At the Queen's Summons (17 page)

At last Aidan's mirth subsided. “Madam, to answer your question.”

Pippa wondered if the queen could detect the steel beneath the smooth silk of his tone.

He swept his arm back to gesture at the Irish soldiers. “When you mow down one blade of Irish grass, two more sprout in its place. And there are men far less cooperative than I. They would not hesitate to take my place if you remove me.”

Silence fell, and within that silence thrummed a strain so taut that Pippa lifted her shoulders, ready to flinch when the tension snapped. Aidan was a dead man. She could read his fate in the eyes of the queen, in the grim whispers of her courtiers, on the outraged faces of her guards.

Then, like an arrow out of the blue, came an idea. Before she could talk herself out of it, she charged forward, breaking through the ranks of courtiers and gallowglass.

“Make way,” she called, mimicking the majordomo's bell-like tones. “Make way!”

All were too startled to stop her. After stepping in front of Aidan, she curtsied deeply before the dais.

“Your Majesty, I must
insist
that you let this man go.
You see, he has promised to do something for me, and he has not yet delivered.”

Deliberately, she stumbled back against MacHurley, one of Aidan's troop leaders. “Ye gods!” she shrieked, clapping her hands to her cheeks and springing back to stare at him. “It is a lamb in wolf's clothing!”

Nervous titters drifted from the ladies, followed by a subtle murmur of male laughter from the group of courtiers beside the dais. Aidan scowled and hissed a warning under his breath, but she ignored him.

She stroked MacHurley's war tunic. “I do like a man in fur,” she announced, and looked pointedly at Essex's foppish hat. Aye, the lordling was in trouble with the queen, so it was safe to torment him. “It's so much preferable to feathers.”

“See here now,” Essex burst out, red-faced with rage.

Pippa sidled up to him. He was so overdressed with trusses and shirt stuffing that he never felt her relieve him of his purse. With a flourish, she dangled it in front of his horrified face.

“Ah, see
here,”
she said in a teasing voice. “What is it, my lord, that purples your complexion? A lock of hair from your lady love?”

The other courtiers burst into guffaws.

“What,” the queen said, silencing the laughter, “is the meaning of this?”

Pippa turned back to the queen, to that pale, unreadable face, those snapping black eyes. “Your Majesty, I am but a humble strolling player in the employ of Lord Castleross. If he is clapped in irons, I shall be idle.” She gave the queen a broad wink. “You know the perils of a woman in idleness, surely. I might actually have an intelligent thought. And
then
where would mankind be?”

The queen's mouth tightened. For a moment Pippa
thought she might smile. “I take great pains to avoid idle thoughts,” she said.

Pippa laughed, but no one else did.

“Guards! Remove her at once,” said Leicester.

Two guards came toward her.

“Wait!” called the queen. Everyone froze. She looked from Aidan to Pippa and back again. “My lord of Castleross,” she said.

“Madam.”

“Get you gone from my sight, and take this—this
player
with you. On the morrow shall you return, and
then
I will render my decision regarding your defiance and the people of your district. Is that clear?”

“Abundantly.” He did not wait for her to dismiss him. He swung around, bellowing a command in Gaelic. The pipes and drums started up. Grabbing Pippa by the arm to pull her along, he led his entourage out of the Presence Chamber.

Once he had reached the great quadrangle outside, he paused. “Well,” he said, “I presume you have an explanation for your little performance.”

“My performance was nothing compared to yours,” she retorted. “You could have had yourself arrested for treason. I owe no explanation to you.”

He caught her other arm and brought her around to face him. She could feel the heat emanating from him, could see the flecks of silver in his blue eyes.

“Ah, but you will talk to me,
a stor.
Tonight, I will have what I want from you.”

 

She was late. The contrary female was deliberately making him sweat and pace and fret.

He went to the hearth in the great hall of Lumley House and savagely poked at a flame-eaten log. Sparks
flew up the chimney. The infernal woman consumed him. He could think of naught but her, with her impish smile and lush body. His passion for her was like a fever for which he knew no cure save one—to have her on
his
terms, in his own manner, and damn the consequences.

Unfortunately, Pippa had a mind of her own and no fear of asserting her strong will. It was a quality that both drew and repelled him. Why couldn't she be more tractable? He answered his own question: because weak, compliant females held no appeal for him.

A terrible thought occurred to him. What if she had run off?

Ah, but she would be better off if she did leave. He could bring her only heartache.

A sense of loss clogged his throat. He slammed home the iron poker and strode for the door, flinging it wide open and pounding up the steps to her chamber. Without pausing to knock, he jerked the door open.

Empty. No trace of Pippa lingered save a light, elusive floral scent. He should feel relieved, he thought, closing the door with exaggerated control. She took the decision away from him. It was wrong to desire a woman who could never be his. Wrong to avoid telling her about Felicity. But then, what could he say to anyone about Felicity? He never spoke of her. There was simply no explaining about her, especially to Pippa, who had grown to trust him implicitly.

He stalked back to his chambers. He almost smacked into Pippa, who was on her way out. She gazed up at him, an ironic smile quirking her mouth. “There you are, Your Worship. You were late, and I came looking for you.”

“I was late!” he yelled. With a curse to cover his relief, he drew her into the room and kicked the door shut. He had told himself to be stern with her. To censure her for interfering with his audience with the queen.

Instead, unable to stop himself, he gave a great whoop of triumph, lifted her up and swung her around gleefully.

“By the blessed heart of Saint Brigid,” he declared, setting her on her feet and giving her a great smacking kiss on each cheek. Though he wanted to let his lips linger over the smoothness of her skin, he pulled back and said, “We were
good
today. We walked into the lion's den and lived to tell the tale.”

She took a moment to recover herself. Then she grinned. “I told you so. Admit you were afraid, just for half a second. Admit you feared she would have you arrested and locked up.”

“I was
not
afraid for half a second,” he said in a blustering tone. “I was pissing scared the entire time, you saucy baggage.”

She laughed. “You forced the queen to see you as a man, a worthy rival, rather than a beggar seeking favors. It was better that you risked all.”

“Including my people. That was stupid of me.”

“Nay, it was bold. Your people would think so.”

“Perhaps. Now what, pray, was the meaning of your little performance?”

She gave an elaborate shrug. Feigned innocence, but ah, faith, she was wondrous. Her spilling curls looked as if they had been gilt by the fairies. She still wore her court gown, though without the coif and extra set of sleeves.

“Someone had to divert the queen's attention so she'd forget about punishing you.” She went to the sideboard and poured herself a goblet of wine from a stoneware decanter. She turned around and took a bracing gulp. “Not that I give a rat's furry arse,” she amended.

“Ah.” He stared at her, remembering what she had said.
I don't love you
…. The memory wrenched at his heart and tweaked his conscience, too. What a fool he had been to
ask her to become his mistress. What made him think he could possess any part of her without giving all of himself?

“Pippa, about what I said yesterday…” he began, desperate to ease the hurt that knit her brow.

She tossed her head. “Badger me no more about it, my answer is still the same. You are an overwhelming male specimen. Your touch is magic. When you kiss me, the world seems to melt around the edges. But I don't love you, and I won't be your mistress. You'd not want me, anyway. I would spend all your money, drive you mad with all my chatter and bad singing. So it is best for us to—”

He strode across the room, stopped her with a hard, lingering kiss and did not let up until he felt her all but collapse in surrender against him.

“I meant to say I'm sorry,” he whispered into her ear. Then he let her go and moved away, out of her reach. “That's all I wanted to say. And you sing beautifully.”

“S-sorry?” she said in a dazed voice.

“To dishonor you with my request.”

She stared at him until he grew uncomfortable under her stern regard. She continued to stare even as she lifted the wine goblet to her lips and drank. She did not flinch as the strong draft went down.

Finally she said in all solemnity. “Dishonor me?”

“I spoke without thinking, in the heat of the moment.”

With exaggerated care, she set down the goblet. “You're not listening, my lord. I refuse to be your mistress. I do not want to be your arm ornament at revels. I do not want you to dedicate songs and poems and—God forbid—jousts and tourneys to me.”

She paused, took a deep breath and said, “But I do want you…I invite you…I
implore
you to dishonor me.”

Her intensity, her candor, tore at his heart. “Colleen,” he said, “you don't know what you're asking.”

She pushed away from the sideboard and crossed the room toward him, her brilliant skirts and petticoats whispering on the flagstoned floor. She stood before him, close enough for him to feel the warmth of her, to catch her scent of silk and fresh air.

“I know exactly what I'm asking.” She spoke softly but with conviction and an edge of defiance. “I want the whirlwinds and bonfires they sing about in ballads. I want the feeling I get when you touch me.”

It took much strength to keep his hands fisted at his sides when all he wanted to do was take her in his arms. “You've been saying you don't love me—”

“And pray you, remember that,” she snapped. “This has naught to do with love.”

“Then what has it to do with?”

She swallowed. Though it seemed to require some effort, she kept her gaze steadily on his. “It has to do with need, my lord. The need of a young girl on the road, making her way to London with nothing but a dream to sustain her. The need of a strolling player in St. Paul's, making strangers laugh at her and pretending to laugh with them, when sometimes all she wants to do is cry.”

Her desperation seemed to reach down inside him and clasp his heart until he could no longer separate her pain from his own. “Pippa—”

“No, let me finish. I'm not asking for your pity. I'm simply telling you these things so you'll understand. Please, may I continue?”

He did not want to hear any more, for he already understood all too well the source of her heartache. In one way or another, she had been deserted all her life. Now
she had some notion that he could heal her, and in that, she was dead wrong. But he nodded, almost against his will, and said, “I'm listening.”

“By now you know everything there is to know about me, except for one thing.”

“And what is that?” he asked. It took all of his resolve not to touch her, to feel her softness, to inhale her scent.

“It's this.” She took a deep breath. “I have never been touched in the way you touch me.”

“In what way is that?” he asked, dry-mouthed.

“You touch me as if you care.”

He could not help himself then. He did not even try to stop his hands as they came up, slowly, brushing over her wrists and traveling up her arms, finally cresting at her shoulders and, so gently, as if she were as fragile as the spun glass of Crutched Friars, cradling her soft, flushed cheeks.

“I do care,” he confessed. “That is why I must ask you not to tempt me. Cling to your honor, Pippa. It is the only thing a person has that cannot be taken away.”

She smiled grimly. “You think I care about honor? I?” She closed her eyes, and for a moment her mouth thinned as if she were in agony. Then she looked up at him. “I have lied, cheated and stolen in order to survive. For the right price, I would have sold my body.” She took his hands away from her face and clung to them. A bitter, mirthless laugh escaped her. “The funny thing is, no man ever considered me worth paying for. A few tried to simply help themselves, but even I had the sense to rebuff them.”