deepened. As her mother’s preoccupation with a new husband and a young step-family grew, Felice’s previous role as deputy-mistress of their former home became redundant in Lord Deventer’s austerely regimented household. Rudderless and overlooked by the flamboyant new stepfather, Felice had drifted more and more towards Timon, partly to remove herself from Lord Deventer’s insensitivities and partly because Timon was always amiable and happy to see her. He had been exceptional in other ways; his teaching was leisurely and tender, arousing her only so far and no further, always with the promise of something more and with enough control for both of them. ‘Think what you’re doing,’ was advice she heard regularly, though often enough accompanied by the lift of her hand towards his smiling lips and merry eyes.
She had discovered the inevitable anguish of love last summer when Timon had caught typhoid fever and her stepfather had had him quickly removed from his house to the hospice in Reading. Forbidden to visit him, Felice had been given no chance to say farewell and, during conversation at dinner a week later, she learned that he had died a few days before and was already buried. Lord Deventer was not sure where. Did it matter? he had said, bluntly. Until then, Felice had not known that love and pain were so closely intertwined.
Since that dreadful time last summer, no man’s arms had held her, nor had any other man shared her thoughts until now. Her terrible silence had been explained by her mother as dislike of her new situation, exacerbated by talk of husbands, a remedy as painful as it was tactless to one who believed her heart to be irrevocably broken.
The usual agonies of guilt and punishment had been instilled into Felice from an early age and were now never far from her mind without the courteous priest to mitigate it. The replacement chaplain had been stern and astringent, not the kind to receive a desperate young woman’s confidences, and she had been glad to accept any means of escape from a house of bitter-sweet memories upon which she had believed nothing would impose. But last night’s experience had suggested otherwise in a far from tender manner, and her anger at her heart’s betrayal was equal to her fury with the shiftless Fate who had plucked mockingly at the cords that bound her heart.
‘Out of the frying-pan, into the fire’ was a saying that occurred to her as she went about the first duties of the day, now demurely dressed in a blue velvet overskirt and bodice that set off the white under-sleeves embroidered with knotwork patterns. Black-work, they called it, except that this was blue and gold. Her hair was tidily coiled into a gold mesh caul at the nape of her neck almost as an act of defiance to the man who had warned her of his men’s easily deflected attentions. At home, she would have worn a concealing black velvet French hood, yet she had never been overly concerned by prevailing fashions and saw no reason to conform now that there was no one to notice. That dreadful man had seen her at her worst; whatever he saw now would be an improvement.
The first floor was thronged with men carrying tables, stools, chests and cupboards and, in her chamber, several of the carpenters were erecting the great tester bed and hanging its curtains. The ground floor was the servants’ domain, containing the great hall and steward’s offices, but the top floor covered the length and breadth of the building, a massive room flooded with light from new oriel windows that reflected on to a magnificent plasterwork ceiling. Knowing that these additions were the result of the surveyor’s vision, Felice tried hard to find fault with it, but came away with grudging admiration instead. It was no wonder he had been irked by her takeover.
She visited the kitchens across the courtyard next, but came close to being trampled underfoot by lads carrying boxes, baskets, pans and sacks; so, to give her feet some respite, she headed for an area at the back of the Abbot’s House that gave access into the derelict square cloister. Here at last was peace where, in the enclosed warmth, the kitchen cat poured itself off a low wall at the sight of Flint and Fen and disappeared into the long grass.
Shelving her thoughts about how to make a dignified return home, she sat with her legs stretched out between the stone columns that topped the low wall, her eyes unconsciously planning a formal garden with perhaps a fountain in the centre. Not that it mattered; she did not intend to stay. She removed her shoes to inspect the soles of her feet in valuable privacy.
The deerhounds nosed about behind her, so their silence went unheeded until, sensing their absence, she turned to check on them. Their two heads could not have been closer beneath the hand of the tall intruder who stood silently in the shadows on the church side of the cloister, watching her.
Her heart lurched, pounding with a new rhythm, and she turned away, throwing her skirts over her bare ankles, pretending an unconcern she was far from feeling. She snapped her fingers, angrily and called, ‘Flint! Fen! Come!’—by no means sure that they would obey but reluctant to turn to see.
The hounds returned to her side but they were not alone, nor had they obeyed her command but his, and she knew then that, like the steward deserted by his mastiff, she would never again be able to rely on them for protection. Angered by their inability to tell friend from foe, she snapped at them, ‘Lie down!’
Sir Leon was laughing quietly at this calamity as he came to sit on the wall just beyond her feet and, as she began to swing them to the ground, he caught one ankle in a tight grip, making her flight impossible. ‘No, lady,’ he said. ‘We have some unfinished business, do we not? A moment or two of your time, if you please.’
‘Be brief, sir. And release my foot.’
She did not need to look at him to see that he had already started work, for he had discarded his doublet and now wore only the jerkin over his shirt, the sleeves of which were rolled up to expose well-muscled forearms. A deep V of bare chest showed in the opening, and his boots were powdered with stone-dust. Unhurried by her command, his hand slid away and spread across his knee. ‘Well?’ he said, tucking away the remnants of a smile.
She frowned at him, puzzled. ‘Well, what, sir?’
‘I’m allowing you to state your case before I state mine, Lady Felice Marwelle. And you need not be brief.’
‘Nevertheless, I will be. You will be relieved to know that I intend to return to Sonning within the next few days.’ She spoke to a row of purring pigeons on the angle of the wall behind him, disconcerted by his close attention, his attempted dominance even before words had been exchanged.
‘Is that all?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then you’ve changed your mind about staying.’
‘Yes,’ she snapped. ‘Don’t ask me why. It’s what you wanted, isn’t it?’
‘You changed your mind to please me?’
Her mouth tightened. ‘No. It pleases me.’
‘Then I’m sorry to disappoint you. I must reject your decision.’
‘What?’ She frowned, looking at him fully for the first time. ‘You’re in no position to reject it. I’ve already made it.’ His eyes, she saw, were grey and still laughing.
‘Then you can unmake it, my lady. You’ll stay here and complete the task Lord Deventer set for you.’
Rather than continue a futile argument, Felice’s response was to get up and leave him, but her body’s slight message was deciphered even as it formed, and her ankle was caught again and held firmly.
‘Ah, no!’ he said. ‘I’m aware of your aptitude for bringing discussions to an abrupt conclusion but really, you have to give them a chance to develop occasionally, don’t you think so? Now, what d’ye think your stepfather will say when you tell him you haven’t
