The Maiden and the Unicorn (35 page)

It was, of course. He was frowning as he studied her face. She swiftly sought to wheel the conversation down a safer, lanterned alleyway.

"How are the negotiations progressing?" She tried to sound cheerful.

"Your father and the King are like twins knit together at birth, while my lord Duke is entertained by his majesty's friends elsewhere."

Her interest was of an instant snared. "Yes, so it seems. Constantly, I would say. Has he had any discussion with them at all?"

"Barely." Sweet Heaven, what did it all mean? And she was no closer to fulfilling her mission for Ned. "In fact your father and his majesty are closeted privily today so I have leave. Would you like to visit one of the troglodyte homes?"

Perhaps Huddleston was just trying to be kind. On the other hand, he was unpredictable, just like the weather, and she did not feel strong enough to spend even an hour so dangerously. "Another day perhaps." She raised a flustered hand to her brow for extra emphasis. "I am sorry, sir, but I had rather be tranquil and bear my own company. Even now I should be with her grace and have tarried..."

He gently lifted her hand from her face. "It seems you do not care to flaunt your wedding ring."

Another time she would have tormented him but the criticism made her defensive. She was already so fragile that the weight of further words would make her weep again. "It-it is far too big. I am fearful of losing it and I
am
wearing it." She tugged at the golden chain that ended deep inside her bodice and eased the ring out of her cleavage.

Richard reached out to examine it. It was warm to his touch from the heat of her breasts. The intimacy ripened his resolve. She was emotional still, scarred from the Countess's scolding—more malleable.

"I thought as much. I have arranged with a goldsmith to have it altered for you this afternoon." She put up her fingers to lift the chain free of her neck but he imprisoned her hands. "No, keep it on. The merchant is expecting us within the hour. He will need to take a measurement of your ring finger."

"No." The pinkening of her tear-streaked face made her blue eyes dark, vulnerable. "Isabella asked me to fetch—"

"Forget your duty to your sisters. Besides, permission has been granted." He caught her little chin, forcing her to look up at him. "Do you not want the ring to fit?" He made his voice gentle, compassionate.

She lifted her face free of his fingers. The old Margery was stirring. So he had already decided how she should bestow her time, had he? The courteous asking had been merely froth. "Why the sudden concern, sir? You think that the appearance of your ring will render me holy and undefilable when you are not with me?"

Richard tried a smile that would strip away her armour. "Your needle is blunt, lady, but such jabs do not pain me." He took her hand. Halfway to his mouth, he turned it over so his lips met the centre of her palm. Her Mount of Venus brushed his cheek. He would swear on Saints' bones that he felt her quiver. Now if he set an arm cautiously about her shoulders and turned her like the breeze gentle upon a weathervane, would she resist?

"You think you have my measure, Richard Huddleston, but you do not know the half of it." Did she realise they were halfway across the courtyard now?

"That can be remedied." He glanced down at her, grinning.

"Ha!"

He sighed. "So you still whistle to that tune. I thought you had learned to like me a little."

"There is more to marriage than liking. There is trust and sharing and children."

"Is that what you want?" He halted her.

"I wanted a fair choice." Looking up at him very firmly, Margery calmly removed his hand from her arm. "But no one, sir, has ever given me one."

"You had a choice a long time ago and you sacrificed your virtue because you were lured by a charming tongue, temporal power and a shiny crown. I think you are very fortunate considering." He possessed himself of her hand before she could slap him, and tugged her after him.

"Did you know he offered me the position of mistress and a house in Chelsea?" she countered.

"Yes, he told me, and you refused the offer."

"He then offered me
you,
sir!"

Unperturbed, Richard tossed her a smile that had won him a woman's caresses on many an occasion. "Yes!"

They had reached the stables. Comet was saddled and dancing impatiently on the puddled ground. He lifted his head at his master's whistle, almost tugging the groom across to where they stood, and deliberately ignored Richard since Margery was opening her purse. She found a tiny sugar swan, rather bruised and covered in fluff. The eager black equine nose located the reward in the palm its master's lips had so recently enjoyed.

"You spoil him," Richard protested, jealous of the loving look she gave the beast and the fingers caressing the long forehead. They could be put to better use.

"Where is my palfrey?" She was frowning but obviously prepared to go with him. It had been easier than he had imagined.

"I thought it unfair to give the grooms extra work for so short a distance. Besides, you have forgotten you are not clothed for sidesaddle. Up with you, wife." His hands lightly touched her waist, lifted her away from the horse's head and easily onto the saddle before he swung himself up behind her.

"Is this to impress upon everyone that I am your property?" she muttered angrily. "Is Lady Warwick waving at us from a window?"

"Yes." He slid his arms round in front of her and jerked the reins. The wench felt right, comfortable between his arms albeit she was apprehensive. It would feel right waking up holding her too. "Be at ease, mistress. You do not have to give an impression of rigor mortis. They have all seen dead bodies before."

She let out her breath. "Richard, please stop quarrelling with me."

"So what must I do to buy my line in your judgment book, Margery? What do you want of me this day—a jewelled cross, a bracelet, a pearl brooch, a paternoster?"

"The truth," she whispered. Did she ever wish that their union could be deep-set in trust or was she still yearning for the King of England?

"Truth, my dear, is never perfect and I want to buy you something that is. Something of exquisite workmanship because you have never had a proper wedding gift of me." He shifted behind her, holding her protectively back against him, hoping she would soften against his body.

The guards in their blue and gold surcoats at the postern eyed them with amusement. The wench edged forward, her back proud and stiff. For an instant, Richard thought she might shame them both by casting herself off the horse and he readied his arms to imprison her, but once they were over the drawbridge, he felt the tension trickle out of her. The clean fresh scent of her filled his breathing and he could enjoy the joyous curve of the breasts, which he now owned, rising from the summer neckline. Perhaps the day might truly bring its reward.

"Look out!" Her hand grabbed the rein as a runaway piglet sped squealing across the road, chased by two raggedy children. He cursed and tried after that to keep his attention from her cleavage, but it was not easy.

He had found a goldsmith's shop in Amboise where the workmanship was excellent. Added to which, Monsieur Levallois had a vivacious second wife and a sultry daughter by her predecessor. And there were other coincidences that linked him to them but Richard did not bother to explain all this to Margery nor did he tell her he had already spent two hours with them earlier in the week lingering over wine and cakes.

They were expected. A stableboy was waiting to take his horse as they rode into the courtyard behind the main street. Before Richard could dismount, Jacques Levallois, followed by his wife and eldest child, strode out to welcome them. Adèle, his much younger wife, was Margery's age and so great with child that she could hardly curtsey to the daughter of the famous Earl of Warwick, but it was clear that Margery was flattered by her attempt. The girl Katherine's smile as she sank dutifully was selective.

Madame Levallois left them to her husband's selling ploys. As he ushered them into the downstairs workroom, their merchant host spoke swiftly to Margery in such a torrent of language that she looked as though she might drown in it. For her sake, Monsieur Levallois lightened his enthusiasm to a drizzle of words and a veritable thunderstorm of Gallic gestures. But what made her eyes go truly owlish was hearing Richard reply in French more fluent than her father's.

"I never realised you could speak French so well," she murmured as he led her across to watch a brawny apprentice, sweaty from the fire, beating gold into a setting for a cabochon ruby. Richard grinned and moved her on to where an older youth, at the end of his seven years of service by the look of him, sat chiselling facets on a topaz. Across from him, a mastersmith was setting an enamelled scene of the Annunciation into agate. "I never told you about the master brewer's wife in Kendal or the recorder's daughter in Gloucester either."

"And..." she mimicked him.

"And my old nurse was from Rouen."

In the shop which opened onto the street, the air was cooler. Margery gravely handed over her ring and Levallois conducted her to a table covered in black baize, where an apprentice shook a row of simple silver rings off a tapering steel rod. The merchant gave her several to try for size. When he was happy with her selection, he led her to the inside counter to see his other wares.

Golden goblets, musk balls, chalices and silver saltcellars glittered on high shelves around the shop, while at nose height, pinned upon a broad piece of scarlet felt behind the counter, rosaries of gold, lapis, crystal, coral and chalcedony beads were roped between collars of pearls. A pendant cross framed with twined lopped branches of matted gold was fastened above, flanked on either side by two lozenged golden reliquaries depicting Christ's entry into Jerusalem and his Passion. Rows of
enseignes,
hat badges for travellers and the devout, made of gold or enamelled with the lives of saints, hung on straps. Below, upon the counter, buckles, tassels and bracelets were anchored to timber covered with velvet cloth.

Multi-drawered cabinets were now fetched to the board and unlocked ceremoniously for Margery's pleasure to reveal rows of rings lolling on ebony velvet. Smoke-blue sapphires to aid in childbirth, emeralds to ward off envy, unlucky opals hazy with hidden hues that took the breath away and lodestars in all sizes, set into delicate twists of sinuous gold or couched in opulent rings.

"Perhaps Madame 'uddleston wishes something for her lovely throat?" Madame blushed and protested, sending Richard little covert glances from beneath her lashes. Without a doubt, his lady was dazzled and he was enjoying the fact.

Monsieur held up a succession of necklets against his daughter's throat. Katherine Levallois showed no embarrassment. Clearly, she was used to it. A clever ploy to sell women's jewellery to male customers.

Margery turned away. Such wealth and workmanship glittering around her was heady liquor for a poor woman's head, already reeling from unaccustomed flattery. Wonderment at finding herself with Richard Huddleston now when the day had begun so sourly filled her with amazement. What in the name of Heaven was she doing here? Letting the Devil buy her? These were not sugar mice before her now. His sincere enthusiasm for spending money on her was utter bribery and yet... She stole a thoughtful glance at him now as he jested with the merchant, at ease, articulate, so confident. He brushed a wing of lustrous hair behind his ear. The life force shone from him in the healthy pallor of his complexion, the laughing white teeth, his very strength. Jesu, sometimes it was possible to like him so much, possible to forget to fight. How was it that one could both like and hate a person to such extremes?

"Do you want a heart device set with diamonds, or there's this?" He held up a collar of two lustrous pearl strands and fingered the pendant rose as though its petals were soft and fragile. Margery shook her head. "Ah, here is beauty." Richard picked up a golden flower on a collar of two lustrous pearl strands, its centre a circle of latticed gold, surrounded by an aureole of daisy petals. Standing behind his new wife, he held it hard against her throat, watching her face in the mirror that the merchant's nubile daughter held up for her.

Margery felt his breath clean upon her cheek. Sometimes—just sometimes—it was like... like being married. Like a marriage could be with someone who cared. The fleeting companionship fragmented as she saw the girl Katherine was tempting Richard—sending him an alluring glance one instant and then coyly veiling her large eyes with
silky
long black lashes the next. Margery tensed, uncomfortable. Was it all pretence on Huddleston's part, this wanting to choose a gem for her?

"No, concentrate, it's a marguerite," he commanded, his breath stirring the tendrils of hair escaping from her headdress. "Look again! Enjoy what you see. We must be sure." The mirror showed a girl with roses in her cheeks, wide-eyed, and Richard's face behind her laughing at her confusion—behaving like a veritable lover.

Her breath came unevenly at his closeness.

"Do you not like it?" For an instant she doubted his sincerity, yet when her eyes flew back to the silver mirror, of a surety, genuine disappointment hovered in his face.

She moved forward, out of his touch and turned. "It pleases me well if it pleases you. But I am sure it is too expensive." Sweet Heaven, what was she saying? She was moon-mad, surely. To let him purchase this was to owe him. It was wrong and yet she could not bring herself to wipe the charm from that smiling mouth. He had not even noticed the French girl tucking her neckline lower.