Читать книгу: «By His Majesty's Grace», страница 2

“You are quite certain?”

“Indeed.” The lady lifted her chin as she met his gaze. She let go of her mistreated hand and, with her good one, tucked the glove she had removed into the girdle of leather netting she wore across her hip bones.

He swung toward the door, setting his hand on the iron latch. “I will send your woman to you, then—along with your baggage and water for bathing. We dine in the hall at sundown.”

“As it pleases you,” she answered.

It didn’t please him, not at all. He would have liked to stay, lounging on the settle or bed while he watched her maid tend her. It would not do, not yet. He sketched a stiff bow. “Until later.”

Rand made his escape then, and didn’t stop until he was halfway down the stairway to the hall. His footsteps slowed, came to a halt there in that rare solitude. He turned and put his back to the wall, leaning his head against the cool stone. He would not go back. He would not. Yet how long the hours would be before the feasting was done and it was time for him and his betrothed to seek their bed.

How was he to bear sitting beside her, sharing a cup and plate, feeding her tidbits from the serving platters or their joint trencher, drinking where her lips had touched. Yes, and breathing her delicate female scent, feeling through linen and fine summer wool the slightest brush of her arm against his, the gentle entrapment of her skirts spreading across his booted ankles?

Ale, he needed a beaker of it. He required a veritable butt of ale immediately. Oh, but not, pray God, so much as to dull his senses. Not so much that he would disgust his bride with his stench. Certainly not enough to unman him.

Maybe ale was not what he needed, after all.

He could go for a long ride, except that he had no wish to be too tired for a proper wedding night. He could walk the battlements, letting the wind blow the heat from his blood while staring out over the valley, though he had done that far too often this day while waiting for his lady. He could descend to the kitchen to order some new delicacy to tempt her, though he had commanded enough and more of those already.

He could entertain his male guests, and hope it wasn’t necessary to stop their crude comments with a well-placed fist. And, just possibly, he could learn something from Isabel’s stepbrother that might tell him how strenuously she had objected to this marriage, and what had been done to her to assure her agreement.

What he would do with any knowledge gained was something he would decide when he had it.

2

I sabel emerged from the solar at the tolling of the Angelus bell. Her spirits were considerably improved after a warm bath to remove the dirt of travel, also the donning of a clean shift beneath a fine new gown of scarlet wool, the color of courage, with embroidery stiffening its hem and edging the slashed sleeves tied up at intervals with knots of ribbon. Sitting before the coals in the fireplace while Gwynne brushed her hair dry and put it up again under cap and veil had also given her time to reflect.

She had avoided being bedded at once by Braesford, though she could hardly believe it. Had he changed his mind, perhaps, or had the possibility never been anything more than Graydon’s low humor? She hardly knew, yet it was all she could do to contain her giddy relief. Pray God, her good fortune would continue.

It was not that she feared the intimacy of the marriage bed. She expected little joy from it, true, but that was a different matter. No, it was marriage in its entirety she desired to avoid. Too many of her friends had been married in their cradles, given to much older husbands at thirteen or fourteen, brought to childbed at fifteen or sixteen and mothers to three or four children by her own age of twenty-three. That was if they were not dead from the rigors of childbirth. Her own mother’s first marriage had been similar, though happy enough, possibly because Isabel’s father, Lord Craigsmoor, had spent much time away at court.

The second marriage of her mother’s had not fared so well. The sixth earl of Graydon had been brutal and domineering, a man who treated everyone around him with the same contempt he showed those attached to his lands. His word was law and he would brook no discussion, no disobedience in any form from his wife, his stepdaughters or his son and heir from a previous marriage. Many nights, Isabel and her two younger sisters had huddled together in their bed, listening while he beat their mother for daring to question his household rulings, spending too much coin on charity or denying him access to her bed. They had watched her turn from a smiling, animated woman into a pale and cowed shadow of herself, watched her miscarry from her beatings or deliver stillborn infants. It had been no great surprise when she failed to rally from one such birth. The saving wonder had been that the monster who was her husband had been killed in a hunting accident not long afterward.

No, Isabel wanted no husband.

Yet to defy Braesford would avail her nothing and might anger him to the point of violence, as it did her stepbrother, who had been formed in his father’s image. Her only weapons, if she was to escape what the night had in store, were patience and her God-given wits. What manner of good they might do her, she could not guess. The pain of her broken finger was a flimsy excuse at best. More, Braesford seemed all too likely to press for how she had come by it. To admit her stubborn refusal to agree to the marriage was the cause could not endear her to him. She might claim the onset of her monthly courses but had no certainty that would deter him. A vow of celibacy would give him pause, though only long enough to reason that she would not have been sent to him had it been binding.

No, there had to be something else, something so immediate and vital it could not be ignored. Now, she thought with conscious irony, would be a fine time for the curse of the Three Graces of Graydon to make its power felt.

In truth, she feared nothing would stop Braesford from possessing her. So many women must have prayed for escape from these entrapments, most to no avail. It was fated that those of her station should become the pawns of kings, moved at the royal will from one man to another, and all their tears and pleas changed that not a whit. The most Isabel could do was to make herself agreeable during the feasting while watching and waiting for a miracle. And if it did not occur, she must endure whatever happened in the bed of the master of Braesford with all the dignity she could command.

To retrace the way to the great hall was not difficult. She had only to follow the low rumble of male voices and smell of tallow candles, smoke from kitchen fires and the aroma of warm food. She had sent Gwynne ahead to see to the table arrangement made for her in what appeared to be primarily a male household. Female servants abounded, of course, but there seemed to be no woman serving as chatelaine—no mother, sister or wife of a trusted friend. Nor, if Gwynne was correct, was there a jade accustomed to warming the master’s bed and giving herself airs of authority, though Isabel was not entirely sure that was the blessing her serving woman claimed. A man used to bedding a mistress might not have such rampant need of a wife.

As she neared the head of the stairwell, a shadow moved in the far end of the dark corridor. The shape grew as it neared the flaring torch that marked the stairwell, taking on the form of her stepbrother. He had just emerged from the garderobe, or stone-lined latrine, that was let into the thickness of the end wall. Square built and heavy with a lumbering gait, he had a large head covered to the eyebrows with a thatch of rust-brown hair, a beard tinted orange-red and watery blue eyes. As he walked, he adjusted his codpiece between the parti-colored green-and-red legs of his hose, prolonging the operation beyond what was necessary when he caught sight of her. The odor of ale that preceded him was ample proof of how he had spent the time since their arrival. His lips were wet, and curled at one corner as he caught sight of her.

Tightness gripped her chest, but she refused to be distressed or deterred. “Well met, Graydon,” she said softly as he came closer. “I hoped to speak to you in private. You were quite right, the master of Braesford doesn’t intend to wait for our vows, but to try me like a common cowherd making certain his chosen bride is fertile.”

“What of it?”

“I would be more comfortable having the blessing of the priest first.”

“When will you learn, dear sister, that your comfort doesn’t matter? The cowherd is to be your husband. Best get used to it, and to the bedding.”

“Isn’t it insulting enough that I must be thrown away on a nobody? You could speak to him, insist he wait as a gesture of respect.”

“Oh, aye, if it was worth running afoul of one who has the king’s ear. You’ll do as you’re bid, and there’s an end to it. Unless you’d like another finger with a crook in it?”

He grabbed for her hand as he spoke, bending her little finger backward. Burning pain surged through her like the thrust of a sword. Her knees gave way. She went to the stone floor in front of him in a pool of scarlet wool, a cry stifled in her throat.

“You hear me?” he demanded, bending over her.

“Yes.” She stopped to draw a hissing breath. “I only…”

“You will spread your legs and do your duty. You will be honey-mead sweet, no matter what he asks of you. You will obey me, or by God’s blood I’ll take a stick to your—”

“I believe not!”

That objection, delivered in tones of slicing contempt, came from a stairwell nearby. A dark shadow rose over the walls as a tall figure mounted the last two stair steps from the hall below. An instant later, Graydon let go of her hand with a growled curse. He fell to his knees beside her. Behind him stood Rand Braesford, holding her stepbrother’s wrist twisted behind his back, pressed up between his shoulder blades.

“Are you all right, my lady?” her groom inquired in tight concern.

“Yes, yes, I think so,” she whispered without looking up at him, her gaze on his dark shadow that was cast across her, surrounding her on the floor where she knelt.

Braesford turned his attention to the man he held so effortlessly in his hard grasp. “You will extend your apology to my lady.”

“Be damned to you and to her—” Graydon halted with a grunt of pain as his arm was thrust higher.

“At once, if you value your sword arm.”

“By all that’s holy, Braesford! I was only doing your work for you.”

“Not mine, not ever. The apology?”

Graydon’s features contorted in a grimace that was half sneer, half groveling terror as his shoulder creaked under the pressure Braesford exerted. He breathed heavily through set and yellowed teeth. “I regret the injury,” he ground out finally. “Aye, that I do.”

Rand Braesford gave him a shove that sent him sprawling. Her stepbrother scuttled backward on his haunches until he struck the wall. He pushed to his feet, panting, his face purple with rage and chagrin.

Isabel’s future husband ignored him. He leaned to offer his aid in helping her to her feet. She lifted her eyes to his, searching their dark gray depths. The concern she saw there was like balm upon an old wound. Affected by it against her will, she reached out slowly to him with her good hand. He enclosed her wrist in the hard, warm strength of his grasp and drew her up until she stood beside him. He steadied her with a hand at her waist until she gained her balance. Then he let her go and stepped back.

For a stunned instant, she felt bereft without that support. She looked away, glancing toward where Graydon stood.

He was no longer there. Fuming and cursing under his breath, he retreated down the stairs, his footsteps stamping out his enraged withdrawal.

“Come,” Braesford said, guiding her back toward her solar with a brief touch at her back, “let me have a look at that finger.”

She went with him. What else was she to do? Her will seemed oddly in abeyance. Her finger hurt with a fierce ache that radiated up her arm to her shoulder, making her feel a little ill and none too steady on her feet. More than that, she had no wish to face Graydon just now. He would blame her for the humiliation at Braesford’s hand, and who knew what he might do to assuage his injured conceit.

Braesford’s features were grim as he closed the two of them into the solar again. Turning from the door, he gestured toward a stool set near the dying fire. She moved to drop down upon it and he followed behind her, dragging an iron candle stand closer before going to one knee in front of her. His gaze met hers for a long instant. Then he reached to take her injured hand in his and place it carefully, palm up, on his bent knee.

An odd sensation, like a small explosion of sparks from a fallen fire log, ran along her nerves to her shoulder and down her back. She shivered and her hand trembled in his hold, but she declined to acknowledge it. She concentrated, instead, on his features so close to her. Twin lines grooved the space between his thick brows as he frowned, while the black fringe of his lashes concealed his expression. A small scar lay across one cheekbone, and the roots of his beard showed as a blue-black shadow beneath his close-shaved skin. An odd breathlessness afflicted her, and she inhaled deep and slow to banish it.

He did not look up, but studied her little finger, following the angle of the break with a careful, questing touch, finding the place where the bone had snapped. He added his thumb, spanning the injured member between it and his forefinger. Gripping her wrist in his free hand, he caught the slender, misshapen digit in a grip of ruthless power and gave it a smooth, hard pull.

She cried out, keeling forward in such abrupt weakness that her forehead came to rest on his wide shoulder. Sickness crowded her throat and she swallowed hard upon it, breathing in rapid pants. Against her hair, she heard him whisper something she could not understand, heard him murmur her name.

“Forgive me, I beg,” he said a little louder, though his tone was quiet and a little gruff. “I would not have hurt you for a king’s ransom. It was necessary, or else your poor finger would always have been crooked.”

She shifted, moved back a space to stare down at their joined hands. Slowly, he unfurled his grasp. Her little finger no longer had a bend in it. It was straight again.

“You…” she began, then stopped, unable to think what she meant to say.

“I am the worst kind of devil, I know, but it seemed a shame that such slender, aristocratic fingers should appear imperfect.”

She would not deny it, was even grateful in a way. What she could not forgive was the lack of warning. Yes, and lack of choice. She had been offered so little of late.

He did not wait for her comment but turned to survey the rushes that covered the floor behind him. Selecting one, he broke its stem into two equal lengths with a few quick snaps. He fitted these on either side of her finger, and then reached without ceremony to slip free the knotted silk ribbon which held her slashed sleeve together above her left elbow. Shaking out the shining length, he wrapped it quickly around his makeshift splint.

Isabel stared at his bent head as he worked, her gaze moving from the wide expanse of his shoulders to the bronze skin at the nape of his neck where the waving darkness of his hair fell forward away from it, from his well-formed fingers that worked so competently at his task to the concentration on his features. His face was gilded by candlelight, his sun-darkened skin tinted with copper and bronze, the bones sculpted with tints of gold while the shadows cast upon his cheekbones by his lashes were deep black in contrast.

A strange, heated awareness rose inside her, the piercing recognition of her response to his touch, his inherent strength, his sheer masculine presence. They were so very alone here in the solar with the gathering darkness pressing against the thick window glass and only a single branch of guttering candles for light. She had few defenses against whatever he might decide to do to her in the next several minutes, and no expectation of consideration at his hands.

Husband, he was her husband already under canon law, with all the privileges that entailed. Would he be tender in his possession? Or would he be brutish, taking her with all the ceremony of a stag mounting a hind? Her stomach muscles clenched as molten reaction moved lower in her body. A shudder, uncontrollable in its force, spiraled through her.

Braesford glanced up as that tremor extended to the fingers he held. “Did I hurt you?”

“No, no,” she said, her voice compressed in her tight throat. “I just… I should thank you for coming to my aid. It was fortunate you arrived when you did.”

“Fortune had no part in it,” he answered, returning his gaze to the small, flat knot he was tying in the ribbon. “I was coming to escort you to the hall.”

“Were you?” Her wonder faded quickly. “I suppose you felt we should make our entrance together.”

“I thought you might prefer not to face the company alone. As there will be no other lady present, no chatelaine to make you comfortable, then…” He lifted a square shoulder.

“It was a kind thought.” She paused, went on after a moment, “Though it does seem odd to be the only female of rank.”

“I have no family,” he said, a harsh note entering his voice. “I am the bastard son of a serving maid who died when I was born. My father was master of Braesford, but acknowledged me only to the extent of having me educated for the position of his steward. That was before his several estates, including Braesford, were confiscated when he was attainted as a traitor.”

Isabel tipped her head to one side in curiosity. “Traitor to which king, if I may ask?”

“To Edward IV. My father was loyal to old King Henry VI, and died with two of my half brothers, two out of his three legal heirs, while trying to restore him to the throne.”

“You followed in his footsteps, being for Lancaster?” She should know these things, but had barely listened to anything said about her groom after the distress of being told she must wed.

“Edward cut off my father’s head and set it on Tower Bridge. Was I to love him for it? Besides, he was a usurper, a regent who grew too fond of power after serving in his uncle’s place when he became a saintly madman.”

Her own dead father had sworn fealty to the white rose of York, but Isabel held the symbol in no great affection. Edward IV had stolen the crown from his pious and doddering uncle, Henry VI, and murdered him to prevent him from regaining it. He’d also executed his own brother, Clarence, for treason in order to keep it. When Edward died, his younger brother, the Duke of Gloucester, had declared Edward’s young sons and daughters illegitimate and taken the crown for himself as Richard III. Rumor said he had ordered the two boys murdered to prevent any effort to restore them to the succession. Mayhap it was true; certainly they had disappeared. Now Henry Tudor had defeated and killed Richard III at Bosworth Field, becoming King Henry VII by might as much as right. He had also married Elizabeth of York, eldest daughter of Edward IV, thus uniting the red rose of Lancaster with the white rose of York, ending decades of fighting.

So much blood and death, and for what? For the right to receive the homage of other men? For the power to take what they wanted and kill whom they pleased?

“And the present Henry is wholly deserving of the crown he has gained?” she inquired.

“Careful, my lady,” Braesford said softly. “Newly made kings are more sensitive to treasonous comments than those accustomed to the weight of the crown.”

“You won’t denounce me, I think, for that would mean the end of a marriage greatly to your advantage. Besides, I would not speak so before any other.”

He met her gaze for long seconds, his own darkly appraising before he inclined his head. “I value the confidence.”

“Of course you do,” she said in short rejoinder. Few men bothered to listen to women in her experience, much less attend to what they said.

“I assure you it is so. Only bear in mind that in some places the very stones have ears.” He went on with barely a pause. “In any case, Henry VII is the last of his blood, the last heir to the rightful king, being descended on his mother’s side from John of Gaunt, grandfather to Henry VI. With all other contenders executed, dead in battle or presumed murdered, he has as much right to the crown as any, and far more than most.”

“Descended from an illegitimate child of John of Gaunt,” she pointed out.

His smile turned crooked, lighting the gray of his eyes. “Spoken like a true Yorkist. Yet the baseborn can be made legitimate by royal decree, as were the children of John of Gaunt by Katherine Swynford, not to mention Henry’s new consort, Edward IV’s daughter, Elizabeth. And as with the meek, they sometimes inherit the earth.”

“Do you speak of Henry,” she said after an instant of frowning consideration, “or mean to say that you inherited your father’s estates, as he was once master at Braesford?”

“I was awarded them, rather, for services rendered to Henry VII. Though I promise you I earned every hectare and hamlet.”

“Awarded a bride, as well,” she said with some asperity.

Rand tipped his head. “That, too, by God’s favor, as well as Henry’s.”

The former owner of Braesford, if she remembered aright, was named McConnell. Being baseborn, Rand had taken the name of the estate as his surname, identifying himself with the land rather than with his father. It was a significant act, perhaps an indication of the man. “I was told the reward was, most likely, for finding the golden circlet lost by Richard in a thornbush at Bosworth. Well, and for having the presence of mind to hand it to Lord Stanley with the recommendation that he crown Henry on the field.”

“Don’t, please, allow the king’s mother to hear you say so.” A wry smile came and went across his face. “She believes it was her husband’s idea.”

Henry’s mother, Lady Margaret, was married to Lord Stanley, Earl of Derby, as everyone knew. Though she had set up her household at Westminster Palace with her son, living apart from her husband by mutual consent, she was yet protective of Stanley’s good name.

“It was the reason, nonetheless?” Isabel persisted.

“Such things come, now and then, from the gratitude of kings.”

His voice was satirical, his features grim, almost forbidding. He was not stupid by any means, so well knew the fickle nature of royals who could take away as easily as they gave.

Yet receiving the ripe plum of a fine estate that had once belonged to a traitor was not unusual. The late bloodletting, named by some troubadour as the War of the Roses, had gone on so long, its factions had shifted and changed so often with the rise and fall of those calling themselves king, that titles and estates had changed hands many times over. A man sitting at the king’s table today, lauded as a lord and dressed in ermine-lined velvet, could have an appointment with headsman or hangman tomorrow. Few so favored died in their beds.

She noted, of a sudden, that Braesford seemed to be avoiding her gaze, almost ill at ease as he smoothed a thumb over the rush stems of her splint as if checking for roughness. Disquiet rose inside her as she wondered if he had overheard what she’d said of him moments ago. Clearing her throat, she spoke with some discomfiture. “If it chances you were near enough to overhear what passed between me and my stepbrother just now—”

He stopped her with a slicing gesture. “It doesn’t matter. You were quite right. I am nobody.”

“You were knighted by Henry on the battlefield,” she replied with self-conscious fairness as heat rose to her hairline. “That stands for something.”

“So it does. Regardless, I will always be a nobody to men like your brother who were born to their honors.”

“My stepbrother,” she murmured in correction.

“Your true father, your mother’s first husband, was an earl, as well. You, therefore, share this birthright of nobility.” He glanced up suddenly, his eyes as hard as polished armor. “You will always be Lady Isabel, no matter what manner of man you marry.”

“For what good it may do me. But the lands you have been given will provide sufficient income to maintain a place at court, one from which you may gain more honors.”

He shook his head so firmly that the candlelight slid across the polished ebony strands of his hair in blue and yellow gleams. “I will always be the mere steward of this estate in some sense, a farmer at heart with little use for Henry’s court and its intrigues. I want only to live in this manse above its green valley. Abide with me here, and I swear that you and your aristocratic fingers will be forever safe from injury, including that from your husband.”

It was a promise well calculated to ease the fear in her heart. And so it might have if Isabel had dared trust in it. She did not, as she knew full well that oaths given to women were never so well honored as those sworn between men.

Removing her fingers from his grasp, she got to her feet. “I will be glad of your escort below, for now.”

If he was disappointed, he did not show it. He rose to his feet with lithe strength and offered his arm. Together, they descended to the wedding feast.

The hall blazed with light from wicks set afloat in large, flat bowls perched upon tripods. The double line of trestle tables led toward the low wooden dais that held the high table with its huge saltcellar. The alcove behind it was wainscoted with whitewashed wood and painted with allegorical scenes in the tall reaches above the paneling. A pair of chests set with silver plate flanked the great stone fireplace that soared upward. Above them hung bright-colored banners, swaying gently in the rising heat.

The men-at-arms that lounged on the benches drawn up to the tables numbered thirty at most. It was not a large force; that brought by Isabel’s stepbrother for protection on the journey northward was half again as large. Between the two complements, however, the room seemed overfull of men in linen, wool and velvet.

Their voices made a bass rumble that ceased abruptly as Braesford appeared with her on his arm. With a mighty scraping and rustling, they came to their feet, standing at attention. Silence stretched, broken only by a cough or low growl from one of the dogs that lay among the rushes beneath the trestles, as the two of them made their way to the high table.

Isabel flushed a little under such concentrated regard. Glancing along the ranked men, she caught open speculation on the features of one or two. They believed dalliance in the privacy of her solar had delayed her arrival, particularly after Graydon’s comments in the courtyard. It made no difference what they might think, of course, yet she despised the thought of the images sure to be passing through their heads.

Braesford seated her, then released the company to their own benches with a gesture. The meal began at once as servants came forward to fill beakers, lay trenchers from great baskets of the bread slabs and ladle onto these a savory concoction of sweetmeats flavored with spices, chopped vegetables and cubed bread soaked in broth.

Isabel put out her hand toward the wine goblet that sat between her place and that of her future husband, but immediately drew it back. Sharing a place with one of her younger sisters, as she usually did, it was her right as eldest to drink first or offer the wine, as she chose. Now that she shared Braesford’s table setting, this was his privilege.

He noticed her movement, as he seemed to notice most things. With a brief, not ungraceful gesture of one hand, he made her free of the goblet. She took it up, sipped gingerly.

The wine was new, raw and barely watered, so went down with difficulty past the tightness in her throat. That first taste was enough to let her know she could not face food. The smell of it, along with wood smoke, hot oil from the lamps and warm male bodies in stale linen, brought back her earlier illness. It would be enough, she hoped, to merely pretend to eat. The last thing she wanted was to appear to spurn Braesford’s hospitality. Meanwhile, manners and common sense dictated that she converse with her future husband, to establish some semblance of rapport that might yet serve her in avoiding intimacy this night.

She could think of nothing to say. Soon enough the feasting would be over, and what then? What then?

“My lady?”

Braesford was offering her a succulent piece of roast pork, taken from the large, golden-brown trencher set on a silver salver between them. She glanced at it on the razor-sharp tip of his knife, met his dark eyes an instant, then looked away again. “I…couldn’t. I thank you, sir, but no.”

“A little crust, then, to go with the wine.” Taking the meat from the knifepoint himself with a flash of white teeth, he carved off a piece of their trencher and held it out to her.

She took the bread, nibbled at it and sipped more wine. Even as she lifted the goblet to her lips, however, she realized she was monopolizing it when it must be shared between them. Wiping the rim hurriedly with the edge of the tablecloth draped over her lap for that purpose, she pushed the goblet toward him.

“Your finger pains you,” he said, his gaze on what she was doing. “I’m sorry. There is a woman in the village, as I told you before, a healer who can make an infusion of willow bark, which might be useful. I’ll send for her at once.”