Historical Romance – The Best Of The Year. Кэрол Мортимер

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СКАЧАТЬ wasn’t. It was thin and pale red, like a garment too often washed, but her lady was ever kind. ‘Thank you, my lady.’

      ‘Hold up the glass,’ Lady Joan said. ‘Take a look.’

      As she did, Anne could see the two of them reflected there. Even though Lady Jane was eight years older, it was her face that held the eye.

      She wondered what Nicholas thought of it.

      Yet her lady was pointing to Anne’s face next to hers in the glass.

      ‘You are young still.’

      Younger than Joan, though Anne did not remind her.

      And Joan did not pause to note it. ‘True, your hair is more red than fair, your mouth is too wide, your cheeks and hands have lost a maiden’s purity.’

      She glanced at her fingers, rubbing the callous earned by her stitches. If her hands were not as white and soft as Joan’s, there was a reason for it.

      ‘But your brow is broad and fair. If we plucked this stray hair here, touched your cheek with safflower powder to give a glow—’

      Anne near dropped the mirror. ‘Those things will not disguise my leg.’

      ‘No, but you may yet catch a man’s eye.’

      She laughed then, that laugh she had perfected. Anne could delight the ear, if not the eye. ‘Do you think to rid yourself of me, my lady?’

      ‘Of course, not. I promised your mother...’ She did not finish the sentence. There was no need. ‘But I am so happy, with Edward. I want you to find a husband, too.’

      Anne had seen all the scenes of love and lust and of marital contentment, knowing that none of it would be for her. A man might wed a plain woman for money or because she could help raise children and run the household. He might bed a beautiful one for love or lust.

      But a lame one was of little use to anyone. Except, perhaps, to God.

      But Anne had never wanted the cloistered life, shut away from the world’s delights...

      ‘Perhaps another pilgrimage,’ Lady Joan began.

      She shook her head. Her mother had petitioned God in the beginning. As soon as she had risen from the bed of childbirth, she had travelled to the shrine of the Blessed Larina, carrying her babe, hoping for a miracle. Larina did not grant it. Neither did St Winifred, St Werburgh, St Etheldreda, or the Virgin herself.

      The miracle she was given was not a cure. It was the protection of Lady Joan.

      One could not question God’s wisdom.

      ‘No, I am certain of it.’ Lady Joan said as she rose, leaving half of Anne’s hair uncombed, and paced the chamber. ‘A pilgrimage to Canterbury. God will give you a miracle.’

      Where had such a strange idea come from? Joan had never spoken of curing her before. ‘My lady, I don’t think—’

      ‘And you can go right away. Tomorrow! With Sir Nicholas Lovayne!’

      She near laughed again, and not with mirth, trying to fight the desire that the thought raised. To stay beside Nicholas for a few more days, living in hope and fear that he might want to...

      ‘Sir Nicholas does not need to be burdened with me when he must resolve the Pope’s request about your wedding.’

      Nicholas, he had made clear, did not want to be burdened with anyone. Even a wife.

      Then Joan looked at her again, directly, smiling, the horn comb keeping a steady rhythm against her palm. ‘You will be no burden to him. And you will be a great help to me.’

      And then, she knew. She would not be travelling to Canterbury in hopes of a cure. She would be travelling as a spy for Lady Joan.

      * * *

      Nicholas was still thinking of Anne that evening as he prepared to leave, despite all efforts to put her out of his mind. He had done his duty. Been kind. He had no further obligation. The kiss? A mistake she had been gracious enough to ignore.

      So would he.

      Tomorrow he would ride to Canterbury, free, without needing to look back in fear she had fallen off the horse.

      And when a page came to summon him to her side, he told himself it was not so strange. She must only want to thank him again and bid him farewell.

      But when he saw her, sitting on the garden bench in the fading light, squinting over her stitching, the set of her lips and her chin did not bode well.

      ‘Are you recovered from the hunt?’

      She nodded and lifted her head. Her fingers stilled. ‘What time do you leave tomorrow?’

      ‘At daybreak. The trip is long and the time short.’

      ‘Send a page when you are ready. I shall be going with you.’

      He could not have heard right. ‘What?’

      ‘I travel with you.’

      ‘Why?’ His words lacked grace, but his tongue had learned to be blunt in her presence.

      She looked away, briefly. ‘It is not...I do not expect...’

      There. Both of them tongue-tied. The kiss, the fact of it lay between them.

      She lifted her chin again, the weak moment gone. ‘We will not be alone.’

      Of course, there would be a retinue, small, but one that dignified the importance of the journey.

      ‘No. We will not.’ But temptation was not his only objection. He remembered her struggle to mount and dismount. He had no time for that now. ‘I know you wanted to travel, but I must—’

      ‘Move quickly. I know. We have already lost time waiting for the messenger.’

      She was a sensible woman and she knew she would weigh him down. Then why? Suspicion stirred. Had the kiss misled her? A smile exchanged, some pleasant words, but surely she did not think it meant more than that.

      Or did she?

      Her loyalty was to her lady. That would be his appeal. ‘I’m sure Lady Joan cannot spare you at this time with all the preparations to be made. For the wedding.’ An argument certain to sway.

      ‘It was her idea that I go. She thought, perhaps, a pilgrimage...’ She would not meet his eyes.

      A pilgrimage. Hope once more for a cure.

      Guilt wrestled with duty. How could he refuse this woman, or anyone so afflicted, the hope of a visit to the shrine of a saint? Yet the journey to Canterbury would take at least seven days, though he had hoped to push the horses faster. That would be impossible if she rode with him.

      He swallowed a sharp retort and searched for careful СКАЧАТЬ