Seduced by Grace (26 page)

“So I was, Your Majesty,” David answered in firm assurance. “Only something has come to light that—”

Henry lifted a hand to stay the flow of words. “All goes well with our endeavor?”

“Better than expected, sire.”

“We have also taken note of recent interest in the Golden Knight. You have done well.”

“I am gratified that you think so,” David answered, “though you may be less pleased when you hear what I have learned.”

Henry leaned an elbow on the arm of the chair that served him as a throne in this informal audience chamber and cupped his chin in his hand. His gray-blue eyes were shrewd under level brows. On this day, he wore a circlet of gold that came down on his forehead, holding back the shoulder-length waves of his gray-dusted sandy hair. His clothing was simple, being merely an embroidered wool doublet, dark hose and boots that came to his knees.

“And what might that be?” he asked after a moment.

David, his face grim and heart crowding his throat, removed the bag of oiled silk kept close under his cloak. From it he took the marriage lines which officially united Edward IV of England and Lady Eleanor Talbot Butler. With an openhanded gesture, he presented them.

The seneschal stepped forward and took the parchment, conveying it into the king’s hands. Silence descended as Henry, a frown growing between his brows, perused the document.

“This is extraordinary,” he said when he looked up at last. “How came you by the pages?”

Marguerite stirred beside him. With a bow, David indicated that the tale was hers to relate. She did so with admirable brevity, but in full disclosure of all that confirmed the document in its origin.

Henry sat back in his chair. “You realize that this makes our queen consort illegitimate?”

“Indeed, sire,” Marguerite answered. “I’m sorry for it, but thought it important you have this proof.”

Henry made a sound of agreement. “And this babe, this son you say was born to Lady Eleanor and branded by Edward as his own? The child’s claim to the throne must supersede that of other Yorkist claimants, including our Elizabeth’s brothers. What know you of it?”

David drew a deep breath and squared his shoulders. “Forgive me, sire, but I am that child.”

Henry’s eyes narrowed. “You?”

“Brought up in a convent where orphans were taken in, and bearing a brand that is the mark of the Plantagenets.”

“We would see this brand.”

Hard on the words, Henry made a brusque gesture. The seneschal walked to the door of the antechamber and returned with the escort that had waited outside. They marched forward, surrounding David. A moment later, he was thrust to his knees with his cloak and doublet stripped away, and shirt torn open to expose the brand.

“Sire!” Marguerite exclaimed with shock strong in her voice. “Sir David came to you with this news. He could have continued to gather his force under your aegis, instead. He could have played you false until strong enough to become a foe.”

If she meant to help, it was the wrong way to go about it, David thought in tight despair. The last thing he needed was for Henry to think of him as a potential enemy.

“And we are to accept the existence of this mark on faith, Lady Marguerite?” the king demanded. “We are not to inspect it to see if it be new or old, real or a fake, a true brand or something built upon a random scar?”

“Why would he lie?” she demanded in her turn. “He might have kept it hidden until crowned, if that had been his wish. He was already recognized as a pretender, the returned Edward.”

The king did not answer, but dismissed the men of his escort with a gesture. David breathed somewhat easier once they left the chamber. At least he had not been taken to the Tower forthwith. He shrugged his clothing back into place, but remained on one knee. It seemed best to assume nothing, at least for the moment.

“He was recognized at my instigation and with my aid,” the king answered Marguerite at last. “You will understand if we suspect we have been duped.”

“Never, sire,” David answered with all the hard conviction at his command.

“In what way?” Marguerite inquired, standing tall and proud as she faced Henry, though her clasped hands trembled visibly. “You sent for him yourself in the beginning. When he would not come, you arranged a stratagem you thought could not fail. You were correct in it, for when faced with a betrothal I could not abide, I sent for him and he appeared. Afterward, you, and you alone, put forth the suggestion that David become a pretender. He could be forgiven for thinking himself the dupe, enticed here that you might destroy him.”

“Marguerite,” David breathed.

“You go too far, Lady Marguerite,” Henry said in hard warning. “We are not so devoid of reason as to propose insurrection against us from a true heir.”

“Nor is David imbecile enough to set himself against you. He agreed to your subterfuge for no reason except your sworn word that I need never wed. And if he has
succeeded beyond your expectation or your need, it is through no fault of his own but mayhap because the people noted something of royalty in his face and manner. Where in all this is there room for betrayal or malice? Where is anything, except the honor that is his watchword?”

That plea sounded as if she was for him, after all. David heard her out with amazed hope flaring behind his breastbone, staring at her while searching for the truth of it. Her face was pale and her eyes shadowed with desperation, however, and she would not look at him.

Henry shifted in his chair, clasping its arm a moment before beginning to tap his fingertips upon it. “We are to allow him to continue building a force against us that may become greater than Warbeck’s?”

“He would not…”

“Nay, sire,” David said, overriding Marguerite’s protest. “You may destroy the evidence of my birthright at your will. I have no desire whatever to wear your crown. You earned the worry and woe of it on Bosworth Field. Even should I be proved Edward’s son ten times over, I would not take that from you.”

Henry snorted. “Easily said, but men have been talked into royal ambition before by those who would use them for their own ends.”

“But none with such strength of will or little yen for a crown,” Marguerite insisted.

“Nay, sire,” David repeated most earnestly. “You may destroy the evidence of my birthright at your will. I was never brought up to think myself fit for a castle, much less a kingdom. High honors were never expected, nor
the high duties that go with them. What I have was earned by my own hand, with main strength and the favor of heaven. I am my own man, and would never trade that to become the master of all England who is, in truth, the minion of all.”

“Fine words and fair,” Henry returned with a twist of his lips, “but how should we wager everything on them, not only our throne, but our queen, our heirs and our future? If we are wrong, these things must be forfeit, for you can no more allow us to live than I can permit you that boon now.”

It was a death sentence, for all its measured reason. David heard it over the drumming of his heart as his fear grew that he would not go alone to the axe or gallows.

“But, sire,” Marguerite said with the rasp of anxiety in her voice as she moved forward a quick step. “To take David’s life now can only lend credence to the tale of his birth given out before. He has gained fame near to legend under his pennon of the Golden Knight. The people could turn from your cause should it become known that you executed him out of hand. Warbeck is still out there, you will recall, and unlike David, he does covet your crown.”

David could feel the sting of the wool carpet under his hose-covered knee, smell the odor of hot lamp oil, dust and a hint of sandalwood from Henry’s clothing. It was better to concentrate on these things than on the decision Henry would hand down in the next brief moments. The tapping sound of the king’s fingers on the arm of his thronelike chair was loud in the quiet. Abruptly, it stopped.

“Who else knows this tale, Lady Marguerite?” he asked in meditative tones. “Other than you and Sir David?”

It was a trap, one that yawned wide and deep. David felt cold strike to the marrow of his bones as he saw it. “Marguerite,” he began.

“The elderly nun in her convent, also those who were with me when she told it,” she answered, her voice rigorously even. “Who else, I cannot say, not knowing how many others might have listened to her ramblings.”

David breathed again. If only he and Marguerite had known of his birthright, they could both have been ordered to the Tower at once. She had sidestepped that pitfall. He would not be forced to see her arrested with him on that account.

“More than that,” Marguerite went on, her face clear yet intense, “you were wise enough to destroy the
Titulus Regius
by which parliament, under Richard, declared Edward’s children from Elizabeth Woodville to be born out of wedlock. The queen’s favor with the people as Edward’s eldest daughter forms the bedrock for your reign. As you suggested just now, raking up the matter of her legitimacy again is unlikely to be useful.”

Henry’s face turned stone-hard. “Our queen is well loved, but our reign does not require support derived from her or from her father.”

“No, no, I only meant that…”

“We know what you meant,” Henry said in forbidding decisiveness.

Quiet settled upon them again. They were deadlocked, poised on the cusp of two threats. And in that moment, David suddenly knew what he had to do. He
knew it, even if he could not be sure of what Marguerite wanted or how she would respond if what he was about to say was accepted. He cleared his throat, speaking with every ounce of persuasion at his command.

“The story of my birth has been kept hidden these many years. No reason exists for it to be brought to light. My purpose as a false pretender has been served, for Warbeck’s forces are weaker now. The report from his camp is that he will invade in a matter of days before his supporters may rally to me. I will disband my forces and renounce all claim to the throne, as planned from the beginning. Afterward, I will name myself as an imposter, no son of Edward IV’s at all, and be content to remain so all my days.”

Henry was no fool. “A generous offer, Sir David. And in return?”

Here was the crux of the matter, the chance of a bargain Henry might accept more readily than an abdication for mere honor, with nothing gained for it. “Though I’ve no use for your crown, there is one thing for which it will be well lost, one and one only I would have in recompense.”

David heard Marguerite’s soft gasp, felt the look she turned upon him. He glanced up to meet her eyes for endless moments, seeing the fear in their dark brown depths, the doubt and the pain.

“And that is?” Henry inquired in dry mockery.

He inhaled to the deepest depth of his lungs, and in sudden certainty that what he was doing was right. When he answered, his voice was strong and sure. “The hand of your ward, Lady Marguerite Milton, as my lady and my wife.”

A
stonishment beat up into Marguerite’s brain along with wild exhilaration. David thought to gain a concession from Henry that might nullify suspicion while proving his sincerity. He meant to give up all claim to the throne in exchange for her hand.

Was it possible the night spent together had meant something to him after all? Had her fear that he had abandoned her been for nothing? Or was this merely another example of his care for her welfare, a sign that he actually had no desire to be king, just as he had said.

The answer was unknowable. She hoped, all the same.

“We thought,” the king said in deliberate irony, “that you were forbidden to marry. We distinctly remember being told you swore away this joy when offered the lady before.”

“My oath was for Lady Marguerite and no other, sire. It was an act of youthful idealism, though binding for all that.”

“A knight’s vow of platonic love, I apprehend.”

“Just so, sire, one I would have abided by, no matter the cost.”

“Idealistic indeed.”

“Or foolish.” David’s lips curved into a wry smile, for Marguerite saw it as he met Henry’s gaze squarely and without evasion.

Henry removed his hand from his chin. “And now?”

“And now I am no longer bound. The lady released me of her own will.”

She had done that, Marguerite saw in dawning recognition. David had made certain of it with his question that she had repeated in her extremity, while he hovered with his heat and hardness at her entrance and she was so awash in pounding desire she barely knew her name. It had been imperative to give him her assurance at the time, though she was not certain what to make of it now.

“Is this true, Lady Marguerite?”

Henry was looking at her, waiting for her answer. She tipped her head in assent, while the blood throbbed so hard in her veins she felt light-headed with it.

“And this matter of a marriage to Sir David is agreeable to you?”

She met the king’s stern gaze, hardly able to believe she was being consulted. A tremor of panic moved over her at the official nature of that query. Once made, her consent could not be rescinded. Yet this was David to whom she would be given in wedlock if this terrible quandary could be resolved.

“It is, sire,” she answered in strained composure.

Henry turned back to David. “Should we sanction your proposal, what security have we that you will not regret it later? What warranty can you give us that you will never seek to overturn this bargain?”

“My word, sire,” David said.

It should have been enough, but was it? Could it ever be, when so much was at stake?

“Also the pledge of my heart, sire,” Marguerite said with a lift of her chin. “My sisters and I first came to your notice for the sake of a babe held hostage, your small daughter, Madeleine. I am here now because of this other little one that was born and abandoned at Edward’s order. It seems fitting that a similar young life should stand surety for the promise you have heard. Allow me, then, to offer the firstborn child of my marriage to Sir David to be fostered in your household as pledge against our loyalty and service to you and your heirs after you.”

“Marguerite…” David whispered.

She met his gaze, her own clear, though edged with tears. “There is no danger for this child of ours, for you will never go back on your word. I know this well.”

“No, but it will rend your heart to let our babe go. And mine.”

“Yes.” She found a smile, but it trembled around the edges. “But to lose its father before it can be born is more than I can bear.”

Silence gathered from the corners of the long room, hovering around them. A candle flame sputtered and shadows leaped. A faint draft stirred Marguerite’s skirts around her ankles.

Henry made an abrupt, staying gesture. “A fitting sacrifice, Lady Marguerite, though one too painful to accept.”

“But, sire…”

“We shall hold it in abeyance for now, but leave the promise open against the need of a perilous future.”

Henry was a kind man but wary of trust. He would not take her child, but reserved the option to demand it at any whiff of betrayal. It was as good a bargain as she could achieve, and better than she had expected. Marguerite curtsied with all humility. “Thank you, sire.”

He turned to David with narrowed eyes. “Where will this child be born? Have you thought on it?”

“If you ask where we will go from this place, then it shall be as you command,” he answered with gravel in his voice. “I have property of some worth in France. Failing that, Lady Marguerite has holdings from her father that may provide a suitable retreat.”

Henry’s brooding gaze rested upon him for long seconds. Then he made a judicious gesture. “Our thought is that it will be sufficient, and mayhap safer, should you retire to the north of England. I have an estate no great distance from those grants made to the husbands of Lady Marguerite’s two sisters. If you should be willing to exchange these French holdings of yours for it—”

“Done, sire.”

Marguerite gave David a quick, warning glance. He had not seen this estate of Henry’s. The king, being a canny man, was unlikely to be offering an even exchange.

David, catching her eyes, lifted one shoulder in token of his resignation. He was right; she saw it in that same instant. They had scant choice. This was all still supposition. The king had not yet made a final decision, but was still speaking.

“We would have it understood that travel beyond these northern lands and environs shall be forbidden
without our permission. Any appearance at court must be by strict invitation.”

David inclined his head in acknowledgment. “And my men-at-arms?”

Henry tipped up his strong chin. “They must be disbanded as suggested but for those, like your squire, who may stay by your side from friendship or personal allegiance.”

Marguerite, listening intently to the unspoken words as well as the commands, felt the slow rise of hope. Henry seemed intent on keeping David confined in such a way that he could never again be a threat, yet within England’s borders so he might remain under his eye. Stringent these rules might be, but were better by far than a sentence of death.

“Then my usefulness as an alternate pretender is ended here,” David said.

Henry’s smile was wintry. “Beyond a doubt. The ruse will be exposed as our stratagem, and that will be the sum of it.”

David’s features turned grim and a muscle flexed in his jaw. “And when Warbeck invades?”

Silence descended while Henry settled back in his chair. The only sounds were the drumming of his finger on his chair arm once more, and the whisper of insects against the windows above them.

The king’s lips flattened and he folded his fingers into a fist. Then he relaxed them again as he breathed a long sigh. “Once on the battlefield at Stoke, Sir David, you saved my life at the risk of your own, saved my pennon, as well. I am not unmindful of that heroism nor of what I owe you because of it.”

“It was my duty, sire.”

“’Twas more than that,” Henry corrected. “Rather, it was a demonstration of supreme loyalty, one that turned the tide of battle for a Lancastrian victory. We are not a superstitious man, yet have long felt you arrived as a sign of God’s blessing upon our reign that day. We summoned you here this summer, arranged for your arrival by cunning, from the conviction that you should be here to support us in this Warbeck affair.”

“You truly did not know the story of my birth then, had no idea who I was?”

Henry gave a laugh that was remarkably like a snort. “Think you we would scheme to bring such a viper into our nest? Unlike the eagle that feeds such to its young, we are not so arrogant or certain of our might. We do pride ourselves, however, on recognizing the worth in your blood and breeding.”

It was a reminder, if any were required, that David, as Edward’s son, was a cousin to Henry, though several times removed. And who could say that blood had not called to blood in the midst of battle at Stoke-on-Trent? Stranger things had happened.

Henry glanced above David’s head while the lines in his face deepened as if what he saw weighed upon his soul. “Let us say, too, that I am weary unto death of the senseless bloodletting, and feel it would be the basest of ingratitude should I fail to take your past service into account. Because of these things, and because the abdication you have proposed is so rare in the history of the crown I wear, I cannot do less than match you in honor. Rise, Sir David, and know I will be proud to have you
at my side should I be forced once more to defend my crown.”

A flush mantled David’s face, Marguerite saw, as he came to his feet with easy, muscular strength. “You mean, sire…?”

“We will send for you at need, this I swear. For now, you may leave us. Go from here with the lady who has spoken so ably in your defense, promised so much in your name, Lady Marguerite whose hand you risked your life to gain. Go with my permission to wed and my blessing.” A wintry smile tugged at his lips. “It seems we have played matchmaker right well for a third time with the Graces of Graydon, assuring that none are now accursed, if so they ever were. But though you are both dear to our sight, we trust you will understand our fervent wish that it is long months before we need set eyes upon you again.”

“Farewell, sire,” David said with a profound bow that only briefly hid his burgeoning smile.

Marguerite curtsied and began to back away. “Fare thee well, indeed,” she said, her voice not quite even. “May you reign long and well, and your children after you.”

There was warmth in Henry VII’s face, benediction in his gesture of grace. “We thank you, Lady Marguerite. Remember us, and our queen, to your sisters.”

A few steps more and the door of the audience chamber opened and closed behind them. Their escort rejoined them in the antechamber and moved with them to the corridor that led back to the living quarters. There, they were left alone.

David took Marguerite’s hand and placed it on his
arm. Together, they walked toward the room that had been allotted to her. Their footsteps echoed around them for several yards on the marble-floored passage. Silence had been only prudent with the escort at their heels, but now that they were released, Marguerite could think of little to say. Or rather, there was much she would express, but no words deep enough.

David turned his head to study her set face, glanced ahead at the empty corridor and then back again. When he spoke, his voice was rough. “You are angry?”

Was she? Mayhap she should be, as she had not been consulted in the matter of her wedding. Yet that was not what was paramount inside her. “I am relieved.” She held his gaze. “And you?”

“What about me?”

“Are you angry at how things have turned out?”

“Angry that I am alive? Hardly.”

“I meant the loss of your birthright.”

“To know the name of my father and my heritage to bear is all I ever wanted, more than I expected. It is enough, even if no one else will ever learn of it. As for the crown, it isn’t mine and never was, sweetling, no matter how legal the marriage between my parents. Edward wrested it from his uncle, Henry VI, and then murdered him to keep it. Now Henry VII has it back. So be it.”

She watched him closely. “You are sure? Henry has your mother’s marriage lines now. He will surely burn them, as he burned the
Titulus Regius
that declared his queen a bastard.”

“I am positive of it.”

“With the only proof of your birth in his hands, there
was no need to tell him, surely, that it was only Astrid and Oliver who heard the old nun’s confession so can bear witness.”

“We may send to give him that surety and heart’s ease later, when we are settled on the lands Henry promised. But don’t try to distract me. I was asking how you felt about being wed.”

She pursed her lips while her heart vibrated wildly against the cage of her ribs. “If the purpose is to give me the protection of your name, now that you’ve had what you wanted of me, I’m not sure I care for it.”

He halted, swung to face her. “You can’t believe that.”

“Why should I not, as I’ve been told no different. All has been arranged without consulting me in the slightest. I am to be taken north without my leave—”

“Surely you will be happy there where you can visit back and forth with your sisters, take Christmas and Easter with them and have them close in time of need.”

“Yes, of course, and with Astrid and Oliver near us with the small ones they will surely have between them. But that isn’t the point.”

“What is then?” he demanded in exasperation.

“The odd truth that I have no more been wooed or persuaded now than I was before being handed over to Halliwell.”

“There was no time, no other way. I needed a bargain to offer Henry so he would believe—”

She was awash in fury now, as she had not been before. “And I happened to be handy?”

“God, no, Marguerite!” He caught her hands, pressing them to his chest, spreading her fingers over his
pounding heart. “I offered him something for which I had no use in exchange for the one thing I could not do without. I gave up a crown for a wife, and am well satisfied with the exchange.”

“Well, cry hosanna for you. But what am I to gain from it?”

“Nothing of great worth, only my heart, my love, my life, though you have had them these ten years and more. Did you think I didn’t want you, that I would not claim you before last night? God, but I hated that infernal vow, cursed my stupidity a thousand times over for making it. You cannot know the cost of it. To touch you would have been my damnation, for I would have been forced to sample and taste and savor until my brain boiled in my skull and desire tied my entrails in knots. I would have taken you and bid good riddance to salvation and my every hope of heaven.”

She searched the burning blue of his eyes with their shading of desperation. “But I set out to seduce you, and you would not allow it. You…you touched me until I was mad with need, taught me the diverse ways of passion but would take nothing from me.”

“And a double-edged sword it was, my lady, for I could not hurt you without slicing myself into leading strings.”