The Widow's Kiss

by Jane Feather

  He hurled himself up onto the animal's bare back. Then he turned him in the narrow alley and set him to ride at Tyler. The man went down with a scream beneath the frantic horse's hooves. The charger trampled him, nostrils wide and flaring, foam flecking his mouth, his teeth bared. Hugh let him have his head.

  When Tyler's screams had ceased Hugh pulled the horse around. The animal still reared, maddened by the stone in his hoof, but Hugh drove him down the alley, leaving the broken body behind in the mud. They emerged into a square, a community well in its midst. Skinny, dirty children with wooden pails were gathered around the well. They stared with blank indifference at the man on his foam-flecked sweating horse.

  Hugh drew rein and leaned over the animal's neck speaking softly to him, gentling him with a stroking hand, and eventually the charger quietened down enough for Hugh to risk dismounting. Still talking to the animal he lifted the hoof and found the stone. He rested the hoof on his upraised knee, supporting it gingerly with his trampled hand, and pried the stone loose from the reddened, swollen pad of flesh with the point of his dagger, then he took the reins in his good hand and walked the limping horse out of the square.

  Tyler. Now it was all clear. Guinevere had hired Tyler. Guinevere and Crowder. Tyler had been roaming the upper floor of the house. Robin had been inhaling poison. Tyler had been filling oil lamps. Tyler had had charge of Hugh's horse.

  A deep rage swelled within Hugh. He pushed back the torn sleeves of his gown and the doublet beneath to examine the knife cut. It was long but seemed superficial, the blood congealing along its length. But the knife could have been poisoned. It would be a trick right up

  Tyler's alley. His right hand hurt fiercely and setting his teeth he explored the damage with his good hand. The skin was purpling and swollen but he didn’t think any bones were broken although the pain as he prodded drained the color from his cheeks and brought a sweat to his brow. His shoulder throbbed where the horse's hoof had caught it.

  His anger grew until it blocked all thought. He had loved her. She had bewitched him. Cast her lures, spun her web, caught him. And then she had set out to destroy him as she had destroyed every other man she had snared in the silken strands of her spinning.

  He walked home in a fog of fury and cold despair. He left the horse in the stable with orders for the injured hoof to be poulticed, and strode into the house.

  Guinevere was in the kitchen talking with Crowder as Hugh entered from the stables. She looked up quickly and then paled as she saw his face. “What has happened? Is it Robin?”

  “Come with me,” he said, barely moving his lips. He took her wrist and she saw the cut on his arm. Her gaze traveled to his mangled hand, which he held supported in the opening of his doublet.

  “Good God, Hugh! What has happened?” she whispered in horror, filled with a dreadful foreboding.

  “Come with me,” he repeated in the same voice, his fingers tightening painfully around her wrist.

  She said nothing further but went with him out of the kitchen, up the back staircase, into the quiet of their bedchamber. He dropped her wrist as if it was something distasteful and stepped away from her, moving to the far side of the room.

  “Is it Robin?” she asked again, her voice sounding clogged.

  “Until I removed him from this house, Robin was being poisoned,” he said clearly. “By your creature.”

  She shook her head. “No … no, what are you saying? What creature?”

  “Tyler!” he spat at her. “Tyler. The man you hired, the murderer you brought into my household! The man who just narrowly missed killing me.”

  “Tyler?” Guinevere shook her head again, her eyes wide with fearful confusion. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Hugh.”

  He took a step toward her and she flinched at the savage rage in his eyes. “Save your breath, madam! I know you. At last I truly know you. Robin will live and so, by God, will I.” He spun from her, took up a candle and went to the fire. He thrust the candle into the flames and the wick caught with a yellow flare. He took the flagon from the side table, pulled the stopper out with his teeth, and poured into the cut on his arm.

  “Here. Burn the cut!” He shoved the lighted candle at her. “For all I know your creature's knife point was poisoned. Burn it.” He pushed his soaked arm into her face.

  “Hugh, stop it!” she cried. “You don’t know what you’re saying.”

  “On God's blood, I do. I know you for what you are. Burn it clean!”

  Slowly Guinevere took the candle. He was in the grip of some madness; he had to be humored. “Let me wash it first,” she said.

  “No, damn you! Cauterize it. Now!”

  “Very well. Put your arm on the table.”

  He did so and she held the candle flame to the cut, running the flame the length of the wound. The liquor ignited. The hairs on his arm burned, his flesh burned, the smell filled the room. His face grew whiter, his jaw was locked, his mouth so thin it was barely visible, but his arm stayed steady. Guinevere didn’t look at him, didn’t flinch from the task. Grimly she continued until the blue flame of the alcohol had died down around the blackened cut.

  “There,” she said. “Does that satisfy you?”

  His nostrils flared, a vein throbbed in his temple, the skin around his mouth was white. He seized a linen napkin from the washstand and wrapped it around his burned arm, clumsily using his teeth and his mangled hand to tie it.

  Guinevere made no attempt to help him. She found she didn’t dare try to approach him. “What happened to your hand?” she asked, trying to keep her fear from her voice, trying to sound calm, composed, reassuring, as if she was not terrified of this mad stranger.

  Hugh shot her a look of utter contempt and did not reply.

  She swallowed, took a breath. “Let me put some salve on it and then bind it for you.”

  “I don’t want you anywhere near me!” he declared. “Never again.”

  She looked at him bleakly. It was madness for him to believe what he did. She spoke slowly, clearly, setting out the facts so that there should be no possibility of error. “You think I tried to poison Robin? You think I set Tyler to kill you?” Surely he would see the absurdity of it now. When it was put so plainly he must see that it could not possibly be true. Surely he would see that his own desperate fear for his son had overset his reason.

  He looked at her again with utter contempt. “Three attempts have been made on my life since I was fool enough to marry you.”

  Despair washed through her. How could she convince him? What possible words were there? Her voice shook. “But I love you, Hugh.”

  He raised both hands, pushing against the air as if to keep her from him. “You lie! But God help me, I loved you! Now, get out of my life! I never want to lay eyes upon you again. I want you out of this house and on the road back to Derbyshire by dawn tomorrow.”

  And there it was. In the face of that brutal conviction, the savage certainty in his eyes, she had to accept that he had never truly believed in her innocence. He had allowed love, lust, whatever he chose to call it, to block out his conviction of her guilt in Stephen's death.

  She tried once more although she knew it would do no good. She spoke as calmly as she could. “You said it was too late in the year to make such a journey, Hugh.” She stood with her hand at her throat. Her world had spun out of control; the man she loved had become a vicious, blind stranger. She had always known he had a rigid, harsh side to him, but until now she could never have believed him capable of this.

  “You will go with all speed. Your daughters will ride pillion with my men so they will not need to rest so much. Without rest days, there's no reason why you should not reach your destination by the beginning of December, before the first snowfall. This time there’ll be no carts laden with luxuries to hold you up. If your servants go with you, they’ll ride at the pace set by my men who’ll escort you and then remain at Mallory Hall to guard you.”

  “As jailers?” she wh
ispered, the full horror dawning.

  “If you wish to call them that,” he said coldly. “You’ll not leave Mallory Hall without my permission.”

  “My children?” Her hand touched her belly in an unconscious gesture. “Are they too to be prisoners?”

  “If they go with you, they will share the conditions under which you will live. If you wish to spare them that, or the dangers and discomforts of the journey, they may remain with me. I do not hold them responsible for their mother's evil.”

  Guinevere turned away from him so that he would not see the despair and horror in her eyes. There was nothing she could do or say to change anything. He had convicted her and condemned her. And now she thought that even if she could convince him of her innocence she could no longer live with a man who could believe her capable of such monstrous deeds.

  “My children come with me,” she stated, adding sotto voce, “All my children.”

  She stood with her back to him, as erect and graceful as ever, her head held high, her shoulders straight, her hands clasped quietly in front of her. Such grace, such elegance, such beauty. A shell, he thought. An exquisite shell concealing such brazen greed, such a barren soul.

  He commanded harshly, “You will be ready to leave at first light. When I return to the house in the morning, you will not be here.” He left the chamber, closing the door behind him with a definitive click.

  Guinevere remained standing in the middle of the chamber, her hand still unconsciously resting on her belly. She had felt despair in the last months since Hugh of Beaucaire had ridden into her life, but now she understood that she had not known what true despair was. Now she was a black void, for the moment incapable of feeling, of action. She was bereft, hopeless, and helpless.

  She didn’t know how long she stood there, unaware of the lengthening shadows. Finally she heard her children's bright, inquiring voices outside the chamber. They were calling her, knocking on the door, and she came back to hard reality. Once again her children's needs made her strong. She must protect them as she had always done.

  She opened the door to them.

  “We’ve been knocking for ages, Mama,” Pippa said. “Didn’t you hear us?”

  “No, I’m sorry, sweeting, I was deep in thought,” she said, lightly pulling the child's braid. “We have to move out of the house rather suddenly. Will you run and ask Crowder and Tilly to come to me?”

  “But why must we move out, Mama?” demanded Pippa. “I thought we were to stay here for Christmas and Twelfth Night.”

  “Is it because of Robin?” Pen asked, her hazel eyes sharply questioning.

  “Partly,” her mother said, improvising. “Lord Hugh and I decided that it would be best for us to move. We don’t want you to catch Robin's illness. We think it's better that we should leave this house in case there's something unhealthful in the air.”

  “Like the plague?” Pippa's hazel eyes widened.

  “I doubt that,” said Guinevere gravely. “Robin is on the mend, but until we know what caused his illness, it's safer to stay somewhere else.”

  “I’ll go and tell Crowder,” Pippa said excitedly. “I know he’ll be glad. I heard him telling Greene that he thought working with Master Milton was a pesky business. And Greene said he thought it must be. Pen can fetch Tilly.” She ran to the door.

  “Is everything going to be all right, Mama?” asked her more perceptive sister with a worried frown. “Is Robin truly getting better?”

  “Yes, he is, and yes, everything's going to be all right.”

  “But is Lord Hugh coming with us?” Pen pressed.

  “No,” her mother said. “He’ll stay with Robin.”

  “But you’re his wife. Shouldn’t you stay with him?”

  “These are unusual circumstances,” Guinevere said, forcing a smile. “Now, run and ask Tilly to come to me. We must talk about what we’re going to take with us. We have to pack lightly because we must make all speed to leave.”

  Pen hesitated, frowning at her mother as if she had some question. “Go and fetch Tilly, Pen,” Guinevere repeated calmly.

  Pen's frown didn’t lift but she left on her errand and Guinevere went to the dresser where lay her jewel box, her ring tree. She was thinking with cold clarity now. She was not going to go meekly into a life of exile and imprisonment. She would leave Hugh. But she would not subject herself or her daughters to the miseries of the kind of journey he had decreed. They would never understand the reasons for it.

  She would need money to maintain herself. She no longer had access to the income from her estates, but he couldn’t prevent her from taking her jewels. They constituted a small fortune. Crowder would take charge of selling them, or pawning them. In addition she had some ready money left over from what she’d brought with her on the journey to London. Her jaw tightened. She would be far from penniless and Hugh of Beaucaire would learn that while he could destroy her soul, her happiness, he couldn’t take her independence from her.

  “What's all this then, chuck?” Tilly spoke from the door as she bustled in. “Pen says we’re to leave ’ere.”

  Crowder came in on her heels looking very grave. Pippa pranced behind him.

  “Yes, within the hour. If it can be arranged.” Guinevere turned from the dresser, a sapphire necklace running through her fingers. She saw Pippa and said more brusquely than she’d intended, “Pippa, I didn’t ask you to come back with Crowder. Go to your chamber and decide what you wish to take with you.”

  “I only wanted to know where we’re going.”

  “You’ll know when I’m ready to tell you.” It was not a tone to invite argument and Pippa went off looking hurt.

  Guinevere tried to smile but her lip trembled and tears stood out in her eyes.

  “Ah, chuck. What is it? What's ’appened?” Tilly flew to her, embracing her. “Tell Tilly, now.” She patted her back as she had done when Guinevere was a child. Crowder stood to one side, anger flaring in his eyes as Guinevere unburdened herself to the people who had always stood her friends, served her without question, stood by her, defended her.

  “Well, I never heard such lunatic nonsense!” Tilly cried. “I’ll soon put him right. Just you wait and see, chuck.”

  Guinevere dashed the tears from her eyes, smiling despite herself. “No, Tilly, that's not the way I want to deal with this. We will leave here, but of our own accord.”

  She turned to Crowder, who was pale with anger. “Crowder, I think we must stay in London for the moment until I decide exactly how to deal with the situation. Can you think of lodgings anywhere that would be suitable? Rooms in a tavern, or private house?”

  “You’d not stay in a tavern, chuck!” Tilly exclaimed, flinging up her hands in horror. “Not with the lassies. The Lord only knows what they’d see. That Pippa would be up to all sorts.”

  “I don’t believe that will be necessary, Mistress Tilly,” Crowder put in. “The cook has a sister who runs a lodging house in Moorfields. ’Tis out of the city a bit, but nice and quiet. A very respectable kind of person, he assures me. He was telling me she's just lost her lodgers and is at her wit's end to make ends meet.”

  “Will it house all of us?”

  “I believe so, m’lady. Should I go straightway and see about arranging matters?”

  “Yes, if you would. I wish us to be out of here within two hours at the latest. We’ll take only the barest necessities. Clothes and bed linen for the most part. Once I’ve decided what we’ll do permanently, then we’ll see about setting up our household again.” She thought of her books and then resolutely put them from her mind. There was no time now to crate them.

  She handed Crowder a leather pouch. “We’ll take the lodgings for a month to start with, Crowder. I can’t see any farther at the moment.”

  “Aye, madam.” He took the pouch, coins clinking as he slipped it into his pocket. “I’ll be back within the hour.” He hurried away, outrage in every dignified line of his lean frame.

  “Ay! Ay! Ay!” Til
ly exclaimed. “What a thing! My poor babe.” She flung her arms around Guinevere. “For two pins, I’d cut ’is black heart out. To believe such a thing of my nurseling!”

  For a minute Guinevere allowed herself to be comforted with Tilly's soft endearments. She could not carry alone this confusing paradox of despair and fury that made her long to be rid of all memory of Hugh even as her heart yearned for his love, his smile, the tenderness of his touch, the savage passion of his lust.

  How could she live without him?

  But she could not live with him. So she would as always be responsible for herself and for those who depended upon her. She would not hide from him. She would make no attempt to conceal her whereabouts as if she was somehow afraid of him. As her husband, he could object to her independence, but he would have to use main force to wrest it from her, and that, Guinevere knew, Hugh would never do. Or at least she thought she knew. Before today, she would have been certain of it. But now she’d seen a side of him that threw all preconceptions into doubt. Well, she would cross that bridge when she came to it.

  “There, there, Tilly,” she said. “That's enough weeping now. We have much to do and I don’t want the girls to guess too much, not until they have to.”

  “You’ll not keep this long from Pen,” Tilly said, going to the armoire. She began to take out gowns. “But ’tis a shameful thing. And you carryin’ into the bargain.”

  “So you know,” Guinevere said. It didn’t surprise her. It was the sort of thing Tilly would know.

  “Aye, o’ course I know,” Tilly said with a hint of scorn. “What d’ye take me for?”

  Guinevere didn’t answer the rhetorical question. She began to sort through her jewels.

  27

  Jack Stedman set his ale pot down on the stained planking of the table in the Dog and Duck and wiped froth from his moustache with the back of his hand, his eyes never leaving Will Malfrey's countenance as he listened to the other man's tale.

  It had taken Will an hour since his return to find Jack, who was whiling away the tail end of the evening in the nearby tavern. Now Will told his story slowly and in detail. His quarry had been deposited by the barge on the water steps at Greenwich at around mid-morning. The barge had still been at the steps when Will's skiff had arrived some half an hour later.