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His explanation had come after, although that hadn’t been totally impromptu. He had been thinking of ways a man and a woman could be seen talking together, and wooing came to mind. Then he’d noticed Lady Jane.
“What’s the matter?” Randall inquired solicitously. “Is your knee troubling you?”
Armand stopped watching the vivacious, beautiful Adelaide who kissed with such heart-stopping passion, and turned to his companion. “Yes,” he replied, for that was partially the truth. His knee did hurt.
Meanwhile, Adelaide trotted past them, the bearded man’s arm around her slender waist.
She’d made him forget everything and everyone while they kissed, including Bayard. Damn the woman—and damn that black-haired knave dancing with her. “Who’s that with Lady Adelaide? I don’t recall seeing him at court before.”
“That’s Sir Oliver de Leslille. Most of his family’s estates are in Ireland. I must say I’m rather surprised Lady Adelaide accepted his invitation. She’s never danced with him before.”
Randall’s wistful gaze drifted toward the minstrels, and the young lady sitting near them.
“Why don’t you go talk to Lady Eloise?” Armand suggested, taking his mind from his own troubles for a moment. “She’s all by herself and would surely welcome an intelligent conversation.”
Randall blushed to the roots of his hair. “Oh, I couldn’t. I wouldn’t know what to say.”
“You know a lot about music. Talk about that.”
A stubborn set came to Randall’s lips. “Why don’t you ask her to dance? You have before.”
“I give you my solemn word that although Lady Eloise seems a very sweet and charming young woman, I only asked her to dance to avoid dancing with Lady Hildegard,” Armand sincerely replied.
Randall appeared to struggle between relief and annoyance. “You used her to get away from Hildegard?”
“Wouldn’t you? And it should comfort you to know Lady Eloise wasn’t happy to be asked, either. I’m sure she would have preferred to refuse, but she didn’t want to offend me.”
Randall smiled, and as he got up to go, Lady Mary came sidling up to them.
“I hear you were a very naughty boy this afternoon, my lord,” she said, addressing Armand as Randall beat a hasty retreat.
Armand forced himself to smile, although obviously Adelaide had been right to worry about rumor and gossip. It was also true that his reputation had suffered since the surrender of Marchant, but to judge by Lady Mary’s bright, eager eyes, that shouldn’t affect his chances for an advantageous marriage. “Was I?”
Lady Mary waggled a long, bony finger at him. “Sneaking out of the hall like that and depriving the ladies of your company.”
She must not have heard about the kiss. “I was overwhelmed by all the beauty and clever conversation.”
Lady Mary looked as if she didn’t believe him, as well she should not, but he continued to smile nonetheless.
“Where did you go?” she asked.
“To see my horse.”
That wasn’t exactly a lie. He had gone to the stable, although much earlier in the day, to feed and water and brush the nag. The poor creature had been so pleased to see him, he’d felt guilty for not coming sooner. Afterward, he’d encountered Hildegard and escaped her as soon as he could—only to be forced to take refuge in that hut with Lady Adelaide. Which had been a different sort of torment.
“Oh, yes, I’ve heard about your horse,” Lady Mary said. “Very mean-spirited and prone to biting.”
“Not if he’s shown the proper respect and affection.”
Lady Mary lowered her voice and slid him a glance that managed to be both brazen and coy. “Like his master?”
“I don’t bite.”
“Pity,” she murmured, her eyes glowing with seductive interest.
No doubt she hoped to arouse him, or at least encourage him. Unfortunately for Lady Mary, after that kiss with Adelaide, she could strip naked and he wouldn’t care.
What the devil was wrong with him? He had come here to get the ransom for Bayard, and by God, he would. “Would you care to dance, Lady Mary?”
When she eagerly assented, Armand led her toward the other dancers in the center of the hall with a smile fixed upon his face, but a look akin to martyrdom in his eyes.
LATER THAT NIGHT, Adelaide made her way up the curved stairs toward her bedchamber in the east wing of the castle apartments. She hadn’t been this exhausted since the day her father had died, still cursing God and her poor dead mother for not giving him sons.
How many men had she danced with tonight? Fifteen? Twenty? And none of them had sounded like those men in the garden.
Normally, she rarely danced, for she felt on display when she did, and she wanted to avoid raising the ire or jealousy of the other ladies.
Tonight, she hadn’t even refused Sir Oliver’s invitation, although his dark-eyed scrutiny always made her uneasy, and his voice was nothing like those they’d overheard. It was too deep, and he had an Irish accent—his inheritance from his mother, he’d said.
Of course, accents could be feigned, and perhaps the conspirators had somehow disguised their voices in the garden, or later in the hall.
Why would they do that, unless they’d feared being overheard? And which, then, were their natural voices—those in the garden or the hall?
It was also possible that the plotters were not even nobles. Servants crossed the garden to get from the courtiers’ apartments to the hall all the time; no one would look askance at a small group of servants talking together for a moment.
As for Armand’s impertinent, improper, unwelcome kiss, his reason for it was plausible, and yet…
A sound echoed in the narrow stairwell—a soft, slight scraping, as if something had rubbed against the step or wall, like a heel or the edge of a scabbard.
Adelaide quickened her pace, hurrying to reach the guest chambers where she could expect to find servants waiting for their masters and mistresses to retire, including the maidservant the steward had assigned her.
She missed her footing on one of the low, worn steps and fell on her hands and knees. A strong hand grabbed her arm and started to pull her up.
Panicking, she swung hard and hit a face.
Armand de Boisbaston’s face.
“God’s teeth!” he growled, putting a hand to his cheek.
“You scared me!” she exclaimed, her heart beating like a startled bird’s wings. “I thought you might be one of the assassins.”
“If I was,” he said through clenched teeth, “it might be because you aroused my suspicions with your behavior in the hall tonight. I gather it’s not usually your habit to converse with every male in the hall, or dance with any man who asks, but you were certainly the merry gadabout tonight. You couldn’t have drawn more attention to yourself if you tried.”
Adelaide didn’t appreciate his criticism and raised her chin. “I thought time was of the essence, so I talked to as many men as I could. Are you truly distressed to think I put myself at risk, or are you upset because a mere woman might prove to be more useful in such a matter than a mighty warrior?”
“I’m upset because you deliberately put yourself in danger.”
“If I can prevent a battle for the throne, then I’ll put myself in danger. And where was all this noble concern for me when you kissed me and risked my reputation?
“What have you done to determine who is plotting against the archbishop and William Marshal, my lord, except talk to Randall FitzOsbourne and dance with Lady Mary? Have you already determined, as I have, that it was most likely not any of the noblemen in the hall this evening that we heard? Have you, too, concluded that it must be a high-ranking servant, clerk or soldier to speak with such an accent and yet not be in attendance on the king?”
“I’ve not been idle,” he impatiently replied. “I spoke with Godwin, one of the soldiers here, and he told me three men left Ludgershall before the evening meal—a clerk from Salisbury with a message for the bishop, a steward from a castle belonging to Sir Francis de Farnby, and a tailor from London who’d brought some samples of cloth for the queen.”
“I hardly think a London tailor could be the perpetrator of such a plot.”
“If he was a tailor,” Armand shot back.
That gave her a moment’s pause before she continued just as defiantly. “Perhaps the conspirators are not gone, and since they may still be here, we should continue to look for them, in any way we can.”
“I will not allow you to put yourself in jeopardy.”
She wasn’t going to let him, or any man, intimidate her, or tell her what to do. “You have no right to rule me, my lord, so I don’t need your permission, your protection, your approval or your help to do what I must do. Now, if I have your gracious leave, I am going to bed, and tomorrow, I may very well discover I have to speak to several of the king’s clerks. That, I will do, whether I have your permission or not.”
She swept her skirts behind her and continued up the stairs, determined to prove to Armand de Boisbaston that she was no flighty, foolish woman overwhelmed by his looks, his kiss or his masculine arrogance.
While pretending to fall in love with him because he had made that necessary.
ARMAND GLARED after Adelaide a moment, then turned and marched back down the steps to the hall. God’s blood, of all the high-handed, stubborn women! She was precisely the sort of female he would never marry!
He was so angry and engrossed in silently denouncing Adelaide, he didn’t see the shadow that shifted in the flickering torchlight when he left the stairwell.
Or the person who made it.
CHAPTER SIX
“WHERE ARE YOU off to, Godwin?” Armand asked the soldier as they crossed the courtyard together after breaking the fast the next morning.
Instead of a gambeson and helmet, Godwin was dressed in tunic, shirt and breeches. He’d also been whistling a jaunty tune as he skirted several puddles left from the previous night’s rain.
“I just finished my turn on the walk and now I’m on my way to the village,” Godwin replied.
“May I join you? I’ve had a yearning for some fine ale, and the earl’s told me many times about an alewife here who makes a good brew.”
That was certainly true. However, Armand also didn’t want to remain in the castle where Lady Adelaide would be, and it was possible that one or two of the conspirators might be staying in the village.
It had been enough of a strain breaking the fast in the hall with her—acting as if he wanted nothing more than to win that lady’s love, gazing at her from afar as if she were the goddess of his fortunes, all the while knowing her answering smiles were only intended to make their ruse believable.
At least he hadn’t had to sit beside her. Even if he had, though, surely he would have been able to control himself better than he had last night.
“Aye, that would be Bessy,” Godwin replied with a chortle. “I’m surprised you never tried some of Bessy’s best before. It’s a full-bodied brew—just like her.”
“I never stayed in Ludgershall long enough before,” Armand admitted as they went through the barbican and headed for the village.
As the sun warmed his back and sparkled on the water of the small river that wound its way through the lower meadow known as Honey Bottom, he noted that Ludgershall was clearly prospering under the rule of the Earl of Pembroke. Several two-story half-timbered buildings, with stalls for merchandise below and living quarters above, lined the green. A smithy belched smoke into the crisp morning air, and several elderly men had gathered beneath the wide oak beside it, sheltered from the summer sun. Other cottages were spread along the road before giving way to farmers’ fields.
The aromas of smoke and cooking meat, chickens and pigs, wet wool and mud, all combined to remind Armand that he was back in England, and free. He’d spent many happy hours in the village on his family’s estate, avoiding his stepmother.
His cell in France had been as dark as dusk during the day, as chill as autumn, and black as pitch at night. He’d had no candle, no rush light, no torch—nothing to relieve the gloom. That had preyed on his mind as much as his regrets, his fears for his men, and his concern about Bayard, who’d been commanding another of the king’s castles before it, too, had fallen.
The sight of the tavern, with its sign portraying two stags’ heads swinging outside the door, brought his thoughts back to the present, and the pungent scents of ale, straw, beef stew and bread filled his nostrils as Godwin led the way inside the low building.
Several farmers were seated in a corner, deep in discussion about the wool crop. A traveling merchant napped in the corner near the hearth, a plate containing a heel of bread and the remains of a thick stew near his elbow, his mug of ale clutched in one hand and precariously perched on his large belly. Two young men were sprawled at another table watching the sleeping merchant like two foxes eying a single hen, quietly making bets on when the mug would tip and spill the ale.
A pleasant-looking, buxom woman in a loose-fitting gown belted with a large apron greeted Godwin warmly and nodded at a table and bench not far from a large cask of ale that had already been tapped. “Sit ye there, boys, and I’ll fetch you a mug of my best.”
It had been a long time since anyone had called Armand de Boisbaston a boy, yet he was far from offended; indeed, he quite liked her familiar address. It made him feel like a youth again.
Because he also wanted to speak to Godwin about something important, he was pleased to note that the bench and table she indicated were in a corner of the room. They wouldn’t be overheard by the other customers or anyone passing by the small windows, for the shutters were open to let in the fresh summer air.
“Would you like a bite to eat, too?” Bessy asked.
Godwin grinned. “Aye, some bread and stew for me. What about you, my lord?”
Armand shook his head. He’d rather save the money, although the aroma wafting in from the kitchen made his mouth water.
“As you will,” Bessy said with a toss of her light brown hair before heading to the kitchen.
“Well, my lord?” Godwin asked as he slid onto the bench. “Was I lying? Isn’t Bessy something?”
“She is,” Armand agreed.
Godwin chuckled and leaned closer. “I tell you, my lord, if I could get her to marry me, I’d be a happy man.”
“You’d have both a pretty wife and a business that seems to be prospering,” Armand agreed. “She must be busy these days with all the people visiting Ludgershall while the king’s in residence.”
“Aye, she is. Merchants and tradesmen from London and all over England have been coming here.” Godwin lowered his voice. “She could do without them routiers, though. A bad lot, the bunch o’ them.”
Armand thought of another pretty woman who had to endure men’s unwanted attention, and felt a twinge of regret that he hadn’t come up with a better plan to confer with her.
Bessy set down two frothing mugs of ale and shook her head when Armand went to pay. “You’re Armand de Boisbaston, aren’t you?”
“I am.”
“Thought so. I heard about your hair. No charge for you, then, my lord. Keep your money for your brother’s ransom. He come here once and did me a bit of service. There was a rough lout who wouldn’t pay for his meal. He paid up quick enough when he had the tip of your brother’s sword at his throat.” She grinned at the memory, then frowned when Godwin’s hand went to the purse at his belt.
“Nor you, neither, Godwin,” she said. “Your ale’s free till Christmas for fixing my roof.”
She winked at the soldier, and then hurried off to take more bread to the farmers.
“She’s very generous,” Armand noted.
“Aye,” Godwin murmured as Bessy lifted the mug from the slumbering merchant’s hand without waking him.
As the pair of young men chastised her for spoiling their entertainment, she gave them a maternal smile and said, “Mind your manners, boys, or I’ll make Moll stay in the kitchen.”
They groaned and Armand turned to Godwin. “Who’s Moll?”
“Bessy’s daughter, and as pretty as her mother.”
