Her One Desire (19 page)

She nodded her agreement and felt the relief slump his body. Now what? A quick glance down reminded her of appearance. “I have no clothes. I cannot walk out of Middleham dressed in a robe as thin as a veil. I will draw attention to us, and we are sure to be caught. The maid told Celeste the laundry was below stairs. I will fetch something to wear whilst you get the others out of Middleham.” He shook his head. “Nay. Ye will go with me.” He wasn’t going to leave; she was certain of it. Lord Hollister would kill him to torture her. Her stomach churned with anxiety. She hated this deceit, but he left her no choice. “You must. Tis your duty to protect them. Celeste is carrying.” “A child?”

She looked at him as though his question was stupid, even though she’d responded in like. “Aye. You must see them safely out of Middleham and then meet me outside the gates. Just tell me where.”

“I am not leaving without ye.” He sighed, no doubt stricken with responsibility. “You will go to the laundry, fetch a garment, and this is all. Do not come back to this chamber.” He threaded his fingers through her hair and cupped her nape. “Meet me in the courtyard. In the heart of the labyrinth.” With a firm grip on her chin, he demanded she focus. “Count: two rights, four lefts, one right, five lefts.”

“Two, four, one, five,” she repeated, easily committing the steps to memory. Broc kissed her again, this time with an aggression that made her wanton, and then disappeared into the corridor.

His absence left her stricken with a moment of panic, but she inhaled deeply, swiveled, and searched beneath the bed for the satchel containing the document she almost wished she didn’t possess. She tied it beneath her wrapper along with Mother’s rosary and rushed out of the chamber. A rush light next to the cistern lit her descent down a small spiral stairwell. Not until her toes touched the cool stone at the base did she realize she hadn’t counted a single step. Not one. Fear did not drive her this day, but sheer determination. If Eli and Martin were alive, she would see them raised in Scotland—a place touched by God’s hand and protected by mortal warriors. They would be free, as would she.

Two sets of double doors led her to the servants’ entrance. A stinging scent of caustic soda burned her nose, and steam dampened her face before she even entered the laundry. Though the hours small, and the guests of Middleham no doubt in slumber, the activities of the laundry room were bustling with organized chaos. Maids of every age scurried about their duties, soaking sheets and tablecloths and dying robes of various colors. A portly woman whose hair hid beneath a white wimple stood over a young girl dipping a vestment into a wooden vat of purple dye. The woman turned toward Lizzy, her face bunched into a glower. “Ye must be Adel’s cousin. Ye’re late.” The woman had to be either the head laundress or the Mistress Taylor. Regardless of her position, she exuded authority. She made a straight line toward Lizzy, eyeing her attire with an accusing glare.

“What ye do with your time outside the laundry is of no concern to me. I know there is extra coin to be made in Middleham right now, but if those knights cause ye to be late again, do not bother coming back.” Lizzy accepted the scolding, but only because the laundress posed less of a threat than Lord Hollister.

“A fine of two pence will be deducted from your wages for your tardiness. Now, fetch up a smock.” She pointed toward a pegged wall draped with garments.

“Aye, mistress.” Lizzy didn’t debate. She needed clothes, any clothes at this point. Eagerly, she pulled a pristine white smock over her head, leaving her wrapper beneath as her only means of undergarments. She tied on pockets and then slipped into a gray apron. After stuffing her uncombed hair under a white wimple, Lizzy’s nerves loosened within her disguise. ‘”Ave ye a name?” the laundress asked and rubbed her red nose.

“Emma.” Lizzy spouted the first name that came to her mind besides her own. Not that it was necessary. No one knew her here.

“Help Penny prepare toweling for His Lordship.” The laundress used her eyes to point Lizzy in Penny’s direction. “Do not dawdle. His Lordship is early to rise and prefers his linens warm.”

“Aye, mistress.”

The laundress went about her bustling, freeing Lizzy from a disapproving frown and providing her a means to get to Gloucester. Lizzy positioned herself next to Penny and mimicked her dunking actions. Menial labor at Middleham wasn’t performed with the same docility as in the Tower. While Lizzy tucked her chin to her chest, the other maids performed their duties in high spirits around four wooden vats of steaming water.

“Sybil, ye are grinnin’ like a woman whose pockets are heavy. Did ye earn a bit of extra coin yester eve?” Penny asked.

Lizzy peeked up, curious to see what that grin might look like. Of the four maids scrubbing sheets,
she
stood out above the rest—glossy black hair, dark eyes, and heartshaped lips tilted up at the corners around smooth teeth. Curves to envy flared her maid’s smock out at the hips, and the dip of her swooping neckline revealed the shadowed cleft between her breasts.

“Five ducats he paid me,” the woman named Sybil boasted, the lilt of an accent highlighting her words, “and I only asked for three.” She slipped a hand beneath her apron and then flashed the number of said coins as proof of her wages. “A fine lookin’

Englishman he was. Hair black as my own. I’d have serviced him for less, but he was eager to pay.” Light reflected off the black orbs in her eyes as she altered her gaze between the other maids.

“Was he a big man?” another maid asked with a naughty giggle.

“Owa/s.” Sybil’s eyes rounded dramatically. “Two heads taller than I, big hands, big chest, and…” She pulled her hand from the vat, water dripping from her elbow, and formed a C shape with curved fingers and thumb.”… a cock as thick as my wrist.
C’est
magnifiquer
Though shocked by her vulgarity, Lizzy formed an image of the man Sybil described while the other maids squealed. Smitt would be happy to know the maids were gushing over his cock in the laundry.

“Sybil, ye clamp that filthy mouth shut or I’ll wash yer tongue in the ashes,” the laundress bellowed over their cackling. “Get back to work, all of ye, or I’ll dock yer wages.” The maids ducked their heads low with the threat, but all eyes remained on Sybil, awaiting the continuation of her story.

“The man dragged me through the bowels of Middleham,” she began again in a hushed tone, “and into the labyrinth. I daresay his mistress denied him, for he was insane with want.”

That
description didn’t sound like Smitt at all.

“Did he give ye a name to holler out?”

“Ouais. Julian.”

Lizzy’s pulse jumped into a triple beat; her hands wrenched the sheets under the water. While she was not Broc’s mistress, she had denied him in more ways than one. He’d fled the chamber unsatisfied only to return hours later with a detailed map of the maze in his head. She hadn’t even questioned how he’d become so familiar with its layout. Penny peeked over her shoulder at the laundress, then bent in low. “Did
Julian
pleasure ye, or did ye just earn your coin?”

Lizzy felt the cloth tear beneath the water.

One of Sybils thin brows arched, and her dark eyes blinked repeatedly. “I always earn my coin, but I admit the man had me on my knees begging.”

Lizzy had never known jealousy, but was certain this is what it felt like—a raw, aching desire to lash out. She wrapped her fingers around the wadded sheet and squeezed, wishing it was Broc’s throat. She shouldn’t care. The man was not her husband or even her lover. Neither of these facts prevented the bruise from spreading over her heart. She trusted him, shared her desires with him. He’d touched her in places no man had ever touched and then left her bed to rut with this harlot.

Unable to stop herself, Lizzy stared at Sybil’s lips. “Did he kiss you?”

The woman stiffened her spine and shot Lizzy a challenging glare. “Julian didn’t pay me to kiss him.”

Lizzy bit down on her lip and returned her gaze into the water, grateful to hear the heavy breathing of the laundress behind her.

“Ye four. Fetch up your pails and take hot water to the family solar.”

Grateful to detach herself from the discussion, Lizzy fell into step, mimicking their actions. She pushed thoughts of Broc and Sybil to the back of her mind and focused on her mission.

With a pail of water in each hand, she followed the maids up the eastern side of the keep. Two knights guarded the family solar. The Duchess of York sat calmly in a velvetcovered settee, her ankles crossed, her hands clasped in her lap. Lizzy couldn’t stop herself from staring. She was beautiful, young, with alabaster skin that nigh glowed beneath the hint of dawn rising outside her window. A lady’s maid stood behind the duchess’s shoulder holding a bowl of toiletries, her eyes unblinking and fixed on nothingness.

The maids emptied their pails into a wooden tub in the center of the solar, bowed deep before the duchess, and obediently disappeared once excused. Lizzy set her empty pails on the floor and stayed behind, her heart drumming a tattoo in her chest. She folded her hands in front of her and stepped before the duchess. “Pray forgive me, m’lady. May I have permission to speak?”

The duchess nodded, her expression void of emotion. “I am not a maid. I have traveled from London to speak with your husband about a matter of the utmost—“ Before the last word left her mouth, steel hissed behind her the same time two knights seized her upper arms in a menacing grip and then crossed their swords in front of her. The duchess never blinked, nor did her maid. “Please. My intentions are noble. I am in desperate need of an audience with your husband,” Lizzy begged as the guards’ hold raised her off the floor. “I have proof of a conspiracy against the crown.”

The duchess raised a hand. “Lessen your hold.” Lizzy’s toes regained their position on the floor. “Pray forgive me for disturbing your morning ablutions, but my life is in danger.”

Hurried footsteps sounded to her right, and the Duke of Gloucester himself walked through the double doors of the lady’s solar. Why she felt any relief at all was preposterous, but she did just the same. He was a comely man, as she’d remembered—

tall, slight of build, but what jarred her the most was the distant look in his tired eyes.

“What is this? Release her,” he commanded. “Does she look like a threat to either of you?”

The guards’ release caused a tingling in her arms as the blood returned back into her fingertips. Her lips pursed and the glare she intended for the guards was wasted on the delicate design of a crimson and gold carpet beneath her feet.

“What is your name?” Gloucester approached her, sandaled feet poking out beneath his purple robe.

“I am Lady Lizbeth Ives.”

Lizzy jerked back when he raised her chin and pulled the wimple from her hair. “I know you.”

“Aye.” She gathered her apron in her hand and prayed she would quit trembling. “We met in London last year, just before Christmastide. I am the executioner’s daughter.” This information gained her a bit more personal space from the guards. As if being Osborn Ives’s daughter meant she was plagued by an infectious disease. The mention of Father reminded her of all the reasons she was here.

“I have proof of a conspiracy,” Lizzy blurted out. The guards were back on her like cattle to a salt lick. Gloucester stopped them with a nonchalant gesture; his expression yielded little reaction to her statement. “Lady Ives, mayhap you would join me in the chapel for morning mass and then we can see to your proof whilst we break our fast” How could the man be so calm about what she’d just said? “But ‘tis a matter of the utmost importance.”

He chuckled slightly beneath his breath. “My every day is met with matters of the utmost importance. If I pay heed to all of them without pause, my soul would suffer, and I would most certainly starve to death.”

Lizzy agreed, feeling foolish for interrupting the man’s morning ablutions. “Aye, Your Lordship.”

The duchess rose behind him. “Joan, see Lady Ives to a privy chamber. Have the Mistress Taylor bring garments more suitable to our guest’s station, and then have her accompanied to the chapel.”

Escorted from the family solar by the two guards, Lizzy followed the duchess’s maid to a dressing chamber. Underclothes and water soon arrived and Lizzy was provided a brief period of privacy. Stripped of her servant’s attire, she was garbed in a low-necked gown of dark blue damask, almost black, with a full train trailing the floor behind her. Two braids at her temples tied together with ribbon secured her hair beneath the sheer white veil of a hennin. Once the duchess’s maid approved her attire, Lizzy reflected the guard’s footsteps to the chapel. The buckram corset bit into her ribs, forcing her to take small, shallow breaths. The bitter scent of myrrh might have calmed her apprehensions had the guard not directed her into the back pew of the chapel. While she’d been strapped in a gown suited to her lady’s rank, her placement in the chapel told her exactly how the duke felt about her station.

Gloucester entered in a doublet of blue velvet full of sleeve wrought with trimmings of pine-apples. He led a procession of burgesses, prelates, and household attendants richly clad in bright-colored gowns down the aisle. Shunned by his bias of her, she raised her chin and smoothed her dark skirt over the document. She retrieved Mother’s rosary and watched him, studied his every movement. Would he help her? Or would he take the document she’d protected with her life and see her silenced forever. She obviously held no rank among these people of York, just as her life had held little worth thus far. She knelt and followed along the movements of mass thinking of the only person who’d ever told her she was worth saving. The same man who probably awaited her in the labyrinth, but also the same man who spent himself only hours earlier inside another woman. Broc admitted his purpose for coming to Middleham benefited his goals, but since had abandoned his intentions. She understood his dislike for Gloucester, but warfare made enemies. Living in the Tower was no different. The battlefield was just smaller. The rosary draped over her wrist.
Guide me. Mother. Tell me what to do.
Her fingers slid over the cool blue beads until Gloucester received the sacrament of communion. The congregation followed suit. She stood, but Gloucester’s man guarded her exit and wagged his finger. She knelt and crossed herself with temper. She trusted no one.