Seduced by Grace (8 page)

Astrid did without doubt, for she stared up at Oliver with startled approval before giving a decided nod. “Good man.”

Lady Marguerite smiled a little, but seemed otherwise unaffected. “Since that night,” she went on with simple clarity, “I have naturally been under the protection of the king.”

“Who has apparently put you together with your knight at every opportunity, from what I have heard. One wonders if you are meant to be a reward of some sort, after all.”

“Idiot,” Astrid said.

David advanced a slow step. There were times when
he didn’t mind using his size to intimidate. “You are offensive, sir.”

Halliwell jerked back, jostling his son. That gentleman, far from a youth at near fifty, slapped his empty scabbard. His father stopped him with a sharp gesture. “I am surely allowed some degree of choler after being robbed of a bride,” he said in grim complaint. “But it doesn’t stop there. I was promised Lady Marguerite and her dower lands. I’ll settle for no less.”

“What you will have is your death,” Lady Marguerite said with a lift of her chin. “Recall the curse of the Three Graces.”

“Bah! When you are my wife, I will teach you not to prate such nonsense.”

“I understood,” David said, keeping his voice low so as not to be overheard by others around them, “that the betrothal was a sham and you knew it well. Why pretend otherwise this late in the business?”

“I knew little of the lady, so had not reckoned the worth of the prize taken from me. Knowledge of both has come to me since. I consider I was duped, being brought to give her up for such a pittance.”

Astrid tossed her head. “No difficult task, I expect.”

Halliwell flicked a glance downward before looking back to Marguerite. “Shut the mouth of that toad of a female, or I will shut it for her.”

“That you won’t,” Oliver said. He drew a dagger with a leather-wrapped handle from its sheath in the folds of his doublet, letting it be seen only by those in their tight circle. “And I’ll thank you not to call our bantam a toad.”

Astrid stared up at him, her mouth open though her eyes were bright. For once, she had nothing to say.

“Oliver,” David warned, even as Halliwell’s son cursed and felt for his eating knife that was slung from his belt.

“Enough!”

That hard command came from the dais. Henry, rising to his feet, stepped to its edge.

Silence came down like a smothering coverlet. Every eye in the room swiveled to watch the king. He surveyed all with a slow sweep of his gray-blue gaze before frowning on the tableau below him.

“My Lord Halliwell,” Henry VII said with deliberation, “you and your men must be fatigued from your journey. You may leave us to take your rest.”

It was a command phrased as a courtesy. That everyone present realized it was clear from the murmur that swept the great room.

The aging peer bowed with the stiffness of rage. Sharing a glare between Oliver, Marguerite and David, he collected his son with a jerk of his head and began to back from the royal presence.

“And you, Lady Marguerite,” Henry continued, “we excuse you, as well.”

She flushed, but performed a graceful curtsy of acquiescence. “Thank you, Your Majesty. Astrid and I bid you a fair and good evening.”

To let her go alone down the castle’s dim corridors lit only by flaring torches was not possible. “If it pleases you, sire,” David said, “I will see the lady to her rest.”

“And I,” Oliver chimed in, with no shame at all.

Something between irritation and amusement flashed
in the monarch’s face. He flicked his fingers toward them in dismissal. “As you will.”

Lady Marguerite put her hand upon the arm David offered and turned to walk beside him. The muscles of his forearm tightened as he felt the chill of her fingers through his sleeve. He placed his other hand over them, offering silent support. As they quitted the room, he could feel the stares stabbing into his back. The only person to speak, however, was Astrid who strutted along beside Oliver with her skirts held up in her tiny hands. “By all the saints,” she exclaimed breathlessly, as she took three steps for every one made by the rest, “but ’twould be a fine thing if the curse did get the old devil.”

David could not disagree, but he did not depend upon it. A close watch should be kept upon Lord Halliwell. He would see to it.

At her door, Lady Marguerite allowed Astrid to enter the chamber ahead of her. Her smile was tremulous at the edges as she turned to face him. “You have my eternal gratitude for coming to my aid just now. Loathed though I am to admit it, something about Lord Halliwell unnerves me.”

“You need not fear him,” David said in quiet certainty.

“He seems capable of anything to me, anything at all. His damaged pride may well force him to seek redress.”

Oliver, just behind them, snorted. “Damaged purse, rather.”

David turned his head, giving the Italian a repressive stare. When his squire had shrugged and retreated out of hearing, he turned back. “You will stay out of his way as much as possible?”

“Assuredly,” she answered with fervor.

“And send for me if he disturbs you in any way whatsoever?”

Her smile was slow to come, but its warmth rose to shine in her eyes as she spoke. “Aye, so I will.”

It was the trust in those few words that undermined his good intentions, that and the way the torchlight farther along the corridor gleamed on the soft planes of her face and the curves of her breasts that peeped above her square, lace-edge bodice. Lifting her fingers from his arm, he brought them to his lips.

Her breath caught, for he heard it. That small sound drove deep inside him, squeezing his heart. Fearful of what she might see in his face, he bowed, then, and released her.

“Sleep well,” he said, the words a mere rumble in his chest.

“And you also,” she returned.

Her skirts whispered as she stepped away from him, retreating into her chamber. He did not move, however, not until the closing door shut off the last sliver of his view of her.

“So,” Oliver said the moment David rejoined him. “What’s to do now? Think you Henry will give over to the disappointed bridegroom?”

“He can’t do that, not without breaking faith with our agreement. At the moment, I may be more useful to him.”

“And when that usefulness is ended?”

“I don’t know,” David answered in goaded tones. “No one knows. That’s the trouble with kings.”

Oliver, striding beside him, slanted a look at his set
face. “I don’t understand why you didn’t just take the lady when offered, and her lands with her.”

“I know you don’t.” David’s strides increased, as if he would outrun so tempting a suggestion.

“Or why you don’t do it now.”

“Henry and I made an agreement. That’s beyond the more important factor.”

“So you made a vow. You were young, things were different. It no longer applies.”

David sent his friend a dark look. Admitting the Italian into his confidence about his pledge to Marguerite, on a lonely night when he had thought never again to see England’s shores, had doubtless been a mistake. “It applies.”

“Because you hold to it, and for no other reason. If you must go by the strict laws of chivalry, then ask to be released from whatever you swore. Surely that’s possible.”

“You know better.”

Oliver cursed and raked his fingers thought his wild, dark curls as if about to tear them from his head. “Only because you are more stubborn than a friar’s mule! Meanwhile, it’s eating you alive. Mayhap I should put the question to Lady Marguerite. Or to the bantam.”

David halted as if he’d hit a stone wall. He swung on Oliver and seized a handful of his doublet on either side of his neck, lifting him to his toes. “You will ask nothing of Lady Marguerite. You will speak only when she addresses you, as if she were a princess royal. You will be the very soul of respect and reverence, or you will answer to me.”

“God’s blood, David! She’s just a woman.”

“Nay. There you are wrong.” Shoving the Italian from him with rough contempt, he turned and began to walk away.

“
Sì,
she is. Yes, and you should thank God for it, you great dolt!” Oliver called after him. “You do her no favor by turning her into some sainted, untouchable angel. That’s all very well if you need something to worship, but what of her? What of her wants and needs?”

David strode on without answering. Leaving the castle, he mounted to the outside wall where he stood looking out over the waving treetops of the forest that surrounded it. Oliver was an earthy bastard, he told himself as he crossed his arms over his chest. Let a female of any attraction at all walk past him, and he was after her in full cry. His passions ruled him. He had not the least idea of resistance. He could never understand the passionless devotion of a lost youth for a girl so fine and fair. He would never recognize the adoration a man could hold for a woman who was the very reason for everything he had become, because it had been accomplished to make himself worthy of her.

Oliver could not comprehend the near-worship of ten endless years. Aye, even that, right enough.

So Lady Marguerite was older now, a woman of near six-and-twenty, old enough to be considered a spinster? What of it? Nothing had really changed.

Or had it?

He drew breath hard and deep, let it out in a groan. Unfolding his arms, he braced his hands on the parapet before him and let his head hang forward between his shoulders.

Well enough, a few things were different. He was not
quite as passionless as all that when he looked at her now, nor was he unaware of her scent, the sweet torture of her touch, the unconscious seduction of her smiles.

It mattered little. She would never know it.

Ask for release from his vow, Oliver said, as if it were no more than craving forgiveness. That the Italian could suggest it only proved his lack of understanding.

What was he to say?
Your pardon, my lady, but I’ve changed my mind and would take back the solemn pledge made to you so long ago. Serving your sweet self in the chaste fashion of a knight for his lady as set down in the rules of courtly love has grown cursed inconvenient. I’ve a mind to take you into my bed for a good, hard tupping before marrying you out of hand. I just need you to release me from my vow so I may set about it.

David snorted in derision. Marguerite would laugh in his face. If not that, she would give him one of the haughty looks she saved for when she was insulted, and then never speak to him again. Nor would he blame her. To recant his vow would be a deadly insult. It would be as though he had never meant a word of it.

He had meant it with all his soul. He meant it still.

Yes, but what if she should release him of her own accord, without his urging or even his request. What then?

He lifted his head, staring blindly into the night. His heart tumbled in his chest, and his brain felt like a dead coal blown to sudden hot life in his skull. Yes, what then?

He had almost kissed her, in the midst of their first dance lesson. His mouth had been so close to hers that
he inhaled the sweet breath of her, felt her warmth upon his lips like a benediction, knew exactly how she would fit against his body. He had wanted her with such raging, harrowing need that denying it had left him deaf and blind for more minutes than he wanted to count. How long could he bear being around her, touching her without acting on his mad desire?

If he had her consent, could he allow himself to approach her as he would any other woman? Could he taste her, hold her against his aching flesh, shape her gentle curves with his calloused hands? Did he dare?

She was the only person, the only thing in life, he feared. It was not that she was an active danger, but that she alone had the power to annihilate him. She could do it by cutting away that single tender place inside that he kept for no one else.

Oh, aye, but if he was never to tend her womanly desires, then who would? To think of Halliwell or any other man initiating her into the mysteries of it stoked a fury so great his guts twisted with it. Their rough, selfish possession would leave her bruised and torn, dreading all contact with men.

God, no.

She should have a tender wooing, one so slow, caring and skilled that she would open herself to it like some lovely, exotic flower, pleading, finally, to be taken.

Who could do that for her except him?

No one else. No, not like he could, and would if heaven allowed.

For a single instant, he feared that need was no more than an excuse to loose the desire he held so fiercely in check. It was, mayhap, Satan’s temptation designed
to make him recant his sworn word, to succumb to his cravings instead of thinking of Marguerite’s good.

Ah, but if he could have her by her will, then he could marry her. She would be freed from the threat of Halliwell, once and for all. No other man could ever force her to the altar to possess her dowered lands and castles, or even for the sake of her sweet face and form. To guard and protect her always would be his right and privilege.

His honor. Always.

He had to be freed from his vow. She must be brought to see the rightness of it, and so speak the words without prompting or supplication from him. That was the only thing that would serve.

Yes, but could she be persuaded to it? And if so, how was it to be achieved?

M
arguerite heard the screeching cry before she reached the gateway in the stone wall which led to the drying yard. Her heart jerked in her chest. Picking up her skirts, she broke into a run. It was Astrid’s voice that rang in such panic-stricken rage.

Marguerite had been in search of her small serving woman for some time, had looked the castle over before bethinking herself of the yard where linens were hung to dry. She had even looked into the stables on the chance that Astrid had been persuaded to ride out with Oliver. The two of them had begun to tolerate each other in the past few days. They were at loose ends because she and David had been instructed to have their midday meals in private with the king.

Henry occupied these repasts by demonstrating the generosity of a sovereign, illustrating for David the correct method of parceling out to those he favored the food piled upon his dish. Her part was to receive the excess from David’s dish as he followed the royal example, to smile and be properly grateful. Marguerite had been more than well fed.

Plunging into the drying yard, she came to an abrupt
halt. Oliver had Astrid, holding her facedown over his arm. He was laughing like a madman at her shrieking struggles, while lifting the skirts of her gown and shift.

“Stop! Stop at once!” Marguerite marched down upon the Italian with fury in every step. “How dare you lay hands upon her!”

“Milady!”

Oliver flushed wine-red under his Mediterranean coloring. Eyes wide with alarm, he righted Astrid in haste, shifting her to sit upon his forearm like a half-grown child. She rocked there an instant before throwing her small arms around his neck to secure her perch.

“What are you about? Explain at once!”

“It isn’t what it seems, milady, I swear it.” The Italian’s voice turned desperate as he peered into Astrid’s tight little face. “Tell her, for pity’s sake, before she has me taken up by the guard.”

“He is a very devil,” Astrid said between set teeth. “He deserves to be locked away.”

Marguerite slowed. For all her small serving woman’s indignation, she appeared unhurt. “What passes here? I’ll have the truth of it.”

“’Twas like this,” Oliver began.

“Don’t listen to the honeyed tongue of the man!”

“I was watching poor little Astrid hang linen on the line, and chanced to pick her up to make the task easier…”

“I’ll poor little Astrid you,” the woman in his arms cried, smacking him upside the head. “Put me down. Put me down now!”

“Now, my dumpling,” Oliver said, chuckling as he easily caught and held her small hand. Whereupon, she
jerked and bucked, trying to free herself while raining insults upon his head.

“Astrid,” Marguerite said at her most severe.

A petulant look twisted the serving woman’s piquant face, but she ceased fighting. She met Marguerite’s eyes no more than an instant before lowering her own.

“I’m waiting.” Marguerite folded her arms over her chest.

“Well, I was hanging the linen, right enough, and this great idiot said…he said…”

“I only said her own braies must be no bigger than a baby’s nappies,” Oliver explained with a great show of innocence. “It only stands to reason, yes?”

Astrid shot him a fulminating look. “And I said ’twas something he would never know, which…”

“Which became an irresistible challenge to see for himself,” Marguerite said with a sigh. “Dear Astrid, could you not guess what would happen?”

The serving woman’s face turned a darker red. She reached delicate fingers to soothe the red patch on Oliver’s cheek where she had struck him. “Well, but how could I think he would care enough to look?”

The silence in the drying yard was suddenly acute. In it could be heard the soft flap of sheets blowing in the light breeze, the rustling of the tree branches that overhung the walls, the calls of men practicing with cudgels in the inner bailey, and the twittering of birds in the eaves of the storage building at one end of the open space.

Oliver broke it with a soft curse. “Astrid,
cara mia,
you are as perfect and pretty as yon house wren. Should that wee thing care that it’s not so gawky or big as a
goose? Who would not want to see the difference?
Sì,
and it’s more than your braies I’d be inspecting, if only you would permit it.”

Astrid stared at him, her eyes like two blackberries on a polished silver plate. Her lips moved without sound before she managed a croak. “Put me down.”

Oliver obeyed, setting her on her feet with as much care as a piece of precious blown glass. Astrid shook out her skirts, straightened her veil that was hardly larger than a handkerchief. Tilting her head back, she stared into Oliver’s face in solemn appraisal, as if she would plumb his very soul. Marguerite, watching, felt her heart swell, while tears crowded the back of her throat.

Abruptly, Astrid gave a hoot of laughter, drew back her tiny booted foot and kicked the Italian in the shin. Whirling around, she scurried from the drying yard as fast as she could go.

Oliver yelped, hopping around on one foot, rubbing his injury.

At least, he did so until Astrid was out of sight. He straightened then, and shook his head. Laughter and something much more tender flashed in his dark eyes before he inclined his head. “I am sorry, milady. I meant no harm, I promise. It was only…”

“Only a jest. I understand.”

His full lips twisted at one corner. “One that got out of hand.”

“Yes. And it is not I to whom you owe an apology for it.”

“I know.” A gusting sigh left him. “And to think I’ve been giving our David advice on how to handle untouchable females.”

Marguerite blinked at him a stunned instant while suspicion stirred in her mind. “You what?”

“Nothing, nothing.” The Italian gave her his most ingratiating smile as he bowed and began to back away from her. “Or if you would really know, you might ask him.”

Ask David. Yes, of course, she thought as she stood as still as a wooden saint in the center of the drying yard. Except she was not sure she wanted an answer that badly.

It was on the landing, where the stairway leading up from the great hall gave access to the various chambers that opened around its four sides, that Marguerite caught up with Astrid. The petite woman heard her coming and turned back with a quick smile. She fell into step beside her.

“Well,” she said in her piping voice, “did you send the lout off with a flea in his ear?”

“You seem to have done a fair job of it yourself,” Marguerite answered, as she studied the small face turned up to her.

“Aye, so I did,” came the self-satisfied answer.

“And you are quite certain you are all right?” Marguerite searched Astrid’s face, fearful she might be more upset than she wanted to appear.

“As ever was.” A frown crossed her expressive features. “What said he of me when I left? I know it was something.”

“Only that he meant to apologize.”

“That should make fine hearing.”

“He also gave me something to think about.”

“A first for him, I do swear,” Astrid said in automatic disparagement. “And this would be?”

Marguerite frowned as she decided how to answer. There seemed no way to come at the thing except to say it. “He hinted David views me as untouchable.”

“He actually said that to you?” Astrid stared at her, her brows knit in a frown.

“Certainly not, though it’s what he meant.”

“Well, but is that not as it should be, given your different stations in life? Aye, and have you not known this age he felt so? Is that not the heart of the vow made to you?”

Marguerite looked away with a sigh. “I suppose.”

“But you don’t like it.”

“I sometimes wish things were different.”

“You would have him see you as he does other women, as someone to pleasure and to be pleased by. You would not be looked upon as too singular, not wish to be set above him like some pure Madonna in her niche.”

The pain in Astrid’s voice said she understood all too well what it was like to be seen as different from other women. Abandoned as a baby, she had been found and taken in by the gypsies. Later, she had joined a group of traveling players that sometimes entertained at noble houses. From the moment she could talk, she was expected to be constantly amusing, a small, feminine buffoon. Though she had earned a place as the Queen’s Fool by the time she was twenty, she had learned to expect nothing further of life. Men might be curious about how she was made, but were more likely to laugh at her than to love her. Those at court were the worst,
being jaded, cynical and in constant search of novelty. She had been tearfully grateful to be given to Marguerite, had blossomed in the peace of Braesford.

“Yes,” Marguerite said, her voice soft.

“Is that not how you feel?” Astrid insisted.

“Would it be so wrong if I did?”

“Nay, milady. It only makes you a female like all others.”

“Anyway, it’s ridiculous. I’m far from perfect, as David must know. I have a horrid temper, my hair is the color of a field mouse and my hips are shaped like a lyre.”

“I notice you didn’t deny the purity,” Astrid said with an impish smile.

“That’s hardly my fault, is it? I would change the state if allowed.”

“You could always marry Halliwell.”

“I’d rather die a maiden, thank you!”

Astrid lifted a shoulder. “Likely you will, if all goes as Henry and David plan. That’s unless you come across a man-at-arms who is handsome, discreet, brave and accommodating.”

Marguerite turned upon her in incredulity. “What?”

“Handsome for your pleasure, discreet for your good name, brave so he may risk the consequences and accommodating in that he desires only to please.”

“I understand, thank you!”

“’Tis only an idea, mayhap for when you are chatelaine of your own castle. Though, of course this paragon must not be too worshipful.”

“You are a minx to tease with such a prospect.” The male image that rose in Marguerite’s mind as Astrid de
scribed this man-at-arms was David. What did that say of her? Yes, and what chance had she of convincing him she was not as pure in thought as he supposed. Was it at all possible she could persuade him to renounce his knight’s vow of chastity toward her?

“What prospect might that be?”

The question came from behind them. The hair on the back of Marguerite’s neck prickled in alarm as she recognized that rasping drawl. Whirling with a swing of her skirts, she faced Lord Halliwell. She had thought before that his long and narrow head was like that of an adder. His sudden appearance without sound was the same.

How long had he been behind them? What had he overheard?

“You startled me, sir!” she said in less than gracious welcome.

“Crave pardon, Lady Marguerite. I fear you and your serving woman were engrossed in a conversation of abiding fascination. Shall I depart and leave you to it?”

There was nothing Marguerite would have liked more, though it would be impolite to say so. “Had you a purpose in coming upon us?”

“The same as I gave you before,” he said with a tight-lipped smile as he eased nearer. “Being private here, or as close as it comes with so many about, you may now be more inclined to hear it.”

The landing was empty. No sound came from the chambers which opened upon it. Astrid was a fine chaperone but hardly of a size to be of aid if needed. It seemed best to hear her former bridegroom without argument, which might escalate into a threat.

“As you please,” she said evenly, “though I cannot tarry.”

“What I would impart is soon said. Contrary to what you may have been told, I am most anxious for our marriage to go forward. My considerable influence shall be used to see it happens. That is, unless you can give me some reason why Henry allowed your wedding journey to be interrupted by this so-called Golden Knight, some explanation for why he has taken him up as a boon companion?”

Marguerite’s mind raced. Halliwell’s question was natural enough, on the face of it, but she did not trust the avid look in his eyes. There were those who would pay well to learn what had passed between Henry and David.

Braesford, when the betrothal to Halliwell was first broached, had said the lord was known for switching his allegiance between York to Lancaster at will, depending on who looked to have the firmest grip on the crown. Could being bilked of an heiress cause him to desert Henry’s camp, throwing his support to Perkin Warbeck?

“How flattering to be credited with knowing the mind of the king, my lord,” she said. “Nevertheless, I can tell you nothing of the matter.”

“You surprise me, Lady Marguerite. I was told you and your sisters have Henry’s ear due to your extraordinary services to the crown.”

She lowered her lashes. “You do us too much honor. If we have been useful at all, it was mere happenstance.”

His gaze turned sardonic. “Now, why do I not believe that?”

He meant to suggest extremely personal services provided to Henry. It was the outside of enough. “I could not say, sir. If you will excuse me?” She turned from him, moving toward Astrid who had eased away a few discreet paces.

He lunged to catch her upper arm, spinning her to face him again with his fingers digging into her flesh. “This is not over, Lady Marguerite. You may protest all you please, but I know something is afoot. I will see it stopped, see you returned to me, if it’s the last thing I do. And when we are wed and I have you naked in my bed, you will rue the day you dared bandy words with me.”

Something cold and hard settled inside Marguerite. “Take care, Lord Halliwell. You may have noticed that I have the protection of the Golden Knight.”

“One of Edward’s bastards, you mean. He’ll forget you soon enough if he’s anything like his father.
Inconstant
was the word for our Edward, never satisfied with one woman, reaching under every skirt he saw. Would that he had never died! He was a better king for all his debauchery than pious Henry Tudor.”

“You admire debauchery?” she inquired with disdain. “Somehow that doesn’t recommend you as a husband.” No small part of the anger inside her was for the slur against David. It did not prevent her from noticing that against Henry VII.