Lady Gallant (4 page)

He adjusted the heavy garment, but the shoulders were far too wide. She vanished into the folds as if he'd dropped her in a privy, and it was then that he noticed how small she was. Snatching the doublet back, he exchanged it for the cloak on his saddle. She pulled it closed around her neck and stared up at him.

The French hood she wore was askew. Christian dragged it from her head with impatience. Long, dark curls tumbled out and rained down her shoulders.

His lips curled into a mockery of a smile. "Oh, Poll, look. It's a starling. No, a magpie, all black and white." He turned away and started toward his horse, snapping orders to Eleanora's two men-at-arms who were unwounded to follow him. Mounting, he walked his horse back to Eleanora Becket. She had picked up her basket and was cradling it in her arms.

"Don't gawk at me, woman. Who else will you ride with?" He swept an arm to indicate the dirty and lewdly joking thieves who were helping her men-at-arms while directing covetous glances at her and her maids. "Give me your hand, or I'll leave you to accommodate my pack of kittens."

A small hand shot out. He grasped it, disturbed at the feel of her delicate bones. Annoyed with his reaction, he hauled the girl up in front of him. She perched there as if she expected him to push her off at any moment. Fastening both hands about her waist, he pulled her back into his lap. It proved to be an error in judgment. A soft, swelling pressure settled over his loins. She wriggled in her embarrassment and ignorance, and with a voice that held the warmth of a snake's hiss, he warned her to be still.

A sudden breeze whipped black curls into his face. Christian swatted at them, and Eleanora twisted around to look up at him. Overly large brown eyes questioned him. He lifted his brows and sneered at her full lower lip. She turned back around, flushing.

Christian called out to Hext and Inigo. "I'm going. Settle things here and follow with the other women."

He kicked his horse into a trot. Eleanora clutched at his arms. Her basket swung out to hit him in the ribs, and he ground his teeth together as something inside it yipped. Two fuzzy heads poked from beneath a cover. Puppies.

He was about to snarl at the two creatures when the wind swirled Eleanora's hair around his face again. He hauled on the reins until his horse stopped. Prying her hands from his arms, he slipped one arm around her waist. The little hands fastened on it, and he realized she was afraid he would drop her. He pried her grip loose, but offered the concession of holding her firmly against him.

"God deliver me from virginal sweetmeats," he muttered. He dragged strands of her hair from his shoulders and face, and his fingers burrowed through curls as soft as the fur on an ermine's belly. He jerked them free as if they had touched a white-hot brand.

Kicking his horse into motion, Christian snapped, "I do so hate black hair."

Nora Becket came awake with a small squeak. It was the call of the watch that had roused her. She unwound herself from the protective curve of Christian de Rivers's body and sat up straight on the horse. Two days of riding with him hadn't made her any more comfortable in his arms.

She had decided it had been divinely ordained that she would be the victim of a robbery, only to be rescued by a young man whose reputation was worse than that of a highwayman. He behaved as if she'd purposely thwarted his plan to skewer that villain with the silly name. For the past two days Lord Montfort had exhibited the fury of a spurned courtesan, and he vented that fury with verbal floggings that made her cringe. Her only comfort lay in the realization that he could reduce even the most false hearted thief or callous dock hand to blancmange. Why did her rescuer have to come in the form of this violet-eyed cobra with the terrible smile? What ill fortune.

Nora comforted herself with the thought that she'd soon be rid of Lord Montfort and back safe in the palace. She might not be an ornament to the court, but Queen Mary was kind to her. And best of all, Nora had found at last a purpose to fill the weary emptiness of her life. Unfortunately, that purpose was likely to get her killed if it were ever discovered.

Her secret was well kept, however. Her current uneasiness rose from the violence of the man who now held her in his impersonal grip. He would have left her to the highwaymen; of this she was convinced. She knew a little of Christian de Rivers from court gossip. He and his father, the Earl of Vasterne, had been attacked by bandits when Christian was eight. The father had been left for dead and the boy taken. The Earl had recovered his son, but not until four years later, and then only by chance. Any young man who had spent that much time among the cut-purses, anglers, and bawds of England would have no qualms about feeding a girl to a pack of thieves. So in a sense, Nora supposed she'd been blessed by God's protection when Edward Hext had insisted she be escorted back to court.

Sitting straight and stiff in front of Lord Montfort, Nora took stock of their surroundings. The sun was dipping below church steeples, and the putrid odor that rose from the muddy road told her they were in London at last. Trying to hold her eyes open against weariness, she did not speak until she noticed that they weren't headed for Whitehall Palace.

"My lord, the palace…"

"Is locked tighter than a chastity belt," he said. "We're going to my house. And don't fret. My father is in residence, so your honor is safe. Not that it wouldn't be, considering the ride I had last night."

Nora pressed her lips closed. She'd learned quickly not to respond to the wasp stings of his temper. It only made him more vicious. So she let pass his reference to the big-breasted tavern maid who had battled off three of her sisters to get to him the evening before. It had been disgusting. They'd fought a mock duel for him.

Letting out an inaudible sigh, Nora contemplated once more the disastrous meeting with Jack Midnight and Lord Montfort, whom the highwayman had called Kit. When her party was attacked, she had been a coward. The fierce strength of the men, the violence and the blood had frozen her wits. She had never been able to stomach cruelty. And when that boy had taken his knives to her, she'd wilted like a rose in a kiln. How mortifying.

If only it hadn't been Lord Montfort who'd come upon them.

He was one of the ornaments of the Queen's court, declared so by Mary herself. And in fact, Lord Montfort held a court within the court, presiding over the raucous, quarrelsome, and dangerous aristocratic youths, who found little to attract them to a middle-aged, fanatically religious woman ruler. Christian de Rivers was unofficial crown prince of pleasure and earl marshal of as ruthless a band of noblemen as any who'd roamed England in the days of the old Plantagenet kings.

And the crown prince was bored with her. Nora knew what he thought of her. The mouse. That was her nickname, given to her by the dashing court ladies and taken up by the gentlemen. She could see him think "mouse" each time he looked at her. To her relief, he didn't look at her often.

They were riding along the Strand, that area of London beside the Thames that was beaded with the jeweled houses of dukes and bishops. Between the two men who rode with them was the boy called Blade, trussed to his horse as if he were a piglet ready for market. He'd tried to escape the first night of their journey. She didn't know what Lord Montfort had done to him when he caught the youth, but Blade had come back pale and trembling, and had not bolted into the night again. Of course, if she'd been hauled back, hands bound and dragged on a tether fastened to Lord Montfort's saddle, she would have been cowed, too.

They entered a stone courtyard through gates topped with rampant Montfort dragons. Before them wide white steps spread out in a graceful fan. Men in silver and crimson livery approached with torches. Lord Montfort snapped at one of them, and Blade was snatched from his horse and carried away.

Nora blinked at the flames of a torch, barely aware of the warm support at her back withdrawing. Looking down, she saw Lord Montfort standing beside the horse, reaching up to her. He said something, but she was too sleepy to make sense of it, and he laughed.

Abruptly she was sailing through the air to land in a cradle of satin and muscle. If he'd given her a chance, she would have told him she could walk. Instead, holding her tightly, he ran up the stairs and into the dimly lit entry way of his house. She glimpsed a black and white marble floor, gleaming oak walls, and another Christian de Rivers. Squinting, she studied the man who blocked their path. He was Lord Montfort's twin.

The arm that supported her legs dropped, and she scrambled to get her feet under her. Lord Montfort kept hold of her arm until she steadied, then left her to kneel at the feet of the other man. Nora's mouth almost fell open. In the last few days she'd seen men kneel to Lord Montfort, and almost every woman; she had yet to see him do more than incline his head in regal acceptance of homage. Now he submitted himself with grace, charm, and a cloak of childlike humility.

"My lord," he said.

Nora's eyes grew as big as pomander balls as she saw Lord Montfort kiss the man's hand.

"What have you done, Chris?"

"Feats of chivalry, my lord father. I have rescued a baby crow named Eleanora Becket from highwaymen."

The Earl of Vasterne, from whom Christian had obviously inherited his wide-set eyes and clarion voice, frowned. "You found Jack Midnight."

"Never fear," Christian said. He rose and jerked his dark head at Nora. "She foiled my murder. The only reason I didn't kill her for it was that I'd have to take care of two puppies in a basket and decapitate her men-at-arms."

At that point Nora wanted to melt into the cracks between the marble tiles, but a door burst open and three old men stumbled out. AH wore the long robes and flat caps of which merchants and clerics were fond. Two were short and balding, but the third was tall, with a long, sparse beard, gray and wrinkled. His eyes burned at them with the virulence of a devil, then the three scurried into the dark recesses at the back of the house.

It was like watching rats race for cover, Nora thought. She looked back at Christian de Rivers, but he was staring at his father, excluding her completely from his attention. The older man moved his head in a gesture so slight, Nora wasn't sure she'd seen it. Christian whirled in one of those abrupt, facile movements that reminded her of the hurtling acrobatics of a hawk. He strolled to the nearby stairs, rested a hand on the banister, and glanced back over his shoulder.