The Wife Test (29 page)

Just as he was sinking toward despair, the jingle of keys and the thud of footsteps brought him to attention. Shortly the Earl of Norwich, his host during captivity, appeared at his cell door with a dark and guarded expression.

“Bon Dieu!”
the duke rushed to the barred door. “What is this about, Norwich? Why was I hauled back? I fulfill the damnable ransom to the letter, only to be held in a dungeon like a common thief?”

“I am not here as your advocate, Avalon.” Norwich’s lean face was grim. “Your guile has placed me and my house under a cloud as it is. I am here to let you know that your supposed ‘daughters’ have been recalled to Windsor and will soon arrive. The king has learned the truth about them … that they are not your by-blows, but base-born pawns in some treacherous game. Edward does not take kindly to those who repay his hospitality with cunning and his largess with political plots.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Avalon snapped. But when Norwich turned on his heel to leave, he recanted. “It’s true—they’re not my blood. But they are my adopted daughters. Legally and morally. And they’re not base-born. They’re true daughters of the nobility. Write to the convent—send for the abbess—she’ll confirm it.”

Norwich studied the duke’s fleshy face and dark-circled eyes.

“Hone your arguments while you wait, Your Grace,” he said darkly. “For when your daughters arrive, your impassioned pleas may be all that save them and you from a traitor’s fate.”

Chloe rode in the middle of the large, armed party, with her father-in-law on one side and an officer of the king’s guard on the other. Beside every guardsman who rode ahead and behind them rode one of the earl’s and Hugh’s men. It was something of a comfort to have Mattias, Withers, Fenster, and Willum around her. But their presence also reminded her of the security she had felt in knowing Hugh was watching over her on her first journey to Windsor. And of the fact that he wasn’t with her now.

The earl had argued with her over sending word to Hugh of her arrest. He insisted on sending a message to Hugh at the monastery; she was adamant that Hugh not be informed, lest he feel obligated to come to her aid. The earl tried to point out that he was her husband and that
was
his obligation … he damned well ought to feel it. Acquiescing to her wishes in public, the earl covertly sent a messenger to the monastery as they were leaving.

Now, after two days of hard riding, they approached Windsor on the same road by which they had left barely more than a week ago. The great round tower loomed larger on the horizon, dominating the view the same way it now dominated Chloe’s life. This time as they wound through the crowded streets of the town of Windsor and approached the great gate with its huge iron portcullis, she felt a gathering of shadows dimming those brighter memories.

Immediately she was separated from the earl and taken to an upstairs chamber … the same one where she and her sisters had stayed as they awaited marriage. This time there were heavily armed guards outside the door.

Inside, she was startled to find three of her four sisters waiting. They cried out, rushed to embrace her, and soon they were all in tears. When the first wave of emotion passed, she sat back to look at them. Alaina, Helen, and Margarete looked fit and well-treated, except for the reddened eyes and puffy noses.

“I never imagined seeing you again so soon,” Chloe told them, gripping Alaina’s hand and stroking Margarete’s cheek. “Especially under such horrible circumstances.”

“I don’t understand,” Margarete said miserably. “We were adopted by the duke and wedded as his daughters. What have we done wrong?”

“I don’t know any more than you do. Except that … the guards who came to fetch me said something about treason,” Chloe informed them, and they watched as that lightning bolt of a word worked its way through their already unsettled emotions.

“Whose trust could we have betrayed?” Alaina said with tears rolling down her cheeks. “All we did was marry as we were required to do.”

“Simon said something must have happened in France.” Helen provided a broader perspective for them. “Perhaps the duke did something to displease the king … perhaps there’s been an uprising of French nobles that has set everything on its ear. Such a development could make everything and everyone suspect.”

“What I don’t understand is how
we
could be under suspicion,” Chloe finally spoke her own thoughts. “We were the ones so endangered that the king sent us away from court. Somehow, in less than a fortnight, we’ve gone from being victims to being traitors.”

“It’s something about the duke’s ransom and our marriages,” Alaina said dolefully. “It has to be. Why else would they bring us here like this?” She hid her face in her handkerchief, and her shoulders began to shake. “If anything should tear me away from Jax, I wouldn’t want to go on living.”

Chloe moved to sit beside her and wrap her arms around her.

“You won’t lose him.” Her reassurance sounded hollow in her own ears. “We’ll find out what’s happened and set it all straight. I know we will.”

“What about Sir Hugh?” Alaina turned a tearful face to her. “Surely he’s gone to see the king, to learn what all of this is about. What does he say?”

Her throat tightened and she fought back tears as she was forced to confess: “He isn’t here. He doesn’t even know I’ve been arrested.”

Later that night, as they said earnest prayers and settled miserably onto their old cots, the sound of voices and the scrape of the key in the lock brought them bolt upright. The door swung open, and in lurched a dark figure swathed in a long cloak. The door slammed shut again, and through the intense silence came the sound of a choked whisper. The fifth member of the family had just arrived.

“Lisette?” Chloe bounded up out of her cot.

The cloaked figure wheeled on her.

“Chloe? Alaina? Helen? Oh, thank God!” Her knees gave way and Chloe rushed to help her to a seat on her old cot. The others lighted a pair of candles and gathered around to greet Lisette. There was a collective pause when the light revealed her face to be pale and drawn.

“Are you all right?” Chloe sat down by Lisette and hugged her. For a moment Lisette wavered, then her battered pride collapsed into their care.

“No, nothing is all right.” She burst into sobs. “And I’m afraid it never will be all right again.” After a few wrenching moments she looked up at Chloe. “I tried so hard to be just what he wanted … meek and modest and virtuous and obedient. And finally I was so desperate that I planted myself in his bed … and he … he … still … didn’t.”

“Didn’t?” Chloe looked around at the others, wondering if they were hearing what she heard. They seemed equally shocked. “You mean
that
‘didn’t’ ? He still hasn’t bedded you?”

Lisette covered her face with her hands and shook her head. “I’ve tried to be what he wants. He wants someone small and quiet and pleasant and obedient. Someone who will never make demands on him.” Her eyes shimmered with misery. “I think he wanted to marry someone else.”

Chloe’s heart sank. She’d made a grave mistake in pairing Lisette with the object of her heart. The knowledge only deepened the despair Chloe felt over the dismal state of her own marriage. Not even the three seemingly happy marriages could balance the calamity of the hurt and suffering her decision had caused. And how long would even the happy marriages survive if the king decided they had somehow participated in a great wrong against his throne?

Everything was falling apart.

The stricken look on her face caused the others to gather around her, and together they comforted her and each other. Their only solace through the long night was the fact that they had been reunited, if only for a brief time.

Lady Marcella arrived early the next morning with Moll and her other serving women. She bullied her way past the guards with food and fresh water and linen for the recent brides. She didn’t seem to know anything about why they’d been ordered back to the castle, but she had learned from her nephew that they would be taken before the king later that day.

With that confrontation awaiting them, they bathed and dressed and prayed and waited. It was just past midday that the summons came. Lady Marcella insisted on escorting them down to the great hall, and, shortly, they were following her in a single, solemn line, as they had their first night at Windsor. The ducklings had become graceful, self-assured swans. But this time, instead of curiosity, they were met with dark looks and indignant stares from the crowd gathered in the hall. On the far side their husbands stood together … restrained physically by a number of burly guardsmen. As a wave of commotion swept the mostly noble spectators allowed inside to witness the proceedings, Simon, Jaxton, and William called out to their wives and encouraged them with determined smiles, then turned to trade snarls and threats with the testy crowd around them. Sir Graham stood with the other three, his face dark and turbulent, and stayed silent as the others defended their brides.

Chloe caught his eye and shot him a fierce, accusing look as she seized Lisette’s hand and moved up to walk beside her. Lisette gave her a tentative smile of thanks, and Chloe realized that, unlike their sisters, there was no one to intercede for Lisette or her. They were unwanted wives. The sinking feeling in her middle deepened. She could scarcely make her legs bring her upright again when she curtsied before the king.

“Where is Avalon?” Edward demanded as he ignored the brides’ dips of respect. The Earl of Norwich answered from a little-used doorway at the side of the hall, and the king looked up to find the hot-eyed duke being brought forward in iron shackles. Shock raced through the noble audience at the sight of a duke in such straits. Norwich was as blanched as the duke was crimson when he escorted the duke to a place in front of the king’s chair. Edward held up a hand to prevent the duke from speaking and then turned to the Duke of Bedford.

“Read the charges.”

Bedford gravely unrolled a sizable parchment and began to read.

“… did conspire to defraud the King of England and undermine the peace and tranquility of his domain … by the fraudulent marriage of common females, not of his own blood or kin, as a payment of his duly owed ransom. And by conspiring to use such fraudulent marriages to rally opposition to England’s dominion in the conquered territories of France.”

As those terrifying words hung on the air, not a breath was taken or released in the hall. The duke’s jaw dropped, the brides looked at one another in horror, and turmoil erupted among the husbands and nobles allowed into the hall to witness the proceedings.

“Lies!” The duke lunged against the hands restraining him and was narrowly caught by the men guarding him. “These charges are lies! It’s a plot—”

“There, my good duke, we agree,” Edward called out over the clamor in the hall. “It
is
a plot. Dangerous and wicked and damaging. But you should have thought of that before deciding to perpetrate such a vile and pernicious fraud upon myself and my subjects.”

“What fraud am I charged with?” the duke demanded, looking astounded.

“Do you deny that these ‘daughters’ you supplied for marriage with my nobles are not of your blood?”

The duke looked to Chloe and her sisters, scowled, and then turned back to Edward. “I cannot deny it. They are not of my blood.”

Turmoil erupted again. Chloe looked to her sisters in shock; the king had honestly thought that all five of them were the duke’s natural daughters?

“You dare admit such to my face?” The king shoved to his feet on the dais and stood looking down on the French prisoner. “You wretched, deceitful son of perdition! You thought to pass off common dross as noble metal … to mock my generosity and sneer at the sanctity of the English nobility … to sow enmity toward me in the provinces of France!”

“I thought to pay your usurous ransom and secure my freedom!” the duke shouted back.

“Well, your scheming has earned you neither freedom nor the allegiance of your fellow conspirators.”

“Conspirators?” The duke was taken aback. “I have no fellow conspirators.”

“And I suppose you have no coin, no plate held back from the ransom?”

“You must know I do not!”

“I know nothing of the sort,” Edward declared hotly.

“In my absence, your own men emptied my coffers, stripped my lands, despoiled my house. I have nothing left of worth except the loyalty of a few to whom I myself had showed loyalty at one time. I sent to the abbess of the convent and asked her to supply me with worthy maids, young women of noble birth and outstanding character to adopt. And adopt them I did. The writs of legitimization are as binding as baptism … executed under the seal of the Bishop of Rheims. They are my daughters in truth, if not in blood.”

He shook off the grip of his guards and took another step forward.

“And as to them being ‘common dross’ … you yourself watched them, admired them, gladly wedded them to your advantage, never thinking that they could be other than noble of birth and fine character and disposition. How inferior can they be, my lord, if you yourself cannot tell their blood from mine?”

No natural father could have argued more ardently or persuasively on behalf of his offspring. After a tense moment, Edward turned to Chloe and her sisters.

“Is what he says true? Are you of noble birth?”