The Rose at Twilight (34 page)

Or, Alys thought to herself, to visit Sir James Tyrell. She had no liking for Jasper Tudor, an earl now and the king’s chief supporter, and was glad he was not near enough to harass Lovell.

“Get some food and find a bed, man,” Sir Nicholas said. “I will go at once. Hugh,” he shouted, “get the men mounted!”

Without thinking, Alys snapped, “And just what about us, sir? Do you leave us here at Burton, to the care of the monks?”

He replied crisply, “I did not forget. Gwilym!”

“Aye,” Gwilym said quietly, behind him.

Nicholas turned. “Take the women on to Wolveston. Ian MacDougal knows the way, and you may have two others, but they are all I can spare.”

“We do not require Gwilym,” Alys said stiffly. “Ian and the others will be sufficient, or the abbot can provide more men for a proper escort. You will want your brother with you.”

“Gwilym will escort you,” Nicholas said. “He was never meant to accompany me but came with us only because I do require someone to manage Wolveston in my absence.” He stepped away toward his men, dismissing her in his hurry to issue more orders.

Alys stood, stunned, staring after him for a long moment before her rising fury spilled over in words. “Hold there, Sir Nicholas Merion,” she cried. “You overstep yourself.”

He stopped, stiffening, but he did not turn. The silence in the yard suddenly matched that in the cloister.

Recklessly Alys shouted, “Wolveston Hazard is
my
home, sir,
my
inheritance, and I have been raised to be its mistress. I require no manager, Nick Merion, and you do wrong to set one over me. I do not need your brother, nor do I want him, so you just take him yourself! You will need every man you can get, believe me, because you much mistake the matter if you think any great host of Yorkshire knights will answer the Tudor’s call. They will not! They will support my Lord Lovell, to a man!”

The silence that greeted her words lasted a full thirty seconds before Nicholas turned slowly to face her and said loudly enough for all to hear, “Ian, fetch me a good stout strap from the stable.”

Silenced, and flushed with mortification, Alys looked around, her gaze taking in the monks, their abbot, the guest-master, Hugh Gower, all the rest of Sir Nicholas’s men, Madeline, Jonet, Elva, the lay brothers, and the courier. Every single one was staring at her as though he could not believe what he had heard. She had not forgotten they were there, not entirely; she had just failed to consider her words before she shouted them, or the effect they would have on her husband, particularly before such an audience. Overwhelmed by the enormity of what she had done, she looked again at Nicholas and panic seized her, rooting her to that spot on the cobblestones, and filling her with dread.

Ian had not leapt to obey the command. He said now, bravely, “I’m thinking a tawse be a fearsome weapon wi’ which tae tame a lassie, master. Will ye no consider takin’ a sturdy switch tae her backside instead?”

Alys bit her lip, not taking her eyes from Sir Nicholas.

Nor did he take his from her. He gestured impatiently at Ian. “Go, now, at once.” To Alys he said, “Seek your chamber and wait for me to come to you.”

She stood where she was, unable to obey. Her skin felt too tight for her body. Her nerve had deserted her, and she wanted nothing so much as to run from him, to run and run until she was safe. But she could not run. She could not seem to move. Never had she seen a man so angry as the one who stood before her now.

He said, “Go now, madam, or as God is my witness, you will take your punishment here before them all.”

She went then, walking with as much dignity as she could manage until she was inside, then running up the stairs to the ladies’ chamber, her mind racing as fast as her feet. When she heard running footsteps behind her, she whirled on the step, nearly losing her balance in her panic. But it was not Nicholas. “Madeline! No, you mustn’t come!”

“Elva and Jonet are right behind me,” Madeline said calmly. “He sent us inside. He did tell us to go into the hall, but—”

“You will only make him angrier than he is already if you try to defend me,” Alys interjected with a grimace.

“That we shall see,” Madeline said. “When we left, there were any number of persons doing their best to talk him out of what he means to do, and I saw the abbot making his way toward him from the cloister. Mayhap if Sir Nicholas finds us with you when he comes, he will calm down a bit, if nothing more.”

Jonet and Elva were behind her now, but Jonet offered no advice for once, and Alys knew she would express no sympathy. Jonet had warned her often over the years about minding her impulsive tongue, but never had it led her into such a mess as this one. Knowing that nothing they could do would help her, she forced herself to think, and by the time they reached the ladies’ chamber, to find a fire burning warmly on the hearth, evidently tended in their absence by one of the ubiquitous lay brothers, she had calmed a little, and her brain began to function again with its customary ease and rapidity.

She had gone too far, and she knew Nicholas meant to punish her as he never had before. That she had defied him before his men he would view as a fundamental challenge to his authority, a challenge she knew he would never tolerate, for if he could not master his own wife, what respect would his men have for him? He would believe he had no choice but to punish her. Indeed, he had promised to do so, in front of them all, and she had no way to protect herself against him, not the smallest weapon of which he would take notice. Or had she? Memories teased at her mind, planting the seeds of a plan, which began to take root at once and blossom. Offering a brief prayer—and an apology—to God, she turned quickly to the others to request their help.

A
LYS ORDERED JONET TO
light more cressets and candles, and to fetch her brush. Then, yanking her veil from her hair, she pulled out pins until the thick, golden tresses spilled over her shoulders to her waist. There was too little time. In her frantic haste to pull off her gown, she tore the bodice lace.

“Miss Alys!” Jonet exclaimed, scandalized. “Where have your wits gone begging?”

“Never mind my wits,” Alys snapped. “Help me! Elva, fetch my perfume, and Madeline, fetch out my green silk dressing gown from the coffer there by the hearth. Make haste!”

Madeline’s eyes lit with sudden, irrepressible amusement, but she held her peace and hurried to obey, bringing Alys a pair of narrow green silk ribbons, which matched the robe, as well.

“Here,” she said, handing them to her. “Tie one round your throat whilst I thread the other through your curls. ’Twill make you look more feminine, more fragile to his eye.”

“’Tis more like to provide him with a line along which to slit my throat,” Alys muttered, but she obeyed.

Madeline chuckled. “Why not leave off the robe and greet him in your smock, or better yet—”

“Good God, I don’t want him to ravish me,” Alys exclaimed. “I want only to remind him that he has reason not to murder me. Hurry with that ribbon, won’t you?”

When the second ribbon was tied, and Jonet had loosened her bodice, she stepped out of her overdress and snatched up the robe, flinging it on over her low-cut smock and petticoats. Taking the perfume vial from Elva, she began to dab lilac scent behind her ears and on her wrists, but her head came up sharply when she heard the thud of leather boots on the flagstones of the gallery. “Hush,” she warned. “He comes! How do I look?”

“Like a sacrificial virgin,” Madeline said with a wry grin.

Jonet shook her head in disapproval, saying nothing.

The door banged back on its hinges, and Alys straightened, letting the robe fall open when she turned to face Sir Nicholas, but her courage nearly failed her at the outset.

He stood on the threshold, the strap dangling from his right hand. His eyes blazed, and his face was rigid with fury.

“Begone, the lot of you!” he snapped at the other women.

Elva fled, sidling past him, and Jonet tugged at Madeline’s arm, but the younger woman resisted. Her grin had vanished at the sight of Nicholas, and she clearly meant to stand her ground.

Striving to sound calmer than she felt, Alys said, “Prithee, leave us now. My husband would be private with me.”

With another wry twist of her lips and one last look over her shoulder as she turned away, Madeline responded at last to Jonet’s silent urging and went.

The instant they had crossed the threshold, Nicholas kicked the door shut behind them and strode purposefully toward Alys.

Swiftly she curtsied before him, her petticoats billowing around her, her head bowed, albeit not low enough to impede his view of her plunging décolletage. “You are right to be angry with me, sir,” she said. “I behaved badly, and though I am very sorry, I have no right to expect you to remember that my body bruises easily.” Taking a deep breath, she raised one delicate, shaking, pink-nailed hand to the line between her breasts, hoping the gesture looked properly submissive, knowing it must draw his attention to that portion of her anatomy she knew he admired most. “I cry mercy, Nicholas, but you must do as you will.”

“Esgyrn Dafydd!”
he swore, looming over her. “You are acting like a little whore, madam! Do you seek to disarm my temper with naught but soft words and a winsome body?”

“Aye,” she said honestly, looking up at him at last. “I know I am not behaving like a lady, Nicholas, but I have no wish to be beaten. I deserve to be for speaking to you before your men as I did, but I dared hope that since you have not claimed a husband’s right for days, and since my body can give you small comfort before your journey if it be bruised and painful, you might find enough mercy in your heart to spare me this one time. It has been made plain to me,” she added, blushing rosily, “that you do enjoy my moans of pleasure, sir, but I doubt you are a man who can be aroused by feminine cries of pain.”

“Husband’s right?” he murmured, ignoring the rest. His posture had not changed, but his voice was pitched lower now, deeper in his throat; and, noting the change, and the promising gleam in his eyes, she lowered her lashes, hiding her relief when he went on in the same tone, “’Tis not your general habit so to describe our fleshly encounters, wench. In sooth, I do recall at least one somewhat impudent reference to a husband’s
duty.
”

Suddenly shy, not looking up, she whispered, “I care not if it be duty or right, sir. I do enjoy such attention from you and have missed your caresses, for you have not fingered properly over our lovemaking since our wedding night, which I do recall with great delight.”

“Stand up.”

The deep, throbbing tone was gone, and the two words were spoken crisply enough to send icicles of fear lancing through her, but she did not dare disobey him. Slowly, reluctantly, she got to her feet.

“Look at me.”

She did, and the expression she saw on his face was not an auspicious one. She sighed. Though she had done her best, she feared that what little power she had to sway him had not been enough to counter his determination to prove, to himself if not to his men, that he was master of his own wife.

“Do you know that the abbot himself recommended that I teach you better manners?” he demanded, holding the strap with both hands now, looking down as though to examine it more closely.

“Did he?” She, too, fixed her gaze upon the strap.

“Aye, he did, and so did Gwilym.”

“I believe it about your brother,” she said with a grimace, “but I had hoped the abbot might stand my friend.”

“He cannot condone defiance of proper authority.” He shot her a look from under his brows. “He forbade me to depart before this Easter day is done, since I go for no good purpose, he said, but to kill in the name of the king—the same excuse, he reminded me, as they did employ who crucified our Lord. He said, too, that since my wife’s undutiful behavior was as much an offense against God as against man, I must, by his command, remain here till morning in order to have adequate time to attend to her.”

She swallowed hard. “He said that?”

“Aye, and his commands are said to come straight from God.” A silence fell before he said, “Art truly contrite,
mi geneth
?”

Tears welled in her eyes. “Aye, sir,” she said.

“Wouldst comfort me?”

“Aye.”

“And dost truly delight in my touch?”

“Aye.” The tears spilled down her cheeks. “Oh, Nicholas, I have yearned for your touch. You cannot know how often I have wanted you to do all the things you did that first night, the things you have not lingered long enough to do since. I know it is not my place to tell you what to do—”

“Come here,” he muttered hoarsely, flinging away the strap and opening his arms to her. With a sob she threw herself into them. He murmured against her curls, “I did not know you felt so about our couplings, lass. I had believed you suffered marriage only because you had been commanded to do so, and I thought to spare you when I could. I would spare you now, but I cannot have my men think me weak, softened by a wench’s wiles.”

“There is no weakness in mercy, sir. Only the strongest of men may be merciful.”

Still holding her, he made a sound of protest. “Anyone may be merciful. By nature, mercy is naught but caprice.”

She looked up at him. “Men did say Richard was capricious in his mercy, that it was a fault. But if you are right, ’twas no fault at all but only the nature of—”

“We do not talk of Richard,” he cut in impatiently, sweeping her up into his arms. “Which is your cot?”

“The first,” she told him, pointing to the one nearest the fire, “but we cannot stay here the whole night long, sir. Where will Jonet, Madeline, and Elva sleep?”

“Do they all sleep here with you?”

“Aye.” She smiled at him, relaxing completely, her head against his shoulder. The danger appeared to be over.

He moved toward her cot. “I care not where they sleep.”

“But they will come up, thinking you have gone to bed and left me to weep the night away in abject misery.”

“Would you have wept?” he demanded, a glint of irony in his eyes. “Methinks you do not know the meaning of abject misery, wife, but have always beguiled your way out of punishment.”