The Widow's Kiss

by Jane Feather

  His tongue entered her, his mouth nuzzled the hooded bud of her sex. His breath was cool, a wickedly sensual breeze on the hot and swollen lips he caressed.

  Guinevere's fingers curled in his hair; her thighs tightened; her hips lifted as he slid his hands beneath her bottom, pinching the soft flesh as he brought her closer and closer to the brink with his tongue. But before she was engulfed he took his mouth from her. She shuddered, aching with longing. Her legs curled around his hips as he moved up her body again. She pulled his head down to her face and kissed him, tasting herself on his tongue, inhaling the intoxicating scents of her own arousal.

  He drove deep within her and she held him there, feeling him fill to the very core her exquisitely sensitized body. She felt the pulse of his flesh within her. Then he withdrew slowly, so very slowly, to the very edge of her body until only the tip of his sex touched her. Her opened body cried out for him; she pressed upwards trying to draw him within her again; their eyes held and they could see themselves reflected in the dark irises of the other. It was as if their souls touched, as if each was the mirror image of the other, and when he entered her with one long slow thrust, their bodies became one, their spirits dissolved. They were one.

  After many minutes, Hugh disengaged and rolled to the side. He lay on his back, a hand resting on Guinevere's sweat-dampened belly, feeling the rapid pulse beneath his palm. It slowed as his own did, in synchrony it seemed. She sighed, a deep indrawing of breath, a slow exhalation. Then she turned her head to look at him.

  He touched her cheek and she smiled, but he sensed the gathering shadows behind the smile.

  “Tristesse de l’amour?” he inquired gently.

  “Perhaps.” She reached up and lightly touched his cheek. “I thank you, Hugh.”

  “You have nothing to thank me for,” he responded, lightly grasping her wrist. “I gave to you only what you gave to me.”

  “I doubt that,” she said softly. “But it must never happen again, Hugh. You understand that?”

  He shook his head. “No, Guinevere, I do not.”

  She sat up and said with difficulty, “I wish that you could … could understand how frightening this is for me. How I must not, cannot yield up myself again in this fight. I have so much to lose, Hugh. So much more than you. Can you not understand that?”

  “Yes … yes, of course I understand that.” He sat up, touched her bare shoulder. “But must you make that lie between us?”

  “Yes, I must,” she said flatly. “I cannot see clearly if I do not.”

  There was a short silence, then she said, “I must go to my own chamber.”

  He watched as she gathered up her clothes. She stood naked, holding the pile of silk, lace, and velvet in her arms. “If you have a night robe I could borrow … ?”

  “Yes, of course.” The old constraint was between them again. Guinevere was forcing its return. That glorious moment of union had done nothing to alter the brutal facts that lay between them.

  In his frustration he wanted to shake her, to force her to admit that such loving transcended anything that could thrust them apart. Instead, he swung off the bed and took a fur robe from the armoire. “This will serve.” He placed it around her shoulders.

  “My thanks,” she said and moved to the door. At the door she turned, her hand on the latch. “I do thank you, Hugh.”

  He made a small helpless gesture of denial.

  She seemed to hesitate, then raised the latch and slipped from his chamber.

  14

  Guinevere awoke well before dawn from a curiously deep and dreamless sleep. She stirred and Moonshine, who had been sleeping in the small of her back, rose on stilt legs with a slightly indignant glare, stretched languidly, and jumped to the floor. Nutmeg, who’d been curled between the girls’ soft bodies, joined his sister. They stalked to the door, stood there, regarding Guinevere in lofty demand.

  Guinevere slid to the floor, careful not to wake the still-sleeping girls. She padded across to the door and let the pair of kittens out. Presumably they’d learned their way to the outside the previous evening.

  Tilly sat up on the truckle bed and yawned. “You were late to bed, chuck,” she observed. Her eye fell on Guinevere's discarded clothing. Guinevere had been too exhausted, too confused, to put them away. Hugh's furred robe lay over a stool.

  Guinevere didn’t immediately answer the tiring woman. She picked up the robe and slipped it over her naked sleep-warmed body. Her senses swirled as she inhaled the scent of him, felt the heavy warmth of his garment almost as if it was his body against hers. A great melancholy filled her.

  She could never take from him again what he had given her last night. He had given her what she had craved, had so desperately needed, but she dared not let him love her again. Not if she was ever to be free of him. Their souls had touched last night and while then it had been only joyful, in the cold light of morning the depths of that emotion terrified her. She had to fight Hugh if she was to defeat Privy Seal, and it would be like fighting herself.

  “So that's the way the land lies,” Tilly murmured with instant comprehension. “Can’t say I’m surprised.”

  “ ’Tis a bad thing to have happened, Tilly,” Guinevere said slowly. “It should not have happened.”

  “Well, that's as may be,” the other returned with the air of one who didn’t believe it. She got off the truckle bed and stretched.

  “It begins now, Tilly,” Guinevere said slowly. “I must be ready by sunup to accompany Lord Hugh to the palace at Hampton Court.”

  Tilly's expression grew solemn. She glanced towards the big bed where the children were stirring, and raised an eyebrow in silent inquiry.

  “I’ll explain to them,” Guinevere murmured.

  “Where's Moonshine?” Pippa demanded, speaking even in the moment she came out of sleep. She sat up rubbing sleep from her eyes. “I dreamed I’d lost her again.”

  “She's gone out with Nutmeg,” her mother reassured her.

  “Oh, we have to find them.” Pen scrambled out of bed. “They don’t really know their way around yet.”

  “Hurry and get dressed then.” Guinevere moved to the linen press, gesturing to Tilly that she should follow her. She spoke softly, so that the children would not hear. “I think I’ll wear the black gown and hood,” she said. “I believe the demure widow will be the best appearance to present. The silver fillet to the hood, and maybe no breast jewel, just the pomander on my girdle. I don’t wish to thrust my wealth in their faces.”

  “Aye, chuck, ’tis a wise thought.” Tilly took out the black silk gown. The material although rich was unadorned, with no raised pattern of embroidery or embedded jewels.

  “I’ll fetch you hot water.” Tilly hurried away. Guinevere turned back to the girls who were struggling with their clothes. Guinevere went to help them, untangling Pippa's knotted laces, straightening Pen's collar.

  “My loves, I have business to do today,” she said casually.

  “What kind of business?” asked Pippa, twisting her head to look up at her mother over her shoulder.

  “Just some discussions about the estate with Lord Hugh and some other men,” Guinevere said. “There, now. You’re all straight.” She bent to kiss them both then went to the dressing stand where Tilly was placing a steaming jug of hot water.

  She dampened a cloth, holding it to her face before drawing it over her throat and neck, achingly reminded as the warm cloth passed over her skin of Hugh's moist caresses, of the way his tongue had painted a path over her body.

  The skill of his lovemaking, his tenderness, his need to please her were all characteristic of the man so beloved of his son, so trusted by her daughters. But she knew that the man she was to face today and in succeeding days was a very different one. A man with a harsh sense of his duty. A man who had his own purpose in bringing her down. A man who, she was convinced, never shirked his purpose or evaded his duty.

  “Where are you going?” asked Pen.

  “To Ha
mpton Court. I’ll tell you all about it when I get back.”

  The girls gazed at her wide-eyed, so intrigued by this prospect that they forgot the urgent need to go in search of the kittens. Instead they plied their mother with questions that she was hard-pressed to answer as she dressed in her black widow's weeds and ate a little of the bread that Tilly had brought for her, dipping it in a cup of warm milk. She had no way of knowing when she would next eat.

  There was no looking glass in the chamber. Such things were the kinds of luxuries that she guessed were beyond Hugh of Beaucaire's means. She had only her little traveling mirror with which to examine her image. Her face was pale beneath the white linen coif and the black hood. The pleated lace of her chemise decorously reached her throat. Ordinarily she would have pinned a jewel at the throat but not today. The square neckline of the gown was severe in its lack of adornment. She looked more like a nun than a witch, she decided, her lip curling in a cynical smile. Whether it would convince them remained to be seen.

  “My thick cloak, Tilly. ’Twill be cold on the river at this hour.” She opened a drawer in the armoire and took out a rolled parchment.

  Tilly handed her a heavy woolen hooded cloak. She slipped it over her shoulders, slipped the parchment into the deep pocket of her cloak, and stood for a minute readying herself for the ordeal ahead. Then she bent and kissed the girls good-bye. “I won’t be back until late tonight, my loves. Be good.”

  “We’re always good, Mama,” Pippa protested.

  “Yes, I know you are.” Guinevere smiled. She was reluctant to leave them. Terror swamped her anew. She would come back to them. Of course she would. But she couldn’t swallow the lump of fear in her throat as she turned to the door.

  Tilly hugged her. “Don’t you fret, my chuck. It’ll all turn out for the best. You just see if it don’t.”

  Guinevere gave her a half smile and left the chamber, resisting the urge to clasp her children to her for one last time. They must catch nothing of her fear.

  She descended the stairs to the hall, her step slow, her heart hammering against her ribs. Hugh stood beside the hearth, cloaked and ready for departure.

  Her heart turned over as she read the light in his vivid blue eyes, saw the soft curve of his mouth. She forced herself to speak formally. “I give you good morning, my lord.”

  He came towards her, smiling, his hands outstretched in welcome. He would not allow her to distance herself from him again. She had done it last night, after their loving, but he was resolved to overcome it. There was no sense to her refusal to acknowledge what they had, what they were to each other.

  He took her hands, bent and kissed her mouth. She turned her head aside with a murmured protest. “Don’t turn from me, Guinevere,” he said. “What good does it do either of us?”

  “I cannot,” she replied with low-voiced urgency. “Hugh, I cannot. You are determined to destroy me. You will gain the land you claim when I am brought down. Do you deny that?”

  Hugh dropped her hands. “No, I do not deny that,” he said. “But I do deny that I am determined to destroy you.” His eyes glittered fiercely. “I am not so determined. How could you believe that when you know what we can be to each other? There are facts, and others will ask you about them. It is out of my hands. I can in no way influence matters. Regardless of my own feelings, I was instructed to bring you to London for examination. And I will do my duty.”

  “A cold, hard duty,” she said flatly. “One that leaves no room for pity. You are my jailer. For a prisoner to make love with her jailer, to seek comfort from him, is perverse.”

  “Is that the only light in which you see me?” he demanded. “Is that what you would call what we had together last night—a perversion?”

  She shrugged. “In light of the facts I can think of no better term, my lord.”

  Hugh struggled with his anger and disappointment. He was certain she didn’t truly view their loving in this way, but she was obdurate and he could see no way to soften her.

  “If I could change things, Guinevere, you must believe me that I would,” he said. “But I cannot, so let us go.” He shook his head as if to clear it of confusion. “We will walk to the steps at Blackfriars.” He preceded her to the door.

  Guinevere drew her cloak tightly around her. She was cold, but it had little to do with the briskness of the cloudy early morning. It was a cold that came from deep inside her. It was part fear and part sorrow for the hurt she had caused him. But she could see no other way to preserve her integrity. She had to fight for herself and her children and she could not do that by consorting with the enemy even when he came to her in the guise of friend and lover.

  They walked in silence through the lanes of Holborn. The world was up and about despite the early hour, messengers running through the streets, hawkers crying their wares, women yelling, “Gardezleau” as they hurled night soil from the top windows into the kennels below.

  A man in crimson livery rode by, spurring his horse. The hooves kicked up mud and filth and Guinevere jumped aside only just in time to avoid being trampled. “Didn’t he see me?” she demanded furiously.

  “A man on Privy Seal's business doesn’t stop for pedestrians,” Hugh said. “Are you all right?”

  “Yes, thank you.” She brushed at her cloak where dust and dried mud clung. She remembered the procession of the previous afternoon when the world had come to a halt to give precedence to Privy Seal and his outriders. “It seems our Lord Privy Seal's presence is everywhere.”

  “Visible and invisible,” Hugh responded. Guinevere controlled a convulsive shiver.

  A dull metallic gleam shone through a gap in the row of houses ahead of them. As they approached, the broad gray reaches of the Thames opened before them. The river if anything seemed busier than the lanes they had just left.

  Ferrymen gathered at the base of the water steps at Blackfriars, touting for customers in their skiffs and wherries. A large barge, with a richly adorned canopy and flying the king's pennant, was tied at the steps. A group of musicians were stepping aboard, carrying their lutes and lyres.

  “The musicians are being transported to the palace to play at the king's feast this evening,” Hugh informed Guinevere. He stood looking around for Jack Stedman and the barge he had commissioned.

  “Ah, there he is.” He gestured to a barge anchored some way out in the river. Berths at the water steps themselves were hard to come by. He beckoned an urchin. “Whistle up that barge, lad. Three long and three short.”

  The boy blew the correct blasts on the tin whistle he carried around his neck. Hugh's falcon-embossed pennant immediately fluttered at the stern of the barge and the oarsmen began to pull to the steps. Hugh gave the urchin a coin, then ushered Guinevere down the steps.

  Guinevere now became aware of the whistles and trumpet calls all around them as servants called barges for their masters, each with a different sequence of notes. It struck her as extraordinary that any one craft could distinguish its own call signal from the cacophony. But the system seemed to work.

  Their own barge pulled into the steps and Hugh jumped aboard. He held out his hand for Guinevere. She took it to step aboard and he did not immediately release it. His fingers curled around her own and she could feel his strength, feel the dry warmth of his palm through her gloves. She slipped her hand free and walked to the stern where a cresset burned against the dim early light, sending a pale circle over the gray water.

  “Good morning, m’lady.”

  “Good morning, Jack.” She nodded at the man. “This is a fine barge you’ve found. It has housing too, I see.”

  Jack looked pleased at the compliment. “Reckon as ’ow we might need it, madam. There's a cold wind and ’twill be worse when we’re movin’. An’ fer comin’ back like, we’ll mebbe light the brazier.” He gestured proudly to the somewhat perfunctory shelter provided by an awning over a long bench. A small charcoal brazier was in the corner.

  Coming back! Would she come back? She turned t
o Hugh, asked with an effort at casualness, “How long will the journey take?”

  “Five hours if the wind and tide are with us. Longer if not.” If he was aware of her agitation he gave no sign.

  The barge was out in midstream now, part of the flow of traffic. Despite her wretchedness, Guinevere was distracted by the scene. Within a very short while they were in the countryside, rowing past grand mansions with gardens sweeping to the river where they had their own water steps and landing stages, many of them with private barges tied alongside. Green fields stretched to either side, with placidly grazing sheep and cows. They passed the great expanse of Richmond forest, picked their way around the many small islets that the rivermen called eyots that dotted the center of the river. Moorhens gathered dabbling in the reeds, swans floated gracefully over the cold gray water. Around every broad reach were to be found small hamlets, ragged children fishing from the banks.

  Hugh left her side and went to stand with Jack Stedman and his men in the bow of the barge. He found he could not bear to be beside her, feeling her fear and knowing that he had no comfort to offer, and, even if he had, that she would not today accept it. He was the enemy, the cause of her present distress.

  The oarsmen were singing to themselves in rhythm with each mighty pull on the oars. Small fishing boats bobbed in their wake. As the hours passed, Guinevere wished that this interminable journey would be over and she would at last know exactly what she faced.

  “We have bread, meat, and ale. You should eat something.”

  Hugh's voice startled her, so deep was she in her lonely reverie.

  “Thank you, but I am not hungry.”

  “You need to eat,” he repeated. “Swooning at the king's feet for lack of food will do little for your cause. His Highness has little patience with human weakness, particularly in a woman. It embarrasses him. You do not wish to embarrass him, I can assure you.”

  “I’m not in the habit of swooning,” Guinevere pointed out tartly.

  “These circumstances are a little unusual.” He ushered her under the awning and opened a basket. He took out bread and meat and laid thick slices of the meat on a hunk of bread and handed it to her. Then he filled a horn with ale and set it beside her on the bench. “You will be better for it.”