The Lady Series

by Domning, Denise

  Digging into her purse, Belle dropped a few pence into the footman's palm then took the proffered letter. She turned it over in her hands. The wax that held it shut was smooth, untouched by a signet. Rather than being forwarded, it was actually addressed to her at Graceton Castle. Who knew she was here?

  The mystery of it was too great to be borne. She broke the seal. The wax cracked, pieces showering onto the grass at her hems. The paper unfolded with a crinkle. Her heart flew as she recognized the handwriting of her former governess, Mistress Alice Godwin. So dear had Alice been to Belle that she'd petitioned the woman to become Lucy's governess on the very day of her child's birth. Alice had refused, and rightly so. She was far too old to take on another student.

  My dearest Belle, I hope this finds you happy

  and in good health, read the greeting. I have your

  new address from Sir William Cecil, our gracious

  Majesty’s secretary. He has also confided the news

  to me of this marriage that Her Grace has seen fit

  to arrange for you. I hope you will accept my congratulations.

  My wish for you is as it has always been.

  May you find the happiness you dreamed of owning so long ago,

  along with the safe birth of many children.

  With the pleasantries addressed, the old woman's letter continued in blunt announcement.

  I fear I have terrible news. Your lady mother has died.

  Belle stared at the words, reading them again and again. Her heart felt like wood in her chest. She closed the letter.

  “My lady?” Master James asked.

  Incapable of responding, Belle started abruptly toward the hall door. What sort of Christian was she? Her mother was dead and she didn’t feel a thing.

  Now that the wedding announcements were at last all written and delivered, Jamie set aside his evening hours to catch up on all the harvest reports, petitions for justice and requests for extensions on payment of rents and fees that had gone wanting in the interim. But now instead of setting pen to paper and working, he stared down at the correspondence and didn’t see a word. How could he when he was stuck like an ox driving a millstone, all his thoughts traveling around and around in the same rut?

  What grave message had the lady’s letter contained that could drive all the life from her face?

  Leaning back in his chair, he released a breath sharp enough to make the candles on his desk flicker. He rubbed at his tired eyes. Cecily had crept into Nick's bed a half hour ago. He might as well retire since God knew he wasn’t accomplishing anything here.

  Reaching out, he snuffed all but one candle. The night's gentle darkness closed about him, sighing into the chamber's corners and curling sleepily about the legs of his chair. Still, Jamie sat and stared blindly out into the dimness. Why hadn’t he thought to warn Graceton's men not to approach him with messages unless he was private? Now, instead of shielding Nick from potential harm, all he’d done was prove that he wasn’t much of a schemer.

  Jamie's gaze shifted to the top of his desk. It was still there, hiding beneath the sprawl of papers, bait for a trap that would never spring. He pulled the note out from beneath his stack of correspondence then smoothed it beneath his hands. Why keep it, when he knew no one was coming for it?

  Even as the urge to tear the thing in twain rose, he killed it. Nay, this damned letter had its value, if nothing else than as a reminder of how great an idiot he could be. Screwing it into a ball, he set it back on his desk.

  At that same instant the door leading to the gallery creaked quietly as it opened. Given the late hour, Jamie was certain it was Tom, coming to remind his master to go to bed. But footsteps marked the walker’s path up the tower stairs.

  Jamie frowned. The only thing in that direction was the door leading out onto the castle’s wall. Who in their right mind wandered along a shelf of stone set nearly four stories above the ground in the middle of the night?

  Taking up his candle, he crossed the chamber to open his door. Chill air, thick with the scent of moldering damp, rushed into his office. The flame died, plunging both office and stairwell into an instant blackness.

  Jamie loosed an irritated breath. Whoever it was had left the door open at the tower's top. Setting aside the useless taper, he stepped out onto the landing and reached blindly for the tower wall. With the cool curve of its stones beneath his fingers he started upward, seeking out each step with a careful foot.

  At the top of the stairs night's silvery light spilled in through the open door. Gone were the clouds that had plagued the day, whisked away by the sun’s setting. Yet an hour from its zenith the moon was but a slender crescent as it drifted like some celestial boat in a river of stars.

  He stepped onto the wall. The narrow wall walk stretched out before him, spanning the distance from this tower to the next. Merlons studded the walk’s forward edge, the great square blocks of stone looking like giant teeth. With nothing in the gaps between them, the careless could, and had, easily stepped through to die in the river below. At the wall’s back was the hall's roof, rising a dozen feet above it to its peak. Shingles made from thin slices of slate gleamed like ebony, while the slender chimneys jutting up out of it looked like so many silver needles.

  She stood halfway down the wall's length. Her garment clung to her slim shape, the night's tepid breeze lifting its silken hem. Moonlight turned her golden hair to silver.

  Lady Purfoy.

  The sudden warmth in his heart warned Jamie he should turn and leave, right this instant. There was no trusting himself with her, not anymore. But as he took a backward step she sighed and leaned her head against the stone before her in a pose fraught with pain.

  Before he knew what he was about he went to her. She looked up at the sound of his footsteps and gasped. Even though there was no escape for her in any direction, she took a quick backward step.

  “I was just preparing to leave my office when I heard someone climb the steps,” he said, hoping a friendly grin would put her at ease. “I came after you to warn you. My lady, Mistress Miller spoke the truth when she said two women have fallen to their deaths from this wall although I doubt her White Lady was the cause of it. It's dangerous up here in the day, what with slick stones and the possibility of gusty winds. It’s doubly so in the dark.”

  Even in the dimness he could see her shoulders relax, as if concern for her safety somehow made this meeting more acceptable. “I suppose you’re right,” she agreed, “but I was desperate for a breath of air. It seems none of the river's freshness reaches as far as my window.”

  “Perhaps you simply spent too much of the day within your apartment walls. You didn’t come to dinner this evening,” he said, daring to encourage her into a conversation.

  “Aye, we decided to dine in our chambers tonight,” was all she said as she once more turned to look out over the darkened landscape.

  Jamie came to stand beside her. The castle had a fine prospect of the long valley that spread out beneath it. From here he could see the glimmer of the river's surface as it made its way around darkened orchards and past the gentle fields of grain that had yet to see the scythe. The square tower of the village church thrust up into the night sky, its form a solid black against the salting of stars in the sky behind it

  “I fear it was a short meal Sir Edward and I shared, what with you, Mistress Atwater and Mistress Lucy all absent.”

  Her laugh was short and filled with irony. She sent him a swift, sidelong glance. “I can imagine it was. I've noticed the two of you have little liking for each other.”

  Then she sighed. “Mistress Atwater and I are going to abandon the dinner table until after the wedding.”

  His heart dropped. Taking a meal with Lady Purfoy had become the highlight of his day. It was the way she listened to him. No matter how mundane the issue, she made it seem vital and new.

  “But why?” The question leapt from his lips.

  Rather than snub him for his impertinence
, her eyes glistened in the night as she studied him. There was a moment’s hesitation then she shook her head. “I fear the reason is a private matter.”

  “Pardon, my lady,” he said swiftly, trying to reclaim his forgotten manners. “I only hope it isn’t anything I've done that should make you avoid our table.”

  “Oh nay,” she cried, reaching out as if to lay a hand on his arm, only to catch back the gesture before she touched him. “It's not you. You've been naught but-”

  “Kind?” he interrupted, supplying the word he knew she intended. Despite his disappointment over her news, he smiled.

  This time when she laughed, there was only pleasure in it. The sweet sound filled him, feeding the dangerous softness that resided in his heart for her. It was a warning, an alarm telling him it was time for them to part. Aye, but no matter what his head knew, his feet might as well have been nailed to the stones beneath them. Save for chance and impersonal meetings in the gallery or hall, this was the last opportunity he'd have to speak with her until the wedding.

  Suddenly, thirteen days seemed like an eternity.

  “What was our heavenly Father thinking when He created bats, I wonder?” she asked, as one of those creatures swooped near enough to them to be seen. “Why do you think He gave some mice wings and not the others?”

  Something stirred deep within Jamie. She was telling him she didn’t want this meeting to end any more than he did.

  “Ours nest in the top floor of the old keep tower,” he replied, gratefully following where she led.

  “Do they?”

  When she said no more a companionable quiet settled between them. Jamie found he was content to stand beside her and enjoy her presence. After a few moments the skin at the back of his neck began to prickle. It was a sensation he related to being watched. He glanced toward the tower door. There was no one there. When he brought his gaze back on Lady Purfoy, she’d leaned her cheek against the merlon.

  “What does our Lord think of me, I wonder?” Her tone was distant and sad.

  “Nothing but good,” he replied in utter certainty.

  “I doubt that,” she said with a tiny aching laugh, then turned her head to look up at him. Pain marred her gentle features.

  Again, the need to comfort tore through him. “What is this? Whatever it is, it cannot be so bad as that,” he said, attempting to soothe with words since propriety didn’t allow more.

  “So you would say,” she replied, lifting her head. Tears glimmered in her eyes. She blinked them away then drew a bracing breath. “My lady mother has died and, God help me, I cannot find an iota of grief within me for her passing.”

  She flinched, as if shocked by what she'd said. “Pardon. I didn’t mean to speak so frankly. I don’t know why it is that I always behave so familiarly toward you.”

  Where she saw a lapse of manners, he found a compliment. The warmth within him grew. “I see no wrong in sharing your heart's burden with a friend,” he told her.

  The moon's light was bright enough to show him the astonishment that filled her face. “You’d call yourself my friend?” It was a breathless question.

  He hadn’t really thought about it when he’d said it. “As your husband’s steward what else would I be?” This was almost a challenge.

  New joy took light in her eyes. “There aren't many who’ve ever named themselves my friend.”

  Jamie recognized in her words a certain depth of loneliness, not dissimilar to what had always lived within him. The urge to kiss her woke. Startled, he took a step back, hoping a little more physical distance might ease it. It was only as he moved that it occurred to him she’d just told him what lay in her letter.

  “It was the notice of your lady mother's death that came this afternoon?”

  “Aye.” Her voice was small.

  For all the queen’s shouting about removing heads from necks it was hard to believe Elizabeth might actually have wreaked that punishment on Lady Montmercy. But if the queen had given way to execution, what did that mean for Nick? He dared to probe further.

  “It's been less than two months since I last saw your lady mother. She seemed hale enough at our last meeting although she was somewhat upset.” Hysterical would have been the better word.

  “Apparently she became ill shortly after her confinement to the Tower,” Lady Purfoy replied, not seeming to notice she was being interrogated. “Her caregiver said she passed into a strange state, neither speaking nor moving of her own volition. She ate, but only if a spoon was pressed between her lips. Given that, it's a wonder she clung to life as long as she did.”

  Now, she loosed a choked sound as she stared out into the distance. “A dozen times I’ve read those words,” she told him, “each time waiting to feel something-pity or at least compassion for another soul who’d fallen afoul of our Lord and paid the price. There's nothing in me,” she cried, then caught her breath.

  “At least I didn’t dance for joy at the news.” This last was a personal aside not meant for his ears, spoken on a bitter breath.

  “You would never be so cruel.” The words left his mouth before he could stop them.

  Lady Purfoy looked at him, a sad smile touching her lips. “I doubt our Lord would agree. He knows how I've failed to obey His commandment to honor my mother.”

  Even in the dark he could see how she struggled for a moment as if words filled her but she wasn't certain she should free them. “If only someone would tell me how I'm to honor a woman who wasted no opportunity to tell me how ugly I am and how deeply my birth shamed her.” Pain lay deep in her words.

  Her words stole Jamie's breath. Ancient as they were, memories of his mother returned with all the freshness and clarity of yesterday’s events. At his father’s insistence he'd spent one day a week with his dam. More times than not, she'd ended the encounter by screaming she wished he’d never been born. Despite the caring his nurse and his tutor showered on him, such hatred directed at so small a boy had been shattering.

  It was the pain of his mother's rejection, and the unfairness of his father's attempt to teach one of God's commandments by exposing his son to her hatred, that made anger explode in him. The emotion was so huge his hands shook with it. Craving the privacy of his office where he could knot it safely back into his heart, he started to turn away.

  Tears glistened to life in the lady's eyes. Jamie froze. He read it in the crease of her brow and the worried pinch of her lips. If he left her now she'd blame herself and her honest speech for it, no matter what explanation he might offer. To her, it would be but one more rejection in a lifetime of rejections.

  Anger melted into the need to heal the wrongs done to them both. The silk of her bed robe was soft beneath his palms as his hands closed about her upper arms. He pulled her into his embrace. She gasped as she came to rest against him, but there was no tension in the hands she braced against his chest. Lifting her head, she looked up into his face. Her bed robe fell open to bare the slender length of her throat to the night. Her skin glowed like alabaster in the starlight.

  “She had no right to say such things to you,” he told her, his voice sounding like a growl to his own ears. “Between the two of you I think you by far the more valuable soul. Indeed, the sweetness and caring of your nature puts many a vain beauty to shame. My lady, it isn’t you who should honor your mother for giving you life, but she who should have been honored because she bore you. Your birth was her life’s crowning achievement.”

  The lady's lips quivered. “I think I'm not worthy of your high opinion.”

  “And I think you are wrong,” he replied, forgetting all caution to lift a hand and stroke his fingers along the smooth curve of her cheek. “I cannot imagine your lady mother ever naming you ugly. However well-made the world accorded her features, I think you by far the prettier and no man can convince me otherwise. So I have believed from the moment I first saw you.”

  She closed her eyes as she lost her battle with tears. Twin droplets slid out from beneath her eyel
ashes to trail down her cheeks. Catching her face in his hands, he used his thumbs to brush them away.

  With a shuddering sigh, she leaned her cheek against one of his palms then opened her eyes to look at him. “You are so—”

  “Nay,” he interrupted with a harsh laugh. “I won’t have you say it. I am not kind. I’m far too stubborn and prideful to a fault. Some have even dared to name me thick as a brick. All those I accept, but not kind. Never kind.”

  A smile trembled to life on her mouth. “Then I shall cherish your good opinion of me all the more,” she whispered.

  “In all my life no one has ever preferred me over my mother.”

  There was a subtle softening in her expression. That warmth in his heart lifted into a new heat, bringing with it the need to touch his lips to hers. He almost did it. He would have done it but this woman was special above any other he'd ever met. To give way to passion and commit adultery would dishonor what he felt for her.

  Releasing her, he took a backward step. “I think it's time we returned to the house,” he said softly.

  “I think you are right,” she replied just as softly.

  The sadness had departed from her face. In its place was a new emotion. Jamie caught his breath as he recognized it. Although she was promised to Nick, it was Graceton’s steward she loved.

  However wrong it might be, his heart responded. Turning, he led the way to the tower door. As he stepped through the opening he met with a wall of chill air. Jamie released a surprised breath. He hadn't realized the air in the stairwell was so much cooler than the night.

  “Have a care with the steps,” he warned, speaking over his shoulder to her.

  When they were again in the gallery he stopped with her before her apartment door. She dared to step close and lay her hand against his arm. “My thanks. You’ve rescued me once again, Master James,” she said.

  Just as it had the first time his name on her lips sent pleasure shooting through him.