Читать книгу Dryden's Bride - Margo Maguire - Страница 11

Hugh assisted Queen Catherine from her horse and walked through Clairmont town with her entourage as she surveyed the damage and bolstered the spirits of her son’s people. Hugh gave Catherine a great deal of credit. Her petit Henri would become King Henry VI one day, and the queen had learned some valuable lessons from the boy’s father during their short marriage. One of those lessons had been the importance of the people’s good wishes toward their monarch.

Hugh Dryden and Owen Tudor walked with the queen as she progressed on foot through the town, speaking to everyone who crossed her path. As she passed, she gave small tokens of her presence—ribbons, a bit of silk, a small leather pouch—and questioned individuals on how they and their families had fared in the battle.

Lady Marguerite accompanied the party, following at a close distance with Nicholas Becker and Sir George, as well as the reeve of Clairmont. They discussed grain and food stores, survival of the livestock, and the death toll in the town. Hugh and Nick were asked about methods of securing Clairmont and how to protect themselves from further attack.

There were no easy solutions to the problems Clairmont faced, though Hugh knew they were not insurmountable. Between himself and Nicholas, they could call a hundred knights to battle. The only question was one of payment. Was Clairmont rich enough to support additional knights?

With careful portioning, there would be enough food to last the winter. Some goods could be imported—Hugh knew that Alldale, among other estates, had had very productive growing seasons. It was possible there were surpluses that could be purchased. Again, it was a matter of funds.

“Look, Owen,” the queen said, pointing toward one of the distant fields. “It is Siân, non?”

Hugh looked up as Owen followed the queen’s glance and everyone saw that Siân was indeed on the hillside with a large group of children. To Hugh, she was little more than a spot of bright blue on the hillside, topped by a cheerful crown of red-gold. She was too far away to see her features, although he didn’t need to see her to know how her mouth quirked in laughter. Or the impudent tilt of her chin.

Her brother, Owen, sighed in frustration and said, “I’ll go and get her, your Highness, and try to—”

“Non, Owen,” Catherine interjected. “Leave her.”

“But—”

“Do you not see, Owen?” the queen asked. “She has taken all of the smallest ones and gotten them out from underfoot. She has them playing at a…” She searched for the English word. “A pageant. See how some are sitting in a circle around the performers in the center?”

“You are right, Your Majesty,” Lady Marguerite said. “How clever of her.”

Hugh heard Siân’s laugh carry over the distance, then the gleeful giggles of the children in her care. He supposed it was clever of her to have gotten the children out of the way as the adults cleaned up the town and tended the wounded. Tudor’s sister seemed to have a way with the little ones, he thought, perhaps because she herself was so childlike.

She ought to get back to the castle, Hugh thought, or at least closer. No telling whether or not they’d been successful in routing every Scotsman from the area. He’d never met anyone so naive, so ingenuous. Hugh doubted she ever gave a thought to her own safety.

Hugh’s attention was drawn back to Lady Marguerite. With a no-nonsense manner, Marguerite Bradley saw to her responsibilities with a deep sense of duty. Her assessment of the situation at Clairmont was astute. Action had to be taken to ensure the success and continuity of her town, and Hugh had no doubt that the lady would manage it. Everything about Marguerite indicated an efficiency of mind and deed.

Her manner in all things was serious and thoughtful. Hugh doubted there was a foolish or frivolous bone in her body.

Even Marguerite’s clothing bespoke her elegant competence. Expensive silks and woolens were dyed to perfection and tailored into fashionable gowns. Shoes were made to match. Her sable hair was perfectly arranged—not a hair out of place under stylish headgear.

Hugh glanced back at Siân, just as she dropped to the ground amid the laughter of her small charges. Then he studied Marguerite’s profile. The lady of Clairmont was certainly beautiful, he thought, as well as intelligent and competent: a prize any man would be proud to claim.

She would be a perfect wife, and Hugh decided to make his marriage proposal when they returned to the castle.

But not until after he’d seen to it that Lady Siân and the children moved themselves closer to town.

Siân desperately wished she had a few more weeks of freedom. To be allowed to sing and play with the children, to ride the horses lent her by the castle grooms, to swim in the cold waters of the lake…She lowered her eyes in resignation. All too soon, she would travel to St. Ann’s, where she would be far removed from everything familiar, from all that was dear to her.

She knew little of nunneries, only the stories she’d gleaned from different people over the years, and Siân had no reason to doubt what she’d heard. She was certain, for example, that the abbess would lock her in a “cell” every night to sleep on a narrow bed of straw. She’d heard that nuns had their hair chopped off and their bald heads covered by tight, ugly wimples that firmly bound their chin and cheeks. Siân assumed she would be compelled to wear a hot, itchy under-kirtle that would chafe her sensitive skin, and she would be required to spend hours upon hours on her knees, praying for the salvation of souls all across Britain.

But the most dreadful thing was that she would have to put all thoughts of Hugh Dryden out of her mind. Siân wasn’t sure if that was going to be possible. The man had plagued her thoughts ever since shooting the boar out from under her in the forest. He had saved her life, and she wasn’t about to forget him…or the way her heart seemed to skitter when he was near.

She shivered slightly when she recalled the way Hugh had efficiently unlaced her soaking gown that first night, then wrapped her in his own blanket. Siân had never experienced such remarkable sensations before. It was as if he had somehow reached inside her and kindled a mysterious fire within. Parts of her body became exquisitely sensitive, and he had barely even touched her.

His hands were strong, but gentle. His words curt, but not unkind. At least, he’d been kind until she’d thoughtlessly spoken of losing a limb. Clearly, he did not need her to teach him about such loss. She deserved the harsh words he’d delivered to her last night during the storm.

With a heartfelt sigh, Siân gathered the children around her and they sat together on a blanket of dry leaves under an ancient oak tree. She had to stop thinking of Hugh and truly resign herself to her fate at St. Ann’s.

Owen’s decision was final. Siân had no choice in the matter.

“In my country, there is a place called Llanfabon, where the faeries like to make mischief,” Siân said as one of the older girls sat down and began to plait her hair. Another child picked wildflowers and threaded them into Siân’s russet tresses. “And in Llanfabon, there once lived a widow woman and her small son, Pryderi.”

By telling the old tale, Siân hoped to get her wayward thoughts under control. It was no use thinking of Hugh Dryden or his heroic rescue—not only of her, but of Clairmont itself. He was remote and aloof, always so serious, Siân thought. Surely he had not been afire the night he’d gotten her out of her wet clothes. Siân knew she was not likely to inspire any sort of longing in a man.

Siân tamped down her irrational sense of defeat and continued her tale. “One day, while the widow was making her little son’s breakfast, she heard a commotion outside. The cattle were lowing down in the byre. Pryderi’s mother was afraid something was amiss.”

“What could it be?” a little girl asked.

“’Twas a wolf!” cried one of the boys.

“No…” Siân said dramatically. “Remember, there were faeries in that part of the country…”

Which started a flurry of questions about faeries and whether or not they could be seen nearby, and if ever they caused mischief among the cows and pigs at Clairmont. The children crowded around her and plied her with their queries, so preoccupied that none of them took note of the knight who’d walked up behind them.

Hugh delayed his return to Clairmont to tell Siân to move in closer to the town with the children since there could still be danger lurking in the outlying forest. He’d intended to speak to her right away, but instead, kept his silence as he approached her and the children, unwilling to put a stop to the sound of her engaging voice and her pleasing Welsh accent.

She continued her story as the children sat spellbound. “When the poor mother returned to their cottage, she was suspicious that something had changed. ‘Och, child,’ she cried, ‘you look like my sweet Pryderi, yet you are somehow different. I fear it is not really you I see before me.’

“The child, who was different, awakened. He said, ‘Of course it is I, Mother. Who else would I be?”’

One of the little girls interrupted the story. “Did the faeries take Pryderi from his mother?”

“Did they give her a changeling?” another asked.

“The poor old mother did not know for certain,” Siân replied. “But the only way she knew to find out, was to ask the wise man of the village…”

Hugh leaned his back against a tree and watched as Siân wove her magical spell for the children. She was a gifted storyteller, he thought as she changed her voice and moved her delicate hands to emphasize parts of the story. His earlier impression of Lady Siân as a faerie sprite was not too far from reality, and he found himself falling under the spell of that voice, those hands.

And as he stood there, enveloped in the enchantment of the moment, Hugh wondered how it would feel if she were to touch him. Not the competent touch of a healer to his wound, as she’d been last night, but the soft caress of a feisty red-haired woman who wept with abandon in private, and laughed without restraint in the company of children.

“…and the boy’s mother sought the counsel of the old wise man once more,” Siân continued. “‘You must perform a difficult task,’ the old man told her. ‘Search out and find a hen as black as night, whose feathers reflect no light. Close up your cottage, block the doors and windows, but leave the chimney open. Make a fire, and cook the hen over it…”’

The tale went on to its happy ending, and it wasn’t until Siân had reunited the hapless Pryderi with his mother that the children noticed Hugh in the shadows near the oak tree. They were instantly wary of the man with the black eye patch.

“’Tis Lord Alldale,” Siân said, as startled by his arrival as the children. Recovering quickly, she arose from her seat beneath the spreading oak tree. “’Twas he who saved me from the fierce boar who would have gored me with his tusks…” she grabbed the smallest boy and twirled him around as he giggled with glee “…and eaten me all up!”

Hugh warmed inexplicably as he watched Siân spin with the child, her face flushed, her skirts billowing out all around her. He cleared an odd thickness from his throat and approached the small group. “Lady Siân, it would be well for you to stay closer to the town.”

“Why, my lord?” she asked, her innocent eyes full of questions.

Hugh hesitated. He saw no reason to take the joy out of her day. “Only because…it looks as if it wants to storm again,” he finally said.

Siân looked up at the sky.

He was right. Rain was coming. She smiled warmly. It was considerate of him to come out and forewarn her.

“Vraiment, I am flattered, Lord Alldale,” Marguerite said in response to Hugh’s proposal of marriage.

And flustered, Hugh thought, although her excellent breeding was evident in her tact and poise. There was hardly any indication that she found his offer of marriage untoward. A mere flaring of nostrils, a twitch of the lips, a slight flush of color on those high cheeks…Hugh only noticed these subtle signs because he was more aware than most, after enduring so many politely averted gazes and disdainful glances.

Hugh’s face had once been a pleasing one. In those earlier days, he’d been satisfied with his lot, quick to meet a challenge or to stand for his friends. His company had been sought in battle as well as in the public house.

Though he’d never had the kind of looks that made women swoon, there had been no dearth of beauties to grace his bed in those days, he thought morosely. Not that he’d want any of the shallow and vain creatures near him now. He’d seen too many women pale and weaken at the sight of his scars and the leather eye patch. He knew their grimaces came with the mere thought of a touch from his mangled hand…and how he’d gotten it.

Marguerite sat on a comfortable chair in her solar, while Hugh remained standing, free to wander the room as he chose. He refused to be discomfited by the situation, by her reserve. He was certainly aware that he was no longer pleasant to look upon, that a beautiful woman like Marguerite would have some difficulty with the notion of spending her future shackled to a man with his disfigurements.

Hugh had adjusted. He would never again be the man he was two years ago, but he was a man, nonetheless. Strong again. Capable. Marguerite could do worse for a husband. He was no pauper, to go begging for favors of a wealthy widow! He had Alldale, a prosperous estate that belonged to him alone.

The lady took a sip of wine from a delicate silver chalice, biding a few moment’s time. She cleared her throat before speaking again.

“As you might know,” she said haltingly, “I have received two, um, additional offers of marriage.”

“I’d heard.” And didn’t particularly care. Just choose, he thought, and we can get on with it one way or another.

“My parents are dead,” Marguerite added. “I have no one close by to advise me.”

“Her Majesty, the Queen?”

“We are good friends, yes,” she replied, “but she has counseled me to write my uncle in Lyons for his advice and…perhaps his consent.”

“I see.”

“And, um, I must also request the permission of the council in London. They have certain requirements—”

“Yes, I know all about the council’s requirements,” Hugh said, standing now with his back toward Marguerite. This was impossible! Why had he ever agreed to coming to Clairmont? He turned to face her, and managed to speak calmly. “I doubt you will find any objections from that quarter, but I grant you time to make your wishes known to them.”

“Thank you, my lord,” Marguerite said timidly. “You are most generous.”

“If you do not mind,” he said, “I will remain here at Clairmont until you have made your decision.”

“It is not entirely my decis—”

Hugh held up one hand. “Whatever the case may be,” he said, “if it is of no inconvenience, I will stay.”

“You are welcome to remain here, my lord,” Marguerite said, regaining her usual courtesy and aplomb. “Of course.”

Hugh was well aware that Marguerite considered his marriage proposal only because he’d proven himself in battle, not because of any desire to wed him. Though her etiquette had been impeccable, Hugh knew the lady had won herself some time by requesting his patience as she asked her uncle and any other counselors for advice—time in which to prepare herself for a marriage that Hugh knew would be nothing but distasteful to her.