Seduced by Grace (21 page)

She had tried to warn him. Was it a change of heart, that warning, or something more, some plan or purpose he could not define? Whatever it might be, she had paid for it. He only prayed the price was not more than he could bear.

The keep loomed ahead. He swept through the gate well ahead of Astrid and Oliver. Dragging his white stallion to a halt with such wrenching force the great beast went back on its haunches, he swung down. He reached for Marguerite, pulling her carefully into his arms, and then stumbled up the wide front steps with her. He did not pause in the great hall, made no answer
to the men who swarmed around, shouting and exclaiming in concerned fury. With his blood pumping madly through his veins, he made for the solar with giant strides, not slowing, not stopping until he had laid her upon the mattress of the bed.

She was so pale, so still for endless moments. Slowly, she lifted her lashes. She gazed up at him with pain and sorrow in the soft, dark brown of her eyes. He could not hold that gaze for fear of what else he might see, or what she might discover in his.

The arrow that thrust up above her body, tenting the brown wool of her cloak around it, was an obscenity. He stripped off his gloves, unsheathed his knife and made a fast slash through the cloth, cutting from the arrow’s hole to the center edge. Unfastening the heavy garment at the throat, he spread it open.

The arrow’s shaft was lodged in her arm with the barb protruding from the underside. Blood welled around it, soaking into her sleeve, darkening the waist of her gown. David closed his eyes for a bare instant, swallowing on sickness such as he had not felt on seeing any of a hundred battle wounds.

Astrid was beside him, pushing at his thigh as if to make him move, speaking, instructing, questioning. David paid no heed. He lifted his eyes to Marguerite’s again. “It has to come out,” he said, his voice carefully, rigorously even. “Now. At once. Will you allow me?”

She searched his face, probed the depths of his eyes while looking from one to the other. What she saw there must have satisfied her, for trust welled into her face and she gave a slow nod.

He would have kissed her if the arrow had not been
in the way. Instead, he touched the soft skin of her cheek, wiping away a single tear that tracked across the fine, pale skin. Mouth set in a grim line, he sliced away the sleeve of her gown. Moving quickly, before she could understand quite what he meant to do, he caught the arrow’s shaft in his two hands and broke it off above the flesh of her arm. He heard her stifled moan, but would not let it deter him. With his long fingers wrapped around her elbow, he lifted it then grasped the arrow’s head. Clenching his teeth, closing his eyes, he pulled what was left of the shaft out from the back side.

She gave a sigh and her eyes fell shut. For an instant, David thought she had fainted. He was not surprised, for he had seen hardened soldiers pass out from far less.

An instant later, a wobbly smile curved her lips. “Thank you,” she whispered.

No accolade had ever meant so much.

A fiery ache hovered behind his nose, crowding his eyes until they burned, while regret lay like a stone inside him. He stepped back as if stunned, with the piece of arrow gripped in his fist and Marguerite’s blood staining his hands.

“Move,” Astrid said, shoving at him with both childlike hands. “Out of my way, dolt, unless you want her to bleed to death.”

“Astrid, love,” Oliver, who had come quietly into the solar behind them, muttered in protest.

“Silence, fool. If you would make yourself useful, go and ask for water that has been well boiled with a goodly handful of salt.”

While Oliver was gone, Astrid folded thick pads
of linen and held them firmly to the wounds on either side of her arm to slow the bleeding. Afterward, the punctures were bathed with the salt water until she was certain no fragments of cloth or other matter were left embedded between them. When the arm was bound in clean linen, the small serving woman pressed a soothing herbal drink upon Marguerite. She stood for long moments, holding her mistress’s hand and smoothing tendrils of hair back from her face. When Marguerite finally slept, she sat down on the three-legged stool to wait.

David had a dozen things he should be doing. He sent Oliver to see to them, instead. Moving to the window where the shutters hung open, he stood looking out with his legs spread and his arms crossed over his chest.

After a moment, he spoke over his shoulder in soft inquiry. “What do you think?”

“She will be all right if the wounds don’t fester.”

“If.” He was not overly optimistic. He’d seen too many minor injuries become septic, mere scratches received at tournaments and in battles. They killed more seasoned soldiers than any weapon ever forged.

Astrid gave him a jaundiced look. “We tended you, she and I between us, and you healed in good time.”

A tight smile came and went across his lips. “So you did.”

“You need not stay,” Astrid said, knitting her short fingers together and folding her hands in her lap. “I will be here.”

“I can’t go.”

“As it pleases you, sir.”

A short silence fell in which could be heard the
rumble of voices from below, along with birdsong and the lazy hum of bees. The breeze through the window was warm and scented with green growing things. He wondered if it was too cool for Marguerite, but she slept on as if she didn’t feel it. Or he thought she slept. She was so still that he turned and walked back to the bed, staring down.

Yes. Her chest rose and fell. Still.

“She isn’t going to die,” Astrid said with compassion in her light voice.

“She almost did. The arrow came close, so close. An arrow meant…”

“For you? Praise be to God that you were also spared. And Oliver.”

A spasm of pain gripped his chest so fast and hard he could barely breathe. He strode back to the window and settled with one hip on the stone embrasure that made a shallow bench in front of it.

“You would rather it was you who was hit, I expect,” Astrid said in sharp tones. “But she’d not have it that way.”

“Why in the name of heaven did she have to go? What made her agree? She knew something was planned. She tried to warn me, you heard her. Wasn’t that what she intended?”

“Aye, it was. As to the why of it, she didn’t think you would believe evildoings of the
comtesse,
but had to see it for yourself. If you didn’t see it, then that lady and her husband might try again when there was no one to warn you.”

David was not accustomed to concern for his well-being. So tough was he in body and mind that it
never occurred to him that Marguerite might be afraid for him. It was difficult to realize, too, that she might have felt he would not listen to her, or believe what she told him. The idea made his chest ache.

Celestine had come to him not long after he’d been taken up by Charles of France. As with so many ladies of the court, she had been drawn to his prowess on the field, his strength and honors. It had not taken him long to understand that she cared nothing for him beyond these things. She had been demanding and condescending in bed, with less modesty than the meanest street trollop. The affair, if it could be called that, was instructive, but too cold-blooded to hold him for long. She had screamed and thrown things when he left her.

That she had been all smiles when she appeared at Henry’s court had been a surprise. He might have known she had her reasons.

So Celestine had dropped her poison in Marguerite’s ear, but far from being taken in by it, Marguerite had used it to cause the Frenchwoman’s undoing. Brave, bright Marguerite, who did not understand—might never understand—how much he was hers and how much he wanted her to belong to him.

God’s teeth, but what was he doing? How had he become involved with Henry and his schemes? Why should he continue, if it could mean losing the one thing he had ever wanted, the one person who had ever meant anything to him?

Yet what could he do now? He was in the middle of the quarrel between York and Lancaster, and there was no way out except absolution from Henry.

Absolution or death.

“H
as there been no word from the
comtesse?
”

Marguerite put that question to David on the third morning after the incident in the forest. It had been troubling her for some time, but Astrid did not know the answer and she was asleep when David was there, or else he slept on the floor beside her bed when she chanced to awake, and she would not disturb him.

“There was no sign of her in the woods where the attack took place,” he answered, his voice even and a little distant. “Blood was found where the
comte
fell, but that was all. The two of them seem to have escaped with the men who set upon us. Well, or were taken away by them. Either way, they are gone.”

“You don’t sound greatly concerned,” she ventured.

“No. The
comte
and
comtesse
almost got you killed. Their fate doesn’t interest me.”

The pair could have gone to Henry, who was surely in London by now, or else taken ship for France to report events to Charles VIII. Fear of retribution would surely keep them well away from David now, a thought that brought infinite relief.

She watched him where he sat at the window. He
looked perfectly at home, as she had seen him there often as she drifted between sleep and awakening. The morning light slanted across his features, making them appear strained, almost gaunt. It shone in his hair and caught in the sincere blue of his eyes as he turned his gaze upon her.

She could only sustain that intense scrutiny for brief seconds. Lowering her lashes, she watched her fingers as she pleated the sheet that lay across her. “Astrid said she told you…that you understand what I was about.”

He tipped his head. “Think no more of it. I only regret it ended as it did.”

“What was the point of it all? Was it for the French king? Did Charles learn somehow of your purpose and fear he had let the true heir to England’s throne slip through his fingers?”

“What? You think the
comtesse
was to lure me back to France or, failing that, truss me up and carry me?”

“Something of the sort, I suppose.”

“Nay, my lady. The men in the wood loosed their arrows with the intent to kill. What use might I be as a pawn in Charles’s game against England if delivered to him as dead meat?”

“Don’t!” she said sharply.

“Forgive me, but facts are facts.”

“Unfortunately,” she muttered without looking at him, “I would almost rather you were a guest of the French king, even if under lock and key, than pretending to be Edward V.”

He turned a scowl upon her. “Is that what you thought, that it wouldn’t matter if I were taken as it would be better than this business of Henry’s? I should
tell you, then, that it would not have served at all. Like Henry before me when he was a guest of Louis XI, my best use as a hostage might well have been to hand me over to the English crown in exchange for certain concessions.”

“Charles would have done that?”

“Without a second thought.”

“But you were his friend!” Her chest hurt as she saw his calm, almost fatalistic acceptance of that deceit. He was so alone, so very alone.

“Yes, but far less dear to him than the glory of his crown. He would love to be the king who made En gland and France one again. The how of it would mean nothing and less than nothing.”

To veer away from that hurtful subject seemed a kindness. “In spite of which, we don’t know the
comtesse
was acting for Charles.”

He drew up his legs, placing his feet on the embrasure seat and then bracing his folded arms on his knees. The gaze he sent her was both interested and doubtful. “Who then?”

Lacking a veil to mangle, as was her habit, she lifted the corner of the sheet and nibbled upon it. “She is a proud woman. For herself, then, for revenge?”

“A vain woman,” he corrected. “But if her intent was retribution for past rejection, why wait so long? The contact between us was years ago.”

That he could answer so readily was proof he had considered it. If it troubled him, nothing of it could be heard in his voice. “She may have fallen in with the aims of others because of it.”

“Yorkists, you think? Or some arrangement with Hal
liwell’s heir? If so, I would imagine it was gold that swayed her. To maintain a position at the French court is no cheap undertaking.”

Marguerite thought he underestimated the woman’s jealous attachment, and her anger that stemmed from it. She did not say so, however. “Mayhap it was Henry. Suppose he has decided you could actually be the Plantagenet heir?”

“So he’d also have reason to see the end of me? I do see the trend of your thoughts,” he said with a glimmer of irony in his eyes.

“It would explain why he was suddenly determined to arrange a betrothal for me after all these years,” she said, tearing at the linen corner, speaking almost at random and with little belief in what she said. “He could not reach you so long as you remained in France. He sent messages, I believe you said, asking that you return to England, messages you disregarded. He might have been clever enough to realize I would send a plea for your aid if threatened with marriage.”

“And that I would answer it as surely as winter follows autumn,” he said, turning to gaze out the window with a thoughtful expression on his face. “But no. Henry would never have chanced making me an alternate pretender in such a case. More, it’s well-known that Charles VIII supports Warbeck’s pretensions, and I suspect the
comte
felt my demise would best serve the French crown. As it is to Celestine’s advantage to support her husband, she involved herself in the intrigue—or may even have suggested it. Certain it is that she knew the best method for waylaying me would be to entice you into it.”

“So it would seem.” She paused, finished on a whisper. “I’m sorry, desperately sorry.”

“Don’t.” He turned his head to stare across at her. “You were used, and that’s an end to it.”

Her lips turned down at the corners. “I allowed myself to be used.”

“Out of concern and fear and a thousand other things that no longer matter.”

“You are too kind.”

“Should I shout and curse and threaten chastisement? That would be stupid, as I knew what was to happen and did nothing to stop it.”

Sickness shifted inside her. “You knew? But how could you?”

“I heard you and Celestine speaking of it, up on the battlements.”

“But then…” She stopped, tried again. “Why did you ride out with us?”

“I could not believe that you meant harm.” He lifted a shoulder. “If you did, it didn’t much matter what came after.”

“You trusted me.” She could not think about the rest of what he’d said, with its suggestion that it didn’t matter whether he lived or died if she meant to betray him.

He uncoiled from the seat and came toward her. Going to his knees beside the bed, he took her hand, being careful not to jostle her bandaged arm. “I trusted you, yes, as you have always trusted me. One thing you and I have never done, my sweet Marguerite, is hurt each other.”

It wasn’t true, she thought as she shielded her eyes with her lashes, at least, not entirely. He had hurt her
by proposing a marriage that offered nothing except his protection and his name. He had hurt her every time he withdrew from her arms, leaving her craving something more from him in the way of closeness, craving the completion he would not give her, would not take from her. These things were unintentional, however, so could not be allowed to matter. He even thought they were for her benefit.

“Marguerite?”

“No, we haven’t hurt each other. Not on purpose.” She met his gaze an instant before looking down again.

“Nonetheless, you took the arrow that was meant for me. For that pain, I beg forgiveness.”

“It was my own fault.”

He rubbed his thumb across the top of her hand, the movement soothing yet oddly entrancing, deliciously exciting. “I should never have agreed to a race, and wouldn’t have except it seemed an excuse for making for the keep that much faster.”

Her smile was wry. “My thought, as well.”

His long fingers settled on her pulse beneath her wrist, pressing gently. She thought briefly of them touching her elsewhere, and with the same sure care. The drawing sensation in the lower part of her body made her shift a little on the mattress.

“I also regret dragging you into this business,” he went on, his voice a deep rumble in his chest. “It appears you would have been safer with Henry, and yet I thought…”

“Yes? You thought?” she inquired as he stopped.

He met her gaze, his own starkly blue. “I feared you
might become a target of reprisal for my actions, or be taken as hostage for them.”

“Hostage.”

“My hands would have been tied if you fell into Yorkist control. And if the demand was to exchange my life for yours?” He lifted a shoulder in a gesture of resignation.

“You would have done that?” she asked, though the words were like knives in her throat. “Exchanged your life for mine?”

He bent his head to brush his lips across her knuckles without answering directly. “I thought I’d be better able to protect you if you were by my side. I was wrong.”

“Or not. Who can say what might have happened if I had remained with Henry.”

“You would be safe at Westminster this day, instead of lying here in pain.”

“It doesn’t hurt so much.”

“You lie,” he said without heat.

She reached with her free hand to touch his face where golden beard stubble lurked under the skin. A soft wing of sandy-gold hair fell forward at his temple and she smoothed it back, tucking it behind his ear. To touch him in this way satisfied some deep need inside her while making her feel warm and fluid inside. His brow was broad, classic in its proportions. His brows and lashes were darker than his hair yet bleached to gold at the tips. Deep in his eyes were facets of blue that were both darker and lighter than could be seen at a distance.

He was so gentle with her, and yet she had seen the hard, unyielding side he showed to others. His strength had nothing to do with shouting and bluster, but came
from inside, from bedrock confidence. He was a warrior, one hard and dangerous to cross. And yet, he did have the bearing of a prince, of a man who should be king.

He had the fair looks, the demeanor and also the branded mark of the Plantagenets. What if he were one indeed, a true son of Edward IV, and not some by-blow from a brief affair? What if he truly was one of those young boys who had disappeared? Such a terrible miscarriage of justice if Henry used him to keep his hold on a throne that should be David’s by right.

If the pretender Warbeck claimed to be Richard, the second son of Edward IV, then David would have to be Edward, proclaimed as Edward V on the death of his father when he was little more than a boy. It could be no other way.

The idea of it haunted her, had lingered at the back of her mind from the moment David stood so proud and strong and proclaimed himself a Plantagenet to Henry’s face. She longed to know if he was more correct than he realized. Someone, somewhere, must know the truth. There had to be a way to discover it.

If so it transpired, Henry would have to be told as a matter of loyalty. After everything he had done for her and her two sisters, she could not leave him in ignorance.

What might he do if convinced beyond a doubt that David was the true heir to the throne? It was impossible to say with any degree of certainty. The least he would do, surely, would be to recall David from his role as a divider of the Yorkist force.

That recall was necessary. David would never aban
don the course he was set upon, otherwise. He had given his word to King Henry and would not depart from it, something she should have known from the start.

If David was dismissed by the king, however, he could accept that turn of events with good grace and no damage to his honor. He could go about his affairs as before, either returning to France or remaining here in England. They could be done with this business of princes and kings forever.

First, however, was the matter of discovering his birth.

It would have to begin with the convent where David had been reared. Surely the order of nuns domiciled there kept records for the children left in their care? If not that, then the Mother Superior might remember the circumstances. It could not hurt to ask.

She had sent messages flying across Europe to bring David to her. It should be easier to do something similar in England. She need not leave the keep or make a noise about it. All she had to do was pen the messages and wait with what patience she could manage to receive answers.

She would start tomorrow. And would it not be strange if she proved that David was the least false of all the pretenders to the throne of England, more truly a king than the man who held it?

Marguerite was up to something, David knew it. Brooding speculation was in her eyes and determination in the set of her chin. It had always been one of her charms that what she thought and felt registered on her expressive face.

He only wished he knew exactly what she had in mind so he could prevent it. He could not endure another such incident as the ambuscade.

The devil in it was that he could not remain to discover it. Now that she was mending, he had to return to the arrangements made by Henry. Meetings of vital importance had been postponed, meetings with those who would pretend to support him and provide funds, men and armor to make his cause appear strong and viable. These appointments must be kept if he was to maintain the momentum he had gained.

He had gathered some few supporters on his own, young men ready for change, those grown tired of the endless machinations of the old regimes, the constant shifts of power that robbed noble and merchant, rich and poor alike of their peaceful futures. None could prosper while all looked over their shoulders for the next invasion, the next overthrow of Lancastrians by Yorkists or Yorkists by Lancastrians. The common people were so sick of war that they were ready to cheer any man who could promise an end to armies marching across their fields and common lands, taking whatever they produced and raping their wives and daughters.