The Lady Series (3 page)

His brother tilted his head to one side. “What happened? Last you were here you’d invested in a shipping corporation and thought it showed potential.”

“So it did and it might well have turned profit if not for politics.” Kit rounded the bed and claimed the other chair near the hearth. Carrying it back around the bed’s foot, he set it close to the bed so he could sit and still see Nick as they spoke. After he’d folded his long frame into the seat he braced his chilled feet on the bed’s frame. Although Nick covered the stone floor in here with a plaited rush matting to stop the drafts, cold still seeped through it.

Not certain how closely his brother followed the doings of court and queen, Kit set himself to explaining. “In November past, four ships filled with treasure bound for Spanish forces in the Lowlands took shelter in Plymouth Harbor.” He offered his brother a wry grin. “I fear our queen couldn’t resist; she confiscated them, keeping the silver that lay within those holds. In retribution the Spanish confiscated my corporation’s ship, which was at harbor in the Lowlands at the time.”

The only fact Kit wasn’t willing to share with his brother was that the loss of that ship left him so deeply in debt his creditors were set on throwing him in prison.

Nick tapped a scar-hardened finger against his cup in thought. “How much do you need?”

“From you, nothing,” Kit replied, his words sharp. “You’ll not pay my debts when you have your own mortgages to worry over.” He wanted nothing to interfere with those payments. The sooner Graceton’s burdens were lifted, the sooner Nick could claim his rightful title as its lord and the sooner Kit would be rid of his guilt.

“You speak as if we’re bankrupt” Nick started irritably.

“We?” Kit interrupted. “Graceton is yours, not ours, and I’ll not take your coins. If you’re worried about the tradesmen, don’t be. They’ll wait, they always do.” Only they wouldn’t, not this time.

Nick’s gaze hardened into an emerald brightness. “What you need is to marry an heiress.”

Here they were, still battling in mock duels as they’d done as children, only this time their weapons were words not training swords or branches. Nick’s thrust was a bold jab, meant to repay Kit’s parry when he refused to take his aid.

Kit parried again. “Me, marry? You know full well I cannot, not until the elder son has wed.”

Nick’s jaw shifted to its most stubborn as he prepared for another thrust, just as determined to force Kit where he would not go as Kit was to resist him. Jamie rose from his chair and leaned into the bed, his fists braced upon the mattress as he looked from man to man.

“Enough, Nick,” he warned his better. “There’s no reasoning with Kit on this issue. If he doesn’t wish to wed, let him be.”

Nick turned his hard gaze on his steward. “If you’d like me to put the matter to rest, then you to tell my pigheaded brother he has no choice over marriage. Aye, and after that tell him he is no longer a younger son, but my heir and as such I have the right to marry him where I will. When you’re done telling him that remind him that if neither of us marries Graceton will go to our second cousin.”

“Throwing Sir Robert into this conversation won’t move me,” Kit retorted, his muscles tensed for battle, “not when you hate him more than I do. If you don’t want Graceton in his hands, wed and breed up children to keep it from him.”

“I’m too frail for that.” Nick made this lie a flat statement.

The twist of Kit’s lips was smug. “There’s nothing wrong with your chest and arms, torso and legs. You’re as much a man as any other, except that what plagues your lungs eats away at your body mass. As for your ability in bed, I know about Cecily.”

Cecily was the daughter of the woman who’d nursed Nick back to health after his burning. Being long accustomed to his appearance she was the only woman with whom Nick was comfortable.

“If you can bed Cecily, you can bed a wife,” Kit said. “Marry first, Nick, and I’ll follow your lead.”

A garbled sound that was neither laugh nor cry escaped Nick’s stiff lips. “Who would I marry, brother? Look upon my face, and name me one woman at our queen’s court who would take me as I am.”

So Nick said every time they spoke of this subject. He refused to see that if Cecily could accept him as he was, other women could do so as well. Kit shook his head.

“You’re a good man, Nick. I know many women who’d put aside appearances if they knew their husband would be gentle and kind.”

“Nay,” his brother’s insistent voice rose until he coughed. “You’ll do your duty to our family as I command.”

It was an empty threat. Six years ago, when Kit had been but one and twenty, Nick had tried to force marriage on him. Rather than give way Kit left England for the Continent to battle the Spaniards for the Protestant Dutch, his choice of sides a rebellion against his still-Catholic brother.

“Do as you must, knowing that I’ll do as my heart demands,” Kit replied, offering the final defense, the one that ever stopped this duel of theirs. “This time I might well come home from war with a knighthood and the two hundred and fifty pounds that comes with that title.” Or suffer far worse than a slash that made for a long scar across his chest.

Rising from his chair, he stretched, the motion far more relaxed than he felt. “Now, I think we’ve argued enough for one visit.” He leaned into the bed to press his lips against his brother’s rough and ridged brow. “Leave my monetary problems to me, and I’ll see that my creditors no longer plague you.” He turned and started from the room.

“Kit,” Nick called after him, “I’ll find a way to force a wife on you. You cannot win.”

Kit didn’t bother to reply as he closed the door to his brother’s apartment then slipped back through the darkness to his own familiar room. Unfortunately, Nick was right. There were few ways to garner the fortune Nick needed to restore his title: a successful business venture, a successful war campaign, a rich wife and royal favor. He’d failed at the business venture and he refused to marry before Nick. God knew soldiering hadn’t worked.

That left only royal favor and so far in his four years at Elizabeth Tudor’s court he’d proved himself neither handsome nor sprightly enough to dance his way into the realm of the Virgin Queen’s favorites.

Mistress Anne Blanchemain threw open her second-storey parlor window. Rain, borne inside on the day’s cold breath, spattered the front of her black bodice, plastered her fine cotton shirt to her skin and softened the starch that formed lace into her modest ruff. From the courtyard she couldn’t see came the rattle of harnesses and creak of leather. Tired horses stamped and blew. Men spat and coughed the cold from their throats, their words inaudible against the low moan of the wind.

Owls House had been built almost a century before when old King Henry, the eighth to bear that name, yet ruled. As was the fashion of that time the house was shaped as an “H”; these days, houses were being built in the shape of an “E” to honor their present monarch. That design resulted in her home’s courtyard being placed in the upper open portion of the “H” with the house’s entry at the center of the letter’s crosspiece while Anne’s parlor was in the forward end of the west leg of the house.

Seeing into the courtyard from the parlor was a skill Anne had mastered as a child. She leaned out the window as far as she could, her hips balanced on the inner ledge and one hand holding tight to the outer ledge. One foot came off the floor while long experience with this gyration sent her other foot seeking the leg of the heavy desk that stood to one side of the window.

Once Anne had her balance, she shifted to the side, reached out with her other hand and caught hold of one of the big white blocks of stone that dressed the corner of the house. The stone was cold and slick, but she knew well where to plant her fingers, having long ago found the dips and cracks in its face that served her best. In the room behind her Anne heard her mother’s walking stick hit the floor with three sharp taps.

“I’m fine, Mama,” Anne replied, stretching to her longest.

The courtyard came into view and what she saw made her breath catch in dismay. It seemed an army filled that area. At its head was a tall man dressed all in black. Not even the day’s gray light could disguise the glint of the great ruby he had pinned to the band of his flat-crowned cap.

Anne threw herself back into the parlor and slammed the window shut with such force that the diamond-shaped panes rattled in their frames. As her mother’s stick tapped again, just once this time, Anne whirled to face her.

Lady Frances Blanchemain sat in a high-backed invalid’s chair beside the room’s narrow fireplace. Like her daughter, Lady Frances also wore black. They mourned the recent death of Anne’s sister, the third of Frances’s four daughters. But Frances’s attire was more bedrobe than gown. Her only nod to fashion was the attifet perched atop her graying chestnut hair, the cap’s heart-shaped front framing a face once lovely enough to cause her banishment from King Henry’s court by a jealous queen.

No more. Anne’s birth had stolen her mother’s beauty and her mobility. A fit shortly after Anne’s coming had frozen the right half of Frances’s body and silenced her tongue.

Her mother’s tongue might be dead, but not so her ears, her hazel eyes or her quick intelligence. By the light of the fire and the candles set in sconces around the room, Anne had no trouble reading the message in her mother’s gaze.

“You were right. It’s Sir Amyas.” Anne loosed a steaming breath. “Who does he think he is, tapping upon our door without so much as a note of warning?”

Frances’s left brow dropped in chiding as half her mouth thinned to a demanding line. Leaning her stick against the table in front of her, she closed her yet functional left hand and rapped her knuckles on the arm of her chair.

Anne glared. A persistent faith and the words of the apostle Paul gave her mother the ungodly notion all women should happily submit to the rule of men. Anne, having been raised in a family of only women, owned neither her mother’s deep faith nor her ability to submit.

She crossed her arms in refusal. “You waste your breath, Mama. I’ll not apologize, not when each time my grandsire comes he takes another bite from your jointure. I give thanks that there’s little left for him to take save me.”

Fear flashed across half her mother’s face. Regret tore through Anne. With a flash of skirts and petticoats, she flew to crouch beside her mother’s chair. Frances caught Anne’s hand, squeezing as if she never meant to let go, terrible shadows filling her eyes.

Anne pressed a swift and reassuring kiss to her cheek. “You worry when there’s no need. If he comes for any reason this day, it’s to announce that he’s found me a husband now that I’m your only heir. Remember his vow to leave me with you for all time. That means the man he chooses must abide here and, thus, must accept you as you are.”

This time Frances’s eyes widened in a far different concern.

Shame touched Anne’s answering smile. The isolation of her life here hadn’t proved a perfect barrier to sin. She gave a half-hearted shrug. “Any man who can accept you will also be accepting of me as I am.”

From their hall, which filled the full crossbar of the “H”, came the sound of wood scraping stone. As one, mother and daughter looked at the parlor door as if they could see through it. Anne hissed in irritation as she came to her feet, her mother’s hand yet clasped in hers.

“He doesn’t even ask before he puts his men to setting up the table and benches.” She hated the way Sir Amyas ever behaved as if Owls House yet belonged to him and wasn’t bound in trust to his second son’s daughters.

There was a tap on the parlor door. There was no point in refusing Sir Amyas entry, not when he’d simply barge into the room, Anne called, “Come.”

Cold damp air gusted in on their housekeeper’s skirts as she entered, then danced past her to set the candles to flickering and the flames leaping high upon the hearth. With no warning of visitors, she yet wore a stained apron atop her workaday attire and no veil beneath her cap to hide the bubbled, pocked ruin smallpox had made of her face.

“Sir Amyas Blanchemain,” she announced then dropped into a deep curtsy.

Anne’s grandsire strode into the parlor, his sodden cloak yet dripping and mud spewing from his boots. At three score, Sir Amyas was still a handsome man, being fine-featured and olive-skinned. His hair was pure white beneath his black cap.

He gave no word of greeting to his second son’s widow or her daughter. Instead, he glanced around the room. Anne’s lip curled as she watched him do as he always did, taking inventory of the parlor’s fittings. His gaze alit only upon the room’s most valuable assets: the expensive carpet that covered the narrow oak table, the golden bowl at the center of the walnut mantelpiece, the massive desk.

Then his attention shifted to the Flemish tapestry on the far wall. Anne’s eyes narrowed. That wasn’t his to covet. It belonged to her mother, brought by Frances into her marriage, thus forever beyond Amyas’s reach.

Their housekeeper rose from her curtsy, careful to keep her face turned away from their auspicious guest. Sir Amyas’s religious beliefs were far less forgiving than those held by Frances. He claimed the pox scars she wore upon her face were a sign that God had marked her for damnation.

“Might I take your cloak, Sir Amyas?” she asked.

Amyas opened his cloak without removing his gloves then slipped the garment from his shoulders, handing it to her without looking at her. Beneath it he wore a knee-length black coat trimmed in black fur and, beneath that, his usual black doublet studded with pearls. But, his breeches were brown leather, the only suitable riding attire for such a wet day. Scarlet garters, held closed by pins from which pearls dangled, held the tops of his boots to his thighs. The massive gold chain that crossed his breast made certain no one mistook him for anyone other than this shire’s wealthiest man and its justice.

“See to it my party is served a goodly meal and is accommodated for the night. We’ll be leaving on the morrow at first light.”

“As you will, Sir Amyas.”

As she retreated, leaving the door ajar behind her Amyas turned his sharp gaze upon his granddaughter. His mouth was but a thin crack in the granite slabs that were his cheeks. His eyes narrowed beneath their tangled brows. Anne stared back at him. It was their eyes that named them kin, being almond shaped and so dark a brown they seemed black.

“I see you yet staff this place with cripples and sinners despite my command to the contrary.”

Anne lifted her chin. “I do my mother will.” It was only a partial lie. Frances had never denied Anne’s penchant for rescuing those on whom society had turned its back. Frances allowed it, believing Anne but reflected the compassion expected of one of God’s elect.

“Your mother?” her grandsire snapped back in scorn. “What little wit she ever owned was taken from her two and twenty years ago.”

Outrage burned in Anne’s cheeks. As she opened her mouth to defend her dam Frances’s hand tightened on hers in a warning against impertinence. Where Amyas couldn’t command her, her mother could. However reluctantly, Anne held her tongue.

The pendant pearls on his garters swinging with each step, Amyas came to a stop before Anne and caught her by the chin, forcing her face up toward his as if to better see her. His gaze cataloged her face the way he had the items in the room.

“What are you doing?” Anne protested, wrenching free of his grasp. She stepped back from him, releasing her mother’s hand as she did so.

“I’ll handle my heir as I please,” he shot back.

“What sort of nonsense is this?” Anne retorted, her brows lowered as she took yet another backward step. “My sister’s death made me my father’s heir, not yours. My cousin takes all you own when you’re gone.”

Amyas’s expression flattened. He pivoted to the hearth, his back to them. Silence filled the room as he lifted a foot and toed at the logs. One split, showering sparks as it popped, the new pieces revealing a heart glowing bright red.

“That damn fool went and broke his neck in a fall from his horse a week ago,” he told the dancing flames, no pity or grief in his harsh voice.

Anne’s heart froze. She glanced at her mother. Terror filled Frances's eyes.

“No,” Anne retorted, shaking her head in refusal. “This still doesn’t make me your heir. Is not his wife pregnant?” That child would be in line for Amyas’s wealth before Anne.

Amyas lifted his head toward her. In that instant his face seemed softer than usual. Did he grieve? Then the fire’s uncertain light shifted and Anne saw it had been but a trick of the shadows. His expression was as stony as ever.

“The stupid cow grew hysterical upon hearing the news and fell into an early labor. Both she and the babe followed my grandson into the grave. She failed me, just as he did, just as did his brother and your useless sisters. They all failed me, not one of them leaving a child behind them to follow me. You, such as you are, are all I have left.

“And,” he said, stepping forward to again catch her chin, his grip unbreakable this time, “I will look upon my heir.”

Too shocked to resist, Anne let Amyas take inventory of her features. The movement of his gaze across her face marked the tiny peak of dark brown hair at the center point of her forehead, the gentle arch of her brows, the short length of her slightly too wide nose and the lush curl of her lips. Lifting his thumb, he touched the wee mole at the corner of her mouth, the expensive leather of his gloves cool and soft upon her face.

When he was done satisfaction glowed like bits of gold in his dark eyes as he released her chin. “I thought I remembered you as a pretty thing. It’ll serve you well in your new position.”

Anne blinked. Chambermaids and governesses had positions, not gentlewomen. “You mean my wedding,” she corrected.

“Do I?”

Her grandsire crossed his arms over his chest and rocked back on his boot heels. Smug satisfaction glowed in his dark eyes. “As the final Blanchemain and my sole heir I can afford to look high for your husband, even into the nobility. To that end I’ve secured your appointment as maid-of-honor to Her Gracious Majesty, the Queen of England.” He added the slightest sneer to his words, as if he thought Elizabeth Tudor neither gracious nor majestic.

Gasping, Anne whirled on her mother and found her own panic reflected on half of Frances’s face. All save one of Elizabeth’s maids-of-honor were babes half Anne’s age; to a one they were virgins. If Anne’s age might be forgiven, her lack of purity would not be, not by the queen, not by Sir Amyas and most assuredly not by the auspicious peer he meant to contract her to in marriage.

In the next instant, Frances’s face took fire with the need to protect her only remaining daughter. Leaning as far as she dared, Frances grabbed Anne’s hand and pulled her close, then pressed Anne’s hand to her chest in a show of possession. Her hazel eyes ablaze with determination, Frances’s lips moved as she fought to speak. Spittle filled the drooping right side of her mouth.

“Maaan.” The slurred sound that left Frances’s lips was barely recognizable as the word she meant: mine.

Love and pride filled Anne. She knew how much this effort cost her mother. Frances held tight to what little dignity she had left. That her mother might harbor such love for the child whose birth had left her in this state, the same child who had betrayed her by giving way to lust, was precious, indeed.

“My mother says I belong to her,” Anne told her grandsire, translating without thinking. “She’s already mourned for three daughters and doesn’t wish to lose another. She’d remind you of your vow that she might keep me for her life’s time.”

Sir Amyas’s brow creased in scornful disbelief. “All that from a single, slobbering sound? I say you put words in her mouth for the sheer joy of defying me.”

“It’s only her tongue that doesn’t work,” Anne flared back then wondered why she bothered. She’d told him more than once that her mother communicated as eloquently as he using a board with letters painted upon it. “You gave your word, and we’ll hold you to it.”

The imperious motion of Amyas’s hand waved away the whole issue. “Whatever I said in the past is now moot. The queen calls you to come. Would you have me return to court alone, saying you will not serve?”

Anne’s eyes narrowed at his clumsy trap. “Tell the queen what you will, then tell her the truth, that you had no right to promise me to her. If you’re so needful of an heir, wed again and sire up another batch of brats to use, for you won’t use me.” He wouldn’t be the first man of his age to remarry and beget more heirs to replace those who’ve passed before him.