Читать книгу His Duty, Her Destiny - Juliet Landon - Страница 6

F linging her thick brown plait over her shoulder, Nicola picked up her rapier and turned to face her opponent with a disarming smile. ‘Ready?’ she said, sweetly. The young man had put himself on the line by telling her she knew nothing about the Italian style of fencing, not thinking that she could produce a pair of rapiers she’d been using for years. He should have known better.

‘What do I do with it?’ she asked, innocently.

The young man smiled. ‘Your best, my lady,’ he said.

‘Shall we take these silly guards off the points, then?’

The smile disappeared. ‘It’s not usual, in practice.’

‘Oh, then let’s be unusual, for a change.’

‘Are you sure, my lady?’

‘Quite sure. There, that’s better. Now, on guard. Is that what they say?’ He had been a nuisance for weeks, this young man: it was time to get rid of him. He could not be more than her own twenty-four years.

Fencing with an unprotected point obviously concerned him, for he was defensive, extremely wary and immediately rattled by her obvious familiarity with the weapon. Only aristocrats took this kind of fencing seriously, and most of them had learned in either France, Germany or Italy; very few in England. But women, never.

Nicola, however, had fenced with her four brothers since she was old enough to stand; she was naturally nimble, graceful, quick-thinking and, most of all, had learned from an early age to hold her own against men. In a house full of them, there had been no place for a faint-hearted woman.

Clearly taken by surprise at her sudden swift attack, his defence came a split second too late and his rapier went flying through the air to slide across the stone-flagged floor of the hall well before he’d had time to settle into a rhythm. It was a very undignified beginning.

‘Oh, dear,’ said Nicola. ‘D’ye want to try again?’

‘You’ve had some practice,’ he said, accusingly, picking up his rapier. ‘You might have said.’

‘I did say, last evening. You didn’t believe me. On guard.’

He started the next bout with more determination, but with a heavy chip on his shoulder, wondering how this lovely woman, whom men held only in their fantasies, could have learned how to best him at a man’s game. His lack of concentration did him no favours, and almost immediately he was being forced backwards again under a charge that for sheer speed left him no time to recover.

Then, for a second time, his rapier took wings, clattering across the almost deserted hall to settle at the feet of a tall man whose powerful shoulders propped up the door-frame and whose expression was less than sympathetic. He looked at the swordsman pityingly and placed a high-booted foot upon the long narrow blade, shaking his head.

Without a word, the young man aimed a snappy bow in Nicola’s direction and stalked off to the end of the hall, banging the great door behind him.

The point of Nicola’s rapier had touched the floor in slow decline before it dawned on her that this intruder was not exactly a stranger and that his slow arrogant scrutiny of her from head to toe and back again was exactly what she remembered of their first meeting when she had been a mere eleven-year-old and he an uppity sixteen who had made no effort to endear himself to her then, either. On the contrary, she could still recall his frightening incivility, despite the protection of her brothers.

He pushed himself away from the open doorway, unbuttoning his velvet jerkin and sloughing it from his arms like a discarded skin, then dropping it to the floor. Picking up the rapier, he came to stand in a puddle of light from the large bay window, his eyes remaining on Nicola, but giving away nothing of his surprise at the change in her. ‘Try me,’ he said quietly, describing circles with the point. ‘I don’t use a guard either. Not even in practice.’

In the intervening years his voice had changed from that of a wobbling Scots-accented baritone to a rich bass, though he made the invitation sound more like a command, which, Nicola remembered, had always been his style. No matter that her family could boast an ancestry to rival any in England, this man’s family had exceeding wealth, which, he had been led to believe, gave him the edge. She would show him how wrong he could be.

Her reply was to put up her rapier at arm’s length and to touch the point of his with hers, locking her deep brown stare with his hard grey one, but knowing in her vitals that this would be no push-over like the last. This man was five years older than her, for a start. She was tall for a woman, but Sir Fergus Melrose was taller, with the physique of an athlete and the healthy tan of one who had caught the sea breeze and seen the world. She was slender, too, but her opponent’s wrists were twice as thick as hers, and his lithe, tautly muscled body was better practiced in the arts of warfare, even the less usual ones.

She had dressed in men’s doeskin breeches, a shirt and short padded jerkin in order to do justice to the young man’s challenge issued last night at supper, and though she had given no thought to the indisputable fact that she was just as fascinating in this garb as in her finest gown, neither did she realise that now there was an androgynous element about her that any man would find unsettling. As had been proved. Her abundant dark hair was still contained within one plait, but no one would have been fooled into mistaking her body for that of a lad when her unbelted jerkin swung open at each move and the roundness of her hips filled the breeches as no man’s ever could.

The sleeves of Sir Fergus’s linen shirt were rolled up to reveal his wrists, and now he pulled at the cord of his neck to open the front, a trick her brothers had tried in the past to deflect her attention. She was not caught off guard as he had intended, and although she made no headway at all in the first few moments, nor did she allow him through her defence.

As she had done, he held back, hoping to lure her into a false confidence, though she knew this to be a ploy too, and would not be drawn. But soon she began to tire as the bout continued and, as his pressure became more intense, perspiration began to run into her eyes and stick her soft linen shirt to her chest. She found his style intimidating, his skill with a sword far superior to hers, his energy phenomenal, for he was not even perspiring, and instead of anticipating his next move as she should have been doing, she could not help but wonder how much longer she could continue before her rapier would go the same way as her previous opponent’s.

After a vigorous exchange, she allowed her point to lower and saw to her surprise that he was changing his rapier over to his left hand, tapping the point of it under hers to make her lift it again, goading her, telling her that he could beat her left-handed. It was a disconcerting move, and the end came well before she could score a hit or even remove the patronising smile from his face.

Panting, and aching with fatigue, she made a mistake at last and felt the fierce sting of his point catch beneath her jerkin and slash like a razor through the thin stuff of her shirt. She leapt backwards, dropping her rapier and holding her breast with one hand, fending him off with the other as he closed in too quickly for her to evade him. Backing her against the panelled wall, he held her there with his body, his face so close that she could see the steel-grey fearlessness through his eyes which, as a child, she had both admired and found intimidating.

‘Well,’ he said, watching the torrent of dark brown hair fall across her face, ‘some things have changed for the better, but not the temper, it seems. You’ll have to deal with that, my lady, if you want to play men’s games.’

Her eyes blazed fiercely into his while she chafed at the shameful closeness of him and at her own stupid helplessness, her voice betraying her agitation. ‘What right have you to walk unannounced and uninvited into my house? And how would you know what’s changed?’ she panted through a curtain of silky hair. ‘My temper is none of your business either. Get off me!’ She heaved at him, but he was as solid as a wall and, instead of moving, he prised the hand away from her breast, turning her palm over to reveal a sticky patch of blood upon it.

He moved back quickly to inspect the vertical slash on her shirt and the red stain that oozed through the fabric, and it was clear to her then that he had not known of this, not perhaps intended it. It had been the same when she was younger, getting hurt while trying to keep up with her brothers and him not caring of her damage, nor of the silence she had kept about her injuries, particularly to her pride.

Their fathers, close friends for years, had promised the two of them as future man and wife, but who could expect an eleven-year-old tomboy to understand or accept the implications of that? And what brash sixteen-year-old would not be more interested in the child’s brothers than in her? Fergus had felt no need to pretend, having more pressing things on his mind than parents’ promises.

Clutching at herself, Nicola tried to turn away, but already her legs had begun to shake with fatigue, making her stumble as he caught her quickly under her knees, tilting her body into his arms. She saw the bright window swing away over her head, then felt the sudden sting of her wound and another rush of anger that forced a strength into her arms. ‘Put me down! Let me go, you great clod! I can manage without you. My steward will…’

But his hands and arms tightened and there was nothing she could do but suffer him to carry her, writhing and fuming with humiliation and her undone plait hanging over his arm, down the length of the hall, up a narrow staircase and through two doors. Finally, he lowered her on to her own tester bed with his arms on each side of her to prevent her from rolling away, ignoring her protests that she could manage well enough without him after all these years.

His face was at first in shadow, so she was only able to guess at the degree of concern in his eyes, or otherwise. But there was little doubt in her mind about his intentions when he caught both her wrists and, transferring them to one large strong hand, held them easily above her head and pressed them down into the soft brocade coverlet. His grip held her tight, and her breast had begun to sting like a burn.

This was as bad as anything she had suffered as a child. ‘No!’ she gasped, almost voiceless with fear. ‘Please…no!’

‘Hush, lass,’ said Sir Fergus. ‘I’ve a right to see what damage I’ve done, and I doubt ye’re going to show me willingly, are you?’

‘You have no right. You are not welcome here. Who asked you?’

‘Your brother George invited me. I came early, that’s all, and as your intended husband I claim the right to inspect the goods beforehand. Hold still.’

As he spoke, his hand was moving her jerkin aside, then the bloodstained slash of her shirt so that the whole of her right breast was revealed, scored lightly across the surface by a bright red line on the inner curve. The blood had already begun to congeal as if a string of rubies had been laid around it.

Speechless, mortified, Nicola watched his eyes in the vain hope of seeing him shamed, but what she saw was not the obnoxious young stripling of her earlier memories. Instead, here was a grown man impervious to shame whose arrogance was beyond anything she had encountered from any of her suitors. Not one of them, she thought, would have dared do such a thing to her.

He had grown even better looking in the last twelve years, his contours more chiselled, his bone structure more sculpted under the bronzed skin, the cheeks lean and blue-shadowed around his square jaw. His cap of short, almost black hair made a peak on his forehead, and a pale scar line ran beneath it, almost touching one angled eyebrow. He wore a gold ring in one ear, and he smelled of the outdoors and a hint of woodsmoke. And he had better say no more of intended husbands. Or intended wives.

‘Tch!’ she heard him say. ‘Not too badly marked. I expect I’ll still have ye, scar and all.’

‘That you’ll not, sir!’ she snarled. ‘Not if you were the last man alive in England. Now get out. This is my house. Get out!’

He did nothing to cover her up again. ‘Then ’tis just as well I’m of Scotland, lass. Isn’t it?’ As if knowing that she would bound up like a spring to attack him, his release of her was cautious, his move backwards catlike, taking him well out of range and halfway to the door just as her two maids entered, alerted by the sound of voices.

Fortunately, they were too late to see her roll off the bed and pull her shirt across herself, but further investigations showed that there were unusual drops of moisture hanging along the lower lids of their mistress’s eyes, prevented from falling only by the thick fringe of black lashes. And then they saw the blood, and Nicola had to do some very quick thinking, in spite of feeling faint.

But the two maids could recognise a sword wound when they saw one. And so it was that only a very few people ever knew exactly what had transpired on that early morning in mid-June in the year 1473 at Lady Nicola Coldyngham’s London home on Bishops-gate.

After a twelve-year absence, this was perhaps not the best way for Sir Fergus Melrose to reintroduce himself to Lady Nicola, though it typified their brief encounters in the past when invariably she had been the one to come limping home. She had been a nuisance then, a scruffy little hoyden with a too-large mouth and eyes that tilted upwards at the corners, like an imp. Now, her face had grown to accommodate the mouth more comfortably, and the pointed impish chin was the neatest he’d ever seen. But the eyes…ah, those eyes. He’d had a hard time concentrating on the sword-play with those great dark-lashed orbs sending out beams of hostility and rivalry at him, which he had purposely called temper, just to rile her more. They were eyes he could have drowned in.

It was not temper, of course, but passion and some fear, commodities he’d seen plenty of during those early days when keeping up with her adored brothers meant everything to her. Even at sixteen he’d been aware of problems, for Nicola was the product of Lord Coldyngham’s third wife who had found the demands of mothering too great for her after Patrick’s birth. The following years of being motherless from the age of three had had an effect on the daughter, which she had handled in the only way she understood, by being one of the sons. Fergus was both astonished and relieved to see that the strategy had done no obvious damage, though some traits still lingered, apparently.

He retraced his steps down to the great hall, though not nearly as great as the one at her family home in Wiltshire where big windows held stained glass coats of arms and heraldic crests that the Coldyngham brothers knew by heart. Though well known and respected, his own family could boast only four Scottish generations that had acquired wealth by the usual dubious means and by the shrewd business flair common to all the Melrose elders. And now he had come, at last, to make good the promise to his father last year, just before his untimely death. Nicola’s eldest brother, the new Lord Coldyngham, had said he would meet him here, and Fergus felt certain Nicola would never tell her brother how she had just lost a contest. She had never been one to cry for sympathy.

I can manage without you, she had said to him. And how would you know what’s changed? Again, he felt the soft weight of her in his arms and saw the forbidden fruit of her breast with its shocking stripe of red, the most beautiful and strangely moving sight he could ever remember. In twelve years it was to be expected that changes would have occurred, but never in his life would he have believed how such an unkempt and boyish lass could turn into the ravishing and fiery woman able to accept his challenge to a bout of fencing.

Her unusually physical and competitive childhood had kept her sharp and trim, yet there was now a heart-stopping vulnerability to go with the luscious curves of her body that, as a brash lad of sixteen, he had not had the wit to expect. The hardest part of the contest had been to ignore the element of sheer feminine loveliness, the slender sway and graceful dancing steps, the pull of the linen shirt across her breasts, but it was also why he had prolonged the contest when he could have ended it in seconds. Perhaps that vision of the captivating Nicola, the swanlike, pristine, unknown Nicola, was the reason for his stupid mistake at the end.

She was, naturally, still as angry and contrary as she’d been as a young lass when she had refused to conform to anyone’s ideals of ladylike behaviour. Not even at eleven and twelve years old had she made the slightest effort to show him the docile good manners and obedience of a wife-in-the-making. He had never intended to oblige his father on that score, but she had done nothing to make him change his mind. Not then. Nor had he commended himself to her as he’d been instructed to do.

But if he had known how she would blossom like an exotic flower, would he have felt differently about his father’s wishes? Would he have anticipated taking her to bed as he did now? Would he have looked forward to contests of fighting and loving, subduing her, making her yelp with pleasure instead of anger? God, how he wanted her. How he was intrigued by the tangled facets of her womanliness. Come what may, he would have to show her that he was not the unkind, unlikeable lout he had been all those years ago. And he had better make out a good case, here and now while he still had a chance, or she’d do something desperate rather than accept him.

Picking up his patterned velvet jerkin with the fur-trimmed sleeves, he slipped it on, pulling its lower edge down over his hips. His feathered felt hat lay upon the cushion of the window-seat where he had left it earlier, so he sat down beside it to wait for George, knowing that he’d not be long. He would want to settle this business once and for all. They had promises to keep to their fathers, George’s being to see his sister taken well care of. But Fergus had been away on the high seas for some time, then up in Scotland to see to his own family affairs, and only recently had he been able to return to his house in London where his late father’s ships were docked. It would have been useful, he mused, if her father had been here to help persuade her, for she would take some persuading now.

Behind him, a clatter of hooves in the courtyard announced someone’s arrival, and Fergus leapt to his feet, his face beaming for the first time that morning. The door swung open. ‘George…no, Lord Coldyngham now, isn’t it? Well met at last, old friend,’ he said.

‘Fergus! No, Sir Fergus now, eh? Well met indeed, man. You’re looking disgustingly fit. Were you not even wounded?’

They hugged and back-slapped, sizing each other up as they had done since they were lads with more rivalry than friendship in mind. ‘Yes, I was,’ said Fergus, tapping the tawny velvet sleeve. ‘My left arm.’ She had not liked it when he had changed hands, for it was less than courteous. ‘I try to exercise it as much as I can. It’s mending nicely.’

‘Good. And the steward let you in, did he? Nicola not down yet? That’s unusual. She likes being her own mistress now, Ferg.’ Whether he intended it or not, there was the hint of a warning in his remark. ‘Sorry to hear about your father,’ he added. ‘Buried at sea, was he?’

‘Yes. Pirates. Last October. My lady mother sends her regards. And our condolences to you too, George. I see your father left his town house to Nicola.’

‘This place?’ George looked around him at the small but elegant panelled hall with a large tapestry at one end and two bay windows along one side. Above them, timber beams were painted in multi-coloured patterns, and underfoot a drop of red blood showed brightly on the stone-tiled floor. Quickly, Fergus placed his foot over it. At one end of the hall, a long table had been laid with pewter, silver, polished wood and a set of bone-handled knives. As they spoke, servants entered bearing jugs of ale, bread rolls and a dish of scrambled eggs, butter, cheese and a side of ham.

‘Yes,’ George said. ‘Father always used it when he came to sit in parliament. He left it to Nicola for her use instead of a dowry. I suppose he thought it would give her the independence she likes, but we really didn’t think she’d come to live in it full time, as she does. Oh, she has a complete household to look after all her needs,’ he went on, catching Fergus’s glance of mild surprise at this unusual arrangement, ‘and living next door to a priory gives the place an air of respectability but…well…you know the impression people get when a young woman lives independently. Especially in this kind of style.’ He looked across the table at the gleaming dishes reflected on the shining surface. ‘For all her ways, Nicola certainly knows how to manage a household, but neither Lotti nor I are too happy about the way she keeps open house as Father did. She doesn’t appear to see the dangers, and I can’t even get her to think about finding a mate. I suppose she’s enjoying herself too much the way things are.’

Fergus cleared his throat, hearing a kind of warning in George’s words. ‘And Daniel?’ he said. ‘And Ramond?’

‘Daniel is running the Wiltshire estate for me while I’m in London, and Ramond is studying law at Gray’s Inn. I expect he’ll be a diplomat in a few more years.’

‘And Patrick?’

‘Ah…Patrick.’ George led the way to the table, taking the bench opposite Fergus and settling himself with the air of a prosperous London merchant about to negotiate a deal. Which was not far from the truth. As the eldest of the Coldyngham family, he was but one year older than Fergus, and whether his inherited haughty Roman nose had helped or not, he had become both noble and successful. With a large house and business here in the city, a lovely wife and two children, George had been his father’s pride, honest, sober, well liked and respected, wealthy and as darkly handsome as Fergus. Indeed, the two had occasionally been taken for brothers during their student days at Cambridge. ‘Young Patrick’s still at Oxford, but heaven knows why,’ he said. ‘I doubt he attends more than one lecture a week, and he’s spending money like water. He won’t come into his inheritance until he’s twenty-one late this year, so until then I’m having to advance it in bite-sized pieces.’

‘What kind of debts?’

‘Oh…’ George grinned ‘…he’s doing all the things that we did, only more so. But I don’t remember costing my father as much as Patrick does. As for Nicola—well, that’s why you’re here, isn’t it?’ He poured ale into two wooden beakers and passed one to Fergus. ‘I have to tell you, Ferg, that she prefers not to recall the agreement your father and mine made all those years ago, so I thought it was about time we made a decision one way or the other. I don’t really understand the reasons behind this promise of theirs. I suppose there must have been one. Wealth. Connections. Perhaps just friendship. I don’t know. But none of us can expect an old arrangement like that to stand unless you both want it. It’s not legally binding, after all.’ He looked at his friend over the top of his beaker before taking a long swig. ‘Well?’ he said, wiping his mouth and reaching for the ham. ‘Want some of this? Pass your plate.’ Deftly, he carved, trying not to notice Fergus’s lack of response.

Absently, Fergus held out his plate and watched each pink layer pile up before he remembered to say stop. These were questions he could have answered, but chose not to. ‘Is there anyone else?’ he said. ‘Suitors?’

‘Oh, good lord, man, dozens,’ said George. ‘They’re here first thing in the morning till last thing at night. She has…’ he laughed ‘…her own way of getting rid of them. You know Nicola.’

Yes, he had known how, as a child, she had been well able to deal with the local lads, beating them at most things. ‘What?’ he said.

George took a bite of food and answered with his mouth full, which he would not have been allowed to do at home. ‘Trials and tests,’ he said, munching. ‘If they don’t come up to scratch, they’re out. Not much change there, Ferg.’

So that was what the contest had been about earlier. Fergus could not help a flutter of concern that, although he had passed the first test with flying colours, it might have cost him too dearly. ‘But no one in particular?’ he insisted.

‘Not that I know of. Why?’ George stopped eating and looked at his friend intently. ‘You really interested, after all this time?’

‘I promised my father before he died.’

To George, this pronouncement lacked conviction. ‘Ferg,’ he said slowly, ‘putting promises aside, for a moment. With your wealth you could get any woman. This agreement…promise…call it what you will, was conditional upon a contract when you both reached the age of consent, and while I’ve done my best to get Nicola to commit herself to my father’s wishes, she’s never been one to have her mind made up for her. You remember what she was like as a little ’un. As stubborn as hell and kicking over the traces even then.’

‘Vaguely. I must admit my contact with her over the years hasn’t been good.’

‘No, it hasn’t. And she’s grown up. She’s made an impression.’

‘Then there is someone else, isn’t there?’

‘No one that matters, no.’

‘Then I have first call. And I’m calling, George. I intend to honour the agreement. It was my father’s last wish, and I promised him.’ Not for a moment did he expect George to be taken in by that, knowing what he did of Fergus’s resistance to his father’s control. They had not seen eye to eye until recently.

As he suspected, George was not easily duped. He put down his knife and leaned forward. ‘You’ve seen her, haven’t you?’ he said in a low voice. ‘Why else would you be so insistent, eh?’

Fergus’s stillness was all the answer he needed.

There was a silence between them as George, ever the merchant, assessed the balance of trade. ‘I suppose you know,’ he said at last, ‘that you’ll be starting at a disadvantage?’ When Fergus merely looked straight ahead, George felt it his duty to remind him. ‘For one thing you’ve left all this a mite too late. If you’d come when she was fifteen, Ferg, you might have found her easier to deal with. As it is…’

‘She’s been courted. Yes, but she’ll have to forget them, won’t she?’

George leaned back and took a deep breath. ‘I think, my friend, that you are forgetting something. Nicola is not your average young miss with stars in her eyes, waiting for the masterful swain to sweep her off her little feet. Far from it. She’s quite capable of keeping herself on ice until she sees exactly what she wants. And considering how she used to hate your guts when you took us all away from her on your wild goose chases whenever you came to stay, I’d say you have as much chance of winning her as you have of flying. I know she’s a beauty, Ferg, but you’ll have to do more than pull her hair and hide her pet rabbit if you want to get her into your bed. She has a long memory you know.’

Though his jaw tightened, still Fergus said nothing.

‘Did you think it was all cut and dried?’ said George.

‘No, I know I have my work cut out for me, but I have to try. I realise I want her, George. Will you help me?’ He dared not trust himself to say more, and for a moment, Fergus thought his old friend was going to refuse, so long was the pause before he replied.

‘I shall not see her hurt, Ferg. She may occasionally adopt the lad’s role when it pleases her, but that’s for a reason that’s gradually losing its validity. It doesn’t mean she’s tough or insensitive to pain. She’s not. She’s a woman now, with all a woman’s needs, and she’ll not be easily won over. The decision will be hers, believe me.’

‘I do believe you.’

‘So, you still think you have a chance?’

‘As I said, I have to try. You know my ways, George.’

George, Lord Coldyngham, leaned forward intently, placing his hands palm-down on the table. ‘Yes, I know your ways well enough, Ferg,’ he said. ‘And they may have worked on Scottish lassies or even on Cambridge whores, but they’ll not do for Nicola. She’s different.’

‘I want her, George,’ Fergus insisted. ‘I have to find a way forward. I think she’ll respond to my way, eventually.’ She was different, he knew. In every way she was rare and priceless, and the sight of her half-naked on the bed, below him, wounded, was something that would stay in his mind for ever. Heaven knows what might have happened if the maids had not returned at that moment.

‘Oh? You’ve spoken, then?’

‘Briefly.’

‘She’s still afraid of you?’

‘She’d not admit it, even if it were true. She still dislikes me, yes, but I cannot blame her for that. I gave her no reason to do otherwise, did I?’

‘Then, yes, you will have your work cut out. But I’ll help.’

‘Thank you. It’s the most I can expect after all this time. The rest is up to me.’

‘Er…no, Ferg. The rest is up to Nicola, wouldn’t you agree?’

Wincing at his own clumsiness, Fergus nodded. ‘Yes, I do agree. But never fear, George, I shall win her even if it takes for ever.’

George leaned back to watch his friend pour two more beakers of ale from a large jug with a smirking face modelled on its side. Fergus’s expression, he noted, was anything but amused, but held that grim determination he had shown as a youth when it was woe betide anyone who got in his way. Then, he had habitually won whatever he set out to win; now, George was not so sure. Nicola, he thought, might be in for a rough ride. And Fergus too.

Fergus’s thoughts went along much the same lines, though it also crossed his mind that he would be expected to pay very dearly for that string of shining rubies he had placed upon Nicola’s beautiful breast only an hour ago.