Laughing, the duke quaffed down more cider. ‘The title I already have, but great office I desire.’ Thank God, thought Miles, the mattock had turned the turf of common sense, or had it? Harry was happily drunk.
Nandik was not. ‘Your grace, to forecast so for any man might be taken as flattery but for you now …’ He did not need to finish.
‘For me now, any man might make that prediction.’
Miles let his breath go and Harry, the familiar, predictable Harry, smiled across at him. Nandik was still the outsider.
The duke was pensive as de la Bere saw the fellow out. ‘Is there truth in prophecy?’ he asked. ‘Do you think that Satan has crawled from Hell to listen to our idle words?’
Miles swallowed, feeling his skin go goose-fleshed beneath his shirt.
‘Prophecy?’ He remembered the angry hum of the bees and Heloise’s warning. ‘I have met a woman whose premonitions are always right.’ Somehow mentioning Heloise banished the acrid taste of Nandik’s presence. ‘Surely you will not put any faith in that grovelling wretch, my lord. If you asked him to lick your shoes free of dung, he would do it.’
‘And would you?’
The question hurt.
‘No, my lord duke, I should make sure you never sullied them in the first place.’
Chapter 15
Heloise was awakened next day by Ned prancing barefoot, shrieking, ‘It’s May Day!’ All Hallows’ Church across the market square was pealing six o’clock but already Heloise could hear the squeals; young men with hunting horns were hallooing the girls of Northampton to fetch in the birch and hawthorn boughs with them.
The town celebrated selfconsciously, unused to a young, leggy king in their midst. Today’s archery contests and dancing were definitely a relief after the sword and buckler rattling of yesterday, although when the exuberantly merry Men of the Green Wood had finished trying to lift the women’s skirts with their quarterstaves, and Maid Marion’s bosoms had ended round her shoulder blades, Northampton went home red-faced to dinner.
Bidden to take Ned across to dine with the great lords, Heloise shook a scatter of almond petals from her veil onto the cobbles outside Gloucester’s inn and looked up to find Rushden and de la Bere grinning at her. Rushden adroitly delegated de la Bere to take charge of Ned and, in the confusion of the entourages sorting out where they were to eat, it was easy for him to discreetly detain her.
‘Well, changeling, has the royal temper improved?’
‘Barely. The Northampton maidens insisted on garlanding him with daisychains, much to his disgust. Evidently, all my gender are to be avoided as if we carry the pestilence. Were you like that?’
‘Of course,’ he laughed. ‘I made up for it later. He will too, given his family tree, so—’ A horseman riding past the inn momentarily distracted him, but relieved that the fellow was merely on local business, Rushden looked down at her wickedly. ‘“Northampton, full of love, beneath the girdel but not above”,’ he quoted. ‘So were your skirts teased by Little John’s weapon?’
Heloise was determined not to blush. ‘With half a dozen Welsh pikemen for protection! Sadly, no, but does being severely ogled by Maid Marion count?’
‘Ah, it is the pikes you have to watch.’ With a grin, he rubbed a hand across his chin. It reminded her.
‘Sir, Prince Edward is still complaining that his jaw aches.’
‘Then it will be wonderful if the toothache carries him off. Once the crown comes down on that scowling brow, I will be saying prayers.’
She hid a smile. ‘Oh hush, that is treason. You must not speak so.’
‘Be grateful I trust you.’ Astonishment shone in his silver gaze as if he had surprised himself, and then the portcullis of controlled cheeriness slammed down again. But the untethered remark gave her hope. He was growing used to her, like a comfortable shoe. The confidences, the deliberate seeking of her company, were becoming regular and welcome. Besides, she could return his trust in equal measure:
‘Sir.’ She waited for the hawk gaze to fix again upon her. ‘I … I fear there is something more to the prince’s pain than just toothache.’
‘Heloise!’ This time he gripped her by the elbow and propelled her with unmannerly haste into the shadow of the laneway that flanked the inn. ‘You had better elaborate.’
‘I do not mean poison.’ She watched his face lose its rigidity.
‘Is this one of your premonitions?’
‘No,’ she patted the air as if she were trying to keep matters lidded. ‘Sometimes I can sense when a body is aching.’ A teasing expression lit Rushden’s eyes. ‘I will clout you, sir, if you look at me like that. I thought you were the one being serious. No, it is just that I can feel a kind of echo of someone’s illness, sometimes before they are even aware of it themselves. I could sense the torment of that churchman in Bishop Alcock’s entourage, for instance.’
‘Stillington?’
‘Yes, him. It was as though his mind was longing to wrench free of the lassitude of his body.’ Rushden did not seem appalled that she could perceive such things. ‘I am glad you do not cross yourself, sir,’ she said, much relieved, ‘for it is not witchcraft, but a gift I cannot help.’
‘I am learning not to belittle your instincts, believe me. So, is there some infusion you can give the prince to mend him?’
‘I spoke with his physician, Dr Argentine, who seems quite sensible. He has advised the prince to rinse his mouth with sage-water and given him powdered cloves seethed in rose-water to rub on his gums.’
‘Then the brat’s breath will be sweeter than his temper.’ Rushden pulled a face at her reproving look.
‘And the apothecary here has made up some henbane ointment for his highness to rub on the outside of his jaw.’
‘Pah, I reckon you could concoct something better.’
‘Oh no, I want no part of this, sir,’ she answered the suggestion gravely. ‘If we are still in some danger from the queen, as you seem to think, then it would be easy for her to accuse us of sorcery, and with my strange hair and being a woman, I should be the first to be accused and very likely be the scapegoat for the rest of you.’
Rushden frowned and made no answer, narrowing his gaze down the high street, as if he were willing a messenger to arrive.
‘What will happen if the queen does hold London and sends an army against us, sir? You have only a few hundred men here.’
‘Do not worry! We hold the prince. If an army does head our way, we will straightway dispatch you and Ned to safety. We shall know the worst soon anyway when Lord Hastings sends us word.’ But she saw the pearls of moisture on his forehead and knew it was not the sun that was the cause.
*
By three o’clock that afternoon, the awaited messenger had arrived. No covert necromancer but a fox-eyed lawyer, Sir William Catesby, suave though dusty, bearing Lord Hastings’s assurance that London was rolled out like a welcoming cloth for my Lord Protector’s foot. Such cheerful news had Miles humming contentedly as he walked back with de la Bere from Mayor Lynde’s house at the top of Horse Market. They had been part of the delegation reassuring his worship that no blood was to puddle Northampton streets.
He slackened his stride, frowning, as he recognised Heloise and Ned outside the gate of the Grey Friars, deep in conversation with Gloucester’s brother-in-law, while Benet and several pikemen fidgeted at a polite distance. Sir Richard Huddleston, seeing Miles bearing down, took his leave.
‘We have just been for a walk to the castle.’ Heloise, trying to keep her tisshew veil well behaved in the breeze, noticed Rushden’s sour expression. ‘You are looking vexed, sir. I understood the news was good.’
Miles made no reply. A dusty street with an audience of Welsh soldiers was not the time to demand why Huddleston was showing such interest in her.
It was de la Bere who answered: ‘London has shown no support for the queen.’ He stooped to Ned’s level. ‘Want to come and fight a duel with me, lordling?’
�
�Yes, yes,’ shrilled Ned, drawing a wooden sword from his belt.
‘Take the escort then,’ muttered Miles. ‘I shall see Lady Haute back.’
Heloise was delighted to find herself left alone with Rushden. ‘Are you sure there will be no battle?’ she asked, anxious for the truth.
‘Of course, be easy. All the queen’s men are scattered leaderless ’twixt here and London, and half the treasury is at sea with her brother, Sir Edward Woodville. The foolish woman has no retainers left to hand, nor ready money to raise a new army, so she has taken refuge in Westminster sanctuary with her children.’
Hardly foolish if all the royal mint was in Woodville hands, thought Heloise. Sir Richard Huddleston had just been telling her that while the queen had cunningly distracted Lord Hastings in argument, her kinsmen had been tearing down a wall at the sanctuary and stuffing in as much gold plate as they could. It sounded as though Lord Hastings could not control a coney warren, let alone London, and Gloucester would be short of funds to run the realm as Lord Protector.
‘Surely the queen will try to seize back power once her son is crowned?’
‘We shall cross that bridge in time.’ Rushden’s tone was chilling and a hard smile serifed his mouth.
‘You are revelling in all this,’ she protested, glimpsing the darker side in him.
‘Oh yes. I intend to make Harry so powerful that lands and offices will come my way with a grateful handshake. I have been waiting a long while.’
‘I wish this were all over.’
‘Which family war are we talking about?’ he teased, offering her his arm. ‘The feud over England, or the one over Bramley?’
‘Both,’ she blurted out, resting her gloved hand upon his wrist. He drew her around a puddle, sidestepping the verbal issue too by keeping to the drier ground of politics.
‘Do not be anxious. Gloucester is going to keep Rivers and Grey as hostages to ensure the queen makes no more mischief. Haute, too. Sending them all north.’
‘Haute, hmm.’ Heloise’s thoughts were busy with the future. ‘If I come to London, there will be other people who will know I am not Lady Haute.’
‘Shall I keep you then?’ Rushden’s thumb tickled her palm. ‘Mayhap I should turn heathen and house a whole pantry of wives and concubines. Wednesday and Saturday nights for you, Tuesdays and Thursdays for Myfannwy and—’
‘Oh yes, and Hell will freeze over.’ She tugged her hand free and waited for a cart to rumble past before they crossed the street. ‘I am weary of the lies, sir. I wish our annulment would arrive.’
Miles studied her profile speculatively. ‘When your father broke the tidings that he had taken me captive to wed you, how did you truly feel?’
‘Now, you ask! Backed into a corner with a sheer ten-foot wall behind and a couple of bulls hoofing the ground at me.’
‘And I was one of them?’
‘I mean it metaphorically,’ she added with a sideways glint of apology to mollify him.
‘Thank you,’ Miles answered dryly.
‘Admit it, you were threatening. Especially as you promised to take your belt to me at Potters Field.’
‘Dear me, did I make such a threat. And if I were hoofing the ground at you now?’ He paused as they reached the other side, turning her down the cross street in the direction of the Drapery.
‘Are you?’ The query was lightly tossed at him like a ball. Miles chose to let it fall and watched her playfulness waver and rally.
‘Try to answer the question.’ He reached down and plucked away a clinging stem of goosegrass that Ned must have hurled at her skirts in mischief.
‘You mean, if I knew you as well as I know you now, but back at Bramley.’
‘You voice it so clearly.’ He fingered the sticky fronds – sweet hearts, some called it – and tossed it aside.
‘Yes, I would feel threatened.’
‘You still find me threatening?’ It seemed to him that God should have made woman from man’s brains instead of his ribs, and then he blanched at the thought. ‘Do you?’
She turned, pausing by a churchyard wall. ‘Oh yes,’ she purred with sufficient enthusiasm to goad him. Any maid looking less threatened was hard to imagine. For a long moment, he studied her with the growing suspicion that he had lost the reins of the conversation. ‘Given the hypothesis, would you consent?’
Because she did not reply straightaway, he was unsure if confusion clouded her understanding, but she drew a long breath finally, picking a yellow-tongued heartsease sprig from its stony crevice. ‘I seem to remember I did consent.’
Languidly watching the progress of his bootcap as it investigated a patch of weeds, he asked, ‘Supposing the annulment is not forthcoming?’
The lady’s fur was ruffled now. ‘But how can it not be forthcoming, we have not …’ she swallowed.
He smiled quizzically, but inside he was inexplicably pleased that she had not lost her ability to blush.
‘… been intimate,’ she finished, biting her lower lip and glancing away as if to veil her thoughts, and then her eyes went round as cartwheels and she turned about in panic as if she were seeking a lane or doorway to swallow her. ‘Dear God,’ she whispered. ‘There is my father! Ohh!’
She staunched a squeak as Rushden’s strong arms lifted and tossed her over the churchyard wall. Then he vaulted it effortlessly and landed beside her, grinning with merriment like a mischievous page hiding from a steward.
‘That was a close shave. Bruised, changeling?’ he asked the tangle of gown and veil.
‘No, only my dignity,’ she gasped, her cone headdress askew and her skirts indecorously at mid-calf. ‘Oh, Miles.’ She clapped her fingers to her lips to stifle her laughter as the hoofs of her father’s party clip-clopped past within a few paces of them.
Rushden looked astounded, as though daylight had exposed some hidden truth. Heloise had not meant to say his baptismal name, never allowed herself to think of him that way but … His laughter had died and he was looking at her as though she had suddenly slid a dagger beneath his ribs.
Miles forgot Heloise could use magic; he was just staring at a young woman who was lying on the long grass in disarray and laughing with all the abandon of a miller’s daughter. Did she know how adorable she was? He should have helped her to her feet and straightened the squat velvet steeple over her glistening braids. Instead he wanted to halt time itself. All the loveliness of her belonged to him. She was at his fingertips, a breath away, not to be given to another man’s keeping. His fingers reached out and touched her slender wrist, tracing the pulse beneath the silken skin before he pushed her gently back against the grass.
Heloise held her breath as he leaned upon his elbow, his face above her. This was a Miles Rushden with armour abandoned. The desire in his darkened eyes roused her and the lawful mastery he held over her alchemised Heloise’s whole being to molten fire. His mouth came down on her lips questioning and yet unable to take denial.
Soft and trusting, the girl raised her arms up shyly to scarf his neck, curving her body against him. Miles knew he wanted her now beyond all reason. His right hand rose to fondle her firm little breast and encountered the sheath of velvet. Ruthlessly his hand slid up beneath the shoulder of her gown and down beneath her collar to fondle and coax forth that delicious –
‘Ahem! I said ahem!’
The earth stabilised itself again. Two sandalled feet in darned stockings, lapped by the dusty hem of a black houppelande, were waiting for him to abandon the chase of love.
‘Who in Hell are you?’ Miles growled, not bothering to turn his head.
The shadow on the wall before him fidgeted. ‘Oh, no one in particular, merely the priest of the parish. I have an aversion to people fornicating between the graves.’
With a stifled oath, Miles rolled off Heloise and glared up at the man who had both spoilt his pleasure and restored him to his senses.
‘We were not fornicating. We are married,’ he drawled.
‘A likely
story, young man! You should be ashamed of yourself. We do not want your lewd court habits here. Northampton is a respectable town.’ Hands tapping on forearms, he clucked in disgust. ‘Befouling St Catherine’s! In broad daylight too! Be off with you!’
Colour high, but vastly amused, Miles climbed to his feet and helped Heloise up. Godsakes she was shaking with laughter.
‘Good sir, I assure you we are married.’ Desperately trying not to splutter, Heloise staunched her bittersweet hilarity – Rushden finally admitting the truth! He was squeezing her hand, drawing her close behind him so she might hide her face. They had offended the fellow enough already.
‘Married! Aye, no doubt,’ retorted the priest. ‘To others. I pity them. Get you gone!’
He dogged their heels as they zigzagged between the graves to the pathway and latched the graveyard gate noisily behind them, leaning upon it lest they should have second thoughts.
They walked with dignity round the closest corner to reel against the daubed wall of a merchant’s house, surrendering to an emotion less perilous than lust.
‘Court habits,’ giggled Heloise, mopping the corners of her eyes, and patted his chest playfully. ‘I wish I might take y Cysgod to task so thoroughly. Is the priest still there?’ She dared a glance around the corner. ‘Lord, yes. Like a mastiff.’
Miles hauled her back to safety. ‘Behave!’ he admonished affectionately. ‘Shame on you, Heloise, that contraption looks as though it has been struck by lightning. Come, let me help you.’
Fearful as ever of her silver hair being seen, his erring wife glanced about her before she let him remove it and re-pin the strap that went beneath her chin to hold the cone firm. To his amusement, she stood still like a small girl until he was done. ‘The veil will need stiffening again.’ He gave up trying to discipline the abused gauze and untangled a snagged clover burr instead. ‘I am afraid you look as though you have been tumbled, changeling.’
‘I believe I nearly was,’ she said huskily and flirtatiously peeped up to see if her remark had found a vein.
The Silver Bride Page 25
