Page 47 of The Rose at Twilight
But even that night, although he had laughed when she teased him about having had to entice him to do his duty, and had kissed and caressed her until she moaned aloud, he had finished more quickly than she had hoped.
She recalled now, perversely, that he preferred dark-haired women and, with a twinge of jealousy, wondered if any he knew—and perhaps had been thinking about when he mentioned his preference—lived near Merion Court.
But then, remembering that she had heard him tease Ian about his “weakness for women,” she wondered suddenly if Nicholas viewed his interest in her as a weakness, a fault that he must overcome if he was to stand well in the eyes of his men.
Or perhaps, she told herself, it was only that the men of Merion were tiresomely dispassionate.
Just then, Alys saw Hugh stoop to pick up a ball of thread Jonet had dropped, and saw, too, how he caught and held her gaze when she looked up from her work. But when Hugh smiled, Jonet turned away abruptly, putting her nose in the air. He grinned.
“Such mild behavior does encourage me, my peevish wee mouse, but ’tis common courtesy to thank a man who does you a kindness.”
Jonet did not deign to reply.
Shaking his head, Hugh went back to the fire.
Young Rhys had seen the exchange and, looking up, caught Alys’s eye.
When he grinned, dark eyes atwinkle, inviting her to share his amusement, she found her opinion of him shifting and wondered if there might be more to the men of Merion than she had thought.
When she reached the courtyard early the following morning, she discovered that she would get the opportunity to learn a good deal more about one of them, but it was not Rhys.
Nicholas’s men had already gathered for the journey, and when they had mounted, Alys saw that Gwilym was with them, riding a glossy black almost as magnificent and well mannered as Black Wyvern—not surprising, since, as Nicholas soon informed her, the two destriers were offspring of the same sire, and Gwilym had trained them both.
“Why is he coming with us?” Madeline muttered to Alys, her words barely audible above the din of harness, iron shoes on cobbles, and shouted masculine orders. “Who asked him?”
Before Alys might have responded, Gwilym rode nearer, looked them over briefly, then shouted for a man to come and adjust Madeline’s leathers.
She said, “’Tis kind of you, sir, but I need no adjustment.”
“You will allow me to be the better judge of that, mistress,” Gwilym said calmly, nodding at a man who approached on foot. The man glanced from one to the other but obeyed Gwilym.
Madeline sat rigidly, staring straight ahead until the adjustment had been made and the man had gone away again, before saying evenly to Gwilym, “You take too much upon yourself, sir.”
He bowed from his saddle and rode away. Less than a quarter hour later the cavalcade passed through the iron gates, but instead of riding down the valley the way they had come, they forded the river to follow a track through the hills to the valley of the river Wye.
Looking back from the crest of the first hill, Alys could see the dark shadow of the house in the distance, beside the tall stone keep, with fluffy white clouds floating above it.
Two hours later the sky was black, and long before they reached Hay, rain was pouring down upon them.
By the next day the downpour had diminished to a drizzle, but when they entered Worcester, two days later, the women were miserable, and the river Wye was running red with clay washed down from the hills.
Nicholas, his impatience increasing by the hour, insisted upon pushing ahead the next day, though both Gwilym and Hugh urged him to stay in Worcester one full day to rest both horses and riders.
Alys had been disappointed to discover that the sleeping arrangements were the same as they had been on the journey from London, but once she had been reminded of how brusque Nicholas could be, particularly while traveling, she decided it was better to share her rooms at the various religious houses with Madeline, Jonet, and Elva, than with him.
Their pace was slower than he would have liked, but they made Birmingham by early afternoon on Maundy Thursday.
Thus he was encouraged to press on the following day to Burton Abbey, where the women, Sir Nicholas, Gwilym, and their body servants were directed to the guesthouse, a building of considerable size and elegance set at a distance from the cloister, so that guests would not disturb the monks by their untimely comings and goings.
The rest of the men were to be housed in the cellarer’s hospice, and before following the rotund little guestmaster into the house, Sir Nicholas called to Hugh to see that both the men and their horses were ready to depart by daybreak.
“Your husband is an ogre,” Madeline declared when the women were installed a short time later in the ladies’ hall, where although they would sup together with the gentlemen, they would spend the night separated from them.
“It is not enough that we have had to subsist upon Lenten fare—and at religious houses at that, where the rules are formidable—but he pushes us and pushes us to ride through muck and mire until we resemble naught so much as mud hens. Speak to him, Alys. Mayhap he will listen to you.”
Alys grimaced, for when she had dared to protest earlier, she had received short shrift from her husband.
“He does not heed what anyone says,” she told Madeline.
“He is obsessed with reaching the king. I think he frets over what might happen if he is not there with him to protect his royal backside.”
Madeline sighed. “His lunatic brother is obsessed, too, I think. The man is forever watching over me, as if I were a want-wit unable to look after myself. ‘Pull your cloak tighter about you, mistress,’ he says. ‘Do you not have a hat with a wider brim, mistress?’ ‘Do not tread in that puddle, mistress.’ And when I dropped my whip and he picked it up for me, he told me not to be so careless. As if I had not always been a trifle clumsy—marry, you know I have, Alys! But he says I am merely careless! I have never known any man like him. He cannot converse in a courtly manner, and when I asked him most politely to point out to his elder brother that the horrid clouds overhead were dripping on us, he said only, ‘The Lord controls the weather, mistress; Nicholas does not.’ I tell you, he is daft!”
Alys smiled then, but Jonet, who was busily ordering two lay brothers to see to the cloaks and coffers, turned at hearing Madeline’s words and said wryly, “I believe it is a general condition of Welshmen to push themselves in where they are not wanted, Mistress Fenlord. In Worcester this morning, that elephant, Hugh Gower, actually lifted me right off my feet and carried me across that wet courtyard to put me on my palfrey. The audacity of the knave!”
Alys and Madeline, having both enjoyed the sight of an indignant Jonet being carried as though she were a child in arms and not the woman of generous proportion that she was, exchanged grins but did not so lose their senses as to tease her.
Instead, Madeline said, “Just so. There can be no doubt about it; all Welshmen are mad. But, Alys, surely you can do something about this wicked pace Sir Nicholas is setting! We shall all catch our death of cold and damp. In point of fact, I heard two of the men muttering something about an outbreak of the sweating sickness. I did not hear the town they mentioned, nor did I want to ask, but it just goes to show what we can expect.” She shivered.
It was not sickness that slowed them, however, but the round little guestmaster, who expressed profound dismay at the notion of traveling on the very eve of Easter.
Being excused by virtue of his position from the rule of silence at Burton, he did not hesitate to expound at length upon the subject to Nicholas himself.
The exchange took place after vespers when they returned to the hall of the guesthouse for their supper, the only meal served at Burton on fast days.
Alys fully expected Sir Nicholas to snub the kind little man and was pleasantly surprised when he said only, “I am but heeding my duty in going to meet my king, Father.”
The master, looking like an plump indignant gnome in his black cowl and cassock, was unimpressed.
“His grace, as all here know well, my son, is secure at Lincoln for the holy festival. Being a good man of pious habits who knows his duty to God, he has been there since Wednesday. Therefore, if you insist upon departing at daybreak, I shall have no choice but to summon the lord abbot himself to dissuade you. And his commands,” he added darkly, “must be obeyed as if they came from God. Do not doubt that he will order the stable doors locked and barred, if he believes it necessary, to keep you here at Burton.”
Routed, Sir Nicholas gave in with what little grace he could muster, but his mood when he observed the plate of porridge set before him was not pleasant. Alys, watching him, forbore to speak her own thoughts about the paucity of the meal. It was, after all, nearly the last day of Lent.
She felt clammy and filthy, and would have traded her best velvet gown, if not her pearl necklet, for a bath. But after supper when she suggested to the guestmaster that one might be provided for her, he stared at her in dismay.
“Baths are available only for the sick, my lady. Being an indulgence of the flesh, they are discouraged at Burton. Oh, but wait,” he added, brightening.
“Tomorrow eve, being the night before Easter, is one of the two days of the year when one might indulge oneself. I shall approach the abbot on your behalf.”