“Ellen,” I said.
She gave me a sidelong glance from under her cap and approached me slowly, not pausing in her tending to the bar’s cleanliness. Gripping the cider mug tight in my hands, I forced myself to look at her, forced myself to say the words, “Ellen, I’m sorry.”
She looked startled, like she had never expected to hear those words from me. For which I could not blame her, as I had never said them before.
“Sorry?”
She was going to make me explain. She was going to get the most out of this apology. I drew in a breath. That was all right. She deserved it.
“I am so sorry for the way I treated you in the last fortnight. I’m sorry I doubted you about Master Lawry. You were completely right, and I should have believed you. I should have trusted you. I should have—” My voice was accelerating, my words tripping over one another.
Ellen rested a hand on mine, smiling slightly. “Kathryn. It’s all right. Just to hear you say—it’s all right. Apology accepted.”
I heaved a sigh and returned her smile. “Thank you. When I saw you, I was afraid…. I was afraid you wouldn’t talk to me.”
She gave a rueful laugh. “Hardly. You’re still my only friend in this bloody town.” She twisted the rag in her hands. “And not even that any longer. You’ve gone far away now.”
“Not so far….” But I trailed off. The half-day’s ride to Bitterbrook might as well be a Crusade to the Holy Land for Ellen.
“Would you—?” She cut herself off, her eyes finding her father, who was still deep in conversation with the miller. “Could you possibly take me with you?”
I was startled into silence. For once, I had no idea how to answer her. “Ellen, I would if I could,” I said at length, “but I don’t know what I could offer you. We are friends. How could you work for me? It would be….”
“Strange, I know,” she finished for me, her defeat showing in the slump of her shoulders. “I just want to leave, too, now that you’re gone. There’s nothing for me here.”
“You’ll inherit the inn, won’t you?”
“I don’t want the inn.”
“But surely you don’t want to be my servant either!”
She sighed. “I don’t know what I want. But I see you.” She gestured vaguely at my dress, meaning everything. “And I want something more.”
“Shall I catch a knight for you as well?”
She flicked the rag at me, as she had that day on the green, and this time I laughed and let her hit me.
“I promise you, Ellen, I will find you a way out. I don’t know what that will be just yet, but I will come up with something. I’ll find you a prospect for marriage or work that will make you happy.”
She touched my hand again. “Thank you, Kathryn.”
“It’s less than I owe you for your friendship all these years. And call me Kate. Please.”
She gave me a quizzical look but agreed. “All right, Kate.” She paused. “I thought you hated when he called you that.”
I shook my head. “Changed my mind.”
“Hmmm.” She poured more cider into my mug. “Whatever you say, milady.”
I groaned. “Oh, don’t mock.”
“My one friend in the world is a fine lady now and I can’t tease her about it?”
“I am no fine lady,” I retorted. “I don’t even have a chemise under my kirtle.”
“Lady Kathryn!” She feigned shock.
We both burst out laughing. She leaned in closer. “Mother’s making up the best bedroom for you right now,” she said, a sly suggestion in her voice. “She’s up there now putting more straw in the mattress. Making sure it’s nice and soft for you.” My cheeks went red, and it wasn’t from the cider or the heat in the room.
Ellen peered at my face. “Wait. What is it, Kate?”
Again, I could not speak.
“Have you not—?”
I shook my head. At the look on her face, I shrugged. “You know my sharp tongue, Ellen. We argued for a day and a night. And then some.”
“And yet you seem quite content with each other now….” Her voice trailed off and up suggestively.
“Indeed,” I said, looking down at my now-empty mug of cider.
Ellen glanced around, making sure her father was still well occupied, and reached under the bar. She came up with a tiny cup and filled it from a short brown bottle. My eyes began to water from the strength of the spirits as she poured. I couldn’t help but laugh. “Ellen, what are you doing?”
“Mother always says, whiskey loosens the bones. Go on. All at once now.”
Ellen’s eyes were both eager and teasing. I knew if I held the tiny cup under my nose for too long, the bitter smell would vanquish me. It was only growing worse. I took a breath, opened my mouth, and poured it in. Fire exploded on my tongue as I swallowed, and Ellen laughed as I gasped for air. She hid the bottle back under the bar and whisked the cup off to the washing tub while I struggled to regain my composure. The warmth flooding my limbs felt remarkably like the heat of kissing Will earlier in the courtyard. My ears tingled. I glanced at him without turning my head, fighting the urge to smile.
Ellen refilled my cider. “Loosens the bones,” she whispered with a wink.
Indeed.
From his place by the stairs, William spoke, raising his voice to address the room at large. In a moment, conversation stilled and all eyes fell upon him. The power of a title and a purse full of gold.
“I have a pence for any man who takes upon himself the office of this man, Adam, here, and delivers safely to the house of Master Mulleyn all of these goods here by the stairs. And a cup of Master Brewer’s good ale upon your return.”
All of the local men in the tavern and half of the travelers leaped up from their seats, and while there were more men for the work than needed, William gave each of them the promised coin and sent them off to my father’s house.
He returned to stand beside me, watching the fellows scramble to do his bidding. His hand settled lightly, possessively, on the small of my back, and the thrill of it shot through me, settling, like the whiskey, in my belly, but then sinking lower.
Lovely. Intriguing.
Ellen, with a smirk, moved away, wiping the bar unnecessarily.
“William,” I said, fighting through the sensation, “you have given them a week’s wages for a walk down the street.”
“That’s all right,” he said. “Today, I am a rich man with a pretty, young wife. I can afford to be generous.”
Warm, glowing. Could everyone see my feelings? This wasn’t just the whiskey, I was fairly certain of that.
I will be her only Will….
Here, in this very room, he had announced his intentions to the whole town.
His hand on my back. Oh, I had no clear sense of what I wanted, but I knew that standing here talking was not going to accomplish it. I wanted to be swept up in his arms, carried up the stairs, set down on that overstuffed bed….
My imagination failed. Failed, but wanted to know the rest.
Meanwhile, Will was still talking. I took a sip of cider and forced my wandering wits to attend to his words.
“…many a lady in my time, but you! You were resplendent today! The way you had them hanging on your every word—I knew you were clever, but that, my dear, was pure poetry.”
I blushed at the flattery even as I bristled at the mention of others. “Many a lady?” I queried in my old, teasing voice.
He swallowed the rest of his cider. “Oh, don’t be jealous now. Mayhap this one was clever, or that one had a beguiling singing voice, or another moved with grace—” He waved a hand around as though we were in the market together and he was showing me items for sale.
All my heat turned to ice and I jerked away from him, nearly oversetting the stool behind me. “How many, sir? How many were these numerous ladies with their numerous virtues?”
For a moment, he blinked and stared, stunned.
Then—woe unto him!—he laughed.
I lunged for him with a growl. He caught my wrists and pinned them close to my sides. Spinning me into the near-darkness of the stairwell, he held me while I hissed and spat, a wildcat in his embrace.
At some risk to his face, he held me tight, speaking low and soft in my ear. “You,” he said, the word shivering along my bones. I stilled and dropped my hands, though he did not release my wrists. “You,” he repeated. “So perfect, so peerless. What creature could ever compare to you?” His lips were so close to my ear they almost touched it; then suddenly they were tracing a path along my neck. I could hardly breathe. “All other women have their virtues,” he went on, kissing his way to my collarbone, “but those are matched by their equal vices.” Then he lifted his head, looking into my eyes with truth, with desire. “Only you, Kate, are worth more than everything else—more than the gold your father gave for you, more than your sweet face or your skill with a lute.” He kissed the tip of my nose. “Or with the thumbscrews.”
I had to laugh, though my breath caught in my throat, right where the trail of his kisses had stopped. Suddenly, everything I had been through in the past few days came bubbling up in my chest and that tightness in my neck threatened to turn into tears.
“I’m sorry,” I said, leaning my forehead on his chest. I had to strive to keep my voice steady. “I have only just learned to be Kate. I’m sorry if I lose her sometimes.”
He wrapped his arms around me, tucking my head under his chin with one hand and cradling me close with the other. His heart beat slow and strong beneath my ear. I closed my eyes and allowed myself to savor this entirely unfamiliar, entirely welcome sensation.
“If ever you lose Kate,” he said, “come to me and I will help you find her again.”
THE END
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Sneak Peek of Loving Beatrice
We had gathered in the great hall of Ashley House to hear my Aunt Ursula’s plans for the annual harvest masque, soon to be upon us. I stood with my cousins, Eleanor, Mary, and Grace, as Aunt Ursula described her rapturous vision of the hall as an autumnal forest, with indoor trees and a night sky of glittering candles overhead, sweeping her arms in wide arcs to demonstrate where each secret glen, each fountain of wine, would be placed.
My aunt did quite love a good party.
I stood arm in arm with my cousin Grace, Aunt Ursula’s only daughter, wondering just how much of this work was going to be shunted off onto me, when my attention was caught by a door opening at the rear of the hall. Hoping for an interruption, I turned that way, pulling Grace along with me, motioning at the door when she began to complain. Her father, my Uncle Lionel, came stumping in, a parchment clutched in his hand. Uncle Lionel, owing to a long-ago injury, had a heavy limp and used a cane, the thick wood striking the stone flags firmly and echoing to the high rafters; nevertheless, Aunt Ursula seemed not to note his presence.
I cleared my throat to gain her attention. She went on talking.
Uncle Lionel came closer. The parchment fluttered in his grasp as he lofted it before him like a torch in a dark place.
“Mother,” Grace said, her voice pitched to break through the flowing stream of Aunt Ursula’s inspiration. Yet Aunt Ursula turned away from us, explaining how the cleared area for dancing would – perhaps, if she could arrange it – be made to appear as a clear, still pond.
Uncle Lionel neared, a dusty, exhausted-looking fellow trailing in his wake. “My lady,” he called.
At last, she turned toward her husband. She drew her brows together and tiny lines of annoyance formed above her nose. Truly, Aunt Ursula lived for her parties. “Yes, my lord, what is it?”
Uncle Lionel hauled himself to a stop beside his wife, thrusting the letter out before him. The travel-weary lad now stood a short distance away, twisting his cap between his hands. Aunt Ursula looked him over, her expression shifting to apprehension. Given the discord in our kingdom in recent years, the arrival of messengers with urgent commissions had long been a reason for dread. As it was only a few weeks since there had been a battle in the west of England that ended with the old king dead and a new king crowned, we all had cause for concern, for our household had sent many a young man to the fight.
“What news, husband?” Aunt Ursula asked.
“I learn in this letter that his majesty the king comes this day to our home,” he crowed, waving the parchment over his head yet again.
Mary squealed and clapped a hand over her mouth. Grace tightened her arm through mine, squeezing me against her. “The king?” she whispered, though no one could hear her save me. Aunt Ursula stiffened. “His majesty the king?”
The rider stepped forward. Now I could see the fine green and white doublet and green hose beneath the layer of road dust. Green and white: the colors of our new king. “I am sent before his majesty King Henry to alert Lord Ashley’s household that the royal party will be here anon. They were not three leagues off when I left them.”
Aunt Ursula began to quiver with the desire – nay, the need – to move. Much as she loved to organize a celebration, unexpectedly hosting a king and his party in one’s home was an entirely different sort of task. Something on the order of planning a military campaign, one might imagine.
“And how large a party is it?” I inquired, attempting to sound merely curious, not at all concerned.
“King Henry himself comes and brings the Princess Elizabeth, his ‘trothed bride, as well as his lady mother and some small number of ladies and gentlemen of their court. Mainly gentlemen who fought with him in the recent ended battle wherein the usurper fell.”
The victor decides who is the usurper, I thought but did not say.
Uncle Lionel added, “And you will be glad to know that the king informs me in this letter that the men of Ashley House acquitted themselves proudly in his service, and that none were lost, and only a few at all wounded.”
Aunt Ursula hurried to cross herself but would not be diverted. “Thanks be to God,” she said, “but what are we to feed them, husband?” She huffed out a deep breath and turned to the steward who had also followed Uncle Lionel in. “Banks,” she said, “see to it that this man is rested and clean before his majesty arrives. Thank you, sirrah, for your message.”
Both men bowed and turned to leave.
As Aunt Ursula dragged Uncle Lionel off to issue orders to the servants, and as Mary gushed about the imminent arrival of dozens, perhaps hundreds, of eligible gentlemen, I took a few steps after the messenger.
“I say, good fellow,” I called out to him.
The rider, eager for refreshment, did not stop walking, but he turned his face toward me. “Aye, milady?”
In retrospect, I should have asked him straight if he had any news of the men who had left here to fight with the king. It was not a difficult question, after all. But if I asked outright, my cousins might think… Mary especially would never let me free from her teasing… So in the moment, I blurted, “Tell me, good fellow, is my lord Quintain among the king’s party?”
He gave me a puzzled look. “I—that is an odd name, lady. I know of no lord by that name.”
My younger cousins giggled behind my back. Grace, most like a sister and yet ignorant of the reason behind my question, tugged at my arm, under her breath scolding me for impertinence. When I did not elaborate and the messenger began to walk away, Grace took a step forward, forcing herself to speak despite her shyness. “My cousin means one Edmund Benedict. He was a member of our household here and a dear friend of the family, and so she wonders if he has returned with the king.”
“Oh, aye,” the fellow said, still peering at me and shifting his feet in his eagerness to be on his way. “There is such a gentleman among the king’s men. Sir Edmund, he is since the battle, and high in the king’s favor for
his loyalty and deeds of bravery.”
Sir Edmund. I was stunned into silence, and the messenger took the moment to make his escape. Grace took a firm hold of my arms, turning me to look at her. “Beatrice,” she said, “Lord Quintain? Why did you mock our dear Benedict to the messenger?”
“Sir Edmund now,” I corrected her, still struggling to absorb this change in his fortunes. “Don’t imagine that he’ll be ‘our dear Benedict’ any longer, now that he stands so ‘high in the king’s favor.’” I found myself struggling to breathe. It seemed my heart had taken up residence in my very throat and was pounding like a hammer on an anvil. “‘Deeds of bravery’,” I said, surprised at how bitter my voice sounded. “How many soldiers do you suppose he killed since he left? For I promised him I would eat all of his killing.” Among other fierce and hurtful words.
Grace stared at me. She might have questioned me further, but Uncle Lionel returned just at that moment, leaning far more on his cane now. “Mary, Eleanor,” he called as he entered, “pull me up a chair, will you?”
Together, the girls dragged one of the heavy armchairs from the side of the room closer to where we all stood, so that they, the chair, and he all arrived at the same moment. He sighed and eased himself into the chair, rubbing at the old wound in his thigh. “Now, my girls, gather round and heed me.”
The younger ones, Mary and Eleanor, settled on the floor at his feet. Grace and I stood close by. He looked at us each in turn, his gaze like the warm touch of his hand in blessing: Grace, his only child and heir, and by far the most beautiful of us, with rich dark hair and eyes to match; Mary, already a lush woman at sixteen; Eleanor, a fey and simple child who, it seemed, might never truly grow up; and last of all, me, untamed in every way – unruly hair, sharp-angled features, wayward will, shrewd tongue. Of all of us, mayhap I was the only one who knew whereof he would speak and was ready with a reply.
“My girls,” he said. “I have loved you and raised you all together with no regard for whether you were my daughters or not. In my heart, and my wife’s, you are all our children. Today, with the king’s arrival, you have a chance that will never come to you again. Thus, I trust you will heed me as your father in this moment.”
Finding Kate Page 27
