The Widow's Kiss (4 page)

Hugh looked around the large well-appointed apartments in the west wing. The window shutters were fastened back and the scent of roses wafted up from the garden below.

Robin was kneeling upon the window seat. “There's a wonderful topiary garden, sir. Peacocks and serpents and stags. I have never seen its like.”

Hugh came to stand behind his son, his hand resting on the boy's shoulder. Beyond the topiary garden could be seen the river, flowing gently through a meadow dotted with grazing sheep. Everything about Mallory Hall was prosperous and orderly.

“Why do we lay claim to Lady Mallory's land, sir?” Robin looked up at his father, his blue eyes perfect mirrors of Hugh's. “If she has the deeds, I mean.”

“She has the deeds, but she has no right to them, my son. The land was not Roger Needham's to will away. It belonged to his first wife, a distant cousin of ours. Lady Mallory contrived with some legal juggling to persuade Needham to cede the land to her at his death. But it was not his to will away. It belonged to his first wife's family and should by rights have been returned to them.”

He moved away from Robin back into the chamber. “The land in dispute is particularly rich in lead. Lady Mallory understandably is loath to give it up, since she
has been mining it very lucratively for years. It will form the foundation of a considerable fortune for you, Robin.”

Robin got off the window seat. “Will it be easy to get it back?”

Hugh gave a short laugh, remembering the expression Privy Seal had used. “From what I’ve seen of Lady Mallory, very difficult, I should imagine. But there's more than one way to skin a cat.” He opened the wooden, iron-bound chest that had been brought up for him. “Now, what finery shall we choose to honor Pen's feast?”

“She's very pretty,” Robin said. “Don’t you think she is?”

“Who, Pen?” Hugh looked up with a smile.

“Yes … yes, she is, but I was thinking of Lady Mallory.”

“Ah.” Hugh nodded and returned to the contents of the chest.
“Pretty
is not the word I would have chosen for her ladyship. Will you wear the blue doublet with the silver gown? Or the yellow and red?”

“The blue.” Robin took the garments his father passed to him and shrugged out of the serviceable short woolen gown and linen doublet he’d worn for riding. “What will you wear?”

“I haven’t decided as yet.” Hugh stripped off his doublet, shirt, and hose. He strode to the washstand and splashed water over his face. “You will need to change your shirt and hose, too.”

Robin examined his shirt doubtfully. “ ’Tis not overly soiled. I changed it but a week ago.”

“And you have been riding hard every day since,” Hugh pointed out. “You reek, my son, and if you wish to make an impression on young ladies, ’tis best to make a sweet-smelling one. A good wash won’t hurt you.” He tossed a wet towel to the boy.

Blushing, Robin caught it.

Hugh laughed and sat down on the bed to put on clean hose. Whenever he was not on some military mission for the king he had been deeply involved in his son's care since the boy was five. Robin's mother had died giving birth to a stillborn baby and Hugh had buried his grief in caring for their son. Robin was so like his mother; sometimes an expression, a gesture, reminded Hugh so vividly of Sarah that it would take his breath away and the grief at her loss would be as sharp and poignant as it had ever been.

Now that the lad had almost reached maturity, he could accompany his father on his campaigns. This long journey into Derbyshire had been the first they had taken together and it had brought them even closer.

He fastened jeweled garters at the knee, covertly watching his son's own preparations. He had sensed that Guinevere felt for her daughters the same passionate love he had for Robin. Did they too remind her of the dead partner? Had she perhaps loved Lord Hadlow as he had loved Sarah?

Hadlow had fallen victim to a huntsman's arrow. A mysterious arrow that no one would own. It had carried nothing to identify it as belonging to one of the huntsmen present at the chase. Most arrows carried their owner's mark, so that there would be no dispute over who had brought down the prey. An unmarked arrow had killed Lord Hadlow and left his wife in possession of all the land between Matlock and Chesterfield. Land rich in coal and iron. Forested land, well stocked with game, surrounded Hadlow's manor house at Matlock. The woman now owned so many manors and hunting forests in the county, she could progress from one to the other without repeating a visit in a six month.

Hugh went to the window, lacing his shirt as he looked out again across the lush gardens to the water meadows
beyond. Looking upon the softness of the mellow stone of the Hall and its flower-rich terraces, Hugh could understand how she might prefer Mallory Hall over all the others. Had she married Stephen Mallory just to get her hands on the Hall?

What manner of men had these husbands been? He knew very little about any of them, not even the first who had had some kinship through marriage to Hugh's own father. Roger Needham had been a lot older than his sixteen-year-old bride. Maybe twice her age. Not a particularly pleasant prospect for a young woman. The marriage would have been arranged for her and she could not have expected any real say in the matter. But no one would have obliged her to marry any of the other three men. She had entered into those alliances entirely of her own volition. And she had drawn up her own marriage contracts. Learned noblewomen were not unheard-of. The king's bastard daughter the Lady Mary was a distinguished Latinist and scholar and it was said that her four-year-old sister the Lady Elizabeth was rigorously taught. But a legally trained mind was a rather different matter, Hugh reflected.

There must be servants, old retainers, who had known the lady well over the years, who, with luck, had been with her through her marriages. The steward, for instance. The chief huntsman. A tutor, perhaps. A tiring woman, perhaps. In the morning he would throw his net wide and see what he caught.

He put on a doublet of crimson velvet and fastened a tooled leather belt at his waist just as the chapel bell rang for vespers.

“Come, Robin. ’Tis five already. We mustn’t keep our hostess waiting.” Hugh slipped his arms into a wide, loose gown of richly embroidered crimson silk lined with dark blue silk and slid his dagger into the sheath at his waist. He ran an appraising eye over his son's appearance, flicked
a piece of lint from his shoulder, and ushered him out of the apartment.

Robin sniffed hungrily of the rich aromas of roasting meat drifting from the kitchens as they crossed to the chapel where the bell was still ringing.

All the senior members of the household were gathered for vespers on the long oak pews in the chapel in the upper courtyard. They glanced up as Hugh and Robin entered the dim vaulted space.

“That boy must sit with us,” Pippa announced in her high clear voice from a box pew in the chancel. “Boy, come over here,” she called imperiously.

“Pippa, don’t shout!” Pen said in a scandalized whisper. “You’re in the chapel! And his name is Robin.”

“Oh, I forgot.” Pippa clapped one hand over her mouth even as she beckoned frantically with the other one.

Hugh could see no sign of Lady Guinevere in the box pews as they walked up the aisle to the chancel. Perhaps a guilty conscience kept her from her prayers, he thought grimly.

“Come and sit by me,” Pippa hissed, scrunching up on the pew, heedless of the creasing of her green silk gown as she made room for Robin.

Hugh restrained a smile. It was clear to him that Robin would infinitely prefer to sit beside the elder sister, who was smiling her own much shyer invitation. He gestured that Robin should enter the pew with the girls and then turned to take the one across the aisle. There was a stir at the chapel door and he looked back.

What he saw took his breath away for a minute. Lady Guinevere in a gown of amber velvet studded with blackest jet came up the aisle towards him. At her waist she wore a gold chain from which hung an enameled and gold pomander and a tiny watch studded with sable diamonds. She wore a diamond pendant on her breast and diamonds
studded the high arc of her headdress that was set back so that her smoothly parted hair was visible on her forehead. Her pale hair in the candlelight seemed to shimmer beneath the bright glitter of the diamonds.

“Lord Hugh, forgive me for keeping you waiting. There were some matters to discuss with the musicians for this evening. Pen has certain favorite dances. I wanted to be sure they were included in their repertoire.” Her voice was soft and musical, her smile
damnable.
It was full of warm promise, bewitching!

He remembered the Bishop of Winchester's declaration that the woman must have used sorcery to bring so many men to their knees. Ordinarily Hugh had no time for such nonsense, but at this moment he came close to believing.

Guinevere glanced over at the children. Robin jumped to his feet in the narrow box and bowed. She smiled at him. “I give you good even, Robin. Pippa, come and sit beside me, otherwise you’ll chatter throughout the service.” Smoothly she extricated her younger child, ignoring her protestations, and propelled her firmly into the far corner of the opposite pew, following her in.

“Lord Hugh … there is more than enough room for three.”

He took his seat, still searching for composure. The scent of her surrounded him. A scent of verbena and lemon and rose water. He disliked the heavy perfumes women used at court to mask the riper odors of their heavily clad bodies. But this was a delicate fragrance that sent his senses reeling. He found himself glad that he had bothered to wash away his own travel dirt and put on fresh linen. And the reflection infuriated him. He was not here to be entranced by Guinevere Mallory.

The priest began the evening service, a form that everyone present knew by heart. Guinevere made the ritual responses while her mind was elsewhere. The effect of her appearance on Lord Hugh had been all that she had
intended. However swiftly he had tried to disguise it, she had seen the pure masculine response in his eyes as she’d come up the aisle. And she could feel that same response in the taut upright figure on the pew beside her. He was utterly and totally immersed in her presence.

A little smile of satisfaction touched her lips as she bowed her head for the benediction.

The bells pealed jubilantly in the Lady Pen's honor as the family and guests left the chapel. Members of the household congratulated Pen and gave her flowers and little trinkets they had made for her. She smiled and skipped a little with pleasure and Pippa kept up a running commentary for Robin's benefit on every gift her sister received and on the identity of the giver.

“That's such a pretty pomander, did you see it? It was given to her by the stillroom keeper. I expect she's put all sorts of sweet-smelling herbs in there…. Can I smell it, Pen? D’you think it’ll ward off the plague, Boy?”

“There is no plague in these parts,” Robin said. “And my name is Robin.”

“Oh, I’ll try to remember,” Pippa said blithely. “I forget because we don’t see many boys here … not
your
kind of boy. Servants and grooms and people, but not
real
ones. So I just seem to think of you as Boy.”

“How does anyone put up with you?” Robin said in an undertone. “D’you never stop talking?” He was wishing he had something to give Pen, searching his memory for the contents of the trunk he shared with his father, wondering if he had anything that would serve as a gift.

Then he realized that Pippa had fallen most uncharacteristically silent. He looked down at her and saw that she was looking dejected. “Oh, I didn’t mean to be unkind,” he said. “I was trying to think and you kept interrupting me.”

Pippa immediately beamed up at him. “I know I talk too much, everyone says so. But there's always so much to say. Don’t you find?”

Robin shook his head. “Not really.”

Guinevere walking just behind the children overheard this exchange. She glanced involuntarily at her companion whose expression was once again warm and amused, the laugh lines deeply etched around his eyes.

“Was that little maid born talking?” he inquired, laughter lurking in the deep melodious voice.

“She was certainly born smiling,” Guinevere responded, unable to help a flicker of answering amusement. “She has the sunniest temper.”

An elderly man dressed in the furred gown that denoted his scholar's status, the lappets of his black cap tied firmly beneath his pointed chin, hurried up behind them. “Oh, dear, oh, dear, I so much wanted to be among the first to congratulate Pen, but Master Grice detained me in the chapel over the construction of some devotional text and now I find I’m almost the last,” he muttered. “I wouldn’t have the dear child think I was neglectful.”

“I’m sure she doesn’t, Magister Howard,” Guinevere said. “Lord Hugh, allow me to present Magister Howard. He is the girls’ tutor. But he was also my own.” Her eyes flashed as she met his gaze. “I imagine you will wish to talk with him in the course of your …” She hesitated, frowning, as if searching for the right word. “Your …”

“My investigations,” Hugh supplied blandly. “I think that's the word you’re looking for, Lady Guinevere.” He gave a friendly nod to the elderly man.