petulance lingered into his question, making Merielle wonder whether she was hearing sarcasm or mere pique.
She frowned. “He knows, doesn’t he? He’s the one who got me an audience with the king, remember.”
“I meant this evening’s dispute.”
“No, better not.”
His cloud lifted. “So you’ll send word when you’re ready to return?”
Relieved, she prodded him into a lighter mood. “You’re sure I’ll return, Bonard?”
He smoothed the red scarf over his bony knees. “I’m more sure of that than of anything, Mistress Merielle,” he said. “Your unwelcome guest was flippant about not being able to marry his uncle, but I wondered if he was not also trying to tell you that your own degree of kinship is outside the canon law, too.”
“What?”
Without looking at her, Bonard continued, “A man may not marry his wife’s sister, nor may a woman marry her sister’s husband. Was Sir Adam aware of that when he suggested that you might consider taking your late sister’s place? Is that what he was suggesting, mistress?” Slowly, he turned his head, watching his words register in her eyes. He might have known she would challenge them.
“But people do. Men marry their brother’s widows, don’t they?”
“To keep property in the family, they do, with permission. You’d hardly qualify for that, would you?”
“So you’re saying that I’ve misunderstood the situation?”
“I don’t know exactly what was said, but such things are easy enough to misunderstand. Think. What did he say, exactly? He must know the law as well as anyone.”
“Then why didn’t I?”
“Presumably because you interpreted it the way you wanted to at the time. Men don’t always make themselves plain, do they, when it’s in their interests to be misunderstood?”
“Don’t they?”
“No, mistress, they don’t.”
“So you believe Sir Adam deliberately misled me?”
“To lure you to Winchester? Of course I do. You’d not go so readily if he’d asked you openly to be his mistress, would you? He must know full well that you’d not be allowed to marry, but men like that have to explore every possibility. How d’ye think he’s risen so fast in the king’s favour? By seeking every opportunity and grabbing at it, that’s how. He’s an ambitious man.”
“And how exactly is having a mistress going to advance him?”
Bonard sighed gently and plucked the red scarf away out of sight. “I may be a romantic,” he said, “but I’m not so blind that I cannot see the way men look at you.” He watched her large eyes withdraw beneath deep crescent lids and a thick fringe of black lashes, then waited until they reappeared, veiled with unease. “He can see your interest in the child, but if all he wanted was a mother for it, he’d have married again long before now.”
“It was less than a year ago, Bonard.”
“That’s nothing when a man needs a wife. But it’s you he wants, and he’s hoping that you’ll believe it’s marriage he’s offering. Once you’re there, he’ll try to persuade you. Forewarned is forearmed, mistress.”
“Oh, Bonard. Is that what you believe, truly?”
“Yes, it is. A mother for his infant and you in his bed.”
She flinched at his plain speaking. This was a Bonard she had not encountered before. Even so, there was something he did not know. “But my sister implied that Sir Adam was not…not like that.”
Master Bonard straightened, recognising the gist. “Yes, well, you know what Mistress Laurel was like when she wanted to make a point, don’t you? Unrestrained, could we say?”
“A family trait, I fear.”
He did not contradict her. “Sir Adam was not the man for her, was he? Too set in his ways and too interested in her sister. Hardly likely to qualify him for much praise, was it? Could she have said that to put you off, d’ye think? She certainly did her best to make him jealous, didn’t she?”
“Flirting with that man!” Her voice chilled at the memory.
“It takes two,” he said, quietly. “He’s severe, mistress, but at least he’s honest. Unlike some others we could name.” The quiet comment slipped through the net, and his reference to Gervase of Caen was lost in the previous one, which he extended. “And from the sound of things he may well understand what his uncle’s intentions are, and is trying to protect you.”
“Oh, Bonard!” Merielle looked away with impatience. “That’s inconceivable. The only reason he has for preventing a liaison between me and his uncle is because it would put his inheritance in jeopardy. My personal protection is the last thing on his mind.”
“Perhaps your opinion of him is too harsh, mistress. He was not responsible for what happened afterwards, remember.” His voice dropped, although the servants had long since ceased their arm-laden excursions across the hall and were now seeking dim corners in which to lay their heads for the night. “And however much you dislike him, he must never know that there was more to it than a straightforward fine. If you had not gone to seek the king’s aid in the matter…”
“If that man had kept his nose out of my affairs, Bonard, I would not have needed the king’s aid in the first place. And if I’d known what the price would be, I’d never have gone there that day. Even you could not protect me from that, could you?” She had not meant it to sound like censure, but the tired and angry words had a way of emerging point first. “I’m sorry, my dear friend. You deserve no reprimand. There was nothing you could have done, I know. Nor could I have done without you, that day.”
He had done his best, such as it was, but even the faithful Bonard could not insist on being present at her interview with the king at Canterbury, if the king did not wish it. What had happened then behind the closed doors in the archbishop’s palace where the king was staying had had a direct bearing on the fine which was paid to Sir Rhyan Lombard for Merielle’s defiance of the contract between their late fathers. Afterwards, Merielle had explained nothing, nor had she needed to. The king’s reputation was well known and Master Bonard, romantic idealist, was no innocent in the ways of great men.
“I can make up for it a little,” he whispered, “if you allow me to accompany you to Winchester. No more Latin verses?”
Again, his words were lost on her, brushed aside in her quick, irritable dismissal of the incident. She stood, and Bonard recognised the futility of repeating his offer.
Long past midnight, the relaxation which the longed-for bath was meant to induce was effectively displaced by new problems that could be shared only in part by those she trusted most. In a cloud of steam, she wondered whether it was marriage or widowhood that made problems worse and decided that, but for men, life would have been simple. Regrets crowded after the dilemma of Sir Adam and his intentions; she should never have agreed to go, even to see her infant niece, to hold her, to nuzzle her peachy cheeks. Beneath the foamy waterline, she
