The Wife Test (15 page)

“Most of the saddles maintained here are for the king’s unmounted guests and functionaries of the castle,” Hugh observed. “Knights keep their saddles in their quarters, and nobles visiting Windsor generally bring their own squires and grooms who see to their horses and equipage.” Hugh turned it over and over in his mind. “Why would anyone tamper with lady saddles … saddles that no one of great importance would ride?”

“No great importance?” Graham halted, and when Hugh stopped to look back at him, he was highly indignant. “I’ll have you know, one of those lovely maidens will someday be the Lady of Ledding.”

“Ah, yes,” Hugh said with a wicked look. “Lady Lisette of Ledding. It has quite a ring to it.”

Graham’s face lost all trace of humor.

“That’s not funny.”

Late that night, in the town of Windsor, a stealthy figure slipped inside a sour-smelling tavern and made his way around the long tables of ale-soaked planking to the rear, where a pair of men wearing hooded tunics sat huddled over tankards of cheap ale.

“Oui?”
one of the two, the French knight Valoir, asked the newcomer.

“The one who fell … she was not hurt badly.”

“Are you sure?”

“I have bought the favors of a wench who works in the castle kitchens. Word travels quickly in that cursed pile.”

“Sacrebleu!”
Valoir responded. “What does it take to get rid of one of
les putaines?”

“They are charmed cats,” the other snarled, then turned to their informant. “Keep your ears and your eyes open, eh?”

With a nod, the informer drew his hood closer about his face and stole from the murky corner toward the door.

“They will surely ride again,” Valoir said, rubbing his grizzled face. “Sooner or later they will have to go beyond the castle grounds.”

“We will be ready,
Capitaine,”
his companion declared. “I have learned of a gang of poachers who are said to be able to deliver any kind of wild game for a price.”

The duke’s daughters spent the next morning in their chamber with Lady Marcella and her two perky little dogs. Since she could no longer see well enough to stitch, the old lady spent her time collecting bits of information and gossip gone astray, and proved to be a veritable fountain of knowledge. She took the maids’ birthdates and promised to chart their stars, then launched into news of the queen’s condition and the latest castle gossip.

“The Lord Treasurer—who keeps a huge kitchen and spends a fortune on foods from Italy and Spain—brings the queen those
or-anges
from Spain each time he comes to court,” the old lady rattled on. “The queen loves them. Just like the king and his French wine.” She leaned toward them and lowered her voice. “Troth—that Bromley is a master at currying favor with food.”

Chloe sat with her needle poised over the lace Lisette had given her for the neck of her gown. The old lady’s mention of the Lord Treasurer’s political use of food suddenly gave her a much-needed idea.

“Speaking of eating …” Chloe looked brightly at the others. “Are you ready to hear your next task in the wife test?”

Her sisters received her great inspiration with less enthusiasm.

“We have to go down to those hot, stinky kitchens?”

“We have to tend a hearth like common pot-minders and spit boys?”

“Among all that grease and ash? We’ll ruin our clothes!”

“How do we know what our beloved lords will like?”

“That’s the best part,” Chloe declared, making rules up as she went. “You
don’t
know. You’ll simply make your favorite dish, and let ‘taste’ help decide who belongs together.”

There was silence for a moment as they thought it over. It was Helen who signaled their acceptance of the challenge:

“How will we know what foods the cooks may have in their cellar?”

Lady Marcella sent for the king’s chamberlain, who called for the head cook. Soon they were all huddled in the whitewashed kitchens, amidst worktables and piles of baskets filled with wrinkled wintered turnips, dried beans and peas, and pungent onions. After learning of the availability of foods and spices, the maids retreated to their chambers to decide on the dishes they would present to their prospective husbands.

By the time they delivered their lists of ingredients to the kitchen, the place was atizzy with talk of them and their culinary “test.” The story worked its way through the various outbuildings, including the knights’ quarters, then into the round tower, and finally into the great hall itself.

Hugh was there with Lord Simon, informing the king and the captain of the king’s guards about the damaged saddles, when Graham, Sir Jaxton, and Lord William hurried in to demand if it were true that the maids were now required to cook for them as part of the wife test. With the king looking on, Hugh was forced to admit:

“I … haven’t discussed it with Lady Chloe.”

“I’m surprised at you, Hugh,” the king said, with a glint of amusement. “I would have expected greater diligence in this duty. Perhaps you should go and
discuss
it with her now.”

As he watched the blanched Hugh withdraw and charge out the door leading toward the maids’ chamber, Edward smiled.

Hugh was met in the upstairs passage by a serving woman who directed him outside. He found Chloe and her sisters in the queen’s courtyard, basking in the sun and enduring the avid curiosity of courtiers stationed at windows overlooking the court or lurking just outside the arched entry.

“I want a word with you, Lady Chloe,” he declared, planting himself before her with his fists on his hips.

“Certainly, Sir Hugh.” She set her little-used birch hoop with its hopeless tangle of colored yarns aside. “I meant to speak with you—”

“Come with me,” he growled, taking her by the wrist and pulling her out of the courtyard and down the gravel path that wound between plots of herbs and sheltered niches stacked with weathered barrels and old poultry ricks.

At first a few intrepid hangers-on followed them, but as he darted with her down little-used paths, they eventually fell away, and Chloe found herself alone with him and being dragged to thither-and-gone.

“What is this about?” She pulled against his grip, trying to get him to stop, but he stalked grimly on. “Has something happened?”

He remained stubbornly silent until they reached an isolated stretch of wall that was sheltered by one of the round towers. There he wheeled, grabbed her by the shoulders, and thrust her back against the sun-warmed stones.

“I don’t like being made a fool,” he growled.

“No one does,” she said, seizing his wrists and trying in vain to remove his hands from her shoulders. “Do you mind?”

“This cooking nonsense—why didn’t you tell me about it? Everyone from the pot boys in the kitchen to the king himself has heard of it. I was asked about it in front of the king, and I couldn’t even hazard a guess!” He squeezed her shoulders. “I want to know the rest of this cursed wife test—every damned step of it—every task, every requirement. And I want to know it now!”

Again she tried to remove his hands from her shoulders, but he was too strong and too determined. She raised her chin to show she wasn’t intimidated.

“Ladies … are required to oversee the kitchens in their households, and it is only sensible to see that the tastes of husband and wife are in harmony,” she declared. He was scarcely inches away, filling her vision, invading her on the very air she breathed. “My sisters will prepare their favorite dishes and their husbands-to-be will choose their favorites.”

“And?”

“It will demonstrate a likeness of taste and sense.”

“And?”

“That is the sum of it.” She avoided his eyes, only to have her attention fasten impulsively on his lips. “I-I will be able to match who made a dish with who preferred it.”

“A simple matter of preference?”

“An
important
matter of preference,” she insisted.

“And what if several men prefer the same dish?”

“In that event … I … shall … take note and it will still be useful.”

He considered that for a moment. “What is next?”

“Another riding lesson,” she managed. “We still have much to learn.”

“You’ll get no argument on that. Then what?”

She swallowed hard and looked past his shoulder, scrambling to decide which of the tasks she had considered would sound most plausible.

“Then there is the test of …
the gift.
Each of the husbands-to-be will present the maids a gift that represents his home.”

“What is the point of that?”

In the brief silence she felt her throat tightening and her skin heating beneath his hands. Having him so close and touching her was making it devilishly difficult to concentrate.

“My sisters will listen to each man tell the story of how it represents his home, and then they will choose which gift means the most to them.”

“Preferences again. What if more than one maid chooses the same gift?”

“Again … it will be useful no matter who chooses which gift.”

“It seems to me”—his voice was suddenly lower—“that this ‘wife test’ of yours depends a great deal on simple preference. But ‘preference,’ I have learned, is not always a simple matter. What happens if, in the end, all of the men prefer the same maid? What if there is one maid no one wants?”

“I doubt that will occur.”

“But it is possible. And let’s say that it happens. What then?”

“Then … they will have to trust in the wisdom of the test.”

“In our judgment, you mean. For isn’t that what your precious ‘test’ comes down to? Our judgment? Our
preferences?
Yours and mine?” Then he asked the question that had deviled her sleep for the last two nights. “What happens if
we
don’t agree?”

She drew a shaky breath and forced herself to look up at him. His sable and russet eyes were glowing.

“Th-then we will discuss it and come to some sort of agreement.”

“Negotiate, you mean.”

“Discuss it,” she insisted. “Exchange points. Engage in give-and-take.”

“Meaning: you take and I give. For, without knowing the details of your precious ‘test,’ I will always be at a disadvantage. Then, in truth”—he paused to draw an alarming conclusion—“what this all comes down to is
your
preferences.” As he thought on that, his gaze wandered over her face.

“Why don’t we save ourselves a great deal of time and effort?” He leaned closer. “What
are
your preferences, Chloe of Guibray?”

Her skin flushed with heat. All of it. From her scalp to her toes.

“To make the best possible matches for my sisters—”

“I mean your
personal
preferences. You are to be wedded, too.”

Rivulets of warmth began trickling down the walls of her body to pool below her waist, carrying her indignation, her determination, and most of her concentration with them. Even her voice seemed to have been affected; it was suddenly little more than a whisper.

“I don’t have preferences … of that sort.”

“Come, now.” He pulled her toward him. “You’ve listened to them and watched them with your sisters. The handsome Jaxton. Simon the diplomat. That charming rascal William. Good-hearted and easily-led Graham. You can’t say you haven’t thought about it. This is your chance to declare your preference,
negotiate
for your choice.” He pulled her still closer, as if that might somehow force it out of her. “Which one do you want?”

“I-I hardly think this is …” She tried to wrest free and might have succeeded if he hadn’t slid his arms around her and hauled her fully against him.

“Tell me.” They were so close she could feel his heart pounding through their clothes. “Who do you want?”

Everything happening inside her—thought, heartbeat, breath—halted as the answer sprang from her heart to her mind and then her lips, where she just managed to stop it from escaping.

You.

Her legs weakened as that truth crashed over her in a sudden, overpowering wave of longing. She jerked her head aside to keep him from seeing what was surely as plain in her eyes as it was in her heart. How could this be? How could she possibly want him, knowing what sort of man he was … how he despised women and marriage? He was everything she knew to spell disaster for a peaceful and harmonious married life.

He cupped her face with his hand and forced it up. The last thing she saw as she closed her eyes was his mouth lowering toward hers.

For that first, stunning moment all she could do was feel. The strength of his arms around her, the hardness of his body against hers, the paradoxical softness of his lips … she was engulfed by new and overwhelming sensations. This was a kiss. This was what those handsome lips felt like when they were pressed against her own. Sweet heaven—it was wonderful. How could she have imagined anything this intimate, this delicious, this enthralling?

Then his mouth canted and began to move over hers, caressing her lips, coaxing a response from deep inside her. She grabbed the sides of his tunic to steady herself as she grew warm and pliant, melting against him, tilting her head to better receive his kiss. It became a subtle dance of desire and fulfillment between them, of curiosity and discovery.

Her second recognizable thought was that the feel of his body pressed against her was somehow familiar. It felt strangely as if she knew his embrace, even though she had never experienced or even imagined anything like it. She ran her hands up his back, measuring with the span of her fingers those broad shoulders that were proving not to be quite so impervious after all. He responded by running his hands firmly, hungrily over her back and sides. Each stroke unleashed a wave of pleasure that made her want to experience more.

She slid her arms up his chest and around his corded neck. In her mind dozens of stored images appeared: the line of his cheekbones, the soft curl of his hair, the breadth of his shoulders, the sensual sway of his shoulders as he walked, the hint of beard that grayed his jaw …

Then something in the feel of his mouth against hers changed.

He opened his eyes and jerked his head up, breaking that heavenly contact. A moment later he ripped his overheated body from hers and lurched back, looking at her as if she’d just sprouted horns and cloven hooves.

Abandoned abruptly, she staggered back a step, where she smacked the stone wall. As she shoved her hands out at her sides to support herself, every half-pleasured part of her was screaming in protest. But the look on his face silenced whatever voice she might have given to those complaints.

He turned on his heel and blindly strode off, banging his shoulder into the side of the tower as he fled.

The impact of what had just happened caused her knees to buckle, and she slid partway down the wall. Handsome, powerful, enigmatic Sir Hugh had
kissed
her. It was all she had dreamt of and more than she could have known to imagine. She touched her newly sensitive lips and tried to hold on to echoes of the pleasure he had stirred in her. But the sensations were fading quickly, growing elusive. Her awareness quickly broadened to admit a larger, more sobering reality. Arrogant, self-righteous, abstemious Sir Hugh of Sennet had
kissed
her.