Seduced by Grace (16 page)

“I know.”

“I would change it if I could.”

“Nothing of it was your fault,” she answered with a firm shake of her head. “You would not be in England had I not sent for you. I would not have sent for you if Henry had not arranged my betrothal. We would not be here if Henry had not played us false. Henry would not have chosen his ruse if not for Perkin Warbeck. Warbeck would have no claim if the sons of Edward IV had not disappeared from the Tower. Where does the blame end?”

“Yes, but…”

Marguerite stopped, gripping his arm so he paused in midsentence. She half turned to stare back over her shoulder.

“What is it?” he demanded.

“I’m not sure. I thought I heard something.”

“The cat, most likely.”

“She’s here, beside me.”

“She?”

“If a male, he’s enormously fat,” she said with humor in her voice.

“You would notice.”

David’s comment was light as he probed the darkness along the walled enclosure behind them. He saw nothing to cause alarm, but did not doubt Marguerite’s instinct. The sound could have been anything, however, a bird, a servant throwing out scraps, a stray dog hoping to benefit from such largesse, or a man relieving himself after overindulgence in the good wine of their host.

After a moment, he walked on. Marguerite glanced back again, but fell into step beside him.

It was gratifying beyond words to be away from the constant noisy presence of their companions of the road. The air was fresh, the night wind pleasantly cool. Their footsteps made little sound in the sandy dirt. The grass they brushed in passing was wet with dew. The leaves of the oaks that bordered the road had a glassy glitter in the moonlight, and their shadows covered them like a dark gray blanket.

Deliberately, David moved deeper into the darkness until they were even with the trunk of the great oak. He stopped, then caught Marguerite around the waist and set her back to its rough bark.

“David,” she whispered.

“I’m sorry for the ploy, but I must…”

He kissed her because she drew him like a wasp to nectar. He kissed her because it had been an endless two days since he tasted her lips. He kissed her because Oliver had goaded him, because he was a fool without strength of will and because he wanted her with such blind anguish that he would die if he did not at least touch her. He kissed her because sliding his tongue into the moist heat of her mouth was all he could allow himself. He kissed her because he must.

And, God, it was sweet enchantment and everything he’d dreamed. But it was not enough, would never be enough.

He shivered as she spread her hands over his doublet, sliding them upward to clasp them behind his neck. Inhaling in tried control, he eased closer, pressing the heated ridge that tortured him against her while he
freed a hand to seek the swell of her breast. The tight, sweet knot of her nipple nudged his palm and he circled over it again and again in mindless fascination. And all the while he plumbed the depths of her mouth, twined around her tongue and showed her in silent mime what he longed to do if only he was allowed.

It was the cat that warned him.

It hissed and leaped in sudden fright, barreling into the calves of his legs. Swifter than thought, he tore away from Marguerite and whirled to shield her. In the same move, he drew his only weapon, his eating knife.

They rushed at him out of the dark, two men with swords glinting in their hands. With no time for finesse, David flipped his knife and threw it with hard and deadly purpose. Before the thud of it striking was heard, he ducked beneath the other man’s whistling slash that should have taken off his head. He slammed a booted foot into his knee in the same instant. As the assailant howled in pain, David caught his wrist in a crushing, two-handed grasp and twisted. An instant later, he stood over the body of one attacker, hand fisted on the hilt of the sword he had snatched from his lax fist, breathing hard while he watched the other hobble away into the night with one arm dangling. Watched, also, as another dark figure emerged from the nearby shadows and scurried after the injured attacker.

He could chase the men down and demand answers, but that would leave Marguerite unprotected. Well, and he thought he knew why he had almost been killed, expected them to try again.

Behind him, Marguerite sighed as if letting out a held breath. Moving with the slow steps of a waking night
mare, she came to him. She said nothing, but only slid her arms around him while tremors shook her like an ague. He closed his own around her, squeezing his eyes shut with such force his lashes pricked the skin around them as he tried not to think what might have happened to her if he had died in the assault.

Marguerite put her head against his chest and held him tight.

And he let her.

“M
urder! Murder!”

The cry went up as the body of the slain man was brought into the hall and laid upon the floor. Gasps, startled grunts and the buzz of conjecture rose to the coffered ceiling overhead. Men gathered around, staring down at the corpse that still had a knife buried to the hilt in the chest, David’s eating knife with its handle of ebony chased in gold.

Marguerite drew near the dead man with all the rest. She had returned to the hall with David, though he had left her in the care of the manse’s red-haired lady while he gathered men to bring the dead assailant inside. The onlookers parted now, and she saw for the first time the man’s lifeless features, gray and blank-eyed with surprise in the flickering lamplight.

She swayed as appalled recognition washed over her.

Halliwell.

The attacker who had tried to kill David was the man she had almost married. He had defied the curse by declaring his intent to force her to the altar. Now the curse had taken him.

The man’s son thought otherwise.

“My father has been most foully murdered,” he shouted, “and there stands the man who did it. All know his fancy knife!”

He was pointing at David where he stood on the far side of the body. David, who watched them all. His eyes were guarded yet alert and his fair hair gleamed like strands of gold in the flickering lamplight, though he made no effort at defense.

Cold terror skimmed down Marguerite’s back.

“No!” she cried, shoving forward. “Lord Halliwell and another man came at us out of the dark. David struck in defense against men armed with swords. But for his great strength and skill at knife throwing, it’s he who would lie dead here.”

Halliwell’s son turned on her. “You defame my father’s name. Never would he stoop to so base a deed.”

“His death says otherwise,” she answered with a lift of her chin.

“So you claim, a wanton unfit for the title of lady. What did you out in the darkness with this Golden Knight? Answer me that! What magic have you that makes men sniff after you like dogs?”

“Sir!”

“Halliwell!” David’s voice crackled with warning.

Halliwell’s son plunged on, unheeding. “My father was the same, obsessed beyond reason. You were promised then snatched away, and he meant to have his due, meant to have you at all costs. You must be Satan’s own, that you bewitched him so.”

Dismay gripped Marguerite at the accusation, clashing with the fury and humiliation inside her. It was a serious charge, the use of black magic to bewitch a man.
She could hear the murmurs of condemnation, sense the subtle drawing away of those around her. Among them was the Comtesse Celestine, her eyes avid in her pale face. She leaned to whisper in her husband’s ear, though the Comte de Neve winced away with an expression of fastidious distaste.

This danger had always hovered within the curse of the Graces, Marguerite knew, the possibility that she and her sisters would be accused in the deaths attributed to it. So many years had passed, however, near fifteen or more since Isabel first invoked its protection. Marguerite had come to think the worst could never befall.

She had been wrong.

Her gaze went to David. Rage burned like blue flames in his eyes as he shoved his way toward her. The prospect of his support gave her added courage.

“The fault was your lord father’s,” she said as she turned back to Halliwell’s son. “He was unreasoning in his claim upon me.”

Hot color flared in the man’s narrow face. “You declared before all that my father would die, and here he lies. You are a witch who caused him to be killed. For that, you should burn!”

Cries went up, shouts and yells edged with madness at the prospect of taking a witch. Hands reached out, clamping on Marguerite’s arms, clutching at her clothing. She was pinched, struck, pulled this way and that so she stumbled on the hem of her gown.

Suddenly Astrid was beside her. The small serving woman screeched and yelled as she shoved at those who would lay hands on her mistress, beating at them with her small fists.

“Hold!”

The shout came from David. It was followed by the rasp of steel as he snatched a knife from the belt of the nearest man. Behind him was Oliver, his own dagger in his hand.

The hubbub grew louder, ringing with curses and threats. Marguerite felt as if her arms were being pulled from their sockets. A man grasped her backside, pulling her against him, rubbing his hard body over her. Through those crowding around her, she could see Halliwell’s men-at-arms gathering at the back of the fallen peer’s son who was now Lord Halliwell in his turn.

“Silence! Cease and desist in the name of the king!”

That shouted order, in the ringing accents of Henry’s seneschal, stilled the room like a death wind. Men and women spun toward the sound. A soft exclamation rang out. The rustling of clothing and creaking of knee joints filled the quiet as the company jerked into a flurry of bows and curtsies at the rapid approach of their sovereign.

“Release Lady Marguerite,” Henry VII said with precision, his voice echoing through the hall.

“But, Your Majesty,” the new Lord Halliwell began in protest.

“The lady is our ward, therefore under our protection. Whatever her fate, we shall decide it.” Henry waited, his face implacable, until every hand was removed from Marguerite’s person and she stood alone. He turned toward David, then, and a path immediately cleared between the two.

“Well, sir. Have aught to say in your defense?”

“It was as Lady Marguerite told, Your Majesty.”

“An attack from out of the dark, the result of a quarrel over her betrothal.”

“Two men armed with swords came upon us by stealth as we took the air. I slew one and took his sword. The other ran away. A third man who watched followed after him.”

“Nay, sire!” Halliwell cried in agitation. “’Twas the woman. She drew my father there with her wicked ways to cause his death, she and her familiar.”

“Familiar?” Henry raised a skeptical brow.

“Her cat. ’Tis well-known Satan keeps company with witches in the guise of a feline. Black it was, and close by her side.”

A murmur ran around the room. Those nearest Marguerite made the sign of the cross. She almost did the same as horror skimmed like an icicle down her back. There had been a cat. Indeed, there had been…

“You were
there,
” she said in abrupt discovery as she turned on Halliwell. “You saw the cat in the dark and thought it black. You were the third man, else how would you know of it?”

“The cat was gray, and here she is!” Astrid cried in shrill triumph. She reached to pick up the feline that had followed them inside and was winding around her short legs. Grunting, she held the enormously pregnant mouser aloof.

Halliwell’s son blanched. “I swear,” he began.

“Leave us,” Henry said in deadly pronouncement.

“But, sire!”

“Take the body of your father and be gone. Return to the estates that are now yours, and remain until given leave to come to us again. We consider the loss of your
father and our favor as just punishment, but may change our mind if forced to hear more wild accusations. Go now, while you may.”

Halliwell paled and his lips trembled. He lacked the arrogant confidence of his father, for he said not another word. Bowing, gathering his men with a jerk of his head, he backed away. He did not stop until he was out the door and swallowed up by the dark.

The king swept a hard glance over those who surrounded Marguerite. They moved away, including the
comte
and
comtesse,
making way for David who paced forward to stand at her side in a most public gesture of protection. She felt the strength that radiated from him, felt, too, his relief at the passing of the crisis. She could not share the last, however, for she was far from certain this confrontation was at an end.

Nor was she wrong.

Henry faced David, an intent expression on his long face. The two men exchanged a considering stare while the low hum of comment died away and the great hall was still once more. Tension thrummed in the air, pulling tighter with every breath drawn by the two men.

“We must ask again,” the king said in tones of flat rebuke, “if this attack was over no more than the revoke of Lady Marguerite’s betrothal.”

“I can conceive of no other cause,” David answered.

Henry’s expression did not change. “None?”

David watched his sovereign for an instant longer before squaring his shoulders. “None, sire.”

“Sire,” Marguerite began, only to snap her lips shut again. She had almost spoken without leave, almost lodged a protest against something that could not be
made public. That the silent communication between David and king had bearing upon it was a prospect that sent a rush of dread like poison along her veins.

The king flashed a look of warning in her direction, though he spoke to David still. “We accept your evaluation. Regardless, Halliwell was a good and loyal subject until this recent event. His death cannot pass without an accounting.”

Speculation ran through the crowd. Men pushed closer now, the better to hear. David stood with his head high and eyes blazing with blue fire in his set face. “Should I have allowed myself to be killed, sire?”

“You might have acted with less force, less finality.”

There was something going forward, gaining momentum with every word. Marguerite’s chest ached with every hard-pressed breath she took. Her eyes burned as she stared from one man to the other.

“So I might, if there had been time,” David answered. “Yes, and assurance that the lady with me would not suffer if I failed.”

“Enough!” Henry thundered. “You have a witness to your act of defense, so must be absolved of the charge of murder. Nevertheless, we can tolerate no dissension among our followers, nor will we countenance any feud that may come from it. As the son of the man you killed was banished from our sight, so, too, are you, David of Braesford.”

“You believe I created this feud.”

David faced the king in challenge, feet planted wide. Why would he say such a thing? Henry must know it was not possible, not unless…

Marguerite’s stomach twisted in dread as presentiment touched her.

Henry’s smile was edged with iron. “We believe you love fighting too much, so may have courted the attack against you.”

“What, to entice Halliwell to his death? So I might, if I had been certain he paid to have me killed before.”

“Our sources say he did, as must yours. Nevertheless, we cannot allow you to usurp our royal right of judgment. More, we have come to think you have too much the look of a Plantagenet about you for our comfort.”

David stared at the king while a white line appeared about his mouth. “You would accuse me of treason, sire?”

Dear God in his heaven. This was it, the moment for which all the lessons, all the preparations, had been undertaken. It had come sooner than expected. Yet it made sense to use the excuse of Halliwell’s death for its launch.

Cold, Marguerite felt so deadly cold as the recognition settled inside her. With a portion of her mind, she was aware of the
comtesse
somewhere behind her as the Frenchwoman gasped then murmured to her husband in agitation.

“A Plantagenet is always a Yorkist under the skin,” Henry stated. “All it requires is the right circumstances to prove it.”

“This is a mistake.”

“As to that, time will tell. Go! Go now, before we have you clamped in irons for the remainder of this journey, and then lodged in the Tower.”

“And Lady Marguerite?”

She quelled inside as every eye in the hall turned upon her once more. Her heart lodged in her throat. So much depended on the answer to the question, so very much.

Henry’s stare was grim with condemnation. “It appears she made her choice in these days just past, as well as tonight. Take her. Mayhap you can tame the witch, if such she turns out to be.”

David’s hot gaze met hers, held it with what seemed dire warning layered with supplication. Slowly, as if he doubted her response, he held out his hand.

She could go or she could stay. Either way, her life would never be the same. Henry had said her choice had been made, but that was not so. The choice was now, here, in this moment.

As if in a dream, Marguerite reached out to place her hand in David’s strong, warm clasp. It closed around her fingers with sure strength. He drew her close to his side, within the curve of his free arm. Together, they moved toward the doorway.

“Wait, milady! Wait for me!”

It was Astrid, pushing, sliding, crawling among the legs of those who would bar her way. She was losing her veil, was red-faced and tearful with frustrated anger and something more that looked like grief. Trotting to them in breathless haste, she stopped at Marguerite’s side and turned to face the others with her bottom lip thrust out and her hands knotted into tiny fists.

Marguerite reached down to rest her hand on Astrid’s shoulder. She suddenly felt less alone, less at bay. As the three of them retreated toward the entrances, she
scanned those who watched, searching for one other, for Oliver. Surely he would not let David go without him?

He had vanished. His rakish, rascal’s face was nowhere to be seen in the crowd.

Now they were in the doorway. David came to a halt. He turned, his gaze clashing with that of Henry VII there in the dim hall filled with lamplight and night shadows.

“You will regret this decision, sire,” he said, his voice ringing in the strained quiet. “I would have served you well all my days. Now that you force this exile upon me, I will claim my birthright.”

“Your birthright,” Henry said with grim disdain. “It’s well-known you are a bastard.”

“That I am not. I am Edward V, once a boy king, though the crown was taken from me and I was made a prisoner in the Tower. I am Edward, and you hold what is mine. Neither you nor the pretender who claims to be my brother can keep me from my place. I am Edward, rightful heir to the throne, rightful King of England!”

Astrid gasped, muttering something that was drowned in the babble of consternation that followed. It rose, filling the great vaulted space as men stared wildly around at each other. In it, Marguerite turned her head to stare at the man who held her so close. Her heart beat high in her throat and tears burned the backs of her eyes.