By Arrangement

by Madeline Hunter

  He had visited Westminster on Monday and almost gone to that apartment. He felt pulled there, and only a long inner debate had kept him away. Let her come to me, he had decided. Either on her own or for the wedding. He had stuck to that resolve until last night, when Oliver had appeared late at the house with some news. And then he had known that he couldn't wait for her to come any longer.

  He dried himself as he went back upstairs to dress. But for the early arrival of that ship from Spain and its cargo of carpets, he would have spared her this cost to her pride. He had planned to fetch her from Westminster this morning, and only this work had delayed him. She had come to him first, however. A small gift to him from Lady Fortune. It was better for Christiana this way, too.

  He went back downstairs. He could see a bit of red near the entrance of the shoproom. She had already reclaimed her cloak. Andrew's body stretched casually against the threshold, his foot resting across the space on the opposite jamb. He hadn't blocked the way with a sword exactly, but the red cloak could not pass.

  He walked toward them and Andrew looked up in a meaningful way. Dropping his leg, he let the cloak ease into the passageway, right into David's arms.

  “You are ready to go then?” David asked.

  “Go?” she asked, flustered by his sudden presence.

  “We will go to the house. John Constantyn is coming for dinner but first we need to get some salve for the cat scratches. They might make you ill if you aren't careful.”

  She smiled weakly. “Your house …aye, I would like to see it.”

  There had been the possibility, small but real, that she had come to ask for the annulment. He allowed himself one breath of relief that the request would not come and that he would not have to refuse it.

  “How did you get here?”

  “My horse is in the alley, I think. Morvan brought me. He comes back in three hours or so.”

  Interesting. “We will walk. Let me tell the boys to bring the horse.”

  He went back into the shop and gave the apprentices instructions, then returned to her. He guided her up the lane with his arm about her shoulders, enjoying her warmth beside him and the feel of her arm beneath his hand.

  Nothing could hide in this sunlight and he studied her face. She looked as exquisitely beautiful as ever, but subtle changes were apparent. He knew her face well, had memorized its details and nuances, and could read the anguish of the last days in it.

  She turned her head and her sparkling eyes regarded him. He saw a change in those dark diamonds as well. Their glitter had dimmed very slightly, as if one facet of trust and innocence had dulled.

  I will obliterate your memory of him.

  She kept glancing at him and parting her lips as if she planned to speak. Finally the words poured out.

  “You were right. About Stephen. He is betrothed as well. An old match. But you knew that, didn't you? You knew on Thursday that I would hear of it soon.”

  How long before she could read him as clearly as he did her? She was by nature intelligent and perceptive. The girl often misunderstood what she saw, but the woman would not.

  “I knew.”

  “Why didn't you tell me?”

  “It was not for me to do so.”

  “You knew before the court. Even his uncle only heard that morning.”

  “Merchants and pilgrims arrive every day from the north. They bring gossip and news.”

  “You were asking them?”

  “Aye.”

  “I feel like an idiot,” she said forcefully. “You must think women are fools and that I am one of the worst.”

  “I do not think that. And if it makes you feel like an idiot, let us not speak of it.”

  They turned onto the lane with his house. She stopped and turned to him. Her brow puckered as she looked in his eyes.

  “Will you tell me now? Why you marry me?”

  He glanced away from her confused curiosity. Sore and wounded, she thought she had nothing to lose from blunt questions and frank answers. How would she react if he told her the truth?

  What was the truth?

  It had been weeks since he had thought about the bizarre bargain that had given her to him. In his mind, Edward's story had become real, and the license and its payment the deception. He had indeed seen her and wanted her and offered a fortune for her. The money had been for her and the license had become the gift and not the other way around. If the King tomorrow demanded another thousand pounds to let him keep her, he would pay it without a second thought.

  He wanted her. Not for one night or a few months. He did not think of her that way and never had. Perhaps the inevitable permanence of marriage had woken this deeper desire in him. He wanted her body and her soul and her loyalty and her joy. He did not question why he wanted her. It just was.

  “I marry you because I want to,” he said.

  CHAPTER 9

  THE GATE TO the courtyard stood open. She paused in the passageway and then walked bravely into the sunny yard full of laughing women and fluttering cloth. Two large tubs stood side by side, one over a low fire.

  Laundry day.

  David strolled into the melee. A thin old woman with a kerchief on her hair hustled in their direction. He embraced the crone and kissed her cheek.

  “They said you was out for a shipment, and I didn't expect to see you,” the woman said, smiling.

  “Slow down so you can have dinner with us, Meg,” he said. “John is coming.” He turned and pulled Christiana forward. “This is Christiana, Meg. My wife.”

  Meg peered at her with filmy eyes. Her toothless mouth gaped in a grin. “A beauty, David.” She winked at Christiana. “Watch yourself. He's been nothing but trouble and mischief since he could walk.”

  David led Christiana away. “You and the women will stay, Meg. I will tell Vittorio.”

  Christiana followed him into the hall. “The laundress Meg has known you a long time,” she said as she took in the large chamber's furnishings. Nice chairs. A handsome tapestry. Beautiful copper sconces to hold the wall torches.

  “My mother worked for her when I was a child.”

  A middle-aged woman opened a door at the far end, and tumultuous sounds of pots banging and male cursing poured out at them. The plump woman carried a stack of silver plates in her arms. She looked Christiana up and down. David introduced her as Geva, the housekeeper. Geva smiled, but Christiana saw criticism in her sharp gray eyes.

  David pushed open the door to the kitchen attached to the side of the hall. “And this is Vittorio.” He gestured to a rotund, round-eyed man barking accented orders to a girl and man who assisted him. Worktables laden with knives and chopped food lined the room, and copper pots hung in the immense hearth. Vittorio bent his head to one of the pots, sniffed, and raised his thick black eyebrows in an expression of reluctant approval.

  “Vittorio,” David called.

  The fat man straightened and looked over. “Ah! La ragazza! La sposa!” he announced to the assistants. They stopped their chores and smiled greetings.

  He clasped his hands effusively. “Finalmente! Signorina Christiana, eh? Beautiful name. Bellissima, David.” He made a comical look of approval.

  “Lady Christiana will dine with us, Vittorio. And Meg and her women as well.”

  Vittorio nodded. “Si, si.” He turned back to the kitchen and gestured for the assistants.

  David took her into the building across from the gate. She knew from her last visit that the solar was upstairs, but he led her past the steps to a simple bedchamber. “I will have Geva get the salves,” he explained before leaving.

  She removed her cloak. This chamber held some items of a personal nature. A simple cloak hung on a wall peg. A silver comb lay on a table. She sat on the bed and waited for Geva.

  It was David who returned, however, and not the housekeeper. He carried a bowl of water and a rag and a small jar. He placed them on the table.

  His long fingers pushed aside the shoulder of her surcoat. She gl
anced down at that hand and the scratches it uncovered. He moved to her other side and began unlacing the back neckline of the sleeveless outer garment. She glanced up at him in surprise.

  “The salve will stain it,” he explained, gesturing for her to stand and helping her to step out of it. The intimacy of the simple, practical action unsettled her.

  “Is this Geva's chamber?”

  The neck of her cotehardie was cut low and broad and exposed the scratches. He dipped a rag in the water and began wiping the little streaks of blood from her skin. “Geva lives in the city with her family and comes by day. This was my mother's chamber. She was David Constantyn's housekeeper for ten years before her death. He met her through Meg. She did laundry here with the others, and when his housekeeper died he gave her the position.”

  “And later made you his apprentice?”

  “Aye.”

  He carefully cleaned the scratches on the back of her shoulder. She tried to ignore his closeness and the attention he gave his ministrations. She noticed again the objects on the table. They seemed to still hold something of the dead woman's presence.

  He picked up the jar. “Don't worry. You are not intruding on a shrine. This chamber is used by visitors.”

  He soothed some of the salve over the scratches, and she sat very still with the warmth of his fingertips on her skin and the slight sting of the medicine in the sores. She lifted her gaze and saw him looking down at her. She thought that she knew that look.

  She had better explain why she had come. Soon. They needed a place to talk alone, but not here in this room.

  “Is there a garden?” she asked, rising.

  He lifted her cloak to her shoulders. “This way.”

  The garden stretched behind the building and the kitchen. A high wall enclosed it. It was barren now except for some hedges and ivy, but she could tell that in summer it would be lush. Flower beds, crisscrossed with paths, flowed back to a little orchard of fruit trees. A larger bed near the kitchen would be planted with vegetables.

  “There is a smaller garden back here,” he said, leading her to a door in the wall.

  The tiny second garden charmed her. Ivy grew everywhere, covering the walls and ground and creeping up to form a roof on a small arbor set in one corner. Two tall trees filled the space. In summer this enclosure would be cool and silent. An outer stairway led from the garden to the second level of the building.

  She doubted that she would find anyplace more private than this. “Can we sit down? I need to tell you something.”

  They sat on a stone bench nestled deep inside the ivy covered arbor. Sunlight broke through the dense covering, mottling the shadows with little pools of yellow light.

  She bent over and plucked a sprig of ivy from the carpet at her feet. She nervously pulled the little points off the leaves. Probably best to just plunge in.

  “When we first met, I told you …I indicated that I was not … that Stephen and I had …”

  “That does not matter now.”

  “It does, though. I must explain something.” She tried to remember the exact words that she had rehearsed.

  His voice came low and quiet. “Are you saying that there were others?”

  “Heavens, nay! I did not lie about that. I am trying to say that there was no one, not even Stephen. It seems that I was wrong. I made a mistake.” She thought that she would feel less awkward once it was said. It didn't work that way.

  For a long while he didn't move or speak. She concentrated on pulling the ivy leaves off their branch.

  “It is a difficult mistake for a girl to make, Christiana. Impossible, I would think,” he finally said.

  Saints, but she felt like a fool. “Not if she doesn't know what she is talking about, David.”

  His motionless silence stretched longer this time. She suffered it for a while, and then snuck a glance at him.

  “Are you angry?”

  “You have it backwards. A man is supposed to get angry when he learns of his new wife's experience, not her innocence.”

  “You might be angry if you thought that I lied on purpose. To discourage you.”

  “I don't think that. In fact, what you have told me explains much. When did you realize your mistake?”

  She had assumed that she could just blurt this out and be done with it. She hadn't expected a conversation.

  “Last Thursday night.”

  He stayed silent and she knew that he was remembering the two of them in the wardrobe. His body pressed to hers. That intimate caress. Her cry of shock.

  “I must have frightened you very badly.”

  He regarded her with a warm and concerned expression. He could be a very kind man sometimes. Perhaps he even understood how distressing all of this had been. Maybe …

  “Nay,” he said with a small smile.

  “Nay what?”

  “You are wondering if, under the circumstances, we might put off the wedding or at least that part of it. I think not.”

  She blushed from her hair to her neck. It really was discomforting to have him read her thoughts like that.

  He reached over and lightly touched her hair. “Although, considering this stunning revelation, I probably won't seduce you today as I had planned.”

  She almost gushed relief and gratitude before she caught herself. Her face burned hotter yet. His fingers on her hair and head felt very nice, though. Comforting.

  “Who spoke with you?”

  “I asked Joan.”

  “She is unmarried herself. Are you sure she got it right? That you know what I expect from you?”

  “I doubt that Joan gets much wrong where men are concerned.”

  He laughed. “Aye, I suspect not.”

  Never in her life had she felt this awkward and embar rassed. She wished that someone would come and announce that John Constantyn had arrived.

  “How often were you with him?”

  Dear saints. She stared at her lap, covered now with little bits of ivy leaves and branches. She brushed them off.

  “Just that once. Do not be too hard on him, David. He had reason to believe that I agreed. My misunderstanding of his intentions and actions was boundless.”

  “Were you unclothed?”

  Her mouth fell open. She continued staring at her lap, and as she did, his hand appeared and he placed another sprig of ivy there. The gesture and its understanding of her embarrassment touched her. All the same he waited for her answer. It seemed odd that when he thought her experienced, he had requested no information, but now that he knew her not to be, he wanted these details. She had opened a door and he seemed determined to examine the entire chamber behind it.

  “Partly. He ripped one of my surcoats.” Stephen's carelessness there had assumed a symbolic quality these last few days.

  His hand still gently touched her head, brushing a few feathery hairs away from her temple. “Did he touch you?”

  “We were on a bed together. He couldn't avoid touching me,” she sharply. “I don't want to talk about this. Why do you ask me these things?”

  “So I know how careful I must be with you.”

  She took a deep breath. She realized that there was such a thing as being so embarrassed that it couldn't get any deeper and that she had reached that point. There was a certain freedom in knowing that it wouldn't get any worse.

  “Not the way that you did … last time. Idonia came in first. Just in time, according to her. He touched my breast, though. He hurt me.” It felt good accusing Stephen of that. She had thought at the time that it was the only way.

  “I didn't like it,” she added, honestly remembering her reaction to that crushing body. “I decided that I was one of those women who …who …”

  “Is cold?”

  “Aye. One of those.”

  “We both know that is not so, Christiana. Besides, I do not think that there are many cold women. There are, however, many men who are ignorant, selfish, or impatient. You will find that I am none of those things.”r />
  Deep in her heart, she knew that. It was what kept her from panicking when she thought about this marriage, so inevitable and close now. It was that which had given her the courage to come despite Morvan's warnings of what it might lead to. Still, she was glad that he had decided not to seduce her today.

  She waited for his next question as he touched her in that soothing, vaguely exciting way. Her scalp tingled from the light pressure of his fingers. She gazed at her lap and the destruction she had absently wrought on the second sprig of ivy.

  There were other things that she needed to say. She wanted to tell him that she accepted the marriage. He deserved to hear it after all of the times she had smugly insisted it would never happen. She needed to promise that she would try to be a good wife to him, whatever that meant. She would like to thank him for being so patient with her. She had expected all of those things to be easier to explain than this first admission, but she found now that they were much harder.

  As she groped to phrase these other things and sought the courage to say them, his right hand came into her view and settled on her lap beside her own. He turned it palm up.

  She smiled down at that beautiful hand waiting for her. Her gaze locked on its exciting, elegant strength. No kinsman or priest would join them today, but there was an offer and promise in his gesture far more meaningful than the official betrothal.

  He understood. He was making it easier for her. Today is the real beginning, that hand said.

  Forever. The immensity of it tried to suffocate her for an instant, but she pushed the fear away.

  It was why she had come, wasn't it?

  She placed her own hand in his. Of her own will.

  He pulled gently and lifted her, turning her so that he could set her on his lap. The devastated ivy scattered down her cloak.

  She looked into deep blue eyes full of kindness and warmth. It occurred to her that maybe she didn't have to say anything else at all.