He frowned, cursed under his breath, and followed in his wife’s wake. He may’ve won that round, but in some ways he felt as if he’d been ignominiously routed.
Chapter Nine
Princess Surcease stood high on the battlements of the castle and watched as her suitors arrived below. Beside her was Jack the Fool. She’d become quite fond of him, and he accompanied her everywhere. He stood now on an overturned piece of masonry, the better to see over the wall, since he was only half her height.
“Ah, me!” sighed the princess.
“What troubles you, o fair and gusty maid?” Jack asked.
“Oh, Fool, I wish my father would let me choose a husband of my own liking,” the princess said. “But that will never happen, will it?”
“More likely that a fool marry a beautiful princess royal,” Jack replied. . . .
—from LAUGHING JACK
Mouse was barking.
Melisande winced as Suchlike set a pin in her hair. The sound was muffled, true, because it came from three floors below. Vale’d had the dog locked in a little stone storage room off the cellar. Mouse had begun barking shortly after he’d been locked in. Probably when he realized that he wasn’t going to be let out again right away. Since that time—late this morning—he’d barked steadily. It was evening now. Once in a while, he’d stop as if listening for a rescue, but when none came, he’d start up again. And each time the barking seemed louder than before.
“Loud little dog, isn’t he?” Suchlike said. She didn’t sound particularly put out by the racket.
Maybe the household wasn’t as affected as Melisande thought. “He’s never been locked up before.”
“Do him good, then.” Suchlike set another pin and then stepped back to eye her handiwork critically. “Mr. Pynch says he’ll go stark raving mad soon.”
Her lady’s maid sounded as if she’d relish the valet’s insanity.
Melisande arched an eyebrow. “Has Lord Vale returned?”
“Yes, my lady. A half hour or so ago.” Suchlike began to tidy the dressing table.
Melisande stood and wandered across the room. Mouse’s barking stopped suddenly, and she held her breath.
Then he began again.
Vale had forbade her from going to the dog, but if this lasted much longer, she didn’t know if she could stay away. Mouse’s distress was terribly hard for her to bear.
A knock sounded on her door.
She turned and stared. “Come.”
Vale opened the door. He may not’ve been home long, but from the dampness of his hair, he’d had time to wash and change his clothes. “Good evening, my lady wife. Would you care to accompany me on a visit to the prisoner?”
She smoothed down her skirts and nodded. “Yes, please.”
He stood aside, and she led the way down the stairs, the barking becoming clearer the nearer they got.
“I’ve a boon to ask, my lady,” Vale said.
“What is it?”
“I’d like you to stand back and let me handle the dog.”
She pressed her lips together. Mouse had only ever responded to her. What if the terrier tried to bite Vale again? Her husband seemed a gentle man, but she sensed that the gentleness was but a surface layer.
“Melisande?”
She turned. He had stopped on the stairs, waiting for her answer. His turquoise eyes seemed to gleam in the shadows.
She nodded jerkily. “As you wish.”
He descended the last steps and took her hand, leading her back to the kitchens.
The hallway became more dim as they entered the servants’ domain until they reached the kitchen. The room was huge, dominated by a large arched brick fireplace at one end. Two windows at the back of the house let in light, making it a bright room during the day. At the moment, candles supplemented the fading light from outside.
The cook, three scullery maids, several footmen, and the butler were all in the midst of dinner preparations. At their entrance, the cook dropped her spoon into a pot of simmering soup, and everyone else stilled. Mouse’s barking echoed from below.
“My lord,” Oaks began.
“Please. I don’t wish to interrupt your work,” Vale said. “I’ve just come to deal with my lady’s dog. Ah, Pynch.”
The valet had risen from a chair by the fireplace.
“Did you find a scrap of meat?” Vale asked.
“Yes, my lord,” Mr. Pynch said. “Cook has most kindly given me some of the beef from last night’s supper.” He proffered a lumpy folded handkerchief.
Melisande cleared her throat. “Actually . . .”
Vale looked down at her. “My heart?”
“If it’s for Mouse, he loves cheese,” she said apologetically.
“I bow to your superior knowledge.” Vale turned to the cook, who was hovering near her soup. “Have you a bit of cheese?”
Cook curtsied. “Aye, my lord. Annie, fetch that round of cheese from the pantry.”
A scullery maid scurried into a room off the kitchen and reappeared with a wheel of cheese nearly as large as her head. She set it on the kitchen table and carefully unwrapped the cloth about it.
Cook took a sharp knife and cut off a slice. “Will this do, my lord?”
“Perfect, Mrs. Cook.” Vale grinned at the woman, making her thin cheeks tinge a light pink. “I am forever in your debt. Now if you will show me your cellar, Mr. Oaks?”
The butler led the way through the pantry and to a door that opened to a short flight of stairs leading into the partially underground cellar.
“Mind your head,” Vale admonished Melisande. He had to bend nearly double to descend the stairs. “Thank you, Oaks. You may leave us.”
The butler looked greatly relieved. The cellar was lined in cold, damp stone, the walls stacked with shelves holding all matter of food and wine. In one corner was a little wooden door, behind which Mouse had been imprisoned. He’d stopped barking at the sound of their footsteps on the stairs, and Melisande could imagine him behind the door standing with his head cocked to the side.
Vale looked at Melisande and put his finger to his lips.
She nodded, pressing her lips together.
He grinned and cracked the cellar door. Immediately a small black nose peeped through the opening. Vale squatted and pinched off a bite of cheese.
“Now, then, Sir Mouse,” he murmured as he held out the cheese in long, strong fingers. “Have you thought over your sins?”
The nose twitched, and then Mouse took the cheese very carefully from Vale’s hand and disappeared.
Melisande expected Vale to push into the little cellar room, but he simply waited, still squatting on the stone floor as if he had all the time in the world.
A few seconds more and the black, twitching nose reappeared. This time Vale held the cheese just out of the dog’s reach.
Melisande waited, holding her breath. Mouse could be terribly stubborn. On the other hand, he did adore cheese. The dog nudged the door open with his nose. Dog and man eyed each other a moment, until Mouse trotted out and took the second piece of cheese from Vale. He immediately retreated a few steps, turned his back, and gobbled down the cheese. This time Vale held the cheese in his open palm on his knee. Mouse crept forward and hesitantly took the cheese.
When he came back for another bite, Vale ran his hand gently over the dog’s head as he ate. Mouse didn’t seem to mind or even notice the touch. Vale took a long, thin leather cord from his pocket. One end had been made into a loop. When Mouse came back for his next bite of cheese, Vale deftly slipped the loop over the dog’s neck, where it hung loosely. Then he fed Mouse more cheese.
By the time he’d consumed the entire slice of cheese, Mouse was letting Vale rub him all over his little body. Vale stood and tapped his thigh. “Come on, then.”
He turned and left the cellar. Mouse shot a puzzled glance at Melisande, but since he was on the other end of the lead, he was compelled to follow.
Melisande shook her head with wonder a
nd trailed behind. Vale continued through the kitchen and out the back door, where he played out the lead enough to let Mouse do his business.
Then he reeled in the leash and smiled at Melisande. “Shall we partake of supper?”
She could only nod. Gratitude was welling in her chest. Vale had tamed Mouse, proved his mastery over the dog, and all without hurting him. She knew of very few men who would bother to do the same, let alone without beating an animal. What he had done had taken intelligence and patience and not a little compassion. Compassion for a dog that had bitten him only that morning. If she didn’t already love him, she would love him now.
MOUSE LAY UNDER the table at Jasper’s feet. The leash was wrapped about his wrist, and he’d felt the tug when the animal had made a couple of abortive attempts to go to his mistress. Now, the animal simply lay, head between his paws, and gave a theatrical sigh every now and again. Jasper felt a smile curve his lips. He could see why Melisande was fond of the little beast. Mouse had an outsized presence.
“Do you intend to go out again tonight?” Melisande asked from across the table.
She was watching him over the rim of her wineglass, her eyes shadowed and mysterious.
He shrugged. “Perhaps.”
He looked down as he sawed at the roast beef on his plate. Did she wonder why he was always going out, why many nights he stayed away until the wee hours of the morn? Or did she simply think him a mindlessly drunken wastrel? What a lowering thought. Especially since he didn’t particularly like the gaming hells and balls he attended every night. He simply hated the hours of black night more.
“You could stay in,” Melisande said.
He looked at her. Her expression was bland, her movements unhurried as she broke a roll and buttered it.
“Would you like me to?” he asked.
She raised her brows, her gaze still on her roll. “Perhaps.”
He felt his belly tighten at the single, subtly taunting word. “And what would we do, sweet wife, if I did stay here with you?”
She shrugged. “Oh, there’re many things we could do.”
“Such as?”
“We could play cards.”
“With only two players? Not a very interesting game.”
“Checkers or chess?”
He arched a brow.
“We could talk,” she said quietly.
He took a sip of wine. He chased her during the day, but for some reason the idea of simply spending the evening talking with her made him uneasy. His ghosts were most ferocious at night. “What would you like to discuss?”
A footman brought in a tray of cheeses and fresh strawberries and set it between them. Melisande didn’t move—her back, as always, was militarily straight—but Jasper thought she leaned a little forward. “You could tell me about your youth.”
“Alas, a rather boring subject”—he idly fingered the wineglass—“except for the time Reynaud and I nearly drowned in the St. Aubyn pond.”
“I’d like to hear about that.” She still hadn’t taken a strawberry.
“We were in a perilous time of life,” Jasper began. “Eleven, to be exact. The summer before we were sent away to school.”
“Oh?” She selected one strawberry and transferred it to her plate. It was neither the biggest nor the smallest berry, but it was perfectly red and ripe. She stroked it with her forefinger as if savoring the anticipation of eating it.
Jasper swallowed some wine. His throat had gone suddenly dry. “I’m afraid I’d escaped from my tutor that afternoon.”
“Escaped?” She turned the strawberry on the plate.
He watched her fingers on the fruit and imagined them somewhere else entirely. “My tutor was a rather elderly man, and if I had a bit of a head start, I could outrun him easily.”
“Poor man,” she said, and bit into the strawberry.
For a moment, his breath caught and all coherent thought fled his mind. Then he cleared his throat, though his voice still emerged hoarse. “Yes, well, and what was worse, Reynaud had slipped his traces as well.”
She swallowed. “And?”
“Unfortunately, we chose to meet up by the pond.”
“Unfortunately?”
He winced, remembering. “Somehow we got the notion to build a raft.”
Her eyebrows lifted, delicate light brown wings.
He skewered a bit of cheese on his knife and ate it. “As it turns out, building a raft from fallen branches and bits of twine is actually much harder than one would at first think. Especially if one is an eleven-year-old boy.”
“I sense a tragedy in the making.” Her face was grave, but somehow her eyes laughed at him.
“Indeed.” He took a strawberry and twirled the stem between his fingers. “By afternoon, we were covered in mud, sweaty and panting, and we’d somehow constructed a contraption about three feet square, although square it certainly was not.”
She bit her lip as if to keep from laughing. “And?”
He set his elbows on the table, still holding the strawberry, and assumed a solemn expression. “In retrospect, I very much doubt that the thing we’d assembled could float on the water by itself. Naturally, the notion of trying it out on the water before actually trying to sail on it never occurred to us.”
She was smiling now, no longer holding back the laughter, and he felt a thrill of gladness. To make this woman lose composure, to make her express joy, was no mean feat. And the wonder of it was the pleasure he took in making her smile.
“The outcome was inevitable, I fear.” He reached across the table and pressed the strawberry he held against that smiling mouth. She parted her pale pink lips and bit into the fruit. His groin tightened, and he stared at her mouth as she chewed. “We came a cropper almost immediately, the very instability of the raft saving us.”
She swallowed. “How so?”
He tossed aside the strawberry stem and folded his arms on the table. “We got only about a yard from shore before we sank. We landed in the weeds, the water only to our waists.”
“That’s all?”
He felt the corner of his mouth kick up. “Well, it would’ve been all had not Reynaud managed to land almost on top of a goose nest.”
She winced. “Oh, dear.”
He nodded. “Oh, dear, indeed. The gander took exception to us invading his pond-side cottage. Chased us nearly back to Vale Manor. And there, my tutor finally caught up with us and gave me such a caning I could hardly sit for a week. Haven’t really cared for roast goose since.”
For a moment, he held her laughing brown eyes, the room quiet, the servants somewhere out in the hall. Jasper could feel each inhale, feel time seem to pause as he looked into his wife’s eyes. He was on the precipice of something—a turning point in his life, a new way of feeling or thinking—he wasn’t sure, but it was right beneath his feet. All he had to do was take the step.
But it was Melisande who moved. She shoved back her chair and rose.
“I thank you, my lord, for a very amusing tale.” And she walked to the dining room door.
Jasper blinked. “Are you leaving me so soon?”
She paused, her ramrod-straight back still toward him. “I hoped you would accompany me upstairs.” She looked over her shoulder at him, her eyes grave, mysterious, and just a little teasing. “My courses are over.”
She closed the door very quietly behind her.
MELISANDE HEARD A muttered curse followed by a sharp bark as she left the dining room. She smiled. No doubt Vale had forgotten Mouse’s leash tied to his wrist. She mounted the stairs quickly, not looking back. She could feel the beat of her pulse, was aware that he would be following her. The thought sped her feet as she reached the upper hallway.
Heavy footsteps sounded behind her on the stairs, drawing swiftly closer. He must be taking the treads two at a time. She reached her bedroom door, her breath coming in short pants of excitement. She pushed through the door into the empty room and ran to the fireplace, where she whirled around.
/>
Vale prowled into the room a moment later.
“What did you do with Mouse?” She struggled to keep her voice even.
“Gave him to a footman.” He locked the door.
“I see.”
He turned back to her and halted, his head cocked. He seemed to be waiting for her move.
Melisande inhaled and glided forward. “He sleeps with me usually, you know.”
She grasped the edges of his coat and drew them apart, urging it from his arms.
“In this room?”
“In my bed.” She laid his coat carefully on a chair.
“Ah. Indeed.” His eyebrows were drawn together as if he were puzzling something out.
“Indeed,” she repeated softly. She pulled loose his neck cloth and laid it on the coat. Her hands shook as if she had a palsy.
“In the bed.”
“Yes.” She unbuttoned his waistcoat.
He shrugged out of it and dropped it to the floor. She glanced at it and decided to leave it. She began working on his shirt.
“I would think . . .” He trailed away, seeming to lose his train of thought.
She drew his shirt off over his head and looked at him. “Yes?”
He cleared his throat. “Perhaps we should sit down.”
“Why?” She wasn’t about to let this go the way of their wedding night. She laid her fingertips on his chest and traced down lightly over his stomach, reveling in the freedom to touch his bare skin.
He sucked in his belly in reaction. “Ah . . .”
She reached his breeches and found the buttons.
“Slow.”
“You think we should slow down?” she asked gently. She slipped buttons through their holes.
“Well . . .”
“Yes?” The flap of his breeches sagged open.
“Ah . . .”
“Or no?” She slid her hand into his smallclothes and found him hard and heavy, waiting just for her. Warmth pooled at her center in anticipation. She’d have him tonight—have him the way she wanted.
He closed his eyes as if in agony and said quite distinctly, “No.”
“Oh, good,” she murmured. “I concur.”