Historical Romance – The Best Of The Year. Кэрол Мортимер
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my lady, no, my lady, thank you, my lady, all the while bursting to say more.
Well, her confession had done what she had intended. It turned his attention to this wedding and away from the other one.
The one her mother had claimed to witness.
* * *
Nicholas spent the rest of the day concerning himself with details he could control: making sure the horses were ready, packing food for the journey. The court had returned to Windsor, which would cut the return trip down to scarcely five days.
Five days too many to spend with Anne of Stamford.
Why are you so angry?
He was still wrestling with her question the next morning, as he walked to the stables to retrieve his horse. The inn’s stable had not had room for all their mounts and he wanted the time away from her, from Eustace and the others, just to think.
Anne had tweaked him with her suggestion that he resented the difficulty of unravelling the Prince’s impulsive marriage. Six weeks travelling to Avignon, innumerable days arguing with papal clerks, then the same, long journey back, only to be handed one last task before he was finally free. Yes, he was irritated and impatient.
But that was not the reason for the visceral, unfamiliar fury that had moved him when he discovered that Anne had witnessed the wedding and never told him.
From the beginning, the woman had stirred unwelcome emotions—possession, tenderness, lust and now anger—all those crazed passions he had so proudly spent his life avoiding. The ones that drove men like his father and the Prince into the arms of women who, finally, held them as tight as a prison.
But when he was drawn to Anne, he let his head convince him that it was logical, or at least harmless, to pass the time with her. Meanwhile, he ignored the urges that originated below his neck.
In his loins.
Or even in his heart.
She had sparked feelings he did not even recognise. From hope and prayer for her to find her miracle to a willingness to confess his own failures to a desire so strong that he nearly went far beyond a kiss. A kiss that was still on his lips when she told him—
He stopped in mid-stride in the centre of Canterbury’s busiest street as he realised the truth he should have known all along.
He was angry because she had lied.
She had fooled him because he had started to believe she was different from other women. She wasn’t. She had created an illusion, lured him in, all the while concealing anything she did not want him to know.
He had been no wiser than his father, trusting her, thinking she trusted him, but if she had, she would have shared such a confidence long before.
It made him wonder what else she hid.
Close to Lady Joan, yes. Closer than he had ever imagined.
She had made it clear where her loyalty lay.
A good reminder of a lesson he thought long ago ingrained. Never trust emotions, particularly when it came to women.
As he mounted his horse, his girdle purse swung against his thigh with a gentle thud. Gathering the reins in his left hand, he reached inside, prinking his finger on the edge of St Thomas’s mitre.
The pilgrim badge.
He had broken his rule. Reached for a reminder. Weighed himself down with a token of remembrance.
Nicholas turned the horse toward the inn and bent his elbow, ready to hurl the bauble across the muddy street.
At the last moment, he looked down and rubbed his finger over the sharp, pressed pewter and remembered.
The stubborn set of her jaw, refusing to allow either pain or pity to rule her. Her laughter. Her repudiation of fawning flattery or grovelling thanks when he reached out a hand to help her.
The press of her body against his. The soft hunger of her lips. The way she had forced him to see.
He rounded the corner to see the rest of them already gathered with the horses, waiting. Anne was studying the church across from the inn, no doubt memorising the number of stones.
No. He would collect no more memories. Each one, heavy as a stone, would weigh him down, hold him back. He would let go of this woman and move on to the life he planned.
He dropped his hand and let the medal fall to the dirt, to be trampled by the next passing horse.
He wanted no reminders of this journey.
The gate of Windsor Castle rose before him, a blessed end to a journey which had seemed longer than all the ones before. Other than to see that she was comfortable and safe, Nicholas had tried to stay away from Anne, but he had been forced to step in when the others kept tangling the straps he had designed to hold her firmly to her patient jennet.
He knew that avoidance was only the mirror of desire, both weaknesses of the heart. But as the miles unrolled behind them, he told himself a different story. She had withheld the truth deliberately. It was no sin of omission, no accident. And it had nothing to do with her trust of him.
She had concealed her part in the wedding for some other reason. Whatever that might be, it was reason enough for him to be suspicious.
But he wanted no more mysteries to unravel. The Archbishop and the Pope were appeased. All that was to be done was to have a redundant ceremony so the Prince and his bride could be off to bed, Nicholas off to France and Anne off to...
Well, he didn’t care.
But now, even at Windsor’s gates, carts of building stone stretched between here and the journey’s end, forcing him to ride around them to gain entrance.
Windsor itself he barely recognised. The new entrance with massive stone turrets had been completed in the spring, before he left for France, along with lodgings opposite the chapel, where he would, no doubt, find a bed. In the months he had been away, it seemed that the French peace payments had transformed into men and stone.
Workmen swarmed the castle grounds. Blocks of white, brown and green stone littered the yard, along with stacks of wood. The smell of the iron worker’s charcoal hung in the air. Strong walls, looking more like a church than a fortress, were rising on the north side of the upper bailey.
Sparing a moment’s sympathy for the man taking charge of it all, he swung out of the saddle and handed the reins to Eustace. He was done with all that, he reminded himself, as he went to help Anne off her horse for the last time.
‘Thank you,’ she said, then rested her fingers on the leather straps that had held her steady for the days and miles past. ‘May I keep it?’
He waved a hand in agreement. What use did he have for a leather harness designed for her comfort?
‘Will I see you again?’ she asked, as Agatha called over a servant to unload their horses.
‘I don’t think so.’ If God had been merciful, the ransom for his hostage would be waiting for him, money enough for him to buy the second warhorse he needed, some arms for Eustace, and then book passage to France. From there, he would find the Great Company, and lose himself in the fighting. ‘I’ll leave as soon as I can.’
‘Then God keep you safe on your journey.’ She took a deep breath and let it go, as if she were letting him go, as well, and then turned to confer with Agatha about what rooms would be theirs.
The King and Queen had not yet returned to Windsor, but Edward and Joan had moved their households here to begin planning for the expected wedding. Until the new palace was finished, the royal family was housed in the round tower perched on a hill in the centre of the Windsor grounds.
Nicholas turned to the tower,