Lady Fortune (8 page)

“I can but suggest it,” Nicholas said. “I’ve never been sure if the boy kills for sport as well as for gain. We could suggest the abbot as someone worthy of his metal.”

“Don’t try your puns on me, Master Nicholas,” Bogo said sternly. “Save ‘em for the gentry.”

“I can’t resist. After all, I need to keep in practice. I suppose I’ll have to go seek out young Gilbert and discover what he’s doing here.”

“You’d best be careful. I don’t think you’re supposed to know each other. King Henry told the earl that Gilbert’s an orphan from a household up in Northumberland.”

Nicholas didn’t even blink. He’d learned long ago to school his emotions.

Curse Henry for a devious tyrant! He’d done it on purpose, to remind Nicholas just how much in his power he really was.

“Northumberland, eh?” he said evenly. “And I suppose, if we ask, he’ll say he comes from the Derwent family. It has a certain ring, does it not? And why has he traveled so far to be a fosterling?”

“His family died in the plague, and King Henry’s keeping his holdings until he deems the lad worthy of them. Or so he says.”

“I wouldn’t think there’s much in Northumberland that would interest King Henry,” Nicholas said. By this time the chattering servant women had disappeared back into the kitchens, the knights had dispersed, and the strong wind had picked up, setting Nicholas’s bells jangling in a way that set his temper on edge.

“I told you, who knows what goes on in the mind of a king,” Bogo said. “Maybe he’s confided in young Gilbert.”

“And maybe he’s confided in you, old friend. Either way, it’s not for me to question. Henry wants the sacred relic, and I plan to deliver it, with or without Gilbert’s help.”

“I imagine he’s just here to cut a few throats to ease things. That’s what he does best, doesn’t he? Be a shame if he got his hands on the ladies, though. That young one that came here with us, she’s a lively morsel, isn’t she? Looks like she hasn’t had much of a life yet. ‘Twould be a shame to snuff it out too quickly.”

“Don’t try to be subtle, Bogo, it doesn’t suit you,” Nicholas murmured in a cold voice. “If Gilbert puts a hand where it doesn’t belong, I’ll cut it off.”

“I wouldn’t be too cocky if I were you, master.”

“I wouldn’t be too uncertain of my master if I were you, Bogo,” he replied. “I have talents and secrets you can’t even begin to imagine.”

Bogo’s swarthy face creased in a sour smile. “I doubt that you do, master, after all these years.” He squinted up at the keep. “You’ll be wanted in the Great Hall. I’m thinking Lord Hugh wants the lady properly wedded and bedded. Word has it he’s been like a cat walking on hot coals since she got here.”

“Then why the delay? A betrothal’s as good as a marriage, everyone knows that.”

Bogo shrugged. “Maybe he thought he’d take it easy on her. Give her time to get used to him.”

“A sensitive soul in the guise of a warrior. Interesting, Bogo. That might prove useful later on.”

“There’s no doubt about it, Lady Isabeau is his weakness.”

“Then we’ll work through Lady Isabeau.”

“You want Gilbert to kill her?”

Nicholas hesitated. “I don’t like to think of myself as a sentimental man, but I do have a strong dislike of violence. Besides, she would be almost as great a waste as her pretty daughter. Once Henry gets the sacred relic, Lord Hugh will need something to distract him, and a pretty woman will do wonders to keep his mind off his losses. While a vengeful man can be dangerous indeed.” He shook back his long hair. “Speaking of which, where is Father Paulus?”

“In the Great Hall. Where we should be right now.”

“I’m looking forward to it,” Nicholas said gently.

And he was. Looking forward to looking Father Paulus in the eye as he turned a somersault in front of him. The priest had earned himself a dangerous enemy, and there was a good chance he’d have no idea just how wicked Nicholas could be when his temper was roused. There were better ways to destroy a man than to cut his throat— he’d learned that long ago. Mockery and gentle ridicule would do the trick far more effectively.

He was even more interested in facing the bride’s daughter, with her huge brown eyes and her elegant body that moved so bewitchingly beneath her drab clothes. It was a good thing she fit well with his plans, or she’d become a dangerous distraction. He hadn’t dreamed of a woman in years, and yet last night Julianna of Moncrieff had danced through his thoughts, dressed in much less than those layers of fine wool. He was quite desperate to know whether the reality would come anywhere near the luscious dream world of scent and skin.

“You there! Fool!” Sir Richard was rushing toward him across the courtyard, and Bogo faded into the morning mist. He had the good sense to keep his distance from his master—a fool with a servant such as Bogo was a man with unexpected depths, and Sir Richard already had too many suspicions. “You’re wanted in the Great Hall!”

Nicholas bowed with an exaggerated flourish, strolling toward the huge portal with deliberate laziness. “I live to serve,” he murmured.

“You’d best do so,” Sir Richard snapped. “All hell’s broken loose—Lord Hugh’s storming around in a temper, Lady Isabeau is crying, and that damned priest is acting like he’s the cat who’s just eaten the canary. Get in there and distract people till we find out if there’ll even be a wedding.”

Nicholas glanced at him sideways as he preceded him into the Great Hall. Sir Richard wasn’t a bad man. He lacked imagination, of course, but he’d been surprisingly gentle with Lady Julianna and he disliked the abbot, two strong points in his favor.

Nicholas paused in the doorway, surveying the situation. The place was packed. Most of the servants and knights were in attendance for their master’s wedding, but the happy couple was nowhere in sight. From a distance he could hear Lord Hugh bellowing in rage, and after a moment he spied Lady Isabeau seated near the fire, a deceptively calm expression on her face, her daughter standing by her side.

He took a moment to savor Lady Julianna in her hideous brown gown and enveloping veil, then turned his attention back to the bride. There was definitely something wrong, much as she was trying to hide it. And he imagined the abbot of Saint Hugelina was behind it.

The door behind the arras opened, and Lord Hugh strode through, a thunderous expression on his face, followed closely by Father Paulus. There was no missing the smugness on the monk’s bony face, and Nicholas allowed himself the brief fantasy of sending his fist directly into the middle of that pale flesh.

He couldn’t, of course. Not now. Instead he simply tucked into a ball and rolled forward, ignoring the pain in his back, ignoring the shrieks of the crowd as they moved out of his way. Four complete turns brought him, standing, in front of Lord Hugh and the smirking priest.

There was a nervous titter of laughter in the Great Hall, but Lord Hugh looked even more furious.

“There will be no—” he thundered, and then his glance fell on Lady Isabeau’s calm form. “No bedding,” he said finally. “Father Paulus has enjoined us to live chastely in the eyes of God for the time being, and my wife and I will conform to his goodly advice. We will be as brother and sister, working together for the well-being of this household and our people.”

The murmur of scandalized conversation was hushed, but the abbot’s smile widened. “Come, my daughter,” he said to Isabeau, who still hadn’t risen. “Come and be joined to your husband-brother.”

She was as good as her daughter at hiding her feelings, Nicholas thought. Only a faint shadow in her eyes displayed her dislike of the priest’s edict, even as she rose obediently and approached the towering form of her new husband. So the daughter was afraid of bedding and the mother wasn’t. An interesting piece of information, Nicholas thought.

The ceremony went smoothly, the vows brief, grumbled by Lord Hugh, murmured sweetly by his new bride. Father Paulus then launched into a speech that seemed interminable, Nicholas thought as he observed people shifting from one foot to the other, trying to hide their yawns.

At last the final blessing was pronounced, the happy couple was bidden to live in chaste bliss, and a restrained huzzah filled the hall. Nicholas moved with his usual deft grace, sliding up next to the unhappy couple.

“Silence!” Father Paulus thundered, glaring at him in impotent fury.

“How can I be silent, oh, Father Twist?” Nicholas replied, doing a little spin that set his bells to jangling. Julianna was watching him, and he leaned forward and kissed the horrified monk on the forehead. “You’ll have to find your own sick pleasures and leave these two to theirs.”

“I’ll have you flayed alive!” he said in a furious whisper.

Nicholas smiled sweetly at him. “You already tried, good priest. Find some other way to bring yourself to completion.”

And he danced off toward the waiting Julianna before Father Paulus could do more than sputter in impotent rage.

There was no place to escape to in this crowd of people, and Julianna prided herself on her courage. She lifted her head to watch the jester’s graceful approach, telling herself the man was mad, and as a good Christian she should be merciful.

“You’d look far better without that ugly dress, my lady,” he greeted her softly. “You’d look far better without anything at all. Turn around and I’ll unfasten it for you.”

Fortunately, his musical voice was pitched low enough that no one heard him. “Are you bleeding again?” she asked him in a severe voice.

He clasped his hands to his chest in a devout gesture. “Only my heart, pierced by cupid’s arrow, torn by your cold indifference.”

“You were a fool to do those somersaults—you’ll reopen your wounds, and for what? Father Paulus is a dangerous man. He’ll simply think he didn’t do a good enough job on you and be determined to do better.”

“The abbot won’t come near me again,” Nicholas said in a soft, certain voice. “And I
am
a fool, dearest. It’s my calling in life. I thought you realized that. Why don’t we leave this decidedly unmerry gathering and I’ll strip off my clothes and let you tend me?”

The man was incorrigible, surprising a shocked laugh out of her. He froze, staring down at her out of his strange golden eyes.

“Do that again,” he said urgently.

“Do what?”

“Laugh. Until last night I was beginning to think my lady Sobersides incapable of it.”

All amusement fled. “I don’t find there’s much to laugh about in this life.”

“Then you don’t look hard enough. I can find five ridiculous things without even turning around. You could do the same if you felt like it. For one thing, the unhappily married couple’s misery is laughably apparent.”

“I don’t find human misery entertaining,” she said sharply.

“Even in your mother? You have a more tender heart than I would have thought. It’s amusing because it won’t be long before they realize that Father Paulus’s edict is both ill conceived and against the teachings of the church. I give them two weeks at most before they’re happily bedded. What’s your wager?”

“I’m not going to gamble on my mother’s virtue!” Julianna said in scandalized tones.

Nicholas took a step back, eyeing her with a contemplative air. “Then we’ll wager on yours. How long before you’re happily bedded?”

“A lifetime!” she snapped, then could have bit her tongue. The oh-so-clever fool was not the man to have such information.

But he didn’t blink, unsurprised at her outburst. “Sooner than that, my lady,” he murmured, his voice low. “I promise you.”

For a moment she was caught, staring up at him, the soft caress in his voice strangely beguiling. The noise and crowd around them seemed to fade into the background, and his strange eyes drew her with promises of delight that she knew had to be false, but she believed anyway. She felt her face flush, her skin tingle and tighten, and she swayed toward him, just slightly.

And then he laughed. “Not now, my precious. Father Paulus is watching.”

It was as effective as a slap in the face, a dowsing with cold water as dampening as the one she had administered the night before. She blinked, stepping back from him, and her gown caught beneath her feet, tripping her.

He caught her before she fell, his arm strong and hard around her waist, his body far too close. Not the body of a fool, but the body of a man, strong and well muscled, like no other man who had ever touched her.

“I could kiss you, my lady,” he said in a voice so low that no one else could hear him. “In full view of your mother and good Father Paulus and the entire household. Have you ever been kissed by a fool? Have you ever been well and truly kissed by anyone at all?”

The noise around them was a buzz of conversation and laugher, and yet no one seemed to notice she was trapped, pressed up tight against Nicholas’s body. No one would rescue her. “I don’t like kissing,” she said in a strangled voice.

His smile was a slow one, both bewitching and utterly annoying. “That answers my question. If you’d been well and truly kissed, you’d like it very much indeed. Shall I demonstrate?”

She would have said yes. For a brief, mad moment she believed that all kisses were not alike, and Master Nicholas knew the secret of strange, sweet kisses that enticed the body and enchanted the heart.

But someone bumped into them, breaking his hold, and the strange, wild temptation passed.

“I never did thank you for coming to my aid last night. You were an angel of mercy.”

She looked at him doubtfully. “Including your unwanted bath?”

“Oh, I definitely needed something to cool me down. You have a very… heated effect on me.”

“I’ll try not to.”

“Oh, I enjoy it. I find you very stimulating.”

“Don’t!” she said, feeling desperate.

“I can’t help how I react to you. Put your hand against my heart—you’ll feel how hard it’s beating.” He reached down for her hand, but she snatched it out of his reach.

She stared at him, scandalized. “Don’t you realize we’re in a hall full of people? That everyone can see us?”

“Then come away with me. We can find Saint Hugelina’s chapel and ask the holy martyr to bless our union.”

“Our union?” she echoed, aghast.

“Well, our physical union. I wasn’t thinking of marrying you.”

He was close enough to touch, close enough to shove. She pushed at him, but he remained immovable, too tall, too big.

“Leave me alone,” she whispered, pleading.

“Or you could ask the holy saint to free you from the onerous burden of a fool’s infatuation. They say if you wish upon a holy relic, your prayers will be granted.”

“Too bad there are no holy relics around when you need one,” she said.

“Ah, but there is. Just ask your mother. I expect she knows all about it.”

She wasn’t about to ask her mother anything, and he probably knew it. “What holy relic?”

“Rumor has it that the Blessed Chalice of the Martyred Saint Hugelina the Dragon is somewhere in
Fortham
Castle
. I imagine the abbot is well aware of it—you could always ask him.”

“Why are you telling me this? Why should I care about a sacred relic?”

“I thought you wanted to be a holy sister, my lady. Sacred relics are a poor substitute for passion.”

“I’m not interested in passion. Nor in holy relics. Nor in anything else you have to say.”

She spun away from him and this time he made no effort to stop her, merely watching her out of his strange, enigmatic eyes.

It was easy enough to make her escape once she got free of Master Nicholas. The elegant fool was the only person in this household who seemed aware of her presence, though to be fair, she had to admit that her mother had other, more pressing matters on her mind. Julianna slipped out of the Great Hall into the corridor, breathing a sigh of relief at the blessed quiet after the loud, boisterous voices, when she barreled into a slight figure, almost knocking him over.

“I beg your pardon,” she said breathlessly, catching his velvet-covered arm. “I didn’t look where I was going.”

“No harm, my lady.”

He was a child—no, more than a child but not yet a man. He had long, silky black hair, a heart-shaped face of almost feminine beauty, and the bluest eyes she had ever seen. He smiled at her quite sweetly, and for a moment she thought of her own unborn children. Would they have been as beautiful as this young man? With such enchanting sweetness of expression?

“I’m Gilbert, fosterling to Lord Hugh,” he said in his young, soft voice. “I know who you are, of course. My lady Isabeau’s long-lost daughter. She has been longing for your return to her side.”

“Yes,” Julianna said in a noncommittal voice, for lack of anything else to say.

“It’s a hard thing to be sent away from one’s mother,” Gilbert continued. “Harder for a young girl, I suppose, though God knows I miss my own mother quite dearly.”

All thoughts of Isabeau faded. “Of course you do,” Julianna said warmly. “How old are you, child?”

“Thirteen,” he said in a shy voice. “I suppose it’s only natural to be homesick—up until last month I had never been away from my home in the north. I only trust my dear mother fares well without me. My father died when I was quite young, and I have no brothers to look after her. I can only pray the king will see to her well-being should she need assistance.”

“You’re too young to have to worry about such things, Gilbert,” Julianna said softly. “If you’d like, I’ll speak to my stepfather and see if you can’t go home for a year or so. Your training could certainly wait a few years…”

Gilbert shook his head sadly, the silken locks falling on his pale, smooth skin. “I’ve given my word, Lady Julianna. I can’t go back on it. But it’s good to know I’ll have a sister here to turn to when things trouble me or I get homesick.”

“You do indeed,” she said warmly. He was tall for such a young stripling, almost her height, but the soft innocence of his features proclaimed his youth. “I need some fresh air—things are too hot and noisy in the Great Hall and no one seems particularly joyous about this marriage. Would you care to join me?”

“I’m promised to Lord Hugh,” Gilbert murmured. “But if I can, I’ll join you later.”

She smiled at him. With no children of her own, she spent her mother-love wherever she could, and Gilbert, even if he was a few years too old to be her child, would certainly benefit from a little maternal or sisterly solace. “Later, then, young Gilbert. I’m glad you’re here.”

He took her hand and kissed it with the slight awkwardness of untried youth. “Not as glad as I am, my lady.”

Gilbert de Blaith watched the lady Julianna disappear down the stone walkway with his expression carefully veiled. In fact he was seventeen years old, not thirteen; he’d been orphaned since the age of nine, when he’d shoved his father down the long stone steps at Harcourt Grange, and the only beauty and sweetness in him resided in his face and form, not in his shadowed soul. He had been sent by his king to ensure that the chalice didn’t get misplaced on its way into his hands, and Gilbert expected that sooner or later he’d be using the knife he wielded with such cunning accuracy.

Julianna would be of little use to him, but he was clever enough not to discount any possible advantage. He had no interest in bedding her—he preferred young, slightly stupid women who expected nothing. Julianna would be far too much trouble—he had no time or interest in coaxing. He viewed sex much as he viewed eating or relieving himself. A necessary bodily function he required at reasonable intervals, and nothing more.