Judging by the muscle jumping in Beltran’s rigid jaw, he entertained the same suspicion. He ducked a perfunctory bow.
“Your Grace is generous, but we need nothing—”
Swiftly Rhiannon stepped into the breach, doing her best to mirror Lady Elizabeth’s blithe assurance. “Marry, sir! Hast thou forgotten my encounter with those bandits? Look upon me well, Lord Beltran. I’m all over mud and brambles!”
He looked upon her indeed, slow fire kindling in his cobalt eyes as they lingered on the pale curve of her shoulder, half-exposed where her sleeve had torn away from her bodice. An unexpected heat slid over her bare skin, warmth rising in her face.
“My lady,” he began, his voice dark with warning.
“And what of my lost comrades?” Still tingling from that smoking look whose meaning she couldn’t comprehend, Rhiannon was beginning to enjoy herself for the first time since she’d entered this bewildering mortal realm. “Both Lord Ansgar and Lady Linnet are lost in the wood, as I’ve attempted to explain thee. If we linger but a few hours, they may catch us up.”
“Absolutely not,” Beltran growled. Of course, being caught by Ansgar would complicate his plan to have her locked up and interrogated.
Smooth as though they’d rehearsed it, Lady Elizabeth took her cue. “Lost comrades, in this benighted weather? There’ll be hard frost by nightfall, no doubt of it. Sir Henry must dispatch men to search.”
“Sir Henry must do nothing of the sort,” the owner of that name said crossly. “My orders are to guard your safety, Lady Elizabeth, not tear about the countryside searching for stray vagrants.”
“We ask for nothing and need nothing.” Looking irritated at being spoken around as though he weren’t present, Beltran grasped Rhiannon’s bridle. “This lady’s bound for St. Edward’s Abbey, and I must deliver her forthwith.”
“But I don’t wish to—”
“Oh, St. Edward’s?” Speaking over Rhiannon’s cry of protest, Elizabeth pressed a dismayed hand to her bosom. What a talented player she is, Rhiannon thought admiringly. “My dear Lord Beltran, I regret to bring you unhappy tidings. That monastery has been disbanded for months. All the good monks fell victim to the plague that has ravished this land—the abbot included, may God assoil his soul.”
“Disbanded?” Beltran stared. “The Pope told me nothing of this.”
“Well, the Pope has been busy, has he not?” Elizabeth said archly. “He’s thick as thieves with the French these days. My sister and her Spanish kin are most troubled by it.”
Carefully tucking away these tidbits, Rhiannon saw the observation did not please Beltran. His face was shuttered—all hard jaw and hooded eyes. He bristled with ill-concealed impatience to be rid of this delay and on the road again.
By rights, he should terrify her to witlessness. She should be willing to plunge into any mad scheme to escape his vigilance. Yet somehow, she’d never doubted he would protect her when Sir Henry and his lackeys came thundering toward them.
Still, she could not fail to recognize the opportunity the spirited redhead represented. Mary Tudor was nearing her fortieth year, ancient by mortal standards, and had already miscarried one child. If the Queen died without issue, this bastard Tudor princess with her wild Fae blood would become the next Queen of England—with authority to sign the treaty.
While these thoughts raced quicksilver through her mind, Beltran was stating his intent to make for some other church and deflecting Lady Elizabeth’s obvious interest as to why. Rhiannon shivered in the biting wind, which drew his immediate attention.
His eyes sharpened. He swept the folds of Rhiannon’s rose-red mantle briskly around her. She could have imagined a flash of concern in his gaze, if she hadn’t already known he despised her.
“Come,” he said gruffly. “We can make the church at Yardley by Nones.”
“Yardley!” Elizabeth was quick to seize her cue. “God-a-mercy, you cannot mean to take her half so far. She’s frozen through, poor creature!”
That much was no lie. Rhiannon hadn’t been warm or dry since she’d come through the Veil to these benighted lands. Though she’d fought to keep a brave face, her reserves were depleted by fear and exhaustion. Her eyes stung with sudden tears.
Swiftly she blinked them back. Yet her voice rang forlorn in her ears. “Forsooth, my lord, I’d welcome an hour within walls and warm water for washing. Surely thou cannot mean to lead me among thy people in this condition. I look like a beggar-girl!”
“Hardly that.” As he surveyed the cream velvet glittering with silver stitching, his hard mouth twitched with a flicker that was almost amusement. “The priest will extend you every comfort.”
Then at least I shall be comfortably fed when they drag me to the pyre, she thought tartly. “Only see the clouds piling in the north, my lord. I fear ʼtwill shortly rain.”
Indeed, the words had barely left her lips when thunder muttered overhead. Beltran slanted a disbelieving glance toward the heavens, where the sun had shone all morn.
Briefly Rhiannon closed her eyes and sent a grateful thought toward her mother. High time Queene Maeve bestirred herself to intervene, after days of Morrigan’s spells and interference.
Of course, time passed at a different pace in Faerie. Likely, from Maeve’s perspective, only an hour had passed since Rhiannon rode through the Veil. Moreover, the Faerie Queene could influence little in the mortal realm—else she need never have sent Rhiannon at all.
“There, you see!” Lady Elizabeth declared. “We’ll be roasting our toes before a fire at Hatfield before the first drop falls. Truly, I insist upon it.”
Captive to her sister’s will she might be, but Elizabeth Tudor had issued a royal command.
* * *
Their royal hostess led them thundering in a spirited gallop from the forest across the green. As they pounded through the rolling park, spotted deer scattered before them. Beyond, the great quadrangle of a manor house in russet brick rose among the stern geometry of clipped hedges, so unlike the untamed tangle of wild forest Rhiannon knew and loved. As she eyed the rows of mullioned windows, a rush of excitement stole her breath.
A mortal dwelling, peopled by my own kind—my father’s folk. Perhaps I’ll feel more at home here than ever I did among my Faerie kin, ever mocked for my weak magick and mixed blood—a circumstance Morrigan did all in her power to aggravate. My father asleep and dreaming in his vault, shielded from death by the Faerie Queene’s blessing, until the day England’s need calls him forth again. And my mother the Queene too otherworldly, too absorbed with the lure of her own magick to heed anything I might have needed.
More likely, I suppose, these mortals will sense my...Otherness, just as the Fae always did. Then shall I be outcast here as well.
Surreptitiously, she touched the moonstone charm swinging against her breast. The movement drew her guardian’s hawklike gaze. No doubt wary she’d slip away, Beltran hadn’t left her side for an instant as they followed Lady Elizabeth through the wood. Now his gloved hand claimed he
r bridle, easing Astolat to a walk. Gradually, they fell behind Sir Henry and his guards.
Rhiannon slanted him a cautious glance, the cross-hilted broadsword jutting over his shoulder—an unnecessary reminder of his Church allegiance. So close he towered over her, his black-cloaked form blocking out half the sky, cropped head bare in the misting rain that drifted across the green.
His keen eyes searched her upturned features. Eyes as shattering blue as a midsummer sky, possibly the bluest eyes she’d ever seen. Looking into them made her strangely breathless—even when the great winged Presence that shadowed him was seemingly absent.
“My lady,” he said flatly, “it seems we’re obliged to break our journey here. Once Sir Henry and his cronies learn your circumstance, you’ll be made...uncomfortable.”
“Will they chain me in their dungeons like a criminal?” Determined to know the worst, Rhiannon lifted her chin. Secretly, the prospect made her quail, but she would never let him know it.
He hesitated, and her heart plummeted. “They’ve no tolerance for strangers now. Whatever sympathy for you our Protestant hostess may feel, she’s under close scrutiny, with more damning details of this Dudley plot against the Queen coming to light every day. They say Elizabeth’s in it to her ears. One misstep, and they’ll toss her back in the Tower. This time, she’ll meet her mother’s fate.”
Rhiannon shivered at the thought of imprisonment behind cold gray walls—the grimmest punishment imaginable for her, whose greatest solace and sanctuary from her mother’s narrow-minded court had always been the wild wood.
“I would do nothing to harm Lady Elizabeth, sir. Whatever they do to me here, I’ll say not a word against her.”
Clearly, her assurance did nothing to placate him. His proud golden head turned to search the rain-swept hedges marching stiffly beside them. No doubt the weather kept them all indoors, whoever dwelled here in exile with the princess, the deer park and gardens deserted and desolate around them.
“I’ll have your vow,” he said suddenly, drawing his dagger.
“My lord?” She cast the steel blade a wary glance—hard steel, thrashing serpent, haloed warrior spearing it into hell. Any proper Fae would be shrinking from the thing. Yet she couldn’t believe he meant to harm her. He could have killed her last night while she slept, or a dozen times since, if he’d wanted that.
“I’ll have your word of honor you’ll not attempt another trick like last night’s.” Voice hard and impatient, he scanned the rows of windows staring down on them. Already Lady Elizabeth had flung herself from the saddle, seemingly heedless of her hovering guards. “Give me your oath, by whatever you hold sacred, that you won’t try to escape. Then I’ll let you walk free beneath this roof.”
Judging by the scowl that darkened his rugged features, Beltran made the offer against his own better judgment. Was it a kind impulse—like the surprising compassion he’d shown the dying bandit, at odds with his unyielding mien—or more of the cold, correct courtesy he’d shown her all along? Indeed, harsh and judgmental though she found him, she could have fared far worse, stumbling alone and unguarded upon an armed man in the forest, with all a mortal man’s hungers.
Such mishaps befell women in the mortal realm. Her sister had taunted her with it.
Rhiannon shivered beneath her damp mantle, but met his gaze steadily. “You have my word as the daughter of the Dreaming King, whose honor is legend among my people and thine. I shall not seek to escape thy vigilance while I rest beneath this roof.”
His eyes searched hers for any sign of treachery, but she’d spoken true. She knew no better oath than her father’s famous honor. Though the Fae could be treacherous, they too were bound by certain laws. If a Faerie swore an oath, she stood by it, though they might weave their words with a loophole.
No doubt of it, his eyes were steadfast blue as a mountain lake. The fine lines of hardship etched in his tanned brow, the mortal years that lay upon him merely added strength and determination to his chiseled features. If ever he gave his word, she thought suddenly, he too would honor it.
“Very well.” He jerked a nod. “Let’s have your hands.”
When she extended them, he reined close against her. His knee brushed her thigh, making her tingle. When he gripped her forearm to steady her, warmth pulsed between her thighs. She marveled at the novel sensations, wondered if they were part of the strange magick he wielded. His big hands were impersonal, strong and hard as the rest of him, not ungentle as he laid the dagger against her bonds. With one swift motion, he sliced through them.
As his cloak swirled around her, the rich aroma of frankincense filled her head; his garments and skin were rich with it, laced with the cold tang of steel. Again she shivered, thankful for the silver warding rings on her fingers. Thankful, for once, for her mortal blood.
As she trembled beneath his touch, he shot her a swift glance. Gold-tipped lashes dropped over his eyes as they swept the exposed swell of her breasts, laced tight against her bodice, where her skin was pebbled with goosebumps.
“You’re cold,” he said gruffly. “You’ll soon have fire and a hot meal.”
“Oh, yes,” she agreed fervently.
Still he gripped her arm. Now, as though involuntarily, his gloved hand rose to trace the bare skin of her collarbone. One finger slid down the fragile ridge of bone to the vulnerable hollow of her throat, where her pulse jumped. Shivers raced across her skin, hardened her nipples to pebbles against her chemise.
Abruptly, he reined away, jaw hard as he stared straight ahead. “Step carefully here, my lady. This household will be thick with the Queen’s spies—fervent Catholics all. Utter one of your heretical assertions in the wrong ear, and you’ll find yourself locked in a cell for Bishop Bonner’s personal attention.”
His brusque warning dissolved the fog of strange and wondrous sensations like a knife slicing through cobwebs.
“And see that you honor your word,” he said grimly. “If you flee, I’ll hunt you down like a wolf with a rabbit. Never doubt that for a moment.”
Abruptly he spurred his white stallion forward, toward the waiting guards—and left Rhiannon staring after him, cold with foreboding.
Chapter Five
When Beltran strode into the banqueting hall, he was simmering. After abandoning his prisoner reluctantly to a tiring-woman, he’d bathed quickly, just in time for prayers in the Hatfield chapel at Sext.
Yet Rhiannon le Fay hadn’t appeared. When he returned after psalms to collect her for dinner, the lady wasn’t in the chamber allotted to her.
Now he braced to find he’d been made a fool by a mere slip of a girl, that she’d cheerfully broken her oath and slipped away. If she had, he vowed darkly, he’d hunt her down and bring her to ground if it took him a year to do it. He had his orders from Rome and the Archbishop was waiting, but the English Inquisition was rolling briskly along beneath the combined enthusiasm of Mary Tudor and Spanish Philip, with little encouragement needed from Beltran.
Striding into the hall, therefore, he was fully prepared to turn Hatfield House inside out to find his wayward charge. If Elizabeth’s grooms had taken his money but defied his orders and let Rhiannon and her mare vanish into the forest, he swore heads would bloody well roll for it.
As a king’s daughter and a queen’s sister, Elizabeth Tudor should keep a splendid estate. Indeed his mentor, the Cardinal, scorned her extravagance. But this princess was in deep disgrace, immured under guard in this
remote country manor since her release from the Tower of London under a cloud of suspicion. They were still seeking evidence to behead her.
Beltran had a keen nose for sniffing out mischief, and the odor of treason tainted these halls like a miasma.
Perhaps that explained why the great hall stood abandoned, only a handful of whispering courtiers clustered anxiously beneath the coffered ceiling, huddled for warmth before the roaring hearth-fire. Protestants all, no doubt—and likely to find themselves much closer to those flames than is healthy for them, if Philip and Mary have their way. Though it’s my way too, isn’t it? I’m sworn to support this bloody business.
His nostrils flared. These fearful heretics knew who he was, no doubt of it. Under the acrid bite of wood-smoke and cloying perfume, he smelled the sour sweat of Lutheran fear.
Still, danger hadn’t taught decorum to these ladies, breasts white and plump as pillows in their low-necked finery, waists pinched cruelly in their tight-laced stomachers. He steeled himself not to see the blatant invitation in those gleaming eyes and met their murmured offers with cold silence. For a man with his unsavory reputation, the softer sex seemed uncommonly fond of flaunting their charms before him.
He was only a man, after all, flesh and blood driven by a man’s hunger. The holy fits of madness that seized him had done nothing to change that.
Today, though, he saw no one else, gaze drawn like a magnet to the leaded glass window where a lady stood, slim and graceful in leaf-green sarcenet, one hand lifted so her fingers touched the glass. An errant beam of sunlight gilded the curls swept decorously beneath her flat hood, and edged her delicate profile with light. Framed by the high elegant collar of her gown, her white throat was supple as a swan’s. Cone-shaped skirts swept from her narrow waist to brush bottle-green slippers.
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