“So this Margery can make a potion that renders a man repulsive?”
The old woman fixed Linnet with her bulging eyes. “Put that thought out of your head. Better to fornicate with that married
man of yours than dance with the devil.”
“I told you, he is not married—”
“But he ain’t married to you either, now is he, dearie?”
Linnet had nothing to say to that.
“You can be sure I never taught that sort of magic to Margery when she was my apprentice.” As she put another scoop of wild
carrot seeds into the small bag, she mumbled, “Sorcery! Consorting with the devil!”
Linnet leaned back. “Surely not.”
“Just mind you don’t cross either of them two women,” the old woman said as she tied the bag closed with her gnarled fingers.
“Birds of a feather—and they are sharp-beaked ravens who would pick eyes from the dead.”
The woman stopped what she was doing to stare at nothing Linnet could see. After a long moment, she said, “I wonder what others
have joined their coven…”
Covens? Consorting with the devil? Linnet eased the small bag from the woman’s fingers. “Thank you kindly for the herbs. How
much for the bag?”
“Three silver pennies.”
Linnet gave her two extra coins for her trouble.
“Take my advice, dearie, and toss the herbs in the river on your way home.” The woman patted Linnet’s hand. “A beauty like
you—your man is sure to wed you once he gets you with child.”
Linnet made her escape.
“I am sorry to keep you waiting so long, Master Woodley,” she said when she found him in the tiny lane outside the shop.
She looked over her shoulder as they walked. “Did you see anyone watching the shop while I was inside? Or anyone in the lane
who did not seem to belong here?”
Perhaps it was just the strange old woman and her gossip, but Linnet felt a prickle of unease at the back of her neck, as
if someone were watching her.
“I saw no one out of the ordinary for this neighborhood, save for a priest who passed.” He cleared his throat. “And you, of
course, m’lady.”
Master Woodley was always precise and accurate, excellent attributes. “I am certain you are the best clerk in all of England.”
“That may be,” he said, sounding peeved. “But I am too old to serve as your protector as well. If you insist on going to every
unsavory part of the city, you need a strong young man to accompany you.”
How thoughtless of her! Master Woodley did look tired.
“You may hire a young man as big as an ox for me when I return to London,” she said, taking his arm
more for his benefit than hers. “
If
you promise to make Francois pay attention to the accounts while I am gone.”
Master Woodley drew in a deep breath and shook his head. “The second task is by far the more difficult one.”
She patted his arm. “I know you will do your best.”
J
amie sat on his horse waiting for the queen and her entourage to board the barge that would take them up the Thames to Windsor.
As he watched Linnet, he congratulated himself on his decision to make the journey by horse. Spending an endless day in an
enclosed barge with her would have been uncomfortable for them both.
She appeared to be giving instructions to an elderly man—the very one who had sought his help the day Linnet was caught on
the bridge. After bidding the old man farewell, she joined the other ladies on the wharf. She was the loveliest of them all,
in a deep blue-gray cape and hood with silver-gray fur trim that framed her face.
He touched his cheek, remembering the slap, and felt a twinge of guilt.
If she was traveling with the queen, why was she taking the queen’s hands and kissing her cheeks? A horse whinnied, and Linnet
turned to look up the bank. Following her gaze, Jamie saw none other than his own squire leading a pure white palfrey up the
path.
Nay. She would not do it. She would not ride with them all the way to Windsor.
Martin swept her a low bow and went down on one knee to help her mount. For his excessive gallantry, Linnet gave the lad a
smile that must have warmed him to his toes. She swung up onto her horse with the grace of a natural rider.
All the other ladies had the good sense to travel by covered barge. It was a full day’s ride to Windsor. And November, for
God’s sake. Jamie had told Francois he would bring her horse for her. But he could see that Linnet was back to her stubborn,
independent self.
What a sight she made on the high-strung palfrey. As she rode up the hill toward him, she looked like a fairy queen come to
tempt lowly mortal men. He glanced at the men gathered to make the ride to Windsor. Judging from their rapt faces, her magic
was having its usual effect.
“Let us be off,” he called out to them. “We’ve a long day ahead.” That was the God’s truth.
Since they could both be at Windsor for weeks to come, he would have to get used to being around her. He fell in beside her,
deciding to set the tone now. They would be courteous to each other. No intimate conversations, just formally polite.
“You’ve a fine horse,” he said, making his attempt at banal conversation. He should have stopped there, but somehow he could
not help adding, “Not so fine that you shouldn’t have left her on the bridge in the riot. But a fine horse, nonetheless.”
“She is special,” she said, smiling as she leaned forward to pat her horse’s neck.
He forced himself not to think of those long, slender fingers grazing the flat of his stomach. But that only made
him think of them stroking his thigh… or clenched in his hair as she cried out…
“Your uncle Stephen found her for me,” she said.
Found who?
He nearly asked the question aloud before he remembered they were talking about her horse.
“Stephen did?” The traitor. All the members of his family who had met Linnet in France remembered her fondly. But then, they
did not know her as he did. He unclenched his jaw to ask, “So you’ve seen Stephen and Isobel?”
“Aye. They were in London when I arrived a few weeks ago.”
Of course Stephen and his wife would see Linnet. “Speaking of kin,” he bit out. “I learned that you and Pomeroy are related.”
“I would hardly call it that.”
“Christ’s blood, Linnet, did you have to marry his uncle? Was there not some other wealthy old man you could have ensnared?”
“There were others,” she said in a pleasant voice, “but Louis was the best.”
Louis. Through clenched teeth, he asked, “How was he best?”
“
He
had a sense of humor.”
“Hmmph.”
“ ’Twas a good arrangement,” she said with that annoying little smile on her face. “We both got what we wanted.”
“I can guess what he wanted,” Jamie muttered, not quite under his breath.
She shrugged one delicate shoulder. “He wanted a young wife to flaunt before his friends.”
“As I recall, you wanted a brief marriage,” he said. “I take it this ideal husband of yours complied?”
She was an effortless rider, sitting tall but at ease in her saddle. To watch her, you would never guess she had rarely ridden
as a child—unless you counted riding in a carriage or cart, which he didn’t.
“What I wanted,” she said, her gaze fixed on the road ahead, “was funds to start my business, a house in Calais, and a foothold
in the Flemish cloth market.”
Francois had mentioned something about Linnet taking up their grandfather’s trade.
“Francois said you challenged Pomeroy to a duel.” She turned to fix him with that determined look of hers that said she meant
to get her way. “You must know how utterly foolish that was. I insist you withdraw the challenge.”
“A man cannot let that sort of brutish behavior go unpunished,” he said, though he felt a bit queasy about his own behavior
toward her.
Evidently her thoughts traveled in the same direction for the look she gave him would sear the bacon crisp. He refrained from
reminding her that she had been every bit as passionate as he.
“Pomeroy did not harm me,” Linnet said.
“He did.” Seeing the thin line on her cheek where the devil’s spawn had cut her set his blood boiling again.
“A scratch is nothing,” she said. “You cannot murder a close ally of Gloucester over it, when killing him might set off a
civil war.”
How he had burned to take his sword to Pomeroy right there in the Great Hall at Westminster. But she was right that any spark
could ignite the conflict between the feuding royals into violence. And so, Jamie had issued a
challenge for Pomeroy to meet him in single combat at a place outside the city.
Yesterday afternoon, he rode to the appointed place a mile and a half outside the city and waited for Pomeroy.
Three hours he waited.
When Jamie stormed back into the palace, ready to run the cockroach through on the spot no matter the consequences, Pomeroy
was gone. He had left London for his estate in Kent. If Jamie did not have a duty to stay near the queen, he would have followed
Pomeroy.
For now, he had to content himself with sending a message to Kent renewing his challenge. He left it to Pomeroy to name the
place and time. Eventually, he would teach Pomeroy the lesson he needed.
“It is not your place to defend me,” Linnet said, bringing Jamie back to the conversation at hand. “I can take care of myself.”
Jamie snorted. “I have seen how you do that. What can you be thinking, traveling about London with no one but that ancient
man for an escort?”
It drove him half-mad to think of it, ’twas so foolish. “Master Woodley is a very useful man.” She spoke primly and sat even
straighter on her horse. “I’ve never had a better clerk.”
“You use a clerk for protection? For God’s sake, Linnet, don’t play games about this. Pomeroy is a dangerous man.”
She looked off into the distance with narrowed eyes for a long moment. Then, in a low voice he barely caught, she said, “Why
can he not let it go?”
“Let what go?” Jamie asked. “There is something more to this business with Guy Pomeroy, isn’t there?”
She gave him a sidelong glance. After a pause, she said, “Sir Guy accused me of killing his uncle with sorcery.”
“The loathsome swine!” There was no more dangerous charge to level at a woman. “But I heard your husband was old as… uh, quite
elderly.”
“Louis was three score and ten and in poor health, so no one took the accusation seriously.” With a roll of her eyes, she
added, “Sir Guy even accused me of using a love potion to persuade Louis to wed me in the first place.”
Pomeroy was a fool. Linnet had no need of love potions. She could blow her breath into bottles and sell it.
“You’d best tell me what else you did to him,” Jamie said. “Surely, I deserve to know the entire story before I kill him.”
“You have not forgiven me for that day in Paris, so why should he?” With that, she spurred her horse and cantered ahead, splattering
mud on him in her wake.
Damn, must she always bring up their past?
Jamie sank into a sour mood as the men ahead jockeyed for position, each trying to ride next to her. If an ox lay dead in
the road, they would ride right over it unawares.
Martin, who must have been trailing behind them all this time, drew up beside him. Jamie ignored him; he wanted to be left
in peace.
But peace was not to be his this day.
Martin cleared his throat. “Sir James?”
“I’ve told you that you may call me Jamie,” he said without taking his eyes off the group of riders in front of them.
Whatever Linnet had just said, all the men were laughing. What a pleasant journey this was going to be. He
would be watching horses’ rear ends and men making fools of themselves over Linnet all the way to goddamned Windsor Castle.
“Sir, may I speak plainly?” Martin said.
Jamie turned to find his squire looking at him with a painfully earnest expression. “Just say it, Martin, and be done with
it.”
“I am grateful, sir, that you accepted me as your squire after my liege lord was killed in France,” Martin said, his voice
high with tension. “But I was raised to believe that a knight must always show respect to ladies.”
Jamie blew out his breath. His young squire must have seen Linnet slap him yesterday. ’Twas no playful slap either.
“Is it your custom, sir, to offend ladies?” Martin asked. “For if it is, I shall have to seek my knightly training elsewhere.”
As if Linnet’s presence was not torture enough, now he was saddled with young Galahad here. Surely God was punishing him.
“As far as I know, Lady Linnet is the only woman in whom I inspire violence.” Though Jamie was not yet twenty-four, this young
squire made him feel a hundred.
“I hope you did not give her good cause to strike you,” Martin said, his voice stiff with reproach.
The saints preserve him, Martin sounded ready to pull his sword. Oddly, it both amused and cheered Jamie to see such chivalry
in his young squire.
“Things are not that… simple… between this particular lady and me,” Jamie said, his eyes on Linnet again.
They rode in blessed silence for a time before Martin spoke again.
“Sir?”
This time, Jamie turned to find Martin gaping at him, his eyes wide and blinking, as if he had entered a brightly lit room
from the dark.
“Are you saying, sir, that you are in love with her?”
J
amie was throwing dice with the guards in the gatehouse to relieve his boredom—and to avoid running into Linnet. Through the
arrow-slit window, he could hear the splash of drops hitting the puddles on the ground below. The rain was finally easing
up after a week of downpour.
He should have kept his cock in his braies. Each time he saw Linnet, he remembered the smell of her skin, the feel of her
hair sliding through his fingers…
The man next to him elbowed him in the ribs. “Take your turn.”
Jamie threw the dice and lost again.
Windsor Castle was enormous. All the same, he crossed paths with Linnet at every turn—at dinner in the hall, walking across
the upper ward, passing on the stairs. He was always edgy from seeing her—or anticipating that he might. This near-constant
state of arousal could not be good for a man’s health.