Rose Bride (25 page)

It seemed to her that his hand trembled as he passed her the wine cup, and she wondered if he was still angry with her. And no surprise if he was. She had told him no, never again, then come to his chamber in the night like the whore he believed her.

She was shocked and bemused by her own behaviour too. Just the thought of being found out left her shivering. Yet how could she obey the queen and stay away from Virgil Elton? All these years of celibacy and she had finally found a man she desired. Even if she could never wed him, she could still enjoy these few snatched moments of pleasure before the coldness of life closed over her head again like the deep waters of the Thames.

He had seen her shiver, and brought his cloak, wrapping it about her bare shoulders.

Margerie met his gaze, and knew it was hopeless. She had fallen in love with Virgil Elton.

Her heart ached as she realised her error. It was hard to keep the despair out of her face. But what a foolhardy thing to have done. This man saw her as a wanton, and indeed she had been one tonight. He thought her capable of promiscuity. He was to be married soon; she had even seen the lady herself, walking with him in the palace gardens, a thin, frail creature, to be sure, and young, but with glowing eyes and a high forehead. Beautiful and no doubt worthy of his love.

She had heard his betrothed described as a lady of great learning as well as fortune, and of good blood. Beside such a paragon, Margerie was a mere convenience, a sop for his occasional lusts. And she knew it.

‘So,’ Virgil began, sipping his wine while he watched her over the rim of his cup, ‘why did you come to me tonight?’

‘I told you—’

‘But not any other night,’ he elaborated, interrupting. ‘Why now, and not before? Why cut me off without a right of appeal, then lie with me as though starved of a man’s touch? You have an attentive lover, and a younger man at that. Lord Munro is barely old enough to grow a beard. His stamina must be ten times mine.’

From beneath her lashes she regarded him with a look of irony, a smile playing on her lips.

‘God’s blood,’ he exclaimed, half laughing, half grimacing, ‘what does that look signify?’

But she shook her head secretly. Her delight in his rigorous love-making was not something she could share. Not even with him.

His eyes flickered over her face in the candlelight, settled on her mouth, becoming intent. She wished she knew what he was thinking, and set a hand on his forearm, lean but powerful, loving the feel of veins beneath her fingers.

‘I wanted you more tonight than I did before, that’s all,’ she said, and hesitated. If she was not careful, she would give herself away. She could not risk giving away the wound spreading inside her. To blurt out, ‘I love you.’ The thought of his mockery was too painful.

‘You gave me what I . . . what I needed,’ she finished, then looked away.

He was studying her closely, frowning. ‘Something Munro can’t give you?’

Where was the point in lying?

‘Yes,’ she admitted.

His demeanour changed. He downed his wine abruptly and set the cup on the floor.

‘Margerie,’ he said huskily, taking her cup away and placing it beside his own. Then he seized both her hands, looking at her strangely. ‘Sweet Margerie.’

‘Yes, Virgil?’

‘You remember that I am to be married soon?’

She tried to look unconcerned. ‘Yes.’

‘I would like to keep you as my mistress after I am married,’ he said, then held up a hand, silencing her when she would have protested. ‘I cannot offer all that Munro does. I earn a small fee for my work at court and cannot lavish gifts upon you. I have a modest family holding in Kent. My mother lives in the main house, and it is likely my wife will join her after we are wed. But there is a small cottage on the other side of the estate. You . . . You could live there, if you wished to leave court and become my mistress. I would visit whenever I could.’

She stared. ‘With your wife nearby? Do you have no care for her feelings?’

‘If we were discreet, she would have no need to know,’ he said defensively. ‘The cottage lies near the top of a steep hill overlooking the valley, on a track where few travellers venture.’

She shivered again. ‘It sounds a lonely spot.’

‘But beautiful, I assure you, and out of sight of the main house.’ Virgil hesitated, frowning, and a slight flush entered his cheeks. ‘Forgive me, I have not made myself plain. My betrothed, Christina, has always suffered poor health and is mostly confined to her chamber. Some years ago I promised to marry her, thinking Christina about to die and wishing to ease her pain. She was in love with me, being a young girl of a romantic disposition.’ He did not look at her, but she could see guilt in his face. ‘I should have stopped it, of course. But I always thought . . . I assumed . . .’

‘That she would die before it became necessary to tell her?’

He glanced at her gratefully. ‘Yes.’

‘But she did not die.’

‘No,’ Virgil agreed, his mouth twisting in a wry smile. ‘And for that, I thank God. Christina has been a good friend to me over the years, and I care for her deeply. I have no wish to see her hurt. But although I know she expects me to consummate the marriage, Christina is of a weak constitution. I will not be in any hurry to breed her, for that would be the surest way to bring about her death.’ His face was grim. ‘I am duty-bound to marry her, all the same. To break it off now would be dishonourable.’

She expects me to consummate the marriage . . .

A dart of pain nearly stole her breath away at the thought of him lying in another woman’s arms.

‘Yet to marry her and keep a mistress nearby is not?’

He raised his head, meeting her gaze directly. ‘You think me a villain for trying to be happy? With you, I could at least hope for a child. The king had it right. Better a bastard son than none at all.’

Virgil put out a finger, trailing it along her lips. The touch was light but nonetheless sent a thrill through her. She trembled, her mouth suddenly dry.

‘Munro does not make you happy in bed, does he? Or you would not be here with me now, betraying him.’

She held her breath. ‘I cannot . . .’

‘Forgive me, I should not have asked such a question. But I can see the unhappiness in your eyes. And a desire that keeps you in my bed, and out of his.’ He bent and slanted his mouth across hers, kissing her deeply. By the time he pulled back, they were both breathing heavily, their faces flushed. ‘Say yes, and I can make the arrangements. I am high in the king’s favour at the moment. He will agree to your removal from court, I am sure of it.’

Margerie thought of the queen’s anger, and the young bride’s look of betrayal when she discovered the truth, and she closed her eyes.

‘No,’ she whispered.

Virgil was silent, and when she opened her eyes again, she found him staring at her, a savage look in his eyes.

‘Why?’

‘Must I give a reason?’

His reply was flat. ‘Yes.’

Her temper flared. ‘Then you will be waiting a long while to hear it, sir.’

‘You want me, I can feel it in your kiss. Yet you say no.’ He frowned heavily. ‘Are you afraid I will desert you if Christina bears me a legitimate son, or if I grow tired of your company? Do not fear it, Margerie. I can have papers drawn up to guard against such an event, ensure the cottage is endowed upon you forever. Whatever makes you feel safe.’

If I grow tired of your company . . .

She hugged herself, looking away, tears pricking stupidly at her eyes.

‘No need,’ she said, and heard her own voice with marvel, for it was calm and not clogged with tears. ‘You see, Lord Munro has made me a similar offer. Only he is giving me a fine country house in Sussex, and a small estate to go with it. Forgive me for having led you into error tonight. I was . . . lonely . . . and his lordship is not at court at present. That is why I sought you out.’

He was silent at last, and she was thankful for that. Even if she found the courage to defy the queen, she could never continue as Virgil’s mistress once he was married. It would not be fair to his young bride, however ill she might be and unable to fulfil her wifely duties. Besides which, it would hurt more than a thousand cuts to lie with Virgil in heat and intimacy, then watch him go home to another woman.

‘I thank you for your kind offer, sir,’ she finished, straightening her back, ‘but I must refuse.’

When the time came for them to leave court, in the first few days of February, Virgil took the unexpected decision to accompany Christina and his mother back to Kent.

He did not know why but something had urged him to leave court, to return home, even if only for a sennight. His duties at court would not spare him any longer than that. But it had been an age since he looked out from his own bedchamber at home on frosty fields, rough grazing land bordered by woodlands to the east, a sloping meadow beyond that where sheep grazed.

Applegate was not a large house, but had always been comfortable if somewhat ramshackle, a huddle of mud-dark buildings hedged about by farmland that inclined towards marsh in the wet season. It had supported the Elton family in a meagre fashion for some hundred and fifty years, and now it was his. He had inherited the house at the age of eight when his father died, but allowed his new stepfather, Harry Tulkey, to run the place, frankly not caring for many years if it went to ruin.

Harry Tulkey.

Even now it was hard to think of the man without feeling sick or wishing to break something. His stepfather had not been a kind gentleman. He had been a man in whose veins had run wine, rather than blood. Tall and lanky, his grey hair unkempt, the thin figure of Master Tulkey had haunted his dreams for years. Even his mother, in the end, had learned to cower at the sound of his stick on the stairs.

Yet his mother must have loved Tulkey when she remarried. Why else inflict such a drunken bastard not only on herself, but on her young – and still grieving – son?

Virgil stood at the window of his musty old bedchamber, hands clasped behind his back, and pondered how his life – and indeed his nature – had changed since becoming attached to the court as physician.

That auspicious appointment had been Sir John Skelton’s doing, of course, his godfather. On his father’s side, their family had been little better than farmers, and he might well have expected to dig turnips and herd sheep for the rest of his life without his godfather’s interference.

Sir John Skelton, a distant cousin of his mother’s and a man who had always enjoyed the king’s ear, had noted how much Harry Tulkey hated his new stepson. Even though in failing health at the time, Sir John had made it his business to extract Virgil from that life. He had handsomely arranged for Virgil to attend the university at Oxford, where he himself had studied as a youth, and then provided him with a court appointment, as apprentice to one of the king’s chief physicians for his first year.

If he had known his godfather’s reputation better, he might have been less inclined to honour him, Virgil thought drily. For the man might have been a rector and a scholar, but he was also known to have behaved scandalously in his younger days. Even his poetry had been shocking in its lewd coarseness, depicting women as whores and drunkards. No wonder he had warned Virgil to stay away from the houses of Venus.

But the years had passed, Sir John Skelton had died, and Virgil had finally thought himself safe at last. No longer prey to childish doubts, he had sported lustily with a number of eager widows and the occasional whore, and grown unassailable in his understanding of the properties of plants, and their effect on the human body. Indeed he had grown quite knowledgeable about the act of sexual intercourse, its curious pleasures and how to augment them, and had often been consulted by courtiers on that very matter.

Then he had met Margerie Croft.

He looked out of the window, sighing. The high walls of the manor house were just visible through trees across the valley. It was odd to think that Christina lived there all alone now that both her uncle and her father were dead. They had played together as children under those trees, until Christina’s condition grew worse and his friend was forced to retreat indoors, thenceforth an invalid.

His friend
.

He examined that thought, his mood bleak and uncompromising. Was Christina still his friend?

Could a wife ever be a friend? For a friend was not an inferior, but an equal. Yet a wife was a man’s inferior both legally and in the eyes of God. A wife could not be the equal of her husband and yet his possession too. Owned by him, submissive to him, his chattel and slave. His slave.

‘What are you thinking, Margerie Croft?’

‘Of you in a toga and laurel wreath crown, and me on my knees before you.’

His loins tightened in response to that enticing and very pagan image. She knew how to excite him, Margerie Croft. She understood his passions instinctively, his secret desires. Would his loins tighten so forcefully when it was Christina in his bed, clad in some demure nightgown and with eyes modestly downcast, like the good virgin that she was?

How would Christina respond if he took her as violently as he had taken Margerie that last time? With bewilderment and a resentful silence afterwards, he suspected. Certainly not with equal lust, wild and untrammelled sexual desires spurring him to even greater pleasure with every thrust.