“Where did you find the gold and the letters?” she asked.
For the first time since he gave her the letters, Francois grinned. Eyes twinkling, he said, “Do you recall that curly-headed
little girl you found in Mychell’s house?”
“Aye, his daughter Lily.”
“Well, Lily and her sister Rose appeared at your door while you were in Leicester,” he said. “They had your ring.”
Linnet laughed. “Lily found the letters, didn’t she?”
“Aye, she did. They were hidden in a hollow in the wall of the shop, behind a brick.”
“What a sharp-eyed girl.” Linnet shook her head. “How did she know they belonged to us?”
“Her sister can read, if you can believe it.”
“Not half as surprising as her thieving father naming his daughters after flowers.”
“Lily, the little scoundrel, wanted to return the letters and keep the gold. She tried to convince her sister that you had
so many coins you would not miss these.”
Linnet laughed and clapped her hands. “Is she not wonderful?”
“Rose, however, insisted that all be returned.”
“I hope you rewarded the girls.”
He nodded. “I gave them half.”
“Half? That seems more than generous…” She narrowed her eyes at her brother. “This Rose is not a little girl, is she?”
“I would call her petite,” Francois said, a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth.
“Nay. Do not tell me. Let me guess. This Rose is eighteen and as pretty as her younger sister?”
Francois looked off into the distance and rubbed his chin, as if considering the question. “Nineteen. And prettier than her
little sister.”
“Did she take the money you gave her?”
He shook his head. “The lovely Rose kept two coins as a reward, one for herself and one for her sister, and insisted I take
back the rest.” He paused. “But I slipped the rest to Lily, who hid them under her cloak.”
“This Rose has enough trouble having Mychell for a father, without you adding to her grief.”
“Me?” Francois said, slapping his hand against his chest. “Add to a young woman’s troubles?”
“That is what you do,” Linnet said. “Have a care, Francois; this is an unsophisticated girl. You cannot—”
“You’ve no cause to chide me. I’ve done nothing,” Francois said, holding up his hands. Then he added, “But I cannot help it
if she wants me.”
She rolled her eyes.
Francois’s expression turned serious again. “I am sorry, love, but I have more news to give you.” He took her hand and squeezed
it. “ ’Tis unhappy news, this time.”
“So long as you are safe and here with me, the tidings cannot be too unhappy.”
“I must return to France at once.”
“To France? But why?”
“An urgent message came three days ago from our father’s steward.”
Her heart began to beat faster. “From the steward, not Alain?”
“Alain was not well when I left a few months ago,” he said in a gentle voice.
“Why did you not tell me?”
He raised an eyebrow but did not answer. If he had told her, she likely as not would have said she wished Alain were already
burning in hell.
“I am sorry, sweetling, but the steward wrote to inform me of Alain’s death.” He patted her knee. “He was nearly sixty, you
know. He had a long life.”
“I am a wicked, wicked person.” Linnet covered her face, overwhelmed by guilt and an unexpected sense of bereavement.
Alain had made mistakes from the moment they met—constantly correcting her behavior, attempting to make her conform to his
notion of how a protected young lady of noble birth should act. But she had not been protected, and she could not fit that
mold.
She would have refused to conform in any case, simply because it would have pleased him. Anger and resentment had gripped
her soul; her burning need to punish him had blinded her to aught else.
And now, it was too late to make amends. Too late to attempt a reconciliation. Too late to ever truly know her father.
“I was bitter about the time you spent with him,” she said, wiping a tear away with the back of her hand. “Now that we know
the truth, I can see how very wretched that was of me.”
“The fault lay with him as much as you,” Francois said. “He’d no notion of how to treat a daughter, especially one like you.
You weren’t raised to be a simpering lady—and living in Sir Robert’s household those last two years did not help matters.”
When Stephen and Isobel left for England, they had put the twins in the care of Sir Robert and his wife. The
couple had imposed no rules and delighted in Linnet’s independent nature. Linnet had adored them.
“Though you drove him mad, our father was fond of you, in his way. When I saw him last, he asked a hundred questions about
you.”
She sniffed. “That makes me feel both better and worse.”
They sat in silence, listening to the sounds of carts passing in the street below.
Finally, Francois said, “I must leave at once to take over the estates.”
“At once?” She swallowed.
“I thought you would be with Jamie, that you and he would…” Francois’s voice faded. “I hate to leave you here alone, especially
now.”
She covered her face with her hands. “Now that Jamie has abandoned me, you will do the same?”
She was being childish and unfair, but she hated being parted from him so much she could not help herself.
“You forget you left me first to marry,” Francois said. “That made no difference between us, and you know it.”
Francois put his arm around her and patted her back. “I am sorry to be horrid about it.” She wiped her face on her sleeve
and attempted a smile. “I know it is ridiculous, but I thought I would always have you, that we would always be together.”
“You can come with me.”
She ran her hand over the letters that still rested in her lap. “I missed my chance to reconcile with our father. It may be
too late for me with Jamie, as well, but I cannot leave England until I am certain.”
“I thought that was what you would say,” Francois said, then he gave her one of his broad winks. “Jamie is the one who will
not have a chance. What man could refuse you?”
She thought of Jamie’s last words to her:
I shall be betrothed when next we meet.
“Pray I am not too late,” she said, gripping her brother’s arm. She would see Jamie at Hertford soon, and she would know then.
“The day Jamie weds another, I will board a ship for France.”
“
’
The Lady Agnes cannot be the cold fish she seems to be,” Stephen said, putting his arm around Jamie’s shoulders as they walked
out of the Staffords’ hall. “When you get her alone, ’tis a different story, aye?”
Jamie glanced over his shoulder to be sure they were out of earshot. “She is an innocent virgin,” he hissed. “You think I
would violate her?”
Of course, Linnet’s virginity had not stopped him. He felt a twinge of guilt over that, but he could not pretend to regret
it.
“I’m not accusing you of deflowering Agnes.” Stephen gave Jamie’s cheek a playful slap. “But surely a bit of license is called
for before shackling yourself for a lifetime?”
Jamie had taken more than a bit of license with Linnet when she was younger than Agnes. But then, Linnet’s virginity had not
stopped her any more than it had him. It did not even give her pause. She had given herself to him wholeheartedly that first
time—even urging him on when he argued they should wait. What a wonder that first time
was. He remembered how she looked beneath him, her face flushed and her legs wrapped around him…
“Come,” Stephen said, jarring him from his thoughts, “tell me you’ve at least kissed Agnes senseless a time or two.”
“Agnes?” Jamie was having difficulty pushing images of Linnet, naked and writhing, from his mind. He rubbed his forehead,
trying to clear it, and found it was damp.
“Aye, Agnes,” Stephen said, sounding exasperated. “By Saint Peter’s bones, if you are not tempted to kiss her and a good deal
more, you should not have come to see her father.”
The sooner he had another woman in his bed, the sooner he would stop thinking of Linnet.
“ ’Tis a shame Stafford is not here,” Jamie said. “Did you not deliver my message to him?”
Stephen waved his hand. “ ’Tis fortunate Stafford happened to be called away.” Then he waggled his eyebrows. “You should use
the opportunity to find out if you and Agnes are ‘well suited.’ ”
“Are you suggesting I drag her under the bushes while I am a guest in her father’s home?”
“ ’Tis damp beneath the bushes this time of year,” Stephen said. “Behind a door would do.”
“We are here but a few hours,” Jamie protested. Stephen lifted his hands, palms up. “If you do not find her appealing…”
“Of course I do. I am a man and she is a woman. And a very pretty woman, at that.” He felt like punching his uncle. “Even
if I meant to do it, I could not get her alone.”
“If you wanted to get her alone, you could manage it,”
Stephen said with a shrug. “That is what we men do. ’Tis why having a daughter frightens me half to death.”
As much as it annoyed Jamie to hear it, Stephen’s words had the ring of truth. Those weeks in Paris, he and Linnet had kissed—and
more—behind doors, under stairs, in the mews…
“And if a woman wants a man, she will make it easy for him to find her alone.” Stephen spread out his hands. “It has been
that way from the beginning of time.”
Jamie thought of Linnet’s eagerness. How many times did they make love on the floor because they could not wait to reach the
bed? He would miss that fiery passion.
He did miss it.
He tried not to think about the ache in his chest as he and Stephen walked across the windswept meadow outside the gates of
Stafford’s manor house. Spring came late here in Northumberland. It would be several weeks before the ground they walked would
be planted with rye or wheat.
The wind flapped at Jamie’s clothes as they stopped to watch the dark clouds rolling in over the hills. Living here would
suit him. He liked the open spaces and clean smells—and Northumberland’s distance from the politics of London.
Neither of them had spoken since they left the gate, but Stephen broke the silence now.
“Most men are satisfied with a bride who brings a fair dowry and has the skills to manage a household,” Stephen said. “If
their wives do not suit them, most men are content to keep mistresses and get their pleasure from other women.”
After a long pause, Stephen said, “But we are not like most men.”
Stephen was right. If Agnes was to be his wife, ’twas past time he kissed her. Once he set his mind to it, it was nothing
to get her out a back door of the manor house. Taking her hand, he began walking her toward the woods. He did not intend to
roll on the wet ground with her, but he wanted privacy for this.
He had bedded a good many women to forget Linnet the first time. Since he was going to be a married man, this time he would
have to forget her with only one. No easy task, but he was determined. He knew what he wanted: a calm and steady life. What
he did not want was a wife who was always at the center of tumult and mayhem—and usually the cause of it.
Agnes’s hand was dry and cold in his and did not clasp his back. He was undeterred. He was going to prove Stephen wrong and
kiss her senseless. He would make her sweat. Sweaty and breathless. She would beg him not to stop. But he would stop, because
he was an honorable man. A true knight.
“Sir James, please slow your pace.”
He turned to find Agnes’s hood had fallen back and her cheeks were pink with exertion. She was a pretty woman, really.
She gasped as he pulled her close. He cupped her cheek and looked into her grave eyes. Innocent as she was, she had to know
he was going to kiss her now. Instead of softening or becoming nervous, as he expected, her lips thinned into a line of disapproval.
But that was only because she hadn’t been kissed before. Not by him, anyway. He leaned down to brush a kiss on her cheek and
blow a soft breath into her ear.
Nothing. No indrawn breath. No sigh. No soft breasts pressing against his chest.
He sucked in his breath. In for a penny, in for a pound. This time, he put his lips to hers. How was he to feel lustful when
she did not move? An uneasy feeling settled in his stomach, as if he were doing something wrong. It made no sense. Hell, he’d
kissed girls since he was twelve and never felt a shred of guilt for it.
He was relieved when she pulled away.
He reminded himself that they were almost strangers, and she was an innocent. In time, he would awaken passion in her.
“You do know what husbands and wives do to have children?” He ran a finger down her arm and gave her a slow smile. “You want
children, do you not?”
She nodded, her expression solemn. “I pray I will have many children to give to the church,” she said. “They shall serve God
as I was not permitted to do.”
“You want them all to be nuns and priests?” He was almost too surprised to get the question out.
“I prefer the boys be monks.”
Jamie wasn’t sure he liked the idea of one of his daughters spending her life in a nunnery, but it was hard to know with girls.
Boys were another matter.
“My sons will be strong knights in the service of the king. None will choose to wear a cleric’s robe. They will be fighters,
every one.”
Agnes folded her arms across her chest and narrowed her eyes at him. “As we are speaking plainly, Sir James,
I wish to know if you intend to follow the church’s guidance regarding marital conjugation.”
Jamie felt his eyebrows reach almost to his hairline. She could not mean what he thought she did. Surely not.
“The church admonishes us that the only righteous purpose of conjugation is procreation.”
“But no one follows the church’s guidance on this,” Jamie said, raising his hands into the air. “I doubt even men who are
repulsed by their wives follow it, unless they are very, very old.”
“Celibacy within marriage is a great virtue.”
“ ’Tis not healthy for a man.” He was shocked at the very notion of it. “These silly rules do not come from God. They are
made up by priests who dislike women—or who have no notion what they are asking a man to go without.”