Beresford bent down easily and retrieved the sword he had earlier relinquished. He slashed the air several times, flexed his shoulders then smiled at the circle of very dirty, sweaty men.
“Any takers?”
Two young men were foolish enough to try their skill against him and were fortunate to end the encounter still able to stand, although their self-respect was severely drubbed into the dust of the disreputable courtyard.
Chapter Seven
Over the next four days, Beresford spent a good deal more time at the Tower than he was used to spending or even cared to spend. He did not understand how a vital man in his prime could pass day after day within doors, or at least within castle walls, talking, eating, strolling, politicking. Certainly, there was tournament practice in the yard before the lieutenants’ lodgings, but it lacked scrappiness, and he thought it pretty tame sport.
However, crossing swords with the castle guard was a good deal more entertaining than being cornered in the great hall by any number of court ladies whose names were a jumble in his brain. It reminded him of the period following Roesia’s death, when it had seemed that every woman, known and unknown to him, had something to say to him or do for him. Of course, he was accepting congratulations now and not sympathy, but the unpleasant parallel between the two occasions—Roesia’s funeral and his marriage to Gwyneth—struck him forcibly. Mostly, he found it all boring, except for those times when he was just plain aggravated by the teasing of many of his oldest friends, who had taken an unprecedented interest in his personal life.
He suspected that this interest stemmed principally from the particular attractions of his wife-to-be. He did not suspect that his own perceived distaste for the marriage had contributed to the interest in her, nor did he guess that testing the limits of his potential jealousy added piquancy to the pursuit. Whatever else he did or did not guess, he had determined not to let Geoffrey of Senlis out of his sight when Gwyneth was near.
As for Gwyneth, during those four days, he saw her on occasion in the course of his normal movements through the castle, but never privately; and he spoke to her not at all apart from public moments at mealtimes. He found these occasions most unsatisfactory. Since the announcement of their betrothal, they had had to continue to sit at the head table, which not only constrained their conversation but also made them targets for an endless stream of well-wishers and for all sorts of other courtly annoyances.
On the last evening before their wedding, as supper was coming to an end, he became aware that some fool minstrel was standing before him singing of an even more foolish man who languished with love for his lady. Beresford’s impulse was to relieve the fool of his lute and crush that instrument of mawkish torture in his bare hands, but it occurred to him that such an efficient action might be deemed “unsubtle.” He considered instead explaining kindly to the fool that the musical drivel was giving him a stomach cramp as he was trying to digest his meal, but decided that the minstrel was really so bad that he deserved no such explanation.
Beresford settled for the direct command to the fool to go away, accompanied by a gesture that dismissed him to the other end of the table.
This brought Gwyneth’s head around, and he looked at her, expecting to be thanked. She did not thank him, but merely arched one brow, as if somehow amused. He guessed that, all in all, she was pleased he had sent the musical idiot away.
“He’s gone,” Beresford said, feeling self-satisfied.
“Yes, and it was very considerate of you,” she replied, “to send the minstrel to the other end of the table. I believe that he was performing the king’s favorite song.”
She suppressed her desire to laugh out loud at the expression on Beresford’s face as he assimilated this news. After a moment, he said, “Did you wish to hear the song, my lady?”
Gwyneth shook her head, smiling, for she was in a strangely equitable mood this evening. “I heard it once yesterday and once the day before, and I’m sure I’ll have another opportunity at tomorrow evening’s festivities.”
At this mention of the morrow’s celebrations, Beresford grunted. Then, suddenly, he rose from the bench and looked down at her. He said, “Come.”
Gwyneth blinked at his abruptness and wondered, despite his plain words, what exactly he might mean. He had not once sought out her company or requested to see her alone at any time since first meeting her. “Leave the hall?” she asked cautiously.
He looked around. “It’s crowded in here. I thought we might go outside.” He stretched out his hand to help her up from the bench.
She laid her hand in his and asked, “Do you wish to take a turn on the battlements?”
He bit off a hard laugh that held a trace of self-mockery. “No, not the battlements,” he answered, drawing her to her feet. “I’d rather go down to the yard.”
“Ah, the pleasance, then,” she said, standing. But he did not seem to have had the gardens on his mind. It would have amused her to learn just where he had intended taking her. The archery pit? The slaughterhouse? But she did not choose to put him on the spot.
His expression became bemused then a little fixed. “Yes, to the pleasance,” he said at last. He let go of her hand, gracelessly, as usual. He extended his wrist—grudgingly, she thought—to escort her out of the hall.
They stopped first at Stephen’s chair, as was proper, to excuse themselves from the king’s presence. Stephen bestowed on them an absent nod, after which they made their way through the hall, stopping frequently to respond to the variety of greetings directed their way. They encountered, among others, Johanna, Beresford’s cousin, whose acquaintance Gwyneth had cultivated during the past days.
Johanna was, in part, responsible for Gwyneth’s equitable mood this evening. After she had left Beresford at the door to his house four days earlier, her opinion of him had sunk so far into the ground that she had thought it likely to remain there forever, deeply buried. However, earlier this very afternoon, she had been startled to see Beresford across the hall bending down on one knee, listening attentively to a little girl who could not have been more than five years old. Everything about him had seemed graceful and courtly.
“That’s little Cristina, a second cousin of mine,” Johanna had said, “and of Simon’s.”
Gwyneth had erased whatever expression she had been wearing at the sight of Beresford so engaged. “Your family is large and extended, it seems,” she had remarked conversationally, unable to take her eyes off the sight of Beresford kneeling before the girl.
“Yes,” Johanna had said, “although very few of us are at court, as you know.” She paused and added, “Cristina adores Simon, for she thinks him a source of indulgence for her every whim and passing thought.”
“And is he?” Gwyneth had asked, glancing at Johanna, surprised and skeptical.
“Of course, else Cristina would not think of him in such terms.”
Johanna had not belabored the point, leaving her intrigued by this very different glimpse of her future husband.
At length Gwyneth and Beresford made their way through the crowd and reached the arched passage by which they would exit. With a humorous turn of mind, Gwyneth imagined that Beresford, from the way he exhaled gustily when they arrived at the stairs, had had enough of the parting chitchat. He ushered Gwyneth in front of him so that she could precede him in the descent.
“You have not returned to my house this week,” he said suddenly to her back.
Her right hand gripped the newel column of the winding stairs. The cool stone felt good against her palm. With her left hand, she lifted her skirts to her ankle. “No,” she answered, keeping her eyes on the tricky stairs as she stepped down, “I have been able to conduct all my household business from the castle.”
“I know.”
At his tone, she permitted herself a smile, which he could not see. She had refused to return to Beresford’s wreck of timber until she was officially mistress, and so had persuaded Adela to provide her with couriers so that
she could work effectively from afar. She had not accomplished much beyond retrieving a few items from Beresford’s house that needed her attention before the wedding. Her greatest administrative accomplishment was, of course, the arrangement of Ermina’s new employment, which would begin on the morrow. Was the pretty slattern’s removal from Beresford’s convenient use the cause of his slightly aggrieved “I know”?
She said, without turning around, “I hope that my couriers did not trouble you too much in your household routine.”
“They did not trouble me, in any event,” he replied, “because I have spent much of my time at the Tower in the past few days, as you may have noticed.”
She paused and said, “I have noticed.”
“And I am to spend the night here tonight.”
She made the mistake of stopping and turning around to look at him. It was a mistake because she was two steps below him and had to look up. She had always used her height to advantage with Canute, with whom she could speak on eye level, but since Beresford was taller by a head to begin with, she felt a double disadvantage at her position on the stairs. He had been about to take the next step down. The muscles of his thigh were flexed in definition below his tunic. The lower edge of the tunic grazed her breast when she turned toward him.
She felt an unexpected spark at this breath of contact. What was Beresford telling her? she wondered. That he was not going to make free with Ermina on the eve of their marriage? She looked into his eyes but did not find any answers in their cool, gray depths. Instead, she felt his strength as he stood above her on the stair and saw a man who could wield a sword with beauty, who could bend gracefully before a little girl and who could obviously satisfy a desiring woman. She felt herself blush, and turned around to continue her descent.
“That will save you much trouble in the morning,” she commented, stepping down and away from him, “to be already here at the Tower.”
“It will save me much trouble this evening as well.”
“Indeed?” she replied. “How so?”
“If I am here, I may see to those items that require my attention,” he answered offhandedly.
“Naturally,” she said then pressed, “Is it some piece of court business that requires your attention now?”
“In a manner of speaking.”
Her ears pricked up, but before she could think of the most effective angle from which to respond to this provocative comment, he continued. “And the hall is too crowded for the kind of conversation I want.”
She had arrived at the bottom step. Beresford was just behind her. “It is?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“And what kind of conversation do you want?” she dared to ask when he drew even with her.
They walked through the shadowy passage and emerged into the soft twilight of the open yard. Beresford greeted the guards whose paths they crossed. He and Gwyneth began to angle around the White Tower and back to the Wardrobe Tower, behind which lay the gardens.
“A private one, above all,” he replied.
He did not extend his wrist to her, and she guessed that he saw no further need of formality. She was in a mood to excuse him the lapse. She slanted him a glance. “A private one suitable for the pleasance?”
He shrugged. “Not unsuitable for the pleasance, I think.”
She pressed further. “The court business that requires your attention this evening,” she stated in summary, “concerns a private conversation with me that is not unsuitable for the pleasance.”
His tone and his expression registered mild surprise. “Have I not just said so, ma’am?”
She lowered her eyes modestly and sketched a curtsy that was both ironic and coquettish. “I beg your pardon, sire. Lest you think me simple,” she said, yielding to her mood and risking a reference to their very first meeting, “I had reckoned you to be the advocate of plain speaking, and I wished to match you on your own terms.”
He cocked a heavy brow and warded off her delicate thrust with a heavy parry. “If you are willing to match me on my own terms, then I need not fear being unsubtle during our private conversation in the pleasance.”
He stopped then, turned toward her and bowed as he would before an opponent. The spark in the air became a definite charge, as if flint had struck flames against silk. Gwyneth was caught off guard.
To regain her composure, she asked coolly, “Is there a particular topic that you wish to pursue unsubtly and in private?”
“Yes,” he replied. “I wish to pursue a topic we broached at the supper table two nights ago with Fortescue.”
At this tantalizing moment, they were interrupted by a threesome of castle hounds bounding up to them. The dogs dashed around Gwyneth and Beresford several times, barking high, earsplitting notes, and Gwyneth would have been afraid if Beresford had not known just what to do to bring the beasts to order. Once he asserted his authority, Beresford was apparently deemed worthy of receiving a branch that the leader of the pack seemed to want thrown for him. Beresford obligingly laid hold of one end and tried to pull it from the hound’s ferocious jaws. Gwyneth knew a moment of fear when, instead of releasing the branch, the hound threw himself into a tug-of-war with the strong master, growling menacingly and wagging his tail furiously. The next moment, she perceived that Beresford was enjoying himself as much as the hound. Somehow he wrested the branch from between the flashing white teeth and entered into the game as heartily as did the hound.
While Beresford sparred with the bloodthirsty dog, Gwyneth had a moment to review the various topics discussed two evenings ago at the supper table with Walter Fortescue. She could think of no topic remotely interesting or needful of private discussion.
Since Beresford was so evidently a man of action and not words, she could not imagine why he would wish for a private conversation with her. The thought crossed her mind that he intended no conversation at all. She recalled that Fortescue had had a habit at supper of succumbing to prattle concerning the excellence of the match Adela had arranged. Was it two nights ago that he had pronounced Gwyneth and Beresford to be perfectly suited and insisted that they would enjoy a wonderful, loving relationship?
Her equitable mood was suddenly disturbed by a new emotion. Was Beresford’s purpose in suggesting this private moment together to try a little lovemaking in the gardens? Did he mean to sample in advance something of the nature of the relationship Fortescue had predicted? She indulged her imagination by picturing a tender scene in the gardens, under a leafy arbor, surrounded by flowers, her hand in his. Then she remembered that he had made explicit his intention to be unsubtle, and imagined a more intriguing possibility—Beresford’s arms coming around her, his head bending toward her
She caught these wayward thoughts up short. This was not an intriguing scene, by Odin! It was, however, a reassuring one. She prodded her little fantasy to continue. She realized that she needed reassurance concerning the greater intimacies that he would be allowed on the morrow. She even acknowledged wanting that reassurance now, this evening, while she felt slightly inclined toward him. Well, not inclined exactly. Tolerant, perhaps. Curious, too, in a normal sort of way.
Beresford flung the stick wide, sending the hound bounding off and yapping boisterously. He returned to her side. She looked up at him and was startled by a new perception of him as a suitor. She was aware of a change in him, an easiness, as if the vigorous exercise had worked off the rough edges that were often so evident in the great hall. Not that all his rough edges were gone, but those that were left he wore well. They fit him, were a part of him, gave him texture, made him interesting. She lowered her lashes.
“To the pleasance,” he said over his shoulder.
At the sound of his voice, and her image of what might happen in the gardens, her breath caught in her throat. “Oh, yes,” she gasped. She was surprised that she should have such a reaction, since she was feeling so benignly disposed toward him this evening. She wondered whether she still feared him. As they walked toward t
he bakery and crossed under the pigeon loft, she attempted a painful breath but did not quite succeed.
She knew that her only course now was to confront the possible cause of her fear. “And the topic, sire,” she managed, rasping a little with the effort to speak, “that you wished to pursue? The one that was broached two evenings ago with Sir Walter?”
He nodded. “It concerned the position of Henry’s forces after his defeat against Malmesbury.”
Completely diverted, she was able to take a full breath of air, but her throat still felt tight. She attempted to retrieve the threads of that conversation. “You and Sir Walter were discussing how Duke Henry’s forces had taken the town by assault but had failed to storm the castle.”
“That’s right,” Beresford agreed, “and we mentioned how Henry’s cause was further compromised when Stephen’s forces came to Malmesbury’s aid.”
“In which action you and your men took part, I believe,” Gwyneth commented. “Then, after that, you and Sir Walter spoke of those earls once loyal to Stephen who were transferring their allegiance to Duke Henry or, at least, refusing to fight him more recently at Cirencester.”
“Yes, the traitors Cornwall and Hereford, to be precise.” Beresford looked pointedly at her.
Gwyneth noted his look and was puzzled. She had not commented on Cornwall or Hereford or Duke Henry, for that matter. She said, “As I recall, I did not take much part in that conversation.”
They had passed the beehives and fruit bins and were in front of the gardening sheds. Gwyneth was a half step ahead of Beresford, and at the garden’s portal she halted. Beresford’s left hand went around one side of her to unhook the latch, and his right hand went around the other to push back the iron grille. For a brief second, she was within the circle of his arms.
He said, “And your lack of participation in that conversation is the very topic I wish to discuss.”
Simon’s Lady Page 9