9
“The king has sent for you, Cate! What can it mean?”
It was Marguerite who brought the news to where Cate was walking with Gwynne in the cloister between the palace and the king’s chapel, breathing in the fresh moist air that came with the rain falling beyond its long colonnade. Her sister’s eyes were wide and dark and her veil was askew. Behind her, looking none too comfortable with their errand, were two yeoman guards sent to escort Cate to wherever Henry was closeted at the moment.
How very like his regal male majesty to command her presence when she was wearing her oldest gown and had bundled her braided hair into a length of dull netting topped by a squat hennin of no great style. To change would be impossible, of course; Henry did not care to be kept waiting. Reaching up to tuck in a few tendrils of hair made unruly by the damp weather, she refused to think of the last time she had been summoned before the king, or what had been the result.
Marguerite came closer, twining her arm with Cate’s. “Do you think it’s about your betrothal? What if he insists you sign the contract?”
“My dependence is upon Ross. Well, and his father.” The instant she signed her name, she would be considered both officially betrothed and legally wed to the Scotsman. That act must put him at greater risk from the curse. “But mayhap that isn’t what Henry wants at all.”
“What else could it be? You’ve done nothing you should not.”
“Certainly not,” she answered, with what firmness she could muster.
A small shiver ran over Cate as her midnight scurrying through the maze of the palace on the way to and from Ross’s chamber ran through her mind. There had been no more of that in the handful of days since Christmas; she had not even been present when Gwynne removed the stitches from his wound. Still, news of the escapade might merely have been delayed in reaching the king.
Marguerite squeezed her arm. “You aren’t nervous, are you? I know Henry seems stern, but the weight of his responsibilities would make any man so.”
“You are dear to be concerned, as well as for coming to find me,” Cate said with a bright smile, “but I will be quite all right.”
Fine words, but she wished she could take them back before she was halfway to Henry’s apartments. The progression of rooms and doors seemed never-ending; the number of people she had to pass with her royal escort was so great she feared every soul in the palace must know her destination. The measured thud of booted heels behind her made such thunder in her ears that she felt a little faint. It was a great relief when she was finally ushered into a long gallery, where rain pecked at the mullioned panes of window glass in arched openings that displayed the gray day outside.
Henry sat at a large table with sheets of vellum spread over its surface, tall floor candelabras at each end, and a courier standing at attention beside him. As she entered, a man turned from where he stood staring out at the falling rain. Ross faced her, his features set in grim lines and his eyes darkly blue and unreadable. Setting his feet in a wide and ready stance, he clasped his hands behind him.
Cate’s breath caught in her chest as her gaze meshed with that of the Scotsman. She could not think for a long instant, barely remembered to drop into the required curtsy for the royal presence.
Henry raised her from it with a negligent gesture, though his head remained bent over his work. For long moments, the murmur of the rain and scratch of Henry’s quill were the only sounds.
At last he put down the pen, read over the page he had finished, then sanded it and poured the excess grains back into their sifter. Rolling the vellum with care, he put it into a leather tube. Giving it into the keeping of the courier, he dismissed him. Only when the door had closed behind the man did he turn his attention to Cate.
“We bid you good day, Lady Catherine, and trust we see you well.”
“And you, Your Majesty,” she murmured.
“Yes, yes.” He made a swift gesture, as if pressed for time. “We regret that this matter of your betrothal to Dunbar has gone unsettled for so long, as we feel sure the outcome concerns you.”
“Indeed, sire.” Her voice was dust-dry.
Henry’s eyelids flickered at the irony, but he chose to ignore it. “News of moment reached London this morning from across the Irish Channel. It seems a priest, Father Symonds by name, has presented to a gathering in Dublin a young boy whom he swears to be the earl of Warwick.”
“Warwick,” she repeated with a pleat forming between her brows, “not one of the vanished princes.” Warwick would be the son of George, duke of Clarence and brother to Edward IV. In one of the more vicious turns of Edward’s reign, George had been imprisoned in the Tower for treason, and subsequently drowned in a butt of malmsey wine. Some said the terrors of that time, and young Warwick’s imprisonment afterward by his other uncle, Richard III, had addled his wits, making him an unlikely candidate for the crown.
“A patent lie, as we shall soon prove,” Henry said with a dismissive gesture. “Warwick has been sequestered in the Tower for some time. There will be no difficulty in showing him to the people of London, a fair number of whom may recognize him from other years, other sightings. No, this is merely the symptom of a deeper rot.”
Cate glanced at Ross, but he was watching Henry. If he knew what the king intended by telling her of this latest intelligence, nothing of it showed on his face.
“I am sorry to hear it,” she said.
“It was unrealistic to expect the Yorkists to give over so easily,” Henry continued with a brooding expression on his long face. “They have been used to bending all to their will for far too long, their leaders accustomed to meeting behind closed doors to arrange matters to suit themselves. They think of us as an outsider, barely English at all.”
He stopped, looked away, mayhap thinking on his fifteen years of exile before landing on English soil with an invasion force. From some nearby chamber came the sound of a crying babe, a reminder that Henry had a three-month-old son somewhere in the palace, though the child seldom appeared in public. Cate wondered if he ever thought of the fate of Edward’s vanished sons and considered what might happen to his own if he should be defeated while fighting for his crown.
She also spared a moment to think of this Yorkist pretender, the young boy caught up in the ambitions of powerful men who wanted to be yet more powerful. He must be at that awkward age between eleven and fifteen if he was to be taken as the son of Edward IV or his brother George. Did he understand the implications of what was happening? Did he realize he was committing treason, however unwittingly, and might die for it?
The baby stopped crying. Henry rose from the chair behind the table and moved to the window where Ross stood. Bracing a hand on its frame, he gazed out at the drear scene beyond, with its sheep-cropped tan grass, its skeletal trees and drooping, rain-wet hedges. Speaking almost as if to himself, he said, “We have need of allies who can be trusted.”
“There are those who will rally to you,” Cate said, driven to offer solace by the air of loneliness about him.
“Lancastrians, yes, those who gather round for what they can gain from it, or to be certain old enemies are kept from power. Also, those who shared our years in Brittany, hunted by Edward and Richard, or remember us from childhood as the duke of Richmond, or remain faithful to the duchess of Richmond and Derby.”
The last named was, of course, his mother who had been so instrumental in seeing he had his chance at the throne. She was often a part of his councils, but not on this day. She had been given a Thames-side mansion no great distance away, Cate knew, and was seeing to its renovation.
“It’s not enough,” Henry went on after a moment. “Your sister’s husband, Braesford, is our most trusted baron in the border marches, but what he may do there is limited, particularly as he is troubled by raiders from Scotland. He would be more effective if he had not that worry.”
The outline of what he intended formed swiftly in Cate’s mind. She recognized his magnanimity in attempting to explain it to her, but that did nothing to make it more acceptable. “If Your Majesty intends a role for—”
“We do. The alliance between you and Dunbar will add much-needed stability to the region. We desire that the marriage be celebrated forthwith. In return, as I have proposed, an estate no different in size to the lands of Braesford Hall shall be settled upon your bridegroom, along with its keep and all attendant villages.”
She looked again toward Ross. He was scowling at the king, his lips pressed together in a hard line. She swallowed on bile, while stiffening her spine to keep from weaving where she stood. “But…but he has not gained the permission of the laird.”
“Dunbar is well past his majority, thus able to choose for himself. While permission from the leader of his clan would be a boon, it is hardly necessary.” The king turned to the Scotsman. “What say you, Dunbar?”
Ross appeared unmoved, though his accent was as thick as river fog when he answered. “To wed an English lass is nay what I intended.”
“Three years ago we had no idea of wedding a princess royal, yet sometimes needs must,” Henry said austerely.
“What manner of husband have you in mind for Lady Catherine should I refuse?”
“That need not concern you.”
“Nay, but if it does?”
Cate, watching the byplay between the two men, could hardly breathe for the tightness in her chest. What was Ross doing? Why was he not declaring he would not marry her for all the jewels of Araby?
A judicious expression settled on the king’s face. “A certain noble has applied for her hand. He may be encouraged to remain loyal to us if favored in his suit.”
“If you give her to him as a bribe, you mean, along with her inherited lands and the northern estate you offer to me.”
“Just so.”
“Crafty devil,” Ross said, his gaze hard as he met the eyes of the king.
Henry allowed himself a crooked smile. “We like to think so.”
The king permitted this familiarity, Cate thought, because they were speaking in private, and possibly because he appreciated Ross’s blunt way, which was so different from the fawning sycophancy that surrounded him. It might also be because he was glad to have matters out in the open. Henry knew Ross and Trilborn were enemies, and was deliberately fanning the flames of their feud to gain the end he sought.
That did not mean he would not follow through on his threat, she realized with a shudder of dismay. The words had been spoken and would not be retracted.
Yet something more seemed to hover between the two men. Was Henry playing a deeper game? Had he some doubt of Trilborn’s loyalty, that he thought giving her to the man might sway him? Or did he, just possibly, want to bring the quarrel between Trilborn and the Scotsman to a boil in hope Ross would do away with a possible traitor?
He could not know of Ross’s injury in that case, must not be aware that the outcome of a fight between the two men would be in doubt. Or mayhap he knew and didn’t care.
“Yon Trilborn is no fit husband for a gently bred lady,” Ross said with a look of hard disfavor. “He takes his pleasure by rough wooing.”
“A fine reason to see Lady Catherine does not become his wife.”
“As you say, and yet…”
“Surely, you lend no credence to this wild talk of a curse,” Henry said in high impatience.
“Nay, but my father will curse me twice over if I agree. I’ll have neither clan nor country, and I’d never a notion of becoming an Englishman.”
Henry turned his head to meet his gaze, his own ice-cold. “If the alternative is to take up residence in the White Tower, what say you?”
Ross tipped his head as his eyes narrowed. “’Tis a fair dwelling, one where kings and queens await their coronations.”
“One they sometimes fail to leave.”
The words, grim with warning, hung in the cool air. Beyond the window, the rain increased to a hissing downpour. A candle guttered in a stray draft, its wick popping. Distant voices grew louder, as if coming closer, and then receded again.
The White Tower mentioned was part of the complex known as the Tower of London. It was there the vanished princes had once been sequestered. It was also there, so some said, the old and sainted madman known as Henry VI had been murdered by his nephews, Edward IV and Richard III. The nearby Bell Tower was where Braesford, husband to Cate’s sister, had been imprisoned for a time on a charge of child murder. Would the king really shut Ross away in either place merely for refusing to be married?
Yes, of course he would. What was the point of being king if a man was reluctant to use royal power to bend others to his will?
Ross seemed to have little doubt of it. A vein throbbed in his forehead as he stared at Henry, and a white line appeared around his mouth. He put a hand to his side where his dirk should have been, though the scabbard that usually held it was empty.
“Well?” Henry, grim and unbending, waited for his answer.
“Why then,” Ross drawled, his eyes darkly blue as he turned his head to meet Cate’s gaze at last, “post the banns and prepare the wedding meats. I shall be as blithe a bridegroom as was ever seen between here and Solway.”
The curses that thundered through Ross’s head matched the heavy tread of his boots on the corridor’s stone floor. Tower or marriage? He hardly knew which threat enraged him more. It had been years since he’d bowed to any will other than his own. Even the old laird, his father, had never threatened to shut him away in prison to insure obedience.
By all the saints, but he’d longed to tell Henry to do his worst. If not for the lady who marched at his side, Ross would have opted for prison, and England’s king bedamned. It would have been a pleasure to see the look on Henry’s long face when he said it.
Aye, that it would.
Impossible.
If he refused to marry Lady Catherine, she’d be handed over to Trilborn. That mangy son of Satan would have her in his bed before the ink was dry on the betrothal contract. He’d strip her naked and ram into her without mercy, making her pay for every injury to his pride, every insult to his manhood caused by her refusal to be seduced, every instant of pain inflicted when Ross had pulled him off her. The thought of it was so sickening that Ross could never allow it, not and live with himself.
“Why?”
That question, so reasonable in Cate’s quiet voice, enraged him anew. He should have known she would not leave it alone, but would insist on an explanation. The two of them had lost their escort on leaving the area of the king’s apartments, after passing through the ante-chambers where courtiers stood talking in corners and their ladies strolled about to show off their finery. The part of the palace he and Cate traversed now was little occupied. Soon they would reach the great hall, and all chance of a private exchange would be ended.
“Why what?” he demanded. “You expected me to choose prison over being a husband? You thought I might enjoy keeping company with the Tower’s ghosts?”
“You might have explained that you’d given your word.”
“And you might have absolved me, so I’d not have to go back on it.”
Her eyes flashed blue lightning at him. “I can’t imagine how you can say that when you know how little I wish to be wed!”
“I didn’t hear you calling for a wimple and crucifix as an escape.”
“Henry was in no mood to listen if I had. He barely had time for anything except the matter at hand.”
Ross grunted his opinion of that excuse. “He’d plenty of time to sign a prison order.”
“You would rather die than face that possibility, I suppose,” she snapped, “since that’s what it will amount to now that we have signed the betrothal documents.”
“Not that again.” He’d no more patience with her portents of doom than he did with remembering how they had set their names to the various vellum scrolls while Henry watched. The king, leaving nothing to chance, had seen these were prepared and ready. Thinking of that point also irked Ross beyond bearing.
“It won’t go away merely because you refuse to acknowledge it,” she declared with a fulminating look.
“What I can’t prevent, I must endure.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning your so-called curse may do its worst, for I’ve other things on my mind. My father has sworn to cast me from the clan, hearth and homeland, and so he will.”
“But it didn’t stop you from agreeing to be wed.”
“Nay, that it did not.”
“Which shows plainly that vengeance means more to you than any of those things.”
“Oh, aye, I’d rather lose those things than see Trilborn claim you.”
“A dog in the manger stance if ever there was one! Such a stupendous compliment, knowing I’m to be taken to wife as a blow in a feud.”
“If that’s the way you want it,” Ross said shortly.
“How else, pray?”
He came to an abrupt halt. Reaching to catch her arm, he swung her hard against him. “It will be the greatest pleasure to snatch the bride Trilborn wanted from under his nose,” he said with the roughness of unadorned need in his voice. “Yes, and to take you into my bed.”
Her eyes widened, the pupils growing darker as she gazed up at him. Her lips were parted and as tempting as sweet summer cherries. The quick breaths that lifted her chest also pressed her warm curves against him, and the juncture where the curves of her thighs came together brushed his hard heat with tantalizing softness.
“No,” she whispered.
“Aye,” he said, his gaze on her mouth while his body hardened like tempered steel.
Wild rose color suffused her features as she searched his eyes. “You can’t.”
“I can. I will.”
Her mouth, as he set his own to it, was as sweet as it looked. He tasted it in full, plundering its warmth and moisture with ravening force. He set his feet and shifted his grasp, sliding his hand under her arm to cup the soft resilience of her breast. The nipple nudged his palm, a tight bud of provocation. He brushed over it, drew in her soft moan of response as if it offered perfect sustenance. Mayhap it did, for he deepened the kiss with mindless hunger. Twining his tongue with hers, he abraded its silken surface, sought the tender recess underneath, intruded deeper and withdrew in a parody of his most urgent need. His breath burned in his chest. His brain simmered in the cauldron of his skull. He ached with such throbbing pain that the back of his neck seemed to scorch his shirt and red-hot coals burn his boot soles.
Cate shuddered, drawing a breath that sobbed in her throat. The sound vibrated through him, found a touch spring of strained reason.
He released her with abrupt, muscle-wrenching reluctance. Stepping back, he turned so fast that his plaid flared around his knees, billowed behind his shoulder. He stalked away then, leaving her standing behind him.
It was either that or take her there in that drafty corridor with all the ungentle force that Trilborn had intended when he set upon her in nearly the same place. And Ross was not sure which stunned him most, that desperate need or the fact that he managed to subdue it.
Was she to be bedded to spite an old foe, or in payment for the loss of patrimony?
Neither alternative appealed to Cate, though her toes curled in her slippers at the mere thought of them as she watched the Scotsman stalk away from her. Soon he would be her husband, with all the rights and privileges that entailed. He could do whatever he liked to her, and none would gainsay him. And what might he not do, if he came to hate her for all he had lost?
She didn’t want to think of it, nor did she care to envision the raw, physical act, how it would feel or how she would endure it. She had seen firsthand the hostility visited upon her mother by her stepfather. That Cate might have to abide with the same violent treatment, the slurs, insults, blows and worse that took place behind closed doors, was a horror in the mind. Better that the curse intervene than to suffer it.
Still, she could not picture Ross Dunbar as such a malignant husband. Her vision of him was quite otherwise.
She should not think of him at all in that guise; this she knew well. Yet how could she not? Nothing else was quite so important in a woman’s life. And if the intimations of future pleasure brought by his kiss were more vivid than her memories of childhood fears, if she wished mightily in her weaker moments that he could be immune to the curse, what did that say of her?
Arrogant, shortsighted, thickheaded man! She had no desire to be the cause of a rift between him and his father. Nor did she wish to curtail Ross’s freedom or tie him to England. She wanted only to save his life, if the fool would but let her.
Her hands trembled as she touched her veil to be sure it was in place, ran her hands down the front of her gown to remove any wrinkles. How very off balance she felt, as if she had come safely through some unexpected storm but could not be sure it was over. Moving with deliberate steps to allow her breathing to return to normal, she followed in the direction Ross had disappeared.
The entrance to the great hall was in sight when she heard someone approaching from behind her. A quick glance over her shoulder confirmed what she feared already. Her defenses closed in like window shutters slamming into place.
“I give you good day, Lady Catherine,” Trilborn said, his voice even, as if nothing untoward had ever passed between them.
She sent him a cutting glance, but made no reply.
“You’ve just come from the king, I think. I heard you had been summoned, saw you and Dunbar pass through just now as I stood with friends.”
“How convenient for you.” He had been loitering, waiting to follow her again, she was sure. Regardless, he had delayed until she was alone. Had he seen what passed between her and Ross? She didn’t care if he had. In fact, she hoped for it, if it would discourage him.
“You appear less than overjoyed at the tidings received from our good King Henry,” he went on.
“Do I?” The heavy door to the hall lay ahead of her. She measured the distance with her eyes while increasing her pace a fraction.
“Shall I guess what has you in such upset? Henry the Grim has seen fit to end your maidenly shrinking. He has commanded you to the altar.”
Maidenly shrinking, indeed! “If you must have it, yes. Ross and I are to be wed.”
“My disappointment knows no bounds.”
“You should be delighted,” she snapped. “You have escaped the curse.”
Ahead of her, the heavy door into the great hall swung open and two gentlemen emerged. Seeing her, the one in the lead held it while inclining his head. She almost ran the few steps that would allow her to pass through, escaping the private exchange with Trilborn.
He sprang after her with a muttered oath, sliding through the opening just before the door closed again. Cate did not look back as she paused to seek Ross among those scattered over the vast, echoing space. He was not there. The benighted man must have walked straight through the hall on his way out of the palace. Nor was her sister to be seen.
“Ross, is it?” Trilborn asked, frowning as he arrived at her side. “You use his given name?”
“We are to be wed, after all.”
“Or not,” he answered, his voice silken with menace.
She met his gaze then, while a small headache began to pulse at her temples, throbbing with each beat of her heart. She feared to probe his meaning, but was equally afraid to refrain. “What are you saying?”
“If his death is now decreed by this curse of the Graces, the thing can be arranged.”
A cold tremor moved down her back like river ice sliding out to sea. “Don’t!”
“But I had the impression you would be glad to be free.”
“Well, but…”
“Have no fear. It shall be as you desire.”
He set a fist on his hip as he bowed, then swung away with his short cape draped over his bent arm like a wing, flapping as he walked away. He thrust his legs forward in long steps, his head up, staring around. It was hard to say whether it was vanity that moved him, or if he watched to see those he would avoid before they saw him.
It shall be as you desire…?.
And how was that, pray? What did she want? What would she ask if she could have her desire?
Cate wanted to know what it was to be loved, wanted that above all else. If it must be denied her, then she longed to know what took place between a man and a woman in the dark of night, that upheaval of feeling that could make the more daring ladies of the court smile and toss their heads, and the serving women sigh. Was it too much to ask?
Ross could give her that much, at least. He was ready to bed her, for he’d said so in plain words. The betrothal contracts they had signed had all the legality of marriage. Few would say a word if she gave birth to his child nine month hence, and the babe would be his heir. If the curse killed him before a priest could hear their vows, he would not die without issue.
It was three weeks before the wedding could be solemnized. That length of time was required for the banns to be read, for news to travel near and far, so the old laird or anyone else could object to the wedding. The wedding feast must be prepared, her trousseau aired and made ready, and preparations made for traveling northward to take up the lands provided by the king. Three weeks were left during which Trilborn and the curse might vie to rid Ross of life.
What did she really want?
She had a mere three weeks to make up her mind.