“Then nothing has changed,” she whispered.
“A great deal has changed. I’m in love with you now. I wasn’t then.” This time when his lips came down on hers the doubts and fears rose within her immediately. She knew too much. She struggled against him weakly and he released his hold on her at once.
“Very well, Chelynne,” he said somewhat shakily. “I will not force my affections on you.” He took a moment to calm himself, steady his broken will and patch together some restraint. He leaned back in the chair and stared away from her, there being no respite in looking at her. Those ripe, swelling breasts alone were enough to make an animal of him. When he thought it safe, and not a moment before, he looked back at her. “You know where I am and I am at your service, madam, day or night. I hold no stock in whether you come or go and I give you my word, I will not have you unwillingly. I suggest, for both our sakes, that you not have any doubts in your mind when you decide whether you stay or go.”
“That sounds like an invitation to your bed, sir. No promises attached?”
“It is exactly that,” he said coolly. “You’ve invested a considerable amount of time in this marriage. You should have all the facts. That,” he said emphatically, “happens to be one of the most important.”
As he rose to leave he looked as commanding as ever, not upset, not confused. Chelynne was still tremulous. She dropped one hand to her stomach as if the activity within would burst out. He had stirred her to a dangerous level. It was with every fiber of her self that she clung to composure.
“I have business, Chelynne. I’ll call on you later.” He bowed shortly and was gone.
The pattern followed the same course. He looked in on her daily, keeping close personal guard on her state of health. She wished to be shrewish, to lash out at him and hurt him. Faced with his warmth, she could find no will to fight him. He was devoted and gentle. There was no pressure, no fuel for her hate. Her confusion mounted. Her heart and mind were torn to shreds.
There was no reason to be excused from the affairs at the palace once her illness faded. The dinner honoring the king and queen would be attended by many and Chad confessed he would have to be there with or without her company. He asked her so kindly that she accepted.
As on all the other occasions he did not compliment her appearance. She was forced to decide from the shade of gray his eyes bore whether or not she had pleased him with her choice of gown.
She took up his rote, aping his indifferent manner, and refused to praise his handsomeness. But thoughts of him brought the thumping in her heart and a deepness to her eyes. He was such a fine figure, so bold and hard were his good looks. He could be as richly garbed as all the young gallants and never give off that foppish air. It was no wonder so many women watched him, desired him. No wonder he had had so many previous loves. She knew she would have fallen helplessly in love with him whether or not he had married her.
This night, perhaps because she had been so ill, he stayed close by her side. He hovered there, guarding her as if she were his ward, not his wife. He made no comment or gesture as they heard the gossip together. And what they heard was not complimentary to her. The rumors suggested poison and miscarriage and she was certain there were other things even worse floating around. But she smiled and shook her head, blaming a rather frightening attack of the ague.
The comments were hard to stop. “We’re anxious for the news of your first heir.” “Isn’t it nice that you’ve time to adjust yourself to marriage before suffering the ills of pregnancy.” “I have a friend whose astronomer found the exact day, coming only once in the year.” “My tiring woman has the recipe for a draught that makes one terribly fertile.”
Through this Chelynne held her composure. She wished Chad were not so near. He discreetly looked away during this women’s drivel, but she knew he had heard. He couldn’t possibly know how it affected her.
When she saw the king approaching them, she felt a surge of relief. She beamed her smile across the room to him. He floated his back to her and quickened his step.
“You’ve recovered very well, madam. You’re as lovely as ever.”
“Thank you, sire,” she replied demurely.
“Have you anything you wish to speak to me about?”
She glanced at Chad, patiently waiting and trying not to scowl. “I’m afraid not, Your Majesty. This is in fact my first outing.”
“There’s no hurry, my dear. I’m a patient fellow.” He looked around him. “I have to be.”
“I’ll be speaking to you soon...” she began.
“I told you, didn’t I, to take all the time you need?”
She nodded, pleased.
“Will you be offended if I steal the earl away from you for a time? He doesn’t seem eager to leave your side tonight.”
“She’s been weak, sire,” Chad defended himself. He didn’t like looking like a doting husband to his king, especially when that same one was an amused opponent.
“I’ll be only a moment, madam,” Charles said, giving her a slight bow. “I much prefer my diversions, but affairs of state do arise to interrupt me from time to time.” He gave her a most obvious wink and she couldn’t help giggling lightly. Chad did not think the situation amusing at all.
“Could I persuade you to escort me in the direction of the dressing room? I think I would be more content to wait there.”
Both were eager to comply. Charles loved a game and was playing this one to his supreme amusement. The lines on Bryant’s face were so obvious, so passionate. He fully expected to lose his wife to the king.
And Chad took her arm to prevent Charles from escorting her alone. He was not eager to leave her in a room full of lusty gallants, no matter how careful they were these days.
Chelynne relaxed on a couch after pressing a cool cloth to her face. It seemed as if she had been on her feet for hours, but it had been only a short time. Her exhaustion came from smiling away all the tactless remarks that had been made to her. She closed her eyes and let Whitehall fade away for a time.
Behind her eyes she envisioned herself facing the king, shouting, “I’m sorry, sire, I could never be a Lady to the Queen’s Bedchamber. I hate this place! Hate it!”
She knew she would never do that, because she loved him; because she was grateful for his alliance and she wouldn’t weaken the bond. Whatever the rest of the court thought, whatever all of England thought, she was afraid to breathe lest she destroy that caring.
“Resting, my lady? Tired already from your affairs?”
She opened her eyes to see the face she hated. Gwen stared down at her with that amused and victorious smile.
“I’ve been ill, madam. I’m sure you’ve heard more of it than I have.”
She laughed wickedly. “I’ve heard some nasty tales, to tell you truly. I’m sure you don’t want to hear them now.”
“Are you sure you weren’t responsible for most of them?”
“I?” She raised a dubious brow. “Of course not, madam. I wouldn’t dare.”
Chelynne was expressionless. She looked away from Gwen. She wanted nothing to do with this baiting game. She was far too weary.
“For a time I thought perhaps Chad had had enough of your games, but now I see that can’t be true. He wouldn’t be panting after you like a faithful pup.”
Chelynne slowly rose and went to sit before the mirror. She dabbed a little powder on her cheeks, steeling her mind against Gwen.
“You had us all mighty fooled, I admit that much. Your innocent act. Not daring to trouble yourself by taking up with the king! You’ve had a grand time, I doubt not, playing the virtuous maid. Is that what you’ve been after all along? Royal traffic?”
Chelynne slowly turned and looked at the woman. “Madam, you cannot be blamed for assuming others would take the same road you have traveled. I understand the reason you cannot recognize virtue.”
Gwen laughed loudly at that, not offended at all. “Virtue, is it? My, my, whoring goes by some mighty splend
id names in your circle.”
Chelynne sighed. “I cannot believe you are real, madam,” she returned dispassionately.
“Real enough,” Gwen sneered. “Real enough to have had enough of your simple game. I am amazed. So sweetly you pull it together. Tell me, how did you convince Chad into such a willing cuckold? You must be mighty tired.”
“Gwen!” she snapped. “Have done with this vulgarity. I’m in no humor for it.”
“Oh, you’re in no humor for it! I protest, madam. You seem to be in grand humor, clinging to your earl like a twisting vine and playing all the while with the king. The sweet little countess! The one virtuous woman at court! I was as fooled as the rest. I thought you nothing of an adventuress. Now I see your schemings! To have them both!”
“So, that’s what it is,” Chelynne breathed in wonder. “You love him still!”
Gwen only laughed. “Love him?” She moved near the mirror and touched a tight curl at the base of her neck. She saw her age, the tired, listless look about the eyes. It was difficult for her to control the urge to scratch and claw Chelynne’s lovely young face. “No, I don’t love him! Do you think I would be chasing a man with not one wife, but two? Little countess,” she sneered. “They’re all laughing at you! All of them! You’re nothing! If I wanted him I could have him like that!”
She raised her hand to give a quick snap of her fingers but never completed the action.
“Madam!”
She turned slowly, sick in the pit of her stomach, to face the earl of Bryant, his face twisted with rage. She had no idea how long he had been standing there in the doorway, how much he had heard. Inside she trembled almost uncontrollably, outside she was cool as ice.
He took two steps into the room and faced Gwen. She was a large woman, nearly as tall as he, but faced with his anger she seemed meek and small. It was obvious; the rage that filled him was eager to be spent.
“Two wives,” he said. “And who do you make my other wife to be, Lady Graystone?”
Gwen lifted her chin fearlessly. She could either betray her own plots or play the innocent to the end. Inwardly she retreated. “Anne—” she started.
He grabbed her by the arms and brought her face close to his. “Anne has been dead for six years! What game do you play now?”
Gwen trembled in his relentless grasp. “Mondeloy,” she breathed. “He told me your wife lives. He showed me where you keep her and I’ve seen you there. ‘Tis your son abiding there rightly enough, you could not deny that. And the woman there is heavy with child.”
“Mondeloy? Doubtless you invented the story and plotted with him. Were Anne living, there would be no need to steal the marriage contract that proves my son is my legitimate heir!” He cast her away, wiping his hands on his coat sleeves as if the touch of her had sullied him. He went straight to Chelynne and drew her to her feet.
Once again he faced Gwen. “The boy is my son and the woman is the wife of a friend. She is in my care and under my protection.”
He looked down at Chelynne and saw the confused eyes staring back at him. He touched her cheek. “Are you all right, my love?”
Dumbly, her heart pounding within her breast, she simply nodded. Though she could not speak she questioned him with her eyes. Chad looked at her with confusion of his own for a moment. Then his mouth formed a rigid line and he snapped his head back to Gwen. “So that’s what you’ve been about. You had your sport with Chelynne, hoping to convince her that ours was not a marriage true...but that I was wed to another?”
Gwen was beaten at one game but held out for a possible advantage in another. She turned her head toward the mirror and smoothed her hair, trying to seem bored with his accusation. “The possibility seemed real enough to me. How would I know Mondeloy lied?” She turned back to Chad and smiled lazily. “I’ve seen you with the woman. You seemed more to her than her husband’s acquaintance.”
Chad spoke slowly and clearly. “Do not hope to intimidate me as you would other personages of breeding who would not understand your disgusting methods. I’ve warned you more often than I care to remember, Gwen. It is only in deference to my wife’s distaste for violence that I leave you untouched now.”
It was some instinct for survival that prompted Gwen to speak hastily, defending herself. “You play the lover scorned, darling. Speaking up to me in the presence of your wife is most chivalrous, I’m sure, but does the little lamb know what we’ve been to each other?”
Chad struggled for control. He let his eyes move over Gwen with one long glance before returning to her face. Disgust and utter contempt glittered in his eyes. “I believe she can well enough guess what you’ve been to me, and to a score of others.”
He moved to take Chelynne’s arm and lead her from the room, not daring to look back in Gwen’s direction. His hands trembled with the desire to find her throat and squeeze the life out of her.
Gwen felt something inside of her collapse when he walked away. She knew it was for the last time; there would never again be a method to have him back, even temporarily. She fought the urge to cry tears of rage and pain. In a sudden fit of temper she whirled, intending to chase after them. She froze in her tracks. There, in the frame of the door that had just seen the earl’s departure with his wife, stood the king, a faint, cynical smile twisting his lips.
“Your Majesty, I—”
“Never mind your excuses, madam. I have long prided myself in being surrounded by the most beautiful women. Women of quality, with breeding and grace. I am most disappointed in my own poor judgment this time.”
“Your Majesty, I beg your forgiveness, I was—”
“Of course I forgive you, my dear. I know how jealousy smarts and I know the pain of final defeat.”
“I’m most grate—”
“The court moves to Windsor soon. You may go where you will. Your company is no longer desired.”
“Your Majesty!”
“My mind is made. There is nothing more to say.”
Gwen stiffened. Chelynne was all to blame. She never once considered her outburst wrong and certainly not deserving of this punishment. “She’s an army to protect her now,” she murmured.
Charles shook his head in exasperation. Gwen had had her place with Charles in his more frivolous moments, as many others had. She simply couldn’t bind him in any way, as no one could. Her beauty was admirable, but she was as expendable as any.
“Women never cease to amaze me. Instead of loathing her for her success, why not take a lesson from her?”
Gwen died a little at his every word. She was dismissed from Chad, rejected by the king and his court. Everything that held any importance for her was gone.
“It’s a little late for that, Your Majesty,” she said with harsh resentment.
“Yes, madam. It is.”
Chelynne was not put through any more that night. The confrontation with Gwen had been the final straw and Chad took her directly to their coach.
“Now I see what has happened,” Chad said. “Gwen compounded your doubts tenfold with her story...and you never came to me. Why?”
Chelynne shuddered inside. She turned her eyes up to him and spoke quietly, still shaken by the turn of events. Relief was something she wasn’t feeling yet. “I intended to. I went to your study straightaway, the moment I left the coach. She took me there to see the woman she said was your wife.” Chelynne laughed ruefully. “I believed her...and how I hated you! I would have faced you then, but I heard you screaming that you would do away with ‘her’ once and for all.” Tears collected in Chelynne’s eyes and her voice caught. “I thought you meant me,” she fairly whispered.
Chad’s arms went around her. “My God, what you’ve been through because of me! If only I had had the sense to tell—”
“But you are not all to blame, Chad. I am at fault. I found the paper you spoke of. It was hidden among my aunt’s letters at Welby Manor. I knew Harry had stolen it.”
“You have it?”
“I had it taken
safely away and stored in my coffer at Hawthorne House.” She laughed nervously. “I wouldn’t have found it at all, but that I was indeed searching for something of my parents in that house. What I told you was never a lie.”
“Even then you didn’t come to me.” He looked into her eyes. “Did you fear me so much?”
“Fear you? I feared losing you.” She sniffed and fought the urge to crumble into sobs. “If there was any chance that you could love me, however slight, I would wait upon that day.”
“Even when you thought I hated you!” Chad held her closely, kissing her brow, her hair. “And I have loved you! From the first I loved you! For all the months that I turned on you, ‘twas my own heart I held in exile.” He lifted her chin to look into her eyes. “The woman I spoke of that day was Gwen. Bestel told me she had come to call on you. She had seduced me with a plan to retrieve that record of marriage from Harry. She has been in his close company for months. Together they’ve played us for fools and sought to tear us apart.”
“And that was Harry’s intention? Only to hurt me?” She shook her head in frustration. “I will never understand why he hates me so.”
“He is not simply mischievous, Chelynne. In gaining that paper he took part in the murder of the priest and the burning of that church. A young laundry girl was raped, beaten, and left for dead. She names Harry as her attacker. But she will not swear to it again. She is too frightened.”
Chelynne’s eyes were wide and stunned. She had never suspected Harry capable of such crimes. “And you were silent!”
“I had no proof. Possession of that record would have sent him to the Tower, but it was too well hidden. Even now he could deny having a hand in stealing it.”
Chelynne was quiet for a moment, digesting this news. Finally she spoke, not daring to look at him. “You suspected me.” Chad started to speak but she cut him off. “If you believed me innocent you would have brought your son home to me.”
“In the beginning, perhaps. Early in our marriage I wondered if you were involved, but later it was only because I had held the secret for too long. I looked for a way to tell you.”