The Maiden and the Unicorn (22 page)

"Oh, this is nonsense," Margery said huffily into the pillow.

"So why did no one try to lure you? It was because Warwick sat up there watching over
all
his daughters. But who was the only man who was never afraid of him? King Edward! Your precious Ned was prowling around looking for a chance to snatch a sacrificial lamb and you were it, Margery."

"That is not true and God damn you for saying so!"

"The King was searching for a way through to Warwick's soft underbelly. He wanted to prick him to a fury. Isabella and Anne were unassailable, lawfully begotten, and too young then for the King to entice—the world would have condemned him—but you were ripe for picking. Your seduction, even if you were merely Warwick's natural daughter, was calculated to enrage."

"Oh, have done! Their quarrel was over Ned's marriage to the Woodville woman. He married her secretly while my lord was negotiating for the Queen of France's sister. It was shabbily done."

"True, but taking your maidenhead in so insolent a fashion beneath your father's roof was one of the many things that broke the love and trust between them and I will swear it hurt your father as much as the rest."

Tears stung at the back of her eyes but Margery was determined to hide the pain his words were causing her. She put away the thought of Ned using her and answered as calmly as she could. "This is just surmise on your part. You have given me no real proof that the Earl could possibly be my father."

"Are you listening to me? Why do you imagine Warwick was so angry at your behaviour? You are not just any bastard, you are
his
bastard! Why else would he now be dowering you so generously? Merely to rid himself of you? No, I think not. Have you no mirror? Are you not aware of the likeness? Any fool can see it. Margery, why do you imagine that you were permitted to be a close companion to Isabella and Anne and rank so high in their affection? You are their half-sister, you addlepate."

"If it is so, why should he not have told me?"

Richard winced at the agony in her voice. The knowledge that she had been deliberately kept in ignorance must be like salt on an open sore. All those years of wondering. So many people misleading her and withholding the truth.

"I shall beg an audience with... with him in the morning. This matter must be aired." She was quiet again and he knew her mind had begun to run with the consequences like a fox with a stolen fowl.

He listened for a while to the noises outside the bedchamber. A drunken snatch was being bawled in the hall. Below in the courtyard a woman giggled. Somewhere else a slap of water hit the ground. His new wife was not asleep. She fidgeted and one arm crept out and pushed down the heavy coverlet.

"You still think upon it?"

"I can do nothing else. You chose to keep me awake—one way or another."

"A wedding gift."

She moved onto her back, wide awake. "I always wondered why my lady Countess..." She gestured, seeking the right words, "Why she always held something back, why I could never please her. Now it all begins to make so much sense."

The potion of knowledge was working. She tucked her hands behind her head, oblivious to his admiring study. "If he is my father then I mean to ask him who my mother was."

"No one ever told you that either?"

She shook her head. "No one ever told me anything. I heard people whisper about me but I tried not to care. I thought maybe they were jealous because Isabella and Anne favoured me and, yes, as you say, the Earl has always protected me. Do you know who my mother was?"

"No." Richard Huddleston pulled the bed curtains to on his side. Then he bestowed on her his usual close-lipped smile, a mixture of indulgence, pity and amusement, before he turned on his side, facing away from her.

"How naive I have been," she whispered to the kindly darkness.

"But how much humbler. Your nose would have been higher than your headdress." She bit her lip, unable to chose between laughter and tears. Then she pulled the curtains together beside her against the window draught and lay down again, as far away from her bridegroom as possible.

Richard Huddleston was mentally satisfied if nothing else. She might be exhilarated with the thought of being the Earl's daughter, but the suspicions he had sown about the King would quietly spring to shoot. And soon he would make sure the world knew he was son by marriage to mighty Warwick.

* * *

He was still asleep when she stirred, awakened by a sword of sunlight thrust through the gap where the curtains merely kissed. Cautiously, she studied the sleek, healthy skin of the man beside her, the shoulders well-muscled from the combat yard, the fine hand flung open-palmed upon the pillow. Her instinct was to touch him, like a child wanting to run its fingertips over the pelt of a wild creature. Unaware, asleep, he looked as unpredictable as he did awake. If she had expected to glimpse an innocence or simplicity in his features, a boy within the man, she would have been disappointed. She had no such idealism. She was caged with a sleeping leopard.

Sliding out from beneath the coverlet with all the care of a thief, Margery eased the curtain closed behind her. Alys had set out a ewer of clean water behind the screen for her the night before. Haggard from poor sleep, Margery knelt and plunged her hands into it to wet her face. The water blinded her. Blinking, she groped for the napkin only to have it placed in her hand. She started up in panic like a doe surprised at a woodland pool, but his hand kept her down. Was this being married, this invasion of privacy?

"Speak to your father this morning if you've still a mind to. He will be leaving tomorrow to spend a few days in Honfleur overseeing his ships. I have to go today."

Crouched beneath his gaze, invisible parts of her quickened. He stood astride, his legs fine and powerfully muscled beneath the black hose. His masculinity stirred her. She grew aware of how well endowed he was behind the laces, the narrowness of his waist and the broad expanse of his chest beneath the gipon. As if he read her thoughts, his lips twitched imperceptibly but his green eyes held no warmth. Margery was aware of the peaks of her breasts tightening against the wrap she wore. As she rose to her feet, rebelling against his hand, denying him the pleasure of straddling the world above her, her body demanded submission to him, her senses out of control, questioning what strange realm it was that held so enigmatic and unenthusiastic a bridegroom.

"No one told me that." She struggled to sound matter of fact.

He laughed, "Not fit tidings for a bride's ears. However, I can see the news distresses you."

"Certainly. My tears will fill at least three milking pails. When can I expect you back to plague me further?"

He rubbed his teeth with a fresh napkin then stooped down to sluice himself vigorously with water. She swiftly shrugged off his wrap and snatched her gown from the bed. Once she had it safely over her head, she retrieved her belt from where it had fallen beside the stool. Perversely, she enjoyed watching the droplets of water fall from the curls about his forehead as he fumbled for the napkin. She picked it up and thrust it against his hand. He wiped the moisture from his face with his fingers and mopped his underarms.

"I am not certain when I shall return. It depends on the news from King Louis. You know he plays host to Queen Margaret and her son?"

The normality of conversation made her feel safe again as she hastened to fasten the belt beneath her breasts. "Yes, and makes as much trouble as he can for Ned. All the world knows the French would like to see the House of Lancaster back on the throne and yet they say King Louis has a kindness for my lord War—my lord father."

"Hmm, travellers going in the same direction may often share a bed."

She frowned. "What do you mean?"

"It is an age for wonders. Why, look at us! Paired and bedded like two turtle doves in a cot." He picked up his fallen shirt.

There were voices beyond the door now. "Have you the lies ready to trip off your tongue? They will want to know every detail, the least of which will be how I compare with the King of England."

Secured from his eyes within the covering of her clothes, she found it was possible to laugh.

"And?" he prompted.

She cast back a querying, teasing glance. "What would you like me to say? Shall I tell the gossips that you crow like Chanticleer and are comparable with a broom handle?"

He gave a roar of laughter, his eyes narrowing to such mischievous slits of devilment that she stepped back hurriedly, knocking the screen down and falling back on top of it. The basin heaved its water onto the purfiled hem of her skirt.

"Oh, the Devil take you!" she exclaimed. "How I wish I had never in my life set eyes on you!"

His hands fastened about her forearms and tugged her to her feet but he did not let her go. "I wish it so too." His laughter had vanished, replaced by such a vehemence in his tone that she caught her breath. Then he bent his head and brushed her mouth lightly with his own. Margery quivered within his hands as much in fury as with some emotion she could put no name to. She tightened her lips and pushed her palms against his chest.

Huddleston raised his head angrily, his eyes examining her face. "No? Oblige me in this or by Heaven you shall lie in your bridal bed this morning for my pleasure."

"No, please, you know my mind," she protested and then, biting her lip, she lifted her face to his. Though disconcerted by the closeness of him, she tried reasoning. "I... I never thought to find compassion last night but I am in your debt for that. Let me go."

"Willingly, except that I have my pride. You must obey me in this for both our reputations."

Anger at the denial of her own will in the making of the marriage, and indignation at being sold to him rescued her from the betrayal of her own body. She summoned the memories of his insults, his highhandedness, his unspeakable arrogance.

"No, I beg of you, I—" but as her lips parted to finish the sentence he kissed her, forcing her mouth open beneath his. She struggled but he held her in a grip of iron, forcing her to submit. A heat tore through her fast as a summer grass fire, searing her common sense, a blaze such as she had never experienced with Ned. She fought him, knowing he must not guess the effect he could evoke in her, but Richard Huddleston was ruthless, as if the quarrel between them was fought with lips. His new growth of morning beard rasped her cheeks. Her mouth felt swollen, used, when he finally released her to stand before him breathless and shaking with wrath.

"That's better. You look at least as though you have evidence to support whatever lies your fancy may dictate."

She deliberately drew the back of her hand furiously across her bruised lips, her breath ragged. "I think I hate you more than ever before for that, Richard Huddleston."

He shrugged and softly unbarred the door. "Behold me terrified."

"I do hate you. You are the most unbearable man I have ever met."

"Unbearable? We shall put that exercise to the testing at some future day."

Crimson with fury at his insolence, her fingers curled into claws.

He grinned and put a finger to his lips. "Calm yourself, shrewcat, if you launch yourself on me like a flailing fury, it will be in the gaze of half the household. Shall we go to meet them or wait for the invasion? Ah, too late." He reached out and pushed her before him as the iron ring of the latch slowly moved. Several teasing faces peered round the door like detached gargoyles before a half-dozen of the guests from the night before burst into the room. Margery gazed at their curious faces and slackened in Huddleston's grasp, glad of the support of his body behind her.

"Come, sweeting." Huddleston hauled her after him down into the hall where a cheer went up from those still breaking their fast. He gave her a vigorous slap on the rump that drove her forward into the midst of the women. Dazed at her own feelings and rapidly trying to find the words for answers, she wanted to turn on him with a venomous look but the audience was too much for her. If she appeared as the tired addled bride, it was partly how she felt. She saw some of the tiring women disappear up the stairs to strip the sheets and gossip. Huddleston caught her glance with that maddening expressionless way he had.

"Margery." A gentle arm came round her shoulders. "Margery, lambkin, come away." Ankarette urged her from the hall, out into the sunlight of the courtyard and across into the tiny mede garden. "Sit you down. Say nothing if you please. I am here if you need me."

The kindness tilted the balance of Margery's courage. The tears came. Ankarette rocked her, soothing her with a motherly stroking on her back. "Was it such an ordeal?"

"Yes... no. I mean the wedding was but he did no—"

The older woman pulled back, incredulous, holding her firmly at arm's length. "For pity's sake, are you telling me the truth? Richard Huddleston? Now, you look at me square and fairly. You appear like any other bride to me." Margery turned her face away, Huddleston's kiss still fresh on her mouth. "Didn't he do anything?"

"I... I," Margery sniffed and dabbed at her eyes with the corner of her sleeve. Her words had already spilt out sufficiently to send her friend's agile imagination whirling like a weathervane. You could not confide in Ankarette without it rippling out to every local village. "He was very considerate, I... I suppose," she heard herself saying, "but he... I'm not usually difficult, am I?"