Secrets at Court (5 page)

Chapter Five

T
he next morning, regretting his impulse of the previous day, Nicholas joined the rest as they gathered outside the lodge, in preparation for the hunt.

He hoped that a page would appear, telling him Anne had changed her mind, leaving him free to ride off his restlessness.

Yet there she was, already on horseback, waiting for him at the edge of the chaos surrounding the assembly. Dogs who would track the deer sniffed the air, wondering which scent they would follow. Dogs ready to chase the deer chased their tails instead, held back by their handlers until the quarry was sighted. In the suit of green he favoured for the hunt, the King conferred with his huntsman, considering their plan.

And Anne, seated atop a bay courser, looked out over the scene as if to memorise it.

If he asked her outright whether she could manage a day on horseback, would she back down? Without opening his mouth, he knew the answer. Still, he might give her the opportunity...

‘He uses the dogs,’ Nicholas said, glancing at the King while laying a comforting palm on the neck of Anne’s horse. Dogs meant a longer hunt. Gruelling and gruesome. He looked up at Anne, hoping for a reprieve.

She nodded. ‘They’ve located a hart of ten.’ A stag with ten points on his antlers. ‘He’ll be a worthy opponent.’

No wonder the King was smiling.

‘It will be a long day, then.’ They would be hunting
par force,
as the King preferred, chasing the beast into exhaustion. The work had begun the day before for the huntsman and continued with a discussion over a morning meal that Nicholas had decided to miss.

Now, they had to set the dogs along the path and have the scent hound find the beast again. When they did, the hounds would give chase. Finally, it might be hours later, when the beast was at bay, the King would get the honour of making the kill and unmaking the animal, cutting it carefully to pieces and giving the dogs their taste as a reward. All this could keep them on horseback until near dark.

‘So my lady hopes.’ She nodded toward the Prince and his intended, mounted and waiting side by side. Lady Joan raised a hand and waved to Anne. ‘Without war, the men grow restless.’ She looked down at him. ‘Don’t you?’

She said it as if she knew how eager he was to join the chase.

‘Yes.’ The word sounded churlish.

‘Then it is good that we hunt today.’ She spoke with a smile and without any indication that she was ready to get off her horse.

He sighed and mounted the hunting horse he had borrowed from the King’s stable. The day might be longer than even he expected.

King Edward gave the signal and they moved out, slowly at first, as the huntsman and the handlers went ahead to confirm the scent and put the chasers in position.

The New Forest was the King’s private deer park. Here, the animals could roam and breed unhindered by any but royalty. Dappled sunlight came and went through the lush green canopy of leaves, ruffled by a breeze perfect for bringing the scent of the deer to the eager dogs.

He glanced at the woman beside him. Slow on her feet, she was less awkward on the horse. The beast’s four legs carried her where her three could not. It was not so much the hunt she enjoyed, he decided. It was the freedom to run where her poor body could not take her.

‘If we do not keep up,’ he began, ‘will you mind missing the kill?’

‘I like being on the horse and in the fresh air. I do not like seeing...’ she faced him and there was truth in her eyes ‘...harm come to weaker creatures.’

Weaker creatures. As she was. A woman, even a man with her lameness might be savaged for such a flaw. He had seen it. Blind men armed with sticks told there was a pig for them to feast on if they could kill it. But there was no pig. There was only another man, as blind as the first, so the two ended up beating each other for the amusement of the sighted.

Suddenly, he was angry on her behalf for all the ignorant people who had, or would ever, hurt her. A strange and unwelcome thought.

He had lived as he wanted for so long, detached, thinking only of how to keep men and horses moving or how to get a pope to bless Prince Edward’s match. Suddenly, he had heard the woman beside him, recognised her pain, and cared. An unfamiliar and uncomfortable feeling.

Feeling led to disappointment. To mourning a mother who was gone and a new mother who did not care.

And this woman needed no sympathy from him. She was well taken care of now and, once her lady married the Prince, she’d have a life most would envy. Few cripples, even a dwarf who served as a jester, could hope for as much.

He glanced to his side to see how she fared on the horse. Pain and joy mixed uneasily on her face. Tight lips a testament to her struggle not to fall off the courser’s back, yet eyes that looked out on the day so eagerly that a smile broke the lock that pain held on her mouth.

Well for the moment, yet she could not ride the day long this way and it would be impossible for her to keep up once the chase began.

A horn sounded. The deer had been found. The men hurried their horses ahead, hooves trampling the grass, leaving the women to come as they pleased, arriving, perhaps, to celebrate the successful kill.

Nicholas’s horse started to trot, as eager as his rider to join the chase. He pulled the reins, holding back the animal, and himself. He could not race off and leave her here, struggling to keep her seat.

Where was Lady Joan? When she dropped back, he could leave Anne with her. But as the Prince dashed ahead, Joan urged her horse to follow.

He looked over at Anne. ‘She rides with him?’

She nodded. ‘They do not leave each other’s sight unless they must.’

The King’s daughter Isabella and a few of her ladies trotted ahead, far enough behind the men that they would not have to breathe their dust and far enough ahead of him that he knew Anne could not keep up.

He was trapped.

He had a fleeting hope that he could take her to the lodge and then race back, fast enough to catch the rest in time for the kill.

One glance at the slump of her shoulders ended that thought.

He had spent years and miles on a horse. His thighs were practised at gripping his mount, his feet at steering the horse with a touch.

But her right foot could not stay in the stirrup. Every shift by her mount threatened to land her in the dirt. Riding for hours would be a constant struggle. Chasing the stag impossible.

And yet, she had tried.

The rest of the riders disappeared, the sound of pounding hooves fading until all he could hear was the rustle of leaves.

He sighed. ‘Come.’ He nodded at a fallen tree. ‘Let’s rest.’

‘There is no need.’ Her stubborn words shook.

He ignored them.

He dismounted and came to help her. She had already been in the saddle when he saw her this morning and he had never thought to wonder how she’d managed it. Could she mount and dismount alone?

He reached for her and she swung her lame, right leg over the saddle and slid down into his arms.

Close. Too close. Her breasts pressed his chest, her breath brushed his cheek, and he caught a scent like the orange fruit from Spain he had tasted, at once sweet and tart.

Her cheek coloured and she seemed to hold her breath.

So did he.

And finally, he did what he had wanted to do ever since she had first bumped against him in the Hall.

He tilted her chin, lifted her lips to his and kissed her.

His first thought—could he even call it that?—was that her lips were softer and warmer than he had expected. His second was that they moved hungrily over his, saying things no other part of her body dared.

And he knew, without knowing how, that no one had ever kissed her before.

Their lips parted slowly. Reluctantly. He let her go and she turned away, reaching for the stick tied to her saddle.

And he waited for a shy maidenly protest. Or a sly, womanly smile, promising hidden delights.

Neither came.

No word. No blush. No smile. No protest. She leaned on her stick and took a step toward the fallen tree as if nothing had happened. As if the kiss were nothing. As if he were nothing.

He gritted his teeth, fighting the unfamiliar feeling roiling his blood. Not rage. Not even lust, though that had stirred, naturally.

No. It was something much less familiar. Possession. Protection. A mad desire to grab her and claim her and call her his.

And she seemed to notice nothing at all.

* * *

Anne turned her back on him, afraid to meet his eyes, and took another step.

A blur, all of it. It should not, could not, have happened. Yet she had kissed him. And wanted, oh, so much more.

Why had she come at all? Distract him, her lady had said, not lead him into temptation, though she would not have put it past Lady Joan to ask. But she did not because they both knew it was as impossible as asking Anne to run.

I am not a woman to capture a man’s attentions.

And yet, he had kissed her. Deliberately.

And she turned away because if she had not, she might have kissed him again and never stopped.

But his lips, ah, lips not full, but precisely sculpted, seemed to bring her very skin to life. All the strength she had amassed to fight the pain was useless against the pleasure that bloomed from the very whisper of his lips.

Now she must act as if nothing had happened, so she could pretend it had not.

She sank down on to the fallen tree with a sigh of relief.

‘You must be tired,’ he said, his words quick and meaningless.

And she, who never admitted weakness, nodded, with a weak smile.

‘Anne. Look at me.’

She wanted to pretend it had not happened. He would not.

So she lifted her chin and met his eyes, daring him to acknowledge it. ‘I forgive you.’ Dismissive words. As if she had been affronted, instead of moved.

‘I did not ask to be forgiven.’

Only his gaze touched her now, but that was enough. The heat in his eyes reignited the desire she would not, must not feel.

‘What do you want, then?’ Unable to hold her voice steady. ‘To take me out of pity?’

‘Pity?’ Was that anger in his voice? ‘Is that what you think?’

What she thought was to push him so far away that he could not recognise her weakness. ‘What I think,’ she began, ‘is that you thought to steal a kiss, or more, from a vulnerable maiden.’

That would explain it. She should have realised there could be no other reason. He must have thought her easy prey for his lust.

‘You are wrong.’

She wanted to be. Oh, she wanted to be.

‘Why else would you have lured me here? You knew I could not keep up with the chase. You knew we would fall behind and be alone.’ All things she had known before she even mounted.

‘Have you met so much unkindness in your life?’

Startled at first. Then, ashamed. She shook her head. ‘No. My lady has been all that is kind when I cannot do...what others can.’

‘I cannot dance well enough to take the floor before the King. It makes me no lesser man.’

Her eyes widened at his words. Could any man, any person, look at her and not see her as a lesser being?

Yet she saw in his eyes things she had never seen in another man’s. Desire, yes, that was remarkable enough. Coupled with anger and a touch of...admiration. Not the pity or disgust she so frequently encountered.

More often though, once they knew who and what she was, they tried not to see her at all. They simply let their eyes slide over her without stopping, as if she were a stone or a tree. Lonely sometimes, yes. But being invisible could be a benefit, as well.

‘I am sorry,’ she began, ‘to attack you when you were only being...kind.’ What other word to use?

Something in his gaze shifted. A decision reached. ‘Your first notion was the right one. It did not happen. Now, we will sit and speak of unimportant things until you are rested enough to return.’

She did not want to speak with him at all, but she must do as her lady asked and stay close to him, even at the risk of—

No. She straightened her back. There was no risk. She had lived her whole life without a man. That would not change because a passing warrior stole a kiss.

* * *

Nicholas settled himself at the other end of the log and sat in silence, relieved when she did not speak, as he struggled to put ground and sky back in their accustomed places.

Fool that he was, he had kissed her. And when he did, the world turned upside down, exposing the weakness he thought safely buried. The same weakness that had blinded his father to the truth about the woman he married.

Yet she thought he wanted only to dally with her and then cast her aside. He should have let her think so. Would that he were so unmoved.

This woman had a way of flinging him from kindness to anger to desire and back before he could understand what had happened. But, it was clear, she wanted an entanglement no more than he did.

Why?

At the other end of the log, she sat, back straight, studying the shaded shelter as if she might be forced to describe it later. Deprived of her accustomed needle, she tapped her restless fingers together without looking at them. He wondered whether she even knew she did so.

What was she thinking now?

He was a man of action, yet he had learned that understanding another man’s reasons and impulses was the key to gaining his co-operation. The man who sold wine strictly for money could be persuaded to sell for the right price. The man who was more concerned about his castle’s protection might be persuaded to trade in exchange for his loyalty.

He had learned to read such men.

But women? Well, they were not such a mystery. At least, the few he had known were not.

‘You have not been around many women.’

Could the woman see his thoughts? ‘A fighting man has little time for women.’ And that was the way he liked it. Deceivers, all. Willing to say, or do, anything to bejape a man into marriage. Except, it seemed, for this one.

‘And I not around many men.’

As close to an apology as this woman would ever come, he guessed.