Emeline wrapped her arm around her husband’s naked waist. “Aren’t you cold?”
He grinned again. “Perhaps. So keep me warm.”
“No more fears of infection?”
“Tomorrow once matters are sorted with Adrian, I’ll take you back downstairs,” he told her. “But it’s been sweet, having you here to myself. The pestilence – it’s the curse every Englishman has to face at times, and we’ve been luckier than most. So we’ll travel back to Westminster. I still have that wretched letter to deliver to the king. Adrian – I’ll leave him to my father if I can, once the initial decision is made.” He leaned back a moment, Emeline nestled to his side as he stared up at the ceiling beams and the bed’s limp tester. “Strange,” he said, more to himself than to her, “I never considered Adrian much in the past. Too busy avoiding the family and making choices for myself. But now – there’s more to Adrian than I’d thought. And most of it I don’t like.”
Emeline was interested. “Well, he seems pompous and boring and bossy but nice to Sissy. Yet – if he’s a traitor and a murderer – he’s someone else!”
Nicholas smiled, his wandering hands discovering the rise of her breasts beneath the eiderdown. “Knowing him since I was a child clearly meant nothing, for I never knew him at all. Yet the bastard claims to have always thought me guilty – not only of killing my own brother – but also of raping his sister.”
Emeline sat in a hurry. “He what?” she demanded. “How dare he?” She wriggled around, staring down at her husband. “Raping Sissy? How could he think such a thing? And if he really did believe that, why did he do nothing about it?”
“Just what I said.” Nicholas pulled her back down and scrambled beneath the covers with her, their legs entwined. “Which is why I don’t believe a word of it. There’s something more to this.” But he shook his head. “So have mercy now, my beloved, and give me leave to forget the dark memories and the sins of my family. I want to make love to my wife.”
She gazed up at him as he moved over her, bright blue eyes shadowed. “You called me ‘your beloved’,” she whispered.
“Do you not yet believe that I’ve fallen in love with you?” His hands pushed down against her belly, pressing into the soft curls at her groin. His fingers probed.
She caught her breath on a sudden gulp. “Not just – that – part of me?”
“Every part of you.”
“I don’t even know – what it’s called.” She was losing her breath entirely.
“Oh there are names, my love, plenty of names, none of which I’ll tell you. But it’s a place I treasure.” He leaned heavily over her, crushing her beneath him, and his eyes glittered just an inch from hers. “But it wasn’t only this I missed while I was away, as I’ve sworn to you already. It was the soft slip of your fingers around me, the sweet warmth of your breath. The worried murmurs and mumbles you make in your sleep, and the bright dazzling joy of you when I see you wake in the morning.”
Chapter Forty-Nine
David Witton straightened his shirt collar, pulled up his boots, tightened the lacings of his doublet and checked that both knife hilts were easy to hand and would be quick to draw. He took one deep breath and entered the stables. The horses, still snorting and kicking at the straw, were not yet settled, and one of the men, recently arrived, was filling buckets, while others unbuckled and heaved off the saddles and horse blankets. Five men, six horses. David watched a moment, leaning back against one of the stalls. He stuck his thumbs through his belt, and waited.
Alan Venter was already watching, waiting in the shadows at the stable’s far doorway by the upturned barrows. Seemingly a casual wakefulness, he nodded, barely discernible. David smiled and raised one hand, four fingers spread. Again Alan nodded. There were four. So Rob and Harry were somewhere, hidden, alert, also waiting.
The horses gradually settled. The men continued to fold the blankets, hoisting sacks of oats and filling the trough. The water buckets were once again empty. One of the new arrivals called for an ostler. “Boy. Where’s the boy?”
No one answered. The inn’s stable boys had already been ordered to their pallets and were silent if not asleep. Alan sauntered from the shadows into the pooling moonlight through the open sided doorway. “You’ll be the late arrivals, then,” he said, kicking at the empty buckets. “I hear the Fox is overflowing with grand lords and their ladies these days. A couple of you look mighty familiar. So who do you serve, my friend?”
The other man stared, then shook his head. “My master’s my business, and I’m no man’s friend,” he growled. “I’m pissing tired, and there’s no bugger at this miserable inn to refill buckets nor help scrub down the bloody horses. What sort of place is this, then – to charge but not supply?”
“But I reckon I know some of you, and your master too.” Alan shook his head. “You’ve been at the Chatwyn House stables, back outside London. So how come you’re suddenly too grand to carry a bucket out to the well? Or perhaps you’ve an arm too weak to carry it back once filled?”
One of the other men grinned with a low chuckle as he settled the last horse into its stall. The first man scowled, flexing a fist. “Yes, I’ve seen you before. So you should know I’m no groom, nor bloody scullion to muck out some bandy old mare stinking of sweat.”
Alan braced himself for attack before speaking. “Tis you stinking of sweat, my friend, and bandy as the mare, far as I can see. Fill your own bucket, for I’m no groom neither, and don’t work for you nor your master.”
It was one of the other men who immediately stepped forwards, both fists raised. “Making friends again, Francis? Give the word and I’ll knock the bastard from one stall into the next.” But David was already behind him, and had grabbed the man’s arm before he could swing it, forcing his wrist up hard behind his back.
“More complaints?” David murmured. “What an unfriendly band of brethren it seems we have here, Alan, to disturb our righteous rest.” He stared through the gloom. “And I know you too. You work for Sir Adrian Frye, if I recognise you correctly. Strange for a knight of the realm to employ such bad tempered servants.” The three other men looked around. David abruptly released the man he held who tumbled to his knees, rubbing his wrist and glowering. David shrugged.
There was shuffling, indrawn breath, tempers rising. The horses, now abandoned half groomed, kicked, snorting and stamping, sensing unrest. One reared, knocking over the last full bucket. Water seeped into the straw. All five of the newcomers faced Alan and David. One also bunched his fists. “We ain’t no brainless horse scrubbers, not that it bothers me for I’ll do what’s needed in times of needing. Maybe you remembers our faces from the Chatwyn stables, but we’re fighting men, have been on important business and fighting were part of it, so watch your backs. One more word and I’ll surely take offence. You stupid buggers, be warned.”
“Watch my back?” Alan snorted. “That’s the way of brave fighters now, is it? Too cautious to approach the front, then?”
Which is when the first man swung his arm, full force from his shoulder, and aimed for Alan’s face.
It was Harry who grabbed the arm from behind, twisting the man into a headlong tumble. Harry promptly banged the snarling man’s head hard to the ground, punched him once to the jaw and again to the belly, sat on him, and wound the stout rope he was carrying around the other’s flailing wrists, pinning them to his torso. “Louts and brawlers, is you then?” decided Harry with evident glee, pulling the rope tight. The prone man winced and grunted. “A lickle uncomfy, is it? Dear, dear, how awful sad. But then, tis proper unwise to go labelling yerselves as fighters, when yous no more than scufflers.”