Almost Innocent

by Jane Feather

  Brother Armand moved to the brazier in the corner of the room and began to prepare the draught of poppy juice that would keep the sufferer this side of sanity during the long agony of healing.

  “My lord … my lord …”

  Guy de Gervais paused, looking around. The whispered summons was repeated, but there was no sign of the whisperer. The long outer corridor of the castle of Bresse stretched emptily ahead of him, the arras rustling against the cold stone walls where slitted windows looked out over the moat and the flat plains of Picardy. The whisper came again. He was in no doubt as to the identity of the whisperer, but where in the name of St. Catherine was she? He continued down the corridor, and the whisper seemed to keep pace with him. At the end of the corridor stood a door onto a circular chamber set into a bastion of the castle. The door was slightly ajar. There was no whispering now, only the silence of the deserted corridor and the faint call of a bugle from the garrison court. It was midafternoon, and it seemed the castle dozed under an unseasonably warm October sun.

  Guy de Gervais stepped into the turret room. The door closed behind him instantly, the heavy bar falling across with a decisive thud.

  “There, my lord, I have lured you into my web!” Laughing, Magdalen stood with her back against the door. “It is a clever trick, is it not? I discovered it many years ago at Bellair Castle. You must whisper from behind the arras, and the sound carries straight down the passage as if through a hollow tube. I did it once to a scullion, and he ran screaming like a soul in torment, convinced that a spirit was after him.” She chuckled. “But you did not think it was a spirit, did you, my lord?”

  “No,” he agreed affably, “I didn’t think it was a spirit.” He perched on the deep stone windowsill, his eyes narrowed with amusement. “I realized it was a naughty girl up to mischief.”

  “Not so,” Magdalen denied with a touch of indignation. Guy on occasion seemed to take what she considered a perverse delight in resurrecting old memories. Her fingers worked busily with the hooks of her gown.

  “Magdalen, there is no time for this,” Guy said, still amused but resignedly aware of something else stirring beneath his amusement.

  “Yes, there is,” Magdalen asserted in customary fashion. She unfastened the jeweled belt caught under her breasts. “And if there is not, one must make the time. Don’t you agree?” The belt dropped to the floor with a muted clatter, and she slipped the opened gown off her shoulders. Soft silken folds fell to her ankles. She wore now only her white lawn undergown that she discarded with the same swift efficiency.

  During this disrobing, Guy had not moved from his perch on the windowsill, enjoying his spiraling arousal, feeling the sun warm on the back of his neck, inhaling the scent of Magdalen in the small room, the warm womanly scent of her clothes, her skin, her hair, feasting on the creamy curves of her body. She was a woman to drive a man to the fervid white heat of distraction, and having long recognized his inability to withstand that power, he let it build within him, slow and inexorable.

  “If we do not have time for this, I consider it wasteful of you to sit and do nothing.” Magdalen crossed the small space to the window. Frowning with concentration, her sharp little teeth closed on her bottom lip, she attacked the great buckle of his belt. His dagger hung in the sheath at his hip and she handled it carefully, her head bent so that the sun drew forth the rich dark depths of her coiled hair.

  “I wish you would lower your head,” she said. “I cannot remove your collar otherwise. You are too tall for me.”

  Obligingly, he bent his head so she could lift off the heavy gold-linked collar of rank and office. She unfastened the buttons of his tunic, pushing it off his shoulders. He wore only his shirt beneath, there being no need on a quiet afternoon within the citadel walls for the leather gambeson or chainmail. Her fingers were deft as they unfastened the lacing of his hose from the eyelet holes in the hem of his shirt. Then the shirt came off to join its fellows on the floor.

  Still with the same frown of concentration, Magdalen brushed a finger over his chest, lingering on the narrow white line of an old wound running down his belly. She looked up at him as he still perched immobile, and she smiled a soft, secretive smile before touching his nipples with the tip of her tongue, moist darting touches that shortened his breath and brought the flush of arousal to his skin. Her fingers moved to the unfastened waistband of his hose.

  “Boots first, pippin,” he said, managing to sound lazily nonchalant.

  She nipped his shoulder in swift punishment before dropping to her knees to wrestle with his booted feet that he obligingly held out for her, bracing himself with his hands on the sill at his back as she pulled.

  “Stand up,” she demanded, returning to his hose. “You are being most vexatious, my lord.”

  “I had thought I was being entirely accommodating,” he protested, standing up as she pushed the hose off his hips. “Does it not look as if I am prepared to accommodate you, madame?” He grinned wickedly at her, pushing the garment off his feet.

  Magdalen examined his body with her head consideringly on one side. “I would say so, my lord,” she pronounced, then said plaintively, “but when are you going to do something about it? I have done everything so far.”

  “It’s a plan of your making,” he informed her. “It seems only right you should be responsible for its conduct.” He gestured around the small, round room. It was furnished with a rough plank table and two stools, a wolfskin before the empty hearth. Nothing else. Not, he reflected, that it needed aught else in his present state of excitement. He could imagine a variety of satisfactory ways of managing with what they had, but a devilish impulse led him to see what Magdalen would make of their sparse props.

  Her eyes followed his gesture, seeing for the first time the paucity of their surroundings. “The floor?” she suggested tentatively.

  He shook his head. “Too hard, pippin.”

  “The wolfskin?” she tried, but even more tentatively.

  “Fleas.”

  Magdalen was for a moment nonplussed, then deliberately she moved against him, her hands sliding around his body, her flat palms moving in heated circles over his back and buttocks, her lower body pressing against his, her breath warmly whispering over his chest as she nipped and nuzzled with the sureness of one on familiar ground, certain of her ability to produce the desired, expected response.

  He held his hands away from her for a moment of aching anticipation, teasing her still with his refusal to take the initiative. He had himself well in hand, knowing that the surrender would be all the more climactic for this present playful denial. Suddenly unsure, Magdalen drew away from him, puzzled. Then she saw his expression, and the hesitation faded from her eyes.

  Laughing, he caught her around the waist and swung her onto the windowsill. “Let me show you how loving is to be contrived in such unfavorable surroundings, my impetuous pippin.” Taking her face between his hands, he held her head still, bringing his mouth to hers. Her lips parted to welcome the hot thrust of his tongue, her legs curling around his waist, offering her opened body to the thrust of his. She wriggled on the cold, scratchy stone sill, fitting herself to him so that she could move with his rhythm. His hands left her face to support her hips, holding her against him as the passion coiled tight and deep within them both, and when the spring could be wound no tighter, it sprang apart in a sunburst of delight. He held her still against him while their bodies melted together under the sunburst, tension replaced with exquisite languour.

  “There should always be time for that,” Magdalen murmured when she could speak again. “I think we should make this room ours. I don’t think anyone else uses it, and it is such a deserted part of the castle.”

  He laughed and withdrew from her, lifting her off the sill. “If we are to make a habit of this, then, we should contrive a blanket, or some such. I’m afraid you will become sore and scratched from repeated use of the windowsill.” He kissed her swiftly. “But in truth, love, you waylaid me at
a most inconvenient time. My men have come in from the countryside with their reports and I must hear them, and then visit the garrison. There is talk of brigands abroad, and the outer fortification is in need of repair.”

  “Can we not go hawking by the river this evening?” Magdalen slipped her undergown over her head.

  “Have you no tasks of your own this afternoon?” Guy fastened his belt, raising an eyebrow at her. Magdalen was well versed in the duties and responsibilities of a chatelaine, her lord’s primary assistant in the management of his vast household, a management Guy was undertaking for the absent Sieur de Bresse. He had noticed, however, that there were some tasks she undertook with more enthusiasm than others.

  In confirmation of this reflection, she sighed heavily. “Yes, I have, and ’tis one I mislike. The pantler says that three loaves of bread are missing, and he will have it that one of the serving maids is responsible. If I cannot solve the mystery, then the matter must go to the seneschal, who will probably refer it to you in the hall after supper, and a little matter will become a great one.”

  Guy nodded. He was the final arbiter on all issues, both domestic and military, affecting the castle, its inhabitants and the surrounding villages dependent upon it. It was for him to settle quarrels, dispense justice, bestow rewards and favors, but he much preferred to leave the minor, day-to-day issues to his household officers. “Why do you mislike the task?”

  “Because I do not believe it is one of the serving maids.” She picked up the jeweled belt from the floor where it lay winking in the sunlight. “I believe the baker from the town has an arrangement with the guardian of the bread. He supplies less than he is paid for and they share the profit. But they have both served the household for so long that no one will believe them dishonest.”

  “If that is so, then I do not think the matter to be a little one,” he said. “I will relieve you of the duty if you wish it.”

  “I do wish it,” she said with a rueful smile. “But I think I must confront the baker and the guardian myself.”

  Guy laughed, advising, “Do so, but in the company of the seneschal. He will appreciate being involved and his presence will augment your authority … and when you have concluded who is responsible, you may leave the administration of justice to me.” He tilted her chin and kissed the corner of her mouth. “If I can finish with my reports, we will go hawking before vespers.”

  He left her then, retracing his steps toward the inner chambers of the castle, where the family apartments were situated over the great hall. In the lord’s private study adjoining the big conjugal bedchamber at the heart of the family residence, he found his secretary waiting for him, together with Olivier, whom Guy had left in Calais with the task of discovering what he could of Charles d’Auriac.

  Olivier’s shrewd black eyes darted hither and thither while he made his report, noticing everything in the instinctive and invaluable way he had. Nothing, however innocuous, escaped him, and he observed his surroundings in the same way whether they were familiar, as now, or quite new to him.

  The spy’s investigations had taken him to Toulouse, the home of the de Beauregards, and from there to Carcassonne, the fortress monastery that Bertrand de Beauregard held in stewardship for the king of France. Charles d’Auriac’s mother had been sister to Isolde de Beauregard. Charles d’Auriac was therefore first cousin to Magdalen de Bresse. Three weeks as scullion in the kitchens of the de Beauregard castles had taught Olivier a great deal. Guy de Gervais listened in growing perturbation.

  Olivier told of an urgent summons to the men of the clan, called from their own fiefs to attend their father. He told of the whispers of a failed attempt on the life of Isolde’s daughter in Calais, whispers heard behind arras and through oak doors, whispers easily heard by a man who knew where and how to listen. He told of the man, Charles d’Auriac, who had the air of one with a burning purpose, and of Bertrand de Beauregard, uncle of Charles d’Auriac, the patriarch whose own purpose seemed not to mesh with that of the nephew. There had been words spoken in heat, the nephew silenced by the authority of the elder, but Olivier had been unable to discover the nature of the disagreement, except that it had something to do with what had happened at Calais. He knew only that the gathering of the clan, the sons of Bertrand, was to settle the matter.

  Anxious to bring this information to his lord, he had left the province of Roussillon before the grand conference and made all speed into Picardy. His dusty clothing and the lines of fatigue, etched sharp around his mouth, were ample evidence of his haste.

  “You have done well,” Guy said, opening the strongbox on the iron-bound cedar chest. He drew forth a heavy pouch and tossed it to the man, who caught it deftly. Guy smiled, despite his concern over the spy’s information. “A good and faithful servant, Olivier. Go to your rest now.”

  The man went off with his soft, swift tread, and Guy stood frowning, gazing out of the window toward the south, from whence the threat would come …

  Magdalen, meanwhile, decided to postpone the vexatious issue of missing loaves of bread and was walking in the orchard. It was hot and sultry, and wasps buzzed busily in and out of the windfalls littering the long grass. The orchard stood close to the outside fortifications of the castle and was surrounded by its own high wall, affording a seclusion hard to come by in the teeming life of a castle that resembled a sizable town in constitution and in its many and varied functions.

  She was filled with the wonderful languour of bodily fulfillment, her mind at peace as it gently probed and explored the tangle of love in which she found herself. She knew her husband was not dead. It was a knowledge she no longer reiterated to Guy because it distressed him and cast a cloud over the joy they took in and of each other.

  She had not told him either of her growing certainty that she was again with child. The latter fact was a source of secret happiness, one she would keep to herself for a while longer. Only Erin and Margery knew of the lost pregnancy on the ship, and they would keep still tongues in their heads. This child, Guy’s child, would take the place of the lost one for the rest of the world, any awkwardness in timing easily glossed over behind these walls and at such a distance from England. John of Gaunt’s grandchild would stand heir to the de Bresse fiefdom, and Guy de Gervais’s child would bind him absolutely to the child’s mother. The residual honor-born doubts Magdalen sensed in Guy beneath the force of the love that held them would lose all strength, becoming mere whimpers with no power to rise up and damage their love.

  She knew instinctively it was for her to manage the tangle, that Guy at the moment was moving in the magic world of bewitchment, that he was entranced by her and willing to drift, enthralled; but that once circumstances changed, intruded on the magic world, as they were bound to, then so too would his bewitchment wane. Unless she could find a way to salve his conscience, smooth out his doubts, underpin bewitchment with more solid, tangible ties, she would lose this love that was as it had been since childhood, more than life itself to her. There was love and blood in her hand, mad Jennet had said. Much love: the love of men. If such was her destiny, then she had but begun upon it.

  Curiously, these reflections did not disturb her contented languour as she strolled beneath the gnarled fruit trees, gnawing around the maggot holes in a windfallen pear. The daughter of John of Gaunt and Isolde de Beauregard did not doubt her ability to make happen what she wished to happen, what she knew had to happen if her life and that of Guy de Gervais were not to be rendered dross.

  There were five men in the tapestry-hung, windowless inner chamber. There was no fire in the chimney, but torches threw out both light and heat from their wall sconces. One of the men threw off the short cloak he wore over a particolored tunic and reached for the pitcher of mead in the center of the table. He poured the dark, honeyed spirit into a pewter tankard and drank deeply.

  “Charles has not convinced me that we gain more by her abduction than by her death.”

  He was older than the others, his hair and be
ard grizzled, but his eyes were as gray and the family resemblance as pronounced.

  “She is Isolde’s daughter,” Charles d’Auriac said quietly.

  “We know that,” said one of the others, Marc, with a snap of impatience.

  “I meant, cousin, that she is truly Isolde’s daughter,” Charles clarified as quietly as before.

  There was a short silence in the warm, airless room. “You imply that she could perhaps be …” The speaker paused, choosing his words. “She could be used as her mother was?”

  “Isolde was never used, Marc,” the older man corrected sharply. “She did only what she wished, and in most cases the seductions were entirely of her own making.”

  “But with Lancaster … ?”

  “With Lancaster she met treachery.” Bertrand de Beauregard, brother of Isolde, spoke the plain truth as he saw it. “We would be revenged upon him for that and do the king’s work at the same time. I say she must die.”

  Charles d’Auriac looked for words. In the face of the elder’s pronouncement, rules of submission and courtesy demanded that he yield his own point. He had done so once, agreed to put the matter to arbitration, but he could not yield without one further attempt to bring them to his own viewpoint. Ever since he had seen her, sitting outside the inn at Calais, her image had filled his waking thoughts and disturbed his nights. He had arranged the murder attempt, and if it had succeeded he probably would not have thought again of that mouth, those eyes, the unconscious grace and arrogance of the slim body, the haughty voice, some rare and subtle quality emanating from her that filled a man’s head with images of white and tumbling limbs and the hot breath of lust. But she had survived the monkish assault, and now he could not endure the thought of that body laid to waste, that sensual promise crumbled to dust when so much could be made of it and so many could benefit from it.