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‘She is probably as plain as a pikestaff,’ Justin said, his sense of the ridiculous coming to his rescue. He chuckled deep in his throat. ‘Indeed, she must be, or Featherstone would have matched her long ago. No, no, Ralph. Spare me that sorry fate, I beg you. If I marry, it will be to a lady of the court—a woman in her twenties, a widow, perhaps—who will understand my ways and give me a son without expecting me to love her. I have no time for courtship and pretty words.’
‘You are asking much,’ Ralph said, lifting his brows. ‘Most women desire at least a show of tenderness. Even I know that!’
‘Tenderness?’ Justin arched his brows mockingly. ‘I am not sure I know how to love, my friend. I have been too busy staying alive these last years to have time for tenderness. What do I know but fighting? I have been a mercenary and a privateer, taking comfort from a willing woman where I found it. Besides, what is love? My mother took lovers even before the war, while my father lived. Most women I have known are as inconstant as the moon.’
‘Oh, ye foolish one!’ It was Ralph’s turn to mock now. ‘I’ll take a wager with you, Justin—one day you will find a woman who will show you what love is, and then you will fall hard. Believe me, you will suffer then. She will twist you round her dainty finger!’
‘A hundred gold guineas says you’re wrong,’ Justin replied, mouth twitching at the corners. ‘If I marry, it will be for a son and no more.’
‘Where have you been?’ Lady Featherstone asked as Annelise entered the parlour. ‘I have been looking for you this past age.’
‘What is the matter?’ Annelise asked. She could see her aunt was really upset. ‘What has happened to trouble you so, Aunt?’
‘Your uncle has locked himself in his private room and will not come out,’ Lady Featherstone replied. ‘I have called to him, but he will not answer me and I know he is not well.’
‘How do you know?’
‘Master Blackwell told me he turned pale after reading a letter come this morning from London. Apparently, he cried out that the mark of Satan was come upon this house and rushed away to his sanctum, locking the door after him. He has since been heard to moan and cry out strange things.’
‘What could have been in the letter?’
‘I do not know, nor even who sent it,’ Lady Featherstone said, shaking her head. ‘Your uncle has never discussed his affairs with me. When I have tried to question him about…about his recent neglect of things, he has turned from me.’ There was a catch in her voice. ‘I do not know what is happening to him, Annelise. He seems…’ Her eyes filled with tears. ‘I worry about him. Sometimes I think he might be losing his mind.’
‘Oh, no!’ Annelise cried. ‘Never say it, Aunt. It cannot be so. Let me go to him, let me talk to him…he may be recovered from his distress by now.’
‘Yes, please do so,’ Lady Featherstone said, looking relieved. ‘He will sometimes listen to you.’
Her uncle had always been a cold, distant man, with strong views, but clear in his thinking and fair in his treatment of others. Annelise thought it unlikely her uncle really listened to her, though sometimes if he was in a good humour he would permit her to give him her opinion. He did not relish interference from either her or her aunt. Yet she must try to help him if he was ill.
What could have upset him so much?
She paused outside her uncle’s door, knocking softly. ‘May I come in, sir?’
There was silence for a moment, but just as she was about to knock again the door opened. Her uncle stood there, looking much as always. His thin lips parted in a smile.
‘Yes, child—what may I do for you?’
‘Are you well, sir? I heard that you had been unwell earlier.’
‘Unwell?’ He seemed surprised. ‘Who told you such a tale? I am perfectly well. I have been busy working at my accounts and did not wish to be disturbed, that is all.’ He stood back, indicating that she might enter.
‘I am so relieved.’ Annelise followed him into the rather dark room with its crowded shelves and heavy oaken table, at the end of which was a chair with a high back. It was here that her uncle had been working. She could see the rolls of parchment, his quills and the pewter inkwell. ‘Is there anything I can do to help you, sir?’
‘No, thank you, Niece. I have finished now. I believe everything is in order.’ He hesitated, staring at her oddly. ‘I have not taken as much care of your estate recently as I ought. I beg you will forgive me, Annelise.’
His apology surprised her. ‘I am sure there is nothing to forgive,’ she replied. ‘You have been a good and faithful guardian to me.’
‘And you would say as much to anyone?’
‘Yes, indeed, sir.’
He smiled at her, reached out and patted her cheek. ‘What a good child you are: the daughter your aunt was never able to have. You will always care for her, I hope?’
‘Yes, of course, Uncle—and you.’
‘Then perhaps all will be well,’ he said, and turned away. ‘Leave me now. I have much to think about.’
‘Will you not come to the parlour for your dinner, sir?’
‘No, I am not hungry—but your aunt may send in a warm posset when it suits her. I shall sit quietly by the fire and think…Yes, I must think of what is best to do for the future. Satan’s mark must not fall on you or your aunt…’
‘Satan’s mark, sir?’ Annelise felt a cold chill at the base of her neck. ‘What can you mean?’
Something was different. It had happened in the space of a heartbeat. She sensed it and felt chilled. For a moment her uncle’s eyes seemed to hold a strange glitter. He was ill! If not in body, in mind.
‘There is evil all around us,’ Sir Hugh said, a new wildness about him. ‘When he died I felt it strike here.’ He beat at his breast in anguish. ‘There is no one to do God’s work, no one to intercede for us. The evil has come back to this land—and the mark of Satan is upon us all. But I shall not let it fall on you. No, not if it costs me my life.’
Her uncle’s eyes were looking far beyond her, searching for something. She saw him start, as if he saw what he feared, and then he began to shiver, his whole body shaking as with an ague.
‘You are ill,’ Annelise cried. She saw him clutch at himself, clearly in pain. ‘Pray, let me help you…’
She tried to take hold of his arm, to lead him to the settle, but he threw her off, his eyes wild. She was frightened by his strange manner. What could be wrong with him?
‘You are in danger,’ he cried. ‘Do not trust him, Annelise—the man who comes to claim you. He is the devil in disguise. Beware…beware the mark of Satan…’
Even as Annelise cried out for help, Sir Hugh’s eyes rolled upwards and he fell forward against her. She could not hold him, and must have let him fall had his steward not come rushing into the room at that moment.
‘Let me take him, mistress,’ he said. ‘I thought this would happen…I have seen it coming on, feared it.’
Annelise helped him to assist her uncle to the settle. It was clear that he had lost consciousness, though she could see that he still lived. She believed his illness was of the mind, brought on by grief and fear for the future.
‘What do you mean?’ she asked the steward. ‘Has this happened before?’
‘It was not so bad the last time,’ he replied, looking grave and sad. ‘But I see the hand of God in this, mistress. It is a warning. Unless Sir Hugh consents to seeing a physician, the next seizure may be the finish of him.’
Annelise moved away when her aunt came to take her place; servants were summoned and Sir Hugh was carried up to his chamber and laid on his bed.
What had he been trying to tell her? She was sure that he had been frightened for her sake—that he had been trying to warn her.
But of what?
Annelise snatched off her cap, allowing her long hair to flow freely on her shoulders; her silken tresses caught the sunlight through the trees. It felt so good, but she knew it was wrong. Both her aunt and uncle would have disapproved of her removing the headdress, because it was immodest for a woman to flaunt her beauty; it tempted men to sin and was frowned upon by the church.
She breathed deeply, lifting her face to the sky as she ran helter-skelter, heedless for once of propriety. How sweet the air was here in the woods, full of the scents of summer, and how glad she was to have escaped from the house at last.
For the past five days she had felt like a prisoner. Her uncle had been pronounced gravely ill, though he had come back to his senses a few hours after his seizure. It was then it had been discovered that his right arm and leg had been affected, leaving him partially paralysed. He was confined to bed, ordered to rest by the physician.
Annelise had naturally helped her aunt to nurse him, and she had been distressed by the change in Sir Hugh. He seemed to have aged overnight and was prone to fits of weeping. Worst of all had been the way he had clung to Annelise’s hand and begged for forgiveness. She had tried to reassure him that he had done nothing that needed to be forgiven, but his mind was no longer as clear as it had been and he would not be comforted.
The sun was so warm, but beneath the canopy of leaves Annelise felt cool and refreshed. She began to sing as she danced, abandoning all restraint in the knowledge that she was alone. Her song was one of those she had learned at her mother’s knee, a song of love and betrayal, a song that she would never have dared to sing in her uncle’s hearing.
And so, my love, come lie with me…
There beneath the apple tree…
Give me, sweet, your own true lips,
And I’ll not press for…
Hearing a sound behind her, Annelise swung round, conscious that she was being watched. Her song ceased abruptly as she saw the man. It was the Cavalier she had met in the village—the one with the mocking eyes! The one who had made her heart behave so oddly.
‘Forgive me if I startled you, mistress. Your singing was sweet. It is long since I listened to a maid singing in the woods.’
‘You startled me, sir. I had not thought to see anyone here…’ She blushed as she realised she was in fact trespassing: these woods belonged to Longton Hall. ‘Master Clarke allowed me to come here and I had forgotten there was a new owner…’ She faltered as his eyes narrowed. He was angry. What had she said to make him look like that?
‘Say rather the rightful owner has come home. And none too soon, it seems, by what we have found here.’
‘Master Clarke was a good steward for some years,’ Annelise replied, eyes sparking at the criticism. ‘He was a good man, a godly man—the neglect began only after his wife and David died of the fever. And he died soon after, so cannot be blamed for what you have found.’
‘You are staunch in their defence,’ Justin said, his eyes intent on her face. ‘They were perhaps your friends, mistress?’
‘They were neighbours and friends,’ she replied, still on her mettle, her face proud, back stiff. ‘Had David lived only a year or so longer, I might have been his wife.’
‘Ah…I see why you defend Master Clarke.’
Justin nodded his understanding. At first he had not been sure that this enchanting creature was the little Puritan wench from the village. Without her cap to hide that hair she was indeed beautiful. Ralph had been right; she was well worth the bedding. A smile touched his mouth as he imagined her beneath him, her body naked as nature intended, her mouth soft, inviting his kiss. Her drab clothes belied the true nature of the wench. Beneath that veneer of modesty lay passion. He’d dare swear there was fire in her, though she no doubt did her best to quench it—perhaps not with her sweetheart, though.
‘Master Clarke’s son was your sweetheart, then. That is why you come here, to remember him and the delights of love he taught you here in some secret glade.’ He moved towards her, feeling the desire stir in him. A surprising thing, since his tastes usually ran to more sophisticated ladies of the Court. She looked up, eyes wide and, to his mind, inviting. He reached out, touching her cheek, his thumb brushing over her mouth, tempted to kiss her. ‘Perhaps you came looking for a lover today?’
‘No, indeed you are wrong!’ Annelise was horrified. Why was he looking at her so strangely? She stepped back hastily, her heart racing like the wind. How could he say such lewd, wicked things to her? ‘You mistake the matter, sir. My uncle spoke of arranging a match—to unite our families and lands, that is all.’
‘To unite…’ Justin frowned as he was struck by a sudden thought. Robert’s lands marched with those of Lord Woodward. Of course, why had he not realised at once? ‘Are you by chance the niece of Sir Hugh Featherstone?’
‘Yes.’ She was puzzled by the immediate change in his expression; the hot, intense look had gone from his eyes and he seemed stunned. ‘I am Annelise Woodward—do you know my uncle, sir?’
‘I know of him,’ Justin replied, his gaze narrowing. He was aware of frustration, of an unreasoning anger. ‘I had not thought him a man to allow his niece to run wild. It is hardly proper for you to be wandering about in this manner, Mistress Woodward. You could be mistaken for…’ He recollected himself. His own behaviour had been less than correct, but he had thought her a village girl. ‘I should have expected a girl of your station to be more closely watched.’
How dared he suggest that she was a hoyden—or worse? Annelise glared at him, her wrath simmering.
‘I have always been safe in these woods until today,’ she said, temper suddenly flaring. ‘Indeed, there were only godly people here—until you came with your friends, sir. My uncle knew me to be safe.’
‘Indeed, mistress, I will bow to your uncle’s superior knowledge.’
Justin smiled inwardly as he recovered from the shock. Damn it! He had come close to seducing his own ward; the knowledge that he had been on the verge of kissing her…of far more if she had been willing…shook him to the core. It was his duty to protect her, to challenge any who would dishonour or harm her—and to see her safely wed to a decent man.
Now that Justin had seen her, seen the beauty and the passion that lay beneath the surface, he knew that her marriage was a matter of urgency. Perhaps she had been safe in this place, but life in England was bound to change now that the old inhibitions had been swept away. The people had been repressed for so long that some were bound to fall into bad ways—he knew only too well the nature of men. He had taken his women where he’d found them, often on the ground, sheltered only by the warmth of a velvet night and a shared blanket. He was not the only soldier to have forgotten that a lady should be treated with tenderness and chivalry. And England would be awash with men who had lost their youth, lost all the finer feelings they had once had, together with their land and houses.
His next thought surprised him. This girl was too beautiful to be left to wither away in a tiny Cambridgeshire village. She should have the chance to live, to shine in the right surroundings—and it was his responsibility, his duty, to see that she had that chance.
She was turning away, her face reflecting the troubled nature of her thoughts. He had frightened her, distressed her. He did not want her to leave with harsh words unresolved between them.
‘Stay a moment, mistress,’ he said, catching at her sleeve. ‘I meant no disrespect, nor did I intend to imply your uncle was at fault. I have been a soldier too long, and my manners leave much to be desired. If I have upset you, I apologise.’
Annelise hesitated. There was something about him that attracted her, even when he made her angry. She sensed the power of the man—a man who had seen too much of war and killing. Yet there was a softer nature, an inner self he kept hidden but which she had glimpsed when he’d teased his friends. She thought she might like that other man very well.
‘There is no need for apology,’ she said. ‘It was my fault for taking off my cap. You thought me something I was not. It is only…that I needed some release. My uncle has been confined to his sick bed these past five days and I have been anxious. It was good to run wild for a moment, to feel free…but it was not proper and I should not have done it.’
The stubborn pride had gone from her lovely face, replaced by a look of shame. Justin felt a surge of anger at himself and those who had trodden down her spirit, making her believe that to live for pleasure was sin. He had scolded her, but in truth why should she not enjoy her innocent pleasures?
‘You were not at fault, Mistress Woodward,’ he said, and now the softness in his voice sent little tremors down her spine. ‘But perhaps you ought not to come here alone in future—for your own sake. There are men who might be tempted beyond bearing by such loveliness as yours, men who could not be trusted to behave as they ought.’
Annelise bent her head, her cheeks flaming. ‘I have been told…’
‘Nay, I do not mean that you should hide your beauty,’ Justin said. ‘I am not one of those who think beauty a sin, indeed I revere and treasure it. I meant only that these are dangerous times. For your safety I would have you bring a servant with you, to protect you from those who might harm you.’
‘Oh…’ Something in his look made her heart beat faster. She stared up at him, her lips parting on a sigh. ‘You…are kind, sir.’
‘Kind?’ Justin laughed, the devilment leaping up in his eyes. She was an innocent. How little she knew of men! ‘No, mistress, do not deceive yourself. Had you been other than you are, I might have done my best to lie with you this very day.’
Annelise lowered her gaze, her heart racing. His words ought to make her angry. He had no right to say them to her…but somehow she did not mind.
‘I…I think you mock me, sir.’
‘Oh, no, not you,’ he replied, his lips twisting in a wry smile. ‘Myself, perhaps—but not you.’
She looked up at him, the beginnings of confidence in her eyes. Justin drew in his breath. By God, she could be a charmer if she chose. She had been kept close, indoctrinated with a creed he found abhorrent—but what if she were shown another way to live?
His mind began to draw pictures. He saw her at Court, dressed in a gown more fitting to her beauty and station. He saw her beginning to emerge from her chrysalis, developing into the woman she could become—and he felt the laughter begin to bubble inside him.
How amusing it would be to turn this little Puritan into a lady of the Court. She was innocent, malleable—he could make of her what he wished. He imagined himself as her guardian, watching over her education. She could be anything he desired…the mistress of the King!
That was an idea to play with, Justin decided. It would put Barbara’s nose out, and he had never cared for the shrewish temper of Mistress Palmer—or Lady Castlemaine as she was now known. She might think herself invincible and flaunt the honours her husband had received from His Majesty, but Charles was not a fool; soon he must see how avaricious his mistress was—and then he would surely look about him for a replacement. And why not Mistress Woodward?
Justin found the notion amusing. He would not make up his mind just yet, but if this little beauty managed to catch Charles’s interest, it could bring him favour at Court—and yet she surely deserved more.
It was his duty to see her well married. After that the game was all to play. Only a fool would expect fidelity from his wife—and most would be flattered if she were chosen to grace the King’s bed.
‘I should like to call on Sir Hugh soon,’ Justin said, bowing his head to her. ‘When will it be convenient for me to call?’
Annelise was uncertain. She did not quite like the way he was looking at her.
‘I am not sure, sir. I could send word to Longton Hall if my uncle would like to see you—what name should I give him?’
‘Justin Rochefort,’ he replied. ‘It is important that I speak to your uncle, mistress. Please ask him if he will see me as a matter of some urgency.’
‘As you wish.’
Annelise hesitated. He had let go of her sleeve; she was free to go, but somehow she lingered. Though at times he seemed stern, there was a charm about him—something that made her want to know more of him, something that made her foolish heart leap like lambs in the spring.
