The Maiden and the Unicorn (21 page)

His new acquisition was still eyeing him as if he was a dangerous animal, but it did not escape him that her eyes slid down the dark hair that showed between the lacing of his gipon to where it disappeared beneath the waistline of his hose. Well, let her see what she was missing. Mayhap the little minx would change her mind. He climbed into bed and pulled the sheets above his thighs. A little time, he thought, and I shall have her where she should be. Perhaps if the Saints were kind, by morning.

Margery hesitated then sat down on her side of the bed and raised the sheet up before she swung her legs in, careful all the while to keep his wrap about her. She slowly slid down, preserving as much distance as she could from the bare shoulders of the man who might at any moment demand his rights.

If she had had a dozen dukedoms to wager, she would never have predicted this sudden clemency. But now that she had a reprieve, Margery was feeling a little safer and brave enough to tweak the lion's tail. "Did my lord force you into this marriage? Did he have to bribe you with manors for this act of charity to a bastard like myself?"

Her new husband clasped his hands beneath his head, studying the brocade tester above them with seeming boredom. "You need some sort of reassurance? No to the first question. Yes to the second; my lord appeared to consider it a requirement. I am promised much."

"You may whistle in the wind for paper promises. I fear you have made a very poor bargain."

"You see me racked by contrition at my waywardness?"

Did nothing unnerve him? Margery humped herself onto her side. To say she was confused would have been an understatement. A wedding night was not something she had ever seriously daydreamed about but this was a strange torture. An indifferent bridegroom was the last thing she had expected and she did not know whether to be relieved or insulted that he had no wish to lie with her. Besides, Richard Huddleston was as unpredictable as an English summer. Her languid bridegroom might well metamorphose into a lusty husband at any moment during the next six or so hours she was compelled to spend lying next to him.

"Tell me about Calais, Margery. Were you well received by Lord Wenlock?" His voice caressed the darkened silence between them like velvet. Was this part of his strategy? To lull her, put her at her ease before he pounced? She considered pretending to be asleep but he would guess she was trying to gull him. Perhaps talking would keep him distracted.

"Well received? If you call being arrested hospitality, then he was charm personified. He made me wait all day without food before he granted an audience and that was in his bedchamber."

There was a rumble of laughter from her companion. "Never tell me there is still life in that old goat? Did he try to put his hand up your skirts?"

Her tone was prim. "I know you have a poor opinion of my virtue, sir, but I do draw the line at rheumy greybeards. I suppose you heard how he refused to let Isabella bear her child on dry land. I can never forgive him for that." Huddleston made no comment so she continued nervously to fill the silence. "To make such a fuss of Isabella with trinkets when she was tiny and then to do that to her. If he had ever had a child in his belly, he would never have—"

"You speak from experience?" The icy draught of his tone chilled her.

"No!" she retorted angrily, biting her lip. Even this conversation seemed to lay traps for her unwary tongue. "I have seen babies born though. Most women have. Maybe husbands should be forced to be present instead of being barred from the birth chamber." Just the unwitting mention of husband made her cheeks flame.

"I am sure the experience would do us all much good," he agreed pleasantly, increasing her heartbeat as he included himself. A shivery heat assaulted her senses. Sooner or later this impossible man was going to thrust his seed into her and she would have to carry his child whether she would or no. Her fingers coiled into fists. Damn him!

"So Lord Wenlock sent you into France with an escort to rejoin the Duchess? You had a safe journey?"

"No, not at all. Alys and I were merely abducted by a troop of Burgundian ruffians and terrified out of our wits, but I am becoming used to it, thanks to your worthy self. I have obviously been missing out on these new ways of doing things every time one travels."

"And?" He had a habit of saying that, she noticed. "Go on, I am hanging on your every word. And?"

"And de Commynes, why he—"

"The Burgundian?" Huddleston reacted like a bull stung by a gadfly. She heard him lift his head from the pillow.

"Yes, the Burgundian envoy. You see, I met him at Lord Wenlock's and he sent me some bath essence in Venetian glass which was very kind of him and he asked me many questions about what Ned was doing. Did I know whether he had sent out commissions of array, that sort of thing."

"While you were in the bath? So unimaginative. And did you?"

"Yes, well, I knew all the men-at-arms had been sent back to their shires. Actually I did not use the essence though her grace put some in my bath today. I had given it to her, you see."

"How disappointing."

"Had I known that we were to be shackled together in matrimony, sir, I should have kept it and broken it over your head."

"Careful, mistress. The dog beside you comes with a long leash. But do go on... You were saying his men abducted you. What happened then?" Richard's voice was controlled but she knew there was no way he would let her stop now.

"De Commynes—and I did
not
receive him in my bath—searched our possessions."

"So he found all the letters."

"Yes, except—oh!" Her incautious tongue had erred.

Richard was not pleased. It confirmed his view that women could not keep secrets. "It is so easy, is it not, to let something slip out? So you were carrying special letters. Did he find the King's letter to George of Clarence? I assume there was one."

Margery refused to answer. If Huddleston had just shrugged off his allegiance to Ned, he was hardly likely to share in her mission to make Clarence turn Judas.

"Are you capable of facing me?" Her new husband's voice had grown dangerous. "Did the Burgundian force himself on you? Did any of the others? You will forgive me for pressing the matter but I should like to be told if I am to foster a Burgundian cuckoo as my heir?"

Margery was tempted to torment him but it would have been like crossing thin ice. To do so would be to reinforce her reputation as an easy wanton.

She twisted round to find he was leaning on one elbow looking down at her, his face stern. She shook her head slowly, her eyes large and owlish, knowing it was important that he believe her. This talk of heirs was breeding a strange panic in her again.

Some demon in her blood affirmed that Richard Huddleston was undeniably attractive to her. The Devil prodded her curiosity further, awaking a serpent of lust within her belly. If Richard Huddleston sensed any signs of wantonness stirring in her, he gave nothing away but flopped back against his pillow, his hand stroking his hair back from his frowning brow. Margery turned away from him in relief, angry at the stirring of her body.

When he finally spoke again, it was not of cuckoos. "So the Duke of Burgundy is sniffing the air and wondering where the real danger lies. I rather think the future may be extremely perilous."

"Perilous?"

"If de Commynes suspects you to be more than you seem, then so too might others."

"I pray you do not say such things. You make me anxious."

"I like making you anxious, Margery. Your tidings, on the other hand, anger me. The King should not have involved you as his messenger. This is the second time he has used you."

"If you are referring—" Her shoulders stiffened.

"Lady, he did. I'll swear he did."

"No, it wasn't like that." She shook his hand away and wriggled to the edge of the bed but she could not escape his words.

"Come, be honest with yourself, the King was nursing a resentment against your father like a running sore. I heard him spit anger."

"
What
did you say?" she demanded, twisting round.

"Why, nothing! Who argues with kings and sleeps secure o'nights?" His gaze slid lazily downwards forcing her to fiercely clamp the sheet against her.

"No, no, not that!" She could have shaken him in her desperation to wring out an answer. "It was the other thing you said. You said my
father
!"

Chapter 11

"You said the King was angry with my
father!"

Richard Huddleston withdrew his gaze with a laconic shrug.

"Yes." His fingers plucked idly at a glinting thread.

"Are you saying, Master Huddleston, that my father is the Earl of Warwick?"

His gaze snapped back on hers. In the moonlight coming through the window, she saw his eyes narrow beneath a frown. "Of course." Then his keen eyes pierced hers. "By Christ's blessed mercy, woman, you do not mean to say that—"

Words failed him. It was unusual.

"The Kingmaker is my father
," she mouthed, staring unseeing at the door. "Why should you think that?" She jerked her head round at him angrily. He was watching her darkly, his chin cupped in his hand, his elbow close to her on the bed. "Come, sir, it is false. This is merely some gossip that you have heard."

"Yes, it is gossip but... but yet not voiced. It was ever an assumption... oh Margery." She was sitting up now, her face caught in wonderment as if he had given her the moon for her footstool. He would have sketched her now if God had given him a talent for drawing. It would have been something to capture her mood for eternity. Her head was delightfully cocked on one side like a little lapdog's and her chin rested thoughtfully on her drawn-up knees. Inside her head he could imagine her beliefs flung about, her mind all tangled like a ransacked room.

No, drawing her was the last thing he felt like now. Her distraction, her excitement, was tempting him. Richard could not resist playing his fingers up the tiny stepping stones of her spine to gently tangle in her hair but she shifted forwards with a shrug as if his fingertips were merely a bothersome fly. He wanted to push her back against the pillows and make himself master between her thighs. He could feel himself stiffening at the thought of sliding his fingers into her while he sucked the swollen buds of her breasts into his mouth.

His hand locked round her ankle like a manacle. She was his to enjoy, damn her. The Kingmaker's daughter.

"No! Sir, I hold you to your promise." Her fingers scrambled down the bed to fasten about his, preventing him from adventuring upwards. "I—Give me time." She was lying.

"Ah, time, of course." He held on tightly. His male pride and his appetite for her struggled against his honour. "Play with time as much as you please but by law you owe me a wife's duty, lady. That shall be as inevitable as the sunrise and you know it."

Margery grew hot beneath his fiery touch.
Let him remove his hand, sweet Jesu,
she begged.

Someone heard. He withdrew his fingers. With a sob, she flung herself on her side, the sheet demurely to her shoulder, but to her discomfort, he leaned across her. His fingers delicately smoothed a silken coil of hair off her cheek. "I beg your pardon. You must forgive me for my momentary lapse. It will not happen again. Let us talk then of your father."

"No! No more!" Words were easy to him. He knew how to bend them to his will. He could make swords and horseshoes from the iron of language. But his breath upon her neck was a different matter. "I... I do not want to talk. I want to be rid of this day."

Damnation to her, if he might not enjoy her body, he could play with her mind and take some comfort in abusing the man who had. "Come now, I will wager you long to hear more."

She shook her head violently and edged away but his voice was at her ear now like Satan's presence in the wilderness, while his hand was within a palm span of her thigh. "I'll give you reasons no one else dared touch you except the King."

The temptation to slide his hand over her almost overwhelmed him and he flung himself back heavily against the pillow. "You know full well, Margery, that without Warwick's protection a base-born wench like you was game for any of us. But even when he was away I would swear that you were sacrosanct."