Love Everlasting (9 page)

“You expect me to keep Marie for two or three
months?” Julianna cried. “Please, Royce; I want her gone today,
with the rest of my former retainers.”

“Why are you so insistent?” Royce asked,
keeping his voice low. “Is she rude or incompetent?” He already
knew Marie was quick to anger. If Julianna offered him a serious
reason, something beyond personal whim for dismissing the woman,
he’d have to send her away.

“It’s just that -” Julianna stopped,
swallowed hard and continued in a calmer tone. “Lord Deane made her
my personal servant on the day we were married. Her presence
reminds me of those unhappy years. Why won’t you accept my wishes
in this matter? She is my servant, after all.”

“You are wrong, my dear.” Royce lowered his
voice still more, to a quiet level that any of King Henry’s secret
agents and many of King Louis’s spies, too, could have told her was
dangerous in the extreme. “Since yesterday, Marie is my servant. I
will decide where she goes and whom she serves. Your wish to be rid
of her just as we are setting out on a long journey is
unacceptable. Marie stays.”

Julianna did not respond; she just lifted her
stubborn chin and turned her back on him.

“Thank you, my lord.” Marie flashed him a
look of triumph, then stepped forward to open the chest containing
Julianna’s clothing.

“Marie,” Royce said. He had to wait just a
moment too long until she turned and looked at him again. “You will
treat Lady Julianna with great respect at all times, and you will
do her bidding without question. If you do not, I will have you
beaten.”

“Yes, my lord.” Marie’s thin lips twitched
into a smile that belied her meek tone.

“Gone to see the king, has he? Thinks he can
tell me how to treat my own mistress, does he?” Marie muttered,
pulling the comb through Julianna’s hair with a roughness that
showed how irritated she was. “I’d like to tell him the truth, that
I am more important than his wife. I am a better agent, who gathers
far more information than any fine lady ever could,” she finished
with another hard tug on Julianna’s hair.

“Be quiet, Marie,” Julianna said wearily,
knowing her words would make no difference to the maid. Marie would
say whatever she pleased. She always did.

“Sir Kenric will be interested in what you
were able to learn last night,” Marie told her.

“I learned nothing,” Julianna said. Nothing,
except that a man’s touch could be more thrilling than she had ever
imagined. And the man himself a deceiver. Royce hadn’t even seen
fit to take her part against a servant. He had made it plain he
thought she was unreasonable to want to dismiss Marie.

Did that mean he knew who, and what, Marie
was? Could Royce be trying to entrap his own wife? Of course he
could. Julianna’s low moan and the tears that rose to her eyes had
nothing to do with the way Marie was tugging at her hair.

“Good day to you, dear aunt,” said Kenric
from the doorway. “I trust you enjoyed your wedding night. Royce is
said to be a formidable lover. But then, he’d seem so to you,
wouldn’t he, after your previous husbands?”

“How dare you enter my bedchamber without
permission?” In defiance of Marie’s continued pulling at her hair,
Julianna shot up from the stool where she’d been sitting. “Kenric,
I will not allow you to speak so rudely to me.”

“Oh, how you have changed now that you are
the wife of Royce of Wortham. Have you noticed, Marie? Overnight,
my dear Aunt Julianna has become more queenly than the queen.”

“Leave me, both of you!” Julianna
ordered.

“I haven’t finished with your hair,” Marie
protested, tugging hard on a strand.

“I’ll see to it myself.” Julianna struck the
woman’s hand away. “Get out!”

“Oh, dear, dear, dear.” Kenric turned his
nastiest smile on her. “So arrogant. So rude. Can this be the same
Aunt Julianna who used to treat me with affection when I was only a
squire?”

“I am not your aunt. If ever I was fond of
you, it was because I did not yet understand your true character.
Leave me alone, Kenric. I’ll do no more spying for you.”

“Ah, but you will,” Kenric said. “If you
refuse, I’ll see that Royce learns what you have been doing over
the last dozen years and more.”

“I told you on the day when Deane died; I
have finished with that. I only gathered information because he
ordered me to do it, and because a wife must always obey her
husband.”

“Yes, yes,” Kenric said impatiently. “Now,
aunt, I need to know if Royce is collecting information on Lord
Dunstan de Granville.”

“I don’t know the man,” Julianna said,
wishing her voice were steadier.

“Ah, but Royce does know him. How I long to
learn what information, if any, Royce has uncovered about Lord
Dunstan.”

“I won’t help you,” Julianna said.

“You will.” Kenric’s voice deepened with
menace. “Or I will talk to Royce.”

“I think Royce already suspects me,” Julianna
said, hoping to discourage him. “I know he dislikes you. He warned
me against you.”

“I am sorry to hear that, dear aunt. You
don’t want to become useless to me, you know. Useless spies don’t
survive for very long. Ah, well, if you cannot meet me without
arousing your husband’s suspicions still further, then Marie will
be happy to carry the information to me. Won’t you, my sweet?”
Kenric laid an arm around Marie’s skinny shoulders and drew her
close. The maidservant flushed pink at his attention.

“He’s using you, Marie,” Julianna cried.
“Just as he’s using me. Just as Lord Deane used me - and you. Why
can’t you see it?”

“Marie knows how much I love her,” Kenric
said, and planted a kiss on the maid’s cheek.

“You are disgusting,” Julianna declared. “A
despicable seducer of servants. A liar, a thief, a traitor.”

“Now, there you go too far,” Kenric said,
frowning at her. “I am loyal to my king. He just doesn’t happen to
be your king.”

“If you have sworn loyalty to King Louis of
France, then you forswore your original oath of fealty to King
Henry,” Julianna said. “And that is treason, Kenric.”

“Women.” Kenric sighed mightily. “Always
quibbling about details. Listen to me, Aunt Julianna. You will do
as I say. You will find out if Royce has learned anything damaging
about Dunstan de Granville. Then you will convey the information
directly to me - or send Marie to me with it. I will expect a
message from you soon.” He drew Marie toward the door.

“Come with me, Marie, my dear one,” Kenric
whispered, loudly enough for Julianna to hear. “Your mistress
doesn’t appreciate you as you deserve. Ah, but I do.” Kenric
flashed a malicious glance at Julianna before he laid a hand on
Marie’s breast and kissed her cheek again.

Julianna remained standing until the door
closed behind the two. Then she sank onto the stool, buried her
face in her hands, and at last gave way to the tears she’d been
holding back for days.

“Royce,” she gasped, wiping her streaming
eyes, “I cannot betray you. But I must. They leave me no choice.
How you are going to hate me. Oh, Deane, why did you do this to
me?” She pounded a fist on her knee as words failed her in the
onslaught of a fresh burst of weeping.

She did not know how long she wept until no
tears were left. Finally, aware that she was expected to make an
appearance in the great hall for the middday meal, she rose and
washed her face with cold water. She was sure her eyes were red and
swollen, but that couldn’t be helped. If the courtiers wanted to
believe she’d been weeping about her wedding night and if they were
amused by the redness, then so be it.

Having composed herself, she quickly finished
combing out her hair. She gave up the idea of braiding it. Instead,
she twisted and pinned the honey-gold mass high at the back of her
head and covered it with a golden mesh net. When she was finished
she set the gold circlet of her rank atop the mesh. Simple gold
earrings and a necklace were all the jewelry she cared to wear. She
was in no mood for display or for a continued celebration of her
nuptials. She smoothed down the blue silk folds of the new gown
that was part of her hastily assembled wedding wardrobe and turned
to the door that opened onto the corridor.

With her hand outstretched to the latch, she
glanced at the other door, the open one that led to Royce’s office.
It was a private room, so it was possible that he had left in plain
sight documents containing information on Lord Dunstan de
Granville. If she could locate even one such document, she’d read
it and then pass the information on to Kenric with a stern command
that he was never to bother her again.

In her heart Julianna knew Kenric wasn’t
likely to leave her alone. He would continue to demand that she
work for him as she had worked for Deane. The demands would go on
until Kenric died. Or she did. Or until both of them, along with
Marie, all three of them together, were executed as traitors and
spies.

Dear Lord in Heaven, how had she come to such
a situation? She knew the answer to her own question. Her unloving
second husband had forced her into helping him. She understood now
that, rather than doing as Deane ordered, she ought to have gone to
King Henry at once and denounced him. If she had revealed Deane’s
most terrible secret to the king, Henry would have been grateful to
her for the information and he’d have known she had nothing to do
with Deane’s original traitorous act more than twenty years ago.
Henry would have protected her by making her a royal ward then and
there.

But in those long-ago days, when she was only
seventeen years old and still remarkably naive, she had believed
the rule she’d been taught over and over when she was a child, that
a wife’s first duty was to obey her husband in all things and,
above all, to keep her husband’s confidences. Now that Deane was
dead, and his secret with him, the path she might have taken was
closed to her.

If she denounced Kenric and Marie to the king
or to Royce after so many years had passed during which she’d known
what they were doing and had not spoken, she’d be caught in the
same net and punished along with them. Upon considering all of the
possibilities and the dangers, it seemed to her that her only hope
lay in appearing to continue to help Kenric while she sought a way
to free herself from him and his threats.

Warning herself not to cry again, Julianna
pushed aside the tapestry that hung over the open door and stepped
into Royce’s office. She saw at once that it was a corner room,
bright and cheerful thanks to windows on two sides, and it was
sparsely furnished. She noted the large table that served as a desk
and the big carved chair that sat behind the table. Shelves lined
one wall, filled with rolled parchments and a few bound books. More
rolled-up parchments were piled into several large baskets on the
floor next to the shelves. A single brazier heated the room.

At a small table near the eastern pair of
windows a man wearing a plain brown woolen tunic and matching hose
perched upon a stool, writing. The ink jar sat open before him and
the quill was in his right hand, though he appeared to be gazing
out the window.

“Excuse me,” Julianna blurted, startled to
see anyone else in the quiet room.

“My lady.” Looking equally startled, the man
jumped to his feet, nearly overturning the ink jar in his haste.
“Forgive me, I did not hear you at first. I am Sir Michael, Lord
Royce’s secretary. How may I help you?”

He was a little shorter than Julianna and
slightly built, with nondescript light brown hair and warm brown
eyes. Julianna noticed that two fingers were missing on his left
hand, and when he came toward her, he moved with a definite limp.
Something was wrong with his left leg.

Julianna put out her hand, discovering that
his thin right hand was inkstained. She didn’t mind that. His grip
was firm, she liked his smile, and she saw that he was as neat and
clean as everything and everyone else belonging to Royce.

“It’s I who must ask you to forgive me, for
disturbing your work,” she said, glad to find someone whose smile
she could honestly return. “I didn’t know anyone was here. I am -
er - I’m exploring my new living quarters. How nice for Lord Royce
to have two rooms. Most folk in this fortress are crowded into tiny
spaces.” She turned around slowly, making a show of surveying the
room and its orderly furnishings.

“This is because of all the work Lord Royce
does for King Henry,” Sir Michael said with a gesture to indicate
both rooms. “He requires space and privacy.”

“Yes, of course. Well, I won’t keep you from
your writing, Sir Michael.” She paused, struck by the realization
that her husband’s secretary was a knight, and wondering if he was
also one of Royce’s spies. That was a frightening possibility. “I’m
sure we’ll meet again,” she faltered, unable to think of anything
else to say.

“Good day to you, my lady.” Sir Michael bowed
with exquisite politeness and remarkable grace, considering his
crippled leg. “You may leave by the corridor door if you wish.”

“Thank you, but I’ll return the way I came. I
forgot something.” Julianna ducked back into the bedchamber, where
she slumped against the wall next to the doorway, breathing deeply
in an attempt to calm her thundering heart.

Sir Michael was certain to report her
intrusion to Royce. That could be explained away as simple female
curiosity, but how to explain the conversation the secretary must
have heard through the tapestry, with Kenric issuing orders and
calling her aunt?

It was then, when she was at her most
desperate, that the beginning of a plan came to her. Kenric had
learned from Lord Deane how to manipulate people to make them do
what he wanted. Julianna had always scorned such cold-blooded use
of others even as she observed how it was done. Perhaps she could
put that knowledge to use in her own defense, by turning Kenric’s
manipulations against him.