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“Nay, I cannot,” she insisted. “Mortimer visits me daily. He would spy it at once and guess your true intentions. The knave may look like a toad, but he has a quick mind. Be warned. He hides a thousand daggers in his thoughts.”
Mark retrieved his cloak with great reluctance. “Sleep well, chou-chou,” he said with forced cheer. “I will come again tomorrow night.”
“May your angel protect you till then,” she replied.
He put his hand to the latch, then paused and glanced over his shoulder at her. In spite of her miserable condition, she tossed him a challenging look, the very same expression she had worn just before she had pushed him off the tree branch. The memory of that last encounter simmered in his mind. Why not?
He put down his lantern, crossed the space between them in three long strides, then bent over her. Before she could utter a startled objection, he kissed her full on her lips.
His broken arm and the eight years’ wait had been well worth it. Belle tasted of paradise. He ducked her flailing fists.
“Where,” she sputtered with delectable anger, “in your great heap of knowledge, did you locate that idea?”
He winked at her. “Been thinking about that for a long time, ma petite chou-chou.”
Humming a bawdy tune under his breath, he let himself out of the little chamber. Once on the other side of the door, he sobered. With great reluctance, he relocked Belle’s cheerless prison.
Dexter mewed in Belle’s ear then patted her face with one of his forepaws. Slowly she awoke to a gray day. Fat raindrops plopped on the stone ledge of the open window.
“Go find a rat, Dexter,” she groaned as she snuggled deeper in the delicious warmth of her blankets.
Blankets? Belle shook the cobwebs of sleep from her mind. Dexter sat down and stared fixedly at her. His long white whiskers quivered. Barely believing her sudden good fortune, Belle counted three blankets where last evening there had been only one. The topmost was her familiar filthy covering that had kept the winds at bay. It hid two plain brown blankets made of thick wool—clean and free of rents.
“Oh, Dexter! What kindly spirit visited us last night?”
Mark’s kiss still tingled on her lips. She banished the disturbing memory. Nay! He had left her long before she fell asleep.
“Besides he hates me,” she explained to the cat. “He nearly lost the use of his sword arm because of my childish prank. That kiss of his was merely…unfinished business.”
Dexter got up, stretched then pawed at a loose pile of straw. He mewed once or twice for Belle’s attention. His claws scraped against something unfamiliar.
Belle investigated. Dexter had unearthed a covered crock that was still very warm to the touch. When she raised its lid, the aroma of stewed meat and seasoned vegetables wafted in the chill breeze.
“Oh most blessed spirit!” Belle cried with joy. Lifting the pot to her mouth, she drank greedily. “Kat would chide my lack of proper manners if she saw me now, but tis a goodly broth! Heaven-sent to be sure!’
Dexter licked his lips with a long pink tongue by way of reminding Belle to share her wealth as he had shared his with her. She poured a little gravy into the lid.
“Someday, Dexter, you will overeat and explode,” she observed with a smile. Then something red in the straw caught her eye. “More wonders?” she asked the cat.
She picked up one of her stepmother’s precious roses, its stem plucked free of thorns. The last bloom of this year, Belle surmised as she inhaled its rich perfume. This gift, more than the blankets or the stew, brought rare tears to her eyes.
No one had ever given her a flower before, not even Cuthbert.
Belle brushed the velvet petals against her cheek. “I wonder, Dexter, if Sondra’s tales are true. Does the ghostly knight of Bodiam really exist?”
Not for a moment would she allow herself to believe that Mark Hayward, the bane of her childhood, was her mysterious benefactor. She must put that lunatic idea out of her mind at once before it had a chance to take root there.
“Tis not Mark’s style at all,” she told the purring cat.
Chapter Five
Mark overslept the next morning and the rain-plagued day only went downhill from there. When Kitt appeared with his shaving water, it was merely tepid instead of steaming hot the way Mark liked it. He opened his mouth to chastise the boy but held his tongue when he saw a fresh bruise under his eye.
Mark touched the injury. “More of that beslubbering cook’s opinion?” he asked.
Kitt turned away. “I fell over my own feet,” he replied. “Indeed, I have been informed that they would make a fine pair of shovels,” he added in an undertone.
Mark stropped his razor while his anger grew warmer. “What pignut told you this witticism?”
Kitt shrugged his shoulder then turned his attention to his bedmaking. “Tis none of your concern, Mark. Jobe says that a man must fight his own battles.”
Mark considered this bit of wisdom as he lathered up his face with cold soapsuds. “You are still in the schoolroom, Kitt.” he remarked. While he shaved, he observed his apprentice squire in the looking glass.
Kitt tossed his head. “Not now. I am on the road to a new beginning, Jobe says.”
Methinks Jobe says far too much in this stripling’s innocent ear!
Kitt shook out Mark’s hose, then laid his other clean shirt across the lumpy bed covering. “How fares my sister?” he asked in an off-hand manner.
In the mirror, Mark saw that the boy cast him a penetrating look. “As well as can be expected,” he answered, rinsing his razor. “Belle was never fond of small dark places.” He chose not to reveal her true sad state to her brother. Being blessed with a strong dose of the Cavendish temperament, the lad would no doubt hurl himself headlong into some rash deed.
Kitt polished one of Mark’s boots with his sleeve. “Then why do we tarry in this fetid place? You told me that we would be in Hawkhurst by now. Let us grab Belle and be gone.”
Mark dried his face with a scrap of hucktoweling. Mortimer Fletcher was a parsimonious host. “There are complications. Your sister refuses to leave Bodiam and thereby hangs the tale.”
Kitt’s jaw dropped. “She’s addlepated!”
“Agreed,” Mark growled under his breath.
“I will shake some sense into her woolly head,” Kitt announced. “Lead me to her!”
“Nay.” Mark pulled his shirt over his head, then held out his arms to the boy. Kitt stared at them. Mark pointed to the bandstrings that hung down from each cuff. “A good squire ties up his master’s laces.”
With a snort, Kitt attended to his new task. “Belle is my sister,” he continued in a low tone. “As her brother, tis my sworn duty to—”
Mark grabbed a handful of Kitt’s collar and backed the boy against the wall. “Listen to me well, my little minnow. I am caught between two people who are hell-bent to destroy each other: your sister and Mortimer Fletcher. We must tread our way carefully between them if we expect to quit this place with the minimum of bloodshed. Tis no schoolboy game that we play here, but one in deadly earnest. You will do exactly as I say. For the time being, Belle is not to know you are at Bodiam. Have I made myself clear, pudding-head?”
“Marvelously much,” Kitt snarled. Then he nodded. “I will obey you—for now. But I like it not!” With that bit of defiance, he banged out of the chamber with the basin of soapy water.
Mark shook his head at his reflection. Why did God make the Cavendish family so stubborn?
Mark planned to snatch a quick breakfast, then ride into the forest where he would meet Jobe. Instead, Griselda pounced on him like a cat at a mouse hole.
“Good morrow, Sir Mark,” she squealed in that ear-piercing voice of hers. “You slept well?”
He fixed a painted smile on his lips. “All the night through, sweet dumpling.” He forced himself not to choke on his words. Of all the many maids he had wooed in the past thirteen years, Griselda was the most unappealing and perversely the one wench most anxious to invite him between her sheets.
“I would have warmed your dreams,” she simpered through her nose as she latched onto his arm like an apothecary’s leech.
“I fear I did not dream at all,” he murmured. His stomach gnawed for food.
Griselda caressed his cold fingers. “Then I shall make it my duty and my pleasure to give you sweet dreams every night, my dearest love.”
Twould be nightmares! Mark widened his smile. “I look forward to that happy time, my dainty duck.”
Griselda pulled him back from the stairway where he could smell the aroma of roasted meats and baked breads in the hall.
“Why wait?” she whined. “We have already agreed to the match. Tis nothing but a few words in front of the church door between us and our bliss.”
Mark dug his heels against the paving stones. “Nay, my sportful honeycomb! Twould be a most unseemly haste. I have not yet spoken with your brother, nor signed a betrothal agreement.” Nor given you a kiss to seal the bargain, he added to himself with a shudder. Nor will I ever! I would rather dance a galliard in hell first!
Griselda stuck out her thin lower lip in a ghastly pout. She reminded Mark of a well-dressed gargoyle. A man should not have to face such sights on an empty stomach.
“Then find Mortimer!” she shrieked as she practically threw him down the stairs. “For by my troth, sweet Mark, I shall not go cold to my bed again this night! Seek him in one of the storerooms for he spends much time down there in the dark.”
Like a mushroom or some other bit of fungus, Mark thought as he fled from the panting shrew. He paused at the laden sideboard in the hall to fortify himself for his interview with Fletcher. While washing down an onion and parsley omelet with some ale out of the pitcher, Mark was accosted by one of the potboys.
“Here now! Tis for dinner, that!” the dull-eyed oaf said, pointing to the ravaged dish. “And tis not dinnertime yet.”
Mark swallowed his food before speaking. “But I have not broken my fast until now.”
“Oh,” said the overgrown boy. He scratched his head. “But still, tis for dinner and cook will be full of wrath if he knows that ye have made a great hole in his omelet.”
Mark beckoned the servant to lean closer. He whispered in the boy’s ear, “Then we shall not tell him, shall we? Besides, tis a passing good bit of victual. Try some. I shall not betray you,” he added.
The lackwit grinned, looked over his shoulder, then scooped out a portion twice as large as Mark’s. He nodded at Mark while he ate.
Mark returned his smile. “A word to the wise, my friend. Wipe your mouth free from crumbs or else twill be you and not I that the cook will cudgel.” Then he left the lad to his fate.
Mark hoped to catch Mortimer unawares at his mysterious business in the depths of Bodiam’s large storerooms but the man met him on the stairs.
“How now, my lord? Methinks you have lost your way.” Mortimer blocked further progress with a dissembling smile on his face.
“Indeed so?” Mark replied, knowing exactly where he was within Bodiam’s walls. “I had thought these steps might lead to the flower garden that I spied from my casement.”
“A walk outside on such a foul day?” Mortimer ascended a step closer, forcing his guest to turn around and retrace his journey. Mortimer ushered him into his small office off the hall. He offered the nobleman the better of two straight-back wooden chairs that flanked a worn oaken table.
Once they were seated, Mortimer opened the conversation. “My sister is much taken by you, my lord.” He rubbed his hands together as if to warm them. “Methinks you will make her a fine husband.”
Mark swallowed a knot in his throat. He had never intended for his deceit to run this far, but thanks to Belle’s obstinacy, he now found himself in a most ticklish predicament. Bedding maids was one thing, but marrying one was quite another—and matrimony with the loathsome Griselda was past all imagination.
Mark leveled his gaze at Belle’s tormentor. “You are kind to say so, good sir,” he replied with a false smile. If he had to keep grinning like a painted poppet his face would soon crack in two.
Mortimer regarded him with the calculating eye of a merchant about to begin sharp negotiations for a sack of wool. If Mark did not play his part to perfection, he suspected that he would soon find himself on the far side of the moat—or worse, bobbing head down in its green waters.
Leaning forward, he put his elbows on the table. “You and I are men of the world, so let us not fritter away the forenoon with dull prattle. What dowry are you prepared to offer me to relieve you of the fair wench?”
Mortimer nodded with satisfaction. “You are a man after my own heart,” he replied.
You speak the exact truth in that, you puking moldwarp. Mark continued to smile. “You have a goodly castle here. Is the holding large?” he asked.
Fletcher inclined his head. “A middling sort. You know, a few farms, some grazing lands and a small wood for hunting.”
Jack-sauce! Bodiam is half of Sussex and worth a prince’s ransom! “Is the property entailed or claimed by creditors? I do not intend to incur any debts if I take your sister to wife.”
For the first time, Mortimer looked uncomfortable. He drummed the tabletop with his fingers as if he played an imaginary virginal. “No creditors have a claim to it, but…”
Mark lifted one brow. “The estate is not yours?”
The man turned a mottled reddish color. “I am the legal guardian of Bodiam and can assure you that what I offer will be yours free and clear.”
Now we arrive at the meat of this poxy feast. Mark skewered his host with a penetrating look. “Exactly who owns this fair castle?” he asked softly. Let us see how close he cuts to the bone of truth.
Mortimer released a deep mournful sigh. “Tis a sad tale, my lord.”
“Tell me,” Mark prodded. “I enjoy a story well-told.” How clever a liar are you?
Mortimer affected to look somber. “Griselda and I had a brother named Cuthbert. A sweet lad but often sickly. Two years ago, he married into the Cavendish family. Have you heard of them?”
Mark nodded. “Aye, they are a right noble clan from the north. Most fortunate for your brother.”
Mortimer curled his lip in a sneer. “Only half right. The chit in question is a Cavendish bastard. Twas she who was fortunate to find any decent husband at all.”
Mark clenched his fists under the cover of his sleeves. How dare this churl speak of Belle as if she were nothing but a tavern strumpet! He longed to leap over the table and throttle Mortimer. “And so?” he asked, keeping his voice steady.
Mortimer did not notice the fire in Mark’s eyes for he warmed to his sniveling tale. “My father warned Cuthbert that he would drag down the family’s good name with this union, but the boy was besotted with the wench and would not listen to common sense. They married. A year later…” Mortimer lowered his voice. “He fell ill of a strange fever. Griselda and I rushed to his side, but…he died.”
Mark fought the urge to make the sign of the cross that had formerly been a habit when one spoke of the dead. Ever since Great Harry had broken with the Church in Rome all such popish displays of piety were forbidden. Instead, he murmured, “God bless his soul.”
“Amen,” Mortimer answered, then hurried on. “Between you and I, methinks she killed my poor brother.”
Anger throbbed in Mark’s brain. You will surely sup in hell! “Tell me more,” he growled. Dig your grave a little deeper.
“Aye!” Looking satisfied, Mortimer sat back in his chair. “You would only have to see her to know how cruel and cunning she is.”
“Then show her to me,” whispered Mark. “I have never gazed upon a murderess before.”
Mortimer gulped then shook his head. “Alas, I cannot. Since her husband’s untimely death, she has been taken ill herself. No doubt her great sin weighs her down with righteous guilt. Trust me. I have her—and her estate—in my safekeeping.”
“How safe?” Mark snapped. Safekeeping indeed! The knave was more two-faced than Janus.
Mortimer surprised him by suddenly laughing. “Ah ha! I knew you to be a rogue the instant I clapped my eye on you!”
These words and Mortimer’s sudden levity made Mark uneasy. “Are you a conjurer who knows the secrets of men’s hearts?” he asked lightly.
“Nay, take no offense, friend. I am no wizard. We two are alike in our thoughts, and so I know yours as well as my own.”
Bile rose in Mark’s throat. Be thankful you do not read my mind this very instant. “And what thoughts of mine are the twins of yours?”
