Lady Gallant (29 page)

"Ahhhh."

"Don't look down your nose at me. Inigo, show her the door."

"He's been choleric and maggoty-headed since he met that Becket gentry mort," Inigo said.

"I have not, you son of a bawdy basket. Get out, both of you."

Mag slipped her arm through Inigo's and nodded. "He's worse the longer he has to wait to get between her legs."

"I'll garrote the pair of you," Christian said. "No. Where's my whip?"

A guffaw from the cutpurse made Christian cast about for something to hurl at his head, but Mag hauled Inigo out of the chamber and slammed the door. Her chuckles intertwined with Inigo's laughs, and Christian vaulted over the table to follow them. His steps faltered before he reached the door.

He had no wish to make himself a spectacle, and the pair of them had joined forces to bait him. Christian knew when to bide his time. Subsiding into a chair, he dragged a heavy tome onto his lap. He turned the pages of the book, forcing himself to translate the Latin. After a while, his hand stole to the pouch at his belt and withdrew the three filigree rings. He was linking them and unlinking them when his body servant came to fetch him to the Earl's chamber.

Anxious, he questioned the man on the way, and was relieved that nothing had happened to his father. He arrived to find the Earl lying in the midst of clothes of violet and silver satin.

Propped up on a mass of pillows, Sebastian was stroking a silver feather in a cap of violet. "There you are," he said to his son. "Hext, get him undressed and into that tub at once."

"What means this?" Christian asked as his man took his arm and led him to a wooden tub.

"It's late, you foolish baggage," Sebastian said, "and we've been searching for you for an hour."

Christian glanced out the window. "It's night."

"You were always a bright child."

"I hadn't noticed."

"I've taken care of everything."

Christian was shoved gently into the tub, and he sank down into the warm water. He'd been musing in that reading room for hours. He was indeed maggoty-brained.

"I ordered this outfit made up yesterday," his father added. "Hurry, Chris."

Feeling that events were getting beyond him, Christian set himself to regaining his composure while body servants readied him. By the time his wits reassembled themselves, he was dressed. He held up his arm. It was encased in violet satin slit with silver. He frowned.

"It's the color of your eyes," the Earl said. "My heir must marry in finery that befits his station, and I wanted you to enchant your delicate lady."

"You're not well," Christian said. "You shouldn't tax your strength with unimportant matters."

"I'm fine. And someone has to take charge. You're not yourself, my headstrong." Sebastian lay back on his pillows. "But I shall rest until time for the Queen to arrive. I have a few minutes."

The servants were tidying the Earl's bedchamber in anticipation of the Queen's presence. A chair of state and canopy were already in place. Christian chewed his lip while he looked at his father, worried that his negligence had cost the Earl badly needed rest. As more candles were lit about the chamber, he heard the voice of his clerk.

"My lord," the man whispered, "the cipher."

The clerk was standing at Christian's elbow, strangling his cap with his hands. His complexion was white splotched with two blotches of red on his cheeks, and his body strained toward his master.

Christian turned away. "Not now."

"My lord, the cipher." The clerk's vice vibrated with suppressed urgency.

Christian sighed. "Follow me."

In his own chamber, Christian held out his hand. The clerk produced a parchment from beneath his robe and handed it to Christian. He shuffled back toward the door, under his master's perplexed eye. Then Christian read what was written on the parchment.

I know not what became of heretics who were in Montfort's house, and they must be found. The Earl still lives.

Christian looked up at the clerk without seeing him. "You're sure of the words?"

"Yes, my lord."

"You may go."

Alone, Christian read the two sentences again and again until the words jumbled together. His brain refused to work. He stood in the middle of his chamber reading each word like a boy at his lesson. He repeated them in a whisper until they drummed a tattoo in his head:
The Earl still lives, the Earl still lives, the Earl still lives
. But for how long?

She was a spy. For the Queen, or for Bonner. Who better to capture a jaded knave like himself than an innocent mouse of an intelligencer? And her pryings and plottings had almost killed his father.

"God's entrails."

Christian squeezed his eyes shut to blot out the smell of his father's blood, the gut-searing helplessness he'd felt as he watched Sebastian waste away before his eyes. She'd been part of it. He wasn't sure how, but she'd known about the heretics, and from the note, it was clear she'd been telling someone else about them.

No wonder she'd planted herself in his house as a nurse. She'd been looking for the heretics and needed an excuse. She had been spying for someone, and that someone had laid a trap that had nearly killed the one person to whom Christian gave his love. His father might still lose his life. Often those severely wounded appeared to recover, only to die suddenly of a fever.

His hands shaking, Christian went to a sideboard and poured a goblet of wine. He wrapped both hands around the bowl of the vessel and stared at a tapestry without seeing it. She'd nearly killed his father, the sniveling bitch. Lying, whining, mewling virgin harpy.

And he was trapped. He couldn't refuse to marry her without inviting the Queen's wrath and suspicion. The maggots in his brain were back, and they chased each other back and forth inside his head, buzzing and stinging until he exploded with rage. A great bellow erupted from his chest and throat, and he flung the goblet across the room. It hit the wall and bounced, clattering its way to rest against the foot of his bed.

Christian stood motionless, legs planted wide apart, fists clenched, chest heaving. Fury at his own stupidity and impotence burned through his awareness, purging him of all schooling, all civility, all restraint. As he cursed his way through every obscenity learned in the stews and alleys of London, he vaguely realized that he had to regain his sanity. And quickly.

The Queen was coming. And with her, Nora. He clung to his bedpost, body hunched, while he fought to master his rage. Eventually he was able to stand erect and release the post. After long moments, a layer of ice flowed over the cauldron of his hatred, wrapping him in a veneer of stability.

He wiped his brow with the back of a trembling hand. Remorse at the pain he'd unwittingly caused his father nearly cost him hard-won control. He shoved the dangerous thought away.

There was no choice. He would have to marry the bitch. Marry the woman who'd nearly killed his father, and might still do so if he wasn't careful. But she wouldn't get the chance, because she would be too busy worrying about whether her husband was going to kill her. And he would kill her.

Imagining his hands wrapped around Nora's throat, he saw himself squeeze and squeeze, saw her face turn purple. No!

"Damn your soul, Nora Becket."

Very well. He couldn't kill her. After all, she had failed. But he would have revenge, and in having it, tear her out of his heart.

Slowly, muscles trembling, breathing ragging, Christian lowered himself to sit on the bed. He fell on his back and covered his eyes with his arm. Words from Catullus spun through his brain.

I hate, I love—the cause thereof

Belike you ask of me:

I do not know, but feel 'tis so,

And am in agony.

God had answered her prayers, but Nora hadn't expected Him to work His will in so fantastic a manner. Yet she was a little ashamed. If she'd been one of King Arthur's knights, she wouldn't have searched for the Holy Grail. Instead she would have sought a living, virile treasure with the temper of a basilisk and the eyes of a summer night. But the treasure didn't know how unworthy she was to capture him. Her birth and thus her self might be tainted, and in any case, she possessed neither beauty, nor great wealth, nor clever wits. It was a perplexity. Why did he want her?

Nora was ensconced in the Queen's barge, packed into a gown more costly than any she'd ever worn. A gift from her troubled mistress, it was of stiff yellow damask that chafed her skin. Already she had scraped her palm on the setting of five diamonds that marched down the front of the bodice. Her hand toyed with another of the gems, which perched above her waist.

Still puzzling over Lord Montfort's attachment to her, she paled at the memory of his last visit. He'd done it again—burst upon her when she thought herself concealed, and almost discovered her secret. She would have to ask Cecil for a new way to pass ciphers when he returned from France. Her heart thumped painfully as she remembered how frightened she'd been when Christian surprised her, and how frantic had been her desire to lure him from the garden. He hadn't noticed, though. He'd been too concerned with declaring his love. And the declaration had caught her unaware.

Had he not kissed her, she could have persuaded him to come away from the garden. The ways of the Lord were unfathomable, for she was sure it was His plan that Christian de Rivers corner her in her secret place and torment her. He'd done it too often.

So she'd found herself teetering on a pinnacle above a sheer drop, swaying between fear of discovery and lust. After he'd sent her away, she'd had no opportunity to sneak back to the garden and assure herself that her cipher was still hidden, for Mistress Clarencieaux had swept her up in preparations for the wedding.

Flustered, that's what Nora was. She'd been caught up in her shock, it had been time to go to the Montforts' house before she knew it. Her daze hardly lifted until she found herself climbing the stairs to the Earl's chambers. On either side of the staircase stood the Montfort retainers. She tried to lift her chin and greet them with a smile, but the feat was beyond her.