Owen’s page scrambled back through the crowd, his cheeks red from the cold. “ ’Twill be a two-hour wait for a barge, sir. And ’tis freezing hard.”
Owen merely nodded, his expression customarily impassive except for a gleam in his dark eyes. “Then the sooner we leave the better, Cedric.” He put a hand on the lad’s shoulder.
“ ’Tis powerful cold,” Cedric muttered, looking longingly at the brightly lit hall behind his master. “We could wait here a bit, sir, just until the crowd’s gone.”
“I’ve no desire to linger, boy. A walk will warm you. Come.” He propelled the page ahead of him out of the house.
Pen, when she reached the water steps amid the crowd, stamped her feet, hugged her arms across her chest, and looked around disconsolately. The line of barges and wherries waiting to pull into the steps seemed infinite, their bobbing cressets visible in the far distance across the black water, and the number of people ahead of her in the line was more than she could count. It was going to be an inhumanly long wait for passage.
She thrust her gloved hand beneath her cloak and clasped the little embroidered purse. She could almost feel the crisp fold of parchment within. Once she got back to Baynard’s Castle and the privacy of her own chamber she could examine it properly. A surge of excitement ran through her, warming her despite the bone-chilling air. She forgot her fatigue, and her frustration at the crowd and the long wait became an impatient need to do something decisive. If she stayed where she was she wouldn’t see her bed before daybreak.
She stepped back from the throng. The Horseferry water steps were no more than a ten-minute walk and the crowds would be much less there.
Of course the walk would take her through the maze of dark lanes surrounding the Bryanston mansion. In daylight she wouldn’t have thought twice about it, but on such a bitter black night . . .
Suddenly making up her mind, Pen looked around for a torchman to light her way. A sullen fellow, a Bryanston servant, came shivering to answer her call. He set off ahead of her, holding his torch high to illuminate the dark alleys they had to thread to reach the Horseferry steps.
Huddled in her fur-lined cloak, Pen picked her way carefully over the icy ground trying to keep up with his light, but he was impatient and his booted feet had a firmer grip of the ground than her thinner-soled sandals. She cursed him under her breath, and would have cursed herself for missing the princess’s departure and a brazier-warmed journey home on comfortable cushioned seats out of the wind, except that the same excitement, the residue of her earlier recklessness, and a surging anticipation infused her.
The sudden “Holla!” from behind her startled her. She spun around and found herself instantly surrounded by ragged dark-clad figures, men, some women, even children. She yelled for the torchman, who looked behind him and then ran into the darkness, holding his torch aloft.
“Cowardly scum!” Pen exclaimed between her teeth, for the moment too angry at his desertion to feel fear. But that lasted barely an instant, to be followed immediately by the desperate certainty that she should have stayed at the Bryanstons’ steps and waited it out among the crowd. Instead she had yielded to a stupid impulse, with possibly deadly consequences.
She tried to push her way through the group around her but they closed in tighter, gazing at her with hungry eyes, slack mouths that showed toothless gums. For a minute no one moved, then one of the men reached out and touched her arm. It was the signal for the rest. The women came closer, pushing, pulling, prodding. And now Pen was breathless with terror. She tried talking to them but they didn’t seem to hear her. Dirty fingers plucked at her cloak and the gem she wore at her breast was revealed, flashing a white light in the darkness. They came at her then, clawing, hissing, like evil wraiths robbing a grave.
Pen heard her own scream even as she fought them with a frenzy she would never have believed she possessed. And then suddenly they were falling back with cries of pain, of alarm. Cries that now sounded human.
A man in black was in their midst, wielding a rapier to deadly effect. He was silent, the silver blade slicing through the air with lethal efficiency. At his side a smaller figure plied a dagger with the same dexterity.
Pen found herself freed from the circle. She had no weapon by which to add her mite to her rescuers’ efforts, so she gathered herself together, running a mental inventory over her body and then her possessions. Her cloak was torn, the index finger of her right glove ripped away. But she was still on her feet and for the moment aware of no injury.
The alley was emptied as quickly as it had filled. Owen d’Arcy reached for her and, instinctively it seemed to Pen, drew her against him. For a minute she rested in the circle of his arm, hearing his heart beat beneath his cloak as slowly and steadily as if he’d never raised a rapier. She rested against him, realizing as she regained some measure of strength and composure that she hadn’t believed it possible to know such terror.
“My thanks, sir,” she murmured finally, pulling out of his hold when it seemed to her that the longer she stayed so close against him the less will she would have to move away. “I had a torchman but the coward ran as soon as I was attacked.”
“ ’Tis a bad road for a woman with only a torchman for protection,” Owen said, sheathing his rapier. “I saw you leave the water steps but couldn’t credit that you would strike out on your own in such fashion. Cedric, light a taper.”
Cedric drew a tinder box from the leather pouch he carried at his waist. Flint scraped on steel, the tinder sparked, and a light glowed, a small golden circle that enclosed the three of them. Owen reached out and caught Pen’s chin as he had done earlier that evening. He held her face and examined her in the light of the torch.
Pen shivered suddenly, her legs quivering so that she leaned against the wall of the hovel at her back. It had nothing to do with the strange power in the black eyes bent upon her, nothing at all to do with the compelling calm that surrounded him. It was simply the aftermath of her ordeal. It was perfectly natural to suffer a shock once the need for strength was gone.
“You’re hurt,” he said in that lilting voice. “The kennel scum cut you with something.” He touched her neck, moved aside the collar of her cloak, and traced a line from her ear to her shoulder. His finger came away wet and sticky with blood. Pen felt the pain of the cut for the first time, just as she also became aware of many other spots of soreness on her body. She had fought hard for those few terror-stricken minutes and her body was telling her so.
“It’s ragged. They must have used a sharpened stone or some such. Anyway it needs attention,” Owen said. “And soon. There’s no knowing what filth was on it.” He moved her cloak back over her shoulder. “There’s a place nearby.”
“What kind of place?” Pen hung back slightly as he took her elbow and began to move her along the alley, Cedric holding the taper to light their way. She didn’t know this man and he unsettled her. She knew he had saved her life and she was immensely grateful for that but there was something disturbing about him. Sufficiently disturbing for her to feel that she shouldn’t accompany him to some strange venue, that anything could happen in his company. Why had he pursued her from the great hall earlier? Why had he kissed her? What did it mean that she interested him? And just what was it about him that interested
her
?
Pen decided she was in no fit condition to explore the latter question. “I’ll take a wherry at the steps,” she said firmly. “I’ll be home in an hour. My own servants can take care of the wound.”
Owen didn’t want to frighten her but neither was he willing to let this heaven-sent opportunity go by the board. He said with soft reassurance, “There’s no need to be afeard, Lady Pen. Not in my company at least. But the longer the wound remains uncleansed the greater the chance of mortification. There’s a tavern hard by the Horseferry steps where I’m known. They will have hot water, and bandages, and I trust a decent sack posset. After which I will convey you myself to the princess’s residence.”
The wound throbbed in her neck, and when she touched it tentatively the skin was hot and her finger came away bloody. She thought of the kind of weapon they might have used, a stone from the gutter coated in filth, a sharpened piece of iron found in a dung heap. And she knew her companion was right. It was imperative to cleanse it immediately. And a tavern would have servants, an innkeeper and his lady. All quite ordinary and safe.
“Very well,” Pen said.
They walked quickly to the steps and Pen was aware that she had begun to rely on the support of his hand beneath her elbow. Her own body was letting her down. She forced herself to stand upright, to stiffen her watery knees, to take firm steps. It seemed vitally important that she show no weakness. Why she felt this she didn’t know. But she was convinced that he wanted something from her and she must be on guard against it lest it creep up upon her.
Nothing that had happened since Pen first met Owen d’Arcy had changed her opinion that he was a very dangerous man.
Three
“She was in the gallery, you say?” Lady Bryanston glanced up at the gallery that ran along one side of the great hall.
“Aye, I saw her up there just after the princess and her entourage left.” Miles Bryanston’s words were a little slurred, his eyes on the contents of the goblet he held.
“What could she want up there?” demanded Lady Joan, his countess. Her face glistened with the heat. Her eyes followed her mother-in-law’s upwards to the gallery.
“Poking and prying as usual,” Lady Bryanston declared, her lips a thin line above her heavy chin. “She won’t let it go. She’s as stubborn as an ox.”
“Even though her own family don’t believe her,” Miles commented. He belched and drained the contents of his goblet, then yawned noisily.
Servants moved around them, clearing up the debris of the revels. The candles were now guttering, the logs in the great fireplaces burned to embers, and cold edged aside the last breath of warmth left by the recently departed crowd.
“ ’Tis to be hoped they don’t,” muttered his mother. The Kendals were a formidable pair with powerful connections. If they once decided to interest themselves in their daughter’s obsession, there was no knowing how far they could take it.
“Why should they?” Joan asked, stifling a yawn. “It’s been two years. What could they find? There’ll be nothing left of a dead child now!”
“No, but they could be a nuisance,” her mother-in-law said evasively.
If Miles had done his work well, there would indeed be nothing to find.
She gave her son a quick glance that held just a degree of doubt. Much as she adored him, she had to admit that he was not as quick-witted as he might have been. Unlike his elder brother, whose wit had been pure quicksilver, bright and swiftly moving. But where Philip would not be ruled by his mother, Miles obeyed her every dictate with the faithful devotion of an old dog. Where Philip would have refused to touch anything remotely underhand, Miles would have followed her instructions to the letter and relished every moment. No, surely he would have done his work well. He would have left no traces.
She glanced at Joan, whose attention had as usual wandered. Lady Bryanston spoke softly to her son. “ ’Tis probably time to check the arrangements. If there’s anything left, make another move. Do it soon. You understand me?”
Miles grunted a response and called for more wine.
“You have no need of more wine,” his mother said impatiently. “I want to know what you discussed with the Duke of Northumberland. You were in his company for close on twenty minutes.”
“Hunting,” Miles said, extending his goblet to the servant who’d run up with a flagon. “We talked of hunting.”
“Is that all? You didn’t discuss the king’s health as I told you to?”
Miles hiccuped. In truth he had completely forgotten his mother’s instructions; they had somehow become lost in the wine wreathing through his brain. But he couldn’t admit to that. “It didn’t arise.” He looked soulfully at his mother. “I couldn’t just open the subject myself, could I?”
Lady Bryanston sighed. “Yes, Miles, you could have done. Everyone is interested in the king’s health, it would not have been remarked upon. If you don’t talk with the duke or try to gain his confidence, how can you suggest the possibility of a new treatment? Sometimes I think—”
She stopped, for her son was not listening, or if he was he was not capable of absorbing anything she said. “We will discuss this when your head is clear,” she declared with a snap. “I am going to my rest. I bid you both good night.” She swept to the stairs.
“ ’Tis possible I angered her,” Miles muttered into his goblet. He raised bloodshot eyes and looked at his wife, whose attention seemed to have returned. “D’you think ’tis possible, Joan?”
“Maybe,” she said mournfully. “ ’Tis not wise, Miles. You should have remembered to talk of the king’s health.”
“I know but my head was full of the cards and I could think of nothing else.” He tipped the contents of his newly charged goblet down his throat. “Let’s to bed, sweetheart.”
He gave her something very like a leer but Joan knew from experience that the leer promised nothing. The spirit might be willing but the flesh would be definitely droopy. Sometimes she thought her barrenness might have something to do with her husband’s infrequent ability to perform adequately in the marriage bed, but of course she knew that couldn’t be so. The inability to conceive was always a woman’s problem. Her womb was barren, unfriendly to her husband’s seed, and she knew her mother-in-law blamed her. The dowager countess’s anxiety to have the succession tied up was almost as much of an obsession as Pen’s with her dead child.
With a tiny sigh, Joan followed her husband’s stumbling progress up to their bedchamber.
The tavern was set back from the Horseferry steps in its own garden. It was lime washed, half timbered, with a low-pitched thatched roof from which smoke curled in the bright freezing air. Its windows, however, were dark behind their shutters.
“They’re all abed,” Pen said as Owen, still holding her elbow, unlatched the gate to the path. “I’ll take a wherry at the steps.”
“Nonsense,” Owen said placidly. “Mistress Rider will be pleased to assist us.”
“She’ll not be pleased to be woken,” Pen protested, hanging back.
“She will be pleased to be woken,” Owen responded with cheerful serenity. “Cedric, run around to the back and see if anyone’s up in the kitchen.”
Cedric trotted off, and Owen adjusted the hood of Pen’s cloak so that it covered her more tightly. The clouds had dissipated and the night was crisp and clear, the moon washing all around them with a pale light now that they were out of the huddle of dark lanes.
Pen’s face was white in the moonlight, her hazel eyes both wide and very dark. The natural ease with which he’d adjusted her hood had startled her. Owen smiled at her and she felt a measure of reassurance. Some warmth flowed back into her chilled and aching body.
The front door opened. A woman stood there holding a lantern high. “Come you in, sir. Cedric says you’ve a wounded lady.”
“Aye, Mistress Rider.” Owen propelled Pen in front of him. “We had an encounter with a tribe of beggars. They cut Lady Bryanston and the wound needs cleansing immediately.”
Pen stepped into a narrow passageway and returned the interested gaze of a round-bodied woman wrapped in a shawl over her kirtle and chemise. “Forgive us if we roused you from your bed, mistress,” Pen said.
“Oh, ’tis no trouble, madam. I’m used to the chevalier turning up at all hours. Come this way.” She bustled ahead of them, holding the lantern high so that it threw its light along the passageway.
They came into a large square kitchen where a kettle sat on a trivet over a brightly burning range. Three yellow lurchers lying by the door to the yard raised their heavy heads, then lumbered to their feet, tails wagging, to greet Owen like an old friend. He stroked them, let them lick his hands, and after a minute they returned to their places, dropping their heads back to their folded paws with breathy sighs.
Cedric was revolving slowly before the fire, making sure every side of him was exposed to the heat. He had a satisfied air. On such a night a warm kitchen was infinitely preferable to hanging around the water steps waiting for transport.
“If ye’ll just warm yourselves ’ere, I’ll ’ave the chevalier’s bedchamber prepared in a trice,” Mistress Rider said. “ ’Tis all ready, just needs a light to the fire. We wasn’t expectin’ you back this evening, sir.”
“No,” Pen said hastily, throwing out a hand to stop the woman as she made for the stairs. “There’s no need to prepare a bedchamber. This will take but a minute.”
“I believe it will take a little longer,” Owen said easily. “You’ll be more comfortable before a fire above stairs, and Mistress Rider will prepare a sack posset while I cleanse the wound.”
“Aye, that’s right,” the woman said cheerily. “You, young Cedric, bring a bucket of ’ot coals from the fire, we’ll have the chevalier’s chamber warm as toast in no time.”
Cedric shoveled hot coals into a bucket and followed Mistress Rider from the kitchen.
“Come to the fire,” Owen said, going over to the range. “There’s no need to be afeard.”
“Isn’t there?” Pen returned somewhat dryly. Nevertheless she followed him to the fire, bending to warm her hands. The ripped gloves had offered little protection from the cold on their walk to the tavern and her fingertips were reddened and numb.
“I would expect that anyone reckless enough to strike off on her own through the dark alleys of London would be a stranger to fear,” he commented with a raised eyebrow. “I assure you, if it’s me you fear, I’m a deal less dangerous than a tribe of beggars.”
That I doubt.
But Pen kept that thought to herself. She was not afraid of him at all, but she was deeply disturbed by him. Or was she disturbed by the simple fact that he
did
disturb her? She sucked her fingertips in an effort to get the blood moving again.
“I do not fear you. And if the torchman had not run away I would have been better served,” she responded a mite defensively. “But you mustn’t think I don’t know you saved my life. Or, indeed, that I’m not grateful.”
“Well, as I said once before, you interest me, Lady Pen. I seem to find myself following you whenever I see you.” There was no smile as he said this and his gaze was cool and steady resting on her face. Pen could detect no humor in the statement, it was entirely in earnest. For the moment she could find no suitable response.
Owen appeared content with the silence, and it seemed to Pen that she was slowly and inexorably enclosed by the calm stillness that flowed from him. The quiet of the kitchen was disturbed only by the heavy breathing of the dogs by the door and the crackle of the logs. She began to feel her aches and pains anew and the gash in her neck was throbbing, the skin around it was tight and sore. That made her afraid, if nothing else did. If the wound were poisoned, she had much more to fear than Owen d’Arcy’s calmly determined pursuit, incomprehensible though it was.
Cedric returned to the kitchen. “Mistress Rider says I’m to take up hot water, sir. She’s fetching some special salves and bandages from the stillroom.”
Owen merely nodded and said to Pen, “Let us go up then.”
It seemed, Pen thought, that she had little choice. Her hand went to the purse suspended from the chain at her waist. She felt the fold of parchment beneath the embroidered silk. This strange encounter in a waterside tavern seemed all part and parcel of the force that had driven her all evening. Maybe Owen d’Arcy was in her destiny.
She must have a fever, Pen thought disgustedly, to entertain such a ridiculous notion. Destiny, indeed! Her life was her own. Her choices were her own. She was like her mother, strong and in control of the forces that affected her life. She
chose
to be here with Owen d’Arcy, and she
chose
to allow him to minister to her hurts. And that was that.
With a lift of her chin she preceded him out of the kitchen and up the stairs from the narrow passageway.
Owen followed, wondering what she had been thinking to cause that sudden stiffening of her shoulders, the challenging lift of her chin. Something to do with him? It seemed likely. And that was all to the good. Anything that piqued her interest whether favorably or not served his purpose.
Mistress Rider greeted them at the head of the stairs and lit their way to a small chamber under the eaves, where a fire burned comfortingly in the hearth and sconced tallow candles threw golden circles of light onto the shining waxed floor.
“There’s witch hazel for the bleeding, marigold cream for cleansing, and comfrey to help the healing,” Mistress Rider said, indicating a basket on the table. “Will I tend to the lady, Chevalier?”
“No, I’ll do it myself. I’ve a powerful need for a cup of aqua mirabilis and the lady would benefit from a sack posset. If you would see to those needs, mistress, I’ll be well content.”
“As you wish, sir.” The woman bobbed a curtsy and bustled out.
The chamber was warm, cozy, and utterly inviting. Pen sank down on a stool by the fire and unclasped her cloak, letting the heavy hood fall back. The thick furred garment slipped to the floor. She cupped her hand over the throbbing gash in her neck as she leaned closer to the flaming logs.
Owen watched her for a moment, enjoying the graceful curve of her back. She wore the long hood of her headdress pinned up as prevailing fashion dictated and it accentuated the porcelain column of her neck. It struck him that she was not really nondescript at all. It struck him for the second time that night that his seduction of Pen Bryanston might afford more pleasure than he’d anticipated.
Pen felt his eyes upon her and slowly turned her head to look up at him, her hand still cupping her throat. Her arrested gaze held his and for a long moment neither of them moved, strangely connected by their reflections in the dark orbs of the other.
Pen could hear in her ears the suddenly accelerated beat of her heart. The muscles in her belly contracted. Her mouth was dry as she read the flash of pure desire that crossed his black eyes, belying the absolute stillness of his countenance. Philip had looked at her with desire and passion many times but under Philip’s gaze she had never felt as she did now. Owen d’Arcy’s desire would burn, would devour. She had the fanciful notion that if she was ever touched by that desire she would cease to exist as the person she knew. And deep within her she understood that this was what made Owen d’Arcy a dangerous man.
Cedric came in with hot water and the moment passed, the connection was broken. But something lingered in the air, and the page glanced curiously at the couple beside the fire. Then Owen without urgency moved backwards, away from Pen.
“Set the water on the table, Cedric, then go down to the kitchen and help Mistress Rider with the sack posset.” His voice was calm and neutral.
Pen opened her mouth to say that Cedric should stay. She didn’t want to be alone with Owen, alone while he ministered to her hurts, put his hands upon her body as he would have to do. But then she didn’t know how to express this to the page without it sounding either silly or insulting. Instead she watched Owen’s hands as he unclipped the velvet sheaths that held his rapier and dagger and laid the weapons on the table beside the hot water.