Kissed by Shadows (30 page)

“'Tis possible that that faceless crowd were also moved but unable to speak,” she said, her hold loosening a little.

“I did not keep silence through fear,” he said.

“No,” she agreed, her arms dropping to her sides. “In the interests of a greater good.”

He turned slowly towards her. “I will not defend myself, Pippa. Your accusations stand true.”

Silently she gazed up into his face. He held her gaze, his gray eyes clear and steady. Then he took her face in both his hands and kissed her, a hesitant, questioning kiss.

She held herself very still, her eyes still fixed upon his, as his lips pressed lightly, warmly against her mouth. Was there something perverse in this need she had for this kind of contact, the reassurance of another loving body? The reassurance of
Lionel's
body? But she felt through the hands on her face his own need for the same thing.

He drew her backwards to the bed. He touched her breasts through her shift and she felt their new tenderness. He opened the shift and kissed her breasts. Every movement was hesitant, as if he waited for permission. She ran her hands through his hair, pressing his head to her bosom. She kissed the top of his head, her hands moving to his shoulders as she fell back on the narrow cot.

And later he shifted himself on the narrow cot so that he held her in the crook of his arm, and she slept like an exhausted child with her head in the hollow of his shoulder.

Lionel did not sleep. He kept vigil, watching over her, filled with such a fierce need to protect her he couldn't imagine ever sleeping again.

Twenty-three

Malcolm left as dawn's gray light encroached upon the night. A sleepy Jem harnessed the horses to the carriage a few minutes later and took the London road. Within the inn the kitchen boy bent to poke the embers in the range and throw on kindling to create a burst of flame that would satisfy Goodman Brown and his wife when they came down yawning from their chamber above the kitchen.

Luisa, who had lain awake most of the night beside Nell, who had slept the sleep of the truly exhausted, wondered how she was to get out of bed with any decency when Robin lay on the truckle bed beyond the curtains.

She leaned over and twitched aside the curtains. Nell grunted in her sleep. Groaned and sat up.

“Lord'a'mercy! Missus'll be 'ollerin' to raise the devil!” She tumbled through the bedcurtains, hauling down her petticoats. “I'll be up in a minute wi' fresh coals.” And then she was gone.

Robin was on his feet, straightening his doublet, rubbing his beard, which seemed to have grown to unruly proportions during the short night.

“I'll be in the taproom,” he mumbled to Luisa's tousled head, showing between the bedcurtains like an autumn daisy.

She waited for the door to close then got to her feet. She was in chemise and petticoat and her bare feet immediately took the chill from the floor. Her farthingale and stomacher and gown lay where she had discarded them with Nell's help on the chest at the foot of the bed. Without Nell's help she would have difficulty putting them on again.

Pippa, too, would have difficulty dressing for the morning. They would have to help each other.

Luisa wrapped herself in her cloak and gathered up her outer garments and the embroidered bag containing her other necessities. Don Ashton had said the washhouse was outside the inn beyond the kitchen.

She found the back way to the kitchen, was ignored by yawning folk tending fires and bacon just as she ignored them, broke out into the kitchen yard and identified the washhouse by its smells of lye and pig-fat soap.

She climbed the rickety stairs and a heartbeat after she knocked on the door remembered that Don Ashton was sharing this chamber with Pippa.

Her knock sounded like Gabriel's trumpet.

“Who is it?” It was Don Ashton's voice but Luisa couldn't retrace her steps. Not with an armful of lace and bone and silk and the steps creaking beneath her.

“'Tis Luisa,” she tried, her voice quavering.

“In the name of grace!” The door was flung open.

Don Ashton stood there in his hose and shirt, his boots in his hand. His shirt was unbuttoned, and Luisa found her eyes riveted to the broad expanse of chest thus revealed. His nipples were hard and small and brown. She had never seen a man's bare chest before.

Lionel stared at her for a minute as if he didn't know her, then realized what she was gazing at with her mouth slightly open, her deep blue eyes wide as platters. He dropped his boots with a clunk to the floor and buttoned his shirt, fumbling with the tiny pearl studs in his haste.

“What in the devil are you doing here?” he demanded, trying to take command of the situation with a show of impatient annoyance.

Luisa did not immediately reply. Her fascinated gaze drifted downwards and Lionel was acutely conscious of the prominence of his sex in the tight hose. The image of Dona Maria, Luisa's mother, rose in his mind. If she witnessed this scene she would have hysterics. And Dona Bernardina . . . God's blood, it didn't bear thinking of. He fought the urge to cover his genitals with his hands, it would only draw yet more attention to this ludicrous and inappropriate situation.

Instead he said with an assumption of haughty dignity, “What is it you want, Luisa? You have no business here.”

“I . . . I . . . thought that I did have,” Luisa said, her eyes still wide, still riveted on her guardian's pronounced dishabille. “I thought Pippa and I could help each other dress.”

She glanced quickly at the intimate bundle of clothes in her arms, then unable to help herself returned her eyes to the overwhelming evidence of her guardian's maleness. Had he thought nothing of revealing himself in this way to Pippa?

“But perhaps . . .” she stammered. “Perhaps she doesn't need me. Perhaps you are helping her.” The thought flashed that someone must have helped Pippa undress the previous evening. And Nell had been with Luisa.

Lionel decided it would be best to ignore this. Any attempt at an answer would lead only into a quagmire that made him shudder.

Pippa, who had woken at the sound of the knock and was now blearily blinking sleep from her eyes, realized that the situation required intervention. Lionel seemed for once at a loss for words. She swung herself off the cot and went to the door. She smiled reassuringly at Luisa over Lionel's shoulder.

“Come in, Luisa. Laces are the very devil. Mr. Ashton can repair to the taproom and finish dressing with Robin.”

“Oh, I wouldn't wish to drive Don Ashton from his chamber,” Luisa said on a mischievous impulse. She had never seen her guardian at a disadvantage before, and he most definitely was at this moment. “I didn't mean to interrupt.”

“You are not interrupting anything,” Pippa stated, hearing Lionel's quick indrawn breath. “Mr. Ashton was repairing to the taproom anyway.” She gave Lionel a little punch in the small of his back.

Lionel shook his head like a dog shaking off water. “Yes . . . yes . . . I was . . . so I was.” He hopped first on one foot then on the other as he pulled on his boots, then stepped away from the door, holding his doublet and cloak modestly against him.

He brushed past Luisa in the doorway and his descent of the rickety stairs was loud and rapid.

Luisa turned her wide-eyed gaze on Pippa. She took in her state of undress. She wore only a crumpled shift that was unlaced almost to her waist, and there was something shockingly intimate about the length of bare leg revealed below the hem of the thin white garment. It was as clear as day to her that Pippa and Don Ashton were a great deal more familiar to and with each other than they had hitherto indicated.

A fact that Luisa found very interesting. Her guardian always backed up Dona Bernardina's strictures, prated about his ward's reputation, the need to keep her in seclusion to maintain her maidenly modesty, and here he was enjoying a liaison with a woman married to another man. She wondered if Robin knew and decided that she would ask him at the earliest opportunity.

“No one will ever tell me what 'tis like to lose one's maidenhead,” she said. “Of course Dona Bernardina still has hers, at least I can't believe that she doesn't, and my mother could never bring herself to talk of such indelicate matters. But I think I should know, don't you, Pippa?”

“I think for the moment you should be satisfied with reducing your guardian to a state of utter discomposure,” Pippa replied, but she couldn't help a chuckle.

“I didn't mean to be indiscreet,” Luisa said primly.

“Oh, spare me the piety!” Pippa exclaimed. “You knew exactly what you were doing.” She grinned. “And I don't blame you in the least. I would have enjoyed the same game in your shoes. Come, let me lace you.”

Luisa breathed in deeply as Pippa tightened her laces. She reached for the farthingale but Pippa said, “No, don't bother with that. Petticoats will have to do. We don't need any more encumbrances than we already have. Fasten me now, but not too tightly.”

Luisa, emboldened by Pippa's evident amusement, tried for some more information. “Are you running away with Don Ashton . . . leaving your husband?”

Pippa twisted her hair into a silk snood at the nape of her neck. Luisa was entitled to some explanation. “Well, I am running away, and I am leaving my husband. But I am not running away with Lionel in the way you mean.”

Luisa nodded thoughtfully. “I did wonder why Robin would be helping you to do such a thing. 'Tis a grave sin to leave one's husband.”

“Now, that piece of piety I can also do without,” Pippa stated with an edge to her voice. “You should bear in mind that sometimes one sin cancels out another.”

She gathered up her bag and made for the door. “Come, we must hurry. We need to be on the road soon after first light.”

Luisa, now a little discomfited herself by Pippa's remark and puzzled by the edge in her voice, followed in a more subdued frame of mind.

The four of them stood in the taproom making a hasty breakfast of bread and fried bacon, washed down with ale. No one said much, the atmosphere was taut in the dim light of a single tallow candle, and Luisa watched her guardian and Pippa with a covert eye. They stood apart, not even exchanging a glance, but she knew what she knew. She shot a quick sideways glance at Robin, who stood with his back to the window and the gray square of light, and she wondered again if he knew the true nature of his sister's relationship with Don Ashton.

If he did, he presumably condoned it. Luisa decided it was past time she discovered some of these mysteries that were so well known to her companions. And as she thought that, she was aware of a most peculiar sensation. A curious tingling in her lower body, a sudden clutching in her belly. She watched Robin's mouth and knew that she had to feel his mouth on hers. Not the light brushing, almost teasing kisses he had hitherto bestowed, but something else entirely. She had to feel his hands on her body.

Her cheeks flooded with color and she had the horrid feeling that one of her companions might be able to read her innermost thoughts. She choked on a crust of bread and turned away, hiding her embarrassment in a fit of coughing.

It was Robin who thumped her back. “Eating too quickly,” he observed. “And the bread's stale into the bargain.”

Lionel set down the ale pot. “Let's be on our way. We must get beyond Newbury by nightfall.”

“More than forty miles,” Robin said, casting Luisa a doubtful glance. He knew Pippa's strengths but he was not so sure of Luisa's.

“We have no choice” was the curt response. “I'll settle up with the innkeeper. Robin, make sure the horses have pillion pads.”

Robin went out into the gloomy morning. Their horses were saddled and waiting in the stable yard, horse-hair pillion pads attached to the rear of the saddles. Pippa was not going to be happy slummocking along in such an undignified fashion, he reflected, and the horses were going to be exhausted carrying a double load for more than forty miles. The latter issue concerned him more than the former.

“We'll have to change horses,” he said when Lionel appeared.

“Aye, and 'tis the very devil. We'll have to stop at an inn on a well-traveled road to get decent beasts and if we're pursued they'll be asking for us at every inn on every major roadway between here and Penzance.”

“Then perhaps we should steal horses,” Pippa said from behind Lionel. “Find a field with a couple of good, sturdy animals and make an exchange. Philip's men can't make inquiry at every farmer's house we pass.”

“I hadn't realized you had a criminal mind as well as a resourceful one,” Lionel remarked.

“You don't know her,” Robin said, wishing as he said it that he had bitten his tongue. It had been intended as a little inside joke with Pippa but it hadn't come out in the least jesting.

“Not as well as you, I'm sure,” Lionel agreed without expression. “Let me put you up, Pippa.” He lifted her onto the pillion. For a moment he kept his hands at her waist, asking with soft concern, “How are you feeling? Not sick?”

“No.” She was aware of the bristling Robin, and Luisa's inquisitive gaze. She shook her head, swiftly dismissing Lionel's question, brushing away the intimate touch of his hands. For better or worse, last night had happened, but she was not prepared to make public proclamation of the fact.

She changed the subject. “Do you think the pursuit has started already?”

He replied in a similarly brisk tone. “I hope not. But we have to be prepared. At least they won't be looking for a party of four.”

He mounted in front of her and walked the horse out of the yard, Robin and Luisa following.

It was the deepest hour of the night but the council chamber blazed with light from the wheels of candles hanging from the delicately painted molding of the plaster ceiling.

“Who is Ashton? In the name of the Holy Mother,
what
is he?”

Philip's question was the cry of a screech owl in the night. He swiveled his hollow-eyed stare around the room. A vein throbbed in his temple. His face was drawn with fatigue.

“We know that he and his manservant passed through Aldgate yesterday afternoon and took the Oxford road. We also know that Robin of Beaucaire, escorting a carriage, passed through on the same route about an hour earlier.” Renard paced the chamber as he spoke, his hands clasped at his back.

He was trying to deflect the king's questions because the answers were impossible for him to articulate. The fault for this catastrophe lay entirely at the Spanish ambassador's door. So far no one had skewered him with the blame, but it would come. Oh, yes, it would come.

Philip pushed back his heavy carved chair with such violence that it fell backwards. “You will get him,” he declared. “I care not how. You will get me Ashton, and by the bones of Christ, when he's on the rack I will turn the wheel myself.”