Rose Bride (10 page)

But how idiotic she was! What a fool!

Master Elton was a respectable man, a trained physician, and he would wed some equally respectable woman who would not besmirch his good name with a reputation of harlotry.

Indeed she had been careful to avoid visiting Master Elton at times when other patients might be seeking his help, though once she had been seen by Lady Wolf’s sister, Susannah. It had been foolish of her to peer out of the door like that, especially after Master Elton had asked her to sit quietly in his privy chamber until his other patient had left the antechamber. But she had heard women’s voices and been curious to see who amongst the courtly ladies had sought his advice. A little jealous too, perhaps. For Margerie knew she would never hold his interest like a respectable lady might.

Oh yes, the doctor desired her. She had seen in his eyes that he did.

But Master Elton would never think of her in any terms except those of a passing fancy, a lover to take when he chose and easily discard. He might one day be the king’s chief physician, and would not risk his advancement by marrying a wanton. Yet again she regretted her loss of reputation. For despite her grandfather’s dearest wish to see her married before he died, she knew herself to be beyond all hope of marriage.

Though if she must be a wanton, she could think of no better man than Master Elton to lie with.

It was warm and dark. Her eyes were still closed. She could smell a beautiful tangle of flowers: roses, lavender, jasmine, thyme and a hint of her own namesake, the fresh sweet marjoram. Her feet hurt as though she had rubbed them raw, yet they were resting on something soft. Grass, she identified it slowly. Short grass and clover, thick like a lawn, her bare feet sinking into it.

Margerie did not know how long she had been asleep, but she knew, quite suddenly and irrevocably, that she was awake.

Staring upwards, her head spun wildly. A dark tower loomed above her. Margerie gazed up at stone after stone reaching into a black sky. There were stars beyond. Her eyes met and studied them, uncomprehending. Then the clouds drew back to reveal a white shining orb. The moon, almost at its monthly fullness now, brushing everything silver: clouds, tower, stone, trees, flowers, grass.

She was outside. In the queen’s gardens. In her night shift. Barefoot.

And she could hear voices. Guards, on the entrance from the palace into the royal rose gardens.

Horrified, Margerie shrank away into the shadows, out of the moon’s blank shining. She must be in full view of the guards standing there. Where could she hide from view until she had decided how best to return to her chamber?

There was an ancient yew hedge bordering the rose gardens, broad and stout, with tiny gaps into which a person could creep and be hidden. With shaking hands, she felt along the hedge in the moonlight until she found a likely gap, then crammed herself into it.

‘Now what am I to do?’ she whispered to herself, covering her face with her hands.

She had walked in her sleep again. That made it three times this month. They had moved back from Whitehall only a short while ago, the king complaining of the city stench. But where her night-time wanderings at Whitehall had been confined to a few narrow corridors, this palace was larger and easier to walk unseen, the entrances on this side not so closely guarded as those along the river. Somehow she must have walked straight out of a side door and into the gardens without being challenged by a sentry. Unless she had been seen and left to walk.

Her cheeks grew hot with shame and helpless fury. The guards were talking quietly amongst themselves in the moonlight. She was out of sight here, at least. But how on earth could she pass them by unnoticed on her return to bed? What possible explanation could she give for being alone and dressed so scantily in the queen’s gardens at night?

Desperate, she stared up at the tower as though it might hold the answers to her problem. Her gaze steadied on one dark window slit. Surely that was Master Elton’s room there, two storeys above her hiding place?

Had she walked here deliberately, to the spot below his tower room, thinking of Master Elton even in her sleep – yet not quite daring to present herself to him again at night-time?

Last time she had visited the physician after dark, terrified by her nightmares and needing reassurance, the doctor had mixed her a sleeping draught that he swore would keep her safe in bed until dawn. But she had seen how Master Elton had looked at her sideways, his dark eyes narrowed on her face, and how careful he had been to avoid touching her. She guessed that he must be deeply uncomfortable to have her in his room after dark, a known wanton.

Dared she risk offending him again by rousing him to help her?

There were small pebbles near her feet. She picked one up and threw it, on an impulse, up at his tower window. It missed and fell away with a tiny noise. The guards by the entrance did not seem to have heard, for they continued talking.

Emboldened, she picked up two more pebbles, took another few steps forward into the moonlight, and threw both together. One struck wood, and after a long moment, she saw the shutter open and a dark head appear.

Suddenly frozen, Margerie stared up at the doctor.

She could not see his face, for it was in shadow. But it seemed Master Elton had understood her predicament, for he raised a hand, then disappeared. Nothing more happened. Disappointed, she drew back into the shelter of the yew hedge and thanked God for the warm summer night, else she would have been shivering there in the open. The moon shone across the palace, its silvery light finding her even in her hiding place. She stared down at her bare feet and realised that one of her toes had been bleeding; there was dried blood where she must have stubbed it against stone.

After a while, a whisper alerted her and she stiffened. ‘Mistress Croft, are you there?’ A hesitation. ‘Margerie?’

She knew that voice. She peered out from the gap in the yew hedge and saw Master Elton there in the moonlight, still in his nightclothes but cloaked and capped. A heavy cloak hung over his arm and she smiled in relief, meeting his eyes.

‘I am here,’ she whispered back, letting him see where she was hiding. ‘Thank you, sir. You are very kind to help me. I cannot thank you enough for your kindness.’

Master Elton slid the cloak about her shoulders, his face a mask. Once again, his hands barely touched her, though she felt their warmth near her skin.

‘Another walking nightmare? Did you take a sleeping draught tonight?’

Margerie nodded, suddenly ashamed. She could not tell what Master Elton was thinking. But perhaps he thought this a ploy to be alone with him.

‘Perhaps I made it too weak, though I would hesitate to make it much stronger,’ the doctor mused, frowning, ‘in case it harms you. Though you are tall, you are very slender. You might never wake if I were to make the mixture so powerful that it overwhelms you entirely.’

‘I do not need another sleeping draught, Master Elton,’ she muttered. ‘From now on I . . . I will tie myself to the bed each night.’

‘That may help your wanderings, but it will not cure their cause.’ He was still frowning. ‘I wish I understood what brings these nightmares on, what troubles your mind so violently that you must leave your bed while sleeping.’

‘You need not stay, sir,’ she said, a little clumsily, not wanting him to pry any further. She managed a curtsey, her back against the prickling hedge. ‘I thank you for the cloak, but I can make my own way back into the palace now.’

He raised his eyebrows. ‘What, past those guards?’

‘I must have passed them once already without comment. Perhaps they will leave their post.’

‘Or perhaps you came out another way.’

She had to concede that.

Then suddenly there was no more time to think or speak. For the danger she had feared was upon them. A man’s voice, deep and amused, came rolling out of the shadowy gardens under the palace wall, and Margerie realised with a jolt of horror that they were no longer alone.

CHAPTER SEVEN

‘Come here, you little minx,’ the courtier was saying, ‘for I would not have you slip away before I am satisfied.’ The girl with him squealed in mock horror as he grabbed her, both of them emerging into bright moonlight only a few yards away from the yew hedge. Then she muttered something that Margerie did not catch. ‘Oh, I’ll make you hop right enough,’ he told the girl, a hint of laughter in his voice. ‘Now don’t pretend you’ve never had a man. For I’ve heard different. And you’ll have me too, as soon as I find a good place to lie down where the guards cannot see us.’

Margerie inhaled sharply and held her breath, shrinking back against the prickly hedge. If the couple came any closer, they would discover her and the doctor together in the moonlight, and then she would have ruined Master Elton’s reputation as well as her own.

‘Quick,’ Master Elton said hoarsely in her ear, bundling her back into the gap in the yew hedge.

Together they squeezed in and stood chest-to-chest in that warm, rustling darkness, hardly daring to breathe. But the amorous pair were more interested in each other, and passed by their hiding place without comment, no doubt looking for a way past the yew hedge out of the gardens.

Margerie let out a slow breath, then looked into Master Elton’s face. She did not even have to tilt her head, she realised. She was so tall, it was rare to meet a man who could match her height. Then their eyes met, and Margerie suddenly wished she was not so close, for he must surely have seen the tiny shock run through her, and felt how her body trembled as she stared back into his eyes.

‘When they have gone, we will look for a way back into the palace that is not guarded,’ the doctor murmured, watching her.

She nodded, and tried not to look at his mouth. It was so firm though: straight and unsmiling.

Her lips parted and she found it hard to breathe, her fists clenched in the heavy folds of his cloak, struggling to maintain control over her senses.

Surely they would not have to wait long before they were alone again . . . But to her dismay, the pair did not leave.

‘Here is a quieter spot,’ the courtier suddenly declared, shocking her, his voice close by them on the other side. There was a soft thud as he fell to the grassy lawns behind the yew hedge, presumably taking his lover with him. ‘We will not be seen or disturbed here. Now pull up your skirts, girl, let’s have some good sport before the guards come round again.’

The unknown girl squealed again, the lover laughed, then both fell silent.

They must be kissing, Margerie realised, and bit her lip as she watched Master Elton’s expression darken.

Abruptly the girl moaned. It was a deep throaty moan that suggested she had been touched intimately, perhaps even entered. The high-pitched cry that followed, then the man’s grunts a moment later, confirmed her horrified suspicions. The shameless pair were fucking on the grass on the other side of the yew hedge, completely unaware of their audience.

Master Elton closed his eyes as though in pain.

She stared at him hungrily in that brief moment when he could not see her. In the faint light from the moon, filtering through the yew branches, she admired the firm chin, the Roman nose, the deep-set eyes, his lashes long where they swept his cheek, the high forehead – a mark of intelligence and great learning, she had once been told – and the dark hair that curled slightly under his cap.

Then his eyes opened and Master Elton looked at her. Dark eyes, heavy-lidded with desire, intent on her face.

‘Margerie,’ he whispered.

She shook her head. ‘No,’ she meant to say, but it came out as a kind of strangled gasp.

She had found the physician darkly attractive the first time she saw him, and warned herself not to look too closely. Returning to court had been her grandfather’s idea, not hers; he was determined to thrust her back into the world which had forsaken her. A hopeless cause, and she knew it. There was little chance any self-respecting man would court her with an eye to marriage, not when all the world knew she was no virgin.

And Master Elton was no different. Indeed, there was a ruthlessness behind that quiet intent which she found both fascinating and dangerous. He was a man who knew what he wanted, even if his methods were less coarse than the panting courtier on the grass.

His gaze slid down to her mouth.

‘Master Elton,’ she managed, gathering her strength to resist him.

She had resisted many men’s advances since Wolf had seduced her, often with startling ease. A cold look here, a half-promise there, then a hurried flight if those would not prevail. This man would prove as easy to deter, she told herself, but knew part of her wanted him to succeed. Margerie had never felt such desire as this, known the taste of urgent need, felt it tingle through her body . . .

‘Virgil,’ he corrected her. She stared at him, confused, and the doctor bent his head, whispering in her ear, ‘My name is Virgil.’

His breath was warm on her throat. She drew an unsteady breath. Heat coursed through her and she felt her lips parting, her heart beginning to race.

God in heaven, she wanted him.

Through the yew hedge, the girl moaned again, her voice breathy, and the courtier grunted something incoherent in response. By his gasps, he was nearing his end.