The Spitfire (50 page)

“What is it?” Lord Varden murmured softly to her, seeing her look of consternation.

“The gentleman escorting the bride is my…is Tavis Stewart,” Arabella said low.

Tony nodded understandingly.

Arabella heard neither the choir nor the droning sermon of the Bishop of Paris, who was performing the ceremony. She had thought that she had come to terms with herself regarding her position as Adrian Morlaix’s mistress. It was hardly a secret, but both she and Adrian were well-liked. It had been expected from the moment he had seen her and evinced his desire to have her that she would eventually be his. Their behavior was discreet and their relationship accepted. When she returned home to England, it was unlikely anyone would learn of her French involvement, as she had come to think of it. Now, here was Tavis Stewart come amongst them, and she already felt the censure in the stiff set of his neck.

Sorcha Morton was once again a married woman. Here in France she would not be known by her Celtic name, Muire Sorcha. Her name would be Frenchified, and she would be Marie-Claire, Duchesse de St. Astier. It quite suited the woman who now swept proudly down from the altar on the arm of her bridegroom. At the great doors to the cathedral the newly married couple greeted their guests. The duchesse’s amber eyes narrowed as Arabella was presented to her, and she might have made some scathing comment, but Arabella curtsied prettily and, wishing the bride and groom good fortune, passed quickly by. Behind her, however, Adrian was caught by poor Jean-Claude Billancourt, who was pitifully eager to show off his beautiful wife. The crowds closed about Arabella, cutting her off from her escorts.

“So, madame,” a familiar voice hissed in her ear, “I come to France to find ye playing the whore. Is there nothing ye will nae do in order to regain possession of that wretched scrap of borderland known as Greyfaire?” He could have bitten off his tongue even as the words spilled angrily from his mouth. This was not what he wanted to say to her. This was not the way he had meant to begin, but when he had seen her with the Duc de Lambour, he had known that all Jamie had told him was true.

“How dare you accost me?” she hissed back, shaking off his hand on her elbow.

His fingers closed cruelly about her arm, halting her flight. “Ye owe me an explanation, madame!”

Arabella looked angrily up at him. “I owe you nothing, my lord,” she said fiercely. “You forfeited your rights over me when you failed to honor your promise to me to retrieve my property. It was not even for me, Tavis. It was for our child.”

“And where is our daughter?” he demanded.

“Safe, and where you will not find her!” Arabella snapped.

“In Henry Tudor’s nurseries, ye mean,” he said.

Suddenly Arabella’s face crumbled and she looked eagerly to him. “You’ve seen our Margaret? Is she well? Is she happy? Did she remember you?”

In that moment all his anger dissolved. “Nay,” he said. “Yer English king would nae let me see her. It was last autumn. Ye’d already left for France.”

“My dear.” Anthony Varden was by her side. “Before the duc sees you and wonders with whom you are speaking so heatedly, we had best go.”

Arabella nodded, but Tavis Stewart said fiercely, “I’ve come to take my wife home, sir, and who the hell are ye in the first place?”

“I am Anthony Varden, my lord earl, and your behavior, however well-meaning, is placing Arabella in a most difficult position. You would not want her sacrifice of these past months to be in vain, now would you? Find your way to Adrian, my dear, while I give Lord Stewart your excuses,” Lord Varden said quietly, placing his small frame directly in the path of the Earl of Dunmor.

“Arabella!”
His voice cut into her heart like a knife, but she did not falter as she moved away from him.

“My lord, come with me and we will talk,” Lord Varden said, escorting his companion out of Notre Dame and into the great square in front of the cathedral. “I have been expecting you for some months now, my lord,” Anthony Varden said bluntly. “The king wrote me that you had been to Sheen.”

“I understood that you were an exile, Lord Varden,” the earl said. “An enemy of King Henry.”

“So it is said,” Anthony Varden replied with a gentle smile. Then his voice became urgent. “My lord, you must not interfere with Arabella. Soon she will have what she has come to France for, and King Henry will return Greyfaire to her. You took Greyfaire from her once, my lord. Do not do it again, for she will certainly then never forgive you.”

“What do you know of me and of Arabella?” the earl asked angrily. He was beginning to realize that he was in the middle of a situation he could not control.

“Everything, my lord, for Arabella and I have become good friends,” Lord Varden said gently, seeing the earl’s rising frustration and feeling sympathetic toward him. “Exiles often do, you know. My home was near York.”

“You are a spy,” the earl said softly, suddenly comprehending, “and you and Henry Tudor have made my wife a spy as well.”

“Your wife has fought for her property as hard as any man. That her methods and weapons have not been what you would use does not matter, my lord earl,” Lord Varden told him.

“Are ye nae afraid that I will betray ye, sir?” Tavis Stewart said.

Lord Varden grinned up at the big Scotsman. “Now why would you do that, my lord? Do you not love Arabella Grey? Are Scotland and England not at peace? Has not King Henry offered his infant daughter, the Princess Margaret, born last November, to your own king as a wife? Why, my lord, we are practically family.”

Tavis Stewart could not help laughing at his last remark. “My nephew will nae accept an English wife, man, but yer right. Our countries are at peace. Still, I dinna like the idea that Arabella is in any danger.”

“You love her greatly, I can see,” Lord Varden said. “It’s written all over your face, my lord, but under the circumstances, I would prefer you masked your cow eyes toward Lady Grey. When she has returned to England, my lord, then you two may settle your differences and reacquaint yourselves. France is not the place to do this, and now is certainly not the time. Go home, my lord earl. Arabella is in no danger except through you. The Duc de Lambour is a very jealous man.”

“She is my wife,” Tavis Stewart said stubbornly.

“She
was
your wife,” Lord Varden answered him.

“I dinna recognize the divorce,” the earl replied.

“You do not have the luxury of that choice, my lord,” Lord Varden told him. “You say you love her and you fear for her safety, yet you persist in endangering her. I do not understand you.”

Tavis Stewart groaned with despair as the reality of the situation hit him. He had stumbled into something that had absolutely nothing to do with him, and what was worse was that Lord Varden was correct when he said that if he, Tavis, could not mask his passions for Arabella, he would endanger her safety. He had to go. Besides, he could not bear to stay and watch the Duc de Lambour being so possessive of her without soon giving in to jealousy and rage. “I will leave tonight,” he said to Lord Varden.

“She’ll be home soon, my lord, and once she is at Greyfaire, perhaps you will come raiding again,” he finished with a smile.

“She told you how we met?” the earl said.

“Aye,” Lord Varden told the earl. “‘Twas a bold thing you did when you carried her off.”

“And she has never forgiven me for it,” the earl said sadly.

“But she will once she has regained Greyfaire,” said Lord Varden wisely, “for she loves you too, my lord. She has never denied it.”

The wedding guests adjourned to the palace, just a short stroll from the cathedral, where a small banquet was served to celebrate the Duc de St. Astier’s nuptials. Afterward, and with almost indecent haste, the king and his friends departed for the Loire. The king feared that the cherries in his orchards at Amboise would ripen and spoil before he got there. They were his favorite fruit.

“We shall have a fete, Adrian,” he said loudly to the Duc de Lambour, “and you,
ma petite rose d’Anglaise
, will rule over my fete as its queen of beauty and love. Will you like that?”

Arabella smiled winsomely at King Charles and curtsied most prettily. “I shall be honored, Sire,” she said.

“You look exactly like a cherry blossom in that gown of yours, madame,” the king continued. “‘Tis a most fetching pink, is it not, Adrian?”

“I adore
ma Belle
in any of her gowns,” the duc replied gallantly.

“Or without them,” the king said wryly, and led the ensuing laughter.

The new Duchesse de St. Astier looked hard at Arabella, and turning to her husband, asked softly, “Why does the king make such a fuss over the Duc de Lambour’s whore?”

Jean-Claude Billancourt blanched. “Marie-Claire,” he said in quiet but disapproving tones, “the Duc de Lambour is the king’s close and dear friend. As for Madame Grey, perhaps she is indeed the duc’s
chere amie
, but there is no harm in it. She is a most charming and delightful woman who is well-liked by all here. She has many friends and is quite respectable. Perhaps you are not used to such things, coming from an uncivilized and backward land like Scotland, but here certain relationships are tolerated as long as they are discreet. You will have to learn to hold your tongue, chérie, else I dare not let you associate with polite society.” He patted her hand. “I’m certain that you will learn quickly, Marie-Claire,
ma belle femme
,
n’est-ce pas?”

Sorcha lowered her head as if with remorse and bit back the sharp reply that rose to her lips. There would be time, she decided, once she had established herself in her husband’s affections, to wreak her revenge upon Arabella Grey for the slights that had been inflicted upon her several years ago, when Arabella was the Countess of Dunmor. How the mighty had fallen, Sorcha thought with satisfaction. She looked up at her husband. “Of course,
mon mari
,” she said in sweetly lisping tones, “and you will teach me all I need to know, will you not?”

The besotted bridegroom kissed his wife’s smooth, perfumed hand eagerly, his eyes straying to her half-naked bosom. “We shall stay the night in Paris at my hotel,” he said meaningfully. “Tomorrow is time enough to be on the road, chérie.”

The court adjourned to the Loire Valley, where Lady Grey and Lord Varden were the guests of the Duc de Lambour at his charming and intimate chateau, Rossignol. The chateau, a Gothic structure with whimsical pepper-pot turrets, sat on a hillock overlooking the river. It was surrounded by a forest on three sides, but on the fourth a vineyard rolled down to the Loire. Rossignol was positioned in such a way that it appeared to be the only habitable structure for miles, although it was not. It was actually just several miles’ distance from the king’s home at Amboise.

“Does your wife never come here?” Arabella asked her lover. She had been comfortably settled in an apartment immediately next door to that of the duc’s rooms, which were obviously meant to be those of the duchesse.

“No, my wife has never been here,” Adrian answered her. “She rarely leaves Normandy. I prefer that she stays with the children, for they are her primary duty.” He dropped a kiss on her silk-clad shoulder. “I have never brought any woman here to reside in these apartments since I became duc. The rooms were especially refurbished for you,” he told her. “Do you like the crimson velvet? My vineyards grow a grape that makes wine that color. You shall have it tonight,
ma Belle
!”

“We cannot,” she told him. “We have been invited to Amboise, for the king is giving a party for the Duc and Duchesse de St. Astier.”

“He seems most taken with the bride and groom,” Adrian Morlaix remarked.

“Perhaps he is considering his own marriage to Margaret of Austria,” Arabella said.

“Charles will never marry the Hapsburg wench,” the duc told her.

“They are betrothed,” Arabella said, sounding logical and most female.

“Betrothals can be broken,” he said.

“So you have told me before, but for whom would the king do such a thing, Adrian?” She turned about and kissed him lightly on the mouth. “If we were betrothed, would you cast me off?”

“Vixen,” he laughed, and then he grew serious. “You must not repeat this, of course,
ma chérie
, but Louis of Orleans has been secretly proposing for some time now that the king marry Princess Anne, the heiress of the duchy of Brittany. It is most important that Brittany be made a part of France. Franche Comte’ and Artois are not even adjoining territories. Brittany is much more important to us.”

“But the king imprisoned Louis in Lusignan over two years ago,” Arabella said, “and to my knowledge he is still there.”

“But his wife, Jeanne de Valois, the king’s sister, is constantly intervening on behalf of her imprisoned husband,” the duc said. “Although the king still smarts over the
Guerre Folle
, he is near to forgiving his cousin Louis. Until Charles has children of his own, which means finally taking a wife, Louis remains his heir. The king has always been most fond of him, which accounts for the harshness of his sentence on Louis. He felt most betrayed by Louis’ conduct.”

“But Anne of Brittany is to marry Maximilian of Hapsburg, Margaret’s father, now that his wife, Mary of Burgundy, has died,” Arabella said in a tone that implied that Adrian Morlaix must simply have his facts incorrect, or that perhaps she wasn’t intelligent enough to understand all of this.

“Would you like to place a small wager on the chances of that ever happening,
ma Belle
?” he teased her. “France will not let Maximilian have Brittany, I promise you.” He tumbled her onto the bed and tickled her unmercifully.

Arabella squealed and hit at him with her fists. “Men! You are all mad!” she said. “Stop, Adrian!
Stop!
We shall be late if you do not cease this instant!”

Reluctantly he arose from her bed. “Very well, madame,” he said, “but prepare yourself to accept my vengeance for this slight tonight when we return.” Then, with a grin he left her, whistling.

When she was certain that he had gone, Arabella called to Lona. “Go to Lord Varden and tell him I must speak with him privately as soon as possible. Go carefully, for I do not want it looking like I sent for Tony. Do you understand?”