Kissed by Shadows (4 page)

“Objections to what? She is aware of nothing.” Lionel was speaking very softly but his gaze was intent as it rested on the other man's countenance.

“She is aware of some things,” Stuart said with difficulty. “How can she not be?”

Lionel continued to regard him closely. The hardness of his expression diminished some. The man was in agony. And so he should be, Lionel reflected with a resurgence of contempt, but then he softened again. Stuart Nielson was in an impossible position. And even if Lionel Ashton believed that he himself would have died rather than accept such a position he was not going to throw the first stone.

“I will tell them that it would be wise to desist from now until we have some definite sign one way or the other,” he said, and saw the naked relief shine forth from Lord Nielson's blue eyes. “Soon there should be something . . . or nothing. You understand me?”

“Aye.” Stuart nodded. “I will keep a close eye.”

“Yes, I imagine you will,” the other said dryly. “I give you good afternoon, Lord Nielson.”

He bowed and Stuart returned the courtesy briefly. He remained where he was however, in the stifling heat beneath the tent, amid the bustle of competitors, the scurry of pages and varlets and grooms, the heavy odor of horseflesh, leather, and manure. Then when he became acutely aware of the glances cast in his direction, sympathetic some of them, curious some of them, one or two directly hostile, he left the tent by a rear exit, looking neither to right nor left.

Behind the tent, horses stamped, tossed their heads, as the heavy jeweled saddles and bridles were lifted from them. They were huge, magnificent creatures, dangerous, fearless, willful, bred to go into battle bearing the weight of a fully armored man.

Stuart paused beside his own charger, who stood relatively quietly at the water trough in the hands of a pair of grooms. The animal raised his head as Stuart approached and his eyes rolled. Stuart could almost see reproach there. The horse had been badly managed that afternoon and knew it. He was used to winning, used to the applause, the cheers, the acclaim, certainly not accustomed to slinking off the field in disgrace.

The horse, lips pulled back from his teeth, was clearly not in the mood to be stroked. But he was not a domesticated beast at the best of times and Stuart made no attempt to touch him.

“Check his fetlocks and give him a warm mash,” he instructed the grooms, then made his way through the press of horseflesh and along a beaten path that ran behind the stands that lined the lists. The path brought him to a gate into the pleasaunce. Here fountains plashed and the sweet scents of roses, lavender, and lilac filled the air.

He could hear the sound of instruments and followed the music to the center of the pleasaunce where a small group of courtiers lounged on tapestries spread upon the grass. Pages moved among them with flagons of fine rhenish and silver platters of sweetmeats and savory tarts.

The musicians were seated to one side under the spreading arms of a copper beech. Stuart listened, his eyes on the lyre player. He took a goblet from a page, absently selected a tart of goose liver and bacon, and then, accepting a waved invitation from one of his friends, took a seat on a tapestry beside the fountain.

“A bad afternoon,” his friend observed without inflection.

“Aye,” Stuart said curtly.

“We must not offend our Spanish guests,” the other murmured, casting a sidelong glance at his companion.

“No.”

“No doubt there'll be some unpleasantness at first, but it will pass . . . a nine days' wonder.”

As long as it didn't happen again.
Stuart kept this reflection to himself. One defection would eventually be forgiven by the anti-Spanish contingent, but no more. Neither would any overt appearance of friendship, of
supplication.
His skin crawled in revulsion.

He looked across at the musicians. At the lyre player, whose black head was bent over his instrument, his eyes riveted to his plucking fingers. If he was aware of Stuart's intent regard he gave no indication, but it was always thus when Gabriel was playing, lost in his music.

Stuart abruptly cast aside the remnants of the tart he'd been eating as revulsion again rose bitter as bile in his throat. He got to his feet, upending the contents of his goblet on the grass, heedless of the splatters on the tapestry.

What choice did he have? The alternative was unthinkable.

“What ails you, Stuart?” His friend looked up at him in alarm.

“Nothing. I have just remembered I promised to meet with my wife at this hour.”

“Ah, the spirited Lady Pippa,” the other said with a somewhat lascivious grin. “There's many a man would enjoy being in your shoes, my friend.”
In your bed
was left unspoken but the implication was clear.

Stuart forced a flicker of the gratified smile that he knew was expected, then left with a murmur of farewell.

Gabriel, the lyre player, raised his eyes momentarily from his instrument as Lord Nielson departed.

Pippa sat at the open window of her bedchamber,
her tambour frame idle in her lap. Afternoon was giving way to evening but the sun was still warm on her back and her unquiet mind was lulled by the continuous, indolent buzzing of a bee. Her body was filled with languor, as if she'd been drugged, her eyelids drooped.

The door opened, jerking her awake. She blinked in surprise, as much at the idea that she'd been about to take an unprecedented nap as at her husband's unexpected appearance.

“I thought you were still at the tourney,” she said.

“I saw you leave,” he returned. “Unable to stomach your husband's defeat, I imagine?” His voice was bitter. He began to unfasten the heavy clips of his padded doublet.

“Why did you have to humiliate yourself so?” Pippa demanded. “I understand it was politic to lose, but in such fashion?”

She knew Stuart was upset and angry but she had again the sense that he was holding her to blame for something. Still dismayed at their quarrel of the morning, hurt and troubled at its cause, she was in no mood to offer soft words of consolation. That she was also disturbed, thrown off course, by her encounter with Lionel Ashton, Pippa chose to ignore.

“What could you possibly know about it?” Stuart demanded, throwing his doublet to the floor. He flexed his shoulders, working the tired muscles. Losing a joust was every bit as tiring as winning one, and the sour aftermath of defeat made normal aches and pains even worse.

Pippa leaned her head against the high back of her chair.
Why was she so tired!
She made an effort to keep her voice reasonable. “I don't see why you would attack me, Stuart. What have I done? It seems to me after last night that I have the right to be angry, not you.” Despite her best efforts the note of recrimination was loud and clear.

His face flushed. “You are my wife, madam, 'tis your duty to give yourself to me whenever I wish it.”

Pippa rose to her feet, her tambour frame falling to the floor. She was flushed herself now, her hazel eyes burning. “And when have I ever refused you?” she demanded. “I object merely to being taken, used like some household chattel. God's bones, why wouldn't you wake me!”

He put his hands to his face and his fingers trembled violently. When he spoke his voice was barely above a whisper. “I asked your forgiveness this morning, Pippa. Can you not be more generous? I explained that I was overdrunk. I didn't think about what I was doing.”

Pippa turned her back on him, clasping her hands tightly as she fought down her anger and resentment. “It was not the first time, Stuart. Something is wrong between us. I would know what it is. Have I done something to offend you? I cannot put it right if I don't know what it is.”

Stuart stared at her averted back.
Sweet Jesus!
She talked of offending him!

Shame, guilt, horror swamped him. Denial tumbled from his lips. “Of course you haven't. Of course there's nothing wrong between us. You talk nonsense, Pippa.”

“Nonsense!”
She spun around to face him. “It is not nonsense, Stuart! Ever since Mary and Philip were married, you have been behaving strangely. Distant with me . . . except when I'm asleep,” she added acidly. “You're always in the company of the Spanish, always obsequious, always deferential. And this afternoon was the last straw! You will lose all your friends and—”

“Hold your tongue, woman!”
He flung the words at her, in a tone she had never heard him use before. Now he was ashen, his eyes filled with a wild desperation.

He took a step towards her and Pippa shrank back involuntarily, afraid that he was going to strike her. Something she would never have believed possible until this minute.

But her sudden movement gave him pause and he stopped some feet from her. “You have a scold's tongue,” he said more moderately. “Oblige me by bridling it.”

Pippa set her lips. “I am only trying to understand, my lord,” she said, her face taut. “I know there's something amiss and I would put it right.”

“And I tell you there is nothing,
nothing,
amiss except your refusal to accept that,” he declared. “Now cease your shrewishness, Pippa.”

Without knowing quite why she did so Pippa walked up to him, placed her hands on his shoulders, and stood on tiptoe to kiss him full on the mouth. His physical recoil was as obvious as the clash of cymbals, then he put his arms around her, but his hold was halfhearted, and she could feel his reluctance in every muscle.

Slowly she stepped back. “Your pardon, husband,” she said deliberately, and he knew she was not apologizing for her shrewishness. That flinch had been instinctive, uncontrollable.

“Let us forget it, my dear,” he said, hearing how awkward he sounded. “A trifling quarrel. Let us put it behind us.”

“Yes,” she said, regarding him now with a dawning comprehension. “Yes, by all means, let us put it behind us.”

“I must go,” he said. “An engagement . . . I am already late. I'll join you at the banquet.”

“I think perhaps I shall keep to my chamber this evening,” Pippa said. “I have not felt well all day. My head . . .” She brushed her temples with fleeting fingertips. “I shall retire early.”

“Very well.” He went to the door, then hesitated, his hand on the latch. “Perhaps you have some . . . some womanly affliction?” he suggested, not turning to look at her.

Pippa frowned. Stuart had never evinced anything but the most delicate reticence about her monthly cycle. He left her bed when asked and returned six days later, not a word spoken.

“I don't believe so,” she stated.

“But should it not soon . . . soon be the time . . .” he stammered, still without turning.

“You wish for a child, Stuart?” she asked directly.

“Of course. How could I not?” Abruptly, without waiting for her answer, he left the chamber, the door closing with a snap on his heels.

Pippa remained standing in the middle of the chamber. They had not kissed since . . . no, during their marriage they had never kissed, she realized. Oh, he gave her the occasional peck on the cheek or the brow, but a full passionate kiss of the kind she had just initiated,
never.
Once or twice in their courtship, but never since their marriage.

And she had simply accepted his lack of ardor as a fact of their life together. Nothing else had been wanting and she had been so taken up with her own and Elizabeth's peril in the weeks immediately following her wedding, there had been no time to think of anything else. Then, on her release from prison, Stuart had been so deeply involved with the preparations and negotiations for Mary's wedding Pippa had barely seen him except in public. And his lovemaking had been of the solitary kind, as she knew to her cost.

He had recoiled from her mouth, shrank from her body.

If she no longer pleased him, then who did? He must have a mistress. There was no other explanation. During the weeks of her imprisonment in the Tower, Stuart had taken a mistress.

Pippa returned to her seat at the window. It could not be a superficial relationship, one entered into purely for mutual bodily pleasure during a time when he had no other sexual outlet. Otherwise he would not recoil from his wife.

His wife repulsed him.

It was a dreadful thought. Pippa believed she could accept and forgive a casual liaison. Men had needs after all, and through her own choice she had not been there to satisfy Stuart's. But a passionate love affair, one so all-consuming that he could not endure to touch his wife. No, that was a very different matter.

He needed a child, as all men did, so he possessed his wife in the dark, in her sleep, when he could be done with it without any real connection between them.

God's bones! What other explanation could there be?

Who was it? She racked her brain trying to think of some woman with whom Stuart seemed often in company, but she could come up with no one. Her brain seemed numb.

Robin. Robin would be able to discover.

Her languor disappeared, her headache with it. On a burst of energy, Pippa jumped to her feet and went in search of her stepbrother.

Four

Luisa gazed down at her embroidery, realizing that she hadn't set a stitch for half an hour or more. At the same moment she realized that Dona Bernardina was still solemnly reading aloud an account of the life of Saint Catherine, in her halting English.

“Aye, how clumsy this language is!” Bernardina exclaimed. “How do you pronounce this word,
hija
?”

Luisa blinked to rid her mind's eye of a strong face, a well-shaped curving mouth, a pair of startling blue eyes, and a thatch of unruly curls. She leaned over to look at the page where Bernardina's finger jabbed at the letters.

“Wheel,” she said.

Bernardina grimaced, then firmly closed the book. She considered it her duty to master English and since Luisa spoke the language with some fluency had hoped to divert the girl by using her as a teacher. But Luisa was not to be diverted by the lives of the saints or anything else, it seemed, this evening.

“Are you fatigued,
querida
?”

“No,” Luisa replied with a quick smile. Bernardina was always so watchful, so overly protective.

“You would not be so if you would take a siesta.” Bernardina ignored Luisa's answer since it didn't fit with her own diagnosis. “A siesta at midday, out of the heat of the sun, is necessary if one is not to be fatigued in the evening.”

Luisa cast aside her embroidery and rose to her feet. “Bernardina . . . dear Bernardina . . . what possible difference does it make if I am fatigued in the evening. There is nothing to do in the evening!” She flung her arms wide as if to indicate the great vacuum in which she lived.

There was the sound of the massive front door opening, hurried feet in the hall, then the voice of her guardian and the steward of the household. Luisa stood still, listening. Would he come in? She couldn't remember when she'd last had the chance to speak with him. And she most definitely wished to speak with him now.

Lionel finished giving his orders to the steward and hurried to the stairs, intent on changing his dress for something more suitable for a ceremonial evening at Whitehall. There was to be an elaborate musical entertainment. Lionel was not interested in the entertainment itself but Simon Renard and Ruy Gomez would be in attendance, not to mention Philip himself. They would be expecting to conduct business as usual tonight and he had to explain that after his conversation with Stuart Nielson there had been a change of plan.

He set one foot on the stair, then hesitated, glancing towards the closed oak door to the parlor. He was guiltily aware that it had been several days since he'd inquired after his ward's health and welfare. He could spare five minutes now.

Luisa turned to the parlor door as it opened, a tinge of color now in her cheeks, her dark eyes bright as she prepared to do battle with Don Ashton.

Lionel smiled at the two women. “I give you good even, Dona Bernardina, Luisa. All is well, I trust. Have you passed a pleasant day?”

“A day of the utmost tedium,” Luisa declared firmly. “A day just like every other.”

“Oh, now,
querida,
” Bernardina protested. “How can you say such things. Don Ashton doesn't wish to hear such a complaining.”

“But he must hear it,” Luisa insisted. “Don Ashton, when will you take me to court?”

Lionel was somewhat taken aback. Luisa in general preserved the demeanor of a well-schooled Spanish maiden in his company. She had murmured once or twice about going to court but had seemed to accept with docility his explanation that he was too busy to arrange anything. He had had a niggling awareness that she had been promised more out of this journey than to be left isolated, however luxuriously, in a mansion on the river. But he had so much to concern him at present that finding companionship and entertainment for his ward was a very low priority.

In the face of this determined insistence he was at something of a loss. “I have to find a sponsor for you, some lady of the court who will take you under her wing,” he attempted in excuse. “There is so much you do not know about the ways of the English court. You would not wish to make mistakes and look foolish, I am sure.”

Luisa did not reply with the expected agreement. She tilted her chin in challenging fashion, saying, “There are Spanish ladies at the English court. The Duchess of Alva is there now. She would be honored to sponsor me? I am a Mendoza, Don Ashton.”

She was indeed, Lionel thought, half amused, half annoyed by this confrontation. He knew Luisa had a mind of her own, she had refused the marriage arranged for her after all, but he had not expected her to cause him any trouble during this sojourn on English soil. He'd known her since she was a child, but she had always been chaperoned, silent in the company of her elders, decorous and docile.

It seemed he had not
really
known her at all, Lionel reflected, regarding her set face and the haughty angle of her chin.

He caught that tilted chin on his forefinger, and looked down into her upturned face. He offered her a smile that was both rueful and cajoling. “
Hija,
be patient. As soon as I have time away from Philip's concerns I will do something for you. Until then, can you not enjoy the landscape . . . so different from Seville. And the river . . .”

He gestured towards the windows, open to the soft evening air, and the lawn that swept down to the Thames, aware as he did so that such assets were no substitute for the music, dancing, feasting in the company of other young people that Luisa was entitled to enjoy.

Luisa had half expected this and had a second string to her bow. “If I may not go to court, then may I have a boat to go on the river?” she asked. “How can I enjoy the river and the countryside from within the house and garden? If I have a boat for the river and a horse to ride in the parks and forests, then I will be able to enjoy these things.”

“Oh, but Luisa, child, I cannot bear to be on the water, and I cannot ride, you know I cannot,” bewailed Bernardina, who, as duenna, would be obliged to accompany her charge on her expeditions.

“You need not come,” Luisa declared. “I will have a boatman and a groom. And besides,” she added, “you are always saying that I need to be more in the air.”

She fixed her challenging gaze once more upon her guardian. “English ladies do not have duennas, they have boatmen and grooms. I know this for a fact. I would have the same.”

“And just how do you know this?” Lionel inquired, now definitely more amused than annoyed.

“I listen to the servants,” she told him. “I ask them questions. I wish to find out about this country and its customs.”

“Ay!” Bernardina flung up her hands. “You should not be talking with servants, English servants, no less! I said to your mother that we should have a Spanish household.”

“There was no room on the ships for them,” Luisa pointed out. “And if English servants are good enough for the English then why should they not be good enough for us?”

Lionel stroked his chin in thought. To permit such freedom would be against the wishes of Luisa's mother, he knew well. But Dona Maria, grief-stricken at the death of her husband and overwhelmed by her daughter's refusal to marry her elderly suitor, had jumped at his charitable offer to take Luisa to England with him. She would not question his authority to make what decisions he chose about the girl's welfare.

And what harm could there be in a little of the freedom extended to an English girl of Luisa's background? On their return to Spain the girl would marry some Spanish grandee and settle into the conventional life of an aristocratic lady, dutifully presenting her husband with a child at regular intervals. But there was no reason why a little unusual license should damage her reputation, no reason indeed that it should ever be known in her homeland. Besides, he found he approved of her interest in the country in which she found herself. It showed a lively mind.

“I will make the necessary arrangements,” he said. “Now, if you will excuse me, I must change my dress for I must return to Whitehall.” He bowed to the duenna, lightly chucked Luisa's chin, and left them, his mind already turning to the evening ahead, domestic concerns forgotten before he had set foot on the stair.

Luisa resumed her seat, and with an air of satisfaction picked up her embroidery again and set a stitch. It wasn't the court, but it was something. With a horse and a boat she would be free to explore. The boatman and the groom could be managed. She had never had the least difficulty persuading servants to keep her counsel and do her bidding.

And maybe, she thought, just maybe, if she took a boat up the river to Whitehall, or rode along the lanes and through the parks around the palace she might run into Robin of Beaucaire again.

A little smile curved her mouth as she leaned sideways to move the lamp closer to her work.

“You think Stuart has a mistress?” Robin demanded, shaking his head at the thought. “You must be mistaken, Pippa. It would be known. I would have heard a whisper, no one can keep these matters secret.”

“I can think of no other explanation,” Pippa said, glancing around to make sure they were not overheard. The long gallery where they walked was empty of courtiers, however. A herald in the Duke of Norfolk's livery carrying a message from his master hastened past on his way to the water steps. He didn't give them a second glance.

She leaned against one of the tall pillars, her fingers restlessly plaiting the ribbons of her sleeves. “Perhaps it is not a woman of the court. Perhaps 'tis someone he met somewhere else, someone he keeps separate in some love nest.”

“Pippa, you have no evidence for such a suspicion,” Robin pointed out.

“I told you, he wants nothing to do with me,” Pippa said in a fierce undertone. “I tried to kiss him and he drew back. He has no interest in our bed . . . or at least . . .” She stopped, finding that while she could talk of most things with her stepbrother, revealing the humiliation of Stuart's preferred sexual congress was too intimate.

Robin shuffled his feet awkwardly. He coughed behind his hand and if he could have done so he would have brought this uncomfortable discussion to a swift conclusion. But Pippa was so clearly distressed,
angry
and distressed, he amended, and had no one else to turn to with Pen away. She needed him to act her confidant and offer what support and help he could.

“Did you see much of him while I was in the Tower?” Pippa asked, knotting a rose silk ribbon with one hand. “What was he doing while I was in prison?”

“Very much the same as the rest of us, watching his step and taking a care for his head,” Robin informed her. “No one was safe then. The queen saw treachery at every turn, and with good reason.”

“So he was in no particular woman's company?”

“Not to my knowledge.”

“Did he seem worried about me?” She dropped the ribbon and looked up at him, tilting her head back against the pillar.

“As worried as we all were. Your mother, my father, me . . . yes, of course he was worried. He came often to the house at Holborn to talk with my father and Lady Guinevere about what could be done to gain your release.”

“I wonder if he was angry with me for making such a choice so soon after we were married,” Pippa mused, frowning. “He didn't seem to be, but maybe he was. Maybe he decided to take a mistress because of that.”

“I think you're making too much of this, Pippa.” Robin spoke briskly. “Stuart is not a complicated person at all. And he certainly wouldn't be revenged upon you just because you were loyal to Elizabeth. He's too good-natured for that. Too sure of himself, of his popularity, his skills, his courtly talents. Of course he wouldn't do something so petty.”

Pippa was silent for a minute. What Robin said was true, fitted with what she knew of her husband, or, at least, with what she had thought she knew of him. He was not petty.

“I think he must be in love,” she said finally, her voice rather small. “A wild passion that he cannot help but indulge.”

“Oh, now you're talking romantic nonsense,” Robin declared. “And that's not in the least like you, Pippa.”

“Well, there has to be some explanation,” she snapped. “He's changed. Why does he lick Spanish hands like a lapdog?”

“I don't see how a passionate love affair could explain that!” Robin responded as acerbically as Pippa.

“Unless it's all he can think about and he doesn't care what he does.”

Robin held steepled fingers to his mouth. It was true that Stuart was behaving in some puzzling ways. “I don't think it's got anything to do with a mistress,” he said. “But if you like I'll do some digging, see what I can come up with. But I think the simplest thing is just to ask him.”

“Ask him what?” Pippa cried. “You can't ask him why he doesn't seem to want to be with me anymore. I've already asked him myself, and if he won't tell me he's not going to tell you.”

“No, perhaps not. Anyway I wouldn't interfere in such a matter. It's between you and Stuart. But I can ask him what's going on with the Spanish.”

“And you could make a few discreet inquiries about the other matter,” she said.

“Yes, I will do that.” He looked at her anxiously. Pippa had always been so vibrant and mercurial, now she seemed weighed down with the burdens of Atlas. He remembered how gravely her mother and then her elder sister had responded in their own difficulties when the world with its injustices and threats had pressed close upon them. But they had always seemed somehow deeper, more complex characters than Pippa. They had always embraced the serious side of life.