His Duty, Her Destiny

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‘George, she’s getting too friendly with Jonathan Carey. She believes he’ll marry her if she encourages him to.’

His hands stopped caressing. ‘Is that what she said? Carey doesn’t need any encouragement, from what I’ve heard.’

‘Yes, they’re close. It’s dangerous, love. She must marry Fergus. It’s the best way for her to be safe. You know how persistent men like Lord John can be. He’ll not be the only one, either.’ She would not have said as much to Nicola, but the problem was serious, for while it had been acceptable for her father to live alone at the Bishops-gate house whenever he needed to, it was not at all the same thing for Nicola to do so. Widowed, she could have got away with it, but Nicola had neither husband nor father nor family with her, and was therefore living outside a man’s rule. For her to entertain a stream of young men on the basis that she was merely exercising her independence was asking for trouble. An ungoverned and unprotected woman could very quickly be saddled with a reputation that would take some living down. Charlotte could not quite understand why Nicola didn’t seem to care.

‘Well, the trouble is, love,’ said George, ‘that my sister’s dislike goes so far back that Fergus is going to have a real battle on his hands now. They didn’t even look at each other this evening.’

‘She looked plenty at his brother, though. Was that to annoy Fergus, d’ye think?’

‘I’m sure of it. That’s been the least of her rude-nesses so far.’

‘Did you know she has a wound on her breast?’

‘A what?’ George frowned, turning her to face him.

‘I saw the top of it just below her chemise. She’s been fencing with the guards off again, I suppose. I do wish she wouldn’t. Can you not speak to her about it?’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Yes, positive. Why?’ George was used to keeping his thoughts to himself, but his wife knew him too well to be deceived. ‘You know something, don’t you? Tell me,’ she said.

‘There were two rapiers in the hall. I wondered what they were doing there at that time of the morning. Fergus picked them up and placed them against the wall. I thought that was a bit odd, too.’

‘God in heaven, George, what are you saying? That Fergus…and Nicola…?’

‘Fought. Before I got there. She’d not beat him at that. None of us could.’

‘Argh!’ Charlotte pulled herself out of George’s arms with a cry of despair and went to hold the carved post of the bed, leaning her fair head against the knotted curtains. ‘That puts him out of the running, then.’

‘Not at all,’ said George. ‘I know his ways.’

‘What?’ She turned angrily. ‘To wound a woman first before he…?’

‘Well, I don’t think he’s ever gone quite as far as that before, but he has his methods, and he’ll certainly make her pay attention to him, one way or another.’

‘George Coldyngham, you can be so crass when you try, can’t you?’ Charlotte snapped, trying to push past him to her side of the bed. ‘I’ve never heard anything so ridiculous, and if I were Nicola I’d—’

She was caught up by George’s arms and thrown sideways on to the bed like a skittle with him on top of her, and the tussle that ensued was too short to be anything like equal. ‘But you’re not her, are you?’ George whispered, taking a handful of her moonbeam hair. ‘You’re the woman I’ve had my eye on all evening, and now I’ve got you here, all to myself, and I’m not sharing you a moment longer with anyone. Now, do you give yourself, or do I have to take you?’

‘Mm…m, a bit of both?’ she said, showing him her lovely white teeth.

While Lotti and George saw Fergus as a solution to the problem of Nicola’s safety, Nicola herself saw things rather differently. Her brother and sister-in-law had not, after all, experienced what she had experienced of the man’s youthful callousness and now his grave discourtesy when he had taken advantage of her right under their noses. The memory of the kiss had kept her awake half the night as she alternately ascribed it to a kind of revenge, then to curiosity, then to a manly thing, then to some misguided idea that it might help to persuade her. None of them rang true.

Convinced that she must be the one to hold the reins in this matter, she set to work as never before to put as much distance between them as it was possible to do in a place the size of London, a device not so very difficult with the help of friends and fair weather. The first day she spent at the Tower of London, where the Yorkist king Edward IV kept his menagerie of lions and an elephant, a camel and a black-and-white striped horse. She went hawking outside the city walls and returned home to discover that Sir Fergus Melrose had called and left her a white rabbit. It was a very satisfying day, and she called the rabbit after him, being unsure of its gender.

The next day she devoted to visiting several of the convents near Bishops-gate. To her delight, she discovered that Sir Fergus had called again while she was out, but no one could tell him exactly where she would be. The gardener grumbled that Melrose had chewed through four of his lettuces.

The next two days were taken up from morn till night with another endless round of activities designed especially to keep her from home; a day spent mostly on the river as far as Richmond, another day shopping on Cheapside, returning home by suppertime to find that Melrose had demolished more lettuces and was imprisoned in an empty coldframe. It was all going very well, for Sir Fergus had called yet again. She had begun to hope that he would soon take the hint, but she had forgotten how Fergus thrived on challenges.

Jonathan Carey, Earl of Rufford, thrived on challenges of a different kind that Nicola, in her innocence, had not fully understood until last night, when Lotti had pointed out with alarming frankness that Lord John had not mentioned matrimony and that it would probably be bedlock he had in mind rather than wedlock. He had never approached George for formal permission to court her and, though Nicola felt that perhaps the handsome earl’s thinly veiled suggestions were putting the cart before the horse, so to speak, a hint of marriage would have been more in keeping with her declaration to Lotti that her friends wanted her for her own sake. That had been a monumental piece of wishful thinking, for she had no way of knowing what they wanted her for.

As for Fergus Melrose, he was the exception. He wanted her for the Coldyngham name and for his personal promise to his father. Believing himself to be her favourite, Jonathan Carey wanted her for her companionship, and presumably if George had thought her reputation to be in danger because of it, he would have told her so.

The day was bright and warm as Nicola and Lord John rode side by side through Bishops-gate past the Bethlehem Hospital and the Priory of St Mary’s Spital, both of which she had recently visited. Beyond the fine houses and gardens was the Shoreditch, open fields and windmills where they and their friends could freely show off their horses, eagerly placing bets on the outcome of their races.

He was a pleasant companion, one of the first to come a-calling when she had first moved to Bishops-gate; although there were a few little weaknesses in his character, none of them had been serious enough to disturb Nicola. He was apparently wealthy, so George’s fears that she would be a target for bounty-hunters was not applicable there. He was pleasantly good-looking rather than striking, graceful and willowy rather than robust, well mannered but sometimes embarrassingly flirtatious, chatty, good fun and ever ready to entertain her, and if she found herself lending him money for expenses while they were out, that was because he forgot to carry any with him. He also forgot, dear man, to pay her back, but no matter.

His trim sandy hair hardly moved in the breeze as he turned to look over his hugely padded shoulder at the troupe of friends riding behind them. A high embroidered collar embraced all but the front of his neck where an ornate tassel held his short cloak together. Nicola liked his style.

‘Well, my lady,’ he said, turning his twinkling blue eyes towards her. ‘There’ll be a few bets laid on your new nag, but I think I may well go home with funds in my purse today.’ He patted the blue leather pouch that hung from his belt over a blue pourpoint. Everything matched, even his sapphire ring. ‘What’s the prize for the winner to be?’ he whispered, leaning towards her. ‘A night with the chaste Nicola?’

Nicola looked straight ahead, ignoring his teasing look. ‘The winner may take me back home by all means,’ she said lightly, ‘but that’s all. Anyway, I shall win on my Janus, then I get to choose my own escort.’

‘Ah…’ he laughed ‘…then I cannot lose, can I?’

‘Don’t be too sure, my lord,’ she said, patting the smooth neck of her mount. ‘My choice will not always fall on you, you know.’

The merry smile left his face, though his eyes watched hers to assure her of his intentions. ‘I shall take it very ill, Nicola, if it does not. You know how I feel about you.’

Privately, she wished he would not. She had no objection to mild flirting, but this kind of talk was difficult to handle, coming from him, too restricting, too uncomfortable. What was the matter with men these days? Fortunately, the usually well-mannered Janus threw up his head and danced sideways as a hedgehog scuttled away from the track before them, claiming her attention until he was settled.

She had bought Janus only a few weeks ago, and still only suspected the kind of speed of which he was capable with those long delicate legs and deep chest. He was a three-year-old gelding with dappled-grey shading and charcoal socks, like a silver ghost in a leafy-shadowed forest. He was exquisite and showy, full of energy, and he had cost her forty guineas, and she was sure that none of her friends, including Lord John, knew that she had been used to racing her brothers in the past.

Being unmarried and free, she had chosen to wear her hair in one thick plait braided with ribbons and a gold circlet that sat well on her forehead. A broad green sash supported her breasts, pushing them high beneath a tiny bodice of patterned green brocade, its wide neckline showing off an expanse of peachy skin upon which she felt Lord John’s purposeful attention.

Just as purposefully, she laughed and chatted to all the young men in the party with equal gaiety, laying small bets on their challenges and cheering as they jumped the stream, leapt over logs, and raced from one windmill to the next.

‘Your turn, Lady Nicola,’ called Lord John. ‘Let’s see the pace of that mule you’ve bought. I swear two circuits of the common will see him winded or you tumbled in the stream. One or the other.’

‘I’ll take you all on, then,’ she replied.

‘What’s your prize?’ called a man’s voice from the crowd.

She had been thinking. ‘I get to ride home pillion behind the winner.’

There was laughter at that. That, they said, was her prize, surely?

‘Take it or leave it,’ she called.

‘We’ll take it!’ said the deep voice. ‘Ready, lads?’

That voice! ‘Ready, lads?’ The words he had always used to call her brothers away on the next adventure that had never included her.

‘Who’s that?’ she whispered to the young groom whose cupped hands waited for her foot. ‘I don’t recognise the voice.’ It was untrue. She recognised it well enough, but dare hardly admit to it.

‘You’ll see better from the saddle, m’lady,’ said the groom. ‘You’re not riding sideways, then? Hup!’

‘No,’ she said, throwing one leg over and tucking her skirts beneath her. It was unladylike in the extreme, but she intended to win this race and that could not be done without a secure seat. ‘It’s all right. My friends have seen my ankles before.’

From the height of Janus’s back, she turned to see what she most feared and was caught, well before she could avoid them, by the triumphantly laughing eyes of Sir Fergus Melrose. Supremely confident, he towered a head above most of the others on a bay stallion at least two hands taller than her delicate racy gelding, yet there was no time to exchange more than one forbidding glance before the horses jostled into a prancing snorting line, stamping and tossing with impatience.

‘Two circuits!’ somebody called, and she knew it was him.

Hostility burned a scowl upon her face, for now her chances of winning had lessened considerably. Worse still, she had hoped for another day free of his presence. Even his complete retreat. Now that possibility had all but disappeared. Clenching her teeth, she gathered the reins and watched the white kerchief fluttering in the breeze, ready to drop.

‘Off!’ The kerchief descended and Janus leapt forward well ahead of the others as if he knew the signal as well as she. A stampede of hooves threw sods of dry turf high into the air as a sea of colour surged across the common land towards a distant windmill, its arms waving lazily to them in a clear blue sky. It seemed a very long way away, and Nicola was the only woman in a field of determined men.

Sheep and lambs belonging to the commoners had, since the previous contests, herded themselves together well away from the yelling riders who thudded forward, led by the silver-and-green image of Nicola. Just in the lead, she was able to choose the narrowest part of the stream to jump, hardly noticing a change in Janus’s stride as he flew over it like a swallow. But the ground was hard and unkind to horses’ hooves, and the sound of crashing behind her told a story of spills and worse.

In Nicola’s mind, however, a force had taken hold that harked back to her youth when, as an eleven-and twelve-year-old, her main ambition had been to make Fergus Melrose recognise her abilities, to place herself on his exalted level and, dream of dreams, to beat him. That would be triumph indeed. That would show him, especially after that humiliating episode with the swords. So she forgot how uneven the contest was, and how things had always been between them, how he always won and how bitter was the pain not only of losing but of being ignored, too. This time, she would give him a good run for his money, and she would ride pillion behind a man of her own choosing, whose name would not be Fergus Melrose.

Janus was everything she had hoped he would be, fast, sure-footed and agile, and possessed of excellent stamina long after many of the others had dropped back on the second circuit. Passing those friends who had not taken part, she was aware of their cheering for her and of their warning that the stranger on the big bay was close behind her. Indeed, she could hear the pounding of his hooves close by, the steady unbroken rhythm and the untroubled breathing, though she would not turn to look. She placed Janus carefully to clear the stream again, but now the big bay stallion leapt it as if it were not there, then went loping across the ground as if he was fresh out of the stable and his rider taking the morning air.

From then on, no matter how she kept up the pressure on the gallant Janus, Sir Fergus stayed half a length in front as if to tease her into believing that a win was still possible when she could sense that it was not. Hoping for an extra burst of speed at the end, Nicola dug her heels into the horse’s heaving sides and dropped her hands, urging him on with her fingers in his mane. But the distance between them increased and, though there were others not far behind her, the race might as well have been between only Nicola and Fergus for all it mattered, for Fergus romped home as he had always done ever since she had known him.

Lathered with sweat, Janus dropped his head as Nicola slid to the ground, ready to hand him over to the waiting groom. She was tired, angry and bitterly disappointed that this man should have spoiled what had begun as fun and games, no more. Now, it was the same as ever, and she had been robbed of her success because he couldn’t bear to be beaten by little Nicola Coldyngham.

He turned back to meet her, smacking the sweating neck of the glossy bay, not as smiling in victory as she had expected him to be, though surrounded by admirers. Leaning down, he held out a hand to her. ‘Jump up behind me, my lady. Put your foot on top of mine.’ It took him barely four seconds to recognise the defiance in her eyes, and his dismounting was a quick roll off the horse’s back that brought him very close to her. ‘I’m taking you home, Nicola,’ he said, grimly.

‘I am not ready to go home, sir. I’m staying here with my friends. I know you can claim the prize, but you’ll have to wait,’ she said, trying to dodge round him.

Fergus was not inclined to argue, for now the other riders were approaching, Lord John amongst them leading his exhausted horse through clouds of steam and shouts of congratulations. Fergus acted. With one sudden dip of his body, he caught Nicola like a puppet and tossed her up on to the wide rump of his bay, behind the saddle. Then, before she could protest or wonder how to get down from that perilous height without breaking an ankle, he was seated in front of her, gathering the reins and moving away, calling to Nicola’s groom to lead Janus behind them.

On this rare occasion, Nicola saw the wisdom of holding her tongue. For one thing, much as he deserved it, she did not want Fergus’s overbearing behaviour to become an issue or to spark off an incident. For another, this conclusion to her losing and his winning was so unlike the way it used to be when she had been left alone and dismal, that something in her rejoiced, childlike, to be acknowledged as the one who might…just…have won.

Lord John was not so impressed. ‘Who are you, sir?’ he snapped at Fergus, his coarse skin blotched and sweating profusely, his fair hair dark and sticky and very untidy. He looked suddenly dissolute and old.

‘Sir Fergus Melrose, my lord, at your service. The Lady Nicola and I claim our prize. First man. First lady. I’m taking her home now. She’s been out long enough.’

From behind his back, Nicola nearly spluttered with indignation at this latest piece of interference, but again she kept her peace. Joining in would gain nothing except, possibly, to be the centrepiece of a brawl.

‘And who are you to say when Lady Nicola has been out long enough? Are you related?’ Lord John said, coldly eyeing Fergus’s expensive saddle and boots.

‘Distantly,’ said Fergus. ‘Lady Nicola and I have an agreement of long standing. We shall soon be betrothed. I give you good day, my lord.’

‘What!’ Lord John’s colour drained away as they watched. ‘You are—? Is this true, my lady?’ He looked up at Nicola with eyes, usually so merry and teasing, now staring and cold with fury.

Determined not to be drawn into an unseemly discussion before all these sharp ears, Nicola put on what she hoped was a brave smile intended to placate her friend. ‘We’ll talk about this another day, my lord, if you please, when we have more privacy. This is not the time or place. Sir Fergus is a friend of the family. I’ve known him since we were children.’ By the time she had finished the last sentence, Fergus had put his heels to the bay’s flanks and was already moving away through the envious and curious spectators, and Nicola had to snatch at his belt to keep her balance, leaving Lord John truly speechless with rage at being robbed of his prize. He would certainly have been allowed to win if Fergus had not appeared.

The look on Lord John’s face as they left made her arms prickle with an icy chill: it was a look she would remember for some time.

She waited until the friends were out of their hearing before launching into a reprimand of the kind she would like to have delivered twelve years ago, if she had had the courage. ‘If you think this is the kind of behaviour appropriate from a suitor to a lady, Sir Fergus, you had better take some lessons, it seems to me. Your rudeness was well-nigh unbearable when you were sixteen. It certainly hasn’t improved, has it? Is this the best you can do?’