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Nor would she even acknowledge the man who travelled with her uncle. Nicholas Capel. Tall, impressive with his sweep of hair to his shoulders, he was a familiar figure at Talgarth. What was he to her uncle? Adviser? Servant? Elizabeth did not think the man served anyone but himself. Some said he was a priest, defrocked for unnamed sins. Jane, tight-lipped, swore he was a necromancer who served the Devil. Clad in black from collar to hose, his bottomless dark eyes all but stripped the flesh from her bones. Elizabeth shuddered.
‘I have made a decision on your future, Elizabeth.’
Elizabeth’s heart leapt in her breast within the confines of the rough black cloth that rubbed her skin raw. A sudden beat of hope that shook her whole body. Surely everyone in the room must be aware of it? But she allowed none of it to register on her face.
‘And what is your decision, Sir John?’
‘You are to come home.’ Elizabeth allowed the briefest of glances at the Prioress, but found no enlightenment there. ‘Or not home, exactly. But you are to leave the Priory.’
‘I see.’ But she did not.
There was a light knock on the door, which opened to admit a young man whose presence brought the first genuine emotion to Elizabeth’s face and a quick flush of bright colour.
‘David…! I didn’t know you were here.’
‘I’ve been seeing to the horses…’
Once she would have run across the room to greet him. Once she would have flung her arms around the young brother whom she had raised from childhood, holding him close in delight at his presence. Once she would have laughed her pleasure at his familiar, lively features and kissed his cheek, ruffled his dark hair. Now under the stern gaze of the Prioress, her uncle’s untrustworthy watchfulness, Capel’s sinister stare, she stood her ground and waited.
‘Elizabeth!’ Regardless of protocol, David strode across the room to grasp her rigid shoulders and salute her cheek, studying her face with the sharp blue eyes of the de Lacys. ‘I couldn’t stay away.’
‘You look well. How is Lewis?’
‘When does our brother not thrive?’ David swept her query away. ‘Has Sir John told you?’
‘No. He has told me nothing.’ Elizabeth returned the grasp of his hands, a quick fierce pressure, then released herself. It would be too easy to allow emotion to hold sway. She must take care to show no weakness. She had still not been told of the plan for her. ‘So what do you want of me, Uncle?’ she asked Sir John. ‘Why must I come home—but not home, exactly?’ Better to know now, however much she might dislike the outcome.
‘My daughter Maude is dead.’
‘I know.’ Her face softened a little. ‘We had heard. I am sorry.’
The Prioress was quick to intervene. ‘We are not so closed off here that we were unaware. We have offered our prayers for the little maid’s soul, Sir John.’
He nodded, but continued to address his niece. ‘It is intended that you take Maude’s place in the negotiated settlement with Lord Richard Malinder of Ledenshall. That you will honour the marriage contract.’
Startled, Elizabeth took a breath as she considered the statement. Release from Llanwardine. But at what cost? She was once more to be a player in the ongoing de Lacy scheming to achieve even more power in the March. But with a difference. Dismay gripped her. ‘I should have known, shouldn’t I? I am to be a bride again. But this time I am to be married to a Lancastrian, not aYorkist. I am to be wed to the enemy. Your plots would seem to have taken a turn for the devious, Uncle.’ She ignored her brother’s strangled cough, keeping her direct gaze on Sir John’s suddenly heated countenance. He might prefer that their differences not be aired before Lady Isabel, but what did she care?
‘You will find Malinder a more congenial prospect than Sir Owain. His politics need not trouble you.’ The harsh reply dared her to disagree or to continue her public washing of family linen. ‘It will be arranged that you have an escort from here to Ledenshall, Malinder’s home.’
‘I am not to go home first. To Bishop’s Pyon.’ Elizabeth’s query hid a wealth of hurt.
‘Surely, Uncle…’ David added, ‘would it not be more fitting…?’
‘It is better if you travel straight to your new home, my lady,’ Master Capel observed, smooth, conciliatory. ‘The wedding ceremony can take place as soon as you arrive.’
Better for whom?
Elizabeth merely dropped her gaze. What did she think of this unexpected development? A handful of months ago it had taken only the space of a heartbeat to reject the prospect of Sir Owain Thomas as husband, to dare to run the gauntlet of her uncle’s displeasure. But having spent the intervening months here at Llanwardine, she had learnt a harsh lesson. Surely this new offer would be better, more satisfying than life here. She had thought so often enough, when the bell for Prime dragged her from her bed into the frozen spaces of the Priory church. When her hands had stiffened with cold as she dug the iced and unyielding earth to liberate the final winter roots in the kitchen garden.
But Richard Malinder? What did she know of him? Tales of him were rife, of his growing authority, the increasing power of his blade and his fist in the name of Lancastrian King Henry. Black Malinder, who had lost his first wife to a tragic pregnancy that had claimed both mother and child. Would she want this man as her husband? He was the enemy. A Lancastrian, giving his misguided allegiance to the man who claimed the throne as Henry VI, whereas she had been raised to follow the superior rival bloodline of the Plantagenet House of York. How would it be if she were wed to a man whose political leanings were directly opposed to her own? The dismay deepened. Would he insist that she change her allegiance? Could she do that?
And then another thought. Black Malinder, he was called. Was he the beautiful face in the scrying dish? Was he one of the dark men of Jane’s scrying, who might be either friend or foe? There was no knowing. All the men in her life were dark. Her brothers Lewis and David. Sir John himself. Even that dreadful creature Nicholas Capel, who was smiling at her as if he could see into her very soul. Jane’s reading of her future had given her no help at all.
So Elizabeth must decide if she wanted this marriage, and quickly. Sir John was already scowling at her. Well, why not accept the offer? All men were untrustworthy, ambitious, self-seeking. Richard Malinder would only want her as guarantee of peace between two potentially warring families in the March. And to carry his heir to the Malinder inheritance, of course. She could accept that. But at least he was not as dried up as a beech husk and he was not old. In the end, she realised, it was an eminently simply decision to make. This marriage would be for her an escape, a key to an otherwise locked door, and fate might never give her another such chance before her final vows were made, chaining her for ever to rules and enforced obedience. Sir John’s control over her life would finally be at an end. By the Virgin, she would do it! Despite all her reservations, the Lord of Ledenshall’s hand in marriage would give her status, authority, a measure of independence, and would open for her that all-important door from her own captivity.
It really was not a difficult decision to make at all.
‘Very well, Sir John. I will wed Richard Malinder.’
Sir John’s lips curled in sleek satisfaction. ‘So be it.’
‘Does…does Lord Richard accept my hand, sir?’ She found a sudden need to ask, to know his reaction to taking her rather than her cousin Maude. Maybe he would not find her too disagreeable.
‘It’s not been finally arranged.’ Sir John waved the query away, a matter of no importance. ‘There’ll be no difficulty. He’ll take you. You’ll be so well dowered he’d be a fool to refuse you.’
You have not asked him, have you? He does not evenknow!
‘Then of course he will take me if you are prepared to buy his compliance.’ Elizabeth felt the inexplicable hope that Richard Malinder might want her for herself die in her breast. ‘How foolish of me to ask.’
The visitors were gone, leaving Elizabeth alone with her great-aunt.
‘You have many talents, many gifts to offer Richard Malinder,’ Lady Isabel assured her.
‘Talents? Gifts? I have no evidence of that. My father showed no affection towards me. Owain Thomas wanted me for my de Lacy blood.’ Elizabeth swallowed against the hopeless self-pity that threatened, refusing to give in to it. ‘Now I am desired only as a replacement. For Lord Malinder’s dead wife. For my cousin Maude. Not for myself.’ The reply came with a spark of temper, with heat from the heart. ‘And what hope is there for happiness for me, or even tolerance in such a marriage, where we shall be enemies before the rings are exchanged?’
‘There is always hope.’ The Prioress was stern, yet Elizabeth felt an understanding there. ‘Before you leave us, I would say this to you. And mind me well, Elizabeth de Lacy. If you are ever in need of help, you will know where to find a safe refuge. At present the March is quiescent. I think it will not always remain so. If the war erupts again between York and Lancaster, you will be caught up in the maelstrom, as will we all. If danger threatens, you and yours will always be welcome here. Come. Soon the bell will ring for tierce. We shall include an Ave Maria for your safe delivery to Ledenshall.’
Some few days later, sounds of arrival at Ledenshall, of the clatter of hooves on cobbles in the courtyard below, caused Richard Malinder to abandon a sheaf of documents to stride across the room, deflecting the hound from his path with a passing caress of its ears, to lean from the window. What he saw below—who he saw—made his face break into a smile of delight that warmed his eyes, a lightening of expression not often seen of late on the face of the Lord of Ledenshall. He took the stairs at a ground-covering lope to welcome the Red Malinders below as the man at the head of the cavalcade dismounted and began to help the lady from her mount with words of impatient encouragement. Their escort was engaged in leading away horses, unloading baggage from pack animals and a small wagon.
‘Rob! Have you perhaps come to stay with us?’ Richard looked askance at the small mountain of boxes and packages which was now growing steadily on the cobbles beside him.
‘Come for the wedding, of course.’ Robert Malinder, clearly a Red Malinder, grinned over his shoulder, then turned back to growl a suggestion that the lady remove her foot from the stirrup this side of nightfall if she expected his help.
‘News travels fast.’ Richard’s brows rose. ‘It seems that you must have known of the happy event before I did!’
Then the cousins came together, gripped right hands in recognition of family and friendship and political allegiance. Robert Malinder. Tall, broad of shoulder. Russet haired and green-eyed. Fair of skin, now pink and glowing, nose more than a little red from the brisk cold. Nothing like the Malinders at Ledenshall except in height and frame, but unmistakably one of the Red Malinders of Moccas.
‘It’s always as well for us to know what the de Lacys are planning,’ Robert explained unnecessarily. ‘We have our sources.’ He hesitated but, typically, only for a moment before making his abrupt acknowledgement. ‘We were sorry to hear of Maude’s death.’
Before he could make a suitable and equally typical non-committal reply to the blunt commiseration, Richard discovered his attention to be quite deliberately sought and captured.
‘Well, dearest Richard. Will you not welcome me? When I have travelled all this way just to see you?’
He felt a gentle touch of a hand on his arm, a tug on his sleeve. He turned with a smile of welcome, looked down. For a moment his breath backed up in his lungs. The muscles of his gut clenched, the smile of welcome faded, leaving the flat planes of his face taut. Gwladys! was all that he could think, when he could think at all. His wife’s image filled his mind, before common sense and brutal reality took control. Of course not. Gwladys was dead. He blinked at the face at his shoulder, feeling foolish, hoping that the girl had been unable to sense his initial reaction to her. But the resemblance was there, stronger than was comfortable. Red-gold hair, neatly braided, mostly hidden by her travelling hood. The same heavy-lidded green eyes, dark as emeralds, framed by long lashes. Well-marked brows, a straight nose and flawless skin. Cream and rose, in comparison with Robert’s ruddy cheeks. Anne Malinder was a beauty. But of course, Gwladys and Anne Malinder had been cousins, both carrying the family traits strongly.
‘Anne. I have not seen you since…’ Since he had wed Gwladys, when his eyes had been only for his beautiful wife and he had seen Anne still as a little maid. No longer so. ‘Since before you grew up!’ Richard, disgusted by his lack of a suitable greeting, surveyed Robert’s sister, whose head now reached quite neatly to his shoulder.
‘I have grown up. I am now old enough to be wed.’ The heavy lashes veiled the brilliant eyes, the perfect lips curved ingenuously. ‘I persuaded my brother to bring me. I thought your new bride might like some company. Of her own age. Although I think she is a good few years older than I.’
‘That was kind of you.’
‘Of course. We must make her welcome, even if she is a Yorkist and older than most new brides.’ Anne tilted her chin with an appealing flash of green eyes.
Richard’s glance sharpened, but the girl’s face shone with innocuous pleasure. Her hand still on his sleeve tightened its hold with quick pressure from pretty white fingers. Even her hands were Gwladys’s—small and slender, made for jewelled rings. Richard bent his head and kissed Anne’s cheeks in a cousinly salute.
‘Welcome to Ledenshall, Anne.’
‘I had to bring her.’ Robert’s grimace was rueful. Horses and men-at-arms had all finally vanished in the direction of warmth and comfort, the baggage disappearing into the living accommodation with smooth-running efficiency. The cousins, after admiring the quality of the Malinder horseflesh, followed into the Great Hall.
‘No matter.’ Lord Richard signalled to a hovering maidservant to replenish the ale and bring bread and meat.
‘My sister threatened to come on her own if I did not escort her, and pestered our mother until she agreed. Anne can be a nuisance when she’s bored or denied.’ Robert stripped off gloves and cloak, cast them on a bench, and began to unbuckle his sword. He cursed fluently at his clumsy and icy fingers where painful feeling was beginning to return. ‘She lacks female company of her own age, I suppose. And with the promise of a wedding on the horizon—well, I had to bring her.’ He stamped his feet and winced. ‘Poor weather for travelling!’
‘She’ll have enough company and more over the forthcoming days.’ Having recovered from the initial shock on seeing the girl, Richard had thrust his discomfort to the back of his mind. He poured ale into a tankard and handed it to Robert, who took it and drank deep with appreciation. Steam began to rise from his damp clothes and boots.
‘That’s better.’ He groaned and ran a hand over his wind-scoured face.
The serving maid bustled in with platters of food and added logs to the fire with an arch look at the newcomer. The hound sank once more with a sigh to its place by the hearth, now that the excitement of arrival was over.
‘A quiet journey?’
‘Very.’ Robert wiped the back of a large hand over his mouth. ‘The Welsh seem to be lying low, for once. And the weather, of course. No one’s stirring.’
‘Come and take the weight off your feet.’
Robert grunted his appreciation, was silent for a moment as he drank, still hugging the fire. Then, having thawed out to his satisfaction, he threw himself into a chair with graceless ease and propped his feet on the opposite settle. ‘Tell me all. You’re to align yourself with the de Lacys, in spite of Maude’s death.’
‘Yes. Sir John’s niece.’
Richard stared into his ale. The name of Elizabeth de Lacy had been swiftly substituted for that of Maude in the betrothal contracts. In the interests of peace in the March, the proposed Malinder–de Lacy marriage would stand if he, Richard Malinder, would agree. Richard exhaled slowly. It was very difficult to like Sir John, a man driven by self-seeking ambition. As for Master Capel, his obsidian eyes had gleamed with conspiratorial interest throughout the proceedings. The man might have remained silent, carefully deferential, but there was about him something that touched Richard’s spine with a slither of distaste.
‘I suppose you know what you are about.’ The lift in Robert’s voice made just a question of the statement.
‘Yes, I do.’ Richard’s brows rose, but he kept the tone light. ‘And, yes, I’ve heard the gossip, but there can’t be so much wrong with the girl. I didn’t want her—swore I wouldn’t take her, but I’ve changed my mind. Sir John’s enthusiastic and I see no reason for delay.’
‘As long as you keep your eyes and ears open to de Lacy intentions,’ Robert advised, suddenly serious. ‘Watch your back, Richard. Sir John must have an ulterior motive—he always does. When’s it to be?’
‘Soon. It’s intended that she—Elizabeth de Lacy—travel here directly from Llanwardine Priory. She’s well born, of an age to be wed and raised to be a competent chatelaine. I need just such a wife because I need an heir. And she’s extraordinarily well dowered.’ Richard eyed his cousin, an unexpected flicker of amusement in the cold depths of his eyes, then strode across the room, flung open the lid of a heavy oak coffer, to rummage to the bottom to extract a roll of ancient and tattered vellum. Now he smoothed it out, anchored it with tankards and his own poignard. Then, hands splayed on the table top, he bent to study its content with reference to one of the sheets of the marriage contract.
‘Come and look at this, Rob.’
It was a roughly drawn plan in coloured inks, now much faded, of the extent of the Malinder possessions. It was formidable when seen in a swathe of indigo blue. There were the lands of the Black Malinders, forming a substantially solid block through the east and central March with Ledenshall situated towards its western rim. And there the acquisitions of their cousins of the red hair, principally into South Wales. The Malinders were a powerful family.
‘It’s formidable,’ Robert agreed. ‘Black and Red Malinders together.’
‘It is. And thus understandable why de Lacy should fear our influence and wish to clasp hands with the Malinders. But look at the girl’s dowry. Sir John said that the titles came to her from her mother’s family, the Vaughans of Tretower, a family with strong connections in the March. So she would bring with her that estate there.’ Richard referred to the stipulated estates on the contract and pointed at the location of the lands on the plan. ‘And there. And also there. As well as this stretch of land.’ He ran his finger along the proposed estates that the bride would bring with her, splaying his hand over them thoughtfully when he had traced the full extent. ‘I would say that Sir John chose them most carefully.’
Robert nodded. If Elizabeth’s lands were subsumed into the Malinder holdings, Richard’s land ownership would sweep in an impressive block, almost unbroken, along the March. ‘More than generous.’
‘Too generous?’ Richard pushed himself upright and allowed the vellum to re-roll, scooping it up and replacing it in the coffer. He then sat on the lid, forearms braced on thighs to pin his cousin with a speculative stare. ‘It would appear to me to be foolhardy in the extreme. To consolidate my power in the central March at the expense of his own. Sir John’s no fool. So why has he done it? Because he values my charm and place at his table as a member of his family?’
Robert grunted. ‘I can think of nothing less likely.’
‘Nor I. He’s very keen to draw me in. This offer is far more advantageous to me than when I agreed to wed Maude. So why?’
‘Is it simply that he’s keen to get the girl off de Lacy hands?’
‘No. Not that.’ Richard pushed impatient fingers through his hair to clasp his hands behind his head and lean back against the wall. He frowned down at his crossed ankles as if they would give him the answer to the riddle. ‘He’s given too much away. If the problem is the girl, why not simply leave her in Llanwardine Priory where she’s an irritant to no one but the Lady Prioress? No. Sir John has some scheme in mind that demands an alliance with me. Is it simply that I don’t look too closely at what he’s up to in the March? He could have bought my compliance with much less—I’ve no overt quarrel with Sir John unless he steps on my toes, in spite of his allegiance to York. So there’s something here that I’m not seeing.’ The sun caught a sharp glint in Richard’s eyes as he turned his head. ‘To my mind, Sir John sees Elizabeth and her estates as the bait in a trap.’
‘With you as the unsuspecting rat?’ Robert hitched a hip against the table, emptied the tankard.
‘Hmm. Not so unsuspecting. But what’s the trap? That’s what I can’t see.’
‘As I said—watch your back, Richard.’
Richard’s reply was cool and contemplative. ‘So I shall. Because another question is, do you suppose that the bait—the cheese to catch the rat, Elizabeth de Lacy herself—is an innocent party to this? Or is the undesirable Elizabeth part and parcel of Sir John’s dark and devious scheming?’
Richard let his own question hang in his mind. He had no liking for such murky doings, and yet there were definite advantages to this match. A high-born wife with an enviable parcel of land. As long as he kept his wits about him he would be in no danger. So the girl was neither amenable nor passingly attractive. Would it matter so much? As long as she could hold the reins at Ledenshall in his absence and bear Malinder sons, then she would be an acceptable wife.
‘I’m just surprised you would even seek an alliance with a family that would overthrow King Henry and raise up the Duke of York in his stead,’ Robert remarked.
‘To my mind it could be to an advantage, Rob. Better to have some small window through which to spy into the intent of our enemies than to be taken by surprise. So if Sir John is in truth plotting against me…’
‘Elizabeth de Lacy is to be that window.’
‘Then why not?’
‘Then the girl has my sympathies.’ Robert held out his tankard. ‘An object of intrigue from both sides of the alliance.’
Richard stood to refill Robert’s empty cup with a rueful smile. ‘I doubt it will ever come to that. Enough of this. The contract is signed. The lady seems to consider marriage to me at least preferable to life as a nun or to the embrace of Owain Thomas. I should feel duly flattered and honoured!’ A touch of steel in eye and voice. ‘As long as she realises that once she has crossed this threshold her loyalty will be to me and not to her family. I will not tolerate any desire to cleave to de Lacy politics.’
Robert raised his tankard. ‘Then, if you are set on it, let’s drink to the success of the enterprise.’
And Richard raised his tankard. ‘Amen to that! To my fruitful union with Elizabeth de Lacy.’
Chapter Three
Elizabeth arrived at her new home in the middle of a thunderstorm. The expected guests erupted without ceremony, horses and riders, into the outer courtyard in a chaotic flurry of hooves and mud and a downpour of rain. Richard turned his face up to the heavens. Grey clouds pressed down. If he had been a man of superstition, he thought, he would have seen this as a sign of ill omen. All he needed was a pair of passing ravens to croak their disapproval.
Then the gates creaked and thudded shut behind them. Servants emerged to see to the comfort of the travellers. Two young men, unrecognisable in cloaks and hoods, issued orders. Elizabeth de Lacy’s brothers, Richard decided. They swung down from their horses and would have gone to the aid of the women, but Richard forestalled them. His eye had sought and found the younger of the two female forms, well muffled against the storm. As a gesture of greeting he waded through the wet to help his betrothed to dismount.
‘Come, lady. Hardly the welcome I would have wished for you. Let me help you…’
She did not reply. Her face was shadowed by her deep hood. He stood beside her weary horse, raised his arms to place his hands firmly around her waist to lift her down from the saddle. Only to be answered by a sharp hiss from within her cloak. A flash of dark fur and lethal claws. A shallow but bloody scratch appeared along the length of Richard’s hand.
Startled into immobility, Richard stared at the blood, his hiss of surprise as much as pain echoing that of the cat sheltered within the folds of Elizabeth’s cloak. He looked up, to find two pairs of eyes fixed on him. One feline and definitely displeased, golden and unblinking from the confines of the cloak. The other dark and watching him equally intently from within the hood, as a wild animal might watch a hunter, he thought, from the safety of its lair. Wary, uncertain, but with a strong streak of defiance, both mistress and cat surveyed him.
Elizabeth de Lacy found her voice first. ‘Forgive me, my lord. You surprised her.’
