Almost Innocent (27 page)

“I am here,” he promised quietly and stood up. “No harm will come to you while I am here.”

She nodded. “I believe that.”

“Then dress yourself to do honor to such guests at dinner and greet your cousin with a chatelaine’s smile.”

“As my lord commands.” It was an attempt at her usual mischievous mock-meekness, but it lacked true
conviction. However, he accepted it in the spirit it was meant, kissed her again, and left her.

Erin, who had been waiting outside, ear pressed to the keyhole, hurried in. Disappointingly, she had heard little of the conversation, but her lady greeted her cheerfully enough and showed no signs of having experienced a lord’s anger.

“I will wear the crimson brocade cotehardie,” Magdalen said, opening the wardrobe and examining the contents. “Over the purple underdress.”

“And the gold chain, my lady?” Erin entered into the spirit of preparation with enthusiasm. Such magnificence of dress indicated the importance of the visitors.

“Yes, and the silk caul with the gold thread.”

“And sapphires,” Erin stated.

“And sapphires,” agreed Magdalen.

Thus it was that Charles d’Auriac arrived in the antechamber of the great hall as the herald sounded the call for dinner to be greeted by his cousin, a woman who bore little superficial resemblance either to the pallid invalid outside the inn at Calais or to the equally pale, sullen girl who had so signally failed to greet him on his arrival.

The massed dark hair was caught up beneath a caul of white silk, overlaid with gold thread. Her cotehardie of richly patterned crimson brocade fell from a low, wide neckline and followed the lines of her body to her hip, where it fell in a lavishly full skirt caught up on one side to reveal the deep purple silk of her underdress. The sleeves of the overgown ended at the elbow, showing the delicate curve of her forearm encased in the tight sleeves of the underdress. She was a vivid, vibrant vision in royal crimson and purple, a heavy necklace of sapphires around the long slim column of her throat, a chain of delicate gold filigree clasped at her hip where the cotehardie clung to the curve of her body. Gold silk slippers were on her feet, their exaggeratedly pointed
toes pinned up, and her long fingers sparkled with amethyst and a ruby the size of a thumbnail.

Charles d’Auriac drew a deep breath as the throb of excitement in his belly pulsed yet more strongly. This was a woman to draw a man to hell and back. This was Isolde’s daughter.

Guy sensed the other man’s reaction as he would feel the vibration of a lute string. He examined Charles d’Auriac from beneath drooping lids and was chilled by what he saw. There was a predatory look in his eyes, mingling with the eagerness of a rutting stallion. He moistened his meager lips, and his large, dominating nose in the thin, pointed face seemed to quiver, as if sniffing out his prey. It occurred to Guy with unpleasant force that there was more threat here than simple vengeance.

Magdalen felt the power of d’Auriac’s response to her as some kind of evil, all-pervasive miasma that brought a knot of nausea to her throat. She had to force herself to remain still, her smile fastened to her face, her hand extended. “You have found your apartments comfortable, I trust, my lord,” she said in the neutral tones of a hostess asking a routine question.

“Yes, I thank you, cousin.” D’Auriac took the hand and carried it to his lips. “You are most gracious.” For some reason, her manners had improved immeasurably since his arrival, he reflected, glancing sideways at Guy de Gervais and wondering how seriously he took his duties as protector and counselor. “We met, I believe, at Calais, just after your arrival from England. Perhaps you do not remember?”

Magdalen shook her head. “No, I do not recall,” she lied, the memory too entangled with her present unfathomable terror to be casually admitted.

Charles d’Auriac had seen the conscious flash in her eyes, the tiny telltale quiver of her lip, and he wondered why she would trouble to lie to him about such a
matter. What purpose could there be to it? Unless she suspected his intent. But she would have been told nothing by her mentors. She was simply a pawn on Lancaster’s board, a female child, on both counts rendered unimportant except insofar as she could be used.

“Let us go in to dinner.” Guy moved forward to lead the procession into the hall, bringing an end to such speculation. “My lady.”

Magdalen took her place at Guy’s side with barely concealed relief, and he could feel her tension as she walked beside him up the main body of the hall, where the household stood at the long tables, to the dais at the end. Charles d’Auriac took the place on her left, as befitted an honored guest, and she steeled herself to perform the duties of hostess, selecting choice morsels for him from the dishes as they were presented.

Meals were public showcases of the household wealth and importance, and Charles d’Auriac noted that this household displayed much of both. The platters on the high table were of the heaviest silver, the wine cups bejeweled, the assortment of meats and side dishes lavish, the bread plentiful and of the softest and whitest consistency. Wax candles were lit in front of every guest and senior member of the household, while in the main body of the hall, the tables were laid with pewter, and the bread, while not white, certainly was not of the hard black variety so often served.

Magdalen de Bresse was clearly a very wealthy woman, and that wealth at present was being used in support of the English crown.

“If you care to hunt after dinner, d’Auriac, we have both boar and stag in the woods,” Guy said, resigned to the fact that his overdue administrative duties would have to be postponed under the demands of hospitality.

“I’d be glad of the sport,” Charles said. “We have been too long upon the road.” He turned to his neighbor. “Do you hunt also, my lady?”

“I enjoy the hunt,” Magdalen replied, “but I am
with child, and my Lord de Gervais does not consider it an advisable activity.”

With child. Charles reached for his hanap and took a considered sip. A child could not be left for Lancaster to claim. The child must share the fate of its dam. He smiled. “My felicitations, lady. Your husband must be grateful that God has so blessed your union. I understand he has remained in England for the nonce.”

Magdalen inclined her head. “Since he is not here, sir, that seems a reasonable conclusion.”

Charles gave no indication of his angry discomfiture at her arrogant tone. It was the arrogance of those damnable Plantagenets, a natural haughtiness they wore like a second skin. But it certainly served to disguise the truth, he reflected. She had evinced not the slightest sign of awkwardness at his question, and they both knew that Edmund de Bresse was dead, whatever the rest of the world might be told. Maybe she was more devious than he had believed.

He laughed lightly. “A foolish observation of mine, cousin.”

She took a spoon and dipped into the tureen at her elbow, selecting a succulent chunk of eel from the aromatic stew of river fish. She laid this on his platter. “Not in the least foolish, sir. Entirely reasonable.” She smiled at him, indicating the fish on his platter. “Do you not find this an excellent
pauchouse?”

“Excellent,” he concurred, drawn despite his anger by that smile, the small white teeth, the rose-red lips so full and passionate. Or was it that his anger gave spur to desire?

“If you do not hunt, cousin, perhaps we may walk a little in the pleasaunce, instead,” he suggested. “I am sure Lord de Gervais has matters to occupy him this afternoon and can ill spare the time for entertaining guests.”

Magdalen controlled her urge to look in appeal at Guy. The prospect of an afternoon in the company of
her cousin filled her with as much horror as if he had suggested she spend the time in the oubliette beneath the donjon with its black spiders and slimy crawlers.

“Walking in the pleasaunce is hardly exciting sport, my lord,” she said. “Would you consider it to be so, my Lord de Gervais?”

“That would rather depend upon the company,” he said with a smile. “But your cousin does not know that you are required to rest with your women for some hours after dinner.” He directed a bland smile at d’Auriac. “It is on the advice of the midwives. Unfortunately, the Lady Magdalen is frequently impatient of such restriction, which I daresay is why she neglected to mention it.”

“And you would enforce such instructions, I gather.”

“It is within my purview,” Guy said, almost carelessly. “So, do you care to go out with the hounds, d’Auriac?”

Rescued, Magdalen sat back and let the hunting talk flow around her. Rescued for the moment. One could not avoid the close company of one’s guests indefinitely.

C
HARLES D
’A
URIAC WAS
uncertain exactly when he became aware of the understanding existing between Madgalen de Bresse and Guy de Gervais. The latter was always casually circumspect, the former generally submissive in his company as one would expect of a young woman with her father’s representative, invested with her lord’s authority.

D’Auriac, housed in the guest quarters across the inner court, remained in ignorance of the clandestine network of passages in the main castle and could know nothing of the figure wisping nightly between the women’s wing and the lord’s chamber. He was never party to the laughter and the loving that took place in that chamber, or to the violent explosions of lusting passion that would leave the two drained of all emotion, all strength, beached upon each other in the velvet-hung bed, inhaling the pungent aroma of-fulfillment, sweat-slick skin melding with sweat-slick skin.

But there were other things: a look that would pass between them, a smiling exchange when the lady’s eyes would gleam mischievously and the lord’s would narrow with amused understanding; a touch, a brushing touch of fingertips or a white hand laid for no apparent reason upon the lord’s arm or his large hand moving with proprietorial direction to the small of her back, the curve of her shoulder. These were not things that an
observant man with malevolent intent and his own fervid interest in the lady could either miss or ignore.

Charles d’Auriac watched closely. He watched when Lord de Gervais played his lute and the lady sat with her tambour frame beneath the window of a pleasant square parlor, on a rainy day that prohibited outdoor activities. He heard the note in Lord de Gervais’s voice as he sang softly, melodiously, the troubadour’s tales of love and chivalry, and he heard the yearning in the voice beneath the words.

He watched the lady beneath a bright blue December sky as she sat gazing with fixed intensity upon the jousting knights in the
place d’armes.
There was a quality to her intensity that transcended the pleasurably fearful interest to be expected in the sight of Lord de Gervais in friendly if potentially injurious combat with one of the visiting knights. She had little to fear for the knight who wore her favor, d’Auriac considered with dispassion. Guy de Gervais was known as one of the most accomplished knights in England and France, and watching the speed and daring of his horsemanship, the uncannily accurate placing of his lance, it was easy to see why. A cool head, lean body, and massive strength combined with years of chivalric training to make the man invincible in fair combat.

He watched as the lady clapped her hands in their fur gloves, her cheeks pink with more than the crisp afternoon air, her eyes alight with more than simple congratulation as her knight, triumphant, saluted her from atop his destrier.

He watched and noticed how everything concerning Magdalen de Bresse received the close attention of Guy de Gervais. What she ate, what she drank, when she walked or rode and how far, when she retired for the night, all came under his scrutiny. A hint of fatigue, or a touch of pallor to the ivory and cream complexion, brought some soft-voiced instruction, occasionally drawing from the lady a half-laughing protest, but Lord
de Gervais always prevailed and the lady would excuse herself and retire to her own apartments to rest.

Such concern for his pregnant charge struck Charles d’Auriac as excessive, even taking into account the importance to the Duke of Lancaster, de Gervais’s overlord, of a safe delivery and a healthy child. A healthy child of Plantagenet stock would secure the de Bresse inheritance for England despite the death of the child’s father, Edmund de Bresse.

Charles d’Ariac stroked his pointed chin and thought. The Lady Magdalen showed few overt signs of her pregnancy as yet. Edmund de Bresse had been killed at the beginning of August. If she had conceived immediately before his death, she would now be five months into her account. He found himself wondering how likely that could be.

Magdalen did not become inured to her cousin as the days of his visit continued. Guy took on the responsibility of entertaining the visitors in the style to which the claims of kinship and rank entitled them. There were hunting and hawking parties, tournaments, great feasts, and evenings of music and dancing, but still she shrank from Charles d’Auriac’s close company. He continued to remind her of the oubliette, to carry around him the aura of malignity; the reek of fetid, dank, and frigid air; the horror of unseen crawling things in dark and secret places.