Tori Phillips (12 page)

Rosie swept her hair out of her eyes. “No wonder you are a sight better than the other ladies I met yesterday. You know what it means to work for your bread.”

Alicia smiled at her. “Aye, Rosie, that I do.” She caressed the fan’s feathers with her fingertips. “Prithee, child, lift your hair away from your face for a moment.”

Rosie assumed a guarded look. “My neck and ears are clean.”

Alicia patted the girl’s hand. “I might have a headdress that would compliment your looks perfectly,” she murmured. She did not think it would be prudent to divulge her real reason.

Still on her guard, Rosie gathered her blond tresses in both hands and pulled them back, revealing a perfect oval face and the fine cheekbones that whispered better breeding than a goose yard.

“Turn this way and that so that I can see your profile. Have no fear, dear Rosie. Your skin is as clean as milk.”

Rosie wrinkled her nose, but did as Alicia requested. The countess stifled a small cry. Though not as tall as her mother, the goose girl of Stoke Poges was the mirror image of Margaret when Alicia had first known her.

“Twill do very well,” the countess murmured. “You shall see anon.”

Rosie looked directly into Alicia’s eyes. “Then ye had best loan me that coif soon, my lady, for I do not know how long Sir Andrew’s fancy will last. I could be back in the tent of the Golden Cockerel by tomorrow.”

Alicia cleared her throat. “Ah, Andrew—I had forgotten him for a moment. Tell me the truth, Rosie, has he bedded you?”

The girl shook her head. A quick look of regret flitted
across her face. “Nay, my lady, he has acted right proper with me. Oh, I admit to you that Sir Andrew is a little odd in his habits and long-winded in his speech, but he has treated me as…as a little sister.” Leaning her elbow on the table, she cupped her chin in her hand. “Tell me true, my lady, am I too ugly for him?”

Her question startled Alicia. Then she realized that the poor child fancied herself in love with him. He had that same effect on most women, especially his late wife. How could Rosie wonder such a thing when she possessed her mother’s ethereal beauty? “Of course you are pretty,” Alicia hedged. “I am sure many of your… ah…gentlemen have often told you.”

The girl blushed and looked at her toes. “If you mean customers in a bawdy house, haint ever…I mean, I have never had any.”

Alicia stopped fanning herself. “But methought you said you were a…a…” Margaret would weep without ceasing if she had known to what depths her daughter had been thrown.

“A whore?” Rosie gave her a cynical smile. “Not yet.”

Alicia drew in a deep breath. “Pray explain, my dear. Others have found that I am a good listener and do not make rash judgments.”
Your blessed mother for one.

Rosie chewed on her fingernail, then stopped herself when she realized what she was doing. “Sir Andrew thinks I am a virgin. That’s why he bought me two nights ago. The truth is I gave myself once to the son of our esquire on May Day.” She drew closer to Alicia. “I pray, lady, do not think less of me than you already do. Twas a beautiful day and Simon was so handsome and so nice to me. He bought me sweetmeats and ribbons
and he told me that he loved me. He lied, of course.”

Alicia squeezed her hand. “He seduced you.” She wished she had the opportunity to throttle the perfidious Simon.

“Aye, in our barn. Twas the only bed I had. Some of the children saw us and told old man Barstow. He caught us.” Rosie chewed her lower lip and looked away. “Twas too late for me. I thought Simon would protect me, but he did no such thing, of course. He thanked my foster father for the use of me, then he left without so much as a backward look.”

“A puling slug, methinks,” Alicia remarked. If Rosie had been their daughter, Thomas would have killed the debaucher on the spot. “Didn’t your guardian demand that Simon marry you?”

Rosie shook her head. “Ha! He said he always knew I came from bad blood. He locked me in the grain house for over a week until he sold me to Quince. Said he would have done it sooner if he hadn’t needed me to raise his children when my foster mother died.”

The countess quivered with repressed indignation. There wasn’t a drop of bad blood in Rosie. Her natural parents were gentle born. How dare that lout say such a thing! “I presume he told this Quince you were a virgin?”

Rosie nodded. “To get a better price. Quince thought he got the best of the bargain. He said he expected me to fetch him a fortune here. Tis why he saved me for this trip. Now I am at sixes and sevens. God knows what Sir Andrew will do to me when he finally—”

“He will
not
take his pleasure at your expense,” Alicia vowed. “Tis well for him that he has not done so already!”

Rosie only sighed. “Your pardon, my lady, but I can tell you have never wanted for anything. Tis a cloth of a different color for me.” Her expression hardened. “I must make my own way since I have no one to protect me. I do what I must in order to live. My wits are all that I have.”

Alicia’s good heart nearly broke. She wanted to take Rosie in her arms and shield the child from the wickedness of the world, yet she knew that the girl would disdain her pity. For dear Margaret’s sake, Alicia must do something, but she had no idea what. In his cheerful, careless way, Andrew was unwittingly creating a person who was neither fish nor fowl. Rosie, by her birth, was already too far above the gutter ever to fall back into it, yet she could not continue her disguise as a lady unless—

Alicia sighed. There was one man who could transform Margaret’s waif into the lady she was born to be. All he had to do was to say “aye.”

R
osie sopped up the last few crumbs of honey-soaked bread with her finger, then sucked them into her mouth. All the while she observed a curious flow of expressions cross the countess’ beautiful face.
She wonders what to do with me.
Rosie straightened her shoulders and waited for whatever would happen next. Both women jumped when Andrew poked his head inside the tent flap and whistled.

“Hoy day, ladies! By your stern looks, tis a serious talk indeed. Have I your leave to come in yet? Tis as hot as hell out here in the sun.”

His clean-shaven face was quite red and he dripped with perspiration. Rosie had never seen Sir Andrew look quite so uncomfortable. He mopped his face with his wrinkled handkerchief.

Lady Alicia waved him inside with her yellow-plumed fan. “Aye, Andrew, we have finished—at least for the present.”

Smiling broadly, the gentleman swept through the entrance. Jeremy scurried behind him. With a burst of activity, the squire threw open one coffer after another and pulled out a number of items from each. Sir Andrew’s
large boxes held the wonders of the world, Rosie thought. There seemed to be no bottom to them.

“What mischief will occupy you today, Andrew?” The countess ignored the growing pile of bright clothing that Jeremy draped across the empty stools and chest lids. “Do you wait upon the king?”

Andrew held up a beautiful jacket of butter-yellow and bright-orange. Gold thread trimmed the buttonholes and edges. “Nay, my lady. I am to demonstrate my skill on the archery range within this very hour.”

He nodded his approval of his squire’s selections. “Mind you, tis a waste of everyone’s time and arrows. The judges should award me the prize at the start. No one need draw a bowstring in this heat.” He grinned. “All of England and soon France will see that I am the best shot in the world.”

Rosie wrinkled her nose. No doubt this outrageous boast was merely another one of Andrew’s wild jests. How could anyone take him seriously when he wore such garish colors? Or such tight hose? Rosie couldn’t help but admire his figure. For a gentleman of leisure, Sir Andrew had quite strong legs. His thigh and calf muscles rippled under the parti-color stockings. Her gaze roved over his tight backside. He radiated a vitality that drew her to him and made her pulse leap with stirring excitement.

Lady Alicia smiled up at him with a motherly fondness in her eyes. “Then with your permission, Rosie and I shall accompany you. Twill be good experience for her to see what a gentleman does.”

“I already know what a gentleman does,” the girl muttered.

Andrew shot her a warning look. He had the ears of a fox.

The countess stood and beckoned Rosie to follow her into the rear chamber. “Pray wait until we have removed ourselves before you dress, Andrew,” she admonished him with a clicking of her tongue.

He chuckled. “I quite agree, my lady. The sight of my manly form would be too much for your chaste eyes. You would swoon within seconds.” He held up a codpiece that was decorated with a golden sunburst. “Do you think this would distract my French competitors?”

The lady pushed Rosie behind the silk curtain. “How you do love to hear yourself talk, Andrew!” Then she pulled the drape completely closed.

Rosie felt more than a little embarrassed when she realized that this stately woman intended to play the maid and dress her. “I can tie my laces as well as you, my lady,” she protested.

Lady Alicia chuckled. “Not if they go up your back. How your laces are tied tells the difference between a girl who works for her living and a lady who lets others do her work. Suck in your stomach and don’t slouch.” She pulled the laces of the pale blue dress she had picked out for Rosie.

The girl shook her head at the choice. “Methinks I will get this gown dusty in a trice if I walk about in it for very long. I have no money to pay Lady Mary if the garment is ruined.”

The countess pulled tighter, nearly squeezing all the breath out of Rosie. “Tut, my child. My sister-in-law told me that she
gave
you these clothes. They are yours to mend or mar as you please.”

“Tis true?” Rosie felt a little giddy and concluded that it must be because she could not draw a deep breath. “Spit in your palm and swear on the moon, my lady,” she whispered.

Alicia smiled and nodded to her. Rosie turned her head away so that the kind gentlewoman would not spy the tears that shimmered in her eyes. Tears were a sign of a weakness that she did not want to admit.

Fifteen-year-old Walter Ormond lounged in the deep shadow between the canvas sides of the two large tents diagonally opposite the garish pink monstrosity that Sir Andrew Ford called his home away from home. The stripling curled his lip at the sight of it. No selfrespecting Northumberland man would acknowledge such a confection as his own.

The sullen boy shifted his position on the hard-packed ground and wished he had not been so eager to act as a spy for Sir Gareth. To while away the time, he amused himself by catching the droning flies with one hand, then pulling off half their wings. He giggled as he watched the mutilated insects stagger and attempt to fly.

An hour crept by and the day grew more humid. Walter lifted his wineskin and drank a mouthful of the warm liquid. He looked up just in time to see a tall, dignified woman in a blue gown disappear inside Ford’s tent. Though he had not seen her face, he recognized the wolf’s head emblem that her bodyguard wore. Muttering an oath against his father’s nearest neighbor and nemesis, Walter wondered why the Countess of Thornbury visited Andrew so early in the day. That fop had more women hanging about him than the wretched flies around a midden heap.

The next half hour proved a little more interesting. Sir Andrew, dressed in only a shirt and his hose, came out of his tent, sat on an upturned wine cask and was shaved by his pretty-faced squire. Walter had met Jeremy Metcalf once before and the slender-built boy had proved to
be made of tougher mettle than Walter had expected. After a severe pounding, young Ormond had learned not to make any sniggering comments about Ford within Jeremy’s hearing.

A number of gentlemen who were out to enjoy a breath of morning air before the sun heated the valley like a blacksmith’s anvil stopped when they saw Sir Andrew and exchanged loud pleasantries. Sweat trickled down Walter’s face. A pox on the lily-livered French and their peevish weather! The boy couldn’t wait until this courtly farce between the two kings was concluded. He missed the cool greenery of England and the sharp winds that blew across the moorland near his home at Snape Castle. Walter swore he would boil his guts in fish oil before he ever set foot in France again.

Despite his near-nakedness, Sir Andrew greeted all comers with a jest and a hearty laugh. Walter had always thought the peacock lord soft in his head anyway. He wondered what the wench thought of Ford.

Now
there
was a dainty morsel! A ticklish feeling settled below Ormond’s belt when he remembered the strumpet’s bare breasts in the glow of the torch light. Sir Gareth had all but promised Walter that he could dally with her once the older man had sated his pleasure. The boy closed his eyes and rubbed himself as he imagined what he would do once he had the jade under him.

When he opened his eyes again, Sir Andrew and his squire had disappeared. The youth pulled himself to his feet. Hogsworthy would have his hide if Walter lost track of the girl’s whereabouts. While he eased the crick out of his back, he wondered if he dared to move closer to Ford’s tent and to spy within. On the other hand, he had no desire to tangle with Jeremy again—at least not
on an even footing. He would get his own back on the squire on a dark, moonless night.

Walter stepped into the full sunlight and squinted his eyes against the sudden glare. He started across the open area between the tent pegs, then the tent flaps moved. The boy had just time enough to duck back in the shade before Sir Andrew emerged, leading the tall lady by the hand. Jeremy and the lady’s handmaid followed behind them. The squire carried a longbow and a green leather quiver stuffed with arrows. Two men-at-arms, one wearing Ford’s swan livery and the other the Cavendish badge, brought up the rear. Walter watched the company saunter down the broad avenue that led toward the middle of the valley where the tiltyards and archery butts were located. The toothsome whore had been left behind unattended.

As soon as the group was well out of sight, Walter sprinted down the back alley between a row of tents. He leapt over a reeking sewage ditch then he dodged around a large gray tent where stacks of firewood and large tuns of water awaited the needs of a hundred lackeys. Ormond cleared another ditch, equally as foul as the first, ran down a lane of modest pavilions, then drew up in front of Sir Gareth’s.

Both flaps were tied open in the hope of catching the last of the morning’s breeze. Just inside the entrance, Sir Gareth played at cards with Fitzhugh. By the smug look on Gareth’s face, Fitzhugh must have lost a great deal of money. Walter sighed with relief. Since he was already in a good mood, Sir Gareth might reward the boy’s message with a coin or two. Walter’s debts were a continual sore point with his father.

The youth bowed to Gareth. “My lord, Sir Andrew
has gone to the archery range with his squire and the Countess of Thornbury.”

With a pleased smirk, Gareth fanned out the cards in his hand so that his companion could see them. Then he gave Walter his full attention. “And the wench?”

“She remained behind, my lord. Alone.”

“Guards?”

“None, my lord. Mayhap Sir Andrew does not value her much.”

Gareth chortled to Fitzhugh. “Ho, my friend! Put away that peevish look. My luck has turned again in a widening gyre. I spy good entertainment before the noon hour strikes.”

He stood so quickly that he overturned the small table, scattering the cards and mother-of-pearl gaming pieces to the ground. Without a backward glance, Gareth strode out of his tent with Walter panting close behind him. Fitzhugh followed at a more dignified pace.

“Stand on watch,” Gareth growled to the boy when they neared Andrew’s pavilion. Then, the lord slipped inside.

Perspiration beaded on Walter’s forehead. He had no desire to confront one of the Cavendish brothers nor their insufferable cousin if one of them should happen to walk by. Each minute crept by like an hour.

“A thousand devils take you!” Gareth erupted from the tent and snatched up Walter by his collar. “The wench is gone!” He shook the boy like a rag poppet, then threw him to the ground.

Walter wiped the swirling dust out of his eyes. “I did not see her go, my lord,” he whined.

Gareth kicked him. “You puling mealy-mouth poltroon! Did you think she would still be dressed in rags and filth? Not with Andrew Ford as her keeper. He has
cleaned her up and dressed her in fine feathers. How many women did you see accompany him?”

The boy scooted out of the range of Gareth’s boots. “Only the countess and her maid…Oh!” He realized his mistake.

“Aye, you clodpate! Ford hoodwinked you! But
why
has he spent a fortune on this whore? That is the question.”

Fitzhugh ambled out of the tent’s shadow. “Perchance Lord Satin Britches dabbles in a double-dealing scheme, Gareth,” he suggested in a gritty voice. “Ford has always been a sly trickster.”

Gareth stroked his chin. “Aye, he bears watching. Come!” He turned on his heel and strode down the avenue.

Walter scrambled to his feet and limped after the two lords. He rubbed his thigh where a hard knot already formed from Gareth’s boot. Ten minutes later, they entered the archery range where the competition was about to begin. The royal banners of France and England hung limply from their poles. No breeze stirred the dust of the parched earth, unlike the two previous days when a veritable whirlwind had made the shooting impossible. The sun climbed slowly in the hazy sky. A large crowd of spectators clustered in the wooden galleries under the striped awnings. The ladies, like a bevy of bright birds, chatted and laughed in high brittle voices while fanning themselves energetically. The gallants lounged behind their damsels and bantered amusing comments in boisterous voices. Neither of the kings nor their courts sat in the royal boxes.

Gareth mounted the gallery steps two at a time, then pushed his way along the back wall until he was directly behind the Countess of Thornbury. Fitzhugh and Walter
followed. The press of the bejeweled audience in their heavy velvets and brocades made the rear of the gallery a hot and smelly place. Walter cursed his damnable luck when he saw Guy Cavendish seat himself next to his mother. Ormond flattened himself against the roughhewn wooden wall. A protruding splinter scratched his neck.

Narrowing his eyes, Gareth clenched his fists at his side. “Yonder is the brazen jade!”

“The countess appears very friendly with the chit,” Fitzhugh observed.

Hogsworthy replied with a mirthless laugh. “I wonder if Lady Alicia knows she is consorting with a common bawd. God rot it! She is even holding the strumpet’s hand like a daughter’s!”

Fitzhugh shook Gareth by the shoulder. “Lower your voice or you will give our game away.”

The angry lord growled in the back of his throat. “Look now! See how Ford struts like an orange rooster. At any moment, I expect him to throw back his head and crow like one.”

Walter mopped more perspiration out of his eyes with his sleeve, then stood on his tiptoes to see over the feathered hats of the crowd in front of him. A trumpet fanfare announced the commencement of the first round. Sir Andrew tossed his garish doublet to his squire, then fastened on his leather wrist guard. While the other contestants took their places at the firing line, Andrew drew near to the railing where the countess and her companions sat. With a toothy smile and many crowd-pleasing flourishes, he bowed to the women, kissed their fingers and received a ribbon token.

Gareth sneered. “What a farcical dumb show! Look
you, he is tying the harlot’s ribbon around his arm next to the countess’ favor.”