Lords of Conquest Boxed Set

by Patricia Ryan

  “Right over there.” Hugh pointed through the crowd toward his sister, sitting on a tree stump, her chin in her hand, her eyes closed. One sleeve was still rolled around her arm; the other dangled in the grass. Her linen veil was askew, one of the pins that secured it having come loose. And on top of it all, she was in her stocking feet.

  Robert shaded his eyes as he studied her. Chuckling, he said, “She was that way as a girl, wasn’t she? Something always a bit undone.”

  All Robert knew of Joanna since he’d last seen her years ago was that she’d married a silk trader who’d died. He professed not to care that Joanna had married beneath her. His primary concern was finding a good mother for his children.

  It seemed odd to think of Robert as a widower with two daughters. Although he was three years Hugh’s senior, his boyish face and close-cropped sandy hair made him look younger. And, too, there was a rather appealing unworldliness about him, with his devotion to the land and deep-rooted sense of right and wrong. In many ways, he was Hugh’s complete opposite; strange that they’d become such fast friends.

  “I thought you were going to bring your girls,” Hugh said, looking about. “Where are they?”

  “Over there somewhere.” Robert pointed toward the food vendors, whose booths were next to those of the foreign merchants. “Margaret’s buying them some sweetmeats.”

  Hugh frowned. “Your cousin Margaret?”

  “Aye. She came to Ramswick to take care of the girls after Joan and Gillian died. I thought you knew.”

  “Nay—she wasn’t there when I came to visit you.”

  “She’d taken the girls to London that day. Well—are you going to reintroduce me to your lovely sister?”

  Hugh brought Robert over to Joanna. “Are you awake, sister?” he asked with a tug on one of her braids.

  Without opening her eyes, she muttered, “Bugger off.”

  Jesus have mercy.

  Robert said, “‘Twould be a grievous disappointment to me if you made us bugger off, my lady.”

  Her eyes flew open. “Oh! L-Lord Robert?”

  He bowed. “A pleasure to make your acquaintance again, Lady Joanna.”

  She bolted to her feet, hastily smoothing down her gown and rearranging her veil. On the pretext of helping her, Hugh slid the other pin out and snatched the point-less thing off her head.

  “Hugh!” She reached for it, but he stuffed it in his purse.

  “‘Tis a sin to cover hair as beautiful as yours.”

  “A mortal sin, my lady,” agreed Robert.

  Joanna glared beneath her lashes at her brother as she slid her feet back into her slippers.

  “Papa! Papa!” A tow-headed little girl in a billowing white kirtle came running up to Robert, arms outstretched.

  He swept her up, grinning. “This is my daughter, Catherine. Catherine, say hello to Sir Hugh and Lady Joanna.”

  The child, who was perhaps five, turned and pressed her face into the crook of her father’s neck.

  Robert made a sound halfway between a groan and a chuckle. “What sticky confection have you painted your face with, then?”

  “Fried fig pasties,” offered a young woman, Margaret, striding up to them with a younger girl—a baby, really—in her arms.

  Robert presented Margaret and little Beatrix to Hugh and his sister. The lady Margaret was much as Hugh remembered her from their youth—comely and pink-cheeked, with warm hazel eyes. Her modest wool tunic and mantle looked like something a widow might wear, but her light brown braids were uncovered; although nearly thirty, she was a maiden, having refused all offers of marriage.

  “You had a fried fig pasty?” Robert asked, taking Catherine by the chin so he could inspect the shiny film on her face.

  She nodded vigorously.

  “May I?” He licked a bit of the sticky residue off her fat cheek; she shrieked with laughter. “Mmm...delicious.”

  The younger child strained in his direction, her chubby arms extended. Robert lowered Catherine to the ground and took the plump little girl from his cousin. His gaze lit on Margaret’s mouth, and he smiled. “You enjoyed the pasty, too, I see.” Settling Beatrix on his hip, he reached out and wiped his thumb just below his cousin’s lower lip. Margaret met his gaze, the pink in her cheeks heating up. They both quickly looked away.

  Joanna cast Hugh a swift, speculative look.

  “Well!” Hugh clapped his hands together, forcing a smile. “Who’d like to take in the horse races?”

  * * *

  “He loves her,” Joanna told Hugh as they strolled past the canopy-shaded tables laden with goods from foreign ports...supple leather shoes from Córdoba, indigo from Jerusalem, glassware from Venice, pelts of sable and ermine and vair from the Northlands...and everywhere, perfuming the air like incense, vast arrays of fragrant spices from remote and wondrous lands.

  “He does not love her,” Hugh said.

  “Have you been watching them this afternoon? The little looks and gestures? Look at them. They look like a family.”

  Robert and his cousin wove through the crowd ahead of them, Beatrix limply asleep on her father’s shoulder, Catherine sucking listlessly on two fingers as Margaret led her by the hand. It was midafternoon, and the children were exhausted.

  “They can never be a family,” Hugh said, pausing to admire a display of rare and costly goods from the Far East—carved ebony, pearls, lapis lazuli, ambergris, musk. “She’s his third cousin.”

  “Third cousins marry all the time,” she said. “So do second cousins.” Although the Church condemned marriage between people related in the seventh degree or closer—sixth cousins—the restriction was widely overlooked. “Is Robert that devout?”

  “His parents are, and Robert is devoted to them.”

  “But if it weren’t for them,” she persisted, “would Robert have married Margaret?”

  Hugh sighed heavily. “They were in love once—a long time ago. They were young. It’s been over for years.”

  Joanna watched Robert guide Margaret to a table overseen by a brown-skinned infidel selling sugar, wax, ivory tusks, paper, and various exotic fruits and nuts. Robert rested a hand on his cousin’s back as he pointed out two little monkeys chattering away in a cage.

  “They live under the same roof,” Joanna said.

  Hugh shrugged. “You live under the same roof with Graeham.”

  Her cheeks stung. “‘Tisn’t the same. The serjant and I...we would never...”

  “And neither would Robert and Margaret. Even if he were still in love with her, he has too much honor to compromise her, knowing he could never marry her.”

  “Couldn’t he get a papal dispensation?”

  “About eleven or twelve years ago, he petitioned the Roman curia, but they turned him down. He and Margaret were heartbroken, but they got over it. He allowed his parents to betroth him to Joan, and he was a good husband to her.”

  “He should have wed Margaret without the pope’s blessing.”

  “He was content with Joan.”

  “Some people have the gift of persevering in the face of adversity,” Joanna said, echoing what Graeham had told her about herself. “One makes the best of a bad situation. But he should have married Margaret.”

  “Perhaps, but that’s all in the past.” Hugh took Joanna by the shoulders and bored his gaze into hers. “He wants to remarry, Joanna. This could be a wonderful opportunity for you.”

  “You told me he’s remarrying because his children need a mother. But they’ve already got Margaret, and they seem to adore her—as does he. Why should he feel compelled to replace her with a wife?”

  Hugh shrugged. “I don’t know. He is a man, after all, with a man’s needs. Does it really matter? He wants a wife, and he seems willing to consider you. He’s a good man, of noble blood, with an important holding. He’d make you a wonderful husband. Don’t discourage him just because you fancy he’s still in love with Margaret. That’s over and done with.”

  Up ahead, Robert
transferred the sleeping Beatrix to Margaret’s shoulder and gave some coins to the infidel merchant, who plucked three oranges from the pile on his table and handed them over. Stepping back, Robert tossed the oranges into the air and juggled them as expertly as any jongleur, to the evident enchantment of his cousin, who rewarded him with laughter and praise. Catherine chortled sleepily, one arm wrapped around Margaret’s legs, those two fingers still firmly lodged in her mouth.

  Robert grinned with pride in response to Margaret’s delight. Never once did he look in Joanna’s direction.

  Chapter 11

  Graeham spent the day contemplating his idiocy while keeping a halfhearted watch on Rolf le Fever’s house.

  Late in the morning, the shutters over the solar window opened. Graeham sat up in bed, his ribs smarting. Those shutters had been closed since he’d been there, but it was, after all, an unusually warm day. The maidservant Aethel stood at the window, running a rag over the sill as she chatted to someone—her mistress?—over her shoulder. She walked away from the window, and for a short while Graeham saw nothing but part of the paneled walls and raftered ceiling of the solar.

  Presently Aethel reappeared, shaking her head and gesturing toward the window. She clasped her hands in prayerlike supplication, smiling in a pleading way toward the room’s other occupant. Finally, with an expression of resignation, she pulled the shutters closed.

  Graeham watched and waited, but the solar window did not reopen. At nones he shuttered the alley window. Olive arrived at the le Fever house with her tonic and left, after which he unshuttered the window, needing all the fresh air he could get in this heat.

  Eventually he sank back onto his bolster of pillows and resumed his pitiless self-chastisement, uninterrupted by human contact, for neither Thomas nor Leoda happened by that afternoon. More likely than not, Leoda was plying her trade at the Friday fair. Graeham smiled, recalling how he and the other boys used to linger at the fair until late afternoon, when the whores began circulating. They were easy to spot, with their painted faces and brazen dress. The boys would whisper together about the things these women did for money in the woods nearby. Sometimes the whores would catch them staring, and wink, or beckon them seductively; the boys would turn and scatter like mice.

  Shortly after St. Mary-le-Bow rang vespers, the black and white tom cat, Manfrid, jumped onto the alley window’s deep sill and poked his big head through the bars. He still did that from time to time, as if hoping that Graeham would have disappeared. Joanna once mentioned that the storeroom had been Manfrid’s favorite refuge before Graeham appropriated it.

  On seeing him, Manfrid started backing away. Graeham clicked his tongue and the cat stilled. With slow movements, Graeham reached out to the tray on the chest and lifted a bit of cheese. Holding the crumb toward the animal, he clicked his tongue again.

  Manfrid looked at the cheese, then at Graeham, then again at the cheese. He backed up a step.

  Graeham tossed the cheese onto the floor beneath the window. The cat settled down on the sill and regarded it for some time with an expression of feline wistfulness. At long last, he leapt down, sniffed at the morsel, and ate it.

  Before Graeham could offer him another one, he jumped back onto the sill and disappeared into the alley. Graeham’s disappointment disgusted him. Was he truly so bored and lonely that he craved the company of that pathetic creature?

  The family in the stone house punctuated the tedium by launching into an especially theatrical row, which culminated in the son’s furious departure from the house, accompanied by a slamming door and bellowed epithets.

  In the ringing quiet that followed, Graeham’s thoughts returned to his ill-advised visit from Leoda and its likely ramifications. By the time the low afternoon shadows began merging into twilight, he had convinced himself that Joanna was going to kick him out of her house—and who could blame her?

  The more full the cup, Brother Simon used to say, the more carefully one must carry it. Fortune had smiled on Graeham when Joanna had consented to let him live here. But he’d been careless with his bounty, and now he would surely lose it.

  He would let her keep the four shillings, he decided. It was entirely his fault the situation hadn’t worked out. Joanna had maintained her end of the bargain—and graciously.

  He would miss her.

  “Shit.”

  “That’s a bad word.”

  Graeham turned toward the alley window to find a small, remarkably grimy face staring at him through the bars. It was a boy, judging from his tattered red cap, from which sprouted a few blond wisps. He couldn’t have been more than nine or ten; only his head showed above the windowsill.

  “I suppose it is a bad word,” Graeham admitted, “but I didn’t realize there was a child lurking about to overhear.”

  The boy’s gaze fell on Graeham’s splinted leg. “What happened to you?”

  Graeham shifted on his cot to face the child. “I met some bad men.”

  His young visitor nodded sagely. “There’s lots of bad men in London. You’ve got to keep your wits about you.” Despite his appearance, his speech wasn’t as coarse as that of the lowest classes.

  “Verily. What’s your name, boy?”

  “Adam.”

  “I’m Graeham Fox.”

  “Fox—for your hair?”

  Graeham smiled. “For my cleverness.”

  “‘Tis good to be clever. ‘Tis better to be clever than to be comely. Me mum always told me so.” A hint of melancholy shadowed Adam’s expression.

  “Your mother,” Graeham said quietly, “is she...”

  “We live over in the Shambles,” Adam said quickly, peering this way and that through the bars to get a better look at the storeroom. “Me pa’s a meat butcher. Me mum, too.”

  “Ah.” From the boy’s neglected appearance, Graeham would have taken him for the child of a beggar, or at best a carter—someone of that ilk.

  “Is this where you live, then?” Adam asked.

  “For the present.” Perhaps just until Joanna returned home this afternoon.

  “It looks right cozy.”

  “It is.”

  A noise from the front of the house drew Graeham’s attention. The door opened and Joanna entered the shop, along with her brother.

  A flash of movement and the soft pat of footsteps made him turn back to the alley window. Adam was gone.

  Graeham heard whispers from the direction of the shop. Joanna and Hugh stood very close, conferring together quietly; Graeham wondered if they were discussing him. Hugh did most of the talking, while Joanna contemplated something round and brightly colored that she held in her hand. Hugh’s voice rose; he said something that sounded like, “It’s a good match, Joanna.”

  “Shh!” Joanna looked toward Graeham for the first time; so did her brother. He led her out to the dusky street with an arm around her shoulder and continued his mysterious exhortations. She nodded somewhat grudgingly. He leaned closer and spoke again, gripping her upper arms. “Yes, all right, I’ll think about it,” she said, loudly enough for Graeham to hear.

  Hugh patted her hair—she’d dispensed with her veil, Graeham saw—and kissed her cheek, and left. Joanna watched him walk away, then reentered the shop, locking the door behind her. For one weighty moment her gaze met Graeham’s across the length of the house.

  She came toward him, and his heart beat a little faster, but she merely walked into the salle and placed the object she’d been holding in the middle of the table. It was an orange, Graeham saw. There were two tallow candles in iron holders on the table. She fetched the fire iron and lit them; golden light swept the early evening dimness from the room.

  He took hold of his crutch and hauled himself to his feet. “Mistress Joanna.”

  She looked at him, somewhat apprehensively. Christ, but she was beautiful today, painfully beautiful. If gold could tarnish to a slightly darker shade, but keep its brilliant luster, it would look like her hair. Her gown was the same striking color, givi
ng her the aspect of a statue cast in bronze, save for the womanly softness of her face and hands.

  Graeham limped to the doorway, gripping its frame to help support him. “I’m sorry,” he said softly. She regarded him with such hushed intensity that he had to look down. “I...violated your hospitality.” Tempted to summon clever words to mitigate his transgression, he shook his head. “There are no excuses. I’m sorry.”

  When he looked back up, she was studying her fingertips, resting on the table. “I know that you’re...lonely for female companionship. But this is my home, and—”

  “It was wrong,” he said earnestly, taking a step toward her and capturing her gaze. “It doesn’t matter why it happened. I knew better, but I did it anyway, and now you’re...we’re...” He raked his hair out of his face in frustration. Why did his gift for words flee him in her presence?

  He took another few halting steps in her direction. “Tell me what to say to make it all right,” he implored, abashed at the faltering edge of desperation in his voice, the tightness in his chest. She was going to make him leave. He didn’t want to leave. He wanted to stay here, with her. “Tell me and I’ll say it.”

  She wouldn’t look up.

  “Joanna...”

  She looked up then. He’d never called her by her Christian name before. Her eyes searched his. He didn’t even try to school his features, though he knew he should. Let her look into the empty place inside him, let her see the terrible void. But please, God, don’t let her make me leave.

  Lowering her gaze, she reached out slowly and lifted the orange from the table. Hesitantly she said, “I...got this at the fair. Robert—Robert of Ramswick, a friend of Hugh’s—he gave it to me. I haven’t had one since Montfichet.” A little shyly, she looked at him and asked, “Would you share it with me?”

  The air left Graeham’s lungs in a shaky exhalation; relief galloped through him. She wasn’t going to make him leave. He could stay. “Yes. Yes. Yes, I’d love to share it with you.”

  She smiled tentatively. He grinned like an idiot.

  A knocking came at the back door. “Mistress Joanna! Mistress, it’s me—Olive.”