Destiny Lies Waiting (31 page)

"So he is a roué here, just as he was at court?"

He gave a dismissive wave. "Nay, impossible. I have been keeping him much too busy for dalliances. Besides, since he found out he was your betrothed, he has been so busy decorating and preparing his manor home for his new bride that he actually requested a temporary leave from his duties. He has practically gutted Lilleshal and rebuilt her from the floor up!"

"Has he?" For the first time, she caught a whiff of the sweet roses in Richard's garden. For a moment their scent carried her back to when she and Valentine had first met….

The dazzling golden knight plucked a white rose from the vine behind him, reached down, and handed it to her.
This display of tenderness, and the striking contrast between the delicate rose and the hard plate armor encasing his body, sent a thrill rushing through Denys. She wished he hadn't been wearing gauntlets so their bare fingers could have touched.
"Why, thank you, my lord."
Then his blue eyes fixed upon hers, so deeply, so intently, she knew he shared her loneliness, her displacement.
He gazed down at her as if admiring a magnificent work of art. She could tell he longed for a special someone to come home to as well.
"How lovely you are," he said softly, reverently, like a prayer.

But no, that way lay madness. She snapped her mind back to the present, to what her companion was saying.

Richard was still speaking of all the preparations Valentine was making on her behalf, and for a moment, and her heart softened at the thought of any man going to such lengths to prepare for her arrival.

But then she recalled all of her bitter, dark suspicions. Valentine wasn't just any man. He was a rising star at the Yorkist court, and that court was dominated by Woodvilles. "If one didn't know any better, one would think he cared."

"What man wouldn't, for his new wife," Richard said in confusion. "I only wish I had had time to do as much for my dear Anne.

"One might see it not as an act of devotion, but another act in a rather flamboyant masquerade."

"Eh, what? I don't know the 'one' to whom you refer, but that 'one' certainly doesn't know Valentine the way I know him," Richard replied. "Do you not trust my judgment anymore?"

"Of course I do, Richard. But while you may know Valentine, friendship is far different from being married to him."

"That may be, but I do know him intimately in many other ways. The more I think on it, the more I see that things could not be more perfect. We are all going to be so happy."

"We all?"

"Aye," Richard said, warming to his theme. "Just think of us as one big family once more. Minus the Woodvilles. What can be wrong with it?"

A smile escaped despite her sullen mood. It was all she had wished for, and more. To love and be loved, to belong to a warm and caring family circle…

But it was not real and never could be. For Valentine was false, a snake in the paradise Richard was painting for them with his every word.

"There will be shared evenings once again, there will be children."

She shook her head. "Oh, now you are really getting ahead of yourself!"

"Not really. Not as much as you may think."

Then she stared. "Richard, do you mean—"

"Aye, my dear. I'm going to be a father."

"With Anne?" she sputtered, the idea incomprehensible to her. Anne was so young, even at sixteen.

His eyes fired a blustery glare. "Well, who else?"

"But it seems so sudden, that is all."

"Life is sudden, my dear. And every once in a while, we must catch up with it so that it does not pass us by."

"I feel like I've been doing nothing but running just to stand still, ever since I started to look for my family. Which is why I have to tell you now, it was Valentine that gave me the clue that led me to Leicester, where I was nearly killed."

"Oh, Dove, surely you can't think—"

"I'm afraid I do," she said, lacing her fingers into her lap. "I fear the Queen has bought Valentine Starbury off, or is holding something over his head to make him help her."

"Nay, not Valentine. He would never—"

"What if he thought he was protecting us, me, by going along with her scheme?"

"He would have told me—"

She shook her head and said, "What, in the same way he told you that I had almost been killed at the inn?"

Richard froze at that. "He knew? Knew and didn't tell me?"

CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

Denys nodded miserably. "Aye, Richard, Valentine knew. He knew it all. It was he that sent me to Leicester in the first place. When I arrived back, so bruised I could barely even travel in a litter, he was at court. He never came to see me when I returned, to ask how things had gone on my journey. Not then, and not when I had returned from Foxley Manor.

"He only visited me weeks after I returned after the fire in which so much had been lost, as he was leaving to come north to take up the appointment you had given him, and by then, well, I had put two and two together and got—"

"A bloody mistake," Richard rasped. "Valentine would
never
—I would stake my life on it that he cares for you!"

She shook her head sadly. "The commotion he caused in visiting me triggered enough scandalous talk to weave me in this web of Elizabeth's. Because of it, she insisted that I would have to wed him to save my supposedly ruined reputation."

"What nonsense. You are as chaste as newly-fallen snow."

"Aye, that's what I thought, too. Which is all the more reason why I can only wonder at her choosing Valentine for me, when only a day or two prior, she had been threatening me with the worst marriage in Christendom.

"If she really thought we had feelings for one another, she'd do anything to keep us apart. Unless of course she's sure of him falling in with all of her plans, whatever they happen to be," she guessed aloud.

Richard shook his head again. "Nay, Dove, there is some mistake."

Denys fixed him with a hard stare. "Then tell me this. If there was nothing to the clue he gave me, why was I nearly killed, and the man I had gone to see, my supposed relative, a lovely man called Ian, why is Ian now dead?"

Richard rose to his feet. "I don't know, but now is not the time for this discussion. Your betrothed is about to arrive shortly, and I need time to think."

"I shall tell you everything from the beginning, Richard, so that we may get to the bottom of this, only please, please help me!" She sucked in a ragged breath. "Please, I know you think me imaginative and prone to flights of fancy, but I give you my word, it is not mere fantasy on my part. If all is as it should be with this marriage, then why have I been kept under house arrest under armed guard ever since the Queen announced the betrothal to all and sundry in the great hall at Westminster?"

"Were you, now? And the King agreed to that?" Richard asked in astonishment.

She nodded. "Aye, somewhat, for he believed the Queen's lie that we were, well, acting unsuitably, and we therefore needed to avoid scandal 'til we were safely wed. The old bat even wanted me to wear a red wedding gown."

Richard scowled darkly. "The Devil she did."

"I told her to shove it up her fundament, and left."

"Far worse things have been up there, I have no doubt, the witch," Richard said, his mouth thinning to a straight line.

He began to pace up and down, lost in thought for a time.

Denys could finally bear the suspense no longer. "Richard, I know you think me addle-pated and hopelessly enamored of fairy tales, but I give you my word, all I have told you is true. My search for my family has been blocked at every turn by the Queen since my youth. I went on my quest, and found nothing, just as she had intended I should. Just when I was about to give up hope, Valentine told me to seek the Duchess of Somerset. I followed his lead, and was nearly killed. Ian died trying to save me. All of my possessions, including the only remaining clue I had, were destroyed in the conflagration."

"How did you come to confide in Valentine in the first place?" he asked, his brows knitting.

She felt a blush heat her cheeks. "To say sooth, I thought we were, well, growing closer, coming nearer to an understanding. I won't deny it; I was starting to fall in love with him. But I wanted him to know the truth about me, that I might not really be of noble birth."

"And what did he say?"

She reddened even more. "That it made no difference to him. That I was my own person."

"Did he either encourage or discourage you from seeking your family?"

"No, neither," she admitted after a time. She began to pleat the lap of her peach gown nervously. "He said it didn't matter, but then, when I returned, he gave me a second place to start looking. And that resulted in disaster."

"Did he tell you how he came by the information?"

She shook her head. "We talked in the chapel for a moment, arranged to meet down by the river, but were interrupted by his steward, who was ordered to escort him back to the King. Then he was gone, and that was the last I saw of him until I came back half dead from my quest."

Richard stroked his chin for a moment. "And you confided in no one else?" he asked after a time.

"Nay, though I did ask George and the abbot of the abbey nearest him what they knew of her, and they told me what little they knew of the Countess, and her family, and set on the path to Leicestershire."

"Hell's bells,
George?
He's such a loose fish; God only knows who he might have told about your questions. Including the Queen herself."

"You still persist in thinking Valentine innocent?" she asked with a pout.

"You still persist in thinking him guilty of all manner of vile acts, from seduction to murder!" Richard countered.

"At the very least, becoming a pawn to the Queen," she shot back, scowling.

He patted her on the shoulder soothingly. "Please, my dear, let us not quarrel. That is how Elizabeth wields so much power. Through the method of divide and conquer.

"Valentine cares for you, I am sure of it. Wounded pride and maidenly modesty have held you from him. You admit yourself, you were starting to fall in love with him, until you were injured and began to harbor all manner of suspicions. I don't blame you for all your concerns. With the way we've all had to live, amid civil war, trust doesn't come easily. But I would stake my life on his honesty."

"Except that it's my life you're staking!" she argued. "I've come to you not to get married, but because you're my last hope, my only remaining ally. I couldn't write, I couldn't escape, so I've pretended to agree to his marriage to flee from the Queen's clutches one way or the other before it's too late. Please, Richard, you really are my last hope. If you throw me to the wolves, I shall be devoured."

She reached for his hand desperately and gripped it in supplication.

Startled, he stood frozen for a moment. Then he returned the pressure with a hard squeeze of his own.

"Very well. I shall start sifting through these matters as best I can, discreetly. If the Queen if your enemy, we will need to tread carefully. If it was George, or he let something slip to the wrong person, well, we have no idea whom to trust at this point, except each other."

"Aye."

"And Valentine," he added in a firm tone.

She shook her head. "Nay, I cannot. Not when Elizabeth would rather see me dead than happy. As I say, he may not even know how cunning a spider she is. Mayhap he even thinks he is doing Edward's bidding as one of his councilors—"

Richard looked thoughtful at that. "Aye, but all the more reason to not accuse him outright. There might be even more danger if we confront him and he decides to fight for his honor. So this is what we will do."

"Yes, Richard, anything," she said eagerly.

"I expect you to prepare for Valentine's arrival, and greet him graciously. I shall think on all that we have discussed, and see what I can find out." He bowed to her stiffly. "I bid you good day for now, and shall see you this evening in the great hall."

"But Richard, graciously?"

Yet her words were mere air. She was all alone once more, shivering with apprehension despite the warmth of the sun on her face.