Linnet tapped her foot furiously. “And that is enough for him?”
“So he says. I pray he comes to his senses before it is too late.”
Linnet swallowed back the tears that threatened to break through her anger.
“Surely you are not going to let him make this disastrous mistake?” Owen said, nudging her with his elbow. “If you do not
save the fool from his own poor judgment, you will both regret it.”
“He is not ready to listen to me yet.”
“Ready or nay, you have no more time. He intends to leave Windsor on the morrow.”
Owen was right. If she was going to win him back, she could delay no longer.
“I believe Jamie would sacrifice anything for you,” Owen said, turning serious, “if he could be sure of you.”
“I fear it is too late. I’ve hurt his pride twice, and he’ll not forgive me that.”
“ ’Tis unlike you to give up so easily,” Owen said. “You are usually like a terrier.”
She squeezed Owen’s arm. “Wish me well.”
Jamie might pretend he was not aware of her presence, but she knew better. As soon as she started toward him across the vast
hall, his eyes were on her. His expression was hard, but he looked at no one else.
A few men tried to halt her progress, but she brushed past with a smile and a nod, set on her mission. When she reached Jamie’s
group, she stepped into the circle beside him and proceeded to greet each person.
“Sir Frederick,” she said, nodding to the handsome man on her other side who wore a forest-green tunic and matching liripipe
hat. “That is an exquisite velvet.”
The cloth was fine; it came from her own stores. “Lord Stafford.” She gave him a broad smile, thinking what a difficult father-in-law
he would make. Jamie almost deserved him.
“Good day, Lady Agnes.” The lack of interest in the young lady’s dark gaze surprised—and relieved—Linnet. The lady may be
tedious, but she was an innocent in this drama.
Linnet completed the circle and turned at last to Jamie. He was working the muscles of his jaw, and his face had angry red
blotches.
“Sir James. How very pleasant to see you.” She gave him a placid smile she had learned from the queen. “Are you well? You
look a trifle… flushed.”
“I have never been better,” Jamie bit out.
“The musicians are a delight, are they not?” she said to the group. “I can tell you, there are none to match them in Paris.”
This remark led to a lively conversation, as she knew it would. The English loved nothing better than to hear that they outmatched
the French in some cultural accomplishment.
While the others were thus engaged, she said to Jamie in a low voice, “We must speak.”
He fixed his gaze above the head of the man opposite him. “We have nothing to talk about.”
“You can leave with me now, or we can talk here in front of everyone,” she said. “You know how little I care for what people
think.”
She could almost hear him grind his teeth.
“I will come,” he said, “because it would be unkind to allow you to embarrass Lady Agnes.”
“If you ask me, she will be relieved to have you gone.” She raised her voice then to speak to the others. “If you will forgive
us, the queen bade me bring Sir James to her. She has something she wishes to ask him.”
Jamie narrowed his eyes at her, as if wanting to confirm that she was lying. She gave him her placid smile again to let him
know she was, and that he could do nothing about it. Would he call her or the queen a liar in public? Nay, he would not.
Linnet waved her fingers at the others and took Jamie’s arm. Feeling the heat and tension of the muscles beneath her fingers
made it difficult to maintain her calm facade. They did not speak again until they were outside in the cool of the upper courtyard.
“Shall we take a walk by the river, or would you prefer we talk in your bedchamber?” she asked.
“The river.”
He pried her hand from his arm—a telling gesture for
a man in whom courtesy was ingrained—and stomped ahead of her toward the gate.
“You do not have to be rude,” she snapped.
The sun was out, but the ground was still muddy from the last rain. She soon wished she wore boots rather than the delicate
slippers that matched her gown. His long strides made it impossible for her to keep up.
“Damn it, Jamie! Slow down.”
She was getting more and more vexed with him as she trudged behind him, despite her need to convince him that he still loved
her and should marry her.
“Do you believe Agnes would not complain if you treated her like a serf, expecting her to follow behind the great warrior?”
He turned on his heel. “You dare to criticize me for a lack of
courtesy
? After what you have done?”
“I made a misjudgment, that is all,” she said. “I admit I should not have gone to meet Gloucester in his apartments.”
“Misjudgment! Misjudgment!” he shouted, raising his arms.
“Nothing happened with Gloucester,” she said. “How can you think I would ever let him touch me?”
“Not let him touch you? God’s blood, Linnet, you were sitting on his goddamned lap!”
“All right,” she said, fighting for control. “I already admitted it was a mistake to go to his bedchamber, but I did nothing
wrong. He grabbed me before I knew it. Men do that to women sometimes.”
“Nay, it does not happen to other women,” he bit out.
“Not to virtuous women, you mean?” she said, leaning
forward with her hands on her hips. “Women like Agnes Stafford?”
“Precisely.”
“I suppose she is just the sort of woman you want.” She clasped her hands under her chin and batted her eyelashes. “One who
will sit at home meekly awaiting your bidding.”
“I will for certain not have to worry about finding her in other men’s bedchambers, doing God knows what!”
His words were like a blow. She stepped back, tears stinging at the back of her eyes. In a low voice, she said, “I would never
bed another man.”
“But you damned well would let him think you would,” he hissed at her. “What man wants a wife who lets other men believe she
will bed them? Or who will let them get that close?”
He was so angry she could hear his ragged breathing.
“You could not have believed I would accept your going alone to Gloucester’s bedchamber,” he said, his eyes burning holes
into her. “Nay, you just thought I would never find out.”
The truth of his words cut through her. Still, she tried to defend herself. “If you understood my need to find justice for
my grandfather, I could have told you. But you never wanted to listen. You never wanted to hear it.”
“The dead do not want or need your justice,” he said. “Could you not sacrifice this dangerous obsession for me? For the life
we could have together?”
“And what sacrifice would you make for me?” she asked in a choked voice. “Must all the sacrifice be mine?”
“You have sacrificed nothing!” The bite of bitterness was hard in his voice. “I will not have a wife who will
lie to me and bring shame upon my family and upon my children.”
The harshness of his judgment made her spirits drop so low that her limbs felt heavy and weak. Still, she forced herself to
step closer and touch his arm.
“Jamie, is there no hope for us?”
He jerked his arm away as if her touch had singed him. “How could I do my duty and return to France? I cannot be wondering
who my wife will cozy up to as part of some foolish scheme of hers while I’m gone.
“And I will warn you,” he said, narrowing his eyes and jabbing his finger at her. “You may find that when you lead men to
water, there are some who will insist on taking a drink.”
He spun away from her and began striding back toward the castle. Linnet had to hold her skirts high and half run to keep up
with him.
“What else did you keep from me?” he spat out without turning to look at her. “How many ways did you make a fool of me this
time?”
“ ’Twas just the one time, I swear it.” She held on to her headdress with one hand as she trotted beside him. “And I did not
make a fool of you. You know there is no one else.”
“What I know is that once again there was something more important to you than the bond between us.”
“ ’Tis not true.”
“More important than the life we could have had together.”
“Nay,I—”
“More important than keeping your word to me.” “But I also made a pledge to my gran—”
“More important than me.”
“Nay, not more im—”
“And there always will be something more important than me.”
“But I love you,” she pleaded. “I love you with all my heart.”
He halted and turned on her, his eyes blazing. “I’ve seen how it is between my mother and father, and between Stephen and
Isobel, and I can tell you this: True love does not come last. ’Tis not what you consider after every other blessed thing.”
He lifted his hands palm out and began stepping backward. “I am done waiting for you to put aside the hate that will surely
destroy you. I am done with all of it. I am done with you.”
Choking back tears and clenching her fists, she said, “Then you deserve a dull wife like Agnes who will bore you to death.”
“Lady Agnes is exactly the sort of wife I want,” he shouted back at her. “A woman who is predictable and faithful. A woman
who will be a steady influence on our children.”
“For all her virtues,” she said, her anger rising, “I’ll wager she’ll not go cheerfully to your bed.”
From the way his face went scarlet with rage, she had hit a sore spot. Fine, she meant to.
“I am certain Lady Agnes will be a good wife in
every
way,” he said. “And I will not open doors to find her in the arms of another man.”
She wanted to beat her fists against him, to shout at him, to hurt him as he was hurting her.
“Will it make you proud to have a wife who is only faithful because she finds bedding men distasteful?”
Anger made her reckless. She squeezed her eyes shut, scrunched up her face, and said in a high, false voice, “Not again, m’lord
husband! Did we not do it just last month? I beg you, be quick about it!”
When she opened her eyes, his fists were clenched and the vein in his neck was pulsing.
“That is enough,” he said in a low growl. “Stay out of my sight.”
He turned and started again for the castle with a determined stride. But almost at once, he halted and uttered a long string
of curses beneath his breath.
Linnet dragged her gaze from Jamie to look up the path. When she saw the couple standing but a few yards away, her mouth fell
open. Of all the times for Jamie’s parents to appear, it had to be just as she was screaming the most vile things to him.
Jamie’s mother’s eyebrows were so high they almost touched her headdress. Lord FitzAlan’s expression was stern.
“Mother, Father,” Jamie said as he went to meet them. Linnet closed her eyes and prayed God would remove her to somewhere
else. How long had the two been listening? Recalling her imitation of Agnes in bed, she felt hot and nauseous.
Her embarrassment, though, was nothing compared to the desolation and despair that took hold of her.
Somehow, everything had gone wrong. She had been intent on making Jamie understand her for once. And she had been certain
that when he saw how much she loved him, he would forgive her. Because he had to. Because she needed him. Because she could
not lose him again.
She knew with utter certainty that something irrevocable had just happened between her and Jamie. A sob caught in her throat
at the thought that Jamie never wanted to lay eyes on her again.
I have ruined it all. Neither of us shall ever be happy again.
J
amie and his brother Nicholas exchanged amused glances across the table.
Their sisters were mercilessly teasing Martin, something they never seemed to tire of. Martin, an only child, had been so
stiffly polite at first that he had sent the girls into gales of laughter. By now, he was accustomed to their lively banter.
Worse for him, if he wanted any peace, the girls had adopted him as a favorite.
Three-year-old Bridget, the youngest, ran into the hall with her nursemaid chasing behind her.
“I am sorry, m’lady,” the maid said.
“ ’Tis not your fault,” Lady Catherine said, waving her off. “Bridget, sit down. Quietly.”
“It’s my turn to sit by Martin!” Bridget said, pulling at Elisabeth’s arm.
“You are late, so you lost your place,” Elisabeth said, grasping the edge of the table.
Martin looked a little wild-eyed at being the subject of such violent devotion. Jamie and his brother Nick, shared another
amused glance across the table. It was lucky for Martin that the two eldest girls were wed and gone.
The other girls took sides and joined the argument between Elisabeth and Bridget, then Bridget gave a loud shriek.
His father banged his fist on the table. “Enough!”
Silence fell on the FitzAlan hall.
“Am I raising wild heathens or young ladies?” All five girls lowered their eyes, for every one of them hated to disappoint
their father.
Without a word, Martin lifted Bridget onto his lap to end that particular dispute. A wise lad.
“Did God give us so many daughters to punish us?” his father said to his mother.
His mother gave her husband a sideways glance and smiled, for everyone knew Lord FitzAlan doted upon his daughters.
Ah, it was good to be home. There was no better place to heal than amid this laughter and chaos.
But even after a month with his family, Jamie still felt raw. He ignored the chatter that floated around him as his thoughts
drifted back to Windsor, as they so often did. What a fool he had been to believe he could change Linnet—or make her love
him.
He had left Windsor the day of his fight with Linnet, ahead of his family. He could not bear to be under the same roof with
her another hour.
Soon, he would travel to visit Stafford in Northumberland and offer for his daughter. He told himself it did not matter that
he was having trouble recalling Agnes’s face.