Almost Innocent (22 page)

Guy could not move his leg farther without involving his other neighbor in Magdalen’s mischief, and the thought of how Sieur Roland de Courtrand would react to a little intimate footwork from his host beneath the table didn’t bear thinking about if he wished to keep a straight face. He held himself very still and inquired casually of Sieur de Courtrand if he and his companions
would be interested in a boar hunt on the morrow. The question fortunately elicited a flood of inebriated reminiscences of past hunts, and Guy was able surreptitiously to turn his attention to Magdalen, who was clearly demanding it. Nonchalantly, he closed what little space there was between their chairs.

He had begun to notice something different about her these days. It was indefinable, a softness, as if her edges were slightly smudged; an aura seemed to hang over her, translucent as a pearl yet imparting a glowing warmth from deep within her. She was as mischievous and as flatly assertive as ever, as joyfully sensual as she had ever been, but with this other dimension, one he sensed was more pronounced when she was alone, as if she were contemplating some secret and private source of contentment.

He moved his hand beneath the table and pinched her thigh, hard enough to make her jump. She looked up at him in startled reproach and rubbed her thigh, but he merely smiled blandly and turned back to Sieur de Courtrand.

Magdalen was reflecting on her next move when she felt something slipping beneath her. She sat frozen for a second, then, less disciplined than Guy, gave a little choke of laughter as she realized it was his hand worming its way sideways under her bottom. The long, voluminous dagged sleeve of his gown fell casually against the full silken skirts of her cotehardie, concealing his fingers’ busy work. She wriggled, initially in mock protest, and then with more purpose as she realized how her movements would mesh with his. Her tongue touched her lips and she reached again for her wine cup, moving her tingling body deliberately as her excitement grew and the faces around her blurred with the slurring of voices.

Guy continued to discuss boar hunting with his neighbor even while he brought the utterly silent Magdalen to fever pitch and kept his own arousal well
in check. He felt her grow rigid against his hand, her breath suspended for one climactic moment, then she relaxed on a tiny sobbing breath, and he slipped his hand out from under her.

“A lesson well learned, I trust,” he said into her ear. Her face was most becomingly flushed, her eyes extremely bright, her lips moist and red, and his own wanting hit him with the force of a mace.

Magdalen pushed back her chair. “I beg you will excuse me,
mes sieurs.
I will leave you to your wine.” And she fled the hall to cool her fevered blood in the evening air.

She hurried across the inner court and through the gate into the outer ward. The
place d’armes
was quiet, the garrison gone to its evening rest except for the sentries marching the battlements and the watchers in the four belltowers. Battlements were no longer forbidden territory, and she made her way up the steep stone staircase to the broad parapet overlooking the town at the bottom of the hill and the plain and forests beyond—the land of wide spaces, perhaps, that mad Jennet had seen in the water all those years ago.

The Castle de Bresse was built on the hilltop, its massive donjon and family residence in the center, outbuildings sprawling across the enclosures up to the outer fortified wall. A deep moat encircled this wall; the only access to the castle lay across the drawbridge and through the portcullis. It was difficult to imagine an attack succeeding on such a fortification, Magdalen thought, leaning her arms on the parapet. Beyond the moat on the hillside were dotted peasant cottages with their little plots of land, and at the base of the hill the town of Bresse, itself fortified by the castle at its back and walls on three sides.

She could hear the carousing from the great hall behind her growing more intemperate. The torches of the sentries flared in a sudden gust of wind from the dark
plain ahead. The cottages and town were all in darkness, safe in the knowledge that they were watched over by their liege lord, protected by his defenses.

The sky was overcast, no moon and just the north star pricking faintly through the clouds. Magdalen shivered suddenly in her silk gown. She had left the overheated hall without a cloak, and it was already the beginning of November, the sultry summery weather of October almost a memory. She bade good night to the sentry as he passed her on his rounds and went back down to the outer ward. As she passed the granary, the sounds of scuffling reached her, and she noticed the door was ajar. She paused, curious. There was a distinctly female squeak and a giggle, followed by a deeper chuckle and more scuffling.

They were obviously enjoying themselves. Magdalen went swiftly on her way. The conduct of the castle women was her responsibility, and she should have descended upon the two playfellows in righteous wrath, but she had no stomach for a role that ill suited her in her present position. Bastard children were absorbed easily enough in the castle community, which maintained a pragmatic acceptance of human frailty while condemning it vociferously from within the chapel walls.

The doors to the great hall stood open, and the sounds of revelry showed no sign of abating. She looked inside and saw that the scene had degenerated since her departure. The Lord de Gervais did not normally permit the unruly public conduct all too often sanctioned by others, but this evening he had obviously decided to indulge his guests and therefore his own household. He still sat at the high table, his hands clasped around his wine cup, his eye roaming over the disorderly scene below, where dancing and singing and a certain amount of purposeful chasing was taking place around the tables. His guests were for the most
part occupied with wine and those women who had shown themselves willing for a little knightly sport and whatever rewards might then ensue.

Magdalen stood watching, fascinated despite herself. She did not know, as Guy did, that there were times when a certain amount of license was necessary if men were to have an outlet for energies usually exercised in battle. A species of battle was taking place in the hall, and he knew it would release the tensions developed through two months of relative inaction, much as cupping a man released the bad humors in the blood. They would all be cleansed in the morning, if somewhat the worse for wear.

He looked up abruptly, sensing Magdalen’s presence before he saw her, standing wide-eyed at the far end of the hall. His hand moved in a swift, imperative gesture of dismissal. For a minute she hesitated, then with obvious reluctance turned and left. She still could not suffer his displeasure with equanimity and would do nothing to court it, frequently curbing the inherent impulses of a nature impatient of restraint. If Guy was aware of his power in this respect, he never took advantage of it.

She climbed the outside staircase to the second floor of the vast residence. Her own apartments, since she could not take up her abode in the conjugal apartments that naturally were occupied by the proxy lord of the Castle de Bresse, were in the women’s wing of the castle. Her bedchamber was lavishly furnished with a feather bed, wardrobe, woven floor covering, and tapestry wall hangings. The privy chamber adjoining contained the commode and the curtained bathtub, but more important for Magdalen’s purposes, a concealed door behind the tapestry which led into one of the inner passageways that ran within the thick stone walls. The castle was riddled with such secret doors and narrow passageways, providing a clandestine network for travelers who wished not to make their internal journeys public.

Erin and Margery were waiting up for her, dozing beside the fire. “There’s much carousing, lady,” Erin said, yawning as she stood up. “It’s not like my lord to permit it.”

“No,” agreed Magdalen. “But he has guests, and maybe it is appropriate hospitality for them.” She stood still as the two women undressed her, then drew a fur-trimmed velvet robe around her. “Brush my hair well, Erin.” She sat on a low stool before the fire.

“Of course, my lady.” Erin smiled as she unfastened the dainty silver fillet that held the rich dark coils in place and removed the silver pins. She knew well why the Lady Magdalen wished her hair brushed to a burnished glory. The dusky mass fell almost to the floor, and she drew the brush through it with long leisurely strokes.

“The sickness has not troubled you these last days, my lady.” Margery turned from the wardrobe where she was hanging the silk gown in its cedar-fragrant depths.

“No, I think it has passed.” These two knew of her pregnancy, and knew whose child she bore. But they had accompanied her from Bellair Castle when she had first left it as an eleven-year-old child, and Magdalen was sure of their loyalty. “Will you bring me a cup of hypocras, Margery? Then you may go to your beds. I’ll not be needing you further this night.’”

Margery curtsied and went off to the kitchens, connected to the residence and the great hall by a covered passageway. The kitchen was emptied of its usual bustling cooks and servitors, the license in the hall spreading throughout the domestic staff. The fires were neglected, burning low without the attentions of the potboys, who had taken advantage of the absence of supervision and run off about their own business. Margery prepared the hot spiced wine, kicking impatiently at a brindle puppy wandering in from the court in search of scraps. She was anxious to join the
merriment herself and hastened back to her lady’s chamber with the steaming pewter tankard.

Erin was as eager as Margery for the promised entertainment, and the two women needed no encouragement to leave their mistress sitting before the fire with her drink, her hair gleaming in the candlelight. And they needed no persuasion to accept that they need not look in upon her unless she called, which would most probably not be until the morning.

Magdalen slipped into a dreamy trance, sipping the hypocras, stretching her toes to the fire, wondering how long it would be before Guy decided he had satisfied the demands of courtly etiquette and could abandon his guests to their excesses for the night.

When the sounds from the hall below seemed to have muted, she lit a taper from the candle and slipped from her room by the concealed door, skimming down the long dark passageway, her taper dimly flickering but providing comforting illumination. Doors were set into the passage wall at various intervals, doors opening behind tapestries or within the garderobes to give access to the secrets of other chambers. The door opening onto the lord’s chamber was not hidden from within, since the entire network of concealment had been designed for his own use by the father of Guy’s half brother, Jean de Bresse, when he had constructed the castle.

Magdalen listened and could hear no sounds from within. She lifted the oiled latch gently, pushed the door open a fraction. The room was empty as she had expected. Guy’s pages and squire were attending him in the hall, and he would command only one of them to light him to bed when he chose to come. She slid into the room, drawing the door closed behind her. It fitted snugly against the wall. She tossed her taper into the fire and drew the rich velvet curtains around the great feather bed. Then she slipped into the dark cave, discarded
her robe, and huddled beneath the heavy covers, waiting.

She must have slept for a while, because the sound of voices from beyond the bedcurtains startled her, yet she had heard no one come into the room. She lay still, listening. Guy was talking to young Stefan as the page helped him out of his clothes and into his long robe. The conversation dealt with affairs in the great hall and contained some pithy advice for the lad on the subject of temperance. Magdalen sat up and hugged her knees.

When Stefan went to draw back the bedcurtains, Guy shook his head. “No, lad, leave them. Get you to bed now.” The significance of the enclosed bed had not escaped him and as the door closed on the sleepy page, he sat down by the fire to await developments.

Magdalen’s head appeared from between the curtains. “I give you good night, my lord.”

“And I you, my lady,” he responded courteously.

Magdalen regarded him quizzically. “Are you drunken, my lord?”

“Not in the least.”

“Everyone else is,” she observed.

“Sots, all of them,” he agreed. “I had thought you long gone to your bed.”

“As indeed I am, sir.” She pushed aside the curtains and jumped lightly to the floor. “If you are intending to sit up all night, then I must join you.”

He opened his arms to her and she nestled onto his lap, warm and soft and naked, her head resting on his shoulder. He ran his hands over her in a leisurely caress, then caught her chin and lowered his mouth to hers in a kiss as leisurely as the caress.

“You were very wicked this evening, Magdalen.”

“Yes, wasn’t I?” she agreed with a chuckle. “But not near as wicked as you, my Lord de Gervais.”

He laughed against her mouth. “It was a lesson most richly deserved.”

“And most richly enjoyed.”

“I believe so,” he concurred solemnly, shifting her slightly on his knee so that he could explore more thoroughly the luxurious curves of her body, the silken skin rippling beneath his touch. Her hair was fragrant with the scent of apple blossom from the distilled flower water her women used to wash it, and the perfume mingled headily with the honeyed hints of burgeoning arousal. She arched and purred, all sensual promise, as always instantly, supremely responsive.

“I have something to tell you,” she murmured, moving her mouth to his ear, her tongue a hot, moist lance darting within. He groaned softly, his body hardening beneath the warm, seductive weight of her.

“Then tell me quickly, love, before I lose the ability to hear anything.”

“I am with child.” The words emerged in a whispered rush against his neck.

His hands stilled. So this was what was different about her, that indefinable quality he had noticed in the last weeks.

“Does it not please you?” She looked up at him, anxiety in her voice and eyes.