The Widow's Kiss (11 page)

“All right, Arthur,” he said. “You may go.” Arthur scuttled off, shoulders hunched, head down. Hugh walked to the tent opening and stood there gazing around his orderly encampment. His men were at the supper table and after a minute he decided to join them. It was time to confront Guinevere with his findings and he would not, Judaslike, break bread with her first.

R
obin wondered where his father was. He looked covertly over his shoulder at the back pews in the chapel in case Lord Hugh had slipped in after the service had started, but the familiar figure was not to be seen.

Robin felt a stab of anxiety. His father was always very careful to tell him if his plans had changed or if he was to be delayed, but he hadn’t been seen since the noon meal.

Robin had spent the afternoon finishing off his tasks with the armor and then, finding that Pen had been freed from her tutor for the afternoon and Pippa was closeted under the guardianship of the tiring woman, he and Pen had walked dreamily and mostly tongue-tied along the riverbank among the water meadows. He’d picked her a bouquet of pale pink marshmallows. A bouquet, wilting a little now, that she still wore pinned to her gown.

“Where's your father?” Pippa's penetrating whisper under the cover of her hand chimed accurately into his thoughts.

He shrugged and Pen murmured, “I expect something delayed him.”

“Perhaps he went hunting, I hope he didn’t fall from his
horse … or get lost in the woods,” Pippa said in the same piercing whisper. “It happened to—”

“Hush!” Pen hissed as Master Grice paused in the litany to glare repressively at the youngest daughter of the house.

Guinevere, coming out of her intent reverie, added her own glare from the box pew across the aisle and Pippa subsided, nursing her bandaged arm.

Guinevere's mind was not on vespers. She was still riding a wave of what she admitted was unholy pleasure in the afternoon's legal gymnastics. The disputed land was clearly named in the premarriage contracts between Roger Needham and his first wife. Guinevere had triumphed in this battle and Hugh of Beaucaire would be forced to acknowledge it. The fact that her victory was probably moot since there was a lot more at stake than a legal wrangle was one that in her present exhilaration she chose to ignore.

She glanced around the lower court as they came out of the chapel at the end of the service and couldn’t conceal from herself the flicker of disappointment that there was no sign of Lord Hugh's powerful frame. “Is your father not supping with us, Robin?”

“He didn’t say anything to me, madam.” Robin looked embarrassed at his father's unexplained absence. “Usually he tells me if his plans have changed. I expect he had some unexpected business to deal with.”

Guinevere nodded. “Yes, I’m sure. Should we wait supper for him?”

Robin shook his head. “No, he wouldn’t want that, my lady. He wouldn’t wish to cause any trouble.”

Oh, really?
Guinevere kept the cynical comment to herself.

“I hope he didn’t get lost and fall from his horse like Josh Barsett,” Pippa said. “You remember, Mama, how no one could find him and he lay for hours and hours
before the charcoal burner found him and his leg was all swollen up and blue? They thought they were going to have to cut it off only—”

“Yes, I remember,” Guinevere interrupted dampeningly. “ But Robin's father, unlike Josh Barsett, knows the back end of a horse from the front.”

“Oh, I didn’t mean to say anything bad about the Boy's father,” Pippa assured hastily. She turned anxious eyes to Robin. “I didn’t mean to worry you.”

But Robin was so amused at the absurd picture of his father falling off a horse that he only grinned and tugged at her braid in brotherly fashion. “I didn’t hear a word you said. I’m learning not to listen to you.”

“That's very rude,” Pippa said. “It's not my fault that the words just tumble out all by themselves.”

“Well, maybe if you put food in your mouth it’ll keep the words in,” Guinevere said with a smile. “Let's go in to supper.” She swept Pippa before her into the house.

As supper drew to a close, she cut off Pippa's minute and stomach-turning description of a lurcher raiding a vole's nest along the riverbank, swallowing squealing baby after squealing baby, “Just like little pink sweetmeats … all made of marchpane.” Pippa held up a marchpane-covered plum as example.

“I think we’ve heard enough,” Guinevere said firmly, turning to Robin. “When you see your father, Robin, could you tell him that I’ll be walking in the garden in an hour if he's able to join me?”

Robin nodded vigorously. “Oh, yes, of course, madam. I’m sure he's in the encampment.”

As soon as supper was over, Robin hurried to the bivouac.

Hugh was chewing reflectively at a chicken drumstick when his son raced into the circle of tents. He took in Robin's breathless haste, his flushed cheeks, and said sharply, “Is all well?”

Robin skidded to a halt in front of his father. “Yes, sir. I was worried, though. We missed you at supper.”

“There was no need to worry.” Hugh smiled at his son. “I’m quite capable of taking care of myself, you know.”

“Yes, sir.” Robin grinned.

“I’ll make my apologies to Lady Guinevere later.” Not that the lady would be interested in such mundane apologies when he’d confronted her with his evidence of her lies, Hugh reflected.

Robin pushed a flopping lock of hair off his damp forehead. It was a warm evening and he’d run fast. “She said I was to tell you that she’ll be walking in the garden in an hour if you could join her.”

Hugh glanced up at the sky. The sun was low on the horizon; in about an hour it would have set completely. He nodded, his expression grim. “As it happens I have certain matters to discuss with Lady Guinevere myself. We’ll move into camp tonight. Do you go back to the house and pack up our traps. Take one of the men to help you carry the trunk here.”

Robin hesitated. “Are we … are we leaving, sir?”

“Yes,” Hugh said shortly. “As soon as may be. Go about your business.” He threw the clean drumstick onto the grass and brushed off his hands in a gesture of dismissal.

Robin hurriedly obeyed, leaving his father to pace the grassy circle around the campfire, hands thrust deep into the pockets of his gown, while he waited for the sun to go down.

He wasn’t looking forward to the coming interview. To his surprise he took no satisfaction in having been proved right. Guinevere Mallory had done away with a drunken violent brute who probably deserved what he’d received. But Hugh of Beaucaire carried the king's writ, and his own sympathies, if such they were, were not relevant.

He watched Robin racing like a young colt back to

Mallory Hall, one of Hugh's men following at a more sober pace. Now Robin would inherit rich land that would enable him to establish his own dynasty. Such wealth would give him access to court, to the favors that brought high place, influence, and yet more wealth. Robin would not have to be the soldier of fortune his father was.

And the land, God rot, did not belong to Guinevere Mallory. It had not been Needham's to cede away.

The outcome was just.

Guinevere strolled through the rose garden, a basket over her arm, scissors in her hand. She paused now and again to smell the fragrance of the flowers as she cut them, to gaze out over the sweet landscape lying now under dusk's shadows. The sound of cooing came from the dovecote; behind her rose the mellow stone walls of the Hall.

She couldn’t lose this. She couldn’t lose it at the whim of a greedy king and a rapacious Privy Seal. There had to be some justice in the world.

From the moment she had understood the joys of an analytical mind and could read and speak Latin as well as the common tongue, she had become fascinated by the law. Under Magister Howard's able tutoring she had learned the legal rules and rotes of justice. She
believed
in justice. It was the cornerstone of her world.

She could not in law lose what was hers simply because someone else desired it.

And yet she knew that she could. Justice was a movable feast in King Henry's England.

The scissors slipped on the tough stem of a white rose in bud and nicked the tip of her finger. She sucked at the bead of blood, tasting its saltiness. What was losing her land compared with losing her life?

She heard a step behind her. A familiar step, firm and yet light. A usurper's step.

The step of a man who could make her blood sing.

“Lord Hugh.” She turned, a taut smile on her lips.

“Have you pricked yourself?”

“No. The scissors slipped. ’Tis nothing.” She put the basket of roses on a stone bench beside the path.

He pulled a kerchief from his pocket and without asking permission deftly dabbed the blood from her finger, observing calmly, “For some reason, fingers bleed out of all proportion to the wound.”

“Yes, I’ve noticed.” She watched his own fingers, brown, thick, strong, yet so astonishingly neat in their movements. She could feel the warmth of his touch on her hand, a tactile, malleable warmth like melted candlewax.

Then abruptly he dropped her hand. “We have matters to discuss, madam.”

She opened her mouth to speak but he swept on, his eyes never leaving her face.

“Ever since I arrived here, you have lied to me. I am surrounded by lies. Those I speak to twist and turn the facts in an effort to conceal the truth.”

Guinevere was now very pale. “What truth, my lord?”

“The truth that you pushed your husband from the window.”

“Who so accuses me?” Her lips were bloodless.

“I do. Your tiring woman says she was in the chamber with you and Stephen Mallory that night, but your steward tells me she was with him in his office. You tell me you were in the garderobe when Mallory fell, but one of the torch men saw you standing at the window both before and immediately after your husband's death. If you were not implicated in his death, why am I being lied to?”

Fury now made her complexion ashen. She understood now why Tilly had been so distressed. Her eyes were purple fires in her white face. “You have dared to bully my servants! I told them to cooperate with you, to tell you what they knew. There was nothing for them to hide. You
must have terrified Tilly into lying to you! You go creeping around like some viper trying to trap
my
people, people who are loyal to me, who’ve been with me since childhood, you try to trap them into betraying me.” Forgetting the scissors she still held, she jabbed at him in emphasis.

Hugh grabbed her wrist. “In the devil's name, what do you think you’re doing?”

She looked down at her captive hand and slowly her fingers opened; the scissors dropped to the ground. “I didn’t realize I was still holding them.”

“I’m to believe that?” he demanded scornfully. “Four dead husbands and then you attempt to stab me!”

“Oh, don’t be ridiculous!” Still livid, she glared at him, twitching her wrist free of his hold.

There was a moment's silence as Hugh acknowledged that he
was
being ridiculous. Guinevere had had no intention of stabbing him. He said more moderately, “Perhaps you could explain why you said you were in the garderobe when it seems that you weren’t.”

“What did the torch man see?”

“You.”

Guinevere shook her head. “How could he be so certain? Or did you use some
persuasive
techniques to get him to say what you wanted him to say?” Once again her voice dripped scorn. “We both know you weren’t intending to leave here without the evidence you sought.”

Hugh's lips thinned. “That tune grows wearisome. The man saw you at the window both before and after Mallory's fall.”

“And he saw me push him, did he?”

“No. But the implication is clear.”

“Do you have any idea how large Stephen was, my lord?” she asked in a tone of mild inquiry. “I’m not a small woman, I agree, but compared with my husband …” She gave him a rather pitying smile. “Anyone who knew Stephen will tell you that he was a very tall man, running to
fat but still very strong. He was a drunkard and often unsteady on his feet. When he lost his balance after too good a dinner, which happened on several occasions, again as any member of my household will tell you, it was like trying to right a fallen oak. I would not have had the strength to push him out of the window.”

But a well-placed foot to a flying ankle could do the job just as well.
She pushed the thought aside and faced him with that same pitying smile.

Hugh's conviction wavered.
“Were
you at the window? ” The light had faded now in the fragrant garden and he could barely see her face.

She turned away from him to look out over the shadowed countryside below. She was very still, her tall body erect. She said softly, “Yes.”

“Then why did you lie?”

She turned back to face him, her face a pale glimmer, her eyes so dark as to be almost black. “It was a harmless enough untruth. I wanted to avoid any mutterings in the countryside. Folk around here are inclined to superstition and they love gossip. To lose four husbands could be considered careless, after all.” Her voice took on a sardonic edge. “Didn’t you and your masters come to that conclusion yourselves?”

It was not an unreasonable explanation, Hugh reflected. He stood looking at her, trying to read her mind. There was still something she was hiding, he would swear to it. Was she a greedy and acquisitive murderess, or simply a brilliant scholar who put her learning to work in protecting her financial interests? He had no conclusive evidence of her involvement in any of the deaths and yet she had had both motive and opportunity in at least one of them.