you care for marzipan?”
She was doubtless either famished or bored to distraction, for she pushed back the side curtains at once. Supporting herself on one elbow, she asked, “Have you any?”
She appeared almost sybaritic among the litter’s cushions, with the lacings of her bodice loosened for ease and her golden hair escaping the confines of her veil. The sudden tightness in his groin was so intense it was an instant before he bethought himself and leaned to pass over the small drawstring bag filled with the confection that he had taken from his saddlebag. Watching with a rueful smile as she instantly drew it open and took out a piece that was dyed pink and green, it was a moment before he could speak again.
“Are you content in there?”
“Exceedingly. If the idea of the litter was yours, I thank you for it.”
“To see to your comfort is little enough. I am to blame for this sudden change of plans, after all.”
She swallowed the piece of marzipan, avoiding his gaze as she looked into the bag for another. “It seems a curious business. You are accused of a terrible act, yet allowed to ride as free as you please. I thought to see you in chains.”
“You might have, except I gave my pledge not to attempt to escape but to abide by the king’s will. William was good enough to accept it.”
“How convenient.”
“You don’t ask if I’m guilty.”
“Would you tell me if you were? If you are only going to protest your innocence, then where is the point?”
It was difficult to fault her logic, though it would have been pleasant if she had appeared to care one way or the other. That was apparently too much to expect. And if he did not look directly at her for any length of time, he discovered, he could attend to what she was saying instead of how she affected him.
“What if I’m not?” he asked after a moment.
“Then it will be shown, and all will be as before, yes?”
His every hope depended on it, and every future plan. “As you say.”
She looked up at that, as if something in his voice had snared her attention. “You doubt the king’s justice?”
It was the king’s motives Rand doubted, though it would be foolhardy to say so. The sentiment could become a weapon in her hands, and he had not the least idea how she would use it. “It will turn out as God wills.”
“Or as the king wills,” she said in tart reply, “which is supposed to be the same thing as he claims divine right. What I should like to know is why I was not told of this charge, was given no hint that you were involved in such a crime.”
His smile was grim. “That’s easily answered. There was no crime.”
“It’s all a mistake, then.”
He inclined his head as he thought of the tender and helpless babe he had helped bring into the world. “I pray it may turn out that way.”
“Who could have accused you? Have you no idea?”
“None whatever.”
“But there was a child?”
Rand made no reply. He had pledged to remain silent. He did not go back on his sworn oath.
“Not long after Henry Tudor arrived from Bosworth last year,” the lady observed, her gaze resting on his face, “rumor circulated of a Frenchwoman who had landed in Wales with him for the invasion and traveled in his baggage train. She never put in an official appearance at court, possibly because of his immediate betrothal to Elizabeth of York. Henry would have wanted nothing to stand in the way of his being wed to the daughter of Edward IV as it promised to add legitimacy to his claim to the throne….” She stopped, sending him an impatient frown. “Don’t look so hunted, no one can hear us!”
“It isn’t your lovely neck that may be stretched if Henry is displeased,” he said in dry reproof, “though it could be if you continue in this vein. That is, unless you are offered the ax as a noblewoman.”
She ignored that last sally. “What other vein is there? I only speak the truth.”
“The truth is what the king declares it to be.”
“So cynical. I did not know you were at court long enough for it.”
He glanced ahead to where the first riders of their long cavalcade approached the ford for a small stream. In the meadow behind them, a lark sang and a warm wind swept over the wheat awaiting harvest so it waved like a golden sea. The scents of ripening grain wafted around them, along with the dust of their passage and the hint of ripening berries from a distant hedgerow. All was well with their line of march for the moment.
“I was a part of Henry’s court long before he reached England’s shores last year,” he said finally. “It was enough.”
“You left it of your own will, then. Could be that’s why he has ordered you brought back. Those who wear the crown are often suspicious of men who withdraw from their august presence.”
“So it’s dangerous to get too close and dangerous to stay away. What is a peaceable man to do?”
She watched him a long moment before she spoke. “You really don’t care for court life.”
“I prefer Braesford, where my labors make a difference that can be seen, where there is time to watch the sunrise, the rain as it sweeps down the mountainsides and the fat lambs in the fields.”
“A farmer in all truth,” she murmured, almost to herself. An instant later, she frowned up at him. “Braesford is isolated enough to make a fine refuge. Also, the king would be reluctant to have his wife learn that he had a mistress tucked away in some hidden spot. She is with child, you know. The queen, I mean.”
“So I had heard.”
“She is due in a couple of months—fast work as the wedding was only in January. The king is greatly wrought, they say, because Elizabeth has never been robust. He might take pains to prevent her from learning his mistress was also with child. That is, of course, if this particular Frenchwoman was your guest when the incident of child murder came about.”
He might have known a lady familiar with court gossip would be able to work out the sequence of events. He was not inclined to confirm her thought, however. “There was no murder,” he said again.
“Yet someone seems to have done away with the child. It’s not too surprising, I suppose, given the many heirs who have died under mysterious circumstances— Edward IV’s two boys held in the White Tower, the son of Richard III and so many others. If the baby was a boy, even though illegitimate…”
“It was not—”
Rand came an abrupt halt, cursing softly before pressing his lips together.
“A girl child, then, and Henry’s daughter,” she said, leaning back in satisfaction. “It still gives rise to possibilities.”
Rand
