Secrets at Court (6 page)

‘We will start again,’ he said. ‘Not as man or woman, perhaps.’ She wanted that no more than he, he was relieved to realise.

‘Men do not usually see a woman when they look at me.’

There was no sorrow in her statement and, again, anger stirred on her behalf. ‘Do you not want what other women want?’

‘Marriage?’ She glanced down at her lap and then back at him, her raised brow and half smile as full as much of pain as pleasure. ‘I had judged you a wiser man.’

‘Wise enough.’
Except when it comes to you.
Marriage, he guessed, would elude her and his question had only reminded her of that fact.

But of course she wanted it. All women did.

He knew not how to treat this woman or what to say. Her answer to a simple question made him as awkward and unsteady with his words as she was on her feet. Yet she
was
a woman. No reason to believe her any different from the rest. He should have been wary. Instead, he had been lulled.

* * *

Anne glanced at Nicholas, who was shaking his head as if he were trying to understand one of the Cornish speakers. Once again, it seemed, she had made him uneasy. It had not been deliberate, but better he be curious about her than about Lady Joan.

Better she turn the questions back at him than let him question her.

‘Besides,’ she began, ‘for every woman who wants to wed, there must be a man. Few men choose as you have.’

She let the statement dangle, hoping he would offer more of his reasons. Had a woman wronged him? Did he mourn a lost wife? Perhaps he had taken a vow.

‘Few men have seen women’s full deceit as I have.’

Words harsh as a blow. She must have gasped.

She parted her lips to argue.
I am not like that. I am not like those others you have known.

But, of course, she was. And to protest would only make the lie grow fat.

He rose and held out his hand. ‘If you are rested, we can return.’

She took his hand, needing his help to rise, but let go as quickly as she could, dreading the moment when he would have to help her on to the horse’s back.

It was always an awkward thing, mounting. Difficult as it was, she preferred to do it by herself so that no one would see her. First, she would have to lead the gentle horse up to a tree stump or a rock. Then she would step on it and position herself carefully so that she could reach the stirrup with her left foot. Finally, she would pull herself up, the right foot dragging behind her, and use her remaining strength to swing her right leg over the palfrey’s croup without hitting the horse.

It was all so difficult and unsightly that, were it not for the joy of riding, she would not do it at all. But once she was mounted, she could move, almost as freely as others did. For that, she would bear the pain.

But for him to see her...

The horse, well trained, ambled over to the log on her signal. If she asked, politely, would Nicholas look away and spare her the embarrassment?

She took a breath to ask him, but before she could speak he lifted her up, close enough to the saddle that she could find her seat, then it was easy to pull her right leg into position and settle in the saddle.

All done so quickly that she had no time to worry about how she looked. And so smoothly that their bodies did not linger together long enough to allow temptation again.

‘I thank you.’ Words she hated to say, yet he deserved them.

A quick glance, as if he were as unaccustomed to receiving thanks as she was to giving them.

‘You are kind to say so,’ he said, solemn as if she had taken an oath.

‘Usually, no one...’ She let the words trail off. She had been helped by servants, pages, or even squires on occasion, but never by a gentleman.

He studied her with eyes that seemed to look deeper than she wanted.

‘Let us go,’ he said, finally, mounting his own horse. ‘And hear the King’s tales of how he killed the stag.’

No. She was not invisible to this man. And that made him even more dangerous.

Chapter Six

T
hey returned to the lodge and Anne retreated to the chamber next to her lady’s, glad of a chance to rest her leg until the hunting party returned and Lady Joan called for her.

Her lady had a maid, of course, to help her out of her garments, but to Anne fell the honour of combing her lady’s hair.

Thus their days would end, with Anne allowed to sit behind her lady, a concession to Anne’s condition. Then, as Anne combed the long, blonde locks, first with the thick side of the comb, Lady Joan would chatter of her day’s delights. Once in a while, she would ask Anne what she had observed of this lady or that knight.

No, Anne could not run or walk, but she could watch and listen. And that, in and of itself, was a talent.

So Anne would talk and Joan would listen—one of the few times she
did
listen—and tuck each bit of information away, only to pull it out later, to use as one might offer a treat to a dog to lure him to her lap. Or, she might express a similar opinion, one she already knew the hearer held. At that, the man—and it was almost always a man—would be delighted and think her the most wonderful woman and one who understood him completely.

Lady Joan soon returned to the lodge, eyes bright and cheeks flushed from the hunt. She sat down in front of the mirror and Anne placed herself behind her, ready to start combing her mistress’s hair.

‘Did you enjoy the hunt, my lady?’

She lifted her shoulders. ‘I do it because Edward likes it. He shot the stag so his father owes him for the wager they made. And so, a happy day.’

‘A joyful day indeed, my lady.’ Words by rote.

Joan glanced back over her shoulder, pulling her heavy hair out of Anne’s hand. ‘And your hunt? What more have you learned of Sir Nicholas?’

That was the reason, the only reason, that she had ridden beside Nicholas today. So she could answer that question.

‘He has no lady, so he needs no gift for her.’ And he was not likely to have one, if she judged him right. ‘He holds a French hostage and he plans to return to fighting when he has discharged his duty to the Prince.’

And he kissed me.

But her lady must not know about the kiss.

Lady Joan nodded, absently, and turned forward. ‘The King’s messenger returned.’

Anne picked up the comb again and let loose a breath, slowly, so as not to betray her relief. Her lady was satisfied. There would be no more questions about Sir Nicholas tonight. ‘So soon? I thought it would take near a fortnight to travel to Canterbury and back.’

‘He did not go so far. He met some travellers who reported there is no pestilence between here and there.’

‘So when will Sir Nicholas leave? Tomorrow?’ She prayed it would be so. Every minute that she shared a roof with the man seemed a threat.

‘I think so. Edward said he would go, too, but I don’t want him to. No reason for him to risk the plague. Sir Nicholas steered the Pope to our side. He can certainly handle the Archbishop.’ She looked back at Anne with an assessing eye and smiled. ‘Come. Let me comb your hair.’

‘It is my task to comb yours, my lady.’ Uneasy, to be treated with such kindness from Lady Joan.

‘Ah, but you are ever so patient with my little foibles. Come. Turn around.’

So Anne pulled a few blonde strands from the teeth on the side of the comb made for thick hair and discarded them, then handed the comb to Lady Joan. ‘You’ll need use only the thin side, my lady.’

An uneasy feeling at first, to have her lady at her back, where Anne could not read her every expression. Yet the gentle tug, the soft hands, the few moments of peace spun around her, as if Joan’s calming presence itself touched her head and shoulders. As long as she stayed close, she was wrapped in Joan’s world, where everything would be as it must.

‘Your hair is lovely, Anne.’

It wasn’t. It was thin and pale red, like a garment too often washed, but her lady was ever kind. ‘Thank you, my lady.’

‘Hold up the glass,’ Lady Joan said. ‘Take a look.’

As she did, Anne could see the two of them reflected there. Even though Lady Jane was eight years older, it was her face that held the eye.

She wondered what Nicholas thought of it.

Yet her lady was pointing to Anne’s face next to hers in the glass.

‘You are young still.’

Younger than Joan, though Anne did not remind her.

And Joan did not pause to note it. ‘True, your hair is more red than fair, your mouth is too wide, your cheeks and hands have lost a maiden’s purity.’

She glanced at her fingers, rubbing the callous earned by her stitches. If her hands were not as white and soft as Joan’s, there was a reason for it.

‘But your brow is broad and fair. If we plucked this stray hair here, touched your cheek with safflower powder to give a glow—’

Anne near dropped the mirror. ‘Those things will not disguise my leg.’

‘No, but you may yet catch a man’s eye.’

She laughed then, that laugh she had perfected. Anne could delight the ear, if not the eye. ‘Do you think to rid yourself of me, my lady?’

‘Of course, not. I promised your mother...’ She did not finish the sentence. There was no need. ‘But I am so happy, with Edward. I want you to find a husband, too.’

Anne had seen all the scenes of love and lust and of marital contentment, knowing that none of it would be for her. A man might wed a plain woman for money or because she could help raise children and run the household. He might bed a beautiful one for love or lust.

But a lame one was of little use to anyone. Except, perhaps, to God.

But Anne had never wanted the cloistered life, shut away from the world’s delights...

‘Perhaps another pilgrimage,’ Lady Joan began.

She shook her head. Her mother had petitioned God in the beginning. As soon as she had risen from the bed of childbirth, she had travelled to the shrine of the Blessed Larina, carrying her babe, hoping for a miracle. Larina did not grant it. Neither did St Winifred, St Werburgh, St Etheldreda, or the Virgin herself.

The miracle she was given was not a cure. It was the protection of Lady Joan.

One could not question God’s wisdom.

‘No, I am certain of it.’ Lady Joan said as she rose, leaving half of Anne’s hair uncombed, and paced the chamber. ‘A pilgrimage to Canterbury. God will give you a miracle.’

Where had such a strange idea come from? Joan had never spoken of curing her before. ‘My lady, I don’t think—’

‘And you can go right away. Tomorrow! With Sir Nicholas Lovayne!’

She near laughed again, and not with mirth, trying to fight the desire that the thought raised. To stay beside Nicholas for a few more days, living in hope and fear that he might want to...

‘Sir Nicholas does not need to be burdened with me when he must resolve the Pope’s request about your wedding.’

Nicholas, he had made clear, did not want to be burdened with anyone. Even a wife.

Then Joan looked at her again, directly, smiling, the horn comb keeping a steady rhythm against her palm. ‘You will be no burden to him. And you will be a great help to me.’

And then, she knew. She would not be travelling to Canterbury in hopes of a cure. She would be travelling as a spy for Lady Joan.

* * *

Nicholas was still thinking of Anne that evening as he prepared to leave, despite all efforts to put her out of his mind. He had done his duty. Been kind. He had no further obligation. The kiss? A mistake she had been gracious enough to ignore.

So would he.

Tomorrow he would ride to Canterbury, free, without needing to look back in fear she had fallen off the horse.

And when a page came to summon him to her side, he told himself it was not so strange. She must only want to thank him again and bid him farewell.

But when he saw her, sitting on the garden bench in the fading light, squinting over her stitching, the set of her lips and her chin did not bode well.

‘Are you recovered from the hunt?’

She nodded and lifted her head. Her fingers stilled. ‘What time do you leave tomorrow?’

‘At daybreak. The trip is long and the time short.’

‘Send a page when you are ready. I shall be going with you.’

He could not have heard right. ‘What?’

‘I travel with you.’

‘Why?’ His words lacked grace, but his tongue had learned to be blunt in her presence.

She looked away, briefly. ‘It is not...I do not expect...’

There. Both of them tongue-tied. The kiss, the fact of it lay between them.

She lifted her chin again, the weak moment gone. ‘We will not be alone.’

Of course, there would be a retinue, small, but one that dignified the importance of the journey.

‘No. We will not.’ But temptation was not his only objection. He remembered her struggle to mount and dismount. He had no time for that now. ‘I know you wanted to travel, but I must—’

‘Move quickly. I know. We have already lost time waiting for the messenger.’

She was a sensible woman and she knew she would weigh him down. Then why? Suspicion stirred. Had the kiss misled her? A smile exchanged, some pleasant words, but surely she did not think it meant more than that.

Or did she?

Her loyalty was to her lady. That would be his appeal. ‘I’m sure Lady Joan cannot spare you at this time with all the preparations to be made. For the wedding.’ An argument certain to sway.

‘It was her idea that I go. She thought, perhaps, a pilgrimage...’ She would not meet his eyes.

A pilgrimage. Hope once more for a cure.

Guilt wrestled with duty. How could he refuse this woman, or anyone so afflicted, the hope of a visit to the shrine of a saint? Yet the journey to Canterbury would take at least seven days, though he had hoped to push the horses faster. That would be impossible if she rode with him.

He swallowed a sharp retort and searched for careful words. ‘So you have not gone before? On pilgrimage?’

She shook her head. ‘No. My mother did. More than once when I was small and then...’ she shrugged. ‘We did not go again.’

And still she limped. ‘Why do you think this time will be different?’

She flinched, his blunt words a blow. ‘I do not. But Lady Joan always believes that all will be...

‘...as it must.’ He spoke the words with her.

She smiled. He didn’t.

‘Yes, exactly.’

So now, Lady Joan, with a woman’s disregard for any needs but her own, had tossed the burden of Anne’s hope to him, expecting him to catch and juggle it without dropping responsibility for her own happiness.

And if he did not walk away this minute, he would say something he’d regret. ‘I must see to the horses and supplies.’ He had no time to waste arguing. He would lay the matter before Edward, tell him it was impossible to take Anne, and let the man handle his own wife. ‘And find the Prince.’

He turned on his heel without another word.

‘I think,’ she said, words floating over his shoulder, ‘that the Prince may surprise you.’

He did not look back. It was Anne of Stamford who would be surprised.

* * *

Nicholas found the Prince at dice, collecting from a winning throw, in a better mood than he had feared.

The Prince and his lady were sleeping separately now, as the Pope had ordered, and Edward was counting the days until they could be wed again. He would brook no delay in getting official approval, even if Anne believed otherwise.

‘My lord, we leave at dawn.’

Smiling, Edward clasped Nicholas on the shoulder. ‘Godspeed, my friend. Safe and speedy travels.’

‘But you are joining me.’

He shook his head. ‘You need no help from me. Joan and I will look forward to seeing you back again soon.’

A trip well planned unravelling before it had begun. Was it faith in Nicholas or fear of the pestilence that held him back? No, the explanation was probably simpler. What had Anne called it?
Want
. The undoing of many men, including his father.

‘My travels will not be as swift as I had planned. One of Lady Joan’s ladies thinks to travel with me.’

He was gratified to see the Prince look surprised. ‘Who? Why?’

‘Anne.’ He put an upward lilt at the end of her name, as if he were unsure of it. ‘Hoping for a cure for her leg. She said Lady Joan suggested it.’

Edward met Nicholas’s frown with a smile. ‘How kind my wife is. Always thinking of others.’

This was not going as he had hoped. Did love make all men such fools? ‘Do you want her to go to the shrine or do you want your answer quickly?’

Edward’s frown was brief. ‘If Joan wants her to go, then go she shall. I have every faith that you can handle one lame woman as well as the Archbishop. It can be no more difficult than the four hogsheads of Gascon wine you had to smuggle out of the priests’ quarters in St Thierry.’

He wished, for a moment, that the Prince had less faith in him. Here was where Nicholas’s pride had led. He made it look so easy, so Edward did not understand the difficulties.

Or did not admit that he did.

While he was still marshalling arguments for the Prince, he found himself, by force of habit, revising travel plans, recalculating the number of days on the road.

‘I can take her there and bring her back,’ he said, ‘but whether she limps or runs afterwards is in God’s hands, not mine.’

Edward shook his head. ‘Poor maid. Joan took her on when others would not and keeps her ever close. What a treasure is my wife. How kind and gentle...’

Nicholas let the Prince ramble. Kind to this lame woman beyond what he would expect of any mortal. Well, everyone seemed to love the Lady Joan.

Joan took her on...
And Anne had never answered when he asked how long she had been in her service. Would she know something of this marriage tangle he’d been given to unravel?

‘How long?’ he asked, cutting off the Prince in mid-sentence. ‘How long have they been together?’

Edward shrugged. ‘At least fifteen years. Her mother served Joan before her.’

‘So when Joan was still married to Salisbury?’

That brought a frown. The Prince did not care to be reminded that he would be the third man to share his wife’s marital bed. ‘It is of no importance to your duty to take her there and back.’