At The King's Command (14 page)

“Pity,” he said, “has little to do with my feelings for you.”

His gentle caress sparked a fierce yearning in her. She wanted to be closer to him, closer. Her slim arms went around his neck. She stood on tiptoe and still could not reach him. He met her halfway, bending, covering her mouth with his.

She was unprepared for her own reaction. Unprepared for the softness of his lips or the intriguing taste of him, the silkiness of his hair, the warm solidity of his back.

Juliana had seen her family slaughtered, had walked across a continent and spent five years with gypsies. She had the stoutest of hearts and yet Stephen’s kiss startled her and turned her pliant and supple like a willow bending in the breeze.

She wanted the moment, the sharing, the letting down of defenses to go on forever. There was something exceedingly honest about the way he held her and kissed her. Much more honest than when he spoke with sarcasm or ignored her.

He lifted his mouth from hers, and she made a sound of protestation, for she did not want him to stop.

“This is insane,” he whispered, and he looked dazed as if someone had just knocked him off a galloping horse.

“I do not know this word,
insane,
” she said.

His eyes smiled at her, one corner of his mouth turned up, and he had never looked so appealing to her. “Yes, you do, my gypsy.” He brushed a lock of hair clear of her cheek. He bent to nibble at the pulse in her neck. “I assure you, you do.”

The gentle flicking of his tongue, the grazing of his teeth in the sensitive spot made her forget to breathe. “Then it is not a bad thing, to be insane?”

Low laughter drifted from him as his mouth traveled downward, savoring the mounds of her breasts that rose above her stiff bodice.

“In this case, no.” He straightened and took her hand. “Let us go, Juliana. This is a place of death and remembrance, hardly a spot for trysting.” He looked idly at the tree where his horse was tethered and still cropping at the grass. “Your mount is gone.”

Juliana muttered a gypsy oath. “The beast. She trotted off before I could tie her.”

“She’ll find her way back, for where else can she find honeyed oats?”

“And how am
I
supposed to find my way back?”

“Two can ride as one, Baroness.” He took her hand and led her to the horse. “Didn’t you know that?”

Sensing a deeper layer to his meaning, she felt no self-consciousness as she swung up and straddled Capria. Her skirts and petticoats, dyed crimson by Jillie’s father, rucked up and bared her silk-stockinged legs.

Stephen mounted behind her, pressing himself back
against the hindbow. He took the reins in one hand, and the other went around her waist. As they started at a walk toward the manor, Juliana thought she only imagined that his hand was straying, first upward to brush the underside of her breasts, then down to slide along her thigh, nearly driving her mad as his clever fingers moved beneath the fabric of her skirts.

“What are you doing?” she managed to whisper.

“Just making certain you don’t lose interest on the way back to the hall. Shall I stop?”

If she could have summoned the strength she would have laughed at the ridiculousness of the question. Stop? It would be like trying to douse a forest fire with a thimbleful of water.

“No,” she said on a long sigh. “Do not stop, Stephen.” She leaned her head back against his chest, baring her throat to him, and instantly his mouth moved there, nuzzling and tasting while his hand did the most delicious things to her breasts.

She felt a subtle coolness, and with idle lethargy realized that he had managed to free her breasts from the caged stiffness of the velvet bodice. His fingers played with them, rolling one rosy peak and then the other between thumb and forefinger.

A low soft moan escaped her. She felt helpless, vulnerable, trapped from behind in the velvet vise of his strong thighs, his circling arms, his clever, clever hands.

He quit his exploration and she would have wept, bereft, but he relinquished the reins to her in order to free both of his hands. With amazing delicacy, he lifted her skirts and touched the damp silk of her smallclothes in the most vulnerable spot of all. She felt wanton and free, with her skin bared and his hand never still, fingers
flicking out and teasing her, and his mouth moist and warm on her throat.

Through a haze of wonder she watched the woods open to a shady lane leading to the manor. Some distance ahead, the lane joined the main road to the gatehouse.

Stephen’s breath rasped harshly as if he was in pain. She wanted to say something, to ease his discomfort, but she was so caught up in the silken magic of his touch that she could not.

And then suddenly he spoke. “God’s teeth!”

Juliana gasped, opened her glazed eyes, and saw what he was looking at.

“Havelock,” he said through gritted teeth.

As Algernon Basset, the earl of Havelock, raced along the road toward them, Stephen made haste to tuck Juliana back into her bodice, to smooth her skirts down as best he could.

She swiveled around in the saddle. “What could he want? Surely he won’t guess we’ve been, er, doing—”

He stared at her and seemed torn between horror and amusement. “A man would have to be blind to mistake that look on your face. If you look this much the well-tumbled wench after mere fondling, I wonder how you’ll appear once I take you to the heights.”

“Didn’t you just do that?”

“Not by a mile, Baroness. Not by a bloody mile.”

Stephen was appalled. How could he have so forgotten himself?

Juliana let out a quavering sigh and straightened her clothing. And he knew painfully how. She shifted gently, and he all but burst his cod laces.

With an effort he managed to drag the invisible barrier
between them once again. The shield around his emotions had served him well for years.

Juliana alone, with naught but a soft-eyed look and a few whispered words, had breached it.

He clenched his teeth to keep from spitting an oath. He dismounted, reached up, and took her by the waist. He tried not to feel the sensual glide of her body against his as she slid to the ground. He tried not to feel regret as he stepped back to wait for Havelock. What kind of fool was he, anyway? This was no game, and Juliana was no plaything.

She seemed to sense his withdrawal. “Stephen?”

Damn it! Why did she have to look like a…a fresh new bride tumbling, very recently, from her marriage bed?

“Yes?” he asked impatiently. “What is it?”

A frown puckered her brow. “Your moods, my lord. One moment you hold me as if I were the only woman alive, and the next you act the stranger.”

“Don’t read any more than animal lust into the past few moments,” he made himself say. “You’ve a talent for inspiring it.”

She caught her breath. He wanted to touch her cheek, her proudly tilted chin, to tell her he did not mean what he had said, but that was simply too dangerous.

To her credit, she greeted the earl of Havelock with easy grace, waving as he slid his sweating horse to a halt.

And for once in his life, Algernon Basset was speechless. His mouth was a round
O
, his golden-brown curls bouncing as he leaned down to peer at Juliana. Had Stephen not been so disturbed by the forbidden intimacy with his wife, he would have laughed at the earl’s gape-mouthed astonishment.

“Cat got your tongue, Algernon?” he asked archly.

Juliana offered her hand. “How charming to see you again, my lord.” Her accent was as dark and enticing as spices from Byzantium. “Welcome.”

“Madam,” Havelock gasped, “the honor is mine, of course.”

Stephen handed his reins to a groom who had rushed out to the gatehouse. Another lad waited for Algernon to relinquish his, but the earl shook his head. “I can’t stay.” His gaze, all but slavering with hunger, swept over Juliana. “To my eternal regret, I must be on my way. I simply came to deliver a message.”

Suspicion trickled into Stephen’s mind. “Haven’t you retainers to deliver your messages, Algernon?”

“Yes, but this is too delectable.” Again his eyes partook hungrily of Juliana. “Even better than I had thought.”

Stephen waited. Algernon was given to dramatic pauses and knew just when he had taxed the patience of his listeners too long. “My dear lord of Wimberleigh,” he said importantly, “you might want to put your hall in order and slaughter a pig or two. The king is coming to hunt at Lynacre Wood.”

Stephen’s breath gusted forth as if someone had punched him in the stomach. King…hunt…Lynacre Wood…He prayed he had heard wrong.

“Are you not honored?” Juliana asked, her eyes bright with excitement. “A royal visit is a great event.”

Algernon lifted his heels to spur his horse. “I do hope you managed to do something about the gypsy camp,” he said, laughing with his eyes. “And Stephen?”

“Yes?” he forced out.

One last time, Algernon’s eyes fed on Juliana. “Lock up your valuables.”

S
tephen winced as heralds blew a salute, announcing the arrival of the king. The household retainers, decked in their best livery, waited in a military-style line behind him. He tried to pretend he was not bathed in sweat beneath his murrey doublet and shirt of white lawn. He prayed Juliana would have the sense to obey him and stay hidden.

King Henry, ponderous as a storm-swollen cloud in his great high-bowed saddle, entered through the main gate. Sunlight blazed around him, catching on his gold-braided doublet and chain of office. Retainers flanked him like lesser stars around the sun. Stephen recognized Sir Anthony Browne and Sir Francis Bryan, the king’s young minions, and a host of others who had managed to snare the royal favor. Behind the king rode the sharp-eyed, pinch-faced Thomas Cromwell in his customary midnight black.

“A royal visit,” whispered Nance Harbutt. “Why, we ain’t had a royal visit since his lordship were newly married to our dearest Marg—”

“Nance.”
Stephen silenced her, furious that she had reminded him of that day. He had been naught but a
gawking green youth, overwhelmed by the arrival of the king, who, in Stephen’s credulous mind, had achieved the proportions of legend. Never was there so great a fool as Stephen de Lacey that day—fifteen and glowing with pride in his new wife, presenting her to Henry, watching her win the king’s heart with a simple blushing smile, an innocent, murmured greeting. Or so he thought.

Stephen’s life had changed irrevocably that day.

Now he was older, wiser, no longer gulled by the imposing splendor of the king. Now Stephen knew what to expect, and he had girded himself against the onslaught of royal intrigue.

He watched in bland dispassion as the king’s attendants helped him dismount in the central courtyard. The task required no fewer than half a dozen strong men, yet Henry comported himself with a certain bulky dignity. Though his leg was swollen, he barely limped as he walked toward Stephen.

His heart thudding, his mind ablaze with hope that his ruse would work, Stephen made his obeisance.

Henry’s small dark eyes took him apart. God, thought Stephen. He had grown shrewd as well as fat. Pray his lust for the wives of other men had diminished.

“How fares my lord of Wimberleigh?” Henry asked.

“High in health and good cheer,” Stephen replied, feigning an eagerness to please his sovereign.

The king perused the household: Kit and the lads of the stable standing stiffly at attention, the household retainers and Nance Harbutt properly slack-jawed with awe. “And your bride, Wimberleigh. Where is your vagabond bride?”

Nance recognized her cue, thank God. She gave a wail of misery and lifted her apron to daub at her eyes.

The king, who missed nothing, thrust up his beard, a
hound on the scent. “Answer me, Wimberleigh.” He leaned forward and dropped his voice. “Have you done in this one, too?”

Stephen nearly snatched at the bait, nearly forfeited his life then and there by attacking the king’s royal person. No. He was needed here. For how much longer, he could not say, but for the time being, he knew he must keep his temper in check.

“Alas, she has fallen ill, sire.”

“Ill?” The king raised a skeptical eyebrow. “The wench looked hale when last I saw her. Flea-bitten, perhaps, but healthy as a nanny goat.”

“The settled life does not agree with her. But sire, do not let her indisposition keep you from my hearth and table. I pray you—”

Kit Youngblood slapped his palm to his forehead and fell facedown in the yard.

Nance Harbutt plunged to her knees beside him. “Christ have mercy, the lad’s done for. The sweat is at him!”

The men-at-arms recoiled, angling their pikestaffs at the invisible enemy.

William Stumpe, Stephen’s steward, made a hissing sound to shush the weeping woman. Heedless, Nance crushed her face into her apron. “’Tis the sweat. I’d know it anywhere. Same as the master’s wife—”

“What?”
Thomas Cromwell’s voice cut her off like a pair of shears snipping a hedge. He planted himself in front of Stephen. “Your wife has the sweat?” Lord Privy Seal, who had honed the craft of lying to a fine art, searched Stephen’s face.

“Well, that’s not certain,” Stephen said, his head tilted, his eyes regretful. “I’ve yet to find a physician who’ll go near her.”

The king swore and took a lumbering step back. “By God, Wimberleigh, if you’ve got the sweat here…” Henry’s face was death pale. For a moment Stephen almost felt sorry for him. Mortality was the only foe even King Henry could never vanquish.

Then Stephen remembered saintly Thomas More, Exeter, Neville and Nick Carew, all put to death because the king was at his most dangerous when he was afraid.

“Sire, I beg you. Just wait a little.” Behind him, he could hear Nance fanning Kit with her apron. “If it is truly the sweat, my wife will be dead by morning. If she lives, then it wasn’t that pestilence to begin with.” He rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “How many Londoners were felled by the sweat last year…some several thousand, was it not?”

Without taking his eyes off Stephen, the king said, “Cromwell, send the heralds on to Hockley Hall. We shall pass the night with Algernon Basset, earl of Havelock.”

“Immediately, sire.”

As Sir Thomas turned to give instructions to the heralds, Stephen slowly and inconspicuously started to expel a sigh of relief. He still had half his indrawn breath to go when two royal wardens burst through the iron gates, shouting for assistance.

“Look what we caught poaching in the king’s wood,” Sir Bodely said.

Stephen’s heart dropped with sickening speed to his knees. Between them, the guards held a furiously struggling gypsy.

“Rodion!”
Juliana whispered, pedaling with her elbows to scoot even closer to the window in the tower.

“Rodion?” Her voice filled with concern, Jillie joined her in the recess of the window.

Juliana sent her maid a sidelong glance. “He chose the wrong time to poach a deer.”

Jillie’s chin trembled as the two of them lay belly-down in the window embrasure, watching the drama unfold in the courtyard.

It was musty in their high loft, and it smelled of dry timber, old stone and woodsmoke. Until a few moments ago, Juliana had been arguing heatedly against the necessity of staying hidden.

“I tell you, Jillie, I do not wish to cower like a thief in the night. And Steph—my lord husband has no right to force me to stay here. How dare he act like he’s ashamed of me!”

Jillie, teary eyed from torn loyalties, had clutched the iron key that she used to lock the door. “I’m sorry, milady. ’Twas himself who ordered me to look after you. I’m not to let the king spy you at any cost.”

“Stephen de Lacey is not my master!” Even as she shouted the declaration, Juliana was seized by memories of the afternoon she had spent with him, the desperate hunger of his kiss, the compelling touch of his hands. And her own ungovernable yearning…

“He said ’twas for your own good. And begging your pardon, but the master is seldom wrong.”

“He is this time.”

“Milady, please. There’s something about the king, something he
does
…He’s a danger. It might be like the last time he came to Lynacre.”

“The last time? What happened then?”

Jillie had flushed an even deeper crimson shade than normal. She stared down at her large, thick hands, her fingers tightening around the key. “Can’t rightly say. I were but a child of ten or twelve back then, but…”

“But what?” Juliana had forced herself to be patient.
Jillie was not the sort to gossip and it was hard coaxing information from her. “Did the king hurt Stephen while he was here? Or the baroness?”

“Hurt?” Jillie’s unhurried speech belied her quick and reliable mind. “Honest, my lady, I don’t know. But after the king’s visit, she were never the same, and he were a dark and brooding lord.”

Juliana shivered. “She. The baroness?”

“Aye.” Jillie dropped her voice to a whisper. “She were like a spring flower caught in a frost after that. Less laughter in the household. Less talk and merriment.”

Juliana fell silent, remembering how she had found Stephen worshiping at the shrine of his first wife. How solemn he had been, mourning still, after all these years for his wife and child. One child. Only one had shared the crypt with his mother.

Why?
Why?

And now Jillie was telling her that the laughter had gone out of Stephen even before he had lost Margaret and Dickon.

“God ha’ mercy!” Jillie said, thumping Juliana in the ribs and startling her back to the present. “They’re going to kill Rodion.”

Juliana rubbed the side of her fist on the thick, lozenge-shaped windowpane. The king’s men were tying each of Rodion’s limbs to the saddlebows of four horses. Stephen had planted himself in front of King Henry and was gesticulating wildly, his hand straying to the dress sword that slapped at his thigh.

“Mother Mary,” she whispered in desperate, native Russian. “They are going to tear him apart.”

She ducked out of the window embrasure and nearly tripped on her crimson velvet skirts. “Hurry, Jillie. Unlock the door. We must stop them.”

Jillie did not hesitate. She tumbled the lock to the tower room door. With Juliana leading the way, they hurtled down the narrow, spiraling staircase and spilled out into the courtyard.

One look at Stephen’s thunderous expression told Juliana she had made a grave mistake.

I’ll kill her
, Stephen thought as Juliana raced across the gravel path and plunged into a curtsy at the king’s feet.
As soon as His Highness decamps, I will beat her raw and then strangle her with my naked hands
.

“Your Majesty, please, I beg you.” Juliana looked up at the king from the lake of velvet skirts that surrounded her. “Have mercy on this man.”

The king looked awestruck, his mouth a red slash in the middle of his beard. Even the inscrutable Cromwell seemed nonplussed, coughing vigorously into his sleeve.

“And who are you, my tenderling?” Henry extended his hand and drew her to her feet.

“Do you not remember, Your Serendipity?” White-faced, Juliana stumbled over her words. “Er, Seren—never mind. We have met before. My name is Juliana Romanov…de Lacey,” she added almost as an afterthought.

“Good God,” said the king, looking her up and down. “Marriage does agree with you.”

Through sheer force of will, Stephen stopped himself from leaping between Juliana and King Henry to shield her from the king’s lusty attention. He knew he would be better served if he pretended not to care.

Not to care.
As the king complimented Stephen’s wife, memories hurled Stephen into the past. He saw again a young beauty, dazzled by a king’s favor. A vulnerable woman’s heart and a slumbrous royal passion.
A slim, pretty hand tucked in the crook of the king’s proffered arm…

No
. Stephen nearly spoke aloud, but he choked back his protest. Henry was like a child with a toy: he coveted what his neighbor possessed, then lost interest when he won the object for himself. If he had the faintest suspicion that Stephen was afflicted with a secret desire for his gypsy wife, Juliana would be no safer than a rose in a windstorm.

Henry glared at Stephen. “The sweat, was it, Wimberleigh?”

“It’s a miracle! She’s recovered, praise be to God!” From the corner of his eye, Stephen saw Kit jump up hastily, Nance brushing at his breeches and doublet.

Cromwell murmured in the king’s ear. Henry grinned like a wolf—no humor, all hunger. “Very clever, Wimberleigh. Very clever indeed.”

Stephen despised the verbal games of which Henry was so fond. He yearned for the days of his grandsire, when disputes were settled by force of arms and a man earned his own worth. He endured that penetrating royal stare, waiting and watching for the king’s next move and silently cursing his wife.

The fool. Why couldn’t she have trusted him, taking his word that she was better off staying hidden in the tower?

As she flashed a dazzling smile up at the king, Stephen’s remembrances pounced on him again—a beautiful smile, a sidelong look…

Well, why not? he thought furiously. Why wouldn’t she harbor a passion for the king? She would not be the first to crave the benefits of becoming mistress to the most powerful ruler in Christendom.

And, God knew, Stephen had given her precious little reason to be content at Lynacre.

“Your husband told us you were indisposed,” Henry said.

“She was,” Stephen said harshly, taking her by the shoulder. “You’d best return to your chambers before you suffer a relapse.”

She put her wrist to her brow and swayed. “Lord Wimberleigh worries too much. I had a touch of the ague, that is all.”

Cromwell and Henry exchanged a glance. She did not give them a chance to challenge her. “Surely, Your Serenity,” she said, “you will take pity on my weakened state and grant a very small request.”

A royal eyebrow lifted. “And what might that be, my lady?”