He raised his arm obediently, heard her small gasp, and dropped his arm quickly.
“Let me see,” she insisted.
“Nay, ’tis too ugly for a delicate female. It will disgust you.”
“Your body is a joy to me and a wonder,” she said, running gentle fingers along his collarbone, across the bulging muscle, and down to the shoulder blade where the dragon rampaged. He shuddered at her touch, longing to make love to her. She raised his arm, and this time he did not object. The scar was angry red and puckered. “You’ll always bear the scar. We should have stitched it,” she said with regret.
He shook his head. “The baron is a competent doctor. He left it open to drain any poison.” He was shocked, then thrilled, as, incredibly, she put her mouth to the scar and covered it with kisses.
“You do the damnedest things,” he groaned as a wave of passion swept from his armpit to his loins.
She smiled at him and whispered, “Why, m’lord, ’twas you who taught me to make love with my tongue.”
“Splendor of God, it had better have been me!” he said, his voice rough with desire as his eager fingers unhooked and removed her gown. When she was naked he lifted her high, then let her slide slowly down his body until he sheathed his upthrusting shaft inside her tight, hot center. His hands slipped beneath her round buttocks to support her; then, joined, he walked with her to the high bed. Her arms were twined lovingly about his neck and she thrilled with each step he took as he penetrated deeper and deeper. He did not lie down, but lowered himself and her until he was sitting on the edge of the berth.
“Wrap your legs around me, darling,” he urged, and she gasped with the exquisite pleasure-pain as he thrust his long, thick shaft to the hilt, and pulled her onto him another inch and held her there with strong brown hands that gripped her like a vise.
With their mouths fused, he began to flex and relax the great throbbing head of his phallus, and amazingly she felt her own body grip and relax in a compelling, throbbing, sensual rhythm that went on and on and on, bringing waves of pleasure which built and receded, built and receded, until she was sobbing her need for release. He was so attuned to her body, he knew the exact moment to start his seed and plunge her over the precipice. They went down into the vortex together, tasting their names on each other’s lips. They lay entwined, still as death, the roll and pitch of the ship lulling them to slumber. Within two hours he was awake so he could go back on deck.
“Where are you going?” she murmured.
“I didn’t mean to disturb you, love. I’m the captain of this vessel, remember? I never leave the deck of my ship for more than three hours.”
“But in my case you’ll make an exception,” she said, holding out her arms to him.
“Five minutes,” he rationed, and lifted her between his legs with her back resting against his chest. “Ah, Sabre, you fill my senses,” he said, breathing in the exciting fragrance of her hair and her sleep-warmed body. “You fill my thoughts.” He paused, then admitted, in a voice that was only a murmur, “You fill my heart.” He lifted her hair from the back of her neck and kissed the nape. “I adore your hair,” he breathed.
“Then you had better get your fill of it. The queen wants me to cut it to make her a wig.”
He dumped her unceremoniously onto the berth and was on his feet in a flash. “I forbid it!” he shouted angrily.
“Shane, I have no choice—it was tantamount to a command.”
“Tantamount to bare-faced blackmail! Sabre, it is out of the question. I will procure hair for her bloody wig. There are many women willing to sell their hair or any other part of their body. Just leave it to me,” he said with finality.
The thought of the queen strutting about in the hair of a prostitute from a brothel had an amusing quality about it. Then she wondered wryly just how many brothels Shane would have to frequent before he found just the right shade!
Hawkhurst sailed his vessel into the English-held port of Flushing. Sir Philip Sidney had been appointed governor of this town, which provided a home base for all the English in Holland. Leaving Sabre aboard, he presented himself to Frances and told her he had come to fetch her home. She was exhausted from the visits of Philip’s fellow officers and longed for home. Hawkhurst’s strength was exactly what she had needed. He took over and directed the servants to pack everything in readiness for his seamen to take aboard. The coffin was to go in the hold, her little girl and the child’s nurse were to get one cabin, and Frances was to have another small cabin to herself. Philip’s horses and leash hounds were made comfortable, then Hawkhurst was off to take the queen’s messages to Leicester.
Frances came aboard in her widow’s weeds an hour before the tide changed to carry them from Flushing at the mouth of the vast Westerschelde into the North Sea. Sabre felt a sharp stab of compassion at the sight of the tiny, black-draped female clinging to the hand of a sweet little girl. Shane beckoned Sabre to go below with them, and when they were in the small cabin he introduced her to the daughter of the hated and feared Walsingham.
When Frances raised her black veil, Sabre could not believe her eyes. The small, pretty girl could not be a day older than eighteen, and looked much younger. When the child and her nurse were settled into their cabin, Shane was needed on deck to weigh anchor, clear harbor, and set the course for England.
Alone with Frances, Sabre felt a rush of affection and wanted to help in some way. “Would you like to be alone, Lady Sidney?”
“No, don’t leave me, Sabre, and please call me Frances. I’m not a good sailor and I haven’t eaten much in the last days,” she said wearily.
Sabre poured her a goblet of wine and mixed it with sugar water. “This will settle your stomach. Why don’t you get into bed and I’ll sit awhile and we can talk.”
Frances gave her a grateful look and sipped the wine as she took off her mourning garments. The wine loosened her tongue and she started to confide in Sabre. “’Fore God, I don’t know what I will do. Philip is—was—so far in debt and everything mortgaged to the hilt.”
Sabre was shocked; the Sidneys were one of England’s premier families.
“He—we—owe over eight thousand pounds, and I haven’t even the means to bury him.”
Sabre drew her chair up close to the bed. “Your father will help you.”
Frances laughed bitterly. “My father’s health is deteriorating because of worry over money. He has been in debt for years. He pays his spies from his own pocket … the queen pays him a mere stipend. Walsingham House is mortgaged to the rafters while the queen dines on gold plate and wears a different fortune in jewels every day of the week.”
Sabre said thoughtfully, “There is a lesson there if we heed it. The golden rule, I call it—those with the gold rule!”
“How very true. Faith, I’ve learned my lesson; I shall marry for money next time,” Frances vowed.
Sabre probed, “Were you in love with your husband, Frances?”
The dark young woman hesitated, then admitted, “Nay, it was not a love match. It was arranged by our parents, and I think the queen had a hand in it. Philip was a poet, a dreamer, so unsuited to war.”
“Mayhap the queen will see to the expense of the funeral. He will be buried at St. Paul’s, won’t he?”
“The queen!” hooted Frances, gulping her wine and holding out her glass for more. “Philip died for her, but she is the most ungrateful creature on the face of the earth. Did you know that in her younger days she came down with the smallpox and selflessly Philip’s mother, Lady Mary Sidney, alone of all her women, stayed with her and nursed her day and night until she was recovered? The queen was very lucky, her only pockmarks are on her neck below her ruff. My poor, dear mother-in-law was not so lucky. She caught the pox from Elizabeth and was left so badly scarred she wears a veil and does not go out in public. Lady Sidney was given one cramped attic room at Hampton Court and made to keep from the queen’s company, for Bess cannot bear ugliness or sickness or the scars left from sickness. Believe m
e, Sabre, the queen never gives, she only takes!”
Sabre said confidentially, “I’ve stolen one of her prize possessions.” Her eyes rolled upward, indicating the Sea God up on deck. “Why don’t you do the same?”
“I shall be in mourning, buried in the country at my father’s farm in Surrey. ’Tis the only roof my child and I will have over our heads.” Suddenly she looked at Sabre with speculation in her eyes. “Who’s the best catch in England?”
Sabre thought for a moment, “Probably Essex,” she said, laughing.
“Forgive me, Sabre. ’Tis the wine. I am wicked to talk so with my poor husband’s body not yet in his grave, yet it would be sweet to be free of financial burden,” she said, sighing.
Walsingham, acting upon the information provided by O’Neill and other sources, had caught Mary, Queen of Scots, in the web of the Babington conspiracy, though she was supposed to be safely imprisoned. He had worked day and night to collect enough evidence to bring her to trial. The queen was incensed and his triumph was turned to dross. The death of his son-in-law, whose crippling debts he subsequently inherited, was enough to break his health.
Walsingham was unable to meet his daughter at Harwich, where Hawkhurst weighed anchor, and Sabre had to take her home to Surrey in the barge Shane had bought her. So Frances had come home, but instead of finding a strong family to offer her succor, she instead had to be the strong one in the face of her father’s failing health and the daunting debts that were piling up day by day.
Chapter 16
Sabre learned that the court had already gone to Whitehall for what was supposed to have been the glittering winter season, but it was fast becoming a nightmare. A pall hung over everything. People went about with long faces, wearing somber clothing, treading on eggs so as not to exacerbate further the queen’s temper.
She had more or less ordered home Leicester and her other high-ranking nobles, Fulke-Greville and Blount, and told them to reduce their armies in Holland. Leicester had bluntly refused, telling her it would take at least another six months. Hawkhurst delivered these unwelcome tidings as well as missives from the Dutch envoys begging for more support.
The queen of England was in an unreasonable rage against Walsingham because of the way he had brought Mary, Queen of Scots, to a trial which resulted in her being condemned to death. She was to have her head severed on the block. Elizabeth had wanted Mary removed quietly, not by public execution! Her son James would be the new king of Scots and Walsingham had advised that they liberally bribe him with gold because he feared an invasion from the north.
All the news was bad. King Philip of Spain’s Invincible Armada was being finished over this winter and would sail to conquer England in the spring with the greatest number of ships that had ever been assembled.
In an effort to restore pomp and tradition to the opening of Parliament, Elizabeth made Sir Christopher Hat-ton her new lord chancellor and caved in to Essex to restore the sweet smile to his lips, making him earl marshal of England so that he would take precedence over the old lord admiral, newly honored as the earl of Nottingham.
Parliament was opened with the queen arrayed in all her magnificence. First came the barons, earls, and knights of the Garter, then the aging Cecil, followed by his son Robert. Next came the new lord chancellor bearing the seals of England, flanked by two squires, one for the royal scepter, the other carrying the sword of state in a red scabbard studded with golden fleur-de-lis. The pages then trumpeted the arrival of the queen. She had an aura of supreme power and all assembled went down on one knee.
Since the court had become so dull, Sabre and the other ladies amused themselves away from it. At Whitehall at least they were in the center of London and could attend the plays, shop in the exchange and at the stalls in Candlewick Street, visit the goldsmiths in Lombard Street, and attend the horse-trading sessions at Smithfield Square.
The whim took Sabre to ride down to Thames View to spend the night. It had begun to snow, and as she looked down from the panoramic windows of the master bedchamber, she was beginning to think he would not come.
It infuriated her that they never really knew when they could be together, since they always had to snatch time from their other duties. It was a continuous bone of contention between them that he was here one moment and gone the next, so that when they did meet they wasted precious time fighting.
Sometimes she slept alone at Thames View and other times he would arrive in the middle of the night, heavily armed, cloaked in black, looking for all the world like a thief. He would steal into bed, slip his arms about her, and they would make love savagely, as if it were for the last time.
Sabre sighed and had almost turned from the window when she saw a rider. She ran down the stairs to greet him and was surprised to discover the tall figure was Matthew. Her loveliness took his breath away, and he wished with all his heart that she had been waiting to welcome him this cold winter’s night.
“Sabre, Lord, it’s good to see you!” he said, laughing and hugging her and at the same time transferring cold, wet snow from his clothes to hers. “Have you told him you are Lady Devonport yet?”
“No, which is precisely why he still carries me to bed and treats me like a queen. However, I did tell your mother.”
“Georgiana came up to London?” he asked, surprised.
“Yes. She walked in on me while I was in a state of undress and naturally assumed I was Shane’s bride. I admitted the truth to her and she pledged me that she wouldn’t tell Shane.”
“Did you like each other?” Matthew asked frankly.
“Yes, thank God. Can you imagine what it must be like to have your mother-in-law for an enemy?”
They sat in front of a warm fire and Sabre poured them goblets of warm, mulled cider. “This will remind you of home. What have you been up to?”
“Curious, really. I’ve just brought two shiploads of marble from the Isle of Purbeck. It must be for a customer who’s doing some fancy rebuilding, and yet Hawk told me to keep my cargo hush-hush. I just want to know where and when he wants me to unload it. I can think of pleasanter things to do in this freezing weather than juggling slabs of cold pink marble.”
The front door was thrown open and Shane ushered in a small, dark figure along with a swirl of snowflakes.
“Frances!” exclaimed Sabre, “come by the fire and un-thaw.”
“Hello, Sabre. I’m afraid Lord Devonport has rescued me again.”
Matthew was on his feet immediately. “Lady Sidney, permit me to offer my condolences for your great loss.”
Shane said, “As you can plainly see, this is my brother, Matthew Hawkhurst.”
“What’s wrong, Frances?” asked Sabre, seeing a look of defeat about the slender, drooping shoulders.
“We thought we had found a way out of our financial difficulties. I came up to see Philip’s solicitors to sell some of the Sidney lands, but the will was faulty and Philip’s brother Robert is claiming everything.”
“I’ve instructed my man of law, Jacob Goldman, to see Robert Sidney on Frances’s behalf,” said Shane.
“I’ve sold all my wedding gifts and my silver plate and only got a thousand pounds for the lot,” said Frances hopelessly. “My father petitioned the queen to settle Philip’s debts, but she refused because she is furious over Mary of Scotland and this is his punishment.”
“You must be exhausted. You cannot go back to Surrey tonight; I’ll put you in the lovely pink bedchamber. She looked appealingly at Shane. “Darling, have the cook prepare some food and I’ll take Frances upstairs.”
“Come on, Matt, we’ll raid the kitchen ourselves; I’m starving.” Alone in the kitchen Shane told Matthew to unload the pink marble from his ships and put them on Shane’s vessels.
“Wouldn’t it be simpler for me to just deliver it to the customer?” asked Matt. Shane did not want Matthew involved in his covert operations, so he tried to pass off the subject on a light note. “It’s for a lady, Matt, if you must know, and
I’m the one who wishes to be the recipient of her gratitude.”
Matthew was instantly angered. How could his brother be such a bloody philanderer while he enjoyed the favors of the loveliest woman in London? Abruptly he said, “I must go. Where are your ships anchored?”
Shane gave him a long, speculative look and said evenly, “The Defiant and the Gloriana are at Southend. The captains have instructions to take on the marble night or day, whenever it is convenient for you, Matthew.”
After his brother departed, Shane took a trayful of tempting food up to Frances. He smiled warmly at her and said, “I have two thousand pounds for you, Frances. I want to help you in a practical way, and as I see it, that way is providing you with a little gold.”
Frances wrung her hands. “Oh, m’lord, I cannot!” She was clearly at odds with herself. After a moment’s hesitation she confided, “I—I have been helping my father while he has been ill and I have discovered that he has a file on you, Lord Devonport.”
“I know,” said Shane softly, “and I sincerely hope that if the time comes when your father must pass along his files to another authority, you will find it in your heart to warn me. But, Frances, this money has no strings attached to it. I insist that you take it.”
Sabre saw her sigh and visibly relax. “Eat up, Frances, it smells delicious. I’ll get you a warm bed gown, and you are to put your troubles aside and get a few hours rest.”
Frances flashed her a warm look of gratitude. Shane and Sabre closed the door to the pink chamber. “I’d better get a maid to ready a room for Matthew.”
“No need,” said Shane. Picking her up in his arms, he carried her to their chamber. “He’s gone.”
“Gone?” exclaimed Sabre in surprise. “Why?”
“I made an innocent remark and his anger flared as if I had set a flame to gunpowder.” He set her down in their room and turned to lock the door. “I think he fancies himself in love with you.”
Sabre blushed. She knew there was some truth in his words, but after all, Matthew had stood beside her and exchanged wedding vows. She understood perfectly that Matthew thought he had some claim on her. She wanted to shout at Shane, “It is your fault!” but she held her tongue and turned her back to him as she gazed through the tall windows watching the gardens turn white with snow.