Chapter
V

Christian raced across the hall, dodging serving men carrying plate and sculleries wrestling with benches. Bursting through the doors on the far side, he hurtled toward the back stairs that would take him to the tower room where Blade was kept. A call from his father arrested his flight.

Sebastian de Rivers sat at a table in his library with his back to a sunlit window. A book lay before him, its pages bright with new print and shining in the blaze of a candelabra. Christian went to his father and knelt.

Keeping his gaze trained on the book, Sebastian reached out and stroked Christian’s tangle of dark curls. “Are you going to torture that boy again?”

Christian glanced up at his father, but the earl was reading as calmly as a priest sings at vespers.

“I’ve played the mouse hunt too often these past few days and neglected poor Blade.”

“I like to see you hunt women more than I like to see you hunt Jack Midnight.” Sebastian shoved his chair away from the table and leaned back to study his son. “However, you’ve chosen a virtuous mouse this time.”

“Marry, sire, you’ve touched the matter nearly. Each time I set out ahunting, I come back with my points still laced and my codpiece fair to bursting.” Christian thrust his jaw out as his father’s laughter rained down on him.

“A fitting penance for all your mischief, my headstrong. Perhaps you’ll have better luck tonight at the banquet.”

Christian smiled but said nothing. He rose to go, but Sebastian lifted a hand to stay him.

“You haven’t distracted me from my purpose.” Sebastian pointed to the window seat. “Sit.”

“My charge will be hungry, and I was to bring him his meal.”

“Sit down, young baggage. You sow discord like barley, and I like it not. And don’t stick your jaw out at me. You’re going to listen.”

Christian subsided onto the window seat, hooking an arm around one knee, and glared at his father. Unlike Inigo and Three-Tooth Poll, Sebastian didn’t shrink or start. He ignored the signs of impending fireworks and leaned against the wall beside Christian.

“Do you know why I hide Protestants?” he asked.

Frowning, Christian shook his head. “What has that to do with Blade?”

“Hush.” Sebastian tilted his head back and studied the plastered and gilded ceiling. “When Midnight took you from me and I couldn’t find you for so long, I took refuge in the new learning.”

“Sire, that was long ago.”

Sebastian waved a silencing hand. “After about three fortnights of flying around the countryside, I realized that I couldn’t search the whole of England by myself, so I came here and began to direct my men in the search. I’d promised my physicians that I would rest, but I couldn’t sleep without dreaming of you, so I read. I discovered so much in Aristotle, Socrates, Plato, Ovid—much more than when I was schooled. I would read through the night to avoid torturing myself with thoughts of you.”

“I used to imagine you looking for me.”

“I never stopped. And as the months went by and I still couldn’t find you, I read instead of eating. And as I read, I marveled at the wisdom of these people who lived before Our Lord’s Son. But one day it occurred to me that the church would condemn every Greek and Roman scholar as a heretic. Their souls were doomed. According to the church, that is.”

“That’s why you hide Protestants?” Christian asked.

“Yes.”

“Because the priests would condemn Aristotle’s soul?”

“Are you confused?”

Christian nodded.

“Excellent,” Sebastian said. “Then you won’t be so likely to argue with me when I ask you once again to give up seeking revenge upon Jack Midnight.”

Christian stirred as if to rise, but a look from his father stilled him.

“Remember the day I found you?” Sebastian asked.

“Found me? I cut your purse. If I’d seen your face, I wouldn’t have chosen you for a coney, but all I saw was your cap and a pouch fat with coin.”

Christian smiled at his father. Christian had been in London only a few months, pricked up with admiration for himself for escaping Jack Midnight after four years of slavery. Having apprenticed himself to the best school for cutpurses in town, he’d been practicing his skills near St. Paul’s Cathedral and had tried to cut his own father’s purse.

‘Will you tell me now,” Sebastian asked, “why you didn’t come to me when you got away from Midnight?”

Christian leaped from the window seat, and strode to the table, bracing himself against it with his hands flat on the top. “You know I don’t talk about that.”

“I’ve let you imprison that boy in my house, Chris. It’s wrong and could get you in trouble. I want to know why I should risk losing you again.”

Fingering the edge of the book that lay before him, Christian remained silent. Behind him, his father waited, never moving. Christian could feel those gentle eyes study him.

“It was long ago,” Sebastian said. “You can tell me, for I love you.”

Christian sighed and closed his eyes. “He said that after the things I’d done, that he’d done to me, you wouldn’t want me. He even told me he’d tried to ransom me, only you’d refused the sum he demanded.”

“By God’s wounds!”

Whirling about, Christian held out a supplicating hand. “I’m sorry. I was too young, and he beat me. I didn’t want to do those things. Not at first.”

“I will hear no apologies from you.” Sebastian shoved him into the chair and grasped his shoulders. “Haven’t I told you to leave the past behind? You did what you had to do to live, and I thank God that He watched over you until I could reclaim you.”

Christian hunched his shoulders and whispered, “But that isn’t the only reason I didn’t come back.” Lifting his chin, he faced his father. “I didn’t come back because—because by then, I liked it. I liked thievery, the life of a highwayman. I belong with cutpurses, trulls, and knaves. If I were virtuous and godly, I wouldn’t have liked the excitement. I wouldn’t have found fellowship and pleasure in a thieves’ camp or in a trugging house before I was twelve.”

Sinking down to one knee, Sebastian shook his head. “You’re so much my son, Chris. Our minds work alike, don’t you think? But you’re much more practical than I. You took on the outer trappings of thievery to survive. The sin lies on Jack Midnight’s soul, not yours.”

“So you’ve told me, and I intend to see that he expiates his sins.”

“But as to liking thievery, what boy does not? What lad wouldn’t run wild, gad about the countryside living off stolen pies and poached meat if given the chance? Especially if the choice is between being a knave and doing one’s duty as heir to responsibility and care.” Sebastian eyed his son’s down-curved mouth. “This is well-traveled country for you and me, and I’ve not convinced you yet.”

“No, sire.”

“Stubborn lackwit. It’s no wonder I call you my headstrong. Be off with you then.”

Christian got up, plucked a book from one of the shelves, and sighed again. “I still say you’d be married by now if it weren’t for my sins.”

“And I still tell you I favor a dagger-witted merchant’s daughter whom the Queen would never allow me to marry. It’s not your doing that her family had to take refuge from Mary in Scotland. Content you, for I’ll be traveling north before winter to see her.”

Studying his father’s face, Christian nodded. “We shouldn’t speak of such things on a fine spring feast day. My wits are addled from chasing that pretty mite all over the palace.”

“Well then, stop chasing her.”

“I can’t. Nora Becket needs tending. She doesn’t stand up for herself. She shrinks and cowers and lets those women of the Queen’s drive her like a calf without a mother.”

“So you would be her champion and reap a champion’s reward.”

Christian widened his eyes in innocence. “I but seek to improve her character.”

“If your mother hadn’t died when you were a babe, you wouldn’t be so rapacious toward women. I’m convinced of it. Don’t turn that angel’s stare on me, young wretch.”

Resuming his seat at the table, the Earl put his fingertips together so that they formed a steeple and gazed over them at Christian. Christian swerved away from that quiet contemplation and began tapping the spines of books on a shelf and singing under his breath.

There was a loud snap as his father closed the book he’d taken up. Christian pursed his lips and traced the gilded spine of a translation of the Iliad.

“I’ve been thinking about Nora Becket,” Sebastian said. “The word is all about the town that her father has betrothed her to Percivale Flegge. You’ll have to give up the hunt.”

Christian’s finger paused in its journey down the spine of the book, then resumed its movement. “Flegge is a pox-ravaged leach.”

“Becket doesn’t care. His new wife is with child, and he wants rid of Nora. I suppose the girl will object. Perhaps she’ll put up a fight. Then you can play the mouse hunt again.”

“Nora Becket fights for nothing that doesn’t have four legs and fur.” Christian spun around, avoiding his father’s eyes, and sauntered to the door. “What woe, what woe. At last I find a girl of wit and good cheer, and she’s betrothed. I shall put her from my thoughts until she’s been wed a few weeks. That much time in the company of Flegge should make the fruit ripe indeed. I shall put her from my thoughts.”

Sebastian’s snort followed Christian out of the library. “Lying is a sin, Chris, even if you’re only lying to yourself.”

Cursing his father’s perceptiveness, Christian made his way to the kitchens, where a meal was being prepared for Blade. The place was as raucous as a bear pit with the preparations for the night’s banquet. Subsiding at a table in a corner where a serving man had placed the tray containing Blade’s meal, Christian took up a knife and jabbed at the roast capon on the tray.

Percivale Flegge, he thought. By God’s teeth, how could a father give his only daughter to that? And Nora wouldn’t have the courage to refuse. He was sure of her cowardice, for she’d been running from him for weeks faster than a mouse from a ferret. Why, only a few days ago he’d tried to speak to her at a fencing match in one of the palace courtyards, but she had hidden behind the skirts of those old duennas the Queen kept as ladies-in-waiting. The clanging of pots and the growls of cooks faded as Christian remembered Nora’s quick dash behind a wall of brocade and velvet.

Instead of pursuing the girl, he’d faded away into the crowd around the fencers and watched her. He could tell she had lost sight of him. Nora stood on her toes and peeked around the bulging girth of a Spanish noblewoman, her eyes searching the crowd for him. At last she appeared to cast aside her wariness and observe the fencers once more. When he was sure she no longer looked for him, Christian began to edge his way around the crowd toward her. As he did so, he saw her slip away.

Trailing her into the palace, he lurked in the shadows of entryways and around corners until she disappeared through a doorway. It led to a small garden used infrequently because of its proximity to the stench of a leaking sewer pipe. Christian sidled up to the doorway and peered through it to see Nora pick up a basket. Using a pair of scissors from the basket, she stooped and cut a rose. He watched her progress, cutting more blossoms, until she reached a honeysuckle.

She stopped in front of the bush with her back to him. Fumbling with basket and scissors, she appeared to be having difficulty removing her gloves. She got them off at last, placed them in the basket beneath the roses, and shoved the basket under a bench beside the honeysuckle. Christian grinned when she glanced around, as if in search of intruders. As she bent to sniff the honeysuckle, he slithered into the garden and up behind her.

“ ‘There is a garden in her face, Where roses and white lilies grow.’ ”

With a squeal, Nora lurched upright and twirled around. He snatched her hand before she could flee, but she jerked free. Instead off running as he expected, she scuttled sideways, knocking her basket over, and sank onto the bench. After gawking at him for a moment, she glanced down at her basket, then cried out and swooped down upon it.

Christian knelt beside her, picked up one of her gloves, and laughed. “You cavort like a jester, beautiful Nora.”

“Give me my glove!”

“How now, mistress, you berate me for my chivalry.” He extended the glove, only to have it ripped from his hand and stuffed in the basket. “How haps it that you steal away from the fencing match to do servants’ work?”

She dumped the roses back on top of her gloves and stood, clutching the basket to her chest. Christian rose with her and closed the distance between them. She backed up until her leg hit the bench and she toppled onto it.

“Go away,” she said.

He slid onto the bench. Bracing himself on one arm, he leaned close to her. She turned toward him, with the basket held between them like a shield.

He glanced down at her bulwark, then lifted an eyebrow. “Never have I known such a puling coward. You should thank God He made you a woman. I do.”

He expected her to shriek and run. Once again she surprised him. Instead of cowering, she looked at the basket lodged against her chest, sucked in her breath, and went white. Abruptly she thrust the basket under the bench, giving it a shove so it disappeared beneath her skirt.

In an instant Christian snaked an arm behind her back and pulled her close. As the heat of her squirming body reached his skin, he wrapped his arms tighter around her. Instinct guided him to mutter reassurances with what little sense he had left. A river of blood roared inside his head and churned to his legs and groin. His hearing vanished, its place taken by the feel of her soft cheek against his lips.

He wasn’t sure just when Nora stopped squirming. He only knew that small fingers reached up to touch his face, lightly, like leaves blown by a breeze. That uncertain touch woke him from his hot, dreamlike state long enough to look at her. She was staring up at him, lips trembling. She tried to speak.

“Shhh,” he whispered.

Brushing his lips across her cheek, he felt her shiver. Of their own accord, his arms tightened even more, and he continued to skim the surface of her flesh with his lips. He traced her jawline, the skin below her ear, the length of her neck to where the pulse beat in her throat. She was breathing almost as quickly as he was now.

He pressed her backward so that her only support was his arm, then slowly lowered her until she was lying on the bench. She tried to slip her arms between their bodies, but he quickly pressed his chest to hers and covered her mouth. Sliding a hand up her rib cage, he sought and found the soft hill of her breast. She started at the touch. He was sucking at her mouth when something tugged sharply at his hair. His head snapped back.

“Ouch!” He blinked and tried to rouse himself from the warm heaviness that had invaded his body.

She released his hair and clasped his face in both hands. “You don’t like me.”

“What?”

“You think me a coward, my lord.”

Bracing himself on his elbows, he captured her hands. “This is no time to acquire courage and fight me, sweeting. Be a coward.” Holding on to her wrists, he again fastened his mouth on hers while pressing his body against hers.

He was shifting so his thigh could force its way between her legs when he heard a sob. Arousal vanished. Lifting his head, he beheld her tightly shut eyes and the single tear that slid down her temple. He released her at once, lifting his body from hers and drawing her upright.

Nora hugged herself and bit her lower lip. Christian winced, then brushed a lock of hair back from his brow and cursed. Often it suited his purposes to frighten, but never before had he felt the monster he did now upon seeing Nora tremble in fear of him. He’d spent days of frustration, a wolf cheated of its prey, only to find that his taste for blood had vanished at the moment of the kill. He touched her cheek, and she cringed. Slipping to the ground in front of her, he knelt on both knees and extended his hand to her.

“G-go away.” She wiped tears from her face with the palms of her hands.

“I beg you to forgive me, sweeting. I thought even you would have been touched by at least one man before now.”

Fidgeting on the bench, she sniffled and straightened her skirts. “Go away.”

“No.”

He thought she would run. She didn’t, and he frowned at her. She scooted away from him, and her dress caught on the basket. She scooted back, lifted her skirt to cover the basket again, and faced him, her teeth tearing at her lower lip.

He put his fingertips against the abused flesh. “Don’t. You’re hurting yourself, and I can’t bear that any more than I could hurt you myself. What have you done?”

“I haven’t done anything. Please, go away.”

“You must have done something, or I wouldn’t have stopped.” He rubbed his chin and muttered to himself in awe. “I stopped.” He shook his head. “I must need a physick. Perhaps ill humors have built up in my body.”

“It is I,” Nora whispered. “I am ill. I tingle and—and I’m not comfortable.”

He caught his breath, then laughed so hard that Nora jumped again. She recovered and stared at him while he sank down on his haunches and guffawed. When he could speak, he looked up at her again.

“My innocent, my sweet lackwit.”

“I told you that you didn’t like me.”

He shook his head, smiling. “You don’t like what you feel when I touch you?”

“No. It’s not comfortable.”

“What you feel isn’t discomfort. It is pleasure.”

“Fan.”

“It is. Look.” He slowly reached out and placed his hand on her shoulder. “What do you feel?”

“Warm.”

“Where?” he asked.

“Where you touch me.”

“And?”

She flushed and shut her mouth tightly.

“Here?” He put his other hand on her thigh, and she began to squirm again. Before she could move, he slid his hand up to her pelvis. His fingers pressed into the flesh of her stomach near the join of her thighs. His voice was rough as he said, “Here as well, I wager.”

She slapped his hand.

“God’s teeth, woman!” Christian sucked the back of his fingers to take away the sting. A pity nothing would ease the pain between his legs.

“You choose the most inconvenient times to put aside your timidity.”

Nora leaped to her feet. Crossing her arms over her chest, she scowled at him. “I am expected in the presence chamber anon, my lord.”

“Witch.”

“Go away.”

“I’ve not finished with you.” He stood and took a step toward her, but halted at the sound of the garden door swinging open.

Glancing over his shoulder, Christian saw a gardener enter carrying buckets of compost. Turning back to Nora, he spoke low enough so that only she could hear.

“Be warned, sweeting. I’m not used to playing the supplicant. I grew up thieving, and I know how to steal what I want. Hide from me all you wish. It will do no good.”

Returning to the present with a grunt of disgust, Christian again jabbed the knife into the capon. The blade sliced through meat and hit the metal tray with a clink.

“I do believe the maid’s never been kissed,” he said to himself. “Well past a marriageable fourteen and she feels ‘uncomfortable.’ ”

“My lord?”

He glanced up at a serving man who carried a loaf of bread. The man placed the bread on the tray and gawked at the impaled capon. Scowling at the confused servant, Christian grabbed the tray, then stomped from the kitchens.

A guard let him into the tower room. Blade was lying on his bed, one leg propped on a knee, staring up at the canopy. A pile of unopened books took up most of the surface of the table near the bed. Christian shoved some of them aside to make room for the tray.

“Where is the Latin I gave you last night?” he asked.

“You know I can’t read it,” Blade said.

Christian picked up a book, rifled through its pages, and read, “ ‘Disce bonas artes, moneo, Romana inventus, Non tantum trepidos ut tueare reos; Quan populus iudexque gravis lectusque senatus, Tam dabit elequoiu victa puella manus.’ Translate.”

“Stow you!”

“You’d rather tend pigs?”

Blade thrust his slim body. Crouching on all fours, he snarled at his captor. “I can’t read Latin. I never could. Never.”

“Your accent gives you the lie.” Christian glanced down at the passage and translated it himself. “ ‘Learn noble arts, I counsel you, young men of Rome, not only that you may defend trembling clients; a woman, no less than populace, grave judge or chosen senate, will surrender, defeated, to eloquence.’ The Art of Love, Ovid.”

“You’re trying to make me into a gentry cove. I’m a cozener, a lockpick, a cutpurse and dagger, not some lost nobleman’s spawn.”

Christian picked up the knife from the tray, stabbed a chunk of the half-butchered capon, and held it out to Blade. The boy eyed the offering and Christian with distrust, then snatched the meat.

“Why do you think I bundled you from tradesman to artisan for over a fortnight?” Christian asked.

Blade swallowed the meat and shrugged. “To drive me mad.”

“When I set you to work for my father’s steward, he said you couldn’t carve a peacock, you know nothing of polishing plate, and that you can’t even fold linen.”

“The steward is a fat ass.”

“I arranged to have you serve a tanner, a smithy, and a pigkeeper. None of these trades could you master.”

“I told you, I’m a dagger.”

“You’re a fool.”

Christian opened the chamber door and snapped out an order to the guard. The man produced two swords, and Christian faced Blade. Hurling one of the swords at his captive, he saluted with his own weapon.

“Listen closely or you’ll be worms’ meat. Pasado.” After saying the word, Christian brought his sword down and thrust forward, aiming at Blade’s chest. Even as he moved, Blade’s steel flew up into position to parry.

“Punto reverso,” Blade said. Leaping back, he executed a backhanded stroke that hit Christian’s sword, and the two weapons slid together until they locked at the hilt.

The two faced each other over the cross formed by their swords.

Christian smiled. “You move like a student of a first fencing house, my cutpurse. And answer to the pasado in the Italian manner.”

A furrow appeared in Blade’s brow. Gazing at the crossed swords, he muttered, “Midnight said he taught me.”

“Midnight speaks no foreign tongue. He’s a franklin, Blade, tossed off his land by some greedy noble who enclosed his estates for profit. Why do you think he hates the highborn? His wife and two sons died of exposure when their lord cast them out. Midnight speaks no foreign tongue.”

“But I—”

“Answer to Italian while fencing, as one taught by a master.” Christian stepped back, withdrawing his sword.

Letting his own weapon fall, Blade stared at Christian, his thoughts obviously distant.

Christian raised his voice to break into the boy’s reverie. “Honi soit qui mal y pense.”

“Shamed be he who thinks evil of it,” Blade replied without hestitation. “Oh.”

His sword swinging in his left hand, Christian sauntered over to him and whispered in his prisoner’s ear. “Yes, think upon it, my surprised one. How is it that you can translate the motto of the Order of the Garter?” He watched the color ebb from Blade’s smooth cheeks and quickly slipped a hand under his arm. “Sit you down before you fall. And let this be your lesson—fronti nulla fides.”

Blade sank down onto the bed. “No reliance can be placed on appearance.” He put his hands over his ears and shut his eyes. “Stop, please.”

“You can’t ignore Jack Midnight’s duplicity.”

“Christian.”

It was the earl. Christian straightened from his looming stance over Blade and turned to face his father.

“What have you done?” Sebastian asked. He stepped between his son and Blade. “The lad’s pale as a whitefish and shakes as if he has an ague.”

Christian bent and picked up the sword he’d cast aside. “He’s quaking because he’s found out Jack Midnight isn’t a bloody saint.”

Sebastian eased Blade into a reclining position. “Fear not, boy. Christian has a banquet to host and Nora Becket to seduce. He won’t have time to put you to the rack further today.”

“Oh, there’s time aplenty,” Christian said.

The earl sighed and left the room, shoving Christian before him. Christian stumbled out onto the landing that led to the tower stairs, then caught himself and whirled around. His arms crossed over his chest.

“You will leave that boy alone tonight. It is my wish.”

“He needs—”

“Peace. The lad needs peace. I ought to know. I’ve reformed young knaves before.”

Christian ground his teeth together. “Yes, sire.”

“And speaking of knaves,” Sebastian said as he walked his son down the stairs, “our three guests haven’t made their departure.”

Halting on a stone step, Christian gaped at his father. “What happened?”

“Bloody Bonner is watching the port. The ship’s captain took fright and sailed without them, and I must arrange passage all over again.”

“God’s arse. We’re entertaining Bloody Bonner and his minions tonight, and those three heretical weasels are still under our roof.”

“I’ll put them in the cellar,” Sebastian said.

“And I’ll find a lock even Blade couldn’t pick.”

“There are new guests.” Sebastian stepped down so that he shared a stair with Christian. “I saw Becket at Unthank’s and invited him. And Flegge.”

“Sire, what jocund wit you have. I do believe you seek to discomfort me.”

“Not at all, my son. If the truth be sought, I think Nora Becket an unsound choice for a wife for any man. Too quiet, too plain, and she fidgets and dithers when faced with travail of any kind. If I thought you entertained yearnings for her other than physical ones, I would forbid you to seek her out.”

Christian nodded, his wits unraveling like the threads of an old tapestry. “Too quiet and plain. Fidgets, yes, she fidgets.”

“And dithers.”

“Dithers, yes. An unsound choice.” Christian took another step down. “Mark you, sire, I wasn’t thinking of Nora Becket for a wife.”

“Then we agree.”

“Of course,” Christian said in a faint voice. He shook his head and managed a chuckle. “Besides, what man wants a woman who prattles that he makes her uncomfortable?”