“He labored under ill health, I believe,” she defended.
“True.”
“Were you at Quebec?”
“Yes, and at Louisbourg, which is, I assure you, one of the most
Godforsaken spots on earth. I think the French soldiers were pleased
enough to lose it to us.”
“Which was the worst battle?”
“Neither,” he said with a grin. “We won both.”
“But so many men were wounded and killed.”
“ ‘Blood is the god of war’s rich livery,’” he quoted, and when she looked a question, he said, “Marlowe.”
“You enjoy soldiering,” she said with surprise.
“I wouldn’t do it if I didn’t.”
“Being a man, and a Malloren…”
He swirled his wine. “You are not lowborn, and soon will be a man. Perhaps you should join the army too.”
It struck Chastity how peculiar it was to be having this
conversation with a seemingly authentic lady who was knocking back an
alarming amount of wine. Lord Cynric Malloren had a rare ability to
tangle her mind. She had to admit, however, that the bizarre situation
would tie anyone in knots.
“I don’t think I have a taste for blood,” she said.
“It’s remarkable what we are capable of when tested.”
“I find it difficult to imagine you as dangerous.”
He looked up from under those ridiculous lashes and smiled. “Try me sometime.”
The wine was affecting him; she could see it in his eyes, and the
message there alarmed her. All the danger she had sensed this morning,
both from him and in herself, rushed back. She leaped to her feet. “I
think I’ll take a turn around the town.”
She was gone before Cyn could stop her. He cursed his drink-slowed
wits. She shouldn’t be out there. She hadn’t even taken her wig and
hat, and going about with a shorn head would attract attention in
itself. It was all his fault. The conversation had been innocent
enough, but wanton thoughts had stirred in him as they always seemed to
when they were together. She had read him aright and fled.
It would only make matters worse if he pursued her precipitously. It
would draw attention to them both. He put on his dratted cap and hat,
and checked on Verity. She and the babe were asleep. He then picked up
Charles’ wig and tricorn, stuffed them in his muff, and went out. He
remembered to take small steps and keep his head demurely lowered. At
first, pretending to be a woman had been novel and amusing. It was
rapidly becoming a dead bore.
In the entrance hall of the inn, one portly gentleman tipped his hat
and leered at Cyn’s bosom. Cyn wanted to plant the man a facer.
Salisbury’s main street was wide and open, and there was no sign of
the girl. Cyn stopped to speak to a woman selling chestnuts. “Did you
see a young man, bareheaded, pass this way?”
The woman hooked an eloquent thumb. “Went down the river, luv.”
Cyn turned down the alley indicated. He found himself in a tangle of
winding lanes lined with cottages, gardens, and stables. Over three
shoulder-high garden walls he glimpsed Charles, and beyond her, the
river Avon.
He set off in her direction, but this warren was a veritable maze,
and the lanes soon forced him away from his quarry. He plunged on,
intent on getting Charles back to their parlor before she bumped into
someone she knew. Then he caught the amazement on the face of a laborer
in a corn factor’s barn. He realized he was striding along. With a
muttered curse, he started mincing again.
A few moments later his path turned alongside some gardens, and he
had a clear view of Charles standing by the riverbank, tossing dead
leaves into the water. A sadness, a loneliness in her pose caught at
him, and he wanted nothing so much as to comfort and protect her. She
wandered further along and out of his sight. If only she would tell him
her problems…
He was snapped out of his thoughts by voices approaching.
“I tell you, I saw the trollop,” drawled a well-bred voice. Cyn quickly slipped through a garden gate, and out of sight.
“ ‘Tis not the sister we’re after, sir.” This speaker was of a lower order, and Cyn guessed, a Londoner.
“Zounds, man, there’s no reason for the one to be here without the
other! She’s as good as a prisoner since she made such a disgrace of
herself.” Cyn thought the speaker might be Henry Vernham.
What disgrace?
The two men appeared to have stopped nearby.
“But we checked that cottage a few days back, sir, and there weren’t sight nor sound of Lady Verity.”
“They were lying, or my sister-in-law turned up later.” Definitely
Henry Vernham. “That’s neither here nor there. I glimpsed the chit
heading toward the river. You go that way and I’ll go this. With luck
we can trap her quietly. I don’t want any fuss. Once we have her, we
have Lady Verity.”
Cyn riffled through options with all the clearheadedness that came
on him in battle—lightning-fast, rapier-sharp. He monitored the
conversation at the same time.
“How’ll I know her, sir?” the henchman whined. “Is she like Lady Verity’s picture?”
“Not at all. She’s a bold piece of goods. High and mighty, or was.”
Henry Vernham sniggered. “But you can’t miss her. She has no hair.”
“No
hair
, sir?”
“That’s what I said. Her father shaved it when he caught her
in flagrante delicto
.”
Cyn’s attention fractured.
Shaved!
In flagrante delicto?
With whom had she been caught? And why, in God’s name, had the man
not stood by her? His hand went for the rapier that wasn’t there. That
wrenched him back to his disguise, and his purpose.
“… only saw her from the chest up,” Vernham was saying. “She’s
wearing something mannish—a habit or such. But you can’t mistake that
hair. She looks a regular freak. Walgrave thought it’d trap her where
he wanted her every bit as well as iron bars. That and the only clothes
he allowed her. No true woman would poke her head out of the door
looking like that.”
Cyn realized his hands were fists, and he wanted nothing so much as
to vault the wall and thrash Horrible Henry to a bloody pulp for the
smug satisfaction in his voice.
Instead, as soon as the men moved away, he gathered his damned
skirts together and worked his way across the turned earth of the
garden toward the next wall.
This had no gate and he discovered that climbing a wall in heavy
skirts presented problems. He heard something rip but made it over. As
he hoped, the next garden did have a gate giving onto the meadow by the
river. He was almost through it when a women shouted, “Oy!”
Cyn turned and saw a brawny housewife glaring at him, fists on hips. He feigned fear. “Oh, please, ma’am! My brothers…”
The woman gaped at him. Cyn quickly pressed a sixpence into her
hand. “Bless you, dear lady,” he murmured, then ran through the gate. A
quick glance showed no sign of the hunters. He picked up his skirts and
sprinted toward Charles. There was a rustic bench nearby.
He grabbed the girl and gasped, “Horrible Henry!”
He dragged her to the bench, flung himself down on it, and jerked her on top.
Then he kissed her.
It was just a pressing of his lips to hers, but she went stiff as a
board. At least she did not fight. Cyn took the time to cram on her wig
and hat. No one would be surprised to see them crooked in this
situation. Over her shoulder he watched for their pursuers.
A sinewy, sallow-faced man came out of one alley as a handsome
man-of-fashion came through the other. They looked around, then over
toward Cyn.
Cyn turned his attention to his damsel. He put his large muff on her
back so it covered part of her head, then made a thorough business of
the kiss. His conscience sounded an alarm, but he easily muffled it.
After all, this could well be the only chance he ever had.
She tried to keep her lips hard, but as he played his own against
them they turned soft and sweet. So sweet. He tried to be gentle,
though the taste of her leaped through him like an aphrodisiac.
He saw her eyes drift shut, and felt her response—the subtle
movements of her body against the length of his, the clutching of her
hands against his shoulders. He held her close, drowning in the
pleasure of pleasuring her.
He longed to explore her mouth, but he knew he’d have a fight there,
not least because she thought he thought her a man. Perhaps she
remembered. She whimpered and tensed. Cyn’s pleasure fled, and he felt
a cad for taking such advantage. When someone cleared his throat, he
was pleased enough to break the kiss.
Horrible Henry was looming over them.
Cyn gave a shriek and clutched Charles face-down to his bosom.
“Adrian! We are discovered! No, dear boy, stay safe in my arms. They
shall not hurt you.” He fixed Henry Vernham with what he hoped were
tragically intense eyes, and declared, “Only death shall part us, sir!”
“Zounds, woman. We have no interest in you and your paramour. Did a
young woman pass by here? A young woman with very short hair?”
Cyn assessed his enemy. He was tall and dark, and handsome in a
shallow kind of way. His eyes were narrow but not stupid. Cyn was
tempted to mislead him, but merely simpered and said, “I’m sure the
king could have passed by these last few minutes, sir, and I’d never
have seen. Do you speak truly? You are not sent to tear Adrian from my
arms?”
Henry Vernham’s only reply was a sneer of disgust. He turned and
stalked off back toward the town. The other man leered at the ‘lovers’
and trailed after. Cyn held onto his damsel until they were gone.
He allowed the feel of her to wrap around him, to weave into him. He
knew with his nerve endings and his soul that he could make beautiful
love with this woman. It was in the shape of her against him and
beneath his hands, and the memory of the taste of her on his lips. It
was in the faint aroma from her body, an aroma more potent than the
finest French perfume.
He thought he could detect the slight swell of her bound breasts
against his chest as she breathed. Her thigh had come to rest between
his, a source of delightful torture. Driven by need, he slid a hand up
between her wig and her head to feel the silky smoothness of her hair.
A shudder rippled through her.
He remembered what Henry had said. Walgrave had shaved her and
forced her to wear the coarse penitent’s garments, because he’d caught
her in some man’s bed. No wonder she preferred men’s clothing. But that
meant she was no virgin.
It didn’t please him. Despite his lust for her, he didn’t want her to be a wanton…
“Are they gone?” she asked quietly.
Cyn realized he was softly stroking the back of her head, offering
comfort, not lust. His instincts at least had found her innocent of the
worst. She must have been caught in her first misdemeanor, doubtless
swept away by love.
What, then, had happened to her lover?
Reluctantly, very reluctantly, he let her go. She scrambled to her
feet rather dazedly, not looking at him at all, and straightened her
wig and hat.
“What was all that about?” she asked.
“I heard them planning to trap you. Vernham had seen you. I decided
you’d have a chance in the guise of young Adrian. It appears to have
worked.” Not least because they were looking for a female, he thought,
but he didn’t say it. Really, he thought, it was becoming necessary to
put an end to the masquerade before it endangered them all.
“We had better collect Verity and leave,” she said.
“Yes, but carefully. How well does Henry know you?”
Her face became pinched. “Very well.”
Cyn almost asked,
Has he been in your bed
? “If he gets a
good look at you, he won’t be fooled then.” Cyn pulled up her modest
collar as high as it would go and pulled the hat down a little. The
tricorn, however, offered little concealment for the face.
“Arm in arm, I think,” said Cyn, “and talking. It will hide your features a little.”
She was skittish but complied. They walked as quickly as they dared
back to the inn, plastered against one another, heads bowed as if they
were sharing secrets. Cyn saw Henry’s henchman prowling the high
street, but no sign of Henry himself. That wasn’t altogether good news.
The man could already be searching the inn.
His heart was beating fast, but not with fear. With excitement. This
was what he had missed through these dreary months of convalescence.
The edge of danger, the imperative of action.
They arrived safely back in their parlor, and he laughed for the joy of it.
“Stop it!” said Charles. “This isn’t a game, you oaf. This is my sister and my nephew’s life!”
He tried, but he knew he couldn’t sober entirely. “Am I not
preserving them? And we wouldn’t be in this pickle,” he pointed out,
“if you hadn’t stormed out for no reason.”
She raised her chin. “Very well, I accept the responsibility. Now we must leave.”
“Perhaps.” Cyn went to look out the window, but the view of the high
street wasn’t particularly enlightening. A view of the coach yard would
be more useful. “It might be better to wait until Henry leaves.”
“He may be making Salisbury his headquarters.” she countered. “And
when he doesn’t find me, he’ll go through the inn with a fine-toothed
comb.”
Cyn looked at her with new respect. “I love a clearheaded partner.
Rouse Verity. We’ll continue our Adrian-and-his-lover act and pretend
to be fleeing in guilt.”
She colored at that but went toward the bedchamber door. She halted
with her hand on the knob. “How could you do it… ?” she asked stiffly,
not looking at him at all. “A man kissing a man…”
“It was only a kiss, my dear boy,” said Cyn lightly. “On the
Continent men kiss more freely than we British. Besides, haven’t you
found there is always a certain amount of experimentation in a boys’
school? Don’t worry. I long since decided sodomy isn’t a vice I favor.”
Her pink cheeks turned red, and she hurried into the bedroom.