The instant she spoke she felt a flood of despair. Now I have lost him. Men do not like to be ordered. Feeling the tell-tale flush in her face she dropped her head.
“Isabella.”
She dared not look at him, even when she felt his fingers, feather-light, on her cheek and chin.
“Sweet Mistress Angel, how unsure you still are! But that will pass, believe me. You have a man’s love now, not a monster’s lust.”
She peeped at him and saw him smiling.
“I never thought I would love again, until I saw you.” His knees cracked as he shifted slightly. “Till I saw you in your golden cage, Mistress Angel, glittering above me. I think I loved you then.”
He kissed her hand and a shimmer of lightning passed over her skin.
“You caught me,” she said softly.
“I did indeed.” Stephen knelt and leaned in to her. “To catch and to hold?” he asked, half-teasing, half-solemn. “You and Matthew? He is a sweet boy and a brave little lad, unfussy.”
She basked in his praise, then yelped as her amazing suitor gently tugged her hair.
“Your answer, lady?”
“To marry?”
“Of course.”
She felt she must burst with happiness. “For my safety?”
His eyes narrowed briefly, then he grinned, looking like a boy again. “I wondered if you had overheard! And yes, you and your boy will be safer with me. I want you to be safe, Isabella.”
His concern both touched and reminded her. “Your family, will they be safe at your friend’s?”
“For now.” Frowning, Stephen looked north and said, “Still I confess I will feel easier in my mind when I have got them out of London and sooner rather than later. What of your friend?”
“Amice told me that she let her apprentice know she was on pilgrimage to Canterbury, should anyone come asking.” She watched his face clear and felt relieved herself, although the question still slipped from her lips, “Are you sure, Stephen?”
“That I love you? How could I not? That I am wild to marry you? How could I not be?”
He kissed her. He had kissed her before but this was a kiss of peace, passion and love all at once. He wrapped his sinewy armorer’s arms about her, captured her mouth with his and embraced her in a slow, full way that made her feel naked and back in bed with him.
We are in a monastery, Isabella tried to protest, while somewhere in her floating mind a small thought complained, I wish he had done it earlier.
“I watched you sleep all night and having been waiting to do this,” Stephen said, when they finally paused in their kiss. “Again and again.”
He demonstrated in a way that delighted her, that filled her with a sparkling light and giddiness throughout her body, as if she had drunk down a rainbow. With Stephen I will gladly submit to the act of love. Perhaps I may even like it. Look how we are with kisses, already intoxicated with each other. Surely more still will be even better?
She could only hope.
Chapter 8
Stephen plighted his troth to Isabella with Amice and the Abbot of the monastery as witnesses. Matthew chuckled through the brief ceremony and afterwards ran to Stephen to be plucked off his feet and flung into the air. Stephen obliged the little lad and then turned to his betrothed.
“We should leave.”
They set out soon after, making for the house of Stephen’s friend Thomas Smith.
****
“Daddy!”
Joanna flung herself at Stephen. She was red-faced, but not, he realized quickly, because she was whooping or finding breathing difficult. She pressed her hot little arms around his neck, all but choking him.
“Daddy!”
Careless of tools, ashes or anything else in Tom’s workshop he sat down with her on the anvil and hugged her tight. Tears threatened to storm into his eyes and he fought them back.
“My thanks.” He held out an arm to Thomas and the two men shook hands, then Stephen returned his attention to Joanna, blowing a noisy raspberry on her throat, which delighted his girl.
“Will you introduce us, brother?” Bedelia’s crisp question bit into his reunion.
Blinking at the reminder, Stephen saw Amice, looking Thomas up and down in an appreciative manner and Isabella hovering on the threshold, clasping Matthew by the hand. Sympathy swept through him in a warm tide as he spotted the crease of worry on his newly-betrothed’s forehead. To Isabella, families are a threat.
He blew a second raspberry on Joanna’s neck and pointed. “Here is a lady I have been hoping you and your aunt would meet.”
Joanna looked across the workshop and leaned against her father to say, in a loud whisper, “She is all golden, like an angel.”
“I think so, too.”
“Will she help my breathing?”
“I believe she will,” answered Stephen steadily, though his heart bled for his child. “Has that troubled you?”
“Not so much.” Joanna shrugged and stared at Isabella again. “Will she give me a lock of her golden hair as a breath charm?”
Across the room Isabella gave a small, decisive nod.
“I am sure of it. Her name is Isabella and there is Matthew, her boy, and Amice, her friend.”
Alerted to the others, Joanna grinned at Matthew and studied Amice closely before sliding from her father’s knee. She walked across to the spice seller, her wide brown eyes never leaving the tall, dark-skinned, beautiful woman. “Will you be my friend, too?”
Amice crouched and ruffled the child’s hair. “Yours and Matthew’s.” Producing a small bag of marbles from her gown, she knelt on the beaten earth floor. In moments, Matthew and Joanna had joined her. She looked over their intent heads and winked at Stephen. “Now you can talk.”
****
She had been welcomed. Braced for questions and censure, Isabella busied herself pouring wine and passed the cups around the others seated at the trestle table in the corner of the workshop. She started as Stephen brushed her hand.
“You do not need to work to justify your place,” he said softly.
She nodded, convinced yet not entirely comfortable. Still she felt the good humor of Thomas, big and bluff, and even Bedelia, busy and shrewd. It was lovely to be accepted, yet unfamiliar.
“My turn!”
Off in another corner, Matthew flicked a marble and Joanna cheered it on. The two youngsters tussled with Amice as if they had been playmates for years, warring like puppies. They even have a look of each other, around the nose and chin, and could be brother and sister.
She glanced at Stephen and he smiled at her, his eyes crinkling in the corners in the way that she loved. He raised his cup to her and she almost jumped up to fetch the wine jug again, but then recalled what he had said.
He leaned right across the trestle and kissed her. “Easy, angel,” he murmured, closing his eyes to a ribald comment from one of the apprentices polishing helmets and shields at the back of the workshop.
“If my brother will sit down again, perhaps we can return to business?” Bedelia instantly undermined her crisp comment by exchanging a conspiratorial glance with Isabella. “You see how he is, Isabella? I think all armorers are the same. They never do today what they can put off until tomorrow.”
“Your sister slanders us.” The bearded, balding Thomas crossed his fingers over his big belly, “but we are large enough to take it.”
This is how a family can be, Isabella thought. I never realized.
“I—No, I cannot wait any more.” Stephen slapped his palm on the table. “I must say this now. Joanna, Matthew, are you listening? My mistress Isabella has agreed to become my wife. We are betrothed.”
“Excellent,” said Bedelia, after a small, satisfied silence, tapping her fingers against her cup. “I look forward to seeing a splendid ring for her, Stevie.”
Isabella breathed again.
“Now you will be my mother, too.” Joanna put her thumb in her mouth and sucked contentedly. “You here and Mama
Cecilia in heaven.”
“Stevie,” Matthew repeated, as he flicked another marble.
“I have spices to scent your bridal gown,” said Amice, waggling her dark eyebrows in a way that made Isabella blush.
She felt herself blushing harder when Stephen strode round the trestle and planted a full kiss on her mouth. “See, my sweet?” he said, kissing her again as the whole workshop burst into wild applause. “You are already beloved.”
****
After that, Isabella expected that no one would want to be serious or sit to discuss how to defeat the Martinton clan once and for all. Again this family and their friends surprised her. Once everyone had kissed and hugged each other, Stephen strolled to the open doorway, looked out into the alley and then closed the door.
When he turned back, he looked older, grimmer. “I have a place in Kent, an old holding of my family’s. Tomorrow, we shall go there. It will be safer and out of reach of spies.”
“Agreed,” said Thomas, reaching down from his bench seat to fondle a gray cat that had slipped in through the closing door.
“Leave the city?” Isabella had not anticipated that. “Flee London?”
Stephen chuckled at her expression and shook his head. “The country may not have the streets and wharfs and people, my sweet, but it does not have the stink or trouble, either.” He nodded to the children, their heads bent over their play as Amice helped Joanna and Matthew create the form of a mermaid on the floor from scraps of metal, straw and rags. “A healthy place for little ones.”
“But Isabella is right.” Amice looked up from her outline of the mermaid and fixed Stephen with a dark, compelling glance. “What is the point of burying yourself in the country when the goldsmiths will be always after you? For make no mistake, Stephen, the guild may not like the Martintons but they will support them. Sir William will argue that a certain person— “ Amice nodded to Matthew—”is Richard Martinton’s heir.”
Rage burst through Isabella. “They would and yet look how they treated him! Underfed, ignored, neglected.” She wanted to storm across the workshop and sweep her child up, but Stephen stepped across her path. “I am all right,” she snapped, as his arms enfolded her.
“I know you are,” he replied, controlled as only a smith used to working with molten metals could be, adding, for her ears only, “You do not smother those you love.”
Though she knew it was unworthy his very ease made her want to fight, the more so when Stephen said, “Amice is right. We need to be free of them for good.” He glanced at Matthew, doodling contentedly on the floor. “Inheritance?”
She shuddered at the idea. Yes, her boy should have his rights, but she could not stand the thought of dealing with Sir William. “Not if it puts me or mine in their power again.”
“That makes it easier,” Stephen went on calmly. Releasing her, he escorted her back to the bench and waited until she had sat down again before he settled beside her. “It will be far less troublesome if I do not have to be too concerned with his rights there.”
“But, brother, will the child not resent it when he is older?” Bedelia dropped in.
Stephen leaned down and stroked the gray cat himself. “He will do very well as my boy,” he asserted, dismissing the whole inheritance matter in a splendid, almost regal manner. Yes, he understands that this giving up of rights is almost unheard of, but appreciates that I cannot stand to have any more dealings with the Martintons. I want Matthew free of them and safe. Isabella clenched her fists under the table. What Stephen said made perfect sense and yet, contrary-wise, part of her was suddenly angry again. I wish it was not so unfair. My boy does not deserve such losses. We have both suffered for nothing. Did Stephen understand that, too, or was he too logical?
Stephen twisted about on the bench to face her. “These goldsmiths are powerful men but even though they may consider me a blacksmith I have influence. Do you know of anything that we can use against them?”
There was a warrior under that coolness, Isabella realized, as she glared up into his stone face. Strangely, his anger and indignation comforted her. Even as she replied, “Nothing! They told me nothing!” she began to remember.
“Yes?” prompted Stephen and Bedelia together. Amice and Thomas grinned at their joint question.
“A seal or seals?” Trying to recall exactly what had been said, or rather not said, Isabella pressed her fingers against her forehead. Seals were commonplace things, used by people on their letters and documents. A wax seal attached to a letter was an added proof of the sender’s identity. “No, I am sorry. That is all I have. My mother-in-law spoke of them once and Sir William instantly stopped her. I remembered that as strange but it probably means nothing.”
Next instant she gasped as Stephen snatched her even closer and tickled her, exactly as she tickled Matthew. “All you have? All you have? With this we can defeat them!”
“Sto…p!” Isabella giggled, but he kept on tickling and then Joanna and Matthew piled in with crooked fingers and noisy calls. All thoughts of revenge and even what Stephen meant was lost amidst laughter and horse-play.
****
After supper, Stephen was determined to have Isabella to himself for a time, whatever their final sleeping arrangements. He suggested she join him at the stables, “to look over a pony for Matthew.”
Isabella agreed with such haste that he felt ashamed, the more so when she sped to the barn as if expecting to see a docile little beast already saddled for her son. Stepping after her into the high-roofed building, Stephen saw her shaking her head.
“I did not think there would be any ponies.”
“No, I am sorry, but—” Spotting the teasing sparkle in her eye, he stopped and laughed. “You knew!”
“But I still came.” She wagged a finger, smiling when he caught it. “You do realize it will be Matt who asks you from now until Christmas time about his horse? Children have prodigious memories when it comes to expected presents.”
Feeling very amiable he enfolded her again in his arms. “He can have one for Christmas and Kentish country to ride in.”
“And Joanna, too. Have you a knife about you for me to cut a lock of hair for her?”
Pleased she was thinking of his daughter, he said, “Joanna already has a pony, and I shall trim your hair.” I must give her a good knife. And take a lock of that wondrous hair for myself, too. Who knows? Maybe Joanna is right and it will be a luck charm.
“That is well.” She walked her fingers up his chest. “As far as a horse is concerned, perhaps you could give Matthew Ulysses.”
He laughed aloud at the idea of the tiny boy on his old gray, delighted to find her so playful. Isabella had endured much, but she was young and now she had her son.
“Stevie…”
Hearing his sister’s nickname hesitantly on Isabella’s lips he pointed to the hay-loft. “Shall we go up?”
She went ahead of him up the wooden ladder, nimble and quick. Following after he was not altogether surprised when she pushed him into a mound of sweet-smelling hay and sprawled on top of him.
“Now you have me, madam, what next?” he teased.
She stared back at him, desire and uncertainty both bright in her face.
“You do not have to do anything,” he said softly.
She rolled away, fell to biting her fingernails. “I want to, but this is not my way of saying thanks, I can never thank you enough,” she confessed rapidly.
“We love each other. In love there are no games of gratitude or debts.”
“I feel the same.” She gnawed at her lower lip, then burst out, “Why am I suddenly so angry at times?”
Stephen cocked his head on one side. “With me?”
Her eyes darkened. “Even with you.” She clenched her fists. “You are so reasonable.”
He shrugged, keeping matters light although he knew these were things of shade. “For years you have not been able to be angry. Now you can indulge.”
She frowned, looking ready t
o protest, but he went on, seeking to show her that he understood. “And all alloys take time to meld.”
“Alloys?”
“Is that not what marriage is?”
Her face fell. “I do not know.”
She is eighteen and has known no men but brutes. “Let me teach you, Mistress Angel.”
She glanced at him, a wicked tease that gave him heart and pleasure together. “A seven year apprenticeship?”
He chuckled and kissed the tip of her nose. As she scowled he eased his arms about her, then plucked a strand from the hay and put it in his mouth, to make her laugh. When she found a feathery grass top and tickled his face with it he reckoned they were making progress.
I shall court her. We shall court each other. It will not take seven years, perhaps not even seven days. She is a passionate creature who needs a little space to heal, a little time to know she can trust me. I shall ask Tom if we can stay on, just for a few more days.
A few more days would serve in other ways, too. Duke Henry would be back in London and he had things to tell him.
Isabella does not realize what she saw in that goldsmith’s house and workshop, but I do. And it is the means to set her, Matthew and the rest of us free.
Chapter 9
Isabella was delighted that she and Stephen stayed in the hay barn for so long, until long past nightfall and moon-rise. They lay side by side in their soft, scented bower and talked. He told her of his childhood in Kent and the delights that awaited her and Matthew. He told her of serving as an apprentice. She told him of London, and its gossipy, quarrelsome warm-hearted folk, of the alleyways close to The Street, of how she had met Amice.
She did not speak of her marriage to Richard. She knew Stephen understood her silence and that she did not need to tell him, unless she chose. That freedom was a wonder to her and, she guessed, another gift of love. He loves me. That is the true miracle.
Her Stephen now. He has helped me rescue my son and we love each other. How am I now so lucky?
Lindsay Townsend Page 7
