The Accusation Read online

  The short man twisted, but Charles' grip was unforgiving, and the man stooped, lunged, flung his head back, kicked out, but could not loosen the grasp.

  Charles said through gritted teeth, "Who sent you?"

  The man did not answer, and continued to struggle as the knife remained imbedded in feathers. He grunted, flinging himself suddenly forwards and was half freed. Charles promptly hit him over the head with the chamber pot. It was empty, heavy earthenware, and the man crumpled to the floor. Charles, naked from the bed, reached for his bed-robe, shrugged it on, put one foot to the prone man's back, and with an exaggerated stretch, managed to grab the hilt of his sword from the little table. One second later, the sword's blade was pressed to the back of the short man's neck.

  "Who sent you?" Charles repeated.

  "Dunno," the man grunted, at first unmoving. The tip of the steel blade pressed harder and the man squeaked. "Pars."

  Surprised and disappointed, Charles paused, then asked, "Piers Baldwin?"

  "Nah." The man attempted one wild twist, which failed, and he lay back again. "Net Pars."

  Charles, frowning, had never heard of such a person. "Who lives where?" he demanded, "and does what, exactly?"

  Before the prone man could answer, the bedchamber door crashed open and without hesitation, Katherine rushed in, closely followed by Fortune, whilst from the inner doorway of the annexe appeared both Clovis and the valet.

  Charles sighed. "My rescuers," he said, removing his foot from the assassin's back, and allowing him to sit up although with the sword tip still hovering at his neck. "You will tell me," Charles continued, with a nod at his newly arrived audience, "this Ned Pars. Who is he?"

  The short man appeared to surrender. "Friend o' mine," he grunted. "Head groom. Paid me."

  "He is the head groom at what establishment?" Charles said.

  The man sniffed. "Can't tell. Bugger will kill me instead."

  "Yes," Charles smiled, "but if you do not tell me, I shall kill you myself."

  The man muttered, cursing and rubbing his nose, then tried to push away the threat of Charles' sword. But the sword poised, remaining its touch at his neck. "Tis the manor o' Lady Sweet out in Suffolk. But you meets up wiv Ned Pars, you don't know my name and I never told you nuffink."

  "It is perfectly true that I don't know you name, nor do I wish to know it," Charles said, "But I wish to know whether other assassins may be waiting in a queue at my door. After you have failed, does the next make his attempt?"

  "Ned don't know I failed yet," said the man, unable to follow Charles' intent.

  Charles let him go. Both Katherine and Henry were shocked. "You should have killed the horrid man," Katherine complained.

  "The wretch should have been handed over to the law," Henry announced, frowning.

  "I am bored with assassins," Charles decided. "The attempts on my life are becoming tedious Besides, I have discovered all I need to know. My Aunt Margery Sweet, who was never sweet for even one passing breath during her life, is presumably who Piers referred to as Aunty Glum. And it is she, or someone in her household, who has wished to end my life as soon as possible, for the inheritance one would assume, or perhaps purely from vindictive spite."

  "She is a woman if vindictive spite?"

  Charles paused again, pondering and remembering. "My mother disliked her. Margery was my father's sister, though some years older. She was widowed young, and I have no memory of children." He smiled suddenly. "I think it is time I took more interest in my relatives."

  Clovis pattered from the room, heading downstairs and probably aiming for the kitchens. Henry took Fortune's arm and shepherded her into the outer corridor. Katherine stayed where she was.

  "Should I be frightened?"

  "Are you ever?" Charles smiled.

  "Your queue of assassins," Katherine quoted, "has been most insistent. How do I sleep, expecting the next on the list?"

  Charles gazed with placid interest. Her intention seemed almost too obvious, and his necessary reply more obvious still, but he said, "Offering you my protection is the most suitable option, except that it is here the assassins tend to come. I could, however, share your chamber, my sword at my side."

  Smiling, Katherine nodded. "Does that sound altogether too salacious? I'm sure it does. But to feel protected --?"

  She did not tell him that his bed-robe had fallen partially open twice while he grappled with the short man, and that what had first been simply curiosity, had quickly turned to a discovery of what arousal actually felt like. After a dismal and never ending month when her mother was under threat of death, then the execution, weeks of poverty and fear when she hated being treated as in need of charity, Katherine had finally learned a number of things which were not only pleasant, but quite exciting.

  Charles, wrapping his bed-robe a little tighter, remained serious. "My lady, I am at your service," he said. "Protection, for my bride-to-be, is not only a duty, but I assure you, a considerable pleasure."

  The sense of arousal, Katherine decided, was positively dangerous and might lead to shame. She felt a delicious desire to be wrapped in a warm embrace, and to be awoken to something - whatever that something was - which she had never known before. She had to stop herself skipping. "Only for protection," she said, blushing slightly. "Ayer all, we're not really engaged."

  Leaving his bedchamber, he nodded to Henry and Fortune who were both standing outside in the passageway, talking softly together. "Harry," said his lordship, "I must ask you to watch out for any other thief, infiltrator or assassin. I should also ask that you protect Mistress Fortune. The dangers are no doubt imminent."

  His valet, a little startled, nodded quickly. "Certainly, my lord."

  Katherine's bed was in a state of chaos and clearly she had fled the room in alarm. But she felt no alarm on re-entering. Charles stood with her in the swaying darkness. The shutters were closed and no candles lit, but a pale suggestion of outlines drifted from the open fireplace, and from the cracks in one somewhat ill-fitting shutter. She whispered, "Perhaps I was wrong, my lord. Selfish, perhaps. I should not have dragged you from the comfort of your own quarters."

  His hands were on her shoulders. She felt the enticing weight of his grasp, and shivered. "Are you cold, my dear?" he asked very softly. "Then perhaps I should take you to bed."

  Trying to repeat her own doubts, which he had not answered, she looked up, and he leaned over her at once, and kissed her. She gasped, feeling the moist pressure and the heat on her lips, then his lips parting her own, the even greater heat of his breath, and the dizzy unexpected thrill of his tongue against hers. Then his tongue explored her mouth.

  Her eyes closed as she allowed him to undress her, his hands slipping down to the ribbons of her blanchet, untying them, and gently pushing the light material from her shoulders, from her arms, and away from her body, tossing the blanchet to the carpet. She did not dare look into his face, and knew if she saw his eyes watching her, she would lose all courage. Her feet were already bare, and she stood, toes curling, wearing only her short sleeved shift. Now she felt his fingers on her arms, tracing the curve to her elbow, then his fingertips stroking around her wrists and gently, almost tickling, to her upper arms. She adored his breath now against her cheek, his lips against her ear, his light kisses around her earlobe and down her neck to the hollow between her collar bones.

  And the sudden chill. She realised he had lifted her shift, and tossed it over her long curls, leaving her entirely naked and dressed only in shadows.

  He murmured, "Your toes are curling."

  She thought it odd, as she stood utterly uncovered, that he should be looking at her toes. But abruptly his hands were on her thighs and she could not catch her breath. One hand, hard palmed, slipped between her legs, smoothing upwards, and then, at the moment of complete relish, pulled away.

  Now his hands were under her knees and at her back, he tossed her up into his arms, and he carried her to her own bed.

  Lyin
g beside her but on his side, facing her, he again kissed her, his breath unutterably tantalising in her throat, sweet and hot as spiced hippocras. So she lay back, waiting, then dared open her eyes.

  His face was inches from hers, his eyes like magnets, glittering in the darkness. She slipped her arms around his neck, and he smiled, kissing her eyes shut again.

  Now his bed-robe lay open and the strength of his legs wrapped around her own. She felt the heat of his body, the muscular curve, and the intimate caresses of his fingers. Enjoying the feel of him against her at the same moment as the delight of his touch on her own body, she found the sensations of delight almost too many and too varied to experience at once, and she peeped through fluttering lashes, curious to see everything that happened.

  The pressure as her breasts crushed against him thrilled her and she felt the points of his nipples hard against her own. All she could see was the pulse at his neck, beating fast and strong, as rhythmically as his heartbeat. But she heard her own heart beating even faster.

  He murmured, "I can teach you many things, my little one, but as you are a virgin, we will travel slowly. It may be a long journey, if you permit it."

  A man's body hair, she decided, was not scratchy nor unpleasant at all, and she ran her fingers through the dark silk across his chest, whispering, "How do you know? I mean, I might not be a virgin. I might be - anything."

  Charles chuckled. "You will not be after tonight, my little one. But you are, in case you had not realised it, now very truly my bride-to-be."

  Chapter Fifteen

  Henry shaved his master the following morning as the sunshine blinked wanly through the open casement.

  It surprised Charles to realise that he now had a fiancé. It had not been planned. Until she had thrown herself into the game of helping him and proving his innocence, he had not liked her. But then, abruptly, he realised that this was not true. He loved the touch of her from the first moment. Now, smiling to himself, he realised that he was falling hopelessly in love.

  Then Charles contemplated the word hopeless. Perhaps hopelessness had crept into his life over past years, and now he desired to chase it away. Loving, with hope if not conviction, was proving an experience more delightful, more uplifting and more energising than he expected.

  Henry said, "You seem particularly cheerful this morning, my lord."

  "Really?" Charles continued to smile. "It must be the anticipation of meeting my Aunty Glum again after so many years."

  The Sweet Estate lay on the boarders of Suffolk, and having no desire to arrive exhausted, Charles journeyed by the principal roadways, and stayed twice overnight at wayside inns.

  "I cannot," he had explained previously, "leave you in danger, my love. And so I ask you to accompany me, unless another journey seems too tiresome?"

  "It seems utterly delightful," Katherine told him. "I've never felt so awake. I was always a little over-protected by my family and nurses, you know. I mean, with the queen's new laws and the threat of death for so many reasons. And always obedient."

  "You amaze me." He laughed. "You do not seem the obedient type, my love."

  "Not now. Not anymore." She was laughing too. "But I'll try to be a good wife. Marry me, and find out."

  "I intend to." He took her hands and kissed her fingertips. "And before the Christmas season begins. When we return from my delightful aunt's establishment, I'll have the banns called."

  The weather improved and the grassy roadsides were dry and bright. The field mice scurried early into hibernation, the little red squirrels asleep in the hollows of the old oaks, but the foxes were out scavenging and the rabbit burrows were alive with the flurries of the newborn.

  The small entourage which set out from Muggle Street in London was identical to that which had previously set out towards Piers Baldwin's Hammersmith home, except that the guard had been doubled, and Clovis rode behind Henry Dayford.

  They ate well on the journey, talked and laughed as they rode, and Katherine and Charles slept in each other's arms at night. The moon rose silver and gleamed across the fields, hedgerows, and thatched rooftops of the Suffolk countryside.

  "I surprised myself," murmured Fortune as she stood beside Katherine staring up at the swathes of milky starlight. The inn was large, low, and busy. Charles, Henry and Clovis were in the main dining room, discussing their probable arrival the next day. Fortune had followed her mistress outside. It was cold, and they wrapped their cloaks tight, but both were thinking on matters considerably warmer.

  Katherine nodded. "I've amazed myself. We have the same plans, I think."

  "Henry is a wonderful young man," Fortune said. "I respect him. I think My respect for John was the first thing I loved about him, but Henry is more open minded. I love him even more than John."

  "Henry?" Katherine laughed. "At first I thought you liked Clovis."

  "And I do. As a friend. He's funny and loyal and sweet, but he's much too young and not a suitable partner at all. But Henry is an angel and so intelligent just like his lordship. After you marry his lordship, my lady, do I have your permission to wed Henry?"

  "How do you know I'm going to marry Charles?" Katherine demanded. But she supposed her scurry to the lord's bedchamber each night would be the first clue.

  "Because of the way you look at each other."

  "Then I wish you all the happiness I hope for myself." Katherine clasped her hands, smiling up at the stars, the night breeze in her eyes. "Just as long as neither of you leave our household. I couldn't bear to live without you, Fortune dearest. And Charles feels much the same about Henry, for he's so much more than a valet."

  The Sweet Estate was large but in poor repair. The elegance of the towers at either end of the house were peaked in moss and mould, and the windows broken. The main entrance was pillared in marble, but the marble was cracked and the steps leading up were scuffed and worn.

  Clovis and two of the guards took the horses around to the stables, and stayed there, casually talking to the huge oaf of a man they managed to identify as the chief groom, Ned Pars.

  It was Henry who marched to the front door and knocked loudly while Charles lounged, speaking low voiced to Katherine. The Sweet's steward answered the door in open mouthed amazement. Henry spoke with deliberation. "Please inform her ladyship that his lordship the Earl of Chilham is here to visit his aunt."

  The steward gathered his wits and bowed, ushered the guests into a small solar, and hurried off to tell his mistress that the impossible had happened.

  "My dear Charles," said the aged female in the doorway, "since it is at least forty years since you last visited me, I should like to know what on earth inspired this appearance."

  "Not quite forty years, Aunt Margery," Charles bowed, "Since I am not yet thirty. But it occurred to me that I had not seen you for far too long and I hope to find you well. News? Yes. I am about to be married, and as you are one of my only two remaining relatives, I wished to know you better, and introduce my bride."

  The elderly woman, dressed in shabby brown, sat heavily on a cushioned settle and stared down her nose at Katherine. "I wish you the best of him," she said. "I know nothing of the man since he has never had the courtesy of making my acquaintance since he was a child. As a man of few manners, it seems, and of a poor memory what is more, since he has another relative, indeed, the closest remaining to him."

  Raising an eyebrow, Charles said, "Your criticisms are doubtless true enough, my lady. But I always imagined I had a fairly good memory. Please tell me about my unsuspected relative."

  Leaning back on her cushions, the lady sighed, turning to Katherine. "Sit, sit, my dear. You'll need all the rest you can find once wed. Men are shockingly demanding." She blew her nose rather loudly on a spotted kerchief, and sat forwards again, saying, "But even the ignorant and foolish may learn. I shall introduce you, young man, to your even younger relative."

  "I shall be delighted." Charles was trying to remember whether his aunt had ever had children. She had
married and been widowed some years ago.

  "Since," his aunt continued, "you are about to be married yourself, and I offer my congratulations to you, my boy, and condolences to the lady, you should learn something of young children. So wait until I call up to the nursery." She stood, stalked from the little room, and her footsteps, slow and deliberate, could be heard stomping upstairs. Clearly, she had few servants.

  Charles turned to Katherine. "At her age?"

  "I doubt it," smiled Katherine. "Perhaps a grandchild?"

  Not able to remember any news of her having either a son or a daughter, Charles wondered whether the situation was more complicated, when Lady Margery swept back into the room, followed by a large woman in a huge apron, holding a child of roughly three years, who was waving a very small chubby hand as though the arrival of visitors was both rare and exciting to him.

  "Say hello to your cousin Charles, my love," ordered the nurse, bouncing the child on her hip.

  The small boy grinned, two front teeth missing, and managed a semblance of a greeting. Lady Margery faced Charles. "My grandson Richard," she said. "Your nearest relative, apart from myself, and someone you presumably could never be bothered meeting before. You did not attend his baptism, although my daughter invited you to be godmother. Nor did you attend poor Alyson's funeral. My beloved daughter was entirely overlooked."

  Frowning, Charles shook his head. "I am excessively sorry to hear of your daughter's death, my lady," he said. "I received no notification of it, and apologise for not attending. When did this occur?"