One Night in Paradise. Juliet Landon

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ entirely in white, the young Maids of Honour made a perfect foil for the Queen’s russet-and-gold that suited her so well. Like Adorna herself, she wore a high-crowned hat with a curl of feathers on the brim, a man’s-type doublet that buttoned up to the neck, and a full skirt. But whereas Adorna’s outfit was relatively modest in its decoration, the Queen had spared no effort to load herself with braids, chains and rings, frogging across her breast overlaid by pendants, and jewels winking from every surface, even from her neck-ruff of finest white lace.

      Adorna’s gown had begun to dry by now and they would soon be away again on a search for herons and cranes, perhaps larks for those with smaller raptors. She went to where the mare was tied to a tree, her muzzle dripping with water from a bucket. ‘Your legs all right, my beauty?’ she whispered, taking a look at the mud-covered rear end. ‘We nearly came to grief, you and I, didn’t we, eh? Are you going to calm down this afternoon, then?’

      ‘That will depend,’ a voice said behind her, ‘on her rider more than anything else.’

      Refusing to be drawn into another confrontation, Adorna clenched her teeth and slid one hand over the mare’s muddy rump, preparing to examine her legs. Sir Nicholas managed the gesture with far more confidence than she, overtaking her hand with his own as he came to stand before her, continuing the examination with all the assurance of a horseman. His hands were strong and brown with flecks of fine dark hair on the backs, his nails clean and workmanlike, and Adorna watched in reluctant admiration how his fingertips pressed and probed almost tenderly. She drew her eyes upwards to his face as he stood, and found that he was already regarding her in some amusement, knowing that the progress of his hands had been marked with an interest of a not altogether objective nature. Against her will, she found that her eyes were locked with his.

      ‘Well?’ he said, softly. ‘She’s still sound after her dunk in the river, and there’s nothing wrong with her temperament that a little gentle schooling won’t cure. Show her who’s master, though.’ As he spoke, his hands caressed the mare’s satin flanks, which twitched against the sensation, and Adorna knew that his words had as much to do with herself as they did with the mare. ‘She’s a classy creature,’ he said, ‘but not for amateurs.’ On his last phrase, his eyes left hers and rested directly on Peter Fowler who was just out of earshot, returning to her in time to see a flush of angry pink suffuse her cheeks.

      If he wanted to believe that Peter was her lover, even though he was not, she was content for him to do so, for it would afford her some protection, his innuendo being impossible to misunderstand. She was as angry at her own uncontrollable shiver of excitement as at his blatant attempt to flirt with her after his earlier hostility, and the stinging rebuke came out like a rapier.

      ‘Don’t concern yourself with my mare’s requirements, sir,’ she said sharply. ‘Nor with mine. We have both managed well enough without your advice so far, so don’t think that your one act of bravado makes you indispensable to us. I think you should go back to your master and make yourself really useful. I bid you good day.’

      She would have walked away on the last word, but his arm came across her, resting on the mare’s saddle, and she found herself imprisoned between him and the horse. ‘Ah, no, mistress,’ he said, without raising his voice. ‘That’s the third time you’ve ordered me to go, I believe. There are only a limited number of those who may give me orders, and you will never be one of them. What’s more, when the Queen commands me to tend a lady, I will tend her until she gives me leave to stop. If you dislike the idea so, then I suggest you make your objections known to her. Now, mistress, make ready to mount.’ And without the slightest warning other than that, he swooped and lifted her into his arms.

      She should, of course, have been prepared for this, for he had already shown himself to be a man of immediate action. But strangely enough, she found that she was temporarily immobilised by his overpowering closeness, his refusal to be commanded, his boldness. Now his face was alarmingly close to hers and, instead of tossing her into the saddle as he had before, he was holding her deliberately tightly in his arms, preventing her from struggling.

      ‘You are a stranger, sir,’ she whispered, ‘and you are insulting me. My father will hear of this.’ Yet, as she spoke the words, she knew full well that her father would not hear of it from her lips and that, if this stranger was indeed insulting her, it was making her heart race in the most extraordinary manner that mixed fear with anticipation and a helplessness that made her feel guilty with pleasure. Or was it anger? Any other man, she thought, might have been expected to react with some concern at that threat, her father being Sir Thomas Pickering, Master of the Revels and therefore this man’s superior.

      His expression showed no such disquiet. ‘No, mistress,’ he said. ‘I think not.’

      She could feel his breath upon her face as he spoke, and she knew that he was allowing her to feel his nearness in the same way that an unbroken horse must be given time to get used to a man’s closeness, his restraint. His unsmiling mouth was firm and well proportioned and his nose, straight and smooth, led her examining eyes to his own that sparkled beneath high-angled brows, unflinching eyes of brown jasper, dark-lashed and suggesting to her an age of about thirty, by the experience written within them.

      ‘Let me go, I say. Please!’

      As he moved to tip her upwards into the saddle, she saw a brief smile cross his face, which had disappeared by the time she looked again. He tapped her riding whip with one finger. ‘That’s for show, not for use,’ he said, severely. ‘Stallions need it, mares don’t.’

      Adorna felt safe enough from that height to pretend unconcern. ‘Fillies?’ she said. ‘And geldings?’

      The brief smile reappeared and vanished again as he recognised the return of her courage. ‘Remind me to tell you of the first some time. Of geldings I know little that would be of any use to you.’ And once again, she knew that neither of them was talking of horses.

      The afternoon passed in a daze, though the only one to remark on her unusual quietness was Master Peter Fowler, who said, quite on the wrong tack, ‘Did that wetting upset you, mistress? It’s a pity you were not allowed to go home and change. You could have been back before Her Majesty noticed.’

      That much was true, her home being a mere half-mile away over on the other side of the palace, a convenient place for Sir Thomas and Lady Marion to live when the Queen was at Richmond, and only one of several dotted about the home counties near the other royal residences. Life at court was a great temptation and Lady Marion, Adorna’s lovely mother, had no intention of leaving her handsome husband to the attentions of other women with whom he was obliged to come into contact. As Master of Revels, he probably saw more of them than the average household official, being responsible for the special costumes and theatrical effects needed for Her Majesty’s entertainment, an element of court life of great importance to balance the weightier matters of state.

      Sir Thomas had expected to have Adorna’s assistance that day, but then had come Master Fowler’s request to take her to the Queen’s falconry picnic in the park, and he had not the heart to refuse. All the same, Master Fowler had better not harbour any fancy ideas involving Adorna: she could do far better for herself with her looks and connections.

      Adorna’s looks were indeed something of which her parents were proud: pale blonde hair and startlingly beautiful features, large grey-blue eyes with sweeping lashes and a full mouth that, as far as her parents knew, had never been tasted by a man. Boys, perhaps, at Christmas, but never a man. Needless to say, there had been plenty of interest, so much so that Sir Thomas and Lady Marion had been criticised by family for being too lenient with her fastidiousness. At twenty years old, the elders said, it was time she was a wife and mother; let her put her high-faluting ideas aside and marry the richest of them, as other СКАЧАТЬ