“Adrian. Nicholas.” The earl shrugged and poured more wine. “What difference? I’ve lost my previous boy, my heir butchered, whatever devil’s hand did the deed. So now Nicholas likes to show himself a hero, as you do, Jerrid. But I know you both better. Peter was my hero, poor lad. I’ll miss him, you know, till my own dying day.”
“Then you’re a bigger fool than I even thought you.” Jerrid turned away. “It’s natural enough to care for your eldest son. But to merit Peter over Nicholas?”
“Nicholas? A smarter boy than I once gave him credit for, perhaps. But Peter? He was exceptional in every way.” The earl stood, tossing back the stool. “I’ll not listen to my boy criticised, but I’ll tell you this, Jerrid, before I go. He’d have brought pride to the family, instead of this foolhardy mummery. Peter was a red blooded Chatwyn, and all the girls fell in admiration at his feet. No nonsenses of book learning or secret errands. No sneaking about the countryside in shoddy clothes and a false identity. Peter was proud to act under his own name, and show his talents.” And the earl finished the last cup of wine, turned on his heel and marched from the chamber. The heavy door swung back on iron hinges and thudded shut.
Jerrid Chatwyn sighed, closed his eyes, and silently wondered if he would be strong and steady enough to climb from the bed, cross over to the table, and retrieve whatever little was left in the wine jug.
The baroness was organising her imminent journey. Petronella would stay with Emeline, while Martha would return to the Wrotham manor with the others. It was Sysabel who fell between the cracks.
The Lady Elizabeth sighed. “My responsibility, as always, I assume. I’ll take the girl. But the sooner she’s wed, the better. She gives me the twitches.” The lady patted her stomacher, broad scarlet pleats over a small well filled belly. It was a long balmy afternoon, dinner not long over, and the sleepy sunbeams crept into everyone’s eyes. “Yes, marry the girl sooner done the better is. But now,” Lady Elizabeth murmured, “that duty is for Nicholas, with Adrian gone. And Symond’s duty too, though he’ll not stir himself, I’ll be bound.”
“Symond is snoozing upstairs.”
“Symond is snoozing even when he’s awake.”
The baroness smiled. “You’ve a poor opinion of your brother, my lady.”
“Who? Oh, Symond. Yes indeed,” sighed the lady. “The family is much flawed. Once I had hopes for young Adrian. He seemed a bright boy. But his father, you know, was a gambler and a drunkard. Being the youngest he never inherited a farthing, but he came into a little coin when he married, for the wife was one of the Bridgeworth girls. Then he gambled her money. Cheated at dice I heard, but I cannot see the merit in cheating if you do not win even then. He was a bully too and my least favourite sibling when I was a girl. Silly little wife had not a pennyweight of sense either. Drowned. Both of them. A grand trip to Flanders, costs borrowed from Symond who hoped to be rid of them. Well, rid of them he was, for they had the stupidity to sail off into a storm. I washed my hands of them.”
“You didn’t,” the baroness pointed out. “You ended up with Adrian and Sysabel.”
“I was reasonably fond of them when they were younger,” remembered Aunt Elizabeth with vague disinterest. “But then they grew up.”
“Sysabel has not stopped crying.”
“It will teach her the worth of prayer and duty,” Sysabel’s aunt announced. “And she may come to appreciate my own efforts as guide and chaperone a little more. She alone will inherit from me eventually, not that I have too much to leave and have as yet no plans to depart. But no doubt young Nick and Symond too will add something for her marriage portion.”
Nicholas still kept to his bed, strictly commanded by his doctor. The half tester spread its painted silks across the headboard, surrounding him in gentle shadows. He watched his wife enter with relief. “Smuggle the horses around the back outside the window,” he told her. “Alert the grooms to say nothing, warn the horses not to neigh, tell my doctors I’m fast asleep, grab some cheese for supper, stuff a flask of wine into the neck of your gown, take down the shutters, open the casement, find a nice long vine of hanging ivy for climbing, and we’ll escape off into the countryside before the sun goes down. I think I should become a highway robber.”
Emeline nodded. “I almost believe you.”
“Have you any idea,” her husband demanded, “how unutterably dreary it is stuck in this damned bed for days on end? I’m stiff enough to carve into a table. My only pleasure is stumbling out of bed to piss or cursing at the apothecary.”
“Just two more days, my love. The doctor promises you can get out of bed and limp downstairs on Friday. I shall clear the spicery of lavender, and we shall have salmon and roast duck for dinner. A last celebration before we say goodbye to Maman and Avice.”
He grinned back. His forehead was still thickly bandaged, his left hand was invisible beneath a wadding of linen, and under the covers his right knee was swaddled. He also had two broken ribs and a small wedge of flesh missing from his left earlobe. But, he assured everyone, he was now feeling exceedingly well. “I lost so much blood during those damned attacks, there was none left to feed the leeches once I got home. But bed rest isn’t my favourite pastime as you know, my sweet, though you might think it is, the amount of time I’ve been tied to it over the year. Besides, I feel wretched about Adrian. And even worse about Sysabel.”
“I hadn’t realised before just how much your Aunt Elizabeth secretly dislikes the poor little thing.” Emeline took a deep breath. “Should we bring Sissy to live at the castle, Nicholas?”
“She’d not thank us.” Nicholas sighed. “She blames me for Adrian’s death. A little unjust, but understandable for all that. And she can’t look us in the eye now we know about Peter and the abortion. Besides,” he shook his head, “she’s still convinced I murdered the sainted Peter and ruined her life.”
“Find her a husband then. Avice is hoping for romance too.”
Nicholas grinned again. “Is a husband such a tempting prospect? And I hear Elizabeth, the eldest of the old king’s girls, is near to tears fearing the negotiations for her alliance with the Portuguese prince will be put on hold while there’s the risk of that miserable traitor Tudor about to cause trouble. The girl wants out of England and into sunnier palaces.”
“You mean Edward IV’s daughter? But she was declared illegitimate. And I didn’t know you knew her.”
“I don’t.” Nicholas stretched, half yawning. “But I know one of her sisters. When I was at court delivering that damned letter, Cecily assured me that Elizabeth wants both a man in her bed and an escape from England’s miserable strictures. The Portuguese don’t care she’s illegitimate for she’s a king’s daughter, as pretty as a swan, and comes with a huge dower. More importantly, she means a powerful alliance between the two countries, since our king will marry their princess Joanna at the same time. It’s a done deal once peace is ensured.”
“We all dream of romance.”
Nicholas leaned back again against the propped pillows. “You and I, we’ve been lucky, my dear, for we originally thought ourselves cursed. Most men are simply after a rich wife. They spend all their time away from home and when they’re forced into their wife’s company, they either tumble her into bed or beat her for being a fool.”
“So she must be a fool to believe in romance?”
Nicholas grinned. “Our king was a good husband, I believe, before Queen Anne died. He was devastated, you know, especially after losing his son the year before. But before Richard, King Edward spent no more than a faithful month in his entire life.” Nicholas shook his head and laughed. “So much for romance.”