The Maiden and the Unicorn (36 page)

"You may sell it if ever we become penniless. Let me fasten it properly so you may be sure it is comfortable."

There it was again—
we
—the word of unity with its implication of infinity. And his fingers, so gentle as they deftly fastened the collar about her throat. A woman's collar, despite the golden daisy the size of a rose noble which hung below it. Was this his way of demonstrating that he owned her despite her rebelliousness? First the ring that must be displayed, now this.

Unpredictably, contrarily, the thought warmed her woman's senses, uncoiling the serpent of lust within her.

"My wife shall have it. There!" One hand held her by the shoulder and he thrust the handmirror before her with his free hand. The gold looked well between her throat and bodice, lending her the appearance of a cossetted wife, an earl's daughter.

"It compliments your wife's fair looks, if I may say so, Monsieur 'uddleston." The merchant bestowed a kiss upon the back of her hand. "
Alors,
madame, it will now delight my wife if you will go upstairs and partake of refreshment while your husband and I negotiate a price."

Margery's fingers flew to unfasten the clasp. "Sir, I beg you, keep this by you. The price may be too high."

Richard's eyes sparkled with charming mischief. "You may wear it for the nonce. If I cannot afford it, then I will come and fetch it back."

"You promise?" She looked up at him gravely and marvelled at the amused tenderness in his face.

His long fingers brushed down her cheek and he nodded. "Go now, the girl is waiting to show you the way."

Katherine Levallois curtsied and gestured to the door.

Margery did not want go up the stairs; she wanted to stay by this different Richard before his mood was blown like a pennant in a different direction.

On the next storey, it was like entering another world. Furs and imported eastern coverings made the floor soft beneath Margery's fragile soles and an illuminated book was propped upon a wooden stand on a small table. Tiny diamond panes let in the sunlight from the casement and proud upon the walls were not painted arras cloths, crudely daubed, but tasselled tapestries in subtle hues depicting love.

Adèle Levallois left her cushioned window recess and a small lapdog rose indecisively from its basket, stretched and waddled across to sniff at the beaks of Margery's shoes as she gazed at the tapestry.

"
Le Jardin d Amour.
"
Adèle fondly stroked the chevalier, who knocked upon the wicket gate while his lover shyly tugged back at his hand, her eyes modestly lowered. "It was a marriage gift from my husband. Come, sit, we shall have hypocras and strawberries."

Although her French limped where Adèle's skipped and cavorted, Margery could grasp the gist of what she said. Although halting at first, her answers now became more confident as she happily fell under the spell of the woman's charm and hospitality. In return her hostess required gossip about the princesses, the fashions, Queen Charlotte, the expected dauphin and the mighty rebel Englishman,
le comte Warwicque.

It was after the city bells began to strike three that their husbands finally came up the stairs, discussing the greed of Lombard bankers, with Katherine following in their wake like a camp follower behind an army. There was a greyhaired man with them too, Adele's father, Henri Badoux. It seemed he was also a merchant but an outsider who had come to the valley to trade.

A carafe of Touraine muscatel was sent for and Monsieur Levallois declared that they must toast the babe beneath his wife's girdle from glass goblets imported from Venice. The mother-to-be, blushing despite past pregnancies, beamed upon her guests as though they were a knight and lady magicked from some romance.

"I have a boon to ask, monsieur." She turned an irresistible smile upon Richard. "
Alors
, I want to show your wife my twins and then I wish us to play cards. We have a new set arrived from Paris. Perhaps another afternoon, Mistress 'uddleson shall visit me and we shall play picquet instead. You will translate, please."

Amusement twisted the edge of Richard's lips. "She wants you to admire her children and then play a hand of cards."

"She is so kind. May we do that?"

He swept a bow to Adele. "We are at your command, madame."

She giggled.
"
D'accord
! You will also come, Monsieur 'uddleson?"

He was too polite to correct her. "To please you, gracious lady, of course!"

The wet-nurse, a girl of about eighteen years, rose to greet them. On each side of her stood a waist-high wooden cradle. The twins, no more than a twelve month, and out of swaddling bands, had wakened from their afternoon sleep and Adèle scooped up the girl-child and thrust her into Margery's hesitant arms.

She put the little girl against her shoulder where the child sucked her thumb thoughtfully at Richard. "She is heavy!"

"Your arms will grow stronger after your first child." Henri Badoux fondled the child's dark curls and lifted curious eyes to study Margery.

Richard watched his wife's cheeks flush pink. If they had only been home at Millom, she might have had a babe inside her by now. The thought of beginning the process must have showed in his eyes for she lowered hers with sweet embarrassment.

"Stop laughing at me," she whispered in English.

"Why should I when you provide me with such entertainment? Do you know anything at all about babes?"

"More than you, I wager. You want to hold her?"

"Why not, but I had rather hold you if you promise to behave."

He took the little girl gently into his arms and carried her to the window, whispering softly. The child responded with a delighted gurgle and reached up a chubby finger to his mouth. He turned his head challengingly to Margery only to catch her off guard, staring at him with an expression he could not fathom. "You think I would make a poor father?" Tiny fingers pulled at his hair.

She shook her head, swiftly drawing a smile over the sudden rawness as if it were a clean dressing.

Handing the child back, Richard sighed. Could Margery interpret the desire that must be burning in his eyes? She must know his patience was at an end. He wanted her vulnerable, confused and so aroused that her surrender would be exquisite.

"You are most fortunate. Madame 'uddleston is a pretty and modest young woman," Levallois observed after they returned downstairs. Henri Badoux had taken his leave and their womenfolk were still in the nursery.

"Modest?" Richard tasted the word like a new flavour. It was disturbing that what he took for artful coyness, others interpreted as modesty. Levallois, of course, did not know of Margery's past. "I suppose, monsieur, that we all want our wives modest in company and forward in the bedchamber."

His host's eyebrows arched. "You have a bedchamber in the chateau? You are exceptionally fortunate."

"A bedchamber with Mistress Huddleston?" Richard's tone was wry. "No, I am unable to make my way to the garderobe without clambering over a half score of snoring knights, let alone extricating my wife from a chamber packed with a dozen sleeping women. It but wants the vow of silence and I could think myself in a monastery."

"
Malheureusement,
you suffer the penance for waiting on the mighty. But come, deny it if you will. Would you be elsewhere, young man? Is not the court of our King the heartbeat of Christendom?"

"It is, but sometimes I could wish myself a simple ploughman."

Levallois chuckled and called for more wine. "This visit brings much pleasure to my wife. I should like you to stay this night with us."

Richard's loins grew taut at the possibilities. It took all his control to keep the rising excitement from his voice. "Stay? Now there's a thought. It is true we have no duties at the chateau, but I think we have prevailed sufficiently upon your hospitality."

The older man patted his shoulder. "Treat it as an act of selfishness upon my part because I have a young wife, a good sweet wife, whom I wish to please. We can play cards and sup together then play again and forget the curfew. Besides, we always keep a bedchamber in readiness for guests. There is no extra travail on our part, I swear. Now tell me, does your wife play a fair hand?"

"I do not know."

Jacques clapped a hand on his shoulder.
"
Eh bien,
we shall try her! Perhaps Adèle and I may conquer England, like William the Bastard,
hein
?"

Richard clinked his goblet against the older man's. "Monsieur, if it means this most excellent wine will flow in London's streets, I will personally pilot you up the Thames."

"We play cards,
oui
?" Adèle came jauntily into the chamber.

A cushioned settle, rearranged for summertime, had its back to the fireplace and here Adéle settled Margery beside her. Richard sat down opposite his wife on a cross-legged chair. He stroked the smooth planed wood, marvelling at such luxury. His family had but one huge carved chair that belonged to his father. He observed Jacques Levallois lower his large body onto a matching chair. Surprisingly, it held. Now if he could find an English joiner to imitate the design, a simple x-form to balance the weight when they returned to England...

"Alors,
let us begin." Adele gestured to her husband to deal.

"Are we to revive
La Guerre de Cent Ans?"
Richard asked but his eyes rested thoughtfully upon Margery, already imagining how he would slowly slide the gown down over her shoulders to reveal those taut, concealed breasts.

"I have often wondered about the Black Prince, Monsieur 'uddleson, I think perhaps this Englishman may have been good at killing people but not so skilled in love. What of his wife?"

Margery happily took on the challenge of answering. Her French was intolerable but gently fortified by the wine, and she decorated her language with English words and a multitude of understandable gestures. "His wife, the Countess of Salisbury, was an extraordinary lady, so they say." Her hands drew a curvaceous female figure in the air. "The prince was her third husband. Her first husband was away fighting so long," Margery's fingers walked across the table and then took up an imaginary sword at an invisible opponent, "that she took a new younger man as husband." She kissed her hand. "When her lord returned, she persuaded him to retain the other man as his chamberlain." She held up three fingers and then made a gable roof of her fingers. "Did they understand that bit, sir? Perhaps you should translate."

Richard was laughing so much that he could not answer.

Jacques wiped the tears from his eyes. "Perhaps the lady was insatiable," he managed eventually, taking up the cards.

"Can
you play?" Richard asked Margery, an eyebrow raised.

"Because I spent six years in a nunnery? Which do you doubt, sir—my skill or my enthusiasm?" Her lips drew together coquettishly.

As his host dealt the pristine cards, fresh from their leather wallet, Richard leaned forward, his arm flat upon the cloth, his voice warm and compelling. "I hope you will demonstrate both, mousekin."

Perversity sparkled back at him from the shining blue depths as she wriggled her shoulders into the cushions, no doubt feeling herself sufficiently chaperoned to flirt. "I do not know how well you play, sir."

"What are you two saying?" Adéle smacked Richard's wrist.

He leaned back, grinning at Margery, feeling like King Solomon, having just selected his concubine for the night's pleasure.

His wife was smiling, happy, safe. The war of wills between them was temporarily in abeyance, or was it? The little witch was constantly teasing him now with her glances, not overtly like young Katherine but subconsciously, raising her eyes to his when she played a card, like an artful courtesan to whom it was second nature.

The English began to win, congratulating each other silently with triumphant looks, sending each other messages to play high or low, creating an unspoken language where none had existed before.

That a summer storm had broken outside sending heavy rain splashing down heavily on the street cobbles beneath the gabled casement did not concern Margery, Richard observed, as he savoured the aged Bordeaux. She was fast learning the French words needed for the game and enjoying herself. Did she realise yet he was going to caress her body into surrender? Oh, he would show her he had learned ways to make her arch with pleasure and plead with him to take her. Had the royal whoremonger made her cry out in ecstasy?

"We should take to the taverns, you and I," he murmured in English. "Are you as good at dice?"

"It requires no talent." She stretched like a wise woman's cat on a sunlit windowsill and then leaned forward, sliding the pack across to him. He enjoyed looking at his gift snug against her white slim throat. It was easy to slide his gaze now and again over the tantalising gap between the necklet and the alluring valley below.

He repaid her temporary alliance with him plenteously with charm and courtesy so that she did not notice the hour bells tolling longer or that the apprentices had ceased shouting in the streets.

When the servants brought in supper, he discovered over the
anguilles
in red wine and the buttered
sandre
that there was a domestic quality about the occasion that he had been missing. It made him remember Millom. Margery might be used to large convents and great households but he recalled with a sense of loss the quiet winter evenings with his brothers before he was sent away to Lord Montague's household. There would be dogs twitching as they dreamed lying around the fire and his mother would summon their tutor to read aloud. There was always chess or...