To kiss a spy, p.4
To Kiss A Spy, page 4
If Miles had done his work well, there would indeed be nothing to find.
She gave her son a quick glance that held just a degree of doubt. Much as she adored him, she had to admit that he was not as quick-witted as he might have been. Unlike his elder brother, whose wit had been pure quicksilver, bright and swiftly moving. But where Philip would not be ruled by his mother, Miles obeyed her every dictate with the faithful devotion of an old dog. Where Philip would have refused to touch anything remotely underhand, Miles would have followed her instructions to the letter and relished every moment. No, surely he would have done his work well. He would have left no traces.
She glanced at Joan, whose attention had as usual wandered. Lady Bryanston spoke softly to her son. “ ’Tis probably time to check the arrangements. If there’s anything left, make another move. Do it soon. You understand me?”
Miles grunted a response and called for more wine.
“You have no need of more wine,” his mother said impatiently. “I want to know what you discussed with the Duke of Northumberland. You were in his company for close on twenty minutes.”
“Hunting,” Miles said, extending his goblet to the servant who’d run up with a flagon. “We talked of hunting.”
“Is that all? You didn’t discuss the king’s health as I told you to?”
Miles hiccuped. In truth he had completely forgotten his mother’s instructions; they had somehow become lost in the wine wreathing through his brain. But he couldn’t admit to that. “It didn’t arise.” He looked soulfully at his mother. “I couldn’t just open the subject myself, could I?”
Lady Bryanston sighed. “Yes, Miles, you could have done. Everyone is interested in the king’s health, it would not have been remarked upon. If you don’t talk with the duke or try to gain his confidence, how can you suggest the possibility of a new treatment? Sometimes I think—”
She stopped, for her son was not listening, or if he was he was not capable of absorbing anything she said. “We will discuss this when your head is clear,” she declared with a snap. “I am going to my rest. I bid you both good night.” She swept to the stairs.
“ ’Tis possible I angered her,” Miles muttered into his goblet. He raised bloodshot eyes and looked at his wife, whose attention seemed to have returned. “D’you think ’tis possible, Joan?”
“Maybe,” she said mournfully. “ ’Tis not wise, Miles. You should have remembered to talk of the king’s health.”
“I know but my head was full of the cards and I could think of nothing else.” He tipped the contents of his newly charged goblet down his throat. “Let’s to bed, sweetheart.”
He gave her something very like a leer but Joan knew from experience that the leer promised nothing. The spirit might be willing but the flesh would be definitely droopy. Sometimes she thought her barrenness might have something to do with her husband’s infrequent ability to perform adequately in the marriage bed, but of course she knew that couldn’t be so. The inability to conceive was always a woman’s problem. Her womb was barren, unfriendly to her husband’s seed, and she knew her mother-in-law blamed her. The dowager countess’s anxiety to have the succession tied up was almost as much of an obsession as Pen’s with her dead child.
With a tiny sigh, Joan followed her husband’s stumbling progress up to their bedchamber.
The tavern was set back from the Horseferry steps in its own garden. It was lime washed, half timbered, with a low-pitched thatched roof from which smoke curled in the bright freezing air. Its windows, however, were dark behind their shutters.
“They’re all abed,” Pen said as Owen, still holding her elbow, unlatched the gate to the path. “I’ll take a wherry at the steps.”
“Nonsense,” Owen said placidly. “Mistress Rider will be pleased to assist us.”
“She’ll not be pleased to be woken,” Pen protested, hanging back.
“She will be pleased to be woken,” Owen responded with cheerful serenity. “Cedric, run around to the back and see if anyone’s up in the kitchen.”
Cedric trotted off, and Owen adjusted the hood of Pen’s cloak so that it covered her more tightly. The clouds had dissipated and the night was crisp and clear, the moon washing all around them with a pale light now that they were out of the huddle of dark lanes.
Pen’s face was white in the moonlight, her hazel eyes both wide and very dark. The natural ease with which he’d adjusted her hood had startled her. Owen smiled at her and she felt a measure of reassurance. Some warmth flowed back into her chilled and aching body.
The front door opened. A woman stood there holding a lantern high. “Come you in, sir. Cedric says you’ve a wounded lady.”
“Aye, Mistress Rider.” Owen propelled Pen in front of him. “We had an encounter with a tribe of beggars. They cut Lady Bryanston and the wound needs cleansing immediately.”
Pen stepped into a narrow passageway and returned the interested gaze of a round-bodied woman wrapped in a shawl over her kirtle and chemise. “Forgive us if we roused you from your bed, mistress,” Pen said.
“Oh, ’tis no trouble, madam. I’m used to the chevalier turning up at all hours. Come this way.” She bustled ahead of them, holding the lantern high so that it threw its light along the passageway.
They came into a large square kitchen where a kettle sat on a trivet over a brightly burning range. Three yellow lurchers lying by the door to the yard raised their heavy heads, then lumbered to their feet, tails wagging, to greet Owen like an old friend. He stroked them, let them lick his hands, and after a minute they returned to their places, dropping their heads back to their folded paws with breathy sighs.
Cedric was revolving slowly before the fire, making sure every side of him was exposed to the heat. He had a satisfied air. On such a night a warm kitchen was infinitely preferable to hanging around the water steps waiting for transport.
“If ye’ll just warm yourselves ’ere, I’ll ’ave the chevalier’s bedchamber prepared in a trice,” Mistress Rider said. “ ’Tis all ready, just needs a light to the fire. We wasn’t expectin’ you back this evening, sir.”
“No,” Pen said hastily, throwing out a hand to stop the woman as she made for the stairs. “There’s no need to prepare a bedchamber. This will take but a minute.”
“I believe it will take a little longer,” Owen said easily. “You’ll be more comfortable before a fire above stairs, and Mistress Rider will prepare a sack posset while I cleanse the wound.”
“Aye, that’s right,” the woman said cheerily. “You, young Cedric, bring a bucket of ’ot coals from the fire, we’ll have the chevalier’s chamber warm as toast in no time.”
Cedric shoveled hot coals into a bucket and followed Mistress Rider from the kitchen.
“Come to the fire,” Owen said, going over to the range. “There’s no need to be afeard.”
“Isn’t there?” Pen returned somewhat dryly. Nevertheless she followed him to the fire, bending to warm her hands. The ripped gloves had offered little protection from the cold on their walk to the tavern and her fingertips were reddened and numb.
“I would expect that anyone reckless enough to strike off on her own through the dark alleys of London would be a stranger to fear,” he commented with a raised eyebrow. “I assure you, if it’s me you fear, I’m a deal less dangerous than a tribe of beggars.”
That I doubt. But Pen kept that thought to herself. She was not afraid of him at all, but she was deeply disturbed by him. Or was she disturbed by the simple fact that he did disturb her? She sucked her fingertips in an effort to get the blood moving again.
“I do not fear you. And if the torchman had not run away I would have been better served,” she responded a mite defensively. “But you mustn’t think I don’t know you saved my life. Or, indeed, that I’m not grateful.”
“Well, as I said once before, you interest me, Lady Pen. I seem to find myself following you whenever I see you.” There was no smile as he said this and his gaze was cool and steady resting on her face. Pen could detect no humor in the statement, it was entirely in earnest. For the moment she could find no suitable response.
Owen appeared content with the silence, and it seemed to Pen that she was slowly and inexorably enclosed by the calm stillness that flowed from him. The quiet of the kitchen was disturbed only by the heavy breathing of the dogs by the door and the crackle of the logs. She began to feel her aches and pains anew and the gash in her neck was throbbing, the skin around it was tight and sore. That made her afraid, if nothing else did. If the wound were poisoned, she had much more to fear than Owen d’Arcy’s calmly determined pursuit, incomprehensible though it was.
Cedric returned to the kitchen. “Mistress Rider says I’m to take up hot water, sir. She’s fetching some special salves and bandages from the stillroom.”
Owen merely nodded and said to Pen, “Let us go up then.”
It seemed, Pen thought, that she had little choice. Her hand went to the purse suspended from the chain at her waist. She felt the fold of parchment beneath the embroidered silk. This strange encounter in a waterside tavern seemed all part and parcel of the force that had driven her all evening. Maybe Owen d’Arcy was in her destiny.
She must have a fever, Pen thought disgustedly, to entertain such a ridiculous notion. Destiny, indeed! Her life was her own. Her choices were her own. She was like her mother, strong and in control of the forces that affected her life. She chose to be here with Owen d’Arcy, and she chose to allow him to minister to her hurts. And that was that.
With a lift of her chin she preceded him out of the kitchen and up the stairs from the narrow passageway.
Owen followed, wondering what she had been thinking to cause that sudden stiffening of her shoulders, the challenging lift of her chin. Something to do with him? It seemed likely. And that was all to the good. Anything that piqued her interest whether favorably or not served his purpose.
Mistress Rider greeted them at the head of the stairs and lit their way to a small chamber under the eaves, where a fire burned comfortingly in the hearth and sconced tallow candles threw golden circles of light onto the shining waxed floor.
“There’s witch hazel for the bleeding, marigold cream for cleansing, and comfrey to help the healing,” Mistress Rider said, indicating a basket on the table. “Will I tend to the lady, Chevalier?”
“No, I’ll do it myself. I’ve a powerful need for a cup of aqua mirabilis and the lady would benefit from a sack posset. If you would see to those needs, mistress, I’ll be well content.”
“As you wish, sir.” The woman bobbed a curtsy and bustled out.
The chamber was warm, cozy, and utterly inviting. Pen sank down on a stool by the fire and unclasped her cloak, letting the heavy hood fall back. The thick furred garment slipped to the floor. She cupped her hand over the throbbing gash in her neck as she leaned closer to the flaming logs.
Owen watched her for a moment, enjoying the graceful curve of her back. She wore the long hood of her headdress pinned up as prevailing fashion dictated and it accentuated the porcelain column of her neck. It struck him that she was not really nondescript at all. It struck him for the second time that night that his seduction of Pen Bryanston might afford more pleasure than he’d anticipated.
Pen felt his eyes upon her and slowly turned her head to look up at him, her hand still cupping her throat. Her arrested gaze held his and for a long moment neither of them moved, strangely connected by their reflections in the dark orbs of the other.
Pen could hear in her ears the suddenly accelerated beat of her heart. The muscles in her belly contracted. Her mouth was dry as she read the flash of pure desire that crossed his black eyes, belying the absolute stillness of his countenance. Philip had looked at her with desire and passion many times but under Philip’s gaze she had never felt as she did now. Owen d’Arcy’s desire would burn, would devour. She had the fanciful notion that if she was ever touched by that desire she would cease to exist as the person she knew. And deep within her she understood that this was what made Owen d’Arcy a dangerous man.
Cedric came in with hot water and the moment passed, the connection was broken. But something lingered in the air, and the page glanced curiously at the couple beside the fire. Then Owen without urgency moved backwards, away from Pen.
“Set the water on the table, Cedric, then go down to the kitchen and help Mistress Rider with the sack posset.” His voice was calm and neutral.
Pen opened her mouth to say that Cedric should stay. She didn’t want to be alone with Owen, alone while he ministered to her hurts, put his hands upon her body as he would have to do. But then she didn’t know how to express this to the page without it sounding either silly or insulting. Instead she watched Owen’s hands as he unclipped the velvet sheaths that held his rapier and dagger and laid the weapons on the table beside the hot water.
Those hands were so long and slender, so fine boned. A musician’s hands, she thought. Rather like Philip’s. But Philip had been more hesitant in his movements, less sure. He would not have handled arms the way Owen d’Arcy did. As if the rapier and dagger were extensions of himself.
“Do you live here?” she heard herself ask in an attempt at ordinary conversation.
“Mostly, when I’m in London . . . although tonight I had other plans.”
“I disturbed them then?”
“They’re all the better for being disturbed,” he responded, his eyes smiling. “Would you remove your headdress? It will be easier for me to work.” He spoke casually as he shrugged off his black velvet cloak. The crimson lining glowed in the candlelight as he tossed it carelessly onto the bed. He turned to the basin of hot water on the table. The firelight sparked off the gold thread in his black doublet, gleamed in the black enamel clasps of his black silk shirt.
Such a contained figure, she thought. Contained and yet surging with vitality and purpose. Such a man could be irresistible if he chose to make himself so.
Almost as if she were dreaming Pen stood up and removed the jeweled circlet that adorned her hood. She laid it carefully on the wide mantel above the hearth, then unpinned the hood and the crisp white coif beneath. She laid the long gold pins beside the circlet, and the hood and coif on the chest at the foot of the bed. She felt curiously naked. Her hair was parted and looped over her ears, and a whisper of a draft from the shuttered window touched her bare neck and throat.
In the same silence she resumed her seat on the stool before the fire and folded her hands in the lap of her gray damask gown.
Owen came over to her holding a steaming cloth that he’d dipped in the hot water. “Could you tilt your head to one side?”
Pen did so, closing her eyes because it seemed easier not to look at him as he bent over her, so close she could feel the warmth of his breath on her cheek.
He worked swiftly, surely, offering no apologies for hurting her as he cleansed the dried blood from the open wound. The stinging was inevitable and Pen was glad that he didn’t refer to it, merely got on with the task as quickly as he could.
“What instrument do you play?” she asked, breaking the silence that had become uncomfortable for her, although not, she suspected, for him.
He paused in his ministrations and asked with a note of surprise, “What makes you think I play at all?”
“You do, though, don’t you?” she challenged, opening her eyes and turning her head to look at him so that his hand dropped from her neck.
“Yes,” he agreed. “I play the harp. Could you bend your head again? I’m almost finished.”
Pen obeyed. “The harp. That’s an unusual instrument. I thought maybe the lute or the lyre.”
“It’s the Welsh in me,” he said with a soft laugh, and Pen realized what it was about his voice: those lilting cadences were Welsh. “I sing a passable tenor, too,” he said, and now it sounded as if he were teasing her.
“But your name is French and Mistress Rider gave you the title of chevalier. A French knight’s title.”
He put a hand on her head, a warm palm steadying her, and the sudden intimacy of the touch sent a jolt through her belly and brought the fine hairs of her nape on end. “Hold still, please.” He bent closer, applying the hot cloth like a compress.
“How bad is it?” Pen asked, struggling to regain her composure.
“Not as bad as I first thought. But it’s ragged and I’m afraid it might scar.” He straightened and dipped the cloth in the basin again. The water turned pink.
He continued to talk in his calm fashion as he returned his attention to her wound. “Anyway, to answer your question, my father was French, my mother is Welsh. I spent most of my growing years in France, mostly at court, but when I speak English my mother’s accent takes over.”
“I like it,” Pen said, wincing at the sting of witch hazel as he splashed it into the wound.
“Why, thank you, madam.” He laughed a little and she found she liked his laugh too. It was light and soft and seemed to indicate that he found more than the issue at hand amusing. In fact she was beginning to think that he was the most relaxing person she’d ever been around. Which was a curious paradox when she was also utterly convinced that he was the most dangerous person she’d ever been around.
He smoothed soothing cool salve into the cut, and the contrast after the heat of the water made her shudder. “So what were you looking for in the Bryanstons’ library?” he inquired casually.
Pen’s head jerked upright. “What makes you think I was looking for anything?”
“I have eyes and can in general put words to what they’re seeing. . . . There now, I’ll put a bandage over it and a physician can decide when you get home whether it needs to be stitched.” He suited action to words, binding a soft pad over the cut with a strip of bandage that circled her throat.
“You were married to the Earl of Bryanston, I understand?” he continued in the same casual tone.
That would not be hard to discover, Pen thought. It was perfectly common knowledge. Why was he interested in her?
“Yes,” she agreed.
