The Rose at Twilight (43 page)

“Leave us,” he said, and Jonet went without a word. He broke the seal without looking at it, but shot a fierce look at Alys before he unfolded the single sheet and began to read.

Watching him, she was surprised to see shock as well as increasing fury in his expression. When he finished, his face was drained of color, and for a moment he seemed unable to speak. Then the color flooded back, and Alys, her nerves stretched nearly to breaking by the tension in the silence between them, demanded before he could begin shouting at her, “What does he write? It is my letter, sir. I would like to see it.”

To her surprise he handed it to her, then turned and walked toward the hearth to stare down at the dying fire. Knowing he was containing his temper only with great effort, she quickly scanned the letter, her hands shaking so that she could scarcely read it, but it took only a glance to understand a portion at least of his outrage.

“Oh, if that is not like him!” she exclaimed. “To call me Godiva and never consider the consequences! But, Nicholas, it is not what you think, truly! ’Tis only that he had need to conceal his true identity, and mine, and decided to tease me a little.”

“You do not know what I think,” he retorted, not turning.

“But I do! What else can it be, particularly when he signs himself ‘Dauntless Tom Peeper,’ but that he has seen me naked?”

“And has he?”

“Aye, sir, he has,” she replied honestly. “He saved me, Nicholas. I told you that before, but not the whole. I will tell you now if you will let me.”

He turned then, but he did not look particularly appeased. He said dully, “Is it not enough that you were naked with him?”

“In faith, sir, ’twas on account of Sir Lionel that I was naked. I told you he meant to ravish me, and he would have, had Lovell not killed him. I told you, too, that Sir Lionel murdered Roger, and meant to kill you. He meant to have me for his own, Nicholas, for the sake of Wolveston. Once he learned its value, he felt cheated, so he did it all for the land, the wealth. You should understand that. You married me for those same things.”

The last words came forlornly and without thought, and she instantly wished them unsaid when she saw his face tighten, but all he said was, “Fate turns the dice, madam. We can but read the numbers and take our winnings, or suffer our losses. I am sorry that yours have been so hard.”

“But they have not!” she cried. “Oh, why do you say such a stupid thing to me?”

“You still believe yourself wed to an enemy, do you not?”

She shook her head. “You are not my enemy, Nicholas. To be sure, I once thought you so, for you do fight for the wrong side, but I stopped thinking of you as an enemy the first time you did sing to me. I think of you now only as my husband.”

“An unfortunate circumstance for you,” he said, “since it allows me to forbid you to see his lordship again.”

His grim tone enlightened her, and for a moment her eyes lit up, but knowing he was still angry, she controlled her feelings and said evenly, “You need never be jealous of Lovell, sir.”

“Need I not?” he snapped. “Not even when he is most likely father to a child I shall be expected to claim as mine own?”

Thunderstruck, she stared at him while the echo of his words pounded at her mind, shouting them at her until she had to accept that he had really said them. He took a step toward her, and she could see in his eyes that he had little control left over his temper. He meant at least to shake her, and what else he might do did not bear thinking about.

“You are mistaken, sir,” she said steadily.

It was the wrong thing to say. He stood directly before her and put his face close to hers. “The devil I am! Madeline told me you are with child, and since you have not seen fit to tell me yourself, and since he has been sneaking about ever since I first laid eyes upon you, what else am I to think? The man is a—”

“The man saved my life,” Alys cried, “and the child is yours and no one else’s. Do not touch me,” she added, losing her own temper at last and whirling away when he reached for her. “By heaven, you will listen for once, and heed what I say!” Glaring at him, daring him to move again, she said nothing more until she was certain he would come no closer. He did not look any the less dangerous, but he did seem willing to let her speak.

“’Tis a matter of honor,” she said, gathering her dignity and speaking more gently. “I would never have let another man touch me once I had become your wife, cared I ever so much for him. I was taught, sir, by people who held honor and loyalty most dear. And never would Lord Lovell attempt to seduce me. Even his worst enemies have never accused him of dishonor. He is a gallant man who still believes in the dying codes of chivalry, just as our late king did, and just as yours—who could break sanctuary to capture his foe—does not.”

“By God—”

She spoke quickly. “I should not have said that last bit, Nicholas, but Lovell does believe in the code and follows it. He is the most loyal of all Richard’s followers, and thus, sir, you may believe that he would no more take advantage of one like myself, who had been protected by his liege lord, than King Richard would have murdered nephews entrusted to him by his. Moreover, Lovell would never betray a man who, even unknowingly, had granted him shelter in his time of need, as you did.”

He had been glaring at her, his expression that of one who listened only because he was forcing himself to do so, but when she mentioned Lovell’s loyalty to Richard, that expression sharpened to an arrested look, and by the time she fell silent, to her astonishment, a gleam of amusement lit his eyes.

“You dare to laugh at me?” she demanded, hands on her hips.

He shook his head. “I am not laughing, madam, but you ought to thank heaven that I can find some small humor in your daring to suggest that Lovell’s having taken shelter
from me
in mine own castle is reasonable cause to believe he would not betray me.”

She smiled, recognizing the irony, but watched him warily, uncertain whether he believed her yet or not. He remained silent, however, until she could stand it no longer and blurted, “The child is yours, Nicholas. I did not tell you before of my condition because I feared you would not let me travel and I wanted more than anything to come to London. And Madeline, the witch, had no right whatever to tell you!”

He came to her then and put his hands gently around her, drawing her close as he said, “She did not intend to tell me, but you know how she is, sweetheart. The words just tumbled out when she least expected them to do so.”

“I knew you were angry when you spoke to the king,” she said, leaning her head against his chest. “I did not know what was wrong, but I am learning to know your tone of voice, so even though you spoke calmly, I knew something was amiss. And when you took that letter, your outrage reminded me of that dreadful night at Burton when you lost your temper with me. I thought that tonight I would not be able to … to …”

“To tame me with your woman’s wiles?” He held her away and looked down into her eyes, and for a moment she saw tenderness, but then he said, “My fears about Lovell and the child were brief and only part of the whole, for however gallant he may be, he has no business to be communicating with you. And you ought not to be accepting his communications, madam, let alone harboring him whenever the opportunity arises. By the rood, I find it hard to think why he would endanger himself so. Why does he confide in you if he has no affectionate interest?”

“But he does not! I give you my word, Nicholas.”

“And I believe you, so mayhap you will explain to me how it is that, having no such interest in you, he writes to say you need not expect to hear from him again for a while, since he is presently with Margaret and means to take a little journey to Ireland soon, to stir up mischief guaranteed to annoy the king.”

His tone was dangerous again, and she said carefully, “I do not know what mischief he means. He has written nothing else to me, and all he said before was that he meant to go to Flanders, to Richard’s sister, Margaret of Burgundy.”

Nicholas frowned. “If he were here in England now, I should believe him responsible for certain rumors we have heard, that the young Earl of Warwick has escaped from the Tower.”

“Neddie? But he has not done any such thing, has he? In faith, I should have heard of it if he had.”

“No, he is still there, but my men have encountered the rumors in more than one county. And,” he added, giving her a shake, “I do remember those so-called other brothers of yours. Your explanation, when I taxed you for one, was glib enough, and I have never spoken of them to anyone, but it occurs to me now that I have never asked you to give your word of honor that you do not know more about the matter than you have admitted.” When she stiffened in dismay, he added dryly, “I will not press you to do so now, madam. I, too, honor loyalty where I find it, but these little intrigues of yours are dangerous. Leave such matters to the queen dowager and her ilk.”

Relieved, she said faintly, “Is she plotting again?”

He shrugged. “Elizabeth Woodville has a reputation for plotting. That was all I meant. I am told she cannot keep her fingers out of any intrigue that drifts within her orbit.”

“But surely, sir, with her own daughter already called queen, and expecting at any time now to be properly crowned—”

“The lass will enjoy no coronation until Harry is convinced that he holds the throne by his own right. He does not want his people ever to believe he holds it by right of his wife, only that he chooses to unite his red rose with her white one.”

“But the people will clamor like they did before, until he grants her a crown of her own, and even if he does not, Prince Arthur is the queen dowager’s grandson. She would not plot against him, or against his mother.”

“I hope you are right.” His tone was somber. He turned away. He had already distanced himself from her emotionally, and though Alys was sorry for it, she could not abandon her beliefs merely to please him. She tried to take heart from the fact that he had said he honored her fidelity, but the sudden physical separation left her feeling bereft. Then he turned, and the look in his eyes was different from any she had seen there before. “I was a villain to frighten you tonight, sweetheart. I could never really hurt you. I don’t expect you to trust me so soon after my own failure to trust you, but mayhap one day you will find strength enough to believe that I will not betray you.”

It was so quiet in the room that the sudden collapse of a log in a shower of sparks startled them both.

Alys felt tears at the back of her throat. The only time after that first day that he had ever questioned her about the mysterious boys, he had accepted her suggestion that they might have been sons of some other Yorkist family. She knew he was not stupid, that it was possible he had believed all along that she knew, or at least suspected, more than she had admitted. But no more than she doubted her own loyalty could she doubt his to Henry Tudor; and, while she knew instinctively that she could trust him, that in many ways she had trusted him for some time, too much was at stake to trust him with a secret that was not hers alone to share. She knew she could depend upon him to do all in his power to protect her, and their unborn child, from the king’s wrath, but she was just as certain that his strong loyalty to the Tudor would compel him to reveal the existence of any living prince of York who might threaten the Tudor crown.

He had not moved. She swallowed her tears and held out a hand to him. “Nicholas?”

He took her hand. His was warm and strong. He drew her close and folded her into his arms, kissing the top of her head.

She tilted her face up. “You do believe the child is yours, do you not?”

“Aye,” he said, kissing the bridge of her nose, “I do. Had I not been caught off guard by Lovell’s addressing you as Godiva, I doubt I’d ever have thought otherwise. One day I shall thank him properly for murdering Everingham. You did not tell me the villain had ripped your clothes from you.”

She blushed and would have looked away, but he held her chin. “It … it was not quite that way,” she said.

“Tell me.”

“You will be angry.”

“I have been angry before and will likely be so again,” he said, kissing the tip of her nose again. “Tell me.”

Sighing, she leaned against him. “Take me to bed, sir. I am so weary, I am nigh to dropping where I stand.”

With a wry smile, he scooped her up in his arms and carried her to the bed, helping her undress, and tucking her in. Then, snuffing the lights and stripping off his clothes, he got in beside her and lay back against the pillows. Slipping an arm beneath her, he drew her closer, and when she had snuggled her head into the hollow of his shoulder, he said, “Tell me now.”

She began at the beginning, but he hushed her, telling her he had heard about that and to get to the part that had come after she had sent Ian to fetch him.

“They came the next morning to search for him,” she said. She went on glibly enough until she began to explain that when Sir Lionel had ordered her from the bed so that his men might search beneath the bedclothes, she had wrapped one of the coverlets around herself. “I … I had nothing—”

“I understand, sweetheart,” he said gently. “’Tis as well that Lovell killed him, or else I should have to go now and do it myself. Everingham ripped the quilt away, did he?”

“N-no,” she said. “He was coming to do so, I think, but I dropped it—nay, flung it aside—and leapt for the poker. That gave me time, you see, for it startled him and made him pause.”

To her astonishment, he chuckled. “I’ll warrant it did. But you are too small, sweetheart, to face a swordsman, armed with no more than a poker.”

“He said the same,” she admitted. “He said, too, that I would kneel to him in the hall before them all, and swear an oath of fealty to him as if he were my king, that if I did not, he would strip me naked and thrash me until I begged to serve him, and … and that was when I saw the door move behind him. I thought it was you, Nicholas, and I had all I could do to keep from crying aloud my relief that Ian had found you so quickly. I kept my eyes on Sir Lionel, but when he leapt at me, I was not strong enough to keep hold of the poker. Then he collapsed at my feet and I looked up to see Lovell grinning at me. I had nearly flung myself into his arms before I saw it was him and not you.”