By His Majesty's Grace (24 page)

“On a night this July last, you were summoned to a lying-in at Braesford Hall. Is this correct?”

“Aye, milady.”

“You arrived in good time to find a woman in labor, I believe. Tell us what happened then.”

The woman looked as if she might faint. Her throat worked as she swallowed and she blinked so constantly the movement was like a tic. “I did me duty as best I know how. The lady was having a hard time of it.”

“She was a lady?” The expression on Lady Margaret’s face as she put the question said plainly that she doubted it.

“Aye, that she was, though a foreigner. She screamed out, praying in words I couldna understand.”

“She was delivered of the infant?”

“That she was, though it was a long, wearisome business. ’Twas a breach birth, see, but was finally turned. The babe was a girl child, such a pretty little thing.”

“It was alive and healthy?”

“Oh, aye. It cried and all, for I cleared the wee throat so it might. ’Twas a bit weak from the long birthing, but right as rain.”

“What happened then?”

“I showed her to her mother, didn’t I? And right proud she was, too. But the afterbirth was coming, see, and I had to tend to it. The gentleman who was there, Braesford himself, took the baby and walked away into the next chamber. I was that surprised, most men not liking to touch the wee ones. They fear to hurt them, see.”

“Yes, yes, and then?”

“Well, the poor babe hushed its crying, sudden, like. Which I didn’t think too much about, as the mother was bleeding something fierce. It was only later that I—”

“The mother’s bleeding stopped?”

“Aye, for I had herbs and simples and clean linen by me for such.”

Lady Margaret nodded in satisfaction. “And how long before you thought about the baby again?”

“Nigh on an hour, it may be. Braesford came back to ask about the lady. He said the lady’s serving woman had bathed the girl child and wrapped her in swaddling, and she was fast asleep.”

“So then you left the manse. You were not asked to remain to look after the mother and child?”

“Nay, milady. The serving woman, a foreigner like her mistress, knew a thing or two about birthing. She must, for she’d tried to deliver the babe before I was brought in. I was paid me fee and sent on my way.” The midwife’s lip thrust out as she spoke, as if in resentment at her dismissal when she had no doubt expected several days of nursing service with extra coin for it.

“And then?”

“Well, I went away down the stairs, didn’t I? I was met outside by the man who would take me homeward. It was while I was mounting pillion behind him that I smelled the stench.”

“Stench?”

“’Twas like flesh burning, I vow. I looked up then, and black smoke was pouring out the chimney pot of the room I’d left.”

Lady Margaret frowned. “Could it not have been something else you smelled? A kitchen fire, say?”

The woman shook her head, almost dislodging her head covering. “I’d say not, milady. ’Twas nothing like it. ’Twas more…more—”

“Quite,” Lady Margret said, cutting her off with a regal gesture.

Silence fell in the chamber except for the scratch of the scribe’s pen on parchment. It stopped as he caught up with what had been said. Isabel waited for the king’s mother to continue. When she did not, she cleared her throat with a small sound.

“Yes, Lady Isabel?” Lady Margaret said drily.

“If I might speak?”

Assent was given with a wave of one small hand. Isabel turned immediately to the midwife. “Was a fire burning already in the fireplace?”

“Aye, and it was. ’Twas a night of misting rain, damp, like, and chill, for all ’twas coming on summer. Lovely, it was, to have a fire in the chamber like that. I like to have hot water handy, see, to warm my hands before I set to work.”

“So it was burning the whole time. You removed the afterbirth, I believe you said. What did you do with it?”

“Why, nothing. It was got out of the way, left with the bloody rags and such. ’Twas the serving woman’s job to tidy the chamber. Afterward, I mean.”

“Might she not have thrown rags and all on the fire? Could the smell have been the afterbirth burning?”

The woman opened her eyes wide. “Well…well, I suppose it could have happened that way. But I never heard the babe again.”

“The baby was supposed to be asleep. Would it have been so unusual not to hear it?”

The woman gave a slow shake of her head. “Not really, when the birth was so hard. It was the gentleman coming and taking it away that was not as usual, see.”

“Were you given any cause to think Braesford meant harm? Was anything said between him and the lady to make you believe injury might befall the newborn?”

“I can’t say so, now I think on it.”

“Still you immediately thought, on smelling cooked flesh, that the baby had been killed? What of the man who brought you? Did he notice it, too?”

The woman’s face cleared. “Oh, ’twas not the same one as brought me. It were young Tom Croker, son of Old Tom, who came for me, you know. The man who took me home was another I’d not seen before, a gentleman, like. But he smelled the stink, right enough. He caught it first, asking what did I think, saying was it not a funny smell. It brought to his mind a time when his young servant boy fell into the fire pit, so he said, and was sore burned before he could be snatched out again.”

16

R
and finally trimmed the beard he had grown. He bathed because he could no longer stand himself. The miserable half pail of cold water provided by the guards at high price was a far cry from the sumptuous bath Isabel had prepared for him after the tournament. He missed the full, big tub with its comfortable linen liner, missed the scented soap, missed the linen toweling, missed, most of all, the tantalizing touch of the lovely female who had knelt to bathe him and that he had dragged into the water with him.

God, but Isabel had been warm and tender, her skin like satin over ivory. If he closed his eyes, he could escape the stone walls that enclosed him, could imagine himself in their chamber once more with her in his arms. Her mouth had been so sweet, her hair a silken wonder, so soft he wanted to bury his strutted length in it. And he had, yes, he had.

Wrenching from the rough mattress and coming erect, he shook himself, cursing viciously in English, in French and the lingua franca of the mercenaries in European armies. If he didn’t find something to do other than torture and titivate himself with memories, he would go mad.

Lost in the violent fight against too-vividly remembered sensation, he failed to hear the key grating in the lock. He swung toward the door only as it opened. For a wild instant, he thought he was fevered or mad indeed, for it seemed Isabel swept into his cell-like chamber in a great whiff of fresh air, Saracen perfume and splendor.

She was lovely beyond belief in a summer cloak of golden-yellow linen embroidered in red over a red gown of summer linen, a small red cap and a veiling of palest orange over her hair. In her hands she carried a covered basket from which came aromas so delectable that his stomach growled in virulent anticipation. It was she he wanted to devour, however, every single inch of her without let or hindrance, stopping only when he was sated enough for eternity.

“Well, sir,” she said, coming to a halt just inside the door while the yeomen jailer locked it again behind her. “You sent for me, I believe. Am I not welcome?”

“Aye,” he answered, his voice husky with disuse. Tightness invaded his chest even as he spoke, and black anger surged through him like a lightning strike. “Where in God’s name have you been that it took so long?”

She observed him as a bird might eye a coiled snake, wary yet confident in the knowledge that she could fly away. Skirting him with gliding footsteps, she placed her burden on the small table under the high window, moving aside a book he had been reading, his lute, a few sheets of parchment, his pen and cake of dried ink. He turned slowly to follow her progress, helianthus to her sun, watching with every fiber of his body in perilous strain. His stomach muscles clenched and the back of his neck grew hot as she slipped her cloak from her shoulders and draped it over his single stool.

“I have been about the business of discovering the truth concerning Mademoiselle d’Amboise,” she said.

Her voice was meant to be soothing, he thought. Instead, it acted upon him like a siren’s song so he took a step toward her. Annoyance for that involuntary movement lent an edge to his answer. “I sent word that you were not to concern yourself.”

“What was I to do instead? Sit stitching on pretty flowers while waiting to hear you had been hanged?”

“Waiting to hear, rather, that the curse of the Graces had been fulfilled and you were free.”

Her lashes swept down, but not before he caught a flash of stark consciousness in the vivid green of her eyes. “I lacked the patience.”

“Or the obedience you swore to before the priest.”

“A mannish conceit, I think. At mass on Sunday last, the same priest declared women to be base creatures of overweening passions and no honor. If we are to be denied honor, then why trouble about a vow not of our choosing?”

“Are your passions overweening, sweet wife?”

He was rewarded by the lift of her eyes in a fulminating glare. “It was the priest’s description, not mine. Do you wish to hear what I have been about or not?”

He did, but it was secondary to other wishes that crowded his brain. Lifting a hand in a gesture of accord, he turned away, the better to hide the evidence of what his ruminations on her passions had done to his body.

From the corner of his eye, he caught sight of his narrow bed and the length of white silk that lay at its head. It was the sleeve from Isabel’s wedding costume given as her favor at the tournament. Running it through his hands, sleeping with it draped over his face, had become habits after he found it packed among the items David brought for his comfort. It still bore the stains of his blood, pale brown against the white silk, but it also held captured in its weave the faint perfume of Isabel, the scent she wore and her innate sweetness. Holding it to his nose calmed the beat of his heart, or so it seemed, and sent him into satyr’s dreams.

It did not suit him to have her guess how dependent he had become upon its consolation. Moving without haste, he stepped to the bed and pretended to straighten the grimy sheet while sweeping the silk rectangle beneath it. Turning again, he gave her an ironic bow as he offered the low bed as a seat.

She glanced at the lumpy mattress, then away again, before shaking her head. “I would as soon stand.”

It was wise of her to avoid that rather obvious step to perdition, he thought. He might easily have joined her there and put an end to all discussion.

“Did you know,” she asked, bracing her fingertips on the table beside her, “that the man who returned the midwife to her home after Mademoiselle Juliette d’Amboise was delivered of her child was not from Braesford? That he was, in fact, a gentleman?”

“A gentleman?”

“So the woman said. He was not known to her, nor did he give her a name. It seems it was he who put the idea of child murder into her head.”

Rand had not known. Even if he had his ideas of who might have set the business in motion, however, there was little to be done about it. “What would you? I fear the thing has gone too far for causes and stratagems to matter.” He paused, brushed the subject aside with a gesture. “I see the splint is gone from your finger. It’s healed, then?”

“As you say.” She glanced down at it an instant, then met his gaze, her own unguarded and so soft with remembrance that it wrung his heart. “For which I must thank you yet again.”

He could think of ways that might be accomplished, but choked back the words as he inclined his head. “Not at all.”

“No.” She took a swift breath that pressed her breasts higher against her bodice. “Where was I? Lady Margaret’s council and what has been discovered. Allow me to tell you, if you please?”

She went on to relate a good many things as he faced her in the small chamber, most of them unknown to him. Hope, that bastard emotion that tied men’s souls in knots, awakened inside him as he listened, particularly as he realized the scope of Lady Margaret’s entry into the business.

Ruthlessly, he choked it off. It would not do, not while he lay behind lock and key, unable to provide the least modicum of protection for his wife.

“You do realize,” he said with deliberate scorn, “that a woman has died to prevent the knowledge you are seeking from being made public? You can understand, can you not, that you may be killed if you continue?”

“I am not stupid, however much you might prefer it,” she answered with a lift of her chin. “But I abhor unfairness, cannot abide that whoever has brought this upon you should profit from it.”

“So it’s the unfairness of it that moves you. You have no concern for my life.”

“I did not say so. What manner of wife would I be to show myself content that you should die for a crime you did not commit?”

“One forced to wed against her will,” he drawled in tried reason. “Some pray to be released from such unions. But if you have any respect whatever for the tie that binds us, you will heed my command in this matter. Return to Westminster and keep as still in our chamber as you are able. Forget what took place at Braesford because the truth will not change what is to happen. Preserve yourself and, just possibly, the child we may have created between us. That is the best thing you can do for me.”

The look she gave him held only scorn. “I had not expected you to be grateful, but did think you might have some appreciation for what I am about.”

“Oh, I appreciate it, my dear wife, far more than you know. But I object to lying here in terror of your death while I can do nothing to prevent it. I have no wish to discover, when I am hanged, that you are already on the other side to greet me.”

Her eyes, dark green with concern, searched his face even as color drained from her face. After a long moment, she sighed, lowered her gaze to a point past his shoulder. “You think,” she said in the barest of whispers, “that Henry is really behind this thing. You believe he did away with his mistress, meant to be rid of her baby.”

“A kingdom is a hard thing to lose.”

“All because he bedded a woman for some few weeks or months before he took a queen, yes.”

“Or for the sake of another man’s child,” he answered with a snort of disdain. “Another man’s…?”

“Did I not tell you before? I have it on good authority that Mademoiselle Juliette had more than one lover. It seems she was also the mistress of the king’s Master of Revels.”

“That is clearly impossible, as I would have told you before if you had allowed me to know what you were about. Yes, or taken the time to hear what I would say.”

He remembered the incident, remembered also the crock of raspberries he had brought to their chamber on the night of his interrogation on the matter. That he had been so distracted as to miss the knowledge she held did not aid his temper. “You say so because you know him so well? You feel he was so entranced with you that taking another woman would not occur to him? Few men are so single-minded.”

“I say it because it would be incest. I say it because I know well that Mademoiselle Juliette is, or was, his sister.”

Shock and confusion struck Rand like a double blow. He stared at Isabel, seeking the truth in the clear, gray-green depths of her eyes. It lay there, like a new-minted coin at the bottom of a well. “You know this…how?”

“He told me months ago, when I first came to court. It was a slip of the tongue, I think, as he spoke of a song he had written about a sweet young girl seduced by a king’s idle desire. He said he could never sing it at Henry’s court, but should earn renown with it later, when he returned to—”

“To Brittany,” Rand supplied, as that was where Leon had joined Henry’s retinue as a minstrel and, later, the architect of his entertainment.

“To France,” she corrected.

To France. Of course, to France. Leon and Juliette no doubt were, or had been, in the pay of the French crown. The French crown that had been trying for centuries to wipe out all trace of English dominion over French soil.

God, how could he have been so blind? The child was Henry’s, after all. It must have been conceived during Juliette’s liaison with him for the sole purpose of becoming a hostage for his favor toward French policy.

How very maddening it must have been for Anne, regent for young Charles VIII, and how lethally inconvenient that Henry had so quickly gotten another babe upon his new queen.

The usefulness of Juliette’s child might be lessened if Elizabeth of York produced a royal heir, though not neutralized entirely. Henry would still have a care for his flesh and blood. Who had spirited the baby away, then, and why? Had it been done to prevent Henry’s small daughter from being used against him? Was it so she could be held by those who would best know how to use such a tender captive?

Yes, and had Juliette died trying to protect little Madeleine, or had she been killed for another reason altogether? A dead woman could not identify her child, and a child without a mother could be claimed by any female. It would not have been necessary to kill the little one.

“I had her,” Rand said, the words stark in the quiet room.

“Had who?” Isabel asked in sudden coolness.

The fleeting thought struck him that she thought he referred to Juliette. Could she, just possibly, be jealous of his acquaintance with the dead lady? It was laughable on the face of it, since Juliette had been hugely pregnant during her time at Braesford, but he was not amused. “The baby Madeleine, Juliette’s child,” he said in gruff explanation. “I discovered her at the rendezvous on the night I was arrested.”

His lady wife was not dull-witted; she took no more than an instant to grasp what he was saying. “The baby was with her all along? She truly was removed from Braesford with Mademoiselle Juliette?”

He heard the gladness in her voice and allowed himself a moment of irony. “Oh, aye, as I’ve said all along.”

“David told me she was safe, but not how it came about or who had her. What happened? Where were they taken?”

“A message was delivered asking for my aid, as you may know.”

She gave a quick nod. “Go on.”

“I was told where to meet Mademoiselle Juliette, at a ruined keep deep in the country. The idea was that I should be discovered there with her body, and with the baby. By good luck, I was early to the meeting place. I found Juliette newly dead and the baby lying where she had fallen, so it appeared, as Juliette died. She was such a small mite. I tucked her into my doublet and escaped through the postern gate. Once back in town, I—”

He stopped abruptly, appalled at his near mistake.

“You what? Where did you take her? What did you do with her?”

He refused to tell her. Once Isabel learned where the child was, she would not rest until she had the small one in her keeping; it was how she was made. Who could say what might come of that? Murder had been done because of this birth, as he had told her, and might well be again.

“It isn’t something you need know. Suffice it to say she is well and well hidden.”