By His Majesty's Grace (19 page)

With the baby free of its awkward wrappings, he tucked it inside his doublet, grimacing a little at the smell that came with it. Supporting the small head against his shoulder, he refastened his doublet but left it open at the neck for air. Perhaps his body heat and the thundering of his heart provided some comfort, for the baby ceased its feeble cries.

Rising to his feet with his burden, Rand stamped on his torch to extinguish it, then crossed to the entrance in a few bounding strides. He clattered down the stone steps, half falling into the bailey in his haste. Shadow stood where he had left him. He snatched up his reins and dragged the great destrier toward the postern gate he had noticed earlier by rote, the result of too many prisons, too many battles against superior forces.

He did not mount once outside the keep, but led the stallion down the embankment that gave the outer wall its height. Using the enormous stone bulk as cover, he forced his way through the shrubs and bracken that crowded around the place, dodging limbs, tripping over briars, until he reached the cover of the forest. He mounted then, but resisted the urge toward swift flight. Keeping to the deeper darkness of the tree line as much as possible, he held Shadow to a slow walk. Only when he was certain the troop of men had reached the bailey and were well inside did he kick the gray into a gallop. Leaning over his powerful neck then, holding the baby to him with one hard arm, he rode for London and Westminster.

The rain that had threatened all night came when he was halfway there. Rand welcomed it, for the gray curtain would make it that much harder to pick up his trail. He also cursed it, for it foiled his attempts to hear any pursuit, turned the road into a river of mud that made slow going and soaked him through except where he hunched over the child. Little Madeleine was reasonably dry and warm, however, and that was all that mattered.

What was to be done with her? He could hardly appear at the palace with a babe in arms. Her crying and need for a wet nurse would draw attention and inevitable questions among the servants. Henry would hear of it before good light.

Isabel would know sooner than that. What would she think if he showed up with another woman’s child? Would she be glad of the proof that he had not done away with the small mite or outraged that he dared ask her help in hiding her? Would she take little Madeleine in gentle arms or scream until someone came to take the baby away?

Of course, he could turn the child over to Henry. But what if the king discovered she was Leon’s daughter, what would become of her then? Or what if Henry knew it already and Mademoiselle Juliette’s death had been the price for her betrayal? If Madeleine had been left once to die, what was to keep it from happening again?

No, some temporary sanctuary for this little one was required, and soon. It must be hours since she had nursed. She could not go much longer without it.

There was only one solution that he could see, try as he might to find another while the miles thundered away beneath the destrier’s hooves. Rand despised it, felt he failed Juliette by considering it, yet it was better than delivering her baby to an enemy.

David waited at the stable next to the tavern, as had been arranged. When applied to for his advice, the lad at once suggested the convent of Saint Theresa. It was all Rand could do to unclench his jaws enough to agree. Coward that he was, he gave the warm weight of the baby into his squire’s young arms, then walked away so he need not see her delivered to the nuns.

Isabel was asleep when he let himself into their chamber. Or he thought so as he stood listening to her soft, even breathing from behind the bed curtains. He sighed, grateful for that one small boon. Moving with great stealth, he stripped to the skin, washed with a goodly lathering of soap, sniffed at his chest where the baby had nestled and washed again. He rubbed some small amount of heat into his body with a length of linen toweling, then tossed it aside and eased toward the bed.

“You may go and sleep with the horse you smell like,” Isabel said in stringent anger. “There is no room for a fornicating husband in my bed.”

Did he smell like a horse? Rand held his right hand to his nose, thinking he had neglected that possibility. As he could catch no trace of it, he suspected the odor was in the clothing he had left piled on the floor. He would not argue, however, as he had noticed long since that women had more sensitive noses. Still, the injustice of it acted like a goad after the betrayal, the grief and difficult decision of the night. Outrage lent force to his movements as reached the bed in a single stride and swept the curtains aside.

“My bed,” he corrected, “and the only one I use for fornication, the only woman in it that I’ll have this day.”

She sat up so the linen sheet that covered her slipped down into her lap. He could just discern her outline in the dim room, a shapely and warm figure that made his hands itch to touch, to feel, to hold. That he could see her at all told him dawn was near, particularly as it approached through the steadily falling rain.

“You expect me to believe such a tale when you have been gone the whole night through?” she demanded.

“I don’t care what you believe as long as you lie down and let me hold you.” He had not meant to say such a thing, but realized he needed it with an ache that verged on desperation. Snatching back the sheet, he slid in beside her, lofted it over them both.

“Don’t,” she snapped, fending him off as he reached for her.

It was too much. He was tired, cold and heartsick at the death of a young Frenchwoman who had done nothing except allow herself to be loved. His proud, disdainful wife had refused him once already this day, and now he had been falsely accused on top of it, as he had been falsely accused since she first came to him. She would not gainsay him now.

With a swift lunge, he rolled above her, trapping her thighs beneath his long legs. Catching her forearms, he slid his fingers upward to pin her wrists to the mattress beside her face, though with a care for her injured finger. He pushed his knee between hers and spread her legs while he pressed down with his chest, absorbing the softness of her breasts, the flutter of her abdomen. The heat radiating from her skin sent a violent shudder over him from head to toe.

He expected her to struggle, to gasp and threaten before she turned to pleading. He thought to force her to lie still, accepting his right to lie beside her, if nothing more.

It did not happen.

“You are frozen,” she said in tones of wondering discovery as his shivering was communicated to her. “How did you get so cold?”

“Rain,” he said with difficulty, “and a long ride for next to nothing.” He could not open his jaws for more without his teeth chattering. He felt palsied, almost ill. It was not merely cold, he recognized abruptly, but the aftermath of danger, the violent surging in the blood that stayed with a man after it was past. As with battle frenzy, it had at its heart the need to defy fear, to deny human frailty, human mortality.

He wanted to tell Isabel what he had seen and what it meant, to talk away the guilt that he had been too late to prevent Juliette’s death, to explain that he had no part in it and hear her absolve him of responsibility. It was impossible. Once begun, he might never stop. Besides, she did not need to hold such horror in her mind, would not if he could help it.

He kissed her instead, blindly seeking the warm depths of her mouth, her sweet sanity and sweeter surcease. And miracle of miracles, she met his lips, opened to him, took his tongue into her precious heat.

Suddenly he was rapacious, a ravening beast who could not get close enough to her, could not fill his hands with enough of her body, her softness, her moist and glowing heat. She moaned, rubbing against him, as ferocious in her need as he. They came together with grasping, squeezing hands, skimming over mounds and hollows, dipping into sensitive valleys, following with lips and tongues and mindless intent. They rolled over the bed, legs entwined. He shifted to heave her above him, pressed her down upon his strutted flesh while he spread his fingers over her hips, urging her, silently demanding her encompassment. She took him in, gasping a little at the depth of his reach. Then she arched her back, sinking upon him still more, eyes closed, a low hum in her throat with the sound of gratified need.

He raised his head and upper body, sought her breast with desperate hunger. The nipple was so sweet on his tongue, so tender a morsel. He suckled her, sliding his hands to her rib cage to hold her close for his pleasure. She rocked gently upon him, then stronger, and stronger still until he was forced to release her so she might move freely.

She leaned forward then, shaking the thick, sweet-scented curtain of her hair around them. He felt the ends of it whip his face as she moved, felt the hard clutch of her hands as she braced herself on his shoulders, gripping the bones beneath them as she slid in the hot moisture that poured from her now. He surged against her, ramming upward, seating himself so firmly inside her that he felt her heartbeat, felt her quick, hard breathing, felt the tremulous flutters deep inside her. He felt the swift flow of her life’s blood, her warm and vibrant life, and was deliriously glad.

Suddenly she tensed, holding him with the hard possession of a rider, stronger than he would have thought possible, triumphant in her possession. He gave her what she wanted, his quiescence, his acceptance. Gave it until she sighed, until she relaxed and keeled forward to lie upon his chest.

He turned with her then, raising her knees to accommodate him completely as he stroked in steady rhythm as endless as the rain that poured from the roof to stream into the stable yard below. He took her, sounding her, molding her to his form, basking in her heat, her acceptance that held nothing back. And still he strove with every muscle as hard as stone, every intention like steel, every iota of his will awaiting, needing, her surrender.

Her eyes flew open, and she stared into his face as her body tensed again, throbbing against him, around him, drawing him deeper. He redoubled his efforts, took them both spinning into insanity and beyond, to a place where they were two no longer, but only one. She was his and he was hers, whether she wanted him or not. She would not sleep separate from him, would not escape him, would not, could not, never, not ever….

Unless…

Unless he was forced to let her go.

It was some time later, as he lay in stunned sleep with Isabel held in the curve of his body, her bottom against his belly and her breast captured in his hand, that booted feet tramped into his dreams. In the way of such things, he could not move, though he knew what the sound portended. He was seized by near-superstitious awe for the way things happen, of fatalistic submission to the will of his God and his king.

It was always meant to be this way. He had known it from the first, had fought against it with all his might and will, but to no purpose. The end had been there in the beginning.

The curse of the Three Graces had come to him.

The door of the chamber crashed open, slamming against the wall behind it. Isabel cried out, sat up. She swept back the bed curtains with one slender arm while holding the sheet to her breasts. She was tousled, lovely with her hair streaming around her, curling over one shoulder to shimmer in the morning light through the window as her chest rose and fell with her swift breathing.

Rand was reminded for a fraction of an instant of Juliette’s bloodstained tresses shining in the torchlight. Forcing the image from him, he pushed up in the bed, sat with his knees drawn up and his share of the sheet draped across his lap.

The chamber filled with men-at-arms fitted with mail and armed with halberds. They tramped inside, broke formation and took positions on either side of the door. With the way secured yet clear, a trio of nobles stepped through. Two of them were Graydon and Henley. To their fore was McConnell, Rand’s half brother, his expression almost sorrowful as it rested upon him.

“Rise, brother, and dress yourself,” he said as he came forward, stopping less than a yard from the bed with his hand resting on his sword hilt. “I regret to be the bearer of ill tidings yet again, but you are ordered to the Tower.”

“No,” Isabel whispered, her gaze moving over the men as if unable to accept the meaning of their presence.

“The edict is signed in Henry’s own hand and set with his seal, Lady Isabel. That’s if you care to see it.”

She put out her hand on the instant. It was a brave gesture, Rand thought, for a woman lying barely covered in a room crowded with men-at-arms who pretended to look straight ahead but cut the corners of their eyes in her direction. Her gaze was imperious, however, her manner as stately as if she had been gowned in velvet sewn with jewels. Taking the heavy parchment, she ran her gaze down the closely written lines, making short work of the Latin phrases. The color drained from her face. She closed her eyes, and it was a moment before she looked up again.

“But this charge is not the same. It says here…”

Rand knew what it must say. Regardless, the knowledge that she had seen it was like acid scalding his heart. His fists clenched on the linen that covered his thighs. A soft, ripping sound fretted the silence.

“Indeed,” McConnell answered, his face grave as he continued in gruff tones. “The charge now is double murder. I regret to tell you that Mademoiselle Juliette d’Amboise, mother of the child your husband is accused of burning to death, has also been killed. She died last night at a place some distance from Westminster. Her body was discovered after a man answering Braesford’s description was seen fleeing the place of the murder.”

As McConnell spoke, Graydon limped forward a step. He leaned on his stick while he plucked from the floor the sodden shirt, doublet and wrinkled, wet hose Rand had discarded. “Aye, and here is proof he was outside the palace. ’Twas late when he came to bed, I think, as his squire has not dealt with this mess.”

McConnell shrugged. “It is all that’s required to set the seal on it.”

Isabel made a gesture of dismissal, though she was so pale her skin appeared almost transparent. “Withdraw, all of you. Withdraw and allow my husband to be dressed.” She glanced from Graydon to Henley, who stared back with an avid look in his eyes, then to the open door where David had appeared, hovering with desperate worry in his face. “He will join you when he leaves his squire’s hands.”