Outrageous, Page 2

  “Because I don’t allow you to defeat me? To kill me? Must I die at the hands of some misbegotten knight to prove myself a lady?” She pricked at the open throat of his shirt with the shiny tip of the sword. “Get up, I say, and face this lady whom you have wronged.”

  She had been magnificent in her triumph, and now she wore her wrath like the robes of a queen. Griffith stepped close. If flamboyance in a woman was unattractive, why did her fire draw him to her?

  Harbottle staggered to his feet and glanced at Griffith. “You hide behind your newest lover.”

  Without a flicker of interest, Marian dismissed Griffith. “I can kill you without the help of any man, Harbottle.” And she drew back her arm.

  Harbottle’s blue eyes grew large. The whites turned red with strain, and fear shattered his facade. “You wouldn’t…you can’t…”

  “Who would blame me?”

  Her cheeks acquired a pallor, but Harbottle failed to notice. He concentrated solely on that unswerving tip. “I have money, if you want it—”

  Her color blossomed again. “If I kill you, the world would be well rid of such vermin.”

  She took a deep breath, and Griffith now thought she would plunge the steel into Harbottle’s heart.

  “Have pity,” Harbottle whimpered.

  Her severity broke, and she gestured with the sword toward the door. “Go grovel before the priest. Perhaps he’ll offer forgiveness. That’s the best you can expect, for these gentlefolk will not forget.”

  Harbottle scurried backward, and when he was safe out of range, he cried, “Whore! You shame your family by bearing their name. Your little bastard bears the punishment for your sins.” Griffith stiffened in shock, but Harbottle wasn’t through. “That whelp you bore is an idiot!”

  She lifted the sword to fling it, and the gaping courtiers dove for cover. Griffith caught her hand before she could, swung her around, and buried her face in his chest.

  A bastard, he reflected grimly. She’d borne a child out of wedlock. No wonder she’d been banished from the court.

  A bastard. A child unacknowledged by its father. Marian had brought herself disgrace and exile with her unseemly passion, and that lack of control she now exposed in her useless struggles.

  Resembling a half-crushed insect, Harbottle took to flight, limping all the way.

  Marian fought the restraint, furious that anyone dared come between her and that foul beast who maligned her son. In her ear a deep voice rumbled, “Anger is the wind that blows out the lamp of the mind, and you are the proof. Never threaten a man with death unless you mean to complete the deed. You’ve made a lifelong enemy, one who’ll be satisfied with nothing less than your humiliation and defeat.”

  Wrenching her head free, she looked up, and up, and up.

  The man was immense—and ill favored. His black hair, cut chin length, was combed straight back, leaving his face unsoftened and unadorned. His tanned skin had seen too much sun, too many battles, and the lines of experience that marked his brow found mates in the scars that furrowed his cheeks. His thin nose had been broken too many times, and his stubborn chin prickled with a day’s growth of beard. Only his golden eyes betrayed a kind of beauty, and they glowered at her with such disgust that she stiffened even further.

  “My thanks to you, but I am none of your concern.”

  He exhaled impatiently, and it ruffled the stray wisps of hair that fell over her forehead. She stepped away and heard him mutter, “If only that were true.”

  From behind her Wenthaven said, “This great Welsh beast is your newest emissary from the queen.”

  Marian swung on Wenthaven. “By my troth, Wenthaven. Why didn’t you tell me at once?”

  Spreading his hands in doubtful innocence, Wenthaven said, “I thought I did.”

  Dismissing him with a sniff, Marian tilted her head and examined Griffith, paying particular attention to his dull brown, unfashionable clothes. “He does resemble a beast. Does the beast have a name?”

  Griffith bowed where he stood, and it brought his face close to hers. “Griffith ap Powel, if it please you.”

  He spoke softly, and his name brought a rush of blood to her face. “Griffith ap Powel? Griffith ap Powel is no emissary from my lady the queen. Griffith ap Powel is the king’s man.”

  Griffith straightened, a satisfied line to his hard mouth. “I am the king’s man, and therefore the queen’s, too, for they are wed and made as one by the holy ceremony of the Church.”

  Glancing around, Marian saw the crowd that had gathered to cheer her swordplay now hung on every word. Gesturing a page boy close, she handed him her sword and bade him clean it and place it with care. The time she earned gave her a chance to rein in her temper. “How is Elizabeth of York? Is my lady well?”

  Griffith, too, noted the press of interested observers and offered his arm. “The king’s consort is well, as is her son and heir, Arthur.”

  “The heir to the throne of England.” Marian smiled at the irony of it. “And Henry Tudor is the father.”

  “King Henry Tudor is the father.”

  Marian almost laughed at Griffith’s pomposity, but her years at court had taught her a respect for a king’s power, if not a respect for the men who sought the position. So she took the proffered arm and agreed, “Of course. King Henry, seventh of that name, is the father of this child. Has King Henry let his wife be crowned yet?”

  “Not yet.”

  “When the archbishop anoints Elizabeth’s head and places the crown on her noble brow in Westminster Abbey, she’ll be lifted above mere mortals.” Marian clung close, content to use Griffith as a wedge to part the crowd. As they left the milling gentlefolk behind, she said, “The king is afraid. Afraid all will say he owes his throne to his queen.”

  Griffith corrected her without a blink. “He’s cautious, and rightly so.”

  “The throne still totters beneath his royal behind.”

  “Totters? No. It does not totter, and only a fool would say so. But those same fools who claim the throne totters might also claim he couldn’t keep the throne without the support of Elizabeth’s Yorkist kin.”

  “You aren’t a courtier, are you?” Marian asked, smiling, more amused than embarrassed by the charge of foolishness.

  “I am whatever Henry needs me to be.”

  “A lackey, then,” she said, wondering if he would respond to the insult.

  “At present, that is true. I am a messenger boy, delivering notes from one silly girl to another.” Without asking her preference, he steered her out a door into the lavish garden, redolent with the scent of new roses basking in the warmth of the spring sun. “My reward for completing this mission is a visit to my parents in Wales.”

  The afternoon sunshine did Griffith no favors, Marian noted. It revealed his hair was not black, as she’d thought, but dark brown and shiny. It grew back from a point in the middle of his forehead, giving his narrow face a devilish quality, and it flared out like a lion’s mane, lending him a beast’s menace. The sunlight highlighted his harshness, accentuated the length and breadth of him, and she wondered what madness had encouraged Henry to send him.

  Was Henry trying to intimidate her? What did he suspect? What did he know? And had he shared his knowledge with his messenger?

  A strand of her bright red hair hung in her eyes, and she tried to tuck it back under her close-fitting cap, with little success.

  He watched with a cynical lift to his mouth. “Do you dye your hair?”

  Dropping her hands, she glared. In all her twenty-two years, she’d never met such a rude man. “If I did, would I dye it this color?”

  He didn’t smile, didn’t twitch, didn’t make false protestations about his admiration. Instead he took the strand between his fingers and efficiently inserted it beneath the coif. “Can we be overheard here?”

  She could read nothing from Griffith’s countenance except a vast distaste for her and for his duty. So much the better, she thought. Wenthaven’s castle was the
epitome of lavish country living, but she’d grown used to the excitement of court. Now she relished the chance to match wits with a haughty Welsh lord. “No one can hear us, but that’s of no consequence. Everyone knows I was once the lady Elizabeth’s chief lady-in-waiting. Everyone knows we communicate when possible, although the messenger is usually a little”—she ran her gaze up and down his form—“livelier.” She held out her hand, palm up. “Do you have a letter for me?”

  He withdrew a parchment from his belt, closed with the queen’s seal, and picked at the wax. “Shall I read it to you?”

  Snatching it, she tucked it inside her sleeve. “I’ll read it to myself. Is there a purse?”

  More slowly, he produced the heavy pouch.

  She weighed it in her hand and sighed with relief. “Sweet Mary has blessed me.”

  “The queen sends you much of her meager allowance.”

  “Aye,” she agreed, her thoughts on the two-year-old napping in her cottage. “She is ever tender of my well-being.” Then she saw his outrage, which he didn’t bother to hide. Sitting down on a stone bench, she cocked her head and smiled scornfully. “Why, Griffith ap Powel, whatever were you thinking?”

  “I was wondering if you have some knowledge the queen wishes withheld, and so dip your hand into her pocket.”

  His bluntness proved his blatant disrespect for her, and anger, so recently subdued, again flashed through her. The light breeze off the lake accentuated the burn of her cheeks, and she glared at him. Then she remembered the secret that was not her own, and she dropped her gaze. In a careful monotone she said, “The Lady Elizabeth is no mark for a blackmailer. She’s lived an exemplary life. How could she not? Her father, King Edward, cherished her first. Then her uncle, King Richard the Third, did his duty by her.”

  “King Richard?” He sneered. “The usurper, you mean. Richard was Edward’s brother. Edward’s sons should have inherited the throne, but where are they now? Where are they now?”

  Clutching the leather, feeling the roll of the coins inside, she again repressed her animosity. “I do not know, but Elizabeth was their sister. She had naught to do with their disappearance.”

  “’Twas Richard who imprisoned them in the Tower, from whence they never returned.” He put his foot on the bench beside her, leaned his arm on his knee, and bent his face close against hers. “They disappeared, never to be seen again. I fought for Henry and prayed he would be given the chance to unite the Yorks and the Lancasters in marriage, but when we came to London, we discovered the truth. We discovered the lady Elizabeth had danced with their murderer. She lived in Richard’s court, wore the clothes with which he gifted her, and gave his court a legitimacy it wouldn’t have had without her. Elizabeth shows the streak of decay that has riddled the House of York, and now that decay has passed into the Tudor line.”

  Without conscious thought, she swung the gold-filled purse against his face. His nose cracked. Staggering back, he covered his face, and while blood seeped through his fingers, she grasped his shirt in her hands and jerked him toward her.

  The linen tore in small, high bursts, but her voice was low and intense. “My lady Elizabeth sacrificed everything to save her brothers. Everything. By my troth, do not ever malign her in my hearing again, lest I take my sword and run you through.”

  She shoved him away and rushed up the path, abandoning the purse in her haste and her fury. When she was sure she was out of sight, she picked up her skirts for more speed and lengthened her stride. She wanted to get away from that boor, that ass, that sycophant of Henry’s.

  It probably hadn’t been politic to strike him. Especially not with that heavy purse. She’d heard a crack—had she broken his nose?

  Yet how dare he accuse Elizabeth of collaborating with Richard in the death of her brothers? Marian knew the truth of it. She had been placed in Elizabeth’s service at five, for they were the same age and related by blood. From the very beginning it had been made clear to Marian that she was to serve Elizabeth in every way.

  At the same time, it had been made clear to Elizabeth that she was a sacrifice to the dynasty. Every motion, every word, every smile, was weighed and judged as worthy or not worthy of a princess of the House of York. A kind, amiable child, Elizabeth strove always to be judged worthy, and if her intelligence was not the highest—well, a princess had no need of intelligence.

  No need, until her father, King Edward IV, died. Then came the days of treachery, and Elizabeth was ill prepared to play the political games that drove the country to war. Her beloved uncle took custody of her brothers, declaring he wished only to protect them—then in one sweeping, maddening statement, he had declared them illegitimate. He declared all of Edward’s children illegitimate.

  As Richard wished, Parliament named him king.

  Marian had held her lady as she wept for her brothers, for her freedom, for her honor, now trampled into the dirt. She’d helped Elizabeth make plans. When Richard and his wife invited her to court, Marian and Elizabeth had first cried out in fury, then put their heads together and schemed. If Elizabeth were at court, if she played the role of dutiful niece, then perhaps she could discover her brothers’ fates. Perhaps she could influence her uncle, perhaps she could help her brothers escape.

  Marian and Elizabeth formed wild plans, trying to cover every eventuality—but they never could have imagined their own final role in Richard’s doomed reign. If only…

  Marian sighed. She could drive herself crazy with the if-onlys.

  Her cottage stood close against the towering curtain wall that surrounded the castle and protected it from assault, and far from Wenthaven’s keep. She liked it that way. Here she was remote from Lord Wenthaven, the politics he dabbled in, and the schemes he hatched. Here she and her son were safe.

  Lionel. Would he be awake now?

  Pushing open the gate into the front garden, she called for him, then grinned as the pudgy, dark-haired boy came toddling around the dwelling. She swung him up in her arms and exclaimed, “You’re gritty. Have you been playing in your sand?”

  He nodded, beaming, and patted her cheeks with his grubby hands.

  “Building a castle?”

  He nodded.

  “With a moat?”

  “Oh, don’t ask him about a moat,” his nursemaid said, coming around the edge of the cottage. “He’ll want to go to the well for water, and then we’ll have a royal mess.”

  A handsome girl, Cecily resembled Marian’s mother to an astonishing degree. But where Marian’s mother had been a long-ago, loving memory, Cecily had proved to be silly and easily swayed by fashion, by opinion, and especially by the appreciation of a man. Any man.

  Still, she’d followed Marian, with scarcely a whimper, into the backwater of Castle Wenthaven. “Did he sleep?” Marian asked.

  Cecily blew the hair out of her eyes. “He slept a bit, but he’s been active for most of the afternoon.”

  Marian squeezed him, kissed him, and agreed, “Aye, he’s a healthy lad.”

  “You’d never know he cried his whole first year.”

  “’Twas just colic,” Marian said, her attention on Lionel as he wiggled to the ground.

  “’Twas just awful,” Cecily answered roundly.

  Marian didn’t answer. There were many things she didn’t reveal, but foremost among them was her own initial antipathy to Lionel.

  She hadn’t wanted to be a mother. Had had no interest in children. When the midwife had first placed that bloody, waxy bundle in her arms, she’d reacted with quite unmaternal disgust.

  “Early babies are always puny and fussy and ugly, they tell me.” Cecily seemed to take Marian’s agreement for granted. “Sometimes I thought he wouldn’t survive his first months.”

  Sometimes, late at night when he’d been screaming for hours, Marian hadn’t known if she’d wanted him to survive his first months. She hunched her shoulders against the remembered guilt and followed Lionel to the pile of river sand they’d dredged for him.

 
; Cecily tagged along. “But for you, my lady, I’d have gone mad.”

  Marian’s remorse had driven her to take on more and more of Lionel’s personal care, and then…oh, then one day he’d smiled at her.

  She’d never had a reason to believe in love. She’d never believed in one moment of illumination. But that first toothless grin from the baby in her arms had changed her. With each smile afterward, with each childhood illness and each youthful triumph, he’d bound her to him. Now his dark head bobbed as he scraped the sand together, and she exulted in the strength of her own devotion. She would lay down her life for him—not because of duty or loyalty, but because of love.

  Cecily sighed as loudly as Lionel did when he was seeking attention. “I wish I’d been there to help you through his birth.”

  Marian glanced at her incredulously. “You? You come over giddy when a man spits.”

  Hanging her head, Cecily admitted, “I know I do, but I’m sure my womanly instincts would have taken over.”

  Marian doubted it, but said nothing.

  “Of course, you had to accompany the lady Elizabeth into exile. She could hardly remain at court with the rumors that were rife.” Cecily peered around the edge of her gable hood, her big eyes guileless. “About her marrying the king, her uncle, I mean.”

  Fingering the letter hidden in her sleeve, Marian said, “I know well what you mean.”

  “I’m still surprised you didn’t take me into your confidence. To face such a dishonor, by yourself, without the support of your own dear cousin.” Cecily sniffled a little. “After all, I was your lady’s maid.”

  “Cecily.” Marian faced her full on. “Who’s been talking to you?”

  Guilt flooded Cecily’s face, and she faltered, “Why do you think someone’s been talking to me?”

  “Because you know you never wanted to be at Lionel’s birth. Is one of your friends breeding?”

  Confusion, dismay, embarrassment—Cecily displayed all those as she stammered, “N-nay.”

  Forthright as always, Marian continued, “If you told someone you helped me with the birth, and you’d help her, too, you’d best admit the falsehood at once.”