Masques of Gold (23 page)

“He was here yesterday, after the evening meal. He said he came to tell Goscelin that they had found nothing that could hint at who had forced a way into Peter's house, but I think he came to see you.” And she repeated aloud to Lissa her thoughts, summing up with, “So you see, it was not your fault at all that I was worried and kept thinking of my cousin's long death. It was Justin's fault. Now I mind on it, you were not pale at all and your temple did not have that strange hollow that his had.”

While she spoke, Adela had helped Lissa out of bed, gently straightened her gown as well as she could, and led her out into the solar to the fireside, where a small table had been set between the two chairs. Lissa glanced around for a stool, but was told to sit in the smaller chair.

“I have eaten already with Goscelin.” Adela brushed the cloth and drew bread and cheese and a cold meat pasty within easy reach. As she poured ale into a horn goblet set into an exquisite tracery of silver wire, she paused. “Ah,” she said, recalling suddenly what was to her the ultimate sign of physical or mental distress, “I have just remembered. Sir Justin would not take a bite to eat, although he admitted he had had nothing since dinner.”

“Poor Justin,” Lissa murmured, sorry now that she had not forced herself awake enough to say at least a few words to him. But he had not made a sound, most likely because he knew she would respond to his call from beyond the grave and he would not wake her when she needed rest, despite his own fear.

“My dear,” Adela said, her voice sharp, “you should think twice before you take a man like Sir Justin into your heart. Even if everything you say about him is true and he would be the gentlest and kindest of husbands, I am afraid you do not understand honor and what dedication to duty really means.” And then, seeing the color rise into Lissa's face and remembering William Bowles's reputation, she cried, “Oh, no, I did not mean
you
in any special way. I only—”

Lissa found a smile, certain that Adela had not meant her in particular and was only speaking the general opinion of a member of the landed nobility about the common born. It was a ridiculous opinion, Lissa thought. She had heard enough from Peter to realize that honor was about as common among the nobility as it was among burghers. The king himself was known far and wide for his lies and deceptions, whereas she would trust Goscelin and Hamo Finke with anything, just as she would trust Justin. And then she realized that Adela was still talking, trying to soothe her.

“—think you have him already, if you want him. So he may be closer to asking for marriage than you believe.”

“Not for long if he believes my wits to be addled,” Lissa said merrily.

She intended only to show that she had taken no offense but realized as she said the words that she had provided herself with an opportunity to speak to Justin before she had to go home. She did not want him to follow her there before she was rid of her father.

“So,” she went on before Adela could protest, “if Witta is still too sore to run an errand, will you lend me a messenger to find Justin and tell him I am well, wide awake, and eager to speak to him any time before dinner?”

Adela sighed. “Yes, if it is what you want.”

Lissa touched her hand. “I assure you I am not going to snap at Justin's offer—although, truly, I do not expect any offer from him. Before he comes to it, I will have time enough to consider and reconsider. Peter is not dead a week. I would not shame him by pretending what I do not feel, but he was kind to me and I will wait a decent few months at least before I act.”

“You are a good girl,” Adela said, bending and kissing Lissa's sound cheek, “so sensible. And there, I have been talking away when you said you were starving. The best thing is for me to go attend to my business and leave you in peace. I will look at Witta and, if he is not well enough, send up one of our men.”

Lissa had almost forgotten her hunger during her conversation with Adela, but as soon as the goldsmith's wife was gone, she attacked the food with an enthusiasm only moderated by the aches and pains any movement cost her. The first cautious motions, accompanied by grimaces, became freer as her muscles warmed out of their morning stiffness, and Lissa soon managed to put away a large piece of bread and an equally large piece of the soft, crumbly and high-flavored cheese.

As she ate it, Lissa resolved to extract the source of the cheese somehow from Adela—such delicacies often being a tight-kept secret of a housekeeper. But everything was good, and Lissa ate a good half of what had been left of the pasty, too. Having washed down the food with draughts of ale, she found that the goblet was empty. Lissa was just considering whether it would be worth the pang of reaching for the pitcher to have more ale when she heard steps. That would be the messenger for whom she had asked, and whether Witta or another, he could pour the ale. She busied herself with tearing another piece from the loaf and, taking up her knife, looked from the cheese to the pasty.

“I am glad to see you with so good an appetite.” Justin's voice was very dry. “Mine suffered somewhat from seeing you lying like a corpse yesterday.”

Lissa squeaked as she turned too quickly and her body protested, but the smile she gave him dismissed his cold voice and angry expression and set his words at their true value, an expression of relief so intense that it manifested itself as anger. Just so will a mother who has saved a child from near death caused by carelessness embrace the child with one arm while beating it with the other.

“Then my well-doing must have restored your taste for food,” Lissa said, her false gravity a fine match for his false anger. “So take off your cloak and sit down and eat. I am sure Goscelin will not begrudge you the crumbs from his table, and I know Adela will not because she complained to me only this morning that you would not take an evening meal with them.”

“I would have choked. I was frightened out of my wits. I could neither eat nor sleep.”

“Well, I offered to cure one of the ills,” Lissa said, laughing and holding out her hand to him. “Come here and eat. As to sleeping, you can go home and do that as soon as you are fed. Meanwhile, pour another goblet of ale for me, please.”

“You are very indifferent to my sufferings,” he said, but softly, bending so that he spoke almost in her ear.

She grasped at him, pulled him still closer, her lips moving against his as she murmured, “You know I am not. Had you called me, I would have answered. I did not know you were there.”

They kissed, but Justin pulled away quickly. “Not too much silence,” he said. “They cannot hear words. I know because I was listening while Mistress Adela was with you, but some sound does come down if the door is not closed.” He poured the ale into her goblet, drank about half, refilled it, and handed the vessel to her.

“You will have to serve yourself,” Lissa remarked, gesturing to the food. “I am too stiff today to be a proper hostess.”

“And a proper wife?”

“Here?” Lissa whispered. “You are mad!”

“Not completely, but very nearly,” he said.

But Lissa noticed that as he was speaking he had cut substantial portions of the food. Her heart lurched inside her, not because of the teasing words Justin had said but because he really was hungry. His tone might have been light, but his eyelids were dark and bruised looking, as was the skin below his eyes. He had not been exaggerating when he had said he was so worried about her that he could not eat or sleep. Lissa dared not let her feelings show, not in Goscelin's solar with the door open and—she would have staked her life on it—Adela standing as near the stairs as she could get and straining her ears for every sound, or lack of sound. And even if they had been in private, Lissa thought, she hurt too much to give their first coupling the attention it must have to be an outstanding success. The only path was the one Justin had started on already.

“Ah, I am glad to hear that you retain some of your wits,” she said, picking up the teasing note his voice had held when he told her he was not completely mad. “You kept enough, I hope, to listen to some good news. If you can be patient for only a few days more, you can test my qualities—and I can test yours. My father told me yesterday he has business in the north and will be gone from the house very soon. For that reason and others, I must go home as soon as dinner is over today. I am not sure when he will leave, but I will send Witta to you with a note when he does, and we can arrange to meet.”

“Go home today?” Justin's voice was choked, and his glare forbade her to refer again to the blatant invitation she had offered. “Cannot you wait until tomorrow? I cannot escort you home today, not after dinner. The reason I was not here at first light to see how you did was that I had a message from FitzWalter to say his ships were in on the night tide and I should come with him to meet the captains. I could not refuse. I had promised him to deal with the cargoes, and I must go to see Hamo Finke after dinner to arrange exactly what part of the business he will do, if any, or if he will only hold the money. I have had time for very little else while attending to your affairs.”

“You are acting as factor for FitzWalter?” Lissa asked, hardly believing her ears and dismissing everything else Justin said as irrelevant. “Does he not have his own servants to do such work?”

“Yes and no,” Justin said. “I suppose he uses an agent who bargains with the merchants, but it is FitzWalter himself who decides that the price is right or not enough according to the conditions that prevail at that time and what he can guess or foresee about conditions in the future. It is his work, not his agent's, that he desires me to do, although it may be that I will do both tasks and save myself a fee, since I am not so high and mighty as FitzWalter, and to speak the truth, I like to deal directly with the merchants myself.”

“I also—I mean I like to deal with the trader if I cannot buy directly from the captain. Often both you and the trader are saved a shaving on the price that the agent puts in his own purse atop his wage.” Lissa answered easily, having said the same thing many times before, but only half her mind was on her words.

She was tremendously relieved. If FitzWalter had asked Justin to dispose of the cargoes of his trading ships for him, it was not at all impossible that he would ask her father to perform some smaller task peculiarly fitted to his abilities. Nor did that necessarily mean a dishonest task, Lissa reminded herself. Her father's acquaintance with Lord Robert must be recent. It was possible that his lordship knew only that William Bowles was a pepperer and had not heard, being out of the way of guild gossip, that Bowles was a sharp and not overly honest man. So her father had most likely told her the truth after all, and she deserved the anxiety she had suffered for always thinking the worst of him. The busy thoughts and the easing of her anxiety did not interfere in the least with Lissa's ability to hear Justin.

“Do you often go to the ships yourself?” he asked.

“Only to my uncles' ships,” Lissa replied, smiling. “There my uncles make the price and I pay whatever they ask. They are too kind. I fear they lose on what they sell me. As to the other ships, I go with my father. I do the choosing, but he likes to do the chaffering himself, and I admit he is much better at it than I.”

“But you said your father would be away for a time, did you not?”

Lissa's smile broadened. “Yes. For some weeks, perhaps even several months. He will not tell me exactly what he intends to do, only that he must travel north.”

Justin did not respond to her smile. “That means he will be away during the first dockings of spring.”

“It does not matter,” Lissa assured him, somewhat puzzled by what seemed an excessive concern for her profits. “I know most of the captains. I suppose I will be charged an extra shilling here or there, but I can talk price well enough not to be badly cheated.”

“Who cares about your being cheated?” Justin snapped. “You little ninny, worse might befall you than paying an extra penny on a pound of pepper.”

“Worse?” Lissa repeated blankly, and then her eyes opened wide. “Oh, Justin!” She shook her head. “I have known most of those men since I was three years old and went to the docks holding my mother's hand.”

“Yes, and when you were three you were perfectly safe. Unfortunately, you are not three years old any longer. You will send for me when you wish to go to a ship, and I will escort you until your father returns.”

Lissa's mouth opened, then closed. She was not sure whether Justin was joking or serious. She was not sure, if he was serious, whether she should be flattered because he thought her so irresistible that old friends would suddenly run mad with desire and attack her or whether she should be furious at his overbearing attitude. She opened her mouth again to say that her father's journeyman could escort her, and Justin forestalled her.

“No, I do not really suspect men who trade regularly in London, but there are others. Also, until I lay my hands on whoever was in your house, or until a long enough time passes, I do not want you to go alone, or even with the escort of an apprentice or journeyman, to places like the dock. Stop and think, Lissa. Men who will sail away in a few days and be safe from pursuit and from our law can be easily and cheaply hired to do murder.”

“Oh, I see. Yes, I will take care.”

The words were soothing and promised nothing. Lissa did not really think anyone could be hired to do murder on the busy docks of London in the middle of the day, but she could see no point in arguing.

“And you will stay here until tomorrow, so I can see you home?”

Lissa now remembered that was the question he had started. There might be, she thought regretfully, something in Adela's warning against loving a man like Justin. He had a mind that never lost the trail. No matter how many diversions he came up against along the way, in the end he would return to his original point. Adela was quite right; that could make life difficult for a wife. She saw too that somehow only the heel of the loaf of bread remained, the cheese was gone, and so was the pasty. Justin reached across the table, finished the ale she had left in the goblet, refilled it, and drank that down. Then he sighed. He was full of food and contentment. This was a good moment, Lissa thought—or as good as there ever would be with this man—to say no.

“I cannot stay here another day, Justin, truly, I cannot. It is not only that my father is leaving. I do not suppose that a few hours would matter in making our arrangements, but I must prepare two creams that my father promised I would deliver on Monday to Lady Margaret de Vesci.”

“Who?”

Justin's roar made Lissa jump with surprise. “Lady Margaret de Vesci,” she repeated. “What is wrong with that? She has been buying from me for several years.”

“Do you know how long she has been in London? Did she come down from Scotland or did she come from Windsor?”

Lissa saw the anxiety that tensed Justin's body and understood that his questions concerned larger affairs than those of her shop. “I do not know, Justin. I did not see her at all. She spoke to my father about the creams yesterday, and he told me nothing else. I can go to her now, if you desire. I can say I wished to explain why she could not buy the creams she wanted. I could then tell her about Peter's death, and by that path I could try to get answers to your questions.”

“You say she is a longtime client. Are you friends? Do you trust her?”

“I am not certain how to answer you, Justin. Are we friends? Certainly not. Lady Margaret is the sister of the king of Scotland—”

“Natural sister,” Justin put in.

Lissa shook her head. “She is still a king's daughter. She is recognized and accepted and was married to a man of wealth and power to help keep peace in the north.”

“That sounds”—Justin lifted his brow—“either as if you were curious enough to seek facts about her or as if she said more to you than how much of which cream she desired.”

“Lady Margaret cannot be the friend of an apothecary's daughter, but sometimes she does talk to me of women's matters. I will not repeat—”

“No,” Justin said at once. “I would not ask that of you. In fact, I will ask you no questions at all.”

“But I cannot see how it could hurt Lady Margaret if I tell you whether she came directly to London from the north or went first to—”

Lissa stopped abruptly. She had just remembered Lady Christina de Mandeville's sidelong glance and titter when she passed Lady Margaret leaving the shop one day, and then the vicious voice in which Lady Christina recounted Eustace de Vesci's excuse for plotting to kill King John—that the king had meddled with his wife.

“I still do not think it could hurt Lady Margaret to know from where she came,” Lissa now said slowly. “That she is here virtually proves her innocence. Had she been forced by John, no power on earth, I think, could have driven her here, and her husband would not permit her to come within a hundred miles of the king.”

Justin laughed harshly and Lissa said, “I am not an innocent. I know the pressure that can be applied to a woman to do what she does not wish to do.”

“There can be none applied to you from this day forward,” Justin said softly. “Not by any man who wishes to go on living.”

“I thank you, my love,” Lissa responded, stretching a hand to him across the table and repressing a shudder.

She was both thrilled and repelled by the cold ferocity that needed neither shouting nor violent gestures to carry conviction. He meant to reassure her, but such a promise could only add complications to her life. His lips touched the hand she had offered him, and she withdrew it gently, wondering whether he included himself among the men who must not apply pressure to her and hoping she would never need to discover the answer.