The Marsh King's Daughter (36 page)

Miriel blushed at that one. If only he knew the sort of kinder comforts. A spark of devilry prompted her to add, 'I saw him with a red-haired woman once, and I thought that perhaps he had taken a wife.'

Martin cleared his throat and looked at his boots. It was plain that he knew all about Magdalene, but was not prepared to discuss her with Nicholas's clients. 'No, mistress. If he is wedded, it is to his ships.' And with that remark, he escaped to prepare the vessel for embarkation.

With a restless sigh, Miriel went to inspect her bales of cloth in the hold, Will scampering at her side. She had to put Nicholas from her mind; there was no future in thinking about him or the different path she could once have taken. Asking about him and his leman was just self-torture. Staring at the bales sewn up in parcels of rough sacking for the journey, she acknowledged that there was comfort in that torture, in thinking his name and summoning his image to her mind's eye: melancholy pleasure, a feeling of hollowness beneath her heart and an ache in her loins that had no connection whatsoever with Robert's rough attentions. Even a prisoner in the deepest dungeon could dream and make life more bearable.

The cloth fairs in Champagne were huge gatherings compared to those of Stamford, Lincoln and Boston. Miriel was able to walk all day amongst the booths and stalls, and still not see every one. Fifty different tongues proclaimed the language of profit. There were silk merchants from Venice and Florence with bolts of cloth that rippled in the light like liquid gold. Men of Lombardy and Genoa had brought cargoes of alum and spices to barter for fabric. Blond traders from Novgorod clad in the fashion of old Norse sea-raiders rubbed shoulders with slender, dark-eyed sellers of glass and cotton from the lands of the Nile.

Miriel traded some of her cloth for coin, but exchanged most of it for silk and cotton fabrics that would show a high profit on the drapery side of her business. Oriental and Mediterranean expertise shimmered through the cloth, delighting the eye and entrancing the hand with its cool, luxurious feel. Miriel was acquainted with several worthy burgesses in Lincoln and Nottingham who would be unable to resist the lure - herself included. She had already chosen a gown length of red-gold damask and a bolt of Italian-spun creamy silk to make an undertunic.

Most of the other traders were men, but Miriel was accustomed to dealing with them. Indeed, her femininity was a definite advantage to her business. As well as being able to barter the hind leg off a donkey and meet her masculine counterparts on their own ground, she had the weapon of flirtation to call upon. It was astonishing what admiring eyes and a coquettish giggle could accomplish when all else had failed.

A week later, greatly satisfied, she set out for home, her sumptuous purchases a guarantee of the vast profits waiting to be made in Lincoln.

She was expecting to board Pandora's Daughter in Rouen, but the vessel was not moored at the wharf and there was no sign of Martin Wudecoc. Instead, a magnificent cog glittered in the autumn sunset, her paint fresh and bold, her timbers clean as a boy's chin and no sign of sea-weathering to mar a single aspect of her pristine appearance.

'What do you think of her then?' Nicholas asked from behind.

Miriel spun with a gasp. 'What are you doing here?' Her heart lurched and then began to pound.

'Preparing to sail for Boston on the morrow's tide.' His shrug was casual, his smile easy, but beyond that was the look in his eyes, and it turned her knees to water. 'Or perhaps,' he said softly so that the words carried no further than the space between them, 'I should make her safe and sail her out on to the open ocean with no thought of making landfall for at least a year and a day.'

Miriel swallowed. 'I thought. . . I . . . Where's Martin?'

'Heading for Bristol with a cargo of Rhenish wine, I hope,' Nicholas said. He gestured at the cog. 'As far as others are concerned, she's named the St Maria, but to me she is the Miriel.'

Miriel gazed, drinking him in. She longed to step inside the space that separated them, to place her fingers on his sleeve in the light possession of a lover and lock her eyes and smile with his. So great was that longing that she deliberately leaned away from him and folded her arms beneath her breasts to resist temptation. 'You did this apurpose. It is not happen-chance that you are here.'

He rubbed his jaw. 'Well, not entirely,' he conceded. 'I thought you might be attending the fair, but it is completely in the hands of fortune that you dp not have your husband's company.'

'And if I did, what then?'

'Then we would not be engaged in this conversation, would we?'

Miriel drew a shaky breath. 'There can be no future in this,' she said bleakly.

He looked down for a moment, then half turned to study the large cog dancing at anchor. Finally, he fixed his gaze on her again. 'I know. You gave me your reasons before.' His voice was filled with regret and resignation, but not defeat. 'But for a few days at least, can we not suspend that future, pretend that it does not exist?'

Her glance followed the wake of his to the ship. The suggestion clenched her stomach with a volatile mingling of hope and despair. Would the snatched happiness be worth the guilt? Would the pleasure compensate for the pain of parting? Common sense told her that she should refuse, but the words stuck in her throat. Since escaping St Catherine's, her life had been one long facade, but with Nicholas, there was no need to pretend - except that they had a future. He knew her better than she knew herself, or else why would he be here?

'I do not know,' she answered, meeting his eyes, the only contact there could be for decency's sake on the bustling dockside, but the look that passed between them burned away all notion of propriety. 'But we can try.'

Miriel lay upon Nicholas on the cramped pallet, and listened to the shrieking of the gulls. Daylight seeped through the canvas deck shelter, warning her that their stolen time together was almost at an end. Nor had that time run to days. It was more a matter of hours, of circumspect minutes that could be snatched and not noticed as odd by the members of Miriel's household. Exquisite torture, as much pain as pleasure, and yet neither Miriel nor Nicholas would have denied them.

'I should be going,' he said, kissing her face and throat, still hectic with the flush of lovemaking. 'I have been here too long already, and your maid will be wondering what kind of respects I have been paying you.'

Miriel tightened her grip around him for a moment, savouring his salty masculine aroma and the wiry tautness of his muscles, so different to Robert's well-fleshed bulk. She did not speak, for there was nothing to say that had not already been said. The only way they could be together was for her to leave her husband and become Nicholas's mistress. Simple to say, and on the surface simple to do. But like casting a stone in a pool, the repercussions would be far greater than the original deed. She and Nicholas would be ostracised by the English mercantile community and their livelihoods threatened, if not destroyed. There was no telling what it would do to Robert, her lawfully wedded husband to whom she had given her promise of fidelity. She had seen his tenacity and anger when he felt threatened. He was too possessive to let her go with equanimity. '

'I do not know if this is better or worse than nothing,' Nicholas groaned, as he struggled into his clothing in the cramped confines of the deck shelter.

Miriel ran her hand beneath his shirt to the smooth skin on his back. 'Just accept it,' she said.

'And if I can't?'

'You have to.' Her voice was fierce. 'This is all we have. I don't want the memory tarnished by bitterness and argument.'

'Even accepting will not stop me from wishing you were mine,' he said grimly. 'Every second of every hour of every day.'

'Oh Nicholas, don't.' She laid her fingers against his lips, tears gathering in her eyes.

He groaned and pulled her into his arms. They kissed frantically, almost savagely, snatching at the last few moments and desperately aware that the sand in the hourglass had run beyond its limit. With one final kiss, hard enough to bruise, he broke away. His breath was shaking; so were his hands as they fumbled to latch his belt. 'Keep me in your heart,' he said, then he was gone, leaving behind a tang of cold salt air as he stepped on to the deck and dropped the shelter flap behind him.

Miriel wiped the back of her hand across her eyes and gulped back a wave of grief and frustration. She forced herself to practical matters by securing her wimple and smoothing her clothes, becoming the outward model of a respectable married woman. She was not sorry for the time that she and Nicholas had snatched together, but she wished it had never happened. She had tried to pretend and failed. There was a price to be paid and she had a nagging premonition that it would beggar them in the end.

As she lifted her cloak from the coffer, she uncovered the Psalter that Robert had given her. It lay upon her spare gown and chemise, accusing her with its intricate, biblical beauty. With a gasp Miriel grabbed a fold of chemise and threw it over the book, then slammed down the lid.

The St Maria/Miriel sailed into Boston, her hold full of plunder from the Champagne fairs: expensive cloth of

Italian manufacture, silk damask, samite, and fine-spun cotton.

Standing at the prow, Miriel was aware of Nicholas in every fibre of her being. The length of the deck separated them, but it meant nothing. She could feel the tug of the connection as if they were pressed side by side. All his concentration was given to steering the cog as she entered the estuary, but she knew his senses were attuned to hers.

'I love you,' she whispered, tears glistening in her eyes. As the anchor broke the brown water and the mooring rope snaked out to a bollard, she took a last drenching look at him. Then, biting her lip, fighting for composure, she turned to view the bustle of the port.

Waiting for her on the jetty was Robert.

Robert wrapped Miriel in his huge embrace and kissed her heartily'. 'Sweetheart, sweetheart, I've missed you,' he said huskily. 'Have you fared well?'

Miriel fought her horror at seeing him, the smothering wave of fear and shock. 'The hold is full of fine cloth,' she heard herself say in a voice that was almost normal. 'And you?' She could not bring herself to return his kiss with the taste of Nicholas still in her mouth.

'Excellently.' He flexed his hands on her arms in a grasping motion. 'I've regained the customers I lost to de la Pole, and added a few of his former ones to my tally.' He smiled broadly. 'That means I now have time on my hands to lavish attention on my beautiful wife.' He gave her another hug, then let her go, retaining only her hand in his powerful grip. 'I've taken a room at The Ship and we can be comfortable there tonight.'

Miriel shivered at the implication of that remark.

'Cold?' Robert removed his hand from hers and draped his arm solicitously across her shoulders.

She shook her head. How could she be cold on a day that would have been sweltering except for a slight freshening of sea breeze? 'A little queasy from the journey,' she said.

His eyes gleamed and he nuzzled his beard against her jaw. 'I'll take you to lie down awhile then.' He turned her on his arm, then paused to stare up at the overlapping oak strakes and the boldly painted colours. 'I had not realised that his ambition stretched this far,' he murmured.

Miriel said nothing, not trusting herself to speak. It was as if she were being torn in two. The feelings of dread and guilt she had experienced at the sight of Robert waiting for her on the jetty were too great a burden to bear. For her peace of conscience, she had to give Nicholas up, but the pain of the notion was almost as bad as the guilt of adultery.

Nicholas slowly descended the wooden walkway on to the jetty. She saw him hesitate for a moment, gathering himself, then stride firmly forward, his expression set and blank. It would have looked strange if he had not paused to greet a regular customer.

'A fine ship,' Robert said with a friendly smile.

Nicholas inclined his head, his lips curving in the semblance of a response. 'Indeed she is.'

'Does she sail as well as she looks?'

'I think so, but the weathering of autumn storms will prove it.'

'I only wondered,' Robert said pleasantly. 'My wife tells me that she feels a trifle queasy, and she is not one to suffer the sailing sickness.'

Nicholas met Miriel's eyes briefly, then looked away. 'I am sorry to hear it,' he said.