Part 17 (1/2)
”There is much here you are not telling me, daughter. You must temper your judgment of your eldest son. You owe Robin more respect than you show him. Does the good Lord grant you the years, Robin will be the one to care for you in your old age.”
”Well, fortunately, I haven't tottered into my dotage yet, Papa. Neither have you. So how is business?”
”What interest have you ever had in that?” St. Pierre neatly deflected Bella's question. ”I am more concerned for what is happening further up the coast. There are rumors of s.h.i.+ps being readied for war. Do you know of that, Bella?”
”Not much,” Bella said in all honesty. She suddenly wanted this father of Lady Isabel to look at her and realize she was not his daughter. The stern old French gentleman did look at her, very hard and sharply, but he saw nothing amiss.
That told her what she had come to Winchelsea to discover. Lady Isabel had not gone home to France. Sadly, she realized all hope that the other woman lived in this dimension with her diminished daily. The simple truth was, Bella didn't want her intuition about Isabel's demise to be correct.
”I have learned much in just this crossing,” St. Pierre continued on the subject of war preparations. ”And I certainly expect more information from my own daughter than what you have given me so far. You will send word to me, daughter, as soon as you have learned what day the king will set sail. The French must be prepared. Our lives and those of many of your friends and relatives may depend upon that information, Bella. You cannot betray your blood.”
Silent, Bella sipped the wine in her cup and twisted the trailing ribbons of her girdle between her fingers. What say to Comte Eustace's last remark eluded her for a moment. ”Well,” she hedged. ”I haven't actually had any opportunity to learn many facts. I don't think I am trusted.”
St. Pierre snorted over her last comment. ”Hmph,” the old Frenchman grunted. ”Chandos is a d.a.m.ned Englishman to the bone, now. He has forgotten his roots. I have yet to cease regretting the day I married you to him. Had I waited two years you could have been the d.u.c.h.ess of Lorraine.”
That was an impressive missing piece of the puzzle, Bella thought. To his in-laws Sir John failed to measure up. That could certainly contribute to making a marriage fail. She knew firsthand what it was like to have a husband who had never been trusted any farther than her own father could have thrown him. But there was a world of difference between the characters of John Chandos and Ari Wynford.
”Oh, well, que sera sera.” Bella finished the wine and put the chased gold goblet on the minute table. Her throat and belly was nicely warmed. The wine was potent, she realized. It spiraled into her brain as she rose to her feet. ”I should go back to the beach before Queen Phillipa misses me.”
”How you can put up with that grasping Hainault woman I'll never know. Bella, wait here, I'll fetch Robin to escort you back.”
”No, Papa.” Bella laid her hand on the old man's arm.
”I'll go back the way I came, thank you. The less time I spend around Robin the better for both our tempers. We both disapprove of what the other does. Besides, he accompanied Prince Edward here, not me.”
”The Prince of Wales is in Winchelsea? Robin said nothing about that,” Saint Pierre said sharply. ”Do you tell me my grandson is ingratiating himself with the royal family just as his father has?”
”Robin seems to have his head well on his shoulders when it comes to royalty.” Bella poked her head out from behind the screen. She didn't dare stick around long enough to drink a second gla.s.s of wine. She had no stomach for wine, one gla.s.s always went straight to her head.
The auction outdoors must have ended because now every stall in the guildhall crowded with last-minute buyers. Her newly found younger brother left his customers to give Bella an exhuberant hug. His name was James and after meeting him, Bella realized she should have recognized him immediately. Geoffrey was James Saint Pierre's spitting image, but then...so had been her own dear Iain.
She lingered a while longer reluctant to separate herself from these so physically familiar men. The comte's a.s.sistants packed the balance of his unsold wares on their boat. To Bella's eye, their s.h.i.+p had the look of a lake craft, too small to risk on open sea waters. Comte Saint Pierre didn't seem to know that.
They said good-byes and Bella stood up on tiptoes to kiss Comte Eustace's cheeks. ”Promise me you will take care. I will come and see you soon. Au revoir, mon pere.”
SUSPICIONS -17.
Bella remained on the wharf, watching the small craft sail out of the harbor. The sun was hotter than it had been in the morning. Bella sighed. It was time she returned to Smuggler's Cove. Thankfully, Lorette was where Bella had left her, tied to a hitching post with several other horses.
Mounted and turned to the long stretch of sandy beach that angled toward the west, Bella squinted at the well worn trail along the sh.o.r.e. Queen Phillipa was a good judge of distance and time. It was no more than a quarter hour gallop from Smugglers Cove to Winchelsea.
Something bothered Bella enough to make her hesitate to send Lorette cantering down the trail. Call it a case of not being able to make things add up the way they should, or just call it a premonition. Something was telling her not to travel down that path alone.
Bella immediately turned Lorette and galloped back up the sloping dunes to Winchelsea.
The little town was as crowded as it had been earlier, if not more so. Bella paced Lorette through the jammed streets, looking for the black gelding Robin had ridden this morning. She hadn't paid much attention to any of the other squires' horses, but Henri had enviously pointed out how fine a horse his brother rode.
Bella was glad the little boy had done so when she spied the destrier hobbled to a vertical post alongside of several other prime horses. The tavern-inn looked no more appealing to her now than it had the first time Bella had pa.s.sed it.
Judging from the clientele at the benches and crude tables under the chestnut trees, it wasn't the sort of place a woman should ever enter alone. Some things just never changed, Bella deducted, for sailors looked like sailors the world over regardless of century of birth. The collection of men drinking under the trees between the inn and its stables certainly looked like her idea of sailors...maybe even pirates.
They stood out for a number of good, highly visible reasons. First, they were dirty. One had a black scarf tied over his head in such a fas.h.i.+on that it obscured his left eye. Second, it was obvious they had been drinking heavily, possibly the whole afternoon. Four of them stared rudely at her and make offensive remarks as Bella looked once more at Robin's horse, making double certain the black gelding was the one she sought. It was.
She crossed the common yard and dismounted, tying Lorette beside the gelding, then carefully holding her skirts clear of the muck under foot, moved briskly to the wide open doors of the inn.
Inside, the vast common room was cast in stygian darkness. The smell of fish, sweat, smoke and ale rolled pungently out the door. It would be some time, Bella felt certain, before her eyes adjusted to the lack of light. She searched the cavernous interior for Prince Edward's blond head. She'd have better luck finding that bright crop of hair before she spied Robin in the dark.
”Hallo,” Bella called out, ”Robin, are you here?” Bella never sensed the man behind her until it was too late.
An arm clamped around her waist and she was whipped out of the lighted doorway, twisted into the darkness of an interior corner.
”And to what great G.o.d do I give thanks for dropping the Rose of Lorraine into my hands, hmm?” An accented voice purred a breathless inch above Bella's ear. ”No, don't scream, sweetling. One sound out of you and the Prince of Wales is dead.”
The warning issued forth in voluble French as the tip of a sharp blade nicked Bella's throat. Her outraged shout died unspoken. Instead, she gathered her wits and said, testily, ”Am I supposed to know who you are and what this is about?”
”Well, of course, sweetling, but I will be the first to admit that your timing is deplorable. I have been waiting four days for you to return.”
”You have?” Bella raised her hands, bracing them against the plaster coated inner wall. She felt the size and strength of the man that held her pinned. He was small and wiry, but very strong.
At last her eyes had adjusted to the darkness and the interior came into clear focus. The public room's trestles and benches were devoid of customers and with good reason. The inn was hotter than a Dutch oven from the ma.s.sive fire laid in its hearth. The day's generous haunch sizzled untended.
An open staircase flush against the adjacent wall was all Bella could really see of her surroundings. Three men with long knives clutched in their hands crept up the steps.
”What are you doing?” Bella gulped out a question in shaky French. ”You've made a mistake.”
”Be quiet.” Her captor ordered hoa.r.s.ely. ”Don't worry, ma Belle, your son won't be harmed. It's the prince who has turned into the prize de jour, outs.h.i.+ning even you, I am sad to say.”
”Whatever for?” Bella gasped. ”He's just a boy.”
”Ah, yes, but such a prized son, hmm? Just think of the ransom he'll bring.”
”You'll never take him,” Bella said with perfect confidence. The fates had other plans for this particular Prince of Wales. ”You're wasting your time. Take me instead.”
”Hush, sweetling. Does all go well, I'll see that your needs are well accommodated once my s.h.i.+p is at sea. Until then, darling...” His lips skittered across the back of Bella's neck. Worse, his foul hand groped at her b.r.e.a.s.t.s causing pain. ”Mon Dieu, but you are so distracting.”
”So I'm told.” Bella made a face at the rough wall in front of her eyes. Men were the same, predictable lot as always. She mentally measured the dolt pawing so rudely at her and came up with a not so towering height of five foot six. If she could incapacitate him for a moment or so, she knew she could have the advantage.
After all, she was a modern woman and a devoted jogger. She had taken every week's karate lessons seriously. Considering the crime rate of her day, it didn't pay not to.
She took the time to take several cleansing breaths, while her a.s.sailant's fondling literally got out of hand. He'd brought his other hand into play, lifting her skirts.
”Isn't there a more private place for this?” Bella suggested huskily, her eyes on the men posed at the top of the steps. Her a.s.sailant's breathing was anything but steady. h.e.l.l, Bella thought, this week alone I've been through worse than this!
She closed her eyes, found her center and moved so sharply, the man didn't know what hit him as Bella's elbow delivered a stunning blow to his solar plexus. His blade clattered to the dirty floor. He went flying next, over Bella's head. The sound of bones crunching when he landed made Bella cringe. How many times had she practiced that maneuver on the mats to escape the grips of a mythical mugger? But practice had made perfect and all it took was knowing how to use an opponent's weight against him. It sure sounded different in reality. The man was so incapacitate he couldn't even scream.
But Bella could. She whirled around, s.n.a.t.c.hing the long-bladed knife off the floor, screaming, ”Help! Robin, Edward, Knollys, en garde a Lady Chandos!”
As a battle cry, screaming for a batch of teenage boys to come to her aid was ludicrous. The men posed on the steps to charge the loft, stared at her as if she'd gone mad.