Never Kiss A Stranger (33 page)

Then everyone in the chamber was sinking suddenly into low bows. Piers felt Ira jerk on his sleeve, and then he realized Edward had come upon the rear of the dais. Piers too paid his homage, and did not rise until the rest of the chamber had, at a loss for the mannerisms of court.

The king was a tall man, pale, with a pointed face. His clothes fit his long, slender limbs closely, and when he sat in his ornate, marble throne, he leaned on an elbow and stretched one leg out before him, as if it was stiff.

A richly-dressed man with a rolled scroll stepped to the front of the dais. “Before the court of our sovereign lord, His Majesty King Edward, this day: Lady Judith Angwedd Mallory of Gillwick Manor and her son, Lord Bevan Mallory of Gillwick Manor. Regarding the estate and inheritance of the late Lord Warin Mallory of Gillwick Manor. Denied by Piers Mallory, a commoner unknown to the realm.” The man looked up from his scroll and eyed the sea of people. “Persons step forward.”

As Piers made his way to stand before the dais, perhaps only six feet separating him from Judith Angwedd, he noticed the man sitting just behind Edward at a little table, scribbling with a quill.

The court’s agent spoke again. “Let it be known that the matter with which you present the king this day will be irrevocably decided, and that your witness is your solemn vow. Perjurers will be held up to the law.” The man stepped back to the king’s side.

Edward raised his chin from his hand long enough to flick a long finger at Judith Angwedd. “You.”

The redhead stepped forward and curtsied so low Piers thought her forehead would bounce off the floor. She rose.

“Your Majesty, my husband, God rest his soul, was a good man. He naturally wanted our son, Bevan, to succeed him. This … commoner,” Judith Angwedd spat in Piers’s direction, “is a bastard from the village whore. He stole the Gillwick crest from my husband’s hand before his body was cold. His claim is a false one, and I would humbly ask that he be punished for not only his theft, but the humiliation his accusations have wrought.”

Edward’s eyebrows rose. “Is that all?”

Judith Angwedd bowed deeply once again. “There is simplicity in the truth, your majesty.”

Then the king’s eyes turned to Piers. “This crest, you have it with you?”

Piers nodded. “Yes, Sire.” Then without hesitation, he pulled the ring from his finger and began to approach the dais.

From either side of him, armed guards previously unnoticed rushed to block Piers’s advance. The court’s agent stepped from the platform with a disapproving frown and held out his hand. Piers heard Bevan’s snort as he placed the signet ring in the man’s palm. When Piers stepped back, the guards retreated.

Piers watched as the king held the ring between long forefinger and thumb and turned it this way and that, inspecting it. Then Edward looked to Piers once more.

“You claim that you are also Warin Mallory’s son?”

“Yes, Sire,” Piers said, and gave a hesitant half-bow, only because he knew not what else to do. “But let it be known to all who gather here that my mother was no whore. She was common, yes—the daughter of a simple dairy man who served Gillwick.” Piers glanced around and saw Ira’s shoulders square. “My grandfather, there.”

Edward said nothing for several moments, only looked between Piers and Bevan. Then he addressed Piers once again. “Who is the elder?”

“Bevan is, Sire,” Piers offered. “By not quite one year.”

Edward’s eyebrows rose again, this time in genuine surprise. “Then your claim is dismissed, man. By the very nature of primogeniture, the eldest son shall inherit his father’s estate. It would be highly unusual in any matter for a man to bequeath his home to an illegitimate heir when he clearly has another son to which his estate
is legally entitled, even should the illegitimate son be the elder. Which you, by your own admission, are not.”

Judith Angwedd squealed and clapped her hands. “Thank you, your majesty! Your wise and—”

“Silence,” Edward threw at her. He looked to Piers. “Why would you bring such a frivolous claim to my court, knowing that you could not win?”

Piers swallowed. “My father bade me, Sire. On his deathbed. Bevan was born before me, yes. But not of my father’s loins.” Behind him, the court gasped. “Bevan Mallory is not my father’s son at all.”

Edward sat up in his chair and threw an annoyed look to his agent.

“Silence in the hall!” the man demanded.

“How do you know this?” Edward asked, his head tilted, an intrigued look on his face.

“He is a liar and a thief, your majesty!” Judith Angwedd screeched. “He threatened Bevan’s life before all who are gathered here!” She spread her arms wide and indicated the crowded chamber. “Only ask any of them!”

“I do not lie, Sire,” Piers said, his teeth aching in response to his clenched jaw. “That woman and her son attacked me just after my father died. They were looking for the ring you hold in your hand, suspecting that my father had warned me of their duplicity and knowing that its value had increased to far more than the weight of its gold. I survived their attempt on my life only in thanks to the charity of the monks at Alcester Abbey. One of them fished my body out of the River Arrow.”

“Is that how you came to bear the scars on your face and the wound upon your left hand?” Edward asked, a thoughtful expression still on his face, although his chin was propped once more.

“On my face, yes,” Piers answered.

“Not your hand though?”

“No, Sire.” Piers hesitated only an instant. “I was bitten.”

“Lady Mallory set hounds to your trail?” Edward guessed.

“No.” Piers lifted his chin. “‘Twas a monkey, sire.”

Behind him, the crowd of nobles twittered.

Edward frowned crossly. “Go on.”

“I shall say again, I do not lie. Judith Angwedd herself approached me only last eventide, while I was consulting with your man, Julian Griffin. She and Bevan had gone so far as to have kidnapped my … my traveling companion, and were holding her with my retraction of my bid for Gillwick Manor as ransom for her life.”

“That’s a lie!” Judith Angwedd nearly screamed.

“I beg you, ask your man, Sire—I would thank him myself for his generosity.” Piers reached into his tunic and withdrew the key to his borrowed quarters. Knowing better now than to approach the dais, he held it toward the court’s agent, who stepped forward and took the key. “Lord Griffin lent me his rooms last night, and he saw the proof of my companion’s captivity—a string of beads crafted with my own hands—which Judith Angwedd presented to me.” Piers now held up Alys’s bracelet with thumb and forefinger.

“Filthy liar!” Judith Angwedd’s face looked ready to explode.

“Additional outbursts of that nature, Lady Mallory, shall win you dismissal from my court,” Edward said curtly.

Judith Angwedd bowed, shallow and stiff. “Forgive me, your majesty.”

Edward turned back to Piers. “Lord Griffin is otherwise detained this morn, else I am certain he would readily support or deny your claim.” A shadow seemed to pass
over Edward’s face momentarily, but then he was back to the matter at hand. “This mysterious companion of yours—she is less valuable to you than a potential demesne, obviously. Where is she now? Shall I have the Mallory rooms searched for her?”

“My grandfather freed her in the night,” Piers said. “But no, Gillwick is not more valuable to me. There is naught more important to me than her safety. I was fully prepared only this morn to resign Gillwick to secure her release.”

“Hmm.” Edward sat up once more. “I must know—who
is
this companion you hold in such high esteem?”

Piers swallowed, and it felt to him as if the entire hall was holding its breath in anticipation of his answer.

“Alys Foxe, my liege.”

The audience behind him broke into roaring chatter and gasps. Before Piers, the king’s expression darkened.

“Alys Foxe?”
Edward asked slowly.
“Lady
Alys Foxe, of Fallstowe Castle?”

“Yes, my liege.”

“I have had enough!” Edward roared, ending the rumblings of the court. He looked to Piers, leveled a long finger at him, his ire unmistakable. “I wanted to believe your tale, and until this last admission, I was for you. But now you stand before me and claim that you have traveled from the north of the land with a woman belonging to a family that even I cannot reach, with your injuries sustained from a monkey attack, and claiming to be the sole heir of a dead man! With no proof outside of a ring that is likely only stolen, as is charged against you!”

“My father swore it, my liege,” Piers said. “The truth pained him greatly.”

“Your father swore it,” Edward repeated. “Your
dead
father, who cannot testify to your statement, swore it.”

Piers nodded. “Yes, Sire.”

Edward sighed. “Were it later in the day and my patience more run out, I would have you thrown in the dungeon straight away. Without any proof—”

“I have that proof, your majesty!” a woman’s voice called out from the rear of the chamber.

Everyone in the hall turned toward the gilded double doors which now stood open. A guard pursued the woman now walking down the center aisle, half running after her, holding his banging sword against his thigh. The woman wore a blue perse gown and a monkey rode jauntily on one shoulder, and she paid the bumbling guard no heed. Her hair was the color of sun-bleached straw, her stature delicate and regal, her stride efficient.

Piers felt his knees spasm, as if he would fall to the floor before her, worshipping her.

On the dais, the agent called out in a threatening voice, “Declare yourself and your purpose before your king, young woman!”

She stopped in the aisle, standing precisely juxtapose to Piers, Judith Angwedd and Bevan, and the king himself. She didn’t so much as glance at Piers before sinking into a low curtsey, Layla clinging to her shoulder. She rose, and her chin lifted.

“Your majesty, I am Lady Alys Foxe. And I am his
wife
.”

Alys ignored the uproar from the assembled nobility behind them and at last turned to Piers. God, he looked terrible, pale, haggard—his appearance reminded her of how he’d looked at the height of his illness, before they had traveled to Ira’s treetop village.

Nonetheless, he would be held accountable.

“Traveling companion?”
she said through her teeth.

“Alys,” Piers said in a choked whisper, and Alys liked the way his eyes seemed to be devouring her face. “I—I …”

“I am your
traveling companion,
Piers? Really?”

“Alys, I—”

Piers’s explanation—which Alys very much wanted to hear—was cut short by the king, whom Alys had very nearly forgotten was present.

“Lady Alys Foxe,” Edward said, in a tone that was neither pleased nor impressed.

Alys turned and bowed once again, taking that spare instant to compose her face. What she wanted to do was to throw herself upon Piers and kiss him, over and over.
Gillwick is not more valuable to me. There is naught more important to me …

“I heartily beg your pardon for my unannounced appearance in your court, your majesty,” Alys said, hoping that her tone conveyed the proper deference and humility of a loyal servant. “I mean you no disrespect.”

“I will have a private audience with you when this business concludes—ken you my meaning?”

Alys swallowed and nodded, and Edward, placated momentarily by her meek cooperation, continued. “Is what this man—Piers Mallory—says true? Were you abducted and held against your will by Lady Mallory?”

Alys curtsied again. “Yes, my liege. All of what he claims is true. We were en route to London when I was abducted from our camp by Judith Angwedd and her son. They carried me to London, and I was kept prisoner in their suite here, in your home.”

Judith Angwedd screeched with rage. “I’ve never laid eyes upon you in my life!”

“They held me locked in the wardrobe, Sire,” Alys continued, as if Judith Angwedd had never spoken. “You need only bid a servant check the lock—Piers’s grandfather had need to break it in order to free me. And there is a basket within where they caged my girl, here.” Alys jostled her shoulder to indicate Layla.

Edward’s eyes flicked to Piers’s hand. “The purveyor of the bite, I assume?”

Piers bowed.

“If what you say is true, the charges of kidnapping a peer of the realm are serious enough,” Edward mused. “But you also said you have proof of this man’s claim to Gillwick Manor?”

“I do, my liege,” Alys said, and then at last turned to face Judith Angwedd and Bevan boldly. “At least, I know why Bevan Mallory is not entitled to one blade of grass
belonging to Gillwick. He is not Warin Mallory’s son, as evidenced by a birthmark he bears upon his chest.”

“Shut up, you bitch,” Bevan growled at her.

“Such a mark can mean anything, nothing,” Edward said mildly. “It is ambiguous at best.”

“Not this mark, your majesty,” Alys offered. “It is quite unique, so I’ve been told, to the man who bears its twin, as well as a descriptive surname.”

“Shut up!
” Bevan insisted again.

Alys smiled at Bevan. “Bevan’s true sire is alive and well and in this very chamber. Judith Angwedd dined with him only last night.”

“Take care with your claims, littlest Foxe,” Edward warned sternly. “I will not have a peer maligned by gossip or hearsay.”

“As my presence must assure you, I am willing to stake my family name on what I know, my lord. Bevan Mallory’s true sire is Lord John Hart.”

Alys would have never dreamed that a man would be foolish enough to attack a woman before the very king, but Bevan charged at her in that moment, his face a swollen mask of hate and rage. His meaty fingers reached for her, and Alys screamed, several nobles shouted, the court agent called out—

And Layla lunged at Bevan, her hands circling in a blur, her teeth bared in a primal and very deadly scream. The monkey landed on his face, clawing, biting, and Bevan grabbed Layla, tried to push her off while he screamed and screamed.

“My face! My face!”

Alys rushed forward, feeling more than seeing Piers at her back. She beat Bevan’s hands away while Piers seized his arms, and then Alys was pulling at Layla, who clung to Bevan’s tunic. Alys at last succeeded in separating the
monkey from the man with the sound of rending fabric, and the left side of Bevan’s chest was laid bare to the sunlight filtering through the high windows of the chamber.