At The King's Command (6 page)

As Nance yelled to the Catholic saints and reeled back against the wall, a tide of scented water flooded the room.

A blur of motion streaked toward Juliana. Stephen cursed—another disgusting body-part word—and she felt herself being lifted and slung with dizzying speed over his shoulder.

She screeched, but it did no good. She pounded on his broad back and earned a slap on the rear for her troubles.

Pushing past Nance, Stephen grabbed a stack of linen toweling, a cake of lye soap and a vial of dark liquid and marched toward the door.

Her great bosom bobbling, Nance ran after them. “My lord, have a care—”

“I’ll be all right,” Stephen said. “She doesn’t bite.” As he hastened from the room, he added, “Actually, she probably does, but I haven’t caught her at it yet.”

When they emerged from the manor house, Pavlo launched into a barking frenzy. Slung upside down over Stephen’s shoulder, Juliana called a command to the
borzoya
, but saw that he had been tethered to a hitch rail.

She felt the ground slope as Stephen stalked on, muttering under his breath, toward their destination—a swift-running river.

“You would not dare,” she said through clenched teeth.

“Your charms give me courage, darling,” he said. Handling her like a sack of cats he wished to drown, he threw her into the stream.

A mouthful of water silenced Juliana’s screams. The cold shocked her, but not nearly so much as the cruelty of the man she had married. She planted her feet on the pebbly bottom and surfaced, her hand on her dagger, ready to do battle.

He gave her no chance. He had waded out, fully clothed, and he, too, was armed—with a block of soap.

Juliana howled like Pavlo when he was confined to a cage. She bruised her hands and feet against her husband’s hard body, all to no avail. Stephen de Lacey was relentless. He drenched her hair in a witch’s brew of noxious herbs, then scrubbed every thrashing, squirming inch of her, and dunked her as if she were an armful of soapy bed linens.

When he finished, he did not even look at her, but turned and sloshed his way to the riverbank. “The towels are there,” he said, indicating them with a jerk of his head. “And supper is at the toll of six. We’re having company.”

“I hope I gave you lice,” she yelled after him.

Old Nance tucked a finger up under her hat and gave her head an idle scratch. Then she sighed heavily, the sound of a woman who was absolutely convinced of her own saintliness.

“I’ve set the lady’s chamber to rights, my lord.” She waved her chubby arm, showing off the fresh rushes. “It were no small task, I might add.”

Stephen offered her a straight-backed chair, and with a self-important rustling of fustian skirts, she lowered herself to the seat. He had hastily donned dry clothing and combed his damp hair.

“Well,” she said, her manner brisk. “I’ll not devil you with questions, my lord. We’ll leave the gossips to mull over how it is that the baron of Wimberleigh came to wed a wild gypsy.”

“Thank you.” Stephen pulled up a chair of his own, straddling it and folding his arms over the back. He was
grateful she did not demand an explanation. Yet at the same time, he realized she alone would have understood, for she alone knew the nature of the blade King Henry held poised over Stephen’s neck.

“Aye, ’tis not my place to ponder the whys and wherefores of your new wedded state. Lord above knows, my poor old mind is too feeble to grasp how you got in such a fix.” She clasped her work-reddened hands. “Now that you’ve seen to the bathing, my lord, the gypsy needs a set of clothes. As to her savage ways, we’ll see about them later.”

“
Is
she truly strange, Nance?” Stephen asked, trying hard not to relive the tempest in the millstream. “Sometimes I glimpse something in her manner, hear a note in her speech, and I wonder.”

“She’s a gypsy, my lord, and everyone knows gypsies are great imitators.” The goodwife sniffed and poked her broad red nose into the air. “Much like a monkey I once saw. ’Twas a mariner at Bristol, see, and he…”

His attention fading, Stephen nodded vaguely and planted his chin in his hand. It struck him that he had not entered this room in eight years. The chamber, with its adjoining music suite and solar, wardrobes and close-rooms, had been Meg’s domain.

Though hastily aired and dusted for the new baroness, the room still bore Meg’s indelible imprint—the fussy scalloped bed draperies of fading pink damask, the blank-eyed poppet propped on the window seat, the mirrored candle holder Stephen himself had designed. And on a slim-legged table lay a bone hairbrush, its back etched with a scene of the Virgin guarded by a unicorn.

Fearful of the emotion building inside him, he scowled at the floor. And spied, half-hidden by the fringe of the
counterpane, a bright bit of string. Distracted by the out-of-place object, he stood and crossed the room to pick it up. “What is this?”

Nance caught her breath. “Milady was playing at Jacob’s ladder the very night—”

Stephen turned toward Nance. His icy glare stopped her cold.

Nance’s hand fluttered at her bosom. “Ah, the sweet-ling. Ever the child, she was.”

The memory stung like salt on the wound of Stephen’s guilt. He thought of his vagabond bride invading this room, sleeping in Meg’s bed, handling Meg’s things.

Like a weed, Juliana would blight the perfectly ordered chamber.

I’m sorry, Meg. Sorry for everything.
The regrets poured like quicklime through him.

“…burn the clothes, of course,” Old Nance was saying, having slipped back into her matter-of-fact manner.

Stephen shook his head, drawing his mind from painful remembrances. He stalked back and forth in front of the windows. “What’s that you say?”

“The gypsy, my lord. Her clothes are no doubt infested with vermin. ’Tis best they are burnt.”

“Aye, but then she’ll have nothing to—oh.” Stephen pressed his fist on the window embrasure. “She is of a size with Meg.”

“Not quite so plump as your first wife, my lord, but I could take a tuck or two in some of the gowns. Er, that is, if you don’t mind—”

“I don’t.” He slammed the door on his memories.

“And about a lady’s maid, my lord—”

“She doesn’t need a maid, but a warden.”

“That’s what I thought, too,” Nance said. “While you
was occupied with your wife, I sent to the village for Jillie Egan, the dyer’s daughter.”

“Jillie Egan?” Stephen aimed a mocking scowl at Nance. “Oh, you are naughty, dear lady. The Egan girl’s the size of a bullock, and has a stubborn will to match.”

Nance winked broadly. “She’ll not tolerate any stomaching from the gypsy.”

Stephen strode to the door. “Do as you see fit. I’ve a pressing engagement elsewhere.”

Nance Harbutt nodded in complete understanding. “My lord, what will you tell your new wife about—”

“Nothing at all,” he cut in, his voice as sharp as a knife. “Not a blessed, solitary thing.”

“I
trow that particular shade of blue is called woad,” said a faintly amused voice.

“Eek!” Juliana nearly came out of her numb, chilled skin. She spun away from the polished steel mirror to face the intruder. “Dear Lord,” she whispered in rapid Russian, “my jailer is a giantess.”

Her gaze traveled from the boatlike feet clad in sturdy clogs to the ruddy face framed by coarse yellow hair. The distance was at least a score of hands—the height of a grown plow horse.

“I don’t speak Egyptian, milady.” The giantess placed her pawlike hands on her hips and leaned forward, peering frankly at Juliana. “I assumed you was trying to decide what shade of blue your lips turned from the cold bath. I’d say woad, from the mustard leaf.”

“Woad,” Juliana repeated stupidly, shaping her lips around the difficult
w
.

“Aye, I knows me colors. Me da is a dyer. Blue as a titbird’s throat you are, milady.”

Clutching a robe around her shivering form, Juliana blinked in astonishment. The fact was, she
had
turned
blue from the icy bath in the churning, spring-fed millstream. After the heartless dunking Stephen had subjected her to, she had slogged back to the house, cursing him in a patois of English, Romany, and Russian. When the ogress arrived, Juliana had been staring into the mirror and wondering if her coloring would ever return to normal.

“Who are you?” She managed to force the question past her chattering teeth.

“Jillie Egan.” The woman bobbed an awkward curtsy. “I’m to be your new lady’s maid.”

A lady’s maid
. Juliana closed her eyes for a moment and surrendered to memories she usually kept locked away. As a girl, she had been attended by no fewer than four maids—all of them pretty as daisies, impeccably groomed, and nearly as accomplished as their young mistress.

“Milady?” The ogress interrupted her thoughts. “’Tis nigh time for you to be getting to supper.”

Jillie led Juliana close to the hearth fire and unwound the linen toweling from her hair. The damp locks reeked of strong herbs Stephen had used to kill the lice. Jillie untied the shapeless robe, replacing it with a long, fine shift. The sheer fabric was gossamer to Juliana’s skin, so deliciously different from the coarse homespun of her gypsy garb.

“Belonged to the first baroness, this did,” Jillie commented, shaking out the scalloped hem of the shift.

“Lord Wimberleigh’s mother?” Juliana inquired.

“Heavens, no. That one turned up her noble toes a score of years ago. Lord Wimberleigh’s first
wife
.”

Juliana caught her breath. It had never occurred to her that Stephen de Lacey had been married before. A wife. Stephen was a widower. Suddenly the thought colored everything she knew about him: the hooded sadness deep
in his eyes, his bitter resentment of Juliana, his long, brooding silences and searing moments of high temper.

“Where are my own clothes?” she demanded.

“Nance said they was dirty past washing, crawling with vermin and such. She had them burned.”

“No!” The shout broke from Juliana on a wave of panic. “I must find them. I need my—”

“Bauble, milady?” Jillie handed over the brooch. “I spied it pinned inside the waist of your skirt.”

Juliana went weak with relief; then hope began to warm her blood. The ogress might be someone she could trust. Perhaps the only one she could trust until…She thought of the
vurma
trail she had left during her journey to Wiltshire, the bits of thread and fabric she had left to mark her way.
Hurry, Laszlo.

Praying her guardian would rescue her from her own foolishness, she closed her fingers around the brooch. “Thank you.” In spite of herself she was beginning to like the big bossy maid. As her tension and suspicion relaxed, she decided to give up her gypsy disguise. Her plan to exhort King Henry for help had failed, but perhaps here she’d find help from Stephen de Lacey. How far would he go, she wondered, and how much would he risk to be rid of her?

“Jillie,” she said speculatively, “can you do hair?”

The maid grinned. “Like I were born to it, milady. By the time I’ve done, your new husband won’t know you.”

“Well, Wimberleigh,” said Jonathan Youngblood. “Don’t keep me on tenterhooks like a side of pork. What’s she like?”

Stephen squeezed his eyes shut, silently cursed Havelock’s wagging tongue then opened his eyes to glare at
his best friend. Jonathan sat easily in a carved box chair at the opposite end of the trestle table. Older than Stephen by a decade, he bore the scars of the Scots wars and the ample girth of good living. His bristly gray hair stuck out in spikes around a florid face, and he dressed like a ploughman, for he was never one to bow to fashion. A knight of the old order, Jonathan Youngblood had no use for the perfumed, posturing gentlemen who now dominated the court.

His warm brown eyes were the kindest Stephen had ever known. Blessed with an even dozen sons, Jonathan had sent Kit to live with Stephen, thinking the lad would fill the void of Stephen’s childlessness.

If he only knew the truth
…Stephen batted the thought away. “I ought to give you no preparation at all,” he declared.

“Just a hint, then. Otherwise I shall spend the evening gaping like a visitor to Bedlam.”

Stephen sighed and took a sip of malmsey from his pewter goblet, then set the cup down. The metallic
clank
echoed through the cavernous dining hall, with its tapestry hangings and the hammer-beam ceiling arching like giant ribs high above. The table was laid with fine plate and crockery for a sumptuous meal. Spiked on wrought-silver holders were beeswax tapers, their flames bending gently from the breeze through the tall, slender windows.

Great princes, learned scholars and dour clergymen had dined at this table, Stephen reflected. But never a half-wild vagabond. No doubt she had the manners of a sow.

Blowing out a sigh, he decided to tell Jonathan the truth. “Her name is Juliana, and she claims to be from the kingdom of Muscovy or Rus. No doubt ’tis a fiction she invented. She has been traveling with a band of gypsies.”

Jonathan’s eyes widened. “I had heard the king saddled
you with a foreign wench, but I thought ’twas another of Havelock’s embellishments. Or a jest of the king.”

“To Henry, it
was
a jest.”

“The king has a passion for amusement—at the expense of a good man’s pride.” Jonathan rested his thick forearms on the table and leaned forward. “So what’s she like? Sloe-eyed and passionate? I’ve heard the Romany folk are a hot-blooded race.” He jiggled his eyebrows.

Stephen scowled over the rim of his goblet. “She is rather…” He groped for a polite term. “Rustic.”

“Ah. An earthy beauty, then.”

“Not quite.”

“She’s not earthy?” Jonathan’s gaze moved past Stephen; he seemed to be studying something behind his friend.

“She’s not a beauty.” Stephen realized he had little notion of what his wife truly looked like under all the grime and tangled hair. She had been too wild during the bathing, and he had glimpsed only raking fingernails and a red mouth spitting foreign curses.

In his mind’s eye he pictured her: dark strands escaping two thick braids, a dirt-smudged face, a small shapeless form draped in rags. “Her looks hardly matter to me. I intend to be rid of her once the king has had his fill of tormenting me.”

“I see.” Merriment gleamed in Jonathan’s eyes, and his lips thinned as he tried not to smile. “She is truly a humiliation, then.”

“Aye, a bedraggled wench with all the appeal of a basin of ditch water.”

“Why, thank you ever so much, my lord,” said a soft, accented voice behind Stephen. “At least I haven’t the manners of a toad.”

Jonathan wheezed in an effort to stifle a laugh.

The gypsy.
How much had she overheard?

Slowly, still clutching his cup, Stephen rose from the table and turned. His fingers went slack. The pewter goblet dropped to the table, spilling wine across the polished surface. Stunned into silence by the vision that had entered the room, he could only stare.

She wore a gown and kirtle of dusky rose brocade with a high-waisted bodice and fitted sleeves, and an overgown with a long, trailing train. The square neckline of the bodice revealed her bosom—fine-textured and rosy, as inviting as a ripe peach.

Had it not been for her vivid green eyes, he would not have recognized the face. Every trace of dirt and ash had been scrubbed away to reveal a visage as exquisite as the delicate blossom of a rose in springtime.

Eschewing the usual fashionable French hood, she wore her hair long and loose, dressed with a simple rolled band of gold satin. A thorough cleansing had turned the indistinct dark color to deep, rich sable ablaze with gleaming red highlights. The endless length and fine, billowy texture of it made Stephen’s hands itch to bury themselves in it.

If I were to touch her now
, he caught himself thinking,
I would touch her hair first.

And with a dreadful, sinking awareness, he knew he would not stop there.

“You must be the lady Juliana, the new baroness.” Jonathan bumped against his chair in his haste to get up. He swept into a dramatic bow. “I am Sir Jonathan Youngblood of the neighboring estate of Lytton Mount.”

“Enchantée.”
With a slim white hand, Juliana swept back a glorious lock of soft hair. Pinned to her bodice was the large brooch she had brandished in front of King
Henry. She gave a faint smile. The color stood out high in her cheeks. “It appears my husband was entertaining you with his vast charm and wit.”

Stephen hated himself for recognizing the hurt in her voice. He hated himself for caring that his words had wounded her.

She faced him squarely, dipped her head in greeting, and said,
“Le bon Dieu vous le rendra.”

Her French was impeccable.
The good Lord will repay you
. He did not doubt it for a moment.

Moving cautiously, as if navigating a snake pit, he took her hand to lead her to the table. Her easy grace surprised him. She took her place in a nobleman’s dining hall as effortlessly as if she had been doing it all her life.

The servitors came in their usual formal parade, with river trout and salad, venison pasty and loaves of dark bread, cold blood pudding and soft new cheese. Juliana received them with unexpected poise, nodding at the spilled malmsey and whispering, “His lordship needs more wine.”

Stephen scarcely tasted the food he ingested mechanically.

He could not tear his attention from his wife.

Her manners astonished him. Where had she learned to wield knife and spoon so deftly, to sip so daintily from her cup? And, Christ’s bones, to murmur such apt and discreet instructions to the servants?

Everyone knows gypsies are great imitators. Much like a monkey…
The words of Nance Harbutt echoed through his mind.

But that wasn’t the answer. It couldn’t be.

Stephen barely heard the bluff, easy conversation of Jonathan, barely heard Juliana’s soft replies as they dis
cussed Kit, the weather, and her wild claims about her past. Caught in the grip of amazement, Stephen could do no more than stare at his wife.

He had expected the crude gypsy wench to be overwhelmed by the opulence of his home, crammed with the spoils of battles fought by his ancestors, church treasures plundered by his father, and the rich yields of his own endeavors as baron of Wimberleigh.

Instead, she seemed only mildly interested in her new surroundings. It was as if the plate tableware, the Venetian glass cups and art treasures adorning the hall, the solicitous servants, were commonplace to her. As if she had found herself in these circumstances before.

Nonsense, Stephen told himself. Perhaps the treasures were so alien to her that she could not begin to grasp their value.

He forced himself to attend to what Jonathan was saying. “You tell a most singular tale about your past, my lady,” said the older man.

Juliana took a dainty bite of salad, then with a slender finger traced the rim of her glass fingerbowl. Just for a moment, sadness haunted her eyes, a melancholy so intense that Stephen’s breath caught.

Then her eyes cleared and she gave Jonathan a serene smile. “It is no tale, my lord, but the absolute truth.”

Stephen suppressed a snort of derision. Small wonder gypsies were outlawed. No one should be so adept at lying.

“The unexpected marriage to Lord Wimberleigh must have given you a bit of a turn.”

“Indeed it did,” she admitted with a pretty shrug. “I confess that I felt like the lady of Riga.”

“Riga?”

“A small principality to the west of Novgorod. My old nurse loved to tell the story. The lady of Riga found herself on the back of a tiger. Once mounted, she had no way to go but onward, for if she tried to get off, she would be eaten alive.”

“So you liken marriage to Stephen to a ride upon a tiger.” Jonathan seemed to be enjoying himself enormously.