The Widow's Kiss (5 page)

“Oh, my goodness!” the magister said. “What could you be investigating, sir?”

“ ’Tis not a matter to be discussed during a celebration,” Hugh said as blandly as before, standing aside to allow Guinevere to precede him into the house. He followed her into the banqueting hall through the opening in the carved screen that separated the hall from the passageway.

The long table on the dais in the hall was spread with a shimmering white damask cloth in honor of the occasion.

Above in the minstrels’ gallery musicians were playing a cheerful air and pages stood behind the chairs of family and guests with white napkins and flagons of wine to fill the goblets that this evening graced the table instead of the usual horn cups.

Servers ran from the kitchens with steaming platters of roasted meats and a cook stood at the carving table to one side of the hall. As he sliced the boar onto a platter held by a server, the rich juices were captured in the grooved runnel around the table and tipped into a bowl.

A large silver saltcellar stood in the center of the table that ran the length of the hall below the dais and members of the household took their accustomed places at the board, those of lower status sitting below the salt.

Guinevere moved to the center of the high table and invited Lord Hugh to the seat at her right.

Pen, as the older child of the house, was about to take her place on her mother's left when she realized that she could then have only one person to sit on her other side.

Pippa would expect to sit there. She always did, and on a birthday it was a particularly important place. Pen looked at her sister. Then she looked at Robin. She knew she could not choose Robin over her sister, even though it was her birthday. Pippa would be utterly miserable, and she wouldn’t understand either.

“Robin, pray sit on my left,” Guinevere said with instant comprehension. “Pen, you won’t mind giving up your place to our honored guest, I know. You may sit beside Robin, and Pippa will sit on your other side.”

It was an arrangement that solved Pen's dilemma and would not incidentally serve to separate both Hugh and Robin from the proximity of Pippa's chatter. Pippa looked momentarily disconsolate at being separated from the novelty of the boy's company but it was her sister's celebration and she didn’t argue.

They took their places and the rest of the company sat
down. The clatter of knives, the hum and buzz of voices rose above the music from the gallery. Guinevere found herself noticing her companion's hands. Noticing how square and workmanlike they were. Nothing of the effete aristocrat in the thick knuckles, the strong wrists, the large fingers. He wore a gold signet ring with a great winking sapphire; that and a ruby in the brim of his dark velvet hat were his only adornments. His richly decorated garments needed no jewels to set them off, however. She had the feeling that he wore these clothes uncomfortably, or at least with less ease than he would wear the more serviceable riding garments of a soldier.

“Does something interest you?” he inquired, one eyebrow lifted. “I should count myself flattered.” There was no mistaking the mockery in his voice. Once more she was in the company of Hugh of Beaucaire who regarded her with undisguised hostility.

“Don’t be,” she said, reaching for her goblet. It held a deep red wine from Aquitaine. She glanced at her companion, waiting for him to sample his own goblet.

Instead, Hugh took hers as she set it on the table and drank from it very deliberately. As the page behind him leaned forward to place sliced boar on the gilded platter before him, he waved the boy aside.

Guinevere stared at him in momentary confusion.

He smiled his cold unpleasant smile and drank again. “We drink from one goblet, madam, and we eat from one platter.”

“Whatever do you mean?”

“Men die in your company,” he said, his eyes never leaving her face as he pushed the goblet towards her.

G
uinevere's fingers curled around the slender stem of the goblet. For a second she was afraid the fine Venetian crystal would snap between her fingers as she fought for composure. She must appear indifferent, show no hint of vulnerability to his insults and taunts.

She ignored his statement, inquiring coolly, “How do you find the wine, my lord?” She carried the goblet once more to her lips.

“As fine as any from the region,” he returned. “I was forgetting, of course, that you inherited some vineyards in Aquitaine from your …” He frowned as if considering. “Your third husband, wasn’t it?” Casually he leaned over and forked a piece of roast boar from her platter. His eyes resting on her pale countenance were as sardonic as his tone.

“Yes, he bequeathed me the vineyards among other estates,” Guinevere agreed calmly, meeting his eye.

“And what exactly was it that sent this particular husband to his eternal rest? I forget.” He chewed his meat, swallowed, reached again for the goblet to wash down the mouthful.

“The sweating sickness that killed so many in London,
my lord, took its toll in the north some months later,” she replied. She had been hungry after the day's hunting but now all appetite had deserted her. The meat on her plate looked gray and greasy instead of rich and succulent and the wine seemed to have acquired a metallic tang.

Hugh said nothing for a minute, leaning back as the page behind his chair refilled the shared goblet and placed a spoonful of parsnip fritters on the platter together with a heap of small sausages.

It was true, he reflected, that the sweating sickness had swept the country in the year that Lord Kirk had supposedly died of a wasting disease. He cast a sidelong look at Lord Kirk's widow.

Guinevere turned her head and met his eyes. A cold smile touched her mouth as she inquired with a delicately raised eyebrow, “You are wondering, my lord, if I might have done away with my third husband under the guise of the epidemic?”

He shrugged, crimson and dark blue silk rippling across his square shoulders. “I am here to look for answers, madam.” He speared a sausage and ate it off the point of his knife.

“Answers, not evidence?” she inquired, her smile taut, but her sloe eyes clear and seemingly untroubled.

“Is there a difference?”

“I think so.” Suddenly despite her underlying desperation Guinevere found that she was enjoying this battle of wits and tongues. She had always reveled in sharpening her wits in discussion or verbal sparring. Magister Howard would engage in legal and logistical arguments as a purely mental exercise, but only her second husband, the girls’ father, had enjoyed the thrust and parry of a two-edged discussion. Timothy Hadlow had been a most unusual man: he had not considered it beneath him to lose an argument to a woman.

She said,
“Evidence
tends to imply a belief in some
wrongdoing.
Answers
merely look for explanations to a puzzle. There are no puzzles to be unraveled in the deaths of my husbands. Each and every one has a simple explanation.” Her appetite had come back and she gestured to a page to serve her from a brace of woodcocks he held on a charger.

She pulled the bird apart with her fingers and nibbled one of the small crisp legs, watching her opponent as he considered his answer.

Hugh said in measured tones, “Then it is true that I look for evidence of suspicious circumstances in those so-convenient four deaths.”

Guinevere drank wine before she said sharply, “Tell me, Lord Hugh, are you here to look for such evidence or to ensure that you find it?”

He made no answer for a moment, then said with a flash of anger, “You impugn my honor, madam.”

Finally she had stung him. She could see it in the slight flush beneath the weathered bronze of his complexion, in the rigidity of his mouth, the set of his jaw.

“Do I?” she said sweetly, setting down the now clean bone before delicately licking her fingers one at a time.

Hugh found his gaze abruptly riveted to the tip of her tongue between her warm red lips, the contrasting glimpse of white teeth. He didn’t think he had ever seen such a sensual gesture and for a moment his anger at her insult faded.

“Mama … Mama …” Pippa's piping voice suddenly ruptured the closed tense circle that contained them. Unconsciously they both relaxed as their intense privacy was invaded.

“What is it?” Guinevere smiled at her daughter, whose small face was brightly flushed with excitement beneath the plaited golden crown of her hair.

“Can I ask the boy to dance with me? They’re playing a galliard and I practiced the steps just this morning.”

Guinevere caught Pen's dismayed countenance, Robin's sudden blush as he realized that he’d been so busy satisfying his ravenous appetite that he’d neglected a social duty to his hostess, not to mention missing a perfect opportunity.

“It's Pen's birthday, Pippa, she must lead the dancing,” Guinevere said gently.

Robin coughed, scrubbed at his mouth with his napkin, and said in a throaty rush as he jumped to his feet, “Lady Pen, will you permit me …” Hastily he wiped his hand on his thigh in case there was any residue of boar grease before extending it to Pen in invitation.

Pen blushed delicately and rose from her stool, giving Robin her hand. He led her down from the dais to a smattering of applause from the diners who rose in couples to join them in the stately moves of the dance.

Pippa bit her lip and made a valiant attempt at a smile as she joined the applause.

Hugh tossed his napkin aside and stood up. “Come, little maid, let us see how well you’ve mastered the gal-liard.” He offered his hand with his warm and humorous smile and Pippa jumped eagerly to her feet, sending her stool spinning.

“Oh, I’m very good, my dance master told me so. Actually, I’m better than Pen,” she confided in an unsuccessful whisper. “I have more rhythm and I’m lighter on my feet. I wonder if that boy will notice.”

“Your sister is a very graceful dancer,” Hugh said re-pressively. “You will have to be more than ordinarily good to give a more elegant demonstration.”

“Oh, I am,” Pippa assured him, totally unaware of any snub as she skipped beside him down to the floor.

Guinevere rested her head against the carved back of her chair, closing her eyes briefly. She felt for a minute utterly exhausted, wrung out as if she’d been in some kind
of wrestling match. Then she sat up again, took a sip of wine, and watched the dancing. Pen and Robin were very earnest, Robin watching his steps. Pen's bottom lip was caught between her teeth, evidence of her own concentration. Conversation was obviously beyond them, Guinevere thought with an inner smile, some of her desperation and fatigue lifting as she watched.

Pippa was bounding around looking like a tiny green butterfly flitting around her tall partner. For all his square bulk and soldierly bearing Hugh of Beaucaire moved with smooth grace, Guinevere noted, and he didn’t appear to find anything incongruous in his exuberant and minute partner. Pippa, unlike her sister, was talking nineteen to the dozen, and Guinevere saw how Hugh seemed to select only certain parts of the stream for a response. A man who didn’t believe in wasting energy in futilities, Guinevere reflected. He was still smiling, his eyes were warm and filled with amusement as he bent now and again to respond to Pippa, and once more Guinevere wondered how two such separate personalities could exist in the same body.

She became aware of a strange tingle on her skin and a sudden wash of heat bringing the color to her cheeks. The last time she had felt like this was when she had first seen Timothy Hadlow. It had been on a Twelfth Night when the Lord of Misrule reigned and nothing was forbidden. She had laid eyes on Timothy Hadlow and he had laid eyes upon her. She could feel his hand now gripping hers as he led her wordlessly to that little room, barely more than a cupboard, where they had fallen to the floor, tugging and thrusting clothing aside in a glorious explosion of passion. She could see his bright hazel eyes in her mind's eye now, laughing down at her as he held himself above her, moving slowly within her, gauging her mounting excitement until the moment when he …

God's bones!
She could feel the warm liquid arousal in
her loins, the deep pulse in her belly, the heat of her skin, the jolt of excitement. No man before or since Timothy had given her this wondrous lusty desire.

Until now …

No, it was absurd, lunacy! Hugh of Beaucaire was her enemy, dedicated to bringing about her death, to robbing her and her daughters. This was not a man to lust after.

The stately measures of the galliard came to an end and Pippa darted away from Hugh and ran up to Robin, her voice rising above the minstrels’ strings and the buzz of voices in the hall. “Did you see me dance with your father, Boy? I mean Robin. Don’t I dance well? Will you dance with me now? It's a country dance. We can all dance together … you, me, and Pen.” She tugged at their hands, pulling them back to the floor.

Hugh came back to the table; he was laughing, his stride light as he took the steps to the dais two at a time. “What a jaybird she is!” He sat down as the page pulled out his chair. He reached for the goblet and drank deeply. “Just listening to her gives me a thirst.”

Guinevere smiled faintly. His proximity was setting her senses swirling. She could detect a hint of lavender, a trace of rosemary from his hair as he leaned sideways to help himself to a manchet of bread from the basket on the table. A man concerned with personal hygiene was an unusual one indeed, particularly when he’d been so many weeks upon the road.

To distract herself, she leaned back in her chair and told the page to tell the kitchen staff to bring in the birthday cake.

“I think, my lady, that if I may be so bold I’ll beg Pen for the honor of a dance,” Magister Howard called up from his place well above the salt at the long table in the main body of the hall. “If she won’t despise an old man's creaking steps.” He smiled a somewhat toothless smile
and nodded, his black-hatted head bobbing like a jackdaw, his thin gray beard wagging.

“She will be delighted, Magister,” Guinevere said, knowing that Pen, whatever her true feelings, would show her tutor only a smiling respect and apparent pleasure.

“And young Pippa will be even more so,” murmured Hugh. “To have
That Boy
to herself.”

Guinevere laughed. It was impossible not to respond to his amused tone. “It won’t be for long. The magister's not as spry on his feet as he used to be although his brain is as sharp as ever. Anyway, the cake will soon attract Pippa's attention.”

“Does the mother dance as well as her daughters?” Hugh inquired. “Or does she consider herself still to be in mourning?”

“I did not mourn Stephen Mallory,” she said in a low voice. “And I’ll not pretend otherwise.”

Hugh regarded her closely, an arrested expression in his eye. One of the tall tapers that marched down the center of the table flickered in a sudden draught and her purple eyes seemed to catch the flame and throw it back at him.

Hugh said slowly and deliberately, “In that case, madam, will you dance?” He offered her his hand and there was challenge in his bright blue gaze.

Almost without volition, Guinevere laid her hand in his and rose to her feet in a graceful sweep of amber velvet. The diamonds at her breast and in the high arc of her headdress shimmered in the light of the torches sconced high on the wall. Her long black silk hood reached almost to her heels and as she turned in the stately movements of the dance it swirled against her velvet skirts.

She smiled at him as she had smiled at him in the chapel and Hugh felt again the bewildering sensation of losing his balance. He believed so strongly in her guilt, in
his mission, in his determination to get back from her what was his by right, and yet in this moment beneath that smile all conviction, all determination melted like butter in the sun. Was this truly witchcraft? Was she trying to bewitch him as she had bewitched four husbands? He couldn’t help but respond to her even as he struggled with himself to keep his distance, to keep his clear-sighted detachment.

“Mama's dancing … look, Pen, Mama's dancing,” Pippa squealed from the other end of the set where she was bounding around Robin, who had had to yield his place with Pen to the magister. “She's dancing with your father, Boy Robin.”

“So I see,” Robin said. “I don’t see why it should be a matter for such excitement. I’m going back to the table now. Are you coming or are you going to dance by yourself?”

Pippa looked momentarily crestfallen but she followed him off the floor and back to the table. “I haven’t seen Mama dance for ages,” she confided. “She never danced with Lord Mallory. Not even at Christmas and Twelfth Night.” A little frown drew the faint lines of her brows together. “He was a very nasty man. He shouted and threw things. Everybody hated him. Once I heard Crowder telling Greene that Lord Mallory was a drunken brute.”

Robin, who knew only that his father had come to lay claim to disputed property, was somewhat shocked by this confidence. “You shouldn’t eavesdrop,” he said. “One of these days you’ll hear something you’ll wish you hadn’t.”

“Oh, I don’t do it deliberately,” Pippa reassured earnestly. “It's just that sometimes people don’t know I’m there.”

“How could that be?” Robin wondered, opening his eyes very wide. “Are you telling me that sometimes you actually stop talking?”

“I think you’re being horrid!” Pippa stated. “I’m going
to talk to Greene.” She slid off her stool and ran to where the chief huntsman was cradling a full drinking horn and engaging in an intense conversation with the sergeant-at-arms. Greene regarded the child's precipitate arrival with an air of mock dismay, but moved up on the long bench to make room for her beside him.

She propped her elbow on the table and, resting her chin on her palm, regarded him solemnly. “What were you talking about?”

“Nothing for your ears, little maid,” Greene said.

“But it looked very important,” she insisted.

“Aye, that it was,” he agreed placidly, taking a long draught from his drinking horn. He winked at the sergeant-at-arms who grinned broadly. Pippa was a universal favorite. However, she couldn’t be a party to their earlier discussion. Their talk had been all of Lord Hugh of Beaucaire and his men. The sergeant-at-arms had been in the court when Hugh of Beaucaire had announced his mission, and Greene had been witness to the initial encounter in the forest during the hunt. While no one knew exactly what was in the wind, it was clear to the senior members of Lady Mallory's household that there was trouble abrewing. And no one liked the idea of an armed bivouac beyond the gates.