Valentine (10 page)

“Like the merchant trader in Zwettl,” Maria offered.

“Yes,” he said. “Although I doubt his town holds much affection for him.” He got up to assist Maria with setting the full bags near the door, ready for travel at a moment’s notice. He liked that he’d not needed to explain that this was necessary. “For instance, I meet a friend in Paris, and we get on well, and I learn he has a brother in Brussels. Should I find myself in Brussels, I will pay this man a visit with his brother’s compliments.”

“But what if the brothers hate each other?” Maria asked, seeming genuinely interested.

“I should pay him a visit any matter,” Valentine said, “only no directly. Perhaps I ask after him, and find him in some tavern, in which case I sit nearby and loudly lament the stingy bastard who cheated me in Paris.”

To his surprise, Maria laughed. “So it is a friend either way.”

“Perhaps friend is too strong a word.” Valentine smiled.

They came back to the low table again, and Maria cut the round of bread in half horizontally while Valentine went to the stew pot for a final stir. He carefully scooped the rich meal into the halved breads and then joined her at the table.

Maria stuck her knife tip into a chunk of turnip and held it to her lips, blowing away the curling steam. She popped it into her mouth in a moment.

“Mmm,” she hummed, and then chewed while she picked around the stew. “Thank you,” she said when Valentine set the silver cup of ale near her.

He took a seat on the oddly short stool—little more than a wooden cassock, really—and began his own meal. He took a generous pinch of the salt in the open bag on the table and noticed that Maria watched him closely and then mimicked his seasoning.

Did she know nothing of life?

“Do you miss . . . traveling?” she asked, lifting her cup to her lips. She sniffed the ale, then took a hesitant sip.

He shrugged. “I have missed it of late, yes. Melk is no bastion of culture.”

“That’s dreadful,” Maria said, and Valentine looked up from his stew to find her frowning into her cup and licking her lips daintily. “Your home, then—Aragon. You miss it?” She took another drink, this one considerably larger.

“Ah, yes—Aragon I do miss,” he said, before sampling the ale himself. He smacked his lips. It was quite good. “The air, the light, the food. It is like heaven.”

“You’ve not been back since you left,” she guessed.

He shook his head. “No.”

Several moments passed as they ate, and Valentine could feel her curiosity rising up from her as if it had its own substance.

“Your family?” she asked in a light voice.

And there it was. “I have no family left in Aragon, Maria.”

Her eyebrows rose. “Dead? But I thought—”

“To me, yes.” He heard his voice growing gruffer and tried to relax. “My parents, they died many years ago, before I left. I had an older brother, a cousin I was close to at one time. . . .” He let the sentence trail away, then waved his knife in the air, as if the mention of them meant nothing.

“The ones you robbed,” she noted.

Valentine took a silent breath and then another leisurely bite of stew. “I did no rob anyone, Maria,” he said. “What I took did no belong to them.”

She opened her mouth to, Valentine assumed, pry further, but he foiled her attempt with a question of his own.

“Have you always been with your—Agnes, is it?”

“Agnes, yes,” she said. “My mother took her on as a maid soon after I was born. I was left in her care when my parents took a short voyage to Normandy together—they were only to be gone a fortnight. They never returned.”

“She is like your mother, then, this nurse.”

Maria nodded, swallowed. He could see the shimmer of tears in her eyes. “I miss her very much. I hope I have not worried her too terribly.”

Valentine refrained from voicing his opinion that, if the woman indeed thought herself any sort of a mother to Mary, Agnes was likely beside herself.

Maria took another long drink of the purportedly dreadful ale, perhaps to compose herself before speaking again. “I’ve often wondered if I resemble my mother.” She raised her face, and her eyes locked with Valentine’s, bright with hope. “Do you think? I mean, can you recall? Probably not, I understand. It was so long ago.” She dropped her eyes back to the stew, waving her knife in the air as Valentine had done earlier.

He continued eating but regarded her closely, his eyes moving over the lines of her jaw and nose, in profile to him, the curve of her ear. He searched his memory.

“You do,” he said casually. “The shape of your faces are similar, your cheekbones; you have the same hair—I remember the color clearly, as it was so much lighter than the women of my family.”

She raised her eyes. “Really? I look like my mother?”

“Yes,” Valentine said, “but no entirely. You have your father’s eyes. And his beard.”

She laughed loudly, her cheeks flushing prettily in the firelight. Then she stilled, dropped her head a bit, and picked at her stew.

Valentine could tell that she was struggling with her emotions, but he could not tell of what kind, and it frustrated him, used as he was to reading others as if they were signposts. Perhaps it was the coziness of the old mill, the flicker of the hearth flames, the feigned domesticity they had shared along with the meal and the ale. Perhaps it was how beautiful she looked in the stolen black veil, the lace shadowing her face like angels’ wings.

Whatever it was, it prompted Valentine to push his cup aside and reach for her hand. She let it lay limp in his grasp while he stroked the back of her palm with his thumb.

“Do no be sad, Maria,” he cajoled.

“It’s silly, isn’t it?” she asked in a strained voice. “To miss someone you’ve never met?”

The firelight behind her made her silhouette glow, and he suddenly wondered what the Maria of years ago would have thought of him, his younger self, perhaps at the time when they would have met had their agreement been honored as it was intended.

“I do no think so,” he said. “You did meet them. You only do no remember it.”

She looked at him at last, her eyes shimmering with unshed tears. “You and I met once, too. I don’t remember you either.”

“This is true,” he agreed lightly.

“Have you wondered?” she asked. “What it would have been like if we had—if we . . .” She let the sentence trail away, but her eyes pinned him still.

“It does no matter,” he said quietly, and he realized it was true. Whatever previous fantasies he’d held of seducing Maria must be forgotten. “Maria, what might have been is a dangerous game for us to play. You are to be wed, and I am a criminal with a price on my head. If we were to be caught together, it would ruin your life, and I would most certainly hang.”

“I don’t believe you are a criminal,” she said in a whisper.

Valentine swallowed, noticing that her fingers were now curved around his hand. “No?”

She shook her head.

“What has caused you to change your mind?” he asked.

The only sounds in the room were the crackling of the fire and the hush of the rain beyond the stone walls. He could feel her pulse quickening beneath her skin.

Then she stood up from her stool without withdrawing her hand and stepped toward him. Valentine rose automatically as she came into his arms and raised her face. He lowered his mouth to meet hers as if it was a dance they had rehearsed a thousand times, and their lips met perfectly. Maria’s right arm came up around his neck and his left went easily around her waist.

Valentine heard the roar of a warm sea in his ears, tasted the sweet saltiness of her mouth, smelled the garden of her hair. His heart pounded in his chest like hoofbeats, his body pulsing with this sudden onslaught of unmistakable desire.

And then he pulled his mouth away from hers, released her, stepped away with his palms out. He placed them on his hips when he noticed their tremble.

“Maria, no. It is too dangerous.”

She looked at him for several moments, her eyes flashing, her lips wet and parted from their kiss. The bodice of her gown rose and fell sharply.

“That is why I don’t believe you are a criminal,” she said in a breathless voice. She turned away and began clearing the remains of their forgotten supper.

He stood there for a moment and then chuckled. “It is almost charming how you think you are so clever.”

“Is it?” she asked, glancing at him while she walked past him to the door to scrape the pot out.

He was waiting there when she returned and yanked the pot from her hands, tossing it to the floor with a clang. Then Valentine bent Maria over his arm while she gave a little squeal, dropping his head to hers and kissing her thoroughly. He only relented when he felt her legs give way, and then he pulled away, stood her upright, and steadied her with his hands.

“Do no think to play games with me at which you are inexperienced, Maria,” he warned in a low tone. “Regardless of the romantic imaginings you have of me, my promise to Victor and my regard for your welfare will only be pushed so far.” He dropped his hands and turned to the door to tend the horses.

“Do no forget my hat,” he tossed over his shoulder as he left the mill.

I
t was still quite dark when Mary followed Valentine—he leading his horse, she, hers—from the mill, through the tall grass still heavy with dew, to the road. The stars were invisible, either because of the nearing dawn or cloud cover—it was difficult to tell because Mary could not take her eyes from the horse’s rump in front of her long enough to squint at the sky. The path Valentine cut was treacherous in the dark, slippery and uneven in her worn leather shoes, and Mary was looking forward to gaining the road.

Until they actually gained the road, and the thick mud oozed up over her insteps, slid inside her lacings, and insidiously packed around her feet like cold, slimy shrouds with each slipping step. Her skirts were pulled up on the sides and tucked into her belt like a field worker’s, and the air on her legs was welcome, even if it was humid and clammy. By the time they had been on the road an hour, the dawn coming up red and angry, Mary had sweat through her bodice from the effort of wrenching her feet from the sucking road with every step.

Thankfully, the path joined up with a wider road via a sharp turn to the northeast, and it was not long after that when Valentine gave the signal that it was safe to mount the horses. Mary sighed with relief after he helped her into the saddle, her feet feeling as though she had giant rocks tied to them. She leaned down and picked at the sticky laces, pulling the shoes off and tying them to the back of her saddle to dry. Her linen stockings were packed through and stained an ugly brown, and so she removed those as well, undoing her skirts to hide her bare legs.

This road led them from the open country dominated by gently rolling fields into a more heavily forested land, the rises sharper and closer, with stretches of woodland crowding the valley road. She watched Valentine riding ahead of her. They hadn’t said a score of words to each other combined that day, but Mary was unsure if it was because of his usual disagreement with the morning or her misstep from the night before.

She had been wrong to test him so, and she felt the familiar prickle of heat on her already rashed skin as she recalled the way she had purposely goaded him into kissing her. It was so unlike her—perhaps unlike who she used to be? But she’d needed to determine whether she was actually safe with Valentine Alesander or not. And she’d wanted to know what kissing him felt like. She knew that it had been wrong, and stupid, and yes, dangerous. What if she had been mistaken about him, and he had decided to take her mock seduction to heart, pressing her to deliver to him in full what she had presented?

It wasn’t as if he hadn’t shown interest in her as a woman—he in monk’s robes, of all things—before they had been properly introduced in Melk. In the short time she had known him, he had barely escaped an unpaid innkeeper in the dead of night, assaulted a merchant, essentially stolen quite a large amount of very valuable goods, and broken into someone’s place of business. By his own vow, he was wanted by his family, and by the Crown of England. Yes, tempting him had probably been very unwise.

But Mary felt herself changing. That time alone in Zwettl, when she’d donned Valentine’s cast-off pieces of costume, had seemed to strengthen a backbone she’d not noticed she’d had before. When they’d departed, Mary had felt that she had no choice but to trust this man, a stranger and rumored bloodthirsty traitor, if she were to have any chance at all of a future as a married woman. But now that she was out from under the protection of Beckham Hall, of Agnes, away from the group of wealthy and noble pilgrims traveling largely for pleasure and comfort, after having been left alone in the hovel in Zwettl, she’d come to terms with the fact that she could very well be left to her own devices without catastrophe.

And that it need not be been quite as frightening as she had once thought.

So, yes, it was important to know the likelihood or nay of Valentine Alesander seeing her to their adventure’s end fully and honorably. This man who was so full of secrets, and so adept at being whomever he needed to be at the moment that he was still largely a character in a story to Mary. But her suspicion that he was much more than he claimed to be—that there were important details to his story than he was unwilling to confide to her—was stronger than ever now, after his refusal to ravish her, and then his punishing and passionate kiss.

Valentine would protect her, she was now certain, but why? She was under no illusions that he held any sentimental feelings for her, any passion that ran deeper than the physiological fact that he was a man and she a woman. Mary knew Valentine was indebted to Father Victor for his protection, but she felt that even that obligation would only have been worth so much to a lesser man longing for freedom. Valentine owed her nothing, and by his own admission cared little for contracts and promises.

It struck Mary suddenly that she had already spent more time with Valentine Alesander than she had with her betrothed, and it caused an uncomfortable sensation in her belly. Two months ago, if her intended had asked her to embark on a journey alone with him to a foreign land, would she have accepted?

Mary slammed the door shut on that unwelcome visitor. Of course she would have accepted—the alternative was ridiculous. She planned on spending the rest of her life with that man, having his children. He was a lauded soldier. A hero. If she trusted him enough to accept his offer of marriage, she would certainly have followed him anywhere he asked her.

But would she have? The door creaked open again of its own accord, letting the thought slip through that, even after their hours of conversation in her modest third-floor hall, Mary did not know where the man had been born, if he had siblings, if his parents were still alive. They’d talked mostly of Mary, of her father, and of Beckham.

She shut the door firmly again with a shake of her head and threw the bolt. Silliness. Most men and their wives knew precious little about each other before they were wed. Indeed, hadn’t Agnes told her that it was not unusual for men and women to only see each other perhaps once or twice a week once they were married? They certainly didn’t share an apartment, let alone a chamber. Her husband was to be her husband, not her friend or her confidant or her traveling companion.

Up ahead, Valentine looked over his shoulder at Mary, drawing her attention from her nonsensical musings.

“Small village ahead, Maria,” he called. “Do no slow.”

“All right,” she answered, wanting to question him as to why they could not stop to rest for the noon meal there, but not wishing to incur any further bad feelings between them. She trusted him as well as she could trust anyone—in fact, she could trust only him—and so she held her tongue and increased the pace of her mount to ride closely behind him as they passed through the small cluster of ramshackle dwellings.

Mary felt the eyes of the inhabitants watching them openly as they passed, and for a moment, she wondered about the girl she had been at Beckham Hall, and what that girl would have thought of her and Valentine had she spied them racing through the village from her window.

Right away she knew that she would have imagined they were a couple on their way to a very special meeting, and that it was important that they arrive there on time.

Mary marveled at how close to the truth that observation actually was.

 

Valentine felt as though he could drop from his saddle as he and Maria rode through the gates of Tábor, night firmly wrapped around the earth. He knew she was likely more tired than he, but he had pushed to gain this burg before they stopped to sleep. By tomorrow night they would be in Prague.

Maria drew her horse even with Valentine’s as they rode through the wide main thoroughfare, and Maria’s head seemed on a swivel, taking in the sights. Although Valentine guessed it was nearing midnight, he and Maria had no trouble navigating the streets, lit by torches and the lights from inside the many taverns, their doors thrown wide to the warm night.

Revelers spilled from the establishments and milled about the streets, where melodies from several different instruments mingled in the ale-perfumed night. Screams of laughter, shouts of argument, snippets of sung verse flew through the air like the night birds between the buildings, swooping low over the streets to pluck at the air near their ears.

Valentine rode past the majority of the rowdy taverns closest to the gate, where most travelers would stop. In other circumstances, he would have done the same. But he was tired, and although the festivities did look amusing—as did the women in their thin, low-cut summer gowns—he wanted a peaceful night’s rest at a quiet establishment where he need not fear for Maria or their belongings. There would be time aplenty for merrymaking after tomorrow.

He knew he had found just the place when he spied the stooped old man pulling the door shut, a torch in his hand lighting the small sign above, shaped like a horse’s head. Valentine spurred his mount and called out in the tongue of the land.

“Pardon, sir, pardon!” He raised a hand and then swung off his horse, leaving Maria to sit in her saddle and watch.

The old man paused, peering around the door with not a little impatience. “Closed,” he said gruffly.

“Sir, I beg of you,” Valentine said, stepping forward and grabbing the edge of the door so that the man couldn’t pull it shut. “We have been traveling since before dawn and need a reputable establishment such as yours to rest ourselves and our horses.” He cast a disparaging glance down the street at the revelers. “One whose clientele is perhaps not so . . . enthusiastic.”

“Loud,” the old man snorted. “Destructive.
Pissed
,” he leaned toward Valentine and whispered, glancing at pretty Maria on her saddle.

“Indeed,” Valentine agreed, frowning along with the proprietor. “We are off to Prague on the morn. Certainly I shall pay you in advance for two chambers, a simple meal, and board for the horses.”

The old man shook his head. “No.”

“Please, sir,” Valentine said, holding the door tightly when it would have shut on his fingers. “Consider my—” He looked back at Maria, watching them expectantly, the slightest crease between her brows indicating that she was unsure whether she should be concerned about the nature of the exchange she was witnessing or nay.

“Consider my wife,” Valentine continued, looking back at the old man, who seemed to be chewing on the inside of his own face for lack of teeth to hold it taut. “This is her first time in this part of the world, and so far she has been terrified by the . . . loudness.”

The man grunted understanding.

Valentine nodded. “The destruction.”

The innkeeper snorted and shook his head.

“The sheer
drunkenness
she has encountered on our journey,” Valentine lamented. “She is . . . meek. Inexperienced.”

“Right.” The old man nodded, looking at Maria again. Then his eyes found Valentine’s once more. “No.”

Valentine struggled to keep his demeanor humble and friendly. “Are you full?”

He shook his fuzzy gray head.

“Then I fail to see why letting out two chambers would be a burden to you.”

The old man sighed. “Only one left.”

Valentine pressed his lips together. “Are you quite sure you have only one?” He glanced at Maria again. “My wife, she . . . she is in a delicate condition, you understand? It would be unseemly for us to—”

“One,” the old man insisted. “Yes or no?”

Valentine looked over his shoulder at the crowd milling farther down the street. At least six of the men were currently engaged in a full-out brawl, and two women were going through discarded satchels beneath a torch. Valentine was fairly certain by their frantic pawing that the items they were tucking into their turned-up skirts did not belong to them. He’d seen that game run many times. Participated on more than one occasion.

He sighed. “Yes.”

The old man released the door and followed Valentine to the horses, where he waited while Valentine helped Maria from her saddle with exaggerated care and took all the satchels into his own arms, leaving her empty-handed and confused. Then the innkeeper took hold of both sets of reins and gestured toward the doors with a toss of his head.

“Wait,” he instructed.

“Come along, my darling,” Valentine said coaxingly and began walking toward the inn. “Can you walk? Shall I carry you over the threshold?”

Maria frowned at him and then glanced over her shoulder at the old man as he disappeared with the horses into an alley at the corner of the tavern.

“What are you about now?” she demanded as she held the door wide for him and Valentine stepped through. She followed him inside and pulled the door almost to.

“Shh,” Valentine hissed, looking around the empty room before he dumped his burden onto a table near a stone hearth that contained nothing but banked coals.

Maria crossed her arms and waited. “What am I today? An idiot?” “You are my wife,” Valentine said, taking in the plain but tidy common room. This was perfect. The building was made of thick stone, keeping out most of the noise from the street. The door was solid, reinforced with hammered metal and two thick beams. The room even smelled . . . well, not like vomit.

“Very amusing, Valentine. What did you tell him?”

“Maria, whether he has more or no, the man is only giving us one room,” he clarified, taking his purse from his belt and looking at her levelly. “You are my
wife
.”

“Oh.” She closed her mouth and frowned. “But why did you treat me as if I were . . . fragile?”

“I was trying to persuade him to let us two chambers, so I told him you were—” he stopped counting out coin long enough to roll a hand in the direction of her midsection—“you know.”

“Sick?”

Valentine pulled a thoughtful face. “Something similar to that, yes.”

“What?” Mary said, her voice filled with confusion. “I don’t . . . ?” Then she gasped and brought a hand up to her mouth while her face bloomed the color of poppies. “You told him I was
with child?
Do I
appear
to be with child to you?”