hell?”
“It’s...complicated,” Phillipa murmured as she studied the stone wall that separated her room from Aldous’s. The connecting chambers he’d promised her were unavailable, all of them being occupied, it turned out, by Clare’s other house guests, most of whom had arrived after Aldous’s last visit here, and none of whom Clare was willing to displace for the sake of a younger brother she seemed to barely tolerate. Pleased though Aldous had been to find the castle filled with people—they would provide a human buffer between himself and his sister, he’d explained—he was infuriated at having to make do with chambers that did not share an adjoining door. What would become of his coveted promotion to archdeacon, he’d demanded of his sister, if someone saw him entering Phillipa’s chamber, or her entering his? In his own home, he needn’t fret overmuch about discretion, but among strangers, he must be vigilant, lest his Church career end up in ashes.
As a sop, Clare had let him prowl Halthorpe Castle, a rabbit warren the size of a small city, and choose two adjacent chambers that would be as remotely situated as possible. He’d picked a pair of dismal, empty little ground-floor cells at the far end of the oldest wing and had fresh rushes and furnishings brought in. Despite their relative isolation, Aldous never visited Phillipa in her chamber, lest Edmee see him there and gossip to the other servants, and Phillipa had found excuses not to visit him in his. During the past week, he had kissed her only once—thank God!—and had rarely even spoken to her privately. Instead, he conducted his more intimate communications by means of notes passed by his sister, who seemed to view the whole business as bordering on hilarious. No doubt she giggled with the others about Aldous’s absurd machinations behind his back.
In any event, such machinations were unlikely to fool anyone. As if it weren’t telling enough that he’d brought Phillipa with him from Southwark and installed her in the chamber next to his, there were his constant little attentions...his habit of whispering in her ear during dinner, the way he’d caress her arm as if by accident, the many times she’d turn and find him gazing at her like a moonstruck schoolboy without seeming to realize it. He seemed to lose perspective where she was concerned. She encouraged him, of course—although it still made her queasy to do so—but thus far she’d had no luck in coaxing his secrets out of him.
Nor had Orlando been forthcoming about his mysterious activities in the cellar, which kept him and Istagio occupied most days until suppertime and sometimes, as tonight, quite a bit later. Despite the camaraderie of the mind that Orlando shared with Phillipa, he sidestepped her inquires with the air of a man who’d been sworn to secrecy. Her
discreet questioning of the other guests had been fruitless; they were not only ignorant of the goings-on in the cellar, but apathetic as well, being too caught up in themselves and their various romantic entanglements to care about much else.
“Lift the other arm, milady.” Circling around her, Edmee laced up her right side. “‘Tis a good thing I served at the queen’s palace in Poitiers, or I don’t know what I’d think of Halthorpe! My poor mother would keel over from shock if knew how Lady Clare carried on—or that Marguerite du Roche...” Edmee shuddered as she tied off the cord. “Some of the things I’ve seen, serving them...”
Ah, yes, the libidinous Lady Marguerite, with her catlike eyes and blazing red hair—which she always wore loose and uncovered, although it was rumored she had a husband somewhere. The most sexually predatory creature Phillipa had ever encountered, Marguerite embraced seduction like a blood sport.
“Is it true,” Edmee asked, “about the list?”
Phillipa sighed. “It’s true.” Upon her arrival at Halthorpe, Clare’s friend Marguerite had drawn up a list of twenty men she intended to tup before the summer was over, the candidates being every single male guest and the choicest of the servants. “They say she bedded all but three within a fortnight.”
“Even Nicolas Capellanus?” Edmee asked, referring to the bald-head, taciturn priest who served in the thankless role of Halthorpe’s chaplain. Formerly attached to the court of pious King Louis in Paris, he tolerated the ungodly atmosphere at Halthorpe with grim-faced disapproval.
“I understand Father Nicolas was one of the three who refused her, along with Turstin de Ver and Raoul d’Argentan.” Turstin, Clare’s pet troubadour, turned out to fancy the charms of his own sex; Raoul was, to everyone’s amusement, too embarrassingly besotted with his wife, the lovely but troublesome Isabelle, to dally with Marguerite.
“If this is the way you lords and ladies conduct yourselves,” Edmee proclaimed as she brushed out Phillipa’s hair, “I don’t want none of it.”
Neither do I, Phillipa thought, reflecting that romantic love as it existed at Halthorpe, with its sordid little intrigues and aura of depravity, was far from her idealistic vision of amour courtois.
Was Hugh right? Was it all just fatuous, self-serving drivel? Was there nothing more to relations between the sexes than the propitious alignment of body parts?
No. She knew it wasn’t that simple. After having given herself to Hugh, having united herself with him and felt the power and beauty of it deep in her soul, she knew it wasn’t just about bodies.
Something happened that night, something she couldn’t help but think of as profound, even sacred. She’d ceased to be just Phillipa, and Hugh had ceased to be just Hugh. They had connected on a higher level, a level quite apart from the realm of the flesh. Phillipa found this realization both humbling and exhilarating.
And, of course, absolutely terrifying.
Her first day or two at Halthorpe, Phillipa had half-expected Hugh to show up there on some pretext and either spirit her away or get himself invited to stay on. Hugh’s presence here would give her the excuse she needed to avoid sleeping with Aldous, which she found she could no longer bear to face.
Making love to Hugh had been transcendent. Going through the motions of it with Aldous would be unendurable. She’d thought she could do it, but that was before Hugh had awakened her, with such compelling tenderness, to the mysteries of physical passion. How could she sully what she’d shared with Hugh by lying down beneath Aldous and spreading her legs like some two-penny whore?
She’d couldn’t, hence her claim that she was suffering her monthly flux, but seven days had been as long as she could stretch out that particular ploy. All week, she’d secretly prayed for Hugh to ride up on Odin and rescue her from her fate as Aldous’s leman.
But he hadn’t. Nor had he tried to stop her from coming here. Indeed, he’d encouraged her. A man will confide far more to his mistress than he will to a woman who simply lets him feed her strawberries...
Despair smoldered like a coal in her stomach. Oh, Hugh... Why did you let me go? Why haven’t you come for me?
She felt a searing burst of rage at him, as she always did when her thoughts traveled down this particular path. He didn’t care for her, he couldn’t, to have forsaken her this way.
Closing her eyes, she pictured him as he’d looked that night, lying beneath her, dreamy-eyed and beautiful in the wavering lamplight. The anger faded, replaced by a yearning so keen that it pierced her like a knife.
Come for me, Hugh. Please...
A knock sounded on her chamber door, followed by a woman’s silky-smooth voice. “Phillipa? It’s Clare.”
“Shall I tell her you’ve retired for the night?” whispered Edmee, who knew how little Phillipa cared for her hostess, an antipathy that appeared to be quite mutual.
Phillipa was about to tell Edmee to do just that, when Clare added, in a slightly amused conspiratorial tone, “I’ve got something for you. The gentleman in question will be most put out if I don’t deliver it immediately.”
Phillipa groaned inwardly. Another note from Aldous. She’d best have a look at it. “Let her in,” she told Edmee with a weary sigh.
But as Edmee was reaching for the handle of the door, it swung open and in strode Clare, to the jangling of the chatelaine’s keys she wore on a long gold chain around her neck. Halthorpe’s mistress was as pale and polished as ever in a sumptuous tunic of midnight blue satin slashed all over the bodice and sleeves to show the kirtle beneath, her black wig fastidiously styled, sapphires winking on every finger and thumb—of her right hand. Her left was encased in its ubiquitous leather gauntlet, to protect it from the talons of the hooded kestrel tethered to it. Clare was training the young hawk to hunt, Aldous had explained; she carried it about with her to help accustom it to the company of humans.
“Ah, you are in, dear.” Clare’s rouged lips curved slyly upward as she took in Phillipa’s elegant dishabille, while not so much as looking in Edmee’s direction; she and Marguerite both treated the maid with utter contempt. “And dressed for bed—my brother’s, from the look of it. It’s about time. His ballocks must be damn near ready to explode by now.”
Phillipa held Clare’s gaze steadily, but from the corner of her eye, she saw poor Edmee’s jaw drop.
“He’s sent another note?” Phillipa asked.
“Aye. He’s most distraught that you haven’t answered the one I gave you this morning.”
“I didn’t realize he expected me to write him back.”
“He’s just over-excited at the impending consummation of your grand passion,” Clare said aridly.
To she whom I most desire, this morning’s note had read, to she whose voice is as sweet as that of the wild nightingale, whose limbs I long to feel twining round me like tender honeysuckle shoots. From your poor, lovesick Aldous, who is enslaved by your beauty, captivated by your charms. How I yearn for the solace of your embrace, dear lady. Come to me tonight and let me love you. You are the angel of my heart, the dove of my soul, my earthly delight and my heavenly inspiration...
But it was his closing lines that she had read over and over as an idea gradually took shape in her mind. Remember that there is you and only you. My love stays pure for you, my body chaste...until the blissful hour of our union. It is with a trembling heart that I await your visit to me tonight. Don’t knock. Don’t speak. Just join me in my bed and let us surrender ourselves to each other.
“Here’s the new note.” Slipping two fingers between her ample and well-powdered breasts, Clare produced from the snug bodice of her gown a tightly folded little sheet of parchment, which she handed to Phillipa. “I told him I would only play the go-between in this tiresome little farce for just so long.”
Sauntering around the chamber, Clare inspected the tattered old wall hangings and ancient furnishings with her perpetually bored expression. Straw crackled when she poked at the fur-draped mattress on the uncurtained bed. The bed in Aldous’s c
hamber, Phillipa had noticed, was twice the size of hers, fancily carved and painted, with fringed white curtains held back by tassled satin ties. Phillipa would bet anything the mattress was filled with goose down.
She unfolded the note Clare had just handed her. Pray, come to me tonight, it began without preamble, as I so fervently entreated you in my earlier missive. I won’t rest until I reach the peak of joy of your arms...
“Not much here, is there?”
Looking up from the note, Phillipa saw Clare standing at the wash stand, apathetically sorting through the neatly laid-out toiletries. Edmee, who was hanging up the tunic Phillipa had worn that day, glanced toward Clare and then quickly away, as if afraid her distaste would show on her face.
“Your complexion could use some evening out.” One-handed, Clare popped the glass stopper out of a vial and sniffed it. “There’s an apothecary in Paris who makes a mixture of fine white lead and rose water that works wonders for me. You should try it.” With a frosty little chuckle, she added, “You don’t want to look like Gui de Beauvais’s Brilliant Little By-blow forever, do you?” She inserted the stopper back in the vial and replaced it on the wash stand, then leaned forward to inspect her lip rouge in the little steel looking glass mounted on the wall above.
As Phillipa was summoning up a retort that wouldn’t be too scathing, a muffled boom reverberated through the castle.
The kestrel screamed and pumped its wings, straining against the thong attached to its talons. “There, there, Salome,” Clare soothed, lightly stroking its feathers. “‘Tis only a wine barrel rolling off its stack.” It was the same thing she had told Phillipa the first time that sound had emanated from the cellar beneath the great hall, where Aldous and Istagio were carrying out their mysterious undertaking. Had the noise come from outside, rather than downstairs, Phillipa would have taken it for thunder; what else could produce such a violent roar?
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