Tori Phillips (19 page)

Brandon Cavendish. Could he possibly be as wonderful as he appeared? Or was that veneer as false as the name he affected—John Stafford? For two and a half weeks, they had bantered, played innumerable games of cards and chess, ridden horses around the home park and discussed crops, sheep, cattle, hunting dogs, servants, the king, court gossip—and the green-slimed moat. Only yesterday she had been brave enough to broach the subject she most wanted to learn about—Sir Brandon Cavendish himself.

Kat smiled as she remembered the sweet thrill of his touch and the exciting promise that lay behind Brandon’s passionate kisses. Last night they had shared a different kind of tenderness, one that bespoke of growing older together by the fireside of their home, surrounded by their children. Kat bit her lip. Could she possibly have a child at the ripe old age of thirty? She knew women in the village who did, but they had been bearing children since their teens.

Kat swallowed the hard knot in her throat. Would Brandon repudiate her if she could not conceive? He had never mentioned children. She knew she should discuss the subject with him before they exchanged marriage vows. Brandon might appeal to the king, and call off the marriage because she was not a breeder. Kat could return to her life of quiet widowhood. The thought made her grow cold even though the room was warm.

Her mind kept returning to last night by the fire, and Brandon’s comforting embrace. Kat inhaled the heady scent of the flower in her hand and wondered how her ordered life had suddenly become so complicated. The man had muddled her wits, and she did not know what she wanted.

Laurel reappeared bearing a tray of ale, a bowl of strawberries in cream, fresh-baked bread, butter and honey. “I knocked on Miranda’s door, my lady, but she swears she will never come out again.”

Kat puffed out her cheeks with exasperation. “I had hoped she would sleep off her experience.”

“She pleads a headache,” Laurel added.

Kat considered her cousin’s cowardice. “We shall let her stay shut away, if that is her choice. The day is foul, and she should probably rest. I will look in on her after dinner.” Coloring her voice in a neutral shade, she asked, “Has my Lord Stafford had breakfast?”

Laurel’s eyes glinted with mischief. “Which gentleman do you mean, my lady?”

I shall wring Violet’s little neck anon!
Aloud, Kat replied, “Why, the gentleman who carried me up here, of course.”

Laurel smirked. “Oh, that one! Mark said his lord went directly to his chamber and fell into bed. Said he was asleep afore his head hit the pillow.”

“And the other lord?” Kat inquired. She sat down at the table and drew the tray of food closer.

Laurel remade the bed. “He called for a remedy for taking too much wine. Mistress Owens sent him up a syrup of primroses for his pounding head.”

“It seems this morning will be a very quiet one,” Kat remarked, savoring a plump, ripe strawberry. “I shall look over the accounts. Please bring the ledgers up here, Laurel, since Miranda has turned my chamber into a nunnery.”

Chapter Thirteen

P
ulling the bedcovers away from his face, Brandon squinted at the narrow window across the chamber. The sky looked gray and wet. Jack sat on the other side of the bed, with his head down between his knees.

Brandon stretched. “Good morrow, bag of misery,” he greeted his boon companion. “Have you the time of the clock?”

Jack groaned. “If you must speak, speak softly. My head pounds like a drum on a battlefield.”

Chuckling, Brandon swung out of bed. The motion of the mattress elicited another groan, followed by a curse from Jack.

“If I were a few hours younger, I would beat you for that! A plague on you, Brandon. Let me die!”

Brandon poured water into the basin, then splashed his face several times. “What ails you, Jack? Too overblown by drink?”

“Go away and be hanged!” was Jack’s reply.

Brandon wiped the water from his face with a clean piece of huck toweling. He approved of Kat’s attention to her guests’ comfort.

Except that he wasn’t exactly a guest, but the prospective master of a clean but drafty castle full of nubile maidservants, an old fox of a steward, a white witch for a housekeeper, a touchy French cook, an unmarried spinster cousin given to romantic fantasies, a moat that smelled to high heaven—and the most bewitching mistress he had ever met. He grinned as he regarded his face in his travel mirror.

“I look like a bristled boar,” he remarked, stroking his jaw.

“That is God’s truth,” Jack croaked from the bed.

“And what is your pleasure this fine rainy. day?” Brandon asked, working up a thick soapy lather over his dark blond beard.

Jack groaned again. “To die, and be done with it.”

“A pity. I will wait upon my lady, in hopes to continue where we left off yesterday, before you tossed Miranda into the Rother.”

Jack’s red-rimmed eyes glowered over the top of the coverlet. “I never did, you smiling knave! She threw herself in rather than submit to my attentions. I am Cupid’s jackass!” He flung the covers over his head.

Brandon applied his attention to his razor. For a few minutes, the only sound in the chamber was the rasp of steel against his whiskers. “So you plied her with your most insidious seduction, and the maid chose death before dishonor?” He rinsed his blade.

“Aye! ’Tis no wonder she did not even look at me when you revived her. To her, I am nothing but a shadow man.”

Brandon suppressed his grin. “Methinks shadows do not suffer the pangs of a hangover.”

“You would have done the same, if your lady had so disdained you,” Jack retorted, his face reddening.

Would I?
Brandon wondered as he continued to shave. Would Kat reject him? A dull rainy day presented a good opportunity to discover Kat’s true feelings toward him as a husband. ’Twas time to introduce a new twist to his wooing. Why not? In the eyes of the church, Kat was his in all but words and witnesses. Brandon stroked his smooth cheek with satisfaction.

He hummed one of the king’s compositions, “Pastime in Good Company,” as he rummaged through his bag for clean hose and shirt.

“The devil take you and your croaking,” Jack muttered, his voice muffled by the sheet.

“Nay, Jackanapes, ’tis my prayer that the Lady Kat will take me, croak and all.” Brandon tied up the silver laces of his black velvet sleeves. Black suited him, or so the ladies of the court had often told him. Brandon hoped Kat would agree.

“So, the froggie goes a-courting?” Jack made a feeble attempt to sing but lapsed into another groan.

“Aye, wish me well in my quest.” Brandon paused with his hand on the door latch. “Are you coming down to dinner?”

Groaning, Jack buried his head under a bolster.

“Should I send up a fair maid with some roasted meat for you?” Brandon continued, enjoying his friend’s discomfort. Jack seldom displayed ill effects from drink. This occasion was a rare sight.

“Send for a priest to give me the last rites,” Jack mumbled.

“And, I take it, you will stay abed all day?” ’Twould be easier to conduct his seduction of Katherine with Jack out of the way.

“All year!” Jack moaned. “Out! Let a man die in peace!”

Brandon grinned at the pathetic mound in the middle of the bed. “Peace be with you, my friend,” he said in a softer tone.

Jack’s heavy breathing was his only reply.

Kat looked up from her trencher with surprise as Brandon took his seat next to her. The chatter and clatter in the hall stilled as the castle’s retainers regarded the couple at the head table. Kat colored most becomingly.

“Good day, my lord,” she said softly. “I trust you slept well?”

“Well enough for the time being, sweetheart. A growling drunkard makes a poor bedfellow.” Brandon helped himself from the dish of poached sole in mustard sauce that Mark offered him.

“Oh, Sir
Brandon
is unwell?” Kat chewed her lower lip and stole a sideways glance at him.

He winked at her. “Sir Brandon is...much overcome, I fear.”

“With...with drink, my lord?” she stammered.

“Well, my lady, you did remark yesterday that the knave imbibed too much.” He signaled Mark to fill his goblet to the brim with red wine. He lifted it to her.

She wrinkled her nose. For the first time, Brandon noticed that a few faint freckles frolicked there. He wondered if she sported freckles on any other part of her delightful body.

“Aye, I do recall that conversation, my lord. I still say so.” She speared a piece of the dripping fish with her eating knife, then popped the morsel in her mouth.

Brandon found himself watching the motion of her rosy lips as she chewed. He marked how the corners of her mouth turned naturally upward.

“Your fish is getting cold, my lord,” she observed after she had swallowed.

Brandon’s mouth twitched with amusement as he applied himself to his food. “My apologies to the sole, sweet mistress. I will do it full justice.”

His French sister-in-law, Celeste, would certainly approve of Kat’s cook, he thought, savoring the taste and texture of the fish. A roasted pheasant in herbed jelly with pickled beets on the side followed. Poor Jack! What a meal he was missing!

“How fares your lady cousin?” Brandon asked, between mouthfuls of a salad made up of the blossoms of violets, marigolds and dandelions sprinkled with oil, vinegar and brown sugar. “I trust she has suffered no ill effects from her...swim?”

Kat gave an unladylike snort. “The only thing that is affected is her hard head. She thinks that...Sir Brandon is much put out with her for her foolishness.”

Brandon furrowed his brow. “What foolishness of hers? ’Twas Jac...that jackanapes’s fault for lunging at her.”

Kat’s eyes widened with astonishment. “How now? She said she slipped on the bank and fell in. She said nothing about him pushing her.”

Brandon stared at Kat, then burst out laughing. “’Tis too rich! He thinks he frightened her, and she jumped into the river.
She
says she slipped by mistake!”

A flash of good humor crossed Kat’s face. “Aye, and now my cousin has shut herself up in our chamber, and swears she is so mortified by her clumsiness that she will never show her face again!”

“Never is a long time,” Brandon remarked in a lower tone.

“Aye, for at least the rest of the day,” Kat replied.

Brandon sopped up the last of the sweet juice from his pear tart, then pushed the plate away with a sigh of satisfaction. He wiped his lips on his napkin, then gazed at his dinner partner with amusement. “Since we must entertain ourselves, mistress, how have you devised for us to while away the long afternoon?”

Kat shifted uneasily in her seat. Her emerald eyes widened when she realized that all the servants had vanished. Brandon hid his grin behind his hand. She had no idea he had instructed Mark and Christopher to engage everyone’s attention in the kitchen. The squires had accepted their task with a good deal of chortling and sly winks to each other. Brandon preferred not to think what entertainment those two rogues would initiate before an audience of adoring maids and young potboys, whose sense of mischief was equal to that of the squires. He prayed nothing would get broken—at least, nothing that Kat valued.

Brandon drew out an exaggerated sigh. “It seems that we are alone.”

Kat arched one red-gold brow. “Aye, so it appears. And by that smile I spy on your lips, you have already thought of a diversion. Very well, my lord. What entertainment do you suggest?”

Brandon had been waiting—praying—for just this question. Drawing a pair of dice from the pouch that hung from his belt, he held out the little wooden cubes to her. “I challenge you to a game of hazard, mistress mine.”

Kat stared at the cubes. “I have never cast dice before.”

Even better! Brandon cleared his throat. “The rules are simple enough, and you will learn as we go along. The object is to throw the dice so that the total number of dots facing up equals five, six, seven, eight or nine.”

Kat plucked the dice out of his palm, then rolled them around between her fingers. “Methinks there is more to this sport than merely throwing numbers. I gather wagers are made upon the outcome?”

Brandon chuckled. “Thereby hangs the tale, sweetheart.”

“Ah, just so.” She cast a practice throw on the table. A one and a two landed facing up. “And what do you suggest that we wager?”

“For each loss, the caster must shed an article of clothing,” he replied, inspecting his fingernails.

Kat stared at him in shocked amazement. “What a scandalous suggestion, my lord!”

Brandon nodded with mock seriousness. “I quite agree.”

“’Tis most unseemly...for a maid, that is.”

“Aye, ’tis true... for a maid.” He challenged her with a steady gaze. “Afraid?”

Kat tossed her head. “Certainly not.”

Brandon almost laughed aloud in triumph. “You accept my terms?”

“Aye, but on two conditions.”

“Name them.”

“Such a game would scandalize my servants, should they happen to come into the hall.”

Brandon assumed a pious look. “’Twould indeed.”

“Therefore, we must play this...game in the privacy of one of the chambers above.” She floundered, not looking at his face.

I could not have said it better myself, sweet Kat
. “I agree wholeheartedly, for the sake of your young maids. But I fear my room is unavailable. My Lord...Cavendish is still abed, nursing his woes.”

She nodded. “And my chamber is likewise occupied by my sulking cousin.”

Brandon struck his forehead, as if he had just been inspired by a bolt of wisdom. “What about the chamber you lay in last night? I know the way to its door,” he added with warmth in his voice.

She flushed at his insinuation. “I am sure that you do,” she replied. “There is naught in it but a bed, a chair and a small table.”

Brandon flashed his teeth. “’Tis all that is required.”

Kat’s flush deepened into a crimson. “Just so.”

Moving to her side, Brandon put his hand under her chin, turning her toward him. “And your other condition?” he murmured.