His lips came up against her temple, disguising his remark in the guise of a kiss. “I told you that I would fix this.”
23
Two weeks later, Nora and Adrian disembarked in the yard at a coaching inn in Immingham, a port town that lay on the road to estates that once had been the Colvilles’. Those northern holdings, along with Hodderby and the other properties forfeited by her father’s and brother’s attainders, would soon be invested in her husband. It was fit to inspect them. But the journey northward had been long, and the inn offered welcome respite from another jostling hour in the coach.
What idle onlookers loitered in the damp, rain-riddled yard no doubt remarked on the unlikely coincidence that this modest inn should play host to two equally impressive guests: not only the Earl of Rivenham, but also the recently recalled Swedish ambassador, whose household was sailing to Stockholm with the next tide.
What, with luck, nobody would ever guess, was that the peaceful nature of his recall was owed to the discretion of Lord Rivenham, who, in return for a favor, had burned papers that might otherwise have proved this gentleman’s involvement in the kind of political meddling that could incite kings to declare war on formerly friendly nations.
Adrian escorted Nora directly to her rooms. If Grizel was surprised when Nora dispatched her downstairs to the taproom to take ale at her leisure, the maid was too grateful to question the order.
Manners dictated that Adrian pay his respects to the erstwhile ambassador, so he left her alone—and locked the door behind him, shutting her in.
Shortly thereafter, on a deep breath, she walked to the door that opened into the adjoining room. A test of the latch showed that it had been left unlocked. She did not knock before stepping inside.
David wore the ambassador’s blue-and-gold livery. He had been prowling the windowless room, but at her footfall, he stopped and turned with such composure that she knew he had been forewarned to expect her.
For a long moment they gazed upon each other through the gray, rainy light. He looked rested and well treated, though still too thin. The distracted fidget of his fingers over the empty sword belt at his waist betrayed anxiety, or perhaps—though she hoped against it—anger. His gaze broke from hers, and he looked over the near-empty room, the narrow cot, with a twitch of his lips that might have been an attempt at a smile.
“So,” he said, “I was right to tell you the Tower would not be the end of me.”
She found her own smile difficult to call up. “I have thanked God for it every day.”
He nodded once and started to push his hand through his hair—pausing when he encountered the curled wig, unfashionably long and heavy, that marked him as the ambassador’s footman. “I still think it a trick,” he said tightly. He lowered his hand to his side, fisting it, and then paced a short measure to the window. In his restless movements, the dismissive flick of his fingers against the dusty shutters, she saw the discomfort of a man who had been done a favor he knew he did not deserve.
“No trick,” she said. “You will go free. From Stockholm, you may find your way to wherever you please.”
He sent her a narrow glance. His color was high. “But why? This will cost Rivenham his life.”
“He would hardly risk his neck for your sake, David. Suspicion has fallen on Barstow’s son, Lord John. One of his rings—a very distinctive diamond ring, which once went by the name of Lady Sarah—was found in your cell. And the men who freed you—”
His snort interrupted her. “Men, were they?”
Now her smile came easily; after a moment she laughed. To free him, Adrian’s men had undertaken a strange ruse, bringing with them two women and clothing for a third. Her brother had fled the Tower in the guise of a crone in skirts. “Surely you cannot object to how it was accomplished!”
“I object to the author,” he said. “You may trust him. But if I go missing on the high seas—”
“Oh, David.” She sighed. “Is it so strange? You go free for my sake. What other reason could there be? It is not as though you gave my husband cause for friendship.”
Now he faced her fully, and his intent regard smacked of surprise. “He told you,” he said. “Of course he did.”
“Told me what?”
He shook his head, as though words evaded his service.
She stepped toward him. “Now is not the time to bite back truths. Told me what?”
“I cannot understand it,” he muttered. He ran a hand down his face. “I put him to the sword once before. But he would not fight! The day he asked to marry you—so many years ago, now—why did I not end him? Father told me to do it—and I was close, so close to cutting his throat—only he would not fight!”
She felt sick. Her father had ordered Adrian’s death? “No,” she said. “He never told me that.” To think he had returned to that place—what memories must have hounded him—and yet, he had never revealed to her the true extent of her family’s cruelty. “God have mercy on you.” On her own soul was the sin of ill charity, for she could not include their father in her prayer.
David’s answering silence seemed stunned. He cleared his throat. “When he laid down his sword at Manston,” he said haltingly, “it was so much . . . so much like that other time. And I remembered again how I had spared him—to my regret; I regretted it so bitterly. All these years, each time I found his eyes on you, leering at you across those crowded rooms at court—but again, at Manston, I was reminded of . . . that day.”
He sank into a chair and gave a hoarse, unhappy laugh. “Shall I say it? I was reminded of honor! Honor and Rivenham: God save me, I must have the brain fever to pair those words. But I tell you, when those men came for me in the Tower—they said they were sent by Barstow, and my idiot brain believed it. Why, my first thought was, I will find that dog. I will finish what I lacked the guts to do before. And then, to discover that the same man I aimed to kill was the one who had spared me . . .”
“Some lessons take a very long time to learn,” Nora said softly. “Sometimes I think that kindness is the hardest lesson of all.”
Certainly it had taken all her courage to learn to trust kindness again—to learn that the world might not be nearly so cruel or colorless as she had once resigned herself to endure.
To learn that love might last, and deserve all her faith and none of her doubts, still seemed a miracle that merited wonder.
“But it was not kindness that led him to save me,” her brother said slowly. “As you say, it had nothing to do with me at all.” He looked up at her. “So I will go free. But not you. What of you, Leonora? What of your choice in this matter?”
She fought to restrain her impatience. “I had a choice, David. At Manston House, I chose him.”
“Yes.” He laughed, a short, unhappy sound. “So you did.” He shook his head. In his evident wonder she saw how little he still understood her. “It must have been . . . a heady thing,” he said, “to encounter him raised so high, a peer of the realm, a proper Christian, yet still so enamored of you, a widow of no great account—”
Of no great account. She knew he did not speak these words to harm her. David loved her. But brotherly love easily accommodated his other understanding of her, as the woman the world saw: a plain widow, who had done her duty by marrying a man whose last actions before dying had saved the family estate, but whose future prospects would be hounded by barrenness, and shyness, and a lack of social charms.
Only, none of this seemed to touch her now. Adrian allowed her to see an entirely different picture of herself.
He had always seen her differently.
“I love him,” she said. “I always have. I loved him when he was a second son and a Catholic. You knew this.”
His hand dropped from his eyes. The astonishment on his face struck her as a false, offensive show.
“You knew this,” she said.
“By God,” he said roughly, “but I did not.”
“Be honest!” Anger took her a step toward him. “B
e honest with yourself if not with me. Where is the use in deceit now? Recall to yourself how I pined for him! How I refused to marry Towe, how I turned down food and water—”
“A girl’s foolishness,” he said. “You were so young, Leo! So young and so sheltered from the world! You had never met an eligible man—my God, can you blame me for trusting my own judgment, our father’s judgment, over yours? What did you know of the world then—or men—or what trials such love might inflict on you? Nothing!”
“And yet my love endured,” she said flatly, “through trials of your own making, and our father’s, and several more besides.”
He came to his feet. “I wanted only the best for you!”
That, at least, was the truth. “And do you still?”
He made a frustrated noise. “Can you doubt it?”
“Then do me this favor,” she said, “and trust me now. For I am no longer a sheltered girl.”
He folded his lips together and blew a hard breath through his nose. At last, his reluctance obvious, he said, “I wish you the best. But—by God, I wish you might come with me!”
“So be it.” She shrugged. “Wishes are harmless, I think.”
He gave her a slight smile, effortful in appearance. “So I believe. And . . . you do speak true: you’re a woman grown. If your choice be Rivenham . . .” His smile twisted, as though the very name soured his mouth. “So be it. He has proved, at least, that he will be worthy to you.”
“Yes,” she said. “He has more than proved it. Why, he has done right even by you.”
He stared at her a moment longer, then nodded. “So. My love and best blessings to you, sister.”
Here was the remark she had awaited. She held out her arms to him, taking him into a hard embrace.
With her face buried against his chest, she closed her eyes, permitting herself to savor this moment, perhaps the last she would ever share with him.
“David,” she said very softly—wary of shattering this brief accord. “Do not follow our father down every path he assigns to you.”
His grip tightened briefly. “Yes,” he said in a low voice. “I will think carefully on my future now.”
But the answer did not satisfy her. She stepped back to look into his eyes. “The world is larger than England and France—larger than the question of a single throne and who must sit on it. Not all Father’s causes need be yours. Some, I think, are best given up for lost.”
A twinkle of his old humor lit his face. Lightly he flicked her cheek, a brother’s taunt. “My wise little pessimist,” he said. “You never were cut out for rebellions.”
That flick demanded recompense. She caught his ear and twisted it. “And you never truly knew me, if you think that the case. For what is love but a great rebellion against caution and sense?”
His smile widened, tipping into ruefulness. “Very well, then,” he said, lifting his hands in a mock concession. “In that rebellion, at least, I concede that you seem to have won.”
She let go of his ear. “Dispel your last doubt,” she said. “I vanquished all comers.”
He sketched her a bow. “As you say, Lady Rivenham.”
She found Adrian below, in the taproom. He was speaking with Grizel, whose cozy position beneath Braddock’s arm made Nora lift her brow. She was not averse to a wedded tirewoman, but by the looks of it, the arrangements for the wedding would need to be speedy.
As she slid onto the bench by her husband’s side, he said quietly, “Was it well?”
“Yes.” She looped her arm through his. “It was well.”
His lips touched her temple briefly. She smiled, though a strange melancholy was settling over her—the inevitable result, she supposed, of farewells.
By the hearth, a flutist and fiddler launched into a merry tune. Chairs and tables scraped as commonfolk cleared space for a dance. She watched idly as men and women paired up to twirl. After so much worry and wear, the prospect of such simple happiness seemed strange to her, a thing more witnessed than felt.
“They prepare to leave even now,” she murmured. “They sail by moonlight, he said.”
His hand found hers beneath the table. “He is safe, Nora.”
“I know.” She called up another, wider smile for him. “And I am so grateful.” But her heart would not truly ease until David was well clear of England’s shore. Perhaps not even then. Could one unlearn such a long-standing habit of worry overnight?
Adrian lifted her fingers to his lips, calling her back to the moment. “No call for gratitude,” he said. “The only aim is to see you happy.”
“I am happy,” she said. And it was true. Only she wished she could feel this truth more vibrantly. Happiness once had animated her, had leapt inside her like a song, but this quiet inside her felt more like relief than true joy. “I could ask for nothing more,” she said, as much to herself as to him.
“Oh?” His brow lifted. “Then allow me to ask you—nay, to order: in future, you will make no entries to taprooms unless in my escort. I was about to come fetch you.”
She caught the light note in his voice, the invitation to playfulness, and tried to match it with her own. “I will endeavor to remember that rule, my lord, if only so I may forbid your entry to them unless I am on your arm. Behold this fair strumpet you’ve discovered—already she has slain one man in your company.”
Grizel, blushing, wiggled out from Braddock’s hold. “Beg pardon, my lady—”
But Nora laughed, and the maid, visibly relieved by this, offered her an abashed smile.
The moment passed. She watched the dancers again, willing their spirit to infect her. David was safe. Her love was by her side. All was well. When would her body accept it, and leave off this dreadful tension?
Adrian’s palm pressed the small of her back. “He will prosper, Nora.”
She looked up into his face and saw in his thoughtful expression how well he had followed her thoughts. “Yes,” she said. “He will prosper.”
“Though I promise you,” he said, his smile roguish, “it pains me to predict it.”
Her laughter now surprised her. It felt like a balm to the still-bruised places in her heart, and so she surrendered to it, and laughed again, and then covered her mouth with her hand, for suddenly, all of this—the dim, warm, smoky room; the events of the past days and weeks and months; the smell of ale and sweat and her love’s strong hand at her back, and his green eyes fastened upon her—felt more than real. As though a mask had peeled from her face, the world suddenly felt so immediate and pressing that her skin seemed to buzz.
Life. Here was life. And she had no idea what it held for her. Not any longer.
Only she could believe it would be sweet. For with this man by her side, what could she not conquer? And she knew now, with a certainty that felt as wholesome and honeyed as the warmth of the summer sun, that he would always be with her. For as long as they lived, they would neither of them allow anything to come between them again.
She released her breath and felt, as she did, as though she had been holding it forever. “We could ride on tonight,” she said. It was a whim, spoken without premeditation, but it appealed to her: the full moon and frosty stars; the cool wind, and the promise of home on the horizon.
“Yes,” he said, and now he touched her face, drawing the outline of her cheek. His eyes swallowed her. She felt enclosed by them, wholly seen, loved in every way. “But first, I think, we must dance.”
“Dance?” She glanced in surprise toward the rough-spun crowd. “Here, in . . . such a place?”
He rose, grinning. “I believe I made a promise to you once,” he said. “That we would dance for all to watch, with no pretense of secrecy. Behold: the music is merry; the crowd is considerable; half the eyes are already fastened upon us. And what fortunate eyes they are, to behold you.”
Her cheeks warmed at this compliment. She pulled a face at him but could not help the silly smile that seized her. His mood enchanted her; he seemed light, unburdened, the boy
she had first known and loved. As he made her a courtier’s flourishing bow, she giggled. Taking his hand, she let him draw her to her feet.
“There was more to that promise,” she said. He had promised to kiss her in public.
He lifted her hand to his mouth. “Ah, but my memory is not what it once was. Perhaps you will remind me?”
Her smile felt as though it might grow forever. As they proceeded around the table, the other dancers hesitated in their steps, and the crowd grew muted. But then came the bright, ringing sound of Grizel’s delighted laugh, and this splintered the hush, allowing the hubbub to rise again, and the dancers to resume their figures. The musicians, no doubt encouraged by such lofty patronage, attacked the tune with new vigor.
Adrian put one hand behind his back and cocked his knee, then stepped forward with unlikely lithe grace. She was reminded with a sudden pang of the last time she had seen him dance these figures. They had been at court, pretending to be strangers to one another, and all she had longed to do was race across the floor to him, to touch him—
Good heavens. “I have forgotten the steps!”
He grinned. “Then we will have to invent new ones, you and I.”
“Yes, I like that idea. But what I do remember—” She hesitated, clearing her throat, her face flaming at the shamelessness of her impulse. “The rest of your promise, sir—”
“Ah, yes.” His teeth flashing, he took her by the waist and leaned down to speak against her mouth. “Rejoice, my love,” he said.
“I do,” she whispered.
And then, heedless of the hooting cheers around them, he fulfilled his promise by putting his lips to hers.
They danced mouth to mouth as the fiddler played on.
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