The Crimson Lady
Authors: Mary Reed Mccall
Tags: #Fiction, #Romance, #Historical, #General
ARY
R
EED
M
C
C
ALL
THE
C
RIMSON
L
ADY
For all of the teachers who nurture
and encourage creativity in their students,
especially those who inspired me
during my own years in school
from kindergarten through college,
including Mrs. Swiss, Mrs. Himes,
Mr. Foster, Mr. Seckner,
Mrs. Armstrong, Mr. Rich,
Professor Gavin, and Professor London.
From the bottom of my heart,
I thank you.
It was the first time in two bitter months of…
Braedan de Cantor, eldest son in a family known as…
The steady rhythm of their horses’ hooves might have lulled…
Fiona held herself stiffly as she moved toward the center…
Fiona wanted to curl into a corner and sleep for…
It was an unusually hot sun for springtime, Fiona thought…
“Your sister?” Braedan swung his gaze to Fiona, but she…
Will led them the remaining distance to the outlaws’ settlement…
It was a fine day for a robbery, Fiona thought.
It had been a profitable fortnight since they’d joined Will’s…
Fiona tightened the poultice-soaked bandage around Nate’s thigh,…
Fiona eyed the handful of coins and the single silver…
Fiona ran blindly, her throat choking with panic. Tears slid,…
Braedan’s knees buckled in the aftermath of their climax, but…
Fiona lay alone in the silence of their tree shelter…
“I am not staying behind when you go to London,…
Braedan stood in the alley behind the Bell and Cock…
Fiona stepped away from the door on legs gone numb,…
Fiona stood rigidly as she watched Draven’s men dragging Braedan…
The afternoon was fast waning, Fiona realized, shivering as she…
Fiona dragged the trunk over to the only window she’d…
It was to be the day of reckoning for them…
Braedan crossed the grounds to the main keep of his…
Chepston Hall, London
December 1281
I
t was the first time in two bitter months of damp, drizzle, and rain that Fiona could remember feeling warm. Or full with food and drink. Or clean from the unheard-of luxury of a bath. Soft garments caressed her skin, and her hair hung unbound in waves to her hips, already dry after having been washed and brushed out until it shone.
But despite all that, she knew deep in her bones that something was wrong here. Very wrong…
She was supposed to begin work this day as a scullery maid, Mama had told her. It was good, honest, labor, a position that would take her away from the hunger and cold of the streets—from the difficult life Mama herself endured as a common woman of the
stewes
, available to
any man who paid for the night with her. It would lead her to something better. A fresh beginning, Mama said. The answer to their prayers…
Fiona suppressed a shiver, clenching her fingers into the folds of the unfamiliar, silky fabric that clung to her body and slid across her thighs. It was light as gossamer, this gown she’d been given. A magical creation, worth a fortune, surely—more than Mama could make in a thousand nights of her demeaning work. So fine and delicate.
Not the dress of a scullery maid.
“Come, girl,” the older woman next to her said gruffly, taking her by the elbow and leading her the remaining length of the hall, toward the carved, wooden door that loomed ahead.
They’d reached the top floor of this imposing keep, the main building of a rich, walled-in estate that stood a goodly way upriver across from the
stewes
. A man had slipped some silver coins—advance salary he’d said—into Mama’s palm. Then, as she’d stood with Fiona, teary-eyed, outside the alehouse, he had hurried Fiona into a carriage and brought her the distance. But rather than leading her through the kitchen, as she’d expected, she’d been taken into the main hall, then off to a little room where the heated tub was waiting; she’d been bathed in scented water, dried, pampered, and fed all she could eat before being dressed in this crimson gown, chosen for her by the master himself, she’d been told.
It was a mistake, she was sure. A terrible, awful mistake. She’d tried to voice her protest. Hungry as she was, she’d tried to deny the food they’d put before her, fearful that she’d be made to pay for it all, once they discovered their error in treating her so well. But her worries had been ignored. And so she resolved to try again to make
this stern, silent woman who was leading her along this darkened corridor listen to her, before the panic and disbelief that had risen higher in her throat with every step suffocated her altogether.
“Please, mistress, ’tis wrong, me bein’ here,” she whispered, more frightened than she’d ever been in all of her fifteen years. “Me mam told me—I’m to be washin’ pots and scrubbin’ vegetables. I don’t belong above stairs…”
“Hush, child,” the older woman said, not unkindly. “I know well enough why you’re here—and you will, too, before long, I daresay.” They’d reached the massive, carved door. The woman drew up next to it, her lips pursed and her back as straight and unyielding as the wooden slab before her. Another shiver raced up Fiona’s back, though this time not from cold or the sweep of silken fabric against her skin. She swallowed and twisted her fingers tighter into her gown, her gaze straining to read the meaning behind the woman’s resolute expression.
“What is behind that door?” Fiona forced herself to utter, though the question seemed wispy and almost soundless, lodged as it was in the tightness of her throat.
“You’re to meet with the master.” The woman reached out and scratched the wood, and a muffled voice gave an answer of admittance. Reaching down to the drawstring hanging from the tiny hole, she lifted it and pushed the door so that it slowly creaked open, revealing the entrance to an enormous chamber.
Fiona hesitated. Every instinct in her screamed to turn away, to flee and never look back. Through the portal, she saw a fire burning in a grate that encompassed half of one wall; the flames writhed and twisted, reaching up, ever up, and Fiona knew suddenly that whatever was in
side that chamber was as menacing as the fire-shadows playing upon the massive bed that filled the far corner. She could just glimpse a man standing there, tall and well built, dressed in a dark, hooded cape that hid his face from her view. Everything within the chamber looked lush and rich, and warmth billowed into the corridor, carrying with it the scent of roses.
Sweet, red roses…
Taking in a gasping breath, Fiona lurched backward, wanting to run away, back to Mama and their bitter life on the streets. To make her quell the fear that was even now shredding her heart with every tumultuous beat. But the woman gripped Fiona’s elbow tighter, leaving no hope of escape.
“On wi’ you now, missy,” she said, nodding to the opening as she nudged Fiona across the threshold. “There’s no turn in’ back. The master’s bought and paid for you—and he doesn’t like to be kept wait in’.”
Hampshire, England
April 1292
B
raedan de Cantor, eldest son in a family known as noble justices to the king, stood in the middle of Thistle Lane and shook his head, sending forth a spray of icy droplets. Then he cursed aloud. Were he a betting man, he’d wager all his sodden garments that he would never be warm again. The blasted rain had soaked into his cloak, clear through to his tunic and breeches, making him feel like he’d slogged through the Thames before making the journey to this city’s walls with the wind pushing at his back.
So now in addition to the countless other pains wracking his body, he was damned cold. Colder than he could remember ever having been, even when he’d lived without shelter for weeks, traversing the Continent on
his way to Saint-Jean-d’Acre to join the fight against the Saracens. It didn’t help that he’d had to keep to the woods during every day of his travels this past week; he hadn’t even dared to make a warming fire when night fell. Nay, it would have proclaimed him an easy mark to the bands of outlaws that roamed the forests near every major thoroughfare leading out of London.
Outlaws like him
.
Suppressing that bitter thought, Braedan tilted his chin up off his chest and squinted through the driving particles of rain toward the sign that swung wildly over the shop’s entrance; the wooden plank careened in the gusts, but he could still see the images painted onto it. A needle and thread. It was the place, then. It had to be. He’d traveled a miserable path to get here, led on by the assurance of information purchased with his last two pieces of silver at a building in the
stewes
across the river from London. The growling in his stomach gave weight to that truth.
It had better damn well be the place, he thought—and Giselle de Coeur, notorious courtesan and infamous bandit that she was, had better be nestled safely within these walls.
Scuffing his feet against the lip of the doorway, to remove what excess mud he could, Braedan leaned his shoulder into the solid, wet wood and pushed, feeling the slab give easily. It was unsecured.
Did the woman not fear intruders, then?
It was possible, he supposed. If all he’d heard about her was true, she possessed the ability to dispatch neatly any would-be prowlers with her dagger—and that skill, he’d been told, was rivaled only by her powers of seduction. Aye, if the blade didn’t work, she might choose to
stand before her perpetrator in one of the distinctive crimson gowns she favored, a graceful concoction of silk that clung to her every luscious curve and hollow; and when she turned her head so that her dark auburn tresses shimmered in the light, to direct the full impact of her gaze on her masculine prey, the unfortunate would be brought to his knees with the swiftness of a stone sinking in water.
Or so he’d been told.
Braedan felt his lips twist into a rare smile.
Jesu
, he must be more tired than he’d realized. Giselle de Coeur wasn’t a sorceress capable of disabling men with a look; she was only a woman, and a fallen one at that.
He proceeded without trouble through the darkened chamber just inside the door he’d opened—a workroom, it seemed, with tables and tools for measuring and cutting. But he’d gained entry into the shop with nary a whisper of breeze to tell of his entrance. For all her celebrated skills in the arts of dagger wielding and carnal satisfaction, the woman seemed to share a similar lack of foresight with other members of her gender concerning the dangers lurking outside her door.
Braedan couldn’t help but feel a twinge of disappointment in realizing it. Perhaps she
wouldn’t
be able to help him, then. Perhaps this entire journey had been for naught, and he was no better off than he’d been when he’d first managed to escape his uncle’s—
“Who are you, and what are you doing in my shop?”
Stiffening, Braedan turned toward the clear voice; a woman faced him from an inner doorway nearly ten paces away, though the slender shaft of light that illuminated her from behind cast her face in shadow. Never turning her back to him, she touched the tallow candle
she carried to several rush torches on the wall. After enduring the gloom and rain outside for the past few days, he squinted at the room’s sudden brightness, trying to detect any sign that this was the woman he sought.
It was difficult to tell. The Crimson Lady, by his knowledge, was six-and-twenty—mayhap a year more or less—yet this woman’s age was difficult to determine. Her hair was hidden beneath a wimple, the fabric circling under her chin to cover her throat and meeting the neckline of her kirtle so that not even a finger’s-width of skin showed. In fact, except for her face, she was completely draped in yards of dark cloth.
It was an imperious face, to be sure, fine-boned, smooth-skinned, and young enough, perhaps, to be that of the famed courtesan. Her lips were a trifle full, lending a sensual impression, and her dark brows swooped in a graceful curve over almond-shaped eyes, but he was too far away to see whether or not those eyes bore the telltale, tawny hue he’d been told to expect. His gaze slipped lower, and his initial hopeful feeling withered. She seemed rather…large. Not at all the sleek temptress he’d anticipated, though with all of those layers of gown and mantle, he couldn’t be quite—
“Perhaps you didn’t hear me,” she said more sharply, pulling his stare to her face again, even as his mind observed the cultured, modulated accent she used. “I asked what you’re doing in my shop. It is well past closing time, and no hour to be about the business of buying or selling.”
In the silence that followed her statement, Braedan heard the water dripping from his clothing, making soft plopping sounds as it hit the wooden floor. He pushed
his sodden hair back from his brow. “I’m looking for someone,” he answered at last, keeping his voice low.
“This is an embroidery shop you’re in, not an alehouse,” she answered, just as calmly. “If you seek someone, go there.” She nodded toward the street door through which he’d entered the shop. “You can see yourself out.”
Braedan might have felt a sense of admiration at her quick response if his mood wasn’t as black as the weather beyond that door. “I’m afraid that is impossible. I seek a specific person. A woman named Giselle de Coeur; I was told that I would find her here.”
He watched her carefully as he spoke, trying to perceive any indication that she recognized the name. She remained as motionless as before. He took a few steps toward her—close enough to see her eyes, had she been looking at him—but as he came nearer he realized that she’d averted her gaze, centering it on his chest.
“Are you she?” he asked quietly, pausing in his approach, keeping his arms loosely at his sides, and trying not to appear threatening. “Are you the Crimson Lady?”
Now she shifted, lifting her hands and slipping them into the open ends of her sleeves as she crossed her arms over her waist. “You are mistaken, sir. My name is Fiona Byrne,” she intoned, her voice unreadable as before, her gaze still fixed to his chest. “I am a widow and the owner of this shop—as you would have discovered had you made inquiries in town before so rudely intruding upon my peace here.”
“It is unusual for so young a woman, widow or nay, to own such an establishment, is it not?”
“And yet it is mine, purchased some three years
past,” she said, still refusing to look up. Her lips pressed together, and she shifted her weight back, leaning away from him. “If you will not leave peacefully, I shall have to shout for one of my apprentices to come to my aid. It will be the worse for you, then, I assure you. You will face the town justices come morn.”
Braedan resisted the urge to grimace at the irony of her threat to bring him before the justices. Whatever shred of honor he still possessed made him loath to step closer to her—made him hesitate to do what he knew he must if he was to confirm her identity. But he had no choice; other lives depended on his action. “I must find Giselle de Coeur, madam,” he said at last, insistent. “If you are she, reveal yourself. If not, I ask your aid in finding her.”
“I do not know of whom you speak, and I demand that you leave. Now.”
“That I cannot do,” he said regretfully. Without further warning he lunged toward her, gripping her arms and twisting her against him with a smoothness born of years of brutal combat and bloodshed—at the same moment that she slid a dagger from her sleeve, lifting it with almost blinding speed.
Braedan stiffened, and all motion between them ceased. But in the instant he’d grabbed for her, her head had jerked up, the heat of her stare locking with his. His breath stilled, and his gaze melted into her tawny one, soaking, it seemed, into the dark honey and butter swirl of color—a hue so remarkable that it pulled him in even as he watched rage crackle beneath, lighting her eyes with flecks of gold.
“Giselle de Coeur, I presume?” he asked in a low
voice, still not releasing her and trying to ignore the hint of sweet vanilla that wafted up to fill his senses.
“I ask again—who are you, and what do you want?”
As she spoke she fair trembled with some strong emotion.
Fury
, his mind supplied, and his relief at finally finding her—the one person who might be able to help him—flagged a little under the realization of her anger. It would be more difficult to coerce her to his will when she felt so. Her jaw looked rigid, her eyes flaming into him with almost-palpable heat. Then she shifted her arm a bit and Braedan felt the slick, cold edge of her blade bite into his neck.
He gripped her ample form tighter in response and had the satisfaction of hearing her slight gasp and seeing her eyes widen before they as quickly narrowed again upon him. Cocking his brow, he inclined his head as much as the edge of her dagger allowed. “My name is Braedan de Cantor, and I have come on a matter of life and death.”
“De Cantor?” Her arm slackened a bit, and Braedan took the opportunity to twist out of their locked embrace and back away from her weapon. When she realized her mistake and made a move with it toward him, he raised his palms in a gesture of peace.
“As I am a gentleman, you have naught to fear from me. You may put away your blade without risk to yourself.”
She didn’t take him at his word, he noticed, but she did retreat a step or two, continuing to hold the dagger between them and fixing him with a wary stare.
He studied her. She presented an interesting figure, to be sure. Not at all what he’d expected. She smelled deli
cious, the delicate fragrance she wore far more tempting than the exotic, spicy scent he’d assumed she’d favor. And along with her almost-matronly looks, she sounded refined and behaved like a trueborn lady; yet he knew that could not be.
He’d learned much about her these last weeks, adding to what he’d been told by his father, God rest him, when the law was first hot on her trail a few years past; that accumulated information had been what had led him to come seeking her. She’d had numerous clashes with both the sheriff and his father when she’d been part of a group of bandits near Alton, and that had been only after earning her reputation as one of London’s most sought-after courtesans. Either occupation would have precluded her from the ranks of gentility, he’d guess.
“You seemed distracted when I spoke my name,” he said, hoping to draw her out. “Do you know it, then?”
“Aye,” she admitted. “The de Cantors have administered the king’s law near London for generations.”
He nodded. “My father was the chief justice of Wulmere Forest until very recently. In truth he’d mentioned your various…activities to me in letters.”
“Is that why you’ve come here, then?” she asked quietly, a flicker of something—panic, perhaps—lighting behind her eyes. Her hand went white-knuckled around the hilt of her dagger. “Those days are far behind me. I conduct honest trade now in this town and have for three years past. If you are the gentleman you claim, then do not attempt to disrupt my life because of my former deeds.”
“Former misdeeds, perhaps,” he murmured. But to his amazement he found himself stifling an urge to reach
out and comfort her. To comfort
her
—a notorious woman and former member of one of England’s most infamous bands of thieves. He shook his head and concentrated instead on the reasons he’d come here—on Elizabeth, Richard, and the task ahead in bringing his uncle to justice. “But nay, lady. I am not here to arrest you. I couldn’t even if I wanted to.”
“Why not? Even did you not claim connection to a family of sheriffs, common law would allow it.”
Braedan paused, meeting her stare and struggling to absorb the dull, relentless ache that bloomed inside of him every time he allowed himself to think of the events that had brought him here. Of all that he’d lost…
“I cannot arrest you, lady,” he managed to answer finally, “because I, too, have recently been named a fugitive from justice.”
He watched her expression shift from surprise to doubt. But it was the truth, much as it rankled. His uncle had branded him an outlaw, with a hefty price on his head, and neither he nor anyone he knew had the power to change it. Not yet anyway. He needed proof of the man’s corruption first, and that was where Giselle de Coeur—or Fiona Byrne, as she apparently called herself now—would become useful to him. Very useful indeed.
“It is rich, I’ll give you that,” Fiona murmured. She took a deeper breath than he’d seen since she’d discovered him in her shop and studied him, from his muddy boots, up his large warrior’s form, to the dripping hair atop his head. He met her gaze unflinchingly, as she added, “And yet I never thought I’d live to see a de Cantor on the other side of the law.”
Biting his tongue at the retort that rose to his lips, Braedan watched her slide her dagger back into her
sleeve, though he noticed that she kept enough distance between herself and him should she decide she needed to retrieve it again.
“But if what you say is fact,” she continued, “it would behoove you to do as I’ve asked. I have seen how the justices here do their work; they do not deal kindly with criminals or wanted men. It will go worse for you once they learn that you’ve broken into my shop—which is exactly what I’ll tell them if you do not turn around, pretend you never laid eyes on me, and leave.”