By His Majesty's Grace

by Jennifer Blake

  A prickling awareness raised the hair on the back of Rand’s neck. He looked up, his gaze settling unerringly on Isabel as she traversed the great hall in the company of her two sisters, as usual. She inclined her head as she met his gaze across the room, but did not smile. It was not a slight, regardless of how it felt, but only recognition of court etiquette which said a lady should not publicly favor her husband. Nor did he smile, though it was hard to prevent the tilt of his mouth in secret pleasure as he surveyed her from top to toe, lingering on all the divers curves in between.

  He had watched her dress just that morning, lying back in bed while Gwynne arrayed her for the day in sea-green samite over a linen shift with a ruffled neckline. It was he who had chosen the sleeves the color of an autumn sky that she wore with it, also the knots of blue and green ribbon that held them in place. Blue for fidelity, he had selected, a private conceit and secret pleasure.

  He also knew precisely what she wore underneath her pristine splendor, and that was nothing whatever. He knew because he had dismissed her serving woman and taken advantage of that fact, taken his lovely wife by simply flipping up her skirts and draping her knees over his arms while she lay back upon their bed. He had made the bed curtains sway as if in a high wind, and felt still the imprint at his waist where she had clamped him to her with her slender legs.

  She was stronger than she looked.

  God’s blood, but when would he have his fill of her?

  He could not think it would be anytime soon. It was all he could do not to rise up this instant, in imitation of his unruly rod, fling down the lute and take her straight to their chamber.

  She fascinated him. He could watch her for hours, absorbing the way she moved, the tender curve of her cheek, the grace with which she sipped from their wine goblet or pushed her veil back from her face. The sheen of her skin, like the luster of a pearl, was amazing to him. Her soft yet firm curves, her warm, damp hollows, drew him as if by unseen bonds. Her mind was a mystery he yearned to solve. Steeped in reserve and private deliberations, she seemed cool, proud, given to calculating her every move. Underneath, however, she was warm and caring, quick to sympathize with the pain of others, fair and intelligent in her judgments. She had not a mean-spirited bone in all her fair body, nor did she speak ill of any soul.

  She honored her vows, both in word and deed, coming to him in bed without shrinking or protest. And once there, her response to him was sweet beyond imagining, springing from a vein of sensual delight so wide and deep he had yet to find its limit.

  He had sought it. Indeed he had, and, pray God, soon would again.

  Without conscious thought, his fingers found the tune of a lascivious French ballad about a lad and lass who go a-berrying on a fine summer’s day, and all the ways they found to enjoy their berries, all the places they managed to stain with juice while resting in the shade. And he grinned as he saw a flush rise to Isabel’s cheekbones, saw the hot, leaf-green flash of her eyes, before she turned away.

  He wondered if there were berries to be had in the pantries of the palace.

  Isabel’s sister Cate, Rand noticed, leaned to whisper a comment as they strolled. On her other side, Marguerite smothered a laugh. They passed quickly through the room, though Rand noticed that their footsteps matched the tempo of the notes that trickled from his fingers. And as they reached the doorway that led to the queen’s solar, where the ladies of the court were still embroidering a bedcover for the much-hoped-for young prince, Isabel stopped. With one hand on the door frame, she turned, looked back and smiled into his eyes.

  Rand half rose from his seat to follow her. He might have, might have taken her arm and walked her to their chamber, if not for a slurred voice that came from behind him.

  “Lucky bastard, you are, for all ye don’t deserve her.”

  Rand turned to see Viscount Henley gazing with glassy fixation at the place where Isabel had stood. His lips were loose and his eyes watery as he raised an ale tankard to his mouth. Sweat made circular stains under the arms of his shirt, the device of a bear embroidered on the tabard he wore was spotted by the remains of more than one meal and a sour, animalistic smell indicated that he had either been drunk for days or else had no affection for bathing.

  Rage boiled in Rand’s veins and he straightened, took a step toward the viscount.

  Henley slewed around toward him, took a hasty step back. A bench caught him behind his knees. He sat down with such a solid thump that ale sloshed into his lap. He looked, suddenly, as if he would cry.

  Rand’s anger faded as he considered the man’s drunken misery. His first impulse had been to let holes into the big oaf’s skin with a few well-placed sword thrusts. Being the wedded husband of Lady Isabel, however, he could afford to be generous.

  Added to that, Henley was seldom encountered when not at Graydon’s side. He was doubtless alone now because Isabel’s stepbrother was laid up with his tournament injuries. He would be at loose ends, and ripe for someone to share his drunken grievances.

  “I could not agree more that I don’t deserve my lady,” Rand said in smooth urbanity. “No man could, as she is without peer.”

  “She’d have been mine but for Henry’s interference.” The words were brooding, laced with impotent fury.

  “Would she indeed?”

  Henley wagged his great head. “Graydon gave me his hand on it. It was set in all but deed. Then…” He trailed off, buried his face in his tankard again.

  “No contract had been signed, surely.” Propping his foot on the bench beside Graydon’s companion, Rand flipped Isabel’s favor that he yet wore tied at his elbow out of his way and began to finger the berry song from the lute once more. He listened intently, however, for marriage contracts could be binding, making any later ceremony null and void.

  “No time to draw it up, so he said to me. He was talking to Henry behind my back, even then.”

  Rand allowed himself a breath of silent relief. “But you remain comrades, the two of you. You rode to Braesford with Graydon, after all, as well as in the tourney. Truly, you have a generous spirit.”

  Henley looked owlishly wise. His mouth worked for a moment before he found words. “Graydon said all I’d to do was wait. The curse of the Graces would get you, then ’twould be my turn.”

  “Your turn to be done in by it? No great honor, that,” Rand commented as pleasantly as he was able.

  “My turn with Lady Isabel. But the curse has not got ye yet, damn your eyes. Mayhap you’ve beat it.” Henley laughed, a rough, mocking sound, and flicked his fingers toward Isabel’s sleeve tied to Rand’s arm. “Or not. You wear your wife’s favor still. Could be you’re under her spell and don’t know it. Could be you’re to die by inches.”

  Henley was swaying where he sat. Rand stopped playing, put a hand on the man’s shoulder to steady him. “It may well be that I am in her thrall,” he said in grim sincerity. “If so, I pray it continues. Well, and that no one decides to help this curse along.”

  “Oh, aye, best watch out,” Henley said with a wink that made him look cross-eyed. He laughed again.

  Rand put the lute aside. “So Graydon proposed the match between me and the Lady Isabel. It was not Henry’s thought.”

  “Wouldn’t say that. ’Twas the king’s will, right enough.” Henley was silent a moment, lost in ponderous thought. “Graydon liked it, though. He’ll get more from Braesford’s rents, see, than from her inherited lands.”

  The only way Isabel’s stepbrother could lay hands on the rents from Rand’s estate was if Isabel was left a widow with a child. As her nearest male relative and head of her family, Graydon would take control of her inheritance from a dead husband, at least until she re-married. If he gave her to Henley betimes, it was unlikely the viscount would challenge his continued use of the income, or at least so long as he shared it.

  And if she was left a widow without a child, she would still inherit a portion of Braesford, though she must return to Graydon Hall and another marriage
arranged by stepbrother or king. Braesford Hall and the majority of its lands would descend to Rand’s next of kin. As he had none other than his half brother, what were the odds that William would be handed the prize and the lady’s hand with it?

  These thoughts were not new, but were less comfortable now than before he had taken Isabel into his bed.

  A widow with no close male relative could claim much more independence. Barring interference from the king, she could collect her own rents, buy and sell property, invest in commerce and other such ventures. If he was to hang, Rand thought, it might as well be for a death he had caused. Perhaps he would see to it that Isabel was minus a stepbrother before he was gone.

  “Graydon is unlikely to enjoy the income he covets,” Rand said. “You might tell him so.”

  “Aye, and I have. Told him, too, that this curse of the Three Graces is a false tale made up among his sisters. He didn’t like hearing it.”

  “Was that,” Rand asked in his softest tone, “when he broke Lady Isabel’s finger?”

  Henley frowned. “He did that?’

  “Aye, and took joy of it, used it to force her to marry.”

  “Shouldn’t have.” Henley attempted to drain his tankard but found it empty. He sat staring into it for long seconds. Shaking his head, muttering something about more ale, he pushed himself off the bench and shambled away.

  Rand let him go, though his gaze rested on the retreating figure. It was possible he had done more harm than good with his revelations.

  No matter what came of them, the results would not be allowed to touch Isabel. He would see to that.

  The morning passed with excruciating slowness. Rand chafed at the enforced inactivity. He might as well be shut up in the Tower prison as to be kept kicking his heels about the palace. He ached to be in the saddle, to be riding out with the men-at-arms that still quartered the meadows and marshes, hills and valleys outside town, searching for Mademoiselle Juliette and Leon. It almost seemed instinct would lead him to one or the other of them if he was allowed to join the hunt.

  Midday arrived, tolled by the abbey bell. Dinner would not be long in coming. He made his way toward the chamber allotted to him and Isabel, in part to make sure his hands were clean before sharing food and drink with her, but also because he expected her to do the same and hoped to steal a kiss. Or something more if she was so inclined.

  He whistled as he approached, trilling the self-same air he had played earlier. It lingered in his head, maddening him with its sprightliness and the images of playful lovemaking it brought to mind. His thoughts were running once more to the use of berries when he emerged in the antechamber that led to the chamber.

  A man straightened from where he hovered in the shadows on the far side of the long room, a somberly dressed figure in black and white. He adjusted the wide hat he wore with its fan of swan feathers, tipping it at a jaunty angle that concealed much of his face. At a sauntering pace, he moved off toward another door that gave onto a maze of corridors and the rabbit’s warren of the old palace’s back reaches.

  The walk was familiar. Rand frowned, undecided. It couldn’t be. No, surely not. Leon could not be here in the palace when half the soldiery in Henry’s service rattled up hill and down dale on his track. Could he?

  Rand turned his footsteps in the direction taken by the other man. The gallant of the big hat stepped up his pace, reaching the far door and passing through it. Rand broke into a run. The next moment, he heard racing steps ahead of him. Bursting through the half-open door, he glanced right, glanced left, heard the faintest jingle of bells and caught a flash of white and black descending the squeaking treads of a servant’s stair. He gave chase.

  Cat and fiendishly agile mouse, he and his quarry sprinted along passages, swirled through chambers made jewellike with tapestries and Saracen carpets, crashed through storerooms and lumber rooms. They slid across a court slick with water and old soap scum, slapped through dangling laundry and ducked down a narrow alley. Emerging in a courtyard that had been turned into an abattoir, they dodged around menservants armed with cleavers, circled each other about vats where hogs’ heads were being rendered and leaped gingerly through a far corner given over to eviscerating chickens. The clatter of wings marked the Master of Revel’s bypass of a pigeon roost.

  Moments later, the figure clad in black and white sought the dusty shadows of a stable where rows of horses, destriers, palfreys and rounceys lifted curious heads over half doors. Rand knew his way now. He swerved toward the rear doors of the long building. Plunging to a halt, he flattened his back against a gate shaped like a horseshoe. As Leon whipped through it, he caught his doublet in a hard grasp, slinging him into the wall at his side with a solid thud of flesh meeting stone. Then he bore him down to the ground.

  They breathed with the wheeze of a blacksmith’s bellows. Sweat streaked their faces and matted their hair. Leon looked half-dead, with a lump like a hawk’s egg forming at his hairline and blood trickling from his nose. His eyes were glazed, and in his olive skin lay a blue-tinted pallor.

  Rand had pig’s blood on his shoes, chicken feathers on his sleeve and a complete lack of mercy in his soul. Hovering above the fugitive with a knee pressing into his heaving chest, he slipped his knife from its sheath and held the point to Leon’s throat.

  “What were you about near my lady’s chamber?” he asked in hard demand. “You have the space of a single breath to answer before I carve you a new airway.”

  “Nothing, I swear…swear it.”

  Rand increased the pressure of his blade point. “What did you there, then?”

  “The lady is gracious…kind.”

  “How kind, exactly?” he inquired while his heartbeat drummed in his ears.

  “She speaks…understands… Does not hold herself above me. I thought…”

  This did not have the sound of assignation. Rand eased the pressure of his knee a bit, also his knifepoint. “Thought what?”

  “That she might tell me…tell me what you and the king have done with my Juliette.”

  Rand sat back on his heels. Whatever he had expected, it was not this. “Your Juliette?”

  “Mine,” Leon said in strangled certainty. “Mine before Henry turned her head with jewels and fine clothes, before she thought she might be his lady mistress or even his queen. Mine, even as she warmed his bed and his cold heart.”

  This was lèse-majesté, indeed, to bed the mistress of a king. “You could be hung for admitting such a thing, or made to disappear without a trace.”

  “I don’t care, never did. Juliette felt…otherwise.”

  “So I would imagine. Unlike with the Saracens, an English king doesn’t sew an unfaithful concubine into a sack and toss her off a sea cliff but may still be less than kind.”

  “Ah, she never feared for herself.”

  “For you, then?”

  Leon managed a nod and a smile that was both sickly and whimsical. “For the father of her babe.”

  It was beyond belief, the smiling duplicity of women, Rand thought. He had played host to Mademoiselle Juliette for six weeks or more, had sat with her at his table, spoken with her during long evenings while she sat stitching on small garments. He had walked with her in the first throes of labor, and stood beside her while she was delivered of a daughter. Never in all that time had she breathed a single word to indicate the child she carried was not of the king’s get.

  “You think Henry discovered the dupe and has done away with her?”

  “I don’t know. I can’t find out, can’t find her, and it’s driving me mad.”

  It would. Rand could imagine how he might feel if it was Isabel who… He pulled up short before the thought was complete.

  “What did you and Juliette expect,” he asked in strained patience, “a nice stipend to live on while you continued the affair? Or were you supposed to come and take her away?”

  “What chance had I of removing her? Or that you would let her go except at Henry’s command?”


  “She went so willingly when the escort arrived, as if she expected it.”

  “We had made no plans, lacked the money for it,” the troubadour insisted, speaking more evenly as he caught his breath. “She may have thought she could evade Henry’s attention and come to me once she was back at Westminster.”

  It was vaguely possible. People were able to convince themselves of almost anything. Except Juliette had never reached the town.

  “That mummery the other night, La danse macabre,” Rand said, “the woman with the dead child was meant to be Mademoiselle Juliette instead of the queen.”

  “I wanted to make Henry think. That is, if he is holding her somewhere. As for the queen, it should have caused no more disturbance than any priest’s homily on the fires of hell. Yet I do pray there have been no ill effects.”

  “Even as it’s Henry’s child Elizabeth carries, his true child this time?”

  “You think I wish him ill?”

  Rand gave him a straight look. He had felt murderous with jealousy himself just moments ago. He could hardly imagine what it must be like to suffer it for months on end. “Don’t you?”

  “I meant to present a lesson in humility, to show him that life is weak and death is strong. My dancing dead were to say to all, As you are, so we once were. As we are, so you will be.”

  Rand grunted in recognition of the sentiment before he went on. “You did not take the role of grim reaper upon yourself, then?”

  “Never! The mechanism was not meant to burst apart. It was supposed to pass by the high table as a reminder of what rumors say happened to Juliette’s child. Someone tampered with it.”

  “Mayhap someone who wanted the king to have a more desperate lesson. Who could have done it? Who had access to your workshop?”