Soldier of Fortune: The King's Courtesan (Rakes and Rogues of the Retoration Book 2)

by James, Judith

  “I think I’ll join him, Rose.”

  “You’ll have to be quick, my lady. He looked to be leaving soon.”

  “We’d best hurry then. Fetch my riding coat and boots if you would. Quick as you can.” She picked up her brush off the dresser and her eyes were drawn to a flash of silver. The forgotten note still lay on the tray, sitting on her desk. Anxiety seized her as if it were a fist, gripping her chest, squeezing her throat.”

  “My Lady? Lady Newport? Is something wrong?”

  “No.” But her voice came out as a soft gasp. Charles had written her before and she’d disposed of his letters unread. But they had borne his personal seal. This missive bore the royal seal. Her hand trembled as she waved the little maid away. She didn’t need to read it to know what it was. It was a summons from the king.

  Robert was in the stables, talking to the sergeant as he waited for Jemmy to saddle his horse. He greeted her with a wink and a hug that would have warmed her all over if she weren’t sick with fear. It’s too soon! It was all so fragile yet. So easily broken.

  “You slept well, I hope?”

  “Yes, thank you. Very well.” Mr. Oakes was watching her with a big grin and she found to her chagrin that she was still able to blush. “I was wondering if I might speak to you a moment, in private, Robert.” She reminded herself that everything would be all right. He’d given her his word.

  “Certainly. But you’ll have to make it quick, love. The morning’s well begun and I need to be on my way in an hour.”

  “On your way?” There was a sharp note of panic in her voice.

  “Yes. As I discussed with you yesterday.” He looked over his shoulder at his gawking men, then placed a hand on the small of her back and ushered her outside.

  “But…I thought…I was certain you had changed your mind!”

  “Whatever gave you that idea? I never said so. You eased my heart, love. I swear you are an angel. I dreamt of her last night and it made me smile. I feel years younger and a hundred pounds lighter, but I have a duty, and this man must still be dealt with. He’s a da—’

  “What of your duty to me?” she asked, handing him the message.

  He looked at her carefully, noting her white face and shaking hands, and then he read the letter. His stomach lurched. It was just as he’d feared. We have run out of time. Sighing, he handed the parchment back to her. “So…it has come to pass. What do you wish to do?”

  “What do I wish to do? What happened to we? I’ve told you what I want. I want you to stay. What happened to your promise? You said that if he summoned me you would come, to stand as my husband and bring me back home.”

  “And I will. As soon as I return. I’ve explained to you why I have to go. The timing is bloody awful but we can work our way around it. Make your excuses. Tell him you’re ill. Delay him and wait for my return.” He went to hug her, wanting to soothe her, but she shoved at his chest and took two steps back.

  Hope...if you can only wait for me to—”

  “Honor a duty to a sister who has been gone nearly twenty years? ’Tis not a promise you made her but a vow you made to yourself! The sergeant told me once you take care of your own. I can see that I am not numbered among them.”

  “Hope…don’t. That’s not true! But Harris is the last of them. I’ve waited years and now there is no choice.”

  “There is always a choice. You can stop. You can honor a vow to yourself or honor your word to me.” She looked over her shoulder to where his mount stood ready. “It appears the decision is an easy one.” She could hardly believe they were having this conversation. How could her world tumble down so quickly, changing completely from night to day?

  “Damn it, Hope! There is nothing easy about it. But I can’t stop yet. This man means us harm. ’Twas he who asked Charles for Cressly, and it’s the first real chance I’ve had at him in years. He knows who I am. He knows what I did to his fellows. He has come after me already through Cressly. The fool still believes there is treasure here. His fear and greed make him dangerous, not only to me, but to everyone here, particularly to you. Once he is dealt with…”

  “Once he is dealt with, what? Once he is gone you’ll have nothing left, Robert. You’ve built your entire life around him. He is the reason you married me, is he not? Go then. Seek vengeance. I pray it brings you comfort this time.”

  “God’s blood! Have you not listened to a word I’ve said?” Sergeants Oakes’s words returned to haunt him. You’re not very good with people are you? He had thought he’d improved somewhat with Hope, but apparently he was wrong. Be damned if managing a wife wasn’t one of the hardest tasks a man could undertake.

  “Oh, I’ve been listening, Robert. I fear it’s you who has not been listening to me. You have waited twenty years. Yes. I understand. He is a danger. I understand that, too. Now is the perfect opportunity to act, I assume because he’s far from both Cressly and London. I am not a fool. What I also understand is you made me a promise and when I need you, the thing that has waited for twenty years cannot wait a few weeks or even a few months more. You have farmers and shepherds with muskets tramping the fields. Cressly is an armed camp. He would have to come with an army to be a danger to you here. “

  Robert spread his hands wide and let them drop to his sides. “Hope...I… You don’t understand.”

  “No, Captain, I don’t. But you need trouble yourself no further. I will manage perfectly well on my own. In fact, I managed very well by myself before we met.”

  “And just what is that supposed to mean?”

  “I’ll be on my own way tomorrow. One doesn’t keep the king waiting. I have no more choice than you say you do.”

  “On your way where?”

  “Back to court!”

  “After all the fine words you’ve said to me? You could await my return. You could tell him you are sick or that your husband forbade you traveling alone. Last night you said you wanted me beside you. You claimed to love me. You said you knew when we first met that we were meant to be together.”

  “Yet you have never claimed to love me in return, Robert. Revenge is your mistress and you choose her over me. Last night was a dream. If it were real I would have woken to find you beside me. If it were real, you would not chose to abandon me when I need you most.”

  He spread his arms wide. “Look at me. I…am real. This is who I am. I told you because you begged to know. I let you see it all. And I warned you, you would not like it. I am no knightly hero, nor have I ever claimed to be. You don’t love me. I am not the one you seek. He is some imaginary fellow you have decorated with my face and form.”

  “I know.” The words escaped as a regretful sigh. Turning her back on him, she walked away.

  That night the wind picked up off the water, howling through the valley with a dull roar. Trapped within its fury were a thousand eerie voices. Some wailed and whimpered, others shrieked and whispered, and one seemed to breathe her name beneath a low moan. She buried her head under pillows and blankets and a nightmare crept in with her. One that had visited her in various guises many times before. The only thing she remembered of it when she woke was that she always ended up alone.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  Hope didn’t want to end up alone. Robert’s decision had been a disappointment, a bitter one after their intimacy the night before. Yet in all her years she had never felt closer to another human being. It came as a surprise that he didn’t see the thing the same way that she did, but perhaps that didn’t mean she’d been betrayed. Sometimes a new dawn helped one see thing in a new way. He told me he would be there, and asked me to delay things for a few days. What harm in pleading illness or a lack of proper escort? In allowing him the chance to—

  “My lady!” Rose called as she rushed into the room. “The king’s escort is here for you. You are to return to London at once.”

  ~

  Hope Nichols, Lady Newport, was given two choices. Prepare her own carriage and leave for London at once, or be taken under es
cort to meet with the king.

  As the sun crested the trees she was on her way back to court, continuing her journey as it had begun years ago, alone. Well...not entirely. One had to have a care for highwaymen—and apparently marriage made one’s husband’s enemies one’s own. She had but to turn her head and look out the window to see Oakes and a complement of heavily armed men, expertly trained and fiercely loyal, riding alongside.

  ~

  Robert continued in the opposite direction. Vengeance was a personal business between one man and another. Harris, justice, resolution, lay to the north. How could she expect him to abandon it now? He’d known her less than six months but he’d carried this burden almost all of his life. And why couldn’t she understand the danger the man presented? Was his word not good enough? Harris assaulted women…and children, for sport, and he had a grudge to bear. Hope would be in grave danger as soon as Harris realized he could hurt him through her.

  And what did she do? Instead of waiting for him so they might face the king’s displeasure together as they’d agreed, she’d chosen to scamper back to London within hours of his summons. He had taken a risk. Revealing dark secrets to her he had shared with none other. He had known in his gut it was a mistake to tell her. Perhaps, in the light of day, despite her words of comfort and acceptance, the summons had come as a welcome excuse.

  It made no matter. She would be safer at court. If Harris had a chance to hurt him through his wife he would, but he would never dare molest a guest of the king’s.

  Robert’s jaw tightened. She would be in London by tomorrow. How would Charles greet her? With diamonds and sapphires cut and set to match her eyes. A palace suite now she was a lady. Apologies and blandishments and words to soothe her hurt and anger. Men like Charles and de Veres, they had a talent for such things, but he was unaccustomed to pretty speeches. Try as he might, he never seemed to find the right words.

  You have never claimed to love me in return, she’d said. Well, perhaps he hadn’t. Perhaps the words didn’t trip from his tongue like honey, but he’d wager no one else had humored her with tales of Robin Hood or indulged her interest in sword fighting or stood patiently for hours while she admired shrubs!

  His horse, sensing his mounting anger, grew restive, tossing its head, muscles bunching, fretting to be released. He turned him sideways, holding him in check as he reared and pranced, feeling the power and frustration coiled beneath him. Then he straightened him out, leaned forward and gave him his head, hurtling through the night with the moon lighting his path and his black cloak billowing behind him like wings. He was vengeance. He was retribution. He rode for Caroline and Harris was his prey.

  ~

  Some hours later he approached Gildersome -a village close to Farnley- not quite sure what to expect. The message had been vague and he was wary. A tavern was the best place to mingle, listen to the news, make discrete enquiries and spread a little coin. It usually required a good deal of finesse and even greater quantities of alcohol before suspicious locals actually parted with any useful information—but this night the tavern was abuzz with the goings on in the nearby woods. It seemed that militant-looking strangers had been making themselves at home with the local farmers and businessmen for several weeks now, and one more stranger was hardly worth a glance.

  The heavily forested area just outside of town was crowded and even easier to infiltrate than the tavern. Over a hundred men milled about, talking and arguing. All of them were Protestant, many of them ex-Parliamentarian soldiers, and several of them he recognized, including Joshua Greathead whom he’d glimpsed talking to de Veres in London. What he didn’t see was Harris. What he heard, shocked him. Not for its content but its delivery. They spoke of treason, and a more voluble undisciplined indiscrete group of conspirators one could not imagine. Perhaps they felt themselves too distant in Yorkshire to attract attention, but they were blithely out in the open planning an attack on a Royalist stronghold in Leeds, intent on starting an uprising to overthrow the king. There was even talk that General Fairfax, their old commander, might come to lead them.

  It would have been laughable if it weren’t so dangerous. Robert hunched his shoulders to disguise his height, lowered his hat and wrapped his cloak like a scarf to obscure his features and slipped into the shadows. It was beginning to feel like a trap, though not the kind he’d expected. Any man placed in these woods by witnesses could expect to be hanged, drawn and quartered. He’d overheard enough to make the risk worthwhile, though. It seemed the tavern in nearby Morley had been commandeered by a group of brutal braggarts and bullies. He left the woods as quietly as he entered them, and went elsewhere to hunt his prey.

  The King’s Arms was at the very edge of the village, backing onto the moor. It might have been a pleasant walk by day, but its isolation made it a perfect gathering spot for men of a certain sort, and a dangerous walk for the uninvited by night. The door burst open on a roar of drunken laughter and a portly older gentleman hurtled out from inside, landing face first in the dirt. A voice that had lived too long in Robert’s dreams rose above the din.

  “Come back when you have the rest, or your wife and daughter will settle the account, you useless piece of dung.”

  A familiar feeling came over him. Anticipation, exhilaration, a sense of heightened awareness, focused and honed to a deadly, determined calm. His teeth flashed white in the moonlight as his lips drew back in a feral grin. He’d tracked his quarry to his lair. He waited for the uproar to subside, then quietly slipped inside. Only a few of the occupants looked to be locals. The bald man lounged by the hearth, groping the breast of a naked woman who looked to be drunk, asleep, or, by the bruises on her face, unconscious. A half-dozen well-armed men were with him. They were all too busy dicing to notice his presence.

  He took a seat on a bench near the back of the room and sidled over to rub elbows with a bleary-eyed fellow who looked about ready to slide under the table. “Who’s that lot over there, eh?” he asked, sliding his new friend a pint of ale and half a crown. “They don’t look to be from around here.”

  “Neither do you,” his drunken companion answered sourly, but he pocketed the coin and reached for the ale. “Too many strangers round here these days.”

  Another commotion drew both their attention. An unkempt scrawny-looking youth carrying a heavy flagon of beer had done something to earn a string of curses and a cuff that sent him reeling to the floor. The boy picked himself up, expressionless, retrieved another flagon and continued serving as he’d been doing before.

  “That be the mighty war hero, Colonel Harris, honoring us small folk with his presence. He’s the earl of something or other, or so he claims. He’s here and about often these days. Some say too often. Some say it’s tied to the doings in the woods, but he ends up here every night cheating at cards and dice. You want to be careful not to draw his attention. If he invites you to play there’s no refusing, and no leaving till your parted from all your coin.”

  So…the arrogant fool had used his own name. “And that lot with him?”

  “Those be his men and the reason none dare complain. The lad is his son, poor bastard, and the woman one of his whores.”

  “I’m no stranger when it comes to games of chance,” Robert said with a slow smile. “Perhaps I’ll see what I might take from him.”

  “They say a fool and his money are soon parted. Good luck, friend. Beware he doesn’t also take your life.”

  Robert rose and patted the man’s shoulder, then tossed him another coin. “Drink to my health at the wake.” He moved quietly through the shadows and they moved with him, coalescing into a dark shape that waited, just feet from its prey. His hand caressed his sword hilt and something within him snarled and came to wake. He could see the veins where Harris’ neck met his shoulder, pulsing life in rhythm with his heart. That this thing should live when his sister did not was unbearable. Harris could be dead within two seconds, but first he had to recognize and understand. He had to know that his casual sla
ying of Caroline was what ended his life now.

  And so he waited, amazed they could be so complacent. So certain of their invulnerability they never once raised their eyes to scan the room. When at last he did feel a gaze upon him it was the boy’s. The lad’s eyes met his directly, cool, assessing, and he returned the stare. The boys cheeks were gaunt, his eyes filled with shadows. They flicked to the woman lying still on the floor, and then to Robert’s sword. Robert lifted his fingers. When he looked back the lad had turned away.

  He had waited long enough. He leaned over, clamping Harris’s shoulder in a viselike grip. “Excuse me, Colonel, but I was wondering if we might have a quiet word outside.”

  Harris’s grip was as strong as his own and his reflexes were fast. He seized Robert’s wrist and threw himself back in the chair, toppling it and freeing himself, shoving Robert back against the wall as he rose. The men, taken by surprise, watched in stunned silence before erupting into cheers, thinking it a drunken brawl and eager to see their leader break some bones. Holding Robert in a choke hold with only the back of his arm, Harris used his considerable strength to force him up the wall so only his toes touched the floor.

  “What dog is this come snapping at my table? You’ll lick my boots, cur. Or I’ll slice you open from belly to throat.”

  Gripping the man’s forearm and using it for leverage, Robert lifted his legs and kicked him in the stomach, knocking him backward and sending him flying over the table, scattering food, drink, and dice and sending his sword sliding across the floor. Leaping up onto the table he unsheathed his own. The Jeweled wolves eyes glittered like hellhounds and he and his steel thirsted for blood. “A man who mistakes a wolf for a hound is certain to come to a bad end. Wouldn’t you agree?”