The Maiden and the Unicorn (52 page)

"Margery!" Huddleston's voice, unheard since she had left Angers, reached her across the noisy crowd. Involuntarily she turned in his direction.

Richard froze. There was something wrong. His wife looked distrait and unhappy, like a wobbling, spun coin about to topple. As her gaze found him, panic contorted her face.

He knew he was an eyesore. There was a bruise purpling down one cheek, his jacket was torn, and his mustard hose had a beggarly rip across the right knee.

She fled behind the pavilion that was being erected, and by the time he had circumnavigated two laden asses and a runaway firkin, his wife had disappeared.

* * *

Margery entered the royal library with as much awe as if she had set foot in Heaven. Her heart was still thumping painfully at the humiliation and shame to be faced, but the mingled smell of ink and parchment was comforting. Here kings' deeds were judged long after their costly ermines had decayed and their stolen crowns were worn later by others who never knew them.

A polite cough reminded her of where she stood.

"You are lost, demoiselle?" A tall man, as thin as if the mighty fist of God had squeezed the fat out of him through his soles, rose from behind a lectern. The sharp scrape of wooden legs against stone insulted the sensibilities of the other users. Frowning eyes under ribbed brows viewed Margery from all sides, askance at a woman's presence. She smiled mistily and the clerks fearfully buried their heads in their books again like moles ducking back into their hills.

"
Le Roi me veut
—" Her voice carried, offensively female and echoing. The custodian of the books hushed her with a gesture but at least listened with patience to the rest of her attempt at ravishing his language. As her words trickled to a stop and it was necessary to use a pleading facial gesture and supplicating hands, the man's mouth tightened.

If he turned her away, it would be the final blow into her belly of self-esteem and tears would bring shame. It was hard to demonstrate a sincere interest in the art of illumination when her husband and father would want to beat her for a whore.

The scholar nearest them rolled his eyes heavenwards. It was the eavesdropper's hostility that smoothed her passage, for, of a sudden, mischievous amusement glimmered in the faded blue eyes above her. The custodian snapped his fingers to summon a brawny young cleric and beckoned Margery to follow him into a forest of boards. Each was identical, but her guide eventually lifted the huge ring of keys that hung against his thigh and gravely unlocked one of them. A massive volume lay upon the shelf within. Its pages were edged with gold and the corners of its leather cover were reinforced.

As Margery put her hand out innocently to open it, the custodian grabbed her wrist forbiddingly. She shook her head, raised an eyebrow like Huddleston did, and put on her most authoritative Neville expression. The man drew his hand reluctantly back and gestured her to proceed. She opened the pages just a few deep and nodded with approval, as if she was some master illuminator, at the rich colours.

Briskly, she closed the cover and stood back deservingly. The custodian snapped his fingers to his assistant who bore the book awkwardly back to the outer room. Her guide crooked his finger at her and she obediently followed. Did they ever actually converse, she wondered.

It was comforting to be distracted but the pain was still with her. They did not seat her at a bench and chain the volume to the shelf behind but set her at an individual stand. She smiled mechanically at the custodian as he personally turned the huge wooden screw of the lectern until the frame was at the right height for her. The book was set before her with pride and she was helped up onto the high stool and shown how to place her feet on the wooden support pedals. The latter were too distant, designed for men. She bestowed a watery smile on her helper as she twisted her ankles beneath the stool onto the cross brace. She did not fit here either. Where were women made welcome save to decorate or gratify?

The librarian, miraculously sympathetic now, drew his celibate wrinkles into a smile and inclined his head with the dignified graciousness of age before he quietly glided back to his desk. Silence resumed.

The kindness in tolerating her was almost her undoing. Tears bubbled to the surface, troublesome to hide, but at least she had her back to the others. Gold and azure swam before her vision and she kept her head back lest the salt drops mar the exquisite penmanship. To be able to sit in the learned quiet was an achievement but the wound to her reputation throbbed, open and smarting.

It mattered to her so much that Huddleston respected her. Now he could drag her before a church court which could force her to walk barefoot in her shift through the streets as a penitent harlot. She tried to concentrate on the illuminations but she must have sat there unheeding for at least most of the time between the hour bells.

"That must be a very interesting page judging by the time you have been staring at it. Are the rest pasted together or is that some incantation to turn me into a frog?"

She sniffed and blinked up in surprise at Richard Huddleston. He was a dark shadow as her sight misted again. She was too choked to answer him. No doubt his soft words were but gentle rain before he lashed out his true fury.

"How long have you been watching me?"

"Long enough," Richard sounded kind. "Let me close the book. They say prayers against water in this place."

She smudged the tears away with the knuckle of her forefinger and before she could protest, he swiftly eased her off the stool. She acquiesced—to have argued would have desanctified the silence and shocked the scholars. He almost had her past the threshold before she had the courage to hold back and speak to the custodian. It would have been clumsy to leave without whispering a promise to return.

"Where are you taking me? To chastise me before my father?"

"To admire the view, Margery. The wind from the north will dry your tears." How easily a smile seemed to weaken her, as if she wanted him to take charge of her. Ridiculous, she chided herself, that the firm hand hauling her up the spiral staircase should provide such simple pleasure.

Apart from the ripening bruise, there was no sign that he had been fighting in defence of her honour, but there was a harshness about his mouth that told her someone must have set the information before him like a welcoming carpet. Wet haired, his expression resilient as he compelled her briskly across the courtyard, Richard Huddleston now presented the formidable, icy sleekness of rocks beneath a waterfall—impossible to conquer.

"Wait here!" Shaking, she heard the occupants of the guardhouse adjoining Queen Charlotte's apartments exclaim in laughter and the clink of coins tossed across the board before her husband reappeared, his mouth curling at a bargain well made. Miserably, she knew that her only chance of mercy was to tell him the truth. But to do that would be to betray all that she believed in. The message to Ned was more important than saving her marriage if it prevented England being ripped once more by civil war.

She let him propel her round the curve of the tower away from the windows. Here, only the baby swallows in a nest glued beneath the parapet of the turret were to be privy to her humiliation.

She looked down at the street dizzily below them and shivered.

"You are cold?" Surprisingly, he removed his cote and dropped it about her shoulders. The warmth lingering from his body was a false reassurance. She could smell the musk he favoured alive in its soft folds and her heart ached. She waited, meek as Griselda, but Richard stood, his back to her, as if lost in thought, staring down the valley at the distant mirror-silver meander of the Loire.

Now stripped to his shirtsleeves, his appearance lent the occasion the informality of the solar and the bedchamber. In black from the sleek kneeboots to the embroidered gipon, he appeared wilder and more threatening to her than ever. The wind blew fullness into the sleeves and made a grab at his hat. He snatched it back and kept it in his hand, allowing the wind to ruffle his dark hair with the fondness of a mother's hand.

"When the thunder clouds gather and roll north, then the two kings will stand here and know the fleet will sail." It was a statement rather than a prophecy.

"Why?" she asked softly, surprised as ever, wishing that his arms could enfold her.

He turned his head and his enigmatic green gaze sent soundings into her soul. "Because it will take a great storm to disperse the cordon of ships that Burgundy has set to keep our fleet in harbour." His face lifted to the uninteresting hills. "It is decided that my brothers will escort you to England. You will leave in an hour's time."

She bit her lip at the judgment so indifferently delivered and leaned her head back against the wall, shutting her eyes against the painful world. "Do not allow anything on this Earth to delay you."

Margery's eyes opened in surprise. His lower lip was arching in distaste as if the words had been gall. He did not even want to look at her. It was all over; the bonfires that had been lit to warm her life had been trampled out and the night was cold.

But surprisingly, Richard did turn to face her and half sat against the crenellation, idly fingering the brim of his hat.

"When shall you be warming your beloved Ned's bed? Once a week? Or shall we be receiving reports more frequently?"

Her chin rose. "Tuesdays, so please you, sir. Or do you require it to be more often so you may fill your coffers?"

Beneath his cunning fingers, the peacock feather was gradually torn to shreds. It belied his calm question. He rose, facing the west, away from her. "I was set upon yesterday. Tell me, was it intended to send me to my Maker or merely to keep me from returning yester eve? I should like to know if I should keep myself in a state of grace from now on." He looked round for an answer.

Her eyes widened. He watched her fingers flutter at the veil scarfed round her throat. "Jesu, Richard. If you think I—" She jerked her face away as if seeking the right excuses from the very air. "Sir, nothing I can tell you now can mitigate the bruises to your face or your honour but I swear to you that one day if I may I will be a true wife to you again."

His smile was like a player's. "When somebody has died? King Edward? George of Clarence?" He sighed. "I thought you might show some discernment by now. I must have taught you something."

"Richard! Have mercy! I would not have had this happen for all the gold in Christendom." Astonishingly, she fell upon her knees, her palms raised to him. "Close your ears against what they are saying. Do you think I would deliberately shame you? At Angers we..."

He regarded her sternly. Oh yes, he had wanted her a supplicant at his feet but not here, not now. "Angers! By all the Saints, Margery, Christendom it seems is not great enough to encompass the pair of us. Get up!" She looked so wretched and defeated. Was this his brave, beautiful Margery who had lain with the Duke last night for King Edward's sake? Was it so? Could she have writhed beneath that giggling, jealous drunkard and let him... Richard pushed the thought out of his mind. He dragged his gaze away. It was unbearable to watch the tears pearl at the corners of her eyes. He could not tell her he knew why she must leave, that the sand would be through the hourglass today. That the decision was right but not the manner of it.

"Life is perverse," she whispered, rising to her feet. "If only I could—" She broke off, as if unhappiness was seeping like icy water through her every pore. "Now that I cannot have you, why is it I want your good will? It is against all reason."

"Safeguard reason, Margery. It is less frightening than our other emotions. Forget all kings. Bid Tom or Will to take you to my home at Millom."

She bowed her head, her eyes closing with relief as if God, not he, had pardoned her. Before he could stop himself, he turned and grabbed her fiercely by the shoulders. She shook within his hands, soft lips parting, her trembling hands reaching out timidly to touch his face. He had not meant to kiss her or to touch her but God knows he could not help himself.

Her arms stole swiftly about his body and she was returning his kisses as if starved, clinging to him. "Oh, Richard, hold me." He stifled her words, his kisses wildly falling on her face, her shoulders, the curve of her breasts. Within an hour she would be gone.
Let any other man within you and I will kill him,
he wanted to snarl at her.

Margery tangled her fingers in his hair. The molten fire burned within her once again as his fingers made forays down her spine. His cote fell from her shoulders and her body felt open, ready, as his mouth came down again upon hers. He might be a traitor to the house of York but he could transport her into a realm where thinking no longer mattered.

She flung her head back as he kissed her shoulders. He held her back from him, his fingers unfastening the triangle within her collar to free a white orb of her breast into his hand, rubbing a thumb across her nipple while his eyes sought absolution in her face. As if he found his answer in the wildness of her eyes, he drew her down and pushed her gently back against his cote. His lips teased and tantalised her while the heel of his hand slid up to between her legs and grasped her possessively.

Margery gasped in sheer pleasure. Had the Devil offered her a kingdom, had the archangel Gabriel arrived with a written scroll of gold assuring her a place in Heaven, she would not have listened. She was aching and hot with longing to have him thrust inside her. But his hands and mouth abandoned her, pulling her skirt over her thighs. She growled in protest, fearful that mercurial as he was, his mind had changed. He was suddenly breathing uncommonly loudly.