Chapter Thirteen
The rain began to fall on Bodiam at twilight. By late evening it had increased to a miserable downpour, effectively canceling the ghost’s midnight performance, much to Kitt and Jobe’s disappointment. Kitt trudged off to his pallet and was soon in deep sleep, no doubt dreaming of the delectable Ivy. Jobe consoled himself by harassing the soaked men-at-arms with his blowpipe. On the other hand, the inclement weather was a relief to footsore Mark. It promised him his first decent night’s sleep since he had arrived at Bodiam. Leading a double life was exhausting. He would visit Belle for a brief moment to make sure the little vixen was safe in her hideaway before he sought his own bed.
Mark’s good intentions flew up the chimney the minute he saw Belle framed in her doorway. Thanks to good meals and restorative sleep, her natural beauty had blossomed. Her unbound golden hair shimmered in the firelight’s glow; its wispy tendrils caressed her cheeks. When she greeted him, her skin flushed becomingly like sunset reflected on virgin snow. The beginnings of a smile tipped the corners of her lush mouth. The wild sapphire of her eyes mellowed when she looked up at him. His gaze wandered past her slender neck to the pale satin skin of her half-hidden breasts. A fierce rush of passion took hold of him.
Belle raised one eyebrow with amusement. “Are you coming inside or merely gaping at me like a marvel at a fair? Should I charge you a ha’penny for the privilege?”
Mark swallowed the hard knot in his throat. What he wanted to do was to sweep her in his arms, kiss her into a half-swoon then lay her on her bed and spend the night making sweet love to this delectable creature. Since he knew that option was an impossibility, he blurted out, “Did you know that there are two men digging up the old storage cellar by the crypt?”
Belle cocked her head. “And so the worm turns again,” she murmured to herself.
Locking the door behind him, Mark mopped his brow. He felt hot and cold at the same time. An ache settled in his loins. He tugged at the hem of his loose thigh-length overcoat and prayed that it covered his growing arousal. He glanced around the room in search of the cat, but for once Dexter was not present. Mark leaned against the chimney hood and attempted to look at ease.
“Does this worm go by the name of Mortimer Fletcher?” he asked. “Jobe overheard his minions speak of a small chest. Have you any idea what it might contain?”
Her eyes darkened. Her mouth curled back as if she tasted a bitter root. “Aye, tis the Cavendish jewel he seeks. I should have guessed his true intent.”
Mark drew in his breath. “Do you speak of your grandmother’s fabulous brooch?” He had seen the Countess of Thornbury wear it on special occasions during the years he had lived under Wolf Hall’s roof.
Belle nodded. “The same.”
He whistled through his teeth. The pigeon’s-egg-sized ruby was worth a kingdom alone, yet an equally impressive teardrop pearl dangled from the gem’s gold setting. He licked his dry lips. “Tis here at Bodiam?” he asked in a hoarse voice.
Again Belle nodded, then she lifted her face to meet his startled look. “Tis mine,” she said softly. The challenge in her tone was clear. “Grandmamma gave it to me as a wedding present.”
Mark opened his mouth to babble something appropriate, but absolutely nothing came out. He wished he had a cup of wine. Even mere water would do.
She stiffened. “I perceive that you are surprised by my grandmother’s generosity,” she remarked with a cold edge in her voice. “No doubt you wonder why on earth she would give a bastard such a precious heirloom when she has two nobly born daughters-in-law.”
“That thought never crossed my mind,” he lied. He flashed her a friendly smile, but Belle saw through him as if he were made of glass.
“Do not play the fool with me, Sir Mark Hayward,” she stormed. Her fists balled at her sides. “Your face is the mirror of your mind—always has been. I could read you like a book since I was eight and was no longer under the thrall of your so-called superior wit.”
He flinched inwardly at her biting words. As in the past, he retaliated in kind to protect himself. He crossed his arms over his chest. “Very well, Mistress Cavendish. Since you are so brilliant, pray enlighten my dull brain. Why did my lady Countess bedeck you with her treasure?”
A scarlet blush stained her cheeks. She blinked her eyes several times in rapid succession. Mark immediately regretted the visible hurt he had inflicted. Before he could beg her forgiveness, she snapped, “Because the good Countess is a bastard herself.”
Mark felt as if he had been gut-punched. He flopped into the chair by the hearth. “Never!” he breathed. Lady Alicia was the most noble woman he had ever known.
Belle sneered at his disbelief. “How now, jolt-head? What did you mutter? That I lie? Ha!” She snapped her fingers under his nose. “Do you think for one fleeting moment that I would besmirch my good grandmother’s reputation to you for the sole pleasure of seeing you goggle and gasp like a beached salmon?”
Mark grabbed her hand. Despite her lively resistance, he pressed it to his lips and kissed her whitened knuckles. “Nay, chou-chou, pray pardon my poor manners. I am a jackass of the first magnitude.” When she slowed her struggle against him, he caressed her hand again.
Belle rubbed the side of her nose. “I am not won by your rabbity lips,” she retorted, though her shoulders relaxed.
Mark turned her hand over and planted another kiss on the soft skin at her pulse point. “And I do not seek to buy you,” he replied, searching for some glimmer of forgiveness in the blue fire of her eyes. “You are not a woman to be set out in the marketplace, but a jewel bestowed upon only the most fortunate.”
She snorted. “Don’t you ever grow tired of hearing yourself prattle? How many women have you whispered that endearment to?”
He drew her closer to his side. “None, and that is God’s own truth.” He gave her another smile. “Tis not my habit to insult a member of the fair sex. Will you forgive my words? If they were written down on a piece of paper, I would tear them into shreds.”
Amusement flickered across her face. “Good quality paper is very expensive,” she remarked.
He grinned. Knowing Belle, this was as close to absolution as she would give him. He gently pulled her into his lap, though he resisted the urge to press his advantage. Belle perched on his knees with her hands folded primly together. She stared into the fire with a faraway look in her eyes.
After a short while, she broke the silence. “I was as shocked as you when Grandmamma told me her secret,” she began in a hollow voice that seemed to reach across a far distance. “Twas the night before my wedding. The whole family was gathered here at Bodiam for the ceremony. When Grandmamma took me into the solar, me-thought she intended to reveal the mysteries of the bedchamber—which I had already learned from years of observation.” She shot him a sidelong glance full of mischief. “I must confess, Marcus, your amorous antics were particularly educational.”
Mark groaned, but had the good sense not to press her for dates, places or partners. He really didn’t want to hear the history of his misspent youth fall from Belle’s sweet lips.
She continued. “Instead, Grandmamma handed me a blue velvet bag. When I opened it, I could not believe my eyes. My wonderment increased a hundredfold when she told me that her beautiful brooch was mine to keep. I…I wept.” Belle chewed her lower lip.
Mark shifted her a little closer to his chest. So would I, he thought, though not for the same reason.
“When I told her that I could not possibly take it…because of my birth, she smiled and shook her head. Then she told me that she too was a bastard. At first, me-thought she teased me to take my mind off the day to come. Instead she told me the most marvelous tale how her father had been a great nobleman of the land while her mother was the wife of a goldsmith. Her mother disappeared after giving birth, but her father put Grandmamma into the safekeeping of his brother. He in turn gave her to another goldsmith and his wife to rear. The brooch was her father�
�s dowry for Grandmamma.”
Mark tried to imagine what the gruff old Earl of Thornbury must have thought the first time Lady Alicia told this tale and showed him the mind-boggling gems.
Belle softened. “Grandmamma told me that when my father brought me home, she knew exactly to whom she would pass on her brooch. She said we were much alike and needed to stick together.” Belle turned to look fully into Mark’s eyes. “Can you even begin to guess how much her words meant to me?”
He nodded. “More than the price of the ruby and pearl, I expect,” he replied. “And did you wear the brooch when you married Cuthbert?”
She tossed her head. “Aye, and his eyes nearly popped right out of their sockets. In fact, he did nothing for the rest of our wedding day but ogle the jewel.” Her eyes narrowed. “And so did his brother now that I think of it.”
Mark slipped his arm around her tiny waist. How delectable she was! “Mortimer?” he asked, though he knew the answer.
“And Griselda too. The whole Fletcher clan practically slobbered down my bodice.” She wrinkled her nose.
“Obviously an ill-mannered family,” he remarked. If I had been your bridegroom, I would have dispensed with your gown and kissed your sweet paps. And ogled the brooch on another day.
She nodded. “Exactly what I thought. When the time came for me to withdraw to the bedchamber, I made a little detour.” A secret smile ruffled her lips. “The Cavendish jewel went into hiding and there it has remained. It nearly drove poor Cuthbert to distraction trying to guess what I had done with it. Twas a jest to tease him about it.” She gave a small sigh. “I suppose I would have told him eventually—but he died.”
Prudence restrained Mark from inquiring the jewel’s current whereabouts. Instead, he mused, “This must be the real reason why Mortimer dismissed your servants and why he is so anxious to possess the castle. Only today, he confessed to me how much he hated living in the country.”
Belle applauded him. “Bull’s eye, Mark! The man does not care a dented groat for this wonderful old home—only for the brooch. In faith, I wish there truly was a real Black Knight who would protect Bodiam from Mortimer’s foul designs! Instead there is only me.”
Mark traced her lips with his fingertip. “You forget that you have us to help you now.” He chuckled in the back of his throat. What enticing lips she had! How close they hovered to his! A little kiss would not be out of place.
“Ah, chou-chou, what a piece of work you are! Not only did you inherit your mother’s beauty but also your father’s quick wits as well.” He lifted her chin to kiss her.
Belle shook him hard by the shoulders. “My mother? How on earth do you know what she looked like?”
Mark heaved a sigh of regret for his missed opportunity. “Because I met her,” he replied peevishly. “And she was a lot nicer than you are!”
Belle blinked at him, her face a picture of confusion. “You must have been a baby at the time,” she insisted.
Mark rested his head against the back of the chair. “Twas June of 1520. I was seven and had been fostered at Wolf Hall for less than a month. Sir Brandon and your uncle were created knights on the feast of Saint George and the old earl gave me to your father as his page boy. Since he had no squire, Sir Brandon told me that we would grow to learn our duties together.”
Belle said nothing. Instead, she slipped off his knee and knelt down on the hearth where she studied the low flames. Mark yawned. The sleep he had eluded all day finally caught up with him. He eyed Belle’s bed, not with lustful intentions but with an overwhelming desire to stretch himself out on its inviting mattress. When Belle gave no indication that she noticed him, Mark eased himself down on top of her blankets. He would rest his eyes for just a minute while he gathered his strength to crawl back to his own chamber. The feather pillow welcomed his head.
“Mark?” Belle’s soft voice intruded in his half dreams.
“Hmm?” he replied.
The mattress shook as she lay down beside him. “Tell me about my mother. Please,” she added as an afterthought.
Mark rubbed his eyes and tried to compose his answer.
“What did your father tell you?” he hedged. He yawned again.
Belle rubbed the side of her nose. “Not much. When I was little, methought his silence indicated his great sorrow for her death. Of course, I had presumed that they were legally wed.”
He detected the bitterness in her voice. “When did you learn otherwise?”
“Two summers ago, when King Henry commanded the family to come to court for his wedding to Catherine Howard. I remember how unusually hot the weather was.”
Mark did a quick mental calculation. “You must have been nineteen.” Why had Brandon waited so long to tell her the truth?
She nodded. “Before we left Wolf Hall, Grandmamma took me aside. She said that there would be many people at court who knew the story of my parentage.”
Mark agreed. Brandon Cavendish had been a shining light during the heyday of Great Harry’s glittering court in the 1520s. As both his page and later squire, Mark had reveled in his lord’s popularity. It was a memorable day at Hampton Court when the curly-haired souvenir of Brandon’s youthful fling with a French vintner’s daughter arrived unannounced in the middle of a royal summer’s-day frolic.
Two French nuns from a convent located outside of Rheims appeared in the Great Hall armed with a two-year-old cherub and asked for a nobleman by the name of Brandon Cavendish. The whole court erupted in roars of laughter when the holy women of Mother Church presented the speechless rake with his daughter, LaBelle Marie Cavendish. Mark, then a feckless ten-year-old, had joined in the universal merriment.
Belle thumped him on his chest. “Tell me all, Mark. I don’t even know her name.”
He instantly snapped wide awake. Blast you, Brandon! This tale should have been your office, not mine. “Yvette,” he replied, picking his words with care. “She was French.”
Belle played with his wrist laces. “So Grandmamma told me. She said I was conceived during the great fortnight when the French king met our king on the Field of Cloth of Gold.”
“Aye.” Mark closed his eyes and conjured up the images of that magnificent event from his memory. “Twas a time of feasting, tournaments, great displays of pageantry, fine clothes and non-stop merriment. Heady stuff for a small boy, I assure you.”
Belle snuggled next to him. “Grandmamma said that Papa and Uncle Guy were the best jousters there, besides King Henry of course. She told me that they won dozens of prizes.”
And dozens of women as well. Roosters in the henhouse—both of them. The Cavendish brothers, flushed with their youth, vigor and unusual good looks, made conquests at every turning. It was no wonder that the sixteen-year-old Yvette was swept off her feet and into Brandon’s tent.
“Can you remember what she looked like?” Belle whispered.
Mark put his arm around her and pillowed her head on his shoulder. “Methought she was the most beautiful woman I had ever met in my life.”
“Cross your heart and hope to spit?” Belle murmured.
Mark smiled. “Truly. I remember that her golden hair hung down to her waist when it was unbraided. She smelled good—like lavender and honey. And her laughter reminded me of silver bells tinkling in the breeze. She was warm, kissed me a lot and called me un petit chou-chou.”
Propping herself on her elbow, Belle stared at him. “But that’s what you’ve always called me. My mother said that?”
Until that moment, Mark had never considered why he had chosen that nickname for Brandon’s little French waif. “Aye, twas lodged in my memory, I expect. I also recall that your mother stuffed me with sweetmeats. I liked that part best of all.”
Belle drummed her fingers on his buttons. “You haven’t changed much since then.” She paused, then asked with a light tone, “Did Papa love her?”
Mark swallowed. How could a seven-year-old tell the difference between love and lust? “He gave her pretty gifts and
squired her about the English camp just as if she was the grandest lady there.”
“But she wasn’t a real lady, was she?” Belle prodded. “She was just a commoner?”
Mark wished he could tell her that her mother had been of royal birth instead of a barefoot country wench. “She came from a fine merchant’s family in Calais,” he muttered quickly. “But I thought she had descended from heaven,” he added. How he had idolized her then!
Belle polished the nearest button with her thumb. “If Papa loved her so much, why didn’t he bring her back to England when the royal meeting was concluded?”
I was afraid you would ask that question. Mark ran his tongue over his dry lips. Noblemen never married common lightskirts.
“Your father didn’t know that she was pregnant with you or I am sure he would have,” he stumbled through his reply. “Besides, methinks her family objected,” he added throwing his caution to the wind. I have spun enough tales this fortnight to roast me for a thousand years. What is one more now?
“Ah,” she said, more to herself than to Mark. She polished another button. “Then how did Papa find me?”
You found him. Mark considered a number of answers but decided to stick close to the truth. No telling what Belle might have learned during her short stay at court.
“Your mother gave birth to you in a convent near Rheims. The good nuns knew that your father was a member of King Henry’s court and Yvette had told them his name.”
“Before she died,” Belle inserted.
Before she walked out the door without a backward glance and left you to fend for yourself. Mark ignored her question. “The holy sisters had few resources. It took them nearly two years to locate your father.”
She twirled a lock of her hair around her finger. “I was told by a goodly number of courtiers that my first appearance before King Henry was the grandest jest of the season.”
Mark closed his eyes. Forgive me, sweet Belle, but I laughed louder than all the rest on that fateful day. “Twas no laughing matter for your father. By my troth, I have never seen a man grow so besotted as Sir Brandon did the first time he laid an eye on you.”
Halloween Knight Page 15
