Knight of Passion

by Margaret Mallory

  From the way his face went scarlet with rage, she had hit a sore spot. Fine, she meant to.

  “I am certain Lady Agnes will be a good wife in every way,” he said. “And I will not open doors to find her in the arms of another man.”

  She wanted to beat her fists against him, to shout at him, to hurt him as he was hurting her.

  “Will it make you proud to have a wife who is only faithful because she finds bedding men distasteful?”

  Anger made her reckless. She squeezed her eyes shut, scrunched up her face, and said in a high, false voice, “Not again, m’lord husband! Did we not do it just last month? I beg you, be quick about it!”

  When she opened her eyes, his fists were clenched and the vein in his neck was pulsing.

  “That is enough,” he said in a low growl. “Stay out of my sight.”

  He turned and started again for the castle with a determined stride. But almost at once, he halted and uttered a long string of curses beneath his breath.

  Linnet dragged her gaze from Jamie to look up the path. When she saw the couple standing but a few yards away, her mouth fell open. Of all the times for Jamie’s parents to appear, it had to be just as she was screaming the most vile things to him. Jamie’s mother’s eyebrows were so high they almost touched her headdress. Lord FitzAlan’s expression was stern.

  “Mother, Father,” Jamie said as he went to meet them. Linnet closed her eyes and prayed God would remove her to somewhere else. How long had the two been listening? Recalling her imitation of Agnes in bed, she felt hot and nauseous.

  Her embarrassment, though, was nothing compared to the desolation and despair that took hold of her.

  Somehow, everything had gone wrong. She had been intent on making Jamie understand her for once. And she had been certain that when he saw how much she loved him, he would forgive her. Because he had to. Because she needed him. Because she could not lose him again.

  She knew with utter certainty that something irrevocable had just happened between her and Jamie. A sob caught in her throat at the thought that Jamie never wanted to lay eyes on her again.

  I have ruined it all. Neither of us shall ever be happy again.

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Jamie and his brother Nicholas exchanged amused glances across the table.

  Their sisters were mercilessly teasing Martin, something they never seemed to tire of. Martin, an only child, had been so stiffly polite at first that he had sent the girls into gales of laughter. By now, he was accustomed to their lively banter. Worse for him, if he wanted any peace, the girls had adopted him as a favorite.

  Three-year-old Bridget, the youngest, ran into the hall with her nursemaid chasing behind her.

  “I am sorry, m’lady,” the maid said.

  “ ’Tis not your fault,” Lady Catherine said, waving her off. “Bridget, sit down. Quietly.”

  “It’s my turn to sit by Martin!” Bridget said, pulling at Elisabeth’s arm.

  “You are late, so you lost your place,” Elisabeth said, grasping the edge of the table.

  Martin looked a little wild-eyed at being the subject of such violent devotion. Jamie and his brother Nick, shared another amused glance across the table. It was lucky for Martin that the two eldest girls were wed and gone.

  The other girls took sides and joined the argument between Elisabeth and Bridget, then Bridget gave a loud shriek.

  His father banged his fist on the table. “Enough!”

  Silence fell on the FitzAlan hall.

  “Am I raising wild heathens or young ladies?” All five girls lowered their eyes, for every one of them hated to disappoint their father.

  Without a word, Martin lifted Bridget onto his lap to end that particular dispute. A wise lad.

  “Did God give us so many daughters to punish us?” his father said to his mother.

  His mother gave her husband a sideways glance and smiled, for everyone knew Lord FitzAlan doted upon his daughters.

  Ah, it was good to be home. There was no better place to heal than amid this laughter and chaos.

  But even after a month with his family, Jamie still felt raw. He ignored the chatter that floated around him as his thoughts drifted back to Windsor, as they so often did. What a fool he had been to believe he could change Linnet—or make her love him.

  He had left Windsor the day of his fight with Linnet, ahead of his family. He could not bear to be under the same roof with her another hour.

  Soon, he would travel to visit Stafford in Northumberland and offer for his daughter. He told himself it did not matter that he was having trouble recalling Agnes’s face.

  And yet, he could not forget one inch of Linnet. He could see her naked now, the candlelight glinting on long strands of silky white-gold hair and revealing each tantalizing dip and devastating rise of her long, lean body.

  And her face. Men would go to war for a woman with a face like that. Soft-blue eyes, straight nose, full bottom lip, high cheekbones. Each part was perfect, and the combination was enough to take a man’s breath away. Such delicate features for a woman as strong as the best-made sword.

  “Jamie.”

  He looked up when he heard his mother call his name and was surprised to find he and his parents were alone at the table.

  “Come up to the solar,” his father said. “We have something to discuss in private.”

  With all that had happened, he had forgotten about the messages his parents had sent to Windsor urging him to come home. Chances were good they wished to discuss the very topic he wished to raise with them: his plans for marriage.

  They had been patient and not pressed him after he had come home devastated from Paris. But it was time now. He needed to know what he would bring to his upcoming marriage. Most of the family lands were entailed and the girls all needed dowries. Still, Jamie expected his father had some small estate he could grant him.

  As soon as they were settled in the family’s comfortable solar, Jamie made his announcement. “You will be happy to hear I have decided to become betrothed at last.”

  His mother raised her eyebrows and gave him a long, penetrating look. “I would be happy for you, if you seemed pleased yourself.”

  “I am pleased,” he said in a firm voice. “Very pleased, indeed.”

  “Who is the lady you have in mind?” his father asked.

  “Lady Agnes Stafford.”

  His parents exchanged a look.

  “You know her?” Jamie asked.

  “After you left Windsor, we had the ‘pleasure’ of speaking with Lady Agnes and her father. That Stafford is an insufferable idiot.”

  His mother cleared her throat.

  “Lady Agnes is a… a lovely young woman, though perhaps a trifle… fervent,” she said, speaking slowly as if choosing her words carefully. “But we had reason to believe your affections lay elsewhere.”

  Jamie clenched his teeth and waited to speak until the blood ceased to pound in his ears. “You were misinformed.”

  “From what I saw, son, ’tis Linnet you want,” his father said.

  “Linnet is not the sort of lady I wish to make my wife,” Jamie said, keeping his voice steady with an effort.

  “Perhaps you should give yourself time before rushing into a marriage with someone else,” his mother said, “so soon after your… disappointment.”

  “I am not disappointed. I am relieved to have escaped marriage to a woman who lacks every virtue a man would wish in a wife.” His voice had grown louder than he intended, so he paused to take a deep breath before continuing. “I intend to leave soon for Northumberland to make the arrangements with Lord Stafford. I have reason to believe he supports the match, as I hope you will.”

  “No need for haste,” his father said. “You’ve been gone a long time. Nicholas and the girls are just getting to know you again.”

  “We all missed you,” his mother said, giving him a warm smile. “Surely this can wait a few weeks, or months.”

  “Waiting will chang
e nothing, Mother. I am set on this.”

  A long, tense silence followed this declaration. “Before you embark on marriage, there is something we must tell you,” his father said. “It is what we called you up here to discuss.”

  His mother turned away from him to look into the fire. When he saw how pale she was, the icy hand of fear gripped his heart. God forbid that she was with child again at her age.

  He rushed to her side and knelt beside her. “Mother,” he said, taking her hand, “are you unwell?”

  Her hand felt clammy to his touch. As he rubbed her fingers against his cheek, he regretted every day he had been away. He and his mother had a special bond. In the unhappy days before William FitzAlan came into their lives, they had been through harrowing experiences that had not touched her other children’s lives. He had been so young he could not be sure how much of his recollections were real. But he still had dreams in which he heard her screaming.

  She brushed his hair back from his forehead, a gesture from his childhood. “Truly, I am well.”

  He closed his eyes against the surge of relief that coursed through his body and gave a silent prayer of thanks.

  “This cannot be about Father’s health,” he said, glancing at his father. “He still looks as if he could slay dragons for breakfast.”

  When this old family joke about his father did not bring a smile, Jamie looked from one to the other of his parents. “What is it, then?”

  Like many old soldiers, his father still wore his hair cropped short, in the style made popular by their dead king. When he ran his big hand through it, Jamie noticed it had almost as much white as bronze in it now.

  “It is my story, William,” his mother said. “I will tell him.”

  His father was always more a man of action than of words. After giving her a searching look, he nodded. “If you are certain, love.”

  She cleared her throat. “You have always known that William is not your true father.”

  Jamie drew in a breath and let it out. After all this time, his mother was finally going to tell him. He got up off the floor and settled himself into the chair opposite her.

  William FitzAlan took his place behind his wife and put his hand on her shoulder.

  “I never wanted a different father from the one who raised me,” Jamie said, meeting his eyes. “I know I could not have had a better one.”

  “Stephen told you some years ago that Rayburn, who was my husband at the time, also was not your father.”

  His mother’s speech was uncharacteristically hesitant. He should tell her it did not matter, he did not need to know, but he had waited too many years to hear the truth of his birth.

  “I thought… I had reason to believe… that the man with whom I conceived you…”

  Hell, this was awkward. He did not want to think about his mother “conceiving” with a man, as she put it, particularly with a man who was not William FitzAlan. He ran his hand through his hair, conscious that this gesture—like so many of his—mirrored those of the man who raised him.

  “You thought what, Mother?”

  “I never told you about him, because I believed he died shortly after you were born.”

  Why did it matter just when the man died?

  “I received a message from a monk, who advised me that… your father had come to his monastery gravely ill.”

  His mother leaned back in her chair, looking exhausted.

  “The monk wrote that the young man hung on the edge of death for days and did not recover,” she said. “But we learned a few months ago that he did survive. The monks thought it a miracle.”

  Jamie sat up straight.

  “He never left the monastery,” she said. “After he recovered his health, he took vows and joined the brothers.”

  “Are you telling me he has been alive all this time?” Jamie demanded. “And that he is a monk?”

  “He was alive when we first sent for you,” his father said. “But he took a sudden fever sometime before Christmas and died.”

  Jamie got up and began pacing the too-small room. It should not matter to him if the man was alive or dead—this monk had been nothing to him.

  “How did you learn of this?”

  “You remember Isobel’s brother, Geoffrey?” his father asked.

  “Aye, we were friends in France,” Jamie said. “He left to join a monastery in Northumberland.”

  “When we last visited Stephen and Isobel, we went to see Geoffrey at his abbey,” his father said. “There was a monk working in the kitchen garden as we passed. We paid no notice of him, but he saw your mother.”

  “Afterward, he asked Geoffrey about us,” his mother said, picking up the story. “He was quite upset, and he ended up confessing who he was to Geoffrey.”

  “It was not the sort of news to tell you in a letter,” his father said.

  Jamie did not know what to think. “Why would he disclose himself after all these years, when he never bothered to make himself known to us before?”

  “Geoffrey says he kept his secret out of respect for your mother,” his father said. “He did not wish to cause her difficulty.”

  “I suppose a child born of a man not your husband could present ‘difficulty,’ ” Jamie said, turning to his mother. “You haven’t told me all of this yet, Mother.”

  “Mind your tongue when you speak to your mother,” his father said, stepping toward him.

  His mother stood and put herself between them, a palm up on each of their chests.

  “Sit down,” she said in a voice that brooked no argument.

  “I apologize,” Jamie said, regretting his harsh words. He knew too much of what her life had been like with her first husband to judge her.

  His father pulled a stool up next to her chair, and the three of them sat.

  “I did what I had to do to save myself.” His mother spoke in a clear, forceful voice. “And I have never once regretted it.”

  She drew in a deep breath and let it out. “I should have told you once you were old enough to understand, but the time never seemed right. I did not realize how the question of your father’s identity hung over you.”

  He had not lost sleep over it. FitzAlan had married his mother when Jamie was three, and their bond was as close as any father and son. All the same, Jamie had wondered about the nature of the man who sired him—and how he could have left his mother.

  “What was this monk’s name?” Jamie asked, because he wanted to know the name he should have been called.

  “Wheaton,” his mother said. “Richard James Wheaton.” James. So his mother had given him what she could of the man’s name. She must have had some regard for him.

  “He told me he had considered joining a monastery in his youth, and so I am not surprised he became a monk,” his mother said, using that careful voice again. “But from what Geoffrey told us, Richard Wheaton’s life was unusually… contained, even for a monk. He took great comfort in the routine of monastery life.”

  “Are you saying something was wrong with him?” Jamie asked.

  His father shrugged. “Wheaton’s brother—your uncle, I suppose—can tell you a good deal more than we can. He’s written several times expressing a desire to meet you.”

  “His name is Sir Charles Wheaton,” his mother put in. “He is most anxious for you to visit. His estate is in Northumberland, within a day’s ride of Stephen and Isobel’s.”

  The three of them sat in silence for a long time, lost in their own thoughts.

  Finally, his father said, “You have unfinished business. ’Tis best to settle it before you take on a wife.”

  “I do not see what is unfinished about it,” Jamie said, “but I suppose I can pay a visit to Charles Wheaton when I travel north to see the Staffords.”

  “See Charles Wheaton first, before you make an offer of marriage.” His mother leaned forward to touch his arm. “The visit may help you decide what to do.”

  She could not say more plainly that she believed he
was making a mistake in choosing Agnes for his wife.

  “Mother, my decision is already made.”

  Jamie leaned his elbows on his knees and rubbed his temples. Too many thoughts jumbled in his head at once. The man who fathered him had been a monk. He had a new uncle. And his mother, whose opinion mattered more than he liked to admit, disapproved of his marriage choice.

  Before he could get his bearings, his father gave him news of a different sort.

  “We received a message from Bedford today.” His father pulled a rolled parchment with a broken seal out of his tunic and handed it to him. “The Council fears there will be riots if Parliament is held in London, so they have decided to hold the next session in Leicester.”

  Since leaving Windsor, Jamie had hardly given a thought to the political strife that still threatened the country.

  “So, Bedford has not yet succeeded in forcing his brother and uncle to settle their dispute?” he asked.

  His father shook his head and pounded his fist on his knee. “That damned Gloucester.”

  “If King Henry were alive,” his mother put in, “Gloucester would never dare cause such strife.”

  “Will the Council still have the young king open Parliament?” Jamie asked.

  “Aye,” his father said. “ ’Tis all the more important that the king be seen.”

  Jamie tried to hold back the question, but he had to know if Linnet was headed into danger. “And the queen?”

  “She is already on her way north.”

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  The city of Leicester was in chaos. Linnet pulled back the flap of the carriage to look out as they lurched through the crowded street that ran beside the church to the castle’s main gate. Drunken men with clubs and bats filled the streets.

  “I am greatly relieved that His Grace the Duke of Bedford sent his own guard to escort us,” the queen said, her voice high with tension.

  Linnet, too, was glad to be traveling today with an escort of twenty men-at-arms and royal banners flying.

  “When the duke warned us there could be trouble here,” Linnet said, “I had no notion it would be as bad as this.”