Suzanne Robinson (12 page)

“He seems to have incurred the wrath of your Aunt Faith,” Blade said. “She was complaining to Livia of his miserly treatment of her daughters and was most annoyed that he hadn’t managed to die yet and thus leave Joan and Jane with the inheritance he promised them.”

“You mustn’t listen to Aunt Faith. She believes God put her on earth to be martyred. Uncle Thomas constantly points out to her how unlikely a saint she is, and she hates him for doing so.”

The mention of Uncle Thomas reminded her of the old man’s protests that this intrusive dissolute was enamored of her, and she sniffed. Uncle Thomas was too old. He knew nothing about love.

“Now what have I done to offend you,
chère?”

“Don’t give me that name. I’m not your dear one, and you presume too much.”

“ ‘Alas, madam, for stealing of a kiss/ Have I so much your mind there offended?/ Have I then done so grievously amiss/ That by no means it may be amended?’ ”

She had been sipping wine. She swallowed, but her goblet remained suspended in her hand as she regarded this menacing creature. She’d thought of him as a vain, brazen hellhound, never as a lover of poetry.

“You have read Sir Thomas Wyatt?”

“Don’t look at me as if I were a pig that suddenly began quoting scripture,
chère
. Shall I prove my civility?”

Blade cleared his throat and placed his hand upon his breast. “ ‘Count it the greatest of sin to prefer life to honor, and for the sake of living to lose what makes life worth having.’ Or mayhap you prefer Homer to Juvenal. ‘She spoke and loosened from her bosom the embroidered girdle of many colors into which all her allurements were fashioned. In it was love and in it desire and in it blandishing persuasion which steals the mind even of the wise.’ ”

She refused to look at him, for he was grinning at her and taunting her with his winter-sky eyes.

“I thought you a knave.”

“But no longer.”

“Now I see you’re a learned knave.”

“Peace,
chère
.” He lowered his voice. “I’m not going away, so you’d best accustom yourself to me.”

“I shall ignore you.”

“Marry, you may attempt it.” He grinned at her. “If you do, I may be forced to caper about under your window and sing songs to you of your beauty.”

“No!” She regarded him as she would a cutpurse with the pox.

“Very well, then, my stubborn Mistress Oriel, shall we cry truce?”

“Afore God, I doubt anyone can live in peace with you about the place.”

“You wrong me. I shall prove my chivalry by promising to go a whole day without teasing you, though it will be hard on me. All I ask in return is that you commend me to your uncle. I admire his learning.”

“A whole day?”

He leaned close, causing her to back away in alarm at the tingling of her own skin.

“Yes,
chère
. Think of it. A whole day free of taunts.”

“Why would you promise a thing that so goes against your nature?”

“I’m not so light-minded as you seem to think. And besides,” he lifted his goblet and stared at the crimson liquid it held. “I’ve much to learn from your uncle, and little time to do it in. Indeed, I long for privy conversation with so aged and discerning a gentleman.”

He had managed to take himself in hand long enough to obtain the lady’s help in befriending Thomas Richmond. He’d spent the rest of the evening distracting himself from his growing preoccupation with Mistress Oriel’s wraithlike person. Leslie Richmond had afforded some entertainment. He had as much wit as his pretty cousin, and a collection of tales of exploits in the stews and ordinaries of London.

They compared fencing techniques and gambling wins, and Leslie had invited him to his rooms in the city when he was in London.

He’d accepted, and then regretted doing so when another of those sudden quarrels sprang up between
Leslie and his brothers. He hadn’t been listening at first, but when he did, he found Leslie engaged in telling a jest at George’s expense.

“And then poor George fell off the poor horse. Landed on his back. God’s breath, he looked like a great, fat turnip.”

“George isn’t fat,” Robert said between teeth clamped together.

Livia swore and glared at Robert. “Must you always ruin Leslie’s wonderful stories.”

By the end of the evening Blade had decided that the Richmond brothers owed their wars more to the blind partiality of Livia than to their own disparate natures. After watching the woman foster the wounding of her own sons’ feelings, he’d had sufficient distraction from his own troubles.

Yet throughout the evening he hadn’t succeeded in putting Oriel from his thoughts. When they first met he’d believed her a cloth-headed little fairy, but then she’d opened her mouth. Never, since he’d endured his soul-scalding tutelage under Christian de Rivers, had he been so provoked.

Blade walked out of the great chamber behind Lord George with Leslie beside him. Evening prayers had been held, and the family was retiring, everyone except Leslie, who was threatening to go to a tavern in the next valley. They had all mounted the stairs in a procession led by the gentleman usher, who held a candle to light the way. When George heard his brother’s plans, he stopped in the middle of the stairs and turned on him.

“If you lose that purse I gave you, I’ll not give you more.”

Leslie flushed, but didn’t answer. Blade gave the younger man a look of sympathy. He had no older brothers to embarrass him in front of a guest, and for this he was grateful. He didn’t think he could bear what must be Leslie’s lot—a younger son, cast on the mercy and uncertain largess of an older brother who inherited
the family fortune, never becoming independent for lack of means. Such dependence fostered deep, gut-roiling bitterness. Considering the provocation, he didn’t blame Leslie for hurling an insult at George and stomping out of Richmond Hall altogether.

As Leslie fled, Blade glanced down at Oriel, who was looking after her cousin sadly while Faith and her daughters hissed their disapproval. Their eyes met, and he shook his head. To his surprise, she understood his offered sympathy and gave him a little smile. The more he saw of Faith the more she called to mind cauldrons boiling with frogs and smelling of acid and brimstone.

Soon after Leslie vanished, Blade was conducted to his chambers by an usher. There René awaited him. He, along with Blade’s other men, had recovered from the long walk to Richmond Hall in the snow after they were attacked. He stripped and huddled in a dressing gown while he waited for the warming pans to heat his bed.

René was laying his belt in a chest. “The old man fell asleep in his library again, but his man was tidying in his chambers. Then Sir Thomas woke and dined in his rooms. He didn’t leave them again, and is now fast asleep. I begin to think I’ll never find those rooms deserted.”

“Take heart,
mon ami
, for I’ve a plan to take both Sir Thomas and Mistress Oriel away from the house.” Blade wrapped his gown tighter around his body and knelt before the fireplace. “I shall beg for a tour of the chapel. I shall compare it to the finest in France. They go there every day, so they must like it. No doubt the old man will be pleased to give me many long stories about the place.”

“Merci, mon seigneur.”

Blade went to bed quite proud of his performance that evening. He was beginning to think he’d misjudged himself. No doubt his wound had made him prey to strange fancies about Oriel Richmond when in truth she
was little different from any of the women he’d seduced in the past. In the morning his head would be clear, and he would be able to think of her as the tool she really was. A stimulating, arousing tool, but a tool for all that. He drifted off to sleep with images of Oriel’s seduction dancing in his head.

He woke while it was still dark. He sprang up in bed, having been startled awake, yet not knowing why. He reached for the dagger beneath his pillow as he heard something metallic clatter down the stairs. A door slammed, and he was on his feet and into his dressing gown as René jumped from his pallet and raced to his side.

“Tu vas bien?”

“Oui.”

Blade rushed into the gallery with René close behind. As they went, a whining scream came from the landing. He came upon a small group there. Robert was comforting his Aunt Faith, who was snuffling on his shoulder. George held a candle and leaned over the banister to peer down to the ground floor. Blade joined him, and could just make out a pile of clothing in the darkness. Above them another door banged, and Oriel came floating downstairs, a candle held aloft in her hand.

Since George seemed content to gape over the banister, Blade went downstairs. Halfway down, at the first turn, he passed a broken candle and its brass holder. He reached the bundle of clothing. It was a voluminous dressing gown of black velvet lined with fur, and in it was Uncle Thomas. Blade knelt beside the old man and turned him over, but he could already tell from the angle of the neck and the man’s stillness that he was dead. He looked up to find George, Robert, and Oriel headed down to him.

Brushing past the men, he took the candle from Oriel, put it aside, and caught her in his arms. “No,
chère
, don’t look.”

She tried to free herself, but he pulled her close and tilted her head by lifting her chin with his fingers.

“An unhappy chance,” he said. “It’s your uncle.”

“Uncle Thomas?” She shook her head and tried to shove free of him. “This is not possible. No, this can’t be so. Not Uncle Thomas.”

He heard George swear, but kept his gaze fixed on Oriel. She was searching his face with a bewildered expression. Her eyes grew wide, and she shook her head back and forth again.

“I am sorry,
chère.”

She’d stopped fighting him and now stared at him without seeing him. “Oriel?”

“This can’t be,” she said.

“Oriel.”

She glanced up at him without comprehension.

“It couldn’t be Uncle Thomas,” she said. “He can’t be dead. He’s old, but he’s not clumsy. He never falls. He’s most steady on his feet.” She looked up at him as if seeking his agreement. “Surely he but hit his head a mite and will awaken if you call to him.”

“I’m sorry,
chère
. I’ve seen too many dead men not to know that your uncle will never wake.”

Without warning Oriel doubled over in his arms and screamed. Her body stiffened as a long wail escaped, carrying with it unending pain. She thrashed about as Blade tried to keep his hold on her. She kicked at him, but he swept her feet out from under her. He lifted her in spite of the blows she delivered to his chest, and carried her back upstairs. At last pain overcame her, and she cried out, overcome by sobs that seemed to rob her of reason.

Over her head Blade snapped at her frightened maid, who waited on the first landing.

“Lead the way to her chamber.”

“No!”

Oriel tore at his dressing gown. He clamped his arms about hers, forcing her to be still.

“Listen to me. Your great-uncle is dead, and you must grieve. Let me help you.”

She froze, her face wet with tears, then closed her eyes and moaned. The sight of her misery ripped a hole in his heart. Shoving her face down to his shoulder, he ran upstairs in Nell’s wake past aunts and cousins too busy shouting at each other to pay heed to Oriel.

In her chamber he lowered her to the bed. She sat there with her arms clasped about her legs, rocking back and forth and shaking her head. He ordered Nell to fetch wine and stayed with Oriel while she went to fetch it. Watching her, he felt helpless and at a loss as to what to do. Nothing could prevent her grief, yet he longed to spare her the pain.

Suddenly her hands twisted in the wild tangles of her hair, and he heard her sob. He flung himself at her without thinking. Gathering her in his arms, he sat with her on his lap, cradling her and rocking back and forth while she wept. He didn’t know how long they remained that way, but Nell came with the wine, glanced at them, and put it aside. She went away again and came back dressed, and Oriel still wept.