In Honor Bound (30 page)

"They say King Robert loved her above his own soul."

"He did. I can vouch for it."

"And she him?"

They were at the end of a long hallway now, and Joan quickly pushed open one of the doors.

"Here is your chamber, my lady. You will want to refresh yourself a moment before supper. Or would you prefer to have supper brought you here?"

Rosalynde sat down on the plump bed. "I would like that best. Thank you, Mistress Joan."

Joan curtseyed. "I will fetch it at once, then I will help you ready for bed."

She stepped into the corridor and started to close the door, but Rosalynde stopped her.

"Did you attend Lady Elaine when she was with child?"

"Oh, yes, always. And I helped birth all four of those boys. I remember it as clear as day still. If you are here when your child comes, you needn't worry. I will see it all goes well."

Rosalynde started. "How did you know?"

Joan chuckled. "Why it is written on you plain as day. I know the look. Have you reckoned the time? It should be early summer, I would say."

Again Rosalynde was amazed. "Yes. I think so. Do you know everything, Mistress Joan?"

"I had His Majesty convinced I did once," she said with another chuckle. "Perhaps he believes it still."

"To hear him speak of you, I would dare say he does."

True to her word, Joan saw to Rosalynde's every need until Julia and Ursula and some of the other ladies-in-waiting were sent from Winton along with some clothing for her and for the king. It was decided that they would winter in Treghatours and let Tom keep Winton. Rosalynde knew Philip did not wholly approve of this idea, but she could see he loved this place too much to have to be coaxed into staying when there was no profit in leaving.

He flourished under Joan's nurturing. She fed him plenty of her good, plain cookery and ordered him to bed early at night. She even made so bold as to forbid him to discuss matters of state with
Darlington
and the others for very long at one time.

"There is nothing that has happened already that you can undo, my lord, and nothing that can be done now that will not be the better for waiting until spring. If you rest now, you'll be fit to see to things when the time comes."

Rosalynde was pleased to see him take her advice, to see him shake loose the bonds of kingship just a little. He began to spend less time with his councilors and more with Jerome and the other boys about the castle and from the village. He taught them the games he and his brothers had played here just a few years before and learned their games, too. They accepted him as one of their own and he took pleasure in pretending that he was.

When he came in at dusk, cold and dirty, Joan always treated him as if he were still a boy of twelve, scolding and pampering him all at once. He would assume a dignified manner and remind her of her place, but she was long used to hearing his heart and not his words and knew he welcomed her meddling, whether he admitted it or not.

It was not long before he lost that hollow, hunted look, and Rosalynde was once more astonished by his deep beauty. She marveled again at how much he was changed since Westered. His lean face was still quite the handsomest she had ever seen, more handsome perhaps for the life that had been written on it, but it had lost the bland prettiness she had pined after in her girlhood. Only his mouth was the same. The inviting fullness of his lip still seemed to beg to be kissed, but she dared not.

His rare smiles were more frequent since they had come to this place of peace and, when custom forced them together, he did not seem so wary of her as he had once been. There was a wondering in his eyes, as if he were reassessing her and himself, sometimes an unexpected tenderness in a touch or a glance, an expression of concern for the child she carried and, yes, for her, as well, but still he held his distance and always left her to spend the nights alone. Christmas came and went and still he never so much as kissed her, unless it was the formal kissing of her hand upon some brief parting that left her sighing disconsolately.

"Do not let it fret you, lady," Joan said once, seeing her wistful expression. "He'll not be gone from you long."

"Tell me about him, Joan, from when he was a little boy."

"Why, he was just as he is now, lady...a trifle spoiled, softly spoken, sweet to look on, master of everything he set his hand to and wanting everything just so. And stubborn. Oh, lady, stubborn as a snapping turtle! And he had a temper then, I'll warrant you, though I must say it was usually hard to get at. He'd sooner freeze you than burn you. He'd never budge an inch with his honor at stake, but he could be so sweet, too. In his own way, if he thought no one would know it, he could be as tender as a new fawn."

"I can see that in him," Rosalynde said, "but he's careful not to show it often."

"I could always see through him, all four of them, like rainwater– good or bad. Not that any of them was truly wicked. My husband Nathaniel, God rest him, raised them to fear God and honor the king. Richard was rougher with his brothers than he might ought to have been, I'll grant, but John was pure angel, first to last, and Tom–" She laughed and her laugh was oddly like Tom's. "Tom was ever at one mischief or another, but we could never fault him for it, he had us laughing too hard. Truly the good God planted sunshine in that child, I never saw one match him for it. My Philip has sun in him, too. Sun enough to dazzle when he chooses."

"When he chooses."

Rosalynde's mouth turned down, and Joan chucked her under the chin.

"Now, lady, no tears. You've the finest gentleman in all Christendom to love you and, short while, a fair babe to prove it."

"And an empty bed to mock it."

She sobbed in spite of herself and Joan gave her a motherly hug.

"Well, I wondered if it might not be so. I will tell you a thing, lady, about these foolish young men. Some of them think they must treat a woman with child as if she were made of window glass and, if I know my Philip, he'll deny himself forever before he'd risk that babe."

"He has no more use for me, that is all. Now that I am to give him an heir, he's done his duty, and he does not want me anymore."

"Oh, my lady, could you say so? Not want you? I think you do not know him well if you can believe that."

Rosalynde shook her head. "He loves another."

"I know you do not know him if you can believe he would be unfaithful to you, my lady."

"No, I know he would not be, not with his body. Still, without faithfulness of heart there is little value in all the rest."

"I'll not believe inconstancy of him, lady," Joan said, a little stiffness in her voice.

"Neither will I," Rosalynde admitted sadly, "and that is what makes me despair of him ever coming back to me."

"I do not understand you, my lady, but I can see you are grieved for love of him, and you needn't be. You have a woman's fears, and he has a man's ignorance. No doubt he worries for the child and it is no more than that."

Rosalynde knew she was herself ignorant in such matters. "Would it hurt the child if–"

Joan laughed. "Law, lambkin, so early on? Not a whit!"

"But would he truly fear so?" Rosalynde asked with a trembling hint of a smile.

"To judge from his glances, it's not lack of wanting you that's kept him alone these nights."

There was still a flush in Rosalynde's cheek when she came upon him awhile later, straddling one of the braces that arched up to the ceiling in the great hall, swinging his legs some five or six feet above her head. There was a little gray and white cat stretched out on the heavy beam beside him, looking down upon Rosalynde with queenly hauteur. Rosalynde had grown used to seeing the creature about the castle, always when Philip was in sight. She seemed to have little use for anyone else except, perhaps, the cook who fed her.

Rosalynde craned her neck to see them better. "However did you get up there? You shall fall!"

"You sound like Joan," Philip said. "We've not fallen yet, have we, Grace?"

The cat's answer was a lazy yawn and a slow blink of her eyes.

Philip grinned at her and lowered himself to the length of his arms so his boots dangled in front of Rosalynde's face. She was surprised to see he wore no shirt, just a leather vest loose laced in the front and a cut of the same lacing looped around his wrist. She let her eyes travel down the long length of him, covertly admiring the play of muscle in his bare arms and the way his boots fit to his well-turned legs, remembering how it felt to be pressed against his sinewed chest.

"I shouldn't like Joan to catch me at this now," he said. "She always used to switch us for it."

"She might still, monkey."

"Joan!" He dropped to the floor, a naughty little boy look on his face that he well knew his old nurse could never resist. "I was showing my lady where we used to play when we were boys."

"And where is your shirt? I could never keep him in clothes when it got cold, my lady! In dead winter, he would go out in little more than his breeches if he thought I'd not catch him at it!"

Rosalynde smiled at that, remembering his delight in the snow that had fallen in Westered, how it had brought that same fresh eagerness to his face.

"Go out, rascal," Joan scolded with a twinkle in her eyes, "and take your lady, too, if you're minded to show her all the places you've made deviltry in."

"It is the fairest place mere earth can boast, my lady," he said, offering his hand half uncertainly. "Would you come see it with me?"

With a hopeful glance at Joan, she let him lead her away.

He took her through the castle, showing her the fine paneled rooms and intricately-carved furniture, the age-darkened portraits of his royal ancestors from both his father and mother, the treasures of silver and gold and fine jewels that were but a portion of his family's wealth. He showed her the delicate glasswork in the windows of the room where his mother had done her sewing and she found herself entranced by the view below.

"The view is better from here," he told her, and they walked into a bedchamber off the other room.

"It is no wonder you love this place, my lord," she said after a long, long look. "The way the stream flows so fair from the mountains through those trees, it's as if an artist had set them there."

"I believe He did." He drew a deep, slow breath as if to smell a memory. "In May that field will be so full of saint's rose you shall think it snowy December."

She smiled and looked up into his face and forgot to admire the view.

"You are kind to show me all this."

"I was always happiest here of any place," he said unsteadily. "I was, uh–"

She tried to smile again, but her tremulous lips would not cooperate. "I want you to be happy."

She looked up at him still, knowing he could read the look in her eyes, then she stroked her fingers down the hard smoothness of his bare arm and realized he was trembling.
Bridgewater
was a long time back.

"My lady, I know I've not been what you have wanted. I am– I have too much I am bound to. I cannot–"

She moved closer to him and lifted her chin just enough to bring her lips within reach of his.

"Rosalynde–"

The kiss was urgent, famished, scorching, and she felt his hands around her waist, felt them pull her in tighter against his warm body. She clung to him more closely, expecting him to lift her up and carry her to the wide, soft bed, but he did not. Instead, feeling the telltale thickness in her middle, he tried to tear himself away from her.