Suzanne Robinson (33 page)

She must be rid of him or suffer even greater humiliation and pain than she had already. Pen rested her arms on the windowsill, oblivious of the chill wind blowing across the garden. Clouds the color of Damascus steel scudded across the sky. The breeze burned her cheeks and made her shiver, but it also jolted her senses so that she came awake from her unhappy daydreams.

Her new design would have to be much more clever and above all indirect, for ordering about such a domineering wretch was useless. The wind whipped her curls into her face. Pen sucked in her breath at the impact and ducked inside her chamber. Donning a heavy cloak and pulling its hood over her head, she made her way to the wall walk.

She nodded to Erbut, who was pacing around the walk with a heightened sense of importance as the only man-at-arms besides Turnip fit to perform his duties. The shallow cut on his head had afforded him an unlooked-for opportunity to preen and speak about his battle experience to the maids of the village.

Pen made sure Erbut had wrapped himself up well and sent him on his way. Then she wandered back and forth along the wall walk, trying to think of a way to force Morgan to leave the island. It seemed he was intent on forcing a confession of passion from her. On the way home he’d spoken of the need to question their prisoners. He could do that aboard his ship, and he was needed in England, not on Penance Isle.

No, he was staying on the island to force himself on her, to make her his—his doxy. Pen flushed as she thought the word, for in truth she deserved the appellation. In her bemusement with Tristan she’d behaved like a trull, and now he was treating her like one. This
thought evoked her rage at him anew. It fed her anger at herself as well.

Pen uttered a cry that was half distress and half fury. Whirling, cloak and skirts whipping in the wind, she raised a fist and pounded the battlement. The bones and flesh of her hand crashed against stone. She yelped, grabbed her fist, and did a small dance of anguish. Tucking the fist under her arm, she bit her lip and gazed out across the bailey.

Wheedle had returned to the piggery. Pen heard her crooning and purring as she coaxed an enormous sow out of a pen. The pig waddled into sight followed by six small, madly trotting offspring. It was Perdita, the pride of Highcliffe.

Unlike Margery, Perdita was black with a streak of white on her belly, and one of her ears drooped while the other stood up straight. Also unlike Margery, one of Perdita’s tusks had been chipped in an altercation with another sow in her younger, more high-spirited days. Taken altogether, Perdita, with her misfit ears and flawed dentition, belonged to Highcliffe. Margery, in her porcine perfection, had not.

A door slammed somewhere in the keep. Pen’s gaze shot from Perdita to the keep stairs. Morgan ran down them flanked by several of his men. He stalked across the bailey to one of the towers that held Jean-Paul’s men, his jaw set, his gloved hand gripping the hilt of his sword. Suddenly he turned back to stare at the keep. His gaze swept along the battlements with precision and fixed upon Pen. He didn’t move, nor did he acknowledge her. He just stared.

His men stopped and followed his gaze, then began to nudge each other and whisper. One spoke to Morgan, who nodded, causing the others to chuckle. Morgan didn’t laugh, though; he simply continued to stare at
Pen as if willing her to melt into a puddle of sighing, simpering ardor.

In response, Pen lifted her chin a bit higher, folded her arms over her chest, and glared. To her chagrin, Morgan smiled at her and spoke to his men, who guffawed loudly, Pen wanted to toss them all into the piggery headfirst. Her temper wasn’t helped by his having donned cloth of silver studded with pearls. Glaring at him, she refused to be intimidated by visions of him attending the queen and dozens of beautiful court ladies. At last Morgan turned away, leaving her to stew in her rage.

Pain and fury stabbed at her, and Pen clutched the folds of her cloak over her heart. Then Perdita squealed in outrage as Morgan kneed her aside without regard to her bulk or her tusks. Pen scowled at Morgan’s retreating back.

Her gaze darted to Perdita, and back to Morgan. Pigs. Morgery. Ponder Cutwell. Saints in heaven, she was so desperate, so weary, and she would solve so many worries if she could bring herself to make such a sacrifice. She would no longer have to fear that one mistake, one drought or plague would plunge Highcliffe into starvation. Mayhap she’d been selfish to delay so long.

Pen searched her soul, all the while remembering what Morgan planned for her.

After a while, a suggestion of a smile hovered about her lips. It was the kind of smile most often seen on Trojans who have just finished wooden horses, the kind of smile one imagined seeing across the bubbling contents of a cauldron at midnight. She was weary of drinking the ale of shame. If she was going to make this sacrifice, she might as well enjoy a last bit of retribution by outwitting that sensual despot, Morgan St. John.

He had searched for Pen from the top of the keep to the piggery and back again. She was deliberately evading him since their battle of stares this afternoon. The stubborn little mischief. He’d tried to tell her what her actions at the standing stones had done to him. She wouldn’t listen.

In that one heedless dash to save him, she’d shown him how ignoble had been his anger at her. Mayhap it was his past, the example of his unforgiving father, that had made him so unwilling to pardon the woman he loved. Aye, she’d been ready to sacrifice her life for his regardless of how he’d tried to punish and humiliate her. In the face of her selflessness, his rage vanished.

He’d been left reeling with sudden change, and now he wanted to find Pen and change things between them somehow. Yet he cringed inside at the thought of what she would say if he simply told her he was wrong. A man didn’t abandon his pride and grovel before a woman, even one who’d saved his life. There had to be another way of reconciling with her.

Clapping his sword to his side, Morgan ran down the keep steps for the third time and almost collided with Nany at the bottom. He caught a whiff of ale as he threw out his hands to keep from falling into her prominent bosom.

“Nany, where is Pen?”

Nany slapped his hands as if he were an errant scullery boy. “Mistress Fairfax she be to you, my lord.”

He’d perceived a tincture of goodwill from the woman until Pen had come back from the standing stones. Once Nany had seen the flatness in her mistress’s gaze, she had again looked upon him as the spawn of fiends.

“Quibble not, woman. I’ve no patience left after dealing with those cursed Frenchmen.”

“Mistress is in kitchen,” Nany sniffed.

“But I just came from there not a few moments past.”

“Afore that she was in solar.”

“I looked there as well.”

“And then we was in buttery.”

“But I—”

“The mistress has more to do than await your pleasure, my lord. There’s a manor to run. Tasks don’t do themselves.”

He refused to argue with a tipsy old woman. Turning on his heel, he headed for the kitchen. He was in a quandary, for he had to sail the next morning with his captured Frenchmen and documents. He had to tell the queen that she’d succeeded in preventing the King of Spain from openly supporting Mary of Scotland.

Faced with the threat of the Queen of Scots and her army, Elizabeth had maneuvered to distract the King of Spain and prevent him from intervening on Mary’s behalf. Her strategy had been to dangle the possibility of marriage in front of the king’s candidate, the Archduke Charles of Austria. The careful Philip would rather have Elizabeth in his pocket than waste money aiding the Queen of Scots in an uncertain and expensive war.

If Jean-Paul had lived, no doubt he would have given this information to his master and Mary of Scotland. Now it seemed the danger from the Queen of Scots had lessened. A great weight had lifted from Morgan’s heart, and yet he felt no lighter in spirit, for he wasn’t sure he could make Pen listen to him.

Reaching the kitchen, he thrust open the door. A blast of heated air warmed his cheeks. He heard the clatter of pans, the creak of a spit turning, the chatter of voices. He stooped as he entered and pulled the door closed as his eyes adjusted to the dim light. The din in the kitchen faded. Scullery maids and turnspit boys gawked at him.

Pen was bending over a pot simmering in a fireplace. She tasted something in a wooden spoon without turning to see who had entered.

“The mutton stew needs more rosemary, Twistle,” she said in a raised voice. “Or has his lordship squandered that as well?”

“We’ve scant portions of everything we need for mutton, mistress.” Twistle counted the ingredients on her fingers. “There’s scarce any ginger or thyme or marjoram leaves and savory and almost no coriander.”

“Ah, well,” Pen said as she stirred the stew. “No doubt his lordship will recompense me. Let us hope he’s sailing upon the morrow, for the sooner our stores are replenished, the better we’ll withstand for winter.”

Twistle grunted. “He don’t care.”

“Why, Twistle, whatever makes you think his lordship is so callous, so uncaring of other folks’ feelings?”

Morgan stalked over to Pen. “Enough of this mockery.”

“Why, my lord,” Pen said. “I thought you were in the tower torturing your prisoners.” She dipped the spoon
in the pot and held it out to him. “Would you like to taste the stew? Marry, it’s a bit like pasty dough, since we’ve so little ginger or rosemary or marjoram or—”

“Damnation to all spices!”

Pen gave him one of her burnished smiles as she stirred the stew, but he’d seen the real ones enough to know that this one was of gilt, not pure gold.

“I would have a word with you,” he said, trying not to growl.

“I’ve a meal to oversee, my lord.”

He leaned close to her and whispered. “You may join me or be carried out.”

The spoon had been circling the stew pot. It faltered. Then Pen handed it to Twistle.

“I shall return anon,” she said to the cook.

Walking past him without a glance, she donned her cloak and marched across the court, into the keep and up to the solar. She went to a cushioned chair, took up a piece of mending, and jabbed her needle into the fabric. He followed her without objection and stood over her, watching the needle stab into wool.

“I’ve come to tell you I’ve decided there’s been a misunderstanding.”

Pen yelped as she jabbed her finger. Sucking on the wound, she gazed up at him in disbelief.

“I have been thinking, and it seems Christian is at his old game again, teaching rough lessons for the good of those in his care and near killing them as he does it. I’ve often thought I wouldn’t live through the evil he did me in the name of teaching me good. It seems he’s included you among those who need instruction. I see now that he devised this encounter between us without your knowledge.”

“I told you that from the beginning.”

Morgan held up a finger to stop her. “However,
Christian wouldn’t have interfered had he not been convinced of one thing.” He dropped to one knee in front of her and gazed into her astonished face. “Come Pen, admit it. You love me.”

Something hard hit him in the chest. Pen shoved with her foot. He sailed backward and landed on his arse as she sprang to her feet and charged past him. He watched her stride back and forth across the solar, sputtering and gesturing in her fury.

“Saints! How do other women keep from slapping that smirk from your face? Did you drive your brother to distraction this way? It’s no wonder he—”

Morgan sprang up and lunged at her. “What know you of my brother?”

Pen halted as he planted himself in her path.

“Has Christian told you? God’s breath, he has, hasn’t he? He told you what happened, what I did.”

He’d been stripped naked, his sin unmasked, all without his knowledge. He heard his own voice falter and dwindle. He felt as if his soul were shrinking, withering, drying up in the furnace of exposure.

He wet his lips and managed to speak, although without hope. “How long have you known about John’s death?”

“John?” Pen cocked her head to the side and furrowed her brow. “Who is John? I speak of the viscount. Lord Montfort calls him Derry.”

“Jesu, you don’t know.”

“Are you speaking of your older brother? Lord Montfort mentioned him.” Pen paused as if gathering her patience. “Make yourself clear, my lord.”

“It’s of no importance.”

“True, since your brother died so long ago, and due to his own stupidity.”

Stunned, Morgan didn’t answer at once. “Not stupidity. He was a great swordsman, and I …”

“Whatever his talents, it was the work of a fool and a callous lout to force Derry to a match and then to try to do him so grave an injury. He was trying to hurt Derry grievously and ended up dead.” Pen shook her head in disgust. “I know I may sound unfeeling, but in truth John received the portion he was trying to dispense to someone else. But what has this old business to do with the matters before us, my lord? Let me repeat—no, I do not love you. When are you leaving?”

Still bewildered by Pen’s unexpected view of his shameful past, Morgan didn’t answer at once. Abruptly, understanding burst upon him. Pen thought that the whole calamity with John had been his father’s fault, and John’s. Indeed, he had to admit they’d devised the confrontation.

They had forced it. They had even used him in their design against Derry. He’d known this for a long time, but hearing Pen discuss the results so calmly somehow changed the way he looked at his own part.

Suddenly he was weary of old hurts, and surprised at how the pain now seemed muted. Could it be that he no longer bled, but simply ached from old scars? Mayhap he’d healed since encountering Pen, without even knowing it. Or mayhap he’d grown, and in growing, outgrown the need to make good out of something that could never be anything but tragedy.

By the holy cross, he’d been a fool. He needed her.

The depth of his need came crashing down upon him with the violence of the Penance surf, threatening to engulf in a new, frightening, and inescapable dependence. He nearly shivered with the need to, somehow, preserve himself from vulnerability. Yet he had to have her.